In the wake of one of John C. Wright’s Hugo-nominated stories being disqualified for the ballot because it was previously published on his Web site, howls of bitter indignancy have arisen from the Puppy quarters, on the basis that Old Man’s War, a book I serialized here on Whatever in 2002, qualified for the Hugo ballot in 2006 (it did not win). The gist of the whining is that if my work can be thought of as previously unpublished, why not Mr. Wright’s? Also, this is further evidence that the Hugos are one big conspiracy apparently designed to promote the socially acceptable, i.e., me specifically, whilst putting down the true and pure sons of science fiction (i.e., the Puppies).

So: thoughts.

1. The first irony is that Old Man’s War actually wasn’t originally on the 2006 Best Novel Hugo ballot at all; it finished sixth in the nomination tally. It ascended to the ballot when Neil Gaiman, who I did not know at the time (and who was almost certainly entirely unaware of my existence, or that I had placed sixth in the nomination tally), declined a Best Novel nomination for Anansi Boys. Neil (who I do know now), explained later that he’d felt he’d won his share of Hugos at the time and imagined the nomination would be better served helping someone else. He was correct about that. The point is that if you buy into the conspiracy theory of Old Man’s War being on the ballot, you have to believe that the conspiracy somehow convinced/forced Neil Gaiman to decline his nomination strictly for my benefit. Which is some conspiracy!

2. The second irony is that at the time, based purely on the content of Old Man’s War, to the extent that fandom presumed to guess my personal politics at all, much of it assumed that I was a US conservative. Hey, not everyone reads my blog. So the idea that I was on the ballot because of some ideological nod is, well, suspect at best.

3. It was no big secret in 2006 that Old Man’s War had been serialized on my blog prior to publication, so it seems doubtful to me the Hugo people were entirely unaware of its provenance. To the extent that it was discussed at all between me and other folks, to the best of my recollection at the time, there was the feeling that serializing on the blog did not, in itself, constitute publication (interestingly, I thought that it was Agent to the Stars, also published in 2005, that might be more of a tricky sell for the ballot, as you can see here).

4. Aside from my notification of the nomination, I had no contact with the Hugo Award committee of that year prior to the actual Worldcon, nor could I tell you off the top of my head who was on the committee. It doesn’t appear that anyone at the time was concerned about whether OMW being serialized here constituted publication. Simply put, it didn’t seem to be an issue, or at the very least, no one told me if it were. Again, if this was a conspiracy to get me on the ballot, it lacked one very important conspirator: Me.

5. So why would OMW’s appearance on a Web site in 2002 not constitute publication, but Mr. Wright’s story’s appearance on a Web site in 2013 constitute publication? There could be many reasons, including conspiracy, but I think the more likely and rather pedestrian reason is that more than a decade separates 2002 and 2013. In that decade the publishing landscape has changed significantly. In 2002 there was no Kindle, no Nook, no tablet or smart phone; there was no significant and simple commerce channel for independent publication; and there was not, apparently, a widespread understanding that self-publishing, in whatever form, constituted formal publication for the purposes of the Hugo Awards. 2013 is not 2002; 2015, when Mr. Wright’s story was nominated, is not 2006, when OMW was nominated.

I don’t think it’s all that difficult to conceptualize that major changes in culture can significantly alter the perception of what is legitimate and what is not; after all, in 2002, no state in the US allowed for same-sex marriage, whereas in 2015 the majority do, and it’s very likely by the end of the year that all will. The recognition of web publication as formal publication for the purposes of science fiction awards is not exactly a greater cultural shift than that, I would propose. No conspiracy required.

6. But it’s not faaaaaaiiirrrr, waaaaaaaaaaaah. Well, one: Life is not fair, so gut up, children. Two, it’s the Hugo adminstrators’ call to make, and they made it, so again, put on your big kid pants and just deal with it. If this year’s Hugos have a theme, it is of people just having to deal with shit they don’t like. I’m not sure why the Puppies feel they should be special snowflakes in this regard. The good news for Mr. Wright is that Hugo voters are not left bereft of chances to enjoy his Hugo-nominated prose, as he is still on the ballot a prodigious five times.

7. What would I have done in 2006 if I had been disqualified from the Hugo ballot because OMW had been serialized on my Web site? I imagine I would have been very gravely disappointed and would have probably groused privately and possibly even publicly. Then I imagine I would have put on my own big kid pants and dealt with it. Because here’s a home truth: No one is owed a Hugo award, or a Hugo nomination. If you start thinking you are, you’re the problem, not the Hugos, their administrators, or anyone else who might have ever been nominated, or even been awarded, one of the rockets.

---

Link

---

Related to today's Bucks Review, James I. Bowie takes a look at the trend of NBA teams using their sport's ball in their logos more than other teams in other leagues.

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

#ortbergshares

• Women only love men with CROOKED SMILES, a man who smiles with his mouth all in a straight line might as well be DEAD; a male smile should resemble nothing on earth so much as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Lombard Street, a lightning bolt, a scarecrow with a broken neck, or two palm trees leaning against each other to form a big “X”
• Most women cannot distinguish between the feeling of “love” and what happens when a young male has floppy hair that falls over his eyes; truly lovable men have eyes hidden so deeply behind a cascade of floppy chestnut hair they are effectively blind
• Men are most attractive when they have at least one but no more than three minor cosmetic flaws (scar on chin, slightly chipped tooth, poor), like Chip the cup from the cartoon version of Beauty and the Beast
• A woman can forgive a man for anything, except for having freckles or a weak chin
• 100% of women want to have sex with a man who embodies the fox version of Robin Hood from the cartoon Robin Hood, but most do not actually want to have sex with a fox or a man dressed as one
• It’s not enough to have a lot of hair falling in your eyes; men must be constantly tugging at their own hair in exasperation or at the very least running their hands through it as they think carefully about art or something
• Men should have a TON of money but not care about it for even a SECOND, he should literally forget he even has money, he should whisk you away on a helicopter and then when you try to tip the pilot in cash he’s like “what are those weird little flat green dudes in your wallet?” because he doesn’t care about money at all even though he has so much of it
• Women love it when a man seems gay and mean but is actually straight and nice, or at least he wants to be nice, or at least he wants to be nice to one person and that person is you, and instead of straight he’s gay 98% of the time but he’s super-mega-straight for you, and nobody knows what bisexuality is
• Someone understood him once but then she died
• It’s really good when a man could hurt you and maybe spends a lot of time hurting other people but makes an exception in his hurting-people schedule for at least one woman he doesn’t hurt, but he could if he wanted to, only he doesn’t, so it would be great if he murdered everybody except for you and didn’t murder you even a little bit
• Just this pretty much
• If he’s normally so powerful that he could destroy you but he’s in the hospital or prison or something or just tied to a bunch of cabins in the woods maybe and you have to bring him mush and he’s totally dependent on you and he hates it and reminds you of how much he hates it but there’s not even anything he can do about it and he has to rely on you and maybe trust again for the first time in his whole entire life, that’s good
• Whenever possible, a man should have a cruel mouth, particularly if he has blue eyes – the bluer the eyes, the crueler the mouth; a man with cornflower-blue eyes should have a mouth like a genocide
• If he can’t have a cruel mouth, he should have strong and callused hands, sort of rough but surprisingly gentle, like if it turned out his hands were actually made of doves, and he should be sort of dim but incredibly dedicated to you, he should be so dumb he can’t remember fractions but every day he builds you a four-poster sleigh bed out of oak and devotion and needs to have wordless but noisy sex on the hour and also needs help signing his own name
• It’s good if a man is skittish and terrified of affection, like a beautiful horse that appears on the edge of a frozen lake one day and you have to tame it by bringing it a handful of food every day until it slowly comes to learn your scent (but with sex)
• like a mean professor who always wears powder-blue button-ups and has a little bit of chest hair that’s not too dark and he withholds praise from you constantly?
• His mother is just the worst and you’re nothing like her
• If a man is calm 100% of the time, like so calm that he’s mostly dead, and he only gets boners for his job, because he loves his job so much and he’s always sitting at a desk or standing with a phone doing his job, but then all of a sudden he can’t stop getting boners for one specific woman and he’s mad at her from how much she’s distracting him from his job, which has never happened before, because he’s literally never been attracted to even a single woman in the history of being alive in his own body until right now and he’s going to straight up murder you with sex because it turns out all that sedate studiousness he thought was his personality was actually the calm before the dick storm
• Sometimes women instead love it when men are little and sweaty and sleazy, like a sexual rat, idk
• That’s it I guess, that’s all I know

Original Source

submitted by antipex [link] [16 comments]

Aaron Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder which carries an automatic life sentence without parole.

Aaron Hernandez received an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole after he was found guilty of first-degree murder on Wednesday.

Per Massachusetts state law, there will be an automatic appeal for the first-degree murder charge. Judge E. Susan Garsh also tacked on additional sentences of three to five years for unlawful possession of a firearm and one year for unlawful possession of ammunition. Neither are the maximum sentence for those charges.

Hernandez, 25, will now face another trial in Boston for a double homocide that occurred in 2012. He was indicted in May 2014 for the killings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, but the trial was delayed because Hernandez's defense lawyers argued that they needed the time to focus on the charges for the murder of Olin Lloyd.

On Wednesday morning a jury found Hernandez guilty of two gun charges in addition to "extreme atrocity and cruelty" in the first-degree murder of Lloyd. By attaching the "extreme atrocity and cruelty" stipulation, the jury labeled the murder as one in the first-degree, despite not finding it to be premeditated. Defendants convicted of second-degree murder charges can be eligible for parole after 15 years in prison.

Hernandez played three seasons with the New England Patriots after he was selected in the fourth round of the 2010 NFL Draft. During his collegiate career with the Florida Gators, Hernandez won the 2009 John Mackey Award, recognizing the nation's top tight end, and entered the NFL Draft after his junior season.

An anonymous reader writes: There has been a lot of interest in the activities of the Church of Scientology recently, especially since the release of Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear. A petition against tax-exempt status for Scientology has been started on the U.S. White House petition website. If it receives more than 100,000 signatures, it will qualify for an official White House response. Even Slashdot has had its own run-ins with Scientology in the past — one of many internet sites to face legal threats from the Church. Has the time come for Scientology go "clear?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

McGruber writes: The CBS affiliate in Denver reports: "Two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers." According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he "gropes" male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA. "He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area." Although the TSA learned of the accusation on Nov. 18, 2014 via an anonymous tip from one of the agency's own employees, reports show that it would be nearly three months before anything was done."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

In this brand new map of the Ares Vallis region of Mars, released by the German space agency DLR, you can see the true differences in height between the high and low parts of our neighboring planet. The highest parts, expressed in red, are about 4000 meters (2.4 miles) above the lowest parts, in blue.

Read more...

The cat is named "Skeeter."

You may remember Matt Duffy from his awesome "DUFFMAN" bat stickers. But that's not important right now, because LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THIS FRIGGIN CAT:

Matt Duffy of the #SFGiants plays Call of Duty w/family cat Skeeter, his tactical field advisor. Photo by Tom Duffy. pic.twitter.com/mlX3nsJbrz

— Brad Mangin (@bradmangin) April 13, 2015

THAT CAT IS HALF THE SIZE OF A PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE.

It must be AWESOME at "Call of Duty."

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

---

ethiopienne:

bruh

The harebrained conspiracy, which highlights just how valuable the sneaker resale market can be, sounds like something out of a crime novel, involving subterfuge, a Florida pipeline, bags of cash, and an undercover sting.

retrogradeworks:

crucifigo:

hang-the-bastard:

ladywarblerforever:

hang-the-bastard:

sfveganyogi:

Maggie Menu

On the menu for Maggie tonight is puréed sweet potato, puréed brown rice, sprouted organic tofu, chia seeds, and digestive enzymes. Does she look excited? She is!

This dog does not look excited, this dog looks malnourished.

The diet you are feeding your dog places a huge burden entirely on the pancreas, forcing it to produce large amounts of amylase to deal with the starch, cellulose, and carbohydrates in plant matter. (yes, even with your supplements) The carnivore’s pancreas does not secrete cellulase to split the cellulose into glucose molecules, nor have dogs become efficient at digesting and assimilating and utilizing plant material as a source of high quality protein.

When this stuff sits in the pet’s intestine (yes even with your supplemented enzymes) it not only irritates the lining of the bowels but also provides the perfect warm, wet environment with plenty of undigested sugars and starches as food for bacteria.

I respect your choice in leading a vegan lifestyle, but please do not force this on your pet who does not recognize the difference, your dog absolutely needs a healthier diet or it is going to develop health issues and I guarantee you, will not live as long as it could otherwise.

side reminder that some dogs can have vegan meat and be completely nourished and content, loving and excited over their meals. See: Onision’s two dogs, Dobs and Leelu. Actually, his name is Greg. He, his wife Lainey, and their two dogs are all vegetarian, and both Dobs and Leelu thrive. They look very well nourished, are energetic, very loving towards both Greg and Lainey, and they are fed vegetarian foods. Do dogs and cats eat meat? Absolutely. With the right nourishments, can they live, thrive, and live a happy and healthy life without it? You bet your sweet ass they can. Stop bagging on this person for feeding this to their dog. I may advise offering meaty treats to your pet, perhaps chop some chicken or throw in some cooked red meat, but your dog seems very okay to me. The meat would be an added bonus that may please your pooch and also provide additional protein and minerals. He/She seems healthy to me, and also seems interested in the food you’re about to feed them. Do not let these people tell you that you’re abusing your dog. If you choose to continue their diet in this way, I would definitely look more into different kinds of treats that would help with the digestion more, though I don’t know too much in that area. Best of luck to both you and your puppy dog!

Hi hello you seem new to veterinary science and animal welfare in general so let me educate you on some topics that you are completely wrong about

1) “side reminder that some dogs can have vegan meat and be completely nourished and content, loving and excited over their meals.”

This is an assumption. The assumption that dogs are omnivores remains to be proven, whereas the truth about dogs being natural carnivores is very well-supported by the evidence available to us and is understood by many science welfare groups, universities, and doctors of veterinary science.

Dogs and wolves share 99.8% of their mitochondrial DNA, those who insist dogs did not descend from wolves must disprove the litany of scientific evidence that concludes wolves are the ancestors of dogs. And guess what? The wolf is a carnivore. Since a dog’s internal physiology does not differ from a wolf, dogs have the same physiological and nutritional needs as those carnivorous predators.

By stating otherwise you are ignoring and disregarding the work of contributing doctors, educators, and researchers who have compiled over 300 years of research and observations of the wild canine.

2) Do dogs and cats eat meat? Absolutely. With the right nourishments, can they live, thrive, and live a happy and healthy life without it?

No. But congratulations, you got one thing right, dogs and cats eat meat. Can they live a happy and healthy life without it? No they cannot. Cats and dogs health is largely dependent on the body’s ability to digest and make use of the food that is a part of their natural diet that is supplemented from meats. By creating a lack of naturally produced (meat, not supplements) protein in the body of the animal, you are putting your animals at risk for something called protein-losing enteropathy. Although this condition can affect any breed or age of dog, some dog breeds are more likely than others. That being said, feeding your dog and cat an all vegan or vegetarian diet and expecting them to thrive on it is a gamble at best.

There is an entire array of problems that can arise from a lack of natural protein. 

• Occasional bouts of diarrhea
• Chronic diarrhea
• Weight loss
• Lack of energy (lethargy)
• Difficulty breathing (dyspnea)
• Enlarged abdomen
• Legs and feet may be puffy or swollen (edema)

• Cancer in the intestines
• Infection in the intestines
  • Bacteria such as salmonella(from rotting plant material)
  • Fungal infection
  • Intestinal parasites like hookworms and whipworms
• Inflammation of the intestines (inflammatory bowel disease)
• Food Allergies
• Stomach or intestinal ulcers
• Congestive heart failure
• Problems with the movement of lymphatic fluid out of the intestines (lymphangiectasia)

3) “He/She seems healthy to me, and also seems interested in the food you’re about to feed them.”

Hey, wrong again. This dogs nose is dried out, it is almost a pale white pink, this is an indication of dehydration or something more serious. The eyes are not clear and bright as they should be, they are red and puffy around the edges, the lining of the eyelids should be pink rather than red. This dog also has a blank stare on its face, and the nose is not pointing at the food, this means the dog is uninterested and is a sign of lethargy. This dog is begging for this meal to be something nutritious. I work at a highly respected veterinary hospital and I see this more often than you would think, I know how to tell when a dog looks malnourished, and so would you if you worked and studied every day in the field of veterinary medicine.

Next time I hope you will take the initiative to educate yourself on these and other important topics on the care for your animal, before you preach something you have no idea about.

i am fucking amazed that they are so ignorantly devoted to their beliefs that they think that dog looks happy. that face is fucking miserable

Struck out the complete bullshit.

Removed a post. Threats of physical violence against real people aren't cool, please don't do them.

Bourton-on-the-Water, a village in Gloucestershire, has a model village you can walk through. The model village has a model model village. The model model village has a model model model village. And the model model model village has a model model model model village. They stopped before hitting the Matroyshka Limit.

The Cold War! A conflict immortalised in such action-packed movies as Rambo III, Red Dawn, Red Zone Cuba, and Rocky IV. But what about the real threat of the Cold War, the thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles pointed at the USA and USSR? ICBM [official site] is a free game which puts you – yes, you! – at the heart of the action.

Across four missions, you’ll be the one sat at the desk with the big red button, waiting patiently for orders to turn the key and unleash the end of the world. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

… [visit site to read more]

fozmeadows:

Larry Correia, 19.08.14:

“You ever notice that SJWs are always perpetually reminiscing about the wrongs they suffered in high school? Yes, you are a special snowflake, unique among all the snowflakes. How could the average gamer nerd attendee of GenCon possibly understand what it was like to be an AWKWARD TEENAGER?!”

Larry Correia, 09.04.15:

“Then I went to the award ceremony, and the parties, and the various schmoozefests, and I discovered that the Hugo Awards were like one great big In Joke. And the cool kids told their cool stories to the other cool kids, and lorded it over those who weren’t part of the In Joke. Honestly, it reminded me of high school, and I was the poor fat kid who had inadvertently pissed off the mean girls.”     

A white South Carolina police officer was charged with murder Tuesday in the weekend shooting death of a black motorist after a traffic stop.