Posts by David Haywood
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I'm guessing a near mint copy of Howards End as well?
Not quite as mint as 'Jude the Obscure' -- but, you're right, read only twice, I think.
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That is just lovely David
I see that you must be a man after my own heart when it comes to the happy endings, Raymond...
I'm with Gschwendtner, I hate entropy
I can't prove it mathematically, but I'm sure that events like this generate negative entropy. I suspect there must be systems somewhere (possibly comprising Italians dropping ice-cubes into hot coffee) producing extra entropy so that dS(universe) > 0.
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"Duelling ukeleles" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
As Jolisa once suggested, we could remove the strings from our ukuleles and attempt to garrotte one another in order to settle the argument. This does seem like a reasonable way to get a definitive (and very final) answer to the A minor question, I must admit. I can easily imagine Jolisa giving my lifeless body a kick, and then saying: "Most beautiful chord in the world, that's why."
Actually, it could even spin-off into a reality TV series, where other important questions are settled via this approach.
Tim Tams vs Chit Chats being the obvious first episode.
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I play it in C, but transposing into your basso profundo cowboy G, I'd use an A minor where you've got A7.
Always with the A minor...
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I hate it when people engage in off-thread discussions, but I can't help myself here:
I am now going to dissect - in a cherishing kindly listening sense - 'Blue Smoke " more
When you do, try playing it on the piano or (better still) ukulele.
We mostly hear it played on the guitar with the chords:
Blue [G]smoke goes drifting by into the [C]deep blue sky,
And [D]when I think of home I sadly [G]sigh...But on the piano or ukulele you can play:
Blue [G]smoke goes drifting [G7]by into the [C]deep blue [A7]sky,
And [D]when I think of [D7] home I sadly [G]sigh...... which really brings up the melody. (For some reason it sounds like shit when you play these chords on the guitar -- I don't know why.)
You can do similar chord trickery in the chorus.
And (speaking... ahem... for myself) yes, please, to Ana Hato's version of 'Hine E Hine'!
Back on thread:
I love reading the resources behind novels as it's often a way to discover some great non fiction reads
There is possible danger for the novelist in this. I liked Pat Barker until I read the sources for her Regeneration Trilogy, i.e. Graves, Sassoon, etc. and realized how inferior her writing was to theirs. After reading the sources she seemed -- to employ the terminology of comparative literature -- a bit crap.
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Just quickly...
Richard: agreed (about the numbers)!
Islander: I'm gonna leap in and defend Ruru Karaitiana here. Whilst the tune to 'Blue Smoke' has echoes of 'Carolina Moon', the melody is actually (mostly) different. Try playing the melody to 'Carolina Moon' and singing 'Blue Smoke' along with it -- you'll get stuck!
And don't forget that Gracie Bloody Fields knowingly ripped off 'Hine E Hine' with her 'Now is the Hour' -- so it went both ways! (Although, from memory, the tune is also similar(-ish) to a C19th French classical piece).
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... when the sea filled with dark purple spheres...
That's the problem with Australia, can't go swimming because of all the fucken purple spheres in the water.
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Jolisa's crucifixion of the poor thief
I'll add that I actually feel very sorry for Prof. Ihimaera. And, clearly, so does Jolisa. I think "crucifixion" might be going a bit far as a description...
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I think with your calculation of the nonevent horizon David, you neglected to mention the plethora of literature previously written in other languages yet to be translated into English which may infringe the copyright of works as yet unwritten.
Ha! Because the English dictionary is bigger than other languages that's already taken into account.
But please note that it's only a rough upper bound -- the actual number will be much lower. I only jokingly mentioned it because you sometimes hear this sentiment from students: "there are only x ways to write a sentence, so I *have* to plagiarize."
To calculate the real value you'd also (of course) need to include the grammatical structure of the language, narrative sense, etc. Although, happily, many modern novelists have dispensed with these things, which makes the calculation a little easier.
My lovely wife (a linguist) speculates that it would be possible to develop a language in which there is only one grammatically correct way to write a 100,000 word novel.
I'll mail a chocolate fish to anyone who can do this. And another, of course, to anyone who can incorporate grammar and narrative sense into the event horizon calculation for literature.
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If every second or third hole they dig turns up something nasty, at what point can they be sure that they have discovered everything that is there to be found...
Okay, my statistical knowledge is very basic (of the "I sample n widgets from the production line and x amount are flawed -- what's my failure rate?" type).
But I think this is a straightforward problem.
1. Count up the number of plagiarized sentences on a sample of pages from the novel. Say, sample every 50th page.
2. Look at the variance of your sample pages.
3. If the variance is too high then go back and re-sample at a higher rate of pages, e.g. once every 25th page.
4. If the variance is reasonable then a good estimate of your answer is the mean number of plagiarized sentences per page multiplied by the number of pages in the book (I think you can assume that the pool of plagiarizable sentences can be approximated by infinity, in this case). E.g. if you sample every 50th page in a 500-page book, and find an average of 5 plagiarisms per page, then you can estimate the total number in the book as 5 * 500 = 2500.
The trick depends on knowing what's "too high" or "reasonable" in terms of variance for the type of distribution.
Surely we have a proper statistician in the house? Dr Goodger?
The other trick, of course, is finding someone with OCD to do the counting if the sample rate starts to get a bit high.
P.S. Not that you'd be completely sure using this approach -- just reasonably sure.
Edit: stupid mistake in first version of this post -- typing with toddler on knee watching TMBG videos in another window of my computer.