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Tag Archives: Chris Chibnall
Pixel Scroll 12/7/19 Why Do Belters Wear Red Suspenders?
Posted on December 7, 2019 by Mike Glyer
(1) F&SF COVER REVEAL. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction's Jan/Feb 2020 cover art is by Max Bertolini.
(2) RECOMMENDATIONS. Andrew Liptak shares his list of "10 new science fiction and fantasy books to check out this December" at Polygon. Following his first choice, Gideon the Ninth —
…The second is Cixin Liu's Supernova Era. Liu is best-known for the epic novels The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End, which put Chinese science fiction on the map for US readers. This novel, which sees Earth's adult population wiped out after radiation from a supernova passes by, is about the young survivors as they work to rebuild human civilization once again. Like Liu's other novels, it's an ambitious, fun read that reminds me quite a bit of science fiction's classic eras.
(3) A FELINE UNIVERSE. All you students of worldbuilding probably already know this: "An Attempt to Answer All Your Questions About the Plot and Universe of Cats" at Vulture.
What the hell does "Jellicle" mean?
According to T.S. Eliot's widow Valerie Eliot (at least as described in Lloyd Webber's memoir), the word comes out of T.S.'s private joke about how the British upper class slurred the words "dear little cats" together to somehow make a sound like "Jellicle." Eliot also wrote about "Pollicle Dogs," based off the phrase "poor little dogs." There's a poem, "The Aweful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles" that gets ported into Cats, where the cats all dress up as dogs and make fun of them. This is frankly anti-dog, but what did you expect in Cats?
(4) NEW TESTAMENTS. "In the 2010s, The Handmaid's Tale Arrived Margaret Atwood on whether anything shocks her anymore." – The Vulture's Molly Young interview with Atwood includes this passage about fan tributes.
What, if anything, did you make of that?
My readers deal with those things. They notice them before I do. I expect that Kylie Jenner heard from some of them along the lines of "We appreciate the thought, but you kind of missed it." There were some themed tequila. People often do this in a very well-meaning way; they're not trying to be unpleasant. It has been the occasion when I've been speaking somewhere and I will be greeted with Handmaid's Tale cupcakes because the person doing the catering is such a fan. Will I turn up my nose at such cupcakes? No, I will not. I will not do that.
Will you eat the cupcake?
That depends on my relationship to sugar at the moment. If I were in a sugar-eating moment, I would certainly eat the cupcake. I have a collection of artifacts: I have LEGO handmaids and commanders made by the children of one of the publicists in London. I've got some knitted chickens from a pro-choice outfit in Texas that knits chickens for charity. She made me some themed knitted chickens. First one is called "the Henmaid's Tale." It has an outfit. I have a piece of honey-point embroidery done before the embroiderer had read The Testaments or even knew about it. It says F*CK AUNT LYDIA So there are these things that appear, and as far as I'm concerned, that's people playing in the sandbox. I'm happy to have people playing in the sandbox, although sometimes they get a little off, but that is to be expected. There are people right now writing military histories of Gilead, and I look forward to reading them because I'm not going to do that.
(5) NEW VANDERMEER. Arkady Martine for NPR concludes that "Clarity Isn't The Point In Confusing, Absorbing 'Dead Astronauts'".
Jeff Vandermeer's latest novel, Dead Astronauts, is a kaleidoscopic and fractured mosaic: In a long-changed, post-climate-apocalypse world, a trio of saboteurs — or escapees — or simply survivors — attempt over and over again to dismantle the work of the Company, an entity which may have once been a biotech corporation but now churns out broken and altered-beyond-recognition monstrosities in an endless stream. The three — who are the closest the reader gets to protagonists in the first half of the book — are only nominally human, and only nominally astronauts. Like nearly everything else Vandermeer has created in Dead Astronauts, they are allegories, figments, fables for a dissolving world where narrative and language are as subject to corruption as modified flesh.
Their leader is Grayson, an astronaut returned to Earth who can see futures and truths out of her blinded eye. With her are Chen, who sees the world in equations and probabilities, constantly on the verge of ego-dissolution into mathematics and emotional trauma; a man who might once have been a salamander, or many salamanders, but who definitely once worked intimately for the Company — and Moss, whom Grayson loves. Moss is sometimes a woman, sometimes a person — when she wants to be, for Grayson — and always a sentient moss, splittable into many selves, charged with (or choosing) to use herself to reseed the broken world with viable life.
(6) STARGIRL TEASER TRAILER. "The staff chose me, and I choose you."
Stargirl premieres Spring 2020 on DC Universe and The CW. Stargirl follows high school sophomore Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger), who inspires an unlikely group of young heroes to stop the villains of the past. The project reimagines Stargirl and the very first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, in a fun, exciting and unpredictable series
(7) STAY FROSTY. BBC's Sounds devotes a segment of CrowdSicence to the question: "Could humans hibernate during interstellar travel?"
Science fiction is full of people settling on distant planets. But even the closest stars would take millennia to reach with current speeds of travel, by the time any passengers reached an extra solar planet, they would be long dead.
So CrowdScience listener Balaji asked us to find out whether humans could hibernate for interstellar travel?
To uncover the science fact behind this idea, Anand Jagatia holds a tiny hibernating dormouse at the Wildwood Trust in Kent, and meets Dr Samuel Tisherman who puts his patients into suspended animation for a couple of hours, to save their lives after traumatic injuries that cause cardiac arrest. We ask if Dr Tisherman's research could be extended to put healthy individuals to sleep for much longer periods of time?
It's a question that neuroscientist, Professor Kelly Drew is studying, in Alaska Fairbanks. She uses Ground Squirrels as a model to understand internal thermostats, and how hibernating mammals manage to reduce their core temperatures to -3 degrees Celsius.
Anand speculates wildly with science fiction authors Adrian Tchaikovsky and Temi Oh whose characters in their books 'Children of Time' and 'Do You Dream of Terra Two?' traverse enormous distances between habitable planets.
But is human stasis something that would actually be useful? John Bradford is the director of SpaceWorks, this company works with NASA to try to investigate human hibernation for space travel. He's trying to make space-based human hibernation a reality, and it seems that may be closer than you'd think.
(8) DALEKS! Galactic Journey's Jessica Holmes keeps her TV tuned to vintage Doctor Who — [December 7, 1964] Panic On The Streets Of London (Doctor Who: THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH).
…Cue the montage! Daleks in Trafalgar Square! Daleks at the Albert Memorial! This is what location shooting is for. I don't care if the rest of the series takes place in my shed, it's worth it to see a Dalek surrounded by pigeons, further proving that Daleks are not the masters of Earth, because pigeons bow to no man, or alien pepperpot….
(9) FUTURE WHO. Meanwhile, in 2020…. Or it will be when this airs: "'Doctor Who' To Return With Biggest Episode Ever As Showrunner Chris Chibnall Shakes Up Sci-Fi Show" – Deadline has the story.
Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall… told Deadline that Jodie Whittaker's Tardis-travelling time lord will be thrown into action in a "movie-like" two-part curtain-raiser called Spyfall, which will premiere on BBC One and BBC America on January 1, 2020.
"Episode one is probably the biggest episode of Doctor Who we've done, or has been done, I would imagine. Physically, there's a lot of stunts, there's a lot of locations, it's a globe-trotting action thriller," he said. "But you don't want to lose sight of character and intimacy and emotion. You can't do everything at 11."
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
December 7, 1979 — Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered. Starring all of the expected suspects plus the now departed Indian model and actress Persis Khambatta, the film did very well but not well enough to not stop the studio from stripping Roddenberry of creative control of all things Trek. Reviewers and critics alike give it a 42% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
December 7, 1984 — 2019: After The Fall of New York premiered. This Italian film was directed by Sergio Martino in both the English and Italian versions. The film starred Michael Sopkiw and Anna Kanakis, and George Eastman. Wiki says it was influenced by Escape from New York. One critic noted that "Graphic scenes of rape and murder await the viewer, as well as rats, midgets, and subway-riding revolutionaries." Despite that, or because of it, it has a decent 59% rating among viewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
December 7, 1984 — 2010: The Year We Make Contact premiered. Written, produced, shot and directed by Peter Hyams. It's based off Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two, the sequel to the film. It starred Roy Scheider as Heywood Floyd, John Lithgow as Walter Curnow and Helen Mirren as Tanya Kirbuk. It would outgross both Dune and Starman who opened roughly when it did. And yes it won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation at Aussiecon Two beating out The Last Starfighter, Dune, Ghostbusters and The Search for Spock.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born December 7, 1915 — Eli Wallach. I've a fondness for anyone who appeared on the Sixties Batman series. He played Mr. Freeze in a two part story, the third actor to do as both George Sanders and Otto Preminger had done so in previous two part stories. He also had one-offs in Worlds Beyond, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Veritas: The Quest and Tales of the Unexpected. (Died 2014.)
Born December 7, 1923 — Johnny Duncan. Was the Sixties Batman the first Batman series? You know better. Johnny here was Robin on Batman And Robin (1949) for Columbia Pictures Corporation. It ran for fifteen episodes with roughly fifteen or so minutes apiece. Robert Lowery was Wayne / Batman. He has only one other genre appearance, an uncredited one in Plan 9 from Outer Space as Second Stretcher Bearer. (Died 2016.)
Born December 7, 1915 — Leigh Brackett. Surely her scripts for The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye are genre adjacent? Why not? Ok, then her very pulpy Sea-Kings of Mars is? Being rhetorical there. And I love her Eric John Stark stories! (Much of these were written with her husband Edmond Hamilton.) And yes, she completed her draft of The Empire Strikes Back just before she died. (Died 1978.)
Born December 7, 1945 — W.D. Richter, 74. As a screenwriter, he's given us Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Dracula, and one of my most loved films, Big Trouble In Little China. As a director, he gave us Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension, another of my most loved films. He's not getting love for the reboot of Big Trouble In Little China with Dwayne Johnson that he's apparently involved with. Grrrr!
Born December 7, 1947 — Wendy Padbury, 72. She's Zoe Heriot, a Companion to the Second Doctor. She first appears in "The Wheel in Space" where she is the librarian on board the Wheel. Big Finish has made use of her character rather well. Her only genre film was Cathy Vespers in The Blood on Satan's Claw (not to my to-be-viewed list), and she was regular cast member Sue Wheeler in the Freewheelers series which at least genre adjacent. Think Avengers only younger.
Born December 7, 1949 — Tom Waits, 70. He's got uncredited (but obviously known) roles in Wolfen and The Fisher King. He is in Bram Stoker's Dracula as R.M. Renfield, and he shows up in Mystery Men as Doc Heller and in Mr.Nick in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. He's simply Engineer in The Book of Eli.
Born December 7, 1959 — William John King, 60. Author who works exclusively in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 Universes. Now I've not read in that universe, but I discovered recently, well in the last few months I think, that Games Workshop actually has some forty shops around the US where you can buy their miniatures, get them painted and just hang out. They also sell some fiction, both hardcopy and audiobooks, all Warhammer of course. Neat?
Bliss shows there's no end of things alien visitors must keep in mind.
Frank and Ernest think that, a synonym for wimpy, "snowflakes" is an illogical choice.
(13) THE ORIGINALS. Profiles in History will hold an auction of rare original comicbook art on December 12, "Comic & Illustration Art the Property of a Distinguished American Collector". The entire catalogue is viewable online, or as a download.
(14) BIG BROTHER WASN'T WATCHING? Daring Fireball carries the phone maker's response to news linked in yesterday's Scroll: "Ultra Wideband Technology: Apple's Explanation for Why Newer iPhones Appear to Collect Location Data, Even When Location Services Are Disabled"…
…Nick Heer:
"This makes complete sense to me and appears to be nothing more than a mistake in not providing a toggle specifically for UWB. It seems that a risk of marketing a company as uniquely privacy-friendly is that any slip-up is magnified a hundredfold and treated as evidence that every tech company is basically the same."
It is totally fair to hold Apple to a higher standard on privacy than other companies. But Heer is exactly right: when they do make a mistake, it's going to be magnified. The mistake here wasn't that location data was leaked?—?including to Apple's own servers, apparently. The mistake was not making it clear in Settings that UWB requires location data for regulatory compliance. Most people don't even know what UWB is at this point.
(15) SOME RANDO. Tor.com's Andrew Liptak in "Ryan Reynolds Discovers He's an NPC in the First Trailer for Free Guy" explains it more clearly than the studio's synopsis, so let's go with Liptak. He begins —
Non-player characters (NPCs) are a staple of video games: the anonymous members of a crowd that make up the background of the story you're playing. At São Paulo's Comic Con Experience (CCXP) today, 20th Century Fox unveiled a first look at Free Guy, about such a character who realizes that the world he inhabits isn't what it seems.
(16) LOVE AMONG THE PENGUINS. I was never allowed to see Bruce Pelz' chart of the romantic entanglements of LASFS members, but I bet it looked something like this… "Japan's aquarium penguins lead complicated lives of feuding, love — and incest". CNN has the complete chart posted here.
…Such is the intrigue surrounding the sex lives of these black and white birds that, for the second year running, Kyoto Aquarium and Tokyo's Sumida Aquarium, have released a chart detailing the tangled love lines among them.
…Rozu (or Rose) was a pick-up artist and a penguinizer before meeting Warabi, formerly the most popular penguin in the aquarium.
After falling in love, the two are now in an exclusive relationship and "can't bear to leave each other's side for more than one second."
Then there's inter-species love.
The two Penguin Relationship Charts also reveal how the aquariums' caretakers are unwittingly pulled into the penguins' affairs of the heart.
Caretaker Nagaoka's friendship with penguin Hanabi has made Hanabi's wife Ichigo jealous, turning Nagaoka and Ichigo into enemies.
Chiyouchin is said to have "neverending love" for his caretaker Oshiro.
Caretaker Tanaka wants to befriend Kiriko, but Kiriko blows hot and cold — sometimes sulking with Tanaka for as long as 20 minutes.
(17) CONSENTACLE. "Consentacle is a board game about having consensual alien sex in space " – let SYFY Wire's "Fangrrls" explain:
… While we at SYFY FANGRRLS don't often talk about board games, we thought we would make an exception for this one, because it's about playing through a consensual female-focused alien encounter with some sexy tentacles, and if that's not our area of expertise, I don't know what is.
Consentacle is a co-operative board game set in space, where the whole aim is for players to communicate as best they can with a language barrier in place. One player takes on the role of a curious blue-haired human astronaut, while the other takes on the role of a sensitive and caring feminine tentacle-covered alien. Neither of your species shares a spoken language, and as such the players are not allowed to use words to communicate their plans during the game. Both players and characters establish consent, then attempt to fumble their way wordlessly through a sexy space encounter, keeping each other's needs and wants in mind.
Different acts between the pair will produce different "satisfaction" resource tokens, and the players have to work out what each other needs, and try to anticipate their plays, for mutual resource building in tandem. Each player has their own deck of cards, which have various effects when used solo or in combos, with some cards better used one-sided or in tandem….
[Thanks to Gordon Van Gelder, John Coxonn, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Liptak, Chip Hitchcock, Daniel Dern, Martin Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Fire Chief Daniel Dern.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll	| Tagged Andrew Liptak, Arkady Martine, auction, Chris Chibnall, Consentacle, Daleks, Doctor Who, F&SF, Gordon Van Gelder, Jeff VanderMeer, Margaret Atwood, Profiles in History, T.S. Eliot, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Pixel Scroll 10/11/18 My Pixels Touched Dog Pixels! Agh!
Posted on October 11, 2018 by Mike Glyer
(1) F&SF. Gordon Van Gelder shared F&SF's Nov/Dec 2018 issue cover:
(2) ISS CREW OKAY AFTER FAILED TAKEOFF. Astronauts bound for the ISS safely returned when their rocket failed soon after launch — "Space crew survives plunge to Earth after Russian rocket fails".
A Russian cosmonaut and a U.S. astronaut were safe on Thursday after a Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station failed in mid-air two minutes after liftoff in Kazakhstan, leading to a dramatic emergency landing.
The two-man crew, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American Nick Hague, landed unharmed on the Kazakh desert steppe as rescue crews raced to reach them, according to the U.S. space agency NASA and Russia's space agency Roscosmos.
The mishap occurred as the first and second stages of a Russian booster rocket separated shortly after the launch from Kazakhstan's Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur.
(3) WHALE OF A TALE. L.A. Smith has a fascinating writeup about this 8th century artifact — "The Franks Casket" – carved from whalebone.
…So, the pictures and inscriptions on the casket are a great source of scholarly discussion. To top it all off, there seems to also be some numerological significance to the number of runes on the casket. There are 72 runes on the front and left panels, and a total of 288 runes in total. The 72 could correspond to the 72 disciples mentioned in the Latin Vulgate Bible familiar to the Anglo-Saxons. The number 288 is a multiple of 24, which is the number of runes in an early continental Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, which had magical significance for the Anglo-Saxons.
Phew! No wonder many scholars have devoted so much time and effort on trying to decipher the runes and pictures on this little box. The more you look at it, the more you discover.
This beautiful box has so much to tell us about this fascinating period in England's history….
(4) ANIME TRIAGE. Petréa Mitchell reviews 15 anime series and approves many as the title of her Amazing Stories post hints — "Anime roundup 10/11/2018: Sturgeon Takes a Holiday". For example —
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime premiere – Satoru Mikami is a single geek who suddenly gets stabbed to death on a Tokyo street, only to find himself in a fantasy world, granted fabulous powers, and hobnobbing with a mighty dragon. Typical light-novel power fantasy, right? Well, there are a couple of catches. One is that he's been reborn as the weakest creature possible. The other concerns the visual presentation of the show itself.
When adapting a popular property, a show is expected to make a predictable amount of money off selling Blu-Rays and merchandise to hardcore fans. Since those fans will buy it no matter what, most shows like this have a look about them that the only minimum necessary effort was made. In this case, a similar calculation seems to have been made, only the conclusion was that those fans will still mindlessly purchase it if it turns into an art film.
This premiere is one visual treat after another, from the careful attention to detail in the movement and posture of people in modern Tokyo, to the trippy mixed-media imagery as Satoru falls into another reality, to the wild expressiveness wrung from a ball of goo. This still has some of the usual problems of light-novel adaptations— the protagonist is already ridiculously overpowered, too much game terminology, and a lot of time spent sitting around and talking— but between the unique twist and the look of this episode, it's actually enjoyable.
(5) FIRST MAN REVIEW. NPR's Linda Holmes reports that "'First Man' Considers Glory, Grief And A Famous Walk On The Moon":
…We encounter Armstrong at three points: 1961, leading up to the start of his training as an astronaut; 1965, just before his first space flight; and 1968, as he prepares to be the first person to walk on the moon. His family life progresses alongside his much more famous professional one: the loss of his two-year-old daughter from brain cancer, the grief that nearly consumes him after, the sacrifices that his service demands from his wife, Janet (Claire Foy), and his relationship with his two boys, to whom he hesitates to explain the dangers of space travel….
(6) WHAT WE LEARNED FROM WAR GAMES. The answer is: absolutely nothing. BBC reports "US weapons systems can be 'easily hacked'".
…The committee's members expressed concerns about how protected weapon systems were against cyber-attacks.
The report's main findings were:
the Pentagon did not change the default passwords on multiple weapons systems – and one changed password was guessed in nine seconds…
So, does the United States use its birthday as a password? – July41776….
(7) RIVERDALE RECAP. A public service message from Martin Morse Wooster:
For people who are wondering how much Riverdale is like Archie Comics, I offer the folllowing recap of last night's show.
Archie Andrews was found guilty of murder, but he was framed by Veronica's father. The underground offers to sneak him into Quebec but he decides to stay in Riverdale and take his punishment.
Veronica finds out where the jury in Archie's trial is sequestered and sneaks into the hotel in a maid's outfit but is thrown out before she can engage in jury tampering.
Betty is an Adderall addict and is stopped before she can fill a forged prescription.
But the gang still relaxes at Pop's Malt Shop!
Also, I learned that fans who want Betty and Jughead to have a relationship are known as "Bugheads."
(8) GLASS. M. Night Shyamalan's next picture, about tortured people with superpowers, will be released in the U.S. on January 18, 2019.
M. Night Shyamalan brings together the narratives of two of his standout originals—2000's Unbreakable, from Touchstone, and 2016's Split, from Universal—in one explosive, all-new comic-book thriller: Glass. From Unbreakable, Bruce Willis returns as David Dunn as does Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, known also by his pseudonym Mr. Glass. Joining from Split are James McAvoy, reprising his role as Kevin Wendell Crumb and the multiple identities who reside within, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke, the only captive to survive an encounter with The Beast. Following the conclusion of Split, Glass finds Dunn pursuing Crumb's superhuman figure of The Beast in a series of escalating encounters, while the shadowy presence of Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.
(9) TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]
Born October 11, 1922 – G.C. Edmondson (José Mario Garry Ordoñez Edmondson y Cotton), Author from Mexico who mostly wrote Westerns under several pen names – and, being fluent in six languages, he also did translations – but produced a number of science fiction works, many involving time travel and Latin America, including the Nebula Award-nominated The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream and its sequel, the trilogy The Cunningham Equations (co-written with C. M. Kotlan), and numerous short works in his Mad Friend universe.
Born October 11, 1928 – Doris Piserchia, 90, Author of more than a dozen of what multiple sources call "darkly comic novels", including her penultimate novel, I, Zombie which she published under the pseudonym Curt Selby, and a somewhat larger number of short fiction works. Because she had a story in The Last Dangerous Visions, she has been labelled New Wave by some who didn't do their research properly. Like most genre writers of the 70s and 80s, she has greatly benefited from digital publishing, with all of her backlist now republished in that format.
Born October 11, 1944 – Patrick Parrinder, 74, Writer and Critic from England who is one of the foremost experts on H. G. Wells, having written works specializing on that author subtitled Shadows of the Future, Science Fiction and Prophecy, and The Critical Heritage. Not to be mistaken as a one-trick pony, he's also penned Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching and Utopian Literature and Science.
Born October 11, 1944 – Julek Heller, 74, Artist and Illustrator from Jerusalem who emigrated to England, who did cover art for around 80 novels and more than 50 works of interior art, mostly in the 80s and 90s, including covers for works by Norton, Moorcock, Silverberg's Majipoor series, and several Mammoth Books. He also provided artwork for the 1978 TV series Pinocchio.
Born October 11, 1945 – Gay Haldeman, 73, Writer, Translator, and Member of First Fandom who has Masters degrees in Linguistics and Spanish. A fan and con-goer since 1963, she has contributed many letters, essays, and convention reports to genre and fannish publications, a fair number of them written in Spanish. She and her author husband Joe have been Guests of Honor at numerous conventions – including a relaxacon in Sydney, Australia named Haldecon – and she has been much in demand as a con Toastmaster. She and Joe were given the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award (NESFA's Skylark Award) in 1996.
Born October 11, 1950 – William R. Forstchen, 68, Writer and Historian, whose early novel series included Ice Prophet, Wars of Heaven, Gamestar Wars, and The Lost Regiment, and more recently the One Second After post-apocalyptic novels. Has also contributed novels to the Star Trek, Riftwar, and Wing Commander universes. He was Guest of Honor at InConJunction XIX.
Born October 11, 1953 – David Morse, 65, Actor, Writer, Singer, and Director, who has had main roles in the Hugo-nominated Twelve Monkeys, The Green Mile, The Boy, Double Vision, the Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge-inspired Passengers, and the Hugo-winning film adaptation of Carl Sagan's Locus-winning Contact, as well as parts in World War Z, Joe Hill's Horns, TV series Friday the 13th: The Series, Tales from the Crypt, SeaQuest DSV, Medium, and Blindspot, and the Stephen King miniseries The Langoliers.
Born October 11, 1962 – Joan Cusack, 56, Actor and Writer especially known for comedic roles, who had main parts in the Hugo-nominated Addams Family Values (for which she received a Saturn nomination), the film adaptation of David Gerrold's Hugo- and Nebula-winning The Martian Child, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and a plethora of voice roles in animated features including the Hugo-nominated Toy Story movies and TV specials, Chicken Little, and Mars Needs Moms.
Born October 11, 1965 – Lennie James, 53, Actor, Screenwriter, and Playwright from England who has had main roles in the genre TV series The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, and Jericho, and movie roles in Blade Runner 2049, Sahara, Lockout, and the (in JJ's opinion) vastly-underrated Lost in Space.
Born October 11, 1965 – Sean Patrick Flanery, 53, Actor who starred in the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and also had lead roles in the genre films Powder, Demon Hunter, The Insatiable, Veritas, Prince of Truth, InSight, The Devil's Carnival, and The Evil Within, and guest roles on Stargate: SG-1, The Twilight Zone, The Dead Zone, The Outer Limits, Charmed, and Touched by an Angel.
Born October 11, 1972 – Claudia Black, 46, Actor from Australia best known for her roles as Aeryn Sun on Farscape (for which she won a Saturn Award) and Vala Mal Doran on Stargate SG-1 (for which she won a Constellation Award, Canada's counterpart to the Saturn Award), who also appeared in the films Pitch Black and Queen of the Damned. Her first genre role was as Cassandra on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, followed by episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, Beastmaster, The Dresden Files and Haven, a recurring role on The Originals, and a main role on Containment. She has also provided character voices to animated films and TV series, and a very large number of videogames, including Uncharted, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Final Fantasy.
Born October 11, 1972 – Nir Yaniv, 46, Writer, Editor, Musician, and Fan from Israel who in 2000 founded the webzine of the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy and was its chief editor for seven years. He later edited several issues of Chalomot Be'aspamia, Israel's only professional printed science fiction and fantasy magazine. He co-authored with Lavie Tidhar the short novel The Tel Aviv Dossier, and has published a collection of his short fiction, The Love Machine and Other Contraptions; several of his stories have been translated into English by Tidhar. As a musician, he created the first Hebrew-language SF music-themed album, The Universe in a Pita, and more recently has begun writing and directing short films of strong genre interest.
Born October 11, 1974 – Ian Mond, 44, Writer, Critic, and Podcaster from Australia who has published a dozen of his own stories, plus a few Doctor Who stories. He was Tuckerized by fellow Australian and Doctor Who writer Kate Orman in the tie-in novel Blue Box. For eight years, he co-hosted with Kirstyn McDermott the Hugo-nominated and Ditmar-winning book podcast, The Writer and the Critic, and his reviews of genre fiction have garnered him two Atheling nominations. He started reviewing for Locus Online in June this year.
Born October 11, 1978 – Wes Chatham, 40, Actor best known for a main role in the Hugo-winning TV series The Expanse, as well as a role in the two-movie Hunger Games installment Mockinjay.
Born October 11, 1974 – Doona Bae, 34, Actor from South Korea whose most notable genre role has been as a lead in the TV series Sense8 but has also had roles in Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending, as well as several South Korean science fiction and horror films including The Ring Virus and The Host and the manga adaptation Air Doll.
Born October 11, 1985 – Michelle Trachtenberg, 33, Actor and Producer who started early in genre roles with a guest role on Space Cases at the age of 11 and a main role on Meego at the age of 12. At 14, she took on a main role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for which she received 3 Saturn nominations. Her other appearances include the films Inspector Gadget, Can't Be Heaven, Richie Rich's Christmas Wish, Black Christmas, 17 Again, and The Scribbler, and guest spots on the live-action and animated TV series Sleepy Hollow, Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Robot Chicken, The Super Hero Squad Show, SuperMansion, and Superman/Shazam. She currently has a starring voice role in the animated SF series Human Kind Of.
Aliens threaten to deprive Brewster Rockit of a seasonal necessity.
(11) FRANKENSTEIN. Sean O'Hara talks about how Mary Shelley's preface to the book was an attempt to whitewash her life — "The History of Frankenstein Part I: Lies, Damned Lies, and Mary Shelley's Preface to Frankenstein" —
Most of us are familiar with the tale of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein — how she and her husband Percy were on vacation in Switzerland and happened to be staying near Lord Byron, and on a dark and stormy night, after reading some German horror stories, they decided to have a contest to see who could write the scariest story. It all sounds so genteel. Something you'd see on Masterpiece Theater.
It's also pure BS.
Mary and her step-sister Claire were the Kardashians of the early 19th Century. And I don't mean they were wild by the standards of their day. They did things that would still make the front page of TMZ. If they were alive today, they'd be feuding with Beyonce and Taylor Swift, I guarantee it.
So where did the sanitized version of the story come from?
Why Mary Shelley herself….
— Then steps back to look at her mother, the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft: "The History of Frankenstein Part II: That Time the World's First Feminist Married the World's First Libertarian".
But their happiness was short lived. Wollstonecraft became pregnant at the end of 1796, and she and Godwin decided, despite their mutual misgivings about marriage, to wed so their child would be legitimate. But Wollstonecraft was by now thirty-eight, an age at which child birth became dangerous. Her daughter Mary was born safely, but Wollstonecraft contracted a postpartum infection and died a mere two weeks later, leaving her two daughters in the care of a forty year old man who had spent his entire life as a bachelor.
There are several more posts in this series at O'Hara's blog, Yes, We Have No Culottes.
(12) KIRBY YOUR ENTHUSIASM. Scott Bradfield recommends "Reading irresponsibly with Jack Kirby" at the LA Times.
Probably what I miss most in our perilous, terrifying and end-of-times-like historical era is the ability to read irresponsibly. There's just too much responsible reading around; it can drive you to drink. Everything we're supposed to read keeps looming up out of the darkness, bristling with portents, economic data, apocalyptic planetary crises and an endless urgent blizzard of news bulletins about tweets, personal liberties, gun violence and conflagrations both natural and metaphorical — all of which require more sober attention than most of us can muster. Increasingly (and understandably), reading has become a duty to be performed by conscientious citizens and students. And I'm sorry, but jeez, that just isn't right.
When I was young, reading irresponsibly was easy. I did it all the time. In fact, well into my late teens and early 20s I could easily lose myself in books and comics; it just came with the territory.
(13) WFA CONTENDER. Lela E. Buis sings the praises of a World Fantasy Award nominee: "Review of City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty".
…So, counter to the depressive trend in the WFA finalists this year, this is a romance and an intrigue. All these people are lying to each other, and political groups are plotting right and left. Daevabad is exotic, the details of the city life, the temples and the palace very well assembled. I didn't have any problems visualizing the people, the creatures or the scenery–the author has done a lot of research. The characters are slightly flat, but the story is more focused on the action and intrigue than on revealing their deepest inner thoughts. The reader is left to deduce a lot of what's going on from their actions….
(14) MURDER MOST 'BOT. And Buis gives five stars to the conclusion of the Murderbot series, but says it is not flawless – "Review of Exit Strategy by Martha Wells".
On the not so great side, I've got some nits to pick with the whole story arc at this point. I suspect the series was written fairly quickly, as Wells has said it's a short story that got out of control, and after the huge success of the first novella, she quickly got in gear to produce the rest. Tor was also in a hurry to follow up on the initial success, and went light on the editing. That means there are some inconsistencies in the content.
(15) CHIBNALL ON WHO. Showrunner Chris Chibnall discusses his new vision for Doctor Who.
(16) WHO PANEL AT NYCC. Here's the full Doctor Who panel from New York Comic-Con 2018, with Jodie Whittaker, Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens.
(17) THE NOSE KNOWS. io9's Germain Lussier is thrilled to hear that "The Most Disgusting Scenes in Star Wars Are Now Scented Candles".
Scents like "Trash Compactor," "Inside of a Tauntaun," "Rancor," and "Sarlacc Pit" are just some of the scents available in these new, officially licensed candles. There are some more pleasant sounding ones, too, like "Bantha Milk," "X-Wing Cockpit" and "Yoda's Cooking Pot"—as well as just plain weird ones like "Death Star Destroyed," "Millennium Falcon," "Han Solo Carbonite" and "Lightsaber Duel."
(18) AND SMALLER FLEAS TO BITE 'EM. Science Alert is sure "You'll Never Guess What Scientists Want to Call The Moon of a Moon".
Stars have planets, and planets have satellites we call moons; but can a moon have its own satellite? And if it did, what would we call it?
In a paper currently up on pre-print resource arXiv, astronomers Juna Kollmeier of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Sean Raymond of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux have called them submoons.
But other scientists are using the far more delightful term moonmoon, so that's what we're going to go for.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In La Futur Sera Chauve (The Bald Future) on Vimeo, Paul Cabon imagines how limited his life will be when he loses his hair.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Brian Z., JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll	| Tagged anime, Chris Chibnall, Doctor Who, F&SF, Frankenstein, Gordon Van Gelder, International Space Station, Jack Kirby, Lela E. Buis, Martin Morse Wooster, Mary Shelley, Petrea Mitchell, Riverdale, Sean O'Hara, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Pixel Scroll 9/19/18 Smells Like Teen Pixel
Posted on September 19, 2018 by Mike Glyer
(1) THE DOCTOR IS IN. Stylist got the Thirteenth Doctor to revisit social media about her casting: "Watch: Jodie Whittaker brilliantly responds to Twitter trolls".
Although the announcement regarding Whittaker being cast in the role was met with many sexist comments last year, the reaction, on the whole, has been a positive one.
"We live in a very unique time, people upload every moment to the internet so you can see the excitement and, in some instances, the fear people have," Whittaker said, in reference to reading reactions online. "But when you see those videos, from all different ages of all different people from all different worlds about a show – and I hadn't even done it yet – that's ace because, if they're accepting me into their family, what we want to do is make that family bigger."
Which is why Whittaker popped into the Stylist office to look back on the Twitter reactions from a year ago – the good and the bad.
When Jodie Whittaker's role on @bbcdoctorwho was announced, the internet had something to say about it. Here's her reaction to some of the best (and worst) responses… @bbcpress pic.twitter.com/ScMRlh37Ty
— Stylist Magazine (@StylistMagazine) September 19, 2018
(2) FISH TICKS. Ian Sales (brilliantly) nitpicks the science in the movie Meg in the service of a greater truth about sff storytelling — "The megalodon in the room".
…And yet… this is, I hear you say, completely irrelevant. It's a film about a giant fucking prehistoric shark. Which reached lengths of 18 metres (bigger in the this film). Why cavil about submarines and submersibles and depths and pressures when the film is about a giant fucking prehistoric shark? All those facts quoted above, they mean nothing because it's a film about a giant fucking prehistoric shark!
This is where we part company – myself, that is, and my imaginary critic(s) – because the megalodon, as the title of this post indicates, that's the central conceit. The story is its scaffolding. Science fiction tropes work the same way. They're either bolstered by the plot, or by exposition, or by the entire corpus of science fiction. Such as FTL. Or AI. Complete nonsense, both of them. But no one quibbles when they appear in a science fiction because the scaffolding for them has been built up over a century or more of genre publishing…
In every science fiction, we have a megalodon in the room. Sometimes it's the central conceit, sometimes it's what we have to tastefully ignore in order for the conceit not to destroy the reading experience. But that science fiction, that conceit, is embedded in a world, either of the author's invention or recognisably the reader's own….
(3) ROANHORSE. Paul Weimer's "Microreview [book]: Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse" at Nerds of a Feather makes me want to read the book —
…That's where Maggie Hoskie comes in. She's been trained as a monster hunter by the very best, but she is new to fighting monsters on her own. And it is in the fighting monsters on her own that she is drawn into a plot that will not only gain her a partner, but also uncover a threat to the entire world inside the walls and the people who live there. Can Maggie protect herself, and those around her, when she must also restain an even greater monster–herself? And just what DID happen to her old mentor, anyhow?
This is the central question at the heart of Rebecca Roanhorse's debut novel, Trail of Lightning.
There is plenty to love in Trail of Lighting, and Maggie as a main character is front and center the heart of the novel and she makes the novel sing….
(4) OKORAFOR AT EMMYS. As The Root sees it, "She Got That Glow: Writer Nnedi Okorafor Gets the Escort of a Lifetime to the 2018 Emmys".
When you're an emerging name in the realm of fantasy and science-fiction writing and your first novel is being adapted into a series by award-winning premium network HBO, there are few things better than being invited to the Emmys.
That is, of course, unless your escort for the evening is none other than network darling and best-selling author George R.R. Martin, whose Game of Thrones once again nailed the Outstanding Drama Series award (its 47th Emmy) at this year's ceremony—oh, and did we mention that Martin is executive producing your series, too?
This is exactly the dream writer Nnedi Okorafor was living on Monday night as she attended the Emmys alongside Martin, whom she says brought her with him for all of his red carpet interviews to promote the upcoming Who Fears Death, a post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story of a young North African woman, based on the Chibok, Nigeria schoolgirls who were kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram in 2014….
(5) LOOKING FOR HELP. Olav Rokne and a couple friends at the Hugo Awards Book Club started discussing about film adaptations of Hugo-shortlisted works. He says, "In the ensuing debate, we started compiling a list of various films and TV shows, which ended up being the seed for a blog post on the subject" — "Hollywood has a mixed history adapting Hugo-shortlisted works". For instance —
Flowers For Algernon is probably the Hugo-winning work that has been adapted most often. On top of various stage productions, there were four movies including one that won an Academy Award, a Tony-nominated musical, and a video game. Several of these adaptations — such as the 1968 movie Charly — seem to have been produced with an understanding of what made the original resonate with audiences.
Rokne hopes Filers will do more than just read the post: "Reason I'm sending this to you, is that I know that there are probably works that are missing from this list. We deliberately excluded Retro Hugo shortlists from the list, as well as adaptations of graphic stories. So this is just prose works from contemporaneous Hugo shortlists that have been adapted. Do you think you, or anyone in your File 770 community would know of movies or TV shows that my friends and I missed from this list?"
(6) STAR WARS MILITARY PAPERWORK. Angry Staff Officer shows what it would look like "If the Hoth Crash was an Air Force Investigation".
…The mishap aircraft was assigned to Rogue Squadron, assigned to the defenses of Hoth. The mishap crew consisted of a mishap pilot and mishap gunner, both assigned to Rogue Squadron. It was determined that the mishap gunner died instantly, and the mishap pilot was able to escape the Hoth system in an unassigned X-Wing.
The board president found clear and convincing evidence that the cause of the mishap was due to the pilot failing heed sound crew resource management (CRM) principles and ignoring repeated warnings from the mishap gunner regarding failed mission essential systems. Furthermore, the board found other causal factors relating to poor maintenance standards and practices, and contributing factors relating to unsound tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs)….
(7) QUIS CUSTODIET? BBC reports "IBM launches tool aimed at detecting AI bias".
IBM is launching a tool which will analyse how and why algorithms make decisions in real time.
The Fairness 360 Kit will also scan for signs of bias and recommend adjustments.
There is increasing concern that algorithms used by both tech giants and other firms are not always fair in their decision-making.
For example, in the past, image recognition systems have failed to identify non-white faces.
However, as they increasingly make automated decisions about a wide variety of issues such as policing, insurance and what information people see online, the implications of their recommendations become broader.
(8) GARBAGE COLLECTION. In space, no one can hear you clean — "RemoveDebris: UK satellite nets 'space junk'".
The short sequence shows a small, shoebox-sized object tumbling end over end about 6-8m in front of the University of Surrey spacecraft.
Suddenly, a bright web, fired from the satellite, comes into view. It extends outwards and smothers the box.
"It worked just as we hoped it would," said Prof Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre.
"The target was spinning like you would expect an uncooperative piece of junk to behave, but you can see clearly that the net captures it, and we're very happy with the way the experiment went."
(9) THE INSIDE STORY. BBC explores "Captain Marvel: Why Brie Larson's Carol Danvers is a Marvel game-changer".
Captain Marvel is the hero that Samuel L. Jackson, as Shield boss Nick Fury, called for help at the end of Avengers: Infinity War.
She's super strong, can fly, survive in space and project energy (among other things) making Carol Danvers to The Avengers what Superman is to Justice League: the big hitter.
"She's more powerful than, possibly, all The Avengers combined," says Claire Lim, a huge comic book fan and a presenter for BBC's The Social.
"It's important they're actually putting a female front and centre as a superhero powerful enough to beat this threat."
(10) BBC RADIO 4. SF Concatenation's Jonathan Cowie sends links to a pair of BBC radio highlights —
BBC Radio 4 religion program (British BBC not US bible belt take) Beyond Belief on the religious dimensions to Frankenstein.
Frankenstein, the tale of a scientist who creates a creature that ultimately destroyed him, has been a popular subject for films for many years. But the religious content of the original novel written by Mary Shelley is lost on the big screen. Her story centres on the scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who plays God. His creation identifies first with Adam and then with Satan in Paradise Lost. He has admirable human qualities but is deprived of love and affection and becomes brutalised. Joining Ernie Rea to discuss Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are Andrew Smith, Professor of Nineteenth Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield; Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Professor of English Literature at the University of the West of England; and Dr James Castell, Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University.
Also "Mark Carwardine on Douglas Adams".
"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, this is an interesting world I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, don't you think?"
Douglas Noel Adams wasn't even fifty when he died in 2001, but his imagination had already roamed far. He created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Meaning of Liff and several episodes of Doctor Who, plus the Dirk Gently character and Last Chance to See.
Nominating him is his co-writer on Last Chance to See, the zoologist Mark Carwardine. Mark's role, Adams said later, was to be the one who knew what he was talking about. "My role was to be an extremely ignorant non-zoologist to whom everything that happened would come as a complete surprise."
Joining Mark Carwardine and Matthew Parris in the bar where this was recorded is Douglas Adam's biographer, Jem Roberts. With archive of Stephen Fry, John Lloyd, Naomi Alderman, Griff Rhys Jones and Geoffrey Perkins.
September 19, 1964 — The Outer Limits first aired Harlan Ellison's "Soldier."
(12) TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS
Born September 19, 1922 – Damon Knight. Author, editor, critic. Kate Wilhelm who was his wife is also regrettably no longer with us either. His 1950 short story, 'To Serve Man' was adapted for The Twilight Zone. His first story, 'The Itching Hour', appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia which was edited and published by Ray Bradbury.
Ok, it's going to hard briefly sum up his amazing genre career so but let me note he was a member of the Futurians and a reviewer as well as a writer until F&SF refused to run a run of his. Novels of his I'll single out are Hell's Pavement, The Observers and Special Delivery but don't think I'm overlooking his brilliant short stories.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction notes that 'In 1995, he was granted the SFWA Grand Master Award – which from 2002 became formally known, in his honour, as the Damon Knight Grand Master Award. He was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003.'
Born September 19, 1947 — Tanith Lee. Writer of over ninety novels and over three hundred short stories. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award for Death's Master. I am very fond of the Blood Opera Sequence and the Secret Books of Paradys series. World Horror Convention gave her their Grand Master Award and she also received multiple Nebulas, World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Awards and a Lambda Literary Award as well.
Born September 19 – Laurie R. King, 66. Writer best known for her long running series that starts off with a fifteen-year-old Mary Russell (she was born on 2 January 1900), who runs into a middle-aged individual she realises is, in indeed, Sherlock Holmes – the former consulting detective of Baker Street, now retired to Sussex, where he tends bees. She however has written one SF novel to wit Califia's Daughters which is set in the near future and inspired by the ancient myth of the warrior queen Califia.
Born September 19 – N.K. Jemisin, 46. One of our best writers ever. Author of three outstanding series, The Inheritance Trilogy the Broken Earth and Dreamblood series. Better than merely good at writing short stories as well. Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture which she co-wrote with Stephen H. Segal, Genevieve Valentine, Zaki Hasan, and Eric San Juan is highly recommended.
Only winner as you know of three Hugo Awards for Best Novel in a row which got the Puppies pissed which allows me to congratulate her for getting Beale kicked out of SFWA. Oh and also won myriad Nebula, Locus, Sense of Gender and even an Romantic Times Award.
Damn she's good.
So, I'd been planning to have a nice quiet low-key inward-turning birthday this year, but Facebook or something tattled on me, so pic.twitter.com/bRMgMlK8lP
— N. K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin) September 19, 2018
From 2005 but it's news to me – "Cartoonland legalizes gay marriage" at Reality Check.
(14) ALL HALLOW'S EVE HEDONISM. Looking for an exotic and expensive Halloween event in LA? How about an evening of food, booze and drama for $300/night as the "Disco Dining Club & Grim Wreather Present: The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid", H.G. Wells' botanical horror short story, set in a Victorian greenhouse on the grounds of the 1906 Rives Mansion in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles.
A 3-night, botanical horror dinner party.
This 50-person an evening dinner party will take place Friday October 26th, Saturday October 27th, and Sunday October 28th.
Exploring the symbiotic relationship between man and flower, The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid's uniquely decadent interpretation of Halloween dares to elevate the Fall season. This is your favorite holiday exaggerated with all the opulence, grandeur and hedonism of any Disco Dining Club soiree.
(15) BRANDON SANDERSON IS ONE ANSWER. Last night on Jeopardy! there were a couple of sff-related answers during Double Jeopardy in the "I Got Your Book" category — Show #7822 – Tuesday, September 18, 2018. Do you know the right questions?
(16) NOT THAT HOT. Spacefaring Kitten is not all lit up about the latest adaptation of Bradbury's classic: "Microreview [Film]: Fahrenheit 451" at Nerds of a Feather.
…Of course, there's only so much the film can do, given its source material. Fahrenheit 451 is ultimately making a philosophical armchair argument, and transforming that into high-adrenaline political action was never an easy task. For anybody living in 2018, banning fiction as a way to lessen tensions between different worldviews is as nonsensical a proposition as it gets, because practically all other imaginable kinds of human interactions (social media, journalism etc) are much more effective in polarizing societies around the world today. Perhaps this would have been an interesting theme to look into in the movie adaptation, and quite possibly something that Bradbury would be thinking about if he was writing Fahrenheit 451 today….
(17) ASK MCKINNEY. In "The YA Agenda — September 2018" at Lady Business, Jenny (of the Reading the End bookcast) has five questions for L.L. McKinney.
What were you watching, eating, and listening to when you were working on A Blade So Black?
Coffee. Always coffee. And sometimes red bull. If I went to a cafe, I'd get a chai latte and pumpkin something. Maybe pumpkin bread or a muffin, or a scone during that season. As far as watching, lots of TNT reruns, and Frozen. My nephew was in love with Frozen. When it came to listening to stuff, for the most part, I listened to a particular playlist. Before Spotify, it was a watchlist of music videos on YouTube. Now, well, we got Spotify. I think you can still find both lists if you search A Blade So Black on either platform.
(18) FINDING THE LATEST SF IN THE FIFTIES. Doctor Strangemind's Kim Huett says about "On the Newsstand", "This particular post is mostly by a fellow by the name of Dave Mason and goes into great detail about magazine distribution and promotion in the fifties. I can assure you the topic is far less dry than you're assuming. Trust me on this one."
…Poor Joe Fan! All he wants is to buy the latest issues of Astounding, Galaxy, and if he's feeling particularly sophisticated, F&SF. Unfortunately for Joe the delivery of his favourite reading material was a cooperative effort. In order for Joe to set eyes upon any magazine the delivery process required not just a publisher but a printer, distributor, and retailer as well. Which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that none these businesses cared about Joe's reading preferences. In particular Joe's druggist had little incentive to sell that one extra copy of any title. Even today the average retailer of magazines has hundreds of magazines in stock, and really, so long as all these titles as a group sell a decent number between them each month what does it matter to the business if a particular title sells 6 copies or only 5?
(19) CHIBNALL UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. Seems a little early to be debunking the new Doctor Who showrunner. Nevertheless! NitPix delves into Chris Chibnall's resume, discovers he has written only four Doctor Who episodes and hasn't written a Doctor Who episode in 5 years. Then they analyze those four episodes and are decidedly unimpressed. (Because who ever wanted to watch a YouTube video by somebody who is impressed by their subject?)
(20) PROSPECT. The trailer and poster for Prospect (a DUST film) are out (VitalThrills.com: "Prospect Trailer and Poster Preview the Sci-Fi Film"). The film, starring Pedro Pascal, Sophie Thatcher, Jay Duplass, Andre Royo, Sheila Vand, and Anwan Glover, will have a theatrical release on November 2 and will come to the DUST site some time in 2019.
A teenage girl and her father travel to a remote alien moon, aiming to strike it rich. They've secured a contract to harvest a large deposit of the elusive gems hidden in the depths of the moon's toxic forest. But there are others roving the wilderness and the job quickly devolves into a fight to survive. Forced to contend not only with the forest's other ruthless inhabitants, but with her own father's greed-addled judgment, the girl finds she must carve her own path to escape.
[Thanks to JJ, Mark Hepworth, Lenore Jones, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Brian Z., Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day, the frighteningly imaginative Niall McAuley.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll	| Tagged BBC, Captain Marvel, Chris Chibnall, Doctor Who, George R. R. Martin, H. G. Wells, Hugo Award Book Club, Ian Sales, Jeopardy!, Jodie Whittaker, Jonathan Cowie, Kim Huett, Nnedi Okorafor, Olav Rokne, Paul Weimer, Rebecca Roanhorse, Spacefaring Kitten, Star Wars
Pixel Scroll 1/30/17 There Are Studies Underway To Fluoridate Pixels. Children's Pixels!
Posted on January 30, 2017 by Mike Glyer
(1) CAPALDI MAKES IT OFFICIAL. Not unexpectedly, the Twelfth Doctor is leaving Doctor Who as new showrunner Chris Chibnall gets ready to take the reins.
"Doctor Who" star Peter Capaldi has announced he'll step down from the role at the end of the year.
Capaldi has starred in the long-running sci-fi series as the titular Twelfth Doctor since 2013, following the departure of Matt Smith.
"One of the greatest privileges of being Doctor Who is to see the world at its best. From our brilliant crew and creative team working for the best broadcaster on the planet, to the viewers and fans whose endless creativity, generosity and inclusiveness points to a brighter future ahead," Capaldi said in a statement. "I can't thank everyone enough. It's been cosmic."
Capaldi will conclude his time as the Doctor with the 2017 Christmas special.
The actor's departure will correspond with the exit of executive producer Steven Moffat, who previously announced his intention to leave his post.
(2) BURN OF THE DAY. J. K. Rowling knows how to deal with fantastical creatures, like frogs that tweet.
*sighs* Well, who knows? If I try harder, I might be reincarnated as a lonely virgin hiding behind a cartoon frog. pic.twitter.com/EbocdxfJ5o
(3) DECOLONIZING SF. Strange Horizons has posted an Indigenous SF special issue.
It's our second special of the month, and showcases fiction, poetry, and non-fiction by native and indigenous writers.
We have Drew Hayden Taylor's story "Take Us To Your Chief" (from his collection of the same name); we have three poems apiece by poets Halee Kirkwood and Tanaya Winder; we have a round-table moderated by Rebecca Roanhorse; and of course reviews, including a double-feature look at Moana.
(4) THE HARP THAT ONCE OR TWICE. R. Graeme Cameron wrote a superlative column based on Walt Willis' 1952 U.S. Trip report for Amazing Stories that combines his analysis with the old master's storytelling.
Walt actually had a good time aboard ship. When asked what he did for a living he said he was a pulp fiction author going to America to pick up his earnings. The "Greenwich Village" pseudo-intellectuals on board coming back from bumming around Europe stood in awe of this creative type who actually earned money. Late in the voyage he was asked if anyone was meeting him in New York and he replied (more or less honestly) "Just a few fans." This only increased his reputation. Sometimes fannish ploys work very well on Mundanes.
At last we docked, and hordes of officials swarmed on board … I had a whole stack of documents in an old Galaxy envelope and every time I came to an official I would shuffle them and deal him a hand. If I'd won I'd be allowed to go on to the next table, like a bridge tournament. I'd had some practice in this game already and at last I won the first prize, a clear view of the gangway. I found to my shocked surprise that suddenly there was absolutely nothing to stop me walking ashore. I promptly walked ashore.
Someone in a blue suit came up and shook my hand … It was Dave Kyle … Joe Gibson came along in a few seconds. After a few minutes chat the two revealed conspiratorially that Will Sykora and his henchman Calvin Thomas Beck were lurking outside to meet me. They suggested a cloak and dagger scheme by which they would go out and wait for me a couple of hundred yards outside the shed, while I strolled out by myself past Sykora and Beck, who wouldn't recognise me.
I was thrilled. Nobody could have arranged a more fannish welcome. Not two minutes in the country and already I was up to my neck in New York fan feuds. However I temporized; I had nothing personally against Sykora … I had never been able to sort out New York fandom anyway … and I rather wanted to meet such a legendary figure. Besides, I knew Shelby had in his innocence asked Beck to meet me …
Outside, in the fresh clean smog of Hoboken … I had my first hamburger, closely followed by my second. As far as I was concerned, the food problem in America was now solved …
(5) RECOMMENDATIONS. There are a bunch of sites whose Hugo picks I'm interested in hearing, and Nerds of a Feather is high on that list — "2017 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Award Longlist, Part 1: Fiction Categories".
Given the vast number of Hugo categories, we've also made the decision to split the longlist up into multiple posts. Today we look at the fiction categories (Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette and Best Short Story). For fiction that is available free of charge, we've embedded a direct link to the story. For novels and works of short fiction that are not available for free, the embedded link redirects to a review.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY
January 30, 1933 — The Lone Ranger made its radio debut.
(7) GAME WRITING. "Guest Post: On Representation in RPGs, from Monica Valentinelli" on Jim C. Hines' blog.
Why does representation in RPGs matter? The answer is simple: players play games so they can be the hero in their own stories. The characters they choose (or build) allow players to perform heroic acts with their group, and they're crucial to a player's ability to have fun. There's even a joke told about this at conventions. What's the best way to get a player excited to talk about their game? Ask them about their beloved character!
Characters are important, and I feel it's a game designer's job to acknowledge different styles of play to offer a broad range for players to choose from; the other side of that coin, however, is to remember that players also possess different identities. In order to consider both in the games we make, developers, designers, writers, and artists address inclusivity through the lens of representation.
(8) MOVIN' ON. I had forgotten that James Cameron did Aliens, but that explains why someone asked his opinion about Ridley Scott's upcoming trilogy that begins with Alien: Covenant – "James Cameron On The 'Alien' Franchise: 'I Don't Think It's Worked Out Terribly Well. I Think We've Moved On'" at ScienceFiction.com.
"The franchise has kind of wandered all over the map. Ridley [Scott] did the first film, and he inspired an entire generation of filmmakers and science-fiction fans with that one movie and there have been so many films that stylistically have derived from it, including my own Aliens, which was the legitimate sequel and, I think, the proper heir to his film. I sort of did it as a fanboy. I wanted to honor his film, but also say what I needed to say. After that, I don't take any responsibility.
I don't think it's worked out terribly well. I think we've moved on beyond it. It's like, okay, we've got it, we've got the whole Freudian biomechanoid meme. I've seen it in 100 horror films since. I think both of those films stand at a certain point in time, as a reference point. But is there any validity to doing another one now? I don't know. Maybe. Let's see, jury's out. Let's see what Ridley comes up with. Let me just add to that — and don't cut this part off, please — I will stand in line for any Ridley Scott movie, even a not-so-great one, because he is such an artist, he's such a filmmaker. I always learn from him.
(9) CASSINI ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Dr. Linda Spilker, Cassini Project Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was recently interviewed by Starship Sofa, appeared on Cassini's Ring-Grazing Orbits Facebook Live today. You can view the half-hour video recording at the link.
NASA's Cassini Mission to Saturn Project Scientist Linda Spilker and mission planner Molly Bittner are taking questions about these exciting orbits, the closest look ever at Saturn's moons and ring particles — what we've learned so far and what we can expect to see as they continue.
(10) OPEN THE PILL BAY DOORS HAL. In our future, robots as care companions: "Robots could help solve social care crisis, say academics" at the BBC.
Humanoid robots, with cultural awareness and a good bedside manner, could help solve the crisis over care for the elderly, academics say.
An international team is working on a £2m project to develop versatile robots to help look after older people in care homes or sheltered accommodation.
The robots will offer support with everyday tasks, like taking tablets, as well as offering companionship.
(11) A BLACK AND WHITE ANSWER. Opus would be proud: penguins used as models for better software: "Hungry penguins keep car code safe".
The communal, co-ordinated action helps the penguins get the most out of a hunting expedition. Groups of birds are regularly reconfigured to match the shoals of fish and squid they find. It helps the colony as a whole optimise the amount of energy they have to expend to catch food.
"This solution has generic elements which can be abstracted and be used to solve other problems," he said, "such as determining the integrity of software components needed to reach the high safety requirements of a modern car."
Integrity in this sense means ensuring the software does what is intended, handles data well, and does not introduce errors or crash.
By mimicking penguin behaviour in a testing system which seeks the safest ways to arrange code instead of shoals of fish, it becomes possible to slowly zero in on the best way for that software to be structured.
(12) THE RIVALS OF 1984. The BBC has hard data on dystopia sales surge.
It Can't Happen Here – Sinclair Lewis
Sales: As of Friday, the eighth best-selling book on Amazon. It was out of print in the UK but publishers Penguin launched a new edition following the inauguration – promoting it as the book that predicted Trump – and has so far ordered three print runs, totalling 11,000 copies, a spokeswoman said.
Plot: A charismatic demagogue, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, runs for president on a promise to restore American greatness, dragging the country into fascism.
The Trump factor: Sales of this relatively obscure 1935 satirical novel took off when critics began claiming it was essentially the Donald Trump story. Sally Parry, of the Sinclair Lewis Society, claims there are parallels with Trump in the way that Windrip targets his message at disaffected white working class males – The League of Forgotten Men in the book – sweeping to victory on a wave of anti-immigrant, nationalistic sentiment.
But she adds: "Some of his satire is not necessarily towards Buzz Windrip, the fascist character, but towards the lazy intellectuals, the lazy liberals who say 'well, things will go along' and the constant refrain of 'it can't happen here', this is America, we are exceptional."
(13) MAKING LEMONADE. Someone has a plan for putting a contaminated area to use: "How solar may save Ukraine's nuclear wasteland".
Earlier this year Ostap Semerak, the minister for ecology and natural resources in Ukraine, announced plans to build a large-scale solar farm in Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone. "The first phase will install solar panels with a total capacity of one gigawatt," says a ministry spokesperson. "In the future [there] are plans for capacity increase."
A large field of 25 acres, filled with solar panels, generates approximately 5MW. To put this into perspective, the football pitch at Manchester United's Old Trafford ground is 1.75 acres and would only generate 0.35MW. So, for a solar farm to generate a gigawatt of power, it will need an area of 5,000 acres, which is nearly eight square miles. There is, fortunately, a lot of available land in the Exclusion Zone.
(14) BRUCE WAYNE'S ROOMMATE. Lego Batman explains why his movie is awesome.
Lego Batman hypes up his own upcoming Lego Batman Movie in a new behind-the-bricks featurette that breaks the fourth wall.
"Obviously after I made The Lego Movie, a monster hit $468 million worldwide, not that I'm counting of course, it seemed clear to everyone that the world needed more of me," Will Arnett says as Lego Batman in the clip released Thursday.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve "Dr. Strangelove" Davidson.]
Posted in Pixel Scroll	| Tagged aliens, Batman, Cassini, Chris Chibnall, Doctor Who, dystopia, J. K. Rowling, James Cameron, Jim C. Hines, JPL, Lego, Monica Valentinelli, NASA, Nerds of a Feather, Peter Capaldi, R. Graeme Cameron, Ridley Scott, robots, Steven Moffat, Strange Horizons, Walt Willis
Moffat Leaves Doctor Who
Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has quit and will be replaced by Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall reports Radio Times.
Other than the 2016 Doctor Who Christmas special, Moffat's final season of episodes has been deferred by the BBC til 2017.
Explaining the decision to hold Moffat's last series until next year, BBC1 controller Charlotte Moore said: "I have decided to schedule Steven's big finale series in Spring 2017 to bring the nation together for what will be a huge event on the channel. 2016 is spoilt with national moments including the Euros and Olympics and I want to hold something big back for 2017 – I promise it will be worth the wait!"
…Moffat said of his decision to quit: "Feels odd to be talking about leaving when I'm just starting work on the scripts for season 10, but the fact is my timey-wimey is running out. While Chris is doing his last run of Broadchurch, I'll be finishing up on the best job in the universe and keeping the TARDIS warm for him. It took a lot of gin and tonic to talk him into this, but I am beyond delighted that one of the true stars of British Television drama will be taking the Time Lord even further into the future. At the start of season 11, Chris Chibnall will become the new showrunner of Doctor Who. And I will be thrown in a skip."
A brand new companion is expected to come on board in Moffat's final season.
A Doctor Who fan since the age of four, Chibnall's resume includes the award-winning series Broadchurch (with David Tennant), and credits for The Great Train Robbery, United, Law & Order: UK, Life on Mars and Torchwood.
There's video of Chris Chibnall critiquing Doctor Who in 1986 on BBC feedback show Open Air, as a representative of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society. He told the show's writers at the time he'd been disappointed with the 14-part Trial of a Time Lord
He added, "It was also very clichéd, it was very routine running up and down corridors and silly monsters."
Chibnall is also in this behind-the-scenes video discussing the 2012 Doctor Who episode he scripted, "The Power of Three."
Posted in Like Show Business	| Tagged Chris Chibnall, Doctor Who, Steven Moffat


Pressure gauges are used throughout the gas industry for testing and calibrating various instruments. These gauges require periodic calibration to assure their accuracy. Regulatory authorities require routine testing and/or audits of gas systems, which can entail fines for non-compliance. By choosing XP2i digital pressure gauges from Crystal Engineering, costly fines can be prevented with the help of automatic built-in calibration alerts and reminders.
Test gauges are used as the standards for calibrating and testing important equipment used every day. The accuracy of these test gauges can decline over time, and, therefore, they must be regularly calibrated to remain accurate.
Keeping track of the calibration intervals for all test equipment can be a challenging task in which human error can occur. Calibration certificates or stickers can be misplaced or lost, or the technician may not notice that the gauge is beyond its calibration dates. Even if a company has a system to keep track of these dates, it still requires somebody to notify the technician when re-calibrations are due. It also requires the technician to remove the gauge from service once they are notified.
Each of these situations requires human intervention to assure that products are not used outside of their calibration intervals. If mistakes are made, a company could end up using a gauge to test important equipment when they shouldn't be. This could lead to failed audits and costly fines.
Using free software, users, supervisors, or labs can set a calibration date in the internal memory of the gauge. The due dates, reminder times, and message types can all be customized through the software.
For a start-up reminder, users enter the calibration due date and the notification time prior to that date, which can be set in days or weeks. Once the defined prior to date is reached, the XP2i flashes "Cal Soon" three times during the start-up process and will do that until the calibration due date has been reached, or the alert dates are updated.
Gauge Start-up: "Cal Due" flashes three times during the start-up process and the gauge will then operate normally. No additional warnings will occur until the power is recycled on the gauge.
Alternate with Reading: "Cal Due" flashes three times during the start-up process and then alternates displaying "Cal Due" with live pressure readings.
With increased attention of environmental issues surrounding the oil and gas industry, pressure on businesses and audits have never been higher. A system that relies on human intervention can always be intentionally or unintentionally circumvented. An automatic product based system, which can easily be set-up by managers or supervisors, is much preferred.
Crystal Engineering's XP2i is already the most common gauge used in the oil & gas industry. This new feature now makes the new XP2i even more desirable. If it prevents a company from using it after its calibration date even one time, it has already paid for itself. The new XP2i has been shipping since January of 2017. In fact, Crystal Engineering worked with one of the largest oil & gas companies in the USA when designing the new features. This company has already standardized and implemented the new XP2i throughout.


Join the tradition of honoring those who have selflessly served our nation during Elk Grove's 17th Annual Veterans Day Parade on Sunday, November 11. Ceremonies begin at 10 a.m. at the Elk Grove Shopping Center located at 9108 Elk Grove Florin Road. Beginning at 11 a.m., the parade will proceed south on Elk Grove Florin Road to Elk Grove Regional Park. To accommodate the event, road closures and detours will be set up between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. For details, visit www.elkgrovecity.org.
The City of Elk Grove invites local, regional and national artists and/or artist teams to submit their qualifications for a variety of projects for the city's Civic Center and Animal Shelter. The deadline for submissions is this Thursday, November 8, 2018, at 4:00 p.m. The City has issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for public artwork to grace the civic center commons and various spots within the animal shelter. Public art is paid for by the City's Percent for the Arts program, a program that sets aside a percentage of public construction project funding to support public art. For the application and more information on the project visit the City'srequest for proposal page at www.elkgrovecity.org.
Your voice and opinion are important in the selection of Elk Grove's next City Manager. As part of the recruitment process for selecting a new City Manager, the Mayor and City Council are seeking input from the community on what they consider to be the qualities, skills, and traits that are important for a new City Manager. Visit the City's website at www.elkgrovecity.org to take the survey.
Elk Grove proudly displays banners on streetlights located along Elk Grove Boulevard and Civic Center Drive (between Big Horn Boulevard and Laguna Springs Drive). Displayed for one year, the banners feature retired or honorably discharged members of the United States Armed Forces residing in Elk Grove or those who resided in Elk Grove and are now deceased. Businesses or individuals may sponsor a military street banner for $150. Applications are accepted year-round. For more information, visit elkgrovecity.org/banners.


Taipei: Better than Tojo's, at a 43% discount.
Up until now, the most expensive sushi meal that I've had (by a longshot) was at Tojo's. My wife and I ended up paying $700 after tax for an omakase meal with two beers at the sushi bar. Neither me nor my wife thought that the food we had there was anything close to being worth the price we paid. The food was so "not special" that we felt that it was worth $150 at most. In fact, the items we received were not that different from the standard $125 omakase listed on their menu. I think it's safe to … Continue reading Taipei: Better than Tojo's, at a 43% discount.
Day 29 Sushi Mart… They say that it takes years of training to become a capable itamae. The greenest of apprentices begin by performing cleaning duty. If all goes well with the cleaning, they move on to preparing the sushi stations for the other chefs. Then they might move on to cooking rice, then to seasoning rice, then preparing nori, then sharpening knifes, then cleaning fish, then preparing fish, and eventually actually cutting fish and preparing sushi. Each step in the process of becoming an itamae can take months or even years. After going through this process, the itamae is … Continue reading Who(What) makes great sushi?


Walt: Read tally charts and bar graphs and then create our own!
Task Description: room 6 did this tally chart to see what our favorite ice cream flavors were.
Today on Tuesday Room 8 Did a marshmallow tower challenge. The game included 25 spaghetti sticks,91 cm of tape, and 1 marshmallow. We only had time to build for 20 minutes.
The rules were pretty simple. We had to build the tower as high as we can. We had to have two to four partners. My partners were Ezra and Morpheous. During the challenge I had a plan, to stick 5 spaghetti on each side of the marshmallow and make it stand.
It took about 5 minutes to get it standing. We waited because we had no idea what else to do. We thought we would win because no one else was stacked but us. 10 minutes later we saw another group white two layers stacked. They were higher than us, we couldn't make it any higher.
The game finished, and We came second. But it was worth the time. For my next strategy I will tape the sticks on to a another stick than the marshmallow.
This is a recount writing of what we did on Tuesday And don't only comment on my check out my blog go to my partners/friends blog and comment.
Labels: 2017, fact sheet, Kruz, Kruz 2016, miss parrant, room 6, Term 1, Term 1.
Kia Ora, Talofa and welcome to my blog. My name is Kruz and I'm Ten years old, I'm a year Six at Pt England. I have Three very Amazing Teachers called Miss Parrant, Miss Scanlan, and Mister Goodwin. I have 1 brother and 3 sisters. My Favorite Subject is Writing because i have lots of Ideas. I enjoy sleeping, hanging with friends, and swimming, My Favorite Foods are Hamburgers, and Fish And Chips. On Saturday play rugby union. On Weekends i love sleeping over at my cousin's house. When I'm not at school I love playing video games and watching tv. My favorite game his minecraft, and black ops 3 and my favorite tv series is wwe and bizaardvark. enjoy my blog and comment what you think of my work.
What other names is it called?
Some gumboots at shops are not really gumboots, because gumboots are made out of rubber not plastic. The name was actually wellingtons.


The parachor of structure A and B were calculated according to the data given in Table and found to be 230 and 206.9 respectively. The experimental value is 236.8, indicating that structure A is correct. A number of ether structural controversies have been settled with the help of parachor values.
It should be pointed out that anomalies in the parachor values have been noticed in a number of cases, viz., organometallic compounds. Since the advent of spectroscopic methods which give better results, the parachor is not used to any great extent in recent times.
Parachor method is applied to approximation surface tension of pure imidazolium-based ionic liquids at the dissimilar temperatures. For this prediction a corresponding-states group-contribution method is proposed to estimate the surface tension of ionic liquids covering wide ranges of temperature and chain length.
Why is conc. HCl used in flame test?
How a Mass Spectrometer Works?


Mr. Blend Hyseni holds a Bachelor�s Degree in economics, statistics and public policy from the American University in Kosovo. Before graduation, he worked as a research assistant at the Center for Energy and Natural Resources, as well as researcher in a GIZ-funded project, providing support through sectorial analysis to Kosovo�s Budget and Finance Committee during budget deliberation. He was also a president of the Economists� Club at the American University in Kosovo where he organized economic forums, conferences, and lectures. After graduation, Blend joined one of the most influential think-tanks in Kosovo - GAP Institute, where he continues to work as a researcher in economic and energy policies. While working closely with policy-makers, Blend realized that Kosovo�s public policies are largely based on governing parties� perception rather than professional studies. Therefore, he wishes to advance his professional skills in applied economics in the United States and return to Kosovo to improve decision-making in economics and energy policies.


text:
Miracle Survivor! How This Man Lived 66 Days Clinging to Capsized Boat
News 10:19 AM PDT, April 3, 2015 - Inside Edition
10:19 AM PDT, April 3, 2015 - Inside Edition
If you don't believe in miracles, here's how this lucky guy survived 66 days lost at sea.
Things went haywire for Louis Jordan when he was rocked by a sudden storm that capsized his 35-foot sailboat.
"I was just praying to God, please protect me," Louis told reporters. "The whole boat had turned around. I was flying through the air, somersaulting. The ceiling was the floor, the floor was the ceiling. This side was the other side and everything was upside down and backwards."
It was a real-life crisis straight out of the Robert Redford movie All Is Lost.
Louis' boat righted itself, but the mast was broken, and so was his collarbone. He was hopelessly adrift!
Watch dramatic rescue of driver passed out in 8-lane highway.
How did he survive 66 days at sea?
Louis said, "I did collect seaweed. I found little crabs and little critters living in the seaweed. They tasted good. The fish were attracted to the seaweed. They'd swim into the seaweed and I'd scoop them up with my casting net."
Collecting rainwater was crucial.
Jordan explained, "I was so thirsty, and I was almost out of water. Every day I'd say, 'Please God, send me some rain, send me some water!' "
The boat capsized two more times during his ordeal.
On Thursday, it all came to a miraculous end when Jordan was spotted by a container ship which rescued him 200 miles east of Cape Hatteras.
The Coast Guard was notified and sent a rescue chopper. The first thing Jordan did was phone his dad.
Dad: "Hey, hey, Louis. I haven't heard you in so long!"
Louis: "Oh, man, nice to hear your voice!"
See this water taxi captain rescue 3 sailors from Charleston Bay.
Believe it or not, Jordan apologized for the damage to the boat. "I couldn't fix it. I couldn't sail back with my boat. I'm so sorry, it's such a big loss."
Jordan's father said, "Hey, Louis, you're fine, son. I'm so glad that you're alive!"
INSIDE EDITION asked Louis' father, "What was it like to get that call from your son?'
"Well, it was a real shock. As I had begun to decide after more than two months that he may never come home," said his father.
But Louis' sister, Emily never lost hope. She told INSIDE EDITION, "We all knew that if he was on the boat, he was alive because he has the mental focus, the physical capacity to figure out how to make it home."
Louis was taken to a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, where he was treated for dehydration. Overall, he's in remarkably good shape.
When Louis and dad met, they embraced. Mom told the Today show she had almost given up hope. "It's been terrible. You live moment to moment, and those moments turn into days."
A happy ending to a nightmare at sea.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I'm very excited to welcome Robin Jarvis to the blog today as we kick of the Haunted blog tour. I've been a massive fan of Robin Jarvis since I discovered his Whitby Witches, Deptford Mice & Deptford Histories trilogies as a young teen. They were books I read over and over again and I still have the original copies that my Dad bought for me back in the early 90's (yes that does make me feel old lol).
The Haunted blog tour is to celebrate the release of the Haunted anthology, this is a perfect Halloween read containing scary stories from some fabulous writers - Susan Cooper, Joseph Delaney, Berlie Doherty, Jamila Gavin, Matt Haig, Robin Jarvis, Derek Landy, Sam Llewellyn, Mal Peet, Philip Reeve & Eleaor Updale. I'll be posting my review of Haunted on Halloween so make sure you stop by then to read it.
A FACE in the mirror . . .
HOWLING in the night . . .
A BLACK DOG at your door . . .
COLD HANDS dragging you down . . .
There's a lost ghost child trapped in a mirror and wanting to pull you in; an evil Soul Eater waiting for its next victim; a ghost walk with a haunting twist; and the spirit of a drowned boy who needs to be put to rest. These and many more spine-chilling tales will make you scream, shiver and gasp.
Open if you dare . . .
So without further ado I'm going to hand over to Robin Jarvis who is going to talk about what Halloween means to him . . .
Hallowe'en is a special time of the year for me. Growing up in the north, we always bobbed for apples, ducked for chestnuts, tangerines and pennies and begged to hear the family ghost stories repeated. Of witches we spoke in soft voices, whilst casting wary glances at the dark sky. Even though my young eyes scoured the night and never saw one, I knew they were up there.
The most magical and thrilling part of Hallowe'en however, was the making of the lantern. A fearsome face, lit by flame, was needed to guard you during that eerie, dangerous time when the worlds of the living and the dead touched and malevolent spirits went a - roaming.
Pumpkins are rubbish. There, I've said it. They belong to the Disneyfication of an ancient Celtic festival that was steeped in blood and terror and illuminated by fire. The time has come to champion the only true vegetable from which to make a Hallowe'en lantern – the turnip. Okay, I call them turnips yet somehow, over the years, they've been re-branded as "swedes" but they're still turnips to me. It may sound odd to everyone else in the world but, in my opinion, there's a deep, earthy magic to a turnip and I can understand why it was the natural choice for turning into lanterns before the gaudy orange usurper crossed the Atlantic. Turnips grow in the ground, the same soil the Celts associated with the underworld and into which they interred their dead.
Hollowing out a big turnip is a serious undertaking. People prefer the easy, soft scoop version of pumpkins, but that isn't really the point. Turnip gouging is and should be a ritual. It requires concentration and effort and takes a flipping long time! It's worth it in the end though. When the candle stub is lit within that golden flesh and a thread of smoke rises from the hole in the lid, suddenly that ferocious purple face is alive. That's a genuinely magic moment.
I still make a turnip lantern every year and visit different supermarkets and grocer's stalls in order to find the correct one. There's a lot of character and variety to turnips. There are fat, round faces and sharp pointed ones, some have square chins or fibrous beards, others already have noses sprouting to show you where the front is. I know what I'm looking for, because I've been carving the same face for decades and only the right shape will do.
So you can keep the vastly inferior, dreary pumpkin. It's got all the charm and enchantment of a fibreglass theme park castle, compared to the solid Stonehenge of a turnip. When He is on guard, I know its safe to scour the dark sky again and yearn to believe.
The young boy Bram, in my short story, "The Beach Hut" really needed the protection of a turnip lantern. But it was the height of summer, at the seaside, and his thoughts were filled with rock pools and ice cream. Besides, malignant ghosts don't go haunting then – or do they?
Thanks so much for a fabulous guest post Robin, I actually carved my first ever pumpkin last year & really enjoyed doing it. I guess I should be buying a turnip to carve this year though - although it sounds like there is much more work involved in carving them!
I want this book! It has that creep factor I enjoy. Lovely pic of you and Robin, wasn't he just lovely?


BELAGA – Bintulu Fire and Rescue Department has confirmed that 407 people were left homeless when fire destroyed two blocks of longhouses at the Sungai Asap Resettlement Scheme in Uma Bawang, Sungai Koyan, yesterday evening.
"It took about two hours for the 11-men team from the Bintulu Fire and Rescue Station to reach the scene through Jalan Bintulu-Bakun," he told Bernama when contacted.
He said only one victims, a 70-year-old woman suffered burns on her back as she tried to salvage her belongings in the fire. The rest escaped unhurt.


I'll try to be nicer to Wendell from now on.
I wanted to be like Russell.
Jisheng doesn't really like Gerard all that much.
Myrick leapt off his horse.
Marci is the richest person I know.
Konstantinos said you needed a haircut.
I asked Rolf some questions about his childhood.
Gunnar is in his room packing right now.
Srinivas may have missed the train. He hasn't come yet.
Karl pushed his dog into the closet and closed the door.
Brad doesn't want me to talk about what we discussed yesterday.
Kees has always been good to me.
I wasn't looking for Takeuchi.
Can you swim like Juha?
If Angela dies, what'll we do?
I'll ask Marcia for some money.
Jef bought Kerri bangles when he was in India.
Jesus opened the windows to air out the room.
Ninja put me on the payroll.
Sidney drank the water that Carl gave him.
Indra had his palm read.
Sanity is famous, isn't he?
Liber can't have done it.
I'm not going to tell Arnold what to do.
Corey isn't as heavy as he used to be.
We don't know exactly where Eric is.
Brodie has already been questioned by the police.
Les skipped breakfast this morning.