Don Edwards

Well, according to Phix - who is The Librarian over in the Wapsiverse - The Library contains a copy of every book ever written. (And if The Library's copy is destroyed, The Library automatically regenerates it. However, she never mentioned Heka.

But it can be fun! Wapsi Square spawned the Extended Wapsiverse, which now has several recognized significant differences from canon - one character, in particular, is in a lesbian sexual/romantic relationship with a satyr in the canon but is married to a male centaur in the EW.

I bet the doctor's office did send the prescription to the pharmacy... now it's a matter of which pharmacy...

If you consider "complete state control of the economy by making all means of production state-owned, and oppressing anyone who disapproves of anything the state does or the orders it issues" to be radically different from "complete state control of the economy by forcing the owners of the means of production to obey state instructions, and oppressing anyone who disapproves of anything the state does or the orders it issues". I consider them to be almost identical. Here's the thing: all systems of government work perfectly with perfect people given perfect information - and are so similar one must read the labels to tell them apart. Unfortunately, perfect people seem to be in rather limited supply, and the same for perfect information. In the face of imperfection, all systems of government fail to varying degrees and with varying severity of impact. We need to choose the system that combines relatively minor failure with relative ease of repair. While remembering that neither the repairmen, nor the system for choosing them, will be perfect.

I agree. I prefer the nazis be public about their views - it makes identifying and avoiding them easier. And one must listen to the views - today in America, most of the people being branded as "nazis" believe in freedom of speech and equal treatment and individual liberty, while some of the ones yelling about how horrible the so-called "nazis" are also push suppression of speech of certain views, differential treatment on the basis of race, and relying on the state to make all major decisions. (Granted, there is also a self-avowed "neo-Nazi" movement that teaches racial separation... on the other hand, some of the people who vocally oppose them also teach racial separation. Is mandatory segregation made better or worse on the basis of who's asking for it?)

hm... for some reason this is reminding me of the complexity of dividing by zero. X/0 is undefined (there is no result value that meets the formal mathematical definition of division), except for the special case of 0/0 which is indeterminate (absolutely any result value meets the definition - including imaginary values, complex values, transfinite values...).

But if that's the case, why did he accept this view of gender roles to the point of changing sex in the first place?

An NYPD officer in California is an officer by courtesy only, with no legal authority. (Except possibly in the context of a prisoner transfer - but the prisoner will be handed from one police force or prison-guard force to another, not encountered randomly, and with a bunch of paperwork, prior notice, and scheduling involved.) Therefore wearing an NYPD uniform in California is not impersonating an officer. And I'm sure there are provisions in the law for actually wearing California Highway Patrol uniforms on California highways, with prior CHP approval, for such purposes as making TV shows.

You'd be amazed how closely you can copy a police or military uniform, completely legally, in the US - on condition that you don't try to claim or exercise the powers and privileges that go with the uniform you're wearing. (I think that wearing, say, the distinctive insignia that identify your state's highway patrol officers, might count as claiming the powers and privileges; however, there are no powers and privileges associated with being a patrol officer for the State of Bewilderment.)

The "oblivious wand waving" series involved retroactively changing the universe - which implies time travel. (As just one example of the retroactive changes, Tedd waved a wand and became Tess, and all Tedd's friends (as well as Tess herself) were unaware that anything had changed - Tess had always been Tess.) Time travel is one of the few things that are known to be impossible even with magic. Therefore, the series is non-canon for ANY canonical universe.

I looked at today's comic last night, and then this morning the most recent comic was last Friday's. The Monday and Wednesday comic were simply not available, even by direct links. Same for EGS:NP. My guess: whoever manages the server found cause to do a file restore from a weekend backup. So some abnormal re-posting had to happen.

I suspect such a device, if it existed, would have two dials or digital readouts - one for maleness and one for femaleness - each of which could go positive or negative independently of the other. And while there would be certain patterns of readings that would be significantly more common than other combinations, pretty much every possible combination would occur. It would also be appropriate to take a person's readings on multiple occasions. Because genderfluid is not a single point in time, it's a process over a period of minutes to months. Still, I agree that such a device (if it existed) should be merely a tool for diagnosis and suggestions. Nobody should be (or feel) obligated to conform to a behavior pattern because of its readings.

Legislative bodies in general... there may be exceptions but I certainly can't identify one.

There is some evidence suggesting that in several areas of the brain - some of them being areas where the bell curve rules - there are small structural and biochemical differences between male and female brains. That these differences develop due to hormone balances at certain points in gestation - not all at the same time, and not at the same time that hormone balances affect the development of internal and external genitalia (which also aren't at the same time, or even the same hormone chains - see androgen insensitivity syndrome). With these things happening at different times, it is entirely possible to get a typically-female brain in a typically-male body (or vice versa), or a mixed-gender brain... But "fixing" this is not just a matter of excising something defective. The BEST you could expect from doing that is a person who is completely agender. The more likely result is you get a corpse.

If they hit the minimums given, and the maximum for sweeteners, there is still 7.5% not accounted for.

In the described situation, though, I wonder if dysphoria would be anywhere near as common as it is in our world. I know that for me (genderfluid, mostly neutral) it really isn't a concern - the worst instance of it I've ever had probably lasted less than half an hour, and (very important) I knew it wouldn't last, so yeah, this sucks royally, but I'll get through it and get on with my day. In a world where the main conceit of Ranma 1/2 is common to nearly all of the population and everybody knows it, I suspect that being the "wrong" physical sex as a job requirement would, in and of itself, be about on the level of wearing an ugly and uncomfortable uniform - safety gear possibly included - as a job requirement. (I also suspect that a driver's license would have two photos on it.) This obviously does not necessarily extend to jobs that actually involve the sexual organs in a major way. If there are a lot of people who feel pretty strongly that they should be in a certain-sex body - something that I suspect is somewhat less prevalent than most people think - then there probably would be fairly common facilities where one could park a bag and strip, get a quick cold shower, dry off, yank some other clothes out of your bag and put them on. Possibly combined with an increased prevalence of truly-unisex clothing - not just very-similar-looking clothes for both sexes, but where you'd strip, change sex, and then re-don the clothes you just took off. Should be pretty easy to do - after all, there's this:

Somewhat wildspec: "Ellen" is in fact a female name in Magus' world as well, which is why as soon as he got a non-female nickname (which came because he was the first in his early-education classes to start showing magic ability) he grabbed it and stuck with it. (My sister's brother-in-law, everyone thinks his name is Danny. In reality, his name is Shirley. And there's "Jr." stuck on the end.)

Since we're discussing an alleged quotation...

Actually, what comes out the nozzle is a generally-undesirable but (according to current knowledge and theory) unavoidable side effect. The thrust occurs because there is no part of the rocket blocking the nozzle, so the pressure being applied in that direction does not affect the rocket as a whole, while the pressure in the opposite direction is pressing against the wall of the reaction chamber and trying to push the rocket away from the center of the reaction. "Then I looked, and behold, four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like the gleam of a Tarshish stone. As for their appearance, all four of them had the same likeness, as if one wheel were within another wheel. When they moved, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went; but they followed in the direction which they faced, without turning as they went.…" - Ezekiel 10:9-10

When I first started working for a certain employer, there was a phone for every two people in the group I was in. The two people in the set of desks next to mine were Paul and Paul. A boy named Sue (Spider Robinson parodied that as "A boy named Spider" but that apparently isn't available online.)

Neckties prove that women are smarter than men. The fact that high-heeled shoes were invented for a man, but we foisted them off on women, proves that men are smarter than women. (Which of those two proven things is true, varies from moment to moment and person to person.)

Because she wrote an article for an early scientific journal which included a bit of instructions for programming Charles Babbage's (never-built) Analytic Engine. Said instructions were probably written by someone else. On the other hand, available evidence suggests that Lady Lovelace was the first - even ahead of Babbage himself - to realize that the Analytic Engine could be used to manipulate symbols, as well as numbers. Babbage envisioned it as an automated calculating machine. And while modern computers are of course very good calculating machines, I strongly suspect that a lot fewer processor cycles are put into calculating than are put into indexing things, looking things up, and word processing - all of which are symbol-manipulation. And particularly a bad idea to define a person by their assumed victimhood based on their being part of some group that isn't defined by actual, personal victimhood.

The "Ellens" in the chapter title is not yet justified. The Diamond is gone, but there are fragments of unknown effect and a Chekhov's Arsenal of artifacts that we don't even know what they look like, so there are still options for said justification.

Canonically, we have not been told or even hinted that Susan has learned Nanase's fairy spell at all. (Not saying it can't happen, or even that it hasn't happened.) What we've seen is that Susan, Nanase, and either Grace or Tedd (I forget which, maybe both) worked together for Nanase to make a bunch of fairydolls to Susan's specifications, and then Susan put them in her marked box and is now able to summon more than one (magical, animated copy of one) of them at a time. We also don't know whether she can summon more than one copy of *one* fairydoll. Or if she can summon copies of two non-fairydoll objects, or a fairydoll and another object. Another point: having specific ritual gestures or incantations can serve another function. In that, if you aren't doing the ritual or incantation, your subconscious is made aware that you aren't doing magic. This can be useful for, say, not accidentally starting fires in inconvenient circumstances.

Which, including near-synonyms (e.g. "Wright") and translations to other languages, is probably the most common surname in the world. You wouldn't think so at first glance - there were, for example a lot more farmers than smiths - but surnames are used to *distinguish* people. When 90%+ of the men are farmers, and 98% of the men in villages are farmers, a villager does not get named "farmer". A villager who has just moved to a city might get named "farmer" and then the name might stick even after he's citified; or someone living in a city might choose to earn their keep by farming a patch of ground just outside the city, and this unusual (for a city-dweller) occupation might get them the name "farmer"... Similarly, place-names becoming surnames mostly happened two ways: (1) the feudal lords of the place, over time, forget their old surname (if they ever had one) and adopt the place-name; (2) someone moves from the place and, in their new home, their place of origin is distinctive ("Jack, you know, the one from London, not Jack the sprat fisher"). On the other hand, while practically every bronze-age-or-higher-tech village needs a metalsmith, a lot has to happen before a village needs two metalsmiths. (And the metalsmiths are probably the first smiths requiring sufficient specialized skill and training, and having sufficient demand, that smithing normally becomes their full-time occupation.) Thus, the name is both common and distinctive.