Assuming she’s not a ditz (for the sake of argument) it sounds like some con was going on.
Neither. She was approached by Space Adventures or Virgin but doesn’t remember the details because she has zero interest in space.
Would you really want to be in a highly complex spacecraft with someone who believes in magic? O_o
If she did get an offer to get put into orbit for $2 million, I’d ask if the urn is included or extra.
I don’t know if she believes in magic or not, but you’d have to agree magic has been very good for her.
Spacecraft…Witchcraft….it’s all just a craft! A broom is just a magic lifting body!
Maybe she fell off of her broom playing that goofy game, and she had a concussion?
Would you really want to be in a highly complex spacecraft with someone who believes in magic?
Poul Anderson wrote a story (I can’t remember the title) about a future society dominated by superstition, where no spacecraft was allowed to lift off without a witch on board.
The witch made sure that the pilots followed all of the required rituals, like reciting magic spells at proper times before and during flight.
There was a rationalist scientist trying to put an end to such nonsense (although, he was somewhat conflicted because the ship’s witch was really cute).
In the end, the scientist discovers he is wrong. The superstitions are conservative engineering practices, the spells are procedures that must be committed to memory, etc.
I haven’t dug up a good reference, but he wrote a novella in the 1950’s called “Superstition” that might be it.
Yep, that was it. I finally worked up the gumption to cross the room to the bookcase and check it.
Or we could consider Clarke’s Third Law which states, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I used to think that was stupid, until I saw my parents trying to send an e-mail!
I’m talking Moon-watcher touching a Monolith here.
And these were reasonably intelligent, quite capable people. My dad’s gone now, but my mother STILL gets wrapped up in ‘how’ the computer works, and that she’s afraid of breaking it. But she spreads a little chicken blood around and tacks a raccoon tail up while wearing her raccoon baculum necklace, the e-mails get magically sent!
I’ll have you know that in MY house, where a bona-fide computer engineer lives, computers run faster and more reliably if there is a rubber duck, or at least a picture of a duck, on the monitor. I’m even thinking of patenting the Computer Duck product. So there.
There are plenty of libertarian to conservative leanings in her stuff (anti big government and pro family and pro traditional education; contrast Hogwarts with the Pink Floyd video for The Wall). I used to dismiss it, but after my kid made me read them I have plenty of respect for her mindset.
The main hero of her books still comes from a broken family (dead parents) and lived with foster parents which treat him miserably. Then he leaves their house when he is still a minor. Yeah very pro family indeed.
Godzilla: I don’t think those were presented as good choices, though, by contrast with, say, the Weasleys, who were a stable(ish) family.
I’ve read that Ms. Rowling is a pretty big statist, which makes her book, which details the struggle of an anti-statist, pretty ironic.
Not everyone is interested in space. I wish that wasn’t so but it is.
I also know people who aren’t interested in medicine, in spite of having serous medical conditions. They are beyond clueless, and can’t even name their medications, let alone what they do.
However, IMHO it would behoove that sort of person to abide by the classic Chinese wisdom: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Assuming she’s not a ditz (for the sake of argument) it sounds like some con was going on.
Neither. She was approached by Space Adventures or Virgin but doesn’t remember the details because she has zero interest in space.
Would you really want to be in a highly complex spacecraft with someone who believes in magic? O_o
If she did get an offer to get put into orbit for $2 million, I’d ask if the urn is included or extra.
I don’t know if she believes in magic or not, but you’d have to agree magic has been very good for her.
Spacecraft…Witchcraft….it’s all just a craft! A broom is just a magic lifting body!
Maybe she fell off of her broom playing that goofy game, and she had a concussion?
Would you really want to be in a highly complex spacecraft with someone who believes in magic?
Poul Anderson wrote a story (I can’t remember the title) about a future society dominated by superstition, where no spacecraft was allowed to lift off without a witch on board.
The witch made sure that the pilots followed all of the required rituals, like reciting magic spells at proper times before and during flight.
There was a rationalist scientist trying to put an end to such nonsense (although, he was somewhat conflicted because the ship’s witch was really cute).
In the end, the scientist discovers he is wrong. The superstitions are conservative engineering practices, the spells are procedures that must be committed to memory, etc.
I haven’t dug up a good reference, but he wrote a novella in the 1950’s called “Superstition” that might be it.
Yep, that was it. I finally worked up the gumption to cross the room to the bookcase and check it.
Or we could consider Clarke’s Third Law which states, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I used to think that was stupid, until I saw my parents trying to send an e-mail!
I’m talking Moon-watcher touching a Monolith here.
And these were reasonably intelligent, quite capable people. My dad’s gone now, but my mother STILL gets wrapped up in ‘how’ the computer works, and that she’s afraid of breaking it. But she spreads a little chicken blood around and tacks a raccoon tail up while wearing her raccoon baculum necklace, the e-mails get magically sent!
I’ll have you know that in MY house, where a bona-fide computer engineer lives, computers run faster and more reliably if there is a rubber duck, or at least a picture of a duck, on the monitor. I’m even thinking of patenting the Computer Duck product. So there.
There are plenty of libertarian to conservative leanings in her stuff (anti big government and pro family and pro traditional education; contrast Hogwarts with the Pink Floyd video for The Wall). I used to dismiss it, but after my kid made me read them I have plenty of respect for her mindset.
The main hero of her books still comes from a broken family (dead parents) and lived with foster parents which treat him miserably. Then he leaves their house when he is still a minor. Yeah very pro family indeed.
Godzilla: I don’t think those were presented as good choices, though, by contrast with, say, the Weasleys, who were a stable(ish) family.
I’ve read that Ms. Rowling is a pretty big statist, which makes her book, which details the struggle of an anti-statist, pretty ironic.
Not everyone is interested in space. I wish that wasn’t so but it is.
I also know people who aren’t interested in medicine, in spite of having serous medical conditions. They are beyond clueless, and can’t even name their medications, let alone what they do.
However, IMHO it would behoove that sort of person to abide by the classic Chinese wisdom: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”