Here's another interesting panel discussion topic from this year's WorldconThe idea has its roots in antiquity, in Plato's Cave and the Hindu idea of Maya, "illusion." However, it's only been with the rise of virtual reality technology that it's really taken off in its current form. Even in the late 70's and early 80's I came across sf stories in ( Read more... )

Here's an interesting panel from this year's Worldcon.

My first Worldcon was LAconIII in 1996 in Anaheim, California. It was also my one and only experience of taking a flight somewhere, rather than traveling overland ( Read more... )

Unlike AnimeIowa or GenCon, this year's Worldcon never really was on the table. So there's less of the wistfulness of "if only" coloring my thoughts as I look through the schedule ( Read more... )

One last panel discussion from GenCon.

One thing that's obvious when re-reading the seminal works of cyberpunk is how Zeerusty any specifics of the technology have become. The "three megabytes of hot RAM" in Neuromancer seems laughable now, when a small cellphone has 128 gigabytes -- but in 1982, when the book came out, DOS was still built to take ( Read more... )

Here's another interesting panel discussion topic from GenConI sent my first works out for professional consideration back in 1985, when traditional publishing was the only game in town (unless you wished to destroy your name forever by turning to a vanity publisher), and everything was handled by postal mail (which could get expensive if you had a ( Read more... )

Here's another panel discussion from GenCon: The 75th Anniversary of the First Soviet Nuclear Test ( Read more... )

Here's an interesting panel from this year's Gencon -- shared worlds ( Read more... )

GenCon is in Indianapolis for the weekend. I have many fond memories of going to it in 2011 through 2014. After that, GenCon tended to be on the same weekend as Tampa Bay Comic Con, and the one year it wasn't, we weren't able to secure a volunteer position that would've allowed us to attend -- and as it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise, ( Read more... )

Today as I was driving the van home after its oil change and general maintenance, I realized that if we hadn't been waitlisted for vendor hall space at AnimeIowa, we'd be somewhere on I-80 or I-74, heading back from Coralville, Iowa. Given that AnimeIowa has relatively low booth costs, it's quite possible that we could've turned a decent profit -- ( Read more... )

Here's another panel discussion topic from AnimeIowa programming:

There are only six ways to get to an isekai.
Each way has different implications for the
plot and characters. Let’s explore!

For those not familiar with anime, isekai is basically portal fantasy. The character starts in a fictional version of the Primary World and is transported ( Read more... )