Jay Garmon [dot] Net

What famous scientist mistakenly thought he had discovered plutonium -- a decade before it was actually discovered?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:59:00 +0000

TechTalk radio ep. 251 includes a host of Thanksgiving-esque tech tidbits and, sadly, a trivia question that perhaps on I find interesting: What famous scientist mistakenly thought he had discovered plutonium -- a decade before it was actually discovered?

If you're the kind of geek that gets off on the historical minutia surrounding elemental physics -- and you know who you are -- you'll also likely enjoy pointing out all the errors I make in my weekly radio factoid from last fall.

Dragon*Con 2011: A n00b's Tale, Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:42:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

When last we left our plucky D*C n00b, he was recovering from an unexpected Jedi-themed dance party. The infodump expands to the penultimate day of the con.

SUNDAY

Again, my day began around 8:30 am as I snuck away from my hibernating roommates to scrounge breakfast at Peachtree Center. I think I stupidly went to the Dairy Queen well, which is always a mistake. Nonetheless, I hit the panel scene about 9:30 and called an audible, electing to abandon my plans for the Skeptic Track's Secular Plan to Take Over America - I didn't want to brave the zealot crowd - so I snuck into the line for the other zealot crowd magnet, the Star Wars track. Specifically, the Truth and Mythology of Star Wars headlined by Timothy Zahn and Gary Kurtz.

Takeaway: I now know where the Star Wars franchise went wrong.

George Lucas stopped working with his co-producer, Gary Kurtz.

Kurtz is a self-effacing professorial gentleman who helped guide Lucas in the production of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. He was the man who owned the painting of Hannibal's elephants that inspired the AT-ATs. He calmly explained how the story structure of Empire is consciously inverted from its predecessor, working from a huge set-piece battle down to a pair of small, personal stories. He politely declined to elaborate on what creative differences led to his not working on Return of the Jedi, but his offhand knowledge and passion about the franchise embody everything that was missing from the prequel trilogy.

Timothy Zahn was there, but Kurtz dominated the conversation, which says far more about Kurtz than Zahn. Even the presence of snarky podcaster turned moderator Shaun Rosado (remember the name) couldn't cut through the Kurtz field.

The hour was too brief. I want to interview Kurtz for a couple of weeks. These panels are what Dragon*Con is all about.

At 11:30 I plumbed the depths of the Hyatt again to check out the Science Fiction Research Association's "about us" panel. No, the SFRA is not a cabal of mad scientists dreaming up grant-funded deathrays, weather-control satellites and robot assassins (more's the pity), but a resistance cell of literature professors spreading the gospel of sci-fi and fantasy lit within the snobbish erudition of academia.

I went in a skeptic about the mission and left equally so -- Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Alduous Huxley, Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, HG Wells, Thomas Pynchon, Jonathan Lethem, Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood don't seem to have any trouble getting assigned in Lit courses. For frak sake, Doris Lessig won the Nobel frakking Prize for literature. Does Asimov get dissed? Sure, but his prose is not exactly timeless. Same for Clarke and, to a lesser extent, Heinlein. And Ursula K. Le Guin is criminally overlooked. But being popular doesn't make you good, and sci-fi doesn't get any more or less hosed than romance, westerns, thrillers, or any other genre when it comes to academic disrespect.

Where the admittedly charming and well informed panelists made the beginning of case was in arguing that sci-fi is, at its best, in dialogue with society about change, often using fantastic settings as an abstraction to examine real world issues from a comfortable, cognitive distance. Sci-fi arose as a reaction to industrialization, and the interplay of technological angst evident in the form is somewhat unique. I would never argue that sci-fi is unworthy of study. These ideas underpin the value of sci-fi criticism, but even a geek like me has a hard time believing every lit faculty needs a specialist chair of spec fiction research. I would enjoy those classes, but not at the expense of studying Faulkner, Dickens or Shakespeare.

At 1pm, I wandered over to the BSG universe panel, which was a mistake. The panel was fan-run, by fans who seemed qualified only in the sense that they has met Edward James Olmos. The hour was largely wasted arguing why Caprica sucked and whether or not Starbuck was an angel, a Cylon or both. To this point D*C had avoided the mouthbreather nerdrage con stereotype, but this panel stepped in it big time. Other than learning that Mr. Olmos likes to be called Eddie, I took nothing away from the hour.

Discouraged, I wandered back to the room to recharge and possibly rediscover my roommates. My roomies' grocery stash afforded me a chocolate granola bar as quasi-lunch, but the room was otherwise abandoned when I arrived, so I textblasted my guys to warn them I planned on redeeming my BSG con experience attending the Battlestar Galactica cast panel at 7pm, which would entail lining up early. Hickman and Charles affirmed their desire to play copilot, and Hickman suggested dinner while we waited. I heartily concurred.

As I awaited Hickman's arrival, I took in Carrie Fisher's live Q&A on D*CTV. I don't remember many specifics about her responses other than the strangely friendly profanity, general positive attitude and the revelation that, at 105 lbs., the studio still wanted her to lose weight to play Leia. (She performed the role at around 90.) It was a glib and charming hour, and I was glad for the serendipity of it. The tone reminded me of the fun to be had at Nerd Mardi Gras, and as the panel drew to a close, Hickman signaled his availability.

Vaguely related aside: The Velocity burger bar in the Marriott lobby does a pretty good plate of nachos, and the burgers aren't bad, either. Hickman and I shared the former and enjoyed the latter from about 5-6pm, after which he went in search of Charles and I staked a position in line for the BSG cast panel

Three. Blocks. Away.

Seriously.

It was occasionally raining, but my particular spot in line wound back on itself beneath the overhang of an office building entrance. Somehow, despite literally crossing town, the D*C crew filed all of us into the main ballroom at the Marriott at 6:45pm. As in, I would guess, about 4,000 of us.

Seriously.

The ballroom included a set of elevated camera platforms and two giant projection screens so folks in back could see and hear what the panelists were saying. We all giggled collectively at the bantering of the Sci-fi Janitors skits playing on D*CTV whilst awaiting the arrival of the cast. Now, one of the dirty secrets of Dragon*Con panels (as I would learn) is that, when it comes to big media casts, lineups are a crap shoot. It doesn't matter what the program says, the stars listed on the panel may not show up, and unlisted celebs may unexpectedly crash the party. The few minutes leading up to a major panel are fraught with anticipation as the crowd awaits the discovery of who is actually there.

Our panel? JACKPOT.

Edward James Olmos. Mary McDonnell. Tahmoh Penikett. Richard Hatch.

Awesome is an inadequate description.

The quartet was mutually deferential, polite, and seemed genuinely delighted to be there. Richard Hatch was complimentary to a fault. Tahmoh and he dominated the first half of the session, with the former explaining how he had to write his own backstory to method-act his scenes on Caprica with Sharon/Athena. (Check the character progression immediately before and after Sharon asks "who do you think our child will look like?")

When Eddie (they really do call him Eddie) Olmos and Mary finally jumped in, they jumped in deep, discussing their love scenes from the later seasons and continuing to flirt and banter like school kids. We also came to learn that McDonnell has an innate ability to make high-tension or heavy scenes impossible to shoot, as she is often overcome with fits of giggles before, during and after takes. This was evident during the panel, too. If I learned nothing else, that would have been enough. But there, mid-panel, Mary McDonnell doubled down on the awesome.

A year ago, two fans got engaged in the middle of the BSG panel on Sunday night. They couldn't attend this year, as they were getting married at the exact time and date of this year's panel session. So Mary stopped the proceedings and instructed all of us to wish the couple a happy wedding. Followed, of course, by an Olmos invocation of "So say we all!" Mary assured us that D*CTV would get the video to the happy newlyweds.

Yes, this totally happened. We filmed a wedding toast in the middle of BSG panel, for the benefit of BSG fans. Mary McDonnell wins herself a Dragon*Con.

The final portion of the panel was Eddie expounding on how many active duty military officers thanked him for portraying the toll that command decisions wreak on commanding officers, and for the vulnerability he was willing to display. Hatch backed him up on this, especially for having the courage to appear so weak and broken on camera, as many leading men aren't willing to do.

This led to a final conversation on why Battlestar Galactica resonates. Of how it speaks to perseverance, and clinging to your humanity -- even when you aren't human. It was thrilling to see Olmos not only stir his own passion on the subject but declare -- even demand -- that BSG continue. It ended the only way it could, with a triumphant, triune chorus of "So Say We All!"

I would have taken a bullet for Eddie in that moment. Me and 4,000 other people. This, above all else, is why fans go to cons. You can buy the swag, gander at the art, take in photos of the costumes, see videos of the panels, and argue in chat forums about every topic covered -- all via the internet. But there is no substitute, no commensurate thrill for being in a room with literally thousands of like-minded fans, collectively feeding off the energy and exultation of a shared experience. Go read some Durkheim and you'll understand. I saw the lightning strike that evening, felt the air crackle with its energy, and felt greater still the bond -- ephemeral but undeniable -- forged between us all. We are fans. We are geeks. We are one.

So. Say. We. ALL.

...

But wait, it gets better.

I lost track of Hickman and Charles, but somehow floated my way to the Big Bang Theory: Are We the Joke panel. It drew literally twice the audience as the Gary Kurtz panel earlier in the day. Do that math: The guy who co-invented Star Wars had less of a crowd than a sitcom about four dorks and hottie neighbor. There was a guy in the crowd cosplaying Howard Wolowitz. Complete with NES controller belt buckle and checkerboard slip-on Vans! SERIOUSLY! This was a panel that boyfriends were dragged into by girlfriends, and they left fans of the show! This is the stuff that happens to Star Trek and Firefly, and was happening to a primetime sitcom about nerds!

We are not the joke. We are the victors. All those sitcoms that spent decades mocking the beer-swilling, football-watching clueless ex-jock husbands? Now us geeks are getting equal mockery. Nerd culture is now just culture. We win.

But wait, it gets better.

Remember Shaun Rosado, the blogger/podcaster from the Kurtz/Zahn Star Wars panel? Well, he runs a rather unconventional -- some would say envelope-pushing -- panel at 10pm on Sunday evening of Dragon*Con. It was only tried once before, and while highly popular, it was also controversial.

Adult Themes in Star Wars.

Yes, Adult Themes. In Star Wars.

Basically, Shaun and a few of his cohorts do an improv comedy Q&A theorizing on the sexual exploits of characters in the Star Wars universe. While passing around booze. And handing out sextoys to Q&A participants. And encouraging nudity from the crowd. Successfully.

Sound crazy? It was. Offensive? Definitely. Hilarious? Hell yes.

The midsize ballroom that held the Last Party on Alderaan rave the night before was packed to near capacity (with 18-and-over ID checks at the door) for the Jedi perv-a-thon. And that's with a good 10% of the crowd bailing out at the first bit regarding wampa (ahem) emissions. For every squeamish traditionalist that bowed out, two more raucous scoundrels took their place.

The panel was scheduled for 2 hours. It lasted 2.5, and ended only because the door staff had to go off shift. And every damn second was funny. I never had more or less respect for Star Wars fandom, and its ability to (finally) not take itself so seriously.

I wandered back to the room, giddy on an irreverent and unlikely cocktail of geek pride and gleeful nerd-perv shame. It was awesome.

Three days of Dragon*Con down, one day to go.

[To be continued...]

Tangent's Online's best of 2011 sci-fi short fiction list includes...wait...ME?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:13:00 +0000

Image by Glamhag via FlickrI have exactly one paid fiction publication to my credit. Ever. And someone thinks it (just barely) qualifies as some of the best sci-fi short fiction of 2011. Thankfully that someone has some street cred, because it's the gang from Tangent, which just happens to specialize in reviewing and critiquing sci-fi short fiction.

My short story "Perfection" from the April issue of Redstone Science Fiction is considered one of the 50 or so best sci-fi short stories of the year. And this isn't some random blogger list. This is the group of people who critique sci-fi shorts as their raison d'etre. My name sneaks in besides the likes of Rudy Rucker, Nalo Hopkinson, Rachel Swirsky, Ian MacLeod, Greg Bear, Laura Ann Gilman, Bud Sparhawk, Nancy Kress, Jackie Kessler and Jay Lake.

Yes, I am making inappropriate squee noises right now, of the Japanese schoolgirl variety. No, I am not ashamed.

I owe some thanks. First, to Mike Ray, the EIC at Redstone who took a chance on a nobody and gave me my first sale. Second, to my fellow SF Signal irregular Matt Sanborn Smith, who was kind enough to tweet me about the Tangent selection. I'm a lucky guy.

Also, I guess I'm obligated to get to writing some short fiction in 2012. I have a meager reputation to maintain.

Me, a Famous Author and 2 Functional Nerds vs. The Avengers, Garageband, Arkham City and Kickstarter

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:32:00 +0000

When my pals over at the Functional Nerds podcast decided to retool their format, they couldn't come up with a better guinea pig to pair with multi-talented multi-media author Matt Forbeck than me. The evidence of their desperation is enshrined forever in Functional Nerds Episode 082 – FN vs. The Avengers, Garageband, Arkham City and Kickstarter.

I am blissfully silent while the big kids are talking, but manage to get my meta-nerd shots in about the new Marvel movie meta-franchise, and its consequences for the career of some guy named Joss Whedon. Sandbox Batman and the revenge of online author donations also come up, and we even discuss the virtue of having a recording studio in your pocket (or are you just glad to see me?).

This podcast features original music by John Anealio. That alone is worth a listen.

Techtalk Trivia: What was the only manned space flight mission to take off on Halloween day?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:37:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

My latest TechTalk podcast/radio appearance was suitably seasonal: Ep. 248 – Every Day is Halloween!

TOPIC: Mike and Dave get together right before Halloween this year to tell you spooky tech stories … well, maybe not so spooky, but Dave does apologize for his comments about Steve Jobs from a few weeks ago, and an apology from the TechTalk show can seem almost supernatural in it’s rarity. Tablets and a possibly too-long discussion of IVR rounds out the show before …

Jay “Encyclopedia Garmonica” treats us to a totally a propos Halloweeny geek trivia question:

What was the only manned space flight mission to take off on Halloween day?

And that leaves us ample time for some great seasonal coolsites of the week!

PumpkinPatchesAndMore – Find all the local pumpkin patches in your area! Plus carving templates, recipes, and more.

HalloweenPrintables – From the great folks at FreePrintables.net, come some cards, puzzles, and coloring pages just in time for Halloween!

FantasyPumpkins – These are cool to look at all year, and include templates for many of the coolest pumpkins you’ve ever seen!

This week we treat your ears to a speed metal version of the classic “Every Day is Halloween” by Ministry.

Geek Gifts 2011: Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-Ray Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:05:00 +0000

Geek Gifts 2011: Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-Ray Collection: Star Wars fans, do you need The Complete Saga Blu-Ray Collection? Someone paid me to answer that question in this review, which is to say I turned a profit by spending two consecutive Saturdays with a houseful of friends watching a free copy of every Star Wars film on Blu-Ray. Yes, you can hate me now.

Thanksgeeking 2011: 12 things geeks can be thankful for this year

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Thanksgeeking 2011: 12 things geeks can be thankful for this year: A dozen or so events, items, and ideas from 2011 for which the geek-o-sphere should give thanks. (Or, at least, MY list of what geeks should be thankful for. Still blows my mind I get paid for this stuff.)

What unlikely outside group forces the Large Hadron Collider to shut down for three weeks every winter?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:43:00 +0000

Image by Image Editor via FlickrThe Large Hadron Collider may be the most influential scientific instrument of the early 21st century, but it still has to play ball with all the various agencies and interest groups that dominate modern life. One of these organizations holds some rather unexpected sway over the LHC -- enough to force the particle accelerator to shut down its atom-smashing for three weeks or more every winter.

Want to know who the mysterious power behind the Higgs Boson throne is? As usual, you've got two ways to found out:

The former includes some rather awesome counter-theories from TechRepublic's online readership. The latter includes a vivid discussion of the fallout from Google's acquisition of Zagat. Both are worth your time, despite my involvement in each venture.

The most horrible things in science fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:37:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaThere are two ways of interpreting the post title:

A clever pun on mashing the horror and sci-fi genres
The description of my contribution to SF Signal podcasts

Both are likely true, as those poor, foolish fools at SF Signal had me on their podcast again discussing the best examples of science fiction horror stories. Don't worry, it's not just me blathering about Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg (that happens, but there's other stuff, too). Lee Thomas, Ashley Crump, Derek Johnson, Jeff Patterson, and Patrick Hester make legitimate statements about genre that tend to drown out my own sonic idiocy.

My content will horrify. Their content will edify. Either way you win, assuming horror is of interest to you. Give it a listen.

As always my chronicle of past SF Signal podcast atrocities is available here.

Dragon*Con 2011: A n00b's Tale, Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:59:00 +0000

Image by B. Koprowski via FlickrIn the wake of Thursday and Friday awesomeness, the Saturday infodump continuous apace.

SATURDAY

I awoke slightly later than usual, which is to say 9:00 am, as I had burned the midnight oil at the Star Trek Reboot Review on Friday. My original plan was to attend the 10:00am "Give Me The Bottom Line" writers panel with Mike Resnick and Peter David, but after the Friday disappointments with the Writer's Track, I decided to bow to convention and take in the legendary Dragon*Con Parade. After a quick foodcourt "breakfast" (scare quotes intentional) I staked out a spot betwixt the Hyatt and Marriott along the main parade route.

Now, the parade doesn't start until ten, and when I arrived at 9:30 the crowd was already three-deep along the street. I snagged a view behind a group of parents, as it's easy to see over kids. By the time 10:00am rolled around, the crowd was 8-10 deep on every side. Despite not being in costume, I got compliments on my Diesel Sweeties t-shirt, to the point someone snapped a photo of me. (I tweeted said event, and R. Stevens himself acknowledged my nano-infamy.)

And then, the parade.

I am neither equipped nor disposed to recount every single costume I observed in the parade, and I opted out about 11:00 am in favor of heading to a Skeptic Track panel. Suffice it to say, the parade was this...

...only moreso. Special shoutouts go to the Steampunk X-men, who really stole the show.

For those keeping score, this is the point when Dragon*Con's rep as the "Geek Mardi Gras" began to feel real. We blocked off the middle of downtown Atlanta during a major holiday weekend (with a major college football game in the offing just a few blocks away at the Georgia Dome) so a few thousand people could show off homemade costumes for a couple of hours. We bent the biggest city in the South to our will. I'm not a big cosplay guy, but that right there is some badassery.

Also, between the Klingons, the Spartans, the Colonial Marines and the Viper Pilot Squadron, I defy anyone to get mouthy with the D*C population. These geeks will level your ass and not skip a beat. Also, as mentioned previously, Dragon*Con has its own armory with its own minigun. Don't start none, won't be none.

From the Parade I made my way to the "These Are The Ways The World Will End" panel at the Hilton, headlined by Scott Sigler and Phil "Bad Astronomy" Plait. The premise was basically discounting all the inane 2012 Mayan Apocalypse theories and related crap in favor of laying out all the actual doomsday scenarios that could conceivably exterminate all human life.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

First, the not-awesome. The Hilton is decidedly less crowd-friendly than the other venues, with cramped hallways that don't afford two-way traffic very well. Couple that with the almost unbelievable popularity of the Skeptic Track and, well, let's just say the Parade caused fewer traffic jams. Luckily I was traveling solo so I didn't have to wait for other companions in the crowd and I could be the guy that politely asks if the one empty seat in a row is taken.

This, incidentally, was how I met one Emily Finke, dressed in what appeared to be a Rule 63 Steampunk Doctor Who outfit. She was one of a host of 20-something academics and grad students crowding the panel room (the unspoken appeal of the Skeptic Track, if you ask me). I somehow appear non-threatening to this demographic -- don't ask me why, most people detect my high Asshole Quotient pretty fast -- so we hit it off rather well and made small talk until the panel began.

This was my first panel where the crowd was sufficient to require video projections of the speakers. It was also the first panel that began with a musical number. And I gotta tell you, any tune that namechecks gamma ray bursts, asteroid strikes and the entropic heat death of the universe is worth your time. Dr. Plait sang to us our odds of dying from any of a half-dozen plausible disasters (hint: eventually the heat death will claim us all), and that set the tone for the panel.

It wasn't just the Bad Astronomy show, however. Dr. Pamela Gay is an astronomy rockstar and the first person who made me believe we have viable asteroid strike countermeasures. Dr. Ali Khan, AKA Rear Admiral Ali Khan, AKA Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan, is the proverbial guy in the US government charged with protecting us from zombie attacks. Seriously. He also deals with bioterror countermeasures and epidemic containment. These are nerds' nerds, and they are compelling as all get out and funny to boot. This lineup deserves its own convention.

The hour evaporated all too quickly.

As you can imagine, I felt compelled to take in an additional Skeptic Track panel, this time on integrating skepticism into education and public discourse. The panel was intriguing, particularly the high school physics teacher from Illinois, but it seemed more focused on internecine skeptic disputes about the differences between debunking and educating. This boils down to, essentially, are you an asshole about your skepticism? A few probing questions usually go farther than fighting dogma with dogma, but some folks just can't resist getting their hackles raised.

I think I ate lunch at this point. Probably something from Farmer's Basket. Yeah, that sounds like me.

From there it was back to the Hyatt, where a nice ex-Air Force major I'd met in Friday's Armory panels was doing a briefing on street-level surveillance techniques. It was very well done, and put the lie to how plausibility of a single detective trailing somebody over long distances. Typical surveillance is done with a three-man team on foot and two-man support squad in a vehicle. Very nice details, including a printout of his slide deck. The best writing resources I'd take home from Dragon*Con by far.

Afterwards, I navigated through Hyatt to the "Libertarians in Space" panel -- the sequel to the "Liberals in Space" panel from which John Ringo had notoriously flounced the day before. This time, Ringo was joined (to our surprise, as he arrived a few minutes late under suspicion of bowing out) by Michael Z. Williamson (a friend of our own local ConGlomeration) and Mark L. Van Name. Libertarians all, and -- to their credit -- honest about the viability of their ideals in space colonist settings.

Which is to say, there's no chance in hell that a group of Libertarians will ever colonize space. The independent "nobody can tell me what to do, I don't need anybody" streak of Libertarianism is diametrically opposed to the necessary cooperation that keeps you alive aboard a spacecraft. Death by explosive decompression is a pretty good veto on your demand for ultimate self-determination. This led to some interesting (if all too brief) side commentary about responsibility being the forgotten corollary to freedom and liberty, but mostly the crowd left peeved that their icons didn't paint a picture of a likely anarcho-capitalist paradise among the stars. I give them credit for their honesty.

Alas, two good experiences in the Hyatt foolishly convinced me to try the Writer's Track one more time, opting into the "Characters That Come To Life" panel headlined by John Ringo and Tracy Hickman. It devolved into another pimp thread, and I quickly tuned it out.

I returned, slightly dejected, to the hotel room in the Marriott. There I found Hickman (my roommate, not the author) decompressing from a run in full Stargate costumery. We elected to hang for a bit before collectively heading over the Westin (finally) to take in the "Firefly Drinking Songs" pub sing headed by Marc Gunn. Hickman took a little extra time gearing down than planned, but we made the second half of the panel, and it was raucously awesome, with audience-contributed verses and an almost visceral joy permeating every chorus. We actually could have made more of the panel, but the room was overloaded and we had to wait until a precious few attendees left before we were allowed in. Popular? Oh, yes. If and when I ever return to Dragon*Con, "Firefly Drinking Songs" goes on the must-attend event list. In any case, I'm still debating buying the CD -- it was that much fun.

After the sing-off, the typical throng of people that know Hickman appeared, once again including Courtney Warfield and, to my enduring delight, Brooke Caldwell (who does an awesome Sam Carter cosplay). I didn't have another panel lined up, and this group of heathens convinced me my next best move was to either attend one of the various and sundry dance parties that dominate Dragon*Con's Saturday evening, or take in the "Dragon*Con After Dark" risque costume contest. Yeah, we chose the latter.

Hickman and I located the end of the line for D*C After Dark -- a couple blocks away from the Hyatt, where the event was planned. (This is one of the few mega-panels that doesn't get replayed on Dragon*Con's internal closed-circuit TV network -- for obvious reasons -- so it's routinely sold out.) That left us two options: The "SuperVillains Ball" at the Sheraton or the "Last Party on Alderaan" at the Marriott.

Now, I am what might be generously termed aggressively caucasian. One look at me and it's very clear, rhythm doesn't live here. Dancing? Not really my thing. But hey, this is Dragon*Con. If ever there was a dance crowd that wouldn't judge me, it had to be here, right?

Hickman and I, with Charles Thompson now in tow, headed to the Sheraton...where we found a dead party with maybe a dozen or so attendees. It was shocking. I hadn't seen that much open space at Dragon*Con since Thursday morning. I supposed all the villains were at D*C After Dark. Whatever the case, we bailed in less than five minutes.

Along the way, we lost Charles again, but Hickman and I made it to Alderaan. If you've never seen an all-ages rave lit almost exclusively by the ambient glow of mock lightsabers, you haven't really been to the tenth level of nerd awesome. Seriously. It was enough for me disavow my whitehood for a few minutes and actually, legitimately dance (to Teo Cruz, of all things). I was shaky at first, but then the universe conspired to assist me, delivering the one and only track that I will unashamedly dance to, regardless of occasion.

Judge if you like, but Jay-Boy can bring it when my music is with me.

Hickman had to bow out for a while, so I flew solo for a bit. I can neither confirm nor deny that lightsaber limbo went down. (It totally did.)

I drifted out a short time later. There was an attempt to attend an Abney Park concert across the lobby, but my now 16-hours-in contacts decided to leap from my irises in protest, and by the time I fought through the Gauntlet of Marriott Elevators to my room and fixed said contacts, I was too beat to make it back downstairs. I crashed about 1:00 am, filled with a strange auditory echo of sea-shanty filking and apocalyptic predicto-singing overlaid with mid-level house music. You pretty much only get that at Dragon*Con, which apparently is also the only place you'll catch me attempting to dance.

Geek Mardi Gras, indeed. Two days of Dragon*Con down. Two to go.

[To be continued...]

What were the 'controversial' call signs for the Apollo 10 spacecraft - The ones that got astronauts' naming rights taken away?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:40:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaLittle known fact: Apollo 10 was the last NASA mission in which astronauts were allowed to assign call signs to their spacecraft. Since then, NASA public relations has had final say on naming rights, in no small part because the Apollo 10 crew chose "controversial" names for their command module and lunar lander.

So, what were those rights-robbing call signs? There are two places to find out:

Techtalk Podcast #237: Apollo 10 astronauts gave what unconventional call signs to their lunar and command modules, marking the last time astronauts were allowed to provide the names?
Geek Trivia: What were the 'controversial' call signs for the Apollo 10 spacecraft?

Old-school comics fans will get a kick out of this one. Promise.

What English township is the official technical namesake of broken profanity filters?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:03:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaOf the various and sundry reasons we're all anxiously awaiting the semantic web, perhaps the most overlooked motivator is a desire for smarter profanity filters. This is especially true of two groups: Residents of certain English township which is the namesake of semantically dumb text filters, and a medieval aficionados who suffered rather comically at the hands of a rather famously stupid online profanity blocker.

Here's where you can learn about both:

TechTalk Podcast #239: What is the synonym for the word “medieval” that exists only because of a malfunctioning profanity filter?
Geek Trivia: What English town is infamous for its role in testing early profanity filters?

Both items answer both questions, but from opposite ends. I encourage you to consume both and decide which is better, and not just because I like farming page views to my friends and sidejob employers. (OK, mostly that, but not entirely.)

Which Manhattan Project scientist won the betting pool to determine the explosive yield of the first atomic bomb?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaRemember when those wacky Los Alamos boys inaugurated the nuclear arms race by detonating the world's first atomic explosive?

Well, as humans are wont to do, those Manhattan Projectors laid out a little wagering action as to exactly how explosive said atomic gadget would turn out to be. So the question becomes: Who won the Trinity Test betting pool?

You can find out one of two ways:

Audio, via one of my appearances on TechTalk radio in Chicago (which includes some additional content about Chip Bell and John Patterson's new book Wired and Dangerous)
Text, via a recent Geek Trivia column (which includes pithy commentary from my Geekend readership)

Hint: The guy who won the pool is probably more famous in medical circles than he is in the halls of physics. Maybe.

Dragon*Con 2011: A n00b's Tale, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:58:00 +0000

Image by Cayusa via FlickrFRIDAY

[Be forewarned, this more a memory core-dump than structured narrative. It's gonna get rough.]

Despite the rather exhaustive and enthralling nature of the preceding day, Dragon*Con doesn't actually begin until the Friday of Labor Day weekend. Being the early riser (*cough* non-drinker *cough*) amongst my roommates, I awoke about 8:00 am, quietly showered and dressed, then descended the only slightly overcrowded elevators in search of food, and the location of my first panel.

This is where the Dragon*Con mobile app came in very handy. I had no less than three events scheduled for every hour of the day, but I tried foolishly to whittle those down to single choices for Friday, focusing on the Writer's Track if only to hue to that with which I was most familiar. The App also had some very comprehensive maps of the host hotels, but the map which showed the location of said hotels lacked a legend, so I had no idea which of the five labeled spots was the Westin. Basically, I knew where the Marriott was because I was sleeping there, and I knew how to reach the Hyatt via the PeachTree Center Mall connected via skybridge to my hotel. This helped narrow my choices of starter panels, as well.

(Quick aside: Money tends to evaporate at Dragon*Con, especially if you buy food in the hotels. The Peachtree Center food court, attached to the Hyatt and Marriott, is far cheaper but difficult from which to extract wholesome food. Your best bets are Jack's Sandwich Shop, which does a moderately good breakfast and lunch, and Farmer's Basket, which offers actual vegetables to go with roast chicken or meatloaf. I commend them unto you.)

I decided to avoid the celebrity-centric early panels, for which the lines were rumored to be both epic and spaz-laden. I also have an innate talent for proving myself ultra-nerdly even with nerd contexts, so naturally I gravitated toward the panels which most obviously resembled college lectures rather than high-potency public fangasms.

Yes, I totally went to the Man-Powered Weapons two-part panel from the Armory track, which discussed the historical origins and engineering realities of bladed, thrown, and drawn weaponry. The panel was nestled into the dungeon-like bowels of the Hyatt, a hotel with no less than three basement levels in two separate towers that connect via a byzantine collection of escalators and tunnels. By Monday evening I'd know the area like layout of Serenity, but at 9am on Friday I wandered around with the equivalent expression of a flashing n00b icon.

Complicating matters is that the Hyatt's two main ballrooms are host to A) the Dragon*Con art show (which I sadly never had chance to peruse; sorry, Kyle) and B) a woefully undersized theater for doing the aforementioned celebrity panels. Naturally, Dragon*con led off with a heavy-hitter: William Shatner. His panel was actually titled "$#!% My Captain Says" which was all I needed to know to avoid it, and this was before all the anti-Shatner ranting kicked into gear later in the weekend. (Stay tuned.) I ran into Courtney Warfield again as the line formed for the Shat-Man well in advance -- she warned me away before the throngs of Kirk fanboys descended en masse. This also made navigating the Hyatt even more trying.

When I finally found the man-powered weapons panel, I was fiendishly early. This gave me my choice of seats, which I used to select an end-space near a power outlet. (Pro Tip: Every cell network gets overwhelmed at Dragon*Con, so your handset will spend the weekend in quasi-roaming mode and therefore will eat power like and off-the-wagon Oprah at a half-price buffet. Pack your charger and employ it with zeal.) I originally intended to only take in the first half of the seminar -- the swords, not the bows and slings -- and then hike over to the Westin for the Stargate: Universe restrospective panel. (Yes, a just-canceled show with less than 2 full seasons of fan-unsatisfying episodes still merits a retrospective, especially when it may have killed a franchise.) My experience trying to suss out the Hyatt's layout, and my notice of how early one needed to plan for media-centric panels, convinced me I was better off staying in the Hyatt's dungeons than divining the location of the still unknown Westin. Again: me = n00b.

The panel filled up with a bizarre mix of Tolkien cosplayers, Street Fighter cosplayers, and a wide swath of those coke-bottle glasses guys with fanny packs who know a scary amount about high-powered firearms and haunt the local game shop without ever actually playing anything at the demo table. Yeah, those guys. In any case, a middle-aged gent who all but screamed "former infantry sergeant" by his fatigued snark, even if he wasn't wearing fatigues (pun!), introduced himself as the moderator and then spent and hour breaking down the belabored differences between flint and obsidian blades, copper versus bronze swords, Japanese versus European steel, and the finer points of (pun!) forging katanas. Apparently, the issue for medieval Japan was an absence of coal for their forges, which led to innovative uses of charcoal and hammer-folded steel. Also, katanas aren't forged as curved blades, they curve when the heated steel is quenched, and the proper temperature to quench the steel was a closely guarded secret. It was surprisingly awesome. Even if I wasn't Westin-averse, I would have stayed for the second panel, especially when the host had to break lecture to take a call confirming the minigun had arrived for the armory next door.

Oh, yeah, there was an armory next door.

An Atlanta PD officer stood guard over a compact but chilling collection of swords, axes, machine guns, sniper rifles, bows, spears, and a training mockup of a backpack nuke. The Venn diagram crossover of rednecks and sci-fi/fantasy geeks was distilled to its essence in that room. It smelled like gun oil, flop sweat and Cheetos. I believe that's the quantum antiparticle for estrogen, but I'd rather not test the theory.

The second panel was less interesting, but that was merely an example of suffering by comparison. I did learn that using a crossbow against nobility in Medieval Europe was an excommunicateable offense, largely for the sake of preserving the tithe-base, so the panel had that going for it, which was nice.

My next panel was a modestly titled Writer's Track event: "Breaking In - How It's Done." The lineup was an all-female group of authors and editors who, with the exception of Gail Z. Martin, I'd never heard of. This was my first disappointment with Dragon*Con: There was nothing to be learned here I hadn't heard a thousand times before, with the exception of a bit of brutal honesty of which I was already somewhat aware. The Big 6 are shrinking, small presses are rising. Be professional. Query well. Publish short stories to earn an agent. There are no overnight successes. Never pay a reading fee. Edit, edit, edit.

The one useful admission, though I knew it already? Publishers are looking for authors with existing audiences and existing promotional platforms. Moderately talented writers with healthy blog-Twitter-Facebook followings are more likely to get published than very talented new media Luddites. With so much of the promotional burden and risk being shifted back to authors, publishers want to be certain you can pimp your own stuff before they invest in you. Bloggers are the new midlist authors.

This I already knew.

Also, romance readers are the most voracious and technologically adept demographic, especially if you skew towards erotica. There's a reason every third sci-fi/fantasy bookcover shows a bare-midriffed leather-clad heroine with a tribal tramp stamp: It sells like gangbusters.

Again, this I already knew.

Following up this panel was the first scheduling snub of Dragon*Con: Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta's infamous "Things I Wish Some Pro Had Told Me" double-panel was actually double-booked with the "Is Traditional Publishing Extinct?" panel anchored by Lou Anders and Peter David. The solution was to limit the former to 90 minutes with no break between it and the latter.

The KJA/Moesta panel was, again, stuff I already knew except some niggling tidbit about the mechanics of editing an anthology. Still, I'll give the panelists credit: they used some very entertaining personal anecdotes to convey the harsh realities of life as a pro writer. Aside from Timothy Zahn, KJA is probably the most influential Star Wars Expanded Universe novelist out there, especially since he and Moesta wrote not only the Jedi Academy series, but also pitched and edited the Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina/Tales of the Bounty Hunters/Tales From Jabba's Palace trilogy. KJA pitched the series offhandedly while working on a coffee table book of Ralph McQuarrie art at Skywalker Ranch. And how did he get that job? He was the only established Star Wars EU author within driving distance of Skywalker Ranch, so he'd be cheaper to bring in to talk to Ralph.

This is the level of planning that goes into the Star Wars franchise, and the kind of strange breaks that define careers. I expect many bubbles were burst by the end of that particular panel, and not just of the career variety.

Now, I've worked in online publishing for the better part of a decade, though not of the fiction variety, so I came into the "Is Traditional Publishing Extinct?" panel with a great many preconceptions and opinions. None were really challenged: The Big 6 are in the blockbuster business, midlisters need not apply. Ebook rights are the best friend to anybody with an established brand an extensive backlist, but they're a lousy way to launch a career. Small presses that don't need to play the physical publishing game except for limited collector runs or print-on-demand regional distribution are a great place to launch a carer, just make sure that you -- as always -- have a contract that sunsets your rights, especially your e-publishing rights, so you can take your ball and go home (or to the Big 6) if and when the time and money are right.

No revelations, but seeing Peter David spar with the contingent from Baen Books was fun. Also, I got some nice inside-baseball on why Wizards of the Coast no longer has a fiction arm: Their contracts required authors to spend 20 percent of their advances on promoting the book, and they were expected to document their efforts with receipts. Effective marketing is one of the last arrows in a publisher's quiver. If you aren't doing that for me, all you really are is a loan shark fronting me my advance -- with my book rights as collateral. Thanks, but no.

Somewhere in here, I think I ate some kind of lunch, but it's really a blur.

The Worldbuilding panel I attended next was equally disappointing, if only because the authors merely pimped their works rather than offering techniques for better fictional worldbuilding.

Luckily, the main event was on the horizon.

Somebody had the genius idea to pit noted libertarian and military sci-fi firebrand John Ringo opposite a leftist political science professor on a panel called "Liberals in Space."

You can't make this stuff up.

The panel managed to establish an air of fraught tension as early as the introductions, when the moderator -- who actually turned out to be a very solid guy -- described himself as a "teabagging racist."

The first 15 minutes of debate were almost (but not quite) cordial, with distinctions being made between small-L liberalism in the classic sense, and modern Liberalism, which is perhaps better distinguished as Social Democratic politics in the modern European mode. Ringo and the professor -- his name escapes me, though he was a man of African descent with a European accent, which is an important detail -- began to spar over whether multiculturalism and government intervention were ever successful. Examples such as Barbados were bandied about when the professor cheap-shotted Ringo with an "at one point men like you kept men like me as slaves" retort.

Ringo grabbed his bag and bolted for the door muttering "no, no..." then stopped midway, turned, and shouted (as best I can remember), the following: "My great-great-grandfather was a slave. We never owned slaves. We bought and created freemen. FUCK YOU!" Then he slammed the door open and disappeared into the larger Hyatt, not to return.

This, as you might imagine, derailed the panel for a spell.

For the next five minutes the liberals and conservatives in the crowd shouted stereotypes at each other while the rest of us began to wonder if or when we could leave without looking like assholes. Luckily, the aforementioned moderator somehow conjured up a replacement conservative panelist from elsewhere at the con, and we somehow managed to resume the panel. It was almost miraculous. With the tension expunged, a rather lively discussion of what political ideologies were most accommodating of space travel flowered from the manure of the first 20 minutes of ego-posturing.

The conclusion, for what it's worth, is that it will almost certainly take a state-sponsored effort to underwrite any serious space colonization, and that the first colonists -- especially if generational ships are involved -- will require military discipline to survive. Perhaps more importantly, no matter what ideology the generational crew had when they launched, the crew that arrived would almost certainly be vastly different, if only for having lived in confinement and given birth to generations raised in a confined environment. It was actually very stimulating.

I wandered back to my room, as it was now 8 pm, and scrounged up a turkey sandwich from my roommates' supplies. I needed to decompress, but the con was still going strong, still calling to me. The last panel had finally delivered on the memorable experience that the preceding hours had failed to offer or even hint at, if in unexpected fashion. I need something I could sink my teeth into. Something that would strike right at the core of my fandom, and would spark discussion debate and outright passion from the audience.

Yeah, I was going to "Star Trek Reboot Review" panel.

I headed back to the Sheraton, where I spent a big chunk of Thursday waiting in line for my convention badge. The entire hotel, while not a central venue, was entirely devoted to the Star Trek programming track, or at least it seemed. It was two blocks way, and the walk in the muggy evening air helped clear my head. Throngs of geeks coursed through the sidewalks, with a Trek-centricty growing as I approached the Sheraton.

I arrived perhaps 15 minutes before the 10pm panel, and a small group was gathered outside, confused. Apparently, the Klingon Karaoke session had refused to relinquish the room despite running nearly a half-hour over schedule. There was a debate as to whether the Reboot panel would even happen. As the panel room opened and closed every few minutes, staffers passing in and out, heavyset cosplayers could be seen inside, belting out "Bust a Move" or "Enter Sandman" in bizarre fashion. (No, they weren't singing in Klingon, but the DJ was in full Kahless garb. I was not impressed.) A compromise was reached: everyone still in the queue to sing was allowed to finish their set, then the room would be turned over to us, a half hour late.

The karaoke energy lingered even after most of the singers and cosplayers left. Perhaps 40 of us remained, and for the next hour J. J. Abrams, Zach Quinto and Chris Pine were alternately celebrated and decried, often in the same sentence. Star Trek was indisputably cool again, but had it squandered its soul to go mainstream? Was this just a mindless action flick in Roddenberry drag? Was the franchise revived, cheapened, or both? It was invigorating, it was contentious, it was passionate. In short, it was everything I was looking for in a panel. Come 11:30, were were all crackling with energy and opinions.

Which is when the lights dimmed, the projector beamed, and the Paramount starfield gave way to the film in question. We sat in rapt attention, taking in every frame, every line, every mythology gag and remix of sacred canon. We laughed, we cheered, we ogled Uhura and her Orion roommate while Quinto and Pine made the other half swoon. It was electric. It was magical. It was the high note of my Friday.

Now 1:30 am, I practically hovered back to the Marriott, buoyed aloft by the glow of geekdom triumphant. The post-panel parties were just revving up, and even the nearby clubs were filled to the brim with cosplayers and their geek t-shirted brethren. I would not be joining them, as I needed to regain my strength.

Dragon*Con Day 1 down, Days 2 through 4 to go.

[To be continued...]

Dragon*Con 2011: A n00b's Tale, Part I.

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:33:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaAs some are aware, I was ordered by my wife to attend my first Dragon*Con this year. Now, I help run my local con and I attended Comic-Con in 2002, back when it was only twice as large as Dragon*Con, so I figured I was prepared for whatever D*C could throw at me.

Woe, the hubris of geeks.

THURSDAY

I arrived in Atlanta early Thursday morning (via a scandalously cheap Vision Airlines flight), and in less than 30 minutes I had found my people. As I sat on the MARTA train waiting for it to pull away to Peachtree Center (the nexus of Dragon*Con), a group of twenty-somethings dragging an obscene number of rollaway suitcases ambled aboard. They looked normal enough, though one of them smiled at my Redshirt as she boarded. In a few moments, they were complaining about lack of sleep and an excess of luggage, with at least one of them bemoaning that she stayed up until 2am sewing a sash for her Ms. Marvel costume.

"Classic Ms. Marvel, or her Binary costume?" I asked.

Six heads whipped in my direction, smiled, then the young lady answered. "Classic. The Binary has too much detail for my sewing skills."

And so my Dragon*Con began.

By the time we reached Peachtree some 20 minutes later, a full third of my traincar was D*C folk. I followed the crowd up into Peachtree Center Mall, where a middle-aged woman was greeted boisterously by her 30-something friend. The latter immediately converted into D*C Sherpa Mode^TM, a transformation that a large majority of Dragon*Con Veterans relish in. I sheepishly asked if I might eavesdrop, and was greeted with an almost dismissive "of course." Her data-dump is summarized below.

Peachtree Mall is the connective tissue of Dragon*Con, with skyways that link the Marriott and Hyatt hotels, a street entrance that opens a block from the Westin, the food court that would sustain me for the next five days, and access to the aforementioned MARTA train. As to landmarks, the Dairy Queen was next to the Hyatt skyway, YamiYami Sushi was next to the Marriott. The most important mnemonic for the weekend was H-M-H, Hilton-Marriott-Hyatt, which described the layout of the main Dragon*Con hotels, top to bottom. (There are actually five D*C venues that form a C, the Sheraton is two blocks to the "right" of the Hilton, while the Westin is two blocks to the right of the Hyatt. I wouldn't figure this out until late Friday.) The Marriott is the epicenter of Dragon*Con, and its massive atrium and lobby is the social-cosplay ground zero of the event. Overflow runs to the Hyatt and, to a lesser degree, the Hilton, but the beating heart of Dragon*Con is the Atlanta Marriott Marquis.

Guess where I was staying?

It was not yet 10am, and my roommates-slash-Dragon*Con-pledge-sponsors, John Hickman and Charles Thompson, wouldn't arrive until roughly noon. So I located the Marriott lobby to plan my next move. And then I saw the lobby.

Registration has just opened at the Sheraton hotel, but the line was reportedly already around the block (computer problems, I would later learn), and I didn't want to be stuck there and unable to help Charles and Hickman move in -- they would be carrying a metric Volvo-wagon-load's worth of food, costumes and luggage to underpin them for the next five days. (I, being a veteran one-bag traveler who doesn't cosplay, had a single backpack to my name. Charles and Hickman still boggle at my efficiency. It's really about me refusing to pay airline baggage fees.) So I sat myself down beneath a bar shaped like a two-story metal sailboat, began charging my phone, and took in the sights.

Thursday morning is literally the only portion of Dragon*Con where the majority of hotel occupants is not in costume. Non-cosplayers are the minority all weekend long. I didn't know it at the time, but the two hours I spent waiting for my roommates would be the last dose of "normal" I'd get until Tuesday morning. And that's for very strange values of normal. The lobby slowly filled with nerds of all ages wearing slogan t-shirts and dragging a truly staggering amount of luggage into the hotel. It took less than two hours for the Marriott to shift from "barely inhabited" to "overrun with geeks that are already standing in line for the elevator." Yes, seriously.

Charles and Hickman arrived about 12:30, and I helped them unload two nearly-toppling luggage trolleys worth of gear into the hotel. (Pro Tip: You can't not use the bell staff for this; the hotel won't allow it. Be prepared to tip, and well.) Included in this haul was more alcohol than I'd seen since Freshman Disorientation in college. Seriously, this pair had nearly 200 beers of various types, plus coolers full of food, liquor and the ultra-liquor carefully distilled as part of cultural tradition unique to Appalachia, which is known by a nickname synonymous with the reflected luminosity of Earth's most prominent natural satellite. (Pay attention, this will be important later.)

We were stopped by the Sheriff's Department three seconds into the hotel lobby. Now, I don't drink, so I had no dog in this fight. Nonetheless, my roomies had to pack out about two-thirds of their joy juice before they were allowed inside. (They brought it back later in stages.) For those of you planning to party hardy at your next Dragon*Con, either disguise your booze when importing it to the hotel, or plan for multiple trips into the venue.

By 1pm we had the gear stowed on our 21st-floor room, and I was off to the Sheraton for my first "Lines of Dragon*Con" experience. Registration had been open for three hours -- six hours earlier than originally planned, to accommodate crowds -- and the line was already two-thirds of the way around the Sheraton, which occupies a large city block. Of course, this kind of social confinement makes for fast friends, and my line-mates and I quickly began developing a ritual to prompt the line to move -- usually by sitting down or arranging ourselves behind some shade. (It's midday in Atlanta in late summer, and geeks don't have much experience with direct sunlight.)

Those of us who had the Dragon*Con smartphone app also helped those that didn't download said application to begin planning their schedules. (Pro tip, don't omit the asterisk from Dragon*Con if you want to locate the app. It's free, it's awesome and I couldn't have gotten as much as did out of D*C without it.) Most of us would have killed for a cold drink during the line, but Atlanta has strict laws preventing unlicensed street vending, so there was a need unmet and an opportunity lost for all involved. We finally made it inside the Sheraton about 3:00 pm, by which time the line completely circled the hotel and they were adding serpentine gauntlets of velvet rope inside the loading dock to keep the Circle of Patience from crossing over itself.

As soon as we got inside, the whiskey came out.

A group of college kids began passing around a bottle to nearby occupants of the internal serpentine velvet rope line, which took up the entire ground floor ballroom of the hotel. We were there perhaps 30 minutes, sharing war stories and plans for the next week, when suddenly the line began moving at breakneck pace.

The computers were fixed. A process that previously required several minutes to deliver preregistered badges now took perhaps 30 seconds. Twenty different stations began churning out badges at warp speed. I was in daylight by 4pm: badge, program, and pocket guide in hand.

In the three hours time I was in line, Hickman and Charles (who paid extra to buy on site, rather than pre-register, so they got their badges in 10 minutes) had our hotel room rearranged into a Fortress of Geekitude, even going so far as to build me a nice little quasi-bedroom for my rollaway cot.

The next two hours were spent trolling through the Dragon*Con app, selecting every conceivable panel I might like to attend. This generally resulted in having no less than three possible activities every hour of every day from Friday to Monday. The rookie move was to try and whittle that down to a single option each day, which was my gameplan for Friday. By Friday's end, I learned why that was sheer folly. (Hold that thought.)

Then came dinner at the swanky High Velocity burger bar in the Marriott and the first of many new friends made, including some associates of Courtney Warfield (I know a surprising number of Nashville geeks at this point) that dressed as a rather impressive River Song and a Dalek, respectively. No less than three hours evaporated over camaraderie forged from mutual geek interests. Exhausted, I retired to my room to watch some college football before the morning's festivities began. I'd had a full day of nerd awesome, met new friends, saw new things and laughed until I cried.

And Dragon*Con hadn't even started yet.

[to be continued...]

How many parents did Dolly the cloned sheep actually have?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:22:00 +0000

Image by Bigod via FlickrEverybody remember Dolly, the first real-life clone that ever got significant mainstream press coverage? Well, as is often the case, the science fact of Dolly is rather more bizarre than your typical clone-oriented science fiction. Turns out Dolly had a rather unorthodox number of parents, depending on how you define the term. How many? I'll tell you two ways:

The latter podcast also has some nice ancillary material about the fate of the human brain from Matt Richtel and a tidbit about Intel's Museum of Me.

Need more trivia? Try one of the labels at the bottom of this post.

What two movies created by a famous Hollywood geek pushed the PG rating so far that the MPAA created PG-13?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:29:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaYet another of my infamous TechTalk radio appearances has been archived online, wherein I ponder what two movies created by a famous Hollywood geek pushed the PG rating so far that the MPAA created PG-13?

More importantly, there are vague implications that Google's self-driving cars may be a secret contingency plan to stave off a Decepticon invasion. You decide.

So I've been ordered to Dragon*Con

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:02:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaMy wife has informed me that I am required to attend this year's Dragon*Con. I've never been, and as we're expecting our second child in December, this may be my last chance for quite a while. Thus, if anyone has any tips for a Dragon*Con n00b -- fair warning, I've been to San Diego Comic-Con, so I'm acquainted with cons at large scales -- I'd be glad to hear them. Moreover, if you're a known acquaintance attending Dragon*Con and are interesting in splitting a ride and/or hotel digs, look me up.

Also: BEST WIFE EVER.

ReaderCon, the pros and cons

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:45:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaI spent all of three hours at this year's ReaderCon, the famous Boston-based literary science fiction and fantasy convention. Somehow that qualified me to expound upon the features of the event via my latest appearance on the SFSignal podcast. Not to worry, the panel discussion includes actual informed opinions from the likes of:

Give it a listen, especially if you're a lit-centric sci-fi nerd.

Per usual my rap sheet of past SF Signal podcast transgressions is available here.

What 2 modern game console rivals almost collaborated on a single game system?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Image by Andrew-LGP via FlickrOnce again, I posit a question in the form of Geek Trivia in not one, but tow different formats. You can learn which of the modern console-cranking triumvirate -- Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft -- almost tag-teamed the video game market in efficient text form in my latest Geek Trivia column on TechRepublic's Geekend blog.

If you want to auditorially luxuriate with the question, check out my TechTalk radio version of the tidbit, with additional content on Bitcoin, public education and other web-based minutia of interest.

I love manned spaceflight and I'm glad the space shuttle is dead

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:34:00 +0000

Image by 8BitKid via FlickrThe space shuttle is the last vestige of NASA's poltical theater era, when big, showy, hideously inefficient and unsupportable technical projects were its bread and butter. It's Nixon-era tech -- literally -- strung along for all the same government inertia keep-the-contractors-happy idiocy that's bankrupting our national treasury.

Consider, the shuttle is a reusable spacecraft that isn't actually reusable, given that the SRBs and main fuel tank are either lost or nearly 100% refitted after every launch. It's a construction platform for a spacestation that only needs a construction platform to assemble because it was badly designed by a lets-get-everyone-involved international consortium. The shuttle can retrieve cargo from orbit -- a task that no one wants or needs. And it can ferry crew and cargo to orbit simultaneously, which is actually a terrible idea as it's cheaper -- and far safer -- to send crew and cargo up separately on smaller, task-specific craft. The Progress cargo ships and modern Soyuz capsules are examples of this principle.

Like most government projects, the shuttle looks good on camera and makes for great press, but is actually a terribly impractical and inefficient solution to a complicated set of problems.

And don't get me started on how bad the ISS is at every task it's been assigned.

Human spaceflight is 50 years old. We're past the "do it just to prove we can" stage. It's time to be grownups. It's time to build space technology that solves real problems in practical ways, rather than in ways that make contractors and photographers happy. We can achieve low earth orbit really easily and keep humans in that environment for months or years. We get it. We're good at it. Time to move on.

Now, if you want LEO cheaply, that's not what the government is good at. That's the job of the private sector. Government paves the way. The market makes it profitable. It's time for profitable LEO and human orbital habitation. NASA's job is to pave the way for the next level of hard stuff, and the next level is REALLY HARD.

Where is my advanced asteroid detection and deflection system? That's a serious problem that NASA should be solving and isn't.

Where is my proof-of-concept Helium-3 extractor for the moon, which would give us a legitimate reason for going there?

Where is my methane-oxygen autofactory for Mars, which is required before we even think about sending humans in that direction?

Where is my Lagrange-point automated telescope, which would make the Hubble look like a kid's toy magnifying glass and would actually require us to deal with serious, complex at-a-distance systems maintenance -- the kind of thing space colonies will represent?

Where is my FRAKKING SPACE ELEVATOR, which would actually be a serious surface-to-orbit gamechanger?

NASA has better things to do than keeping 30-year-old tech around for nostalgic PR purposes. I, for one, am glad to see them putting away childish things and -- hopefully -- getting down to serious business.

Why does the last space shuttle flight have the smallest crew in a quarter century?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:19:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaI'm back in the Geek Trivia game full throttle on two fronts: TechTalk radio and TechRepublic's Geekend, asking why the final space shuttle mission will only carry four astronauts into orbit, which hasn't happened since Michael Jordan still wore Carolina blue.

Quoth the Geekend:

"Not since the maiden flight of Challenger in 1983 has a space shuttle operated with just a four-man complement. This reduced crew size can accommodate the extra payload on STS-135, but the payload isn’t the reason Atlantis is flying with the smallest crew in 28 years. That’s just a bonus."

I divulge NASA's secret in efficient text form via the Geekend, but go into more auditory detail on TechTalk. The latter podcast also includes an unrelated interview with the authors of The Techno-Human Condition (affiliate link), which is a fine primer on transhumanism. It's worth a listen above and beyond my trivial contributions.

The most popular thing I've ever written (makes fun of SyFy Channel movies)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:28:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaWhen you Google my name, Jay Garmon -- and yes, I do this from time to time, for all the same reasons you'd expect -- only a single actual piece of writing earns first-page results. Winnow away all my social media profiles and bio pages and the intentional Google-bomb that is my blog URL, and you're left with a column I wrote in 2007 postulating on where Sci-Fi [sic] Channel movies really come from.

I take potshots at studio scriptwriting processes, B-list actors, the LA County sheriff's department, Perl and Corin Nemec (who is Parker Lewis and therefore a separate category from B-List) along the way. How this particular little gem of a column found it's way into Google's good graces I'm unclear, but I'll take the publicity where I can get it. My ego-surfing results change day to day (thanks, Panda), but this post has stayed a consistent first-page winner for a very long time.

I expect that the popularity is due to several factors, all obtuse:

Link equity: A few sci-fi and writer blogs cross-linked to this post when it went live 4 years ago, and I expect those links are still valuable
Longevity: As noted, 4 years is a long time to acquire link equity in Google's eyes
Authoritative URL: Say what you will about TechRepublic, but Google doesn't think they're a content farm
Keywords: I snark on a topic that many have snarked about before, and thus this is the most popular item to which my name is attached, Moreover, I hit a large number of topics and keywords in the progress of the post, which gives me a minor little Google boost along the way

If you're curious, I invite you to take a look at what I actually used to get paid to write, and the kind of thing I expect I'll be writing once more now that my noncompete has expired and I have clearance to work for CBS Interactive as a contractor again.

Oh, and the moral of the story? You never know which line-item on your bibliography will be the most long-lived or well received, so don't be any more of an asshole than absolutely necessary.

My favorite unappreciated alien invasion story

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaMy favorite unappreciated alien invasion story is revealed -- alongside the more cogent and/or traditional selections from Jeff Patterson, Lisa Paitz Spindler, Jamie Todd Rubin, Fred Kiesche, John DeNardo and Patrick Hester -- in the latest edition of the SF Signal podcast. Comic book nerds will probably get a jolt from my nomination, especially if you're younger than 25.

Give a listen. You'll love it or your money back.

As always my rap sheet of past SF Signal podcast misdemeanors is available here.

TechTalk Trivia: What medieval poet and author is responsible for the modern day celebration of April Fool’s?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:17:00 +0000

Image by Mykl Roventine via FlickrAnother Saturday, another horrifying example of my radio non-talent, courtesy of TechTalk WRLR in Chicago. This week, I enthrall listeners with the knowledge of which medieval poet and author is responsible for the modern day celebration of April Fool’s. Thankfully, the show is rescued from my pedantry with a discussion of how to recycle your old cell phones in service to a good cause. Give a listen.

Jay Garmon [dot] Net

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