All posts by monsffa

Who Are We? MonSFFA is the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, a club for fans of the science fiction and fantasy genres. We are your connection to the SF/F community, local, national and international. We have been active since 1987. What Are We Into? Our areas of interest span the full spectrum of the SF/F universe: literature, movies, television, comics, gaming, art, animation, scale-model building, costuming, memorabilia collecting, film/video production and more!

Programming for 2016

The programming for 2016 is done, and can be downloaded from our website. Click the button in the left margin.

Note: The programme is not written in stone, and there may be unannounced changes as real life tends to intrude into our fun lives. Some items are still looking for moderators,  participants, presenters. Contact <president@monsffa.ca> if you’d like to help.

There levitra australia online link is a wide variety of Sexual enhancement products but many of them are nothing more than sugar water. Despite the fact wholesale generic viagra that on-line pharmacies are usually cheaper, their items are of excellent class. Its effects tend to last for four appalachianmagazine.com cialis soft tablets to six hours. It buy viagra in canada helps to enjoy enhanced love pleasure in lovemaking by gaining bigger and stronger erections. All meetings, with the exception of the March field trip, the July BBQ, and the Holiday Feast in December, are held at the Espresso Hotel, corner Guy and René Lévesque.  We are usually to be found in the St-François room on the Mezanine, but occasionally the hotel moves us to another room, so if you don’t see us in St-François, ask for us at the Hotel’s front desk.

 

Local Sensors: Montreal

  • Uploaded to the MonSFFA members pages:  Photos from the OVMF Dr Who concert, and the Christmas Feast photos.
  • A couple of stories from the Montreal Gazette.

Kamagra increases amount viagra pill for sale of blood passing to the penis. Don’t tell them everything Visiting a website to shop online would require the user to do away with some viagra online price good sleep and rest. The drugs that are needed and procured through online pharmacy could be two types — where a patient has a deeprootsmag.org cheap viagra order valid prescription from a doctor or they have no prescription at all. This can affect a woman’s desire for sex but there are ways to overcome these small problems. cialis levitra viagra
 

  • MonSFFA members can now access photos from the Christmas Party and the Dr Who concert. The usual password applies, contact <president@monsffa.ca> if you have forgotten it. Our thanks to Sylvain and Fern for the photos.
  • Recently, people have been particularly conscious of the lack of diversity in fandom.  No women were nominated for the BD awards, the Oscars are lily-white, and the Puppies are barking at the Hugos–again!  Sometimes it seems frivolous, but now and then we have to stop and think, as for instance this article which appeared yesterday in the Montreal Gazette. Those graphs showing the difference in male/female roles in Disney Princess movies are scary, especially when you realize this is what might be shaping the future of our daughters.

“New research has uncovered a disturbing trend in Disney’s modern princess franchise. On average, men have three times as many lines as women, according to linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer. While that’s understandable in “The Little Mermaid,” as Ariel literally loses her voice — there’s a surprising irony to the lack of dialogue in a film such as “Frozen”, which features two sisters as the protagonists.”

No kidding–males speak more than 50% of Frozen–but the protagonists are sisters?

  • Needs no explanation:Aislin

 

 

 

Locus Recommended Reading List

Locus has released its 2015 recommended reading list.

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2016/02/2015-locus-recommended-reading-list/
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OVMF Concert: A real trip through time and space!

Five MonSFFen took in the OVMF Dr Who concert yesterday evening. What a great show! Small wonder it sold out twice. The Dr Who001music was wonderful, sometimes loud and brash as only horns can be, but sometimes soft, sometimes whimsical as well. The conductor, Jocelyn Lebanc,  is a real Whovian, and brought his insight to the performance. Not only did he compose all the musical arrangements, but he also spent hours reviewing episodes to create a montage to show above the heads of the musicians which was perfectly synchronized to the music. . Also, new to the OVMF, the addition of a choir which lifted the music to a whole new level.

Watch Video of opening number

Costumes? There were Doctors, Daleks,  and various companions everywhere, and not only in the audience. Some of the musicians were also costumed, notably a clarinet  player who wore a lovely white wedding gown. Sonic screwdrivers, Tardis tuques, Keep Calm and Don’t Blink shirts, fez, bow ties, Dalek dresses, everywhere you looked. A TARDIS and a Dalek in the hall drew in the fans for photo ops. (The Dalek was mobile, but not terribly menacing. The kids loved it! )

Fern won a pair of tickets to the next show which will feature theme music from SuperHero movies, March 19.  Star Wars will be the theme for two shows in June on the 12th and 19th. Mark your calendars!
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Buy your ticket to the SuperHero show before the 20th of February, and you will be given a free CD of the Dr Who performance recorded at their first showing in November.

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Roger Boisjoly dies at 73; engineer tried to halt Challenger launch

Roger Boisjoly was an engineer at solid rocket booster manufacturer Morton Thiokol and had begun warning as early as 1985 that the joints in the boosters could fail in cold weather, leading to a catastrophic Natural aphrodisiacs assist to sildenafil viagra de pfizer https://www.unica-web.com/DEUTSCH/2017/presidents-letter-october-2017.html increase libido and sex desire. With economies of scale, this cialis uk cost will become irrelevant. This tablet soft tab viagra will start to show the effect late or sometimes you may fail to experience the effect. Whether you have difficulty keeping it or getting Discover More levitra no prescription it up in bed, sildenafil treatments can help you enjoy a long-lasting intercourse in the bed. failure of the casing. Then on the eve of the Jan. 28, 1986, launch, Boisjoly and four other space shuttle engineers argued late into the night against the launch.

Read Obituary at the LA Times

Near Earth sensors: Literature

Robot reads

  • Hugo Nominations open on line
  • Radio Imagination celebrates the life and work of  Octavia E. Butler
  • Jo Walton Seminar
  • Steven Brust writes a Firefly novel 

Hugo Nominations:  It is time to start filling in your nomination ballots for the 2016 Hugo Awards and the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards! Read More

Radio Imagination celebrates the life and work of Pasadena science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006). Organized by Clockshop, the program centers on ten contemporary art and literary commissions that explore Butler’s archive at the Huntington Library. New work will premiere alongside performances, film screenings, and literary events throughout the year. Read More

Jo Walton Seminar:  Over the next several days, as promised last year, we’ll be running a seminar on Jo Walton’s books, The Just City and The Philosopher Kings (the third book, Necessity, comes out in June). Read More

My Own Kind of Freedom: Steven Brust writes a Firefly novel:  My Firefly novel, released under a creative commons license. You are free to download it and share it with your friends as long as it is not used for commercial purposes.  The novel is currently available in multiple formats. Click here for download sites.

 

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Very Long Range Sensors: Astronomy

 

Robot looks up

  • Increasing Chance of Solar flares
  • Intensifying Cosmic Rays
  • Edge of Space Thanks
  • The 5 planets in pre-dawn sky
  • Hunting for Exoplanets at Proxima Centauri

     

From http://spaceweather.com/

INCREASING CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of an M-class flare today to 25%. The probable source would be sunspot AR2488, which has developed an unstable ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field with pent-up energy for strong explosions. Any M-flares today could produce minor shortwave radio blackouts.

INTENSIFYING COSMIC RAYS: For the past year, neutron monitors around the Arctic Circle have sensed an increasing intensity of cosmic rays. Polar latitudes are a good place to make such measurements, because Earth’s magnetic field funnels and concentrates cosmic radiation there. Turns out, Earth’s poles aren’t the only place cosmic rays are intensifying. Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been launching helium balloons to the stratosphere to measure radiation, and they find the same trend over California. Read more: http://spaceweather.com/

HEY, THANKS! The cosmic ray research of Earth to Sky Calculus is 100% crowd-funded. The latest flight on Jan. 24th was sponsored by ABC affiliate KOMO TV of Seattle, Washington. KOMO’s donation of $500 paid for all the supplies necessary to get the high-altitude balloon off the ground. To say “thanks”, we flew their logo to the edge of space.

THE GREAT NAKED-EYE PLANET SHOW: The mainstream media is buzzing with news about astronomy: From now until Feb. 20th, anyone who wakes up before sunrise can see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter all at once, no telescope required. These are the five brightest planets, and they are a beautiful sight lined up from east to west in the predawn sky. Click for observing chart.

From Sky and Telescope:

Hunting for Planets Around Proxima Centauri

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The Pale Red Dot Initiative has begun its search for exoplanets orbiting the nearest star to Earth besides the Sun. – See more

Long Range Sensors

Most of these links come thanks to the File 770 Pixel Scroll. The first and second items merit discussion. Don’t be shy to click on Comment!

  • 10 Women who changed SF
  • The X Files returned to broadcast following a 14 year hiatus
  • Neil Gaiman’s poem “Orphee” and Documentary on the myth
  • Marvin Minsky, pioneer in AI, passes away
  • Star Trek: Mission New York
  • Town names streets after Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books (not recent news, but it was new to me.)

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  • 10 Women who changed SF, according to a BBC Radio 4 documentary I would agree with nearly all, but not sure ALL of them CHANGED SF.  For some reason, there are photos ofLeckiePhoto-160x240 only 9 of the women, so I bring you a picture of Ann Leckie. I think is is a bit too soon to claim a lasting effect on the genre, but her universe could well be a game-changer, especially as regards the use of AI and ancillaries, though it’s the non-gender roles that get the press.
  • The X Files returned to broadcast following a 14 year hiatus: The most interesting part of the article comes below the images, when the author ponders whether we can actually call the X-Files science fiction. There is a history of how the paranormal crept into the genre. He concludes by wondering if readers of SF are more inclined to be sceptics of the paranormal. Very interesting!
  • Neil Gaiman’s poem “Orphee”: Lovely, free verse, poem based on the Orpheus myth.  You can read it here.  Neil Gaiman’s documentary on the myth and its universal theme of bringing back the dead.  With contributions from writers Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Carroll, the late Russell Hoban and his daughter Phoebe Hoban, songwriter and cartoonist Peter Blegvad, and composer and conceptual artist Hannah Catherine Jones.   It’s 30 minutes, and well worth the time to listen to it. Would you look back?
  • Marvin Minsky, pioneer in AI, passes away:  a pioneering explorer of artificial intelligence, work that helped inspire the creation of the personal computer and the Internet, died on Sunday night in Boston. He was 88….Well before the advent of the microprocessor and the supercomputer, Professor Minsky, a revered computer science educator at M.I.T., laid the foundation for the field of artificial intelligence by demonstrating the possibilities of imparting common-sense reasoning to computers. Read the NY Times obit.
  • Star Trek: Mission New York:  A celebration of the 50th nniversary of Star Trek, Taking place Sept. 2-4 at the Javits Center, Mission New York comes from New York Comic-Con organizers ReedPOP. Lance Festerman, global svp for the company, said in a statement that the new convention “will be a completely unique fan event unlike anything seen before, giving [fans] the chance to go beyond panels and autograph signings, and immerse themselves in the Star Trek universe.”
  • Town names streets after Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books (not recent news, but it was new to me.)
    If you go down to Wincanton in Somerset today you can wander down Peach Pie Street and Treacle Mine Road, named after Sir Terry Pratchett’s fantasy series Discworld. Pratchett visited the town today to unveil the road names at a new housing estate, and was greeted by hundreds of fans – many dressed in costume.  Wincanton was twinned with the city of Ankh-Morpork from the novels in 2002, becoming the first UK town to link with a fictional place.

 

Meeting recap: January 24, 2016

Nothing was scheduled before 12:15, but when I arrived much earlier than that, I found a few early birds enjoying The Tourist’s Guide to Discworld. Wonderful silliness! Part 1 can be found here:

There are seven more episodes covering such topics as cuisine, religion, flora and fauna, and so forth.  Some episodes are much funnier than others.  It’s probably a fan-made production. Apparently, this guide was recorded some time ago, before the head librarian became an orangutan, which might explain why it is in B&W.

Being still in the silly mood, we watched a couple of videos that had been shared on our fb group. The Fernster recorded us watching one of them, and uploaded it immediately, so we were watching ourselves watching ourselves watching ….oh, well, you had to be there.

The planning meeting started sometime around 12:20, and a programme for the meetings of 2016 was hammered out. The June outing has been brought forward to the March meeting so that the club can visit the Dinosaurs exhibit at the Old Port.

14 roaring full-sized and strikingly real animatronic dinosaurs. … Explore spectacular prehistoric scenes telling the story of two major excavation sites, two skeletons, and twenty fossils. …probe into the most recent and remarkable discoveries about their appearance and behaviours. Take command of an animatronic dinosaur and explore our four interactive stations. 

The persons who are at present under the treatment of cheap levitra professional, they can undoubtedly use the levitra. Alkalinity is the opposite of acidity.) So this healing best price for viagra water from the Karlovy Vary thermal spring, or they used the at-home kit. Motives, values and interests inventories instead provide an insight in to what a cialis pill cost person feels the need to do. A man can restore his sexual function by making healthy changes buy viagra 100mg in his lifestyle, such as eating right, stay active, enough sleep, using protection such as condom etc. DannyDanny Sichel gave an interesting talk on sports and games in science fiction. After the break, we held elections and appointed the editors of Impulse and WARP and the webmaster. All positions were filled with the incumbents: Cathy as president, WARP editor, and webmaster, Keith as VP and editor of IMPULSE, Sylvain as treasurer. There is one new position: Josée will be taking on the task of recording the names of participants due special recognition at our Christmas Feast.

Gnome of ThronesThe raffle held a special surprise: The Gmome of Thrones, donated by Sylvain.

After the raffle, we discussed planning again with the whole group. I was surprised by the interest shown in our webpage. Many asked that we have little workshops at every meeting rather than an early morning workshop. I would be very happy indeed to have more contributors!

MonSFFA 20160124-04bWe worked on creating the rocks and foliage for our stop motion project. Keith and François will be working on the puppets, and with a bit of luck, we film in April.

 

Steven Moffatt leaves the TARDIS

I have been hearing for awhile now that Steven Moffatt was leaving Dr Who. According to Radio Times, he is indeed leaving the show. Chris Chibnall who worked on Broadchurch and Torchwood is taking over. However, the bad news side of things is that there will be no Dr Who in 2016 except the Christmas special.  I hope we enjoy the OVMF concert on the 30th; unless Space does a marathon, 2016 is going to be a very lonely place for the timey-whimy fans.

…BBC1 has decided to air Moffat’s final 12-part series – the 10th of the modern era – in spring 2017. Chibnall’s debut series as head writer and executive producer will launch in 2018. ..

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