Author: mongreldogs
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Pat Buchanan is an idiot
Sorry for being so obvious. But I’ve read his latest ill-informed anti-immigrant screed and couldn’t stay quiet. Buchanan’s thesis is that we were once a unified country but now since 1960, we’ve been in decline. First off, it’s a little suspicious that the magic time was exactly when Pat Buchanan (born in 1938) had just…
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All good things may come to an end, but you can sometimes revisit them
Today (2014 May 23) is the 20th anniversary of the airing of “All Good Things…”, the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It cannot be denied that this series is directly responsible for the resurgence of American sci-fi on television – without the Enterprise-D, there would have been no Babylon 5, no Stargate,…
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Happy Tax Day!
And I mean that non-ironically. I don’t like paying taxes, but I am proud to do it. Taxes are not only necessary to maintain the way of life we value. They are a direct investment in the very concept of civilization. Taxes are the explicit statement that we are a community and we have…
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Lunacon 2014 (2e): Magic and Religion
Saturday 3 PM. Panelists: Carole Ann Moleti; Michael F. Flynn, Raymond Feist, Jane Sibley Interesting tidbit: religion = re+ligio = a rebinding of society (to join again). Religion has always had a social purpose, to increase community and tie society together. The panelists offered a definition of magic as “a belief that mundane objects have…
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Lunacon 2014 (2d): Gamification in Education
Saturday 2 PM I sort of felt obligated to go to this panel (and the one on The Future of Education), seeing that I am a teacher and all. It was OK. The title proved to be inaccurate: This was more about the use of existing games in a school setting. Gamification usually refers to…
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Lunacon 2014 (2c): Reading by Merav Hoffman
Saturday 12 Noon Panelist: Merav Hoffman (duh) I don’t attend a lot of readings, because I generally prefer reading things at my own pace. I don’t find the timbre of the author all that engaging. On the other hand, Merav was a very welcoming presence at my first Lunacon and I wanted to make sure…
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Lunacon 2014 (2a): Altering Time and Perception
Saturday 11 AM Odelle Panelists: Walter Hunt, David Sklar This was not especially well-attended: at first, just the panelists and me. By the end, another 6 or so people had shown up. First panel on a Saturday is probably a dead zone. There were really two topics to be discussed: How is a story paced?…
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Lunacon 2014 (2b): Write What You Don’t Know
Saturday 12 noon Panelists: Walter H. Hunt, Laura Anne Gilman, KT Pinto Sadly, this was not (imho) a very successful panel. The panelists talked around the topic but never addressed head-on how to avoid the pitfalls of writing about things you haven’t experienced. Walter Hunt mentioned that he’s spent a lot of time volunteering at a living farm…
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Lunacon 2014 (1c): Firefly the Game
I was excited to attend this game demo. I am a fan of all things Firefly, and actually have a copy of this game but hadn’t had a chance to play it yet. So when a game got underway in the gaming room, I dropped by to check it out.
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Lunacon 2014 (1): Friday
OK, so it’s really Saturday when I’m writing this. But it’s about Friday. 🙂 I attended three panels (and one fire alarm): “Building Character“, “Alternate Technologies in Historical Fiction“, and “Firefly: The Game“. I also poked around the dealer’s room for a bit,