Author Archives: gmcdavid

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About gmcdavid

Retired IT professional with a wide range of interests. Married. Three sons, two with autistic-spectrum disorders and the third being transgender with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. From Chicago but now living in the Twin Cities metro, Minnesota. Episcopalian. Carleton College (BA 1972, physics) and Stanford University (MS 1974, Applied Physics; MS 1976 Statistics).

Automatons, Robots, and Other Humanoid Creations

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Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 7, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here.

Brian U. Garrison, Micaiah Johnson, Ada Palmer (moderator)

In the arc of human invention, automatons predate paper. That means before we thought “sure would be nice to write things in a convenient and portable manner” we thought “sure would be nice to have an inhuman creation in our shape that moves.” Why have automatons been with us so long, in reality and in fiction, and what roles and purposes do they fulfill in writing and culture and philosophy?

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A cold case solved

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I was in a discussion about church safety this afternoon, and I recalled a nasty murder at Stanford University’s Memorial Church in 1974. I was a grad student at Stanford then and often attend Memorial Church (“Mem Chu”). I had friends who were very active there. Afterwards I discovered that the murder was solved — in 2018.

Rang Gaeilge, 23ú lá Mí na Nollag 2024

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Faoi Dheireadh Thiar (tuilleadh)
At Long Last (continued)

  • JACKIE: Hello? Duirt mé leat gan glaoch orm ar an bhfón
    seo, ‘Tommy … Níl mé ag iarraidh labhairt le [d.l. 30] duine ar bith faoi láthair … No, Tommy.
    Níl sé d’am agam … Níl anseo ach mé fhéin agus ar Matrún … Ach ní féidir liom. No, Níl mé as
    iarraidh aon bhronntanas. . . Ní dhearna tú tada orm. Tá muid sách fada ag dul amach le chéile.
    Ta mé ag iarraidh briseadh faoi láthair
    . Níl tada le plé, Tommy … Bhuel biodh a fhios agat anois é… No, a dúirt mé… Orm fhéin atá
    an locht. Tá mé ag iarraidh a bheith asam fhéin faoi láthair … No, Tommy, Níl mé ag iarraidh
    thú a fheiceail agus sin sin (Cloiseann MAIRIN na cúpla focal deiridh agus í ar a bealach ar ais
    le tae.)

    JACKIE: Hello? I told you not to call me on this phone. I don’t want to talk to anyone at present… No Tommy. I don’t have time … Only me and the matron are here now … But I can’t … No, I don’t want any present … You didn’t do anything to me. We’ve been going out together for quite some time. I’m trying to break up right now … There’s nothing to discuss, Tommy … Well, now you know it …. No, I said … It’s my own fault … I’m trying to be myself right now … No, Tommy, I don’t want to see you and that’s that. (MAIRIN hears the last few words as she is on her way back with tea.

  • MÁIRÍN: ’Bhfuil tu ceart go leor, a Jackie?
    JACKIE: Tá. Yeah.
    MARIN: Meall leat a chodladh i arist, maith an bhean.
    JACKIE: Come on, Sally. (Ag imeacht.)
    SALLY: I have fallen in love with Coilmin.
    COILMIN: Up our that! Dar fia tá blaze uirthi sin ag imeacht.
    MAIRIN: Ná tarraing ort i nó céasfaidh sí thú.
    COILMIN: M’anam go mbainfeadh duine rattle fós aisti
    MAIRIN: Stop, a bhligeaird.
    COILMIN: Up our that!
    MAIRIN: Codloidh ta go brea ina dhiaidh seo. Anois, a Taimin.
    TAIMÍN: Níl aon chodladh orm.
    MAIRIN: Beidh sé ort nuair a luifeas tú ar an leaba. Ar ndóigh tá chuile dhuine eile imithe a chodladh anois ach a bheirt agaibhse
    [d.l. 31]

    MÁIRÍN: Are you OK, Jackie.?
    JACKIE: Yes, Yeah.
    MAIRIN: You will lure her to sleep again, good woman.
    JACKIE: Come on, Sally. (Leaving.)
    SALLY: I have fallen in love with Coilmin.
    COILMIN: Up our that! By Jove! There’s a blaze going on there.
    MAIRIN: Don’t pull her or she will torture you.
    COILMIN: My soul, if someone would still take a rattle from her.
    MAIRIN: Stop, blackguard
    COILMIN: Up our that!
    MAIRIN: You will sleep well after this.
    TAIMÍN: I am not sleepy.
    MAIRIN: It[sleep] will be on you when you lie down on the bed.

    Meall Beguile, charm; entice; Delude, deceive; disappoint
    Dar fia By Jove! By heaven
    céas crucify, torment, suffer agony
    tarraing pull, draw
    bligeard Blackguard m

    • Léigh tuilleadh

World War I at Sea: 1914

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I recently read Robert K. Massie’s, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea

Some of this story I knew from other books, notably Dan Van der Vat’s The Ship that Changed the World: The Escape of the Goeben to the Dardanelles in 1914. In the 1920s Winston Churchill wrote that the Goeben brought “more slaughter, more misery, and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship.” This was because the Goeben forced the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the German side. This in turn led to the breakup of the Ottoman Empires. Long after Churchill wrote those words we are still dealing with the consequences of that: Modern Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel were all Ottoman provinces in 1914.

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Steel Lobsters

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Notes and quotes concerning Myke Cole, Steel Lobsters: Crown, Commonwealth, and the Last Knights in England

“The total time from the moment they donned their armor , to the battle that would see them pass into legend, was about a month. It was a bright, final flash of glory – like the sparkling sun on their polished metal armor – before winking out forever.”

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