Well, this one is a toughie. What am I expected to say, Terry?
Well, how about this for a start. Computer geeks are fun to watch... for a little while.
Why would a young man with a buzz cut want to be known as Gandalf?
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And why would a kid with an afro cut identify himself with Harry Potter?
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[img]http://archive.corren.se/_internal/cimg!0/66m5cybg2rxfzi0azfw[/img]
And then Jimmy was Prince Edmund of Narnia?
Well, the Narnia series was among the extremely few Christian children's books that my relatives didn't give me, so I never read them as a kid. And when I heard of them as an adult, and I realized they were Christian books (and, moreover, that the Devil was represented by a woman, a witch), I just felt I had had it up to here with such books, so I have never read them. (And I haven't watched the movie, either.) But I googled Prince Edmund of Narnia, and I was surprised to see that there were extremely few pictures of him. There were so many pictures of Prince Caspian, but almost none of Prince Edmund. When I googled, I came across a blog, however, which said this about Prince Edmund:
Some things were off—it was difficult to portray on screen why Edmund was such an a**, and just how addicted to the Witch's Turkish Delight he was,
Hmmm!!! That doesn't seem very promising at all, Terry. Jimmy's screen name is a guy from a Christian children's book who was behaving like an a**, because he was addicted to the Witch's - the Devil's - Turkish Delight! Well, there is a 'devil' in your story too, even though he is male - Lex Luthor, of course. Will Lex manage to use, or buy, or <shudders>
enslave Jimmy? What horrible Turkish Delight will be the falldown of Jimmy? An absolutely amazing Lex-sponsored super computer?
Lex Luthor was not physically present in this part, and I don't think his name was mentioned, but the entire chapter reeked of him. Rebecca Connors, Lex's employee, is as brilliant and as naïve as only some of the best scientists can be. (What, you mean you may actually
use some of these nifty nuclear weapons we have constructed for you???) Does Lex know about her extracurricular activities with the Dangerous Boys? He must know. And so he must know that he can find and use Jimmy Olsen, and by extension, Lois Lane and Clark Kent.
And what exactly are all these whiz kids doing at Rebecca's place, then?
“We're correlating migration data for a particular species of squid, one that lives in and around the Caribbean Sea. We've got about thirty months worth of numbers to crunch through to find a pattern, and so far we're not having much luck. Either one of you two know anything about statistics?”
Wowzers. I tend to appreciate the nerdy interests some people have, but this is... almost beyond nerdy.
Clark shook his head in the negative, but Lois nodded. “I've done some work in it.”
Rebecca tilted her head to one side. “Since college?”
“I did the analysis for some of my father's grant requests.”
Morgana frowned at her. “What field?”
“Medicine.”
“Be more specific.”
“Patient recovery from surgery, use and maintenance and replacement of prosthetic limbs.”
“Current stuff?”
“He got a grant from the Superman Foundation this past spring. Some of the work I did for him I also used in my master's program.”
“You have the degree yet?”
Lois grinned. “It's a work in progress. I expect to finish by the end of next summer.”
Morgana indicated the empty chair beside her. “Sounds like a winner to me. Set it down and put it to work, hon.”
I like this. You make Lois smart and versatile, Terry.
“I hope to see a seasonal migratory pattern for the squid. I think they follow the migration of the fish they feed on, but I can't prove it yet. I also think they break away from that pattern during mating season, but once again I can't prove it.” She sipped at her ginger ale. “At least, not yet. And, if we can finish this monster sometime soon, not only would we have a high-class master's project, we could get our names in some very prestigious peer review publications.”
So that's what she is interested in. (Honestly, is she
really interested?) Ah well, she'd like to have her name published in a prestigious peer-reviewed publication. Heh. I sometimes skim through abstracts on astrophysical works like this one:
arXiv:0709.0047 (cross-list from hep-th) [ps, pdf, other]
Quantum Informational Dark Energy: Dark energy from forgetting
Jae-Weon Lee, Jungjai Lee, Hyeong-Chan Kim
Comments: revtex,7 pages, 2figures, title changed, detailed arguments added
Subjects: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Astrophysics (astro-ph); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
We suggest that dark energy is originated from quantum information erasing at the cosmic horizon. The Landauer's principle associated to the information erasing implies non-zero vacuum energy which has effective negative pressure. If this information is represented by entanglement entropy, this model reduces to the entanglement dark energy model recently proposed. It is shown that the most appropriate horizon for this model is the future event horizon and the dark energy has the form of the holographic dark energy in general. From observational data, constraints on this model are obtained. Assuming the holographic principle and no free energy gain from erasing information condition we also suggest that our universe is like an asymptotic de Sitter universe with the holographic energy parameter $d\simeq 1$.
Did you understand anything, Terry? I think I understood a tiny bit more than you, but not much!!!
Clark sketched a slight bow in return. “Pleased to meet you, Rebecca. I'm Clark Kent.”
“Hi, Clark. Are you Lois's boyfriend? You don't sound French.”
Clark almost spit out the sip of soda he'd just taken. He grabbed for a napkin and wiped his chin as he laughed. “No, no, I'm from Kansas! You must be thinking about Claude.”
“Oh, right, I remember now. You seem much nicer than Lois described Claude, too. So, how well do you know Lois?”
Clark pondered the question for a moment, long enough for Rebecca to look at him more closely. “We work together,” he finally said. “We're both reporters for the Daily Planet.”
“Uh-huh. Not that I'm trying to pry, you understand, but might you two be something more than that?”
“Yes, we are more than that.” He faced her and spoke with confidence. “We're friends.”
Rebecca nodded and smiled. “That's good. I get the feeling that Lois needs all the friends she can find.”
Gaaah. Rebecca is finding out about Lois and Clark. I don't like it much.
Lois broke in. “Rebecca, wait. Why can't you make the assumption and test it against the data?”
Gandalf blew a raspberry. “Our faculty sponsors won't let us do stuff like that, Lois. They'd cream our submission if we reported a conclusion based on an assumption.”
“But what if you find predators there when the baby squids hatch?”
Aaahh!!! Lois solved the problem.
Lois steadied herself and shook her head. “I didn't actually do anything.”
“Sure you did! You asked the right question at the right time. That's the mark of a good scientist.”
Jimmy nodded enthusiastically. “It's the mark of a good reporter, too.”
Morgana's eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “Reporter?”
“Yeah! Clark and Lois are reporters at the Daily Planet! Didn't you see the big story in the afternoon edition today?”
“About what?”
“About the carjacking ring! They broke the story and helped the police get the bad guys.” Jimmy looked around at four puzzled faces and sighed. “Look, you guys want me to get into your world, fine, but you need to at least acknowledge that mine exists.”
Nooo!!! These people that Luthor must know of are learning far too much!!
The four Dangerous Boys stared at her for a moment, then Gandalf muttered, “Swirly.”
Harry said, “Ah! Swirly!”
Rebecca's face showed alarm. “No! No way! No swirly!”
All four of them began chanting, “Swirly! Swirly! Swirly!”
Rebecca backed up. “Wait a minute. Not me! No swirly! No way, not this time!”
Well, Terry, I wasn't grossed out at all by Lois and Clark having to go to the "bathroom" - eh, dumpster - in the previous part, because that was just the call of nature. This swirly thing, however, was gross.
“Thanks. Whew! Haven't had this much fun since my high school science club made a panty raid on the girl's dorm at summer camp.”
Lois gave him a lopsided grin. “And the girls let you live?”
Jimmy laughed again. “We didn't know it at the time, but the girls were on a boxer raid in our dorm. Everybody in camp went commando the next day.”
Harry slowly reached down and put his hand under Gandalf's front chair leg, then yanked it up. But Clark was there to catch him before his shoulders and head hit the floor.
Harry hit several more keys, then spun around in his chair and crossed his arms. “I'm done too. And I bet my simulation will have a higher correlation factor than yours will.”
Gandalf stood and snarled, “That was completely unnecessary! If it hadn't been for Samwise I might have been hurt!”
Harry pointed at Clark. “He's Samwise Gamgee? Then who's the brunette with him?”
Yes, if Clark is Samwise Gamgee, then who is Lois? There aren't many female characters to choose from in the Ring Trilogy. (Anyway, Samwise Gamgee. Interesting. Samwise is the ultimate tireless and endlessly loyal enabler. Is that Clark?)
Rebecca's letter to 'J' (who's that?) was interesting, too. She seemed quite taken with Clark. She noticed that he is smart, strong and fast, and that he seemed sad.
He stopped and listened for Lana's voice. He didn't hear it, of course, but he didn't think she'd mind it if he enjoyed life a little. His heart was still hers, but he could tell that the bonds of pain and loneliness had loosened a bit. Even if he stayed single for the rest of his life – which was certainly a viable option, maybe even a probability – he wouldn't feel guilty if a pretty girl, or even an attractive woman, smiled at him occasionally.
He might even enjoy it. And, when the moment warranted it, he might consider smiling back at her.
In the end of the previous chapter, Clark spent a lot of time thinking about Lois. Here he seems to be thinking of pretty girls more generally. Did Rebecca make an impression on him?
Ann
EDIT: I've been thinking a bit more of what Lois said in this chapter, namely, that the predators gather where the baby squids hatch. So what predators will descend on the tender flesh of the Dangerous Boy's Club, Terry? Maybe the Great White Lex, Carcharodon Lexcharias?
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