Roll away the stone

Slash fiction falls victim to China’s latest crackdown on online porn:

tuulikki:

offbeatchina:

Every now and then, the Chinese government would declare war on the spread of porn on the Internet. They never succeeded, but they fight on nevertheless. Last Sunday, China launched yet another online raid, and this time it has a fancier name “Cleaning the Wed…

Happy Easter from Transit Maps!

(Bet you never thought I’d find an appropriate image for this!)

(Source: zhujianxun/Flickr)

Examples

• In Wikipedia, to insert a notable source to problem is a problem.

Link

spider-manofficial:

hindre:

leonkuwatas:

youreouttayourtree:

ladies dont start fights, but they can finish them.

that is a cat with a hairbow how is that relevant to the caption

Uncultured swine

Just to pull this out and give it its own post for emphasis.

So, apparently Larry Correia and Vox Day offered on their Web sites a slate of suggested nominees for several Hugo categories, and several of their suggested nominees hit the final ballot. This has made a number of people feel things ranging from annoyance to outrage, with the commensurate suggestion that, if such a thing is not illegal, then it’s at least just not done. So let me offer a couple of thoughts.

1. Does what these two fellows have done contravene the actual Hugo nomination rules? If they answer is “no” (and it does in fact appear to be “no”), then fair play. Game on.

2. As to the “it’s just not done” thing: Well, now it has. And as it’s been done, and it’s by all indications entirely legal, wasting time griping that it’s happened, with regards to this year’s voting, seems like frittering to me. Again: Game on.

3. But it’s also not entirely honest to say that it’s not been done before, either. Lots of people suggest or at least remind people of their own works for consideration (I do the latter); lots of people suggest or at least remind people of the works of others for consideration. Just this year I suggested Abagail Nussbaum for Fan Writer; there she is on the ballot. Was my recommendation causative? Maybe, maybe not (I suspect not — she’s built a reputation over a number of years), but the point is I made the recommendation.

The new wrinkle here would be Correia/Day allegedly exhorting a comprehensive slate of nominees for the purpose of annoying people they would like to annoy, rather than with regard to the quality of the works offered. I’m not sure that’s the whole story (From what I can see, I think the list was composed to highlight works these fellows found worthy, and also, as a bonus, they thought they’d annoy some folks in the bargain). But again, even if the least charitable interpretation holds, see point one and point two. You may see this as a cynical, contemptuous of the awards and the people who vote for them, and just a real dick move. But even if it were, eh. Yet again: this is the hand the Hugos are dealt this year. Let’s go ahead and play it.

4. More to the point for me, even if we were to grant that a slate of nominees was engineered to get on the ballot for the purposes of annoying some voters, and to make some obtuse point about politics and the Hugos, why should anyone be obliged to play along by those assertions? To paraphrase a point I made yesterday on Twitter, how terrible it would be if someone elbowed their way onto the Hugo list to make a political point, and all that happened was that their nominated work was judged solely by its artistic merits.

If work was shunted onto the list to make a political point and without regard to its quality, and it is crap, you’re going to know it when you read that work, and you should judge it accordingly. And if a work was shunted onto the list to make a political point and without regard to the quality, and it’s pretty good, you’re going to know that too — and you should judge it accordingly. If you believe that these fellows pushed their way onto the list to make a political point, nothing will annoy them more than for their work to be considered fairly. It undermines their entire point.

It doesn’t mean you give a work an award, if you find it lacking. But you treat it fairly. And yes, it’s entirely possible that in this formulation, anything less than a win will be seen by them as evidence of politics. But again: Why would you accede to such assertions? If their works win, good for them. If they lose, that’s life. Speaking as a six-time Hugo loser, who once lost a Hugo by a single vote, let me just say that when you’re a grown-up, you learn to accept you don’t get everything you want.

5. Please also keep in mind that even if you believe that the list is a cynical exercise, there are people and work on that list who may be well worth consideration, who may or may not have even known they were part of (or would have consented to) being part of a cynical exercise. Consider that you would be doing them (and the Hugos) a disservice to dismiss them out of hand. I’ve seen rumblings of people suggesting they’ll put everyone on the Correia/Day slate below “no award” no matter what, but if you’re doing that, you’re making these fellows’ alleged point for them. Again: Why do that? It’s nearly as easy to read a work (or at least, read as far as can) and decide it’s just not for you. And if it is for you, well. Surprise!

6. On a strictly personal note, at least one of these fellows apparently wishes to assert that the reason they’re introducing politics into the mix here is because I did it before them, i.e., that this is somehow really my fault. Well, no. One, just because this dude doesn’t like me, it doesn’t make me responsible for his actions. That’s the sort of “he made me do it” logic you give up when you’re twelve. Two, I’ve certainly made people aware of my work, and given space on my site to let others do the same; I’m not aware of ever having said “here’s a slate of people you should nominate for this award, including me.” Totally legal and no reason not to, if you think it’s something you want to do. Not something I would want to do, or have done.

But if the suggestion is that I’ve been strategic about getting onto the Hugo ballot at times, well. It would be disingenuous of me to suggest I haven’t. I have, and certainly I know that’s annoyed people before. But, oh well — and no matter what at the end of the day what I was on the ballot for had to face the other nominees in the category. Sometimes that work fared well, and I took home a Hugo. But I also have my share of fifth place finishes, too.

I think maybe this is why I’m less annoyed with the Correia/Day slate than others. If they’re on the ballot due to crafty strategy, well, good for them. A nice trick if you can manage it. But now they have to compete. I look who’s on the ballot with them, and this is what I have to say about that: Good luck, guys. You’re gonna need it.

7. Ultimately, here’s what I think about this year’s slate: It’s got some stuff on it I already know I like. It’s got some stuff on it that I already know I don’t like. And it’s got some stuff on it I haven’t read, so I’ll read it and decide what I think.

In other words; it’s a Hugo slate pretty much any Hugo slate in any year. I plan to treat it exactly like I treat any Hugo slate in any year. You might consider it, too.

 

Sometimes, a cat wants to go fishing. What does he fish for when he wants to go fishing? He fishes for cats, naturally.

Read more...

From the caves of memory to the castles of deception, by way of naughty neurotransmitters and giddy ganglia.

Scientists are only just beginning to understand how the brain works — from what transpires in it while we sleep to how to optimize its memory to what love does to it to how music affects it — and the rest of us fall somewhere on the spectrum between fascinated and confused when it comes to the intricate inner workings of our master-controller.

From British indie press Nobrow — who also brought us Freud’s graphic biography, those lovely illustrated chronicles of the Space Race and aviation, as well as Blexbolex’s magnificent No Man’s Land — comes Neurocomic (public library), a graphic novel about how the brain works. This remarkable collaboration between Dr. Hana Roš (and dog knows I love few things more than a female neuroscientist) and neuroscience-PhD-turned-illustrator Dr. Matteo Farinella, with support from the Wellcome Trust, explains the inner workings of the brain in delightful and illuminating black-and-white illustrations, covering everything from perception and hallucinations to memory and emotional recall to consciousness and the difference between the mind and the brain.

We take a stroll through a forest of neurons, then learn about neuroplasticity. (“This is the great power of the brain, it’s plastic!” they tell us in one of the most heartening and reassuring parts. “Once you learn something it is not set in stone, it’s continuously shaped by experience.”) We meet Pavlov and his famous studies of memory in 1897 Russia. We visit the haunting memory caves and the convoluted castles of deception.

This wonderful trailer for the film about the project, directed by Richard Wyllie, takes us behind the scenes of the duo’s marvelous collaboration and creative process:

Pair Neurocomic — which is gorgeous not only to behold but also to hold, bound in indigo fabric with silver-and-gold cover art — with the graphic biography of Charles Darwin, then dive deeper into the brain’s mysteries with the scientific riddle of left-handedness.

Images courtesy of Nobrow

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Here are the nominees this year!

1923 valid nominating ballots were received and counted from the members of LoneStarCon 3, Loncon 3 and Sasquan. (1889 Electronic  and 34 Paper.)

BEST NOVEL (1595 ballots)

• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
• Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)
• Parasite by Mira Grant (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
• Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (Baen Books)
• The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books)

BEST NOVELLA (847 ballots)

• The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
• “The Chaplain’s Legacy” by Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)
• “Equoid” by Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
• Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
• “Wakulla Springs” by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)

BEST NOVELETTE (728 ballots)

• “The Exchange Officers” by Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jan-Feb 2013)
• “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com / Tor.com, 09-2013)
• “Opera Vita Aeterna” by Vox Day (The Last Witchking, Marcher Lord Hinterlands)
• “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013)
• “The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam)

BEST SHORT STORY (865 ballots)

• “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine, Mar-2013)
• “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com, 04-2013)
• “Selkie Stories Are for Losers” by Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons, Jan-2013)
• “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)

Note: category has 4 nominees due to a 5% requirement under Section 3.8.5 of the WSFS constitution.

BEST RELATED WORK (752 ballots)

• Queers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the LGBTQ Fans Who Love It Edited by Sigrid Ellis & Michael Damian Thomas (Mad Norwegian Press)
• Speculative Fiction 2012: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary by Justin Landon & Jared Shurin (Jurassic London)
• “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative” by Kameron Hurley (A Dribble of Ink)
• Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer, with Jeremy Zerfoss (Abrams Image)
• Writing Excuses Season 8 by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Jordan Sanderson

BEST GRAPHIC STORY (552 ballots)

• Girl Genius, Volume 13: Agatha Heterodyne & The Sleeping City written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• “The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who” written by Paul Cornell, illustrated by Jimmy Broxton (Doctor Who Special 2013, IDW)
• The Meathouse Man adapted from the story by George R.R. Martin and illustrated by Raya Golden (Jet City Comics)
• Saga, Volume 2 written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics )
• “Time” by Randall Munroe (XKCD)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (LONG FORM) (995 ballots)

• Frozen screenplay by Jennifer Lee, directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee (Walt Disney Studios)
• Gravity written by Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Esperanto Filmoj; Heyday Films; Warner Bros.)
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire screenplay by Simon Beaufoy & Michael Arndt, directed by Francis Lawrence (Color Force; Lionsgate)
• Iron Man 3 screenplay by Drew Pearce & Shane Black, directed by Shane Black (Marvel Studios; DMG Entertainment; Paramount Pictures)
• Pacific Rim screenplay by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro, directed by Guillermo del Toro (Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros., Disney Double Dare You)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (SHORT FORM) (760 ballots)

• An Adventure in Space and Time written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Terry McDonough (BBC Television)
• Doctor Who: “The Day of the Doctor” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Television)
• Doctor Who: “The Name of the Doctor” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Saul Metzstein (BBC Televison)
• The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot written & directed by Peter Davison (BBC Television)
• Game of Thrones: “The Rains of Castamere” written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, directed by David Nutter (HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
• Orphan Black: “Variations under Domestication” written by Will Pascoe, directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions; Space / BBC America)

Note: category has 6 nominees due to a tie for 5th place.

BEST EDITOR – SHORT FORM (656 ballots)

• John Joseph Adams
• Neil Clarke
• Ellen Datlow
• Jonathan Strahan
• Sheila Williams

BEST EDITOR – LONG FORM (632 ballots)

• Ginjer Buchanan
• Sheila Gilbert
• Liz Gorinsky
• Lee Harris
• Toni Weisskopf

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST (624 ballots)

• Galen Dara
• Julie Dillon
• Daniel Dos Santos
• John Harris
• John Picacio
• Fiona Staples

Note: category has 6 nominees due to a tie for 5th place.

BEST SEMIPROZINE (411 ballots)

• Apex Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore, and Michael Damian Thomas
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
• Interzone edited by Andy Cox
• Lightspeed Magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, and Stefan Rudnicki
• Strange Horizons edited by Niall Harrison, Brit Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Sonya Taaffe, Abigail Nussbaum, Rebecca Cross, Anaea Lay, and Shane Gavin

BEST FANZINE (478 ballots)

• The Book Smugglers edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James
• A Dribble of Ink edited by Aidan Moher
• Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond
• Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J. Garcia, Lynda E. Rucker, Pete Young, Colin Harris, and Helen J. Montgomery
• Pornokitsch edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin

BEST FANCAST (396 ballots)

• The Coode Street Podcast Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
• Galactic Suburbia Podcast Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
• SF Signal Podcast Patrick Hester
• The Skiffy and Fanty Show Shaun Duke, Jen Zink, Julia Rios, Paul Weimer, David Annandale, Mike Underwood, and Stina Leicht
• Tea and Jeopardy Emma Newman
• Verity! Deborah Stanish, Erika Ensign, Katrina Griffiths, L.M. Myles, Lynne M. Thomas, and Tansy Rayner Roberts
• The Writer and the Critic Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Note: category has 7 nominees due to a tie for 5th place.

BEST FAN WRITER (521 ballots)

• Liz Bourke
• Kameron Hurley
• Foz Meadows
• Abigail Nussbaum
• Mark Oshiro

BEST FAN ARTIST (316 ballots)

• Brad W. Foster
• Mandie Manzano
• Spring Schoenhuth
• Steve Stiles
• Sarah Webb

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER (767 ballots)

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2012 or 2013, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).

• Wesley Chu
• Max Gladstone *
• Ramez Naam *
• Sofia Samatar *
• Benjanun Sriduangkaew

*Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.

Congrats to the nominees! I will have more comments on the slate later. Feel free to discuss the nominations in the comment thread.

	Courtney shared this story from Hacker News:
	Darius, a new toy

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Comments

Huginn. Your agents are standing by.

What is Huginn?

Huginn is a system for building agents that perform automated tasks for you online. They can read the web, watch for events, and take actions on your behalf. Huginn's Agents create and consume events, propagating them along a directed event flow graph. Think of it as Yahoo! Pipes plus IFTTT on your own server. You always know who has your data. You do.

We're just getting started, but here are some of the things that you can do with Huginn right now:

• Track the weather and get an email when it's going to rain (or snow) tomorrow ("Don't forget your umbrella!")
• List terms that you care about and receive emails when their occurrence on Twitter changes. (For example, want to know when something interesting has happened in the world of Machine Learning? Huginn will watch the term "machine learning" on Twitter and tell you when there is a large spike.)
• Watch for air travel deals
• Follow your project names on Twitter and get updates when people mention them
• Scrape websites and receive emails when they change
• Compose digest emails about things you care about to be sent at specific times of the day
• Track counts of high frequency events and send an SMS within moments when they spike, such as the term "san francisco emergency"
• Watch public transit
• Run arbitrary JavaScript Agents on the server
• Track your location over time
• Create Amazon Mechanical Turk workflows as the inputs, or outputs, of agents. ("Once a day, ask 5 people for a funny cat photo; send the results to 5 more people to be rated; send the top-rated photo to 5 people for a funny caption; send to 5 final people to rate for funniest caption; finally, post the best captioned photo on my blog.")

Follow @tectonic for updates as Huginn evolves, and join us in our IRC channel (#huginn on Freenode) to discuss the project.

We need your help!

Want to help with Huginn? Try tackling issues tagged with #help-wanted.

Examples

Please checkout the Huginn Introductory Screencast!

And now, some example screenshots. Below them are instructions to get you started.

Getting Started

Quick Start

If you just want to play around, you can simply clone this repository, then perform the following steps:

• Copy .env.example to .env (cp .env.example .env) and edit .env, at least updating the APP_SECRET_TOKEN variable.
• Run rake db:create, rake db:migrate, and then rake db:seed to create a development MySQL database with some example seed data.
• Run foreman start, visit http://localhost:3000/, and login with the username of admin and the password of password.
• Setup some Agents!

Note: by default, emails are not sent in the development Rails environment, which is what you just setup. If you'd like to enable emails when playing with Huginn locally, edit config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries in config/environments/development.rb.

If you need more detailed instructions, see the Novice setup guide.

Real Start

Follow these instructions if you wish to deploy your own version of Huginn or contribute back to the project. Github doesn't make it easy to work with private forks of public repositories, so I recommend that you follow the following steps:

• Make a public fork of Huginn. If you can't create private Github repositories, you can skip the steps below. Just follow the Quick Start steps above and make pull requests when you want to contribute a patch.
• Make a private, empty Github repository called huginn-private

• Duplicate your public fork into your new private repository (via Github's instructions):

  git clone --bare git@github.com:you/huginn.git
  cd huginn.git
  git push --mirror git@github.com:you/huginn-private.git
  cd .. && rm -rf huginn.git
  

• Checkout your new private repository.

• Add your Huginn public fork as a remote to your new private repository (huginn-private):

  git remote add public git@github.com:you/huginn.git
  

• Run the steps from Quick Start above to configure your copy of Huginn.

• When you want to contribute patches, do a remote push from your private repository to your public fork of the relevant commits, then make a pull request to this repository.

Deployment

Please see the Huginn Wiki for detailed deployment strategies for different providers.

Optional Setup

Enable the WeatherAgent

In order to use the WeatherAgent you need an API key with Wunderground. Signup for one and then change value of api_key: your-key in your seeded WeatherAgent.

Logging your location to the UserLocationAgent

You can use Post Location on your iPhone to post your location to an instance of the UserLocationAgent. Make a new one to see instructions.

Enable DelayedJobWeb for handy delayed_job monitoring and control

• Edit config.ru, uncomment the DelayedJobWeb section, and change the DelayedJobWeb username and password.
• Uncomment match "/delayed_job" => DelayedJobWeb, :anchor => false in config/routes.rb.
• Uncomment gem "delayed_job_web" in Gemfile and run bundle.

Disable SSL

We assume your deployment will run over SSL. This is a very good idea! However, if you wish to turn this off, you'll probably need to edit config/initializers/devise.rb and modify the line containing config.rememberable_options = { :secure => true }. You will also need to edit config/environments/production.rb and modify the value of config.force_ssl.

License

Huginn is provided under the MIT License.

Community

Huginn has its own IRC channel on freenode: #huginn. Some of us are hanging out there, come and say hello.

Contribution

Huginn is a work in progress and is hopefully just getting started. Please get involved! You can add new Agents, expand the Wiki, or help us simplify and strengthen the Agent API or core application.

Please fork, add specs, and send pull requests!

Comments

Military blogger CDR Salamander is perplexed by the breathless news coverage of the Navy's effort to turn seawater into fuel. Not only is the story two years old, there are lots of unanswered questions, such as the power requirements to make it happen, and what the EPA will say about the unspecified chemical leftovers.

Read more...

He is one of THE poster children for problematic writers.

I love the Cthulhu mythos, I love the dread, and the many, many stunning and powerful things he created. I am a fan of all that stuff and it shows up in my work all the time.

But the guy was a virulent  racist even beyond the norms of the day, and anti-Semite, and had weird ideas about women. I know he married a Jewish woman and I know he softened some of his views at the end of his life, but I don’t understand the people who try to cover up this stuff. The man was a stone cold racist and it’s all over his work.

It’s one thing to allow for commonly-held beliefs of the day, even if they are repugnant. It’s another to try to justify this stuff.

So I often end up enjoying the Cthulhu work of other writers more than Lovecraft himself.

Most of the discussion of pay for federal employees in recent months and years has been about insufficient or non-existent raises, pay gaps and budget shortfalls. Not all feds are making out so poorly, however.

The whole “artist formerly known as Prince” / “I’m a symbol, not a name” silliness started because Prince was unhappy with Warner Bros. Records, the label that had released all of his classic albums, from 1978 until his eventual release nearly 20 years later. Prince made no secret of his anger with the label, publicly fighting with them, appearing with the word “slave” on his cheek, and releasing a bunch of half-baked music in order to fulfill his contract more quickly. It led to this: “The first step I have taken toward the ultimate goal of emancipation from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to the Love Symbol. Prince is the name that my mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music that ...

At Google, Talking To Coworkers Can Get You Fired:

cognitivedissonance:

dennisnsantana:

averyterrible:

taylorswifthecreator:

Here’s the story, according to Wilson: outside of regular Googlers and the occasional contractors, there are a number of workers, who are hired to digitze books for Google’s massive Books effort to scan and put online every book. These workers are identified by yellow badges, start at 4am, have their own building and have none of the privileges of regular Googlers (the awesome cafeteria, the shuttles, etc) or even contractors like Wilson. Apparently, these workers even have an instruction on the back of their badges to talk to a manager if anyone tries to talk to them.

Anyway Wilson, who is “interested in issues of class, race, and labor”, noticing these peculiar employees filing out of the building at the same time every day (and noticing that they’re apparently all of color…), asks (and gets) an ok from his manager to film them and go talk to them out of general curiosity.

Since these workers are not allowed to talk to other people, cue a general freakout by Google and by the company employing Wilson (who fear that Google will cut them off if their employees go around doing stuff like that). Long story short, despite apologizing profusely and promising not to do it again, Wilson gets fired.

The guy made a short film about it here

http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/WorkersGoogleplex.html

our technofuture

cant wait for eric schmidt and justine tunney to save america

Whoa.

sticksstonesandherringbones:

Cooper the Frog here…

…

This is the fourth installment in what is (apparently) an ongoing Muppets/Twin Peaks mash-up series.

You can find the previous installments HERE, HERE, and HERE.

This brings me such joy.

hodad

#dartmouth

Female full professors at Dartmouth make, on average, 82.8 percent of what their male colleagues earn, giving Dartmouth the largest gap in annual wages for full professors in the Ivy League.

Original Source

submitted by CosmicGame [link] [comment]

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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You thought SpaceX's Grasshopper was impressive? Grasshopper was just the beginning. Behold, the first flight test of the company's Falcon 9 Reusable Launch Vehicle.

Because, I have them!

* Nope, I’m not on the ballot this year. It will happen. As I won the best novel Hugo last year, I am perfectly fine with that. It’s nice to spread around the joy.

* I think it’s an interesting slate this year: Lots of stuff to like, a few things to puzzle over, and as always lots of fodder for discussion. On the novel ballot it’s particularly interesting to see Wheel of Time (the complete series) there — it’s a quirk of the Hugo rules that if any individual book of a series hasn’t been nominated, the entire series can be. So here we are with the whole series. Quirky Hugo rules are fun.

* I just know you’re all dying to know what I think of Vox Day’s nomination in the Novelette category. I think this: One, I haven’t read the story in question, so I can’t possibly comment on it. Two, the Hugo nomination process is pretty straightforward — people nominate a work in a category. If it gets enough votes, it’s a nominee. If the work’s on the ballot, it’s because enough nominators wanted it there. Three, the Hugo rules don’t say that a racist, sexist, homophobic dipshit can’t be nominated for a Hugo — nor should they, because in that particular category at least, it’s about the work, not the person.

In sum: Vox Day has every right (so far as I know, and as far as you know, too) to be on the ballot. You may not like it, or may wish to intimate that the work in question doesn’t deserve to be on the ballot, but you should remember what “deserve” means in the context of Hugo (i.e., that the nominators follow the rules while nominating), and just deal with it like the grown up you are.

* Apropos of nothing in particular, however, I will note that in every category it is possible to rank a nominated work below “No Award” if, after reading the work in question and giving it fair and serious consideration, you decide that it doesn’t deserve to be on the ballot and, say, that its presence on the ballot is basically a stunt by a bunch of nominators who were more interested in trolling the awards than anything else. Just a thing for you to keep in mind when voting time rolls around.

* Also, remember when I said that one of the drawbacks of announcing the Hugo Awards on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter was that it means that the stories the media will pick up on during the week will be the outraged reactions? Yeah, this is very likely to be another year that it works that way, I think.

* On a related note, and to get out ahead of what I suspect will be a talking point, I think people may wish to suggest that aside from Vox Day there are other writers on the Hugo ballot who are there more for political and/or trolling purposes than for the quality of the nominated work, and in particular writers who are known to be more on the politically conservative side of things.

Here’s what I have to say about that: You know what? Don’t do that. Instead, take a look at the work, read the work, and if you like the work, place it appropriately on your ballot. Because why shouldn’t you? Regardless of how a work got on the ballot (or more accurately in this case, how you think it got onto the ballot), it’s there now. Read the books and stories. If you like them, great. If you don’t, there’s plenty of other excellent work on the ballot for your consideration.

Let me put it this way: In the last year, Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen have teed up on me several times in blog posts and comments, for their own various reasons. They don’t have my politics or my world view in a lot of things. But I’m looking forward to reading their nominated works, and if one of them really catches my fancy, and I don’t see why I wouldn’t vote for it. Correia and Torgersen disagreeing with me or trying to score points off of me for their own purposes isn’t really enough to dissuade me from giving their work a fair shake. It’s a pretty simple thing as far as I’m concerned. Your mileage may vary, of course. But this is my mileage.

* I noted on Twitter that I was delighted that yet again the Fan Writer Hugo category will have a new winner this year — no one nominated this year has won it before. It really does make me happy this has been the path of this particular Hugo category.

Aaaaaand those are my immediate Hugo thoughts. Your thoughts on my thoughts?

Update: No, the Hugo nominations were not rigged.

unitedstatesofweird:

therothwoman:

penice:

I was expecting Who Let the Dogs Out or something like that but oh my god this is so much better.

This is more amusing than it should be.