Sunday, August 28, 2005

Poor Bruce

Yep he got conned big time. Good job, SWF organizers. Thought that Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow were gonna be in town. But Neil Gaiman is no-show and Doctorow isn't here yet. So he was kinda depressed while giving his talk yesterday, and had to drown his sorrows in alcoholic stuff immediately after.

Talk-wise, I generally didn't really like it. Talk about design. But he seemed to be rambling, like this post is in danger of doing. He's getting lost/stuck in his latest novel, been spending like 3 years (?) on it already. I think he should stick to shorter pieces. Bicycle Repairman and Taklamakan were excellent short stories. But he demoed this really cool-looking spectacle case that can unfold itself 360 degrees and close on the other side. Although he said that was an example of a bad design. Forgot to ask him 2 let us (me n soap) play with it after the talk. But he was in too much of a hurry to go somewhere n get drunk anyway.

And he was way too obsessed with RFID tags. And barcodes. And WiFi. And also making stuff biodegradeable so that humans can be sustainable. So Soap said "So your vision of the car of the future is a horse with WiMax wired into its brain and improved propulsion, suspension and digestive systems? Oh and RFDNA."

Bruce was saying it's better to know you have no privacy than to believe in a false sense of privacy. At that moment I couldn't control my giggles cos Soap was recording him in realtime with his pinhole camera connected to his Rio via wires sticking out of his bag. Too bad his mike setup didn't work so there's no audio. And that idiot refuses to tell me his blog addy. Speaking of wires sticking out of his bag I'm amazed people actually dare to sit 1 seat away from where he left his bag (with wires sticking out of it) while he was charging his Rio elsewhere. Also during the Q&A I went to the restroom but left my bag on the seat and nobody stopped me. :P

Speaking of restrooms, the Pod has got a cool one dudes. Specially designed for exhibitionists like soap, with the walls all made of glass. The transparent kind. Nice view too. That applies to the rest of the Pod as well.

Also got to meet Hominids (awesome novel!) author Robert J. Sawyer. He's a cool dude. He also has strong issues with 51% of the americans who voted. Gave soap a lecture on why it is fair for us to watch the ads on TV and read those on google. Heh, vaguely resembles him getting lectured by Mrs Ong.

And afterwards Ah-Chew's dessert on Liang Seah. Lots of kawaiis. And this tough guy parked his car next to where we were sitting and I guess we were staring at him too hard.. after he walked a distance he kept glancing back towards his car, lol! My sesame paste was ordinary, but soap sez his ice-cream with red bean p0wn3d. Will have 2 try that next time.

PS. Btw, I notice that Bruce has discovered tomorrow.sg. And he likes the Konica ad.

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