Unutterably Silly So what are you doing RIGHT NOW?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by LazyScot

Okay. Now I've got it stuck in my mind that you are, in fact, Modesty Blaise in disguise currently involved in some thrilling adventure involving all the characters of MR....

shhh !! i'm incognito !!! (you're right about all the characters of MR being involved though...)

[pshrynk]

We're having an adventure?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

We're having an adventure?

good god, where have you been ?? you mean to tell me you haven't noticed ???

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

thanks for the explanation.

i'll add that to my list.

Created by the legendary Chuck Jones.

Here's a sample with Marvin.

For more of Chuck's work, see "What's Opera, Doc?", and an animated version os Norton Juster's wonderful "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics"
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

And I now know the value of pi to the end! Thanks! That will come in very handy as I work on my dissertation, I am sure!

If you can prove the correctness of your value of pi, far more than a dissertation awaits you.

(I liked the Fred Pohl story where it was discovered that if you calculated pi out to enough digits, you encountered a coded message placed there for anyone sophisticated enough to read it.)
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Dennis

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Created by the legendary Chuck Jones.

Here's a sample with Marvin.

Dennis

Ahhhhh, thank you. That started my day Just Right!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Created by the legendary Chuck Jones.

Here's a sample with Marvin.

For more of Chuck's work, see "What's Opera, Doc?", and an animated version os Norton Juster's wonderful "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics"
______
Dennis

acme integrating pistol ! tee hee hee ! i'll take a look at the other ones a bit later. i love norton juster (phantom tollbooth ftw !! "shh ! it goes without saying.")

[LazyScot]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

good god, where have you been ?? you mean to tell me you haven't noticed ???

"Silliness... The Final Frontier. These are the adventures of the Mobile Readership. Their on-going mission to explore strange new topics, to seek out new liseuses and new inanities, to foolingly go where no one has gone before."

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

acme integrating pistol ! tee hee hee !

"Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century" is just one of Jones' many gifts to animation. For more Acme creations, see any of the "Road Runner and Coyote" cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote buys a continual stream of gadgets from Acme in his attempts to catch the Road Runner. None, alas, work as desired...

The Road Runner cartoons showcase Jones' work as a purely visual humorist. He believed that good cartoons could be funny without dialog to explain what was going on, and proved his case handily.

i'll take a look at the other ones a bit later. i love norton juster (phantom tollbooth ftw !! "shh ! it goes without saying.")

_The Phantom Tollbooth_ is one of my favorites as well.
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Dennis

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If you can prove the correctness of your value of pi, far more than a dissertation awaits you.

(I liked the Fred Pohl story where it was discovered that if you calculated pi out to enough digits, you encountered a coded message placed there for anyone sophisticated enough to read it.)

I'm guessing that Pohl's story was written before Carl Sagan used the same premise in Contact....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I'm guessing that Pohl's story was written before Carl Sagan used the same premise in Contact....

Or I am simply misremembering the original use of that concept.

It's the sort of thing Pohl would do. Fred talks about "Gosh numbers", the fundamental constants that define our universe. "Because this value is what it is, life can exist in our universe. Gosh!" He's also had a life-long interest in number theory, seeing it as a mathematical discipline where where a sharp non-mathematician could make real contributions.
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Dennis

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by LazyScot

"Silliness... The Final Frontier. These are the adventures of the Mobile Readership. Their on-going mission to explore strange new topics, to seek out new liseuses and new inanities, to foolingly go where no one has gone before."

exactly.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

"Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century" is just one of Jones' many gifts to animation. For more Acme creations, see any of the "Road Runner and Coyote" cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote buys a continual stream of gadgets from Acme in his attempts to catch the Road Runner. None, alas, work as desired...

The Road Runner cartoons showcase Jones' work as a purely visual humorist. He believed that good cartoons could be funny without dialog to explain what was going on, and proved his case handily.

i'll take a look. they're sillier and more subversive than i expected (they remind me of the marx brothers / abbott and costello a bit).

_The Phantom Tollbooth_ is one of my favorites as well.
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Dennis

brilliant book !! i think it's even funnier as an adult, because of all the second degree humour and puns.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Or I am simply misremembering the original use of that concept.

It's the sort of thing Pohl would do. Fred talks about "Gosh numbers", the fundamental constants that define our universe. "Because this value is what it is, life can exist in our universe. Gosh!" He's also had a life-long interest in number theory, seeing it as a mathematical discipline where where a sharp non-mathematician could make real contributions.
______
Dennis

sounds like interesting reading, recommendations ?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i'll take a look. they're sillier and more subversive than i expected (they remind me of the marx brothers / abbott and costello a bit).

A lot of the old cartoons are like that. I've seen some cartoons produced during WWII as propoganda efforts that are positively surreal.

brilliant book !! i think it's even funnier as an adult, because of all the second degree humour and puns.

Yes. Enjoyable by kids and grownups, for different reasons.

sounds like interesting reading, recommendations ?

Fred has a large body of work. You might look at the "Heechee" books for good examples. The Heechee are enormously advanced aliens who have disappeared, leaving behind bits of technology man is scavenging. It appears the Heechee determined that someone/something was altering the universal constants, and dove into a cosmic hole and pulled it in after them.
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Dennis

[nekokami]

Actually, I'd also put in a kind word for Sagan's Contact. I liked it, anyway.

[LazyScot]

I've only ever seen the film version of The Phantom Tollbooth. Loved it.

Strangely, to get back on topic, without actually leaving this sidetrack, I'm now watching Picture Book: When We Were Very Young on BBC Four at the moment.