incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

But were too excited by the first item to resist:

• NEW SUSANNA CLARKE NOVEL!! Next year!

• 'Waffle House Index' is a real thing during disasters. How does the restaurant chain do it? via jjhunter. You know I love me some logistics.

• how work changes when you’re a woman: an interview with a transgender woman, at Ask a Manager.

• The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, via jesse_the_k.

• Wow, I spent a LOT of time in Avenue Victor Hugo, back in the day; I'm really glad to hear that it's reopened, even if it is in New Hampshire and not on Newbury Street. (I'm amazed it lasted on Newbury as long as it did, honestly.)

• The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving, on how physically stressful tournament chess is, at ESPN.

• At the L.A. Review of Books, Who Gets Emily Dickinson?:

  But why does anyone need permission from Harvard to make a movie about Emily Dickinson? The answer involves theft, adulterous affairs, a land deal gone wrong, a feud between families, two elite colleges, and some of the most famous poems in American literature.

• I never got around to writing up the Steerswoman panel at Readercon; here are notes from the author herself. Edit: and here are notes from a panelist that I missed seeing!

• At the BBC, The mysterious origins of an uncrackable video game: on trying to reverse-engineer a maze game, and how such efforts are relevant to today's programming.

• Finally, this is self-indulgent, but Chad wrote Can You Have Infinite Anything And Not End Up With Infinite Everything? based on a drawing of the Pip's and a question of mine, and I just really like it.

New Susanna Clarke! Eeee!

Readercon is my only con this year, so I'm coming out for Thursday night for the first time. Here's the full schedule; here's mine, which I love:

Obvious to Experts, Obscure to Everyone Else
Anatoly Belilovsky, Judith Berman, Kate Nepveu (mod), David G. Shaw, Tamara Vardomskaya
Thu 9:00 PM, Salon B
When an expert says something is "intuitively obvious," it's very likely that the average person will be unable to understand. How languages work, how probabilities are calculated, and how eyes see are all examples of counterintuitive concepts. This panel of experts will bring illustrative examples and explain them for laypeople.

Recent Nonfiction Essay Club: "Decolonizing the Imagination" by Zetta Elliott
John Chu, Darcie Little Badger, Kate Nepveu (mod), Vandana Singh, Cadwell Turnbull
Fri 12:00 PM, Salon A
In her essay "Decolonizing the Imagination," published in Horn Book Magazine and on their website, Zetta Elliott wrote of the challenge in crafting portal fantasies and time travel stories that partook as much of her heritage as of the colonial literature she grew up reading as a mixed-race girl in Canada. This discussion will consider the questions raised by her essay, including, "Can time and space be shaped by an author to satisfy needs left unfulfilled by an unjust reality?"

Fiber Arts Show and Tell
Fri 1:00 PM, Abigail Adams
(hosting) This informal meetup is for fiber artists from beginner to expert as well as curious learners. Show off a finished work or a favorite set of tools. Seek help, encouragement, or validation for a work in progress. Check out other people's creations for information and inspiration, or simply enjoy some time crafting in congenial company.

Classic Fiction Book Club: Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswomen Series
Elaine Isaak, Victoria Janssen, Yves Meynard, Kate Nepveu (mod), Cecilia Tan
Sat 12:00 PM, Salon A
Since the publication of Rosemary Kirstein’s first novel, The Steerswoman, in 1989, the Steerswoman series has become a quiet classic for its powerful female friendships, slowly-revealed worldbuilding, and unique approach to genre paradigms. Over the last 30 years, four novels have been published, with another two intended in the future. We'll look at the state of the series today, and speculate about where it might be going.

Nonwhite/PoC Social and Safe Space
(hosting) Sat 6:00 PM, Abigail Adams
Join other people of color/nonwhite people at Readercon in a safer space to make friends, chat about whatever you feel like, and build mutual support within fandom. If you identify as a person of color, nonwhite, or multiracial, you're welcome to participate. (To maintain a safer space, white allies are asked not to attend.)

Middle Book Syndrome
Theodora Goss (mod), Anna Kashina, Kate Nepveu, Tracy Townsend, Gregory A. Wilson
Sun 10:00 AM, Salon 4
The middle book in a trilogy is often thought of as the one in which the fascinating setting and gripping conflict that were set up in the first book... are set up some more. Panelists will discuss recent trilogies and the degrees to which they fit this stereotype; how middle book syndrome has evolved over time; and how they've learned to avoid, address, or love the middle book's problems as authors and as readers.