alien romances

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Kameron Hurley's latest LOCUS essay discusses empathy versus selfishness and why being the "bad guy" is actually taking the easy way out:

It's Easy Being the Bad Guy

It's not uncommon to think villains are more fun to read and write, while heroes are boring. Hurley recalls her childhood reading diet of "feel-good fantasy novels," the kind of "noble tales" in which the good and people can be counted on to fulfill our expectations of their good or evil choices, and we know in advance "who would prevail and who would fail." In childhood, she "found this predictability boring and formulaic after the first three or four novels." Later she realized fiction of straightforward good and evil offers a welcome, valid respite from the "messy and complicated" real world where "good people coming out on top is far less common than we’d like." By adulthood, most of us have learned that's how the world works. It's understandable to want a fictional world that operates differently. In addition to fantasy, Hurley mentions detective stories, pervaded by the theme that truth will come to light and justice will prevail. As she puts it, "This is why we tell so many stories about the good folks winning, to balance out some of the everyday horror we encounter in a world that is fundamentally unfair."

In her early years, Hurley "believed goodness was the default state." Later in life, after decades lived according to an allegedly realistic philosophy of self-interest, she discovered that doing the right thing, rather than the easy "default" path, is a difficult choice that must be consciously taken. She notes that "we must actively choose goodness every day" and affirms, "Goodness. . . is not a state, but an act, one we must perform again and again." A provocative article well worth reading in its entirety.

In real-life terms, C. S. Lewis maintains that the notorious criminals, tyrants, and other villains of history have a monotonous sameness, while the saints are gloriously unique. Nevertheless, I feel there's some truth in the idea that it's often easier to write a convincing, interesting villain than a believable hero. Lewis himself creates interesting good characters, such as Lucy in the Narnia series and Dr. Ransom in the space trilogy (OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, etc.). Madeleine L'Engle does an especially fine job with her engaging young heroes, e.g., Meg and her brother Charles Wallace in A WRINKLE AND TIME and its sequels. The dual protagonists of Diane Duane's Young Wizards series also rank high in that category. Two of my other favorite good characters are Dorothy Sayers's mystery-solving duo of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. Terry Pratchett also does this sort of thing brilliantly, as with formidable witch Granny Weatherwax and police chief Vimes.

The assumption that heroes can't interest audiences without fundamental flaws and deep-seated self-doubt has led to distortions such as the portrayal of Aragorn in the LORD OF THE RINGS movies and the jarringly out-of-character behavior of Peter in the large-screen adaptation of PRINCE CASPIAN. This assumption is a fairly modern development, though, not an eternal verity in the creation of mythic, legendary, and fictional good guys.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Index to Posts Mentioning C. J. Cherryh

Index to Posts Mentioning C. J. Cherryh

Saturday, December 12, 2020

About Face

On one authors discussion forum this week, there is talk of a so-called scam (which might or might not be a scam) in which authors are contacted by complainants who claim that the authors are exploiting images on their websites images of the complainant or that belong to the complainant without a license and without permission.

Is it possible that it is not a scam? Actually, it is possible. It is possible that the author might be in the wrong, and could have legal exposure.

Blogger Danielle Prager has published a highly accessible article with advice on where to find legal images, and a helpful explanation of what is fair use, and what is not.

https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/guide-copyright-fair-use-laws-online-images/

Most people may assume that all Creative Commons works are "no rights reserved" and may be freely used and shared even on professional websites, book art, and blogs, but many Creative Commons licensed works do have some rights reserved, and most require that the beneficiary (user) of the work at the very minimum provides attribution.

For instance, if using Hubble telescope images of space, one is expected to display attribution, and sometimes to inform the Space Telescope Science Institute or STScI (using this form that pops up if one clicks the text link on https://hubblesite.org/copyright). The hubblesite copyright page also is explicit about use of photography: "If a recognizable person appears in a photograph, use for commercial purposes may infringe a right of privacy or publicity, and permission should be obtained from the recognizable person."

As a general rule, before snagging the perfect image from anywhere on the internet, check out the footer to see if there is a copyright information page. It wouldn't hurt to read Terms of Use. Visitors are legally bound by the Terms and ignorance of what you chose not to read is no defence (or defense) in law.

Legal blogger Mark Weston writing expertly for Hill Dickinson explains that there is more to understanding and using "Creative Commons" images and works than is popularly imagined.
https://www.hilldickinson.com/insights/articles/getting-creative-common-touch

If an author trusts a webmistress (or webmaster) to decorate the website, it probably would be prudent for the author to ask to see proof that all necessary permissions have been obtained for all images, and also that if there was a time limit on the license, it is still in effect, and if there was a limit to the number of impressions covered by the license that that has not been exceeded.

Legal Bloggers Aarathi Amerjit and Samantha Lawrence for Gateway Law in the jurisdiction of Malaysia offer advice in .pdf form on scraping --or not scraping-- images from Pinterest, or uploading other people's images to that popular site.

http://www.gateway-law.com/newsletter/07122020.pdf

It's not just other people's faces that can get you in trouble, a recognizable outline or silhouette can trigger a lawsuit. For instance, what rocker wants to be associated with a hygiene product? Seriously, some might, but they would want to be properly compensated for the product endorsement, wouldn't they?

Legal blogger Jeffrey H. Brown for Michael Best and Friedrich LLP discusses an old spicy case.
https://insights.michaelbest.com/post/102gl10/legendary-mc5-guitarist-wayne-kramer-doesnt-like-the-smell-of-proctor-gambles

Lexology link (without a still of the rocker).
https://www.lexology.com/library/document.ashx?g=e8ca0329-3c4f-4dfe-8db6-c01361a2c2ef

And now for an important reminder. If a small business owner, such as an author, has paid more than $600 to any worker or contractor who is not an INC or any sum at all to a lawyer, 1099s have to be sent out. The rules have changed. Now, we need to send out a 1099-NEC instead of using line 7 of 1099-MISC.

Paper forms can be ordered online and free from the IRS. They normally take about 10 business days in the mail, but this is not a normal time of year.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Book-Love in a Time of Cholera

That's the title of Brian Attebery's introduction to the latest issue of the JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS. He discusses how a reader's experience of literature changes under the influence of real-life circumstances, offering a different angle on the topic of my previous post. Attebery remarks that reading in the shadow of COVID-19 feels "rather like getting messages from an alternate timeline in which people still. . . count on health, employment, and a predictable future." He reminds us that whenever we reread a text, in a sense we're reading a different book, because "works of literature are never merely or entirely themselves" but instead "products of an interaction between text and reader."

The pandemic has inevitably brought Stephen King's THE STAND to the forefront of many readers' minds. Someone on a list I subscribe to recently said of COVID-19, "This isn't Captain Trips." All SF and horror fans would instantly recognize that allusion. Even though King's novel is decades old, current events give it fresh resonance and meaning. Some readers may find a similar relevance in Connie Willis's DOOMSDAY BOOK, in which the heroine time-travels from mid-twenty-first century Oxford to the time of the Black Death in fourteenth-century England. Although she gets stranded in an alien era, surrounded by the ravages of the plague, she and the reader know the hope represented by the distant future from which she comes. Even the worst disasters don't last forever.

Paul Tremblay's SURVIVOR SONG, published in July of this year, seems eerily appropriate to the current crisis. Given the lead times in traditional publishing, however, it must have been written well before the pandemic became known. Here's the first paragraph of the novel's summary on Amazon:

"In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less. Those infected quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they inevitably succumb. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying, and hysteria has taken hold. To try to limit its spread, the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew. But society is breaking down and the government's emergency protocols are faltering."

The story maintains a tight focus on a small group of characters trying to get one of them, a pregnant woman in labor, to a hospital that has room for her to give birth. Along the way, we witness the near-total breakdown of social norms surrounding islands of refuge, such as hospitals and clinics, where people struggle frantically to provide aid in the midst of chaos. In an odd way, this story offers the comfort—like DOOMSDAY BOOK—that we aren't anywhere nearly so bad off as THAT. Also, the epilogue, set years later, portrays a society that has completely recovered. Tremblay's virus, unlike COVID-19, doesn't produce a "slow catastrophe." Because of the violent symptoms and short incubation time, its epidemic flares up and burns out quickly.

As Attebery's essay points out, events such as the present crisis may also evoke new meanings from fictional works that seem on the surface to have only a tangential resemblance to real-life circumstances (e.g., stories of isolation).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

Worldbuilding From Reality Part 15 So What Exactly Is Reality

Worldbuilding From Reality

Part 15

So What Exactly Is Reality?

Previous parts in Worldbuiilding From Reality are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Lots of people regard "Reality" as hard, fast, cold, unfeeling, what just plain is, and you can't do anything about it.

Others see "Reality" as ever morphing, subjective, a matter of opinion, and different for everyone.

Then there are people who mix and match these two concepts as it suits them, in different situations and maybe morphing from one to the other at different stages of life.

Those 3 takes on the nature of reality embrace your target readership for a Romance - mixed with anything from Paranormal, Science Fiction, myth-based Fantasy, and just plain made-up fantasy worlds.

The young Romance reader often looks for a whopping "If Only ..." novel about how even the worst circumstances can turn around to a blazing beacon of perfection, the Happily Ever After.

Most fiction readers, even those just wanting to "escape" for a few hours, are looking for a new and different way to view their own life situation. Psychologically, the best way to "reset" your view of your own life's issues is to STOP thinking about them, STOP feeling about them, and just plain STOP.

That's why, traditionally, doctors used to administer a "sedative" to a suddenly bereaved widow, make her sleep rather than scream, cry, throw things, get mad enough to attack whatever had stolen her mate.

After you stop and reboot your brain, ideas can occur to you that wouldn't otherwise appear at all.

As a writer, sometimes you want your Hero or Main Character to ignore all the ifs, ands, and buts, the more sensible alternatives, the accepted thing to do, the polite thing to do -- and just bull ahead and "get the girl."

A few times in life, that is what anyone must do.

Doing it only at those times, and not at inappropriate or counter-productive moments, is called being Wise.

As far as I know, no writer has portrayed Wisdom as coming in surging attacks, like anger, rage, or Love.

Wisdom creeps up and swamps the aged. It doesn't wham into the life of the young and rip them off their intended course, as Romance often does.

Wisdom dawns on you -- as a newborn baby slowly but eventually opens her eyes and takes a while to focus on Mom's face, to recognize. Wisdom is like the opening of yet another set of eyes, a slow learning to focus and interpret.

But what if that's not true for your Aliens? What if Wisdom is more like a lightning strike, a flash-bang leaving a conflagration in its wake.

Or maybe Wisdom bursts through cracks in your mental walls (which protect your inner Reality from external influences), and sweep your decision making to new, if temporary, heights of efficacy.

Wisdom might be defined as the Art of being correct about the Nature of Reality -- if not in the objective sense then perhaps only in the sense of the natural order of things in your personal subjective reality.

The Romance writer attempting to portray a non-human culture needs to adopt and define the human culture of the human Main Character to create and highlight where the two cultures conflict -- and how exactly Love Conquers the gap between them.

The summer of 2020 saw a publicity (money) driven eruption of provocative articles on race relations, and even the nature of race itself. And just think, all the sides of this question currently involve ONLY HUMANS!!! Not a single Martian in the mix, never mind someone from another solar system.

"Race" (in 2020 that's Black vs White) is not the same as "Species." Think about that. If one human culture differs from another so starkly there can be no peace without one or the other dominating and eradicating the other, how can Love Conquer the difference with another Species (Alien from Outer Space).

Yet even today, we have living examples of people of different races falling in love, raising kids, partnering in business. It's very common in this century -- not so much historically.

But still there is a problem.

So academics are studying the whole race-relations problem in America (probably worldwide, maybe excluding North Korea that's so into purity) and are coming right down into the core of it.

Wisdom has not (yet) struck like lightening to transform all humanity into a single peaceful community.

But it might, and Wisdom might strike (maybe via a Romance novel or film or Streaming Series) into the hearts of humanity very soon now.

What if Wisdom strikes - what would it change?

What has to be changed in human nature to make us fit to join (or create) an interstellar civilization with a multitude of different species of people?

Star Trek postulated a war with genetically manipulated mutants, a "superior" race the rest of humanity had to conquer, destroy and exile to the stars. After that war, the rest of humanity became more prosperous and less prone to just killing one another. Gene Roddenberry often said he was trying to portray humanity as having become "Wise."

What Historic Event does your Earth History need to prompt the shift into an interstellar civilization? Or what has happened to your Main Character in their subjective reality to open them to Wisdom?

The Romance theme of Love Conquers All has to have an "All" for the Main Couple to conquer - a gap they must bridge to reach their HEA.

The writer must invent that "All" from the reader's Reality and build that future imaginary world to showcase the Main Couple effecting change because of their Love. (capital L Love! The archetype of all bonds.)

Even if you're bored and tired of the whole race discussion going on in 2020, it could be well worth your while to study the different points of view on this topic.

Transpose the topic "race" into "culture." The academics are now identifying "White Culture" as the culprit in social disruption.

Newsweek carried an item on the July disruptor.

https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333

--------quote------
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture recently unveiled guidelines for talking about race. A graphic displayed in the guidelines, entitled "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States," declares that rational thinking and hard work, among others, are white values.

In the section, Smithsonian declares that "objective, rational, linear thinking," "quantitative emphasis," "hard work before play," and various other values are aspects and assumptions of whiteness.

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture had no comment for Newsweek. They referred to the website's page titled "Whiteness" when asked for additional comment. The graphic was later removed from the page.

-------end quote--------

They also posted a large, readable version of the following infographic the Smithsonian later removed.

The Miami Herald also carried the story (as I said, publicists do this public outcry attention getting, and get paid for their skills even when they believe in the cause.)

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244309587.html

TV and other outlets, YouTube commentators etc all echo-chamber repeated this story, and it found several audiences. It's a good story, with a solid description of a culture (some call it "White Culture" others "American Culture" and others Biblical, etc.). Or maybe just human, or Earth Culture unfit for galactic exposure? An Earth Indigenous Culture?

The Smithsonian museum apologized and removed the infographic -- but note closely what exactly they apologized FOR.

--------quote------
A Smithsonian museum apologized for a chart listing hard work and rational thought as traits of white culture.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture said in a statement Friday that it was wrong to include the graphic in an online portal about race and racism in America.

“It is important for us as a country to talk about race. We thank those who shared concerns about our ‘Talking About Race” online portal. We need these types of frank and respectful interchanges as we as a country grapple with how we talk about race and its impact on our lives,” the statement said. “We erred in including the chart. We have removed it, and we apologize.”

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244309587.html#storylink=cpy

--------end quote--------

Including the chart was an error? Not the content of the Chart? Organizing what is believed in order to communicate it clearly to others is an "error?" I like infographics for sorting out a wall-of-print listing of data.

I'm sure you see immediately how this "error" can make up into an "All" for your Main Couple to conquer with Love.

Now consider this description of the cultural problem and the suggested solutions -- be aware you are looking at a wondrous compilation of "Alls" for your Couples to Conquer, a whole long series of novels, maybe multigenerational saga.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE

From Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001

https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html

That page uses bullet points instead of an infographic, and presents the other side of that infographic's points. It's from a website (obviously well funded, optimized to show up at the top of a Google Search for that infographic) called Showing Up For Racial Justice.

The link at the bottom of the page says "Back to White Supremacy Culture page" but it's not a "life" link.

The page itself is brilliant, well written, clean and clear -- and there's hardly anything there that would (taken alone) create an "All" for a couple to conquer with Love.

But take this page as a whole, juxtapose it with the infographic -- and look at the whole composition as a portrait of a World.

When you finish building a Fantasy or Futuristic (or Paranormal) World, you have to end up with BOTH the infographic and this wall-of-print bullet-pointed page. '

Taken together, they describe what a "built" world, a completed world, contains in the compartment labeled, "Cultures."

And most of your plot conflicts will be sparked by two Cultures rubbing together. What is set on fire by those sparks is the substance of your Story - the inner-life of the Characters in conflict.

Your World has to be big enough to contain those two cultures, and hint at vistas of others, past, present, and maybe future.

If you build something with this shape (infographic + page), it will have verisimilitude for your modern readers no matter what the content you invent for it.

Readers need just the outline, the shape of everyday Reality, in order to feel familiar enough with the material that it isn't hard work to read the novel. But the point of reading entertainment is to occupy the part of the mind that normally gnaws on our mundane problems with a starkly different content.

The part of our mind that works out everyday problems in everyday life needs to keep working, but not on the same everyday problem.

Give your readers grist for the mill of the mind that is different, but easy to understand. Take them into a different Reality that seems real because it has the same shape and nuanced depths as everyday life, but show the way for Love to Conquer All.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Saturday, December 05, 2020

Can't? Won't? Don't... (Pay)

The purpose of copyright law is to promote the progress of useful arts and sciences, by ensuring that artists and scientists have a fair financial incentive to create, discover, and to make their works and findings available.

That incentive is copyright, which provides creators with the exclusive right (for a defined term, such as "life of the artist plus a few decades") to control the publication, and distribution, and sale, and exploitation -or not- of their work.

Myriad people make a career out of work that they find enjoyable, but that satisfaction does not mean that they can or should be forced to work for no financial compensation and no material rewards. The same applies to authors and works of authorship, including music, and movie scores and scripts.

The Trichordist is one excellent source to read about a parade of horribles who have claimed that they can't pay artists (because they cannot find them), or who won't pay artists (because artists have no teeth, metaphorically speaking), or who simply don't pay.

From Know They Enemy written in June 2012, to What 1 Million Plays Means..., to looking into The False Double Bottom (of the MMA Black Box) some of the names may have changed, but the song remains the same (to coin a phrase). High expectations of the Music Modernization Act have been dashed -perhaps- as several hundred millions in streaming royalties have been withheld from songwriters.

Some have come to the realization that corruption disguised as incompetence (my words) can only be countered by strength. The CASE Act seems to be dying on the Congressional vine.

The copyrightalliance.org has some really good suggestions how sympathizers can assist musicians who cannot perform live concerts due to Covid-19 restrictions.

https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/how-to-help-musicians-who-cannot-perform-live-due-to-covid/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=rLXL2

Buying music from the band's own website is one of the best ideas.

As goes the music industry, so goes fiction and non-fiction. Musicians are the copyright canaries in the copyright coal mine.

It is alleged that Disney is dishonoring copyright and contracts with beloved science fiction author Alan Dean Forster. See here: https://www.sfwa.org/disney-must-pay/

Discuss here #DisneyMustPay. If true, this must not stand. If the same has happened to you, the SFWA may be able to help. Perhaps a good New Year's Resolution for writers might be to join SFWA and also Authors Guild. Not only do they offer legal help, they also offer group medical insurance plans.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ http://www.rowenacherry.com

Thursday, December 03, 2020

Catastrophes and Fiction Writing

The annual ChessieCon was held virtually this past weekend. One session explored how catastrophic events influence literature. The panelists mentioned works of fiction inspired by real-life disasters, whether sudden and traumatic or longer-term "slow catastrophes," and discussed the ramifications of choosing to compose stories about such events. Authors may write about characters caught up in the real-world event itself, a science-fiction scenario that transforms the actual situation into speculative terms, or a near-future society that reflects the ongoing effects of the catastrophe.

They considered some advantages and disadvantages of making art out of contemporary catastrophes. Pro: It's a way to form a deep emotional connection with the audience. A story that mirrors the trauma and anxieties of the present time can feel immediate and believable. Moreover, SF and fantasy can, of course, offer a fresh perspective on events that may seem overwhelming if faced straight-on. Con: Authors may find themselves writing the same kinds of stories as everybody else inspired by the same event. A story about a pandemic, for instance, may get lost among hundreds flooding the market at the same time. Another potential pitfall is the accusation of exploiting a grave crisis for personal gain by writing fiction about it.

Literature, of course, has always reflected the catastrophes and traumas of its time. C. S. Lewis, in an essay about the impact of the King James Bible on English literature, points out the difference between influences and sources. One can hardly understand many of the great English classics without knowing the biblical stories they mine for sources. The influence of biblical prose on the style of later writers, on the other hand, isn't nearly so widespread, if only because "Bible language" stands out so obviously. Likewise, disasters, whether natural or human-caused, supply fiction with endless sources of material. "Influence," as I conceive it, refers to a more subtle, indirect effect that pervades the cultural atmosphere even when not explicitly mentioned. Many early twentieth-century authors were influenced by World War I in both senses of the term, whether they wrote war fiction or not. Hemingway wrote war stories, but he also wrote about characters living with the social and psychological aftereffects of the war. Those effects show up in genres where you might not expect them, such as Lord Peter Wimsey's posttraumatic stress (as we'd call it now) in Dorothy Sayers's detective novels. The recent Great War shadows the background of the literature of the period.

In the 1950s and 60s, many science fiction works explored nuclear war and its aftermath, such as ALAS BABYLON, ON THE BEACH, and Heinlein's FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD. A bit later, pollution became a dominant theme. For instance, I own an old paperback about which I've forgotten everything except the title, THE SEA IS BOILING HOT. Nowadays, numerous authors confront the potential short-term and long-term effects of climate change. After the 9-11 attacks, most TV series continued their story arcs (if any) in an alternate present wherein the attacks were never mentioned. A few, though, incorporated the aftereffects of the catastrophe into their plotlines, such as NCIS and a series about firefighters and police officers in New York City. NCIS and its spinoffs continue to inhabit a world where terrorism remains an ever-present concern. As far as "influence" is concerned, most fiction set in the present day or near future takes for granted an environment of security checks at airports and our country's perpetual involvement in anti-terrorism campaigns.

A striking example of the long-term cultural influence of a "slow catastrophe" appears in "Thoughts and Prayers," by Ken Liu, reprinted in THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY 2020, edited by Diana Gabaldon. This story combines our society's free-floating anxiety about mass murder rampages with the total devastation of privacy made possible by the internet, in the harrowing experience of a family whose teenage daughter has been killed in a school shooting. Aside from some near-future computer technology that doesn't yet exist but can easily be imagined as realistic, there's nothing in this story that couldn't happen right now.

One downside (in my opinion) of including acute catastrophic current events in fiction wasn't mentioned by the panel. If a writer incorporates such material into a story while the disaster is either ongoing or fresh in memory, it almost has to dominate the work. That's fine if the story is "about" the crisis itself or the protagonist's confrontation with an aspect of it. What if you're writing about some other dimension of a character's life with the disaster looming in the background, though? After the disaster recedes from current events into recent history, the story becomes dated. That's why I haven't mentioned the pandemic or its societal effects in my recent fiction. The three pieces I've had published last year and this year, as well as the novella I'm finishing at the moment, fall into the light paranormal romance subgenre. Allusion to the present crisis would throw those stories completely off balance. Also, it would "date" them in a way I don't want. Assuming our current plight won't last forever, I chose to set my stories in an alternate present where the pandemic doesn't exist, so that if anyone happens to read them (let's say) two years from now, they'll still feel contemporary.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, December 01, 2020

Reviews 58 Divergence by C. J. Cherryh

Reviews 58

Divergence by C. J. Cherryh

Reviews haven't been indexed yet.

Divergence is the 21st Book in C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner Series, so I recommend not reading this book first.

This is a "series" arranged in trilogies with short plot arcs and one long, over-reaching plot arc for the entire story of Bren Cameron, a human translator sent among non-humans.

Divergence is all about power-politics, and how the Atevi (the Aliens) avoid the sort of all-out War humans tend to use to settle matters.

All of these novels are tightly focused on Bren Cameron's point of view, but with occasional accompaniments of a young (ruler to be) Atevi child who has learned to understand humans (somewhat).

Divergence emphasizes how Bren Cameron has come to understand, on a deep level, just how much he will never, ever, understand about Atevi. He now lives among Atevi, is honored by (some) of them, and his human friends and family find him truly odd because he's become so very Atevi in behavior. In fact, Bren finds himself a little odd.

So in Divergence, Bren takes action only once, and perfectly properly, then sits out action-situations

that he formerly would have plunged into and derailed by his human reactions. He uses mature good sense instead of human impulse, and tweaks the Atevi politics just a bit, here and there, helping to bring peace to a troubled region of the Atevi civilization.

The novel ends off with a springboard into the next novel, as Bren and a train load of Atevi head for the estate Bren now calls home, anticipating a little time to breathe before the next emergency. I don't think they'll have much time.

Much of Divergence is simply Bren thinking over the salient moves by Atevi in previous novels, understanding now (as never before) how these moves have led to the current opportunity to make peace. It is a long reprise of previous events, reminding the reader of which events are the most significant for understanding what must come in the next novel. This makes the book almost one, lone, expository lump. But Cherryh's writing is so deft, so cogent, so tightly pointed, that it is an absorbing good read. The previous novels are so well written, the characters so vividly portrayed, that the reader remembers each of these movers sand shakers of the Atevi world as they are mentioned -- full context.

That is why I recommend this series so highly, but start with the first novel, Foreigner.

If you've been reading the Foreigner Series, study Divergence closely for exposition techniques. Long-long passages summarizing and reminding of previous novels in the series, but re-interpreting events you thought you understood but now know ever so much more about.

The real hero of Divergence is The Dowager. In fact, she's the real hero of the whole series, according to this new interpretation of events.

And now she's feeling her mortality.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Science Fiction

Killing people --or threatening them with a horrible death-- has been a time-honored means of suppressing inconvenient truths and fictions and causing witnesses to recant and/or go into hiding.

It happened in the 4th century (for instance to Hypatia), and it is happening today ( John's Hopkins and less scientifically to a geek )

Once upon a time Heliocentrism was considered heresy by believers in so-called settled science, and Galileo was forced to recant.

Here are more links to the stories of scientist who crossed the establishment and suffered for their science.

https://www.wired.com/2012/06/famous-persecuted-scientists/

http://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/historical-apologetics/79-history/596-scientists-executed-by-the-catholic-church.html

Given that successful fiction writing begins with a wronged innocent, there's plenty of inspiration or grist for the writing mill here, above.

A modern day science that is said to be settled (and may well be so) concerns plant food. That is, carbon dioxide. Would California be better off lush and green, or dry and crackly golden? Should forests be cut down to install arrays of dark glass? Are bird-and-bat whacking windmills better than trees?

If polar bears evolved back to brown bears, would that matter? To whom? And why? Is it modern day heresy to wonder?

Sources:
https://townhall.com/columnists/davidwojick/2020/11/27/slight-beneficial-warming-from-more-carbon-dioxide-n2580718

https://www.livescience.com/10956-polar-bears-evolved-150-000-years.html

They say --and they may be correct-- that white stuff is vital. They mean sea ice, but would any white stuff do just as well. Not for a habitat for seal hunting, one would grant, but if the need is to reflect solar rays back away from earth, would artificial white plastic floes do as well? What about the white upside of clouds?

"...include clouds. Alarmist climate science bases its “dangerous manmade” global warming, not on the CO2 increase alone, but also on incorporating positive water vapor and cloud feedbacks: emphasizing heat-trapping properties of clouds, while largely ignoring the degree to which clouds also block or reflect incoming solar radiation."

Why are only some science theories, “permissible”? Is it Hypatia and Galileo all over again? One must know History....

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/global-warming-manmade-or-natural/

Is science necessarily "settled" when consensus may not exist, and where the so-called scientists have no scientific qualifications?

"... For example, the widely touted “consensus” of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scientific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC’s report. The Associated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report’s “Summary for Policymakers.”

https://www.ibtimes.com/nasas-shocking-discovery-global-warming-isnt-melting-polar-ice-caps-analyst-claims-2801469

The starting point for research matters. What if the starting point for data is where ice caps were at an unusual volume?

"...in the beginning of NASA’s satellite observations, the polar ice caps just came from a 30-year cooling trend, which ended during the late 1970s. This made the polar ice regions significantly larger compared to their past states in the previous decades"

With a monthly electricity or gas bill, the utility company shows what your use was a full 12 months ago. They do not start by comparing your November 2020 usage with your December 2019 usage. They don't project what your January and February usage is likely to be.

http://akclimate.org/node/1768

Six years ago, the late great thinker, Charles Krauthammer attacked the "settled" nature of science.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html

"...If climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today’s climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken?

........

None of this is dispositive. It doesn’t settle the issue. But that’s the point. It mocks the very notion of settled science, which is nothing but a crude attempt to silence critics and delegitimize debate. As does the term “denier” — an echo of Holocaust denial, contemptibly suggesting the malevolent rejection of an established historical truth..."

Ridicule is a potent weapon.https://bolenreport.com/saul-alinskys-12-rules-radicals/

Why would anyone want to weaponize climate science, or any kind of science? Who benefits... apart from the scientists who guarantee themselves perpetual employment? Someone wrote that a scientist will find it almost impossible to disprove a proposition that makes him (or her, or them) a profit.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2014/02/18/5-scientific-reasons-that-global-warming-isnt-happening-n1796423

Why, in 2020, are scientists afraid to publish research that runs counter to "received wisdom"? Why do they retract, if not recant? Or perhaps, they merely published too soon.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-newsletter-ran-study-saying-covid-relatively-no-effect-on-deaths-in-u-s-then-deleted-it-after-publication-n286080?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=6fed806fc43048eb10861e86d69f2ada

What's the betting the so-called wayback machine may not last far into 2021?
https://web.archive.org/web/20201126223119/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

Controversial excerpt:

"When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.

The study found that “This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years.” In fact, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”

Briand concludes that the COVID-19 death toll in the United States is misleading and that deaths from other diseases are being categorized as COVID-19 deaths."

So... is some important "science" really "fiction"? Is some "fiction" really "science"? How can we know the difference, and does it matter? At any rate, it has the makings of a great story!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it today!

We're preparing our usual turkey dinner—actually, my husband does all the hard parts, one thing I'm thankful for—although on a smaller scale than in some years. The only participant outside our household of three will be our oldest son, who lives alone.

I often remind myself to be grateful for how much better off we are than so many people in these times. Because my husband and I are retired, our lives didn't change much with the shift toward staying home more. As a writer, I can keep doing pretty much what I would be doing anyway, thanks to the internet. All four of our offspring are securely employed, three of them in positions that allow working from home. Thanks to Facebook, we can see what's new with the grandchildren. We're lucky to have many local restaurants that deliver and offer the convenience of online ordering. Anything we need that our neighborhood stores don't have, we can order from Amazon or the equivalent. Deliveries, mail, and other essential services continue to operate efficiently. Our supermarket has mostly recovered from the supply-chain problems of earlier in the year and usually stocks the things we need. And, again, if they run out, online sources can often fill the gaps.

The conventions we normally attend—ChessieCon this weekend and my International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in March—are able to offer virtual experiences rather than canceling altogether. Our church holds virtual services, too—experiences that would have been unimaginable a couple of decades ago.

Imagine how much more difficult this year would have been without contemporary technology and communications.

In the news, we have the hopeful prospect of three promising vaccines so far. Focusing on the positive helps me avoid sinking into depression when the news occasionally doesn't look so good. The world has survived worse; there's a light at the end, and this time it isn't an oncoming train. Best wishes to all for the upcoming holiday season, even though different from what we expected.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction Part 2 - The Art of the Parable

Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction

Part 2

The Art of the Parable

Part 1 of Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction is:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/11/fictional-science-or-scientific-fiction.html

One "fictional science" that a writer can use to generate Science Fiction Romance is psychology. It intersects with religion and culture.

If you are building an Alien for your Main Character to fall in love with, you need to consider the core questions "What Does She See In Him" (and vice versa).

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

The answer to that question is equal to the reason the reader would be interested in this novel -- that is, the answer to "What Does She See In Him?" is THE THEME of your novel -- subset under the master theme of the genre, "Love Conquers All."

All genres have a master theme, but the best editors sort novels into genres not by what they contain, but rather by what they do not contain. People often read fiction to avoid thinking about something -- love being one of the somethings.

But Science Fiction readers tend to choose novels to read by what they do contain -- Aliens, Strange Cultures, and above all, ideas about what errors there might be in our current solemnly believed science.

So what errors might there be in our definition of "human?"

We currently study "human" as a variety of Great Ape, and science is probing brain structure and brain activity to attempt to account for all human experiences, especially experience of God, the Soul, Life after Death, and even the sense of "self."

What if that approach (NOTE THE "WHAT IF...") turns out to be counter-productive once we meet up with Aliens who have a civilization, interstellar travel, but despite physical differences, have Souls that Mate with human Souls?

The "Science" ingredient in such a Science Fiction Romance would be what we currently call "Anthropology" - which science fiction traditionally expands to become "xenology" or the study of aliens.

What if your Aliens typically have memories that extend back before birth (or hatching, or something else). What if their entire culture is based on those long-memories?

What if they can't deal with humans because we don't have such memories?

What if they are telepathic and determine that humans do have such memories but refuse to acknowledge them?

Whole cultures and vast matrixes of belief systems (some conflicting with others based on the same text) are often derived from Parables.

A Parable is a "show don't tell" of serious drama stripped down to bare essentials to reveal an underlying "truth" that appears across many cultural barriers.

Here is a Parable that came to me anonymously via a WhatsApp contact who got it from someone who didn't know where it came from. A meme.

--------quote----------

A PARABLE

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other:
“Do you believe in life after delivery?”

The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “ Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “ She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

-------end quote-------

The "science" fictionalized here is what we call Religion - or the belief system that includes Soul.

Your writing exercise is to fictionalize some science you know something about and write the Parable most often quoted by your Alien Hunk's primary culture as the reason or motive behind their behavior -- as we point to Soul Mates as the reason for Love At First Sight.

Then write the dialogue where he/she explains the meaning of the Alien parable to a human (pick an Earth culture for your human).

See what they think of each other after that conversation.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Egregious (Reversal of Royalties) And Urgent

What is the point of "selling" a book to a reader, if the middleman (an Amazon company, for instance) actively encourages the reader to return that book --after reading it-- for a full refund or free exchange for another book, at the expense of the author?

That's not a "sale", it's a merry go round.

Read all about it.

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/sign-our-letter-and-tell-audible-to-stop-charging-authors-for-returns/

Egregious!

Please read the full letter and sign the petition.

https://www.authorsguild.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/AG.Audibledemand-collective.11.19.FINAL_.pdf

How can an author make a living if book sales can be cancelled, and book revenues can be clawed back up to 365 days after the assumed sale?

How can an author plan her finances, or project what her tax obligation will be? However, assuming that one has something to leave, or something to invest, or a rollover IRA, this is the time to do some urgent tax planning. One probably has until December 10th, 2020 to get ones financial ducks in a row.

Three links:

https://www.ml.com/articles/tax-tips-that-could-save-you-money.html?pageurl=peter.shunyia

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/hobbyist-vs-pro-tax-guidelines-for-book-authors-2799859

https://www.michaelbest.com/Newsroom/250409/Estate-and-Tax-Planning-After-the-2020-Electionnbspndash

While this writer cannot offer financial advice (not being qualified), the most interesting advice might be to transfer one's biggest losers into either a Roth or a GRAT.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Revision Habits

I've just finished the second revision stage of my current work in progress, a light paranormal romance novella, a loose sequel to two previous novellas from the Wild Rose Press. All authors probably have their own individual approaches to self-editing within a few broad categories. Some writing mavens advise a separate editing once-over for each level of potentially needed changes. For instance, one for major plot and character issues, one for style, syntax, word choice, and grammar, and finally one for spelling, typos, punctuation, and other minor errors. A few seem to expect even more rounds of revision. If some writers strictly follow that advice, no wonder they may take years to finish a book.

Such writing mentors probably tend to be the same people who advise us not to bother with granular stylistic and proofreading changes on the first revision or two, because we'd be likely to waste time changing passages that won't even appear in the finished product. That may be good advice for "pantsers." I outline extensively, deal with plot and character difficulties at that stage, and excise elements that don't fit before the actual first-draft composition begins. Also, I edit as I go, at least on the level of sentence structure and word choice. This habit makes me a slower writer than I want to be, but on the other hand, it means I end up with a fairly polished first draft. After all this time, I really can't help doing it that way; my habits were formed over decades as an academic writer and more than twenty years employed as a proofreader.

Personally, I couldn't bear the waste of time involved in doing a separate pass for each level of revision, from global down to nitpicky. I tackle them all at once, sort of. Again, I probably couldn't force myself to do otherwise anyway. If I decided to start with overarching plot and character evaluation, along the way I would inevitably notice minor points that needed fixing. My usual procedure, after the revising-in-progress first draft phase, is to let the work rest for about a week, then read through it and make any corrections that occur to me. Next, I send sections to my online critique group and the whole thing to a critique partner for comment. After addressing all their suggestions, I leave the piece to sit for a few more days. Then I give it a final pass before submitting to the target market. Incidentally, the function that underlines misspellings in red is permanently activated on this computer. That way, I can't miss typos, as might happen if I depended on running spellcheck, with the risk of absentmindedly blowing right past an erroneous word.

Many writing authorities have strong opinions about how many drafts a work should go through before it's ready to submit. Do the terms "first draft, second draft," etc., have any fixed meaning in the era of computer word processing, when previous versions disappear into the ether unless they're printed before changes are made? A draft is an even more nebulous concept for someone who revises in the process of composition, like me. The document I send to a critique group or partner is more like "draft one and a half" than a definable whole number.

I've often thought how unfortunate it is for future collectors and critics that most authors nowadays won't leave successive drafts for scholars to study and compare to the finished work.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction Part 1 - Stephen Hawking

Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction

Part 1

Stephen Hawking

This blog is about Alien Romance, or human/non-human Soul Mates - Love at first sight, and Love Conquers All.

It is all about the essence suffusing the state of mind where, somehow, what others think is crazy and unreal is actually perceived in a new, different way, from a new perspective.

Romance is a state of mind, and many writers on the subject hold that the perception of another person available in a state of "Romance" is actually more accurate than the everyday assessment anyone might make of that person.

One of the ingredients in Alien Romance is the idea of a non-human species, evolved on some other planet around some other star, either coming here -- or humans going there.

For human and Alien to meet (for a rousing good Romance Novel) you have to postulate a transport mechanism.

Yes, Stephen Hawking Lied To Us All About How Black Holes Decay

These days, it's not enough to do what Star Trek did and just "say" that the ship is propelled into "Warp Drive" using engines that have to contain a (non-existent) substance you say is Dilithium Crystals.

Too many people know too much. Things that used to be available to learn only in University post-Graduate seminars are now taught in High School -- even Elementary School or Middle School.

So here is an article (with animated illustrations) from Forbes Magazine that shows how currently known science tosses out very firmly established knowledge to chase after something new.

Experts can be wrong - or misunderstood.

Authorities should be believed only after proving what they say to you, independently, for yourself.

One of the items I remember from A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking is the firm assertion that interstellar travel is impossible. (well, we've heard that for decades).

But he had the math to prove it.

But it's OK because there are no other living civilizations out there, anyway. Math proved that.

Guess what? Now math (with new, different assumptions) indicates there may be over 30 civilizations out there.

So it's not OK that we can't go there. If "they" can go around, so can we. Even if it's impossible.

Now comes an astrophysicist thinking around the edges of Hawking's theory.

Black Holes and the fabric of space-time, the nature of reality and existence, are the sum and substance of the reasons why "space travel is impossible" - but it turns out, maybe that's just not the case.

As usual with Science - it is partly fiction. Math is the language of Science, but to do the Math you need to input assumptions - you need to postulate and hypothesize.

If you change the input assumptions, the output changes.

Here is an article in the widely respected magazine, Forbes, posted at Forbes.com -- in July 2020.

Yes, Stephen Hawking Lied To Us All About How Black Holes Decay
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/09/yes-stephen-hawking-lied-to-us-all-about-how-black-holes-decay/

--------quote------
None of this should serve to take away from Hawking's tremendous accomplishments on this front. It was he who realized the deep connections between black hole thermodynamics, entropy, and temperature. It was he who put together the science of quantum field theory and the background of curved space near a black hole. And it was he who — quite correctly, mind you — figured out the properties and energy spectrum of the radiation that black holes would produce. It is absolutely fitting that the way black holes decay, via Hawking radiation, bears his name.

But the flawed analogy he put forth in his most famous book, A Brief History of Time, is not correct. Hawking radiation is not the emission of particles and antiparticles from the event horizon. It does not involve an inward-falling pair member carrying negative energy. And it shouldn't even be exclusive to black holes. Stephen Hawking knew how black holes truly decay, but he told the world a very different, even incorrect, story. It's time we all knew the truth instead.
---------end quote--------

This does not mean you're free to postulate just anything convenient to tell your story.

Roddenberry had to do that, but you must not if you're writing a novel (not a screenplay).

As I noted, too many people know too much for you to flimflam them. They will disbelieve the Romance if you fudge the Science. If they disbelieve the Romance, they will not believe the fiction.

But you have to fictionalize your science, while at the same time you make your fiction scientific.

Science fiction is the recreation of scientists. Romance is the recreation of spirit. You have to create the spirit of science using the art of wordsmithing.

Read this Forbes article - then read Hawking's book(s).

https://smile.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Sudden Death

If you do a DuckDuckGo search, you will have a hard time finding a definition of "sudden death" that involves bad luck and sportsmanship... or lack thereof. You will need to include a term such as "playoff" in your query.

Today, I am writing about the last gasp of the CASE Act, which has been apparently successfully smothered to death by being sat on by Oregon senator Ron Wyden and needs emergency resuscitation; the Legacy Kit from the SFWA; the focus at Authors Guild on the Death of the Author (owing to rampant overreach by internet giants), and the hidden perils of promoting ones book or other product through illegal contests involving luck or minimal "skill".

You see, it is all copyright-related, but grim, nonetheless.

If you follow this blog and do not support the SFWA, perhaps you should make joining a New Year's Resolution. It is a very useful professional association, and the dues are tax deductible. They have just published a Legacy Kit, which is a wonderful, 28-page resource for authors interested in being prepared for their own sudden death and authorial immortality.

The Authors Guild is hosting a webinar on November 17th, called "The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling To Survive In The Age Of Billionaires And Big Tech".

The blurb:

"In the age of Big Tech and the gig economy, how can writers and artists survive? It’s never been easier to publish a book or make your art available to the public, but at the same time, the pay has never been lower."

Of course, the pay will never improve as long as writers have rights without meaningful recourse to the courts and the ability enforce their rights. Which is why the Copyright Alliance is encouraging one final push by all creators and artists to implore their senators to pass the CASE Act, SW.1273.

Their blurb:

“Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019” (the CASE Act) — a bill that would create a “small claims court” within the U.S. Copyright Office to handle copyright infringement claims from individual creators and small businesses that cannot afford to defend themselves in federal court."

Their link:

https://p2a.co/21l3imn

Desperate to survive financially, many authors use legally questionable methods to promote their books, including illegal sweepstakes and contests that lack the fig leaf of legality. When the "skill" involved in a "contest of skill" amounts to little more than figuring out 2+2, it is little more than a game of chance. Depending where a contestant lives, a "consideration" (price of entry) might only be a "like" or a "follow" or a review on social media, but those things are "of value" to the author and therefore, to stay on the straight and narrow, the author must allow would-be winners of the prize, whatever it is, to enter in an alternative manner without providing the review or like or follow.

There is a lot more to it. Legal bloggers Kasey Boucher and Matthew D. Stein, for the law firm Pierce Atwood LLP explain their top Ten Common Mistakes When Conducting Sweepstakes Or Contest Promotions On Social Media.

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5c893764-2c1c-415b-b4cc-ed7046356137&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2020-11-13&utm_term=

Original link:

https://www.pierceatwood.com/alerts/ten-common-mistakes-when-conducting-sweepstakes-or-contest-promotions-social-media

If you don't believe that you've been doing it all wrong these past many years, and would like a second legal opinion, or are especially concerned about Facebook, legal blogger David O. Klein of Klein Moynihan Turco LLP has just the ticket for you....metaphorically speaking with Planning On Running A Facebook Sweepstakes? Here's What You Need To Know.

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a54dab43-016a-4f40-a6ce-f794a02142d8

Original link:

https://kleinmoynihan.com/facebook-sweepstakes-what-you-need-to-know/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

Thursday, November 12, 2020

More on AI

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column continues his topic from last month, the sharp divide between the artificial intelligence of contemporary technology and the self-aware computers of science fiction. He elaborates on his arguments against the possibility of the former's evolving into the latter:

Past Performance

He explains current machine learning "as a statistical inference tool" that "analyzes training data to uncover correlations between different phenomena." That's how an e-mail program predicts what you're going to type next or a search engine guesses your question from the initial words. An example he analyzes in some detail is facial recognition. Because a computer doesn't "know" what a face is but only looks for programmed patterns, it may produce false positives such as "doorbell cameras that hallucinate faces in melting snow and page their owners to warn them about lurking strangers." AI programs work on a quantitative rather than qualitative level. As remarkably as they perform the functions for which they were designed, "statistical inference doesn’t lead to comprehension, even if it sometimes approximates it." Doctorow contrasts the results obtained by mathematical analysis of data with the synthesizing, theorizing, and understanding processes we think of as true intelligence. He concludes that "the idea that if we just get better at statistical inference, consciousness will fall out of it is wishful thinking. It’s a premise for an SF novel, not a plan for the future."

While I'd like to believe a sufficiently advanced supercomputer with more interconnections, "neurons," and assimilation of data than any human brain could hold might awaken to self-awareness, like Mike in Heinlein's THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, I must admit Doctorow's argument is highly persuasive. Still, people do anthropomorphize their technology, even naming their Roomba vacuum cleaners. (I haven't done that. Our Roomba is a low-end, fairly dumb model. Its intelligence is limited to changing direction when it bumps into obstacles and returning to its charger when low on power, which I never let it run long enough to do. But nevertheless I give the thing pointless verbal commands on occasion. It doesn't listen to me much less than the cats do, after all.) People carry on conversations with Alexa and Siri. I enjoy remembering a cartoon I saw somewhere of a driver simultaneously listening to the GPS apps on both the car's system and the cell phone. The two GPS voices are arguing with each other about which route to take.

Remember Eliza, the computer therapist program? She was invented in the 1960s, and supposedly some users mistook for a human psychologist. You can try her out here:

Eliza

As the page mentions, the dialogue goes best if you limit your remarks to talking about yourself. When I tried to engage her in conversation about the presidential election, her lines quickly devolved into, "Do you have any psychological problems?" (Apparently commenting that one loathes a certain politician is a red flag.) So these AI therapists don't really pass the Turing test. I've read that if you state to one of them, for instance, "Einstein says everything is relative," it will probably respond, "Tell me more about your family." Many years ago, when the two youngest of our sons were preteens, we acquired a similar program, very simple, which one communicated with by typing, and it would type a reply that the computer's speaker would also read out loud. The kids had endless fun writing sentences such as, "I want [long string of numbers] dollars," and listening to the computer voice retort with something like, "I am not here to fulfill your need for ten quintillion, four quadrillion, nine trillion, fifty billion, one hundred million, two thousand, one hundred and forty-one dollars."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt