My beloved folding keyboard, which I use with my palm pilot, died today. I clocked a lot of miles on it but it won’t talk to my palm anymore. Now, there is a chance that it’s actually the infrared sensor on my palm that’s kicked the bucket, but either way, I’m looking at replacing a piece of equipment. This isn’t just a geek toy, I use my Palm and keyboard all the time.

I’ve been trying to hold out replacing it until an ultramobile tablet computer became affordable, but I may start thinking about it harder now.

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? What I want is a gadget that I can write on, by both typing and handwriting/grafiti, one that will let me use Vindigo, function as an ebook reader, and display the subway map. It needs to sync with my computer easily. In an ideal world, it would also have wifi and a camera built into it.

And light. My current combo weighs almost exactly a pound.

John Scalzi is doing a One Star Challenge Roundup on his website.

Last Thursday, you may recall, I posted a bunch of my one-star Amazon reviews and challenged other authors to do the same, the idea being, you know, that there are worse things in life than a negative Amazon review. And what do you know, authors have begun taking me up on the challenge, posting choice one and two star reviews they have received. How very healthy of them.

I thought I wouldn’t get to play along, not having any novels out, but, behold! One of the anthologies I’m in has a one star-review.

The title of this book clearly tries to capitualize on the popular sci-fi motion picture “Solaris” and the underlying work, but nothing could be further from the truth. These stories at are best second rate, and most are third rate. The plots are often interesting but the prose is pedestrian, the charaters are wooden, and the outcomes are guessed a mile in advance. Save your money for the Tessaracts series

Wooden characters! Pedestrian prose! Predictable!

Scalzi was right, you can take a certain amount of joy from a negative review.

SF Signal The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 2 edited by George Mann and gives it an overall favorable rating.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Evil Robot Monkey” is an affecting snapshot in the life of a chimp with an implant in his head that increases his intelligence. Unfortunately for him, that lands him in the “hellish limbo” of being “too smart to be with other chimps, but too much of an animal to be with humans.” He becomes the subject of ridicule of children in what is presumably a school where he spends his time behind a pottery wheel. The interesting premise is delicately overlaid with emotion by having a single human show the chimp some compassion, resulting in a quick-and-dirty sf short story that is both charming and memorable.

While looking for something else entirely, I stumbled upon this ebay auction for aAntique Steam Pulley Driven Workshop with Lights. Good heavens. It’s got a lathe, jig saw, drill… It’s like a steampunk Shopsmith, but it’s real.

For those days when you can’t find the right writing tool, why not tryWord Perhect?

So… let’s recap today. Pilot overslept. Then thunderstorms. Still no pilot. Plane delayed by two hours. Miss D.C. connection. Rebooked on a flight for 6:15 am the next day. Sad. Get standby flight. Happy! Flight is delayed. Why? LaGuardia wasn’t letting flights in. Sad. Finally arrive in NYC. All buses are running! Happy! All buses Except mine. Sad.

I think, if I’m doing accounting for the timezone right, it took me thirteen hours to get home today.

And then! I made props and went to the theater to watch the dress rehearsal. Happy? Bed now. Happy!!!

Why? The crew overslept.

I managed to miss both of the panels yesterday and think I have a taste of what the next year will be. Why? Because I was in meetings rather than at the panels. Strangely fun meetings, I’ll grant, but nonetheless.

The Nebula weekend is largely unstructured, providing the members a chance to hobnob with each other. Frequently I found myself chatting with someone and then realizing that they were either a) famous or b) I knew them online or c) I wish I had known them all my life. Noticeably more people were here on day two and the demographic evened out considerably in terms of age. SFWA is still very, very, very white and it would be good to see it become more diverse, y’know? We people our SF and fantasy with dozens of different species, for crying out loud, and somehow can’t manage to integrate in real life. Gotta improve that. I’m looking forward to WisCon because it’s got panels looking at these issues.

But that’s not what I was planning on chatting about this morning. You’re here to hear about the banquet, right? The food wasn’t bad and — these things are important too — the table arrangements were lovely. Watching these writers receive their awards moved me more than I expected. Particularly people like Michael Chabon, who spoke so eloquently about the field and the wonder of SF that I actually got a little weepy. I felt like, yeah, that’s why I write and read this stuff, too.

Oh, and everyone dressed. Men in tuxedos, ladies in evening wear and all of them belonging in the tribe of SF. Heaven.

The election results were announced today at the business meeting.

President: Russell Davis
VP: Elizabeth Moon
Secretary: Mary Robinette Kowal
Treasurer: Amy Casil
Eastern Regional: Bud Sparhawk
Overseas Regional Directon: Ian Whates

Because the current secretary, Alma Alexander, couldn’t be here, I dived right in by taking minutes of the meeting. Fortunately, I don’t have any official duties until July 1, which will give me time to get the volunteer coordination organized so I can hand it off to someone else.

This is my first Nebula Weekend, so I don’t have anything else to compare it to except other cons. After checking in, I found my way to where they were handing out free books. I mean, hey, books, you know? Gotta keep your priorities straight. Every member got two heeping grocery bags of hardbacks. Good titles, too, like Michael Chabon’s latest, Gentlemen of the Road.

From there, I headed to the hospitality room. Important note: Texans know how to lay out a spread. Homemade cookies, people.

I spent a while hanging out there meeting new people and started to notice an interesting thing. The demographic of people who attend the Nebula Weekend seems to consist of people in their late forties and up. Yesterday, the only people my age or younger that I saw were nominees. Granted, due to the membership requirements, the organization will self-select to an older crowd because one needs time to establish a writing career. Still. It seems disproportionate. I understand more people are arriving today, so I’ll take note at the business meeting and the banquet tonight.

At three I headed to the panel on Publishing Contracts by Sean P. Fodera. This was an excellent, excellent discussion. I took notes, but I need to make them into something that people besides me can read before I post them. His closing remark was that in doctors, lawyers… all of these people need to do continuing education to stay abreast of what’s going on in their field. That they need to continually practice in order to maintain their license. People with artistic licenses think that they don’t have to do so, but it’s just as important for us if we want to be professionals. I am in total agreement with this. ¹ I wish the panel had not been so sparsely attended. It was the only panel yesterday and had only 22 attendees. Yes. I counted.

The mass autographing session made an easy way to greet people, but, again, felt very sparsely attended. This might be because half the attendees were sitting down to sign things. I’d really like to see more general public at an event like that.

Dinner, I spent with David Levine and Kate Yule. We went out for Indian food, which was not bad, considering that we are in Texas.

I hung out in the hospitality room afterwards until my sleep deprivation forced me to retreat to my room. Mmm… sleep. Broken by a wake-up call at 5:30 am. A wakeup call which I did not request. I was annoyed, but not as annoyed as whoever didn’t get their call.

Looking forward to today.

1. The worst business-of-writing advice I’ve gotten was from OSC because he’s thirty years out from being a beginning writer and a LOT has changed in that time. Plus, he’s a major writer so gets to play by different rules. [↩]

The room is expensive and then they also charge for wireless. Why can’t they pony up for a fast connection?

Otherwise, Austin seems fine. I’m enjoying meeting SFWA members with whom I’ve corresponded but not met.

See, marionettes are so useful for education. After that educational film, do you feel ready to stack haybales to protect your livestock from nuclear attack?

Spotted at Bubble Boy Blog

I was getting into Austin at noon Friday for the SFWA Nebula Award weekend, but I’ve had to rebook my ticket. I need to get some things done for the show I’m working on and really, really need the morning to get it done. Alas. So, if you are going to Austin, I’ll see you laaaate Friday night or on Saturday.

I do love my job, but there are days when I wish the hours were shorter.

Edited to add: After spending an hour on the phone, I discovered that, even though I can see a flight that is only $50 more expensive than mine, it would cost $435 more than my original ticket to change my flight. Can’t do that. Gah! Need more hours in the day.

We thought we had the the system solved to deliver the donut “magically” to the middle of the stage. Alas, using a foam bunny as our test subject¹ we discovered that the foam caught on even the tiniest bit of friction. When the friction released, the bunny shot into the air like a, well, rabbit.

After fiddling with it, we got rid of all the complicated bits and switched to the bluefoam donut I made last night and this morning. The new system works like a champ. Whew. No more fail! I tried taking photos, but the line is too thin to show up on my camera.

Basically, we run a piece of 15 lb braided dacron² offstage, using screw eyes and tubing to control where it runs. The donut sits on a short ramp on the upstage side of the tv, out of the line of sight of the audience. While they are looking at other business onstage, a stagehand pulls the string and the donut slides up the ramp and into place.

The string on its bottom is held in place by a piece of clear tape. When the actor picks up the donut, the tape, caught by a screw eye, releases. Voila. Magic donut.

Now that you know how we do that, I’ll have to kill you.

1. before carving it into a donut [↩]
2. black fishing line that I use for marionettes [↩]

For Steve and Idi I need a fake jelly donut.