Virtual Chicon 8 - Thursday

Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon was held in-person and virtual, September 1-5.  I attended as a virtual member mainly because I couldn't afford another major trip this year. Another reason is my hearing impairment which makes listening to people wearing masks very unpleasant.  I will miss out on seeing my friends, as well as the art show, dealer room, exhibits, and parties. I hope to have a good time attending panels that have captioning.

Chicon 8 is using AirMeet for the virtual part. Airmeet is new to me.  It seems nice.  There are Lounge and Booths in addition to programming.  It has the schedule and I could bookmark the panels I plan to see.  It claimed to be emailing calendar invites to me, but I didn't receive any.
As the day went along, I found the captions would go away, video and audio would freeze.  I'd need to refresh the page and navigate to the panel again.  The con was aware of the problems and suggested using Google captions.  So I have to cut and paste my personal link from Firefox to Chrome, then set up Chrome for captions.  So far the Google captions are working OK.  I still missed a lot of book titles that were mangled by the caption system.

Brief notes from the panels I attended.  I may need to correct things later.

11 am The Middle Ages Weren’t Actually Bad

Gillian Polack – ethnohistorian, Anya Leigh Josephs, Walter Williams

Kate Heartfield. Moderator

Starts on time at 11am

Love the closed captions; very big, and indicates who is talking

Chat and Q&A.

Middle ages were considered “dark” by the Enlightenment era writers.

Some discussion of a book. The Light Ages by Seb Falk, The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriel

Common misconceptions about medieval times, 13^th, 14^th centuries.

Use of spices ( not just salt)

Food in general

Williams: Feudalism was everywhere. (There were republics)

People thought the world was flat (they knew it was round [Columbus knew it, but miscalculated the circumference]}

Dirty, Poor health. Hygiene, food, medicine. (People washed, just not like we do. There was running water in homes in some places)

Medieval age did have terrible problems, too.

Life was nasty, brutish and short. (skeletons found of people in their 90s)

But there was more leisure, festivals, etc.

There was water and wind power for mills.

Why do the misconceptions matter wrt storytelling?

Medieval stories were more mystical journeys than knights slaying dragons.

“Tales of the Decamercon”

More myths:

Williams; that there wasn’t interchange with or respect for other culture (non-European)

These misconceptions matter because many publishers have them and may not buy your story because it is “not authentic”

 

Many of the scientists were religious people (monks) because they had time to investigate.

Our stories need to be dangerous. Not just escapism.

Fantasy is a good mechanism to preserve truth.

 

Questions:

Favorite books; The Name of the Rose – philosophic debates of the 14^th century; depiction of monasteries.

Primary sources:

Remember that translations are a product of a time and culture.

Middle Ages Unlocked

The Embroidered Book

 

--------------

Real Space Combat

S.E. Mulholland, PhD

43 people in audience

Pew! Pew! What would realistic space combat look like?

Writing space battles is hard because your audience may not have the background to know the physics involved.

System will be inefficient. Loses energy.

Heat issues

Fission Power as an example

Need to radiate waste heat. Most SF spaceships in media don’t include this. (Avatar sleeper ship did.)

Notes that there is no heat management in The Expanse.

Needs thermal exchange panels.

Orbital Mechanics

Simply, everything is curves

Nothing stands still

How do things move in space?

Moon speed in 1kps, LEO satellits in 7.5 kps

 

Speed is always relative – to other ships, star, planets.

What drive systems are feasible.

Chemical rocket – Produce a lot of trust quickly, but very inefficient.

Ion drive – low thrust. High fuel economy. (would never lift off the ground)

ion drive would be good for transfer orbits from one planet to another. Still not quick.

 

Feasible:

Nuclear Pulse

Direct Pusion

VASIMR

 

How to spot an enemy ship

Detecting direct emissions (thermal and EM)

Return from active sensor (radar)

Eclipsing

 

Stealth

Parasol – to reflect, also good for black body radiation.

Weapons

Kinetic Impact -Not just a clean in and out hole; velocity kills; doesn’t have to be high mass. (You can be killed by a marshmallow peep)

Beamed Energy – Laser beams always diverge (diffraction limit) Proton beams diverge more slowly, Neutron Beans diverge very slowly, if you can figure out how to make one

Laser damage is plasma mediated; Target melts, not sliced in half.

Nuclear detonation – No shock wave;

(Lost captiosns a half hour into the talk. Since there are slides, I can follow somewhat.)

Space warships as a distributed ….

Aircraft carrier versus drones

Where do armed starships come from?

Consider crew biology – humand, alien, modified human, really alien

Dr. Mulholland wrote Blindspot and Solar Federation.

 

6:30 pm Improbably Research Dramatic readings

Marc Abrahams and several authors.

Marc Abraham: Highlights works that make you laugh, then make you think. Ig Nobel Prize and Annals of Improbable Research

Dramatic reading from scientific papers.

Two minutes each.

Readers have read the entire paper. Then panelists/audience can ask questions about the subject of the paper

Thiago Ambrosio from Brazil.

Structured Procrastination.  Something about making lists based on importance. Also finding that delaying long enough makes some tasks irrelevant  (I have found this to be true in my life.)

Sharon Lee ; Title: Gender related book carrying behavior. 1993 Universit of Geneva.
The abstract was a lot of nonsense.

Jack Glassman – Professor emeritous Illinois U – Title;2007 patent Garment device convertible to one or more face masks.
(He-he )Basically a bra with detachable cups. For biological or chemical warfare. but the abstract did not say "bra" or "cups". Actually manufactured and used in China.  The inventors won an Ig Nobel.

Question about cup size. Questions about CSC approval for covid.
(I remember when home-made COVID masks were starting, people suggested cutting up old bras.  They were mocked my people showing how poorly their D-cup bra worked as facemasks.)

Sarah Pinsker -

Title ; Forensic archeology and the wood chipper murder.

A man murdered his wife in Fargo ND and attempted to dispose of her body using a wood chipper. He dumped the chipped wood and body fragment along a river, but everything froze. Police recovered a some bone fragments and a tooth crown. So they had the evidence to charge the husband.
(This really was a good dramatic reading)

SE Mulholland

2012 American entimology

Negative views toward spiders.
Aracnophobia among entimologists

He gave good answers, in character, to the questions

Mason Porter – math professor

Title: Half-life of dead economists; Canadian Journal of Economics in 1989

Disputes a value of citation count in determining the importance of an economist.

Several more papers in this vein.

Abrahams plugged the Ig Nobel ceremony Sept 15.

 

9pm Opening Ceremonies

ASL stream is elsewhere; also an option for CC instead of subtitles?

Captioner had a power failure. Maybe that’s why it’s late.

I’m glad I stuck with Google’s captioning.

Everyone is wearing masks on stage.

Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz are checking the mics. I’m glad. They work. But they don’t realize.

They try to be entertaining during the sound check.

Ellen Monttgonery con chair; I can barely hear, but Google is getting it.

Lots of changes; live with uncertainty

Call for kindness and patience.

Hugo base designer. I guess I’ll stay for that. - video

Included elements from the Chicago flag which has 6 pointed stairs. Wooden base. It is lovely!

(Better than the granite block from Discon and the Ultraman base from Japan, IMO)

I switched over to another program item

Mrs Hawkingsm Part 1
It is a play, but I don’t know how it is related to SF. Victorian Lady vigilante fights for justice for women. It seemed well done, but I didn't want to miss the live on stuff

Switched back at the opening ceremonies

Nicely done interviews with the guests.  I was too engaged to take many notes.

Fun to see google caption Chicon as Shaikhon

All those people on stage, so much talent and hard work.