Category / Technical

by Edward Champion

Some Annoucements

This is a brief overview of present journalistic developments. Do check out the Wold Newton series this Sunday!

Due to my inability to secure a reliable broadband connection after a recent move (a lengthy Kafakesque tale that is currently without end) and an apparent spate of mental fatigue that friends and loved ones have had the kindness to help me identify (I believe the question “Are you out of your fucking mind?” is what encouraged me to come to my senses), there are a few things I need to announce.

1. My coverage of the New York Film Festival will continue, but at a reduced clip. With so many enticing films on the schedule, I had initially envisaged a Herculean commitment, where I might write essays for the lion’s share of the titles. What I failed to account for in my enthusiasm was my involvement with several other projects. I do have a great deal of energy, but everyone does have an omega point. And it became quite evident that hitting nearly every press screening while working on these other things was akin to fighting a two (or three!) front war. So I’ve decided to sit out more days than originally planned. But there are a great deal of reviews in the works, screenings to attend, as well as a few interviews. (I’m especially excited to talk with one director.)

2. I’m going to be slowing down Bat Segundo production in the next month or two. There will still be new shows. I’m sitting on six interviews and I have a few more scheduled over the next few weeks (including some in relation to The New York Film Festival). But the upshot is that, between all this and my other activities, I don’t want to burn out. So to preserve my sanity, I’m not going to adhere to a weekly schedule. So expect at least nine or ten new shows before the year is up. I anticipate returning to a regular weekly schedule at the beginning of 2011.

3. Todd Pruzan, who edits the freshly launched consumer finance site Get Currency, enlisted me to write a little article on video-on-demand. Check it out.

4. Eric Rosenfield has enlisted my co-participation in a new reading series called Wold Newton, named after Philip Jose Farmer’s famed universe. As far as I know, this is the only reading series in Brooklyn devoted to speculative fiction. The first one is set to go down this Sunday, September 26, 2010, at 6:30 PM, at Word Bookstore. And it features the amazing combo of Charles Yu and Brian Francis Slattery for its debut. There will also be live music, poetry from Jonathan Berger, and Eric and I performing some rather silly interstitial material. Do check out the site to find out more about it. It looks to be a very fun time, and I’m especially excited about it. (We’re already planning a second Wold Newton reading in November, and there are more we’re working on for 2011.)

5. Due to the present DSL nightmare, my ability to respond to email is extremely limited. Please have patience. If you really need to get in touch with me, you can do so through friends and loved ones. I’m doing the best that I can to work without a Net, and I hope to reply to everybody once my Internet connection is operational again. In the meantime, new content is being uploaded to this site through various wi-fi signals, some legitimate and some stolen.

by Edward Champion

Delay in Affairs

Due to a tremendous setback — namely, a 500 GB Barracuda hard drive, which looks to be stuck in the BSY state, containing all the raw Bat Segundo data and only intermittently detected by my BIOS and that I can’t seem to access for more than ten seconds (thus being unable to copy) — a drive that contains irreplaceable data, along with a number of interviews I haven’t posted — this site is going dark for a while while I attend to finishing up professional duties (yes, the show must go on), make desperate attempts to retrieve the data, and expend a good deal of needless venom to the vile cretins at Seagate, who will pay very dearly for their failure to manufacture an acceptable product.

What this means is that the Bat Segundo episode I had planned to put up this Friday, along with a few other video interviews I conducted at BEA, won’t see the light of the day. You can thank Seagate for this. Seagate — the hard drive manufacturer that can’t even produce firmware that solves the problem. The bumbling interloper that, with casual incompetence, now threatens to permanently destroy the origins of five good years of work and that does not appear to take responsibility for its great sins.

To say that I am pissed off about all this is a severe understatement. But I remain determined to fix this — even if I have to get all geeky. Hope to see you on the other side with data intact.

[5/29 UPDATE: The main Seagate drive has been sent away. But because I mirrored some of the drive, I have managed to recover all the production data from Shows 101 onward, along with about half of the Bat Segundo raw data. Will have news sometime next week on the three interviews and the remaining info.]

by Edward Champion

Regretting the Error

Early this morning, a piece appeared on these pages that took to task Neely Tucker’s article in the Washington Post. I used a historical example from 1766, but neglected to point out one minor but pivotal detail — indeed, one that I had forgotten, until two readers pointed it out to me — that pretty much destroyed my thesis. Therefore, I have removed the piece from these pages and apologize for my error. I thank the readers for pointing out this indiscretion and I will endeavor to pay closer attention to prevent such mishaps in the future.

[UPDATE: Due to popular demand, I will find some time later today to rewrite and revive the post.]

[UPDATE 2: The article has been revived.]

by Edward Champion

Bleak House

This morning, my video card committed suicide, shooting out a very impressive burst of orange flame that I was thankfully able to extinguish. No other components were harmed during the making of this conflagration. The video card was not a suicide bomber. I suppose it had come to know the other components it shared the case with over the past three years, and had decided that it was too depressed to live. All this is a pity. But this explains the computer display problems I’ve experienced over the past few weeks. The video card has been replaced (and I have had a heart-to-heart with the new video card, persuading it that there are plenty of reasons to live and that there will be love for it guaranteed by me) and the display is much better. But between this unexpected technical snafu, and getting unexpectedly caught up in a very fun novel (of which more anon), the podcasts I had intended to complete this afternoon will have to be postponed another day. There are lessons to this story: Nurture the components in your computer or they may spontaneously combust. And be sure your computer case is not a bleak house!

by Edward Champion

New Policies

For all future posts, whenever I make a claim, I plan on emboldening my efforts to get related individuals on the record.

Likewise, because there has been a slight uptick in comments left by people pretending to be other people, or people who cannot be bothered to leave real names (or, if they choose to remain anonymous, specific blogs, websites, or email addresses where they can be contacted), as of today, I shall enact a new policy.

All commenters must now leave a real name or, if they wish to remain anonymous, a website or an email address where they can be contacted. (I will, of course, keep your email address confidential. But if you can’t be bothered to return an email, or the email attached to your comment bounces, then your comment will not appear on this website.)

This does not mean that I am curtailing my satirical assaults. Nor am I attempting to enact censorship. My feeling is that everyone needs to be held accountable for what they say, and that goes for me too.

You can say anything you want about me or what I write, and I will continue to approve your comments, as I have in the past. But since I have put my name on everything I have ever written for this website, it seems only reasonable that commenters are held to the same standard. Getting into arguments with individuals who want nothing more than to fan the flames and who do not possess a set of virtues that they are simultaneously standing for is a waste of time, and it certainly doesn’t promote healthy and spirited discussion. So let’s all try to do better.