complaints about TAM6

[Fitter]

I hate that you are sick, but I'm collecting stories. I got rather sick early Friday morning and my (smart ass) son Travis accused me of being hung over. Then, my friend Eric got sick. Kittynh got sick. You did. I think there was a bit of a bug going around.

Obviously alcohol was a deterrent to this bug as neither myself nor Cleon nor any of a hundred others who spent their nights in The Garden Bar succumbed.

 

[rustypouch]

I agree with Fitter. Booze saves the day again!

 

[Hindmost]

This could be the TAM 6 cooties...I am sick with a sore throat and a cold...

glenn

 

[saganite]

Yeah, I am starting to feel suspiciously under the weather as well.

 

[Ziggy66]

I had a cough and a sore throat the whole time. I think it was a combination of going back and forth between the hot, dry air outside and the cold, dry air inside plus the smoke. Cleared up about a day after returning home. Regardless, it didn't keep me from enjoying every minute of TAM.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Obviously alcohol was a deterrent to this bug as neither myself nor Cleon nor any of a hundred others who spent their nights in The Garden Bar succumbed.

I'm the fail for your hypothesis since, apart from a glass of champaigne with breakfast Saturday, I didn't drink a drop of alcohol.

 

[Canadianadan]

I'm still feeling great, so I guess US was perfectly Healthy?

 

[krelnik]

No, I agree with you and mentioned this issue on my evaluation form. I think it's more than nitpicking. There was a lot of wasted time on Friday with A/V snafus, and one paper presentation on Sunday got completely screwed up because the wrong version was on the stage laptop.

One problem that always comes up is trying to play video in a presentation. This is a minefield of compatibility issues, and I recommend anyone considering it to think twice before doing it. I personally avoided anything at all fancy in my presentation such as video, sound or animations specifically to reduce the possibility of problems.

I talked to someone about this last year. Several of the speakers made changes to their presentations 10-30 minutes before they went on. It's easy to tell a paper presenter to have their slideshow ready and sent in days before presenting, but I doubt you'd want to tell that to any of the main speakers.

And I wish more people would take some time and review some of the presentation tip sites. Just because you can make your words bounce all over the screen doesn't mean you have to.

Yes, I mentioned this to Jeff Wagg. We saw plenty of "PowerPoint Abuse" this past weekend at TAM6. I'm going to see if I can gather some resources on this and put together a kit or something that can be given to speakers to avoid this in the future.

I'm a big believer in "less is more" on slides. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is people are better able to pay attention to the speaker when they aren't reading text off a slide.

But aside from obvious advice, there is a particular need for simpler slides when you are presenting in a gigantic room like that. Something that works in a room of 30 people often won't work in a room of 900. We need to remind the speakers of this, including the ones that are experienced presenters.

In the beginning the attendees were deeply committed fans and supporters. Production problems and staging issues were not only forgiven but taken to be part of the charm. However, if TAM is to continue to grow, fewer attendees will be "family" and those newcomers will not be as forgiving.

For my part, I'm a strong supporter of skepticism and JREFs goals. I want everything JREF does to be as professional and effective as possible so that newcomers and the media will see how well organized our movement is. It's the same reason that any one of us would be sure to comb our hair and probably not wear shorts and a t-shirt if we got the chance to represent skepticism on TV. There's no doubt that the packaging does impact the credibility of the message. I want our skeptical message to have first rate packaging.

This is an excellent and very important point. Everyone please read the above quote box twice. This will be covered on the quiz.

You may have noticed that strange "R" word in there. Yep, Rehearsal. No conference should ever let any speaker on stage who didn't do a technical rehearsal. That doesn't mean that they have to do their entire talk. What it means is that the morning session speakers show up after dinner the night before and each one does a tech run-through. For most speakers it takes ten minutes or so. The slides, videos, audio and projection are checked for everything that's going to be presented. Afternoon speakers do their run-through during lunch. That alone would have solved 95% of the TAM on-stage problems.

Yes, and this would avoid the issue with videos that I mentioned above.

I'd like to emphasize another aspect of rehearsal. Many TAM presenters, especially those on Sunday (myself included) are not expert presenters that do this regularly. It is important for everyone, but especially these folks, to rehearse their entire presentation themselves before they give it. It is the only reliable way to know if you are going to fit in your time slot. It helps the final product have that polished feel.

I rehearsed my presentation four or five times alone in my hotel room, and you may have noticed I got the through the whole thing with no notes or script, and it ran right on time. That was because of rehearsal.

I sincerely hope that none of the truly wonderful people organizing and volunteering to make TAM happen take any of my humble suggestions the wrong way. I respect and deeply appreciate the many hours of hard work you all devote to this. I'm just offering my experience to help make it even better. I'd be happy to review equipment lists, vendor budget breakdowns and technical plots for TAM 7 and offer suggestions on how to get the most bang for the limited bucks available.

Email Jeff Wagg at [email protected] and I am sure he will be more than happy to have your assistance.

One giant room with hundreds of people is not good for most topics, except maybe the Keynote Address and some of Randi's stuff. It may be time for the TAM management to consider doing what most conventions do, and have multiple tracks. You could do some inquiries into what speakers /subjects are interesting to the likely audience; and based upon that, break the main venue up into multiple areas (or use smaller rooms).

I agree. This would also be a good way to address the complaint (that arose to some degree at both TAM5 and TAM6) that some of the crowd favorites cover the same material repeatedly. As was pointed out in the Saturday panel, this can be very useful for the new folks, but experienced hands might want to avail themselves of alternative programming. Two (or more) rooms gives you the best of both worlds.

A second room would also be a great way to integrate the Sunday paper discussions more into the main conference by sprinkling them through the program. I enjoyed participating in the Sunday stuff this year, but a great frustration is that right when everyone gets a bunch of cool new ideas put in front of them, the show is over and we all leave! Wouldn't it be great to see a paper presentation on Friday, and still have the whole weekend to talk about it further? This would add so much to the information exchange that goes on.

As a first-time TAM attendee, I did not get to experience the fabled levels of interaction with presenters of past years when there were less people. Speakers got mobbed ... (snip) ...

Perhaps this is more a problem for the speakers themselves to solve, but a TAM "meet and greet" gathering with hors d'oeuvres the night before the conference starts might solve that (although not all speakers will have arrived)

We do that already. There's an opening reception on Thursday night, and many of the speakers do attend. At the reception this year I saw Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, George Hrab, PZ Myers, Steven Novella, Ben Radford, Richard Saunders and Ben Goldacre. So you are right, it is a good way to meet the guests.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm still feeling great, so I guess US was perfectly Healthy?

I wouldn't necessarily call myself perfectly healthy, but I did not get sick or even feel under the weather during TAM.

 

[hcmom]

Everyone who was sick was obviously affected by some of the 800,000 ghosts that were sent to attack our skepticism.

 

[saganite]

That's almost a 100:1 ghost to person ratio! We should feel flattered.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Those damn body thetans!

 

[Piggy]

Everyone who was sick was obviously affected by some of the 800,000 ghosts that were sent to attack our skepticism.

I got ill the first day (Wednesday) but I think that was my fault -- I forget that food items like salad dressings, fish glazes, and such are not sugar-free when I don't make them myself.

Also (TMI alert!) I was flushing blood clots out of my sinuses every morning because I'm not accustomed to such low humidity. And like an idiot I'd had some tattoo work done the previous Sunday, and nothing I did could keep it from scabbing.

Other than that, all was well.

Oh, except for the nap-inducing fatigue caused by being kept up til sunrise by fascinating conversation.

 

[Hokulele]

I got ill the first day (Wednesday) but I think that was my fault -- I forget that food items like salad dressings, fish glazes, and such are not sugar-free when I don't make them myself.

Also (TMI alert!) I was flushing blood clots out of my sinuses every morning because I'm not accustomed to such low humidity. And like an idiot I'd had some tattoo work done the previous Sunday, and nothing I did could keep it from scabbing.

Other than that, all was well.

Oh, except for the nap-inducing fatigue caused by being kept up til sunrise by fascinating conversation.

If you attend TAM next year (I hope, I hope), one trick that works well for the sinus issue is to turn the shower on "nuclear" and close the bathroom door while brushing your teeth, etc. Breathing the steam really helps hydrate your internal tissues. I do this twice a day (morning and night) when I am stuck in Las Vegas for extended stays during conferences.

 

[Piggy]

If you attend TAM next year (I hope, I hope), one trick that works well for the sinus issue is to turn the shower on "nuclear" and close the bathroom door while brushing your teeth, etc. Breathing the steam really helps hydrate your internal tissues. I do this twice a day (morning and night) when I am stuck in Las Vegas for extended stays during conferences.

Dang, Hok, I felt guilty enough just running the water to get it warm enough to shave with. I mean, jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, that town's sitting there in the middle of a desert, sucking up water from the Colorado like a lamprey, with only 3" of rainfall a year.

I have to say, after one visit, I do hate that town. If I were dictator of the world, I'd give everyone a month to get out, then carpet bomb the place.

Leave not one stone upon a stone, and shake the dust off my sandals when I left.

That's one reason why I wish they'd relocate. Not only is Vegas a grotesque mashup of Disneyland and Gomorrah, but every minute I spend there I feel like I'm just contributing to the death of the Colorado river basin.

I'm an amoral atheist and still that town manages to make me feel sinful.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm an amoral atheist and still that town manages to make me feel sinful.

Glad to know I'm not the only one. While I experienced little or no fear, I felt a lot of loathing in Las Vegas.

 

[Hokulele]

Dang, Hok, I felt guilty enough just running the water to get it warm enough to shave with. I mean, jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, that town's sitting there in the middle of a desert, sucking up water from the Colorado like a lamprey, with only 3" of rainfall a year.

I have to say, after one visit, I do hate that town. If I were dictator of the world, I'd give everyone a month to get out, then carpet bomb the place.

Leave not one stone upon a stone, and shake the dust off my sandals when I left.

That's one reason why I wish they'd relocate. Not only is Vegas a grotesque mashup of Disneyland and Gomorrah, but every minute I spend there I feel like I'm just contributing to the death of the Colorado river basin.

I'm an amoral atheist and still that town manages to make me feel sinful.

I do feel guilty about overconsumption in general, but I've seen their sewage treatment facilities. Trust me, your shower water will rise again after (fewer than) three days.

 

[articulett]

Actually Las Vegas recycles all it's non potable water... and much of the water comes from water rights from the Hoover damn... 3 states share and trade in that water. We also get water from the run off in the mountains... and we have some of the most advanced desert landscaping and drought resistant plants in the world... Water is a renewable resource and Vegas has gotten pretty damn good at renewing it.

Yeah, it's tacky and all that stuff.... but it's the best place to get a huge group of people from around the world together in a relatively inexpensive and entertaining way. Plus Penn and Teller are there. And if it wasn't there, I don't think I ever would have gone... or been on this forum. There are always flight deals and something for everyone.
And where else can you play, "ho fish"?

 

[Piggy]

I do feel guilty about overconsumption in general, but I've seen their sewage treatment facilities. Trust me, your shower water will rise again after (fewer than) three days.

Oh. Maybe that's why it smelled the way it did. (Not kidding.)

 

[Hokulele]

Oh. Maybe that's why it smelled the way it did. (Not kidding.)

Well, I do drink bottled water while I am there. Although it has more to do with the age and condition of the plumbing in places such as the Flamingo than the state of Las Vegas' waste water treatment plant.