(1) IT’S ALL GREEK TO YOU. [Item by Steven French.] Despite being constructed for very different purposes, ‘artificial’ languages such as Elvish, Esperanto and Klingon activate the same brain areas as natural languages, unlike programming languages: “Elvish, Klingon and Pig Latin: What can invented languages teach us about the human brain?” asks Phys.org.

For many years, it was not clear how the brain responds to invented languages. To address this, a 2025 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took functional magnetic resonance images of brain activity in people who spoke them.

The results were clear. When fluent speakers used invented languages (such as Esperanto, Klingon, the Na’vi language from Avatar, and High Valyrian or Dothraki from Game of Thrones), the brain activated the same neural networks as for a natural language. In other words, there was no difference in how the brain processed natural and invented languages.

But for the brain to perceive these languages as a real language, they have to express meaning about the world, other people and our own mental states. For this reason, programming languages do not—despite their clear rules and structure—activate the same brain areas.’…

(2) FAIR SURPRISES. Robert Gold tells about “Planting the Seed: How Agatha Christie’s Techniques Shaped the Modern Thriller” at CrimeReads.

In Sleeping Murder, Miss Marple visits the fictional British seaside town of Dillmouth. She warns the novels young protagonists, Gwenda and Giles, not to investigate past events at their new home, telling them to let well alone. Miss Marple then proceeds to uncover and solve a decades old murder, where only the killer knew a murder had taken place.

Sleeping Murder is one of my favorite Christie novels for the way she seeds the constantly unfurling plot, leaving clues for the reader at each stage of the story. By the end of the book, Miss Marple has uncovered the victim, where and how she was killed, where she is buried and, of course, who the killer is. Throughout Sleeping Murder, Christie takes us on a brilliant journey of discovery where one revelation leads to another, before the killer is finally exposed.

In reading the novel, a casual reader can enjoy the story for what it is: an adventure in a seaside town with classic characters and a great twist at the end. However, Christie knew other readers liked to read in forensic detail. Searching for clues, acting as detective, they follow the seeds she carefully plants along the way.

Reading a Christie thriller for a second time gives you a true appreciation of her genius. All thriller writers wanting to learn from her skill should take the time to revisit her classics. A second reading, when you have full knowledge of the final denouement, lets you share in all of the authors brilliantly seeded delicious twists and turns.

In every one of her novels, she seeds the truth, but very often secrets are planted so deep they are impossible to appreciate upon first reading. Early in Sleeping Murder, the author gives us such a definitive steer on the location of the body, long before the confirmation of an actual murder, reading the book again you wonder how you missed it….

(3) USED DATA BUYERS. “Secondhand booksellers in UK and Ireland suspect AI firms behind ‘strange’ bulk orders” reports the Guardian.

Secondhand booksellers in the UK and Ireland are reporting a flurry of bulk orders from mystery buyers, amid speculation AI companies are acquiring the tomes for their data.

Bookshops contacted by the Guardian say they have been receiving orders from buyers in the US, Canada, continental Europe and the UK. The increase has been replicated around the world, with booksellers in the US, Australia and Europe also reporting unusual orders.

Stuart Manley, the co-owner of Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, said the orders, which began arriving three months ago, were unusual because they did not follow the typical pattern of being grouped into themes such as sport or motoring.

“It’s definitely a strange combination of books,” said Manley. “Normally a book order is on a theme but this is all over the place.”

(4) COMPLAINTS ABOUT ANOTHER SCRAPER. “Twitch faces backlash over Amazon using content to train AI” – BBC has details. (Subscription required by readers outside the UK.)

Twitch has been criticised by users after it emerged the popular streaming platform allowed their content to be used to train Amazon’s AI models.

Amazon owns Twitch and a setting allowing the US tech giant to take data generated by creators and audiences to train AI is turned on by default.

Users can opt out of that, Twitch said on Wednesday, but the announcement sparked a backlash with some users questioning why it was allowed in the first place.

Twitch’s chief product officer Mike Minton, said it was “respecting” users by letting them opt out but on why data was collected by default, he admitted: “If it’s opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That’s the honest answer.”

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 15, 1933 – Bĵo Trimble, 93.

Bĵo was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma, in 1933, discovered sf fandom in 1952. She was serving in the US Navy, at the Great Lakes Naval Station, and saw an announcement in Astounding Science Fiction about the science fiction convention that weekend in Chicago—the 10th Worldcon, the one we now call Chicon II, though at the time it had no official name. The largest Worldcon ever at the time, with 870 members, it was a great place for a smart and friendly young woman to meet people and make connections in fandom. Her new acquaintances included Robert Bloch, Willy Ley, August Derleth, and Harlan Ellison.

When it was discovered that she was an artist and cartoonist, she was recruited to provide illustrations for fanzines, sealing her fate. She claims to have met her husband, John Griffin Trimble, under Forrest J Ackerman’s piano, during a particularly crowded party. He was serving in the US Air Force, and they traded Stupid Officer Stories.

But as we all know, this was mere prelude. Bĵo was active in LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fiction Society), and organized a fashion show for Solacon (the 16th Worldcon). In 1960, she started Project Art Show, which brought the first modern, organized art show at a science fiction convention to Pittcon, the 1960 Worldcon. Bĵo continued the project, bringing art shows to Worldcons and other conventions. By 1969, Project Art Show had become The International Science-Fantasy Art Exhibition” (ISFAE), and was judging and awarding prizes, as well as organizing the art shows.

But in 1968, Bĵo started turning her attention to a new fannish interest–Star Trek. Bĵo and John Trimble were active in the letter-writing campaign credited with getting the show a third season, after it was initially canceled after its second season. They also helped convince NASA to name the first of the Space Shuttles Enterprise, although that was a test vehicle never intended for space flight.

Bĵo was a major contributor to the Star Trek Concordance, containing cross-referenced details on every character, setting, event and device in every episode of the original Star Trek, and, in later editions of the book, its animated incarnation, and the Star Trek films. Originally self-published, it got a mass market publication by Ballantine Books in 1976, and an updated edition by Citadel Press in 1995. On the Good Ship Enterprise: My 15 Years with Star Trek, her memoir of her experiences in Star Trek fandom, was published in 1982.

Bĵo was a Guest of Honor at Dragon Con, which was also the 6th North American Science Fiction Convention, in 1995. Bĵo and John Trimble were Fan Guests of Honor at ConJosé, the 60th Worldcon. Bĵo, or Bĵo and John, were also honored at many Star Trek and other science fiction conventions.

In addition, Bĵo and John Trimble were Baron and Baroness of the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Barony of the Angels, from September 2008 to January 2012. That’s at least fandom adjacent, right?

 Sadly, John left us in April 2024, but Bĵo is still with us. Her contributions to fandom will remain.

(6) COMICS SECTION.

• Glasbergen found a selling point.
• Reality Check has a sad tale.
• xkcd found the geological controls.

(7) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 166 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Writings of Greeks and Romans”, is introduced by John Coxon who says, “It’s a day late, and John’s going to bed now. Goodnight everyone. Zzzzzzzzzzz.”

There’s an uncorrected transcript here.

(8) LUCKY RABBIT GETS TV SERIES. “’Oswald’ Gets Live-Action Animated Series on Disney+” reports Variety.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, one of Disney’s earliest characters who predated Mickey Mouse, is back for the 21st century.

At the D23 fan event in Anaheim on Friday, Disney revealed the first look at its live action combined with hand-drawn 2D animation series “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” that’s being written, directed and executive produced by Jon Favreau. The series is coming to Disney+ as a three-part miniseries in February 2027….

… Oswald was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1927 for Universal Pictures. The character proved to be a major milestone for Disney, as he and Iwerks created Mickey Mouse after Universal took control of Oswald in 1928. The Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to the character in 2006, though it entered the public domain in 2023….

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, and Mark Roth-Whitworth for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]