Convergence Day 1 #cvg2013

This was my first day at Convergence 2013.

We started with travel and manual labor: we drove from Morris to Bloomington in two cars loaded to the gills with people and material, and then parked way way out in the crowded lot and hauled stuff armload by armload to our party room. We also got registered, an arduous task that was taking some people 3-5 hours (hey, Convergence admins: make fixing that your top priority for next year. I met people in the parking lot who were discouraged by the lines and left.)

First panel: Evolutionary Psychology, with Stephanie Zvan moderating, and Greg Laden (a biological anthropologist), me (neuroscience by training, evo devo by occupation), and Indre Viskontas (neuroscience) (and who I met for the first time, and who was on a panel at an SF con for the first time…she’s good). My main point: Developmental plasticity is all. The fundamental premises of evo psych are false.

Second panel: Worldbusters, in which we confronted bad science in SF stories. It was moderated by Jason Thibeault, and in attendance were me, Laura Okagaki, and Siouxsie Wiles…all biologists! My take home here was that everything biological is going to obey the laws of thermodynamics, and bioenergetics is important: most SF aliens do things that require absurd energy consumption. Don’t do that.

I attended the War on Science panel. They didn’t know anything about the ongoing conflict with creationism, were largely accommodationist, and the end devolved into a defense of…religion. Bleh.

Third panel, Prometheus Debunked. Rebecca Watson compiled clips of the very worst moments in that awful movie, while Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett provided the running gags, while I played the curmudgeonly scientist who grumbled bitterly in the corner. And spilled Kevin Murphy’s beer. It was hilarious. Rebecca and I agreed on the best scene in the movie, because it was pro-abortion and had an alien squid baby.

The Party Room! I missed most of it, because all my panels were scheduled for the evening. We had a good crowd, though, a lovely room and lots of fresh fruit, healthy snack chips, and water…and, oh yeah, a bar serving a concoction we called an Amygdala Reanimator. Murphy and Corbett joined us late in the evening, and Amanda Marcotte was the DJ. Unfortunately, Dan Fincke had to hector me about my ill-mannered nature. I just have to say that I think passion is a god-damned superpower, and sometimes rage is the message. I don’t think he gets it.

Today: the party continues, room 228, 7 or 8 pm on, stop by! I’ve got three evening panels again. I’ll probably get harangued at again, since that is my fate. One of the loons on Twitter who is not here is calling for a walkout of all of my panels; he’s calling it #TheRising. No one walked out yesterday, and I had mostly full rooms every time (Worldbusters was a bit underattended because it was scheduled in parallel with a lot of other very popular panels, including Watson’s Skepticism 101, right next door.) I expect they’ll all be a testimony to his irrelevance and failure, again.

Also, my wife and I are being sensible and making a light schedule of it all. It’s only the beginning of day 2, we’ve got days 3 and 4 to go. We’re pacing ourselves.

It’s good to be the king

As I sit here wracked by some rather intense intestinal distress (I think my travels are catching up to me today), it’s rather nice to read words acknowledging my malevolent power. They don’t seem to alleve these nasty mundane illnesses — I’m still going to have to sporadically run to the bathroom — but I’m glad someone somewhere is keeping up the illusion. Unfortunately, it would be someone who lives permanently in a fantasy world, so it’s not all that esteem-bolstering.

The embittered acknowledgement of my puissance is coming from Paul Elam, at A Voice for Men.

I am sure this might have wowed the crowd at FTB, as they are a rather insulated group thanks to their mindless allegiance to the edicts of PZ Myers.

Ah, good ol’ mindless allegiance. It’s going to be great this weekend at CONvergence, where many of my zombified minions will be in attendance — I shall be carried about on a palanquin, fanned by my lickspittles, fed chocolate and wine at my merest gesture.

Oh, heck, wait — I’m going to be expected to help haul supplies to our room. They’re probably going to bring me crashing down to earth about as effectively as these bacteria.

What could have caused Elam to sneer at me this time? What did I do? Nothing, as it turns out: someone else at FtB pissed him off, and I’m just the puppetmaster. He’s actually really unhappy with Ally Fogg, who has been writing about domestic violence perpetrated by both men and women. Apparently, this is supposed to rouse my wrath.

Though I do expect we will eventually see a one-up as followup article from PZ not too far down the road. If Fogg gets traction with the FTB crowd, Myers won’t long stay silent. He will be there with the “real, real, real” story on intimate partner violence. It will be alpha wars, a secular death match.

Wait, I’ve been promoted to Alpha now? I thought I was a beta mangina or something.

I guess I’d better not stay silent — I must roar with fury (uh, except that I think that’s just my guts rumbling) and attack my challenger!

Except…

There are so many misconceptions there.

I don’t run Freethoughtblogs. Ed Brayton is in charge.

None of us have any say in what other bloggers write. There’s no seal of approval required, you can even disagree with the alpha-male-sort-of-master-of-FtB-only-not-really.

We try to sign on people who are on “our side”, who we can work with reasonably well, but that’s about it. That definitely shapes the general views here, but it’s a looser and broader perspective than Mr Elam thinks.

And this Ally Fogg guy? When he was suggested as a candidate for the network, we all reviewed his writings to see if he’d be a good fit, and we agreed. I voted for bringing him on, because I thought he was a thoughtful person who was writing about significant issues in social justice. I still do.

Contrary to certain lunatic opinions, this is not the man-hating network (that would be awkward for me if it were), nor is it the woman-are-perfect network. Having someone on board who is able to advocate for men’s rights without doing so by hating women is actually a legitimate part of our cause.

Sorry, Elam! At least you can console yourself over being so stupidly wrong by knowing I’m feeling less than wonderful today!

Now, guts, OBEY ME! OBEY ME NOOOOOOW!

Damn, I think they’re going to be as obedient to my wishes as all those other bloggers here, and you commenters, too.

On my way home, really!

It was touch-and-go for a while — I arrived at the Dublin airport with over 2 hours time left, but then American paranoia struck. Would you believe I had to wait in a long, slow-moving line to get my boarding pass, because they’d also check your passport and give you a long grilling about all the mischief you’d been up to in Ireland? And then you’d line up for Irish customs? Then Irish security? Then to enter the American Pre-Clearance Zone? Then for American customs? Then American security, again? I spent over two hours slowly shuffling forward in line. When I finally emerged from the mess, the plane was finishing up final boarding and they were about to close the jetway doors.

Very exciting. I’ll have to remember to give myself plenty of leeway next time I’m in Ireland (may there be many opportunities!)

Anyway, I’m still not home. I’m in Chicago. Then Fargo, then the drive, then the shamble into the shower and the collapse into the bed.

Amazon did what?!??

Greg Laden alerted me to a surprising message that I then found in my spam mail: Amazon has unilaterally terminated their contract with associates in Minnesota. They have a program called Amazon Associates which bloggers could take advantage of: we registered with Amazon, they gave us a little personal code to imbed in links to books, and in return for promoting Amazon with our linkage we got a little gift certificate every month, a small percentage of the profit. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a handy revenue trickle. For instance, I cashed out a couple of months worth of certificates from them and the money is being used to buy all the widgets (many of them through Amazon!) for the laboratory fish facility we’re building here.

So when you click through a book link here and it took you to Amazon, and you bought something, you were actually contributing a few pennies to undergraduate research at the University of Minnesota Morris.

But no more. Here’s the letter I got.

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective June 30, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Minnesota state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor Dayton on May 23, 2013, with an effective date of July 1, 2013. As a result, we will no longer pay any advertising fees for customers referred to an Amazon Site after June 30 nor will we accept new applications for the Associates Program from Minnesota residents.

Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to July 1, 2013, will be processed and paid in full in accordance with your regular advertising fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of June 30, 2013, any final payments will be paid by August 30, 2013.

While we oppose this unconstitutional state legislation, we strongly support the federal Marketplace Fairness Act now pending before Congress. Congressional legislation is the only way to create a simplified, constitutional framework to resolve interstate sales tax issues and it would allow us to re-open our Associates program to Minnesota residents.

We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates Program, and look forward to re-opening our program when Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Associates Team

So…all the Amazon links scattered throughout my site will still be contributing to Amazon’s revenue stream, but I no longer get any reward for them. That’s fai…wait, no, that’s totally unfair. Is this the kind of treatment we can all expect when the New World Order of Amazon achieves complete domination of the planet? That’s worrisome.

Hey, legal people: if I were instead to have my daughter, who lives out of state, set up Amazon Associate status, and then replace the code in my links to redirect income to her, would that be reasonable? I have no interest in evading state taxes and would happily pay those, but I would be interested in evading Amazon’s punitive behavior.

20903 days

4 October 1935 to 26 December 1992. 57 years, 2 months, 22 days. 20903 days. Almost 21,000 sunrises and sunsets, almost 750 full moons, 57 steelhead seasons. 6 children; 13076 days sharing the planet with one of them, me. It seems too short, it was too short, but still…thousands of days and millions of moments, and it was a good run for a man I’m proud to call father.

To you, old man.

dadfishing

Jim of the strong hands,
Son of William and Carilda,
Husband to Darlene,
Killer of fish,
Digger of clams,
Railroad laborer and whistlepunk,
Water color artist,
Generous friend,
Pumper of gas,
Perpetual romantic,
Diesel mechanic,
Water meter reader,
Dreamer of far Barsoom,
Hunter of chanterelles,
Dark humored laughing joker,
Faultless navigator,
Immortal young strider through the cathedral forests of the Cascades,
Master caster and patient angler,
Fruit picker,
Fierce labor unionist,
Broad-shouldered carrier of children,
Inventor, Tinkerer,
Irreverent, profane, good man,
Father.

And to all the good men who go into the dark after lives of earnest toil and dedication to family, forgotten except for the spark they leave to their children. Their contributions never seem to make it into the history books, but they and the mothers are the ones who build the world we live in.

They were 20903 good days, precious, every one.

Diversity building at Coyot.es Network

USA HDR 2012-08-10 (12)

I’ve been in work and personal overload lately, and I apologize for not annoying people here nearly as frequently as I’d like. The work overload, at least, will likely lift soon. In the meantime, I wanted to pass something along about an opportunity for biodiversity-oriented bloggers. It’s below the fold. For you non-fold-looking-under Hordelings, here are some cuddly cacti:

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Dinner in Romania

So tonight I went to dinner with various bigwigs of the IHEU at a place that I think was called “La Mama”, and tried some of that authentic Romanian food. I had something called a Transylvanian bulz, which I chose just because I liked the name, and something that in the English version of the menu was called “mindblowing spicy pan as at mom’s house”. They were both very good. I have discovered that at least these Romanian dishes expressed a distinct fondness for paprika — I think I’ve sweated most of it out now.

I’ve only got a few days here. Somebody make recommendations for must-have true Romanian food before I leave.

(Also, it’s quite late here and my brain is beginning to drip out my ears. I might just pass out for a few hours and with any luck, wake up with my circadian rhythms reset to Eastern European time.)

23½

That’s how many hours it’s taken me to get to Bucharest. But I’m here now! The sun is shining! I’m about ready to pass out! I’m hoping a shower will reawaken my will to consciousness.

This is the view from my 18th floor hotel room window:

bucharest

I think I’m going to go for a walk in it.