Pixel Scroll 2/1/18 Five Little Pixel Scrolls, Argued On The Floor, One Used A Fallacy, And Well, There Were Still Five

(1) HORROR POETRY. At the Horror Writers Association blog: “The Word’s the Thing: An Interview with Michael Arnzen”

Q: How important is language in poetry? I realize the question is a bit open ended and hints of a “duh” question. However, there is something that distinguishes the many genre poets from a Marge Simon, Linda Addison or Bruce Boston. The subject matter may be similar but the language of poets of that caliber is just different. You can read many imitations of Poe or The Graveyard Boys, but the handful of poets that truly stand out seem to have this almost magical way of using language.

A:  There’s no poetry without language, obviously, but you make a really good point about what distinguishes one poet from another – I’d call it their “voice.” Poetry is a kind of music; the sound matters and it should reverberate in the body and fetch the ear when spoken in a way that narrative fiction cannot. Words are as important as the “notes” in music, but every poet might have an instinctive, experienced and individual way of “singing” or giving shape to those words. But genre poetry is not opera and it doesn’t require a reader to be schooled in anything special; it’s more like pop music. Remember, although we can trace the legacy of genre back to Beowulf, through the Graveyard Poets of the Romantic Period and then Edgar Allan Poe, horror poetry as we think of it today really got its start as filler — a way for pulp magazine editors to put content in the blank spaces on the page of early magazines and fanzines.  So some of the best horror genre poets in my opinion are more accessible and reaching readers with more easy to swallow language, perhaps using lyrical forms but not in an overbearing way, while still retaining a unique voice.  I’ve read hyper-literary genre poetry, but no matter how interesting it might be, it often feels like its pretending to be something it’s not, and rings false when it taps the emotional chords. So in my opinion language matters, but it really can’t get in the way of the emotional connection in this field. Music is the instinctive part of poetry that just “feels” right, and the best genre poets are the kind who know how to reach the audience — they sing in a way that reaches new fans and experienced readers/viewers/lovers of horror alike.

(2) UNSTOPPABLE MONSTER. Forbes’ Ian Morris says “Hulu Is Gaining On Netflix, But Star Trek Discovery Is An Unstoppable Monster”.

What’s interested me though is the Star Trek: Discovery “Demand Expressions” or, better known as the number of people talking about a show. According to Parrot Analytics – video below – Star Trek: Discovery has more than 53 million people talking about it in the US. That beats The Walking Dead which has around 46m expressions. Netflix’s Stranger Things also has a staggering 33m of these within the US.

(3) IRONCLAD PROMISE. The Verge’s Andrew Liptak reports “BBC is making a Victorian-era War of the Worlds TV series”.

Earlier today, the BBC announced a number of new shows, including a three-part series based on H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. The show is scheduled to go into production next spring, and it appears that, unlike most modern adaptations, it will be set in the Victorian era.

The series will be written by screenwriter Peter Harness, who adapted Susanna Clarke’s Victorian-era fantasy novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for the network, as well as a handful of Doctor Who episodes.

(4) APEX MAGAZINE THEME ISSUE TAKING SUBMISSIONS. This summer, award-winning author and editor Sheree Renée Thomas (“Aunt Dissy’s Policy Dream Book,” Apex Magazine, Volume 95 April 2017 and Volume 101 October 2017, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life, Shotgun Lullabies, and the Dark Matter anthologies) will guest edit a special Zodiac-themed issue. Sheree seeks short stories that explore the heavenly cosmos and unveil mysteries, tales that reimagine Zodiacal archetypes and/or throw them on their heads.

As the stars align themselves above, write bold, fun, weird, scary, sensual stories that heal, frighten, intrigue, amuse.

Length: 1500-5000 words

Genres: Science fiction, fantasy, horror, interstitial, etc.

Deadline: May 1, 2018

Email submissions to: [email protected]

Payment:  Original fiction $.06/word; Solicited Reprint fiction: $.01/word; Podcast $.01/word

(SFWA-certified professional market)

No simultaneous submissions. No multi-submissions for short fiction.

Publication: August 2018, Apex Magazine

(5) MEREDITH MOMENT. John Joseph Adams’ anthology HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects is discounted to $1.99 on Kindle from now until Feb. 7 (11:59pm PT).

Includes stories by Seanan McGuire, Daniel H. Wilson, Chuck Wendig, Tobias S. Buckell, Carmen Maria Machado and many others.

(6) TWISTED OPEN. Editors Christopher Golden and James A. Moore are taking submissions for their horror anthology The Twisted Book of Shadows until February 28.

  • Will have zero spaces reserved for marquee names.
  • Will use a blind submissions program (we won’t know who wrote the stories until we’ve selected them).
  • Will pay professional rates — a minimum of six cents per word, with a cap on advances of $300 per story.
  • Will pay royalties — a pro rata share of 50% of all royalties earned.
  • Will make our best efforts to spread the word, so that marginalized communities of horror writers will be aware of the call for stories.
  • Will employ a diverse Editorial Committee. In recognition of the possibility of inherent bias in our reading, the editors have engaged an astonishing team of diverse writers and editors who will read submissions alongside us and will offer their input and aid in the selection process. These authors and editors have a breadth and depth of experience that has transformed this project into THE horror anthology for the coming year.

Golden told Facebook readers:

PLEASE share this far and wide, but I’d ask that you make a special effort to share with authors interested in horror who also happen to be women, people of color, non-binary, LGBTQ, or part of any commonly marginalized community. Anyone who has ever felt discouraged from submitting is actively ENCOURAGED to submit to this. If the work isn’t great, there’s nothing we can do about that, but we can guarantee you a fair process, blind to any identity other than the quality of your story. All we care about is what you write.

(7) RECOGNIZING ROMANCE. Awards news at Amazing Stories — “Science Fiction Romance Awards Announced”.

This is a big week in science fiction romance as the SFR Galaxy Awards for 2017 were announced on January 31st. Judged by respected book bloggers and reviewers in the genre, the Award has the following theme per their website: The theme of the SFR Galaxy Awards is inclusiveness. Instead of giving an award to a single book, this event will recognize the worth of multiple books and/or the standout elements they contain.

(8) AT 45. Megan McArdle says“After 45 Birthdays, Here Are ’12 Rules for Life'” at Bloomberg. There’s a familiar name in the first rule:

  1. Be kind. Mean is easy; kind is hard. Somewhere in eighth grade, many of us acquired the idea that the nasty putdown, the superior smile, the clever one liner, are the signs of intelligence and great personal strength. But this kind of wit is, to borrow from the great John Scalzi, “playing the game on easy mode.” Making yourself feel bigger by making someone else feel small takes so little skill that 12-year-olds can do it. Those with greater ambitions should leave casual cruelty behind them.

(9) HOW THEY STACK UP. Rocket Stack Rank has posted its “Annotated 2017 Locus Recommended Reading List for short fiction”, sorted by score to highlight the stories that made it into the “year’s best” anthologies so far (Gardner Dozois, Jonathan Strahan, Neil Clarke) and the “year’s best” lists from prolific reviewers (Gardner Dozois, Rich Horton, Greg Hullender [RSR], Sam Tomaino [SFRevu], Jason McGregor, and Charles Payseur).

Annotations include time estimates, links to the story on the author’s website (if available), author links with Campbell Award-eligibility marked (superscript for year 1 or 2), blurbs for RSR-reviewed stories, links to reviews, and links to digital back issues (of print magazines) at eBookstores and library websites.

RSR reviewed 96 out of the 123 stories in the Locus list (78%). Of the 27 not reviewed by RSR, 10 were stories from horror magazines and horror anthologies. The rest were from other science fiction & fantasy sources, some of which might be reviewed by RSR as time permits.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 1, 1970 Horror of the Blood Monsters, starring John Carradine, premiered.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born February 1, 1908 – George Pal

(12)COMICS SECTION.

  • Chip Hitchcock asks, “What are they doing in there?” — Nonsequitur.

(13) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. Could be even worse than yesterday’s! Fox News reports “China is building a laser 10 trillion times more intense than the Sun that could tear space apart”.

According to the Science journal, this laser would be so powerful it “could rip apart empty space”.

The idea is to achieve a phenomenon known as “breaking the vacuum”, whereby electrons are torn away from positrons (their antimatter counterparts) in the empty vacuum of space.

Right now, it’s possible to convert matter into huge amounts of heat and light, as proved by nuclear weapons. But reversing the process is more difficult – although Chinese physicist Ruxin Li believes his laser could manage it.

“That would be very exciting. It would mean you could generate something from nothing,” he explained.

The team has already created a less powerful version called the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser, which is capable of a 5.3-petawatt pulse

(14) NO UNIVERSES WERE HARMED. Meanwhile — “Simulation of universe provides black hole breakthrough”.

The most detailed simulation of the universe ever created has provided a breakthrough revealing how the most powerful and mysterious forces interact on an enormous scale.

Scientists said the detail and scale provided by the simulation enabled them to watch how galaxies formed, evolved and grew while also nursing the creation of new stars.

Dr Shy Genel, at the New York-based Flatiron Institute’s Centre for Computational Astrophysics (CCA), said: “When we observe galaxies using a telescope, we can only measure certain quantities.”

But “with the simulation, we can track all the properties for all these galaxies. And not just how the galaxy looks now, but its entire formation history”, he added.

He said the simulation is the most advanced ever developed.

(15) CRUSADING JOURNALISM. Florida Man has been heard from again: “Man Prefers Comic Books That Don’t Insert Politics Into Stories About Government-Engineered Agents Of War”The Onion has the story.

APOPKA, FL—Local man Jeremy Land reportedly voiced his preference Thursday for comic books that don’t insert politics into stories about people forced to undergo body- and mind-altering experiments that transform them into government agents of war. “I’m tired of simply trying to enjoy escapist stories in which people are tortured and experimented upon at black sites run by authoritarian governments, only to have the creators cram political messages down my throat,” said Land, 31, who added that Marvel’s recent additions of female, LGBTQ, and racially diverse characters to long-running story arcs about tyrannical regimes turning social outsiders into powerful killing machines felt like PC propaganda run amok….

(16) BANGING ROCKS TOGETHER. To go with the recent Pixel about early humans ranging more widely, “Discovery In India Suggests An Early Global Spread Of Stone Age Technology”.

Somewhere around 300,000 years ago, our human ancestors in parts of Africa began to make small, sharp tools, using stone flakes that they created using a technique called Levallois.

The technology, named after a suburb of Paris where tools made this way were first discovered, was a profound upgrade from the bigger, less-refined tools of the previous era, and marks the Middle Stone Age in Africa and the Middle Paleolithic era in Europe and western Asia.

Neanderthals in Europe also used these tools around the same time. And scientists have thought that the technology spread to other parts of the globe much later — after modern humans moved out of Africa.

But scientists in India recently discovered thousands of stone tools made with Levallois technique, dating back to 385,000 years ago. These latest findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggest the Levallois technique spread across the world long before researchers previously thought.

(17) BIRDS DO IT. Everybody’s doing it: “Luxembourg PM sees his country’s satellite launched”.

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, has just watched one of his country’s satellites go into orbit.

He was at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to see the launch of GovSat-1, which will be providing telecommunications services to the military and institutional customers.

The Luxembourg government has a 50-50 share in the project.

Its partner is SES, the major commercial satellite operator that bases itself in the Grand Duchy.

GovSat-1 is another example of Luxembourg’s burgeoning role in the space sector.

Its deputy prime minister, Etienne Schneider, who was also at the Cape, has recently positioned the country at the forefront of plans to go mine asteroids.

GovSat-1 rode to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket. It will try to forge a new market in satellite communications.

(18) EARLY WARNING. With this it may be possible to detect dementia before it ravages the brain — “Blood test finds toxic Alzheimer’s proteins”.

Scientists in Japan and Australia have developed a blood test that can detect the build-up of toxic proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

The work, published in the journal Nature, is an important step towards a blood test for dementia.

The test was 90% accurate when trialled on healthy people, those with memory loss and Alzheimer’s patients.

Experts said the approach was at an early stage and needed further testing, but was still very promising.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Dann, Andrew Porter, John Joseph Adams, Greg Hullender, Jason Sizemore, StephenfromOttawa, ULTRAGOTHA, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

119 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/1/18 Five Little Pixel Scrolls, Argued On The Floor, One Used A Fallacy, And Well, There Were Still Five

  1. @8: many good points, but some unwarranted pessimism, e.g. ~”You’ll never learn Portuguese at 45″. A friend was older than that when she started learning Spanish; is Portuguese (or any new thing) that much harder? (Yes, I finished my last formal class before I turned 39 — but I was 50 when I learned to run a CAD program that I’ve used on 3 Worldcons.)

    Edit: first!

  2. (13) Color me skeptical.

    (15) The Onion. Therefore, not clear that even Florida Man really said this.

    Note for the evening: Don’t make me laugh, if you would prefer I not start gasping and choking. Even in 6449, this is not a solved problem.

  3. @Chip Definitely too pessimistic for me. Unfriend people over politics! Eat an extra entree for dinner! Be bad! Be grateful for your awful life!

  4. @Chip Hitchcock: yep, I can attest to several 45+ year olds (some well into their 60s) in a Japanese learners’ forum I’m in, too.

  5. 8) #3, to be blunt, is speaking from a position of enough privilege to be insulated from government action. Tell someone on an H4 Visa looking to be deported and separated from her husband because one line on a form was misinterpreted, how the government isn’t important.

  6. (2) UNSTOPPABLE MONSTER

    But how much of that conversation has been positive, I wonder? ST: DISCO has definitely been great fun to talk about, because it has plenty of flaws and breaks from a lot of Trek conventions, but also has plenty of twists to drive speculation.

    (3) IRONCLAD PROMISE

    Ok, that’s got me tentatively interested.

  7. 8) Hopefully you figured out being kind before you hit 45.
    Also I hate advice to be grateful. Do not be grateful! Do not accept what you is! Fight for more.

  8. 13) It seems to be a season of alarm. There’s this article, I heard something on the radio about a story later about a possible secret Russian doomsday submarine (cue Dr. Strangelove)…

    pixel squared plus scroll squared equals File770 squared.

  9. @ Mark: I first managed to read “ST:DISCO” as “Saint Disco” and was wondering if there was also a “Saint Waltz”, and so on. Then my mind started straying into trying to imagine the icon…

  10. (2) Most of my own conversation re: Discovery has been along the lines of: I’ll be happy to watch it when it reaches a service or format I’m willing to pay for.

  11. 2) Yes, a lot of people are talking about Discovery, but not very many of them have good things to say about it.

    8) Wow, privileged much? Cause she has to be to think that politics have very little impact on a person’s life. Political decisions can literally destroy lives and kill people. And if a friend supports politics that threaten my way of life or that of people who are dear to me, you can bet that I will unfriend them.

    I also find it troubling that she assumes that everybody has a partner. Plenty of people are single, whether by choice or because they lost their partner or because they never found the right person. Also, why does she use spouse rather than partner? Even the people with partners are not necessarily married.

    Finally, it’s totally possible to learn a new language at 45 or older. A colleague of mine is 70 and is learning Vietnamese and Arabic in addition to the at least six languages he already speaks.

  12. 8) Megan McArdle is a libertarian, which explains the general air of privilege, “everyone can afford to save”, “it’s no good trying to argue about politics”, and “be grateful” in the sense of “don’t complain about obvious injustice”.

  13. Cora Buhlert says 2) Yes, a lot of people are talking about Discovery, but not very many of them have good things to say about it.

    I liked the first arc quite a lot and will subscribe again to CBS All Access in a few months to catch up. I do one such service a month and right now I’m catching up on my comics reading by sampling two streaming services, Comixology and Marvel Unlimited. Unfortunately DC at this time doesn’t have a streaming service.

  14. So, I read McArdle’s blather, pretty much all of which reeks of privilege.

    I’m paying almost half my income for a little studio apartment in a safe but not attractive neighborhood. I still need to pay for food, my thankfully modest health insurance premium, and other essential bills. I don’t 25% of my income available to save.

    My car is already sixteen years old.

    I can’t afford to eat out at all, much less order an extra dish with a 90% probability I won’t like it.

    No partner.

    I won’t be at Boskone this year, because even for a day, membership + parking (in the garage, because walking a long distance in the cold is not a good plan for me now) is not a justifiable expense.

    I think it’s cute, how she superficially acknowledges the reality of less than expansive incomes, and shows no understanding of what that means in practice.

    Even way back here in 1140, we know better.

    ETA: She does deserve points, though, for recognizing that, if one is reduced to shopping for food in the pet food aisle, dog food is a better choice than cat food. Really. It’s a better match for human nutritional requirements, and at any given quality level, cat food is more expensive than dog food.

  15. Ability to learn a new language at 45 depends, IME, on the age at which you learn your 3rd language. If you are on your third language by your late teens, it’s like your brain keeps the “learn yet another language” function hanging around. If you keep learning new languages (as many linguists, anthropologists, and historians do), the ability to pick another one up with stay with you lifelong.

    The “learn a second language” function seems to (usually) get edited out at approximately puberty, if it hasn’t been used, which is why it’s best to get children exposed to a second language early.

    If you already know Spanish and French, Portuguese should be pretty easy. I know French and Latin, and when I read Dante in a parallel text edition I was able to understand quite a lot of it.

  16. 8) She picked the wrong Scalzi epigram, didn’t she? “The idea that the nasty putdown, the superior smile, the clever one liner, are the signs of intelligence and great personal strength” sounds more like “the failure mode of clever…”

  17. Meredith Moment:

    Two Nina Kiriki Hoffman novels are on sale at Amazon Kindle-The Thread That Binds the Bones at $0.99 and The Silent Strength of Stones at $2.99.

    The Thing In Stone and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak is $1.99 at Amazon.

    Here in 4221, our feline overlords have invented a can opener which doesn’t require thumbs.

  18. To *Tick or not to tick, that is the question*

    In 5260, Ella Fitzgerald is STILL popular.

  19. Yes, it was a warning how bad the article would be when she started by misattributing Scalzi’s comments about straight white male privilege as lowest default setting with being a jerk. Many straight white men are in fact not jerks, even playing at a low difficulty setting. Examples abound on this very forum.

    As a cis white woman in a marriage with a man, I’m only on like the second lowest difficulty setting unless I’m in the rare situation where my sexuality comes into play. I have heaps of privilege. In theory, in fact, I AM exactly the sort of person her article is aimed at. I have money to save, can afford to try new foods, agree with being kind — and I think she’s a clueless blowhard who seems to think people end up in the position of struggling to feed themselves because they didn’t save enough and just wanted *stuff* more, and has no idea that real lives are harmed by political decisions.

  20. @Lis Carey: I think it’s cute, how she superficially acknowledges the reality of less than expansive incomes, and shows no understanding of what that means in practice.
    That’s because McArdle is a libertarian (her twitter handle is ‘Jane Galt’), and thus has no understanding of what anything means in practice.

  21. 8) I am sorry, but some of this is (expletive removed) ageist and insulting. I am nearly a decade older than and stuff like “You can no longer learn Portuguese” is just stupid.

    For those about to turn 45, do not worry. You don’t lose your goddamn memory or start tottering around. You actually remain a functioning human being, believe it or not.

  22. Cora Buhlert says 2) Yes, a lot of people are talking about Discovery, but not very many of them have good things to say about it.

    I’m enjoying it, more with each arc. It took a bit of work to stop thinking about it as 5 years before James T. Kirk (either of them) sets off on his 5 year mission but to treat it as it’s own thing. The latest episode where [Spoiler] happened to [Spoiler] and it turned out that everybody hates [Spolier][Spolier] and [Spoiler] wound up back with [Spolier] in [Spoiler] was first class. I also really like the idea of [Spolier] fitting into the job of [Spoiler].

  23. You wrote your handle as “Doctor Sciene” which made it a first comment, and those are always moderated. I will correct it to “Doctor Science”.

  24. 8. someone probably needs to listen to Marianne Faithful’s The Ballad of Lucy Jordon:

    The morning sun touched lightly on
    The eyes of Lucy Jordan
    In a white suburban bedroom
    In a white suburban town
    And she lay there ‘neath the covers
    Dreaming of a thousand lovers
    ‘Til the world turned to orange
    And the room went spinning round
    At the age of thirty seven
    She realized she’d never ride
    Through Paris in a sports car
    With the warm wind in her hair
    So she let the phone keep ringing
    And she sat there softly singing
    Little nursery rhymes she’d memorized
    In her Daddy’s easy chair
    Her husband, he’s off to work
    And the kids are off to school
    And there were oh so many ways
    For her to spend her days
    She could clean the house for hours
    Or rearrange the flowers
    Or run naked through the shady street
    Screaming all the way
    At the age of thirty seven
    She realized she’d never ride
    Through Paris in a sports car
    With the warm wind in her hair
    So she let the phone keep ringing
    As she sat there softly singing
    Pretty nursery rhymes she’d memorized
    In her Daddy’s easy chair
    The evening sun touched gently on
    The eyes of Lucy Jordan
    On the rooftop where she climbed
    When all the laughter grew too loud
    And she bowed and curtsied to the man
    Who reached and offered her his hand
    And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd
    At the age of thirty seven
    She knew she’d found forever
    As she rode along through Paris
    With the warm wind in her hair

  25. 8) Since I am 47, I have earned the right to say “bah.”

    In 2112, Rush has been rediscovered by the nascent ultrapolka scene.

  26. I found continental Portuguese to be much harder to learn than Spanish (not to imply I speak a lot of either); I tried to pick some up before a trip to Portugal a couple of years ago. The words seem compressed to the point that even though I recognize Portuguese words in print (based on their similarity to Spanish) I often can’t identify them when spoken. For instance, I can at least follow along with the French or Spanish in an airline safety video. I could not do the same with the Portuguese version.

    Brazilian Portuguese is easier to follow, though.

    McArdle started out blogging as “Jane Galt” and over the years I’ve found her to be a reliably terribly columnist.

  27. @steve davidson:
    That song was actually written by Shel Silverstein. (The first version of it I heard was the cover by The Barra MacNeils.) And yeah, after actually listening to the words, I’m reminded of one of my friends who said that the original ending of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil was still a ‘happy’ ending, because the main character did ‘escape’. The only real way possible.

    @Doctor Science:
    Most of what I’ve heard from people who actually study learning and language says that you can learn new languages at any point in your life (it may get harder later on, but not impossible) but you only really learn new sounds and phonemes until you hit about eight or somewhere around there. So if the new language you learn later contains sounds that don’t exist in what languages you learned before that, you’ll only be able to approximate them.

    Basically, if you want to be able to speak a language without an accent, you should have at least become familiar with what it sounds like early in life. But nothing stops you from actually learning a new language after that but the need to practice.

    (Me, I grew up with English, started learning French in elementary school, and then learned German in high school. Never quite got the hang of the voiceless fricative used for the German ‘auch’ or the Scottish ‘loch’, but I can pull off the French nasal ‘en’ reasonably well. And yes, I find the study of linguistics fascinating for some reason.)

  28. So far Star Trek Disco hasn’t failed to follow all of the plot points that people were guessing weeks or months in advance.

    Glyre vf Ibd? Purpx.
    Ybepn vf sebz gur Zveebeirefr? Purpx.
    Zvpuryyr Lrbu vf gur Rzcrebe? Purpx.

  29. Speaking of Shel Silverstein, he also wrote “A Boy Named Sue,” for what it’s worth.

  30. 2) Yes, a lot of people are talking about Discovery, but not very many of them have good things to say about it.

    Hm, The reactions to the the pilot were mostly negative, but since then Ive read a lot of positive things. On Tor houseblog for example the reviews are definitely positive (usually not enthusiastic, but positive). There are some that really hate the show, because of its tone and flaws, but most people that are still watching obviously find it entertaining (or they would have stopped – so many alternatives!)

    Smells like Breen spirit!

  31. 2) Discovery really rewards fan theory speculation – it doesn’t do many other things well but in this one area, it excels. It leaves clues to twist that encourage speculation and then the speculation turns out to be true. Most notably:

    Nfu Glyre vf Ibd gur Xyvatba
    Ybepn vf sebz gur zveebe havirefr
    Trbetvbh jbhyq pbzr onpx fbzrubj
    Fneh jbhyq znxr n irel avpr fbhc*

    *[OK actually I don’t think ANYBODY predicted that one]

  32. (8) Wow. When I suggested this to Mike, I really thought it would get a much better reception.

    The disparagement of her suggestion that people value friendship above politics is particularly disappointing. IMHO, Ms. McArdle is a fantastic columnist with a firm understanding of real world economics.

    In other news, there is a stack of Meridith moment’s listed at Goodreads. (with links to places to buy…) Most are the first book in a series.

    Cold Welcome (#1) Elizabeth Moon
    Seven Black Diamonds (#1)Melissa Marr
    The Hundredth Queen (#1) – Emily R. King
    Prince of the Blood (#1) – Raymond E. Feist
    Kraken – China Miéville
    Tiger Lily – Jodi Lynn Anderson
    Partials (#1) – Dan Wells
    Reboot (#1) – Amy Tintera

    Regards,
    Dann

  33. Dann: Thanks for suggesting Megan McArdle. I’ve always liked her writing, and she seems sensible and reasonable to me. I don’t see her column as often as I should but I thought that was one of her better ones and I printed it out to save.

  34. Everyone in my Spanish class is over 45, in fact in our 60s, and we’re pretty much doing okay. One guy, who started around the same time I did, is practically fluent. What I’ve realized is that some people have a talent for languages and some people don’t, but if you don’t — raises hand — it just takes you longer to get there.

  35. @Dann–

    The disparagement of her suggestion that people value friendship above politics is particularly disappointing. IMHO, Ms. McArdle is a fantastic columnist with a firm understanding of real world economics.

    I think some of her suggestions would have gotten a much better reception, if they didn’t accompany suggestions which are, um, disconnected from many people’s real world experience.

    For instance, saving 25% of my income is an idea disconnected from my real world economic circumstances.

    Politics is a realm in which lots of powerful people think that I should, in every practical sense, be deprived of health care. And if they can’t take away my health care altogether, they want to at least defund any health care for my lady parts.

    Quite a few of her suggestions are specifically about living with other people, and are mostly good advice, but she gets people’s backs up by consistently and exclusively using the word spouse. I live alone, and that’s not likely to change for many reasons, but I’d feel a lot less directly excluded if it weren’t for the constant and exclusive specification of “spouse.” I have lived with other people at various points in my life, and learned some of this very advice along the way. McArdle doesn’t seem to be aware that anyone’s experience could be any different from hers, and still be normal and okay.

    Also, I was raised, as a basic moral principle, not to take food I didn’t intend to eat. Aside from the waste of money which I don’t have available to waste, ordering a dish I’m 90% certain not to eat is shocking behavior, and really, not in a good way.

    She suggests pushing your car a few more years in order to afford a cleaner to help keep harmony in the home. I think that’s not a bad idea at all. I suspect, though, that she doesn’t know anyone who is driving a car that’s already sixteen years old and wondering how long it will be possible to find parts for not just a discontinued model, but a discontinued make. Or who is living on SSDI.

    She’s writing from a perspective that she probably doesn’t think is privileged, but which is completely detached from practical reality for much of the American population.

    On top of all that, her casual assertion, as if it were a self-evident fact, that you can’t learn a new language after age 45, is simply an expression of the fact that this is an area in which she is lazy and unmotivated. Well, so am I, in that some area–but I know perfectly well that that’s me and my priorities, not a natural fact about the human brain.

    I’m sure it sounds a lot more persuasive to upper middle class libertarians.

  36. re @8: I went to sleep wondering if I’d been too nitpicky (sometime error of mine) but I seem to have hit an artery (out of several — I didn’t pick up on the good-advice-if-you-can-manage-it bits). On the left hand, the points sound relatively sane for someone who signs themselves “Jane Galt”….

    @Jenora Feuer:

    you only really learn new sounds and phonemes until you hit about eight or somewhere around there

    ISTM that’s a simplification; possibly there’s just more effort involved, and/or a dependence on which phonemes need to be learned. For the former, I’m wondering when Krushchev’s English translator started learning; I’ve heard recordings of him — he sounded clearer and more neutral-midwestern than Cronkhite — but I wouldn’t expect English to be a grade-school subject in Stalin-era Russia. (Maybe some children were picked for special training? Did K have a separate translator schooled in RP for UK visits?) For the latter, the sound represented by IPA ‘y’ has an easy mechanism (and needs to be taught frequently in choruses as French “une” and German ‘ü’ are not uncommon); I expect there are others that are much more difficult (especially to learn by ear rather than by mechanism). (Data: I learned French by immersion at age 11, and have sung in 18 languages (including 2 creoles, which some wouldn’t count) but haven’t studied any other language seriously — I’ve got a handle on both German fricatives but expect I’d be spotted even if I were reading a passage I’d practiced on.) I’ve read indications that syntax is also harder to pick up later.
    An interesting counter-datum on pronunciation: my sister went through the immersion with me at age 8; 12 years after it was over, she revisited the site (southeast Switzerland) and was told she had a local accent — so maybe regionalism is harder to pick up than something that says native-but-not-local. ISTM that there’s some looseness in “phoneme”; is there a related word for variants clear enough to be recognized by anyone (or at least by native speakers) while marking local origin?

  37. Meredith. Two e’s, one i.

    If you’re going to spell it wrong, at least use Maredudd instead. 🙂

  38. 8)-I had no intention to get involved in this, as I rarely read this kind of opinion piece, I’ll likely regret commenting on it, as I will accomplish nothing in doing so and will go against the tide here, but that’s nothing new. Here goes:

    It strikes me from having read the piece that most people commenting on this read very little of it and didn’t seem to care about understanding what they did read. Take the first “rule”-be kind rather than mean. That’s where the Scalzi reference comes in. Most of you commenting on this chose, not surprisingly, to try for the very type of scathing putdown to which she refers.

    Political differences with friends-I have friends along the political spectrum, from anarchists to Trumpian reactionaries. I have yet to unfriend anyone over political disagreements and I never will. I have, in the last year, helped friends across that same spectrum with problems to the best of my ability-because that’s what friends do.

    Be grateful-anyone upset at that clearly doesn’t understand what Ms. McArdle wrote. Life is unfair and frequently unkind. But in my darkest hours, I’ve always had something to be grateful for. I have been told a few times, to my joy and surprise, that I am that something friends and family have been grateful for. May each and every one of you experience that pleasure at least once in your lives.

    Ms. McArdle is spectacularly wrong many times here (you can learn Portugese at 45, for example). But kind is better than mean, there are things more important in everyday life than politics, you should tell amazing people you meet that they are amazing and tell them why they are, you have reasons to be grateful and dinner rolls do loom much larger in our imaginations than in our stomachs.

    Here in 7612, Ursula K. Le Guin is still amazing, Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon is still a great novel and I’m still grateful for a whole host of reasons, even in the bad moments (especially in the bad moments).

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