Don Edwards

Missoula's in the process of building a new library. The old one, built when the city had less than a third its present population and the metropolitan area was proportionately even smaller, has a Makerspace crammed - and I do mean crammed - into a room on the lower floor. (The building's on a hill and thus has two ground floors.) There are two or three 3D printers, several computers with 3d modeling software, a rack of assorted electronic kits including a couple different models of Arduino-type computers, a few soldering stations, and shoved into a corner and blocked with tables so you can't get to it is a bandsaw (if I remember correctly - might be a drill press). But it's ok that you can't get to the bandsaw, because the ventilation system is seriously inadequate for a wood shop with tools spraying sawdust everywhere - it was, after all, designed for a library. Not directly relevant but worth mentioning anyway is that outside the door of this floor, under the protection of the larger upper floor, there's a rack for hanging a bicycle such that most of the workings are about at eye level, with a bunch of bicycle-maintenance tools on cables attached to said rack, and next to it is a vending machine with commonly replaced bicycle parts plus an air hose. The people who run the Makerspace were heavily involved in the design of about 2/3 of the lower floor of the new library. And the ventilation system. (They don't actually get that much space, but activities in their space will affect adjoining areas & vice versa.)

Circe doesn't need to be continuously present. She can have a magical alarm that notifies her when someone reaches a certain point in her crypt.

So if you have sort of figured out something about how magic works, you have a rule of thaum?

I see no evidence that Edward knows, and no particular reason to think that he knows. (Also, no particular reason to think that he doesn't.) I'm still waiting for the first in-comic confirmation. This isn't it. It occurs to me that if Edward thinks Tedd is transforming to hide from who he is (the person who caused his parents to break up, for example), Edward's attitude toward the transformation makes a fair amount of sense and isn't all that bad. In that context, the transformations would be unhealthy in the long run. (Operative words there being "if Edward thinks".) Every indication we have, though, is that Tedd's transformations are an expression of who Tedd is - not a way of hiding from who Tedd is.

One definition of "chaperone", courtesy of Heinlein if I recall correctly, is a person who makes sure that no unauthorized sexual activity is detected.

Either that, or she's familiar with the trope of Victoria's Secret Compartment.

You need a nap? I think somebody left one on your bed.

That was because U don't want to go anywhere near them.

I remember reading a story set in a library that, according to rumor, had previously been a dragon's lair - rumor did not say what had happened to the dragon. The librarian informed all visitors that they were free to stay as long as they liked, read anything they liked, take any notes they liked on their own paper, but under no conditions would they be permitted to take books out of the library. She was also very helpful in finding books on any subject in the collection. Eventually, of course, someone tried to steal an ancient and extremely valuable tome. The librarian ate him.

They didn't. Please tell me they didn't.

And it looks likely that the Japanese and Koreans had at least heard the concept of an alphabetic script, from Marco Polo by way of China or from Buddhist India by way of China, before inventing the scripts you refer to.

The only Chicago-area con I'm at all familiar with is Windycon, which I happened entirely coincidentally to be in town for in 1989 or 1990. I was there for a two-week training program on some new software my employer was buying, and the convention was on the intervening weekend; I found out about it late Saturday evening. The fun thing was, Mercedes Lackey recognized me in the hall and answered a silly question I had asked her at Norwescon. That being one of two times I spent even a full day in the Chicago area. The other was in the fall of 1977 around Thanksgiving; for various reasons I can pin that one down precisely.

Also, what that can do to one's perspectives...

That may the trick: small meals for a while, balancing their small size with increased frequency.

Yeah, that's WELL down the list. First they need to recognize that this little bitty plastic chip is a data-storage device. Second it needs to be in good enough condition that WE could read it. Then they have to figure out how to read the storage blocks, which implies an electronics technology at least comparable to ours. Then they have to figure out how many bits are in a single symbol, and getting this right will imply that they use an alphabetic script*. THEN, finally they can start working on understanding the data in any individual block (record format?) at the same time that they start decoding the filesystem structure (file format). Once they get to that point, XML will help, of course - while Unicode will make things more difficult. Oh, and yes, the natural Rosetta Stone I was referring to is the Periodic Table. * Evidence suggests that the alphabetic script was invented from whole cloth exactly once in human history: every alphabetic script, whether in current usage or dead, is a descendant - in terms of the concept being handed down if not the actual forms - of Phoenician. If civilization falls so hard that that concept is lost for a couple thousand years, it won't necessarily be reinvented quickly.