Helix SF to End

shsilver reports:

William Sanders has announced that the Hugo-nominated on-line sf magazine Helix SF will cease publication following its tenth issue.

Sanders blames the end of the magazine in part on an "ongoing failure to develop a broad base of support."

Back in the olden days when hippies ran the Campus Center (and it was still the Campus Center and not the Student Life Building), coffee sales ran on the honour system: pour your own coffee, drop the appropriate payment (a quarter, I think) into the kitty. It ran like that for about a decade, until someone sat down and calculated the ratio of coffee not paid for to coffee paid for, which was BIG NUMBER: small number. I suspect unless the publisher has some kind of hold over the reader (the obvious one is "it's a novel and you don't find out what happens next until I get N dollars."), most people will be content to be free riders.

The relatively tiny market for short fiction will make matters worse, of course.

Helix SF to End

shsilver reports:

William Sanders has announced that the Hugo-nominated on-line sf magazine Helix SF will cease publication following its tenth issue.

Sanders blames the end of the magazine in part on an "ongoing failure to develop a broad base of support."

Back in the olden days when hippies ran the Campus Center (and it was still the Campus Center and not the Student Life Building), coffee sales ran on the honour system: pour your own coffee, drop the appropriate payment (a quarter, I think) into the kitty. It ran like that for about a decade, until someone sat down and calculated the ratio of coffee not paid for to coffee paid for, which was BIG NUMBER: small number. I suspect unless the publisher has some kind of hold over the reader (the obvious one is "it's a novel and you don't find out what happens next until I get N dollars."), most people will be content to be free riders.

The relatively tiny market for short fiction will make matters worse, of course.

Helix SF to End

shsilver reports:

William Sanders has announced that the Hugo-nominated on-line sf magazine Helix SF will cease publication following its tenth issue.

Sanders blames the end of the magazine in part on an "ongoing failure to develop a broad base of support."

Back in the olden days when hippies ran the Campus Center (and it was still the Campus Center and not the Student Life Building), coffee sales ran on the honour system: pour your own coffee, drop the appropriate payment (a quarter, I think) into the kitty. It ran like that for about a decade, until someone sat down and calculated the ratio of coffee not paid for to coffee paid for, which was BIG NUMBER: small number. I suspect unless the publisher has some kind of hold over the reader (the obvious one is "it's a novel and you don't find out what happens next until I get N dollars."), most people will be content to be free riders.

The relatively tiny market for short fiction will make matters worse, of course.

Nicked from Making Light

Palin quotes columnist Westbrook Pegler in homage to small town America.

Some notes on Westbrook Pegler.

Nicked from Making Light

Palin quotes columnist Westbrook Pegler in homage to small town America.

Some notes on Westbrook Pegler.

Nicked from Making Light

Palin quotes columnist Westbrook Pegler in homage to small town America.

Some notes on Westbrook Pegler.

What Would Jenkins Do?

Imagine for the moment that the demographic transition continues to its logical end-point and that you are an entity charged with bringing those lovable humans [1] back from the brink of extinction. How would you do it?

Just for giggles, let's remove "enslave all women" as an option. I'm sure that option gets discussed enough elsewhere.

This was inspired by a comment on my flist comparing humans to pandas, btw, so all of the mental images I have right now are probably inappropriate for this problem (On the plus side, if you can convince them it is a fashion accessory, you probably won't have to drug humans to fit them with GPS ear-tags).

1: There was supposed to be something else in front of this but since I screwed that up, have this instead:

It's probably funnier if the entities involved have no experience with humans in the wild [2] aside from the humans' own works on how human breeding works. We'll assume that Murder Ballads are not part of this body of work but I think even a stack of moldering manga could prove entertaining.

2: Say, what counts as in the wild for humans two hundred years from now. Would our entity try to drop their carefully raised humans off in the middle of nowhere to find their way as hunter-gatherers or would they make a city for them?

What Would Jenkins Do?

Imagine for the moment that the demographic transition continues to its logical end-point and that you are an entity charged with bringing those lovable humans [1] back from the brink of extinction. How would you do it?

Just for giggles, let's remove "enslave all women" as an option. I'm sure that option gets discussed enough elsewhere.

This was inspired by a comment on my flist comparing humans to pandas, btw, so all of the mental images I have right now are probably inappropriate for this problem (On the plus side, if you can convince them it is a fashion accessory, you probably won't have to drug humans to fit them with GPS ear-tags).

1: There was supposed to be something else in front of this but since I screwed that up, have this instead:

It's probably funnier if the entities involved have no experience with humans in the wild [2] aside from the humans' own works on how human breeding works. We'll assume that Murder Ballads are not part of this body of work but I think even a stack of moldering manga could prove entertaining.

2: Say, what counts as in the wild for humans two hundred years from now. Would our entity try to drop their carefully raised humans off in the middle of nowhere to find their way as hunter-gatherers or would they make a city for them?

What Would Jenkins Do?

Imagine for the moment that the demographic transition continues to its logical end-point and that you are an entity charged with bringing those lovable humans [1] back from the brink of extinction. How would you do it?

Just for giggles, let's remove "enslave all women" as an option. I'm sure that option gets discussed enough elsewhere.

This was inspired by a comment on my flist comparing humans to pandas, btw, so all of the mental images I have right now are probably inappropriate for this problem (On the plus side, if you can convince them it is a fashion accessory, you probably won't have to drug humans to fit them with GPS ear-tags).

1: There was supposed to be something else in front of this but since I screwed that up, have this instead:

It's probably funnier if the entities involved have no experience with humans in the wild [2] aside from the humans' own works on how human breeding works. We'll assume that Murder Ballads are not part of this body of work but I think even a stack of moldering manga could prove entertaining.

2: Say, what counts as in the wild for humans two hundred years from now. Would our entity try to drop their carefully raised humans off in the middle of nowhere to find their way as hunter-gatherers or would they make a city for them?