Grab Bag Morning

 

Yep. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Skiffy Tube drops even lower in their SF Purity Rating.  Any takers on when the SFPR will drop under 20%?

 

Yawn. I fell asleep during answers to the second debate question last night. I thought the whole ‘town hall’ format was a waste of space. What ever happened to direct face-to-face debating? 

“We flipped a coin to see who gets to insult whom to their faces first. We also selected two questions for tonight’s debate because we know that in this free-form format, we’re unlikely to get through more than one.

Senator, you won the toss. Please explain to your rival why you would make the best President and he would make the worst President. You may also use some of your (unscripted) time to explain why the opposition’s running mate is a doo-doo head.”

I think every politician out there is running scared from a ‘sweating on TV’ episode, which is why we no longer have real political debates.

***

BoingBoing runs a ‘see, we told ya so’ piece about the failure of datamining to accomplish its desired goals for Minority Reportesque style of snooping. 

But I think it’s a sham, a put up, misdirection of the best kind: if your spy program works and everyone is watching it, the only way you can simultaneously reduce monitoring by commie-pinko-liberals-who-DO-have-something-to-hide-otherwise-why-would-they-care-? types and quell concerns is to discredit it yourself:

‘Oh, that old thing we wasted several billions on?  Never worked, totally useless.  BTW – what was your social security number again?’

***

From the ‘Get Off My Lawn You Snot-Dribbling Flat-Headed Cretins’ department:

Also from BoingBoing, a report on the Esozone Festival, described by one attendee as:

Noah Mickens, who will take part in the festivities, defines it this way: “Esozone is an exhibition of scientists, philosophers, magicians and performance artists, gathered together by a subculture of young radicals who don’t recognize the distinction between the four.”

Don’t recognize the distinction between scientists and magicians?  Philosophers and performance artists?

Here, allow me to demonstrate. I’m going to do a magic trick that will make it appear as if I just kicked you in the testicals.  Don’t cringe, it won’t hurt. There. Done.  Looked pretty real, huh? Feel anything?  No, of course you didn’t.

Now, on the other hand, here’s a physics demonstration that illustrates the transfer of energy in a most compelling manner – one swift kick to the nuts. Thwunk!  Feel anything?

No difference between them…

***

Via SF Brewed Fresh Daily to SFSignal to Me, this piece on pulp art - something I know a little bit about.  (Excellent images of some SF pulp covers and interiors).

***

Last, but not least, the Space Writer goes political, an event as rare as certain super novas.

OMG! 3 Million on an planetarium overhead projector:

 OMG – how much did we waste on this autonomous off road vehicle toy car?

We spent how much on a weightless environment human waste processing system toilet?

You took how much in contributions bribes from Keating?

***

Ok, so the previous bit wasn’t the last one.  Sue me. 

from the ‘Not Nearly As Frustrated Today’ vault:

The PayPal foobar is (almost) resolved.  Mentioning this will remaind me to re-visit the issue of internet security issues versus real security.

The (other) website issues are (finally) working themselves out, just in time to be completely fixed (I hope) for the upcoming weekend)

I finished my story; one final go-thru with the pen and paper, perhaps a couple of small re-writes and then off it goes to Ray Gun Revival.

The frustration meter has dropped from red-flecked orange to a warm shade of yellow.

Read Full Post »

I’ve Still Got Three Copies!

 

File 770 revives memories of Laser Books and Thomas Monteleone’s novel – Seeds of Change.  Mike brings it up because of the J. J. Adams’ anthology of the same title, and an interview in PW of Adams.  (Go here for the link.)

File 770 reminds us that Laser’s plan was to ‘flood the market with cheap SF, just like they had with romance novels’.  (my paraphrasing of Mike’s more elegant prose) In pursuit of that blasphemous goal, Laser shipped boatloads of cartons of their first book – S.O.C. – to conventions all across the country.

File 770 then – and here is where it gets really intriguing – relates a tale of the book being read out loud, with each page ripped out after it had been read.  Mike says that Alan Chudnow claims this activity occurred at the Equicon con, while Glyer remembers it has having taken place at the NASFiC that same year.

Hmmmm.  Very, very interesting, cause I didn’t get to Equicon or the NASFiC that year – but I remember this same thing happening as well. 

Could it be that SOMEONE ELSE had been coordinating mass book rippings at conventions all across the country?  There are only two possible explanations: either S.O.C. and the Laser Books concept were so god-awfully heinous that they engendered instantaneous and universal contempt amongst each and every last fan in the nation – or someone was running an op designed to kill Laser.

Of course there are simpler explanations (copy-catism), but those aren’t nearly as much fun as supposing a conspiracy, so we can safely ignore them.

Me?  I’ve got three copies of Seeds of Change from Laser Books.  I’m thinking that if we can build this thing up into a truly monumental conspiracy mystery, I might just be able to get a decent penny for a couple of them on Ebay.  Maybe even as much as 25 cents each.  Plus shipping.

Read Full Post »

To Make Gay Marriage Legal in CA – Vote FOR The Ban

Rick Moen is working on this piece that compares Kudzu (that asian vine that’s choking the South) with legislative proposals that seek to ban gay marriage – particularly the California ballot initiative that’s coming up.

The essay itself contains some interesting links as well – items worth perusing if this whole issue doesn’t strike you as religious zealotry trying to shove its way down your throat.

Rick’s piece highlights the amazing genetic diversity that is the human race, and points out that, by virtue of the manner in which our genes get together to make US, the California Proposal could very well result in legalizing marriages between “same sex” couples.

This results from the fact that physical appearance, identification, sex organs and even fertility can be misleading, once we begin to look into all of the genetic ‘anomolies’ that can crop up.  (A man may be a man, function as a man, identify as a man and yet be genetically female – without the prerequisite of a sex change operation.)

I just love it when reality – uncovered and revealed in all its glory through the wonders of scientific investigation – confounds the bible thumpers. 

Defense of (traditional) marriage acts are nothing more than the religiously inspired trying to make non-believers toe their line.  As this site (referenced in Moen’s piece) illustrates, most of the arguments against gay marriage, when rendered for clarity, come down to ‘my god says’.

I’m always fascinated by the disconnect that occurs at this juncture: why can’t they see that what ‘your god says’ wasn’t heard because YOUR god wasn’t talking to ME.  YOUR god doesn’t talk to a lot of people.  In fact, YOUR god isn’t talking to MOST of the people.  They’re listening to someone else and the messages are not the same. (Full disclosure: no gods have ever talked to me – or I wasn’t paying attention, which isn’t surprising considering the mess at least one of them supposedly made for me to live in.)

I see it as a problem with a simple solution: they want to believe gay marriage is bad – don’t marry someone of the same sex.  Of course THEY don’t see it that way.  Live and let live – despite its biblical origins – is apparently not a growth strategy.

***

Science Fiction content here?  Hmmm, let’s see.  Rick is a fan and a member of the email list WHO’S NAME SHALL NOT BE MENTIONED.  Gender, sexual identity and illicit sex  are popular genre themes.  (Speaking of which, if you had sex with an alien who’s sex was identitifed as the same as yours, would it be defined as homosexual sex?  Bestiality? Rishathra?)  The genre is supposed to appeal to those with open minds and a bit of intelligence, and because, if we were living in the right kind of world, the only place you’d find something as dunderheaded, illogical and insane as the CA Marriage proposal would be in a science fiction story.  (And it would be the bad guys proposing it…)

Read Full Post »

More SMOF Secrets?

Hey – maybe SFAwards Watch and IO9 will want to pick up on this one:

Glyer reveals in File 770 that the Secret Masters of Fandom have been talking about something called SCOOTERS.

I haven’t puzzled out the entire acronym, but I’m pretty sure that the first two letters stand for Secret Code.

Mike cleverly conceals whatever hidden message there is to be found in his entry by placing SCOOTERS into the context of a supposed conversation about handicap access at conventions. Of course, we have no real idea of what he’s talking about because the message itself can only be found on the SMOFs reading list which is, you know, kind of SECRET.

I’d really like to know what this passage is code for -

“So the problem for the Worldcon is not the expense, but having to front the money…”

Could this have anything to do with Hugo voting restrictions? Front the money from whom, to whom and for what?  It’s further illuminated by this later passage -

“Denconvention seems to have given that help to fans who planned in advance. The question really is what future Worldcons should provide for these last-minute needs, if anything.”

Fronting money?  ‘Help’ to fans? Could Worldcon be paying fans to join so that they’ll “vote the right way” come Hugo Awards time? 

I’m thinking that the ‘advanced planning’ referenced in the above means ‘smart enough and connected enough’ to get on the SMOFs list. So that you can request a payout.

Don’t believe me when I say something is up? Check this out:

“The best suggestion I saw in the recent discussion on the Smofs list was Sharon Sbarsky’s idea…

(Sharon) “…If the idea catches on, then more spare scooters could be rented.”

‘Spare Scooters’ indeed.  Don’t need the code book for that one! But in case you do – ‘spare scooters’ is obviously the insider’s outlandishly punny name for ‘non-worldcon-attending fans’ and ‘renting’ is the stand-in for buying their vote…

You could check me on all of this, but you’d need to be a SMOF to get at the source material, and we’re all sworn to secrecy…

Read Full Post »