(2022) A lovely tool for a long vanished Mesopotamian technology, to impress cuneiform signatures onto clay cylinder seals, typically to authenticate legal documents such as contracts, receipts (as in a receipt for a shipment), deeds, wills and like that. Which is how far back paperwork goes, to the dawn of civilization. Except that it wasn’t […]
Franklin and Vine, 1890s, just a couple blocks north of Hollywood and Vine. Hollywood Blvd—then called Prospect Avenue, a graded dirt road—was already there, but nothing else made it past the 1920s, when Hollywood’s Arcadian past disappeared under studio lots and pavement. This view looking south was all city in a generation or two, the […]
Brick's Politics 
Even the ridiculous and trivial world of science fiction fandom has split apart politically due to the genuinely evil power of social media. The “alt right” folks are constantly harassing what they call Social Justice Warriors, and the Left is doing exactly what the Right wants them to do, by shouting back, banning people from SF conventions, and so on. The Right stages protests against “pedophilia in science fiction fandom” at the World Science Fiction convention, and stages block voting that puts deliberately idiotic works on the Hugo Award. (They got something called “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” nominated, as an example.) The whole thing makes me ashamed to be a fan.
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Well that is thoroughly depressing. This too shall pass, evcntually.
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Appropriately, the SF fandom news site reports on an alt right rally that happened at the Worldcon just now.
http://file770.com/alt-right-rally-outside-worldcon-76-draws-about-40/
So many bizarre details. The anti-pedophilia thing, blocking the bloodmobile, the huge number of cops that had to come out, the German-looking flag with a weird symbol on it, etc.
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Most of the fans I’ve met were alt right types.
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