Lance A. Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Welcome to Brin-L, by the way! > What is the fascination (mania? obsession?) with the word "maru" on this > list? The only maru I'm familiar with is the Kobyashi Maru from Star > Trek and I somehow don't think that is the correct reference. The Kobyashi Maru would be a red herring. This whole thing started because, for a time, there were a large number of brin-lers that also belonged to the list for fans of Ian Banks' Culture series. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture) A feature of the books (I gather) is to name spaceships by their designation (GCU, ROU, and others, similar to the way that naval ships are organized into classes based on size, speed, and purpose) along with something apropos to the personality of the owner, mission, commander, or whatever (e.g.: ROU Nail in the coffin). The members of the Culture list would often put such a ship name in their signatures even when they were sending messages on Brin-L. This simply would not do :-), so we started using Maru designations instead. As to why that particular word, others have better explanations than I could give. -- Matt _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
