@puroandson  again, Son — oops, I didn’t respond to the bird/algorithm connection you raised.  I don’t think it’s breaking the wall — the Doctor is either talking to the Veil, or to fantasy-Clara in his mental image of the Tardis console room, or (after he gets through the asbandium wall) to the TLs through the Confession Dial, on the theory t…[Read more]

@missrori  @winston  The companions as heroes — yes, that’s the other side of the coin, isn’t it?  The Doctor turns his companions into “weapons” or at leasts into adventurers fit and willing to risk their lives to help him.  But he also, apparently not by design but by the nature of his life’s special qualities and requirements, calls out the…[Read more]

@puroandson  — Son of Puro, The combination of the Doctor and the forecast causing a problem. He was scared or nervous or frightened and then he also knew “they would kill” him (lady who boarded the young boys).

Okay, I hadn’t made that connection, thinking instead that if he originally fled Gallifrey because he was afraid that the hybrid “fore…[Read more]

@mersey  Lem is amazing — the thing about “Solaris” is that opaque and subjective as it seems, it’s been made into movies twice that I know of — it exerts some kind of pull on movie folks, but how?  I loved the first film version that I saw (Russian?), and the US one was pretty good too . . . for some reason, I tend to think of Doris Lessing’s S…[Read more]

@puroandson  @pedant   An algorithm as a sort of scientific prophecy, then?  Like, analysis of data yields a pattern that means the data will add up to or produce a certain result in future (or a result that is already coming or has come into being)?  So, a prophecy with scientific teeth to it; but not absolute certainty, so “forecast” is a rea…[Read more]

@missy  Oh, don’t get me wrong — I think the episode works brilliantly in almost every respect, but I am loathe to apply the word “perfect” to pretty much anything human-made.  I’ve gone back too many times to old “perfections” and found that what was perfect in my eyes then no longer is, now.

For the moment, two niggling objections bother me.  …[Read more]

@missy   I did some wandering through some of the fan-vids on Youtube by people using pop tunes as musical scores for their clips — there are some very good ones out there, and I expect many more have been made since.  A couple of people set their vids of 12/Clara to “King and Lionheart”, by — oh damn, what’s that group called — “Trolls and T…[Read more]

Was reading a new post-collapse UK novel called “Chimes”, can’t recall the author’s name, but it’s very well written, with an interesting concept that might be of particular interest to music enthusiasts here.  I ran out of time and returned it to the library without finishing it, but I recommend it, should people come across it.  Luckily, one o…[Read more]

@brewski  Congratulations!  Thanks for the news — good luck with it.

The music from “Heaven Sent” — what a good idea!

@pedant  Yup; those guys.  That’s them.  One worries.  (a little)

@the consulting doctor  It’s a serious issue, particularly, I think, among older writers; we actually had one of our SFWA members (that’s, Science Fiction [& Fantasy] Writers of America, our pro organization) start up a older writer’s version of the “starting out” panels that the bigger conventions run, for fans who want to get published and new…[Read more]

@theconsultingdoctor  You’re welcome!  Good luck, and have fun — writing fiction, for the most part, pays miserably, so it had better be fun in the doing.

@pedant  — Yeh, why I don’t travel much any more . . . damn werewolves, they’re everywhere!

@theconsultingdoctor   I can offer a thing a friend of mine does when she’s stuck for plot: take one of your strongest characters, by whatever standard you choose, and write yourself a letter from him or her (or it!) to you (as the story’s god) or to another character, about what’s important, what’s hoped for, and what’s feared.  Sometimes you g…[Read more]

@pedant   You’re proposing The Slaughtered Lamb as the name of the new pub?   Wow!  Bloodthirsty!  Located on a pirate coast, maybe — Penzance?  Or maybe The Regenerated Rabbit . . . ?

@puroandson  Used to be, maybe, dinner chat about the latest installment of a Dickens novel in the newspaper . . . Our PBS survived by soliciting the “support” of corporate “sponsors”, ie advertising, after Republicans in Congress cut their govt support to nearly nothing; but so far, that hasn’t ruined their programming.  Though there’s no t…[Read more]

Just realized — I’d want to go see Vienna in the 1890’s, the world my mother’s family came from (though I’d have to learn German first, though having a time machine might help with that?  Apparently I had a relative who traveled the back roads of the Empire collecting stories from villagers as part of his linguistics studies.  Interesting, t…[Read more]

Bit of a treat:

Production Notes (Steven Moffat Q&A) for Doctor Who Magazine #503: "I decided to import the best comic timing I’ve ever seen into Doctor Who on a regular basis." [Spoilers for Series 10] from gallifrey