Metropolitan (Walter Jon Williams)

Metropolian is fantasy in an urban setting.

Not "urban fantasy" in a way that has anything in common with other urban fantasy -- even fantasy very different from modern romance/vampire urban fantasy, such as Jonathon Strange and Mister Norrel.

The whole planet is covered by city. Towerblocks, streets and everything else are built in geometries to enhance plasm (liquid magic) focusing. Plasm is expensive -- anyone can be a mage, but only if you're rich. The protagonist works for the heavily-bureaucratic plasm regulation authority, but has no legitimate access to plasm.

It's very much _fantasy_ even though it has the trappings of science fiction: several things are staple fantasy tropes, but ring false in a science fiction setting (even a very soft one).

Passes the Bechdel test comfortably, if not spectacularly.

Worldbuilding was great. Definitely left me wanting more, which is good.

( Quibbles )

Prescription swimming goggles replacement nose pieces

About a year ago, I got some prescription swimming goggles (Swimmi). They've been really great, it's so much better to (a) swim without constantly getting chlorine in my eyes and (b) be able to see the whole pool.

However, the nose-piece snapped a couple of times, and I used one of the spares, but it's really supposed to be for people with smaller noses.

I ordered a replacement strap and nose pieces from the same shop I bought the goggles. At the time, I thought I was being incredibly pro-active! To make a hollow laughing.

What I seem to have paid for, and got an invoice for, is replacement strap and nose pieces for the goggles I have. What I have is a replacement strap-with-eye-pieces that doesn't need nosepieces for Swimmi-2 goggles.

It seems, Swimmi-2 have completely replaced Swimmi, which has been discontinued. I admit, they're clearly better.

But also, they don't fit the existing eye-pieces, so they're not really useful to me.

Or maybe they do, and I'm just stupid at putting them together (even the old goggles were fiddly to get right).

I'm not sure if I should have checked more thoroughly. They were listed on the website when I bought them, but not now. They're clearly invoiced as "replacement nose piece", which they don't have, since Swimmi-2 don't need one.

The replacements with postage cost about £15.

What should I do?

Write it off, and keep them assuming I eventually buy some new goggles and keep the old ones as spares?

Buy new goggles now, even though I should really get another eye test first? (After all, who knows how long the last nose-piece will last?)

Send it back at my expense?

Complain, and ask if they'll refund postage in both directions, since it seems they just randomly sent me the wrong thing?

Mathematical humour

Simont: Is there a set of players each of whom plays a single win-or-lose game against each other player, where every pair of players has a third player who beat both?
Jack: *thinks*
Jack: Yes.
Simont: Not that one.

Security questions

Recently, someone was ranting again about how most "security questions" still suck.

Seriously, banks can spend millions sending out dongles to all their customers, and disabling "right click", but can't afford five minutes to brainstorm "are these questions ambiguous, insecure, and counter-productive"?

I've seen some reasonable guides for "how to do it right" online. But if you were doing it, how would you do it?

Would you have security questions at all? Is something else better?

If you did, what questions would you use?

What are the salient features? I'd say an ideal question would have: doesn't change (eg. no "what is your favourite" if it might change over time); not ambiguous (eg. don't have to guess the capitalisation); not easily googleable; not easily social-engineered; not personal or offensive[1]; not necessarily known by close relatives[2].

Other than making sure our mothers maiden names[3] and first pets names are at least 8 characters long and include both a number and a letter...

[1] This one didn't even occur to me until I saw how you can screw it up.
[2] This may be impossible, but you can at least try.
[3] For instance, is an example of a question which works great with 20th century gender roles...

Wanting more

After I've read a book, I'm often left with the feeling of wanting more.

Sometimes I think that represents a book which didn't have much happen. Lots of filler which was ok, but ultimately didn't leave an impression on me. Not enough interesting ideas, or significant plot, or interesting characters.

But often, I think it represents a REALLY GOOD book that raised lots of interesting ideas in addition to what it explored in detail. Eg. I always come out of Shakespeare saying "that was awesome, but what about..."

Email addresses in all caps

Poll #14460 Email addresses in all caps

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 34

View Respondents

If you need to fill in a form in all caps and it asks for your email address, what do you do

View Answers

Put it in all caps, my email address isn't case sensitive
15 (44.1%)

Put ti in all caps, I assume my email address isn't case sensitive though I haven't checked
5 (14.7%)

Use the correct case, on principle
18 (52.9%)

Use the correct case, my email address is case sensitive
1 (2.9%)

My email address is in upper case anyway
0 (0.0%)

My email address contains no letters
0 (0.0%)

We should treat email addresses as case insensitive because intermediate servers may not respect case
7 (20.6%)

We should treat email addresses as case insensitive because having two email addresses differing in case is obviously a mistake waiting to happen, so no one SHOULD rely on that even if it's technically allowed
16 (47.1%)

Other
2 (5.9%)