Pixel Scroll 4/8/16 “…And He Built A Crooked Mouse.”

(1) GALAXY QUEST BURIED TOO? Australia’s News.com says two Galaxy Quest stars are making contradictory statements about the sequel’s future.

Sam Rockwell (“Guy Fleegman”) told The Nerdist podcast that it’s dead, Jim —

IT APPEARS the untimely death of much-loved actor Alan Rickman earlier this year has nixed any hope of a sequel to the 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest.

Rickman’s co-star in the film, Sam Rockwell, revealed that talks were underway to make a follow-up to the cult classic, which saw a bunch of former sci-fi TV stars enlisted to save the world in a real-life battle against alien forces.

“We were ready to sign up for it,” Rockwell reveals on the Nerdist podcast.

“You know, Alan Rickman passed away. And then Tim Allen wasn’t available. He has a show. Everybody’s schedule was all weird. We were going to do this sequel on Amazon. It was going to shoot, like, right now.”

The deciding factor in the sequel not going ahead, Rockwell says, was Rickman’s death in January this year aged 69. Rickman passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. “How do you fill that void of Alan Rickman?” asks Rockwell.

Tim Allen, on the other hand, told The Hollywood Reporter immediately following Rickman’s death that it was still on:

“I’m not supposed to say anything — I’m speaking way out of turn here — but Galaxy Quest is really close to being resurrected in a very creative way. It’s closer than I can tell you but I can’t say more than that. The real kicker is that Alan now has to be left out. It’s been a big shock on many levels,” he said at the time.

(2) KZIN ON LINE TWO. ZD Net reports “World’s brightest X-ray laser boosted with $1 billion upgrade”. David K.M. Klaus jokes, “Looks like Chuft-Captain is going to get a powerful enough X-Ray Laser for the Lying Bastard in time for the trip to the Ringworld.”

The world’s brightest X-ray laser, SLAC’s LCLS, has received a $1 billion cash injection to vastly improve its capabilities and our understanding of how the world works on the atomic level.

The Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, is the home of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) laser system, a critical component for researchers working on atom-based projects.

(3) GETTING WISDOM. Whiting Awards winners get financial counseling in addition to money. The New York Times explains in “Helping Writers With a Windfall Avoid a Downfall”.

“I might be close to solvent,” the poet and essayist Brian Blanchfield said, “but I still think like a deeply insolvent person.”

Mr. Blanchfield, 42, was in a conference room near Times Square recently as part of an unusual group: 10 sometimes-struggling writers suddenly in possession of $50,000 each. Winners of the 2016 Whiting Awards, given annually to up-and-coming authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, they were learning how to handle not just the unexpected payouts but also the complicated emotions that money can inspire: ignorance, confusion, shame, panic, the occasional bout of inchoate elation….

Mitchell S. Jackson, 40 and the author of a novel and a book of essays and short stories, said that until recently he supported himself largely through teaching. At one time, he taught something like eight classes, paying between $1,800 and $5,500 each, at different colleges. He made a lot less than he had when he worked at his first job, dealing crack and other drugs as a teenager in Portland, Ore….

(4) THANK COG IT’S FRIDAY. The PRI radio show Science Friday this afternoon included a segment on “Telling the Story of Climate Change — In Fiction”(“Cli-Fi”) reports Rich Lynch. “Pablo Bacigalupi was one of the guests (via telephone). There was some interesting discussion about his novel The Water Knife.”

(5) WILL GALAKTIKA PAY? The story takes a promising turn – in “Galaktika Magazine: Statement from Istvan Burger” A. G. Carpenter reports:

Istvan Burger, publisher of Metropolis Media and Galaktika Magazine, has issued a statement regarding the reports of massive theft of translated work over the past decade.

Mandiner Magazine has a brief summary and the full statement in Hungarian here.

It seems that Burger is offering to compensate authors effected by the theft and admits that the foreign acquisitions have been mishandled and they “did not act with due diligence, caution, or even speed.” 

(6) GOURMAND AT LARGE IN LA. Here’s how John Scalzi tapered off from yesterday’s In-N-Out burger lunch.

(7) FAVORITES. Wim E. Crusio begins compiling his “Favorite science fiction classics (I)”. His first three picks are Time Enough for Love, The Witches of Karres, and The Left Hand of Darkness. He explains why. I don’t recall ever seeing Time Enough for Love on anybody’s list of favorites before. (I’ve read it a couple times — I’m not pointing that out because I disliked the book.)

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • April 8, 1990 Twin Peaks premieres on ABC

(9) MORE REACTION TO DRAGON AWARDS.

Jason Sanford makes a powerful suggestion.

At The Other McCain “Wombat-socho” writes —

I am probably the last person to find out that Dragon*Con, probably the largest non-comics convention in fandom, has finally bestirred itself and created its own set of awards – the Dragon Awards. This has been greeted with much glee by Sad and Rabid Puppies alike, with Declann Finn going so far as to declare victory. I’d say he and our Supreme Dark Lord are probably correct in predicting that the Dragons will almost certainly eclipse the Hugos, given the much larger voting base which makes any kind of gaming the nominations or the final vote futile. Looking forward to seeing how it works out.

So futile that Vox Day immediately set out to do that very thing?

I am registered to vote in the Dragon Awards and I would encourage you to do so as well. I’ll post my recommendations here the week after the Hugo shortlist is announced, in the event that any of you might happen to be curious about them.

Louis Antonelli isn’t completely opposed to gatekeeping, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to slam the door on fandom.

Sgt. Mom concludes “Another Round of Puppy Saddening” with an endorsement of the Dragon Awards, at Chicago Boyz.

To some followers of the Sad Puppy Saga situation, the whole matter of a prestigious award in science fiction being bestowed by a diminishing number of Worldcon members seemed quite pointless. They pointed out in comments and blog-posts, that Worldcon is becoming a smaller and more inward-turning science fiction gathering. Why shouldn’t a larger fan-convention gathering work up their own awards, and let the Hugos no-award themselves out of existence. Behold, in this last week, a massive, popular and long-established convention of science fiction and gaming enthusiasts – Dragon-con – has come up with their own proposals, to recognize and award not just a wide range of books and authors, but movies, and games as well. That should prove … interesting to say the least.

Sean O’Hara opines, “What the World Needs Now Is Another Sci-Fi Award Like I Need a Hole in My Head” at Yes, We Have No Culottes.

That being said, not all awards are created equal. That awards are inherently flawed doesn’t mean that some aren’t more flawed than others. The people championing the Dragon Awards (inevitably to be known as the Draggies) seem to think that the award will be better than the Hugos because DragonCon has a larger voter base than WorldCon. But, again, DragonCon is a regional convention. You get a larger sample size, but of a smaller cross-section of society. It’s already bad enough that SF awards are dominated by American tastes without narrowing it further to a specific section of the United States. The people championing the new award aren’t really doing it because of the larger voter base. They’re doing it because it’s nice and provincial — it’s not gonna be tainted by all those damned foreigners and their fellow travelers with their cosmopolitan tastes. This is going to be an award for Hobbits, picking out works full of nice, Hobbity sentiments, and the fact that not anyone outside the Shire will give a damn … well, nothing outside the Shire matters anyway.

Brad Torgersen told his Facebook friends.

And so: the final nail in the coffin of the Hugo awards. Looks like the Dragon Award is basically going to be doing everything Sad Puppies was hoping to get the Hugos to eventually do, but Dragon Con is doing it without having to wade through all the histrionic, caterwauling drama that resulted from the self-appointed defenders of Worldcon correctness and propriety throwing the genre’s all-time biggest temper tantrum. I raise my glass to this, and predict that within ten years, a gold-foil DRAGON AWARD label on a book is going to routinely replace both NEBULA and HUGO labels.

(10) SQUEAKING GATE. There is GamerGate mess around Baldur’s Gate now. Katherine Cross sums it up in an opinion piece “The Siege of Dragonspear drama and the video game community” at Gamasutra.

The past week has seen an explosion in drama amongst a particularly vocal minority of gamers angry about the inclusion of what they see as “social justice” themes into Beamdog’s Baldur’s Gate expansion The Siege of Dragonspear. The conflagration has a few sources; some players are complaining about bugs they claim Beamdog has been slow to fix, but that has been disingenuously used as a figleaf by some of the outraged crowd to mask the true source of their vitriol. Said source is elaborated on in this Niche Gamer article, which complains about–among other things–the very brief inclusion of a trans woman character who has only a minor speaking role, a silly “actually, it’s about ethics…” joke, a Goblin who calls your character racist, and the “sultry voiced rogue” Safana becoming a “sarcastic dissenter” who occasionally insults the player character.

An interesting tweet regarding this:

(11) CASHING IN THOSE COMICS. Yahoo! News knows about a “Superhero Dad Selling 5,000 Classic Comic Books for Daughter’s College Tuition”. See the benefits when people’s collections don’t get tossed?

Al Sanders may have spent his entire life reading about superheroes in his vast classic comic book collection, but now he’s turning into a real-life superhero by selling them all to help fund his daughter’s college tuition.

“As all parents who have college-age kids, we started putting together what it was going to cost and what we needed to do,” the doting dad from Seattle told ABC News of his decision to sell. “You start looking at those options you have, and my comic books were an option. That’s when I looked at their value, and I’m now trying to find a good home for them.”

[Thanks to Hampus Eckerman, Rich Lynch, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

278 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/8/16 “…And He Built A Crooked Mouse.”

  1. In lighter fare, an ebook deal:

    Broken by Susan Jane Bigelow is on sale for 99 cents at Kobo (and it’s DRM-free) and Amazon.com, though oddly, I couldn’t find the book in iBooks (iTunes bookstore). No idea bout other stores/localces.

    This is from Book Smugglers, the review-blog-turned-small-press. It’s a SF/future superhero book and looks kinda interesting; at only 99 cents, I’m going to snap it up, what the heck. It looks like it was originally self-published (?) in 2011; no idea how much it’s changed since then. I feel like I saw something about this book mentioned here (anyone read it?) (don’t tell me it’s horrible since I’m buying it, LOL).

  2. Well, Kendall, I haven’t visited The Oatmeal in awhile and read a few new-to-me strips, then returned to one of my favourites: Why the Mantis Shrimp is My New Favorite Animal and giggled lots at onetwothreeDEATH!

    Then I discovered that there are oversized mantis shrimp plushies available for sale. (NB: Does not play well with manatees, scuba divers, sharks, seahorses, or krakens.)

    I REQUIRE A MANTIS SHRIMP PLUSHIE.

    (In other words, I thank you 🙂 )

  3. Kendall: Okay. I was wondering, because you seemed to be defending yourself, from what I couldn’t make out.

    But don’t you think the reason someone would discuss what award or poll VD might vandalize next is because of the track record he’s already established? When somebody effectively says “Hey, I’m so smart I can predict the next couple of shennanigans he could pull!” they aren’t quite smart enough to realize they might be putting the idea in his head — and making the idea attractive because it’s already received that much attention.

    How is that tiptoeing around? It’s exercising wisdom. People here don’t spend their days posting random suggestions about the damage third parties could do who have never shown any inclination in that direction. The smartest-guy-in-the-room is attracted to play these wordgames naming VD for a reason.

  4. @Mike Glyer – When somebody effectively says “Hey, I’m so smart I can predict the next couple of shennanigans he could pull!” they aren’t quite smart enough to realize they might be putting the idea in his head — and making the idea attractive because it’s already received that much attention.

    Could we just stipulate that VD has few (I’m trying to be more charitable) original thoughts but is quite good at adopting the suggestions of others? I think it’s also safe to say he sometimes trolls File 770 for new ideas.

    That is because there are a lot of ideas tossed around here, not maliciously but because that’s what smart people in the company of other smart people do. It’s pretty much inevitable, even without the addition of “I’m smart and can predict what VD and his clown car will do next,” that some of those ideas will be adopted. Without instituting a moderation policy that suppresses any ideas you think VD could use, I’m not sure what can be done about that. I mean other than point and eyeroll at yet another example of derivative thinking from the (Dark Lord?) whatever the hell his sycophants are calling him this week.

  5. Cheryl S.: You remember what we already saw happen with Sad Puppies 4. Some commenters couldn’t stand by and watch Kate Paulk making a bad job of the project. And I mean people who set out to criticize some aspect of SP4, seemingly unconscious that their observations if acted on would make SP4 more marketable or more efficient. (Including one of my friends who spent untold hours tallying all the recommendations on the SP4 site then posted it in comments here — someone who has written dozens of blog posts criticizing slates.)

    So my first idea is that if they are unconscious about the effect — try to wake them up.

  6. The problem with deadnaming a trans person is transphobia. Trying to adopt a generalized “real names only” rule for yourself or trying to hector other people into going along with one is not going to stop bigots from deadnaming trans people. It’s not even relevant to why bigots deadname trans people. When someone deadnames trans people, in their own minds they are using the trans person’s “real name.” To them, the trans person’s chosen name is a pseud, and they are truth-tellers.

  7. There is the added issue that Teddy’s chosen name is mildly blasphemous. God only knows, I’m not usually above a bit of mild blasphemy, but for some reason I find that rankles.

  8. Beale’s chosen non de plume with its frisson of blasphemy DOES rankle me unreasonably. I may be a very lapsed Catholic but I was raised Catholic and it still is a part of me even today. Calling oneself, however cleverly, the voice of God? Sin of pride and all that!

    I have in this space and others called him, Wile E Coyote style, “super genius Theodore Beale”. I admit that to being absolutely unprofessional and juvenile on my part.

  9. @Jim Henley:

    Very good point, thank you for bringing it up.

    I realized after the fact that I should have specified that my musings related to me and how I treat other people. I felt that internal resistance to using “Vox Day” instead of “Theodore” and started to rationalize it to myself as “well, it’s his legal name”. Then the Socratic voice popped up in my head and said “so what’s the difference?”

    I want to treat people with a basic level of respect. Part of that, to me, is using the name that they would like to be called. (Socratic voice: “what if your nephew tells you he wants to be called [Slur]y Mc[Slur]face from now on?” Answer: I would have to have a very earnest conversation with him about why that’s hurtful.) I don’t want to throw that away even if I think the other person acts like a total asshole. As it turns out, not for them, but for my own self-respect. I don’t like hypocrisy, in myself least of all.

    Gah I hope I worded that right. Now to make some oatmeal. (No, really!)

  10. I often mix about two parts oatmeal (steel-cut preferably) and one part Red River cereal. I like the taste of Red River, but needed something to soften the gritty texture a bit, and the thicker oatmeal does that quite well. Then add bits of chopped dried apple, dried cranberries, raisins, or whatever else I might have around the house.

    On the other hand, Bob’s Red Mill has some good multi-grain hot cereals as well.

    Cream of Wheat was one of the regular things back at my family’s place. A bowl of it, with just a little milk poured over the top (not quite enough to cover it completely), and a spoonful of brown sugar in the middle to melt into it.

  11. @Kendall
    Thanks for the book heads up. File770 TBR mount of doom grows again. 😀

    @Mike Glyer So my first idea is that if they are unconscious about the effect — try to wake them up.

    I’m with you on this.

  12. ” I felt that internal resistance to using “Vox Day” instead of “Theodore” and started to rationalize it to myself as “well, it’s his legal name”. Then the Socratic voice popped up in my head and said “so what’s the difference?””

    Regarding Beale, I think his monicker is an extension of his narcissism and do not want to be a part in feeding it.

  13. I’ve only been to Mass a dozen times in the last forty years and I’ve been side-eying papal doctrine for longer than that, but I’ll always be Catholic and I’m not using someone’s vaguely blasphemous dog latin nickname. Fortunately, there’s an alternative that suits my needs.

    @Mike Glyer – So my first idea is that if they are unconscious about the effect — try to wake them up.

    Sure, but it’s likely to be effortful and ineffective, because the implications of particular actions are not at the forefront of most people’s brains. Did the experience of pointing out the eligibility errors in the Rabid Puppy slate stop anyone from pointing out additional eligibility errors in the Rabid Puppy slate? Maybe, for a few people, but those errors still got pointed out and VD still adjusted for those errors.

    I wouldn’t do Kate Paulk’s homework for her, but I understand the multiple impulses to do so and most of them aren’t about being the cleverest person in the room. It’s curiosity and fact checking, mostly, and it’s doubtful if those can be suppressed.

    In giving VD ideas, that is sometimes prompted by sarcasm, but more often appears to be the result of momentary apprehension. You could probably work with the former, but the latter has its own agenda. I don’t know about you, but if I’m worried about something it’s tough for me to use only my inside voice.

    If VD had any credibility outside of his own tiny clown car, it might be useful to track just how and when he adopted the more robust thinking of others (you could pretty much see the cartoon lightbulb go on over his head after being twitted at MGC for not being important on Goodreads), but he doesn’t, so the only value is amusement value. You don’t seem to be amused, though, so I can see why you’d want to stop it if you could. I…just don’t think that can be done without the blog version of a 10 second delay.

  14. Cheryl S.: What argument are you trying to win? You seem to agree with my objective of letting the award saboteurs fail on their on merits (“I wouldn’t do Kate Paulk’s homework for her”). If my agitating about that wakes anyone to ask himself whether his delight in posting the discovery is less valuable than the goal of frustrating the saboteurs, then it increases the opportunity for the awards to operate the way they should in the end.

  15. @Mike Glyer, I’ll let you know if there comes a day when there’s an argument I want to win. Today isn’t that day.

    What I’m saying, and apparently doing a poor job of it, is that your agitating is probably doomed by human nature. Besides, even if you succeeded in herding every talkative cat here, someone in the Twitterverse would be doing the job anyway.

    If the world of awards can no longer rely on the good faith of people of good will (and it appears it can’t), then it’s probably more useful to change the structure of the way the awards work than it is to try to roll rocks uphill and get people to behave in a way that doesn’t come naturally.

  16. @Dawn Incognito: I agree that calling people by the name they would like to be called is part of a basic level of respect. To my mind, Beale through his words and actions has forfeited that. I call him “Theodore Beale” precisely as a (low-key, to be sure) gesture of disrespect and contempt.

  17. My difficulty is keeping my mouth shut regarding my suspicions about VD’s strategies. It’s hard for people not to see patterns even in the most random configurations, and I find it interesting to dissect them and play “what if…” I’ve bitten my tongue many times on that subject, because I am pretty sure he makes shit up as he goes, and would use interesting ideas wherever he found them.

  18. Cheryl S: Never give up! Never surrender!

    Anyway, your notion seems to be that the choice is between complete success and absolute failure. That’s not my metric. I know VD reads these comments, so I’m raising the issue here about the tradeoffs of announcing rules violations before they can take effect. And really, at this point it’s more of a post hoc observation about fan behavior, with the nominations already being closed.

  19. @Cheryl S

    What I’m saying, and apparently doing a poor job of it, is that your agitating is probably doomed by human nature. Besides, even if you succeeded in herding every talkative cat here, someone in the Twitterverse would be doing the job anyway.

    What a sad view of human nature you have. I’ve seen people change and communities head in more positive directions because of the OGH/moderator(s)/a few strong members. There is no way to be sure if it doesn’t happen here it will happen elsewhere or if it does VD would hear about it.

    If no one works for a better world we can be sure the world won’t get better. If some people work for a better world the chances increase. The more people working for a better world the better the chances.

    Kindness is as natural to children as meanness until we train it out of them. As adults every day we make decisions for better or worse. Each decision is a chance to do better, be better.

    We came together as a group because we were disgusted by what the puppy leaders were doing to the Hugos. We have the choice as individuals and as a group whether to help the puppy leaders destroy things or not. Most of the time it simply takes a few moments of thought before doing something. We criticize the puppy leaders for lack of thought and personal responsibility. Shouldn’t we strive to do better?

  20. Gaming anecdote: One time, we played a normals campaign (we were highly talented but human, i.e. not bulletproof) loosely based on “Mission Impossible”. The setting was present-day Earth. It was the most nerve-wracking game I ever played: because it was such a familiar setting, it was easy to imagine the many possible ways things could go horribly wrong.

    It was a relatively short-lived but fun campaign, ending when most of the team members independently saw the writing on the wall & slunk off into the shadows. The final scene was the last remaining member at the wheel of a truck loaded up with explosive munitions, stuck in traffic, as the cops approached. Fade to black.

    After the campaign ended, our GM confessed that he started with a page of handwritten notes; the rest of it was taking our worst fears (which we voiced during mission briefings) and making (some of them) them reality.

    There’s a moral somewhere in there.

  21. I’ll stick with Teddy. If he does read these comments, it doesn’t hurt to remind him that around Minnesota, he’ll be Bob Beale’s little boy until the day he dies.

  22. @Dawn Incognito: Thanks. I respect your decision on how you want to conduct yourself a great deal. I suspect I’d be a better person if I adopted the same policy wholesale. Note: That’s not sarcasm. I mean it.

    At my present stage of development, the most I can manage is to acknowledge that an unsought nickname is disrespectful, and like David Goldfarb, sometimes I’m willing to own that.

  23. @Dawn Incognito: You’re welcome, and LOL ‘cuz I hadn’t read that one in quite a while, and I love the attack mantis shrimp breaking out of the aquarium glass.

    @Mike Glyer: We don’t talk about random stuff like “hey why doesn’t someone ruin popular vote on X” because there’s no context. Once it happens and there’s context, it seems reasonable to actually talk about the news and other potential problems…and I think I’m just repeating myself or going to repeat myself, so maybe that’s a sign I should stop here. 🙂

  24. Regarding the Mantis Shrimp, I love the Oatmeal’s version, but my very favorite piece on them was done my YouTube comedian/documentarian ZeFrank as part of his “True Facts” series.

  25. Re oatmeal: Rolled oats, quick-cook variety, made with water was the standard variety of my childhood. Most of my family ate it with butter, milk, and sugar. My preference from as early as I remember was with butter, salt, and pepper.

    Nowadays I’m much more likely to eat it for lunch or supper. Steel cut made with milk if I make it. Might mix in some crumbled bacon a/o cheese. Lately I’ve gone for sweeter, and eaten it with butter and molasses or sorghum syrup.

    Late to the party, didn’t have internet access for a few days.

  26. @Mike Glyer – Cheryl S: Never give up! Never surrender!

    Anyway, your notion seems to be that the choice is between complete success and absolute failure. That’s not my metric. I know VD reads these comments, so I’m raising the issue here about the tradeoffs of announcing rules violations before they can take effect. And really, at this point it’s more of a post hoc observation about fan behavior, with the nominations already being closed.

    Heh. No, if I was going to have a motto it would be something far less likely to lead to conflict. Maybe something like, Yeah, that sounds okay, but have you thought about x?

    Would I like it if people stopped giving the hints that VD is juuussst bright enough to pick up on? Sure. Let’s stop there, because that’s the part where we agree.

    @Tasha Turner – What a sad view of human nature you have. I’ve seen people change and communities head in more positive directions because of the OGH/moderator(s)/a few strong members. There is no way to be sure if it doesn’t happen here it will happen elsewhere or if it does VD would hear about it.

    Huh. No. Actually, I think very highly of people and think most do the very best they can. Individuals can change with a combination of mindfulness and practice and then a measure of vigilance is required in order to sustain the change. As difficult as that process is, it’s harder for a group to change, not least because groups are not only the individuals but also the group ethos, which is something separate. Acknowledging that isn’t cynical or apathetic. Neither is differentiating between individual behavior and group dynamics, something generally much easier to predict, at least by gross measures.

    I’ve been a moderator for a few internet groups. Even with the best will in the world, with people whose motivations were generally altruistic, the ban hammer and moderation queue had to be used fairly often in order to keep those corners positive and supportive and some people could reliably be counted on to respond reflexively. It was that reflexivity – in this case, the reflex to point out error* – that I was talking about.

    * If I could remember where I read it, I’d give credit, but my memory is unreliable. It was something to the effect that if you wanted help, the best way to get it was not to ask but to do it wrong and people would fall all over themselves to help you do it right. I think that’s both charming and puzzling and it feels true.

  27. (days late…) @Xtifr: LOL, thanks, I forgot about ZeFrank’s take on it – awesome!

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