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CSICon 2019: A Skeptical Conference with the Top Minds in its Guests and Attendees!

Wowbagger

The Infinitely Prolonged
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Registration is now open: https://csiconference.org/

October 16 to 20, 2019, at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas

Special Guests Include:
  • Brian Greene: Physics author and WSF founder. You probably know of him.
  • Julia Sweeney: Everyone wuvs her!
  • Leighann Lord: Another Very Funny Lady!
  • John de Lancie: You know him as "Q", but he also happens to be an active skeptic nowadays
  • Michael Mann: That climate change scientist every denier likes to pile on.
  • David Mikkelson: Founder and CEO of Snopes.com. Look it up!
  • Britt Marie Hermes: A former naturopathic "doctor", who now exposes its problems
  • Banachek: He IS a freakin' mind reader, you know!
  • Piff the Magic Dragon: His act is WAY better than the stupid costume he wears!
  • Kurt Andersen: Author of witty and satirical things
  • Jann Bellamy: Attorney and former fighter of chiropractic-favoring laws
  • Kenny Biddle: Investigator of paranormal claims, and workshop runner on the subject
  • Janice L. Boynton: Former believer in facilitated communication, now a critic of it
  • Troy Campbell: Former Disney Imagineer
  • Jen Gunter: The antidote to Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop.
  • Bailey Harris: Author of the Stardust books, exploring science stuff (NOT related to Neil Gaiman's book)
  • Jeff Hawkins: Early smartphone designer
  • Nathan Lents: Author of Human Errors, a very nice book, if I say so, myself!
  • James Alcock: A professor at York University in Toronto, and executive at CSI.
  • Ray Hyman: Founding member of CSICOP.
  • Scott Lilienfeld: Another CSI Fellow. This conference is full of them!!
  • Nick Little: An attorney for CFI who lead the lawsuit against CVS for their homeopathy stuff.
  • Chip and Grace Denman: I think they're here every year.
  • Mark Edward: Another perennial face.
  • Loren Pankratz: A man with a masterful Skeptic's Toolbox!
  • Susan Gerbic: Founder of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW), and also there every year.
  • Ray Hall: The Papers Guy!
  • Elizabeth Loftus: Writes about the fallibility of human memory. I don't remember much else about her.
  • Jonathan Jarry: Man, this list is getting long. I might not have enough time, anymore, to describe all of these people!
  • Gordon Pennycook: Seriously, though, this IS a very long list of people, isn't it?
  • Ben Radford: If you weren't interested in anyone on this list, up to this point, then I suppose you're not going to get much more interested in the conference in general.
  • Seth Shostak: So, you might as well stop reading the list of people, at this point, either way. I am including everyone on it, just to try to be fair, that's all.
  • Jim Underdown: His last name is very redundant, I think. And, yes, he is another CFI person.
  • Richard Dawkins: But, you can ignore him if you prefer. He generally keeps to the sides.

But, it's not just the guests that make CSICon great! It's the attendees, like me and hopefully you! Sharing a convention with likeminded independent minds is an awesome experience to behold! So, join us for that reason, alone!!
 
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At some point, Scott Romanowski will be asking for volunteers, I assume. And, at some other point, perhaps some of us will get our acts together enough to start planning a few extracurricular activities.

So, if you are going to CSICon 2019, please help fill in this little chart. This will help us save time, later:

[TABLE=head]Forum Name|Real Name (optional)|Volunteer?|Extra Activities Interested In?|Favorite Epic Rap Battle|Notes
Wowbagger|Mitch Lampert|YES|Neon Museum, but open to other ideas|Newton vs. Bill Nye|I am also going to Disneyland before this.
[/TABLE]
 
Wowbagger said:
At some point, Scott Romanowski will be asking for volunteers, I assume.
Click to expand...
You assume correctly. I will be coordinating the volunteers again.

The bad:
  • We all pay the registration cost.
  • You will help for about four hours.

The good:
  • Those four hours will never be during something you paid for. We volunteer before and after scheduled events. We don't miss any of the talks.
  • We get a free t-shirt and free admission to the party Saturday night.
  • We get a staff and volunteers dinner (probably Wednesday night, but maybe Tuesday because the Skeptics Toolbox event is Tuesday. I'll ask if it could be during the convention, but every previous year it had to before because the CFI staff is so busy once it starts.)
  • We get "Volunteer" ribbons for our badges.

If you're going to volunteer, there's a link on the "Info" page. We'll need about 12-18 people. The more volunteers, the less time per person.
 
Wowbagger said:
At some point, Scott Romanowski will be asking for volunteers, I assume. And, at some other point, perhaps some of us will get our acts together enough to start planning a few extracurricular activities.

So, if you are going to CSICon 2019, please help fill in this little chart. This will help us save time, later:
Click to expand...

[TABLE=head]Forum Name|Real Name (optional)|Volunteer?|Extra Activities Interested In?|Favorite Epic Rap Battle|Notes
Wowbagger|Mitch Lampert|YES|Neon Museum, but open to other ideas|Newton vs. Bill Nye|I am also going to Disneyland before this.
SkepticScott|Scott Romanowski|YES|Penn & Teller show|R2D2 vs HAL 9000|
[/TABLE]
 
SkepticScott said:
  • We get a staff and volunteers dinner (probably Wednesday night, but maybe Tuesday because the Skeptics Toolbox event is Tuesday. I'll ask if it could be during the convention, but every previous year it had to before because the CFI staff is so busy once it starts.)
Click to expand...

Please tell them to do it Wednesday, if you have any influence on the choice, at all! I've already started booking things around arriving Wednesday, and doing other stuff the day before!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
Thanks for volunteering Mitch!

In previous years even Wednesday was too early for about a quarter of the volunteers. Thursdays were the Workshops, and many people would arrive Thursday in time for the reception that night. I emailed Pat this morning and maybe she'll come up with an answer that works.
 
[TABLE=head]Forum Name|Real Name (optional)|Volunteer?|Extra Activities Interested In?|Favorite Epic Rap Battle|Notes

Wowbagger|Mitch Lampert|YES|Neon Museum, but open to other ideas|Newton vs. Bill Nye|I am also going to Disneyland before this.

SkepticScott|Scott Romanowski|YES|Penn & Teller show|R2D2 vs HAL 9000|
Holden McGroin|?|YES|Penn & Teller|?|

[/TABLE]



Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
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Holden McGroin said:
I had to Google Epic Rap Battle of History, so I think declaring my favourite is pointless!
Click to expand...
Some of us TAM/JREF old-timers have a tradition of adding irrelevant columns to our charts of group activities. (I am NOT the one who started it. I was merely the one to take it to new heights!) That's all.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
Yes, ERB is real. It had some highly-viewed videos on YouTube, back in the day. At one point they were owned by MakerStudio, a division of Disney. They recently made a comeback as an independent company, funded through Patreon and stuff. They're still awesome, even though the budget is lower.

This remains my favorite of their videos:

Now, for something more reverent to my CSICon trip: Thanks to a combo of corporate discounts and gift cards, I managed to buy a three day ticket to Disneyland resort, with park hopper and MaxPass privileges for less than $300 of my own money, when I really probably only need 2 days. So... wait a minute... that has nothing to do with CSICon itself, does it? Dang, I need something else to stay on-topic, here...

Ah, of course! My CSICon costume party costume! Well, I won't reveal what it's going to be, yet. But, I will say it WON'T be an obscure reference, this time. I am planning to wear the same costume to New York Comic Con, and reuse it for Holloween parties closer to my home. I think it's a character all of those crowds will appreciate!
Unfortunately, it won't exactly be 50's themed, though.
 
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