More questions. Occasional answers. Continued from No. 4.
Patience, Please
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Ask the GAPAs, No. 5
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Oh, no. Not another one.
I hereby vow that I shall keep up with this one as much as possible. It should be easy till school starts up again.
Hello again!
when you did the Q&A, did you or muse chose the Q?
We decided which questions to answer.
Is this where you ask questions for the Q&A?
Did you send shorter answers back to the people who asked but didn’t get published?
6- you can… that’s how i’m gettting into muse!!!!! look in a spring issue for 2008 (*is ecstatic[sp]*)
I asked this on the Polling Place but i’ll ask here too: GAPAs’ do you say THUH apple or THEE apple? it’s very important so if you could get back to me as soon as possible! please!
thee apple. if you say the before a word that starts with a vowel, it has the ee sound. otherwise, it’s thuh.
9- THANK YOU! now go over to the polling place and tell everyone else that!
8-You are? Gratz!
Kagcomix (8): I say THIH apple.
Beavo (7): Sometimes we sent answers even if they weren’t going to be published. But only rarely.
Do you ever get really ridiculous questions? Questions that you just want to laugh at, I mean. Obviously non-serious questions.
If yes, have you ever answered any of them in the magazine? (I’m assuming no, but you never know).
We’ve posted all the questions through 2005 on the Fan Page. As you can see, some of the questions there were indeed frivolous, and we did answer them.
For example, we’ve received quite a few questions inspired by Monty Python. What is the air speed of an unladen swallow? Answered in Muse. What if Napoleon had had a B-52 bomber at Waterloo? Ditto.
There were a few types of questions that Rosanne and I tended to avoid. For example, we didn’t like to answer factual questions that the questioner could easily look up either in a reference book or on the Web. (Wikipedia didn’t exist when we started.) We also strongly preferred questions that a reader really seemed curious about, as opposed to just wanting to demonstrate his or her advanced question-asking skills.
That still left plenty of good questions to answer. What happens if a rattlesnake bites itself? Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle? Why do you laugh when someone tickles you? Do fish drink water? How much does a cloud weigh? Yes, I’d say we have had a good run.
Q for any GAPA: is the “dark” side of the moon dark, or is it like the “dark ages” A.K.A. we don’t know much?
“Dark side” is a misnomer; it should be called the far side of the moon. It can’t be seen from Earth because the moon keeps its other side pointed toward us, but as it orbits each side gets the same amount of light.
Of course, the far side gets dark sometimes. It’s entirely dark during a “full moon,” when the near side faces the sun and gets fully lit. It’s partly dark for most of the rest of the moon’s 27.3-day orbit around Earth. Only during a “new moon,” when the near side is pointed away from the sun and goes dark, is the far side fully lit.
The far side used to be completely unknown. Nowadays, though, lunar orbiters have photographed and mapped the whole moon, so both sides are well known.
17- that’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure.
follow up: does the earth go thru the same phases during the day? (if you look at one hemisphere.)
Do you mean, as seen from the moon?
20- if it saw one hemisphere all day, yes.
Oh, I see. You mean the view from a satellite in geostationary orbit, one that goes around Earth once a day. Yes, you would see all of Earth’s phases in the course of a day. From the moon you would see them in 27.3 days, the amount of time it takes the moon to orbit Earth. From low-Earth orbit you’d see them all in 90 minutes, though you’d probably be too close to see the whole planet as a disk.
I’ve just thought of something: The far side of the moon really is darker than the near side, because Earth isn’t visible from it. So it gets just as much sunlight but no “Earthlight.”
thank you! *no need to send the question to Q&A!*
Well, hmm.
Why do cars in Britain drive on the left side of the road?
How long on average does it take to wear out a pair of slippers (if you, say, wear them for three hours every day, expecting you are walking while you wear them?)
Well, hmm.
Why do cars in the US drive on the right side of the road?
26- And who decided which side of the road cars would drive on, in Britain or the US?
Both, no? They just made different decisions.
I seem to remember reading that the Brits used to drive their horse-drawn carriages on the left, too, and claim that the custom goes back to Roman chariots. I don’t remember the rationale, though.
I’m sure that many other Q&A columnists have dealt with this question and posted their answers on the Web.
Ack! I nearly typed in my last name!
Re: Sides of the road: I think cars in most places drive on the left side of the road (or maybe that’s just their steering wheels).
I’ve asked that question so many times in my life it’s probably in my school records: “Has tendancy to ask why certain cars are driven in certain places in certain countries.”
Here’s a question that I think is a matter of what you believe. Is the statement “Green is my favorite color” a fact or opinon? It is a fact that green is my favorite color, right? If I were to say what I’m implying, “Green is the best color”, than that would be the opinon, right?
This one’s on my school record, too, I think.
I’m drawing a graphic novel and have two questions about it. First of all, do you know anywhere that I can get advice on how to draw it well without making myself crazy with details, and second, a friend of mine is featured in the comic and he wants to draw himself. How do I politely tell him no?
31 – You could just… I don’t know…Like say: “It’s my graphic novel. I could take you out if I wanted to.”
But that’s mean…xDD
31- oh I can help you!!!!! *eagerly raises hand* okay 1: what i do is I draw something to the best of my ability and if i’m still frustrated i leave it for a day of two then come back when i’m fresh and in a good mood (it can take me an hour to draw a page sometimes… and then my art skills stop working) and work on it some more. tip: never ink something the same day you drew it. this is a problem with me because i rush and then i realize and arm is too long or something like one eye is noticibly bigger than the other (lol). and 2: he deffinitely can’t draw himself because it’s hard when two people work on something together (styles clash, angers flare). just don’t discuss the project for a while, while secretly drawing it at night when he’s not around. then a month or so later mabe show him or whatever. i f he gets angry use Cappy’s response or say “it’s my idea!” although that sounds a bit bratty. you could possibly offer to let him draw an opening page to a chapter 9you know how some people do it how they get different artists to draw a picture on the page that says chapter 3. (an example of that is hopeless savages ground zero). but he’ll probably forget about the whole graphic novel thing if you stop talking about it!
Thanks, you’re awesome! (I actually did stop talking to him about it for exactly that reason) I’m starting drawing all of the characters as soon as I get info from their real-life counterparts about how they want to look.
say i send in a letter on…December 23. what issue would it be published in if it were going to be published?
i’m still looking for that letter i sent in 6 months ago
(35) It’s hard to say. Not before April, for sure, but they could keep it on hold for a while. Sometimes letters hang around until the magazine has a “hole” the right size on the Muse Mail page. It may sound strange, but it’s true: length is very important to editors. Things have to fit on the page.
how does the wii-mote know where it is in relation to the console?
i think you should find out what sizes the “holes” are and give us a word count so we can email in the perfectly sized letter
i’m sure the blog makes very enthusiastic letter-writers out of us, at least until we realize that we can just say whatever we want to say on here…
In fact (double post aah!) i think i’ll write a random letter because i feel like it…
39- Yeah, me too. I haven’t written a letter in the while.
do the GAPAs have to use the or do the type in itilices automatitly?
We use the <i> and </i> codes just like anybody else. The italics are just a convenience so MuseBloggers will know which posts to ignore.
did that show up?
no, it did not.
42- I don’t ignore them. We (okay, most of us) relish in the possibility of getting another gem of wisdom from the GAPAs. I really did think the italics were automatic though…..
I’ve heard that eating too much chocolate can give you a headache. Is this true?
Hmm… Rosanne is probably the resident expert on eating too much chocolate.
34- thank you! i always forget what my friends lok like so i generaly tend to sort of make up their apperances when i can’t remember. just one word of advice for drawing people you know/are friends with: don’t make your drawings too similar to them so that you can say it’s only “loosly based” on them if they are dissatisfied and get angry or something. that’s what i do but mainly it’s my crappy memory of faces that keeps me like that.
if you have anymore questions scoot over to the manga/anime/graphic novels thread. i am always glad to help and i check out that thread every couple days (although no one else does)
47-*ahem*
Oh. I beg your pardon, Ebeth. But in terms of total lifetime consumption, surely she… No, huh?
again, how does the wii-mote know where it is in relation to the console? i’m sure with your extremalicious ultra GAPA knowledge you could answer that. :D?
*realizes to his mortification that he has never been near a Wii*
Maybe PB&J can tell you.
Here’s my question: Why doesn’t the whole MuseBlog thing at the top of the page load anymore? It looks like it says “MuseBloq” now. I thought it was just my computer, but it’s the same on thelibrary computer….
52- *gasps* Fine. PB&J!!!! GET YOUR SMELLY BRITISH BUTT OVER HERE TO ANSWER MY QUESTION!
Wii will give everything wii own in order that wii might receive a… you get the idea.
Actually, I have never even seen a Wii.
And I don’t want one- sorry about double post.
What’s a Wii? It’s some sort of weird video-game playing thingamajig.
57-um, it is pure awesomeness. Has anybody gone to the weather globe and spun it around in circles? wheee!
the rabbids game is really fun too. but sad. poor bunnies…at least they’re not hot pink…
Well, caffeine supposedly stops headaches (opens the blood vessels, which makes sense) but it is also found in choklit, so I don’t think it’d be too bad.
Then again if you don eight boxes of Frangos I don’t think there’s much of you thats not eventually going to feel it.
Poor Wii-deprived souls. GET WITH DA PICTURE, PEEPLES! But, yeah. It’s really fun.
Wii.
My cousins have one each, and they race each other on it and get all competitive and nasty towards each other and such.
I’m sorry, but it looks insanely boring, and also a good way to start to hate whoever is playing against you. I just say I’ll watch them play, because I have zero interest.
I prefer the real world. And this post isn’t meant to insult you, I don’t like offending people, so that makes another good reason not to play on the things…
Red-tailed HAWK
but there so much! I can update my mac for that much. also, I still have a CRT tv. 16 inch.
RE: headache and cholkit: I don’t think it gives you a head ache, but maybe a stomach ache
61-eh, that sounds like they’re playing normal videogames on the wii. which is no fun. if you have a wii you should be playing wii games, which are less competitive and lots of fun. that’s why i like it so much, because it’s not like most other gaming systems
So, does being excited or stressed out really make a person have to urinate?
64- CAPPY!!! Let’s try for some tact, shall we????
To answer your question (although these topics SHOULD really be avoided) YES.
Can eating larg amounts of dark chocolate give you halucinations? *believes she has read this somewhere*
On more tactful issues, how many hours a week are you GAPAs outside?
(65) “Outside”? Oh, yes, that’s that cold, noisy place between buildings, isn’t it?
66- Yes I suppose that would be considered outside if the only wooded are you’ve seen is an urban jungle.
Wit beyond measure is a human’s greatest treasure.
65 – Ah, but what is tact when it comes to science?
68-It’s good manners. I don’t have a problem discussing the matters in a strictly scientific surounding, but it does not make nice tea conversation. As a matter of fact, I had been in the middle of my third cup of tea when I read your comment. Iam now in the middle of my fifth.
It had to be asked at one point. What kind of teas do you Gapas like?
The tea I like depends on what kind of mood I’m in. For herbal tea, I’ll drink almost anything fruity, minty, or grassy. (Grassy tea includes chamomile, for example.) For caffeinated tea, I like Earl Grey and Lady Grey, Darjeeling, Oolong, kukicha (twig tea), genmai (green tea flavored with toasted rice), and once in a while puerh (dark, highly fermented tea that tastes the way rainwater might taste as it trickles through decaying leaves on a forest floor) or yerba maté, a somewhat rooibos-like infusion that gauchos drink in Argentina. I’m not crazy about chai.
(69) Almost any tea except Earl Grey.
hehehe…. I’m not supposed to have caffine but…..
70- ooh I like maté! and chamomile-y teas mmm…
Tea……..I want tea……. *casts longing glance at counter where tea menu lies* Wish I had some money…
We had this very good tea in China, made from boiled chrysanthemum (ooh, who spelled that right on the first try? I think… spellcheck says so, but it has lied before) heads. It was really good, and sweet enough that you didn’t even have to make sugar. And would be easy to make on your own, come spring/summer.
MMMMmmmmmm…………….. chrysanthemum tea……
YAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MY NAME IS FINALY ON THE WHO’S HERE LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By the way what does GAPA stand for?
77- I can answer that–GAPA stands for Great And Powerful Administrator.
GAPA’s, can we please have a new “Just Friends” thread??? No one is posting and we are stuck at…..* checks umber of posts on thread* 199.
Which do you prefer in your tea? Honey or sugar?
What is UP with tea? Half a year ago our house was overflowing w/ it!
Also, What’s wrong w/ earl grey, 71?
God, 69, you drink fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
69 – Did I ask that you drink tea? It’s astounding the types of wonders you may find here! Tsk tsk! Be prepared, my dear!
(80) I must admit many years have passed since I even tried Earl Grey, so my tastes may have changed by now. But it was the only tea I ever tasted that I actively disliked.
Assuming you have a train that travels faster than the speed of light, a flashlight, a blank board at the other end of the train track, and a window in the train, which would reach the board if you shined the flashlight out the window in the direction of the board: The flashlight’s beam, or the train traveling faster than the flashlight’s beam even though the flashlight is on it?
and can you travel 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000…1 seconds slower then the speed of light?
to be sun to the tune of joy to the world.
83- Light goes at c no matter what. Light from the headlights of a speeding car goes no faster than light from a stationary flashlight. So the train would reach the board first.
Cool! Now my life is fufiled.
Crvsto volanti noli obstare.
GAPAs-I have a good idea of what it means, as Robert told us at the Kokonvention, but I cannot seem to burn the exact translation into my brain. Help!
Red-tailed HAWK
“Don’t stand in front of a flying pie.”
89-Yes! Somehow I had that mixed up into “duck to avoid the flying pies”, so thank you…
Red-tailed HAWK
80- I average about a cup of tea an hour. Or half hour, if it’s good. And I drink eight cups of tea a day on weekends, but only two or three on weekdays. I’m on holiday. It’s all weekends now!!!!
is infinity times zero infinity or zero?
infinity times anything is infinity.
zero times anything is zero.
Infinity isn’t a number, so the results don’t always make sense when you try to use it in numerical operations.
Did you know that there are different sizes of infinity?
It’s true. Here’s the reasoning:
There are an infinite number of whole numbers. But real numbers include all the whole numbers, as well as many other numbers. So the infinite number of real numbers is somehow greater than the infinity of whole numbers.
Why doesn’t the full MuseBlog thing load at the top of the page anymore?!
No matter how big a number you get, you can’t approach infinity. There amazingly large numbers like googol and googolplex, which have no equivalent in nature, as there aren’t even enough sub-atomic particles in the universe to be gogolplex, but these numbers are EXACTLY AS FAR FROM INFINITY AS ONE!
Isn’t it grand?
The only infinite thing we know of is the number of numbers.
It’s scary, and I’m starting to get a headache…..but yes, it is amazing. And when you start looking at how huge the universe is, and how tiny we all are in comparison it’s mind blowing.
And, considering, why do I still ask about a emblem that does not properly load on the computer?
(95, 98) As far as I can tell the page loads properly.
99~ Strange.
98- Sounds like the Total Perspective Vortex to me. Have you read HG2G #2?
This was asked on the random thread, but can we have a Broadway Musicals thread?
GAPAs, have you noticed that the right side of the
icon seems to be a little bit cut off? Or am I not seeing straight?
As a matter of fact, both of the sides seem to be a little cut off. Is that what they’re supposed to look like?
Vixen in the Eyes of the Moon (69):
I like all preparations of Camellia sinensis (tea) I’ve ever tasted, even Earl Grey. My favorite tea is 2nd flush Darjeeling. I especially love the way it smells. It’s hard to describe. It’s like flowers or wine. Wine blossoms?
As to herbal teas, I like them too, especially peppermint made from fresh leaves. The only one that I’ve tried that I really don’t like is hibiscus. I wish I did like it because the tea is such a pretty red color! But I just can’t get myself to enjoy the way it tastes. And unfortunately it crops up in a lot of herbal tea mixes. I hope Koko does something about this once he is president.
Robert (93): Can you use infinity like a variable?
Rosanne (105): We make our own herbal tea in my family, and one tea we’ve abridged is Red Zinger. We took the ingredients from a box and changed them so it tastes better. Normally, the tea has tons of hibiscus and a small amount of rose hips and lemon grass, but in our version we switched the amounts, so there isn’t very much hibiscus. You still probably won’t like this tea, but if you find herbal tea mixes that you like, you can just look at the ingredients and go to a co-op or other whole-foods type store which has bulk spices. Then, you can get all the ingredients except hibiscus, solving the problem!
If you’re ever in Boulder, Colorado, take a tour of the Celestial Seasonings factory. The Mint Room will knock your socks off.
You can use any symbol as a variable. But it’s not legitimate to use sideways-8 to mean both a number and infinity at the same time, because infinity isn’t a number. I know that sometimes you’ll see people write equations like “one over infinity equals zero,” but a mathematician would write it differently: “the limit of one over x as x approaches infinity equals zero.” And even that’s just a symbolic shorthand.
(107) Mention of the mint room reminds me of the vegetable garden where I used to live. The garden measured roughly the length and width of several lanes of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and I planted peppermint around a fair portion of the perimeter. Whenever it was mowed, the air would turn to mint. What an incredible sensation, like breathing the atmosphere of a different planet.
Ah, lovely to think about. The Mint Room, by contrast, is warehouse space, filled with bales of spearmint and peppermint stacked about 10 feet high. The mintiness is overwhelming. It would probably kill you if someone locked you in there.
Hey, those of you who like math might be interested in this math podcast series put together by the cousin of a friend of mine. (Yes, not only are all my friends nerds, but so are all their relatives, it seems.) You can find it at www. mathmutation. com .
110) Who me, like Math?
Robert (110): Cool, thanks! By the way, nerd friends are the best kind of friends. I wish I had nerd relatives as well, but unfortunately none of my cousins are nerds.
112~ Most of my cousins are evil or stupid. The other day we got the latest news on my oldest cousin, she wants to learn to play the Irish fiddle. Somehow the fact that I’ve been doing precisely that for several years completely escapes her, and she asks my grandmother if there i any difference between an Irish fiddle and a fiddle. This is, of course, the cousin that got a music minor in college.
see what I mean?
Math scares me. Very much.
Let’s see: you play the violin, Nora plays the viola, Gaea plays the cello… Now if we can find a bass player, we’ll have a complete string section.
i like math
91-I still say that’s fast and a LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why were my hpb’s not allowed in?
And how do you suggest a thread?
117- because:
A) you put two many in
B) HPBs are evil
and search for suggestion box in the search box at the top of the page.
I explained that here. And you suggest a thread by suggesting it, preferably on the Suggestion Box thead.
119- you added to your post after mine!
Yes. I was looking up the URL while you were writing your post.
116-*shrugs* I like tea? What can I say?
Rosanne is the editor of the Stanford medicine news or something like that, right?
Her magazine is called Stanford Medicine. She is the super-head-honcho editor there.
124- Oh yes, Stanford Medicine. My dad really likes that magazine.
25- are you trying to get something from him?
126- Recently, I mentioned Rosanne’s name to my dad and he recognized her as the editor of Stanford Medicine. I was just checking to see if it was true.
Oh, yes. We Administrators are quite respectable when we’re not moderating MuseBlog.
Robert (114): THF plays violin, and is going to start viola soon.
My step-grandfather actually loves Science Magazine. In his “younger” years, he was a scientist-zookeeper-person, then he taught college journalism. He reads it cover-to-cover, every week. I don’t know anyone who reads Stanford Medicine, though.
I’m a science and history nerd, not a math or computer nerd.
118- how do you know how many I put in, anyway?
¡Ã߀ƒ! – Wow, that’s so cool that your dad likes Stanford Medicine magazine. Squeeee!
114- i play bass.
110- that sounds cool. *must look it up*
i was in chapters the other day and decided to poke about the magazine rack and they didn’t have Science Magazine. it was down heartening because i kinda want to see the magazine…..
(133) Try the public library.
134- good idea!
I love libraries. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Purple Panda (106):
Your family’s abridged herbal teas are brilliant! What’s your favorite mix?
Rebecca and Robert re: Mint
If I want to wake myself up I’ll just think of either of those mint-tensive environments and I’m sure that will do the trick. Whoooosh!
Great and Powerful GAPA’s could we plese have a happy birthday J.R.R. Tolkien thread? I think that if Sir Issac Newton gets on Tolkien should definatly get one too!
Newton really has affected your lives more than Tolkien has, whether you realize it or not. Still, there’s no reason not to celebrate Professor T. as well. Any excuse for a party, as I’m sure the old hobbit would be the first to agree.
54 – How do you know I have a smelly butt?
Anyway – I’m told that a wiimote contains three acceleration sensors, configured (somehow) to detect tilt. By correlating information from all three, the wii can sense the controller’s orientation, and whether it’s moving through space. Well, more correctly, if it’s accelerating through space, because constant motion can’t be detected unless you have a fixed frame of reference.
How’s that?
69 – Yorkshire Tea. But you can’t get the real stuff in America. Posh delis sell “Yorkshire Gold”, but it doesn’t have the corrosive effects of the tannin-laden original.
91 – You should move to England. We need some new blood to help maintain the old standards. We’re getting lax, and it has to stop. Coffee must go!
110 – you might also like BBC Radio 4’s series on the properties of numbers :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/another5.shtml
Enjoy!
128 – The GAPAS? Respectable? Aren’t you forgetting the customary activities of a certain PB&J?
Rosanne (137): My favorite tea concoction we call “Uncle DJ tea.” We got a jar of tea from my uncle for Christmas one year, and we looked at the ingredients and went from there. It’s actually the easiest, by far, of all the teas we have made. It’s simply licorice root and peppermint, about half and half (you can do a little more, a little less depending on which you like more).
Mmmm. Sounds good, Purple P. And I already have teabags with straight peppermint and others with stright licorice root. So I could just mix them together. Will try soon.
Since a couple people mentioned Stanford Medicine…
If anyone’s curious about Stanford Medicine, where I work as The Editor, you can see the online version here.
One thing you can’t really appreciate online is the graphics, which are usually pretty fab, I must say. Our current online design doesn’t give them as much play as I’d like. But we’ve got a new online format starting with the next issue, which will highlight the graphics more. Yay.
The link doesn’t work. Is it just my computer?
Purple P: When I first posted it the html got erased for some reason I don’t understand. But I’ve put it back in now and it’s stayed this time. The link works now, for me at least. So if you give it another try I think it will work for you too.
*goes to staff list* *sees “Rosanne Spector, Stanford Medicine Editor”* Ooooo! Aaaah!
151- I think the HPB killed this thread.
have the GAPAs’ ever been to Canada?
152- yeah.
¡Ã߀ƒ! and Kagcomix (152, 154): It’s not dead yet!
Kagy (153): I’ve been to Canada but only a couple of times. I went to Montreal with my French class when I was about 12 or so. I hardly remember anything about it except that the hotel we stayed at for the first night or two was really scuzzy — for example, the lower sheet on my bed had a wet sticky spot on it before I got in the bed. Ick! It’s amazing how fresh that memory is at least 30 years later. I definitely don’t hold this experience against Canada, though.
Much more recently I spent a few days in Toronto and had a great time. I love that city. I was there over New Year’s a few years ago and we saw the new year in by dancing by the side of the water at First Night Toronto. It seemed like an interesting city full of friendly people — and good food.
(153) I’ve been to Toronto, too, and one summer I went to Quebec City during the biannual Renaissance fair, Les Medievales. As the only walled city in North America, it’s the perfect place for that sort of thing. The people were friendly, the costumes and music were pretty, and the food was excellent. I’d recommend it to any Muser.
144-It’s an easy thing to forget around here *accusatory glare*
i’ve never stayed in Canada…i’ve only just gone for like a day and come back…
Does moderating ever get boring when no MBers are on? What do you guys do then?
158- probably work and eat.
(135) Purple Panda, as I rummaged through the cupboard this morning trying to decide which tea suited my mood (having already drunk sufficient coffee for the day), I realized I had both peppermint and licorice, so I decided to try your recommendation. I am enjoying a cup at this very moment. It’s tasty and not quite what I expected.
155- yeah we have some awesome food. next time you’re here, please tell me! i’ve nevre actualy been in the city for new years…. i’m always up north at variouse other peoples houses.
Rebecca, what do you do for a living? i hope that doesn’t seem rude. i realized recently that I know what all the GAPAs’ do (Robert and Roseanne are editors, Paul Baker is a writer and musician) except for you. Also , forgive me if this seems rude, but what is your connection to MUSE?
What do you tell people when they ask you: “Who’s Kokopelli?”
Oh… You’d better get out.
You’d better make room.
You’d better not doubt
You’re facing your doom.
Kokopelli’s coming to town!
He’s baking them up,
Letting them cool,
Heading your way to
Make you a fool.
Kokopelli’s coming to town.
He’s everything you wanted.
He’s everything you’re not.
He’ll size you up and shut you down,
So watch out for what you’ve got.
You’d better not stay.
You’d better like pie.
Don’t get in his way.
I’m telling you why:
Kokopelli’s coming to town!
163 – Sounds delightful.
Sory if this has been asked before–I’m too lazy to read the entire thread–How do I know which house in Muse Academy I’m in? Is there some sort of personality test?
163: OMG I love it.
Is the “FEAR ME” on the bunny shirts meant to be referring to the rose-coloured rodent on the front, or the wearer of the shirt? I am assuming it’s the rodent.
Both, except that rabbits aren’t rodents: they’re lagomorphs.
163-they put a rodent on a bunney shirt? were all the lagomorph models out of town?
drat! the GAPA got to it first!
When I wore my “Fear Me” bunny shirt, many ignorant classmates were very confused about why you should fear a hot pink bunny. And the class
clownmaniac screamed “No!” when he saw my shirt. I think he was referring to me, not the bunny,(169) Yours made me laugh, though, picturing all those tall, skinny (and hot pink) lagomorphs strutting down runways in the latest Paris fashions.
If anyone doesn’t understand why a
should be feared, then you should show him *shudder* this.
That didn’t work.
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=49
That didn’t work either. *frusturated* Post #49 on SSSS 2007.4.
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1022 is the thread. Look at post 49.
(174) ¡Ã߀ƒ! , I fixed your link in 172 so the dramatic flourish would not go to waste.
The “p=” refers to the page number. To go to the specific comment add “#comment-49” (without the quotation marks). In other words, the link should look like this:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1022#comment-49
176- Thank you. *sigh*
How come if you click the link to the Muse Contest page, the most recent contest mentioned is ONE YEAR OLD?
GAPAs– Are you ever sorry you got involved in MuseBlog? I mean, heaven knows how much time you spend moderating every day.
(179) Never. Not for one nanosecond.
180- Yay!
178 – I have no idea.
180 – Do you multi-task while you’re moderating?
179- Why would anyone ever be sorry they got in MuseBlog? (Not a question directed towards the GAPAs)
183 – I dunno. Maybe if they got ultra over addicted. I mean, I’m addicted to MuseBlog, I’m full aware of that, but I still ♥ it. Who could ever get sick of you guys?
(182) Definitely yes to the multitasking question, both when I’m working at the museum and at home. Though my laptop doesn’t have quite the convenience as Robert’s Treo, it does make the job fairly portable, thus you have helped me clean my garage, create graphics and watercolors, write, prepare for my students … a lot of stuff I would otherwise be doing alone, so it’s nice to have such pleasant company.
185 – Haha. You’re welcome.
183- I was just wondering, ’cause the GAPAs do so much for us, and they moderate all the time, and they consult each other about what to snip and what to let through. It seems like a lot of work. But a lot of really fun work. I want to be a GAPA!
187 – It would be really cool if on your birthday you got to be a GAPA-for-a-day or something. People would probably add funny messages to everybody’s posts, or change what they said, or something like that. But it would still be really cool…
And that way whenever I was on there would be a GAPA on! @_@
188-then again, you’d moderate your own posts, you could get away with locations, swearing….
182- What does it say on the Muse Contest page when YOU open it?
Wow! It is a year old! And the Kokopelli & Company comic is old, too.
Apparently, somebody in Chicago is not doing ens job. If you’d like to give en a nudge, the e-mail address is muse@caruspub.com.
*stands back to watch the avalanche*
Can we do something for the 50th anniversary of Explorer 1, the United States’ first satellite, on January 31?
Thanks, guys!
Question for GAPAs: Do you have to italicize your posts yourselves, or is it automatically done?
Oh, fine. Lagomorph. *hmph face* I suppose if I had actually thought about that one, I would have noticed that bunnies aren’t rodents… That’s what I get for not thinking. *pies brain*
Do the GAPAs think of us MBers rather like neices and nephews? Because sometimes to hear you talk about blog business it almost sounds that way.
(196) Is that a good thing? Was there something in particular that made you ask? I seem to be in a questioning mood tonight.
(196) How do you know how we sound when we talk about our nieces and nephews?
Robert (198): She’s probably basing it on how her aunt and uncle speak to her, or how she imagines it.
197/198~ I guess I didn’t make sense, did I? What I meant was that sometimes when I’ve heard you talking to people about MB, and saying something about the MBers it seems like they’re like, well, almost like neices and nephews, instead of a bunch of weird kids that you have to moderate posts for day in and day out.
Oh never mind, I’m still not making much sense….
In my experience, nieces and nephews + a bunch of weird kids = not mutually exclusive. But my family may be atypical.
I dunno, never mind. *shrugs*
I’ll come up with another question sometime, but probably not for a little bit.
(200) Maybe it’s partly because I’ve been an aunt for such a short while, but I tend to think of MBers as being in a category all their own.
Oh. I was just wondering.
It’s really fairly simple. We like you and want you to be happy and successful and rule the world and erect statues of us. That’s how I feel about my nieces and nephews up to a point, but then it veers off into unique territory.
205- If I ever rule the world I will certainly erect a statue of you.
Okay, if I get around to taking over the world and ruling it, I’ll erect many statues of all of you and write books on how wonderful the GAPAs are and why we should all worship them.
Don’t go overboard. Statues will suffice.
All right then, if you don’t want books about how wonderful the GAPAs are, that’s fine. I won’t wear myself out.
i have a question GAPAs’: what does lagomorph mean?i like the word and want to title a short comic Lagomorph but i have no clue what it means.
210- A rabbit is a lagomorph.
The lagomorphs are a family of mammals including rabbits, hares and pikas. Loquacious people refer to HPBs as “fiery magenta lagomorphs.”
212- or, for short, FMLs.
212- Not family. Order.
211-213- thanks
Rabbits and hares are family Leporidae, and pikas are Ochotonidae.
Don’t you just love Latin names?
Latin rocks!
GAPA:s with Q&A do you…. (1)anser all questions? (2)pick and choos? (3)anser all questions but take forever to do so? (4)other———— spesefy see I sent in a question a year ago still hasent come up love badrang
all my nice formating….*snif sob*
How did the whole pie-throwing thing get started?
That’s what I’d like to know…
220- This deserves an essay. Or a book.
oh, um never mind then.
Why do faraway mountains and hills have a sort of bluish color? Or do you have any idea what I’m talking about?
GAPAs – how do you keep up with the blog when it is this busy? I’ve already given up on keeping up with the posts, how do you moderate them all?
Dearest GAPAs’,
I have a pressing question. What would happen if Iron Man got hit by lightning wile flying through a storm? let’s say it was a substantial lightning bolt, would he be fryed inside his metal suit? what would happen to the electrical wiring in his suit? Now my second question is what if Iron Man was stading on the ground and got hit by lightning? I think he would be cooked alive inside his metal suite and probably electrocuted, but I was wondering what you had to say.
Yours,
Kagcomix
224- *cough* I’ll explain…
#53: My MuseBlog emblem is cut off at the top as well. It reads MuseBloa. So, it’s not just you! WHich I suppose ought to be evident by the fact that it occurs that way on both your’s and the library’s computer.
Do the GAPA answer even 2% of questions asked?
In response to my previous post, and #53, the emblem fully loads on our mac, using safari, just not our pc using internet explorer–but then, it’s been slow and having issues recently
(228) I don’t know. That’s also the answer to 225.
The answer to 216 is “yes.”
225-Kagy, I think in the air he would be fine, but on the ground he wouldn’t be. Always remember, it’s current that kills, not voltage.
* 
passes out* *Wakes up and walks around as zombie repeating stuff from school books* 
*COUghcoughpardonmesorryaboutthat 
*
223-I know what you’re talking about, IBCF! I can walk a little ways from my house and have a great view of the mountains, and they look just like that. I imagine it has to do with light waves bending and distortion due to the distance from which you are viewing the mountains. I know that sounds vague, but I believe that’s pretty accurate, just not as precise and fully explained as I would like it to be
Why when the blog is updated, do the GAPA’s names lose their green color and why does my second smiley turn to text?
Red-tailed HAWK
(231) RtH, still working on the green issue, but it you put two spaces between each of your smileys, they’ll come out right.
232- Your names are green.
233-Wait a minute, this is weird! Only Rebecca’s comment saying they’re working on the problem has a green name!!!
You know, I’m really starting to think THE THING (creepy music plays) in the egg is doing all of this 
Thanks for the advice, Lady. B, it works now…
But now my who-knows-how-many comments of the past all have one text smiley 
how saddening… 
Red-tailed HAWK
(233, 234) Comment 232 happened to be my test post of my theory for restoring greenness. Which it did but not retroactively. Sorry about your signature, RtH. Maybe we’ll fix a couple at random every now and then.
On a brighter note, think of what must have happened to the smiley armies.
I’m all for blaming everything on the egg.
BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!BLAME THE EGG! BLAME THE EGG!
I’ve got to say, it’s awfully suspicious…
I think hare-athon keeps slipping because the egg doesn’t want its hatching to be so obvious at the top of the page. Once The Thing has hatched, it will dry itself and come to the top of the page and pie us all!! *Hides in room, and pulls covers over head*
Red-tailed HAWK
Two questions: One about the blog, one not.
When you make a new thread because one has filled up, do you make the new thread and then close the old one, or the reverse? Because I’m wondering, is there a split second when there isn’t an open thread for a topic? Not that it’s a problem, I’m just curious..
And, poison ivy. I know you can get it from the leaves or the vine… But once the oil is on your skin, and a rash has appeared, why do more rashes appear later? I’ve read conflicting evidence. Some say once the rash is formed, it can’t spread. But why then, after a small rash appeared on my right arm yesterday, do I wake up this morning with a red blotchy rash on my left hand?
Red-tailed HAWK
Usually we create a new thread, save it as an invisible draft, close the old thread, and go back and publish the new one. The thread is offline for a few seconds — usually not longer than that.
I’m not sure about poison ivy. I’d think it would be noncontagious if your rashy skin were dry and unbroken, but contagious otherwise. Of course, you can still catch it from clothes and other things that have picked up some of the plant’s resin. Maybe one of the other GAPAs can give a definitive answer.
(239) My former house had woods full of poison ivy, so I read up on it. The rash itself does not spread, but as Robert said, you can pick it up from handling your clothes or shoes. It’s possible, too, that the contact points may not all break out at the same time.
You can also get it from handling your pets if they’ve been out in it.
Often you can prevent an outbreak if you wash up immediately after contact (or very soon), unless you’re as sensitive as my brother who seems to break out just thinking about poison ivy.
Poison ivy is less potent in the winter but it can still affect you. Persons who have never been bothered can still become allergic later on.
Egad. I used to live in an area with a great deal of poison oak. OWWWWWWWWWWWW.
Robert+Rebecca-Thank you! That’s very helpful.
A couple of years back I had so much poison ivy on my leg (Can’t remember which one though) that A. it itched terribly and B. it formed such a huge bumpy disgusting blob on my leg I couldn’t bend it at the knee. I actually had to take medicine for it…
Red-tailed HAWK
A question:
Alberta considers itself “an essentially rat-free province,” according to the Department of Agriculture and the latest issue of Muse. Is it illegal for pet stores to sell domesticated rats there?
Another question:
Is there any way to access the complete “Dates to Remember” calendar?
(245) The dates are all in a text file.
246- Drat. So there’s no way for the MBers to get at them?
(246) Did you need something in particular that you can hint at in sufficiently roundabout way so as not to tip your hand as to whatever nefarious schemes are spinning through your mind?
248- Er, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I just wanted to know if there were any major MBer-celebrated holidays (like Pi Day) coming up. Just curious, no nefarious schemes at all. *thinks “dang, she’s on to me”*
247, 248- *lurks* *wonders what Prarilius Canix is up to*
(249) Here’s the list of events through September, not including MBer birthdays. *hopes she won’t regret this*
04-01 April Fools’ Day
04-23 William Shakespeare’s birthday (1564)
05-01 May Day
05-05 Cinco de Mayo (Mexico)
05-25 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday (1859)
05-25 Towel Day (it’s an H2G2 thing)
06-13 William Butler Yeats’s birthday (1865)
06-18 Paul McCartney’s birthday (1942)
07-07 Ringo Starr’s birthday (1940)
07-22 Gregor Mendel’s birthday (1822)
07-31 Harry Potter’s birthday (also J. K. Rowling’s)
08-06 Andy Warhol’s birthday (1928)
08-22 Ray Bradbury’s birthday (1920)
09-15 Kakashi’s birthday
09-19 Talk Like a Pirate Day
09-22 Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’s birthdays
251- Thank you!
251- Who’s Kakashi?
*gasp* Kakashi’s birthday! Really? YAY!
um, GAPAs, would you please answer this exceptionally ignorant Q? how do you get smileys onto your posts?
Smileys are explained in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to MuseBlog (HG2MB).
What is smell?
-256 I tried that and it didn’t work, could you please give me a few explanations?
257- I think trace chemicals in the air are detected by special sensors in your nose which send signals to your brain.
251- How about July 20th? It’s the 39th anniversary of Apollo 11.
Okay, here’s a question for you, GAPAs:
A person can become infected with HIV by using syringes and hypodermic needles previously used by an infected individual. However, “there is no evidence that it can be spread through the bites of….mosquitoes.” If sharing needles can pass it on, I would think ‘sharing’ mosquitoes could as well–since they can transmit other diseases between people. UNLESS there is something in their ‘saliva’ that destroys this particular retrovirus. If this is the case, couldn’t scientists simply isolate the chemical in mosquitoes that destroys the virus and create a drug containing this chemical that could be used to cur HIV infected individuals? Or even use it to create a vaccine?
Quote is from Modern Biology. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 1999.
Luna,
Good question! We answered a similar one in the Q&A column in April 2004. You can read the short answer here:
https://musefanpage.com/NewFiles/q%26a_04.html#mosquitoes
As for HIV, Rosanne undoubtedly knows a lot more about it than I do. My impression, though, is that anyplace outside the human body is fairly hostile to the virus.
A question for Robert in particular. What is the best (scientifically plausible) way to simulate gravity, and what are its pros and cons? This is necessary for the Terraformed revision.
Do you mean steady, constant gravity? Acceleration is the only way I know. Einstein showed that it’s equivalent to gravity, and nobody has come up with a better idea. The acceleration can be either linear (going faster and faster in one direction) or radial (the inward push needed to keep you moving in a circle).
For spaceships or hollowed-out asteroids, that amounts to something like a big spinning drum. But the gravity drops off as you climb inward toward the spin axis, and the ends of the drum exert no pull. They’re just walls. A rotating wheel would do the job, too.
264- Many thanks. I’ll inform the other RRRewriters.
OK, given that these drums are attached to each other via a series of tunnels, and the tunnels are not spinning, will people be able to walk in the tunnels?
266- They’d float, I think. Not enough gravity to keep them on the ground, at least not on Ceres.
If I’m imagining things the same way you are, the tunnels would run straight out from one “drum” to the next. That’s parallel to the mock-gravitational force, i.e., up and down. So you’d have to climb through them, with ladders, staircases, or elevators.
The closer you got to the middle of the asteroid, the less everything would “weigh.” At the exact center, you’d float.
Of course, the “drum” doesn’t have to be completely hollow. Tunnels running along the imaginary inner surface of a cylinder would have the same effect.
How do you put a picture in a post?! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
269- You have to e-mail your picture to them, usually.
270- To the GAPAs?! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
270- And what Email address?! ! ! ! ! ! !
271- YES!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, Logogeo96. To gapa @ musefanpage.com (without the spaces around the “@”).
GAPAs, i just sent you an email with an embellished mostly harmless logo, please post it!!
274- Thanks! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Is this thread remotely alive? Because, I have questions that need asking…
(277) Ask away. We’ll see the posts, in any case.
Have all the GAPAs met each other in person at some point?
(279) I don’t think any of us have met Paul in person; Rebecca and Rosanne each knew Robert individually, but met each other when the three R-GAPAs assembled as a group for the first time at the D. C. Kokonvention last August.
Robert and Rosanne have been friends for many years. Though Robert and Rebecca technically met when they were classmates in high school; assorted other lifetimes intervened before they crossed paths again and became friends.
Can I have your autographs?
280-Love the third person…And thank you for answering so thoroughly! Much obliged…
281-LOL! Second that inquiry…
280- Third person ROCKS!
Um I forgot what the GAPA’s e-mail adress is. Could someone plese tell me what it is? Thanks!
Our address is “gapa @ musefanpage.com” (though “gapas @ musefanpage.com” will also work if you get confused).