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NASA is another kettle of fish. Try reading The National Science Trust white paper or read the paper linked to by the phrase you used as your title. These provide the proper role of a scientific agency. If guys like James Van Allen could support the legislation (which he did) you have to think twice about why you are demanding that he launch his scientific satellites with government-owned and operated transportation services.

This sort of incentives-based policy is in the tradition of American values. It should be no surprise that such values are being eroded as the 'nation of immigrants' changes from pioneering independence to bureaucratic dependence. The use of a socialist bureaucracy to explore space is a fundamentally different experiment that other proven American approaches to expanding the resource base available to humanity.

In 1989 I was working on grassroots legislation to reform NASA's launch services policies. This led to the passage of P. L. 101-611, The Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990which required NASA to procure launch services from private vendors whenever possible. This is common sense if proper boundaries between public and private functions are to be maintained. As radical as this may sound to many who see NASA as a space transportation company, it was, in fact, Presidential policy at the time and the legislation was therefore, in fact, redundant, but bureaucratic inertia demanded separate acts by the Legislative branch to reinforce the Executive's own command structure. This legislative effort started out as an attempt to passsomething along the lines of the Kelly Act of 1925 (which formed the basis for Jerry Pournelle's recommendations first put forth by his Citizen's Advisory Council for Space Policyin 1980), but compromised when it became clear that resistance from NASA, and its contractors, to citizen involvement in space policy was so intense that serious reform would be impractical. My testimony before Congress legislative follow-up to P.L. 101-611 made recommendations for a focus onincentives for commercial investment, rather than plans or "programs". An example of incentives-based legislation, applied to fusion energy policy, was recommended for passage by Bussard, R. W., one of the founders of the US fusion program in a letter confessing some of the subterfuge to which technical leaders resorted. It is still quite relevant today given the reliance on Middle Eastern oil and problems with fission energy. The point here is that incentives are more effective in general than governmental programs.

The first settlers in America experienced enormous causalities their first years they were in America. Entire colonies were lost. The original colonies included a substantial variety of fundamentally differing approaches to settling North America. America's frontier wasn't built by a centrally controlled bureaucracy -- and there is no reason to expect such a bureaucracy will take Americans to their next frontier.

Space policy is a touchstone of American values since Americans are spiritually a pioneering culture. Let's not forget who settled the frontier, how those "immigrants" differed from later immigrants, and what sort of "program" they had to settle the new frontier.

This sort of incentives-based policy is in the tradition of American values. It should be no surprise that such values are being eroded as the 'nation of immigrants' changes from pioneering independence to bureaucratic dependence. The use of a socialist bureaucracy to explore space is a fundamentally different experiment that other proven American approaches to expanding the resource base available to humanity.

In 1989 I was working on grassroots legislation to reform NASA's launch services policies. This led to the passage of P. L. 101-611, The Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990which required NASA to procure launch services from private vendors whenever possible. This is common sense if proper boundaries between public and private functions are to be maintained. As radical as this may sound to many who see NASA as a space transportation company, it was, in fact, Presidential policy at the time and the legislation was therefore, in fact, redundant, but bureaucratic inertia demanded separate acts by the Legislative branch to reinforce the Executive's own command structure. This legislative effort started out as an attempt to passsomething along the lines of the Kelly Act of 1925 (which formed the basis for Jerry Pournelle's recommendations first put forth by his Citizen's Advisory Council for Space Policyin 1980), but compromised when it became clear that resistance from NASA, and its contractors, to citizen involvement in space policy was so intense that serious reform would be impractical. My testimony before Congress legislative follow-up to P.L. 101-611 made recommendations for a focus onincentives for commercial investment, rather than plans or "programs". An example of incentives-based legislation, applied to fusion energy policy, was recommended for passage by Bussard, R. W., one of the founders of the US fusion program in a letter confessing some of the subterfuge to which technical leaders resorted. It is still quite relevant today given the reliance on Middle Eastern oil and problems with fission energy. The point here is that incentives are more effective in general than governmental programs.

The first settlers in America experienced enormous causalities their first years they were in America. Entire colonies were lost. The original colonies included a substantial variety of fundamentally differing approaches to settling North America. America's frontier wasn't built by a centrally controlled bureaucracy -- and there is no reason to expect such a bureaucracy will take Americans to their next frontier.

Space policy is a touchstone of American values since Americans are spiritually a pioneering culture. Let's not forget who settled the frontier, how those "immigrants" differed from later immigrants, and what sort of "program" they had to settle the new frontier.

This sort of incentives-based policy is in the tradition of American values. It should be no surprise that such values are being eroded as the 'nation of immigrants' changes from pioneering independence to bureaucratic dependence. The use of a socialist bureaucracy to explore space is a fundamentally different experiment that other proven American approaches to expanding the resource base available to humanity.

In 1989 I was working on grassroots legislation to reform NASA's launch services policies. This led to the passage of P. L. 101-611, The Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990which required NASA to procure launch services from private vendors whenever possible. This is common sense if proper boundaries between public and private functions are to be maintained. As radical as this may sound to many who see NASA as a space transportation company, it was, in fact, Presidential policy at the time and the legislation was therefore, in fact, redundant, but bureaucratic inertia demanded separate acts by the Legislative branch to reinforce the Executive's own command structure. This legislative effort started out as an attempt to passsomething along the lines of the Kelly Act of 1925 (which formed the basis for Jerry Pournelle's recommendations first put forth by his Citizen's Advisory Council for Space Policyin 1980), but compromised when it became clear that resistance from NASA, and its contractors, to citizen involvement in space policy was so intense that serious reform would be impractical. My testimony before Congress legislative follow-up to P.L. 101-611 made recommendations for a focus onincentives for commercial investment, rather than plans or "programs". An example of incentives-based legislation, applied to fusion energy policy, was recommended for passage by Bussard, R. W., one of the founders of the US fusion program in a letter confessing some of the subterfuge to which technical leaders resorted. It is still quite relevant today given the reliance on Middle Eastern oil and problems with fission energy. The point here is that incentives are more effective in general than governmental programs.

The first settlers in America experienced enormous causalities their first years they were in America. Entire colonies were lost. The original colonies included a substantial variety of fundamentally differing approaches to settling North America. America's frontier wasn't built by a centrally controlled bureaucracy -- and there is no reason to expect such a bureaucracy will take Americans to their next frontier.

Space policy is a touchstone of American values since Americans are spiritually a pioneering culture. Let's not forget who settled the frontier, how those "immigrants" differed from later immigrants, and what sort of "program" they had to settle the new frontier.

STS Help agent

your wish is my command

Actually, I'd like to clarify this a bit: letters of marque and reprisal are noted in the Constitution saying the government may issue them. This article references them and explains things decently enough. Unknown to the author's article, the Declaration of Paris was signed by the United States, and in short nullifies our ability to issues letters of marque and reprisal. However, this was all in reference to maritime war law... nothing was noted that could be construed to offer protection, except perhaps against civilian networks.

You may be thinking of either of these two projects:

Sarien

Indiana Java & the Network of Doom

A 1995 lightning incident on the plane that was to become TWA 800 caused "the wheel brake temperature indicators to register full scale when the brakes had scarcely been used" Could the tile debris plasma trail have caused "Rocket Lightning" where atmospheric charges connect via an aircrafts contrail. This could lead to sensor malfunctions and cause enough wing damage for the rest to occur..

I'm so goth my black is blacker than your black. I call it "black black."

I'm so goth, I don't say "black," I say "blahhwwwkkk."

I'm so goth I have actually seriously uttered the phrase, "the darkest dark of the dark darkness."

My favourite one is a bit off topic but it has to be mentioned.. ;)

I'm so goth that bats hang little plastic me's from their ceiling.

Here, or here

I don't have a problem with this. Even if I did, the solution is simple. Once we get people there, we adapt them to the environment.

A far more realistic plan is to create a life that can live there. I imagine "big clanking replicators" : a huge factory with fairly familar machinery, all of it automated and only requiring human supervision to perform repairs. Mining machines, robotic rock haulers, nuclear power plants, smelters, presses, lathes, ect...most of the robotic tech similar to what you would find in a general motors plant. This facility would be built on the moon, remotely operated by people on earth. It would be capable of constructing the parts to build another facility (and so on). While expensive, it would be a fraction of the cost of human missions, and after enough replications be able to produce useful products.

I like this scenario (as have many people since the late 70's). Going to the Moon makes a lot more sense if you've already made the homes that people will live in. Manufacturing on the Moon is also extremely useful (and probably required) for assembly of space craft and other major projects in Earth orbit.

I understand why noone will listen to me : there's an incredible glamour about blasting off our heroes into orbit, sending a man out in space to get the job done. Hell, I want to go too. But the truth is, without all the overhead associated with minimizing the risks to said heroes a lot more could be accomplished with the same money. In addition, the new tech and perhaps even real products from space would eventually provide a real return on investment, enriching us on the ground.

I guess that depends on what you want to accomplish. As for me, my space goal is for people (and Earth-based biospheres) to live self-sufficiently in space. Even to that task, I can see the use for a large unmanned program. Discontinuing manned space exploration isn't a negotiable though that doesn't imply that NASA should itself have a manned space program.

Let me describe my thinking here. Instead of NASA holding a monopoly on manned space, use that money to fund awards for various manned and unmanned accomplishments in space. Eg, in the vein of XPRIZE. Actually, there's nothing preventing people from awarding their own prizes for these accomplishments! For example, the Bowery Award for Amateur Rocketry which preceded the CATS prize (and aside from award amounts is identical).

Granted some of these links are now repetitive, but many of the largest warehouses of ASCII art have yet to be mentioned. Listed in order of magnitude:

TEXTFILES.COM Computer Art Collection
Features a wide range of computer-oriented text-based artwork beginning with teletype (RTTY) art which predates ASCII. An archive of archives. http://www.textfiles.com/artscene/

The ACiD Artpacks Archive
Index and sorted by year. Hosts a collection of over 13 years of ASCII, ANSI, RIPscrip and other digital artwork. ftp://artpacks.acid.org/pub/artpacks/

The CHRIST Ascii Archives
Indexed and sorted by artgroup. The authoritative archive of IBM-PC and Amiga ASCII art. ftp://ftp.mimic.ca/pub/ascii/

Thuglife ASCII Art/News Portal
http://www.thuglife.org

Joan Stark's ASCII gallery
More mainstream but rich in content regarding the different facets ASCII artscenes. Unfortunately this site is constantly plagued by Geocities bandwidth caps.

Been there, done that.

You'll find this link amusing then:

The Official 2600 Doom Page

(I don't know how long that will last seeing as it's hosted at Geocities, but you can always look at it later).

Seriously, this isn't exactly something which hasn't been done before. I remember, back in the day when I had no shell access, finding cgi scripts that did this. A quick check of cgi-resources.com shows one (webrsh) dating from 1998 which looks to do a lot more than this can. As for security, as long as your webserver can't access/execute anything potentially malicious, then I doubt you have much to fear from this.

I'm a long-time Homestar Runner fan...some of my friends/family are downright addicts. My sister even talks like Strong Bad now. Here's a few tips for the unitiated.

Yes, Strong Bad's emails are the chief draw..only because they're so regularly (weekly, usually) updated--and Strong Bad is such a compelling character. A cross between Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Butthead, is how I like to think of him....in a Mexican wrestling outfit.

HOWEVER, if you're new, scroll to the bottom and start with the EARLIEST emails. There's a history and culture on this website. There are motifs and inside jokes (e.g. fhqwhgads, tape-leg, etc.) that are too precious and key to enjoying a lot of what follows. It's really worth it. I'd put the "anime" and "dragon" emails right up against "weird dream" or "flag day" any day.

In general, starting with older cartoons gives you a better sense of how things developed. But, the beauty of the website is that you're so richly rewarded for just exploring.

And while it's not that funny, look through the yearbook to learn the cast of characters.

There are MANY funny bits besides the emails. The holiday cartoons..esp. the Halloween ones, are some of my favorites. The characters dressed up in costume..often obscure pop culture figures..is hilarious. Sure, there's some duds...often they're just more strange than funny...but even these can be an enjoyable is surreal distraction.

AS FOR EASTER EGGS: They are there IN SPADES, and often as funny if not more so than the open material. Here's a decent, albeit geocities, website dedicated to uncovering them. They've found most..but even I've stumbled across some undocumented ones...

I'm really really happy for these guys that they've been slashdotted. I've bought stuff from their store to support their impressive creative talents. Just a few months ago, I made a reference to Strong Bad's emails in /. poll on blogs, but got no reply. I'm glad the mass of geekdom has caught on to H*R at last.

The times of India has more details about her background.

since the Matrix was very much inspired by another anime, Ghost in the Shell.

I'm sure some better stuff is available or will be, on the web, but at the moment it appears that RCS (reaction jets) is used down to about down to 83Km (250000 feet). At this point flight surfaces are used.for manouvering. They then do some serious braking down to 67Km (200,000 feet) killing the vertical speed. This appears to be whe the disaster ocurred.

Anti-personel launchers are (by some reports) considered inhumane (and thus illegal for warfare use). Personel rocket launchers, on the other hands have been around since at least the second world war (Allies called them bazookas. I always thought that Germans called them panzerhausers, but apparently they called them Panzerschreck.

I just did a quick Google search and apparently Nolan Bushnell is still the father of video games... since Pong was not the first video game.

Apparently we have Bushnell to thank for Computer Space, which according to this site was the "world's first arcade video game system." A variation on the PDP-11 game Space War (which as I recall just used numbers, symbols, and letters to represent characters and action... more of a prototype or an experiment than a full-fledged game that was released upon the world.)

Although this site, too, credits Pong to Bushnell, so I'm not sure how accurate this all is.

...for the sad girls in snow to be sad indeed...

Dang, I think I'm being trolled again. You're doing it gently and politely, I'll grant, but I think you're trolling all the same. That makes the second time recently for me.

I'm terribly sorry for inconveniencing you with an impression that I am trolling, however, I stand by my opinion and let you have yours. *giggle* ;-)

Have you found any? Care to share? It's not up to others to find evidence for an unconvincing case.

I'll let RedBear speak for me, as he does it much more elegantly than me. A reply to his post is also worth an extra glance. These are not evidence per se, but they are very compelling reasons to investigate further. It's better to read books about the subject than what's on the net (so much crap).

There are tons more of these little facts: It's happening all over the world in varying degrees. Crop circles have been reported in mostly barley and wheat. But, they also appear in corn, oats, oilseed rape (canola), grass, ricefields, trees, sand, and even snow. When investigators come early to an authentic ring, there are no footprints or traces of the creators, even on a rainy day with muddy ground. Many rings are made in canola, which you cannot step into without turning completely yellow, and breaking the fragile crop leaving trails into the crops. The earliest known formation was in 1647 in England (see the picture of the devil bending the crop), so it's not new of date. The microscopic structure of the plants themselves seem to have changed, which cannot be explained by conventional methods. Claims have been made that the cropgrowth are boosted (also researched). This means that many times you can see cropcircles of last year, in the new crop this year, as faint shadows because of longer crops. The genuine cropcircles also exhibits more complexity, whirls within the circles, especially in the middle. They are much more complex when you get a closer look at them.

All in all, there's alot of interesting stuff. Perhaps it's all made up of kooks and hoaxers as you seem to suggest, but I'm not that paranoid to believe such a grand conspiracy. There's too much work involved, both in design, planning and

Also, you missed the bit about keeping an open mind, even when one has a firm position/opnion. Clearly you find it difficult to believe that one can both have an opinion on topic X and an open mind on topic X. You've certainly shown that the reverse is true - one can have no opinion on a topic and a closed mind on it!! :-)

But I do have an opinion, and it is not convinced that humans are doing this. You are the one who cannot for the life of you accept the possibility of ETs or anything extraordinary. But it's typical to attack others for your own lacks..

Clearly, some of these works of art involve more than planks of wood and string, hence my reference to smart people. But I think you know this already - you were just defeating a straw man there (attacking a position I did not take).

Why would anybody with all the knowledge behind circles spend their time sweating in the long dark hours, without even being detected? What is the motive?

And let me repeat my question - which do you REALLY think is more likely? C'mon - say it! You really think it's 50-50? I don't know who did it either, but I have an opinion on the most likely explanation - do you?

50-50 of WHAT?? Crop circles are interesting, even with humans making them. When you really study them, they're impressive.

Actually you are, and that's OK! Stand firm! Express an opinion! You clearly think it's likely that I'm wrong!

How can you be wrong, when you offer no hypothesis and motive? You're just dismissing the whole thing as 'uninteresting', and that's your right..

Close! I have a negative attitude to anything non-existent. And I take a very, VERY broad interpretation of what existence means. But if it's invisible, unmeasurable, unpredictable, with no form or substance, and no effect on the world whatsoever (all in the broadest sense), then it doesn't exist.

Then in 1800, atoms and molecules didn't exist for you. They could not be measured or understood at the time, so they didn't exist, except for the "nutcracks" and "kooks" that persisted in researching what building blocks the world is made of.

Times certainly doesn't change much..

And your evidence for that assertion? Let me guess - I disagree with you, so I mustn't have done the research!

Seems so to me. The only other explanation is that you're AFRAID to find out that something fantastic really exists.

Sure I do, that's why I don't need to make stuff up.

They're not made up, you can visit crop circles yourself.

Tangent? I feel like I stepped into the middle of a different conversation.

Hint: It's to do with your dismissal attitude.

Hey - anything's possible! ;-)

If only more people actually believed that, they would be open to new discoveries.

Instead, a witchhunt is clearly taking place. Ok, some of the kooks clearly "deserves it". However, that doesn't justify a crucifiction IMHO.

is the Lost Finger

I'm reading results from searches of that site for r3mix and up to now all I've come across is people who say the author of of the R3Mix site doesn't know what he is talking about.

No proof for this criticism is given (AFAIK -- but I've only read about 4 or 5 threads on it) so it seems to be to be more of a forum vs. forum flamewar. Sort of like K5 is better than Slashdot and vice versa. Maybe what we all need is for SNUH to get involved and fix the attitudes of both groups. There's no way I will register at boards with those attitudes, though.

I'd love for anyone to point out what is incorrect on the R3Mix site. I'm prepared to defend CDs over vinyl, though, so it had better be better than that.

99% of the bitching seems to be that the r3mix setting doesn't produce the very best audio. Well, of course it doesn't! It's promoted as the best acoustical compromise between space and quality. Even if it isn't the best, the fact still remains that 256 & 320 kbits MP3 are unintelligable to the original by normal human ears, which is what the original poster wants people to know. I suppose if you have abnormal hearing you might tell the difference, you know, like you're a Ferrengi or something.

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

SUMMARY: GIBSON GUITAR CORPORATION vs. D.N. CROWE
http://stephengoldin.com/gibson/summary.html

REPORTS OF THESE DEATHS ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED
http://stephengoldin.com/gibson/reports.html

A SETTLEMENT HAS BEEN REACHED http://stephengoldin.com/gibson/

It is also useful to see how Gibson handled the acquisition of Opcode.

Gibson vs. Opcode
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/645 4/

Somewhere on the Harmony Central website are some sobering remarks on Gibson's rebranding of third-party products as Opcode. I can't find the links at the moment, but the bottom line is that the goodwill associated with Opcode trademark has been squandered; one hopes that the same fate will not befall Gibson's efforts with the Magic platform.

If only they had open-sourced Opcode's software!

Well, she might not be a KDE geek, but what about that dirty, dirty whore from the GNUWin II project?

I like the duck...

I like the duck...

Chile has Capitan Arturo Prat, General Bernardo O'Higgins, Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, and Profesor Julio Escudero as winter bases.

We also have Las Estrellas Village, complete with a School and other services.

List of winter bases in Antarctica, per country (sorry, country names are in Spanish, help yourself)

And many countries have summer bases too, which aren't listed.

Actually, radar made a big difference during the Battle of Britain.

Quote from that site: Britain had one great advantage, radar. Invented by a Scotsman, James Watson Watt, it was still rudimentary and often unreliable but it allowed Fighter Command to have a good idea of where German attacks were heading and how strong they were. It allowed the RAF to keep its planes on the ground until they were needed and then the fighter controllers would vector them in onto the attackers. It was a less than perfect system but it was the best in the world at that time, and it worked.

While they're at it why not pave the rest of the earth

Dude, I can appreciate super-kawaii MATSUURA Aya as much as the next slavering fanboy, but you want to explain how, artistically, her music is any bit superior to the worst RIAA Britney dreck?

My name is Alan Holman. I'm the head-writer of BANANA CHAN, a web-based series of anime scripts and manga with a plot which is carefully calculated, by me, to use ideas from EVERY anime. I know it seems like a lofty goal, but my innovative scripts are pulling it off quite well, and they tell a unique, compelling sci-fi story about "folding time", and about the evolution of a town and its people. I've been working on this project for more than a year, and the research which I've went through has made me an expert on anime plots -- I've read more plot summaries and scripts than anyone else on the planet!...probably. My point: If anyone is hiring people to teach these classes, don't hire a fan; instead, hire someone like me, someone who has taken the time to make a web-site like my web-site: Banana Chan. Ten episodic scripts are on the site so far, and the story will continue on February 15th. [The second manga is coming sooner.]

My name is Alan Holman. I'm the head-writer of BANANA CHAN, a web-based series of anime scripts and manga with a plot which is carefully calculated, by me, to use ideas from EVERY anime. I know it seems like a lofty goal, but my innovative scripts are pulling it off quite well, and they tell a unique, compelling sci-fi story about "folding time", and about the evolution of a town and its people. I've been working on this project for more than a year, and the research which I've went through has made me an expert on anime plots -- I've read more plot summaries and scripts than anyone else on the planet!...probably. My point: If anyone is hiring people to teach these classes, don't hire a fan; instead, hire someone like me, someone who has taken the time to make a web-site like my web-site: Banana Chan. Ten episodic scripts are on the site so far, and the story will continue on February 15th. [The second manga is coming sooner.]

My name is Alan Holman. I'm the head-writer of BANANA CHAN, a web-based series of anime scripts and manga with a plot which is carefully calculated, by me, to use ideas from EVERY anime. I know it seems like a lofty goal, but my innovative scripts are pulling it off quite well, and they tell a unique, compelling sci-fi story about "folding time", and about the evolution of a town and its people. I've been working on this project for more than a year, and the research which I've went through has made me an expert on anime plots -- I've read more plot summaries and scripts than anyone else on the planet!...probably. My point: If anyone is hiring people to teach these classes, don't hire a fan; instead, hire someone like me, someone who has taken the time to make a web-site like my web-site: Banana Chan. Ten episodic scripts are on the site so far, and the story will continue on February 15th. [The second manga is coming sooner.]

Lockpicking has become a popular non-electronic hacker sport. Some links: Sportenthusiasts of Lockpicking, Wired, more links.

The one between Communist USSR and National Socialist Germany.

I'm very confident that it will be ne next greatly insane console.

Beside my feelings do someone has sone games to sell for my pippin?

A handy resource:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7184/ guitool.html

I just whipped up a script to read a selected bit of this article in Safari, save it to an AIFF file then use iTunes to convert that AIFF file to an mp3. Listen to the result here.

Anybody remember the iCraveTV debacle?

Or.. How about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is he inhuman too now?

Or.. How about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is he inhuman too now?

When his first book Passion Play came out, I caught myself saying that "It's the best book I've read in a really long time, but that doesn't count, because I've been catching up on the classics of Science Fiction/Fantasy for the last while." Then I realized the implications of what I'd said.

Passion play occurs around the middle of what is now his 'rise and fall of magic' timeline, where magic is unleashed by the horrors of the second world war, almost overwhelms humanity (and human technology) and then subsides over a small number of generations. It concerns an empath bounty hunter in an empath-phobic world hunting the murderer of a TV religion superstar.

Resurrection Man occurs earlier on in the timeline. it's about a man who seems to have been stuck investigating his own murder.

Night Watch occurs as the magic is near it's peak, and starting to subside. It's set in the remains of Edmonton and Vancouver (Two Cities where Stuart spent a number of years) and concerns both the battle between humanity, technology and magic. It also concerns the facing of one's own demons (both figuratively and literally).

Mockingbird occurs in the deep south -- probably sometime between Passion Play and Night Watch. It seems very much a story of the society of the Rural deep south set in a world of burgeoning and misunderstood Magic.

Galveston is his most recent book. I haven't read it yet, but now that I know it's out, I'm going to go hunt for it.

Cloud's End Takes place in a universe different than the afformentioned. I've spent some time with West Coast Native elders. Clouds End has very much the feel of the stories they tell of 'dream time' -- the beginning of the world in their mythology. A world of stories and ties and world-shaping responsibilities not always welcomed by their bearers. As I read Clouds End, I pictured it starting in the fogs of the Pacific North West and moving up and down what we now know as the Fraser River.

Nobody's Son takes place in something close to a Standard Fantasy Realm, but as Stewart put it: "Everybody expects a fantasy story to have a young knight fulfilling a quest, winning the hand of a beautiful princess and taking her off to his castle where they live happily ever after(tm). My solution was to put that in the first couple of chapters, so that I could get on with the real story. It's probably the 'lightest' of his books, and a very enjoyable read.

For further information on Sean Stewart, a quick Google search provides a pretty good starting point.

Visit http://majordojo.com/fantasybooks/ for an HTML listing of the Top 100 fantasy books maintained at: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6113/top100 .html

The faq says it uses a formula that includes the number of votes "to slow down the rise and falls in the averages of the books." I'm too lazy to try to figure out the math, but the explanation looked plausible.

Two come to mind for me.

Peter F. Hamilton. I really enjoyed his Confederate Universe series. Looking at your list above you probably would too.

John Varley. Very entertaining. Also notice my sig. :)