(urth) Ansible Interview

Jeff Wilson jwilson at io.com
Mon Jan 26 03:16:34 PST 2009


Matthew Groves wrote:
> The text in question is:
> "Beyond the black streak of the shade, the skylands had been as bright
> as Silk [...] had ever seen them[...].  Here were nameless mountains
> filling inviolate valleys to the rim with their vast, black shadows."
> 
> Here's how it would have to happen.  Imagine a big bowl.  Imagine a
> long sun extending to the east and west above it.  To fill that bowl
> with shadow, you've got to tilt the whole thing so that it faces north
> or south.  (Everything spills out of your bowl, but never mind that.)
> Tilt it to the east or west and there's still long sunlight shining
> into it from the further eastern or western segment of the long sun.
> So tilt it to the north or south and you can get shadow.  If the bowl
> is located north of "up" from Silk's perspective, and the bowl is
> tilted to face north, then Silk can see the shadow in the bowl.

In this scenario, does "to the rim" mean the valleys are each filled to 
their respective rim, or does it refer to some larger container, like 
the Whorl itself perhaps?

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >



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