- https://www.asimov.press/about
>We are an editorially-independent part of [Asimov](https://www.asimov.com/).
It seems to be a vanity publication for some kind of genetic engineering company.
- It feels like a quick intro on what Asimov Press was in the first place would've been a good idea.
- It's there, just a few paragraphs in and also on https://www.asimov.press/about, it's not that hard to find if you are really curious.
- Yeah.
I get the impression that if you're uninterested in either reading enough of the press release to get to the parts where they mention what they did, or navigating to the top-level index for the blog, where what they write about is made very plain, then you're not the type of person who would give any shits about what they write about.
- No, it was just a poorly structured announcement
- It’s an announcement published for their followers and distributed through their own channels to those people. That it doesn’t make sense when detached from that context and put on HN to people with no knowledge of who they are seems very much irrelevant to the goals of writing the post?
- That's, like, your opinion, man.
- If you don't know what Asimov Press is then you're probably not the target audience for a post about Asimov Press not publishing for a while.
- Although I appreciate that your comment reminded me of a classic Elvis Costello line (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptnXM6rsxSY#t=21s), please don't post like this to Hacker News.
It comes across as a putdown. Much better and just was easy is to share some of what you know with others (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
- This is an employee posting it to hackernews, which lets be honest is glad for any content that isn't a repost from 15+ years ago. Most people won't have heard of this vanity publication. And if this is news then il go elsewhere
- Its posts were fairly frequently shared & discussed here, I immediately recognised the name, even though I'm not even sure I ever read one.
- Oh no!
- FYI: this is not Asimov's Science Fiction, the pulp sci fi magazine, found along with Analog Science Fiction and Fact at convenience stores near me, but something else.
- Asimov's and Analog are struggling too
- I just started reading Asimov press. It has a weird name, I thought they were a sci-fi publishing company at first.
It had a unique blend of popular science writing that was sorely missing from the internet. Alas I hardly knew thee.
- Isaac Asimov vote a huge amount of popular science book as well. They just have a shorter shelf life.
- I enjoyed his “science for the layman” books, a lot more than his sci-fi stuff.
He was really good at explaining very complex stuff, in a simple, approachable manner.
- My mother bought me "The Planet that Wasn't" when I was a kid - excellent book that I re-read many times:
- This is why I read HN's comments.
I get MANY recommendations for books/movies/shows/topics I knew nothing about etc. here.
Just ordered this book for my 10-year-old grandson.
- Maybe I should have mentioned that was about 50 years ago - still a good book though!
- I suspect much of it is still relevant.
- Well I'm pretty sure that Vulcan still isn't there!
- The question is, has this had anything to do with Asimov the writer? Was he involved at the start or endorsed it somehow?
Judging by the .press domain it's too new for that.
- I discovered them last year on Substack and they quickly became a priority read. A sort of Quanta for biology, taking time to explain enough for a popular audience but keeping technical rigor deep into some fascinating topics.
Some highlights:
https://open.substack.com/pub/cell/p/dna-sequencing?utm_sour...
https://open.substack.com/pub/cell/p/phi80?utm_source=share&...
https://open.substack.com/pub/cell/p/antibody-design?utm_sou...
https://open.substack.com/pub/cell/p/viral-capsids?utm_sourc...
https://open.substack.com/pub/cell/p/legibility-problem?utm_...
...All in the last month! At least they went out with a bang.
- Asimov has supported us for the last two years, and we’ve received generous grants from Astera Institute and Stripe
It’s not a business capable of operating without grants or support from its tech parent.
With eight people on the masthead, the outlays are significant for a publishing venture.
- I see this pattern a lot -- folks start a publication, publish for a handful of years, and then shutter. I did it myself with Compelling Science Fiction magazine. This is why I settled on releasing only one book per year, it's sustainable while working full-time on other projects.
- Truly sad to see this go so soon.
- I doubt anyone here cared and was reading for free for years. This "pausing" post got them the highest hearts and comments on their substack.
The problem is, they are not charging when they should.
- Ah, I found this particularly offensive when I heard about the naming of the parent company. Randomly nicking a famous person's name for your company is pretty rubbish behaviour IMO. The odiousness decreases as a function of time since a person's death.
- Isaac Asimov has been dead for 34 years. How long should we wait to name something after someone? Not rhetorical, interested in more detail about when the odiousness crosses into being socially acceptable for you.
- I think 100 years after their death would be reasonable because at that point it's long enough that people won't assume there's an actual connection to the person or that it's endorsed/founded by them
- In case of Asimov, forever.
To flip your rhetorical trick against you: would it be ok if they did it 1 year after death? If no, then I'm "interested in more detail about when the odiousness crosses into being socially acceptable for you".
To expose your rhetorical trick: you wanted him to admit that it's ok after SOME time therefore it's ok after THIS time. You put the burden of proof for defending THIS time (i.e. 34 years) as acceptable on him. Which is hard.
Sneaky but only if don't get exposed.
Because equally correct framing is: if you accept that it's NOT ok after SOME time (1 year) then the burden of proof for defending it's ok THIS time (i.e. 34 years) is on you.
So go ahead, tell us what is the exact number of years that makes it ok. Defend YOUR number the way you wanted him to defend his.
- Are you upset about Calvin and Hobbes being a reference to John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes? Probably not? I think OP is asking an interesting question and you are being unnecessarily combative.
- IMHO naming characters after famous people is more likely to be considered an "honest" homage than naming a company after them...
- Are you upset that Tesla is named Tesla? Probably not? A lot of people are angry about Tesla and I think even then I haven't ever heard of that particular complaint.
- Does your forever limit apply to names besides "Asimov"?
There are a lot of companies and projects that have used the names of real people without that person's involvement or approval: Einstein, Tesla, Edison (besides the ones related to his company), Darwin, Beethoven, Mozart, Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, Archimedes, Socrates...
- It's very easy to upset a human. Is it learned behaviour? Would a kid ever take "offense" to something like this... probably not, we must have learnt this at some point
- > It's very easy to upset a human. Is it learned behaviour? Would a kid ever take "offense" to something like this... probably not, we must have learnt this at some point
Are you human? You're talking like you're an alien from another planet. Unfamiliar with humanity and it's customs.
Here are some facts that may interest you:
1. Humans do not hatch from eggs, they grow from spores underground and emerge as children.
2. There is little need for learning in human society, as children inherit most knowledge they need as genetic memories from their parents.
3. Humans never discovered fire, usually they developed the technology for electric heating elements first. Only later did they work out how to use fire technology.
- Misleading people is not ok.
It's so not ok that we have laws against misleading people. Not against this particular misleading (I don't think, although if Asimov had a formal estate they could probably sue).
I can't open "Tom Cruse's Fine Wine" because I'm not Tom Cruse. It's wrong morally but also illegal. We have laws against things like that and Tom Cruse would surely sue my ass, successfully. The proof of that is that there is no "Tom Cruse's **" businesses out there.
It might stop being illegal if the person dies because to sue you have to have standing. Unless there is formal trust like e.g. Tolkien's works and business affairs which probably have standing to sue "Tolkien's Fine Wine".
A child would also take offense on being mislead. Not this particular misleading because it only misleads people who know who Asimov is and like his books. Your hypothetical child doesn't.
But tell a child you'll buy him an ice cream if he finishes his chores and let's see how he reacts if you mislead him by not buying an ice cream.
You must have learnt this at some point.
- Young children can absolutely be jealous - I can easily imagine (perhaps it's even a distant memory of having witnessed) a toddler being upset that someone else actually has the same name, nevermind co-opting it.
- Tesla has entered the chat
- And speaking of product names, I hope no one here is using Claude.
- Would be neat if more continued the tradition in FOSS that creators of projects names the projects after themselves, like Debian or Git.
- I get the reference to deb and ian (two people), but not git ?
- For those not in the know
"I'm an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git." - Linus Torvalds
Git
noun - derogatory
An unpleasant or contemptible person (typically used of a man).
- Linus famously named git after himself.
- In fact, we need to provide more intellectual property rights for people over their names. Famous people's names should be blocked off in perpetuity for their families only, though resale may be permitted. It is time we formalized this universally held social behaviour.
- > more intellectual property rights
is the last thing we need. Granted, picking a famous name you don't have any association with is an a-hole move. Not all a-hole moves should be illegal.
- Perpetuity is insane. You shouldn't be able to name something "Ramses" without permission even though he's been dead for over 3000 years?
I could see maybe 20 years after death being reasonable.
- > I could see maybe 20 years after death being reasonable.
And another person sees 10 years as reasonable, another as 30 years. Ultimately, our life-spans also change, so what works out today, might not work out in 30 years.
What about after the last direct decedent is no longer alive? Grand-children might not care that much, but it's unlikely your children wouldn't care about how others use a name associated with you and indirectly them.
- It's just so icky trying to use the name Ramses. How about Sheepses instead? If you must insist on the gender, perhaps menses?
We can all agree that 100 years is perhaps sufficient, though if someone makes the case that it should be a 1000 years I wouldn't disagree. At 5000 I think it's probably still fine, but even today the descendants of Grug have not received a dime despite the fact that he invented the wheel, so perhaps we need to go back longer.
