Proposal for a new FAQ or two re "edited by Eric Flint"
Louann Miller
One, Flint's explanations of what he did, and why, in editing the
various reissues of older books from Baen. Given the number of times
and the level of detail he's already gone into in explaining that very
issue here in rasfw, this should be a simple cut-and paste edit job
(evil grin at the irony) by someone who has Google but need not be
Flint himself.
Part two, probably composed and hosted separately, could be Bacon et
al's explanations of why said editing was utterly, completely, Evil
Pure And Simple From The Eighth Dimension.
This way, whenever Flint posts or someone mentions the reissues in any
context, the standard flame could be abbreviated thusly:
Bacon: http://www.flint-is-a-text-butcher.com !!!!!
Flint. *sigh.* http://its-called-editing-doofus.com .
Saving us all vast amounts of time.
Dean White
news:1117036685.b711e05e50c81fd7fcf6a042553daf6b@teranews...
Yes please.
Frankly I am one who not only has the original books but bought the reissues
as e-books and read them. I think Eric did a good job on the edits,
except for 'Med Ship' and nothing except a complete rewrite could help
Leinsters' work, but that is only my opinion.
--
www.DeanWhite.net
Joe Bernstein
Dean White <no...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> "Louann Miller" <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
> news:1117036685.b711e05e50c81fd7fcf6a042553daf6b@teranews...
> > This way, whenever Flint posts or someone mentions the reissues in any
> > context, the standard flame could be abbreviated thusly:
> >
> > Bacon: http://www.flint-is-a-text-butcher.com !!!!!
> >
> > Flint. *sigh.* http://its-called-editing-doofus.com .
> >
> > Saving us all vast amounts of time.
> Yes please.
Agreed.
I actually read the latest round mainly because I'd been aware of a
previous flap (I *think* the original one, in fact, but am not sure) but
it was way too many posts to read; this one looked manageable, at the
price of not knowing which undying hatreds were based on what. Since I
*have* a bunch of the previous Schmitz reprints, and have actaully *read*
a bunch (ultimately concluding that for me, <The Witches of Karres> is
essentially a pleasing fluke), I was curious to know whether the edits
were of some sort that would make the other books more appealing to me.
Now that I know they weren't, it's of no further interest to me, except
tangentially as an opportunity to exchange opinions or data on the
nature of editing.
> I think Eric did a good job on the edits,
Since I haven't attempted any comparisons, I can't comment on this,
but
> except for 'Med Ship' and nothing except a complete rewrite could help
> Leinsters' work, but that is only my opinion.
here, sadly, I agree. The one volume of these reissues that I *do*
own is <Med Ship>. I had recently stumbled on James White, had
enjoyed the first three books a lot, and couldn't find the rest;
thought maybe <Med Ship> would help scratch that itch; didn't bother
to notice the "edited by". Oops. Until reading the recent thread,
I was taking "edited by Eric Flint" as a reason-not-to-read (obviously
excepting the 1632 anthologies), because I didn't know what was behind
the arguments over him as editor; kinda like mistrusting the editions
Migne did of Church Fathers in the 19th century. So if I'd noticed,
I'd have saved myself some irritating reading.
Oh well.
Flipside, now that I *have* read the recent thread, I can more
realistically balance my decisions. How much I want to put my money
where my mouth is (in favour of purist editing, that is) vs. how much
work I want to do to track down originals vs. how much effect I have
anyway (checking out a library copy has much less than paying cash)
vs. opinions about Baen in general vs. ... The kind of thing I do
every day, and much easier than suspending decisions in ignorance.
So yeah, the FAQs would probably be helpful to future people-like-me.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
(Most non-spam e-mail to me is currently bouncing. Sorry!)
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
John Schilling
says...
>Bacon: http://www.flint-is-a-text-butcher.com !!!!!
Yes, but exposing helpless newbies to Bacon and Flint. Common decency
demands that no one ever be needlessly exposed to the Bacon Rant again.
And Flint's position really needs to be defended by someone other than
Flint, in much the same way that France needs to be defended by someone
other than the French. For everyone's sake.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
David Bilek
>
>
>Yes, but exposing helpless newbies to Bacon and Flint. Common decency
>demands that no one ever be needlessly exposed to the Bacon Rant again.
>And Flint's position really needs to be defended by someone other than
>Flint, in much the same way that France needs to be defended by someone
>other than the French. For everyone's sake.
I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions of
slaughtered young men at the Somme and Paschendale, at Verdun and the
Marne, at Ypres and a dozen more corpse ridden battlefields are pissed
upon by someone who has not experienced the merest inkling of the
terror and sheer existential horror that those men experienced.
I used to make comments about the French, but I was young and stupid
and I got better.
-David
William December Starr
loua...@yahoo.net said:
> This could go in two sections.
>
> One, Flint's explanations of what he did, and why, in editing the
> various reissues of older books from Baen. Given the number of
> times and the level of detail he's already gone into in explaining
> that very issue here in rasfw, this should be a simple cut-and
> paste edit job (evil grin at the irony) by someone who has Google
> but need not be Flint himself.
>
> Part two, probably composed and hosted separately, could be Bacon
> et al's explanations of why said editing was utterly, completely,
> Evil Pure And Simple From The Eighth Dimension.
Part three, all of Flint's straw-man distortions about what those
clueless dilettante cocktail-party rafsw-ers say they want.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Peter Meilinger
>>Yes, but exposing helpless newbies to Bacon and Flint. Common decency
>>demands that no one ever be needlessly exposed to the Bacon Rant again.
>>And Flint's position really needs to be defended by someone other than
>>Flint, in much the same way that France needs to be defended by someone
>>other than the French. For everyone's sake.
>I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions of
>slaughtered young men at the Somme and Paschendale, at Verdun and the
>Marne, at Ypres and a dozen more corpse ridden battlefields are pissed
>upon by someone who has not experienced the merest inkling of the
>terror and sheer existential horror that those men experienced.
Seconded.
>I used to make comments about the French, but I was young and stupid
>and I got better.
I wouldn't go that far. It's just as fun to mock them as it is
any other group, I just don't think that particular subject
is all that funny.
Pete
Charlton Wilbur
DB> I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor,
DB> millions of slaughtered young men at the Somme and
DB> Paschendale, at Verdun and the Marne, at Ypres and a dozen
DB> more corpse ridden battlefields are pissed upon by someone who
DB> has not experienced the merest inkling of the terror and sheer
DB> existential horror that those men experienced.
At one point I saw a comment in response to a France-mocking thread,
pointing out that France had lost ten times as many soldiers in the
approximately four years of WWI as the United States has lost in every
war and conflict it has ever fought in in its history. (I'm not sure
the numbers are precise, but they're the right order of magnitude.)
That sort of puts things in perspective, and explains their lack of
will to fight in WWII.
Charlton
--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com
htn963
David Bilek, et al. wrote:
> John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Yes, but exposing helpless newbies to Bacon and Flint. Common decency
> >demands that no one ever be needlessly exposed to the Bacon Rant again.
> >And Flint's position really needs to be defended by someone other than
> >Flint, in much the same way that France needs to be defended by someone
> >other than the French. For everyone's sake.
Flint does have apologists on this group. Google should make that
apparent.
> I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions of
> slaughtered young men at the Somme and Paschendale, at Verdun and the
> Marne, at Ypres and a dozen more corpse ridden battlefields are pissed
> upon by someone who has not experienced the merest inkling of the
> terror and sheer existential horror that those men experienced.
It's not French valor that is usually being mocked, bunky, but
military effectiveness, which responsibility lies with those usually
*not* in the front line. And tell of French "valor" to the citizens of
lands plundered over like Algeria and Vietnam.
> I used to make comments about the French, but I was young and stupid
> and I got better.
Well, two out of three ain't bad.
--
Ht
Beowulf Bolt
>
> David Bilek, et al. wrote:
>
> > I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions
> > of slaughtered young men at the Somme and Paschendale, at Verdun and
> > the Marne, at Ypres and a dozen more corpse ridden battlefields are
> > pissed upon by someone who has not experienced the merest inkling of
> > the terror and sheer existential horror that those men experienced.
>
> It's not French valor that is usually being mocked, bunky, but
> military effectiveness, which responsibility lies with those usually
> *not* in the front line.
Calling them "surrender-monkeys" or the like is *not* mocking their
valor?!? I see a half dozen lame-ass jokes about "France surrenders"
for every post which may possibly be construed to target their "military
effectiveness" instead.
> And tell of French "valor" to the citizens of
> lands plundered over like Algeria and Vietnam.
Methinks there are damned few countries with any sort of history that
are immune to such critiques...
[egregious and unnecessary flame snipped]
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"All around me darkness gathers, fading is the sun that shone,
we must speak of other matters, you can be me when I'm gone..."
- SANDMAN #67, Neil Gaiman
-------------------------------------------------------------------
John Schilling
>John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>>Yes, but exposing helpless newbies to Bacon and Flint. Common decency
>>demands that no one ever be needlessly exposed to the Bacon Rant again.
>>And Flint's position really needs to be defended by someone other than
>>Flint, in much the same way that France needs to be defended by someone
>>other than the French. For everyone's sake.
>I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions of
>slaughtered young men at the Somme and Paschendale, at Verdun and the
>Marne, at Ypres and a dozen more corpse ridden battlefields are pissed
>upon by someone who has not experienced the merest inkling of the
>terror and sheer existential horror that those men experienced.
Valor, is not the aspect of the French national psyche that is being
mocked here. And nothing of value or merit, should be defended by
someone who has only valor to devote to the task. That's how you get
all those corpse-ridden battlefields.
John Schilling
>htn963 wrote:
>> David Bilek, et al. wrote:
>> > I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions
>> > of slaughtered young men at the Somme and Paschendale, at Verdun and
>> > the Marne, at Ypres and a dozen more corpse ridden battlefields are
>> > pissed upon by someone who has not experienced the merest inkling of
>> > the terror and sheer existential horror that those men experienced.
>> It's not French valor that is usually being mocked, bunky, but
>> military effectiveness, which responsibility lies with those usually
>> *not* in the front line.
> Calling them "surrender-monkeys" or the like is *not* mocking their
>valor?!? I see a half dozen lame-ass jokes about "France surrenders"
>for every post which may possibly be construed to target their "military
>effectiveness" instead.
Napoleon (the original) surrendered France twice in as many years. Do
you assume that it was lack of valor that resulted in those incidents,
or is being implied when those incidents are tallied against France?
France frequently surrenders and/or wins pyrrhic victories, and is
worthy of being mocked for it, because it insists on substituting
valor for skill, judgement, and basic diplomacy when those latter
qualities are called for, and for substituting skill, judgement,
and basic diplomacy for valor when valor is called for. And for
using advanced diplomacy when basic diplomacy is called for, for
that matter.
French soliders can die as bravely as anyone, and I have usually
been among those defending, not mocking, their capabilities. France,
is almost incapable of arranging for the deaths of French soldiers
to be anything but pointless.
Mark Atwood
>
> I'm tired of this. Every time someone mocks French valor, millions of
> slaughtered young men
It's valor without skill and without leadership that *GETS* you
those "millions of slaughtered young men".
If France had had a better officers corp and a better political and
military leadership, many to most of those "slaughtered young men"
would have died of old age, surrounded by their children and
grandchildren, a decade or so ago.
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus
Beowulf Bolt
[re: the French]
> > Calling them "surrender-monkeys" or the like is *not* mocking their
> >valor?!? I see a half dozen lame-ass jokes about "France
> >surrenders" for every post which may possibly be construed to target
> >their "military effectiveness" instead.
>
> Napoleon (the original) surrendered France twice in as many years. Do
> you assume that it was lack of valor that resulted in those incidents,
> or is being implied when those incidents are tallied against France?
Do you assume that the smart-ass comments made by John Q. Asshat about
France surrendering have any basis in first-hand knowledge about French
martial history?
I piggy-backed on a comment and struck all references to you from my
post deliberately because I respect your knowledge of history, John. I
do not have any respect at all, however, for the scores of drooling
morons who have seized upon critiques such as your own as the spark with
which to toss generic insults at the French. This accounts for upwards
of 90% of the people who make cracks about "surrender-monkeys".
Daniel Silevitch
>
> French soliders can die as bravely as anyone, and I have usually
> been among those defending, not mocking, their capabilities. France,
> is almost incapable of arranging for the deaths of French soldiers
> to be anything but pointless.
They're still better than the Germans, who in the 20th century brought
'scream and leap' to an artform. For Germany to start in 1900ish and end
up 15 years later at war with Britain, France, and Russia is truly
impressive; adding the United States was just an ornamental crowning touch.
-dms
Mike Schilling
"Daniel Silevitch" <dms...@uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:slrnd9ct4f....@bardeen.local...
I am wondering why the French are getting full credit for the horrifying
waste that was WW I. It seems to be the Germans, English, and Russians
should all have a share.
obSF: "By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
Mark Atwood
>
> I am wondering why the French are getting full credit for the horrifying
> waste that was WW I. It seems to be the Germans, English, and Russians
> should all have a share.
I am told that when the US finally weighed in (which I think was a
mistake, but that's almost irrelevant to the point), the British and
French commands originally thought that we were just going to put our
men under their command, or at the very least, read from the same
rulebook as them.
When we insisted on keeping US troops under US command, and were
disinclined to accept "charge into no-mans land" as an acceptable
tactic, they were more than a little bit put out with us.
Is my understanding correct?
(Wasn't Germany also a bit upset about the US's discovery that
a shotgun makes a great tool for clearing a trench?)
Mike Schilling
"Mark Atwood" <m...@mark.atwood.name> wrote in message
news:m27jhls...@amsu.fallenpegasus.com...
>
> (Wasn't Germany also a bit upset about the US's discovery that
> a shotgun makes a great tool for clearing a trench?)
It seems to me that if you're close enough to an enemy trench to use a
shotgun and you're sill alive, you're already way ahead of the game.
Brett Paul Dunbar
<m...@mark.atwood.name> writes
>"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> writes:
>>
>> I am wondering why the French are getting full credit for the horrifying
>> waste that was WW I. It seems to be the Germans, English, and Russians
>> should all have a share.
>
>I am told that when the US finally weighed in (which I think was a
>mistake, but that's almost irrelevant to the point), the British and
>French commands originally thought that we were just going to put our
>men under their command, or at the very least, read from the same
>rulebook as them.
>
>When we insisted on keeping US troops under US command, and were
>disinclined to accept "charge into no-mans land" as an acceptable
>tactic, they were more than a little bit put out with us.
>
>Is my understanding correct?
>
No. The US did insist on retaining control of most of their troops and
ignored advice like "Oh by the way old chap, charging headlong into
no-mans land? You really don't want to do that." This resulted in an
army that managed to suffer rather heavy causalities without achieving
much. The British and French had learned from their mistakes, the US
insisted on repeating their mistakes and attempting infantry charges
across no-man's land rather than the combined arms set piece offensives
that won the 100-days offensive.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address
loua...@yahoo.com
they'd be saved bandwidth, Flint would be saved time to do new writing
and editing, and Bacon would be saved time to post on topics on which
he's _not_ apparently stark raving fanatically insane.
On the pro side, there are plenty of such topics -- pretty much the set
of everything-but-Flint. And he's worth reading on those topics. On the
con side, he for some reason will not leave that one alone. A FAQ would
get it out of the way and let us all go on with our lives.
Michael Stemper
>obSF: "By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
Damn. I'm sure that I've encountered that line within the last few weeks,
but I can't think of where. I don't think that it's from _Time Enough
for Lust_. That and _We, the Living_ are the only WWI-era books that I
can recall reading recently. Oh, and _Triplanetary_. But, I'm sure that
it's not from any of them.
HELP!
--
Michael "Yes, I'll kick myself when you tell me" Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:200505271734....@walkabout.empros.com:
> In article <8Hule.1782$kS3...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>, Mike
> Schilling writes:
>>obSF: "By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
> Damn. I'm sure that I've encountered that line within the last
> few weeks, but I can't think of where. I don't think that it's
> from _Time Enough for Lust_. That and _We, the Living_ are the
> only WWI-era books that I can recall reading recently. Oh, and
> _Triplanetary_. But, I'm sure that it's not from any of them.
> HELP!
It's an autobiographical observation by Great War veteran J.R.R.
Tolkien.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
John Schilling
> [re: the French]
>> > Calling them "surrender-monkeys" or the like is *not* mocking their
>> >valor?!? I see a half dozen lame-ass jokes about "France
>> >surrenders" for every post which may possibly be construed to target
>> >their "military effectiveness" instead.
>> Napoleon (the original) surrendered France twice in as many years. Do
>> you assume that it was lack of valor that resulted in those incidents,
>> or is being implied when those incidents are tallied against France?
> Do you assume that the smart-ass comments made by John Q. Asshat about
>France surrendering have any basis in first-hand knowledge about French
>martial history?
That would be a good question to ask before unleashing the canned rant, now
wouldn't it?
Just something to keep in mind for the future. At present, I have no need
to make assumptions about the historical background of the person making
comments about France's martial history.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Beowulf Bolt
>
> In article <42965B...@shaw.ca>, Beowulf Bolt says...
> >
> >John Schilling wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <429640...@shaw.ca>, Beowulf Bolt says...
>
> > [re: the French]
>
> >> > Calling them "surrender-monkeys" or the like is *not* mocking
> >> >their valor?!? I see a half dozen lame-ass jokes about "France
> >> >surrenders" for every post which may possibly be construed to
> >> >target their "military effectiveness" instead.
>
> >> Napoleon (the original) surrendered France twice in as many years.
> >> Do you assume that it was lack of valor that resulted in those
> >> incidents, or is being implied when those incidents are tallied > >> against France?
>
> > Do you assume that the smart-ass comments made by John Q. Asshat
> > about France surrendering have any basis in first-hand knowledge
> > about French martial history?
>
> That would be a good question to ask before unleashing the canned
> rant, now wouldn't it?
And what canned rant would that be?
As far as I'm concerned, making simplistic cracks about 'France
surrenders' or 'surrender-monkeys' is sufficient cause in itself for me
to disregard anything the 'moran' responsible would have to say and/or
to heap scorn upon them. Particularly during the last few years where
brainlessly insulting the French is practically de rigueur (although
that seems to be dying off a bit of late).
Thus far, I've seen no reason to amend this particular policy.
> Just something to keep in mind for the future. At present, I have no
> need to make assumptions about the historical background of the person
> making comments about France's martial history.
Bully for you.
dwight...@gmail.com
Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of justifying his
actions, has, in fact made those questioning them look silly, querulous
and argumentative withoug appearing to exert himself appreciably in
doing so. By extension, that means the French . . .. IOW, precisely
180 degrees from what the incompetent who posted that drivel was trying
to imply.
No, the French in this instance don't need any defending from the
small-minded idiots who apparently don't have anything better to do
with their time than post insults.
William December Starr
"dwight...@gmail.com" <dwight...@gmail.com> said:
> Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of justifying
> his actions,
Except that he hasn't.
> has, in fact made those questioning them look silly, querulous and
> argumentative
Except that he hasn't.
[ *snip* ]
> No, the French in this instance don't need any defending from the
> small-minded idiots who apparently don't have anything better to
> do with their time than post insults.
That would be you. Plonk.
Paul F. Dietz
>>Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of justifying
>>his actions,
>
> Except that he hasn't.
Why does he need to justify his actions, particularly to you?
Paul
William December Starr
"Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net> said:
>>> Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of
>>> justifying his actions,
>>
>> Except that he hasn't. [wdstarr]
>
> Why does he need to justify his actions, particularly to you?
He doesn't. That said, I see no contradiction between (1) "He
doesn't need to justify his actions" and (2) "It is not true that
he has done an admirable job of justifying his actions."
Bill Snyder
wrote:
That strikes me as a very odd question. A seller of books needs to
justify his actions in producing them to readers for precisely the
same reason that Ford, say, needs to justify its actions in producing
cars to prospective auto-buyers.
(Of course, they could always do a Flint instead, and simply insist
that since lots of people *really* *like* the Pinto wagon, those who
object to its design are a bunch of effete wimps who don't
sufficiently appreciate Exploding Groundships. But this tends to work
less well when the item being produced is utilitarian enough to make
product liability suits a consideration.)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
dwight...@gmail.com
William December Starr wrote:
> In article <1117294440.7...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> "dwight...@gmail.com" <dwight...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of justifying
> > his actions,
>
> Except that he hasn't.
That's why he was fired, after outraged fans such as yourself refused
to buy the books, thus plunging the reissue project into the red. Oh,
wait, you say Eric still has his job, that the books actually made
money?
Idiot.
>
> > has, in fact made those questioning them look silly, querulous and
> > argumentative
>
> Except that he hasn't.
>
> [ *snip* ]
>
> > No, the French in this instance don't need any defending from the
> > small-minded idiots who apparently don't have anything better to
> > do with their time than post insults.
>
> That would be you. Plonk.
Whatever, loon. Just don't pull a Pete McCucheon and keep responding
to my posts after having 'killfiled' me.
dwight...@gmail.com
Bill Snyder wrote:
> On Sat, 28 May 2005 13:53:11 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net>
> wrote:
>
> >William December Starr wrote:
> >
> >>>Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of justifying
> >>>his actions,
> >>
> >> Except that he hasn't.
> >
> >Why does he need to justify his actions, particularly to you?
>
> That strikes me as a very odd question. A seller of books needs to
> justify his actions in producing them to readers for precisely the
> same reason that Ford, say, needs to justify its actions in producing
> cars to prospective auto-buyers.
That's exactly right. He also has to justify his actions to his boss.
> (Of course, they could always do a Flint instead, and simply insist
> that since lots of people *really* *like* the Pinto wagon, those who
> object to its design are a bunch of effete wimps who don't
> sufficiently appreciate Exploding Groundships. But this tends to work
> less well when the item being produced is utilitarian enough to make
> product liability suits a consideration.)
But this doesn't map to reality, since in point of fact the edited
reissues did sell, and did make the publisher money.
God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the matter is
the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right, and all his
detractors are the ones insisting that people *really* like the Pinto
wagon. They may not like it, they may imagine themselves some sort of
custodial purists, but the fact of the matter is that they's wrong to
dictate their tastes to others.
Mike Schilling
<dwight...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1117329562....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the matter is
> the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right, and all his
> detractors are the ones insisting that people *really* like the Pinto
> wagon. They may not like it, they may imagine themselves some sort of
> custodial purists, but the fact of the matter is that they's wrong to
> dictate their tastes to others.
Not really. To demonstrate that, someone would have to issue non-updated
Schmitz and fail at it. That is, it's been deomonstrated that there's a
market for what Flint has produced; that doesn't prove there's no market for
a slight variant of it.
Bill Snyder
<dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>Bill Snyder wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 28 May 2005 13:53:11 -0500, "Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >William December Starr wrote:
>> >
>> >>>Funnay thing though - Eric has done an admirable job of justifying
>> >>>his actions,
>> >>
>> >> Except that he hasn't.
>> >
>> >Why does he need to justify his actions, particularly to you?
>>
>> That strikes me as a very odd question. A seller of books needs to
>> justify his actions in producing them to readers for precisely the
>> same reason that Ford, say, needs to justify its actions in producing
>> cars to prospective auto-buyers.
>
>That's exactly right. He also has to justify his actions to his boss.
>
>
>> (Of course, they could always do a Flint instead, and simply insist
>> that since lots of people *really* *like* the Pinto wagon, those who
>> object to its design are a bunch of effete wimps who don't
>> sufficiently appreciate Exploding Groundships. But this tends to work
>> less well when the item being produced is utilitarian enough to make
>> product liability suits a consideration.)
>
>But this doesn't map to reality, since in point of fact the edited
>reissues did sell, and did make the publisher money.
I dunno about your universe, but in mine the Pinto sold well, and made
Ford a lot of money.
>God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the matter is
>the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right, and all his
>detractors are the ones insisting that people *really* like the Pinto
>wagon. They may not like it, they may imagine themselves some sort of
>custodial purists, but the fact of the matter is that they's wrong to
>dictate their tastes to others.
I run Windows XP on my laptop, even though I know perfectly well that
it has security holes in it. I'd much rather have been able to buy a
version that didn't have security holes, but that option wasn't open.
Since lots of others also use XP, holes and all, does that mean "the
market has shown" that a version with holes is better than one
without, or even that it would sell better, were both available?
Mike Schilling
"Bill Snyder" <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote in message
news:1b8i91lnsunactknl...@4ax.com...
>
> I run Windows XP on my laptop, even though I know perfectly well that
> it has security holes in it. I'd much rather have been able to buy a
> version that didn't have security holes, but that option wasn't open.
> Since lots of others also use XP, holes and all, does that mean "the
> market has shown" that a version with holes is better than one
> without, or even that it would sell better, were both available?
How mnay people do you know that run VMS on their laptops, or even servers?
(OK, it's not perfectly secure, but far better than any Windoze variant ever
will be, or than most Unixes were when it was losing ground so badly to
them.)
Justin Bacon
Louann Miller wrote:
> Part two, probably composed and hosted separately, could be Bacon et
> al's explanations of why said editing was utterly, completely, Evil
> Pure And Simple From The Eighth Dimension.
Can't be me. You'll have to find someone who actually thinks the
editing was utterly, completely, Evil Pure and Simple from the Eighth
Dimension.
This isn't directed particularly at you, Louann, but I really wish
people would stop lying about what my opinion of Flint's editing skill
is.
--
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
dwight...@gmail.com
Quite true(well, not quite - it would simply not have to do as well as
the 'updated' editions).
But the real fact of the matter is, you know and I know the
oh-so-outraged critics don't have the faintest intention of ever
putting their money where their mouth is, that is, actually publishing
their own version. So we go with what we got, ie, the project didn't
fail because of the outraged sensibilities of the patrons.
Justin Bacon
> God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the matter is
> the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right,
Even *Guy Gordon* has admitted this isn't the case. And anyone with two
brain cells to rub together agrees with him.
Obviously you're lacking the second brain cell. It's possible you're
lacking the first.
--
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
> Helpless newbies are already being exposed to Bacon v. Flint. This way
> they'd be saved bandwidth, Flint would be saved time to do new writing
> and editing, and Bacon would be saved time to post on topics on which
> he's _not_ apparently stark raving fanatically insane.
Fanatically insane? Is it because I praised Flint's work on the Lord
Darcy collection?
That's kinda harsh, Louann. What didn't you like about Flint's edit of
the Lord Darcy collection that would make its defenders "fanatically
insane"?
Or were you just being a mindless bitch?
--
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
dwight...@gmail.com
Sorry. My mistake. I thought that you were implyling the Flint was
wrong by saying the Pinto didn't sell well.
> >God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the matter is
> >the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right, and all his
> >detractors are the ones insisting that people *really* like the Pinto
> >wagon. They may not like it, they may imagine themselves some sort of
> >custodial purists, but the fact of the matter is that they's wrong to
> >dictate their tastes to others.
>
> I run Windows XP on my laptop, even though I know perfectly well that
> it has security holes in it. I'd much rather have been able to buy a
> version that didn't have security holes, but that option wasn't open.
> Since lots of others also use XP, holes and all, does that mean "the
> market has shown" that a version with holes is better than one
> without, or even that it would sell better, were both available?
It shows that the holes aren't enough to cause the sales to lag. And
the grim fact of the matter is that, while neither of us knows the
answer to your question (suppose it costs $100 extra retail for the
superior holeless version, for example), it's incumbent upon you to
prove this, not upon Windows to launch an upgrade to show otherwise.
Mike Schilling
"Justin Bacon" <tria...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1117333588....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
You mean that all of us who stay up nights discussing it should re-examine
our premises?
I don't want to put words in Louann's mouth, but I think she was less
interested in representing your respective positions accurately than in
making fun of both of you.
Mike Schilling
<dwight...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1117333849....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> Mike Schilling wrote:
>> <dwight...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1117329562....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the matter is
>> > the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right, and all his
>> > detractors are the ones insisting that people *really* like the Pinto
>> > wagon. They may not like it, they may imagine themselves some sort of
>> > custodial purists, but the fact of the matter is that they's wrong to
>> > dictate their tastes to others.
>>
>> Not really. To demonstrate that, someone would have to issue non-updated
>> Schmitz and fail at it. That is, it's been deomonstrated that there's a
>> market for what Flint has produced; that doesn't prove there's no market
>> for
>> a slight variant of it.
>
> Quite true(well, not quite - it would simply not have to do as well as
> the 'updated' editions).
In a statistically significant way, with the difference not (easily)
attributable to other differences.
>
> But the real fact of the matter is, you know and I know the
> oh-so-outraged critics don't have the faintest intention of ever
> putting their money where their mouth is, that is, actually publishing
> their own version.
I doubt they have the right to; the stories are not in the public domain.
Besides, even if someone could do that, the Schmitz re-issue market is
pretty much saturated with the Baen editions. The level of sales of the
purist version would tell us nothing (except perhaps, the size of the
purist-only market. I suspect we'd all be shocked to find out that it's
tiny.)
You can't do a comparison, even as a thought experiment, without something
approaching parallel Earths.
John Schilling
>John Schilling wrote:
>> > [re: the French]
>> >> > Calling them "surrender-monkeys" or the like is *not* mocking
>> >> >their valor?!? I see a half dozen lame-ass jokes about "France
>> >> >surrenders" for every post which may possibly be construed to
>> >> >target their "military effectiveness" instead.
>> >> Napoleon (the original) surrendered France twice in as many years.
>> >> Do you assume that it was lack of valor that resulted in those
>> >> incidents, or is being implied when those incidents are tallied
>> >> against France?
>> > Do you assume that the smart-ass comments made by John Q. Asshat
>> > about France surrendering have any basis in first-hand knowledge
>> > about French martial history?
>> That would be a good question to ask before unleashing the canned
>> rant, now wouldn't it?
> And what canned rant would that be?
Uh, the one you're about to deliver?
> As far as I'm concerned, making simplistic cracks about 'France
>surrenders' or 'surrender-monkeys' is sufficient cause in itself for me
>to disregard anything the 'moran' responsible would have to say and/or
>to heap scorn upon them. Particularly during the last few years where
>brainlessly insulting the French is practically de rigueur (although
>that seems to be dying off a bit of late).
Yes, that one. Rant, definitely. Canned, well, I see a lot of specific
complaints that are entirely inapplicable to the context in which you
unleash the rant, so I think we can rule out the possibility that you
crafted it specifically for the occasion. So, canned rant. The diatribe
you unleash reflexively whenever you see someone say anything bad about
the French.
Who are as entitled to have bad things said about them as anyone, and more
than most.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
William December Starr
"dwight...@gmail.com" <dwight...@gmail.com> said:
> God knows I'm no market uber alles type, but the point of the
> matter is the market has shown that Eric is right, dead right,
Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that
can be measured counts.
In other words, you speak nonsense.
> and all his detractors are the ones insisting that people *really*
> like the Pinto wagon. They may not like it, they may imagine
> themselves some sort of custodial purists, but the fact of the
> matter is that they's wrong to dictate their tastes to others.
And if they were dictating anything, you might have a point.
Hey wait a minute, you're supposed to be in my killfile. What went
wrong? Oh, I see, it's "dwight.thieme" with a dot, rather than just
"dwight thieme". Okay, fixed.
Bill Snyder
Unless it would run existing Windoze & Unix apps, I'd have to say
there were other factors involved there.
John Schilling
>
>William December Starr wrote:
He doesn't. He *chooses* to justify his actions. And then does so vert
badly, needlessly annoying many people who are not his enemies. Some of
whom grudgingly take up his cause anyhow, and do an admirable job of
justifying his actions.
Analogies to French military history are left as an exercise for the
student.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
John Schilling
He doesn't. He *chooses* to justify his actions. And then does so vert
badly, needlessly annoying many people who are not his enemies. Some of
whom grudgingly take up his cause anyhow, and do an admirable job of
justifying his actions.
Analogies to French military history are left as an exercise for the
student.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Paul F. Dietz
>>Why does he need to justify his actions, particularly to you?
>
>
> That strikes me as a very odd question. A seller of books needs to
> justify his actions in producing them to readers for precisely the
> same reason that Ford, say, needs to justify its actions in producing
> cars to prospective auto-buyers.
No, a seller of books needs to sell books. He doesn't need to
justify anything.
Why do you have this apparent sense of entitlement to
an explanation of his actions?
Paul
loua...@yahoo.com
I retract the part about you being interesting and readable when you
aren't playing kill-the-editor.
Mike Schilling
> On Sun, 29 May 2005 02:13:36 GMT, "Mike Schilling"
> <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Bill Snyder" <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote in message
>>news:1b8i91lnsunactknl...@4ax.com...
>>>
>>> I run Windows XP on my laptop, even though I know perfectly well that
>>> it has security holes in it. I'd much rather have been able to buy a
>>> version that didn't have security holes, but that option wasn't open.
>>> Since lots of others also use XP, holes and all, does that mean "the
>>> market has shown" that a version with holes is better than one
>>> without, or even that it would sell better, were both available?
>>
>>(OK, it's not perfectly secure, but far better than any Windoze variant
>>ever
>>will be, or than most Unixes were when it was losing ground so badly to
>>them.)
>
> Unless it would run existing Windoze & Unix apps, I'd have to say
> there were other factors involved there.
Rem acu tetigisti (as Jeeves might say.) People don't actively object to
security in their computer systems, but it's rarely a primary goal. Sort of
like cars and safety.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>Bill Snyder wrote:
>
>>>Why does he need to justify his actions, particularly to you?
>>
>>
>> That strikes me as a very odd question. A seller of books needs to
>> justify his actions in producing them to readers for precisely the
>> same reason that Ford, say, needs to justify its actions in producing
>> cars to prospective auto-buyers.
>
>No, a seller of books needs to sell books. He doesn't need to
>justify anything.
And if folks don't like his books, they won't buy them.
>Why do you have this apparent sense of entitlement to
>an explanation of his actions?
"It's called the Golden Rule: Them that has the gold, makes the
rules."
Robert Hutchinson
> Or were you just being a mindless bitch?
It took a lot of work, but congratulations, you finally made it.
--
Robert Hutchinson | The Twenty is just so evil. The very name gloats
| over our suffering and powerlessness. It's a
| boot stomping on a human face for twenty minutes.
| -- Shaenon K. Garrity
William December Starr
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> said:
>> Why does [Eric Flint] need to justify his actions, particularly
>> to you?
>
> He doesn't. He *chooses* to justify his actions. And then does
> so vert badly, needlessly annoying many people who are not his
> enemies.
s/not/not yet/
Justin Bacon
>
> I retract the part about you being interesting and readable when you
> aren't playing kill-the-editor.
I see you've chosen mindless bitch. How unfortunate.
--
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Ray Cunningham
Getting those involved to write the relevant sections of the FAQ = bad
idea (have you seen how long Flint's mails are?)
(there goes my claim to neutrality)
Anyway. Points in favour of the editing job and reissue.
1. Modern readers shouldn't be jerked out of the story by anachronisms
2. Modern readers are put off by long explanations of editing jobs, so
they shouldn't be included in a reissue
(2 (a) Long explanations cost money, because they take up time that the
editor could be spending on other work. Feeds into point 5.)
3. The reissues sold well, so readers must have liked them
4. The original writers often edited their stories to suit magazine
editors, so they can't have been too precious about their work.
5. No other reissue was going to happen, so people should just be
grateful that the stories are back in print
Points against
1. Changing a few words won't make a 50-year old story appear modern
2. Long explanations aren't necessary - a short afterword is all that's
required
3. The readers didn't choose between two competing reissues, so they
weren't expressing a preference wrt editing
4. The original writers got to approve changes made when they were
alive
5. People are grateful the stories are back in print, but don't see a
good reason why the original stories couldn't have been reprinted as
they were
That's about it, isn't it? Most of the arguments are about which points
are valid, but FAQ readers can decide that for themselves
Ray
Beowulf Bolt
>
> Uh, the one you're about to deliver?
>
> > As far as I'm concerned, making simplistic cracks about 'France
> >surrenders' or 'surrender-monkeys' is sufficient cause in itself for
> >me to disregard anything the 'moran' responsible would have to say
> >and/or to heap scorn upon them. Particularly during the last few
> >years where brainlessly insulting the French is practically de
> >rigueur (although that seems to be dying off a bit of late).
>
> Yes, that one. Rant, definitely.
I will not contest that.
> Canned, well, I see a lot of specific complaints that are entirely
> inapplicable to the context in which you unleash the rant, so I think
> we can rule out the possibility that you crafted it specifically for
> the occasion.
Ah, but here you fail in your assumptions.
Let's look at the context of the exchanges which led up to my
response; you wanted me to make enquiries with the likes of "John Q.
Asshat" (as I called them) about the reason why they were
unimaginatively insulting the French before I could dare dismiss them,
on the off-chance that they were somehow alluding to actions taken by
the likes of Napoleon III a century and a half ago.
How is my response inapplicable to *that* context?
> So, canned rant. The diatribe you unleash reflexively whenever you
> see someone say anything bad about the French.
If it's a reflexive thing, then surely you can post a Google cite to
*somewhere* where I've unleashed it (or a close equivalent) before,
neh? I've been sucked into partaking in more than my share of political
debates in this forum (and others) over the years, alas, so there is
ripe fodder in which to forage.
I'll even assist by disclosing my previous email addresses for your
Googling convenience, in case the year or two I've been using this one
proves inadequate; beowul...@shaw.ca, ell...@cadvision.com, or hell,
you can even try jce...@acs.ucalgary.ca. Surely a dozen or so years of
posts is sufficient to produce evidence regarding the 'canned' nature of
this rant?
For a person who was castigating me about making assumptions vis a vis
posters insulting the French a few days ago, you sure aren't very adept
at practicing what you preach.
> Who are as entitled to have bad things said about them as anyone, and
> more than most.
You aren't going to get much disagreement from me. The truth is that
I could give a rat's ass about the French for the most part. I just
typically find "France surrenders" posts as teeth-gratingly moronic as
cracks about the Scots and sheep, priests and altar boys, etc.
Normally, I ignore such idiots. I was only drawn into this thread
because htn963 sneeringly dismissed that such folks exist, not out of
any concern that the French were being 'unfairly maligned'.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"All around me darkness gathers, fading is the sun that shone,
we must speak of other matters, you can be me when I'm gone..."
- SANDMAN #67, Neil Gaiman
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Putting something into the FAQ = good idea
> Getting those involved to write the relevant sections of the FAQ = bad
> idea (have you seen how long Flint's mails are?)
> (there goes my claim to neutrality)
> Points against
> 4. The original writers got to approve changes made when they were
> alive
Did they? Can anyone name an example where the author rejected a
change made by an editor and still got published in that magazine?
ISTR Asimov griping about someone who renamed everything he
submitted.
--
Konrad Gaertner email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
Mike Schilling
"Konrad Gaertner" <kgae...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:429CCAF8...@worldnet.att.net...
> Ray Cunningham wrote:
>>
>> Putting something into the FAQ = good idea
>> Getting those involved to write the relevant sections of the FAQ = bad
>> idea (have you seen how long Flint's mails are?)
>> (there goes my claim to neutrality)
>
>> Points against
>> 4. The original writers got to approve changes made when they were
>> alive
>
> Did they? Can anyone name an example where the author rejected a
> change made by an editor and still got published in that magazine?
> ISTR Asimov griping about someone who renamed everything he
> submitted.
H.L. Gold was famous for that (retitling "Green Patches" to "Misbegotten
Missionary" was one of his worst ideas.) One of the points in Flint's favor
is that golden and silver age magazine SF was already subject to
heavy-handed, arbitrary editing, making it foolish to object to a bit more.
Flint would have more supporters if he didn't combine sensible arguments
like that with a theory of esthetics that makes George F. Babbitt look like
Aristotle.
John Schilling
>John Schilling wrote:
>> In article <4297AA...@shaw.ca>, Beowulf Bolt says...
>> > And what canned rant would that be?
>> Uh, the one you're about to deliver?
>>
>> > As far as I'm concerned, making simplistic cracks about 'France
>> >surrenders' or 'surrender-monkeys' is sufficient cause in itself for
>> >me to disregard anything the 'moran' responsible would have to say
>> >and/or to heap scorn upon them. Particularly during the last few
>> >years where brainlessly insulting the French is practically de
>> >rigueur (although that seems to be dying off a bit of late).
>> Yes, that one. Rant, definitely.
> I will not contest that.
>> Canned, well, I see a lot of specific complaints that are entirely
>> inapplicable to the context in which you unleash the rant, so I think
>> we can rule out the possibility that you crafted it specifically for
>> the occasion.
> Ah, but here you fail in your assumptions.
> Let's look at the context of the exchanges which led up to my
>response; you wanted me to make enquiries with the likes of "John Q.
>Asshat" (as I called them) about the reason why they were
>unimaginatively insulting the French before I could dare dismiss them,
>on the off-chance that they were somehow alluding to actions taken by
>the likes of Napoleon III a century and a half ago.
> How is my response inapplicable to *that* context?
Because "John Q. Asshat", as you put it, had absolutely nothing to do
with the thread until *you* introduced him, for the specific purpose
of being able to rant against him.
You had a rant against mindless and inappropriate insults towards the
French from "John Q. Asshat" that you obviously wanted an excuse to
spew, but you had a thread that contained only an insult towards the
French and lacked the "mindless", "inappropriate", and "John Q. Asshat"
parts. So you tried to reset the context to fit the rant.
You should not have done that.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Ray Cunningham
withdrawing their story, AFAIK.
Or if an editor printed their changed story without getting their
approval, the writer was in a position to complain about it afterwards.
Should the points 4 be changed to
4. The original writers accepted edits imposed by magazine
editors, some of them very heavy-handed, so they can't have been too
precious about their work.
and
4. Living writers could choose whether to accept those edits or to
withdraw their story. They were also able to criticise edits, even if
they put up with them for the sake of publication.
Obviously, with all of these points, people can bring up evidence in
favour of one side or another, and its not possible to include all of
this in an FAQ. But you can explain what the basic disagreements are.
Ray
Beowulf Bolt
> >response; you wanted me to make enquiries with the likes of "John Q.
> >Asshat" (as I called them) about the reason why they were
> >unimaginatively insulting the French before I could dare dismiss
> >them, on the off-chance that they were somehow alluding to actions
> >taken by the likes of Napoleon III a century and a half ago.
>
> > How is my response inapplicable to *that* context?
>
> Because "John Q. Asshat", as you put it, had absolutely nothing to do
> with the thread until *you* introduced him, for the specific purpose
> of being able to rant against him.
This only shows you weren't paying attention in your haste to accuse
me of having a boner for the French, John. Let me quote that article
from the post by htn963 I referenced (and you conveniently snipped);
* It's not French valor that is usually being mocked, bunky, but
* military effectiveness,
I introduced the type I'd later dub "John Q. Asshat" as a specific
counterexample to this claim, triggered by htn's needlessly inflammatory
post.
Whether or not I then proceeded to rant against this sort does not
diminish the validity of using them to argue against what "usually"
happens according to htn963.
> You had a rant against mindless and inappropriate insults towards the
> French from "John Q. Asshat" that you obviously wanted an excuse to
> spew, but you had a thread that contained only an insult towards the
> French and lacked the "mindless", "inappropriate", and "John Q.
> Asshat" parts. So you tried to reset the context to fit the rant.
Hey, dumbass, it may have escaped your attention, but *I did not reply
to your insult to the French*. As I mentioned in the last post and
conveniently snipped by you, I could care less if you insult the
French.
Hell, I didn't even start to really 'rant' against this type of moron
until after *you* started defending them - by which point they well and
truly *were* part of the context of the thread.
> You should not have done that.
Fuck you, John. Who appointed you Net.God?
ObSheesh: Sheesh.
Jasper Janssen
> Flint does have apologists on this group. Google should make that
>apparent.
Personally I feel this can all be solved by "Dammit, Baen is paying thhat
man to do what he does and if you don't like it don't buy the fucking
books."
Jasper
Michael S. Schiffer
news:bg98a1lvb6bulfb2e...@4ax.com:
If it's inappropriate to post reactions to what people do, on the
grounds that they're being paid to do it and the person doing the
paying is the only one whose opinion counts, this group is going to
get a lot quieter.
Which isn't to say that I have much interest remaining in the Flint
Wars-- everything that can be said on that subject pretty much has
been, many, many times. But I can't see that the subject should be
off limits because a publisher is willing to put down his money.
What topics would that leave? (Every author whose book is on the
shelves was, after all, paid by a publisher.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Bill Snyder
wrote:
Perhaps I'm just a total malcontent, then; but I won't consider that a
solution unless and until one can say, ". . . and buy the editions
from Blahblah Press instead, for which the editor was paid to respect
the original text."
dwight...@gmail.com
And that is, in fact, one of the points Eric has brought up ;-)
As I see it, there are three catagories of justifications - literary
judgement, 'real life' and the scientific method.
For obvious reasons, I find that the arguments that fall under literary
judgement are the weakest and least justifiable. Quite frankly, from
the posts I see on this group, my sense of literary aesthetics and
editorial judgement is better than _at least_ 90% of those who
pariticipate at least semi-regularly. And why anyone who, for example,
prefer books with Blam! think their opions have any merit whatsoever is
a real head-scratcher. I declare from this basis that Flint's
alterations are perfectly acceptable, and if they don't like it . . .
tough. Don't buy the books, don't read them, and don't recommend them.
A better pill for a lot of folks, but too bad.
Which brings me to the 'real world' justifcations: The Schmitz estate
is not suing Eric for his unseemly elisions, Baen has not fired him,
the books have in fact enjoyed a modest success, and, as I (and Flint)
has already said, no one is under any obligation to support them in any
way. Plus there is the not insignificant fact that, even if a lot of
Schmitz's stuff is OOP, it's not at all hard to get. My regular used
books dealer, Acorn Books, for example, had 'Agent of Terra' (Ace
edition) priced at the very reasonable $3.25, 'Legacy', 'The Lion
Game', 'The Universe Against Her', etc. So it's not as if the older,
purer versions are inaccessible, or out of anyone's price range. Thus,
those who argue against the most recent additions are actually arguing
for a restriction of choice.
I don't think it needs to be said - though I will anyway - that
real-life considerations trump any airy-fairy justifications based on
lit-rah-toor. Especially if they're being made by someone who prefers
Smith to Swanwick. Or - God forbid - Heinlein (especially late
Heinlein) Kornbluth.
The last category of justifications, the scientific method, trumps
eveything else, at least so I believe. But once again, it is up to the
purists to produce the data, define the weighting formula and descibe
the attributes to be measured and on what scales. Something that has
been notably lacking so far.
dwight...@gmail.com
Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
> Jasper Janssen <jas...@jjanssen.org> wrote in
> news:bg98a1lvb6bulfb2e...@4ax.com:
>
> > On 26 May 2005 11:55:47 -0700, "htn963" <htn...@verizon.net>
> > wrote:
>
> >> Flint does have apologists on this group. Google should
> >> make that
> >>apparent.
>
> > Personally I feel this can all be solved by "Dammit, Baen is
> > paying thhat man to do what he does and if you don't like it
> > don't buy the fucking books."
>
> If it's inappropriate to post reactions to what people do, on the
> grounds that they're being paid to do it and the person doing the
> paying is the only one whose opinion counts, this group is going to
> get a lot quieter.
But that's not what's really being argued though - more like in the
absence of anything more definitive, that it should be the last word,
can't in fact, help but be. And in fact, there are a lot of those
types of arguments that it's best to stay out of. Look at all the
resentful rhetoric spilled out by certain people who are resentful of
sf's 'ghetto' status and who are convinced that most 'literature' is
about Lit Profs having angsty affairs with their students. Do you
think anything ever gets resolved, either way? Even when hard data is
occaisonally presented?
dwight...@gmail.com
But - as it's already been pointed out many times - you already can.
And often for about half the price of the newest versions. Used book
stores are your friend. As well as the newer online search guys -
Powell's, Amazon, etc.
Or did you just want a shiny new cover to go over the original story,
something a little less garish than a large-bosomed, blue-haired young
thing in a red body suit and sporting a ray gun?
James Nicoll
dwight...@gmail.com <dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Look at all the
>resentful rhetoric spilled out by certain people who are resentful of
>sf's 'ghetto' status and who are convinced that most 'literature' is
>about Lit Profs having angsty affairs with their students. Do you
>think anything ever gets resolved, either way? Even when hard data is
>occaisonally presented?
In the case of the Randy Lit Prof novels and its related field,
"mean LitCrits who say nasty things about SF", the amount of hard data
present in suppport of their existance is pretty tiny.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Michael S. Schiffer
news:1118178203.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>> Jasper Janssen <jas...@jjanssen.org> wrote in
>> news:bg98a1lvb6bulfb2e...@4ax.com:
>...
>> > Personally I feel this can all be solved by "Dammit, Baen is
>> > paying thhat man to do what he does and if you don't like it
>> > don't buy the fucking books."
>> If it's inappropriate to post reactions to what people do, on
>> the grounds that they're being paid to do it and the person
>> doing the paying is the only one whose opinion counts, this
>> group is going to get a lot quieter.
> But that's not what's really being argued though - more like in
> the absence of anything more definitive, that it should be the
> last word, can't in fact, help but be.
Evidently, it can. If there's a last word on the subject, it hasn't
been produced yet, since the discussion goes on ad infinitum. It's
not clear to me why Jim Baen's opinion should be accepted as final
here, any more than the fact that he gave a check to Lois Bujold or
David Weber means that the merits of their work are beyond question.
Sure, nothing's likely to change as a result of a discussion here,
any more than an author I like is going to get a bigger advance or
one I dislike is going to get a smaller one. But so what? (If one
is looking for influence over events, Usenet is probably the wrong
place to be spending one's time. Discussion, on the other hand, is
what newsgroups are for.)
And in fact, there are a
> lot of those types of arguments that it's best to stay out of.
> Look at all the resentful rhetoric spilled out by certain people
> who are resentful of sf's 'ghetto' status and who are convinced
> that most 'literature' is about Lit Profs having angsty affairs
> with their students. Do you think anything ever gets resolved,
> either way? Even when hard data is occaisonally presented?
That the topic isn't finally resolved makes it different from any
other thread here, how? :-)
Bill Snyder
<dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>Bill Snyder wrote:
>> On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 09:39:40 GMT, Jasper Janssen <jas...@jjanssen.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On 26 May 2005 11:55:47 -0700, "htn963" <htn...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Flint does have apologists on this group. Google should make that
>> >>apparent.
>> >
>> >Personally I feel this can all be solved by "Dammit, Baen is paying thhat
>> >man to do what he does and if you don't like it don't buy the fucking
>> >books."
>>
>> Perhaps I'm just a total malcontent, then; but I won't consider that a
>> solution unless and until one can say, ". . . and buy the editions
>> from Blahblah Press instead, for which the editor was paid to respect
>> the original text."
>
>But - as it's already been pointed out many times - you already can.
>And often for about half the price of the newest versions. Used book
>stores are your friend. As well as the newer online search guys -
>Powell's, Amazon, etc.
James Schmitz is not the only author in the world, y'know. Reviewed
here within the last week IIRC was a collection of Anvil's
Interstellar Patrol stories, Anvil's stuff according to Flint himself
having been pretty extensively, err, 'improved.' (Altho' in that
case, at least a living author was involved.) So far as I know these
stories are not available except individually in ancient _Analog_s,
and I'd have dearly loved to have seen them collected -- by anyone but
Flint/Baen.
>Or did you just want a shiny new cover to go over the original story,
>something a little less garish than a large-bosomed, blue-haired young
>thing in a red body suit and sporting a ray gun?
I believe you're thinking here of the cover for the Baen expurgated
edition of _Lord of the Rings_[1]. Most of them are considerably less
subtle and restrained.
1. RealReaders [tm] don't want a bunch of silly, faggy furrin
language stuff popping up everywhere you look, and only ivory-tower
RASFW elitists with no understanding of the market would expect a
publisher to retain it. Not to mention the pipeweed, and the sexism
and classism, and . . . Really, Tolkien had no idea how to write a
book that would sell. Thank Ghu Flint was around to help out.
W. Citoan
>
> Quite frankly, from the posts I see on this group, my sense of
> literary aesthetics and editorial judgement is better than _at least_
> 90% of those who pariticipate at least semi-regularly.
Hmm, don't have much of an ego, do you?
> And why anyone who, for example, prefer books with Blam! think their
> opions have any merit whatsoever is a real head-scratcher. I declare
> from this basis that Flint's alterations are perfectly acceptable,
> and if they don't like it . . . tough.
This is rather ironic. Given that Flint's rationale for editing is to
make the books more popular with the average reader (i.e. "who prefer
books with Blam!"), it is exactly those folks whose opinions have the
most merit for Flint.
- W. Citoan
--
Wilt thou seal up avenues of ill? Pay every debt, as though God wrote the
bill.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
dwight...@gmail.com
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1118178203.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> dwight...@gmail.com <dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Look at all the
> >resentful rhetoric spilled out by certain people who are resentful of
> >sf's 'ghetto' status and who are convinced that most 'literature' is
> >about Lit Profs having angsty affairs with their students. Do you
> >think anything ever gets resolved, either way? Even when hard data is
> >occaisonally presented?
>
> In the case of the Randy Lit Prof novels and its related field,
> "mean LitCrits who say nasty things about SF", the amount of hard data
> present in suppport of their existance is pretty tiny.
Exactly. IIRC, you were one of the participants in that discussion who
actually named a book that came close - but did not exactly match -
that sneering depiction of 'literature'. And as you recall, the fact
that no one could name by author or title any such work didn't deter
those detractors in the slightest from repeating their claim. Why they
continue to make it despite abundant objective data to the contrary
I'll never understand.
dwight...@gmail.com
Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
I know I don't spend a great deal of time on these posts, but still . .
. so, because there are still people who argue for creationism,
evolution is not the last (or latest or best to forstall any further
sillly little language games) word in the origin of the species?
Because there are still practitioners of homeopathic and 'laternative'
medicine the germ theory of disease is not the last word in infectious
disorders? Relativityl is not the last word about certain properties
of our universe because, hey, you can trot right over to the
sci.physics newsgroups to find volumes of posts expalaining why
relativity is wrong? Or that the fact that there was ever a successful
manned mission to the moon . . . you get the idea.
And please, don't change the goalposts in mid-discusussion either. The
issue is obviously not whether any criticisms are permissible and never
has been; the issue is that a certain percentage of people here
(ironically, I spot a few libertarians among them) are saying that
Flint should never have published such altered works, period. (in case
you're thinking that that sounds like a call for censorship, yeah, it
is, and probably a pretty good indicator of why it pushed one of my
buttons.)
James Nicoll
was genre horror but by a guy who almost certainly has an English degree*)
and a sneering essay about SF from Koestler, an essay that is now about
50 or 60 years old.
On the whole, though, facts so rarely play a role in people's
opinions in general that a SF specific example of beliefs as rooted
in reality as the Protocals ofthe Elders of Zion shouldn't be a surprise.
SF readers are just one set of people, not a class apart.
* I'm going more on ILIUM -or- NOTES I MADE DURING A COURSE ON THE ILIAD,
PLUS THE FRENCH AND THE ARABS SUCK.
dwight...@gmail.com
Hello? Have you been listening? And aren't you a - drumroll -
libertarian? If you want those original pristine stories, and are
offended by any editing (even, if I take your quote correctly the
author is still alive and cooperating) GO OUT AND BUY THE DAMN
MAGAZINES YOURSELF! No one, absolutely no one, is under any obligation
to print the stories as you would like to see them in a $6.50 paperback
just so you can walk into B&N and pick them up at your convenience.
Again, I'm surprised that a he-man libertarian such as yourself doesn't
pick up on this obvious fact.
> >Or did you just want a shiny new cover to go over the original story,
> >something a little less garish than a large-bosomed, blue-haired young
> >thing in a red body suit and sporting a ray gun?
>
> I believe you're thinking here of the cover for the Baen expurgated
> edition of _Lord of the Rings_[1]. Most of them are considerably less
> subtle and restrained.
No, I'm talking about the cover that graces the Ace edition of "Agent
of Vega". Which apparently has little to do with any of the stories
therein (do you see the point there) but is very enjoyable in it's own
trashy way.
> 1. RealReaders [tm] don't want a bunch of silly, faggy furrin
> language stuff popping up everywhere you look, and only ivory-tower
> RASFW elitists with no understanding of the market would expect a
> publisher to retain it. Not to mention the pipeweed, and the sexism
> and classism, and . . . Really, Tolkien had no idea how to write a
> book that would sell. Thank Ghu Flint was around to help out.
Do you realize that with that next to the last sentence you seem to be
contradicting yourself?
Btw, I don't agree with some of Flint's editorial decisions myself, and
I probably wouldn't read an edition of LotR such as you describe unless
someone whose judgement I trusted in such matters recommended it to me.
So what? Unless I'm badly deluded, Eric isn't basing his editoril
decisions on what I, Dwight Thieme, would prefer, and is under
absolutely no obligation to do so, moral, fiduciarly, literary or
otherwise.
dwight...@gmail.com
W. Citoan wrote:
> dwight...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > Quite frankly, from the posts I see on this group, my sense of
> > literary aesthetics and editorial judgement is better than _at least_
> > 90% of those who pariticipate at least semi-regularly.
>
> Hmm, don't have much of an ego, do you?
At the risk of being impolitic - Whoosh!
> > And why anyone who, for example, prefer books with Blam! think their
> > opions have any merit whatsoever is a real head-scratcher. I declare
> > from this basis that Flint's alterations are perfectly acceptable,
> > and if they don't like it . . . tough.
>
> This is rather ironic. Given that Flint's rationale for editing is to
> make the books more popular with the average reader (i.e. "who prefer
> books with Blam!"), it is exactly those folks whose opinions have the
> most merit for Flint.
Oh, it is your considered literary opinion that those here who prefer
books with Blam! actually have superior insight into what the average
reader would prefer? Check out the whoosh comment again.
dwight...@gmail.com
James Nicoll wrote:
So 'much angst ensued' in this horror novel? Or was that the horror?
> On the whole, though, facts so rarely play a role in people's
> opinions in general that a SF specific example of beliefs as rooted
> in reality as the Protocals ofthe Elders of Zion shouldn't be a surprise.
> SF readers are just one set of people, not a class apart.
Oh, I don't know about that, most of the people I know seem to be
pretty firmly grounded in reality (though my situation may be rather
unusual in that respect). Unless you meant opinions about music, food,
literature?
No, what I find here in rec.arts.sf.written is that the kook index is
rather high, which is rather fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way,
but of which I can only take small doses these days.
James Nicoll
MINOR SPOILERS
A lot of the angst was because the affair totally zeroed this
guy's personal and professional life. To deal with it, he moved back
to the small town where many of his chums had been eaten by monsters
(SUMMER OF NIGHT), which rather surprisingly turned out to be a bad
idea. Oh, and his girlfriend turned out to be a succubus from hell,
sent to damn his soul to perdition. Apparently tenure doesn't cover
that.
>> On the whole, though, facts so rarely play a role in people's
>> opinions in general that a SF specific example of beliefs as rooted
>> in reality as the Protocals ofthe Elders of Zion shouldn't be a surprise.
>> SF readers are just one set of people, not a class apart.
>
>Oh, I don't know about that, most of the people I know seem to be
>pretty firmly grounded in reality (though my situation may be rather
>unusual in that respect). Unless you meant opinions about music, food,
>literature?
And politics and economics. People can be highly selective
in the evidence they choose to see if a treasured political position
is at stake. An example from Canada (since noboy here cares enough
about that to flame over it).
We have had something of an oversupply of political scandals
up here in Canada, enough to that the people who rate countries for
corruption only rank us five places above the US. One of the current
ones involves a claim by an MP named Grewal that the Liberals tried
to bribe him into switching from the opposition party, the CPC, to
the Liberals just before a crucial vote. He took the precaution of
secretly taping his conversations, so he could have proof. Alas,
he also seems to have altered the tapes before handing them over
and there's a slight question about the legality of taping
conversations without permission. Also, the Liberals claim he came
to them, not the other way round (Of course, they would).
Now, this could be a He Said She Said situation if it weren't
for the fact that Grewal has been accused of improving the truth in
the past. Early in his career he apparently called a journalist up to
protest a claim that he was inexperienced: one of the jobs he claimed
to have had was advisor to a Liberian dictator. This does not seem to
have been the case and he no longer claims it.
When the CPC leadership decided to say they believe Grewal,
I suspect the fact that if his story were true it would be terribly
helpful to them played a lot more of a role than Grewal's dubious
relationship with veracity [1]. Now they have to say that the reason the
tapes appear to be altered is an artifact of transfering them from
one medium to another. I don't know yet what the Party's stance on
yesterday's airport incident is but i bet they didn't argue too hard
when he asked to take stress leave. The whole tape thing seems to have
blown up in their faces and they could have avoided this with 30 seconds
of recollection about Grewal's track record.
James Nicoll
1: I know this may shock people but Grewal is not the only politician
known to hedge the truth nor is this limited to the CPC. See, for
example "The Best of Campaign Promises by Pierre Elliot Trudeau".
Bill Snyder
<dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello, yourself. Earth to Dwight, Earth to Dwight. Where exactly
have I said or even implied that anyone was under any obligation to do
it "my way?"
>Again, I'm surprised that a he-man libertarian such as yourself doesn't
>pick up on this obvious fact.
I can pick up on the obvious fact that Flint's right to make his own
editorial decisions does not in any way abrogate my right to complain
about the decisions that he did make. I've cited Windows as an
obvious example before: Mickeysoft has a perfect right to sell a
product with bugs in it, and is under no obligation whatever to
address my preferences for a bug-free one; I have a perfect right to
complain about the bugs.
It's a thing we have called "free speech." I'm surprised that a
self-described "middle of the roader" like yourself didn't pick up on
this obvious fact.
--
W. Citoan
>
>
> W. Citoan wrote:
> > dwight...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > Quite frankly, from the posts I see on this group, my sense of
> > > literary aesthetics and editorial judgement is better than _at
> > > least_ 90% of those who pariticipate at least semi-regularly.
> >
> > Hmm, don't have much of an ego, do you?
>
> At the risk of being impolitic - Whoosh!
The number of people who use sarcasm, but cannot themselves recognize it
in return amazes me...
> > > And why anyone who, for example, prefer books with Blam! think
> > > their opions have any merit whatsoever is a real head-scratcher.
> > > I declare from this basis that Flint's alterations are perfectly
> > > acceptable, and if they don't like it . . . tough.
> >
> > This is rather ironic. Given that Flint's rationale for editing is
> > to make the books more popular with the average reader (i.e. "who
> > prefer books with Blam!"), it is exactly those folks whose opinions
> > have the most merit for Flint.
>
> Oh, it is your considered literary opinion that those here who prefer
> books with Blam! actually have superior insight into what the average
> reader would prefer? Check out the whoosh comment again.
Well, since you used "Blam" with a "!", I believe you are referring to
the CD-ROM art publications of Necro Enema Amalgamated. Baen's bikini
girl and exploding spaceship covers are tame by comparison but serve the
same purpose. And it is Baen who claims those covers make the books
more popular.
It is also possible you were referring to the internet movie rating
system (though that would be without the "!"). If so, I'm sure you'll
find a number of folks here who would find that applicable since it is
an inverse quality rating system.
- W. Citoan
--
Practice is the best teacher.
-- Publiluis Syrus
Michael Stemper
>Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
{"The Butcher of Baen"]
>> here, any more than the fact that he gave a check to Lois Bujold or
>> David Weber means that the merits of their work are beyond question.
>> Sure, nothing's likely to change as a result of a discussion here,
>> any more than an author I like is going to get a bigger advance or
>> one I dislike is going to get a smaller one. But so what? (If one
>> is looking for influence over events, Usenet is probably the wrong
>> place to be spending one's time. Discussion, on the other hand, is
>> what newsgroups are for.)
>And please, don't change the goalposts in mid-discusussion either. The
>issue is obviously not whether any criticisms are permissible and never
>has been;
Then why do you, in the following text, try to equate criticism with
calls for censorship?
> the issue is that a certain percentage of people here
>(ironically, I spot a few libertarians among them) are saying that
>Flint should never have published such altered works, period. (in case
>you're thinking that that sounds like a call for censorship, yeah, it
>is,
That's a crock of shit, is what that is. If you can't see the difference
between saying "I don't think that X should do Y" and "I think that the
full force of government should be invoked to prevent anybody from
doing Y", then you need to learn to read, and to think.
--
Michael F. Stemper
The FAQ for rec.arts.sf.written is at:
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/sf-written.htm
Please read it before posting.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:1118243784.3...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>>...It's not clear to me why Jim Baen's opinion should
>> be accepted as final here, any more than the fact that he gave
>> a check to Lois Bujold or David Weber means that the merits of
>> their work are beyond question. Sure, nothing's likely to
>> change as a result of a discussion here, any more than an
>> author I like is going to get a bigger advance or one I dislike
>> is going to get a smaller one. But so what? (If one is
>> looking for influence over events, Usenet is probably the wrong
>> place to be spending one's time. Discussion, on the other
>> hand, is what newsgroups are for.)
> I know I don't spend a great deal of time on these posts, but
> still . . . so, because there are still people who argue for
> creationism, evolution is not the last (or latest or best to
> forstall any further sillly little language games) word in the
> origin of the species? Because there are still practitioners of
> homeopathic and 'laternative' medicine the germ theory of
> disease is not the last word in infectious disorders?
> Relativityl is not the last word about certain properties of our
> universe because, hey, you can trot right over to the
> sci.physics newsgroups to find volumes of posts expalaining why
> relativity is wrong? Or that the fact that there was ever a
> successful manned mission to the moon . . . you get the idea.
I'm afraid I don't. How is expressing distaste for an editing
decision (after it's been ratified by a publisher) more like posting
in favor of creationism than it is like expressing distaste for an
authorial decision (after it's been ratified by a publisher)? I'm
assuming that we agree that the latter is both on topic and a
reasonable thing to do. (Am I wrong about this?) Editing choices
are aesthetic and commercial judgments, just as decisions of what to
write and how to write it are, not matters of science or history.
(The newsgroups for disputing well-established scientific theories
or historical facts are down the way a bit, and I don't personally
read or participate in them.)
> And please, don't change the goalposts in mid-discusussion
> either. The issue is obviously not whether any criticisms are
> permissible and never has been; the issue is that a certain
> percentage of people here (ironically, I spot a few libertarians
> among them) are saying that Flint should never have published
> such altered works, period. (in case you're thinking that that
> sounds like a call for censorship
I'm not, actually, and I can't really see why anyone would. It's a
disagreement with his judgment, just like "George Lucas should have
done 'Revenge of the Sith' differently, or not at all." I wouldn't
dream of using law or force to make Lucas do anything other than
what he did. Being the polite and retiring sort I am, I probably
wouldn't even tell him what I thought of the movie if I happened to
encounter him in person. But I certainly think his actual choices
were lousy, and that it would be better had the prequel trilogy
never been made.
Similarly, no one I've seen has made the claim that Flint and Baen
lacked the legal right to do what they did (and, in fact, many of
them have explicitly acknowledged that they did). Nor have I seen
any calls for the law to be changed, or for extralegal action to be
taken.
However, some of the more vocal participants have been in my
killfile for a while. Can you directly quote (or link to) a post
that has called in earnest for censorship?
dwight...@gmail.com
Damn the masses and their preference for identitiy politics! My
favorite example of irrationality when it comes to politics/economics
was the prediction by libertarians, supply siders, Cato, Heritage, etc.
that the Budget Reconcilliation Act of 1993 would plunge the U.S. into
recession. Aha! says I, finally, a clear-cut, testable prediction.
You know the rest, of course, no recession . . . and no retractions by
the offending parties or modifications to their theories in the
slightest. That, btw, was when I realized that libertarians were just
plain nuts, despite their claims of being the only real choice for
clear-thinking intelligent people.
That's also about the time when I started seriously thinking that the
scientific method was something that should be taught from the first
grade on, seeing as how it don't come easy to most people.
James Nicoll
dwight...@gmail.com <dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
snip re Grewal
>
>Damn the masses and their preference for identitiy politics! My
>favorite example of irrationality when it comes to politics/economics
>was the prediction by libertarians, supply siders, Cato, Heritage, etc.
>that the Budget Reconcilliation Act of 1993 would plunge the U.S. into
>recession. Aha! says I, finally, a clear-cut, testable prediction.
>You know the rest, of course, no recession . . . and no retractions by
>the offending parties or modifications to their theories in the
>slightest. That, btw, was when I realized that libertarians were just
>plain nuts, despite their claims of being the only real choice for
>clear-thinking intelligent people.
That's not a nuts things, that's a "humans hate to admit error
even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a cigarette
in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the remains
of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'" thing. It's pretty
universal.
Offhand I can only recall reading one essay by a pundit who looked
at preditions he had made to see which were wrong and to makes guesses as
to why, which is George Orwell about 60 years ago. Wait, Heinlein's essay
on predicting the future also got two do-overs with commentary, didn't it?
dwight...@gmail.com
Earth to Bill: how about the text immediately above where you're
complaining about the lack of people doing things your way? Sheesh,
here, I'll quote from that material:
----begin----
> >> >> >Personally I feel this can all be solved by "Dammit, Baen is paying thhat
> >> >> >man to do what he does and if you don't like it don't buy the fucking
> >> >> >books."
> >> >>
> >> >> Perhaps I'm just a total malcontent, then; but I won't consider that a
> >> >> solution unless and until one can say, ". . . and buy the editions
> >> >> from Blahblah Press instead, for which the editor was paid to respect
> >> >> the original text."
> >> >
> >> >But - as it's already been pointed out many times - you already can.
> >> >And often for about half the price of the newest versions. Used book
> >> >stores are your friend. As well as the newer online search guys -
> >> >Powell's, Amazon, etc.
> >>
> >> James Schmitz is not the only author in the world, y'know. Reviewed
> >> here within the last week IIRC was a collection of Anvil's
> >> Interstellar Patrol stories, Anvil's stuff according to Flint himself
> >> having been pretty extensively, err, 'improved.' (Altho' in that
> >> case, at least a living author was involved.) So far as I know these
> >> stories are not available except individually in ancient _Analog_s,
> >> and I'd have dearly loved to have seen them collected -- by anyone but
> >> Flint/Baen.
----end----
Now, again, if you want those original stories as they originally
appeared, why don't you just track down those old magazines yourself?
It's not as if they'll be destroyed when the re-issues hit the shelves.
>
> >Again, I'm surprised that a he-man libertarian such as yourself doesn't
> >pick up on this obvious fact.
>
> I can pick up on the obvious fact that Flint's right to make his own
> editorial decisions does not in any way abrogate my right to complain
> about the decisions that he did make. I've cited Windows as an
> obvious example before: Mickeysoft has a perfect right to sell a
> product with bugs in it, and is under no obligation whatever to
> address my preferences for a bug-free one; I have a perfect right to
> complain about the bugs.
>
> It's a thing we have called "free speech." I'm surprised that a
> self-described "middle of the roader" like yourself didn't pick up on
> this obvious fact.
So, of course you can point to the text above and show where you've
actually made a specific criticism of Flint's editing as opposed to
your whine about him not publishing what you want. Starting with this:
----begin----
> >> >> Perhaps I'm just a total malcontent, then; but I won't consider that a
> >> >> solution unless and until one can say, ". . . and buy the editions
> >> >> from Blahblah Press instead, for which the editor was paid to respect
> >> >> the original text."
> >> >
> >> >But - as it's already been pointed out many times - you already can.
> >> >And often for about half the price of the newest versions. Used book
> >> >stores are your friend. As well as the newer online search guys -
> >> >Powell's, Amazon, etc.
----end----
Take your time; I willing to wait to see how creatively you can spin
this to be a criticism of Flint's editing instead of a complaint that
he's not publishing what you want.
Joe Bernstein
<jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> Offhand I can only recall reading one essay by a pundit who looked
> at preditions he had made to see which were wrong and to makes guesses as
> to why, which is George Orwell about 60 years ago.
At least one newspaper columnist I've followed used to do so annually.
I'm thinking it was William Safire (now retired, hence the "used to"),
but I could be wrong.
> Wait, Heinlein's essay on predicting the future also got two do-overs
> with commentary, didn't it?
Yep.
Which actually makes it two libertarians to one leftist here, if I'm
right about the newspaper guy being Safire; somewhat obscuring Dwight
Thieme's point...
I got fed up with news.groups a bit more than six months ago and took
a fairly drastic break. (Usually on such breaks I don't do anything
other than not read the group; this time I went to the trouble of
unsubscribing, from that and a bunch of related groups.) Shortly
after I got my phone line in, I noticed that it had been exactly
six months, and looked in to see what was going on. After I'd
decided I really would return, I took some predictions that had
resulted in *lots* of arguments and annoyance for me, in summer
and December of 2003, and assessed how they'd turned out.[1] To my
mild, disappointed, surprise, I'd done somewhat better than random,
but not a lot better.
Joe Bernstein
[1] In the course of compiling a list of moderators of Big 8 groups,
I also assessed the groups' activity levels, and in some cases noted
groups I thought were on the verge of dying, or thought were doing
OK. Groups I had thought would die were way overrepresented among
the groups that *did* die, but still, about half those predictions were
not borne out; groups I had thought would do OK mostly did.
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
James Nicoll
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>In article <d8ceo5$gng$1...@reader1.panix.com>, James Nicoll
><jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Offhand I can only recall reading one essay by a pundit who looked
>> at preditions he had made to see which were wrong and to makes guesses as
>> to why, which is George Orwell about 60 years ago.
>
>At least one newspaper columnist I've followed used to do so annually.
>I'm thinking it was William Safire (now retired, hence the "used to"),
>but I could be wrong.
>
>> Wait, Heinlein's essay on predicting the future also got two do-overs
>> with commentary, didn't it?
>
>Yep.
>
>Which actually makes it two libertarians to one leftist here, if I'm
>right about the newspaper guy being Safire; somewhat obscuring Dwight
>Thieme's point...
When did RAH head rightwards from SoCredulism? Was it as early
as 1950, when the first draft was done?
dwight...@gmail.com
W. Citoan wrote:
> dwight...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > W. Citoan wrote:
> > > dwight...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Quite frankly, from the posts I see on this group, my sense of
> > > > literary aesthetics and editorial judgement is better than _at
> > > > least_ 90% of those who pariticipate at least semi-regularly.
> > >
> > > Hmm, don't have much of an ego, do you?
> >
> > At the risk of being impolitic - Whoosh!
>
> The number of people who use sarcasm, but cannot themselves recognize it
> in return amazes me...
Sigh. Let me explain then: Whether or not Flint should have just
published the old stories word-for-word or should have 'updated' them
with judicious editing cannot be resolved by appeals to arguments based
on literary aesthetics or judgement, not even by those who have obvious
authority and expertise in the field. Dozois could say the alterations
are okay, Didion could no doubt wryly quip that many of her best lines
were the creations an intelligent and empathic editor, and Norton would
aver that she trusts her people to make whatever alterations necessary
to keep her stuff in print and the cash coming her way, and anyway, the
Soviets aren't that big a threat anymore.
Do you think (honestly now) that this would get any of Eric's naysayers
to change their minds? Personally, I doubt that if Schimtz himself
rose up and said enough already, he approves of the changes that these
people (who impress me as being rather stubborn gits) would change
their opinion.
So you've got to go with some other arguments. Personally, I want
these people to actually support their positions by generating a
dataset, making predictions before the reduction of the data, etc., but
knowing these guys, it just ain't going to happen. So you've got to go
the middle ground, and note that the Schmitz estate seems happy enough
- and by the way do you think they weren't consulted about these
alteration? - the books have done modestly well, and Eric is still
employed by Baen.
Contrariwise, magine what would have happened if he had decided to grab
new readers by introducing a lesbian element between Trigger and
Telzey. Do you think any of the above parties would have been
particularly happy?
>
> > > > And why anyone who, for example, prefer books with Blam! think
> > > > their opions have any merit whatsoever is a real head-scratcher.
> > > > I declare from this basis that Flint's alterations are perfectly
> > > > acceptable, and if they don't like it . . . tough.
> > >
> > > This is rather ironic. Given that Flint's rationale for editing is
> > > to make the books more popular with the average reader (i.e. "who
> > > prefer books with Blam!"), it is exactly those folks whose opinions
> > > have the most merit for Flint.
> >
> > Oh, it is your considered literary opinion that those here who prefer
> > books with Blam! actually have superior insight into what the average
> > reader would prefer? Check out the whoosh comment again.
>
> Well, since you used "Blam" with a "!", I believe you are referring to
> the CD-ROM art publications of Necro Enema Amalgamated. Baen's bikini
> girl and exploding spaceship covers are tame by comparison but serve the
> same purpose. And it is Baen who claims those covers make the books
> more popular.
Blam! as in action-adventure stories. Which (imho) tend to be rather
easily dated, though obviously that's not a hard and fast rule.
Mike Schilling
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:d8ceo5$gng$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>
> That's not a nuts things, that's a "humans hate to admit error
> even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a
> cigarette
> in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the
> remains
> of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'" thing.
Ummm, is that a metaphor?
James Nicoll
A metaphor. I don't smoke.
I did once neglect to note that the large firecracker that
I had been trying without success to light the fuse of lit while
I happened to be looking elsewhere. That's not _quite_ true. I looked
at it just in time to see the burning end of the fuse reach its end.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
>
> Sigh. Let me explain then: Whether or not Flint should have just
> published the old stories word-for-word or should have 'updated' them
> with judicious editing cannot be resolved by appeals to arguments based
> on literary aesthetics or judgement, not even by those who have obvious
> authority and expertise in the field.
I'm currently reading Sprague de Camp's autobiography,
"Time and Chance". He says that in the 1950s he was
asked to edit three rejected Conan stories. Not successful
works you understand. Works Howard himself would probably
have adjusted had their been another market for them. De Camp
says something like the following:
"I edited them with a heavy hand. Later, for an anthology
I re-edited them more lightly. If I were to prepare them
for publication today I would edit even more lightly, just
making changes for consistency."
Someone ask Eric in forty years if he edited too heavily.
--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Glenn Dowdy
> In article <REjqe.26670$J12....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>,
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>>news:d8ceo5$gng$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>>
>>>
>>> That's not a nuts things, that's a "humans hate to admit error
>>> even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a
>>> cigarette
>>> in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the
>>> remains
>>> of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'" thing.
>>
>>Ummm, is that a metaphor?
>
> A metaphor. I don't smoke.
>
Glenn D.
James Nicoll
Glenn Dowdy <glenn.n...@hpspam.com> wrote:
>
>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>news:d8ch1j$hvg$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>> In article <REjqe.26670$J12....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>,
>> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>>>news:d8ceo5$gng$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>>>
>>>>
>>>> That's not a nuts things, that's a "humans hate to admit error
>>>> even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a
>>>> cigarette
>>>> in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the
>>>> remains
>>>> of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'" thing.
>>>
>>>Ummm, is that a metaphor?
>>
>> A metaphor. I don't smoke.
>>
>Do you smolder, just a bit, every once in a while?
>
Bill Snyder
How very thoughtful of you to include the exact same stuff twice, a
kind of anti-snipping which ought to gratify recent immigrants from
AOL no end. I'm sure everyone else appreciates that as much as I.
Now point to the sentence and specific words in which I "said or even
implied that anyone was under any obligation to do it my way."
Terra Base to DT: You're not nearly bright enough, and I'm not nearly
stupid enough, for you to be able to get away with shifting the goal
post from demanding something to merely complaining about the lack of
it.
Mike Schilling
"Bill Snyder" <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote in message
news:eprja1tg3vfg0d7ud...@4ax.com...
> You're not nearly bright enough, and I'm not nearly
> stupid enough, for you to be able to get away with shifting the goal
> post from demanding something to merely complaining about the lack of
> it.
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
Bill Snyder
You must have dealt with the same managers I remember so fondly.
dwight...@gmail.com
Michael Stemper wrote:
> In article <1118243784.3...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, dwight.thieme writes:
> >Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>
> {"The Butcher of Baen"]
>
> >> here, any more than the fact that he gave a check to Lois Bujold or
> >> David Weber means that the merits of their work are beyond question.
> >> Sure, nothing's likely to change as a result of a discussion here,
> >> any more than an author I like is going to get a bigger advance or
> >> one I dislike is going to get a smaller one. But so what? (If one
> >> is looking for influence over events, Usenet is probably the wrong
> >> place to be spending one's time. Discussion, on the other hand, is
> >> what newsgroups are for.)
>
> >And please, don't change the goalposts in mid-discusussion either. The
> >issue is obviously not whether any criticisms are permissible and never
> >has been;
>
> Then why do you, in the following text, try to equate criticism with
> calls for censorship?
>
> > the issue is that a certain percentage of people here
> >(ironically, I spot a few libertarians among them) are saying that
> >Flint should never have published such altered works, period. (in case
> >you're thinking that that sounds like a call for censorship, yeah, it
> >is,
I'm not equating criticism with censorship, I'm equating saying that
Flint should never have published such altered works with a call to
censorship. Dumbass.
> That's a crock of shit, is what that is. If you can't see the difference
> between saying "I don't think that X should do Y" and "I think that the
> full force of government should be invoked to prevent anybody from
> doing Y", then you need to learn to read, and to think.
Form the online Merriam site:
Main Entry: cen·sor·ship
Pronunciation: 'sen(t)-s&r-"ship
Function: noun
1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring b : the actions
or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised
repressively
and thus to censoring:
Main Entry: censor
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): cen·sored; cen·sor·ing /'sen(t)-s&-ri[ng],
'sen(t)s-ri[ng]/
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered
objectionable
You need to learn the definitions of basic words before you post.
Dumbass.
dwight...@gmail.com
Actually, intentionally or not, you snipped the part of the post I was
replying to:
----begin----
> But that's not what's really being argued though - more like in
> the absence of anything more definitive, that it should be the
> last word, can't in fact, help but be.
Evidently, it can. If there's a last word on the subject, it hasn't
been produced yet, since the discussion goes on ad infinitum. It's
not clear to me why Jim Baen's opinion should be accepted as final
here, any more than the fact that he gave a check to Lois Bujold or
David Weber means that the merits of their work are beyond question.
----end----
To which I replied with counter-examples like the one about
creationists still nattering on: however much they chatter, evolution
is still the last word on the origin of the species.
>
> (The newsgroups for disputing well-established scientific theories
> or historical facts are down the way a bit, and I don't personally
> read or participate in them.)
>
> > And please, don't change the goalposts in mid-discusussion
> > either. The issue is obviously not whether any criticisms are
> > permissible and never has been; the issue is that a certain
> > percentage of people here (ironically, I spot a few libertarians
> > among them) are saying that Flint should never have published
> > such altered works, period. (in case you're thinking that that
> > sounds like a call for censorship
>
> I'm not, actually, and I can't really see why anyone would. It's a
> disagreement with his judgment, just like "George Lucas should have
> done 'Revenge of the Sith' differently, or not at all." I wouldn't
> dream of using law or force to make Lucas do anything other than
> what he did. Being the polite and retiring sort I am, I probably
> wouldn't even tell him what I thought of the movie if I happened to
> encounter him in person. But I certainly think his actual choices
> were lousy, and that it would be better had the prequel trilogy
> never been made.
But saying "George Lucas should have done 'Revenge of the Sith'
differently or not at all," is a form of censoring. I dislike a great
many details of those movies, and have said so, and explained why, but
I nevertheless will defend to the death his write to make them. Well,
maybe that's a bit hyperbolic :-)
But there's a great deal of difference between "I don't like what you
say at all, but I'll defend your right to say it", and "I don't like
what you say at all, and you shouldn't have said it."
> Similarly, no one I've seen has made the claim that Flint and Baen
> lacked the legal right to do what they did (and, in fact, many of
> them have explicitly acknowledged that they did). Nor have I seen
> any calls for the law to be changed, or for extralegal action to be
> taken.
Sigh. I do not let my daughter read certain books, watch certain
movies, or visit certain internet sites. That's censorship. To claim
otherwise is silly, and to insist that it's not really unless the
government is involved is just plain whacko.
Tell you what though, if you've got a cite for censoship that includes
that compononent as a prerequisite, I'm willing to look at it.
> However, some of the more vocal participants have been in my
> killfile for a while. Can you directly quote (or link to) a post
> that has called in earnest for censorship
Bill Snyder has said that simply avoiding the new Schmitz editions, or
avoiding them and buying older OOP copies is "not a solution", which I
take as a comment to be crossing the line. Googling on his name, I
find that a lot of people have becsome exasperated with him and the way
he argues, so its not out of the bounds of reason that you've got him
killfiled.
But I'll admit to a bit of rhetorical excessivensess myself: someone
mentioned the fairly obvious fact that if you don't like the books you
don't have to read them, and a few people complained that that wasn't
good enough, in fact, as one of them claimed, it's "not a solution",
and wouldn't be until someone else offered the same stories in their
unexpurgated form, presumably at the same price Baen is charging.
That's what got my dander up.
dwight...@gmail.com
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1118420111....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> dwight...@gmail.com <dwight...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> snip re Grewal
> >
> >Damn the masses and their preference for identitiy politics! My
> >favorite example of irrationality when it comes to politics/economics
> >was the prediction by libertarians, supply siders, Cato, Heritage, etc.
> >that the Budget Reconcilliation Act of 1993 would plunge the U.S. into
> >recession. Aha! says I, finally, a clear-cut, testable prediction.
> >You know the rest, of course, no recession . . . and no retractions by
> >the offending parties or modifications to their theories in the
> >slightest. That, btw, was when I realized that libertarians were just
> >plain nuts, despite their claims of being the only real choice for
> >clear-thinking intelligent people.
>
> That's not a nuts things, that's a "humans hate to admit error
> even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a cigarette
> in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the remains
> of a sign that once read 'DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES'" thing. It's pretty
> universal.
Well, if they simply wouldn't admit they were wrong then and quietly
modified their theories to fit the facts that wouldn't be so bad,
would, in fact, be human. But these guys are still claiming tax cuts =
good, tax increases = bad, and I thought that insanity was defined as
doing the same thing over and over in the hope of getting different
results.
Besides, these guys are claiming their system is some sort of
scientific theory, not the idle uninformed opinion of the man in the
street, and while scientists are reluctant to abandon pet theories
(they are, after all, human) they will do so in the face of
disconfirming evidence. That's what it means to be a scientist, after
all.
In fact, that's what initially attracted me to the libertarian party
and to libertarianism in the late 70's, that it's adherents claimed it
was based on rational, testable principles and that it's development
was of an axiomatic form - if the axioms are true, so must be the
logically derived conclusions.
Well, I was young :-)
> Offhand I can only recall reading one essay by a pundit who looked
> at preditions he had made to see which were wrong and to makes guesses as
> to why, which is George Orwell about 60 years ago. Wait, Heinlein's essay
> on predicting the future also got two do-overs with commentary, didn't it?
Well, pundits are one thing, presentation of a "scientific" theory such
as the supply-siders and libertarians claimed to be doing quite another.
Brett Paul Dunbar
<j...@sfbooks.com> writes
>In article <d8ceo5$gng$1...@reader1.panix.com>, James Nicoll
><jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Offhand I can only recall reading one essay by a pundit who looked
>> at preditions he had made to see which were wrong and to makes guesses as
>> to why, which is George Orwell about 60 years ago.
>
>At least one newspaper columnist I've followed used to do so annually.
>I'm thinking it was William Safire (now retired, hence the "used to"),
>but I could be wrong.
The _Times_ economics commentator Anatole Kaletsky does that. He does a
column in January making a series of predictions and in December
assesses how he has done. So add one neo-Keynesian economist.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address
Mark Atwood
> In message <d8cfco$sfa$1...@reader1.panix.com>, Joe Bernstein
> <j...@sfbooks.com> writes
> >In article <d8ceo5$gng$1...@reader1.panix.com>, James Nicoll
> ><jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Offhand I can only recall reading one essay by a pundit who looked
> >> at preditions he had made to see which were wrong and to makes guesses as
> >
>
Bob Cringley does it, every year.
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus