Hey, I found Pip!... On the cover of a book published in 1972! D:

[Slowtini]

Right, not sure if anyone else knew about this, couldn't find any references to it anywhere... but this was too awesome to keep in the dark.

Link to an image with a better view of Alan Dean Foster's Version of Pip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tar-Aiym_Krang <-- Obligatory wikipedia link

Now this leads me to ask a few questions...

1.) Amber, did you even know about these books?
2.) If not, what do you think are the odds of your pip, and the pip from the series "Pip and Flinx" looking almost identical, and sharing the same name?

edit: A third question appears out of the shadows!.) IS AMBER A TIME TRAVELER!  D:

[AnizInDisguise]

Wow, that's interesting

[Tapewolf]

Right, not sure if anyone else knew about this, couldn't find any references to it anywhere... but this was too awesome to keep in the dark.

It has come up before on the old forum.  Looks like it was just under 4 years ago:
http://nice.llearch.net/dmfa_forum0657.htm
I wonder whether it was asked again after that because IIRC I didn't join the community until 2005...

[Slowtini]

Right, not sure if anyone else knew about this, couldn't find any references to it anywhere... but this was too awesome to keep in the dark.

It has come up before on the old forum.  Looks like it was just under 4 years ago:
http://nice.llearch.net/dmfa_forum0657.htm
I wonder whether it was asked again after that because IIRC I didn't join the community until 2005...

Thanks for answering that one, Tapewolf. -raises Tapewolf's karma for being helpful- ;D

[Tapewolf]

Thanks for answering that one, Tapewolf. -raises Tapewolf's karma for being helpful- ;D

Heh.  I've read some of that series, so naturally it came to my attention 

[icarus]

having read a few of these, foster's pip is prettymuch nothing like the DMFA pip.

also, foster's pip is more rainbowy if i recall. and a lot more winged-snakelike than the cover artists make him out to be. it's been a while, though.

[Slowtini]

having read a few of these, foster's pip is prettymuch nothing like the DMFA pip.

also, foster's pip is more rainbowy if i recall. and a lot more winged-snakelike than the cover artists make him out to be. it's been a while, though.

I wasn't referring to the character per-se, but to the fact that the cover art of the books looks like DMFA's pip, and the name is identical.
Hooray for crazy coincidences.

[icarus]

well, the chances are amber may not have known about pip/flinx books. foster has about ten zillion series and all of them are rather pulpy popcorn scifi reads. bookstores stock a random handful (usually the ones that AREN'T series) and since the flinx books are so old, they're usually left out in favour of, say, spellsinger or that series about the talking dog being kidnapped into space.

frrrrom what i recall in some of the flinx books, pip barely plays an important role. he's just sort of one of those gimmick characters the author is later like 'man, lemme just STORE this guy for a while...'

[Raffe]

Pip is Pip's descendant?

[Slowtini]

Pip is Pip's descendant?

*shrug*

[Naldru]

In the Pip/Flinx books, Pip is highly venomous and spits the poison which kills in less than a minute and can also eat through steel plate.  I had wondered about it myself but figured that it was one of those things that it was better not to know.  Pip in the Pip/Flinx series makes Pip in the DMFA universe look downright friendly.

However, here is a comment from Amber.

[Raffe]

In the Pip/Flinx books, Pip is highly venomous and spits the poison which kills in less than a minute and can also eat through steel plate.

DMFA Pip could probably bite through steel plate if he had a reason(Dan, I assume), and he talks, and one day he'll grow up to be a great ol' dragon with lots of little Pips of his own

[Slowtini]

In the Pip/Flinx books, Pip is highly venomous and spits the poison which kills in less than a minute and can also eat through steel plate.

DMFA Pip could probably bite through steel plate if he had a reason(Dan, I assume), and he talks, and one day he'll grow up to be a great ol' dragon with lots of little Pips of his own

Yaaaay! 

...God, Now I know I've been reading this comic too long...
What kind of hellish impossible offspring could result from an unholy union of Pip and Pyroduck?

[Raffe]

Errr...actually drakes don't turn into dragons. So someday Pip will grow up to be a great ol' Drake(how big do they get?) with lots of Pips of his own.

[Slowtini]

Errr...actually drakes don't turn into dragons. So someday Pip will grow up to be a great ol' Drake(how big do they get?) with lots of Pips of his own.

...-pictures dan a thousand years from now, staring down the dreaded "GIGANTO-PIP AND FRIENDS!  "

[Raffe]

Errr...actually drakes don't turn into dragons. So someday Pip will grow up to be a great ol' Drake(how big do they get?) with lots of Pips of his own.

...-pictures dan a thousand years from now, staring down the dreaded "GIGANTO-PIP AND FRIENDS!  "

Don't forget Ms. Pip.
I wonder what part(s) Pip will play in Mab's scheming.

[Slowtini]

Errr...actually drakes don't turn into dragons. So someday Pip will grow up to be a great ol' Drake(how big do they get?) with lots of Pips of his own.

...-pictures dan a thousand years from now, staring down the dreaded "GIGANTO-PIP AND FRIENDS!  "

Don't forget Ms. Pip.
I wonder what part(s) Pip will play in Mab's scheming.

Hmm...
Knowing how crazy Amber is, probably something quite humorous.
*Pip falls in love with Dan's wing tentacles* ...That would make quite a humorous nightmare sequence actually D:
Amber... doooooooo eeeeeeeeeeet

[GabrielsThoughts]

Right, not sure if anyone else knew about this, couldn't find any references to it anywhere... but this was too awesome to keep in the dark.

It has come up before on the old forum.  Looks like it was just under 4 years ago:
http://nice.llearch.net/dmfa_forum0657.htm
I wonder whether it was asked again after that because IIRC I didn't join the community until 2005...

it's actually come up on this forum once before as well.

[LionHeart]

Errr...actually drakes don't turn into dragons. So someday Pip will grow up to be a great ol' Drake(how big do they get?) with lots of Pips of his own.

Would those be Pipettes? 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Would those be Pipettes? 

Measurably so? ;-]

[Alondro]

Would those be Pipettes? 

Measurably so? ;-]

Are they properly calibrated?   

[Naldru]

You might want to look at this out of curiosity.
http://cgi.ebay.com/*-LIL-PIP-FLYING-DRAGON-*-HANDMADE-3D-HANGING-STEEL-ART_W0QQitemZ110255448237QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL0805231138a16629

It was once stated that the greatest coincidence would have been if there were no coincidences.

*****  *****

Okay, let's get down to mathematics

IIRC Pip/Pippin basically means "my little friend".  According to The Free Dictionary and online etymology dictionary, it is a person or thing that is admired.  Characters are referred to as Pip or Pippin in

The Lord of the Rings
Pippin (the Broadway musical)
The Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (one could see this Pip making a guest appearance in The Wotch)
Great Expectations
The Pippi Longstocking books
The Flinx/Pip books by Alan Dean Foster
A Twilight Zone episode that I believe was named For Love of Pip

Some people and things referred to as Pip or Pippin
Dirk Bogarde
a game/multimedia machine released by Apple in 1994

In determining the coincidence level, it is very necessary to check the probability that two of the characters out of the set of characters known as Pip or Pippin would be dragons.  As the size of this set increases, the probability that at least two would be dragons increases rapidly.

The other way to look at this would be to look at the set of characters that are small dragon like creatures and determine the probability that at least two of these would be named Pip or Pippin.  If the probability of a subordinate character being named Pip is over one percent and there are over one hundred stories where the subordinate character is a small dragon-like creature, the probability that there wouldn't be two characters who are small dragon-like characters named Pip would be ... (If you think I'm going to do the math this late at night, you're crazy.)

Okay, I'm crazy.  The probability is thirty seven percent (.99 to the 100th power).  This means that there is at least a 63 percent that there would be two small dragon-like subordinate characters in unrelated books due to sheer chance.  If I really did the research, I believe that I would find that the above estimates are overly conservative by at least an order of magnitude.

This does not include the possibility of common literary archetypes resulting in non-random association of the characteristics.  Such associations would make the occurrences of coincidences even less coincidental.

I may have made some math errors above.  I am tired, because of the time of day and because I hate conspiracy theories unless done in fun.  It also looks I'm going to miss Anthrocon this year, and that is making me very cranky.

[Slowtini]

You might want to look at this out of curiosity.
http://cgi.ebay.com/*-LIL-PIP-FLYING-DRAGON-*-HANDMADE-3D-HANGING-STEEL-ART_W0QQitemZ110255448237QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL0805231138a16629

It was once stated that the greatest coincidence would have been if there were no coincidences.

Curiouser and curiouser...

[AmigaDragon]

When I first read DMFA and saw Pip, I figured that Amber had read Flinx (good series, BTW) and just decided she liked the name Pip for a drake/mini-dragon. But coincidence works for me too.

Wold it be more or less coincidental to find more planets called "Bob"?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

IIRC Pip/Pippin basically means "my little friend".

Hmm. I was going to say "That explains this strip", but I misremembered who was the little friend. Nuts. So much for that one...

[Teroniss]

Oh wow, someone actually dug out my old arse question topic from way back when in the days or yore. Times like this make me smiles 

[bill]

Wow, that's interesting

[Naldru]

When I first read DMFA and saw Pip, I figured that Amber had read Flinx (good series, BTW) and just decided she liked the name Pip for a drake/mini-dragon. But coincidence works for me too.

Wold it be more or less coincidental to find more planets called "Bob"?

This begins to become complicated.  My first reaction is that there is an archetypal basis for Planet Bob.  I'm going to have to think about this.

For example, it was the name of Mankind's new home in the film Titan AE.  The first thing to research would be whether this was actually the first occurrence of "Planet Bob".  If it is, a case could be made that this is the seed of the concept or close to the seed.  The film was released in the year 2000.

It is the name of a world in CyberNations

There is a planet-bob web site

There was a movie on diversity named Planet Bob

There is a web site http://www.planetbob.com that promises to tell us how to save the Earth.  However, considering that it was supposed to go line early 2007, it appears that it has died.


If there were multiple Planet Bob's out there that were due to coincidence, I would also expect to find Planet John's, Planet Joe's, Planet Henry's, Planet Paul's, Planet William's, etc.  The fact that these other variants don't seem to occur would appear to indicate that the multiple occurrences are not coincidental.  That's just my instant gut feeling.

IIRC Pip/Pippin basically means "my little friend".

Hmm. I was going to say "That explains this strip", but I misremembered who was the little friend. Nuts. So much for that one...

I believe that that is a reference to the movie Scarface

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Hmm. I was going to say "That explains this strip", but I misremembered who was the little friend. Nuts. So much for that one...

I believe that that is a reference to the movie Scarface

That, too, but there's no reason it can't be both, right? ;-]

[Naldru]

Sorry.  When you spend your days listening to questions as bizarre as the ones I hear, it is sometimes difficult to tell when somebody is kidding.  (How do I turn it on?  Push the button marked "on". , etc.)

I researched Planet Bob a little more.  Please note that the fact that something could be a coincidence does not mean that it is.

Apparently the reference to Bob is because of a series of jokes in which Bob is the answer to everything, the name to use when you can't think of a name.  For example, the television series Reboot had a character named Bob while most of the other names were based on computer terms (Phong, Dot Matrix, Megabyte, Hexadecimal, etc.).  I saw an interview stating that they just wanted to pick a regular name rather than computer term for the character.  (Of course, there is a BOB computer acronym for blitter object.)

There was also a Bob the Lizard in the Grimjack series.

This sounds like British humor.  (The people who came up with the idea of the free beer and sex settings on machinery.  They sound oh so tempting, but they'll get you in so much trouble later.  "Free beer and sex settings" was actually used by a British computer engineer who wanted to emphasize not to push the equipment beyond its design limits.)

Given this history, I see it as possible that there would be another Planet Bob without reference to Titan AE, but I find it unlikely.  If this type of semantic pertubation was taking place, I would expect to see other references to geological features named Bob, possibly a Lake Bob located next Lake George or the Bob Mountains.

I really can't believe that I'm doing this.  I think this will be the end of my participation in the discussion while I have some sanity left.  (I know it's too late.)