But, yeah, a lot of cons don't make it.
mark ]]>Unfortunately, I know exactly where it came from: it was well-known, in the mainstream media, that Reagan would actually hang out with his buddies in the White House kitchen, and they'd watch TV.
Fall of '83? '82?, I think they were reruns, of Cattlecar Galaxative, which my daughter was watching, the Galactica finds a planet with two superpowers, at the edge of nuclear war, and the Galactica waits until they both push The Button, and zaps all 30,000 nukes (notice the number, which, oddly enough, is how many we and the Soviets had).
He announced it - odd, I remember it being in a State of the Union speech, not just an "ordinary one" - at any rate, go look up all the papers, all the way up to the paper of record, and for a week, the Joint Chiefs, his Science advisers, and everyone said, in public, and I quote, "huh? where'd this come from?"
So call it what it should correctly be called, not Star Wars, but Battlestar America.
mark "and it still doesn't work" ]]>I fly in on Monday but have a 4am start, so I'll be blitzed on jet lag and bad company that evening. Tuesday is earmarked for the OTI event. Wednesday might be practical, but I'm not sure yet. Thereafter, it's all Balticon all the way until I fly home.
]]>Going to an aside - when I think of flying into D.C. or Baltimore, I think of the movie Die Hard 2, which has a plot based upon the premise that D.C. only has one airport. They could have picked a different city just as well - in fact a scene was shot in Denver's airport. But picking a city with three international airports?
]]>Why can't/don't you go? There are cons around the country, around the world. And in the US, the Real sf cons are all run by 503(c)3 not-for-profit organizations... so they're also not that expensive (esp.if you buy your membership early in the year, or the year before). Commercial con, like some Trek cons, for example, are $50-$75 (from what I vaguely remember hearing) for a ->ticket<- for one day, you like it, you can come back the next day, pay the same price, and see the same show - you're the audience.
Real SF cons, you buy a membership, you're part of it (and if you volunteer to gofer, and do enough hours over the course of the con, you usually get either comped for it, or next year's free). At-the-door usually runs around $50-$60... and that's for ->the entire weekend<-, and what happens one day is not what happens the next, or the next. And, in addition to the programming, and dealers' room, and usually an art show, there's the parties way into the night... and yes, authors and artists go to them, too.
'Course, fen these days are all wimps. Why, when I was a young fan, if the only party going at 03:30 was the consuite, it was a slow con....
Do come. And check out Filthy Pierre's con list, for cons around the country, around the year.
mark ]]>And yes you can get cheaper rooms. But typically only on days when there is no "reason" for people to be in the area. Or if you don't mind your feet sticking a bit to the carpet as you walk across the room.
]]>Prices have gone up, but normal is somewhere between $98 and $129... and in the US, that's 1-4 people, period, flat rate, negotiated into the contract. No extra charges until you go over that (and if you're squeezing a bunch of folks into one room, including using the floor, are you really going to tell the hotel?)
And I've only not had someone else in the room once or twice in most of a lifetime of going to cons.
Of course, the hotels are willing to give us those rates, and room nights gives us comp for function space... because at any larger con, we fill the hotel. Hell, for this year's Balticon, the room block is full, as are most of the room blocks in the overflow hotels....
And the hotel chains used to pass around folders as to what to expect of different kinds of conventions. SF cons were listed, I understand, as "weird people, but mostly harmless". More folks spend more in the hotel than when I was younger, but a lot of younger folks graze, or eat their meals, in the consuite.
mark ]]>Don't be surprised if I'm up to half an hour late arriving -- got to eat, first -- and in a zombie-like stupor (our first flight takes off from Edinburgh at 6am BST, i.e. 1am EST, and we need to be on our way to the airport two hours before departure). Plan is to stay awake with bright lights and conversation until at least 10:30pm, so I can wake up on local (DC) time the following morning.
]]>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_414s
The hackers, all of them teenagers, broke into a number of computer facilities, were investigated and arrested. But to their embarrassment, FBI found almost nothing to charge them with, as there were no laws on books to address that sort of things. Hence CFAA.
The 414's claimed to have been inspired by the movie "War Games", so there is some connection, but not much. CFAA certainly would not have happened only on the basis of the movie.
]]>I hope your new talk is as thought provoking. :)
]]>Seriously, anybody wanting to talk pond scum (algae!), just use A at B dot C, where A is calahans, B is si, and C is edu*.
If I didn't already bore you to tears with that already.
*Pseudo-obfuscation technique courtesy of Jon Singer.
]]>Sorry to have missed the gathering. Sounds like it was a hoot.
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