…being one of my favorite quotes of the con so far, courtesy of Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman during an 80-minute Q&A on how science fiction led him into economics. The night before, a couple thousand of us got to be flies on the wall for another hour-and-a-half free-form conversation between Krugman and Charlie Stross.

You gotta love this event. A science fiction convention featuring three solid hours with a Nobel-winning economist, bestselling author and NY Times columnist. And what did I see the local media taking footage of? Furries and people in Star Wars costumes. So remains the face of fandom to the self-proclaimed Those With Lives.

‘SOkay, though. I finally met Charlie Stross in the flesh, and Jetse de Vries. Reacquainted myself with John Scalzi, who is too nice to exist. Bumped too infrequently into Elisabeth Bear (and hope to rectify that in the following days). Met Kim Binsted (U Hawaii, AI dudette), Kathryn Myronuk (of Sinularity U) and Brad Templeton (of the EFF, and author of perhaps the most articulate critique of BSG’s failed finale I’ve read). Glenn Grant. Nalo Hopkinson (who made it after all). Dave Williams. Others too numerous to mention.

Panels have all gone down well so far; the reading (with Scalzi and Jon Courtenay Grimwood) was a glorious triumvirate of literary nihilism full of Russian vivissectionists and flayed gods and shapeshifting rapist-missionaries; my contribution was, if anything, the lighthearted comic relief.

Another cool quote: “Fungi are Nature’s Internet” (although I forget the attribution). Not to mention the aforemention updated Turing test criterion.

Biggest Letdown so far: an hour-long event called “Neil Gaiman Reads Cory Doctorow”. Yes, technically that is what happened— but as Glenn pointed out, I think most of us were probably expecting the man to read aloud…

Pictures to follow, but only when I get home. For some reason my laptop isn’t detecting the damn camera card when I slot it in…