Tag Archives: yeti

Pixel Scroll 4/18/24 Quick Is Your Pixel, By Mickey Scrollane

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(1) JEMISIN IN KANSAS. KU’s Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction invites readers to join them on April 25, 2024 for the next “KU Common Book Lecture [VIRTUAL]: An Evening with N.K. Jemisin.” Learn more about the influence of Octavia E. Butler on Jemisin’s work. Register at the link.

The KU Common Book program is coordinated by the KU Libraries, the Hall Center for the Humanities, and the Division of Academic Success. Author N. K. Jemisin will visit campus in April to give the Common Book Lecture. The Common Book for the 2023-24 school year is Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Butler, who died in 2006, was influential to the career of Jemisin, a fellow science fiction writer, and Jemisin also wrote the forward to the most recent edition of Parable of the Sower.

(2) PEN AMERICA LITERARY AWARDS UNDER PROTEST. “Amid Mounting Criticism, PEN America Literary Awards In Limbo” reports Publishers Weekly.

Amid growing criticism over its response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, freedom of expression nonprofit PEN America is facing questions over whether its Literary Awards ceremony, World Voices Festival, and Literary Gala, all scheduled to be held within the next month, can proceed as planned.

Last week, a number of nominees withdrew their books from consideration for PEN awards citing the organization’s response to the war in Gaza. Esther Allen, one of three cofounders of the World Voices Festival, declined this year’s PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation. Since that time, nine of the 10 longlisted authors for this year’s PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, which comes with a $75,000 monetary prize, have withdrawn their books from consideration.

According to the activist organization Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), a further 20 authors have withdrawn their longlisted books for other PEN awards including the PEN/Robert W. Bingham, PEN/Hemingway, PEN/Robert J. Dau, and PEN/Voelcker awards, as well as the PEN Translation Prize, PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. The books have since been rounded up in a collection, “2024 PEN America Literary Awards Boycott for Palestine,” curated by WAWOG and currently featured on the homepage of Bookshop.org.

Furthermore, on April 17, 21 authors signed a letter of refusal addressed to the executive board and trustees of PEN America demanding, among other items, the immediate resignations of board president Jennifer Finney Boylan, CEO Suzanne Nossel, and the executive committee. Another nine signatories have pledged to donate prize money to mutual aid funds funds in Gaza. (Iliad translator Emily Wilson, who was not a signatory, also pledged to donate prize money in a tweet this morning.)…

…When contacted for comment, a PEN America administrator told PW that the organization is in touch with authors nominated for this year’s awards, and has paused announcing this year’s awards finalists as it deliberates on how to move forward with the upcoming awards ceremony, which is slated for April 29. The administrator added that the PEN/Jean Stein Award will not be awarded by default to the one remaining longlisted author, as the judging protocol for the award has not been changed in response to the withdrawals.

(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to sup on scallops with Arthur Suydam in Episode 223 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

It’s time to take a seat at the table for the first of two dinner conversations which took place during last month’s AwesomeCon in Washington D.C. — starting with Arthur Suydam, whose professional comics career began when he drew a story published in the May 1974 issue of House of Secrets for DC, right around the time my own comics career started at Marvel editing the British reprint line in June. We somehow never encountered each other as we navigated the comic community of the ’70s, and in fact, we never met until the Saturday of our meal.

Arthur Suydam

After a bunch of those horror stories for various DC titles, Suydam moved on to Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal, and other publications where he could do the kind of painted work most people know him for today, writing and drawing such features Mudwogs, The Adventures of Cholly & Flytrap, and others.

He’s perhaps most well known for his zombie work — which includes dozens of covers for the Marvel Zombie series and spin-offs — which earned him the nickname of “The Zombie King.” In 2008, Marvel even released a hardcover tribute titled Marvel Zombies: The Covers. His artwork has also appeared in such titles as Batman, Conan, Tarzan, Predator, and Aliens, and his cover art was featured on Ghost Rider, Hellstorm, Moon Knight, Wolverine, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness, and many others. He’s also provided noir-ish, retro covers for the Hard Case Crime paperback line.

We discussed the way a lengthy hospital stay resulted in him falling in love with comics, what Joe Orlando said to convince him to start his comics career at DC instead of Warren, the permission he was granted upon seeing the ghastly artwork of Graham Ingels, what he learned from dealing with cadavers during his art student days, how Gil Kane hurt his feelings by chewing out his early work, the grief Frank Frazetta got out of dealing with Mad magazine, the way his work for Epic Illustrated made Archie Goodwin squirm, why Marvel teamed him up with Robert Kirkman for its Marvel Zombies project, his reason for avoiding social media like the plague, and much more.

(4) MEET DANGEROUS VISIONS. The new Patton Oswalt and J. Michael Straczynski introductions to the latest edition of Dangerous Visions can be read on Amazon. (The linked sample also includes the Michael Moorcock and Harlan Ellison forewords from the 2002 edition, and Ellison’s intro from the original 1967 edition.)

(5) CAITLIN THOMAS. Deepest condolences to the Thomases who lost their daughter Caitlin yesterday. For those looking to help, a GoFundMe is here.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 18, 1971 — David Tennant, 53. Of the modern Doctor Whos, the one performed by David Tennant is my favorite by far. (It won’t surprise you that Tom Baker is my classic Doctor.) I liked him from the very first time that he appeared, in “The Christmas Invasion”.  (Spoiler alert from here out.) The fact that he won’t finish his transition until he inhales the fumes from a dropped flask of tea. Oh, what a truly British thing to have him do! 

David Tennant

Christopher Eccleston was good but I thought that he didn’t have long enough to fully settle into the role so I felt his character was more of a sketch than a fully developed character. His certainly would have been a better Doctor if he’d decided to stay around, but he didn’t. 

Tennant on the other hand had three series plus some specials, he’d also be the Doctor in a two-part story in Doctor Who spin-off, Sarah Jane Adventures, “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”. He got time to settle into his character.  And what a character it was — intelligent, full of humor, sympathetic and just alien enough in his quirkiness to believable that he wasn’t human. 

Oh, and the stories. So, so great. Those along with his companions made for ever so great watching. My favorite companion? Each had their strengths — Rose Tyler, Donna Noble and Martha Jones, all made fine companions in very different ways. 

If I could pick just one story from his run, it’d be “The Unicorn and The Wasp” with Agatha Christie as a character and Donna Noble as the companion. And it was a country manor house mystery! 

Yes, I know he came back as the Fourteenth Doctor. Or will. Not having Disney I’ve no idea which tense applies. I know I could look it up but I’m haven’t and not inclined to subscribe to that service just to watch this series and there’s nothing else there I’m that much interested in. 

It’s certainly not his only genre role,and yes he played several Doctor Who roles before being the Tenth Doctor. He had a role in the BBC’s animated Scream of the Shalka and appeared in several Big Finish Productions. I think I read he played a Time Lord in one of them. 

Now let’s see about his other genre roles… One of my favorite series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), had him  up as Gordon Stylus in the “Drop Dead” episode. The Quatermass Experiment film had him as Dr. Gordon Briscoe. He was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as Barty Crouch Jr., a fine performance he gave there.

In How to Train Your Dragon and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which I think has awesomely cute animation, he voices Spitelout Jorgenson, a warrior of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. Need I say more? I think not.  DreamWorks Dragons was another series in which he voiced this character. 

In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he had a short run there as Huyang. 

Huh. He even voiced a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, one called Fugitoid, a sort of android figure.

He’s the voice of Dangerous Beans in The Amazing Maurice off Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

The last role I’ll mention is his Jessica Jones one and one that honestly made me not watch the series. No, I’ll not say why as that’d be a major spoiler. He was called Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave. 

(7) COMICS SECTION.

  • Thatababy gets into kaiju algebra.
  • Tom Gauld might be thinking of Pluto. Or not.

(8) SUNKEN CHEST. This is not how you expect a superhero to start out looking. Jason Aaron redefines the King of Atlantis in a new Namor comic book series that arrives July 17.

The eight-issue epic will forever reshape the seas and bare the dark history of Atlantis and its fiercest, most infamous defender. Stay tuned for more information.

(9) ONCE IN A LULLABY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Today’s Nature takes us somewhere over the rainbow with an exo-planet: “An exoplanet is wrapped in glory”.

Astronomers spot the first planet outside the Solar System to boast a phenomenon reminiscent of a rainbow.

The rainbow-like phenomenon called a glory (artist’s illustration) appears at the boundary between the day and night sides of the exoplanet WASP-76b.

Primary research here.

(10) BLATAVSKY, LINNAEUS, AND MERMAIDS, AND , OH MU! [Item by Steven French.] Oh, how I long for lost Lemuria! “Like Atlantis, Lemuria Is a Lost Land That Never Existed, But Became So Much Bigger” at Atlas Obscura. Lots of inventive maps at the link.

PHILIP SCLATER SHOULD HAVE STOPPED writing in 1858. That’s when he published one of the foundational texts of biogeography, the science that studies the distribution of species and ecosystems across space and time.

But there was one little primate that didn’t neatly fit into Sclater’s division of the world into six biogeographical realms. He had found fossils of lemurs in both Madagascar and India, even though those places belong to two wholly separate realms. (In today’s biogeographical parlance, those would be the Afrotropical and Indomalayan zones, respectively.)

So he did what other scientists of the day did when faced with similar disconnects: He proposed a vast land bridge that had once linked Madagascar to India. And he gave that hypothetical continent, now swallowed by the Indian Ocean, an appropriate name: Lemuria…

(11) YETI. That’s the mystery creature at the heart of Primevals.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Daniel Dern.]

From 12 years ago.  “Be sure to watch to the end,” says Dern. “The Best Star Trek Commercial Ever”.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Scott Edelman, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jan Vanek jr.]

The Complete Yeti

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By SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie: The idea of hairy, ape-like creatures roaming around the Himalayas has been around for centuries. But could the yeti actually be real? The BBC Radio 4 Yeti series has now been fully aired and all ten episodes are available for download (without a BBC Sounds account which is good news for those diligently keeping a light personal digital footprint).

Now, I am not a huge one for Fortean documentaries as these are largely woo-woo. However, as a bioscientist, cryptobiology has a certain appeal. For example, the coelacanth anyone? This series certainly grabbed me, but then I am a sucker having the moral fibre with the breaking strain of a chocolate Mars Milky Way bar.

In this series, two adventurers delve deep into the myth, legend and reality of the mysterious creature that is said to roam the Himalayas. Andrew Benfield and Richard Horsey travel across the mountain range searching for evidence that the yeti might actually exist.

What they really need is a sample to DNA test…

Each episode is about 25 minutes long.

No spoiler, but one set of DNA found turned out to be Peter Cushing’s.

Or did it…? Rod Serling says ‘Hi’ from the Twilight Zone…

Pixel Scroll 1/28/20 Strange Pixels Lying In Files Distributing Scrolls Is No Basis For a System Of Government!

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(1) VOICE OF HOGWARTS. LitHub has the transcription: “In Conversation with Legendary Harry Potter Audiobook Narrator Jim Dale” from Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine.

Jo Reed: …How then did you get into the audiobook biz, where you are one of the shining lights there as well?

Jim Dale: That was an accident, a sheer accident. They were looking for someone with an English accent to be the narrator, and someone said to whoever it was at the publishing company, they said, “Well, there’s a guy called Jim Dale. He’s playing Off-Broadway at the moment with three other men in a play called Travels with my Aunt. One of the men doesn’t speak at all, so three of them are now doing 33 characters between them,” and of course, the publisher said, “Wow, that sounds fantastic. That’s the sort of guy we need.” So they approached me, asked me if I’d read the book, which I did. I loved it. They said, “Would you like to record it?” I said, “Yes,” and it was only after I had signed the contract that one of them said to me, “Well, how many characters did you play in the play?” and I remember saying, “Just the aunt and the nephew. The other two guys played 31 characters between them.” So there’s a shocked silence on the end of the phone, ‘cause they realized they’d signed someone who may unable to do any more than a couple of voices.

Jo Reed: And the book we’re talking about is Harry Potter.

Jim Dale: That’s correct. There were seven of them, as you know, and so I didn’t realize that the first book had, I think it was, 34 different speaking characters, but that was nothing compared to the final book, which had 147 different characters that needed a voice, so that was quite a challenge, quite a challenge.

(2) LOOK OUT BELOW. “Two old satellites could collide over US, space debris tracker warns” – CNET has the story.

Two satellites could potentially collide just above Pittsburgh on Wednesday, according to space debris tracker LeoLabs. IRAS (13777), a decommissioned space telescope launched in 1983, and GGSE-4 (2828), an experimental US payload launched in 1967, will pass incredibly close to each other at a relative velocity of 14.7 km/s, LeoLabs said in a tweet Monday. 

The company said it’s monitoring the approach, and that its latest metrics “show a predicted miss distance of between 15-30 meters.” That distance is concerning given the size of IRAS, which is 3.6 meters by 3.24 meters x 2.05 meters, LeoLabs said. The combined size of IRAS and GGSE-4 increases the chances of a collision, which stands at around 1 in 100. 

(3) BROADWAYCONREPORT. The New York Times tells about a convention with a different theme — “Where Broadway Fans Wear the Crowns and the Tentacles”.

The fifth edition of BroadwayCon had enthusiasts dressing for the underworld, swapping stories and merch, and singing along to “Six,” a show that hasn’t even opened yet.

Nyssa Sara Lee came to the 2020 edition of BroadwayCon as Ursula from “The Little Mermaid.”

On any other weekend, a gaggle of teenagers belting songs from “Hadestown” in the hallway of the New York Hilton Midtown would raise some eyebrows.

But for three days that ended Sunday, they were in the right place. More than 5,000 others — including several Beetlejuices, a handful of Heathers and the rare Dolly — made the pilgrimage to New York for the fifth annual BroadwayCon, a haven for the most passionate musical theater fans.

Some arrived in full character for the event, where attendees can meet and take photos with the stars of their favorite shows. Passes range from $80 for one day to $1,000 for a full weekend platinum pass with extra perks.

When fans weren’t doing their own dramatic hallway renditions of musical numbers, here’s what they were up to.

Kris Williams and Matt Whitaker as the title character from “Beetlejuice,” a show that drew many fan tributes.Dalton Glenn, Meaghan Cassidy and Grace Nobles as the trio from “Heathers.”…

(4) AI OH! In “Artificial Morality” at the LA Review of Books blog, Bruce Sterling offers his latest thoughts on artificial intelligence.  Sterling is going to be the keynote speaker on a conference on AI which will be held at the University of California (Irvine) in February which will include Cory Doctorow and sf podcaster Rose Eveleth which you can find out more about at a link at the Sterling piece.

This is an essay about lists of moral principles for the creators of Artificial Intelligence. I collect these lists, and I have to confess that I find them funny.

Nobody but AI mavens would ever tiptoe up to the notion of creating godlike cyber-entities that are much smarter than people. I hasten to assure you — I take that weird threat seriously. If we could wipe out the planet with nuclear physics back in the late 1940s, there must be plenty of other, novel ways to get that done….

(5) CRAZY RICH ASTRONAUT. SYFY Wire has a teaser trailer for a “new-old” short—Nine Minutes—which will premiere on DUST on January 30. It features an actor who has become rather well known since she shot this previously-unreleased short quite some while back. “Nine Minutes: Constance Wu is a marooned astronaut in first look at DUST short film”

You may know Constance Wu from her roles in Fresh Off the Boat and Crazy Rich Asians, but you may not know that she also played an astronaut in Nine Minutes, a science fiction short film that arrives on DUST later this week.

Directed and written by Ernie Gilbert (Atlanta, Barry), the story follows Lilian (Wu), a scientist for the United Earth Space Administration who finds herself stuck on an alien planet light-years from home. With some help from her A.I. companion named M.A.R.C. (voiced by comedian Reggie Watts), Lilian attempts to stay alive for as long as she can.

 […] The film was shot several years ago, but never premiered to the public — not even at festivals. […]

(6) TRIVIAL TRIVIA.

  • In the opening sequence of The Matrix, the iconic streams of green Japanese code are actually recipes for sushi. Production designer Simon Whitely, now with the animation and visual effects studio Animal Logic in Australia, said he got the idea from one of his wife’s cookbooks. Source: CNET

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • January 28, 1986 — The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take-off.
  • January 28, 1994 — Body Snatchers premiered. It was directed by Abel Ferrar, and it starred  Gabrielle Anwar, Billy Wirth, Terry Kinney, Meg Tilly and Forest Whitaker. It’s somewhat based on Finnney’s The Body Snatchers with the  screenplay by Stuart Gordon, Nicholas St. Johnnand Dennis Paoli. Reception was mixed with Ebert and some horror critics thinking it far better than previous takes; one critic thought it was “a soulless replica of Don Siegel’s 1956 model”.  Reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes don’t think much of it giving it just a 38% rating. You can see for yourself what’s like here.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born January 28, 1910 — Arnold Moss. Anton Karidian a.k.a. Kodos the Executioner in the most excellent “The Conscience of the King“ episode of Trek. It wasn’t only SFF role as he’d show up in Tales of Tomorrow, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Time Tunnel and Fantasy Island. (Died 1989.)

Born January 28, 1920 — Lewis Wilson. Genre wise, he’s remembered  for being the first actor to play Batman on screen in the 1943 Batman, a 15-chapter theatrical serial from Columbia Pictures. (Died 2000.)

Born January 28, 1935 — John Chandler. His very last role was as Filth in the “Honor Among Thieves” episode of Deep Space Nine. Genre-wise, he also showed up in Moon of the Wolf, The Incredible Hulk, Fantasy Island, The Sword and The Sorcerer, AirWolf, Trancers and Carnosaur 2. (Died 2010.)

Born January 28, 1944 — Susan Howard, 76. Mara, the Klingon woman, on “The Day of The Dove” episode for Star Trek. She also showed up on Tarzan, The Flying Nun, I Dream of Jeanie, Land of Giants, The Immortal, The Fantastic Journey and Mission: Impossible.

Born January 28, 1959 — Frank Darabont, 61. Early on, he was mostly a screenwriter for horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob and The Fly II, allminor horror films. As a director, he’s much better known as he’s done The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist.  He also developed and executive-produced the first season of The Walking Dead. He also wrote Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that I like a lot.

Born January 28, 1965 — Lynda Boyd, 55. Let’s start off with she’s a singer who starred in productions The Little Shop of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Film-wise, she had roles in Final Destination 2, The Invader, Mission to Mars and Hot Tub Time Machine. She’s had one-offs in X-Files, Highlander, Strange Luck, Millennium, The Sentential, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (where she had a recurring role as Darla Mohr), Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and Smallville.

Born January 28, 1981 — Elijah Wood, 39. His first genre role is as Video-Game Boy #2 in Back to the Future Part II. He next shows up as Nat Cooper in Forever Young followed by playing Leo Biederman In Deep Impact. Up next was his performance as Frodo Baggins In The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit films. Confession time: I watched the very first of these. Wasn’t impressed. He’s done some other genre work as well including playing Todd Brotzman in the Beeb’s superb production of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. 

Born January 28, 1985 — Tom Hopper, 35. His principal genre role was on the BBC Meriln series as Sir Percival. He also shows up in Doctor Who playing Jeff during the “The Eleventh Hour” episode which would be during the time of the Eleventh Doctor. He’s also Luther Hargreeves in The Umbrella Academy which is an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name, created by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. 

Born January 28, 1986 — Shruti Haasan, 34. Indian film actress known for the Telugu fantasy film Anaganaga O Dheerudu, and the Tamil science fiction thriller 7aum Arivu. She voiced Queen Elsa in the Tamil-dubbed version of Frozen II.

Born January 28, 1998 — Ariel Winter, 22. Voice actress whose shown up in such productions as Mr. Peabody & Sherman as Penny Peterson, Horton Hears a Who!, DC Showcase: Green Arrow as Princess Perdita and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as Carrie Kelly (Robin). She’s got several one-off live performances on genre series, The Haunting Hour: The Series and Ghost Whisperer. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) FIRST FLOWERS. While many people have seen 1968’s Charly, the film version of Flowers for Algernon, few living fans remember or have seen the 1961 TV adaptation “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon.”

In this teleplay adaptation of Daniel Keyes’ noted short story “Flowers for Algernon,” Cliff Robertson portrays a gentle, disabled young man who undergoes a highly experimental treatment to increase his mental capacity. Robertson received an Emmy nomination for his sensitive work and would go on to win an Oscar for his reprisal of the eponymous role in the feature film Charly (1968).

(11) ZAP! ZAP! BBC reports “How microwaves and electricity are killing weeds”.

…Meanwhile, a new device created by the University of Melbourne and spun off into a company called Growave is undergoing trials in Victoria.

Just as a domestic microwave warms food, so the microwaves emitted by the Growave system heat up the water molecules within weeds and cause them to vibrate. This ruptures the cell walls, killing the plant.

Meanwhile, microwaves can also heat the soil, killing weed seeds as they lie.

“Early data is demonstrating that using the Growave technology will be as cost-effective and potentially less expensive than current approaches to weed management,” says Paul Barrett, head of physical sciences of investment firm IP Group.

“The Growave approach also has the benefit that it is not influenced by the elements and can be used when it rains, when it’s windy or even at night – conditions which are not possible with traditional herbicide-spraying approaches.”

(12) CHOOSE YOUR MYTH. “Visit Nepal’s yeti: How mythical creature divided Himalayan nation” – BBC overviews the feud.

A row over the yeti has pitted experts against officials – and, for once, it is not about whether or not the mythical creature actually exists.

Instead, it is how the creature looks.

“This is not right. The government can’t just do as it wants,” passer-by Reshma Shrestha says, shaking her head in front of the 7ft (2.1m) tall statue at the centre of a row.

“If you did not tell me, I would not have known that it was a yeti.”

‘It’s a sumo wrestler’

The arrival of the first of more than 100 statues emblazoned with the words “Visit Nepal” was supposed to be the start of a year-long celebration of what the small Himalayan nation had to offer to the outside world.

They will soon be popping up across the country – at popular tourist attractions, trade centres, airports and some of the base camps in the Himalayas – as well as travelling further afield to act as mascots in cities around the world.

But the launch of the tourism drive, which aims to bring two million tourists to the region, has been somewhat overshadowed by the row over the statues’ appearance.

(13) HOPEFUL SIGN. “Rare Bolivian glass frogs seen for first time in 18 years”.

A rare species of frog with translucent skin has been seen in Bolivia for the first time in 18 years.

Three Bolivian Cochran frogs, a species of so-called “glass frogs”, were spotted by conservationists earlier this month in a national park.

The tiny amphibians weigh just 70-80g and measure 19-24mm.

Glass frogs are found in Central and South America and have skin so translucent that their internal organs can be seen through their bellies.

Investigators found the frogs in Carrasco National Park, east of the city of Cochabamba, as part of a mission to rescue reptiles and amphibians whose habitat is threatened by a hydroelectric project.

“The rediscovery of this species fills us with a ray of hope for the future of the glass frogs – one of the most charismatic amphibians in the world – but also for other species,” members of the team told AFP news agency.

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “The Box Preview” on YouTube, Jason Shiga describes his forthcoming graphic novel The Box, which he says can also be about 20 other things, including a computer!

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Leo Doroschenko, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Mike Kennedy, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr.]

Pixel Scroll 5/1/19 The Pixel That Can Be Scrolled Is Not The True Pixel

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(1) FUTURE TENSE. This month’s entry in the Future Tense Fiction series is “The Song Between Worlds” by Indra Das, author of the award-winning novel The Devourers.

Each month, Future Tense Fiction—a series of short stories from Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives—publishes a story on a theme. The theme for April–June 2019: space settlement.

It was published along with a response essay “What Would Sound Be Like on Mars?” by the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz of the Adler Planetarium.)

… Sound is a relatively simple physical phenomenon, but the way our minds shape it can be complex. It’s a wave, but not the same kind of wave one might see in the ocean, where the medium (water, in the case of the ocean) travels toward or away from us. If sound waves were like ocean waves, we would not be able to speak to one another without blowing a constant breeze toward the listener, which is (generally speaking) not what happens. Rather, sound waves travel by creating collisions between the molecules of air between us and the origin of the sound….

(2) SURVEILLANCE STATE. In The Atlantic, Lily Meyer reviews “Two ambitious new novels build techno-futures in which surveillance offers disturbing new threats” — “Science Fiction’s Preoccupation With Privacy”.

…The only character in Dark Constellations not interested in controlling others is Piera, a disaffected Stromatoliton biologist whose alienation from her male co-workers and from the overreach of her company leads her to cut herself off—from people, and from broader systems. She privately refers to her employer as “the animal of the state unleashed,” but remains at Stromatoliton, satisfying her voyeuristic curiosity even as the future of Argentine privacy is in question. With Piera, Oloixarac seems to underscore the impossibility of stepping away from power in a world in which science overrides ethics. Piera may consider herself an observer rather than a participant, but she remains complicit in the global expansion of surveillance….

(3) BRIANNA WU. Media people covering last weekend’s synagogue shooting in San Diego tapped Brianna Wu for comment about the shooter’s 8chan connection.

…Whether the Internet is creating hate groups or just serving as a gathering place, one thing has become clear: What happens online doesn’t stay there.

Brianna Wu is a software engineer who lives in Massachusetts. In 2014, she was targeted in something called Gamergate, in which men threatened female video game players and developers. The harassment started mainly on 8chan.

“They threw bricks through my windows. They sent me hundreds upon hundreds of death threats, rape threats,” Wu says. “I’ve had people from 8chan follow me around just to let me know, ‘I’m near you and could hurt you if I wanted to.’ “

Wu, who is running for Congress, says the solution is simple. “We need dedicated FBI agents that understand online culture to look at these kinds of extreme crimes and prosecute them,” she says.

…The message is trickling to the campaign trail. Brianna Wu, a software engineer who is running as a Democrat for a House seat in Massachusetts, told me she is “angry” that law enforcement has not done more to rein in 8chan, which has also been connected to the circulation of child pornography and is a place where people are frequently doxxed. 

After Wu herself was targeted on the website in 2014 with death threats during the Internet culture war known as Gamergate, she says she says she documented “tons of illegal activity” on 8chan and shared her findings with the FBI. She believes it’s possible the recent shootings could have been avoided if law enforcement took greater action, she said, and wants to increase funding for the FBI to investigate online crime if elected to Congress. 

“We need to fund a specific task force within the FBI that is very tech literate and tasked to prosecute these types of online crimes,” she said. More from Wu:

(4) CAMERAS ROLL ON PICARD. They’ve begun to “Make it so” — “Star Trek: Patrick Stewart’s Picard TV Show Starts Filming” at ScreenRant.

With a mix of old and newcomer talent on both sides of the camera, the Picard series looks to follow in Discovery‘s footsteps and blend old-fashioned Star Trek tropes with fresh sci-fi ideas and a more modern tone. Of course, this show has an advantage over CBS All Access’ first Star Trek series in that it’s not a prequel and has more freedom to play around with its storytelling, as opposed to having to work around classic lore and mythology. Something like the Star Wars sequel trilogy has certainly gotten a passionate fan response by bringing back old characters for new adventures, so it’ll be very interesting to see how Trekkies take to Picard’s story continuing by comparison.

(5) CARL BRANDON ORIGIN STORY. The Jeanne Gomoll-edited Carl Brandon, by and about the hoax fan Terry Carr co-created long ago, is available for order from Lulu ($16.00).

Terry Carr recounts the invention of an imaginary black science fiction fan named Carl Brandon, one of the field’s most (in)famous hoaxes. In addition to Carl Brandon’s complete history, this volume includes his J.D. Salinger parody, “The Cacher of the Rye;” a more current parody by Carl Brandon 2.0, “The Kvetcher on the Racists;” and an essay by Samuel R. Delany, “Racism and Science Fiction.” To quote Carr: “In the late fifties, several of the fans of the Bay Area…presented fandom with a new fanwriter who was quickly acclaimed as one of the best writers around and who was, not incidentally, the first prominent fan who was black.” Read the book for more of this fascinating tale. All proceeds go to the Carl Brandon Society, which promotes discussions on race at conventions and conferences, and through its support of the Parallax and Kindred literary awards, and the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund.

(6) JOHN SLADEK. The paperback edition of New Maps: The Uncollected John Sladek was informally launched at the UK Eastercon and the promised ebook is now available reports David Langford. Both can be ordered from Ansible Editions. Trade paperback 9″ x 6″, 255pp, ISBN 978-0-244-15877-4. $20 plus local postage from Lulu.com: click button below. Ebook in the usual formats at £5.50: again, click button below.

(7) FREE DOWNLOAD. Of more fannish interest, a free ebook reissue of Terry Carr’s 1986 collection Fandom Harvest has been posted on David Langford’s TAFF page as an incitement to give generously to the fund. He adds, “Many thanks to Bob Silverberg for allowing his 1986 introduction to be included and to the original publisher John-Henri Holmberg for his afterword and general approval. Carol Carr has given her blessing to this reissue.”

Langford further notes – “For anyone interested in acquiring the Sladek or the Brandon paperback: both are published via Lulu.com, which currently has a 15%-off discount code ONEFIVE that’s good until 2 May.”

(8) HARLEQUIN ART. The Bristol Board features nine pieces of Steranko art done for an edition of a Harlan Ellison story.

Repent Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man!, a portfolio of illustrations by Jim Steranko, done as an adaptation of a short story that was written by Harlan Ellison. the last plate is a 3-D pinup.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 1, 1905 — Edna Mayne Hull. Wife of A.E. van Vogt. And yes, she too wrote genre fiction. Her initial sale, “The Flight That Failed”, appeared in the November 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under chosen author credit of “E.M. Hull” though eventually she used her own name. She has but one novel of her own, Planets for Sale, and one with her husband, The Winged Man, and only a dozen stories, one with A.E. Van Vogt & James H. Schmitz. (Died 1975.)
  • Born May 1, 1924 — Terry Southern. Screenwriter and author of greatest interest for the screenplay from Peter George’s original novel, Two Hours to Doom (as by Peter Bryant) of Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb directed (and in part written) by Stanley Kubrick. He was also involved in scripting Barbarella. (Died 1995.)
  • Born May 1, 1946 — Joanna Lumley, 73. No, she was no Emma Peel, but she was definitely more than a bit appealing in the New Avengers as Purdey. All twenty-six episode are out on DVD. Her next genre out was Sapphire & Steel whichstarred David McCallum as Steel and her as Sapphire. Skip forward nearly near twenty years and find her playing The Thirteenth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death in Comic Relief special. 
  • Born May 1, 1948 — Terry Goodkind, 71. You obviously know he is. I’ve read some of the Sword of Truth series. It’s ok, but not really my cup of Earl Grey Tea Hot. Epic fantasy isn’t something that I really read a lot of to be honest preferring epic sf instead. 
  • Born May 1, 1952 — Andrew Sawyer, 67. Librarian by profession, critic and editor as well who an active part of fandom. He is the Reviews Editor for Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. I’ve also got him doing Upon the Rack in Print, a book review column in Interzone and elsewhere and contributing likewise the Rust Never Sleeps column to Paperback Inferno as well. He hasn’t written much fiction, but there is some such as “The Mechanical Art” in the Digital Dreams anthology.
  • Born May 1, 1955 — J. R. Pournelle, 64. That’s as in Jennifer, the daughter of the Jerry we know. She’s here because she wrote Outies (Mote Series Book 3) which I confess she sent me a digital galley of years ago but I still need to take a look at. The first novel in the series is great. 
  • Born May 1, 1956 — Phil Foglio, 63. He won the Best Fan Artist Hugo Award in 1977 and 1978. He later did work for DC, First and Marvel Comics including the backup stories in Grimjack. He and his wife are responsible for the exemplary Girl Genius, a three-time Best Graphic Story Hugo winner.
  • Born May 1, 1957 — Steve Meretzky, 62. He co-designed the early Eighties version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy video game with the full participation of Douglas Adams. SF Encyclopedia notes that he did also a space opera themed game, Planetfall and its sequel A Mind Forever Voyaging in the Eighties as well. He also did the definitely more erotic Leather Goddesses of Phobos as well. 

(10) DC WOULDN’T HAVE NEEDED A SEQUEL. On CBR.com, Vivian Achieng thinks MCU characters are relatively wimpy and there are at least “25 DC Characters That Are More Powerful Than Thanos.”

When we talk about the MCU blockbuster, Avengers: Infinity War, we cannot fail but mention the wrecking ball that was Thanos, and his infinity gauntlet of course. For the very first time, earth’s mightiest heroes, The Avengers, look to have met their match. All their powers, tech and a snarky Star-Lord were not powerful enough to stop Thanos’ crusade to save the universe. Fingers crossed for Captain Marvel. The superheroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe can appear to be underpowered compared to other superheroes. This isn’t a knock on Captain America or Iron Man or the rest, but they don’t compare characters from other franchises. If characters from other universes happened to show up in Infinity War, we think the fight against Thanos would have ended a tad differently. In fact, some wouldn’t even need the support of the Avengers and could take the Mad Titan out all on their own.

Granted, Thanos is not an easy walk over. Without the Infinity Gauntlet, he is as strong or stronger than Thor with fair speed to match, he is pretty much indestructible, and has scientific knowledge greater than anyone on Earth, which in turn makes him a master strategist. He also has access to cosmic power which he can use to release blasts from his hands and eyes. With the Infinity Gauntlet, however, he can manipulate all of reality, time, space and the minds and souls of others. He looks pretty unbeatable, right? Wrong! Here is a list of 25 characters from Marvel’s arch enemies, DC, which can very well handle the threat that is Thanos….

(11) RIPLEY! BELIEVE IT OR NOT. “Sigourney Weaver surprises high school cast of Alien: The Play” – CNET has the story.

… “I’m so excited to be here,” Weaver told them. “I’m representing all the Alien fans from all over the universe … I think what you’re doing is so cool and so important.”

Another video shows one high school student yelling, “I love you, you’re my childhood hero! I can’t believe you’re here right now!” before hugging Weaver.

The whole play is online –

(12) SFF IN TRANSLATION. Rachel Cordasco’s “Love in the New Millennium [Why This Book Should Win]” is one in a series of thirty-five posts about every title longlisted for the 2019 Best Translated Book Awards. 

Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue, translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (Yale University Press)

Love in the New Millennium is a work of operatic magical realism; a book with many layers, many shifting romantic relationships, and no clear plot. Like Frontier, one of Can Xue’s previous novels, Love invites us into the hazy, sometimes frustratingly-elusive worlds of a handful of characters, many of whom are desperately trying to find a “home.”…

(13) CHALLENGE FOR THE WIKIPEDIA. UnDark discusses “What a Deleted Profile Tells Us About Wikipedia’s Diversity Problem”

You’ve probably never heard of Clarice Phelps. If you were curious, you might enter her name into Google. And, if you had done so anytime between September of last year and February of this year, you would likely have found her Wikipedia entry. The nuclear scientist is thought to be the first African-American woman to help discover a chemical element; she was part of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory team that purified the radioactive sample of berkelium-249 from which the new element, tennessine, was created. But on February 11, 2019, in the middle of Black History Month and on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Phelps’s page was deleted. The optics, as they say, weren’t good.

The deletion came after a brief but intense dispute between Wikipedia contributors over whether Phelps met the site’s criteria for notability. Ordinarily, such editorial spats are considered a feature of the crowdsourced encyclopedia, not a bug. If one of the site’s hundreds of thousands of active contributors mistakenly or purposely adds incorrect information, the wisdom of the crowd will ensure that truth prevails.

But in the case of Phelps, the crowd made the wrong call, and the site’s rules facilitated that. The entire spectacle revealed just how much work remains to be done to address the systemic biases that disproportionately keep women and people of color out of Wikipedia’s pages.

(14) UNLIKELY STEPS. Scoffers can’t believe the discovery, or that military authorities tweeted about it — “‘Yeti footprints’: Indian army mocked over claim”.

The Indian army has claimed to have found footprints of the yeti, sparking jokes and disbelief on social media.

The army tweeted to its nearly six million followers on Monday that it had discovered “mysterious footprints of mythical beast ‘Yeti’ at the Makalu Base Camp [in the Himalayas]”.

(15) IT BITES. CNN’s AJ Willingham says “The ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ trailer is out and people are having visceral reactions to it”.

https://twitter.com/marrowing/status/1123225691900657664

People are weird about teeth, and always have been. According to dental researcher Rosemary Wells, ancient cultures had a variety of ways of dealing with baby teeth, as described in her essay “The Making of an Icon: The Tooth Fairy in North American Folklore and Popular Culture:”

(1) the tooth was thrown into the sun; (2) thrown into the fire; (3) thrown between the legs; (4) thrown onto or over the roof of the house, often with an invocation to some animal or individual; (5) placed in a mouse hole near the stove or hearth or offered to some other animal; (6) buried; (7) hidden where animals could not get it; (8) placed in a tree or on a wall; and (9) swallowed by the mother, child or animal.

That’s right, people have historically been so freaked out by teeth they used to THROW THEM INTO THE SUN. Dental anxiety is real! You can’t just stick a full set of veneers in any old cartoon character and expect people to not be traumatized!

(16) PTERRY WEEPS. Chip Hitchcock advises a trigger warning should accompany BBC’s video: “Leuser rainforest: Baby orangutans rescued from Indonesia’s pet trade”.

Baby orangutans on the island of Sumatra are being captured and sold as pets, but charities are working to rescue the animals and confront the owners.

(17) HIGH-PRICED COLLECTIBLE. “Star Wars Bib Fortuna toy prototype sells for £36k” – BBC has the story.

A prototype of a Star Wars toy has sold for £36,000 at auction.

The 1980s master model of Bib Fortuna, a male Twi’lek who lived on Tatooine, had an estimate of £12,000.

It sold at Thornaby-based Vectis Auctions along with prototypes of an ewok called Logray which fetched £12,000, and an Emperor’s royal guard which reached £28,800.

Auctioneer Kathy Taylor said the three “relatively unknown” characters had “beaten all expectations”.

They had been made in America by Kenner for the production of the toys in Europe by Palitoy, which was based in Coalville, Leicestershire.

…Ms Taylor said the master models are larger and more detailed than the final figures sold in toy shops.

(18) RESISTANCE. Season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale arrives June 5 on Hulu.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Joey Eschrich, Andrew Porter, Carl Slaughter, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Cat Eldridge, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]