What Bill Gates Does With His Billions

It should be common knowledge at this point that Bill Gates is using his retirement years to improve living conditions for some of the most impoverished people on the planet.  The foundation that he and his wife, Melinda, operate looks to make a difference in the world on a variety of fronts.

One of those areas is in spreading of vaccines so that people will not catch some of the more commonly preventable diseases.  As a result, Bill Gates has known for years that the random mutation of a nasty bug could significantly impact humanity.  He has been campaigning for awareness and preparedness for years if not decades.

How much does he spend on otherwise underfunded viruses?  A lot.

A recent Wall Street Journal article included a graphic showing the leading sources of spending for neglected infectious diseases.  You will need to scroll about 2/3s the way down to see the bar chart.  It looked to me like his foundation was about fourth in terms of the amount of money spent.

The data came from the Policy Cures Research organization out of Australia.  I thought the bar chart was interesting, but I wanted to see the data.  A short bit of DuckDuckGo-ing later and I was on the Policy Cures Research website and had found this executive summary of their report on research for neglected diseases.  Effectively diseases that are treatable, but for which such treatments are not currently well funded.

The following image came from that report.  These are the top twelve sources of funding for R&D dealing with neglected diseases.  Those twelve sources provide 90% of the funding for neglected diseases.

Click to Embiggen

Take a close look.  Of the top twelve sources, three come from the US government; US NIH at #1, USAID at #7, and the US DOD at #8.  Taken together, the United States provides roughly 43% of the funding for research on these diseases (1.589 Billion US$)

Second place is funding provided by the health care industry.  Private companies donating their research money are the second-largest source of funding into preventing these neglected diseases.  That money comes out of their profits. (694 Million US$)

The thing about those profits is that health care providers to generate them to any significant amount where countries have nationalized health care systems.  Those systems cap payments to providers at slightly above the cost of production.  That cost of production does not include the cost of research and development.

Healthcare profits are disproportionately derived from sales in the United States.  When it comes to funding healthcare R&D, it is the US healthcare consumer (or their insurance company) that is the largest source of funding. 

The healthcare industry would not have enough money to be the second leading provider of research funding in the area of neglected diseases were it not for our comparatively free market and the profits that it generates.

The third leading source of funding for neglected diseases is the Gates Foundation.    In fact, the Gates Foundation donates more money than almost all of the non-US based sources in the rest of the top 12.  (585 Million US$)

Now the population of Europe is over 2.5 times that of the United States.  Yet while the US provides 43% of the funding for neglected disease R&D, the EC provides only 3.3% of the funding.  They can't even be bothered to beat the Gates Foundation that provides 14% of such funding.

Quite frankly, Europeans are not paying their fair share when it comes to funding any healthcare-related research and development.  But it is shocking to see exactly how little they care for the rest of humanity. 

When the private efforts of the healthcare industry and those of a single individual dwarf the contributions of an entire continent, the only reasonable conclusion is that the people of that continent greedily place their own position above that of the rest of humanity.  The people that are most at risk from these neglected diseases are living in poverty in third world nations.

When people like me point out that Europeans are not paying their fair share (healthcare research, their defense, etc.), situations like this one are what informs that opinion.

I'm glad that Bill Gates and his wife are investing their immense wealth in improving the world.  If we left it to the "democratic socialist" nations of Europe, such work would never be funded.

Loving Data In The Time Of Covid

I've been having discussions in various social media about the impact of the Covid-19 virus on the US.  My interlocutors have been pointing out that the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the United States as indicative of gross incompetence by the Trump administration.  My response was to suggest that the US has (thus far) done about as well as Europe.  That conclusion was based on some rough calculations...

...that were wrong!  Specifically, I had used a population for Europe that was grossly below the actual population count.  I looked at the European population on several sites and came up with different answers as it all depends on what one counts as being "Europe".  Sometimes Russia is included.  Sometimes it isn't.  Sometimes only part of Russia is included.

Regardless of how one defines the population of Europe, my estimate was way low.  This was a significant deficiency in my response.

So I set out to correct that deficiency.  The Covid data that follows came from https://ncov2019.live/data/europe and the NYC health department.   The population data came from Wikipedia entries for each nation in the database presented by ncov2019.live.  All data was as of 5/1/2020.

To restate, I was of the opinion that simply looking at the gross number of deaths in the US was an inadequate measure of the administration's response to the Covid pandemic.  A better way of judging the government's response is to compare our experience with that of other, comparable nations.

And the only way to make that comparison is to look at those deaths as a percentage of the population.  We have had over 60,000 deaths while Belgium has had over 7,700 deaths.  Simply looking at those raw numbers would suggest that the US government is failing badly.

Yet the deaths in Belgium have been 0.0669% of their total population while in the US, the deaths have only been 0.0196% of our population.  Covid deaths in Belgium are three times as high as that of the US when measured as a percentage of the population.

The ncov2019.live dataset indicates 50 nations as being in Europe.  I omitted the Vatican City data as they have less than 1000 citizens and they have managed to have a negative death to do Covid.  Being the Vatican, I'm assuming that Lazarus is involved in some way.  Omitting 1000 citizens out of a population of over 832 million isn't liable to alter the statistical result.

I added the US data as that is the comparison that I'm trying to make.  I also added New York City as a separate entity and added a line for US data with the NYC data removed.  While New York City is definitely part of America, they are also having a pretty unique experience with the Covid virus.  I also added a line for all of Europe.

Here's the data for Europe and the US.  Note that there are several modern nations in Europe that have had a much higher death rate than what has occurred in the United States.  Also note that when the data from NYC is removed, the average experience of the rest of the United States is almost identical to that of all of Europe.

[Click Images to Embiggen]

While this isn't evidence of stellar performance by the administration, it also isn't exactly proof of malfeasance.

Another way of looking at the data is with respect to the confirmed cases.  The number of confirmed cases is a bit fraught as we have been behind the curve on mass testing.  Here is the data.

New York City isn't the only outlier in the dataset.  Russia is another one.  They have only recently acknowledged that they have failed to halt the spread of Covid in their country.  So the data from Russia is likely to change pretty dramatically over the next couple of weeks.  As a result, I then added a line for Europe with the data from Russia removed.

Note that while the US without NYC is about the same as all of Europe, including Russia, Europe without Russia is worse than all of the US, including NYC.

One of the people with whom I was conversing suggested that the ratio between the percentage of confirmed cases to the percentage of deceased cases indicates something ominous about the lack of testing.  Essentially, the lower that ratio, the fewer people have been tested, and thus the great the odds for future deaths.

If the ratio of the percentage of confirmed cases to the percentage of deceased is meaningful in any way, then Europe is doing half as well as the United States.

There were a couple of good conclusions to be drawn from the data.

The first one is to be more careful with the data.  My estimate of the population of Europe was pretty low.  I was not including Russia in my estimate.  Nor was I counting nations such as Kazakhstan or a host of other former Soviet satellite states.  That was an obvious error on my part.

The second conclusion is that despite the error in my estimates of the European population, my impression that the impact of Covid-19 on the United States has been on par with the impact on Europe is largely correct based on the data that is available today.

While there are several points in our response to Covid where the administration has clearly fallen short, the net result is not significantly different from other, comparable nations.  Suggestions that the administration's performance is defined by gross incompetence and/or malfeasance are not justified by the data.

My perspective remains unchanged.  The US is a big country.  We should expect a large number of infections & deaths.  The US Covid experience is reasonably comparable with Europe when viewed on a percentage basis.

People that focus solely on the total number of cases and/or deaths while ignoring the relative size of our population are not seeking to educate and inform.  They are looking to wave "the bloody shirt" and whip up people's passions.

Passionate and uneducated people rarely make wise decisions.

Re-Visiting Those Damned Cold Equations

Fans of science fiction will generally be aware of the short story "The Cold Equations" written by Tom Godwin and first published in Astounding Magazine in 1954.  A super short summary of the plot is that a young girl has stowed away on an emergency rocket that is being sent to a planet with a serum needed to save the people on the planet.  The rocket is designed to make the trip with only the pilot aboard...barely.  The additional weight of the stowaway is sufficient to cause the rocket to miss its destination.  The story frames the choice as between killing the girl so that the rocket can reach its destination, or letting the people on the planet die of some lethal illness.

The story was first published in the 1950s when science fiction frequently framed issues as binary choices.  While stories from that period might feature a clever protagonist to discover a third path, it was just as likely that poor choices would result in predictable disaster.  The best criticism that I have read is that the rocket did not have a large enough safety factor.

There is a forthcoming anthology of rebuttals to The Cold Equations.  I expect many essayists to add elements that are not present in the original story to reach their own preferred conclusions.  Rather than address the story as written, they will probably add in a factor that is not otherwise evident as a lever to be used against the main purpose of the story.

Rather than discussing the merits and criticism of the story, I'm first going to travel to Texas, rhetorically.

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick implied that he was willing to die to ensure the survival of his children and grandchildren.  He went on to suggest that lots of grandparents would make the same choice.  The context of his comments was the "choice" between maintaining our self-quarantine that is significantly damaging our economy or resuming normal social habits at the demonstrable risk of killing off a substantial number of our elderly.

"No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all Americans love for your children and grandchildren?" Patrick, 70, told host Tucker Carlson. "And if that's the exchange, I'm all in."

Dan Patrick is a former radio talk show host.  Like other media personalities that have been elected to public office, Mr. Patrick needs to recall that people in his current position need to exhibit a bit more discretion when they speak.

That's the polite version of "Dan Patrick decided to be an idiot for a few minutes".

We are not currently at the point where we need to be deciding who lives and who dies.  We are most certainly not at the point where we need to risk the lives of senior citizens by prematurely restarting the economy.

That being said, we do have to make choices; sometimes hard choices.  The decision to build an interstate highway can spell success or destruction for a small town.  The decision to raise or lower taxes can result in a change in mortality and life expectancy that is measured in real lives but experienced so diffusely that you can never truly identify a single life specifically cut short as a result.  The decision to regulate how medicine is practiced and funded might save tens of thousands of lives in the next year, but cost tens millions of more lives in the coming centuries by altering how new medicines and procedures are developed and deployed.

We are currently rushing to produce more ventilators.  Manufacturers are repurposing their facilities to meet the current demand.  The race pits innovation and ingenuity against literal death.  Innovation and ingenuity might well lose the race in a big way.  Unlike literature, there is no deus ex machina to save the day.

The fact is that we all have to make choices based on what we hope is the best of information.  We are all learning now about the importance of certain types of medical and personal protective equipment.  We are learning that we had manufacturing and import capacity to cover the usual needs of society, but not enough to cover our needs during a pandemic.  We are learning that we had stockpiles sufficient to cover a few significant regional calamities, but such stockpiles were entirely insufficient for a larger catastrophe.

What comes next?  Will we have a nationally organized database of manufacturers that are pre-qualified/pre-positioned to shift manufacturing for these critical items?  Will the design of those critical items be periodically updated? 

And of course, there will be new calls for a nationalized health care system in the US.  The most common indictment of the US system is that it rations care based on income.  Will those critics evaluate the other methods of health care rationing used in nationalized health care systems?  In the US, almost all get some level of health care and some get more than others.  In most nationalized systems, all get some level of health care and sometimes all get none when it comes to modern treatments.  Will we have a full and rational discussion or will there be more of the usual propaganda?

Will the critics of The Cold Equations pause in their rush to suggest alternative conclusions to acknowledge the practical limitations, however ham-handedly presented, that were in play?

The utility of science fiction is that it allows us to take an issue out of the pressing moment and twist it and test it and look at it in a different way.  Are the principles in play appropriate?  Is the design sufficient to the task at hand or is the safety margin to low to ensure success?  Do we sometimes have to make do with what is available now rather than wishing for a perfect solution to arrive too late to be of any value?

Science fiction allows us to ask the hard questions, to examine the cold equations, so that we can craft a rational response to real problems.  The other option is to emotionally demand that we unquestionably cherish the old and infirm as if we possessed unlimited resources.

Loving a senior in the age of Covid-19 certainly means doing our level best to prevent them from being infected and that, once infected, they get the very best of care that is available.  In the age of Covid-19, there may not be care available.  The doctors and nurses may have to choose between using a ventilator for a senior or using for someone in their 20s.  How does an emotional plea to cherish the elderly help resolve that choice?  The same doctors and nurses may have to choose between using chloroquine (or a similar drug) for a senior or reserving it for a person using it to address a long term autoimmune problem.  How does an emotional plea to cherish the elderly inform help to resolve that choice?

The single greatest flaw in The Cold Equations is that it does not explore any alternative solutions.  It does not examine why the safety margins had to be so slim that the mass of a single stowaway was sufficient to lethally undermine the purpose of the rocket.  Tom Godwin simply establishes a binary choice that is to be made and then allows time to elapse.  The Cold Equations presents the emotional mirror of cherishing those at the greatest risk from Covid-19 without examining the reality of the limited resources that are available in that moment.

What The Cold Equations does do quite effectively is cause the reader to confront that situation where the fuel cell is empty.  Where the tank of air has been depleted.  Where the last morsel of food has been divided and consumed.

We are ill-served by those that pretend that hard choices do not exist.

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There are other works that deal more effectively with issues surrounding questions of survival and the utilization of available resources.

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven

An asteroid crashes into earth causing massive tidal waves, earthquakes and throws the earth's climate into a far cooler range of temperatures.  Modern technology is...largely....gone.

The White Plague by Frank Herbert

After an Irish terrorist kills a scientist's wife, the scientist cooks up a bug designed to kill all human women.  He lets it loose on the island of Ireland after notifying the world of the need to quarantine the island.  The world does not listen.  Things go...poorly.

The women that survive find themselves with a tremendous amount of power and influence due to their unique...ummm...resources.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Another "large body crashes into the Earth" story.  This time it is the moon or at least pieces of it.  The race is on to get humanity off of the Earth in a way that allows them to survive and perhaps thrive. 

The Last Dance (The Near-Earth Mysteries, #1) by Martin L. Shoemaker

The Earth isn't under attack.  But in this story, humans explore the deadly reaches of our solar system; pretty much anywhere that isn't firmly on terra firma.  The main protagonist is a spaceship captain who built his career on identifying and minimizing risks.  His planning and engineering necessarily mean making tradeoffs and planning for tragedy.  He imparts that sensibility on his crew at every turn.  There is also a whodunnit mystery and a lot of astrophysics involved.  This was one of my best novel nominees for the Hugo Awards for 2020.

Review: The Wolf

The Wolf by Leo Carew
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review. That is a barely accurate estimate of my experience.

The people from the south invade the people in the northlands. The people from the south are a prototypical pre-industrial western civilization bent on conquest. The people from the north are supposedly "barbarians" who train for battle, are somewhat larger in stature, and who live in concert with nature; think North American First Peoples but with buildings. They have no written record; everything is recalled by memory with people specifically being tasked with that purpose.

The wily northerners eventually win the day and toss the southerners back across the river to their well-ordered cities and farms.

This was an interesting book full of a broad range of interesting characters. The world-building was good but not great. The northerners had to devote a ton of manpower into maintaining a record of their history. Historians are charged with remembering small bits of history. The number of fighters seems outsize compared with the number of tradespeople needed to support a civilization. There are just too many elements that don't fit together.

Added to those features is the presentation of the northerners as being a moral and just people because they "live with nature".

A final criticism is that this is obviously the first book in a series. The story is intended to extend into multiple volumes and what you get in Book 1 is really just the first chapter of the larger story.

From my perspective, a reader should be able to walk away from book 1 and feel like they have had a complete experience. If it was good enough, then book 2 will get read. But there should be enough closure that a reader can walk away after book 1 and not feel like anything was missing.

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Review: Kings of Paradise

Kings of Paradise by Richard Nell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rated at 4 stars.  A 3.5-star rating is closer to my experience.  Detailed characters.  Check.  Broad world-building.  Check.  Interesting premise.  Check.

I still spent the last third of this book debating my rating and whether or not I would finish it.  By that point, this had become just another first book in a fantasy series.  It was good enough that I pushed through to the finish.

Magic is intimated in the first half of the book, but it doesn't really exist until the last half of the book.  And then it is just one character.  There is a matriarchal society which is a nice change of pace, but the justifications for it run a little thin by the end of the book.

We jump around between characters quite a bit.  We also jump through time quite a bit.  The combination is a bit more complicated than I wanted in a reading experience.

My recommendation is that you try the free section of the ebook first to see if it connects with you.  Otherwise, move on to something else.

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Review: Neon Leviathan

Neon Leviathan by T.R. Napper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a 5-star review only because a 6-star review isn't possible. Read this collection. It is fantastic.

The author takes on the future from an Asian/Australian perspective. China has risen and is slowly eating up the region. Social ratings are in play as are bio-warfare and computer warfare.

One of the stories is the novella-length "The Weight of the Air, The Weight of the World" that echoes George Orwell and Philip K Dick.  The story eventually revolves around the nature of memory when the government has the ability to change it, and how such a power might be abused.
 This novella is on my Hugo nomination shortlist for 2021.

The author takes on class issues, race, immigration, and concepts around individual liberty. The perspectives run a broad range as do the narratives. One story involves the difficulties around separating virtual reality from actual reality; lethal consequences ensue when one is mistaken for the other.

This collection is a tour-de-force for any sci-fi fan.

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A Quilt for Aedan

I'm still getting caught up on photos of my various quilting projects.  It turns out that I've had to ask for photos from various recipients because I forgot to take/keep photos on my own.

It looks like 2016 was in the middle of my time off from quilting.  The only quilt that I could find from 2016 was for young Aedan.  Here he is a few years on with his brother Liam holding up the quilt for all to see.

And here is his brother, Liam, way back in the day claiming the quilt as a matter of older brother's privilege.  I'm given to understand that such a maneuver is a bit harder to complete these days.

Review: Snowbound

Snowbound by Blake Crouch
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review. At best it is a 1.5 star book.

The premise is straightforward. A wife/mother is abducted. The police fail to execute a proper investigation. A shadowy law enforcement figure shows up claiming to have "the facts".

The reality is that the young womany was taken for her looks to serve as a sex slave at a posh Alaskan wilderness retreat. Rich men pay lots of money to visit and rape the women. A rescue ensues.

The plot is riddled with more holes than a wheel of Swiss cheese. The Alaskan resort is massive, remote, and unknown. It is highly unlikely that such a structure would ever be built/exist undetected.

The resort is visited by lots of men and there are many men involved in the abduction and maintenance of the slaves/women. There is zero possibility that such a secret operation could remain a secret for long given the number of people involved.

Then there is the cardboard characterizations. The more prominent patrons are all Texas oilmen or their close friends.

The first half/two-thirds of the story is a pretty good investigation/pursuit story. It's only when the location of the story shifts to Alaska where flimsy storytelling rears its ugly head.

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Review: Rocks Fall. Everyone Dies.

Rocks Fall. Everyone Dies. by Eddie Skelson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a 1-star review. That is more stars than it is worth.

The author is in dire need of a copyeditor and needs to retake 8th grade English/grammar.

I read less than a dozen pages before I was consumed with the urge to hurl this book across the room, Dorothy Parker style. Sadly, it was an electronic copy.

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Review: Eve of Darkness

Eve of Darkness by S.J. Day
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. That is a reasonable estimate of my experience with this book.

The conceit of the book is that God and angels exist. The Bible is presented as being a not-quite accurate portrayal of their history. Eve is a successful young woman who is in lust with Cain; The Cain - the brother killing guy that now is unable to die.

Eve is given the "Mark of Cain" by his brother, Abel. Nope....he isn't dead. He is a part of a sort of celestial bail bond organization that collects and kills demons and other evil creatures who have tried God's patience a bit too much.

This book is about Eve's transition from ordinary mortal to being a "Mark" working for the same bail bond organization. The general world-building was good, but not great. The characters were reasonably engaging. However, there were a few features that undermined the general narrative.

- The "Marks" are supposed to be sinners that are working off their sin so they can get into heaven. There isn't any explanation as to why individuals are selected to become Marks. One Mark is indicated to be a past member of a yakuza in Japan; so a gang banger of some sort. But there isn't any indication of what made Eve a uniquely suitable subject to be "recruited". We have no real definition of her sins that brought her to the attention of the divine.

- The attraction between Cain and Eve has no basis beyond "just because". The same is true for Abel's attraction to Eve. The entire basis for relationships in the story appears to be nothing more than overactive hormones. It is pointed out that Cain had been married before, but Eve is referred to as his "first love". The author is just pushing people together and expecting the reader to ignore the paper-thin justification for these relationships.

- Sex. Lots of steamy and explicit sex. While that seems to be a feature in a segment of the urban fantasy genre, it doesn't do much to advance the narrative of this story.

- Speaking of which, the first act of sex is when Abel rapes Eve. In later chapters of the book, she remains attracted to him despite resisting his advances.

I will probably add a couple more things on my blog as there are cultural issues that don't really belong in a formal review of a book.

If you want a light read that is heavy on the erotica and light on the plot, this is a good book for you.

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And here are the "couple more things".  Mostly this has to do with politics and culture with respect to some aspects of SF/F fandom.

This book leans heavily on the "female gaze".  The "male gaze" is a reference to when male characters notice the physical attributes....primarily breasts and posteriors...of female characters.  This book leans heavily on the reverse of that phenomenon.  The male characters are heavily objectified.

And I'm largely OK with that.

The problem is that if this were a male author engaged in writing a story that leans heavily on male characters objectifying female characters, then that author would be savaged as being a misogynist hack.  Much worse invective would be headed his way.

This book was published by Tor.  They appear to be currently engaged in correcting the disparity in diversity within SF/F works.  I note that they heavily promote female authors.  At least, that is what shows up in my email box and in various social media experiences.

And I'm largely OK with that as well.

Again, the problem is that I can't imagine Tor publishing a male author's story that heavily trafficked in the proverbial male gaze.  Nor can I imagine Tor publishing a male author's story that features a prominent and obvious rape that not only had zero consequences for the rapist but had his victim still expressing some form of attraction to her rapist.

This is sort of sloppy storytelling is not what I would expect from one of the "big five" publishers.  I think that this situation exists because of a desire to correct...in this case, one might say over-correct...for past issues with diversity, or lack thereof.

Our culture may made moderate a bit in the next decade.  The pendulum may swing back towards the middle.  Common sense might come back in vogue.  I might read this book with different eyes while living in that future culture.  In our current culture, it is difficult to ignore these issues relative to this book.

Lightly edited on 3/24/2021

A Quilt For Jude

A couple of good friends had a baby a couple years back.  And I made a quilt....surprise!

In this case, I had a bunch of fabrics in my stash that were good for a baby quilt.  But I didn't have enough of each one to go with my usual log cabin approach.

So what's a quilter to do?  Improvise!

In this case, I coupled wide strips of white with narrow strips of various other materials.  Once those were stitched together, I cut them at the same width as the narrow strips.

I then used wide strips of colored material with narrow strips of white.  Those got cut to the width of the colored material.

Then you match a narrow strip with a wide strip to make a square.  Lay out the squares in a pleasing manner and voila...a quilt is born.

I used a minky fabric for the backing.  That worked out a bunch better than some of my other quilts.  I always have a problem with the cotton backing wrinkling if I don't work hard to get all the loose fabric out of it.

As a bonus, I was able to incorporate some material from his older brother's quilt in his quilt.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  And Jude is pretty cool, too.

Jude - his own self

A Quilt For Everet

So a long time ago, I made a quilt.  And I took one photograph.  I did not record the recipient.

And thus began a 4-year quest to figure out who the heck got that quilt!  Most embarrassing for me.

His dad cleared up the mystery and now I can add it to my record. 

A Quilt For Emery

I'm working at getting my quilt entries caught up.  This beauty was for our grandniece, Emery.  She's a few years older now and cute as a button.

For The Record

I care a whole lot more about what is going on between a political candidate's ears than the pigmentation, configuration, and application of their genitalia.

The same goes for pretty much everyone else.

A Quilt for Lincoln

My most recent finish.  This is my second quilt for 2020 and my first baby quilt of the year.

The design was inspired in part by the recent Initial K finish posted over at Reddit.  The Initial K pattern is Vaquero.

I did my own thing with the arrows...details below.  The blocks use the technique developed by Joe Cunningham for his Rock The Block - Album Style quilt.  His lesson actually includes (3) different quilting techniques; including Rock The Block.  I've been wanting to try a full-blown Rock The Block quilt, but haven't really had the chance.  This quilt was my first opportunity to test out the technique.

I learned a few things.  One piece of advice for Rock The Block, don't use too many narrow strips.  And really don't use narrow strips that are adjacent to one another.  Another piece of advice is to plan on making many more blocks than you will need to finish the quilt.  There are many opportunities when you are trying to make a specific cut that ends up right next to a seam.  You need to have some flexibility in executing Joe's technique.

The first photo is from when I was getting the sandwich done.  I'm not really happy with how the quilting process wound up.  I learned a couple more things about that.

Click to embiggen

The second photo is the finished quilt.

Click to embiggen

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Ok...so the arrows.  From what I saw, the Initial K pattern uses blocks to create the arrows.  My intent was to be able to sew in continuous strips of the gradient material.  To do that, I had to get the pieces in the arrow strips cut just right to match.  There was a fair amount of trial and error, but this ended up working.

Step one was to fold the 2 1/2" wide gradient strip perfectly (or nearly so) in half.  Then I cut a section that is 4 3/8" from the fold.  I found that cutting that section as just slightly less than 4 3/8" worked a little better.  Hold onto the ends and leave them together.

Step two was to cut the color strips.  They were 12 1/2" long.

Step three was to cut the 30° angles at the end of the strips.  The angles were cut to the points.  Leave the gradient strip folded in half.  And make sure you get the angles in the right direction!

Step four was to sew the arrows onto the centerpieces from the gradient material.

Step five was to remove 1 7/8" from the middle portion of the remainder of the gradient strip.

You should be left with an arrow strip that is roughly the same length as an uncut gradient strip.

A modest update.  I did receive a photo of young Lincoln with his quilt.  He's a keeper.

Review: The Two Week Curse

The Two Week Curse by Michael Chatfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4 star review.

This book is LitRPG. I do not like LitRPG. Yet this book kept me turning the page.

The conceit of this book is that there is a virus outbreak. Anyone that gets the virus disappears after two weeks. Their clothes go with them, so disappearances are considered to have an area of effect beyond the person. No one knows where the virus victims end up. Rumors exist of victims becoming much stronger/faster/better in the two weeks prior to their disappearance.

Enter two military veterans working personal security overseas. They get the disease.

After two weeks, they end up in swords and sorcery land. Fortunately, they used what was known about the disease and were standing amidst a stockpile of supplies when they were teleported.

The author gets a whole bunch of things right. He has his protagonists pursue objectives that are unique from the traditional swords/sorcery milieu. They also use teambuilding skills in a way that is traditional from a modern military perspective but unique to a swords/sorcery world.

One hook that kept my attention was how characters with a modern military perspective applied that perspective to a swords/sorcery life. They ended up planning their activities and objectives to maximize their ability to increase their "stat levels". It was amazingly similar to how a person plays a video game to maximize their abilities at each stage of the game.

The dialog and characters are at times somewhat simple, but they are also very believable. While I didn't care for the LitRPG aspect, the characters and the narrative were good enough to keep me coming back for more and more.

On the downside, the author needs a copyeditor in the worst way. There are enough spelling/grammar errors to be troublesome.

Also on the downside, this is LitRPG. You could cut out a tenth of the pages if you skipped over the "leveling up" messages along with a listing of new stats for each character.

If LitRPG and some grammar/spelling errors don't bother you, and if MilSF and Fantasy are your thing, then this book is probably for you!


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Review: Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology

Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology by Ben Galley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The introduction of this anthology is about a short story about how the hero isn't who you expect it to be. In that story, a guy goes from nothing to being the ruler of the world by using his brains to overcome all of the evil people in the world. Evil is gone...good thing, right?

So no one will challenge this ruler of the world because, in his quest to overcome evil, he developed a machine that will end the world with the push of a button. As ruler of the world, this guy is pretty oppressive.

The real hero? Some other person that has a set of wire cutters and access to the button.

Now that is the bones of a pretty good story and a pretty good premise around which to build an anthology.

Sadly, the anthology doesn't deliver. Most of the "heroes" are just looking out for their own interests when the opportunity to act comes along.

The stories were well written, but a bit pedestrian. I was a little over halfway through when I set it aside for something else. I don't plan on going back.

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A Musical Window

I am not a fan of paper piecing in quilting.  It takes a lot of time to get very little accomplished.  I suppose that is why most of the quilts I make are log cabin or some variant of the log cabin pattern.  Put in a strip of fabric, and throw on blocks until you get to the end.

Power quilting!

Therefore, I am always on the hunt for techniques that utilize strips rather than pieces as the foundation for the design.  I approach quilting more as an engineer where mathematics and fabrication are a bit more important than artistic flair.  I also approach quilting as a guy; my color selections lean towards bolder colors and greater contrasts.

Some time ago I ran across the Magic Tiles pattern by Kathleen Bissett.  The process described in the pattern was quite attractive to me.  It offered a mathematic process of construction and a (somewhat) chaotic presentation of color.  Chaos, quite naturally, is also mathematic.

Music is a passion of my mother's.  That may be one reason why she was so enamored of my father when they first met.  I began collecting music-based quilting fabric after finding the Magic Tiles pattern.

Now the first rule of quilting is to follow the instructions.

The second rule of quilting is to know when to break the first rule.

The pattern calls for twelve different fabrics.  I think I ended up using ten.  So the process for randomizing the fabrics didn't work quite as well for me.  I had to do some manual manipulation when it came to the final assembly of the square tiles.

If you look closely, you will probably find some goofs in my assembly of the squares.  The biggest error was in not maintaining consistent seams with the grout strips.  A couple of the grout strips are a little wider than the rest.  I thought that would work out in the end as long as the error stacked up in the same way.

The error did stack up.  And some of the grout runs have a jog in the middle of the tile due to the larger grout strips.  At that point, it was too late to go back and "fix" it.  I pushed on hoping that most people wouldn't see the error.

One other change did work out quite well.  The pattern in the instructions detailed a border that was tight to the inner tiles.  I elected to use a broad black border between the tiles and the colored border.  I then finished out the distance to edge using black fabric.  The dimensions for my final quilt are roughly 66" x 94". 

The photo below is of the quilt just prior to binding.  I had quilted all of the grout in place and wanted to make sure that the top and bottom were smooth before sealing the edges.

I was quite pleased with how the back worked out on this quilt.  My backs end up having bunches far too frequently.  My solution has been to use more flexible, plush backing materials on baby quilts.  For some reason, they don't bunch up.  Or to be frustrated by re-quilting sections.  Or to just live with it.  It isn't bad, it's just not perfect.  The back on this quilt is almost perfect.

Sometimes, you learn all the good stuff after you are done.  In this case, I obviously learned an important lesson about consistent seams.  Log cabin quilts can hide a world of sins.  This pattern....not so much.

I also learned a fair amount about Kathleen Bissett via her website.  She is a degreed educator that thought she would spend her life teaching math.  Life is funny.  She still teaches.  Math is still heavily involved in her work.  But she rarely teaches in a traditional school.  Kathleen also has some very pointed....and correct....thoughts about supporting creators and their copyrights.

If you want to purchase her pattern and your local quilting store can't get it, then you might start by contacting the good people at Quilt Craft.

Review: Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star DNF review.

I received this as part of the Hugo awards packet in 2015. The story/writing was OK. The world-building had some interesting aspects.

I just could not connect with any of the characters or their situation. There were better things to read, and so I did.

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Review: The Legion Awakes

The Legion Awakes by J.R. Handley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great first book by a new author and US Army veteran. Captures the mil-sf genre very well.

Can't wait to get to book 2

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[adding on over a year later]

This is the first book published by a US Army vet and his wife.  They are a team.  He is using writing as a way of processing his time in the Army.

Our protagonist awakens from some sort of hypersleep and is put to work training new recruits.  He uses what are considered "old-school" methods of training to get better performance out of his recruits.  They are pretty lazy and marginally competent when he picks them up.  But soon he has a platoon that is coming along nicely. 

The high point of the training exercise is when his new unit is tasked with being the sacrificial lambs for an annual training exercise for the larger unit.  They come up with a plan that takes out that larger unit.  The scene is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge" movie.

And then the world goes pear-shaped.  Our protagonist and his unit have to figure out who the bad-guys are and how to protect those needing protecting.

The author gets military service 100% right.  It even tastes right.  He then tosses in a bunch of new technology.  One of his very capable underlings re-programs the unit that produces clothes.  As a result, another...equally capable.....underling is caught wearing some "cute" panties instead of the standard-issue stuff.  Sometimes a girl just wants to be pretty even if it is just for herself.

It's a "new army" and our protagonist has to adjust to them as much as they have to adjust to him.

His unit ends up re-tasking and repurposing a lot of technology so that they can fight more efficiently.  That hard work pays off in the end.

While some of the later entries in the series didn't land as well for me, this is an outstanding book that is worthy of much broader attention.

2019 - A Year In Quilts

I began the year working on a quilt for my mom that is supposed to look a bit like a stained glass window.  The technique is really pretty simple.  I was about 60% through that process when the start of my quilting year got turned around.

One of our nephews and his girlfriend announced that they were expecting in the spring.  So the stained glass quilt got put aside in favor of the "old reliable"; log cabin.  Shortly after beginning that quilt, I had a colleague at work announce their pending arrival.

So I was two quilts behind before the end of February.  The quilt for our nephew's son, Jayce, was done in the early spring.  Just in time for our youngest son and another nephew to announce that they (and their girlfriends, natch) were expecting as well.

So I'm three quilts behind headed into summer.  The quilt for my colleague's daughter-to-be was finished barely in time for her arrival.  This was a new (to me) pattern that had a very modern look that is supposed to evoke the Death Star from Star Wars.  I'll probably try it again in the future.

Then things got a little busy.  My dad ended up passing in July.  So the quilt for our other nephew's daughter, Charlotte, ended up being finished a little after she was born.  Better late than never.  But the summer was pretty busy.  Another log cabin completed.

Heading into September, I figured I had a pretty good handle on the schedule.  One more baby quilt for our youngest son to make and then mom could have her quilt completed by Christmas.

And then, surprise!  Our oldest son and his girlfriend called us early.....I mean EARLY...one morning to let us know we were about to become grandparents for the first time.  In September.  Not December.

She had a pregnancy that was so secret that she didn't even know about it until about 12 hours before Emma was delivered.  While we were tickled pink with her arrival, that added an unexpected quilt to my year.  What's a guy to do but get some new fabric and get on with it.  Which I did.  Three log cabin quilts this year alone!

And then it was back to the quilt for our youngest son's daughter, Ella.  It was done in the nick of time.  I finally had a chance to work some fabric that I had been eyeing at the fabric store for a few years.  I think this fourth log cabin of the year turned out nicely.

But that left my mom's quilt as an incomplete for 2019.  It's a little closer to being done now and should be completed by mid-February at the very latest.

A Quilt for Ella

So short story long, back in the spring, our youngest and his girlfriend announced that they were also having a baby. This was to have been our first grandchild.

If you've read about Miss Emma's quilt, then you know how that expectation worked out.

We spent some time looking at fabrics.  Two of them, pink and purple squares, were ones that I had seen before and had been wanting to try in a quilt.  They posed a bit of a challenge due to the tiny square pattern in the material.  It is quite difficult to cut perfectly parallel successive strips of material from a 40" wide section of fabric.  I ended up cutting 2 1/2" wide x 20" long strips.  Most of the cuts pretty well match the pattern of the squares.

In the end, I was pleased with the result.  And as with Emma's quilt, the backing material for Ella's quilt was a plushy fabric that didn't bunch (much) when sewed.

Miss Ella's Quilt - Finished

Miss Ella's Quilt - Detail

Miss Ella - Her Own Self

We think she's a keeper

Papa Josh and Miss Ella

Catching a little shut eye.

A Quilt for Emma

So here we are late in 2019.  You may have picked up on the suggestion under Charlotte's quilt entry that there was another quilt in the works.

This.....is not that quilt.

So late in September, we received an early morning call from our oldest.  His girlfriend was in labor.  He didn't know she was pregnant.  She didn't know she was pregnant!  There's a longer story there, but the doctors and nurses went to great lengths to express to us that this situation was not as unusual as you might think.

We received another call a couple hours later.  It was still a long way before our alarms were set to go off.  She was dilated to 3.  Off to the hospital we went!  About 6 or 7 hours later, our first grandchild, Emma came into the world.  She was a little early.  The doctors thought that she was at about 34 weeks when she was born.  Her first day was a little rough.  But she was out of the neonatal unit and safe at home a week later. 

She's pretty tough...like her old man.  Her mom, too, for what it's worth.

The only problem is that when I went to sleep the previous night, I had not planned on any extra quilts for 2019.  And now I was planning on another quilt for 2019!

I opted for another pink/grey combination.  It turned out pretty well.

The backs of quilts are always a bit of a challenge for me.  It's hard to come up with something that is visually interesting while also being easy enough to sew.  This time around I opted for a pink/grey synthetic fabric that felt a little plushy.  The fibers weren't crazy long, but they are long enough to be soft to the touch.

My beloved bride thinks I should use soft materials as they will be in contact with the baby's skin.  I think the backing material worked pretty well this time around.  I might have to keep looking at that fabric for future baby quilts.

Miss Emma's Quilt - Finished

Miss Emma's Quilt - Back

Miss Emma - her own self.  Almost 3 months old.

We're still tickled pink to have her in our lives.

A Quilt for Charlotte

A different nephew and his girlfriend also ended up having a baby this year.  We found out about this in the spring.  I had completed one quilt, had a second one in the works, and now a third (or more) racked up in rapid succession.

I wasn't sure what to do for Charlotte.  But knowing that a little girl was coming and knowing that I still had some special fabric left in the stash pile, I just dove in and put together fabrics that I had available.  You may recognize one or two fabrics as being in prior quilts.

I really hate working with flannel.  It isn't dimensionally stable.  You can cut a 2 1/2" wide strip and end up pushing and pulling it so that it ends up being 1/8" on either side.  A continuing set of 1/8" errors is really a pain in the backside when you are piecing the larger squares together.

The "special fabric" was the white flannel with the tiny red roses.  My mother-in-law had purchased a whole bunch of that material with the intent of making nightgowns for two of her granddaughters when they were in the 4 to 6-year-old range.  Both are in their 20s today.  Neither of them got a nightgown.

Mom is gone now.  She is greatly missed.  Now I have/had the material.  As this would be another of her great-grandchildren, I thought it would be a good use.

Charlotte's Quilt - Finished

Charlotte's Quilt - Detail

A Quilt for Chloe

Immediately after finishing Jayce's quilt, I started to work on one for Miss Chloe.  A friend at work was working to produce Chloe, so I thought it would be OK to produce something to keep her warm once she got here.  Chloe and her momma made it through safe and sound.

Instead of doing another log cabin quilt, I took a stab at a little different pattern.  This one is supposed to be inspired by the Death Star from Star Wars.

Is there another Death Star outside of Star Wars?

I picked up the pattern in a quilting magazine because it has a really cool modern art feel to it.  I think it turned out OK.

Chloe's Quilt - Pre-Quilting

Chloe's Quilt - Detail

Chloe's Quilt - Finished

The partial circles were a bit of trouble.  I had to learn/re-learn some things to make them come out correctly.  But this was a fun pattern.  I expect that I will try it again in the future.

A Quilt for Jayce

One of our nephews and his girlfriend had Jayce much earlier this year.  So I put aside my then (now current) quilting to begin working on one for Jayce.  His mom was interested in an animal theme for Jayce.  The result is below.

Jayce's Quilt

Jayce's Quilt - Single Panel

I think it worked out pretty well.  He's a pretty cute bugger, too!

Review: The Court of Broken Knives

The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to give this book by Anna Smith Spark a try for a long time. Several grimdark oriented groups have raved about it. And Anna is a sparkling addition to some of those groups. But now I have to separate the work from the author.

This is a 4-star review of this book. In reality, I think it is more of a 3.5-star book. The world-building was interesting. There were cultural clashes between characters that suggested some decidedly different bases for their respective nations/cities.

Spoilers lie ahead...

One protagonist appears to be descended from some sort of deity-like person that once ravaged the world. All their ancestors wanted to do was to kill. By the end, those qualities are apparent in abundance in the protagonist. God-kings do not fall far from their proverbial trees.

The other protagonist was chosen at random to be a high priestess who committed ritual human sacrifice on a regular basis because her religion says that such sacrifices are needed so that humans can still be born, live, and die. If she were to stop, then no one would be born and no one would die. There isn't any evidence to support that faith within the text. However, it does seem that she possesses some extra-human abilities as a result.

They come together and fall in love. He passionately. She reluctantly. He sees no flaws in her. She sees many in him. But in the end, two beautiful but scarred people must be in love.

[

One protagonist appears to be descended from some sort of deity-like person that once ravaged the world. All their ancestors wanted to do was to kill. By the end, those qualities are apparent in abundance in the protagonist. God-kings do not fall far from their proverbial trees.

The other protagonist was chosen at random to be a high priestess who committed ritual human sacrifice on a regular basis because her religion says that such sacrifices are needed so that humans can still be born, live, and die. If she were to stop, then no one would be born and no one would die. There isn't any evidence to support that faith within the text. However, it does seem that she possesses some extra-human abilities as a result.

They come together and fall in love. He passionately. She reluctantly. He sees no flaws in her. She sees many in him. But in the end, two beautiful but scarred people must be in love.

With her love as the motivation, he moves to reclaim his position within his family. This turns out poorly for pretty much everyone near him. He has the ability to instill a sort of blind bloodlust that causes people to kill whoever happens to be nearby if an enemy isn't more available. The blood....it flows.

(hide spoiler)]
With her love as the motivation, he moves to reclaim his position within his family. This turns out poorly for pretty much everyone near him. He has the ability to instill a sort of blind bloodlust that causes people to kill whoever happens to be nearby if an enemy isn't more available. The blood....it flows.

While it has been a few years, this book reads a lot like Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. That is meant as a strong compliment.

While I had a pretty good idea about what makes the various characters special by the end of the book, it ended with me wondering if I really cared enough about their success or failure to want to continue the series. I never found a positive perspective to root for. There weren't any gems covered in grimdark grime. It was just blood, blood, blood and death, death, death. [read it to get the reference]

A second issue is that we spend a lot of time inside the character's heads; looking longingly at someone or plotting their next move. I am less attracted to spending pages upon pages on internal monologues.

There are several large and small scale political intrigues that unfold along the way. There is a broad range of characters with a diverse set of conflicting interests. The author adroitly manages all of those competing plot lines.

Fans of the grimdark subgenre should definitely give this book a try. It may connect better with you. Most of the elements of a fantastic read are there. And the series may unfold in a way that is more enjoyable than this single entry permits.

I probably won't find out for myself anytime soon.

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Review: A Little Hatred

A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a solid 5-star review.

Joe Abercrombie returns to his First Law world with the next generation of characters. As usual, this is a tour de force of fantasy that manages to present several POV characters in various situations; ranging from political intrigue to the hack-and-slash of combat.

Added into the plot this time are class elements unfolding within the context of a developing technologically driving industrial movement. Lives are inexorably altered as changing technology alters the basis of power; lifting some while others find their traditional existence to no longer be viable.

All of the subplots are told through the actions of a broad range of multi-motivated characters. Joe is a master of the grimdark subgenre requirement of creating characters that are neither purely good nor purely evil. They simply have motivations that are, at times, at cross purposes. When you are enthusiastically cheering for a character on one page and lustily cursing them a few pages later, then you know that you are in the grip of a masterful author.

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Review: The Forever War

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review.

How might time delays influence the fighting of interstellar war? That is the overlying context of this story as the protagonists continually survive (barely) armed conflict with a poorly understood enemy. They hobble back home and by dint of survival end up promoted and in charge of the next armed contact with the enemy.

The relativity of time due to light speed travels means that there are thousands (tens of thousands!) of years for technology and battle doctrine to develop between battles while the combatants are traveling to and from the points of combat. The conflict ends up being a series of engagements leap-frogging through time.

Until they come home one day to find that peace had been declared. It is implied that the entire conflict may have begun in error; the enemy was poorly understood and they equally misunderstood humanity.

As might be expected of an author with a military service history, the book gets the relationships in the military just right; both the personal and doctrinal aspects. The subtextual message emphasizing the importance of understanding others is also handled deftly.

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Review: The Last Wish

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a weak 4-star review.

This is the first in the series and is really more of a collection of short/medium length stories. The writing was solid. The characters were engaging. However, it is, at best, a fractured narrative.

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Hugo 2020 - Nomination Pool

My personal "short list" of works to be nominated in 2020

Novel -
Mark Lawrence - Holy Sister
Damien Black - Pilgrim's Storm Brooding??
Joe Abercrombie - A Little Hatred
Martin L. Shoemaker - The Last Dance

Series -
Mark Lawrence - Book of the Ancestor
Mark Lawrence - Impossible Times
Damien Black - Broken Stone Chronicle
Dave Duncan - King's Blades

Semi-Prozine -
Cirsova

Editor Short -
P. Alexander - Cirsova
Adrian Collins - Grimdark Magazine

Fancast -
SinCast by Cinema Sins
The Disney Story Origins Podcast
The Horror Show with Brian Keene

Fan Writer -
Colleen McMahon - Wandering Through The Public Domain Series - hosted by File770

Long Format
Witcher Season 1
Carnival Row Season 1
The Mandalorian Season 1
[Per the rules, you can nominate works of shorter than 90 minutes in the short format category; i.e. single episodes of longer series.  Alternatively, you can nominate an entire season under the long format category.  Both series told larger story arcs across their respective series.  Both are worthy of consideration against more traditional movies that will be nominated in the long format category.]