Pixel Scroll 12/18/18 Just One Pixel Of Scrolls Is Better Than A Lifetime Alone

(1) NOT THE DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. A nice placeholder, though. Io9 sets the frame: “Doctor Who Saves Christmas (Again) in This Adorable Holiday Short”:

Doctor Who’s Twitter account has shared a cute animated holiday short telling the story of how the Doctor (voiced by Whittaker) helped save Christmas once again this year. Narrated by Bradley Walsh (Graham), the Twas The Night Before Christmas-style tale is all about Santa getting stuck in a jam after his sleigh breaks down. Who can he possibly call to save the day? The Doctor, of course!

(2) HARD SF. James Davis Nicoll dares to tell us about “Five Works of Hard Science Fiction That Bypass the Gatekeepers” at Tor.com.

….Still, I think there’s a gap between hard SF defined so narrowly only Hal Clement could be said to have written it (if we ignore his FTL drives) and hard SF defined so broadly anything qualifies provided the author belongs to the right social circles … that this gap is large enough that examples do exist. Here are five examples of SF works  that are, to borrow Marissa Lingen’s definition:

playing with science.

and doing so with a verisimilitude that’s not just plot-enabling handwaving….

(3) MYTHCON 50. Introducing artist Sue Dawe’s logo for Mythcon 50, with the theme “Looking Back, Moving Forward.” The convention will take place August 2-5 in San Diego – register here

(4) TAFF NEWS. Avail yourself of the official Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund news – click to retrieve the PDF file: 

(5) CODE OF CONDUCT GUIDANCE. Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner have made available as a free download their book on Code of Conduct enforcement for those who put on conventions and conferences: “Free code of conduct enforcement book available now”.

You can now download a free book detailing how to enforce a code of conduct, “How to Respond to Code of Conduct Reports,” written by Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner and edited by Annalee Flower Horne. This comprehensive guide includes:

  • Basic code of conduct theory
  • How to prepare to enforce a code of conduct
  • Step-by-step instructions on how to respond to a report
  • In-depth discussion of relevant topics
  • Dozens of real-world examples of responding to reports

Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner were the lead authors of the Ada Initiative anti­-harassment policy, which is the basis of thousands of codes of conduct in use today. Valerie has more than 7 years of professional experience writing and implementing codes of conduct for software-related companies, venture capital firms, and non-profits.

(6) NOT GOING TO DUBLIN 2019? Then a clue as to what you’ll be missing from the Science GoH is contained in this 1/2 hour BBC interview with Jocelyn Bell Burnell. “Of course, if you are going to Dublin, then don’t listen to this,” warns SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, “as there are spoilers.”

Jim Al-Khalili talks to astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Jocelyn Bell Burnell forged her own path through the male-dominated world of science – in the days when it was unusual enough for women to work, let alone make a discovery in astrophysics that was worthy of a Nobel Prize. As a 24-year old PhD student, Jocelyn spotted an anomaly on a graph buried within 100 feet of printed data from a radio telescope. Her curiosity about such a tiny detail led to one of the most important discoveries in 20th century astronomy – the discovery of pulsars – those dense cores of collapsed stars. It’s a discovery which changed the way we see the universe, making the existence of black holes suddenly seem much more likely and providing further proof to Einstein’s theory of gravity.

(7) FILMS THAT BELONG ON YOUR LIST. Looper says these are “The Best Fantasy Movies Everyone Missed In 2018.”

With major blockbusters and huge franchises taking up most of our attention these days, it can be easy to lose track of all the great releases sneaking by under the radar but these 2018 fantasy movies are well worth seeking out…

(8) TV HISTORY. Echo Ishii revisits another sff TV classic, The Stone Tape:

The Stone Tape was a television play broadcast by the BBC in 1972.

The Stone Tape begins with a man named Peter who is head of a research team for an electronics company. Like many of the characters in Beasts, the protagonist is not a pleasant person. Peter Brock, though likely very skilled at his job, is arrogant, self-absorbed, sexist, and condescending. Whereas someof the sexism and the bigoted comments may be a representation of the realities of the the business world (and TV) at the time, you are clearly meant not to like Peter Brock as a person which only amps up the unease surrounding the main plot….

(9) HOW FAR IS IT? Far out. Like, literally Far Freekin’ Out. A newly announced minor planet is the most distant known object in the Solar System (Phys.org: “Outer solar system experts find ‘far out there’ dwarf planet”). The body’s official name is 2018 VG18, but it’s nicknamed “Farout” and it’s current orbital distance is about 120 AUs.

A team of astronomers has discovered the most-distant body ever observed in our Solar System. It is the first known Solar System object that has been detected at a distance that is more than 100 times farther than Earth is from the Sun.

The new object was announced on Monday, December 17, 2018, by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center and has been given the provisional designation 2018 VG18. The discovery was made by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard, the University of Hawaii’s David Tholen, and Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo.

2018 VG18, nicknamed “Farout” by the discovery team for its extremely distant location, is at about 120 astronomical units (AU), where 1 AU is defined as the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The second-most-distant observed Solar System object is Eris, at about 96 AU. Pluto is currently at about 34 AU, making 2018 VG18 more than three-and-a-half times more distant than the Solar System’s most-famous dwarf planet.

(10) COMING YOUR WAY. The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie’s new fantasy novel, arrives February 26, 2019. “My library’s already let me reserve it,” says Daniel Dern.

(11) THE WISDOM OF P.L. TRAVERS. The Washington Post’s Jerry Griswold profiles Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, whom he interviewed for the Paris Review, saying that Travers “was the wisest woman I’ve ever met,” a deep student of Zen, and the author of novels about Mary Poppins that are much darker than the movies. “Disney tried to erase ‘Mary Poppins’ creator P.L. Travers. She’s still more fascinating than fiction.”.

…Travers was the wisest woman I’ve ever met. She was the second Western woman to study Zen in Kyoto, part of the inner circle of the famous mystic G.I. Gurdjieff and did yoga daily (an exotic practice in the 1970s). One afternoon in her Manhattan apartment, we had a conversation that would later appear in Paris Review. She spoke about the meanings of Humpty Dumpty, how her book “Friend Monkey” had been inspired by the Hindu myth of Hanuman, the Zen expression “summoned not created,” the sacredness of names in aboriginal cultures and a spiritual understanding of the parable of the Prodigal Son. And as for linking “this store of wisdom and our modern life,” she lead me step by step through parallels between the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the myth of Persephone. It was one of the richest afternoons of my life.

As she often did, Travers emphasized that she “never wrote for children” but remained “immensely grateful that children have included my books in their treasure trove.” She thought her books appealed to the young because she had never forgotten her own childhood: “I can, as it were, turn aside and consult it.”

(11) NASA POSTERS. Bored Panda is a bit skeptical — “Turns Out NASA Creates Posters For Every Space Mission And They’re Hilariously Awkward” – but Michael J. Walsh says, “Contrary to the headline, I think many of them are really good.”

…However, when astronauts got bored of the standard group photos they decided to spice things up a bit. And what’s a better way to do that other than throwing in some pop culture references? Fair warning the results are quite cringy, making it hard to believe that these images are actually real.

First on the list:

(12) DINJOS OBIT. Nigerian sff writer Emeka Walter Dinjos has died. Future Science Fiction Digest editor Alex Shvartsman paid tribute in “RIP Emeka Walter Dinjos”:

It is with a heavy heart that I must share the news that Emeka Walter Dinjos, a Nigerian writer of science fiction and fantasy whose novelette “SisiMumu” is featured in our first issue, passed away at the age of thirty-four on Wednesday, December 12.

Walter was admitted to the hospital a little over aweek ago, on the eve of his birthday. In his last Facebook post he shared a photo of himself in a hospital bed, writing “I once swore I would never find myself in a place like this.” He was quick to point out, “It’s just fatigue.Will probably be out in a few days.” But unfortunately he succumbed to complications related to unmanaged diabetes. Walter is survived by his siblings and extended family, to whom I extend deepest condolences on behalf of everyone at Future SF and his many friends in the SF/F community….

(13) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • December 18, 1839 — John William Draper took the first photo of theMoon. (Say “Cheese!”)
  • December 18, 1957The Monolith Monsters hit theatres.
  • December 18, 1968 — Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang flew into theaters.

(14) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 18, 1913 Alfred Bester. He is best remembered for perhaps for The Demolished Man, which won the very first Hugo Award. I remember experiencing it as an audiobook— a very spooky affair!  The Stars My Destination is equally impressive with Foyle both likeable and unlikable at the same time. Psychoshop which Zelazny finished is in my library but has escaped reading so far. I’ve run across references to Golem100 but I’ve never seen a copy anywhere. Has anyone read It? (Died 1987.)
  • Born December 18, 1939Michael Moorcock, 79. Summing up the career of Moorcock isn’t possible so I won’t. His Elric of Melniboné series is just plain awesome and I’m quite fond of the Dorian Hawkmoon series of novels as well. Particular books that I’d like to note as enjoyable for me include The Metatemporal Detective collection, Mother London and The English Assassin: A Romance of Entropy
  • Born December 18, 1946 Steven Spielberg, 72. Are we counting Jaws as genre? I believe we are per an earlier discussion here. If so, that’s his first such followed immediately by Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Between 1981 and 1984, he put out Raiders of the Lost ArkE.T. the Extra-TerrestrialTwilight Zone: The Movie and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Ok so the quality of the last film wasn’t great… He’d repeated that feat between ‘89 and ‘93 when he put out Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Hook which I both love followed by Jurassic Park which I don’t. The Lost World: Jurassic Park followed along a string of so-so films,  A.I. Artificial IntelligenceMinority Report, War of the Worlds and one decided stinker, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal SkullThe BFG is simply wonderful. Haven’t seen Ready Player One so I’ll leave that up to y’all to opine on. 
  • Born December 18, 1953 Jeff Kober,65. Actor who’s been in myriad genre series and films including V, The Twilight Zone, Alien Nation, the Poltergeist series,The X-Files series, Tank Girl as one of the kangaroos naturally, SupernaturalStar Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Kindred: The Embraced and The Walking Dead. 
  • Born December 18, 1968 Casper Van Dien, 49. Yes, Johnny Rico in that Starship Troopers movie. Not learning his lesson, he’d go on to film Starship Troopers 3: Marauder and the animated Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars. Do not go read the descriptions of these films! He’d also star as Tarzan in Tarzan and the Lost City, show up as Brom Van Brunt In Sleepy Hollow, be Captain Abraham Van Helsing in Dracula 3000, James K. Polkin, and — oh really Casper — the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Sequels short, Rumpelstiltskin in Avengers Grimm and Saber Raine In Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine. That’s a lot of really bad film. 

(15) GOOD PLACE/BAD PLACE. At Vice, D. Patrick Rodgers believes, “The Best Thing on TV This Year Was: ‘The Good Place’.”

The unseen presence of one character has haunted The Good Place from the beginning, lingering like one of Bad Janet’s legendary farts since the very first moments of the very first episode: Doug Forcett.

As we all know — at three seasons and 35 episodes in — the afterlife hinges on a cumulative point system, with good deeds adding to an individual’s point total and bad or selfish deeds subtracting. People with high enough point totals enter The Good Place, while those who don’t make the cut do the whole burn-for-eternity thing down in The Bad Place. Despite all the twists, developments, reveals, and red herrings of the uniquely sharp and wacky sitcom, one constant has remained: that only one mortal has figured out the system, and he did it while on a mushroom trip back in 1972.

“Don’t Let the Good Life Pass You By” opens with the song of the same name by the Mamas and the Papas’ “Mama” Cass Elliott, itself a 70s artifact that portends something darker than its sunny melody suggests —that life is short, and if we’re not careful, we’ll screw it up. We watch as some as-yet-unnamed character tends to a series of mundane tasks, his face hidden from view. But there’s something familiar about that grizzled-blond shock of hair we see only from behind. It belongs to someone we know. Turns out that’s doubly true, as the head we’re looking at is that of legendary comedic actor Michael McKean in character as the aforementioned Forcett, now several decades older and committed to obtaining the requisite number of Good Place points.

(16) MEMORIAL FOR A BOT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Mashable brings us word that, “A delivery robot caught on fire at UC Berkeley, students then set up a vigil.” The KiwiBot was one of a fleet of over 100.

A KiwiBot, an automated food delivery robot which is present on UC Berkeley’s campus, caught fire on Friday afternoon.

In a post, the company explained the incident was due to a faulty battery which had been mistakenly installed instead of a functioning one. 

The errant battery started smoldering while the robot was idling, leading to smoke, then fire outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union.

“A member of the community acted swiftly toextinguish the flames using a nearby fire extinguisher. Within moments ofthe incident occurring, it had already been contained,” the post read.

“The Berkeley Fire Department arrived shortly thereafter to secure the scene, and doused the robot with foam ensuring there was no risk of re-ignition.”

Unsurprisingly, the fire was caught on both video and stills. Pics of the subsequent candlelight memorial also appeared online. Deliveries had been taking place by the bots since 2017 but were suspended following the fire. Since then, software has been updated to more closely monitor the battery state and the fleet is back in service.

(17) MOCKERY. This is the kind of promo I’d expect from JDA or Richard Paolinelli, except you’d have to take their books, too: “Popeyes is launching ‘Emotional Support Chicken’ for stressed travelers craving fried chicken”.

On Tuesday, the chicken chain announced that it is selling three-piece chicken-tenders meals packaged in “Emotional Support Chicken” carriers at Philadelphia International Airport. The special chicken will be available as supplies last starting Tuesday at the Popeyes location in Terminal C.

Emotional-support animals have been making headlines recently, as passengers have pushed for the ability to bring increasingly bizarre companions on flights.

The number of emotional-support animals traveling aboard commercial flights has jumped 74% from 481,000 in 2016 to 751,000 in 2017, according to trade group Airlines for America. In January, a woman tried to bring an emotional-support peacock on a United Airlines flight. And, in February, another woman said Spirit Airlines told her to flush her emotional-support hamster down the toilet.

(18) NICE TRY. Somehow the trash in the Pacific is moving faster than the catcher: “Creator Of Floating Garbage-Collector Struggling To Capture Plastic In Pacific”.

Slat’s system, a 10-foot skirt attached beneath an unmoored, 2000-foot-long plastic tube, takes advantage of the wind and waves to move through the Pacific Ocean. The system aims to collect plastic from the water’s surface, which would then be picked up every few months by a support vessel and transported back to land for recycling. The garbage trap uses solar-powered lights, cameras, sensors and satellite antennas to communicate its position to Slat’s team and passerby vessels.

(19) MAYBE TOMORROW. “SpaceX And Blue Origin Scrub Rocket Launches, Dashing Hopes Of A 4-Launch Day” – NPR has the story.

Weather and other delays marred what had been anticipated as a banner day for space launches Tuesday, as both SpaceX and Blue Origin were forced to postpone launches that had been scheduled to take place within minutes of each other. Both companies say they will look at moving their launches to Wednesday morning.

(20) BANNED ARTWORK. The New York Times reports some work by international artists has been banned from a forthcoming exhibit at the Guangdong Museum of Art: “Their Art Raised Questions About Technology. Chinese Censors Had Their Own Answer.”

Artificial intelligence bots. 3-D printed human organs. Genomic sequencing.

These might seem to be natural topics of interest in a country determined to be the world’s leader in science and technology. But in China, where censors are known to take a heavy hand, several artworks that look closely at these breakthroughs have been deemed taboo by local cultural officials.

The works, which raise questions about the social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence and biotechnology, were abruptly pulled last weekend from the coming Guangzhou Triennial on the orders of cultural authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

The artists, from Europe, Australia and the United States, were not given an official reason why their works were rejected for the show, which opens on Dec. 21 at the Guangdong Museum of Art. The pieces did not touch on the Tiananmen democracy crackdown of 1989, independence for Taiwan or Tibet or the private wealth of Chinese Communist Party leaders —topics that are widely known to be off-limits for public discussion in China.

As a result, some of the show’s curators and the affected artists havebeen left guessing as to why the works were banned. Their conclusion? The works were perhaps too timely, too relevant and therefore too discomforting for Chinese officials.

…The other banned works include “The Modular Body,” an online science fiction story about using human cells and artificial organs to create a living organism. Created by a Dutch artist, Floris Kaayk, the work is intended to raise questions about the potential for 3-D printing of human organs, about extending life with the help of technology and about the desire to design life from scratch.

(21) OUT OF THE BOT BUSINESS. Engadget reports “Sphero is done making licensed Disney bots like BB-8 and R2-D2”:

Say goodbye to Sphero’s cute BB-8 robot. In fact, say goodbye to all the company’s licensed products, including R2-D2, BB-9E and Cars’ Lighting McQueen. According to The Verge, Sphero plans to sell its remaining inventory of licensed toys, but it will no longer manufacture more once it runs out. Indeed, the products’ listings on Sphero’s website says “This is a legacy product and no longer in production.” The company isn’t just discontinuing the models, though: It’s ending its licensing partnerships completely, because it’s no longer worth dedicating resources for their production.

Sphero chief Paul Berberian explained that while the toys sold well when their tie-in movies were released, fewer and fewer people purchased them as the years went by. “When you launch a toy, your first year’s your biggest. Your second year’s way smaller, and your third year gets really tiny,” he said….

(22) ALL YOU HAD TO DO IS ASK. Rocco the parrot apparently knows how to get what he wants (BGR Media: “An intelligent parrot used Alexa to play music and order food from Amazon”).

An African grey parrot has made headlines recently for inadvertently making orders via his owner’s Amazon Echo. Originally reported via The Times of London [paywall], the parrot — whose name is Rocco — would mindlessly activate Alexa and have the virtual assistant tell jokes and play music. Rocco even tried to order a few items from Amazon, but the owner wisely had set up controls to prevent unauthorized purchases.

What makes the somewhat lighthearted story even more amusing is that Rocco previously had a stint living at the UK’s National Animal Welfare Trust (NAWT) but was kicked out — yes, kicked out — because he was swearing too much. As the old adage says, truth is stranger than fiction. Rocco was subsequently placed under the care of a NAWT employee named Marion Wischnewski whereupon he quickly started activating Alexa.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Carl Slaughter, Elusis, Brian Z., Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Daniel Dern, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]

58 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/18/18 Just One Pixel Of Scrolls Is Better Than A Lifetime Alone

  1. The Click for Comments yet to come

    (Spirit, are these clicks what will be, or merely images of clicks that may be?)

  2. 7: I saw THE ENDLESS and it was OK, but not great.

    I am looking forward to THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE but that’s because I love Terry Gilliam and Jonathan Pryce is one of my favorite actors.

  3. Utterly exhausted. Barely stringing whole thoughts together.

    But things are seemingly looking up for me shortly being a car owner again. Still won’t feel secure till I have the keys to it, but we are definitely closer.

  4. (14) Best part of Starship Troopers 3: Marauder? This song right here: https://youtu.be/KIsv1YOFNys

    “A Good Day to Die” is a motivational song for all the soldiers to sign up and fight the good fight. It has Plot Relevance to the movie, but here it is in all of its goofy patriotic glory.

  5. 22) if you put that in a story 10 years ago it wouldn’t have been considered science fiction.

    2) I do love the steers women’s books approach to science. It’s all about the approach and using the scientific method.

    18) why does it need to chase the plastic around? Can’t it stay in one place and wait for the tide to change and blow the garbage to it? I hope they figure out a fix I was really excited about this project.

    I recently saw the first season of Good Place and I’m surprised that more people aren’t challenging the idea that good deeds don’t count if you do them to please your parents or to get into heaven – both of those seem like perfectly good motives to me.

  6. @11-the-first: Interesting story — I had no idea Travers had gone for cases like Gurdjieff. I’m not sure whether the author interviewed her when she was in her 50’s (as stated, but 10 years before the movie), or 10 years after when she would have been 75. I also think the author is a bit unkind to the recent ~bio-pic, which doesn’t paint WED in the kindest light either (e.g., he’s shown handing out printed cards when asked for autographs). I read a few of the books a couple of years before the movie came out, and had no interest in the movie — I didn’t get the theological underpinnings (any more than I got them in Narnia at that age), but the obvious slatherings of sugar did not attract me.

    @11-the-second (soon to be @23?): those are bizarre — and I wonder where the money for the props came from; the Abbey Road spinoff might have been cheap, but the others look quality enough to be pricey.

    @OGH: two 11’s instead of two 5’s?

    @14: I read Golem^100 when it came out, and remember being unimpressed; IIRC it overbuilt a decent short story. The Deceivers was also weak. The Computer Connection (Extro in the UK, a non-PC title in the magazine version) had some good points, but the attitudes were a bit dated and the attempts to show a chaotic near-future Earth weren’t always plausible. I remember reading The Stars My Destination in 7th grade and being blown away; I wonder whether Bester would have sustained his flash and developed as a storyteller if he hadn’t abandoned SF to make a living editing a mundane mag.

  7. (16) Huh. I’d noticed those bots the last couple times I was on campus for a library run, but I never did figure out what they actually did. (I thought they were just some sort of publicity stunt.)

  8. 11) I like the original Mary Poppins movie ok, but it’s not really Mary Poppins. I grew up on Mary. She was far more serious and severe than either of Disney’s Marys, but that’s especially the case with Julie Andrews. She nice, and pretty and can sing beautifully, but she couldn’t possibly be more of an Anti-Mary.

    The books were full of mystery and awe. Not comedy dance numbers.

  9. Speaking of Mr. Del Arroz, the long-scheduled Case Management Conference occurred today at the court in San Jose. I could have gone down there but didn’t. Most such conferences are pretty underwhelming, and often most or all participants attend by telephone. To see the woefully uninformative online case record including the note that today’s event was held (with a different judicial officer than the one previously listed), search for case number 18CV334547, or the plaintiff’s surname.

    Said conferences are where the parties can acknowledge that they’ve tried alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms (such as arbitration) and that it did or didn’t work, and schedule anything needed that’s not yet on the calendar and allocate estimated time for the pending trial.

    The other thing today, noted in the case record, was a ‘Minute Order’ item, which is where the judge holds a proceeding to decide something. It’s called a ‘Minute Order’ because the proceedings records are limited to minutes of the court session as recorded by the clerk, rather than anything in formal court order format.

    This is the time period the parties are supposed to be implementing the ‘discovery’ phase, the one where most civil litigation is basically won or lost: requests for documents, interrogatories, subpoenas, depositions, requests for admissions, and others. This is the part plaintiffs might have reason to dread, depending on what might be pried loose.

    The upcoming items (as shown online) remain defence counsel Ann Nguyen’s demurrer motion and her anti-SLAPP motion to strike, both to be adjudicated 9 a.m. on Feb. 21st. (Trial date if any hasn’t yet been scheduled, but might be posted to the online record soon, if it was decided today.)

  10. I did read both Mary Poppins and Friend Monkey as a kid, but can’t say I remember much of them. Didn’t make that much of an impression other than I thought the whole idea of a nanny seemed very unrealistic.

  11. 11- that is, second 11. I have no idea what Bored Panda is talking about. The posters are wonderfully funny and geeky. I’d love to have one of my career-defining projects memoralized like this.

    In fact, the only complaint I would have is the casts are a little too white male dominated. Somebod should have a talk with the casting director.

  12. @Hampus

    I did read both Mary Poppins and Friend Monkey as a kid, but can’t say I remember much of them. Didn’t make that much of an impression other than I thought the whole idea of a nanny seemed very unrealistic.

    I didn’t even know that there were Mary Poppins books, until I got on the internet. Nannies weren’t (and largely still aren’t) a thing in Germany, so the books would have seemed very out there.

    In fact, I remember when I first watched the 1964 Mary Poppins film, I viewed her as a magical woman who drops by to take care of the kids, because the parents can’t be bothered, but didn’t get that “nanny” was an actual job.

    But then I also assumed that Uncle Remus from Song of the South was the white kid’s nice old neighbour (I had several neighbours I addressed as Aunt or Uncle soandso), who just happened to be black. I’m not the only one – a lot of Germans are stunned that Uncle Remus is supposed to be a slave.

  13. 14) I was going to say I found Golem100 forgettable more than dire, but then I realised I read it in the 1980s and still retain enough to have an opinion. I found it a bit aimless and not as funny as Bester obviously thought it was. This, from the SF Encyclopedia, sounds about right, and is true of his later work in general:

    what used to be spare and sinewy in his work had begun to seem prolix; the craziness looked like ornamentation rather than what it once was, structural.

    11) Sounds interesting, but the article’s not available in the UK. Another American publisher having a hissy-fit at the thought of having to comply with effete foreign legislation.

  14. Also…

    5) I’m about halfway through the linked Code of Conduct guide and it looks really good: clear, practical, and supported with references and examples. Nice to see a section on the problems of trying to do transformative justice in loose informal communities, too.

  15. why does it need to chase the plastic around? Can’t it stay in one place and wait for the tide to change and blow the garbage to it?

    It can’t be anchored due to very deep water, and trying to keep it on station with engines of some sort is going to be expensive and, for something that long and flexible, difficult. Wind and water currents are probably having different effects on the relatively deep barrier and the smaller bits of rubbish.

  16. 14) I rather liked The Computer Connection and had hoped for better from Golem 100. I don’t remember it well, but I think they are more or less in the same world. I have a mass market paperback (somewhere) with illustrations, which is the main thing I remember about it.

  17. Are we counting Jaws as genre? I believe we are per an earlier discussion here. If so, that’s his first such followed immediately by Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

    Pre-JAWS, there’s NIGHT GALLERY, L.A. 2017 and SOMETHING EVIL…

  18. Yay, Title Credit!

    10) Very excited for Ann’s turn into fantasy

    15) The Good Place is still tons of fun, with that surprisingly complex philosophical core.

    I’ve not read Golem100 but have read a lot of other Bester early. Enough so that when B5 came out and Koenig’s psicop appeared on screen, I went. “Wait, what?!” in surprise and delight. “Chekov playing a psionic named for Alfred Bester?!”

    Don’t get me started on the issues in trying to watch the show with constant shifts in schedules even beyond the woes of being renewed

  19. add me to the Golem100 experience list.

    Also…although I usually make no bones about it, 12/18 is the birthday for two Steves associated with Amazing Stories…mine (60 ummm woohoo?) and that other one who does things on television.

    I found it odd when I discovered the shared day, given how both of us have been so influenced by that magazine: if your name is Steve and you were born on 12/18 and you have a thing for Amazing, at this point I think you’re going to need to invent a new medium….

    Mary Poppins. Does anyone know how many kids broke their necks jumping off rooftops with open umbrellas? Is the trend starting again?

  20. De-lurking for a Meredith moment:

    Tor is giving away a free copy of Myke Cole’s “The Armored Saint” to members of their spam email marketing list. [FTR, they have treated my inbox respectfully.] This book has been on my TBR pile for some time. The Tor offer is good through December 20th.

    As long as I’m typing, I’d like to recommend a new comic “Die” from Image as worthy of attention for those interested in graphic novels/comics. Issue one was released this month and it was quite good. The best one-shot description I have seen is “goth Jumanji”.

    And FWIW, Frank Cho’s collected Skybourne series came out this fall. Great writing, and….as usual…fantastic artwork flow from Frank’s nibs.

    Regards,
    Dann

    Seasons Greetings, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to one and all!

  21. THE STONEE TAPE was written by Nigel Kneale , creator of the QUATERMASS quartet of films and shows. It is one of the few I own that I have not seen. But I’ve seen BEASTS which can be very creepy.

  22. Incidentally, although I suspect most people here either already have it or aren’t interested, The Fifth Season is going for 99p on Amazon UK today.

    (Also in the daily deal is a book called JJ’s Journey, but I took a look and I don’t think it’s our JJ. I think ours has a glossier coat.)

  23. I was hugely disappointed by Golem^100. By the time it was published in 1980, I was familiar with all of Bester’s SF that I’d been able to find. Some years ago I found online a long essay by Charles Platt (who knew Bester during this period) that in part described its genesis, but I can’t locate it now. Jack Gaughan, who had done the graphics in The Stars My Destination in 1956, was central to the Golem effort once Bester gave up trying to include color illustrations. There’s some discussion of contemporaneous reactions to it in the University of Illinois Press book about Bester, partially viewable at Google Books.

    Most unfortunate is the crude way that Bester tried to build the novel around his 1974 story “The Four-Hour Fugue,” which I enjoyed.

  24. @ Cora. Nannies weren’t (and largely still aren’t) a thing in Germany, so the books would have seemed very out there.

    So what did rich families do for child care? Surely they didn’t look after the kids themselves!

  25. Kurt, my reply to you was supposed to include a at the end but WordPress for some reason removed it. I actually really do appreciate the corrections all of you make as Cthulhu knows I really don’t have the time to go that deep in search of all of their credits.

  26. Not to defend Song of the South more than I have to, but Uncle Remus would have been a former slave. The stories are set after the Civil War during the Reconstruction era.

    I actually saw it twice when it was shown on a double bill with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the 1970s. We were there for the Verne and stayed for the Harris. (Or sat through the Harris to see the Verne. I don’t recall.)

  27. 10) Read it. Enjoyed it. Think I get it. Will report in detail via Locus review. Be prepared for an interesting narrator.

  28. Of course rich people had nannies in Sweden too, but they mainly show up in litterature to show how uncaring a family was and about children growing up traumatized because of lack of love. Not in childrens books.

  29. My grandmother (who celebrated her 100th birthday this year, for time context) and her siblings had nurses/nannies until they became boarders at 11 (CH — The One With The Uniforms), partly because my great-grandmother worked (she was a chemist). Aside from one incident where a nurse tricked my great aunt into walking into a patch of nettles I think they were all reasonably happy about it, but I’m not sure my great-grandmother was overly burdened with a motherly personality in general so maybe that’s why. Everything I’ve heard about her leans more towards the “formidable and possibly terrifying” end.

  30. @steve davidson: Mary Poppins. Does anyone know how many kids broke their necks jumping off rooftops with open umbrellas? Is the trend starting again? That sounds like an urban legend; it used to be kids jumping off roofs with towels rigged as pseudo-capes. A friend once told how that legend had shifted in time (always a few years ago) as his home area changed.

  31. (7) There’s a lot of good stuff in this video, but I’d like to particularly highlight that Endless is really quite good. It’s well scripted, provides engaging characters, and uses its minuscule budget to good effect. There are so many details in the early part of the movie that pay off in the end, and the lack of special effects means there’s more mystery.

    That one, Sorry To Bother You, and Prospect are at the top of my list for nominating.

    http://hugoclub.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-big-year-in-small-budget-cinema.html

  32. I couldn’t finish Golem^100. :/, but Psychoshop is entertaining (if frustratingly incomplete).

    Personally, as much as I love The Starts My Destination, I find Bester’s critical writing and essays to actually be superior to his fiction. The collection Redemolished is first-rate, as are a number of his non-fiction articles that I’ve seen in other collections.

  33. So what did rich families do for child care? Surely they didn’t look after the kids themselves!

    Stay at home mothers and kindergartens, later schools. After all, if the family is wealthy, then both parents don’t have to work. Occasionally, there might be a helpful relative or an au-pair. Boarding schools exist, but are rare.

    Even pre-WWI children’s books don’t feature nannies, at least none that I recall. There are servants mentioned occasionally in very old children’s books, but not specifically nannies. I do recall a bestselling German novel from the 1960s/70s about an actress who was clearly a horrible hard-hearted person because she – gasp – had a nanny for her kid. Again, this isn’t a children’s book and the woman saw the light at the end.

    In Germany, there is a persistent stigma against parents, particularly mothers, who outsource childcare. There has been a push towards full-time kindergartens and schools in the past twenty years to encourage women to remain in the work force and have more kids, but the stigma still lingers.

  34. Looks like WordPress won’t display something between two carats. In the test post, I put “grin” like this — [grin] and like this [ grin ] except using the < characters and it disappeared.

  35. I use pointy-bracket emoticons all the time. To do so, I use the following string — & lt; — as the opening bracket (remove the space; four characters long.)

    The closing bracket can just be a > and it’s fine.

    Like this: <grin>

  36. @Dann —

    Tor is giving away a free copy of Myke Cole’s “The Armored Saint” to members of their spam email marketing list. [FTR, they have treated my inbox respectfully.] This book has been on my TBR pile for some time. The Tor offer is good through December 20th.

    Thanks for the heads up! I get that newsletter, but I’ve fallen behind on cleaning out my inbox!

  37. “In Germany, there is a persistent stigma against parents, particularly mothers, who outsource childcare. There has been a push towards full-time kindergartens and schools in the past twenty years to encourage women to remain in the work force and have more kids, but the stigma still lingers.”

    This was regulated by law in Sweden in 1975.
    At that time it became law that kindergartens should be available for everyone. Before we didn’t really use nannies either. There were kindergartens and something called “daymother” where one stay-at-home mom took care of her own childs and some others. Nannies were very rare, but they did exist.

    There’s a very fun Italian exploitation “documentary” from the 60s called “Sweden: Heaven and Hell” about how horrible country we are, leaving our children to die in kindergartens, perhaps never to meet their parents again.

  38. @ cassyB & lt;
    you say emoticon
    I say html character based entity
    let’s call the whole thing off!

  39. Miex, <snork!>

    Yeah, I’m a dinosaur; I was online before the World Wide Web, and before emojis… which we called smileys… were invented.

  40. @Hampus
    We have these “daymothers”, too, women who have one or more young children of their own and take in other kids to watch them, while the parents are working.

    Parents now also have the guaranteed right to send children above a certain age (used to be 3, but I think they dropped it recently) to kindergarten, which is why we’ve seen a lot of expansion of kindergartens in recent years. Though most kids went to kindergarten even when I was little in the late 1970s. But back then, it usually wasn’t a full time kindergarten (mine wasn’t) and it was very rare for kids younger than three to attend kindergarten. In fact, many kindergartens refused to accept children who still required diapers, which has changed by now.

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