Posted by Avram Grumer at 10:12 PM * 4 comments
I had just been saying to Chris that someone’s gonna get a grad-school thesis out of diegesis in The Office (the US version, but maybe also the UK version, which I haven’t seen as much of) — I mean, we’re talking about a show where one character’s constantly looking at the camera and making a face to comment on the show’s goings-on, and then at one point another character actually asks the camera what’s up with that guy always looking at the camera and making a face, and yet because of the documentary framing device all of this remains plausibly diegetic — when Chris directs my attention to the Tumblr blog Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table:
Me: “Book stacks? We’ve got book stacks!”
She: “There’s apparently a brand of refrigerator called ‘Smeg’. Someone needs to redo the ‘Fluckers’ ad.”
Me: “Are they good fridges?”
She: “Like I said: Someone needs to redo the ‘Fluckers’ ad.”
After some googling, she adds: “Their website says they’re ‘exuding style’, so they must be self-aware.”
Me: “That indicates either a modest amount of self-awareness, or a total absence of it.”
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 10:52 AM * 5 comments
This is your annual reminder that applications for the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop close June 15th.
Held annually on Martha’s Vineyard (a place worth visiting even without a workshop), we teach the Really Real Secrets of Writing Commercial Fiction. (That is, how to write stuff that folks want to read.)
It’s a week long, and we do novels as well as short stories. Also, Chili-dog Casserole.
Posted by Patrick at 08:54 AM * 41 comments
Announced last night. Congratulations to all. Of course we’re over the moon about Jo’s novel winning. Kudos as well to SFWA president John Scalzi, toastmaster Walter Jon Williams, and the rest of the SFWA apparat for a well-run awards evening. (Although I definitely saw Scalzi undergo a full-body flinch reaction when WJW, at the podium, referred to him as “SFWA President-for-Life.”)
Novel
Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
Novella
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, October/November 2011)
Novelette
“What We Found,” by Geoff Ryman (F&SF, September/October 2011)
Short Story
“The Paper Menagerie,” by Ken Liu (F&SF, March/April 2011)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” by Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult SF and Fantasy Book
The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
Damon Knight Grand Master Award
Connie Willis
Solstice Award
Octavia Butler (posthumous) and John Clute
Service to SFWA Award
Bud Webster
Above: Jo Walton, Delia Sherman, Neil Gaiman, Geoff Ryman. Blurry figure of Liza Trombi in the background, herding cats winners to be photographed.
Above, seated: Jo Walton, Bud Webster, Cynthia Felice (for Octavia Butler), Connie Willis, John Kessel (for Kij Johnson); standing: Delia Sherman, Geoff Ryman, Neil Gaiman, Joe Haldeman (for John Clute), Jamie Todd Rubin (for Ken Liu).
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 04:56 PM * 71 comments
I’m pulling this onto the front page from the most recent political thread, because election season is coming, and I for one can’t face the crap we’re already slinging around in this community. Which is a pretty sucky position to be in as a moderator. So, heads up, people.
We, as a community, have become sloppy in our political discourse. We’re painting with much broader brushes than is appropriate, and we’re calling each other out far too quickly and too harshly. So from this point forward, in all political discussions:
1. If you wish to denigrate a group of people of whom you are not a member, do it in as constrained a way as possible, allowing space for the mistaken, the misunderstood, and the misinformed. Do not take the loudest and most obnoxious members of that group as representative without well-sourced evidence that this is accurate.
2. Before you accuse another member of this community of being “disingenuous”, “dishonest”, “lying”, or any synonyms, broadly construed, I want the following:
(a) a clear, sourced and unambiguous trail of why you believe that this person has been inconsistent with either their own stated record or the widely-accepted facts of the matter,
and
(b) a chance already given to that person to square the account before you make this accusation
I will disemvowel violations of these rules.
I trust this is clear.
Comments are closed on this matter. If you have a problem with these guidelines, email me privately, at my comment username at this domain. On second thought, we might as well discuss it here, because otherwise it’ll clog up the other thread. But make it persuasive and, if possible, pleasant to read. Respectful is a bare minimum. I’ve had enough crabbing already.
Morning second thoughts: Perhaps the first of these rules is too harsh. It doesn’t allow, for instance, the occasional cri de coeur, the outburst of shock, the impulse to shout at the clouds. But what it also prevents, what I am thoroughly weary of, what I am heartsick at the thought of moderating for another election cycle, is the way that those cries and outbursts have turned into the base assumptions for discourse.
Given that, I’ll happily entertain proposed revisions which distinguish between the two. And I’m willing to not disemvowel on sight, if warnings will cause people to do better.
But let’s be clear: conversations where we repeat, unexamined and unspecified, our blanket assumptions at one another about Those Other People—whoever they are—do not make anyone smarter, wiser, or more joyful. Quite the reverse.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 07:03 AM * 93 comments
One of the consistent problems with the policing of the Occupy movement has been the way that forces deal with being filmed. Not that Occupy is unique—the spread of affordable, good-quality cameraphones is a fundamental change in the dynamic of police-civillian relations. The “he said/she said” model of complaints against the police, where prosecutors and juries tend to trust the uniform more than the blue jeans (or hoodie), falls down when there’s video evidence. It’s been falling down for twenty years.
People hate being caught out. And groups with strong esprit de corps and a deep feeling of separation from the common community are always at risk of putting defense of group members over justice to outsiders. The natural, inevitable reaction in this case has been a police culture of intimidation, confiscation and deletion against citizen journalists.
The ACLU, unsurprisingly, has been on the case. On May 3 they, along with the EFF and a number of similar groups, wrote a letter (pdf) to US Attorney General Eric Holder, calling for federal intervention.
The First Amendment has come under assault on the streets of America. Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, police have arrested dozens of journalists and activists simply for attempting to document political protests in public spaces. While individual cases may not fall under the Justice Department’s jurisdiction, the undersigned groups see this suppression of speech as a national problem that deserves your full attention.
And the DoJ has already been doing so, even before the ACLU’s letter. In January, they sent a Statement of Interest to the judge in a civil case in Baltimore, where police had deleted a bystander’s video of an arrest. The Statement of Interest essentially instructed the judge to find that the bystander had a constitutional right to film the arrest.
The right to record police officers while performing duties in a public place as well as the right to be protected from the warrantless seizure and destruction of those recordings, are not only required by the Constitution… They are consistent with our fundamental notions of liberty, promote the accountability of our governmental officers, and instill public confidence in the police officers who serve us daily.
The Baltimore Police Department revised their General Order J-16, which covers the topic. But the DoJ, not satisfied, sent a letter, which is both a critique of the rewrite and a broad statement of the federal government’s position on the matter. It’s sweet reading for those of us who have felt for some time like the walls are closing in.
Because recording police officers in the public discharge of their duties is protected by the First Amendment, policies should prohibit interference with recording of police activities except in narrowly circumscribed situations. More particularly, policies should instruct officers that, except under limited circumstances, officers must not search or seize a camera or recording device without a warrant. In addition, policies should prohibit more subtle actions that may nonetheless infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment rights. Officers should be advised not to threaten, intimidate, or otherwise discourage an individual from recording police officer enforcement activities or intentionally block or obstruct cameras or recording devices.
Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances. In addition to violating the First Amendment, police officers violate the core requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process clause when they irrevocably deprived individuals of their recordings without first providing notice and an opportunity to object.
Nice, huh? How about this:
…an individual’s recording of police activity from a safe distance without any attendant action intended to obstruct the activity or threaten the safety of others does not amount to interference. Nor does an individual’s conduct amount to interference if he or she expresses criticism of the police or the police activity being observed.
And this:
The Supreme Court has established that “the press does not have a monopoly on either the First Amendment or the ability to enlighten….. Indeed, numerous courts have held that a private individual’s right to record is coextensive with that of the press. A private individual does not need “press credentials” to record police officers engaged in the public discharge of their duties.
There’s plenty more, too. I’d recommend reading the whole thing.
I find this emphasis on the right of citizens to supervise law enforcement a little surprising, considering some of the other things we get out of Washington these days. But, as Patrick would say, that’s how politics works: inconsistently, messily, gradually and surprisingly. So it gives me cause to hope.
(I’ve already Parheliated some coverage of this. But I thought it warranted pulling onto the front page.)
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 11:54 PM * 54 comments
Earlier this month Doyle and I found ourselves in mid-state New Hampshire quite early in the day. We had a few hours before we were to arrive at where we wanted to be next, so the thought came to us, “Why not visit Joseph Smith’s birthplace?”
Yes, we get thoughts like that more often than we’d like to admit.
So, from Lebanon, New Hampshire, where we happened to be, we went cruising up I-89 (Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Highway), to Exit 2 in Vermont, for Joseph Smith was a Vermonter. At Exit 2 we headed south on VT-132 to its end (not terribly far away) in the town of Sharon, an entirely quaintly picturesque New England town (as almost anywhere more than 500 yards off the highway tends to be in these parts). At the end of the road we turned west, cruising along VT-14 along the banks of the White River (best known, perhaps, from a town a bit farther downstream called White River Junction, where the White River and the Connecticut River meet; a town that once boasted seven rail lines and four depots). So we passed from Sharon into Royalton, Vermont, still along the banks of the White River.
This is farming and dairy country. Spring plowing (and fertilizing) was underway. Farther on we came to the junction of VT-14 and Dairy Hill Road (by no means a misnomer — the road had a section of 12% grade, and dairies lined the road on both sides). There, at the junction, we spotted a sign:
JOSEPH SMITH MONUMENT
Mormon Prophet’s Birthplace. Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lattter-day Saints, was born near here on December 23, 1805. A visitor’s center and a 38½ foot tall monument, considered the world’s largest polished granite shaft, commemorates his life and is located at the birthplace 2½ miles up Dairy Hill Road. The site is open year round.
Sounded like the right place, and who doesn’t want to see the world’s largest polished granite shaft? We went up (and up, and up, and up) the road.
Sure enough, a couple of miles farther on, off to the right we spotted LDS Lane. That was it, all right.
LDS Lane went back quite a way from Dairy Hill Road. Past a Mormon church. Past a small graveyard. Past a field. Past the bus parking. Past yet another welcome sign. Then, suddenly, without warning, there it was on the left: 
The tallest polished granite shaft in the world.
They don’t make ‘em like that any more.
It was still pretty early; we were the only ones there. Up at the monument itself, starting on the south face, the inscription reads:
Sacred to the memory of Joseph Smith, the prophet. Born here 23d. December 1805, martyred, Carthage, Illinois, 27th. June 1844.On the north face, the inscription reads:
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH SMITH.An inscription around the monument, beginning on the south face and continuing onto the east, north, and west faces, reads:
In the spring of the year of our Lord 1820, the Father and the Son appeared to him in a glorious vision, called him by name and instructed him.
Thereafter heavenly angels visited him and revealed the principles of the Gospel, restored the authority of the holy priesthood and the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ in its fullness and perfection.
The engraved plates of the Book of Mormon were given him by the angel Moroni. These he translated by the gift and power of God.
He organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on the sixth day of April 1830, with six members.
He devoted his life to the establishment of this Church, and sealed the testimony with his blood.
In his ministry he was constantly supported by his brother Hyrum Smith, who suffered martyrdom with him.
Over a million converts to this testimony have been made throughout the world; and this monument has been erected in his honor, to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, by members of the Church which he organized they love and revere him as a Prophet of God, and call his name blessed forever and ever. Amen.
IF ANY OF YOU LACK WISDOM LET HIM ASK OF GOD THAT GIVETH TO ALL MEN LIBERALLY AND UPBRAIDETH NOT: AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN HIM. James 1:5
It was still early; we hadn’t had any coffee. The welcome center wasn’t open yet (and I had a sneaking suspicion that even if it were coffee wouldn’t be on the menu). So we retreated back down the hill to the town of Sharon, where we’d seen a place that advertized breakfast. Given that this was a farming community, and given that they opened at 05:30, I expected that coffee would be available. And so it was that we came to Sandy’s Drive-In Lunch.
When we pulled up to Sandy’s we were the only folks there. There’s a small inside dining room, though mostly it’s set up to be an order-at-the-window sort of place. We went inside, and got our coffee. Which was good coffee.
Mostly it was just us: me and Doyle. A gent did come in and had breakfast while we were hanging out nursing our coffees, but not much other custom. So I had a chance to talk with the waitress, Cheryl. Sandy’s only re-opened in March of this year. They’d been pretty well devastated by Hurricane Irene. Cheryl brought out her photograph albums and we paged through them. The place had been a wreck. The water level had been even with the bottom of the roof. (She pointed out the line on the wall, above my head, that had been the high-water mark.) When you consider that the White River is across the road and, on the day we were there, the water level was about twenty feet below the street level … well, I was impressed. (Amazed that the building was still standing would be a better way to put it.)
The fire station, just up the road, had apparently been devastated. (The building with the red roof to the left of Sandy’s in the photo is the firehouse.)
Sandy’s didn’t have flood insurance, but that wasn’t a bad thing, I heard. The folks who did have flood insurance never got any money out of it. Going to year-round service rather than three-season was to pay off the loans they’d had to take out to rebuild.
Sandy’s is apparently right on the shake/frappe line: They advertised both shakes and frappes on the menu tacked to the wall, with different prices for each. The breakfast special omelet smelled pretty good. But Doyle and I had lunch planned for later on, so didn’t have anything to eat right then.
And so we departed, and carried on with the rest of our day.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 03:15 PM * 139 comments
I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.
—President Barack Obama, today
Posted by Patrick at 08:50 AM * 219 comments
So last night North Carolina voters passed a dreadful amendment to their state constitution, declaring that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” In the wake of this I’m seeing a new upsurge of people finding it hilarious that many states ban same-sex marriage but allow cousins to marry.
It amazes me that so few liberal-minded Americans know this, but in fact anxiety over cousin marriage is a peculiarly American thing, the product of the same nineteenth-century anxieties about supposed backwoods degenerates and “corruption of our racial stock” that led to the early-twentieth-century boom in “eugenics.” First-cousin marriage is illegal in thirty states, and an outright criminal offense in five. By contrast, first-cousin marriage is legal in all of Europe save for Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia, and legal as well in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and most of Latin America. Although concerns over cousin marriage have occasionally surfaced in modern European political rhetoric—usually as a coded or not-so-coded way of stigmatizing immigrants from Muslim countries where cousin marriage is common—in law, among Western countries, the US is a complete outlier on this issue.
(Yes, citations needed. In fact I’m writing this from memory; I don’t have time to find all the links I’d like to embed, though maybe I’ll add some in the comments later.)
There are genetic risks in first-cousin marriage, but they’re fairly marginal, and can mostly be addressed by getting genetic counseling before having children. For marriages of second cousins and the like, the risks are nearly imperceptible. In fact, if the consequences of first-cousin marriage were as calamitous as many Americans seem to think, the human race would have died out tens of thousands of years ago. For most of history, most humans have lived in small communities and not traveled very far from home; cousin marriage has been extraordinarily common, and yet has somehow failed to yield a planet full of shambling six-fingered freaks.
The problem with finding it hilarious that some states ban same-sex marriage but allow cousin marriage is that you’re basically trashing those states for having laws which are progressive. And when you slam a state like North Carolina with this stuff, you’re participating in a long American history of using cousin marriage as a way of imputing that poor rural people, particularly poor rural people in Appalachia and the South, are depraved, terrifying, and other. Their physical infirmities aren’t products of poverty, malnutrition, and abuse; they’re because something’s fundamentally wrong with them as organisms. It’s not a rhetorical tradition to be proud of.
Disclaimer: Teresa and I are not cousins, nor were any of our immediate forebears, although both of us can certainly find first- and second-cousin marriages among our ancestors some generations back. This is overwhelmingly likely to be true of you, too. You freak.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 04:35 AM * 41 comments
Proposed: a drama about a respected member of the Shire community who discovers that he is afflicted with a magical item whose effects (particularly the heavy-breathing black-cloaked figures) are likely to kill him. While maintaining his veneer of normality, he addresses the problem by introducing into his neighborhood the deadliest of addictive agents, one for which he has an especial expertise. (I refer, of course, to adventuring.)
Soon he has become the despair of his gardener (who is already dealing with the effects of unexpectedly falling in love), as he begins the process of steadily leading his former associates astray.
Merry and Pippin ending sentences with “Yo” and “OK?”! Tom Bombadil as Tuco Salamanca! If Aragorn is Hank, does that mean Arwen has a shoplifting problem? What do you think?
We’re only partway through watching Season Two, so I’m going to need help fleshing out the cast in the light of later developments. Do note that I’m spoiler-immune. I suggest anyone reading this who is not up to date with Breaking Bad be so too.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 10:50 AM * 37 comments
This recipe is courtesy of, and with the permission of, my friend Alice Loweecey, an ex-nun who writes mysteries. (He’s an ex-cop with a dirty mouth and a soft heart, she’s a former nun with a big secret … they fight crime!)
Grilled Pizzas 1 lb. store bread dough OR here’s my bread machine recipe:
1½ cups water
2 Tbl oil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
4 cups flour
4 tsp yeast (regular, not the “bread machine” kind)
1 Tbl gluten1 lb. shredded mozzarella cheese
1 jar sauce if you don’t have any homemade handy
1 lb. roll sausage, cooked, cooled, and crumbled
1 pkg sliced pepperoni
½ green pepper, sliced thin
(or any other toppings you might prefer)When dough is done, spray grill with cooking spray and turn it on to its highest setting. Split dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into circles, more or less. (I use a rolling pin because it’s easier than hand-tossing.)
Depending on the size of your grill, set 2-4 circles on it, and lower the heat to medium-high. Cook till they bubble up, usually one huge bubble. Pop bubble and check the bottoms. you should see nice brown grill marks. This will take about 4 minutes. Take them off and put the next batch on. Repeat till all the circles are cooked on one side.
Bring them back inside and turn them over so the grill marks are face up. This prevents burned bottoms and soggy tops. Spread 2 Tbl. of sauce on each pizza, leaving ¼” edge bare. place desired toppings on each. Cover completely with a thin coating of cheese.
Re-spray the grill and put them on 2-3 at a time, cooking till the cheese is melted and the bottoms have nice brown grill marks, about 4 minutes.
Cool a bit, cut into halves or quarters, and nom.
Cooking with Light (recipe index)
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 01:27 PM * 560 comments
Trail mix (sometimes called Gorp) is an ad-hoc snack made from mixed dry ingredients including (neither necessarily nor limited to) dry cereal, roasted peanuts, chocolate chips, raisins, small pretzels, and/or similar items.
The ingredients are mixed by stirring them together in a large bowl, then divided into individual plastic bags and given to children to carry on hikes.
Neither particularly good-tasting nor good-for-you, it is popular because it’s inexpensive, easy to make, lots of above-said and afore-mentioned children can safely participate in its production, and, besides, it’s traditional.
Posted by Avram Grumer at 05:40 PM * 139 comments
We (Chris and I, and a bunch of local friends) saw The Avengers last night. It was a lot better than I was expecting based on this trailer:
Seriously, if you see it, stay through the credits. Even the long, boring text credits where they list the key grips and secondary unit accountants. A dangling plot thread is resolved!
Feel free to rant and/or rave about the movie in this thread; avoid if you hate spoilers and haven’t seen it.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 11:36 AM * 44 comments
And here I thought I wrote science fiction.
“Every stock owner should read this book.”The book, as you may have gathered, was Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market . It was published on 01 October 1999, reissued in paperback on 14 November 2000. In proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that the stock market would only rise, and rise more sharply than ever before, authors James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett confidently predicted that the Dow would hit 36,000 by 2005.
— Allan H. Meltzer, professor of political economy, Carnegie Mellon University* A radically new way to determine what stocks are really worth
* Why the Dow is still poised to zoom
* Why the financial establishment is wrong
* Why stocks are actually less risky than bonds
* How to build a maximizing portfolio and invest without fear
“One of the hottest business books around… . It has wonderfully clear explanations of financial theory [and] excellent advice on general investing approaches.”
— Allan Sloan, Newsweek“It may sound like headline-grabbing sensationalism, but the scholarly and punctilious authors make a persuasive case … the book is highly readable and witty.”
— Arthur M. Louis, San Francisco Chronicle“Dow 36,000 is a provocative and well-written treatise that cannot be dismissed… .”
— Burton G. Malkiel, Wall Street Journal“Dow 36,000: Everything you know about stocks is wrong.”
— Jim Jubak, Worth magazine
1999 was the very height of the dot.com stock market bubble. Dow 36,000’s basic message was that stock prices would keep going up forever. As to how this would happen, it was because every economist who had written since “economist” became a profession was wrong.
You know the cartoon where the business plan has a block labeled “Then a miracle happens” just before the block labeled “Profit!”? That’s what was being presented in three hundred pages of witty and provocative prose, and what engendered such wonderful pull quotes from reviews. The authors were … vague … about the exact process by which the wonderful results would come to pass.
“They laughed at Galileo. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”Glassman and Hassett’s particular discovery relied on people suddenly (and for no discernible reason) acting differently than they had since the invention of the stock market. This falls squarely under Sign #7 of the Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science: 7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.
—attributed to Carl Sagan
Blackadder: Look, there’s no need to panic. Someone in the crew will know how to steer this thing.
Captain Rum: The crew, milord?
Blackadder: Yes, the crew.
Captain Rum: What crew?
Blackadder: I was under the impression that it was common maritime practice for a ship to have a crew.
Captain Rum: Opinion is divided on the subject.
Blackadder: Oh, really?
Captain Rum: Yar. All the other captains say ‘tis; I say ‘tisn’t.
Blackadder: Oh, Ghod; Mad as a brush.
As we now know, the Dow-Jones high of 11,700 on 14 January 2000 has yet to be exceeded (once one adjusts for inflation). Far from hitting 36,000 by 2005, the market collapsed (as will happen with bubbles) to a closing low of 7,286.27 on 09 October, 2002, less than two years after the paperback edtion of this book hit the streets. Worse was to come: the Dow closed at 6,547 on 09 March 2009, a 12½ year low. As it turned out, everything that anyone who wasn’t Glassman and Hassett knew about stocks was right.
Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life, save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.Dow 36,000 was serialized in the Atlantic Monthly; it was a Money Book Club main selection and a Book Of The Month Club alternate selection; the authors got a five-city tour. Glassman went on to found the George W. Bush Institute, “an action-oriented organization focused on independent, non-partisan solutions to America’s most pressing public policy problems.” Hassett remains an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.
—John Alexander Smith, professor of moral philosophy at Oxford, 1914,
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 07:52 AM * 109 comments
SF sat at my dining room table, crying into a cold cup of coffee. It was oh-God late, and I was trying not to think about having to be functional in the morning. But Fic has been a friend since I was four years old and in love with Spock and Aragorn at the same time. I cherish it more than sleep. I met my husband and most of my friends in its clubs and parties. I’ve been with it through its identity crises (“Speculative Fiction now, please”) and it’s been with me through mine.
This was a long session. We’d been through denial: “Bear is just wrong about me. I can be funny. I can be light-hearted. For crying out loud, Randall Munroe is up for a Hugo this year. What more does she want?”
Then SF got angry, and it was personal. “What the hell is a matociquala anyway?”
“Don’t frakking complain about gorram made-up words to me, grok?” I replied. That got a laugh, or at least an amused snort. And Fic mercifully avoided the temptation to dismiss Bear because she’s a woman. I keep hoping it knows better than to pull that crap with me. But more than once, it’s been that friend who says the unspeakable and expects me to put up with it. Not tonight, though, which may be progress.
We kind of skipped bargaining and went straight to depression. “Nobody respects me. J.K. Rowling didn’t come to Worldcon back in 2005, even though it was right on her doorstep. Margaret Atwood gives me the cut direct, like we’re still in the Victorian era. But when I smarten myself up and play by literary rules, my friends turn around and tell me I’m too serious.”
Now we were getting somewhere. Now I could say what I’d been thinking the whole time. “I think Elizabeth Moon has a point in the comments, Fic. You’re acting like an outsider hoping to join a high school clique. You’ve filled your closet with the ‘right’ clothes and started hanging around the fringes of their groups at dances. You’re trying to use their slang and tell their jokes. But I’m not sure that’s really a good idea.”
“You’re leaving your real friends behind. You’re treating the people who like you for yourself like clandestine lovers. You’ll sneak out the back and play swords and rockets with us. But when it’s time to see and be seen, you come over all grimdark and serious, because you think that’s what the lit professors want.
“But here’s a thing I learned in high school. The people whose clique you’re trying to join? They all think they’re outsiders too, hoping if they act cool enough they’ll finally be accepted. Sure, prize-winning authors go on talk shows and sound like they knew from the start that they would make it in the literary world. But the truth is that they just wrote the stories they had to tell, then retrofitted their histories when their books became hits.
“And the really interesting people aren’t trying to be popular. They’re off somewhere else, making something because it’s fascinating and wonderful to them. Then they get good at what they’re doing, because what we enjoy, we do over and over again, and practice makes skillful. Then one day they look up and find out that they’ve accumulated a crowd. After all, nothing is so attractive as enthusiasm combined with skill.
“Look at John Scalzi. Look at Jo Walton, Neil Gaiman or Lois McMaster Bujold. Heck, how do you think Pratchett got so damned good? He started writing the Discworld books because they were fun and funny. Then after a while he was producing some of the most trenchant social and economic criticism in the genre.
“Also, did you ever notice how the popular kids at school turn into those self-absorbed twits who make reunions such a chore? This year’s best-sellers—and this decade’s university-level Modern Fiction texts—aren’t necessarily the books that will last.
“You’re chasing mirages. I really wish you’d quit.”
SF looked at me patiently as I wound down. “Wow. How long has that been brewing?”
“Long time, I guess. And I think most of your friends have similar rants. But look, I don’t think Bear means you can’t be serious, or even grim, from time to time. Hear this song?” I’d been playing my current iTunes mix in the background. Silence creates a pressure to talk, and Fic needed think time. But this track was a perfect segue into my next point.
“Hmm?”
“It’s about a girl who’s drowned by her sister, and about how a wandering fiddler makes a violin out of her corpse. Grimmer than grimdark. But I play it because it’s beautiful. And the blues are a valid musical form. Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ changed the world.
“No one’s asking you to be all fluffy and cute. Just…you know, stop mistaking darkness for value. It’s a tool in the toolbox, not a measure of quality.”
“Right.” Fic drank a mouthful of coffee. “Hey, this is cold!” It stuck one finger in the mug and stared into space for a moment. Steam started to rise from the drink. It took another sip. “Better.”
“How did you…?”
“Burned a few calories from my waistline and transferred the thermal energy to the liquid. I’m Speculative Fiction, Abi. If I can explain it, I can do it.”
I laughed and pushed my mug across. “Sensawunda, baby! Can you do mine too?”
“Sure thing.”
Posted by Teresa at 10:22 AM * 228 comments
The trouble with stand your ground laws is that the entire transaction can take place inside the other guy’s head: they decide they feel threatened, and then they decide to shoot you. If they have no duty to pursue non-lethal alternatives, you’re at the mercy of their imagination.
For extra credit: How would you demonstrate in a court of law that the shooter didn’t actually feel threatened?
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 08:29 AM * 130 comments
One of my pastimes is playing Minecraft.
For those unacquainted with the phenomenon, it’s a computer game that starts with the player awakening at dawn, empty-handed, in a wilderness. There isn’t really a goal, but it’s advisable to spend some time and effort acquiring materials, making tools, and building some kind of shelter before nightfall. Because that’s when the monsters spawn: creepers, who come up hissing behind you and then explode; skeleton archers; giant spiders; zombies. It’s also a good idea to acquire some food, because if you’re hungry you don’t heal from injury, and when you’re really hungry you lose health.
Beyond those basic goals, it’s a game about living in an uninhabited world1. People do different things with it: some build magnificent edifices; some delve deep and collect treasures; some make electronic devices with redstone, the in-game magical equivalent of electricity. YouTube is full of videos of the things they create, including many variations on Rule 352.
My pattern of play is to start a new world and spend a bunch of time building up food security3 while living in makeshift accommodation. Then I build a pleasant-looking house. Then I do something spectacular: hollow out an entire island, build a replica sailing ship (which the game mechanics don’t allow to move), or cut a vast arch all the way through a mountain. And then I grow bored, among my chests of wood and diamonds and multicolored wool, and start all over again on another world.
But this most recent time, when things got dull, I decided to become a nomad. Minecraft creates the world as you travel through it, so it’s as infinite as your hard drive can handle. There are wonders to see: vast falls of water and lava, mountains and deserts, forests and grasslands. There are surprises, like the sandstone water temples that appear to be generated alongside the natural features. I have come upon perfectly circular rooms6 deep underground, and watched shoals of squid swim at sunset far out to sea.
But I’m finding this mode of play surprisingly difficult. Not because I’m struggling to feed or defend myself, but because it requires a completely different attitude toward things. The game has an encumbrance model, meaning that I can only carry so much. Everything I keep, necessity or luxury, reduces what else I can pick up. I have had to reconsider my entire way of interacting with possessions in the game.
It turns out to be really hard for me to walk by a seam of coal or iron and not mine it, though I have more of each than I’m going to need for some time to come. When I cut down a tree to get the apples its foliage turn into, it’s not easy to leave the wood on the ground. This impulse to thrift comes from both early in-game shortage and real-life training. And playing in a world of abundance (which Minecraft is) makes the problem worse in many ways: there are so many opportunities to acquire. There is so much to hoard.
Also, accumulation is a hard goal to replace. The joys of travel pall after a while: the quest for novelty itself grows old. On a solitary world, there aren’t the other riches we seek in real life, the friendships, love, knowledge, and wisdom that aren’t accounted for in the inventory popup.
One outlet has been to return to Christo-like gestures: an entire hill covered in torches; a fountain taller than the trees around it. But even that activity is transformed: not only do I have fewer resources to make things with, but when I’m done with them I walk on and leave them behind7. I am collecting the experience of having made them and the memory of the sight of them receding into the unrendered mist behind me. In a finite world, I think I’d disassemble them.
The challenge of playing this way makes me think of the conversations we were all having a couple of years ago when the bubbles started to burst, about moving to a post-growth economic model. As we pass peak oil (and peak plastic, and maybe peak cod, and possibly peak dirt), it’s increasingly believable that leaning forward and running to keep up is an unsustainable way to live in the ecological equivalent of a brick-walled house. Perpetual growth is impossible; eventually we run out of atoms.8 We need a new model, something closer to a steady-state universe than a big-bang one.
But living in a new paradigm, coming from the old, is even more difficult in meatspace than it is in a virtual world.
Substituting non-acquisitive goals for acquisitive ones is difficult but not impossible. Our society already does that, whether people are collecting photos of themselves in exotic locations or status in whatever communities matter to them most. Measuring wealth in whuffies makes deep sense. After all, aside from fetishists like Scrooge McDuck, who really wants to swim in gold coins and light cigars with $100 bills for the pure aesthetic pleasure of it? People do these things to be seen to be doing them. Beyond a certain level of necessity9, money is mostly a counter of monkey-status.
More difficult is the other engine of growth and acquisition I’ve been running into: security. It’s difficult to pass up usable resources, even if I already have a good store of them, because I know I will run out eventually. But it’s easier to walk by this vein of coal if I can trust that I’ll be able to find another one to dig out when I need it. Minecraft’s abundance is consistent and reliable. Sadly, though, the real world contains unfed hunger and unmet need. There is always competition for resources, and real penalties for failure. There are visible losers in the race for everything necessary and useful to human life, from clean air up.
Growth is the promise of future plenty, and thus a mental escape hatch from zero-sum thinking. Make the pie bigger is the standard communitarian, non-competitive advice to someone trying to take a bigger slice of a limited resource. I don’t encounter competition for resources on my solitary server, but shared servers address the matter the way that the United States did in the 1800’s: geographic expansion. Players range further from the spawn point to find unexploited territory. Again, they tap into the unlimited abundance of the virtual world.
Here in the real world, we seek growth partly because that’s our headroom for surplus. And surplus is our present peace and our security against future need.
There’s an ongoing conversation in the SF and futurist communities about “post-scarcity” societies. I first encountered them in the Culture books by Iain M Banks, but there are plenty more examples in the literature. It’s more than a little unclear how such a society could come about. But absent its advent, I’m struggling to see how we could move to a post-growth economy.
- There are also shared servers where one can cooperate with other players, as well as a creative mode with no monsters or physical demands and unlimited resources.
- For every internet phenomenon, there will be a My Little Pony mashup.
- I’m a vegetarian on Minecraft (even though I am not one in real life)4. This makes this cycle markedly more difficult, because wheat takes time to grow, it’s hard to find the kinds of mushrooms one needs for soup, and one has to chop down a lot of oak trees to get enough apples5
- No, I don’t understand it either.
- The Minecraft developers are not botanists.
- As circular as a world of cubes can make, anyway
- It’s true that the “build a world, get bored, abandon it” pattern is a larger example of this behavior, but it’s different to do it within the same world.
- Particularly while remaining only on this planet.
- I’m aware that this is a big handwave, eliding, among other things, Sam Vimes’ boots.
Posted by Patrick at 08:39 AM * 72 comments
This black cat, pretty clearly not feral, has been huddling in front of our basement door since sometime early yesterday evening. None of the neighbors we’ve spoken to recognize it. We figured it was a house cat that had gotten outside and then become cold—temperatures have dropped in NYC in the last couple of days, and it’s warm on that bottom step. But this morning it’s still there, and when Teresa took it some canned tuna, it raised itself up enough to show evidence of a broken foreleg.
We’ve spoken to Animal Care and Control of New York and they’ve told us that, notwithstanding what it says on their web page, they don’t actually pick up animals.
We can’t bring the creature into the house—I’m seriously allergic to all cats—and we don’t have a car with which to get it to the Brooklyn Animal Control shelter some miles from here. We don’t really know how to move it without injuring it further. Does anyone in our readership have an idea what we should do?
UPDATE: Situation resolved, thanks to the excellent staff and volunteers of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals. The cat has been taken away by a volunteer who will convey it to shelter and medical attention. Relief all around. Thanks to many people for offers of serious material and practical help, particularly fellow Brooklynite Nora Jemisin and Sunset Park neighbor Paul Witcover. Whew.
Posted by Patrick at 12:49 PM * 112 comments
Really and truly. Below is the announcement we’re sending to the trades right now.
Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen, today announced that by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free.“Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” said president and publisher Tom Doherty. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”
DRM-free titles from Tom Doherty Associates will be available from the same range of retailers that currently sell their e-books. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.
About Tor and Forge Books
Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is a New York-based publisher of hardcover and softcover books, founded in 1980 and committed (although not limited) to arguably the largest and most diverse line of science fiction and fantasy ever produced by a single English-language publisher. Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is also the home of award-winning Forge Books, founded in 1993 and committed (although not limited) to thrillers, mysteries, historical fiction and general fiction. Together, the imprints garnered 30 New York Times bestsellers in 2011.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 12:12 AM * 40 comments
Today is the sixth annual International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch Day celebration, dedicated to professional writers who donate free stories to the world.
In honor of the joyous occasion, we dress as writers and stand around our Technopeasant Trees drinking Pixel Punch and singing Wretched Carols.
- Take an old-fashioned paper newspaper (if you can find one), and open it out so that you can get the individual sheets.
- Take the first sheet, lay it on the floor, and roll it, beginning on a narrow side, into a loose tube, When about a third-to-a-quarter way from the end, lay another sheet of newspaper onto the first, and continue rolling. When a third-to-a-quarter way from the end of that sheet, add another. Continue in this wise until you run out of newspaper.
- Then make four equally-spaced tears down the sides of the cylinder, about half-way down its total length. These form the leaves of your Freebietree.
- Grab one of the leaves in the center of the cylinder, and, whilst grasping the untorn bottom, commence pulling. This is your tree! If you used enough newspaper it can be of impressive height.
- 750 mL of red wine (e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja, or Shiraz)
- 175 mL brandy
- 175 mL raspberry liqueur (e.g.Chambord)
- 80 mL fresh-squeezed lemon juice
On Technopeasant Wretch Eve, pixel-stained writers slip through the ‘Net, giving free stories, poems, and plays to all the good boys and girls around the world. The boys and girls, for their parts, leave out martini glasses and bottles of gin in hopes that the Pixel Wretch will come again the next year and leave more stories on their hard-drives.
This Techopeasant Wretch Carol reflects the mirth that these jovial writers bring:
 |
Cheery pixel-writing folk
When the deadline’s drawing near
Casey likes strong characters |
It’s okay (invited, even) to put links to free stories (yours, or legally-uploaded others) in the comments here.
Posted by Avram Grumer at 03:15 AM * 129 comments
Over in the current Open Thread, albatross commented about a Salon article. The article’s about whether there’s are meaningful differences between the Big Two political parties and the author finds some, but admits that both parties operate within what’s commonly known as “the Washington Consensus”. One of albatross’s complaints is that “Voting for the marginally better candidate means that there is no way to push back on the ruling class consensus”, which reminded me about something I’d been meaning to write about for a while.
Voting is a lousy way of influencing politics. In a two-party system, your vote is basically one bits of information: donkey-vs-elephant. The choice of whether to cast a vote or not is a second bit. Toss in a primary election, and you’ve got a total of four bits, which isn’t even enough information to define a single English letter.
But there are other ways. For example, remember back when candidate Obama said he was gonna repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and then got into office, and President-Elect Obama was more like yeah, not right away, but we’ll probably get around to it in the first year, and then towards the end of the year President Obama was like sure, I’m committed, but I’m not saying when, and it didn’t get done that year, or the year after, and it looked like he was going to put it off to his second term? And to make matters worse, there was that offensive defense of DOMA. Remember all that?
What happened then was that gay rights advocates turned off the money spigot. Contributions from gay rights groups (and individuals devoted to gay rights) dropped 58% in 2010 compared to the 2006 mid-term elections. And then the Dems actually started moving on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The following year, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer defend DOMA in court, presuming it to be unconstitutional. Not bad, eh?
And remember the defeat of SOPA/PIPA? It was just three months ago! All those pages going dark, all those kids unable to do their homework because Wikipedia was offline, good times. A nasty piece of legislation with lots of money behind it was defeated without a single voter having to step into a booth. How’s that for pushing back on the ruling class consensus?
Sure, this required action by people of unusual wealth and/or influence; I doubt Wikipedia would’ve gone black if Jimbo Wales had been opposed to doing it, and I don’t know if there’d have been nearly as big a splash if the protest hadn’t involved cutting off a resource that journalists use daily. But ordinary people can be part of a movement that pulls in people of wealth and influence. I’m sure many of you have attended rallies, or written to your congresspeople, or both. I’m pretty sure writing has more effect on the president’s behavior than what you do in the voting booth this November, especially if you live in state that leans towards one party.
Posted by Teresa at 08:32 AM * 70 comments
An astute observation from XKCD about astroturf and comment order. Naturally, I want to see his cartoon about the effects of “most recent first” comment order.
Randall Munroe clearly understand a point that many people are still assimilating: passably good writers are cheap compared to many other opinion-making mechanisms. Over the long run they cost more than normal consumer advertising, but during election campaigns — high stakes, short duration, lots of slushy money — they can be quite cost-effective.
I know of two answers to the comment order problem. One is to give readers a button that will flip comment order from “first posted” to “most recently posted” and back again. The other is to do your best to suppress sockpuppets, and give readers a “view all by” button. Few things will so thoroughly undercut one’s impression of a commenter’s candor, sincerity, and independence as finding out that they’ve posted a long string of repetitive and superficial comments that are all in support of the same candidate or issue.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 12:11 AM * 124 comments
Today is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic.
Others will note it.
Instead I want to memorialize Captain Arthur Henry Rostron of RMS Carpathia. On receiving Titanic’s distress call he turned toward and ran all ahead flank into a known ship-killing ice field. Captain Rostron stood on the starboard bridge wing, eyes closed, praying—talking to the only person with whom a ship’s captain at sea can speak as an equal.
Without his courage, forehandedness, and seamanship, the toll from the Titanic disaster might have been far worse.
Well done.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 06:37 AM * 95 comments
As a sophomore in college, I took a 2-credit Library & Information Sciences course, mostly because it led to a stack pass. (I don’t need to explain to this community why a person would want a stack pass at the University of California at Berkeley. To other people, I tended to link it to my habit of exploring the stream tunnels off of Strawberry Creek and wandering through buildings whose subjects I did not study.)
One lecture covered the card catalog—a glorious thing in oaken cases, filling a whole room on its own. The instructor mentioned that the drawers still contained a number of handwritten cards. That afternoon, after class, I decided to search for one. I still retain a strong visual memory of the moment I succeeded, twenty-three years ago: the color of the sleeve of my T-shirt, pushed halfway up my forearm; the pattern of golden woodgrain in the sunbeam; the precise shade of the ink of the copperplate entry describing an 1872† edition of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica.
I was thinking of that moment as I read this article*, by Professor Greg Downey. He teaches a freshman class on Media Fluency for the Digital Age at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (He also runs a really good blog on the subject, unsurprisingly). One of the class assignments was:
Finding information that’s not online. Find an article (research journal article, analytic newspaper article, serious magazine article, or scholarly book chapter) that is on the topic of the Internet or new media, but not available (at least, not to you) on the Internet, and acquire a digital copy of that article. In a one-page, single-spaced write-up, document the steps you took to (a) find the article, (b) ensure that it was not available to you online, and (c) find out how to get it offline, (d) digitize it, (e) use optical character recognition software to make your text searchable, and (f) save the file to MyWebSpace and give your TA permission to view it. Paste the full URL of your file at the end of your write-up.
The assignment forced students to move out of their usual research modes. Some of the things they did were traditional: go to the library, ask a librarian, read a book. Others were interestingly modern, such as finding items on eBay. It’s worth reading the whole article to get a shape of the work they did.
It’s tempting to harrumph and grumble about how the Young ‘Uns are missing out on a wealth of information sources because they’re not digitized, and to be pleased that they’ve finally got access to the Good Stuff (like wot we had). It’s easy to turn the story into a New Media versus Old Media turf war, yet again, as always. But the real reason I bring the article to your attention is how well Downey conveys the pleasure of seeing students find the deep roots of their knowledge, and how he, from their reaction, gives us a glimpse of the world that they inhabit.
And that, more than anything else, is the heart of the academy.
† Date corrected after reference to the record in the online catalog.
* link via @jkaizer on Twitter
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 11:57 PM * 126 comments
As we all know, chocolate is poisonous to dogs and cats.
It is with great regret that I inform you that chocolate is also poisonous to people. The LD50 for a hundred kilo adult is circa five kilos.
It strikes me, too, that the defining moment (if you can speak of two centuries as a “moment”) that made Western European civilization what it is, was the simultaneous discovery/dissemination of tea, coffee, chocolate, and clockwork on the continent.
Posted by Teresa at 02:08 PM * 910 comments
Once, twice, thrice, force, quince, sects, sense, ox, nonce, tense.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 09:51 AM * 28 comments
One of my favorite comments from Patrick, one I’ve quoted and linked to a number of times, is about how much energy we should put into caring who is surprised about what and when.
I have an inchoate, perhaps indefensible, and yet powerful sense that conversation about this whole range of issues would be improved immeasurably if we could all just fucking stop one-upping one another over what is and isn’t legitimately surprising.
[…]
If we spend our goddamn lives sneering at one another over whether we were angered or amazed or appalled at exactly the right time or not, we’ll have wasted our goddamn lives.
But I’m a tester, you know, and I always knew I would eventually find an edge case to prove that rule. Well, now I have, in a quote from the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. In an interview in the Telegraph today, he says,
I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs, and to be fair it’s within the tax laws, so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax. And I don’t think that’s right.
I’m talking about people right at the top. I’m talking about people with incomes of many millions of pounds a year. The general principle is that people should pay income tax and that includes people with the highest incomes.
“Shocked”! Really? Honestly? Or, as the internet says, What is this I don’t even.
With notable self-restraint, Guardian writer Polly Curtis treats this statement as fact and attempts to check it. While she admits that emotions cannot be proven or disproven, she looks at his previous speeches and widely available information to determine if he should be surprised. Her article is remarkable both for the amount of linked evidence she brings to the BGO* and the constructive tone she uses to discuss it. But in the end, there’s not much to say beyond duh, so she discards fish-in-barrel marksmanship and gets interested in what his comments mean for the future of British tax avoidance†.
Her colleague Larry Elliot is much less patient, comparing Osborne to Claude Rains in Casablanca.
In one of the best scenes from the film, Rains says he is “shocked, shocked” to find gambling going on in the establishment, only to be handed his winnings by a member of Humphrey Bogart’s staff.
Elliot is blunt where Curtis is tactful:
Osborne is not short of a few bob himself. He has plenty of prosperous friends and is supposed to know a thing or two about the UK economy. If he is genuinely surprised by the tax arrangements of the well-heeled in the UK, he has either been living in a cave for the past 20 years or is unfit for his current post.
I think everyone who follows British politics knows that Osborne is neither clinically insane nor terminally stupid. So I wish to hell that he—and all of our politicians—wouldn’t act like they think we are.
But I’m not surprised when they do. Just in case anyone’s wondering.
* Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious
† Technically, tax avoidance is the use of legal means to reduce one’s tax burden. Tax evasion is the use of illegal means to do so. This entire discussion concerns the former, not the latter.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 09:31 AM * 34 comments
Hot from the moderation queue:
Ive to say, I dont know if its the clashing colours or the poor grammar, but this weblog is hideous! I mean, I dont wish to sound like a know-it-all or anything, but could you have possibly put just a little bit far more effort into this subject. Its truly interesting, but you dont represent it nicely at all, man.
Note the iron law of the Internet: Any grammar-flame (even a computer-generated one) must have at least one grammatical error.
What tripped up this robot and dumped its spew into the moderation queue? Using a common contraction with no apostrophe. (We get anything from dozens to hundreds a day with that marker.)
Oh, and the hideous (nevertheless truly interesting) post with the terrible grammar? Jon Singer’s turkey algorithm
SEO delenda est!
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 03:02 PM * 36 comments
Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, has signed a bill that repeals enforcement of equal-pay-for-equal-work between males and females. He’s facing a recall election, too. Guess he doesn’t need women’s votes to stay in office.
Pay discrimination. It isn’t just a bad idea, it’s the law.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 06:59 PM * 14 comments
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the spring of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, by auto, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the afternoon drew on, near the reputed location of the Cuff Link Museum.
I had first learned of the Cuff Link Museum through the book, Curious New England. Yet I had not visited it, even though I had indeed visited places far more remote from my home (e.g. The Glowing Tombstone and Madison Boulder). And so, on a bleak April morning in the year 2012, while Mud Season gripped the North Country, I made my way to Conway.
Details of the Cufflink Museum are scanty on the Web. ![[Conway Public Library]](http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/conway_library.jpg)
Despite a mention in an “article” on cufflinks that seems to be plastered at every content-site Google-spam-farm on the Web, there is little real information. From one single entry I got a street address: 71 Hobbs Street, Conway, New Hampshire. (Curious New England had been less exact — “Take Route 16 north until you come to the high school on your right. Turn left there and go half a mile to the Ham Arena skating rink. You’ll see the Yield House and Renovators sign on the left. The museum is on the third floor of Yield House Industries.”) I knew where the high school was, and I recalled Yield House and Renovator’s Supply, but I knew that Yield House had changed location at least twice over the past decade, and it had been years since I’d seen a Renovator’s Supply catalog. Other tantalizing web-based hints included a report on the museum’s non-profit status from more than a decade ago.
The best description of the Cuff Link Museum was in an article by Polly Bannister called The Cuff Link King. It speaks of Claude Jeanloz, an entrepreneur, the owner of Yield House, who amassed a huge collection of cuff links, and put them on display for the wondering public:
The Cuff Link Museum is housed on the third floor of Yield House Industries in Conway. The building, located on Hobbs Street, off West Main, is industrial looking, a factory, not a museum. But don’t let this fool you — once inside you’ll be mesmerized by row upon row of cherry-colored pedestal cases, chock-full of cuff links, a collection that numbers over 50,000. Above the cases oval plates describe the contents. For every category of gem and metal the cuff links are broken down by shape: “Rhinestones: round, oval, square, rectangle; Gold: round, oval, square, rectangle,” and so forth.
I determined to go, to bring back a report to the fluorosphere. And so I arrived at 71 Hobbs Street, to find that it was indeed a light-industrial area, but no hint of Yield House, no sign for Renovator’s Supply, and no cuff link museum.
As one does when thwarted thus, I retreated to the Conway Public Library to ask the reference librarian where the Cuff Link Museum might have gone. Alas, she did not know, and, although she emailed the town historian, his best suggestion was that I check the Internet.
It was another library patron, standing beside me at the reference desk, who had an answer: “I remember the Cuff Link Museum,” he said. “Fella died four, five years ago. It’s gone now.”
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 11:02 AM * 230 comments
Can anyone tell me what to what kind of writing it’s appropriate to respond with threats of rape, comments about the writer’s fuckability, or belittling, sexist insults?
Because I’m reading a lot of stuff in comment threads which come damn’ close to saying that that sort of thing is OK, if the blogger is rude enough or criticizes the wrong stuff.
As it happens, I disagree. I disagree when people do it, and I disagree when they defend it because “men get crap on the internet, too”, or “it’s not that bad”. Because it’s not the same from the other side of the gender divide, not when one in six women are sexually assaulted at some point in our lifetimes, not when we’re socialized to be shut up by men, not when we’re outnumbered and outshouted in these masculine communities.
(And even if it were the same, would that make it acceptable?)
If you don’t believe it happens, gentlemen, I dare you: choose a female name and log onto a gaming board, or a deep geek IRC channel, or a heated political discussion. Disagree with the common herd and see what you get back. Then do the same with a male name. And then remember that you’re being kicked on undamaged flesh; it’s much worse when there’s already a deep bruise there from all the charming things people do in meatspace, too.
Look. Let me be clear on this, dear friends of the male persuasion. You want to be in my good books? You want to be among the righteous in my pantheon? Speak up. Stand beside women. Speak up and be counted, because the people who do this stuff, they don’t listen to us. That’s kinda their whole point.
This includes, by the way, women you disagree with. Give us the space to be ordinarily wrong, misguided, angry, weird, biased. If only the rational angels of sweetness and light are allowed to speak unmolested, that’s just another kind of gag. I want an internet where a woman can be angry and not be called a bitch; where she can say something stupid and not be told to make a fucking sandwich.
I am so tired of this crap.
Edited to add: Let me just forestall one of the usual lines of commentary that appears in these conversations. I’m only interested in “that’s just the way the internet is, whatcha gonna do?” comments and other More Cynical Than Thou fan-dances if you also include links to at least three comments that you, personally, have made fighting against the problem. Otherwise, save your weary ennui for another thread. I don’t want it here.
Posted by Teresa at 07:10 PM * 34 comments
Patrick and Avram are both on the Hugo Ballot.
Hurrah!
Congratulations especially to Avram, whose first Hugo nomination this is.
Posted by Teresa at 07:50 PM * 49 comments
Making unfortunate jewelry out of hardware seems to be a near-universal impulse. Most of it comes out looking like macaroni necklaces for grownups.
It was thus a good thing when Erica at Honestly WTF published a tutorial for making a braided hex nut jewelry that you can actually imagine real people wearing. The technique is simple. The result is attractive. Specimens have been popping up all over the place.
Since this establishes that a small hex nut is just a large metal bead, it follows that this braiding technique can be applied to anything else that’s got a hole in it. (“Anything with a hole in it is a bead = “anything with a handle attached to it is portable.”) Personally, I’m eyeing my stashes of stick beads and wingnuts.
Honestly WTF also did a tutorial on a braiding technique that uses curb chain links as the third strand in the braid, yielding very presentable results. Erica has a good eye.
If you’re crafty, you might want to check out all her published DIYs. They’re not the usual sort of thing. Her forte is figuring out easy-to-make knockoffs of what would otherwise be very pricey baubles and clothing details by designers like Balenciaga, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Gucci, Miu Miu, Prada, etc. It looks like fun.
Posted by Teresa at 04:00 PM * 121 comments
“Unicorn Cookbook Found at the British Library,” announced the British Library in their Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts blog, in a news story dated 01 April 2012.
Uh-huh, sure.
It’s a nice piece of work, and the illustrations are charming. Lo here:
A long-lost medieval cookbook, containing recipes for hedgehogs, blackbirds and even unicorns, has been discovered at the British Library. Professor Brian Trump of the British Medieval Cookbook Project described the find as near-miraculous. “We’ve been hunting for this book for years. The moment I first set my eyes on it was spine-tingling.”Geoffrey Fule’s wife was no doubt named Aprille. I expect she hung out with lady-in-waiting Philippa de Roet, who coincidentally was also married to a guy named Geoffrey.Experts believe that the cookbook was compiled by Geoffrey Fule, who worked in the kitchens of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England (1328-1369).
The nameless experts the story cites are to be congratulated on their knowledge of 14th C. employment records, as are Professor Brian Trump and the British Medieval Cookbook Project for their successful unicorn hunt.
Geoffrey had a reputation for blending unusual flavours — one scholar has called him “the Heston Blumenthal of his day” — and everything points to his hand being behind the compilation.If we knew this much about a prominent cook of that period, right down to his seasoning preferences, there would already be a scholarly industry devoted to studying him, and he’d be the main character in a series of modern mystery novels.
After recipes for herring, tripe and codswallop (fish stew, a popular dish in the Middle Ages) —Herring as in red herring, tripe as in tripe, and codswallop as in the modern phrase, “a load of codswallop.”
— comes that beginning “Taketh one unicorne”.Grammatically, that would be the second-person dubious.
The recipe calls for the beast to be marinaded in cloves and garlic, and then roasted on a griddle.This is careless. One doesn’t roast on a griddle. Also, the illustration mistakenly depicts the unicorn (which hasn’t been properly cleaned and gutted) being martyred by being grilled on a gridiron in the style of St. Lawrence of Rome, one of the patron saints of cooks.
(Lawrence is notably one of the saints whose colorful Life was probably generated by a typo. When not shown being cooked, he’s generally shown standing around with his gridiron: a reminder to home barbecue enthusiasts that if you don’t keep those things clean, stuff sticks to them. But I digress.)
The cookbook’s compiler, doubtless Geoffrey Fule himself, added pictures in its margins, —It’s wonderful how they can tell that.
— depicting the unicorn being prepared and then served. Sarah J Biggs, a British Library expert on medieval decoration, commented that “the images are extraordinary, almost exactly as we’d expect them to be, if not better”.That last line is splendidly impossible. There are no illustrated cookbooks from that period, and darn few pictures of cooking of any sort, so it’s hard to see how Ms. Biggs or anyone else could have had expectations of them. It’s also a remarkable achievement for the illustrations to simultaneously be extraordinary, exactly as expected, and better than that. “Pick one,” as I used to say in my copyediting days.
The recipe for cooking blackbirds is believed to be the origin of the traditional English nursery rhyme “Sing a song of sixpence / A pocket full of rye / Four-and-twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie.”There are various theories about the origins of this nursery rhyme, none of them especially good. (See Wikipedia, The Straight Dope, and Snopes.com.) As the Wikipedia entry says (in a withering remark which I think they lifted from The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes),
No corroborative evidence has been found to support these theories, and given that the earliest version [printed in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, London, c. 1744] has only one verse and mentions “naughty boys” and not blackbirds, they can only be applicable if it is assumed that more recently printed versions accurately preserve an older tradition.Inventing one more dubious theory about the origins of that nursery rhyme is like inventing one more spurious prophecy attributed to Thomas of Ercildoune. There’s no risk of contaminating a field of scholarship with an unkillable story if it won’t make the subject any more of a mess than it already is.
Professor Trump added that he was tempted to try some of the recipes, but suspected that sourcing ingredients would be challenging. “Unfortunately, they don’t stock unicorn in my local branch of Tesco.”In popular writing about medieval cooking, that last bit is the equivalent of ending a thumb-sucking news story with “Only time will tell.”
The final illustration is particularly good.
(See also The Arbroath Bestiary: De vombato.)
Posted by Teresa at 07:54 AM * 50 comments
While researching something else (my usual excuse), I came across this remark about the standard WWII G.I. backpack, a.k.a. the M-1928 Haversack:
How the hell does this thing go together? The Haversack is a rather unique (bizarre) design, one that I personally suspect was conceived under the influence of serious narcotics. The link below is a reprint from the Army Field Manual: How to Pack the Haversack.But the link was no longer there. Fortunately, the web is full of military gear collectors, and reenactment groups with lists of particular requirements. I went looking. Short version: I can’t vouch for its designer having been on drugs, but the WWII M-1928 Haversack is a genuinely weird piece of gear.
The regulation fully-packed haversack (minus entrenching tool) as it was designed to be worn.
The USMC pack diagram, with the full directions for correctly packing and fastening it broken out into the full glory of 32 separate steps. Alas, the details are hard to read.
The version of the diagram with the greatest number of readable labels.
An older but by far the most readable version of the Army Field Manual’s instructions. If I may quote a bit:
Photos of the pack components, giving some idea of their unintuitive nature. Another view of the pack components.
A video showing how the triangular bit worked.
A page about the M-1928 Haversack, with a photo of a fully-packed regulation specimen (including entrenching tool). The page says:
The Pouch, Meat Can, M-1910/1928 (canvas mess kit pouch) had four loops on the back that passed through buttonholes on the flap of the haversack, held in place with long straps underneath. It had three internal pockets for knife, fork, and spoon.
The Carrier, Pack, M-1928 was a triangular attachment to the haversack (called the “diaper”) designed for additional gear such as shelter half or blanket. …
Even though it was the most widely used pack, the Haversack (M-1910 or M-1928) was very impractical and unpopular. To assemble and put one on was a complex process and not easy to do in the field with many steps, straps and ways to go wrong. The haversack and pack carrier had to be assembled using a coupling strap threaded through button holes. Then the suspender hooks are attached to the pistol or cartridge belt. Then the shelter half, blanket, poles and pegs are rolled up in a specified way with clothing inside the folds. Rations and toilet articles are packed into the haversack which is folded over and strapped after which the shelter roll is buckled into the pack carrier with three binding straps then closed with more straps. Provisions were made for an overcoat and raincoat to be added to the pack when needed.
Place the assembled equipment on the ground, suspender side of the haversack down, pockets of cartridge belt up, haversack spread out, inside flap and pack carrier extended their full length to the rear. Place one container of hard bread on its side in the center of the haversack in front of and touching the line of attachment of the inside flap. Place two cans of meat component end to end, parallel to and in front of the can of hard bread. Place the remaining container of hard bread in front of the cans of the meat component. Place the toilet articles and socks in front of the hard bread. The inside flap of the haversack is folded over these articles , the end of the flap being turned in so that the flap, thus shortened, extends about 2 inches beyond the top of the upper row …
That’s not the really complicated part.
The M-1928 haversack straps had snap hooks for attaching to the pistol belt M-1936 or cartridge belt M-1923. Eyelets on the side of the pack are provided to attach the Springfield bayonet or Garand bayonet. A canvas tab with eyelets at the top of the pack is for attaching the cover for the M-1910 intrenching tool cover.
If all these steps, straps, folds, wraps, rolls, buckles, snaps, and fiddly bits strike you as sounding more like WWI-era military technology, you’re nearly right. The WWI model was very similar, but the system actually dates back to the 1910 pack, as carried by the Fort Huachuca cavalry. For entertainment on Sundays, they’d lay it all out in exact order for inspection.
Though it underwent various modifications, the 1910 pack’s underlying conceptual design would continue in use until 1956.
Posted by Patrick at 04:02 PM * 55 comments
To the TSA, that is.
Looks like the TSA really, really doesn’t want to let Bruce Schneier testify in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Well, and who can blame them, considering.
Posted by Teresa at 01:23 PM * 42 comments
This came out a few days ago from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund:
How Homeland Security Is Hiding the Feds’ Role in Occupy CrackdownI certainly do find it odd.A trove of documents released today by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a FOIA request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee reveal that federal law enforcement agencies began their coordinated intelligence gathering and operations on the Occupy movement even before the first tent went up in Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011.
On September 17, 2011, a Secret Service intelligence entry in its Prism Demonstrations Abstract file records the opening of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The demonstration location that the Secret Service was protecting? The “Wall Street Bull.” The name of the Protectee? The “U.S. Government.”
American taxpayers might find it odd to learn that the Secret Service was on duty to protect the Wall Street Bull in the name of protecting the U.S. Government …
First, the Wall Street Bull was never in jeopardy from anyone.
Second, the Wall Street Bull belongs neither to Wall Street nor to the Federal Government. Who does own it is a good question, but the two main contenders are sculptor Arturo Di Modica, and the City of New York.
Third, the U.S. Government was neither in peril, nor the focus of the protest. If we’ve gotten to the point where a protest aimed at Wall Street is perceived as putting the U.S. Government in jeopardy, then Houston, we have a problem.
Fourth, the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to prevent or respond to terrorist attacks, man-made disasters, and natural disasters. It has no authority to act as a general police force, and certainly doesn’t have the authority to interfere with legitimate citizen protests. This has enormous potential implications. The DHS has way too much power and way too little scrutiny when it’s just going after terrorists. Imagine the whole country operating under airport rules.
Fifth, the same goes for the Secret Service, which was also involved. If the DHS has zero jurisdiction in these matters, the Secret Service has less than zero. Their official job is to (a.) protect the president and vice president and their families, plus presidential candidates, foreign embassies, and visiting heads of state; and (b.) to safeguard the Treasury and national financial systems, which used to mostly mean counterfeiting, but these days includes financial institutional fraud, computer fraud, electronic transfers and money laundering, and other criminal activities of that sort. They should not had had anything to do with the Occupy Wall Street protests.
I find it disturbing that the Secret Service didn’t even bother to invent a bllsht link between their involvement and some hoked-up threat OWS might present to national financial institutions. It tells me that acting completely outside their constitutional powers is nothing new for them.
If the Secret Service is supposed to go after financial institutional fraud, they’re one of the primary institutions that failed in their duty to protect us from the financial chicanery that brought down the economy. Now we see them acting illegally as Wall Street’s defenders and enforcers. I cannot believe that these circumstances are unrelated.
Sixth, it appears from the documents that these federal agencies began acting against the Occupy Wall Street movement before the first protests even happened. This, if you don’t mind my saying so, is a complete fckng outrage, a violation of numerous constitutional rights, an extremely dangerous precedent, and — judging from the actual documents — not at all unusual.
I object to this, strenuously and without cease. It’s exactly the kind of Secret Police bllsht the Constitution explicitly prohibits — and with good reason. If you don’t know why, ask the thread.
Addendum, because SamChevre reminded me:
My seventh objection is to the paragraph which follows the one I initially quoted:
These documents, many of which are redacted, show that the highest officials in the Department of Homeland Security were preoccupied with the Occupy movement and have gone out of their way to project the appearance of an absence of federal involvement in the monitoring of and crackdown on Occupy.Operational security is justified in legitimate investigations. This isn’t operational security. DHS is trying to cover up the fact that they’re acting way outside their already overbroad authority. That kind of secrecy is not legitimate in a government whose authority is derived from the consent of the governed.
Posted by Teresa at 01:00 PM * 48 comments
I had no luck this weekend searching Netflix for “Hetzer,” but a listing popped up for the first season of Axis: Hetalia. I’d seen it mentioned on Scandinavia and the World, and gathered that it’s an animated Japanese series of greater-than-usual weirdness in which the characters are all personifications of nation states. What the hell. I clicked over to take a closer look.
Below are the actual episode notes from Netflix. I will never, ever watch this show. It couldn’t possibly measure up.
Hetalia: Axis PowersI predict that in the future, many high school graduates will score higher on quizzes about Axis: Hetalia than on quizzes about the causes of WWI and WWII.
Season One1. When the nations gather to solve the world’s problems, U.S.A. presents his solution to global warming — and it’s a pretty stupid one. Then everyone argues for a while, just before a flashback to WWI.
2. Germany is prowling the woods of WWI in search of the enemy, when he happens upon a crate of tomatoes. Just as he opens the wooden box, Italy attacks! I’m only kidding. Italy mostly just lays around.
3. WWI is over, but Italy won’t quit pestering Germany. In fact, with WWII right around the corner, Italy pledges his undying devotion to his gruff friend, and a delightful Axis of Bromance is born.
4. Italy and Germany have a new BFF: Japan. After a “getting acquainted” soak in the hot springs, Japan shows the guys his value as an ally by — actually, he doesn’t really do much. But he seems very polite.
5. Germany, Japan, and Italy are on a deserted island, and they’re making the most of such a pleasant environment. Especially Italy, who uses the free time make white flags and sand sculptures of pasta.
6. Japan, Germany, and Italy roast marshmallows on the beach. The three guys may feel like the night belongs to them, but they are far from alone. Actually, marshmallows sound pretty good right now. BRB.
7. U.S.A. takes a break from stuffing hamburgers into his face just long enough (barely) to reveal his plans for attacking the Axis. Meanwhile, much to Germany’s delight, Italy’s got an obnoxious brother.
8. Since Italy’s kind of a moron, he keeps getting captured by the Allies. But since he’s kind of annoying, he keeps getting sent back to the Axis. And in a shocking turn of events, Japan answers a telephone!
9. The Allies get together to split up their responsibilities for the coming war, which really just means: U.S.A. decides he’ll be the hero and everyone else will act as his support. Meanwhile, isn’t France dreamy?
10. France is devastated upon learning he wasn’t invited to the second meeting of the Allies, and as he reflects on the — I’m sorry, can you excuse me for a second? It seems chibi Italy is wearing Hungary’s dress.
11. The moment of truth arrives in Chibitalia: will Italy accept the adorable Holy Roman Empire’s offer? And while the Allies prepare for WWII, U.K. totally hangs out with a unicorn.
12. First, a scene from after the war: France asks U.K. to marry him. It has something to do with the Suez Canal. Next, a scene set before the war shows the Axis prepping to take on U.K.
13. U.K. is aggravated after losing to Germany, so the lad uses the dark arts to get his revenge. In a scary room, he chants a summoning spell and unleashes — Russia, the weirdest of all world powers!
14. Germany goes to the supermarket to buy sausages. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be exciting, but during this trip he manages to encounter every mildly offensive stereotype ever associated with every nation ever.
15. Italy and Germany enjoy soaking in the rays of the sun, but Japan isn’t thrilled about the prospect of exposing himself. Of course, a quick glimpse at his library proves he’s not totally against nudity.
16. A walk down memory lane reveals the moment when China found tiny, young Japan sitting all alone in the woods.
17. U.S.A. is ready to clean out his cluttered storage room, but he may not have what it takes to let go of so many memories. Actually, he may need to worry more about letting go of some hamburgers.
18. The Allied assault on the Axis begins! And ends! And then it begins again! And ends again! What’s with all the false starts and sudden stops? It’s kind of hard to explain. Just watch the episode.
19. The Allied forces gather for a meeting. Here’s a list of the three most interesting things that happen: 1) China shows up late. 2) Canada has a bear in his lap. 3) OMG, AXIS SPY.
20. A tale of two weapons: First of all, Italy shouldn’t be messing around with hand grenades. Can we all agree on that? Next, U.S.A. takes a trip down memory lane when he finds an old musket in his storage room.
21. Sealand has a lot of heart, but as the teeny-tiniest nation in the world, he’s having a tough time getting the other countries to recognize that he even exists.
22. As Holy Roman Empire prepares to leave for war, little Italy gets emotional and gives the departing nation a meaningful gift. Well, really, I’m just assuming it’s meaningful. Because, otherwise, it’s just silly.
23. Switzerland questions why his sis, Liechtenstein, cut her hair. Everyone else questions if she’s actually a little boy. Later, Germany is confused when he overhears an awkward situation involving Italy and a bed.
24. Tension arises when Switzerland and Liechtenstein encounter Austria at the grocery store. Meanwhile, the Axis boys discover that their deserted island isn’t actually all that deserted.
25. A flashback into the past reveals the reasons why U.S.A. might sometimes appear to be lacking in good taste. Also, the long and winding tale of Liechtenstein and Switzerland comes to an end.
26. U.K. unveils the secret weapon he plans to use in order to claim revenge against U.S.A. — a chair! An EVIL chair! An EVIL chair that Russia keeps sitting in at all the wrong moments!
27. The Allies get their hands on a valuable source of information that could reveal the inner workings of the Axis gang: Germany’s diary! And it’s all about Italy. Seriously, like every page.
28. The Axis falls under Allied attack once again! But then something strange happens — a jolly visitor arrives bearing gifts, allowing enemies to put aside their differences if only for one night.
29. Russia knows no fear, as evidenced by his willingness to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. The Baltics, however, seem to be more than a little uneasy around Russia.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 12:48 PM * 25 comments
Okay, a place to discuss the book(s) and movie without the need for ROT-13 or further warnings.
CONTAINS SPOILERS
You have been warned.
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 09:42 AM * 109 comments
There is a Latin verb which can mean “to build up” or “to tear down”. Playing my birthday present with my kids, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, I’m irresistibly reminded of it.
Previous Ratchet & Clank games have been essentially buddy movies, with our heroes repeatedly saving the universe—only to have it manage to get back in jeopardy again between iterations. They’re classic platformers, livened up by wry commentary and amusing touches*. It’s probably my favorite gaming franchise.
All 4 One bills itself as being all that and cooperative to boot: a truly multiplayer addition to the series. Up to four people can play, and each of them controls a long-running character from the series. There’s Ratchet, the mechanical-genius lombax (a long-eared, furry-tailed bipedal species). There’s Clank, his wisecracking robot friend. Then there’s Quark, the Captain Hammer of the story: overblown and happy to take credit for anyone’s work, but essentially cowardly. Last of all, there’s Dr Nefarious, the substantially robotic nemesis, prone to reciting snatches of soap operas when his gears don’t mesh right. (Note that if you’re Jenny Nae Mates, the game will run the necessary characters with its own AI.)
My family finds it all but unplayable in collaborative mode.
The gameplay itself is fine: each character has a lot of freedom within the frame. Players have to work together to defeat some challenges (propelling each other to places they can’t jump or drawing fire from a robotic turret while someone else sneaks up to its unshielded back side). If more than one player shoots at a target, they share credit for the “kill”, and characters who are killed can be revived by other players.
All good.
But then, at the end of each level, the game ranks the players against one another. Who killed the most enemies? Who got the most treasure? Who died the most? Who was the most cooperative?. Winners get titles like “Most Heroic” and “Bolt Master”. But if someone manages to not come in first in any of the categories, they’re labeled “Noob”.
First quibble: “most cooperative” only measures behaviors like “shoots at the same target as everyone else” and “revives fallen comrades.” Things like “being the one who always does a particular task so that no one else has to” don’t get counted. obKloutAlgorithm, if you measure the wrong stuff, you reward the wrong person.
Second quibble: my reaction to seeing anyone I’m playing with being called a “Noob” simply because other people scored higher is easily expressed in Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. It’s not only an insult; it’s also an absolute term being applied to a comparative score. And it ignores the honor and value in being a jack of all trades (and master of none), or the second best swordsman in Caribastos.
But the problem is bigger than an inability to measure true cooperation or find the right terms. The real issue is that setting the characters against each other destroys the trust and collaboration that’s the selling point of the game.† Then, after the separation of sheep and goats, after the judging and the ranking, the awarding of titles and the name-calling, somehow the players have to work together again. They have to reinvent the team from its competing components, over and over again.
How many times do we see that in collaborative environments? Workplaces are prone to it, of course; the team does the work and the manager takes the credit. People succeed or fail on their own because judging them on their team’s performance “damages individual endeavor” and “encourages freeloading”. This means that people whose main gift is making teams jell and work together are undervalued.
But I’d also submit that it’s another flavor of the tension that we’re struggling with as citizens of capitalist nations. How much do we want the entire society to succeed, and what do we do when our own interests cut against that? You know the drumbeat: Raise taxes to provide a safety net or fund better public education? Pay for others’ health care? Including the stuff I don’t approve of? What do you mean she works hard; all she does is take care of the kids. But they’re wasteful. They bought a wide-screen TV. They buy brand-name food with their food stamps. Work-shy. Slut. Lazy. Irresponsible.
Noob.
* Weapons include the Sheepinator, which turns your enemies into sheep; the Chickenator; and the RYNO — Rip You a New One — which plays the 1812 Overture as it fires.
† It also damages gameplay. For instance, characters need to collect money (bolts, in-game) and spend it on new weapons. If one character can’t afford a new weapon because someone else was obsessed with being the Bolt Master and hogged all the treasure, the entire team’s ability to proceed is hampered.
Posted by Jim Macdonald at 10:04 PM * 50 comments
They’re right here. (Midnight showing of The Hunger Games.)
One of the interviewees is my beloved younger daughter, founding president of the Simmons Science Fiction and Fantasy Club.
