It's not the telephone, it's flagpole-sitting.

[mrissa]

A lot of conventions have panels about who can write SF, or who can write hard SF, what the qualifications are. And I always want to say that the people who do write hard SF should read more social histories, because it would get in their way more in ways that it should get in their way, and then we wouldn't have those embarrassing stories that are all concept and the concept is outdated before the story is published.

When I wasn't looking, because I don't tend to look at the front inside page, because it's all gossip, the Strib started running a celebrity tweet of the day. A celebrity tweet. Of the day. People. This is not cutting edge. This is not what the wave of the future looks like, a celebrity tweet of the day. This is not adjusting your thriller plots so that people's cell phone batteries have been accounted for. It's the bit in the history of the turn of the millennium where the historian has this baffled tone where she's describing how the old media tried to latch onto this new phenomenon that was perfectly good for writing haiku about backup catchers for those who cared but really stupid for reprinting a randomly selected singer's not particularly trenchant observations about his lunch from the previous day.

This is exactly like my ability to tell you that you will look just fine in that shirt in pictures fifteen years from now, but those trousers, eeeesh, not so much, I think. You can have that ability, too. I believe in you. It's not hard. I was not bitten by a radioactive historian.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

On CNN the other morning they claimed that 90% of all tweets are written by celebrities. Mostly, it left me wondering how they define "celebrity".

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Depending on the definition, could we have 90% of tweets sent by twits?

There are three fairly active celebrities (small-gauge, and two of them know me in person) that I follow on twitter that account for a LOT of the tweets reaching me. And one definite non-celebrity that tweets nearly that much. Highly uneven anyway.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Yeah that seems highly dubious. There are enough nerds arguing about Magic: the Gathering card evaluations on Twitter that they probably take up a good portion of the "non-celebrity" 10% on their own.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

That's the big change Heinlein kind of started; though it doesn't seem to have caught on as fully as one might hope. It's not the wireless phone, it's the wanting to make sure your parents can't call you on it on your first day at the Academy.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

But not realizing that there'd be a way to turn the ringer off.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Or the whole phone; yes.

In fact, not realizing that battery life was going to be one of the key constraints in such devices. He really should have seen that coming too!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What a luser.

*falls off chair laughing*

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I was just reading that the other day, and it really struck me, because it's clearly a cell phone and he thinks about it the way people think about cell phones and parents, but some of the associated tech such as voicemail and vibrate and custom rings isn't there. That said, the fact that he thinks about it the way people think about cell phones is pretty damn awesome.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yep; I find the achievement, seeing past the tech to some social consequences, much more impressive than the oversight about the on/off switch.

I remember the phone company wanting you to sign a release for them if you had only one phone and wanted it on a plug instead of hardwired (so you could move it to different locations); they wanted to be sure you knew that you might miss phone calls, if you left it unplugged! They really wanted to install a separate hardwired ringer, so you'd know about calls even if the phone was unplugged. The concept of a phone being out of service just wasn't allowed back then. (Well, I'm remembering it from somewhat later.)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I remember the huuuuge deal it was when modular phone jacks came in. It stopped being a feat of villainous strength to rip the phone out of the wall. Wowie!

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I would also like to see panels about who's allowed to write fantasy, and romance, and in particular hard SF romances with elements of fantasy. (We may even want to set up licensing on the last one.)

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Only those who are A) literate and B) know history are allowed to write fantasy, obviously. (I would suggest acquaintance with unicorns or dragons or somesuch, but I *really* don't want to only read fantasy written by people who would claim to have met such beasts, or to know actual magic. Because seriously, I've *met* those people, and no.)

I would strongly suggest that only people who've had actual romantic relationships should write romance, but I don't know if that filter would help any.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

I would strongly suggest that only people who've had actual romantic relationships should write romance, but I don't know if that filter would help any.

There doesn't seem to be any correlation-- I've read plenty of believable romance (and scorching smut) by people with no romantic experience. And I've read plenty of the opposite, from people who've had romantic relationships but don't seem to have learned anything from them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nobody wants to hear my theories about who is allowed to write hard SF romances with elements of fantasy. Or rather, nobody wants to hear who should expect that I will read theirs if they do.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

If you're bitten by a radioactive historian, do you grow red-ink-shooters that when they splatter things spell out 'CITE YOUR SOURCES'?

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I think mostly you get a rabies shot. And decontaminated.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

With the mops that fix radioactivity! Um. If you haven't seen the nonexistent fourth Indiana Jones movie, don't.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I have, alas. That whole sequence made me very very sad.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Really? It made me froth at the mouth. Then I laughed at the rest of the movie. Boy, was my date offended.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Well, mostly it made me sad because it had become perfectly clear that the movie was not going to be good.

The mocking laughter started shortly thereafter, and continued until the bit with the kid swinging alongside the monkeys, at which point my brains began to boil out of my ears from the stupid.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Oh, right! I think I started laughing when he saw the Lead-Lined Fridge. Can't remember if that was before or after the Magic Mops.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Before. (Says the former nuclear reactor operator.)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

That might be why I don't remember the mops clearly. Because OMG THE FRIDGE. The fridge of LIFE! I sure am glad that movie doesn't really exist.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

In the LEGO Indiana Jones game, you get the fridge as a vehicle. I may possibly love it the best of all the vehicles.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

oh, awesome!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Why Anne Has Not Mentioned The Person In Question Since, Part A.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Well, that and the fact that I'm really bad at LDRs. (I'm not entirely sure we were LJ-friends at that point. I think we were still at the "hey, neat person who comments in other LJs" stage.)

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

We watched it with RiffTrax on. OK, we watched it without first, then a second time with RiffTrax. And it was very, very, funny.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"PROVENANCE."

Maybe that's just a radioactive art historian, though.

Even splattering "MULTIPLE SOURCING" would help. One of my pet peeves is when I read a work of fiction with historical setting and think, "I can tell which four books you read...and which six you should have read in addition." Even when the four they read were good.

Also, the more history I read, the more I think it's like physics: there are all sorts of things it's easy to describe to the layperson and completely impossible to get to, and all sorts of wackadoo things we are or were a hairsbreadth from having.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

Oh we go for 'CITE YOUR SOURCES' too, mostly when dealing with students.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

"WIKIPEDIA IS NOT PROVENANCE."