Today only: Buffy 70% off, Angel 61% off

If you've ever wanted the complete series of Buffy or Angel, today is apparently a good day to do it:

Buffy:

Angel:

Good fracking God it's been a while since I posted something interesting, hasn't it?

I haven't been keeping up on my reading like I should (the deconstructions of both Fred Clark and Ana Mardoll have gone woefully unread, and thus inspired no fiction), I have been having a life in the place known as real life which takes time away from internet pursuits.  I've also been in a dry spell writing-wise anyway meaning even when I do have the time words: they are not coming.

Had a dream on time travel, still trying to unravel the rules it followed to see if there's anything salvageable.  Bad guy was the Queen of England who favored a form of time travel that involved putting your present consciousness in your passed body (and could also be adapted to the non-time travel act of bringing your past body to your present consciousness (de-aging) thus allowing for effective immortality.)

This (the time travel) was considered absurdly reckless by the good guys who were forced to work in the exact same spot as the Queen of England's people lest they tip their hand that they knew she was evil and start a time travel war instead of the much less destructive spying and counter-moves that existed.  The reason it was considered reckless is that bodily traveling into the past allowed one to do what they intended and step out of the way, allowing historical inertia to guide things onto a not-completely different path.  Changes could be small and controllable.  On the other hand putting your present consciousness into your past body doesn't allow for getting out of the way and letting history take over.  You're in that body reliving events and unless you do everything exactly the same except for the one thing you wanted to change, you'll be constantly knocking history off course.  It might not be that bad, but it likely will because it results in a constant history breaking force thus preventing inertia from ever taking over.

Also, for some reason, it didn't change the time from whence you left all at once.  (Yes, that makes no sense, ask me about A Sound of Thunder, the movie with Edward Burns not the short story, some time.)  There would be a rolling series of changes that made it so those in the time you left were never sure if they were in a stable timeline or about to be erased as the changes continued.

Amazon Deal of the Week: Star Trek the Complete Series (whichever one you want) 54 to 67% off.

Ok, The Original Series 54% off:

The Next Generation 61% off:

Deep Space Nine 61% off:

Voyager 67% off:

Enterprise 56% off:

(Don't blame me for the crappy quality of the images, that's not handled on my end.)

More computer updates (some even good)

Secondary computer has had a successful screen transplant and is now as functional as it was before it was stepped on. Yay.

The problem is that secondary computer, and tertiary computer, as useful as they are in their own right, are not up to the task of being primary computer.  They simply aren't.  Unfortunately primary computer doesn't seem to be either.  It's on a steady decline.  Most recently it's stopped accepting charge. Computers don't work without power but all is not lost.  I have a computer of the same model that I got for parts; Right now it has become a battery charger for primary.

But the fact remains: at some point I am going to need a new computer.  One not as old as secondary and not a netbook-like tertiary.  (Other than the wireless going out tertiary has been the only computer without significant problems. It's also, unfortunately, the only one without a DVD/CD drive and has less power than a regular laptop of equivalent age.  It is, none the less, very useful.)

The problem with needing a new computer is this: money.

Even with a couple of quite generous donations (thank you) if I throw in all of my savings I'm only about half way toward paying for my tooth.  So I need the money for the rest of paying for the tooth before I can say I have zero, rather than negative, money to spend on a new laptop.  A good laptop isn't cheap.  Hell, a bad laptop isn't cheap.

More on base twelve terminology.

(Nota bene: I still need money.  Dentistry is expensive.)

Ok, so we've got the digits pretty well defined:

1 One
2 Two
3 Three
4 Four
5 Five
6 Six
7 Seven
8 Eight
9 Nine
Ѧ Ten
ϟ Eleven (silmasan suggests "eve" for those who find "eleven" too long)

Then we get into the the double digits.  Following base ten protocol says it should be "something [single digit]"

10 Can be, in general, "base" but for base twelve I think "twelve" makes sense.  But, again credit to silmasan because this was not in the front of my mind at all even though I know it well, it can also be called a dozen.  What I like about Dozen is silmasan's suggestion it can be shortened to the suffix -zen for double digit numbers.  I don't really like "dozen" for 10 because dozen takes an article (a dozen, the dozen) where twelve does not.  It could be onezen but I prefer "tweleve.

So:
10 Twelve
20 Twozen
30 Threezen
40 Fourzen
50 Fivezen
60 Sixzen
70 Sevenzen
80 Eightzen
90 Ninezen
Ѧ0 Tenzwen
ϟ0 Elevenzen / Evezen

Now then, three digit numbers have a very nice thing in base ten.  You just have a word for basesquared (hundred) and stick a number with it (one hundred, two hundred, three hundred...)  Twelve squared is a gross, thus:

100 One Gross
200 Two Gross
300 Three Gross
400 Four Gross
500 Five Gross
600 Six Gross
700 Seven Gross
800 Eight Gross
900 Nine Gross
Ѧ00 Ten Gross
ϟ00 Eleven / Eve Gross

Now that can get us up to ϟϟϟ = 1727 base ten.

Still following in the base ten model what we would want is a new word (thousand in base ten).  Something for 12 to the third.  Great gross, grand gross, long gross, and mass are all attested on wikipedia without citation.  If that hive of scum and villainy can be trusted then Mass works great:

1,000 One Mass
2,000 Two Mass
3,000 Three Mass
4,000 Four Mass
5,000 Five Mass
6,000 Six Mass
7,000 Seven Mass
8,000 Eight Mass
9,000 Nine Mass
Ѧ,000 Ten Mass
ϟ,000 Eleven/Eve Mass

If it doesn't, on the other hand, we need a new word.  Cuve? That would be Cu(bed Twel)ve.  For the moment we'll assume the hive of scum and villainy is right.

This is where we start to take off.

We need one more word and then latin prefixes will get us to, I shit you not, 10³⁰³ in short scale 10⁶⁰⁰ and in long.  Giant numbers.

Now the word we're looking for is twelve to the sixth (if Mass turns out to be bullshit Sive?) So, say, Massqu (pronounced more or less "mask") for "mass squared".

1,000,000 One Massqu
2,000,000 Two Massqu
3,000,000 Three Massqu
4,000,000 Four Massqu
5,000,000 Five Massqu
6,000,000 Six Massqu
7,000,000 Seven Massqu
8,000,000 Eight Massqu
9,000,000 Nine Massqu
Ѧ,000,000 Ten Massqu
ϟ,000,000 Eleven/Eve Massqu

And here's where it gets simple.  That's our millionish number, to add another three zeros just stick bi, tri, and so forth on.  We don't even have to remove any letters because it still looks ok:

1,000,000,000 bimassqu

1,000,000,000,000 trimassqu

1,000,000,000,000,000 quadrimassqu

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 quintimassqu

And so on.  That's short scale which is, as far as I'm concerned standard, but if you need really big numbers you can go long scale.  Or even invent super long scale.

I have to go, I have to have already gone almost 20 minutes ago.  This is not proofread.

My tooth and Pledge Drive

Remember how I had to have root canal work done, remember how that in turn necessitated a crown being put on my tooth (the root canal happened because that tooth had had so much work it couldn't hold itself together, the root canal fixing was even more work, thus without a cap to hold it together it would fall apart again), remember how the bill for the root canal almost wiped me out but the crown was done in a separate appointment and hadn't come in yet?

How do I put this?  Right:

Please give me money.

Please.

Seriously, this crap is not cheap.  I've already got other stuff I don't know how I'm going to pay for and this is yet another thing that I can in no way afford.

There are other things I'd like to ask you to donate to me for (some literary analysis type stuff that will involve buying multiple copies of the same book; some engineering type stuff that will require raw materials and experimentation, some puzzle type stuff that will require 3d printed masters and* possibly materials, probably other stuff I'm not thinking of right now) but for the moment: I have a working tooth.  It works so well I don't even notice it most of the time.  Please help me pay for it.

There are often rewards associated with pledge drives.  Alas, I've got nothing.  Sooo.... if you give me a thousand dollars (that's more than anyone has to spare, right?) I'll write a story with a character named after you in it, you can give me details and plot points and whatnot that you want, but I (generally) don't do depressing endings.  At least not intentionally.  So none of those for this pledge reward.

While I very much doubt anyone will give me that much money, if someone does I will stand by the above thingy.

-

* Since I accidentally knocked over the black half of the thermoset plastic (which I could have sworn was called theroset not thermoset) and it had settled so it might not be at a proper mix even after shaking now.

Computer update (again)

Ok, so here's the deal:

Of three laptops (primary, secondary, tertiary) I have one working screen (tertiary, thank you Ana by the way) one semi working screen (primary, imagine a world without red) and one screen (secondary) that has been stepped on recently by only the god of technology knows who.  It might, and this would be annoying, even have been me.

It has been suggested that I let everyone know this because it obviously has an effect on my output and anyone following the blog might like to know about that stuff.

I wish there were a way to make this a more interesting post, something involving dragons perhaps, but a computer update will always, likely, be as boring as a computer update seems likely to be.  It is itself, it cannot help but be so, and there's really not much interesting about, "Between my three computers I have only one fully functional screen."

That screen, by the way, belongs to a nice little computer that cannot accept CDs/DVDs.  That's annoying.  It would obviously be better if I could watch DVDs in full color and do the same with games on CD.