Waiting For Online Hugo Voting And The 2021 Voter Packet

Animated GIF by DemonDeLuxe (Dominique Toussaint), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By JJ: Enquiring Hugo voter minds want to know: When will we be able to vote online? When will the Hugo Voter Packet be available?

In the fine tradition of similar File 770 posts on the subject in years past, and using my highly-refined statistical skills gained while acquiring my Master’s degree from Cattimothy U*, here is a comparison of the deadlines and availability dates of recent Worldcons.

Because what the hell, we’ve got time to kill. And a year from now, someone is going to ask about this again, the way they do every year.

Notes:

  • In 2008 and 2009, the Hugo Voter Packet was put together by John Scalzi
  • In 2012, the Hugo Voter Packet was released in stages starting on May 18, becoming fully available on May 30
  • In 2008, 2010-2015, and 2018, the Finalist Announcements were made on Easter weekend

Timing Observations:

  • Aussiecon 4 in 2010 had online nominations available the earliest, on January 1.
  • Renovation in 2011 and Loncon 3 in 2014 had online nominations available the longest, at 82 days.
  • Chicon 7 in 2012 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had online voting up and running the fastest, at 2 and 5 days following the announcement of the Finalists.
  • Chicon 7 had online voting available the longest, at 113 days.
  • Denvention 3 in 2008 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had the Hugo Voter Packet available the most quickly, at 3 and 4 weeks following the Finalist announcement.


1 – days between online nominations becoming available and nomination deadline
2 – days between nomination deadline and finalist announcement
3 – days between finalist announcement and online voting becoming available
4 – days between finalist announcement and Hugo Voter Packet becoming available
5 – days between online voting becoming available and voting deadline
6 – days between voting deadline and the start of Worldcon


While you’re waiting for the Hugo Voter Packet, here’s a list of links to read the 2021 Hugo Finalists which are available for free online.

*The Camestros Felapton University for Beating Statistical Horses Until They Are Thoroughly Dead

Waiting For Online Hugo Voting And The 2020 Voter Packet

By JJ: Enquiring Hugo voter minds want to know: When will we be able to vote online? When will the Hugo Voter Packet be available?

In the fine tradition of similar File 770 posts on the subject in years past, and using my highly-refined statistical skills gained while acquiring my Master’s degree from Cattimothy U*, here is a comparison of the deadlines and availability dates of recent Worldcons.

Because what the hell, we’ve got time to kill. And a year from now, someone is going to ask about this again, the way they do every year.

Notes:

  • In 2008 and 2009, the Hugo Voter Packet was put together by John Scalzi
  • In 2012, the Hugo Voter Packet was released in stages starting on May 18, becoming fully available on May 30
  • With the exception of 2009, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2020, all Finalist Announcements were made on Easter weekend

Timing Observations:

  • Aussiecon 4 in 2010 had online nominations available the earliest, on January 1.
  • Renovation in 2011 and Loncon 3 in 2014 had online nominations available the longest, at 82 days.
  • Chicon 7 in 2012 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had online voting up and running the fastest, at 2 and 5 days following the announcement of the Finalists.
  • Chicon 7 had online voting available the longest, at 113 days.
  • Denvention 3 in 2008 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had the Hugo Voter Packet available the most quickly, at 3 and 4 weeks following the Finalist announcement.


1 – days between online nominations becoming available and nomination deadline
2 – days between nomination deadline and finalist announcement
3 – days between finalist announcement and online voting becoming available
4 – days between finalist announcement and Hugo Voter Packet becoming available
5 – days between online voting becoming available and voting deadline
6 – days between voting deadline and the start of Worldcon


While you’re waiting for the Hugo Voter Packet, here’s a list of links to read the 2020 Hugo Finalists which are available for free online.

*The Camestros Felapton University for Beating Statistical Horses Until They Are Thoroughly Dead

Waiting For Online Hugo Voting And The 2019 Voter Packet

By JJ: Enquiring Hugo voter minds want to know: When will we be able to vote online? When will the Hugo Voter Packet be available?

In the fine tradition of similar File 770 posts on the subject in years past, and using my highly-refined statistical skills gained while acquiring my Master’s degree from Cattimothy U*, here is a comparison of the deadlines and availability dates of recent Worldcons.

Because what the hell, we’ve got time to kill. And a year from now, someone is going to ask about this again, the way they do every year.

UPDATE May 11, 2019:
The Hugo Voter Packet and Online Voting are now available.

Notes:

  • In 2008 and 2009, the Hugo Voter Packet was put together by John Scalzi
  • In 2012, the Hugo Voter Packet was released in stages starting on May 18, becoming fully available on May 30
  • With the exception of 2009, 2016, 2017, and 2019, all Finalist Announcements were made on Easter weekend

Timing Observations:

  • Aussiecon 4 in 2010 had online nominations available the earliest, on January 1.
  • Renovation in 2011 and Loncon 3 in 2014 had online nominations available the longest, at 82 days.
  • Chicon 7 in 2012 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had online voting up and running the fastest, at 2 and 5 days following the announcement of the Finalists.
  • Chicon 7 had online voting available the longest, at 113 days.
  • Denvention 3 in 2008 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had the Hugo Voter Packet available the most quickly, at 3 and 4 weeks following the Finalist announcement.


1 – days between online nominations becoming available and nomination deadline
2 – days between nomination deadline and finalist announcement
3 – days between finalist announcement and online voting becoming available
4 – days between finalist announcement and Hugo Voter Packet becoming available
5 – days between online voting becoming available and voting deadline
6 – days between voting deadline and the start of Worldcon


While you’re waiting for the Hugo Voter Packet, here’s a list of links to read the 2019 Hugo Finalists which are available for free online.

*The Camestros Felapton University for Beating Statistical Horses Until They Are Thoroughly Dead

Pixel Scroll 6/8/18 Near A File By A Pixel There’s A Scroll In The Ground

(1) WORLDCON 75 BONUS. 2017 Worldcon Vice-chair Colette H. Fozard sent an update about the printed souvenir books people are looking forward to receiving.

We have the list of people to send the printed souvenir book to, and we’re sorry for the delay but it is due to a bonus!  We’re doing a limited-run reprint of our short story anthology, Giants at the End of the World – A Showcase of Finnish Weird, and that book will be included with the mailed souvenir books. We ran out at con, so we’re printing more to include with this mailing. We expect the printing and mailing to be done by the end of June.  Thanks so much for your patience!

(2) ANIMATED SPIDER-MAN TRAILER. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is coming from Sony Pictures Entertainment this Christmas.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative minds behind The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, bring their unique talents to a fresh vision of a different Spider-Man Universe, with a groundbreaking visual style that’s the first of its kind. Spider-Man™: Into the Spider-Verse introduces Brooklyn teen Miles Morales, and the limitless possibilities of the Spider-Verse, where more than one can wear the mask.

 

(3) VOTING. WIRED’s Adam Rogers, in “Elections Don’t Work at All. You Can Blame the Math”, examines voting systems, and in particular Instant Runoff Voting as it applies to electing a new mayor for San Francisco. This is comparable to the system used for Hugo voting prior to EPH, except that SF voters are only allowed to rank 3 candidates while Worldcon voters can rank all available candidates (including No Award). Among other things, it’s apparently slowing the determination of the outcome as paper ballots could be postmarked as late as election day.

…See, the San Francisco mayoral election isn’t just another whoever-gets-the-most-votes-wins sort of deal. No, this race was another example of the kind of cultural innovation that California occasionally looses upon an unsuspecting America, like smartphones and fancy toast. Surprise, you guys! We don’t even vote like y’all out here.

The way it worked is called ranked choice voting, also known as an instant runoff. Voters rank three choices in order of preference. The counting process drops the person with the fewest first-choice votes, reallocates that candidate’s votes to all his or her voters’ second choices, and then repeats. Does this sound insane? Actually, it’s genius. It is also insane.

(4) MANITOBA BOOK AWARDS. Craig Russell writes, “I’m pleased to say that Fragment is on the shortlist for The Michael Van Rooy Award!” (See all the award categories on the Manitoba Book Award shortlist.)

The Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction

  • The Bootlegger’s Confession by Allan Levine, published by Ravenstone Press, an imprint of Turnstone Press
  • Fragment by Craig Russell, published by Thistledown Press
  • The Mermaid’s Tale by D.G. Valdron, published by Five River Publishing
  • Strangers – Book 1 of The Reckoner Series by David A. Robertson, published by HighWater Press, an imprint of Portage & Main Press

The Manitoba Writers’ Guild ceremony for the upcoming Manitoba Book Awards will be held on Friday, June 15.

(5) BOURDAIN OBIT. Culinary explorer and TV personality Anthony Bourdain died of suicide on June 8. The Huffington Post explores his genre connection in “Anthony Bourdain’s Boyhood Dream Was To Make Comics. Few People Know He Did.”.

Bourdain once told CNN that he was a serious comic book collector as a kid. “At the end of the day, I’m a super nerdy fanboy,” he said. He admitted to Jimmy Fallon that, unfortunately, he sold his collection for drugs back in the 1980s.

In 2012, Bourdain co-wrote his first comic with author Joel Rose. It was called “Get Jiro!” The setting is the not-so-distant “Bourdainian” future.
Foodies have taken over and celebrity chefs not unlike mob bosses run the world. The mysterious Jiro-San is the new hotshot sushi chef in town. The city’s warring culinary factions have each given him an ultimatum: Join our
side or die.

(6) BERTIN OBIT. Horror writer Eddy C. Bertin died May 22 reports his publisher David Sutton.

Very sadly I have to report that veteran horror and Cthulhu Mythos writer, Eddy C. Bertin, died on 22nd May while on holiday on the island of Crete. My association with Eddy goes back to my fanzine Shadow, in 1968, for which he wrote many articles on a variety of horror topics, including on the Cthulhu Mythos and European horror writers. His distinctive short stories were picked up by The Pan Book of Horror,The Year’s Best Horror Stories and many more anthologies and magazines over the years. He was born in Germany, but later moved to Ghent and wrote in Dutch, Flemish, German and English.I am proud to have published a collection of his stories in 2013, The Whispering Horror.

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 9, 19491984 was first printed, in London.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

  • Born June 8, 1910 — John W. Campbell, Jr.
  • Born June 8, 1928 – Kate Wilhelm
  • Born June 8, 1943 – Colin Baker

(9) MAGICAL MYSTERY THEATER TOUR. Coast-to-coast, north to south, “MST3K Live 30th Anniversary Tour” could be coming to a venue near you. Or not. Check it out at the link.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 announces the MST3K Live 30th Anniversary Tour featuring, for the first time in 25 years, original host and MST3K creator Joel Hodgson back in the red jumpsuit as Joel Robinson. Alongside new MST3K host Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray), Joel, Jonah and the Bots will bring new movies and all new riffs and sketches live to the stage across U.S. cities this fall. The MST3K Live 30th Anniversary Tour kicks off October 9 in Portland, ME and hits 29 cities to perform 42 shows across the U.S. Tickets for all dates go on sale Friday, June 8 via AXS.com and local venue box offices.

Of the upcoming tour, Hodgson says, “The craziest and most exciting thing for me is that I am putting on my old jumpsuit and will be riffing live, shoulder to shoulder with Jonah, Crow, and Tom Servo for two incredibly strange feature films. I’m going to have to go into training to get caught up to the skill level of Jonah and this new cast. If you saw last year’s tour you have some idea just how talented these young movie riffers are.”

 

(10) LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION FIGURE. You have truly made it when you have your own action figure. Entertainment Weekly has the story: Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro has an action figure — here’s your first look”.

NECA’s Guillermo del Toro action figures

(11) ROCKET STACK RANK. Eric Wong sent a link to RSR’s “Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017” article. He notes —

June is Pride Month, and here are 45 outstanding stories with LGBT characters from 2017 that were either finalists for major SF/F awards, included in “year’s best” SF/F anthologies, or recommended by prolific reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A).

This list could be useful for making nominations for the 2018 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for Best Short Fiction (published in 2010-2017). Anyone can nominate through June 30, 2018. Stories from 2017 are below. See Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2015-2016 for earlier stories.

Observations

  • 31 of the 45 stories are free online.
  • 16 of the stories earned 33 of the 82 available finalist slots for the Eugie(1/5), Hugo (9/18), Locus (11/30), Nebula (8/18), and Sturgeon (4/11) awards. That’s 40% of the award finalist slots even though LGBT stories were only 10% of all stories reviewed by RSR in 2017 (81 out of 810) and 35% of award finalist stories (16 out of 45).
  • Authors with the most stories here are JY Yang (3), Sam J. Miller (2) and Sarah Pinsker (2).
  • Four of the stories were written by Campbell Award-eligible writers.
  • Prolific reviewers with the most recommendations here are RSR (18), RHorton (17) and GDozois (15).
  • Each of the 11 magazines covered by RSR had at least one recommended LGBT story, with Clarkesworld having the most with 7 stories among the 45.

(12) GALLOWAY SETTLEMENT. The January 15 Pixel Scroll linked to an op-ed by Margaret Atwood (“Am I a bad feminist?”) regarding University of British Columbia professor Steven Galloway, who had an affair with a student and was accused of sexual misconduct.

Galloway has received a settlement from the university — the CBC has the story: “Author Steven Galloway awarded $167K in damages following UBC firing”.

Author Steven Galloway, fired by the University of British Columbia in 2016, has been awarded $167,000 in damages following arbitration.

Galloway admitted to having an affair with a student but was also critical of the university’s handling of the case, which sparked a divisive debate on campus and in the country’s literary community.

On Friday, an arbitrator on the case said that some communications by the school contravened Galloway’s privacy rights and caused harm to his reputation.

In his four-page decision, John B. Hall writes mostly about the process of the arbitration with little detail about what specific communications were damaging….

(13) CAP LAUNCHES AGAIN. Marvel has created a trailer for Captain America #1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates & Leinil Yu.

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Danse Exquise on Vimeo is an absurd animation from Miyu Productions, set to the music of Claude Debussy, that includes a dancing crab and a political rooster.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Eric Wong, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Bill, Craig Russell, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs  to File 770 contributing editor of the day Christian Brunschen.]

Waiting For Online Hugo Voting And The Voter Packet

By JJ: Enquiring Hugo voter minds want to know: When will we be able to vote online? When will the Hugo Voter Packet be available?

In the tradition of similar File 770 posts on the subject in years past, here is a comparison of the deadlines and availability dates of recent Worldcons.

Because what the hell, we’ve got time to kill. And a year from now, someone is going to ask about this again, the way they do every year.

Notes:

  • In 2008 and 2009, the Hugo Voter Packet was put together by John Scalzi
  • In 2012, the Hugo Voter Packet was released in stages starting on May 18, becoming fully available on May 30
  • With the exception of 2009, 2016, and 2017, all Finalist Announcements were made on Easter weekend

Chicon 7 in 2012 and Renovation in 2011 were the Worldcons which had online voting up and running the fastest, at 2 and 5 days following the announcement of the Finalists. Denvention 3 in 2008 and Renovation were the Worldcons which had the Hugo Voter Packet available the most quickly, at 3 and 4 weeks following the Finalist announcement.

While you’re waiting for the Hugo Voter Packet, here’s a list of links to read the 2018 Hugo Finalists which are available for free online.

  1. – days between online nominations becoming available and nomination deadline
  2. – days between nomination deadline and finalist announcement
  3. – days between finalist announcement and online voting becoming available
  4. – days between finalist announcement and Hugo Voter Packet becoming available
  5. – days between online voting becoming available and voting deadline
  6. – days between voting deadline and the start of Worldcon

Update 04/29/2018: Added graph.

Pixel Scroll 2/16/18 There Are Six Pixels On This Scroll: Two At The Rear, Two At The Front And Two Over The Tick Box

(1) 2017 HUGO VIDEO. Worldcon 75 Hugo Ceremony video has been posted. Due to technical difficulties, it omits the first 15 minutes of the event and the first winner presented (Best Fan Artist). They did capture the remaining two-plus hours of the ceremonies. (Oor Wombat’s “Whalefall” acceptance speech begins at 1:48.)

(2) INSPIRED.SPECPO catches up with a longtime poet — “Fairy Tales and Finding Poetic Inspiration: An interview with Ruth Berman”.

Ruth Berman

How did you get started as a writer?
When I was about five, the family took a train trip to Florida during winter vacation.  Looking out the train window at the full moon shining on a lagoon, I felt that it was so beautiful that had to compose a poem about it. As I did not know how to write, I dictated the result to my oldest brother to write down for me so that I could keep it until I could read. (No, I won’t quote it. Five-year-olds don’t compose very good poetry.)

Who are some of your favorite science fiction and fantasy influences?
The members of the Twin Cities Sf Poetry writing group and of the Aaardvaark writing group. Anthony Boucher, Poul Anderson, Ursula K. LeGuin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, Avram Davidson, Terry Pratchett, Fritz Leiber, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll.

What keeps you going as a writer?
Sometimes nothing does. But at some point when I haven’t had any ideas for a long time, something will set me off again, so I try not to worry during the dry spells. I read a lot of non-fiction in the fields of mythology, folktales, history, and science, looking for ideas — sometimes find some in the process, sometimes not. Also sometimes get ideas from other people’s fiction, especially if I disagree with a story. Sometimes, if the situation calls for characters to have coats of arms, it helps to stop and ask myself what a character’s coat of arms is — which I seem to find more helpful than the more usual prompts of asking what music the character likes or hates, what foods, books, clothes — that sort of thing.

(3) LE GUIN TRIBUTE IN PORTLAND. Ursula K. Le Guin’s family says a public tribute is being planned, date to be determined.

Dear readers and friends,

We are deeply honored by the outpouring of affection and admiration for Ursula and her life’s work.

Many have asked whether we are planning a public event to commemorate and honor Ursula; others have asked where one could direct donations in her name.

We are working with Literary Arts to plan a tribute, to be held in April or May 2018 in Portland, free and open to the public.

(4) NO BOOM. The LA Review of Books considers an atomic scientist’s spec-fic story: “Listening to the Dolphins: Leo Szilard on Nuclear War”.

LEO SZILARD’S short story “The Voice of the Dolphins,” published in 1961, imagines a history of the world written in 1990. The story begins with the sentence, “On several occasions between 1960 and 1985, the world narrowly escaped an all-out atomic war.” One of the 20th century’s greatest physicists, Szilard knew whereof he spoke: along with Enrico Fermi, he was responsible for creating the first nuclear chain reaction in 1942. Szilard understood very well the history, physics, and destructive power of the Bomb. He could have chosen to write a tense record of the 1945 explosion at Hiroshima, along the lines of John Hersey’s classic study, or he might have related the history of the Bomb’s invention à la Richard Rhodes. Instead, he chose to write a piece of fiction — dry almost to the point of tedium — about the geopolitical future of the Atomic Age.

His choice is fascinating, not least because it suggests that Szilard’s interests as a man of science extended far beyond the domain of physics into the social and political spheres. His actions belie the sort of caricature of scientists found in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (1963) and other midcentury texts — an autistic tinkerer who leads the world to the brink of destruction by solving a military problem without any thought for the consequences. On the contrary, Szilard’s fiction is a serious attempt to grapple with the ethico-political impact of the epochal invention he in large part helped to author.

(5) CLAIM TO FAME. Kim Huett says, “Time to take it down a notch after writing such a serious post last week. You will note that I am the first person to ever combine Walt Willis and Mystery Science Theater 3000. (I’m possibly the only person who could.)”

Can Huett live up to this boast? Read “The Notorious Bert I. Gordon” and see.

Okay, so now we all know that MST3K is a TV show that revolves around showing a movie of dubious quality and providing a humorous commentary which, in this, the future world of today, is a little thing we like to call riffing. I doubt riffing is a new or revolutionary practise, I imagine people have been moved to talk back to the screen ever since the very first bad movie was shown in front of an audience. I even have evidence of a primitive form of movie riffing happening at a British science fiction convention. Consider this quote from Walt Willis writing about the Loncon in Quandry #22 (edited by Lee Hoffman, August 1952). This particular Loncon (there has been more than one SF convention called this) was held 31 May & 1 June, 1952 and in London of all places:

The final event was a showing of Metropolis, which in a way was the best part of the official programme. This was because there was no incidental music to drown fan comment on the action, some of which was brilliant. Dan Morgan shone especially. When the hero suddenly mimed exaggerated alarm the way they do in silent films and dashed madly for the door Dan remarked “FIRST ON THE RIGHT”. That started it and the whole worthy but rather dull film was enlivened by a ruining commentary from the audience which I wish I had space to quote…

(6) LAST RESTING PLACE. Atlas Obscura has photo features of a number of gravesites, including those of two Inklings —

The bones of C.S. Lewis, one of the 20th century’s literary greats, rest within a peaceful cemetery. Nearby, an etched glass window bearing characters from his most famous fantasy world adds a whimsical touch of childhood magic to the churchyard….

The grave of C.S. Lewis lies within the cemetery of the Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry just outside of Oxford. He was buried there in November of 1963, and even today it’s common to find flowers placed atop his tombstone.

The names Lúthien and Beren can be found inscribed on the shared grave of the famous writer and his beloved wife and muse.

The final resting place of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) and Edith Mary Tolkien (1889-1971) is covered in an abundance flowers, plants, and offerings from fans in the verdant cemetery of Wolvercote in Northern Oxford. They are buried together in a single grave in the Catholic section of the cemetery.

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 16, 1923 — In Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen.

(8) THE HORROR. Gizmodo may have violated the Geneva Convention by posting this online — “Man Redefines Horror By Building a Singing Furby Organ”.

(9) AMUSING CONCEIT. Here’s the Black Panther trailer done as an 8-bit game video:

(10) SUPERHEROES LIKE ME. The Washington Post’s David Betancourt interviews Ryan Coogler, who talks about how he has loved comics since he was a kid and how he was brought into the MCU by Nate Moore, Marvel’s only African-American producer: “‘Black Panther’s’ Ryan Coogler has always been searching for superheroes who look like him”.

“I went to the comic book shop that was by my school and asked if they had any black characters,” Coogler recalled.

That was the moment Coogler discovered the Black Panther.

While in film school at University of Southern California, where he graduated in 2011, that love of comics remained — and after Marvel Studios started its connected cinematic universe with 2008’s box office hit “Iron Man,” Coogler began imagining that one day he might direct a superhero movie.

Betancourt has another article about how he is half African-American and half Puerto Rican and is excited about a superhero movie featuring people who look like him: “I’m a 37-year-old Afro-Latino comic nerd. I’ve waited a lifetime for ‘Black Panther.’”

Imagine waiting a lifetime for a hero, at times thinking he’ll never come. Imagine being there when he finally shows up.

That’s the feeling for many of us — fans of color who love superhero culture — as we anticipate the live-action movie debut of the Black Panther, indisputably the greatest black superhero of all time.

In Marvel Cinematic Universe years, it’s only been a decade since 2008’s “Iron Man” introduced a new era of epic, interconnected storytelling on-screen. But for those of us who discovered Black Panther in the comics — the character first appeared in 1966 — the wait has been much longer.

(11) SETI SLOWDOWN. First they need to find intelligent life on earth – the BBC reports “Crypto-currency craze ‘hinders search for alien life'”.

Scientists listening out for broadcasts by extra-terrestrials are struggling to get the computer hardware they need, thanks to the crypto-currency mining craze, a radio-astronomer has said.

Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) researchers want to expand operations at two observatories.

However, they have found that key computer chips are in short supply.

“We’d like to use the latest GPUs [graphics processing units]… and we can’t get ’em,” said Dan Werthimer.

Demand for GPUs has soared recently thanks to crypto-currency mining.

“That’s limiting our search for extra-terrestrials, to try to answer the question, ‘Are we alone? Is there anybody out there?’,” Dr Werthimer told the BBC.

“This is a new problem, it’s only happened on orders we’ve been trying to make in the last couple of months.”

Mining a currency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum involves connecting computers to a global network and using them to solve complex mathematical puzzles.

Here’s an even more direct measure of the impact of this currency mining — “Bitcoin energy use in Iceland set to overtake homes, says local firm”.

Iceland is facing an “exponential” rise in Bitcoin mining that is gobbling up power resources, a spokesman for Icelandic energy firm HS Orka has said.

This year, electricity use at Bitcoin mining data centres is likely to exceed that of all Iceland’s homes, according to Johann Snorri Sigurbergsson.

He said many potential customers were keen to get in on the act.

(12) SEVENTH DOCTOR WHO RETURNS. BBC Worldwide Americas and Titan Comics are bringing back the Seventh Doctor for a new three-part comic series stars the Seventh Doctor, as played by Sylvester McCoy, alongside classic companion Ace (Sophie Aldred).

Hitting stores and digital platforms in June 2018 with a double-sized first issue, DOCTOR WHO: THE SEVENTH DOCTOR #1, written by Seventh Doctor script editor and showrunner Andrew Cartmel, and writer Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London). Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor expands Titan Comics’ hugely popular and critically acclaimed Doctor Who comics line.

Actor Sylvester McCoy starred as the Seventh Doctor from 1987 to 1989 anchoring hundreds of novels and comic strips before regenerating in the 1996 TV movie. As well as this new comic, the Seventh Doctor’s era lives on in a tremendously successful series of audios from Big Finish. McCoy’s portrayal as the Doctor was, at first, a light-hearted eccentric who darkened into a secretive, mysterious, and cunning planner across the course of his tenure.

In Titan Comics’ new mini-series, an unknown alien intelligence in orbit around the Earth. Astronauts under attack. A terrifying, mysterious landing in the Australian interior. The future of the world itself at stake. Counter Measures activated. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are slap bang in the middle of it all! This is OPERATION VOLCANO!

(13) EVIL EMPIRE. Eric Chesterton, in the MLB.com piece  “The Yankees Will Give Away An Aaron Judge Jedi Bobblehead For Star Wars Night,”  have a picture of the Coveted Collectible that all Filers who are Yankees fans will have to have!

(14) DESPITE POPULAR DEMAND. The irresistible charm of exactly what? explains why “Michael Fassbender is starring in a feature-length sequel to Kung Fury”.

The retro ’80s mash-up short Kung Fury made the improbable leap from kitschy Kickstarter project to the Cannes Film Festival, and now it will be getting a feature-length sequel starring Prometheus and Steve Jobs star Michael Fassbender. Variety reports that the creator and star of the original Kung Fury, David Sandberg, is also set to appear in the movie as the titular hero. David Hasselhoff, who had a role in the short, is also expected to return.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Will R., Rev. Bob, Daniel Dern, Carl Slaughter, Kim Huett, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]

Worldcon 75 Posts PR#6, Souvenir Book, Hugo Ceremony Video

The 2017 Worldcon issued this news blast today —

They have published a sixth Progress Report 6, with a recap of convention activities, photographs, and membership and attendance statistics. Available online only —

Worldcon 75 has reopened its merchandise webshop for orders until February 28. A last chance to buy your Worldcon 75 keepsake.

The Worldcon 75 Souvenir Book is being made available to all members who were not in Helsinki. You need your membership login info, then you can choose these options —

  • An electronic copy is available for download by all members from the W75 membership site.
  • If you did not attend the convention, but would like a paper copy of the Souvenir Book, sign in to the member site and edit your personal information to include your paper pubs mailing address by February 28. They expect to have the paper copies mailed out shortly thereafter.

Finally, W75 Vice-Chair Colette H. Fozard stated in a comment today the Hugo Ceremony video is coming this week:

I can also announce that I have been informed that the Hugo Ceremony Video has been uploaded into Worldcon 75’s YouTube channel with a scheduled “go live” date of 16 February at 18.00 EEST (Finnish time).

Here is the link to Worldcon 75’s YouTube channel.

Worldcon 76 Hugo Rules Reminder

Something to keep in mind —

To vote on the 2018 Hugo finalists you must be a member of the 2018 Worldcon in San Jose before the voting deadline.

To nominate for the 2018 Hugos, you can become eligible in any of the following ways:

The nominations will open in early 2018, and the final ballot will come out a couple months after that.

Eligibility to nominate is time sensitive, as Worldcon 76 says in its press release today: “Don’t miss your chance to nominate for the Hugos! Register as a member before December 31, 2017!”

Worldcon 75 Pass Along Funds

The Helsinki committee announced at Smofcon they will be distributing surplus funds from Worldcon 75. Also, members will soon get an email telling how those who weren’t at the con can receive an electronic and/or paper copy of the souvenir book by post.

Initial pass along funds:

  • €12,000 to Worldcon 76;
  • €12,000 to Dublin in 2019;
  • €12,000 to Worldcon 2020

Donations:

  • €1,200 to the WSFS Mark Protection Committee
  • €1,000 to Worldcon Heritage
  • €25,000 to Finnish fan groups

Worldcon 75 also announced that it would be doing staff reimbursements of €95 per staffer.

Vice-chair Colette H. Fozard confirmed the above amounts and added:

An e-mail will be going out within the next week to all members that will have the following information:

(a) notice of the publication of PR6 – a wrap up report;

(b) reopening of Worldcon 75’s online merchandise shop for a short time; and

(c) information on how to receive electronic and/or paper copy of the souvenir book by post.

Pixel Scroll 11/6/17 All Of The True Pixels I Am About To Tell You Are Shameless Scrolls

(1) MORE MAPS. Ursula K. Le Guin shares the Hainish Endpapers from new editions of her books:

  • Gethen Map by UKL Colorization by Donna G. Brown

  • List of Known Hainish Worlds by Donna G. Brown, LoA.

(2) IT’S BEGINNINNG TO LOOK A LOT LIKE ADVENT. Hingston and Olsen have included stories by several sff authors in the 2017 “Short Story Advent Calendar”.

For the third straight year, the Short Story Advent Calendar is here to be the spice in your eggnog, the rum in your fruitcake—another collection of 24 brilliant stories to be opened, one by one, on the mornings leading up to Christmas.

These stories once again come from some of the best and brightest writers across North America, and beyond. Plus, this year featuring more all-new material than ever before!

Contributors to the 2017 calendar include:

  • Kelly Link (Get in TroubleMagic for Beginners)
  • Jim Gavin (Middle Men, AMC’s forthcoming Lodge 49)
  • Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties)
  • Ken Liu (The Paper MenagerieThe Grace of Kings)
  • Maggie Shipstead (Astonish MeSeating Arrangements)
  • and [REDACTED x 19]!

As always, each booklet is sealed, so you won’t know what story you’re getting until the morning you open it.

(3) WSFS PAPERS. Kevin Standlee announced more documentation from the 2017 Worldcon Business Meeting has been posted:

The 2018 WSFS Constitution (including all of the amendments ratified in Helsinki), Standing Rules for the 2018 WSFS Business Meeting, and Business Passed On to the 2018 WSFS Business Meeting are now online at the “WSFS Rules page”.

The Resolutions & Rulings of Continuing Effect are being reviewed by the WSFS Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee, and I expect them to be online at the same page within a week or so.

Thanks again to Linda Deneroff for pulling this all together and putting up with me futzing around with the documents.

(4) I CHING, YOU CHING. At Galactic Journey, The Traveler has just gotten his hands on PKD’s brand new novel! “[November 6, 1962] The road not taken… (Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle)”.

Philip K. Dick has returned to us after a long hiatus with a novel, The Man in the High Castle.  It is an ambitious book, longer than most science fiction novels.  Castle‘s setting is an alternate history, one in which the Axis powers managed to defeat the Allies…somehow (it is never explained).  Dick explores this universe through five disparate viewpoint protagonists, whose paths intertwine in complex, often surprising ways…

Surprisingly, The Traveler scoffs at the alternate history premise.

There are significant problems with Castle, however.  For one, it suffers from lazy worldbuilding.  The book is an opportunity for Dick to draw a wide cast of characters and depict their complex web of interactions.  But the underpinnings of the world they inhabit are implausible.  First and foremost, it would have been impossible, logistically, for the United States to have fallen to the Axis Powers.  For that matter, I have doubts that the Soviet Union was ever in existential danger.  Certainly the Reich never came close to making The Bomb – their racial theory-tinged science wouldn’t have allowed it.  It is sobering when you realize that the Allies managed to fight two world wars and develop the most expensive and powerful weapon ever known all at the same time.  An Axis victory in World War 2 resulting in the conquest of the United States is simply a nonstarter.

(5) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites everyone to “Sink your teeth into samosa with Karin Tidbeck” in episode 51 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Karin Tidbeck

This time around, you get to listen in on my lunch at Mero-Himal Nepalese Restaurant with Karin Tidbeck during the penultimate day of the con. Tidbeck writes fiction in both Swedish and English, and debuted in 2010 with the Swedish short story collection Vem är Arvid Pekon? Her English debut, the 2012 collection Jagannath, was awarded the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts William L. Crawford Fantasy Award in 2013 and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. Her novel debut, Amatka, was recently released in English.

We discussed the serious nature of Live Action Role-Playing games in Nordic countries, the way pretending to be a 150-year-old vampire changed her life, how discovering Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics made her forget time and space, the most important lesson she learned from the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop, how she uses improvisational exercises to teach beginning writers, why Amatka grew from a poetry collection into a novel, what made her say, “I’m not here to answer questions, I’m here to ask them,” and more.

(6) CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT AGAIN? Scholars contend: “Science Fiction Makes You Stupid” in a post at The Patron Saint of Superheroes.

That is a scientifically grounded claim.

Cognitive psychologist Dan Johnson and I make a version of it in our paper “The Genre Effect: A Science Fiction (vs. Realism) Manipulation Decreases Inference Effort, Reading Comprehension, and Perceptions of Literary Merit,” forthcoming from Scientific Study of Literature.

Dan and I are both professors at Washington and Lee University, and our collaboration grew out of my annoyance at another study, “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind,” published in Science in 2013. Boiled down, the authors claimed reading literary fiction makes you smart. And, who knows, maybe it does, but if so, their study gets no closer to understanding why–or even what anyone means by the term “literary fiction” as opposed to, say, “science fiction.”

Our study defines those terms, creates two texts that differ accordingly, and then studies how readers respond to them. The results surprised us. Readers read science fiction badly. If you’d like all the details why, head over to Scientific Study of Literature.

Arinn Dembo says about the article:

This is an interesting study. It strongly suggests that years of internalized stereotyping might influence the way you read and are *able* to read, in and out of the pulp genres you might favor. I said years ago, in my first published review, “If you don’t read outside the genre… soon you won’t be able to.”

But it might just be that if you listen too long to what arrogant, dismissive people think of your genre, you’ll stop being able to read it intelligently.

(7) VERSE WARRIORS. E. Catherine Tobler (Shimmer editor), Rachael K. Jones (recently nominated for World Fantasy Award for short fiction) and Aidan Doyle have launched a Kickstarter appeal to fund  “Sword and Sonnet” an anthology of genre stories about battle poets.

“Sword and Sonnet” will be an anthology featuring genre stories about women and non-binary battle poets. Lyrical, shimmery sonnet-slingers. Grizzled, gritty poetpunks. Word nerds battling eldritch evil. Haiku-wielding heroines.

We have a wonderful group of writers who have agreed to write stories for us: Alex Acks, C. S. E. Cooney, Malon Edwards, Spencer Ellsworth, Samantha Henderson, S. L. Huang, Cassandra Khaw, Margo Lanagan, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Tony Pi, A. Merc Rustad and A. C. Wise. We’ll also be holding an open submission period.

The cover art is by Vlada Monakhova. The project is live on Kickstarter throughout November. At this writing they have raised $1,982 of their $7,654 goal.

(8) IN PASSING. Here’s a photo of the late Ben Solon, a Chicago fan whose death was reported the other day.

L to R: John D. Berry, Ray Fisher and Ben Solon at a party at late Sixties Worldcon. Photo copyright © Andrew Porter

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Darrah Chavey found the reason for the season in Cul de Sac.
  • John King Tarpinian noted The Argyle Sweater getting its laughs at the pharmacy.

(10) TEMPLE TALK. Kim Huett writes to say he has updated his William F. Temple article with corrected information supplied by Rob Hansen in a comment.

Meantime, Bill Burns says he was “Surprised to see that when you posted Kim’s piece on Bill Temple the other day you didn’t also mention Rob Hansen’s excellent new compilation of Bill’s fan writing, Temple at the Bar – free in promotion of TAFF!”

It’s one of the free ebooks at Dave Langford’s TAFF site.

(11) MOO SIXTY-NINE. NASA’s New Horizons team is looking for help naming their next target — “Help us Nickname a Distant World”.

On January 1, 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past a small, distant, and cold world at the outer frontier of our solar system. The spacecraft is about to set the record for visiting the most remote world ever explored by humankind.

For now, our destination goes by the unexciting name “(486958) 2014 MU69“, or “MU69” for short. We would like to use a more memorable nickname when we talk about our target body.

At this site, we are asking you—the public—to suggest your ideas for the nickname to assign to MU69, and to vote for your favorites. The New Horizons team and NASA will review your best ideas and announce our selection soon—in early January, 2018.

… From here you can:

  • Read about the nicknames we are already considering.
  • Vote for your favorite names on the ballot (so far).
  • Nominate names that you think we should add to the ballot.
  • Check out the top-ranked names on the vote tally.

Would you believe — right now, Mjölnir is leading the poll.

(12) TRAD PIZZA. In “Papa John’s condemns new customers: White supremacists” the alt-right rationale that a business is “failing” – because it didn’t grow as fast as predicted (mind you, it still grew) – sounds like the same criticism recently levied against a sff writer who said his productivity was down.

Papa John’s pizza has a new customer, the alt-right.

In the days following a rant by Papa John’s CEO and Louisville resident John Schnatter where he blamed the NFL and anthem protests for low sales, a white-supremacist publication claimed it as their official pizza.

In a blog post at the Daily Stormer, a photo of pizza with pepperonis arranged in a swastika has a caption that reads “Papa John: Official pizza of the alt-right?”

“This might be the first time ever in modern history that a major institution is going to be completely destroyed explicitly because of public outrage over their anti-White agenda,” Daily Stormer writer Adrian Sol said.

Peter Collins, the senior director of public relations at Papa John’s, said the company was taken off-guard by the endorsement.

“We condemn racism in all forms and any and all hate groups that support it,” Collins told Courier Journal. “We do not want these individuals or groups to buy our pizza.”

Papa John’s released third-quarter sales figures last week that show diminished rates of growth at established North American locations: 1.5 percent this year as opposed to a projected 2- to 4-percent increase. In 2016, North American sales increased 5.5 percent during the same period.

(13) TWO-LEGGED SYLLOGISM OF THE DAY. In a piece mainly devoted to slandering David Gerrold, Dr. Mauser informs the sff community “The Science Fiction is Settled”, indulging in the fallacious logic that if any member of a group wrote sff in the early days of the genre, by that date the field was wide open to writers from that group.

And then, tragedy strikes. Because to Gerrold, Change has an Arrow on it, with a single destination, and it’s pointing to the left. He launches into a paean about Immigrants and diversity and the global village because Diversity is Strength! And then:

So, yes, it is inevitable that science fiction authors will explore that diversity — expanded roles for women, new definitions of gender and sexuality, the contributions of People of Color and other non-white ethnicities. We’ve discovered the overlooked skills of the aged and the disabled, the unusual and extraordinary ratiocinations of people who are neuro-atypical. The next generation of authors are exploring vast new landscapes of possibility — places to explore and discover ways of being human previously unconsidered.

It’s not that SF CAN explore those things, but that SF SHOULD explore those things he seems to think. Forget exploring the stars or asking “What if we’re not alone in the universe?” Nah, we’re alone, so let’s spend all our speculative energies on exploring our own bad selves. He grudgingly admits that while we have probes going past Pluto, “some of our most ambitious authors are turning their attention to a different frontier —exploring the workings of the human soul.” I suppose our navels give us much more instantaneous gratification than the stars. But really, that kind of narcissism is only interesting to the narcissist.

And at this point, we can see where the train leaves the tracks, because he switches from talking about science fiction, to the science fiction community, while trying to carry the same points. He talks about the changes in the SF Community from all these new folks of diverse backgrounds showing up. The only problem with this theory is that they have always been here. There’s a case of DoubleThink going on here when the same folks who like to claim Mary Shelley as one of the first female authors of Science Fiction, and then set it out there as if women are something new, and even more patronizing when they act as if their side’s genuflecting to Feminism is somehow responsible for their appearance. No, this is not a change. Try reading some C.L. Moore and realize that not only have women been in SF all along, they have been awesome.

Likewise with minority writers. The publishing world is, or at least was, the ultimate meritocracy. Since most of the business was conducted by mail, a publisher had no clue about the racial background of an author. Bias was eliminated through the medium of the Manila envelope. It takes very little research to find out that Black authors have been writing science fiction since the turn of the century. No, not this century, the previous one. Likewise for Gay authors, an obvious example being from the previous list, Samuel R. Delany. He was first published in 1962. That’s FIFTY FIVE years ago. This “change” Gerrold is touting really is nothing new.

Do you think there’s much chance that David Gerrold will be stunned to learn a gay author wrote sf in the Sixties?

(14) TURNOVER AT CASTALIA HOUSE BLOG. Jeffro Johnson is leaving the Castalia House blog. Contributor Morgan Holmes will take charge. Culture warrior Johnson said in his farewell post —

I remember when Sad Puppies first came to my attention. Upon reading the most vilified author of the whole crop– Vox Day, of course– I saw a nominated story that’s worst fault could only be that it was explicitly Christian. Looking up the publishing house it was produced at, I found a manifesto stating their goal to restore fantasy and science fiction to more what it was like when it was written by Tolkien and Howard. (And yeah, I had no idea how the person that wrote that could possibly think that a pulp writer like Robert E. Howard could be anywhere on par with J. R. R. Tolkien. And even more ironically, I couldn’t imagine how a “Campbellian Revolution” they claimed to want could be anything other than good.)

…So much is happening in the wider scene today that I can barely keep up with even a portion of it. Along with that, I find that areas of my life outside of gaming and fiction have increasingly laid greater and greater claims to my time. And while I wish I could do all the things that I can think of that could really capitalize on everything that’s developed here… I’m afraid I instead have to admit that I’ve run with all of this about as far as I can.

It’s a tough thing to do, but I think it’s the right thing for me at this time. So I’m handing over editorship of Castalia House blog to Morgan Holmes, who has been writing about classic fantasy and science fiction here almost as long as I have. (Good luck, man!)

(15) ONE THING PEOPLE SEEM TO AGREE ABOUT. On National Review Online, Heather Wilhelm, in “The Surprising Joy of Stranger Things”. praises the show for being “a good, non-angry, non-political TV show.”

The show features “a prelapsarian world of walkie-talkies, landlines, and suburban kids left free to roam wherever they want on their bicycles,” wrote Emily Nussbaum in The New Yorker last year. Or, as Ross Duffer told Rolling Stone: “We were the last generation to have the experience of going out with our friends to the woods or the train tracks and the only way our parents could connect with us was to say, ‘It’s time for dinner.’” That world is largely gone, and with it, many childhood adventures. The image of a freewheeling kid on a bicycle, so integral to iconic films such as E.T. — Matt and Ross Duffer make no secret of drawing inspiration from classic ’80s blockbusters — is also integral to Stranger Things. Tooling around town or in the local woods on a bike is almost diametrically opposed to most widely approved childhood activities today, which tend to involve hyper-organized and ludicrously time-consuming team sports that seem purposely designed to torture kids and parents alike. Tooling around town or in the local woods on a bike is almost diametrically opposed to most widely approved childhood activities today. But given free rein on their bikes in and around the town of Hawkins, the kids of Stranger Things can meet up, explore, barrel through the forest, investigate baffling occurrences, and evade a posse of bad guys from a sinister government agency gone awry. That would be the Hawkins National Laboratory, a hulking structure nestled deep in the midwestern woods, packed to the gills with mysteries. According to the Duffer brothers, it was inspired mostly by “bizarre experiments we had read about taking place in the Cold War.”

(16) HERDING CATS. Camestros Felapton expanded his survey of animals in sff blogs (“Blogstrology”) to include one more —

Rocket Stack Rank www.rocketstackrank.com is interesting because the animals mentioned would be more determined by their incidence in short fiction. Overall low frequencies and RSR has no presence on the otter or goose dimensions. Wolf-Rabbit-Cat blog – “Cat” strongly assisted by reviews of the works of Cat Rambo.

Goat has a presence but is just shy of the top 3.

(17) GLASGOWROK. Apparently he’s a riot pronouncing the word “bairn” — “Jeff Goldblum Answers Scottish Themed Questions About the End of the World Posed by Wee Claire”.

While promoting his new film Thor: Ragnarok, the wonderfully affable Jeff Goldblum sat down with Wee Claire of the BBC Scotland show The Social to answer a few Scottish-themed questions about the end of the world.

 

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Time Travel in Fiction Rundown” on YouTube is a look at how lots of movies and Ender’s Game and Harry Potter and the Prisomer of Azkaban handle the time travel theme.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, James Davis Nicoll, Bill Burns, Kim Huett, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Scott Edelman for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr.]