What's in the news?

Started by Beorning, September 21, 2014, 07:02:11 AM

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Caehlim

Quote from: consortium11 on August 24, 2015, 06:29:51 PMEven setting aside the issue of whether an organized campaign to no-award categories on account of who the nominees were rather than the quality of their work counts as a slate breaking the awards

This is why I liked Mary Robinette Kowal's approach, of encouraging anyone who could to obtain membership and then vote however you would have anyway. She even bought some memberships and gave them to those who couldn't afford them, regardless of how they intended on voting. The idea being that the more people who were voting out of a legitimate conviction, the harder it would be for any group to artificially influence or rig the vote.
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TaintedAndDelish

Quote from: Lustful Bride on August 24, 2015, 05:42:41 PM
Apparently Bath Salts 2.0 is out and driving people insane. Its now called Flakka and hitting the streets hard.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/flakka-the-new-killer-drug-is-spreading-across-the-country/ar-BBm2ICF?ocid=HPCDHP


Who wants to start taking bets on when there will be another zombie attack? I thought the point of drugs was to get the user hooked for life, not make them into Rage zombies that take 15 rounds to put down @_@

Quote"One of the main things we have seen was people experiencing rapid weight loss, about 40 pounds a month. People don't eat. They are up for 10 to 12 days at a time. Their body becomes covered in abscesses."

Jesus... having a single abscess is bad enough... they are big, uncomfortable, and need to be cut open and drained. (I'll refrain from posting a gory youtube video) but covered in abcesses? Really? What the hell is in that shit?

As for the zombie attack thing, it makes you wonder if drug addicts are being used as guinea pigs for some covert military grade chemical. ( Flashback  heh heh.. )


TheGlyphstone

I'm imagining Sloth fro the movie Se7en.

Maybe some sort of covert CIA weapon, if you want to play conspiracy-theorist. A drug that turns people into berserk maniacs would be of remarkably little use to the military, especially with PCP being very similar with the additional benefit of deadening pain.

consortium11

Quote from: Caehlim on August 24, 2015, 06:43:36 PM
This is why I liked Mary Robinette Kowal's approach, of encouraging anyone who could to obtain membership and then vote however you would have anyway. She even bought some memberships and gave them to those who couldn't afford them, regardless of how they intended on voting. The idea being that the more people who were voting out of a legitimate conviction, the harder it would be for any group to artificially influence or rig the vote.

On the wider participation point it's worth noting that the three years of Sad Puppies campaigns have led to a massive increase in the number of Worldcon members, with record numbers the past two years. Whether that's due to people signing up to vote for one of the Puppy slates, to vote on the anti-Puppy slate or simply because the additional publicity this year meant that people finally realized that anyone can pay the gatekeeper fee and nominate/vote for the Hugos, the result has been dramatic. This year it took 2649 votes for Three Body Problem to win in the final runoff for best novel... in 2010 (so hardly a long time ago) the top two drew with 380 each. That year Patrick Nielsen Hayden won the best long form editor Hugo with 200 votes on the final run-off. This year Toni Weisskopf came second with 1216 (over six times as many) but was crushed by the slate to no-award her with 2496 (over twelve times as many). If the best way to prevent groups from "gaming" the Hugo Awards is to increase participation then the various Puppy slates should be applauded for being the driving force behind getting so many new members.

Looking at Kowal's point specifically there's a pretty obvious issue with it, albeit not one that I think she foresaw. Let's say Beale or Larry Correia made the same offer on their site; they'll buy X number of memberships for anyone who replies/messages them asking them, no string attached, vote for whatever you want. I suspect if you were to able to isolate out those votes you'd find that they resembled the Rabid/Sad Puppies slates fairly closely. People tend to attract like-minded people and you can presume that someone who follows an author who ever talks about what they think of fandom is going to have a similar view.

(One caveat to the above; if you look at the statistics then the Sad Puppies seemingly didn't vote as a slate. While the influence of the Rabid Puppies is obvious and one can see around 600 people or so who followed that slate entirely the Sad Puppies vote appears to be much more fragmented. Looked at statistically there only really seem to be two slates that actually worked as slates; the Rabid Puppies and the "vote for everything else, then no-award then the puppies" slates)

There's an ongoing rule update that may come into play in a year or two which should lower the impact of Slates, at least for nominations. Rather than the system that is currently used where each voter can nominate five works in each category and each nomination is counted equally the system can change so that each person has "one" vote but can split it; to look at it percentage wise if you nominate a single work it gets 100% of a vote. If you nominated two they each get 50% of a vote etc etc. So if a slate wanted to nominate five works to completely dominate a category then each vote for the whole slate would be worth only 1/5th of someone who only wanted to nominate one work.

Caehlim

Quote from: consortium11 on August 24, 2015, 07:24:00 PMLooking at Kowal's point specifically there's a pretty obvious issue with it, albeit not one that I think she foresaw. Let's say Beale or Larry Correia made the same offer on their site; they'll buy X number of memberships for anyone who replies/messages them asking them, no string attached, vote for whatever you want. I suspect if you were to able to isolate out those votes you'd find that they resembled the Rabid/Sad Puppies slates fairly closely. People tend to attract like-minded people and you can presume that someone who follows an author who ever talks about what they think of fandom is going to have a similar view.

While that's true Kowal is also head of SFWA which should attract some non-denominational attention that the others wouldn't have.
My home is not a place, it is people.
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Blythe


Lustful Bride

*sits back eating popcorn*

In other news US stocks went up 4% today in one of the best recovery days since 2011

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/stocks-leap-about-4percent-in-recovery-best-day-since-2011/ar-BBm73iB?ocid=iehp

I know nothing about stocks and bonds but hey it sounds good. :P

Blythe

Virginia shooting/gun rights/revolutions debate has been split into a new topic--posts pertaining to that should go there now.  :-)

WhatLiesAbove

Don't know if anyone hit this yesterday...but the Pentagon is sending tanks and F-22 Raptors to the Ukraine. In similar news, Russia is selling a nuclear-capable missile to Iran.

Lustful Bride

Polish authorities warn treasure hunters to not look for the Nazi gold train.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poles-warned-off-gold-train-hunt/ar-BBm9Uii?li=BBgzzfc&ocid=HPCDHP

Thats like leaving a donught in front of a fat kid and telling him not to eat it as you leave the room. Its GOLD! This is the thing that people have killed and maimed each other over more than any other mineral on earth, theres no way they wont look for it X3


Dashenka

Quote from: WhatLiesAbove on August 27, 2015, 01:37:56 AM
Don't know if anyone hit this yesterday...but the Pentagon is sending tanks and F-22 Raptors to the Ukraine. In similar news, Russia is selling a nuclear-capable missile to Iran.

Could have used it to defend our borders now that the US is arming a government who called Russia 'the root of all evil' and wanted Russia to be annihilated. Instead we sold it to Iran. More than the US would do :) They would just ship it to a foreign border, unsettling an entire region, but hey....  Who am I right?


Quote from: Lustful Bride on August 27, 2015, 02:44:06 PM
Polish authorities warn treasure hunters to not look for the Nazi gold train.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poles-warned-off-gold-train-hunt/ar-BBm9Uii?li=BBgzzfc&ocid=HPCDHP

Thats like leaving a donught in front of a fat kid and telling him not to eat it as you leave the room. Its GOLD! This is the thing that people have killed and maimed each other over more than any other mineral on earth, theres no way they wont look for it X3

Aren't there many of those 'treasures' around the world? I remember not too long ago a group of people found an ancient Spanish galleon full of gold and silver. 
Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals and I get my back into my living.

I don't need to fight to prove I'm right and I don't need to be forgiven.

Avis habilis

Quote from: Cycle on August 27, 2015, 03:07:17 PM
Plot bunny!

I know a guy who's putting together a team to go after it. He's still looking for a driver, a high explosives expert, an archer, & a knife thrower.





OK, maybe not really.

eBadger

I feel that's a job for Harrison Ford.




Zakharra

Quote from: Dashenka on August 27, 2015, 03:10:58 PM

Aren't there many of those 'treasures' around the world? I remember not too long ago a group of people found an ancient Spanish galleon full of gold and silver.

I think it wasn't to long ago (a few weeks?) that some divers off the coast of Florida found some coins from a Spanish galleon that had washed up nearly on the beach (it was found in about 6 feet of water), and it was part of a treasure find not too far away in deeper water that was found a few months before. I heard it on the radio, so I do not know if I'm totally accurate.  I do wonder if the Spanish government has tried to claim the treasure (gold or silver, there was a LOT of silver on those treasure galleons) from these finds.

Lustful Bride

#1790
*facepalm* a little girl was sent home from school because her lunch box had Wonder Woman on it........

http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/26/parents-told-their-daughters-wonder-woman-lunchbox-is-too-violent-for-school-5361976/

Political Correctness gone wrong. and yet I remember going to high school and middle school with kids who had way worse things! And not once did anyone say a thing to them. 

Ironwolf85

Quote from: Dashenka on August 27, 2015, 03:10:58 PM
Could have used it to defend our borders now that the US is arming a government who called Russia 'the root of all evil' and wanted Russia to be annihilated. Instead we sold it to Iran. More than the US would do :) They would just ship it to a foreign border, unsettling an entire region, but hey....  Who am I right?

nnnngh don't take the obvious bait and spend three hours researching to tear it to shreds sheepy
ukrane isn't the one who did the invading...
eeez just a post eeez just a post eeez just a post...
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Scribbles

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/swaziland/11833673/Dozens-of-women-killed-in-crash-en-route-to-King-of-Swazilands-dancing-virgin-festival.html

I can't believe that nobody pointed out to Mswati how absolutely twisted this is, transporting people like cattle in heavy load trucks. I'm fairly certain that's against the law even in Swaziland...

And the "king" still finds it necessary to continue with his annual wife selection as if nothing happened...
AA and OO
Current Games: Stretched Thin, Very Little Time

Beorning

Polish political dickery:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-01/icy-polish-cohabitation-on-display-as-officials-avoid-handshake

I know it's just handshake, still... it's pretty embarrassing.

Do the politicians in other countries behave in such a manner, too?

Oniya

Quote from: Beorning on September 02, 2015, 05:08:29 AM
Do the politicians in other countries behave in such a manner, too?

I gave up on being embarrassed about 90% of our politicians.  At a certain point, usually after you've had to deal with toddlers, you learn this 'look' that says 'I've done what I can'.  And every other person who has dealt with toddlers understands this look, and they nod sympathetically.

Although I'm very happy to be mistaken for Canadian when I'm traveling.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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eBadger

Quote from: Beorning on September 02, 2015, 05:08:29 AMDo the politicians in other countries behave in such a manner, too?

Sigh.  Well, I think Trump's entire Thing is based on being an asshole for attention.  I'd be thrilled to just see him shut up and just refuse to shake hands at this point. 

Dashenka

Tajikistan names planet after itself.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/tajikistan-planet-naming-khovar


If it's real, it's hysterical. If it's a PR stunt, it's hysterical. So in any way, it's hysterical :D
Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals and I get my back into my living.

I don't need to fight to prove I'm right and I don't need to be forgiven.

Oniya

The funny thing about it is that the location is somewhere in the asteroid belt.  'Planet' is a bit of an overstatement, since Ceres (the largest) is the smallest of the dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union at roughly a third the size of Pluto.  And, of course, Ceres is already named, as are most of the other asteroids of any significant size.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Dashenka

Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals and I get my back into my living.

I don't need to fight to prove I'm right and I don't need to be forgiven.

Cycle

So Dick Cheney is blasting the Iran Nuclear Deal, warning that it will lead to Iran getting nukes.

Dick.

Cheney.

Is warning the world about weapons of mass destruction.

In the Middle East.

...

...

...

What the... 

Just how stupid does he think we are?