R.E. Stearns's Blog, page 4

On Algorithms

I've been reading about social media algorithms lately, so here's a crash course on them. Scroll to the end for links to me rambling on the internet, if you'd rather.

If you're into reading social media posts in chronological order, you may have noticed that you have to change settings regularly on your social media platforms of choice to make that happen, when it's possible at all. On the other hand, you may thrill at the opportunity to see "the best stuff first" every time you log in. Either way, you can thank an algorithm, which "informally refers to a series of steps or instructions that can be followed for solving a problem" (Vempala, 2014) with computer code. Actually, you can usually thank more than one algorithm.

What problem are they solving? Are they absolving you of responsibility for keeping up with your boring relatives? Making sure that you're fluent in the latest memes? Maybe, but most algorithms' creators really want you to log into their sites more often, and react to more posts in a quantifiable way. The current generation of algorithms are succeeding at that (and I don't have time to cite all the social media networks crowing about their success).

Algorithms may be great at guessing what you want based on your past behavior, but they're pretty bad at telling what I want. I keep thinking about Caryn Vainio's missed chance to help a dying friend. She was counting on Facebook to show her all of her friends' updates, and it didn't. Algorithms served up a hell of a lot of clickbait and swayed the U.S. presidential election in ways that researchers are still quantifying (see "Twitter Use In Election Campaigns: A Systematic Literature Review" (Jungherr, 2016) for a swiftly aging review on what's currently known). Those growing pains are why algorithms get updated and changed so frequently.

The solution for those of us who the algorithms don't yet understand is to keep digging through your account settings and learning about what's changed and what it affects. For example, three days ago somebody figured out how to control your Facebook feed under the new algorithms. Tumblr lets you turn off their "best stuff" feature with a switch. Twitter and Instagram still think they are such experts in what you want to see that you should never turn off their reorganization. Actually, Twitter lets you think you've switched off their "best stuff" and still shuffles your feed like a manic blackjack dealer.

But who knows how the algorithms will change next? Keep absorbing information, you information sponges.

And now it's time for another installment of what I've been up to on the internet:

Los Angeles Public Library blogger Daryl M. asked me some good questions. Since then I finished Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and I love it. I hear there's going to be more. Cannot wait.
I talked about sci-fi fan theories I'm fond of on Hypable.

So, not much. I've been writing! There's still snow outside my window and I have warm coffee. It's a good time to write.

References

Jungherr, A. (2016). Twitter use in election campaigns: A systematic literature review. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 13(1), 72-91.

Vempala, N. (2014). Algorithm. In W. F. Thompson (Ed.), Music in the social and behavioral sciences: An encyclopedia (Vol. 1, pp. 39-39). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781452283012.n13

2017 is Over and Gone

Although it was a good year for me, it wasn't for most people, so I'm happy to join in the celebration of its demise. Also, I'm looking forward to a year in which I leave fewer voicemails on politicians' answering machines. With luck, that year will be 2018, as many of the American ones will be up for re-election in November.

In other communication news, if you feel inspired to mail me a paper letter, you can now send it to the address below:

R. E. Stearns

P.O. Box 2122

Littleton, CO 80129

I am slowly catching up on correspondence from last year, and I'm hopeful about responding to all of it by the end of January. That seems reasonable. While you're waiting for your reply, check out where I've been babbling on the internet this month:

This Fanbase Press interview, in which I remind you that my editor is awesome
This Unbound Worlds interview, in which I get overly excited about the intersection of AI and the criminal justice system
5 Tips for Writing About Established Relationships

Overthinking things is one of my greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses. I overthought (and turned in late) a number of other blog posts last month, which may or may not appear online this month. In the meantime, I have fiction to write!

Barbary Station is Getting a Sequel!

Technically, two, but the next book's cover was just revealed over at the Barnes & Noble SFF blog. This also means that I can give Mutiny at Vesta's Pinterest board its rightful name. The cover is so cool! I said something coherent about it in the Barnes & Noble post, I think.

I have also been all over the internet talking about Barbary Station and related topics. I discussed Five Books About Running Away from One's Problems to Join a Space Pirate Crew on Tor.com, my favorite bit of Barbary Station at Mary Robinette Kowal's blog, 10 Ways to Freshen Up Tropes in Your Stories on Female First (warning: ginormous photo of me), and many random things in a Reddit AMA.

I didn't even get close to participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Even with my new deadlines, I usually attend a write-in or two as a NaNo rebel. This year, with a new day job, a new book, and an actual winter to prepare for, I just didn't make it into the fray. I hope all you writers out there had fun and wrote many wonderful words.

It's comforting that although I couldn't participate this year, some neural networks did! NaNoGenMo is an annual event in which people "write code that writes a novel." My favorite neural network wrangler, Janelle Shane, has posted the output of a network trained to create opening lines of novels. It has hilarious ideas about grammar, and you can check out its "novel" on Github. Some of the opening lines sound like ones a Faulkner character would deliver, in prose, with messed up spelling.

Happy holidays and consumerism! See you on or around New Year's Eve.

Barbary Station is out 10/31/17!

Tomorrow your pre-orders should arrive, and Barbary Station will be available to purchase all over the place. Wild!

If you don't want to wait that long for a sneak peak, check out this Tor.com excerpt. It's from Adda's point of view, as is about half of the novel. I'm amused about their choice here, because this is one of the scenes I didn't think too hard about. My outline said "Adda meets the AI," and all of the details felt like they rattled out of the keyboard. The scene came out psychedelic and creepy! Good Halloween fare. Tor might post something else I wrote, about other written things, tomorrow.

For more behind-the-scenes factoids about the novel, read an interview and see a huge picture of me over at PaulSemel.com. I recommend accompanying it with Squarepusher's cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" because it's more spacey than the original version. Also, Barbary Station got a mention at the very end of this installment of Library Journal Reviews.

And if none of those fulfills your need for more info, I'm also doing a Reddit AMA tomorrow: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/ (because they take all kinds in /r/Fantasy). Ask me anything! The social contract dictates that I answer.

Anyway, Barbary Station has entertained several people I admire, it was fun to write and revise, and on balance it's made me drink less instead of more. I'm pleased to loose it onto the rest of the world.

Happy Halloween, and best of luck to all you 'wrimos preparing for November 1!

A Brainstorming Question for the Indecisive and Queer

Everybody occasionally needs to think of lots of options and choose the best. So we collect information, lay it all out, and then decide. There is no productive reason for most of us to become experts on, say, how microgravity affects eyesight. Sometimes we just need to make a decision. Do this thing, or don't?

I fall down literature review rabbit holes instead of making decisions, so when I'm brainstorming, one of the first questions I ask myself is: "Is there a good reason there aren't more __ like the one I have in mind?" It's a better brainstorming question than just asking WHY? because it forces me to immediately apply the answer to my problem or project.

As an example of how the answer affects decisions: There is no good reason that positive portrayals of wlw (women loving women) couples, or LGBTQIA+ relationships in general, are hard to find in sci fi novels. There are plenty of bad reasons. So, one of the first things I knew about Barbary Station was that the point of view characters would be women who adore each other.

Sometimes the reasons are fair, if not good. Example: As far as I can tell, the reason that most sci fi stories have consistent Earthlike gravity is that keeping track of gravity changes from scene to scene is difficult! And realistic gravity is less distracting than scenes with boring or interesting but impossible gravity, in my opinion. With that as my goal, I had to storyboard scenes on closet mirrors (the white board was already in use) and ask for help with the physics. I'm happy with how it came out, but wow, did that answer my question!

To summarize: Ask "Is there a good reason there aren't more __ like the one I have in mind?" Then focus your research on that. Visual aids and expert assistance are useful.

Sometimes the answer to the question is "I don't know why there aren't more __ like this." I have no idea why comparatively few stories feature established relationships. The meet-cute-then-fall-in-love story is fine, but we all like a little variety, right? In Barbary Station, Adda and Iridian (our protagonists) are already dating on page 1. I think that adds more intimacy and intensity to the tale.

This question can be a challenging one when applied to story subjects, and it can be even more challenging in real life. Is there a good reason to fear discussing my personal life with this individual? Is there a good reason to censor myself in this social context? Is there a good reason to put this chocolate in my shopping basket (probably not, but it's staying)?

The real answers are usually less fun, but it's still a question worth asking. Let's live and write consciously! Question assumptions. Have a reason for the things that you do, and try to make it a good reason.
In other news, I wrote a guest post for the fabulous Women in Queer Sci-fi & Fantasy month on Just Love Reviews. My contribution is here, and there are many cool posts in the rest of the series.

And, in case you didn't know, Barbary Station is a science fiction novel from Saga Press about women in love and the artificial intelligence that's trying to kill them. Its release date is October 31, 2017. It's available for pre-order in paper, digital, and audio formats now.

Hurricane Harvey Links

This is my first August outside of hurricane range in a very long time. I deeply empathize with the Texans still getting rained on by Harvey. I don't have a boat (if you do, Houston needs help. Call the Houston PD at 713-881-3100 to find out how). What I can do is donate money to a reputable organization and provide a short update on the south Texas science centers, which are being understandably overlooked in the large-scale human tragedy that is Houston right now. Prepare for lots of links.

The CharityNavigator.org Hurricane Harvey page recommends highly rated local food banks. Remember, food banks can buy food cheaper than you can [source], so feel free to give them money. Also, keep up with Snopes.com's Hurricane Harvey articles so you don't get fooled by fakers.

And now, for science center news:

Johnson Space Center - @JSCSOS is tweeting from their brand new island, where they are completely surrounded by flood water. They've had 31 inches of rain as of 8/28. ISS support, mission support, and facilities personnel are on site, supporting their important projects. CBS reports that all critical facilities and missions are okay for now. It's closed, obviously.


Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History – Closed until 8/29 at the earliest, but all they're doing is "cleaning up." Sounds like they're okay! Their Facebook page is up-to-date, and they provided some amazing photos for this article on Texas hurricane history.


International Museum of Art & Science – Closed until 8/29 at the earliest.


Imaginarium of South Texas - They were hosting evacuees on the 25th [source]! Closed until 8/29 at the earliest.


Houston Museum of Natural Science (main and Sugarland) – Observatory is closed through the 29th.


Moody Gardens – According to their Facebook page, "Moody Gardens has not been impacted by the storm and the hotel and attractions are open!" You can watch their very wet webcam.

In better news, I'm volunteering at Denver's Nan Desu Kan art show September 1-3, 2017. For more information, visit ndkdenver.org. Come by, say hi, look at cool art which you can buy! I'm a novelist, not a poet. There really is an auction, though.

Barbary Station comes out just two months from today, on October 31, 2017! It should be available for preorder at your bookstore of choice.

Self-Moving Tips for People with Books and Cats

Last week I moved from Orlando, Florida to Denver, Colorado. We made it in one piece, and so did our stuff! I read about moving and packing, but here is some info which I don't recall reading in the guides:

Audiobooks or a motivational soundtrack improve home hunting, job hunting, packing, long drives, and unpacking.
While packing, spread your books across many boxes. Avoid filling more than half of a box with books. Next time I'm going to try media mail, so I can skip loading them into the van.
Your "essentials" box, which will be unpacked immediately after moving, should include all the usual daily use items plus: a shower curtain, towels, a bath mat, the cat's scratching post, and laundry detergent.
If you're moving yourself with a rented van, keep the van out of tight spaces such as full parking lots, narrow roads, and dead-end streets. Extricating the van without hitting anything can be a harrowing experience.
Add 25% of the Google Maps time estimate to obtain the time it will take a full moving van to traverse that same distance.
If you're moving from sea level to a place nicknamed "the Mile-High City," soda cans packed into a cooler at the beginning of the trip may explode near the end of the trip. This is nifty, but also messy and startling when it happens while driving.
If your new home has stairs, get ahold of one of those dollies/hand trucks with the tread on the back (like this). Not as good as an elevator, but better than falling down the stairs with a bookshelf on top of you.
Place and fill bookshelves early in your unpacking process. Books take up a lot of floor space.
Your cat will probably forgive you for moving her. Mine did.

I love Denver so far! I opened the windows in July and was not filled with immediate regret. And, the continuing countdown: Barbary Station will be available to read in just three months, on October 31, 2017.

Space Links I Found While Looking for Other Things

Are you lovelies aware of NASA's Exoplanet Travel Bureau? It's part of their Exoplanet Exploration Program. Check out the link to see travel posters for, among other exotic locales, PSO J318.5-22! I am also fond of their tagline for Kepler-16B: Where your shadow always has company.

I am loving this gradual return of interest for manned space exploration. Sure, it's impractical and wildly expensive, and if you're going to spend the money there's certainly the temptation to spend it on a robot that might do a better job. But if we're going to keep space exploration (not exploitation) moving as an endeavor, we're going to have to approach it the same way we do ecological conservation: with lots of accessible human experiences to keep things personal and inspiring to the average taxpayers.

Yes, I'm talking about space zoos (and I'm not interested in the zoos/conservation "debate." I have yet to read a convincing argument against well-designed and maintained zoos, but I am frequently accosted by online ignoramuses who want to type about the subject in all caps).

We need the massive telescopes creating photo galleries that are more beautiful than informative, and more fun audio and video from the ISS. We need affordable space tourism to let the average person look down on our big blue world. We need even more stories, in even more formats and media, about what is out there, what could be out there, and what it might mean. Because safe (well, safer) encounters with the rest of the universe is the kind of vivid reminder people need that yes, there's something more out there, and with everybody's help we can find out more cool stuff about it.

Not All Advice Will Work For You

I've taken advice from just about everybody who looks remotely successful, or who might be successful, or who should be successful according to societal standards in this my native land, the U.S. of A. If one is stuck or does not know where to go or what to do, taking advice is a fine method of finding one's way again.

Just don't count on the advice being sound because of the source's quality. Advice doesn't always age well. I've lost time, money, and opportunities on "conventional wisdom" I've been passed along by trusted sources for whom the practices worked approximately forty years ago.

So, I've learned to ask advisors when this action they're advocating worked for them. I have been trusting my elders on various pieces of advice in fields that have changed a lot, and the elders have not kept up to date on the fields in which the advice is applied.

Example: Other homeowners convinced the spouse and I that "houses always appreciate (increase in worth) over time." Worse, everywhere we asked and the most reliable places we read (including economics textbooks, I felt so betrayed) said "Buy a house, it's a no-risk investment!" This might've been true fifty years ago, but it's in no way true today. Our house lost a lot of value due to various factors, and we're not making enough on the sale to put a down payment a new one. So much for that guarantee!

Also, it may also be important to take the confident delivery of advice as a warning sign. When I encounter a phrase like "everybody knows this, this is how it always has been, I have always been told," etc., I've learned to ignore that confident tone and examine the advice more closely.

And I haven't even touched on all of the writing advice I should never have taken because it was written for typical literary fiction authors, and those people are about as far away from me and my work as it's possible to get. Trust no one. Check your sources' currency, and keep in mind that they may not really understand your specific predicament, even if they sound like they do! It might save you some time and sanity.

Release Date Update

Barbary Station is now coming out in October 2017! So, your pre-order date is correct, I hope. If not, contact the retailer.

I'm temporarily a part-time writer, part-time mover as my household prepares to relocate to a new state. The excuse to focus on pairing down clutter is delightful, but dear gods is there a lot of clutter. Moving is also a great time to listen to audiobooks and podcasts, because it's otherwise mostly tedium and dust punctuated by rediscoveries of broken house parts.

In the course of catching up on podcasts, I listened to The Black Tapes! Yeah, I'm about a year late to the party, so it goes. The production quality is amazing, the voice acting is fantastic (full cast!), and it's creepy in an X-Files kind of way. Rumor has it that a new season is coming. Tanis, created by the same production team, is similar, although it takes about three episodes to get good. I'd ask for podcast recommendations, but I still have plenty left on the playlist. Next one I'm catching up on is 99PI.