nemorathwald | Entries tagged with conventions

The Lojban Festival was fun, despite the organizational train wreck of Philcon. We persevered and had the biggest and best gathering in the fifty-year history of this language project. I've put up photos on Flickr.

( First, the complaints about our treatment by Philcon. )( Second, praise for the Lojban attendees and our awesome time with each other. )

The NOTCOT design blog clued me in to this tray that makes ice cubes shaped like LEGO bricks. LEGOs convey the hacking spirit. If only this were sold in our country, it would be a great addition to OpenCola!

The countless blog entries and emails that seem to nominate the recently deceased Mike Ford for the fannish equivalent of sainthood show few signs of stopping. More tears are being shed even today. So I looked up his Wikipedia entry.

I'm interested in Klingon and chess variants. Apparently so was Mike Ford. I didn't know this until I read the Wikipedia entry on him, but he invented the Klingon chess-like game klin zha, which I was given a copy of by Klingon costumers.

I know Mike Ford was in the category of Pro, but in the time since his death alerted me to his having existed, I have read relatively few descriptions of his paid writing achievements (which were considerable) from his legion of personal friends and acquaintances. It's as if it were incidental to the force of nature that was John Milo "Mike" Ford. What he did at science fiction conventions and on internet forums immortalized him.

Despite the fact that he was Pro, not Fan, his death has provided me with another reason that the practice at ConFusion and ConClave of having a Fan Guest Of Honor is a good thing, so that more of us can find out about beloved personalities-- not just works-- before it's too late.

In case anybody missed my previous post about it and doesn't know about the new blog on the Penguicon website, and its Livejournal syndication, here's what I just posted there:

Tonight, September 15, 2006, it's at my house in Redford, conveniently central to the Ann Arbor/Detroit suburban metroplex! I'm serving pizza. Show up if you care about Penguicon, whether you're working on the convention or not.
( Read more... )

We have a blog on the Penguicon website to report how things are going and to just talk about Penguicon. So far I'm the only one who's posted to it-- six times-- but it's worth reading. Comments are turned on, and feedback is solicited! Others plan to blog there as well.

In the comments to Scalzi's blog entry about the Hugo award victory of "Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson, Patrick Nielsen Hayden says he wants to have my children. This is the most... interesting compliment I've ever received.

Thanks,

pnh! Regrettably, you may not bear my offspring, nor can you. But I'll settle instead if you will consent to letting me schedule you on panels at Penguicon with Scalzi, Nick Sagan, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette and Sarah Zettel!

The opinion he approved of was as follows. ( Read more... )

I just read on Penny Arcade news of a development which might take yet another aspect of science fiction conventions and cause its attendees to evaporate into some kind of luminiferous ether on the internet. The way eBay did for the Dealers Room. The way artist's WWW storefronts did for the Art Show. The way blogs did for Amateur Press Associations.

This time it's the Game Room. Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Alhambra are coming to XBox Live. As Tycho's editorial on Penny Arcade demonstrates, there are board gamers who normally can't find anyone in their day-to-day lives with whom to play these obscure but gem-like German games. They must leave the mundane world of their home and venture into a wild and wooly convention to find their fellow strangers, in a strange land. Crying like Elijah in the wilderness, "Wood for sheep! Doesn't anyone have wood for sheep?" Except Elijah would not proceed to giggle like a junior higher.

No more. And with the advent of that 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week satiation (you know who you are), perhaps the cardboard and wood physicality will be practiced only by quaint historical reenactors, lingering around the edges of what once had been German-style tabletop gaming, which itself was an obscure fringe market.

Oh, don't get me wrong, you'll still find me in the Game Room at conventions. And none of the conventions I'm involved with would dare think of canceling it. But here's hoping players keep coming in the existing numbers for years to come. Dare we hope, even, that the many new players to whom XBox Live introduces these games will desire to participate in board games offline?

The world's first nanotech CAD/CAE software is developed locally to Penguicon, runs on Linux, and is open source under the GPL.

I am sitting back in my chair and staring at that sentence on the screen.

Nanorex is a company based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan that employs K. Eric Drexler, the Father of Molecular Nanotechnology, as Chief Technical Advisor. (Dr. Drexler telecommutes from his home in California.) Other advisors include names I recognize from frequent mentions on Christine Peterson's blog "Nanodot", such as Ralph Merkle, J. Storrs Hall, and Robert Freitas, Jr.

Their product is Nanoengineer-1, which uses a detailed and accurate model of the laws of physics to simulate atomic interactions in 3D. Engineers can design and test nanosystems in this software rather than use trial and error with the expensive and slow mechanosynthesis process of one real, physical molecule at a time. It is for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is open source under the GPL.

Again. The world's first nanotech CAD/CAE software is developed locally to Penguicon, runs on Linux, and is open source under the GPL.

Remember, this weekend is Michigan's new relaxacon: Con-Versation! It will be Friday, July 28 through Sunday, July 30 at the Crown Plaza (recently Doubletree, but was just sold) in Novi, Michigan. It's a big party with dozens of friends in a hotel all weekend! The focus of this event is the hospitality suite, hot-tubbing, swimming, playing games, and of course conversation. At-the-door-registration will open in the hotel Atrium at 3:00 PM on Friday. A badge for the full weekend is $30. One-day registration costs $15 per day.

Opening ceremonies with ice cream, 8PM on Friday. In the lobby, the Con-Versation Pope will lead a processional up to Consuite.
Orientation for Assassin game, 9PM on Friday. Only those who attend orientation are playing the game, so don't worry that you'll get ambushed with a sticker on your badge if you don't want to participate.
Gameboy Tetris competition, 1PM on Saturday.
"It's Dangerous!", 4PM on Saturday. Everyone hits balloons with lightsabers. Saber the moment.
Outdoor pool party, 7PM on Saturday. Remember when we created a vortex at the pre-party last year? Let's do that again!

Head of Programming for Penguicon is my favorite job ever. What it amounts to is "Minister of Fun." I am in charge of:

1. Staying in touch with lots of people whose job it is to be fun.

2. Supervising the design and Imagineering of the fun.

3. Playing a board game of my own design.

People think scheduling is the difficult and frustrating part of the job, and I can sympathize with that. But this task has discrete play elements. It's all in how you organize your knowledge, and I know of a knowledge organization structure that causes geeks like me to memorize scads of information.

I'm making a board for this game which is a map of the hotel on posterboard to exact scale, with paper playing tokens (also to scale) representing all the tables and all the rows of chairs that the hotel owns. Step 1: Roll the dice to see if the elevators break.

I will use HeroClix figures to represent characters (program participants).
- If both figures possess the "2006 Hugo Nominee" feature, they augment each other's powers. I'm not sure how many of those figures I can collect. I have one so far. Gotta catch 'em all!
- The "John Scalzi" and "Nick Sagan" figures possess "Wisecrack," causing them to earn bonus points whenever they are in range of each other.
- Special limited-edition Hero characters (Guests of Honor) possess super point-scoring powers all by themselves.

The characters must recharge their stats in the eating and sleeping zones of the board, and only have a small number of events they can be in all weekend before they run out of endurance stats. Long rests regenerate their stats, sometimes, if they possess that power. Certain combinations of characters must be kept apart unless you have the "Moderator" character who nullifies their combat with each other.

Each event card resembles Magic The Gathering. The ones that go on the game board take up a certain amount of physical space. These have stats, such as Minutes and Seats. Each event card has weaknesses and special rules.
- "Computer Lounge" needs to be placed by terrain features such as Power Outlets.
- "Evil Stevie's Pirate Game" has a Dollars negative value, and a vast amount of Minutes, but earns fantastic points. It's only playable because I've collected the Steve Jackson figure, but I might not be able to collect the card.
- Concert cards possess the "Music" power, which shoots a blast of Sonic Wave.
- "Panel Discussion" has a weakness: being hit by Sonic Wave from event cards that possess "Music". You have to be sure to play those cards in rooms on the game board so that they are out of target range of Sonic Wave, or in such a way that terrain features such as solid walls block the firing of Sonic Wave.

The counterpart of each card goes on a grid of rooms and times which is drawn on another posterboard. But that version of the card is sized in such a way that it takes up a certain amount of time. The grid works like Robo Rally, in which you move the events and characters around on the hotel game board according to the moves you plan out on the grid.

There will be 48 solid back-to-back hours of programming (Friday 3PM to Sunday 3PM) so if I switch to 1.5 hour-long timeslots this year there will be 32 rounds of play. If I stick to hour-long timeslots there will be 48 rounds of play. Don't look at me like that! A game of Civilization takes ten times that long.

Attendees will be small chips. Different primary colors of chips represent different interests, and secondary-colored chips represent attendees with two significant interests. As the events move around according to the plan on the grid, a point is scored for each chip sitting in an event in a given time slot. (This includes getting fed. The hotel restaurant will symbolize all the restaurants in the area, so that chips gather in there when the attendees are given time to eat.)

See? Programming is just like gaming. Who wants to play? Comment below to suggest character powers or scoring rules!

Because Penguicon combines a science fiction convention with a festival of open source software, we don't just read about the future in science fiction, we also attract the people who are creating the future. I'm thrilled to announce that Christine Peterson has accepted our invitation to be a 2007 Guest of Honor! She is experienced at giving interesting and understandable lectures to every type of audience of every proficiency level, she is not opposed to associating with the words "science fiction", and she's brilliant when it comes to thinking about the future.

"Yogi Berra said, “It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future,” and how right he was. But there is one more point to keep in mind. If you're trying to project the long-term future, and what you get sounds like science fiction, you might be wrong. But if it doesn't sound like science fiction, it's definitely wrong." -Christine Peterson

Christine Peterson is Founder and Vice President of Public Policy for the Foresight Nanotech Institute, a not-for-profit think tank focusing on emerging technologies such as molecular nanotechnology. She is credited with having suggested adoption of the term "Open Source Software". She co-authored "Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution" (full text online) with K. Eric Drexler, the Father of Nanotechnology. With Gayle Pergamit, she also co-wrote "Leaping the Abyss: Putting Group Genius to Work" (full text online), which is extremely pertinent to open-source software development processes. She chairs conferences about nanotech. She has a chemistry degree from MIT.

Of all the years for me to be Head of Programming for Penguicon, I feel incredibly lucky that it was the year we get Christine Peterson. I've been reading her blog Nanodot for years, ever since I read "Unbounding the Future". I highly recommend UtF to everyone; it's a fun read. I'm excited about the possibility of designing a schedule track with themes of molecular manufacturing and other radical near-term advances in the human condition. Most of it will be pretty serious, but I'll also get a copy of this docu-comedy about nano-scale science and see if it would be suitable to show it at Penguicon. If we have a workshop for making molecule models out of twisted balloons, that would kick butt. I'm visualizing an advertising image: a collosal-sized Tux viewed from the perspective of a molecule, in which the close-up portion is shown to be made of atoms the size of marbles...

Cory Doctorow blogged about the video of liquid nitrogen being thrown in the swimming pool at Penguicon, and ever since, many of the comments to the video on YouTube have been debating whether it was faked with dry ice. Most of the comments are in Spanish, so I've been carrying on the debate bilingually with the help of Altavista's Babelfish. Fortunately, one fotografía is worth a thousand words.

Here's a tip I've learned while using this method to correspond internationally: When you translate your own text into another language, translate the result back into English to see if it's been garbled.

Here's a link to a website of futuristic projects of a vacation destination company. There's a city on a ship, a orbiting resort, and an undersea hotel.

I would love to host a science fiction convention aboard this flying hotel. I expect the biggest challenge of this facility to probably be the plumbing. "Its 14 million cu. ft. of helium will provide lift for two-thirds of its weight, with jet engines providing lift for the other third." It's estimated to be completed in 2010. It would have a restaurant on board, which would have to be at least as expensive as most hotel restaurants.

But needless to say, it would not have cheap restaurants within walking distance.

[Spotted at BLDGBLOG]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTSqnyt16j0

This is a YouTube streaming video of James Hall from the cable program FOCUS interviewing me about Penguicon, the science fiction and open-source-software convention, including footage of liquid nitrogen ice cream and the marble roller coaster construction set. This segment is posted with full permission of the FOCUS program.

I should have volunteered to be a gopher at Marcon. I was in the sort of state of mind that required a project to work on. As it was, I became bored and didn't make many friends. I kept thinking about what I would be doing if I were at home, such as playing with the ferret which

thatguychuck's friend Pat dropped off for the weekend; or working on Penguicon; or the sculpture; or my new Lojban website. I ended up in the film room watching movies to distract myself, which is a bad sign. I'll be sure to keep this in mind about myself for the future: working on conventions is more fun than just being at them.

For the third time in as many years, I am coming to you now from Java's Cyber Espresso Bar in the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, home of Origins and Marcon.

My car developed brake and transmission problems on the way to Marcon. Fortunately Freon is here and can advise me.

blastedbill and I will probably travel back home with the gear shift in the "2" position. And my brakes, although grinding horribly because of a broken pad or something, do not need to be changed until after I get back.

The convention has been nice. They made custom sushi in Consuite last night. I gave Kendra a much-needed back rub. Our hotel roommates, Jason and Marianna, are fun.

I have done the program book for ToBeCONtinued in the Chicago area this weekend.

I put together this program book cover in Google SketchUp and added the sky, ocean and birds in The Gimp. I imported the shape of the man from Google's 3D Warehouse before applying the stone texture.

Good news! The smoke and the "pop-hiss" didn't come from the computer, it came from the monitor! The computer's fine. I have no shortage of monitors. None. In fact, a dozen monitors were deliberately abandoned at Penguicon. If you're coming to the Stilyagi party at our house on Saturday the 13th, maybe I'll give you one. Especially if we can sign you up to be on the convention committee for ConFusion 2007!

I hadn't previously heard of a few of the speakers at Stanford's Singularity Summit, but I know every single one of the following eight names, and it's the most exciting lineup of Guests of Honor ever. It's interesting to finally find out from their photos what some of them look like.

- Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist, author of "The Singularity Is Near"
- Douglas Hofstadter, cognitive scientist, author of "Gödel, Escher, Bach"
- K. Eric Drexler, nanotechnology pioneer, author of "Engines of Creation"
- Nick Bostrom, director of the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute
- Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, blogger, technology activist
- Eliezer Yudkowski, Director and Research Fellow, Singularity Institute
- Christine Peterson, VP Public Policy, Foresight Nanotech Institute
- Tyler Emerson, Executive Director, Singularity Institute

The "What others have said" section shows Marvin Minsky, Hans Moravec, Vernor Vinge, Ben Goertzel, Jamais Cascio and Jaron Lanier. I wonder if they'll be at the summit? That section also lists Bill Gates, Bill Joy and Stephen Hawking.

But it's not a science fiction convention, it's an academic conference. These aren't really Guests of Honor, because that implies the presence of their fans at the event. This is by RSVP only. That's fine-- it's important that specialist professionals gather to do valuable work on the problems and promises of the Singularity in peace. That having been said, it would also be fantastic to get any of these to speak at Penguicon, especially since it's a Linux and Open Source software expo in addition to a science fiction convention. Many of them would probably demand an appearance fee, which all-volunteer not-for-profit SF conventions don't pay. And many of them probably would not want to be seen to be associated with a science fiction event (except for Cory Doctorow, who has already been our Guest of Honor). But Christine Peterson says in her Singularity Summit promotional blurb "If you're trying to project the long-term future, and what you get sounds like science fiction, you might be wrong. But if it doesn't sound like science fiction, it's definitely wrong."

I enjoyed reading the comment by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Professor of Law, University of Tennessee, which is extremely signifigant to me as a non-specialist:

( Read more... )

Charles Ulrich has posted more Penguicon 4.0 photos to flickr.

To me, the interesting thing about this photo is that Charles Ulrich captioned it with "Matt Arnold doing something in the lounge. I've never seen a man wear so many different shirts in a 48-hour period."

I had the idea to make an effigy of Wayport, the evil internet service provider with a contractual chokehold on of most of the convention hotels in Michigan. I'm glad they don't contractually own the drinking fountains or toilets or there would have been vending slots to insert dollars for each use. Of course, we couldn't burn Wayport in effigy because that would certainly violate fire codes. Thank-you to

zifferent for making this great-looking Wayport pinata on such short notice. Here you see our chief of Operations, Gerald Gentry, holding it while

blastedbill strikes the first blow at the beginning of the Gripe Session. Several people then destroyed it with sticks and tossed handfuls of candy into the crowd.

UHACC won Junk Pile Wars with this entry, dubbed "Flying Purple People 1337X0RS"

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C.I.T.O.K.A.T.E.

Criticism Is The Only Known Antidote To Error

Entries tagged with conventions

Lojban Festival At Philcon 2006 Report

LEGO Ice Cube Tray

Why We Need Fan GoHs

SMOFing Dinner At My House Tonight

Penguicon Blog

Compliment from PNH

Tabletop Gaming On XBox Live

Nanorex

Con-Versation!

Penguicon, The Board Game

Christine Peterson, Penguicon Guest of Honor

Spanish/English Debate About Liquid Nitrogen

Flying Hotel

Penguicon Interview on FOCUS

Marcon Report Part 2

Marcon Report, Part One

(no subject)

Computer Is Not Burned Out

The Singularity Summit

More Penguicon 4.0 Pictures

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March 2025

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