The difference between LJ and Skyehawke
Aug. 1st, 2008 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonIn one of my stories, I have a scene in which the bad guys attempt to take control of the Thames Barrier to hold it open while an artificial storm surge races up the river to flood much of London. It's told in fast snatches, but there are a number of very clear bits of information given to show what's happening, including:
The rest of Draco's Unspeakables arrive. He speaks quickly: "Thames Barrier, we think there's a team using dark magic to hold it open. Storm surge is coming, a big one."
A few people responded to its posting on LJ with "I had no idea what the Barrier was, so I looked it up, it's cool/was on Doctor Who!"
Last night I posted that chapter on Skyhawke. Today I received a comment similar to "Look, I liked it, but you'd have made the ending so much more gripping if you'd explained what the Barrier was." *
I was THIS CLOSE to answering with "Thanks very much for letting me know you liked it, but if you need more Barrier info, you can find it easily! In my day we did not have Google and you had to shag computer scientists to get internet access, so just count yourself lucky, young whippersnapper and use the tools Tim Berners-Lee gave you!"
I held back, but only because I knew I'd receive a reply saying "Berners-Lee? Who?!"
Ah LJ folk, Let me never take you for granted ...
* I should emphasise that I genuinely think this person meant to be helpful here. They were not being intentionally annoying, I am just the least patient closet librarian in the vicinity.
The rest of Draco's Unspeakables arrive. He speaks quickly: "Thames Barrier, we think there's a team using dark magic to hold it open. Storm surge is coming, a big one."
A few people responded to its posting on LJ with "I had no idea what the Barrier was, so I looked it up, it's cool/was on Doctor Who!"
Last night I posted that chapter on Skyhawke. Today I received a comment similar to "Look, I liked it, but you'd have made the ending so much more gripping if you'd explained what the Barrier was." *
I was THIS CLOSE to answering with "Thanks very much for letting me know you liked it, but if you need more Barrier info, you can find it easily! In my day we did not have Google and you had to shag computer scientists to get internet access, so just count yourself lucky, young whippersnapper and use the tools Tim Berners-Lee gave you!"
I held back, but only because I knew I'd receive a reply saying "Berners-Lee? Who?!"
Ah LJ folk, Let me never take you for granted ...
* I should emphasise that I genuinely think this person meant to be helpful here. They were not being intentionally annoying, I am just the least patient closet librarian in the vicinity.
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Date: 2008-08-02 04:19 am (UTC)Who's Berners-Lee? *ducks*
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Date: 2008-08-02 04:37 am (UTC)Tim Berners-Lee is THE FOUNDER OF THE MODERN INTERNET: html, URLs, you name it, he is The Man. Go and look him up you lazy Gen Y-er!
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Date: 2008-08-02 05:15 am (UTC)OK. Haven't read the fic in question. Assumed the complaint was because it wasn't. Explained my position in sentence fragments.
And you Americans expect the rest of us to know that you don;t mean art school when you say college!
Ah, but we might, there's the rub! (+1 difficulty on your language translation roll.)
Educational terms are, um. Complicated. Let's leave it at that, else I'm likely to go over the comment character limit trying to talk about even the US and Canada.
Tim Berners-Lee is THE FOUNDER OF THE MODERN INTERNET
YOU MEAN IT WASN'T AL GORE WELL MY MY MY.
I shall look him up, actually, because now I'm curious...
P.S. I'm barely too old to be Gen Y. ha ha ha ha ha. *smirk*