Re: The Warm Equations

In article <v5s33t$jvjk$2@dont-email.me>,
Dimensional Traveler  <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 6/30/2024 9:25 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

On 26/06/2024 14.42, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 6/24/2024 12:01 PM, James Nicoll wrote:

In article <v5c7ij$113u3$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/23/2024 11:37 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

Interesting to note the way margins of a real-life space venture
are run:
>
Two astronauts have been stuck at the ISS for an extra two weeks,
so far, because their ride has flat tires, and it's not a crisis,
and nobody has had to volunteer to step out the airlock.

>
For those who do not know, this is a play on "The Cold Equations"
awesome incredibly sad short story:
    https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/
>

Alternatively, it's a terrible story about people with extremely
shitty pre-flight safety procedures.
>
https://reactormag.com/on-needless-cruelty-in-sf-tom-godwins-the-cold-equations/

>
There are so many stories about people sneaking on a ship that we have
created a word in the English language for them: Stowaways.

 
Did that term arise from *stories* about the concept? I was under the
impression that
it came from real, physical people sneaking on board real, physical ships.
 

I sense a *whoosh*....

In order to talk about real physical people you have to be able to tell
their stories.  This is why we make up words, to be able to tell these stories.
A good discussion of this process can be found in "How the Alphabet Was Made"
from Kipling's _Just So Stories_.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."