Death Is Bad

I will be participating in a panel at FTBCon on Sunday. FTBCon (Free Thought Blogs) is an all-online convention, a chance for a lot of people to get together and hangout while listening to people talk about atheist and skeptic issues. I proposed a panel on whether human immortality is a good thing or a bad idea  in principle when Myers first asked for submissions, and a few hours later I had managed to fall into this. :) I’ll be speaking with David Brin, PZ Myers, and Eliezer Yudkowsky, which is amazing as they’re all on a level significantly above mine. I guess there’s some advantages to moving quickly and organizing things. Anyone who’s seen any of these people speak before knows that this is going to be extremely cool, and very thought-provoking.

The panel will taking place over Google+ on Sunday, July 21^st, at 12:00noon Pacific Time (GMT -7). To watch, go to PZ’s page here, it’ll start streaming at the appointed time. You can chat with other people (and submit questions to the moderators) right here. Afterwards the recording will be put on YouTube, I’ll post a link when it becomes available.

EDIT2:  The panel is done! The archive is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm-5s__aZE0

BWAHAHAHAHA!  Hyperbolic (and hilarious) recounting of vital scenes from the new Man of Steel movie

“Pa Kent: Remember! Remember this one thing!

Young Clark: I will, Dad!

Pa Kent: KEEP… MURDERING… CHILDRENNNnnnnnnnnnnnnn! (Pa Kent is carried away — flashback ends)”

YAY!
HPV Vaccine has cut infections in teen girls by half

A cool promotional item for a new book. Apparently I specialize in Defense Poetry – shying away from risk, but striking at logically optimal moments.

I really love this blog. It’s helping me to stop thinking of people on the “other” side as idiots and fascists and more like people similar to me who have started with different assumptions and come to reasonable conclusions based on what they have to work with. Hoping they can see me that way too.
These are shining examples of what I used to see (and do) all the time.

“Intern” shouldn’t be used as an excuse to make a non-paying position. It’s a good first step.

Lawsuit alleging “Happy Birthday” should be in the public domain. And Warner should pay it back with *interest*

Google asks U.S. government to allow it to publish more national security request data

Hooray for more transparency! Let us know what They know.

Fight Clubs are a major factor in Turkey’s uprising? This is kinda awesome.

Harry ruined Cedric’s life without realizing it

Remember when Fred Clarke did his EPIC page-by-page analysis/take-down of Left Behind? Adam Lee is doing a similar thing for Atlas Shrugged. Less exhaustive, and a bit less awesome IMHO, but still good times. It’s been so long since I read the book that this is really a great refresher. Totally fun if you haven’t read it, and since the series is just started, it’s still easy to catch up to the current post!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/series/atlas-shrugged/

“Game of Thrones” Ultimate Birthday Rap Battle

Hacker Who Exposed Steubenville Rape Case Could Spend More Time Behind Bars Than The Rapists If you’re against rape and have a few bucks to spare, consider donating to his defense fund.

On Consequences. Gotta ask those questions *before* :)

Portland is controlled by Birchers! /dramaticmusic

The Laffer Curve is everywhere misundestood (even I think by Art Laffer himself)  “Thus the real Laffer Curve effect to watch for is not the change in revenue, but the change in productive output.”

An interesting economic model – Mondragon – where the workers are owners, and hire/fire the CEOs. People who are laid off from industries that don’t need them any more are transferred to other industries within the Co-op that do need people. Fully 45% of all corporate profits are returned to the members. It’s been working and growing for over 50 years.

The Problem with ‘Boys Will Be Boys’

“I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”
Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning.”

To Batman: Efficiency is important

A great episode of Planet Money that highlights what I consider three system failures. I found this episode insanely amusing. I think my troll-side is starting to take more enjoyment in basic failures in human systems. I’m starting to worry this is a bad thing.

I volunteered at Denver Comic Con over the weekend. More on that tomorrow, but today I’ll be putting up some pics I snapped, with comments. Note that I left my decent camera at home, so these are taken with my crappy cell-phone camera. Also if the hallways look empty it’s because I was working most of the time and didn’t have time to take many pictures – most of them were taken after the convention center was closed down (or was in the process of closing down) for the day.

Let’s start with a cool-ass cosplay:

Galactus, about 10 feet tall! Must have taken forever to make! Yes, there’s a guy in there, he would stomp around slowly and pose with people.

A unique Dalek cosplay. There was a group of 3 people who made it and took turns in it, one of them always dressed up as a doctor as well. I suggested they charge to let other people be in it for a while, and they said maybe if they modify the costume, cuz it takes 15min to get in/out of it right now. Also, it was reportedly hot as hell inside it.

I love cityscapes and I love minatures, and this sprawling Lego sculpture had both. Six blocks of downtown Big City with tons of super heroes and villains engaged in heroics/villainies (respectively). This was a close-up of the street view.

About 2/3rds of the room for the Will Wheaton/Felicia Day joint panel/Q&A. They are wonderful people to see talk.  The room was packed to capacity, and we had to turn people away. I was working Main Events for DCC, so I didn’t have to wait in line and was guaranteed attendance, but I was at the back.

I took pleasure in the fact that Shatner’s appearance, right afterward, had less than a third of the crowd (initially). We were waving people down in the halls, like “Hey, you wanna see William Shatner? Cuz we still got seating.” That’s right Shatner – no one really cares anymore. This is a Geek Con, and no one wants to hear about your horse breeding or whatever. We’re here to see other people LIKE US who talk about how great geek culture is and we can all revel in our nerdery together. :)

The MLP panel – these are all writers and/or artists of the MLP comic books. Unfortunately the DCC Guidebook doesn’t have panelist names in the Programming section, but the lady on the far right wrote the premier issue, which sold over 100,000 copies BEFORE it was even published. Go Bronies!

I had a pic of the crowd, but it was blurry and crappy. This room was completely packed. People squeezed together, every seat taken, and we STILL had to turn people away at the door. It was smaller than the main-events hall, but still very impressive. Lots of good pony cosplay, and lots of sloppy pony cosplay. :)

Other news – the new miniseries will focus on minor characters, and it is basically assured we’ll never see a Doctor Hooves episode, because it turns out the BBC is EXTREMELY tight-fisted with their Dr Who IP.

The rarely seen Big Mac cosplay! Right after the MLP panel. When I asked if I could snap his picture he even replied “Ayup”  :) That’s a stalk of grass in his mouth, not a goatee (stupid phone camera!)

Toph and Aang!

Momo and Appa!

I was helping out a bit in the exhibition hall after DCC was closed down to the public, and the giant Spidey had been pulled down from the ceiling and put on his back. A couple exhibitors took advantage of this for an excellent pic opportunity!

And finally, a poor pic  of me next to Rawr (DCC mascot).

Google Wallet

The internet just gained a level. HUZZAH!

Why Star Trek is great

An absolutely awesome article for all the Trek fans.

Dredd is actually a really good action movie.

The evil engineer’s guide to patents

Software patent law is broken. Exploit it for personal gain – be a munchkin IRL

Don’t make fun of renowned Dan Brown

“The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive”

Scientists Invent Oxygen Particle That If Injected, Allows You To Live Without Breathing

Article title is, as always, greatly exaggerated. You’d need to keep getting injections every 30 min, and carbon dioxide would eventually build up in your blood to lethal levels. Still – 30 min without needing to breath? Yes pls.

Depression Part Two

A few days back on Facebook I posted a thing I learned:

Keep Calm and Carry On doesn’t have an official font, as it was originally hand-drawn. Use Gill Sans. Why?

P22 Underground has a similar look, and is used on London Underground signage. Gill Sans is a kinda rip-off of Johnson’s Underground font (something Eric Gill admitted) It was designed because London Underground held the licence for Johnson Underground and wouldn’t allow others to use it. The poster has very similar characteristics to Gill and Johnson Underground and one of them was probably a reference point for the designer of the poster. Gill Sans was a hugely popular font at the time and has become part of British design culture as representative of the graphic style of the 30s/40s. It is used frequently by designers who want to evoke a nostalgic Britishness.

From here.

My girlfriend commented: Some men just want to watch the world learn.

Which inspired me to create a few QuickMeme image macros. The one above, and these below.