After a long chilly spring, the weather has finally turned hot. And hot weather requires hot salsa.
A few restaurants I visited, especially in the southwest, had great salsa or — if you were lucky — fresh pico-de-gallo. Most of the salsa I found in our local grocery store, however, was disappointing. I think I must have tried every kind of fresh or bottled salsa over the years, looking for the right one. Little did I know how easy it was to make your own salsa. Here’s my recipe:
Ingredients
1 large can of petite-diced tomatoes
1 red onion, diced
2 jalapeño peppers, finely chopped
several sprigs of cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 big squirt of bottled lime juice (maybe two or three limes worth)
salt to taste
Directions
Dump the can of tomatoes in a plastic storage container, add the onions, jalapeños, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Mix.
That’s it. That’s all you have to do. None of the proportions are really important. Just use a smaller can of tomatoes to make a smaller batch. But, honestly, why would you ever do that?
It does get better if you let it sit for a while. But, on a hot day, ain’t nobody got time for that.
At the Nebula Conference this year, Kat Brehm organized a live-action slush reading panel. She said this has been a dream of hers for several years and she was super excited to pull it off. She got Scott Edelman and Erin Roberts to read the openings to manuscripts (the first 500 words) and had a panel of slush readers who were to raise their hand when they were ready to reject a manuscript. And once three raised their hands, the reading stopped and she asked the slush readers to explain why they had rejected the manuscript (or why not). I decided to submit a piece to the event and attended the panel.
It was interesting to see what the slush readers liked and didn’t like. To be honest, I couldn’t always tell the difference between the things they gushingly extolled and the things they rejected out of hand. A common factor was starting the story at the wrong place: they sometimes thought a story had too much set up, but frequently were willing to tolerate (what seemed to me) like. a vast amount of set up if they liked something or were intrigued by something.
Obviously, it was about striking a balance. Some had too much worldbuilding. Some had not enough worldbuilding. Sometimes reviewers agreed and sometimes they disagreed.
Their responses were also calibrated to what kind of submission it was: short stories needed an immediate hook while they were willing to let a novel start more slowly, acknowledging there was time to let the action develop,
My piece didn’t fare very well. It wasn’t the worst (which was someone who used a mirror trope that got universally rejected within the first two sentences.) But mine was rejected before half way through.
The first reader rejected it almost before the narrator started reading. They said it was “not the type of story they vibe with.” Two or three more raised their hands at more-or-less the same moment about halfway through. Most of their comments didn’t really tell me anything I don’t already know about my writing.
The goal of my opening was to present what I thought might appear as a conventional (perhaps even cliched) scenario and then take it a different direction with a twist. But all of the slush readers simply rejected it as appearing too conventional. They never got to the twist because they didn’t give it a chance. That’s really useful for me to know about slush readers. I’ve been a slush reader before (though not very much) and one of my goals was to try to actually get through a story unless it was really intolerably bad. But that was my privilege, since I don’t have to do it very often.
Another comment they made was that the language was too ordinary or matter-of-fact. This is an intentional stylistic choice I make. I hate flowery, literary writing. It gets in the way of me being able to enjoy a story. So I strive for relatively simple, prosaic prose. But I can see that, at least these, slush readers would prefer something that sounds less ordinary.
Finally, one or two slush readers pointed out that they want to know more about the protagonist’s feelings — to have more interiority. Again, this is a stylistic choice I make (which I’ve described elsewhere). Since we can’t get inside other people’s heads and only ever hear our own thoughts, Unless I’m writing in first person, I much prefer to write about things are observable: people’s words and actions. But it’s obviously out of step with what these slush readers were expecting. Or, rather, what they were looking for. They probably expect most manuscripts to be terrible, which is why they don’t bother to read more than a few sentences before rejecting them.
This isn’t really a surprise to me. I know that the stuff I write isn’t what a lot of editors are looking for. But I like it. And I was disappointed that people didn’t even get to the twist to see where the story was going. It’s given me some useful perspective to figure out what to consider going forward. But it leaves me with a question.
How much should I try to change my writing to satisfy others? If they’d read the whole story, I expect they’d have a bunch of other complaints about my writing. I don’t like a traditional three-act story structure either. I’m not big on the whole “dark night of the soul” thing. I like more episodic fiction with different kinds of pacing and stakes.
I really appreciated John Wiswell’s comments in his Nebula acceptance speech. He described being rejected again and again and again until he gave up. Then he really doubled down, quit trying to satisfy editors or agents, and wrote something as “weird and neurodivergent” as himself. Thanks, John.
The SFWA Nebula Conference is coming right up (June 6 and 7, 2025). Although I’ve attended remotely before, I’m attending this year in person for the first time. I will be appearing at two events on Friday, June 6th: a “Meet and Greet” at 4pm CDT with William Ledbetter, Greg Leunig, and Michael Capobianco and a Networking Reception from 8 to 11pm.
I have also been invited to serve during the award ceremony as a “runner,” that will guide people to the stage during the event. When I was asked if was willing to do that, I pointed out that I would be happy to, as long as it didn’t actually involved any running, as I will be wearing a mask and walking slowly with a staff. I was assured that would be fine, and so I said I would be happy to serve.
Prior to the conference, the SFWA Board will have a retreat to discuss strategic planning. Anyone who’s been reading my blog will be unsurprised by my focuses: restoring normal functioning, increasing fundraising, and improving member retention. To accomplish the last two, I think we need to improve publicity and outreach. SFWA does a lot of great stuff, but people don’t always know what we’re doing.
I really do appreciate many of the things that SFWA offers. I particularly take advantage of the Writing Date for socialization and networking (though a little less since I run my own similar event for the Straw Dog Writers Guild). Writer Beware is a particularly useful useful service. The information about contracts and publishing have been extremely helpful. And I appreciate the SFWA community as a resource to learn about craft of writing, the publishing landscape, to learn about new projects, and to hear scuttlebutt.
I find I’m a little more nervous heading to this convention than I usually am. I think this is because I’m a little more concerned than usual about making a good impression. I’m going to be meeting a lot of people that I’ll be working with for the next couple of years as Secretary. But everyone involved in SFWA leadership has been fantastic to work with so far, so I’m not really worried — just a little nervous.
When I was a kid, I started walking with a staff as a walking stick. My family lived in a forest in southwest Michigan. My brother Philip had a friend, Richard Molenaar, and they were always doing all kinds of creative fictional things, making fantastical maps and stories and artwork. At one point, they constructed an imaginary religion and used a wind-thrown tree in the forest as their “Temple of the Staff.” I liked imitating things that my older brother was doing, so I cut a staff too and started walking with it. In those days, I usually cut a staff of ironwood (Ostrya virginiana), which I would often mark with runes.
I had learned to make runes when I read The Hobbit in fourth grade. Tolkien had adapted futhorc runes when he created the dwarven map and I had reverse engineered them once I realized that it was just a substitution cipher of the English text from the book. My friends and I exchanged all of our notes in class in runic when I was in high school, so I was quite proficient at writing in runic, once upon a time. It worked really well, although one time I wrote the note in Spanish and my friend (who was studying French) was very puzzled when he tried to read it.
Years later, when I moved back to Michigan for graduate work, I decided to cut a small red oak (Quercus rubra) tree in the forest and made two staves. I peeled the bark just at the top on each and, on one for myself, I carved an S rune and, on one for my wife, I carved an A rune. I still have those staves, thirty years later. I used them only occasionally for most of that time but, when I fell on the ice several years ago, I injured my right knee. Since then, I’ve found using a walking aid helpful, and so I’ve taken to using a staff pretty much any time I have to walk for more than a few blocks.
The staves are pretty long — around five feet — so they don’t really fit conveniently in the car. When we began our road trip, it became clear, I couldn’t bring either of my existing staves, so I decided I would undertake to make a new staff while en route.
When we arrived at Phil’s apartment, I mentioned my plan and inquired whether there might be a good place to cut a staff. He said that he had a number of walking sticks already that I could borrow to see if any might be right. One was from the Kalamazoo Nature Center, but it was too short. Another was a big crooked piece of osage orange driftwood. It was closer to what I wanted in height, but just wasn’t a good fit.
We puzzled for a while about where to cut a staff but we couldn’t come up with a place where it would really be appropriate to do that. So I fell back on my plan B: to look for a wooden handle at a hardware store that I could adapt to be a staff.
We went to a local hardware store to see what was available. They had axe handles and shovel handles, but they were all too short. Push broom handles were longer, but too narrow. There were dowels, but they were also too short. There was a really long piece of heavier wood, but it was so long there was no way to carry it in the car. A wheelbarrow handle was long enough, but the bottom two-thirds was squared off, making the whole thing a bit cumbersome and heavy. There were a bunch of other cylindrical objects that we joked about making into a staff: water pipe insulation (not rigid enough). Florescent light bulbs (too brittle). Eventually we gave up. I nearly resorted to going to one of the large chain stores, but Phil remembered another local hardware store and, after we looked there, we found a dust mop handle that had a metal part at the end (to hold the dust mop), but which was otherwise about the right length, diameter, and heaviness. Plus, it was absurdly cheap (like $10). We bought some rubber feet and took it home to work on it.
I wanted to decorate it a bit and had been thinking about how to do it as we investigated the various possibilities. I considered buying a dremel motor tool and routing out some runes, but that was a bit more expensive than I had bargained for. Phil suggested wood burning. He had an old woodburning kit he had gotten as a teenager that he’d been carrying around for fifty years. So, after cutting off the metal head and sticking on a rubber foot, we got out the woodburning kit and I gave it a try.
I wanted to put on a rune, or runes. When I had carved runes before, it was enough work that I just put on a single rune at the top. But with the wood burning kit, I aimed to do three runes to spell out SDB. I looked through the various tips and selected one that was rather like a standard screwdriver. It worked admirably to made wide, even strokes for runes. Then, I added a diamond-shaped mark between the B and the S, to make it clear in what order the runes were to be read. But then the rest of the staff looked very plain, so I considered adding more runes.
I experimented making small runes with the wood burning tool. By pressing the tip into the wood, I could easily make small line segments and, from those, I could construct runes. Putting one above another, I could make the stem and then I could add two more to make a T or an A rune. But a D rune required like 8 little segments and was so hard to keep aligned that the result wasn’t really readable. So I decided to cheat: I went to the store and bought a pack of fine-point sharpies and so I could just write the runes in several colors.
I decided to have the text spiral around the staff. I wound a piece of masking tape around and around the staff and then wrote out the words of La Vojo in runes going down, above the tape in black, and then back up below the tape in red. It only took me about 40 minutes of focused effort and, although the runes are little scribbly, I’m quite satisfied with the result, which is very mystical.
On Saturday, Phil’s Historical European Martial Arts group was tabling at their local farmer’s market. I went along and took my staff. Even before I was introduced, my staff was an object of great fascination, which I found quite gratifying. And it serves its primary purpose, as a walking aid, very admirably.
One of many advantages of being an academic is having the time to travel. Two years ago, my son and I went on a summer road trip to BayCon. With the end of the current semester, we’ve embarked on a new adventure.
I’ve had the good fortune to travel widely over my life. The experiences of many of the places I’ve visited have featured in my writing. Here are just a few:
Drenched with sweat and coated with dust, bouncing along on a wagon behind a tractor, stacking bales of hay under the hot sun.
An ancient Roman aqueduct, with a double row of arches, spanning a valley and still delivering fresh water thousands of years after construction.
The gritty, polluted atmosphere of São Paulo. Doors with multiple locks. Windows barred. Every big truck with a small follower car, a plastic dome in the roof that can pop off and, inside, several heavily-armed burly men.
The desert southwest of the United States with red rocks contrasting the dark green of the piñon pine and juniper. Scattered potsherds everywhere. Cool canyons with cottonwoods and huge tree frogs that are invisible until you spot one and then realized you were surrounded.
Climbing above the treeline of a high mountain pass with the sky all around and snow still in the shadows of the peaks. Beautiful alpine flowers blooming in the sunlight.
Thermal features steaming in a barren plain with twisted grey dead trees scattered across the landscape. The omnipresent smell of brimstone.
The golden sand of a tropical beach and the ocean in three or four shades of blue. Waves breaking over the distant reef, with huge cumulus clouds riding the trade winds out to sea.
Driving through mile and mile of sprawl — strip malls and auto dealerships — only to enter the boarded up decrepit buildings of an old downtown swallowed by the sprawl, and re-emerging on the other side to miles of further sprawl on the other side.
Standing at the rusty metal border fence, outside the United States, looking in, while armed border control guards drive white SUVs back and forth, watching — always watching.
Rolling through the run-down backside of the metropolis by rail, then diving underground into a subterranean warren of grimy cement pillars dimly glimpsed though uncertain light as the train rolls into Grand Central Station.
On a dirt road, trying to bicycle back onto the map. Racing a summer thunderstorm moving in from the west, and arriving at a country store just as the first drops start to fall. Lightning. Thunder. The power goes out.
Walking through a seemingly pristine forest, only to discover an old rail grade, piles of mine tailings, and old cellar holes, to remind you that, less than 200 years ago, the entire region was clearcut and occupied. Now abandoned.
I’ve posted previously about using geomorphology and botany for settings in fiction. Of course, it’s not just the physical and biological characteristics that make a setting. The people in a place are also essential components: How they look. How they dress. How they speak. How they interact. Plus the economic circumstances and level of development. And the cultural institutions and their manifestations in the landscape: houses, businesses, churches, government buildings, and their architectural styles.
When I first tried to write, I found myself frequently drawing from literary sources for my imaginary settings. But the longer I’ve lived, and the more places I’ve visited, I find my own recollections are so much more vivid and nuanced, that they are my primary source for constructing settings.
My current adventure has already taken me several new places I’ve not visited before. We spent several days in Asheville for a wedding and then drove through the Smoky Mountains, through Tennessee and Kentucky, to Illinois. Next week, we’ll go to the SFWA Nebula Conference in Kansas City. I look forward to all of the new experiences to come. Don’t be surprised if there are some new settings in my writing in the coming years!
I visited the Leverett Peace Pagoda today. It’s only a short drive from Amherst. You park at the bottom and walk up the mountain for around a quarter mile. It’s always an opportunity for quiet reflection. It is one of many pagodas constructed after Hiroshima and Nagaski by a Buddhist order dedicated to opposing nuclear weapons.
I can’t remember when I first discovered the Peace Pagoda. I probably hadn’t been living in the Pioneer Valley for more than a year or two. At the top, there is the amazing pagoda with gold statues at the cardinal points. Nearby, there’s a little pond with an island in the middle. Just beyond, built in the foundation of an older temple that was destroyed by fire, there is a little zen gravel garden. Usually, there are several strings of multi-colored prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. The pond is covered with lily pads and has frogs, tadpoles, minnows, and newts. It’s the among the most peaceful places I’ve ever visited.
Over the nearly 30 years I’ve been visiting, a number of changes have occurred. Over many years, they built new temple near the pagoda. There is a new area near the pond dedicated by and to native American people. A number of new monuments have been erected. There are number of new buildings and residences on the road up to the pagoda. But the message of the pagoda is the same.
At some point, I started writing haibun in Esperanto about interesting places in the Pioneer Valley. In 2010, I published Patro kaj Filo ĉe Sukerpanmonto (Father and Son Visit Mount Sugarloaf). Three years later, I published Spuroj sub Franc-Reĝa Ponto (Tracks Under French King Bridge). And in 2014, Morto… kaj vivo en Amherst, Masacuseco (Death… and Life in Amherst, Massachusetts), a haibun about a visit to the Emily Dickinson homestead, that tied for second place in the Belarta Konkurso. I had always intended to follow it up with a haibun about the Peace Pagoda. I made notes and had started writing it, but it was around that time that I had my falling out with the Esperanto movement. And I pretty much quit doing anything with Esperanto.
I think the last time I visited the Peace Pagoda was shortly after I got out of the hospital. I wasn’t well enough to make the climb, so I drove up and parked near the top. This time, I made the climb on foot. With my reduced lung capacity, it’s a struggle. But I had my walking stick and walked slowly, while other people passed me on the climb. Going back down was also difficult. I injured a knee in a fall maybe 10 years ago and doing downhill is painful. But I used my stick, took small steps, and made it back down.
It was a glorious day in the sunshine at the top. I sat to enjoy the view, walked around the little island, and was inspired to write a haiku.
pinpinglo falas / a pine-needle falls
aliĝas la aliaj… / and joins the others…
jam mararmeo / already a flotilla
As I was getting ready to leave, I ran into another old man at the announcement board getting ready to mow the lawn. He mentioned a ceremony planned for early June. I thanked him and said I had been coming for nearly 30 years and it was nice to see the changes and on going commitment of the community. He said he’d been coming for nigh on 30 years himself. “It doesn’t seem we’re getting any closer to peace, though,” I said. We shook our heads sadly and parted.
For the week before the Watch City Steampunk Festival, I kept checking the forecast and trying to decide what to do. There was rain predicted the day before, but the forecast kept changing: some days, it seemed like it would clear up before the festival opened. And other times, it looked like it would be a washout. The night before, I decided that I would just have to drive there and make an assessment.
I had thought there would be another attending author. I’d met him previously at Readercon was hopeful he’d come early enough to help me set up. But it turned out he actually couldn’t attend. I was luckily able to recruit my son to go with me to help with load out, load in, and to give me breaks to use the facilities.
My son and I got up at 5am for the two-hour drive to Waltham. Normally, the drive would be a half-hour shorter, but it was slower driving in the rain. When we arrived, light rain was still falling. But looking at the radar made me think that the heaviest of the rain was over. The radar image was fascinating: the storm was rotating counter-clockwise, almost like a hurricane, very nearly centered on Waltham. But most of the heaviest bands of rain were to the north and the whole system was moving slowly northeast.So we started unloading. We set up the canopy and the table, put up the banner, and brought just a minimal subset of books to display.
My wife looked at the picture and said we should have lowered the banner and/or raised the table cloth. She tracked down the picture from last year to show me how it looked before. I said that Daniel and I had agreed that the weather had left us “rain damaged.”
Business was slow all morning. A few people stopped to look, but nobody bought anything. It continued to rain and was chilly, with temps only in the low 50s. I put on a heavier coat and my gloves. But, little by little, the sun began to peek out and the festival became more lively. And sales picked up.
I hadn’t brought a wide selection. In addition to what was listed there, I brought Romancing the Rainbow, my books of haiku, and a few other things. But a lot of people buying books here had seen me before — either last year at Watch City or at Readercon, Arisia, or Boskone. When I had signed up to do Watch City, I thought I’d have a new book out. But it’s been delayed. I had hoped it would be out in June, but now looks like it may be delayed yet again. In any case, several people said they already had either Revin’s Heart and/or Better Angels: Tour de Force, so their choices were pretty limited. One young woman, who already had Revin’s Heart bought a copy of Romancing the Rainbow. A young man, with his parents, was very interested in Revin’s Heart but really liked the bundle of novelettes, so his parents paid the extra $10 to buy him the bundle. A young woman was interested in the Esperanto books, saying her dad spoke Esperanto. She bought him a copy of Premitaj Floroj. A young man, who had been a student employee of mine ten years ago, remembered himself to me and took a card, so he could order a book. I gave away a lot of cards.
Another vendor stopped by to ask me how we did. I indicated that sales had been lackluster. He said he’d done very well: he’d sold 24 copies of his new release. He made encouraging comments about small-press and indie publishing.
A lot of people were puzzled by the “Small Publishing in a Big Universe” moniker. Once they heard what it was, they agreed it sounded like a great idea. One woman mentioned the Independent Publishers of New England that is conceptually similar. I should look into them some more. She mentioned upcoming events I might consider.
After we packed up, we drove to Dirigible Brewing for dinner and a beer. The weather by then was perfect. Still cool, but sunny and pleasant for drive home.
I was excited to be offered a place on the program at Worldcon in Seattle, but recent events about Worldcon have left me in a quandary. I will probably still attend, but I’m dismayed and discouraged by what’s happening.
I first attended Worldcon in 2023. I applied to be a participant with little expectation of getting on the program, and was very surprised when I ended up with eight appearances. I applied again in 2024 and, expecting to be selected, made all of my arrangements to travel internationally to Glasgow. When I was not selected, I decided — at significant expense — to cancel all of my arrangements. So, when I applied for this year in Seattle, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I filled out the interest form to be a participant in October. In January, I was very excited to be invited to be a participant. And, in early April, I had the opportunity to fill out the panel selection survey, to propose myself for particular roles. And then, just before May, the Worldcon Chair issued a statement, followed by an apology, and then a clarifying statement, about the use of ChatGPT, a generative AI Large Language Model (LLM) in the participant selection process, that included the actual ChatGPT prompt they used to investigate participants.
Basically, they tried to use ChatGPT to assess potential participants (who were identified by name to the system) for disqualifying attitudes, statements, and behaviors. The system collected information and provided it for review, along with an assessment of the suitability of each name.
The reaction of the speculative fiction community was swift and almost universally negative. A few people have tried to speak up for the organizers, but most expressed outrage. A number of prominent people have withdrawn as volunteers and participants. Or even pulled their works from consideration for awards.
Large Language Models are reviled in the writing community for many reasons: they have been unethically developed, frequently exhibit bias, and are known to “hallucinate” false information. Moreover, they represent an existential threat to the writing community, if their corporate masters are allowed to profit from the unethical use of the source materials that were used to train them.
Others, with more expertise, have written about the shortcomings of using Generative AI in general, and ChatGPT in particular, for this purpose. Both the choice of tool and the nature of the prompt meant that the results would be potentially biased and untrustworthy.
Many people ran the prompt on their own name to see what their report looked like. Out of curiosity, I finally decided to do that too, to see what they would have found when they investigated me. The report about me was banal with no wildly incorrect information. (I could speculate at length about why, but the reasons aren’t really germane to this discussion.)
I have written about my grave concerns about the use of generative AI and that fact that I do not personally use “AI” for anything. I had previously never used ChatGPT. And I regret having given into my curiosity to use it now.
My overall reaction has been dismay. Worldcon was already going to be thinly attended due to the unsafe conditions traveling to — or even within — the United States for many people. Now, even more people are canceling their plans to attend for this unforced error.
My initial hope was that they would reject the work done by AI — the fruit of the poison tree — and redo the participant selection process — even it meant I risked being denied a spot on the program. But, unfortunately, they seem to have doubled-down on retaining the work done to date.
So, I’m left with a quandary. I don’t plan to take any immediate action. I don’t even know if I’ve been selected to appear on any panels. And I have other obligations to fulfill at Worldcon: My publisher has applied to sell books there — presumably including my forthcoming book. Furthermore, as Secretary of SFWA, I would like the opportunity to meet with and coordinate with my colleagues. But I’m left dismayed and discouraged. And deeply unsettled.
For a couple of years, I’ve been, off and on, working on a new book: The Ground Never Lies. It’s about a geomancer with an anger problem who has come to believe she is unloveable, but discovers a capacity for love she didn’t know she had.
As I wrote the story, I realized that I couldn’t tell the story with a single time line. I wrote the “present day” timeline first, and then went back and started writing an earlier timeline that explains how she has come to the conclusion that she is unloveable — and explains how she developed her other abilities and skills.
Now that these are both (mostly) written, I need to somehow marry them together. As a first step, I’ve begun to carefully separate the two narratives into individual scenes. As I’ve done this, I’ve had a surprising realization: I suck at writing “scenes.” I have a tendency to just write the story. Maybe if I had ever had any instruction in writing, someone might have explained that stories can have “structure” and you can use it “intentionally.” Oh, well. Live and learn.
Now that I’m doing it, it’s giving me new insight into how to organize each scene and give each a dramatic arc that leads naturally from one to the next. Fascinating! What an idea!
During the winter, I do all of my writing in my chilly, basement office. It’s a nice place to work. It’s brightly lit. I have a laptop and a portrait display. I have posters of my book covers surrounding me. It’s a great place to write! But all winter I can’t wait for spring to arrive, so I can emerge from my cave, set up my tent, and write out in my yard.
One of the first things we bought after we moved into our house was a picnic table. We put it in our front yard so it was convenient to the kitchen (there was no door into the backyard when we bought the house). And we also liked hanging out near the street so we could chat with neighbors as they walked by. Or use the table to meet with guests when they arrived.
It took on new importance during the pandemic when we could no longer invite people into our home. The table became the de facto place where I would meet with friends and colleagues to have a beer and talk. And, while for many people the pandemic is “over,” my chronic health issues mean that I still can’t meet with friends indoors or at restaurants or cafes (except outside).
Pretty soon after getting the table, however, we discovered a shortcoming: mosquitos. During the daytime, mosquitos were not too bad but, once the sun started to go down, the mosquitos made the table almost unusable. And, of course, even a light rainstorm was enough to chase us inside and leave the table too wet to sit on for hours.
One other hazard was our delightful sakura tree. Not the tree, itself, of course, but the flock of cedar waxwings that comes to gorge on its tiny, bitter cherries every year. After the birds “process” the cherries, they leave dropping everywhere and the table would be covered with them.
Our solution was to buy a tent for the yard that we could erect over the table. We tried several models that didn’t last very long but, eventually found a frame that was sturdy enough that we’ve had it for years. We have to replace the canopy and mosquito net every two or three years due to UV damage.
Last year, after a quarter century, the picnic table finally gave up the ghost. My wife and I discussed what to replace it with and I said I wanted to get a patio sectional sofa. She was skeptical. She said that we would need to get a patio to put it on! And I said, “Let’s do it!” So we hired our local handyman to do the work. He dug out a hole, packed sand at the bottom, and laid the patio blocks inside. Then I purchased the sectional sofa to sit on top. Boy, is it a wonderful place to work — when the weather’s nice.
I purchased the red izakaya lantern years ago. My innovation this winter was to buy a string of 75% off holiday lights after Christmas to clip around the frame. They really light up the tent and gives it a very festive atmosphere inside. My sister-in-law who saw the pictures said it looks like “glamping.”
Does it improve my productivity? Probably not. But it makes writing a whole lot more fun. And it’s an even better place to meet with small groups of friends and colleagues for a beer.
Writing takes both patience and persistence. Unfortunately, I’m rather lacking in both.
I want to be patient, but I am constantly chafing at the bit. But so much of writing is a waiting game. No matter how much you want to move quickly, there are limits all along the way, in writing, revising, and publishing.
I can only write so much at a time. I’ve known for a long time that my creative output is uneven. Some days, I can only write a few hundred words. Frequently, I find I need to find my way through a story by taking a break to turn things over in my mind before I can write productively again. But it’s hard to wait.
Revising requires leaving some time after writing before coming to look at the text again. If I try to revise something too soon, I can’t see the problems: I remember too clearly what I was trying to say and so I can’t see what I’m actually saying. But it’s hard to wait.
Publishing requires the most patience of all. Submitting work and waiting for a reply. Submitting work over and over again through rejections. And, when something is finally accepted, waiting while the work is edited, edited again, proofed, and then scheduled for release. It’s so hard to wait.
Through all the ups and downs you just have to keep going. The writing life is filled with disappointment. You constantly have to put yourself out there and, more often than not, there’s simply no reaction. Or you get get rejected. You submit manuscripts and they’re rejected. You offer a reading and nobody comes. You apply to appear at a convention and aren’t scheduled. You apply for a writing retreat and are passed over. The worst is when you just don’t hear anything. Sigh…
That said, now and then, all of the work really pays off. Recently, I took a few minutes to look at my very first book of haiku, Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo. Published in 2010, it’s fifteen years old now and it still holds up pretty well. All of the work it took to produce it has paid off for me in terms of having something that stands the test of time. I’m similarly proud of all of my books. If anything, they’ve just gotten better. Now if other people would just notice…
No matter. I can wait. I’ll just keep to my path writing and publishing books when I can.
One thing most people probably haven’t thought much about is the autonomy of so-called AIs. (Note: Large Language Models are not actually “intelligent” in the way people think of intelligence and people tend to project intelligence onto their behavior. But for the sake of convenience, I’ll call them AI anyway). Who actually controls AIs?
People assume that AIs are “trained” on “data” and then behave autonomously in response to the prompts they’re given. That’s sometimes true. But in many ways, their behavior is often secretly constrained. When Google’s photo recognition software mistakenly identified an African American as a gorilla, the company simply put in a hard limit so that the AI would never report recognizing anything as a gorilla. But none of this is visible to the end user. Most of the current AIs are probably full of hacks like these to prevent the AI from making common sense blunders that would get the company in trouble. But what other kinds of hacks might be in place?
If you’re a company producing an AI, there are all kinds of things you might wish your AI would do if used in particular circumstances. Or by particular people: your opponents, say. Or politicians. How irresistible will it be to corporations that make AIs to make them act in ways that benefit the corporation when given the opportunity? Anyone who knows corporations will know that it will be totally irresistible.
More importantly, when was the last time you heard of a corporation getting it’s network compromised. Yesterday? This morning? Ten minutes ago? It happens all the time. What happens when one of these AIs get compromised? How do you know the AIs you’ve been using up until now haven’t already been compromised?
Humans sometimes get compromised too. If someone gets kompromat on a person, like a pee tape for example, they might be able to get them to do nearly anything: even become a traitor to their country. And, of course, people are notoriously susceptible to inducements: e.g. money, sex, drugs. Or to become a mole or traitor for revenge. There are a bunch of huge differences between human treachery and a compromised AI. But one difference should give you pause.
We have deep experience with human treachery. We all know hundreds or thousands of examples of it throughout recorded history. There is legal precedent and volumes of case law for how to handle it. We have no experience with what happens when an AI gets compromised and begins to systematically undermine the agenda of the user. Who is responsible? Who decides? What’s the liability? Nobody knows.
Personally, I don’t use AI for anything. Not for important things. Not for unimportant things. Not for anything. That may seem like an extreme position. But I think that once many people begin to use AI, they’ll quickly become dependent on it and will find it much harder to recognize the subtle ways that AI — or whoever is actually controlling it — may be using them.
As was predicted, the Trump administration has targeted higher education and, putting the “bully” in bully pulpit, has begun to menace universities with funding cuts and other punitive measures if they do not undermine academic freedom. Some institutions, like Columbia, sought to comply and found themselves both reviled by other higher ed institutions and singled out by the administration for yet more humiliation and sanctions. But some have begun to fight back.
When Harvard was served with a letter with illegal demands, they refused to comply. The Trump administration has called for a variety of further, probably illegal, sanctions. The idea that I would see a president use the power of the US government to persecute political enemies would have been nearly unthinkable to me prior to this election. But the brakes are gone and who knows how deep this rabbit hole will go.
As I suggested previously, there are some things we can do. We need to dedicate ourselves to public advocacy in support of higher education. Making statements of principles is a good start. But, of course, it’s not enough. We need to be visible writing articles, editorials, social media posts, and appearing in public. And we need to turn out in support of one another.
At UMass Amherst, the faculty have primary responsibility for academic affairs. That means that we can hold the line on our academic programs and there is very little likelihood that the outside political influence will be successful in undermining our commitment to our principles. There are certainly dark times ahead as the Trump administration seeks to undermine science and choke off the enlightment. But if we stand together, we can present a united front and push back against the fascist agenda.
On April 5, 2025, the Town of Amherst, as part of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming, celebrated the first Global Village Festival. It was scheduled to be outside, on the Town Common. I signed up to be a vendor in the name of my publisher.
It was my first bookselling event since last summer. Normally, we would have had a table at either Arisia or Boskone. And, a couple of years ago, I had a table in November at the Mill District holiday arts and crafts festival. But, for various reasons, none of those panned out this year. I felt a little rusty as I prepared this year, to get ready to stand up the table.
I thought a bit about which books to take. I wasn’t sure whether this would be primarily a kids’ event or have more adult interest. I wanted to take a nice selection of books from my publisher. I requested suggestions from the publisher, but didn’t get any. I ended up selected twenty short, novelette length books that are $5 each and a couple of middle-grade books.
As the date approached, it became clear that the weather wouldn’t support an outdoor event. A cold rain was predicted to fall, beginning in the morning and not ending until the next day. They changed the venue to the middle school cafeteria. This raised a conundrum. I have avoided doing indoor events where people are unmasked. In the end, we decided to go ahead with the event. We both wore masks (as did perhaps 2-5% of the other attendees).
My wife was of immeasurable support. She used her connections ahead of time to try to get people to come to the event and promoted my table as part of it. She helped me load in and load out, which saved me a lot of time. She went to the dollar store and got some candy to give away — and a few little knick-knacks to dress up the table (some little magical wands and some balloons.) And then, she simply wandered around the event looking for people she knew to remind that I had a table. When my state representative took a turn through the room and missed me, she tracked her down and forced her to come back and say hello to me. She’s the best.
It’s fun to run a dealer table. One of the organizers, who is a philatelist, expressed interested in Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo (though she didn’t buy one.) I sold a copy of The Third Time’s a Charm to a grandmother shopping for a book for her grandson. One bibliophile bought a copy of Premitaj Floroj. A couple of science fiction fans bought books. Lots of friends stopped by. One friend hadn’t realized I had hardbacks out and bought copies of Revin’s Heart and Better Angels: Tour de Force.
A daughter of a friend came by the table with a friend and another younger girl (probably the other girl’s sister). I did my annoying-uncle shtick when I gave them packets of gummi candies (purchased by my wife). There were “happy chicks” and “happy hoppers.” The younger expressed curiosity about the hoppers and I told her they were grasshoppers. The older girl gave me a withering stare and explained to the girl that they were rabbits. But the little girl had a hard time choosing which to take. Eventually, she did an eenie-meanie-miney-moe routine that went far beyond any reasonable length and, finally, ultimately, she chose the hoppers. As she walked away, I told her to enjoy her grasshoppers. She grinned happily, now in on the joke.
We had to load out in the rain. We staged things carefully to get everything efficiently into the car in the correct order. (Where everything still is, since its still raining the next day). When I got home, I fixed a bite to eat (because I couldn’t really eat anything during the event due to needing to stay masked). And then, exhausted, I went to bed early.
I am extremely gratified to have been re-elected as Secretary of SFWA. Since the special election in the fall, I have enjoyed getting to know the organization better and making a contribution to strengthen it. Working with the other officers, board members, and staff — who are all interesting and dedicated people — has been a great pleasure. I look forward to a new, full, two-year term as Secretary beginning July 1.
In my platform statement, I said my highest priority was to communicate the decisions of the Board clearly and in good time. I further proposed to focus on (1) restoring normal functioning, (2) undertaking a bylaws review, and (3) engaging in long-range planning. I also affirmed my commitment to transparency and service. I stand by those statements and am proud of the progress we have made toward them already.
I know there are some people have been frustrated with the pace of change or a seeming lack of response by staff or leadership in the past. I hope those people will give us another chance. Almost everyone here is new. And there is a genuine commitment on my part — that I believe is shared with the rest of the Board — to work effectively in the best interests of the organization.
First, some great news! On March 28, 2025, I learned that I have received one of the inaugural Delphi Awards from the University of Massachusetts Amherst for non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty.
The UMass Amherst Delphi Leadership Award honors NTT faculty who have provided exceptional leadership and made innovative contributions in support of their non-tenure-track peers at UMass Amherst.
It comes with a modest monetary award, but I genuinely value the recognition more. Over my 30-year career, I spent a vast amount of time advocating for and working to improve working conditions for NTT faculty: I helped bargain the first promotional increment for NTT faculty, so-called “continuing appointment” which eliminated the need for fixed-term contracts after a probationary period, and the Professional Improvement Fellowship, which offers a sabbatical-like leave for NTT to work on a significant academic project. It’s nice when the quiet, patient work behind the scenes is recognized.
The next day, on April 6, 2025, I’m hosting Michelle Trim via Zoom who will present Faking it and Breaking it: Generative AI and its Implications for Straw Writers Guild. Michelle co-chaired the UMass committee studying generative AI. I think she’ll have a lot of interesting insights to share.
On May 10, 2025, I will again be selling books, this time for Small Publishing in a Big Universe, at the Watch City Steampunk Festival. I had a great time last year doing this and I’m looking forward to going back again this year. There’s amazing cosplay and a lot of other really interesting vendors. If you’re anywhere near Waltham, it is definitely worth a visit.
In early June, I have signed up to attend the SFWA Nebula Conference. I have attended the Nebulas virtually before, but never in person. I’m looking forward to getting to know a lot of the people I’ve been working with as Secretary. And to give them a face to put with a name. I’ve proposed a few panels and maybe I’ll get to participate on one more panels during the conference. I’m also combining with the trip with some travel with my son and brother, so that will be nice too.
My next book, A Familiar Problem, is now scheduled to be released in June. Originally, it had been scheduled for January, but needed to be delayed by the publisher for several reasons. I’m looking forward to sharing it with everyone!
After that, there are a variety of other events coming up: Readercon, the Lambda Literary Writing Retreat, and Worldcon. But I’ll write about those next time.
Authors should take backups seriously. And not just depend on free corporate solutions. I’ve read about people who trusted “the cloud” to keep their data safe only to have some faceless corporation invalidate their account and cause them lose everything overnight with no recourse.
Just like how, if you see “the economy” in a news article you should mentally replace it with “rich people’s yacht money”, when you see “the cloud” in a sentence, you should replace it with “someone else’s computer.” You shouldn’t trust someone else’s computer with your backups.
I’ve never been particularly strategic about backups. At least not since I was a doctoral student. While I was working on my dissertation, I became paranoid about losing my doctoral work. To reduce my anxiety, I got two Syquest EZ-135 drives and three cartridges that I rotated between my home and office, so I was well protected against data loss.
Since I’ve started working exclusively from home, I’ve been using syncthing to mirror my working files among all my devices and using a backup drive to make periodic backups. But I’ve become a bit concerned about not having an off-site backup.
For several years, I’d considered building a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device but I hadn’t found a straightforward recipe that didn’t look like a lot of work. I like maker projects, but I decided in the end that I wanted a solution more robust than something I hacked together from a recipe.
After discussion and some research, Philip and I decided to purchase identical Synology DS224+ devices and configure them to offer reciprocal off-site backups for each other. They have two spinning 12TB hard-drives in RAID1, so each can have one drive fail without data loss. That gives each of us about 5TB of backup, which I think will be ample for our needs for the foreseeable future.
So far, I’ve been quite pleased with the device. It only took a few minutes to figure out how to set up all of our computers to use rsync via public-key ssh connections and I’ve set up crontab entries to run daily backups. I can easily set it up to do backups more frequently if that seems warranted. Currently it’s just syncing, but I think I could get fancy and have it do periodic snapshots to protect against accidentally deleted files.
It does have high-level tools that are more accessible for less technical people. But I was pleased to be able to use the familiar tools low-level tools at the command line. Hopefully, once everything is set up, it will just sit there chattering quietly and give me peace of mind that a drive failure won’t be a catastrophe.
It’s frustrating when you see words used wrong. A number of years ago, I saw an article about a school in rural South Carolina that showed a photo with a black teacher and a dozen black children. The article talked about the challenges of teaching such a “diverse” group of children. One could hardly imagine a less diverse group of students: they were all the same in terms of age, race, and economic background. The author had evidently come to believe that “diverse” was a euphemism for “disadvantaged.” But, of course, that’s not what “diverse” means at all.
It’s even more frustrating when you see intelligent people intentionally misusing words for rhetorical effect to mislead people and demonize marginalized populations, such as is happening now with diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI.
The Trump administration has made eliminating “DEI” a priority. Research has disclosed a list of banned words they have been trying to remove from federal projects, publications, and websites. There have been many examples of this ham-handed approach being overbroad and destructive, sweeping in unrelated topics like the Enola Gay (the WWII bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb) or “privilege escalation” (an infosecurity term related to unauthorized administrative access), and on and on.
The principle of diversity, equity, and inclusion is to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to participate. We want diverse perspectives. We want everyone to succeed. We don’t want some people privileged over others for arbitrary reasons. The only people who could possibly oppose this principle are people who want unfair greater opportunities than others. Or who want to exclude people systematically for some arbitrary reason, like irrational hatred.
It should be self-evident that diverse perspectives are required for wisdom. If you’re missing perspectives then your understanding is going to be incomplete. Two eyes are better than one. And using all of your senses gives you a better understanding than not. We need perspectives that are different than our own to complement our understanding.
It benefits all of us to have everyone rise to their fullest potential. The more capable, productive members we have in society, the more our society prospers. Every person who is unable to succeed is a loss to all of us. And there’s no reason that we can’t let everyone develop their full potential. Life need not be a zero-sum game where only some people can succeed.
When arbitrary, irrelevant reasons (age, gender identity, race, religion, etc.) are used to exclude people, we lose those perspectives and cause those people to fail to realize their full potential. This injures all of us. This is what DEI aims to ensure: that everyone gets fair consideration.
Most people who knowingly oppose DEI are racists, transphobes, and homophobes, who want to exclude people out of hatred. Or who fear the loss of their privileged position in society over marginalized groups. It is abhorrent that these people have succeeded in electing leadership to act on their hatred to try to reassert their privileged position in society by discriminating against others.
What is more horrifying, however, is that most of the people who currently oppose DEI have been whipped up, like a mob, to keep the population divided, fighting among each other, and distracted. Many of them, in the absence of disinformation and propaganda, would probably understand that DEI benefits everyone.
Worst, however, is that the people who are fomenting the mob are intentionally crafting language to mislead people into opposing their own interests. They, themselves, are mostly indifferent to DEI and are only disingenuously exploiting the division that exists for their own ends: to consolidate power and prevent people, who should be natural allies, from uniting to oppose their nefarious goals.
It is said that the long arc of history bends toward justice. But it’s hard to watch when you see evil people trying to push it back toward injustice, intolerance, and hatred.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Trump administration is going to try to destroy higher education. Or, rather, transform it in the model of what Christopher Rufo did to the New College in Florida. By “destroy,” I mean that they will try to establish rigid ideological guidelines and force out any faculty that hold alternative views. They will try to replace “education” with “indoctrination.” In a well publicized incident, the new administration shut down the Gender and Diversity Center and threw out all of their books, describing it as “taking out the garbage.”
It’s not clear what the universities themselves can do. Some will be protected by the states they’re in. But much of what public research universities do is supported by federal funding. As that funding is withdrawn, universities will find it difficult to maintain their research programs. Or, indeed, to even pay for the capital investments they made prospectively to support research programs. In anticipation of these coming changes, universities are already withdrawing acceptances of graduate students, since the funding to support them is uncertain.
These changes will be catastrophic for science in the United States. We’re going to lose a whole generation of scientists and cripple the research programs that have kept the United States competitive globally.
It will be catastrophic, also, for the scientists doing this work. If your research lab experiences a gap in funding, you very quickly lose your ability to stay current and maintain competitiveness for future grants. Research is expensive. Without funding, you lose your trained staff and the resources you need to stay active: your whole enterprise loses momentum. And once you fall behind, it’s difficult to ever catch up.
What faculty mostly don’t have to worry about is their own salary. So I have a suggestion for my colleagues: Every minute that you are unable to conduct your research, you should devote to public advocacy in support of higher education. Join your union. Lobby your legislators. Write letters and articles. If thousands of faculty begin to devote themselves to writing op eds, publishing books, and holding public lectures about the importance of science and why the government’s grievous errors have endangered us all, it might make them wish they’d never unleashed these forces.
It’s pretty clear that nobody knows exactly what social media is supposed to be like. People use it for a lot of different things. I like think of it as a cocktail party. People drop in, listen to what other people are saying, say some things themselves, and maybe comment on what other people are saying.
I particularly like Mastodon because I feel like I get a higher-quality of engagement here. The things people post are frequently interesting. People read the things I post and offer substantive comments. And I feel like they frequently appreciate the value-add that my comments offer.
Nobody has to come to the cocktail party. And you don’t have to be in the main room with everyone else. If you’d rather hold forth in some private room, you can do that.
What always puzzles me are the people who get exercised that other people are “doing it wrong.” If you’re saying stuff in public, you shouldn’t be surprised if people comment on it. If you didn’t want people to comment on it, you’d hold your conversations someplace in private.
Similarly, if you don’t like the things that someone else says, you can simply mute or block people.
Some people seem to really like the drama of personal confrontation. Some people are all about the snark and the SNAP. Recently, I saw someone reply to a picture someone had posted with a link to an article about the subject of the picture. The original poster snapped at them for “mansplaining”. Whoa. I had thought their post was fine. It was informative and added useful information. But, hey, if drama is someone’s thing, that’s OK too, I guess. It’s easy to mute and block.
My point is that it’s not really clear that you can do social media wrong exactly. Unless you’re a Nazi. But then it’s not really about the social media anymore, is it?
Watch City is an amazing spectacle! There are hundreds of people who attend wearing steampunky costumes with dozens of vendors selling art, crafts, and food. Plus music, contests, and performances. It’s a fun-filled day with lots of excitement and cheer.
I ran the table for SPBU last year and we sold a fair number of books. I’m looking forward to going back again this year! Maybe this year, I’ll be organized enough that the colors of the price tags will actually mean something. It could happen!
I watch the Amazon rank of my books to get a measure of what’s going on. Since I’m not the publisher of my books, I don’t have access to the underlying raw data from all of the different places where my books are sold. But watching the Amazon rank gives me some indication of what’s going on.
The reasons why the rank changes are pretty inscrutable. When people buy copies via Amazon you see a big bump. When nobody’s buying, it declines. But it sometimes goes up and down small amounts for other undetermined reasons: Maybe people searching for it? Or making searches in which it appears? Who knows?
When Better Angels: Tour de Force came out, we marked the original Better Angels short story free everywhere. It’s the first story in Tour de Force and you can see it for free as part of the digital preview anyway. But it turns out that you can’t mark Kindle books free. Amazon won’t let you. If Amazon sees you’re giving a book away elsewhere, however, it will sometimes mark the Kindle book for free too. (This happened with The Third Time’s the Charm, which is still free everywhere, including at Amazon.)
When a book is free, its rank seemingly goes way, way up. That’s not too surprising, I suppose. When it was marked free, it went from ~3M to about ~50K and then would bounce around there. It would sometimes spike up to 1500 or so and then drift back down. I noticed it spiked up the other day and then, when I checked again, it had dropped down to 3.5M. “Huh?” I thought. So I went to look at the product page and noticed that it wasn’t free anymore.
It’s still free elsewhere. I checked at Smashwords and Kobo anyway. Weird. It’s impossible to know why Amazon does anything they do ̈̈— other than that one can reliably predict they’re shoving their blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
I attended Boskone before I started publishing science fiction and I was impressed by the number of authors I recognized. I’ve attended the last two years and it still hasn’t lost that magic. And being able to rub shoulders now as an author myself is a lot of fun. I was particularly looking forward to setting up a fan table for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) and meeting SFWA members that I expected would drop by.
I like to arrive the night before so I can get a good night’s sleep and have plenty of time to find everything to get ready beforehand. But this year, there was a storm the day before and some work events conflicted with getting an early start. So we decided to wait and just drive over on the morning of the convention.
When we arrived, I visited the area where registration would be. There was one person there and I was gratified that they recognized my name. We confirmed when registration would open and where the fan tables were.
After we checked in, we went back to the car and, on the way, found that the galleria was already open. Once we’d put our stuff in the room, I went back and set up the SFWA Fan Table. I had received the necessary supplies just two days before: A banner, tablerunners, an ARCH D sized posterboard, two kinds of flyers, and rack cards.
It took less than an hour to get setup. I commented that it was WAY less work than setting up a dealer table. When I set up the tables for Water Dragon Publishing and Small Publishing in a Big Universe at Readercon, we had more than 70 titles to unbox, organize, and set up on book stands. By comparison, this was a snap.
Then I just hung out at the table.
I had some other events scheduled. I moderated a panel, served on three panels, and had a reading. They were all excellent. Well, all except the reading: Nobody came to my reading. I got my books out with cards and stickers and ribbons and ‘zines. But nobody came. I sat there for a half hour, then packed everything up and went on with the con. That’s how it is when you’re a nobody.
My younger son came with me and helped cover the fan table when I couldn’t be there. He made a point of telling people that he was not a SFWA member, but was eligible to be an associate member. He said that people told him nice things about me, which made me feel good.
I got to meet a lot of SFWA folks. Some current board members, former board members, and former officers stopped by. And a goodly number of members. I also got to explain SFWA to a bunch of new people. I don’t know how many new members we might get. But, personally, just getting to meet a bunch of people, was a big win for me.
We had been watching the weather and had considered staying another night in the event it looked bad. Originally, it looked like it might be a big snow event. But then it looked like it might just be rain. Then it looked like it might be icy. So we packed up a little early to drive during the warmest part of the afternoon. In the end, it was just rainy on the MassPike, but there had been a lot of snow at our house. We had no problem getting home, but I was a bit daunted to pull the car into the 8 inches of snow on the driveway. But I was able to park. Getting the car out may be another matter.
(note: these have been munged so they hopefully won’t work)
There are actually two redirections in the link above. First, the mail-system rewrites every URL you receive in email and replaces it with a database look up at outlook.com so that if they decide a URL is malicious (i.e. links to something they don’t like) they can make it so the link doesn’t work. The second redirect is done by the system that generates the original email: they want to keep track of who clicked on the link so they can generate metrics about who is reading their emails.
I replied to the email to say “This seems like a terrible security practice. URLs should go where they say they do. And if they don’t, employees should be trained to not click on them. Duh.”
I replied back to the sender (which opened a “ticket” with IT) and I copied the Chief Information Officer of the university, whom I’ve known for many, many years. He replied first, “I hear you” he said. But he made it clear this is just what we’re doing now.
I pointed out that I’ve always tried to teach people to never click on links like that which leak information information about your browsing activity. I spent most of my career pushing back against this kind of enshittification. But to little avail seemingly.
We went on to exchange a couple more emails about feeling like grumpy old men complaining about the young whippersnappers who can’t read packet captures or “parse a coredump to save themselves.”
University IT replied later to close the ticket and say, “Thanks for the feedback. We will take it into consideration for future training notifications.” Heh. Right.
I’ve gotten my final schedule for Boskone, Feb 14-16! I’m moderating one panel, serving on three others, and offering a reading on Saturday afternoon.
Start Time Title Fri 2:30 PM Biology in SF/F Sat 10:00 AM SF and Totalitarianism Sat 11:30 AM Genetic Engineering (mod) Sat 5:30 PM Reading: Steven D. Brewer Sun 10:00 AM Fantasy Beyond Swords and Sorcery
There are a lot of great people on the panels with me. It should be a lot of fun!
We didn’t get a table in the dealer room this year and so, since I’ll otherwise be at liberty, I’ve decided to organize a fan table for SFWA. It will be in the Galleria (along with the dealer room) so stop by to say hi!
