Book 20 of 2025: Clarkesworld Issue 223 edited by Neil Clarke: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
My favorite this month was “Still Water” by Zhang Ran, translated by Jay Zhang.
Michael Hanscom
Weekly Notes: March 31–April 6, 2025
- 🚀 This weekend was a little bit of convention conflict, as Saturday we had the final Norwescon 47 planning meeting before the con, and Sunday was Seattle Worldcon‘s announcement of this year’s Hugo finalists. Got everything done, but it did make me glad there aren’t many weekends where I’m trying to do stuff for two conventions at the same time.
📸 Photos
📝 Writing
- On the occasion of Val Kilmer’s death, I reflected on my personal favorite of his films, Real Genius.
📚 Reading
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Finished Lois McMaster Bujold’s Diplomatic Immunity.
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Read Clarkesworld Issue 223 edited by Neil Clarke.
🔗 Linking
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Guillaume Lethuillier: The Myst Graph: A New Perspective on Myst: “Upon reflection, Myst has long been more analogous to a graph than a traditional linear game, owing to the relative freedom it affords players. This is particularly evident in its first release (Macintosh, 1993), which was composed of interconnected HyperCard cards. It is now literally one. Here is Myst as a graph.”
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Jessica Bennett at The Cut: If Hetero Relationships Are So Bad, Why Do Women Go Back for More? A new straight-studies course treats male-female partnerships as the real deviance.: “‘In this class, we’re going to flip the script,’ she went on. ‘It’s going to be a place where we worry about straight people. Where we feel sympathy for straight people. We are going to be allies to straight people.'”
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Nilay Patel at The Verge: Best printer 2025: just buy a Brother laser printer, the winner is clear, middle finger in the air: “This is the third year in a row that I’ve published a story recommending you just stop thinking about printers and buy whatever random Brother laser printer is on sale, and nothing has happened in the miserably user-hostile printer industry to change my recommendation in that time.”
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Sarah Jones at the Intelligencer: Then They Came for People With Disabilities The right-wing effort to roll back civil rights finds a new target.: “Though the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act had bipartisan support and were signed by Republican presidents, it’s hard to imagine Trump signing either piece of legislation. A more ruthless strain of conservatism always percolated within the party, and now it dominates and threatens the protections that Cone, and Lomax, and so many others once fought to win. At risk is the concept of civil rights itself.”
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Shelly Brisbin at Six Colors: Twenty Thousand Hertz Dives Deep Into Apple Accessibility History: “The latest episode of the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast takes a stab at telling Apple’s accessibility story through sound—not only the sound of a host and his interview subjects, but the way Macs and iPhones sound when they speak to people who use their accessibility features.”
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Watts Martin: What makes an app feel “right” on the Mac?: “So it’s possible that the right question—at least for me—isn’t ‘is this app using a native UI toolkit,’ it’s ‘is this app a good Mac citizen.’ In other words, does it embrace long-standing Mac conventions?”
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Seattle Worldcon 2025: 2025 Hugo Award Finalists: “Seattle Worldcon 2025, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, is delighted to announce the finalists for the 2025 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season Three Teaser
You can only get so much from a one-minute teaser, but hey! First glimpse of season three!
Okay, sure, first impressions are pretty good, and we have two strong seasons to build off of, so I’m inclined to trust them.
But….
- I’m still not really sold on the whole Gorn thing, and they’ve yet to do anything to explain why and how the Gorn were so unknown in TOS’s “Arena” if Starfleet had had this much contact with them before that time.
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A holodeck episode? TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint” established pretty well that this was new tech that everyone was amazed by. But here we appear to have the full interactive holodeck experience, complete with yellow-gridded black box room. Can they really not come up with any other way to tell similar stories?
We’ll find out this summer.
“It’s a moral imperative.”
Sad to see the news of Val Kilmer’s death. While he did a lot of good stuff over the years, my personal favorite is and has always been one of his earlier films, Real Genius.
As a too-smart-for-my-own-good kid (in many ways, the classic “nerd”: glasses, unruly curly hair, big gap in my teeth, played the violin, read constantly — mostly science fiction, got into computers really early, got beat up and shoved in lockers by bullies, etc.), Real Genius was foundational. It was the first (and is still one of the few) comedies I saw where the nerds were the heroes, and where their quirkiness, oddity, and intelligence was celebrated rather than mocked. (Revenge of the Nerds may purport to have nerds as its heroes, but it mocks, not celebrates.)
While I wasn’t genius level smart, of course, these were characters that I could identify with (in Mitch), aspire to be like (in Chris), see what to avoid (in Kent and Hathaway), and fall for (in Jordan). They saw the world in much the same way I did. Big and scary and intimidating, but also funny and intriguing and mysterious, and something to be explored and enjoyed. They accepted each other in all of their weirdness.
It has one of the most start-to-finish quotable scripts I’ve ever come across, and lines from it regularly pop into my mind. It’s one I never tire of watching, and I think I need to queue it up again sometime soon.
Some other times I’ve mentioned Real Genius here in the past:
- 2002, when I picked up the DVD, along with Legend, mentioned my love of the film, and that these films have two of my foundational crushes: Real Genius‘s Jordan, and Legend‘s Lily (particularly once in the black dress).
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2006, when I took an online quiz of my knowledge of the film, and scored highly.
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2007, when I took a “which character are you?” quiz and scored as Jordan, which entertained me, and gave me a reason to note that that character was heavily based on a real person.
Mitch: You know, um, something strange happened to me this morning…
Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch: No…
Chris Knight: Why am I the only one who has that dream?Mitch: What are you doing?
Chris Knight: Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, “… I drank what?”Chris Knight: So, if there’s anything I can do for you – or, more to the point, to you – just let me know.
Susan: Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?
Chris Knight: Not right now.
Susan: A girl’s gotta have her standards.Chris Knight: This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is Kent. This is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated.
Kent: You’re all a bunch of degenerates.
Chris Knight: We are? What about that time I found you naked with that bowl of Jell-O?
Kent: You did not.
Chris Knight: This is true.
Kent: Look, it was hot and I was hungry, okay?Professor Hathaway: I want to see more of you around the lab.
Chris Knight: Fine. I’ll gain weight.Mitch: Did you know there’s a guy living in our closet?
Chris Knight: You’ve seen him too?
Mitch: Who is he?
Chris Knight: Hollyfeld.
Mitch: Why does he keep going into our closet?
Chris Knight: Why do you keep going into our closet?
Mitch: To get my clothes – but that’s not why he goes in there.
Chris Knight: Of course not, he’s twice your size – your clothes would never fit him.
Mitch: Yeah…
Chris Knight: Think before you ask these questions, Mitch. Twenty points higher than me? Thinks a big guy like that can wear his clothes?Dr. Dodd: Why is that toy on your head?
Chris Knight: Because if I wear it any place else, it chafes.Professor Hathaway: You still run?
Chris Knight: Only when chased.
Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold
Book 19 of 2025: Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Miles heads out to solve a diplomatic crisis that quickly becomes more of a crisis than expected (which, well, of course, that’s how it works, right?). Ties together a lot of threads and brings in long unseen characters from prior books in the series. I continue to be impressed with how consistently enjoyable this series is. Only a few books left before I’m done!
Weekly Notes: March 24–30, 2025
- 😎 Best part of this week was a nice little mid-week mini-break for the spring break lull. We drove up and spent a couple nights at the Tulalip Resort Casino. We’re not casino or gambling people, but very much enjoyed some time away in a nice hotel room!
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🚀 Very busy on both the Norwescon and Seattle Worldcon 2025 front, with the first just a couple weeks away, and the other further out but with behind-the-scenes stuff helping with digital accessibility matters. Feeling a little behind on everything, but I don’t think i’m actually as behind as it feels.
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🔄 Once again, this is being posted on Monday but backdated to Sunday. Starting to wonder if I should just admit that Sunday evenings aren’t the best time for me to try to post these, but we’ll see….
📸 Photos
📚 Reading
- Finished Neal Stephenson’s Polostan.
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Started Lois McMaster Bujold’s Diplomatic Immunity.
📺 Watching
Just the usual mindless evening stuff: NCIS: Origins, Drag Race All Stars, and Scrubs. Scrubs “My Musical” is still an excellent episode.
🎧 Listening
- Mostly just continuing to listen through the new stuff picked up over the past few weeks for Norwescon.
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Was happy to see that VNV Nation’s new album Construct is coming out soon, and they just released the first song. Have to admit, I’m not a big fan of the cover art, but the song is good!
🔗 Linking
No links this week; too much of what I’ve read has been about the political idiocy, and, well, you can find those stories absolutely everywhere.
Polostan by Neal Stephenson
Book 18 of 2025: Polostan by Neal Stephenson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
On the one hand, it’s basically all setup — it very much feels like Stephenson wrote another 1,000-plus page opus and the publisher cut it down into more manageable pieces. On the other, if you’re the type who enjoys Stephenson’s 1,000-page plus opuses, it’s captivating and engrossing setup, as he sets the stage with events in 1930s America and the Soviet Union, with his usual digressions and fixations on whatever minutiae have captured his fancy. Hopefully it won’t be too long between volumes, as it’s a minor pity that I can’t just read the full story in one go.
Weekly Notes: March 17–23, 2025
- ♿️ Busy week at work. The biggest success there was launching an “Accessibility Liaisons” initiative, looking for volunteers across campus to learn more about digital accessibility to assist others in their area. Sent out a campus-wide email about it, and got the first four volunteers within an hour, and were up to twelve by the end of the day. Promising start!
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🚀 This weekend was the all-staff meeting weekend for Seattle Worldcon 2025. Friday afternoon I joined in person and got to put a few faces to names I’d only seen online until now; Saturday I stayed home and Zoomed in, since there was less that day that I needed to be present for, and then Sunday I joined the group for a tour of the Seattle Convention Center Summit building where the majority of the convention will be happening. The new convention center building is huge, and really nice. Going to be a great location for Worldcon!
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🎻 After the tour, my wife and I went to the Seattle Symphony’s performance of selections from the Fantasia movies, played live as the film clips were projected on a screen. Really enjoyed the performance, and it was fun to see how they synced the performance to the video.
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🚀♿️ Had a nice bit of success in crossing the streams between my paid and volunteer work. One of the pages we’d just set up for the Seattle Worldcon site (page not linked, because it’s not fully public) included a drop-down menu that revealed more information on the page, changing depending on which item in the menu was chosen. While working my way through the Trusted Tester training materials, I realized that the current implementation would fail the testing process because those page changes weren’t being announced to assistive technology. A bit of digging, experimentation, and testing, and I figured out how to properly implement an ARIA live region so that the page passes testing.
📸 Photos
📚 Reading
📺 Watching
Started NCIS: Origins. It’s pretty standard NCIS, but the ’90s setting makes for some entertaining music choices, and we’re being pretty impressed by the casting for younger versions of known characters. Also been doing a lot of Antiques Roadshow, because it’s soothing.
🎧 Listening
A few months ago I’d pre-ordered Ministry’s latest album, The Squirrely Years Revisited, where they update a bunch of those early synth pop tracks that Jourgensen has practically disowned for decades. So far, first impressions are good. While a lot of recent Ministry hasn’t done much for me, as they’ve moved more towards straightforward metal over industrial, they’ve done a really good job of blending the original synth pop tracks with their modern sound, landing in a place that works well for me. Glad Al decided to admit that these tracks are part of his history!
🔗 Linking
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Assuming the old plugin (last updated in 2008) I found still works, this site will be participating in CSS Naked Day on April 9.
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Robert Alexander, RSS blogrolls are a federated social network: Something for me to dig more into when I have time.
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Chris Dalla Riva, The Greatest Two-Hit Wonders: “But if one hit is a miracle, then two hits is a near impossibility. Two-hit artists sit in a weird space, though. Pop stars a remembered because they are very famous. One-hit wonders are remembered for the opposite.”
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Anand Giridharadas, The opposite of fascism: “The best revenge against these grifters and bigots and billionaires and bullies is to live well, richly, together. The best revenge is to refuse their values. To embody the kind of living — free, colorful, open — they want to snuff out.”
Requiem by Kevin Ryan and Michael Jan Friedman
Book 17 of 2025: Requiem by Kevin Ryan and Michael Jan Friedman: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Picard gets thrown back in time to Cestus III – just days before the Federation’s disastrous first contact with the Gorn (well, first contact before Strange New Worlds started up…I’m still unclear how they’re reconciling that whole thing, but that’s not for here…). Fleshes out the story of the Cestus III colony in really good ways, with a standard but perfectly acceptable framing story as the Enterprise tries to get Picard back.
Weekly Notes: March 10–16, 2025
This is the second week in a row where I’m actually posting this wrap-up on Monday morning, but backdating it to Sunday evening. Sometimes life just gets in the way!
That said, even with life getting in the way, this is kind of a slow week. Work (both the paid job and the volunteer jobs) has been busy and we’ve had some general home things to take care of, and those have taken up enough time that there’s not really a lot for this week’s wrap-up.
📸 Photos
📚 Reading
Read Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente.
📺 Watching
We almost finished S3 of Evil, but then had a few busy days and wanted to make sure we could concentrate on the show, so took a detour into the soothing regularity of PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. And while we do enjoy it, I kind of want to challenge them to do a “breaking the pattern” episode that does not include a common musical instrument, Rolex watch, or weapon or other war memorabilia. Sure, being formulaic is part of the appeal, but they could vary the formula a little more than they do.
🎧 Listening
Another batch of requests for the Norwescon dances came in, so I’ve added and have been listening to the following albums, plus a few one-offs that aren’t listed:
- Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
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Eisenfunk, 8-Bit
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Kontravoid, Too Deep
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Kraftwerk, The Man-Machine
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Robyn, Body Talk, Pt. 1
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Thumpasaurus, The Book of Thump
Of these, Chappell Roan, Kraftwerk, Robyn, and Thumpasaurus have been catching my ear the most. Eisunfunk and Kontravoid have good bits but are a bit too noisy to go in my regular rotation, and Lady Gaga is…well, Gaga. Not bad, there’s some good dancefloor bits, but honestly, for almost all of her songs, I couldn’t tell you which album they came off of. Mayhem is actually a bit disappointing in that regard; for all the pre-release talk of how she was working with artists/producers in the darker/industrial side of things, it really just sounds like everything else she’s released. Gaga does what she does well, but it all blends together.
🔗 Linking
🇺🇸 Too much of what I read online was focused on current news and the fall of America, so nothing of note to share.