Dr. Dave's OdMind Emporium

Auld Acquaintance meme

od_mind — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:04:00 GMT

Borrowed from chadu.

Make a post to your Live Journal, blog, MySpace, Facebook, or whatever, with a list of the names of old friends that you haven't seen in a long time, and would love to get in touch with again. Maybe one of them will Google their name and your post will turn up. Maybe someone on your friends list knows them and can pass the word along. Who knows?

So:
Ted Wrigley
Barbara Ann Hull
Bayne Steele
Andrew Chen
Price Pomeroy

...what are you guys up to?

Silliness

od_mind — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:38:39 GMT

Your Score: Doc Brown

114 Heart, 160 Genius, 113 Cool, 139 Excitability

Dr. Emmett L. "Doc" Brown - (Christopher Lloyd)
Back to the Future (1985)

You are Doc Brown, the consummate 80's scientist. When inspiration strikes, you're single-minded in the pursuit of scientific truth... even if it takes several decades and your entire fortune. You may be easily distracted, but you're still able to form meaningful relationships with a select few. And, you've got a really awesome car.

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit."

Other scientific possibilities:
Gary Wallace
Wyatt Donnelly
Peter Venkman
Jordan Cochran
Egon Spengler
Doc Brown
Newton Crosby
Paul Stephens
Ben Crandall
Wayne Szalinkski
Winston Zeddemore
Ben Jabituya
Lazlo Hollyfeld
Ray Stantz
Buckaroo Banzai
Chris Knight

Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test written by xxyl on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

A Long Line of Dead Men (and Women)

od_mind — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:47:48 GMT

I recently re-acquired the Genealogy Bug, and have been spending rather more time than my wife would prefer at trying to trace out a first rough guess at my post-immigrant ancestry. The results have been interesting, at least to me.

I seem to be very, very American. So far, the most recent immigrant ancestor I've been able to find is a great-great-great-grandmother who allegedly came over from Europe, no later than 1842. The only unknown ancestors who could possibly have been earlier are my maternal grandfather's mother's parents -- and she was born in the US in 1860, so it's unlikely.

Subject to (extensive) necessary verification, I nevertheless seem to be descended from 3 Mayflower passengers, one Jamestown settler (second wave -- arrived 1622), one Third Virginia Charter settler (1635), two non-Mayflower early Plymouth colonists (1629 and 1630), and so forth. One of those colonial lines, the Fitz Randolphs of New Jersey, trace an alleged descent from pretty much all of the mediaeval kings of Europe, including Charlemagne and Louis I of France. As I said, extensive verification required.

The general patterns seems to have been:
1. Arrive to North American colonies
2. Move around a bit to acquire mucho land
3. Spit out a younger son or daughter who pines for the frontier
4. Have them move to an area just outside the boundaries of the colonies/states
5. Repeat as necessary every time civilization gets too close
6. Pass through PA/MD/VA, then NC and/or TN (optional), then KY, then IN, then IL just in time

Fascinating. We'll see what else turns up as I try to get past the low-hanging fruit on the family tree.

I Can Name That Tune in One Letter (Meme)

od_mind — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:11:15 GMT

ctate gave me the letter Y and memed me to name my favorite ten songs beginning with that letter. Y, oh y, did it have to be y.

The problem with Y is not that there aren't enough songs, but that there are so very many very bad songs. Bad in every way that songs can be bad.

Sappy songs: "You Light Up My Life", Debbie Gibson.

Campy songs: "YMCA", Village People

Silly songs: "Yes, We Have No Bananas", Benny Goodman / Spike Jones / etc.

Satirical songs: "Yoda", Weird Al Yankovic

So, sifting through the dross, here are my top 10 Y-songs of all time.

First, the true classics:

Yesterday, The Beatles. Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be / There's a shadow hanging over me. This one's a legitimate nominee for "best pop ballad ever". I'm rather fond of the Ray Charles cover, too.
You Can't Always Get What You Want, The Rolling Stones. But if you try sometime / You just might find / You get what you need. Perhaps my favorite Stones song.
You Really Got Me, The Kinks. See, don't ever set me free. Irresistable rhythm, which is why it's been used in 497 commercials.
Your Latest Trick, Dire Straits. You played robbery with insolence, and I played the blues in 12 bars.... That second side of Brothers in Arms was DJ heaven, wasn't it?
You Don't Own Me, Lesley Gore. You don't own me / I'm not just one of your many toys.... Wow, so far ahead of its time that it's scary. The same little girl who sang "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to" did this?
You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, Thurl Ravenscroft. Your brain is full of spiders / You've got garlic in your soul.... Not merely a great song, but a perfect match to the Dr. Suess story (way to go, Albert Hague) and the perfect voice to perform it. Requiescat in pace, Thurl. I've never heard the Rockapella version, but it might be good.

After that, it's a grab bag of decent pop songs. The four I decided to go with are:

You Really Got a Hold On Me, Smokey Robinson.
You Can't Hurry Love, The Supremes.
Yakety Yak, The Coasters.
You are the Sunshine of My Life, Stevie Wonder.

If I can stretch the definition of "begins with Y", I'd probably take (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher in lieu of, say, Yakety Yak. The very best version of that I've ever heard was on the Spike Lee public TV special "Spike and Friends Do It A Capella" (1990), and was performed by The Mint Juleps.

I don't think Y can stretch far enough to include U Can’t Touch This, M.C. Hammer, and I'm not sure it should.

Honorable mentions (alphabetically), mostly merely tolerably pleasant:

Year of the Cat, Al Stewart
You Are So Beautiful, Joe Cocker
You Can Call Me Al, Paul Simon
You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd, Roger Miller
Young Girl, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap
Your Momma Don’t Dance, Kenny Loggins
Your Own Special Way, Genesis
Your Smiling Face, James Taylor
You’re Sixteen, Johnny Burnette
You’re So Vain, Carly Simon
You’re the Inspiration, Chicago
You’ve Got a Friend, James Taylor
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, The Beatles
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, the Righteous Brothers
You’ve Made Me So Very Happy, Blood Sweat and Tears

A Midsummer Night's Screwball Comedy

od_mind — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:33:31 GMT

As an early Christmas gift, my parents gave us tickets to the Folger Shakespeare Theater production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It was wholly unlike what I was expecting (whatever that was), and a lot of fun. The director's alleged inspiration was seeing a really bad performance of AMSND in the middle of a Busby Berkeley film festival, and realizing that Gable and Lombard (or Nick and Nora Charles) were a much more convincing Oberon and Titania than any of the vanilla faery interpretations he'd ever seen. So he staged the whole play as '30s high society with absurd musical interludes -- and it works!

Some details:

1. The text was straight Shakespeare, with no attempt to 'modernize' except for a few (ad lib?) one-liners.

2. The 'business' was slapstick, but deliberately patterned (IMHO) on animated cartoons. Think Bugs Bunny, not Three Stooges. This is important, for reasons I'll get back to below.

3. There were many musical interludes, in which the actors on stage would sing and dance (lip-synched) to '30s recordings. In most cases, these were presented as the fairies compelling the mortals to perform as 'puppets' for the fairies' own amusement -- but the song lyrics were on-topic for the current situation. I was reminded of the PBS production "The Singing Detective", in some ways -- surreal musical numbers inserted into unrelated scenes. (A couple of the actors were extremely good at portraying "mortal who suddenly finds him/herself singing and dancing with no control, and after fighting it for a few moments gives in and enjoys performing".)

4. The roles in the modern setting were rendered as wealthy noble couple-to-be (Theseus and Hippolyta -> Oberon and Titania), their personal secretary (Philostrate -> Puck), their butler (Egeus), and other servants. I don't know enough about how the play is usually done to say whether this mapping from Theseus/Hippolyta/Philostrate to Oberon/Titania/Puck is standard or novel, but it certainly worked well.

Now, the genius of it...

If you read AMSND, you can see how it would be a bitch to make it immersive for a modern audience. The Athenians are unreal and remote, the fairies are stupid and silly, the servants and their lowbrow are out of fashion, the physical action is preposterous, etc. The genius is that the director (Joe Banno) realized that there *are* immersive contexts for modern audiences in which those things are not a problem -- namely, screwball movie comedy, musicals, and cartoons. We don't bat an eye at Kate Hepburn wandering the woods looking for her leopard by singing "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", nor at impromptu production numbers in the middle of "Phantom of the Opera" or "Sweeney Todd", nor at Wile E. Coyote hanging in midair before falling (one body segment at a time) to the canyon floor thousands of feet below -- then getting up again.

So Banno turned the main plot of AMSND into a '30s screwball movie comedy, and transformed the (unacceptable) 'straight' depiction of the Seelie Court into Busby Berkeley production numbers and Bugs Bunny fight scenes. And, son of a gun, it worked beautifully. Lysander in Argyle sweater and greased hair; Demetrius in lounge-lizard shoes, yellow baggy pants, and wide belt; Hermia the petite ingenue and Helena the gangly bookworm; Egeus the gentleman's gentleman (tapdancing creditably under the spell of the fairies)... It all works. It's even presented as a film -- the household (all upset over the lovers' troubles) are gathered to watch a movie to lighten the mood. The projector starts to roll, the lighting flickers as if a film were showing... and we're with Oberon and Puck.

As for the play within the play... well. I'll just say that the complete ham who played Bottom had the entire cast helpless with laughter as 'Pyramis' took 10 minutes to stab himself to death with a potato-masher.

And the audience lost it completely on:
BOTTOM: Will it please you see the Epilogue...?
ALL: No!!!

All in all, an excellent and very entertaining show. I can see why it was held over, and I'm sorry it closes so soon.

Valabar's

od_mind — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:31:47 GMT

We have tangible information! Steven Brust responded to a question I asked in his LJ, as follows:

od_mind:
I recently had the very great pleasure of visiting Hungary, and the even greater pleasure of eating at a famous Budapest restaurant that had me thinking about Valabar's. Is Valabar's modeled on some particular restaurant you've been to, or is it more a Platonic Ideal of restaurant?

skzbrust:
To some extent, it is modeled after The Bakery, a Continental restaurant in Chicago some years ago, operated by Chef Lajos (Louis) Szathmary.

Ha! Vlad meets Meyer

od_mind — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 05:36:11 GMT

Steven Brust recently posted on his LJ that he's been enjoying re-reading the Travis McGee books of John D. MacDonald after a long hiatus. In one of his responses to comments, he wrote:

"I have the feeling that the next Vlad novel is going to have a few McGee-like passages, here and there. It's time I brought in a new influence, and he does sort of fit like a glove."

Whee!

That SFBC list thing

od_mind — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:35:18 GMT

SFBC List of the 50 "most important" works of SF in the last (mumble) years.

I've bolded the ones I've read, italicized the ones I started and never finished, underlined the ones I've loved, and done a ~~strike~~ through on the ones I've read and hated.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley (Bradley does Arthuriana... I don't think so)
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras (I've only read the first part, "In Hiding")
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish (Loved Earthman Come Home, didn't much care for the rest.)
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith (read and enjoyed many of the stories)
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks (and never will)
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Philosophistry

od_mind — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 21:48:55 GMT

A rather amusing philosophy quiz.

(Actually, I was annoyed by the lack of a coherent alternative to choose in the first ethics question. I can believe that real moral choices exist, without believing that lying is always wrong no matter what...)

N-A-O
You scored 55% Non-Reductionism, 66% Epistemological Absolutism, and 66% Moral Objectivism!

You are an N-A-O: a metaphysical Non-Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Objectivist. If you are simply dying inside to figure out what all this mumbo-jumbo means, then simply continue reading.

Metaphysics: Non-Reductionism (Idealism or Realism) In metaphysics, my test measures your tendency towards Reductionism or Non-Reductionism. As a Non-Reductionist, you recognize that reality is not necessarily simple or unified, and you thus tend to produce a robust ontology instead of carelessly shaving away hypothetical entities that reflect our philosophical experiences. My test recognizes two types of Non-Reductionists: Idealists and Realists.

1. Idealists believe that reality is fundamentally unknowable. All we can ever know is the world of sense experience, thought, and other phenomena which are only distorted reflections of an ultimate (or noumenal) reality. Kant, one of the most significant philosophers in history, theorized that human beings perceive reality in such a way that they impose their own mental frameworks and categories upon reality, fully distorting it. Reality for Kant is unconceptualized and not subject to any of the categories our minds apply to it. Idealists are non-reductionists because they recognize that the distinction between phenomenal reality and ultimate reality cannot be so easily discarded or unified into a single reality. They are separate and distinct, and there is no reason to suppose the one mirrors the other. Major philosophical idealists include Kant and Fichte.

If your views are different from the above, then you may be a Realist. 2. Realists deny the validity of sloppy metaphysical reductions, because they feel that there is no reason to suspect that reality reflects principles of parsimony or simplicity. Realism is the most common-sensical of the metaphysical views. It doesn't see reality as a unity or as reducible to matter or mind, nor does it see reality as divided into a phenomenal world of experience and an unknowable noumenal world of things-in-themselves. Realist metaphysics emphasizes that reality is for the most part composed of the things we observe and think. On the question of the existence of universals, for instance, a realist will assert that while universals do not physically exist, the relations they describe in particulars are as real as the particular things themselves, giving universals a type of reality. Thus, no reduction is made. On the mind-body problem, realists tend to believe that minds and bodies both exist, and the philosophical problems involved in reducing mind to matter or matter to mind are too great to warrant such a reduction. Finally, realists deny that reality is ultimately a Unity or Absolute, though they recognize that reality can be viewed as a Unity when we consider the real relations between the parts as constituting this unity--but it doesn't mean that the world isn't also made up of particular things. Aristotle and Popper are famous realists.

*****

Epistemology: Absolutism (Rationalism or Pragmatism) My test measures one's tendency towards Absolutism or Skepticism in regards to epistemology. As an Absolutist, you believe that objective knowledge is possible given the right approach, and you deny the claims of skeptical philosophers who insist that we can never have knowledge of ultimate reality. The two types of Absolutists recognized by my test are Rationalists and Pragmatists.

1. Rationalists believe that the use of reason ultimately provides the best route to truth. A rationalist usually defines truth as a correspondence between propositions and reality, taking the common-sense route. Also, rationalists tend to believe that knowledge of reality is made possible through certain foundational beliefs. This stance is known as foundationalism. A foundationalist believes that, because we cannot justify the truth of every statement in an infinite regress, we ultimately reach a foundation of knowledge. This foundation is composed of a priori truths, like mathematics and logic, as well as undoubtable truths like one's belief in his or her own existence. The belief that experiences and memories are veridical is also part of the foundation. Thus, for a rationalist knowledge of reality is made possible through our foundational beliefs, which we do not need to justify because we find them to be undoubtable and self-evident. In regards to science, a rationalist will tend to emphasize the foundational assumptions of scientific inquiry as prior to and more important than scientific inquiry itself. If science does lead to truth, it is only because it is based upon the assumption of certain rational principles such as "Every event is caused" and "The future will resemble the past". Philosophy has a wide representation of philosophical rationalists--Descartes, Spinoza, Liebniz, and many others.

If that didn't sound like your own views, then you are most likely the other type of Absolutist: the Pragmatist. 2. Epistemological Pragmatists are fundamentally identified by their definition of truth. Truth is, on this view, merely a measure of a proposition's success in inquiry. This view is a strictly scientific notion of truth. A proposition can be called true if it leads to successful predictions or coheres best with the observed facts about the world. Thus, for the pragmatist, knowledge of reality is possible through scientific reasoning. A pragmatist emphasizes man's fallibility, and hence takes baby-steps towards knowledge through scientific methodology. Any truth claim for a pragmatist is open to revision and subject to change--if empirical observations lead us to call even logical rules into question (like quantum physics has done for the law of the excluded middle), then we can and should abandon even these supposed a priori and "absolutely certain" logical rules if they do not accord with our testing and refuting of our various propositions. As a consequence of this, a pragmatist doesn't feel that scientific knowledge is based upon unfounded assumptions that are taken to be true without any sort of justification--rather, they believe that the successes of scientific inquiry have proved that its assumptions are well-founded. For instance, the assumption of science that the future will be like the past is adequately shown by the amazing success of scientific theories in predicting future events--how else could this be possible unless the assumption were true? Pragmatism borrows elements from realism and yet attempts to account for the critiques made by skeptics and relativists. It is essentially a type of philosophical opportunism--it borrows the best stances from a large number of philosophical systems and attempts to discard the problems of these systems by combining them with others. Famous pragmatists of this type are Peirce and Dewey.

*****

Ethics: Objectivism (Deontology or Logical Positivism) In Ethics, my test measures your tendency towards moral Objectivism or moral Relativism. As a moral Objectivist, you are opposed to Subjectivist moral theories and believe that morality applies to people universally and actually describes objects and situations out in the world as opposed to just subjects themselves. The two types of moral Objectivists my test recognizes are Kantian Deontologists and Utilitarians.

1. Kantian Deontologists believe that the one intrinsic good is a good will. As rational beings capable of making decisions, the moral worth of our decisions is ultimately derived from the intentions behind our actions, not their consequences. A moral being does the right thing not out of recognition of any consequences, but out of a sense of moral duty. For Kant, a good will is the ultimate good because to deny the will is to deny the one thing that makes us rational, moral beings. If an act will accord with or further our status as free, rational beings, and it is possible to will the universalization of such a moral principle without infringing upon our good wills, then an act is good. Kant's categorical imperative provides an objective standard to judge moral worth--it is not hypothetical in the sense of other imperatives, which hide a latent if-clause. For instance, "Eating razors is good" is good ONLY if you tack on an if-clause that says something like: "If you wish to destroy your gums." Thus, the categorical imperative is good, not just IF something is the case, but in ALL cases. It requires people to treat others as ends, and not means to ends, for to treat everyone as a means to an ends would be to deny them their ability to function as rational, free beings--which is what makes morality possible in the first place. The major propnent of this view in the history of philosophy is, quite obviously, Kant.

If that didn't sound like your position, then you are probably the other variety of moral Objectivist--the Utilitarian. 2. Utilitarians define "happiness" or "pleasure" as the sole intrinsic good, and the principle "The greatest pleasure for the greatest number" best reflects a Utilitarian view of ethics. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist moral theory, meaning the consequences of an action--not the intentions behind it--determine the act's moral worth. Even if you intended to do great evil with a certain act, if the act produces a net gain of pleasure and happiness for the greatest number, then it was indeed a good act because your intentions weren't realized. What matters in this scenario, obviously, is the consequences of the act. Utilitarianism, of course, can also be reduced to Hedonism. If you do not feel that the greatest happiness of the greatest number matters, but only pay heed to the greatest happiness of individuals, then you are more adequately classified as a Hedonist. But both Utilitarians and Hedonists define "pleasure" as an intrinsic good and determine the moral worth of an act through its consequences. The only difference is whether we measure the collective pleasure of a group or only an individual's pleasure. Prominent Utilitarians include Bentham and Mill.

*****

As you can see, when your philosophical position is narrowed down there are so many potential categories that an OKCupid test cannot account for them all. But, taken as very broad categories or philosophical styles, you are best characterized as an N-A-O. Your exact philosophical opposite would be an R-S-R.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Metaphysics

You scored higher than 99% on Epistemology

You scored higher than 99% on Ethics

Link: The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I am not making this up

od_mind — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:07:28 GMT

A sentence seen in a current news story:

"The listing was removed from eBay on Oct. 11 because it violated a policy against selling human remains."

Full story here.

Spot on

od_mind — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:54:38 GMT

So much for my belief that I have mostly eradicated my native accent...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Northeast
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Southern Illinois. Ding ding ding ding.

Europe

od_mind — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:36:22 GMT

I just got back from a nearly-three-week luxury cruise up the Danube with The Missus. Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Duernstein, Melk, Passau, Regensberg, Prague. The first and last stops featured multiple nights in a luxury hotel; the others were all on board the (equally luxurious) ship River Cloud.

True confession: I'm 44 years old now, and this was my first ever trip to continental Europe. Better late than never, but I have a lot of catching up to do.

Overall, we had a wonderful time. The weather was nearly perfect, the places were interesting (and all different), the food was beyond description. I bought a digital camera just for the trip, and took over 1000 pictures (which I will weed down into a coherent subset Any Day Now).

Dinner at Gundel in Budapest. For those of you who read Steven Brust, it's quite possible that Valabar's is deliberately modeled on Gundel.

The relentlessly interesting and beautiful architecture and decor of nearly every building in every city. Well, the ones that predate the Soviets anyway.

Die Hochzeit des Figaro at the Wien Volksoper.

Melk Abbey. [Insert gape here]. (And my camera battery died about 7 pictures in...)

The Glass Museum in Passau. 30,000+ pieces of art glass, wholly overwhelming the senses. My wow-o-meter blew out in the third room, and by the end I was (literally) dazed. Too much beauty, craft, and history in one place.

The fascinating town of Regensberg, which has managed to avoid being bombed, razed, rebuilt, moved up the hill, or otherwise tampered with for about 800 years. The roman bridge is still there, along with a gothic cathedral, renaissance town hall, baroque palace, etc.

The shopping in Prague. I would like to import several tons of it -- crystal, garnet and amber jewelry, chess sets, pocket watches, antiques, woodwork, leatherwork, the list goes on. Actual bargains available -- I saw a wonderful set of 6 hand-blown Bohemian crystal wine goblets for $40. For the set.

The coffee. Oh, sweet Mahomet, the coffee. Budpest, Vienna, Prague. Bow down to the Bean.

St. Vitus's Cathedral, Prague. Incredible Art Nouveau mosaic windows, plus one astonishing window by Alphonse Mucha, the god of Art Nouveau (or Jungenstil, as they call it in Central Europe). The Wenceslas Chapel takes it all up another notch. Practically next door, there is a barely-retouched Romanesque chapel, bare stone on the inside, wholly baroqufied on the outside.

Hundertwasser House, an apartment complex imagined, designed, and built by whacko Vienna designer Friedrich Hundertwasser. It's almost impossible to convey the sheer infectious whimsy of the place in mere words and pictures.

The food on board ship. We knew we were in for it when the first appetizer course of the first meal we were served was "goose liver creme brulee". As an appetizer. For the love of God, Montresor! (It was wonderful, but deadly.)

The dark, smooth, seductive beer they have been brewing (but not bottling) since 1493 at U Fleku. It's in the "New Town" part of downtown Prague -- 'new', in this case, meaning "15th century". We got lost three times trying to find the place, and it was worth every minute of it -- accordion and tuba and plastered Russian tourists notwithstanding.

The terraced vineyards on the north bank of the Danube in the Wachau valley of Austria.

The Moser Crystal showroom in Prague. Just the rooms (empty of all glass) would be worth the trip.

The (still in use) palace of the princes of Thurn und Taxis, in Regensberg. With mediaeval monastery attached.

The giant indoor farmer's market in Budapest, with its dozens of different varieties of fresh peppers and sausages, none exportable. (We came away with a jar of acacia honey, though...)

I could go on, but those are what spring to mind up front. I'll try to follow up later with some thoughts on Europe As One Nation, the flourishing regionalism that goes with that, etc. I'll note in passing that when we were in Passau and Regensberg, the flag we flew on the ship was that of Freistadt Bayern, and the municipal buildings flew that alongside the EU flag. What is this 'Germany' of which you speak?

Wilde Thing meme

od_mind — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:09:53 GMT

From rolanni:

Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe. Repost in your journal. [NB: I took the first 5 that I firmly agree with... a slightly weaker requirement.]

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859 - 1927), Three Men in a Boat, 1889

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.
Emile Chartier

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Will Durant (1885 - 1981)

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 - 1826), Physiologie du Gout, 1825

Home again home again

od_mind — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:44:34 GMT

I have safely returned from my Hell is Travel excursion.

For professional development, I accompanied the Defense Science Support Group Session #4 on their peregrinations about the country. The DSSG is a program run by my company that exposes academics and some industrial researchers to defense-related research questions, facilities, and organizations. There have been about 140 graduates of the program over the last 20 years; each group holds 8 'sessions' over a span of 2 years. Some of the sessions are all in one place; others are extremely travel-intensive. This was one of the latter.

I flew by commercial air to Seattle on August 6, hooking up with the session at the Marriott Sea-Tac. From there it was:

2 days in Washington -- Ft. Lewis, Boeing
Fly to Edwards AFB (Mojave Desert) by KC-135 tanker
2 days at Edwards -- AF Test Command, Skunkworks, Northrup-Grumman
Fly to Omaha by KC-135
1 day at STRATCOM (formerly Strategic Air Command)
1 day free
Fly to Wright-Patterson AFB (Dayton) by KC-135
1 afternoon guided tour of the AF Museum
1 day at Air Force Research Labs
Fly back to DC by commercial air

Half a day (our anniversary) with my wife.

Fly to Tulsa, OK for two days of software training (Statistica Data Miner)
Fly back three days later, worn to a frazzle.

I have to say, the DSSG trip was really quite fascinating, with interesting people to meet and interesting places to see. And some cool toys, up close and personal. The travel by MilAir was interesting too -- and on the first leg, they brought along a C-5 Galaxy and practiced mid-air refueling manoeuvers all the way down, with the passengers taking turns lying down (2 at a time) at the tail windows with the boom controller. Wow -- the pilots of the other plane were so close you could practically read their lips. That experience was worth the whole trip.

Quotation of the Day

od_mind — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:29:26 GMT

"It's no accident that Chauvin was a Frenchman."

-- George M. Taber, "The Globalization of Wine", chapter 22 in Judgment of Paris: California vs. Paris and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine. NY: Scribner, 2005.

Lyric translation nonsense

od_mind — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:39:58 GMT

Idea snagged from ctate: pick a popular song lyric, and run it through a machine translation program, going English -> German -> French -> English, just copying and pasting.

Here's what Babelfish gives me for my chosen lyric, despite the fact that I punctuated the lyric into complete sentences before starting:

Is the number most only which you make indeed. Two can be as bad, as one, is the number most only since No one. None is the saddest experiment which you know indeed. It is the saddest experiment, knows you indeed ` a cause is the number most only which you make indeed. Is No most only, worse like both. It is not precisely any more of good, since it left. I spend now my time which forms of Reime rights yesterday.

On the same input, Google Translation gives:
Is the number most only which you make indeed. Two can be as bad, as one, is the number most only since No one. None is the saddest experiment which you know indeed. It is the saddest experiment which you know indeed. `The cause is the number most only which you make indeed. Is No most only, worse like both. It is not precisely any more of good, since it left. I spend now my time which forms of Reime rights yesterday.

Suspiciously similar, yet not identical. Hmmmm....

Which of the Major Tarot Arcana are you?

od_mind — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:25:23 GMT

You scored as XI: Justice. The blindfold arbiter weighs the evidence and passes judgement without fear or favour. There can be no appeal.Justice is not necessarily the same as Law. True justice seeks out the spirit of the law, not just its letter. If a law is bad then true Justice will set that law aside. This is the sacred responsibility of those given the power to judge. If well aspected in a Tarot reading, this card can indicate settlement of disputes, the achievement of a just outcome. If badly aspected this card can indicate corruption and failure of justice.

</td>

XI: Justice

75%

XIX: The Sun

69%

XIII: Death

69%

X - Wheel of Fortune

69%

VI: The Lovers

56%

XVI: The Tower

50%

I - Magician

44%

II - The High Priestess

38%

VIII - Strength

38%

III - The Empress

38%

XV: The Devil

31%

0 - The Fool

25%

IV - The Emperor

19%

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

Recently Read: Lud-in-the-Mist

od_mind — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:45:04 GMT

(I posted the following 'review' of Hope Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist to rec.arts.sf.written, but I thought I would also put a copy here, since there's very little overlap in readership.)

--
After several years' worth of promptings from the AlexLit recommender, various acquaintances, and a few famous advocates[1], I finally got around to reading Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees. I will try to avoid egregious spoilers, but I'm afraid that my comments on style and structure will turn out to be bigger spoilers than anything I might say about the plot.

A couple of notes on the edition: I read the recent trade paperback edition from Cold Spring Press, (c)2005 by John Saunders, with Foreword by Neil Gaiman (2001, reprinted from an earlier Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks edition) and Introduction by Douglas A. Anderson. The text runs 239 pages. The copyright page says "The text in this edition has been set from the first edition published by W. Collins and Sons, London, 1926." I'm not sure what "set from" means -- I suspect it means that the Collins edition was OCR'ed, and the result electronically spell-checked and hastily skimmed for obvious errors. However they did it, the text is chock-full of typos, especially the "this is a word, but not the intended word" variety. There are also bizarre, inexplicable paragraph
Breaks in the middle of sentences, perhaps half a dozen times in the book. Certainly nobody at Cold Spring actually read the book end to end, the way I used to suppose editors did these things.

The Foreword by Gaiman is effusive in its praise. The back cover also boasts fulsome praise from Ellen Kushner ("...incomparably rich and strange [...] Anyone who writes or reads or thinks should read this book.") and assertions by Michael Swanwick of Lud's historical significance and influence on fantasy and fantasists.

So, what to make of the tale itself? Damned if I know.

In basic plot, everything looks pretty standard at the start. We have our fictional Somewhere, which is a prosperous small nation that borders on Fairyland, and in past times had great commerce with that realm. In the times of our story, fairy goods are contraband, and mention of fairies or their realm is considered obscene. One could imagine anyone from Terry Pratchett to China Mieville setting a novel in such a place. Mirrlees, however, is after something totally different. The basic plot outline of Lud doesn't distinguish it, but the style, tone, and (as best I can tell) purpose of the book are not like what we're used to.

I am probably about as sympathetic a reader as you'll find these days, when it comes to books that value style over substance, mood over plot, language over meaning, etc. Even so, Lud-in-the-mist falls right at the limits of my tolerance. That may be because the particular style, the 'flavor' of the work, looks more toward the English fairy-tale, nursery rhyme, nonsense story tradition than to other sub-genres that I personally find more congenial.

I've been trying to think of similar works to cite, and it's hard. There are elements rather like Lewis Carroll, elements rather like Lord Dunsany, elements rather like the imagery and plot-sequence of nursery-rhymes. I have not read The Wind in the Willows, but I see similarities in Lud to such snippets of that work that I've seen or heard quoted. At the same time, the vocabulary sent me to the dictionary half a dozen times -- not in the same league as Gene Wolfe in that regard, but far beyond what the usual fantasy novel requires.

The personal names are fanciful to the point of self-parody, at least to a 21st century American eye. If you have a hard time with Tolkien's Bracegirdles and Primula Brandybucks and Tom Bombadils, you'll hardly fare better with Endymion Leer and Dame Marigold Chanticleer (nee Vigil) or Hyacinth Honeysuckle (a male personage). This combination of rampant silliness (as opposed to humor) and serious (even grim) subject matters is long out of fashion.

Gaiman calls the book a novel, but I think that's misleading. It has enough words to be a (short) novel, and it's written in chapters and paragraphs of prose, but that's about as far as its novelhood goes. The pacing is very un-novel-like -- no building of tension, no sequence of advances and reversals, no climax and denouement. Things happen, some bad and some good, and eventually a solution/resolution happens. In some ways the book treats itself more as a succession of scenes than as a linear story.

The plot outline is one that *could* have been told in a more typical modern novel-like way[2], but wasn't. There is even one extended dream-sequence, which is not a dream, but in which the narrator tells us that the protagonist's experience is explicitly to be understood as being very much like a dream, including bizarre segues and narration by a disembodied self. I would not be surprised at all to learn that this book became an in-book for the psychedelic drug-using crowd in the late '60s and early '70s. I'm also not surprised that Gaiman would be attracted to this style -- one can see echoes of it at times in his Sandman works.

Everything I've said so far probably sounds negative, but I'm certainly not sorry to have gone out of my way to find and read this. The book is full of striking images, provocative reflections (mostly via the somewhat odd narrative voice), and skillful word use. The running conceit concerning the role and nature of Law is worth the price of admission all by itself. There's a thread of morbidity that runs throughout, that gives all of the silliness a dark edge -- not Lovecraft dark, but more a fatalistic melancholy -- and prevents the silliness from being saccharine. That aspect of the book is unique in my experience; I didn't know there were books like that.

If you like striking images, odd philosophical reflections that you are free to ponder or ignore, English-style nonsense adventures, wide and sometimes obscure vocabulary, musings on mortality, and a whiff of the grave in your nursery rhymes, then you might very well like Lud-in-the-Mist quite a bit. Just don't go in expecting a genre fantasy novel, or even a fairy tale.

[2] Indeed, a straight plot summary from me would look very much like a typical fantasy novel plot summary -- except that the reader of the plot summary would probably be very startled to learn that the complications leading to the protagonist's Quest take up the first 80% of the book, and the Quest itself probably only about 5%.

[1]The book's most famous and vocal recent advocate is probably Neil Gaiman. His cover blurb for the edition I have in my hand reads "The single most beautiful, solid, unearthly, and unjustifiably forgotten novel of the twentieth century."

SIP Quiz unguessed answers

od_mind — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:48:52 GMT

Here are the two unguessed SIP lists from my earlier quiz:

heptagonal room, imperial theologians, treasure crypt, master glazier, blind room are from The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco as translated by William Weaver.
voluble self, fixed land, golden roof, golden sky, low worlds are from Perelandra by C.S. Lewis. I was sure "fixed land" would give that one away.

Was Sam Frodo's Servant?

od_mind — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:55:12 GMT

kalimac posted the following in kate_nepveu's LJ:

"Also interesting: Bilbo and Frodo never had any servants, at least not visibly. Unrealistic, given their wealth and their large elaborate house, but the author's crime - if any - is of rendering them invisible, not lording it over them.

Sam, of course, was not Frodo's servant, but his gardener, an independent man contracted to work. He is deferential to Frodo, which however grating today is historically accurate for the Victorian period Tolkien is trying to evoke. But he travels with Frodo out of friendship and concern, not because he's his manservant. And he becomes Frodo's caregiver out of love, not class obligation."

Suffice it to say, I think this is a complete misunderstanding of the relationship portrayed by Tolkien. The Gamgees were hereditary family retainers of the Baggins family, in the timeless British tradition of such, as practiced through (say) the first quarter of the 20th century. The relationship was feudal in its roots, though the legal situation had changed quite a bit by Tolkien's time.

Sam was Frodo's servant, and they both knew it. As did everyone they met throughout the course of the book, from Faramir to Ioreth. I find it hard to see how anyone could dispute this, given the way Sam calls Frodo "sir" and "Mr. Frodo" and "master" throughout the book, even though they are roughly the same age. Not to mention the way everyone assumes Sam will carry the heavy gear, groom the pony, cook the food, etc.

And I think this is an important feature of the book, because the rise of Sam from gardener to Mayor shows that, as much as Tolkien longed nostalgically for the old order and ways, he did not necessarily see the elevation of the working classes as a bad thing, nor did he see any inherent gulf between the lower classes and "their betters".

SIP Quiz

od_mind — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 14:55:34 GMT

Idea yoinked from ctate; answers posted on June 7 for the remaining unguessed entries.

Pick 10 books you like, for which Amazon.com lists "statistically improbably phrases" (SIPs) in the "inside this book" section below the publisher's information. Choose some or all of those phrases, and list them here for others to attempt to guess the books.

I'll note that I had to look up several dozen favorite books to find 10 that had SIPs listed, so this is not a list of my ten favorite books. Some are definitely easier than others. (Watership Down had SIPs listed, but they all included the word 'rabbits', which is a bit too easy...)

We'll give it another day or two for last guesses on #1, #3 and #5. HINT: the three remaining books have a total of eight words in their titles, and their authors are of three different nationalities.

~~folding bedroom, old orrery, imaginary study, alligator purse, guardian trees, tall bed, single eyebrow~~ ctate recognized this list for Little, Big, John Crowley. Half a mark.
~~silver salt cellar, wastepaper bin, slimy things~~ ctate guessed Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams. (I would have expected something like "rotating sofa" for that one...)
heptagonal room, imperial theologians, treasure crypt, master glazier, blind room are from The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco as translated by William Weaver.
~~imploder lance, comconsole desk, float pallet, wormhole nexus, uterine replicator, breath mask, embezzlement scheme~~ taschoene guessed Komarr, Lois McMaster Bujold. (The SIPs for The Curse of Chalion, which I would have preferred, were way too easy.)
voluble self, fixed land, golden roof, golden sky, low worlds are from Perelandra by C.S. Lewis. I was sure "fixed land" would give that one away.
~~effective dreams, alpha rhythm~~ taschoene guessed The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin.
~~epicyclical elaborations, chocolate pot, blue saloon, joint focus~~ taschoene guessed Sorcery and Cecelia, Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer.
~~mobile hook, wax men, wooden monkey, thief lords, old gypsy~~ ctate guessed The Anubis Gates, ~~William Ashbless~~Tim Powers.
~~musket regiment, tai fun, barbarian priests, thousand koku, devoted vassal, killing sword~~ taschoene guessed Shogun, James Clavell
~~golem rumbled, clacks tower, golden suit, winged hat~~ kgbooklog guessed Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

Fire on the Mountain

od_mind — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 21:03:31 GMT

Sometimes I can be real dumb.

Yesterday, The Missus and I went downtown for a delightful day of food, conversation, and art with taschoene and chadu and company. The Hokusai exhibit at the Sackler Gallery was the main focus, though we also peeked in at a couple of other things. And had brunch at Teaism. (Mmm, cilantro scrambled eggs with tea-cured salmon, and a pot of Lapsang Souchong...)

The food and company were delightful; the shopping was moderately successful, the art was mixed (some fabulous, and some underwhelming). The only real downside to the day only became apparent when I got home, and found that (once again) I had forgotten that I AM BALD.

I look like a bottle of Maker's Mark.

You see, I hadn't expected that we would eat outside, in the lovely sunshine. Nor chat over our food, order a second round of tea, chat some more, and stroll across the Mall to the museum in the lovely sunshine.

Nor had I expected that, post-museum, we would sit on a bench outside the Freer Gallery, in the lovely sunshine and cool breeze, and chat about this. And that.

I suspect that, once my co-workers get through with me, the rest of my face will match my pate. Ah, well.

Women Writers Meme

od_mind — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:29:36 GMT

Swiped from rolanni.

Instructions:
Bold the ones you've read.
Italicize the ones you have wanted/might like to read.
* for another book by this author read, but not this
?? for any titles/authors you've never heard of
*** if you've tried it and abandoned it
XXX if Life Is Too Short

Alcott, Louisa May–Little Women
Allende,Isabel–The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret–Cat's Eye
* Austen, Jane–Emma
?? Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters
?? Barnes,Djuna–Nightwood
de Beauvoir,Simone–The Second Sex
Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S.–Possession
Cather, Willa–My Antonia
?? Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
* Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
?? Cisneros,Sandra–The House on Mango Street
XXX Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
?? Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South
?? Danticat,Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory
?? Davis,Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics
?? Desai,Anita–Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems
XXX Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
Eliot, George–Middlemarch
?? Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen
?? Erdrich, Louise–Tracks
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
XXX Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
?? Gordimer, Nadine–July's People
* Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith–Mythology
?? Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
?? hooks, bell–Bone Black
?? Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
?? Jacobs,Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
?? Jackson,Helen Hunt–Ramona
* Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House
XXX Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
?? Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
?? Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
?? Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
?? Larsen,Nella–Passing
L'Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
?? Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger
?? Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals
XXX Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them)
McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding (remember nothing of it)
?? McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
?? Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve
?? Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
XXX Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
?? Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji
?? Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
?? Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head
?? Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller's Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
?? Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
?? Picoult, Jodi–My Sister's Keeper
* Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
Rand,Ayn–The Fountainhead
?? Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats
?? Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea
?? Robinson,Marilynne–Housekeeping
?? Rocha, Sharon–For Lac
?? Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
?? Smith, Zadie–White Teeth
Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
XXX Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
?? Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle
XXX Steel, Danielle–The House
Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
?? Tannen, Deborah–You're Wearing That
?? Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife's Tale
?? Urquhart, Jane–Away
Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
Welty,Eudora–One Writer's Beginnings
Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
* Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One's Own

Missing from the original list:
Lois McMaster Bujold-The Curse of Chalion
Ocatavia Butler (anything)
Dorothy Dunnet (anything)
Helen Fielding-Bridget Jones's Diary
Josephine Tey-The Daughter of Time

The Ice Cream Singularity

od_mind — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:46:54 GMT

OK, the Singularity is clearly upon us, and it comes in the form of instant ice cream. (Not, as predicted, Gozer the Destructor.)

Yes, you can now have custom fresh-made ice cream in 45 seconds, if you have access to a MooBella machine.

In the immortal words of Yakov Smirnov: "What a country!"

Award Winning SF Meme

od_mind — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:21:00 GMT

Snitched from kgbooklog. Boldface for things I've read. Italics for things I started but never finished.

1953
HUGO: Alfred Bester, The Demolished Man

1955
HUGO: Mark Clifton, They'd Rather Be Right

1956
HUGO: Robert Heinlein, Double Star

1958
HUGO: Fritz Leiber, The Big Time

1959
HUGO: James Blish, A Case of Conscience

1960
HUGO: Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

1961
HUGO: Walter Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

1962
HUGO: Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

1963
HUGO: Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

1964
HUGO: Clifford Simak, Way Station (try again someday)

1965
HUGO: Fritz Leiber, The Wanderer
NEBULA: Frank Herbert, Dune

1966
HUGO: Roger Zelazny, ...And Call Me Conrad
HUGO: Frank Herbert, Dune (again)
NEBULA: Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon (novella version)
NEBULA: Samuel R. Delany, Babel-17

1967
HUGO: Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
NEBULA: Samuel R. Delany, The Einstein Intersection

1968
HUGO: Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
NEBULA: Alexei Panshin, Rite of Passage

1969
HUGO: John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
NEBULA: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

1970
HUGO: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (again)
NEBULA: Larry Niven, Ringworld

1971
HUGO: Larry Niven, Ringworld (again)
NEBULA: Robert Silverberg, A Time of Changes

1972
HUGO: Philip Jose Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
NEBULA: Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves

1973
HUGO: Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves (seeing a pattern here)
NEBULA: Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous With Rama

1974
HUGO: Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous With Rama (yep)
NEBULA: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (long ago, should read it again)

1975
HUGO: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (...yes...)
NEBULA: Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
WFA: Patricia McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (try again someday)

1976
HUGO: Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
NEBULA: Frederik Pohl, Man Plus
WFA: Richard Matheson, Bid Time Return

1977
HUGO: Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
NEBULA: Frederik Pohl, Gateway
WFA: William Kotzwinkle, Doctor Rat

1978
HUGO: Frederik Pohl, Gateway (again)
NEBULA: Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake (read the novella)
WFA: Fritz Leiber, Our Lady of Darkness

1979
HUGO: Vonda N. McIntyre, Dreamsnake
NEBULA: Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise
WFA: Michael Moorcock, Gloriana (really ought to read)

1980
HUGO: Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise
NEBULA: Gregory Benford, Timescape
WFA: Elizabeth A. Lynn, Watchtower

1981
HUGO: Joan D. Vinge, The Snow Queen
NEBULA: Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
WFA: Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer

1982
DICK: Rudy Rucker, Software
HUGO: C. J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station
NEBULA: Michael Bishop, No Enemy But Time
WFA: John Crowley, Little Big (what a great book)

1983
DICK: Tim Powers, The Anubis Gates
HUGO: Isaac Asimov, Foundation's Edge (but wish I hadn't)
NEBULA: David Brin, Startide Rising
WFA: Michael Shea, Nifft the Lean

1984
DICK: William Gibson, Neuromancer (someday)
HUGO: David Brin, Startide Rising
NEBULA: William Gibson, Neuromancer
WFA: John M. Ford, The Dragon Waiting

1985
DICK: Tim Powers, Dinner at Deviant's Palace
HUGO: William Gibson, Neuromancer
NEBULA: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
WFA: Barry Hughart, The Bridge of Birds (O very yes)
WFA: Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood

1986
DICK: James P. Blaylock, Homunculus
HUGO: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
NEBULA: Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
WFA: Dan Simmons, Song of Kali

1987
CLARKE: Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
DICK: Patricia Geary, Strange Toys
HUGO: Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
NEBULA: Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman
STOKER: Stephen King, Misery
STOKER: Robert R. McCammon, Swan Song
WFA: Patrick Suskind, Perfume

1988
CLARKE: George Turner, The Sea and Summer
DICK: Rudy Rucker, Wetware
HUGO: David Brin, The Uplift War
NEBULA: Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free (maybe someday)
STOKER: Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs
WFA: Ken Grimwood, Replay

1989
CLARKE: Rachel Pollack, Unquenchable Fire
DICK: Richard Paul Russo, Subterranean Gallery
HUGO: C. J. Cherryh, Cyteen
NEBULA: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer's War
STOKER: Dan Simmons, Carrion Comfort
WFA: Peter Straub, Koko (6 strikes and you're out -- we can see where my Golden Age ended...)

1990
CLARKE: Geoff Ryman, The Child Garden
DICK: Pat Murphy, Points of Departure
HUGO: Dan Simmons, Hyperion
NEBULA: Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu (but wish I hadn't)
STOKER: Robert R. McCammon, Mine
WFA: Jack Vance, Madouc

1991
CLARKE: Colin Greenland, Take Back Plenty
DICK: Ian McDonald, King of Morning, Queen of Day
HUGO: Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game (worst Miles book wins award; film at 11)
NEBULA: Michael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide
STOKER: Robert R. McCammon, Boy's Life
TIPTREE: Eleanor Arnason, A Woman of the Iron People
TIPTREE: Gwyneth Jones, The White Queen
WFA: James Morrow, Only Begotten Daughter
WFA: Ellen Kushner, Thomas the Rhymer

1992
CLARKE: Pat Cadigan, Synners
DICK: Richard Grant, Through the Heart
HUGO: Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar
NEBULA: Connie Willis, Domesday Book
STOKER: Thomas F. Monteleone, Blood of the Lamb
TIPTREE: Maureen McHugh, China Mountain Zhang
WFA: Robert R. McCammon, Boy's Life

1993
CLARKE: Marge Piercy, Body of Glass
DICK: Jack Womack, Elvissey
DICK: John M. Ford, Growing Up Weightless
HUGO: Connie Willis, Domesday Book
HUGO: Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
NEBULA: Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
STOKER: Peter Straub, The Throat
TIPTREE: Nicola Griffith, Ammonite
WFA: Tim Powers, Last Call

1994
CLARKE: Jeff Noon, Vurt
DICK: Robert Charles Wilson, Mysterium
HUGO: Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars
NEBULA: Greg Bear, Moving Mars
STOKER: Nancy Holder, Dead in the Water
TIPTREE: Nancy Springer, Larque on the Wing
WFA: Lewis Shiner, Glimpses
(another strikeout...)

1995
CLARKE: Pat Cadigan, Fools
DICK: Bruce Bethke, Headcrash
HUGO: Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
NEBULA: Robert J. Sawyer, The Terminal Experiment
STOKER: Joyce Carol Oates, Zombie
TIPTREE: Elizabeth Hand, Waking the Moon
TIPTREE: Theodore Roszak, The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein
WFA: James Morrow, Towing Jehovah

1996
CLARKE: Paul J. McAuley, Fairyland
DICK: Stephen Baxter, The Time Ships
HUGO: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
NEBULA: Nicola Griffith, Slow River
STOKER: Stephen King, The Green Mile
TIPTREE: Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
WFA: Christopher Priest, The Prestige

1997
CLARKE: Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
DICK: Stepan Chapman, The Troika
HUGO: Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars
NEBULA: Vonda N. McIntyre, The Moon and the Sun
STOKER: Janet Berliner and George Guthridge, Children of the Dusk
TIPTREE: Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine
WFA: Rachel Pollack, Godmother Night
(three strikeouts and you're really out?)

1998
CLARKE: Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
DICK: Geoff Ryman, 253: The Print Remix
HUGO: Joe Haldeman, Forever Peace
NEBULA: Joe Haldeman, Forever Peace
STOKER: Stephen King, Bag of Bones
TIPTREE: [a short story by Raphael Carter]
WFA: Jeffrey Ford, The Physiognomy

1999
CLARKE: Tricia Sullivan, Dreaming in Smoke
DICK: Stephen Baxter, Vacuum Diagrams: Stories of the Xeelee Sequence
HUGO: Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog (fluff)
NEBULA: Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
STOKER: Peter Straub, Mr. X
TIPTREE: Suzy McKee Charnas, The Conqueror's Child
WFA: Louise Erdrich, The Antelope Wife

2000
CLARKE: Bruce Sterling, Distraction
DICK: Michael Marshall Smith, Only Forward
HUGO: Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky
NEBULA: Greg Bear, Darwin's Radio
STOKER: Richard Laymon, The Traveling Vampire Show
TIPTREE: Molly Gloss, Wild Life
WFA: Martin Scott, Thraxas

2001
CLARKE: China Miéville, Perdido Street Station
DICK: Richard Paul Russo, Ship of Fools
HUGO: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
NEBULA: Catherine Asaro, The Quantum Rose
STOKER: Neil Gaiman, American Gods
TIPTREE: Hiromi Goto, The Kappa Child
WFA: Tim Powers, Declare
WFA: Sean Stewart, Galveston

2002
CLARKE: Gwyneth Jones, Bold as Love
DICK: Carol Emshwiller, The Mount
HUGO: Neil Gaiman, American Gods
NEBULA: Neil Gaiman, American Gods
STOKER: Thomas Piccirilli, The Night Class
TIPTREE: M. John Harrison, Light
WFA: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Other Wind

2003
CLARKE: Christopher Priest, The Separation
DICK: Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
HUGO: Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids
NEBULA: Elizabeth Moon, Speed of Dark
STOKER: Peter Straub, lost boy lost girl
TIPTREE: Matt Ruff, Set This House in Order (not SF, I thought)
WFA: Graham Joyce, The Facts of Life
WFA: Patricia A. McKillip, Ombria in Shadow

2004
CLARKE: Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver
DICK: Gwyneth Jones, Life
HUGO: Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls (How did The Curse of Chalion fail to win all of these awards?)
NEBULA: Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
STOKER: Peter Straub, In the Night Room
TIPTREE: Joe Haldeman, Camouflage
TIPTREE: Johanna Sinisalo, Not Before Sundown (US title, Troll: A Love Story)
WFA: Jo Walton, Tooth and Claw

2005
CLARKE: China Miéville, Iron Council
HUGO: Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
WFA: Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (I have it out from the library, but haven't started it.)

Was that 44 distinct books that I've read? I lost count.