drplokta

It now seems clear that the governance of the Iron Islands derives from a mis-reading of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ( Mild spoiler for episode 5 of season 6, but probably not a spoiler if you've read all the books. )

In other news, I have celebrated the arrival of summer by turning the heating back on.

Our home phone line is currently down, so no Internet, and the mobile data coverage at home is not up to doing more than Twitter. So don't expect to see us online much for a couple of days.

By convention, the Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons (assuming there is one). But the Prime Minister is really whoever can command the confidence of the House, and the convention only exists because that's probably going to be the leader of the majority party. If there were a situation where the leader of that party did not have the confidence of the House of Commons, then he would cease to be Prime Minister, and someone else would have a go at forming a government. He would be expected to resign immediately as party leader, but there's nothing requiring him to do so.

So does this also apply to the Leader of the Opposition, a question which may be relevant in the near future. Is the Leader of the Opposition necessarily the leader of the largest party that's not in government, or is it in fact whoever can command the support of the majority of MPs from that party, which may not necessarily be the same? In other words, is it up to the Labour party as a whole or just the Parliamentary Labour Party to decide who it is? If Labour had a majority, then it would definitely be a matter for the PLP and not the party at large to decide who was Prime Minister.

So, England has 35,000 square miles of countryside. How much would you say that it needs for farming, wildlife habitats, recreation, scenery, and all the other things for which we need open space? That's a fairly fundamental question while we're deciding how much of it we can afford to build things like houses on. Do we need 35,000 square miles? Would 33,000 square miles be enough? Or 30,000 square miles? Or do we perhaps need more than the 35,000 square miles that we've got? Think about your answer for a bit before moving on to read the next paragraph, which is behind a cut tag.

( Have you decided how much countryside we need? )

I've struggled with finding a way to automatically identify the effect of slates on the nomination numbers. The problem is the Best Novelette category, where the slate numbers don't look that different from a regular year, perhaps because there aren't that many novelettes published each year. However, a proposal has emerged on Making Light that looks good to me, and I support that proposal, which is better than mine.

Having posted a proposed solution to the issue, and a couple of analyses arising from it, here are my actual thoughts, in no very coherent order. Non-friend comments are screened.

1. My first Worldcon was 1987, and I've attended roughly half of the Worldcons since then. I was shortlisted for a Hugo every year from 2000 to 2008 (although Wikipedia incorrectly lists me as a nominee in 1999 as well, and was a winner in 2005 and 2006. I'm a frequent business meeting attendee, and I was a bid chair and a division head for last year's Worldcon, Loncon 3. I think I'm as well qualified as anyone to have an opinion.

2. I'm angry about what has happened to an award that was meaningful to me before I even knew what science fiction fandom was, and so are a lot of other people. But it is important to channel that anger in ways that are constructive rather than destructive, rather than acting hastily and regretting it later.

3. Fortunately and unfortunately, the process will make it difficult to act hastily. Any changes to the rules cannot take effect until 2017 at the earliest, possibly 2018 if one carried-forward resolution from Loncon 3 is ratified at Sasquan (I think its ratification just got a lot less likely).

4. That doesn't mean there's nothing that can be done next year. Only about 15% of the people eligible to nominate actually did so. The more people that participate in the process, the harder it is to game. I did not nominate this year. It was a mistake I will not be making again.

5. That in turn does not mean that we should have a "happy kittens" slate of inclusive and socially relevant SF to counterbalance the sad puppies. Slates are the problem, not the solution, and if the Hugos are reduced to competing slates then they are dead.

6. It's not a bad thing that people with different views are joining Worldcon and voting in the Hugos. That's what we want to happen. What's bad is that they are voting a collective slate rather than their own actual individual preferences, which gives them a disproportionate influence on the shortlist. We need to find a way to encourage them to actually follow the spirit of the rules, even though this means that their preferences are unlikely to be recognised in the results since they are in a minority.

7. Any "solution" that allows voters or nominees to be disqualified (other than because they're actually ineligible) can and will be abused. We must move forwards rather than backwards and make the process more inclusive not less inclusive. And it's seldom wise to actually persecute groups who have delusions of persecution.

8. It's striking how little effect the slate has had on the Best Dramatic Presentation categories. Does anyone think that Interstellar or Game of Thrones needed the help of the puppies to get on the ballot? We need more media SF that is offensive to white male heteronormative middle-American values, and we should be finding or creating it, and nominating it. Although in fact Game of Thrones is full of things that the puppies are supposed to be against. Did they actually watch and understand it?

9. I salute those who were on a puppy slate and refused their nomination. I've experienced the thrill of a first Hugo nomination, and I understand how difficult it must have been. Congratulations to Matthew David Surridge and, yes, to Larry Correia for doing the right thing. And perhaps one or two others who have not yet become public (or I've not heard about). I will bear you in mind for future nominations.

10. I understand those who have said they will read the nominees and vote based on their individual qualities. It's a fair and principled position, although it is not my position, as I believe the abuse of process means that they should not receive any votes. What I ask is that you only vote for a sad/rabid puppies candidate if you sincerely believe it is the best of the year in its category, and not just the best of an impoverished shortlist, especially in the six categories where there are no puppy-free alternatives.

11. If you were on a sad/rabid puppy slate without your knowledge or consent, then you have my sympathy. I know there are some good people who have no connection or sympathy with the puppies' views in that position. Nevertheless, you are now in a no-win situation that is not of your making.

12. Suppose there are five nominees in a category. Thing you like a lot, thing you like a bit, thing you have no opinion about, and two things you detest. If you vote for "thing you like a lot", then "thing you like a bit", then No Award, and then the "things you detest", just to show them by putting them behind No Award, then you have helped the "things you detest" to beat the "thing you have no opinion about". Always remember that anything that isn't on your ballot at all is ranked behind everything that is on your ballot.

13. Remember, this is the last gasp of a dying subculture. The culture wars are over, and they have lost. It's similar in spirit to Hitler's (disobeyed) orders that Paris should be destroyed by the retreating German forces.

OK, so tweaking the numbers a little, what would the 2014 shortlist have looked like if we shortlisted everything getting nominated in at least 10% of the nominating ballots, after subtracting the number that nominated the most popular item (but not more than 25%), with a minimum of 5 nominees per category and a maximum of 10. I'm using Larry Correia's sad puppy 2 slate for information.

Best Novel: unchanged; there were no puppies, and one withdrawal.
Best Novella: unchanged; there were two puppies included.
Best Novelette: unchanged; there were two puppies included.
Best Short Story: add "Dog's Body" by Sarah Hoyt, which failed the 5% rule. No puppies (though Sarah Hoyt was on the puppy slate for Best Novel).
Best Related Work: unchanged; there were no puppies.
Best Graphic Story: unchanged; one puppy was removed due to inelgibility.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Add Ender's Game, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Her, Thor: The Dark World & Europa Report. No puppies.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: unchanged; no puppies.
Best Editor, Short Form: add Bryan Thomas Schmidt (a puppy), Lynne M Thomas and Anne Vandermeer. No puppies were previously included.
Best Editor, Long Form: add Patrick Nielsen Hayden. One puppy was previously included.
Best Professional Artist: unchanged; no puppies.
Best Semiprozine: unchanged; no puppies.
Best Fanzine: add Banana Wings & The Drink Tank. There was one puppy previously included.
Best Fancast: unchanged; no puppies.
Best Fan Writer: add Justin Landon & Steven H Silver. No puppies.
Best Fan Artist: add Marine Starkey & Ninni Aalto. No puppies.
Campbell Award: add Frank Chadwick (a puppy). Another puppy was withdrawn due to ineligibility.

Frankly, I think that's a better ballot than the one we had. We don't avoid puppies driving off a couple of novella and novellette nominees that would otherwise have been on the ballot, but we get back Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Banana Wings and The Drink Tank that were kept off by puppies. And we get a wider and more interesting choice for BDP: Long Form. We've added two or three puppy nominees onto the ballot as well, but I don't actually object to that, as long as the voters also have plenty of non-puppies to choose from.

Just to observe that the latest forecast on ElectionForecast.co.uk is for 295 Conservative MPs and 24 Liberal Democrats, a total of 319, which is enough for the Coalition to stay in power with DUP support. At least until they lose a few seats in by-elections. It seems that the Tories have been picking up a bit in the polls recently. (Broken down by seat the results are slightly different and give the current coaltion parties as many 322 seats, which means that they could get a majority by adding UKIP's one MP, given that Sinn Fein's abstentionism means that 323 MPs is an effective majority.)

In the unlikely event that anyone else is considering buying a horse, and for my reference in case of future need, here's everything we've bought for Bugsy since getting him. Except that I've probably forgotten something. Horses are quite complex animals to keep and look after.

• Saddle. We paid extra for the one he had, and our saddler has now had a look and says it's OK.


• Bridle. His bridle was thrown in, but his previous owner was a young woman, and the brow band and nose band are sparkly. At least they're not pink, but we still want a new one. We put him in Angelo's spare (best) bridle at first, but he turns out not to be happy to be tied up by his bridle, and broke it.


• Half pad for the saddle (we had a spare one, since Jonny doesn't need his any more now that he has filled out).


• Numnah (2, but we had spares).


• Head collar. He came with one, but we didn't like it.


• Lead rope.


• Heavy, medium and light stable rugs.


• Heavy, medium and light turnout rugs.


• Fly sheet.


• Fly mask (but we have a spare one).


• Fleece.


• Two rug racks for the above (A rug rack of the kind we like has space for up to eight rug brackets, but only comes with five, and a new rack is cheaper than five brackets bought separately. So we now have three racks in total mounted on the wall, with eight brackets each, plus two spare racks and a spare bracket.)


• New masonry drill bits to replace ones broken when drilling into adamantium breeze block wall to attach the above.


• A bunch of screws and rawlplugs.


• Feed buckets (2).


• Water buckets (2).


• Salt lick.


• Five day wormer (just in case).


• Tapewormer (ditto).


• Saddle strap. (Not strictly necessary, but the other two saddles have them, and we like having them. Also, if no saddle strap, then we'd probably want a martingale instead.)


• Grooming kit (curry comb, body brush, dandy brush, hoofpick, sweat scraper and hairbrush, plus a bag to keep them in).


• Hoof pick (we don't like the one in the grooming kit).


• Plastic curry comb (the one in the grooming kit is rubber).


• Shedding blade. (Actually, he can probably use Angelo's, since he's shedding now and the Cushing's means that Angelo won't start until about June.)


• Wheelbarrow. (We need a second one now so that we can both muck out at once.)


• Verdo fork (ditto, haven't actually got it yet).


• Broom (ditto, but we already had a spare).


• Anchor points for stall guard.


• Stall guard.


• Carabiners to attach and extend stall guard.


• Bit of chain to extend stall guard.


• Kick plate for stable door (It had a bolt but not a kick plate, and while unlike some horses he can't open the bolt with his teeth, he can kick it open).


• Saddle rack (actually, we already had a spare one).


• Bridle rack (ditto).


• Tie-up rings (2) for tieing him up outside, and for hanging up his hay nets inside.


• Hay nets (2, but he's also using a couple of spare ones that we had lying around).


• Baling twine (lots, but since we get two pieces free with every bale of hay, we don't actually have to buy any).


• Grazing muzzle (not needed yet, on account of there being no grass, but in six weeks we'll put them back in the fallow half of the field, and the grass will be starting to grow now).

And of course I've not included bedding or feeds, which we use every day.

I have a nasty feeling that all of that cost more than the actual horse....