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  • I'm at the Worldcon

    From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to All on Thu Dec 16 06:15:14 2021
    I'm at the Worldcon. Well, not at the moment. I'm commuting, as it's
    *not* a 24-hour con, so there's nowhere to hang out all night and maybe surreptitiously catch some Zs. (I remember one con where I fell asleep
    in a panel about dinosaurs, and slept through most of the Mesozoic.)

    I'm a little dismayed that the con suite was only open from 6 pm to
    8:30 pm on the first day of the con (Wednesday). Curiously, the
    program book makes no mention whatsoever of the con suite. Fans for
    whom this is their first con won't know it exists.

    At other cons, people were asked not to remove food from the con
    suite, but to eat it there. At this con, people are asked the
    opposite -- remove food from the con suite and eat it elsewhere
    (unless they're somehow able to eat it without removing their mask,
    which at least one person was).

    I find it hard to recognize people at the con, given the masks, the
    dim lighting, and the small print on the name badges.

    Who else here is attending?
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to All on Wed Aug 31 18:32:52 2022
    I made it to the Worldcon. The Amtrak train was only an hour late
    starting out, took only 16.5 hours to get to Chicago, and didn't have
    Wi-Fi. But it did have a power outlet for my laptop.

    And I managed to get almost an hour of sleep on the train. After 10
    pm they turned off the bright white lights and turned on blue lights
    that are dimmer, but still bright enough to read by. Blue light is
    supposed to be conducive to sleep, right?

    Con registration asked me to show my vaccine card and a picture ID.
    I showed the former. When I was fishing through my pockets for the
    latter, I pulled out my badge for the previous Chicon, ten years
    earlier. As soon as she saw it, she said that's fine, and handed me
    my new badge.

    I've been working on move-in and setup since I got here four hours
    ago. There's less to do than at most cons this size, since Chicago
    is a union city -- there's lots of things fans aren't allowed to do
    themselves, lest the unions call a General Strike and bring down
    western civilization.

    The con is in the same hotel as last time. They boast that this hotel
    has not only hosted more Worldcons than any other hotel in the world,
    but has also hosted more Worldcons than any other *city* in the world.
    If only the Wi-Fi worked in both towers, such as the one the con
    suite is in. Here in the correct (west) tower, I get just two bars. Fortunately, it lets me ssh into panix, so that's more than enough.
    (The DC Union Station Wi-Fi didn't let me ssh. I could get a Panix
    prompt via Safari, but doing it that way was painfully slow.)

    Who else on this newsgroup is here? Is anyone hosting an at-sign party?
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Wed Aug 31 15:17:58 2022
    On 8/31/22 2:32 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
    I made it to the Worldcon. The Amtrak train was only an hour late
    starting out, took only 16.5 hours to get to Chicago, and didn't have
    Wi-Fi. But it did have a power outlet for my laptop.


    Sounds good so far. Is there still such a thing as at-sign parties? Is
    there anyone at the con who doesn't have an email address?


    --
    Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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  • From Peter Trei@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Wed Aug 31 14:07:03 2022
    On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:18:00 PM UTC-4, Gary McGath wrote:
    On 8/31/22 2:32 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
    I made it to the Worldcon. The Amtrak train was only an hour late
    starting out, took only 16.5 hours to get to Chicago, and didn't have Wi-Fi. But it did have a power outlet for my laptop.

    Sounds good so far. Is there still such a thing as at-sign parties? Is
    there anyone at the con who doesn't have an email address?

    What would be the gating factor, with email being pretty damn near
    universal?

    Quiz them?

    1. Name 3 SF related Usenet groups.
    2. What was SF-Lovers?
    3. Why is this called an at-sign party?
    4. ?

    pt

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  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Wed Aug 31 23:59:52 2022
    Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
    Who else on this newsgroup is here? Is anyone hosting an at-sign party?

    I'm working Plaza. I haven't seen an at-bang party since Digex hosted
    one at Balticon in '93.
    --scott

    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Thu Sep 1 01:35:24 2022
    Gary McGath <garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:
    Is there still such a thing as at-sign parties?

    Probably not. But I miss them.

    Is there anyone at the con who doesn't have an email address?

    People are more diverse in nearly every way that most people realize,
    so I'd be astonished if there is not one person here who doesn't have
    an email address. Especially if you count people who technically have
    one, but aren't aware of it and never check it. Lots of younger people
    send and receive texts and tweets, but never emails. And lots of not-
    so-young people gave up on email years ago when it exceeded 99% spam,
    malware, blowback, immense gibberish attachments, and other junk.

    Setup is pretty much finished, the con suite closed for the night at
    8 pm (!), and there are no room parties and nothing going on. The con
    doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but I think there ought to be something to do and someplace to be for those of us who showed up a
    day early to help move in and set up.

    Around sunset I went to the Apple Store a short walk from the hotel in
    search of a replacement MagSafe charger for my 12-year-old MacBook.
    Not a MagSafe 2 charger, like the one the MicroCenter near my home
    sold me last week, but a MagSafe charger. It was expensive, but I
    found and bought one, even though the store is much smaller than it
    looks in Google Street View. It's about the same size as the Apple
    Store at Tysons that I can walk to from home in about an hour. By
    going to Chicago, I saved myself a trip to the Tysons mall.
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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