Conventions

Make It So: Code At Cons

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Discussion Communication

Coding is vitally important in our high-tech world. It’s not just a skill you use in a career, but something that is vital for empowering people. Being able to do a web page on your own, making a helpful macro, understanding a script is the key to using modern tools and understanding how the world works. I’m guessing you’ve coded at least a little bit if you’re reading it -just think what you wouldn’t know without it.

Imagine every time you have to explain something technical to someone with no experience.  Imagine how disempowered they are.

This is why I’m glad to see organizations and events promoting coding, such as:

So I got thinking. Coding is important. We’re geeks and we probably know it or should know it. We’d like to empower our fellow geeks – and ourselves.

There’s something we can do, and I want to suggest we Make It So.

We need to hold Learn To Code Events at conventions.

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Geek As Citizen: Science Awareness

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Scientist Scope Technology Science

Neil deGrasse Tyson gives me hope. And not just that a relatively nerdy guy can become an intellectual sex symbol (according CERTAIN people in my twitter feed). It’s that we can make paying attention and knowing science cool again. Because we need to, and the remade Cosmos is a great start.

It seems as of late science isn’t cool.

  • Of course there’s climate change, where apparently 97% of scientists agreeing about it leaves room for controversy, especially if fat donations and speaking gigs can be wedged into that room.
  • There’s the disgusting anti-vaccination crusade that means we get measles back to kill our kids. There’s a nice story of leaving the anti-vaxx movement here or you can just stew in anger over the body count site whose URL mocks Jenny Mc Carthy.
  • Abstinence only education doesn’t work, though people still seem to think talking about it will convince people it does. Having been a teenager and remembering it, and looking at the numbers, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

We probably need to clone Neil deGrasse Tyson (Ok, you folks on Twitter, calm down, you know who you are). But baring the possibility of using dark technology to create an Army of Tysons* it’s up to us to enhance science awareness.

It’d kind of be par for the course.

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Make It So: The Convention Repository

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Awhile ago I interviewed Jeremy Brett and Lauren Schiller who were working on a fandom/filk archive. Of course I recommend you go back, read it if you haven’t, then donate a lot of stuff to them. Go on. I’ll wait.

OK, so welcome back. Anyway, I figured that the benefits of this geek archiving are obvious. But just to list them for the sake of completion:

  1. We do a lot of stuff as fans, geeks, otaku.
  2. This is part of our history, our cultural history, and indeed culture history period.
  3. We should really preserve it.
  4. Are you really going to do anything with that pile of ‘zines?

This, in turn, gave me an idea of for a Make It So . . .

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