my_toes_were_dipped_in_philosophy epitome of incomprehensibility Actually, not with the SPA dudes first. I was nine or ten. "Pliny for Girls and Boys," I read on the spine of a hardcover book. It looked old and dusty, but I was in an adventurous mood. I opened it. Soon enough, I huffed, "This person doesn't understand gravity!" With the associated thought: How did someone that bad at science ever get to write a kid's book?? Obviously, I had no context. I assumed, if I assumed anything, that the writer was writing when my parents were kids. I didn't know that the author lived in the old Roman Empire in...when, 100 or so?...and that this was a simplified translation of some of his works. ...Dad tells me there are two Plinys, younger and older. This was apparently Pliny the Elder. He wrote a book translated as Natural History (natural science, we'd call it). I should know that. I wrote a story called Natural History when I was 18. 230830 what's it to you? who go blather from