Penguicon wrapup

You might have thought that I'd be reasonably net-connected during a "Science Fiction and Open Source Software Convention", but no. There were a few issues with the Penguicon wireless, but really I just had more interesting things to do with my time. A few especially memorable tidbits:

• Tom Smith's music is a lot of fun.
• Great panel with four authors (Tobias S. Buckell, Jim C. Hines, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Steve Piziks) discussing the Google Books settlement. Take home messages: Authors like the goal but loathe how Google pursued it; the process behind the current settlement had massive flaws that may get the whole thing thrown out; one cause of the mess is stupidly extended US copyright law.
• I played (and won) a game of Munchkin with Eric S. Raymond (among other people).

This was my first con, so a fair bit of the experience was just getting oriented to how the whole thing worked. (Important hint: Figure out which panel/event rooms are small, and get to those early.) I went to a lot of nifty panels and other cool stuff (as well as some less nifty and/or cool bits), and I kinda sorta met some neat people. All in all, a positive experience, and I think I'll have an easier time getting into the swing of things at my next con.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I sadly never made it to an Open Filk night to sing my Silmarillion song. There was always something else fun at the same time, and they'd always wrapped up by the time I was free. Maybe next con. (I'll have to polish up a backing track a bit more next time, anyway: Audacity seems great for that, so thanks, minorninth!)