Fandom

Manga and the History of Printing

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Jennifer Ouellette has long post about the history of printing, inspired by a very lucky encounter a book of sketches by Katsushika Hokusai. Apparently the Chinese invented movable type some time in the 11th Century, long before Guttenberg was born. And Thomas Edison invented the dear old mimeograph. But my favorite bit was this:

There was a device called the hectograph in the 1870s

This, of course, is impossible. As we all know, fanzines were produced on hectographs, and fanzines were not invented until the 1940s when science fiction fandom was invented. But maybe those hectographs were in China.

Yes, I know, I’m being silly. I put it down to the unexpected sight of blue sky two days in a row.

A Poll About Conventions

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

My Google Alert on Worldcon turned up a poll about SF conventions on the LiveJournal of someone called ArtVixn. It asks a number of questions about conventions, including the following:

  • If you haven’t attended Worldcon, what factor was the most important in stopping you?
  • If you found out there was going to be one near you, would you be interested?

I was interested to see that at present the clear winner on the “what’s stopping you attending Worldcon” question is the air fare (53%, compared to only 9% for membership price). Also the “would you be interested” question was running at 67% for “Yes!”.

Now of course, human beings being what they are, I suspect if you took a poll of people who lived near a Worldcon then the most common reason for not attending would be the membership price, But it is good to see that people have an interest in attending. It is also a good argument for why Worldcon needs to travel around.

If you have the time, please go and participate, especially those of you who are not Worldcon regulars.

Update: Oops, forgot to mention that you have to have a LiveJournal account to vote. Sorry.

A Post of No Educational Value

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I have in the past occasionally waxed rantish about the fact that a science fiction club can be considered an artistic and educational charity in the USA but has no hope of achieving such standing in the UK. Just in case you didn’t believe that, I point you to a post by Ben Goldacre discussing a report by the Charities Commission called Public Benefit and the Advancement of Education. The comment that gets Ben’s goat is as follows:

An individual’s blog, on the other hand, is not likely to be of educative value, as neither the subject matter nor the process is of educational value.

Got that? Good. Now please go away and do something that is of educational value and stop wasting your time reading this blog. Alternatively, go and read Ben’s blog, because it is almost always educational, except in the minds of people who haven’t allowed in any original thought that is less than a few hundred years old. Just don’t read that report, because it is full of similar smug, self-righteous stupidity.

Mimeo Experts & Equipment Wanted

~ Cheryl ~ 10 Comments

As I mentioned a while back, I have been given a couple of program slots at Worldcon. One of them is rather interesting, but it may not happen, depending on whether or not the Denvention 3 folks can get the necessary equipment and people together.

I was asked if I knew anyone who was competent with the use of a mimeo duplicator, because D3 wanted to do a demonstration of how fanzines used to be made in the “good old days” before blogging and efanzines.com. Having published a mimeo magazine for ten years, I figured that I was competent to help with this and volunteered. But I am by no means good at everything to do with mimeo. In particular I cannot draw on a stencil to save my life. (Well, I cannot draw to save my life, but I’m not even safe tracing on a stencil.) So I was really hoping to find someone who is good at that sort of thing to help out. Even if you are only good at making pictures with typing, it would help.

Furthermore, D3 tells me that they are not having much luck getting hold of the equipment. So if anyone knows where we can get hold of a mimeo duplicator and the necessary bits and pieces to actually make a fanzine (typewriter, ink, paper, corflu) within reasonable transport distance of Denver we’d all be very grateful. Thank you!

Con Crud Makes the News

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Most of you will already know about the particularly virulent strain of con crud that struck Wiscon last weekend (and to those of you still recovering, my condolences). Getting sick at cons is something we all know about. I seem to be fairly tough, but Kevin makes a habit of it. This one, however, was different. Not only was it much more virulent than usual, it also made the local news.

Wiscon has had an excellent relationship with the Concourse Hotel, and I’m delighted to see that the local health officials are being sensible about this. But it does highlight a potential issue, and helps illustrate why you don’t get con suites at British conventions.

You see, people at American conventions don’t just eat hotel food. They eat food at room parties too. If the Madison Public Health Department hadn’t been convinced that the disease was brought to the convention by attendees, they would have been looking at party food as well as what the hotel served. I have no idea what the legal situation is in Wisconsin, but in the UK the hotel could have been liable for bad food served on its premises, even if it had not served the food itself. And that’s why they don’t like people running room parties.

SMOFcon 26

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Via Kevin I discover that SMOFcon 26 has a web site at last. It is a little light on details (I’m sure they have more than three members), but at least it looks professionally put together. Progress. And Kevin also reports that there are plenty of good places to eat nearby.

Of course even competent web designers can make mistakes. Is it really a good idea to have your header graphics so large that most people have to scroll down to see any content at all? (What, you mean that ordinary people don’t have massive screens like I have on my development machine?)

2010 Too

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I have been reminded that there is also some competition for 2010. A bunch of engaging lunatics from Rochester, NY want to hijack a ferry and run a pirate cruise around the Great Lakes. Needless to say, this is a hoax bid, but given how badly one or two of the Australians reacted to the Alcatraz in 1999 bid it is probably necessary to point out that it has no chance of winning, or indeed affecting the result in any way.

Attention Finland

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I see from Liz Williams’ LiveJournal that she has been asked to be GoH for Imagicon 2 in Stockholm next year. If I understand things correctly, that’s a firm event that is also bidding to be the 2009 Swecon. Liz is a wonderful writer (and has produced some fabulous Feminist SF as well as the brilliant Inspector Chen series). I hope lots of Finns (and other persons for that matter) make the trip to Stockholm.

(I’d consider going myself, but I have this Word Fantasy Con to prepare for, and anyway I may have no money by then.)

Post-Weird Thoughts

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

No, not mine, theirs. Post-Weird Thoughts is a new blog from Jacques Barcia and Fábio Fernandes. It promises thoughts on weird fiction in English by Brazilians. As you know, I’m all in favor of building bridges to SF&F communities in other countries. I wish the new blog well, and I hope you will all enjoy reading now.

One of these days, I want to go to a convention in Brazil.

Garcia on the Hugos and Gambling

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

The latest issue of Chris Garcia’s The Drink Tank is an extended look at this year’s Hugo nominees. It is mainly by Chris, with guest comment from Niall Harrison. Being up for two fan Hugos himself, Chris majors on the fan categories. He says very kind things about me, for which I am very grateful (beer later, Chris, it will be flat if I send it from here), and offers the absurd odds of 5-1 on my winning. If it was 500-1 I might put some money on me, on the grounds that if I did win then I’d also come into enough money to hide away from the hordes of angry Scalzi fans for the rest of my life. But actually Chris doesn’t quite have his math right.

Those of us who have worked in for a bookmaker (it was a vacation job while I was in college), or indeed in commodity trading, are a little sharper. Chris is offering 2-1 on Scalzi and 3-1 on Langford. So if I put $1000 on each of them I’ll be fine. If Scalzi wins I break even, and if Langford wins I make $1000 profit. Alternatively I could put $2000 on Scalzi and $1000 on Langford. Then if Scalzi wins I get $4000 from him and lose $1000 on Dave, netting $3000; whereas if Dave wins I get $3000 from him and lose $2000 on John, netting $1000. Making money from gambling is quite easy of the bookie doesn’t get him odds right.

Of course you might argue that it is not certain that one of Scalzi and Langford will win. And if you do I will also argue that it is not certain that we won’t all wake up tomorrow and discover that we are all characters in a Charlie Stross virtual novel being played by a gang of adolescent squid on a giant artificial habitat orbiting the planet Ambergris.

CostumeCon Catch-Up

~ Cheryl

Kevin is back home with two pieces of good news. Firstly they used my suggestion as the name for the newsletter (it was called “My Evil Plan”). Tom Becker appears to have done a fabulous job with it. Also there are DVDs, already! I’m taking them back to the UK with me. (Doubtless Teddy and Tom have copies too.) I shall bring the SF masquerade one with me to Finncon.

Oh, and the “Space Girls” skit was absolutely hilarious – well done girls!

A Podcast Experiment

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I figured that it was about time that I learned how to do podcasts, so I have bought myself a digital voice recorder and am beginning to experiment. Of course I needed a convenient experimental subject, which is why my first podcast in an interview with Kevin.

Obviously we had to have something to talk about, so we structured the interview around Worldcon and the World Science Fiction Society. It isn’t the best interview I have ever done. I quickly discovered that podcasts are much less easy to edit than traditional interviews so you have to work very hard to getting the structure right in advance. But hopefully some of you will find it interesting. If you have any questions as a result of what Kevin said, please ask them here.

I’m reasonably pleased with the quality, but I think I had the microphone sensitivity set too high. Noise is hard to get rid of. It sounds OK on speakers, but on headphones you may find there’s too much background creaks and groans (blame our sofa).

Anyway, do let me know what you think of this experiment. Podcasts seem reasonably easy to do. Also the technology I have allows me to put the podcasts up on iTunes. If you would like me to do that I will.