Zagorath @ Zagorath @aussie.zone

Formerly /u/Zagorath on the alien site.

---

Read more

Posts

747

Comments

5,629

Joined

2 yr. ago

Moderating

---

Let's do a quick hypothetical. A solo traveller from De Moines, Iowa going to Disney Orlando. We'll be leaving on 28th July and returning 30th, giving us one full day at the park. I picked those dates for being approximately the cheapest option on an Expedia search for flights.

• Flights: $357 return
• Hotel (at Disney): $288
• Park entry (using the "1 Park per Day" option I got when trying to book the hotel): $823

That's $1468, before you add in even basic meals, let alone snacks and souvenirs a person is likely to want on a theme park holiday, or travel to and from the airport. And I chose there to look for dates that were cheaper. A real person might not have that option.

Connections
Puzzle #698
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪

Super easy today. Took me about a minute to solve. Struggled guessing what order to put them in though. Order I actually found them was yellow, purple, blue, green.

It's a phenomenon that has been studied by psephologists and political scientists. Ultimately, it's because IRV is a single-winner system. And single-winner systems have a strong preference for 2 party systems because at the end of the day, if one person wins, it's likely to be from one of the largest groups.

Our Senate doesn't use a single-winner system. It uses STV, which is a proportional system. Unfortunately because we only elect 6 Senators per state, there's not a lot of room to create proportionality, so there are still only a relatively small number of groups represented. Contrast with the MMP system used in New Zealand and Germany, or direct proportional systems like the Netherlands and Norway, and you get much better truly proportional results.

I don't know which has a more absurd origin story, in terms of how ridiculous it is to believe it given the history of how it started (irrespective of the actual dogmas), Mormonism or Scientology.

Not a lot here, and tomorrow is blank entirely as Mina awaits Lucy's reply. Mostly just a functional introduction to the two women, with some hints about their personalities (and the excuse for the conceit of the epistolary format), and a little more exploration of the modern technology theme.

It seems fair to compare Taiwan to Austria pre-1938, IMO. Not a perfect parallel for a variety of reasons, but a few obvious similarities exist.

Fundamentalist protestants hate Catholics almost as much as they hate Jews and Muslims.

Inb4 conservatives blame the Greens…somehow.

Well, today's is a little chunky, though much shorter than this one. But tomorrow is very short, and then there's none on the 10th, and another short one on the 11th. So it's definitely viable to get caught up before the end of the week.

Ah, the shaving scene. This really is a classic. I doubt there's an adaptation of Dracula that doesn't try to do either this scene exactly or something like it. And it's no wonder, because Stoker's writing here is so amazingly vivid and evocative.

A possibly useful note from the endnotes Maurice provides in my copy is that in Norse myth, berserkers were thought to transform into bears or wolves, similar to werewolves. (Technically, I believe, that would be berserkers and ulfsarks, but the idea is there.)

Dracula's monologue at the end here feels like it might have been an addition made quite late in the game, after Stoker decided to tie his novel into the real-world historical figure of Vlad III.

one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground...his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them

Pretty damn specific stuff about the events of Vlad's life.

It'll be a while now before we see Jonathan again. But don't worry, because tomorrow is the first time we break from book order and we get introduced to Mina and Lucy!

Connections
Puzzle #697
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨

Skill 99/99
Uniqueness 1 in 181

and strangers will frequently “fill in the blanks” with their own assumptions

Yes, but a large number of strangers with different life experiences can help cancel out any one person's personal baggage.

Read as in, with their eyes? Or how to ingest it into some other app/script? Cos I'm vaguely aware that awk can be used in some way for this, but wouldn't have a clue how.

👀

The best formatting is to add two spaces at the end of each line. Other options include to "enters" to put a blank line in between, or putting a triple backtick before and after it. But both of those other options don't look as good.

Connections
Puzzle #696
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Skill 98/99
Uniqueness 1 in 83

Just think of it as having extra time to deal with this entry before 8 May goes up.

♪ Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways. ♫ Indeed, a huge amount of that song is lifted pretty directly from this passage. "How few days...make up a century", "I seek not...mirth", "the winds breath through the casements and the battlements are broken". But earlier in the 7 May entry seems to be referenced by Fresh Blood, though that song takes place mostly later. "I am master and Boyar", and the overall theme of needing to move to England where he can blend in and be unknown. I think the extent to which Frank Wildhorn is able to lift nearly word for word from Stoker's text is a testament to the poetic quality of Stoker's writing, and fits well especially when it's Dracula whose dialogue is in this poetic style, given his age and nobility.

Ah, and again a reference to the importance of modern technology. Dracula reads a Bradshaw's Guide, a list of train timetables.

Purfleet, for reference, is in eastern London.

The song Solitary Man might reference how Dracula says he "seeks not mirth", but I think his claim not to seek "much sunshine" and "sparkling waters" is probably more relevant here, as hints as to his nature.

Yup, exactly. I'm trying to put them up at a variety of times so people who are active at different times are more likely to see it.

Posted at about 5 am AEST.