Unquiet Desperation » Travel

2010 Con Schedule and Ep. #2 of TRICKSTERS

Chris Miller — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:58:25 +0000

I’ve worked out which conventions I’ll be attending this year. Sadly, Origins will not be one of them…my family has a vacation planned for that week and I’m going to have to miss it this year.

I’ll be at:

PyCon: Feb 17-21 in Atlanta, GA
Balticon 44: May 28-30 in Balimore, MD
GenCon: Aug 6-8 in Indianapolis, IN
Con on the Cob: Oct 14-17 in Hudson, OH. This one will be something special…Kris and I have a Clever Plan we’ll talk about in coming months.

If you’re going to be at any of these, drop me a line and let’s find some time to meet up.

Also, the latest episode of TRICKSTERS has been posted on The Secret Lair. Remember the girl on the doorstep from last week? Yeah. There’s more to her than meets the eye.

From the Phone…

Chris Miller — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 15:27:51 +0000

Mobile post sent by codeshaman using Utterz. Replies. mp3

From the Phone…

Chris Miller — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:46:42 +0000

Mobile post sent by codeshaman using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Penguicon Wrap Up

Chris Miller — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:14:56 +0000

photo credit: MMMMichelle

On the second day of Penguicon, the furries came out. Luckily, they weren’t drawn to the technical track, so for the most part, we were safe.

Most of the morning, Rick and I hung out. There weren’t any sessions that we wanted to attend, so we headed out for a few hours and wandered the local mall, which was roughly the size of the UCLA campus. It was two massive structures connected by a skyway over West Big Beaver Road¹. Astonishingly, it was filled with…nothing. Well…nothing for two computer geeks on the prowl. To be fair, there was an Apple Store, but even that felt half-assed.

Heading back, we met back up with Cmdln for his afternoon sessions. The poor guy looked like something out of Infected, his head cold threatening burst out of his skull and wreak havoc over the con. He held the beast at bay with liberal application of Dayquil. He and I headed off to his three panels.

I have to say, his Third Wave Power² was sorely tested by the panels he had that day:

Avoiding Obsolescence: How to insure technology does not leave you behind, both personally and professionally.
Beyond Silicon: Exploring alternatives to using silicon-based computer systems. Examples: Quantum computing, data storage at the atomic level, etc.
Secure Computing: This was originally supposed to be about trusted computing and hardware security, I believe, but Vernor Vinge took it in a whole new direction, pointing out the single point of failure that transistors will become within the next 20 years. The example was that, if something wiped out all the transistors³ today, it would be Very Bad. People would die, vehicles would cease to function, etc. Imagine how bad it would be in 20 years, when computers are small and even more integrated with our lives.

We headed back to the room, caught the Tesla Coil concert, played a little Arkham Horror, and called it a day.

Sunday morning was pretty laid back. Bagels and coffee, conversation, then Rick headed off to hit some sessions he was interested in. The best session of the whole con, The Future of Programming Languages, was at 11am, followed by the OLPC roundtable and Math and Elections.

Following that, time to head home.

On the whole, it was a decent con. I enjoyed myself, and learned some interesting things. My one disappointment was that, for an Open Source conference, there was no discussion the philosophy of Open Source, methods of working in teams on Open Source projects, no talks on specific pieces of software or code. Other than waving the Linux flag, there was no real discussion of the core of the movement: The Source.

Penguicon 7.0 is moving to a larger venue next year, and I’ll be watching their progress. There is tremendous potential for a truly interesting and engaging con there, for both the younger geek set and the older geeks, the professionals who want to help carry Open Source forward. The Guest of Honor is Wil Wheaton and that should prove to be quite a draw. There is discussion of an expanded podcasting track, as well. All in all, it sounds promising. If all goes well, I’ll be returning next year.

No joke. I’m not making that up.
Cmdln’s Third Wave power is the ability to as intelligent on the last day of a con, after having little sleep, as he sounds on the first day. Personally, I think this definition needs to be refined thusly: he has the ability to sound intelligent no matter how tired he is.
With an EMP, etc

Penguicon, Day 1

Chris Miller — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:07:46 +0000

photo credit: paulgorman

There may be no place quieter than a con on a Saturday morning.

Still, I’m up. And this is the Penguicon Update: Day 1.

The con itself is good size…it’s pretty much taken over the Troy Hilton, which is not a small hotel. Like all Sci-Fi/Tech conventions, the glasses to non-glasses ratio is pretty high, and most of the other usual stereotypes about the population of geekdom also apply. I’ve seen all ages here, it does not skew young or old, and so far, there are no furries.

Cmdln and I arrived around 2:30pm on Friday to find Rick Stringer of the Variant Frequencies podcast waiting for us. We checked in, and after seeing the line of folks waiting for registration to open, decided to hit Charlie’s Crab for lunch. Although we all met at Dragon*Con last year, we were able to get to know one another a bit better over lunch. It was good to take the voices that you hear in your headphones and learn about their family, day job, why they do what they do…you know…the important stuff. It’s not a surprise, but we got along famously.

After about an hour, we headed back to find that registration was still closed. Our clever plan of waiting out the line hadn’t worked out, so we queued up and studied the massive schedule that had been taped to the wall.

The schedule wall is worth a little detail. Rather than print a single large sheet with the various track and times listings, they created a grid of 8 x 11 sheets of paper, printed landscape, and laid it out like a massive spreadsheet. This allows them to change the locations, times, etc of the sessions quickly without having to rely on crossing things out in heavy black marker. This was actually fairly novel, though, as several of folks in line with us observed, very hackable. So far, no one has altered the schedule on their own.

After getting our badges¹, we hung out in the room for a bit, then headed out to dinner.

Dinner was P.F. Chang’s with Chris Lester of Metamor City fame, and Michael Ireland of the Scotchcast and . Drinks were had, conversation was excellent, and a good time was had by all.

The first panel we were on, the Podcasting Panel, was your basic introduction. How to start, how long to make them, how much to spend on gear when starting out. I have a great time with it. I’m always inspired to see people willing to step out and put their work out for the public. Even more interesting, I met a grad student who is doing his thesis about the business of podcasting, and who uses Podiobooks.com as one of the success stories. That was extremely flattering, and we may be talking to him to learn more about what he’s observed.

Our second panel was Computer Geeks and Science Fiction, a freeform discussion about the use of computers as a device in science fiction. The panel was myself, Rick, Cmdln, and Eric S. Raymond, who buried us with his encyclopedic knowledge of SF. It was a great discussion, and I learned a lot more than I taught, which is never a bad thing.

Afterwards, we took in a showing A Shoggoth On The Roof, a puppet show² which used H.P. Lovecraft to parody Fidder on the Roof. Or is that the other way around? It was pretty funny, and the puppeteers were definitely skilled.

That was the wrap up on the night.

Today, more panels, and perhaps some time to write and check out the dealer room. Looking forward to meeting some of the organizers as well. Might check in to attending the Barfleet or Linux User Group party tonight. We shall see.

And now, I am off to the Coffee Ritual. Have a good day, everyone. Catch you tomorrow.

The badges were a little disappointing: Small pieces of paper, not preprinted clearly, stuck in cellophane name-badges holders. Was hoping for something laminated goodness to put on my wall o’ badges. Aw, well. First world problem.
Based on the filk version put on on CD years ago

Penguicon 6.0

Chris Miller — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:50:18 +0000

This coming weekend, cmdln¹ is flying up to Cleveland and we are driving up to Penguicon together. This is exciting on three levels.

First, I get to spend time with one of the smartest folks I know². I’ve been a fan of cmdln’s work for a long time now, and meeting him at Dragon*Con last year was a real treat. As we are both software developers, gamers, geeks, and podcasters, we have a tremendous amount in common. I’m looking forward to getting back together and chatting with him.

Secondly, Penguicon is a combination Science Fiction and Open Source software convention. Talk about a perfect mix for me. Topics range from the future of programming languages to why to write short fiction to all manner of gaming. I’ll be in heaven.

Finally, I got the chance to meet and chat briefly with Matt Arnold³ at Notacon this year. We discussed his efforts to get a podcasting presence launched at the con, and he invited me to participate in the Podcasting Panel which takes place at 10pm on Friday night.

I’m hoping to get some audio from the con for The Secret Lair, but we shall see. My schedule is looking pretty jam-packed so far.

If you’re going to be at the con, drop me a line. I’d love to meet up and chat.

Commandline, to those who need vowels and such
That would be cmdln.
The Head of Communications for Penguicon, and newest member of Escape Artists, Inc

Tuesday morning, Santa Monica

Chris Miller — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:07:46 +0000

Took the longer walk to work from the corporate condo this morning and had time to stop off at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at 9th and Wlishire. While I really like the atmosphere, the mochas taste like they’re made from a powdered mix. That was an unpleasant surprise this morning. All sweet…you couldn’t taste an espresso at all. No free wifi at the cafe itself, which was just silly. Found an open connection in one of the 18 accessible from that spot, so all was good in the universe. Pay for wifi? Please.

Tomorrow, checking out The Loft.