Posthuman Blues

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Kyle said...: Mac -

OK...I'll accept your description that I "...stick it to" Seth in the post. But in fairness, I did allow as to his competence as an astronomer!!!

Damning with faint praise perhaps, but there it is... :)

Thanks for the mention!

Kyle; 3:24 AM
Mac said...: I thought you were very fair. *Someone* needs to reign this guy in sometimes. I used "sticks it" half-jokingly. :-); 2:51 PM
Carol Maltby said...: "Rein" [cough]

Seth Shostak keeps reaching for unusual words that don't quite work.

Take "Nonetheless, every day I get e-mails from folks who suggest other reasons for our failure to pick up an alien thrum."

I know he means thrum as in the sound. But when thrum also has the meaning "Applied jocularly or contemptuously to a person (one meanly or raggedly dressed)" it sounds like he got turned down by a Zeta Reticulan crack-whore at the Star Wars cantina.

Then there is "several hundred billion suns that stud the Milky Way." I don't know that I would put "stud" anywhere near an astronomical feature named after squirting breast milk.

"short, brazen aliens" "Hardened in effrontery; shameless" as in "brazen hussies"? Or made of brass?; 11:13 PM
Mac said...: That's another thing about Seth that irks me. You can tell he thinks he's an oh-so-clever writer, but his toolbox is limited to kindergarten aliteration and stupid references like the onces you mention.; 12:48 AM

Wednesday, July 26, 2006