(1) YOUTUBER PAYOLA? ScienceFiction.com headlined that “The FTC Has Proven That Warner Brothers Has Paid YouTubers For Positive Reviews”.
In some not so awesome news, Warner Brothers was caught buying off YouTubers to give them positive reviews of their video games. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released details that the company was working with some of the most influential YouTubers out there to provide positive reviews of their games, film gameplay footage that worked around bugs and hype sales numbers that all ignored criticism of the titles they were being paid to look at. Oh, and they of course never disclosed that they were being paid to do this which is against the law. **
While this is currently limited to video games, one has to wonder if it may extend to films as well.
Most damning though is that Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, or PewDiePew as he is known to millions of ‘Let’s Play’viewers was involved as well. PewDiePew is the highest watched YouTube celebrity in gaming circles and had an undisclosed agreement to provide positive press for ‘Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor’ when it was released….
** According to Washington Post reporter Andrea Peterson, the notices that they were paid endorsers of the game appeared in fine print no one read. The FTC settlement says that paid endorsers have to reveal in non-fine print that that they have been paid by game manufacturers.
(2) PAUL AND STORM CONCERT AT MACII. The comedic musical duo Paul and Storm will perform in concert at MidAmeriCon II on Thursday.
MidAmeriCon II is delighted to announce that comedic musical duo Paul and Storm will be appearing at the convention. They will be live in concert at 12 Noon on Thursday, August 18, and interacting with members throughout the convention in the MidAmeriCon II Dealers’ Room.
Paul and Storm (Paul Sabourin and Greg “Storm” DiCostanzo) are known internationally and across the Internet for their original comedy music and vaudeville style shows (mostly with a nerdish bent). They also co-founded the geek variety show “w00tstock” (along with Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage) which has toured across America since 2009, and co-produce the annual JoCo Cruise (www.jococruise.com).
The duo’s original webseries musical, LearningTown, debuted on YouTube’s Geek & Sundry channel in January 2013. In the same year, their song “Another Irish Drinking Song” was featured in the movie Despicable Me 2, while their guitar was memorably smashed on stage by George R.R. Martin. Their fifth full-length CD, Ball Pit, came out in 2014, and was the central item of the duo’s successful Kickstarter campaign.
Paul and Storm have a long history of bringing well known personalities on stage during their shows – and with this being their first Worldcon appearance, they will have an exceptionally broad range of writers, editors, artists and other genre names to choose from. Members can look forward to a memorable and entertaining concert, full of “mature immaturity” (NPR).
More information on Paul and Storm can be found on their website at www.paulandstorm.com.
(3) CHARITY AT SDCC. NBC Los Angeles covers Comic-Con charitable events including the Heinlein Blood Drive:
The annual Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive returns to the mega pop culture convention for its 40th go-around. Billed as “the San Diego Blood Bank’s longest-running event,” the Comic-Con blood drive has collected “16,652 pints of blood” over its four-decade history.
Talk about superheroes. Want to give? Head for Grand Hall D at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.
Once you’ve given your pint, and you want to look for more ways to lend a hand, consider two off-site traditions that, while not affiliated officially with the convention, still keep ties to its cape-wearing themes and charitable heart.
The Heroes Brew Fest raises money each year for Warrior Foundation — Freedom Station. Yep, you can wear your costume, yep, you’ll drink nice beer, and yep, you’ll need to zoom through the clouds from the convention center, or at least catch a ride, to San Diego’s Waterfront Park on Saturday, July 23.
Earlier in the day the Helen Woodward Animal Center’s Pawmicon returns, though don’t head for Rancho Santa Fe, the home of the center. The “Cosplay for a Cause” — think furry pumpkins in their “Star Wars” and superhero best — is happening at the Hazard Center in the late morning.
(4) BLOOD OF PATRIOTS. There was also a Blood Drive at LibertyCon – Lou Antonelli says that’s where he met Jason Cordova, one of many first encounters mentioned in his con report.
(5) AUTO CRASH. I found Brad Templeton’s “Understanding the huge gulf between the Tesla Autopilot and a real robocar, in light of the crash” to be very helpful.
It’s not surprising there is huge debate about the fatal Tesla autopilot crash revealed to us last week. The big surprise to me is actually that Tesla and MobilEye stock seem entirely unaffected. For many years, one of the most common refrains I would hear in discussions about robocars was, “This is all great, but the first fatality and it’s all over.” I never believed it would all be over, but I didn’t think there would barely be a blip.
There’s been lots of blips in the press and online, of course, but most of it has had some pretty wrong assumptions. Tesla’s autopilot is a distant cousin of a real robocar, and that would explain why the fatality is no big deal for the field, but the press shows that people don’t know that.
Tesla’s autopilot is really a fancy cruise control. It combines several key features from the ADAS (Advance Driver Assist) world, such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping and forward collision avoidance, among others. All these features have been in cars for years, and they are also combined in similar products in other cars, both commercial offerings and demonstrated prototypes….
(6) JOE HILL’S DAD. Boston.com reports, “Library of Congress to recognize Stephen King for his lifelong work”.
Stephen King—Maine native, horror author, and hater of Fenway’s “protective netting”—will get a new title this fall: Library of Congress honoree.
King is set to open the main stage of the 2016 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., where the Library will recognize the author for his lifelong work promoting literacy, according to a release.
Since his first published novel, Carrie, in 1974, King has written more than 50 novels and hundreds of short stories, according to his website.
The festival takes place Saturday, September 24. Authors Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shonda Rhimes, Bob Woodward, Raina Telgemeier, and Salman Rushdie will also appear on the main stage.
(7) JUNO SHOOTS THE MOONS. IFLScience has the story behind Juno’s first image of Jupiter and its moons from orbit.
This image, taken on July 10, proves that the camera has survived the pass through Jupiter’s intense radiation, meaning it can start taking stunning high-resolution shots in the next few weeks. The camera (called JunoCam) itself has no scientific purpose, but will be used to engage the public with images of the gas giant. You can even vote online for what it takes pictures of.
(8) FUNNY PAGES. A popular fantasy work is referenced in the July 13 Wizard of Id comic strip.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born July 13, 1940 — Patrick Stewart (age 76)
- Born July 13, 1942 — Harrison Ford (age 74)
(10) LIVING UNOFFENDED. Maggie Hogarth, SFWA VP, was moved by Cat Rambo’s post yesterday (“SFWA Is Not a Gelatinous Cube”) to make a point about personal growth. The comments are very good, too.
I wanted to call out specifically her comment about having been pleased to recruit me specifically because I’m a conservative writer. When she suggests that we work well together because of our sometimes opposing perspectives, I think she’s entirely correct. It’s not that we talk politics specifically (though unfortunately, sometimes our jobs as officers require us to)… it’s that our beliefs give us oblique approaches to things, and consulting each other helps us find our own weaknesses and blind spots.
This is not a new thing for me. I have always worked in arenas that are overwhelmingly colonized by people of opposing political viewpoints (hello, Art, Academia). The knowledge that I would have to find a way to work with people who believed stuff I found strange, wrong-headed, or toxic is so old by now that I don’t even think about it. But it’s interesting to me that the people who are in the majority in any arena often seem to be offended at the thought that they should have to deal with people who disagree with them. At the university, I have brought up lots of professors short who were upset that I didn’t think they were right. One of them even asked me what I was doing there, which was… frankly bizarre. (Broadening my mind, maybe? By grappling with ideas I don’t necessarily agree with?)
Here then is my takeaway from living as a political minority in the workplace all my life: unless you’re in a group devoted specifically to a political cause you agree with, you cannot expect to be protected from people who don’t share your beliefs. Inevitably someone will tell me that this is an invitation to abuse and cruelty, as if there can be no disagreement without extremism. Reject this false dichotomy. People who don’t share your beliefs aren’t all heartless criminals who long to see you hurt. They just… don’t agree with you.
(11) TAKING THE TEST. Rambo and Hogarth have also publicized their vocabulary quiz results.
(12) SCALZI BREAKS THE SPELL. Don’t expect John Scalzi to be posting a quiz score.
Friends posting results of an online test to show they have a huge vocabulary. But it's not how many words you know. It's how you use them.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 13, 2016
Also, I suspect posting the results of an online test to show how smart/learned/nerdy you are is a test in itself, isn't it.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 13, 2016
I mean, don't get me wrong, have fun with online tests. Just maybe don't use them to re-litigate your performance on the SAT.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 13, 2016
No risk of my relitigating my SAT results. I can personally assure John you’ll never see me embarrassing myself by reporting results from an internet math quiz. I did just enough on the math side of the SAT to keep that from sandbagging what I did on the verbal side and get a California State Scholarship. (However, if someone knows a link to an online math quiz the rest of you might enjoy it….)
(13) TIMOTHY BREAKS THE QUIZ. Camestros Felapton published Timothy the Talking Cat’s score plus Timothy’s interpretation of all his test answers.
(14) MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE THESAURUS. If there’s anyone who should score high on a vocabulary test it’s John C. Wright – and he did.
My score was 30500, also in the top 0.01% Albeit there was one word I did not know, and guessed.
I am going to the dictionary to look it up, and then I am going to use it three times correctly within the next 24 hours.
I was once told that is the way to accumulate a large and handsome vocabulary.
(15) COMICS HUGO. Nicholas Whyte has posted “My Hugo and #RetroHugos1941 votes: Best Graphic Story”.
It’s really striking that two years ago, it was impossible to find enough comics from 1938 to populate the Retro Hugo category – we gave a Special Committee Award to Superman instead – but this year there is a wealth of 1940 material to choose from. Having said that, there’s not in fact a lot of variety; with one exception, the 1941 Retro Hugo finalists are origin stories of costumed crime-fighters
(16) TASTE TEST. Joe Sherry continues his series at Nerds of a Feather, “Reading the Hugos: Novella”.
Today we continue with our Hugo Award coverage with a look at the Novella category. There are not many categories on this year’s ballot which lines up so well with my nomination ballot, but this is one of them. Of the five nominees, I nominated three of them: Binti, The Builders, and Slow Bullets. Naturally, I am happy that the three of them made the cut. If I had the power to add just one more story to this category, I would have loved to have seen Matt Wallace’s wonderful Envy of Angels make the list. That was a fantastic story and everyone should read it. Since people tend not to fully agree with my taste in fiction, let’s take a look at what is actually on the final ballot.
(17) FROM THERE WILL BE WAR. Lisa Goldstein reviews “Novelette: ‘What Price Humanity?’”, a Hugo-nominee, at inferior4+1.
And here we are at the third story from There Will Be War, “What Price Humanity?” by David VanDyke. It’s the best of the three, though unfortunately that’s pretty faint praise. An infodump at the beginning tells us that aliens called Meme (Meme? Really?) are attacking from the outer Solar System, and that when the Meme’s reinforcements come, every decade or so, EarthFleet suffers catastrophic losses. Captain Vango Markis wakes up in Virtual Reality, having suffered what he thinks is a bad hit, and meets other officers he’s served with, some of whom he remembers as having died. They find flight simulators, and go on practice runs.
(18) LEVINE HIP-HOPS FOR ARABELLA OF MARS. Science fiction writer David D. Levine performs a hip-hop theme song, based on the opening number of “Hamilton,” for his Regency Interplanetary Airship Adventure novel “Arabella of Mars.”
…Every day she was learning posture and Latin
But every night she and her brother would batten
Down the hatches, hit the desert, going trackin’ and whackin’
Her brother backtrackin’, their Martian nanny was clackin’…
The rest of the lyrics are under “Show More” here. Arabella of Mars was released by Tor on July 12.
Arabella Ashby is a Patrick O’Brian girl in a Jane Austen world — born and raised on Mars, she was hauled back home by her mother, where she’s stifled by England’s gravity, climate, and attitudes toward women. When she learns that her evil cousin plans to kill her brother and inherit the family fortune, she joins the crew of an interplanetary clipper ship in order to beat him to Mars. But privateers, mutiny, and insurrection stand in her way. Will she arrive in time?
(19) FUTURE PLAY. On her Dive into Worldbuilding hangout, “Games”, Juliette Wade discussed games as a feature of worldbuilding.
Power struggle is one of the big things that games can symbolize. Chess has sometimes been used in science fiction as a form of communication between races. It can reflect or change a power dynamic.
Games are also powerful in folk tales, such as when you play a game with the devil, the fae, or Death.
Games can be critical as a symbolic representation of a larger conflict. If you can engage in single combat instead having whole armies clash, why not do it? If you can play a game and agree on the stakes, might you save many lives?
Games and the ways in which they are played reflect the world around them. If you are playing a game with plastic dice, it’s not the same as playing a game with pig knucklebones. Where do the knucklebones come from? Knucklebones, the word itself, makes the game of dice sound exotic and like it comes from a particular period. There are many games of chance or rune-reading. We noted that people have found real twenty-sided stone dice from the Roman period.
(20) TODAY’S UN-FACT-CHECKED TRIVIA
Four Pokémon have palindromic names: Girafarig, Eevee, Ho-oh and Alomomola.
(21) ROUNDUP. In a Washington Post article, Hayley Tsukuyama and Ben Guarino do a Pokemon Go roundup, including that Nintendo’s shares have risen by 38 percent in two days and how police in Riverton, Wyoming say that four men lured victims to a remote spot in the Wind River by promising an elusive Pokemon avatar.
On their screens, players of the viral mobile game “Pokémon Go” are seeing these creatures pop into existence alongside real-world physical objects. The mole-like Diglett peeks out of a toilet. A flaming demon Shetland called Ponyta gallops across the National Mall. A ostrich-like Doduo appears on top of the hold button of an office phone.
Capturing these little monsters isn’t just good for players. In just a few days since its July 6 launch, the game has become a national sensation, nearly overtaking Twitter in daily active users. It currently ranks as the most profitable game on Google and Apple’s app stores. On Monday, Nintendo’s stock jumped 25 percent. On Tuesday, it rose another 13 percent…..
Its makers also have made the game highly shareable. The delight of seeing a little monster pop up on the sidewalk in front of your home, or, in one case, on the bed of your wife while she’s in labor — has been social media gold for players.
The game is perhaps the first real success story of the use of augmented reality technology, which blends the digital and real world together. The combined effect is part bird-watching, part geocaching, part trophy-hunting, with a heavy dose of mid-1990s nostalgia.
(21) POKEMON SNARK. In a humor piece another Washington Post writer, Caitlin Dewey, says she told her fiance to stop playing Pokemon while he is wandering in the supermarket and driving.
This is all well and good, of course, but the hype glosses over something that gives me pause: With an app such as Pokémon Go, we’ve essentially gamified such basic pursuits as going outside, talking to strangers and visiting national monuments. These are activities we’ve long undertaken on their own merits. But everything must be digitally augmented now; no value is inherent.
The same could be said of the sorts of “engagement” trumpeted by the makers of Pokémon Go. If you’ve ventured to a local PokéStop, you know that — counter the pitch — most players aren’t making friends or appreciating the vista anew: They’re squinting into their screens, ignoring each other, hoping to sight that rare Pikachu.
(22) VIP BREW. Time to tap those kegs (or whatever they make it in) — “Drew Curtis/Wil Wheaton/Greg Koch Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout 2016 Release”.
COLLABORATORS
Drew Curtis, Fark.com Creator & Patent Troll Killer
Wil Wheaton, Actor & Web Celeb
Greg Koch, CEO & Co-founder, Stone BrewingThis barrel-aged palate-saver has been a favorite among our fans—and us—since its inception in 2013. Pecans, wheat, flaked rye and bourbon-soaked wood provide this whopping, complex superhero version of an imperial stout with a profound complexity that makes it ideal for cellaring—if you can wait that long. Now, we can’t say this beer bestows jedi powers, exactly, but your taste buds may just be fooled into believing as much….
A famed illustrator celebrated for her characters Vampirella, Power Girl, Silk Spectre and Harley Quinn and comics “Gatecrasher” and “Gargoyles,” Amanda Conner embraced the term “Stone’s bearded leader” for this year’s bottle art design. She transformed the three collaborators into unique renditions of “Star Wars” characters, with Koch playing the woolly role of everyone’s favorite wookiee.
At 13 percent alcohol by volume and with the highest concentration of midi-chlorians seen in a beer, the Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout may be enjoyed fresh, or cellared for several months or years to give way for the deliciously rich flavors to mature and develop more prevalent dark cocoa, coffee and nut notes.
The brew will be a centerpiece of the celebration at Hopcon 4.0 on July 20 in San Diego, where Paul and Storm will be among the many guests.
Our annual celebration of nth-degree beer geekery is back for a fourth round, and this time all 66,000 square feet are dedicated to the convergence of geek culture and beer culture. More retro arcade games, more casks and more bars add up to a release party large enough to match the formidable Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout.
[Thanks to Cat Rambo, Lisa Goldstein, Martin Morse Wooster, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Red Wombat.]
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When in the course of pixeled events, it becomes self evident that you should scroll on!
@Paul, I read Wolfe when I was young so all the weird words seemed so new. But on a much later reread, the words were suddenly recognizable. It felt odd.
I was inclined to take those online quizzes from the clickbait, but the amount of spam increased the more I did it. There seems to be a trolling spam industry for sunglasses.
I’ve been looking forward to augmented reality for a while. I’m amused (and a touch horrified) that its first breakout hit is a Pokemon game.
Urgent warning to all Pokemon Go players: Beware of the Isis cyber-demons!
Guess it’s a combination of a big pre-existing brand, and being perfectly suited for the player themself to do what the player-character did in earlier games.
Does anyone else get all of the sidebar ads for “military grade” flashlights that look like nothing so much as replica lightsabers?
James Moar said:
Not to mention hitting a strong nostalgic spot with the first generation inducted into the brand just as they’re hitting their prime spending years.
I for one am wondering how big a moral panic will ensue here in the US when certain people realize the game is a Trojan horse for that evil foreign metric system.
1) The linked ScienceFiction.com article doesn’t actually link to what the FTC announced about the paid videogame reviews. Here’s the link that should have been included:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/07/warner-bros-settles-ftc-charges-it-failed-adequately-disclose-it
@JJ:
The dictionary stayed where it belonged, in the middle of the house where everyone could get to it. (It was the shorter Oxford, so carrying it off would have been non-trivial and obvious as well as Not Done.) But there was a side table in the dining room that usually had several encyclopedia volumes on it by the end of dinner.
@Paul_A: so is there anything you think is funny? wrt specifically to filking, have you heard Tom Smith?
I’m in the middle of Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library (from someone’s link to much SFF about libraries); I’m finding it a very good first effort (perhaps not quite worthy of the fulsome praise on the back) but I have possibly-spoilerish plot question: Fbzr gvzr nsgre orvat pbagnzvangrq ol punbf naq gurerol ybfvat zhpu bs ure zntvp zbwb, gur urebvar chetrf urefrys fvzcyl ol qrpynevat ure vqragvgl nf n Yvoenevna. Guvf vf abg cerfragrq nf fbzr fhqqra ernyvmngvba, naq vg fubhyqa’g or nf fur’f n shyy ntrag engure guna n ortvaare. Qvq V zvff fbzrguvat gung ceriragrq ure sebz pyrnavat hc rneyvre, be qvq gur nhgube gel gb chyy n snfg bar?
@Petrea (re Pokemon Go)
Perhaps — but all the people clogging the paths on the Boston Common last night seemed too young to be first-generation, unless the original took longer to catch on here than I remember. (Wikipedia says 1995, I’m thinking certainly before 2000.) Or maybe I’ve just gotten to the point where I can’t judge ages of the not-visibly-worn any more….
@Robert @Paul: In Wolfe’s short collection of essays about The Book of the New Sun, The Castle of the Otter (which is worth hunting down just for the jokes – in the chapter titled “These are the jokes”), there is a section on the Book‘s lexicon, in which he talks briefly about how he adopted a deliberately obscure vocabulary for the purpose of estrangement.
More sfnal anime premiere reviews, bringing the total to 21 so far with 2 or 3 left to go (depending on how you want to count Danganronpa 3). And I thought 20 last season was a lot.
Darren Garrison on July 14, 2016 at 5:50 am said:
My son sez Mew is the rarest Pokémon.
Okay, somebody, quick–filk “Mew is the rarest Pokemon” to the tune of “One is the Loneliest Number” for Paul_A.
As you wish:
Mew, is the loneliest Pokémon you’ll ever do
Mew is just the saddest one, he’s so lonely that they had to clone Mewtwo
It’s just no good anymore since Mew went away
I spent my time just catching Grimers yesterday
Pokémon Go is the saddest experience you’ll ever know
Yes, it’s the saddest experience you’ll ever know
Because Mew is the loneliest Pokémon
Mew is the loneliest Pokémon
Mew is the loneliest Pokémon you’ll ever do
We had numerous dictionaries in our house. The really big one which stayed in the dining room or my parents bedroom/family room (their bed folded into the wall with the ping pong table in the wall next to it). Then there were paperback dictionaries each of us kids had picked up at library sales or used book stores kept in our rooms. I think the main encyclopedia set was kept in the bedroom I shared with one of my brothers before the house was remodeled. After the remodel big dictionary and encyclopedia set were kept in the family room although volumes of the encyclopedia were always in various bedrooms which led to much petty fighting.
One dictionary for a family to share – sounds like a horror story to me. But then one brother read the dictionary for fun. The other read the encyclopedia when bored. I had a lot of chores so less time to be bored.
Someone please spare me the comedic singing and especially filking. It’s never funny. Never.
So don’t attend their performance and let the large number of people who do enjoy their work do so.
Also, Paul & Storm aren’t filkers.
FiveThirtyEight uses Ghostbusters as a springboard to examine the problems with online ratings systems.
Matthew Johnson: Standing-O!
I went to see Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton perform several years ago and left with my abs aching from laughing so hard. The rest of the audience seemed to be having a grand time as well. There’s a difference between “I don’t find it funny” and It’s Not Funny.
The impression that Gamergate in any sense ignored the Shadow of Mordor controversy over paid YouTube submissions is incorrect.
Here is a link showing TotalBiscuit being one of the first to break the scandal in 2014.
http://www.gamesreviews.com/news/09/totalbiscuit-reveals-shadow-mordor-code-branding-deal/
Notes: I would describe Total Biscuit as a neutral but that is not accepted by anti-GamerGate people, who regard him as one of the main members of the movement
@ Paul A: You’re free not to attend. I probably won’t either; Paul and Storm are one of those acts about which my response is, “Okay, they’re decent, but I don’t get the hype.” However, you’re dead wrong about filk. 🙂
@ Jack Lint: One of the ways that we learn to spell correctly is by reading books which have (presumably) been competently proofread. Unfortunately, this process can also work in reverse; the more times we encounter incorrect spellings on the Internet, the more they interfere with our own spelling skills. I have a friend who calls this the IBV, short for Internet Brain Virus.
In case anyone is wondering why I had Pokemon on the brain, it’s because I spent the morning writing this: http://mediasmarts.ca/blog/parents-guide-pok%C3%A9mon-go
@Darren Garrison:
Wait, Cyberdemons? Like in DOOM?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdemon
Well, crap. Time to dust off the ol’ BFG 9000!! =)
Well, Chuck Tingle is quite sure you have to Poke them all.
And no, the song would start off as “Have you got Pokémon on your mind?”
@Chip Hitchcock
About The Invisible Library, V guvax gung fur xarj vg fubhyq jbex va gurbel vs fur pbhyq trg gb gur pbeerpg ybpngvba ohg gung nsgre ure svefg nggrzcg fur jnf engure jbeevrq nobhg orvat ohearq nyvir qhevat gur cebprff.
11) It said my vocabulary is about 29800 words. Given that the OED lists approximately 230,000 words and admits this is probably incomplete, it means that even the highest scorers I’ve seen apparently “know” less than 15% of the words in the OED.
I have my doubts that this is entirely accurate as a yardstick for one’s vocabulary.
I’ll go back to the corner now.
Darren Garrison on July 14, 2016 at 5:42 am said:
I remember drawing circuits with silver ink on carbon-black paper, in physics lab. That was decades ago.
Joe H. on July 14, 2016 at 7:27 am said:
Does anyone else get all of the sidebar ads for “military grade” flashlights that look like nothing so much as replica lightsabers?
Yes!
Scroll on, you crazy pixel.
Tasha Turner:
One encyclopedia? Well, not ours to judge.
PJ Evans:
My electronics teacher told me you could make a number of usable circuits with graphite on paper. That’s not the sole reason I wanted to take electronics design, though. I was looking forward to a career in it, but they cancelled the class. Then there was a butterfly and some other stuff happened.
I’ve been looking forward to augmented reality for a while. I’m amused (and a touch horrified) that its first breakout hit is a Pokemon game.
I think Pokemon Go is one of the best case scenarios for VR. It’s a game that’s essentially non-violent, and non-competitive. Even the gym battles aren’t actually done directly against other players. As a result, a lot of the assholery present with other top-ranked games is missing (I mean seriously, does anyone want to even think bout what a Call of Duty or KIllzone VR game would be like?) Pokemon GO is quiet, it gets people outside, and it’s fun. So it’s all good.
The only think I might like more, is a VR game where you roll virtual junk up into a huge ball…
Not looking forward to the release of Grand Theft Auto Go.
@Rose Embolism:
Oh lord, that might actually work, too…
@Kip W
Back in the 1970s the multi-volume Encyclopedia Britanica took a big chunk out of an entire shelf. I don’t remember if we had single volume encyclopedias also or used the library for additional research. I hated that series. It was treated like the bible and if a research paper didn’t include quotes from it school papers were docked even if you did research using college level textbooks or other academic works.
Feel free to judge. 😉
@Jack Lint Not looking forward to the release of Grand Theft Auto Go.
Oh geez don’t plant deadly ideas in their heads.
@Magewolf: that makes sense (and means I should be keeping notes when I have to put down a book for a day…).
Tasha Turner
We had a Compton’s from about 1957 (might have come in installments), and in maybe 1966, Mom & Dad got a full set of Collier’s, less interesting overall but with transparent cutaways of the human body and the V-8 engine. Grand-dad, when we visited the ranch, had a Britannia from the 20s, back when it was still PC enough for him. I don’t recall reading them.
(Sending from tablet. Forgot I have to use old email to get a Gravatar.)
Silent Hill Go.
Pixel Scroll Go?
Go Go Gadget Go!
::tickbox::
My reaction to The Aeronaut’s Windlass is similar to yours. It starts off a bit wobbly with too many switches between too many characters we don’t yet care about. But once it gets going, I enjoyed the book and it certainly won’t be in the last spot on my ballot (and not just because I can’t stand Seveneves either).
Though I agree that The Aeronaut’s Windlass could have benefitted from more editing, since it’s approx. 200 pages too long. e.g. the whole scene jurer Oevqtrg, Sbyyl naq Ebjy tb ybbxvat sbe gur ybpny pngf bayl gb svaq gung gurl jba’g gnyx gb gurz could have been cut, since it’s completely unnecessary. Gurl pbhyq unir pbzr npebff gur fvyxjrniref juvyr ybbxvat sbe gur pngf vafgrnq, juvpu jbhyq unir znqr sbe n gvtugre abiry.
I also agree on the worldbuilding issues. I had a lot of problems picturing the spire, especially since we only ever see two of the more than hundred habbles it supposedly has.
Another thing that bothered me is that Butcher obviously has no idea how airships actually work. Because when I read the word “airship”, what comes to mind is a Zeppelin or other dirigible. And a lot of the maneouvres Butcher has his airships execute (dive bombings, artillery broadsides) are things airships cannot do. Actual airships don’t have open decks either, so no deck for Captain Grimm to strut around on, and space is extremely limited. Eventually, I started to imagine Napoleonic era sailing ships flying due to magic ether crystal technology and the book worked a lot better for me.
I’m also beginning to suspect that worldbuilding isn’t actually Butcher’s forte. With the Dresden novels, he has the advantage that his setting is the real world (and plenty of people have complained about inaccuracies in his descriptions of Chicago, though I wouldn’t know). With a secondary world setting like this one, the problems become much more apparent.
Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure I will also read the next books in the series.
Any suggestions for what can be done with a circa-1980 set of non-Brittanica encyclopedias? Funk & Wagnalls, specifically. (Who now seem to exist solely as an online dictionary that, well, sucks.) I don’t think they’ve been cracked open for at least twenty years. We got the set when Chris was growing up, to help with schoolwork (he’s in his forties now, so….). Clearing a couple of shelves from that particular bookcase would be useful.
Book-based sculpture would be a possibility, if I knew anyone locally who did that.
Easiest would be to just send them to the landfill, but… but… books!
Bruce Arthurs: Any suggestions for what can be done with a circa-1980 set of non-Brittanica encyclopedias?
Sadly, a set of encyclopedias that old is probably destined for landfill–or to be shredded for insulation, or something. A bit younger and I’d suggest looking around for a parochial school or an after-school tutoring program to donate them to, but 1980? Not likely.
I have heard of people selling some old encyclopedias on Etsy as craft supplies–not just for sculpture; evidently the quality of paper makes them useful for various things. Or–my favorite–I once ran across someone who used a set of encyclopedias as the “legs” (more like a double-pedestal) for a glass-topped table/coffeetable . . . just seemed like a cool idea.
A lot of the stuff in that encyclopedia should still be good. If I were closer and had space….
@Robert Reynolds
230k? That is the print edition. The OED currently lists more than 600k words in its “real” edition online (go to oed.com and click on “About”—I’d link but every time I link I get sent to the bad table, AKA “moderation”).
@Bruce Arthurs @P. J. Evans
I have a leather “Platinum” Britannica set from 1992 in boxes here in WA if anyone wants it. It is waiting to be donated or trashed, but if the latter maybe I will keep one volume around to fondle . . . ooooh, that binding!
Re (8): Well played, Parker and Hart. Well played.
Re Castle Hangnail: I can hear RedWombat squeee all the way from the Carolinas.
*cheers for Mew Is The Loneliest*
Thanks, Nigel, Steve, etc. (Wait, Steve!? What are you doing here!?)
So everybody’s writing hip-hop Hamilton takeoffs, huh?
I always credit the Conan stories by Howard for how well I did on vocabulary tests. In class and even the SAT I found words I knew from the Hyborian Age. Satrap has helped me multiple times with crossword puzzles.
In comics news, Frank Cho joins the long list of people who don’t quite understand what “censorship” means.
Frank Cho Walks Off Wonder Woman After Sixth Cover