Tyson Adams's Blog, page 76
January 23, 2014
Global warming and mild winters
Does global warming make for milder winters? What about specifically North America?
(You often hear people extol global warming for giving us mild winters. Is there evidence of a causal link?)
Two examples claims of global warming causing mild winters in New York, and Tibet are linked in the comments. However, my question is whether this is a global phenomenon.
Answer:
This is a tricky question to answer because weather, what you experience at your house right now, is not really that same thing as climate, the patterns of global air and sea movements that bring weather.
So milder winters can be a possibility in certain locations, as they will be exposed to an overall warming of the entire atmosphere. But colder winters can be experienced.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather-intermediate.htm
Since the mid 1970s, global temperatures have been warming at around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. However, weather imposes its own dramatic ups and downs over the long term trend. We expect to see record cold temperatures even during global warming. Nevertheless over the last decade, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows. This tendency towards hotter days is expected to increase as global warming continues into the 21st Century.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Global-Warming-Cold-Winters.html
Vladimir Petoukhov, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has recently completed a study on the effect of climate change on winter. According to Petoukhov,
These anomalies could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia. Recent severe winters like last year’s or the one of 2005-06 do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it.
Weather being a local response to climatic conditions means that you have to understand what has changed in the climatic patterns in your region. What are your local weather drivers? How have they changed since the 1970s?
Thus, you could end up with some areas experiencing colder winters; due to greater moisture levels in the air, more precipitation of snow, greater heat loss at night due to clear skies, etc. Or you could have an area that will experience milder temps in winter due to warmer air currents, warmer oceans, localised heat island impacts, etc.
For further information you should investigate the weather and climate agencies publications for your area.
Tagged: AGW, Anthropogenic global warming, climate, climate change, global warming, Heating, local weather, Mild winters, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Right What You No, Science, Sciency, Temperature, Tyson Adams, Warming, Weather, Weather vs Climate, Winter
January 18, 2014
Love it or Hate it
To read genre or not to read genre: that really isn’t the question.
With surprising regularity there are articles written explaining why people should be reading certain types of books. It isn’t just books, of course, but I’m trying not to be distracted…. puppy! The thing that these articles have in common is snobbery.
From a young age we are given lessons in snobbery, certain things are cool to read, certain things have value or social importance. These are the things we should be reading. By definition this means everything else isn’t of value and often becomes termed our guilty pleasures. I agree with the sentiments of this article that mentions guilty pleasures as being one of the phrases that makes people hate you.
The idea that something is a guilty pleasure implies that we should feel bad because we enjoy something. Well that’s just stupid. Either we enjoyed reading the book or we didn’t. Do we really have to impress others with our cool choices in reading material? I’d argue that you can enjoy whatever you like and we need to stop with the snobbery and pretence that some books are more highbrow or worthy of reading. I’d also argue that we aren’t in high school anymore and you don’t have to be cool. And reading is cool…. no, you can’t have my lunch money.
Now I don’t want to get into the argument about reasons why people read. Some people read for pleasure, some for entertainment (I’m defining those two categories slightly differently), some to explore social issues, some to learn about a topic, some to experience emotional stories, and on the list goes. For example, I don’t read scientific papers to be entertained, I read them to learn things, but the novels I read are meant to entertain me. So some people will be snobby about what they read because of why they read. I’m more interested in addressing the other type of snobbery about reading things of worth, value and not the guilty pleasures.
A lot of this snobbery comes from English Literature academics, authors, devotees and columnists. They are regularly telling us that we shouldn’t be wasting our time reading genre fiction, we should be reading the important books. You know, the ones so important that the author didn’t bother to make them entertaining. They would have us believe that reading is too important to be just entertaining, that we can’t read a science fiction, fantasy, thriller, romance or similar genre book because that would mean we haven’t read the worthy books.
Is Terry Pratchett worthy? How about Heinlein? They put more social commentary and sophisticated language into their novels than most of the literature I’ve ever read (yes, I was a literary snob at one point). And here is the problem with the snobbery argument: they are closed minded to the idea of genre books having value and thus miss out on entertaining books that also happen to do a better job of being literature.
This is also why we see 38% of people responding to reading surveys saying that they finish a book, not because they are enjoying it, but because they feel they should finish books they start. This is that snobbery having an extended impact upon our reading habits. We’ve been trained/taught to finish books that aren’t entertaining or enjoyable because of the message or value of the book, which we will only truly appreciate by wading through the boring stuff between the book covers. It will make you think, we are promised. Sure. I always think, What a waste of time, I could have read several other books instead of drudging through this crud.
I know that snobbery is very important, because those literary people would be out of a job otherwise, but can people just keep it to themselves, please? It would be nice to see more than 40% of the population being avid readers (a book a month or more). It would be nice if we bought and read books based upon what interests us and not what would look most impressive to be seen reading or have on our bookshelves. Changing this mindset would stop memes like this one:
Stupid meme is stupid – can we just agree that a book is a book, DTB, ebook, clay tablet, whatever?
It’s great that people want to impress others with what they are reading. Currently my toddler has a really impressive array of books scattered all over the house. They make for fantastic things to trip over, stub your toe on, or make us look particularly well read on the adventures of small, overly cute animals. I’m sure all the other toddlers are impressed. I still can’t wait for him to stop impressing everyone and just have them all on an e-reader. We should be reading to enjoy reading, not to decorate our house, impress others, be worthy: no guilty pleasures, just pleasures.
Tagged: English Literature, Enjoyable reads, Entertaining books, entertainment, Genre, guilty pleasures, Important books, Literature, Reading, Right What You No, Robert Heinlein, Snobbery, Terry Pratchett, Tyson Adams
January 13, 2014
Selected Updates from Publishing 2012
Some interesting points from the recent Bowker Reading industry survey. I would love to post more, but I found myself short the $999 they are asking for the report. When I say short, I mean: there is no way I’m paying a grand to get a report when I could be using that money to buy another guitar.
7 Select Developments in Book Publishing 2012-2013 from Mark Gilroy
Tagged:
January 12, 2014
January 9, 2014
January 4, 2014
What the author meant
I’ll admit it: I did English Literature in high school. I wasn’t particularly good at it. I’ll exclude all my other excuses as to why I didn’t do well in Lit – like my general lack of motivation in school and desperate need to complete the final level of DOOM – and blame my poor grades on the above graphic.
Obviously not the graphic itself, that would be silly. I mean the message that the graphic is trying to relay, and not just that the curtains may be blue. In school and even now, I find that literature is often over-interpreted. I remember clearly one example of this when we were forced to study Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Studying a play by reading it already had me wanting to throw stuff at the teacher, as plays are meant to be watched, not read. But I remember the teacher being adamant that there was a very important juxtaposition and allegory in the comedic scene of the drunken porter.
If you can’t remember this scene in MacBeth, suffice to say it is one big joke about how being drunk makes you pee and ruins erections. Dick jokes never go out of fashion.
Apparently there is a lot of deep and meaningful stuff going on….. Dick jokes can be deep and meaningful. I always thought that MacBeth chucked in that joke scene because the rest of the play was so dark, and it gave his actors a chance to change costumes before the next act. Essentially, I thought that it was just a necessity and the master playwright had made it fun for the audience. My teacher disagreed.
But that is the thing, unless Shakespeare wrote down his intentions, or there are some amazing insights recorded from his time, then it is just conjecture, or playing with themselves. Occam’s Razor would have us take the simplest answer that fits and not try to overcomplicate things.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t deeper meaning in any artistic work, far from it. But a lot of the deeper meaning is about the reader’s projection as much as what is/was written. Take as an example the list that the wonderful Mental Floss put together:
Many famous authors, many misinterpretations.
Now some authors and genres love to go overboard with the hidden meanings, or at least like to make it seem deep and meaningful (see Steve Hely’s satire on this). Some authors just do it accidentally as part of including various themes and ideas in their work. But literary analysis really does take that interpretation to another level.
Essentially, why can’t people just enjoy a book?
Tagged: Analysis, Book, Comment, English Lit, English Literature, Funny, Humor, Humour, Interpretation, Literary, Literature, MacBeth, Projection, Reading, Right What You No, Shakespeare, Steve Hely, Tyson Adams
January 1, 2014
Tyson Adams’ 2013 Book Awards: The Awesomes
This is the third year of The Awesomes™, the award I give to books that had me staying up late to finish them, the books that had me rapt until the end, and sometimes past the end. I’ve read a few books this year (+70) so here are my favourites of 2013 and this year’s Awesome™.
As you will have noticed, my reviews of books are more about my impressions of the book and talking about how much I liked the book, rather than a recap of the plot, etc. My reasoning behind this is simple, I want to say “read this book” to people rather than fall into my bad habit of spoiling the ending, or being a bitch about books I didn’t enjoy. My list is based upon what I have read this year, so obviously some great books have missed out due to lack of reading hours in the year (blame the rugrat). Also my read list does include some books that were published prior to 2013. There were also some categories that were sadly under-represented, whilst others had some very intense competition. Also, the fact that I finished a book shows that it was worth reading. I have my reading rules that stop me wasting valuable reading time on books I’m not enjoying. This means that any books on my read list are entertaining (well, unless I was particularly disgusted with the crappiness of the book in question).
Awesome™ of 2013
Luther: The Calling – Neil Cross
Killer Instinct – Zoe Sharp
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
Never Go Back – Lee Child
Without Fail – Lee Child
Altar of Eden – James Rollins
The Secret of Excalibur – Andy McDermott
Zero at the Bone – David Whish-Wilson
Awesome Literary Fiction
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Mystery & Thriller
Killer Instinct – Zoe Sharp
Without Fail – Lee Child
Altar of Eden – James Rollins
The Secret of Excalibur – Andy McDermott
Never Go Back – Lee Child
Awesome Crime
Luther: The Calling – Neil Cross
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
Zero at the Bone – David Whish-Wilson
Awesome Fantasy
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Paranormal Fantasy
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Science Fiction
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Horror
The Strain trilogy – Guillmero Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
NB: cheating here as it was only 4 stars, but deserves the nod as the TV series is now in development and looks like they might have a winner.
Awesome Romance
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Humor
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Nonfiction
Bad Science – Ben Goldacre
Awesome Graphic Novels & Comics
Midnighter – Garth Ennis
Batman: The Black Mirror – Scott Snyder
Luthur Strode – Justin Jordan
Awesome Indie
No 5 star indies this year, although several 4 star and a few non-mentionables.
Awesome Poetry
There were no nominees in this category this year. Better luck next year.
Awesome Shorts/E-zines
I’m putting this category in just so that I can pimp:
Still Awesomes
I re-read – well in some cases I listened to the audiobook – several books this year. They deserve a mention for still being awesome. Sometimes books are better on their second outing, sometimes they are worse, sometimes you wonder why you didn’t throw the book out the first time (I’m looking at you Holden Caulfield).
Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams (better than I remember)
Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul – Douglas Adams (similar to how I remember)
Life, the Universe, and Everything – Douglas Adams (similar)
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk (slightly better)
Game Keeper – Guy Ritchie and Andy Diggle (better)
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners. I hope that I have a chance to read more fantastic books from these authors again in 2014 and that everyone else does too.
Tagged: Altar of Eden, Andy Diggle, Andy McDermott, Awesomes, Bad Science, Batman: The Black Mirror, Ben Goldacre, Chuck Hogan, Chuck Palahniuk, David Whish-Wilson, Dirk Gentley, Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams, Fight Club, Game Keeper, Garth Ennis, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Guillmero Del Toro, Guy Ritchie, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, James Rollins, Justin Jordan, Killer Instinct, Kills and Chaos, Lee Child, Life the Universe and Everything, Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, Luther Strode, Luther: The Calling, Midnighter, Neil Cross, Never Go Back, Right What You No, Scott Snyder, The Legend of Luther Strode, The Secret of Excalibur, The Strain trilogy, The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Thrills, Tyson Adams, Without Fail, Zero at the Bone, Zoe Sharp
December 24, 2013
Merry Whatever and Happy Celestial Orbit 2014
There are so many religious, non-religious, familial and festive events on this month, leading into the switch over to the new calendar year of 2014. So I hope that whatever end of year, harvest festival, solstice or denominational event you are celebrating, that it is a joyous one.
I’ve had a great year, published a few short stories, I have a novel in submission, my son has gone from sleep, eat and cry to eat, play, sleep and cry, and you have all shared that with me here. I hope you have had a good year as well, or at least one that will make you look forward to 2014 as much as I am.
So, join me again next year, slightly older, slightly wiser, slightly hungover and ready for some fun.
Cheers, Tyson.
Tagged: 2013, 2014, Christmas, festive events, harvest festival, New Year, Tyson Adams, Xmas
December 21, 2013
December 19, 2013
Mini-me Jack Reacher sequel announced
According to a reliable source – well, a book blog for a bookstore I like – there is a sequel in the works for Jack Reacher.
That’s right, Tom Cruise will be reprising his role as Jack Reacher. It is unclear whether he’ll wear stilts in this adaptation of Never Go Back, the most recent Reacher adventure. For a reminder of the first Reacher film:
It seems odd to me for Cruise et al. to leap so far forward in the series, the previous movie being based upon the Lee Child novel One Shot. I’d have said there are some fantastic novels in between that would make fantastic movies, even with a half-sized Reacher.
The first movie was kinda average. The story was faithfully adapted, with the changes making sense, Cruise brought his star power, but I don’t have any kind words for his co-stars, who were generally flat and lifeless. So the “sequel” really needs to be better cast….. Maybe fill the cast with good child actors to get the star’s proportions right.
Either way, I’ll watch it.
Tagged: Cruise, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, Movie, Never Go Back, One Shot, Pint sized star, Reacher, sequel, Tom Cruise
