32 Comments on “If You’re Here Because of the CBC Interview”

1. My google fu is weak this morning… where would one find this interview?

2. Which program were you on? I hardly ever listen directly to the radio anymore but I’ll hunt it down online.

3. I think it’s on Q, in which case the audio for today is not up as it’s not aired in Western Canada yet. You may be able to catch the live stream when it’s on.

   http://www.cbc.ca/q/

4. Q is handily on at both 10 in the morning and in the evening, in case you miss(ed) it this morning.

5. eh? Sooory

6. You can also time shift using the streams. So it’s airing right now on the Saskatchewan stream, in hour on the Alberta stream, and in two hours on the BC stream.

   http://www.cbc.ca/radio/

7. FYI: This French thing also covered the story…
   http://www.actualitte.com/societe/john-scalzi-en-lutte-contre-les-trolls-40115.htm
   I don’t know what it is because I don’t speak French. I only know about it because they used my photograph of John.

8. I love listening to Q, and knowing you were on the show was my motivation to get up this morning :) I was not disappointed. Jian saying “Zed” and you correcting to “Zee” was my favourite part of the interview.

9. Pip Lagenta, thanks for the link!

   I enjoyed reading the article, especially the parenthetical comments (“this is what a troll is”) and (“this is what Emily’s List is”).

   At the end, the article notes the power that certain “anglo-saxon” (meaning English-speaking) authors have because of their mastery of “new technologies”!

10. Pip R. Lagenta: It’s a pretty straightforward article about recent events, omitting all information about the troll in question. But I thought the last paragraph might appeal to the Whatever community in its entirety:

    En tout cas, on ne peut qu’être admiratif de la force de frappe de certains auteurs anglo-saxons. Leur maîtrise des nouvelles technologies leur permet d’avoir une communauté toujours plus réactive autour d’eux. On attend encore de voir un auteur français mobiliser aussi rapidement les foules avec Twitter ou son blog.

    (Loosely:) In any case, one can only admire the “striking force” of certain Anglo-Saxon authors. Their mastery of new technologies allows them to surround themselves with an even more reactive community. We’re still waiting to see a French author mobilize the crowds so rapidly with Twitter or their blog.

    Well played, Mr. Scalzi, well played.

11. Thanks, everyone! Setting up to stream now.

12. Hi! *waves*

    (Sorry. Snow’s making me silly)

13. “I don’t know what it is because I don’t speak French. I only know about it because they used my photograph of John.”

    Pip, I was going to translate the last paragraph, but I see that someone here has already done so–and that others here, too, speak French. As do I. (I also speak Italian.) So much for La Beale’s odd assertion in the Salon. com article that he’s “considerably less parochial” than Scalzi and Whatever readers are because he lives in Europe (er, so do a number of Whatever readers; and I used to live there, as have various other Whatever readers currently in the US) and because he speaks (he claims) French and German–um, as if a number of us weren’t multi-lingual. (And due to how specious many of La Beale’s claims are specious, who knows if this one is true, anyhow? After all, due to having worked in Jerusalem, I can speak j-u-s-t enough Hebrew to fool a non-Hebrew speaker into thinking I speaking Hebrew.)

14. ” We’re still waiting to see a French author mobilize the crowds so rapidly with Twitter or their blog.

    Well played, Mr. Scalzi, well played.”

    [ObGeek]

    He’s more powerful than France!

15. Just listened to the interview which starts about 13 1/2 minutes into the broadcast. While I do not listen to Q regularly, I have fond memories of Ghomeshi from his time in Moxy Fruvous.

16. [Staggeringly stupid comment deleted — JS]

17. I enjoyed the CBC interview. (And I love CBC. Always meaning to listen to it more often via podcasting.)

18. That was excellent, John. I’m actually really impressed that Mr. Ghomeshi really knew what he was talking about.

    Also, let me just note that if you go to 1:13:22 in the show, you can hear a song by Chris Hadfield in collaboration with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies. Cmdr. Hadfield recorded his bit from the ISS. Thought that might be of interest to this crowd.

    Between the interview, and the discussion of Star Wars, and the piece on Kim DotCom, and the space music… well. I think I’m going to have to listen to Studio Q a bit more…

19. Lizcase @ 11:45:

    I think you’ll find that Jian said (correctly) ‘zed’, and John mistakenly replied ‘zee’.

    Just my $0.05 (we don’t have pennies any more in the Great White North).

20. [A troll! From Canada! Changed your Web site link for you, friend — JS]

21. Waits for the immediately previous comment to be malleted…

22. @JReynolds I found it so funny because I’m Canadian, and have had this happen to me when talking to American customers. Jian seemed to emphasize “zed” when he repeated the spelling Scalzi :)

23. Okay, I can’t stop laughing at Mark’s new website. I love this place!

24. As one of the ‘snowbirds’ in Florida from Metropolitan Southeast Michigan/Metro Detroit Area I enjoy listening to the local NPR affiliate which airs Q. I don’t listen consistently and missed much of the interview but the last bit I heard about supporting Emily’s list and HRC by the SF author was greatly encouraging. As an older openly gay man who is greatly fannish about Science Fiction, Fantasy and Super hero comics I applaud his tactic with the ‘Trolls’ in the internet communities.

25. Laura

    As Terry Pratchett has pointed out, everyone has a break point; of course I’m not a Monk of Time, whose break point is having his hair cut off, but I do get pretty pissed off when someone suggests that I am parochial.

    I have spent 30 years living in the Barbican, which is at the heart of the City of London, England.
    5000 people live here in the City but 250,000 people work here, people from just about all the countries in the world.

    No-one in their right minds would classify me as parochial, and only some racist, sexist, homophobic dipshit would even suggest it…

26. Owing to operational requirements at my day job in recent weeks I’ve only been able to listen to Q on Fridays for two months, so I had little clue that this interview was en route to air until I actually heard it!

    And Jian, being Canadian by choice rather than by birth, was perhaps more likely than some to counter the attempted correction re: “zed” vs. “zee”. :-)

    Side note: I caught his interview at the Ottawa International Writers Festival last fall re: his own first book, 1982, which played to a completely packed house. If you want to see him in action, here’s a video link.

27. Also: I damn near broke down in happy tears when I heard the Hadfield/BNL song playing today. I may yet do so after having watched the video of that song.

28. Anyone trying to find the interview at a later date could probably still find it by poking around the show’s back episodes at http://www.cbc.ca/q/episodes/ and looking for the Feb 8 show. The interview with John starts around the 13 minute 45 sec mark.

29. My French is a little rusty, so I had to get Google Translate to help out on some bits. But here’s the article in full:

    John Scalzi battling trolls
    In aid of charities

    The writer John Scalzi’s tired of trolls (Internet posters of controversial or insulting messages – Ed) that infest his blog. And one particular troll who attacks the author all day, blowing up at the least provocation. Exasperated, he has found a very special way to fight, giving money to several charities for each insult.

    The method is quite simple. Whenever this malicious user mentions the author on his website, Scalzi makes a $5 pledge. Of course, he set a limit to this to keep the “friend” from abusing the system. He set a maximum of $1,000: in other words, Scalzi can be insulted 200 times during the coming year.

    The author has chosen four charities with diverse causes: RAINN, the largest association in the United States combatting sexual violence; Emily’s List, which works to elect pro-choice (preserving women’s access to legal abortion, the opposite of pro-Life) Democratic women; the Human Rights Campaign, working for LGBT rights; and finally the NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization in the USA.

    The initiative is certainly laudable. And it soon amplified, because Scalzi has many fans and some very good friends. Indeed, he wasn’t the only one who thought it was a good idea: Will Wheaton [sic], to name one, has joined the project. As a result, we learn from Scalzi’s Twitter account that the sum of $50,000 in pledges has been reached.

    In any case, we can only admire the impact of some Anglo-Saxons. Their mastery of new technologies allows them to always have a responsive community around them. We are still waiting to see a French author mobilize crowds as quickly with Twitter or his blog.

30. Parochialism in action, right?

31. I finally got the podcast downloaded — on my system, the interview starts at 10:45 rather than 13:45.

32. “Whenever this malicious user mentions the author on his website, Scalzi makes a $5 pledge. Of course, he set a limit to this to keep the “friend” from abusing the system. He set a maximum of $1,000: ”

    I’m not sure I understand what ‘abusing the system’ would be. Is the concern that if he hadn’t set a limit the guy would just purposefully mention him as many times as possible to maliciously run up the total?