Ah, the long term plan emerges
Dec. 30th, 2012 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollTheo "Vox Day" Beale, having previously asserted such interesting things as
when according to wikipedia she did not become President until 2003, shifts his cloud-shouting over to his Vox Day blog, which btw is going to make keeping a chinese wall between his Vox Day persona and secret identity as Theodore Beale pretty hard, reveals that he has not in fact read at least one of the books whose victory he denounces and then gets to what I assume was the whole point of the affair, launching his pre-doomed campaign to run for SFWA President.
Linking is not advocacy.
My gut feeling here is that once he loses, the next logical move is to set up an ideologically untainted rival to SFWA, perhaps one untainted by the oh so many groups of whom he disapproves.
Catherine Asaro’s The Quantum Rose, which won the Best Novel award in 2002, is perhaps the most egregious example; Asaro was the SFWA President at the time,
when according to wikipedia she did not become President until 2003, shifts his cloud-shouting over to his Vox Day blog, which btw is going to make keeping a chinese wall between his Vox Day persona and secret identity as Theodore Beale pretty hard, reveals that he has not in fact read at least one of the books whose victory he denounces and then gets to what I assume was the whole point of the affair, launching his pre-doomed campaign to run for SFWA President.
Linking is not advocacy.
My gut feeling here is that once he loses, the next logical move is to set up an ideologically untainted rival to SFWA, perhaps one untainted by the oh so many groups of whom he disapproves.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 12:44 am (UTC)I left because Scalzi issued an edict declaring that nobody could get a lifetime membership without an invitation-- i.e., the approval of John Scalzi-- and that the cost was raised to more than sixty years' dues.
This was shortly after he and other officers had enjoyed vacations paid for out of members' dues.
I know nothing about Beale, but if he can create an outfit worse than what Scalzi has turned SFWA into, he possesses supernatural abilities.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 01:56 am (UTC)I can't tell if you're kidding or not, but for the sake of my faith in humanity I'm going to assume you're just trolling.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 01:28 pm (UTC)It's sad. He hasn't revealed himself to be a bad man yet, just more gullible than anyone should be, and defensive about his life choices. I would bet a C-note that he's been badly conned at least once in his life, except there's no way to demonstrate it.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 07:52 am (UTC)He didn't write SF either. The difference is, he didn't pretend he did.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 10:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-02 12:42 am (UTC)She did write fun fantasy, once you learn to ignore the lectures she put into it. Sometimes the wands ran on batteries instead of magic.
Her most famous work is probably The Word For World is Forest. Straw men in uniforms are defeated in battle by guerrillas.
I repeat: a supposedly organized military force is defeated by guerrillas.
I suppose this was plausible to the people who swallowed the myth that there was a viable Viet Cong presence in South Viet Nam after the Tet Offensive. (I am unable to confirm my suspicion that "Tet" is upcountry Annamese for "Pickett's Charge".)
Her overt fantasy is similarly lacking in attention to realistic detail. Just because there's magic doesn't mean, e.g., there's no gravity; which means that the population of Earthsea, which has no large continents that cross its equator, should be _fanatically obsessed_ with the continuous calamity that is the tide, and anybody caught building a boat should be bound hand and foot for his own good and taken to the nearest wizard for treatment.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-02 02:34 am (UTC)Can you direct me to a source for the claim that tides are massively larger on a world without significant landmasses crossing the equator? (Or, if that's not what you meant, can you specify what other "continuous calamity" the tides would inflict on such a world?)
I don't see why the tides would be any higher on Earthsea (I would expect some other differences from Earth, including stronger cyclonic storms and rough seas in latitudes with round-the-globe free ocean circulation). Quite possibly this is a gap in my own education, in which case instruction would be welcome.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-02 03:20 am (UTC)That's a sensible question. Who are you?
EDIT: There might conceivably be NO cyclonic storms. Those form when a patch of air above the ocean remains still for a while in a hot region, so that it becomes saturated in a thick layer. When it finally gets disturbed, it rises in a great mass, and as water condenses out from the drop in pressure it releases its heat into the air that had held it, causing that to rise faster. Meanwhile more wet air comes in underneath the rising air, and feeds the process further, and the tropical depression (the pressure drop due to the rising central air) may progress to storm, then hurricane, depending on the breaks, and just keeps raining until it runs out of (I can't resist) steam.
Where the tides are uninterrupted I just can't visualize a still region lasting for the days this takes to happen.
I recall reading that in the vicinity of Tahiti the change in sea level from tides is tiny to nonexistent; effects cancel out due to... something*. (Been too long, sorry.) The typhoons around Tahiti are legendary, to the point where the Polynesians developed a style of sailing that actually _made use_ of the things to get places faster! {8\ (Their navigators must have had about six balls.)
(*Ocean floor shape? Reverb from continents? Just can't remember. --Pissed-off gods? They had plenty of those.)
no subject
Date: 2013-01-03 04:19 pm (UTC)It's true that midocean tides would be greater on a waterworld than they are on Earth. But I think you're being misled by your analogy between the tidal bulge and other waves.
It's a standard exercise in physics to calculate the expected equilibrium height of the tides on an Earth covered with a uniform ocean (this involves working out how much water mass gets moved toward the tidal bulge points). The result is higher than typical midocean tides on Earth, but in no way catastrophic or even particularly difficult to deal with. Unlike the case with wind-generated waves or swells, the forces generating tidal bulge change direction over the course of every day and do not keep pushing waves higher for days on end.
As you point out, the tidal range in Tahiti is quite low, about 70cm between mean high and low tide (and a bit wider for a spring tide). On a featureless ocean-covered Earth, one could expect the solar tidal bulge to be about 55 cm high due to lunar tide and another 25 cm from solar tide, for a total of 80 cm at a spring tide, which doubles to 1.6 m to give the whole tidal range. Significantly more than at Tahiti, but nothing particularly dramatic.
One example of the equilibrium tide calculation is at http://www.jal.cc.il.us/~mikolajsawicki/gravity_and_tides.html; I can't claim to have checked it in every detail but it lines up with other treatments I've read and I saw no obvious errors.
This theoretical calculation could of course be off, but I haven't found any source describing why it would be. I would welcome reference to any such source.
"[on Earthsea] There might conceivably be NO cyclonic storms. Those form when a patch of air above the ocean remains still for a while in a hot region, so that it becomes saturated in a thick layer. . . . Where the tides are uninterrupted I just can't visualize a still region lasting for the days this takes to happen."
You may be right about the absence of cyclonic storms (although I'd disagree as to the reason); the storm-generating regions on Earth tend to be toward the western ends of ocean basins. Free global latitudinal circulation (as in earth's Southern Ocean) might break up these patterns. It would be interesting to see a treatment of the topic by someone who knows atmospheric physics.
As for my identity, I'm just an SF fan too lazy to set up a new ID after my last livejournal account stopped working.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-03 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-02 12:57 am (UTC)I'm sorry you don't understand Dr. Pournelle's work. It can be esoteric.
LeGuin's work, of course, is certainly accessible to anybody bright enough to grasp Vonnegut.
But as regards lifetime influence on SF, which is the only meaningful criterion of Grandmaster status... come to think of it, the issue becomes moot, as the only real Grandmaster would be Heinlein.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 03:08 pm (UTC)1. I did not release an edict declaring no one could get lifetime memberships. Rather the Board of SFWA determined the price of a lifetime membership was not appropriately priced. As the current bylaws do not allow for the removal of the lifetime membership option, the board then priced the option at an intentionally high rate to dissuade members from choosing the option (and then made it clear to the membership what it was doing and why).
My memory tells me that this decision was made near the end of Davis administration, but it may be faulty and the vote could have occurred at the very beginning of my tenure. Either way, we decided to revisit the issue of lifetime membership pricing after our incorporation in California, which unfortunately has dragged on far longer than anyone expected. In any event, this action was the choice of the board, not presidential fiat. Additionally, if any member genuinely wishes to pay the current price of $5k for a lifetime membership, they may, although I advise against it.
Likewise, I do not possess the ability to grant anyone a lifetime membership as president. The board may choose to do so -- for example, for members who have become Grand Masters. But then the board has always had that ability, so far as I know.
2. Neither I nor any member of the SFWA board in my tenure has ever used SFWA funds for a vacation. My predecessor Russell Davis instituted (with the approval of his board) a policy that allow for SFWA to pay for the travel expenses of its board for Nebula Weekend and Worldcon (or World Fantasy/NASFiC when the Worldcon is out of the US)so that the board members may participate in board meetings and the bylaw-mandated twice-annual business meetings. This policy reflects the reality that board members are not always wealthy, and that the board will often get more work done, quickly, if a majority of it is in one place at one time.
While Nebula Weekends, Worldcons and World Fantasy/NASFiC are often held in attractive locations, spending twelve hours in a board meeting plus two hours at a business meeting plus other various background responsibilities at Nebula Weekend, plus being on call for constituent service do not a vacation make.
Additionally, SFWA will pay the travel expenses of each board member once a year to a regional convention, if that board member holds a regional business meetings and hosts a SFWA gathering and otherwise offers constituent service. Being responsible for meetings and gatherings for members are again not generally considered vacation activities.
For my own part I use this travel option only occasionally, and partially. Nebula Weekend has coincided with a book tour on at least one occasion, so I let my publisher take care of airfare while SFWA paid for my room. At the most recent Worldcon, SFWA paid neither for my transportation or lodging, although we did have a board meal, which I participated in.
Edited to add: I think it's possible harvey rrit has confused or conflated me with Russell Davis, as Davis was criticized for having used SFWA funds for a meeting of board members, past presidents and other members to re-think the organization's structure, and that meeting has been characterized by critics as a vacation. Being one of the participants of that meeting, and having been in a conference room for eight hours straight, four days in a row, I would argue the "vacation" assessment of that event as well.