Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

While the game is far more interesting, here's some Sync Bug info. Here I'm loading the next turn that Dave sent. There's an error message. I don't see anything about an 1126a. Is he properly patched?

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Interesting psychological game. . .

ChuckBerger

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

You gents need soothing reading about things botanical. I wrote this after a hike a few weeks ago:

Symbionts

The toe of a woodland ridge I walk nudges a creek, then ranges up to a shallow gap between two knobs. Lichen-speckled boulders jut from the slanting ridge spine, like gray, humped-back whales broaching sea swells.

If together we walked that ridge, moving among the rocks, and I queried, “Do you know what a lichen is?” you’d nod, pointing to pale-turquoise growth dappling each boulder. If curiosity lingered, you might probe further, inquiring: “But what is a lichen, really?” as once I did.

We know lichens by sight – common plants growing on exposed rock or soil, bark, limbs, gravestones, sidewalks, walls, roofs, and even on other lichens. They’re often papery thin, as if flour and water mixed into paste and brushed on an object were allowed to dry, the edges then folding and scalloping irregularly.

But the science of the matter confounds, for a lichen isn’t a plant at all. It isn’t even an organism.

More precisely, it isn’t a single organism.

An old-timer once explained lichen science to me. A student of natural history and woodland lore, he pointed to a specimen on a boulder and said, “Lichens are a symbiotic relationship [a what?] between an alga and a fungus.”

A lichen, he expounded, is two organisms coexisting, dependent each on the other – an alga using water and minerals absorbed by a fungus to produce food by photosynthesis, which feeds both life forms.

The two organisms can exist independently, as alga and as fungus, but a lichen exists only when they live together, mutually dependent on one another. Scholars dub states of mutuality among living things “symbiosis.” The alga and the fungus are “symbionts.”

Science organizes all known lifeforms into five biological kingdoms. The organisms that make up lichens aren’t from the familiar Plant or Animal Kingdoms, but each of the other three kingdoms is involved. Every lichen consists of a member of the Kingdom Fungi living in association with either a member of the Kingdom Protista or the Kingdom Monera.

Blue-green algae and a fungus comprise many common lichens, creating the faded turquoise coloring – as if the lichens had been exposed to overmuch sunlight – so familiar on northwest Georgia’s rocky ridges. But blue-green alga really isn’t an alga, so it isn’t a member of the Kingdom Protista. It’s cyanobacteria from the Kingdom Monera – bacteria capable of photosynthesis.

Lifeforms from different kingdoms living together symbiotically might be comparable to turtles living in trees, if the two depended one on the other so much that they became as one and were so perceived by mankind.

There are twenty thousand species of lichen (“species” really isn’t the right term since organisms from multiple kingdoms are involved). Lichens are delicate but have adapted to earth’s most hostile environments – tundra, mountains, deserts, and toxic slag heaps. They’re hardy and opportunistic, covering about nine percent of the planet’s surface.

The day my friend asked, “Do know what a lichen is?” as we walked the gnarled-rock spine of Taylors Ridge, I replied, “Sure,” and pointed to a rock colonized by faded turquoise growth illuminated under a cloudless winter sky’s brilliant blueness.

Oh, yes, I could point to a lichen, but I did so without knowing its simple, marvelous complexity.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ChuckBerger

Interesting psychological game. You are both now in the position of trying to guess and second-guess what your opponent will do next. Eg, "my obvious move is x, but he knows that, and therefore will probably think I won't do x but rather y or z, and will plan accordingly... unless he's thought this through, and reckons I'll do x after all, precisely because it is the obvious move and therefore unexpected at this point in time ... unless..."

Created by the amazing Dixie

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The Princess Bride and the poisoned wine glass.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

You gents need soothing reading about things botanical. I wrote this after a hike a few weeks ago:

Symbionts

The toe of a woodland ridge I walk nudges a creek, then ranges up to a shallow gap between two knobs. Lichen-speckled boulders jut from the slanting ridge spine, like gray, humped-back whales broaching sea swells.

If together we walked that ridge, moving among the rocks, and I queried, “Do you know what a lichen is?” you’d nod, pointing to pale-turquoise growth dappling each boulder. If curiosity lingered, you might probe further, inquiring: “But what is a lichen, really?” as once I did.

We know lichens by sight – common plants growing on exposed rock or soil, bark, limbs, gravestones, sidewalks, walls, roofs, and even on other lichens. They’re often papery thin, as if flour and water mixed into paste and brushed on an object were allowed to dry, the edges then folding and scalloping irregularly.

But the science of the matter confounds, for a lichen isn’t a plant at all. It isn’t even an organism.

More precisely, it isn’t a single organism.

An old-timer once explained lichen science to me. A student of natural history and woodland lore, he pointed to a specimen on a boulder and said, “Lichens are a symbiotic relationship [a what?] between an alga and a fungus.”

A lichen, he expounded, is two organisms coexisting, dependent each on the other – an alga using water and minerals absorbed by a fungus to produce food by photosynthesis, which feeds both life forms.

The two organisms can exist independently, as alga and as fungus, but a lichen exists only when they live together, mutually dependent on one another. Scholars dub states of mutuality among living things “symbiosis.” The alga and the fungus are “symbionts.”

Science organizes all known lifeforms into five biological kingdoms. The organisms that make up lichens aren’t from the familiar Plant or Animal Kingdoms, but each of the other three kingdoms is involved. Every lichen consists of a member of the Kingdom Fungi living in association with either a member of the Kingdom Protista or the Kingdom Monera.

Blue-green algae and a fungus comprise many common lichens, creating the faded turquoise coloring – as if the lichens had been exposed to overmuch sunlight – so familiar on northwest Georgia’s rocky ridges. But blue-green alga really isn’t an alga, so it isn’t a member of the Kingdom Protista. It’s cyanobacteria from the Kingdom Monera – bacteria capable of photosynthesis.

Lifeforms from different kingdoms living together symbiotically might be comparable to turtles living in trees, if the two depended one on the other so much that they became as one and were so perceived by mankind.

There are twenty thousand species of lichen (“species” really isn’t the right term since organisms from multiple kingdoms are involved). Lichens are delicate but have adapted to earth’s most hostile environments – tundra, mountains, deserts, and toxic slag heaps. They’re hardy and opportunistic, covering about nine percent of the planet’s surface.

The day my friend asked, “Do know what a lichen is?” as we walked the gnarled-rock spine of Taylors Ridge, I replied, “Sure,” and pointed to a rock colonized by faded turquoise growth illuminated under a cloudless winter sky’s brilliant blueness.

Oh, yes, I could point to a lichen, but I did so without knowing its simple, marvelous complexity.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Six hits scored on Lex, which hadn't disbanded (she only had to go six hexes, so this is particularly sad). She's still afloat but has 95 FLT and lots of fires and is a gonner. I'll disband her tomorrow, so that Dave has to dig her out, but this chase is over.

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ORIGINAL: BillBrown

This indicates the problem. You are using version 1126a and your opponent is using version 1124. You will need to revert back to version 1124 or you will have sync problems. Or Dave could patch to 1126a.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

12/18/41

The Wild, Wounded Goose Chase: Fate caught up with her today at Wallis Island.

Lex (and the combat ships ahead of her) somehow made their runs without blundering into Half KB South, which moved a bit NW of Wallis Island. A CL force, probably from the Marshalls, came down and patrolled the Ellice Islands (sinking a DM that had just laid mines), and Half KB North remained up near Canton).

The turn went on and on and on without any KB strikes....untilt he very end of the day, when some Vals sortied against Lex and some others against Indianapolis. Six hits scored on Lex, which hadn't disbanded (she only had to go six hexes, so this is particularly sad). She's still afloat but has 95 FLT and lots of fires and is a gonner. I'll disband her tomorrow, so that Dave has to dig her out, but this chase is over.

Indianapolis wasn't hit. The Kiwi CLs also hung close and weren't hit. They'll flee tomorrow.

I have alot of shipping disbanded and hope that Dave's first thought will be to finally move away. It probably won't. This guys will dig them out too. So I'll have to think and work.

One word from Dave when he sent the turn would have ruined an awesomely tense turn.

"Finally."

That's why having opponents who don't tip things via email is critical to an Allied player's ability to enjoy the drama of the game.

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ORIGINAL: Zorch
Ok, that cured my insomnia.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

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ORIGINAL: Zorch
Ok, that cured my insomnia.

I'm here to serve!

Here's another, written after a hike in the Cohutta Wilderness on October 5. This one is moving, sweet, and expressive in an eloquent, vibrant, and surprisingly elegant way:

STRANGELY NAMED

Highland folk called it Black Mountain Road
and named a bend where it fell (or rose)
after a mishap that oddly bestowed
a meaning only one living man knows.

A highlander once told that man a tale
of cleaning a woods boar, slain for a meal,
he threw its cod-piece and watched it sail,
and spin ‘round a limb, a grisly pinwheel.

The highlander said that he’d never seen
a discarded cod-piece hit the ground
it always snagged someplace in between,
then circled, making a bush-rattling sound.

That highlander, speaking with old-timey verve,
revealed the meaning of Possum Cod Curve.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Makee, did you take Sledge's class? Were you at Montevallo? If so, you are a most fortunate man!

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Well, dang, MakeeLearn. What a great story and experience. You rubbed shoulders with a legend, although he didn't think of himself that way. He was just a 'Bama boy lucky enough to survive a war. To the rest of us, he was walking history.

Goes to show that every person has a story. If you and Sledge had lived in Georgia, instead of across the state line, I'd be begging you to write a story about Sledge. Or I'd write one about the both of you, and I'd be sure to include the comment about "those things are deadly!"

And they are, as we all know!