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Con report: Renovation day 1
I don’t why I never considered going to Worldcon in the past. I’d read about it, but somehow thought the con, and getting to vote on the Hugo Awards was something for other people. But this year Renovation in Reno hosted the con and since I hadn’t planned on any other con this year I decided to go.
I arrived on Tuesday and once I settled into the hotel I walked down to the convention center for early registration. My friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ruamor lives in Reno, so I met up with her and her roommate, Patty, for dinner.
The con was running a shuttle from my hotel to the convention center, but I was too excited on Wednesday morning to wait for it so I walked. Taking my iPad was a great idea, it let me take notes during the panels. The choices were overwhelming, often a couple of dozen or more things to do in any given hour.
One of the first things I did was get my picture taken in the replica of the Game of Thrones throne, a popular choice all weekend long. The panels didn’t get underway until noon on the first day.
This panel was presented by only one man, John Warner. Although his first passion was music, he turned to chemistry in college and grad school and eventually worked in industrial chemical engineering. His basic, but revolutionary, thought is that the way chemical engineers are trained doesn’t equip them to develop safe and sustainable and that academia isn't rewarding creativity. We need creativity, and science fiction-thinking in science would be a great thing. After all, you can't invent something you can't imagine.
We also need to rethink how we train chemists. They need to learn to make the environment safer, to work better than alternatives, and to be economical - that's Green Chemistry. New chemists need to be taught toxicology and environmental hazards. Not currently required! Instead of creating compounds and substances and then trying to figure out how to deal with their toxicity, why not create a molecule that’s safe in the first place? According to Warner, in addition to changing the way chemists are trained, they also need to rethink the tools and methodologies used to create substances. For instance, water as a solvent can work in many application as well or better that the customary solvents that chemists use that are much more toxic.
His book, "Green Chemistry: Theory & Practice" lays out the 12 principles of Green Chemistry. He’s also promoting green education through his non profit Beyond Benign.
Molecular Gastronomy: When You Have More Kitchen Gadgets Than Your Mom
Not really all that interesting, just sitting around talking about cooking technologies in an anecdotal way. No actual molecular gastronomy talked about.
Opening Ceremonies
Not too much to say about this, except that it did help me determine that I didn't especially want to go to the Tricky Pixie concert later on.
This panel had an interesting mix of Canadian, South African, UK & US writers, a web developer and an academic expert. There was a lively discussion of the implications of these social media trends: loss of deep knowledge, poor multitasking, broad distribution of private information, social media for sole news source for under 30s, lack of accessible online access for disabled, and being inundated with a constant stream of too much information. People are living their lives in public now and private companies mine our personal data for marketable content in your social media presence.
One interesting observation was that science fiction writers in the past failed to predict, social media, for the most part. Computers and there integration in our lives have been a big part of sf, espcially subgenres like cyberpunk, but none quite got the idea of how social media would impact our lives.
One interesting observation was that cell phone penetration is much broader overseas. This is especially a problem in 3rd world countries where more limited internet access has fostered wider cell phone use, but where they are scared of revealing too much private data because of persecution. Locative technologies have a real threat to personal privacy & security. There was a panel later in the con that touched on all of this in the Arab Spring, but I ended up doing something else during that time.
The panelists identified four big movements of sf film
German Expressionist (Nosferatu, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)
The Universal Studios sf cycle
Hammer horror films
the 1950s sf cycle
Film recs (first ones they remember)
King Kong (the original
Creature of the Black Lagoon
Them
King Dinosaur
The Seven Voyages of Sinbad (the Harryhausen one)
Psycho
Angry Red Planet
War of the Worlds
Godzilla King of the Monsters (especially the original without Raymond Burr)
The Mysterions
The Battle in Outer Space
Metropolis
cold war tension movies
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Thing
Invaders from Mars (Menzies)
Zombies
Owe their origin to Dracula, Last Man on Earth (from book I am Legend) which inspired Romero to do Living Dead films. Invisible Invaders also an influence.
Forbidden Planet (On the fav list of one of the panelists). The released film wasn't supposed to be the final cut. Kind of a proto Star Trek thing.
Some of the very low quality films of the 50s & 60s are kind of the equivalent of what we now call outsider art. Robot Monster. Creeping Terror. Early Roger Corman flms - he really wanted to make movies but didn't have the knowledge. The lack of budget forced them to be creative.
Not of This Earth
That’s it for day one. Dinner with friends and then I went back to my room to decompress.
I arrived on Tuesday and once I settled into the hotel I walked down to the convention center for early registration. My friend
ruamor lives in Reno, so I met up with her and her roommate, Patty, for dinner.The con was running a shuttle from my hotel to the convention center, but I was too excited on Wednesday morning to wait for it so I walked. Taking my iPad was a great idea, it let me take notes during the panels. The choices were overwhelming, often a couple of dozen or more things to do in any given hour.
One of the first things I did was get my picture taken in the replica of the Game of Thrones throne, a popular choice all weekend long. The panels didn’t get underway until noon on the first day.
This panel was presented by only one man, John Warner. Although his first passion was music, he turned to chemistry in college and grad school and eventually worked in industrial chemical engineering. His basic, but revolutionary, thought is that the way chemical engineers are trained doesn’t equip them to develop safe and sustainable and that academia isn't rewarding creativity. We need creativity, and science fiction-thinking in science would be a great thing. After all, you can't invent something you can't imagine.
We also need to rethink how we train chemists. They need to learn to make the environment safer, to work better than alternatives, and to be economical - that's Green Chemistry. New chemists need to be taught toxicology and environmental hazards. Not currently required! Instead of creating compounds and substances and then trying to figure out how to deal with their toxicity, why not create a molecule that’s safe in the first place? According to Warner, in addition to changing the way chemists are trained, they also need to rethink the tools and methodologies used to create substances. For instance, water as a solvent can work in many application as well or better that the customary solvents that chemists use that are much more toxic.
His book, "Green Chemistry: Theory & Practice" lays out the 12 principles of Green Chemistry. He’s also promoting green education through his non profit Beyond Benign.
Molecular Gastronomy: When You Have More Kitchen Gadgets Than Your Mom
Not really all that interesting, just sitting around talking about cooking technologies in an anecdotal way. No actual molecular gastronomy talked about.
Opening Ceremonies
Not too much to say about this, except that it did help me determine that I didn't especially want to go to the Tricky Pixie concert later on.
This panel had an interesting mix of Canadian, South African, UK & US writers, a web developer and an academic expert. There was a lively discussion of the implications of these social media trends: loss of deep knowledge, poor multitasking, broad distribution of private information, social media for sole news source for under 30s, lack of accessible online access for disabled, and being inundated with a constant stream of too much information. People are living their lives in public now and private companies mine our personal data for marketable content in your social media presence.
One interesting observation was that science fiction writers in the past failed to predict, social media, for the most part. Computers and there integration in our lives have been a big part of sf, espcially subgenres like cyberpunk, but none quite got the idea of how social media would impact our lives.
One interesting observation was that cell phone penetration is much broader overseas. This is especially a problem in 3rd world countries where more limited internet access has fostered wider cell phone use, but where they are scared of revealing too much private data because of persecution. Locative technologies have a real threat to personal privacy & security. There was a panel later in the con that touched on all of this in the Arab Spring, but I ended up doing something else during that time.
The panelists identified four big movements of sf film
German Expressionist (Nosferatu, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)
The Universal Studios sf cycle
Hammer horror films
the 1950s sf cycle
Film recs (first ones they remember)
King Kong (the original
Creature of the Black Lagoon
Them
King Dinosaur
The Seven Voyages of Sinbad (the Harryhausen one)
Psycho
Angry Red Planet
War of the Worlds
Godzilla King of the Monsters (especially the original without Raymond Burr)
The Mysterions
The Battle in Outer Space
Metropolis
cold war tension movies
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Thing
Invaders from Mars (Menzies)
Zombies
Owe their origin to Dracula, Last Man on Earth (from book I am Legend) which inspired Romero to do Living Dead films. Invisible Invaders also an influence.
Forbidden Planet (On the fav list of one of the panelists). The released film wasn't supposed to be the final cut. Kind of a proto Star Trek thing.
Some of the very low quality films of the 50s & 60s are kind of the equivalent of what we now call outsider art. Robot Monster. Creeping Terror. Early Roger Corman flms - he really wanted to make movies but didn't have the knowledge. The lack of budget forced them to be creative.
Not of This Earth
That’s it for day one. Dinner with friends and then I went back to my room to decompress.