Call this a sticking point, but I thought Nera was either Latina or Italian-American. If she’s Italian, she could be Helen’s cousin of some degree. I think she just comes from a family of nerd and in the Narboniverse, nerds seem to have a lesser degree of weirdblindness than the population at-large.
The one hope that we have for not being reality-blind is that we read fantasy. I have a feeling that the 20% who are reality blind refuse to read fantasy and science fiction; the story is impossible, so what’s the point?
Also, it’s possible that some of us aren’t reality blind, but just haven’t seen any weird stuff.
They’re not going to follow what you’re saying at all.
They impugn and appall in the scope of their gall
As you hide in your room in disgust with the lights turned out.
Rex,
Keep in mind that SF draws people with a high weirdness threshold and to such people Lensmen, Sparks and catgirls all constitute normal.
Hmmm! Come to think of it, I suppose it’s possible to have a high weirdness threshold and still be reality blind. It’s just that the high weirdness threshold serves to both compensate for and obscure the other issue at the very same time. @_@
As humans, we are reality blind because of our limited senses. However, if the criteria is the ability to recognize wonder in everyday circumstances, 80% of the population is blind. Those of us reading Jeff’s and Shaenon’s work are probably in the less-blind? group.
Jeff, here’s a filk in honor of your taking over the writing duties during Shaenon’s well-deserved parental leave:
tune: “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” Sting, The Police, Synchronicity, 1983
I became enamored of Narbonic
So I wrote a fanfic un-laconic
Twenty parts, the art she could not finish
Though the story’s charms did not diminish
It was called “A Brief Moment of Culture”
Shaenon glommed onto it like a vulture
Thought “Now here’s a guy who’ll do my bidding
Writing Skin Horse.” Boy, she wasn’t kidding!
“He’ll be wrapped around my finger”
“He’ll be wrapped around my finger”
TV Tropes calls me “Promoted Fanboy”
That’s just Part One of my evil plan, boy
Shaenon thinks I’m her collaborator
Soon I’ll be creator, then dictator
She and Andrew think they planned this baby
But was I behind the timing? Maybe
“I’ll step in, don’t worry”—words beguile ’em
Soon I will be “Running the Asylum”
Shaenon may not like the change of leaders
‘Til she finds I’ve gained a million readers
Then she’ll know that I’m a brilliant schemer
I’ll make ev’ry character a lemur!
Good grief! Now I’m glad I didn’t submit MY fanfic! The last story arc sorta blew up my plot, anyway. So, I’m going back to re-read Narbonic (again); I’m only up to Helen twiddling her eyeglasses at Dave, so the joy is only beginning again.
ngmatt8652: I’m assuming that somehow Jonah and Nerah are going to keep ending up in these kinds of situations, despite their (or at least Jonah’s) best efforts to avoid them. If this is the case, it couldn’t hurt for them to have someone that can bring in a few assault rifles when things go wrong, even if she likely causes half the problems to start with.
Nera’s mom is probably a just a mad scientist who we haven’t seen before. The question is if and when Nera will go mad. Hopefully not in a small contained space with other people in it like say, in a car on a road trip.
Nera’s last name is Vivaldi, which certainly sounds Italian, but I’ve always pictured her as Hispanic. She looks not unlike tireless colorist Pancha Diaz, only super tall.
Also, I wonder if having a Reality Filter is genetic or just dependent in the particular person’s mindset. If both of Jonah’s parents have one and he doesn’t it would suggest the latter.
Ooh yes I forgot about Bill and the cancelled Traumatic-Event-In-Dave’s-Childhood plot point. That certainly does point to it being dependent on the psyche of the person.
Reality filters take many forms some genetic in the sense that the brain preprocess what your visual sensors pick up. Much literature on optical illusions, blind spots and additions/subtractions to viewed scenes. This last one tends have the most individual variation.
Some referential: Take the cover of a machine, people with no experience just see a formless blur. Much different than what a technician sees.
Then there’s things like flat earth and geocentrism.
Politics has pretty much made a science of exploiting peoples reality filters. Some literature on this as well.
Being a bit of a time-traveler myself, I have to unfortunately inform you that Monday’s artwork is 30% less fun than Shannon’s, at least for Skin Horse purposes… dunno how well it works in the original medium.
Man, having two parents that were weirdblind when you’re not must be uniquely frustrating in that universe.
Okay, I thought the same thing yesterday: Nera’s mother doesn’t sound like Mell, but she sure sounds like Helen. Could there be a Gamma out there?
An intriguing thought, but the Narbons are all blond.
But Davenports aren’t.
If she was a “composite” of the two, she wouldn’t be Gamma. The Anonymous Barfly presumably is a composite who happens to favor Helen.
Not quite anonymous. She’s called Rosalind.
But Rosalind’s a blond like her mother.
That would explain why she’s in to programming, considering who the father is.
Call this a sticking point, but I thought Nera was either Latina or Italian-American. If she’s Italian, she could be Helen’s cousin of some degree. I think she just comes from a family of nerd and in the Narboniverse, nerds seem to have a lesser degree of weirdblindness than the population at-large.
Man, we’re all reality blind by implication. Reality blindness should be considered a worse condition than Walton’s Disorder…
The one hope that we have for not being reality-blind is that we read fantasy. I have a feeling that the 20% who are reality blind refuse to read fantasy and science fiction; the story is impossible, so what’s the point?
Also, it’s possible that some of us aren’t reality blind, but just haven’t seen any weird stuff.
They’re not going to follow what you’re saying at all.
They impugn and appall in the scope of their gall
As you hide in your room in disgust with the lights turned out.
well, actually it only implies that you, specifically, are reality blind. You dont know what the rest of us in the comments here can see >:)
“I paint what I see, child.”
You haven’t seen any weird stuff? Ever? I wonder how you can manage that while you’re on the Internet… you must really be reality blind, then.
Rex,
Keep in mind that SF draws people with a high weirdness threshold and to such people Lensmen, Sparks and catgirls all constitute normal.
Hmmm! Come to think of it, I suppose it’s possible to have a high weirdness threshold and still be reality blind. It’s just that the high weirdness threshold serves to both compensate for and obscure the other issue at the very same time. @_@
As humans, we are reality blind because of our limited senses. However, if the criteria is the ability to recognize wonder in everyday circumstances, 80% of the population is blind. Those of us reading Jeff’s and Shaenon’s work are probably in the less-blind? group.
Jeff, here’s a filk in honor of your taking over the writing duties during Shaenon’s well-deserved parental leave:
tune: “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” Sting, The Police, Synchronicity, 1983
I became enamored of Narbonic
So I wrote a fanfic un-laconic
Twenty parts, the art she could not finish
Though the story’s charms did not diminish
It was called “A Brief Moment of Culture”
Shaenon glommed onto it like a vulture
Thought “Now here’s a guy who’ll do my bidding
Writing Skin Horse.” Boy, she wasn’t kidding!
“He’ll be wrapped around my finger”
“He’ll be wrapped around my finger”
TV Tropes calls me “Promoted Fanboy”
That’s just Part One of my evil plan, boy
Shaenon thinks I’m her collaborator
Soon I’ll be creator, then dictator
She and Andrew think they planned this baby
But was I behind the timing? Maybe
“I’ll step in, don’t worry”—words beguile ’em
Soon I will be “Running the Asylum”
Shaenon may not like the change of leaders
‘Til she finds I’ve gained a million readers
Then she’ll know that I’m a brilliant schemer
I’ll make ev’ry character a lemur!
SHUSH
DO NOT REVEAL MY SECRET PLANS
(Seriously, thanks! My own song!)
Aren’t your plans so far advanced there’s no stopping them now?
I demand a recording of Jeff singing this in his resonant baritone.
Good grief! Now I’m glad I didn’t submit MY fanfic! The last story arc sorta blew up my plot, anyway. So, I’m going back to re-read Narbonic (again); I’m only up to Helen twiddling her eyeglasses at Dave, so the joy is only beginning again.
In the mortal words of Tom Smith, “You may not have a hope in hell, but at least you’ve got a clue.”
And body organs.
Organs have rights?
No, but you currently have property rights over yours.
Property has rights… and organs are property, so doesn’t organs have rights?
Since SCOTUS gave corporations the rights of human beings, I’m going to incorporate mine.
The sapient ones, yes.
Hair dye’s not that hard to find.
I take it back, she is hands down one of WORST people to do this kind of thing with.
ngmatt8652: I’m assuming that somehow Jonah and Nerah are going to keep ending up in these kinds of situations, despite their (or at least Jonah’s) best efforts to avoid them. If this is the case, it couldn’t hurt for them to have someone that can bring in a few assault rifles when things go wrong, even if she likely causes half the problems to start with.
Is the answer to that statement “Yes”? I feel the answer is “Yes”.
The question is framed as an “or” statement, but it really should be an “and” one. So while the answer is definitely positive, it’s not quite a “yes”.
(TUNE: “Suicide is Painless” (theme from M*A*S*H), Johnny Mandel)
As Nera’s mom takes me away
To explore the USA,
My parents think that it’s OK,
And hearing that, I’ve got to say …
That Mom and Dad are clueless!
They surely couldn’t do less
To save my butt (and organs) if they tried!
There’s also Zeta which would mean the girl is part Gerbil not Latina
That’s not how Zeta usually acts. Also, Nera was talking about Foot as if she didn’t know him.
Nera’s mom is probably a just a mad scientist who we haven’t seen before. The question is if and when Nera will go mad. Hopefully not in a small contained space with other people in it like say, in a car on a road trip.
The clueless don’t know
and the clueful don’t care
Nera’s last name is Vivaldi, which certainly sounds Italian, but I’ve always pictured her as Hispanic. She looks not unlike tireless colorist Pancha Diaz, only super tall.
Find out if his organs are Wurlitzers.
Also, I wonder if having a Reality Filter is genetic or just dependent in the particular person’s mindset. If both of Jonah’s parents have one and he doesn’t it would suggest the latter.
Well, it’s been stated that Dave’s brother Bill has one of the worst cases of Reality Filter… while Dave is Dave. It’s been implied that Bill developed his RF to cope with his Dave-exposed childhood.
Ooh yes I forgot about Bill and the cancelled Traumatic-Event-In-Dave’s-Childhood plot point. That certainly does point to it being dependent on the psyche of the person.
Reality filters take many forms some genetic in the sense that the brain preprocess what your visual sensors pick up. Much literature on optical illusions, blind spots and additions/subtractions to viewed scenes. This last one tends have the most individual variation.
Some referential: Take the cover of a machine, people with no experience just see a formless blur. Much different than what a technician sees.
Then there’s things like flat earth and geocentrism.
Politics has pretty much made a science of exploiting peoples reality filters. Some literature on this as well.
Being a bit of a time-traveler myself, I have to unfortunately inform you that Monday’s artwork is 30% less fun than Shannon’s, at least for Skin Horse purposes… dunno how well it works in the original medium.
…OK, maybe he does have something to worry about after all. Organ rights? “Tests”? Is Nera’s mum a Madgirl?