Most of the world has ancient ruins. The US has aircraft graveyards like AMARC (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center). The link takes you to an online photo album of several…
Most of the world has ancient ruins. The US has aircraft graveyards like AMARC (Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center).
The link takes you to an online photo album of several dozen shots of AMARC, showing the steady decay, cannibalization, and demolition of acres upon acres of obsolete or mothballed military aircraft.
(I previously linked to some photos and article of this site here.)
Once upon a time, there was no “Star Tours” at Disneyland. Instead, Monsanto sponsored “Journey through Inner Space,” where folks would be “miniaturized” and injected into a snowflake, ultimately shrinking…
Once upon a time, there was no “Star Tours” at Disneyland. Instead, Monsanto sponsored “Journey through Inner Space,” where folks would be “miniaturized” and injected into a snowflake, ultimately shrinking to a size where an individual oxygen atom could be viewed. It was great, kitschy fun, moderately educational, an amazing PR generator for Monsanto, and, sadly, not nearly cool enough to not be replaced by a George Lucas production (itself badly in need of some updating, these many years later).
The centerpiece of the ride was the Mighty Microsope (lower left), which was part of the miniaturization process — indeed, as you were queueing up for the ride, you could actually see people in little cars, already miniaturized, being injected down the tube.
Too frickin’ cool.
(The MM got one minor memorial in its demolition, showing up briefly in the “Star Tours” ride as a piece of equipment the shuttle passes by on its careening ride out of the space port.)
Now someone has created a 3-D walk-thru of the ride — or so BoingBoing claims, though the site is now coming up “temporarily unavailable.” I’ll have to check it out next week …
Lots of childhood memories locked up there …
My folks have ordered DSL. (It’s fortunate my own cable broadband order is due to be installed next Thursday, or else I’d be quite cross.) Margie now has an Amazon…
I’ll leave it to you as to which is a greater defiance of the laws of God and Physics.
Yeesh. The Master/Slave controversy just gets better and better. More details here on the whole origin of the matter: Sandoval said a Probation Department employee complained to the Office of…
Yeesh. The Master/Slave controversy just gets better and better.
More details here on the whole origin of the matter:
Sandoval said a Probation Department employee complained to the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance that video equipment had the terms “master/slave” written on it. As a result of the investigation, the affirmative action office said he should see whether the county could stop buying electronics with those labels on them.
[…] Dennis A. Tafoya, director of the affirmative action office, said an African-American employee who filed the complaint felt it was employment discrimination because the employee was working on video equipment with the label written on it. The office investigated and determined that the complaint did not involve employment discrimination, but the official recognized that the term could be perceived as offensive.
“The issue was the employee had to operate this equipment and look at the term ‘slave and master,’ and given their background as an African-American person, I imagine they had different feelings about it,” Tafoya said. “We found the terms were antiquated and offensive to individuals and that a more reasonable term could be used. I think that’s what we should do. If it means culture change, then we have to begin someplace.
So. One person — one county worker — sees a term, and makes some bizarro claim that this is “employer discrimination.” The county office responsible for such complaints finds no such discrimination — but decides that, well, someone could be offended by it, so let’s not worry about whether it makes any sense, let’s just coddle any possibility of anyone being in the least bit offended by anything that we do (especially if they might sue us) and just do away with the term.
Well, as a computer geek, I feel that my culture is being denegrated, and that complaints about such a reasonable, very descriptive, and not-at-all antiquated technical term are prejudicial against IT types, and probably constitutes discrimination against the IT employees of the county. I demand that attacks on such terms be ended. “If it means culture change, then we have to begin someplace.”
I mean, really. How many people need to be offended before we decide that a term is unacceptable? It seems that the answer is “1” — if, I might add, the complainer is of a group that is allowed to be offended and have action taken up on their behalf.
Tafoya continues,
“This has got some people’s hair up on the back of their neck. They believe it’s a question of being politically correct. It’s not that at all. It’s an issue of valuing diversity, respect and dignity for the individual who comes to work here every day. The issue that resonates in different people’s minds is a very negative connotation.”
We are therefore removing the following terms from all LA County publications, buildings, and equipment to be purchased: “South,” “Civil,” “Property,” “Cracker,” “Crow,” “Black,” “Whip,” “Cotton,” “Factor,” “Passage,” “Triangle,” “Chains,” and “Gone with the Wind.”
And what does the Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services in the Internal Services Department, have to say?
“What we are doing is soliciting vendors who regularly do business with the county to look at their equipment and help us where they can,” Sandoval said. “It’s not a policy decision or mandate, but that’s what folks took it as.”
Well, maybe this terminology made it look like a “mandate”:
[T]his is not an acceptable identification label. We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment or components thereof that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature before such equipment is sold or otherwise provided to any County department.
If I were selling equipment to the county, I’d sure take that as a mandate.
(Mutter mutter mutter …)
(via Volokh)
Maybe it’s worthwhile spending a few points on Melee Combat. A widow of 80 told yesterday how she fought off two burglars with a ceremonial Army sword. Jean Freke wrestled…
Maybe it’s worthwhile spending a few points on Melee Combat.
A widow of 80 told yesterday how she fought off two burglars with a ceremonial Army sword. Jean Freke wrestled with one intruder then snatched the 3ft-long, 100-year-old weapon from the wall and pointed it at the chest of his pal.
The startled pair, both in their late teens, fled empty-handed from her home in Poole, Dorset.
[…] She told how while one raider went to ransack the house, she managed to steer the second one near a sword belonging to her late husband’s dad before grabbing it.
She added: “I placed it in the middle of his chest and shouted, ‘Get out, get out’.
“They suddenly became cowards and ran off.”
You go, girl.
What’s remarkable is that if it had been a gun, Mrs Freke would probably be charged with something right now, given the state of British law.
(via GoaF)
I almost forgot the other thing on the agenda — doing the last bits of stuff (user acceptance testing, you might call it) on the Big Secret Project that’s been…
I almost forgot the other thing on the agenda — doing the last bits of stuff (user acceptance testing, you might call it) on the Big Secret Project that’s been lurking in the wings for a while.
The only thing I can say is — after working on it, I’m seriously thinking of some redesign efforts here.
The dialog, more or less as it happened. “Honey, sometime this weekend …” [Sit down next to her.] “Yes, Dave?” “I’d like to … do something … thrilling. [Take her…
The dialog, more or less as it happened.
“Honey, sometime this weekend …” [Sit down next to her.]
“Yes, Dave?”
“I’d like to … do something … thrilling. [Take her hand.] Moving. Something to fill the senses, engulf the mind … [Nuzzle her neck.] … something that I’ve been waiting for … for so long … [Kiss her] together, just the two of us, something wonderful, marvelous, thrilling …”
“Yeeeessss?”
A recap … Margie took Kitten duty — in fact, was up before her. All to the good, as it turned out. Thanksgiving this year was over at the Testerfolk…
A recap …
Margie took Kitten duty — in fact, was up before her. All to the good, as it turned out. Thanksgiving this year was over at the Testerfolk — Jackie’s folks are in town — and they were doing the “Early Early Early Supper” version thereof, so I had to deliver the turkey frier and oil over there around 11:30a to get it heated up … only to find that I’d left the burner back home (stupid rat creature). Once that was resolved, off to the comic book store for their 50% off sale. Then back again. Good wine, great food, and even a pecan pie contributed by moi. Then playing of games and watching of TV and a relatively early bed time of it, too. A fine, fine day and night.
Agenda for the weekend includes doing our catalog shopping, getting our Christmas cards, if not done, then ready to go, and going to the ZooLights thang. I should probably finish the mulching. Oh, sleeping would be good, too.
And belated thoughts …
I have so much to be thankful for. My health. My lovely and loving wife, and my amazing daughter. Opportunities and prosperitiy. The gifts I’ve been given. Friends. Family. The country I live in. Those who sacrifice so much for it.
And so I give thanks for all those things.
Fascinating article here on the transient nature of web information, which is a real problem in the research biz. In research described in the journal Science last month, the team…
Fascinating article here on the transient nature of web information, which is a real problem in the research biz.
In research described in the journal Science last month, the team looked at footnotes from scientific articles in three major journals — the New England Journal of Medicine, Science and Nature — at three months, 15 months and 27 months after publication. The prevalence of inactive Internet references grew during those intervals from 3.8 percent to 10 percent to 13 percent. […] In one recent study, one-fifth of the Internet addresses used in a Web-based high school science curriculum disappeared over 12 months.
This isn’t just a matter of having to update documents. The idea of the “world-wide web” was the interconnectivity of data and the sites that host them. If data vanishes — or moves without a forwarding address — the whole enterprise is in danger.
It’s as though every day I went into the library, threw out a dozen books, and in a dozen more put new bindings on with new titles. Ultimately, not only would the card catelog be useless, even the biblographies within books would be.
Of course, even conventional footnotes often lead to dead ends. Some experts have estimated that as many as 20 percent to 25 percent of all published footnotes have typographical errors, which can lead people to the wrong volume or issue of a sought-after reference, said Sheldon Kotzin, chief of bibliographic services at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda.
But the Web’s relentless morphing affects a lot more than footnotes. People are increasingly dependent on the Web to get information from companies, organizations and governments. Yet, of the 2,483 British government Web sites, for example, 25 percent change their URL each year, said David Worlock of Electronic Publishing Services Ltd. in London.
That matters in part because some documents exist only as Web pages — for example, the British government’s dossier on Iraqi weapons. “It only appeared on the Web,” Worlock said. “There is no definitive reference where future historians might find it.”
While there are efforts to archive the Web, the data volumes involved are tremendous. Efforts are underway to “fingerprint” documents with persistent codes that could survive migration from one page to another, but it’s still a constant source of catch-up.
Speaking personally, I know that almost every time I go back to an older page on this blog and try to follow the link, I have only about a 35% chance of actually getting to what I linked to. News stories, of course, tend to be transient (especially national news organizations), and links to stories on Yahoo are good for a few weeks at best.
I’ve taken, because of that, to quoting on my page whatever key data I want to retain. It would be easier, sometimes, to just throw up a link (and often it makes for a better joke), but it’s also a lot more hazardous; I have several posts that say only, “Hey, this is keen, I’ll have to remember this in the future,” and the link goes nowhere. Oh, well …
The most stable links, in many cases, are to blogs and personal web sites — perhaps because most folks tend to stick (or be stuck with) a single page structure for a much longer time, given the tremendous effort it can take to migrate information around.
But even there, it happens. People change domain names (through personal preference, fleeing from spam, or because they change ISPs), or change technology types (.html pages suddenly becoming .shtml), etc.
The incredible power of the Internet is the ability to rapidly churn out and reconfigure information. It’s greatest weakness may turn out to be just the same thing.
(via Tyler Cowen)
[N.B. For some reason, this post was never actually published at the time it was written.] The European Union and major newspapers across the Continent today vehemently protested as “unhelpful,”…
[N.B. For some reason, this post was never actually published at the time it was written.]
The European Union and major newspapers across the Continent today vehemently protested as “unhelpful,” “inflammatory,” and “demeaningly racist” an editorial cartoon appearing in the Jerusalem Post, portraying a naked Palestinian President Yasser Arafat eating the head off an Israeli infant, saying, “”What’s wrong? Have you never seen a politician kissing a baby?” In the background, hooded soldiers toss dynamite packages at houses with the words, “Vote PLO!” on them.
“This sort of dehumanizing of an elected leader is very unhelpful,” said the foreign minister of France. “It shows remarkably bad taste, and will almost certainly be responsible for the stirring up of Palestinian anger at this insult.” He particularly denounced the timing of the cartoon, appearing on the anniversary of the Intifada, as a “clear mockery of the pain and oppression of the Palestinians.”
An editorial in the British paper, The Independent, called the cartoon “blatant racism” and “emblematic of Israeli insensitivity toward the Palestinian people, and the unwillingness of Israel to negotiate in good faith at the bargaining table.” It also ridiculed the excuse given by the cartoonist, who noted it was inspired by a classic Goya painting. “Appropriation of such symbols and art to such a mean end must certainly be condemned by anyone with half an ounce of sense.” It demanded an apology from the Israeli newspaper, and the firing of the cartoonist, who turned around and thanked the Independent for giving his cartoon additional publicity through their outrage …
New (to me) resource of blog hacks and patches and fixes and tweaks: The Girlie Matters. Things I’ve learned so far: How to have the search open a new window….
New (to me) resource of blog hacks and patches and fixes and tweaks: The Girlie Matters. Things I’ve learned so far:
Good stuff all around.
The new Hellboy trailer is out. Hoody-frickin-hoo. The only down side I see is that the HB makeup itself is not terribly expressive. But the acting and characterization and plotting…
The new Hellboy trailer is out.
Hoody-frickin-hoo.
The only down side I see is that the HB makeup itself is not terribly expressive. But the acting and characterization and plotting and humor and imagery all look spot on. And despite it being a HB movie, it looks like there’s plenty of supporting cast time (including the “normal” guy recruited to the BPRD who acts as the PoV for the audience) — definitely a good way to approach this.
Waiting for April …
(via Les)
Katherine went in for a more thorough screening of her “artic and disfluency” problems this afternoon. Margie and I, meanwhile, waded through various forms that are designed to protect and…
Katherine went in for a more thorough screening of her “artic and disfluency” problems this afternoon. Margie and I, meanwhile, waded through various forms that are designed to protect and delineate parental rights regarding various handicapped and disabled children — though the same paperwork applies to speech therapy for Kitten — but which oddly made us feel like we were signing her over to a government lab for research. (“Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, we’ll take good care of your specime — I mean, your son, Clark.”)
One thing we did right, at least — I scanned the lengthy questionaire/profile we had to write up for her last night, so that if we ever have to do the same, we can use the same SWAGs for when she started using 2-3 word sentences, when she walked, etc.
The results of the more in-depth screening will be revealed in a couple of weeks at our next appointment. The immediate impression from the speech therapist was (stop me if you’ve heard this one) that she’s bright and has a lot to say. If we can just get her to be saying it clearly, she’ll have it made.
Amusingly enough, she even provided the speech therapist with an improvement to her screening method. She found, up on a toy shelf, a Fisher-Price tape player/karaoke mic. She insisted on taking this over to the screening table with her, and speaking into the microphone — which the therapist realized made it a lot easier for her to identify the sounds that Katherine is (mis)making. “I’ll have to start using that in all of our screenings,” she opined.
So far, I’m impressed by what they’ve been doing. We’ll see how it works out. We get a percentage of private speech therapy covered by Margie’s insurance, so we can also go private, if need be. We’ll see.
Three men die and meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. “In honor of this holy season,” St. Peter says, “you must each possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get…
Three men die and meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
“In honor of this holy season,” St. Peter says, “you must each possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get into Heaven.”
The first man thinks a few moments, then fumbles through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicks it on and announces, “It’s a candle.”
“You may pass through the Pearly Gates,” St. Peter tells him.
The second man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. He shakes them and says, “Listen, they’re bells.”
St. Peter smiles and nods. “You may pass through the Pearly Gates.”
The third man had been searching desperately through his own pockets. Finally, he finds something, grins, and pulls out a pair of women’s panties.
St. Peter looks at the man with a raised eyebrow and asks, “And just what do those symbolize?”
Kudos to Mary for her Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk this past weekend. Great job, Mary! Looking at the roll call on her donation page ($2,165!) I see at least one…
Kudos to Mary for her Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk this past weekend. Great job, Mary!
Looking at the roll call on her donation page ($2,165!) I see at least one name that is either an incredible coincidence, or came from this site. So my thanks to you, too, readers.
If for some reason you’ve ever wondered what a dislocated elbow looks like, Scott’s got your answer. Not for the empathetic ……
If for some reason you’ve ever wondered what a dislocated elbow looks like, Scott’s got your answer. Not for the empathetic …
Golly Gee!! You are NORMAN ROCKWELL. You are a painter of simple, everyday happenings. You tend to avoid the outrageous and stay well within the guidelines of society. Your…
Actually, sort of a goofy test, but I’m feeling Rockwellesque recently …
(via GoaF)
Looking at the new Battlestar Galactica trailers, it’s interesting how times change. In the late 70s, when the original series aired, it was still the Cold War. The idea of…
Looking at the new Battlestar Galactica trailers, it’s interesting how times change.
In the late 70s, when the original series aired, it was still the Cold War. The idea of the Bad Guys betraying our peaceful overtures and nuking us while our pants were down was, at least in the popular culture, completely believable.
The new BG, instead, has the “enemy is us” about it. The Cylons are no longer “walking toasters” and aliens, but synthetic creatures, created by humanity — and, now, capable of resembling humanity. A parable for the dangers of modern science? An allusion to humanity creating its own internal enemies in an era of terrorism and WMDs? Take your headline-of-the-week pick.
All that’s certain is that there’s going to be Human/Cylon nookie. Guaranteed.
The Enemy Among us is not, though, a new theme. And while the Borg might have made the Evil Robot Invader meme theirs for decades to come, I’m going to miss those Walking Toasters.
We’ll see.
(via GoaF)
As an artist, all I need is my paints and brushes — and someone to drag me away when the canvas is done.    — Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) That must be…
As an artist, all I need is my paints and brushes — and someone to drag me away when the canvas is done.
   — Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
That must be George Lucas’ problem — there’s nobody important enough to drag him away from his canvas. At least that’s the impression I get from these rumors:
One other note today… we’ve heard from a number of interesting (and we believe reliable) inside sources that Lucsafilm is currently making major new changes to the original Star Wars films – the kind of changes he began a few years ago with the theatrical “Special Edition” releases. These changes include new special effects, revised and updated shots and scenes, and new footage shot with actors Hayden Christensen (Anakin) and Ian McDiarmid (the Emperor) that would flesh out moments with their characters in the original films. For example, an aged and scarred Hayden now appears as Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi when Luke removes Vader’s helmet. Among the other changes reportedly being made are the restoration of the original “Han shoots first” moment from Star Wars and a revamped lightsaber fight between Obi-Wan and Vader. What we’ve heard meshes with what we’ve been told before, which is that Lucas has always planned to release ultimate, “Archive” editions of these films that tie in better with the new prequels. The main question in our minds now is this: will these changes be completed in time to appear on the DVD releases planned for next September, or will we have to wait until after Episode III hits theaters to see them? And if we have to wait, what versions will appear on the DVDs? Time will tell.
Okay, granted it’s only a rumor. But … jeez. While restoring (from the previous “revamp”) rascally Han to being the first shot only makes sense, retconning poor Sebastian Shaw out of being the Vader-behind-the-mask, etc., seems unnecessary overkill. George — leave it be. Put your efforts into something new, not refining something old.
On the other hand, it’s such a money-maker, that my bet is, if it is true, the DVD versions that are first released will be rereleases of the previous expanded videos (probably with some nice added bit) — then, a year or two later, when that revenue stream has died down, we’ll “finally” get the Super Platinum Director’s Archive Diamond Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (2006) DVDs, with Much More Material, and Lots o’ Changes.
And, of course, with the next tech breakthrough, Lucas can keep doing the same thing …
And, yeah, I’ll probably be there, getting my fix with the rest of the junkies.
(via Anne)
UPDATE: Some of the above items echo the bits here. On the one hand, some of this stuff sounds just whacked (even if you assume it’s the Ultimate Until We Make Another Archive Edition occuring later on). On the other hand, we’re talking George Lucas here, so I’m not taking any bets on any of it.
UPDATE AGAIN: Given the list referenced above is almost word-for-word from this 2002 bulletin board wishlist (see the 7/25/02 9:52pm), I’m slightly more confident. Slightly. But isn’t it interesting that Lucas has squandered the faith so many had in him with his artless micromanagement of the SW franchise?
Well rather than drag out the suspense any longer, here are the folks who qualified for … well, I guess we’ll make it Thanksgiving Dinner. Twelve folks (myself included) contributed…
Well rather than drag out the suspense the folks who qualified for … well, I guess we’ll make it Thanksgiving Dinner.
Twelve folks (myself included) contributed names. Many thanks to Stan, Meera, Mary, Fred, Dodd, Nicholas, Timbo, Margie, Brian, Doyce, and Amanda.
One hell of an eclectic group, I’ll tell you. There were 151 different names submitted. Of that, only 22 names had more than one vote — and only six had more than two votes.
The core six diners, then (ones I voted for in bold):
Ben Franklin (4)
Robert Heinlein (3)
Thomas Jefferson(3)
Julius Caesar (3)
William Shakespeare (4)
Mark Twain (6)
I’m not sure about Caesar (I’d be more likely to vote for Augustus than Julius), but Heinlein is a fine choice.
Different folks had different themes. Some were into literary figures — which, except in cases where I know something of their personality, I tended to avoid as I didn’t know if they’d be any good at a dinner party. Sure, it would be cool to chat with Shakespeare — but what about? Was he all that good a conversationalist? Twain, on the other hand, seems a fine dinner candidate. (It would be actually interesting to see Twain and Heinlein interact.)
Chatting with Doyce this weekend, we realized that voting for “Shakespeare” might actually result in multiple people showing up.
Others went for religious figures — I threw in a number of those myself. Again, there’s always the question of whether they’d be interesting dinner companions, after you asked them a question or two.
Actually, taken a bit further, I could see different versions of the list for “dinner companions,” “road trip companions,” “someone to sit in front of the fire having a personal chat,” etc. Different dynamics, both in terms of the type of interaction, issues of privacy, and how well the person involved does in a group.
Away from the head table, here are the other guests (with 2 votes each):
Winston Churchill
Arthur C. Clarke
Leonardo Da Vinci
Charles Dickens
Albert Einstein
Neil Gaiman
Jesus
Stephen King
Lao Tse
Ursula K. LeGuin
Marcus Aurelius
Dorothy Parker
Teddy Roosevelt
J.R.R. Tolkien
Joss Whedon
Oscar Wilde
I regret not having included Parker or Wilde. I think both would be excellent dinner guests. My Inkling vote was for C.S. Lewis; I’d rather talk religion with him than linguistics with Tolkien. The other writers I’m not sure would be “dinner party” types, though I wouldn’t mind chats with any of them. Ditto Da Vinci.
It’s worth noting that some contributors went to pains to alternate men with women. I fear there weren’t nearly as many women on my list as there ought to have been.
In the also-ran category, outside, and alas being kept out by the bouncer, were, with 1 vote each:
J.J. Abrams, Adam, Douglas Adams, Scott Adams, Hans Christian Anderson, Susan B. Anthony, Antinous, Neil Armstrong, Attila the Hun, St Augustine, Isaac Asimov, Jane Austin, Honore de Balzac, Stephen Baxgter, Ludwig von Beethoven, Moon Zero Bird, William Blake, Boudicca, Chesley Bonsestell, Jakob Bronowski, James Burke, Bruce Campbell, George Carlin, Coco Chanel, Charlemagne, Geoffrey Chaucer, Julia Child, Henry Clay, Cleopatra, Christopher Columbus, Confucius, Noel Coward, John Dominic Crossan, Marie Curie, Peter David, Marion Davies, John Dee, W.E. Deming, Princess Diana, Emily Dickenson, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth I, Erik the Red, Eve, Douglas Fairbanks, Richard Feynmann, Ian Fleming, Diane Fossey, Robert Fulgham, Galileo, Mahatma Gandhi, Gerald Gardner, Stephen Gould, Stephen Hawking, W.F. Hegel, Jimi Hendrix, Herodotus, Alfred Hitchcock, Adolf Hitler, Victor Hugo, Hypatia, the Ice Maiden of Gorno Altai, Imhotep, St. John, St. John of the Cross, Diane Wynne Jones, Judas, Mercedes Lackey, Gary Larson, Marie Laveau, C.S. Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, Vince Lombardi, Ken MacLeod, Bill Maher, Francis Marion, Beryl Markham, Karl Marx, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Margaret Mead, China Melville, Montezuma, Moses, Mohammed, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nefirtiti, Isaac Newton, Florence Nightengale, Noah, Alfred Nobel, Patrick O’Brian, Turlough O’Carolan, Sandra Day O’Connor, Osama bin Laden, Otzi the Ice Man, Thomas Paine, George Patton, Paul, Mary Pickford, James Randi, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Stan Sakai, Margaret Sanger, George Sand, Harrison Schmitt, Sei Shonagon, Sitting Bull, Al Smith, Joseph Smith, Kevin Smith, Socrates, Neil Stephenson, Joe Straczynski, Sun Tzu, Mother Teresa, Margaret Thatcher, Harry S. Truman, Voltaire, George Washington, Bill Watterson, Robin Williams, Judd Winnick, P.G. Wodehouse, Wu Chao, Chuck Yeager, Roger Zelazny.
This doesn’t count the dozen or more that Stan had as left-overs.
If I had to pick a few more off of that list to invite in, Asimov, Blake, Clay, David, Elizabeth, Gandhi, Napoleon, Roosevelt (either), Wodehouse … or maybe I’d just invite the three Smiths, to see how they interacted.
So. Make of it what you will.