Weekly Short Stories: 1992 Science Fiction, Part 2

Today I continue my look at short stories from 1992 as they appeared in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Tenth Annual Collection.  1992 was a presidential election, and just a year earlier it looked as if incumbent George H.W. Bush (known back then as just George Bush) would glide to an easy reelection, his poll numbers being so high after the successful Persian Gulf War.  But the economy tanked into a recession, and the entry of populist businessman H. Ross Perot most likely took away more votes from Bush than from his Democratic Party opponent Bill Clinton...the later easily won election although he only garnered some 43% of the popular vote.  But back to more of those stories from that year...

TWO GUYS FROM THE FUTURE by Terry Bisson

The security guard at an art museum has no idea of her destiny until "two guys from the future", as they call themselves, suddenly materialize one night in her presence...just like on Star Trek.  This is a funny satire on time travel stories...yes, they're overripe for satire if not outright ridicule...

THE MOUNTAIN TO MOHAMMED by Nancy Kress

This story, even from 31 years ago, is an apt indictment of the deplorable state of health care in this country, showing the potential nightmare scenario of society split between the insurable and unisurable, depending on one's gene scan.  One physician with a conscience decides to buck the system and treat those refused insurance...in this case no good deed goes unpunished.  Yet the ending reveals an underlying logic to his suffering... 

THE COMING OF VERTUMNUS by Ian Watson

A struggling young art critic and author, living in a near-future when envionmentalism threatens to curb technological and industrial development, is offered a chance by a Texas magnate to enter an incredibly contrived conspiracy involving discoveries of pornographic paintings from the Austrian Hapsburg late sixteenth century.  I learned quite a bit of history here, unless of course the author made it all up.  The story also delves into counter-conspiracies, false flag actions, and the effects of mind-alterning drugs on people's perspectives.  Very disturbing but wonderfully written...

Next week: more from '92...

Weather Here Still Sucks, By the Way

Let's see, the last article on this blog I wrote about the local weather sucking was on June 25...don't get any ideas that anything's gotten better: it hasn't.  The heat/humidity combination is the worst I've experience here in Gainesville, and it's been bad in summers past.  We're also getting bombed with torrential rains coming seemingly out of nowhere.  Early yesterday afternoon I was driving in sunny weather to work, planning to stop off at the Publix right next to my workplace.   But as I got to about a mile from my destination, I saw a rapidly moving zone of darkness in the sky headed straight toward me...suddenly I was in the middle of it, struggling to see through my deluged and foggy windshield on managing to finally park it at my workplace, abandoning any hope that day for a grocery visit.  And even though the rain finally abated some, the localized flooding it created made me have to walk through some suddenly very deep puddles just to get into my building.  Conditions like these recently have also contributed to my personal respiratory allergies, as weeds and other allergen-producing plants are rapidly growing out of control.  The only relief from this I see is to confine myself to air conditioning...and take a vacation out of the area starting July 23rd: looking forward to that...

Wimbledon Net Snub Set in Advance, Wrong Player Blamed

Victoria Azarenka is from Belarus, and her opponent this past Sunday in the Wimbledon's women singles tournament was Elina Svitolina, from Ukraine.  After their match, which Svitolina won, Azarenka did not walk up to the net to congratulate the winner...and the crowd booed her, reacting as if her actions were politically motivated because of the ongoing war being Russia and her country on one side, and Svitolina's on the other.  Of course, Belarus, is the ally of invading Russia, and Ukraine is the land and people being ravaged in an old-style imperial land-grab, the likes of which haven't been seen since Saddam Hussein's Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the horrible conflicts in former Yugoslavia during the following decade. Svitolina, as Azarenka later pointed out in her own defense, had already announced that she would refuse to socially interact with any players from the two aggressor nations, even if they had given up their national affiliation as the Wimbledon authorities had demanded as a precondition of them returning to play after last year's ban.  I cannot judge Svitolina...what would I have done in her place...but neither can I criticize Azarenka, who is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position.  On some level, these three countries will always neighbor one another, so I would prefer that individual citizens from them display a higher level of mutual compassion and respect for each other, even if their politicians...and I'm speaking mainly about the Belarus and Russian autocrats...don't.  Just the other day I wrote that EVERY match ended with the two sides, winner and loser, meeting at the net with friendliness, congratulations and encouragement.  Oh well, so much for that...

US Supreme Court Stacked, Ideological, Unprincipled

The recent rulings by a politically partisan, stacked United States Supreme Court have made a sick joke of our supposedly highest level of jurisprudence.  It was all foreseeable after Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell stole away a Barack Obama Democratic nomination in 2016 (nine months before that year's presidential election) on the excuse that "the voters should decide" who gets to nominate the new justice while in 2020 forcing through a Donald Trump Republican nomination just days before that year's election...which Trump incidentally lost.  And guess what? McConnell's very proud of what he did.  Now let's look at two rulings and focus on this court's leader, Chief Justice John Roberts.  In the 6-3 ruling striking down the Democratic Biden administration's planned forgiveness of up to ten thousand dollars of college student debt, helping 43 million Americans in the process...not just "billionaires" as Republican opponents like to argue...Roberts wrote that Congress had an appropriate role in the president's actions, which he claimed was denied them.  Yet back in 2010 when he ruled with the conservative SCOTUS wing to strike down a Congress-passed electoral reform bill that sought to properly regulate campaign financing, he had no problem interfering with both the legislative and executive branches, equating spending money with "freedom of speech" protected by the First Amendment.  As a matter of fact, this pretense version of a Supreme Court seems to like to invoke free speech whenever it wants to rule one way or another.  Another recent ruling, playing that First Amendment trump card, was to make an expansive ruling that a Colorado software entrepreneur was legally entitled to deny services to a gay couple due to the businessman's personal beliefs about their lifestyle. Yet John Roberts, from the beginning of his tenure as Chief Justice, always stressed that for a case to be held as worthy of a court hearing, the plaintiff needed to establish standing, meaning that some party had actually done something to them.  That didn't happen in this case, as our Chief Justice conveniently chose to ignore his cherished standard in favor of ideology.  And, sad to say, of all the six conservative justices sitting on the high bench, it is John Roberts who I regard as the most fair-minded!  Like I said, the US Supreme Court is stacked, ideological and unprincipled...truly a sick joke...and I haven't even started to discuss the alleged corruption on the part of Justices Thomas and Alito...

Just Finished Reading High Five by Janet Evanovich

Janet Evanovich is a prolific fiction writer whose Stephanie Plum mystery series has been very successful: Janet is eighty years old and just came out with the thirtieth Plum novel.  I began reading the series myself six years ago but drifted away after the fourth book.  I'm not sure why that was, since I liked the characters even if they seemed a little too much of a "Jersey thing"...it's all set around Trenton, and you might think from the dialogue that some of the characters just might be related to those on Jersey Shore.  Protagonist Stephanie Plum is a spunky if not very adept bounty hunter...too many of her efforts at dragging in bail jumpers on behalf of her cousin Vinnie's bail bonds agency end in failure, often dismally.  There are some ongoing back stories transferring from novel to novel, including her friendship with Lula, an ex-prostitute working now as Vinnie's clerk and who seems to possess more common sense than most of the other characters...especially Stephanie.  Then there's Morelli, a cop who's her main love interest and Ranger, a mysterious dude who helps her with some of the more daring, armed aspects of her trade.  In High Five, lots of different stuff is going on: Plum is assigned to bring in Briggs, a "little person"...of course, she botches it up and although he is turned in, his lawsuit threat causes Vinnie to temporarily house him with her in her apartment...that's hilarious.  The bad dude Ramirez (from the first book) has been let out of jail and is stalking our heroine for revenge...naturally, her ineptness prevents her from ever detecting him.  But what turns into the main story is the mysterious disappearance of her uncle Fred, who vanished in broad daylight while doing ordinary chores in town.  I liked the informal first-person narration by Stephanie Plum and the irreverent banter throughout the story was very funny, for the most part...especially with Briggs and Plum's inimitable Grandma Mazur.  High Five is a good, solid mix of humor and mystery...and of course, while there's danger you know that Stephanie will always be around for the next book.  Maybe I'll stick around longer to read the rest of Evanovich's series...if my reading can catch up with her speedy writing, that is...

Quote of the Week...from Robert Heinlein

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.                                                         ---Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, were the "Big Three" in science fiction writing during the mid-to-late twentieth century.  Heinlein, renowned for novels such as Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (click on the titles to read my 2014 reviews) was also an ardent libertarian...but more principled about it than the phony politicians and rabble claiming that identity these days (but only when it is personally convenient for them).  Heinlein was a strong believer in personal responsibility for one's own life...to him anything less was self-victimization and servitude to others' agendas.  Do I agree with everything he's said or written? No way, yet the above quote of his is quite profound.  I've discovered that folks who put down others for achieving a success that perhaps they wanted for themselves have a tendency to be of this "woe-is-me, I'm a victim" mentality, and jealousy often crops up: here's another Heinlein quote to that effect: "A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything.  Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity". Part of being a mature adult is displaying a dignified spirit of good sportsmanship, and not just when your own side wins.  Sore losers are perennial victims, glorifying in their own imagined martyrdom and seeing themselves as the center of everything...know of anyone in the news the past few years who fits this description? I've been watching the Wimbledon tennis tournament for the last few mornings and noticed something: in EVERY match, no matter how hard-fought, after they were over, the loser congratulated the winner and the winner in turn graciously consoled the loser.  Too bad some of our political "leaders" can't behave like that...

Enjoying Following Wimbledon Tennis This Year

A couple of years ago I was recovering at home from some extensive surgery, so I watched a lot of sports on TV, including the 2021 US Open in tennis, played in New York.  That's when I decided that high-level professional tennis was fun to watch, on a number of levels...and I'm speaking of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments held in Australia, France, England, and the United States.  Right now, I'm watching England's premier event, the Wimbledon Championships from southwestern London, played on grass...a surface that seems to favor certain players over others.  I like seeing the same faces in different tournaments, stars like Medvedev, Djokovic, Nadal, Tiafoe, Tsitsipas, Alcaraz, Kyrgios and Murray on the men's side and with women Sabalenka, Swiatek, Rybakina, Sakkari, Azarenka, Jabeur, Gauff, Halep and others. In 2021 dark horse unsung teenagers Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu surprised their way with upset after upset, both reaching the women's US Open final, with the latter prevailing...Novak Djokovic was beaten that year in the same tourney's final by Daniil Medvedev.  Which brings me to a problem I have with tennis...as well as other sports.  It's the absence of certain big names that bothers me, chiefly caused by two factors.  The first, which is an element of high-level competition and training that strains the body, are the many injuries plaguing so many great athletes.  This year Andy Murray is back on the court following years of injury and recuperation.  But others like Raducanu, Simona Halep and Rafael Nadal aren't playing at Wimbledon because of injuries, and the great Roger Federer decided to finally retire from the active sport although he is a featured and honored spectator at Wimbledon.  The second factor is banning, whether it be from disciplinary action or as a political weapon.  Although Djokovic played in 2021 at the height of the Covid Delta Variant scourge across America that claimed so many lives, he was barred the next year from the same tournament because he refused a vaccine although the pandemic had greatly abated by then.  And last year, because Russia and its ally Belarus invaded neighboring Ukraine, the Wimbledon Tournament authorities, under pressure from the government, banned players representing those countries...so no Sabalenka, Medvedev, or Azarenka.  This year they came to their senses and allowed them to participate, albeit without national affiliation.  Well, if you've read this blog, you might have picked up that I tend to avoid identifying athletes anyway by which country they're from...so I'd go a step further and remove all those national flags on TV next to each player's name. As for Covid, I think the bans have all lifted, finally, from Australia and the US (France and England didn't impose them on unvaccinated players). It's still in the early stages of Wimbledon, and I'm working...yet my "free" time in the morning just happens to coincide with London afternoons, when most of the action is taking place.  So let the tennis continue...

Weekly Short Stories: 1992 Science Fiction, Part 1

And now it's time for me to move on to the year 1992 with sci-fi stories, and to a new book in Gardner Dozois' excellent annual anthology series, The Year's Best Science Fiction, Tenth Annual Collection.  At that time...and for three more years...I was working at my local post office processing center (I'm still there) sorting mail on their flat sorting machine on Tour I, which is postal jargon for the graveyard shift.  Let's see, I started working there in 1987, and in the nearly 36 years since then, I've done that shift in varying capacities for half that time...I'll have to write an article sometime about the pros and cons of working the wee hours of the morning.  But for now, here are my reactions to the first four tales in the anthology...

GRIFFIN'S EGG by Michael Stanwick

On a future sparsely populated Moon relying on natural resource production, industry and research, the leading team there endures a special bomb attack from a warring Earth of which the exploded agent turns most of the population into a hypnotic/paranoid trance state.  The fight for survival is on...how will the war back home end, and will it happen in time to rescue them?  The ending of this long, pretty contrived novella with numerous subplots delivers a surprise regarding the possible future of humanity, but I admit to having some difficulty tying it all together...

EVEN THE QUEEN by Connie Willis

Only a woman could have gotten away with writing this brief satirical piece about a future in which a new innovation has "liberated" women everywhere from having to undergo the vicissitudes of menstruation as well as its accompanying PMS.  But wait, a new feminist group has formed, trying to "liberate" women from their "liberation" and returning them to their monthly cycles.  As a male reader, I was content to just sit back and let them duke it out...

THE ROUND-EYED BARBARIANS by L. Sprague de Camp

Suppose that China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) had developed the technological innovations and seafaring impetus just decades before the Europeans began their colonial assaults on the Americas.  The "round-eyes", as they're called in this alternative history tale, would surely be in an entirely different and less advantageous situation. A Chinese official relates his experiences regarding one such soldier as Chinese, European, and Native American cultural norms clash in the New (and Different) World...I thought it was kind of boring, to be perfectly blunt...

DUST by Greg Egan

A story with an interesting premise that lets itself get muddled toward the end with a lot of esoteric metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.  A man, Paul Durham, narrates it in the first person present as he wakes up and soon discovers that he is a digitally created copy of himself: it soon becomes apparent when he discovers the limits of his new world with the backgrounds necessarily vague and artificial.  He knows of his creator's every motive since, of course, he is a copy of him!  What the original Paul Durham doesn't know, though, is that this copy has life and a sense of identity in spite of his non-biological nature...which leads the (copied) Paul down that long and winding road of metaphysical cognitive reverie.  But then again, the ending helps to make up for all that...nice surprise!

Next week: more from 1992...

Happy Fourth of July

Whoopee, I'm off from work!  Now that I got that off my chest, let me just wish you and your loved ones a happy American Independence Day.  Stay safe with the firecrackers and on the road.  As a dear recent president would say on many occasions, "God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."  And may I just interject one little word of advice to those getting carried away with politics and perceived conspiracies: set aside a little, teensy-weensy bit of time in your hectic schedule to try first to get your facts straight, and then to try to see things...if only for a couple of minutes...from the other guy's point of view.  I think if enough folks did that, it would make my beloved country stronger and healthier...whad'ya say, all you patriots out there?

Podcaster Spells Out Ten Mistakes Language Learners Make

Although I've only recently been listening to Steve Kaufmann's podcast, I have access to many he's done in the months before I heard of him.  Kaufmann is a polyglot...he speaks some 20 languages at last count...who founded a subscription-driven website, LingQ, that uses his techniques of language learning and offers it to others: I recently signed up and like it.  One of his earlier podcasts, from a couple of months ago, dealt with mistakes that language learners make.  Listed, they are:

(1) Expecting you can learn fast (don't have unrealistic expectations).

(2) Expecting to never forget words or grammar patterns you have learned (but learning is itself a process of forgetting and relearning).

(3) Trying to master the grammar rules in detail up front (nothing wrong in looking them up from time to time, though).

(4) Expecting the language to become clear too soon (patience, patience).

(5) Sticking with learning content that is too easy (good for review but need to challenge with more difficult material).

(6) Thinking you can get by with just a few words (once a native speaker starts to talk back to you then you'll realize you need to learn a lot more).

(7) Thinking you should speak well even if you don't speak often (it takes a lot of practice).

(8) Being afraid of making mistakes when you speak (Kaufmann just came back from Poland where he gave two interviews IN POLISH and laughed about all the mistakes he made).

(9) Speaking with only non-native speakers (non-native speakers tend to limit the range of their vocabulary).

(10) Dealing with the challenge from native speakers when they want to practice their English on you (either find some willing to speak in your target language or make an arrangement to alternate languages with those wanting to speak English).

Steve Kaufmann impressed me by his emphasis on the gradual assimilation of large amounts of words by reading and listening.  From time to time, I'll let you know how I'm doing on the LingQ site...

Sad About Loss of Late-Night Business in Gainesville

My work shift ends at 10 PM, and sometimes I like to chill out a bit at a coffee shop before heading on home.  Unfortunately, my hometown of Gainesville, Florida has, ever since COVID-19 hit us in 2020, become one of those places that roll up the sidewalks in mid-evening, with very few late-night spots left open.  I used to frequent a couple of Starbucks on the southwest, UF student-intense part of town that is close to my workplace.  Now they're closed by the time I get off from work, although rumor has it that the Target store on Archer Road has a Starbucks in it that still stays open late...I'll have to check it out.  Gainesville used to be known as an all-night kind of city, especially with its tens of thousands of University of Florida students as well as a sizeable Santa Fe College population.  When I was a student at UF in the late 1970's I spent many late hours studying at the 24-hour Krystal on University across from the library.  Except for Waffle House, though, in the northern part of Gainesville where I live everyone closes up shop far earlier than before.  There used to be a 24-hour district just north of Gainesville High School on NW 13th Street (US 441) that had all-night restaurants, a pharmacy, a doughnut shop and a couple of grocers...none of the places there now stay open late except convenience stores.  It's a shame, because that's one of the things I liked living here.  I'm not greedy about places staying open late: just give me to 11 o'clock and I'm out of there! Shoot, before COVID I could slip over to a Publix on Archer right near where I worked and replenish groceries, but no longer.  Now, not even the WalMart where I live, formerly 24 hours, stays open past 11...

My June 2023 Running and Walking Report

This past month has been a bit of a trial regarding my running and walking...halfway through I experienced some back trouble that not only sidelined me from most any strenuous exercise but also made me miss work.  I'm still in recovery, so I'm afraid that not much will be happening in early July...and at the end of the month Melissa and I will be going out of town on vacation.  So, I don't see myself returning to a regular routine in running and walking...and that includes any races...until after the first week in August at the very earliest.  As for early June, I ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K on the 3rd and 10th, and occasionally visited my local gym after work to do treadmill jogging and speed-walking work...I reached a sustained 5 mph speed with the latter.  Of course, when I do return there in August or later, I will need to resume my training at a lower level...but I'm optimistic.  In any event, right now my running has taken a necessary back seat to my walking due to my back recovery. But I still intend to participate in local fall running races like the Florida Track Club's 10K event in October followed by a half-marathon in November. And when I'm ready to go back to Depot Park for their Saturday morning runs, I'd like to continue with a least one race each month being a full walk with the rest being runs...

Quote of the Week...from James T. Kirk

The answer is "no"...I, therefore, am going anyway.     

---Admiral James T. Kirk, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 

I was always a big fan of the Star Trek original television series...it pained me that early on in its run my parents insisted on watching Bewitched on our one TV set from 8 to 8:30 Thursdays, directly opposite hour-long Star Trek's first half.  So, for some time I knew a lot of episode endings, but not what led up to them.  After finally realizing what a popular cash cow the series was, somebody had the sense to start a movie Star Trek series, albeit more than a decade after the original series was unceremoniously cancelled in 1968.  The third of these, The Search for Spock, is the sequel to the second, The Wrath of Khan, in which Leonard Nimoy's character Spock willingly sacrifices his life to save the starship Enterprise and her crew.  Unknowing of Spock's Vulcan customs, Kirk (played by William Shatner) releases his friend's casket to a soft landing on the strange, distant planet Genesis. Later Spock's father berates him for not reuniting the body with Spock's spirit, which he had given Dr. McCoy (Deforest Kelly)... yeah, I know this is getting a little weird.  Long story short, Kirk wants permission from his superiors in Star Fleet to return to Genesis and retrieve Spock's body...but he is denied because of the controversy surrounding that planet.  So, he walks up to his all-star skeleton crew and delivers the above quote.  I used it today because, well, in life sometimes you have a decision to make, and sometimes it goes in the direction of defiance and not compliance.  As individuals each of us has choices that can determine where we want to go in our respective lives.  It may be tempting to look "sideways" at someone else who is taking a different path than us, especially when that path seems to keep crossing our own from time to time.  Then it's tempting to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others and to begin to doubt our own resolve.  I can guarantee you this: no matter what you do or not do, there is always somebody out there who will criticize your decision, and sometimes even get nasty about it.  Then again, on the positive side of all this, there's another "Jim" I'd like to quote: the musician Jim Croce, who sang in his hit I Got a Name, "I've got a dream, I've got a dream.  Oh, I know I can share it if you want me to.  If you're going my way, I'll go with you"...  

Just Finished Reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

The past few weeks I've been exploring podcasts and videos...Timothy Ferriss has a podcast, as well as a best-selling book titled The 4-Hour Workweek.  In it he makes the claim...backed up by his own recounted experiences...that people don't need to limit their lives to the ordinary, humdrum routines of nine-to-five jobs or careers that spill over into their private lives with homework, emails and the like.  No, it's possible to fashion their own lifestyles, and to his credit, Ferris doesn't just leave it there with a lot of vague, positive exhortation: he gets down to the nitty-gritty of the self-liberation process, spelling it all out step-by-step.  The dude is obviously super-intelligent...I've heard his podcast as well, and sometimes I felt while reading this book that his message was for someone with mental faculties far beyond my own.  Part of the book's premise is to convince the boss that working remotely (for me at least) is more productive than working on-site, allowing for my freedom of movement and even extended travel abroad.  Another part is how to delegate my remaining work to others while I soak up the sun in some exotic dream place or climb mountains or whatever suits my fancy.  While I applaud Ferris' attention to detail in explaining how this can be accomplished, I do have a problem with his sales pitch for this book.  Back in the 1990s I experienced a similar argument from an Amway meeting I was invited to attend.  The idea then was that all you need to do is get enough hard-working folks "under" you and then you'll be freed to go ice-fishing in Canada or do whatever you want.  I even heard a coworker tout the company as an alternative to the "dead-end" job we were working.  I think there is a personality type out there, a restless soul who is prone to travel addiction and sees hopping on planes to this place or that as an absolute necessity when they want to appraise the quality of their own lives.  The notion of tending to a steady job, being good at it, and more or less staying in one locale while occasionally traveling to fun spots is, to them, a kind of surrender...I, on the other hand, don't feel the need to follow suit.  The 4-Hour Workweek encourages deception on the job in that the employee has to convince their boss that their performance in person is markedly worse than when they are away from the office...that, to me is unethical.  There's also another problem: like in the classic Broadway show and movie titled You Can't Take It with You, everybody in the featured Vanderhof family lives in their roomy house doing whatever they want...but they still depend on the paid, structured labor of others, including their own housekeepers.  When Mr. Ferriss is visiting all his exotic places, I'm sure that he is constantly around others engaged in their employment which support his adopted lifestyle...does he think they're all losers in dead-end jobs?  I tend to see all this in a more universalist light, believing that while it's good to improve your living conditions...including allowing for more travel and fun...life in all its different levels of perception, struggle, and relationships is much more complex and interesting than the way this book's author presents it, even if he is one bigshot smartass son-of-a-gun...

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 8

Today I conclude my look at 1991 science fiction short stories as they appeared in the Gardner Dozois-edited anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection. Here we go...

JACK by Connie Willis

Best of today's four stories, in my opinion, it's England during the Battle of Britain in 1940 when the Nazis bombarded it relentlessly.  The civil defense is spotlighted here, and one of their more difficult tasks is to search bombed areas for survivors buried beneath the rubble.  Enter a mysterious man who has an uncanny ability to find them, even when there seems to be no evidence of their presence.  This fascinating story seamlessly transforms into another genre and asks the question: just who is the monster here?

LA MACCHINA by Chris Beckett

This is a robot story naturally set in a future where they have taken over the traiditonally menial jobs in society. Looks like there is a renegade robot running loose, one who "thinks" on a higher level of complexity and betrays a sentient nature. The protagonist hunts it down...but isn't ready for the paradigm shift about robots at story's end. This one kind of reminded me of Asimov's robot stories...

ONE PERFECT MORNING, WITH JACKALS by Mike Resnick

Here is a prequel story to Resnick's 1988 Kirinyaga...press on the title to read my reaction. It's about the Kikuyu leader Koriba who emigrates from his native Earth...and from his hopelessly transformed homeland in Kenya.  And it's also a story about a father and his grown son parting ways. A brief bittersweet tale...

DESERT RAIN by Mark L. Van Name and Pat Murphy

A sculptor transplanted from her beloved San Francisco area to the despised southwestern desert after getting married to a man deeply involved in computers and artificial intelligence is introduced by him to Ian, whose digital presence surrounds her in their home while hubby is gone most of the time. It's easy to guess where this is all going, but what impressed me was how the author back in 1991 understood AI devices like Alexa and others like "her".  On the other hand, didn't the breakthrough movie 2001: A Space Odyssey anticipate it all 24 years earlier with Hal?

Next week I begin the next book in the Gardner Dozois sci-fi anthology series, covering the year 1992...

Steve Kaufmann Weighs In on Passive vs. Active Vocabulary in Languages

Steve Kaufmann, whose LingQ website I use as a subscribing member, speaks some twenty languages to varying degrees and has his own ideas about how to learn languages.  He strongly emphasizes the building of a large passive (listening and reading) vocabulary as the foundation upon which a smaller subset of active vocabulary (speaking and writing) can grow.  His philosophy is that communication is the main function of language and that making mistakes (and learning from them) is a necessary element of the learning process.  I understand his take, for during my own limited excursions in trying to converse with native speakers in their own languages, I would usually start it out by saying something simple I just learned.  Then, the other speaker would come back at me with words I've never learned...of course, since I was going at it without first developing a substantive passive vocabulary to draw upon.  Some of these language learning businesses get on TV and show somebody going to a foreign country ordering food or giving the taxi driver their destination with flawless pronunciation...as if that somehow proves they can now fluently speak their target language.  I've been using Steve's LingQ and am very satisfied with it and hopeful that my progress will lead, in a reasonable period of time, to passive near-fluency in the languages I'm studying.  He also has his own self-titled YouTube channel...check it out and see if he doesn't make a lot of sense...

Podcaster Discusses Self-Displine

Last week personal development coach Rob Dial listed and discussed seven ways to help his listeners practice self-discipline.  He brings up a good point: when is practicing self-discipline bad for you?  Well, the only thing I could think of is that maybe some folks want to inculcate what they think are helpful habits when they actually are detrimental to them.  Other than that, I'm on board with Dial's message.  In a sentence, his seven suggestions are: 

(1) In a task, focus on the opportunity it brings instead of the obligation going with it...almost any endeavor contains both elements.

(2) Do the small things and fundamentals really well "day in, day out". This syncs with James Clear's notion of "atomic habits".

(3) Design your environment to make your action/discipline easier.  For example, if you're trying to lose weight then don't stock up on sweets and other comfort foods.

(4) Move your body, being physically active either with sports or exercise.

(5) Employ the "Countdown 5-4-3-2-1" method on any difficult task that involves crossing a threshold you're hesitant about...Dial says the momentum helps push you to take the necessary action.

(6) Ask yourself how you can make this disciplined action easier.  This to me sounds a lot like (3), and Dial didn't elaborate on it...maybe we can whittle it all down to six suggestions!

(7) Get an accountability partner, either one on is doing the same general thing as you or is a very annoying, persistent individual who will refuse to let you off the hook if you slide.  And be ready in return to serve that person as their accountability partner if so asked.

A lot of this I'm sure I've already written about from previous Mindset Mentor summaries on this blog.  But that's good: I totally dig overlapping and redundancy when it comes to personal development...

This Recent Weather Sucks...More to Come

Although today's temperatures skyrocketed here in Gainesville today, I did enjoy the break from the storms and sporadically torrential rain we've been experiencing for well over a week.  But it was too good to be true: I checked my phone weather app and they're predicting more bad weather next week and the first few days of July, with this Wednesday for some reason giving us a break (although it's supposed to get up to 95 that day).  I'm quite accustomed to the summer pattern weather around here, where each day as the temperatures spike the blue sky gives way to puffy cumulus clouds...and then come the thunderheads bringing winds, thunder, lightning, rain and cool relief.  Doesn't seem as if we're getting this kind of weather, though...at least not yet.  Also, I didn't think we'd already have three named Atlantic tropical storm systems before even reaching July, but here we are: I wonder if it's too early yet to utter the words "hunker down" (with the AC set to max)...

You Shoulda Heard This Joke

 

Looks like our little puppy Daisy is overcome with mirth...we're always joking around.  But no, I just caught her in mid-yawn on this recent lazy day loaded with bad weather, including heavy rain, keeping her inside...and curled up on the recliner.  When we first got her at a pet adoption fair at PetSmart in May of '22 she was only seven pounds...but we then believed that she could grow to be 60 or higher at full weight.  But Daisy Dewlop, as Melissa, her human mommy, likes to call her, stabilized at 41 lbs.  She's quite a vocal character who has a mission to fight squirrels, birds, bugs, lizards...and trucks.  Humans, dogs...and especially humans with dogs...are okay when she's looking out the window at home, though: they may pass! Yet she's still pretty skittish and tense while in the car or out in public, barking up a hysterical storm when she spots people and other dogs close by.  We are training her to overcome her anxiety, though, and respond more readily to our commands.  Daisy is definitely a great blessing to us.  Below is a shot of her, with her "cousin" Kairi (our daughter Rebecca's dog) on lookout duty at our front window...

Quote of the Week...from a Fortune Cookie

Many a false step was made by standing still.      ---Fortune Cookie

I lifted the above "fortune cookie" quote straight out of the book I'm currently reading, The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.  It's full of some pretty interesting quotes, and I find just about all of them profound, yet riddled with caveats...including this one. I think that you need some discerning wisdom to determine when, in the midst of a situation, to act and when to lay back...especially when it comes to speaking truth to people.  Since the book I'm reading is a pretty serious call to action, though, the author's intent is to get people to be bolder in taking initiatives in their lives...and doing the many little things that can bring about the fruition of their dreams. There's another quote in this book that says to do at least one thing each day that scares you.  Well, both fear and hesitation can be good or bad things, depending on your circumstances and what you're trying to accomplish.  I think first you need to figure out what you want and come up with a rough plan in which to direct yourself to it.  Then, action...as well as facing obstructive fears...is definitely in order.  But I also think it's important to wisely choose your battles in life and to develop a sense of contentment and gratitude as well, an appreciation of this present moment.  It's all a matter of balance...