As a rule, the more intricate and over-worked the doodle, the worse the writing's going...

Also drawn for the tour show. And also animated, though that was done by the excellent Chris Lincé, not by me.

And indeed not in Salford. Because in Salford, the computer that we run the show on froze at the start of the Kirates sketch, and Simon and I had to stick our heads round the back cloth and do it live. Whilst in the middle of changing into our red trousers...

Shaenon: Indoors? Reading? Need piles of comics? For the length of all shelter-in-place advisories, all Narbonic and Skin Horse books you order from the Couscous Store will arrive signed and sketched by me. Stay safe, stay sane, read fun stuff.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry...

USA Badminton has been taken off probation by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which tried to decertify the organization for noncompliance to protect athletes from sexual abuse.

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Preventivní opatření proti nákaze covid-19 zasáhla jak firmy všech velikostí, tak živnostníky. Jenže právě osoby samostatně výdělečně činné patří podle vlády ke skupinám, které krize vyvolaná pandemií nejvíce ohrozí. Zejména pak ty, kteří mají živnost jako hlavní zdroj příjmů a nemají ji jako přivýdělek k zaměstnání. Jak je stát podpoří?

Spodní prádlo obvykle řeší především ženy. Existují však výjimky. Mezi ty patří i Adam Rožánek, spolumajitel české módní značky spodního prádla Styx. Je české ve všech směrech. Všechno od začátku až do konce totiž vzniká v tuzemsku. Poslední týdny ukázaly, že tato strategie je správná.

Kvůli koronavirové pandemii lze očekávat silnou recesi. Česká národní banka proto v březnu dvakrát snížila základní úrokovou sazbu z 2,25 procenta na jedno procento. Některé banky na to už zareagovaly razantním snižováním úrokových sazeb na spořicích účtech, což zamíchalo žebříčkem nejlepších spořicích účtů. Ve spolupráci s Finparádou jsme zmapovali aktuální trend a sestavili nový žebříček.

Podřízení na něj spoléhají v časech dobrých i zlých. A když přijdou opravdové těžkosti, záleží často jen na jeho schopnostech, jak moc se podnik otřese, nebo zda padne úplně.

Pokud jste se rozhodli pro změnu místa, je to jednoduché. Výpověď můžete dát kdykoli a z jakéhokoli důvodu, vlastně i bez důvodu. Naproti tomu zaměstnavatel vás může propustit jen z důvodů vyjmenovaných v zákoníku práce. Jak je to ale v případě, že jste v karanténě nebo čerpáte ošetřovné? Na tyto a další otázky odpovídá advokát Pavel Nastis.

Zájem o nákup rekreačních nemovitostí je letos výrazně vyšší než v posledních letech. Objektů, které se dostávají do prodeje, je naopak tento rok méně. Viníkem je v obou případech epidemie koronaviru a s ní spojená nejistota kolem letních dovolených. To se podepisuje na cenách, často se dostanou výš, než byly inzerované.

The finalists are:

• Tommy Arnold
• Rovina Cai
• Galen Dara
• John Picacio
• Yuko Shimizu
• Alyssa Winans

Just looking up those websites has given me a lot of pleasure - my art knowledge continues to be "I don't know much but I know what I like" - and I'm looking forward to taking more time to consider each of the finalists more carefully.

I'm pleased to see Galen Dara on the shortlist, I've seen her work frequently in Uncanny, Lightspeed & Fireside Magazines, and usually like it. I was lucky enough to get into a kaffeklatsch with John Picacio at Dublin Worldcon last year (although I came there sideways, through interest in his work founding The Mexicanx Initiative, which was a finalist for Best Related Work), which was a great experience.

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The finalists are:

• Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor Scott H. Andrews
• Escape Pod, editors Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya, assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney, audio producers Adam Pracht and Summer Brooks, hosts Tina Connolly and Alasdair Stuart
• Fireside Magazine, editor Julia Rios, managing editor Elsa Sjunneson, copyeditor Chelle Parker, social coordinator Meg Frank, publisher & art director Pablo Defendini, founding editor Brian White
• FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, executive editor Troy L. Wiggins, editors Eboni Dunbar, Brent Lambert, L.D. Lewis, Danny Lore, Brandon O’Brien and Kaleb Russell
• Strange Horizons, Vanessa Rose Phin, Catherine Krahe, AJ Odasso, Dan Hartland, Joyce Chng, Dante Luiz and the Strange Horizons staff
• Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky

In this category, everything but FIYAH is available free online, supported by subscriptions / Patreons etc. FIYAH puts a list of contents of each issue, and also publishes a Spotify playlist for each quarterly issue. Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fireside Magazine and Strange Horizons also all publish podcasts of each of their fiction / poetry, and Uncanny Magazine publishes two podcasts per issue which cover some but not all of the content (as far as I can tell). Escape Pod is of course a fiction podcast to start with, but does provides transcripts of its episodes.

I subscribe to Uncanny Magazine & FIYAH, I had a subscription last year to Fireside Magazine, I support Strange Horizons on Patreon and I'm on Beneath Ceaseless Skies's mailiing list to get notifications of new issues, even if I don't always read them. I'll need to have a bit of a think about how I'll rank them.

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Thanks to ambyr's rec, we watched Dukhtar ['Daughter'], (2014, directed Afia Nathaniel).

ambyr described this very well: it does include misogyny and violence, but ultimately it's a hopeful film. The film feels almost like a stage play; it is almost entirely about the characters, a mother trying to save her young daughter, and the roadster who reluctantly helps them. The camera doesn't dwell either on the beautiful scenery (there are mountains in the background, but no gorgeous cinematic shots) or on the violence; there are quite a few shootings in the film, but it's never gory because it's not about gun porn, it's about trying to escape from that violent world of gang / tribal violence. Quite a bit of it is filmed in shaky-cam style as if it were just incidental video of people's lives.

The characters are all really vivid, and I cared about them a lot, partly because the film is so careful to avoid piling on the drama. The tribal enforcers who go around shooting almost-random people in order to make people fear them are squalid, not glamorous. The elder who is desperate enough to sell his 10-year-old daughter for protection is basically pathetic rather than evil. The main character, Samiya Mumtaz' Allah Rakhi is beautiful and brave, but not really a heroine, she's desperate and runs away with her daughter with almost no plan for how they're going to survive. In other words she's really plausible for a barely literate woman married at 15 and sent to a remote, very patriarchal village in the mountains.

The romance between Allah Rakhi and Sohail is likewise really understated. He's not a white knight saving the princess, and in fact they even joke about how much he doesn't fit that romantic stereotype. He's a troubled person who has survived and escaped from the Taliban training camps, and he doesn't really want to get involved but can't just abandon a desperate mother and daughter to their fate. They have a certain amount of tenderness, but don't instantly fall in love and it's not clear whether their relationship will last, or whether it will end up being romantic or more friend-based. I also really liked that the dashing, handsome man who is avuncular with the kid and flirts with the mother in a rather aggressive way turns out to be a bad guy, not the love interest.

The ending is really odd. The credits just happen in the middle of a desperate car-ride taking the heroine to hospital bleeding from a gunshot wound. I think we're meant to infer that she survives but it's really not clear.

Next up: Nigeria, our first African country. Any recommendations of Nigerian films? Ideally from the 21^st century, and not primarily about violence or depressing real-world history.

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Nobody had any recs for Nigeria, so we poked around a bunch of internet best of lists and came up with Lionheart, (2018, dir Genevieve Nnaji), which turned out to be a great choice.

Lionheart is about a young business woman, Adaeze, who has to overcome sexism and save her father's struggling transport business. The director, Nnaji, also plays the title role and does a brilliant job. What I particularly loved about this film was that it undermined my genre expectations of feel-good feminist films. Adaeze doesn't have to outsmart and triumph over the sexist men, she has to learn to collaborate with people different from herself. And the company doesn't win by beating its rivals but by conducting a merger that at the start seemed unthinkable, requiring cooperation between her Igbo, Christian family and some Hausa (I think?) Muslims.

In particular, the eccentric uncle who is inexplicably appointed as acting MD when everybody knows it should have been Adaeze turns out to have some key strengths. He is in fact only annoying, and not a jerk. His people skills and intuition perfectly complement Adaeze's business acumen. (And how nice to have a female lead be the excessively competent and rational one!)

Adaeze does experience some sexism, particularly creepy men who expect sexual favours in return for investment in the business. But most of the antagonists are just nasty in a gender neutral way, like they want to sell the business to a conniving rival for quick money.

Anyway that was a really sweet date-night movie and I do feel our film project is back on track

Any recs for Bangladeshi films? We are most excited about 21^st century films not primarily about violence or depressing real-world history.

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Seen several variations of this floating around. This particular version I got from ghoti_mhic_uait who pointed out that whether and how some of them are gendered can be really regional.

It/its - Basically nobody ever uses 'it' spontaneously unless they are trying to insult people for being GNC or perceived as trans. Most people perceive me as a not particularly feminine woman, so 'it' pretty much doesn't happen. I don't have any wish to be insulted by people who hate non-binary folk, but in the abstract I somewhat prefer 'it' to 'they'.

She/her - Most usual pronouns for me, and what I'll pick if people ask for pronouns and I don't want to be that annoying cis person who says 'I don't mind'. But actually I kind of don't mind.

He/him - I about equally don't mind 'he' as 'she', but in practice nobody ever reads me as male. I'll correct it if we're in an online discussion where people assume that articulate and sensible = male, but otherwise, emotionally it would be fine, realistically not very likely.

They/them - I feel guilty for saying this but I somewhat dislike being referred to as 'they'. I think it's the same objection I used to have when 'Ms' became common. It ought to mean that my gender (marital status) is irrelevant to what people are saying about me, which is correct, but actually it seems to mark me as one of those people for whom non-binary gender (or non-determinate marital status) is really important. So I don't like 'they' because I feel like I'm being gendered as a gender rebel, which I'm really not, I have no spare energy for activism around not fitting into the female box. I am entirely happy to refer to other people as they and hopefully wouldn't make too many assumptions about anybody else's gender politics, but I dislike it for myself.

Neo-pronouns - If it were a politically uncomplicated choice, and didn't have the same problem as 'they' that neo-pronouns mark you as a gender rebel, this would probably be my preference. I particularly relate to zie / hir ; some people object to this set because it sounds like German 'sie' meaning 'she' and therefore isn't truly gender neutral. But actually that matches pretty well how I feel about myself. I'm sort of female-ish, if people think of me as somewhere on the female side of neutral, that's about right. Also, as you can see from my icon, my preferred pronoun in Swedish is definitely 'hen'; yes, it does sound like the feminine gendered English word 'hen', which is a problem for many bilingual people, but for me personally it works really well.

Mr. - Can't really imagine this happening to me. Sometimes I choose it in a fit of pique if I'm choosing from a fixed list with only inappropriate title options. But just like I'm never going to be called 'he' spontaneously, nobody ever calls me Mr.

Mx - Don't love Mx but I'm ok with it. If social norms shift to the point that Mx is the default that people start out with rather than assuming Mr or Ms, that would be ok with me. But I don't love it anywhere near enough to insist on it if people are using a different title. (I don't like to spell it with a dot as it was in the list I copied from, 'Mx.' just looks wrong to me because it isn't an abbreviation for anything.)

Miss - My preferred title if Dr. isn't available. I dislike when people who don't know my name just call me 'Miss', but in a formal context where we're using titles, I will opt for 'Miss Surname'.

Ms - I guess, if I can't have Dr or Miss, then Ms is probably better that the other options. I am less prickly about being identified as a feminist than I was years ago, but it kind of doesn't really feel like me and I'd rather have Mx.

Mrs. - Don't like this because there is no sensible combination of 'Mrs.' with a surname. I don't have the same surname as my husband, so calling me 'Mrs. Hisname' is incorrect, but calling me 'Mrs. Myname' doesn't work either because it's not a married name, it's the same surname I was assigned at birth. A few distant relatives on both sides do default to 'Mrs. Hisname', and I don't really take offence at it, it's just a slightly incorrect formalism, not an insult. It just feels completely irrelevant to how I think of myself.

Dr. - This is my correct and earned title, which is incidentally gender neutral. I don't like being pretentious enough to insist on it always, but if I have to give a formal title to a random customer service bod, then Dr. is more correct than any of the other options. I'm happy to be addressed as 'Dr. Surname' if we are being formal. I'm not a fan of being addressed as just 'Dr.' or 'Doc', but I suppose it's better than plain 'Miss'.

Sir - I can't imagine a situation where someone would call me Sir outside a kink scene. And even then I'm almost exclusively submissive so it's not very likely. If I hypothetically did get read as male, and hypothetically it was the kind of context where 'Sir' is polite, I would be ok with it, but I'm not willing to go to the effort to be read as male, so it's not going to happen.

Ma'am - The cross-section of class and region I'm most familiar with doesn't use this. I have occasionally been called 'Madam' and I'm ok with that if it's a mark of genuine respect from someone who doesn't have a clue what my name or title are, not if it's sarcastic.

Dude - Relatively gender neutral in my dialect, but mostly used as an expression of surprise. So I wouldn't expect to be called 'dude' for real, but if it happened it would be ok.

Bro/bruh - I don't think anyone has ever called me either of these. If I heard it from someone from a similar sort of race and class background to me, I would assume they were taking the mick, either mocking me, or mocking what they perceive as a working class or ethnic minority dialect. If I were called 'bro' by someone who regularly calls people 'bro' that would be ok but again, unlikely because it's too male-gendered.

Sis - Fine from my actual siblings, and one particular friend with whom I have a negotiated fraternal relationship. Fine from people who are expressing feminist solidarity; I think I broadly prefer 'sister' over 'sis' but either is fine.

I'm also totally fine with Muslim women calling me 'sister' if they come from a culture where that's the general term of respect for anyone perceived as a woman. And if they normally only call fellow-Muslims 'sister' then it's a compliment to include a Jewish woman in the sisterhood. I don't expect it from Christians because I'm not a nun and not likely to be mistaken for one.

I wouldn't like to be called 'sis' by a stranger trying to get my attention though, it's one of the words that assumes intimacy.

Sib - Nobody really calls me 'sib' (or 'fam' for that matter). I like them, but they don't really belong in my culture and dialect.

Woman - I'm totally fine with being described as a woman. I strongly dislike being addressed as 'woman'; I can't think of a context where that would be anything other than deliberately rude.

Man - I don't think people call me 'man' directly. People use 'man' as an expression of emphasis, like, man, you're fast!. But I don't perceive that as being addressed as 'man'.

I have a few friends who will refer to me as a man if I happen to be wearing more masc attire than I usually do, and I am somewhat uncomfortable with that, because I'm not more male in trousers than a skirt, though I appreciate the underlying thought process which is to acknowledge gender-fluidity.

Boy - Implausible.

Girl - In a feminist-disapproved way, I do to some extent think of myself as a 'girl'. I am ok with other people calling me 'girl' in a context where it's obviously positive, like you go, girl!, but I wouldn't respond to someone calling me 'hey girl!' in the street. I might slightly ironically say 'because I'm a girl' when discussing some gender unfairness. I don't like people referring to me as a girl, because that can be patronizing. I particularly don't like 'girl' as a modifier; I'm not a 'girl scientist' or a 'girl manager' or a 'girl blogger', I'm a woman or female scientist.

King - I don't move in the kind of circles where this would ever be a term of address.

Queen - I think you have to be a certain kind of gay man or African American to call someone 'Queen' so this doesn't seem to fit me.

Prince - Implausible.

Princess - I kind of dislike this even as a term of endearment. It feels like a name for either a young child, or someone you don't really respect as a person but think of as basically an ornament or toy.

Captain - Completely irrelevant. The only time I'm ever even slightly likely to be addressed as 'Captain' is if someone is gently ribbing me for being bossy, which I suppose is ok if we have the kind of relationship where that sort of teasing is accepted.

Lady - As a term of address where this is culturally normal, fine. I don't feel personally excluded or hurt if someone addresses a speech to 'Ladies and Gentlemen'. If a complete stranger is trying to get my attention, I probably prefer 'lady' over 'girl', though neither is great. I don't mind when parents tell their children, say thankyou to the nice lady or similar. I would not expect anyone who knows my name to call me 'lady' instead. If someone is describing me rather than addressing me, I think 'woman' is a better word than 'lady', and 'person' is a better word still.

Feminine compliments - I don't entirely agree with the various examples from different versions of the meme of what constitutes a feminine, masculine or gender-neutral compliment. I broadly dislike 'feminine' compliments from people who don't know me well, because they are almost all about appearance, and because they are often belittling. If I'm in a close relationship with someone and feel comfortable with them complimenting my appearance, I prefer the gender-neutral 'gorgeous' over the more feminine-ish 'beautiful' as terms of address, but if it's a description rather than a name then it depends on the person giving the compliment.

Masculine compliments - I would love to be described as 'handsome', but it's never going to happen, because I'm really not. Also I don't like being addressed as 'handsome' in place of a name or title. What other masculine compliments even exist? I can't think of any of the top of my head.

Neutral compliments - In place of a name, supposedly neutral compliments are often feminized. Like, if a stranger calls me 'cute' or 'hot' or 'sexy' because they don't know my name, they're quite likely to be asserting gendered power over me and I don't like that. If someone wants to describe me in a sentence using complimentary language, I usually prefer neutral over explicitly feminine.

Honey, sweetie etc - If it's normal in someone's dialect to call random strangers by terms of endearment, that's fine. I think doing so can be gendered slightly female, but it doesn't bother me if someone calls me 'darling' or 'sweetheart' because they perceive me as female. I dislike endearments once I'm having an ongoing interaction with someone, in that case I want them to ask my name (or title, in a more professional context) and use it.

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I have finally obtained the first batch of the printed "Programming Algorithms" books and will shortly be sending them to the 13 people who asked for a hardcopy.

Here is a short video showing the book "in action":

If you also want to get a copy, here's how you do it:

1. Send the money to my PayPal account: $30 if you want normal shipping or $35 if you want a tracking number. (The details on shipping are below).
2. Shoot me an email to vseloved@gmail.com with your postal address.
3. Once I see the donation, I'll go to the post office and send you the book.
4. Optionaly step: if you want it to be signed, please, indicate it in your letter.

Shipping details: As I said originally, the price of the dead-tree version will be $20+shipping. I'll ship via the Ukrainian national post. You can do the fee calculation online here (book weight is 0.58 kg, size is 23 x 17 x 2 cm): https://calc.ukrposhta.ua/international-calculator. Alas, the interface is only in Ukrainian. According to the examples I've tried, the cost will be approximately $10-15. To make it easier, I've just settled on $10 shipping without a tracking number of $15 if you want a tracking number. Regardless of your country. I don't know how long it will take - probably depends on the location (I'll try to inquire when sending).

The book was already downloaded more than 1170 times (I'm not putting the exact number here as it's constantly growing little by little). I wish I knew how many people have, actually, read it in full or in part. I've also received some error corrections (special thanks goes to Serge Kruk), several small reviews and letters of encouragement. Those were very valuable and I hope to see more :)

Greetings from the far away city of Lima, Peru!
I loved this part: "Only losers don't comment their code, and comments will be used extensively"
Thank you so much for putting this comprehensive collection of highly important data structures, i'm already recommending this to two of my developers, which I hope i'll induce into my Lisp addiction.
--Flavio Egoavil

And here's another one:

Massively impressive book you've written! I've been a Lisp programmer for a long time and truly appreciate the work put in here. Making Lisp accessible for more people in relation to practical algorithms is very hard to do. But you truly made it. You'll definitely end up in the gallery of great and modern Lisp contributions like "Land of Lisp" and "Let Over Lambda". Totally agree with your path to focus on practical algorithmic thinking with Lisp and not messing it up with macros, oop and other advanced concepts.
--Lars Hård

Thanks guys, it's really appreciated!

If you feel the same or you've liked the book in some respect and have found it useful, please, continue to share news about it: that definitely helps attract more readers. And my main goal is to make it as widely read as possible...

This is the Call for Nominations for the 2019 Theszie Awards (the rec.sport.pro-wrestling Awards). To nominate candidates for all categories, you may use this form. Nominations are due by January 5, 2019. Finally, to see previous years’ results, click here for 2018, click here for 2017, here for 2016, here for 2015, here for 2014, […]

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