Programming ideas for Minicon 44

Current ideas for Minicon 44 programming.

This is a BRAINSTORM IN PROGRESS. Nothing here is finalized. Nothing here is guaranteed.

Film Room

• B-List Movies: Cinema Obscura Ideas: Twilight Zone episodes, small indie sf films -- Is Metropolis public domain? The Thief of Bagdad -- the old silent one with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

Literature and skiffy concepts

• Futurists -- Are they still out there?
• Empowerment of Children During War/Stressful Times Chronicles of Narnia, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, recent Dr. Who, others?
• Adventures of Young Women Girls' adventures stories seem to be fantasy, rather than sci-fi or “normal” fiction (Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Golden Compass)
• New Interest in Old Tech Is this another way of saying “steampunk”?
• The Future of Fashion: Fashion in the 31st Century Our idea of future fashion, or past ideas of future fashion; BladeRunner kind of broke that trend (that might be an interesting idea in and of itself)
• The Future of Food Astronaut food, high-tech foodies, genetically modified food, vat-grown meat [Laramie]
• Just Borges Just about Borges and his works
• Genocide Narratives in SF and Fantasy
• Let's Create a World Perhaps silly, perhaps serious (maybe do two different versions of the same panel?) -- Design it from basic geology, to chemistry, to biology, to intelligence, to civilization

Social Issues, Internet, Fandom

• Getting Back Into It - getting back into fandoms you've been absent from
• Polyamory 101 The basics of open relationships, polyamory, etc.
• What Do You Mean You Don't Know? I Posted it on LJ Navigating the social complexities of LiveJournal and toher social networking sites.
• Emily Post for the LJ Set Unfortunately, she doesn't exist, so maybe we can hammer out a few rules of etiquette for livejournaling.
• Drowning in Data Too much info at our fingertips
• Time to Go Back to Typewriters? What About the Paperless Office?
• Privacy in a World Full of Cameras Security cameras, satellite mapping, micro-cameras you can buy on the Internet.
• Seniors on the Internet
• Internet Vigilantes Scammer-baiters, but also hoax-spotters like Snopes, security activists

Science

• Secret Underground Physics Labs Something on Soudan? Other underground neutrino detectors/experiments
• LHC First Light The first collisions there may well be during Minicon
• Current Trends in Science If you had $700 billion, what would you put it into?
• SETI in SF
• Portrayal of Science/Scientists in Popular Media
• The Future of Batteries or How Can I Ever Get a Multi-Shot Laser Weapon? Energy storage in the future
• First Contact What else might we use beside radio waves? a message other than primes?
• Intelligent Balloons Seems like one long-term fannish meme is intelligent jellyfish-like creatures living in the atmosphere of a Jovian planet. How plausible are such creatures, and why are they such a fixture of xenology?

Writing and publishing

• Writing Historical Detail Getting your thread counts, cannonball weights and , Yes, it takes research. What else?
• What Negative Emotions is it Okay to Evoke in Your Readers? What about making past memories come back painfully?
• How Much of Social Contract Do Writers Have with Their Readers?
• How To Not Get Depressed When You Work Alone
• Balancing Writing and Family
• Writers' Day Jobs
• Harlequin Science Fiction panel You got your romance in my SF; no, you got your sf in my Romance
• What It's Like to Have Your First Book Remaindered
• Is There a Secret Handshake? Getting Your manuscript read and ready
• Wikis as Literature There's a long history of wonderful worlds presented in a reference or non-fiction format -- Pure setting, no plot -- One logical extension of this is for authors to create beautiful multimedia wikis (perhaps by a single author, perhaps by collaborative effort) that people can explore, and maybe even expand, without the encumbrance of a plot or main characters -- would people pay for this? What examples already exist?

Media and comics

• This Year in Film
• Here Comes the Watchmen Movie! Maybe, if the lawsuits don't get in the way...
• Minicon Sarcastic Theater Audience participation encouraged ala MSTK3000.
• What’s Happening in Comics? Online comics, republished in trade paperbacks, graphic novels go mainstream.
• SF Films Without SFX

Gaming and toys

• The Secret RPG Gamer People who play RPGs but don't admit it
• Board Games: What's new and cool (aka the Richard panel)
• Info-dumping in RPGs How to do it right, how not to do it
• Publishing your RPG How to go from basic idea to holding it in your hands to being a rich and famous RPG author. Okay, maybe not the last part.
• The State of Lego What's new and cool in Lego bricks

Not exactly panels

• Arts vs. Crafts People who do both
• Knit Knacks Is there enough to do this again?
• Collage Workshop This was popular in the past; is it still on sabbatical?
• Blimp Races
• Costuming How to get started, or some kind of workshop; working on historical detail in costume (or “future historical” detail)
• Prep for Anticipation? Sci-Fi French, or useful French, etc.?
• Texting Competition YA programming (or texting vs. Morse code)
• There and Back Again Sci-fi quotes run through machine translation as a game show
• Reading from Favorite Pulps
• Dueling Roombas or Roomba Obstacle Course (Maze)
• Some kind of game show or EPYC tournament or something
• The Traveling Panel (same panel at Minicon, Convergence, Marscon, maybe Diversicon)
• Opposable Thumbs Appreciation Part panel, part “workshop” on what it’s like not having opposable thumbs. Tentacles vs. thumbs -- how would society be different? Crossover appeal to children. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Guindon cartoons (huh?).
• Storm-Chasing with Shauna Lecture, maybe slide show?