Day is Done
Apr. 1st, 2012 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdThe only plan for today was to listen to some lectures at Contact, have lunch and pack up my photos.
All the talks had good content, two of the speakers actually knew how to speak to an audience.
Jim Pass - "Medical Astrosociology: A Combination of Space Medicine and Social Science" had a ton of interesting info about what to expect from various societies in space and in lunar and planetary colonies. Dr. Pass started out okay but by the end of his talk was not easy to hear. His slides made up for that, they were filled to the brim with detail. During the Q&A he got back to speaking into the mike.
Chad Rohrbacher - "Curriculum Guide for Using SF to Teach Science" is a subject I am fond of. Chad is a professor, he speaks well, has a sense of humor, and his slides were talking points rather than jam-packed with every word of his lecture. My only complaint is he cited three or four people on the slides, only giving the full name of one. None of them were household names.
Dennis Etler - "China's Vision of the Future" sounded like it could have been dull, and Etler not having any slides was not a good omen, but the guy has a powerful stage voice, he made the mike redundant, and he is super articulate, had good notes in front of him, and did a fine job of comparing and contrasting China's version of communism with the Soviet Union's, and basically gave a warning that unlike the USA, China has a clear vision of its future in space, and has a head start since most of those wheels have already been invented. Who would have guessed he is a paleontologist?
Lunch was at the Fish Market, delicious cup of clam chowder, right-sized crab & shrimp louie with blue cheese dressing instead of that godawful hundred islands of ketchup dressing, way too heavily sugared apple crisp. Pricey, but excellent food & service. At lunch I started reading Water For Elephants, having finished The Forever War last night. Riveting, is WFE. Looks to be a very quick read, unlike FW.
From there to the big Starbucks, got a view seat right away, and have been building April Fools images for FB. The first one was a Dalai Lama quote attributed to Abe Lincoln, the next two were Abe Lincoln quotes attributed to the Dalai Lama. I posted the first one here too.
Will go home soon and spend some quality time being ignored by the cat.
All the talks had good content, two of the speakers actually knew how to speak to an audience.
Jim Pass - "Medical Astrosociology: A Combination of Space Medicine and Social Science" had a ton of interesting info about what to expect from various societies in space and in lunar and planetary colonies. Dr. Pass started out okay but by the end of his talk was not easy to hear. His slides made up for that, they were filled to the brim with detail. During the Q&A he got back to speaking into the mike.
Chad Rohrbacher - "Curriculum Guide for Using SF to Teach Science" is a subject I am fond of. Chad is a professor, he speaks well, has a sense of humor, and his slides were talking points rather than jam-packed with every word of his lecture. My only complaint is he cited three or four people on the slides, only giving the full name of one. None of them were household names.
Dennis Etler - "China's Vision of the Future" sounded like it could have been dull, and Etler not having any slides was not a good omen, but the guy has a powerful stage voice, he made the mike redundant, and he is super articulate, had good notes in front of him, and did a fine job of comparing and contrasting China's version of communism with the Soviet Union's, and basically gave a warning that unlike the USA, China has a clear vision of its future in space, and has a head start since most of those wheels have already been invented. Who would have guessed he is a paleontologist?
Lunch was at the Fish Market, delicious cup of clam chowder, right-sized crab & shrimp louie with blue cheese dressing instead of that godawful hundred islands of ketchup dressing, way too heavily sugared apple crisp. Pricey, but excellent food & service. At lunch I started reading Water For Elephants, having finished The Forever War last night. Riveting, is WFE. Looks to be a very quick read, unlike FW.
From there to the big Starbucks, got a view seat right away, and have been building April Fools images for FB. The first one was a Dalai Lama quote attributed to Abe Lincoln, the next two were Abe Lincoln quotes attributed to the Dalai Lama. I posted the first one here too.
Will go home soon and spend some quality time being ignored by the cat.
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