A US Formula 1 Team?

Cheryl has been very busy today. One of the things she turned up was that a US-based Formula 1 racing team is in formation. As I said over there, that would be great, as long as the team does reasonably well. Otherwise, the America First Sporting Attitude ("anything Americans don't dominate is irrelevant") will take over and nobody in the USA will pay attention.

Of course, it's accepted wisdom that the way to make a small fortune operating an F1 team is to start with a large fortune. Good luck to Peter Windsor and company in making a success of it.

Fumble Fingers

With a huge long modeling job set up to run for hours, I finally had time to consider my Hugo Awards ballot. I went to the Anticipation web site and spent the time to fill out the ballot. I'll freely admit that I read little short fiction, so I had to leave a lot of blank space there, but I had interests in all of the other categories. Just as I was nearing the bottom of the ballot, I accidentally backed out of the form, which erased all of the fields, and I had to start over. Rats! Well, at least it went a little bit faster the second time around.

Almost Blown Away

I didn't have time to write about it yesterday, so I've composed a back-dated entry describing our encounter with another big wind storm on Monday night.

Yesterday, while at Bi-Mart, we bought another fifty feet of medium-duty rope to use on the shelter. Eventually Lisa expects to buy some wire rope as well, which won't stretch when it gets wet. We also need to eventually replace or patch some of the spots on the shelter that still have holes in them from where branches poked through in the New Year storm.

Hugo Nominations: Don't Let Length be a Straightjacket

In case you, like most people who nominate including me, have put off your decisions about nomination until the final few days, I'm going to give you advice if you're considering nominating a work whose length is near a category boundary and you're wondering where to put it. I'll tell you right now that my opinion is not official and I cannot guarantee that the Hugo Administrators this year will interpret things the way I do, but it seems to me to be the most common-sense interpretation of the current situation with the rules. Also, some of this material has been discussed on the SMOFS e-mail list and my reasoning is colored by the discussions there. I can't quote things directly, but I can say what I think in public.

( As you know, Bob... )

Technically, and by the narrowest reading of the WSFS Constitution, only the Hugo Administrator can relocate a work from its "proper" category to the adjacent one, assuming the work falls into the inter-category gray zone. I believe that the individual voters have the implicit right to make such relocation as well, and that they should nominate "gray zone" works in the category they think more appropriate for that work even if it appears to technically fall on the other side of the line.

( Examples )

People are concerned that the Administrator will eliminate their nominations if they nominate something in the "wrong" category. I'll admit that the narrowest reading of the constitution, particularly section 3.8.6, suggests that they will do so. But the other side of this is that Administrators are called upon to decide into which category a gray-zone work falls, and the place where more people nominate it is almost certainly going to influence their decision if they have any sense at all and have been paying any attention.

( Administrators are neither fools nor knaves )

( The Uncertainty Principle of Hugo Categorization )

( Define 'between' )

There's another side to this question, however, and that could be summed up as Don't Get Cute. ( Asking for trouble )

So there you have it. I think the voters have a huge role to play in deciding where gray-zone works belong, and that you should think carefully about what you are nominating and why, and not consider the rules as written to be as firm as they may appear to be on the surface.

Lisa Goes to a Convention

....but not the usual sort of convention. This morning, I got Lisa up early so she could drive to Portland to attend the Cascade Mountain Video Show, an annual trade show for people in the video industry. She was there on behalf of Tsuki Systems, her video-production business.

( Lisa tells the story )

After having dinner, we went out for a walk. Unfortunately, what had been the typical light drizzle turned into a very strong downpour while we were away from the trailer. We headed over to Lisa's father's house to get online and dry out by the wood stove.