Palantir

Hi Steve,Thanks for the review and the feedback. I don't know about the imagination bit. lol - blame that on the characters who keep doing and saying things which need further elaboration.

ATTUNGA PART 8. *** An hour later everyone was gathered in a Tech room at the dolphinarium, looking at images that were being beamed direct from Monkey Mia. In one window a small pod of dolphins was cruising serenely in the shallow waters near the Marine Station and in another a pair of males were hunting food on the eastern side of Shark Bay. Another section of the screen showed the position of over 700 dolphins in the bay and the adjoining Indian Ocean. There was a stunningly beautiful aeria

Bets wishes Bob!! Hope it's a great day for you.

I very much agree with W_L and Graeme on this one. It's very easy to give a general frown but when it comes to specific situations the factors can be so complex and varied that the results could range from totally negative to resoundingly positive.

Anne McCafferey at the end of last year and now an even greater icon. The imagery and brilliance of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' rushes to my mind every time I hear his name.

What an intriguing post. Just a few thoughts. I don't think there is a specific answer for the way to 'train' your hypothetical person. What might work for one person could be completely ineffective or even negative for another. - people are individuals. The answers you seek are the answers evolved by all of us as we adapt to the specific norms of all the communities we are involved in - family, friends, work,culture,interest, etc. For each person this chain of communities can be ever changing, incredibly varied and with different degrees of importance for different needs. Sometimes the answers involve acceptance, mimicry, knowledge, understanding of new ideas and sometimes there are no answers compatible with a particular person and a particular community. There was nothing cheap about Markycielo's post number 10. His idea of having opportunities which can be developed and the person adapting and evolving in their own way is far more respectful of the individual than 'training' which has a kind of dictatorial overtone to it. His idea that the hypothetical person is already normal is spot on. He points out very well that 'normal' is defined by each particular community. 'and I want to know if it's really possible to culture him without that fostering care.' You don't have to 'love' your subject but you do need to care. Are you saying the city culture is unloving/uncaring and your subject needs to be the same to fit in? If that's the case then it's the city culture that needs the 'training' and the subject should have nothing to do with it.

Best wishes Houdini. - All strength to you.

Yo Adam - a belated best wishes

ATTUNGA PART 7. *** “We're going in that?” With Gelar, they were watching the transport unit for Puck, Sonic and Flute being ferried to a space vehicle which dwarfed the transports they were used to. Thom was the first to be surprised earlier when he found he wouldn't be able to pilot, but the spectacle of this 200 meter ship had them gaping. “Yes Thom. Turaku is taking no chances with Sonic so the security AIs on Attunga and Warrakan are running the expedition today.” That was even more st

Hmm. Curious. - The Fibonacci sequence I know starts at 1 and each new number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. i.e. 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21........ I'm missing something with your explanation Michael as it just gives a series of 1's. first number is 1. the second number would be 1 squared which is still 1. And so on.

The image of H Rider Haggard's Ayesha (She Who Must Be Obeyed) commanding a terrible storm to aid her in battle lives in my mind from over fifty years ago. Thorne Smith's 'The Twilight Of The Gods' and other of his titles read in my mid teens, cemented in place a healthy disrespect for conformity. Jules Verne's 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea', read when I was seven or eight years old, was the start of a lifelong love of SciFi. The greatest impression I've had from any book occurred when I opened the pages of 'Lord Of The Rings'.

These pleonasms always bug me every time I hear them! However, like MJ85, I think many of the above are not always redundant. As well as the situation exceptions, some of them have become acceptable through common usage.

lol - and who could keep their focus on the food?

Whoo! ... I'm boggled! ...I think! And that was the layman's explanation??

The cane toads are an enormous problem here in Australia and a single day event is nothing compared to the ongoing eradication efforts. Originally they were just a problem on the east coast of Queensland iin Australia's north east, but despite the the incredible obstacles of desert and distance the poisonous critters have hopped their way right across Queensland and are threatening the Northern Territory, South Australia and there are even reports in Western Australia. One of the most bizarre methods for control that I've seen was in a National Park, where the toads were put through a meat grinder and made into sausages. The amount of toad meat was controlled so that when it was fed to native animals they'd have enough of a bad reaction to teach them to stay away from anything with a toady smell. TOAD SAUSAGE! - Gauranteed to make you sick.

ATTUNGA PART 6. *** Wirrin gave Thom and Calen his best reassuring smile and felt good when it was returned. They were all eager and excited about their implants but it was still daunting. Even standard Interweb wouldn't normally be available as implants for at least another ten years but Turaku had fast-tracked everything and these purpose-built implants were so advanced they could hardly believe they were getting them. After the meeting with Turaku, Warrigal had explained it all and then the

Thanks for posting this Tim. The response by the mum was moving and the original article was awesome (old meaning of the word).

I didn't really forget Proxima Centauri - just didn't bother about it since it's so small - just over one tenth of a solar mass. Alpha Centauri A and Aplha Centauri B are what is known as main sequence stars (same as our sun), hot enough at the centre for the hydrogen present to fuse into helium, and in the normal course of events have a life of five to ten billion years. When the hydrogen is all changed to helium a new phase starts - the core contracts but an outer shell expands from the energy of the helium being fused into carbon. This is when the star is called a red giant. When the helium runs out the outer core drifts away to become a nebula. The inner core contracts further to become a white dwarf and then when it cools, at the end of it's life it's a black dwarf. However W_L, and this is the bit that lends some credence to your theory about Alpha Centauri, there is a special type of supernova (called SN1a) which can occur when there is a binary star system (yep, that's Alpha C) where one of the stars has reached white dwarf stage. Most likely is a series of novae as material from the main sequence partner is continually fed to the outer surface of the white dwarf. Occasionally, if the accretion rate is massive, this situation resolves as a supernova. - and then BOOM!! - our earth would be cactus, as a supernova can have an effect from up to 100 light years away. (Alpha C is only 4.3 light yrs). Hopefully, five or ten billion years from now mankind might have developed some means of surviving, or even controlling, this sort of cataclysm.

As James mentioned, a star needs a mass of about eight times that of our sun before it can go supernova, so that counts out Alpha centauri.. Even the combined mass of alpha centauri A (110% solar mass) and alpha centauri B(90% solar mass) is still only a quarter of the minimum requirement for a supernova event.

Lol. The critique was fun but it played with logic to draw it's conclusion. The story stated that wicked witches were ugly. That's not the same as saying they were ugly because they were wicked - a bit like Lois Caroll and his 'I see what I eat' not meaning the same as 'I eat what I see'.

Happy Birthday DK!!!!

Great chapter - lots of excitement - tnx CJ!!!

Of course, a combination of plot and character gives the best result. But, since the voting was an either/or option I lumped for 'plot'. To me the word 'plot' is almost synonymous with the word 'story' so it's almost like asking whether you want your story to be a 'story'. The exception is where the author's message is the characters rather than what happens to them.

The meaning of the poem I'm not sure of. The effect I am. It evoked a powerful feelings of sadness and longing.

It seems to me that there is much stereotyping going on here besides just that of gender. Without knowing much more about how the family plans to cope with societal pressures I am loth to rush to judgement on them. Apparently, from what the dad says in the article, it''s the son's choice as to whether he wants to wear dresses or not. Also from the article it seems as if Sacha is currently quite happy with the situation, and if that's the case I don't see why he shouldn't stay happy. As he grows older there will be huge pressure to conform to cultural norms. I tend to think it is society which is being unnecessarily judgemental.