(1) DAYLIGHT STEALING TIME. Disney’s Alice Through The Looking Glass trailer investigates a time crime.
(2) TAKING INVENTORY. Bill Roper had some insights about being a convention dealer while doing “That Taxes Thing”.
One of the distressing things about doing the taxes for Dodeka is seeing:
– How many different titles we carry.
– And how many of them appear to have sold one or fewer copies in 2015.
Some of these are the result of having bought out Juanita’s inventory when she retired and having acquired various CDs that had been sitting in her inventory for too long. A few of them are the result of my own ordering errors.
The problem is that the boxes are large and heavy and the table is very full. But if you don’t take the CDs out to the cons with you, you can’t sell them…
Filk is an extremely regional business. And given that we’re in the eighth-or-so year of a sucky economy, I certainly understand people’s reluctance to take a flyer on something that they aren’t familiar with.
(3) BATMOBILE REPLICA MAKER LOSES. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit decision in favor of DC Comics, which had sued Mark Towle over his unlicensed replicas of the 1966 and 1989 Batmobiles, sold for about $90,000 each. So DC wins.
According to Robot 6:
Towle argued that the U.S. Copyright Act doesn’t protect “useful articles,” defined as objects that have “an intrinsic utilitarian function” (for example, clothing, household appliances or, in this case, automobile functions); in short, that the Batmobile’s design is merely functional.
However, a federal judge didn’t buy that argument… Towle appealed that decision, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wasn’t any more sympathetic, finding in September that, “the Batmobile is almost always bat-like in appearance, with a bat-themed front end, bat wings extending from the top or back of the car, exaggerated fenders, a curved windshield, and bat emblems on the vehicle. This bat-like appearance has been a consistent theme throughout the comic books, television series, and motion picture, even though the precise nature of the bat-like characteristics have changed from time to time.”
In his petition to the high court, Towle insisted that the U.S. Copyright Office states outright that automobiles aren’t copyrightable, and that the Ninth Circuit simply created an arbitrary exception. He also argued that there have been “dozens” of Batmobiles in DC comic books over the decades that “vary dramatically in appearance and style” — so much so that the vehicle doesn’t have the “consistent, widely-identifiable, physical attributes” required to be considered a “character.”
(4) SFL SURVIVOR. Andrew Liptak retells “The Adventures of the LA Science Fantasy Society” at Kirkus Reviews.
When he [Forry Ackerman] set off on his own, he founded the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. While every other Science Fiction League chapter closed—as well as many of the other fan groups—the LASFS survives to the present day, the longest running science fiction club in the world.
In the coming decades, the club became an important focal point for the growing science-fiction community. It counted some of the genre’s biggest writers as its members: when Ray Bradbury’s family moved from Arizona to Los Angles, the young storyteller quickly found the group. “A turning point in his life came in early September 1937,” Sam Moskowitz recounted in his early history Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction, “when poring through the books and magazines in Shep’s Shop, a Los Angeles book store that catered to science-fiction readers, he received an invitation from a member to visit the Los Angeles Chapter of the Science Fiction League.” Through the league, Bradbury quickly got his start as a writer, publishing “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma” in the club’s fanzine, Imagination!
LASFS is not quite the lone survivor of the Science Fiction League – there is also the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. Fancyclopedia 3 has more SFL history.
(5) ON WINGS OF STONE. You must keep an eye on these winged predators. BBC tells “How to survive a Weeping Angels attack!”
The Weeping Angels are scary. Really scary. They possess a natural and unique defence mechanism: they’re quantum locked. This means that they can only move when no other living creature is looking at them. These lonely assassins also have the ability to send other beings into the past, feeding on the potential time energy of what would have been the rest of their victims’ lives.
But how do you survive a Weeping Angel attack? Well, here’s our guaranteed, foolproof 4-step guide…
(6) TOP DRAWER. Peter Capaldi proves to have a flair for sketching his predecessors as Doctor Who.
#BehindTheScenes of yesterday's @DWTheFanShow!
Watch the video here » https://t.co/BISSjq1qgH#DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/VXcizMYQV9— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) March 12, 2016
(7) COINAGE. A horrible, fannish pun in March 12’s Brevity cartoon.
(8) MARIE WILLIAMS OBIT. New Zealand fan Marie Williams died of cancer February 27. She was a member of the board of Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ), and their announcement said, “She was a valued member and we will miss her thoughtful insights and interesting comments.”
(9) TOMLINSON OBIT. E-mail pioneer Ray Tomlinson died March 5 at the age of 74. The New York Times report gave a brief history of his development.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Tomlinson was working at the research and development company Bolt, Beranek & Newman on projects for ARPANET, a forerunner of the Internet created for the Defense Department. At the time, the company had developed a messaging program, called SNDMSG, that allowed multiple users of a time-share computer to send messages to one another.
But it was a closed messaging system, limited to users of a single computer.
Mr. Tomlinson, filching codes from a file-transfer program he had created called CYPNET, modified SNDMSG so that messages could be sent from one host computer to another throughout the ARPANET system.
To do this, he needed a symbol to separate a user name from a destination address. And so the plump little @ sign came into use, chosen because it did not appear in user names and did not have any meaning in the TENEX paging program used on time-sharing computers.
The BBC’s Dave Lee wrote “Ray Tomlinson’s e-mail is flawed, but never bettered”.
He is widely regarded as the inventor of email, and is credited with putting the now iconic “@” sign in the addresses of the revolutionary system.
He could never have imagined the multitude of ways email would come to be used, abused and confused.
Just think – right now, someone, somewhere is writing an email she should probably reconsider. Count to 10, my friend. Sleep on it.
Another is sending an email containing brutal, heartbreaking words that, really, should be said in person… if only he had the nerve.
And of course, a Nigerian prince is considering how best to ask for my help in spending his fortune.
Chip Hitchcock says, “AFAICT, nobody saw person-to-person email coming; computers were for talking to central data, as in ‘A Logic Named Joe’ or even The Shockwave Rider. The closest I can think of to discussing the effects of mass cheap point-to-point communication is the side comment on cell-phone etiquette in the opening scene of Tunnel in the Sky. Can anyone provide another example?”
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- March 13, 1981 – Joe Dante’s The Howling premieres in North America.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born March 13, 1911 – L. Ron Hubbard
(12) HUGO NOMINATORS: NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER. Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens reappears after a five-month hiatus, because it’s “Hugo Season!”
The annual SFF self-loathing theme weeks are here again — I feel (as I feel every year) like a total loser for not having read enough new science fiction and fantasy to make informed nominations for the Hugo award. I haven’t read Seveneves, haven’t seen Ant-Man, haven’t had the time for Jessica Jones, haven’t waded through a lot of short fiction.
Damn damn damn.
Then again, you’re always going to feel that way, no matter what. And it’s not football (which means “soccer”, in case you’re American), so whining doesn’t help.
And did I also forget Alan Moore's Crossed +100? Damn. #hugoawards #nominations https://t.co/8AKa1x2Zz8
— Spacefaring Kitten (@SpacefaringK) March 13, 2016
(13) BINARY BEAUTY. “Google’s AI Is Now Reigning Go Champion of the World”. Motherboard has the story.
On Saturday afternoon in Seoul, AlphaGo, the Go-playing artificial intelligence created by Google’s DeepMind, beat 18-time Go world champion Lee Sedol for its third straight win in a five game series.
The win was a historic one for artificial intelligence research, a field where AI’s mastery of this 2,500 year old game was long considered a holy grail of sorts for AI researchers. This win was particularly notable because the match included situations called ko fights which hadn’t arisen in the previous two games. Prior to AlphaGo’s win, other Go experts had speculated that ko situations could prove to be stumbling blocks for the DeepMind program as they had been in the past for other Go computer programs.
“When you watch really great Go players play, it is like a thing of beauty,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin, himself a self-proclaimed adamant Go player in grad school, after the match. “So I’m very excited that we’ve been able to instill that level of beauty inside a computer. I’m really honored to be here in the company of Lee Sedol, such an incredible player, as well as the DeepMind team who’ve been working so hard on the beauty of a computer.”
(14) PC OR BS? Ethan Mills of Examined Worlds asks “Has Political Correctness Run Amok? Does It Even Exist?”
… I’m tempted to call this “A Prolegomena to Any Future Discourse about Political Correctness.”….
- Is political correctness a cut-and-dried free speech issue? Why is it that many examples of the “political correctness has run amok” narrative involve cases where one group exercises its freedom to speak against ideas or to decide what speech they want to support in their space? Is this really a threat to free speech in general if it’s limited to a particular space? Is there a right to tell people what speech to support in their space? Does political correctness threaten free speech in a more fundamental way by making people feel uncomfortable to say certain things at all? How do we decide what counts as a threat to free speech in general? Are there some things that just shouldn’t be said in certain contexts? Should all speech be allowed in all contexts? If not, how do we decide when it’s permissible to limit speech? Is there a difference between limiting speech and simply asking people not to say certain things?
- What is the difference between political correctness and politeness or basic respect? Is there a difference? What happens if what one person calls political correctness another person calls being polite, civil, or respecting the humanity of others? How do we settle these disputes? Is it possible that this whole issue is really just based on the feeling that people don’t like being told what to say? Is it possible or desirable to change that feeling and thus shift the whole narrative on this issue?
(15) PI TIME. Are you getting into MIT? Then expect notification from BB-8. “MIT parodies ‘Star Wars’ for ‘decision day’ announcement”.
The video ultimately reveals that “decision day” for the class of 2020 will take place on March 14, which is also known as “Pi Day”, as 3.14 represents the first 3 digits of pi.
Hopeful applicants will be able to learn whether or not they’ve been accepted to MIT by logging onto the admissions website starting at 6:28 p.m. on Pi Day. This time represents another reference to pi as 6.28 is known as “Tau” or two times pi.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Hampus Eckerman.]
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@Tasha Turner, I agree with Mike.
D. Make one or two attempts to find common ground, then shrug and move on if it isn’t happening.
@dann665 – But in general, I believe that we do a decent job at minimizing the “class” axis.
One of the ways class works is that differences are pretty well invisible to those classes with relative economic and social comfort. When I read that sentence, I immediately marked you as likely to be middle to upper class, although you might well have come from a stable working class background long enough ago that upward mobility felt attainable.
I come from the working poor and class differences are pretty obvious to me. For instance, in any discussion of the military my responses will ordinarily be pretty far removed from those of people who grew up middle class in the US. My social cues are also really different.
@Mike Glyer
Thanks for the compliment.
I’m pouring us triples for our drinks to world peace today 😉
@Tasha, my compliments also. You’re helping firm my resolve to not go back over to Lela Buis’ site to see the comments Greg H and James May added after mine. It’s hard, though. I did unsubscribe, so there may be more comments than that. It’s making my stomach hurt thinking about it, so I think I’m well out of there.
Considering that “read a book” option…. How do people triage their TBR pile?
Currently my system is
0. Special pass for immediate desired reads
1. library book (if liked, add author’s other works to TBR pile)
2. if liked and part of a series, next in series. Repeat until hit current end of series.
3. pseudo-random selection from the pile of unread books already bought (if liked, add author’s other works to TBR pile)
4. if liked and part of a series, next in series. Repeat until hit current end of series.
5. pseudo-random selection from general TBR pile
Oh, politeness versus being right.
On one side, I think there absolutely is a time for saying “no, this thing is bullshit, and you are a horrible fucking excuse for a human being”. Gamergate (far as I’m aware, no legit social movement has ever come from someone whining about his ex because somehow he’s the first person in the universe to get dumped*), climate change denial (…fuck that, no), anti-vaccination (you are wrong and also awful parents, and your kids, should they survive, would do well to change their names and pretend they don’t know you), bigotry, etc. I am not interested in being polite to the form of “politeness” that advocates harm to others and veils it thinly by not using four-letter words.
On the other side, I have dated–note the past tense–several versions of That Guy Who Always Must Be Honest, and I do not recommend either being or doing him. Nobody *likes* That Guy, other than alternate manifestations of himself, in part because he has no sense of appropriate time and place but in part because he also confuses truth with his opinion, and is wrong about the need for him to express either. *You* may think that my haircut sucks, but other people do not; *you* may think that those people’s relationship is all wrong, but you’re not involved, so shut up; family gatherings are uncomfortable enough without you trying to make us all join Debate Club; Don’t Be That Guy. (Or That Girl, but I’m hetero, so That Girl has presented less of an issue for me on average.)
* I could be wrong. The American Revolution could all come from George III/Thomas Paine slashfic gone bad.
jonesnori/Lenore Jones: You’re helping firm my resolve to not go back over to Lela Buis’ site to see the comments Greg H and James May added after mine. It’s hard, though. I did unsubscribe, so there may be more comments than that. It’s making my stomach hurt thinking about it, so I think I’m well out of there.
*snort* I just went over and read those comments. Buis may think twice about trawling for blog traffic as a way to gain readers, if this is what she’s going to get. (BTW, I found her Wikipedia page “enlightening”, to say the least.)
Aaron on March 14, 2016 at 12:54 pm said: You do know that people can actually read the report of the Harvard University and see you’re lying about what it said in your blog post, don’t you?
Why yes Aaron, I do know that people can read the report. That’s why I posted the link. So they would read it.
Let us read my lie together, shall we? From my link:
A task force charged with examining sexual assault at Harvard University is recommending that the school bar students from joining its all-male final clubs, blaming the single-sex organizations for perpetuating a “harmful sexual culture” on campus.
The task force argued in a new report that the all-male organizations, which have no formal relationship with the university, should be forced to accept women in order to fix the problem of sexual assault on Harvard’s campus. The report, published this week, followed attempts by the Harvard administration to compel the all-male final clubs to accept women, an effort that the Washington Free Beacon previously reported has angered graduate members of the organizations and made current student members fear for their reputations.
The report from the Harvard Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault was accompanied by several appendices, including one from the task force’s so-called “outreach and communications subcommittee” that presented a set of “ideas” for the administration to deal with the final clubs. One of the proposals suggested that the school threaten students with expulsion if they join an all-male final club.
Note that there are sublinks in the text that appear on the Phantom Soapbox, attaching more articles regarding the affair.
Please point out where I’m lying, Aaron. Good luck with that.
Now as to Political Correctness in this regard, campus rapes are being used as a pretext to attack the existence of men’s social clubs. That rapes occur is a bad thing, but to suggest that the mere existence of a men’s club -causes- rape is a statement that can only be correct in a particular political environment. Particularly when 85% of campus rapes happen in the dorms, by the University’s own numbers, per the linked article.
We can do the same tedious explanation for Shirtstorm, Gamergate and Mr. Summers. Plus hundreds more famous incidents stretching back to the 1980’s when this public shaming of innocent speech first became a thing. The kabuki of the public appology has become a staple of TV, you can’t see a news cast without some poor bastard crawling because he said ‘retard’ in print twenty years ago or similar.
So for Ethan Mills to be writing as he did, I can only assume shenanigans. Nobody can be this dumb by accident.
TBH, I don’t think Americans think they are a classless society at all. Quite the opposite. In my experience, American culture is highly aspirational and thus very very aware of economic classes. It’s just that no one wants to admit they are anything lower than middle-class. Class consciousness is just neutered by the American Dream — the idea that classes are permeable in an upward direction through effort and character (perhaps nowadays with a bit of the prosperity gospel tossed in too).
Saw some study a while back that when asked about what class they’re in, Americans tend to overestimate their societal ranking. Also class mobility is really quite limited compared to other countries. Perhaps we’ve all bought a little too much into the American Dream.
@Phantom – While I am inclined to follow your links on the Harvard issue, I would hesitate on likening it to GamerGate.
With the Harvard fight, there needs to be proof connecting the existence of men-only clubs with rapes on campus. GamerGate, whatever it has become now, came from a well documented case of cyberstalking and butthurt from an ex boyfriend.
Viverrine – on TBR piles, I just read what catches my attention when I go through it, look at the backs, whatever. This is not a predictable process, and depends on my mood at the time. A structured process would feel like work.
Jack Lint: Saw some study a while back that when asked about what class they’re in, Americans tend to overestimate their societal ranking. Also class mobility is really quite limited compared to other countries. Perhaps we’ve all bought a little too much into the American Dream.
My ex’s parents live in what is now an incredibly expensive, upper-middle-class area (they moved into their then-new house 45 years ago). Some years ago, during a visit, we tried to explain to them that the tax policies of the political party they so avidly supported were actually punitive to them, and that they were acting against their own best interests.
They staunchly refused to believe this. They considered themselves upper middle class, because the lot they live on is now worth a million (but not the house; anyone who was weathy enough to buy it would knock the house down and build new). We didn’t have the heart to explain to them that, given the changes in the US economy, they are now lower middle class (they are living on pensions and social security and have very little in assets other than the house and lot).
It’s a hard, hard thing to admit that you’ve failed to achieve the American Dream of Prosperity.
So VD has nominated Seveneves for the hugos? I think he’s overlooking that people have to actually like it, whereas every review I’ve ever read says that they didn’t like it at all.
Myself, I loved Anathem, and then bounced of Reamde because it started as a technothriller, but with real nerds and geeks in it instead of muscleheads, so okay, a little different, but then the virus plot thing was just stupid, rot 13- jul jbhyq lbh gryy rirelbar gb chg gurve enafbz va gur fnzr fcbg vafvqr n tnzr juvpu lbh pbhyqa’g pbageby, guvaxvat gurl’q arire abgvpr nyy gurfr crbcyr tbvat gurer naq gur tnzr crbcry qvqa’g whfg cnavp naq fuhg vg qbja?
Charlie Stross did it much better.
TBR pile: Short answer: It depends. But the one inviolable rule is I always have to have a book in progress. There have been times when I finished a book at 11:00 p.m. or 11:30 p.m., then spent 15-30 minutes browsing shelves, waiting for something to catch my eye, just so that I could read the first few pages rather than going to bed between books.
I still hope that Seveneves is one Hugo nominee bullet we can dodge.
With the Harvard fight, there needs to be proof connecting the existence of men-only clubs with rapes on campus.
The task force put out lots of data. Of particular note would be page 10 of this document.
Meh, Seveneves goes below No Award however it gets on the ballot, because in my opinion, it’s crap. And its my ballot, so there 😛
JJ: After reading Austen and Dickens, it seems human beings in general are heavily invested in having a sense that they made it.
Chris S.: If Seveneves is crap, what names are you using for the stuff that’s worse? This could become interesting….
@Viverrine: “Considering that “read a book” option…. How do people triage their TBR pile?”
With great pain. My current system is:
1. Acquire.
2. Assign a processing priority for fixing/normalizing formatting issues. There are four formal levels, and an informal fifth:
2a. High priority.
2b. Medium priority.
2c. Problematic (often due to bundle purchases or gaps in my collection)
2d. Low priority because I’ve already read the book (usually in paper).
2e. Prioritize? There’s no time for that! Must process now!
3. Process.
4. Load on reader and assign to descriptive and priority categories, with three levels of the latter:
4a. Highest priority. (currently 25 books)
4b. Everything else I can read without having to read something else first.
4c. The rest.
In theory, “what to read next” is answered by “something from 4a.” In practice, reading a 4a work may bump its sequel from 4c to 4a or 4b. Then again, sometimes I just zip a book through steps 1, 2e, 3, and 4a in the space of an hour or so.
When did that become one of his motivations?
As he only gave Seveneves three stars, it seems that it doesn’t particularly matter whether he likes it himself. At least he claims to have read it, which is more than can be said for some of his nominations.
I didn’t care for Seveneves, but it was a lot better than Aurora. Seveneves had long stretches that were actually fun to read.
I’m confused. Is there some thing here I missed?
I am also confused about Ms. Buis’ Wikipedia page.
Last I hung around Wikipedia the editors were very strict about notability. I thought authors had to at least have won some award or other, not just *be* an author, so that Wikipedia wouldn’t get clogged up with self-promotion.
I cannot see that Ms. Buis has any credentials that warrant a Wikipedia page. Am I missing something?
Seriously, “Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges” is *not* a reference any self-respecting person would cite.
@jonesnori/Lenore Jones
I’m sorry. If I’d know it would have that effect on you, I wouldn’t have replied. Rest easy; my own comment was nothing significant, while James May (aka Fail Burton) never writes anything that anyone would want to read, so you didn’t miss anything.
Feel better. 🙂
Vox claiming to like SevenEves simply makes me loathe it all the more.
i wonder whether VD is repurposing it, as Mistress Weatherwax was want to do…
I doubt VD has put much thought into this at all. I think he’s just flung some random shit at a wall so he can entertain himself watching people trying to discern a pattern.
@Stevie
Aren’t you the one who convinced me to calm down about all this stuff? “Just eat ice cream,” I think you told me. 🙂
The good news is that it does work; the bad news is, I’ve gained seven pounds . . .
Tasha
It’s pretty late over here, but I stayed awake for this:
Congratulations!
I thought it was absoluely wonderful! ?
Mike Glyer: If Seveneves is crap, what names are you using for the stuff that’s worse? This could become interesting…
I wouldn’t call Seveneves “crap”. I would say that it was “a somewhat promising, but flawed, premise that turned into an ‘everything, including the kitchen sink’ bloated colosses which would have benefited greatly from a stouthearted editor with a machete”.
If VD thinks that Seveneves is one of the choices on which he can claim Victory because non-Puppies will all vote for it, he may end up being very surprised.
If it makes the final ballot, I will be putting it below No Award.
@RedWombat: Best of luck! You’re a braver woman than I — the very prospect of going up in front of a gaggle of 9-10 year olds scares me. Be careful, they can smell fear.
@August: The cognitive load thing is very interesting. I hadn’t considered that, possibly because as a disabled woman, I’m busy carrying my own loads.
@Isabel Cooper: Preach. Amen, sister.
@guthrie: I didn’t even notice that part (which is dumb) in Reamde because I was too tired of the fhcre-pbzcrgrag tvey rfpncvat gur vapbzcrgrag greebevfgf ohg fbzrubj orvat erpncgherq NTNVA naq NTNVA, yngure evafr ercrng. Vg jnf gur Crevyf bs Cnhyvar, bayl jbefr.
I guess “Golden Son” is in there for Popularity (it won Goodreads SF award), despite the fact the hero is a poor boy trying to overthrow the 1% of his day who got there by inheritance. I only read the first one, but it was all “Oppressed workers of the world vs. the tiny minority of inherited oligarchy” who used the labor of the workers to live a life of ease. And also controlled the media to keep the workers in the dark (literally and figuratively), slaving away to support the rich folks’ frivolous lifestyle. I mean, it’s real “workers of the world unite” stuff. It did have a lot of manfeels and violence and degradation of women on the surface, though. The old ultra-violence.
“Seveneves” must be the reverse XanaD’OH nominee, being chock full o’ SJW with all those women. Never mind that the hive here has gone “meh” about it at best, to outright hatred at worst. I wasn’t going to vote for it no matter who nominated it. It’s always been below No Award. It’s not terribad, but wow did it need to be only half as long and more focused. Another example of “Too Big to Edit” having bad results.
America has had a class system from the beginning — male landowners were the only ones who could vote. It’s still got one, as you can see by the examples of people who have money now but don’t know things like which fork to use, what to wear to a job interview, etc.
Almost all of the tension in my parents’ marriage was that she had been raised upper-class and he was dirt poor until he was pushing 30. My husband and I came from a smaller class difference (and the same extended metro area) but to this day I’m forever saying “No, not that spoon” and he’s long since just asked me what to wear in social occasions. Because he knows he doesn’t know the signals. Nobody in his family polished the silverware inherited from Grandma before cocktail parties as a kid, or had china for 24.
(As an Episcopalian, of course, using the wrong fork is a sin. 😉 )
Peace Is My Middle Name: Seriously, “Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges” is *not* a reference any self-respecting person would cite.
That was one of the enlightening things. 😉
Greg
Alas I have no memory of this. On the other hand, good ice cream is a gift from the gods…
I still remember the first time I walked into a ritzy private boys school for an author visit–Old Money with capital letters and oil paintings of the founders and quotes from Rudyard Kipling on the walls. The principal’s shoes probably cost more than my car.
I had this immediate visceral reaction that they would be able to smell that I grew up on food stamps.
I still get that sometimes at hotels that are clearly way too ritzy for me–I’m in one right now, and it’s a damn good thing the publisher is paying for this dinner!–but I have learned to brazen my way through and just be eccentric. The ultra-wealthy schools don’t work that way, alas.
I’ve known people who WERE notable in their sub-field to have their Wikipedia entries deleted. Some of them after they’d been there for a while.
None of them were dumb enough to pay for that “Who’s Who” book scam, or if they were in their youth, they’re not dumb enough to admit it now. Unless as an example of “wow, I was a naive egotistical kid”. They don’t cite it or consider it an honor; it’s an embarrassment. 🙄
(Oh dear, RedWombat is under stress and I’ve gone and put in an emoticon from the outside list again. So sorry. We’re complicated.)
Oooh, here’s another SF classic title:
😶 😱
lurkertype: I’ve known people who WERE notable in their sub-field to have their Wikipedia entries deleted. Some of them after they’d been there for a while.
Apparently, that happened when someone tried to add a Wikipedia page for Chuck Wendig — despite the fact that he’d been a 2013 Campbell Best New Author Nominee and had a work nominated for an International Digital Emmy Award in 2011.
He finally got his own Wikipedia page one month ago — five months after publishing the first book in the official Star Wars bridge trilogy from Episodes IV-V-IV to VI-VII-VII.
Notability. It’s all relative.
Wow, the Star Wars book got a page before it was even out, several months before Chuck.
Off to feed the SJW-signifiers.
I’d agree with the “Too big to edit” on Seveneves – Mr Stephenson does thank his editor in the endplate, which I suspect got a “gee, thanks” from them. As mentioned above, a machete would be a good start as an editing tool – though maybe a chainsaw would be closer to being up to the task.
And the opening sentence is ace, just a shame about all the subsequent ones.
Aaanndd missed the edit window – I’m not sure I’ve read a book that annoyed me more than Seveneves this year. Although I am giving up on “Long way to a small angry planet” as it really should be retitled “Boring slog through various alien cultures who only look alien and oh my god are we there yet please. Oh look space pirates can they cull some of the crew? Oh dammit….and we’re still not there yet”
Though the as yet undescribed Ohan is interesting. And I was probably influenced by Charlie Stross’ list of space opera tropes that I read at the same time.
Viverrine – My TBR pile triage approach: When library due dates aren’t influencing matters, it’s really just about my random whims. Well, except in those cases where I do need to read the item by a certain date. Those books jump up the line pretty quickly. But, really, I just look around at what’s on the shelf (or on my list) and pick whatever sounds good at the moment. I have to read so many things for work, that I try to not make my to-read list be too much like a work or school assignment.
A contrasting view: “Seveneves” is on my longlist, regardless of the opinions of other Filers or Vox Day.
[But then until last year, my choices don’t overlap a huge amount with the Hugo award winners. Last year was a watershed year though: most of my number one choices ended up winning. One notable exception was “Three Body Problem”; “The Goblin Emperor” was my first choice.]
Aaron on March 14, 2016 at 4:48 pm said: “The task force put out lots of data. Of particular note would be page 10 of this document.”
Ah yes, Final Clubs gets 47% on a very impressive looking graph. Next to “Peer Educators” at 41%, frats/sororities at 40%, campus varsity teams at 40%, and sports clubs at 37%.
So Aaron, where’s the list of female-only final clubs that will be shut down? Since they’re so rapey and all, shouldn’t they go too? And the football team, that needs to go. Varsity badminton, for shame, out it goes. Peer educators? kapow, baby. Harvard Crimson? Outta there!
Oh but wait, that is not the case. Only male final clubs cause rape, the other correlations are just coincidence right? Silly me!
Yes, Harvard IS talking about kicking paying students out for belonging to off campus social clubs, because political correctness. How long until they kick you out for being Jewish? Or a member of the Republican party? Or gay? Was once, could be again if Aaron gets his way.
And where’s me lying, Aaron? Still waiting for that one. I won’t hold my breath.
Soon Lee: As long as we’re making confessions, I’m nominating The Dark Forest. Take that, world!
lurkertpe, woud that be “V Unir Ab Zbhgu Naq V Zhfg Fpernz”?
@lurkertype
I did think that Golden Sun was part of the sooooper geniusry; while I disliked the ultra violence when I read it, I’m kind of in favor of anything that can smuggle in concepts like exploitation and propaganda in under the radar. The same manly-bro who’ll know to laugh off concepts like privilege when they are explained to them will lap them up if it’s presented with lots of violence and intrigue; ironically enough that was my first reaction to the Old Man’s War series, once I realized that it wasn’t just Starship Troopers on meth.
@GregHullender
I think they’re both equally terrible. If they end up on the Hugo ballot, I will put them under No Award. Though I hope there’ll be at least one decent choice to vote for in best novel.
Don’t worry about them going Lord of the Flies. Worry about them going wolf pack.
@Nicholas Whyte: I’m happy to see some love for Amal El-Mohtar’s “Madeleine”; it didn’t make my short list, but it was close.
You’re part of what’s wrong with the world today! 😉 ;-(
@Viverrine: I believe I use “pseudo-random selection.” You sound quite methodical (except the pseudo-random parts, maybe). I’m horrible, really: even loving a book, I don’t always immediately reach for the next in the series (if it’s part of a series) – why? I don’t know; I’m too easily distracted, methinks.
One exception was that I made sure to read A Darker Shade of Magic before V.E. Schwab visited a bookstore near my work. I had a plan! I chose my book for Reasons! I freaking finished it in time! But I’d made conflicting plans and missed her visit. Harumph, that’ll learn me. 😉
@James Davis Nicholl: LOL, great “wolf pack “story; thanks for linking to it! (I know, I know: It’s only funny until I’m asked to be the deer.)