Five stories, two videos and a tweet in today’s Scroll. Now with extra subtitle goodness.
(1) What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s goin’ down…. Aaron Reese writes audio history in “From vrrrramp to snikt: exploring sci-fi’s most iconic movie sound effects”.
This is also the decade of the Wilhelm Scream, which is perhaps the most ubiquitous sound effect on this list. Appearing in over 300 films, big blockbuster and indie alike, you’ve more than likely heard the Wilhelm Scream.
The Wilhelm Scream originated in a 1951 Warner Brothers western called The Distant Drums, recorded for a scene in the movie in which a character gets attacked by an alligator (the sample is aptly named “”man getting bit by an alligator, and he screamed”). The name, however, comes from the sound sample’s use in 1954 western The Charge at Feather River, when the character Private Wilhelm, well… screams after being shot by an arrow.
While studying film at USC, friends Ben Burtt, Richard Anderson, and Rick Mitchell noticed the pervasive stock sound in a number of favorite flicks, and would jokingly use it for school projects. A few years later, however, Burtt would take the joke to Hollywood when asked by George Lucas to direct sound for Star Wars: A New Hope, using the Wilhelm Scream when a stormtrooper is shot by Luke Skywalker and falls into oblivion in the Death Star. Anderson would follow suit, sneaking it into the truck chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
(2) After I ran a Star Wars themed parody of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in yesterday’s Scroll, Michael J. Walsh suggested people might be interested in a Western-themed instrumental cover of the Game of Thrones theme music. “There’s the awesome ability of a guitar with no speakers to be playing so many instruments,” says Mike. “Anyway, the idea of a spaghetti Westeros is amusing.”
(3) Ray Blank – “one of several identities deployed by a confused cosmopolitan” – tells Superversive SF readers that the Hugos want to be free! Or at least a lot cheaper. And not run by the Worldcon. And have Korean and Indian films as nominees.
Worldcon members can vote for the Hugos online. But why should the “premier awards in the science fiction field” still be associated with a physical meet-up? That approach was optimal in the 1950’s, and for a long while after. It is no longer a good way to serve your goal, if the goal is to promote an art form, and to engage with the greatest number of fans. The internet has changed what is possible. The internet connects us to millions, when we used to be satisfied with reaching thousands.
It appears that Worldcon2015 will have more non-attending members than attending members. The disproportionate growth in Worldcon supporting memberships demonstrates an inconvenient truth. The awards could be managed separately from the event. There are only two reasons to connect the two: marketing, and a subsidy for the physical convention. By connecting the two, the legitimacy of the award is undermined. This is supposedly an award given by all fans, wherever they are. So why confuse a voting electorate with a membership system that prefers some fans to others?
Associating an internet-based vote with a convention inevitably skews the vote towards the population who live near to the convention’s location. If the organizers of a ‘world’ event really wanted to maximize the diversity of participation in SF, they would separate the convention from the award, and lower the cost of voting.
You may not have been aware of Superversive SF’s commitment to diversity, a word Blank uses 10 times in his post. But yes, they support it just as strongly as Michael Z. Williamson.
(4) George R.R. Martin opposes the “nuclear option,” nevertheless will be voting No Award in several Hugo categories.
I favor reading the work, and voting for the stories, books, and writers you feel are worthy of a Hugo. Those you do NOT feel are worthy of the Hugo can and should be ranked below No Award or left off your ballot entirely.
This does not mean I am entirely opposed to voting No Award in all cases. Far from it. Having now finished most (not quite all) of my Hugo reading, I can say that I will probably be voting No Award myself in… hmmm… at least three categories, maybe four, maybe even five. These are categories where in my judgement none of the nominated work is worthy of a rocket.
But in those categories where I do find one or more nominees to be of sufficient quality, I will be voting for him or her or them, regardless of whether or not they were on a slate. And yes, this is true even if only one nominee is worthy. To throw out that one worthy nominee because they “had no real competition” (as some have suggested) seems wrong-headed to me. If it is worthy of a Hugo, give it a Hugo, that’s what I say.
Let me be specific here. Short Form Editor, Long Form Editor are all slate, but there are nominees in both who deserve a Hugo, and I’ll be voting for them. The Puppies liked a lot (though not all) of the nominees in the two Dramatic Presentation categories as well… but you know, so did I, so I’ll be voting for those as well. Sorry, but IMNSHO, only an idiot would want to “no award” GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY or INTERSTELLAR because the Puppies slated them. I am not going to tell you which movie or TV show or editor or novel I am voting for. I’ve mentioned some that I liked in older blog posts. Your mileage may vary; read, watch, consider, vote.
(5) I felt like I hadn’t seen Natalie Luhr’s name for a long time so I looked her up – darned if people aren’t still paying her money to tweet her way through Vox Day’s book.
https://twitter.com/eilatan/status/623277169234587649
(6) Will Baird on The Dragon’s Tales linked to an abstract that may show the origins of agriculture can be traced back to the Pleistocene – “The Origin of Cultivation and Proto-Weeds, Long Before Neolithic”. Farming. Yes, people have been raising weed(s) for a long time.
Authors: Snir et al
Abstract: Weeds are currently present in a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. Although the beginning of their evolution is largely unknown, researchers assumed that they developed in tandem with cultivation since the appearance of agricultural habitats some 12,000 years ago. These rapidly-evolving plants invaded the human disturbed areas and thrived in the new habitat. Here we present unprecedented new findings of the presence of “proto-weeds” and small-scale trial cultivation in Ohalo II, a 23,000-year-old hunter-gatherers’ sedentary camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. We examined the plant remains retrieved from the site (ca. 150,000 specimens), placing particular emphasis on the search for evidence of plant cultivation by Ohalo II people and the presence of weed species. The archaeobotanically-rich plant assemblage demonstrates extensive human gathering of over 140 plant species and food preparation by grinding wild wheat and barley. Among these, we identified 13 well-known current weeds mixed with numerous seeds of wild emmer, barley, and oat. This collection provides the earliest evidence of a human-disturbed environment—at least 11 millennia before the onset of agriculture—that provided the conditions for the development of “proto-weeds”, a prerequisite for weed evolution. Finally, we suggest that their presence indicates the earliest, small-scale attempt to cultivate wild cereals seen in the archaeological record.
[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh, John King Tarpinian, James Davis Nicoll, and Will Baird for these stories, or at least for leaving them in plain sight.]
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I’ll be voting Helsinki, but it is kind of close to me.
Ray Blank writes “It appears that Worldcon2015 will have more non-attending members than attending members. The disproportionate growth in Worldcon supporting memberships demonstrates an inconvenient truth.”
So he is working off just one year’s data there. Last year at one of the biggest ever Worldcons there were far more attending than supporting members.
Maybe if there was a five year trend of massively increasing supporting membership who join just to vote in the Hugos there may be the beginnings of a point. However in his post he constantly misrepresents what a supporting membership is. A vote in the Hugos is one benefit of becoming a supporting member. The $40 isn’t a charge for voting.
He also seems to have forgotten, or maybe didn’t read, the posts about the Locus Award that were here. Anyone can vote in those. However voting numbers aren’t that strong and typically weaker than the Hugos these days.
Admittedly the Gemmell Awards do seem to get a large number of voters. However I am not so sure about their results but then most heroic fantasy isn’t entirely to my taste so maybe I’m not the best judge.
I’m not voting for site selection this year; there’s zero chance of me making a non-local Worldcon and I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to tell others where they can or cannot go for a Worldcon. If I’d researched the bids, I might feel differently — there might be an utterly awesome bid out there, or a truly terrible one — but since I have not, I’m not going to add an uninformed vote to the stack.
Johnson is a hardline puppy and has on occasion spoken out against the “other side”, hardly a vote “for someone who spoke up AGAINST Hate and for healing”. It seems Brian Z is being a bit disingenuous here <_<
Over on that Subversive SF link, someone is claiming that Blank has “made a bid” to host a Worldcon. Does blue-skying a hypothetical location where no local fanbase has publicly expressed a desire to host Worldcon count as “making a bid”?
@Cally: Hey, Roy’s an Ideas Man.
@JJ: The Mundane SF Wikipedia article you link says the movement’s anathemas include parallel worlds, so I’m not sure Doctor Science’s friend’s story fits the rubric?
Cally: Over on that Subversive SF link, someone is claiming that Blank has “made a bid” to host a Worldcon. Does blue-skying a hypothetical location where no local fanbase has publicly expressed a desire to host Worldcon count as “making a bid”?
Yeah, I can’t wait to see the paperwork on that bid. Given that he’s clearly done zero research into what’s involved, it will be incredibly amusing to see the “specifics” of the bid.
Jim Henley: The Mundane SF Wikipedia article you link says the movement’s anathemas include parallel worlds, so I’m not sure Doctor Science’s friend’s story fits the rubric?
You’re right. Mundane SF applies to contemporary Earth tales. I think “Ruritanian” is more aligned with the story as described.
I really wish they had chosen another name for it. It’s clearly a genre classification which is needed — but what a poorly-fit-for-purpose name they chose.
@ Hypnotosov – The attempted shit-stirring’s a bit too obvious today, I think. Not up the the finest traditions of the genre.
In more interesting news, I just finished Archivist Wasp Which was flawed but very readable. Most interesting for me in that it was YA with a female lead going on a journey with a heroic male character and there was not even a breath of romance between them. I appreciate that when I see it these days, given the opposite is so often the default.
Did just enough world building for me to yell “Tell me more!” which is always nice, I just groaned my way through the male character’s backstory because I’ve been there too many times and no longer care.
If anyone is interested in the state of the fantasy bracket but hasn’t been following along on other threads, here’s what things are currently looking like:
– A list of about 70 names/titles has been generated.
– I don’t currently feel like getting massively drunk and cutting it down to 32 the way I did with the sci-fi titles.
– By happy chance, though, the names/titles fall roughly evenly into four chronological categories (up-through-the-50’s, the 60’s-70’s, the 80’s, and the 90’s. As with the sci-fi bracket, titles published after 1999 were not considered.)
– So it may start with a series of four “regional” brackets, in which 16 titles from each of those eras are pitted against each other. 8 names would emerge from each, and those would then be combined into the first “all fantasy” bracket.
*vanishes down the Ruritania rabbit-hole for awhile*
@JJ:
How about “hard science fiction?” I’m perfectly happy reading interstellar-travel SF and abundant alien interactions SF out of the “hard SF” category on grounds of scientific impossibility.
But I am wicked like that.
That Wilhelm Scream supercut is weirdly hypnotic.
A ridiculous bunch of obvious nonsense. But here you can clearly see the ongoing effort of the sad-n-rabid crowd to construct an effective self-justification narrative. On the one hand, you have one of them appearing to be blithely unaware of the way their actions are the direct cause of that “disproportionate growth.” And on the other hand, you have yet another iteration of “hey, the Hugos were broken when we got here! We had to do something!”
Perhaps it’s even a step forward that they have stopped trying to claim that the Hugos were being “ruined” by an undetectible secret cabal within the Worldcon members, and instead have moved on to claiming that the Hugos were being ruined by a very public cabal consisting of “Worldcon members.”
Also, “Superversive” is a terrible name. At first glance, it simply looks like you meant to write “supervisor” or “subversive” and had a massive autocorrect failure. On my first effort to sound it out, I ended up with “super-visive,” implying something that is super-divisive. Then I realized I had misread it a bit and tried again. “Super-versive.” As in, the opposite of sub-versive? As in, instead of challenging tradition from the bottom up, you’re going to challenge tradition from the top down? Meaning what? You’re going to tell people what they ought to like?
Huh. Maybe it’s the perfect name after all.
{blink} Oh, you’re right. It is “superversive”, not “subversive”. And I think you’re probably right about that top-down part, too. Blank telling Dubai they should host a Worldcon without, you know, actually ASKING any Dubai fans if they want to fits right in….
The other weird thing about Blank’s “argument” is that if* the phenomenon is genuine – Supporting memberships eligible to vote for the Hugos outstripping attending memberships – then the award is already evolving toward what Blank wants it to be. So what’s the problem needing to be solved?
* I realize the truth of this “trend” is in dispute. But Blank believes it.
Superversive SF is a “movement” spearheaded by JCW’s wife (who is apparently exempt from his barefoot-and-pregnant-in-the-kitchen-and-being-seen-but-not-heard edict for women).
Apparently “Super-versive” the term was coined by Lamplighter, who is, on the evidence of her contributions to the Amber DRPG mailing list that I’ve seen, rather dim. The idea appears to be to rescue SF from the abyss of relativism and nihilism and all those social-conservative buzzwords by an infusion of higher morality and the finer things. So.
Cassy B. on July 26, 2015 at 6:57 am said:
Voting in Site Selection, if you intend to continue to buy a Supporting Membership each year, is the least expensive way to get a Supporting Membership to the 2017 WorldCon. I paid $40 for my supporting membership to MidAmeriCon II and now they’re $50. (I then upgraded to Attending at the cheapest price for that.)
It’s possible to vote in Site Selection for “No Preference” and get all the financial advantages. Of course if you don’t want a supporting membership in the 2017 WorldCon, then this isn’t an inducement.
If it will help any, IMO the two most viable bids are Helsinki and DC. Kevin can come along and tell you how viable the Montreal bid is, but it does not appear to me to be as organized and prominent as Helsinki and DC. That might reduce your research some.
I’m supporting Helsinki because I think it’s a way better site than DC and I think North America has had WorldCon far too disproportionally.
.
Cally on July 26, 2015 at 7:16 am said:
Then that’s false. He didn’t file any paperwork with Sasquan for 2017, and no one can “make a bid” for 2018 or beyond yet.
That’s what I thought. I’m not going to make a WordPress account just to call them out, though.
Not another Game of Thrones cover, but, definitionally SFF because, you know, theramin…
Gnarls Barkley Crazy Theremin Jam: http://youtu.be/mW0B1sipLBI
@JJ
Oh, yes, well, they always are, aren’t they?
I remember noticing that phenomenon when I was a kid and following Phyllis Schlafly’s efforts to defeat the ERA — you know, traveling the country as an activist telling all the other women that they should stay home and shut up.
The important thing for anti-feminists seems to be not that women actually do any of the things they claim they think women ought to be doing, but rather, that women affirm that yes, those are the things that women ought to be doing. You know, it’s all right if you, a woman, work outside the home, as long as you express strongly enough that you don’t really think women ought to work outside the home. It’s just that in your particular case it’s totally necessary because reasons.
@Jim Henley
So, the implication that it’s about telling people what they should like is completely accurate.
Yeah, that’s a movement waiting to happen.
You guise. You guise! Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attraction” is real now!
Ultragotha: re: voting for site selection as a cheap way to get a supporting membership….
I’ve been buying supporting memberships since 2012 when I first found out about the Hugo Packet. I’m unclear as to how voting for site selection translates to supporting memberships (and possible Hugo packets <grin>). Would you be willing to explain the process? Assume that I’d be buying supporting memberships every year into the indefinite future….
Thanks! I feel a bit dim today….
From this site:
To vote in the 2017 Site Selection, you must: 1) be a member of Sasquan (Supporting, Young Adult, Military, or Full Attending), and 2) pay the Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) fee, which provides the individual with a Supporting membership in the winning 2017 bid.
The bids collectively have negotiated an Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) fee of $40 U.S.
Brian Z:
“This goes a long way towards explaining why I changed my mind and voted for Jeffro.”
The guy that came here some months ago? The one that a few people were rude to but most were polite and several praised his writing and discussed it with him? The guy who then invited them to discuss it further at his page in Castalia House? The guy who said he TOTALLY UNDERSTOOD when people here explained to him that they didn’t want to give clicks to profit TB, and didn’t want to post at a site that belongs to a man with a history of doxxing, and said he didn’t hold it against them? The guy who then went to his blog, quoted those people’s refusals while editing out the REASONS they had for refusing to click on Castalia House, and said this was proof that people here are a mindless cult acting on irrational prejudice? THAT guy? You think THAT guy is “someone who spoke up AGAINST Hate and for healing”?
Dude, seriously?
@JJ:
Is it named as a deliberate contrast to “Magical Realism”? If it was I can imagine that it sounds better in Portuguese/Spanish and that the problem is an unhappy translation choice.
NB This is an unsubstantiated hypothesis, not even a theory.
@ ULTRAGOTHA The Helsinki bidders seem a lot more enthusiastic than the other bids based on their websites, twitter and Facebook. And I could get there by train!
He could have a write-in campaign going with paperwork ready to file at Sasquan (I happen to have site selection papers on the desk beside me.) by 6pm PDT 21st August.
Has a write-in bid ever made it? Or, indeed, ever been made?
My, the lure of editing minor typos. ETA and another. Do subscribed to comments by email get all of these corrections?
Jamoche on July 26, 2015 at 12:49 am said:
As it happens, since Worldcons (as of this year) were no longer obliged to provide paper publications as part of a Supporting membership, assuming most members don’t take paper pubs, the memberships have once again become something that helps support the Worldcon. Prior to that, the variable cost of providing the memberships, especially for members outside the USA, could sometimes exceed the revenue from the membership itself.
Well, we do have a Hugo Awards Marketing Committee; it’s what runs the Hugo Awards web site. There was a general idea that making the Hugo Awards more prominent would encourage people to join every year, and to actually attend Worldcon when it was within range.
Cassy B. on July 26, 2015 at 6:57 am said:
What UG said. If you want to stay in the game every year, vote in Site Selection every year. You always guarantee yourself the lowest membership price and you’re effectively paying your WSFS membership dues two years in advance.
To vote for Site Selection, you have to pay a fee called the “Advance Supporting Membership.” Everyone who votes in Site Selection automatically becomes a Supporting Member of that Worldcon. It’s irrelevant how you voted because votes and voter data are separated. Just voting makes you a member. It also saves you money because you’re paying the minimum possible amount for your Supporting Membership. Worldcons can and do sometimes charge more for Supporting Memberships after the election than what the voters pay.
(Example, if the ASM is $40 like it is this year, the winning 2017 Worldcon can turn around after they win and announce that new Supporting Memberships are $50, although anyone who voted automatically gets a membership. There is a price cap on how much they can charge for Supporting Memberships without permission from an intervening WSFS Business Meeting.)
If you want to join the 2017 Worldcon as a Supporting Member at the lowest possible price and do not care where it is because you can’t possibly attend it no matter who wins, vote in the 2017 election and mark your first choice as No Preference.
Spacefaring Kitten on July 26, 2015 at 4:43 am said:
I’m a member of the Montreal bid, and I hope lots of people vote for it. But something very important if you’re voting on Site Selection: Vote your subsequent preferences. No matter who you pick as your first choice, don’t just put an X by it. (Unless you marked No Preference first, in which case none of your other choices would count anyway.) Look at the ballot and say, “If the site I marked first doesn’t win, for whom would I vote?” and put a 2 by their name, and so on with the other choices.
In a four-way site-selection vote, it’s almost certain that nobody will have a first-ballot majority. (Spokane did not have a majority after the first round of the 2015 election; Helskini actually was leading at the end of the first round of that three-way race.) The second and possibly third preferences you mark on your ballots could be what decide the race if your first preference doesn’t make the cut. Two years ago, Spokane won because most of the Orlando voters’ second preferences were for Spokane, so when the Orlando bid was eliminated, having placed last, Spokane picked up enough votes to surge ahead of Helsinki. Had all of the Orlando voters just marked an X and nothing else, all of their votes would have dropped and Helsinki would have won instead.
What is wrong with my being impressed with Jeffro Johnson?
My only objection to the others is that they are pros, not fan writers.
By the way I commend zero of my critics here for going over to livejournal to trash GRRM as a puppy collaborator for speaking against EPH.
Spacefaring Kitten on July 26, 2015 at 4:43 am said:
That’s why I’m a Supporting Member of Sasquan. I have my rail and bicycle route to Helsinki planned already.
I ranked Montreal first, since that’s the one I’m most likely to be able to go to AND a friend is in charge of the bid. I ranked Helsinki second, I think. My husband (who is not voting) said it would be great to see a Helsinki Worldcon, and I agree. I doubt I could go to Helsinki, but it would be nice to try.
In any case, it really looks like I’m in it for the long haul, since I got my supporting membership to MidAmericon II and to whichever bid wins 2017. I just wish I’d gotten into it a year or two ago, because then Sasquan would have been something I could actually attend instead of just support. Three-hour drive to Spokane, and I can’t get the time off or afford the hotel. It’s killing me…
And while we’re showcasing the astounding music by Jason Yang, here’s “The Dark Game of Hobbit Knight Thrones”!
Nothing. YMMV. What I read of him seemed OK, at best, and oddly retrograde. You’d have to be a bloody stunning writer for me to back someone preaching the idea that there’s been no good SF written since 1980, and he’s not that good. IMHO.
Oh, where are you starting from? I’ve been looking at the DB specials from St Pancras to Hamburg, but I’m on the Kings Cross Line to start with.
I have fond memories of touring Germany with a DB pass and young children. Can’t find a hotel for the night? Get on an overnight train. It helped that I’m short enough to fit in an overnight compartment easily.
Huh? Pros can be fans, too. Fandom is not an apprenticeship; one doesn’t stop being a fan when one becomes a pro. Indeed, some pros are known to have become fans (in the fannish sense) AFTER becoming pros; Scalzi never attended a convention before signing a professional publishing contract.
Pros can do fan writing, as well as professional writing. Quite a few professional SF/F writers have won Best Fan Writer for their fannish writing. How hard is that to understand? Best Fan Writer is awarded for non-professionally published writing about science fiction, fantasy, and fandom.
The very first Best Fan Writer winner was Alexei Panshin, who was already a published professional writer. He won a Hugo for best novel the next year.
The same person can win a Hugo for best editor and best novel; being an editor doesn’t prevent someone from also being a novelist. And being a novelist or a short story writer doesn’t prevent someone from also being a fanwriter. They’re all different kettles of greeps.
tldr: There is nothing in rules or custom preventing a professionally published author from winning Best Fan Writer.
Doire on July 26, 2015 at 10:25 am said:
The north of England. I’d quite like to get a bit of riding in north Germany/Denmark.
“What is wrong with my being impressed with Jeffro Johnson?”
Well, when you praised yourself for voting for Jeffro Johnson and used a paragraph from GRRM saying how “it behooves us more than ever to honor someone who spoke up AGAINST Hate and for healing, not by spewing vitriol in retaliation, but calmly, dispassionately, with clean hands and composure and… most of all… compassion…” I pointed out that Jeffro Johnson quoting us incompletely so as to call people here mindless cultists acting on irrational prejudice did NOT seem to fit your criteria of “someone who spoke up AGAINST Hate and for healing.” In fact, it made him appear closer to the opposite.
Instead of addressing the contradiction that I’d pointed out in your post, Brian, you ignored it to bewail “What is wrong with my being impressed with Jeffro Johnson?” when I think I pretty clearly explained WHY I was not impressed with Johnson as an exemplar of someone deserving honor for speaking out “AGAINST Hate and for healing.”
I follow the threads here, and sometimes I think they’re a little harsh on you, but I can see how your pose of “Injured Innocence Unfairly Maligned” can get old real fast.
Or, if it’s actual innocence, please explain to me why you think Jeffro Johnson is a shining exemplar of people who speak out AGAINST Hate and for healing, in the light of this: https://jeffro.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/file770-unlimbers-the-artillery/
You said you had reasons, and I wondered what they were, that’s all.
I would love to visit Helsinki, but I need an excuse for some weird psychological reason, so I’m rooting for Worldcon. But ironically my mother turns 65 that year and I promised to take her to France, so my previously fairly lethargic passport may get quite a workout in 2017.
Does anybody know if there’s any good birding in Helsinki? I got some good stuff just in parks in Berlin, but couldn’t get out with a guide (and damnit, they had some great stuff in the marshes there. *sob*)
@Cally
I’ve actually been assuming Jeffro is being paid for his CH gig, but that’s mainly because I can’t imagine why he’d put such effort into a site away from his natural audience for free. As you say, it’s irrelevant either way. The work of the MGC nominees is fan-writer Hugo eligible (although not fan-writer Hugo worthy) and they are professional authors.
Where does one sign up to vote for the 2017 Worldcon? One site’s in my neighbourhood and 2 others sound like fun.
Jeffro’s writing is closest to what I consider fan writing but I don’t consider it Hugo worthy this year. I hope he keeps up the effort and ranges farther afield and continues to highlight the works he enjoys.
Doctor Science, regarding Ruritanian fiction…if Ursula K Le Guin couldn’t make that particular genre take off with Malafrena, it looks like a particularly difficult field…
@Msb: go to the Sasquan Site Selection site for instructions. I found it very easy to go through the process.
“To vote in the 2017 Site Selection, you must: 1) be a member of Sasquan (Supporting, Young Adult, Military, or Full Attending), and 2) pay the Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) fee, which provides the individual with a Supporting membership in the winning 2017 bid.
The bids collectively have negotiated an Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) fee of $40 U.S.”
RedWombat on July 26, 2015 at 11:10 am said:
Does anybody know if there’s any good birding in Helsinki? I got some good stuff just in parks in Berlin, but couldn’t get out with a guide (and damnit, they had some great stuff in the marshes there. *sob*)
Not my area of expertise, really, but the national parks of Nuuksio and Sipoonkorpi which are both located in the metropole area might be of interest to you:
Nuuksio National Park
Sipoonkorpi National Park
OK, that makes sense – “if you like the books that won awards, come hang out with other people who like them.” I’m used to corporate marketing, of which Blank seems a prime example – “if we hit all the right buzzwords, regardless of whether there’s any substance behind them, they’ll buy our product.”
Which is why I expect any Qatar bid from him to be the standard corporate-focused “look at our lovely convention center!” followed by compete bafflement when nobody bites.
Picking Jeffro when Mixon is available is pretty odd, but people can have differing tastes. Associating Jeffro with people who “speak out against hate and for healing” however, seems pretty bizarre. He doesn’t seem like the type.
Thanks, Tegan!
I’ve actually been assuming Jeffro is being paid for his CH gig, but that’s mainly because I can’t imagine why he’d put such effort into a site away from his natural audience for free.
I figured he was being paid since the reason he said he would not consider posting his material on a site other than Castalia House because he feared it would hurt his “market value”.
I’m definitely interested! I’ll have to go back and look through the past threads at the books, and I think narrowing by time period will work well.
Side note: Mentioned wanting Seveneves to my brother yesterday, who then bought the e-book and has been reading it ever since. Including keeping his tablet open as he pushed the cart through the supermarket during our weekly food shopping!