{"id":3494,"date":"2009-06-24T18:30:24","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T22:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3494"},"modified":"2009-06-24T20:29:10","modified_gmt":"2009-06-25T00:29:10","slug":"wednesday-various-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3494","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday various"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"> <\/font><\/p>\n<ul>  <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>Ugh. Next year, the Best Picture category for the Oscars <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avclub.com\/articles\/next-years-oscars-to-double-the-best-picture-field,29613\/?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=feeds&amp;utm_source=channel_film\">will have 10 nominees<\/a>. This sounds like a bad idea all around, but we&#8217;ll see in 2010.<\/li>\n<p><\/font> <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>Product placement happens all the time, but what happens if the product you&#8217;re placing disappears before your movie rolls out?<br \/>\n<blockquote><p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">Also back, if not for long, are the Autobots Ratchet (a Hummer H2) and Ironhide (a GMC TopKick pickup), which have suffered a fate more terminal, at least to the brand, than any meted out by the Decepticons: General Motors has sold Hummer and discontinued the TopKick. [<a href=\"http:\/\/movies.nytimes.com\/2009\/06\/24\/movies\/24transform.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\"><em>NY Times<\/em>: Invasion of the Robot Toys, Redux<\/a>]<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<p><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">Remember when MySpace was cool? Yeah, me neither. But it once was <em>the<\/em> hot property. Nowadays, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/blogs-and-stories\/2009-06-22\/myspaces-dizzying-fall\/\">not so much<\/a>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/gerrycanavan.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Gerry Canavan\">via<\/a>]<\/font><\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>Well this is just terrifying: <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20090622\/ap_on_sc\/us_sci_killers___sharks\">Great white sharks hunt just like Hannibal Lecter<\/a>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tor.com\/\" title=\"Tor.com\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>And finally, two quotes from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viceland.com\/int\/v15n12\/htdocs\/ursula-k-le-guin-440.php\">an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin [<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/lcrw.net\/wordpress\" title=\"Small Beer Press\">via<\/a>]:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">This distinction makes most sense to me: Science fiction\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the correct shortcut is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sf\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201duses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Space opera\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is nice, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d call <em>Star Wars<\/em> sci-fi, because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what most people mean when they use the term. Sci-fi uses the images that sf\u00e2\u20ac\u201dstarting with H.G. Wells\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmade familiar: space travel, aliens, galactic wars and federations, time machines, et cetera, taking them literally, not caring if they are possible or even plausible. It has no interest in or relation to real science or technology. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fantasy in space suits. Spectacle. Wizards with lasers. Kids with ray guns. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written both, but I have to say I respect science fiction enough that I wince when people call it sci-fi.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">The rule is, you only invent what you have to. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right in front of the reader. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an ansible. I do not, in fact, invent the ansible. I do not explain how it works. I cannot, but shhh. I simply present the device as working, and as coming from a society which is far in advance of ours in science and technology, having spaceships that can travel nearly as fast as light, et cetera. And this background or context creates expectation and softens up the readers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 credulity so that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re willing to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153believe in\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the ansible\u00e2\u20ac\u201dinside the covers of the book. After the ansible had been around for a while, I invented the man who invented it, Shevek, in <em>The Dispossessed<\/em>. And he and I played around with some pretty neat speculations about time and interval and stuff, which lent more plausibility to the gimmick itself. But all I really invented was a) the idea of an instantaneous transmitter and b) a name for it. The reader does the rest. If you give them enough background\/context, they can fill in the gaps. It isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just smoke and mirrors. There has to be a coherent vision of how things hang together in that society\/culture\/world. All the details have to fit together and be thought through as to their implications. But, well&#8230; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>mostly <\/em>smoke and mirrors. What else is any fiction?<\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/ul>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ugh. Next year, the Best Picture category for the Oscars will have 10 nominees. This sounds like a bad idea all around, but we&#8217;ll see in 2010. Product placement happens all the time, but what happens if the product you&#8217;re placing disappears before your movie rolls out? Also back, if not for long, are the &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3494\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-various"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}