Wizard's Manual - Revision history

EWImportBoss: 81 revisions imported

2021-01-30T09:45:14Z

81 revisions imported

EWImportBoss: 1 revision imported

2021-01-30T09:21:27Z

1 revision imported

newimport>DianeDuane at 19:06, 12 September 2010

2010-09-12T19:06:46Z

Import>DianeDuane at 19:06, 12 September 2010

2010-09-12T19:06:46Z

newimport>DianeDuane at 23:32, 6 April 2009

2009-04-06T23:32:02Z

newimport>DianeDuane at 20:35, 11 May 2008

2008-05-11T20:35:44Z

newimport>DianeDuane at 08:02, 21 June 2007

2007-06-21T08:02:00Z

newimport>DianeDuane at 07:50, 21 June 2007

2007-06-21T07:50:39Z

newimport>DianeDuane: /* The Manual on Earth: cultural variations */

2006-10-01T08:16:05Z

The Manual on Earth: cultural variations

newimport>DianeDuane: /* The Manual on Earth: technological implementations */

2006-05-16T11:08:06Z

The Manual on Earth: technological implementations

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 Mainframe and desktop implementations of the Manual began to become available as soon as the machines themselves started to become widespread.  In [[HW]], [[Callahan, Dairine | Dairine]] discovers that her family's new computer is one of these.  A covert section of the [[New York Public Library]]'s catalog database, [[CATNYP]], is another.
-Straightforward laptop implementations of the Manual (unlike [[Spot]], who started out as a desktop but has been upgraded several times) are now readily available, finally having come out of beta. (The Mac versions came out first. Let's not discuss the ongoing quadruple-beta of XP, theoretically having to do with those never-ending SP2 issues).
+Straightforward laptop implementations of the Manual (unlike [[Spot]], who started out as a desktop but has been upgraded several times) are now readily available, finally having come out of beta. (The Mac versions came out first. Let's not discuss the abandoned quadruple-beta of Vista; matters seem to have settled somewhat with the release of Windows 7, though some driver issues linger.)
-Newer hardware-based implementations of the Manual include the wildly popular [[WizPod]]. Tablet implementations remain problematical, like tablets themselves. 3G and 4G cellphone implementations are in very tentative beta releases at the moment, as platform issues are far from resolved. An [http://www.apple.com/iphone/ iPhone]-based version of the Manual seems almost unavoidable, but third-party developer issues have yet to be resolved.
+Newer hardware-based implementations of the Manual include the wildly popular [[WizPod]], and of course the new WizPad (even though app approvals remain quirky despite the intervention of the Powers that Be). An [http://www.apple.com/iphone/ iPhone]-based version continues in development, integration between the strictly wizardly functions and the many service providers continuing to present a challenge. 3G and 4G cellphone implementations are in various stages of  beta release at the moment, the newly-rolled-out Android implementations proving surprisingly popular.
 == Manual-equivalents on other worlds ==

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 Spin-offs are more or less the reverse of plug-ins.  A spin-off is a section of the Manual which has been "unbundled", ported into other media (usually electronic or telepathic), and made available to Speech-users who are not wizards. One example would be the ''[[Gazetteer, Plane | Plane Gazetteer]]'', which contains the Manual's excerpted real-time information on the location and orientation of various accessible alternate universes and dimensions, as well as more detailed information on the planets and habitable spaces contained within them.  The "edition" contained in the spun-off version of the ''Gazetteer'', however, is missing the information on such spaces' [[ethical constants]] and other [[paraphysical]] data.  While it is wildly unlikely that a  nonwizardly Speech-user could use that data to change the characteristics of a planet or space, the [[Powers That Be]] are apparently taking no chances.
-There is also a more limited type of spin-off, sometimes referred to as a "Secondary spin" or "double unbundle", in which the data in a spun-off resource like the ''Gazetteer'', or some other portion of the Manual, is made available in a local or vernacular language, not the Speech. Typical of a secondary spin would be the English-language text prec&iacute;s describing the wizards about to come for a visit that [[Callahan, Dairine | Dairine]] makes available for [[Callahan, Harold Edward | her dad]] to read.
+There is also a more limited type of spin-off, sometimes referred to as a "Secondary spin" or "double unbundle", in which the data in a spun-off resource like the ''Gazetteer'', or some other portion of the Manual, is made available in a local or vernacular language, not the Speech. Typical of a secondary spin would be the English-language text prec&iacute;s describing the wizards about to come for a visit in [[WH]] that [[Callahan, Dairine | Dairine]] makes available for [[Callahan, Harold Edward | her dad]] to read.
 == Disposition ==

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 __TOC__
 == A brief history ==
 == Manual presentation / acquisition ==
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 The basic understanding about the Wizard's Manual (and the vast majority of its many other versions across space and time) is that it is not offered to a potential [[probationary wizard]] until that person is ready to take the [[Wizard's Oath]], or until the Universe finds itself presented with a problem to which that person, as a wizard, is the best (or only) possible answer. At that time, the Manual simply turns up in a place or situation in which the potential probationer will discover it and recognize it as something out of the ordinary.  [[Nita | Nita's]] discovery of her manual in her town's children's library, or [[Kit | Kit's]] discovery of his among a pile of used books, would be typical. Normally the Manual disguises itself (or is disguised: the issue of [[Manual sentience]] is always cause for discussion among wizards) so as to make it easier for the potential probationer not to unduly attract attention to her-/him-/itself.  This is particularly useful in ''[[sevarfrith]]'' cultures, such as those of many industrialized countries on Earth:  but there are some wizards who suggest that even in non-''sevarfrith'' cultures, this may happen to spare the probationer the immediate attention of the [[Lone Power]].
 Once the probationer in question has gone through enough of the orientation material in the Manual for him or her (or it) to understand the import of what's going on, the [[Wizard's Oath]] is then offered. However, the offer does not remain open indefinitely.  Since the Universe only has so much energy available to it, the patience of the [[Powers That Be | Powers that Be]] cannot afford to be infinite.  Enough of a delay in choice will normally result in the offer of the Oath being withdrawn.  If the Manual presented itself as a book, that book will normally relapse to the seeming of whatever it had been masquerading as when initially found or presented.
 All the above being understood, each probationer, or wizard-on-Ordeal, is nonetheless handled by the Powers on a case-by-case basis.  Since very extended [[Ordeal | Ordeals]] are not unknown -- see [[TBONWM]] and [[AWAL]] for examples -- it is prudent to assume that there might be situations in which a wizard's Manual or the equivalent information could lie more or less dormant for long periods, waiting for some specific change in the potential wizard's circumstances.
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 == Modes of information inclusion:  raw, "sampled", "steered", and "cooperatively included" ==
 == Authorizations, limitations, and privacy issues ==
 == "Error-checking" ==
 == Data redaction and "dynamic omission" ==
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 == The Manual on Earth: cultural variations ==
 Not everyone on Earth receives their Manual as a book.  There are numerous interspecies variations, not to mention cultural variations among humans alone.
 In Ireland, for example -- unquestionably one of the earliest widely-literate European societies -- wizards are nonetheless usually "issued" the Manual as discrete pieces of information which then are committed to memory, the way druids and bards handled their own large bodies of data during millennia past. ([[AWAB]]) That said, the slightly crazed technological acquisitiveness of the Irish makes it entirely likely that the newer young wizards in Sligo or Roscommon or Dublin 6 are already carrying Manual implementations in cellphones or PDAs, and receiving updates via [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service SMS].
 Other cultures on Earth with similarly strong traditions of complex verbal information transfer (for example, some African cultures, the Maori, numerous native American bands and tribes, various ''seannachi''-trained Scots-Gaelic and [[Gaeilge]] speakers, and so forth) similarly receive wizardly information as something heard, overheard, or "underheard". Such cultures typically refer to Manual functions as "the Knowledge" or by some similar name.
 Obviously enough, other wizardly species native to Earth routinely don't use books, and receive Manual functions through other modalities. Whale-wizards hear the Sea "speak" or "sing" to them ([[DW]]), usually in their species's own idiom.  Feline wizards hear what they refer to as "the Whispering", both spells and occasional commentary being assumed to come directly from [[Hrau'f | Hrau'f the Silent]], one of the Feline [[Powers That Be]] and daughter of [[Iau | Queen Iau]]. ([[TBONWM]], [[OHMWS/TVTQ]])
@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 == The Manual on Earth: technological implementations ==
 Mainframe and desktop implementations of the Manual began to become available as soon as the machines themselves started to become widespread.  In [[HW]], [[Callahan, Dairine | Dairine]] discovers that her family's new computer is one of these.  A covert section of the [[New York Public Library]]'s catalog database, [[CATNYP]], is another.
 Straightforward laptop implementations of the Manual (unlike [[Spot]], who started out as a desktop but has been upgraded several times) are now readily available, finally having come out of beta. (The Mac versions came out first. Let's not discuss the ongoing quadruple-beta of XP, theoretically having to do with those never-ending SP2 issues).
 Newer hardware-based implementations of the Manual include the wildly popular [[WizPod]]. Tablet implementations remain problematical, like tablets themselves. 3G and 4G cellphone implementations are in very tentative beta releases at the moment, as platform issues are far from resolved. An [http://www.apple.com/iphone/ iPhone]-based version of the Manual seems almost unavoidable, but third-party developer issues have yet to be resolved.
 == Manual-equivalents on other worlds ==
@@ Line 59: / Line 59: @@
 == Unbundled Manual functions ("spin-offs") ==
 Spin-offs are more or less the reverse of plug-ins.  A spin-off is a section of the Manual which has been "unbundled", ported into other media (usually electronic or telepathic), and made available to Speech-users who are not wizards. One example would be the ''[[Gazetteer, Plane | Plane Gazetteer]]'', which contains the Manual's excerpted real-time information on the location and orientation of various accessible alternate universes and dimensions, as well as more detailed information on the planets and habitable spaces contained within them.  The "edition" contained in the spun-off version of the ''Gazetteer'', however, is missing the information on such spaces' [[ethical constants]] and other [[paraphysical]] data.  While it is wildly unlikely that a  nonwizardly Speech-user could use that data to change the characteristics of a planet or space, the [[Powers That Be]] are apparently taking no chances.
 There is also a more limited type of spin-off, sometimes referred to as a "Secondary spin" or "double unbundle", in which the data in a spun-off resource like the ''Gazetteer'', or some other portion of the Manual, is made available in a local or vernacular language, not the Speech. Typical of a secondary spin would be the English-language text prec&iacute;s describing the wizards about to come for a visit that [[Callahan, Dairine | Dairine]] makes available for [[Callahan, Harold Edward | her dad]] to read.
@@ Line 65: / Line 65: @@
 == Disposition ==
 On a wizard's demise, if there exists  a concrete version of the information -- like the book form of the Manual on Earth -- it normally vanishes. This is sometimes itself taken as evidence that the wizard in question has moved on to a different plane of existence...though, lacking other evidence, such a vanishing could possibly be misconstrued.
 == Miscellanea ==
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 {{stub}}

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 Straightforward laptop implementations of the Manual (unlike [[Spot]], who started out as a desktop but has been upgraded several times) are now readily available, finally having come out of beta. (The Mac versions came out first. Let's not discuss the ongoing quadruple-beta of XP, theoretically having to do with those never-ending SP2 issues).
-Newer hardware-based implementations of the Manual include the wildly popular [[WizPod]]. Tablet implementations remain problematical, like tablets themselves. 3G and 4G cellphone implementations are in very tentative beta releases at the moment, as platform issues are far from resolved.
+Newer hardware-based implementations of the Manual include the wildly popular [[WizPod]]. Tablet implementations remain problematical, like tablets themselves. 3G and 4G cellphone implementations are in very tentative beta releases at the moment, as platform issues are far from resolved. An [http://www.apple.com/iphone/ iPhone]-based version of the Manual seems almost unavoidable, but third-party developer issues have yet to be resolved.
 == Manual-equivalents on other worlds ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:50, 21 June 2007
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−	Just one of many, many names for the basic body of magical, ethical and scientific knowledge made available to all wizards.	+	Just one of many, many names for the basic body of magical, ethical and scientific knowledge made available to all wizards. It is normally presented or otherwise made available to a future [[probationary wizard]] when he or she is ready to accept and understand the responsibilities of wizardry as expressed in the local variation of the [[Wizard's Oath]], and (normally) when the conditions leading up to the probationer's [[Ordeal]] are all in place. In cultures where writing and/or printing are a commonplace, the Manual normally takes the form of a book (though there are often variations on this theme, depending on cultural issues: see below).

	(A note to the readership: This ''Concordance'' entry will be fairly complex, and is intended to be canonical, so it will more than likely take a while to complete. Nothing in it should be considered definitive until the "stub" notation disappears. --[[User:DianeDuane\|DianeDuane]] 07:01, 15 Jun 2005 (EDT))		(A note to the readership: This ''Concordance'' entry will be fairly complex, and is intended to be canonical, so it will more than likely take a while to complete. Nothing in it should be considered definitive until the "stub" notation disappears. --[[User:DianeDuane\|DianeDuane]] 07:01, 15 Jun 2005 (EDT))

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