M46 Programming

Brainstorming!

We're still collecting ideas for Minicon 46 programming. Send us your ideas at programming@minicon46.mnstf.org!

Minicon 46 Programming Ideas

What we already have:

Music and the Brain

How does music affect the brain? How much of our reaction to music is hard-wired and how much is cultural? What is the relationship between music and memory? Did human beings sing before they spoke? I think that the sacred geometry of music and the Forbidden Interval should figure in here somewhere, but I'm not sure how. read about it here.

Music and Fandom

Musical traditions are very important in s.f. fandom, but fannish musical traditions are not all the same. Is Minnstf Music significantly different from the musical traditions in other fandoms (including other Twin Cities cons)? How has fannish music evolved over time?

Beer Brewing and Wine Making

Lots of fans like to drink beer, and quite a few of them like to make their own. So let's have a panel about home brewing. Ideally, this panel will have a range of experience and brewing styles. Who uses malt extract? Who does a full boil? What are the advantages and disadvantages of dry hopping? Bottling or kegging? How about fruit beers and ciders? What's the best use for spent grain? What are your favorite local suppliers, and what do you like about those? Could this panel be followed by a tasting in the bar?

Arts Vs. Crafts

For those who produce works of both sorts, what distinguishes art from craft? when does craft transcend its defining characteristics to be counted as art? Why do we distinguish art as a separate category? For those who specialize in one area or the other, how does craft improve art, art inform craft?

Shakespeare in the Bush

Suppose you were swapping stories with a group of friendly extraterrestrials. How hard would it be to come up with a story that resonated for an audience with a very different set of cultural expectations? Consider how well it worked for this anthropologist trying to share the story of Hamlet with an audience that agreed with her that human nature is pretty much the same everywhere, but somehow came up with a radically different interpretation of the bard's great play.

Short Stories and the people who love them

What is special about the short story format? What makes a good short story? What opportunities does a short story afford the writer and the reader? What's are some of the positive and negative issues in the short story market? What are some of our favorite collections?

Maker Resources

IKEA hacks and other DIY. Needs longer description.

Privacy Is Dead

Needs description

Linguistics

What is your favorite alien language? How does one go about constructing a language from scratch? The secret languages of twins, and are our brains hard wired that way?

Non Traditional Book Formats

Pop-ups, teenyweeny books and others. Share your favorites.

Papercraft and Origami

Show and Tell? Available at Reg Table?

Zeppelin Art

Interactive, decorate your own zeppelin. Learn about why Zeppelins are important to Minneapolis' history.

Cthulhu Art On Display

Everyone is going CRAZY about Cthulhu! Bring your favorite creation to display, and maybe you'll be among the last to be eaten.

Costume Parade

A costume parade in a similar fasion to the 2010 costume parade, only probably noisier this time.

Take It Apart

And you don't even have to put it back together!

Ask A Scientist

Panelists from various science disciplines answer questions about working in their industry, and new and upcoming discoveries. Ask a scientist anything that isn't about global climate change.

How to Destroy The Earth

No, not just how to destroy the ecosphere. That's easy. We're talking how to pulverize the entire planet. Drop a black hole through it? Dump it into the Sun? Cover it in peanut butter and let the space bugs lick it to pieces? Which way is really the most practical?

How to Save the World

A companion to "How to Destroy the Earth." Now that we broke it, how do we put it back together again?

What Happens After the Cure?

Science/Medicine/Magic Cures Everything is a common trope in SFF, especially with regard to disabilities. What stories rarely explore are the consequences of these "fixes". What personal and social implications are involved? Are there any works that do a good job of exploring these effects?

Clever and Creative Photography at Conventions

Appropriate lighting and the use of a flash, catching 'candid' shots, choosing and framing your subject, how to spot the background clutter... All of this, and more, adds up to tips to help preserve and share your convention memories. Should be in projector room; will include before- and after-style examples.

Geek Social Skills In The Workplace

What frustrations are common to geeks in the workplace? What are some of the best techniques geeks have to communicate with non-geeks? What are some tips and resources for improving communication skills with non-geeks?

Gender Roles in Fandom

How are gender roles the same or different in fandom or mainstream culture? This description should include something about how to encourage positive views of sexuality without sexualizing...

Unemployed and Geeky

This is a pretty bad economy, and a lot of us are unemployed or underemployed. How have we coped? How can we help each other?

Unsocial while Social

Being online, face-to-face. When's it rude to text? How do we manage our attentions when there are so many digital avenues available?

Keeping It Alive

Not letting books, movies, etc. that you love go away. A lot of us love works that haven't been current for a long time, but we try to keep them fresh (at least in our minds) by seeking out like-minded fans, creating fanfic, etc. What works do we choose, and how do we keep them alive?

Linux install party

Come try out different flavors of Linux on your laptop, netbook or whatever else you can lug in.

Don't Read What You're an Expert In

"How can this character be an expert on Chinese calligraphy when he doesn't even know how to pronounce 'Qing'?" Fiction on topics we know a lot about can be cringeworthy. In the extreme, glaring errors can ruin an otherwise good work. What topics set off our expertise alarms, when do we just suck it up and what (beyond infinite research) can authors do to avoid these problems?

Cthulhu for the Cold War Set

Charles Stross has adopted many old dark fantasy tropes -- Cthulhu, medusa, etc. -- to modern settings, with excellent effect. How has he done this? What are his secrets (assuming our security clearance allows us to know)?

Mundane Superhero Movies

Films and shows such as Mystery Men, Kick Ass, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, The Incredibles, Watchmen and Heroes have posed interesting questions: how would superheroes work in the real world? What would 'normal' people do with superpowers? Why has this been such a popular topic recently?

Big Bang Theory

A great geeky show -- let's geek out about it!

Zombies and other horror tropes and pride and prejudice

Why are zombies and other common horror tropes appearing in (what's considered) mainstream fiction? Where is this mainstream interest coming from?

Musical Opening Ceremonies

Shockwave + GoH Chas Somdahl = lots of fun!

What? You keep your brain in your head?

There could be aliens for whom the phrase "not yet dead from the neck up" wouldn't make any sense. Distributed intelligences, brains in other places... let's explore the idea.

Invisible Disabilities

Not everyone's disability is obvious. How can that affect our lives?

Science Literacy vs. Human Knowledge

The corpus of human knowledge is growing constantly. How can we even decide what the baseline of scientific literacy should be? What's the process by which the baseline changes?

Media Culture as Presented in the Media

The average American watches more than four hours of television a day, yet there are no television programs about people watching TV. How does media present itself to the viewer? What does this tell us about ourselves?

In My Day...

You know it's an old movie because the phones are shaped like bricks and everyone has poofy, moussed hair. What are some of the untimeless markers of the past? What features will make our modern media stand out as "dated"?

The End of the Shuttle Program

As of January, 2011 the last Space Shuttle mission is planned to take off in June of 2011. Where do we go next? And how do we get there?

Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

Nummy! And nearly instant!

What's Filk and What's Not?

And is the question relevant?

Cliffs Notes for Inception

We lay it all out for you.

Antiques Roadshow for Geeks

You know that copy of Action Comics #1 is kinda valuable, right?

The Asterisk Panel

Panelists start off talking. Audience members hold up asterisks when they need more detail. Fun and tangents.

The Other Panel

Hey, wait, you said that'd be another panel! This is that panel!

Battle of the RPGs

What's Your Favorite Game System? Among RPGs, what has the best mechanics? What has the best settings? (For what, you say? Well, come to the panel and help us answer that question.)

RPGs in Other Media

What influence does the popularity of RPGs have in the fiction world?

Who Needs a Real Computer Anyway?

With the expansion of offerings in tablet and sub-tablet electronics, can you meet your computing needs without a normal computer? What's available now? What are the pros and cons of each?

The Time Agency

Lots of stories deal with organizations tasked with maintaining (or changing) the time stream. Let's talk about them.

TV on DVD vs. the Nielsen Ratings

A lot of us wait until shows come out on disc before getting into them, but if we do, they may not make it very long in broadcast. Do we have a responsibility to support shows before they're on DVD? How is the industry changing to recognize this shift? How should the industry change to recognize this shift? What about BitTorrent?

The future isn't what it used to be

Depictions of the world following a lack of cheap energy seem to be replacing the glitzy hi-tech future and post-nuclear holocaust in SF (e.g. stories collected in Toast vs stories collected in Wireless). Will the trends continue? Is this future more plausible than the earlier versions? How much do fictional futures have to say about the times in which they are written?

Not just for the kids anymore

It isn’t just the kids buying and reading YA. YA novels are attracting adults like never before and authors such as Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi have written novels aimed at the younger set. Why do adults read and enjoy it? What sets YA apart from other genre novels and is it that uniqueness that attracts adult readers?

An introduction to fanzines

What makes a good fanzine? What kind of writing works and why? Panelists will read from and discuss the best of the best.

Atlanta Nights reading

Because Eye of Argon readings are so last con. Come and listen to a reading of Atlanta Nights. To quote Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s review, "The world is full of bad books written by amateurs. But why settle for the merely regrettable? Atlanta Nights is a bad book written by experts."

Books Charles Stross will not write

Charlie cracks the covers on a few of the concepts that didn't make it into the production queue.

Common Misconceptions about Publishing

How is the publishing industry structured? What exactly does an author sell to a publisher, and what do publishers want to see? Why are books the length that they are? Published authors talk about their experiences and share their "If I knew then what I know now..." stories.

Steven Moffat is a...

What did we like and dislike about the 2010 Doctor Who series? What would we like to see in 2011?

Common Misconceptions about Science

How has Science Fiction affected popular understanding of Science? What (mis)understandings are pervasive? Let's take this beyond just the "CSI effect".

My Kind of Con, Chicon 7 Is

The 70th World Science Fiction Convention, aka Worldcon, is being held in Chicago in 2012. The folks in charge are dedicated to bringing the flavor of our great regional conventions to the Worldcon stage. What would you like to see there? Talk with people who are actually working on the convention. (more of a Q&A than panel discussion?)

What Does "Not Yet Dead from the Neck Up" Mean Anyway?

Cryopreservation, consciousness transfer - what are ways that one might "live" to participate in future conventions with naught but a head (or maybe not even that). Which ones sound like a good idea? Which ones might actually be possible some day? Which ones are just silly, but fun to think about all the same?

SF & Rock 'n' Roll

From classics like Space Oddity and Rocket Man to Janelle Monae's Metropolis & The ArchAndroid, how is science fiction represented in the world of music? What stories are being told by songwriters, rather than book writers? Are there stories/themes that are particularly well-suited to being expressed in this medium?

Battlestar Galactica Board Game

Needs Description

Living History: GLBT* History in SF/F fandom

An intergenerational panel/discussion about GLBT(etc.)/queer culture in SF/F fandom over the decades. What it was like earlier on, what it's like now (from various viewpoints), what kind of language is and is not appropriate ("queer" is a word to reclaim for some people, mostly younger, while for others it's still a slap in the face), what that all means in the context of SF/F or what SF/F means in the context of all that... just to sit down and talk with each other. (Taken from discussion at http://sasha-feather.dreamwidth.org/459762.html.)

Things Not To Forget

Things we try to do every year, because they're just that good:

The Year in SF

Our yearly round-up of great reads.