This piece by Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden gives a kind remembrance of author Iain Banks, who died yesterday from cancer. I particularly liked this description of Banks’s personality:
In the social world of British SF, Banks will be remembered as a larger-than-life figure—irrepressible, fearlessly outspoken, a boisterous lover of life’s many pleasures, and given to unsung acts of kindness and generosity.
We might all wish to be remembered so. And as Neil Gaiman says in his own reaction to the news:
If you’ve never read any of his books, read one of his books. Then read another. Even the bad ones were good, and the good ones were astonishing.
In a broader sense, all science fiction prepares young people to live and survive in a world of ever-continuing change by teaching them early that the world does change.… In a more specific sense, science fiction preaches the need for freedom of the mind and the desirability of knowledge; it teaches that prizes go to those who study, who learn, who soak up the difficult fields of knowledge such as mathematics and engineering and biology. And so they do! The prizes of this universe go only to those able and equipped to reach out for them. In short, science fiction is preparing our youngsters to be mature citizens of the galaxy… as indeed they will have to be.
— Robert A. Heinlein (in “Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction” by Damon Knight, ed., pp. 26-27)
I want to send a quick thank you over to fellow SF Canada member Colleen Anderson today. She wrote to Prada to clarify the terms of their writing contest, which happens to have a €5,000 prize. Sounds good, right?
Sadly, not so much.
As Colleen makes clear with her post and the attached response from Prada, they are offering a Very Bad Contract. Not only will the winner have to give up all moral rights to their work (but hey, €5,000, right?) but Prada also reserves the right to make up new contest categories, assign winners, and take all of those writers’ rights as well… while paying them nothing.
Very Bad. As Colleen says, the devil’s in the details.
I get along with most types of bugs. If you’d asked me a month ago I would have said that there are only two types of critters for which I have a serious hate-on: fleas and mosquitoes. Sadly, I now add the Emerald Ash Borer to that list.
Pretty, isn’t it, all sparkly and green? Ha! Those looks are deceiving.
No, it doesn’t suck my blood, make me itch, or give me nasty communicable diseases, but the EAB is gnawing its way through ash trees at a seriously alarming rate. That’s the sort of thing you hear about and shake your head at the millions of trees dying, but it all gets real when a letter from the City arrives telling you that your favorite front-yard tree has to go.
Things I didn’t know:
if you catch it early enough insecticides can save your tree (the City of Ottawa is using TreeAzin, an injectable neem oil derivative), but it’s got to be done early;
woodpeckers in your tree during wintertime are not sweet and nice (or not just), it’s a sign that the birds hear the EAB larvae moving around under the bark and are coming to snack;
ash trees get very dry when they die, becoming a serious hazard to anything beneath or in them (climbers and car parkers, beware);
the best way to pick a replacement tree is to research your options, then choose from a short list by walking out into the street and checking out what your neighbors have; pick something relatively unpopular just in case another blight like this comes along in the future;
it takes very little time for a dude with a chainsaw to make short work of a decades-old tree.
Is it just me or do those family car decals everyone’s suddenly sporting seem like a stalker’s dream? True, some of those stickers (check out the Star Wars version) are super cool. I still wouldn’t use them, though, and not just because my cat might object to being depicted as an Ewok. With all the discussion around privacy issues related to social media and other online activity, I’ve been surprised not to see more reaction to this sort of off-line behavior.
Perhaps I’m oversuspicious but ask yourself this: would you broadcast your partnership status and number of children to physically proximate strangers under other circumstances? Wear a T-shirt with that information on it, for example, or add a sign to your front door? Probably not. Imagine yourself alone at home, when you hear a creak from the darkness outside and realize that anyone with eyes to see your car knows that you are a single mother with one small child and no pets.
Of course, you could always line your car window with the whole Clone Army.
“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”
— Mark Twain
We spent the weekend refinishing the deck. The wood was a mess, half covered with multiple layers of thick, splintering stain and half exposed to the elements. It was time. The only problem was that I’d never refinished a deck before.
Did I let that stop me? Nope. It helps that Mr Man is ridiculously handy but still. I took Mark Twain’s quote to heart and jumped in, and now, days later, the splinters and uneven steps and flaking are no more. I learned how to use an industrial sander, tons of power tools, and now know that Onion Goggles are perfect for jobs that result in large clouds of airborne particulates. The wood is now smooth, the finish even.
Is it perfect? Well, no. But it’s done. And that’s much better than not doing anything at all.
It’s Tulip Festival time here in Ottawa, and despite the unseasonably cold weather we’re having right now the flowers are beautiful. They also got me asking questions about the Festival specifically and about tulips in general. (If you are Canadian and a gardener feel free to stop here, you probably already know what I’m about to say. I’m neither and was happy to learn something new.)
Why tulips? Sure, the Festival is designed to promote trade and tourism, but there’s a nice story behind its origin. The tulips were “given as a gift in perpetuity to the Canadian people for having provided safe harbour to the Dutch Royal Family during the German occupation of the Netherlands”* during World War Two.
Princess Juliana was about to give birth in Ottawa but being born in another country would have affected the child’s succession status. Fair enough, but it’s not like the Princess could go home. So, in typically awesome Canadian style, when Princess Margriet was born in 1943 the Dutch flag was flown from the Peace Tower. Succession issue solved. How neighborly is that?
Wait, you may ask, isn’t this the same flower whose bulbs were once worth more than their weight in gold (and, not incidentally, also sparked the “Tulip Mania” market crash in the 17th century)? How do I get more of them? You may already know this but I didn’t, at least not in detail.
How do tulips propagate? As in, I’ve got this shallot-like bulb I picked up at the store and the package swears that if I put it in the ground I’ll get a tulip next Spring. Great. But what if I didn’t have this little net bag from the supermarket? If the Apocalypse comes tomorrow tulips are on their own. What then?
It turns out that tulips are well positioned to survive a catastrophic event because they are designed to propagate in not one but two ways. If you want to make more tulips, come Autumn you can either dig up the bulb or collect the seeds. The original bulb will have grown a number of little satellites, or offsets. The largest of the bulbs will flower the next year but the smaller ones will need extra growing time. Bulbs are exact genetic replicas of the original, while seeds will give you a hybrid plant with more genetic diversity, and the potential for new colors and characteristics.
This could be critical if the Apocalypse does come and you need new, pretty ways to match your landscaping with brimstone or mask the odor of zombie. Just saying.
Just finished Ottawa Comiccon and it was a blast! Saw LeVar Burton, missed Billy Dee Williams because they moved his panel up at short notice 😦 but did get to see Jewel Staite, hear Summer Glau (lost passport = sad pandas but the apology video and panel call-in were nice touches), Nathan Fillion, and Wil Wheaton, all of whom were terrific.
The Con organizers did a good job this year, and thankfully had a huge tent waiting to protect us all from rain. Way to go, everyone, had a great time:) And as it is Mother’s Day, let me just say thank you to to my own mother, who helped me become the sort of person who spends Sunday mornings with people who dress up in tights!
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