Science fiction fandom camp in Lithuania: applied demonology

Aurelijus Katkevičius, the editor of a magazine "Verslo Klasė", stopped by at the science fiction fandom camp for a couple of hours. He gave a talk (here's a picture) "On applied demonology, or how to overcome a writer's block". A surprising combination of subjects, you'd say? Those were supposed to be two different lectures, of which he asked us to choose one; since we couldn't choose, he combined them. So, how are demonology and writer's block related?

When you hit a wall in your writing, there are several ways to get yourself unstuck, and most of them are based on the notion that once you start writing anything and do it for long enough, the magical writerly juices will start flowing, and you'll know how to proceed with your work. You could write about what's in front of you, like a cup that's sitting on your desk, or be Zen about it: surrender to your block, and write about how stuck you are. Or you could examine your character in detail. This is where applied demonology comes into play. If your character is a demon, you can create an entire science around him or her. You can determine what class, genus, and species he/she/it is, where does he live, what are his feeding habits, etc. You can write all this down on paper. It probably won't make it into the final draft of the story, since infodumps are typically unnecessary. But regardless if your character is a demon or anything else, the detailed examination can give you an insight into what his past and his condition would motivate him to do at a particular point in the story, thus giving you ideas how to proceed with the plot.

This method has actually worked for me, and I've figured it out just recently. When I'm drawing a complete blank on how to proceed with the plot, I try to visualize a secondary scene that does not appear to be important to the plot at all. I write it out in detail. And inevitably some important aspects of the characters' behavior, or of the world my novel is set in, emerge and become "hooks" for the further chapters of the book.

At least I thought that was the connection between demonology and writer's block. Then there is another angle: writer's block may be caused by demons each of us harbors. It seems that any discussion on intellectual matters in Lithuania must at some point pay homage to cliches about the Orient. It is mandatory to say that it's a place where people Know Something We Don't, and we Should Not Even Try To Get It, lest we go crazy. I personally don't believe in any kind of special oriental wisdom, definitely not as a better alternative to a technological way of living; while I do know that people in those countries arrange their life's priorities somewhat differently than us (collectivism versus individualism), I don't see it as a manifestation of wisdom. But to voice dissenting opinions in a conversation where everybody seems to take this for granted would mean at least to start a debate no one is interested in having. And of course, that would be rude.

We also chatted about the state of book publishing in Lithuania. It's not great, though not disastrous either. Science fiction is still being published in Lithuania, mostly translations of English / U.S., and Russian SF. Several speculative fiction and horror novels by Lithuanian authors had been published over the last decade, as well as a few anthologies of short stories. However, genre magazines do not survive. There are currently no exclusively science fiction / fantasy / horror magazines in Lithuania.

I asked if any Lithuanian publishing houses were publishing stuff electronically for e-book devices such as Kindle; to everyone's knowledge, none do. Electronic publishing in Lithuania may be a non-starter for the simple reason that piracy is so prevalent in Lithuania. I can't completely understand, though, why isn't piracy enough of an hindrance to electronic publishing in the US, or UK, or other developed countries. Do people in those countries obey the laws more willingly, or are there not-so-obvious technological reasons for that?

New pictures from the camp (with English and Lithuanian captions) have been added to my photo gallery.

Science fiction fandom camp in Lithuania, part 2: Museum of Ethnocosmology

As I said in my previous post, the camp was near an observatory. Not long ago, the former head of the observatory built a so-called Museum of Ethnocosmology here, also referred to by the folks as Flying Saucer because of the resemblance. We toured this museum. Ethnocosmology may be a valid field of study of creation myths from around the world, and I imagine there's more than one Ph.D. dissertation to be made in it. However, this museum did not present a case for it. Overall there's not much in it (maybe because it's still new). The halls were almost empty, except for an exhibit containing pieces of meteorites, some folk art with no apparent connection to astronomy or cosmology, and some pretty, generic space photos on the walls.

The dearth of real exhibits may be why the tour guide filled up the time with New Age'y blather. He announced he was going to have a conversation with us about the meaning of life. Because you know, none of us thought about it before coming here. Then he rehashed a bunch of cliches about how the ancients perceived time as cyclical, while modern people see it as linear, and how technology made us forget the meaning of life (something I profoundly disagree with). He did not neglect to mention that oriental people perceive the world differently -- with their heart, not the logical mind. In other words, he slung some old, tired, and mostly untrue cliches.

The tour got a bit more lively when the guide pulled several kids into acting out a live model of the solar system. Well, it was limited to the Sun and the first 4 planets, which he positioned in proportional distances from the child who played the Sun. Given the scale of the Solar system, it's not surprising that the room was too small to accommodate the outer planets. After that he took us 12 floors up to an observation deck that revealed a view of the surrounding lakes (there are seven of them) and woods. Then we walked up another 2 floors to look at a telescope, which wasn't working yet. The guide proudly told us this was going to be the largest telescope in Europe for public use.

I'm not sure what kind of expo this museum will have when completed. But I certainly didn't like the vaguely anti-science attitude it promotes, all the more regrettable that it comes from an organization that has facilities and staff to carry on Carl Sagan's work in Lithuania, if they so chose. Maybe it's just me; some people did not feel the anti-science attitude as sharply as I did. But everybody agreed that the tour was, at best, bland.

The Ethnocosmology museum looks really remarkable from outside, though:

Pictures from the camp (with English and Lithuanian captions) are in m photo gallery.

Science fiction fandom camp in Lithuania, part 1

While I was in Lithuania this year, I went to a science fiction fandom camp. The camp is put together by members of Dorado science fiction club of Vilnius, Lithuania, but is open to anyone interested in the genres of speculative fiction. There were around 20 people, and we all lived for 3 days in what could be described as a cabin in the woods, 2-3 people to a room, with an outdoors toilet and no showers. Then I found out there were empty rooms in another house nearby, which had a shower and bathrooms, and I moved there for the last night.

The camp has been taking place annually for a number of years in a scenic rural place between hills and lakes that's also a home to an observatory. So it's the right setting for speculative fiction lovers. The camp started out as a writers' retreat. Over the years, writing took a backseat to relaxation activities, such as swimming, hiking, volleyball, movies, games and chatting.

This year, my first year at the camp, there was only one creative writing task, prepared by Lina. She had us exercise our writerly muscles by writing what she called a "shadow prose". We each could choose one of five speculation fiction texts about 10-12 sentences long. We had to write our own prose between the sentences of the original text, while preserving its coherence. Two of the texts were well known -- "Alice in Wonderland" and Robert Silverberg's "To See the Invisible Man" (a great story, which is why I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole). Another two were excerpts from Lithuanian SF authors stories. The fifth one was Microm%C3%A9gas by Voltaire. Wikipedia cites this story as a "significant development in the history of literature because it originates ideas which helped create the genre of science fiction". It's a satirical story about a giant (many miles tall) from a planet orbiting Sirius. The premise did not appeal to me, and after reading an excerpt it was clear that it was one of those stories that has survived purely because of its historical significance. It's a pain to read, too. Every sentence in it runs on for a paragraph. So of course, I took it on as a challenge. I tried to follow Voltaire's style, which wasn't difficult because I have a natural inclination to be verbose. The result may have preserved the spirit of the story, but it wasn't funny (not that the original was either). So my story got very few votes. Stories that got the most votes were the ones that were fun to read. One of the best, written by SielojRamiakas, employed a very simple method of "mirroring" the original onomatopoeically (if there is such a word). I realize I'm not making myself very clear. It's one of those "you had to be there" things. It had the audience in stitches.

So, it's fair to say that the purpose of the task was not so much to improve one's writing, as to provide a break from the tough business of relaxation, and to bring the campers together for half an hour of laughter.

I'll write more about the camp in my upcoming posts.

Pictures from the camp (with English and Lithuanian captions) are in m photo gallery.

ApolloCon 2009: Wil McCarthy on programmable matter

Wil McCarthy, a scientist and science fiction author, was the Guest of Honor at ApolloCon 2009. He gave a talk on the work he's been doing in programmable matter. He started off by showing the audience a piece of clear glass. Then he heated the glass with a hair dryer. An irregularly shaped reflective blob grew on the glass -- the heat turned the glass reflective. This was McCarthy's demonstration of materials he's working on in his startup.

Definitions and discussion of programmable matter can be found elsewhere on the web, and McCarthy did not dwell on the theory, but talked about his work in this area. His practical work in programmable matter developed from his nonfiction book "Hacking Matter", which it turn was born from his fiction. He talked about the events that lead to writing of "Hacking Matter", and how it attracted investors' interest, leading to creation of programmable matter startup. McCarthy talked about his company's journey to discovery of viable commercial applications for these materials, and why he avoids the word "nanotechnology" for marketing this technology to investors. He briefly discussed weapon potential and security issues of programmable matter with the audience. Finally, he talked about balancing his science and writing careers, or rather, impossibility thereof.

The whole article is available on my web site.

Pictures from ApolloCon 2009 are in my photo gallery.

ApolloCon 2009: literary rap, materials science and space panels

I stopped by at a filk session on Friday or Saturday night, since the parties weren't exactly hopping. One quiet guy who sat in the corner until then surprised us (well, at least me) with a Game of Thrones rap. "Rap" is not quite accurate. The song had a simple melody with Celtic motives, but the melody was peripheral to the lyrics, which he delivered rapid-fire, never stopping to catch his breath. As a recap of a series of 700-page books, the song lasted a solid 10 minutes (not that I was looking at the clock). It was impressive, to say the least. If I understood correctly, the guy said he wrote it himself.

Then a woman said this reminded her of "Hamlet in 5 minutes" song, and she sang -- or rapped it, as that song is more or less pure rap -- right there and then. That's the kind of talented people we have lurking at the fringes of filk circles.

Beg, Steal or Borrow: Precious Commodities in the Space Colony

Maybe it's just me, but I noticed a hint of a theme in this year's ApolloCon 2009 -- many panels were related to material sciences (no wonder, because Wil McCarthy was the Guest of Honor), or space (also not surprising, because, well, this is Houston, home of NASA). When you combine the two, you'll get panels like "Beg, Steal or Borrow: Precious Commodities in the Space Colony". I regret I missed most of it. I wanted to check out a tea tasting, conducted by Ziactrice first, and then I was too lazy to leave the tea tasting midway and head to the panel. (It was worth it, as I got to taste some awesome, smoky lapsang souchong.) When I finally got to "Beg, Steal or Borrow", the panelists must have decided that none of those methods will get them far, because they were talking of manufacturing precious commodities.

You can ship oxygen you make on the Moon to a space colony in a lower orbit, cheaper than you would ship it from Earth. If you are just shipping freight, you could have a robot shipping system. Most of it could be automated. You could use solar sails as far as the asteroid belt. You could mine materials in asteroids, process them, and move them wherever they are needed. In many cases, what you need is just a fraction of the mass of the asteroid, not the whole thing. On the other hand, you should be careful with the economics of asteroid mining. If you mine a 700-meter diameter cast iron lump, you may dump too much of a good thing into economy, creating inflation.

Material sciences, or habitat design was also the theme of another panel, "Architecture of the Future Living in a Materials World", but the panelists did hardly more than complain how hard it is to build, or maintain, houses in Houston, because Houston climate is so tough on buildings. Well, that wasn't all they said, but the discussion was mostly about the present, not the future.

Pictures from ApolloCon 2009 can be found in my photo gallery.

ApolloCon 2009

Kim Kofmel, ApolloCon chair, doesn't do formal wear. At her husband's suggestion to dress up for the opening ceremony, she upgraded her trademark hat to a gold-embroidered one. Kim reminded us that the year 2009 is the 40th anniversary of Lunar landing. She is old enough to have watched it on a very small black and white television. As a small child, she was nevertheless aware that this is something that never happened before, but will happen more. Even now she still believes it will happen more.

This being Houston, every other fan at this convention appears to have a connection to NASA. The most prominent example was, of course, ApolloCon special guest, astronaut Stanley Love. The rest of the congoers have never escaped Earth's gravity, but some of them are friends with astronauts, and they have second-hand stories from space to tell. According to one such person, astronauts in space can't really see billions of stars (contrary to popular imagination). The reason is "too much light", she said. Why didn't they dim the cabin lights, somebody in the audience quipped. It's not the lights inside the space station that obscure the stars, the woman explained. It's the Earth light. Also, astronauts get used to lack of gravity surprisingly fast; when her friend the astronaut brushed her hair the first few times after coming back to Earth, she was surprised that the brush fell on the floor when she let go of it. The expectation that the brush will float developed after spending as little as two weeks in space.

Rocket Science or Rocket Fantasy

The "Rocket Science or Rocket Fantasy" panel blurb said: "Why yes, it IS rocket science... Maybe. Panelists discuss the accuracy of rocket science as represented in sf books, TV and movies." Inaccuracy in portrayal of space flight in movies and books often comes from wanting to glamorize it to fit a Hollywood plot formula. So for example, in a typical movie Columbia shuttle would not have broken up. After discovering that pieces of insulating foam had broken off the shuttle, a Hollywood version of NASA would not have concluded that there's not much anyone can do about it. In a movie, astronauts would have performed a spacewalk, patched up the shuttle and returned safely to Earth. The latter is rocket fantasy, the former is rocket science.

Pictures from ApolloCon 2009 can be found in my photo gallery.

Symptoms of getting older

The other day I heard an excerpt from a play on the radio that went something like this. An older person says to a young one: "I was 56 when you were born, and nothing you say can possibly be new to me; any debate you might start is something I've already had, probably verbatim, with someone else decades back". I could only nod and smile. This, more than anything else, is my main symptom of getting older. Not physical decrepitude -- I'm lucky to have no health problems (knock on wood), and I have more energy now than I had at 18 (I credit exercise and time management) -- but this endless deja vu. For that reason I stopped reading most discussion groups I used to subscribe to, especially those of political or philosophical nature, such as freethinker / atheist groups. Like the character of the above-mentioned play, I already know pretty much every argument people trot out. The most popular discussion questions on freethinker groups are liberalism vs. conservatism; what degree of regulation and state interference in economic and social matters is appropriate; abortion; animal rights -- all those "third rail" topics that get people riled up. Oddly enough, precise definitions of atheist and agnostic (and other, subtler shades of nonbelief) can also be a heated topic in freethought communities. I've been on a number of discussion groups, and the arguments are always the same. Not that I would expect them to be different: I realize there's only a limited number of arguments. But this also means I have long ago stopped participating in debates, especially after I concluded that no amount of debating ever convinced opposing sides to budge from their positions. :-)

I never thought that age works that way on people, but as I get older, I become more neophiliac. The more I hear or read, the less of what I read or hear seems new to me; the more I look for something that's truly different. I find myself puzzled by the prevailing notion that only teenagers and twentysomethings are drawn to radically different forms of art. To me, it's the opposite. So much of pop-culture and music teens and young adults are drawn to seems like regurgitation of artistic memes of decades ago. I realize it's new to them; for me, on the other hand, it takes long and hard looking to find something I haven't heard before.

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8 minutes: an implausible concept

I heard of a science fiction story contest, called "8 minutes" (http://www.8minutes.info/). The premise is this:

"The Earth is 8 light minutes away from the Sun. Something has happened to the Sun. Maybe it's gone nova, been transformed, been replaced or stolen or...? But in 8 minutes everything will change for life on Earth."

I like to write theme-based stories. A theme suggests an idea and gets my creative juices flowing. As the story progresses, it often deviates from the theme, until there's very little of the original idea left in it. I don't mind that because I don't treat themes rigorously. To me they serve merely like grains of sand around which a pearl crystallizes. (Not that I would compare my stories to pearls. :-)) Of course, deviating from the theme wouldn't do if I wanted to submit a story to a theme-based anthology, but I don't do that either.

I was especially intrigued by the 8-minutes contest, because it's based on an idea that's not very meaningful at the surface. Since the light travels 8 minutes from Sun to Earth, anything that happens in or to the Sun, will only be discovered 8 minutes later on Earth. You can't really write a thriller here, unless it was made of one sentence. "They didn't know what hit them." You can't reuse any of the old formulae. In the face of global panic, there will be no square-jawed hero who steps up in the 11th hour -- make that the 7th minute -:-) and saves the Earth. For one, there will be no global panic. Nobody, including the hero, will know what will happen to the world. So the plot would have to be about people going about their daily lives not knowing that the disaster will strike. Not exactly a typical plot for a genre story. Though on the other hand, there is this small, but notable meme in science fiction, people living ordinary lives while all hell is breaking loose. It's not one of my favorites, though.

The only other possibility is that somehow humans were notified of the disaster ahead of time. In that case 8 minutes are not meaningful. They probably had many more than 8 minutes to prepare -- or to stick their heads in the sand, as the case may be. Either scenario is not compliant with the theme.

That said, I've come up with an idea for a story that bypasses the obstacle inherent in the concept, and meets the parameters of the contest. Time will tell if I'll succeed. Like I said, my stories often veer away from the original theme and thus become ineligible for the submission. What's worse, I'm thinking this could only work as a comical story -- and I'm the person who on several occasions has proudly admitted not having a sense of humor. That spells success right here. :-) In any case, I'll probably miss the deadline for the contest (I write at a glacial pace) and the point will be moot.

UPDATE1: I've been told Larry Niven has done this theme very well in "Inconstant Moon". I'll have to check it out.

UPDATE2: Checked it out. Some things in the Wikipedia synopsis of this story made me ponder:

"However the narrator surmises that the Sun has gone nova, the day side of the Earth is already destroyed [...]." Wait, he thinks it's possible that the day side of the Earth is destroyed, but nobody has heard it on television or radio? Well, maybe in the year 1971 it was typical for the news to travel with a huge delay, I don't know. It just seems weird.

More importantly, if the Moon is glowing bright, then the sunlight from the "accident" has already reached the Moon -- and the Moon is only a light-second or so away from Earth, is it not? So there is no 8-minute buffer built in here. That said, the idea of Larry Niven's story is definitely similar to that of "8 minutes", only more workable.

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From Employee to Entrepreneur: a Door64 Tech Fair presentation

Jonas Lamis and Kevin Koym, the founders of Tech Ranch, an incubator for Austin tech startups, gave a presentation with a self-explanatory title "From Employee to Entrepreneur". The presentation was packed -- whether because it appealed to an archetypal American dream, or because everybody who's out of work these days is dreaming of starting their own business.

Besides the obvious observations, such as "You should ask yourself, is my idea any good? The answer is, maybe, but only if you are able to build a business around it", the presenters gave some nontrivial advice. They quoted an example of some startup that found an ingenious method to gauge public interest in their business idea. They built a fake website for their business, bought Google Adwords, and waited for people to click through the adwords to their web site. Some of those visitors filled out the registration forms in the web site. Then the business owners contacted those people, told them that the web site was an idea test, and discussed it with them. Maybe even got their help in raising funding for the business? That wouldn't be entirely surprising, because whoever went through the trouble of giving out their contact information to an unknown web business must be really interested in that business.

Among the questions asked by the audience was one of utmost importance to aspiring entrepreneurs: before you can raise funding for your startup, how do you survive without a corporate paycheck? Of course, there is no panacea, only some tips that could ease the pain of the loss of steady income. Apparently it helps if you were laid of from work, instead of quitting (or, goodness forbid, being fired for a cause). Being laid off often gets you a severance package and a few months of unemployment benefits, plus you can extend your health insurance with COBRA. And under Obama administration COBRA will be paid 65%.

Half a year before Jonas Lamis was laid off from his last job as an employee, he could see it was coming, since company wasn't doing well financially. So he started building his business on his own time while still employed. After the layoff, he suggested the company's management hire him as a consultant. He knew there will be gaps in the company's business with no one left to do his job, and offered his services part time, so as to make up for at least a part of his lost income.

Some of the more interesting advice concerned chicken vs pig model of entrepreneurship. When it comes to eating breakfast, a chicken is a contributor to breakfast, but a pig is committed to it, since it donates its own flesh.

Obviously it takes less commitment to be a chicken. As an entrepreneur, at some point you may become a pig (i.e. heavily invested in the business), but at first you can choose, and you should postpone your choice as far as possible into the future. You should keep your options as to which direction your business should take as open as possible. Here are the examples of options. Do I hire somebody to do a certain job (e.g. software development), or do I put a framework in place so that people will work for free (crowdsourcing)? The latter is a chicken solution; hiring people is a big commitment, and thus pig solution. It is extremely important for entrepreneurs to keep their options open, because -- and that's another nontrivial point I took away from this talk -- most ventures that succeed rarely succeed with the same idea they started out with. That's true in pretty much every business.

A sure way of knowing that an entrepreneur is destined for failure is if he's being a pig on a lot of things. If you choose your commitments, you have a much bigger chance of success.

Pictures from Door64 Tech Fair can be found in my photo gallery.

Door64 Tech Fair

Door64 Tech Fair took place in Austin on 4/30/2009. It was not a job fair -- those are not too common in this economy. Rather than seeking workers, Austin high tech companies "networked" with them, while displaying their wares in the exhibitor hall. In addition there were two presentations: "From Employee to Entrepreneur" by Jonas Lamis and Kevin Koym of Tech Ranch, and Brian Massey's talk on job search.

I know from experience that WiFi usually doesn't work at large events, where everyone is trying to get on the internet at once. So I wasn't surprised that for all practical purposes, WiFi at the Door64 Tech Fair didn't work. A couple of times during the day I ducked out to the Goodwill Computer Store next door, where the signal was reasonably strong. Seeing me crouched on the floor with my laptop, soaking up precious radio waves like a desert traveller gulping down water at a shady well, the store clerks suggested I could plug my laptop into their ethernet cable. W00t! Now that's what I call Good Will!

The Tech Fair resembled a desert in some other ways too. For one thing, out of the bazillion companies displaying there, only two said they were hiring. In a more literal sense, it was too hot, as the A/C in the Goodwill Community Center wasn't working very well. The two presentations were standing room only, and the lack of proper air conditioning made them rather... intimate. Power outlets were also lacking at this place. Yet unexpectedly I found one. As I folded myself under the table in the corner, seeking out the last available square foot of the floor space at the Jonas Lamis and Kevin Koym presentation (yes, it was that crowded!), the deities of the Net guided my eyes towards a lone, well-hidden power outlet.

As one can guess from its title, Lamis and Koym talk "From Employee to Entrepreneur" addressed the ever-so-popular American dream of quitting your job and going into business for yourself. Yet to these two founders of Tech Ranch it has become reality. Some of their advice will appear in my next post.

I noticed there was a glut of companies that made code review, search, testing or verification tools. I talked with at least 5 or 6 of them. Wondered if there is really such a great demand for these kind of tools, even though similar functionalities are part of most IDEs (OK, at least Microsoft Visual Studio). No less than two of them had "Smart" in their name. Here is, for example, an image of a representative of Smart Bear Software talking to a guy at Smartesoft booth. With so many smart products to choose from, the field must be getting uncomfortably crowded...

Pictures from Door64 Tech Fair can be found in my photo gallery.

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Michael Shermer's visit in Austin

Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society, and author of popular science books, came to Austin to participate in a debate about evolution and intelligent design with representatives of Reason to Believe (a science-faith think tank). Earlier that day Center For Inquiry hosted a lunch with Shermer at NXNW.

I didn't go to the debate -- I'm one of those people who think, why does this question need to be debated at all? Evolution is an established fact in biology, but those who don't believe it are not known to change their minds in the presence of evidence. Who could possibly expect them to change their minds based on this discussion? I didn't see what I would get out of this, so I didn't go. Plenty of people from Austin's atheist and freethought communities did, though.

Earlier that day Center For Inquiry Austin hosted a lunch for Shermer at NXNW. We chatted about all sorts of things. This debate was going to be different than typical evolution vs. intelligent design debates, he said. His religionist opponents were not going to argue creationism from biological point of view. This wasn't going to be about how bacterial flagellum demonstrated irreducible complexity. This debate was going to be about the Bible. The opponents are a brand of believers who look for scientific evidence in the Bible. They pick quotes from the scripture and reinterpret them in such a way as to fit modern science. Here I asked Shermer, why can't those people find evidence for evolution in the Bible? He just smiled politely. Thus, tonight's debate was going to be more showmanship than intellectual discussion, he said. Both sides will compete who knows the Bible better -- and Shermer, according to him, knows it very well. He enjoys this kind of competition.

He has written quite a few popular science books, but he also wants to try his hand at science fiction. He has an idea for a novel about a colony set on Mars, which was founded by astronauts who were all atheists. They didn't raise their children religiously. Will religion come back spontaneously in this society? That's an important question Shermer would like to address in this novel. He believes it will, as religion is too fundamental to human thinking. This book would also explore such political questions as whether government is necessary to a society, or if all institutions should be private.

Shermer would like to do as Carl Sagan did in "Contact", that is to use plot and characters as vehicles to convey his ideas. He admitted he's not so good at character development. I was excited to hear that: as an aspiring science fiction writer, I know how hard it is to write believable characters. So I told him. Shermer was nice enough to ask me what authors he should read so as to learn to write in this genre. I suggested starting with classics, like Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov; then backpedalled: after all, those two writers were not good at developing fully fledged, realistic characters, so they are not the best to learn from.

Shermer came across as a warm and down-to-Earth guy. He shared food with people, who in turn enthusiastically offered him bites of their dishes. And he even stole a fry from somebody's plate. :-)

Pictures from lunch can be found in my photo gallery.

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Churches desperately trying to look hip

I haven't had anything all that great to blog about lately -- overwhelmed with work and personal life, I'm reading only the minimal amount of news, my usual source of inspiration. Even though SXSW was more than a month ago, it caused me to fall so far behind blogs and news, I'm only now catching up. So here's an item from a while back for your mild amusement. I saw this flyer at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, where I was for Darwin Day in February. When life gives you a dubious acronym, these people really know how to make an acro-lemonade! "FUUCA" is only mildly suggestive, so the good church folks came up with a youth group acronym that, ahem, goes all the way. :-)

That's First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin Young Adults group. Apparently these days even churches feel compelled to look edgy and provocative. How silly.

Immigration laws apply to famous people too

I wasn't planning to weigh in on this, since I typically stay out of blogosphere debacles. But this issue hit close to home, and I already managed to get involved in a low-grade flame war on Facebook. So I thought I might as well make it a blog post.

Bruce Sterling and his Serbian wife Jasmina Tesanovic have found themselves in trouble with US immigration. As Sterling says in his blog on Wired.com, US immigration officials don't believe his marriage is valid, as they can't find any "paper trail" for it. "We have no joint bank account, no insurance accounts and no joint children," says Sterling. "The authorities therefore suspect that our marriage is a phony "Green Card marriage," and they would like to have Jasmina deported from the USA."

That's a bad situation to be in, as I can testify from my first-hand acquaintance with US immigration policies and procedures. Before I got my legal permanent residence (a.k.a green card) through a marriage to a US citizen, I spent 5 years unsuccessfully trying to get it through my employer, and failed because my company didn't comply with arcane immigration laws. So I know what it's like to battle immigration authorities.

Immigration through marriage: not that complicated

Compared to that, immigration requirements for obtaining a green card through marriage are quite easy to meet (as long as the marriage really is genuine), even though it can be tedious and time consuming to gather all the documentation. Basically, the couple needs to present evidence that their marriage is valid. This is to prevent immigration fraud via fake marriages. The evidence is simple and commonplace: joint bank accounts; rent or mortgage statements showing that both people live at the same address; joint health insurance. The kind of stuff that happens naturally to couples that are legitimately married. Apparently, Bruce and Jasmina don't have any of that.

The thing is, it's hard to claim you didn't know that such evidence will be required to prove validity of your marriage. When you apply for legal permanent residence, the forms state what kind of supporting evidence you need to submit. You can't possibly miss it, unless you willfully disregard it. I don't know how Bruce and Jasmina managed to stay ignorant of this requirement.

There is an interesting aspect to their predicament, though. As Sterling says, the reason they don't have that much evidence is that "we're an Internet couple. "By our nature, we just don't generate much paper. We use electronic banking. Bruce uses American banks, while Jasmina uses Serbian banks. [...] No sane European would ever want American health insurance. And so forth." Valid points. The evidence readily recognized by US immigration officials is the kind that's generated by an average working bee, such as myself. Typical married couples do have joint bank accounts, rent / mortgage statements and health insurance. But I imagine if you are a globe-trotting freelancing visionary / futurist / political activist, you may not be tied to something so mundane. And yet, since Bruce and Jasmina have a residence in the US, it certainly should have been possible to list that residence in both of their names. As to Bruce's question "why would anyone want to make his or her alien spouse use an American or Serbian bank?" -- there are good reasons for the foreign spouse to do it on their own will (who's saying anything about "making"?) When you are withdrawing money from a local bank's ATM, you don't have to pay a fee, whereas if you use this ATM to withdraw money from another bank, there is a fee. If you withdraw often (and don't tell me that an "internet couple" never needs cash! :-)), those fees can add up. And even if you do all your banking transactions over the internet, you can still download and print paper statements. So this really isn't about electronic vs. paper problem. It's just that the couple has not bothered to establish enough evidence of a joint life -- even though they should have known better.

As I said, I do sympathize with them, and I hope the solution they are seeking -- to have lots of people sign affidavits that they've met Bruce and Jasmina and recognized them as a genuine couple -- will be sufficient to USCIS. And it's a good thing that people on social networks have started circulating a petition to help Bruce and Jasmina. However... What really got my goat is that it's being phrased as a plea to "defend" Bruce and Jasmina from the claws of Homeland Security. That's victim language. The only victimization here was done by the couple to themselves, through their own negligence. Some people are going so far as to claim it's a witch hunt against Jasmina because of her political activism. Anyone who's dealt with US immigration laws like I have, will recognize that as absurd.

What it's really like to be destroyed by US immigration machine

If you want to know what it's really like to be victimized by US immigration authorities, you need to go no further than to read the archives of a Yahoo group immigration_info. Admittedly, you may have to read several years of archives to get to the truly hair-raising stories; the most egregious cases of victimization are not posted very often on internet message boards. But when you do come across them, they'll make your blood boil. There's a story of a woman who was a child when her parents brought her illegally into the US; they eventually applied and got green cards for themselves, but out of ignorance or negligence they didn't apply for her green card. Now in her 30s, she is facing deportation from the only country she's ever known. And there's nothing she could have ever done about it: she had no say in her parents' decision to come into US illegally, or in their negligence to apply for her green card. There's also a refugee from Myanmar who applied for political asylum in the US, and then risked his life for a brief visit back to Myanmar to say goodbye to his dying mother. Now US authorities are denying his asylum petition, because, according to their logic, "if you could go back to your country to visit, then your life is really not under threat"!

I sincerely hope thing will work out for Bruce and Jasmina. Given the internet uproar their plea will generate, I can't imagine it not working out... unlike for those above-mentioned poor chumps who got in trouble through no fault of their own, and who don't have internet groundswell behind them.

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SXSW: Facebook Developer Garage

Facebook Developer Garage, another open-to-the-public event I went to during SXSWi, left me with mixed impressions. It took place in the Pangaea lounge. With its curvy, low, plush benches, dim light, and a wooden decor accent resembling a giant pipe organ, it's a sleek place to hang out, but a poor venue to hold an educational tech event. There was no WiFi and no power outlets there to plug one's laptop into, and not many batteries last 3 hours. Wouldn't you want to take notes at an event of this kind? I'm sure I wasn't the only one who did, because every other person had a laptop. That is, if they found a place to sit. The line for the event snaked halfway around the block. After all those people crammed into Pangaea, a goodly percentage of them had nowhere to sit. The early birds who did find a place to perch weren't necessarily lucky, because people standing in the isles blocked the view of the projector screen.

I'm not sure what I expected from this "garage". Probably not a discussion of technical details such as Facebook API. No doubt it can be found on the web, and it makes more sense to study technical specifics at a computer than in a lecture. I guess I was hoping for a rationale of why would one build Facebook applications, ways to monetize them (not sure anyone has ever found one :-)), or social engineering strategies that would get Facebook users to adopt your application.

The first presenter, Josh Williams from Alamo Fire, talked about Facebook applications his company has built. He shared some interesting insights. Their applications were born of discovery that some people like to collect icons. Some people like to collect userpics and avatars for no specific purpose. They don't necessarily use them in games, websites or discussion forums -- they collect them just because they like icons. So Alamo Fire tapped into this hobby. I think he was speaking about the Packrat application. Here's a downside of not having WiFi at the event: you can't just go to the company's web site and check out what they're talking about!

They also have another application, Gowalla, which is kind of like digital collecting combined with -- or inspired by -- geocaching. Gowalla encourages people to take pictures of places they visited, and rewards them points for that. So for example, you can get points for taking a picture of yourself at the state Capitol. It sounds pretty useless at first. But a lot of people like to do useless things on the internet, and the fascinating thing about it is how such applications make little quirky time wasters socially acceptable. Maybe you secretly like to collect pictures of state capitols, but you don't show them to your friends for fear of looking too dorky. I can identify with it: in my teen years I liked to collect street names, despite them being not very tangible collectibles. :-) I even drew my own street maps, and was proud of finding obscure, well-hidden streets that I was sure none of my friends heard about. Not that I asked -- there was that weirdness factor. And what do you know: these days there is an Open Street Mappers group in Austin! I was 20 years ahead of my time. :-) Alas, I found more interesting hobbies since then.

But I digress.

This shows how internet gives you a medium for turning quirky, nerdy things into something cool. Pretty much anything you can do for points can be turned into competitive sport. And competitive sports is a paradigm our society understands.

This wasn't the first time I stopped to think about it, but the Alamo Fire presentation provided yet another take of this general idea. I've said in the past that a lot of tedious things can be incentivized by turning them into the game. Have people do chores for points (they don't even have to be monetary rewards) and they'll get excited about housework. Chore Wars game is based on this concept. Gowalla taps into human nature in a similar way. As I make progress in building my dream application, I'll have to keep in mind that this social engineering aspect may be crucial in its adoption.

Josh Williams from Alamo Fire talked about the social mechanics of the application, but not about how they are relevant to Facebook. Among them, he discussed the point system, and how to set it up so that the players won't try to "game" it. For one thing, the point system shouldn't reward players for doing mindless repetitive things over and over, because then they'll rack up points with no effort. He covered formation of groups. Yet all those things are not specific to Facebook.

All of this was interesting, but I did not stay to listen to other presentations. With SXSWi being as busy and full of wonders as it was, there was no justification for continuing to be deprived of power outlets and ability to take notes.

Pictures from Facebook Developer Garage, Barcamp, Dorkbot and other SXSWi events are in my photo gallery.

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SXSW: Barcamp 4

I didn't get to see much of Barcamp. Because Steve had classes that weekend, I stayed home with Erika most of Saturday. I got to BarCamp close to 5 pm. Since it started at 9 am, I missed most presentations. The few remaining ones that were still going on were by various companies (startups, probably) demonstrating their products. Most of them were specialized websites (e.g. a travel website) with a social networking element. None of them really intrigued me, but maybe I was too tired to pay full attention. I was more fascinated by tattoo artists plying their trade right there at BarCamp. They've set up a little shop in a corner of the room, and were doing brisk business. They tattooed 3 clients in about half an hour (and that was just while I watched). One guy got a barcode on the back of his neck. Must have been a pun on BarCamp? Not that anyone would recognize it in the outside world. The "victims" seemed fairly relaxed -- none of those people were screaming or writhing in pain, or even gritting their teeth. It made me even wonder if I should spontaneously get a tattoo as well. But no, I'm really not that spontaneous. :-)

Aside from product demos, there was a presentation on "death of advertising". But as my experience shows, a talk or an article touting the death of advertising is really just about new ways to advertise, and this one was no different. I don't know if the whole BarCamp was like that, but product demos and conversations about marketing are not why I would go to this event. Learning about other companies' products is not the kind of techie learning that would bring me to a BarCamp. But really, I can't judge it, having caught only the tail end of it. Still there were a few people around -- both old acquaintances and new ones -- to chat about our Twitter strategies and what not. :-)

I really liked the "bar" in which BarCamp took place -- the former Paradox night club, which is currently vacant. Our devoted organizers set it up with plenty of folding chairs and tables to put laptops on. I had no trouble finding an extension cord to plug my laptop into -- but maybe only because it was half empty at the moment? It turns out a nightclub can work very well as a conference room. All its interior details -- balconies, stages, little side lounges -- separate the room into many cozy spaces for groups to hold conversations. And we had sponsors that provided free (though mediocre) fish burritos for lunch, and munchies with a curious name "dillodog" for dinner. The name lead to a goodly number of puns. But really it was just a hotdog with bacon crumbles... I think. That's as far as I could tell in the dark. :-)

Pictures from BarCamp and other SXSWi events are in my photo gallery.

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Once in a while I get drawn into those debates...

As I said on Facebook and Twitter, I had an argument about atheism at the Ethical Society gathering. The other person said every atheist will experience God during their lifetime, just like everybody experiences love, even the people who say they don't believe in it.

Contrary to what some people said on Facebook, this guy was not at all an idiot; he seemed quite smart. But his argument was not very well thought out, even if it was superficially based on the latest neurological discoveries. Basically he said that God, like love, is one of those things human brains are hardwired to experience. I know God belief is not hardwired into everybody's brains, and I'm not even sure love is. There is a minority of people who never fall in love, much as they would like to. The same way, even as neuroscientists have found some evidence that many (if not most) people's brain have a "God module", there is a sizeable minority who do not "experience" God. It's possible that it comes down to differences in brain wiring, though I don't know how that would explain all the deconverted former theists (of which I met many). Maybe their former religious beliefs came from social conditioning, not from a direct, mystical experience of the ineffable. :-)

So I asked the guy to clarify in what sense does everyone "experiences God". Maybe he meant it in a primarily secular sense, such as "awe at the beauty and mystery of the natural world". Most people, including atheists, get that feeling that at some point. Some choose to call that God, but in reality that's a perfectly secular experience. But the guy declined to clarify. He said, how would you explain to a deaf person what music is? It's something that you know when you find it. I said, if you start from a position that experience of God can't be explained in rational words, then this argument is meaningless. If we don't have the language to talk about it, you can't present any arguments supporting your opinion, nor can I present arguments supporting mine. And so the topic was exhausted. We were too nice to ruin the afternoon going at each other's throats. :-)

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SXSW: Dorkbot

You would think that everyone at an event with a name like Dorkbot would be fond of technology. Certainly the presence of the Robot Group could lead you to think that. Almost fooled me! I saw an interesting sculpture, and assumed it was interactive, like everything else there, only at that time it wasn't interacting with anything. I would have never found out what it signified, if I hadn't run into Silona, who was standing next to it and chatting with its creator, a guy of mediterranean looks and vaguely european accent. So I stopped to chat with the artist as well. He said he was actually against "these guys", meaning the robo-geeks. Not only his sculpture didn't have a techno-element, its whole point was to illustrate a thesis that "technology is a virus". Now that I've been told, I saw it really resembled a virus. The body of the sculpture was made out of wood, perhaps a tree branch. The head was studded with various spiky techno junk -- old light bulbs, thingamabobs and such. They were very definitely not going to blink. I wonder if this artist felt like a sole fundamentalist Christian protester at a gay parade, or what. :-)

Then I saw people doing something I've previously heard about, but haven't seen with my own eyes: playing iPhone like a flute. Here's a short video of an iPhone duet.



Overall, though, I didn't see many new exhibits at Dorkbot. By "new" I mean something I haven't seen at every event where Robot Group is present. That includes local science fiction conventions (e.g. ArmadilloCon), Maker Faire, and some SXSW events, such as Plutopia party. I even wondered if it will make any sense to go Maker Faire this year -- will I really see anything new? Not that I blame the Robot Group for not coming up with new things several times a month. Their interactive art pieces are still amazing when you see them for the first time, as I'm sure many out-of-town visitors to SXSW did. I just have a mixed blessing of living in a town where they frequently exhibit their creations.

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SXSW: prelude

I can finally summon some energy and time to blog, not just tweet, about South by Southwest. First of all, I didn't even go to SXSW, only to public events. That alone was enough to keep me very busy.

My SXSW experience started out with Austin Tech Happy Hour on Thursday. One of the startups featured at ATHH was Other Inbox. (I didn't find out what the other 2 were -- either there weren't any, or they were well hidden.) A woman at the Other Inbox table approached me with a pitch: "Do you need a cure for email overload?" I decided to play a devil's advocate for a while. I said I didn't really have email overload. That's not quite true -- I would feel very overloaded if I had to read the posts from all the email lists I am on, but I didn't go into detail. She replied that I am a lucky person. I said it's not a matter of luck: the only real cure for email overload is real-life management, not email management. In my opinion, the email you get is merely a reflection of responsibilities you take on. Don't take too many responsibilities, commit to only what you can accomplish, say "no" more often, unsubscribe from mailing lists that don't add much value to your life, and you won't be overwhelmed with email

I asked how can Other Inbox technology do all that to a person. They admitted it can't, but it can recognize which emails in your inbox come from real people versus mailing lists and such. Hmm. I was quite surprised one needs an application to do that -- I never had trouble telling real people's messages from mailing list messages. But you never know what kind of interesting difficulties some folks might have! :-)

I still think that no matter how you organize your inbox, if you have an average of x emails to read every day, it will take you the same amount of time. That's not to say that certain approaches to email don't help. Some people read it all first thing in the morning, others last thing at night, and so on -- to avoid being constantly interrupted by new emails. That's all good. But ultimately I think a cure for email overload is simply not to get too much of it.

Then I inadvertently crashed Austin Interactive Marketing Association meetup. I was told about it by one guy from Austin Linux Group, who said it was a "welcome out-of-towners to SXSW" happy hour. AIMA people at the registration desk have not heard of such a thing, though sure enough they took me for an out-of-towner. With my accent it was almost guaranteed. :-) (They asked me if I was from Sweden.) Anyway, I met with two people from Austin Linux Group, and we chatted for a bit. In their experience, Linux user groups are dying, at least in Austin. Or if not dying, they are going virtual. Some of them, including ALG, have strong email lists, but they don't feel much need to meet in person. Some people think it's a matter of there being so much good info about Linux on the internet, you can google anything, so you don't have to meet in person to ask for advice or help with hands-on installations, etc. But that's not what these two ALG people thought. The high likelihood that a typical newbie will run into serious problems with WiFi and thus lose interest in Linux, is one reason that Linux desktop is not gaining popularity. But there's also a more interesting reason. For many young people Linux is not in the running if they're considering an alternative to Windows. And not because they are Mac afficionados. A smartphone is a more likely competitor. Many people these days no longer want to carry around laptops when a smartphone is enough for their daily computing tasks. Thus, a phone becomes their primary computer.

Pictures from this Austin Tech Happy Hour and other SXSW events can be found in my photo gallery.

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Blellow beta review

I joined Blellow -- a web service that enables people to collaborate and share knowledge -- in its beta stage. So far I've only been on it one day and haven't done much. I've only tested its basic features. I'm writing this review so as to enter a drawing for an SXSW badge. :-)

Here are my notes on some of Blellow's features.

Meetups. I already have a suggestion for Meetups pages (though I realize meetups are probably not the most important feature of this site). I wish each event page had a message board so we could post questions to other members or the organizer. It would also be good to be able to contact the organizer of the event with a click of a button (or in any way at all, really. Right now there is no way.)

The "follow" thing. I clicked a "Follow" button under a person's name, but did not understand whether that meant I now was following her on Twitter, or if it was a special Blellow-specific "follow". I looked for help pages, but couldn't find any (another very important feature that's missing). My Twitter account (@elze) does not show I'm following her, so I guess a Blellow-follow is different from a Twitter-follow.

Groups. I was able to join groups without a problem.

Projects. I saw a list of other people's projects, but clicking on any of them produced the standard Ruby on Rails error "We're sorry, but something went wrong". Oh well -- it's beta.

How do I login? One thing that really baffled me: when I went to blellow.com home page on another computer, I could not find a "Log in" link. It was embarrassing. Made me feel really stupid. Yet there was truly no link. I eventually logged in again by following a beta invitation link that was emailed to me. I can only assume that the login is deliberately hidden from the general public, and will appear when Blellow is out of beta.

So far it seems the main activity one would do on this site is answer "What are you working on?" question. There is a lot more to do, such as participate in group discussions, but the "What are you working on?" page is the one you get immediately upon logging in. Well, this question certainly makes more sense to me than Twitter's "what are you doing?". It's good that the status area (which, at 300 characters, is much more roomy than Twitter's 140) allows you to attach a file and to check "I feel like sharing this" or "I'm looking for help" radio boxes. Obviously, though, you can't share your company's code in a public forum, so this is at best good for hobby or side projects. But, since I often get stuck on some Ruby on Rails problem (new as I am to this technology), I could see myself asking for help in this manner. It's good to have a framework where asking for help is built into the system, thus doesn't feel awkward.

One more thing -- maybe I'm just not thinking creatively, but I can't "unpack" Blellow's name. What exactly does it stand for? Blue and yellow? That's a stretch even considering the prevalence of green on its website. Does the "ellow" part signify it's kind of like yellow pages for freelancers? That would make some sense, though I think yellow pages is an outdated metaphor for a site whose goal is to promote collaboration and interactivity (as opposed to browsing a static list of people available for hire). In any case, I'm sorry to be blunt, but the name is a bit offputting. The "ble" part immediately evokes such associations as blech, bleary, or bleat. I think this site deserves better than that.

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Dr. Michael J. Ryan's Darwin Day talk

Dr. Michael J. Ryan from University of Texas was one of the speakers who gave a talk at the CFI Darwin Day celebration. It was "Sexual Selection, Darwin's Second Great Theory: Why males are dying to mate". A provocative title, somewhat -- and indeed, the idea of sexual selection was thought to be provocative and radical in Darwin's times. To me it was those historical footnotes that made up the main interest of his speech, as the idea itself wasn't new to me.

Sexual selection theory says animals evolve certain traits not because they help them to survive, but because those traits help them to attract mates -- even when doing so runs counter to survival. This helps explain why in some species males and females are so markedly different in their appearance and behavior. This is evident even in humans, if we believe "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" brand of stereotypes. :-) Behavioral differences between men and women sometimes seem so dramatic, they can make you wonder if men and women are from different planets. In the animal realm one of the most striking examples of appearance differences between sexes is a peacock's tail. That tail is what got Darwin thinking that natural selection in itself was not enough to explain how it evolved. How is it that this trait allowed peacocks to survive better? Darwin decided he needed another theory. So he came up with the sexual selection theory.

Often the traits that help males attract mates are also the ones that makes them more likely to die. Such is the case with tungara frogs, which Dr. Ryan has studied at length. The males of this species are more likely to attract females if their calls are more complex. (Here Dr. Ryan amused the audience by imitating tungara frog calls. He had to do it because sound wasn't working in his presentation. This was just as well, because, according to him, he can make frog calls so realistic he can even trick the frogs into conversing with him. Apparently male tungara frogs view conversation as a competitive sport: they respond with calls that are more complex than the ones they hear.)

However, tungara frogs predators, such as bats, also favor males that make more complex calls. So the individuals that are more attractive to females are also more likely to die. Both selection and counter-selection forces play a role in evolution.

Back in Darwin's time people had hard time accepting the notion that sexual selection is driven by females choosing males with particular characteristics. They said, we only need to reflect on human species to realize how ridiculous this idea is. In Darwin's Victorian England women had very little choice in most things. So Darwin's idea at that time was radical.

Dr. Ryan (who, by the way, considers himself a feminist) noted that even these days there's large feminist literature that absolutely rejects the notion that female choice of mates is the driving force of sexual selection (among animals, at least). They are incredibly critical of this idea.

Pictures from Darwin Day can be found in my photo gallery. I will keep adding new pictures in the days to come.