Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1h

Good news for the Canadian citrus industry!

A map of Canada showing that most of the country is much warmer than usual for this time of year.

James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 3h

I've never got the embedded footnotes to work. Every couple of years I forget that, and put some in, and then it causes problems.

James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 4h

That would be terribly hard on plants and animals. Is there any chance the US could put a deranged lunatic in charge of public health?

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 4h

I wonder what the ecological impact would be of rewilding everything west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies? I think only 8% of the US population lives there.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 5h

i’d day this nails the South as well

William Hazen @williamhazen.bsky.social · 1d

This is the most accurate depiction of the Midwest to date. Wichita has always felt like the last Midwest city while also being the first plains city.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 4h

If it wasn't for the English agricultural policies of the 19th century, my mother's family might never have left Ireland for Cape Breton. Nothing like a famine to encourage bold ventures!

(Are American oligarchs edible?)

Sarah Posner @sarahposner.bsky.social · 4h

He's very good on the economy, tho! 🙄🫠

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 4h

So this is funny.
The administration just issued a rule slashing foreign agricultural worker wages. And to justify it, in a public filing, Trump's Labor Department alleges that Trump's immigration enforcement has devastated the Ag workforce and caused a "risk of supply shock-induced food shortages."

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 4h

Record of a Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami

Three short works by Kawakami.

jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/darkn...

Darkness I Became

Hiromi Kawakami’s fantastical 19961 Record of a Night Too Brief is billed as the third volume in Pushkin Press’ Japanese Novella series2. Record of a Night Too Brief isn’t really a novella, but a coll...

jamesdavisnicoll.com

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 14h

If someone had asked me which SP character would show the most growth after 20 years, Mike would not have made the list.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 15h

In the PC's defence, the crooked guys started it by trying to frame the PC for the murder of a dignitary. It was a good plan, with two flaws: the PCs were the first people in the scene and removed the planted evidence, and also the corpse got back up because he hadn't been alive in the first place.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 15h

My Warhammer: The Old World Players have successfully replaced the four crooked watch members who were mad at a single PC with a heavily armed, violent criminal gang who are mad at all of the PCs.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 19h

That said, I am unclear why the security guy had a camera feed into the labs, instead of the periphery he was supposed to be watching.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 19h

I saw different options to fill out, and in one case a blank screen. I am told it works OK in Safari.

James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 19h

Watching the 1994 adaptation of The Stand. Government seems to have a handle on this 'flu business, so I can't see how they can stretch this out to 6 hours.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

By Roger Elwood of all people. I am as astonished as you.

It was called Continuum, and it serialized over four volumes eight different series by eight-plus authors. I think three of the series (the ones by Farmer, Anderson, and Pangborn) were later collected into their own books.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

Watt-Evans serialized a book online in the '00s after a suggestion made on rec.arts.sf.written by someone who was not me. If people coughed up enough money, the next chapter went up. Or so I recall.

There was an interesting book-based serialization experiment way back in the 1970s.

(con't)

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

I did suggest that there may be a causal link between paucity of applicants and actively unhelpful application software.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

A local event is recruiting staff using Vome, which hilariously turns out to produce different results depending on what browser you use. That's an excellent design choice.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

Forty Thousand in Gehenna by C J Cherryh

Union technocrats had a plan for Gehenna, a plan that failed to take into account local conditions.

jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/best-...

Best Laid Plan

C. J. Cherryh’s 1983 Forty Thousand in Gehenna is an anthropological, generational, epic science fiction novel. ISFDB classifies it as the first Unionside novel (more on that later). Gehenna functiona...

jamesdavisnicoll.com

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

You know, the US had no air traffic controllers during the whole of the 19th century and during that time there was not even one mid-air airplane collision.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

SWAY IS NOT A MICHAEL BUBLE ORIGINAL THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

It's a pity because the ISFDB version is really crisp. Were there two printings?

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

Well, here's a puzzler: the cover text on the ISFDB scan for Destinies, Volume 2, Issue 1 is different from the art on my cover, and every legible scan on Librarything.

ISFDB cover Destinies Vol 2, Ish 1: a dead Dorsai, with dead soldiers on the ground. The banner text reads The Paperback Magazine of Science Fiction and Speculative Fact.

My photo of the cover of Destinies Vol 2, Ish 1: a dead Dorsai, with dead soldiers on the ground. The banner text reads The Science Fiction Magazine.

LT scan of the cover of Destinies Vol 2, Ish 1: a dead Dorsai, with dead soldiers on the ground. The banner text reads The Science Fiction Magazine.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

That's not alarming at all.

CBC front page showing an error 500 for the world.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

Bundle of Holding: Achtung! Cthulhu

Everything you need for Nazi-punching Mythos adventures

bundleofholding.com/presents/Ach...

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Bundle

Adventurer! This new Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Bundle presents Achtung! Cthulhu, the 2d20 System tabletop roleplaying game from Modiphius of cosmic horror amid the chaos and heroism of World War II. Enter...

bundleofholding.com

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 2d

Which 2017 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers ✓
After Atlas by Emma Newman ✓
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee ✓
Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 2d

✓ for read, * for intend to read, ! for never heard of it. Or whatever amuses you.

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