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Table of Contents
Steam-Driven Card Punches (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
[Our Supreme Leader has decided that aircraft carrier launch systems should revert from the current Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System to steam-powered catapults and hydraulic elevators. As usual Mark was well ahead of that curve, in this editorial from the 09/07/1990 MT VOID. -ecl]
Right here in the science fiction notice we can see in microcosm the sort of revolution that is taking hold of computing in general. We offer the MT VOID in two flavors. You can get it either on-line or you can get a paper copy. Now if the trend toward the paperless office were real, you would think people would flock to getting the on-line version, but that is really not the case. People seem to sense that the right version of the notice is on sheets of paper. And why? Because they know intuitively that the on-line version is one more step removed from what computing is *really* all about. And what is that? I think we all know. Computing is about boxes of cards. And many leading computer scientists now say they knew it all along.
It is true that the television generation had its temporary flirtation with cathode-ray tube representations of card images. (and after all, what is a disk file but a television representation of a stack of cards?) But secretly in the back rooms of America's major universities and research companies, top computer scientists are returning to the safe, dependable, reassuring technology of punched cards and keypunches.
The keypunches of the future, of course, will not be the clunkers many of us are used to, but sleek, ecology-minded, steam-driven keypunches that do not rely on electrical power. Dr. Melodij Ardenelesti of Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, told our reporter that every developer at Murray Hill could be serviced by steam-driven keypunches powered by only five of the powerful new two-story boilers placed in strategic locations around the building. They can even be powered by burning printouts. The problems are not insurmountable, Ardenelesti told us. "Input media may be only the beginning. By the year 2035 entire computer centers may be running on steam power. Among the advantages, steam computing eliminates the need for expensive air conditioning. It is a well-understood technology. In the future, powering up your PC at home may be as simple as putting a tea kettle on the stove is today. But first we need to get the keypunches working." Major challenges? Most current steam keypunches cause the cards produced to "wilt" and one site reports problems with mildew.
If, indeed, there is a marriage of the new steam computing technology with a return to punched cards, there are many advantages that have been cited:
But leading computer scientists, off the record, list another virtue that is harder to quantify. There is a certain tactile pleasure in your hand a program, with its own characteristic weight and heft based on the size of the program. As one IBM computer scientist told us, "There was a need and this thing in my hand fulfills that need. It is not made up of electron positions that other equipment tells us about. It is here, self-contained in my hand. It is a sort of existential satisfaction that was present in earlier days of computing and we are looking forward to its return." Several cutting-edge technology companies are betting that feeling will become more common. [-mrl]
[Various people have also suggested replacing ballistic missiles with trebuchets and missile interceptors with slings. -ecl]
PRECIOUS CHILDREN by Mary G. Thompson (copyright 2026, Tachyon Publications, publication date September 1, 2026, ISBN: 978-1-61696-465-8 (print); 978-1-61696-466-5 (digital)) (book review by Joe Karpierz):
Those readers who are parents, who have raised children from infancy through adulthood, know what a challenge that endeavor can be. We love them unconditionally, but they can drive us to distraction. As they grow older and develop their personalities, as they become who they will be in life, there are times we just don't know who they are (and yes, they don't know who they are either). They change seemingly from day to day, if not hour by hour or minute by minute. It almost seems like they have multiple personalities.
And yet, we would absolutely hate to lose them under any circumstances. What parent wouldn't want their child back, no matter what the cost? We go to great lengths to protect them, so they don't accidentally pass away, but it still happens. Nothing in life is guaranteed, including life itself. But what if there was a technology that allowed us to do just that? Would we take advantage of it? Could we take advantage of it? Would we have the means to take advantage of it?
Mary G. Thompson's PRECIOUS CHILDREN takes us to a world in which not only the birthrate is plummeting, but children are dying at an alarming rate. The government is concerned, so the President's Population program is developed, which will allow people who have the means--that is, money--to generate thousands of clones of themselves. Those clones get to live with other families and have normal lives, but the caveat is that if one of the clones is needed because a child died, the original parents are allowed to select one and have the memories of the previous child transferred to the clone, thus replacing the previous child. Additionally, a child continually backs up its consciousness to ... somewhere...under the auspices of Generations, Inc. So, the consciousness and the memories are transferred to and replace those of the selected child such that the parents never have to lose their, well, precious children. Of course, this wouldn't be much of a story if the process always succeeded.
Dina and Preston Blake are participants in the President's population program. Di and Geoff are clones of their parents. Dina and Preston, as you might guess, are extremely wealthy. We really don't know what Preston does for a living that allows him to have the means to be part of the program. Dina is the stay-at-home mom--more accurately, neurotic mom. As the story opens, Geoff has died for the second time, and Dina is a mess, living on stims to help her cope with the tragedy of losing her son and the possibility of losing her daughter. Preston does care for his wife and kids, but he's not too concerned with what's going on with them. He's very conscious of his image, and hey, we have the money to take care of everything, so what is there to really worry about?
But, as I said earlier, this wouldn't be much of a story if the consciousness/memory transfer always worked. And in the case of the transfer of Geoff into a boy named Nathan, the transfer isn't quite right. There's something going on, and Di knows exactly what it is, why it is, and what is supposed to happen. Dina is over-stimmed and breaking down, and Preston thinks that all he has to do is calm everyone down and everything will be fine. Dina and Preston are so detached from their children--and why wouldn't they be, they can just get another one?--that they cannot see what's going on right in front of them.
PRECIOUS CHILDREN is a frightening story of wealth, privilege, and bad parenting. The reader does get a glimpse into the inner workings of Generations, Inc., the population program, and the government, just enough to see that there's something not quite right going on with those entities as well. While I liked the concept and the story, it seems to me that PRECIOUS CHILDREN would have benefitted from being a longer book. There are a few unanswered questions that nagged me as a reader, and some things were left unsaid or not further explored. Having said all that, however, I do like this book and would recommend it. You may be creeped out by it, especially if you're a parent currently raising children. Once you finish reading PRECIOUS CHILDREN, you may want to keep a close eye on the kids. They may be up to something. Just remember they're the only ones you have. [-jak]
Pardoning Power and Term Limits (letters of comment by Gary McGath, Lawrence D'Oliveiro, and Keith F. Lynch):
In response to Evelyn's comments on the Presidential pardoning power as discussed in the Federalist Papers in the 08/14/26 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
That leads to a paradoxical thought: Perhaps the advocates of the pardoning power supported it partly because George III had set a good example. The Declaration of Independence blames him for a lot of things that weren't under his control, and there were real things to criticize him for, but he rarely abused his powers. The Founders knew this, even if they found it useful to pile accusations on a single villain rather than a more nebulous Parliament. They were inclined by the examples of him and George Washington to put too much trust in a single person with executive power. [-gmg]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro responds:
Have you noticed that Parliamentary systems seem to have less need of term limits? And they have no concept of “impeachment”; instead, Parliament just needs to pass a vote of no confidence in the Government and its Prime Minister, and down they come. [-ldo]
And Keith F. Lynch adds:
What I've noticed is that Britain's PM's have often had non-consecutive terms. 305 years of PMs vs. 237 years of US presidents, just 28% more time. That's 59 unique PMs serving 81 terms, vs. 45 unique US presidents serving 47 terms. (Not counting immediately consecutive terms.)
Presidents Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump served (or are currently serving) non-consecutive terms. PMs who have served non-consecutive terms include Winston Churchill, William Pitt the Younger, William Lamb, William Cavendish-Bentinck, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Robert Peel, Ramsay MacDonald, John Russell, Henry John Temple, Harold Wilson, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Benjamin Disraeli, and Arthur Wellesley (2 non-consecutive terms each), Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Edward Smith-Stanley William, and Stanley Baldwin (3 non-consecutive terms each), and William Gladstone (4 non-consecutive terms).
But there have been no repeat PMs in the last half-century. [-kfl]
Evelyn elaborates:
If one looks at how long various PMs were in office, in the last century only two lasted long enough to hit the term limit the US has for Presidents: Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. [-ecl]
Subtitling vs. Dubbing (letter of comment by Lawrence D'Oliveiro):
In response to Evelyn's comments on subtitling and dubbing in the 08/14/26 issue of the MT VOID, Lawrence D'Oliveiro writes:
[Evelyn writes,] "One complaint I have is that a lot [of the film CLOUD] is being conveyed by screen shots of computers, sometimes scrolling, and most of it is not subtitled." [-ecl]
Some people seem to prefer dubbing to subtitles, I don’t know why ... [-ldo]
Evelyn responds:
One reason is that people need to look away from the visuals on the screen to read the subtitles, and the slower they read, the worse it is. [-ecl]
GOSFORD PARK (letter of comment by Peter Trei):
In response to Evelyn's comments on GOSFORD PARK in the 08/14/26 issue of the MT VOID, Peter Trei writes:
If you get a chance, I highly recommend watching it with the director's commentary sound track.
The servants and service are the actual topic of the movie. There is a servant in every scene, and the movie is an exploration of the master/servant relationship. The 'whodunit' aspect is just the McGuffin to weave that exploration around.
Listening to that really opened up the movie for me. [-pt]
Evelyn responds:
Actually, I think that writer-producer Julian Fellowes's commentary is even better. (This may be the one to which you are referring.) Apparently he had older relatives who actually lived somewhat in the manner of GOSFORD PARK and drew upon that knowledge as well as general knowledge to comment on British society and the class system. On the other hand, director Robert Altman gives a fairly standard director's commentary. [-ecl]
[Note: Last night I re-watched GOSFORD PARK with Fellowes's commentary and I am 99.9% sure that's the commentary you meant. -ecl]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
Three books about history, complete with my quibbles:
THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE 1800S by Marc McCutcheon (Writer's Digest, ISBN 0-89879-541-9) sounded interesting, maybe something along the lines of WHAT JANE AUSTEN ATE AND CHARLES DICKENS KNEW. Alas, it was more just a set of dictionary entries (e.g., "wildcat money" followed by a definition and then a series of quotations using it, the quotations being a large part of the text). Occasionally there would be more commentary on a term, but this is more a book to use as a reference if you are *reading* a historical novel than something to use while writing one, because you need to know the term before you can look it up. (I suppose an author could read the entire chapter on money and make notes about terms to use, but that seems inefficient.) My other note is that it is not entirely accurate. For example, it claims that collard greens are kale leaves, but collard greens and kale are two different variations of the same species, and definitely taste differents.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANCIENT ROME: DAILY LIFE, MYSTERIES, AND CURIOSITIES by Alberto Angela (Europa, ISBN 978-1-933-37271-6) is aimed more at a general audience than many of the books about ancient Rome that I have been reading, and as such is more readable than, say, THE CROWD IN ROME IN THE LATE REPUBLIC by Fergus Millar or PUBLIC SPECTACLES IN ROME AND LATE ANTIQUE PALESTINE by Zeev Weiss. Angela has been a television commentator, so it is not surprising that he structured his book as a walk through Rome on a typical day, the text reading much as a tour guide would present it.
I always have a quibble, but this time I have at least three. First, Angela talks about going to the ovine section of the market and seeing goats. They would be in the caprine section; the ovine section would have sheep. The Romans raised both.
Okay, that is a little obscure. But the second quibble indicates that while the author may have had a temporary "brain fart", no one at Europa was copy-editing this book, because on page 205 Angela claims that Marcus Aurelius gave the funeral oration for Julius Caesar on the Forum, "as seen in many films." NO! Marc Antony gave the funeral oration; (Emperor) Marcus Aurelius lived two hundred years later. (The films would be primarily those based on Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR, notably the 1953 and 1970 versions.)
And the third quibble, though this is more or less a constant quibble: authors seem to either be ignorant of menstruation or have decided it's just too "icky" to write about (even as they write detailed descriptions of injuries and deaths). Angela has a whole chapter on sex, and also covers childbirth, but never mentions how Roman women dealt with menstruation, or what the attitude was towards it. As I noted in my comments in the 07/03/26 issue, Xiaolu Guo does not avoid the issue in ISHMAELLE, but she is the exception.
A ROME OF ONE'S OWN by Emma Southon (Abrams Press, ISBN 978-1-4197-6018-1) is about women in ancient Rome, and if PUBLIC SPECTACLES IN ROME AND LATE ANTIQUE PALESTINE was overly academic, and A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANCIENT ROME more aimed at a general audience, A ROME OF ONE'S OWN is downright chatty. Southon seems determined to present a text ready-made for an audiobook. Here's a sample paragraph:
Julia was born while her dad was about half-way along his Pokemon evolution from awkward sickly teenager to the Great Augustus, and right at the end of his second marriage. And I really mean *right* at the end. The day she was born, her dad served her mum Scribonia divorce papers. Right as she's lying there, just having survived her third labour without painkillers, holding her swaddled hours-old daughter, he walks out on their marriage because it is no longer useful to him. Augustus is ice-cold like that his entire life. Modern descriptions of Augustus's decision to divorce Scribonia are emblematic of the misogyny permeating, well, everything. The description most often quoted is that of Suetonius, which says, in the original, "'pertaesus', ut scribit, 'morum perversitatum eius'". This broadly means he was bored or wearied by her ways. But that little adjective, "perversitatum", had variously been translated as bitter, shrewish and nagging. "Perversus" means none of these things. It just means wrong or bad. Nagging and shrewish and bitter are how male translators have *interpreted* a "bad" wife. And none of them managed to resolve in their minds the later statement by Suetonius that Scribonia's main issue with their marriage had been that Augustus wouldn't stop knobbing other women. Shrewish indeed.
But I swear that copy-editing is dead, dead, dead. People talk about how giving something from the Internet as a citation to support a claim, and one should read books. Well, *this* book claims Julius Caesar was assassinated in 45 B.C.E. Now, if there is one date from people know from ancient Rome it is that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 B.C.E.
And she talks about Gaius, who succeeded Tiberius and preceded his (Gaius's) uncle Claudius as Emperor. Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was better known as Caligula; Southon has a tendency to decide randomly whether to call someone by their official name (as here, where she doesn't even give you a parenthetical "a.k.a."), or by the name by which they are now known (as for Caracalla).
[Apparently copy-editing has been dead for a long time. In the 1982 reprint of the 1955 APES, ANGELS, AND VICTORIANS, author William Irvine spells Alfred Russel Wallace's name wrong throughout. Sir Julian Huxley--grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, great-nephew of Matthew Arnold, and brother to Aldous Huxley--does get it right in his introduction for this edition, though.]
[-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment
of Christianity has been upon trial. What has been its
fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and
indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the
laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
--James Madison
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