This is somewhat fragmentary, because I'm writing it two weeks after the fact.
I woke fairly early Saturday, got a cup of tea at Michelangelo's, and then went to the Farmer's Market. I bought some smoked trout, nibbled it on a bench while drinking tea, and then got a key lime bar and ate it on another bench. I shared the first bench with someone who observed that he could sit all day and people-watch there. I also bought a bunch of cut lily-of-the-valley, which scented my hotel room nicely for the rest of the weekend, and a bright tie-dyed hoodie. I hadn't planned to buy clothes, but I had been wanting a light-weight jacket, and a person can get tired of black. After putting the flowers and hoodie in my room, I took the fish to the con suite, where I asked someone if I could share her table, and offered her fish. We chatted and ate trout (and whatever she'd already grabbed from the con suite), and then shared the rest with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
erik. A bit of a splurge, but given that I need protein, a reasonable one: I spent significantly more on an omelet for breakfast in the hotel restaurant the following day.
Saturday lunch was with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bibliofile, one of my Madison-area friends; we just wandered up State Street and wound up in a Tibetan place. I was lured in by a sign advertising yak meat, which I'd never had; I've still never had it, because they didn't have it yet. My food was indifferent, but the conversation was good, and we stopped at Pachuco for gelato afterwards.
After lunch I went to the panel on "Evolving Animal Intelligence," which was quite good. It was mostly a discussion of the different things intelligence might mean, and what actual animals come close to showing it. Some comparison of tool use and social intelligence. If I recall correctly, the emphasis was on non-primates: birds, especially corvids; some on cetaceans and cephalopods. It was pointed out that birds and primates (and elephants) all learn from their parents; squid and octopuses don't, which probably limits things, and would probably make it harder for us to communicate with them, because they're likely to have much less practice and motivation for communication. Someone suggested that any discussion of social insect communication should treat the hive, not the individual bee or ant, as the communicating entity: bee dances are internal, not ways for a bee from one hive to communicate with bees from other hives, so they probably wouldn't be usable as the basis for organisms of other species to communicate with bees.
I spent a bunch of time this Wiscon withashnistrike, her wife Nameseeker, and some friends of theirs (Brin, Gary, and I don't remember other names, or handles)*; we were a large group at the tapas place Saturday evening, and a smaller one for sushi lunch on Sunday. The tapas were mostly very good; we each ordered specific things, then traded or passed around tastes. (The fresh anchovies lived up to my memory from last year, and I had some really good short ribs; on the other hand, my seafood soup had over-salty broth.) Lots of good conversation, including some comparisons of experiences of being mis-gendered by random strangers. It transpired that while said strangers tend to be apologetic, as well as flustered when the person who is called by the wrong honorific doesn't react, the apologies are stronger when it's a man called "ma'am" or "you ladies" to a mixed-gender pair than when a woman is called "sir." Unsurprising once observed: both that maleness is higher-status, so a man in that situation is being "demoted" where a woman isn't, but an angry woman is less likely to be read as a threat than an angry man.
We went back to the hotel after dinner, settled down in the lobby, and talked for another hour and a half or so. This meant I missed most of the auction, but I didn't mind, and did stop by there for a little while when our conversation broke up.
We also talked a bunch about medical stuff: some personal aspects, but also more general things to do with some things Brin has observed at her work, and some good news I hadn't known about rabies vaccines and treatment. (Brin said the post-exposure vaccination series is much less painful than it used to be, and that there is an actual preventive vaccine good enough that it's routine for American veterinarians and vet techs these days. Also, they're making some progress in treating people after the symptoms develop. "Better" is a relative term: they've got it up to a 20% survival rate, with a sample of n=10: but a few years ago, the survival rate was a flat zero, and it was news the first time someone survived rabies.)
I also spent part of the evening at parties; I went to the Haiku Earring Party, but didn't write any poetry this year, because none of the earrings appealed to me.
I think it was Saturday that I went to one of the parties and saw that they had set out melted chocolate, fondue-style, with melon slices, strawberries, and slices of cucumber. It seemed worth a try, and it was: seedless cucumber works well with chocolate fondue, at least if you like both cucumber and dark chocolate the way I do. I ate a few slices, wandered away, and when I came back and saw the rest of the cucumber apparently untouched, had some more.
*last year, I was hanging out with them, and sometimesrushthatspeaks, and nineweaving. This is starting to seem like a pleasant habit.
I woke fairly early Saturday, got a cup of tea at Michelangelo's, and then went to the Farmer's Market. I bought some smoked trout, nibbled it on a bench while drinking tea, and then got a key lime bar and ate it on another bench. I shared the first bench with someone who observed that he could sit all day and people-watch there. I also bought a bunch of cut lily-of-the-valley, which scented my hotel room nicely for the rest of the weekend, and a bright tie-dyed hoodie. I hadn't planned to buy clothes, but I had been wanting a light-weight jacket, and a person can get tired of black. After putting the flowers and hoodie in my room, I took the fish to the con suite, where I asked someone if I could share her table, and offered her fish. We chatted and ate trout (and whatever she'd already grabbed from the con suite), and then shared the rest with
erik. A bit of a splurge, but given that I need protein, a reasonable one: I spent significantly more on an omelet for breakfast in the hotel restaurant the following day.Saturday lunch was with
bibliofile, one of my Madison-area friends; we just wandered up State Street and wound up in a Tibetan place. I was lured in by a sign advertising yak meat, which I'd never had; I've still never had it, because they didn't have it yet. My food was indifferent, but the conversation was good, and we stopped at Pachuco for gelato afterwards. After lunch I went to the panel on "Evolving Animal Intelligence," which was quite good. It was mostly a discussion of the different things intelligence might mean, and what actual animals come close to showing it. Some comparison of tool use and social intelligence. If I recall correctly, the emphasis was on non-primates: birds, especially corvids; some on cetaceans and cephalopods. It was pointed out that birds and primates (and elephants) all learn from their parents; squid and octopuses don't, which probably limits things, and would probably make it harder for us to communicate with them, because they're likely to have much less practice and motivation for communication. Someone suggested that any discussion of social insect communication should treat the hive, not the individual bee or ant, as the communicating entity: bee dances are internal, not ways for a bee from one hive to communicate with bees from other hives, so they probably wouldn't be usable as the basis for organisms of other species to communicate with bees.
I spent a bunch of time this Wiscon with
ashnistrike, her wife Nameseeker, and some friends of theirs (Brin, Gary, and I don't remember other names, or handles)*; we were a large group at the tapas place Saturday evening, and a smaller one for sushi lunch on Sunday. The tapas were mostly very good; we each ordered specific things, then traded or passed around tastes. (The fresh anchovies lived up to my memory from last year, and I had some really good short ribs; on the other hand, my seafood soup had over-salty broth.) Lots of good conversation, including some comparisons of experiences of being mis-gendered by random strangers. It transpired that while said strangers tend to be apologetic, as well as flustered when the person who is called by the wrong honorific doesn't react, the apologies are stronger when it's a man called "ma'am" or "you ladies" to a mixed-gender pair than when a woman is called "sir." Unsurprising once observed: both that maleness is higher-status, so a man in that situation is being "demoted" where a woman isn't, but an angry woman is less likely to be read as a threat than an angry man. We went back to the hotel after dinner, settled down in the lobby, and talked for another hour and a half or so. This meant I missed most of the auction, but I didn't mind, and did stop by there for a little while when our conversation broke up.
We also talked a bunch about medical stuff: some personal aspects, but also more general things to do with some things Brin has observed at her work, and some good news I hadn't known about rabies vaccines and treatment. (Brin said the post-exposure vaccination series is much less painful than it used to be, and that there is an actual preventive vaccine good enough that it's routine for American veterinarians and vet techs these days. Also, they're making some progress in treating people after the symptoms develop. "Better" is a relative term: they've got it up to a 20% survival rate, with a sample of n=10: but a few years ago, the survival rate was a flat zero, and it was news the first time someone survived rabies.)
I also spent part of the evening at parties; I went to the Haiku Earring Party, but didn't write any poetry this year, because none of the earrings appealed to me.
I think it was Saturday that I went to one of the parties and saw that they had set out melted chocolate, fondue-style, with melon slices, strawberries, and slices of cucumber. It seemed worth a try, and it was: seedless cucumber works well with chocolate fondue, at least if you like both cucumber and dark chocolate the way I do. I ate a few slices, wandered away, and when I came back and saw the rest of the cucumber apparently untouched, had some more.
*last year, I was hanging out with them, and sometimes
rushthatspeaks, and nineweaving. This is starting to seem like a pleasant habit.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
really?
nice seeing you a-wandering through the con, sorry didn't stop and share tea.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Errata: Nameseeker signs comments from my account under that name, but does not have a journal of her own. The Nameseeker with a journal is someone else entirely.
From:
no subject