Alan Turing has been granted a royal pardon for the 1952 conviction on charges of homosexual activity. According to news reports the pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. It is really good that this small step was taken to at least begin to correct a terrible injustice even if there is no way to fully correct what happened. However I am struck by the name Royal Prerogative of Mercy; it has a disconcerting feel to it. Why not have a Royal Prerogative of Reversing Bigotry?
And of course the obvious question is what about Oscar WIlde who was convicted and imprisoned on similar charges? Is a Royal Pardon only available to those who have a group of well known and well organized persons supporting the pardon? What about the many persons who were prosecuted for sexual activity between consenting adults? Will each of them be getting a Royal Pardon? If not why not?
UPDATE: Cheryl Morgan @CherylMorgan retweeted a post by Intercom Trust @IntercomTrust which pointed to document describing a method for requesting that records be cleared for persons convicted in situations similar to those of Alan Turing. The URL is http://www.intercomtrust.org.uk/news/DevCorn_police_statement_January_2013.pdf and since I do not live in a jurisdiction where this is relevant and am not an expert on UK law then all I can say is that if you think this applies to you perhaps you should consult proper legal advice. Of course the obvious question is why does someone need to make an application; why not clean up the records automatically? The persons with these records have already been through enough why not just do the right thing and clear the records without making these persons jump through more bureaucratic hoops?
2013-12-23
2013-01-20
A Few Considerations About The Arena Of Discourse
It is January the first month of a new calendar year and one often finds blog posts with reflections on the months past or looking at the coming months with a mixture of hope, resolution, anticipation, concern or discomfort where the exact ratios of these and other factors depend on the author in question. I had been considering one or two blogs doing some reflecting on the past year and a quick look at trends and expectations. However another matter began competing for my attention recently and thus this blog post will not be a looking back or looking ahead post.
The topic of this post is about the arena of discourse or what some call the marketplace of ideas or the public dialogue. Specifically I want to make a plea for us all to be good stewards of the arena of discourse and to note some practices which hinder and some which help this stewardship. This is very similar to but different from personal epistemological hygiene and it can be argued that having ones own epistemological house in order is likely a prerequisite for dealing with the broader arena of pubic discourse
Today with the internet it is relatively easier than in the past for individuals to publish their ideas where they can be considered by many others. At least potentially considered since the internet does not guarantee an audience. Prior to the internet those without a major media outlet could reach a potentially smaller audience by the use of relatively cheap duplication technology such as photocopier and before that mimeograph And for those with the time and money there was the possibility of setting up a small hand operated press. Of course as Moses Harmon and others found out the problem of having ones publication seized in the mails could not be ignored. In the 1950s and 1960s the postal censorship situation improved.
The phrase "With great power comes great responsibility" is commonly attributed to Voltaire. There are several reasons why we all should undertake this shared responsibility to keep the arena of public discourse is as good a condition as possible. One of these is that each of us will have our own pet ideas evaluated in that arena and I expect that we will want our ideas evaluated by persons who already have the skills and habits of making accurate and fair evaluations. So what are a few tips for improving our shared arena of discourse.
One of the first is to avoid logical fallacies. There are many resources that explain logical fallacies and it is a good idea to find a couple and keep the URLs handy for example:
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx
http://www.manyworldsoflogic.com/resources.html
But it is more than just avoiding logical fallacies. Just like one does not throw candy wrappers on the ground when walking in a park we should be similarly considerate of our discourse in the garden park of ideas. If I can use this park metaphor for just a bit more we should be vigilant to not plant or perpetuate falsehoods for these are the weeds in the park. We should nourish honesty and integrity. Plus we should be aware that there will often be disagreements. People no matter how honest and well intended can disagree so the goal should be to keep things civil and work on determining the cause of the disagreement. And remember that one failure does not forever mark person as outside the realm of civilized discourse. I expect that each of us including me has slipped up and written or spoken something which is not in accordance with one of these principles. The point is to identify the problem and try to do better.
If you reference a document please provide a link so people know what you taking about. Newspapers are part of the discourse and in their online editions one would expect links to primary sources so that a person can find the original and make up their own mind. Not like the recent experience I had where a major newspaper located in the DC area had an article about a report published by a government agency. What I could not find was a link to the original article; there were plenty of links in the article but everyone of them linked back to lists of other articles in the newspaper site; by doing a Google search I was able to find the original document Even if it disappears from the original site just having the URL will help with trying to find it on archive.org the Internet Archive
Also be careful of how one characterizes others in the dialogue. For example consider someone in the political sphere who identifies as a Green and who is also what is commonly called a 9/11 Truther which slightly over simplified means they think that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and the World Trade Center towers were brought down by planted explosives not as a result of being hit by the airplanes. The distinction we need to keep in mind is if the 9/11 Truther stuff derives from the Green philosophy or if it just the ideas of some people who just happen to identify as Green.
When engaging in a dialogue remember it is a dialogue not a monologue. You may think the other person is wrong but the key is to find that person's strongest argument and address that argument. This will hopefully encourage the other person in the dialogue to do the same relative to your arguments.
One of the easiest activities to fall into is going after the weakest argument in a group and then acting as if one has vanquished them all. We should avoid letting a philosophy or movement or social group be defined by their least credible or sympathetic advocate or member.
This is all to easy when attempting to create or perpetuate a stereotype. For example a reporter who goes to a Science Fiction convention and focuses on the person who lives in his mother's basement collecting action figures. And to make the main lead of their story the reporter walks past the elementary school teacher who could talk about how to inspire children and the scholar in intellectual history who can talk about the impact of post WWII Science Fiction in France or the corporate lawyer for a major technology company who can knowledgeably discuss legal issues in technology or the physicist who can discuss technology as it is portrayed in novels. It is the issue of a representative sample versus a selective sample. And we know that reporter works for a media company that wants capture attention and sell advertisements. Yes the reporter should behave better but will they; I am not sure. Perhaps the best thing to do is show a good example. It might begin by not doing the usual stereotyping of some political or religious group. If we start a meme about fair representation and issues related to not only to politics and religion but also gender, race and similar factors perhaps the situation will improve.
Another part of the process is to try to develop common clear crisp definitions and to clearly determine the topic of conversation. This goes a long way toward avoiding endless looping. For example if two people agree that they want a just society yet are disagreeing about how to get there it is a good idea to make sure they have the same concept of justice. There is a concept of justice based on the rules of social interaction and the related processes. This is a also a concept of justice based on the distribution of outcomes. There are other definitions and variants. The point is for there to be a common understanding of where the difference is occurring. Thus it is valuable for each participant in the discussion to have a clear conceptual map of their own views as well as the views of the other participants. I said it is valuable; I did not say it is common.
There is a difference between directing humor and ridicule at an argument and directly them at a person making the argument. It is a thin boundary and easy to cross inadvertently so humor and ridicule need to be used with care. In some circumstances humor can break the tension and get everyone to relax. In other circumstances in can cause a breech in the flow of ideas. One of the problems here is that so many people identify with their ideas and ideologies. Often much of a persons social context is in groups with many commonly held ideas and thus for a person to abandon an idea might feel like either leaving or being expelled from the group. One way of addressing this is to propagate the meme of always questioning and doubting and always making every hypothesis subject to falsification. This stems from the work of Karl Popper in the philosophy of science. The critical rationalism approach was extended by W.W. Bartley who felt that if could be useful in analyzing issues related to the long standing clash between science and religion. The approach he developed called Pan-Critical Rationalism is useful in looking at that clash but is also useful in understanding issues related to other issues.
Now let me comment on strawman arguments. In my experience strawman arguments can arise in three different ways. First when a person understands a position perfectly well and deliberately misrepresents that position. Second is when a person mistakenly thinks they understand a position and misrepresent it. Third is when a person is aware that they do not understand a position but make a representation as if they did. The person whose argument is being subjected to this strawman treatment will often not know which of the three situations is occurring. That is why it is important to firmly but politely object to the strawman with specifics. And if someone claims you are doing a strawman on their argument ask for specific details.
Selective quoting is one of those behaviors that is easier to catch now with so many works available online. An example: if I was asked about which of the baseball players of the pre-WWI era I admired and I wrote "Leaving his racism aside, I admire Ty Cobb." If someone else then wrote that I admired a known racist in an attempt to disparage my character that would be inappropriate. Actually I am not a big baseball fan and not a Ty Cobb fan, I had to look up Ty Cobb to make sure that the example worked. My point is that we need verify quotes and ask for citations and make sure that context is supplied. In particular do this for quotes or anecdotes that are the "silver bullet" in some argument. I expect most of us have heard the quotation or anecdote that clearly supports our view and discredits and contradicts a view we do not hold and thus we really want it email it and tweet it and blog it and Facebook it and GooglePlus it all at once to the whole world however that is the moment to instead stop and make sure the quote or anecdote is accurate, in context and really represents the situation. And remember to check snopes.com please. I have seen my friends get embarrassed because someone emailed them something and because it was from a friend they just put it out themselves without checking only to find the item they propagated was not accurate.
I recommend reading for understanding not to find a gotcha. One example of this is when a writer makes a small error which is not consequential to the issue under discussion. For example if a person mistakenly attributes a Richard Feynman quote to Carl Sagan that would only invalidate an argument if the author of the quote was a central aspect of the discussion. Otherwise it is worth a minor correction just to keep confusion from arising but not to derail the discussion. Similar to the above is when there is an obvious mistake in typing. Thus if a major anti-censorship figure types "I am in favor of censorship" where obviously the word "not" was missing and the intended phrase should be "I am not in favor of censorship".
Another item to avoid is the derailment. This is taking a discussion off topic. Some people do this because the discussion is not going their way and they want to get the topic shifted before the last bit of their argument is publicly shredded. Others do it because they have a particular hobby horse and they feel this great urge to shift the discussion to their favorite topic or at least one in which they feel they are expert. For example no matter what the topic of discussion they might steer the discussion to the role of the British Monarchy in being part of some secret conspiracy behind the assassination of both Kennedy brothers.
Avoid the Gish Gallop. This is the name given by Eugenie Scott to a debate technique of the creationist Duane Gish. The technique is to spew out an incredibly large number of falsehoods, half-truths, misleading comments, strawmen arguments and canards in such a fashion that a person on the other side of a debate can not answer them. What is the count needed for someone to be engaging in a Gish Gallop? That is open to discussion; one number I have seen is 50. The point is not the exact number but the intention. This is particularly tempting to do to someone who is not as linguistically skilled as you are. Please don't do it.
Don t be afraid to say "I don't know" when you do not know. Deliberately blustering through an argument with false or incomplete or misleading statements might lead to a short term advantage but for the long term it is usually not worth it.
It is important to be able to identify what you do not know. Failure to do so can be like going around a corner at high speed and no visibility; it can often lead to a negative experience. If the ignorance is due to someone not realizing the state of ignorance it is worthwhile to politely point the person to the appropriate information resources. If a person stays in a state of ignorance willful by not asking or by not seeking information or by not accessing information when it is provided
These few comments do not come close to covering all of what needs to be covered. However I hope it is a starting point.
2012-12-03
A Report Inspired By Attending Dragon*Con
I had long been aware of Dragon*Con in the same vague sense that one is often away of annual cons that one has never attended however it was in 2011 that my desire to attend Dragon*Con was tweaked. The catalyst that tweaked my desire to attend Dragon*Con occurred at TAM in 2011. TAM is an annual conference ran by The James Randi Educational Foundation. The conference has been held in Las Vegas for several days in July the past few years. TAM was another of those conferences I had heard about but never attended. So in 2011 I attended TAM for the first time and had a great experience. TAM is a conference focused on the value of Science and Skepticism and how to detect and counter cognitive fallacies and woo-woo stuff such as psychics, ghosts and faith-healers. There were workshops on how psychic readings are done and how to critically investigate everything from big foot to ghosts. Several times I heard speakers or conversations where Dragon*Con was mentioned. I gathered that there was a strong presence of Skeptics at Dragon*Con and there was an entire programming track devoted to Skepticism with speakers such as Eugenie Scott from NCSE. This lead me to deciding to attend Dragon*Con in 2012 and thus skip needing to make the choice between Burning Man and Worldcon.
My previous time in Atlanta was about ten years ago on a business trip and all I had seen was the airport, a hotel on the outer edge of Atlanta and a computer server room where I was part of team installing some servers. I decided to arrive early and have at least an afternoon to see more of Atlanta. The con ran from Friday morning to noon Monday (Labor Day). My flight from SFO to Atlanta had at least three people headed for Dragon*Con; there may have been more but I could personally confirm three. By the time I checked into my hotel it was late in the Wednesday evening. The Atlanta rail system is called MARTA and has a terminal at the airport. The main con hotels had long been booked solid so I was staying in the Melia which is two MARTA stops past the stop near the Hyatt. Hint if you are going to be making more that a handful of trips on MARTA buy the 7 day pass. Second hint if you have a Clipper card which is used by many of the transit systems (BART, VTA, etc) in the San Francisco Bay Area do not get it near the MARTA card reader or the MARTA reader will think it is an MARTA card and your Clipper card might get corrupted. The Melia Hotel is conveniently located a block from a MARTA stop which is also a bus transfer point. Many other Dragon*Con attendees were staying at the Melia Hotel plus the Melia was a main hotel for Pride Weekend such as International Black Gay Pride. So the Melia was full and busy.
Thursday morning I got up and headed off to go through Dragon*Con registration since they had special Thursday morning hours for persons who had pre-registered. When I got to Sheraton the line was already out the door, down the sidewalk and around the corner. Since I had been in a similar long line at Fanime in San Jose a couple of months previously and it had taken 2 hours and 37 minutes to cycle through. However I was pleasantly surprised when the line moved and after a few minutes moved again. Much sooner that I expected I was in the hotel and then into the large room with the serpentine line which moved surprisingly quickly. I had my badge less than an hour later. One of the main reasons seemed to be the bar coded postcard system they used. When I had pre-registered months previously they had sent a blue postcard that said very plainly to bring the post card with you to registration. That post card had a bar code printed on it and when a person stepped one of the reg stations the staff person there scanned the post card and a label was printed on a label maker which the slapped on the Dragon*Con badge and the badge handed over. That was all they did. If you had a problem you went to the problem station. If you wanted to pickup a banquet ticket you first got your badge and then went to the station for other tickets. The reg station did not hand people their program books that was done in the next room. All the reg stations did was do reg badges; nothing more. And there were about 16 stations. There was no worrying about how to split by last name because any station could handle any pre-registration card. There was one person as traffic control so that at any time a reg station had one person being processed and two in queue waiting. It was very efficient.
After I had my badge and other items I got some lunch and then headed back to the hotel to drop things off. After dropping my things at the hotel I walked over to the bus transfer point and got a local bus which stops about a block from the Martin Luther King National Historical Site which has many fine displays and information about Dr. King and the Civil Rights struggle. Across the street is the King Center which has rooms with interesting displays related to Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, Mahatma Gandhi and Rosa Parks. Outside there was a long reflecting pool and what appeared to be a small chapel or meditation room at the end of the pool. But it was locked and appeared to have been converted to storage although this was most likely noticeable only to a inquisitive person such as me. Overall I rate the time spend at the various MLK sites as well worth the effort and I recommend it to others. Then I got the bus back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.
The Thursday evening event was not directly part of Dragon*Con but had many attendees who would be in town for Dragon*Con. The event was sponsored by the Atlanta area skeptics as a charity fund raiser for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. The theme was to be astronomy in honor of Jeff Medkeff who had died from cancer in 2008 and had been very involved in astronomy. The plan was to hold the event at a venue that served food and drink and had a place to set up some telescopes. The venue was good, the food was good and the beer was cold and reasonably priced and all served by a friendly and competent staff. The problem was that the sky was covered by clouds. The storm that disrupted the Republican convention was close enough to Atlanta to cause clouds, not rain just a lot of clouds. So no telescope viewing but they did use the internet to contact people in other places to view their computer linked telescopes and thus there were images of the moon displayed on a screen. Plus there were live performers including George Hrab as well as bloggers and writers well known in the Skeptic community. It was a great party but eventually I decided to leave and get some rest since I still had not totally made the time zone shift and I expected the morning would come subjectively very early.
So I departed and was going to grab a taxi back to my hotel. A large group of people had justed exited the bar next door and were filling both of the available taxis. So I decided to walk on and contemplate my options when after walking about 20 meters or so I came upon a young lady who appeared to be about 14 or 15 years old asking some random person on a bicycle how to get to the Sheraton. After the person on the bicycle said that he had no idea, I stepped up and asked if she was looking Dragon*Con registration at the Sheraton. She said yes and that she thought it was nearby since she had gotten off at a MARTA stop and walked this direction. I said no and that she was turned around 180 degrees however I knew where the Sheraton was since I had been there that morning. Since there were no more cabs around I suggested we just walk. So we walked back and she said she was going to volunteer at Dragon*Con and this was her first year attending. She needed to meet someone the Sheraton before midnight. So at 11:55PM I walked her to the proper intersection and pointed to the Sheraton across the street. She was happy and thankful and headed toward the Sheraton and I headed to MARTA so get back to my hotel for some much needed sleep because the con would be going in earnest in the morning.
Friday morning came earlier than my body expected. I got up and did the usual morning things and caught MARTA to the con. At this point I should note that weeks prior to the con a smartphone app had been released which listed all of the events in all of the tracks and allowed each person to customize their own schedule even to the point of booking themselves to four or more events at the same time. And there were many items to consider.
Dragon*Con is a large event with attendance in the 50,000 plus range. I suspect that most readers of this report have either engaged in the game of Bumper Cars or have observed others engaged in that activity. Navigating the hallways at Dragon*Con is like a game of Bumper People; particularly at a couple of choke points. Dragon*Con utilizes much of the hotel space in central Atlanta in particular the Sheraton and three hotels which are connected the Hyatt, Mariott and Hilton. These hotels are connected by an enclosed walkway which allows moving from hotel to hotel without worrying about weather or crossing the street. These three hotels are located on a slope so to access the walkway one does need to utilize the escalators or stairs to get at the appropriate level.
Dragncon has many tracks. Many, many tracks. Everything from a track on Skepticism to a track related to computers and technology to a track on Star Wars. Interested in cosplay then there are panels on than. Interested in podcasting then their are panels on that. Interested in the latest SF and Fantasy novels then there will be publisher representatives to tell you about upcoming books. And that is only touching the surface. To get an indication see http://DragonCon.org/fan_tracks.php and look around. And speaking of tracks now is a good time to mention the Dragon*Con parade. This parade has contingents from the different tracks marching in downtown Atlanta. This is an event where many people from the community turn out several deep to watch the parade particularly families with children. You can see the information an Atlanta family site provided at http://www.atlantawithkid.com/family-guide-to-annual-dragoncon-parade-2012/ as an example There are many pictures and videos of the parade online so I will give one URL http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/09/the-cosplay-of-dragoncon-2012-day-two-the-parade and everyone can google for the rest. The parade has about 3000 Dragon*Con attendees participating. I watched the parade from near where it began and from beginning to end was about an hour or so. For a great photo of people viewing the parade and a fine Dragon*Con report see: http://efanzines.com/SFSF/SFSF134.pdf
In addition to the various panels Dragon*Con had a number of larger events. One of those was a joint appearance of James Randi (already mentioned above) and Alice Cooper. Now one might ask why were the well known magician and skeptic James Randi and the famous (or Infamous) rocker Alice Cooper on stage together being interviewed. The answer is that years ago James Randi was part of the Billion Dollar Baby tour of Alice Cooper. And they had remained in touch and friends over the years. The interview was a great time for stories from Randi and Coop. And Coop gave the true story that he did not kill the chicken at the concert in Detroit. However at the time he let the rumor spread because it was such good publicity.
One difference from a Worldcon was a larger number of special guests who had acted in various TV or media productions. For some of these guests you who purchase a photo opportunity. In many cases you could buy autographed photos and most of them were on panels speaking about the shows in which they appeared. I am not generally interested too much in media however I decided to go to one panel listed as a Star Trek series mashup just to see what it was like. Several hundred people turned up to hear Michael Dorn (Worf, TNG DS9), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura, TOS) Connor Trinneer (Charles "Trip" Tucker, ENT) and Garrett Wang (Harry Kim VOY). Considering this was near the end of the con it went well.
Occasionally one hears a plaintive lament about the "Graying of Fandom"; my suggestion for anyone with that concern is go to Dragon*Con and look around. My observation was that the Dragon*Con attendees tend to be much younger than the typical Worldcon attendees. I am not the first one to make this observation and I doubt I will be the last. And others have listed the reasons so I will not attempt an exhaustive or even extensive list in this report. However I will note a couple of items. One is the cosplay. Cosplay is becoming an increasing large phenomena. I noticed at Dragon*Con many dealers selling non-book items such as superhero action figures, DVD/BluRay videos, costuming accessories, media star photos and photo opportunities compared to Worldcon.
There was an art show somewhat like a Worldcon art show with a few differences. One difference was that I saw a couple of instances where the artists was also a writer and was selling both copies of their books as well as artwork based on their stories. In one case I noticed an author selling used copies of her early works published by one of the regular publishers and then later works in the series being self published and selling both art prints as well as a large original oil painting based on the series.
There were so many dealers that they were split into multiple rooms. And the rooms were crowed with people and as least some appeared to be making purchases. At one point I thought I had visited every dealer room when I turned a corner and there was one more which was serendipitous since it was in that room that I found a DVD of the play The Book of Morman. I was glad to get it since I suspected that I would not get tickets for the play when it was in the San Francisco Bay Area. The dealer slots varied from a small space where one to authors were pushing the books to slightly larger for some small presses to very large muli-space areas crammed with collectible action figures, games, manga, videos, t-shirts and toys. And there were a few traditional book dealers. Unfortunately there was a booth hawking L. Ron Hubbard drivel and Writers of the Future. At least they were not offering free personality tests or trying to run an e-meter scan on the unsuspecting. At least not as far as I could see. However one never knows when one sees people who appear to me to be shills, fronts or smokescreens for Hubbard, Dianetics, Scientology or what other BS they are shoveling at the moment. But the rest of dealers areas were interesting.
And of course Dragon*con had an area for various organization and fan tables. The James Randi Educational Foundation and National Center for Science Education NCSE were just a couple of the tables I stopped by on multiple occasions. And since I had not packed enough shirts I was able to get a NCSE T-shirt; the new hip fashion.
The hotels were generally well prepared. In additional to their restaurants they had setup additional food sales stands selling burgers, sandwiches, chips, fruits and drinks. Also some pizza vendors set up stalls selling pizza either by the slice or the whole pie. One of the advantage of having Dragon*Con in the same city and hotels each year is that a lot of knowledge can be build up about crowd control, food services and event scheduling. Due to the size of the con the walkways were more crowded and thus not as conducive to spontaneous conversation. Some of this was alleviated by having most panel sessions being sixty minutes with a thirty minute break between sessions. This allowed some conversations to occur following panels without the need to immediately vacate the room for the next panel.
Dragon*Con does have an opening ceremony and a closing ceremony however these were lightly attended compared to Worldcon in both absolute and relative terms. Dragon*Con also has a banquet and since it was my first Dragon*Con I decided to attend. The cost for a banquet ticket was sixty five dollars. The banquet attendance was I am guessing in the 200 to 300 range but it was difficult to tell from where I was sitting. The banquet started with a small group of musicians performing lovely classical music as people found a seat and socialized, a welcome change of ambiance. The food was good actually slightly better that most banquet food. A local politician did the usual politician speech. Awards were presented and Robert Picardo the holographic Doctor from ST:VOY performed and showed off his many skills. He is really very talented and entertaining.
The size of the events varied a seventy five person room to rooms set up to handle hundreds. For example the line to see James Randi and Alice Cooper started to form more that an hour prior to the event and went down the hall then out the side door and down the walkway to the sidewalk and then down the sidewalk. But everyone got in and there were extra seats just not up front.
One of the events I enjoyed was not on the official list. George Hrab had started telling some people that following his scheduled event at 11:00PM he would be performing on the piano in the hotel hallway. And after his scheduled event and after his assistant had concluded selling a few CDs he went out to the piano in the hotel hallway and performed the entire Dark Side of the Moon. Just him singing and accompanying himself on the piano and a crowd people standing and sitting and listening to a great performance. George Hrab has a podcast and you can hear part of his scheduled Dragon*Con event and the mis-communication about him possibly being the interviewer for the Randi and Coop event as well as him discussing playing Dark Side of the Moon at http://geologicpodcast.com/the-geologic-podcast-episode-279 And to hear about George having Poutine in Montreal try http://geologicpodcast.com/the-geologic-podcast-episode-281
Podcasting is becoming increasingly popular. In addition to en entire track on podcasting the popular Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast recorded an entire session before a live audience late one night at Dragon*Con. To listen to it http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=373 And ranging even further afield you can read what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aka CDC had to say about Dragon*Con http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2012/11/Dragon*Con-2012/
As Dragon*Con started to wind down on Monday I joined an eclectic mix of persons who had been attending many of the Skeptics panels for an impromptu Skeptics In The Pub gathering at a bar. We ate and drank and spoke of the fun we had and discussed flying back to our various homes. It was a fun end to an enjoyable weekend.
This report has only touched on small fraction of many aspects of Dragon*Con. Dragon*Con is big and seems to have covered almost all of the fannish bases plus more. In summary I will say that I really enjoyed Dragon*Con. It had a different vibe and higher energy than a lot of cons I have attended. It might not be for everyone every year but I think most fans would enjoy attending it at least once.
My previous time in Atlanta was about ten years ago on a business trip and all I had seen was the airport, a hotel on the outer edge of Atlanta and a computer server room where I was part of team installing some servers. I decided to arrive early and have at least an afternoon to see more of Atlanta. The con ran from Friday morning to noon Monday (Labor Day). My flight from SFO to Atlanta had at least three people headed for Dragon*Con; there may have been more but I could personally confirm three. By the time I checked into my hotel it was late in the Wednesday evening. The Atlanta rail system is called MARTA and has a terminal at the airport. The main con hotels had long been booked solid so I was staying in the Melia which is two MARTA stops past the stop near the Hyatt. Hint if you are going to be making more that a handful of trips on MARTA buy the 7 day pass. Second hint if you have a Clipper card which is used by many of the transit systems (BART, VTA, etc) in the San Francisco Bay Area do not get it near the MARTA card reader or the MARTA reader will think it is an MARTA card and your Clipper card might get corrupted. The Melia Hotel is conveniently located a block from a MARTA stop which is also a bus transfer point. Many other Dragon*Con attendees were staying at the Melia Hotel plus the Melia was a main hotel for Pride Weekend such as International Black Gay Pride. So the Melia was full and busy.
Thursday morning I got up and headed off to go through Dragon*Con registration since they had special Thursday morning hours for persons who had pre-registered. When I got to Sheraton the line was already out the door, down the sidewalk and around the corner. Since I had been in a similar long line at Fanime in San Jose a couple of months previously and it had taken 2 hours and 37 minutes to cycle through. However I was pleasantly surprised when the line moved and after a few minutes moved again. Much sooner that I expected I was in the hotel and then into the large room with the serpentine line which moved surprisingly quickly. I had my badge less than an hour later. One of the main reasons seemed to be the bar coded postcard system they used. When I had pre-registered months previously they had sent a blue postcard that said very plainly to bring the post card with you to registration. That post card had a bar code printed on it and when a person stepped one of the reg stations the staff person there scanned the post card and a label was printed on a label maker which the slapped on the Dragon*Con badge and the badge handed over. That was all they did. If you had a problem you went to the problem station. If you wanted to pickup a banquet ticket you first got your badge and then went to the station for other tickets. The reg station did not hand people their program books that was done in the next room. All the reg stations did was do reg badges; nothing more. And there were about 16 stations. There was no worrying about how to split by last name because any station could handle any pre-registration card. There was one person as traffic control so that at any time a reg station had one person being processed and two in queue waiting. It was very efficient.
After I had my badge and other items I got some lunch and then headed back to the hotel to drop things off. After dropping my things at the hotel I walked over to the bus transfer point and got a local bus which stops about a block from the Martin Luther King National Historical Site which has many fine displays and information about Dr. King and the Civil Rights struggle. Across the street is the King Center which has rooms with interesting displays related to Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, Mahatma Gandhi and Rosa Parks. Outside there was a long reflecting pool and what appeared to be a small chapel or meditation room at the end of the pool. But it was locked and appeared to have been converted to storage although this was most likely noticeable only to a inquisitive person such as me. Overall I rate the time spend at the various MLK sites as well worth the effort and I recommend it to others. Then I got the bus back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.
The Thursday evening event was not directly part of Dragon*Con but had many attendees who would be in town for Dragon*Con. The event was sponsored by the Atlanta area skeptics as a charity fund raiser for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. The theme was to be astronomy in honor of Jeff Medkeff who had died from cancer in 2008 and had been very involved in astronomy. The plan was to hold the event at a venue that served food and drink and had a place to set up some telescopes. The venue was good, the food was good and the beer was cold and reasonably priced and all served by a friendly and competent staff. The problem was that the sky was covered by clouds. The storm that disrupted the Republican convention was close enough to Atlanta to cause clouds, not rain just a lot of clouds. So no telescope viewing but they did use the internet to contact people in other places to view their computer linked telescopes and thus there were images of the moon displayed on a screen. Plus there were live performers including George Hrab as well as bloggers and writers well known in the Skeptic community. It was a great party but eventually I decided to leave and get some rest since I still had not totally made the time zone shift and I expected the morning would come subjectively very early.
So I departed and was going to grab a taxi back to my hotel. A large group of people had justed exited the bar next door and were filling both of the available taxis. So I decided to walk on and contemplate my options when after walking about 20 meters or so I came upon a young lady who appeared to be about 14 or 15 years old asking some random person on a bicycle how to get to the Sheraton. After the person on the bicycle said that he had no idea, I stepped up and asked if she was looking Dragon*Con registration at the Sheraton. She said yes and that she thought it was nearby since she had gotten off at a MARTA stop and walked this direction. I said no and that she was turned around 180 degrees however I knew where the Sheraton was since I had been there that morning. Since there were no more cabs around I suggested we just walk. So we walked back and she said she was going to volunteer at Dragon*Con and this was her first year attending. She needed to meet someone the Sheraton before midnight. So at 11:55PM I walked her to the proper intersection and pointed to the Sheraton across the street. She was happy and thankful and headed toward the Sheraton and I headed to MARTA so get back to my hotel for some much needed sleep because the con would be going in earnest in the morning.
Friday morning came earlier than my body expected. I got up and did the usual morning things and caught MARTA to the con. At this point I should note that weeks prior to the con a smartphone app had been released which listed all of the events in all of the tracks and allowed each person to customize their own schedule even to the point of booking themselves to four or more events at the same time. And there were many items to consider.
Dragon*Con is a large event with attendance in the 50,000 plus range. I suspect that most readers of this report have either engaged in the game of Bumper Cars or have observed others engaged in that activity. Navigating the hallways at Dragon*Con is like a game of Bumper People; particularly at a couple of choke points. Dragon*Con utilizes much of the hotel space in central Atlanta in particular the Sheraton and three hotels which are connected the Hyatt, Mariott and Hilton. These hotels are connected by an enclosed walkway which allows moving from hotel to hotel without worrying about weather or crossing the street. These three hotels are located on a slope so to access the walkway one does need to utilize the escalators or stairs to get at the appropriate level.
Dragncon has many tracks. Many, many tracks. Everything from a track on Skepticism to a track related to computers and technology to a track on Star Wars. Interested in cosplay then there are panels on than. Interested in podcasting then their are panels on that. Interested in the latest SF and Fantasy novels then there will be publisher representatives to tell you about upcoming books. And that is only touching the surface. To get an indication see http://DragonCon.org/fan_tracks.php and look around. And speaking of tracks now is a good time to mention the Dragon*Con parade. This parade has contingents from the different tracks marching in downtown Atlanta. This is an event where many people from the community turn out several deep to watch the parade particularly families with children. You can see the information an Atlanta family site provided at http://www.atlantawithkid.com/family-guide-to-annual-dragoncon-parade-2012/ as an example There are many pictures and videos of the parade online so I will give one URL http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/09/the-cosplay-of-dragoncon-2012-day-two-the-parade and everyone can google for the rest. The parade has about 3000 Dragon*Con attendees participating. I watched the parade from near where it began and from beginning to end was about an hour or so. For a great photo of people viewing the parade and a fine Dragon*Con report see: http://efanzines.com/SFSF/SFSF134.pdf
In addition to the various panels Dragon*Con had a number of larger events. One of those was a joint appearance of James Randi (already mentioned above) and Alice Cooper. Now one might ask why were the well known magician and skeptic James Randi and the famous (or Infamous) rocker Alice Cooper on stage together being interviewed. The answer is that years ago James Randi was part of the Billion Dollar Baby tour of Alice Cooper. And they had remained in touch and friends over the years. The interview was a great time for stories from Randi and Coop. And Coop gave the true story that he did not kill the chicken at the concert in Detroit. However at the time he let the rumor spread because it was such good publicity.
One difference from a Worldcon was a larger number of special guests who had acted in various TV or media productions. For some of these guests you who purchase a photo opportunity. In many cases you could buy autographed photos and most of them were on panels speaking about the shows in which they appeared. I am not generally interested too much in media however I decided to go to one panel listed as a Star Trek series mashup just to see what it was like. Several hundred people turned up to hear Michael Dorn (Worf, TNG DS9), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura, TOS) Connor Trinneer (Charles "Trip" Tucker, ENT) and Garrett Wang (Harry Kim VOY). Considering this was near the end of the con it went well.
Occasionally one hears a plaintive lament about the "Graying of Fandom"; my suggestion for anyone with that concern is go to Dragon*Con and look around. My observation was that the Dragon*Con attendees tend to be much younger than the typical Worldcon attendees. I am not the first one to make this observation and I doubt I will be the last. And others have listed the reasons so I will not attempt an exhaustive or even extensive list in this report. However I will note a couple of items. One is the cosplay. Cosplay is becoming an increasing large phenomena. I noticed at Dragon*Con many dealers selling non-book items such as superhero action figures, DVD/BluRay videos, costuming accessories, media star photos and photo opportunities compared to Worldcon.
There was an art show somewhat like a Worldcon art show with a few differences. One difference was that I saw a couple of instances where the artists was also a writer and was selling both copies of their books as well as artwork based on their stories. In one case I noticed an author selling used copies of her early works published by one of the regular publishers and then later works in the series being self published and selling both art prints as well as a large original oil painting based on the series.
There were so many dealers that they were split into multiple rooms. And the rooms were crowed with people and as least some appeared to be making purchases. At one point I thought I had visited every dealer room when I turned a corner and there was one more which was serendipitous since it was in that room that I found a DVD of the play The Book of Morman. I was glad to get it since I suspected that I would not get tickets for the play when it was in the San Francisco Bay Area. The dealer slots varied from a small space where one to authors were pushing the books to slightly larger for some small presses to very large muli-space areas crammed with collectible action figures, games, manga, videos, t-shirts and toys. And there were a few traditional book dealers. Unfortunately there was a booth hawking L. Ron Hubbard drivel and Writers of the Future. At least they were not offering free personality tests or trying to run an e-meter scan on the unsuspecting. At least not as far as I could see. However one never knows when one sees people who appear to me to be shills, fronts or smokescreens for Hubbard, Dianetics, Scientology or what other BS they are shoveling at the moment. But the rest of dealers areas were interesting.
And of course Dragon*con had an area for various organization and fan tables. The James Randi Educational Foundation and National Center for Science Education NCSE were just a couple of the tables I stopped by on multiple occasions. And since I had not packed enough shirts I was able to get a NCSE T-shirt; the new hip fashion.
The hotels were generally well prepared. In additional to their restaurants they had setup additional food sales stands selling burgers, sandwiches, chips, fruits and drinks. Also some pizza vendors set up stalls selling pizza either by the slice or the whole pie. One of the advantage of having Dragon*Con in the same city and hotels each year is that a lot of knowledge can be build up about crowd control, food services and event scheduling. Due to the size of the con the walkways were more crowded and thus not as conducive to spontaneous conversation. Some of this was alleviated by having most panel sessions being sixty minutes with a thirty minute break between sessions. This allowed some conversations to occur following panels without the need to immediately vacate the room for the next panel.
Dragon*Con does have an opening ceremony and a closing ceremony however these were lightly attended compared to Worldcon in both absolute and relative terms. Dragon*Con also has a banquet and since it was my first Dragon*Con I decided to attend. The cost for a banquet ticket was sixty five dollars. The banquet attendance was I am guessing in the 200 to 300 range but it was difficult to tell from where I was sitting. The banquet started with a small group of musicians performing lovely classical music as people found a seat and socialized, a welcome change of ambiance. The food was good actually slightly better that most banquet food. A local politician did the usual politician speech. Awards were presented and Robert Picardo the holographic Doctor from ST:VOY performed and showed off his many skills. He is really very talented and entertaining.
The size of the events varied a seventy five person room to rooms set up to handle hundreds. For example the line to see James Randi and Alice Cooper started to form more that an hour prior to the event and went down the hall then out the side door and down the walkway to the sidewalk and then down the sidewalk. But everyone got in and there were extra seats just not up front.
One of the events I enjoyed was not on the official list. George Hrab had started telling some people that following his scheduled event at 11:00PM he would be performing on the piano in the hotel hallway. And after his scheduled event and after his assistant had concluded selling a few CDs he went out to the piano in the hotel hallway and performed the entire Dark Side of the Moon. Just him singing and accompanying himself on the piano and a crowd people standing and sitting and listening to a great performance. George Hrab has a podcast and you can hear part of his scheduled Dragon*Con event and the mis-communication about him possibly being the interviewer for the Randi and Coop event as well as him discussing playing Dark Side of the Moon at http://geologicpodcast.com/the-geologic-podcast-episode-279 And to hear about George having Poutine in Montreal try http://geologicpodcast.com/the-geologic-podcast-episode-281
Podcasting is becoming increasingly popular. In addition to en entire track on podcasting the popular Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast recorded an entire session before a live audience late one night at Dragon*Con. To listen to it http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=373 And ranging even further afield you can read what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aka CDC had to say about Dragon*Con http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2012/11/Dragon*Con-2012/
As Dragon*Con started to wind down on Monday I joined an eclectic mix of persons who had been attending many of the Skeptics panels for an impromptu Skeptics In The Pub gathering at a bar. We ate and drank and spoke of the fun we had and discussed flying back to our various homes. It was a fun end to an enjoyable weekend.
This report has only touched on small fraction of many aspects of Dragon*Con. Dragon*Con is big and seems to have covered almost all of the fannish bases plus more. In summary I will say that I really enjoyed Dragon*Con. It had a different vibe and higher energy than a lot of cons I have attended. It might not be for everyone every year but I think most fans would enjoy attending it at least once.
2012-11-21
Reflection on the 2012 election for POTUS
Here are some thoughts about the recent election for President of the United Status POTUS. I will state once again I am not an Obama fan. Also I am not a Romney fan. However in reading the post election news something caught my attention and thus led me to write this post.
Judgement is demonstrated in many different ways and is demonstrated to the world in part by what choices are made and by how one perceives and acts on the news of the world. Judgement is one of the many factors need to demonstrate the competence for any high level executive position including the position of POTUS.
John McCain demonstrated a lack of competence by selecting Sarah Palin for the vice-presidential slot on the 2008 Republican ticket. His judgement was flawed. McCain considered Sarah Palin to be qualified to be one heartbeat away from the position of POTUS; not a demonstration of judgement.. As much as I dislike many of the Obama policies I suspect that McCain would have been worse.
During the days following the recent election I started seeing reports about how Romney was 'shellshocked' at the loss.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss/
What I want to know is how could Romney have been 'shellshocked' when the overwhelming signal from the polling was that Obama was in the lead? This is not a case of being 'disappointed' at close loss. 'Shellshocked' means you truly expected to win without a doubt but lost big. But some might say 'It was not Romney's fault. His advisers and pollsters mislead him.' To which I reply 'One key responsibility of any executive is to pick top quality advisers and to be able to detect when they are spouting nonsense.'
Anyone could check the trend lines on
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
For the three weeks prior to the election the Obama trend was up and the Romney trend was down. Anyone with a basic understanding of statistics should have seen that there was a lot of data pointing to an Obama victory. If the internal Romney pollsters were saying something different then why did not Romney bring in a variety of statistics professors and professional pollsters to look at the internal Romney numbers. So far I can find no evidence that this was done. Anyone who claims any sort of management or executive competence should have seen this. Not Romney; he was 'shellshocked'. I am trying to be nice so I will simply say that I find Romney 'Incompetent for the office of POTUS'.
However it does bring to mind the someone with a distorted worldview who was POTUS for two terms; Bush/Cheney. I list it this way since it was always unclear to me the extent to which Bush was a puppet and Cheney the puppet master. Bush/Cheney serves as a perfect example of being unable to see beyond a narrow self-serving and inaccurate view of the world; perhaps self deluding would be an apt description. Remember the special intelligence channels setup by Cheney; remember all of the nonsense about a quick withdrawal from Iraq; remember the nonsense about the entire operation paying for itself via oil; remember the reports of Bush blathering on about Gog and Magog to French President Jacques Chirac in 2003; remember all of the lies. Bush/Cheney was a disaster. And we suffered through eight years of it.
So whenever I start feeling unhappy about Obama winning the election I can reflect that it might have been worse; it could have been Romney.
2012-11-05
Election Notes
Tomorrow Nov 6 2012 is election day in the USA. I have decided to put some of my thoughts on this blog although for a long time I was considering just not blogging about the election because I find it so sad and disappointing.
During the early primaries I expressed my dissatisfaction with Ron Paul http://blog.lightingonemorecandle.com/2011/12/ron-paul-for-potus-no.html
and some may wonder if I am advocating Gary Johnson. No not at this point. I am still undecided. I have a very high standard and right now I am not sure if Johnson measures up. The primary issue for me is reproductive rights. Since this a topic that Johnson might have changed his views on recently I am still investigating. As far as I am concerned anyone who says "well we will just throw questions about reproductive rights back to the individual states and let them enact the restrictions" is not a Libertarian. To save space I refer people back to my blog post on Ron Paul.
What Obama, Romney and Stein? Let us begin with Stein. Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate and while I do not support many of the Green Party positions at least Stein appears to be more honest than many politicians. I was not expecting much from Obama after he won four years ago and he has been worse than even I imagined; of course McCain and Palin would almost surely have been worse. The Romney campaign is a joke. I find his lack of honesty and his lack of integrity to be just sickening. The polls at this point seems to be leaning toward an Obama victory. If Obama does win the election it might be in no small part to Obama looking intelligent and honest when compared to Romney.
Update: Election day and things still look about the same. Also fixed a typo.
During the early primaries I expressed my dissatisfaction with Ron Paul http://blog.lightingonemorecandle.com/2011/12/ron-paul-for-potus-no.html
and some may wonder if I am advocating Gary Johnson. No not at this point. I am still undecided. I have a very high standard and right now I am not sure if Johnson measures up. The primary issue for me is reproductive rights. Since this a topic that Johnson might have changed his views on recently I am still investigating. As far as I am concerned anyone who says "well we will just throw questions about reproductive rights back to the individual states and let them enact the restrictions" is not a Libertarian. To save space I refer people back to my blog post on Ron Paul.
What Obama, Romney and Stein? Let us begin with Stein. Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate and while I do not support many of the Green Party positions at least Stein appears to be more honest than many politicians. I was not expecting much from Obama after he won four years ago and he has been worse than even I imagined; of course McCain and Palin would almost surely have been worse. The Romney campaign is a joke. I find his lack of honesty and his lack of integrity to be just sickening. The polls at this point seems to be leaning toward an Obama victory. If Obama does win the election it might be in no small part to Obama looking intelligent and honest when compared to Romney.
Update: Election day and things still look about the same. Also fixed a typo.
2012-10-15
Topics from Violence to Thinking to Race
I have been somewhat busy recently and not blogging as much as I had planned. So I will now cover three items briefly.
First is the book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker. This is a book which covers humans from pre-history to modern times. As the title indicates Pinker thinks that overall human violence has declined. And not just declined a small amount but has actually declined significantly. Pinker gathers some impressive evidence. Personally I am less persuaded by his discussion of pre-history however I find his discussion of the decline of violence in periods where we have good historical records much more convincing. It is a book well worth reading. Particularly if the first things that occur to you is that he can not be correct because of WWI and WWII and the death campaigns of Stalin and Mao.
Another tremendous book is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman who is a Nobel prize winner (Economics). Kahneman is a psychologist who has studied human cognitive biases and modes of thinking. This is one of those books that when you finish you realize how important are the insights and begin to think that within a few years it will be difficult to call yourself an well read and knowledgeable person if you are not familiar with the ideas in this book. It is that full of insights. Read it. In fact as much as I recommend Pinker I suggest reading Kahneman first.
The third item for this blog entry is the play Race. I saw it at the San Jose Stage. This is an extremely powerful play at many levels. It deals with race. You probably figured that out from the title. But is more that just a feel good play about race. This is a raw look at race and sex and the tangled mess of taboos, myths and hidden thoughts that surround them. It is one of the best plays I have seen. It is really that good. The production by the Stage in San Jose was brilliant. This is a play for mature people; not just mature in years but mature in emotion and intellect. This play discusses rape and uses the n-word, c-word, f-word and other words that are not for the immature. If you are mature then I most strongly recommend this play.
2012-07-30
Salad Recipe
I have created a recipe for a salad and decided to put the information here in order to make it easier to provide the recipe to anyone one who asked such as this weekend a friend gave me three wonder cucumbers (Thanks Karen) and I said I was going to make a salad. This salad works well in hot weather and does not contain lettuce. I am really tired of salads which are mostly lettuce so I have created a healthy salad that contains no lettuce but does contain both fruit and vegetables. I have served this at Burning Man and at Ephemerisle and it seems to always be well received.
My recipe is as follows:
Main ingredients:
cucumbers (about 35-40% of volume)
apples (about 30% of volume)
onions (about 10% of volume)
bell peppers (about 20-25% of volume)
The above proportions can be varied according to taste. Just clean and chop and mix in a big bowl. I find that chopping things at about 1 to 2 cm in any dimension works well.
Available to be added as each individual wants
walnuts
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
Or go wild with one or more of the following
dried cranberries
sesame seeds
The version above is vegan friendly. For those who want fish I either prepare a batch with wood smoked salmon mixed in or just put the salmon on a platter and let people add their own.
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