desperance: Learning new stuff

desperance (

desperance) wrote,
@ 2008-05-09 13:25:00

Learning new stuff
Famously, I dislike research; equally famously, I love to learn new stuff. (One of these, you understand, is Wurk; the other is the satisfaction of curiosity, of which I have a catload.)

This morning, in the pursuit of New Stuff not unrelated to my last post (see how far I will go into the convolutions of syntax, in order to avoid any suggestion that I have been researching?), I learned that there is a profession called cosmetology, and that "In the United States of America, all states require barbers, cosmetologists, and most other personal appearance workers (with the exception of shampooers) to be licensed". It's the exceptions that prove the rules delightful; but I think we will forswear cosmetologists and keep all such work under the purview of a competent barber. What more or better licence could he want, after all, than the patronage of the Half-Emperor? (Don't say "the other half". I still haven't worked out what this means, but I'm fairly sure there isn't one.)

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the_magician
2008-05-09 01:05 pm UTC (link)

heh, on the

brits_americans community, an American was asking how hard it was to get licensed as a hairdresser in the UK, and whether her qualifications in the US would transfer across (and I think implying that she'd be a skilled worker and possibly find it easier to get a work permit).

She seemed very surprised when we said that anyone is allowed to cut hair in the UK, no training or experience required, and certainly no licence.

I knew about cosmetologists because it's one of those professions that the less intellectually gifted high school girls aspire to :-)

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Cosmetology

moral_vacuum
2008-05-09 01:20 pm UTC (link)

In the 1950s, anyone who wished to operate as a hairdresser in New York had to be approved by the Bureau of Cosmeticians, and had to do an exam in which they had to demonstrate a number of techniques including pin curls, back-combing, sugar-setting and that sort of thing. However, Vidal Sassoon refused, claiming that these were outmoded and dmaaging techniques, and he would not demonstrate them. Subsequently a massive great legal battle took which, which Vidal won and it led to hair freedom in the state of New York.

I'm a mine of useless information.

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	martyn44 2008-05-09 01:24 pm UTC (link)
	What next, an NVQ in ale conning? Degree in the use of red flags? (Reply to this)

	euphoricstimuli 2008-05-09 01:26 pm UTC (link)
	loves steampunk, & resectfully suggests that the reason that he's the half emperor could have something to do with the other half being a babbage style difference engine that looks after the ecconomics of the empire by itself, possibly with a human soul in it. Or something. Very mch looking forwards to reading thins one when it's finished. :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	desperance 2008-05-09 01:57 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, eek! Isn't that interesting...? ponders Thank you! (Reply to this)(Parent)

tammy_moore
2008-05-09 02:01 pm UTC (link)

I have a very clear (and surely wrong) image of the Half-Emperor as being literally halved. By accident, design or trickery of birth? I don't know. I can just him seated on his throne with wires and gauges and ticking things - all gilded and what they could not gild begemmed.

(Obviously, this is the reason for society's current craze for the monocle - accompanied as it is by the fashion for ensuring the eye peering through the monocle is worthy of comment - with gems, crushed metals and whole families of mink glued to some of the more extravegant nobles lashes.)

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desperance
2008-05-09 02:12 pm UTC (link)

Mm-hmm. That was one of my thoughts. (Except for the gemming, which is fabulous.) Or the world being halved (hence the 'demi-monde' crack). Or perhaps divided by the terminator, so there's a day-emperor and a night-emperor. Who would either have to keep chasing around the globe in pursuit of their own realms, or otherwise deal with being half the time in exile. Or something.

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tammy_moore
2008-05-09 02:19 pm UTC (link)

Or maybe the people have to share their world? Day-citizens are allowed to live by day, night-citizens at night. Perhaps they even share the same jobs and lodgings. By Day the Half-Emperor of Night is kept is a large, ebony sarcophagus that is kept to the left of the throne. By Night the Half-Emperor of Day is confined to a golden sarcophagus to the right of the throne. (They aren't allowed to heckle or yell abuse from their confinement.)

Perhaps over complicated though :D

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	desperance 2008-05-09 02:26 pm UTC (link)
	Hee. The Emperors of Heckle. "I sneer at your stupid daylight! Get back in your sarcophagus, or I shall sneer once more!" (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	tammy_moore 2008-05-09 02:56 pm UTC (link)
	It could be worse. Imagine if they SHARED a sarcophagus. "Has...has someone been RELIEVING themselves in here?" (Reply to this)(Parent)

jeremy_m
2008-05-09 03:54 pm UTC (link)

You could push this a very long way into exploring symmetries and differences.

Take the soul in the machine idea and merge modern virtual reality / emulation / Singularity uploading with older magic jar / separable soul / Sauron's Ring thoughts to have the Emperor copied / split into the Babbagetron, but add a mortal dread of being a self-aware copy that isn't real. So the copy has to believe it's the real one (complete with emulated memories of the time before the split), and that the other world is the virtual copy. Both worlds act as tools for the other, but diverge over the years away from that original purpose.

Then you get to play with Jekyll and Hyde with compete worlds and laws of physics reflecting the split, whether science / magic, male /female, logic / emotion, simulation / dream, computer / oracle or whatever in a Fourier-Transform-like myth model.

Alluding to the medieval custom of rulers combining their personal servants and their ministers of state ("Who should I trust more than the man who daily holds a razor to my throat?"), make the barber the go-between, the only one who moves in both worlds and knows which is real. He was, of course, sworn before the split not to tell either Half-Emperor that truth, nor even reveal it to the other self-aware entities in both worlds.

Or for complete symmetry, perhaps both Halves are simulations, components of the one real being in this universe, the Vishnu / Barber who is dreaming / emulating separate aspects of himself. Always good for a giggle.

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	jeremy_m 2008-05-09 02:10 pm UTC (link)
	Perhaps he's the Half-Emperor of Siam, with hair dressing complications caused by his conjoined twin, who is (naturally) the next in line of succession and constantly plotting ways to eliminate him without that leading to various legal and biological difficulties. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	desperance 2008-05-09 02:13 pm UTC (link)
	Oof. Indeed. As in half a pair of hounds. One casual phrase, and a world of speculation... (Reply to this)(Parent)

mizkit
2008-05-09 02:55 pm UTC (link)

Now, see, to me the Half-Emperor would be, like...not a pharoah, who was presumed to be a god on earth, but the mortal half of a god, a sort of semi-divine being himself, who in his mortal/human guise is the part that walks on the earth and interacts with men, but who is never imagined to be the *entirety* of the divine being, and who is perhaps both pitied and revered by the populace, because on the one hand, godhead, but on the other, mad or only half-present.

...you could get an anthology out of that phrase, clearly. :)

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	desperance 2008-05-09 03:06 pm UTC (link)
	And, see, I like that just as much as any other notion. An anthology it is, then... g (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jeremy_m 2008-05-09 03:41 pm UTC (link)
	... with room for a variant of the Arian Heresy, in this case being based on half a jot of difference. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sora_blue 2008-05-09 04:51 pm UTC (link)
	Is this half-emperor the previous emperor's illegitimate child? Or is "emperor" a species? Or is he a cyborg? OOH, maybe he only passed half of his emperor exams. You know, like he failed the driving test. (Reply to this)

	lamentables 2008-05-09 05:21 pm UTC (link)
	'catload of curiosity' <- loves (Reply to this)

	pennski 2008-05-10 02:49 pm UTC (link)
	I'm thinking of Byzantine politics and forgetting the fancy word for having your nose cut off so you can no longer rule and wondering if the cutting might fall to a barber-surgeon? (Reply to this)

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