alias_sqbr

First, my Dragon Age Inquisitor cosplay.

Second, some random recs:
the movie Joint Security Area
Safety Not Guaranteed
What if my Baby Is A Squib Subtle, dark, Harry Potter fanfic that pokes at the squib=disability thing
Across the Nightingale Floor by Lianne Hearn (next year's guest)
Husbands (by Jane Espenson, ditto, omg)

Third, panel notes:

Has Science Fiction Changed Society?
The general consensus was that it reflects existing changes and can inspire/help individuals, but is rarely on the forefront of any change. It's really bad at predicting the future so not much good at preparing for or inspiring it. I might write up the rest of my notes but while I enjoyed the panel none of it seems worth the effort.

John Scalzi Guest of Honour Speech
The meaning of life is unverifiable.

Poison Elves
I went to this by accident but have always been vaguely curious after seeing the comics in shops, and was amused to discover the hero's name is Lusipher. I wonder if there's a Saetan too.

Science in Speculative Fiction
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I keep putting this off until I can remember them all but this has inevitably led to a negative spiral since then there's just more to remember. So! WHAT I CAN REMEMBER RIGHT NOW.

TV:
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Movies:
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Games:
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Books:
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I have been meaning to buy some of stephbg's lovely and geeky Pretty Rock Designs cards (and things which are not cards) for a while, but am overwhelmed by the amount of choice.

So! Steph! Other people! Which do you think are prettiest/best?

Or just a few you think are pretty, if you are also overwhelmed by the amount of choice :) For example I liked Ocean Bouquet 2 and Asteroid Field

The Quantum Computing Coursera course I signed up for just started, and it's fun so far. It feels more like that intersection between theoretical computer science and pure mathematics that I love instead of the more real world (ug) focus of the quantum mechanics I learned when I was doing physics.

The lecturer is pretty good, unfortunately the first assignment is not very well written and the multiple choice format is not well suited to someone like me who is good at theory but makes silly numerical mistakes. On the plus side you can take it multiple times with a 10% penalty, and I went from 26/60 the first time to 60/60 the second. Alas this was partly due to getting a feel for the kind of answer that would be right rather than entirely understanding why the answers were right, but hopefully this will improve as the course goes on, and it's not like I'll actually suffer any consequences if I don't pass. I found the optional, unmarked assignment much more fun: I got to do some proofs! Ah, proofs, how I have missed you.

I could feel my brain creaking at having to remember trig identities and how to project complex vectors. Partly because it's been so long, and partly because my cfs make it hard to concentrate. The course is supposed to take up 5-12 hours a week which is way more than my brain can handle, this first week took me more like 3, including checking out the forums, but I may well have to drop out as it goes on.

If any of you do decide to sign up, I recommend reading the forums before attempting the assignment, a lot of the ambiguities are teased out and there's some recs of further reading (which I don't have the brain for myself) There's people from all over the world, it's cool.

(...I need a "Science!" icon)

I pretty much only took notes on Friday, and it's going to take me a while to type them up.

Today has been pretty good, I mostly chatted to people and am taking a break before the masquerade.
( Disability and social media, AI and the human mind )

I suddenly realised that my copanelist(*) hadn't replied to my email and maybe didn't get it, and have been meaning to contact her another way but for some reason my inertia was easier to overcome to make an lj post. These are very rough notes and will likely be poked at some more. Thoughts welcome.
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Via the WA cfs society I heard about and have joined a Murdoch study on the use of internet by people with cfs, the plan is to get everyone involved in a Second Life support forum and see if it helps people. I have to do an hour long interview at the start as a baseline, and another in six months to see if it made any difference.

Anyway, this sounds like it could be a rewarding experience (I've always wanted to try out Second Life but never had an excuse :)) If any of you are interested and live in Australia or Canada let me know and I'll give you his email address (I was going to obfuscate it, but I'm never sure how clever bots are at untangling those things)

The resources are apparently available for anyone in Second Life, I'll post details and thoughts when I have them (on Monday)

I have a sneaky suspicion the Mike Kent(*) I'm in contact with is the unisfan Mike Kent, and am trying to remember if we ever met or I just heard his name a lot before I make a social faux pas :D

(*)nb the email address in his contact field there is broken, though the mobile number works

Because I'm an idiot I didn't get my camera until the last full day of the con so have almost not photos. But what I did get was Rob and Lise's awesome Molecular Gastronomy Hour. It reminded me a bit of Kitchen Chemistry.

The main star was Sodium Alginate. That post has the main gist, so briefly:
Sodium alginate is a flavourless gelling agent which forms a harder gel in contact with calcium.
We put a mix of cream and yogurt into unflavoured sodium alginate gel and got, well...a mushy mess. But in theory the gel covered milk balls sound cool :)

We then got a syringe of coke gel and dripped it into calcium chloride and made teeny little salty sweet balls. They needed more rinsing than we could manage so looked better than they tasted but again, the idea is cool :)

(The panel also included a comparison of banana smoothies with and without xanthum gum, but since I can't eat any of the ingredients but the banana and it just looked like banana smoothies didn't record that bit)

What is hard sf? What are the soft sciences?
THESE DEFINITIONS ARE ARBITRARY, not the "one true meaning". We just need to delimit the discussion so we know what we're talking about.

Hard sf: I have somewhat arbitrarily defined it as "science fiction which extrapolates from science ideas in a way that wouldn't make an expert in that field want to hit their head against a wall"

Soft sciences: Natural and social sciences, like biology, psychology etc.

Give some examples of "hard soft science fiction".

-The Sparrow (properly worked out languages, clever relationship between two species)
-Mars trilogy (terraforming)

Is there less hard soft sf than hard hard sf? If so, why? If not, why do people think there is?

Do authors feel more comfortable ignorantly making up soft science (eg psychology) than they would be hard sciences? If so, why? Do they get it very wrong?

Idea: People feel more comfortable with "pop psychology" than "pop physics". We all need a basic model of psychology to deal with the people around us but can happily not think about physics or maths at all.

What are some good hard soft sf books?

Depends if you mean good books or good science.

Here is my list.

What soft sciences seem to suit it best? What soft sciences seem to never get written about?

Linguistics is very popular, for some reason!

What are some cool soft science ideas that would make cool books?

1000 scientists called Steve affirming the validity of the theory of evolution. EDIT via Hoyden about Town

I will now rant because I am feeling ranty.
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