Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 November 6

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November 6

Someone in ancient times predicting cars & airplanes.

I read somewhere long time ago about that some ancient philasopher or something was predicting automobiles & airplanes many hundred / thousunds of years before they were even invented!

Not in the bible btw, It wasn't that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.209.159.215 (talk) 00:59, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking of Leonardo da Vinci? Here's his car, and here's the Smithsonian's discussion about his airplane and some diagrams. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:07, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

More specifically here: Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci about helicopters. OsmanRF34 (talk) 01:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Heron of Alexandria. Count Iblis (talk) 01:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The article mentions a cart, but where's the airplane? He's no Heron, he's a penguin. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:24, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Roger Bacon? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

"It is possible that great ships and sea-going vessels shall be made which can be guided by one man and will move with greater swiftness than if they were full of oarsmen...

It is possible that a car shall be made which will move with inestimable speed, and the motion will be without the help of any living creature...

It is possible that a device for flying shall be made such that a man sitting in the middle of it and turning a crank shall cause artificial wings to beat the air after the manner of a bird's flight...

Similarly it is possible to construct a small-sized instrument for elevating and depressing great weights, a device which is most useful in certain exigencies.

It is possible also that devices can be made whereby, without bodily danger, a man may walk on the bottom of the sea or of a river...

We may read the smallest letters at an incredible distance, we may see objects however small they may be, and we may cause the stars to appear wherever we wish..." [1]

Roger Bacon, On the Marvellous Power of Art and Nature (c. 1267) AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:25, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Archytas (400 years before Heron) is reputed to have built the first aeroplane. Tevildo (talk) 01:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that our article, and now this forum have successively improved the story - from the original: "For not only many eminent Greeks, but also the philosopher Favorinus, a most diligent searcher of ancient records, have stated most positively that Archytas made a wooden model of a dove with such mechanical ingenuity and art that it flew; so nicely balanced was it, you see, with weights and moved by a current of air enclosed and hidden within it. 10 About so improbable a story I prefer to give Favorinus' own words: "Archytas the Tarentine, being in other lines also a mechanician, made a flying dove out of wood. Whenever it lit, it did not rise again. For until this . . . ." To me this sounds like an ordinary model airplane. Wnt (talk) 16:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Nostradamus refers to air combat and air travel in Quatrain 71 of Century X. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

According to: [2], [3], and [4], C10Q71 is:

 
"The earth and air will freeze so much water
when they come to venerate on Thursdays.
He who will come will never be as fair as
the few partners who come to honor him."

,

I don't see how that refers to either.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 08:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Nostra's predictions were so vague that a lot can be read into them. I could read the above quatrain as predicting the entity known as the Thanksgiving turkey. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh ye of little faith, this Nostradamus for Dummies article says it was C1 - 63 and 64. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:53, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Which does say; "People will travel through the sky, safely, over land & seas..." [5] and "At night they will think they have seen the sun, when they see the half pig man: Noise, screams, battles seen fought in the skies..." [6]. We don't seem to have invented a "half-pig man" yet. Alansplodge (talk) 13:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

No but we have been implanting porcine heart valves into man for about 50 years, and injecting diabetics with porcine insulin for longer. Not to mention the mouse with the human ear... --TammyMoet (talk) 18:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I am trustfull of you, Clarityfiend, even though I know little about the Chinese and gunpowder. Might Nosie' not have been thinking about the Middle-Ages animal trials ? --Askedonty (talk) 11:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

You have now made my morning- the trial of an egg laying rooster is perhaps the most interesting things I've come across all week (I hope the rooster was acquitted, though).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 11:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Presumably most of these "convicts" served their sentences by being served? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't seem so: " l'autorité supérieure prononçait solennellement la malédiction et l'excommunication des animaux ravageurs" ( the higher authority solemnly pronounced the curse and excommunication of the animal pests, this according to our French version of the same article ). Wonder that leaved them edible? --Askedonty (talk) 16:49, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Excommunicated? Does that mean they had at some point been baptized? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

That very objection finally came to publication ( ~1583) "Giving sentence of excommunication against vermin (...) such a sin and blasphemy who seriously want to submit for the raw excommunication of animals is just the same as if someone wanted to baptize a dog or a stone." But I'm personally certain that the severity of the claim was undue. The fact may have been that the Church was missing the proper legal term for designating her right process for a curse. --Askedonty (talk) 19:30, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

At times the medievals were saner than we are on the point. I wouldn't mind watching Tilikum (orca) get hauled out of his tank at the end of a harpoon. Wnt (talk) 16:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

There's a reason they're called killer "whales". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

According to QI the name "killer whale" is a misnomer arising from a transposition of the elements of a Spanish name meaning "whale killers" (i.e. [dolphins] that kill whales) - see Orca#Common_names. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 23:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Somebody forgot to tell that to the orcas. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

All that aside, it's safe to say that the half pig man thing is the origin of the expression "Pigs will fly". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

To get back to the original query, some revisionist Hindutva scholars argue that various modern inventions originated in ancient India, and amongst these theories is that the 'viman' would correspond to a airplane or helicopter. --Soman (talk) 23:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

see http://books.google.com/books?id=t_FttoJVFLIC&pg=PA85 "Viman Vidya. Turning to Vedic literature, in one of the Brahmanas {Satapatha Brahmana, II, 3, 3, 15) there is mention of a ship that sails heavenwards." --Soman (talk) 23:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Old Shoreham

Where is Old Shoreham, in the context of a place that formerly had a manor? Is it Shoreham-by-Sea? Google tells me that it's in Sussex, but I didn't see anything more detailed. Nyttend (talk) 01:55, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It is indeed Shoreham-by-Sea. See this article for a detailed history of the area. Tevildo (talk) 02:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

centuries

why is the 1800s the 19th century? 49.227.37.110 (talk) 04:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Work it backwards and you'll see. The years 1-100 were the first century, 101-200 would be the second, and so on. Dismas|^(talk) 05:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The same way the year 2000 was technically in the 20th century, with 2001 being the first year of the 21st century. There was no year 0 and there was no century 0. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 05:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The date reads as the "so-manyeth month of year such", not "so-manyeth a year and so-many a month". Thus, there is no year zero. The first January, would be read as the "first month of the first year". Centuries work the same. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:11, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

People always talk of the lack of Year 0 as if that's somehow a surprising thing. It's an irrelevant red herring, a furphy. If you're commencing a new sequence of things, whether it's years of a new era, or page numbers of a book, or US Presidents, or modern Olympiads, or just about anything really, who would start with anything other than 1? Sure, there's an apparent discontinuity between the BC series and the AD series, but (a) who ever said they should have been continuous, and (b) it's easy to map BC years to a number line if that's what you need for mathematical purposes. It's an entirely arbitrary convention that we call them years BC (or BCE) anyway and run the series backwards. That is at least as counter-intuitive as not having a Year 0. In any event, whether there's a Year 0 or not has no bearing on the OP's question. Even if there were a Year 0, the 1st Century would be 0-99, the 2nd Century would be 100-199, ... the 19th Century would be 1800-1899. And then we'd be having people ask "Why isn't the 19th Century the years 1801-1900, or the years 1900-1999, or the years 1901-2000?". In or out, Year 0 solves nothing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

What I mean with "centuries work the same", is that instead of "eighteen centuries and fifty years", it is read as the "fiftieth year of the nineteenth century". What I'm saying that years and centuries in terms of dates, are to be treated as names, not numbers. Like the tile of a book. You don't describe where you are in an encyclopedia as G-H and 200 pages, you read as the 200 hundredth pages of I-J. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Somebody on British TV at the Millennium celebrations said; "If you have ten cakes, you don't count the first cake as "cake zero" and the last one as "cake nine" do you?". Alansplodge (talk) 08:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Was this even much of an issue prior to the use of computers and the prominent use of 0's and 1's? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:33, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it stems from our use of "the 1970s" and "the 1980s"; if you count your decades in this way, they do indeed start with a zero and end with a nine. Alansplodge (talk) 13:30, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

And the 50s and the 40s and so on. It's a convenient reference, but it doesn't necessarily match the specific frame of years anyway. What we think of culturally as "the 60s" really didn't get cranked up until the Beatles came over and until about the time Nixon and the Vietnam War ended. So "the 60s" really ran from about 1963 or 1964 to 1974 or 1975. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:15, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

"Who would start at anything other than 1"? Musicians: see Interval_(music). They start counting at 2.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

So why did Lawrence Welk introduce the next song with, "An' a-one, an' a-two..."? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:39, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Dancers count "5-6-7-8"... --TammyMoet (talk) 18:40, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

If you think of history as a time line, there's no year 0, but there is a 0 point. Year 1 on that time line contains (retrofitting it) points for January 1 through December 31, 1 AD or CE. Year "-1", on the other side of that 0 point, contains points for January 1 through December 31, 1 BC or BCE. And so on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

For the same reason that a 21 year old is in his or her 22nd year. You get to be 21 after you have completed the 21st year. The age records how many years you have lived. History gets to be 1800 after it has completed the 18th century. Ignore the "year zero" digression. It's completely irrelevant, as Jack says. Paul B (talk) 10:49, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

In English we say, "How old are you?" In Spanish it's said as ¿Cuántos años tiene usted?, which means "How many years do you have?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:50, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

See "Off-by-one error".—Wavelength (talk) 16:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Birth ages are easy enough: people wouldn't want to say, a moment after the birth, that the baby is a minute, an hour, a week, a year old all at the same time. So they have to start at 0. The problem with centuries is that there is supposed to be something between < and >. If the date were accurately known, would Jesus have been born the year before Christ or the year after the Lord? Mathematically one expects a year "=C" separating BC and AD. Likewise, one expects a century 0 between century 1 and century -1. These being absent, the math will never work out. Wnt (talk) 17:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Not sure where you're getting the "after" from: AD is anno domini, "year of our lord". Saying that a baby is born in its first year seems cromulent. Well, kind of. Maybe not.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It makes perfect sense that while the infant is 0 years old, it is in its 1^st year. Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The article Anno Domini talks about the dispute over whether Jesus was thought to be born in AD 1 or in 1 BC. (It also mentions that He is now thought to have been born several years "BC".) Infants less than two years old are often referred to by their ages in months. If less than a month old, in weeks or days, etc. Saying that one's newborn is "0 years old" is not really useful info. And in US census, children less than one year old are often listed as things like "5/12" in the "age" column. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:39, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Not really the point I was trying to make. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:55, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts:

1) Many computer programmers like to start counting at 0, although I find this confusing, as then you get the problem that when you refer to the "1st item in the list", does this mean the one numbered 0 or 1 (with the 0 item called the "zeroth item") ?

2) This all stems from the lack of a 0 early on. Roman numerals, for example, don't normally use a zero. They wouldn't say "we have zero olives", they would say "we don't have any olives". Even today, there's still some reluctance to use zero (doesn't the second phrase sound better ?). StuRat (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

We start counting arrays at 0 so that certain convenient sums add up. Starting at 1 means you end up subtracting 1 before doing certain common kinds of processing (the underlying processing for finding elements of an array expressed in 2 or more dimensions springs to mind).  Card Zero  (talk) 18:01, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course, but then the issue comes up as to whether we should do things in a way that works best on computer, and force humans to adjust to lists starting at zero, or do them in the way that's best for humans, and make the programs adjust to us. I come down firmly on the side of humans here. We could also keep every number in binary or hex, and force everyone to use those, but we don't find that to be acceptable, either. StuRat (talk) 18:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It's different from the way floors of a building are counted in Britain isn't it? When you have climbed a flight of stairs after entering from the sidewalk, you are only on the first floor. In the US they count floors like centuries, and you would be on the second floor. Edison (talk) 21:00, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we think of it as the first floor up whereas you count the ground floor as the first floor you come to (from the pavement). We then use -1 for the first floor down. Dbfirs 23:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

This debate is so strange. It's difficult to understand why people keep repeatedly fixating on the lack of a year zero, or methods of counting floors. Its totally irrelevant to the question asked, as Jack said a while back. A lack of year zero is only relevant to whether or not the 19th century, technically, begins in 1800 or 1801. It has no bearing on why we call the 1800s in general the "19th century" (which is what the questioner asked). We call it that for the same reason that a 21 year old is in their 22nd year. And if that 21 year old lived to be 100, they would be in their 2nd century. And in the unlikely event that they lived to be 1800, they would be in their 19th century, and so on. If we designated a new-born child age "1" as soon as they were born, this would simply mean that they got to start their second century at 101 rather than 100, and their 19th at 1801. It would not alter the fact that their "1800s" in general would be their "19th century". Paul B (talk) 11:15, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

It's analogous because the same lack of "=" between "<" and ">" applies. In a scheme with Year 0, it would only be natural likewise to have the "century of Christ" after centuries BC and before centuries AD. So, for example, you might have years 0-99 = century 0, 100-99 = century 1 after the [century of] Christ, etc. Wnt (talk) 17:17, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

As with anyone's birth, there's not a "year 0", but rather a 0 point on the timeline. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:21, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I can't see how that is a relevant analogy, because the year 0 would make no difference to the logic of the terminology. The century 0-99 is still the "first century" (after whatever was deemed to be the starting event) in exactly the same way that the "first year" of a child's life is from their birth to their next birthday. Calling the first century "century zero" would be as irrational as calling the first year of a child's life "year zero". Even if one were to choose to call it that, it has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a year 0. You could call 1-100 "century zero" if you wanted to. It would make as much - or rather, as little, - sense. Paul B (talk) 17:38, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe they could have assigned a year 0, but they didn't. "They" being the inventors of the calendar. Using the 0 point as the divider between BC and AD makes total sense. Just as the point in time of your birth is "age" 0, followed immediately by an age of so many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. until you turn age 1. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Um yes. Obviously. But how is this relevant to the question? Paul B (talk) 18:56, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

If it were so obvious, there would be no need for our various articles to add the disclaimer "...because there is no year 0..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

A somewhat bizarre answer. You are not responding to any point I made, or to the question. You may as well tell me that Julius Caesar was assassinated, and if I reply "Um yes. Obviously. But how is this relevant to the question?", say "if it were so obvious, there would be no need for our various articles on Julius Caesar". Paul B (talk) 20:41, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

You lost me at the bakery. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) That's easy to get, but it's an infinitesimally small point that has no utility in any practical application. It's like insisting that we can never say "It is exactly 5 minutes past 3", because by the time it takes to say that, it's gone past that time. The best we can say is "a very short time ago it was exactly 5 past 3". Or "Some time during my saying this sentence, it will be exactly 5 past 3; but by the time I finish, it will have gone past that time". And that's hardly a recipe for world peace. It would be much more likely to induce violence in the listeners of such rubbish towards the speaker. But then, we live in violent times, so do your worst .... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this allows women to complain that their dates are "always either early or late". :-) StuRat (talk) 20:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

What is the origin of represent getting an idea by a light bulb?

Saw this in some of Pink Panther cartoons. Are there any earlier instances?--chao xian de lun zi (talk) 14:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

According to TV Tropes it originated in Felix the cat cartoons in the 1920s. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

What those two cartoon series have in common is that they are generally pantomime. So a visual cue such as a lightbulb coming on is used in place of a character saying, "I have an idea!" or "Now I get it!" Comic strips, even the ones with dialogue, have often used various symbols over the character's head to express thoughts or emotions: Question marks, exclamation marks, sometimes just a dash at an angle to indicate surprise or stress, etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:09, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

And don't forget "#%&!", etc., meaning a swear word. StuRat (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Grawlixes.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The general concept of using a symbol to represent what would normally be represented by words goes back at at least as early as 1862, when Victor Hugo sent a telegram to his publishers to ask how Les Misérables was selling. His query was, in its entirety: ?. The response was, in its entirety: !. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the charming Victor Hugo story is nonfactual. It's a variant of an earlier story, around since at least 1854, in which "0" represented no news (so I guess we can say that using a symbol instead of words goes back at least that far). Here's the story from Yankee Notions, vol. 3, p. 363 (1854): "But the shortest correspondence on record is the one between an American merchant in want of news and his London agent. The letter ran thus:  ? And the answer thus: 0 Being the briefest possible intimation that there was nothing stirring."

Thank you, dear anonymous editor. I'll pass this info on to the good folks at Talk:Victor Hugo, because it's currently mentioned in his article. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

In any case, ten years from now many children will have no idea what an incandescent light bulb is... AnonMoos (talk) 00:12, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

10 years might be a bit optimistic, as the CFLs still can't dim very well, and you must pay extra for ones that dim at all, and none of them handle cold weather and constant on/off cycles well. LEDs are still too expensive. And try warming a doghouse with either. Of course, once they do replace incandescents entirely, we might use "curly-cue" CFLs in cartoons. StuRat (talk) 00:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

It will be like using a floppy disk as a "save" icon. No one will know what a light bulb is, but they'll know it is a symbol for "getting an idea"! Adam Bishop (talk) 11:08, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Hour glasses haven't been used by most people for centuries, but we still recognise the icon. Paul B (talk) 16:27, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

There are still hourglass-shaped egg timers. When we see one of those things on-screen, we hope the total time we wait will be closer to an egg-timer than an hourglass. :( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:30, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

And I use an "hour glass" (actually a 3 minute glass) for timing moves when I play Scrabble. It's a lot less stressful than a ticking timer or a blaring alarm. StuRat (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Does Days of our Lives still use an hourglass? (And why is the "our" not capitalized?) Clarityfiend (talk) 23:38, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

"As boring as watching sand drop through an hourglass, so are the Days of our Lives." StuRat (talk) 00:05, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• The use of symbols long predates Victor Hugo, of course. In the case of the light bulb, there are historical antecedents. I would imagine this has something to do with the two primary definitions of illumination. Before electricity, probably dating to the Middle Ages at least, candles and lamps have been used as symbols of knowledge. I know oil lamps appear in the seals of certain colleges and universities. Dartmouth College's shield shows this pretty literally, depicting a book radiating light in place of the sun. --BDD (talk) 21:04, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

This recent thread discusses a medieval picture of Hildegard of Bingen being inspired by divine flames on her head - they actually look a bit like octopus tentacles which confused several editors! Alansplodge (talk) 16:48, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

... and, of course, the original image from nearly 2000 years ago was of flames of fire. Dbfirs 17:47, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

unusual spy stories?

I like spy stories but find them incredibly boring and a huge waste of time. We live in a world where there are a ton of real, better things to do. I guess that some people like nothing more than playing "games" with other people who like nothing more than doing the same. Good for them.

Are there any modern, more unusual spy stories? For example: spies who find the work boring, and switch to a more interesting civilian life? And so forth.

I mean, in peaceful times you have to be pretty crazy and a waste of brain cells to want to do nothing more than loaf around pretending to be something you're not. Any stories about this? Curiousgg (talk) 19:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The Prisoner was sick of the futility of being a spy, and the story begins when he tries to stop.

This review of The Spy: Undercover Operation suggests some amount of sarcasm about the tedious reality of spying.

The character in A Perfect Spy has a mental breakdown due to excess spying, and goes into hiding.

There are a large number of spy stories with a theme of "omigod we're all amoral"; I assume you're not interested in those.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:22, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm still stuck back at your first sentence. Why would you like something that is "incredibly boring and a huge waste of time"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I mentally added the missing words:

"I like good spy stories but find most of them incredibly boring and a huge waste of time." StuRat (talk) 21:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I read it as expressing ambivalence. I too enjoy certain boring things.  Card Zero  (talk) 22:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Can you explain how that's possible? If you're enjoying something in the moment, then at that moment it is not "boring" to you. (Unless I have lost all knowledge of the English language.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

@JackofOz:, Dunbar did it quite well. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 10:04, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

@CambridgeBayWeather:, who or what is Dunbar? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Dunbar (Catch-22) --Viennese Waltz 11:37, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. It's been a long time. I saw the movie, but the book is on a long list of books I started but never finished, because they failed the John le Carré Test. Interestingly, I've never even tried to read a le Carré novel. Since you will no doubt ask what the JLCT is unless I tell you, let me do the decent thing and tell you. He once wrote something that I absolutely resonate with: As a reader, I insist on being beguiled early or not at all, which is why many of the books on my shelves remain mysteriously unread after page 20. But once I submit to the author's thrall, he can do me no wrong (from the introduction to The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, 2004). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 16:48, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Because you have different moods, of course. Something which may be boring to you at some times is interesting at other times. Also, right before bed something exciting might tend to keep you awake. StuRat (talk) 03:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

So, when it's one of the interesting times, the fact that the same thing can be boring in other circumstances is completely irrelevant to what's happening right now. And vice-versa. Right? If something can be both boring and exciting depending on the circumstances, why would one describe it in general terms as "boring" and then have to make exceptions for the exciting times? Why not describe it as "exciting" and make exceptions for the boring times? See, this is my struggle with understanding what people mean by attributes such as "boring", "interesting", "fun" and various others. A movie, for example, can be considered thrilling on one occasion and boring another time - but the movie hasn't changed. The viewer has changed, yet they're attributing the change to the thing they're focussing on, not to themselves. Take them out of that immediate "boring" context and ask them, without any prompting, for their general thoughts about that movie, and see if they regard it as "a boring movie". They'd probably have a lot more to say first, and may never even mention the word "boring" at all. Which is an implicit acknowledgement that the so-called "boredom" they were experiencing was theirs alone and had nothing to do with the movie, and they were projecting their feeling state onto it (very appropriate). So, when I see respondents here describe some book or whatever as "great", I reinterpret that in my mind as "He liked it a lot". I might like it just as much, or even more, or it might not be my cup of tea at all and I'll abandon it after 5 pages, probably fewer. These glib attributes are just opinions, and we all know what they're worth.

Sorry, I didn't mean to derail this thread, but I really do want to understand what Curiousgg and CardZero are trying to convey. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Certainly the person's state of mind plays a role, but so does the book, movie, etc., with some being boring to most people most of the time, and some being exciting to most people, most of the time.

I'm talking about situations where a movie is considered exciting to a person on one occasion, and boring to the same person on a different occasion. The movie hasn't changed, yet the person's description of it has, and that change in description exactly matches the change in their own internal state. This blaming of the supposed agent of boredom has no connection to what I'd call "saying what you mean and meaning what you say". Hence my questions to elicit what they really meant. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:07, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I remember a TV show where a pair of dead people awaited their fates, one of them a good person and the other evil. Both were given the same "reward", a lifetime watching family vacation slide shows. To the good person, this was her idea of heaven, while to the evil person, this was his idea of hell. StuRat (talk)

There are endless humorous spy spoofs, from Our Man in Havana to Get Smart, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Austin Powers, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 00:00, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I highly recommend The Innocent by Ian McEwan as a very unusual spy fiction. If you're interested in TV shows, The Americans is excellent - it is the story of a KGB couple working undercover in Washington, and is as much about their relationship as it is about espionage. --Viennese Waltz 09:18, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Somewhat akin to The Americans was 1991 BBC series Sleepers. Sleepers is more a meditation on the state of British society (at one point an MI5 "watcher" is castigated by his boss for having been indulgent enough to expense a Burger King lunch, and later has a run-in with the altogether more sinister watchers from the DHSS), rather than really being about spies. The espionage part merely affords an outsider's perspective. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:56, 7 November 2013 (UTC)