Author Topic: EP263: Fuel  (Read 33100 times)

ElectricPaladin

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Reply #50 on: November 08, 2010, 09:36:17 PM
You forgot Numbers 20:12-22, where the list is repeated with several major differences, including the inclusion of Alternate History and Steampunk, the omission of Space Opera, and a specific prohibition against "Pansy-Assed Science Fantasy" (which is not mentioned by name specifically). There's been a lot of interesting exegesis about this change.

/religion major asshattery ;).

EP: This made me do a fist-pump in sheer glee.  You are now my second favourite religion major.

Wow! Thanks.

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Gamercow

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Reply #51 on: November 09, 2010, 03:47:46 PM
I could barely get through this one. My stomach turned afresh with every paragraph. And, after forcing myself to endure the entire sickening, terrifying story, I didn't even get to find out what happened?

Should have been a Pseudopod story, and also should have had an ending.

Care to explain why you thought the story was sickening? 

In my case, I didn't particularly like this story because I thought it was a bit simple, and shallow.  If it was in the EP flash contest, I may have voted for it to get out of the first round, but not the second.  The characters were a little too stereotypical for me, and the premise a bit too straightforward.  I think it might have been better if it was written from a first-person perspective, so we would have an explanation for the black and white world that these people seem to inhabit.

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Dave

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Reply #52 on: November 17, 2010, 02:07:11 AM
I could barely get through this one. My stomach turned afresh with every paragraph. And, after forcing myself to endure the entire sickening, terrifying story, I didn't even get to find out what happened?

Should have been a Pseudopod story, and also should have had an ending.

Care to explain why you thought the story was sickening? 

The society portrayed in this story squicked me on every conceivable level. Also I have a huge phobia of needles.

-Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)


Unblinking

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Reply #53 on: November 17, 2010, 03:21:42 PM
A side discussion that crossed my mind while listening, but I forgot when commenting.

It occurs to me that the practice of keeping track of world athletics records and making a big hubbub when someone breaks one, is a system that will ensure that more and more athletes will use performance enhancing drugs as time goes on.  I mean, there are physical limits to how fast a human can move himself from point A to point B, and while we can try to approach that through sheer athleticism, at some point we will hit the wall where we literally cannot go faster with a natural human.  Then there will be no more records in that area, and sports news will be much more boring.  So, to get their name forever recorded, an athlete feels more and more pressure to use drugs or other enhancements that will push them past that wall just a little bit.  Even then, there are limits and we will eventually reach them.  At some point we're still going to hit the wall, and at that point we'll have a few options:  allow larger and larger enhancements (like rocket shoes or something) to try to draw it out a while longer, some change in the record systems so that each athlete doesn't need to compete against the entirety of athletics history, or we just put up with these sports being more boring because there are no new records.



Wilson Fowlie

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Reply #54 on: November 17, 2010, 08:03:23 PM
... or we just put up with these sports being more boring because there are no new records.

Good god; sports could be more boring? ;)

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Scattercat

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Reply #55 on: November 18, 2010, 01:51:23 AM
... or we just put up with these sports being more boring because there are no new records.

Good god; sports could be more boring? ;)

Rocket shoes says no.



Gamercow

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Reply #56 on: November 18, 2010, 06:12:43 PM

The society portrayed in this story squicked me on every conceivable level. Also I have a huge phobia of needles.

Understandable.  I didn't make the connection in my head what an effect this story would have on someone with trypanophobia. 

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Calculating...

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Reply #57 on: November 26, 2010, 07:34:34 PM
This story had an ending, a fantastic ending.  This was all about being an outcast among the people who are supposed to love and accept who you really are without prejudice and that uncontrollable want to just be understood.  The profit or result of making his brother loose the race was the chance that someone in his family would understand him, if only for a short period of time. I loved the terrifying ending of that desire being so strong and undeniable that he was willing to derail and destroy his brother's future.

I don't know who you are or where you came from, but from now on you'll do as I tell you, okay?


Listener

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Reply #58 on: November 28, 2010, 12:29:30 AM
This story had an ending, a fantastic ending.  This was all about being an outcast among the people who are supposed to love and accept who you really are without prejudice and that uncontrollable want to just be understood.  The profit or result of making his brother loose the race was the chance that someone in his family would understand him, if only for a short period of time. I loved the terrifying ending of that desire being so strong and undeniable that he was willing to derail and destroy his brother's future.

In a perfect world, that's what would happen. But in a sports-obsessed family, I could just as easily foresee them completely missing the point, punishing the younger brother, and making him somehow pay his academic scholarship toward sending his brother to a good sports school.

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kibitzer

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Reply #59 on: November 29, 2010, 01:45:23 AM
I was listening to this on the train; were I alone I believe I would have been yelling at the parents out loud. ARGH!!! That sports-mad attitude makes me ANGRY!! I know this is sort of a parody -- or an extrapolation of current attitudes -- but still... ARGH!!! HULK SMASH PUNY PARENTS!!

It's maybe worse in the US with these scholarship things. I'm not sure of the situation in my own country; there must be something similar.

The ending was way too sudden, was expecting more. I'm not sure I'd ever be so blase about a blood transfusion as to think leaving my blood for someone else is a good idea! That thoroughly creeped me out.


Planish

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Reply #60 on: December 19, 2010, 02:19:37 AM
I could barely get through this one. My stomach turned afresh with every paragraph. And, after forcing myself to endure the entire sickening, terrifying story, I didn't even get to find out what happened?

Should have been a Pseudopod story, and also should have had an ending.
What? His brother Scott performed at a level in the middle of the curve. That's what happened. Maybe his parents clued in that physical prowess is no guarantee of a success in life (but I doubt it). I don't see any Pseudopod-esque features.

This is a classic Trickster story. Always a hit, in my book.

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Dave

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Reply #61 on: February 12, 2011, 08:23:15 PM
A side discussion that crossed my mind while listening, but I forgot when commenting.

It occurs to me that the practice of keeping track of world athletics records and making a big hubbub when someone breaks one, is a system that will ensure that more and more athletes will use performance enhancing drugs as time goes on.  I mean, there are physical limits to how fast a human can move himself from point A to point B, and while we can try to approach that through sheer athleticism, at some point we will hit the wall where we literally cannot go faster with a natural human.  Then there will be no more records in that area, and sports news will be much more boring.  So, to get their name forever recorded, an athlete feels more and more pressure to use drugs or other enhancements that will push them past that wall just a little bit.  Even then, there are limits and we will eventually reach them.  At some point we're still going to hit the wall, and at that point we'll have a few options:  allow larger and larger enhancements (like rocket shoes or something) to try to draw it out a while longer, some change in the record systems so that each athlete doesn't need to compete against the entirety of athletics history, or we just put up with these sports being more boring because there are no new records.

I don't give a rip about sports at all, but I have been saying for years they need to split all sports into a Pure League and an Enhanced League, and just let the dopers and cyborgs and genetically engineered superathletes go to town.

I'm 100% serious, and if this happened, heck, I might even care about sports in ten or twenty years.

-Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)