897 thoughts on “More of Your Comments on MACII 8/19

  1. I stand by my previous comments that you are arguing on brianesque levels regarding this.

    It is nice talking to you also, Hampus. Do you have any other ways you’d like to call me stupid?

  2. @Christian Brunschen

    I hadn’t put that together, but you’re absolutely right – if what he says in his article is true, he was always intending to professionally* publish the audio recording.

    *okay, semi-professionally given Tangent’s category 🙂

  3. Hampus, to be fair, unless the badgers were actually given black-listed names to watch for, they were probably just checking that the badges were valid (for example, not day-passes for the wrong day)

    I donno–badgers seem to be pretty good at discerning mushrooms from snakes…

  4. There were badges with names on then. That together with a description of Trusdale should give an idea on what to lock for.

    We’re not talking about Truesdale getting past security. We’re talking about the fan who yelled at Neil Clarke during the panel. He was banned from the con via email. He didn’t get the email until returning home, so he attended the con Sunday while he was supposed to be banned.

  5. Get the impression Truesdale wasn’t thinking about the “Code of Conduct” at all, just his big provocative statement and the ensuing debate or whatever he anticipated.

  6. Darren Garrison, <snork> great, now I’ll have that stuck in my head for the rest of the day….

    (Explanation for those who don’t know convention culture: “badger” is the common term for “badge-checker” at conventions, just like “gopher” is the common term for unskilled volunteer labor. As in, “Jim, would you go for that box and bring it over here, please?” And, yes, usually the literature asking for volunteers in those capacities displays cartoon animals…)

    Now I have to wonder; I’ve never been to a Furry-con. Do actual Badgers perform as badgers? Inquiring minds, and all that….

  7. Rcade:

    “It is nice talking to you also, Hampus. Do you have any other ways you’d like to call me stupid?”

    I do not believe you stupid. I made a comment regarding your debating style on this single subject.

  8. One point of comparison regarding the recording of a panel. When I went to the Wild Cards: Deathmatch panel, it was announced before it began that they would be making a video of the panel, so everything would be recorded. Therefore, anyone who didn’t want to be on a recording had the opportunity to leave. This seems like common courtesy, unless of course you are hoping to embarass someone who didn’t know they were being recorded.

  9. Now I have to wonder; I’ve never been to a Furry-con. Do actual Badgers perform as badgers? Inquiring minds, and all that
.

    Me too! Because that would be beyond awesome.

    I never had more than a glance from the various badgers (who looked nothing like my new head canon) and nobody official ever looked at my name. I’m pretty sure they were just there to make sure that you’d paid your money.

    Is there any way that those of us posting could just stipulate that many of us feel Truesdale’s ousting was justified and a few do not? At this point it might be useful to have a larger conversation about social rules, geek fallacies, how things look depending on how you look and a host of other things, but I’m pretty sure the Truesdale piñata is out of candy.

  10. @StephenfromOttawa,

    It may well be the case that Truesdale was not thinking; or more specifically, that Truesdale was not thinking about anything other than his own agenda – that everyone else, the Con, the panelists, the (paying!) attendees, the actual stated subject of the panel, even the code of conduct were either beneath his notice or deliberately ignored.

    But then, if he cares so little about conduct that he doesn’t even think to check whether what he is planning to do is OK, he also doesn’t belong in a context where there is a code of conduct that everyone is supposed to follow – and removing him from that context remains entirely appropriate.

  11. I do not believe you stupid.

    Common ground!

    I sent an email to the MidAmericon chair and incident team about the security issue of a fan being let in after he was banned. It seems like a concern that should be passed along to the next Worldcon.

  12. In living-in-the-future news, a private space-pad has been completed in New Zealand!

    The location is in the east of the North Island. A benefit of the site is that there are only a handful of airliner flights per day (to/from South America) that launches have to work around.

    More background on RocketLab

  13. Christian Brunschen,

    I don’t disagree. I was just throwing out an observation.

  14. I went from xp to 7 with trepidation, but I like 7. I hope to hang on to 7 until some usable alternative to 10 arises–there are reasons neither Mac nor Linux will work for me (mostly to do with the software I am married to). Yes, I know about emulators. Anyways, I just think it’s not a given that we will all be using tablets anytime soon.

  15. @StephenfromOttawa, I know, and if what I wrote came across as thinking otherwise then I’m sorry I phrased things a bit clumsily; I was just musing a bit further on your observation.

  16. I debated for 30 seconds setting up a survey using Survey Monkey for filers to take to see where we fall on MACII expelling DT but I came to my senses. If I had it would look like:

    1. Expelling the right thing
    Yes
    No
    Unsure
    Don’t know enough to have an opinion

    2. Optional: provide a concise statement on why you voted the way you did

    Results available as soon as done.

  17. @Lucy Kemnitzer

    Annoyingly there are some interesting things in 10, especially the Linux compatibility in the Anniversary update, but then there’s the whole Instrumentation thing and an interface that still can’t make its mind up whether it’s a tablet or desktop.

    I’ve been using MacOS at home a lot since for similar reasons, in my case because it handles colour profiles consistently for all applications unlike XP did at the time I went to it. Linux was even more rudimentary and besides I wanted to run Lightroom.

  18. Rcade: Before this, I wasn’t aware that people recording panels is controversial. My assumption was that it happens often and I was glad it did, because that meant I’d get a chance to see some panels on YouTube and elsewhere.

    Oh yeah — all the conventions I’ve worked for had policies regarding recording, audio OR video. One con had two filk rooms, one for those who didn’t mind being recorded and one for those who did. Hell, one OVFF had an honest-to-goodness documentary team* filming the convention. We came up with color coding the badges so the film crew knew who didn’t want to be on camera.

    Anyone who does fancasts, podcasts whatever, SHOULD get the permission of the con and the attendees at whatever you’re planning to record, that’s just good manners. A true professional would have release forms for panel members and attendees to sign.

    *Funny story: At one point in the evening, the crew ran out of film — so the crowd looked at each other and said, almost in unison, “We’ll wait, change the film and we’ll go on from there.” The crew was delighted by our patience…and marveled that we would do this.

  19. @Cheryl Is there any way that those of us posting could just stipulate that many of us feel Truesdale’s ousting was justified and a few do not? At this point it might be useful to have a larger conversation about social rules, geek fallacies, how things look depending on how you look and a host of other things, but I’m pretty sure the Truesdale piñata is out of candy.

    I hope the following is viewed as an attempt at the “larger conversation” rather than continuing the discussion about DT (even though I mention DT).

    1. It would appear that in two cases (Truesdale and the audience member who was expelled) the concom went straight to the Death Penalty (expulsion). This might have been because the concom felt as if expulsion was the proper thing to do regardless of other actions it might have taken, but it is possible (as Hampus alludes to above) that it felt the need to do something, but saw no options beyond “nothing” (which would give the appearance of condoning what had happened) and expulsion.

    Not all transgressions deserve expulsion (some seem to think that this one does not; I’m not trying to say one way or the other myself), but if that is the only option available to the concom, it seems useful to consider how the modifying the CoC to reflect a sliding scale of punishment/correction would be useful for the future.

    2. Many have (rightly) commended Mary Robinette Kowal for her adult response to her suspension. I’d note that it is much easier to accept punishment when the system has treated you in accordance with its previously stated rules (although I’m sure she is classy enough that she would have acted pretty much the same way regardless of how the system treated her). “Two members of the concom took me to a private room where we could do an incident report.” This is what the CoC says should have happened both with DT and the audience member (“the Incident Response Team (IRT) will develop a full report of the incident, including talking to those involved “), and it apparently did not. They both deserved to have a chance to offer their side of the story (even if their side does not mitigate what they did). (and even though the audience member was emailed, I think this was not sufficient — all parties were on site, and he could have been spoken to in that same private room.)

    Well-written CoCs are necessary to protect the membership as a whole. But they also are necessary to make sure that offenders are treated fairly. Expulsion may well have been the proper outcome (I wasn’t there, I’ll defer to those who were), but they way they got there wasn’t fair.

  20. Everybody else in the northern hemisphere seems to be getting heat, but here in the California Central Coast it’s cooler than usual, even now in August when we usually get whatever heat we’re going to get. I have this suspicion–totally unsupported–that it could have to do with all the ash in the air from the Soberanes Fire, but the upshot is no need for fans here! Also, a lousy year for home-grown tomatoes. Anyway, if you want to cool off, you could do worse than come to Santa Cruz. I’m less than half a mile from the main beach…

  21. Yes, after flipping out, the technical division eventually declared victory!

  22. @Aaron.
    And on that, we are in complete agreement! Fascinating document. Duality of perception in shared reality, and all that. Just adored them dragging in poor ol’ JS.

  23. @JKS: Yeah, that reference seems to come out of left field, and doesn’t seem to have much of anything to do with the text surrounding it. On the other hand, that could be said about a lot of the passages in that post.

  24. Incoherence.
    *ah*
    *ahem*
    Consigliere, seeing as it’s just you and me left here, would you mind terribly if I reposted an … uhm… sort of a ‘hello again’ post I wrote?
    You see I thought it was pretty good but it went into purgatory and, ah well, never seemed to come out. I think I just did the same thing above. I was trying to hyperlink a comment from the Beeb that I can delete.
    Anyway I leave it up to you, as you seem to be an audience of one.
    JKS

  25. Jonathan, since Our Good Host is currently in the hospital, anything that trips the moderation filters is likely to stay unpublished indefinitely.

    Alas, this includes first-posts-from-person.

    That being said, hello. Nice to meet you.

  26. @Jonathan K. Stephens

    You might want to repost up your hello comment in the latest thread. The one for today where more filers are currently active, 😉

    Hi, nice to meet you.

  27. E-mail expulsion is worthless. Yelling Puppy could have gone on to cause even more harm the rest of the con. I don’t check my email at cons either. I don’t have a smart phone, and my prepaid dumbphone is all I bring with me.

    Either send a couple of people to track them down, slip a note under their hotel room door if you know it, AND notify all the gophers at badge check stations to watch for him and call security. Put up a picture and/or description in gofer hole.

    @emgrasso: It’s all about the menz, so the fact that DT’s props were automatically more of an insult to one half the population than the other half doesn’t count.

    Technically (pushes glasses up), all badgers are gophers, though not all gophers are badgers.

    @Christian B: Yeah, that there is premeditated aggrevated CoC breaking.

    @rcade: First Rule of Holes, dude.

    I still have an XP machine here and it works just fine for the things I need a Windows machine for (ripping and writing CDs, a few games, hardcopy word processing), and as an internet appliance. Our household server is an XP-era desktop with some moderately-old version of a Linux running it.

    Meanwhile, I’m going to Lucy Kemnitzer’s house, because Santa Cruz is always awesome. Let me just get a sweater for after sundown and hit the freeway.

  28. lurkertype–Give me a heads-up a day or two before– don’t want to miss you if I’m in chemo all day or something!

  29. The badgers at MacII were not fans, but rather convention hall security, in security guard uniforms, and were only looking to make sure people had badges. If that. Their own badges (embroidery? Can’t remember) said something like “crowd control”. As far as I could tell their mandate was to keep things moving; I don’t know if they would have/could have checked each badge for a banned name.

    As for hotel rooms, I stayed at one of the convention hotels, but my name wasn’t on the room. This is not uncommon.

    It’s a pity that the MacII team weren’t able to confront him on the premises and talk to him/physically take his badge, but it doesn’t surprise me that they were not. It’s not a trivial problem to find someone at a convention the physical size of a Worldcon, alas.

  30. @Mallory:

    Completely agree with Tasha, emgrasso and Ipinhome. I’m really tired of white men being given a pass because they are “clueless” or “feel strongly” about something in cases where they pre-plan a stunt that privileges them above everyone else.

    Me too. And my exhaustion only deepens when I remember that while, for men, “clueless”/”didn’t know better” is an excuse and “feels strongly”/”is passionate” is admirable, the feminine terms for these things are reasons to blame or dismiss us: “dumb broad.” “crazy b—h.” “hysterical.” “disproportionately emotional.” “too close to the subject for objectivity.”

    (I’m not intimately familiar with how this double standard plays out across color lines. I have a few guesses though.)

  31. Alas, as delightful as Badger badgers would be, visibility in the fursuits is generally so poor that they would be pretty useless.

    I have been treated to the sight of a K-9 unit suiter actually doing crowd control at a fur con though, which was charming, even if all he could really do was point people in the direction of traffic (which is a good chunk of what security does some days anyhow.)

  32. I use a tablet most of the time because it’s kinder to my hands, but there are tasks which are much easier with a physical keyboard.

    @Hampus

    Ah, I hadn’t realised he wasn’t on any other panels. Yes, I think that tips it over to expulsion.

  33. @Bruce Arthurs, you may drink all the mint juleps and any left over bourbon, but that is the Queen of Porches and I have lust in my heart.

    @Bill – Well-written CoCs are necessary to protect the membership as a whole. But they also are necessary to make sure that offenders are treated fairly.

    Concern about fairness to malefactors is not at the top of my list (violating CoCs pretty much eliminates the possibility that you’ll have control of the consequences, so don’t), but I do think best practices include clear consequences in a way that allows scaling. However, if a particular CoC has expulsion as its only response to any violation, that is not unfair, just harsh.

  34. I was assuming the scale goes something like:
    1. Stern talking to
    2. Removal from programming*
    3. One day suspension
    4. Expulsion

    Given that we have an example of a one day suspension (MRK) we can perhaps extrapolate from there that innocent (in the sense of “no victims”) violations will be anything up to the one day suspension and violations-with-victims get expulsions. It may, of course, start with the suspension, but I’d be slightly surprised if it did.

    *To be honest, I’d be surprised if this was on the real list because it isn’t likely to be used much or at all. It only really applies to anyone who was on the programming in the first place and was guilty of something relevant to programming and was scheduled for items after the violation.

  35. @Meredith

    The bit I can’t quite understand is tablets that are too big to easily hold. Seriously, what’s the point? I tend to still go for the smallest device that will do the job though so I may be biased.

  36. @Aaron.

    Er. Sorry for that last post.
    I fear that in my utter relief that some rather pricey books were actually undamaged in the worst looking package I’ve ever received (for any interested, the pictures are posted on the Subterranean Press Readers site on Facebook, but be warned: they are graphic), I seem to have overindulged last night and that last post reads so utterly pathetic and needy it provoked an internal system crash and an immediate need to be small and quiet. Quite embarrassing, actually. Thank Ghod, this is only teh intrawebs because in the real world I need to be much mentally stronger.

    Hi Cassy B. & Tasha Turner, nice to meet you two. Ah, no. I think I’ll just post it here where nobody’s looking. 🙂

    Anyway


    *****

    @ Hampus

    Sometimes ya just gotta do, what ya gotta do!

    Yesterday I summoned up my MPI* and finished off a fairly substantial read/re-reading of Tim Powers that’s been brewing for a couple of years. To wit: The Drawing of the Dark, The Anubis Gates, Nobody’s Home, The Stress of Her Regard and Hide Me Among the Graves.

    See, I bought Nobody’s Home, a novella sequel to The Anubis Gates a couple of years ago, when it came out, but wanted to re-read AG first, and then picked up a copy of HMAG which is a sequel to SHR, which I couldn’t remember at all but my brother has a copy, and then ponied-up for the lovely Sub Press edition of DD, and of course I only buy books to read them, hence: DD, AG, NH, SHR, HMAG (*whew*).

    A wonderful time was had by all, in my SF community of one, and I heartily recommend them all. I thought I was going to dive right back down under with a couple of China Mieville books, but I sufficiently intrigued by a description of Alistair Rennie’s Bleak Warrior that it’s moved to the top of my really-quite-disturbingly-large to-be-read pile(s).

    Canadian Content: Feel free to skip, although prospective Americans fleeing from The Worst Possible Scenario (whatever that happens to be for you), should be aware that I’ve been reliably informed that there are twice as many questions on The Hip as on Rush in the Canadian Culture Section of the Preliminary Entrance Exam. Just sayin’.

    @Dawn Incognito

    Like you, to me for years The Hip have been a ‘normal’, perhaps even taken-for-granted, part of the background chatter of everyday life. Hell, I might have even seen them way back when. Gord and the boys were playing in many of those selfsame clubs surrounding UofT I staggered about after classes. Not to over-share but to give context, I watched the concert with my youngest daughter, Sarah who was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of days after her 12th birthday (and which will have been in remission three years this Christmas 🙂 ).

    Fun Fan Fact – I mention for the first time, I kid-you-not, the first puppy story I ever read was JCW’s “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”.

    Sarah had heard of Gord’s condition and was interested in hearing the band. We both agree that Gord looked as good as could be expected and was clearly pacing himself effectively in the beginning, but partway through really got into it and started letting it all hang out. I almost lost it only a couple of times, unlike many of those there in person. An emotional concert. Apparently some 11 million tuned in, which is about a third of the country.

    I’ve been trying to come up with those quintessential ‘national equivalents’; maybe Dylan , maybe Midnight Oil (at their “Bed’s are Burning” height), Oasis in the UK but the Beeb sums us up nicely: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37148999.

    I do hope you’ll be able to vote in future Hugos, but if not, I would humbly suggest the Locus Awards, which I usually vote in. My take on all this is that EPH should effectively crack slates but I’m quite willing to keep re-upping to make sure.

    JKS

    *’Mighty Power of Introvert’ – I just love that!

    *****

  37. It happened that Ruth Stuart was a Tragically Hip fan so since the last Hip concert fell on the same day as the celebration of her life (like a wake but more upbeat), I arranged for it to be aired at the restaurant where we had the dinner.

    (did I mention here that Ruth Stuart, author and fan passed away? Same cancer as Gord)

  38. @Jonathan K. Stephens:

    I remember reading that post, sorry I didn’t comment but I’ve been preoccupied. I’m very glad your daughter’s leukemia has been in remission for three years. (Fuck cancer.)

    There are recordings of several Man Machine Poem tour stops on YouTube. I was watching some of the Hamilton show the other night and the band appeared a little more relaxed and less sad in that one.

    I looked at the Locus awards this year but didn’t vote because I hadn’t read enough of the nominees. Also the Hugos are special to me because I’ve been reading the finalist novels every year for…16 years now? And The Hugo Winners anthology was what first got me interested in short fiction.

    Very pleased to meetcha. 🙂

  39. @IanP

    If they’re tablets specifically for art purposes it makes a certain amount of sense – they’re probably not going to be using them quite the same way – but for other uses the standard iPad is definitely on the top end of size usability, and the older versions were actually a bit heavy in my opinion. I’m quite envious of my mother’s iPad Mini for ease-of-use but since I use a tablet nearly full-time the lack of real estate would become an issue. Still, money no object, I’d definitely have one as well for bad days or carrying around outside the house. They’re neat little things.

  40. @Dawn Incognito

    Delurking momentarily (and only on this thread because in my madness I’ve deleted all my other bookmarked threads; Yea, even those from the Beginning Times, before Scrolls, when the Dark Lord walked among us in his fairest seeming form, and verily there were many calls of *Aristotle* and *Drink*, and upon one memorable night the muse was upon me (of course, the night before we were due to leave on vacation), inspiring the composition of a Recommended Short Story list that some here were kind enough to allow might have some merit (although Kurt’s revision was far more user-friendly), and because it would be rude not to, to say:

    Hiya Dawn! Thanks for taking the time to respond, and many more thanks for your good wishes for Sarah.
    FYI (and trying for brevity), since her chemo treatments ended last October our new normal is that Sarah has been growing like a weed! Uhm. In all directions. This is not exactly to her delight, as this was a kid who was a beanpole (unlike the rest of the family!). She thought it was sort of cute to develop a pot-belly during chemo, since she never had one before being a runner (you know you’re in the presence of greatness when a ten-year old boy comes up to you at the school, squints up at you, and says, “You’re Sarah’s Dad?”, and upon a confirming nod, shuffles his feet and admits “She’s pretty fast.”). Although all she can do right now is an amazingly quick waddle (no strength in the thighs to lift up her legs – think Olympic Walking), this is huge improvement over watching her painfully crawl up and down on four legs the stairs that she just used to jump . Sarah was also selected as a local Champion for McMaster Children’s Hospital for the Children’s Miracle Network (which, much to her delight, involved a trip to Disney World (which would be usually impossible for her because of US insurance concerns), where she could gleefully video-tape as much of the “Small World” ride as she could ), She does having a ‘site’ on the Caring Bridge, if you’re interested in her journey or others (fair warning: they do ask for, but do not require, donations), however we are also active on Facebook and I do cordially invite you to look us up. You’ll probably find that although the old man is somewhat weird and twitchy, his kid is rather inspirational, if I do say so myself.

    Finally (Sorry, fan communities of one do tend to write manifestos), my Golden Age of SF (usually acknowledged to be your teen-age years), was in the 70’s when it was clear to me that SF was the most significant, daring, diverse and innovative form of literature. Not only were best selling authors like Gore Vidal messing about with SF tropes, but Herbert, Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein were on the best-seller lists too! Ah, a halcyon time. Finally SF was taken serious to the satisfaction of this teenager. No more shit about escapist, mental masturbation. As could be expected, these ideals sort of stuck. Now, some 40 years later, Larry Correia is telling me nope. Nopity-nope. Sorry, pal. It really is all about escapist, mental masturbation. That’s the epitome of what SF should aspire too. And the Hugo should go to the most popular ponographer. Oh and all the myriad diversity of thought, experience, and attitude that excited you to begin with and you took for granted in SF? Screw that. Vanilla, is what we need. Needless to say I utterly repudiate, while being somewhat dismayed by, this ridiculous notion. While I’m ok with vanilla, it doesn’t thrill my soul. I’d like a little more spice in my life thanks. So there’s a certain commonality with others here. However, although The Pixie Scrolls (get well soon Mike!), have become part of my morning routine it seems to me, as final arbiter, that I’m not any great shakes at this commenting part, therefore I’m permanently recusing myself from further thread comments. I’m better at posting something after three hours of agonizing over it by which time the boat has sailed. Please consider me henceforth as one of those lurkers sending good karma the way of the regulars (and like many, quite willing to re-up my supporting Hugo membership to keep the faith).

    JKS

  41. If they’re tablets specifically for art purposes it makes a certain amount of sense

    But I’m assuming that tablet computers for art purposes are specialized and expensive? Today’s genreral-purpose touchscreens are binary–either you are touching them, or you aren’t. But pressure-sensitive tablets (of the “pad thingy that you draw on with a stylus) variety are sensitive to x levels of pressure. More than 20 years ago while I was in college I bought a Wacom Artpad like this one and it was sensitive to either 128 or 256 levels of pressure. Modern ones–I believe–can sense 1024 levels or even more. This allows you to control the appearance of simulated media in art programs, like the darkness or charcoal or watercolors, the width of brushstrokes, the spread of airbrush. I’m no artist, but I liked to play around with my Artpad and Fractal Design Painter. (Wish I still had one, now that I think about it.) For real artists, I’m thinking that a single-level-of-pressure touchscreen is a lousy substitute for a good Wacom (or similar) tablet.

  42. I just wanted it noted for posterity that I read all 18 pages of this just to try to get caught up on what went down at Worldcon etc lol

    HELLO LOVELY PEOPLE OK I AM GOING TO THE LATEST THREAD….S??? (just peeked at the front page omg)

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