Friday 16 July 2021

The Tempest

William Shakespeare's plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest;

Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix multiverse sequence includes A Midsummer Tempest;

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman includes "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Tempest";

Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV, is The Tempest;

all the subsequent works are inspired by Shakespeare -

- at least I assume that LEG IV, just borrowed, is - Prospero was in the League in an earlier volume.

Having returned home late, that is all that I have time for until some time tomorrow.

10 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I had a tiring day too! I am temporarily without a car, since it needs to be fixed. So I had to walk to the bank. And later I mowed my lawn, a very tiring and hot job in the summer!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

We visited a house with a large lawn. A small robot mower moves around the lawn 8 hours a day.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I love the idea of a robot lawn mower! It would certainly make taking care of my lawn much easier. Problem is I'm not sure how efficient robot mowers are. Not sure how they can handle irregularities in the lawn and obstacles like trees and shrubs.

Alas, air cars of the kind Dominic Flandry used are still not available for casual, common use. But maybe self driving cars will become practical not too long from now. That appeals to me!

And what about the artificial telepathy we see in "Progress"? Or the antisenescence of the Technic stories? Or using our DNA for cloning new organs and limbs? And I hope so much Elon Musk founds his Mars colony!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

This robot mower turns whenever it approaches a tree, flower bed, human foot or other obstacle. It seems to move at random but gradually covers all the connected areas of lawn around the house.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

That appeals to me! I'm assuming the lawn was carefully mapped and the data became part of the computer program controlling the robot mower.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

The mower seems just to move across grass and to turn if there is no grass in front of it. It spent a while in an area mostly surrounded by bushes and trees but eventually moved in a direction that took it between the bushes and out onto a wider area of lawn, like a boat going through a narrow channel from an enclosed bay out to sea.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

After the hot, tiring, sweaty time I had yesterday, I'm interested! My plot of land is only. 0.44 acre in size, but it took a long time to mow.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: try hand-picking that area of tobacco…

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I would rather pass up on the opportunity. I'm sure hand harvesting that area of tobacco would be a vastly hotter, sweatier, and exhausting a job! (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

I’ve done it. Once was enough…