(1) OPENING DAY. The PKDFest is three days long — I posted about the Friday and Saturday sessions at Cal State Fullerton. The party starts Thursday, April 28 on another campus — at UC Irvine.
Philip K. Dick in the OC: Virtually Real, Really Virtual
Thursday, April 28, 2016, 10:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Humanities Gateway 1030)
Philip K. Dick spent the last decade of his life from 1972 to 1982 in Orange County, having fled the Bay Area convinced he was the target of various malevolent forces, ranging from governmental agencies to religious groups. In Orange County, PKD experienced the anonymity of everyday life in suburbia. He also experienced a divine vision that, as he explained in later writings, permitted him to glimpse the “trans-temporal constancy” of the universe. During his decade in Orange County, he produced some of his most enduring and enigmatic works, including novels like A Scanner Darkly and VALIS that reflect a pervasive sense of paranoia and also PKD’s attempts to make sense of his life-altering spiritual experience.
Schedule:
Opening Remarks & Welcome – 10:30am
- Jonathan Alexander
10:45am-12:00pm
- Interviewing Phil, Charles Platt
- PKD in Perspective, Gregg Rickman
- PKD on the Couch, Barry Spatz
Lunch Break – 12:00pm-1:00pm
Living with Phil – 1:00pm-2:00pm
- Tessa Dick, Grania Davis, Gregory Benford (moderator)
Visualizing Phil (in the High Castle and Otherwise) – 2:00pm-3:00pm
- Sherryl Vint, Jonathan Alexander, Antoinette LaFarge
Coffee break – 3:00pm-3:15pm
PKD and Privacy – 3:15pm-4:30pm
- David Brin, Gregory Benford
Closing Reception – 4:30pm
Please RSVP to [email protected] to confirm your attendance.
(2) B.C. Things Kelly Link did before being announced as a Pulitzer finalist yesterday now appear in a strange new light….
I can now say I've competed in an erotic fan fiction contest against a Pulitzer finalist. Thanks @haszombiesinit
— Joseph Fink, ????????healthcare is a human right???????? (@PlanetofFinks) April 19, 2016
https://twitter.com/haszombiesinit/status/722473335393808386
(3) VENDORS IN SPACE. Russ Ault told Facebook readers merchants are getting a bum deal at Worldcons.
Some of us out here in the world of convention merchants have, for some time now, been getting increasingly disenchanted with the opportunity presented by the typical Worldcon. (For those unfamiliar, that’s the annual “World Science Fiction Convention”, held in a different place each year, and nominally staffed and run by a different group each year as well.) In a space that is typically similar to that occupied by a Wizard World event, at a cost of more than twice as much per attendee, they end up hosting a crowd that is just 10% to 25% of the size of the typical media or comic con – but the rates they want for vendor space (when you include the price of the separate membership) end up being commensurate with the worst of the WW shows in terms of per-live-body-square-foot results. An eight-foot table and one membership will cost you over $400, with the prospect of having a crowd of as few as 3500 to 4000 people. (Compare that to a 10×10 booth for $1500 with a delivered head count that’s typically in the area of 20,000 – which is not really a very good deal either.)
And they wonder why we bristle when they say things like “The Worldcon doesn’t owe the dealers anything.”
(4) ARTIFICIAL CHARM. Hugh Hancock foresees the “Rise of the Trollbot” in a guest post on Charles Stross’ blog.
… In “Accelerando”, Charlie posited the idea of a swarm of legal robots, creating a neverending stream of companies which exchange ownership so fast they can’t be tracked.
It’s rather clear to me that the same thing is about to happen to social media. And possibly politics.
What makes me so sure?
Microsoft’s Tay Chatbot. Oh, and the state of the art in Customer Relationship Management software….
2: On The Internet, No-one Knows Their Friend Is A Dog.
In many ways, the straightforward trollswarm approach is the least threatening use of this technology. A much more insidious one is to turn the concept on its head – at least initially – and optimise the bots for friendliness.
Let’s say you wish to drive a particular group of fly-fishers out of the fishing community online for good.
Rather than simply firing up a GPU instance and directing it to come up with the world’s best fly-fishing insults, fire it up and direct it to befriend everyone in the fly-fishing community. This is eminently automatable: there are already plenty of tools out there which allow you to build up your Twitter following in a semi-automated manner (even after Twitter clamped down on “auto-following”), and Tay was already equipped to post memes. A decent corpus, a win condition of follows, positive-sentiment messages and RTs, and a bot could become a well-respected member of a social media community in months.
THEN turn the bot against your enemies. Other humans will see the fight too. If your bot’s doing a half-decent job – and remember, it’s already set up to optimise for RTs – real humans, who have actual power and influence in the community, will join in. They may ban the people under attack from community forums, give them abuse offline, or even threaten their jobs or worse.
For even more power and efficiency, don’t do this with one bot. One person starting a fight is ignorable. Twenty, fifty or a hundred respected posters all doing it at once – that’s how things like Gamergate start.
(And of course, the choice of persona for the bots, and how they express their grievances, will be important. Unfortunately we already have a large corpus of information on how to craft a credible narrative and cause people to feel sympathy for our protagonist – storytelling. If the bot-controller has a decent working knowledge of “Save The Cat” or “Story”, that’ll make the botswarm all the more effective…)
(5) A NUMERICAL LACK. From the Dictionary of Fantastic Vocabulary, ”a compendium of imaginary words and their uses,”comes —
Anquintan, n.
a person without five
That’s what happens when someone uses double share!
(6) DO AS I SAY. Dr. Mauser says “Don’t Pirate Indies”. (But dude, your blog is named Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas!)
…. Now, I understand a bit of what’s going on, there’s an awful lot of piracy going on out there, and yeah, in strictest terms, virtually every picture you’ve got on your phone or hard drive that you didn’t take yourself is some kind of copyright violation. I’m not going to go down that puritan road. But let me go through the usual excuses and explain why they don’t apply to indy books….
But I’m broke! – No, you’re not, you just can’t prioritize, or childishly can’t manage your budget. We’re talking an e-book in the $2.99 to $5.99 range. Hell, Comic books are about that much apiece these days. You just bought the latest video game for enough to buy TEN eBooks. You could stock a library for what you spent on that Con. Give up ONE Latte? (Furries are particularly notorious for pleading poverty when their favorite artists put out a $10 portfolio, then drop $50 for a single commission of their personal character in some sexual position – go fig.)
Hey, I’m doing you a favor, it’s free publicity! – Bullshit. In my friend’s case, it’s costing him plenty – hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Free publicity is writing reviews, having discussions, all that stuff they call “Word of Mouth”, and actually BUYING the book so that its Amazon Rankings go up. If you actually Love the author’s work, why are you destroying it?
(7) CAT’S PICTURES. Cat Rambo tells “How I Use Instagram”.
Still working frantically on the update for the Creating an Online Presence for Writers book, plus prepping for this weekend’s online class. One big change since the last version is Instagram‘s rocket upward in popularity. Here in 2016, it is the number two social media network in number of users, second only after Facebook.
It lets you post pictures, often with some sort of caption, and see what other people are posting. Unlike Facebook, it doesn’t play fast and loose with what you see, but gives you a stream composed of everyone you’re following.
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 19, 1987 — The Simpsons first aired on The Tracey Ullman Show.
(9) MORTALITY. Rachel Swirsky has revised her essay “On Writing and Mortality”. “It was originally published in 2011. I had recently had a death scare.”
A year or two ago, an article made the rounds which had asked a number of famous authors for ten pieces of writing advice. Some of the advice was irritating, some banal, some profound, and some amusing.
One piece of advice that got picked up and repeated was the idea that if you were working on a project, and found out that you had six weeks to live, if you were willing to set the project down then it was the wrong project for you to be writing.
I dislike that advice. It seems to come from the same place that makes writers say things like “a real writer has to write” or “any writers who can be discouraged should be.” (A convenient excuse for acting like a jerk.)
(10) GOOGLE BOOK SCANNING UPHELD. “Supreme Court rejects challenge to Google book-scanning project”. As David Klaus puts it, “The court says ‘to Hell with your ownership of the books you write.’”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by a group of authors who contend that Google’s massive effort to scan millions of books for an online library violates copyright law.
The Authors Guild and several individual writers have argued that the project, known as Google Books, illegally deprives them of revenue. The high court left in place an October 2015 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in favor of Google.
A unanimous three-judge appeals court panel said the case “tests the boundaries of fair use,” but found Google’s practices were ultimately allowed under the law.
The individual plaintiffs who filed the proposed class action against Google included former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, who wrote the acclaimed memoir “Ball Four.”
Several prominent writers, including novelist and poet Margaret Atwood and lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim, signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief backing the Authors Guild.
The authors sued Google, whose parent company is Alphabet Inc, in 2005, a year after the project was launched. A lower court dismissed the litigation in 2013, prompting the authors’ appeal.
(11) WICKED AUTOGRAPH. Abe Books has a special Something available for Bradbury fans.
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. (SIGNED)
BRADBURY, Ray, [ Christopher Lee ].
Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 1962 Second Edition. Hardback. Dust Jacket. (1962)
Used Hardcover Signed
…Signed presentation from the author on the front endpaper to Christopher Lee, ‘For Christopher Lee, who is Mr. Dark! With the admiration of his fan – Ray Bradbury, Mar. 21st 1964’. Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE,(1922–2015) was an English actor, singer, author, and World War II veteran. He was notably in ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ but is best known for his role as Count Dracula in a sequence of Hammer Horror films and later as Saruman in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ film trilogy.
(12) SPOCK AT TRIBECA. Yahoo! Movies’ Seth Kelley has the story: “’For the Love of Spock’ Q&A Remembers Leonard Nimoy, Talks Future of ‘Star Trek’ Franchise”.
Adam Nimoy remembered his late father, Leonard, during a Q&A that followed a screening of his documentary “For The Love of Spock.” The discussion took place on Monday as part of the Tribeca Film Festival where the film first screened two days earlier.
Variety‘s Gordon Cox moderated the conversation, which also included Zachary Quinto, EP David Zappone and film critic and self-proclaimed Trekker Scott Mantz.
Adam Nimoy, who wrote and directed the film, said that he had plenty of material. “A lot of things got left on the cutting room floor, unfortunately,” he said. But he added that his father would have approved of the final cut. “I think he would be very pleased and proud.”
(13) IMMURED. “Elizabeth Banks Unrecognizable As Power Rangers Reboot’s Rita Repulsa” says Yahoo! News.
People magazine has lifted the lid on 2017?s live action ‘Power Rangers’ reboot by revealing the film’s villain Rita Repulsa as played – beneath layers of costume and prosthetic make up – by Elizabeth Banks.
The ‘Hunger Games’ star is channelling her dark side to play the mean green witch – her first villain role – describing the character as “a modern and edgy re-imagining of the original Rita”.
(14) CROWDSOURCED BOWIE TRIBUTE. Unbound’s project Fill Your Heart: Writers on Bowie will be an anthology of writers inspired by the musician.
Our mourning isn’t over, but we want to write, we’ve got to write: to him, for him, about him. Fill Your Heart: Writers On Bowie is an anthology by some of our greatest contemporary writers. It is an anthology celebrating David Bowie with creativity. Whether a short story, a poem, a piece of memoir, psychogeograhy or creative non-fiction, these pieces will be personal responses to Bowie, to his shaping work and influence.
Edited by the novelist Tiffany Murray, this will be an important celebration, possibly a strange, mad celebration, but it is for anyone who was and is inspired by David Bowie and his work.
Fill Your Heart will be creating something new, a bold anthology that in some way shows us all how Bowie sparked each generation’s imaginations: how he made us.
Let’s spark together.
The collection is 11% funded so far.
(15) GUARDIANS. A Russian Marvel-esque superhero flick. It’s called Zaschitniki (Russian) or Guardians (English).
Set during the Cold War, a secret organization named “Patriot” gathered a group of Soviet superheroes, altering and augmenting the DNA of four individuals, in order to defend the homeland from supernatural threats. The group includes representatives of the different nationalities of the Soviet Union, which each one of them have long been hiding their true identity. In hard times, they settled down to business and gather to defend their homeland.
[Thanks to Kendall, JJ, Will R., Gregory Benford, David K.M. Klaus, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
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Pixel Stalk.
(9) MORTALITY. Both times I had cancer I read Dresden Files books and played Sudoku. (I’m lukewarm-to-negative about DF depending on the point in the series.) Part of this was probably just depression sapping my creativity. But part of it, I think, was a defiant, “I do so have plenty of time!” compensation mechanism. So I think Rachel is right about the uselessness of the advice. This advice comes from a combination of people who haven’t experienced a genuine thought that they might die soon, plus some others who may have had that clarifying focus but don’t realize that people’s reactions vary.
[ticky]
(13) IMMURED.
No kidding! That’s not Rita Repulsa/Bandora, it’s Divatox!
I can’t find a translation of Bandora’s song on YouTube. The gist of her it is that she hates children and wants them to suffer/die. She is an evil witch, after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY8RixeJpJc
(At one point while watching the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Green Ranger saga, I said “it looks like Rita and her henchmen are marching to a beat”. Then I watched Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger and discovered I was right!)
Forgot to tick the box!
I haven’t lost that scrolling feeling. Even if I’m not part of the secret file770 decision makers I still love it here.
Just missed it.
Dang distracting Real Life.
And Swirsky is totally right.
For one thing, having pretty much any life-threatening disease is itself an all-absorbing project.
Let alone the necessity of dealing with the multitude of oh-my-gawd personal loose ends
If any creative project has to elbow its way through that kind of competition in order to be valid, there’s not going to be much of it going on.
So a pretty much idiotic standard.
Besides which, all these life/death hyperbolic challenges are really just bullying.
The either you kill a baby or a busload of nuns goes off the bridge.
(Or a nun, and a busload of babies, your choice.)
Or you’re a pacifist but what if someone is going to kill/rape/maim your wife/mother/child, what then.
It’s just about forcing people say uncomfortable things they don’t believe.
Whatever.
Nope, nothing I want to do is important enough that I wouldn’t drop it in a second to connect with my loved ones if I only had months to live.
You win. fine, I don’t really care about stuff.
Okay?
(Have they left yet?)
I forgot I suggested that scroll title, so was pleasantly surprised by the credit.
(3) VENDORS IN SPACE.
OGH is in great form in that Facebook conversation.
(4) ARTIFICIAL CHARM.
Oh Internet, what hath ye wrought?
(7) CAT’S PICTURES.
For some reason I don’t “get” Instagram. Given the number of foodie photos I post, you’d think it’d be ideal for me, but no. I think it’s because the potential for actual conversation is limited and I don’t need yet another social media platform time suck (I can already post photos on Livejournal, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Ello, Tsu…). Anyone here able to expound on the joys of Instagram?
(9) MORTALITY.
That’s a very perceptive — and helpful, I think — piece of perspective.
And I love that the favicon for Swirsky’s site is a tiny little portrait of her.
That Russian trailer has some gorgeous visuals. Hope a subtitled/dubbed version makes it over here eventually.
Re #1: I wish I still lived in Orange County! (that’s a sentence I normally do not say…)
Re: Soon Lee. I might like Instagram more as a photographer if I had a more convenient way to get non cell phone pictures to it. As it is, I have to upload pictures from my computer to Google, download it to my phone, and then share it to instagram.
When I went to Rome, I did use Instagram cell phone pictures as a “daily record” to people following me on twitter and there as to what I was up to.
Oh, and for those interested, the new SF Signal Mind Meld is up, about using humor in SF/F/H. I didn’t curate this one but I did participate in it.
(10) GOOGLE BOOK SCANNING UPHELD.
“Ownership of the books you write” has never prevented people from making fair use of them, such as by quoting material from them for purposes of criticism or review—even criticism or review that you’d rather wasn’t allowed because it’s not very friendly to your book. Scanning and indexing the way Google does it is such a fair use, and is in keeping with copyright’s original mission, as spelled out in the Constitution, of benefiting the public.
Yes, Google is a commercial entity, and that weighed against it in the consideration of whether it was a fair use—but it didn’t automatically disqualify it. 2 Live Crew’s “Pretty Woman” parody was a commercial product, too, but that didn’t keep the Supreme Court from determining it to be a fair use of the original copyrighted material.
When done right, copyright is a compromise between the rights of the creator and the rights of the general public. Any given interpretation of it usually ends up leaving some people in one party or the other unhappy. But that’s just how compromises work.
Soon Lee on April 19, 2016 at 11:20 pm said:
I don’t personally use it but my wife is a designer and uses it as a lot, as do most of her peers. I also know some journalists and photographers who use it for instant updates/publication of their current situation.
When I visited the US earlier this month, I got taken away for interrogation as I passed through immigration and they specifically asked me about my Instagram account details – so perhaps it is also a tool of the jihad.
rob_matic: When I visited the US earlier this month, I got taken away for interrogation as I passed through immigration and they specifically asked me about my Instagram account details
WTFF. But not your Facebook? That’s bizarre.
Did they make you log in and show them?
Oh gods, I really apologize for my country. This is so embarrassing. This is not the country I grew up in, and it grieves me every single day to see what a travesty it’s become. 🙁
@Rob Good God. I’m sorry.
🙁
I remember when I came up from Mexico to travel into the US. I showed my passport to the official and he looked at the stamps.
Lebanon, Syria, Cuba…
And then followed this conversation:
– How did you get into Cuba?
– Well you know, Sweden is a nice little country.
– Are you saying that we aren’t nice?
* me, thinking fast *
– No, I’m saying that you aren’t small.
And with that he ignored my other stamps. Not sure how it would go now.
Oh, they asked me about Facebook and Twitter as well but I thought it was surprising that the follow-up question was Instagram.
They didn’t make me log in and show them, thankfully. Kind of indicates that all they need is the account name and they have all they need, regardless of the privacy settings.
They actually asked me for quite a lot of information and it felt quite intrusive, but I couldn’t exactly refuse to give any of it as I would then have been in a whole bunch of trouble.
My wife has a crescent moon on her passport so is used to all this BS at the US border. I can’t complain too much as it’s only happened once so far.
11) And here I was thrilled to find an old copy for seventy-five cents while junk shopping with the kid this weekend. “Here,” I said, “I read this when I was about your age.” We’ll see how that goes. It went into the backpack, and having a book is like having a loaded gun in the house. You might get your mind blown.
Not the best analogy? I’m not so sure. I think some of the books I read at an early age messed me up in a not-good way. But this one, I’m not worried about one bit.
Mike
Loved your helpful comment to Brad; fortunately I had just put down my latte before reading it 🙂
13) My opinion of that Rita Repulsa costume is… blah. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people dressed like that at the local goth club. It’s not much of a costume. Not to mention that Elizabeth banks seems an odd choice…
Instagram is pretty useful for connecting with creators. For instance, if you want a custom knife… following Knifstagram is a good way to do it.
@Stevie What’s this?
[“Attention Agent 23, the checkbox has been selected.”]
In honor of Bowie —
Pixels fighting in the dance hall
Oh man, look at those cavemen scroll
But you are one of the secret decision makers; not knowing about it just shows how secret they are!
Paul
If you go to the Facebook page (see above) you will find Mike’s comment; I won’t spoil it here, but I think you’ll like it…
@Stevie
Oh, my!
I am sad that Brad is finding it so very difficult to just STFU and move on. It’s done. He tried a thing which people hated. Perhaps he didn’t mean folks to hate it, but they did. And the only thing that’s ever going to make people forgive him is time and a willingness to move on. Whining about how unfair it was that people rejected his efforts ain’t gonna help.
Oh, my!
Not being able to see this exchange makes me almost regret having BT blocked on Facebook.
@Paul J
Indeed. You’re out there living life as a normal Filer: talking the books, debating the puppening, and suddenly it’s all:
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep @Tasha… But you have promises to keep… Remember @Tasha…
*glances around nervously*
I’ve said too much… Just trust me – if THEY start quoting poetry at you: Run!
(Obscure reference index likely high, so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telefon_(film) )
I’d quote him for you, but exactly quoting what people say is evil doxxing and worse than anything Teddy does.
Aaron
You could see it if you logged out.
Direct link https://m.facebook.com/comment/replies/?ctoken=10208114220204909_10208115883926501&count=1&pc=1&ft_ent_identifier=10208114220204909&gfid=AQDnkvonYajFZtdf I think. I pasted it into another browser and it worked there.
You could see it if you logged out.
Well, I got a look at the comment, and I see that BT is still throwing a self-pity party while living in a fantasy world that has no relationship to reality. So I’m pretty much still not regretting blocking his whiny drivel.
The reply from OGH was priceless though. Totally worth taking a look to see.
3) I noted that he failed to give any indication just how poorly or how well he did sales wise attending a WorldCon. I can’t speak for the economics of his argue meant but I can say that he’s the sort of individual that if I know this was his viewpoint, I’d not buy from.
In the concert work of Celtic artists (one I’m very familiar with), how well the promoter and the artist do is dependent on good relations with those who are buying your product. He doesn’t need to attend a WorldCon if this is his attitude as, like my example, bad attitude means poor sales.
3) the other thing as strikes me about the membership costs being complained about. $200. That’s what it costs to register for Mid Americon II today. For Worldcon 75 in Finland it’s $140. Presumably this price will go up.
Surely a retailer who’s serious about dealing at the worldcon makes their plans well in advance, it’s not something they decide upon with a month to go?
3) The impression I get – and please do correct me if I’m wrong – is that Worldcons aren’t, particularly, a profit-making enterprise; they run, if they’re lucky, at a modest surplus.
Which means, of course, that the fees paid by attending members, vendors, and what-have-you just about cover the costs of the venue and the programme of events. So, while there’s obviously the possibility of giving better terms to vendors, that would have to be done at somebody else’s expense – either raising prices for another category of members, or cutting back somewhere on the programme.
Now, if you could successfully expand Worldcon, getting better deals for a higher volume of attendees, you could reduce the costs to the individual and make it up in volume… but this runs up against arguments that even I’ve heard of, about the difficulties of managing large Worldcons and finding suitable venues in different parts of the world. (Not to mention the inherent risks – if you go for a mega-sized event and don’t sell enough attending memberships to cover the costs, you’ve got problems.)
I suppose there are things that can be done – the idea of throwing open the dealers’ room to the general public was mooted in that comments thread, though I suspect that’s got organizational downsides in terms of security and the relationship with the venue. (The other proposed solution I saw – of ditching the so-called “elitists” and turning over the convention to that subset of SF fans who only like what Brad Torgersen thinks is proper SF – isn’t likely to increase membership numbers, and hence revenues. To put it mildly.)
Basically, I suspect Russ Ault is being charged what the con committee reckon they have to charge him, if they’re to avoid having bill collectors kick their doors in. Which means he’d need to make a pretty compelling case for more favourable rates.
In feeling charitable mode: It might be a bigger financial outlay for some dealers rather than others to make it to the con. My local comic shop deals a lot in high-price items such as Hot Toys, import Transformers and so on, and because they offer layaway and are very good about letting people reserve items they sometimes has to delay ordering in new stock while waiting for that stuff to shift. So there might not be the cash free to book early depending on circumstance.
Talking about kids’ books, the 1959 book, You Will Go to the Moon, by Mae and Ira Freeman, really left a big impression on me. I remember “reading” it before I had learned how to read.
Looking at the pictures of it, I just realized that the image of the rocket with the numbered stages was the image I originally wanted to use for Rocket Stack Rank, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen a picture of a rocket with numbered stages. I guess it really did leave a lasting impression!
Re: Brad. Churchill said it best: “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
I remember that book!! And just had to order a copy off of Amazon …
@bloodstone75
I have been so well-trained by the internet that the moment anyone gives a famous quote attributed to Churchill, my instinctive reaction is to question whether Churchill ever said it. I checked and it turned out he did in this case, although he was not the originator of the quote (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/01/fanatic/).
clicky.
Headache.
But small dog on lap, so there’s that.
Well, I said he said it best, not first! 😛
ETA: verifying stuff is a must; I do Snopes v. Facebook friends’ posts too frequently.
Churchill did say a lot of memorable things…
Well said.
Taking this moment to plug a good book about Churchill for people like me who, while moderately interesteted in him, don’t want to wade through a 900-page biography of him.
Forty Ways to Look At Winston Churchill by Gretchen Rubin. Among other things, you can often look up his most-quoted statements in there.
http://amzn.to/1TjmGq7
3) When engaging in a for-profit business, if you run into problems with regard to a venue where you have to opt in to doing business (i.e., booking space in a convention’s dealer room) at that point, you weigh your options.
Either it’s worth dealing with prevailing conditions or it isn’t. No one’s requiring you to take table space at a Worldcon and you can simply choose not to do so, if the terms/costs versus potential ROI is insufficient/unsatisfactory.
One thing I wouldn’t even presume to do under such circumstances is to try to tell them how they should structure things so as to suit me. I’d simply vote with my wallet, go somewhere I found more appealing and not worry about it. If enough people doing business with them agree with you, they’ll have problems renting space and then they may need to do some adjustments-or not.
The dilemma the dealers face is probably a reflection of the dilemma that concoms and con attendees also face, which is rising costs without, in many instances, a corresponding increase in what you get for those expenses.
20+ years ago, cons weren’t as expensive to hold or attend as they are now, in large part because hotels were much less prone to charging for convention space. When hotels started charging for convention space (program rooms, exhibit halls, dealer rooms, ball rooms, etc., etc.), convention costs rose. Meanwhile, the price of hotel rooms was rising, as were transportation costs. In general, hosting a con costs a lot more than it used to, and -attending- a con costs a lot more than it used to.
I’m not saying that dealers don’t have legitimate complaints about WorldCon, or that there is no solution (there may or may not be–I haven’t studied the facts and figures, so I have no idea), but I think the complaint about the costs is part of the general issue of rising con costs.
Related to #7 because cats:
Cats in Famous Movie Scenes.
A couple of SF movies in there, although the one that made me laugh the hardest was Kill
BillCat.