Blue Collar Scientist

TAM 5.5 is officially over - well over. I’m in the airport in Jacksonville, Florida, and this is the first fully working internet I’ve had since the beginning of TAM.

The event was outstanding. It was a tightly-scheduled affair, and Amazingly (pun intended) the schedule was kept to almost perfectly.

The “How To Be Heard” workshop on Friday was, somewhat surprisingly to many of the people who had signed up for it, substantially about podcasting. Most of the attendees that I spoke to expected it to have more about blogging and other non-podcast manifestations of publishing. But it was well run by Mr. Farkas, Brian Dunning, and the skepchick, and was chock full of useful information. It is the only place I’ve ever seen a simple summary of podcasting technology, including microphones, along with a straightforward explanation of the options and their implications. But Brian Dunning had probably the most important thing to say at the workshop, which involved time management and what you have to do to successfully put together a podcast. The time investment is not inconsiderable.

That evening, there was a dinner and reception, and I snagged a table with two or three other strangers. After a few minutes, Mike Stackpole came over with a plate full of chicken wings and sat down right next to me. For the next 45 minutes the five or so of us at the table chatted with him, and unbeknownst to us, he was giving us a sneak-preview of his talk the following day.

On Saturday, Kelly Jolkowski gave a talk about avoiding psychic predators. It was a truly outstanding presentation on the predatory and damaging practices of psychics who take advantage of aggrieved people in order to generate fees. As if getting bilked out of money isn’t bad enough, in some cases psychics have led to the expenditure of enormous resources during searches for missing persons which could much better have been spent on proven investigative methods.

Mark Roberts then gave one of the best presentations of the weekend, about 9/11 conspiracy theorists. I simply don’t have much to say about this - as Mark pointed out, some these people have strong political and financial agendas, and their allegations don’t pass even the most simple of ‘bullshit’ tests.

The panel discussion on podcasts was perhaps the most forgettable part of TAM.

Rebecca Watson’s talk, “Get Off Your Lazy Can and Do Something,” did not really conform to what the title suggested. Rather than a talk about activism techniques and motivating remarks, it was more of an explanation of what she had to go through to get her radio show. It was still quite enjoyable.

Alison Smith then gave a five-minute talk about that obnoxious ghost hunting show, which was probably the best five minutes of TAM.

Robert Lancaster then gave an outstanding talk about the Stop Sylvia Browne website, and a simple way to extend the model to other obnoxious parasites.

Chris Cordero, who purported to have the psychic power to transmit information to another mind, was to have been tested for the Million-Dollar Challenge, but he didn’t show. As it happens, I psychically predicted that would happen. As a result, that part of the schedule was devoted to some discussion of the Challenge and a Q&A session with the people most involved in it.

Mike Stackpole then gave what is widely thought to have been the best presentation of TAM, about how to argue and interact with believers of woo in such a way that you win over the hearts (first) and minds (later) of people who are undecided about false beliefs. It was an excellent, pragmatic, technique-based talk, and TAM 5.5, whose theme was “activism and skepticism,” could have used two or three more talks along the same lines.

Randi then gave an entertaining speech, substantially about Uri Geller, some of which I’ve echoed on the Twitter feed.

On Saturday night, Skepchick sponsored a large, noisy party at the hotel next door. After talking to a hell of a lot of people well into the morning, I went back to my room and back to bed.

The following morning there was an open house at the JREF Headquarters, which is a nice building of sufficient size for a small business, full of eclectic objects and neat sciency-type demonstrations. Randi was holding court in the library and demonstrated a few of the same ‘tricks’ that I do for high school classes, notably dropping a powerful magnet through a copper pipe. (If you’ve never seen it, you won’t believe it.)

After that a bunch of us went to Anthony’s Coal-Fired Pizza, a famous joint (the pizza was good, but not quite up to the place’s reputation), and I managed to sit myself down next to Mike Stackpole again. This time a lot of the discussion was about fiction writing, something I find fascinating, since I’m quite incompetent about it.

I spent most of the afternoon Sunday hanging out on the patio by the pool with a bunch of other people, and then went with some of them to a Japanese restaurant, where I had the most enormous serving of sashimi that I think I’ve ever had, for the concerningly low price of $18. I didn’t get sick, so it was well-spent.

This morning I flew out, and am now laying over, sort of, in Jacksonville, where I finally have some decent internet. I have to go get some actual work done, so I’ll leave this entry short and sweet - sorry, no time to place links to the many deserving people who presented at TAM. (Google will easily turn them up, though.) I’m glad I went, and the bottom line is, if you are a skeptic, you will probably have a ball at these things.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under TAM 5.5. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.