Quotulatiousness

October 27, 2010

The surplus of “steampunk” in SF

Filed under: Books, History, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:31

I have to admit that “steampunk” never really made it onto my regular reading list. I rather like some of the artwork and created artifacts, but the actual stories don’t grab me. Charles Stross isn’t a fan, either:

I am becoming annoyed by the current glut of Steampunk that is being foisted on the SF-reading public via the likes of Tor.com and io9.

It’s not that I actively dislike steampunk, and indeed I have fond memories of the likes of K. W. Jeter’s “Infernal Devices”, Tim Powers’ “The Anubis Gates”, the works of James Blaylock, and other features of the 1980s steampunk scene. I don’t have that much to say against the aesthetic and costumery other than, gosh, that must be rather hot and hard to perambulate in. (I will confess to being a big fan of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius.) It’s just that there’s too damn much of it about right now, and furthermore, it’s in danger of vanishing up its own arse due to second artist effect. (The first artist sees a landscape and paints what they see; the second artist sees the first artist’s work and paints that, instead of a real landscape.)

We’ve been at this point before with other sub-genres, with cyberpunk and, more recently, paranormal romance fang fuckers bodice rippers with vamp- Sparkly Vampyres in Lurve: it’s poised on the edge of over-exposure. Maybe it’s on its way to becoming a new sub-genre, or even a new shelf category in the bookstores. But in the meantime, it’s over-blown. The category is filling up with trashy, derivative junk and also with good authors who damn well ought to know better than to jump on a bandwagon. (Take it from one whose first novel got the ‘S’-word pinned on it — singularity — back when that was hot: if you’re lucky, your career will last long enough that you live to regret it.) Harumph, young folks today, get off my lawn ….

Are you ready for the scariest day of the year?

Filed under: Media, Randomness — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:20

Yep, I’m talking about Halloween, but not because it’s scary for the kids, it’s because it’s too scary for the parents:

Halloween is the day when America market-tests parental paranoia. If a new fear flies on Halloween, it’s probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too.

Take “stranger danger,” the classic Halloween horror. Even when I was a kid, back in the “Bewitched” and “Brady Bunch” costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties.

That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger’s Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)

October 23, 2010

Has Molly Norris become an un-person to the Society for Professional Journalists?

Filed under: Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:45

Matt Welch sees little positive effort and much bitchiness from one of the organizations that should have been front-and-centre to help Molly Norris:

On Sept. 15, it was announced that Molly Norris, the Seattle-based alt-weekly cartoonist who suggested, then eventually backed away from and repudiated, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” protest against Comedy Central censoring bits of a South Park episode, had gone into hiding with the FBI’s assistance so as to hopefully avoid being murdered by Islamic assassins. It was a dark, dark day for American journalism and the freedom of expression. On Sept. 20, the Washington Examiner newspaper wrote an editorial criticizing the professional journalism/free speech community for its comparative silence on the issue.

[. . .]

I don’t expect journalism organizations to share my priorities. But I do expect them to do more than raise an eyebrow when a cartoonist goes into hiding after being threatened with death, then act all bitchy when someone calls them out on it.

October 22, 2010

Ever hear the phrase “the camera never lies”?

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 16:11

With Photoshop and other image manipulation tools, still photographs have become less and less dependable for preserving “reality”. It’ll be very soon that video will be just as undependable, but in real time:

The effect is achieved by an image synthesizer that reduces the image quality, removes the object, and then increases the image quality back up. This all happens within 40 milliseconds, fast enough that the viewer doesn’t notice any delay. As the camera moves, the system maintains the illusion through tracking algorithms and guesswork. It does seem to be thwarted by reflections though; a cell phone removed from a bathroom counter is still visible in the mirror.

I don’t think the mirror is the limitation in the video: either it’s currently limited to a single point of “invisibility” or the operator forgot to highlight the reflection for the program.

H/T to John Turner for the link.

October 21, 2010

Biodiversity the new “climate change”?

Filed under: Environment, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:50

James Delingpole points to the successor to global warming/climate change as the cause of the decade:

And so it begins. With all the shamelessness of a Goldman Sachser trading in his middle-aged wife for a hot, pouting twentysomething called Ivanka, the green movement is ditching “Climate Change”. The newer, younger, sexier model’s name? Biodiversity.

When I say shameless, I’m talking so amoral it makes the Whore of Babylon look like Mother Theresa; so flagrant it makes Al Gore’s, ahem, alleged drunken “Love poodle” assault on the Portland Masseuse look like an especially delicate passage from Andreas Capellanus’s The Art of Courtly Love.

[. . .]

Suddenly it becomes clear why they kept Pachauri on at the IPCC. Because the IPCC simply doesn’t matter any more. Sure it will go on, churning out Assessment Report after Assessment Report, bringing pots of money to the usual gang of bent scientists prepared to act as lead authors. But the world’s mainstream media — especially all those environment correspondents who so lovingly transcribe the press releases of Greenpeace and the WWF as if they were holy writ — will have moved on, according to the dictates of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) fashionable crise du jour.

“Never mind ‘Climate Change’,” they’ll say to themselves. “Our readers and viewers aren’t really so into that now all the winters seem to have got so very cold. Biodiversity, that’s the thing.”

October 19, 2010

Got a transmedia “strategy”?

Filed under: Humour, Media, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:29

They’re all the rage these days. If you don’t have one, you can get a custom-crafted, up-to-the-microsecond strategy outlined for you at whatthefuckismytransmediastrategy.com, like this one:

As you can see, it makes at least as much sense as “real” strategies sometimes do.

H/T to Warren Ellis for the link.

October 18, 2010

Gaining votes by insulting the voters?

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:53

President Barack Obama has an odd way of campaigning for his party:

President Barack Obama said Americans’ “fear and frustration” is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.

“Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country’s scared.”

Obama told the several dozen donors that he was offering them his “view from the Oval Office.” He faulted the economic downturn for Americans’ inability to “think clearly” and said the burden is on Democrats “to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling.”

Blaming the voters for their economic worries isn’t quite the tone I’d expect him to set while trying to drum up support for his party’s candidates in the upcoming election. Perhaps Americans respond better to being insulted than Canadians would?

October 14, 2010

Nathan Fillion: Floral Gum fan

Filed under: Food, Media, Randomness — Nicholas @ 07:21

I knew I liked this guy for more than his dashing style:

Those horrid little Floral Gums are one of my few remaining vices from childhood. You can only get them at the occasional “British Tea Shop” kind of store, and only now and again. I always stock up on the addictive things when I have the chance.

October 13, 2010

Look what the UPS truck just dropped off

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 14:56

Next book on the reading list:

Lois McMaster Bujold's latest novel, Cryoburn

Update: I’m reminded that you can sample the first few chapters of Cryoburn at the Baen website.

“I just taught them a new game . . .”

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:28

H/T to Martina for the link.

October 12, 2010

Female characters in modern fiction

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:13

The Female Character Flowchart looks at “the one- and two-dimensional female characters we see over and over again in modern fiction.”


Click image to see full size flowchart

H/T to Royce McDaniels for the link.

Mitch Miller, drawing upon years of “men are simple/women are complicated” media memes, responded:

Wow! That’s a lot of female characters, considering that there’s only five male characters:

The Good Guy
The Bad Guy
The Good Bad Guy
The Bad Good Guy
and
The Sidekick

Terry Pratchett’s I Shall Wear Midnight

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media — Tags: — Nicholas @ 12:18

I’m being self-sacrificing, having sent my copy off with Victor when he went back to campus yesterday, so this review by Cory Doctorow just highlights what I’ll get to read in a couple of week’s time:

Terry Pratchett’s newly released I Shall Wear Midnight is the fourth volume in the Tiffany Aching books, about a young girl born to be the witch of a chalky, sheep-farming area called, simply, The Chalk (the other three volumes being Wee Free Men, Hatful of Sky and Wintersmith). Tiffany’s old gran was the “Wise Woman” of the hills, and her gifts came down to Tiffany, who, at the age of 7 or 8, began to need them — first to rescue the Baron’s son when he was kidnapped by the Queen of Faerie (Tiffany hit her with an iron frying pan) and then to learn proper magic while apprenticed to a real witch, and finally to kiss the Wintersmith during a morris dance, and then have to set the seasons to right.

In Midnight, Tiffany returns. Now she’s 16, and she has assumed all the burdens of being The Chalk’s witch — and they are burdensome — delivering the babies, salving the wounds, clipping the neglected old ladies’ toenails, changing the bandages, and using magic to take away the pain of the Baron, who is dying.

As if being thrust into an early maturity wasn’t enough, witchery has fallen into disrepute on The Chalk — and seemingly everywhere. There are old ladies being crushed and drowned by mobs, there are the whispers and the forked fingers to fight the evil eye when Tiffany passes, and then, when the Baron dies while Tiffany eases him into the next world, there is the wildfire rumor that Tiffany killed him.

This series is a wonderful read for both children and adults: Pratchett’s sense of humour and his touch of magical-but-real provide a great read for both audiences. Highly recommended, especially if you haven’t already become a fan of his main Discworld series.

October 9, 2010

“Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Environment, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:36

James Delingpole posts the most interesting resignation letter you’re likely to see this year:

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.

Anthony Watts describes it thus:

This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment.

Go read the whole thing.

I know what they meant to say

Filed under: Cancon, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:19

The original wording:

Then the corrected version:

I always wondered about “Christian Rock”

Filed under: Media, Religion, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:50

If Insane Clown Posse has now outed themselves as Christian rockers, does that mean that Pat Boone was actually recruiting for Satan?

Milwaukee. A bad and quite eerie part of town. This happens to be the very block where the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer murdered and ate 17 people in the 1980s. Now, from all around, thousands of young men and women, wearing scary clown face paint, are descending upon a disused indoor swimming pool that has been transformed into a music venue. They are juggalos, fans of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, the rap duo known as Insane Clown Posse.

At first glance, it might not be obvious why I’m so excited about meeting them. You might dismiss them as just unbelievably misogynist and aggressive, and it is true that their lyrics are indeed incredibly offensive.

[. . .]

ICP have been going for 20 years, always wearing clown make-up, which looks slightly lumpy because it’s painted over their goatees. They’ve been banned from performing in various cities where juggalos have been implicated in murders and gang violence. ICP have a fearsome reputation, fostered by news reports showing teenagers in juggalo T-shirts arrested for stabbing strangers and lyrics like “Barrels in your mouth/bullets to your head/The back of your neck’s all over the shed/Boomshacka boom chop chop bang.”

All of which makes Violent J’s recent announcement really quite astonishing: Insane Clown Posse have this entire time secretly been evangelical Christians. They’ve only been pretending to be brutal and sadistic to trick their fans into believing in God.

Did anyone ever guess that the next Great Awakening would be heralded by ICP?

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