aka “Nobody puts Puppy in a corner.”
Today’s roundup features Rebecca Ann Smith, Nick Mamatas, Vox Day, Kate Paulk, John C. Wright, Ridley Kemp, Martin Wisse, Damien G. Walter, Lis Carey, Brian Niemeier, Joe Sherry, Tom Kratman, Joe Sherry, Lisa J. Goldstein, Katya Czaja, and Kevin Standlee. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kary English and Hampus Eckerman.)
Rebecca Ann Smith
“Who Owns Popular Culture?” – May 21
Something very weird happened in the run up to this year’s prestigious Hugo awards, voted for by science fiction fans. In the culmination of a long campaign against what they see as the takeover of the awards by liberals, progressives and feminists, a right-leaning group calling themselves the Sad Puppies, led by author Brad Torgersen, successfully lobbied for an approved slate of books to receive nominations.
Although the Sad Puppies actions are legal within the rules of the Hugos, they have also been controversial. Some people feel it’s not playing fair, and others are concerned by their motives.
Nick Mamatas in a comment on File 770 – May 21
Way back when the ballot was announced, I said that fandom shouldn’t bother trying to change the rules. (Hugo rules change too frequently as it is.) http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1920331.html
There are three options as far I can tell:
The Hugos being a product a fandom, much of the discussion around “fixing” the issue boils down either angry blog posts about white people (ie, admissions of pathetic whining defeat) or statistical wonkery (ie foolishness). These are all wrongheaded—slating is essentially a political issue, and political issues need political responses. There are three possible ones:
- Suck It Up. Probably a pretty good idea. This bed was made some years ago when blogging culture sparked a shift from significant social sanction when people tried to get votes by asking publicly for consideration to “obligatory” posts promoting their own work, and later, the work of their friends. Loud Blogs win; Loud Blogs Plus Online Workshop-Clubhouses win more; and Loud Blogs plus political discipline win even more. Why should only the Loud Bloggers people have decided that they personally like and are “friends”* with win? Eventually, it’ll all even out, especially as what is most likely to happen is that the SPs get nominated and then lose decisively year after year.
- Castigate all campaigning, not just the campaigning you don’t like Pandora’s Box isn’t necessarily open forever. However, you can’t close half a lid. It would take significant effort to change widespread attitudes, but it is not as though those attitudes have not changed before. If campaigning was always met with eye-rolling or even outright disgust, it would stop being so effective. Some people would betray and try to promote, but if the audience was inured to such appeals, it just wouldn’t work and hopefuls would eventually stop.
- Counter-slates We’ll almost certainly see attempts at counter-slates. I’m against the idea, but the current cry to vote “No Award” in all SP-dominated categories is itself a counter-slate after a fashion. Someone will come up with Happy Kittens and stump for non-binary PoCs or stories with lots of scene breaks or or or…well, that’s the problem. One counter-slate would likely thwart the SPs, more than one would not. And we’re sure to see more than one. Disciplined slate voting works best when only one side does it and the other side isn’t even a side. Two slates split demographically. Three or more, uh… At any rate, it all comes around to political discipline again. If some party were to launch a counter-slate next year, would others who found that slate imperfect let it by without critique and another alternative slate. (There are actually two Puppy slates, but they are largely similar.) There can be slates that are so attractive that many more people sign up to vote for the Hugos, but I strongly suspect that people overestimate the amount of outside “pull” these slates have; general Hugo chatter across blogs and Twitter in general is driving increased education about supporting Worldcon memberships, and then there are all the free books voters might receive, which is also a new thing. One counter-slate would be effective, though of course the cure could be worse than the disease, and more than one would likely not.
So aggrieved Hugo Award followers, which shall it be?
Two is still the best bet.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Three options” – May 21
[Commenting on Nick Mamatas’ analysis above.]
This is at least dealing with observable reality, unlike those who fantasize that tinkering with the rules is going to slow down any group that contains at least one individual with a brain, or worse, those who think that MOAR DISQUALIFY is magically going to accomplish anything. So, let’s consider their options from our perspective.
1. Suck it up
This is what they should have done. It would have taken a fair amount of the wind out of our sails. However, most of the potential benefits are now lost since they’ve already motivated our side through their histrionics and media-planted stories.
2. Castigate all campaigning
Won’t happen. Far too many people on their side are guilty of it, and far too many people are already invested in the idea that what is very, very bad for us is just fine for the Tor set and everyone who bought memberships for their children and extended families.
3. Counter-slates
This is the only real option for them now. It’s also the one that is most frightening for them, because it puts an end to their gentleman’s agreement to stick to logrolling and whisper campaigns as long as no one gets too greedy, and forces them to come out and compete in the open. They hate open competition on principle and the idea that they might come out for a fair fight next year and lose will strike them as so terrifying as to be beyond imagining. Furthermore, because they really, really care about winning awards, it’s going to be much harder for them to put together a slate, much less find the numbers to support it in the disciplined manner required now that a bloc of 40 votes is no longer sufficient to put something on the shortlist.
Kate Paulk on Mad Genius Club
“Of Puppies and Principles” – May 21
Anyway, this little piece of anecdata leads to some thoughts about what could be considered the Sad Puppy Manifesto (although it isn’t, since the Sad Puppy organizers were – and are – more interested in doing stuff and getting results from said doings than in writing manifestos….
5. More voters and more votes mean more representative results. In 2008, fewer than 500 nomination ballots were cast for the Hugo awards. There were categories where the nominated works had fewer than 20 votes. In that environment, it doesn’t take much for someone with an agenda and a loyal following to push out anything they don’t like. In 2015, more than 2000 nomination ballots were cast. That makes it harder for things like the Sad Puppies campaigns, or our not at all hypothetical person with an agenda to push out everything else – but it doesn’t make it impossible. More people voting means that absent corruption on the part of the officials (which doesn’t appear to be a factor based on the information that’s publicly available), the results will tend to reflect the desires of the broader public (because the voters are a sample – and by the very nature of statistics, larger samples tend to be more representative of the overall population than smaller samples – and yes, I know it’s not that bloody simple. I’m trying to keep this short and failing miserably).
….So, if you’re a member, read the stories, then decide which way you’re going to vote.
And while you’re at it, review the WorldCon 2017 Site Selection bids and pay your $40 to vote for the one you prefer: you’ll get automatic supporting membership for WorldCon 2017 before the price goes up.
John C. Wright
“The Customer is Always Right” – May 21
….On the 770 blog, that wretched hive of scum and villainy, I unwisely left a gentle remark where I noted that a hiccuping hapless lackwit quoted this passage of fulsome praise to support the contention of my alleged dislike of womankind, rather than taking it as evidence to the clear contrary.
Emma, a zealous Inquisitor of the Thought Police, helps explicate the enigma.
https://file770.com/?p=22617&cpage=11#comment-265630 ….
It is difficult for me to untie the Gordian knot of this intestinal bafflegab (madonna/whore ideology?) since I do not have my Morlock-to-Reality dictionary at hand.
John C. Wright
“The Uncorrectors are Never Right” – May 21
I was taught, and experience confirms, that the alleged correction of “the hoi polloi” is the very soul and exemplar of pedantic error and half-learned buffoonery.
No learned man ever offers that correction, and no one ever offers it innocently, but only in vulgar pretense of erudition they do not possess. (A man with a modicum of real education would look in the OED, and see this phase is correct in English.)
Ridley Kemp on Stay With Me, Go Places
“History Will Forget The Sad Puppies” – May 21
If you want my take on the Hugos, I’ll give you this:
In ye olden dayes, the players selected for baseball’s all-star game were elected by public ballots. In 1957, the ballots were being printed in newspapers instead of passed out to the fans at games (as I remember from the 1970’s) or online (as it’s done now). The Cincinnati Enquirer decided to help the fans out a little by printing pre-filled ballots with nothing be Cincinnati ballplayers selected. As a result, the starting lineup for the 1957 National League team consisted of Stan Musial, a St. Louis Cardinal, and 7 cincinnati Reds.
People rightly saw this as a subversion of the process. Ford Frick, the commissioner of baseball, immediately replaced two Reds outfielders, Wally Post and Gus Bell, with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays because, c’mon, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. The remaining Reds were allowed to start the game and then almost immediatley replaced once the game started, and the game looked like an All-Star game once more.
Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words
“Puppies wee on your shoulders and tell you it’s rain” – May 21
Nobody with any familiarity of Worldcon fandom’s history and culture believes that it’s dishonest to vote No Award over any nomination that got there through blatant slate voting, or that fans have a duty to be “fair” to nominations which stole their place on the ballot.
Marion on Deeds & Words
“The Hugos, 2015: Chapter Four, What Were They Thinking?” – May 21
To my mind, nowhere is the problem of the bloc-voting and the slate concept better demonstrated than in the Novella Category. Here is the short-list….
If you love short SF, you read a lot of SF magazines, or you enjoy anthologies, that list may be baffling you. You might wonder why, since the Hugos are for the best work of the year, you have probably only read, or even heard of, one of those works. You might wonder why one press, which you’ve never heard of before, has four of the five works on the list.
Having read these works, here’s what I can say with confidence; if the splinter group (who call themselves Rapid Puppies) wanted to demonstrate with this list the kind of fine, solid story-telling that they think is getting overlooked due to the distraction of more “politically correct” fare, they’ve failed abjectly.
The best of the lot is “Flow” by Arlen Andrews Sr. This is the type of the story that the original slate group, the “Sad Puppies” frequently talk about and say they like.
https://twitter.com/damiengwalter/status/601382433817165825
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Amanda S. Green Fanwriter Samples” – May 21
The sample provided is sixteen pages, several different selections of Green’s fanwriting.…
There is no interest or willingness to engage with anyone with whom she disagrees, or even to extend the most basic of respect to fellow human beings. If she disagrees with you, she must also make clear that she disrespects you. A complete waste. This has no place on the Hugo ballot.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“A Single Samurai (in The Baen Big Book of Monsters), by Steven Diamond” – May 21
Let it be noted that Baen, always a leader in trusting the reader with ebooks, included the entire Baen Big Book of Monsters in the Hugo packet, not just the nominated material. Which makes it a shame that I can’t like this story better. It’s not terrible, but at no point does it really grab me.
Brian Niemeier on Superversive SF
Because so much of storytelling relies on nudging readers’ imaginations to paint the images the writer intends, using stereotypes is inevitable and indispensable.
“What the reader wants not to do is to be asked by the writer to use the stereotype in his head in a tired, trite, shopworn, or expected way, because then the reader notices, and is rightly put off, by the trick being pulled on him.”
Wright thus counsels authors to employ two contradictory stereotypes to describe each character. Bilbo Baggins is a retiring country squire and a supremely accomplished burglar. Kal-El is both mild-mannered reporter and Superman. The tension between these contradictions creates depth.
Joe Sherry on Adventures In Reading
“Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Fancast” – May 21
Tea and Jeopardy appears to be in a class by itself. It is very slickly produced and seems to take place in the midst of a proper tea party. Again, this was one of the shorter episodes included and the limited run time accentuates what is cool and quirky about it while never letting what works run for too long. It is the most worthy of the nominees, I think. My vote:
1. Tea and Jeopardy
2. Galactic Suburbia
3. Adventures in SF Publishing
4. The Sci Phi Show
5. Dungeon Crawlers Radio
Lis Carey on Amazon
[Lis Carey gave Thomas Kratman’s “Big Boys Don’t Cry” a 2-star Amazon review and ended up in an exchange with Kratman who expressed his displeasure and included a fling at the Hugos.]
[Tom Kratman:] I want the Hugos utterly destroyed, No Awarded in perpetuity. I want “Aces and Eights.” I want the village destroyed and don’t care in the slightest about saving it. The best way to accomplish that is for the SJW types to succeed in getting general No Award votes this time around. So make it a one star and vote “no award.”
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot, Part 13: Novellas” – May 21
In “Flow,” by Arlan Andrews, Sr., we follow a crew riding an iceberg down a river to the Warm Lands. The first half of the story is little more than a travelog, as the main character, Rist from the Tharn’s Lands, learns about the Warm Lands from his compatriot, Cruthar. It’s not terrible. The two societies are different in interesting ways, and Rist makes a good naive traveler. But it is, once again, not a story but an excerpt; we’ve already missed the beginning and there is no real ending.
Katya Czaja
“Hugo Awards: Fanzine” – May 21
Ranking To be honest, nothing really grabbed me in this category. I’m not a Whovian so Journey Planet bored me. Tangent seemed well written, but I would not seek out another copy. Elitist Book Reviews fell below No Award because I can think of a half dozen book blogs that have stronger, more interesting reviews. The Revenge of Hump Day fell below No Award because it was a compilation of stuff other people had sent the editor, and not a particularly interesting compilation at that.
1) Journey Planet
2) Tangent Online
3) No Award
4) Elitist Book Reviews
5) The Revenge of Hump Day
Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way Of Life
“Didn’t Just Fall Off the Turnip Truck” – May 20
From some of the suggestions and questions I’m getting, I think there are people who must think this is the first WSFS Business Meeting over which I’ve presided (even when those people have attended and participated in meetings over which I presided). I also think there are people who think that those of us organizing the Business Meeting haven’t heard anything at all about this Puppygate stuff, and feel the need to explain to me all about it. I suppose they’re all well-meaning, but it does get wearing after a while. Presumably this is what it feels like to be Mansplained to.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
????????????????????????
Ha, that was meant to say that my Japanese looks okay in preview.
Interesting that you believe the SJW set was outwitted by a bunch of incoherent illiterates en route to the Hugos, Peace. I doubt Hauman and company appreciate the insult.
Stevie-
?Bows blithely.?
Those symbols showed up perfectly well on the preview. I wonder why they don’t display in my post?
Also, it’s past two am in Europe, and for us the word ‘anathema’ has all sorts of religious connotations which go a great deal further than the presence or absence of the word ‘the’ in front of hoi polloi.
My father was excommunicated for marrying a Protestant, back in the days when it was the real deal. Bell, book and candle with the promise of burning in hell for eternity, a threat which he might have taken somewhat more seriously were it not for the fact that he had spent years as a slave on the Death Railway and therefore already knew what hell was like…
Can someone please explain the Related Works category to me? I have been trying to read some of the entries from the Hugo packet and I am completely baffled. What on Earth is this stuff? The only this I have gotten out of this so far is, … well …, pompous.
I read the definition “Awarded to a work related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, … The type of works eligible include, but are not limited to, collections of art, works of literary criticism, books about the making of a film or TV series, biographies and so on, provided that they do not qualify for another category. Nonfiction collections are eligible here, but fiction anthologies generally are not because all of the individual works within the anthology are eligible in one of the “story” categories.” And I have looked though some of the past nominees – which has helped a bit.
Are there other things that you might have expected to see nominated in this category – the second volume of the Heinlein biography? I have very few points of reference for this one and would appreciate some ideas of what to look at for comparison.
xdpaul: “Interesting that you believe the SJW set was outwitted by a bunch of incoherent illiterates en route to the Hugos, Peace.”
Oh, xdpaul, here you are making things up again. Shame, shame.
You lost me there. It’s hard to keep track of these darned conversation threads if people don’t cite what they are responding to.
Or, in perfectly grammatical and perfect Greek, and/or possibly Japanese, because who could tell:
???? ?? ???????
The preview tricked me too.
??????
@xdpaul: why do you keep coming back here? I’m honestly curious. You prove nothing except how utterly, cartoonishly ridiculous the whole RP thing is.
I what now?
(Sorry. I made what I thought was a more coherent plea for at least a cite or something so I could work out which conversation thread this was referring to, but it seems to have gotten swallowed up and I can’t see it with an “awaiting moderation” message.)
Related Works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Related_Work
ULTRAGOTHA: I think it’s some sort of anglocentric conspiracy to keep those of us who speak other languages (or want to use non-standard symbols) in our place.
I say we burn File770 to the ground!
Or accept that the blog isn’t really set up for that purpose and move on with our lives like rational adults.
David –
Get over it. We’re not that into JCW.* What we care about is someone gaming the Hugos for commercial gain and/or spite.
His “political views” are not “anathema.” they are common and unremarkable.
What people here *are* into, in matters of the would-be-snobbish quote from Iolanthe, is word-nerd. Period.
*My* objection to Mr Wright is his articulating things, and attributing them to the faith I grew up with, when there is no congruence.
I would have a lot more to say but that would wind up with me emulating him in some of these matters, and I’d rather spend time contemplating the good things that life affords.
==========
* Now, if you want to discuss JWC (rather than JCW) there would be a lot more interest. Someone with a whole lot of influence on the field of SF writing, for good and ill.
@ Elisa “Can someone please explain the Related Works category to me? I have been trying to read some of the entries from the Hugo packet and I am completely baffled. What on Earth is this stuff? The only this I have gotten out of this so far is, … well …, pompous.”
It’s essentially non-fiction that talks about SFF. If you want a picture of what that entail I suggest taking a look at previous years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Related_Work
I agree that some of the work nominated this year just….doesn’t make any sense. But this year is an anomaly so don’t take it to represent what the Hugo’s normally do.
The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft is definitely something that *should* have been on Best Related Works this year, but sadly was not. (Dunno if it almost had the votes, but it was deserving.)
>> … “that” being the ideal that the ballot ought to represent a wide cross section of the (nominating) voters. If they had been, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.>>
Not necessarily. As has been noted, the Puppies refuse to be specific when it’s pointed out that stuff of the sort they say they like actually has been on the ballot in the years they say the Imaginary Cabal was keeping that stuff off the ballot.
It may be that we’d be having the discussion anyway, because they don’t feel they were getting enough of the ballot.
>> I complain about “the hoi polloi” and people pronouncing the second letter of the alphabet “bay-tuh” and “octopi” whenever I see them.>>
I can understand complaining if people pronounce the second letter of the alphabet “octopi.” But “bay-tuh” isn’t right? I did not know that.
Yeah – I have already taken a look at lists of past works nominated in category. It wasn’t helping me with this lot. There have been some interesting discussions of alternate works people would have liked to see nominated in other categories, and I was rather hoping for something like that here.
Nick Mamatas – now that sounds interesting! Thanks.
All the pronunciations you might have learned in a science class or frat house are kinda-sorta guesses as to what ancient Greek might have sounded like, but don’t sound very much like Greek at all. This page covers it, and includes little sound samples for modern pronunciation:
http://www.foundalis.com/lan/grkalpha.htm
Elisa: “Are there other things that you might have expected to see nominated in this category – the second volume of the Heinlein biography? I have very few points of reference for this one and would appreciate some ideas of what to look at for comparison.”
It helps if you understand that a large part of the Puppy nominees in that category were there simply as an “F*** You” to non-Puppies, and not because they are genuinely SFF-related works.
Here are some works that people had suggested for that category:
Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Vol. 2 – The Man Who Learned Better, 1948-1988 by William H. Patterson
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton
The World of Fire and Ice by George RR Martin, Elio Garcia, and Linda Antonsson
Speculative Fiction 2013: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary edited by Ana Grilo & Thea James
Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology by Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, Brandon Sanderson & Mary Robinette Kowal
Stand Back! I’m Going To Quote Junot Díaz (Thinking about language) by John Chu
Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World by Anne Jamison
Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy (a month of guest blog posts) by fantasybookcafe.com
xdpaul: Interesting that you believe the SJW set was outwitted by a bunch of incoherent illiterates en route to the Hugos, Peace.
For me, at least, I didn’t know anything about the Hugo nomination process before this year. The fact that it got gamed by a group of people (the Puppies) with a stupid political agenda and sub-par stories was like an alarm clock going off. I also hadn’t heard of Vox Day outside of Fundies Say the Darndest Things (a website dedicated to archiving crazy things that religious zealots, conspiracy theorists, and racists say), and I had no idea he wrote SF. I thought he was just a misogynist religious crank with a blog.
I’m sure there are plenty of other anti-Puppies who didn’t know about any of this until April. We didn’t get “outwitted” by anyone. We got slapped in the face and called SJWs just for liking the kind of SF we like, and we’re pissed off.
JJ – Thanks! That is exactly what I was hoping for. I appreciate the help.
Whym: “I’m sure there are plenty of other anti-Puppies who didn’t know about any of this until April. We didn’t get “outwitted” by anyone.”
Oh, that “outwitted” claim is something the Puppies keep crowing about, because they’re convinced that the loophole in the Hugo nominations process they used to pack the ballot this year was something no one else ever noticed, and that they’re ever so incredibly clever for finding it.
They’re too clueless to understand that for decades, everyone’s known about it, but nobody abused it, because nobody wanted to be “that asshole”.
The Puppies, of course, have no problem taking on that role, so it’s incomprehensible to them that anyone else wouldn’t want to take it on as well.
For me, at least, I didn’t know anything about the Hugo nomination process before this year. The fact that it got gamed by a group of people (the Puppies) with a stupid political agenda and sub-par stories was like an alarm clock going off. I also hadn’t heard of Vox Day outside of Fundies Say the Darndest Things (a website dedicated to archiving crazy things that religious zealots, conspiracy theorists, and racists say), and I had no idea he wrote SF. I thought he was just a misogynist religious crank with a blog.
I’m sure there are plenty of other anti-Puppies who didn’t know about any of this until April. We didn’t get “outwitted” by anyone. We got slapped in the face and called SJWs just for liking the kind of SF we like, and we’re pissed off.
whym – seconded, I am in the same boat as you, except i had never heard of any of the various puppy writers at all, save for remembering the correia name from a friends bookshelf (said friend is in fact horrified at the behavior of an author she liked, but has now cast aside like soiled gloves)
Provocations? Oh, I wouldn’t think so.
Whym
One thing you will discover is that the canine conspirators are now in total disarray, because the Sads didn’t realise that they would be Shanghaid by the Rabids. Equally, the Rabids are in total disarray because Beale really thought he was going to be treated as an entrepreneurial mastermind by the WSJ and therefore was completely blindsided when the WSJ laughed at him.
In other words, all they’ve got left is to be as destructive as possible, and do their best to make everyone else miserable. They are working at it, but my personal response, as I plod through the dreck, varies between the Glenlivet and Hagen-Daz; I feel some pride in the fact that my survival strategy is working…
All the while Vox Day is screaming “Why are you running? We have them right where we want them!”
Too bad the only way one can express their contempt for some of the nominees that were foisted on Fandom is by leaving them off the ballot.
My inner Hulk really wishes there were something I could smash.
Stevie: “my personal response, as I plod through the dreck, varies between the Glenlivet and Hagen-Daz”
The Five Stages of Hugo Grief
I don’t think the Wall Street Journal laughed at Theodore Beale. I think Michael Rapaport’s story was a dispassionate, honest, clear-eyed view of the situation.
Testing Greek:
εν αρχή εποίησεν ο θεός τον ουρανόν και την γην
Testing Hebrew:
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Magic!
Oh, xdpaul. I’d say “don’t ever change” but I know you never will.
HOWTO post non-Latin characters in File770 (until Mike or somebody fixes the code page translation problem):
1) Compose your text
2) Go to https://mothereff.in/html-entities (If you disable Javascript for most sites, like I do, you will need to enable it for this site)
3) Paste your text into the top box
4) copy the HTML entities that should appear in the bottom box to the File770 comment box
5) The preview should show the entities properly
6) Post Comment
I think Michael Rapaport’s story was a dispassionate, honest, clear-eyed view of the situation.
And as should be obvious by now, Mr. Beale can’t abide that.
Huh. T????????e??????s?t???i??????????????????.? ?????
Ah, Zalgo text works just fine in the preview but not in the actual post. 🙂
What happens to emoticons?
❤ 😻
Owlmirror: “(until Mike or somebody fixes the code page translation problem)”
Then everybody should print a copy of your instructions and tape them next to their computer. My programming talent only extends to finding plug-ins and letting WordPress automatically install them….
@XS: Even following my HOWTO?
Everyone knows that the second letter of the alphabet is pronounced “bra-vo”, preceded by “al-fa” and followed by “char-lee”.
Peace
Which resulted in him laughing at Beale. It’s worth bearing in mind that WSJ journalists are supposed to identify the market analysis; that is why it was so catastrophic for Beale, who had deluded himself into believing that he and his publishing house were game changers.
I think that perhaps you are ascribing a too high-minded role for places like the WSJ and the Financial Times; they are there to be realistic, and there’s nothing in the in-house rules that says they have to be nice about it. The rules say ‘Get it Right’, and they try to ‘Get it Right’.
And at 4.15 am I need some sleep…
I don’t suppose the Hugo awards banquet is live-streamed somewhere?
@Mike: This may be how to fix the problem with a WordPress plugin. I would be a bit leery, myself . . . :
http://wpexpert.com.au/archives/fix-problems-displaying-non-latin-character-sets-in-wordpress/
@Owlmirror
I hesitated to try because this may look all kinds of ugly, but here goes:
T̖̻͕̫̹̙͠ͅe̩̖͓̱͍͚s̟t͙͇̫i̦͚̬͔̹͙͇͠ń̜͎͚ģ̭̟̼̹̭.̬ ̣̫̼̤̠
Also, Teddy showed he continues to not understand sarcasm by posting about Lori Coulson and her “one woman blacklist”.
Fred Davis on May 22, 2015 at 8:47 am said:
If maybe 5 to 10 times more of the registered members of the WSFS had nominated with the same general pattern, the slates wouldn’t have been as successful as they were.
The above is an out-of-context quote. Most of the response below doesn’t address the points I actually made in this or the previous post.
I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. I was addressing proposed changes to the nominating system (that would, incidentally, help defend against slates even with low voter turnout). I’m not making any ‘demands’ on Worldcon or the WSFS.
Ah, success! Thanks Owlmirror!
*never uses Zalgo text again, probably*
*still, it’s the principle*
I don’t suppose the Hugo awards banquet is live-streamed somewhere?
It has been in the past, although not without hiccups. (Really, not my fault.) http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/04/tech/web/hugo-awards-gaiman-ustream/
It probably will be again this year.
Laertes: “I don’t suppose the Hugo awards banquet is live-streamed somewhere?”
Also, it stopped being a banquet at some point (no doubt our host or Mr Standlee knows when) and is now just a “ceremony” or “presentation”.