World Con Day 3 Notes

(Saturday)

Mainly wandered around aimlessly after having slept in too late to attend the Yoshitaka Amano panel.  Tried to hit a panel called "Transcendence or Mundane" about the singularity, but missed that as well due to a schedule mix-up.

Finally made it to a panel called "The Universal Library", all about when and how it will eventually develop.  The panel featured Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross, Patrick Neilson-Hayden, a guy from Google, and a professional research librarian.  Interesting and smart; I felt underqualified to be in the panel as I am not an information architect.

From there to the hotel again to relax and clean up before the Hugos.

Hugos fun; George Takei and his translator were good hosts.  There were a lot of jokes and back and forth that were funnier if you speak English and Japanese; I didn't feel like there was a lot of good explanation of the linguistic jokes as there were several people around me who didn't understand them.  Still, a fun show and some good presenters.

Naomi Novik won the Campbell Award for best new talent, which was quite cool as I'm a big fan of hers.

Went to a party after the ceremony hosted by the Norwegian / Swedish contingent that was a lot of fun; talked to a lot of people.  Drank a bit of a Norwegian liquor called (I'm sure I've got this spelled wrong) Aqua vitae.  Very similar to whiskey but with a bit of an anise flavor.  Good, but very strong.

Lots of cool people; lots of discussion of things relevant and un.

A sign inside the party suite read "Movies (with an arrow); Friendly Norwegians (with an arrow in the opposite direction)".  I found it quite charming.  Lovely bunch of people.  Norway is now very high on my list of favorite places.

Missed the subway again, so walked to the hotel.  Again.