C: - it's just the way he said:

"I have always been convinced that the culture of sf fanzines contributed heavily to the formative culture of the early Web, and generated models for web site and blogs. The very tone of the discourse is similar, and like fanzines, the Web took new word coinages, turned them into acronyms, and ran with them."

It's as if he was responding to someone who said,

"Sports fans invented the Web."

Inside fandom, this isn't news (as almost everyone uptopic has said).

To mundanes...oh, what the heck, maybe it is.

We now live in a very safe, quiet neighborhood in the country. It's dismaying to see parents wait with their kids every day at the bus stop. When I was in kindergarten (1962), I walked a whole half block to my bus stop. My mother was hyper-protective, but only walked me to the bus stop the first day.

When our daughter was 12, we'd just moved to a close-in suburb of Pittsburgh (this was 1993). We explained to her how to walk to the trolley, which she did, meeting her father for lunch when he worked in downtown. Some of his co-workers were amazed that we let her do that. *sigh*

Hmmmm...

The chart works for me a little, but not doesn't completely. For one thing, I've always known women who played D&D. I tried it and didn't like it.

And Asimov and Vin Diesel on the same part of the flow chart? What the hell is that all about? It seems unlikely that people who like Asimov would also go for Vin Diesel Asimov is more of the "anti-Diesel."

I'm with Michael - I suspect this is an urban legend. While members of the government in Britain tend to be slightly more reality-based than their US counterparts, most of them don't let the truth get in the way of a "telling example."

The incest laws are pretty strongly rooted in many religious traditions, but I have to agree with the other posters here - it's a whole different situation with consenting adults, particularly if they aren't planning to have kids.

I love Lefton's, too. I especially love the deconstruction he did:

http://www.awardweb.info

I have photos of most of the Hugos at AwardWeb. However, there is now an official Hugo site, with even more photos. It's up at:

http://www.thehugoawards.com

I agree the Ultraman Hugo is pretty neat.

However, my favorite Hugo statue ever is still the Magicon statue:

It's got a starry background and a small piece of a gantry from NASA!

Yeah, ALS is a fate worse than death for the patient. Both ALS and Alzheimer's are pretty horrific for the family.

Early onset Alzheimer's is typically rapidly progressing and can be fairly drug resistent. I sincerely hope some of the newer drugs have some positive impact for Terry.

I find many of his books laugh-out-loud funny. I've met him at a few Worldcons and generally found him amusing to be around.

John, so the "former SFWA copyright committee?"

It's bound to have some reference; it's bound to come up.

So, if there is a new organization to promote SF writers, will it use the proposal of the Scalzi committee for copyright management?

I was briefly on Facebook and LinkedIn (which is supposed to be more for "professionals") but got off both really quickly due to complete strangers befriending me and telling me to do likewise.

I occasionally look at MySpace, but don't really have an account there.

I prefer LiveJournal, which is text-based, not app-heavy, and seems to be full of people I'm interested in communicating with. And, of course, blogger.

Not that I want to support Conservapedia in any way, but they've apparently been punked. It might be considerate of Boing-Boing to say so up front.

I downloaded it and didn't see any real differences.

However, the text in this comment box is now illegible. Hmm...

Anorexic 20 year olds are more likely to drop dead than fat 20 year olds. Granted, there are many more fat folks than anorexics. Merely being fat doesn't tend to cause sudden death until someone in their 40s and up.

When I compare my health problems to my younger sister's (a bulimic for nearly 30 years), I'm in "perfect health."

Some of my Dad's ancestors moved to Salem early on - details at http://www.dpsinfo.com/tree/trask/
if you're interested.

Luckily, my line of ancestors left Salem for nearby Beverly about 20 years before "the troubles." I'm glad about that!

As it was, one relative was tenuously involved in witchcraft:

Christian, wife of John Trask of Salem, "being violently asalted by the temptations of Satan, cut her own throate with a paire of sisers to the astonishment and grief of all, especially her most near relations."

But if you look at what Christian had been going through around the time of her death, post-partum depression is a much more rational reason for her suicide than witchcraft.

I think body size is one of those collision of nature/nurture kind of things. To imply genetics has no impact on body size is ludicrous.

But, certainly, what you eat and how active you are can trump genetics.

I'll give you some examples on how genetics impacts what you eat. I don't like most vegetables. They taste pretty bad to me. Most leafy vegetables taste like tin. Many fruits taste bad to me. Ditto many kinds of fish and shellfish. If I enjoyed eating vegetables, fruits and fish as much as I like meats and starches, I'd probably weigh less. I have a natural tendency to eat very quickly. I've been trying for years to slow down, because most studies about eating say when you eat quickly, it takes you longer to feel full. Haven't had much luck yet.

On the flip side, I weigh about 40 pounds less now that I did about 10 years ago. Most women my age age gaining weight and I'm loosing it very slowly. So, I am learning. I am more active than I was, and I'm more careful about the foods and amounts of food I eat. I do understand about the issues of weight and health (I've already been on Lipitor for nearly 2 years). But being overweight isn't quite the same thing as being sick. For many people, obesity has little impact on their health. People need to be more rational about issues of weight.

When people, especially women, develop an anathema about being overweight, they can develop bulimia and/or anorexia. And if you think fat people's health problems are costly, so are bulimics'.

Epidemic is an odd word for it. For many of us, being fat is as normal as having brown hair.

An analysis I read of these findings the last time they were announced was that many fatal diseases (many kinds of cancer, Alzheimer's) tend to make the people loose a huge amount of weight before they die. As a result, people are more likely to die when they're thin than when they're fat.

My grandfather, for example, lost nearly a 100 pounds in the months before he died of throat cancer. I almost didn't recognize him, the last time I saw him. So he would have been "thin" when he died. But he'd been fat his whole life up until his fatal illness.

And don't call me a fat-hater for pointing this out - I've been fat for most of my life.

In short, these studies need deeper analysis and might not be a reson to eat another doughnut.

What they usually intend to say:

Lowers early death rate

Though, on the other hand, people don't like to deal with the fact that the death rate over time is 100%.

I'm a fat person with lots of fat relatives. Most of them lived longer than average. The main difference between who died young and who lived long was who got diabetes.

Yeah, the notion of sausage comes instantly to mind...you don't want to see that being made, either.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

"
3. The rest of the internet observes that Andrew Burt hasn't apologized and fallen on his sword, and Michael Capobianco hasn't ordered him to resign. They have concluded that SFWA approves the DMCA and the takedown order.
"

I think some of us observe that individual SFWA officers seem to have more unfettered latitude in their actions in the name of SFWA than we expected.

#36 John, that's so rational!

The report of Michael Capobianco's response, that the "takedown" was the FAULT of scribd.com (in response to a threatening message from Andrew Burt) is bizarre. Has he been watching too much Fox TV lately? If you get a threatening letter from an organization, you just might overreact to it!

Y'know, isn't it interesting that the "SFWA Saves Writers Work from Scribd" has not shown up as a story on SFWA's news feed. Might show a certain...ahem...dissention in the hierarchy as to whether or not this was a good idea?

Ryan, you said it better than I could.

SFWA's behavior is disappointing, but not surprising.