[Plura-list] XKCD's scientific microfiction meme; Attack Surface is a Locus Awards finalist

Sun May 2 10:09:42 EDT 2021

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On May 7, the Gaithersburg Book Festival is featuring me in an interview
conducted by John Scalzi; we pre-recorded the event but I'll be in the
live chat for the premiere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQAVJPE1vRk

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Today's links

* XKCD's scientific microfiction meme: "Types of scientific paper."

* Attack Surface is a Locus Awards finalist: And what EXCELLENT company
it's in!

* This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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🍫 XKCD's scientific microfiction meme

In 2008, I traveled to the world's largest scientific data-centers for a
Nature story. No matter whether the labs were devoted to internet
archiving, the human genome, or the Higgs boson, they had two things in
common: vast server farms, and XKCD.

https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080903/full/455016a.html

Randall Munroe's webcomic is so unabashedly geeky, so unafraid to be
obscure or format-breaking, so affectionate and knowing about the
triumphs and pitfalls of science that it is absolute catnip for scientists.

Last week, Munroe published strip #2456, "Types of scientific paper," a
3x4 grid of thumbnails of journal articles with titles like, "We put a
camera somewhere new" and "My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove
it."

https://xkcd.com/2456/

Even by XKCD standards, this is heavy scientist-bait. The research
community has risen to the challenge, flooding the net with remixes that
are, if anything, even better than the original: works of microfictional
genius to rival Hemingway's "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Many of these have been collected on Bruce Sterling's Tumblr blogs, and,
taken as a body, they constitute an act of wry, insightful
auto-ethnography - self-criticism wrapped in humor that tells a story.

"Types of Paper in Epidemiology and Public Health"

* We counted how many people have a disease, here are maps with poor
countries in red

* We found that if you call your research 'genetic epidemiology,' then
people are surprisingly OK with eugenics

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102621519872

"Types of History Paper"

* Stuff happened: a chronology 1910-1974

* They missed so much stuff, it's honestly embarrassing 1910-1974

* I am so tired of stuff scholarship

* Wokeness is killing stuff scholarship! A senior scholar weighs in

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102621519872

"Types of Glaciology Paper"

* The ocean is doing a bunch of weird stuff to this glacier

* Why is it doing that: the wild physics

* Why is it doing that: now with machine learning

* We found a glacier that's doing fine! Oh, wait, nevermind

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102621519872

"Types of Entomology Paper"

* This pesticide is completely safe, says one very restricted metric

* This pesticide will kill us all: extrapolation from irrelevant data

* 39,000 new parasitic wasps

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102621519872

"Types of Climate Science Paper."

* Here's a bad thing about climate change you hadn't even thought about

* Did any of you guys take a statistics course?

* Things are definitely worse than we thought

* Things are definitely better than we thought

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179207348224

"Types of Quantum Computing Paper"

* Simulating our system with our system

* We've solved QC with our new scripting language

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179207348224

"Types of Remote Sensing Papers"

* We saw stuff on the ground from space

* We saw stuff on the ground better from space

* What's that? Let me see if I can see it from space

* Have you tried neural networks though?

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179207348224

"Types of Building Energy Papers"

* Expensive material improves building efficiency

* Stop climate change by rebuilding all buildings this way

* Insulate all things

https://wolfliving.tumblr.com/post/650004947977519104

"Types of Housing Papers"

* Why tech workers deserve condos with better walk scores

* Design students' yurts will end poverty

* Supportive housing costs less than boiling poor people in oil and it's
more efficient

* Elders have rebuilt enough equity for a new round of predatory lending

* Neighborhood gained wealth when rich people moved in

* This city ended homelessness (for left-handed veterans with cats)

https://wolfliving.tumblr.com/post/650004131207053312/design-students-yurts-will-end-poverty

I saved my favorite for last: "How a reporter sees types of science papers"

* This journal puts the full paper online

* Quantum

* I know this person responds to emails

* GIF-able video in the supporting information

* Fig 1 seems like it basically sums the whole thing up

* Scientist beef!

* I covered their last paper

https://brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179207348224

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🍫 Attack Surface is a Locus Awards finalist

The annual Locus Awards finalists have been announced and I am thrilled
to pieces to see my novel ATTACK SURFACE, a standalone book in the
Little Brother universe for adults, in the final ten for Best SF Novel!

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/2021-locus-awards-top-ten-finalists/

Even more exciting than making the top ten is the company it puts me in:
the other finalists are:

* Machine by Elizabeth Bear
* Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
* Agency by William Gibson
* The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
* War of the Maps by Paul McAuley
* The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
* The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
* Network Effect by Martha Wells
* Interlibrary Loan by Gene Wolfe

(also excited to see Tor Books, my publisher, next to so many of those
names!)

The entire list is, as always, a must-read guide to the best sf/f of the
past year. This year's Locus Awards Weekend is a virtual affair (for
obvious reasons) and runs Jun 23-26. You can sign up here:

https://locusmag.com/2021-locus-awards-weekend/

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🍫 This day in history

#20yrsago Microsoft slams Open Source. Again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/business/technology-microsoft-is-set-to-be-top-foe-of-free-code.html

#20yrsago Fiery screed about the state of Linux desktop environments
https://web.archive.org/web/20021204051712/http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3297/1/

#15yrsago Rich Americans as sick as poor Brits
https://web.archive.org/web/20060516225807/http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9098&feedId=online-news_rss20

#15yrsago Classic multi-ending MAD flexidisc MP3s
https://scarstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/mad-magazine-its-super-spectacular-day.html

#10yrsago Brust’s Tiassa: versatile fantasy in three modes
https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/02/brusts-tiassa-versatile-fantasy-in-three-modes/

#10yrsago Will technology make us freer, and if so, how?
https://locusmag.com/2011/05/cory-doctorow-techno-optimism/

#1yrago Kim Stanley Robinson on "our rewritten imagination"
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rewriting-our-imaginations/#ksr

#1yrago Ticketmaster gets $500m from Mohammad bin Salman
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rewriting-our-imaginations/#mister-bone-saw

#1yrago How "contact tracing" apps could be worse than useless
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rewriting-our-imaginations/#exposure-notification

#1yrago Prisons, meatpacking plants, nursing homes
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/02/rewriting-our-imaginations/#superclusters

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🍫 Colophon

Currently writing:

* A Little Brother short story about pipeline protests.  RESEARCH PHASE

* A short story about consumer data co-ops.  PLANNING

* A Little Brother short story about remote invigilation.  PLANNING

* A nonfiction book about excessive buyer-power in the arts, co-written
with Rebecca Giblin, "The Shakedown."  FINAL EDITS

* A post-GND utopian novel, "The Lost Cause."  FINISHED

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues."  FINISHED

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results
https://craphound.com/news/2021/03/28/past-performance-is-not-indicative-of-future-results/

Upcoming appearances:

* In conversation with John Scalzi (Gaithersburg Book Festival), May 7,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQAVJPE1vRk

* Interoperability and Alternative Social Media, Reimagine the Internet,
May 12, https://knightcolumbia.org/events/reimagine-the-internet

* Book launch for Aminder Dhaliwal's Cyclopedia Exotica (Indigo), May
13, https://www.crowdcast.io/e/udbva8py/register

* Seize the Means of Computation, Ryerson Centre for Free Expression,
May 19,
https://cfe.ryerson.ca/events/how-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-seize-means-computation

Recent appearances:

* Talking "Robot Artists & Black Swans" with Bruce Sterling
https://archive.org/details/robot-artists-black-swans-book-people-event-with-bruce-sterling-and-cory-doctorow-2021-04-29

* The Right to Repair Movement, Monopolies, and Solarpunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmosdDCrL-4

* The surveillance state, digital monopolies, and why we should be
worried (Podsongs)
https://anchor.fm/podsongs/episodes/Cory-Doctorow-on-the-Surveillance-State--digital-monopolies--and-why-we-should-be-worried-eso43k

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

* The Shakedown, with Rebecca Giblin, nonfiction/business/politics,
Beacon Press 2022

This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially,
provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are
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basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion
Guy" DeVilla

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