Grumbling about MidSouthCon's "science" guest of "honor"

Last weekend I went to MidSouthCon, a medium-small science fiction convention in Memphis, TN. (Well, Olive Branch, MS, but who's counting). It was jolly. I ran a Fudge game, I hung out with friends new and old, I got a T-shirt that mixes the standard model of particle physics with Dr. Seussian poetry. And, I was a guest myself; I gave a talk about Second Life, and did a live demo of Second Life. I was also on a panel about "advising the movies", even though I've never actually done that... I have given a talk about how Newton's Laws hold up in science fiction movies and TV, though, which is probably why the event planners put me on that panel.

However, there was one thing that bothered me greatly. See, they have a number of guests of honor. Their writer guest of honor was Mike Resnick, and their artist guest of honor was Vincent de Fate, both of whom are truly excellent choices. But, even though I'm no longer entirely a working scientist, I have to admit to feeling a little insulted that they chose a crackpot for the scientist guest of honor rather than me. Not that I'm of the stature to be worthy of an "of honor" position, but at least I'm something of a scientist! I mean, come on people. It's fine to listen to the crackpots and have fun with them, but calling a UFO Guy the "science guest of honor?"

It's great to have an open mind. But there is a difference between having an open mind and an open braincase-- that is, open in the way that an open circle is not a filled circle....

What's sad is that a lot of the people who come to these conventions have a lot of interest in science, but don't know a lot about it. They may have more interest than many in the general public as a result of reading science fiction. They may also have a tendency to want to believe some more fantastical things like UFOs. But we can provide some really interesting real science talks that the public loves. I've given science talks at Hypericon for the last four years, and they've generally been well received. My talk about the modern picture of the expanding Universe was as mind-blowing as anything that the crackpots come up with, but is also supported by real actual evidence. It's sad when an opportunity like this is blown on foo-fa and ignorance. Read more!

Tesla Motors gets ready to unveil the Model S

Tesla Motors!

There's a car company called Tesla Motors. That's pretty much the best thing ever. What's even cooler is that they're unveiling their prototype Model S electric car tomorrow. That's badass! Read more!

News From The Future: Flying Car

Here's your flying car! Sort of.

Sure, it costs $200,000 dollars and it's more plane than car but, hey, flying car.


__--__ Read more!

Volcano!

Science is, in fact, awesome but nature is even more awesomeer. And it's freaking scary. Take, for example, these amazing pictures of the undersea volcanic eruption near Tonga. The Big Picture comes through again. Read more!

News From The Future: Brain Surgery via Radiation

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: From Mindhacks

A surgical team from Italy have just reported that they've altered human brain function through neurosurgery conducted from outside the skull, by using beams of radiation.

Read the full article.


..-. -.-- Read more!

News From The Future: Carbon Nanotube Artificial Muscles

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: Scientific American Online:

A group of scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas' Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute reports in Science today that they have demonstrated a fundamentally new type of artificial muscle, consisting almost exclusively of carbon nanotubes, which can operate at extreme low temperatures that would cause other artificial muscles systems to freeze and at very high temperatures that would cause other muscle systems to decompose.

Read the full article.


... ... Read more!

Egyptian Queen's Perfume to Be Resurrected

You know why science is awesome? I'll tell you why science is awesome! Because it can be used to recreate Hatshepsut's perfume! Read more!

News From The Future: Nano Radio

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: Scientific American has an article about tiny, tiny radios that can "play songs such as Eric Clapton’s “Layla” and the theme from Star Wars". And, really, what other songs do you need?


... .. . Read more!

The Cosmopolis Lexicon

Hey! Here's something geeky.

The Cosmopolis Lexicon.

A Lexicon is a shared world-building exercise created by a really cool guy called Neel Krishnaswami a few years ago.

Click the link above for details on that.

This Lexicon features the superheroes and supervillains of a fictional city called Cosmopolis. The game begins on March 18, 2009 and is open to anyone who's interested.

Check it out.

Thanks. Read more!

Astronomical Observations by Looking Down Instead of Up

You know why science is awesome? I'll tell you why science is awesome!

Because it can be used to find evidence of ancient astronomical events in Antarctic ice!

... .. Read more!

Open Source your car....

Well..it finally happened. And by "finally" I mean "who comes up with awesome ideas like this".

EDAG has announced the "open-source car".

For realz... I found out through gearlog (Which is like Geekzor, but with readers and focus and stuff) who picked it up from autoblog (which is like gearlog but more about cars) where it was write about by Chris Paukert (who I now respect because he wrote and article with this picture in it).

You can read the official press release here, but all you really need to know is in the two articles above.


-Mancer thinks that an open-source car is a great idea, but what's next? Open-source houses? Open-source planes? Open source pants? Read more!

Awesome Space Pictures

National Geographic Online has published this terrific image of Mars's moon Deimos along with
the rest of this week's space pics.

Yay, space!


.. ... Read more!

Speaking of the Robot Revolution

The awesome Big Picture blog provides us with more chilling evidence that the robots are out to get us.

Who can save us?

WHO?!?


Maybe...



On a more serious note, Mindhacks links to an article about regulating military robots.

--- -- ---- - Read more!

News From The Future: Constructo-bots

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: National Geographic Online reports that NASA plans to have a moon base fully operational by 2024 and they're going to use robots to build it.

Insert obligatory Robot Revolution joke here.


--- -- --- - - Read more!