SFragments

Lifelogging is an emerging trend of recording every, or nearly every moment of your life. A simple example of lifelogging would be wearing a video recorder that would record continuous video and audio of everything you see and do. Ted Chiang used this example to speculate about how lifelogging would change our society. At the end he answered the audience's questions and engaged in a discussion regarding some points, such as: would lifelogging encourage us to craft our lives as stories, and thus become better people? Doesn't forgetting play a big role in getting over a trauma? Doesn't forgetting go a long way towards forgiving? What if your memories are hacked? Who has control over shared memories?

Mel White (who has a Ph.D. in information sciences), Rachael Acks (a geologist), Paige Roberts (data scientist), and Sigrid Close (a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and ArmadilloCon 2014 science Guest of Honor) at the Women In Science panel

Mel White (who has a Ph.D. in information sciences), Rachael Acks (a geologist), Paige Roberts (data scientist), and Sigrid Close (a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and ArmadilloCon 2014 science Guest of Honor) at the Women In Science panel.

Fannish Feud, the pro team, left to right: Thomas (Martin) Wagner (filmmaker and science fiction reviewer), Sigrid Close (a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and ArmadilloCon 2014 science Guest of Honor), Ted Chiang (SF/F author and writer Guest of Honor), Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (artist GoH), Jacob Weisman (editor GoH).

Fannish Feud, the fan team, left to right: Renee, Troyce Wilson, ArmadilloCon Fan Guest of Honor Michael Walsh, and Rhonda Eudaly, who, as she pointed out, could be on both pros and fans teams.

K. G. (Kevin) Jewell, John Gibbons, Janet Kathleen Cheney, and Ted Chiang at the "Mathematics, magic, and mystery" panel. The panel started out with a discussion of a book by the same name that explored mathematical "paradoxes" (many of them pretty simple and not paradoxical at all). But the larger purpose of the panel was to explore how mathematics influences science fiction. Apparently, there isn't much science fiction -- at least not very well known -- where the central idea is mathematical. Our panelists mentioned these works:

at the "Mathematics, magic, and mystery panel". The panel started out with a discussion of a book by the same name that explored mathematical "paradoxes". Many of them were pretty simple and not paradoxical at all -- for example, the trick where you divide a right triangle into squares, and reshuffle them to make an empty square, thus making a part of the triangle's area to "disappear".

Sigrid Close (a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University and ArmadilloCon 2014 science Guest of Honor), Patrice Sarath (SF/F author), Ada Palmer (historian and SF/F author), and Ted Chiang (SF/F author) at the Remembering The Future panel panel. The panel explored the question, is time real or an illusion?

Mars 1 Dream Team panel. Left to right: writers Bob Mahoney, William Ledbetter, Patrice Sarath, Alexis Glynn Latner, and aeronautics/astronautics professor Sigrid Close.

At ArmadilloCon 2014, Jayme Lynn Blaschke interviewed Ted Chiang, one of the two writer Guests of Honor. Here are some topics they talked about: linguistics, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and "The Story of Your Life", the possibility of it being turned into the movie -- this was 2 years before the story got turned into the movie "Arrival"; is Ted Chiang's fiction influenced by the environment; writing the ending first, his story length, and whether he is going to expand "Liking What You See" into a longer story; does he ever plan to write a novel; the first stories he wrote as a teen; who were his influences; and what appeal does he find in discredited scientific theories, such as preformation (on which his story "72 Letters" is based).