VISUAL EFFECTS / CH. 22:PRACTICING PATIENCE
MESSAGE TO CECILIA, SATURDAY 17TH JUNE 2271
Dear Cecilia,
Very well done on your grades! I always knew you were clever. Regarding your question... well, what can I say? You know him far better than I do and all the rest. It does seem quite soon to me, but I guess looking back you've been dating for almost a year now, haven't you? And of course you've had your first commercially significant harvest. I read Alice's article about the red-hot salsa, and it had us all in fits of laughter. I presume that was yours? Apart from the Yvette incident you've never really had any doubts about him that I've heard of. The only thing that concerns me is the whole issue about long engagements and university. I presume you would plan to wait until you finish university?
I heard a strange thing the other day, on a political discussion show, I think it was. Someone from the audience asked a long-winded politican who kept labouring a point if he really thought we were all total jits. A year ago no one would have known what he meant, now it has a politician spluttering denials and the audience in laughter.
Stephanie
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THURSOL, SEPT 21ST 2271, 6PM
“Interesting press reports from Earth,” Simon said, as he got home, “Thought hearers proven to exist.”
“Don't I know all about it. One of the problems of being the most significant Earth-news portal on the planet is that everyone expects us to know more. Not to mention have a magic wand that'd get them access to the Nature article.”
“And Nature aren't interested in syndicating, not even just the one article?”
“Not really. They still can't get their head round the whole 'pay-after-you-read' mindset. Well, can't or won't.”
“Very parochial attitude. The university is still banning any of us publishing in Nature until they make the journal available here. I mean, have I shown you the response they sent to the University library?”
“The one that said they could give electronic access to their servers only to proper academic libraries who had a print subscription to them, as if they had some way to send out a hard copy once a month.”
“Yes, that one. And of course the university couldn't set up a remote access point, because that would be infringing their access control strategy. One of my colleagues actually took out a trial subscription and tried to access their server directly. The first time it timed out the password prompt before the photons got here. The second time he bounced his request off an Earth computer and it said you're supposed to be on Mars, you can't log in from Edinburgh. I don't suppose you could write up an article about it?”
“Very tempting. What I've also done is contact the Institute for the Human Mind, and said, hey, Nature are effectively refusing to allow access from Mars, can we have a copy, pretty please?”
“Did NWN ever reply to your request to syndicate the broadcasts?”
“They were sympathetic, but the lawyers are taking their own sweet time.”
“You can't get anywhere via head office?”
“They tried, and got forwarded to the same lawyers.”
“So, direct to the Institute is the best option?” Simon asked.
“Unless we decide to go public ourselves.”
“Scary. We don't have a 'no-reporting on our staff ban'.”
“I know. I think we'll let the institute deal with this one.”
“Have you thought of.... you know... asking with your gift?”
“Not really. I will if you think I should, but we've no motive to believe they've even heard of the gift.”
“Good point.”
“Oh!” Alice exclaimed, “I've got a reply!”
“NWN's lawyers?”
“No, the Institute. 'Dear Alice and people of Mars, happy reading!'”
“No conditions, nothing?”
“Nope. Excuse me while I just put this up on our site.”
“What'll happen to the grammes?”
“I'll enter it as from a new author. Maybe it'll get read enough that someone from IHM can come and give us a visit.”
“Would they want to? It's a long way for a social call.”
“True.”
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9 A.M, FRISOL, SEPT 22ND 2271
“So... what, about a tenth of the adult population have had a look at that article?” Simon asked.
“Yes. Paying on average four grams.”
“So much for Martians being an uneducated bunch of criminals. You've got to write this up, Alice.”
“I've also got to tell IHM what we've let them in for. Fifty-five thousand micropayments.”
“It all adds up.”
“It does indeed. Two hundred and twenty kilos and climbing. Minus our cut of course.”
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MESSAGE TO DIRECTOR OF I.H.M. FRISOL, SEPT 22ND
Dear Sir/Madam,
I'd like to thank the institute for forwarding the fascinating paper on the mental ability known as thought hearing. As I believe was your intention, from the covering note, I made it available on our news server, under our normal terms and conditions, if that was a mistake, I hope that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me. The paper has attracted considerable interest from the general population, approximately ten percent of the adult population have read it so far. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the economics of the Martian news media, but it is the standard practice on Mars that people vote their appreciation of articles after reading them, through giving a small amount — a couple of grams per read for a typical piece. Based on the average donation of four grams per read, I can say that your article was very much appreciated, well above average. Some readers have donated in excess of twenty grams, a figure I've not seen until now.
As a commercial news channel we do take a percentage cut for making such materials available, as you can see from your attached account. I am not exactly sure the current exchange rate for a Martian transport kilo in any Earthling currency, but based on what it was last time I checked, I would not be at all surprised if by the end of tomorrow your account would cover a round-trip to Mars.
As a part time lecturer at the University of Mars, I strongly expect that the University would be most interested in hosting a formal lecture series on this or any other areas of recent research, if that is within the remit of I.H.M. staff. In such a case the funds in your account would I'm fairly sure be sufficient to cover the costs of an accompanying spouse, at least under the normal conditions for such a lecture series, since the University normally subsidises the travel of a spouse.
Yours sincerely,
Alice Findhorn-Bunting.
Chief Editor,
Martian edition of International News.
p.s. The population of Mars is currently just over a million, with 45% of the population aged 16 and below.
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INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMAN MIND, RESTORATION. EVENING, SATURDAY 23RD
Kate West, director of the IHM, read the letter and checked the attachment. Fifty five thousand paying hits and, relative to the normal reading graph, no real sign that interest was declining.
She wondered what Nature would say, and called the Institute's legal advisor, Teresa Riley.
“Hi Teresa, Kate here. Really sorry to call on Saturday, charge accordingly. Do you remember what the final conditions were on the Nature contract to do with distribution.”
“Urm, they have world-wide publishing rights.”
Kate breathed a sign of relief, “World-wide, you're sure about that?”
“Fairly, I can check. What have you done?”
“Me? I've answered a heart-felt plea from Mars, saying that Mars was off the map as far as reading Nature was concerned, and not even the university could get access to any copies except by post. I rattled of a reply last night saying something like 'Dear Alice and people of Mars, happy reading.' Alice being the journalist who writes those wonderful pieces about life there.
I forgot she was also chief editor of International News' Mars edition. She accepted the paper as a submission for their News site.”
“A bit outside the field of their normal news articles, I expect.” Teresa said.
“Yes. Have you read about their micropayment system? The institute is now in it. As of when the letter I've just read was sent, our paper has been read by ten percent of the adult Martian population. No, sorry, ten percent of the adult Martian population read it and liked it so much that they made a micropayment. Two hundred Martian transport kilos and counting. She apologises if that wasn't my intention, but suggests our account is getting near the cost of a round-trip.”
“So... doing interesting science pays?”
“It certainly seems to. I wonder what percentage of the Earth population read the paper in Nature.”
“Not ten percent, I'm pretty sure.”
“But you don't think we're in trouble?”
“I'm looking at the terms. They have global publishing rights, (which these days means on planet Earth) no mention of the rest of the solar system, you retain copyright, you will not publish it in any other scientific journal... I think it's fairly clear. Nature actually have no rights to publish on Mars. International News are a general circulation newschannel not a journal, and as you're copyright holder Nature have no right to stop you publishing anywhere off the globe. It wouldn't even need to get to court.”
“That's great news, thanks.”
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MESSAGE TO ALICE FINDHORN-BUNTING, COPIED TO INTERNATIONAL NEWS EDITOR IN CHIEF. SATURDAY 23RD FEB, 2271
Dear Alice,
Well, I did write 'happy reading' didn't I? I've just had a quick discussion with the institute's legal advisor, and I'm told that not only can Nature not even grumble at us, but actually if they did try to publish on Mars they'd be breaking our copyright on the work — they only have global publishing rights. It would be different if you were a scientific journal, but you're not. Just in case Nature decide to try to kick up a stink, directly, I'm attaching the relevant excerpt from the contract.
As far as I'm aware, that section was not edited in any way during our negotiations with Nature, so I wonder if other authors might have similar terms and conditions.
As to lecture tours, I'm not sure how that would work. It certainly wouldn't be acceptable to use both the name of the Institute and the name of the lecturer in publicising the lecture. For this reason we don't present papers as conferences, though we do sometimes attend them.
yours,
Kate
p.s. I expect that you'd like to publish another paper we've been working on, and you don't know about.
It should have come out already but there were production issues. The legal situation is a little different, as there's shared copyright with the journal. I'll be talking to them on Monday to discuss whether they plan to publish their entire journal on Mars themselves (in which case the agreement with authors needs amending), or if they'd object to us jointly publishing via you. I assume you wouldn't mind hosting a theological paper about a related phenomena?
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MONDAY SEPT 25TH, 1PM
“Rodger, Kate here from the institute, sorry to interrupt your lunchtime,” Kate said after finally getting through to the editor of the theological journal.
“The printer's fixed, finally. Copies are now rolling.”
“Praise God! I was actually calling about something else. Mars. It's being totally left out by Nature, which we've now corrected by publishing it there on a newspaper site, which of course we could, since we kept full copyright on that one. But since we're sharing we can't do that with the one with you. But I notice your agreement with authors doesn't mention Mars or other parts of creation either.”
“And you think there'd be much call for our little journal on Mars?”
“Well, the Nature paper has been read by about ten percent of the population and thanks to the micropayments system they've got we've just been told that between them the Martians have donated two hundred Mars transport kilos to us in thanks for the good read.”
“Urm... what's that mean in something I understand?”
“Currently there seems to be quite a demand for the things, so at today's figures, something like forty thousand, roughly, or almost a round-trip to Mars without any cargo, or a one way trip if you want to emigrate.”
“Wow.”
“So, thought one: we decide together that we put the article on the same site. Thought two, you contact all authors and negotiate with the site to put the whole edition there. In either case I'm thinking your accountants wouldn't mind the extra revenue one bit.”
“Not at all.”
“And I reckon your team put in at least three quarters of the person-hours on the piece, so I'm certainly not accepting more than twenty five percent of any donations from Mars. Feel free to come up with some actual numbers and we can negotiate a lower number.”
“Kate!”
“Credit where it's due, Rodger. I insist.”
“But you think the news-site will be happy to host the paper, the whole journal, even?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Look, Alice wrote to me, saying 'everyone's talking about this Nature paper but you can't read it on Mars, can you help?' I send her a copy without thinking, she put it up on their site and the next thing I knew was a message from her saying, 'wow that's popular, I expect you're going to be able to afford a round-trip tomorrow.' It's what they're set up for, what people expect, and so on. They take a five percent cut for just hosting it, or if you need editorial support they take a higher chunk.”
“And people have to pay to read it?”
“No, they read it then pay, based on how much they liked it, found it useful or challenging, how much they want to encourage you to do more, and so on. So, things where you bore them to tears don't get much reward.”
“So it basically costs nothing, lets people read what they want to, and Martians aren't a load of cheap-skates who'd want to read it for free.”
“Exactly.”
“Almost a publisher's dream, assuming it works.”
“I know. Apparently the Martian attitude to the way things work here is 'who invented that stupid system?' I guess you haven't read Alice's articles?”
“Alice Findhorn?”
“Findhorn-Bunting now.”
“I've heard of them. But she really trashed a mission's reputation some years back, and I don't want to read that sort of thing.”
Kate smiled, “Rodger, you should have heard the things I'd have said some years back. You obviously missed her public repentance over that. I'm pretty sure she's a Christian now.”
“Really?”
“She doesn't make a massive thing of it, but she drops in little things. I remember reading things like 'At Church on Sunday the pastor used another expression you've probably never heard on Earth'”
“Going to Church doesn't make her a Christian.”
“I know, I also know a journalist who's an elder at his church but never mentions God or Church in his reports. So I think there's a lot more iceberg beneath that tip.”
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MESSAGE TO DIRECTOR OF I.H.M. TUESOL, SEPT 26TH
Dear Kate,
Thank you for your kind letter. I assure you we've no objections to theology at all, as long as it's the sort that honours God. Can I guess? Does the count 'roughly fifty' come into the article?
All these secrets coming out... it's a fun time to be a journalist! I'm happy to say that, although the average Martian family does have several pitch-forks, no one seems to be grabbing them to start a witch hunt.
The Mars council have declared that the absolute Martian right to privacy applies to mental abilities and mental privacy, so no new legislation is needed to either prosecute abusers or protect the innocent. Quite how anyone gets prosecuted for abusing such an easy to hide ability is going to be a bit tricky without reading their minds, of course.
May God give you wisdom, Alice
P.S and me, too!
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MESSAGE TO ALICE FINDHORN-BUNTING, WEDNESDAY, SEPT 27TH
Dear Alice,
who have you been talking to?
your sister in Christ,
Kate.
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MESSAGE TO DIRECTOR OF I.H.M. WEDSOL, SEPT 27TH
Dear Kate,
I heard that number a long time ago, strange to think of actually publishing it!
I'm pretty sure my contact has left to be with her Lord now, but she spoke with me after I'd returned to the Lord — while I was apologising to Sue Reece (nee Bunting) about my piece on her mission, actually. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be his Name.
Oh, I've not heard anything from the journal. Should I have?
Feel free to put them in contact with Ed Wentworth or Jim Stephens at International News, or Sue Reece at the attached address, if they need any character references. your sister in Christ,
Alice.
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THURSDAY, SEPT 28TH, 9A.M.
“Rodger, Kate here from the institute,” Kate said to the editor of the theological journal.
“The printer's broken again,” Rodger said.
“Oh no! Same problem?”
“No, something else, totally unrelated, except that the bit that broke got moved when they were fixing the first problem. Something mechanical broke and flew off, doing all sorts of messy things to the insides and quite a lot of the waiting copies. Fortunately it didn't get past the safety-guards and no one was near. But anyway, they're treating it as a botched maintenance job and so it's getting a complete overhaul.”
“In house-printing seems to have its downsides.”
“Yes. It should still keep the costs down, even with the reprinting. Plus of course it's far better for security.”
“I'm actually ringing to say Alice said you've not contacted her, and providing some character references if you need any.”
“Oh! That's good of her. I was still having some doubts.”
“Can I read you our last few pieces of correspondence? I don't think she'll mind at all.”
“Urm, OK.” he said, and listened. After a pause he said, “she knows what's in the article?”
“It seems so,” Kate agreed “She's been chatting to someone relevant it appears.”
“Who felt she could be trusted with the biggest secret on the planet?”
“I know. Shocking, isn't it.”
“You don't think it's just she's got a spy network, do you?”
“Do you want to talk to Sue Reece, or shall I?” Kate asked.
“I guess I'll talk to her employer.”
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“Hello, Sue Reece?” Kate asked.
“Yes?”
“Strange request. I'm calling from the Institute for the Human Mind, and Alice Findhorn-Bunting has given me your details as a reference, in regard to a paper we'd like to publish in the next few days.”
“Is this something to do with theology?”
“She's told you about it?”
“She said I might get contacted by a theological journal, but it was in connection to the institute.”
“Oh, OK,” Kate said.
“Could we meet in person?” Sue asked, “I've developed a certain level of caution recently.”
“Calls can be intercepted, yes. Any idea where or when we could meet?”
“Well, my husband and I are going for a walk on Saturday, it's not too strenuous, and we could be fairly sure we wouldn't be overheard.”
“Urm...”
“I'm afraid it's a very busy time of the month here.”
“You've urm, got some information about Alice you can tell me?”
“Yes. You're Kate, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“I know, How about I talk around the subject. She's said most of this in public I believe. She was a trustworthy girl, but when her parents died, she trusted the assessment of the wrong person. Being told she was cursed, thinking blessings were curses, a number of good new friends she'd made were demons. That lie had consequences, she drifted from God, she made some bad choices, which hurt her relationship with God more, and what the Lord gives, the Lord can take away. Now, she's returned to the Lord and found peace once more, so I think she heals.”
“Thank you.” Kate drew her breath, there were a lot of very key words in there. “So you'd say she's serving God?”
“I'm sure she is, yes. But some injuries heal slowly and we need patience.
Things she could do are far more limited than they used to be. But we're sure you know some trustworthy people, so you could ask for their thoughts on the matter.”
“Sue, you've urm, talked to her recently?”
“Very. The speed of light is so boring.”
[Sue, do you hear me?] Kate tried.
[Well, hello Kate! Now this is more secure than wrist units, I must say!
Feel free to drop the call. Alice says you might not be able to call her directly. Did you hear her?]
[No.]
[Oh. She says the Lord hid her from Mama too, mostly.]
[She knew Mama Ng?]
[Mama started to teach her, just before her parents died. And they talked a couple of times before Mama died.]
[But she can talk to you like this?]
[To me, and to Simon, her husband. Direct quote: 'God has restored to me a small portion of the gift I mis-attributed, misused, treated as a short-cut. Be careful how you use God's gift, Kate. Be cautious to use it and patient for answers which will come to you anyway. Perhaps, one day God will let us speak mind to mind, but always remember, the Lord who gives can take away. Blessed be his name.' And now she has withdrawn her thoughts. She said she does not walk alone, but she does not have as much company as you do. She senses her time has not yet come to re-enter the community of gifted.]
[Thank you, Sue.]
[I expect you can call Simon, if you need to talk to Alice, Kate.]
[It must have been a great temptation for her, having the gift and being a journalist.]
[Yes. So God has made it so it is easier for her to resist. That's her phrasing. Even so, she treads with care, and asks for advice.]
[Practicing patience.]
[Yes.]
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THURSDAY, SEPT 28TH, NOON.
“Hi, Rodger, did you get anywhere?” Kate asked.
“Glowing reports of her return to faith. Bad experience as a child. And, urm, before she went to Mars she told Ed Wentworth she didn't like what your prime directive would have done to her career, so stayed well away from you.”
Kate laughed, “That's a motive I've not heard of, but it makes sense.”
“Did you find out anything?”
“Yes. She's in regular contact with her sister-in-law and from the sound of it she's a wise young woman of deep faith, who's not afraid of asking for advice.”
“Praise God! So, I've no objection to publishing via her, and I've also been in contact with the other authors in this issue. I'll be asking her about making the whole lot available there, and if they're interested in hosting future and maybe past issues too.”
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FINDHORN-BUNTING COMPLEX, MARS. THURSOL, SEPT 28TH.
“Simon, help!” Alice called from her office.
“Coming. What's up?”
“'Advances in Theological Thinking, a peer-reviewed bi-annual journal of cutting edge Christian theology.' would like to publish through us. They're the theological journal that the Institute have chosen to publish in. They say they've heard glowing reports of my faith and reliability, and have all the relevant author's permissions to trust their entire current issue into my hands, and also past and future editions if our readership and their authors deem it worth everyone's time.”
“Well, they checked up on you, you could always return the favour.”
“Very tempting. I think I probably ought to, actually. I thought I was agreeing to one or two articles, not reproducing an entire journal.”
“Well, you could ask if the university wanted to be republish, for instance.”
“Hmm. That's rather throwing their checking up on me back in their faces, isn't it. I think I know what we should do.”
“Start up a 'hosted journals' section?”
“That's even better, actually. I was going to say offer to help set them up as their own site, but if we do that then I'd end up running multiple bank accounts. OK. I'll suggest it.”
“And to Nature?”
“They haven't sought authorial consent to publish on Mars. I'm not going to help them get rich breaking copyright.”
“Good point. So how are you going to check up on them?”
“I'm going to delegate, if that's OK. First, can you call the Durrels and ask if they've ever heard of the journal, and next your theologian friend?”
“Of course, love.”
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MESSAGE TO EDITOR OF ADVANCES IN THEOLOGICAL THINKING, COPIED TO KATE
“Dear Rodger, we've checked up on your journal too, and found that you have at least two print subscriptions making their way to Mars, probably by somewhat informal methods if you don't know about them, but we didn't investigate further. The relevant (and contrite) parties were overjoyed at the thought that they'd be able to recommend your articles to others in a fully approved and legitimate manner. My suggestion is that we set up a 'hosted Earth journals' section of our site, and then AiTT would be a section under that. This would allow relevant logos, branding, etc, and avoid your articles being lost in the general 'news from Earth' section, which I must admit is quite possible if you don't know the exact reference. It would also solve the financial side of things, in that otherwise the system is set up to channel micropayments into an account based on the author's name.
The alternative arrangement that I briefly considered was setting up a full site in your name, but that would have considerably higher administrative overheads. I do not know how many readers to expect, but the suggested method above would be acceptable to us if you had more than about a dozen happy readers per article. The full site option would need hundreds or perhaps thousands of readers before it made economic sense, as it would take several person-days per year to administer the banking side of things, whereas that side of things is already happening if you opt for the sub-section approach. Since we do expect thousands of readers for your the IHM article, we would be willing to set up the separate site for you, if you insist, but warn you that it is highly possible that after that it would become something that would need supporting from your end, rather than a revenue stream.
Speaking of revenue streams, I think it would be best if your accounts department spoke to International News' accounts department about whether you'd like the 'fun and excitement' of turning Martian transport kilos into something you can spend there, or if you'd prefer to ask International News's Earth operations do that for you (which might even be purely a paper exercise based on published rates). I have no idea what they might want to charge for that service, but do make clear to them that the kilos would be originating from a sub-account in your name here, and that I sent you. Otherwise they might get grumpy.
Alternatively, of course, you could spend your kilos for transport. I've enquired, and at the moment, MarsCorp state they will consider 150 kilos to be the equivalent to 'one ticket'. Where that 'ticket' might be a tourist ticket (round-trip with no hold luggage) or a one way transfer with hold luggage. The reason you can swap 150 kilos for a ticket entitling you to say, 350kg of slow shipped weight is that the kilo is treated as an 'any ship' priority booking voucher.
Alice Findhorn-Bunting
Chief Editor,
Martian edition of International News.
p.s. Especially to Kate, university lecturers here are wondering if you could speak encouraging words in the ears of any other small journals you happen to publish in. Big ones like Nature ought to get their act together and employ someone out here if they want the sort of special treatment they claim.
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ARTICLE FOR EARTH PUBLICATION, OCT 3RD OR SO.
Lessons in how to insult a whole planet.
A couple of weeks ago, after decades of silence to all enquiries, a certain solar-system-wide famous journal of the natural sciences told the University library here 'Papers published in our journal are only available electronically to subscribers or direct from our servers after paying a suitable access fee. The correct procedure for libraries (academic or otherwise) is to take out a print subscription, which will be delivered weekly. We are unable to offer bulk access to electronic versions to institutional subscribers, as this would seriously damage our revenue stream. The revenue system you describe has been tried a number of times in history and each time has been proven to be entirely unworkable. The twist where it relies on people's generosity makes it doubly so.' Congratulations, you've just accused a planet full of Martians of being too stingy with their grams to make it worth your while bothering with them.
The 'unworkable revenue system', of course, being the pay-as-you-enjoy system that keeps journalists employed on this red planet. Wake up guys, I've been telling planet Earth it works really well here for months now! Other things this esteemed journal didn't consider is that they were talking to the library of the University of Mars, where getting a physical copy takes somewhere between two and fourteen months, and of course costs quite a lot. We don't know how they planned to accomplish weekly deliveries. Do they have a space programme or teleporter they've not told anyone about? Somehow we doubt it, and expect they just didn't think.
Nor did they admit that their publication agreement with authors only covers planet Earth, so they don't have the right to distribute to Mars.
Since money, it seems, talks louder than copyright law, that minor technicality didn't stop them accepting a subscription from here, of course. But before the university lawyers from all over planet Earth rise in protest, I should hasten to point out once the subscription had been accepted their servers did effectively block access, because the login screen timed out due to boring things like distance and the speed of light. The 'customer help' page had a similar time-out. Far be it from me to suggest that a three hundred year old journal of Natural Sciences really ought to be aware of such concepts. So that journal retains its place on the list of journals the University here keeps, charmingly entitled 'Jitnals: Journals you shouldn't bother thinking of publishing in because they're a bunch of jits'. So, well done, nameless journal, your incompetence at public relations and economics is matched by your incompetence at providing the service you claimed to offer, and so you didn't break anyones copyright. Whether you broke laws about offering illegal services, I've no idea.
The good new to this story is that the good people at the I.H.M. read their contract with the journal they were publishing in, saw that they had the right to do what they wanted with it off-world, and answered my plea that they allow it to be distributed by our servers here. The 'entirely unworkable' system that keeps us all happily employed at the office here registered that within twenty four hours this scientific paper had been read by ten percent of the adult population of Mars. Sorry, I correct myself, it had been read and appreciated by ten percent of the adult population. By the time I'm writing this, twenty percent of adult Martians have voted with their grams, with an average donation of four grams. Of course, this was an unusual, world-changing article, but I wonder if any article published by the above mentioned jitnal has ever been read by twenty percent of any general population.
The two wonderful things about the pay-as-you-enjoy system is that the reader can take a gamble with something that they might not like or appreciate, and if they get bored or confused they can walk away with no loss but their time. If they like it, however, then the barrier to expressing their appreciation is so low, both in terms of complexity and cost, that there's no real reason they shouldn't. The technology makes it simple, and you'd have to be really stingy to not click on one of the familiar buttons at the bottom of the article. Some people chose a more complex route, and clicked “Other amount” and gave the IHM ten, twenty or even fifty grams for their reading pleasure. I interviewed several of these 'big givers', and found they were from all walks of life, but with an interest in the sciences. Some quotable quotes were: 'They've researched this so carefully and written it up so clearly, that I wanted to encourage them to do more'; 'this is real science, accessible to everyone. Please can we have more?'; 'If only more articles were published like this'; 'Of course I appreciate it, I'm going to be citing it in my paper.'
I've listened to our Martian readers, hungry for real science, (and others interested in theology and philosophy, horticulture, technology and so on) and now our Martian news servers will be hosting articles from a number of journals. Boring, badly written ones that don't reach much of a conclusion will probably not be very well received, but there is a population here who are educated and interested.
Perhaps there will also be authors of ground-breaking peer-reviewed papers in print or in press with jitnals, who wonder why their papers are never cited in research from Mars. Now they know why, and perhaps they'd like to encourage those jitnals to actually make their research available over on this side of the solar system.
Or perhaps there are institutions that, like IHM, still hold copyright on their research and who have only granted world-wide publication rights to a jitnal, not solar-system wide rights. If they'd like to consider submitting such peer-reviewed papers to our server, I'm sure that Martians in the relevant fields would happy to read well written papers of note.
If the editor or owner of what is currently classed as a jitnal feels that they do not wish to retain that title, but they feel the need to keep total control, MarsCorp would, I'm sure, be happy to discuss the ins and outs of setting up a remotely operated Mars-based publication server. Alternatively, the Mars Council assures me they're interested in hearing from any publisher that wants to set up an office on the planet. I point out that 74% of working age Martians are Mars-born, with a similar proportion to on Earth holding degrees (although the subject spread is quite different). Also, of course, there are immigrants from all walks of life, some of who would be overjoyed to quit working in a Mars-corp factory and re-start in the profession they thought they gave up to come to this starkly beautiful planet.