Christmas Story

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Below the jump. Notes:

  1. This is the free version, which I am posting, à la Sarah Hoyt, for feedback. It’s ≈6,100 words, so reading time is 15-30 minutes unless you divert to checking the math and science—which is probably something I would do if somebody else were dropping a reading assignment like this on me. If so, consider it extra entertainment value (but see #5, below). Still more entertainment value will accrue to those familiar with a certain educational establishment we should all know, if not necessarily love.
  2. The paid version will be one story in a collection that is well underway and which I hope to publish by about the end of 1Q23. I expect all the stories in that collection will be science fiction; all the ones I’ve worked on so far are. Most will (unlike this one) be alternate histories.
  3. The paid version will also have been revised and lightly edited for, among other things, internal consistency and a general … excess of Manifoldness in spots.
  4. I already have an editor. Publication will, at least initially, be for e-reader devices only.
  5. This is a work of fiction. It includes fictional devices, in the technological as well as literary sense. Attempts at explaining to me how nonexistent technologies really work may be met with “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.”
  6. Math corrections are OK, though.
  7. As no less a personage than David Goldman (“Spengler”) said about his The Quantum Supremacy: An Entertainment, if you have half as much fun reading this as I did writing it, I will have succeeded. (FWIW, I had fun reading TQS.)

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Monastic Technology, 2022

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The Carmelite Monks of Wyoming Gothic are embarked on a major stone carving project–using CNC stone carving machines.

CNC machines and robots have unlocked the ability to relatively quickly carve the intense details of a Gothic church.   Ornate pieces that used to take months for a skilled carver, now can be accomplished in a matter of days.   Instead of cutting out the beauty, using the excuse that it takes too long, thus doesn’t fit into the budget, modern technology can be used to make true Gothic in all its beauty a reality again today.  

The use of modern technologies in stone carving unlock the potential of modern youth.   Though they may be untrained in the use of a hammer and chisel, young men and women have grown up in a world of computers.   The skills they possess can now be channeled towards a higher end, the building of a church for the glory of God.

Nice description of the machine and the process for using it at their site.

At least some of the medieval monks would have heartily approved, I think–some of the orders were at the forefront of technological change in their time, especially in the use of waterpower.

 

Another One Bites the Dust…

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Or perhaps and I dearly hope, only takes a small nibble and backs off in revulsion, once the target customers for the item in question have their say. I speak of the American Girl book imbroglio. A book by an in-house writer with all the proper and up-to-the-moment proggie qualifications and sympathies has been distributed as part of toy behemoth Mattel’s American Girl brand. The book, aimed at pre-teens and tweens, openly suggests changing gender by chemical and surgical means, should they not feel comfortable in their bodies as girls. By the term girls, I mean the pre-mature of the female sex. (Honestly, looking at the picture of the author, I am not surprised at her proggie leanings. Facial piercings anything but a small hole in each earlobe for earrings now constitutes a social warning for me.) Look, puberty as it is, remains a miserable and confusing enough experience for many teens. Encouraging and enabling girls to take powerful drugs to delay puberty and have their breasts surgically removed if they are a little unhappy with the form that their bodies have or are assuming … this is not helpful. Appearing to countenance keeping parents in the dark if they do not support this chemical and surgical mutilation … even more so not-good. This development with American Girl is horrifying, but, alas, not particularly surprising, given how just about every long-time and supposedly family-friendly mass establishment such as Disney has gone all-in woke for the latest social media fad. Those fond parents and grandparents who buy American Girl merch for their daughters and granddaughters are not the least bit happy about this development not the least because it’s coming on to Christmas, where indulgent generosity is expected, not least by retail outlets hoping to make up for an otherwise bleak economic year.

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Not Just Invention, But Deployment

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…progress requires both.   An interesting article from Derek Thompson, at The Atlantic: Why the Age of American Progress Ended.

Link via Katherine Boyle at Twitter,   who also links a tweet from Tobi Lutke:

The biggest cultural problem holding us back is that society holds the production of criticism at similar importance to that of building. It isn’t. But the critics inherited the airwaves from the builders.

and adds:

Arguably critics often have more power than builders. A society that praises experts over innovators is already a dying society.

The Atlantic article is long but worth reading: I think it makes a number of important points but is also wrongheaded in some instances.

Your thoughts?