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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 122 declined, 17 accepted (139 total, 12.23% accepted)

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Sci-Fi

Submission + - SF Writer J. G. Ballard dead at 78 (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "The BBC is reporting that science fiction writer J. G. Ballard has died at age 78. Ballard had been fighting terminal prostate cancer since 2006. His is probably most famous to the public at large for his autobiographical novel The Empire of the Sun, which told the fictionalized story of his growing up in a Japanese internment camp near Shanghai during World War II, and was made into an acclaimed Stephen Spielberg film. His controversial novel Crash was also made into an equally controversial David Cronenberg film. Before finding mainstream success, Ballard was best known as probably the most influential writer in the British New Wave of science fiction, which incorporated many experimental literary techniques and tackled many topics (such as sex) that had generally not been touched on in "golden age" science fiction. He published several acclaimed novels in the field, including The Crystal World, The Drowned World, The Wind from Nowhere, and High Rise, as well as numerous influential short stories, many of which were published in the Michael Moorcock-edited New Worlds. His autobiography, Little Miracles of Life: From Shanghai to Shepperton, came out last year."
Government

Submission + - FBI Raids Data Centers for AT&T, take Wii, iPo (wired.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "Tuesday the FBI carried out raids on two Texas data centers, carrying off millions of dollars in co-lo equipment. What triggered the raid wasn't child porn or terrorism, but unpaid VoIP bills to Verizon and AT&T. "Companies affected by the raids say they've lost millions of dollars in equipment and business after the FBI hauled off gear belonging to phone and VoIP providers, a credit card processing company and other businesses that housed equipment at the centers. Nobody has been charged in the FBI's investigation." It gets stranger: "Authorities also raided his home, where they seized eight iPods, some belonging to his three children, five XBoxes, a PlayStation3 system and a Wii gaming console, among other equipment. Agents also seized about $200,000 from the owner's business accounts, $1,000 from his teenage daughter's account and more than $10,000 in a personal bank account belonging to the elderly mother of his former comptroller.""
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Mashup Frenzy Sweeps SF Publishing (locusmag.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "The forthcoming publication of Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has set off a mashup frenzy, with publishers buying up similar books left and right. Books to be published include Henry James and Laurell K. Hamilton's The Portrait of a Lady and Vampires, which the publisher describes as being "exactly like the original, but with several hundred additional pages of kinky sex," Feodor Dostoevsky and Stephen King's Crime and Punishment and Werewolves, George Eliot and Paul Di Filippo's Silas Marner vs. The Lizard Men, Leo Tolstoy and Jeff VanderMeer's War and Peace and Alien and Predator, James Joyce and Aaron Allston's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Terminator, and Herman Melville, H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth and Brian Lumley's Moby Dick vs. Cthulhu. A Creationist publisher is also bringing out The Bible, Now With Added Dinosaur Attacks. "Since the earth is only 6,000 years old, it's obvious that several biblical characters must have fought dinosaurs.""
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Difficult Times for SF Magazines (locusmag.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "Another speculative fiction magazine folds: Realms of Fantasy is ceasing publication. This comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the venerable Fantasy and Science Fiction will be moving from a monthly to a bimonthly schedule, and underscores what a tough environment this is for science fiction and fantasy magazines, all of which have suffered declining circulation for quite some time. This is a real problem, since short fiction is generally where new writers cut their teeth, appearing in print alongside their more famous peers. Given that a one-year subscription costs less than the average video game, those with an interest in science fiction might want to consider buying subscriptions to Asimov's , Fantasy and Science Fiction , and Analog . (Those in the UK might want to consider subscribing to Interzone and/or Black Static and Postscripts as well.) The genre you save may be your own!"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Red Dwarf to Return, Find Earth (guardian.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "Everyone's favorite live-action science fiction comedy series will finally return to TV, with Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and the Cat all making it to Earth. The new two-part series Red Dwarf: Back to Earth will appear on digital channel Dave, will be written and directed by Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor, and will reunite the line-up. Personally, I think this is pretty smegging fantastic."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Ray Bradbury turns 88 (latimes.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "Legendary science fiction writer Ray Bradbury turned 88 years old on August 22. Happy Birthday Ray! The Illustrated Man was one of the first science fiction books I ever read, and I've been hooked ever since. I'm sure that's true of a lot of science fiction writers and readers, be it that, or The Martian Chronicles, or Fahrenheit 451. There are also several videos of Ray on that page, including one where he doesn't endorse Sunsweet Prunes."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Apple's Market Cap Exceeds Google (macdailynews.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "Mac Daily News was one of many Apple-followers to note that Apple Inc.'s market capitalization exceeded Google today. That means that the combined value of all Apple's outstanding shares of stock exceeded the combined value of all Google's outstanding shares of stock. Apple's stock is worth $157 billion and change vs. Google's $156 billion. Other companies Apple has surpassed in market cap include Cisco, HP, and Intel. Also, Apple is now worth 3 times the value of Dell Computer, despite Dell's founder and CEO declaring over a decade ago that if he ran Apple, he'd "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."."
Books

Submission + - Amazon to POD Publishers: Use our printer, or else (writersweekly.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "According to this story on Writer's Weekly, Print on Demand publishers are being told to use Amazon's own BookSurge POD printer or else Amazon will disable the "buy" button for their books. After hemming and hawing, an Amazon/BookSurge rep "finally admitted that books not converted to BookSurge would have the 'buy' button turned off on Amazon.com, just as we'd heard from several other POD publishers who had similar conversations with Amazon/BookSurge representatives...their eventual desire is to have no books from other POD publishers available on Amazon.com.""
Government

Submission + - Advocate: Global Warming Trumps Liberty, Democracy (onlineopinion.com.au)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "David Shearman, University of Adelaide professor and co-author of two books on global warming, says that democracy needs to be replaced with authoritarianism to fight global warming, and that "reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties." "Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived! Support for Western democracy is messianic as proselytised by a President leading a flawed democracy." The author cites China's authoritarian government as a better model."
Businesses

Submission + - FDIC Shuts NetBank (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "AP is reporting that the FDIC has shut down NetBank due to defaults". NetBank was one of the first "internet only" banks. Evidently they weren't a victim of the so-called "subprime meltdown," but rather suffered losses due to "early payment defaults on loans sold, weak underwriting, poor documentation, a lack of proper controls, and failed business strategies." Yep, that will usually do it. Those with less than $100,000 in deposits are covered by the FDIC; those with more money than that on deposit may be SOL."
Space

Submission + - $35,000 for Buzz Aldrin's Slide Rule (ha.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "Heritage Auctions of Dallas is holding a big auction of important space memorabilia on September 20. There are numerous items from the US and Soviet space programs, including several personal items of Buzz Aldrin's, including handwritten notes and the slide rule he took to the moon. The auction will be both in person, online through Heritage's own site, and also through eBay. I doubt there's anything I can afford here, but how often do you get a chance to buy something that's been to the moon?"
United States

Submission + - No Climate Change Consensus Among Top Scientists (canada.com)

Submitted by
Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person writes: "When Financial Post reporter Lawrence Solomon started interviewing top scientists who dissented from the global warming orthodoxy, he "accepted the prevailing view that scientists overwhelmingly believe that climate change threatens the planet. I doubted only claims that the dissenters were either kooks on the margins of science or sell-outs in the pockets of the oil companies...Now, after profiling more than 20 deniers, I do not know when I will stop — the list of distinguished scientists who question the IPCC grows daily, as does the number of emails I receive, many from scientists who express gratitude for my series. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists — the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects — and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position.""

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