A few hundred miles outside the ship, the Lady May thought back at him, “O warm, O generous, O gigantic man!  O brave, O friendly, O tender and huge partner!  O wonderful with you, with you so good, good, good, warm, warm, now to fight, now to go, good with you…”

Lady May to Underhill the pinlighter
The Game of Rat and Dragon (Cordwainer Smith)

The Hugo Award is using the instant runoff voting system (a variant of the Australian Ballot).  It may not rings a bell right now since we are used to the majority vote only.  But I think this system will be a subject of conversation next year when the Oscar will be awarded.  As may be heard on the news, the Academy expanded at least the “Best Picture Category” to ten nominees.  With that much nominees, a movie can win with only 11% of the votes (the nine other movies having 10% or less votes for them).

continue reading "On Voting at the Hugo"

“Yes, Marcus?”
“Ms. Galvez, about this note?”
“Yes, Marcus.”
“Isn’t the point of terrorism to make us afraid?  That’s why it’s called terrorism, right?”
“I suppose so.”  The class was staring at me.  I wasn’t the best student in school, but I did like a good in-class debate.  They were waiting to hear what I’d say next.
“So aren’t we doing what the terrorists want from us?  Don’t they win if we act all afraid and put cameras in the classrooms and all of that?”

Marcus and Ms Galvez
Little Brother (Cory Doctorow)

In 1971 :

Radio and television cigarette advertisements were banned in the United States.
The southern part of Québec received the Century’s Snowstorm (42 cm of snow).
Intel launched the 4004 microprocessor.

And Apollo 15 landed on the moon.

Exploring the Commons on Flickr, I have found some nice albums from the George Eastman House a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of objects related to George Eastman life.  Maybe you don’t know Mr. Eastman but I’m sure you know about the company he founded in 1888.  He was the inventor of paper roll films and the founder of Kodak.  As much as I have found in the mission reports, Kodak film rolls were used to take the pictures of the Apollo 15 mission.  They are beautiful.

George Eastman
George Eastman Museum
George Eastman House on Flickr
Apollo 15 Fligh Journal
Apollo 15 Wiki

“He says if I kick anything, it’ll fall off.”
“I ran into one of your pals,” he said, “a modern.”
“Yeah?  Which one?”
“Lupus Yonderboy.  Had a message.”  He passed her a paper napkin with W I N T E R M U T E printed in red feltpen in his neat, laborious capitals.  “He said—”  But her hand came up in the jive for silence.
“Get us some crab,” she said.

Case and Molly
Neuromancer, William Gibson