Archive for April, 2005

Bromfield v. F&SF and Other Flame Wars

The recent flame war on the F&SF message board got me thinking about how to refer to a specific flame war. I decided that it would be best (or at least most amusing) to refer to them as if they were court cases, which is fun, and also convenient if one wanted to cite something from the text when participating in a new flame war, as if citing case law.

For example, this recent flame war would be:

Bromfield v. F&SF, (2005)

So rather than retread the same topics over and over, flame warriors could develop a sort of shorthand to argue their cases: “Ah, but see, that’s where you’re wrong. In post 73633 of Bromfield v. F&SF, Nick Mamatas said…”

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All Hail the King of Dried Fruits


In
case you were wondering, this is what 28 lbs. of dried apricots looks like. 
Men’s Health recently called dried
apricots the king of dried fruits.  Me, previously being a raisin man, had
never bothered with
Prunus armeniaca L
But MH convinced me to try them out.  Turns out, not only are they the best
from a health perspective, but they’re also damn tasty! 

 

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I, Robot (well, just the head of a Robot, really…)

Build
your very own android head for just $600!

From the designer’s introduction:

"It is possible to build a computer-driven, life-size, android robot head
(Figure 1) for cost of materials of about $600.00. The android head will have
two color video-camera eyes with the video going both into a window on the PC
and into an image processing Java application. The robot will have six servo
motors controlling: (1) base of the head spins, (2,3) each eye moves left/right,
(4) both eyes move up/down, (5,6) each eye-lid opens/closes. All servo motors
are controlled via a Java application. The user supplies the computer (PC). The
details of how to construct such a head follows, based on the authors creation
of Robot Maxamilian, R. Max for short." [link]

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Who is The Most Important…?

In a

post
on the Asimov’s forum, Gardner Dozois, inspired by a recent A&E or
History Channel poll, asked the question: "Who is ‘The Most Important
American’?"

He goes on to say: "Putting the emphasis on the word ‘American,’ I’ve come up
with three candidates, without whom there probably would be no America, as we
know it today."  They are:

(1) George Washington

(2) Abraham Lincoln

(3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Gardner explains his choices (see the

post
for more details), and sums up by saying "So these are my candidates
for the title–since without them, for better or worse, America probably would
not have survived in its current incarnation long enough for them to be asking
this question on the History Channel in the first place."

All this leads to my inevitable follow-up questions:

(1) Who is "The Most Important Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer"? 

and

(2) Who is "The Most Important Science Fiction/Fantasy Editor"? 

Of which writers/editors could you say that without them, for better or
worse, SF probably would not have survived in its current incarnation long
enough for me to be asking this question?

Give your top three answers for each.  I cross-posted this to the F&SF
message board, so please post your responses there, under the thread titled "Who
is The Most Important…?
"

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April Acquisitions

Fresh meat! New this month: a brilliant new story-within-the-story fantasy from M. Rickert; a horrific, Hawaiian ornithology tale from Alan Dean Foster; an urban, fey fantasy from Madeline E. Robins; a baseball story from Robert Reed; a tour of the underworld courtesy of Jeffrey Ford; the further adventures of Kedrigern the Wizard from John Morressy; and a new Silurian Tale from Steven Utley.

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Blurb-O-Matic (Updated Entry)

The blurbs are up! Or they’re up in beta-testing mode at least. There are still a few quirks to work out. But, behold! Uh, they’re over there in the left-hand column.

The code was developed for me by my pal Jared. He says he plans on releasing it (sans my specific quotes, into an open-source web design collective, so other can add an array generating their own quotes), so feel free to borrow it yourselves.

Update:

If anyone would like me to alter something in their quote, whether it is correcting a typo or adding a link, or changing a link, let me know. I linked all the names without asking, and some of the names I didn’t have/couldn’t find URLs for. So if you have one, and you want it linked, let me know. If I’ve got you linked, and you don’t want to be, let me know. It’s no problem either way.

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Best Blurb Ever

I just got the best frickin’ blurb ever, so I had to post it immediately. It’ll be added to the blurb-o-matic eventually, if I can figure out how to fit it all in there.

One crisp autumn night in 1968, I was contemplating an end-run on life. I’d been up all night doing lines of cocaine with Asimov and Heinlein in a strip club in L.A. The powder brought a clarity to things of the likes I had never witnessed. I had recently failed to win the Hugo for the third time, and I knew that I’d never stand a chance against these titans in the popular vote of fandom. Their accolades were all for which I lived.

Outside the club, as I pressed the barrel of my trusty .38 against my temple, a buzzing sound filled the air, as if the Universe itself were about to give birth to a million bees. I cowered behind a dumpster, my plans for suicide abandoned, and a tall bald man stepped from the shadows wearing a skin-tight silver jumpsuit and a belt with more blinking lights than a Christmas tree. He spoke in a calm, mannered voice, with an accent unlike any I had ever heard.

“The future needs you, Mr. Tolbert,” he said. He offered me his hand. I took it. It was warmer than the gun.

Together, we travelled to the 23rd century. The adventures we had together, you would not believe if I presented them to you as fact. So here I sit, pinning fanciful tales of scientific fiction, passing off what will be as what could be.

I’m long since retired from my future adventures here in your 21st century. I find it a quaint and relaxing time. The John Joseph Adams I knew is long dead in my memories, a story you will find in the pages of Asimov’s, December issue 2018, disguised (of course) as an allegory for the dangers of faster-than-light travel in a Universe without God. While the young man in your native time be but a glimmer of the man he will become, treat him well.

He will save us all, one day.
— Jeremiah Tolbert

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