Jay Garmon [dot] Net

Why being a "logistics city" could be Louisville's ultimate downfall

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:29:00 +0000

UPS-Truck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A staggering number of us Louisvillians are giddily patting ourselves on the back for the flattering portrait of our hometown recently painted by the National Journal, the apex of which was this brief missive on how much business the UPS Worldport has brought to the Derby City.

In truth, that article just threw down the gauntlet of how and why Louisville must prepare for the future, because that which makes us wealthy now will not persist.

The advent of 3D printing will decimate the logistics industry just as surely as the advent of the Internet decimated the content publishing industry. If Louisville is to survive the next-thirty-years' shift from centralized to distributed bespoke manufacturing, we need to position ourselves now.

Don't let the wildly misunderstood panic about 3D-printed handguns distract you from what is really coming in 3D printing. There are two phases to the coming industrial revolution. The first is bespoke production.

Perhaps the best example from recently headlines have been the custom-created action figures that let you put your face on a Star Trek or Star Wars toy. These are unique items designed specifically for you, but in a centralized manner. For a time, at least, these concepts will still benefit from centralized production and conventional logistics.

This sort of bespoke production will expand into other industries, such that I won't buy an off-the-rack t-shirt any more, but every item I get from ThinkGeek or Eddie Bauer is tailored to fit me. (Celebrities already do this with conventional clothes and traditional tailors; bespoke production will bring this advantage to everyone.) Low-end commodity items may not move there very quickly, and these items will continue to benefit from economies of scale, but the shift will be in general away from small-medium-large commodity sizes to personalized fits. Wal-mart may be fine, but Mall St. Matthews should be worried.

There will be an interesting status-consumption trend away from generic sizes, where only the poor (and hipsters) wear off-the-rack, though I expect Big Data will offer at least a short-lived backlash of wide-variety mass-production styles. If analytics can introduce 13 new positions for basketball players, they can certainly invent something better than Size 10 and 34-C, with a wider permutation of sizes and shapes to accommodate a wider variety of body types.

All of this will still leverage centralized production and logistics, but it's just a phase.

The next and more permanent phase, and the one that will kill modern logistics, is decentralized production.

Rather than run off estimated lots of cheap, generically-sized goods in big factories and then ship them, just in time, to consumption points, we'll sidestep nearly all of the supply chain and fabricate consumer goods ourselves at or close to home. Furniture, clothing, and even food will be custom-produced to our exact needs: a jacket that fits perfectly (especially considering the extra five pounds you gain during the holidays, the time of year you wear it the most), a bookshelf that fits precisely behind that weird-sized door in the spare bedroom and has shelf heights tweaked for your carefully curated physical scrapbooks, and even tank-grown meat with just the right fat percentage, thickness, portion size and mineral content that it grills to medium rare exactly when and how you like it.

You'll pick all of it up at local bespoke producers or synthesize it at home in your kitchen or craft room. (Indeed, some form of workshop may be the new must-have home venue that complements the yuppie requirements of a mud room, home theater and yoga studio.)

It sounds like science fiction, but ask the dwindling number of employees down at the Courier-Journal how it feels for the "that will never happen" crowd running your industry to be proven horrifically wrong. We have robot cars with laser cannons on Mars, actual Star Trek tricorders available for purchase and we're printing organic lung splints like we're Bones McCoy. Heck, the present looks more like classic Star Trek than the new Star Trek movie and you think there's a future in an industry based on moving boxes around airports?

UPS has been very good to Louisville and should be praised for it. We probably have another 20-30 years of good times on that gravy train, which means I'll retire in the warm glow of the WorldPort but my daughters will hit career-prime just as the bespoke revolution guts the Derby City economy.

The bespoke future is coming. We can make the moves to own it now, or be caught looking when somewhere else becomes the bespoke development capital of the world. Louisville is perfectly positioned to become a bespoke epicenter precisely because we're a logistics hub that can thrive during the adolescence of this industry. We can ride the wave of 3D printing and all it entails, or be drowned by it.

I, for one, plan to learn to surf.

Why May 1 is NSFW

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Hat tip to John Scalzi for reminding that today is the official date for enjoying the world's least polite rite of Spring, courtesy of Jonathan Coulton.

The best stories of April 2013 (according to my Twitter feed)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:07:00 +0000

Superheroine Long Beach Comic Con 2011 (Photo credit: richcz3)

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Are fantasy readers less demanding (or less logical) than sci-fi fans?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:40:00 +0000

Storm Trooper Jayne (Photo credit: Cayusa)

We all know that one guy who claims to love science fiction but throws a galactic hissy fit if any story involves faster-than-light travel. But is that FTL-snob typical of science fiction in a way that, say, historical swordcraft experts are not typical of epic fantasy?

In other words, are sci-fi fans more anal about details than fantasy readers?

SF Signal convened another panel of qualified experts (and me) to debate the issue via podcast. Those answering better than me include:

I hesitate to say we arrived at a conclusion, except for, "FTL snob guy? Lighten up."

As always, my litany of past SF Signal podcast sins is available here.

Kickstarter doesn't validate your product; it validates your pitch (and that's okay)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:20:00 +0000

I came here to praise Kickstarter, not to bury it, but this article on major corporations using Kickstarter for product research reminded me of a lesson we covered at the Louisville Digital Association's crowdfunding workshop a few months ago: Kickstarter is sales training, not product research.

Well, that's not entirely fair. Kickstarter does provide some basic market research about your product description and maybe your price point, but only in the context of your marketing. Kickstarter can't validate a product that doesn't exist. It can only validate what you're putting in front of the consumer and all Kickstarter puts in front of the consumer is your marketing pitch.

Kickstarter validates your marketing pitch, not your product.

If you look at a Venn diagram of Kickstarter enthusiasts and iterative design/lean startup fanatics, you'd basically see two circles atop one another. Yet somehow, when discussing the virtues of Kickstarter, everyone forgets perhaps the single greatest virtue of agile development -- continuous iterative feedback from customers using the actual product.

Under iterative design, customers point out the strengths and weaknesses of your offering, allowing you to improve it over and over again until you reach optimal product-market fit. You can't have product-market fit until the actual product goes to market. Your product doesn't go to market until months or years after your Kickstarter campaign is over.

With Kickstarter, all you're getting is feedback on a slick video and some blog posts about a product you might build someday if you get enough money and don't frak it up. That's not product research; that's the impulse buyer's supermarket checkout line-equivalent of VC money. Stop calling it product research and product validation -- it isn't, and the difference is important.

It's entirely possible to have an extremely successful Kickstarter campaign that leads you to delivering a product everyone hates and ends up a waste of time, money and your own reputation. Success on Kickstarter in no way guarantees a successful product.

But everyone should use Kickstarter (or something like it) anyway. Here's why: Building the perfect product using lean/agile principles is also no guarantee of a successful business. The history books are littered with superior products (Dvorak keyboards, betamax VCRs) that failed in the marketplace because they couldn't be sold well.

Validating your marketing is at least as important as validating your product.

The single greatest barrier to success for all startups and products is customer acquisition. That's why growth hacking is getting so much play these days; marketing is hard and we're willing to resort to math -- something marketers innately hate -- to make it more viable.

All this crap about "marketing is for products that suck" is just that -- crap. The world won't beat a path to your door just because you built a better mousetrap. You have to tell the world about your mousetrap so they know it exists, and you have to tell them in such a way they can't help but see it's better. After that follows profit. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an underpants gnome.

Kickstarter forces you to make a compelling sales pitch for a product that doesn't exist yet. It takes the two most potent weapons in your marketing arsenal -- the sales demo and the satisfied customer referral -- out of play. You have to convince someone to part with money strictly on spec. That's really hard, but if you pull it off you've got a pretty solid foundation for your marketing efforts once you have an actual product. (It's also why established creators with established followings do well on Kickstarter these days; they have a prebuilt marketing channel that's already interested in their products.)

Use Kickstarter to prove you can market your product; that's what it's for. From there, you can pivot to using lean/agile to build an actual successful product. These are two halves of a successful business, and you can't neglect either. Before you jump into a Kickstarter campaign, be certain you remember that.

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If you've read this far, you should follow me on Twitter.

Twitter's 27 favorite links from Dec. 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 14:33:00 +0000

Below are the 27 links I shared on Twitter in Dec. 2012 that subsequently earned at least 100 clicks

Stats gathered via Buffer.

Some poor fools think I'm an authority on startups

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 16:37:00 +0000

Photo (Photo credit: Jay Garmon)

Here's me getting profiled by Insider Louisville, which characterizes me as...

"[A]bout as close as Louisville has to a start-up nomad. That specie of homo technicus so common in San Francisco and Silicon Valley is vital to creating, then sustaining, any city’s entrepreneurial culture. The swashbuckler who jumps from big corporation to start-up, start-up to big corporation. At the Louisville level, it’s extremely rare because there aren’t that many viable startup-to-corporate-to-startup opportunities."

It goes on from there. I'll be over here wondering who the heck they're actually talking about, 'cause surely that can't be me.

Twitter's 43 favorite links from Nov. 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:43:00 +0000

Jeff Bezos (Photo credit: Dunechaser)

Below are the 43 links I shared on Twitter in Nov. 2012 that subsequently earned at least 100 clicks.

Stats gathered via Buffer.

Holiday gift ideas: The hard sci-fi starter kit

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Hard science fiction is often code for "sci fi that requires the reader to do math" -- it's a label that turns off not just non-sci-fi fans, but even devout but nontechnical science fiction fanatics. Are there hard sci-fi books that not only overcome this label, but might imbue a nascent love of the subgenre?

The SF Signal Irregulars say yes (in podcast form).

Patrick Hester, Jeff Patterson, Paul Weimer and (sadly) me build a reading list to tempt even the staunchest hard sci-fi doubter. And, yes, Ringworld makes multiple appearances.

[BONUS: We stop mid-podcast to disabuse Patrick of the notion that The 13th Warrior is a good movie. I may have instigated this intervention. I also haven't been invited back to the podcast since. Coincidence? I think not.]

If you're looking for the nerdiest of all possible holiday gifts, this podcast is an ultra-geeky idea factory. Take a listen.

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

15 most popular links for October 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:28:00 +0000

Below are the 15 links I shared on Twitter in Oct. 2012 that subsequently earned at least 100 clicks.

Stats gathered via Buffer.

The 33 best stories, pictures and ideas of Sept. 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Kickstarter (Photo credit: Scott Beale)

Below are the 33 links I shared on Twitter in Sept. 2012 that subsequently earned at least 100 clicks.

Black Swan Farming (890)
Things I’ve quit doing at my desk (692)
"The truth is that if your company sells hardware today, your business model is essentially over." (560)
The 2 Biggest Mistakes I Made When Learning to Code (491)
"A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup." (490)
29 Things I, as a designer, wish more tech startups knew (453)
Cosmo, the Hacker 'God' Who Fell to Earth (424)
"PayPal have all the power of a bank and yet none of the responsibility." (412)
Everything's broken and nobody's upset (376)
xkcd's Click-and-Drag megacomic in a zoomable map interface (330)
Web Design is 95% Typography (326)
The only 2 ways to build a $100 million business (316)
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. (309)
"Statistically, one third of all [PINs] can be guessed by trying just 61 distinct combinations!" (281)
Be nice to those that serve you (238)
Why Women Should Stop Trying to Be Perfect (224)
Stanford announces 16 free online courses for fall quarter (218)
The care and feeding of software engineers (or, why engineers are grumpy) (215)
What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology (187)
The Difference Between Apple & Amazon In One Chart (187)
Let Shit Happen (159)
Neil Gaiman's 8 Rules of Writing (158)
Meeting A Troll... (How the Anonymous Web Enables and Disguises Sociopathy) (154)
Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia (153)
Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama (146)
Solving Gen Y's Passion Problem (141)
Dear Programmer, I have an idea (135)
Marissa Mayer Tells Yahoo Employees Products Must Ship In 6 Months, Or Don't Bother (123)
"NoPassword means you don't need a password or a complicated OAuth scheme. Just email." (122)
Infographic - How big is our own solar system? (119)
Working From Home? You're a Better Worker (117)
Kickstarter Is Not a Store (111)
Amanda Palmer's Million-Dollar Music Project and Kickstarter's Accountability Problem (103)

Stats gathered via Buffer.

The 36 best stories, pictures and opinions of August 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Every link I shared in August 2012 that earned at least 50 clicks on Twitter:

Stats compiled with Buffer.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:08:00 +0000

[Note: I finish this series almost a year after I first ventured to Dragon*Con. It was one of the great fan experiences of my life but, as I hope this final entry conveys, D*C isn't about the events or the celebrities or even the scale, it's about small moments between people who truly understand what fandom is, and fandom means.]

TUESDAY

The day after Dragon*Con 2011 finally ended, it finally ended. For the first time in a week I woke up with no where in particular to be. This is when "the end of Dragon*Con" started to feel real. There was no panel to attend, no line to queue up for, no crowd to beat. It was just time to go.

As usual, I arose before my roommates, showered, and left the room so as not to disturb them. When I walked to the elevator, there was no one waiting, which was a first. The elevator arrived in less than a minute, and I took it all the way to the ground floor with no stops. I didn't meet anyone along the way. The few early risers or all-nighters still in the lobby weren't in costume -- another first since Wednesday afternoon -- and I could walk freely through the skybridge to the Peachtree Center food court, where I snagged a pastry and some OJ. There were some D*C folk about, but the area had reverted to a center for business pros, not megafans. Our grip on the city was giving way, and normal life was once again taking hold.

I eventually made it back to the room, again without any serious crowd impediment, to where my friends were waiting to see out the end of this tale. It was time to pack.

My magnificent hosts, Bubba Chuck and Bubba Hickman, had plowed through a truly prodigious amount of alcohol and a modest number of non-fermented foodstuffs (mostly 5-Hour Energy shots) in our previous five days, and what few consumables remained had to be hauled out for refuse or return home. After that, we had to transfer a small repertory theater's worth of costumes down from the 21st floor of the Marriott, along with various travel sundries for my D*C sherpas, to Hickman's car. And then, after all that, we had to return the room to some semblance of factory original condition, which included disassembling the small quasi-bedroom nook the guys had built for my rollaway cot. The whole process took three hours.

This is why you pay for the extra day in the hotel and leave on Tuesday. Departing Dragon*Con is hard enough. Trying to leave Dragon*Con while 30,000 other people are doing the same thing -- on the same elevators, in the same garages, and using the same surface roads and highway on-ramps -- is akin to coating yourself in brown gravy and running naked through the final act of a zombie movie. It won't end happily, and the best outcome you can hope for is a bizarrely inexplicable brush with death.

Taking apart D*C HQ was a bittersweet affair. Doing a full Dragon*Con is draining. Bubba Chuck said it best in that it becomes your job to be a fan at Dragon*Con, complete with schedules and meetups and strategies. But on Tuesday, when the hotel room comes down, it finally sinks in that the gig is over.

My flight home didn't leave until mid-afternoon, so I had some time to kill -- time I intended to spend taking in a few sights around Atlanta, or at least as many as the MARTA train would allow. Once I had my guys ready to leave and check out, I planned to say my goodbyes and let them start the long road-trek back to Nashville and then Lexington, KY.

The guys were having none of it. All it took was one off-hand mention of seeing the Coca-Cola museum and I was stuffed into the tiny remaining space in Hickman's Volvo and we were all of us on our way to Centennial Park to meet Kayla LaFrance and Alex Caldwell for one final geek hurrah.

The two hours we spent in the shrine to carbonated/caffeinated sugar water were the perfect end of our week at Dragon*Con. We ran into the most artfully articulated human puppet I've ever seen, learned a little bit about our consumer history, sampled an obscene number of soft drinks, and genuinely had a wonderful time. I knew one of these people when I left home on Wednesday. Less than a week later, we were all fast friends.

The goodbyes we tried to delay, sadly, eventually came -- not long after we exited through the gift shop. I bid my new ladyfriends a sincere adieu, then simply asked for directions to the MARTA station. Again, John and Charles wouldn't hear of it, and offered to drag me all the way out to the airport -- the exact opposite direction of their drive. We compromised, and they drove me back to Peachtree Center -- the urban mall above a MARTA station where my Dragon*Con experience took root. It was just one more act of generosity for which I am eternally grateful.

The boys disappeared onto the highway as I walked past the Westin hotel and into the same escalator I rode up when I met my first Dragon*Con sherpa six days past. I took one last look around the food court and, unable to resist, ate one last meal at the Farmer's Basket. There were no more slogan t-shirts or swag-laden luggage trolleys to be seen. Dragon*Con was all but gone from this place, and soon I would be too.

I took one last walk over the skybridge into the Marriott Marquis, to see the lobby that had once been the epicenter of Geek Mardis Gras just one day before.

The wide open spaces were filled with small seats and tables, an apparent and surprising shift from the unfurnished expanses I had been accustomed to. Workmen were cleaning signs that had been caked with fingerprints and repainting baseboards that were scuffed black by too many costumed boots and heels. The world was erasing the geek imprint our people had left over the last week. It stung more than I expected.

I let it sting for a moment, the better to remember, then I reversed course, and walked the same path that had taken me into the heart of Dragon*Con mere days ago, back over the bridge, through the array of fast food landmarks and shortcuts, down a series of stairs into a subway stop filled with everyday people -- who were not my people. What little of Dragon*Con remained grew further distant with every step.

At the entrance to the station, I dug into my backpack and pulled out the MARTA ticket I'd bought on Wednesday, the simple there-and-back-again return fare that would see me to the airport. I slid it into the slot in the turnstile. The machine merely chirped, but did not return my slip. I didn't need the token any longer.

My train ride back to Hartsfield was quieter this time. No rowdy, excited teenagers arguing over costumes and party plans. Just businessmen and students and parents, quietly going about their days. In a half hour's time I was to the airport, and a half hour past that I was through security and waiting for my plane. I called my wife and told her I'd be home soon, that there were no delays. I missed her, and wanted to hug my daughter and sleep in my own bed. These were all true things, or at least mostly true. I was leaving Dragon*Con, and going home. Happier, richer in memories, and richer still in friends.

My first Dragon*Con was over, and it was bittersweet. Then I smiled, and made a little promise to my wife, my daughter, my friends and myself.

My first Dragon*Con was over, but not my last. Someday, I would walk this way again.

[To be continued...]

The 25 best links from July 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:10:00 +0000

Every link I shared in July 2012 that earned at least 50 clicks on Twitter:

Stats compiled with Buffer.

Penn State should get something worse than the NCAA death penalty

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:44:00 +0000

The Penn State child sex abuse scandal has sparked a number of reactions, but among the more insular has been sports pundits debating whether the school's football program should get the rarely used NCAA "death penalty" -- code for "stop playing football for a full season." The last school to receive the death penalty, former national football power Southern Methodist, received the punishment 25 years ago and is only now climbing out of the pits of mediocrity. It's the harshest punishment the NCAA can muster, and many see it as the only appropriate remedy for this most despicable of crimes.

Penn State shouldn't get the death penalty.

Not because the NCAA doesn't have the authority to impose the death penalty; the NCAA can and does have a duty to safeguard the integrity of the game and the safety of its student-athletes. And not because the death penalty is too harsh a sentence; nothing is too harsh for a school that felt its own reputation was more important that keeping a child-rapist away from young boys.

Penn State deserves worse than the death penalty. It shouldn't be given the easy out of shutting down football for year. Penn State should be forced to play football and lose.

The NCAA should ban Penn State from providing any football scholarships for the next four years. Moreover, any Penn State football player currently on the roster should have the option to transfer, immediately and without penalty or forced non-participation, to any school in the NCAA. This would include any school in the Big Ten or on Penn State's schedule. For the next four years, Penn State football should also be banned from hosting any recruiting visits or football-related camps or workshops for anyone not on the Penn State roster. Penn State coaches should be banned from taking any off-campus recruiting for the next four years, including visiting any off-campus workouts, camps, combines or high school football games.

Logistically, the NCAA death penalty is a nightmare. Opposing teams now have holes in their schedules, through no fault of their own. TV broadcasters now have less inventory, which impacts revenue for other schools beyond Penn State. The groundskeepers and hotdog vendors and parking attendants that make money on Penn State football -- to say nothing of the football revenue that funds Penn State's non-revenue sports (and athletic scholarships) -- don't deserve to have their livelihoods stripped.

But Penn State football, and Penn State's athletics, and Penn State itself deserve to lose. Their crime was to believe that the glory of their football program was more important than everything else -- including the physical and emotional sanctity of innocent children. As such, they should be allowed to keep their football team, but forced to lose their glory. Repeatedly. On television. For years.

For the next four years, Penn State football will field a team entirely composed of walk-on, non-scholarship players who self-recruited to the program. If you believe in Penn State, you can play for them. But nobody is going to ask, and no one is going to compensate you for it. If you believe in Penn State, you can coach for them, but you know you're going to coach a losing team, and that your lifeblood recruiting contacts are going to atrophy and die.

Above all, Penn State is obligated to field a team under these restrictions. It cannot self-impose the death penalty simply to avoid the expense and humiliation of putting forth a team that will almost certainly lose every game it plays for the foreseeable future. The humiliation is the point.

Penn State will field a team of believers, who put Penn State above all else. And they will lose. Because they deserve to. Football isn't more important than innocent children. Every rout of Penn State will be a national reminder of that fact.

They've earned it.

The top stories of June 2012 (according to my Twitter friends)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 15:15:00 +0000

Below are the 18 links I shared in June 2012 that got at least 50 clicks on Twitter.

I use BufferApp to track these stats. You can follow me on Twitter at @jaygarmon.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:56:00 +0000

[Note: Sorry for the delay in writing up the last day of the Con. The Dragon*Con smartphone app is still on my Droid homescreen, a reminder of the inexpressibly wonderful time I had. I kept telling myself I'd erase it once I was done with this post series, so I think that played some small part in my procrastination -- I didn't want to let the memento go.]

MONDAY

My last day of Dragon*Con 2011 started with what had become a routine. Bubba Chuck had warned me that by the end of D*C I'd have become a "pro," someone whose job it was to Do Geek full-time everyday. He was so very right.

I quietly grabbed my shower without waking my roommates, mingled with the early risers/late closers in the Marriott elevators, strolled quietly across the skybridge to the Peachtree Center food court to grab a Dairy Queen sausage biscuit, then scampered back through a trio of hotels and a drizzle-specked Atlanta concrete until I reached the lobby of the Sheraton. There I joined a line that was already wound through the entire upper lobby level of the hotel and, minutes after I arrived, filled the complete lobby and burst out onto the sidewalk.

Wil Wheaton was coming to Dragon*Con -- for the first and perhaps only time.

Wil, you see, is a friend and ally of Gabe and Tycho, who run the PAX gaming convention in Seattle on Labor Day weekend every year, meaning Wil Wheaton is booked opposite Dragon*Con from now unto the foreseeable future. Yet somehow, Garrett Wang had thrown enough money, Trek camaraderie and sheer geek-society whinging at Wil that he snagged the redeye Sunday night to make a 10am Eastern (7am Pacific) panel aptly titled "Boy Genius".

Oh, and he brought Paul and Storm with him.

Garrett took the mic and intro'd Wil as P&S played him onto stage. Wil then explained the great time he'd had the night before and how he wished that Dragon*Con was opposite Comic-Con, not PAX, so he could come every year. Comic-Con, you see, was about selling geeks their own culture back to them. It was about booth babes and demo reels and Hollywood trying to monetize all the things we love for their benefit, not ours. Dragon*Con, on the other hand, was flat out a come-what-may, come-one-come-all celebration of all things geek. Dragon*Con is for us, by us. Wil loved Dragon*Con, and wished he could make it back someday, though he was honestly doubtful. PAX is a family reunion for Wil, and that trumps even Geek Mardi Gras. He was glad he could make it, if only just this once.

It wasn't all philosophy and mild regret, mind you. Wil quickly segued into his main event: a reading from his memoir Dancing Barefoot, with musical accompaniment by Paul & Storm. Those of you who attended w00tstock know the bit. Those who don't: I won't ruin the chapter or the performance for you, as Wil performs it lots of places. Just know that he did the routine wearing the Cape of Dicks, and that the chapter read is titled "William Fucking Shatner".

When he finished to stirring applause, Wil was quick to point out that he's "cool...now" with Mr. Shatner, despite the content of the chapter. Garrett quickly pointed out how not-cool he is with Shatner, thanks to a famous limp-handshake brushoff he gave Garrett in a Las Vegas green room some years ago, which Shatner famously chose to forget when he suddenly needed Garrett to interview for a documentary Shatner was filming. Wil's only response? "William Fucking Shatner."

The floor then opened for questions, most of which were forgettable until a man sitting a mere six seats down from me strolled to the mic, eliciting from Wil a shout of, "Hey, it's Drew Curtis of Fark.com!"

Yep, I was six seats down from the local guy who runs this. I had to go to Atlanta to meet an Internet-famous geek who lives in Lexington and with whom I share personal acquaintances (mostly Jason Falls). It's a small, strange world after all. Mr. Curtis and I exchanged pleasantries and politely discussed having him to Louisville as an LDA speaker, but the opportunity has never come around.

Wil thanked us all profusely for coming, and for coming so early, and then the 2,000 or so of us crammed into the room giddily filed out into the light rain. The weather was the perfect metaphor for the last day of Dragon*Con: warm but slightly overcast, a welcome break from the afterburner engine of the previous few days but nonetheless bittersweet. I had unknowingly chosen the one Dragon*Con Wil Wheaton would ever attend, sat a stone's throw from him and within arms reach of another web celeb, and all of it by joyous chance.

This is the magic of Dragon*Con.

From there I made my way to the absolute opposite end of the Dragon*Con geographic footprint -- the Westin Hotel four blocks and an uphill climb away. I kept to the streets, rather than go out of my way (and through the crowds) by reentering the other D*C hotels. The Westin would host all three of my final Dragon*Con panels, and the best was expected to lead off.

I was on my way to see the cast of The Walking Dead.

I would never meet (much of) the cast of The Walking Dead.

I arrived at the largest ballroom in the Westin, situated on an upper level and filled to bursting with hundreds of seats and a raised dais/stage set for a dozen speakers. The panel was scheduled to start at 10:30 am. I arrived a few minutes early, and the crowd filed in to fill half the seats by the time the start rolled around.

But the cast did not.

The moderator, whose name infuriatingly escapes me, was an otherwise memorably self-described "biggest flaming geek queen" you'll ever meet, and an extra on the Walking Dead cast. He tried to stall with stories of his own time on set and, more interestingly, his time as an extra on Zombieland. (The Bill Murray stuff was originally written for Sly Stallone, but when Murray was filming another movie nearby, the Zombieland producers literally drove over to ask him to play himself in their movie. He said yes, and they improv'd most of his scenes. Bill Murray is the embodiment of awesome. The moderator, for his part, is seen only from behind as the Japanese businessman eating a woman's thigh in the amusement park. Yes, they had the gay guy do the below-the-waist woman-eating scene, which was both ironic and a nice bit of consideration for the actress involved.)

In any case, 20 minutes into the panel and the adult cast of Walking Dead never showed up. Apparently they had partied a bit too hardy the night before and wouldn't be joining us, to the moderator's enduring rage. Nonetheless, the child cast of Walking Dead was present, and they filed out to great reception and support. These kids were funny, smart, gave practiced but savvy answers (as in, they weren't dropping any Season 2 spoilers no matter what) and were complete professionals. Despite an almost universal love of Justin Bieber (kids!), they were a treasure. The best response came when asked if the zombie characters scared any of them, and if that helped their performance.

They all answered that none of the zombies are scary, as between takes the zombie actors are just regular guys and are affable and very protective of the kids on set. The child actors see more of the zombies than the adult leads as the zombies don't have trailers to hide in. In fact, it can occasionally be a problem that the zombies aren't scary, but Frank Darabont had a solution for that (that worked on the adults, too).

Walking Dead is filmed in the Georgia backwoods. The sets are country fields and quarries and forests. These places have snakes. Every day, before first call, snake wranglers are sent out to de-snake the shooting locations, and the cast walks by pickup trucks full of caged, captured snakes to reach the set. When a scene was dragging too long because an actor couldn't show the appropriate terror at a zombie, all it took was a reminder that the snake wranglers may not have gotten all the snakes to put a little more scream into the cast's efforts.

The panel was a treat despite the unprofessionalism of the adults, and it was a great reminder of the banality of movie and TV work.

From there I ambled downstairs to the Turning Points in The Whedonverse panel, which was actually a lively discussion of key moments in Buffy/Angel history. Firefly got little love. It was fun, but resembled mostly a live-action discussion board forum. The hour flew, but nothing of great remark or import came of it. Cotton candy Dragon*Con fun.

For my final panel, I ventured to the Future of Stargate discussion, where the entire planning staff of the Stargate Track gathered to theorize (and grind axes) about the next incarnation of the Stargate franchise. It was a fitting discussion for the end of Dragon*Con, if only to illustrate how little we geeks want reality to intrude upon the fantastic community we've built for ourselves.

The Stargate track staff felt that Stargate was a franchise on par with Star Trek and Star Wars (it isn't) and that, if they banded together like Trekkies and Lucas Fanboys, they could force SyFy and/or MGM to revive the franchise (they can't). The sad truth that many of us in the audience knew was that, with MGM emerging from bankruptcy, the rights to Stargate were a frozen asset and a low priority. MGM was going to sell or develop the properties with the most immediate profit potential to pay off creditors -- and Stargate was not on that list. (Side note: the MGM bankruptcy is partly why Cabin in the Woods took forever to get released; it, too, was a frozen MGM asset. It's also why you're hearing about Robocop, Red Dawn and Poltergeist reboots all at once: MGM is getting into the debt-service business with its biggest properties as fast as it can.)

The few of us that understood merely shook our heads at the fanboys and fangirls unwillingness to accept that there aren't enough Gaters out there to force a Stargate comeback. Reality comes only reluctantly to Dragon*Con.

As the panel broke up, I texted my roommates Hickman and Charles, who had promised to include me in their post-Dragon*Con celebratory ritual. They told me to meet them at the CruxShadows booth (they know the band) in the basement of the Marriott. By 5:00pm, with a small entourage in tow, we were on our way to a fabled land of mythical sustenance, hallowed throughout the Southern climes of these United States.

We were headed to Fox Brothers Barbecue.

The rain had picked up by the time we reached Fox Brothers, and were were forced to await our tables beneath the soggy umbrellas of the patio, but it only drew me closer to the friends -- Charles, Hickman, Kayla and Alex -- I had made or remade on my geek odyssey. We discussed our favorite elements of Aliens whilst dodging raindrops, and had begun to segue into the Batman mythos when our table finally opened.

We were hungry enough to eat a targ. Fortunately, the brisket-covered cheese fries and smoked chicken wings came out fast, and my plate of ribs was along shortly after that. Charles and Hickman somehow battled an Everything Plate. While we ate, I was goaded into scrawling a copy of the Batman family tree -- including all five Robins, all three Batgirls and both Batwomen -- onto a napkin from memory. It was a wondrous, low-key and welcoming capstone to my day.

At meal's end we returned to the hotel. I wandered to the lobby and placed a call home to my wife and daughter, regaling my better half with the events of the day (and week) as best I could remember them. I told them I missed them and would be home tomorrow. I took one final, not-so-crowded ride on the Marquis elevator to our room on the 21st floor.

Inside, Charles and Hickman were prepping a quiet affair called Bubbacon -- one final, guys-only get-together at Dragon*Con of just close friends. I felt privileged to be a part of it. All told, there were just five of us, and I was grateful to be included. We traded stories and theories and inappropriate jokes. We remarked on how we never wanted Dragon*Con to end, but weren't sure we could take any more. We were pros now, just as Charles had predicted, and it was time for this job to end. At midnight, the boys filed out for one last drinking session at the bar, a last hurrah for debauchery. I simply prepped my rollaway bed and bid them goodnight.

My Dragon*Con was over. In the morning we'd dismantle the room, pack out our trash and I'd eventually make my way to the airport -- and home. It was among the greatest vacations of my life.

And it wasn't over yet.

[To be continued...]

Female superheroes who deserve their own movies (according to professional authors and fans)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:41:00 +0000

Here's the sound of Marvel Comics head honcho Joe Quesada pulling the pin on a nerd-rage grenade and tossing it in our direction:

- In a chat [with Ain't It Cool News], Joe told me that he’d love to make a tentpole movie with a female lead, but that he really doesn’t think there is an actress right now who could carry it, or a character that would work either. I’m thinking I might agree with him on this one actually.

Okay, Joe, so you can't think of a single female character or actress worthy of a tentpole superhero movie? Here's the SF Signal Irregulars' collective response:

"Challenge: Accepted."

Stina Leicht, Jeff Patterson, Gail Carriger, Paul Weimer, Patrick Hester and I discuss not only which female characters and leads could carry a tentpole superhero movie, but also why poor ol' Joe can't seem to see the potential here. Get the full rundown in the Hugo-Nominated SF Signal Podcast Episode 131.

This is usually the part where I decry my own meager contributions to the topic and, compared to published authors like Ms. Carriger and Ms. Leicht, that remains the case. But when it comes to the underuse of superheroines in film, Joe Quesada is so wrong even I can make a few cogent points before succumbing to audible idiocy. Listen for yourself.

And, yes, the list goes well beyond Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, Marvel or DC.

As always, my litany of previous SF Signal podcast sins are confessed here.

The best links I shared in May 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:03:00 +0000

flickr (Photo credit: Zanastardust)

Below are the 11 links I shared in May 2012 that got at least 50 clicks on Twitter.

The DC Comics reboot I wish had happened

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Lee's depiction of DC Comics' Superman and Batman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whatever you think of the recent DC Comics reboot (AKA DCnU AKA New 52), most of us agree that it hasn't been all that new-reader-friendly. The real goal of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee appears to have been attracting lapsed readers -- those of us that gave up on DC after one too many crossover events or needlessly grim storylines.

I wish DC had been serious about a bold story direction designed to attract new, first-time comics fans. If I was somehow granted carte blanche to remake the DC universe, here are the fairly radical changes I would institute.

1. Give up the shared universe (mostly)
One of the most confusing and constraining elements about any shared universe is the shared universe. Keeping the various exploits of Superman, Batman and the A-List heroes straight is hard enough. Tossing in the near endless ranks of B- through Z-list characters simply turns off new readers who feel they need a Wikipedia browser just to comprehend a single issue's cover art. Instead, every major character should get his/her own universe, one (almost) totally separate from the other properties.

2. Focus on the Big 5 (plus one)
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern - that's your headline-level DC lineup. The plus one? Captain Marvel/Shazam, the most criminally underused and kid-friendly property in the DC stable.

Combine rules one and two, and you relaunch DC with five sub-universes, each with a slimmed down cast.

Earth 1 - Superman [The Superverse]
In this world, New York city is called Metropolis, and Superman is the Silver Age superhero that sets the tone. The Super Family and the Jack Kirby Fourth World characters have Grant Morrison-style widescreen adventures every week. Adventures of Superman focuses on Kal-El, Action Comics on the rest of this universe.

Earth 2 - Batman [The Batverse]
Here, New York is called Gotham and the world is darker, grittier and more down to earth and procedural thanks to the example set by the focal hero, Batman. Batman focuses on the Caped Crusader, Detective Comics on the rest of the Bat Family.

Earth 3 - Wonder Woman [The Wonderverse]
Magical fantasy is the emphasis here, as is a conscious effort to court female creators and readers, starting with Diana of Themyscira. Wonder Woman focuses on the Amazing Amazon, Tales of the Unexpected is revived to cover the rest of her fantastic universe.

Earth 4 - Flash and Green Lantern [The Scienceverse]
Two sci-fi characters share a universe, one on Earth and one primarily in space, often teaming up to do "skiffy" combat with the forces of evil. The Brave and the Bold covers the science fiction universe that each hero's lead title doesn't. Odds are the new gadget-centric Green Arrow, Atom and Blue Beetle live here, and every issue is crammed with Gardner Fox-style "Flash Facts".

Earth 5 - Shazam [The Shazamiverse]
The kid-friendly, YA title that features the ultimate child's wish fulfillment character, Shazam. Adventure Comics covers the rest of the universe.

Whither the Justice League?
Welcome to the Watchtower, a satellite orbiting all five Earths, just out of phase with each -- a unique location that can be in five (or more) locations at once. Using dimensional teleporter technology, each of our 6 founding heroes can draft allies from an alternate universe to join them on team-up cases -- or collectively band together to defeat foes that span realities. These "elseworld" jaunts are risky, occasionally landing our heroes on unintended planets where history turned out quite differently, so pooling resources is rare and meaningful.

Want to do a goofy Silver Age style Batman story? Have him jump to the Superverse. Want to do a heavy, noir Superman story? He travels to the Batverse. Each Earth has its own tone and its own aesthetic -- not least because the first hero in each universe inspired every subsequent hero and villain in it. Shazam isn't going to provoke the Joker into existence, nor is Batman likely to spawn Dr. Sivana. Each world gets its own style and target demographic.

Moreover, yes, Green Arrow is very much a Batman rip-off with a signature gadget -- but he's exactly the kind of Batman ripoff you'd expect in a world where upbeat, colorful heroes like The Flash and Green Lantern are what kick off the age of superbeings. In this universe you'd get Blue Beetle instead of The Question, just as in the Batverse you get Mr. Freeze instead of Captain Cold, or Killer Croc instead of Gorilla Grodd.

Best of all, those of us who just care about one hero or one subgenre don't have to manage a private wiki of every third-string Global Guardians member just to get the last joke Firestorm told. (Though, so long as I'm playing God, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite, Qwsp, Myrwhydden and Zazzo are the same entity, and he'll make world-spanning jokes only completists would get.)

Distinct universes also have the advantage of being more movie-, TV- and game-friendly, allowing consumers to more easily tread between the mediums for the characters they love. It's clean, it's simple and it might actually attract new readers to comics.

What a world-shattering idea.

The 2012 summer movies worth seeing (as decided by professional geeks)

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:54:00 +0000

Everybody says that critics are out of touch with mainstream audiences, which is why the Rotten Tomatoes Fresh-o-meter never matches Box Office Mojo's top earners. But you know who is really different from the median movie consumer? Hard core geeks like novelist A. Lee Martinez, Lisa Paitz Spindler, Paul Weimer, Regan Wolfram, Patrick Hester and, well, me.

Look no further than our SF Signal podcast roundup of 2012 summer movies for proof.

Our audio-only Council of Geek Elders is way more contentious and snarky than the last 2012 geek movie catalog I rammed down your throat -- especially when it comes to The Amazing Spider-Man, Battleship, The Dark Knight Rises and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Give a listen for the nerd-rage showdown.

Per usual, the running tally of my SF Signal Podcast screw-ups is available here.

The 5 best links I shared in April 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:43:00 +0000

Less marketing douchebaggery, more tanks! [1659 clicks]

"That's Why You Don't Have Any Friends." [361 clicks]

Help Locus Digitally Preserve Their Huge Cache of Science Fiction and Fantasy Treasures [329 clicks]

Secrets of the Most Productive People I Know [278 clicks]

"On gun control, Americans have become more conservative; on gay marriage, they have become more liberal." [154 clicks]

Why can't Hollywood make Mars work?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:16:00 +0000

Cover of Red Planet [Region 2]

Anyone else realize the last broadly successful science fiction movie set on Mars was 1990's Total Recall -- the movie that Colin Farrell is helping remake sans the Martian elements? Tinseltown seems to keep fumbling any version of the Red Planet that sees the big screen -- and I include Red Planet in that eulogy.

So, is Mars cursed in Hollywood?

That's question I try to answer in SF Signal Podcast Episode 117.

Fortunately, Fred Kiesche, Jeff Patterson, Scott Cupp, Paul Weimer and Patrick Hester are there to drown out my cynical meanderings about the cinematic value of the fourth rock from our sun. Give a listen, if only for Golden Age Flash Gordon references and the gratuitous namecheck of the Viking landers.

Per usual, the backlog of my established SF Signal Podcast errors is available here.

So I'm kinda, sorta (not really) nominated for a Hugo Award

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:22:00 +0000

70th World Science Fiction Convention (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For those of you who don't know, a Hugo Award is arguably the ultimate accolade in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. It's the Oscar of the nerd media set. And, in a very indirect way, I've been nominated for one.

More directly, the blog SF Signal (for which I once contributed before reclaiming my Geekend gig) and the SF Signal Podcast (on which I continue to appear three to four times per year) have been nominated as Best Fanzine and Best Fancast, respectively. The complete 2012 Hugo nominations list is available here. If any of you are heading to Worldcon 2012 (AKA Chicon 7) this year, and you're so motivated to vote, the SF Signal Irregulars would be grateful for a ballot checkmark or two in our favor.

Now, I cannot stress enough how little I had to do with either of these nominations. I haven't thrown in a SF Signal post in well over a year, as my precious and rare writing bandwidth now goes almost exclusively to paying gigs, the Louisville Digital Association (who suffers with me as its President) and ConGlomeration (which suffers with me as its webmaster). Despite persistent and generous invitations to the SF Signal Podcast, I only show up every month or so due to similar time constraints (though I'll be recording with them tomorrow night, I believe). Heck, despite a 2011 Tangent List entry, I haven't written any fiction in over a year, which the 2005 version of myself would find unforgivable and mind-boggling.

The Hugo credit belongs to everyone who contributes (more regularly than me) to both SF Signal properties, but most especially to John DeNardo, the head man at the SF Signal Blog, and Patrick Hester, the audio mogul who produces and hosts the SF Signal Podcast. Frankly, I'm far more pleased and excited about these nominations than I ever was of the Tangent mention because, first, it's a Hugo, and second because it shines a much overdue spotlight on good people doing good work for no reason other than a love of seeing it done.

That I am connected by the slimmest and most undeserved thread to these glories is irrelevant. John D., Patrick and every other SF Signal Irregular have earned this moment of praise. If you haven't heard of them, seek out their work. If you know them, thank them for their contributions to the sci-fi and fantasy community. We're all the better for it.

Now, let's bring home that rocket.

Remember that time I cowrote a script with David Goyer?

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Garmon) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:09:00 +0000

Screenplay (Photo credit: Matt-Richards)

Seriously, in 1998 I cowrote a movie script with David Goyer (and seven other people). Back in the day, TNT had a pretty fun website called Roughcut.com, from whence I drew inspiration for my movie rating system. In late summer of '98, Goyer participated in a sort of exquisite corpse crowdsourced screenwriting contest at Roughcut, and I was one of the lucky few to earn a spot in the script rotation.

After my recent trip to Boskone to see -- among others -- Bruce Schneier and talk about data that survives the death of people and websites, I was reminded that Archive.org probably has some saves of Roughcut from 14 years ago.

Guess what I found?

The script is rather painfully '90s, but I still find it a lark to read, even after all these years. My contribution is part seven.

Ironically, I almost didn't know I'd won a spot in the contest, as my selection was announced as I went off to my senior year of college, and a snafu with my school's IT department had me locked off the web for about two weeks. Once I got back online, I had a string of desperate emails from the contest producer asking where to send my prize money.

I still have the $100 money order, uncashed, as a keepsake. It was the first occasion where I was "paid" for my creative writing, and the first inkling I had that I wasn't just better than most of the kids at my school in the fiction skills, I might actually have a shot at making a living stringing words together.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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