Surely 60% is a rather low estimate?

Oct. 9th, 2025 05:22 pm
oursin: The Delphic Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel (Delphic sibyl)
[personal profile] oursin

I see estimates differ: I was working from the Sturgeon's Law that '90% of anything is crap' -

- whereas Ridley Scott is prepared to claim that '60% of films made today are “shit”, and of the remaining 40%, “25% … is not bad, and 10% is pretty good, and the top 5% is great”. and that this is pretty much so for the history of the movies over time (a fairly nuanced judgement I suppose) (though we should probably factor in the extent to which film, especially from the nitrate era, was a very frangible medium and there is a survival issue....)

From the Wikipedia article on Sturgeon's Law, some confirming opinions by other thinkerz:

'Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense' (Disraeli, 1870)

'Four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake. (Kipling, 1890)

'In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be "This book is worthless...'(Wot a grump George Orwell was, eh, 1946)

A 2009 paper in The Lancet estimated that over 85% of health and medical research is wasted.

(The trouble is you cannot tell in advance what is going to be, can you.)

On reflection I rather like Scott's 'not bad - pretty good - great' because one can, in fact, get enjoyment out of those levels.

The Cool War by Frederik Pohl

Oct. 9th, 2025 08:50 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A hapless minister is drafted into international intrigue.

The Cool War by Frederik Pohl

(no subject)

Oct. 9th, 2025 09:20 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] serriadh!

Bundle of Holding: Mystery Flesh Pit

Oct. 8th, 2025 02:15 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Welcome, visitor, to Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: The RPG, the Cypher System tabletop roleplaying game rulebook from Ganza Gaming about the Permian Basin Superorganism.

Bundle of Holding: Mystery Flesh Pit
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

Finished This Real Night and went straight on to Cousin Rosamund (1985).

Then a change of pace: Simon R Green, Stone Certainty (Holy Terrors Mystery, #2) (2025): less about the Horrors from another dimension than the horror of being stuck in a remote stone circle with a bickering TV crew.... not bad.

Angela Thirkell and CA Lejeune, Three Score and Ten (The Barsetshire Novels #29) (1961), in order to be completeist. This was at least less all over the place than Love At All Ages, which one suspects was down to CA Lejeune, undervalued film critic of the day who was apparently a neighbour and pal of Ange from the War years but the 2 bios I have just mention that they were friends and not much else (not that they did movie nights together or whatever, only that Lejeune was massive Barsetshire fangirl), barely that she got this into publishable condition.

KJ Charles, All of Us Murderers (2025). I have been a bit less whelmed by Charles' more recent work - maybe just me, or maybe because the bar is set so very high?

On the go

Simon Goldhill, Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History (2025) - having been there and done that, lo, these many years, about what do we mean, to talk about queer or homosexuality historically, found the intro a bit woffly, but now we are on to Oscar Browning and JK Stephen things are moving a bit more.

Up next

A bit spoilt for choice with my birthday books.

(no subject)

Oct. 8th, 2025 09:36 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] shopfront!

So much WTF

Oct. 7th, 2025 02:44 pm
oursin: Photograph of Stella Gibbons, overwritten IM IN UR WOODSHED SEEING SOMETHIN NASTY (woodshed)
[personal profile] oursin

This was posted over at [community profile] agonyaunt but I see the post is locked so not linking there. It's I was asked to provide proof that I wasn’t involved with my husband’s death" (second one down here at Ask A Manager):

I woke up next to my husband in May and found he was dead. I am a teacher in training and the university I go to is well aware of the situation. I have a tattoo on my neck which is the last message he wrote to me, and one day a colleague at work said, “Do you have your name on your neck?” I explained the situation.
Last Friday I was pulled into a room by myself with no warning and asked if I had a letter from the police clearing me of his death. I was told I had overshared at work, and due to the nature of the death (he was only 49 and died unexpectedly) they would like to see a letter from the police clearing me of any wrongdoing. I became extremely upset, and told her I wouldn’t go any further than this unless HR was there to document the conversation and take notes. She then followed me into the car park and asked me not to leave as she “didn’t want me to leave like this.” I told her I was too upset to talk and she still asked me to stay.
I’m only three weeks into my course and am terrified they will look for any reason to throw me off. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Somebody asks about her tattoo, she responds, and then (this person or somebody else) says she's 'overshared at work'. What.

Why even mention the police? One assumes a doctor was involved and provided a certificate that it was a natural death. These happen. At much younger ages than 49.

(And ugh at the pursuing upset person.)

In a former former workplace the I think under 30 husband of a colleague died very unexpectedly of an asthma attack. Our sympathy was somewhat limited by the fact that she was having an affair with a colleague and was visibly ungriefstricken, but we didn't go around muttering 'she done 'im in' rather than making bitchy remarks about merry widows.

There was the famed fitness guru who dropped dead during a marathon.

There was some instance I think I commented on when scandalmongering tabloid journo was trying to drum up a case that some gay celeb had died in Sex Orgy because fit young men don't just drop dead, whereas in fact there are known syndromes that cause that.

But perish the thort that this should stop somebody who fancies themself - well, NOT Miss Marple, would Miss Marple have been anything like so crude if she had the slightest suspicion?

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Union technocrats had a plan for Gehenna, a plan that failed to take into account local conditions.

Forty Thousand in Gehenna by C J Cherryh

(no subject)

Oct. 7th, 2025 09:30 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] liadnan!

Photo cross-post

Oct. 7th, 2025 02:41 am
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[personal profile] andrewducker


I think it might be autumn.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Bundle of Holding: Achtung! Cthulhu

Oct. 6th, 2025 02:47 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Everything you need for Nazi-punching Mythos adventures

Bundle of Holding: Achtung! Cthulhu

Clarke Award Finalists 2017

Oct. 6th, 2025 12:12 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
2017: The Royal College of Nursing’s alarming description of conditions in the NHS inspires the government to do worse, the Tories succeed in freezing British lifespans after a century of progress, and the UK begins that political equivalent of autoerotic asphyxiation known as Brexit.

Poll #33694 Clarke Award Finalists 2017
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 61


Which 2017 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
6 (9.8%)

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
42 (68.9%)

After Atlas by Emma Newman
10 (16.4%)

Central Station by Lavie Tidhar
9 (14.8%)

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
47 (77.0%)

Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan
4 (6.6%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.


Which 2017 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
After Atlas by Emma Newman

Central Station by Lavie Tidhar
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan

Ponderings

Oct. 6th, 2025 04:15 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

I observed over the weekend woezering about universities introducing courses teaching students how to read the books on their courses; that is, the courses in e.g. EngLit, that they signed up for and presumably knew would involve reading texts of various kinds? And instead of being Brigadier Disgusted-Hedjog of Tunbridge Wells, 'In my day we were doing C18th novels for A-levels [true]', I observed, when looking this up, that round about the same time last year there was the same round of woe unto this generation which do not rede ye bookz.

So my scepticism, she is considerable.

I suspect there have been allotropes of this one since Ye Classix were no longer the essentials for a degree/when EngLit became an actual degree subject/when philology and Anglo-Saxon were no longer compulsory/NOVELS! they are going to uni to read NOVELS!!! Sivilizashun B DED!!!!

Okay, possibly thick little Tarquin & Lucretia who got in through PULL may be astonished at having to read big fat books but in these days, and with the general attack on the humanities, I have to suppose that anyone who turns up with the intention of doing an English degree know what's in store.

***

So, we have had a woman Archbishop of Canterbury.

Has anyone - I haven't seen it anywhere yet - remarked on the SYMBOLISM, in the present parlous state of the Anglican communion over various abuse scandals, that her background is in A Healing Profession?

***

There are a lot of reasons why I am glad I am of the generation I am, and one of them is Having Missed Out on this sort of thing: risking our health in the name of beauty is totally normalised.

***

And today I got vaxxed.

(no subject)

Oct. 6th, 2025 09:32 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] kilerkki and [personal profile] supergee!

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