Saturday Schedule

You don’t need to leave the planet to find strange life-forms. You don’t even need to leave Redmond Town Center! Join a walking tour of the Saturday Farmer’s Market, just around the corner from the convention, and learn about all the interesting things growing and being eaten in the Seattle area. Bring cash for the farmers, and you can buy some for breakfast!

Panelists:

• Amy Thomson

Keeping up appearances – what do we do to get by in the community we have to live in? How normal do you need to seem? Who owns “normal,” anyway?

Panelists:

• Beth Mitcham
• Frederick Douglas Saling Marshall
• John Braley
• Torrey Podmajersky
• Yasmine Galenorn

Does the prospect of sexy automata pose a “social danger” to humanity? Are otaku who marry their handheld gaming devices just the early-adopters in a world where robots can fulfill your emotional needs better than any human can? And if they are, does that spell a slow, blissed-out extinction of a humanity that’s forgotten how to procreate?

Panelists:

• Dave Howell
• Jack Foy
• Nathan Crowder
• Ted Chiang

Explore mad food science, and watch as perfectly ordinary beverages are spherified into soda caviar! Discuss the cutting edge of food preparation, and learn how you can make strange edibles for yourself!

Panelists:

• Christopher Stringari

Are your books shelved three deep? Does the local library ask if you’ll make things available for interlibrary loan? Have you ever lost a cat in your library? Take control of your book collection! Learn how to organize, how to choose what to keep and what to let go, and tricks for mastering all that paper, from people who understand exactly how important books are to you.

Panelists:

• Beverly Marshall Saling
• Linda Deneroff
• Tom Whitmore

Panelists:

• Kathleen Retz

Let’s talk about getting smarter! Roundtable discussion. What are mind hacks? Why do people hack their minds and brains? What are your favorite hacks? Why have Marty and Ron Hale-Evans spent so much time teaching people to hack their minds with the Mentat Wiki, their first book Mind Performance Hacks, and their new book, Mindhacker?

Panelists:

• John Braley
• Marty Hale-Evans
• Meredith Hale
• Ron Hale-Evans

In the three years that the Best Graphic Story Hugo has been around, the list of works nominated has been remarkably consistent: a few well-loved series being released online, a few of the top-shelf titles from mainstream comic publishers, and a few forays from perennially fan-loved creators into comics. What aren’t we seeing, and why? Does the relatively narrow pool reflect a problem with the award process? Is there just less crossover between Hugo voters and comic readers than we thought?

Panelists:

• Alice Bentley
• Jason Wodicka
• Jim Woodring
• Sylvia Wodicka

Decay – is it necessary? Is it beautiful? Why does it appear as a consistent theme in seemingly disparate genres?

Panelists:

• Marta Murvosh
• Nathan Crowder
• Nick Fraser

An intimate discussion with Ted Chiang and Ron Hale-Evans.

Panelists:

• Ron Hale-Evans
• Ted Chiang

From needing a cup of coffee in the morning to the chemical enhancements of the future, what are we doing to ourselves in our quest for productivity? Is it a problem or should we do more of it? What are the consequences in corporate, social, and physiological terms?

Panelists:

• Christopher Stringari
• Dave Howell
• Jack Foy
• Stefanie Stadnicki

As we move into the future, the early futurist predictions of a perpetual leisure society never seem to be any closer. Given that human effort isn’t going anywhere, what are labor conditions going to look like in the future? The last century has seen the creation of entirely new classes of work: assembly line work, knowledge work, and more. What kinds of work will our great-grandchildren be doing?

Panelists:

• Amy Thomson
• Ben McKenzie
• Marta Murvosh
• Miss Eli

Jim Woodring will discuss his life, art and other topics that come up. Come learn more about this internationally-acclaimed artist and his work.

Panelists:

• Jim Woodring

Somewhere, one of your “friends” is updating on the Internet. When everyone can publish anytime – and many of them do! – how can you manage the torrent of bits? Come learn tricks to control the flow of information, so you can keep on top of what you want to know. Get off the update treadmill and learn how to make the social web work for you!

Panelists:

• Beverly Marshall Saling
• Meredith Hale
• Michael Stiber
• Miss Eli

When everything around seems to be failing, where do the new dreams come from? What do you dream about these days? How do you rise above the widespread disasters that seem to mark our times?

Panelists:

• John Braley
• Nathan Crowder

Facebook and Google are both very interested in the name you use to access their social networks, and strongly encourage that the name in their database should be your “real name.” Google suggests that you go by “the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you” – but what happens when those three aren’t the same name? Where does the difference between a pseudonym and a nickname lie? And who gets to decide what makes a name anyway?

Panelists:

• Llyne Foy
• Miss Eli
• Susan Mohn
• Tom Whitmore

Do you have what it takes to be an Iron Crafter? The organizers will provide a surprise theme and some materials. All you have to do is show up and be ready to make something great, on the spot and on the fly!

Panelists:

• Marty Hale-Evans

Members of the Seattle IF interactive fiction writing group once again demo recent award-winning IF, as well as discuss interactive fiction in general. Come meet this fascinating artistic circle, whether you’ve been playing IF since the days of Infocom, or you’re new to the scene.

Panelists:

• Jason Wodicka
• Matt Youngmark
• Ron Hale-Evans

Is that frame on the wall holding a comic book? Are those action figures on the mantel? Are those bookshelves full of well-thumbed paperbacks? How can you integrate pride in your fannish interests with a sense of aesthetics that won’t make the in-laws cringe? Come share your tips and tricks for integrating the quirky, the geeky, and the fannish into a decorating sense that makes people ooh.

What’s coming next down the trend highway, and how can we stop it from dominating SF for the next 5 years?

Panelists:

• Yasmine Galenorn

This year’s radio play will be an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s short story, A Study In Emerald. Join us for the live performance, or find Hank Graham during the convention to audition for a role!

Panelists:

• Hank Graham

If you could live under the government of your choice – historical, present, or fictional – what would it be, and why?

Panelists:

• Frederick Douglas Saling Marshall
• Manny Frishberg
• Marta Murvosh

Ding! You just became a Level 4 Laundry-Folder! Do ten more loads to reach Level 5. Is this sort of gamification really the way we’re going to hack into our own motivational systems? Are we already doing this in less-overt guises at work and at home? Can we really make chores and exercise fun by finding new ways to reward ourselves?

Panelists:

• Dave Weinstein
• Jason Wodicka
• Nathan Crowder
• Ron Hale-Evans

When humanity contacts another sentient species, is it really going to be the astronomers who do it? What about the programmers constructing better and more autonomous systems for dealing with human communication? Could the virtual creatures we construct become self-aware? Or maybe we should look to the coasts, to the eight-tentacled tool-users we share a shoreline with. Are the octopi intelligent and simply too alien for us to notice?

Panelists:

• Jack Foy
• Jack William Bell
• Michael Stiber
• Ted Chiang

Young adult fiction has its share of antiheroes and rogues. Do the protagonists of these books present good role models to teenagers? Does the fact that these books target young readers mean that the authors have a duty to provide good role models – or just a good read?

Panelists:

• Mary K. Whittington
• Meredith Hale
• Sarah Hirsch
• Susan Mohn

Creating work you love versus work that keeps a roof over your head. Where’s the sweet spot?

Panelists:

• Danika Dinsmore
• Karen Anderson
• Lee Moyer
• Torrey Podmajersky

What are the effects of body shape and appearance on what we think about ourselves? How do our mental images of ourselves get established – and what makes us see our physical traits as positive or negative?

Panelists:

• Dave Howell
• Marty Hale-Evans
• Tom Whitmore

Antarran Happy-Juice? Nebula Nips? What intoxicants, mind-altering agents, and general pick-me-ups will there be in the future, and what sort of effects might they have?

Panelists:

• Christopher Stringari
• Tom Hopp
• Yasmine Galenorn

As the hours drag on and the morning folks find their way to bed, gaming begins! Bring a board game, or just show up ready to learn – we’ll have games to try! Open gaming runs until the last players doze off, so just drop by the Commons and see who’s playing what!

We have among us many people who have seen fascinating and historic events. What have you seen, and would you come and tell us what it was like to be there?

Panelists:

• Kathleen Retz
• Manny Frishberg
• Mary K. Whittington