Ghyll talk:Harv Gretborn

I'll be looking for that snotgun later. Gee, was it derived from the mucous musket? --Doctor Phineas Crank 21:23, 9 Nov 2004 (EST)

Easter eggs

• The "depth charge school" refers to psychohistory (not the Asimovian kind), by way of the old expression "depth psychology" for Freudianism.
• The "disgusting but effective snotgun" was invented by Spider Robinson in one of his articles.
• Blue Ice refers to the contents of airplane toilets after it leaks out of the toilet and freezes.
• The Fountain Spray is mentioned in Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light: it sprays DMSO and cyanide.
• Sublimation is an alchemical (and chemical) process.
• "The last word on the subject" alludes to Sherlock Holmes's monograph on the "polyphonic motets of Lassus"; Xhasone Margolhu's Theorem alludes to the binomial theorem, on which Holmes's enemy Professor Moriarty wrote a famous paper. I have scrambled the two references together.
• The invention laboratory is modeled on Thomas Edison's.
• "Brilliant Pebbles" was an idea bandied about by the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") folks.
• "Gretborn's Last Invention" alludes to Fermat's Last Theorem, and so does the bit about the plans not fitting in the margin; the "(or Two-Part)" bit alludes to Bach's Two-Part Inventions.

--John Cowan 16:35, 11 Nov 2004 (EST)