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Worldcon sketchnotes
Aug. 14th, 2008 03:03 pm
For those of you who don’t read Making Light, I just posted the sketchnotes I took at Worldcon. Here’s the background, and here are the sketchnotes on Flickr.
Back from Worldcon
Aug. 12th, 2008 01:07 amHad fun. Met people. Am tired. Pants bankrupt.
More tomorrow.
News you can't use!
Sep. 9th, 2004 10:16 pmParisian underground cinema. Seriously underground:
3-D chocolate printer made of Lego:
Monkey saves Indian democracy from other monkeys:
Real-time Worldcon blogging — I wish I’d known about this at the con! Hey, I think I know the back of that head.
Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement. [...]
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."
3-D chocolate printer made of Lego:
We've developed a print head that will print 5mm 'pixels' of the consumable. It basically acts as a pump. Its a medium sized lego gear (driven by a worm gear attached to the motor) with four axels that repeatedly squeaze and release a pipe attached to a funnel that holds the consumables. a half-rotation of this wheel yeilds a blob.
Monkey saves Indian democracy from other monkeys:
Mangal, a langur, has been hired by the Delhi Election Commission to rid its premises near Kashmiri Gate of nearly 60 monkeys which have been creating a nuisance there since the Assembly polls last year.
The monkeys had been terrorising visitors and officers at the commission office for over three months now. Their particular favourite was the Form 6, which is filled when one is applying for a voter’s identity card. The monkeys would snatch the forms from applicants before tearing them. Other files and papers have also been destroyed by the monkeys.
Real-time Worldcon blogging — I wish I’d known about this at the con! Hey, I think I know the back of that head.
Noreascon 4
Sep. 7th, 2004 08:19 pmOK, convention, yeah. That was more fun than I’d ever had at a Worldcon, and less time spent in the filk room than ever at (maybe) any con. There’s probably a causal relationship there — the filk room has become the place I go when I’m bored.
Spent my evenings party-hopping, and managed to get into many more interesting conversations than I usually do, including some with people I hadn’t previously known. It’s almost like I’m developing social skills.
A lesson I ought’ve learned long ago: When picking which panels to attend, ignore the topics and pay attention to the panelists. Any panel with Patrick and/or Teresa Nielsen Hayden on it will probably be fun. Same goes for Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Gavin Grant, and others I should have made note of.
I checked out the art show, something I often forget to do. I went around with Teresa and Ctein’s guided tour, and that’s just about the best way to see an art show I can think of. Afterwards I looked up the Frank Kelly Freas art in the Retro-Art section. There’s stuff that guy does that you’re just not supposed to be able to pull off. I picked up his book As He Sees It later in the dealer’s room.
The con had wireless Ethernet (802.11g), but for some reason it didn’t jibe with the WiFi card (802.11b) in my Clié. This isn’t the first such trouble I’ve had; the Clié seems wonky on this score. I was able to connect with the free WiFi in the Marché Mövenpick in the big Habitrail, so they wound up getting a lot of my eating business, helped along by the food being really good and varied. The free dessert they gave![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bugsybanana and me when we first had dinner there was also an encouragement. That first Worldcon post I made? I typed it up at the panels (with a folding keyboard) and posted it while waiting on line for some pasta. So cutting-edge you could slash your wrists!
Oh, another lesson: I should spend more time in the hotel bar. Even if I can’t always manage to do it withpapersky, John M Ford, Elise Matheson, and Jordin and marykaykare.
Spent my evenings party-hopping, and managed to get into many more interesting conversations than I usually do, including some with people I hadn’t previously known. It’s almost like I’m developing social skills.
A lesson I ought’ve learned long ago: When picking which panels to attend, ignore the topics and pay attention to the panelists. Any panel with Patrick and/or Teresa Nielsen Hayden on it will probably be fun. Same goes for Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Gavin Grant, and others I should have made note of.
I checked out the art show, something I often forget to do. I went around with Teresa and Ctein’s guided tour, and that’s just about the best way to see an art show I can think of. Afterwards I looked up the Frank Kelly Freas art in the Retro-Art section. There’s stuff that guy does that you’re just not supposed to be able to pull off. I picked up his book As He Sees It later in the dealer’s room.
The con had wireless Ethernet (802.11g), but for some reason it didn’t jibe with the WiFi card (802.11b) in my Clié. This isn’t the first such trouble I’ve had; the Clié seems wonky on this score. I was able to connect with the free WiFi in the Marché Mövenpick in the big Habitrail, so they wound up getting a lot of my eating business, helped along by the food being really good and varied. The free dessert they gave
bugsybanana and me when we first had dinner there was also an encouragement. That first Worldcon post I made? I typed it up at the panels (with a folding keyboard) and posted it while waiting on line for some pasta. So cutting-edge you could slash your wrists! Oh, another lesson: I should spend more time in the hotel bar. Even if I can’t always manage to do it with
papersky, John M Ford, Elise Matheson, and Jordin and marykaykare.Back from Worldcon
Sep. 7th, 2004 02:08 amWoof. Great con. Tired now.
The cab ride from NYC-Chinatown to Jersey City cost more than the bus ride down from Boston.
Hey,bugsybanana, when did you cut out?
The cab ride from NYC-Chinatown to Jersey City cost more than the bus ride down from Boston.
Hey,
bugsybanana, when did you cut out?(no subject)
Sep. 4th, 2004 07:35 pm"I understand Mitsubishi is working on a robot truck designed to run over Asimo." -- John M Ford on the When is a Cyborg? panel
"It's like typing on a keyboard that's embedded in an aircraft carrier flight deck while facing an IMAX screen." -- Charles Stross on his 17" PowerBook
Security Tradeoffs panel:
Jim Macdonald: "If any of you were buying drugs in the 1980s -- I was the reason they were so expensive."
Four ways of breaking unbreakable codes:
Rubber hose cryptanalysis
Checkbook cryptanalysis
Dumbshit cryptanalysis
Black bag cryptanalysis
TNH: "If you're worried, be boring. The other guy is probably short on manpower too."
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.hexlet.com/]
"It's like typing on a keyboard that's embedded in an aircraft carrier flight deck while facing an IMAX screen." -- Charles Stross on his 17" PowerBook
Security Tradeoffs panel:
Jim Macdonald: "If any of you were buying drugs in the 1980s -- I was the reason they were so expensive."
Four ways of breaking unbreakable codes:
Rubber hose cryptanalysis
Checkbook cryptanalysis
Dumbshit cryptanalysis
Black bag cryptanalysis
TNH: "If you're worried, be boring. The other guy is probably short on manpower too."
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.hexlet.com/]
Goth panel:
TNH on HP Lovecraft: "A Yankee xenophobe with a tolerably good prose style is menaced and then overcome by seafood."
Infodump panel:
TNH on summaries: "Nouns are hard to metabolize."
Mary Sue panel:
Kim Kindya on Masterharper Robinton: "He's become the Fonzie of Pern." (She later explained that bishonen is Japanese for "Orlando Bloom".)
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.hexlet.com/]
TNH on HP Lovecraft: "A Yankee xenophobe with a tolerably good prose style is menaced and then overcome by seafood."
Infodump panel:
TNH on summaries: "Nouns are hard to metabolize."
Mary Sue panel:
Kim Kindya on Masterharper Robinton: "He's become the Fonzie of Pern." (She later explained that bishonen is Japanese for "Orlando Bloom".)
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.hexlet.com/]
Hblogger test
Aug. 31st, 2004 12:39 amTesting Hblogger, which ought to let me post to LJ from my Palm. Just in case I can't go five days at Worldcon without posting.
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.hexlet.com/]
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.hexlet.com/]
So, I’ve been really slack on my eating and exercise for about the past eight months or so. As in, lots, and crappy and pretty much not at all respectively. I’ve gained back, well, not all the weight I’ve lost, but more than half of it. My clothes are tight, and I feel like crap. And I’ve only gotten up and gone to the gym like twice in the three weeks since I rejoined.
Today I ate more crap for breakfast, and felt pretty awful for the next few hours — not guilty awful, but tired and sick and cranky awful. Though some of that might be ’cause I got to bed at 6 AM last night. (Games Club post coming up next.)
I tottered around the City Hall area, doing some electronic shopping I wanted to get done before Worldcon. I’ve now got a cellphone, the cheapest one I could get on T-Mobile’s pay-as-you-go plan. And I’ve got a new portable CD player, with MP3 capability and real battery life.
I noticed a much higher than usual proportion of anti-Bush, anti-RNC, anti-Iraq-war, and pro-abortion-rights buttons, signs, stickers, and t-shirts on passers by as I wandered around. When I got back to the WTC Path station, it was surrounded by demonstrators ringing bells to memorialize the dead and “ring out” Bush. The cumulative effect of all the bells was pretty eerie and other-worldly, like a spirits-of-the-dead scene in a Miyazaki movie. I was tempted to get a bell (I was told someone was handing them out) and walk a full circle around the site, but tired and sick and cranky, and also needing a bathroom.
Here’s the good part: After I got home (stopping off at Ground for a cold drink, a political argument, and reading a couple chapters of The Well of Lost Plots), got the cellphone plugged in and charging, figured out how to put together the CD player, I noticed I felt better. More than that, I felt a strong aversion to junk food, and a craving for fruit and veggies. With luck this’ll last into tomorrow, and maybe even sprout a craving for exercise. It feels like a return to the healthy mindset I was in a year ago.
Now it’s time to figure out how to screen-scrape the Noreascon program and chunk it into a set of Palm Datebook appointments.
Today I ate more crap for breakfast, and felt pretty awful for the next few hours — not guilty awful, but tired and sick and cranky awful. Though some of that might be ’cause I got to bed at 6 AM last night. (Games Club post coming up next.)
I tottered around the City Hall area, doing some electronic shopping I wanted to get done before Worldcon. I’ve now got a cellphone, the cheapest one I could get on T-Mobile’s pay-as-you-go plan. And I’ve got a new portable CD player, with MP3 capability and real battery life.
I noticed a much higher than usual proportion of anti-Bush, anti-RNC, anti-Iraq-war, and pro-abortion-rights buttons, signs, stickers, and t-shirts on passers by as I wandered around. When I got back to the WTC Path station, it was surrounded by demonstrators ringing bells to memorialize the dead and “ring out” Bush. The cumulative effect of all the bells was pretty eerie and other-worldly, like a spirits-of-the-dead scene in a Miyazaki movie. I was tempted to get a bell (I was told someone was handing them out) and walk a full circle around the site, but tired and sick and cranky, and also needing a bathroom.
Here’s the good part: After I got home (stopping off at Ground for a cold drink, a political argument, and reading a couple chapters of The Well of Lost Plots), got the cellphone plugged in and charging, figured out how to put together the CD player, I noticed I felt better. More than that, I felt a strong aversion to junk food, and a craving for fruit and veggies. With luck this’ll last into tomorrow, and maybe even sprout a craving for exercise. It feels like a return to the healthy mindset I was in a year ago.
Now it’s time to figure out how to screen-scrape the Noreascon program and chunk it into a set of Palm Datebook appointments.
Hugo, man of a thousand ballots
Jul. 8th, 2004 10:54 pmI’m way behind on my Hugo reading, and with the deadline at the end of this month, I dunno if I’m gonna make it, not all the novels and the short fiction. But on my most recent visit to Barnes & Noble I saw that Charlie Stross’s Singularity Sky is out in mass-market paper, and snatched it up. I really ought to read the other Best Novel nominees too (except the Robert J. Sawyer; I feel pretty confident predicting that I wouldn’t like it, though I suppose I might hate one of the others more), but a book that contains the line “the brightly colored sporks of revolution” has a definite leg up.
If I see 28 Days After I’ll have seen all the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) nominees; out of the other four I’m leaning towards Pirates of the Caribbean for first, X2 for second.
The Dramatic Short Form I’ll probably just skip. I’ve only seen one out of the five, and don’t consider that one award-worthy, and seeing the others would likely be a pain in the ass, unless someone wants to lend me a Firefly DVD.
Note to self: Nominate PNH, TNH, Jim Henley, and John M Ford for Best Fan Writer next year. Langford’ll take the award anyway, but maybe one of ’em’ll get on the ballot.
If I see 28 Days After I’ll have seen all the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) nominees; out of the other four I’m leaning towards Pirates of the Caribbean for first, X2 for second.
The Dramatic Short Form I’ll probably just skip. I’ve only seen one out of the five, and don’t consider that one award-worthy, and seeing the others would likely be a pain in the ass, unless someone wants to lend me a Firefly DVD.
Note to self: Nominate PNH, TNH, Jim Henley, and John M Ford for Best Fan Writer next year. Langford’ll take the award anyway, but maybe one of ’em’ll get on the ballot.
