Marginal Utility

by Ken Houghton

Susan of Texas has an immortal post on the housing crisis, McMegan's ratiocination, and the persistence of ignorant memes.

The OnionESPN reports on a bodybuilding championship.

Brad DeLong says the problem isn't that Geithner isn't organized, it's that he doesn't organize, leaving that to his assistants.

Two things that, for some reason, made me think of Erin: this today and this (via The New Yorker's Book Bench).

Another discussion of Harlan, from Nancy Nall, probably via Lance.

For all the complaining some SF(F)WAns do about Scribd, you would think the place was Pure Evil, not a Marketplace for Sf/Fantasy writers (see the screen shot) (also via The Book Bench).

Apparently, not all men from Brussels are naturally "six foot four and full of muscles."

Labels: Erin O'Brien, just life, Mannion, pop music, sf

by Ken Houghton

Will someone please assure me that SFWA's "new mission statement" (via Locus) is an April Fool's Joke?

Labels: humor, sf

by Ken Houghton

The penultimate list included a Nebula winner (Scarborough), a work that received an embarassment of awards in and out of genre (The Sparrow), a John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner (Slonczewski), and enough works that are very recent and well-known (Kushner x 2, Bull, Valente, Huff, etc.) that my friend Constance (who edited a work that is appropriate for the list and knows the history of the field) could legitimately note:

Very few of these are anything close to obscure. I still don’t get this.

Though, I am really pleased to find Katharine Kerr’s Polar City Blues on this list. Yet, it wasn’t published by a small, no-name press either.

How do you figure writers like Tanya Huff etc. are obscure and unknown? When their books are all on the shelves of all the chains still in operation?

Most of the clear gaffes are gone, and it's good to see God Stalk on the final list. But this is a list of "books I read when I was younger," not "books that have been forgotten."

If this is Feminist SF - The Blog's idea of "obscure" works, then I promise to pay attention to them again when I stop yawning.

Labels: feminism, fiction, sf

by Ken Houghton

It's a sad day when I'm thrilled about the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) Hugo winner (and the winner HIMSELF showed up [7:52p]), and at worst indifferent to the idea that "semiprozine" will go away after next year.

Labels: just life, sf

by Ken Houghton

July 2, 2008 [link fixed; thank you, Gary]:

Short of succumbing to the madness of anorexia, I doubt I am likely to experience actual starvation before I die.

Especially not when you die two days later.

(via Gary Farber, who posts a wealth of other links)

Labels: just life, sf

by Ken Houghton

Via Roy, I discover that the San Francisco of Victor David Hanson's, er, mind consists of:

smartly dressed yuppies, wealthy gays... What is missing are school children, middle class couples with strollers, and any sense the city has a vibrant foundation of working-class, successful families of all races and backgrounds...

My wife's relatives work in San Francisco and live in Albany, but they're doctors and lawyers. (Though—sorry, Julie, Howard, and Mike—not many would confuse most of them with being "smartly dressed" in the VDH sense of the phrase.)

So I guess Mad at EoB doesn't exist, since VDH's SF "reminds [him] of H.G.l Wels Eloi and Morlocks," and I've never seen her wear as much eye shadow as Yvette Mimieux in this film (though it's possible that Sarcasm Girl can stay).

Labels: Eat Our Brains, raving lunacy, sf

by Ken Houghton

Many years ago, before many of you were born, there were two guys from Winnipeg named Randy Bachman and Fred Turner.

They wanted a name for their band, and with all of the folk-rocky duets of the time (Seals & Crofts, Loggins & Messina, etc.), they weren't about to be Bachman & Turner, since they played loud. (Or, perhaps, loudly, if we're leaving off the presumption of "music.")

So they were in a drug store or something one day and saw a magazine about Trucks. BIG Trucks. LOUD trucks.

The magazine was called Overdrive, and a band name that will live in infamy was born.

The current editor of Overdrive magazine, per the introduction to his story in Wizards, is Andy Duncan.

Just thought you might want to know.

Labels: pop music, sf

by Ken Houghton

This is by no means a comprehensive list.

1. You Not Sneaky! dropped two great posts here and here on Malthus, Economics, and Malthusian Economics, complete with a spreadsheet model available for the download (all right, this is really two weeks ago but (1) I need something that keeps this relevant to economics and [2] I really did only find them today)
   
   
2. Gary Farber is moving from Denver, CO, to Raleigh, NC. Maybe he just can't deal with Democrats. Oh, wait, there's another, much better, reason:
   

   Why Raleigh? Enter: Amygdala Woman. (Sometimes known as "Malibu Stacy.")

   
   Go hit the tip jar, those of you with revenues.*
   
   
3. There have been multiple earthquakes in Reno, but fortunately, Susan Palwick and her husband Gary are fine so far. Our best wishes to them and others, some of whom were likely not so lucky.
   
   
4. Larry Niven, who is independently wealthy to the extent of having a relative of his named in a passage blind-reffing the Teapot Dome scandal in a Heinlein novel** and was responsible for Shira's last Major Fandom Event Participation,*** has gone completely bonkers (sad h/t to Dr. Black).
   
   
5. Erin uses cold cream. My imagination runs wild, but not on a family blog.
   
   
6. Janelle of Bond Girl Fame hasn't posted an update on the injuries on the set of the latest film, but one can understand that she has other things on her mind.
   
   
7. I was expecting Rory at Eat Our Brains to respond to this post of Patrick's, but he has (instead?) decided to become a Zen Master or something, and, finally,
   
   
8. Shira can rejoin SFWA (though I still need to find out who the Canadian Regional Director is).

There's probably more.

*By the way, does this mean Obama loses a delegate? Chris Wallace should ask The Annoited One-to-Be on his regularly-scheduled Fox News appearance.
**"Since Secretary of State Fall was convicted or receiving a bribe Doheny was acquitted of paying."
***Louis Wu's Birthday Party at the 1989 WorldCon in Boston

Labels: Eat Our Brains, Erin O'Brien, just life, MakingLight, sf

by Ken Houghton

Discovered via one of Jessica Hagy's more brilliant creations:

Gerald Jonas on the late Arthur C. Clarke

Labels: just life, sf

by Ken Houghton

Paul Krugman expands the, er, Foundation of economics with an analysis of trade between Earth and Trantor.

Labels: Economics, free trade, sf

by Ken Houghton

Robert Legault's memorial service.

Maybe more later, but go to Making Light and read there now.

Labels: just life, sf

by Ken Houghton

1. Gushy Personnel Sightings:
   
   1. Flying down, trying to keep eyes open (or possibly close them), but the gentleman next to me is working. On Stata code. That I can almost understand. Gradually realise it was Daniele Paserman.
      
   2. My earlier prediction turns out to be, unintentionally, correct. Walk into Krugman, Blinder, Roubini, and Shiller during the Q&A session, taking a just-opened seat in the back. Find self next to Joseph Stiglitz, and about five feet from Avinash Dixit.
   
   
2. We Don't Need No Stinking Badges - many prominent signs indicate that badges are required, but very rarely does anyone check. I carry mine in my pocket most of the time.
   
3. The Irrational Badge Exception—the Book room. The one place where the participants want as many visitors as possible is restricted.
   
4. The Book Room II: Last-day sales. Andrew (who interned there last summer) picks up multiple CATO books. I get a copy of this for half-price. An electronic publisher is giving away copies of Greg Mankiw's textbook (link h/t DeLong) in electronic form.

All in all, it reminded me of a World Fantasy Convention. But someone really needs to do a study of why the book room—the only exemplar of a free market in the convention—is Members Only.

Labels: Economics, rational expectations, sf

by Ken Houghton

I can't with a straight face tell the IRS that they are fees to a professional organization.

(This follows the original Ray of Hope noted here.)

Labels: just life, labor unions, sf, writing

by Tom Bozzo

Paging Dr. Baker.

An AP story on the incipient water-supply clusterfuck says that the cost of upgrading water supply pipes in the U.S. could be "staggering:"

Experts estimate that just upgrading pipes to handle new supplies could cost the nation $300 billion over 30 years.

$300 billion is a lot of money by most standards, but it's what the U.S. spends on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 18 months, or less than a year's service of the U.S. federal debt.

I could say the same thing, with minor changes of scale, for just about any other "staggeringly expensive" infrastructure project — providing the U.S. with intertubes as good as South Korea's, intercity trains as good as France's, take your pick — it's not that the money couldn't be there. It's certainly available for maintaining U.S. supremacy in nation-wrecking, despite the lack of proven utility to such capabilities.

One unfortunately prescient-seeming bit of near-futurism in Charlie Stross's Halting State is the suggestion that the U.S. will fall off the global economic power map by the end of the next decade, at least while biting a few trillion bucks' worth of infrastructure improvement.

[reference]

Labels: cognitive biases, Journamalism, other priorities, sf

by Ken Houghton

Via the comments to this post at Making Light, a transcript from Ms. Rowling's Carnegie Hall appearance last night.

(And, yes, I do plan to entitle posts after Tom Robinson lyrics and songs for a while, his current Radio 6 job notwithstanding.)

Labels: Harry Potter, literature, sf

by Tom Bozzo

I'm not here today, but I do have a post up at Total Drek, "Economies of Fun."

Labels: blogging, Realities Virtual and Otherwise, sf

by Ken Houghton

is the trailer for Jumper.

Let's hope Steve's film agent did as well for him as Evan Handler did for David Duchovny in Californication.

And that, say, Greenwar will follow.

Labels: Eat Our Brains, movies, sf

by Ken Houghton

On Friday night, we left for the beach for the long weekend. At the time, SFWA had just turned itself into a complete cf (see Hugo-Winning Editor Patrick here).

Fortunately, Michael Capobianco—who was on the case early—took ended up doing the right thing:

Motion: That, effective immediately, all of the activities of the
current ePiracy Committee be suspended and the Committee itself be disbanded
until such time as the Board has had the opportunity to review the legal
ramifications of sending out any additional DMCA notices, as well as to explore
other methods by which SFWA may be able to assist authors in defending their
individual rights, while ensuring that any such activity will not unduly expose SFWA to negative legal ramifications.

This is in no small part because Scribd did the right thing, after receiving multiple complaints:

On August 17, 2007, you sent an email to Scribd.com on behalf of SFWA alleging that numerous items hosted on Scribd.com allegedly infringed the copyrights of authors who you claimed to represent. On August 27, 2007, you confirmed in another email that your earlier communication was intended as a formal notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

We have now heard from no fewer than four authors whose works were improperly targeted by your notice. They confirm that they have never authorized SFWA to act as their DMCA enforcement agent. As a result, it appears that your notice constituted a misrepresentation both of your authority to act on their behalf and that the targeted materials were infringing....

I understand and appreciate that SFWA has taken steps to apologize to Scribd.com users whose materials were improperly removed as a result of your notice. This letter is intended to prevent any repetition of these unfortunate events. While we will continue to consider valid DMCA takedown notices sent on behalf of rightsholders who you are authorized to represent, this letter puts you on notice than any further takedown notices that contain misrepresentations may expose you and SFWA to liability (including attorneys fees) pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 512(f). This would include not only notices that misrepresent about your authority to act on behalf of rightsholders, but also any notices that target activities (such as the inclusion of small excerpts of copyrighted material within larger original works) that are plainly noninfringing fair uses. See Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Inc., 337 F.Supp.2d 1195, 1204 (N.D. Cal. 2004) (imposing liability for sending DMCA takedown notices targeting obvious fair uses).

Now don't get me wrong. Scribd isn't the greatest site in the world for copyright protection. But they've just gotten a lot of positive, free publicity due to the actions of the e-piracy committee, and SFWA not only has a black eye from Boing Boing users, but the job of the new e-piracy committee is going to be that much more difficult.*

But it's a step in the right direction, and creates the biggest giggle of the weekend from Andrew Burt:

It seems that SFWAns' feelings about the risk tolerance for fighting piracy have shifted, and we need to assess what those now are before we proceed.

In other words, SFWAns in general want the group, we're going to fight piracy**, to fight actual piracy, not send scattershot, poorly vetted requests that subject us to legal action.


*Without going into details, the suggestion that the e-piracy committee needed to be rebuilt from scratch was made and greeted with reprobation at best.

**As Will Shetterly noted, "[p]erhaps copyright concerns should be addressed by an independent organization that wishes to [be in the business of] police[ing] copyright."

Labels: just life, sf

by Ken Houghton

Without this:

This would not be in theaters today.

So what are John Scalzi and Brad DeLong thinking when they tell us to go TODAY, so that Neil will write more film scripts and—because "lump of labour" discussions are legitimate regarding the Gaiman singularity—fewer books?

Don't get me wrong; we're going tonight. And it seems unlikely that Gaiman—whose novel Coraline has been filmed (is in post-production) and was a screenwriter the upcoming Beowulf film—is going to get thrown out of Hollywood any time soon.

But do we really want Gaiman to have less time to write novels?

Labels: Brad DeLong, lump of labor, movies, sf

by Ken Houghton

Go read Kathryn Cramer's excerpts and commentary from SciAm's defence of science fiction. Sample:

Maddox asks, "Why are they not holding their annual meetings in some sort of gilded purpose-built pyramid while humanity waits breathlessly outside to receive their inklings into our future?" That's Hollywood, dear. We're book people, and not rich book people like the techno-thriller writers.


But if you want that sort of venue, try the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductions held in the Sky Church of the Experience Music Project, which was built with Paul Allen's money. I'm not sure this would satisfy, though: Charlie Brown, a former nuclear engineer, would still be around in a Hawaiian shirt picking over the hors d’œuvres.

Labels: sf