That would be Engrish.
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Thatâs the word I was looking forâŚ
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The author is American / Western, so no dodgy translations to blame. Itâs little things like missing words, repeated words, or incorrect information.
I blame the lack of skilled and educated human editors and/or proof-readers. Leaving everything to the computer is a recipe for disaster.
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There are plenty of skilled and educated human editors and/or proof-readers, but nobody wants to pay them.
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After watching just about all YouTube videos from Good Omens, I decided it was time to read the book. The local bookstore chain has it in stock, so off I trot. When I get there, I noticed there were two covers available: one white with Crowley and the other black with Aziraphale. Only one Crowley was left and about a dozen of Aziraphale.
I paused in reaching for the Crowley cover and decided Iâd start evening things out by picking the Aziraphale. I wonder if the availability of one cover over the other is an indicator of which of the two characters might be more interesting. Either that, or a demon in a business suit and shoes lying on his side with a glass of wine in hand was more appealing than an angel in a casual suit and sneakers (trainers, for the Brits) reading a book.
Since this is the US edition, it has an extra chapter about what happened after that fateful Saturday.
For fun, maybe Iâll get the Crowley later, just so I can have both covers because when you put them together, Crowley and Aziraphale are looking at teach other.
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Finished the Color of Magic, now busy with the Light Fantastic.
ebooks on my phone.
Paper is much more preferred though. Wish I did not sell my Pratchett books 
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Now busy with Perry Rhodan - The Third Force.
If youâre a WW fan itâs definitely worth the price, and the read. Itâs a massive book - 500+ pages - but it flows effortlessly.
Just got done with The Missing Persons League by Frank Bonham. Itâs a book I bought as a teen or earlier that went missing a while back. Either itâs in a box of books somewhere and I havenât opened that one in forever, or itâs one that my parents decided wasnât something I should be reading and they got rid of it.
If it was the latter, it was probably dad. He once denounced The Silmarillion as the ravings of a madman or lunatic. I donât know if he knew Tolkien was Catholic or that it was because he was that C.S. Lewis decided atheism wasnât for him any more, but dad didnât have to worry. I tried four times to read it and couldnât make it any further than about 20% of the way through. Maybe someday I will give it another shot.
Anyway, I bought another copy of TMPL so Iâd have at least one of it again. Itâs a young adult novel from 1976. Earthâs environment has tanked and the âsea went sour and began to foam and stinkâ. The atmosphereâs pretty bad and homes and schools have oxygen stations or canisters for those who need them. Everyoneâs in the habit of taking various pills and medicines just to survive. Some more than to just survive.
Food is, well, itâs edible. Barely. Plants and trees are getting scarce, so food is manufactured instead of grown. Itâs rationed and controlled by the state, so what youâre allowed to have is determined by what status you are assigned. Itâs a bit authoritarian because you will get a visit if something like electricity usage is out of the ordinary.
Brian Foster lives with his dad and they have ways of supplementing their diet that arenât exactly legal, but not in the ways you might think. On the one year anniversary of his mom and sister disappearing, Brian places an ad in the personals section of the newspaper, hoping that theyâd see it. For some reason, dad isnât that concerned theyâve been gone and thinks theyâll show up again.
Mom and sis arenât the only ones not around. Thereâs a whole lotta people that have gone missing. Itâs starting to get noticeable. Then thereâs the new girl in school, Heather, whoâs just a little odd.
And thus begins Brianâs search to find out what exactly is going on.
Besides being a good story, it was interesting to me because itâs another example of how people might not be able see changes in the future. Iâm not sure how far into the future beyond 1976 this is set, but Bonham assumed newspapers would still be around. After all, theyâd been one of the traditional methods of communication for over three centuries, so why wouldnât they still be around. But as we know, 1976 was right around the point computers became personal instead of industrial and business-only, and today, printed newspapers are getting scarce.
Second was the surprising thing of how the book was structured. Itâs a small paperback. Even though itâs 236 pages long, the chapters are no more than 8 pages long and the print occupies about 3"x5" of the page. I could fit a chapter on both sides of a single sheet of letter size paper. Or maybe a third side of another sheet.
How did Bonham write this to be that concise? Is it simply because it might be a simpler story, being for a young adult audience?
âHeaven and Earthâ by Ian Plimer.
A comprehensive debunking of the âclimate change is caused by CO2 that comes from human activitiesâ nonsense.
Of course the climate changes. Itâs been doing that since the planet was cool enough to have an atmosphere. There are infinitely more powerful forces changing the climate than our CO2 emissions and cow-farts.
Wind and Truth the new Brandon Sanderson book!
@Viking, maybe that book might have the answer to something Iâve wondered for a while: If an increase of as little as 2°C over a certain length of time is going to harm the environment, why donât we have environmental catastrophes when we get temperature spikes of 10° or 15° F that occur as the weather turns hot from one day to the next? I canât quite wrap my mind around how the small increase over a long time is bad but a localized short-term increase isnât.
This isnât the thread for it - and talking about climate change is a sure fire way to start a flame war[1] - so Iâll keep this very brief.
Daily fluctuations are that - big fluctuations happening quickly that appear and disappear and donât impact the environment.
Long-term, small changes can do that. Think of trees growing on mountainsides - if the weather warms up then trees can grow at higher altitudes than before. The Romans reported grape growing at altitudes where grapes do not grow now.
[1] - Pun not intended!
I think thatâs all I needed. Iâll see if a local library has it.
Whatâs really amazing is that a single degree warmer is potentially a good thing, assuming it doesnât continue, but couple degrees colder means famine across the world and utter disaster. We essentially are at or near the bottom of the temp curve for comfort and ease.
I have had enough people tell me that I have a voice that they like to listen to that Iâve done something about it.
First chapter of The Wind in the Willows gets uploaded tomorrow morning, with a new chapter to be uploaded every Friday at 6AM pacific time.
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If you know anyone who might be interested, please share the link. Also, if you know any good places to post the link, let me know. I donât want to spam anyone, but I need exposure if the channel is to get anywhere.
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Itâs a very dense read - huge amounts of information (and lots and lots of footnotes and references). Iâm up to chapter 3 and the footnote numbers are getting close to 700. I still have 2/3 of the book to go.
If you want a âlighterâ read then I suggest his follow-up book called âHow to get expelled from schoolâ. Itâs a distilled version of H&E and aimed at people with less of a science background.
Thatâs a site I havenât seen or thought about in years. Definitely on the line between funny and mean.
Iâm reading The Power Broker due to being featured on the 99% Invisible podcast. It was a big 70s look at Robert Moses, who was the unelected de facto âbuilder of New Yorkâ for decades and deserves a lot of blame for sticking with a 1920s mindset for civil engineering through to the end of his regime in the 1970s. Some interesting viewpoints as the main character started as a reformer and found out that allowing corruption was the only way to get projects done.
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I agree with them.
Where is your accent from ? (Iâm from the UK and itâs not familiar to me
although i hear many American accents from TV, movies YT etc.)