Right now, I’m typing whilst sitting on the floor of the conference room for the Skeptic Track. Although the program says that Alison Smith should be presenting, it’s actually Ben Radford, talking about ‘Medium’ and the NBC website providing false information about the biography of Allison DuBois, which they later took down off their pages after it was shown that she never worked with the Texas Rangers. Apparently Alison Smith lost all her luggage en route and therefore couldn’t do her presentation tonight.
What else has happened? Richard Saunders presented on another panel for Video Podcasting and I got a great shirt from Dr Ginger Campbell! I’ll probably be wearing that tomorrow morning when I’m minding the desk for the Skeptic Track, over at the Marriott hotel. Dr Campbell (who will be our guest on our panel, later this week) also presented on a panel on evidence-based medicine -- ‘Science Based Medicine: Spotting the Quacks, Charlatans & Those Elixer of Life Salesmen’. Dr John Cmar was also a really interesting contributor to that panel, discussing something I noticed before about the tendency not to use the internet for self-diagnosis but the likelihood of talking to their GP instead, or attending to advertisments for drugs.
Ooh, if you want to catch other panels by Dr Ginger Campbell, her schedule is here! She’s seriously busy and amazingly diverse (kind of like her podcasting work, really!), so I think we’re even more flattered that she wants to be a part of our vodcast filming.
Had dinner with Phil Plait, Saunders, Karen and a lady whose first name I didn’t catch… I don’t actually think ‘A’ is actually her name, but eh. It was a nice dinner; went walking from the Hyatt, through the Sheraton and back to the Hilton. Seriously, the number of people dressed in a range of… um, levels of dressed is sometimes rather daunting. Some costumes are just beautiful but some make me do a bit of a double-take at times! But then, I can’t say I wasn’t warned about the differences, especially at night-time when apparently the ‘general viewing consumption’ element is not as enforced.
Someone made a ‘crack’ about photographing guys (rather than women) dressed as gladiators somehow makes it less sexist to objectify them -- but then, their qualifications in science weren’t being displayed or even up for discussion in context, as they clanked around in their ’300′-style phalanx in the Hyatt foyer. Something to think about, perhaps… 
Everything after that kind of went out of my mind when I met Michael Stackpole (if you don’t know much about him, I did an entry for a blog carnival about his work here). I seriously hope I have the opportunity to interview him for the vodcast later, as in my opinion he has done a lot in regards to promoting responsible depictions of gamers, Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts and LARPers -- rather than daft stereotypes of ‘gaming satanists’ or ‘mentally ill’.
I think our little Australian gang will be going out for drinks after and I’m fairly certain that after my walk this morning we should be able to find our way back safely. I’m kind of hoping to catch up with some different people. Oh, a really nice lady with qualifications in linguistics caught up with Karen, so I hope some good press will come of that.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
You weren’t in your Sailor Moon outfit?
Sorry to interrupt your travels but I thought you might be interested in this if you haven’t already seen it.
Psychics and Claremont Serial Killer: Sarah Spiers
Hey thanks for doing the filming. I tried just doing some sightseeing using my new handy cam and I found walking talking and filming a new and difficult experience.
Hi, Kylie! It was so great to meet you last night. Your passion for education is really inspiring.
Hello!!! Wonderful to meet you too! Hope you’re around for our vodcast later.
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