Wiscon 37 report
May. 27th, 2013 08:25 pmThursday:
Shopping for Access Craft supplies with my pals which was super fun. In lieu of dinner or the readings I took a nap for two hours.
Then, Geekeoke! Met![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
such_heights! Sang a duet with jackshoegazer. Yelled and screamed a lot.
I am very grateful to![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
JacquelynGill for taking over blue tape responsibilities at WisCon! It's a big weight off my shoulders.
Friday I went to the Gathering, which I don't do every year due to noise, but this year I checked out the Hypnosis station (cool) and the clothing swap where I found a gray tuxedo jacket.meloukhia took the other tux jacket which was white. I wore the tux jacket for the next two days! It fits me about perfectly.
I tried to go to a panel but I was too anxious. I went to Natt Spiel for supper with some pals: laceblade, dimensionwitch, Jack, and Jaq. Then we had Opening Ceremonies, and the vid show. I attended almost the entirety of the vid show, and was in home and in bed by 2 AM. Dimensionwitch was my houseguest.
---
On Saturday I ate at the hotel restaurant for lunch with some of these same buddies; I ordered a BBQ sandwich which was good but too spicy.
My 1 pm panel was lightning talks. I talked about Graphic works by women and very briefly about chickens. Another talk I really liked was by Kat Sweet who talked about using 3D printers for making sex toys. One person talked about Git Hub. The other talk was about shapes and emptiness in the universe, and how shapes are repeated large and small, over and over.
I panel surfed the 2:30 pm panels; not finding much I wanted to sit thru.
Next I attended "Food in Spaaace" which was super fun! The panelists all had great things to say. When going into space, would we pack food along? If so, how? Would we grow food on the ships? Who would grow the food and cook it? What about an edible space ship? What about having soil and mushrooms and trees on ships? Etc. There was some discussion of using 3D printers to make food. One person asked about how Star Trek replicators are supposed to work; I don't think there was a clear answer on this one. There was some discussion of military rations, of submarines and living at the South Pole / McMurdo. An audience member had been a cook at McMurdo and described that. It takes a large support staff to support 1 scientist. I asked about the ethics of vat-grown protein vs. eating a real cow, a la several books I've read, and the panelists had good things to say about that. Rich people might want the hand-raised real cow. Middle-class people might get the vat-grown protein but be lied to about where it's coming from. Also, what is the source of the original cells making up the vat-grown protein? It's hard to know the ethics of a tech that doesn't exist yet. "Firefly" came up a couple of times: food as currency, the plain food being eaten over and over again but improved with spices, the fresh fruit being high value. FUN panel.
I went to dinner at Himal Chuli withfuturansky and her partner. We mushed together with some other fan people at this tiny restaurant.
I sat in for part of the Tiptree Auction, then went to the Glitch Memorial Panel. This was bittersweet but I appreciated it a lot. We talked about why we loved the game. There was a screen up and a computer; our avatars were shown and different screen shots. We all liked the whimsy, humor, and non-violence. Many of us who played are non-gamers, and we enjoyed the easiness of entry. It didn't require much hand-eye coordination, and there were no negative consequences to falling or dying. One panelist thought that the marketing failed: Glitch should have been marketed to non-gamers. Many of us discovered it by word of mouth. We all enjoyed the music and art. I especially enjoyed how there was no gender unless you wanted there to be, and the humor was not offensive. It was cooperative instead of competitive. Even the "griefing", such as tree wars, seemed minor and amusing. Conflicts such as people stealing herbs from community gardens were engineered out of the game. Altruism was built in.
I went by a couple of parties and then went home. My dog was a little stressed at being left alone all day.
---
Sunday I ate lunch in the Con Suite withj00j and Claire I think.
At 1 pm I was on the "A Very Special Disability Panel." I shall rely on others to report about this.
At 2:30 I sat in on a spontaneous programming panel re mental health disability things.
At 4 I was on a great panel that I proposed called "Radical Queer Agenda"!!! With Timmi DuChamp, Mary Ann Mohanraj, Victor Raymond, and JoSelle V. This was super awesome. Futuransky was taking notes and I think someone else was tweeting it. (#RadQueer)
This was too many things in a row for me and I nearly melted down afterwards. I fled to Jesse's room for a while. Then we ate lunch in the restaurant.
I went to the Guest of Honor speeches but got restless and left before Kiini's speech. I wandered the parties for a while and ate delicious foods. At the Clarion West party I met a woman who has written for TV, and it turned out she wrote the vampire episode for Murder, She Wrote. I find it a little awkward when writers ask (at parties) if I am a writer. "Uh... no not really." "So what do you do?" "Uh...." Maybe I should work on that.
----
Today I went to Sign Out and had Ellen Kushner re-sign Privilege of the Sword, which she'd signed for me in 2007 (my first WisCon!). LOL. One thing that was neat about my first WisCon was that I had just read a bunch of these books and suddenly these authors were right there in front of me!
I ate at Noodles with the fannish crew and went to the end-of-con panel and party before heading home.
Shopping for Access Craft supplies with my pals which was super fun. In lieu of dinner or the readings I took a nap for two hours.
Then, Geekeoke! Met
such_heights! Sang a duet with jackshoegazer. Yelled and screamed a lot. I am very grateful to
Friday I went to the Gathering, which I don't do every year due to noise, but this year I checked out the Hypnosis station (cool) and the clothing swap where I found a gray tuxedo jacket.
meloukhia took the other tux jacket which was white. I wore the tux jacket for the next two days! It fits me about perfectly. I tried to go to a panel but I was too anxious. I went to Natt Spiel for supper with some pals: laceblade, dimensionwitch, Jack, and Jaq. Then we had Opening Ceremonies, and the vid show. I attended almost the entirety of the vid show, and was in home and in bed by 2 AM. Dimensionwitch was my houseguest.
---
On Saturday I ate at the hotel restaurant for lunch with some of these same buddies; I ordered a BBQ sandwich which was good but too spicy.
My 1 pm panel was lightning talks. I talked about Graphic works by women and very briefly about chickens. Another talk I really liked was by Kat Sweet who talked about using 3D printers for making sex toys. One person talked about Git Hub. The other talk was about shapes and emptiness in the universe, and how shapes are repeated large and small, over and over.
I panel surfed the 2:30 pm panels; not finding much I wanted to sit thru.
Next I attended "Food in Spaaace" which was super fun! The panelists all had great things to say. When going into space, would we pack food along? If so, how? Would we grow food on the ships? Who would grow the food and cook it? What about an edible space ship? What about having soil and mushrooms and trees on ships? Etc. There was some discussion of using 3D printers to make food. One person asked about how Star Trek replicators are supposed to work; I don't think there was a clear answer on this one. There was some discussion of military rations, of submarines and living at the South Pole / McMurdo. An audience member had been a cook at McMurdo and described that. It takes a large support staff to support 1 scientist. I asked about the ethics of vat-grown protein vs. eating a real cow, a la several books I've read, and the panelists had good things to say about that. Rich people might want the hand-raised real cow. Middle-class people might get the vat-grown protein but be lied to about where it's coming from. Also, what is the source of the original cells making up the vat-grown protein? It's hard to know the ethics of a tech that doesn't exist yet. "Firefly" came up a couple of times: food as currency, the plain food being eaten over and over again but improved with spices, the fresh fruit being high value. FUN panel.
I went to dinner at Himal Chuli with
futuransky and her partner. We mushed together with some other fan people at this tiny restaurant. I sat in for part of the Tiptree Auction, then went to the Glitch Memorial Panel. This was bittersweet but I appreciated it a lot. We talked about why we loved the game. There was a screen up and a computer; our avatars were shown and different screen shots. We all liked the whimsy, humor, and non-violence. Many of us who played are non-gamers, and we enjoyed the easiness of entry. It didn't require much hand-eye coordination, and there were no negative consequences to falling or dying. One panelist thought that the marketing failed: Glitch should have been marketed to non-gamers. Many of us discovered it by word of mouth. We all enjoyed the music and art. I especially enjoyed how there was no gender unless you wanted there to be, and the humor was not offensive. It was cooperative instead of competitive. Even the "griefing", such as tree wars, seemed minor and amusing. Conflicts such as people stealing herbs from community gardens were engineered out of the game. Altruism was built in.
I went by a couple of parties and then went home. My dog was a little stressed at being left alone all day.
---
Sunday I ate lunch in the Con Suite with
j00j and Claire I think. At 1 pm I was on the "A Very Special Disability Panel." I shall rely on others to report about this.
At 2:30 I sat in on a spontaneous programming panel re mental health disability things.
At 4 I was on a great panel that I proposed called "Radical Queer Agenda"!!! With Timmi DuChamp, Mary Ann Mohanraj, Victor Raymond, and JoSelle V. This was super awesome. Futuransky was taking notes and I think someone else was tweeting it. (#RadQueer)
This was too many things in a row for me and I nearly melted down afterwards. I fled to Jesse's room for a while. Then we ate lunch in the restaurant.
I went to the Guest of Honor speeches but got restless and left before Kiini's speech. I wandered the parties for a while and ate delicious foods. At the Clarion West party I met a woman who has written for TV, and it turned out she wrote the vampire episode for Murder, She Wrote. I find it a little awkward when writers ask (at parties) if I am a writer. "Uh... no not really." "So what do you do?" "Uh...." Maybe I should work on that.
----
Today I went to Sign Out and had Ellen Kushner re-sign Privilege of the Sword, which she'd signed for me in 2007 (my first WisCon!). LOL. One thing that was neat about my first WisCon was that I had just read a bunch of these books and suddenly these authors were right there in front of me!
I ate at Noodles with the fannish crew and went to the end-of-con panel and party before heading home.
