April 2009
Antiquarian Adventures: "A curious mode of salutation"
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
We are sorting antiquarian books in our Westport, NY storefront this afternoon, and encountered this peculiar illustration in the book The Story of Exploration and Adventure in Africa Compiled from the Most Authoritative Sources, Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1896.
The accompanying text read: "The natives of [Kalai] have a curious way of saluting strangers. Instead of bowing, they throw themselves on their backs on the ground , rolling from side to side and slapping themselves on the thighs, while they utter the words, "Kina bomba! kina bomba!" In vain Livingston implored them to stop."
Presumably "Kina bomba" translates to "Dr. Livingston, I presume."
Desire
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Lake Champlain dawn
Monday, April 06, 2009
Revamped my blogroll
Friday, April 03, 2009

I just revamped my blogroll. (I'll probably do more later.) I haven't done this thorough a job in years, so check it out, There are a lot of interesting new sites listed.
(Also, if you think your blog belongs on my list, let me know.)
John Hertz accused of being a "clothesist"!
Friday, April 03, 2009
As read in Vanamonde by John Hertz, dated April 23, 2008, a letter of comment from one John DeChancie, which begins:
If you think I'd consider informal anything less than a white tie, you surely don't know me very well, do you? Also you invite the inference you're a clothesist.
The letter continues with what appears to be a lengthy quotation from Shaw.
John Hertz & Cheryl Morgan, Best Fan Writer Nominees, 2006; they have a rematch in this year's Hugo nominations.
Charlie Stross on Web 2.0 as an attractive nuisance
Thursday, April 02, 2009
And what I've noticed is that all successful social network sites are structured to provide an attractive nuisance.
This isn't to say that they aren't sometimes useful, but in order to attract users, a social networking side like Facebook or LinkedIn has to keep folks coming back. It's not enough to get them to create a user ID in the first place; I've seen some estimates that around 90% of legitimate, human-derived accounts on social networking sites are inactive. (I qualify this as human-derived because a whole lot of them are bot-generated accounts used by spammers. I'm talking about the ones with a human brain behind the name.) So the successful sites need to get real humans to keep coming back — especially if they're going to raise the advertising revenue from click-throughs to pay their bandwidth bills — and the developers are therefore subjected to a ruthless Darwinian selection pressure: add attractive nuisances, or die.
We can see this on FaceBook with its endless games. (I sometimes wonder if I'm a Facebook widower.) We can see this on LJ with its endless rounds of emotional affirmation in comment threads. We used to see it on USENET back in the eighties and nineties, with the flamewar season. Social networks don't grow because they provide utility to their users: they grow because they keep pushing the social stimulus button.
I do get something out of Facebook (by disabling all games and other intrusive apps), and a little bit out of Twitter. But in general, I think Charlie's spot on.
Year's Best Fantasy 9 Table of Contents
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Year's Best Fantasy 9, David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer, eds. table of contents. (Forthcoming from Tor.com in 2009.)
Shoggoths in Bloom • Elizabeth Bear
The Rabbi’s Hobby • Peter Beagle
Running the Snake • Kage Baker
The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm • Daryl Gregory
Reader’s Guide • Lisa Goldstein
The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D. • Al Michaud
Araminta, or, the Wreck of the Amphidrake • Naomi Novik
A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica • Catherynne M. Valente
From the Clay of His Heart • John Brown
If Angels Fight • Richard Bowes
26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss • Kij Johnson
Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita • Debra Doyle & James MacDonald
Film-Makers of Mars • Geoff Ryman
Childrun • Marc Laidlaw
Queen of the Sunlit Shore • Liz Williams
Lady Witherspoon’s Solution • James Morrow
Dearest Cecily • Kristine Dikeman
Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta • Randy McCharles
Caverns of Mystery • Kage Baker
Skin Deep • Richard Parks
King Pelles the Sure • Peter Beagle
A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead • Richard Harland
Avast, Abaft! • Howard Waldrop
Gift from a Spring • Delia Sherman
The First Editions • James Stoddard
The Olverung • Stephen Woodworth
Daltharee • Jeffrey Ford
The Forest • Kim Wilkins