The Raven

The Raven

  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    The WSFS Business Meeting is usually thinly attended because it's at the convention, one has to attend physically, and one has to get up early -- not so easy at a con. In any event, matters are usually routine, so...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    No-one knows how to run a global virtual town meeting with thousands of potential participants. I wonder even if existing software can accommodate that. Maybe WSFS needs to figure that out -- SF is supposed to be about the future,...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    I think an organized group accustomed to making the kind of deals where one needs to count ones fingers after shaking hands could put one over on most unprepared people and organizations. As our host observes, these people had a...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    I'm starting to think of the organization of WSFS as something rather like the landing system of the Curiosity rover. To people who didn't work on the project, it looks crazy, but it was the best the engineering team could...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    Late thoughts: one of the criticisms of the Marks Committee is fundamentally anti-democratic. The Marks Committee may not overrule the site selection voters. It also strikes me that this is less a "Worldcon goes to China" problem then a "company...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    I hope you're right. I've interacted with some of those people and they've got big axes they want to grind. I was and am astonished by the hostility WSFS and the Hugos arouse. I think this may also further entrench...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    The sharks have tasted blood, now, and will want more. Whether this is sufficient to spike legal action against the Marks Committee I don't know....
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    Thinking it over, this isn't even a particularly Chinese problem, though the opacity of the Chinese system contributed. Any sufficiently well-heeled organization could have attempted this – it's just that for 80 years no-one tried....
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    There is also the loss of community. Worldcon is uniquely the world convention of, at least, English-using fans and writers of science fiction. Nothing else holds quite the same place. If Worldcon and the Hugos can survive at all, I...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    You called it, Charlie. Robert J Sawyer, who was at the Tianwen (gods, I've learned to spell it) Program kick-off event, weighs in: I had zero -- absolutely zero, none whatsoever, nada, zilch, nil -- involvement with the planning, development,...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    You're welcome. I hope things aren't as dire as they appear. BTW, thanks for providing Markdown support. Maybe Mastodon mainline will eventually adopt it, too....
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    So we have an explanation. ​Investment deals valued at approximately 8 billion yuan ($1.09 billion) were signed during the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last week at its inaugural industrial development summit, marking significant...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    Part of the problem is that, if the lawyers currently attacking Worldcon are correct, there is no way to run Worldcon with the sort of informal controls that have been used in the past without huge exposure to liability. The...
  • Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
    Seen on Bluesky: "If you tell Bing's AI search assistant that it is repeatedly giving an incorrect answer to a question, it considers that rude and cuts you off." – @effinbirds.com Joy, joy....
  • Commented on I can't even
    Prop. 13 was written by Paul Gann to protect LA landlords from tax increases....
  • Commented on I can't even
    You missed you should’ve called his post “Anarchy in the UK.”...
  • Commented on I can't even
    As I asked before, "Is there no-one the country might rally behind? Anyone? Leaders of vision and courage are now needed - are there any who might emerge?" Put it another way, can anyone think of any group, any faction,...
  • Commented on London Bridge
    I don't think a republic, in the 18th-century sense of a state governed wisely by disinterested people, as advocated the Stoic social critics of Rome (Cicero, Cato), has ever been anything that existed in history for very long. Democracy, with...
  • Commented on The gathering crisis
    oh, noes! Cue the revolution! Peace, prosperity, and beer!...
  • Commented on Chicon 8 schedule
    See you there, I hope!...
  • Commented on The gathering crisis
    Well, they could let the Scots run the UK. They seem to know what they're doing. No? Is there no-one the country might rally behind? Anyone? Leaders of vision and courage are now needed - are there any who might...
  • Commented on Roe v Wade v Sanity
    Second Amendment, baby! (Charlie, this may turn into a threadjack. If it does, feel free to delete it. But I've studied this, and I'd like to share my knowledge. There is also a bit of Scottish history in it.) The...
  • Commented on Roe v Wade v Sanity
    "If this ruling stands I expect there will in due course be an American Savita Halappanavar case." There has already been a near one, in Washington State, where 40% of the hospitals are run by the Roman Catholic church. A...
  • Commented on Bad news day
    Ironically, the US Conservative Political Action Committee is having its big do today through Sunday. They are divided and confused on Ukraine, and seem to have decided not to have more of the fight in public, see Laura Jadeed https://twitter.com/LauraJedeed/status/1496850594262392833?s=20&t=6cQzVWUowKlEEhJS2iIhdQ....
  • Commented on Oh, 2022!
    And then there's the question of the ability of the decaying US infrastructure to support a massive increase in electricity demand. And where does all that electricity come from, anyway? I am deeply cynical of the US ability to come...
  • Commented on Oh, 2022!
    One vaccine possibility I see you haven’t mentioned: a more effective malaria vaccine. Now there’s a basis for Afrofuturist stories!...
  • Commented on Starship bloopers
    "A rip-roaring yarn about shuffling papers in a soulless bureaucracy." wasn't that The Star Beast? And one the major characters of that story was African, most likely Black, though I don't think that was stated in the text. (Not likely...
  • Commented on Starship bloopers
    "It's glaringly obvious that the real threat to democracy in the USA today emerged after the plutocrats discovered they could directly buy bread and circuses" and this was also so in Rome. Heinlein did some decent historical research, but he...
  • Commented on Books I Will Not Write #8: The Year of the Conspiracy
    Slightly OT: did you see my "Robots Discover Mental Vulnerability in Humanity" post? "So the engagement algorithms of YouTube, Twitter, and, above all, Facebook find the versions of the Q story that provide the most fear and anger and, above...
  • Commented on Sucker bet (a thought experiment)
    I think at least some faction of the "ruling class" subscribes to your plan. Disgusting, isn't it?...
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