Interested parties

To me, pied-noir means Latins (mostly) who returned to uninhabitable regions of Algeria to make them agriculturally-viable again. They're more indigenous to such resettled parts of Algeria, than the Arabs and Berbers who had migrated there with their goats to denude the place. In America, "blackfeet" refer to a likewise not-quite-nomadic inhabitants of a region. Here too: how indigenous are they?

The /pol/ cartoonist Stonetoss, part Taino, has Opinions. Mostly focused on the Navajo, whom Hopi would consider "settlers"; one might also look to the transplanted Lakota and the imperial Comanche.

Geneticists could tell us. h/t Sareceni: Science.org is reporting on a partnership between geneticists and the Blackfoot. [UPDATE 4/9: here, the results.]

I see a conflict between impartial scientody and interested parties. We are assuming that the Blackfoot are virtuous and "belong" there. In rhetorical studies this is, I believe, known as Begging The Question.

Even if we weren't breaking the logical rules, suppose the fossil-fuel companies decided to bankroll their own studies.

On the marriage of 'Âisha

I went to the doctor Thursday and took a couple shots... to my immune system. I was sick as a dog that night and as dog-tired yesterday. I didn't see anything worth blogging, sufficient to surmount that rheumatism. (I may end up backdating some stuff back then anyway.) I am much better today... although a windstorm is raging outside and they're threatening to cut off my power. So: quickpoast, 'Âisha.

To recap: Jonathan A.C. Brown thinks the tradition of 'Âisha's marriage is authentic back to the Mother Of The Believers herself. Robert Spencer agrees; and why not, since if Dr. Brown did not exist, Spencer would have to invent him. Joshua J Little, not a Dr. Little at the time, argued against the 'Âisha tradition.

Little-as-Dr., having redefined Islam, now considers himself an "ex-islamophobe" and indeed an anti-islamophobe. Spencer won't permit Little to do that. Islam's motte is sura 4. If your hands possess it - and mâ is neuter - do what thou wilt.

From my experience of Spencer's attitude, if he doesn't like the man he won't approve the scholarship. And I doubt Spencer has spent much time with Little's 546 pages, any more that he's read Brown's own Canonization (which I have read, and recommend). BUT: Spencer has become (perhaps perforce) a decent judge of character. And Little has every motivation to slither around Islam's implications; why choose the life of a public 'phobe.

Back to the 'Âisha tradition, I learn that Little several years ago had written a thesis which argued for a Zubayrid origin, via the offspring of 'Urwa, especially Hishâm (we'll get to him). Whether or not 'Âisha consummated the marriage, her followers treated her as the Prophet's bride - and her allies at her peak included the patriarch Zubayr, whose sons will revive 'Umar's caliphate but from Mecca itself. That thesis earned for Little, his Master's. I had independently come to a similar conclusion, as of 2017; although of course not submitting it for peer-review. It was my position to blame 'Âisha as a politician; until 'Ali put paid to her adventure, and Mu'awiya made impossible future adventures, after which she was just an aging liar. My counter to objections that her minions made all this up would be simple: what quality of woman attracts dishonest (and violent) men. If this be impressionistic, and not remotely as scholarly as Little; as of 2017, I felt I had more important things to do.

Little's PhD thesis proposed, against Little, that Hishâm bin 'Urwa although Zubayrid became 'Iraqi. 'Âisha's nine years of age may, then, owe something to Sasanian law, which (then) was hardly more enlightened than Islam. UPDATE 9/30 Marya Harb would bring up also "the Talmud", I assume the Sasanian one.

It's... a thesis. It deserves taking seriously. That Little's mentor was Christopher Melchert should be enough for most of us.

Mirrond's Long War

I'm back on RoyalRoad, going through what Japanese would term lightnovels. I've found very few since last June as are remotely readable. But "Mirrond" seems to have a good one, in its second draught: Long War.

Browser-history tells me I started this on Tuesday, got to chapter 7 Wednesday, 12 Thursday when the autoimmune funtimes began and am "now" on 22. [As of poasting: 30.]

On its face it is an isekai-in-sci-fi, also with timeskip: like, Asimov's Pebble In The Sky. Here the MC, one Christopher Hall, has skipped onto a spaceship of exploration. The merrie men must navigate a spiral-arm controlled by Ideologies. Here we're dealing with Russel's The Great Explosion, except that Mirrond is (much) more cynical and almost-certainly hasn't read Russel.

Mirrond's prose isn't perfect, which he knows, so he's already planning a third whipthrough. His universe is vast, arguably too vast for the storyline - we'll see.

Mirrond likely would not object if you accused him of rewriting the series Andromeda, with a few anime touches and at least indirect exposure to Warhammer 40000. Yes there are catgirls. And space elves. There's in-universe reasons for their existence.

As to those BestGirls: Mirrond is not Snekguy. (Keeping in mind: Snekguy isn't always Snekguy; and anyway this post is no place to review that one's work.) Mirrond is also not MrMander: Mirrond seems to be moderately Christian, or at least in Dawkins' congregation. The ideologies which Hall approves are two or three: the small-c catholics, a democratic alliance, and a social democracy. Hall prefers the latter two but is happy to cheer the catholics if they're up for Crusade on Lovecraft patsies, slavers, and/or NSDAP LARP.

I get the impression that if Mirrond hasn't read as much Sci-Fi as I have, he's read a good deal more political-theory and criticism thereof. I haven't read Bernard Crick since college, and never read Ayn Rand beyond some essays. Unfortunately writing science-fiction for Kennedy-era moderates marks one as "alt right" in the Biden-era, so Mirrond hasn't had the accolades he deserves, for even making the attempt.

OBVIOUS BACKDATE 4/6

The flamingo

On the first of this month, we got a bird alert. An archaic patch of DNA in a "neöäve" bird chromosome looks similar in dove/pigeons and in mirandornithes - mostly flamingoes. In 2014, that patch put those in the same group. Now, it's clearer that this is just a shared genetic fossil.

Mirandornithes are now even more mirandal. As to pigeons: they're now being clumped next to the cuckoo-bustard "otidimorphs".

You have to squint at the chart to see that Galloanserae - fowl and waterfowl - had already branched out so don't count here. That goes double for the Paleognaths, which include the ostrich, almost saurian throwbacks. If I'd stopped to think about it, I might have guessed the latter were Different. It was news to me that Galloanserae were so separate from other birds however. Honestly I'd have picked the flamingo first. I suppose that's why I'm not a biologist.

I dislike the name "neoave"; besides demanding too many umlauts it mixes Greek and Latin. Novavis or neornis wil work for me. I might just stick with novave. "Novornis" might invite back that migraine from Tuesday night. Nuevavo, senhor?

Anyway the branching between flamingo and the other NewBirds happened around 65-7 Mya which was... an interesting time. As you can imagine, there's a hunt on to see what, exactly, selected this strange genetic clot amongst these particular birds.

BACKDATE 4/7 since Thursday night I was in no shape to type anything.

Satellites are liable for dumping to Earth

That Outer Space Treaty is really showing its age, as is shown in this case.

NASA, which does most of the work on the ISS, had a bum battery. The Russians didn't want it; there weren't other customers in LEO. They can't just throw that out the airlock to contribute to Kessler. Blasting it to graveyard-orbit takes too much delta-V, let alone beyond. So they pitched it downward. To Alejandro Otero's house. And through it.

You'd think the American management of ISS would take the blame for it, but you're not thinking like a stinking lawyer. By treaty / international-law, Japan owns it. Say what? - you ask; because they'd launched it from this Earth, Zimmerman is (sort of) saying.

So goes the Literalism theory, anyway. It is hardly original-intent. Imagine if Honda be liable for a corroded part in a twelve-year-old car bought from a used-car lot... or Boeing liable for United's mechanics. Nah: the last launcher of this hottest of Sudamerican tuber was... us.

NASA are acting as if they know this reading of the Treaty won't fly in Japanese court. NASA - "we" - have been blowing Otero off.

Leaving Rome to rot

If you played Sid Meier's Civilization games, you'll recall the Black Arrows. That's "corruption" - civic trade as doesn't come to you, the player. Guy de la Bédoyère has a book out Populus (so I've been alerted), citing Julius Frontinus (perhaps a Narbonian by birth) who calculated how much water went to the commons versus being diverted to the gardens of the Honestiores.

These wealthy men were not altogether Honest. Roma had the corruption-index of 28%.

So: when Frontinus? Wiki says: AD 40s sometime to 103. He had a military career pleasing-enough to the Flavian Principate that he was appointed governor of Britannia until AD 77; he had a stint in Asia AD 86. Back at Rome sweet Rome, Nerva made him the curator aquarum in AD 97. De aquaeductu is the official report.

What Frontinus is observing is the Eternal ShittyCity under Domitian. Domitian was one who put his faith in provincial Army guys... like Frontinus. Domitian first despised, then hated, the Senatorial aristocracy. I'd have thought that an "anticorruption" push would have suited Domitian fine. Frontinus actually did the homework for us. It looks much as if Domitian was tolerant of corruption of rich men in Rome, if they weren't patricians. Domitian let Rome rot.

Well... in Late Antiquity, the Empire likely would allow such rot. But Nerva and Trajan were not yet willing to give up the City.

Rex Nebular

I do have a "proper" post lined up from last weekend - Saturday in fact - but I figured it can wait one more day, given the foolish day it is. So let's talk trivial matters: the first Rex Nebular from MicroProse (preOrion)... and the last.

I bought this one on the cheap, even "at the time". There was a vidjagaym store next to the Nan's on the 59, now the delightfully-named "I-69". (You'll want to go just slightly further downtown for that sort of thing.) They specialised in stuff that was popular years before. As other purchases there go I bought Star Control 2, late in 1994, for not-much ($20 I think). The machine in question was a Tandy running Windows 3.10/.11. Rex would be one of several I got for the thing; I recall playing it not at the dorm, but at home, so probably summer '95.

I don't recall playing it much however. Spoilers ensue for anyone reading who cares.

Rex offers sex comedy in space, sticking between Sierra's and Infocom's extremes; like, PG-13. It is, basically, an attempt at Space Quest X without Wilco's (janitorial) lore. Those were the scenes in the time-travel caper of Sierra's (actual) SQ-IV back in 1991. MicroProse put this one out the following year. They thought that they could pad out "SQ-X"'s graphical Leather Goddesses homage/adaptation to a full game, and that a market existed for something like that.

For backstory the titular character is hired to pick up a macguffin at an uncharted planet; the planet's current rulers like it uncharted, so shoot down said character's ship. That planet's secret is a civil war between the sexes, not all that long back (maybe a generation ago) which the females won.

Etc etc etc, wildlife tries to kill Our Hero, two fortresses need infiltrating, Roger needs the macguffin - a vase.

When I played this back in 1995, or '94 or '96 (I don't even know) I viewed it inferior to the Andromeda Guys' effort, like a not-very-funny joke stretched too long. I remember that xes scene early on (there is one - just one); and I am pretty sure I got as far as the vehicle in the City Of Man (I won't spoil its name). Since then I'd forgotten how to solve what puzzles I'd solved, which turns out handy for replay. Honestly I forgot the very name of the game until finding it again.

Saturday evening before the vigil Mass (I know: not my holiest moment, mea-culpa), I went with the medium difficulty (why three levels?). 24 hours later I got one of the happier endings. Probably the best ending. The only ending I'll bother with. So: other observations? Um.

MicroProse, in horning in on Sierra turf with a touch of Kyrandia, seem not to have succeeded. Nobody over there (or anywhere else) mooted a sequel. Later will come a couple more games, fantasy Dragonsphere being perhaps the best-received (GOG were giving this away in the early 2010s). Very little else emitted from that side of MicroProse. The ScummVM team do allow Rex - but not Dragonsphere; it's a tossup if they will ever bother.

As to the universe-building: this is a human universe, perhaps on the H Beam Piper model of survivors from a commonwealth-collapse, if so certainly filtered through Infocom's Planetfall. The planet is not quarantined; it has quarantined itself. Everyone else has... let this happen. Maybe because future-we are to fear cooties.

The game holds that men and women are different yet not inferior/superior; the societies each side cooked up for themselves, absent each other, became dystopic. The women own tech to change sex at the genetic level; the women, here, are expert biologists, clearly too expert for their erstwhile men. The way the game handles this process is fantasy but hey, lightspeed, amirite. As Current Year goes, the game offends chiefly by asserting that even if someone could bend the genders, the transmogrified person remains that which s/he was Assigned At Birth. (Oh and there's a drag queen. He's Bruce. He doesn't pretend to be anything else. He doesn't count.)

Proofreading is poor. Graphics are... 1992; games of this time, of which we must call out SQ4 and SQ5, hit the unhappiest valley between pixelly early-Space-Quest and the cartooning of that last SQ game (yaaayyy pixelhunting). Code quality is decent, not notably buggier than a Sierra. The most player-disastrous bug is when saving the game on meeting the sea monster; so, ensure a save slightly before.

MicroProse claimed/boasted they designed away from needing to RESTORE except toward the end when multiple endings open up. To quote Dragonsphere, 'tis the thought that counts. You'll find yourself needing to remember/write numerics and if you don't, you'll be using RESTORE.

Honestly I wondered if the "good" ending was all that good. To progress, I had to allow a massacre of women, if not exactly innocent women. And then I had to destroy the mens' city. The game made me hit each where, I venture, it hurts the most. A darker slate of authors might have gone Spec Ops on me.

We'll likely not see much more in this genre which is played out. We'll likely not see much more in this universe or with this character, either. Even if someone wanted it (noone wants it) there's that horrible 2018 "Blurred Lines" decision to get through.