Dragon Con—Log Supplemental II—CNN

Dragon Con was held in Atlanta. I so wanted to stay in one of the three main con hotels, but I was shut out. I ended up booking in the Omni Hotel. It happens to adjoin CNN headquarters.

They have tours for a reasonable price, so I signed up for one. But first, here’s what part of their food court looks like. Yes, they own the Cartoon Network.

Each bear is about the size of a person on all fours

Not only is that the CNN globe, but that’s a narrow escalator leading up to it. It’s the longest open-air escalator in the country. And that’s what we took to start the tour.

The tour truly was behind-the-scenes. We saw the set for Headline News—CNN owns HLN. The regular morning anchor wasn’t there; it was the weekend host. She wasn’t on camera at the moment, so she waved at us through thick glass. She chatted with the guy in charge of the robocams—huge cameras that moved by remote control.

We were not allowed to take any pictures inside, so we were free to gaze down from a balcony at their newsroom. It looked like any open-air office with cubicles, but with large monitors. Our guide pointed out which desks covered foreign news. They receive news feeds from all over the world and decide what to put on the air.

A particular news studio was incredibly cramped. It showcased smaller segments for CNN, like their medical show. Our guide explained how one man operated all the lights in this studio. I think it was over seventy.

This clip gives you an idea of how cramped some of their studios are. If you don’t like one side or the other of the politics involved, just watch with the sound off.

So this brings me to a short segment from my science fiction novel, Alpha Shift. It’s a minor detail, but one producer operates all the cameras. Knowing that one man runs a multitude of cameras in the present day gives me affirmation. Here, the producer comes out in the open because she wants to meet a celebrity. Is it a good idea?

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Terrence ignored the baritone reply and linked his hardcel to the monitor in the corridor to the left, through which Halak had entered. The four assistants from the shuttle loitered there—by coincidence, the same number as their remaining bridge crew: security guard, tech specialist, makeup artist, and producer. The producer—who looked insect-like with her headset, eyepiece, and large microphone stem—normally was back in the control room behind the cameras, using voice commands to operate them and give them signals, but was so eager to meet Halak that she had emerged and was operating the cameras by remote control.

Something strategic. The four assistants had gradually shifted so each one was behind or beside one of their crew.

Dragon Con—Log Supplemental I

Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia, is billed as the largest science fiction/fantasy/gaming/comics convention in the world. I went there for the first time. Also, believe it or not, I used Uber for the first time. I never had need of it before, but it’s much cheaper than those airport shuttles.

I had planned out just about every hour of my stay there in great (but not neurotic) detail on a Word document. But I concentrated so much on summoning Uber correctly, I walked out the door and left all my schedule and all my notepaper behind—including my two no. 2 ½ pencils!

But I did make it to the SeaTac Airport. No, this was not the plane I flew, but a marvelous display of a real plane inside the airport.

I had enough of my schedule memorized, and Dragon Con had sent me a link to their massive program list, so after some feverish work I managed to recreate my schedule using a notepad from the hotel store and a hotel pen.

Sample Page - click to enlarge

The convention was so gigantic, it completely booked three massive hotels, as well as having events at a couple of other hotels and other buildings. Here is a beautiful piece of art in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis.

The lobbies were jammed. You might see people in costume, or just some lone figure amidst the bustle.

On a similar theme, here’s a stormtrooper and son.

Sometimes a child will have political differences from his father, but that’s okay. 

I saw Harley Quinn there.

A girl needs to get some coffee, right?

Also, Leeloo from The Fifth Element.

They were both dressed for the heat, which was in the upper 80s or 90 degrees, with a good amount of humidity. Because of that, I didn’t stand around for the Dragon Con Parade. But the police were out in force to make sure everyone had a safe time.

They seemed highly amused by the all the cosplayers.

Inside, I confess I didn’t expect to see these gentlemen.

You might decipher from my hand-written schedule that one of the people I wanted to see was John Hemry, who writes by the pen name of Jack Campbell. He’s my favorite author, and I’ve spoken to him at a number of Worldcons. Since I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, I didn’t expect him to recognize me. But though I sat several rows back from where he was speaking on a panel, he spotted me in the audience and waved to me.

For such an accomplished author, he’s a friendly guy and very approachable. You might check out his latest series, The Genesis Fleet.

[Permission granted to use any photo on this post, so long as it is labeled “Photo by Mark Murata”]

Dragon Con—Writers Conference II

I forgot to mention in my previous post—about the writers conference—that Jody Lynn Nye brought in professionals to give us expert opinion about the real world of writing.

First was Anne Sowards, an editor at Ace Books. I met her several years ago at a Worldcon. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of her, since it would be outré to take pictures during the conference.

We also had Lucienne Diver, an agent at the Knight Agency. I do have a picture of her from a Worldcon in 2011.

We also had S.M. Stirling speak. Because of an alternate history he’s written, he was quite the expert on Theodore Roosevelt, regaling us with interesting trivia.

All in all, this was a series of experts who were able to answer our questions about this most quirky of careers.

Dragon Con—Writers Conference

Dragon Con in Atlanta is billed as the largest science fiction/fantasy convention in the country. The main reason I went was to attend a two-day writers conference hosted by Jody Lynn Nye, a writer I respect. I took along a copy of The Monster Hunter Files for her to autograph. It’s a collection of short stories, and she wrote one of the entries, though this version of the cover doesn’t show her name.

Ms. Nye ran the conference in the traditional style: We had each submitted about the first twenty-five pages of a novel, or a short story. We each wrote down our critiques, either as summary statements or notes on pages. Then one aspiring writer would sit quietly while the other twenty students read or stated from memory their critiques. Then Ms. Nye would give her more extended critique.

This is a very enlightening method. Having to come up with honest critiques of the other writers sharpens one’s own game. And listening to the others helps to crystalize certain thoughts. Ms. Nye gave very detailed critiques of some of us that had a better a chance of getting published, and I think that was her way of pushing us through the last mile.

Galaxy J7

So I finally bought a new smartphone. I was going to get the original Google Pixel, but reviews said sales were collapsing because users found it hard to manage. I then browsed the older Galaxy S models, but they can be sold by third parties that get terrible reviews on Amazon.

Along the way, I saw some Galaxy J models that were a lot less expensive than the S models, so I turned my nose up at the cheap things.

Looking at multiple reviews, I began to see the sense of the J models. Instead of being the flagship Galaxy S models, they were midline, workable phones that had what I needed without being the latest shiny object. Advertised for 219.99, I managed to get it for a little less when the clerk at the BestBuy brought up a discount. Of course I’ll get the protective case, since my manager recently dropped her S9 into soft dirt, and the screen got a spiderweb crack.

When I say finally, you may not believe what my previous phone was. It had the Microsoft operating system. Some of you will say, “There’s no such thing . . . oh, right.” My friend Kelly introduced me to it years ago, saying it worked just like the commercials said it did. It was the shiny new thing. But years went by. People stopped making apps for it. And it couldn’t download any Android or Apple apps.

So I’ve finally modernized.

Wonder Woman at Children’s Hospital

Here’s a nice moment in the midst of all the chaos in society. Gal Gadot is filming her second Wonder Woman movie. Between takes, she stopped by Inova Children’s Hospital in Fairfax, VA in full costume to visit some of the children.

tweeted by Kelly Swink Sahady July 6 at 12:12 pm

Sorry, guys. She’s married and has two children.

Lego my Patriotism

This is a little late, but Lego has done an outstanding job of building incredibly detailed replicas of historic American buildings. Let’s start with the Capitol, which houses Congress.

I think most Americans are familiar with a front view of the Capitol. So above is a side view.

And above is a back view. See the incredible detail?

This is Independence Hall, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Notice they included the external halls.

Both the United States Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and adopted in this building.

Now for something timely: The U.S. Supreme Court. 

They included the bas-reliefs at the top of the arch. (Click to enlarge.) You can just imagine interns running out with the latest Supreme Court decisions.

The back view, which I don’t think I had ever seen before.

So, happy 4^th of July weekend!

Plastic—Recycle or Landfill?

So a lot of you conscientiously throw your plastic bottles and other waste into recycling bins, not the garbage. But a new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation argues that this harms the environment. How?

photo by NOAA

It turns out that most recycling materials from America and Europe get shipped to China and other Asian countries. They certainly recycle a portion of it, but they can’t use everything we send to them. They end up burning huge amounts or dumping them in the ocean.

So the next time you take a bag of plastic bottles and other recyclables out, you would be wise to ponder whether it is better to put them in the recycling bin, or toss them in the garbage—from there to be used in landfills to make uneven land useful for development.

The synopsis of the report is here.

You can read the full paper here.

Review of Martians Abroad

Polly is part of the thriving Colony One on Mars. She dreams of piloting a starship one day and has her internships lined up. But her mother abruptly informs Polly and her twin brother Charles they are being sent to Earth for their education.

To Earth? Earth is old, grubby, and stifling.

Shaken, Polly wants to stay on Mars and get back into her cancelled internships. But their mother dangles in front of her the prospect of getting into a piloting program upon graduation from the Earth academy. Besides, they have no choice. They leave in two weeks.

Carrie Vaughn’s Martians Abroad is an impressive story. Polly is not a whiny brat, neither is she a superwoman, but she is smart and bold as she gets thrown into one challenge after another. Look at the excellent cover above. Mars’ gravity is only one third of ours, so Polly grew up tall and thin. Notice how slender her torso and limbs are. As she approaches Earth, she knows she’ll have difficulty moving around in a gravity three times what she’s used to.

Her brother Charles is a genius—not just in theoretical matters, but in detecting plots against them. Yes, there are plots. Not just physical difficulty, not just some semi-bullying by elite Earth students, but some actual hostility—a rockslide here, a kidnapping there. What is going on?

Martians Abroad is an enjoyable read for teens on up. For more on the author Carrie Vaughn, click here.