Today I learned that I can exist tolerably on Zoom for about two hours and at the two-and-a-half-hour mark I suddenly want to die. I would have preferred to know this before I had to quit abruptly out of a hangout, but at least I have parameters for the next time. There is nothing to do about the fact that it does not play at all well with my preferred behavior in unstructured social groups, i.e., read in a corner and either eventually start a conversation one-on-one or kibitz or leave.
I wish my copy of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man (1953) were not in storage, especially now that the libraries are closed. I wanted to re-read it last night after discovering that in the original novel of Donovan's Brain (1940) by Curt Siodmak, not the 1953 film in which the brain meets its end by a fortuitous bolt of lightning, a catchy tongue-twister is used as a jamming device against telepathic eavesdropping. I'd encountered the device first in Bester, of course, but now I'm wondering if it originated with Siodmak or if it's as old as any idea of telepathy that works like radio.
A friend who is not on DW sent me some wholesome content of a weasel in a pair of boots.
I wish my copy of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man (1953) were not in storage, especially now that the libraries are closed. I wanted to re-read it last night after discovering that in the original novel of Donovan's Brain (1940) by Curt Siodmak, not the 1953 film in which the brain meets its end by a fortuitous bolt of lightning, a catchy tongue-twister is used as a jamming device against telepathic eavesdropping. I'd encountered the device first in Bester, of course, but now I'm wondering if it originated with Siodmak or if it's as old as any idea of telepathy that works like radio.
A friend who is not on DW sent me some wholesome content of a weasel in a pair of boots.
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