Last 5 winners of the Hugo Best Novel: Ancillary Justice, Redshirts, Among Others, Blackout/All Clear, The Windup Girl/The City & the City.

So which ones are "message" novels?

Red Shirts sure as hell isn't. Ancillary Justice is interesting, but I certainly would consider it a hell of a lot less "mandatory message" driven than this year's The Dark Between the Stars.

THREE of the best five novellas are John C. Wright? I mean he is not a terrible writer, but seriously? That's what their team considers the best science fiction novellas published this year?

I agree they did nothing illegal. But their nominations are pretty shit compared to what was published this year. I think they managed not to include a single one of my top picks for novels, novellas, or novelettes.

Also, that nomination for Wisdom from My Internet is just embarrassing. At least as embarrassing as that dinosaur love story.

Are you actually asserting that Kevin J. Anderson's book is better than the latest William Gibson?

Are you seriously going to tell me that John C. Wright wrote THREE of the best five novellas of the year?

Either you have terrible taste in science fiction or you haven't actually bothered looking at the nominees yet.

Suspicion yes, but that's still not proof of anything. How did they eventually nail him? I realize you can convict on circumstantial evidence, but "He was capable of it" doesn't seem like quite enough proof.

So pay off the guy's debt for him and put him in treatment.

This is basic security clearance stuff. It you're doing anything that gives someone leverage over you (outside of your job), you don't get to know anything important. Seems reasonable to me.

No, it's completely insane, and a circular argument. If you gamble, you could be blackmailed by somebody threatening to tell your boss. Your boss will fire you for that because... it creates leverage? It's only leverage because the boss makes it leverage. If the boss would butt his dumb ass out of your private life, it wouldn't be effective as leverage anymore.

Example: Dickhead calls your boss and tattles on you for gambling. Your boss yawns and says "Who gives a fuck?" and hangs up. Look! No leverage!

With fall (autumn) just getting started, the season is fresh and novel for most of us after experiencing the summer. It's no surprise the fall is coming in first, followed by summer (the next most recent thing you experienced) followed by spring (the again next most recent thing). And winter, the furthest back in memory, is coming in last. I have little doubt that if we executed this poll in the summer, the results would simply rotate around.

Every season seems fresh, new, and stimulating when it begins. Personally, I'm enjoying the fall start, but I can't kid myself -- summer and spring are my favorites, for different reasons. But yeah.. I'm digging fall, but it'll get old in a month or so.

"I'm a contractor. I have a team of carpenters who are tasked with building a house. It seems this is going to require the driving of a large number of nails. My team of carpenters would like to know what sort of tool or mechanism would work best to drive these nails. Right now, we have one guy who holds the nail while another guy hits it with his thermos. This does eventually drive in the nail, but 90% of the time the nail bends, and it's denting our thermoses. I wonder if there exists some genius, super-carpenter bad-ass out there who might be able to suggest a better way."

Really? You don't give any part of your SSN to anyone? I take it you are not the beneficiary of any insurance policy and never held a job?

Either they are asking because they want to match your SSN to their records (in which case, they already have your SSN), or they do not have your SSN, in which case you can just type in a fake number.

No, because "mass destruction" is a term that implies certain things based on the meaning of those two words. For instance, I do not use "mass destruction" to refer to a shovel. Because those words do not mean that.

If it's a bomb, call it a bomb. Calling it a WMD is nothing but linguistic mind control.

The term "WMD" was intended to distinguish certain weapons of "mass destruction" from other conventional weapons, for instance conventional bunker-busting bombs. With respect to military weapons, a convention explosive bomb capable of leveling a three story building is not considered a WMD. WMD was meant to describe weapons such as thermonuclear bombs, mass chemical and biological agents, etc.

It appears we no longer have a useful term to refer to weapons which cause "mass destruction." Apparently, a couple of ounces of low-velocity explosive packed inside a metal container one can acquire at Walmart now meet the qualification. This is ludicrous.

Or, you know, you could work out those problems with a design before you start.

Can you list the projects you've worked on where there was a complete, correct design at the beginning, and that design was then flawlessly executed? I would like to study and learn from such projects.