A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Capclave is the annual convention put on by WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association) in October. In 2009, the Capclave Chair is Bill Lawhorn. The convention will be held 16-18 October 2009 with Guests of Honor Harry Turtledove and Sheila Williams. The convention will be held in the Hilton Washington DC/Rockville, Executive Meeting Center, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Check the convention webpage for complete information.

Yesterday was a meeting of the Capclave committee. What was discussed was how to spread the word about the convention and brainstorming ideas for publicity, programming, and some of the other tasks that need to be done. As you know the economy hasn’t been too good over the last couple of years and trying to come up with the right mix of guests and programming to encourage people to come and have fun, learn about writing, and meeting a lot of people who enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy is not easy.

Registration numbers are okay and so far on target, but we certainly would be happy to have more people sign up and come to the convention. Check the website — we’ve got some awesome guests.

One of the benefits of coming to Capclave for people who want to learn about writing is that Capclave offers several workshops. The workshops are free to Capclave members but do require that people sign up ahead of time so the workshop leaders know how many to expect and so we don’t overbook the rooms. There’s no extra charge for the workshops and many are an hour or half-day so you don’t miss the rest of the convention either.

So, please, check out our webpage. And let me know what you think? Would you come to such a convention if it was near you and you enjoyed science fiction and fantasy books and short stories? What would make you want to attend a convention of this type?

Maybe it could be a song, I haven’t slept much in during the last two nights. I spend time in bed, but just don’t manage to drop down deep enough in sleep to dream. I toss and turn and turn and toss and finally get up and read or watch something. Sometimes I really wish I had something that showed — some problem so that people could look at me and think: she’s in pain, let’s go easy on her. But I don’t.  I look healthy. Even when on that blasted scale of pain from 1 to 10 when the pain is a 7 or 8, I look perfectly normal. I’ve learned to hide mostly.

My poor husband puts up with the whimpers and the tears. He tries to comfort, but it’s now day three of pain level 6 or 7, and I’m beginning to wonder if the the pain itself is driving the new pain. I don’t have any pain meds left that work on this. I’ve got Imitrex nasal spray and last night, since I had a whopping migraine on top of the muscle aches, I used it. So after the Imitrex and 7 extra-strength Tylenol, I managed to get 2 1/2 hours of sleep.

I’m whining. I know I am. But I’m sick of the American medical system that ignores people in chronic pain. If I hear “Go to your happy place” or “you don’t need pain medication, you just need to change your attitude”, I’ll scream. I’d like to say: let me take this hammer and smash it into your hand with all my might, then you can go to your happy place and adjust your attitude, but for heaven’s sake don’t take any pain meds because that’s a crutch and it might be addicting.

I’m going to have to ask for pain meds again on my next doctor’s visit. My last Rx ran out over a year ago and I’ve been very sparing on the last 30 pills. I’m not in the market to get addicted. I just want a good night’s sleep once in a while. When the pain level is around 4, I usually can handle it, but these last few days are making me feel like something the cat dragged in after a particularly energetic bout of “play”.

So, I hate to be such a wimp but gee, I got to vent sometime to someone. Doesn’t make me feel any better physically, but I do feel better emotionally. So, just how do you handle pain without pain killers? Grit your teeth. Find a happy place. Beg for medication. Sit in the dark and cry? Just wondering how other fibromyalgia, migraineurs, or just people living with chronic pain cope.

I’m probably one of the last people to get to see Hancock. We watched it as a play now on Netflix. I can’t comment on the clarity of the sound or the picture — remember Netflix insists that you use IE to watch their movies and there’s very little control on the viewer’s side (personally, I think Netflix should take a look at Hulu with their use any browser, clear sound, crisp pictures — I can even read the credits; can’t on Netflix — and sometimes closed captioning.

Anyway, I’d seen clips and it looked like it would be fun. Hancock stars Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron, Eddie Fernandez, and Johnny Galecki among others. Never could resist a Will Smith film and this was worth watching. Basically, Hancock (Smith) is a superhero who is, in all honesty, a jerk. He’s a drunk with anger management issues and he gets the job done but with no care what so ever about collateral damage as long as the bad guys get caught. Along comes Ray (Bateman) a PR guy who wants to make the world a better place, and convinces Hancock that he doesn’t need to be a jerk — he can be loved and respected and sets out to change him. Mary (Theron), Ray’s wife, thinks Hancock may be a lost cause.

That’s the bare bones, no spoilers, outline. Berg manages to have a goodly number of twist on this tale and things are not as the audience originally thought. Hancock is rude, sloppy, crude, and a drunk with tremendous power. He does his job but everyone hates him and he doesn’t fit in — he’s alone. One of a kind. He hasn’t got any connection to the people he’s helping. He has no memory of who he is or how he got to be the way he is. Can he change his attitude and become a better person?  Ray thinks he can.

On one level this is a film about connections and belonging. Hancock can see those connections but he doesn’t feel them and Ray makes him believe that maybe he could be different. Of course that doesn’t mean he’s going to change overnight. There are some truly funny moments in the film.

There’s also an undercurrent of “what are you willing to do for love”? Most of us think that we’d do anything for the people we love, but would we? Would we give them up and walk away if it meant their happiness? What we really mean is that we’d do anything to be with the ones we love — but if keeping them safe and healthy meant stepping away — that’s where most of us would have to really examine just how deep our love goes. Hancock wants to find a place for himself. He wants to understand who he is and where he comes from. He wants to be more than he is — a superhero with attitude. Once he comes to learn more about himself, he has to make some hard choices and decide who he really is.

Somehow, this superhero, comic summer film has a lot more meat on it that was expected. But it’s still plain good fun. You don’t have to appreciate that there’s more to it than the surface explosions and action sequences. It works on several levels. Some of the scenes that I was looking forward to from the clips turned out to be in the film as YouTube videos and not really all that easy to see (at least in the resolution of NetFlix via IE — but that’s the medium. Guess we might buy the DVD afterall — someday when it shows up in the sale bin.

I read the reports about how awful piracy is for the the artists who create the intellectual properties that are downloaded or copied.  Then there’s the “Don’t steal our property” commercials and the lawsuits by RIAA and MPAA and similar or related international agencies.  However, I’ve long suspected the numbers that these groups float around regarding the loss of monies due to downloading.  This article in the Guardian by Ben Goldacre (Friday 5 June 2009), actually tracked down the genesis of one of those sets of numbers. He found that the numbers referred to were actually from a one page press release and not from a scientific study as was implied in their presentation.

I’m not surprised. I’m sure piracy goes on and that movies and music are being ripped off, but this is usually by big businesses who stamp out thousands of copies and sell them very cheaply. In fact, we don’t go after them or actually prosecute — or at least not to the degree that the various governments go after college students and individuals. I suspect the reason is because money changes hands and monies are paid into coffers somewhere that make it worth while to look the other way.

Okay, I’ll admit to being a cynic with regards to this topic. I’ve read enough of the online copies of testimony and trials to believe that lawyers and judges seldom know what they’re talking about. Expert witness (usually on the side of the victim in the suit — the college student or individual being sued by the corporation) are indeed experts and put forth their finding clearly, succinctly and with examples and statistical analysis backing them up. On the other hand the expert witness put forth by the corporation bringing the suit are almost exclusively NOT experts. By their own testimony they don’t do the research themselves, can’t explain the results, and bluster when pressed for details. What this country (USA) needs is expert witnesses who work for the judges to explain to them the merits of the testimony of expert1 vs expert2 vs known research in the field. Sometimes the cases, from reading transcripts, are truly cut and dried and the judgment is — surprise — totally opposite of what one would expect.

The point is that people have an inherent concept  of intellectual property and actual most respect it, and have no intention of stealing an electronic version of a work. The problems arise when common sense and law doesn’t agree. People (and I’m using this generic term because it’s a collective term) believe that when they buy a music CD, video tape, or DVD, that they own it. Thus they feel that they can watch it on any machine they want to. They also feel that since they own, say a music CD, that they should be able to rip the songs off it and play them on their MP3 player while they’re away from their CD player since they own it and they can’t listen to both at the same time — so that it’s okay to do this.

MPAA and RIAA, for example, believe that you don’t own the CD, DVD, or whatever.  They claim that you just bought a license to use it in the manner that they deem appropriate. As you can see this is the basis of the problem. If what a person buys doesn’t belong to them and they can’t use it as they see fit why bother to buy it; or sell it for that matter.

If I rent a movie, I expect to return it without making any copy because I didn’t buy it and I don’t own it. I believe from conversations with many people that most, if not all, people feel the same. It’s not ours, we just borrowed it — like a library copy so we return it to the owner– the person we rented it from.   It makes sense.  But if you go to the store and buy a DVD or CD, you would expect that, the media being in many cases breakable, making a copy of the CD or DVD to put aside in case the purchased copy is destroyed or broken is okay. Unfortunately, the courts seem to say “No”, at least under the new (now old) Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Since you don’t own what you bought, even though you have a sales receipt — you can’t make copies or move it to another medium for ease of use. That’s counter-intuitive for many people and thus more and more people acting on common sense are actually committing crimes against intellectual property.

[Hyperion: If RIAA/MPAA didn’t act in such a counter-intuitive and heavy handed fashion, they might actually have people on their side.  Instead their flagrant violations of common sense and real world custom cause the people who understand the technology and culture to turn against them.  As someone (I forget who) said: What kind of sane business model consists of suing your best customers?]

Somehow it seems that when things go from hard copies to digital, the courts and the law don’t see them as being equivalent.  Somehow being digital makes them all nervous and scared. Then they start talking about things like digital crowbars, forgetting completely that crowbars are not illegal to own in the real world. Just because a criminal sometimes uses a crowbar to commit a crime doesn’t make everyone who owns one a criminal but the digital crowbar argument says if you own a digital crowbar you are in fact a criminal — even if you never use it to commit a crime. I have yet to hear of a lawyer bringing that point up against the digital crowbar scare tactic — though maybe I missed it somewhere.

My belief is that people are basically law abiding and that they use internalized morals to determine their behavior. I think the courts have been bamboozled into believing that piracy, intellectual property theft, and loss of revenues is far larger than it really is, because they have been lied to or mislead by agencies who cheated by not doing the research they purport to have done or who have knowingly supplied incorrect numbers and statistics to bolster their arguments.

In most documented cases, a person downloading a copy of a movie from a site, wasn’t going to buy it anyway. If you look at who is being taken to court, they’re usually low income persons who can’t fight back. I’ve yet to see them go after the big pirates — no they have money, lawyers and can fight back. (Cynicism again, yeah big time.)

In most of the cases (found and investigated by real researchers), it’s found that people who downloaded something illegally either then bought the movie or CD or got rid of it because they didn’t like it. Net result is that it wouldn’t have been a sale anyway (or there was actually a sale). I would imagine that most of the people who have a NetFlix subscription or belong to one of the movie rental places do so for the same reason. Why buy something you haven’t seen and don’t know if you’d want to see it over and over again.

In fact most reports show that RIAA’s bottom line has gone up since file sharing sites started having musical downloads. Why?  Because more people bought the music that they heard. There is a reason why music stores have those earphones and places where you can hear snippets of the music you are thinking of buying.

Instead of changing their business model to take into account the way people actually purchase and use media, these corporations are trying to use the legal route to force everyone to do things as they were done before the advent of digital media. (Of course it doesn’t help that many artists who couldn’t get the time of day from these big corporations, are now, because of the internet, able to develop a following and sell their material directly to their listeners/fans.

[Hyperion: When RIAA isn’t demanding that the music be taken down, despite having no authority to represent these artist’s interests and, in fact, acting completely in opposition to said interests.  But then it isn’t about the artists … it’s about the control.  Yeah, Gayle isn’t the only cynical one in the family.   But that doesn’t mean we’re wrong.]

I still think if I buy something I own it — too bad the big corps don’t feel the same way.

We live up a dirt road. It’s not bad, it’s hard packed and not too filled with dips and holes. However, the driveway off the dirt road to the house is another matter all together. Part of it is okay but other sections look and act great during sunny and cold — rain is another story.

It’s been raining. Raining a lot. I’m growing gills. The driveway near the carport and the area between the carport and the house is sinking as the rain looses the base. Could it turn into quickmud? I don’t know. Last year we put 6 60-pound bags of gravel into a section of it and it’s been better but not great. Today we bought 8 60-pound bags of gravel and they got sucked into the driveway like dehydrated sponges soak up water. At least after we dumped the gravel and smoothed it with a hoe, you could walk from the carport to the downstairs door without being ankle deep in water. Now we have to see how much of this gravel shows after all the rain — and it’s sinking into the soil.

We’re in the woods and while we have dirt/ground all around it’s porous. We tried to use 8 foot iron rods to help hold up a fence that fell over — the rod pushed in and down and down until barely enough to hold onto was above ground and there was nothing to stop it from sinking. Bit scary when you think about it — so I try not too.

My arms ache from helping with the gravel spreading and all I did was smooth it into the dips — Hyperion did the heavy lifting. Home ownership seems to mean hard work, never ending hard work. I still think the Money Pit was a funny film but I certainly see it from a new perspective now.

Lavishly and lovingly illustrated with characters and other bits from the operas of Gibert & Sullivan, the story centers on the argument that these two great men had over artistic differences. Sullivan wanted to write a great opera and Gilbert wanted to entertain. This breach in their partnership caused the two men to stop speaking to each other.

Gilbert, knowing that Sullivan’s main complaint was that no matter what the opera was about the basic story was the same, had an idea for something really different. Japan and all things Japanese was really popular and he set about to write the story and words for an opera that would be very different. When Gilbert presented his new idea to Sullivan he was excited by the new story line — while the humor and comedy remain intact and it isn’t a serious opera the two patched up their differences.

Here’s a clip of “Three Little Maids Are We” from the Mikado:

While the Japanese influence filtered through a Victorian filter is definitely something different for the time, it’s really not that different from, say The Pirates of Penzance, “I Am the Very Model Of A Modern Major General”:

So, while the story was very different and had no magical spells or castles — the witty use of words and comedy remained the same. So, their argument this time was solved without a winner or a loser. While both men were very talented, they never could quite seem to make it on their own, but together they made opera a very English experience and it was Gilbert & Sullivan who paved the way for the modern musical.

What this books does is let children, young adults (and dare I say adults) realize that sometimes feuds and arguments are not bad things. Sometimes arguments are a way of clearing the air, of making the participants in the argument aware of the need to do things differently, to find another way. This wasn’t the only feud or argument that Gilbert & Sullivan had in their long career but many of the others were eventually solved by looking at the problem and finding a solution that they could both live with.

So, if you have a disagreement, calm down and take a close look at the item/idea/situation that the disagreement is about. Can something be done? Think long and hard about alternatives. Because the Mikado turned out to be one of their most famous operas. Maybe if they hadn’t had that disagreement they would never have changed the way they told stories to music and their names might not be as well known as they are now.

Feel free to share your opinions about this book or Gilbert & Sullivan. I love to hear what other people think.

This month’s cup has the simple clean lines that I like. I bought this on super sale in Home Goods but I almost think it was one of the cups that Starbucks had for sale last winter. It just seemed that since June, for many people, is summertime, it might be nice to have a cup that said relax in silly droopy letters. I also liked the rounded shape and the splash of red on the rim — then the not so subtle hint to sit in a comfy chair with a big bowl of popcorn. It made me smile and, for me, that’s one of the most important jobs my monthly coffee cup has — other than holding the beverage without leaking of course.

This past weekend we caught a squirrel on the deck trying to drop the bird feeder into the yard. We’ll I don’t mean we actually caught him — those guys are sly and crafty — we saw him. Hyperion got out the super-soaker, charged it up, and managed to catch him with a spray of water twice (or it might have been two squirrels and we got each one once). We thought we’d discouraged him because while we made noise and frightened them off the deck all weekend and the feeder stayed in place. You see a week or so ago, I went out to get the mail and the feeder was on the ground. Since it hooks over one of those cast-iron garden planter holders, we thought it was pretty had for this to happen by chance. Some pretty big birds eat on the feeder by holding on and curling under it. But it was one of those things where you shrug and move on. It also seemed that a lot of the food ends up on the ground for the ground feeders but then some of those birds are really messy eaters.

But on Saturday, we were sitting in the living room (from there you can see the feeder on its hook), and a squirrel was on the railing climbing up the garden rod and trying to get the feeder off the hook. We bolted for the door and slide it open and he took off down the deck and stairs. So, the mystery of how the feeder ended up on the ground was solved. We now only fill the feeder 1/4 full and keep a closer eye on the feeder to check for squirrels. The super-soaker is right by the door (I don’t use it but Hyperion does — we got it when the woodpeckers were using our house as a mating drum).

Today a Mourning Dove was sitting on the railing when I went to look out at the feeder. It sat there long enough for me to get my camera, come back, try to focus through the door and screen, and take several photos. I haven’t been able to get a photo of the cow bird or the tufted titmouse yet. By the time I gather my camera and get back they’re gone. The birds have started pecking on the window when the feeder is empty. Guess since we put less in it when we fill it they figure they have to ask for seconds — or firsts.

Remember when I said I was putting myself on notice that I had to finish up some of my unfinished knitting projects. Well, after finishing two pairs of socks, I dug out Sausalito (from dolce handknits, 2005). I feel in love with it when I saw it in one of the knitting catalogs I get. That spring I picked up the pattern at Maryland Sheep & Wool from Koenig Farm, Spinnery & Yarn Shop. I’d also picked up two cones of cotton yarn one cream and one a really sort of strange green. I didn’t have the yarn the pattern called for but I found knitting the gauge swatch with one strand of each color that I made gauge and I sort of liked the green toned down by the cream. It made a nice soft fabric that seem perfect for spring and summer wear. So, I cast on and knit like a house on fire until I finished the back, and got up to the decreases on the left front. Then I made a mistake. Then I corrected for the error and kept on going. Then I made another one and corrected for that one too. Then I remembered that I’d have to make the same mistakes on the right side to match and I knew that was just asking too much– I knew I had to unravel the front down to the start of the decreases and do it right so it went into a zip-lock bag at the back of the closet.

I dug it out after the socks got done and sat and stared at it. I still like it. I loved the pattern and this was coming out really well until I goofed. So, since I didn’t have a rescue line in the front and the pattern is a butterfly stitch, the only way I was going to unravel it was to unknit it. Secondly, since the yarn was on cones I was going to end up with a huge pile of yarn in knots. So, I got an empty toilet paper roll and started to unknit…and unknit…and unknit. I’d then wind the yarn onto the TP roll to keep it from tangling and unknit some more. Then I started to reknit the decreases on the front. Unknit the mistake. Reread the pattern. Start the decreases again. Unknit. Reread. I think I did that a total of six times before I finally got it right.

Now, I have to say there’s nothing wrong with the pattern. If you follow it, it works. The problem was the reader — me — for some reason, I’d read the directions and then go off and do my own thing. The instructions just went in the eyes and out the ears not stopping at the brain. Once it finally clicked — boy did I feel like an ID-10-T. But now the left front is done. I’m only 2 1/2 inches away from doing the decreases on the right front and hoping that the lessons learned will stay with me until that’s done. Then it’s just two sleeves. Sew it all together. Crochet along the edges. Make a button loop. Add a button. And I’ll have a new sweater for spring, summer, and fall. I expect to have it done by the end of the month — sooner if I can get my time organized a bit better this month. At least we’re not changing servers, so that should help.

So, who else is working on UFOs? I’ve got three more I’ve found digging through the knit storage area. But now that I finished my sweater I don’t have any socks on the needles or in the unfinished pile so I got yarn out and a pattern (haven’t done one of those in a while) and plan to start a new pair of socks for take-along when traveling. Socks are great for that.

There’s still a couple of tiny things to do but basically the content is in and the magazines are live — and on our new host/servers. Hurrah for our side. Of course, teeny tiny hiccups in the code having been showing up since everything upgraded and some of the code was pretty old and not quite up to specs — but it looks like everything is fine now.

So, please take a look at:
Gumshoe Review
SFRevu
TechRevu

We’d really like to get some feedback on the zines to know if were providing the content that readers want. It’s been an exciting, frantic, and busy month but I think we’ve got some great June issues.