Pixel Scroll 3/22/17 I Scroll The Pixel Electric

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(1) BATTERIES INCLUDED. The BBC reports plans for a short-distance electric passenger plane:

A new start-up says that it intends to offer an electric-powered commercial flight from London to Paris in 10 years.

Its plane, yet to go into development, would carry 150 people on journeys of less than 300 miles.

Wright Electric said by removing the need for jet fuel, the price of travel could drop dramatically.

British low-cost airline Easyjet has expressed its interest in the technology.

“Easyjet has had discussions with Wright Electric and is actively providing an airline operator’s perspective on the development of this exciting technology,” the airline told the BBC.

Chip Hitchcock adds: “Note the caveat of battery tech continuing to improve at its current rate. Reminds of the beginning of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, where the computer says there won’t be famine because matter transformation will be invented in a few years.”

(2) AND THEN I WROTE. In “Using Twine @TwineThreads”, Camestros Felapton gives a demonstration of the interactive story-writing software, amply illustrated by screencaps.

The software doesn’t present you with much: a simple screen with limited menu options. However, this really encourages you to jump straight in, start a story and start typing.

(3) FEWER BOOKS, MORE BOOZE. No, I’m not talking about Raymond Chandler. I’m reporting the observations by Barry Hoffman, publisher of Gauntlet Press, in his March 22 newsletter —

Late last year Barnes & Noble opened a new “superstore” in Eastchester, New York. The store features a full-service restaurant which serves alcohol. And, the store will be 20-25% smaller than its traditional superstores.

Normally, this news would be taken with a yawn (there are other such B&N superstores). But the sad fact is that B&N is responding to Amazon.com by adding a restaurant and cutting the number of books that it will carry. As it is B&N stores in Colorado Springs (where our offices are located) already devote a lot of space to other items besides books. The two stores in Colorado Springs have a Starbucks (a smart idea, in my opinion and it doesn’t take up all that much space), a large display for their Nook device, games, toys and other non-book related items. Since the price of these non-book related items are just as or more expensive than at nearby competitors such as Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Toys R Us it makes little sense to squeeze out books for them.

The B&N’s here used to sell CDs and DVDs but at a premium price which made no sense since there were competitors selling the same items at a greater discount. It seems that the B&N philosophy is to add these products and now large restaurants to their stores rather than come up with innovative approaches to selling books. To me this doesn’t seem the ideal approach to competing with Amazon.com.

(4) PAY THE WRITER. Lucy A. Snyder aired a grievance about MARCon, the annual Columbus, OH convention, in a public Facebook post.

Several people have asked me if I will be attending MARCon (Multiple Alternate Realities Convention) this year. I will not. As much as I would like to support one of the few remaining local Columbus conventions, I can no longer do so.

Last year, Marcon staff contacted me about leading a couple of writing workshops. We negotiated the same kind of deal as I had arranged for instructors at Context: they would charge for the workshops, and I would get half the fees with a minimum of $50 per workshop.

The convention completely failed to promote the workshops ahead of time, and didn’t even put an information page on their website so that I could promote them myself. They assured me that they would promote the workshops at the door and that I should plan to lead them, so I did my usual preparations.

Unsurprisingly, nobody signed up for my first workshop; I arrived at the expected time and then left when it was clear nobody was coming. They did sell several seats to the second workshop, and so I led that as expected. Aside from my time, my own costs to offer the workshops included $30 in parking garage fees, which I had expected to cover with the $50 for the workshop.

(I had expected a lot *more* than a net of $20, but I adjusted my expectations downward after I realized I wouldn’t be able to adequately promote my sessions. $20 was still better than nothing.)

A few months after the convention was over, I queried the staff who had recruited me to see when payment would be forthcoming, and received no reply.

Later, I forwarded the agreement to the programming email address with an inquiry, which also did not receive a reply.

Most recently, I forwarded the agreement to the convention chairs’ address; it’s been over a week and I haven’t gotten a reply.

So that’s three times I’ve emailed various staff, with zero replies from anyone. Not a “We’re working on it,” or a “The check’s in the mail,” or a “We’re kind of broke and need more time” or even a “Screw you, Snyder, we’re not paying you squat!” Nothing.

I’ve also talked to a Marcon volunteer who spent $120 on convention supplies and was promised reimbursement; so far, the convention has blown off her queries, too.

I would not be surprised to find out that other volunteers who were promised reimbursement of their registration fees have not received them.

The upshot is that Marcon appears to have become the kind of convention that won’t always honor its financial commitments.

There were other problems at last year’s convention that soured me on the experience, but failing to uphold business agreements and refusing to reply to communications is a definite deal breaker for me.

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born March 22, 1931 – William Shatner

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY STARSHIP CAPTAIN

  • Born March 22, 2233 – James Tiberius Kirk.

(7) SCALZI INTERVIEW. The Verge asked the questions and got this answer: “Sci-fi author John Scalzi on the future of publishing: ‘I aspire to be a cockroach’”.

The author of Old Man’s War and The Collapsing Empire lays out his plan for his 10-year book contract, and the future of science fiction publishing….

With concerns about publishers dying off, it’s intriguing that Tor is making this long-term commitment.

I think there’s a number of things going on there. I do think it was signaling. It is Tor and Macmillan saying: “We’re going to stay in business, and we’re going to do a good job of it.” This is part of an overall thing going on with Tor. Tor recently reorganized; brought in Devi Pillai [from rival publisher Hachette]; moved Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who’s my editor, from senior editor to associate publisher; brought in some new editors and some other new folks; and Macmillan basically gave it a huge vote of confidence.

It’s been fun and fashionable to talk about the death of publishing, and certainly publishing has had “exciting times,” I think that’s the euphemism we want to use, over the last decade. But the people who are in it do feel optimistic that not only are they going to be around for the next 10 years, but that they are going to do what they have always done, which is to bring exciting stories and people into the market, to keep people engaged in the genre, and to be a presence….

Did you just describe yourself as a cockroach?

I am a cockroach. I aspire to be a cockroach. But in all honesty, what that means is that as a writer, you have to recognize that nothing lasts and things change, that there’s no one time in the history of publishing where everything was one way, and then all of a sudden there was change. It’s always changing. So we will definitely try new things to see if they work. And if they don’t, you don’t do them again, or you wait for the market to come around to them again, whatever. I’m totally open to that…

(8) BOOK HEAVEN. Real Simple lists the best bookstore in every state.

When you think of a great local bookstore, you probably single it out for its conscientious curation, enthralling events, and splendid staff. But what makes a bookstore go from great to one of the best in America? We partnered with Yelp to explore the best independent bookstores our country has to offer. There are no chains on this list. Using an algorithm that looks at the number of reviews and star rating for each business, Yelp singled out the top bookseller in each state.

In California, it’s Century Books in Pasadena.

(9) SAD PUPPY SADNESS. On Twitter, SF/F author Matthew W. Rossi thought Declan Finn was telling him that it’s not that big a deal he’s going blind. Apparently that’s not what Finn meant:

(10) INSIDE THE SHELL. Ghost in the Shell (2017) – “Creating The Shell” Featurette.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, rcade, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]

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247 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 3/22/17 I Scroll The Pixel Electric”

  2. 9) Sometimes I wonder just how we made it as a species.

    This also reminds me of a bit in Waking Life, where one of the characters talks about how when I say a word, I assume that you know what I mean, but how can I be sure that I really do, given its filtered through your memories and perceptions, which are definitely not the speaker’s own. This conversation sort of makes that point.

  4. 9) I don’t like to admit I’ve been wrong myself, but come on. Sometimes you just have to admit you made a mistake.

  6. (2) I encourage everyone to click through this. You can go through all the possible choices quickly, and it’s pretty funny.

    (4) She has a valid complaint, well-documented. A cautionary tale.

    (7) The book! So good! Better than OMW, I think. Good characters who don’t all talk alike. Also, there’s nothing about Kiva that I don’t love.

    (9) The answer to “Who does that?!” is Puppies. And Trumpeteers. Genuine apologies aren’t in their vocabulary, neither are the words “I was wrong.”

  8. (9) Declan Finn abuses blind writer on Twitter.

    Sigh. Every time I think that the Puppies have reached the absolute nadir of despicableness, one of them says “Hold my beer”. 🙄

  9. Did they have any activity this year? (i.e. during Hugo nominating season) I was away in RL for a few months, so it’s an honest question.

    I want once again to publicly thank Hugo Admin Nicholas Whyte (sometimes of this parish) for personally straightening out my nomination ability 2 days before deadline, apologizing and taking responsibility for it, and saying that if I was still unable to get to the link, I could personally email him my nominations and he’d count them. He did this in about 2 hours. A true gentleman.

    I didn’t even use the lurkertype ID, so he wasn’t favoring a Filer, simply doing his job correctly.

    Someone please buy him a drink on my behalf in Helsinki.

  10. Quick drive-by; more later maybe, when I can catch up.

    I’ve seen praise here for Ada Palmer of Too Like the Lightning and its sequel. FYI for folks in the DC-Baltimore-Philly area, she’ll be guest of honor at Chessiecon 2017 (successor to Darkovercon) this fall.

  11. (3) Fewer Books, More Booze
    Slow Shopping is a thing nowadays. Aside from fewer books (never a good thing) I don’t mind having an in-store cafe in Waterstones. It makes for a nice break away from the Subway’s and McDonald’s of the world.

    (7) Scalzi Interview
    I’m looking forward to reading The Collapsing Empire! The 2017 subsection of my Mount770 is looking quite promising so far.

    (9) Sad Puppy Sadness
    I like Matt Rossi – he’s been a columnist for WoW Insider/Blizzard Watch for years – so there’s my bias. Declan Finn ought to have backed off, and ideally would have refrained from being an ass in the first place. At first I wasn’t sure about Rossi’s 3:25 tweet, as the initial thing had been about Puppies specifically, but to be honest at that point in the conversation Finn had been a dick about the blindness as well as the Puppyfeels.

    I do wish people would refrain from opining about whether a disability can or can’t be worked around in any given situation. Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can’t. Sometimes it depends what else is going on in that person’s life, whether they have access to the right care, support and equipment, age and experience with the disability, co-morbid conditions, etc. It isn’t as simple as ‘dictation software!’ because adapting to a different way of writing won’t necessarily work out, for a number of reasons, and that counts for other adaptations, too.

    —

    @lurkertype

    Wow, yes, that is impressive! Well done Nicholas Whyte.

  12. Did they have any activity this year?

    Nope. The organizers announced a plan last fall for monthly votes and engaged in a turf war in January with an author who blogged about Sad Puppies, causing him inexplicably to yell at Mike Glyer instead of them. Then nary a whimper out of them.

    We can only conclude that nothing published or broadcast in SF/F last year met their standards of excellence.

  13. (8) I’ll happily accept Wild Rumpus for MN (I believe that’s where I got my copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), but the fact that it wasn’t Uncle Hugo’s seems to indicate their methodology wasn’t entirely sound.

  14. On March 18, Daniel Hoyt registered the domain sadpuppiesread.com. Puppies organizer Sarah Hoyt has a husband named Dan, so I’m guessing this is her site and there’s some life in the sad dog yet.

  15. (9) Awwww THAT Matt Rossi? I was just wondering the other day about some of the old WoW Insiders peeps; I’ve got several toons in the former-WI guild.

  16. (3) FEWER BOOKS, MORE BOOZE.

    Normally, this news would be taken with a yawn (there are other such B&N superstores). But the sad fact is that B&N is responding to Amazon.com by adding a restaurant and cutting the number of books that it will carry.

    A few years back, I was at an SF club meeting held at a B&N in a mall location. The B&N was a two story outlet. Pride of place on the ground floor went to the cafe, gifts, cards, magazines, comics, calendars and games. With the exception of some current YA hardcover bestsellers, actual books were upstairs. Prime retail space was devoted to what sold. If the outlet carried only books, it would have been out of business long ago.

    The problem for any retailer is “If the customer can select it from an online catalog and have it delivered, why should they bother to come to a store?” Barring other incentives, they won’t. It’s not just about price, it’s about convenience.

    I live in NYC, in walking distance of a large B&N superstore. There are other bookstores as well, but they are specialty shops with content likely not findable elsewhere, like rare books. General bookstores are an increasingly endangered species, and have been for years.

  17. (3) So to pile on to Barnes and Noble, I have a story to tell. They are my local new bookstore. I go there 2 times or more a week. This week I find they no longer have new release sections. All books in each genre are just sorted by author.

    Maybe I’m crazy, but I just can’t imagine a large bookstore working this way. How will I find new genre authors? I mean I guess I can look at every book every time ….

    I actually double checked to make sure this wasn’t a strange store test. This is the response from corporate.

    We understand and appreciate that some of our customers have become accustomed to having New Releases faced out in certain subjects such as Fiction. We believe this is an enhanced shopping experience by integrating the New Releases into the bookcases creating a home for all of an author’s works. We think this is an improvement as discovery of titles that a customer may not have been familiar with.

    We will continue to carry a dynamic selection of New Releases merchandised in the bookcases, on tables and other features throughout the store for the browsing experience.

    I guess I just need to find a comprehensive list of releases each week and just bypass them.

  18. @Meredith: I was gobsmacked by the service till I read who it was from. He and I differ wildly in our taste in reading, but I can’t fault his work ethic or manners.

    Wasn’t someone complaining yesterday about not being able to read some Puppy’s website, as it was eyeball-unfriendly? Now this. They seem to have a hate-on for the vision-impaired… unsurprising.

    The fact that Matt Rossi has been able to get work out despite literally getting a sharp stick to his eyes is impressive. I’d never heard of him before, not being a WoW person, but I admire him.

    @rcade: So they’re just resting?

  19. Snodberry Fields: I guess I just need to find a comprehensive list of releases each week and just bypass them.

    I use Tor.com’s Fiction Aflliction extensively in figuring out what to request from my library.

    Andrew Liptak does a similar series at The Verge, but they have a really poor practice of not making these findable through tags, and you apparently can’t click his name without seeing all of his comments (rather than just his articles), so I use this search.

  20. @9 – Seems like a misunderstanding. Finn should have apologized for being mistaken. But Finn does not seem to have any ill intent. I can understand Rossi being upset given his stress, going blind would be horrible.

  21. I’m reading this Fifty State list, and I got to Colorado and it didn’t say “The Tattered Cover” and I was sad. Of course, the current Tattered Cover is nothing like the glorious four floor building of my youth, so it’s understandable, but still.

    Of the rest, I’ve been to…. one. Browseabout Books in Rehoboth, DE . I should really check out some of these others.

  22. (8) I knew before looking their Oregon pick would be Powell’s. Yet for all its impressive scope somehow it lacks the magic you can feel crackling in the best book stores. You never get that feeling of being on the verge of finding your next favorite thing. It’s a multi-story city block of new and used and certainly something you should visit if in the Portland area but it’s not all that if we’re aiming for state best.

    For genre I’ll cast my nonexistent vote for Escape Fiction in Salem.

  23. Also… for all Teddy’s crowing about sales ranks, Collapsing Empire is beating the paste out of the fauxCollapse.

    EDIT: I’m not sure how I double posted, but I fixed it.

  24. I’ve gotten two sort-of recommendations from 770 that have been enjoyable. By “sort of” authors or materials are mentioned in passing that some here are upset about for some reason or another. Usually some Hugo insider BS.

    1] Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson. Wonderful book on many levels. As a result I bought some other SF stuff that was unavailable when the first Dungeon Masters Guide came out. Ebooks are awesome!

    I also picked up Dwimmermount pdf which is an amazing D&D type supplement based on Appendix N.

    I’ve also been reading some of R.E. Howard’s horror shorts which are very interesting that were largely unavailable prior to ebook in something my allergy issues would allow me to read. Again, ebooks are a blessing.

    2] I found Declan Finn’s blog. Based on other books that I have read that he recommends, it may be a good source for additional authors.

    3] The reprinted Buck Rogers newspaper dailies have also been a lot of fun.

    I read some books recommended in good faith that I just hated. Armor. I, Providence, Nobody Gets the Girl and a couple of others. I greatly appreciate the suggestions and wish they had worked out.

  25. @Charon D

    A lot of the old crowd are still blogging over at Blizzard Watch, the site they created in the wake of WI’s destruction! 🙂

    @lurkertype

    Well, lots of people disagree with me on the importance of dragons in literature and I try not to hold it against them too much. 😉

    Yes, Techgrrl1972 was criticising Puppy website accessibility.

    @airboy

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t take ill-intent to be thoughtlessly rude. You’re right that Finn should have apologised, and I think if he had then it could have defused the whole thing.

    While Finn probably meant well with his comments about blindness, I don’t know about Rossi, but for me the idea of a positive mental attitude and optimism fixing everything has got very tiresome. Stella Young did an excellent Ted Talk that touched on it. (“No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp.”)

  27. airboy:

    Sorry you didn’t like Armour. I was very fond of it myself and liked his Vampire$ even more (but the movie was awful).

    If you like your RE Howard, I guess you have tried out his Solomon Kane? I found it by way of the comic book, but became a real fan of the original too.

  28. @8: I have fond memories of the Massachusetts selection, Brookline Booksmith; a friend who was shut-in for most of a year back when VHS tapes were rented practically lived off their stock, and educated me about old musicals into the bargain.

  29. @alexvdl: Yeah, they were never the same after getting booted out of their Cherry Creek location. The LoDo store was nice, but the inventory has been steadily declining over the years; now they’re just on the ground floor.

    @Snodberry Fields: I fail to understand how B&N think this is a good idea. The only way that I can see in which it would be useful would be if they had a deep in-stock backlist for most of the authors that they carry – but in general, they don’t.

  30. @PhilRM,

    The Wizard’s Chest is still in the Cherry Creek location, and Lord that 1-2 punch as a kid was like… Nirvana.

  31. @Snodberry Fields:
    3) So to pile on to Barnes and Noble, I have a story to tell. They are my local new bookstore. I go there 2 times or more a week. This week I find they no longer have new release sections. All books in each genre are just sorted by author.

    Maybe I’m crazy, but I just can’t imagine a large bookstore working this way. How will I find new genre authors? I mean I guess I can look at every book every time

    I’ve seen worse. A long time back I was in Shreveport, LA. (Work related travel.) I encountered a PB book, gift, and card shop. Books were put on the rack in whatever order they came out of the boxes. There was no attempt to sort, by category or anything else. I got the impression no one in Shreveport actually read.

    As for the B&N you mention, the best guess I can make is that they hope to benefit by serendipity. “I guess I can look at every book every time” means that as you go hunting for new stuff, you might encounter something else that isn’t new you might also buy. The appropriate response might be”I come here a couple of times a week to find new stuff, and you just made that hard. I’m taking my custom elsewhere.”

  32. (8) When I lived in Raleigh many years ago Reader’s Corner was a second home. It is where I got my complete collection of Ace Doubles and many, many other books still on my selves.

  33. @Soon Lee
    It’s deja vu all over again, man!

    Apologies to Lis Carey, the original scroller of electric pixels, for re-doing a most excellent title. Can we transfer this contributing editorship?

    I type the IBM Selectric.

  34. @airboy:
    I read some books recommended in good faith that I just hated. Armor. I, Providence, Nobody Gets the Girl and a couple of others. I greatly appreciate the suggestions and wish they had worked out.

    I met Steakely, and he was a hoot. He talked about getting a letter from Robert A. Heinlein, praising Armor after the second time he read it. John was over the moon.

    On another occasion, he met Jerry Pournelle at a function, and they didn’t get along, to the point of “Oh, yeah? Step outside!” Pournelle did so, but before they got to trading punches, John said “Wait, Jerry! We can’t do this!” “Why not?” “Cause Bob Heinlein’s gonna be here, and you gotta introduce me and say something nice about me!” 🙂

  36. 5) Happy Birthday Bill!

    Stoic Cynic said:
    “(8) I knew before looking their Oregon pick would be Powell’s. Yet for all its impressive scope somehow it lacks the magic you can feel crackling in the best book stores. You never get that feeling of being on the verge of finding your next favorite thing. It’s a multi-story city block of new and used and certainly something you should visit if in the Portland area but it’s not all that if we’re aiming for state best.”

    I have always thought of Powell’s as the Stonehenge of the bookstore world. The store’s footprint is whole city block, and 4.5 stories tall, and its devoted totaly to books. For me that is its magic.

  37. (8) @alexvdl, @PhilRM – I was expecting to see Tattered Cover in that list, too. I’d never heard of BookBar, though, so now I have a new bookstore to check out. Win?

    (Wanted to know more about BookBed, but their “book this room” link didn’t take me to that particular listing, but rather to AirBnB’s Denver page. Might have been me and my noscript settings, though.)

    Does Tattered Cover still have their location a ways down Colfax, the one that’s in a former theater? I enjoyed that location quite a bit when I was there for Catherynne Valente’s reading a few years back (The Girl Who Fell Below Fairyland was the new release at that time).

  38. @Stoic Cynic put a problem I have with Powell’s into better focus than I could have.

    We go to Portland quite often for gardening-related reasons, and I’m usually left on my own while She Who Must Be Obeyed is being all horticultural. I often end up at Powell’s, figuring I’ll give it another chance (also it is close to The Frying Scotsman, which is a fish-and-chip food truck that takes me back to my mis-spent childhood in Edinburgh).

    Powell’s should be wonderful, but for me it’s just too big. No, this isn’t a hipster whine about “I preferred it when it was smaller” (it’s never been smaller, as far as my memory goes). I love the idea of the massive selection, but actually picking my way through Avogadro’s Number of books makes me cranky. I get overstimulated and overwhelmed, like a child at Disneyland.

  39. @Bill–
    Typing the IBM Selectric is an excellent plan! I have fond memories.

    (8)Did no one other than me find this “let’s generate lots of page clicks by not providing an actual list” annoying as heck?

  40. It’s deja vu all over again, man!

    And here I was, thinking Mike had an excel sheet with all proposed and used titles, were he rates them 1-5 and ticks of the ones used. Too bad. I guess I have to rewrite my novella about puppy hackers trying to get their hand on that file now…

  41. Aww, lurkertype! That’s very nice of you.

    Actually your case was unique. Of course we had loads of messages along the lines of “Where the hell is my nomination link”; but in the vast majority of cases these were from people who had signed up with a different address or had missed the original email notification from us.

    We had two people who are Worldcon 76 members and had not ticked the box allowing Worldcon 76 to share their data with other conventions; they therefore had not been transferred to our voter list. Fortunately there is a direct connection between the deputy Hugo administrator for Worldcon 75 and the head of registration for Worldcon 76 (ie they are the same person) which made this easy to resolve once the situation was brought to our attention. But in both cases it was so late in the day that they had to email in their nominations for us to process manually.

    We had one person who had been a day member rather than a full attending member of MAC2, and incorrectly thought that qualified them for Hugo nominating.

    Yours was the only case that we heard of where someone hadn’t got their nomination link due to human error on our side; and the human in question was me, going slightly crazy after resolving three thousand duplications of memberships shared between the qualifying conventions (but keeping precise records of my work in order to track any errors). There is no easy way of automating this – you have to do it by hand and eye, and sometimes the hand slips. Apologies again that it happened in this case, and I do hope that there were not too many others that we never heard about.

  42. I’m sorry to hear about Marcon stiffing Ms. Snyder. I was a regular attendee from the early 80’s to about 15 years ago, when first poverty and then a con-hostile work schedule kept me away from cons for a while. Now that I’m retired, have a steady though not generous income and plenty of free time, I’m starting to attend occasional cons. I’d thought of seeing if I could afford Marcon again, but not if they’re pulling crap like this.

    Chain Mail Guy is still a presence at OVFF too. I’ve basically been shunning him there.

  43. Bill: Apologies to Lis Carey, the original scroller of electric pixels, for re-doing a most excellent title. Can we transfer this contributing editorship?

    I’m assuming it’s a case of “great minds think alike” on your end, and on my end, “great heads sometimes have holes them.” Oops.

  44. @airboy Seems like a misunderstanding. Finn should have apologized for being mistaken. But Finn does not seem to have any ill intent.

    Intent is not a magic salve for hurt inflicted, or a substitute for an apology. And of course it’s easier to be thoughtlessly hurtful if you’re used to getting a pass for your mistakes.

    I also note that you said the same thing about GamerGate, which makes me think you may not be the best person to judge intent.

  45. @ghostbird ah, but remember that offence is something only special snowflakes care about, and manly men recognise that truth trump’s all.

    In other related news, I made the mistake of looking at JCW’s blog the other day. Apparently it’s not just witches ruining the world, the problem is that liberals don’t have any courtesy. Says the man who calls trans folk perverts.

  46. @NickPheas

    It’s not directly relevant, but I think the choice to talk about offence taken rather than hurt inflicted is one of those moves that decide the outcome of the argument by defining the premises.

    (I also think I’d be a better person if I tried harder to apply all the wisdom I come up with to my own life.)

  48. @airboy Seems like a misunderstanding. Finn should have apologized for being mistaken. But Finn does not seem to have any ill intent.

    Thats true, which makes the lack of apology even more baffling. I mean, obviously his first tweet was harsh, but aimed at the puppies thing. He could have said “Oh, sorry, meant something else!” there. Instead he tried to argue why blindness is not a problem for an author and nothing to worry about.

    This lack of empathy is not normal.

  49. @Lis Carey

    (8) FWIW there’s a View All link beginning on the second page of the article. Once there, if you hover over the photos it will show the state name and you can click straight to that page of the article. Even with that, agreed it’s an annoying format. A straight up list would have been nice.

  50. My mother does the same sort of thing as Finn – if she is wrong about something, she will argue many different things about how, in certain circumstances, she would have been right, or should have been right, or was right if you look at things from the right perspective. Anything rather than admit she’s wrong.

    I make allowances for her, because she’s my mother, because she’s eighty-four next week, and because she has a degenerative brain disease. I’m pretty sure none of these things is true of Finn.

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