#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
It’s tomorrow night, 7 PM Eastern. We’ve got everything from Infogalactic news to a combat expert discussing the best way to deal with Black Bloc and other risks in an urban or suburban environment. Invites will be sent out tonight.
Also, we have an increasing number of ladies supporting Castalia House these days, which may be why we’ve had more than a few requests for a pink Castalia House v-neck. It’s available now, although the pink is not quite as hot as the picture tends to indicate.
An excellent post on the creation of “science fiction” and it’s impact on Jeffro’s “pulp revolution” at Castalia House
This is where we start to really see science fiction emerge as a term for a distinct genre, not so much because of clear differences between these stories and the other material being produced at the time (planetary romances, weird tales, science and sorcery, space opera with the Flash Gordon vibe) but as a marketing category: it was now clear that there really was a market for stories that did what Gernsback (and Wilson) wanted, and the industry – newly expanding into the fresh sales categories of inexpensive pocket-sized paperbacks – was eager to supply.You can even see the effect if you want: Google’s ngram viewer[6] shows the curve for the frequency of the use of “science fiction” in their database of digitized texts:None of the common terms for genre are particularly common until science fiction starts to take off in the early 1940s – it sees healthy growth right up until 1960, and then – WHAM – it explodes![7] Is it a coincidence that this explosion of awareness of “science fiction” as a category coincides with the era in which publishing was consolidating, bookstore franchises were growing, and the value of systematizing the way books were marketed was understood, the approach applied? It’s certainly not a coincidence that it coincides with Donald Wollheim’s masterful application of new printing options to both revitalize old, beloved classics and discover a bevy of amazing new authors while editor for Avon and Ace, and later with his own imprint at DAW.
The bloggers at Castalia House have really picked up their game in an impressive fashion. In my opinion, they have made a very credible run at Black Gate for the title of Best SF/F Site on a daily basis, so credible that I think it would be virtually impossible to say which is the more can’t-miss site from one day to the next.
I’ll freely admit that last year, there were occasionally times that days would go by before I would visit Castalia House. But ever since Jeffro brought on the new bloggers and committed to ensuring multiple daily posts, I don’t think I’ve missed a day of reading it. And the discussions are every bit as lively as the discourse here, if considerably more esoteric.
Great job, gentlemen.
North Carolina cucks for the NCAA on trannies:
North Carolina state Senate leader Phil Berger says his fellow Republican legislators have struck a deal with governor Roy Cooper to repeal House Bill 2 hours before an NCAA deadline that would have eliminated all scheduled NCAA championship events in that state until the year 2022.
HB2—an anti-LGBT bill that restricted the rights of transgender people—eliminated local governments’ abilities to raise the minimum wage, banned cities from passing their own ordinances to ban discrimination, and most famously required transgender people to use the labeled bathroom matching that on their birth certificates. Some of the state’s most prominent sports figures spoke out against the bill, while the NBA moved the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte and the NCAA moved the ACC championship game to Orlando.
The NCAA initially gave North Carolina until the end of February to knock down the bill, but later changed that to this Thursday, per the Charlotte Observer. It seems as if the NCAA’s pressure was enough to get the state’s GOP-led legislature to get a last-minute deal done.
Amazing and yet not at all surprising. The NC legislature would have done better to ban the NCAA from all activity in North Carolina, or at the very least, followed the example of Texas Gov. Abbott addressing the NFL’s demands. After all, the NCAA needs North Carolina a lot more than North Carolina needs the NCAA.
On Friday, in response to an email question about the Texas bill, which was filed last month, league spokesman Brian McCarthy said: “If a proposal that is discriminatory or inconsistent with our values were to become law there, that would certainly be a factor considered when thinking about awarding future events.”
Said Abbott on Tuesday: “For some low-level NFL adviser to come out and say that they are going to micromanage and try to dictate to the state of Texas what types of policies we’re going to pass in our state, that’s unacceptable.
“We don’t care what the NFL thinks and certainly what their political policies are because they are not a political arm of the state of Texas or the United States of America. They need to learn their place in the United States, which is to govern football, not politics.”
Every state legislature should pass a law banning any entity that makes threatening or extortionist statements intended to manipulate the legislators from further activity in that state. Plus a seven-digit fine. Gov. Abbott understands the difference between power and influence. Gov. Cooper and the NC legislators clearly do not.
As most readers of this blog know, the “Flat Earth Church vs Galileo” narrative is mostly revisionist history that has been completely mischaracterized by atheists who fucking love science because they believe it disproves the existence of the Baby Jesus. But what is interesting is that there was a considerable amount of scientific opposition to Galileo at the time as well, which is of course ignored by the ahistorical atheist narrative:
In 1614, when the telescope was new technology, a young man in Germany published a book filled with illustrations of the exciting new things being discovered telescopically: moons circling Jupiter, moon-like phases of Venus, spots on the Sun, the rough and cratered lunar surface. The young man was Johann Georg Locher, and his book was Mathematical Disquisitions Concerning Astronomical Controversies and Novelties. And while Locher heaped praise upon Galileo, he challenged ideas that Galileo championed – on scientific grounds.
You see, Locher was an anti-Copernican, a fan of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, and a student within the Establishment (his mentor was Christoph Scheiner, a prominent Jesuit astronomer). Locher argued that Copernicus was wrong about Earth circling the Sun, and that Earth was fixed in place, at the centre of the Universe, like Ptolemy said. But Locher was making no religious argument. Yes, he said, a moving Earth messes with certain Biblical passages, like Joshua telling the Sun to stand still. But it also messes with certain astronomical terms, such as sunrise and sunset. Copernicans had work-arounds for all that, Locher said, even though they might be convoluted. What Copernicans could not work around, though, were the scientific arguments against their theory. Indeed, Locher even proposed a mechanism to explain how Earth could orbit the Sun (a sort of perpetual falling – this decades before Isaac Newton would explain orbits by means of perpetual falling), but he said it would not help the Copernicans, on account of the other problems with their theory.
What were those problems? A big one was the size of stars in the Copernican universe. Copernicus proposed that certain oddities observed in the movements of planets through the constellations were due to the fact that Earth itself was moving. Stars show no such oddities, so Copernicus had to theorise that, rather than being just beyond the planets as astronomers had traditionally supposed, stars were so incredibly distant that Earth’s motion was insignificant by comparison. But seen from Earth, stars appear as dots of certain sizes or magnitudes. The only way stars could be so incredibly distant and have such sizes was if they were all incredibly huge, every last one dwarfing the Sun. Tycho Brahe, the most prominent astronomer of the era and a favourite of the Establishment, thought this was absurd, while Peter Crüger, a leading Polish mathematician, wondered how the Copernican system could ever survive in the face of the star-size problem.
Locher thought much was up in the air and ripe for study. In light of the star-size problem, he thought that the Earth clearly did not move; the Sun circled it. But the telescope made it clear that Venus circled the Sun, and that sunspots also went around the Sun. Brahe had theorised that all planets circled the Sun, while it circled Earth. Locher noted that Brahe might be right, but what was clear was that the telescope supported Ptolemy.
Granted, Locher didn’t imprison Galileo. But then, he didn’t have the power to do so, nor had Galileo treacherously turned on him, disregarded his wishes, and intentionally made him look like an ass in his published dialogue. The true lesson of Galileo and the Church is not one of religion and science, but rather, the price of being proud, stubborn, and socially retarded.
I’ve been saying this for years, simply on the basis of informed observation. But now there is hard evidence that nearly all – not just most – modern “science” is, in truth, literally nothing of the kind:
Fewer than 1 percent of papers published in scientific journals follow the scientific method, according to research by Wharton School professor and forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong. Professor Armstrong, who co-founded the peer-reviewed Journal of Forecasting in 1982 and the International Journal of Forecasting in 1985, made the claim in a presentation about what he considers to be “alarmism” from forecasters over man-made climate change.
“We also go through journals and rate how well they conform to the scientific method. I used to think that maybe 10 percent of papers in my field … were maybe useful. Now it looks like maybe, one tenth of one percent follow the scientific method” said Armstrong in his presentation, which can be watched in full below. “People just don’t do it.”
Armstrong defined eight criteria for compliance with the scientific method, including full disclosure of methods, data, and other reliable information, conclusions that are consistent with the evidence, valid and simple methods, and valid and reliable data.
Science, like so many other institutions across the West, has been converged. And, as per the Impossibility of Social Justice Convergence, it has lost its ability to perform its primary function.
That which cannot continue, will not continue:
The legal and illegal population of foreign-born immigrants living in America will break a 100-year-old record in just six years — and will continue to smash records for the rest of the century, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Already 13.5 percent of the U.S. population, immigrants will surge to 15 percent in 2023, according to Steven Camarota, the director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies.
At a conference to discuss the impact of immigration on public schools, he said “the share will hit 15 percent in just six years and that will surpass the all time high in the United States reached in 1890.” And if unchecked, he added, “the share is projected to increase throughout much of this century.”
Linear thinkers always argue that trends cannot be reversed. Of course, if that were true, the previous all-time high would not have peaked in 1890.
Great Britain has invoked Article 50 and is officially leaving the European Union:
Brexit begins! Historic moment for the UK as Article 50 letter is delivered to the EU with Theresa May hailing a ‘great turning point’ for country as it looks to forge a ‘bright new future’ outside the Brussels club. The Prime Minister signed the historic letter triggering EU divorce last night. Brexit will be irreversible once handed to EU chief Donald Tusk in Brussels today
Congratulations to the British for reclaiming their nation. This is a historic moment, every bit as historic as the Revolutionary War and the defeats of Napoleon and Hitler, despite not a shot being fired.
The EU is a stealth empire that has conquered with lies and banks in the place of infantry and tanks. It is to the great credit of the British people that they have had the courage to resist their subjugation and reclaim their nation and the Rights of Englishmen.
In the post-Civil War West, the railroads are expanding, the big money men are moving in, and the politicians they are buying make it difficult for a man to stand alone on his own. So, Walt Ames moves his wife, his home and his business from Denver to Pueblo. The railroads are bringing new opportunities to Colorado Territory, and he’s going to take full advantage of them.
Ambushed on their way south, Walt and his men uncover a web of corruption and crime to rival anything in the big city. And rough justice, Western-style, sparks a private war between Walt and some of the most dangerous killers he’s ever encountered, a deadly war in which neither friends nor family are spared.
Across the mountains and valleys of the southern Rocky Mountains, Walt and his men hunt for the ruthless man at the center of the web. Retribution won’t be long delayed… and it cannot be denied.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN RETRIBUTION is the second book in The Ames Archives, the classic Western series that began with BRINGS THE LIGHTNING. Author Peter Grant is a military veteran, a retired pastor, and the author of The Maxwell Saga and The Laredo Trilogy.
DRM-free. Also available in EPUB format from the Castalia House bookstore. From the reviews:
Another rare Pepe! I had no idea so many Dread Ilk were also Scalzi fans. It’s the rare author who can really reach across the political divide these days.
