Pi-Con Progress

Pi-Con is going very well, and I'm looking forward to the concluding events tomorrow. I've been to a lot of panel discussions, including some very interesting ones on dystopian fiction, "reaching a post-scarcity world", polyamory, law, obscure anime, free speech and technology, and "hedonism in the modern world". I bought a book and some other things. I played some video games and board games. I played a quick game of DnD 4th edition with pre-made characters, which went all right, despite setbacks. The 4th edition rules are disappointing, they seem to have doe a rather good job of simplifying the game, then re-complicated it in a way that is not necessarily an improvement.

On a somewhat related note: Apparently geek is the new counter-culture.

Pi-Con Conclusion

The last bit of Pi-Con was mostly uneventful, except for the "day in the life" panel starring Randall Monroe and Cory Doctorow. That was great, since the two have equally geeky but totally different ways of arranging their schedules and getting things done. (Also because Randall Monroe invented the fictional version of Cory Doctorow who wears a cape and goggles and blogs from high-altitude balloons; true to form, he showed up to that panel in red cape and aviator goggles.)

I also played a bit of Soul Calibur 4, which I hadn't seen before, and ate dinner at Tokyo restaurant (despite the deceptively plain exterior, the food was great and the service was impeccable; I highly recommend this place if you're ever in the Springfield, MA area).

The trip home was uneventful, and I'm ready to jump back in with work tomorrow. I'm making good progress with the bug I'm currently on, but I managed to break my box's copy of Subversion. Hopefully I'll be able to recover from that tomorrow and move forward with tests.

A Phonetic Poem

I take it you already know,
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps. Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead - it’s said like bed, not bead,
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword. And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.

-T.S.W.

(From here.)