@M.A.R. aw man dude, she totally is, and discovering penicillin years in advance and one of the junior detectives creates a device for heating things with electromagnetic waves, they're so small you might call them 'micro waves' and all sorts of fun 'is this an anachronism, but maybe not?'

@Cerberus Oh, yeah, sure. (Pulling off my monocle and polishing it with my monogrammed handkerchief) I think it was Thomas Hardy who once said that a good author doesn't need to have experienced something, just have a good imagination.

Or something like that. Hardy I'm sure said it better.

You wonder maybe Greeks used to write their history more scrupulously but they also decided, nah, let's just romanticize and change everything. Hey, Herodotus

@Cerberus refreshing yes. And I think everyone should occasionally try. But I also think everyone will always fail. You can't get into another person's head. You can't copy their model of the world. Only parts of it. And which parts you pick only showcases your own biases.

@M.A.R. A new language... maybe a calendar...

@M.A.R. wait...what is that happening in?

@Mitch Exactly.

@Mitch thankfully, no, not a language, calendar is easy to forget about between all the babies dying and the end of the world, only a few names and an easy map

Have you read any Connie Willis? very Britishy, but she has a good sense of humor.

That is, writing from one's own experience can absolutely contribute something special and valuable. But so does writing not from experience.

@Mitch she does sound very British

@Cerberus People are looking for 'authenticity'.

meaning you can trust better what is said as opposed to making all that shit up.

@Mitch lolwut

@M.A.R. The rigour demanded by modern academic practice was indeed absent before, say, the seventeenth century.

Whoever says that hasn't met people. Maybe Kant.

@M.A.R. but it's legit scifi

Which doesn't mean people before that didn't produce many useful, remarkable, and thorough academic accomplishments.

mostly very-near-future realistic time travel scifi

@Cerberus Robert Boyle, I know my history

but with PG Wodehouse and Jane Austen as companions.

@RegDwigнt I wouldn't call that failure. Unless you consider writing from one's own perspective also failure.

@M.A.R. Ohh.. that reminds me of a joke.

@Mitch Perhaps some do.

@Mitch yeah yeah

I mean, the punchline is the best part

@Mitch I've also recently read Gateway

I mean, isn't that the best part of any joke?

@Cerberus I would say writing form your own perspective is the only possible success. Because only you can do that. You are uniquely qualified.

but it really is for this one joke.

Give a try, very nerdy

@M.A.R. For example! That would be your discipline, wouldn't it?

A bit randy but enjoyable.

@RegDwigнt I don't think I agree with that.

@RegDwigнt I'm not

haha

too many years of monty python

haha

@RegDwigнt how's "success" defined, from your perspective?

the joke weapon

hilarious

Why would you want to be a second-grade Mitch? Mitch already exists. And he can write from his perspective, we don't need you for that. But he can't write from yours. Only you can do that.

saw only two words of it and had to stay in the hospital for a week

@RegDwigнt I loved second grade.

But that's a story for another time.

I'm glad you asked though.

@M.A.R. in this context, we're talking about success as the opposite of failure. As in, a completely neutral term.

I'd love to see someone write from my perspective.

@RegDwigнt that assumes Mitch'd do that, but he's too busy thinking about Morgenbesser

Perhaps she's do a better job at it than I would.

@Cerberus huh. that's weird. maybe I had an aneurysm.

It could be a regional thing.

Your term being more frequently used in America.

No idea.

@Cerberus there is an uncanny-effect curve for that. They can't do it convincingly if they know too little about you, but they also can't do it convincingly if they know just a tad too much above a certain threshold.

@RegDwigнt well that's helpful. But according to most definitions, Brown's been successful. Rowling's been super successful. The books didn't need to be this idealistic, "only their perspective"

@M.A.R. oh we're definitely not talking about monetary success, I should assume.

@Cerberus Oh. DUh. 'positive' is British, 'affirmative' is American (says a quick google search)

@RegDwigнt Harry Potter books plowed awards as well AFAIK.

but whew, the whole aneurysm thing averted.

as far as that one term is concerned

@M.A.R. we're not talking about awards, either.

Anyone can get an award for anything.

And many enjoyed or pretended to enjoy Harry Potter books.

I got thirty awards for a website I made once.

Are you Rowling with excitement?

Then they asked me to put their thirty logos on it, with links to their sites.

What's the crime of winning an award compared to the crime of starting an award.

@Cerberus CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Competitions are for horses, not artists.

> bloidy bloidy bloidy wine-dark sea bing bong bong bing"

How was that? Pretty good, right?

@Mitch Ah, there you go.

Success has always had a communal aspect to it for me. And so Harry Potter books have been successful by every imaginable criteria

@Mitch It was the best thing you wrote all day. Have an Oscar.

@Mitch Wow, nobody has ever captured my emotions so very accurately.

@RegDwigнt It was the best of things I wrote all day. Hell it was the best all week.

I'M ON A ROLL

@RegDwigнt Why is that?

@Cerberus blushes

@M.A.R. well yes, so has twelve-tone music, yet you wouldn't go listen to it. Just like I wouldn't go read Harry Potter.

I was going for verisimilitude, but accuracy will do.

@RegDwigнt I haven't read HP either.

Neither have I

@Cerberus oh but I have. It's just that it was shit.

I do not call things shit for no reason. My opinions are always grounded in fact.

OK.

@Cerberus You should totally not read 5 and 6. The editors did not cut out roughly 1000 pages of adolescent whining from those two.

@M.A.R. We must be the only three people in the universe.

@Cerberus I dunno. Good question. Why can't you copy a Beethoven symphony? Why can't you paint another Picasso?

@Mitch Noted. Won't read 5 and 6.

It will always come across as fake. The harder you try.

The rest you should not read but only out of neglect.

@RegDwigнt I know! Most of your opinions are ground in shit.

It's very finely ground shit, mate.

The best in all of Glasgow.

where the crap are those when you need them.

Starring in the Emoji Movie 2.

@RegDwigнt well, if they ask me if they're successful books, I'd say hell yeah. If they say did you enjoy it about something I read, I'd say it didn't click for me. I don't think "success" has been defined with personal aspects mixed in, and a word is only as good as how you can use it to communicate with.

@Cerberus The movies are pretty good.

not the first one.

@M.A.R. yes, which is why we specifically omitted talking about any of that and did not talk about success in that sense at all.

@Mitch which one's that?

read the first book, then watch the rest of the movies. maybe substitute The Hobbit:Battle of Five Armies or The Avengers:The Cat In The Hat Strikes Back for HP The Deathly Hallows Part I

The Cat in The Hat, that monstrosity

@M.A.R. the one about a stone. HP and the Rolling Stone

@Mitch it's very en vogue to be hating on the first one now. That in itself is dishonest. They were fine movies. That got worse, not better, starting with the third. That used to be the consensus for twenty years. But now the teens are rebelling against the establishment again. So everything good is suddenly shit and everything shit is suddenly good.

@M.A.R. The books were better than the movies

@RegDwigнt wait...the books or movies?

@Mitch you were talking about movies.

JaCkSon iS OvErRaTEd

Do you need a primer on reading your own posts?

The first HP book is widely acknoledged as pretty durn good, and the first HP movie as a poor adaptation.

I have one here. Only ten easy payments of $3000.

@RegDwigнt I suppose so. I was talking about both.

@Mitch The Shining was a "poor adaptation"

@Mitch follow the gray arrows, Alice.

Wait... is there a musical coming out? That would complicate things even further.

The musical came out years ago.

Jesus.

That was the worst musical ever.

It's Jurassic history by now.

Wait, the Shining musical?

Get off my back man with your youth and shit.

@Mitch yes, "is". As in "now". And the opposite was true just a couple decades ago.

@M.A.R. NO non ono non no.

No

The HP musical.

The shining musical..that's crazy

takes notes

@RegDwigнt a couple of decades ago you guys didn't even exist

That's what I say but my mom keeps insisting otherwise.

Your dads where playing video games thinking this is the life, didn't even have a thought as to the possibility of you.

@Mitch I can imagine Nicholson singing "Let it go" while chasing the . . . Kid.

more notes

I only remember Tony.

@M.A.R. Maybe we can fit in that Hitler scene in the bunker where he's yelling at the generals.

Yeah, that scene

That's not Hitler. That's Cyd.

What?

@M.A.R. Wait...who's Tony?

@Mitch the Redrum guy helping them not get surprised and axed by Jack

oh

Dancing while smoking. How the fuck is that not a thing anymore.

The black guy also helped by being killed

@RegDwigнt war on drugs? I don't even now. TBH despite everything I'm glad that smoking has mostly been erased from my memory until every time it's brought up. When I was a kid I saw so many smokers I thought it was inevitable

Well. It is. Just try it yourself and you'll never want to stop.

The three-mouthed alien is happy before getting the keyboard

Also do they get keyboard rains over there? I thought you go and buy keyboards

I'll just wait for that poor kid to get no keyboard and say "see, now you have proof that prayers do not work". And then add "I will send a Steinway your way if you never mention religion ever again".

It's a win-win.

When ants ravage your place, you feel really upset.

@CaptainBohemian Provide them with a new route to food; once they catch on, scrub old route with soap and water.

So someone just uploaded Silent Night to MuseScore, and tagged it as an original composition of theirs, with the license saying "none; all rights reserved".

I checked their profile and they did the same to My Heart Will Go On and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Shit's hilarious.

They did set Bella Ciao to public domain. So it's not like they can't find the button or anything.

And the real kicker is that all those pieces of course already exist on MuseScore, in hundreds of incarnations for all instrumentations and skill levels, but this dude only ever writes down the melody, for piano RH solo, and that's it.

(I did let him know that he didn't write Silent Night, just in case.)