From the monthly archives:

April 2015

Sunday photoblogging: Enna, Sicily

by Chris Bertram on April 5, 2015

Sucky Hugos

by Henry Farrell on April 5, 2015

So apparently the Hugos suck this year, thanks to an organized voting campaign. See Patrick Nielsen Hayden on the voting campaign, which seems to be in part a product of internal disputes within the field (various right wing people upset that f/sf isn’t ‘their’ field any more, and belongs to teh_women/teh_gay/teh_PoC) and in part overspill from Gamergate. I don’t know many of the slate of nominees put up by the campaign, with the minor exception of Marko Kloos (whose self-published book I read and thought was unexceptionable military SF with the usual odd politics), and the unlovely John C. Wright (whose work and political opinions remind me of Gene Wolfe if Gene Wolfe had been subjected to an involuntary lobotomy). I _did_ read and like Katherine Addison’s (Sarah Monette’s) _The Goblin Emperor_ (although I liked her Melusine books even more) but apart from that I don’t have much advice to prospective Hugo voters on what they should vote for. What I _do_ have is opinions on other work that didn’t get nominated but that seemed to me to be worth reading, and I hope that CT readers have too. One of the important functions of awards is to point readers towards good work that they otherwise might have missed. Since the Hugo Awards won’t be doing much of that this year, other people should do what they can.

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Passover goes geeky

by Eszter Hargittai on April 3, 2015

Lots of nice little details in this. How would you part the sea for a Rube Goldberg Passover Seder machine?

If you’re looking for a humanist feminist Haggadah, the one I compiled in 2001 is still available. To this day I get emails about people coming across it and finding it helpful, which is nice to know.

Thanking the folks who are reaching out #WAAD

by Ingrid Robeyns on April 2, 2015

It’s World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD). The Independent has a very accessible piece debunking 5 myths regarding autistic people; it takes only two minutes to read. The piece also reports that in the UK 87% of people living with autism think the public has a bad understanding of the condition.

While my family has also come across a lot of ignorance over the years – some of which hurt badly – there are also wonderful strangers who have restored faith in what is possible. So, I want to dedicate a post to those people who are reaching out to people with autism, and tell them how important it is what they do.
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RomancR.