Cool to cold in the morning, warming later with clear skies and sun. I hope. It was that way on Saturday, even if I didn’t take advantage.
I really don’t know why I make plans at all lately. Can’t execute them worth a damn. Oh well. Did spend some time with D1 in the evening watching movies. That was probably the best use of time all day.
I’ll pay for my slackitude today and this week though. I’ve got to get some things done to stay on schedule overall. Schedules slipping all over the place, stuff going undone. I need to knuckle down for a week. Maybe this week will be the one.
Monkeys could fly out of my butt too.
We’ll see. There will still be stacking going on. That much can be counted on.
Get out and do something. Spring will soon be upon us.
nick
“To make God laugh, make plans.”
I loathe the shaking camera with the handheld cameras. Or the cameras are tripod mounted and made to wiggle. The effect is stupid, annoying, and reeks of amateur production.
Speaking of cameras, my camera got hit on the lens with a basketball on Friday. Now the zoom movement has a rough feeling in one spot in the middle of the zoom range. It will cost $400.00 to fix the lens. A $1,200 lens so worth fixing.
Ouch. There’s probably no practical way to build a strong but movable cage to protect your gear.
“Escape From LA” has some fun moments if you go in not expecting much.
I’ve been ripping the original “Quantum Leap” series from my BluRay set to a portable format for some upcoming travel. If you come across a box set, don’t hesitate to pick one up. That pilot is still one of the best ever produced for network TV IMHO.
Praising with faint damns?
The neighborhood spent this weekend in freeze cleanup mode. I keep the trees trimmed so my debris pile is manageable, but ome of the houses around me easliy have 3-4 standard pickup truck loads to take to the dump. My immediate neighbor called a in a hauling service.
I thought our grill got pounded by tree limbs, but it was remarkably dent-free. The cover is trashed, however.
Inflation report: $70 cover at Home Depot 18 months ago was $100 to replace.
We’ll see what the tree people want to take a look at our yard and our big oak.
I noticed the neighbor with the garage queen Bronco got the vehicle off of the throne for the day after cleaning their “Yard of the Month”-winning landscape.
I had fun with it because of all the famous faces, but my wife was so-so.
Bruce Campbell and Paul Bartel in cameos. Plus Pam Grier pre-“Jackie Brown”.
Kurt Russell and John Carpenter are always a good time, but I think the movie ended Hollywood’s interest in financing a “Big Trouble in Little China” sequel.
I took my kids to see one of the last performances of the “Terminator 2:3D” movie/stunt show at Universal Orlando shortly before the park pulled the plug on the attraction. The single cut jukyard scene with all practical effects going off in an amazing piece of stunt choreography with the 3D camera moving smoothly through the landscape just above and behind the motorcycle still amazed me, but my kids, used to CGI, weren’t impressed.
RIP.
Sound editing frustrates me these days. Too many production people are doing it at home in jammies on headphones, and that doesn’t work.
Too much dialog that is barely audible in a theatre. Then add in some annoying background music and it really makes one want to get the closed caption glasses to actually understand the movie. Yeh, my hearing is bad, the hearing aids help. I am not fully convinced that other people are not having the same issue with crappy audio mixing.
I use the virtual keyboard feature on the Mac. Turn it on in System Settings and it lives in the menu bar. Clicking on the symbols and numbers dropdown makes it easy to insert such.
Hey it’s sunny, clear and 65F so I got that much right!
Haven’t heard from spouse so ‘return of the wife’ is still an unknown time.
D1 is still asleep. I should be too. Weekends are for recovery from all those 4 and 5 hour nights during the week. Bladder or back, something got me up. Might as well use the time.
D1 made lots of comments about the sound design in Escape from NY. Several times she mentioned that there was no music, that “the whole movie was nothing but footsteps.” Even the gunshots were muted by modern standards. There was some music. John Carpenter has a Composer credit and there is some atmospheric ‘noodling’ with synths or something, going on. But no pop music, no thunderous themes, no constant underscore.
I’m a child of the 80s, and Mtv. I have been conditioned to fast cuts and lots of them. But I started with and appreciated films of the 70s and earlier. I can barely watch a modern movie because of the assault of sound and ‘bump and flash’ or ‘flash and trash’ as we USED to call it. Now they call it a “special effects driven movie.” A narrative driven, or character driven movie with effects is fine, even with the pace of modern editing. I didn’t watch the superhero movies with the kids, mainly because of the style. It just overwhelms you.
n
I see the filthy noface ChiCom whores are running their lying mouths again.
Jazz Shaw at HotAir has some comments and some history:
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/02/05/china-we-can-respond-further-to-balloon-shootdown-n528539
If we had properly responded in 2001–or at several other times in the past–we wouldn’t be dealing with this shiite now.
If there is a next time, the balloon should be deascencioned promptly in the interest of the safety of the American people, who have no intention of allowing an out of control device to threaten our citizens.
In the meantime our ambassador to the UN should make a formal complaint and propose that a) China be required to cease all such operations pending a thorough international review of their safety protocols, and b) any “out of control” incidents in the future must be reported immediately to international authorities and the national governments of the countries put at risk by careless and incompetent actions
Not a bad start, drwilliams, but the complaint should include words like “disgraceful incompetence” and “bring shame to the legacy of the honorable officeholders who preceded them”.
Bayou Renaissance Man had a good article Friday:
The oligarchical takeover of the world’s essential supplies
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-oligarchical-takeover-of-worlds.html
which has his thoughts on an article from Sundance at Conservative Treehouse.
Well-worth reading both.
Neither, however, makes the obvious observation that one of the key enabling concepts of this kind of government interference and control in the U.S. go back to the imposition of marketing orders by Roosevelt’s unconstitutional socialist government of the 30’s.
@SteveF
Sorry. I wanted to get the second post done before I started breakfast.
I did start to get wound up a bit describing the unlikelihood of FJB–with his huge rectal load of ChiCom cash–taking any action without the bipartisan indignation that his handlers did not anticipate when his perfidy of keeping the assault secret from the American people was thwarted by a good man with binoculars, but I removed it for brevity.
I liked the valentine Photoshop of the ChiCom ballon, but I think it would be fun to have the balloon appear in next year’s Macy’s parade with a suitable paint job.
“Escape From NY” had a very low budget. It was another one of those 80s films which became a cult classic thanks to endless reruns on movie channels.
Kurt Russell doesn’t embarrass Disney, and, in return, Disney has always taken care of Kurt Russell. The big studios wouldn’t touch the film with him in the lead.
WRT symbols, search “char map” and select. Degrees temperature is 11th column, 6th row. Select symbol, copy and then paste on your comment or document, °, as I just did.
re: Sound on movies and unintelligible speech
This video, from Vox of all places, has a reasonable explanation. I almost always use subtitles now when they’re available.
Commercial surveillance state.
Yesterday D1 asks me while we were talking about NYC, “what’s a brownstone.” Told her. Today #7 in my youtube recommendation list, after 5 channels I subscribe to, “Architect Breaks Down 5 of the Most Common New York Apartments” with “brownstone” in text on the thumbnail.
Brownstone also mentioned in the description, but they’ve got cut and paste disabled on the page.
Yeah. They are in fact listening.
n
@nick:
Of course they are. If just ostensibly for the “wake word”. Was there a “smart speaker” or similar device in the room? This is one reason why I refuse to even contemplate such a device in my house.
I’m not entirely happy about the microphone in my phone, either. It would not be difficult for the Chocolate Factory to arrange for ambient sound recording (I use an Android phone) at their option. Similarly for the fruity firm with an iThing. Of course, on phones you can run into data caps if you (the snooper) are not careful. That said, my phone contract has unlimited minutes and texts, and 20GB of data per month. And totally unlimited deals are not uncommon here in UK.
Remember, uncompressed telephone quality audio is 28.8 MB/hour, which means that 20GB can carry 277 hours of telephone audio, and with judicious compression that could easily be extended to 720 hours, which is a month. And barring the diminution of your data allowance, you’d never know.
G.
Your Android phone.
Ah, the joys of air travel. And Philly.
And Spirit.
And flying to FLL
The FCC regulations for wireless phones in the US have required an discreet audio surveillance capability going back at least as far as 1992, the last time I saw the specs first hand. The phone’s owner is not supposed to be aware of the surveillance when it happens so the activity isn’t going to hit against the data plan or voice minutes.
If you want to know how well it works, ask OJ.
Not so many years ago this would have been correctly identified as wiretapping.
Or course, not so many years ago, a covert ChiCom police station busted in NYC would have been the lead in papers and network news all over the U.S., with perp walks and the ChiCom ambassador called in and sent home with a message branded on his backside.
Now it’s “$50 million to the Biden Center at the University of Delaware and it’s rayscist to imply any possibility of wrongdoing.”
When done via the wireless network, it is wiretapping and requires the cooperation of the carrier as well as a warrant.
Of course, smartphones have other communication channels, and 5G utilizes unlicensed spectrum where legalities get a little fuzzy.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the new Samsung A14 5G is so cheap while offering a pretty nice package of features as well as two OS upgrades beyond the current Android level.
The Chinese “spy balloon” was maneuverable; it was at least capable of ascending and descending to ride favorable winds.
Therefore, it could have LANDED when ordered to do so. We should have ordered it to land, with the threat of cancelling all Chinese airline landing/overflight privileges. And start cancelling/delaying visas for Chinese citizens coming to the US.
Completely unrelated topic.
I’m falling down a bit of a rabbit hole, wrt tobacco smoking pipes.
Not only are the old pipes collectible, there are a whole bunch of new custom pipe makers in addition to the ‘factory’ makers, who are building reputations and followings. Beyond that there are all the ‘estate’ pipes out there which are now bringing higher prices at sales. There are even services to recondition and refurb old pipes so they can be used again.
I’m seeing more and more pipes and pipe smoking accessories in estate auctions, and they are going for more money. So I’m doing some research. I’m a bit astonished to find there is a developed and growing subculture of “pipe smoking hobbyists.” Some of them take it VERY seriously. Just search for ‘how to smoke a pipe’ and see how many results you get. Watch a couple of the vids to see how seriously some of those guys take it.
It is also bigger than just pipe smoking. I see that some younger men are looking for something, something to reinforce or build what wasn’t put in place when they were growing up, something about manliness and being a man. There is definitely a movement to reclaim what the 40s, 50s, and even later held out as traditional behaviours and roles for men. There is more to it that I haven’t quite got figured out yet, but part of it is learning traditional skills. Part of it is sartorial, involving dressing well, in traditional styles. I see vintage dress shoes, mechanical watches, and especially hats returning to favor.
Part of it is a return to trad values wrt to dating and potential mates. (can’t get the genie back in the bottle, but you don’t have to celebrate it.) Part of it is dissatisfaction with the way white males have been treated by pop culture. There is a bit of putting a thumb in society’s eye with some of it. (Not only am I going to smoke, I’m going to smoke a pipe that everyone in the room can smell, that probably invokes positive feelings in at least some part of the audience, and I DON”T CARE what you think about it.)
There is something bigger going on here. It’s gonna take some more looking and some more thought.
And maybe actually smoking a pipe.
n
My grandfather smoked a pipe. As long as I can remember. A leather tobacco pouch with his special order custom blend. A local shop created the blend for him. His fingers were so calloused from working the flame from the match, strike anywhere of course, would curl around his finger when lighting the pipe. Never affected him. He would tamp the lit tobacco with his finger.
Grammy awards tonight. Hopefully I can find something more intelligent to watch. Reruns of Gilligan’s Island perhaps.
“Oppenheimer” has been the big film trailer of the Winter and widely predicted to do well this Summer. The buzz is that it will be Oscar level good, but who knows how that will turn out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK6ldnjE3Y0
Apologies to our late host, but pipes are not something that should come back into fashion IMHO.
“Gilligan’s Island” had really high quality people involved with the incidental music. “Johnny” Williams and Gerald Fried, with Morton Stevens of “Hawaii 5-0” fame in the mix as well. Much higher levels of talent than many who will receive awards tonight.
“The Kaiju Preservation Society” by John Scalzi
https://www.amazon.com/Kaiju-Preservation-Society-John-Scalzi/dp/1250878535?tag=ttgnet-20/
A standalone science fiction book, no prequel or sequel that I know of. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Tor in 2023. The hardback was published in 2022. I am hoping that there will be sequels.
Jamie Gray needed a new job after being fired by his boss, the CEO at füdmüd in New York City as the Covid-19 pandemic was starting. So, he took the offered job of being a food deliverator for füdmüd out of desperation. And months later, Jamie met an old acquaintance deliverating food to him, Tom. Tom ends up offering Jamie a real job working with KPS, an animal rights organization. The job is six months on site at a incredibly remote location working with very large animals.
A fully mature Kaiju is 100 meters to 150 meters (300 feet to 450 feet) tall. They have parasites inhabiting them that are incredibly dangerous and help them to live. And, they violate the Square Cube Law with their power source. And, they can fly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law
The author has a very popular website at:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (7,157 reviews)
Apologies to our late host, but pipes are not something that should come back into fashion IMHO.
– funny how that works. When I was a kid, almost every man smoked a pipe at some point. They were so ubiquitous that colleges had them specially created for graduating classes, like class rings, and jokes about “prince albert in a can” were widely understood.
My dad had a strong bias against pipe smoking. Dunno where that came from. Uncle (by marriage) smoked pipes, but dad’s brothers smoked cigarettes and cigars. Dad quit cigs when I was born. Smoked cigars occasionally. One of his brothers smoked Dutch Masters* constantly.
I remember quite clearly going to a Boy Scout meeting (I think a cake baking contest) and smelling the sweet smoke fill the gym air.
A lot of american men will smoke cigars socially and occasionally, but pipe smoking is a more solitary pastime. Of course, if you are a regular cigar smoker, you find the time to sit with your smoke the way today’s pipe smokers apparently do.
Given today’s climate, smoking a cigar is a cultural, but also at the same time counter-cultural thing. The fad of cigar lounges may have passed, but there are still plenty of cigar smokers, and cigar lounges out there. I am curious to see if the same happens with pipe smoking, or if it remains a niche subculture thing.
n
*dutch masters was not a premium brand. And they had the ‘bad’ smell of cigar smoking.
Turns out that there are tools that weather dweebs use to figure out air currents – and their effect on things like balloons. You can use these tools to figure out possible origin points for floating objects. Like weather balloons.
Cliff Mass (weather guy at Univ of WA) writes a great blog about weather, often debunking climate propaganda with actual facts. His latest post is about those ‘wind tools’ and the balloon.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/02/was-chinese-balloon-on-spy-mission.html
As usual, John Scalzi likes to pepper his books with witty sayings. Here are a couple of them:
““They have vegan cheese.” “No, they don’t. They have shredded orange and white sadness that mocks cheese and everything it stands for.””
“It was stupidly perfect how all my problems were suddenly solved with the strategic application of money.”
Daytime high today was about 40℉ warmer than yesterday’s high and 60 warmer than yesterday’s low. Stupid weather.
Did some vehicle maintenance, tried and failed to think of improvements to my anti-antlered forest rat bird feeder defenses, checked the house and grounds for damage caused by the past few days’ cold and wind. Mostly just rested, conscious or otherwise. This past week was tiring because of – wait for it – my wife, resulting in a lot of bother for other people, mostly me. About eight extra hours Monday on top of my normal workday and taking care of things around the house, three or four Tuesday, five Wednesday, and a few Thursday and Friday. My schedule doesn’t have that much slack in it, so much of that time came from my sleep time, and I normally sleep only about five hours a night. Yes, I was dragging by the end of the week. I could have taken time off work, but a contractual deadline is looming, I had to finish the design work (including several revisions because of shortcomings in vendor documentation) before the developers could do their part, and I didn’t want to be the cause of tens of thousands of dollars of late delivery penalties. She’ll be fine – some loosened teeth which are settling back in, damaged cartilage around the ribs for which there’s no remedy but time, possibly a minor crack in a rib which didn’t show up on the xray. The bigger concern was the artificial hip, because the implant is stronger than the bone around it, but that looks ok.
For a change, I’m not really faulting my wife for all this. She and daughter went skiing on Monday, with the school group, and she went down a slope that she normally could handle but was too tired this time because she was on call this week and had to handle something in the middle of the night. Minor lapse in judgment led to ambulance, emergency room, having to go get her and daughter, follow-up checks with doctor and dentist, scrounging ride to go get her car, and probably other things that I’m forgetting.
Thanks, but I don’t need a soporific.
re: Dutch Masters
If you haven’t seen it before, you might like (or possibly might hate) the old Ernie Kovacs show, He also did commercials for Dutch Masters.
Rumor has it he wouldn’t actually smoke their product; he liked Cuban cigars and even smoked them in the Dutch Masters commercials pretending they were his sponsor’s.
So how many of Plugs’ classified documents reference Chinese “weather” balloons?
Inquiring minds want to know…
My Dad smoked them and I don’t recall any kind of bad smell.
Here are two separate ones:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/31/instagram-posts/numbers-were-based-faulty-data-military-spokespers/
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-militarydatabase-error/fact-check-dod-says-data-error-caused-spike-in-numbers-of-medical-diagnoses-in-their-medical-database-for-2021-idUSL1N2UY1S2
Here is death data from the CDC WONDER database, which is taken from death certificates.
For 2019 vs. 2021, overall deaths were up in the 15-24, 25-34, and 35-44 YO buckets.
Among the 5 top causes of death excluding COVID in those categories:
Source: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/top-causes-of-death-by-age-group-fdd
The CDC requested data from Pfizer about their jab and myocarditis, but the report, which was due the first of the year, is late. Not much is being said about the situation, and I doubt much ever will.
Regardless, despite the best efforts of the government entities and their lackeys in the media and C-suites, a large control group will still exist in the US when someone wants to do real science on mRNA vaccines.
@ech
The claims that the military database was incorrect was covered in what I posted., and it was noted that the database was taken off-line. Has it been corrected and is again available?
I wouldn’t trust Politifact to survey gum on gym shoes.
The real point of the post was the extreme bias evidenced by the total lack of interest by the LSM in any link to KungFlu.
Latest ‘Gold Standard’ Review Puts The Final Nail In The Coffin For Masks
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2023/02/05/latest-gold-standard-review-puts-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-for-masks-n2619180
The study included N95 disposable respirators (almost universally and incorrectly referred to as “masks”). Their failure was not due to being ineffective at filtering, but due to ineffective sealing–a small amount of air leakage was sufficient to make filtering ineffective. Not surprising, inasmuch as the proper fitment of N95 disposable respirators is seldom adequately trained or reinforced in a medical environment, and the “don’t touch the mask” mantra is counter to the need to continually check and readjust the respirator during use.
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2023/02/05/trump-others-deny-chinese-spy-balloons-flew-across-the-u-s-during-trump-administration-n528585
The LSM is very good at keeping “sources” secret when it serves them. Wonder if the story got filtered through Perkins Coie?
Much of the singing tonight on the Grammys is highly modified in the mix with echo, pitch correction, or overwhelming the vocals with thumping music. Most of the performances are dancing and jumping around with fancy lighting and stage sets. Very little talent except for the backstage hands.
Like the other awards shows, it is all about patting themselves on the back, not about talent.
Post your credentials NaN. We’ll wait.
Plans. Fooey on plans.
I did cut the grass in the back yard. Service gets the front and side, I don’t want them in the back. Too much to see. Used the string trimmer.
Then I thought, why not now? So I tried out the ryobi attachment I picked up recently that turns the drive part of a string trimmer into a mini roto tiller. Perfect size for the raised beds. Tilled up my ‘fallow’ bed in a trice. Pretty easy to use, plenty powerful enough, and no shoveling.
I say ‘fallow’ but until the freeze there was watermelon growing in it. One solitary vine.
Then since I was messing with gas tools anyway, I decided to poke at the pressure washer I bought for <$20. Drained the gas, drained the carb, shot carb cleaner thru hoses… and got it to kick over on carb cleaner. Fresh gas isn’t really getting to the carb, so I have to take the carb off and clean it. I was hoping…. but no. That will have to wait.
Wife and D2 are due back at 6, don’t know if they’ll want dinner, but I sure do.
n
Also did some picking up the house and started a load of laundry. Ah, domestic bliss.
n
Supplies must be normalizing. Palmetto State Armory is doing free shipping on uppers…
n
Actually, it wasn’t. The Legal Insurrection article that you linked to said nothing about the DoD database having errors.
And my links quote two separate persons at DoD explaining the database problem.
Plus, the death data I linked to shows adequate reasons for the increase in deaths. In fact, if you look at other articles on that substack, Mary Pat Campbell goes into even more detail on the drug overdose and suicide numbers, which are rising and mostly in men.
Also, DMED, the database in question is online and available to researchers.
I don’t need to cut the grass. I could mow the snow, I suppose.
WRT a “glitch” in a military database, WTAF? Heads should roll. Commands should be lost if there was that much bad data to skew results so far from normal… Anyone note any punishment for the command chain in charge of that data?
Names are usually named when things go that badly wrong, and someone is punished.
n
When my IQ descends by 50%, I too will troll here.
@cowboystu, you’re giving him too much credit. Your iq would have to drop 90% or more. Why else would he be in academia?
n
Please. A friend of a friend ran budget data as a contractor for CentCom in Tampa for a while. One month they lost the spending history so they just made it up, extrapolating the spending from the month previous and month after.
Not that it really mattered. Budgets are an interesting suggestion to those commands.
ech says:
ech: “Actually, it wasn’t. The Legal Insurrection article that you linked to said nothing about the DoD database having errors.”
see my Sat post timestamped 22:27 which says:
ech: “Plus, the death data I linked to shows adequate reasons for the increase in deaths. In fact, if you look at other articles on that substack, Mary Pat Campbell goes into even more detail on the drug overdose and suicide numbers, which are rising and mostly in men.”
The list of conditions found to be greatly increased by the “medical whistleblowers” did not show “increase in deaths”, so it’s not relevant.
ech: “Also, DMED, the database in question is online and available to researchers.”
Thank you for checking, as I did ask.
But again, not really relevant.
The point of the original post was the tortured lack of imagination or, possibly a (gasp!) conspiracy in the LSM to ignore a quite reasonable question in favor of contrived “explanations” offered, as they say “without proof”.
My sole comment in the OP was “Yeah, it’s a real bleeping mystery.”
I apologize if the formatting above does not clearly show the origins of each bit.
Anyone trying to follow after the spittle-spewing fallacious accusations and stoopid troll trix of last night’s infestation should just ignore it all as not worth the time.
@Nick
And with no explanation we are supposed to meekly accept that the altered (or sanitized) database is reliable and correct.
‘sho nuff
STUDENT DEBT FORGIVENESS COMES TO THE SUPREME COURT
the last paragraph reads
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/02/student-debt-forgiveness-comes-to-the-supreme-court.php
The issue of “standing” has been festering for decades, as SCOTUS has repeatedly refused to address issues which have the potential to rip our republic asunder. I don’t have the U.S. Constitution memorized, but I don’t recall the Founders making standing a requirement for the citizens to have cause seek redress in the courts. They explicitly forbid congress from making no law against the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, but I guess they never expected the courts to fabricate a rule to do the same thing.
found on the web:
https://redstate.com/jimthompson/2023/02/04/slick-lawyers-and-pseudo-science-result-in-making-everyone-pay-n698638
Was talking about Tipper Gore with D1 last night. Mothers against free speech, and parental advisory stickers on albums. 2 Live Crew got banned for “Oh me so horny” while a couple of decades later Cardi B sings about the big D hitting her in the back of the throat…
ON the RADIO.
n
Edwards taught the legal profession about pseudo science and obstetrics. From what I understand from OB frends, he had quite the schtick in court where he would channel the dead infant during the last moments of life trying to flee from whatever the doctors were doing.
Edwards was also the poster child for having the perfect marriage.
Then again, so was Al Gore. “Love Story”.
“Remember what we did to Jello Biafra?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyKzdvZU3pg
Yes, it is. Best 80s movie “in” joke ending ever.
I once had the good fortune to hear Barry Longyear speak at a science fiction convention.
A good portion of the talk involved the award-winning novella “Enemy Mine”, the sale of rights to Hollywood, and the subsequent butchering of the original story to make it nearly unrecognizable as a movie. Mr. Longyear is credited as co-author on the movie tie-in novel, with David Gerrold his co-author.
He also touched on the unfortunate trend he called “writing by the pound”, a trend that has continued unchecked to this day. This is not necessarily an indictment of all long books, although some authors immediately come to mind. It is more an indictment of science fiction as a craft obscuring the ideas that make science fiction in a sea of minutiae.
I see parallels in the evolution of American television. One-hour dramas are seldom single-subject, but are usually two stories with two subsets of characters working on pretty much unrelated lines. With a minor bit of editing you could separate them into two stand-alone shows, and even recombine them in different ways. Blue Bloods did this for years (may be doing it still, I quit after CBS made the Friday night shiite sandwich by inserting the remake of Magnum between H5O and BB) and added the plot device of the family at dinner to tie them together.
More than a week ago I picked up Jack McDevitt’s Omega to reread, and it struck me how the two story line technique was used. The science fictiony story line of the mystery of the Omega Clouds is interlaced with the comparative cultural digressions of the first contact story. Yes, the latter is driven by the urgency of impending doom in the form of an Omega Cloud, but there is little overlap and the one book with two stories could have been two shorter books.
Using this example casts no aspersions on Mr. McDevitt. I could easily use others if I wished to do so.
Wiki typically includes information about the first edition of iconic novels. Ian Fleming, for example, managed the hardcover Bond novels in 210-255 pages in most cases, with paperbacks smaller page counts due to smaller print. Most science fiction of the 50’s and 60’s were enough of a short novel to fit 140-180 pages, and many slightly shorter as long novellas appeared tête-bêche as Ace Doubles. Virtually all of the pb series characters of the time–Dumarest, Shell Scott–were of that length. Travis McGee and Matt Helm’s early appearances were similar, but their stories lengthened in later appearances.
The medium is certainly an important factor in length. Hardcover and softcover had different economies and different requirements that changed over the years. Now we have pod and self-publishing, and a lack of editing that is almost painfully evident.
(This musing was prompted, in part, by the observations regarding trends in tv and cinema. Put it on a big screen, blow lots of shiite up with seat-shaking sound, move fast, and use cheap CGI to make tech-looking stuff, and most people don’t notice that there’ little plot and no regard for the physics of flight)
One of the working SF authors goes into novel length issues extensively on his blog, might even be Stross. It’s about publishing, marketing, press capacity, cost per page, writing the intro part of book two if you have to split it, what that does to page count, and a whole bunch of interrelated things. As a reader it was fascinating to see the invisible part made visible.
n
S1 was here for a visit with his two kids in tow. Grandpa and gang enjoyed the arcade (oh my, how things have changed, haven’t been in quite a while), ruckus-ing with the dogs (four atm), good pizza from Trader Joe’s for lunch and BK kids’ meals for dinner. A good time was had by all, and they go home with Dad and we can breathe again 🙂
Speaking of arcades, in advance of their visit I managed to find some time to get the head attached to my ‘70s Gottlieb all-mechanical pinball machine so the munchkins could see the difference between ‘old-school’ and modern (the arcade still has an Addams Family in decent shape.) Would love to have one of those too but finding one at a “reasonable” price is nigh impossible. My mechine needs to be ’shopped’ (playfield cleaned and polished, all rubbers replaced and the bulbs changed (going with LEDs – no heat helps preserve the somewhat fragile backglass paint and the plastic bumper covers.)) One of the scoring reels is intermittently hanging up, so that needs to be looked at…oh where to find the time…
>> “To make God laugh, make plans.”
I went with (tatt) “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans…”
>> Inflation report: $70 cover at Home Depot 18 months ago was $100 to replace.
>> We’ll see what the tree people want to take a look at our yard and our big oak.
Geez, back in the day a simple BBQ grill could be had from HD for $100.
Hurricane Irma (FL days) snapped a ‘Grand Oak’ in half and the top half came down on our carport and ripped open a seam on the adjacent flat roof and snapped the power feed to the house. In the ensuing chaos we finally tracked down a friend of a friend who was an arborist and his crew was able to get the broken tree off and the remaining trunk cut down to a stump. IIRC all the work was about $3K. Everything was somewhat neatly piled on the lawn and the city eventually came to haul it away. Initially they had to send for longer chainsaws given the diameter of the trunk. The tree guys also managed to lift the wrecked carport up and to the curb with their larger Bobcat. As I expected, the scrap aluminum was gone by the morning. All done without the normally required Grand Oak permit. Fortunately the billing was done through a subsidiary company and no fines ensued.
@alan, one of my formative experiences was watching the arcade machine repair man working on a pinball machine at a KOA Kampground when I was pretty young. He popped the hood, and was soldering something under the playing field. I thought the electro-mechanical complexity was REALLY COOL!
It occurred to me in the last week or so, that I have a touchscreen pc and display built into a table (some sort of smart table from a school) that I wanted to make into a MAME machine, but I didn’t have the room for it (it’s a 48 or 50″ screen). I realized I have room for it at the BOL in the dockhouse, which is a “party room” anyway… All I need is to pop the user accounts, install MAME and get one or more of those arcade machine USB input devices so I have buttons and joysticks.
I don’t need more projects, but now I want to do it so bad I can smell the cigarette smoke and hear the quarters falling into the coin boxes.
n
>> Too much dialog that is barely audible in a theatre. Then add in some annoying background music and it really makes one want to get the closed caption glasses to actually understand the movie.
Yet another reason we prefer to watch movies ay home. I’m lost without the closed-captions and that with just minimal hearing impairment.
>> Yeah. They are in fact listening.
Grocery shopping yesterday and they were out of tinfoil…nothing to be paranoid about, right? Right?? Just that the stock-boy was out sick, yeah, that’s all…
>> @alan, one of my formative experiences was watching the arcade machine repair man working on a pinball machine at a KOA Kampground when I was pretty young. He popped the hood, and was soldering something under the playing field. I thought the electro-mechanical complexity was REALLY COOL!
@nick, yeah, what goes into the mechanical machines is amazing. Everything done with just contact switches, coils, motors, a transformer and miles of wiring. Not a resistor nor capacitor in sight. Having a full schematic is essential for all but the simplest of repairs.
Don’t recall if you posted this recently or I came across it elsewhere but there were some ‘pins’ at not outrageous prices. Of course, shipping one would easily double (or more?) the price.
>> When done via the wireless network, it is wiretapping and requires the cooperation of the carrier as well as a warrant.
Yeah, warrant from the FISA court.
“The law is an ass”
The lastest installment in the story of the crazy neighbors. Y’all will recall that they cut a strip out of our access road, to install their sewage, and now refuse to fix the paving.
So, we finally heard back from our lawyer. It turns out that we cannot take our neighbors to court, because they did not personally cut out the asphalt. We can only sue whoever directly caused the damage, which is the company.
Of course, it’s not the company’s fault – they only did what they were hired to do. So we’re not quite sure how to proceed here. We’ve written the company, informed them of the situation, and suggested they have a chat with the neighbors. Maybe they’ll take a tire iron along for persuasive purposes…
A stupid situation gets stupider.
Speaking of arcades, in advance of their visit I managed to find some time to get the head attached to my ‘70s Gottlieb all-mechanical pinball machine so the munchkins could see the difference between ‘old-school’ and modern (the arcade still has an Addams Family in decent shape.) Would love to have one of those too but finding one at a “reasonable” price is nigh impossible. My mechine needs to be ’shopped’ (playfield cleaned and polished, all rubbers replaced and the bulbs changed (going with LEDs – no heat helps preserve the somewhat fragile backglass paint and the plastic bumper covers.)) One of the scoring reels is intermittently hanging up, so that needs to be looked at…oh where to find the time…
I have not put the head on my 1978 Harlem Globetrotters Bally pinball machine in a decade. Dad bought it in 1978 for some crazy reason and I still own it. I have replaced the three cpu motherboard once since the battery leaked all over it. And it probably needs to be totally rerubbered again. And the free throw ball capture probably still hangs occasionally. But the paint and backglass are beautiful since I have kept it inside all these years.
https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1125
Don’t recall if you posted this recently or I came across it elsewhere but there were some ‘pins’ at not outrageous prices. Of course, shipping one would easily double (or more?) the price.
Yeah, mine weighs about 250 lbs. Maybe more. And shipping that backglass would be scary.
The lastest installment in the story of the crazy neighbors. Y’all will recall that they cut a strip out of our access road, to install their sewage, and now refuse to fix the paving.
I refuse to state what I have going on with my crazy neighbor. My lawyer did something stupid and I am pissed. My legal costs just hit $10K.
@Lynn: Sorry to hear that. If you need to vent, you can always send me a private email (brad at kri dot ch).