I'm at the Worldcon. Well, not at the moment. I'm commuting, as it's
*not* a 24-hour con, so there's nowhere to hang out all night and maybe surreptitiously catch some Zs. (I remember one con where I fell asleep
in a panel about dinosaurs, and slept through most of the Mesozoic.)

I'm a little dismayed that the con suite was only open from 6 pm to
8:30 pm on the first day of the con (Wednesday). Curiously, the
program book makes no mention whatsoever of the con suite. Fans for
whom this is their first con won't know it exists.

At other cons, people were asked not to remove food from the con
suite, but to eat it there. At this con, people are asked the
opposite -- remove food from the con suite and eat it elsewhere
(unless they're somehow able to eat it without removing their mask,
which at least one person was).

I find it hard to recognize people at the con, given the masks, the
dim lighting, and the small print on the name badges.

Who else here is attending?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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I made it to the Worldcon. The Amtrak train was only an hour late
starting out, took only 16.5 hours to get to Chicago, and didn't have
Wi-Fi. But it did have a power outlet for my laptop.

And I managed to get almost an hour of sleep on the train. After 10
pm they turned off the bright white lights and turned on blue lights
that are dimmer, but still bright enough to read by. Blue light is
supposed to be conducive to sleep, right?

Con registration asked me to show my vaccine card and a picture ID.
I showed the former. When I was fishing through my pockets for the
latter, I pulled out my badge for the previous Chicon, ten years
earlier. As soon as she saw it, she said that's fine, and handed me
my new badge.

I've been working on move-in and setup since I got here four hours
ago. There's less to do than at most cons this size, since Chicago
is a union city -- there's lots of things fans aren't allowed to do
themselves, lest the unions call a General Strike and bring down
western civilization.

The con is in the same hotel as last time. They boast that this hotel
has not only hosted more Worldcons than any other hotel in the world,
but has also hosted more Worldcons than any other *city* in the world.
If only the Wi-Fi worked in both towers, such as the one the con
suite is in. Here in the correct (west) tower, I get just two bars. Fortunately, it lets me ssh into panix, so that's more than enough.
(The DC Union Station Wi-Fi didn't let me ssh. I could get a Panix
prompt via Safari, but doing it that way was painfully slow.)

Who else on this newsgroup is here? Is anyone hosting an at-sign party?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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On 8/31/22 2:32 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

I made it to the Worldcon. The Amtrak train was only an hour late
starting out, took only 16.5 hours to get to Chicago, and didn't have
Wi-Fi. But it did have a power outlet for my laptop.

Sounds good so far. Is there still such a thing as at-sign parties? Is
there anyone at the con who doesn't have an email address?


--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:18:00 PM UTC-4, Gary McGath wrote:

On 8/31/22 2:32 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

I made it to the Worldcon. The Amtrak train was only an hour late
starting out, took only 16.5 hours to get to Chicago, and didn't have Wi-Fi. But it did have a power outlet for my laptop.

Sounds good so far. Is there still such a thing as at-sign parties? Is
there anyone at the con who doesn't have an email address?

What would be the gating factor, with email being pretty damn near
universal?

Quiz them?

1. Name 3 SF related Usenet groups.
2. What was SF-Lovers?
3. Why is this called an at-sign party?
4. ?

pt

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Keith F. Lynch <[email protected]> wrote:

Who else on this newsgroup is here? Is anyone hosting an at-sign party?

I'm working Plaza. I haven't seen an at-bang party since Digex hosted
one at Balticon in '93.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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Gary McGath <[email protected]> wrote:

Is there still such a thing as at-sign parties?

Probably not. But I miss them.

Is there anyone at the con who doesn't have an email address?

People are more diverse in nearly every way that most people realize,
so I'd be astonished if there is not one person here who doesn't have
an email address. Especially if you count people who technically have
one, but aren't aware of it and never check it. Lots of younger people
send and receive texts and tweets, but never emails. And lots of not-
so-young people gave up on email years ago when it exceeded 99% spam,
malware, blowback, immense gibberish attachments, and other junk.

Setup is pretty much finished, the con suite closed for the night at
8 pm (!), and there are no room parties and nothing going on. The con
doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but I think there ought to be something to do and someplace to be for those of us who showed up a
day early to help move in and set up.

Around sunset I went to the Apple Store a short walk from the hotel in
search of a replacement MagSafe charger for my 12-year-old MacBook.
Not a MagSafe 2 charger, like the one the MicroCenter near my home
sold me last week, but a MagSafe charger. It was expensive, but I
found and bought one, even though the store is much smaller than it
looks in Google Street View. It's about the same size as the Apple
Store at Tysons that I can walk to from home in about an hour. By
going to Chicago, I saved myself a trip to the Tysons mall.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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