@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems2025-06-09 16:48:12
"""
"[…] Wanting a man got me into awful troubles more than once. But wanting to get married, never! No, no. None of that for me."
"Why not?" Tenar demanded.
Taken aback, Moss said simply, "Why, what man'd marry a witch?" And then, with a sidelong chewing motion of her jaw, like a sheep shifting its cud, “And what witch’d marry a man?"
They split rushes.
"What's wrong with men?" Tenar inquired cautiously.
As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, "I don't know, my dearie. I’ve thought on it. Often I’ve thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell." She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. “It’s hard and strong, that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else, inside."
Tenar pondered awhile and finally asked, "But if he's a wizard—"
"Then it's all his power, inside. His power’s himself, see. That’s how it is with him. And that’s all. When his power goes, he’s gone. Empty." She cracked the unseen walnut and tossed the shells away. “Nothing."
"And a woman, then?"
"Oh, well, dearie, a woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen, mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark." Moss’s eyes shone with a weird brightness in their red rims and her voice sang like an instrument. “I go back into the dark! Before the moon I was. No one knows, no one knows, no one can say what I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman’s power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who’ll ask the dark its name?"
"""
(Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu)
@pre@boing.world2025-06-02 20:28:08
Confusing episode. Let me clear it all up.
The world is sinking into the doubt needed to rescue Omega, remember, and The Doctor is falling with a balcony that's separated from the building.
How does he get out of that?
Well, saved by a literal magic door that pops out of nowhere, leading back to the time hotel. 🤨
Anita, who he spent a year with once a couple of Christmases ago, has been popping around the Doctor's entire long life, peeping on him with the Daleks and stuff. Trying to find him on the Earth's last day. Today.
And now he's rescued, today turns into a groundhog day. Same day over and over again. 😆
There's another woman that's been stalking him through time lately, Mrs Flood. She was following him everywhere, but she had Xmas off she reckons, so didn't see the Time Hotel bit. Thus the element of surprise in the deus ex machina rescue. 😀
The Doctor is broken free of the wish spell now anyway, popped his conditioning, and can use the time hotel's door to recall Unit and break them all out of the wish too.
The Rani pops in to say hi and explain her plans. 😝
How did the Rani survive the end of the Timelords? She flipped her DNA to sidestep the genetic bomb apparently? Well that makes no sense, but nor does anything else so no time to ponder.
The end of the Time Lords made them all Barons... No, made them barren. There can be no more children of the time-lords.
She's popping Omega back out of the underworld for his DNA because the timelords are all barren and she wants to recreate Galifrey.
But wait a minute: Poppy is the Doctor's kid in wish world! So she should have Timelord DNA too! Maybe that could work?
No. The Rani is a nazi, don't like the kid's contaminated blood. She's got human all over her DNA. Eww.
Rani pops off back to her Bone Palace, and makes the bone beasts attack.
The Doctor explains that the Giant dinosaur skeletons are beasts that pop in to clean up the world when there's a reality flux, and the Rani has turned them on Unit HQ.
So the UNIT HQ turns into some kinda ship? Like the Crimson Permanent Insurance. Lol. It's blasting lasers at the bone beasts and turning around, and has a steering wheel like pirate ship now. 🤣
During the battle, the Doctor pops out to take a ride on the sky-bike, looking like something from Flash Gordon, and crashes into the Bone Palace.
Too late though! Omega is pretty much here now. He's a giant boney CGI zombie, become his own legend. Looks great but doesn't really seem like Omega, who ought to be held together by pure will.
Omega eats the Rani! One of the Ranis anyway. Mrs Flood avoids being eaten. She pops off with the time bracelet. "So much for the Two Rani's. It's a goodnight from me!" as she disappears off into time. Great gag. 😁
The Doctor just shoots Omega to get him back into his box. Pops a rifle off the wall. The Vindicator has apparently also got a built in laser as well as locator beacons. So that's handy. The Doctor doesn't use guns but some of his devices work like one. 🔫
So all is well! The day is saved and the wish is over and baby Poppy survives in a time box! 🍻
They're going to take the space baby off to do space adventures. Ruby is jealous of seeing The Doctor and Belinda vibing like that, as they plan a life in space with the space baby. Aww. Poor Ruby. 😭
But then Poppy pops off! Disappears entirely, and everyone other than Ruby forgets. Ruby remembers because she's disappeared from time herself in the past they say.
Okay: to save his child and on Ruby's word alone, the Doctor will sacrifice himself to turn reality one degree.
He goes off to commit suicide by Regeneration, but Thirteen is here! She's popped out of her timeline to stop him! Or maybe to help, with a motivational chat instead. Gives him a pep talk then pops back off again.
The Doctor zaps reality with his Tardis, dying but holding off on the actual regeneration for a few moments to go check on the kid.
The kid is safe! But isn't his own kid any more. Poppy has popped all her Timelord DNA and is just all human now. Poppy's pop isn't the doc, it's someone called Richie.
And Belinda has been so keen to get home all this time in order to get back to her Baby! Who isn't a timelord, and definitely didn't exist until she was wished into being.
This may not be the most ethical action The Doctor has ever taken: To bend the whole universe in order to recreate a baby that was accidentally wished into being out of nothing. Twisting time to give a child to a nurse who didn't previously have a child, or even remember the wish. Then it's not even the same child that disappeared, coz this one is all human. 🤷
But the doc is popping off to regenerate with Joy in the stars, and... Turns blonde: "oh. Hello?" 🤯
It's Rose! Billie Piper is back? Fantastic!
Is Rose doing a David Tennant Impression there?
Billie playing the Doctor, doing a Tennant impression as Bad Wolf? Amazing. Can't wait.
#doctorWho
@arXiv_mathCO_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-09 08:59:52
A construction that preserves the configuration of a matroid, with applications to lattice path matroids
Joseph E. Bonin, Anna de Mier
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06109
@arXiv_physicsfludyn_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-09 09:10:12
Structure functions and flatness of streamwise velocity in a turbulent channel flow
Carlos Granero-Belinchon (ODYSSEY, IMT Atlantique - MEE, Lab-STICC\_OSE), St\'ephane G. Roux (Phys-ENS), Nicolas B. Garnier (Phys-ENS)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05436
@arXiv_hepph_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-10 10:51:52
$CP$ violation of two-body hadronic $\Lambda_b$ decays in the PQCD approach
Jia-Jie Han, Ji-Xin Yu, Ya Li, Hsiang-nan Li, Jian-Peng Wang, Zhen-Jun Xiao, Fu-Sheng Yu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.07197
@arXiv_eessSP_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-09 08:17:02
A Flexible Design Framework for Integrated Communication and Computing Receivers
Kuranage Roche Rayan Ranasinghe, Kengo Ando, Hyeon Seok Rou, Giuseppe Thadeu Freitas de Abreu, Takumi Takahashi, Marco Di Renzo, David Gonz\'alez G
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05944
@arXiv_mathAC_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-06 07:22:55
On the weak and strong Lefschetz properties for initial ideals of determinantal ideals with respect to diagonal monomial orders
Hongmiao Yu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05193
@arXiv_hepph_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-10 09:13:52
Light Scalars in the Extended Georgi-Machacek Model
Poulami Mondal, Subrata Samanta
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06427 https://arxiv.or…
@arXiv_physicsoptics_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-09 09:30:32
Ground state exciton-polariton condensation by coherent Floquet driving
Alexander Kuznetsov, Ignacio Carraro-Haddad, Gonzalo Usaj, Klaus Biermann, Alejandro Fainstein, Paulo V. Santos
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.05874
@arXiv_astrophIM_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-04 07:38:58
The near infrared airglow continuum conundrum. Constraints for ground-based faint object spectroscopy
J. K. M. Viuho (Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Jagtvej 155A, DK-2200, Copenhagen N, Denmark, Nordic Optical Telescope, Rambla Jose Ana Fernandez Perez 7, ES-38711 Brena Baja, Spain, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark), J. P. U. Fynbo (Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Jagtvej 155A, DK-2200, Copenhagen N, Denmark), M. I. Andersen (Cosmic Dawn Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Jagtvej 155A, DK-2200, Copenhagen N, Denmark)
#toXiv_bot_toot