Tag Archives: Readers Take Denver

Pixel Scroll 5/5/24 Unscroll That Pixel And Do Us All A Favor, That File’s Lost Its Taste, And Try Another Flavor

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(1) TROUBLED DENVER EVENT WON’T REPEAT IN 2025.  Anne Marble did a roundup about the complaints against Readers Take Denver in Pixel Scroll 4/22/24 item #5.

On May 3 USA Today did its own story about those complaints —“Rebecca Yarros disavows Denver expo amid horror stories, cancelation” – with the additional news that RTD 2025 has now been cancelled.

…All of the negative attention Readers Take Denver has received in the days, weeks following the event has prompted the cancellation of next year’s convention, which was previously scheduled for February 2025….

(2) TURNING THINGS TO GOLD. The original artwork for the cover of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone will be auctioned June 26 by Sotheby’s reports CNN. It’s expected to set a record.

…When the illustration was first up for auction at Sotheby’s in London in 2001, it sold for around four times its estimated sale price, for a record £85,750 (about $106,000), according to a Sotheby’s press release Thursday.

…The record for an item related to the book series is currently held by an unsigned first edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” which sold for $421,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, in 2021, according to Sotheby’s.

(3) SPOILER WARNING. There’s one in this item. Maybe two. “How Harry Potter Author J.K. Rowling Told Alan Rickman About Snape” in Deadline.

JK Rowling has shared the conversation she had with actor Alan Rickman, when she revealed to him the true complications of his character in the Harry Potter movies.

Rowling has recorded an interview for her website, answering fans’ questions about her writing process, with a preview transcribed in today’s Times of London. She revealed:

“He rang me up and said, ‘Look, I’m spinning plates here. I really need to understand what Snape’s up to? Am I a pure baddie?’ He was the only person I told: ‘You were in love with Harry’s mother.’

Continues at the link.

(4) THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MEMORY HOLE IS IN SCOTLAND. “Scottish artist receives hundreds of copies of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in the post” – the Guardian tells why.

Copies of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four have been arriving at an artist’s studio in Edinburgh for months. Every shape and size, posted from Ukraine, Hong Kong, Peru, Germany, Cape Cod and Sarajevo.

Some are in mint condition, others are dog-eared, tea-stained, heavily annotated or turned into graffitied art works. One is a water-stained first edition; one is a secret love letter from a married woman to her first love; another, a graphic novel version, came from Orwell’s son Richard Blair.

Each has been donated to a unique installation in the community hall of Jura, the Hebridean island where Orwell, in dire poverty and desperately ill, wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four during the late 1940s, to mark its publication 75 years ago.

Hans K Clausen, a sculptor based in Edinburgh, is collecting 1,984 copies of the book to exhibit on Jura for three days in early June. It will be an interactive, “living” sculpture where visitors are invited to open and read every volume.

Many have arrived, often with overseas postmarks and customs stamps, addressed to “Winston Smith, care of Hans K Clausen”….

(5) JEOPARDY! [Item by David Goldfarb.] I got around to watching the first episode of the new Jeopardy! Masters tournament. Each episode has two games. I didn’t notice any SFF content in the first game, but there was in the second. Here are details:

In the first round:

Spell it!, $1000: How about this dwarves race of “Ring Cycle” fame whose name begins & ends with the same letter

Yogesh Raut got it: “What is N-I-B-E-L-U-N-G-E-N?”.

Meet the Smiths, $400: Matt Smith’s TV roles include the Doctor on “Doctor Who” & this member of the royal family on seasons 1 & 2 of “The Crown”

Yogesh again: “Who is Prince Philip?”

In the second round:

Authors’ Fictional Places, $2000. A Daily Double on which Yogesh bet 9400 points: The town of Eastwick, Rhode Island

Yogesh said, “Who is John Updike?” (The novel here being The Witches of Eastwick.)

Authors’ Fiction Places, $1600: A world of dragons & dragonriders, Pern

Amy Schneider rang in, then hesitated, but got to “Who is McCaffrey?”

Authors’ Fictional Places, $1200. They displayed a picture of a bespectacled, bald man holding a cloth, sitting next to a model of a fantasy setting that Filers would recognize. The clue: Resting on the backs of four elephants atop a giant turtle, Discworld.

Yogesh knew it: “Who is Pratchett?”

Author’s Fictional Places, $400: Castle Rock, Maine.

Yogesh again: “Who is King?”

(Fictional Places $800 was William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, in case you were wondering.)

(6) 2024 CHINA SCIENCE FICTION INDUSTRY REPORT. South China Morning Post covers this year’s report on China’s sf business: “China wants sci-fi industry, led by megahit 3 Body Problem, to help tech make the jump to lightspeed”.

China’s US$15 billion sci-fi industry, which has gained global attention after the success of the Netflix show 3 Body Problem, offers a potential boost to the economy while aligning with Beijing’s aspirations to become a tech powerhouse, analysts said, underscoring the need for stronger government backing to fortify the sector.

The industry achieved 113.29 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion) in total revenue last year, representing a 29 per cent year on year increase according to the 2024 China Science Fiction Industry Report, released last week during the eighth China Science Fiction Convention in Beijing.

Science fiction could also help companies conceptualise and produce new ideas, such as the establishment of a human settlement on Mars or brain-computer interfaces, according to Wu Yan, who co-authored the report….

(7) COPPOLA’S SF? EPIC. Whether it’s sff has been debated in the media – now you can decide with your own eyes. “’Megalopolis’ Teaser: Adam Driver Leads Francis Ford Coppola’s Epic” – Variety gives us a look.

Adam Driver is on the edge in the first official teaser for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.”

“Megalopolis,” which will premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, has been a project years in the making for the director, who first began work on the screenplay in the 1980s. The legendary filmmaker behind “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” has invested $120 million of his own money into the film…. 

…According to the official synopsis, “‘Megalopolis’ is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.”…

(8) BERNARD HILL (1944-2024). Bernard Hill, who played Theoden in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, died May 5 reports Deadline. His best known film role was as the captain of the Titanic in James Cameron’s film. He played a number of secondary roles in about 20 genre/related productions, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999), The Scorpion King (2002) and Gothika (2003).

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Catherynne M. Valente in 2017.

Born May 5, 1979 – Catherynne Valente, 45. By Paul Weimer: My strong impression of Cat Valente’s work came from the beginning of my reviewing life. Way back in the halcyon days of 2009, when I was first putting reviews out there, and getting review copies, I was offered a review copy of an author I had never heard before, named Cat Valente.  The novel was Palimpsest and well, the novel knocked me on my arse. Reader, I was not quite prepared for a novel that involved sex as a gateway to another realm of existence. It’s a sensuous, sensual and rich novel in immersive detail, and that immersion is something I would notice in future Cat Valente’s books.  I’ve not tried Palimpsest again, but I eagerly have read a number of her novellas and short stories. I particularly like “Six Gun Snow White” among these.

But, really, Space Opera is the one book I think of when I think of Cat Valente’s work.  Although I’ve never actually watched Eurovision, I know enough about it to understand the “Eurovision with Aliens in Space” high concept of Space Opera and I found the novel, like much of Valente’s work to be a sensory delight, queer, unapologetic, and with strongly defined and delineated characters. I think it is probably the one Valente book that if you are going to try Valente, that’s the one to try.  I know there have been discussions and thoughts about a sequel to the book ever since it came out, but part of the joy of Space Opera for me  is, like a lot of Valente’s other work, is that it is self-contained and complete within it’s pages. Sure, Valente has written other sequels and follow ups to other work, but this is a function I think of her exuberant and vivid writing, rather than any incompleteness in a work that needs sequels to resolve.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Fur Babies  has a variety of cartoonists’ styles of sound effects in honor of the day.  Can you identify them before you get to the explanation in the comments?
  • Carpe Diem cites a space traffic violation.
  • Bizarro asks what if Lord Greystoke had been raised by another species?
  • Frank and Ernest identify their dinosaur attacker.
  • Mannequin on the Moon depicts the royal Shakespearean eye exam.

(11) COLLECTIBLE GHOSTBUSTERS GEAR. Take this to the beach and scare the guys with the metal detectors. “Ghostbusters Plasma Series HasLab Two in the Box! Ghost Trap and P.K.E” at Hasbro Pulse.

P.K.E. METER

It’s no secret Egon Spengler was a very hands-on, DIY kinda scientist, often cobbling together his hardware from common, everyday items, and the P.K.E. Meter is no different. Egon used an old electric shoe polisher for the bulk of this handheld piece of tech, which trades in footwear for phantasms, determining specter location and quantification. The P.K.E. Meter acts like a divining rod when near a spectral being, with a pair of motorized arms extending outward from the sides, embedded lights flashing in sync with detectable spectral frequencies. 

Fans will be happy to know that not only have the HasLab Lab Lab Techs included classic P.K.E. Meter features, such as Ghost Detection Mode, but they’ve also included a very special upgrade. Yes, that’s right, the HasLab P.K.E. Meter 1:1-scale premium adult collectible features Egon Spengler’s personal upgrade from his time as the Dirt Farmer, in Summerville: Taser Mode! Taser Mode, if you’re unfamiliar, turns the P.K.E. Meter into a taser that forces an apparition to reveal itself… or explode in a burst of marshmallow goo, as we know from Podcast’s dealings with the mischievous Mini-Pufts in the Ecto-1.

GHOST TRAP

Needing something to contain and transport paranormal entities to a more permanent housing facility (namely the Ecto-Containment Unit), Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler designed the Ghost Trap. Consisting of a main chassis and a removable cartridge, the Ghost Trap has limited battery life and was never meant to accommodate ecto-plasmic beings for any extended period.

 This 1:1-scale premium adult collectible features everything fans love about this vital piece of ghost-bustin’ gear, including the removable cartridge, high-powered LEDs, premium metal finishes, functioning diecast metal wheels for smooth deployment, and more! This thing is so gorgeous that ghosts will be throwing themselves at you just for a chance to get trapped within this highly detailed, premium collectible!

(12) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. “How Long Will Your Blu-Ray Collection Last?” asks Gizmodo.

Physical media is very popular these days. Nostalgia, fandom, and streaming burnout have caused certain segments of American society to switch off their Amazon Prime accounts and fire up their Blu-ray players. One of the many advertised benefits of physical media is that it offers a more permanent, definitive form of media ownership than a streaming service. But just how permanent are your Blu-rays? And is physical media really built to last?…

… Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of open-source information about the longevity of commercially mass-produced Blu-rays, technically known as read-only discs, or BD-ROMs. The Blu-ray Disc Association, which developed and owns the technology behind the discs, ignored multiple emails I sent them, and the people that I did speak to on the subject couldn’t give me a very specific answer….

(13) DYKSTRAFLEX. “’Star Wars’ Motion Control Camera System Goes to Academy Museum” – Variety explains its history.

A half-century ago when George Lucas decided to make “Star Wars,” a core visual effects team was handed a sizable challenge: Figure out a believable way to transport audiences to a galaxy far, far away. Essential to that goal was the development of a new type of motion control camera system: built in a Van Nuys warehouse where the production filmed space-set scenes such as the climatic trench run.

Now fans in Southern California can see the historic Dykstraflex camera system, newly restored and in working order, on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures starting Saturday in recognition of May the 4th, aka Star Wars day. The system weighs 1,500 lbs. and will be demonstrated by VFX vets with a 14-foot track and studio scale replicas of the Millennium Falcon, which is five-feet long, and a 20-inch X-Wing fighter.

(14) THE BOYS. Prime Video dropped “The Boys – Season 4 Official Trailer” this week. The series arrives at Prime on June 13.

In Season Four, the world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power. Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son and his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us to “The Divergent Series: Insurgent Pitch Meeting”.

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Paul Weimer, David Goldfarb, Martin Easterbrook, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 4/22/24 Pixel Walked Through A Wall Where She Encountered More Pixels

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(1) CLARKE AWARD SUBMISSION LIST. The complete list of eligible books received by Arthur C. Clarke Award judges has been posted in “Carbon-Based Bipeds: Apr 22nd”. This year the judges received 117 eligible titles from 50 UK publishing imprints and independent authors. 

(2) PEN AMERICA MAKES LITERARY AWARDS DECISIONS. “PEN America Cancels 2024 Literary Awards Ceremony” reports Publishers Weekly.

PEN America has canceled its 2024 Literary Awards ceremony, which was previously scheduled to be held at the Town Hall in New York City on April 29, although some awards will still be conferred. The move follows months of steadily mounting criticism of the organization over its response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which culminated last week in 28 authors withdrawing books from consideration for the awards, including nine of the 10 authors nominated for the organization’s top prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.

“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” PEN America literary programming chief officer Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said in a statement. “We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”

The $75,000 prize accompanying the PEN/Stein award will be donated, this year, to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund at the direction of the Literary Estate of Jean Stein….

The five finalists and winning titles for each of the more than 20 awards conferred by PEN America had already been selected by judges during deliberations held before the mass withdrawals, the organization said in a statement. As a result, the organization continued, the two winners who remained under consideration for their awards will receive their cash prizes. Those include Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes (Pantheon), which was chosen to win the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer by the late Tomas Tranströmer, translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane (Copper Canyon Press), which was chosen to win the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.

No winners will be announced if the winning title was withdrawn from consideration for the award,…

(3) CLARION WORKSHOP 2024. The Clarion Workshop at UCSD has announced the Clarion class of 2024:

The Clarion Workshop at UCSD  also plans to bring back the Write-A-Thon this year.

Last summer we saw enormous success in our Indiegogo fundraising campaign, but we also missed joining in writerly solidarity with the larger Clarion community. That’s why we’re returning to our roots–but we’re also hoping to shake things up a little (more news on this soon!)

As always, this year’s Thon will run concurrently with the workshop (June 23 to Aug 3) to help Clarion raise scholarship money to support future students. The Write-a-Thon also helps participants commit to writing goals for the summer. 

We’ll include more details for how to participate and contribute in our next newsletter. In the meantime, it’s time to start thinking about your writing goals for the summer. We can’t wait to hear more about them!

(4) THE X-MAN AND THE WHY-MAN. Deadline shares “’Deadpool and Wolverine’ Trailer”. Deadpool & Wolverine is set to arrive in theaters on July 26. Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, and Hugh Jackman reprises his role of Wolverine in the Marvel film.

(5) READERS TAKE DENVER, AUTHORS GIVE IT BACK. [Item by Anne Marble.] On Threads, there are a lot of upset posts about Readers Take Denver — an event for authors and readers. If you see “RTD” trending, that’s why. This weekend, it was one of the top trending items on Threads. On Twitter, the Readers Take Denver posts were mostly positive — until later on Sunday. (On Twitter, if you search for RTD, you get mainly posts about Russell T Davies of Dr. Who, so I had a hard time finding information at first.) Here are some newer Twitter posts taking on the event:

On Threads, there are so many posts that “RTD” got its own tag on Threads: tag on Threads (registration required).  

Here is a good starting place on Threads (registration not required): @charlottedaeauthor: “After scouring Threads for information regarding Readers Take Denver, here’s what I’m gathering”.

This Thread also has details: @storiesdontcare “Readers Take Denver is an absolute logistical atrocity. $300 for a ticket”.

How influencers were treated: @authorncaceres “Influencers received different treatment. 1st they were told not to film anywhere. Then they were…”.

There were also accessibility issues: @rinkrat702 “Readers take Denver. Accessibility: me when I signed up. ‘I’d love to be on the ADA team’”.

It’s mostly a romance event, but it included romantasy authors — including big names such as Rebecca Yarros (“Fourth Wing”). There was also a day for thriller authors, including Jason Pinter and Mark Greaney. It sounds as if the organizers got way in over their heads. They had something like 3,000 attendees. And a huge list of authors (“Attending Authors / Narrators – Readers Take Denver”). Many think they aimed too high and ended up with a logistical nightmare.

There are allegations that the registration line took 3 hours — Also, signing lines took a very long time as well — too many authors in a small space without enough time allotted for the event. Authors are alleging that items were stolen from them (such as boxes of books). I’ve read about at least one case where an author’s books were accidentally given away as “swag.”

Also, the organizers apparently ran out of lanyards (!) and swag bags. And they didn’t have enough bottled water for the authors. Many readers enjoyed the event and had no issues, but other readers felt that they were ripped off.

It sounds like they needed better security, too. Later on Sunday, sexual assault allegations emerged. Several men attending another event entered RTD (despite having no badges) and groped women at RTD.

(6) SOFANAUTS LAUNCHES. Tony Smith hosts a new podcast — Sofanauts. He says the podcast mixes science fiction and technology. Two episodes are already available.

…Each week I’ll be joined by futurist, educator, speaker and writer Bryan Alexander (Thursdays) to talk about science fiction and technology. We’ll be discussing our favourite books, movies, and TV shows, as well as the latest technological developments that are shaping the future from the the very books, films and TV shows we’ve watched and read over the years….

(7) RAY GARTON (1962-2024). [Item by Anne Marble.] Horror author Ray Garton passed away on April 21. The announcement came from Dawn Garton on his Facebook page:

On April 9, 2024, he had posted on Facebook that he was in the hospital with stage 4 lung cancer.

Garton was named a World Horror Convention Grand Master in 2006.

Among others, Stephen King posted about his death:

A GoFundMe was started earlier in April by a family friend. “Ray Garton~Beloved Master of Horror”.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 22, 1937 — Jack Nicholson, 87. My all-time must watch again performance by Jack Nicholson is that of him playing Daryl Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick. I’ve refused to watch any of the later versions of The Witches of Eastwick simply because I can’t picture anyone else being that character.   

Bill Murray had been cast in the role had dropped out before even preliminary filming began. Jack Nicholson expressed interest in playing the role of Daryl to the producers through his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston who was then being seriously considered for a role there. (Apparently the role Susan Sarandon got according to several sites.) So thus we got The Devil in the form of him. Brilliant role.

Jack Nicholson, center, Murray Close, right.

Now his first role in the genre was in The Little Shop of Horrors, the true one of course, not the latter one, as Wilbur Force, The Dentist.  Because Corman did not believe that The Little Shop of Horrors had any chance of making money at all after its first run, he did not bother to copyright it, resulting in the film entering public domain immediately, so I can show you this scene with him in that role.

His next film, another Roger Corman affair, The Raven, was better known forc who he was performing with than for him being in it, those performers being Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. He played Lorre’s son, Rexford Bedlo. Poe’s “The Raven” poem was very, very faintly the basis of this film. Think a drop of blood in a gallon of water.

He’s Andre Duvalier in The Terror. Here he’s a French officer who is seduced by a woman who is also a shapeshifting devil. 

Now we come to what critics consider his best performance of all time, that of Jack Torrance in The Shining based off King’s novel which was produced and directed by Kubrick who co-wrote it with Diane Johnson. Look I can’t judge his role there as I do not do horror of that sort, so it’s up to the collective wisdom here to tell me how he was there. Go ahead, tell me. 

Now I did see Batman. Several times. And yes, I like it a lot. And yes, I thought he made a most excellent Joker. And one of the best Jack Napiers as well, a role that is even harder to get right. (The animated B:TAS series did so by showing him smartly dressed and grinning evilly but not speaking after committing a cold blooded murder. They’d refer to him several times over the series and in The Mark of The Phantasm film which I highly recommend.) So it was a very good role for him.

In Wolf, he was Will Randall. A middle-aged chief editor who hits a wolf with his car who is actually a werewolf who bites him. A Very Bad Idea Indeed. He chews a lot of scenery here. A lot. And he can, as we saw in Batman, chew scenery really, really well. Actually he did so in The Witches of Eastwick brilliantly as well. 

Finally there’s Tim Burton’s LoneStarCon 2 Hugo-nominated Mars Attacks! where he plays two roles, President James Dale and Art Land. I’ll be damn if I remember the latter role now nearly thirty years on after seeing it. One moment… Oh I see, he was the Galaxy Casino owner. No, that still didn’t help. The President James Dale character was fascinating if only as for being a much less in your face role than some of his other genre roles such as those of The Shining, Batman, and Wolf. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON. Another of Teddy’s Belphegor cartoons. “I must have sold my soul to the Devil to come up with such funny stuff.”

(11) X MARKS A LOT OF SPOTS. Check out the first half of Scott Koblish’s connecting cover that run across four upcoming X-Men titles: X-Men #35 (Legacy #700), X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #1, and Exceptional X-Men #1. (Click for larger image – though still might not see a lot of detail.)

It’s a great time to be an X-Men fan! In addition to their animated resurgence in Marvel Studios’ X-Men ’97, the X-Men’s comic book line is closing out its’ revolutionary Krakoan age of storytelling AND gearing up for the exciting all-new From the Ashes era this summer! To celebrate this iconic franchise’s recent milestone, acclaimed artist Scott Koblish has crafted an insanely epic connecting cover that will grace some of the most highly-anticipated upcoming X-Men comic releases…. 

Showcasing the entirety of the X-Men’s 60-year publication history, including core X-Men series as well as spinoffs and limited series, this breathtaking group shot spotlights A-List X-Men, obscure mutants, super villains, allies, super hero guest stars, and much more. Test your knowledge of the mutant mythos by finding your favorites and identifying as many characters as you can!  For more information, visit Marvel.com.

(12) ASTEROIDS QUIZ. Brick Barrientos’ “Asteroids One-Day Special” went live on April 15. He says “Rich Horton was among my playtesters.” Here is the link to the quiz: https://www.learnedleague.com/oneday.php?5701.

The first question has audio which can only be heard by Learned League members – but you can eavesdrop on the copy hosted at Brick’s Google Drive:

1.  What astronomer and composer of this piece first suggested the term “asteroid”, just after the discovery of Pallas, the next body discovered after Ceres? Although at that time, the term was intended to apply also to the moons; objects with a star-like point appearance. 

(13) NOW, VOYAGER. [Item by PJ Evans.] In far-out news, Voyager 1 seems to be communicating again: “NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth”.

…For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars)….

…The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.

So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. It’s a tight one. “Most awkward moments in superhero filming”.

Great power comes with… a painful costumes. Today, it’s about the unavoidable pain of being a superhero.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, JJ, Anne Marble, Kathy Sullivan, Brick Barrientos, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]