(1) LEVAR BURTON FEATURED AS ALTADENA LIBRARY REOPENS. LAist is there as “Altadena Library reopens to the community for fun, games and a LeVar Burton reading”.
Today marks the grand reopening of the Altadena Library. The beloved community space was spared by the Eaton Fire, and after a short period of closure for fire-related clean up, it’s welcoming hundreds of Altadenans who gathered to celebrate its return.
“We wanted to have a really big carnival feel,” Altadena Library director Nikki Winslow said. “Free food, giveaways… also Clifford the Big Red Dog, so it should be a really fun event.”
The day’s main attraction is story time by education advocate and actor LeVar Burton….
… Thousands of Altadena residents lost their homes in the Eaton Fire, and many more were displaced. But today felt like the community getting back on its feet, says Jean Courtney, a long time resident whose home was destroyed….
…Burton, the Star Trek star turned children’s book author, said he was here today to keep the spotlight on the Altadena community as they begin to rebuild.
“Altadena traditionally is one of those communities where people who looked like me were welcomed and could purchase homes,” Burton said. “The American dream is alive and well in Altadena – today, tomorrow, and every day.”…
(2) ARIZONA CON CLOSED BY HEALTH AUTHORITIES. Wild West Con has been required to shut down in the middle of the weekend they announced on Facebook today. The steampunk-themed event being held in a Tucson, AZ casino opened on Thursday. It is reported the congers have been told to go but the other casino patrons have not.
Due to ongoing medical concerns, we regret to inform all interested that Wild Wild West Con has been shut down by Casino Del Sol.
Unfortunately, we do not have any further information to provide but will give updates as soon as they’re available.
There was an additional statement on Bluesky.
(3) SFWA ON META AI TRAINING. Yesterday SFWA President Kate Ristau sent members this comment after the Atlantic made it easy to search LibGen data to discover whether their work being used by Meta to train its AI.
Opening up the Atlantic article yesterday was a shock. So many of us scrolled down to search the Library Genesis data set for our own names. According to the article, Meta (Facebook) used millions of pirated works to train its AI. I found two of my works, and started searching for other SFWA members as well.
That little blue box has been all over social media this morning.
As the Atlantic notes, “millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.”
Personally, I did not give permission for my work to be used. Did you?
SFWA’s number one principle in regards to AI is that Creators must be compensated for the use of their work. If you were not compensated, what can you do?
We recommend you follow Author Guild’s list of actions, including protecting your work. There are other actions that may fit your personal circumstances as well.
As an organization, SFWA will continue to fight for our principles. Writers must be paid, credited, and protected, following expected norms.
We will follow up with more information as we investigate further and take next steps.
(4) SOCIETY OF AUTHORS REACTION. The UK’s Society of Authors has also issued a statement: “The LibGen data set – what authors can do”.
Yesterday (20 March 2025), The Atlantic published a searchable database of over 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers. This data set, called Library Genesis or ‘LibGen’ for short, is full of pirated material, and all of it has been used to develop AI systems by tech giant Meta.
The Atlantic says that court documents show that staff at Meta discussed licensing books and research papers lawfully but instead chose to use stolen work because it was faster and cheaper. Given that Meta Platforms, Inc, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has a market capitalisation of £1.147 trillion, this is appalling behaviour.
According to The Atlantic, Meta argued that it could then use the US’s ‘fair use exception’ defence if it was challenged legally.
It is not yet clear whether scraping from copyright works without permission is unlawful under the US fair use exception to copyright, but if that scraping is for commercial purposes (which what Meta is doing surely is) it cannot be fair use. Under the UK fair dealing exception to copyright, there is no question that scraping is unlawful without permission.
As a matter of urgency, Meta needs to compensate the rightsholders of all the works it has been exploiting.
This is yet more evidence of the catastrophic impact generative AI is having on our creative industries worldwide. From development through to output, creators’ rights are being ignored, and governments need to intervene to protects authors’ rights…
(5) PEN AMERICA LONGLISTS. PEN America has announced the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards Longlists. The complete list is at the link. There do not appear to be any works of genre interest in the lists. The books up for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award are —
The PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award celebrates writing that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of the physical or biological sciences and communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience. The winner receives a cash award of $10,000.
- The Burning Earth: A History, Sunil Amrith (W. W. Norton & Company)
- Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World, Kelly Clancy (Riverhead Books)
All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today, Elizabeth Comen (Harper) - Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (Princeton University Press)
- The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors, Erika Howsare (Catapult)
- The Big Freeze: A Reporter’s Personal Journey into the World of Egg Freezing and the Quest to Control Our Fertility, Natalie Lampert (Ballantine)
- Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, Jason Roberts (Random House)
- The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives, Ernest Scheyder (Atria)
- Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean, Matt Strassler (Basic Books)
- The Living Medicine: How a Lifesaving Cure Was Nearly Lost—and Why It Will Rescue Us When Antibiotics Fail, Lina Zeldovich (St. Martin’s Press)
(6) WE LIE HERE, OBEDIENT TO THEIR WORDS. “Nasa drops plan to land first woman and first person of color on the moon” reports the Guardian.
Nasa has dropped its longstanding public commitment to land the first woman and person of color on the moon, in response to Donald Trump’s directives to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices at federal agencies.
The promise was a central plank of the space agency’s Artemis program, which is scheduled to return humans to the lunar surface in 2027 for the first time since the final Apollo mission in December 1972.
The Artemis landing page of Nasa’s website previously included the words: “Nasa will land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.”
The version of the page live on the website on Friday, however, appears with the phrase removed…
(7) TAPE DELAY. “US blocks Canadian access to cross-border library, sparking outcry”. The Guardian has the story.
The US has blocked Canadian access to a library straddling the Canada-US border, drawing criticism from a Quebec town where people have long enjoyed easy entry to the space.
The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is located between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont. It was built deliberately to straddle the frontier between the two countries – a symbol of cooperation and friendship between Canada and the US.
The library’s entrance is on the Vermont side. Previously, Canadian visitors were able to enter using the sidewalk and entrance on the American side but were encouraged to bring documentation, according to the library’s website.
Inside, a line of electrical tape demarcates the international boundary. About 60% of the building, including the books, is located in Canada. Upstairs, in the opera house, the audience sits in the US while the performers are in Canada.
Under the new rules, Canadians will need to go through a formal border crossing before entering the library.
“This closure not only compromises Canadian visitors’ access to a historic symbol of cooperation and harmony between the two countries but also weakens the spirit of cross-border collaboration that defines this iconic location,” the town of Stanstead said in a press release on Thursday…
(8) MORE US TRAVEL CAUTIONS. The Guardian reports “Denmark and Finland urge caution for US-bound transgender people”.
Denmark and Finland have updated their US travel advice for transgender people, joining the handful of European countries that have sought to caution US-bound travellers in recent weeks as reports emerge of ordeals at the American border.
Denmark said this week it had begun advising transgender travellers to contact the US embassy in Copenhagen before departure to ensure there would be no issues with travel documents.
The change came after Donald Trump made a priority of rolling back trans and non-binary rights, announcing that the US would only recognise two genders and signing off on executive orders that sought to exclude transgender people from the US military, limit their access to sport and curtail gender-transition procedures for people under the age of 19….
(9) PETER MABEY (1926-2025). [Via Alison Scott.] British fan Peter Mabey, winner of the first Doc Weir Award, died February 19.
The Doc Weir Award history site says of him:
Peter was one of the first members of the Cheltenham Circle and the BSFA, acting as Librarian of the BSFA lending library when the collection was also held at Cheltenham; he later served as a BSFA committee member after the organisation’s incorporation.
He was one of the founders of the Order of St. Fantony and was presented, in his absence, with the first Doc Weir Award at the 1963 Eastercon (Bullcon). Peter was a member of the organising committee for the 1965 Worldcon (Loncon II) and was responsible for its publications.
He continued to attend conventions well into his 90s.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
March 22, 1931 — William Shatner, 94.
By Paul Weimer: The face that launched a hundred soap operas.
I find it interesting that like B5 would find out thirty years later, Star Trek’s first shot at a crew and a leading man, Jeffrey Hunter, wasn’t quite what a viewing public particularly wanted in a leading man of a space opera SF series. Poor Michael O’Hare and Jeffrey Hunter both weren’t quite right to be the full-on leading actors for such a series.
But like Bruce Boxleitner three decades later, William Shatner proved to be. I mean, sure, lots of Spock fans out there, McCoy fans, and other characters. And the whole “trio” of Kirk-Spock-McCoy has been documented to enormous detail. But it is William Shatner’s complex Captain Kirk, who was more cerebral and outwitting of his opponents than you remember, more nuanced, more interesting than the flanderized stereotype that has been parodied to the moon and back ever made him out to be. Sure, his diction and acting were, charitably melodramatic, but that is a feature, not a bug that got him through the series, and seven movies.
Outside of genre space, he did shows like T J Hooker, and Rescue 911, and Boston Legal (although the fourth wall breaking Boston Legal might actually BE a genre show. I leave the comments to decide that). He’s done music (oddly, that doesn’t make him unique among the TOS crew). He was the voice of Priceline.com in its early days on the Internet. He co-wrote the TekWar novels. He breeds horses. (Wonder why he is horse riding in Star Trek Generations? Now you know.)
You might think that “Nightmare at 30,000 feet” might be my favorite non-Star-Trek genre performance Shatner has done. And you would be almost right. It is a classic in paranoia, perception, fear, and it does show that his acting style does have range, and ability and even with his unusual cadence, it can work in a situation like this. The episode itself is a masterpiece and Shatner’s performance is a big part of that.
But I like “Nick of Time” a bit more. It’s a more hopeful and positive story, as we see Shatner as part of a married couple who wind up briefly in thrall to a fortune telling machine that seems to tell the future — but really just makes people dependent on its easy, cryptic answers. The utter triumph of the episode as Shatner and his wife break free of their dependency is enough to make you cheer…until you see the coda, and see a couple who have not been so fortunate, or possessing as much fortitude as Shatner’s Don S. Carter and Patricia Breslin’s Pat Carter finally manage to show.
And Shatner has been to space.
Get a life? William Shatner, in and out of Star Trek, certainly has.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Loose Parts proves it depends on which wolf you feed.
- Nancy unintentionally contributes to an essay.
- Off the Mark has a sensitive palate.
- Strange Brew asks for the origin story.
- Tom Gauld flips the script.
(12) WHERE’S THE BEEF? NASA remembers the “Fallout from the Unauthorized Gemini III Space Sandwich”.
“I hid a sandwich in my spacesuit,” Astronaut John W. Young confessed in the April 2, 1965, issue of Life Magazine. The conversation about and the consumption of the sandwich, which lasted only about 30 seconds during the Gemini III flight, became a serious matter that drew the ire of Congress and NASA’s administrator after the crew returned home. Congress was particularly upset and brought the matter to leadership’s attention at hearings about NASA’s 1966 budget. Representative George E. Shipley was especially disgusted, knowing how much money and time NASA had spent to prepare the Gemini III spacecraft for launch. The fact that a crewmember brought something into the crew cabin, which Shipley likened to a “surgeon’s operating room,” put the techniques used to prevent a spaceflight mission from failing at risk; crumbs could have made their way behind instrument panels interfering with the operation of flight equipment and the loss of the mission and its crew. Shipley called Young’s antics “foolish” and asked NASA leaders to share their thoughts….
…Young never received a formal reprimand for the incident but was made aware of Congress’s frustration. Others in the corps were advised to avoid similar stunts and to focus on the mission. The decision to bring a sandwich onboard did not have a negative impact on Young’s career. He was the first astronaut to fly to space six times —two Gemini missions; two Apollo missions, including the dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing; and two space shuttle missions including STS-1, known as the bravest test flight in history. He also served as chief of the Astronaut Office for 13 years.
(13) SIDE EFFECTS OF ANTI-AGING REGIME. Futurism reports “Anti-Aging CEO’s Test Subjects Reportedly Suffered Unpleasant Side Effects”.
An alarming new investigation by the New York Times accuses youth-obsessed tech mogul Bryan Johnson of covering up some unpleasant side effects experienced by participants testing his line of supplements.
Johnson — who was an early investor in Futurism, but hasn’t had any involvement for years — has gone to extreme lengths to slow down or even “reverse” his “biological age” through a series of sometimes extreme self-experiments, like using his teenage son as a “blood boy” and measuring his nighttime erections.
He’s parlayed that hype into a line of supplements and meals called “The Blueprint Stack,” bolstered by what the company says were promising study results.
But the NYT‘s reporting makes that study sound very dubious. Out of the roughly 1,700 participants, a whopping 60 percent experienced at least one side effect, according to documents viewed by the newspaper. Blood tests showed that some participants saw their testosterone levels drop or developed prediabetes.
The food regimen also reportedly had undesirable side effects.
“Longevity mix: A lot of comments about hating this as it is making them sick, vomit, have heartburn, etc.,” one Blueprint employee told a colleague in early 2024, as quoted by the newspaper.
“TONS of people saying it’s causing nausea, bloating,” another employee wrote, referring to allulose, a sugar alternative that Johnson has previously sung the praises of.
Thanks to a litany of confidentiality agreements employees reportedly had to sign, many felt afraid to speak up.
(14) PITCH MEETING. Ryan George takes us inside “The Electric State Pitch Meeting” – whether we want to be there or not!
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Walk, Run, Crawl, RL Fun” from Boston Dynamics.
In this video, Atlas is demonstrating policies developed using reinforcement learning with references from human motion capture and animation. This work was done as part of a research partnership between Boston Dynamics and the Robotics and AI Institute (RAI Institute).
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Jeffrey Smith, Cora Buhlert, Paul Weimer, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
