# Finish the Hardboiled Detective story: Control Thread

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finish-the-hardboiled-detective-story-control-thread/406182>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 31, 2007, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finish-the-hardboiled-detective-story-control-thread/406182 "2007-05-31T13:38:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finish-the-hardboiled-detective-story-control-thread/406182/81 "2007-12-30T16:00:40Z")

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If someone wants to post, I’m game to getting it finished up.

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**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finish-the-hardboiled-detective-story-control-thread/406182/82 "2008-01-01T04:56:14Z")

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OK, so I had to take some time to research opium laws in the 1930s in the UK and the US. I’m tentatively promising something in an hour, since I’m stuck in the house with crappy weather and a head cold.

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**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2008, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finish-the-hardboiled-detective-story-control-thread/406182/83 "2008-01-01T08:05:48Z")

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Oh my god, that took six times longer than I expected. I ended up “researching” opium, heroin, drug trafficking, lutes, mandolins, the history of Burma and China, the history of drug laws in the early 20th century, how to identify street drugs, the history of non-dairy coffee creamer, rabbits in Australia, and Clark Gable. Did you know mandolins descended from lutes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? And that opium is mostly produced in an area of Asia called The Golden Triangle, stretching from Afghanistan to the People’s Republic of China? It’s true!

The rose on a lute is the carved spot under the strings that’s equivalent to the sound hole on a guitar. [Here’s the Wiki page.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutes)

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