(1) PORTENT OF ELECTRONIC DOOM. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s BBC Radio 4 The Infinite Monkey Cage looked at the personal digital landscape, the threats from hacking, digital theft, cyber war and the coming quantum day.

Invited to discuss this were experts in cyber crime and cyber warfare with the show’s regular hosts: physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince.

The show concluded somewhat grimly that we are all doomed…

I have been saying for years that the machines are taking over the world but no-one ever listens… well, it now seems, hardly anyone.

Brian Cox and Robin Ince head to Bletchley Park with comedian Alan Davies, and cyber experts Victoria Baines and Richard Benham to decode cyberwarfare and discuss its future.

As computers have shrunk from the size of rooms to fitting in our jacket pockets, our cyber sleuths explore the changing nature of cyber-attacks and defence. They decipher the fancy jargon abounding in cyber land, from trojan horses to phishing scams and reveal how prolific these attacks are on nation states, businesses and the public. From digital army battalions to teenage freelance hackers, the cyber-villains are multiple and varied. Our panel discusses the aims of these malevolent forces; from extorting money and holding valuable commercial data hostage to influencing people’s electoral intent.

The panel explores how AI and quantum computing are supercharging cyberwarfare – but in good news, also cyber-defence. Alan Davies shares his susceptibility to being tricked online whilst our experts give some tips for staying safe online, and finally, Alan comes up with his surprising alter-ego hacking name.

The show can be downloaded from here.

(2) GILLER PRIZE. The Giller Prize 2024 winner – Held by Anne Michaels — was announced on November 18. The Prize is a celebration of Canadian literary talent.

Held may be a work of genre interest – or a historical novel that jumps around in time (even into 2025). It’s not easy to decide based on what the Penguin Random House Canada’s website says. Is this a literal description, or a poetic analogy?

…1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand.

…From its opening lines, Held is alive with seeking: “We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?”

If anyone here has read it, please help us decide whether this is a work of sff!

(3) THE NITTY GRITTY. Bidding starts at Christie’s in nine days for “Dune: an early study of Arrakis by John Schoenherr”, which is estimated to bring £5,000-£7,000 at auction.

‘I can envision no more perfect visual representation of my Dune world than John Schoenherr’s careful and accurate illustrations.’ -Frank Herbert.

An early painted landscape of the Dune universe, one of only six known Dune studies by Schoenherr from the 1960s. The others are the three cover artworks for Analog magazine (one of which was used on the hardcover first edition), the first paperback cover, and an unused Analog cover.

To visualize his world, Herbert worked alongside the Hugo award winning artist, Schoenherr, who produced the illustrations for the original magazine serial, as well as the cover art for the original hardcover and paperback editions of the trilogy. Indeed, the present work bears certain similarities to the cover art for the 1965 first paperback edition published by Ace Books, particularly the angle of the large rocky outcrop in the foreground. Schoenherr’s work for Dune laid the visual foundations for every cinematic and artistic interpretation of the world that would follow, his barren and emotive landscapes helping bring to life the otherworldly spice fields and kingdoms laid out in Herbert’s iconic text. So fitting were Schoenherr’s illustrations that the author declared him ‘the only man to ever visit Dune’.

Ragged and sharp in its visualization of an arid desertscape, the present work captures the hostile and unforgiving environment of Arrakis. It appears to be unpublished and was perhaps intended as an early experimental adventure into the vast world of Dune.

(4) AND THAT’S NOT ALL. Heritage Auction also has artwork of sff genre interest in their forthcoming 2024 December 9 Illustration Art Showcase Auction 15236. See lots at the link. Includes artists Emsh, John Schoenherr, Virgil Finlay, Jack Gaughan, and Richard M. Powers.

Here’s one example: “Away Team” by Edmund (Emsh) Emshwiller.

(5) NEW SHORT FROM RODDENBERRY ARCHIVE AND OTOY. “William Shatner’s Captain Kirk Faces a Long Goodbye in This Stunning Star Trek Anniversary Short” – Gizmodo sets the scene.

Thirty years ago today [November 18], Star Trek‘s cinematic legacy boldly stepped forward as the heroes of the original series and The Next Generation teamed up on the silver screen in Star Trek: Generations. The Enterprise-D met her end, the Star Trek movie franchise passed the torch to a new age, and, of course, William Shatner’s Captain Kirk gave it all to save the Veridian system from the sinister Dr. Soran. And now, to celebrate, the Roddenberry Archive has once again teamed up with OTOY to create a fitting, fond farewell to not one, but two of Trek‘s original heroes….

…There’s some fascinating connections to a whole gamut of Star Trek lore here, from OTOY and the Roddenberry Archive’s previous use of Mahé Thaissa as Yeoman Colt from “The Cage” all the way up to the inclusion of Yor, a Betelgeusian Starfleet officer from the Kelvin Timeline who briefly appeared during the events of Star Trek: Discovery season three. But you’re mostly here for the uncanny valley being overridden by tugs at your heart strings to give Kirk and Spock alike one last shared farewell….

(6) LOSCON 50 SUPPORTS THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY/RELAY FOR LIFE TEAM. Loscon 50, taking place November 29-December 1 at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport Hotel, has announced their support for a charity, and three ways you can help: knit or crochet a hat; donate funds; donate to an auction. Details in the following press release:

Loscon 50 is honored to support the mission of the American Cancer Society during the 2024 convention weekend as “Loscon Gives Back”. Many of our community members have been affected by various forms of cancer, we have survivors and losses from this devastating disease. We have teamed up with the Relay for Life fundraiser with one of our staff, Julia Ree who is part of the Riverside team and a cancer survivor herself. Here is Julia’s direct Relay for Life link.

We have put out a call for knit hats to be crafted by those who knit or crochet in our Loscon community. These hats are gifted to cancer patients during their treatment and will be presented to Julia Ree during the convention. The hats can be brought to Loscon 50 and dropped off in the Office or they can be mailed in, please use the contact form on the loscon.org website.

Loscon will have an auction during the convention to raise funds to donate directly to the American Cancer Society Relay for Life team. We welcome donations to the auction by our community, our dealers, our authors and others who would like to support this worthy cause. Please use the contact form on our website at this link: https://loscon.org/contact/

Loscon is excited to welcome attendees to our three day weekend of Science Fiction and Fantasy fun. We celebrate Larry Niven as our Writer Guest of Honor, Kathy Mar our Musical Guest of Honor, Dr Laura Brodian Freas Beraha our Artist Guest of Honor and the late Kelly Freas as our Artist Ghost of Honor and our Fan Guests of Honor, Genny Dazzo and Craig Miller. Please see https://loscon.lineupr.com/loscon-50/ for programming details.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Let’s talk about my favorite Star Wars film. No, not the first one, The Empire Strikes Back. Released forty-four years ago but please note not on this date. I think it’s the best written, best performed and simply most interesting of the trilogy.

It was as you know the sequel to the original film which Leigh Brackett was hired to write before she died way too soon, just several weeks after turning in her script, so Lucas hired Lawrence Kasdan to write but gave Leigh Brackett co-writing credit on it as much of script is still in the final script. 

Now they did met several times in late 1977 to hash out an outline for what was called then Star Wars II. They figured out the framework of plot, which remained pretty much intact in later drafts, although there were some differences such as Darth Vader wasn’t Luke’s father in their outline.

Den of Geek has this quote, “Writing has never been something I have enjoyed, and so, ultimately, on the second film I hired Leigh Brackett. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out; she turned in the first draft, and then she passed away, I didn’t like the first script, but I gave Leigh credit because I liked her a lot. She was sick at the time she wrote the script, and she really tried her best.”

Does her script exist for reading? I’ve seen it referred to in articles over and but can’t find it online. 

Now the co-written script is quite fine and the performance here by everyone I think far outshines the first film. The addition of Darth Vader makes Luke Skywalker into a more interesting character, and the expansion of the cast and setting in general makes this a more believe story. Yes, it’s far darker, more sinister, but a galactic empire would be so.

Even Yoda who could be cute isn’t. (That sentence structure is deliberate.) Look it’s a muppet! It’s voiced by Frank Oz! Perfectly designed to sell lots of plushies! 

Lucas had intended to have a new mentor character for Luke who in his original design was a diminutive frog-like creature named Minch Yoda. No, I’m not kidding. 

Side-note: I still find our two droids far too irritating. They just always come off as being that for me, particularly the C-3PO. I like my droids darker which I why I prefer the ones in Neal Asher’s polity series. Aren’t they darker in The Culture series as well? 

Is there anything I dont like here? No. I’ve watched it a half dozen times and I think it well deserves generally positive reviews, the half billion box office on a budget of under fifty million dollars, and the audience rating at Rotten Tomatoes of 97%. 

It of course, like everything Star Wars, is streaming on Disney +. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal shows the risk of resisting AI.
• Reality Check expands its scope.
• Thatababy honors Greg Hildebrandt.
• The Flying McCoys traces the military learning curve.
• Wumo is a disguise skeptic.
• Brewster Rockit might also be a clue about what happened to the Entwives.

(9) TIMESTAMPS FOR A SET OF EASTER EGGS. Collider says “This Haunted Object Has a Cameo in Nearly Every Flanagan Project” – and brings receipts.

Oculus was Mike Flanagan’s second feature-length film and arguably the one that first made people sit up and take notice of the new director. The Lasser Glass is the haunted mirror at the center of the movie that causes so much trauma for Karen Gillan’s and Brenton Thwaites’ sibling characters, but for eagle-eyed viewers, it also haunts the backgrounds of the majority of Flanagan’s other works….

… It took four years for Mike Flanagan to release another movie after Oculus, but he returned with not one, but three movies in one year. Although 2016’s Hush and Before I Wake don’t include the Lasser Glass, Flanagan included the mirror in the background of Ouija: Origin of Evil — it can be spotted precisely at 1:07:00 when Doris (Lulu Wilson) walks through the basement. This kicked off Flanagan’s habit of including some variation of the mirror in every one of his projects since then. In total, the mirror from Oculus appears in nine of Flanagan’s works (10 if you count the short film on which Oculus is based). Let’s take a look at where, and when, you can see each other reference to the horrifying mirror….

(10) WAS WINNING A GOOD OR BAD THING? [Item by Steven French.] Some of the winners of the Ig Nobel prize share their stories, which include homosexual necrophiliac ducks, levitating frogs and mammals that can breathe through their anus: “How a silly science prize changed my career” in Nature.

…Eleanor Maguire wasn’t too thrilled when she was first offered an Ig Nobel Prize. The neuroscientist at University College London was being honoured for her study showing that London taxi drivers have larger hippocampi in their brains than do people in other professions1. But she worried that accepting the prize would be a disaster for her career. So, she quietly turned it down.

Three years later, the prize’s founder, Marc Abrahams, contacted Maguire again with the same offer. This time, she knew more about the satirical award that bills itself as honouring achievements that “make people laugh, then think”. She decided to accept. On the way to the ceremony, her taxi driver was so delighted to learn about his enlarged hippocampus that he refused to accept a fee from her.

Maguire credits the prize with bringing more attention to her work. “It was useful for my career because people wanted to talk about it,” she says, adding that “it was on the front pages of newspapers when it came out and struck a chord with people.”…

(11) HEAVY, MAN. Interesting Engineering stands by as “China activates world’s most advanced hypergravity research facility”.

China has activated the world’s most advanced hypergravity machine, aiming to deepen scientific understanding.

The system, featuring the largest hypergravity centrifuge, will be able to produce forces thousands of times stronger than Earth’s gravity.

The Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility (CHIEF) is located in Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China’s Zhejiang province….

… The facility will house three primary hypergravity centrifuges and 18 onboard units. These centrifuges, machines designed to spin containers rapidly, force heavier materials to the edges or bottom by creating hypergravity conditions, as reported by the South China Morning Post (SCMP)….

… CHIEF’s hypergravity centrifuges are considered groundbreaking tools for creating extreme physical conditions not typically encountered in everyday environments.

These capabilities are expected to advance research across multiple disciplines, enabling scientists to simulate and analyze phenomena such as geological processes, material behaviors, and engineering challenges….

(12) WELL, THIS LOOKS BAD. PROBABLY DOESN’T SMELL TOO GOOD, EITHER. “A mythical harbinger of doom washes up on a California beach” and NBC News didn’t need long to sniff out the story.

The legendary “doom fish” has returned to California.

A long, ribbon-shaped oarfish, rarely seen and believed to signal disaster, has washed up on California’s shores for the second time this year.

PhD candidate Alison Laferriere from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego discovered the nearly 10-foot-long oarfish on a beach in Encinitas, in southern California, last week.

Oarfish are elusive creatures that dwell in the deep ocean — often as far as 3,300 feet below the surface — in the mesopelagic zone, a dark region beyond the reach of sunlight….

Rare, monstrously-proportioned and strangely-shaped, oarfish have sparked myths and legends for centuries and are sometimes referred to as the “doomsday fish” due to their reputation as predictors of natural disasters or earthquakes.

In 2011, the largely forgotten “earthquake fish” legend resurfaced after 20 oarfish washed ashore in the months leading up to Japan’s most powerful recorded earthquake….

(13) BUSINESS IS BOOMING. VERY. “SpaceX Starship’s Sonic Boom Creates Risk of Structural Damage, Test Finds” – story in the New York Times (behind a paywall).

SpaceX’s new Starship rocket far exceeds projected maximum noise levels, generating a sonic boom so powerful it risks property damage in the densely populated residential community near its South Texas launch site, new data suggests.

The measurements — of the actual sound and air pressure generated by the rocket during its fifth test launch last month — are the most comprehensive publicly released to date for Elon Musk’s Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever constructed.

Starship, as tall as a 30-story building, is so large that it generates 10 times as much noise as the Falcon 9 rocket that SpaceX now uses to get cargo and astronauts to orbit, the new data shows. SpaceX plans another test this week.

For residents of South Padre Island and Port Isabel, which are about six miles from SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas, the noise during the October test flight was the equivalent of standing 200 feet from a Boeing 747 plane during its takeoff, said Kent L. Gee, an independent acoustics engineer who conducted the monitoring.

Dr. Gee is the chairman of the physics and astronomy department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, as well as a researcher helping NASA study ways to reduce noise impacts generated by supersonic planes. The test results were published on Friday in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

The Federal Aviation Administration and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

When supersonic Concorde jets were still in service, the United States banned them from flying over domestic land “so their resulting sonic booms won’t startle the public below or concern them about potential property damage,” according to NASA.

The Starship flight test in October was about 1.5 times as loud on the ground as the Concorde sonic boom, the test results showed….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The Dickensian Christmas season is coming. Fortunately, Ryan George knows what to do “When Ghosts Try To Teach You Lessons”.

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Sandra Miesel, Krystal Rains, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]