Pixel Scroll 10/3/23 Midnight At The Oasis

(1) My mother’s mental state was actually back to about normal today. And putting together even this short Scroll will do wonders for mine.

(2) AFROPANTHEOLOGY. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki & Joshua Uchenna Omenga provide an “Introduction to Afropantheology” at Public Books.

African cosmologies recognize two spheres of existence—the physical and the spiritual—between which there is an inseparable link, as well as constant interactions. Each sphere of existence is connected to the other: the living to the dead, the born to the unborn, humans to the deities. “A community develops its mode of relating to its ancestors and the gods, harmonizing the interconnectedness of everything,” according to Dr. K. C. Nweke. “Each community has its spiritual exclusiveness through its relatedness to the ancestors in the underworld who oversee the ephemeral world.”1

Today, many works of African fiction reflecting African cosmology are themselves fictional reflections of these African realities of life. Yet this can make it easy to mislabel such literary fiction as mere fantasy.

The genre of fantasy (part of the broader category of speculative fiction) can simply mean imaginative fictions involving outlandish characters, magical elements, and often set in created worlds. It is often a genre of escapist literature, in which readers must suspend their belief to enjoy. As such, “fantasy” can be an ill-fitting term, when describing many literary works of similar rendering from the African continent. In response, a new term was conceived to capture this gamut of African literary works, which, though having fantasy elements, are additionally imbued with the African spiritual realities: Afropantheology….

(3) ALEX SCHOMBURG ART AUCTION ON OCTOBER 6. Susan Schomburg sends word that artwork by her grandpa, Alex Schomburg, will be auctioning through Heritage this Friday, October 6. Here is a search link to his lots: Search: Alex Schomburg.

And here is a link to his original art for “World at Bay”.

 (4) MY INDIANA BAT HOME. “Your FIRST LOOK at America’s Only Permanent BATMAN ’66 MUSEUM” at 13th Dimension. (The museum’s own website is here: Fiberglass Freaks Batman Museum.)

October will be a helluva month for Batman ’66 fans: It will feature the opening of the only permanent museum dedicated to the 1966 Batman TV show.

The Batman Museum in Logansport, Indiana — which is reminiscent of the popular Hollywood Museum exhibit from several years ago — will be operated by Fiberglass Freaks, Mark Racop’s company that builds the only officially licensed full-scale Batmobile replicas.

But the museum will be more than just about the greatest version of Batman’s ride — it will feature displays of costumes, real and replica; set reconstructions; memorabilia; a theater; props; other vehicles; a gift shop; and more.

… Fiberglass Freaks’ Batman Museum is located at 525 East Market Street, Logansport, Indiana, 46947;

Hours will be 1 p.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 1 p.m. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday.

(5) ADS SUBTRACT. Cory Doctorow takes readers through “Google’s enshittification memos” at Pluralistic.

…When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users’ backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the “don’t be evil” gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that “don’t be evil” motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn’t want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too…

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, “Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we’re gonna stay the fuck away from them”:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it’s turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company’s big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies,,,

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the “curse of bigness.” The company can’t grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies…

(6) CAN*CON COULD BE FOR YOU. Derek Künsken recommends:

If you are a writer in some far off place without access to other writers, editors, agents (like my early career), I really recommend you check out the virtual program of

@CanConSF

that will run 14 and 15 October. It’s got a lot for aspiring and leveling-up writers!

CanCon registration is at their website here.

(7) WORD POWER. Steve Erikson did a five part essay on “The Language of Magic and the Magic of Language” on Facebook.

…Oxford Dictionary:

mag·ic

/ˈmajik/

noun

1. the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.

“suddenly, as if by magic, the doors start to open”

Okay, let’s look at this definition. There are three key words here: ‘influencing,’ ‘mysterious’ and ‘supernatural.’ Now, I’m not going to back up still further to define ‘mysterious’ or ‘supernatural,’ and if ‘influencing’ is in any way baffling, I can’t help you.

Anthropology examines ‘magic’ in cultures with an emphasis on the ‘influencing’ aspects, specifically in terms of the material component. Why? Because that is the only component of ‘magic’ that can be explored in a pseudo-scientific sense. The rest is metaphysical. Ethnology can add a narrative element, of course, when, for example, shamans explain stuff to the ethnologist, who in turn records the details. Those explanations may be accurate or entirely made up. They can be well-established (tradition) or invented on the fly. Even shamans can have a sense of humour.

All human cultures possess some ideation of magic, of the miraculous and the unseen. I can’t think of a single one that doesn’t. Large elements of even the Western world hold to these notions in some iteration, whether blanketed under ‘religion,’ ‘faith’ or ‘spiritualism.’ Atheism rejects the whole shebang in favour of a strictly mechanistic universe, but atheism is a minority position dwelling within a larger, global culture of belief.

No, really, it is. …

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 3, 1874 Charles Middleton. He is no doubt best remembered for his role as the Emperor Ming the Merciless in the three Flash Gordon serials made between 1936 and 1940 which is only genre production he appeared in save three chapters of a Forties Batman serial in which he played Ken Colton. (Died 1949.)
  • Born October 3, 1931 Ray Nelson. SF writer best known for his short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” which was the basis of John Carpenter’s They Live.  He later collaborated with Philip K. Dick on The Ganymede Takeover. In the 1940s Nelson appropriated the propeller beanie as a symbol of science fiction fandom. His fannish cartoons were recognized with the Rotsler Award in 2003. He was inducted to the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 2019. (Died 2022.)
  • Born October 3, 1933 Norman Adams. The SF Encyclopaedia says genre wise that “Adams may be best known for his cover for the first edition of Larry’s Niven’s World of Ptavvs” on Ballantine Books in 1966.  I must say having looked at his ISFDB listings that their assessment is absolutely right. (Died 2014.)
  • Born October 3, 1935 Madlyn Rhue. She on Trek’s “Space Seed” as Lt. Marla McGivers, Khan Noonien Singh’s (Ricardo Montalbán) love interest. Other genre appearances included being on the original Fantasy Island as Lillie Langtry in “Legends,” and Maria in the “Firefall” episode of Kolchak: The Night. (Died 2003.)
  • Born October 3, 1944 Katharine Kerr, 79. Ok I’m going to confess that I’ve not read her Deverry series so please tell me how they are. Usually I do read such Celtic tinged series so I don’t know how I missed them. Her Polar City SF mystery novels (second written with Kate Daniel) sound fascinating. Only the first, Polar City Blues, is available from the usual suspects.
  • Born October 3, 1964 Clive Owen, 59. First role I saw him in was the title role of Stephen Crane in the Chancer series. Not genre, but fascinating none the less. He’s been King Arthur in film of the same name where Keira Knightley was Guinevere. He’s also was in Sin City as Dwight McCarthy, and in The Pink Panther (though weirdly uncredited) as Nigel Boswell/Agent 006. I’ll also single him out for being Commander Arun Filitt in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
  • Born October 3, 1973 Lena Headey, 50. Many of you will know her as Cersei Lannister on Game of Thrones, but I liked her sociopathic Madeline “Ma-Ma” Madrigal on Dredd better.  She was also Angelika in The Brothers Grimm, a film I’m sure I’ve seen but remember nothing about. 
  • Born October 3, 1988 Alicia Vikander, 35. She was Ava, an artificial intelligence, in Ex Machina, spooky film it was. Several years later, she starred as Lara Croft in the rebooted Tomb Raider. In The Man from U.N.C.L.E., she plays Gaby Teller. Finally she’s The Lady / Esel in The Green Knight, a retelling of the story of Sir Gawain.  

(9) DUBAI YANKS THE WELCOME MAT OUT FROM UNDER. The International Association of Library Associations and Institutions announced today that “Invitation to host IFLA WLIC 2024 in Dubai withdrawn”. Bruce Arthurs says, “This reminded me of some of the travails past & ongoing about SF/F cons being held in morally objectionable countries. The big difference here is that it was the host city itself that yanked the rug out, rather than the conference committee.”

IFLA has been informed of the decision to withdraw the invitation to hold the 2024 World Library and Information Congress in Dubai.

The decision was communicated to us by the Emirates Library and Information Association who led the bid to support the development of the field and wider region.

The Association has underlined its ongoing commitment to IFLA, and keenness to find other ways to bring librarians from the country and region closer to the global library field. IFLA is grateful to the Association for the work that it has done, and firmly believes that this provides a strong basis for building engagement in other ways going forwards.

Acknowledging the reservations expressed about holding the Congress in Dubai, we recognise the disappointment that many in the region and beyond will feel. IFLA remains committed to finding ways to engage with and support the librarians in MENA and the surrounding regions who were looking forward to experiencing the vibrancy of a World Library and Information Congress. Continuing our work in this area is vital if we are to be not just an international, but a truly global Federation.

As Dubai was the only viable bid, there will now not be a World Library and Information Conference in 2024.

(10) CHENGDU WORLDCON UPDATE. [By Ersatz Culture.]

  • Worldcon COVID preparations

The Health Bureau of the Pidu District of Chengdu carried out a number of checks and inspections in August and September, and these will continue in the run up to the con.

Photo of a meeting held September 25th, the first four characters on the LED display read “Science Fiction Conference”.  Source: https://weibo.com/3339983832/Nl50S16Up

Photo of what I assume is a ventilation check at the con venue.  Source: here (presumably taken from elsewhere, but I’ve not been able to track it down.)

On September 26th, local media in Sichuan province published an interview (in Chinese) with Ben Yalow.  Here is an extract via Google Translate:

Reporter: What do you think of Chengdu’s bid and preparation process?

Ben Yalow: I first heard about the Chengdu bid when I met a group of Chinese fans at the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin 2019. It’s always fun to meet a new fan base. This group of people in the Chengdu circle have worked hard to present a successful World Science Fiction Convention, and now things are going smoothly.

  • Zhejiang University SF club weekly newsletter

Both of the above stories came from the Zhejiang University SF club newsletter, edited by File 770 commenter Zimozi Natsuco.  Besides items about the Chengdu Worldcon, there are lots of items about other SF activities in China and other parts of the world, and is well worth checking out (via Google Translate or similar tools) if that interests you.  NB: the current issue namechecks the Chengdu coverage that has been published here on File 770, so this is perhaps a biased opinion…

The current issue can be found here, and a list of earlier issues here

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, John King Tarpinian, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Rob Thornton, Susan Schomburg, Bruce D. Arthurs, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day OGH.]

Pixel Scroll 8/20/17 A Pithy Pixel Portion Produced Promptly

(1) IT’S ALWAYS NEWS TO SOMEONE. Some Filers have already traveled hundreds of miles to get in position to see the eclipse tomorrow, however, there might be somebody who’s just heard it’s about to happen. These NASA resources will help the latecomers prepare:

  • NASA Eclipse Facts
  • NASA Eclipse Path (this is an interactive national map showing eclipse times at each location)
  • NASA Eclipse State Maps: Eclipse State Maps (includes viewable and printable maps showing the eclipse pathway and times)

(2) ART OF DARKNESS. In advance of the eclipse, Steve Duin of The Oregonian finds a thematically appropriate piece of unpublished sf art — “Alex Schomburg and ‘The Day the Sun Died'”.

The family discovered “The Day the Sun Died” several years ago, matted and tucked inside a 9×11 manila envelope. The artwork, in gouache, was apparently meant to illustrate a novel by Daniel F. Galouye, but the editors of Imagination Science Fiction selected a different cover.

 

(3) HAMIT WINS. Francis Hamit’s screenplay for Christopher Marlowe won the award for Best Screenplay at the New Renaissance Film Festival in London today. Shown here is one of the film’s Executive Producers, Stuart Malcolm Honey, who accepted the award on Hamit’s behalf.

Stuart Malcolm Honey

(4) THIRD ROCK. At NPR, Amal El-Mohtar reviews N.K. Jemisin: “In ‘The Stone Sky,’ Some Worlds Need To Burn”.

But the fact that The Stone Sky sticks the landing of this astonishing trilogy with timeliness and rigor is the smallest, simplest thing I have to say about it. The gratitude and love I feel for these books, and for what The Stone Sky adds to the triptych, is staggering….

(5) MEMORY. Decades-old memories can be a hazard. In 2015 Douglas Knipe posted a great gallery of photos from Noreascon 2 (1980) with almost 50 authors, plus shots of the Hugo ceremony. But not unlike this week’s unveiling of the digital photos from the Jay Kay Klein collection, it has a tremendous number of mistaken identifications, leading to a considerable amount of unintentional humor. For example, a photo of Craig Miller accepting the Hugo for Alien is misidentified as George R.R. Martin with his novelette Hugo, while a few pictures later the unrecognized (“?”) person receiving a Hugo from Harlan Ellison is the real George R.R. Martin.

(6) HEAD OF THE GLASS. At Nerds of a Feather, Charles Payseur has come up with an entertaining motif for their short fiction reviews: “The Monthly Round – A Taster’s Guide to Speculative Short Fiction, 07/2017”. The reviews include the kind of remarks a connoisseur would make about a “tasting flight” of assorted beers.

“Waiting on a Bright Moon” by JY Yang (Tor dot com)

Notes: Conflict mingles in the form of a carbonated fizz, giving this drink a shine that cannot hide a complex and mature flavor, and packs a surprising punch.

Pairs with: Belgian Ale

Review: Tian’s life is defined by duty and distance, and as an ansible singer she is part of a power that allows her empire access to the far reaches of the galaxy. As the story opens, though, bubbling tensions are beginning to boil and the relative safety of being an ansible is shattered as corruption, magic, and murder all meet to devastating effect. The story looks very closely at the ways that Tian has been pushed into living as a literal resource for the Empire, used for her talent but denied the open expression of her identity, stripped of her chance to be someone important because of who she loves. And even then, the story shows that as the Empire allows her a sort of space to be herself, it’s defined by distance, by denial. She isn’t allowed to be with the person she loves, isn’t allowed a physical expression of her desire, is instead pushed into being ignorant and, save for the beauty of the song she shares over lightyears, alone. Until a different woman enters her life with magic of her own and the power to break through the walls keeping Tian isolated and repressed. It’s an opening up even as it comes at a time of growing fear, uncertainty, and danger. They both end up becoming a part of a resistance that pushes them to the breaking point and maybe beyond, each of them willing to risk everything once they realize that they never really had anything, just the lies and illusions of securing and contentment they were fed by the powers that be. The story is violent and fast while still maintaining a definite weight around the very small and intimate actions Tian makes. And even amid the galaxy-altering conflict the story doesn’t lose sight of Tian and her desires, holding to the hope that they won’t be consumed by the ravenous jaws of war.

(7) SPINNING. Bleeding Cool succeeded in getting an interview with Alisa Norris: “We Talk To The Supergirl Cosplayer ‘Along For The Ride’ At The White Nationalist Rally In Charlottesville”. It’s not a very sophisticated exchange:

…Alisa was clearly getting more annoyed and certain tropes seemed to start emerging. She told me:

“There were a couple of KKK members out of thousands. The lying press is labeling every person there a ‘Nazi’.”

I stated that the swastika flags didn’t help. She told me:

“Most flags were American or confederate or white nationalist flags… Of course they only show the swastika… Nazi Germany is dead and doesn’t even have anything to do with what happening today. It was stupid of those protestors to fly swastikas.”

(8) ROCKET MAN. Aaron Pound gives his thoughts about the effectiveness of the rules changes in “2017 Hugo Award Longlist” at Dreaming About Other Worlds.

This was the first year in which the E Pluribus Hugo voting system for nominations was implemented, and it seems to have worked as well as one could possibly hope to expect. The change in the voting rules, coupled with their waning ability to whip their adherents into a frenzy after being shellacked in the voting in 2015 and 2016, resulted in the Sad Puppies kind of slinking away after not even putting a token effort into putting together a voting slate. The Rabid Puppies continued their Quixotic quest, but changed tactics, putting forward only one or two candidates in each category in order to try to get someone on the ballot via “bullet voting”, and that seems to have had mixed results. They managed to get eleven finalists on the ballot, while five more appear on the longlist. They could have had five more finalists, but Rabid Puppy leader Theodore Beale is apparently really terrible at understanding the eligibility rules, so those five potential finalists were all disqualified as ineligible. The Rabid Puppies were able to get no more than one finalist per category.

(9) LEWIS OBIT. Comedian Jerry Lewis died today; the Daily Mail collected the celebrity tributes from Twitter: “‘The world is a lot less funnier today’: Jim Carrey, William Shatner and George Takei lead stars in paying tribute to comedy icon Jerry Lewis after his passing at age 91”.

William Shatner and George Takei were among the numerous celebrities to pay tribute to comedy legend Jerry Lewis, who died Sunday at the age of 91.

‘Condolences to the family of Jerry Lewis. The world is a lot less funnier today,’ Shatner, 86, tweeted on Sunday morning.

‘We have lost a great comedian and even greater heart,’ Takei, 80, tweeted. ‘Thank you for the laughs and the feels, Jerry Lewis.’

Lewis even did a genre movie – Visit To A Small Planet (1960). His legacy also includes more than $2.5 billion raised for the Muscular Dystrophy Association through the annual Labor Day telethon. I remember being at a Worldcon (Chicon 2000?) where, in one of the rooms not taken by the con, MDA was hosting a viewing and fundraiser.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • August 20, 1973 — Twentieth Century Fox Studio executive Alan Ladd Jr. blessed George Lucas with a small contract to first develop a shooting script and then direct Star Wars for the silver screen.
  • August 20, 1995Amanda & The Alien, based on a story by Robert Silverberg, aired on TV.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born August 20, 1890 – H. P. Lovecraft
  • Born August 20, 1943 — Sylvester McCoy, the 7th Doctor. (He also played the wizard Radagast the Brown in Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of The Hobbit.

(12) COMIC SECTION. John King Tarpinian got a laugh from Off the Mark.

(13) SJW CREDENTIAL DOMINO EFFECT.

(14) CHANGE IN RANKING FOR BEST NOVEL. The Best Novel Hugo voting stats have been updated to reflect the change in fifth and sixth places.

(15) SWEEP. Mimi Mondal’s article in Scroll.in, “Women science fiction writers won big at the Hugo awards this year. Here are five you should read”, is illustrated with great photos by K. Tempest Bradford.

The 2017 Hugo Awards were announced on August 11 at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Helsinki. It has already made headlines for women writers and editors winning all twelve of the individual Hugos, as well as the John W Campbell award. The women writers are a significant part of the team awards as well.

This clean sweep is a first, although women have been dominating the international science fiction and fantasy awards for years now. It is also a triumph, especially for the Hugos, which have been plagued since 2015 by a malicious right-wing voting bloc called the Sad Puppies, who sabotage the nominations every year and oppose any kind of “diversity” in the genre.

(16) TURN DOWN THE LIGHTS, THE PARTY’S OVER. The Worldcon 75 social media crew takes a victory lap: “The Road to Worldcon 75”.

To my own astonishment, this tweet gained a lot of traction, being retweeted by over 100 people during the course of a few days. It was my first taste of Worldcon 75 Social Media awesomeness and resulted in me being assigned to work as a Social Media (SoMe) staffer.

I’ve since then been working Worldcon 75-Social Media almost all of my waking hours for 2 years, save for a few breaks, work, and other cons. I did expect to work a lot, but in the end I worked a lot more than initially expected, just because it was such a wonderful experience, and unexpectedly rewarding. I love interacting with people online, and working customer service. Another benefit of working Social Media is that it gave me an overview of the all the different corners of the convention and included working closely with all the other divisions, meeting with and chatting with lovely staffers from all over the world. It’s the best position I could ever have hoped for.

(17) WSFS ROUNDUP. Michael Lee also chimed in with a “Worldcon 75 WSFS Division Post-Con Report”. Here’s a chance to read about something besides the Hugos —

Site Selection

We had done Site Selection for the Kansas City Worldcon, and we new Dublin was unopposed, so much was easier there. I was happy that Johan Anglemark signed on as a Site Selection admin as I wanted to see someone Nordic in the division, and he did an outstanding job.

Despite some mild trolling I participated in of some people opposed to electronic site selection, we never seriously considered it. I’m convinced that generally the current method works for now, and given the political opposition I think there are  other ways to improve the process. Note that emailing signed scanned ballots to someone else to print out and hand carry is allowed.

Electronic validation of voters against the registration database is something that worked and can be improved for future Worldcon site selection. Carrying around all of that Personally Identifiable Information on paper at Kansas City was nerve wracking, and something that could be improved without changing the overall traditions of a paper based site selection. I gather we didn’t save Dublin as much time after receiving the data as we hoped, but that may be something that future Worldcons could improve.

We accepted Dublin’s Advance Supporting Membership rate without sufficient consideration; which had differing amounts in Euro and USD. This was an error, as people would want to shop for the rate that was cheaper when they mailed items in, and our credit card banking was in Euro. Currency rates are complicated, especially for mail in ballots.

(18) VIRTUAL REALITY THEME PARK. The latest progress report on Utah’s Evermore Park, now under construction.

In VR we have been able to virtually walk around our park and understand many of the intricate details that frankly just a few years ago was not possible. 3D renderings on a 2D screen is not the same as walking around in what looks and feels like real space. We were able to fix many aspects of the park prior to the expense of physical construction. For example, one of our buildings was much to small, yet in 2D there was no way assess scale, but standing in front of the building (just like you would in the real world) showed us that it had scale issue and we were able to make adjustments with our architects prior to breaking ground. We were also able to use VR to understand and refine our garden/landscape design and sightlines, etc., making many adjustments. In the next week we will be launching our new website that will provide many new and exciting details about Evermore, including a closer look at the park and our Festival/Shows, Themed Parties and Garden Adventures.

(19) CHANNEL SURFING. British TV science fiction is quite the thing in 1962. Galactic Journey has the story — “[August 20, 1962] A Galaxy of Choices (British TV: The Andromeda Breakthrough)”.

Science fiction on British television used to be one of those once-in-a-blue-moon events.  When it happened, what we got could often be very good.  Certainly Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass series was compelling viewing, which drew in a large audience from the general population with millions tuning in each week to find out the fate of the infected astronauts.

The impact of Quatermass cannot be over stated, the name having taken root in the British public’s imagination.  And, now we have a sequel to A for Andromeda, which I reported on last year, to carry the torch for science fiction on British TV, which also looks like it will enter public’s lexicon.  With the additional transmission of the anthology show, Out of this World, we seem to be entering a golden age of science fiction on television.

(20) DEFENDERS. Today, TV shows air in beautiful living color. Camestros Felapton gives his opinion about one of the newest: “Review: The Defenders (Netflix) – minimal spoilers”.

Imagine Pixar’s Inside Out but for grown-ups – each character represents one of the four key emotions: Guilt, Petulance, Sarcasm and Luke Cage. Luke Cage is an emotion now or at least he should be – some sort of combination of every positive association with masculinity you might want, with a deeply smooth voice and an excellent soundtrack.

(21) A VAGRANT THOUGHT. I gather The Philadelphia Story was on TCM today….

(22) NOW, VOYAGER. An overview of our furthest spacecraft on their 40th anniversary: “Voyagers: Inside the world’s greatest space mission”.

Remarkably, both Voyager spacecraft are still working. Whenever Voyager 1 sends back a signal, it is from the furthest distance any human-made object has travelled from Earth.

Voyager 1 left the solar system in 2013 and is (at the time of writing) 20 billion kilometres (12 billion miles) away. Voyager 2, on a different trajectory, is 17 billion kilometres (10.5 billion miles) away. Maybe it’s easier to imagine it like this: it takes a radio signal, travelling at the speed of light, 38 hours to travel from the Earth to Voyager 1 and back. And it’s some 30 hours for Voyager 2. (For their latest position, visit the Voyager home page.)

Chip Hitchcock adds, “Amusing note: the receiver station they mention using is the direct successor to the one that picked up the pictures of Armstrong setting foot on the moon, as vaguely remembered in The Dish.”

(23) IMAGINE THAT. Another sci-fi trope bites the dust – the BBC says most hackers aren’t sophisticated.

The ways in which young people become involved in this sort of activity were recently detailed in a report by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA). The average age of those arrested for malicious hacking activities was just 17 – the offences included vandalising websites, stealing data and breaking in to private computers.

Because our world is so much more connected than ever before, and those connections are often woefully insecure, it’s relatively easy to find ways of exploiting computer systems illegally. And ransomware in general is increasingly successful. In 2016, criminals made an average of $1,077 with every attack. For the BBC’s Cyber-hacks series, Click’s Spencer Kelly discovered how cyber-criminals can acquire off-the-shelf ransomware using only a search engine.

As Woodward points out, the easiest thing to do is “just cast it out there” – whether it’s ransomware, spyware or spam – and see what comes back. Many people are often surprised by the amount of spam they receive, especially because so many of the scams are so obviously illegitimate. But the reason you still get emails from a Nigerian prince offering cash out of the blue is because people continue to fall for such stories. Not huge numbers, but a few. And that’s all it takes to make a profit.

(24) BOARD OUT OF THEIR MINDS. Metro.uk has obviously played these: “Your favourite retro games renamed with the titles they really deserve”. Like the famous game of insincere apologies —

If board games were honest Credit: Smoosh.com

[Thanks to JJ, David Doering, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day David Doering.]

Matheson Interviewed by Cinefantastique

Richard Matheson is interviewed in Cinefantastique about Charles Beaumont, subject of a forthcoming DVD documentary: 

LAWRENCE FRENCH: You and Charles Beaumont each did four scripts for Roger Corman, mostly for his Edgar Allan Poe films. The big exception was when Charles Beaumont did the rather daring script for The Intruder in 1961, which was about racial tensions in the south. Did either Beaumont or Corman ask you to appear in that picture?

RICHARD MATHESON: Yes, they did but I just didn’t feel like going out to Missouri while they were shooting it. The Intruder may actually be Roger’s best picture, yet it was the only time he made a film that didn’t make any money. I thought William Shatner was superb in it.

Trivial Pursuit Postscript: Richard Matheson was Westercon’s first repeat guest of honor — Westercon 9 in 1956, and also GoH of the merged Worldcon/Westercon of  1958. Eyeballing the Westercon long list, it looks like the next repeat didn’t happen until the Portland Westercon of 1984 which reprised three past GoH’s, Harlan Ellison (previously a 1966 GoH) and F.M. & Elinor Busby (1963 GoHs); artist Alex Schomburg was the only first-timer at Portland.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the link.]