Whenever possible we take good parts from corpses and use them to extend lives. That's necromancy.
In fact, blood transfusions are necromancy, too.
In the context of a game of D&D all these things would be considered necromantic techniques. There's a point I could make about harvesting fetal stem cells from aborted fetuses--the notion that "babies present the best source" is a common evil wizard meme in fantasy circles--but I don't feel like turning this into a big debate on the relative merits (or lack thereof) of abortion-on-demand.
Schools of Magic
The general populace doesn't understand that the catch-all word for "magic" is "magic".
So, in 1984, someone (I think it was Electronic Arts) produced a game called "Necromancer"...in which the main thrust of the game was to save trees from destruction.
I don't know whether "necromancer" meant the main character or the bad guy, but either way it wasn't necromancy that was being practiced there.
I once read a fundamentalist Christian article describing how the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence in Fantasia was satanic because it showed magic in a "positive light". I mean, that alone deserves a huge WTF--"Sorcerer's Apprentice" is meant as a cautionary tale--but the person writing the article didn't even know what school of magic was being used.
From an e-mail in August of 2000:
The Concerned Women for America say this: "Another example of Disney's antagonism of Christianity is Fantasia which heightened the awareness of witchcraft as Mickey Mouse played the sorcerer's apprentice. In one scene Mickey conjured up the broomstick to clean the floor, clearly denying God's command NOT to use divination."[sic]
First, Mickey did not "conjure" the broomstick. It was already there. Second, he didn't cast a spell to make it "clean the floor"; he cast the spell to have it fetch water. Third, the spell he cast was neither conjuration nor divination, but either alteration or enchantment.
...and I'm still not sure--six years later!--how on earth the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence from Fantasia is antagonistic to Christianity or hightens the awareness of witchcraft. As far as I can tell, it's a cartoon mouse doing things which are impossible (or at least extraordinarily unlikely) set to some classical music...and it's also abundantly clear that the "Concerned Women for America" didn't even watch the stupid thing--or if they did, their ability to comprehend and remember the things they see and hear is exceeding poor.
Lastly, I fail to see how it glorifies magic when Mickey nearly drowns for his trouble....
For Future Reference
One pound of high explosive contains 55 kiowatts of energy.
A typical human body generates 4.126 kilowatt-hours of waste heat per day--approximately:
...the amout of thermal energy in a pound of coal.
...about 3600 dietary calories worth of heat.
...five and a half horsepower-hours.
...or enough energy to run 41 100 watt light bulbs for one hour.
Model Rocketry
I once tried to build a super-scale Mosquito. Mosquito was the cheapest Estes rocket there
was--I think it still runs around $2, to this day. It was essentially a body tube big enough for an 11-mm motor (A3-4T was the preferred motor for that thing), a nose cone, 3 fins, and a launch lug. You didn't bother doing a nice job on it, but you painted it with day-glo paint. If you got one back after launching it, it was cause for celebration (c'mon--this was 1983. It was this, or "Smurfs"...).
Well, in the early '90s, I built one around a D motor. A little sentient thought would have told me why this was stupid, but I tried it anyway. You see, the 18mm D engines are *slightly* more powerful than the 11mm engines.
The thing took off like a scalded cat, and got about 40 feet into the air before the aerodynamic loading tore two of the fins off. The drag from the third fin pulled the thing from vertical ascent into a power dive, but it ran out of propellant before it hit the ground. I recovered the airframe (now with one fin) and parts of the other two.
Lessons learned: use plywood for the fins, and stick 'em on with epoxy...and use *big* fillets. But I never got around to doing it.
Funny Thing From an E-mail in June of 2000:
DISCLAIMER:
I AM ONLY KIDDING. THIS E-NOTE IS NOT MEANT TO BE USED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE THAN HUMOR. IMPROPER USE WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY AND QUITE POSSIBLY CAUSE THE EARTH TO SPIN OFF ITS AXIS AND INTO THE SUN, ENDING LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AND MAYBE EVEN PUTTING A DENT IN SAM DONALDSON'S HAIRPIECE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
FURTHERMORE IF THE AFOREMENTIONED DISASTER DOES OCCUR, THE MANAGEMENT WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER CELEBRITY TRAGEDIES SUCH AS (BUT NOT LIMITED TO):
GERALDO RIVERA GROWING A GOATEE (sorry, this has ALREADY happened)
CHER GETTING A WRINKLE
JOAN COLLINS
"TELETUBBIES" (too late again!)
FOUR WORDS: "HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT"
Yes, It's True.
In 1984 TSR--the company which originally published D&D--actually produced an All My Children board game.
Why paleontologists don't write country music #429
Song Title: "I'm a Stromatolite on the Beach of Love"....
("Stromatolites are the oldest known fossils, dating back more than 3 billion years. They are colonial structures formed by photosynthesizing cyannobacteria and other microbes. Stromatolites are prokaryotes(primitive organisms lacking a cellular nucleus) that thrived in warm aquatic environments and built reefs much the same way as coral does today. Cyannobacteria were likely responsible for the creation of earth's oxygen atmosphere. They were the dominant lifeform on Earth for over 2 billion years. Today they are nearly extinct, living a precarious existence in only a few localities worldwide."
http://www.wmnh.com/wmel0000.htm
...sometimes amazes and frightens me what I think of in the course of a regular day.