WorldCon Diaries, Part 3

8/7/2009
9:50
Sitting outside a lecture room for the 10:00 am panel, reading Little Brother, when Cory Doctorow walks by – not a big coincidence, he’s on the 10 am panel, still he nods and says “hi” and it’s a little surreal.

The panel is “Intellectual Property and Creative Commons ”, not a whole lot here that I’m not already aware of, but it’s fresh to hear it straight from people who are pioneering it. Doctorow suggests googling “model creative commons license” for a sample, but I didn’t find anything better than just going to http://creativecommons.org/.

10:00
New Media Panel
Cory Doctorow mentioned mixing Skype (internet based telephone calling) with digital music such that while skyping with his wife, he can hear the music, but she can’t – and he can work and listen and chat, and she can work and chat – without the music, something they can do while he’s traveling but not while he’s home.

Cory Doctorow at both these first two panels, after 30 or 45 minutes, adjusted from a normal seated posture to a cross-legged, “Indian-style” (is that “Native American-style now, or just politically incorrect to attribute to any cultural designation?), still in a regular chair. Nice to have young joints.

Steven R. Boyett was also on the panel, he has a new book, I guess and one (Ariel) coming back into print; he’s also a podcast DJ for exercise music, etc. He’s kind of a “modern man”, as opposed to Neil’s more “renaissance man”, who was also on the panel, but seemed a little cranky – or maybe he was just being obstinately retro; he was still entertaining and the largest presence on the panel, the Con’s “rock star”. He looked dead tired even though this is only the second day of the convention. All the panelists held their own, though, even Melissa Auf der Maur, who apparently is a legitimate rock star. I’m not sure from what group(s), but one of the songs is in Rock Band (the videogame). Tobias Buckell, another panelist, is a NY Times best selling author and Ellen Kushner, from NPR and more, moderated. Melissa was clearly a bit out of her element, not knowing much about sci-fi literature, comics or the internet – but she knew music and film and was very open about it. She’s also a native of Montreal, and went to high school with one of the audience members, so provided some local “color” (including her long red hair).

14:30 (let’s see, that’s 2:30 PM)
Lebanese for lunch at the food court in the mall adjoining my hotel and between it and the Palais. Lebanese seemed like very unusual ethnic fare for a food court until I realized that it has a French heritage so is likely right at home in Montreal. I had falafel on pita bread, it was probably good but I don’t think chipsters like falafel. Had ham & egg croissant from another food court stand earlier for breakfast – it seemed French, too, rather than getting the English muffin version.