Mad Mead Maker's Marker

Arisia 2016 Feedback

2016-01-20T19:37:04Z

I just sent this feedback on the 2016 Arisia over to the feedback address. drwex suggested that I post it publicly:

I have a few points of feedback on the 2016 Arisia, now that it's finished:
Before Arisia...

My family signed up to host a Saturday morning party, and the process of getting a suite went easily, as usual.

We remain pleased with the hotel itself.

Registration thoughts...

Registration was painful, as I'm sure you've heard from other people. It may be that I'm spoiled by always buying year-ahead memberships and skipping to the pre-registered line, which I wasn't able to do this year because I had not filled out a form ahead of time. But, some more specific thoughts are:

Instilling a code of conduct on the community
- I understand the idea that you want to instill a code of conduct. I don't think this instrument achieves the purpose, because I doubt that even 5% of the people bothered to read it before signing it. Heck, I'd be surprised if more than 20% of staff members bothered to read it before signing it.
- Maybe having some sort of infotainment in the registration area while people wait in line would be more effective to this goal.

Assuming that your goal with the code of conduct is to have a signed piece of paper that you could produce at a later point in time rather than having people actually understand it, the implementation of it still needs improvement. Why force people to print out individualized documents, rather than photocopying 3,000 blank documents for people to fill out while waiting in line? That way the people who didn't print it out at home won't have a bottleneck at your kiosks.
- I hear that the reason that you wanted the individualized forms is for the barcode on the document, so that you can locate it later. This makes no sense to me; the barcodes don't perform the sorting by themselves. You still need to have some filing system that can retrieve the document; it's just that this time the document is sorted by barcode rather than name.
- What would it cost to hire a temp worker for the week after Arisia to file all of the code of conduct papers in a retrievable manner? How many attendees will be turned off by the registration experience enough to avoid it next year? I would guess that the break even point for hiring a temp worker is about ten people's registrations. Do you think the registration line caused at least that much frustration?
- If, somehow, the barcode does actually make a difference, then photocopy 3,000 copies of the blank forms, let people fill it out while waiting in line, and then when they get to the registration desk have the registration person print out a barcode to stick on to the document using a label printer (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005TJMC0S/ref=s9_simh_gw_g229_i1_r?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=1464Q3R4ZZMHA94WZ528&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop).
- Or, have a signature pad at each registration desk, and force people to sign before getting their badge. This will become something like a retail store's credit card signature step. Here's a cheap pad: http://smile.amazon.com/Huion-Graphics-Drawing-Signature-H420/dp/B00RHRZRG6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453316087&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=signature+pad&psc=1

The kiosk experience for printing out the code of conduct form was cumbersome. I had to enter in my personal information, then enter in confirmation questions and answers (and I don't understand the purpose of that!), then choose a badge layout, and then get the form to print. No wonder the line was constipated - you have to spend three minutes per person at the kiosk!

The rest of Arisia...

The art show was wonderful. I found pieces of excellence in almost every one of the stalls in the show.
- I also liked the "collector's reception" on Friday night.
- The student art show probably had better quality on average than the rest of the show.
- Whoever is curating the art show should be begged to return.

The programming
- The panel topics seemed generally diverse and interesting this year; in past years I've found myself bored by the panel topics, but this year was much more interesting.
- I saw a couple of moderators doing their best to stifle comments from the audience. I mean this pretty literally - one of them actually berated the audience for saying anything, because most of the allotted time had been planned for panel members to speak.
- I really loved how much the singing track has expanded.
- There were a few questionable choices about scheduling, as usual. The ones that have risen to the top of my radar are:
  - The photography of people in costume being scheduled opposite the masquerade. I hear that session had no attendees whatsoever, but I'll tell you it's not because the topic isn't interesting.
  - The scheduling of the panels on feminism and masculinity opposite each other.

Games - my ten-year-old son spent the entire convention in the gaming room. It seemed every bit of well done.

Locations - I liked moving registration downstairs and the fan tables upstairs.

All told, I can see the results of a lot of good work paying off this year. I am a bit frustrated with the registration lines - I think the implementation of the policies is ridiculous, and obviously in need of major improvements. Most things that I saw once I got past the frustration of registration, however, seemed to be improved over previous years.

meadmaker @ 2012-04-03T14:25:00

2012-04-03T18:25:21Z

I rediscovered a photo from a trip to New Hampshire last fall, and worked on it over the last couple of days. I have two different crops of the same photo. Here I post the two, and ask my humble audience to weigh in: which works better?

Including the river, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

Panoramic, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

View Poll: Which photo?

Arisia bagel breakfast this morning

2012-01-14T12:37:34Z

This morning in room 1244, the lovely tigira and I are hosting a morning breakfast of bagels, homemade cream cheese (plain, chive, garlic, or cinnamon), dairy-free bagel topping, drinks, and company.

We'll be going from now until panels start at ten AM, so stop by room 1244 whenever you like.

Photo processing

2012-01-10T05:16:30Z

Over the weekend, I took a trip up to the southernmost coast of Maine with some of my photography club. While there, I made this photo that I liked:

Nubble-9501.jpg, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

I've prepared a couple of treatments for it. The first one flips it horizontally, and increases the contrast. Finally, I converted it for black and white with a sepia tone:

Nubble-9501-Edit.jpg, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

My second treatment simply puts on the sepia toning:

Nubble-9501.jpg, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

What do you think?

Favoring the bold?

2011-12-16T17:51:53Z

On my commute in this morning, the phrase, "fortune favors the bold" went through my head a few times. Eventually, I realized...

It's true that fortune favors the bold; however, misfortune favors the bold just as much.

Odd question this morning

2011-12-11T14:06:38Z

tigira is leafing through our compiled cookbook, and encounters a recipe page that had been used as scratch paper for a shopping list.

tigira: Sweetie, why does your shopping list say, "shrooms, goats, and cocaine?"
meadmaker: I don't know... because I thought it was funny?

Though this is old enough that I have no clue, eventually I guessed that I was making stuffed mushrooms with goat cheese as part of the stuffing, and that effloresense wanted some diet coke as well.

Misty Morning

2011-09-21T18:12:12Z

Misty Morning, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

This morning I left the house to discover a spiritually misty morning. The sun was just rising over the horizon, and streaming rays through the mist. After dropping my son off at school, I stopped by a local cemetery, which had a thick mist and the sun peeking over the hills.

Whole foods groupon

2011-09-13T17:46:06Z

I think I know a bunch of people who would be interested in a groupon to Whole Foods Market. Well, it's livingsocial instead of groupon, but you get the idea. You pay $10 to get a $20 voucher. If you're interested, go here: http://livingsocial.com/deals/123805?ref=conf-jp&rpi=27126785.

Wiretrapping

2011-08-29T14:18:56Z

In case you haven't heard, some police forces have begun to arrest people who are videotaping them under state wiretapping laws. The basic idea is that the wiretapping law requires a person to obtain consent of all parties being recorded before the recording happens.

This concept is disturbing, especially when you consider the revelations within recent years of abuse by police that were brought to light only by citizens videotaping the police actions. From Rodney King to Oscar Grant being shot at a BART station in 2009, we see the importance of using these recordings to hold our police to a high standard of conduct.

So, the response out of the city of Boston police department has been to use the wiretapping laws to declare that citizen recordings of their activities violate the privacy of the officers, whether or not the officers in question are in a public venue at the time. In at least one instance, they arrested a man for recording their arrest of someone else, under the wiretapping law as well as for disturbing the peace and aiding the escape of a prisoner.

It wasn't long before they realized that they weren't going to win on the last point, and not terribly long before they realized they wouldn't win on the first two either. They dropped the last, and then the first two; I suppose they thought it was finished at that point.

But this man wasn't going to put up with this, so he turned around and sued them for false arrest. The police have tried to claim qualified immunity - where public officials doing their jobs in a reasonable manner aren't subject to arrests for mistakes they make over confusing points of law.

Last week, an appeals court struck down their claim of qualified immunity. As a layman, I imagine that this decision is pretty scathing, but I may be wrong. At the very least, the appeals court was decidedly clear in how it feels about this matter, which is that the citizen was well within his rights to use an obvious recording device in a public forum to record police activity, and that the officers obviously knew what was going on anyway.

Some quotes that I really enjoyed:

"officers were unhappy they were being recorded during an arrest . . . does not make a lawful exercise of a First Amendment right a crime." (This quote was from one of the earlier rulings).

The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow: is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative.

Glik filmed the defendant police officers in the Boston Common, the oldest city park in the United States and the apotheosis of a public forum. In such traditional public spaces, the rights of the state to limit the exercise of First Amendment activity are "sharply circumscribed."

This whole case has riled me as I heard about it, because one of the things that I've learned about photography and recordings is that if you're in a public venue without any reasonable expectation of privacy, then you don't have any expectation of privacy. However, it seems like the police were wanting more protections for themselves, which is a concept that worries me. As I mentioned in the opening, recordings such as these have, on occasion, revealed brutalities by police officers, which is an important function to prevent a police state. (And that's pretty well said within that decision by the court.)

All in all, I was laughing in happiness both when I first heard about this on Friday night, and when I read the ruling this morning. I'm glad that the courts are agreeing that citizen oversight of police actions in a public forum is not a crime.

meadmaker @ 2011-08-28T12:40:00

2011-08-28T16:40:44Z

I just saw a tree across the street, smoking. I think it's from touching some power lines. I just called 911 about it, and the conversation went pretty much like this:

911: "911, your call will be recorded. What is your emergency?"
Me: "Hi, I see a tree across the street..."
tigira notices that there is a fire response SUV pulling up to it...
Me: "Nevermind, the fire department just pulled up. Sorry for wasting your time."

It's nice to have emergency responders, doubly so when they're on top of their game.

An afternoon with the little guy

2011-08-20T20:49:29Z

My son is being an absolute joy this afternoon. He started out after lunch asking to head to Monkey Joe's, which is a place with a bunch of bouncy castles. Being suspicious hat he would change his fickle mind (or "get a new brain", as he used to call it), I put it off for a while. After a while it became clear that he wasn't forgetting the idea, so off we went.

He just demanded that I get up from the bench where I'm typing away on my laptop (adults aren't allowed on the equipment) and watch him go down one of the larger slides. This is a little bit of a milestone, since he's had a couple of events that make him afraid of heights occasionally. After he reached the end of the slide, I congratulated him on it, and he demanded that I catch him as he jumped off the raised platform into my arms. I spun around for a couple of minutes, just hugging him, as he told me that he loves me.

That was entirely worth the trip. I'm glad that I let him convince me.

Scenics

2011-06-15T19:56:24Z

Over the last week, I've created a couple of photos that I'd like to share with the class.

Anisquam Light, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

First up is this photo of Annisquam Light, on Cape Ann, Massachusetts. While the original photograph was unremarkable, it did supply a photo of the lighthouse that was easy to isolate and work with, which I did while tuning into an internet workshop over the weekend. This workshop focused on adding textures to an image, which is the perfect treatment for a location like this.

Boston at Sunset, a photo by meadmaker on Flickr.

The second photo is an image of part of the Boston skyline, as seen from the Children's Museum at Fort Point Park. This is actually several images combined into one in a technique known as HDR, which happened to work really well on this occasion. It caught a perfect transition between sunlight from the fading dusk and the artificial lights of the city, with a reflection of both.

February print photo competition

2011-01-31T15:55:54Z

Last night I printed out a trio of images for the February print competition at my photo club. One of them has a pair of models, and I don't want to post that here. The other two are:

Lily in Repose

Fire Cave

Click through to see a slightly more detailed description. Thoughts and comments are welcome!

CORRECTED TIME: Saturday Bagels

2011-01-14T22:11:51Z

I incorrectly posted earlier that our door opens for Saturday morning bagels at Arisia starting at 8:00. Instead we're open from 7:30 until panels start on Saturday.

We're in room 646, which is all the way at the end of the hallway for the 6th floor. I think this is the quiet floor, so try not to be too loud coming down the hall.

See you there!

Bagels

2011-01-14T04:19:03Z

This weekend is arisia, and the ever-lovely tigira and I will be hosting a Saturday morning breakfast of bagels and cream cheese again. Any of my friends attending arisia is invited!

We'll again be featuring Kupel's bagels. This year we failed in making our cream cheese ourselves, but we did still mix up our own flavors for the cream cheese. You can choose from:

Plain
Strawberry
Roasted Garlic
Honey Cinnamon
Chive - from the Egyptian walking onions that we grew in our backyard garden last year

If you comment on this post, I'll make sure to tell you what room we'll be in, once we find out tomorrow. See you there!

ETA: We're opening our door from ~~8am to 10am~~ on Saturday morning.
ETA 2: Our door is actually open at 7:30 until panels start. I'm a doufus.

Zombie Gingerbread Man

2010-12-13T12:37:08Z

Zombie Gingerbread Man
Originally uploaded by meadmaker

Yesterday, tigira and our son made some gingerbread cookies. Unfortunately, the head fell of one of them while it was coming off the cookie sheet, so I now present to you:

Zombie Gingerbread Man
Run! Run!
As fast as you can!
I'm coming for your brains!
I'm the zombie gingerbread man!

... what else are you going to do when you accidentally decapitate one of your gingerbread men?

Features:
* Decapitation
* Green face showing decompisition
* Glowing red eyes
* White (button-down) shirt
* Blood flowing over the white shirt from the decapitation
* White hair, except where there's another head wound
* Mouth that's a mix between frothy white of rabies and red of more blood

October photo competition

2010-10-26T14:40:29Z

My photography club's competition season has started up again, and October was its first month. The club has two competitions that it runs, projected and printed. Last year I only entered the projected image competitions, but this year I'm adding in the printed competitions as well. I can enter up to three photos in each.

For the printed competition, I entered three photos. One of them was a portrait of a teenaged girl, so I don't quite feel right about posting it here. The other two are here:

Pink Rose

Drop II

I received an honorable mention for all three submissions.

For the projected competition, I entered another three, but again I'm only posting two.

Misty Lake

Check

These three were pretty well murdered in the competition. However, the club has acknowledged that the judging for this particular competition was pretty horrible, so this month's competition as a whole had its weight reduced down to 1/3 of its original weight.

My son is a walking pile of id

2010-09-12T12:50:01Z

Here's a sample conversation from my house this morning:

Son:: I wanna buy this!
tigira:: We can't! We already have one.
Son:: Oh, yeah! Yaaaaaaaay!

This is fairly typical for him - at this stage in his life, he wants everything.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

2010-08-07T23:26:59Z

... it seems that tigira and I get to figure that out, since I just saw a woodchuck (AKA groundhog) scurry underneath our back porch. According to wikipedia, we have a smörgåsbord of food for him - straw, grasses, berries, grubs, etc.

I'm currently deciding how much this bothers me, and whether I feel a need to drive him away from our house. Do any of you have experience with these animals?

Pirates

2010-08-02T11:04:43Z

My family was driving home from a birthday party yesterday, and my son was playing in the back seat with his toy pirate ship (a brigantine), chanting.

Son: Yo ho ho
Yo ho ho
Us want treasure!
Us want treasure!
tigira: We.
We want treasure.
Son: Them zombie pirates! Them choose wrong words!

Differing takes on minors

2010-07-30T15:18:55Z

Early this week I heard a couple of different takes on how we perceive minors in this country. The first take was part of a WBUR Radio Boston episode about juvenile justice. I only caught part of it as I was driving my son to the zoo, but there was one person in particular who was strongly in favor of harsh sentences for juveniles convicted of violent crimes. This would include sentences like life without the possibility of parole for a sixteen year old, and presumably that could apply to younger people as well.

The second thing that I heard was a story about Warren Jeffs, the person who was arrested as an accomplice to rape, convicted, and recently won a new trial in Utah. Ignoring any particulars of the trial itself, the charges stem from statutory rape of a fourteen year old.

This struck me as a fascinating contrast to the stance I had heard the previous day. Statutory rape is predicated on the idea that a juvenile isn't capable of making responsible, adult decisions about sexual activity; any adult involved sexually with a juvenile is therefore involved in sexual activity with someone who does not consent (because that someone cannot consent). In contrast to that, the guest on the first program was very insistent that juveniles should be held responsible for their decisions as part of the U.S. justice system.

I wonder how the guest on the first show would reconcile the ideas that (a) juveniles are responsible for decisions in the justice system, but (b) juveniles are not capable of making decisions for themselves in sexual matters. Maybe the guest would say that a violent crime makes the difference? Maybe the guest wouldn't see the two as similar? Maybe the guest would suggest that statutory rape not be applied to a fourteen-year-old, since punishments should?

Go to your room!

2010-04-24T23:10:36Z

My sweetie and my son were goofing on Doctor Who this morning:

meadmaker @ 2010-03-01T22:51:00

2010-03-02T03:51:19Z

View Poll: #1532495

Kendall at Twilight

2010-03-02T03:45:40Z

Kendall at Twilight
Originally uploaded by meadmaker

This photo was taken from a window in my office around dusk, looking toward Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA. That Klingon Embassy on the left is the US Department of Transportation. Dead Center is 1 Broadway, home of such companies as Ambient Technologies.

Shot with a polarizing filter through a glass window. The sky was given some added contrast in post-production, and had some noise removed where the window panes had dust.

Lusty Pea Hen

2010-03-02T03:45:06Z

Lusty Pea Hen
Originally uploaded by meadmaker

This pea hen (a female peacock) became quite enthralled with me while my lovely wife and I honeymooned around Merida, Mexico, in October of 2009. As my wife pointed out to me, I wore a navy blue shirt with a pattern of a brighter blue on it, and kept taking pictures of her - showing off a huge eye of a lens, from her perspective. She tried to be demure, then she tried to chase me.