Conventions, cliquishness, barcamps
I haven't blogged for a while (have been writing mostly fiction lately), and it's been even longer since I've actually posted anything controversial. So maybe I should put aside my impartial observer blogger-voice, and indulge in some personal opinion.I liked this review of Atheist Alliance International (AAI) convention by Santi Tafarella. It's snarky, but it has a truthful ring. Even though I haven't been to an AAI convention, this review mirrors what happens in so many science fiction cons. The cliquishness, hi

Fake friends, or being someone's spam cannon fodder
This rant was prompted by people's comments on my Facebook status update today. It said: "Defriended a Facebook "friend". It was one of those people who friend you for no good reason. He doesn't know me, lives in a different country, posts in Spanish (which I can't read), never comments on my posts, and keeps inviting me to events in another continent. I asked him to stop, but he kept doing that. I guess when you have over 1500 "friends", you don't have time to show special consideration to any one of them." I got a range of responses to that. Some said they refuse friend requests from strangers, others said the whole point of Facebook is to meet new interesting peop

ArmadilloCon: Stump the Panel
Panelists at this event are supposed to come up with mundane and science-fictional uses for objects supplied by the audience. They can also use objects they brought themselves. This year's team is C. J. Mills, Steve Wilson, and Chris Roberson.Below, left-to-right, are:1. A pez dispenser in the shape of a character from Ratatouille. Chris Roberson thinks it's an oracle. You ask it a question, and its head tilts back to reveal an answer comes from its neck. The answer will be yes, no, or pez. So you have to formulate the question really carefully.2. Chris Roberson thinks this neti pot may play a role in fertility rituals. Steve Wilson t

Movie review: District 9
I doubt that anyone does not yet know what District 9 is about, but you can't discuss a movie without even briefly outlining its premise, so here it is. After an alien ship "parks" itself in the sky over Johannesburg, humans visit the ship and find myriads of very sick aliens, who look like two-legged, upright, larger-than-human shrimp. They are transported to Earth and placed in a ghetto, called District 9, where they live in slums. It's not clear what happened to their mothership, but apparently it can't go back to its home planet. The aliens are nicknamed "prawns", and are loathed and feared by most Johannesburg residents. 20 years later, by popular demand, the government has built a cam

ArmadilloCon: Interpretive Dance For Orbital Mechanics
Well, it wasn't quite a dance. It was a pantomime. In the "Orbital Mechanics" panel, Bob Mahoney and John Gibbons acted orbital mechanics out with a globe hanging from a microphone stand, hula hoops, and styrofoam noodles. They used lots of words too, of course. :-)In this image, Bob Mahoney holds up two hula hoops to illustrate a