World of SF

Enki Was Right, Chessboxing is the Next Best Thing

Jean-Pierre — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:45:32 +0000

I love Enki Bilal works. In my opinion, he is one the most influential artist in the European graphic novels domain. And I may not be the only one… as you will see. In 1992 he wrote Equator Cold an excellent album part of the Nikopol Trilogy. In this album, Nikopol participate in a new extreme sport : Chessboxing. The game is a mix of boxing rounds with chess matchs.

Some avid readers like the idea, buildup some rules based on the graphic novel and started a game. Chessboxing tournaments are now a regular event in Europe. Science-fiction was, once again, a step ahead of the future. I just hope the next extreme game won’t be inspired by Rollerball.

World Chessboxing Organisation

Enki Bilal fan site (in french)

Enki Bilal Wikipedia entry

Excerpt from my Library…

Jean-Pierre — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:20:56 +0000

“The women are gone forever,” Gannon said, his voice heavy. “The women are gone and nothing… nothing! will bring them back. The Irish Diaspora is ended. We have all come home to die.”

Gannon
The White Plague (Frank Herbert)

Argon Zark Special

Jean-Pierre — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:26:00 +0000

I went browsing for more webcomics. I saw many and discarded most of them. I think I may be little hard on the graphic part during the selection process. I like to have nice drawing with a good story but not too much text. I’m loosing interest when the text is cluttering the page.

But, I have found one that I like: Argon Zark. I think the best option here to present Argon Zark is to let the author talk about it himself.

Argon Zark! was the first comic created exclusively to be published on the World Wide Web, and represents the beginning of webcomics as we know them today. Argon Zark! is an all-digital “virtual comic book” created entirely on the computer and designed to be viewed over the Internet.

It is a free humor/adventure/sci-fi comic story about a slightly eccentric computer genius (read: geek), his companions and some unusual, uh… acquaintances.

I can’t vouch for the claim to be be the first comic designed for Internet publication but since Argon Zark was launched in 1995 it may be true. Have a nice reading.

Argon Zark official site

Excerpt from my Library…

Jean-Pierre — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:16:45 +0000

He cleared the readout and punched MEMORY TIMES again. The 333 reappeared. “A ghost in the machine,” he said. “A secret memory, unknown to—”

“So you found me,” a voice responded. “Yet I was always here, to be evoked.”

Brother Paul exploring his calculator
God of Tarot (Piers Anthony)

Do not Take the Red Pill

Jean-Pierre — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:21:48 +0000

Do you remember The Matrix? Yes the blockbuster from 1999 with two sequels movies with mixed reviews. The first one was good and its became part of North American culture. As with any movies, they made figurines, posters, books and some comic books. One legacy of the Matrix maybe the use of the web to promote a movie. As such we still can find some tasty links to follow. Here is some just after the jump.

The Matrix Comics Volume 1

Nice illustrations and good authors. The first story was written by Neil Gayman.

The Animatrix

Haven’t seen the Animatrix? Where have you been?

The Matrix scrren-saver

This is not the official one but it’s way much better.

Excerpt from my Library…

Jean-Pierre — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:25:51 +0000

A few hundred miles outside the ship, the Lady May thought back at him, “O warm, O generous, O gigantic man! O brave, O friendly, O tender and huge partner! O wonderful with you, with you so good, good, good, warm, warm, now to fight, now to go, good with you…”

Lady May to Underhill the pinlighter
The Game of Rat and Dragon (Cordwainer Smith)

On Voting at the Hugo

Jean-Pierre — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:50:30 +0000

The Hugo Award is using the instant runoff voting system (a variant of the Australian Ballot). It may not rings a bell right now since we are used to the majority vote only. But I think this system will be a subject of conversation next year when the Oscar will be awarded. As may be heard on the news, the Academy expanded at least the “Best Picture Category” to ten nominees. With that much nominees, a movie can win with only 11% of the votes (the nine other movies having 10% or less votes for them).

So the Academy has 5 500 members, 11% is 605 members if everybody vote. As you can see the best movie may be chosen by a minority. Just by looking at the Oscar ballot you can see where it fails to represent the best choice. In each category, each member choose one and only one nominee. The winner is the nominee with the most votes. This system fails when no clear majority is given to a nominee. When that situation happens, the winner is the one with the most votes but the difference with any other nominee may be very slim.

2009 Official Oscar Ballot

The Hugo Award voting system is a little more complex and was described, a the time of it’s introduction, as too complex and that nobody understand it. Now we will cause an uproar if we try to change it. Here how its works. Every member place the nominees in it’s order of preference from 1 to 5. It’s not mandatory to select 5 nominees, we can stop voting in a category when we fell that the nominees lefts are not worth the award. An additional choice, “the no award choice”, may also be chosen if no nominee is fit for an Hugo.

Here is an example of the rundown of the 2009 Hugo vote.

In the novel category there is 5 nominees and the “No Award” extra nominee:

The Graveyard Book
Anathem
Little Brother
Saturn’s Children
Zoe’s Tale
No Award

First the first place in each vote is counted. In that case :

The Graveyard Book	264
Anathem	244
Little Brother	198
Saturn’s Children	109
Zoe’s Tale	104
No Award	17

No nominee has the majority on the first round. The nominee with the least vote is eliminated and the second choice in these ballots will be used in the counting. It will be the “No Award” nominee and the figures will not change much since the people voting for the “No Award” do not usually select a second choice.

The Graveyard Book	265
Anathem	244
Little Brother	198
Saturn’s Children	110
Zoe’s Tale	104
No Award

Still no winner. Next round. “Zoe’s Tale” is eliminated and the 104 ballot for “Zoe’s Tale” will be moved to the next choice on the list.

The Graveyard Book	290
Anathem	255
Little Brother	224
Saturn’s Children	137
Zoe’s Tale
No Award

Next round… But I think you get the idea now. The last round was Between “The Graveyard Book” and “Anathem”.

The Graveyard Book	477
Anathem	357
Little Brother
Saturn’s Children
Zoe’s Tale
No Award

There is 936 votes in that category. The 477 votes for The Graveyard Book is more than than 50% and we have a winner. An interesting side note, the Hugo also gives a second to fifth place but no award is given to them. For the second place, all the votes for the first place are removed and we start the same procedure. Looking at the votes for the first place, we may think that “Anathem” will win the second place. It was not the case, it was “Little Brother”. It happened that many vote for “The Graveyard Book” has “Little Bother” in second place making him a solid second place. Also, no nominees may have enough votes to gain majority. There will be no winner that year.

Oscar insight: Proportional voting system makes for wide-open nomination picks
The Hugo Award Voting System

Excerpt from my library…

Jean-Pierre — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:28:04 +0000

“Yes, Marcus?”
“Ms. Galvez, about this note?”
“Yes, Marcus.”
“Isn’t the point of terrorism to make us afraid? That’s why it’s called terrorism, right?”
“I suppose so.” The class was staring at me. I wasn’t the best student in school, but I did like a good in-class debate. They were waiting to hear what I’d say next.
“So aren’t we doing what the terrorists want from us? Don’t they win if we act all afraid and put cameras in the classrooms and all of that?”

Marcus and Ms Galvez
Little Brother (Cory Doctorow)

Science Fiction Happened in 1971

Jean-Pierre — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:50:37 +0000

In 1971 :

Radio and television cigarette advertisements were banned in the United States.
The southern part of Québec received the Century’s Snowstorm (42 cm of snow).
Intel launched the 4004 microprocessor.

And Apollo 15 landed on the moon.

Exploring the Commons on Flickr, I have found some nice albums from the George Eastman House a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of objects related to George Eastman life. Maybe you don’t know Mr. Eastman but I’m sure you know about the company he founded in 1888. He was the inventor of paper roll films and the founder of Kodak. As much as I have found in the mission reports, Kodak film rolls were used to take the pictures of the Apollo 15 mission. They are beautiful.

George Eastman
George Eastman Museum
George Eastman House on Flickr
Apollo 15 Fligh Journal
Apollo 15 Wiki

Excerpt from my library…

Jean-Pierre — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:26:44 +0000

“He says if I kick anything, it’ll fall off.”
“I ran into one of your pals,” he said, “a modern.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“Lupus Yonderboy. Had a message.” He passed her a paper napkin with W I N T E R M U T E printed in red feltpen in his neat, laborious capitals. “He said—” But her hand came up in the jive for silence.
“Get us some crab,” she said.

Case and Molly
Neuromancer, William Gibson