View From a Hotel Window, 4/19/18: Minneapolis
Posted on April 19, 2018 Posted by John Scalzi 15 Comments
It’s a very vertical view today, because I’m downtown in a major American city. I like it!
Tonight: 7pm in the Har Mar Barnes & Noble! Be there! Or don’t be, I guess. Although we’ll miss you and spend all our time talking about how much our life is incomplete without you.
(Note: We won’t actually do that)
John, do you ever get any writing done while you are on tour? Or is the energy diverted into meeting people & peforrming?
So, now that you’re there, what DOES Har Mar mean?
I wish we did not have to wait so long for your books to be released as paperbacks. Love your writing.
Good choice, staying somewhere Skyway connected in this so-called April we’ve been having. The temperatures don’t necessitate staying indoors at all costs like they do at other times of the year, but it’s still nice to avoid wading through the melting slush we’ve been buried under.
I’ll do my darndest, but dammit, I’ve got other commitments too!
Enjoy the fine weather, have a stroll down to the river while you’re in Minneapolis.
It’s from the name of the builders Har-old and Mar-ie Slawik.
It stuck because it honestly just sounds like a name from around here.
Since you mentioned the power of peer-reviewed science this evening, and I didn’t quite agree, but should have, I wanted to make a nerdy comment on the processes. Having spent time on both sides of the peer-review process, it is indeed full of holes. Junk gets through and good stuff often doesn’t, especially in medicine (I recommend the excellent book “Rigor Mortis” by Richard Harris).
But as a plot element in “Collapsing Empire,” I realize you were talking about something greater, which is the fact that if someone publishes truly revolutionary (the collapse of interstellar travel or neutrons going faster than light), it becomes a lightning rod for other scientists, and errors can be found very quickly.
So yeah, that part of the scientific method is what makes science so wonderful. Asking MLK’s forgiveness, the arc of science is long, but it bends toward truth.
Thanks for coming out to the Twin Cities. You’re a fun speaker, and I hope you come visit out here again!
I am surprised that you didn’t recommend a non-fiction book for everyone to read, since you said previously that you thought the world would be better if we all knew some science. But I did enjoy the answer that every person’s going to have a different eye-opening boook.
I dreamed about Hillketa last night.
Dear John,
Missing you by 10 days, dammit.
If you haven’t been there before, you will love the HarMar B&N — it is a great venue for an author’s reading / meet and greet, one of the few bookstores that can handle a 100+ crowd. (Come to think of it… if you have been there before, it is still a great venue.)
If you are staying where I think you are, you should be able to walk through the Habitrails to Hell’s Kitchen. Very good food, including some fine breakfasts all day. Highly recommended.
Have fun, don’t break a leg in the slush, and I’ll see you in August in San Jose. Where there will probably not be any snow.
(nice pix, not so BTW)
– pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. Dragon Dictate in training! ]
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— Ctein’s Online Gallery. http://ctein.com
— Digital Restorations. http://photo-repair.com
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P.S. Oh wait, didn’t check the date. sigh. Too late.
There should be a window for us to delete our idiot posts when we make idiots of ourselves.
Hmmm, this may put Minnesota over the legal limit for SFF writers per capita.
Thanks for an entertaining evening, it was worth standing for a couple hours
@Mark: That’s silly, we can never have too many SFF writers per capita.
In California, I hear, they put stuff like rice and beans and seasoned meat in their burritos. Also veggies. Worth a try.
(But don’t let them trick you into adding avocados. Avocados suck. Worse than pickled cauliflower…)