Author: Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

paywalls are stupid, part infinity

Posted on By Wil

Earlier this morning, I saw a story at Daily Kos that really upset me. It's the sort of thing that I would hope transcends political ideology, and I thought that if I submitted it to Reddit, maybe it would eventually attract enough attention to make some kind of difference.

I didn't want to link to Kos, though, because it's a liberal website, and that would probably turn off some people the same way a conservative website would turn me off. Like I said, though, the article referenced in the post wasn't ideologically Left or Right, so I went to the source … and discovered that the article I wanted to link was behind a stupid goddamn paywall.

Here's what was excerpted at Kos:

U.S. researchers will soon abandon their search for the most coveted particle in high-energy physics because of a lack of funding.

Researchers working at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, had wanted to run their 25-year-old atom smasher, the Tevatron, through 2014 in hopes of spotting the so-called Higgs boson before their European counterparts could discover it with their newer, more powerful atom smasher. But officials at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which funds Fermilab, informed lab officials this week that DOE cannot come up with the extra $35 million per year to keep the Tevatron going beyond September.

“Unfortunately, the current budgetary climate is very challenging and additional funding has not been identified. Therefore, … operation of the Tevatron will end in [fiscal year 2011], as originally scheduled,” wrote William Brinkman, head of DOE's Office of Science, in a letter to Melvyn Shochet, chair of DOE's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) and a physicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois.

Here's what you see when you try to read more, or maybe send the link to your conservative parents who wouldn't read Kos if it contained the secrets of Life, the Universe, and Everything:

The content you requested requires a Subscription to this site or Science Pay per Article purchase. If you already have a user name and password, please sign in below.

Headdesk. Headdesk. Headdesk.

Edited to add: Joe D found a link to a similar (if not identical) story at US News and World Report that isn't behind a paywall. Paul linked to Nature, via NPR.

Also, I wanted to clarify that I'm not attacking AAAS, because I'm sure someone there has what they believe is a good reason for setting things up this way; I wrote this post in frustration to illustrate why I really hate paywalls.

Also, also, I agree that the research being completed, regardless of national location, is better than the research never being completed … but as an American, I want my country to dig itself out of the fucking intellectual basement and catch up to the rest of the world. Budget cuts like this infuriate me, especially when we have seemingly infinite money to wage endless, unwinnable wars.

from the vault: some of us are looking at stars

Posted on By Wil

This was originally written in May of last year, just after I watched the space shuttle Atlantis blast off into orbit. On the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, I thought it was worth reprinting:

On January 28, 1986, I was home from school with the flu. I remember that, no matter what I did, I couldn't get warm, so I was sitting in a hot bath when my mom knocked on the bathroom door. 

"There was an accident with the space shuttle," she said, in the same voice she used when she told me that my grandmother had died.

For the next few hours, I sat on the couch, wrapped up in as many blankets as we had, and watched one of the local news networks – probably ABC – cover the unfolding disaster. Because of the fever and the years between now and then, I can't recall a single detail other than how impossible the whole thing felt. How could something like that even happen? And did it mean that we'd never put people into space again?

This morning, I sat in my office and watched the shuttle Atlantis launch into space via a NASA TV stream through VLC on a monitor that is bigger than my family's 1986 television. When mission control gave the order to go with throttle up, I held my breath like I have every single time since the shuttle program was reinstated in 1988, and when the shuttle separated from the boosters and glided into orbit, I got something in my eye. Just take a moment, if you don't mind, and think about what it means that we can leave our planet, even if we've "only" gotten as far as the dark side of the moon. Think about what it means that something as incredible as putting humans into space and bringing them back safely to Earth today earns less media attention and public excitement than the typical celebrity breakup.

It is amazing that we can do this, and even though I've come to believe the shuttle program isn't the best way to spend NASA's tiny budget (which is a pitiful fraction of what it should be), I hope that there was a child watching the launch today who will feel inspired to reach out to the stars and see what's out there.

We humans are a flawed species, to put it mildly, and I think we could do a much better job taking care of our planet and each other … but when I see what we're capable of doing, it gives me hope that the future I pretended to live in twenty years ago will actually arrive some day.

Please join me in a moment of silence for the Challenger astronauts, and the people they left behind.

Thank you. Now, listen to John Roderick sing The Commander Thinks Aloud on #JoCoCruiseCrazy and try not to cry.

We are, all of us, in the gutter … but some of us are looking at stars.

librarians are awesome

Posted on By Wil

I was recently invited to participate in an awesome literacy project, and I wanted to share an excerpt from my contribution:

I want to take a moment and say thank you to librarians, because it was a librarian who made me fall in love with reading. In third or fourth grade, part of our curriculum was a monthly trip to a local library in Tujunga, California. One of the librarians would read us a short story, give a short talk about a literacy-related topic, and then let us pick a book off a table of paperbacks that we could keep. We were also allowed – no, encouraged – to check out up to three books, which we would have a month to read.

I was a nerdy, shy, awkward kid who was scared of everything, and the library intimidated me; I never knew where to start, I was afraid I’d pick a book the the Cool Kids would tease me about reading, and I always felt lost in the stacks. This librarian, though, reached out to me. She asked me what sort of things I liked on TV and in the movies, and recommended a few different books based on my answers, including the first real SciFi book I can recall reading, Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien. I loved it so much, when I went back the next month, she taught me how to use the card catalog to find other books like it, entirely on my own. On that day, the library was transformed from a confusing and intimidating collection of books into a thousand different portals through time and space to fantastic worlds for me to explore.

I don’t remember her name, but I do remember that she was in her fifties, wore epic 1970s polyester pantsuits, huge glasses that hung from a long gold chain around her neck, and had a hairdo that was ten miles high. She was friendly and helpful, and when she reached out to that nerdy little kid, she changed his life. If you’re a librarian today, you probably don’t hear this very often, but thank you. Thank you for making a difference in people’s lives.

Libraries are constantly under attack from people who fear knowledge, politicians who think guns are more important than books, and people who want to ensure that multi-millionaires pocket even more money. As an author, father, and a reader, I beg you: please support your local libraries in any way you can, and if you enjoy reading, take a moment to thank a librarian.

“In fact, I’ve never seen her this excited for me to go play D&D.”

Posted on By Wil

In my keynote to PAX East last year, I said that gaming is the foundation of, and the mortar that holds together, the strongest and longest lasting friendships in my life. I've been playing with the same guys since high school, and even though we all live in different states (and some of us live in different countries), a few times a year we all gather at someone's house (usually our friend Cal's house) for a day of gaming, eating, drinking, and more drinking.

Over the years, girlfriends and boyfriends have come and gone, members have been added to our group, and our family has grown. We've introduced our gamer-adjacent partners to the hobby that we love so much, using infection vectors like Wits & Wagers, Pandemic, Frank's Zoo, and Shadows Over Camelot. We've had children (Yay! Future gamers!), divorces (Boo! Now it's awkward!), and a D&D campaign that lasted for a decade. Without gaming, we'd still see each other, but I know we wouldn't see each other nearly as often as we do.

About a month ago, we got together for our annual holiday gathering. Cal told me that he wanted to run a D&D one-shot, and that he wanted me to set the date, so I wouldn't be able to back out for some series of reasons that were defined as "bullshit."

I pulled out my phone, and looked at my calendar. "How about January 29?"

Cal called our friend Steve over to the kitchen. Steve lives in Northern California, and getting down to Cal's for game day is about as complicated as flying to LAX from SFO.

"Wil says he can play on the 29th. Can you come down?"

Steve didn't hesitate. "I can do that." He looked at me, pointedly. "…but can you?"

"I just said I could. That's why Cal called you over."

They looked at each other. We've been planning a one-shot for a few years, and it always falls apart because of me, and some series of reasons that are always defined a "bullshit." They looked back at me. Nothing needed to be said.

"I promise that I will play on the 29th," I said. I typed it into my calendar. "See? I'm typing it into my calendar right now. That makes it official."

Cal set his wine glass on the counter, and pointed at me. "Okay, we'll play on the 29th, but if you don't show up, I am coming to your house, and I will punch you in the dick."

Steve said, "I will also fly down from San Francisco and I will also punch you in the dick."

I said, "Well, I don't want to get punched in the dick, and I really want to play D&D with my friends, so I don't think it will be a problem."

We made celebratory noises, and opened another bottle of wine to mark the occasion.

While I was in Portland last week, Anne called me. "Are you still playing D&D with Cal and everyone on Saturday?"

"I don't want to get punched in the dick," I said.

"… um."

"Yes. Yes, I'm playing D&D on Saturday. Why?"

"All the wives are getting together for an anti-D&D-girly-spa day while you guys play, and then everyone is getting together for dinner after. I wanted to make sure you were playing before I told them I'd go."

"Woah! That's awesome," I said. Then, I had a million dollar idea. "Someone should open up some kind of non-gamer spa or something right next to a game shop, so nerds can drop their Muggle partners off while they play."

"Muggle?"

"Yeah, if you don't know what a Muggle is, you're a Muggle. That's just science, Anne."

In the silence that followed, I could feel The Look coming through the phone at me.

"Anyway. Yes, I'm playing, and yes, you should go, because that will be awesome for both of us." 

"Mmmmkay," she said.

Our undying love was declared, and we hung up the phone.

Over the next couple of days, Anne texted me frequently about the spa day, and how much she was looking forward to getting together with her friends while I played with my friends. This morning I e-mailed Cal with some questions about the game. In his reply, he told me to make sure Anne was connected with the girls for their spa thing.

"Oh, she knows all about it," I wrote back. "In fact, I've never seen her this excited for me to go play D&D."

When I told PAX that gaming was so important to my friends and me, I didn't even consider that all of our wives, who only know each other because of us, have formed their own friendships that are independent of their nerdy husbands. So, in a way, gaming didn't just bring my group of friend together (and keep us together), it brought our wives together, too. The next time some idiot says that gaming and gamers are antisocial, I think I'll mention this … and then punch them in the dick.

technology makes you stupid

Posted on By Wil

It's been over 80 for the last few days, and I'm going up to Portland for the rest of this week to see my sister, so I took advantage of the warm weather and went for a run yesterday afternoon.

My brain quickly tuned out and started working on this story I'm about to publish, so my feet went their own way, taking me up a street I usually go down, and out onto a fairly major street that has a bike lane.

My brain stopped rewriting long enough to notice this, and said, "Hey, I bet we'd enjoy riding a bike. I wonder how much something like that costs?"

"That is an excellent question, and a very good idea," I thought back, "I'm glad we thought of it."

When I got home, I texted my friend Atom, who is an avid bicycle, uh, riding guy. (Bicycler? Bicyclist? Bicycloid? I don't know. Math is hard.)

Hey, I said, I'm thinking of getting a bike. Can you give me some buying advice?

Sure, he replied. Do you want a touring bike or a mountain bike or a racing bike or what?

Um. I want a bike, I texted back. The last time I bought one, I just wanted something that could do wicked jumps off the curb, you know?

Why don't you get on IM so we can figure this out, he replied.

Sure. What's your IM name?

He told me.

I tried to add him to iChat, and couldn't get it to work.

I picked up my cell phone and texted to him: I can't get it to work. Do you do Skype?

No, but I'm on Google Talk.

I'm not on Google Talk, I said. 

Did you try Adium? He said.

No, let me try that. I replied.

I set my phone down and typed Adium into Google.

I paused.

I looked at my phone.

I looked at my computer.

I looked back at my phone.

I picked up my phone and texted him, Hey, I just remembered that I can use my phone to call you. Maybe I'll just do that.

Your phone makes calls?!

Yeah, it isn't an iPhone, I said. I laughed in my empty living room, very pleased with myself.

I picked up my phone and dialed his number. 

..well, that isn't entirely accurate; I looked him up in my contacts list, and pushed the appropriate buttons to initiate a call.

The phone rang. When Atom picked up I said, "Man, technology really does make you stupid, doesn't it?"