Pixel Scroll 4/6/2016 I Saw A Scroll Drinking A Pina Colada At Trader Vic’s, His Pixel Was Perfect

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(1) APPRECIATION. At Fantasy Café, Stephanie Burgis thanks the women who blazed the trail into the fantasy genre.

I wanted to write a very important thank you note to the women who first showed me the way into this field…

I imagine the extra emotional hurdles I would have had to jump, if those women hadn’t taken the risk before me of letting the world know their gender when they published their books.

So: thank you, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip, Emma Bull, and Judith Tarr. I loved your books then, I love them now, and I’m so grateful that you took that risk for me and every other fantasy-loving girl reader/writer out there.

Thank you.

(2) FEMINIST COMICS. Corrina Lawson at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog recommends “9 Feminist Comics Everyone Should Read”. Apparently this doesn’t literally mean feminist, but anyway —

It’s a good time to be a reader interested in feminist comics. When I say “feminist,” I don’t necessarily mean “a book in which a women fights the patriarchy.” I don’t even require the story to be written by a woman.

What I mean by “feminist comics” is that they offer stories that include three-dimensional female characters. That’s it. I know, it seems like a low bar, but it’s surprising how often it isn’t done. And yes, many of them that do it are written by women—but not all.

In compiling a list of feminist comics I think everyone should read, I looked beyond Marvel and DC Comics, because I wanted to spotlight work being done outside of the “Big Two,”  though I do love and applaud the work being done on Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, A-Force, Black Canary, Batwoman, and Gotham Academy. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list; rather, it’s a glimpse at a handful of the many comics out there with fascinating female characters. Please feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments. (And to those wondering why Lumberjanes isn’t on this list, well, I sang the praises of that book in a previous article.)

First on the list is Monstress, story by Marjorie Liu, art/cover by Sana Takeda (for young adult readers)

(3) MORE CIVIL WARRIORS. SciFiNow breathlessly reveals “Captain America: Civil War adds two interesting last minute cast members”.

The first is the marvellous Jim Rash, best known to many as Dean Pelton from Community. The second is Alfre Woodard, who is particularly interesting seeing as she’s also set to appear in Netflix’s Luke Cage as Mariah Dillard. Does that mean Captain America: Civil War will become the first MCU film to cross over with Netflix’s series of Marvel shows?

Both Woodard and Rash’s involvement in Civil War seem to have been revealed by accident when both their names were included on a Disney list of cast members who will be attending the film’s upcoming premiere. Since the list was issued, sources have claimed that Woodard will play a small but pivotal part in Civil War as the mother of an American citizen who was killed during the Battle of Sokovia in Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

(4) BRADBURY IN MUTTS. James H. Burns says, “One of my favrorite things in the world for many years now has been Patrick McDonnell’s comic strip, Mutts. McDonnell is simply one of the best, of our generation, and really, all time. You should like this installment!”

mutts, bee

 

(5) KINDLE SCOUT. Joan Marie Verba explains “How Kindle Scout Works” at the SFWA Blog.

Kindle Scout is a publishing option sponsored by Amazon.com. Writers can submit an unpublished manuscript of 50,000 words or more in the science fiction, fantasy, mystery, or romance genres. Kindle Scout then will put up a web page with the cover, summary, sample chapter, and author information. Potential readers then review the information, and if they have an Amazon.com account, they can nominate the work. At the end of 30 days, the Kindle Scout team reviews the statistics and the work. If they accept the work for publication, the author gets an advance against royalties and the work is published on Kindle Press….

One site I would highly recommend reading before, and especially during, one’s campaign is kboards—in particular, the “Kindle Scout Experiences, Anyone?” board. This board has authors who are in the midst of a Kindle Scout campaign as well as authors who have completed one (successfully or unsuccessfully). Some on that board assert that there are factors in addition to the number of nominations that Kindle Scout considers in order to make a selection, such as the author’s sales history and number of titles previously published.

(6) MOVIE SPACESHIPS. ScreenRant lists the “14 Most Iconic Ships To Ever Appear In Science Fiction Movies”. It’s true, I made noises while reading this article.

If you’re reading this list, chances are at some point in your life you’ve held a toy spaceship in your hands and steered it gracefully through the air, banking left and right, while making engine noises (“Kschchchch,” “Wrrrrrrreeeeeeeaaaar!”) and laser noises (“Pfew, pfew,” “Tschew!”). That’s because ships in sci-fi movies can be so crazy cool. That’s part of the fun of watching them: seeing which new designs special effects teams have come up with, or what old favorites have been updated.

Most of these ships are spacecraft, but sci-fi ships can also go underwater or even inside the human body. There are malicious, invading alien crafts and benevolent alien ships; massive vessels that hold thousands of people, and little one-seaters. But they’re all awesome in their own way.

Okay trufen – before you peek, guess whether #1 on the list is from Star Wars or Star Trek!

(7) BAEN NEWS. Baen Books will now offer MVMedia ebooks on the Baen Ebooks website. MVMedia is an Atlanta-based publisher known for a wide range of science fiction and fantasy, notably for its Sword and Soul genre anthologies. Sword and Soul is epic fantasy adventure set in a mythological Africa featuring a sword-wielding black hero.

MVMedia at Baen Ebooks launches with The Dark Universe Anthology edited by Milton J. Davis and Gene Peterson, and From Here to Timbuktu, written by Milton J. Davis.

The Dark Universe anthology is a multi-author space opera in the high sense. It portrays the origin story of the Cassad Empire, from its ambitious beginning as a refuge and new home for a persecuted people to its evolution to the first great human Galactic Empire. Authors include Milton Davis, Gene Peterson, Balogun Ojetade, Penelope Flynn, Ronald Jones, Malon Edwards, K. Ceres Wright and DaVaun Sanders….

(8) GUSTAFSSON OBIT. Ahrvid Engholm pays tribute to the late Lars Gufstafsson (1936-2016) at Europa SF.

Lars Gustafsson was just awarded the International Zbigniew Herbert Prize in Poland, and was supposed to collect it May 17th in Warsaw, his 80th birthday.

But death intervened.

Lars Gustafsson, author, poet, philosopher, etc, passed away April 3rd. He was 79.

Lars Gustafsson was a heavyweight in Swedish literature and culture. The biggest swedish morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, had seven (!) pages about Gustafsson’s death.

And he was a big fan of science fiction and fantastic literature! It began when he as a young boy steadily read the then sf pulp magazine Jules Verne Magasinet (1940-47). He even visited our local SF conventions occasionally.

(9) DRAGON AWARDS REACTIONS. Here are samples from the range of reactions to Dragon Con’s new SF awards.

https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/717764337377484800

https://twitter.com/JasonKing1979/status/717799573649907712

(10) THE WINNER HAS YET TO ENTER THE RING. Lela E. Buis awards a technical knockout to the Dragon Awards simply for being announced, in “Upheaval in the awards system”.

Contrast this attendance figure with WorldCon that gives out the Hugo Awards. Wikipedia lists 4,644 attendees and 10,350 who bought memberships to vote the 2015 Hugo Awards, which was a record for numbers. With DragonCon moving into the awards game, I’m thinking the Hugo’s are officially undermined. The Puppy scandal has not only disrupted the voting system, but it seems to have led to an inspection of the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.

(11) DUKING IT OUT ABOUT PC. Matthew M. Foster and L. Jagi Lamplighter overflowed Facebook with their recent discussion of Political Correctness, each writing a supplemental blog post.

Foster’s post is, “They Took My Job!”

Political Correctness threatens people’s jobs.

OK. How? The example from that other thread is that researchers who disagree with climate change are afraid to speak up due to fear of losing their job. Unfortunately, this isn’t a good example for it brings up an obvious alternative—that is that researches who do not do a good job fear losing their job. Which they should. If 99 researchers do an experiment and get X, and 1 guy does it and gets Y, then the most likely reason is because 1 guy did it poorly. And that’s what we have in climate change research. But lets get past that and make this more general, to take out the notion that the employee is bad at his job while keeping in mind the nearly meaningless nature of the term “PC.”

So, how can someone lose their job due to political correctness?

  1. He could say something that is offensive to other employees or the boss thus damaging productivity.
  2. He could say things that are offensive to the general public
  3. He could say something that indicates his disagreement with the boss.

….Or they can just say whatever they want, and accept the consequences. Because that’s not political correctness. That’s life. I believe the phrase is, freedom isn’t free. Yelling “political correctness” doesn’t get you out of life. It doesn’t excuse you from consequences, and if you think it does, you are an idiot whose views of society would create the totalitarian state you claim to abhor—if you were consistent anyway.

Which all comes down to, no one is losing their job due to political correctness nor should they fear doing so. They are losing their jobs because they are rude and insulting, or because they are inconsiderate by disrupting the company, or because they are causing the company to lose sales, or because they are personally upsetting their boss, or because they won’t follow their boss’s lead, or because they are bad at their jobs. That’s how jobs work. Don’t want to lose your job? Don’t do those things. Political correctness has nothing to do with it.

L. Jagi Lamplighter wrote, “Political Correctness vs. The Search for Happiness”.

I am a strong supporter of the great dialogue that is civilization. Were it up to me, nothing would ever interfere with it.

Political correctness quenches this conversation. Here are some of the reasons I say that:

* It replaces discussion and debate with Puritan-style disapproval.

You don’t explain to someone why you disagree with them. You speak so as to shut them down as quickly as possible.

* It keeps people from sharing politically correct views in a way that might convince.

Because of this, if the person who favors the politically correct position has a good reason for their opinions, the other person will not know, because debate has been silenced.

*It keeps people from sharing any other view.

If the person who does not favor the politically correct position has a good reasons for supporting their position—the person favoring the politically correct reason will never hear it, because he shut down the debate before he had a chance to hear the reasons…..

(12) CARD HOLDS THUMBS DOWN. “Will this election doom America? ‘Ender’s Game’ author holds dim view in light of current politics” reports the Ripon Commonwealth Press.

America has no hope.

That could be the summation of an hour-long talk science fiction writer Orson Scott Card offered last week Wednesday at Ripon College.

Couching his comments in the concept that a good science-fiction writer must understand history, Card explained that history now suggests the United States is not at a crossroads, but already too far down the wrong path to seek a solution.

“There is no winning hand in this election. There is no vote you can now cast that will save us from potential disaster, and that’s never really been true in American history before. Sometimes we’ve elected the worst guy, nevertheless the worst guy was never as bad as the choices we have now,” said Card, who wrote the popular book “Ender’s Game,” and which he turned into a screenplay for a Hollywood movie. “So we can look at empires, we can look at them as I do as a science fiction writer, and try to find how they rise and fall, what rules apply …

“The problem is, we’re all making this situation up together, and we’re all stuck with whatever answers we come up with. And if history’s taught us one thing, it’s all empires fall, and they all fall at inconvenient times.”

(13) POTTER EVENT RESCHEDULED FOR GEEZERS. The City of Perth Library postponed its Harry Potter event, aimed at teens aged 12-18 and their parents, to accommodate adults who complained they felt left out.

Library staff attempted to explain that the event was curated by its Youth Services faculty and the events were specifically targeted at teens….

Despite this explanation, many fans lamented over the idea that they would miss out on their chance to learn about owls or take a “potions class” from local experts so the library decided to postpone the event indefinitely.

“We want to be able to provide a magical experience for all Library patrons,” they wrote on Facebook. “As such the Harry Potter event has been postponed and we are looking at how we can accommodate many more witches, wizards, muggles and their families.”

(14) RIDLEY RAPS. “Daisy Ridley Rapping Is the Greatest ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Bonus Feature Yet!” at YouTube.

(15) WHAT A WRITER NEEDS TO KNOW. Soon Lee’s instant classic started life as a humble comment before being enshrined in the canon of English literature a few minutes later.

The Writer

On a cool Autumn’s eve
At a Worldcon bound for nowhere
I met up with the writer
We were both too tired to sleep

So we took turns a-starin’
Out the window at the darkness
The boredom overtook us,
And she began to speak

She said, “Child, I’ve made a life
Out of writin’ people’s stories
Knowin’ what the plots were
By the way they held their tropes

So if you don’t mind me sayin’
I can see you’re out of ideas
For a taste of your Oolong
I’ll give you some advice”

So I handed her my China
And she drank down my last swallow
Then she bummed a cigarette
And asked me for a light

And the night got deathly quiet
And her face lost all expression
She said, “If you’re gonna play the game, child
You gotta learn to write it right

You’ve got to know when to show ’em
Know when to tell ’em
Know when to passive voice
And to gerund

You never check your wordcount
When you’re typin’ at the keyboard
There’ll be time enough for counting
When the writin’s done

Every writer knows
That the secret to good writin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep

‘Cause every book’s a winner
And every book’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to Fail
Better next

And when she finished speakin’
She turned back toward the window
Crushed out her cigarette
And faded off to sleep

And somewhere in the darkness
The writer she dreamt stories
But in her final words
I found advice that I could keep

You’ve got to know when to show ’em
Know when to tell ’em
Know when to passive voice
And to gerund

You never check your wordcount
When you’re typin’ at the keyboard
There’ll be time enough for counting
When the writin’s done

Repeat to fade

(Starring Badass Raadchai Ann Leckie as the writer. With apologies to Kenny Rogers)

[Thanks to Will R., JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

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303 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/6/2016 I Saw A Scroll Drinking A Pina Colada At Trader Vic’s, His Pixel Was Perfect”

  1. .Bruce Arthurs on April 7, 2016 at 1:17 pm said: Submarine as spaceship: Harry Harrison’s THE DALETH EFFECT, aka IN OUR HANDS, THE STARS.

    As Damon Knight wrote somewhat earlier …

    Oh the Dean Machine, the Dean Machine,
    You put it right in a submarine,
    And it flies so high that it can’t be seen —
    The wonderful, wonderful Dean Machine!

  2. I’m married to a handsome, white,straight male competent engineer who, unfortunately is on the autism spectrum, He lives in a world of numbers and it works for him fairly well. However, he is Not Good with people and can’t seem to keep from occasionally blurting something not pc. But he manages to keep his job because he apologizes and he learns quickly. My favorite example was a conversation we had about his coworkers, and I was having trouble keeping names straight. “Is Matt the one with the baby?” I asked. “No, he’s the colored guy.” My husband was distracted by whatever he was working on, and talking to me on automatic. He’d flipped back to his childhood in the south, when “colored” was the polite term.But when I called him out, he didn’t double down and accuse me of being too PC, or say that he could say whatever he wanted to because it’s a free country. He went on with his story and told me about his black coworker. His coworkers are not interested in hounding him out because he uses an outdated term or is politically incorrect. By now they know him well enough to know that while he might not be up on all the terminology, he’s a good guy. He’s not going to tell racist jokes or belittle the young women engineers. So show me a white competent man who has been fired for being white or competent or male and not for being an asshole. And, by the way, working against the rights of other people to marry the people they love – pure asshole, through and through.

  3. We will have to form a committee to ensure that all those titles are completely gender neutral.

    Turns out Bob’s full name is Roberta, so we’re fine here.

  4. Phantom —

    No, I think it’s more that it doesn’t matter what the link is, where it’s from or what it says, you’re determined that I’m eeeevile or something and you’ll grasp at any straw that presents itself.

    It doesn’t matter what the link is, I find, because your links don’t support your arguments. What we see from that one link is that the Navy does not have a whole department working on gender-neutral terms and isn’t spending a whole lot of money or time on the project. At worst, a dozen people are stuck trying to think of an alternative to “yeoman” in odd moments brushing their teeth or sitting on the loo or doing their morning run, and might yet admit defeat on that one word and let it ride. The straw here is your whole argument.

    Look, this is what it’s like among rational people: if you have an argument you have to have more to support it than hyperbole. If you don’t, then people point out where your argument is deficient, then blow raspberries at you if you’re persistent in your ignorance. If you don’t want raspberries blown at you, don’t just double down on the bullshit, find better arguments. Or admit you were wrong. Or pretend it never happened and never mention it again.

  5. @ Rev. Bob

    Unless they take the sane approach of updating the forms,…

    That is a constraint that experience suggests will only be marginally in play.

    In some cases, old forms will be used up. In other cases, old forms will be discarded and the new ones will be used immediately. In some cases, they are locally generated forms that will have to be updated and implemented.

    Then there are the many manuals that will have to be updated.

    The non-TLDR version is that the military is consistently 10-15 years behind the business world on these kinds of things. They also love paper!

    And the military also contains individuals that will look at something that could occur over a longer timeframe and still decide that a crash implementation is just the thing to do. Not all by any stretch, but a non-trivial number that will either inspire peers to follow suit or (in the case of a high enough ranking individual) will command that the changes be made toot-sweet.

    I’ll stick by my assessment of the cost being non-trivial, but less than the cost of a destroyer. That isn’t a criticism of the change, just an assessment of the cost we all will bear. I think the change is largely a very good idea (TM). But I do lament the passing of terms like “yeoman”. Not every instance of that specific three letter combination needs to be eradicated from the face of the planet.

    —
    Regards,
    Dann

  6. Nigel wrote:

    Or pretend it never happened and never mention it again.

    Though to be fair to the Phantom (and there’s a phrase you won’t hear often) that doesn’t really work. Look at the efforts people are putting in to try and prevent him from pretending never to have said things about Cat Valente.

  7. With apologies to Rudyard Kipling:

    The Song of the Trolled

    We have fed our trolls for a thousand scrolls
    And they call us, still unfed,
    Though there’s never a post of all their posts
    That speaks of books they’ve read:
    We have jawed our best, to the thread’s unrest,
    At their most stark and jeering gall.
    If flames be the price of commentry,
    Lord God, we ha’ paid in full!

  8. Here’s my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the Troll
    And the Puppy roamed where File 770 roars to-night
    There are Nine and Sixty ways of constructing Pixel Scrolls
    And every single one of them is right!

  10. An Arleigh Burke class destroyer (currently the only class of destroyer in service with the U.S. Navy) costs ~$1.8 billion. A new class, the Zumwalt, is due to enter service this year, at a projected cost of ~$2.5 billion per destroyer. That’s just construction. I seriously doubt the cost of shifting the titles in Navy documents would cost even a tiny fraction of that much. You could probably replace every document used by the Navy for far less than the cost of a single destroyer.

  11. If you like Pixel Coladas, reading books on the train
    If you’re not into trolling, if you have half a brain
    If you like filking songs at midnight at the ‘Con near the cape
    I’m the post that you’ve looked for, write your own verse post-haste

    😛

  13. Lavish parties where cocaine is circulated on silver platters on the heads of tiny people.

    That took me a few moments to parse. The tiny people are alive, right, and are carrying the plates on their heads? And they aren’t very tiny – not six inches tall, for instance, which is what the phrase first suggested to me.

  16. When I was Seven Seventy,
    I saw a wise fan say,
    “Give scrolls away, and pixels,
    But not your hive away.
    File books, awards, and movies,
    But hive keep under key.”
    But I was Seven Seventy;
    No use to LoC to me!

  17. @Dann665: You could always just type yo like “yeo!” (rhymes kinda with Seoul)

    [don’t worry, I know what you really meant]

  18. Pixel Scrolladas: Ninja’d by Heather Rose Jones.

    How does that saying go? Choose from:
    – Great minds think alike.
    – Fools seldom differ.

  19. Oh joy,

    On John C Wright’s blog, apparently Mr. Beale has a slate for the Locus awards now, basically a fill of write in ballot ideas.

    Although, just to (still) be pissers, Alasdair Reynolds’ Slow Bullets is on their Locus Award ballot.

  21. @Aaron. Hence me posting a tweet to encourage people to do that. Yep.

  22. From the mouth of VD:

    It has been brought to my attention, by several critics, that we of the Rabid Puppies have unfairly focused our attention on the Hugo Awards, and that it is only due to the unique nature of the Hugo Awards rules that our presence is able to make itself felt.

    It has been suggested, for example, that were we to turn our attention to other awards in the field, with other, more democratic systems, that our dearth of numbers would become apparent to all and sundry.

    So he can easily be taunted into overreaching himself? That’s good to know.

  23. So he can easily be taunted into overreaching himself?

    Well, when one has an ego that dwarfs the size of many countries, that’s easy to do. Beale obviously thinks his crew will dominate the Locus poll. We’ll see.

  24. Stoic Cynic: Loved your pastiche, and it was a good thing my tea cup had not yet made it to my lips. So, who’s the apprentice?

    Regarding the Daisy Ridley rap — she’s got a nice voice for rapping. We need moar! Also, did anyone else notice how she loomed over Carrie Fisher? I knew Ms. Fisher was short, but good god, she’s TINY.

  25. @Ginger

    Hmmm, hadn’t got that far. I was toying with the idea of Darth Glyer since it had the right rhythm. That would make the mid-script ROO-Saber* fight something like:

    Sabid Pupwalker:
    Your powers are weak old man.

    Darth Glyer:
    You can’t win, Sabid. If you strike my amendment down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

    Sabid Pupwalker:
    When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master. Time to sine die. SERPENTINE!

    *A Rules Of Order Saber: an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. The most legendary were made by the smith known only as Robert of Toledo. Each page of his ROO-Sabers are said to have been folded over one thousand times.

  28. @Mark-kitteh: It’s a good thing Teddy’s living off remittances from Daddy’s ill-gotten gains; it must take a lot of time to keep thinking up these Xanad’OH! gambits, follow File 770, and tell the dead elk what to do. First he’s gotta go try to ruin the Locus Awards, next month he has to freep the DragonCon ones. Busy, busy, busy. Proof that idle hands really are the Devil’s workshop. If he had to earn a crust honestly like the rest of us, he’d have some other outlet in his life for scheming.

    @Stoic Cynic: you’re on fire today!

  30. Yes, anyone, if you haven’t done so yet, consider voting in Locus’ Annual Readers’ Poll — it’s open for 1 more week, until April 15.

    I ended up writing in quite a few choices which were not on their list:

    SF
    The Mechanical, Ian Tregillis
    Zero World, Jason M. Hough

    Fantasy
    The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins
    Touch, Claire North
    Castle Hangnail, Ursula Vernon
    Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, Bradley Beaulieu

    First
    The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins
    The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman
    The Buried Life, Carrie Patel
    Lightless, C.A. Higgins

    Collection
    A Better Way to Die, Paul Cornell

    Non-Fiction
    Wheel of Time Companion, Harriet McDougal
    These Are The Voyages, Marc Cushman

  31. NickPheas on April 8, 2016 at 6:40 am said: Though to be fair to the Phantom (and there’s a phrase you won’t hear often) that doesn’t really work. Look at the efforts people are putting in to try and prevent him from pretending never to have said things about Cat Valente.

    Nick, thanks for making my point for me. Again. What I said about Cat Valente was true. Self evidently true to all here, yet you kept demanding a link. So I linked. Zero effect, as I predicted.

    Aaron on April 8, 2016 at 7:48 am said: An Arleigh Burke class destroyer (currently the only class of destroyer in service with the U.S. Navy) costs ~$1.8 billion.

    Thanks for looking that up for me. It’s cute that you don’t think the time, energy and waste motion spent on gender-neutraling the US Navy could possibly amount to that much money. Have you considered that every minute spent f-ing with and thinking about genderization by US Navy personnel is paid for? They’re getting paid when they’re futzing with that instead of something else.

    Every penny wasted too. Very unPC of me to say so, but true notwithstanding.

    Go do some more work for me now, there’s a good boy. For example, you could nitpick and lawyer all my above comments to mean something else and then post what I -really- said, but we’d still know you’re just lawyering for the sake of it.

  33. The Phantom: Nick, thanks for making my point for me. Again. What I said about Cat Valente was true.

    No, it wasn’t. You claimed “Cat Valente, the Puppy Kicker Extraordinaire, who hasn’t shut up about how eeeevile the Sad Puppies are since forever”

    You were asked to provide links to support this. You didn’t. Someone then looked for themselves, and provided two — only TWO — links where she even mentioned the Puppies. One of these links you later provided as supposed “proof” that she “hasn’t shut up about how eeeevile the Sad Puppies are since forever” — which is totally bullshit.

    THIS is why providing links here does you no good, and still gets you called a Liar. Because the links you provide not only do not support what you say, in most cases, they actually contradict what you say.

     
    The Phantom: It’s cute that you don’t think the time, energy and waste motion spent on gender-neutraling the US Navy could possibly amount to that much money.

    I’ve worked for the military, in a couple of different areas. What you’re claiming is bullshit. What happens is that the military is required to update their policies, processes, procedures, and the documentation of such on a continual, ongoing basis — and the updating gets done as this normally occurs, not as some sort of “OMG, throw all of this doc out the window and replace it immediately!” action as you’re claiming.

    These changes are just part of the normal military process. (Whether the normal process is sensible and non-wasteful is a separate question, not affected by equality measures.)

  34. Self evidently true to all here, yet you kept demanding a link. So I linked. Zero effect, as I predicted.

    Of course. Maybe next time you want to try a link that actually supports your claims? Or at least one that doesn’t directly contradict them?

    BTW, free clue. You thinking that “every penny wasted” isn’t actually UnPC. It’s just dumb. It betrays a complete lack of knowledge as to what leadership and management of people actually means. Thinking about how to get people to work together in a better manner tends to be a key portion. Making sure that people actually feel valued is something that every large organisation does as a *constant and ongoing* process. It’s not some newly established Dept of Goodfeels that gets paid for and created for each and every issue.

    I’d say that you’ll learn this in time, but given your thoughts on people skills, as well as how you deal with people in general, I’m reasonably sure that you’ll never get to that level in your career or life.

  35. Of course. Maybe next time you want to try a link that actually supports your claims? Or at least one that doesn’t directly contradict them?

    The thing that is a little bit amazing about Phantom is just how clumsily and stupidly he lies. He is just so very bad at lying, and yet thinks that he is oh so very clever. Sometimes I almost feel bad for him, as it must be a miserable life being such a complete failure as he is, but then he reveals that he is also a vile, evil creep, and any sympathy evaporates. The only silver lining here is that even though he’s a vile, evil creep, he’s an incompetent one and so he can only do a minimal amount of actual damage.

  36. @Phantom

    I dub thee Chief Inarguable, Truth Kicker Extraordinaire.

    *snicker*

  37. Bonnie McDaniel: I dub thee Chief Inarguable, Truth Kicker Extraordinaire.

    I think there’s a Dragon Award category for that.

  38. @Bonnie McDaniel: @Phantom I dub thee: Chief Inarguable, Truth Kicker Extraordinaire.

    That will be a great conversation starter on business cards. VistaPrint is great for this sort of thing. I wonder if The Phantom has a good graphics friend who could create a cool logo to go with the title.

  39. They’re getting paid when they’re futzing with that instead of something else.

    Obscenely expensive dead-end military-industrial boondoggles?

  42. On a dark desert highway
    Pixels in my hair
    Warm smell of the scrolls
    Rising up through the air..

  43. Paul Weimer: Maybe “Warm smell of oatmeal”?

    Meter never was my thing but consider the meme merging possibilities.

  44. With a double serving of apology, and a side of remorse, to Stephen Crane:

    In the browser
    I saw a pixel, scrolled, bestial,
    Who, squatting upon the ground,
    Held his bowl in his hands,
    And ate of it.
    I said, “Is it good, friend?”
    “It is butt’ry-butt’ry,” he answered;
    “But I like it
    “Because it has butter,
    “And because it is my oats.”

  45. 9. (David Mack): A Dragon for media tie-ins would actually make sense. A Hugo wouldn’t, because Hugo voters are supposed to compare and rank stuff, which means that stuff with a definitely circumscribed appeal – to fans of the series in question – tends not to be suitable. (‘Circumscribed’ here is not the same as ‘small’.) But with a one-nomination, first-past-the-post system, where each person just votes for what they are a fan of, why not?

  46. Andrew M: 9. (David Mack): A Dragon for media tie-ins would actually make sense.

    I think so too, and was very surprised that they do not have a category for Media Tie-in Novel. It seems like quite a bizarre omission.

  48. @Simon Bisson:

    I know a bunch of current and ex-Mozilla folk, and the story isn’t what either side of the culture wars say: Eich didn’t resign because of the external pressure. He resigned because he’d lost the confidence of most of the Mozilla staff.

    That’s the story I read about at the time. I read mewling from right wingers at the time, but nothing else wildly different from what you said.

    @Various (Dances With Phantom?): You’ve got to be carefully trolled. (with apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein)

    @JJ: Thanks for the Locus Awards reminder. I frequently skip them, but since I put effort into my Hugo ballot, I’m setting a reminder on my calendar to do them mid-week, when I get home and hopefully will have spare-moments-with-energy. 🙂

  50. The thing that is a little bit amazing about Phantom is just how clumsily and stupidly he lies. He is just so very bad at lying, and yet thinks that he is oh so very clever.

    The Dunning-Krueger effect is one of the more useful things I have learned and gets proven true again and again online.

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