This surprised me a little

This surprised me a little

: james_nicoll; April 13th, 2012

Where's the bump for arcologies coming from?

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are

comment(s); comment here or there.

( 21 comments — Leave a comment )

mmcirvin

2012-04-13 06:49 pm (UTC)

Sim City?

derekl1963

2012-04-13 06:56 pm (UTC)

That was my thought too... Sim City 2000's 1993 release date coincides (roughly) with the start of the ramp.

Edited at 2012-04-13 06:57 pm (UTC)

timill

2012-04-13 06:52 pm (UTC)

I'd have thought Oath of Fealty, but that's 1982.

daveon

2012-04-13 07:01 pm (UTC)

Yeah, that was my first thought.

theweaselking

2012-04-13 06:54 pm (UTC)

Simcity 2000.

zotz

2012-04-13 07:32 pm (UTC)

Personally I'd heard the word before, but that was when I found out the actual definition.

I went to visit Arcosanti in October, as I was visiting friends nearby. That game's got a lot to answer for.

james_nicoll

2012-04-13 07:00 pm (UTC)

Edited at 2012-04-13 07:01 pm (UTC)

james_nicoll

2012-04-13 07:02 pm (UTC)

Edited at 2012-04-13 07:03 pm (UTC)

beamjockey

2012-04-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

Ngram Viewer is case-sensitive, dear boy, and Sim City is a proper name.

I'd say the Sim City Bump is a pretty good hypothesis.

(Have you considered adding a link to your n-gram charts, so readers can instantly play with them?)

beamjockey

2012-04-13 08:36 pm (UTC)

(Also, the Sim City Bump would be a pretty good name for a dance.)

ritaxis

2012-04-14 01:16 am (UTC)

It would be a hipper version of the smustle, most likely.

mmcirvin

2012-04-14 02:30 am (UTC)

There would be a song that went with the dance craze, sung entirely in gibberish.

ckd

2012-04-14 06:18 am (UTC)

You know that BNL and Lily Allen actually recorded versions of some of their songs in Simlish, right?

ETA: turns out they're not nearly the only ones.

Edited at 2012-04-14 06:20 am (UTC)

mmcirvin

2012-04-14 06:16 pm (UTC)

I did not know that, but should not be surprised.

james_nicoll

2012-04-14 05:07 am (UTC)

Now I have.

beamjockey

2012-04-13 07:19 pm (UTC)

O'Neill declines even though his other contribution, collider rings, became quite popular in the Eighties and Nineties. Sic transit gloria mundi.

neowolf2

2012-04-13 11:10 pm (UTC)

That latin reminds me of the little poem from "A Handbook for Scholars", warning of the dangers of overusing "sic". It ends with:

Sic less, and you won't be sorrier,
Sic more, and sic transit gloria.

ccw71266

2012-04-14 04:06 am (UTC)

Practically no mention of "space colony" before 1970? Really? Did pre-1970 SF have characters commuting from Iowa to Alpha Centauri, or was it just that there was another word in common use?

death4breakfast

2012-04-14 07:02 am (UTC)

I would suspect that it was something like "Moon Base", or possibly "Space Station". Before the 70's, the idea in SF was pretty much that you went from one celestial body to another, colonising as you went, usually starting with the moon, then Mars, etc.

The parallel for a lot of early SF was to sea travel, so the idea of a putting a colony out in the middle of space/the ocean wasn't really a common one. (Although I'm sure that there are examples to be found.) Moons and planets were places you went to, space was something you travelled through to get there.