[HN Gopher] We're pausing Asimov Press
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We're pausing Asimov Press
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 88 points
Date : 2026-03-30 09:18 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.asimov.press)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.asimov.press)
| vrganj wrote:
| It feels like a quick intro on what Asimov Press was in the first
| place would've been a good idea.
| dewey wrote:
| 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.
| simoncion wrote:
| 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.
| Angostura wrote:
| No, it was just a poorly structured announcement
| simoncion wrote:
| That's, like, your opinion, man.
| Macha wrote:
| 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?
| jon-wood wrote:
| 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.
| bcjdjsndon wrote:
| 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
| OJFord wrote:
| Its posts were fairly frequently shared & discussed here, I
| immediately recognised the name, even though I'm not even
| sure I ever read one.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=asimov.press
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Oh no!
| dang wrote:
| Joe is a great submitter and I don't believe he's an
| employee of Asimov Press... unless he got bored with being
| a retired anesthesiologist?
| dang wrote:
| 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.alg
| olia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
| ipsum2 wrote:
| 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.
| vidarh wrote:
| Isaac Asimov vote a huge amount of popular science book as
| well. They just have a shorter shelf life.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| 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.
| arethuza wrote:
| My mother bought me "The Planet that Wasn't" when I was a
| kid - excellent book that I re-read many times:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planet_That_Wasn%27t
| bookofjoe wrote:
| 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.
| arethuza wrote:
| Maybe I should have mentioned that was about 50 years ago
| - still a good book though!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I suspect much of it is still relevant.
| arethuza wrote:
| Well I'm pretty sure that Vulcan still isn't there!
| nottorp wrote:
| 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.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Judging by the fact that you DNRTFA, we can't help you.
| nottorp wrote:
| Actually I did look them up and _that_ Asimov was never
| involved with them or their parent company.
|
| A bit dishonest don't you think?
| siruwastaken wrote:
| Truly sad to see this go so soon.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov%27s_Science_Fiction
| shawn_w wrote:
| Asimov's and Analog are struggling too
| rvz wrote:
| 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.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| 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.
| ilamont wrote:
| _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.
| expedition32 wrote:
| I read many history books that are funded by grants and
| governments.
|
| There will never be a world in which someone can sell enough
| books to fund 5 years of research on 1950s US-China diplomatic
| relations.
| b800h wrote:
| 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.
| bcjdjsndon wrote:
| 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
| OJFord wrote:
| 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.
| kjksf wrote:
| 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.
| palmotea wrote:
| > 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.
| derwiki wrote:
| Tesla has entered the chat
| chromacity wrote:
| And speaking of product names, I hope no one here is using
| Claude.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Would be neat if more continued the tradition in FOSS that
| creators of projects names the projects after themselves,
| like Debian or Git.
| budman1 wrote:
| I get the reference to deb and ian (two people), but not
| git ?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Linus famously named git after himself.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| 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).
| renewiltord wrote:
| 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.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| 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.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > 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.
| renewiltord wrote:
| 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.
| tliltocatl wrote:
| > 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.
| ghjv wrote:
| 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.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| 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
| kjksf wrote:
| 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.
| johnfn wrote:
| 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.
| rob74 wrote:
| IMHO naming _characters_ after famous people is more
| likely to be considered an "honest" homage than naming a
| _company_ after them...
| johnfn wrote:
| 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.
| angiolillo wrote:
| 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...
| BoredomIsFun wrote:
| Asimov is a widespread lastname in ex-USSR, esp. Central Asia.
| I personally know three unrelated Asimovs.
| unholiness wrote:
| 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.
| asimovDev wrote:
| Maybe I am living under the rock but I never seen a .press TLD
| before
| em-bee wrote:
| new TLDs are no longer newsworthy. there are to many of them
| now.
| mojoe wrote:
| 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.
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