Chapter 3, in which I almost sleep through my panel.
After lunch with Seth, I perused the dealer room, which was fun (I found an incredible carved wooden dragon that I may get for the Little Astronomer). But I was exhausted after getting so little sleep, so I checked into my room and took a nap. I was almost asleep when I realized I should set my alarm, so I crawled out of the bed to do that. Good thing: if it hadn’t gone off I would’ve slept through my panel!
This one was about podcasting, and continued a theme I have found to be true for the half-dozen panels I have witnessed: things aren’t organized terribly well. The moderator wasn’t completely sure she was a moderator, and left right before the panel to take care of some personal business, and didn’t come back until five minutes into the panel! That wasn’t really a big deal, and I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. Something this size, with nearly a thousand people, all of whom are openly rebellious to authority, must be a nightmare to organize. Honestly, it really incredible that anything gets done at all!
Anyway, the panel on podcasting went in about ten different directions, all at the same time. Two of the panelists were writers who were making a series of podcasts where they read their novels, and people can download the book pretty much chapter by chapter that way. I listen to mostly science and skeptical podcasts, so this was interesting to me. One of the novels was straight fantasy, and not my cup of tea, but the other is more horror, so I will check it out.
During the panel discussion, I talked a bit about blogs (since they are related to podcasts) and mentioned the comet not hitting the Earth last week, and how I debunked that on my website. One of the panelists suddenly looks at me, and says "You’re the Bad Astronomer?"
That made my day.
After, I went to an interview with Larry Niven, who did a brief synopsis of various stages of his writing career. That was fun, even if I knew most of the stories. I will get an autograph from him tomorrow on my Ringworld game, I suppose. I also have some work-related ideas I have where I could use a gang of hard science fiction writers. I asked him about it, and he was tentative at first but may be interested in it– after I told him more, I think he realized I was legit and not some demented fan. Or perhaps both. I won’t go into details here, but I promise that if this looks like it will happen I’ll be blogging all about it. 
Next: dinner (sigh, probably McDonalds), and then I’ll surf some of the notorious parties that swing on the second floor, and then maybe the hot tub. My feet hurt.
May 27th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Huzzah for dragons! Huzzah for stuff! Boo for McDonald’s! I hope your feet stop hurting! I’m gonna go to sleep now!
May 27th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Phil:
O.K., so MacDonald’s was the only choice (personally, I would have looked for a Chinese restaurant, but what the hey). Larry Niven! How cool is that! Please keep on doing the UNdemented fanzine-reader-admirer thing (I’ve projected a bit on this last sentiment (but good God, Larry Niven!?) Soak those feet…
Bill M.
May 28th, 2006 at 3:01 am
Hi Phil,
Welcome to the concept of “Fannish Mean Time”
May 28th, 2006 at 8:45 am
I guess you must be talking about Scott Sigler. Books, even podnovels (podiobooks – whatever) are a personal taste. For me, all three of his podnovels (Earthcore, Ancestor and currently infection) have been superb listening. (Highly recommended.)
May 28th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Yeah, it was Scott Sigler. Good call!
May 29th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
As a big Niven fan myself, I’m sooooo totally jealous- hey how come Ringworld never gets to the big screen?? Guess the studio heads have something in common with Puppeteer Hindmosts? But Tom Cruise would make a wonderful Protector- he won’t even have to act!
As for if we ever meet real aliens- communication should be very very interesting. SF treatment of linguistics tends to be rudimentary and out-dated, but interestingly there are maybe a dozen actual doctoral theses by linguists and anthropologists devoted to the subject. Just don’t expect their findings to be incorporated into books and screenplays anytime soon.
Some points- we’re still arguing about basic parameters within human languages, their uses, their origins, their ontogenies. All the stuff of careers. And we have no idea how it all started- research into animal communicative ethology is still slow and underpopulated researcher-wise. What was the transition like- was is sudden (Chomsky), or gradual- was it an add-on, or a transformation of the pre-existing system. How much variation is possible? What won’t go? How much is learned, how much genetically bootstrapped? And for aliens- how much of language is dependent on our particular nature as upright jawed vertebrates with two sexes, etc.?
Hollywood aliens always seem to be blobs, bugs, or some sort of vertebrate- even one of those recent supposedly scientifically-informed fake documentaries on the educational channels (about missions to other worlds with life) had vertebrates for crying out loud! Body plan variation- ever heard of it??
For some reason I cannot fathom (unless its to take advantage of our native reactions of fear to bugs, or ability to empathize to aliens with humanoid bodies with expressive faces) you never see some of the richer SF ideas in film.
One day real aliens are going to eat us because they don’t recognize us as an intelligent species.
Jess Tauber
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:50 am
Jess,
Sorry to shatter your illusions, but most days, I don’t recognize us as an intelligent species!
September 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
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