Steam Punk Boba Fett

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Dragon*Con, where I slept too little and ran real hard. It was good, but I have to admit it is all a blur of images and emotions. When I try to think of those 4 days in Atlanta, my brain responds with flickering fragments of moments.

I’ve posted many of my pictures on flickr. Others are doing the same. I’m sure the story is documented (perhaps too well), and if you have images, can you please share links through the comments?

Fragments:

Masala Skeptic and I at "A Full Moon for Cancer"

• A Full Moon for Cancer: On the Thursday night prior to D*C, Phil Plait and I took part in a charity star party to raise money for the American Cancer Society. This event was in memory of Jeff Medkeff, the Blue Collar Scientist. Jeff was a blogger and amateur astronomer I had only known through the internet, but whom I respected at a distance for his work. He died last August of cancer, leaving behind a legacy of asteroid discoveries and of amateur astronomers trained to be better at their craft thanks to his efforts. Over the past year I’ve gotten to know one of Jeff’s friends, Mark, fairly well, and I was honored to get to read Mark’s words to the gathered crowd. What Mark wrote was honest, and from the heart, and they were beautiful.
• Costume Search: Thinking I was being smart, I bought a costume at CONvergence from a dealer who was at D*C. This way I would only need to carry it home from D*C. There was only one flaw in my logic: I never asked her what booth she would be selling in at D*C! One hour of searching and 4 vender rooms later I found her tucked in a corner with her beautiful handmade puppets, my costume hidden behind curtains. The costume fit perfectly, but has a mysterious french bustle I still haven’t figured out.
• A moment of Hair: I have never been one to confine hair dye to a “found in nature” palette of colors. I like reds and oranges and have pushed into maroon and purple on forays of hair exploration. Dragon*Con is one of the few places hair color is consistently not mocked. Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to dye my hair prior to departure (nor was I sure I wanted to have weird hair for a charity). Luckily, Carrie Iwan came to my hair’s rescue. In an evening of conversation and coloring, a group of us talked, laughed and dyed (for me it was red and black highlights). While the hair dye was fabulous, what makes it memorable was the sitting around with friends (new and old) and being intelligent, feeling individuals. Late night talks are good, and this trip was filled with them.
• The Parsecs: Saturday night was insane. I was booked to run madly from a talk on the Big Bang (which was to a packed room!), to a panel I was MC’ing that contained friends Phil Plait and Seth Shostak, to the Parsecs where I was giving out two awards and a couple of Galileoscopes as door prizes. It was Run, Run, Run. Literally. To get from the panel with Phil and Seth to the Parsecs I had to scramble from the basement of the Hilton to its second floor, across the sky bridge, across the Marriott, up two escalators, across another bridge, thru the food court, across the Hyatt lobby, and into the basement. (Somehow I went up 4 flights to go down only 1, to both end and begin in basements). I arrived at the Parsecs the moment the categories I was to announce were called, and as I dashed onto the stage, I was told by John Cmar, “BTW – you one a Parsec earlier!”. Ummmmm – WOW. The thing is, it wasn’t really me who won it, but rather it was a collaboration of literally 100s. This Parsec, in the category of “Best Infotainment” went out to the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, a community project born out of the International Year of Astronomy. I was blown away, but managed to give away the Galileoscopes and announce the winners in two fiction podcast categories without hyperventilating on stage. It was a fabulous night that ended in celebratory drinking (and eventually midnight diner food) with friends.
• May I have your autograph please?:
  

  Felicia Day and a Galileoscope!

  If you know me, you know I have no qualms making a fool of myself in the name of promoting IYA and astronomy. For me, I will stare shyly from a distance at the actors of my favorite shows. For IYA, I’ll march right up and ask if I can have their photo with a Galileoscope. Thanks to an intro from Phil Plait, I actually got to walk up to New Media master and actress Felicia Day (of The Guild, Dr Horrible, and now Dollhouse) to get a Galileoscope celebrity pict. She did me one better than a photo though – she signed the box for charity. This gave Phil and me an idea. Our friend Kevin Grazier is science advisor for Battlestar Galactica (and other shows). We asked him if he could help get BSG actors to sign our box. Thanks to Kevin I got to talk astronomy with these actors and get their signatures on a Galileoscope box. The best part was, Michael Hogan (the XO on the newest BSG version) had heard of the Galileoscope! The box (containing a telescope!) will be auctioned for charity as soon as I get an eBay page set up. Stay Tuned!
• Of Singing Tesla Coils and Friends: The last full day of the Con played host to the Mad Scientist Ball. This was my third time trying to attend and the first time I succeeded in making it in before the fire marshalls blocked the entrance. The high light of the night is the Singing Tesla Coils. I won’t try and explain. Just watch the video below and imagine a 1-hour set. Afterward, I spent the evening with the podcasting and science crew, better getting to know Mur Lafferty (whose button for “I should be writing” from two years ago is a constant reminder on my board), Laura from JWST, who is maturing from a shy speaker into a skilled science communicator one Con at a time, and Laura’s husband and Parsec MC John Cmar. Between us we ranged topics and we talked late into the night.
  
• The day of lost things: Faced with too little sleep, Monday hit me like a wall. Having a bad email day didn’t help. I got up for a 10am recording of Brazilianisms, raced back to my room to pack only to get a text that I was supposed to be on a panel on being a women in science (YIKES – they left it off my official schedule), to race back to actually finish packing, to trying to pack up the IYA booth (and realizing I can’t carry box + sign + hat, and resorting to only carrying box), to trying to FedEx a box, to failing to FedEx due to Labor Day, to giving a talk, to racing off to be interviewed, to racing to plane, to realizing my hat and sign were still at the booth in Atlanta, to sleeping. UGH it was a long ugly, racing day. I don’t think I said good bye to anyone as I dashed to Marta with my box and my bags and a heavy inbox.

But now I’m on the road again, 3000 miles away in San Francisco. It is another day, and yet another city. Strangely, my hotel room – another Starwood hotel – looks absolutely identical.

Dragon*Con was fabulous. But it is over. And some of my dearest Con friends I didn’t get to spend time with at all. To fast it flew. But next year, I will say yes less and breath more as I speed walk instead of spring from Friday to Monday. Dragon*Con 2010, I will be with you.

And I’d like to leave you with one final video from D*C 2007 that just makes me laugh.
]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2009/09/14/dragoncon-retrospective/feed/ 7 http://www.starstryder.com/2008/09/02/dragoncon-there-and-back-again/ http://www.starstryder.com/2008/09/02/dragoncon-there-and-back-again/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:55:37 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/?p=733 I’m home from Dragon*Con and I feel like I’ve popped out of the Rabbit Hole. The past 4 days were an amazing adventure. On one hand, I was in Atlanta in much the same way that I attend many conferences – I was a scientist with presentations to give and a booth to man. On the other hand, I was a podcaster with fans who wanted to meet me, which was really cool (and evidence is shown in the picture at left). And on yet another hand (clearly borrowed from someone else), I was a fanchick meeting cool people I never imagined I’d get to transform from professional acquaintences to new friends.

One of the surreal things about the field I’m in is it is occupied with folks that do really cool stuff that puts them in a special, “Wow, you inspire” category. In our modern society, this category is often reserved for actors and politicians (not that they always inspire), but sometimes others get to sneak in, like Steven Hawking. I think it is safe to say, for the science knowing among us, he is as well known (and far more well respected) than Tom Cruise.

I did not get to meet Tom Cruise or Steven Hawking this weekend.

I’m okay with that.

I did get to meet a series of celebraties who have earned their place in their fans hearts (mine included) through intellect and achievement. To me, these are the people to fan chick all over, and these are the people that make Dragon*Con so uber cool to me. Last year I had the oppurtunity through my work for IYA to meet a bunch of celebes. I was calm, cool, and IYA dedicated until I met the MythBusters and regressed into a 12-yearold girl as I thanked them for their work. This year I was frankly too busy to get to play at all in the room they store famous people in during business hours. That’s okay, the cool kids were all giving talks in the Science, Space, Podcasting, and Skeptics tracks (and the Mythbusters weren’t here anyway). These cool kids, are the folks who through their brains and creativity have made a name for themselves by trying to educate those around them in a variety of ways. The biggest name among these people is the Amazing James Randi (pictured at right with myself in the background and neuroscientist Steve Novella in the middle). Randi and I were both asked to be on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, and I had the pleasure of sharing lunch with him on Monday (where is did some magic!!). While it is really cool that Randi can do things with playing cards that defy all my ability to explain, the reason I respect him is he has dedicated the past several years to fighting fake psychics (not that I believe there is another kind), debunking the paranormal, and challenging those who claim supernatural powers to prove it in a testable way. Through his Educational Foundation (which Phil is now president of), Randi has worked to effect positive change using a name he earned through his excellence with magic.

Randi was just one of many people there I had the pleasure to meet who are  intellectuals, critical thinkers, and effectors of change. Also on my list of people whom I can’t believe I got to know whom I already respected were: DJ Grothe of Point of Inquiry, George Hrab of Geologic Podcast (audio NOT not not safe for work), writer Michael Stackpole, the afore mentioned Skeptics Guide to the Universe crew who I’d only known as voices on skype, podiobooks Evo Terra, writer Scott Sigler, several SkepChicks (particularly ARealGirl was amazing to hang with), and finally a crew from the Skeptics Tank down under. I spent a lot of time trying to get explainations of slight of hand magic tricks out of DJ and Richard Saunders (of Skeptics Tank), talking about how to inspire critical thinking with all of the above, and just being human. That was perhaps the coolest part of all: As we relaxed into the night, I got to see people be real, laugh, and just demonstrate their personal sillinesses. George kicked into random fragments of song, and Richard folded the most amazing things our of any and all scraps of paper. In the background, Phil talked Death from the Skies and JREF, while Evo and his fantastic wife (whose name I’ll protect since I’m not sure she’s a public person) kept us laughing.

In our society, it is rare to think of the smart heros – the scientists, writers, neuroscientists, and other intellectuals – as silly fun people. I wonder how many people leave science and engineering because they lack role models who have public images that are fully human – both smart and fun and feeling. Through our blogs, podcasts, and public talks, perhaps each of us can work to give a more “every (wo)man” humanity to our the personality behind the information we struggle to teach.

As I played after hours, perhaps the two things that amazed me the most were the bits of magic and orgami I saw performed. Richard Saunders made the most amazing things. Attached is a picture of elephant ears he somehow made without using tweezers! (If you see him, see if he is selling them – he was at Dragon*Con)

This weekend wouldn’t have been possible without two really important people: Derek and Swoopy of Skepticality. These two people really don’t seem to have a selfish bone in either of their bodies. They have both worked tirerlessly to birth the podcasting movement, and their show is one of the longest running in science and medicine. While I’ve been podcasting as long as they have (literally – we launched Slacker within weeks of them launching Skepticality), they have been working their butts off to help podcasting of all genres in ways I respect deeply. All this work has gone on in the face of all sorts of chaos (read their about page). Derek and Swoopy have helped me many times over the years, and my hat is off to them and the exhausting amount of work they have done.

Swoopy has magical camera avoidance abilities, but I present in parting for the night a group picture with Derek in the lower left, with James Randi, myself, and Evan Bernstein. Thank you Derek. You made this happen for me, and help me find a new group of smart, diverse, creative people I hope to learn to call friends.

I am home. I teach tomorrow. The mundane world presses in as I look to my grants, my research, and my classes. The rabbit hole has been re-hidden by the weeds of life for another year.

I’ve been hanging out with (left to right) Richard Saunders and Phil Plait a lot, and here we are showing a little leg. Silly enough? (In general, this place is filled with people with truly killer shoes. We aren’t among those with awesome shoes, but mine are at least cute )

So, I was saying I’ve been sitting in on Skeptics sessions most of the weekend. Currently I’m sitting in on one that is about Dogma versus Skepticism. A very good point was just made by the speaker: He pointed out that someone who holds on to the Belief that God can not exist is just as dogmatic as someone who has no doubt that God does not exist. He went onto explain that it is possible for someone to be both a theist and a scientist. I’m so glad he said that, because it’s true.

As a scientist and a skeptic, I’m more than willing to say that I can’t prove that God exists (I’m much more skilled at proving the Big Bang existed), but I also can’t disprove God, and so I choose to believe (see link under About if you want to read more about my belief system). I also know from earlier discussions that I am not the only skeptic in the room who is some species of Christian (although I won’t out anyone).

This is the first time I’ve been in a large population of Skeptics and not experienced a ton of Christian slamming. Instead, what I’ve seen is specifics slamming. In dealing with people with non-logical world views based on no evidence or fake evidence or imaginary evidence, we can’t simply walk up to them and say “Your belief in God is false.” We can’t prove that. What we can do, however, is walk up to them and say, “The Earth is more than 6000 years old, let me prove it.” I can walk up to someone and say, “Let me show you ways to test if psychics are real so you know if you’re being fooled.” I can take on ghosts, aliens, Big Foot, and little green men with science and come out showing them with logic how their worldview is broken and offer them some experimental truth without taking away their God.

What we need to do as skeptics is teach reasoning and show people how understanding the world around them can keep them safer. We need to rebuild how they look at the world from the ground up and help them build a strong foundation of curiosity and the scientific method. We live in a wonderfully fantastic universe, and with science, what we understand can be seen as far cooler than what our limited imaginations can falsify when we step into the world of woo-woo insanity.

Prior to starting my day of talking and listening (and blogging) I got to do some people watching. One of the cool things about this conference is watching the mixing of cultures. One of the more fascinating things to watch is the mixing of hotel staff, people attending the hotel for other reasons, and the con people. Since today is my Astronomy Cast presentation day, I dressed in my Con attending best and confused a security guard. Standing in line for coffee, I was wearing my cutest high heels, a short black and white dress with black tights, and I was holding my suit jacket. He looked be up and down and asked me who I was dressed up to be. I smiled, and said “A scientist. I’m an astrophysicist.” He blinked a few times. I said, “No really, I’m an astronomer, I’m here to give talks.” He blinked some more, informed me he didn’t know scientists came in my shape, and complimented my legs. I’ll take it One of the things I love doing is dispelling the myth that female scientists look like male scientists and none of them are ever well dressed people. Dispelling myths is fun. While I prefer to debunk misconceptions of science, I also enjoy debunking the occational “Scientists are…” misconception too.

And you know, if a pair of high heels can help me do both while getting people talking about astronomy and think about astronomers in a new way, well, I’m okay with sore feet.

Phil has now moved from discussing death from comets and asteroids to death from Black Holes. I’ve heard him give talks on Black Holes several times before, and he has perfected his patter. Black Holes are one of the misunderstood objects in the universe and he has done a lot to help people understand how these dense dead stars are actually built and how they can kill you (quick quote: “I have a talk on 7 ways a Black Hole can kill you. It used to be 10 ways a Black Hole can kill, but then there were budget cuts.”)

I’m purposely not going into details on his talk. GO BUY HIS BOOK. It’s fun to read.

One of the neat things about these cons is the way people play with language. There are a lot of people who feel comfortable with themselves in this venue, are smart, are funny, and are looking to amuse. Last night someone stood up to ask me a question about my talk on the evidence of the Big Bang and said, “Long to Big Bang believer, first time questioner.”

One of my concerns about all the different sessions going on is that it gives us the opportunity to preach to the choir. Skeptics attend talks on critial thinking. People attending talks astronomy, are interested in astronomy. This is where I think the Astronomy Booth in the fan area is important. Tucked into a well trafficed corner by the stairs and the Dragon*Con schwag store, thousands of people are walking past every day, and these people may or may not be part of the choir, and here we can inflict astronomy on the not necassarily interested.

(Phil has moved onto death by gamma ray bursts, and the little girl just asked “Daddy, are we safe?”)

Next year I will be at Dragon*Con, and I’ve gotten lots of ideas of things I want to do. I want to find astronomers to talk about designing alien planets in the writer’s tracks. I want to do a talk on the educational impact of podcasting in he podcasting track. I want to embed the International Year of Astronomy everywhere (Galileo costumes in the costume track??) There are lots of great ideas in my head. I need more people astronomers here with me. Are you an astronomer can you help?

Phil’s talk is finishing, and I need food. I’ll see if someone can get us a picture.

Life is good. More later…

That is sufficient to describe the day I had. I just left the Podcaster’s party where I got to meet, greet, and unfortunately drink too much (again). I met Michael Shermer for the first time, and the Evil Genius, who was one of the first podcasters I listened to regularly. At one point the Evil Genius, Evo, and I stood there, looking over a room of podcasters, realizing we were the “oldest” podcasters in the room. The technology has come a long way, and as a community we have raised a generation of wonderful voices who are giving their all to the world. It is beautiful.

Today was a long day. I spent the first half of the day sitting at the IYA booth reaching out to hand people buttons. People would pause to look at our booth, clearly curious, and I pinned them. It was fun and it got them talking. And it got people talking astronomy. What made me sad was hearing all the people mention their telescopes sitting at home in closets. That is just wrong. There are amateur astronomy clubs across America waiting to help anyone and everyone get their telescopes working to look at the stars.

There were strange aspects to the day. At one point, walking down the hall surrounded by people is amazingly high heels, the words of the wonderful Adrienne Gauthier and a poster she wants to write echoed through my head saying, “I learned how to walk sexy from my avatar,” As I watched all the chicks around me, I kept seeing them as avatars with “Sexy walk” installed. At another point, in a crowded elevator with too much noise, I had the sudden realization that I can’t l lip read people wearing fangs (lip reading is self defense in crowded loud conferences). And, capping the day off, I hung out with DJ of Point of Inquiry, who lives 30 minutes from me, and decided I need to cross the river to St Louis more often.

And in the midst of all of this, I also gave two talks today, one on the evidence for the Big Bang, and one on stupid things you shouldn’t purchase. Both were recorded and I’m going to try and post them when I can find the audio. One of the talks hit the glorious resonance where the speaker and the audience are just riding the story, dancing to the music of the ideas. It was a great day. I’m exhausted, and my writing now sucks. I need sleep. One of the problems with being active (both at the booth and giving talks) is I don’t have time to think and write. Tomorrow I may try and carry my audio recorder with me and record as I go. We’ll see, I’m giving presentations all day. I don’t know how much of me will be left at the end. But it will be glorius, no matter what happens. Pictures will be coming (check Phil’s blog too).

I haven’t decided yet.

What I have decided is it’s going to be a great convention. I get to spend 4 days talking sciene to science fiction, fantasy fiction and science geeks. This is a fun audience, and I get to talk on fun topics like the Big Bang and Citizen Science.

For now though… It’s 1am Eastern and I’ve been up since 6am Central (and I believe my first sentence of the day, as I contemplated a telecon with Brits, was “Stupid Planetary Rotation”). I spent my evening hanging out with the Bad Astronomer and a bunch of Skeptics. It was fun, and I find it highly amusing that Skeptics are far more accepting of me than a group of Christains would be of Phil.

Tomorrow we set up the IYA booth. I’m excited to see how it all goes. And tomorrow I’ll be blogging all about all of it.

Random bits: Skeptic Joe picked me up at the airport and met me at the gate! He’s a pilot and was able to all the way up and help me with my bags (I’m dangerous with a tripod). Friendly people are always appreciated. So far I haven’t seen anyone famous, but I did see a women dressed as Red Riding hood with a wolf skin cape. Does that count?

Tomorrow I’ll be giving talks on the Big Bang and stupid things you can get duped into buying.

Big Bang is ready to go, but I still need to think more on human stupidity (here is a party trick – If you buy those detoxifying foot pads, try just dropping water on them and see what happens to their color).

Its going to be a great weekend.

I just can’t beleive how tired I am already.

I get in late Thursday night and am looking forward to hanging with the Bad Astronomer and the Skepticallity crew. There will also be a table just for the International Year of Astronomy! Check us out over in the Marriot.

Want to find me and talk astronomy, cosmology or anything else? Here’s how you can find me:

Friday, 10:00am-1pm IYA Table in Marriot
Friday, 7:00pm Forsythe room where I’ll talk about the Big Bang
Friday, 8:30pm Dunwoody room where I’ll be judgeing the Star Wars prop contest
Friday, 10:00pm Fayette/Newton room where I’ll talk about not getting scammed

Saturday, 10:00am-11:30am IYA Table in Marriot
Saturday, 11:30am Rockdale in a PodSci Panel
Saturday, 4pm Rockdale room where I’ll Astronomy Cast Recorded LIVE
Saturday, 7pm Dunwoody room where I’ll talk on a map of the Star War’s Galaxy

Sunday, 10:00am Forsythe room for a Science Women Panel
Sunday, 11:30am IYA Table in the Marriot
Sunday, 4:00pm Forsythe room for 10 things we’ve learned in my life
Sunday, 5:30pm IYA Table in the Marriot
Sunday, 8:30pm Forsythe room where I’ll talk on IYA

Monday is still up in the air, but I’ll be mostly shopping and hanging out at the IYA table

Hope to see at least some of you there!