Pixel Scroll 10/04/21 DIY Pixels

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  5. THE FACEBOOK DYNASTY STRUGGLES (ALSO IN MY 10/3 POST) – As we probably all know, Facebook’s apps (including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) have been down today. No public explanation has been provided though, since the Internet is a leaky sieve, an alleged FB tech with the Reddit moniker of “ramenporn” discussed the problem on Reddit (which then appeared on Twitter):

    https://twitter.com/zkikvidze/status/1445080289643016197?s=20

    As many of you know, DNS for FB services has been affected and this is likely a symptom of the actual issue, and that’s BGP peering with Facebook peering routers has gone down, very likely to a configuration change that went into effect shortly before the outages happened (started roughly 1540 UTC).

    There are people now trying to gain access to the peering routers to implement fixes, but the people with physical access [are] separate from the people with knowledge of how to actually authenticate to the systems and the people who actually know what to actually do, so there is now a logistical challenge with getting all that knowledge unified.

    Part of this is due to lower staffing in data centers due to pandemic measures.

  6. Today’s Birthdays

    Alvin Toffler, 1928 – 2016

    Author of Future Shock and a number of other works that almost no one will recall now. John Brunner named a most excellent novel, The Shockwave Rider, after the premise of Future Shock.

    ###

    Ann Thwaite, born 1932, aged eighty nine years

    Author of AA Milne: His Life which won the Whitbread Biography of the Year, as well as The Brilliant Career of Winnie-the Pooh, a scrapbook offshoot of the Milne biography. (And yes, Pooh is most decidedly genre.) She recently she updated her thirty year old biography of A.A Milne to coincide with Goodbye Christopher Robinfor which she was a consultant. Thirty years ago, Christopher Milne wrote to her saying, “In you my father has found the perfect biographer… I am left with nothing but admiration and happiness.”

    ###
    Sidney Edward Paget, 1860 – 1908

    British illustrator of the Victorian era, he’s definitely known for his illustrations that accompanied Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand. He also illustrated the Arthur Morrison’s Martin Hewitt, Investigator is a series of short stories featuring the protagonist, Martin Hewitt, and written down by his good friend, the journalist Brett. These came out after Holmes was killed off for many similar series.

    ###

    Charlton Heston, 1923 – 2008

    Without doubt, best known for playing astronaut George Taylor in the Planet of the Apes. He retuned to the role Beneath the Planet of the Apes. He’s also Neville in Charlton Heston, 1923 – 2008 Without doubt, best known for playing astronaut George Taylor in the Planet of the Apes. He retuned to the role Beneath the Planet of the Apes. He’s also Neville in The Omega Man. By the way, he once performed at the LA Music Center as Sherlock Holmes in The Crucifer of Blood, opposite Richard Johnson as Dr. Watson. His IMDB credits show him as being on SeaQuest DSV in the “Abalon” episode.

    ###

    Saladin Ahmed, born 1975, aged forty six years

    His Black Bolt series, with Christian Ward as the artist, won an Eisner Award for Best New Series and the graphic novel collection, Black Bolt, Volume 1: Hard Time, was a finalist at Worldcon 76 for Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. His first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, won a Locus Award for Best First novel.

    ###

    Caitriona Balfe, born 1979, aged forty two years

    She is best remembered for her lead role as Claire Fraser on Outlander. Her first genre role was as Elizabeth Lamb in Super 8, and she has two other genre credits, one voicing Tavra in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and the other playing Breena Sheehan in the H+: The Digital Series in which the singularity has come and gone.

    ###

    Earl Binder, 1904 – 1966

    Under the pen name of Eando Binder, he and his brother Otto published SF stories. One series was about a robot named Adam Link. The first such story, published in 1939, is titled “I, Robot”. A collection by Asimov called I, Robot would be published in 1950. The name was selected by the publisher, despite Asimov’s wishes. As Eando Binder, they wrote a hoofot number of novels — Enslaved Brains, Dawn to Dusk and The Hospital Horror are just three of their titles. There’s lots of Eando Binder available at the usual suspects.

    ###

    Christoph Waltz, born 1956, aged sixty five years

    He portrayed James Bond’s nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre , he is set to reprise the role in No Time to Die. Genre wise, he also portrayed Qohen Leth in The Zero Theorem, Benjamin Chudnofsky in The Green Hornet (I lasted ten minutes before giving up), Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, himself in Muppets Most Wanted, Léon Rom in The Legend of Tarzan and Dr. Dyson Ido in Alita: Battle Angel.

  10. Twenty two years on The WB, Angel, a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired. It aired on the The WB for an impressive run of five seasons and one hundred and ten episodes. It starred David Boreanaz as Angel. It was created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt the co-executive producer of the TV series Buffy, and who much later co-created Grimm. Reception wasn’t great at first but as the U.K. Independent notes,”The LA-set spin-off to Buffy was initially dismissed as the original’s poor cousin but gradually developed into a darkly entertaining show in its own right.”

  11. Get well soon, Mike.

    Taking care of that other item, it appears that Captain Kirk* will make a brief visit to space courtesy of Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin.

    *Well, sure. But it wouldn’t have been nearly as click-baity if I’d said TJ Hooker was going to space, right?

    Regards,
    Dann
    “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” – Frank Zappa

  15. Daryl Gregory & Michael J. DeLuca, October 20th

    *** THIS EVENT WILL BE HELD AT THE KGB BAR IN-PERSON – WELCOME BACK! ***

    Proof of vaccination is required to enter; face masks required when not seated *

    Dear Friends,

    We are very excited to finally return to in-person* readings at the KGB Bar in Manhattan’s East Village for this month’s guests, Daryl Gregory & Michael J. DeLuca, Wednesday, October 20th, 7pm ET!

    Welcome back everyone!

    We still plan to publish a video recording of the event on YouTube, but our readings will no longer be presented live. We will deeply miss the interactions with all of you from around the globe, and we sincerely thank you for all your support of our reading series and the KGB Bar these difficult last eighteen months.

    We will still be providing the audio podcasts as usual, and we hope that you will engage with us on social media and, hopefully, in person sometime soon! Thank you.

    If you’d like to support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series, please click here.

    Stay well.

    Best,
    Matt & Ellen

    Proof of vaccination is required to enter; face masks required when not seated.

    FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present:???

    Daryl Gregory & Michael J. DeLuca, October 20th, 2021, 7pm ET.

  19. Saladin Ahmed was also a finalist for the Astounding Award in 2010 and 2011 – a signal honor for a writer.

    Keeping getting better, Mike.

  20. Which Shatner-in-Space scenerio should we be lobbying for:
    1, Spacewalking Shatner “jumping and sliding” across the hood of the craft?
    2, Shatner looking out the window, and seeing a spooky angry alien jumping up and down on the wing?

  23. I’m trying to think of books which have systems go down after a routine update and drawing a blank. Overall, there seems to be the assumption that software updates will be a rare occurrence, and make major changes when they happen.

  24. @bookworm1398:

    I’m trying to think of books which have systems go down after a routine update and drawing a blank.

    Well, comic books are all about the “reboot.”

  26. @Daniel Dern
    (3) Shatner looking out the window and seeing a starship – or even just a shuttlecraft – passing by?

  28. Thanks for the Big Idea link, Paul. I’m already halfway through Scales and Sensibility and enjoying it a lot.

  29. From j-archive, here are the questions from tonight’s Double Jeopardy category “Sci-Fi Movie Synopses”:

    $400: Rick retires Replicants, Roy (Rutger) ruminates in rain

    $800: Linguistics lass learns lexicon of labyrinthine life forms

    $1200: Beleaguered botanist bolsters base, buddies bounce back, boost on board

    $1600: Aging actors assume anterior aspects, Allen aids admiring aliens against annihilation

    $2000: Cruise & crafty computer collaborate on crimes not yet committed

    One of Matt’s sacrificial competitors actually got two of these. She guessed wrong on a third, but at least the guess was PKD-related (Total Recall) and therefore in the right ballpark.

  30. I figured out those Jeopardy questions but slowly. I’d have embarrassed my fellow fans if I was on that episode.

  31. To me, $400 and $1600 are obvious, I think I know $1200, I have a guess for $2000 but I haven’t seen it, and I really don’t know $800.

  34. @David Shallcross
    I think the key to $800 is Ted Chiang.
    I have to admit that I only get two. I don’t think I’ve seen any of them, though.

  36. I can’t work out $1200. The only movie I can think of with a botanist is [rot13]Wheenfvp Cnex and I don’t see how that fits.

    Oynqr Ehaare
    Neeviny
    ?
    Pbpbba
    Zvabevgl Ercbeg

  38. Y’all know j-archive has the correct responses, right? (As well as the incorrect ones and who gave them, and whether all three contestants were stumped.)

  40. gottacook on October 4, 2021 at 7:18 pm said:

    Y’all know j-archive has the correct responses, right?

    No I didn’t.
    Also, fun trivia question: guess how many episodes of Jeopardy I’ve seen? 🙂

  42. David Shallcross, you’re right. I should have known my guess was too obscure for Jeopardy.

  48. I recognized $1200, without at all remembering what the film’s name is.

    Best wishes, Mike.

  49. Camestros Felapton wrote:

    New band name: Gur Znegvna and the Cbgngbrf of Znef

    The perfect opening act for Grignr and the Many Fauceted Scarlet Emeralds.

  50. Feel better soon, Mike! Recovery from anything seems to take longer than it did in the 80s and 90s for some reason (hush, youngsters).

    @Daniel Dern: I’m voting for 2. How much would we have to raise to get The Shat to do that?

    @Cam: But you’re legally required to mention gur cbbc when talking about gur cbgngbrf. Particularly when it’s a band name.

    @bookworm1398: The LA public library tweeted that books still worked!

    Seeing as I’m posting this from the year 702, I guess I’ll go read that “ur doin medieval all rong” from the other day.

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