(1) THINKING INSIDE THE BOX. “This was amazing,” says James Bacon about a special feature of Lazlar Lyricon 3, a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy convention held last weekend. “I was on the committee and it was an incredible endeavour.”
It’s all about Chris Tregenza and Jess Bennett and “The Secret of Box 42”.
Idea, Idea, A Kingdom for an Idea
Even with our self-imposed restrictions we struggled to think of anything at first. Every idea was discarded as being too profligate, too big, too small or simply impractical.
Then, bouncing around ideas with the aid of a bottle of wine (or two), our conversation drifted onto computer games and how in games like Skyrim there are treasure chests scattered around from which the player can take loot. In any particular game, all the treasure chests have an identical appearance and the player quickly associates that graphic with a reward even though sometimes the chests are empty. This led the conversation into Pavlovian conditioning and Skinner’s pigeon experiments and then bang! We asked ourselves a question.
What happens if we applied the same psychology in the real world by scattering boxes containing treasure around a convention? ….
What’s In The Box
Our first step was to brainstorm lots of ideas for box contents which we then loosely organised into different types. After some refinement we ended up with five classes of boxes inspired by the five levels of Maslow’s hierarchy: rewards, treasures, activities, quests and meta. Each of the types had a different purpose and place in the overall game.
Reward boxes were primarily a simple psychological conditioner. Inside these boxes were sweets or other gifts along with instructions to €˜help yourself’. These boxes were designed to build a positive association with opening boxes. Treasures were like rewards except they only contained a single valuable item which anyone could take if they chose. This introduced rarity and encouraged people to look in the boxes quickly before someone else took the item. Activity boxes instructed the opener to do something such as play a game or challenge someone to a duel. In these boxes were appropriate things (like a deck of cards or toy guns) but unlike the reward boxes, the instructions only suggested the box opener used them, not keep them. Meta-boxes contained nothing except a quote from the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The chosen quotes were amusing in their own right but also all related to the theme of hunting for the meaning of life.
(2) DITCHING THE RECEIVED WISDOM. Jason Sanford breaks the rules! gisp “Oh writing advice which I loathe, let me count the ways I’ve ignored you”. Sanford confesses eight violations.
Thinking about all the writing advice I don’t follow. This should mean I’m a literary failure. Instead, my stories are published around the world.
So what writing advice have I failed to follow? Let’s count down the greatest hits of advice I’ve ignored.
- “Write what you know.” Didn’t do that. I write science fiction and fantasy set in imaginary worlds I’ve never known. I create what I know!
(3) SOLAR TREK. From Space.com, Intergalactic Travel Agents rate the “Solar System’s Best and Worst Vacation Destinations (Video)”.
Part of the purpose of this interview is to promote Olivia Koski’s and Jana Grcevich’s book, Vacation Guide to the Solar System, which plans vacations using current astronomical knowledge.
(4) WHAT MUSIC THEY MAKE. Seanan McGuire recently had a special encounter with some children in an airport. The Twitter stream here is well worth a gander.
Oh, wow. Little girl in full meltdown because when her mom packed movies for the trip, she only packed the little boy's favorites.
— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) June 13, 2017
(5) KICKSTARTER REACHES GOAL. The 2017 Fantastic Fiction at KGB Kickstarter is a huge success, reports co-host Matthew Kressel, providing enough funds to keep the series running for at least six more years. The Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series Kickstarter ran from May 17 through June 14 and raised $9,771 (before Kickstarter and credit card processing fees)€¦. Dozens of rewards were chosen by 196 different backers.
Why We Needed Financial Support Each month we give the authors a small stipend, we tip the bartenders (who always give the authors free drinks), and we take the authors and their partners/spouses out for dinner after the reading. Since it typically costs us around $120 per month, we need $1500 per year to maintain the series. We were looking to raise $4500, which would allow us to keep the series running for another three years. Each additional $1500 let us run for an additional year. Fantastic Fiction has been a bright light in the speculative fiction community for nearly two decades, and because of your help we will continue for many more years to come. Thank you!
(6) DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING. Today Mary Robinette Kowal give her platform to Jon Del Arroz: “My Favorite Bit: Jon Del Arroz talks about FOR STEAM AND COUNTRY” .
(7) OH BOTHER. Goodbye Christopher Robin is the “based on a true story” movie about A.A. Milne, his son, and the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.
(8) HARRYHAUSEN ART. Tate Britain will host an exhibition of The Art of Ray Harryhausen from June 26 through November 19.
Explore drawings and models by Ray Harryhausen with some of the art that inspired him
The American-born Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) is one of the most influential figures in cinema history. In a succession of innovative, effects-laden movies, from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms 1952 to Clash of the Titans 1981, Harryhausen created fantastic worlds and creatures that have inspired generations. He is acknowledged as the master of stop-motion animation techniques, involving models being moved and filmed one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement.
Harryhausen attended art classes as a young man, and readily acknowledged his debt to earlier painters and illustrators. The epic scenery and towering architecture of 19th century artists Gustave Dore, and John Martin were especially important to him, and he collected prints and paintings by both artists.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- June 15, 1973 — The Battle for the Planet of the Apes premiered
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born June 15, 1941 — Graphic artist Neal Adams.
Adams has worked hard in the comics industry bringing to life such fascinating characters as Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, The Spectre, Thor, The X-Men, and countless others. For those wanting to know about the man and his career, you can check out his website right here. Adams was born on this day in 1941.
(11) THIS JUST IN. AND OUT. The New York Post reports “Sex in space is a ‘real concern’ that science needs to figure out”.
Romping in space is a “real concern” for astronauts, a top university professor has warned.
It’s something we know little about — but it’s crucial if we ever want to colonize other planets like Mars.
During a recent Atlantic Live panel, Kris Lehnhardt, an assistant professor at George Washington University, said the topic needs to be addressed immediately.
He said: “It’s a real concern — something we really don’t know about is human reproduction in space.”
“If we actually want to go places and stay there, there’s a key component and that’s having babies,” he added.
(12) MIGRATION. Richard Curtis, President of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc. broadcast this information:
Our curtisagency.com server crashed, and as it’s been happening a little too often lately I’m going to switch to gmail. So please use [email protected] going forward.
(13) PARSEC DEADLINE. Podcasters who have been nominated for a Parsec Award must submit their judging sample by July 16.
Podcast material released between May 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017 is eligible for the 2017 awards.
Material released needs to be free for download and released via a mechanism that allows for subscriptions (RSS Feed, iTunes, YouTube…). More rules and guidelines are posted at our website.
(14) EXTRA CREDITS. Top 10 Marvel post-credit scenes. Carl Slaughter says, “Notice this is an Avengers heavy list. Also, there is a conspicuous X-Men and Guardians absence.”
[Thanks to James Bacon, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Rose Embolism, Jon Del Arroz, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Darrah Chavey.]
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Two scrolls in one day? You spoil us sir.
(6) DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING
Clearly JdA’s publicist is the hardest worker in SF!
(14) EXTRA CREDITS
Iron Man only at #2? Pah!
But seriously, that scene with Samuel L Jackson in an eyepatch was before the current age of continuous superhero movies. The implied promise – that they’ll be giving us multiple movies with a coherent through line – was a real wow moment for me at the time.
(4) The grandmothers rule.
(6) Mary bought supporting memberships during the Spokane kerfuffle for Puppy supporters too. Makes the RWNJ’s heads spin when one o’ them evil SJW women doesn’t hate on them. But good job, Tim!
(4) maybe this item should be called When It Changed. Loved the twist in the tale!
Pointless fifth?
Rather enjoying Every Heart a Doorway. Makes a change from Lovecraft reworkings.
I’m between books at the moment so I’m having another re-read of The Risen Empire and remembering why the House is my favourite character.
(6) DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING.
“Zaira von Monocle”? The book is a parody? Doesn’t seem like that by the cover (which is very well done).
I remember the first time I saw a guy with a ferret as a pet. It was maybe 25 years ago and I saw him first from a long distance. “That is a very strange dog”, I thought, because he kept it on a leash and it was scuttering from side to side more like a crab than anything else.
I did have a friend who had a ferret that never got used to people. It was so vicious that they decided to release it in the forest. The next day, there was a notice in the newspaper about a savage ferret that wrecked havoc inside a video rental shop until the police arrived.
Still serving time is my guess, that ferret was bad to the bone.
In other news I’ve read Tenfox Gambit (I’ve given it an alternative name as an act of calendrical heresy) – have enough others read it to be worth a discussion?
(1) THINKING INSIDE THE BOX.
While I in some kind of way hate these kind of things (I have too much completionist in me, get angry when not finding everything and get irritated to be sucked into party games), I still get happy about the playfulness, the innovation and the participation. Well done!!
ticky
4) That would qualify as a best day ever for me, too, though having traveled alone with my kid, I do agree with some of the folks that the mom might not be such a villain.
6) More of that, even with the two tiny typos, and less of what I fear is coming next and I’d be inclined to read some of his stuff.
[tick]
I think I get the “gisp” of what you were getting at in (2). 😉
Pre-order Watch: next year’s Becky Chambers novel will be “Record of a Spaceborn Few” and is up for pre-orders (in the UK at least but I assume elsewhere). One day she’ll choose a short title and we’ll be very confused.
A while back I read a nice multi-part blog entry on the history of the process (and limitations) of coloring comics. I’ve been looking for it again, but can’t find it. I’m pretty sure I originally saw it as a scroll item. Any help?
@Mark: kind of like how we have Last First Snow, Two Serpents Rise, Three Parts Dead, Four Roads Cross, Full Fathom Five and Ruin of Angels.
@Mark: :: banners the Deuce of Gears ::
Ready when you are, I guess. (Read it, had some thoughts about it… I think it sticks the landing, on the whole.)
@Mark I’m kind of hoping for Kizzy: The Musical
:: banners the Deuce of Gears ::
twitch
I don’t think that will ever not make me twitch.
Ray Harryhausen also spent time animating traditional fairy tales, and much of it is gathered in a DVD titled THE EARLY COLLECTION. they’re fairly straightforward, so there are no Looney Tunes manic rewrites (pity)..
[godstalk]
(8) — I would love to see that Harryhausen exhibition so very, very, very much.
(2) ““Write what you know.” Didn’t do that. I write science fiction and fantasy set in imaginary worlds I’ve never known. I create what I know!”
If he’s putting human characters in there, he’s drawing on what he knows – and readers will notice if he gets it wrong! No matter how fanciful or (ahem) alien the setting, a story is about the characters who inhabit it.
Currently roadtripping from Seattle to Chicago. Today I get to drive through Billings.
Rev. Bob:
I had the snarkier thought that if he’s writing about heroic white guys… which is probably unfair as he seems to write a range.
@ ::Deuce of Gears::
….Let’s just say that I’m glad the sequel came out this week. I think I inhaled that book through my eyes.
Today’s odd coincidence, noticed thanks to FB’s On This Day:
June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova first woman to fly in space.
June 16, 2012, Liu Yang first Chinese woman to fly in space.
Sally Ride, first American woman in space, went up June 18, 1983. So close….
Celebrate the women in space tomorrow?
Fiery the pixels fell. Deep thunder scrolled around their shoulders
Hard to keep up today. It is the legendary sip from the firehose.
@1: that is indeed amazing, in both the amount of work needed and the payoff (far more people doing all quests than expected) — makes me regret not having been there, even though I’m not outgoing enough to have done nearly all the quests. I’m amused by one thing they didn’t catch; they cite Maslow and Skinner, but By the end of the convention, whenever we were seen carrying a box, one or more people would start following us is straight out of Lorentz (the researcher mistaken for a mama duck).
@2: oh dear, somebody else has “discovered” that generally-good advice for beginners doesn’t work all the time for everyone experienced. This is me failing to fake a Depp-voice tag saying They’re more sort of guidelines…
@Rev Bob got in first with my first reaction to the list — although I’d add there’s so much SF out there that a genuinely unknown setting is somewhere between rare and unreadable.
@6/@lurkertype: MRK is a very generous person; I wonder whether it will make the slightest difference.
@7: this might be okay (cf Finding Neverland) or might be a saccharine disaster; I think I’ll wait for some comments rather than rushing to see this.
@12: oh dear, another witless newswriter has confused sex and reproduction (or maybe their editor thought sex would sell better?). In theory I could live long enough to hear about some experiments — but I really don’t believe Musk’s project will get off the ground, and I hope nobody’s going to be crazy enough to try to carry a child to term in orbit any time soon (insert visions of everything from Brave New World to Leiber’s Sackabonds).
Chip H: You’d need to wonder about human reproduction in zero gravity or lesser/greater gravitational pull. Humans evolved on a specific gravity, and gravitational pull affects the way matter acts and interacts.
@Robert Whitaker Sirignano: Especially given what we know about the deleterious (and in some cases, irreversible) effects of zero-g on mature organisms.
I’m going to add a odd comment I read, but haven’t followed up: it was said dinosaurs (the big ones) did not weigh as much as they would in these times because the earth’s rotation was faster.
Robert Whitaker Sirignano on June 16, 2017 at 12:18 pm said:
[facepalm] Gravity depends on planetary mass, not on planetary rotation.
@Oneiros
Yeah, that change of title style from Gladstone has left me a bit confused. Possibly Ruin of Angels steps away from the current sequence a bit, and there will be a new set of title styles.
@Steve Wright and others
Raven Stratagem – formation Swallow Braves The Thorns
V gubhtug vg jnf n jbegul frdhry gb Avarsbk, naq qbrf n irel tbbq wbo bs qbqtvat zvqqyr obbx flaqebzr, rira gubhtu vg jnf univat gb qb dhvgr n ybg bs vasbqhzc freivpr. Gur CBI fuvsg jnf na rkgerzryl pyrire vqrn nf jr tbg gb frr zhpu zber bs gur Urknepungr, nygubhtu vg nyfb zrnaf jr’ir zvffrq bhg ba fbzr zhpu-arrqrq qrirybczrag sbe Purevf naq Wrqnb – ohg V thrff gung’yy or sbe obbx 3.
N srj guvatf gung obgurerq zr gubhtu: V guvax gurer jnf n cbjreshy vqrn bs gur urknepungr orvat gur rcvgbzr bs n fbpvrgl gung unq ghearq rivy guebhtu fgrcf bs jung gurl gubhtug jrer arprffvgl, naq gheavat gur Urenepuf vagb n frg bs irany ivyynvaf punfvat nsgre vzzbegnyvgl frrzf gb zr gb haqrezvar gung.
V gubhtug gur raqvat engure fghggrerq – vg sryg yvxr ur jnf ehfuvat gur jenc hc n ovg, naq vg raqrq n ovg gbb arngyl.
Nyfb, gur punenpgre bs gur Naqna zrfzrevfg (Gfrln?) frrzrq gb znvayl rkvfg gb fuhggyr Oermna onpx gb gur senl naq ercerfrag gur Naqna n ovg, juvpu frrzrq n ovg fhcresyhbhf.
According to http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Srotfram1.htm the relative change in gravity due to the Earth’s rotation at the equator (where the effects are the strongest) is roughly 1/3 of a percent. So there is a slight difference due to rotation, but not much.
Actually, the slight equatorial bulge of the Earth also means that things at the equator are further from the centre of mass than things at the poles for what is otherwise ‘sea level’… which further reduces the effective gravity, to a full 1/2 of a percent less at the equator.
So rotation does have an effect, just nowhere near enough to deal with dinosaurs.
@P J Evans @Jenora Feuer: Yes, the rotational velocity enters in to what is called the effective potential, which determines the force actually experienced by an object on the surface. This is why there is such a thing as a rotational break-up speed, at which the effective potential goes to zero, and objects are no longer bound to the rotating object: the centrifugal acceleration (I know, physicists hate the term) equals the gravitational acceleration. However, since as Jenora pointed out this is a small effect – the Earth’s rotational speed is way below break-up speed – even a shortening of the day to 21 hours (which is what has been determined for the start of the Cambrian) has only a small effect.
I’d think that the atmospheric-composition differences would be more important than rotational-speed differences. But IANAPaleontologist.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY Born June 15, 1941 — Graphic artist Neal Adams.
Forty-odd years ago, I was a huge Neal Adams fanboy. By the time I stopped collecting comics ca. 1980, I had copies of essentially every mainstream comic book he worked on. My prizes were the original art of this and this, from a Flash/Batman issue of The Brave and The Bold.
@P J Evans: Undoubtedly. The oxygen content of the atmosphere reached 30% during the Carboniferous (about 280 MYa), compared to 21% today, which is why there were all those horrifyingly large insects. Never time-travel to the Carboniferous with a smoker.
Have Scroll, Will Pixel reads the file of a man
@PhilRM:
I’ve seen physicists argue that centrifugal acceleration is a real thing… at least, if you’re operating purely within a non-inertial rotating reference frame. Relative to a rotating reference frame, centrifugal and Coriolis forces are ‘real’.
Of course, people generally avoid working in rotating reference frames if they can avoid it because for 90% of the cases you’re dealing with, the math gets a whole lot messier.
Jenora, my idea of working in a rotating frame of reference is making sure I’m against the wall of the train farther from the center of curvature when standing while coming into the station.
@P J Evans: you should read Clement’s discussion of the physics in Mission of Gravity. Granted that’s an extreme case, but it does point out the difference between gravity-as-a-property-of-mass and ~net attraction.
Bloodstone 75
I was wondering about that. Was it something I simply didn’t grok? I decided to appertain myself beverages and see if that made it any bezzer.
(10) Ohhh, yeah. Neal Adams was a huge favorite of mine, and still maybe my favorite all-around comic artist of the time. He was inker-proof! Nobody could ruin his art or hide it. Well, almost. Giordano did a tepid job, but because he was on Adams, they gave him awards. One time he teamed up with Joe Kubert, and I couldn’t tell who had done what. This was a real kick in the head, as I hadn’t cared overmuch for Kubert before that moment.
Bill: Serious feeling of something like envy, but also just being happy for you.
DIAL P FOR PIXEL
@Jenora: A fictitious force can still throw you off the carousel!
In some fields, such as atmospheric science, researchers typically frame discussions in terms of a frame rotating with the Earth (thus introducing Coriolis forces), because it’s just so much easier to talk about what the atmosphere is doing in a frame of reference in which the rotation has been taken out.
@Mark-kitteh: loading up the Deuce of Gears I’m only halfway through. Hope to finish tomorrow. Could we maybe wait till after the weekend, to let more Filers have a chance to finish?
@Chip re (6) Of course not. They’ve got their
calendrical imperativestalking points, and even the immense kindness and generosity that is MRK won’t affect them.I would assume the dinosaur to be a perfect sphere on a frictionless plane. (I only had one college semester of basic physics)
I think Dick Giordano was one of Neal’s best inkers.
On the other hand, Vince Colletta, who inked the story Bill links to, did such a wretched job that Neal reinked some of it before publication, and then even more of it even it was reprinted in book form some years ago.
But certainly, it’s hard to hide that it’s Neal’s work. Even when he’s ghosting for someone else — you get to the ON STAGE strips Neal penciled (or inked) for Len Starr, and you go “Holy cats, that’s Neal Adams!” Or at least, I do. Same for when he ghost-penciled for John Prentice or Lou Fine or Gil Kane…
George Roussos, now — I love George’s work, but he may have come the closest to obliterating Adams:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BqrfPc3ecFQ/Up-XmjEV2lI/AAAAAAABWhw/vwVtfxtBRgs/s1600/worldsfinest_223_p23_deadmanreprint.jpg
Not dead despite this headache. Glad to see File 770 isn’t either.
Damn it, I meant FILE P FOR PIXEL.
Kurt Busiek
IMO: Giordano always looked sloppy and scratchy to me, and he inked everybody the same way. On any but a superlative penciller, his work felt shoddy. Compare Giordano’s inking on Heck in those Batgirl stories, for example. Tom Palmer once inked Don Heck (X-Men) and it’s the best Heck ever looked without Wood redrawing the faces (Avengers).
Agree on the Roussos. I was almost steamed the first time I saw that issue, but his blunt inking sort of works in some places, and Adams still shines through.