I always thought the whole "amateur" thing was a crock even when I was a kid competing in track. At the Olympic games, you want EVERYONE from EVERY country able to compete. Why block anyone? Oooh, hey, the best players are professionals, so let's keep them out. Wouldn't want the best here, would we?
And in the US, and other places, the gatekeepers deciding who was pro and who wasn't were evil trolls. The Soviets sent their professional atheletes while US atheletes had to fight little ticky-tack offenses. Legal loopholes grew, and were exploited.
Now, while I think there is a problem with doping, the anti-doping agencies are tyrannical and rage roughshod over the innocent and the guilty alike. It isn't always a case of "the innocent have nothing to fear." Would-be Olympic athletes, in order to be safe, should never ever travel and never ever take any medicine of any sort under any circumstances. Our best are reduced to third-worlders.
This is their rules. This does not necessarily correspond to various national law. Do they really sign binding NDAs to be in the Olympics? Is THAT legal?
The IOC needs a few more scandals I think...
Go ahead and name him already! I don't know why people shy away from naming people when providing factual information. Say it, and don't make the less informed (like me) guess.
In fiction, you can write any damn thing you want. For hard sf, it should be plausible, and that's it. That doesn't mean you have to slavishly follow what other sf writers do. Write an interesting, thoughtful story you believe in and that's all that's necessary. I don't sell as well as Stross or Doctorow, so maybe I should pay attention, but I personally don't think that the so-called "singularity" holds water. I hope it does, for my own sake, but religous, governmental, and technological impediments provide serious obstacles. I'm not blinded, dammit! I'm a creative individual! I am not number 6!
And please, keep in mind, a lot of what Hubble points at, and NASA funds, is decided by peer review, that is, other scientists. We make decisions based on good science, not sexiness. Hey, I mean, look at your average scientist. What do you think we're doing?
No, StealthX20, we DON'T have ground-based telescopes that can do the things that Hubble can do. The no brainer is the ultraviolet, which cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere. There are more tasks, that depend on high-spatial resolution, that some ground-based telescopes can approach, but not match, at least not in all respects.
The astronomical community would like to keep Hubble operating until its replacement is launched, but without a servicing mission that is unlikely, and hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on new instruments to increase Hubble's capacity. That money will be wasted.
O'Keefe seems a straight up administrator/beauracrat without any vision. Goldin, who surely had flaws, was a man of great vision who saw the US and NASA making fantastic discoveries and developing new technology. I have a lot of respect for Goldin.
If NASA wanted to keep their astronauts perfectly safe, they would ground them all permanently. There is risk in the space game, and you deal with it, or don't. (One of my old professors from Rice, Jeffrey Wisoff, is an astronaut know and has previously service Hubble -- go Jeff!)
Hubble is really super, and don't go spouting off on how it sucks, or is impaired, or how it should be replaced...It is the best thing going for now, and the last 14 years, and it won't be replaced for several more years. I've still got a few Hubble projects I still want to do, and preamture failure might mean I won't get to do them, and I *can't* do them from the ground. It was never clear that a Hubble servicing mission was all that dangerous in the first place, probably not as dangerous as two ISS missions, for instance. I hate to see a new administrator come in and make the sort of unilateral decison(at least he didn't solicit astronomers!) especially someone who isn't a real scientist.
I think Stephen King is a great example here. Most of his books read similarly, good to great, with rich characters and interesting interior monologues. His ideas and plots kind of suck, objectively. I mean, killer cars, killer clowns, killer aliens, etc. Movies made from his books run the gamut from terrible to great. The ones that just lift his plots tend to be terrible. The ones that lean on the characters are super (e.g., Stand by Me, the Shawshank Redemption).
I have to agree with this, a little, even though I collect royalties off sales of my own book. A paperback at $7 doesn't seem like a lot to me, but who wants to spend $25 on a hardback copy of a first novel? My publisher, Tor, does the hardback for all their novels, even first novels, trusting that reviews and word of mouth will help sell the paperback. Trade paperbacks, however, at about $13 or $14, have great profit margins and seem to sell quite well. My book has been skunked in sales by some first-time authors with TPBs and worse reviews. But hey, I've sold, I'm making some money and building a readership, so I can't complain.
Perhaps the better elephant metaphor is the famous one about the blind men. One feels the tusk, one feels the tail, one feels the ears, etc. It's impossible for any one of them to know what the elephant is, and requires all of them to get together before they can get a clue. If you watch a movie of a book, you're only going to get the view of one of the blind men.
I remember reading Philip Jose Farmer's THE LAVALIGHT WORLD when I was in 4th grade or so. That was the first place I learned that you could safely drink your own urine. Come now, what movie is going to teach me that? And if there is a movie that teaches that, I don't know that I'd want to see it.
At the same time, TV I think has a slowing effect. We have a national, even international medium, that standardizes English for the first time ever. In London, for instance, people from different neighborhoods are identifiable by their dialect. We have that in the US to a lesser extent, but having the same newscasters in everyone's home every night has to have a stabilizing effect. Which one will win out? I think the stabilizers will, but at the same time have seen internet communities adopt new terminology with lightning speed. It's an interesting experiment we're playing out.
This is an interesting phenomenon. When Prince and others started writing in stupid English (e.g., Nothing Compares 2 U") I ignored it, but with the masses using IM and posting places like/., it is becoming more common. I'm tempted to write an entire sf novel using that kind of writing. It'd be faster for me to do, and an easy way to pad the word count. Novels are long, damn it, and this would help a little. Crazy? Illiterate? Perhaps. Honest about the path we're headed down? Go play a multi-user online RPG and get back to me...
This is counting novels and "literature." Internet blogs,/., WWDN, fark, etc., do not count in the survey. Science fiction magazine circulations have dropped through the floor in the last ten years, losing out in the ever expanding competition. As a writer, I see this as a bad thing, but as a reader and consumer, my options are just getting better and better.
OK then, buy my sci-fi novel, STAR DRAGON, and support a fellow/. member. If you don't have time, buy it as a gift. It got great reviews, but it isn't selling much better than the average first sci-fi novel. It's in the lull now between the hardcover and paperback, so if you go to amazon.com you can pick it up remaindered for just a few dollars. Trying to be shameless here. I'm told it helps more than it hurts. I'm finishing up my second novel this weekend, and am procrastinating here tonight. Another 8k words to go, maybe 10k...
I'm writing an NSF Career grant that is due this month, and for a major part of the education/outreach section, I'm pitching a science fiction writing workshop, this one specifically aimed at increasing the quality of the science in the science fiction. I first learned about special relativity from Haldeman's FOREVER WAR, tidal forces from Larry Niven's "Neutron Star," etc., and reading is literature and more.
You have gotten a lot of good suggestions -- very much like the list I would have suggested had I spotted the thread earlier. At the risk of sounding too self-promoting, try my first novel STAR DRAGON. Vinge told me he'd be willing to look at my new novel (which I should be working on tonight) and give me a cover blurb if he liked it.
And he's a hell of a nice guy. Bright, but anassuming. Had dinner with him and some other sf writers last fall. He told an anecdote about he'd been at a party with Arthur C. Clarke just before 2001 hit theaters, and he decided to try to give Clarke a hard time, saying something to the effect of, "So, you took a ten page short story [The Sentinel] and stretched it out in an entire novel and movie script?" Clarke handled the accusatory question well, and replied, "Quite." For completeness, I'll add that David Brin was at the dinner too and his novel KILN PEOPLE deals with pervasive sensors, as does a non-fiction book (the title escapes me at the moment).
I used to play high school chess (hey, I was the cool one on the team...really!). There was this kid we called "The Zapper." He had cerbreal palsy and most people, the first time they saw him, respected him for working against his physical limitations and competing like anyone else. And he wasn't that bad for his age. But...he was a terrible loser! He would literally throw hissy fits and knock the pieces all over the table, the floor, where ever, when he lost, and yell out obscure threats. He was one of these people who used his condition as an excuse to be a big baby whiner, and I found it quite shocking. It helped me see past handicaps to the people beyond, good and bad. Good people come in all shapes and sizes, and so do bad people.
As a teenage chess player, I had long hair and listened to loud, hard rock and metal on my walkman, but I would play really boring, solid moves. I got a draw off Boris Spassky in an exhibition once playing the Caro-Kann. My friend played a double King Pawn and lost in 5 hours in a wild King's Gambit game, the last game going. I kind of wish I'd played more aggresively now, although I cherished the draw for many years and had a calculus test to study for.
No, not really taking a day off, just letting myself have a very short vacation! I'm making good progress on the new novel, doing nearly 1500 words a day, but really need to do 2000 words a day to finish on the schedule I want. I have a NASA proposal due next week, too, so I can't really take time off the day job, either, not if I want a shot at the $600k I'm requesting.
My novel Star Dragon is full of biotech and "bodmods" -- as an issue of individual choice for the most part. I have some sample chapters up on my website and some of the things I do with it are clear in the very first scene.
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I always thought the whole "amateur" thing was a crock even when I was a kid competing in track. At the Olympic games, you want EVERYONE from EVERY country able to compete. Why block anyone? Oooh, hey, the best players are professionals, so let's keep them out. Wouldn't want the best here, would we? And in the US, and other places, the gatekeepers deciding who was pro and who wasn't were evil trolls. The Soviets sent their professional atheletes while US atheletes had to fight little ticky-tack offenses. Legal loopholes grew, and were exploited. Now, while I think there is a problem with doping, the anti-doping agencies are tyrannical and rage roughshod over the innocent and the guilty alike. It isn't always a case of "the innocent have nothing to fear." Would-be Olympic athletes, in order to be safe, should never ever travel and never ever take any medicine of any sort under any circumstances. Our best are reduced to third-worlders.
This is their rules. This does not necessarily correspond to various national law. Do they really sign binding NDAs to be in the Olympics? Is THAT legal? The IOC needs a few more scandals I think...
Go ahead and name him already! I don't know why people shy away from naming people when providing factual information. Say it, and don't make the less informed (like me) guess.
That's a "sad group of *gaping* assholes."
The IOC is shooting themselves in the foot here, killing excitement, stifling voices, etc. They're incredibley stupid!
In fiction, you can write any damn thing you want. For hard sf, it should be plausible, and that's it. That doesn't mean you have to slavishly follow what other sf writers do. Write an interesting, thoughtful story you believe in and that's all that's necessary. I don't sell as well as Stross or Doctorow, so maybe I should pay attention, but I personally don't think that the so-called "singularity" holds water. I hope it does, for my own sake, but religous, governmental, and technological impediments provide serious obstacles. I'm not blinded, dammit! I'm a creative individual! I am not number 6!
And please, keep in mind, a lot of what Hubble points at, and NASA funds, is decided by peer review, that is, other scientists. We make decisions based on good science, not sexiness. Hey, I mean, look at your average scientist. What do you think we're doing?
No, StealthX20, we DON'T have ground-based telescopes that can do the things that Hubble can do. The no brainer is the ultraviolet, which cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere. There are more tasks, that depend on high-spatial resolution, that some ground-based telescopes can approach, but not match, at least not in all respects. The astronomical community would like to keep Hubble operating until its replacement is launched, but without a servicing mission that is unlikely, and hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on new instruments to increase Hubble's capacity. That money will be wasted.
O'Keefe seems a straight up administrator/beauracrat without any vision. Goldin, who surely had flaws, was a man of great vision who saw the US and NASA making fantastic discoveries and developing new technology. I have a lot of respect for Goldin.
If NASA wanted to keep their astronauts perfectly safe, they would ground them all permanently. There is risk in the space game, and you deal with it, or don't. (One of my old professors from Rice, Jeffrey Wisoff, is an astronaut know and has previously service Hubble -- go Jeff!)
Hubble is really super, and don't go spouting off on how it sucks, or is impaired, or how it should be replaced...It is the best thing going for now, and the last 14 years, and it won't be replaced for several more years. I've still got a few Hubble projects I still want to do, and preamture failure might mean I won't get to do them, and I *can't* do them from the ground. It was never clear that a Hubble servicing mission was all that dangerous in the first place, probably not as dangerous as two ISS missions, for instance. I hate to see a new administrator come in and make the sort of unilateral decison(at least he didn't solicit astronomers!) especially someone who isn't a real scientist.
I think Stephen King is a great example here. Most of his books read similarly, good to great, with rich characters and interesting interior monologues. His ideas and plots kind of suck, objectively. I mean, killer cars, killer clowns, killer aliens, etc. Movies made from his books run the gamut from terrible to great. The ones that just lift his plots tend to be terrible. The ones that lean on the characters are super (e.g., Stand by Me, the Shawshank Redemption).
I have to agree with this, a little, even though I collect royalties off sales of my own book. A paperback at $7 doesn't seem like a lot to me, but who wants to spend $25 on a hardback copy of a first novel? My publisher, Tor, does the hardback for all their novels, even first novels, trusting that reviews and word of mouth will help sell the paperback. Trade paperbacks, however, at about $13 or $14, have great profit margins and seem to sell quite well. My book has been skunked in sales by some first-time authors with TPBs and worse reviews. But hey, I've sold, I'm making some money and building a readership, so I can't complain.
Perhaps the better elephant metaphor is the famous one about the blind men. One feels the tusk, one feels the tail, one feels the ears, etc. It's impossible for any one of them to know what the elephant is, and requires all of them to get together before they can get a clue. If you watch a movie of a book, you're only going to get the view of one of the blind men.
I remember reading Philip Jose Farmer's THE LAVALIGHT WORLD when I was in 4th grade or so. That was the first place I learned that you could safely drink your own urine. Come now, what movie is going to teach me that? And if there is a movie that teaches that, I don't know that I'd want to see it.
At the same time, TV I think has a slowing effect. We have a national, even international medium, that standardizes English for the first time ever. In London, for instance, people from different neighborhoods are identifiable by their dialect. We have that in the US to a lesser extent, but having the same newscasters in everyone's home every night has to have a stabilizing effect. Which one will win out? I think the stabilizers will, but at the same time have seen internet communities adopt new terminology with lightning speed. It's an interesting experiment we're playing out.
This is an interesting phenomenon. When Prince and others started writing in stupid English (e.g., Nothing Compares 2 U") I ignored it, but with the masses using IM and posting places like /., it is becoming more common. I'm tempted to write an entire sf novel using that kind of writing. It'd be faster for me to do, and an easy way to pad the word count. Novels are long, damn it, and this would help a little. Crazy? Illiterate? Perhaps. Honest about the path we're headed down? Go play a multi-user online RPG and get back to me...
This is counting novels and "literature." Internet blogs, /., WWDN, fark, etc., do not count in the survey. Science fiction magazine circulations have dropped through the floor in the last ten years, losing out in the ever expanding competition. As a writer, I see this as a bad thing, but as a reader and consumer, my options are just getting better and better.
OK then, buy my sci-fi novel, STAR DRAGON, and support a fellow /. member. If you don't have time, buy it as a gift. It got great reviews, but it isn't selling much better than the average first sci-fi novel. It's in the lull now between the hardcover and paperback, so if you go to amazon.com you can pick it up remaindered for just a few dollars. Trying to be shameless here. I'm told it helps more than it hurts. I'm finishing up my second novel this weekend, and am procrastinating here tonight. Another 8k words to go, maybe 10k...
I'm writing an NSF Career grant that is due this month, and for a major part of the education/outreach section, I'm pitching a science fiction writing workshop, this one specifically aimed at increasing the quality of the science in the science fiction. I first learned about special relativity from Haldeman's FOREVER WAR, tidal forces from Larry Niven's "Neutron Star," etc., and reading is literature and more.
You have gotten a lot of good suggestions -- very much like the list I would have suggested had I spotted the thread earlier. At the risk of sounding too self-promoting, try my first novel STAR DRAGON. Vinge told me he'd be willing to look at my new novel (which I should be working on tonight) and give me a cover blurb if he liked it.
And he's a hell of a nice guy. Bright, but anassuming. Had dinner with him and some other sf writers last fall. He told an anecdote about he'd been at a party with Arthur C. Clarke just before 2001 hit theaters, and he decided to try to give Clarke a hard time, saying something to the effect of, "So, you took a ten page short story [The Sentinel] and stretched it out in an entire novel and movie script?" Clarke handled the accusatory question well, and replied, "Quite." For completeness, I'll add that David Brin was at the dinner too and his novel KILN PEOPLE deals with pervasive sensors, as does a non-fiction book (the title escapes me at the moment).
I used to play high school chess (hey, I was the cool one on the team...really!). There was this kid we called "The Zapper." He had cerbreal palsy and most people, the first time they saw him, respected him for working against his physical limitations and competing like anyone else. And he wasn't that bad for his age. But...he was a terrible loser! He would literally throw hissy fits and knock the pieces all over the table, the floor, where ever, when he lost, and yell out obscure threats. He was one of these people who used his condition as an excuse to be a big baby whiner, and I found it quite shocking. It helped me see past handicaps to the people beyond, good and bad. Good people come in all shapes and sizes, and so do bad people.
As a teenage chess player, I had long hair and listened to loud, hard rock and metal on my walkman, but I would play really boring, solid moves. I got a draw off Boris Spassky in an exhibition once playing the Caro-Kann. My friend played a double King Pawn and lost in 5 hours in a wild King's Gambit game, the last game going. I kind of wish I'd played more aggresively now, although I cherished the draw for many years and had a calculus test to study for.
You're right -- Manplus is a great novel looking at just this issue. Is Pohl's novel still in print? I haven't read it since college in the mid-1980s.
No, not really taking a day off, just letting myself have a very short vacation! I'm making good progress on the new novel, doing nearly 1500 words a day, but really need to do 2000 words a day to finish on the schedule I want. I have a NASA proposal due next week, too, so I can't really take time off the day job, either, not if I want a shot at the $600k I'm requesting.
My novel Star Dragon is full of biotech and "bodmods" -- as an issue of individual choice for the most part. I have some sample chapters up on my website and some of the things I do with it are clear in the very first scene.