Intrigued by a comment read elsewhere

Has anyone run into people who flat out deny the Great Depression occurred?

Today's intriguing discovery

A few weeks ago, Jeff Noon came into the office to record some audio snippets of him reading from the imaginative thrill-ride that is Vurt. This was fun, as I’d only vaguely been aware that we had a recording studio!

Tor has a recording studio. That means the only thing standing between it and a program fit to put beside X Minus One or Mindwebs is determination. Well, determination, a funding source, at least one writer to do the adaptations, someone who can obtain the rights to various short works, a crew of voice actors within traveling distance of the studio and someone to ride herd on all of the above, but determination is the most important part.

Now, I'm not saying you should all inundate tor.com with a flood of requests to tor.com* for an audio show. You'd have to decide to do that on your own time. Mentioning that I have script-writing experience would also be one of those voluntary things.


* Does tor.com have access to Tor's resources or would we need to sneak in after hours?

Question

Where does the phrase "Heartland SF" come from?

Is there

Dust Bowl denialism?

!

Behold: the entire history of Solar System exploration in [one] graphic. It requires a HTML5-capable browser, so only newer ones work. If your browser only shows a static image, it is too old. The Button on the upper left enables full screen mode.

Interesting if true

The Act contains changes to UK copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called "orphan works", by placing the work into what's known as "extended collective licensing" schemes. Since most digital images on the internet today are orphans - the metadata is missing or has been stripped by a large organisation - millions of photographs and illustrations are swept into such schemes.

For the first time anywhere in the world, the Act will permit the widespread commercial exploitation of unidentified work - the user only needs to perform a "diligent search". But since this is likely to come up with a blank, they can proceed with impunity. The Act states that a user of a work can act as if they are the owner of the work (which should be you) if they're given permission to do so by the Secretary of State and are acting as a regulated body.

The Act also fails to prohibit sub-licensing, meaning that once somebody has your work, they can wholesale it. This gives the green light to a new content-scraping industry, an industry that doesn't have to pay the originator a penny. Such is the consequence of "rebalancing copyright", in reality.

Abigail Nussbaum's The 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist, Part 1

Every year, the judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award face a challenge. They have to read a truly heroic amount of books. They have to critically evaluate each of those books. They have to agree amongst themselves on a shortlist of six books, representing the best science fiction novel published in the UK in the last year (while, as the award's administrators' faithfully remind us every year, arriving at their own definitions of "best," "science fiction," and "novel"). And they have to pick a winner out of the six, and do so in the wake of a fannish response that almost inevitably decries their choices as too populist, too literary, too traditional, too experimental, too political, or not enough of any of these things. The judges for the 2013 Clarke award, however, faced an extra challenge. This year, on top of all the usual tasks, it was incumbent upon them to produce a shortlist that would prove that we have not, in fact, lived and fought in vain.

Comics Alliance shut down?

Reports are coming in that ComicsAlliance, the comics and comics culture website, has been shut down today by AOL. We’ll tell you everything we know as soon as we know it.

ISS Holed by Space Rock!

Happily, not in a bit with humans inside.

(via CMDR Hadfield's twitter feed)

It's a good thing I am working my way through SF radio series

Because as daunting as some of the archives I has listened to have been, the mystery shows are much, much larger. CBS Radio Mystery Theater had something like 1400 episodes.

CBC's The Mystery Project ran for ten years but I am not sure how many episodes there were.

A lot of Vanishing Point Episodes

Point Of Departure (Rachel Wyatt )

A woman about to head off on holiday is confronted by some personal history she had hoped was forever behind her.

Not especially fantastic and the main notable detail about this is a spoiler.

Rachel Wyatt (born 1929 in Bradford, England) is an English-Canadian dramatist.

Wyatt emigrated to Canada with her family in 1957. She has written scores of plays for the BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Awarded the Order of Canada in 2002 and the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 2003.

Once again, The Vanishing Point had a keen eye for authors.

Skin Roald Dahl)

This is a creepy little story about a grasping art dealer and an old man who happens to have a work of art by a now-dead artist tattooed on his back.

Roald Dahl (...) (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter.

Phase Three (Brad Burningham)

"Clydes", an increasing adept brand of robot, have been gradually displacing skilled workers. Phase Three involves firing everyone left from Phases One and Two and the workers know it. Aided by a visionary executive, some of them are willing to go to some pretty extreme lengths to ensure the financial future of their families.

This felt very Golden Agey. It wouldn't have been out of place in an anthology from the 1940s.

Bradd Burningham grew up in Essex, Ontario, and has lived in Windsor, Cambridge, Toronto, Ottawa, London, Saskatoon, and Sackville (New Brunswick). He studied at the University of Toronto, the University of Windsor (B.A, M.A), and the University of Western Ontario (M.L.S.). He has worked in bookstores and as an editor, teacher, and librarian. He is a past President of the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick, and currently lives in Windsor, Ontario.

The Addict (George Ryga)

An addict whose doctor has helped her control her addiction by writing her prescriptions for a maintenance dose learns from the doctor that in an attempt to use her as a model for the treatment of other addicts, he has managed to get his ability to prescribe drugs temporarily suspended while also managing to publicly (as far as all the doctors in town are concerned) labelled as an addict. Without the trustworthy, controlled supply of drugs, her life soon spirals out of control.

I'm pretty sure using her records like that would now constitute a violation of Canada's Privacy Laws. He didn't even think to anonymize her?

George Ryga (27 Jul 1932 – 18 Nov 1987) was a Canadian playwright and novelist.