(1) TOMORROW HUMANS FLY TO THE MOON FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 53 YEARS. Artemis II, the first crewed mission of the Artemis program, is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:24 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, April 1.
NASA will provide live coverage of prelaunch, launch, and mission events – this page will be continuously updated: “NASA Sets Coverage for Artemis II Moon Mission”.
Upcoming NASA Mission Coverage
Wednesday, April 1
7:45 a.m. EDT | Live coverage of tanking operations for NASA’s (SLS) Space Launch System rocket for Artemis II begins. Coverage includes live rocket views with audio commentary.
▶ Watch on YouTube
12:50 p.m. EDT | Live launch coverage of Artemis II begins.
▶ Watch on Amazon Prime, YouTube, and NASA+
(2) WARMING UP THE AUDIENCE. Elizabeth Bear introduced the film “Fahrenheit 451” at the Worcester Public Library last weekend. She has posted her script at Throw Another Bear in the Canoe.
What follows is a slightly tidied-up version of my remarks to introduce Fahrenheit 451 at the Worcester Public Library last Saturday, March 28th.
Welcome.
The film we are about to watch is a 1966 Francois Truffaut adaptation of a 1953 Ray Bradbury novel about book burning, censorship, state capture of media, propaganda, the proliferation of parasocial relationships replacing real ones, forced conformity, and fake news.
If that seems relevant to our world today, I have to admit, I agree.
Bradbury was influenced in his writing by his experiences with McCarthyism, Naziism, and the changing media landscape of his lifetime, which spanned the golden age of radio and the height of broadcast television. Broadcast media concerned him greatly: he thought that it would inevitably lead to a dumbing down of the populace and was an ideal vector for propaganda and social control. He warned of a flourishing of censorship and authoritarianism as a result.
Truffaut brought that thematic charge into the 1960s and the modernist era, using the visual language of futurism to create a sense of everyday claustrophobia, conformity, and peril, and to symbolize the death of the life of the mind….
… However, one psychological truth that manifests through that metaphor is among the ways in which authoritarianism gets a roothold to begin with: with that intolerance for uncomfortable ideas. When people are not willing to have their preconceptions challenged, they try to create an environment where they will never be pushed back against. Nobody really wants to deal with moral complexities and nuance: we want a world where we can be right. And that’s the world that Truffaut’s authoritarians provide for their populace. One where the answers are simple and the good guys always win and you never have to feel that faint unease that maybe there are a lot of ethical compromises in every action and throughout history….
(3) THE MELODY LINGERS ON. In a post about books that continue well-known series, J. W. McCormack, editor of The Baffler, disapproves of Sanderson’s Wheel of Time novels: “Neverending Stories”. (First article free; subscription required thereafter.)
…The most tragic case of a continuation novel in recent memory is likely that of Robert Jordan’s tetradecalogy The Wheel of Time, the last three novels of which were finished after Jordan’s death from a rare blood disease by graphomaniacal Mormon Magic: The Gathering enthusiast Brandon Sanderson, who makes between $10 and $55 million a year for his own best-selling, ponderous fantasy novels. Hand-selected by Jordan’s widow to complete The Wheel for Tor Publishing Group after, no kidding, auditioning via obituary, Sanderson’s three volumes exchange Jordan’s hard lore regarding the Aes Sedai, Darkfriends, and the prophesied Car’a’carn for stupefied descriptions of buildings (“stonework and wood”); sentences beginning with “women are like . . .”; and so much reliance on plot over prose that people are often “perked up,” described as “tanned,” and, according to one intrepid blog, sniff in disdain 75 times in 978,460 words (which may not sound like a lot, but The Lord of the Rings apparently tallies 28 sniffs total)….
(4) MORROW Q&A. At CrimeReads, “Bethany C. Morrow Talks Religious Horror, Slow-Burn Storytelling, and Crafting Atmospheres of Anxiety” with Molly Odintz.
MO: The Body made me think of that scale in Donny Darko where everything is placed on a continuum of love and fear; in The Body, love is the source of fear: a visceral fear of loss, rejection, and abandonment. What did you want to explore about community, connection, and the fragility of the ties that bind?
BCM: The Body is probably most about consequences. Not for Mavis; for groups who successfully employ coercive control—which, yes, must depend on fear. The entire ecosystem of repression is dependent on fear. Which means, also, that there is no opportunity for love to exist at all. There’s therefore no community, no connection—as soon as you threaten someone, love is impossible. Consent is impossible. Intimacy is impossible.
(5) TV RECOMMENDATION. [Item by Olav Rokne.] This article is almost a month old, but having watched the series, it’s definitely SFF and it’s delightful. “Small Prophets review – Mackenzie Crook’s magical new comedy is pure, pure pleasure” – in the Guardian.
…If there is a message or a moral, it is that there are still wonderful things at hand in a world that might seem like it is running out of them. The existence of Small Prophets proves the point: that British telly can still create impossible marvels like this is a reason to keep believing in magic.
(6) PUBLIC MEDIA FUNDING BAR REMOVED. “Judge Blocks Trump’s Restrictions On PBS And NPR Funding” – Deadline analyzes the decision.
A federal judge blocked Donald Trump‘s executive order that prohibited federal agencies from providing funding to NPR and PBS.
In a ruling issued on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss wrote that the president’s executive order “singles out two speakers and, on the basis of their speech, bars them from all federally funded programs.”
“Although there are many lawful reasons that the government might decline to make ‘a valuable governmental benefit’ available to someone, punishing disfavored private speech is not one of them,” the judge wrote.
In an executive order last May, Trump prohibited the U.S. government from distributing any funds to the public media outlets, deeming them biased.
Read the judge’s ruling in the PBS and NPR case.
While the ruling is a victory for NPR and PBS, part of their lawsuit is now moot. Last summer, the Republican-controlled Congress rescinded all federal funding to the entity that distributed public media money, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB later dissolved.
The judge’s opinion does not change the revocation of CPB money, but he noted that PBS and NPR still received grants from other federal agencies and entities. He wrote, “The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the President disapproves of their ‘left-wing’ coverage of the news. Because the First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type, the Court will issue judgment against the federal- agency defendants declaring Section 3(a) of the Executive Order is unconstitutional and will issue an injunction barring those defendants from implementing it.”…
(7) A FYRE FESTIVAL FOR BARBIE FANS. The New York Times tells “How Barbie Dream Fest Turned Into a Nightmare”. (Behind a paywall.)
It was advertised as “the ultimate Barbie fan event.”
The billing of an attraction as a life-size Barbie Dreamhouse led fans to believe they would be physically stepping into the doll’s iconic home to play around and pose for pictures. They also expected a neon-filled 1980s roller disco and a space-themed exhibition titled “Beyond the Stars.” Doll lovers from around the world bought tickets expecting a weekend of quality entertainment, photo ops and pink galore.
The reality at the event, which was held over the weekend at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was a lot less rosy, several attendees said.
The Dreamhouse was a 2-D cardboard cutout with a pink Volkswagen bus parked out front. Guests were not allowed inside the vehicle. The space exhibition consisted of an oversize Barbie box decorated with a ringed planet. The roller disco was a penned-off area on the center’s concrete floors with metal beams forming a tent but with no canvas overhead.
Eventually, the event organizers did put up a small disco ball, attendees said.
The three-day event was orchestrated by Mischief Management, an event organizer that oversees fan events like BroadwayCon. According to Mattel, the toymaker that manufactures Barbie, Mischief Management licensed the Barbie brand for the event. Mischief Management has since informed attendees that it will issue full refunds for any tickets sold.
Still, it’s cold comfort for Barbie fans who had high hopes for the event, given its formal association with Mattel.
Some of the promises panned out. The tennis star Serena Williams spoke on a panel as advertised. (Ms. Williams did not respond to a request for comment.)
Tickets started at $149 for adult admission and went up to $449. Tara Brooks, a data analyst who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., spent about $249 on a “pink pass,” a higher-tier ticket that included a “special swag bag.” She received a bottle of Barbie-branded hand sanitizer.
“You can get them at the Dollar Store,” she added….
…Failed conventions and festivals have become something of their own genre in recent years, including the now infamous Fyre Festival, which conjures images of festivalgoers stranded on a tropical island with only cheese sandwiches in foam containers, and DashCon, a Tumblr convention in 2014 that turned out to be not much more than a ball pit in an empty hall….
The BBC reports “Barbie Dream Fest in Florida to issue refunds after fan complaints”. (Subscription required for readers outside UK.)
The organisers of the Barbie Dream Fest weekend in Florida are issuing refunds to attendees after customers complained of a lacklustre event.
The creators of the event promised “unforgettable experiences”, and advertised a roller rink and disco with a caption that read: “Join us for three days of glam, nostalgia, and dream-big energy made for Barbie fans of every generation.”
But ticketholders, who paid up to $450 (£340), say it was far from that. Photos of the event show a grey convention centre space with pink cardboard cut-out Barbie signs.
Mattel, which owns the Barbie brand, said that full refunds would be given to everyone who purchased tickets….
(8) LAST DAUGHTER OF KRYPTON. [Item by N.] The full trailer for Supergirl, who flies into theaters on June 26.
(9) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novel
It’s the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first publication of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation as a novel. So let’s tell the history of the novel.
In the summer of 1941, Isaac Asimov proposed to John W. Campbell of Astounding Science Fiction that he write a short story set in a slowly declining Galactic Empire, based on the fall of the Roman Empire. Campbell thought the idea was great.
Then Asimov proposed writing a series of stories depicting the fall of the first Galactic Empire and the rise of the second. Asimov would write eight stories for Campbell’s magazine over eight years (1942-1949), and they were later collected into three volumes known as The Foundation Trilogy which were published from 1951 to 1953.
Foundation was first published as a single book by Gnome Press. It has “The Psychohistorians”, “The Encyclopedists”, “The Mayors”, “The Traders” and “The Merchant Princes”. “The Encyclopedists” and “The Mayors” were novelettes, the others are short stories. As noted before, each was in Astounding Science Fiction.
The cover art is by David Kyle. Please note that on the cover it is titled Foundation: An Interplanetary Novel. When Ace published it they renamed it The 1,000 Year Plan in their two editions of 1955 and 1962.
At Tricon (1966), it would win the Hugo for Best All-Time Series. Other nominees were Burroughs’ Barsoom series, Heinlein’s Future History series , E. E. Smith’s Lensmen series and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
As you know, it is now streaming as a series as Apple+.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- Bound and Gagged delivers a world of entertainment.
- Dinosaur Comics traces the ruination of hobbies.
- Free Range overflows the seating capacity.
- Wondermark saves a lot of browser tabs.
- Tom Gauld prefers brevity.
(11) NEVERMORE. “The New York Times drops freelance journalist who used AI to write book review” reports the Guardian.
The New York Times has cut ties with a freelance journalist after discovering he used artificial intelligence to help write a book review that echoed elements of a review of the same book in the Guardian.
It came after a New York Times reader flagged similarities between the paper’s January review of Watching Over Her by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, written by author and journalist Alex Preston, and an August review of the same book written by Christobel Kent in the Guardian.
The New York Times launched an investigation, during which Preston admitted that he had used AI to assist writing the review and did not spot the sections that were pulled from the Guardian before submitting it. In a statement to the Guardian on Tuesday, Preston said that he was “hugely embarrassed” and had “made a serious mistake”.
The New York Times alerted the Guardian to the overlap in an email sent on Monday, and added an editor’s note to the review acknowledging the use of AI and linking to the Guardian piece. “A reader recently alerted the Times that this review included language and details similar to those in a review of the same book published in the Guardian,” reads the editor’s note. “We spoke to the author of this piece, a freelancer reviewer, who told us he used an AI tool that incorporated material from the Guardian review into his draft, which he failed to identify and remove. His reliance on AI and his use of unattributed work by another writer are a clear violation of the Times’s standards.”…
(12) CLASSICAL FELINE. See the architectural drawing of “The Timothy T. Cat Presidential Library” at Camestros Felapton.
Library, ballroom and scratching post – this multifunctional building is a monument to the towering intellect of its namesake and a celebration of Western Culture™ with its subtle blend of classical styles….
I’d like to know what books will be on its shelves.
(13) JUST DROPPED: WORLD OF WARCRAFT SKILLET. Lodge Cast Iron is offering a “10.25 Inch Seasoned Cast Iron World of Warcraft Skillet”.
Working up an appetite defending Azeroth? This frying pan is ready to help you bring people together over an Azerothian feast. It’s seasoned and ready to use, naturally nontoxic, made in the USA, and ready for any cooking adventure. Whether you like to cook over an open fire or in your cozy kitchen, make everything from Savory Deviate Delight to a Bloodberry Tart. Plus, when you take home this skillet, you’ll also receive a code to unlock a special in-game companion!
(14) A BLOT ON THE UNIVERSE. [Item by Steven French.] The first time I saw a chain of Starlink satellites passing overhead I actually thought for a moment the alien invasion had begun! Here’s a warning on what a million will do to our view of the night sky: “A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky—for everyone on Earth” concludes Phys.org.
More than 10,000 Starlink satellitescurrently orbit Earth. We see them crawling across dark skies, no matter how remote our location, and streaking throughimages from research telescopes.
SpaceX recently announced that it wants to launch one million more of these satellites as orbital data centers for AI computing power.
A few years ago, we wrote a paper predicting what the night sky would look like with 65,000 satellites from four planned megaconstellations: SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon’s Kuiper (now Leo), the U.K.’s OneWeb and China’s Guowang. We calibrated our models to observations of real Starlink satellites and came up with a startling prediction: One in 15 visible points in the night sky would be a satellite, not a star.
A million satellites would be so much worse.
The human eye can see fewer than 4,500 stars in an unpolluted night sky. If we permit SpaceX to launch these satellites, we will see more satellites than stars—for large portions of the night and the year, throughout the world. This will severely damage the night sky for everyone on Earth.
SpaceX’s proposal also completely fails to account for atmospheric pollution, collision risk or how to develop the technology needed to disperse waste heat from orbital data centers.’
(15) MEME-TO-SCREEN (OR SCREAM). [Item by N.] A24’s Backrooms, based on the Internet creepypasta and phenomena of the same name, (directed by the 20(!)-year old Kane Parsons, based on his web series of the same name), comes to theaters May 29.
(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. How It Should Have Ended says this is “How Zootopia 2 Should Have Ended”.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Olav Rokne, N., Cora Buhlert, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day P J Evans.]