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Entries For: 2006

2006-12-03

Guest Room Maps

In a previous entry to this blog, I used the hotel architectural plans to create detailed maps of the function space. Now I've done so for all three floors of hotel guest rooms.

2006-11-21

Our Ad On 2prong.com

Check out Penguicon's ad on https://www.2prong.com ! (Well, it was only up for 48 hours, but I've reproduced it behind the link.)

The ad appeared as follows:

What is Penguicon? It's more than a Linux User Group, it's more than a Science Fiction Convention, it's that crazy OSS, Gaming, Filk, Anime, liquid nitrogen ice cream, OpenCola, theatre, hot sauce, nanotech, Bruce Schneier, Charlie Stross, Dork Tower, Foresight Insitutute, Something Positive, Elizabeth Bear, and this is only the tip of the iceberg three day fantabulous caffeine overload type of party. You don't want to miss it. April 20 through 22, 2007, Troy, Michigan.

2006-10-10

CafePenguicon at ConClave

For me, one of the best things about the weekend at the ConClave science fiction and fantasy convention, was that I was approached by many volunteers with ideas for a lot of exciting Penguicon programming.

Two things I can tell you about are a Paint & Take and a Game Mini Sculpting Workshop. These are classes that cost a couple of bucks to cover supplies, and let you work on a gaming mini with a qualified instructor. You then can take the mini home.

I can also tell you we are going to have two dances at Penguicon this year, one on Friday with DJ Brick, and one on Saturday with DJ Tommytooney.

The Cafe Penguicon room party was fun! I made espresso drinks as usual. This year our ConChair, John Guest, is giving each person who pre-registers at Cafe Penguicon a keychain in the shape of Tux the Penguin, with Penguicon 5.0 printed on the belly. I thought they would be 2-D plastic cutouts, but they're fully 3-D sculptures in foam rubber, and are really awesome! I'm using mine to hold my flash media.

If you missed us at ConClave, look for the next Cafe Penguicon on the Youmacon anime convention the first weekend in November, where we will be serving OpenCola and Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.

2006-10-05

LEGO Ice Cube Trays

The NOTCOT design blog clued me in to this tray that makes ice cubes shaped like LEGO bricks. LEGOs convey the hacking spirit. If only this were sold in our country, it would be a great addition to OpenCola!

2006-09-21

About Computer Gaming At Conventions

The hit-and-miss history of computer gaming at Penguicon and other conventions I've seen, and how to nurture it.

I've brought at least one of my desktop computers to the last three Penguicons, and always bring along my game CDs in the hope of finding someone to set up a local area network and play. It made sense at the time, given what I was thinking.

Premise one: One of the many reasons to go to a convention is to find people to play obscure German board games with, or to participate in a Live Action Role Playing Game. These are activities that you can't do alone, and it's difficult to find participants out in the mundane world, so you find them among your kindred spirits at a convention.

Premise two: Playing multiplayer video games on a computer over a network requires multiple people. But the anonymous strangers you find on the internet are all unevenly matched with you. They sometimes cheat. Their internet connections are slow (or yours is). They usually quit thirty seconds after the game starts. They sometimes hurl verbal abuse at you. You need to do it with someone you can see with your eyes so that there are social deterrents to fun-ruining behavior.

I used to think premise one plus premise two should equal this...

Conclusion: Multiplayer computer games should be a popular feature at conventions.

The premises are true, the conclusion often is not. Despite hectic activity running other events all weekend, I would happily have played, but I've never played even one computer game at Penguicon. It took me a while to discover the reasons for this, but not before two years of unsuccessful attempts to attract players to scheduled computer gaming on a truly impressive server provided and administrated by Tom and Dan Skelton. We even toyed with the idea of purchasing a library of fully-licensed game disks so people wouldn't have to bring their own games.

What I left out of my premises is that convention attendees don't like lugging their desktop computer, monitor, and peripherals. Laptops abound, but most good games don't run without CDs, which their owners didn't bring. Thus far, so far as I know, I am the only person who brings a personally-owned desktop system and game CDs to Penguicon. The rest of the desktops belong to the convention's complimentary Linux computer lounge and don't have fun multiplayer games installed.

I imagine a Linux partisan suggesting Tux Racer. No, I'm sorry, they're not going to sit down to a game of Tux Racer when they could be sampling the cerebral stimulation and sybaritic delights elsewhere in the Penguicon pleasure dome. Games here must be first-rate, like StarCraft. I saw somebody playing StarCraft under Wine in the computer lounge; as a demo of the capabilities of Linux, that rocked. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be networked. Non-multiplayer games don't bring much value to the convention-going experience. You could do that alone at home.

A brief side note about the uncomfortable relationship between Linux and gaming: I'm sincerely sorry to the two people who used to complain about the presence of my Windows machine next to my Linux box at Penguicon, and complained about the XBoxes which some kids were having a lot of fun with-- but Penguicon is about fun first. Preferably the fun is with SF and/or computers, but we're not even picky about that. Notice I did not even specify what kind of computers, so long as they're hackable to run open source software, and Windows and XBox both are hackable in luscious and salivating ways. We are just not in the business of policing how people are having fun.

So, what to do? Whenever I attend a convention that has a computer gaming room, such as Marcon or Balticon, I make sure to ask somebody how they got such a feature, and why it's so well-attended and organized. In some cases, a company set it up for the convention as a form of publicity. In other cases, there were pre-existing groups who got together outside of the convention for LAN parties, and threw them at the convention for themselves and the other attendees.

So, I'm starting to host LAN parties. I don't know if this will kickstart computer gaming at Penguicon, but that's OK, because it's fun no matter where it is. I've hosted the first one and it was a lot of fun. The only question now is what games to play. My own personal favorite category is Real Time Strategy, and I'm a fan of Red Alert 2 and Homeworld 2. Our Head of Operations, Gerald Gentry, is one of the many fans of the RTS "Total Annihilation". Total Annihilation most promising candidate for future LAN parties. It's an older out-of-print classic with a persistent fan base. One of the reasons Total Annihilation seems to have been the oldschool king of RTS is its infinite customizability and expandability by the volunteer efforts of its fans.

Yes, I know those games aren't Open Source. Let us speak about that frankly and without sentimentality. At this stage in history, fun multiplayer computer games that run on *nix are rare and precious. Some great games such as Quake and FreeCiv were released into Open Source and made free of charge, but wouldn't exist and be popular were it not for their original closed-source development model and business model. Volunteer effort is incredible at creating new content for existing closed-source games such as The Sims or Half-Life. But original games that are all-volunteer efforts are either something simple like a bubble-bobble clone, or they lack spit and polish and they have an enormous learning curve which almost requires you to be a hacker to get them running and get content running on them. There is a lot being done by Open Source game developers to change this situation, but that's how it stands in September 2006.

Here's a case in point of a promising but user-unfriendly game. Total Annihilation is being cloned as an improved Open Source project. This fully 3-D game engine, under the development name of "Total Annihilation: Spring", accepts all the maps, units, scenarios, music, A.I. scripts, and other content fans have created for the original over the years. The "Spring" clone is currently not ready for general consumption, because when you start it it expects you to build everything from scratch, or know where to get it on the internet, and how to get all the pieces to work with each other. There's no competent documentation to speak of, so the learning curve is impassable. But someday, someday, this will be one of the greatest fan-created game adaptations since Counter-Strike.

Until the day Spring is ready, Gerald plans to bring the original Total Annihilation disks to the next LAN party at my house in Redford , and has a record of perfect reliability getting it to run over a network. Speak up to join in!

2006-09-15

Bi-Weekly SMOFing Dinner

Tonight, September 15, 2006, it's at my house in Redford, conveniently central to the Ann Arbor/Detroit suburban metroplex! I'm serving pizza.

Every other Friday we gather in the home of John Guest, the Chair. We include anyone who wants to hang out with each other and chat about Penguicon's direction and vision, among many other things. This time the Chair has been laid low with a root canal and is in no state to host the gathering, so I eagerly stepped up.

They call it the SMOP Dinner, which stands for Secret Masters of Penguicon. This is an inside joke based on SMOF, which stands for Secret Masters of Fandom. The term applied tongue-in-cheek because conrunners were usually very un-secret. That's another inside joke in science fiction fandom. (Check us out, we have nested inside jokes. If we start making recursive acronyms we'll be unmistakable as an open source software convention. I consider it part of my job to explain all this confusing vocabulary to newcomers.)

Over the decades at conventions, SMOFing became a verb, meaning "talking about running conventions while attending conventions." Pretty soon a lot of people started using it to mean "talking about conrunning incessantly whether you're at a convention or not."

This event was started to try to flatten the pyramid of Penguicon's volunteers and encourage people to take advantage of Penguicon's openness. If you care about Penguicon, show up whether you're working on the convention or not. The SMOP Dinner is different from the monthly meeting of the convention committee. It's a small social gathering. It's laid back, you can talk about anything, and there's no membership, agenda, formality, or structure. We just SMOF, eat, talk about SF/fantasy/software/games, and get to know each other better.

If there's one thing I've learned over the years running Penguicon, it's essential to a convention -- any large organized social group, really -- to have an informal information network to be in touch with people. You have to talk to actually know each other and find out what people are thinking, expecting, complaining, or planning. Having an unresponsive year at your convention run by clusters of friendly-but-distant strangers can still result in an incredibly fun weekend (and Penguicon always is dynamite fun) but it would come with unecessary cost, work, and misunderstanding than it would be if you just talk to people. A lot. Make friends, introduce them to each other. "Isolated islands" = "not knowing who else is working on the con" = "not knowing what attendees want" = "asking for complications". Most years, we're responsive, and this year we're getting super responsive to you, our "customers". (OK, I'm done philosophizing for the day. That's just my two cents.)

So, if you haven't been able to make the meetings of the convention committee, or if you're like me and there's no such thing as too much social gathering about Penguicon, whether you are working on the convention or not, come to the dinner tonight, September 15, 2006. Email me at matt dot mattarn at gmail dot com for directions to my house in Redford, MI.

2006-09-11

Charlie Stross At Penguicon

With the addition of Charlie Stross to Penguicon's already-stellar 2007 Guest of Honor lineup, it's fast becoming the premier destination for science fiction fans in April.

One of the computer-savviest, internettiest, award-winningest science fiction/fantasy/Lovecraftian authors, Charlie Stross, will fly here from Scotland to be a Guest of Honor at Penguicon. In my excitement, adjectives have begun to fail me-- behold how I must kludge them out of other parts of speech. I am so geeked about this I'm nearly lapsing into Lojban.

I noted aloud for the past several months that when I got Cory Doctorow for Penguicon 3.0 in 2005, he was the only full GoH we ever had who was a science fiction author. The rest were fantasy. Well this year, both of our Author GoHs are SF! This year, with Charlie Stross, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, Nick Sagan, Sarah Monette, and Sarah Zettel, we have now officially Guestified and Niftified so many award-winning leading lights at the cutting-edge of genre fiction where it's at its most vigorous, this lineup is shining like a heavenly firmament.

Penguicon's Head of Guest Liaisons, Anne Murphy, and I got to spend time with John Scalzi, Tobias Buckell, Anne Harris and Sarah Zettel (all of whom I look forward to putting on programming) at the Kerrytown Book Fair in Ann Arbor yesterday, where they gave a panel about science fiction. I told Scalzi about seeing his friend Charlie Stross at Penguicon, and he said the GoH lineup is verging on an embarrassment of riches. The total number of awards, nominations, and other forms of prestige possessed by our GoHs and Nifties is difficult to calculate with human science. Scalzi came up with a great idea, to have a panel about awards: Who do they benefit-- the authors or the readers? Does it give credibility? Who pays attention?

With the attendance of Christine Peterson of the Foresight Nanotech institute, and the numerous scientists who I'm recruiting, combined with all the Hard SF authors, there's a clear sub-theme emerging this year about futurics.

Another sub-theme I see emerging is the Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos.

  • Charlie Stross writes, among many other things, spy thrillers about the British Secret Service in a modern world of Lovecraftian magical horror.
  • A Cthulhu sequel for the Munchkin card game has recently been illustrated by John Kovalic and written by Steve Jackson.
  • Plans are in the works to perform "A Shoggoth On The Roof" at Penguicon, a stage musical combining the Cthulhu Mythos with the music from "Fiddler On The Roof". "There are some things that man was not meant to adapt to musical theatre, and A Shoggoth on the Roof has long been regarded as a musical that cannot and must not be produced." Please contact Penguicon if you want to be added to the cast.
  • We plan to screen the black-and-white silent film "Call of Cthulhu" which the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society recently produced in authentic Mythoscope(TM). Here's hoping my friends and I finish translating the speech cards into Lojban in time, and we'll show the translation simultaneously. There are some things man was not meant to know, and the best way to hide it from them is to write it in Lojban.

2006-09-10

Given Enough Eyeballs On The Schedule, All Bugs Are Shallow

You can view the Penguicon 2007 schedule as it develops on the web, at https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=px_AYw4N9NwPnAq0xXm6HUQ

Google has a web service that lets you create or import spreadsheets, and you can assign viewing rights and editing rights to whoever you wish. I made one for the Penguicon event schedule, and have been dropping events into it whenever I think of an idea for a potential new one.

This version of the schedule isn't even a Beta release. It's an early developer's Alpha release of Penguicon 5.0's "source code". (By the way, that's not true of the Google Spreadsheets software, which so far has been completely bug-free for me.) There is a notice at the top, reading "ATTENTION: THIS SPREADSHEET IS A VERY EARLY DRAFT. MANY EVENTS ARE PLACED WHERE THEY ARE FOR LITTLE OR NO REASON, WHILE WE AWAIT DIFFERENT EVENTS TO FIT AROUND. COMMENTS WELCOME!" Anything appearing on this schedule is not necessarily a definite confirmation yet. But as I have said many times, it's my goal to get this set in wet plaster by the end of the year. In other words, by then it should be a functional but slightly buggy "Penguicon 5.0 Beta Release".

Viewing access is open to the world. Currently editing access is granted to the programming team, each of whom knows something about one of the topic tracks or guests of honor. If that describes you (and it's broad enough that if you're reading this, it probably does), please ask me to put you on the programming team!

Not only do I not go in for secrecy, I don't like bottlenecks of top-down permission either. If you want to do something at Penguicon, unless you're asking for money, the answer is probably "yes." (If it involves the budget, the head of programming can't just rubber-stamp it. Talk to the Conchair.) We've got a huge culture of volunteerism from both the computer and SF fandom sides, with people clamoring to be given permission to bring their own cool ideas to reality. I may not have all the web-based bells and whistles that I originally wanted for user-generated content, but other than to be a referree with distributing the rare spaces and times and peak hours, my job is still to get out of your way and let you shine.

One of the nice things about showing this to you is that you can let me know where you see conflicts between the events that you would most like to see. Of course it will be impossible to honor all requests, but we aim to please.

Sorry for the relative dearth of tech programming right now, but we still have more than seven months left. Never fear, our Head of Tech Programming, last year's Conchair Aaron Thul, is on the job. Once again ArsTechnica will be filling a room almost around the clock. UHACC told me at the last Penguicon they'll want to give presentations this year, too. In past years, at a certain point, the whole tech track would sort of spontaneously self-assemble out of dozens of independent volunteers. It could have been a little more organized. Now that tech-geek and extroverted people-person extraordinaire Aaron Thul is Head of Tech Programming, it will be a much more organized process to ensure we don't have too much of one tech topic, and make sure we have enough practical and not too much theoretical.

2006-09-07

ChessLARP

In Penguicon 5.0's huge game room, half of a ballroom section will be devoted to Live Action Role Playing and giant human-sized boardgames. This one combines them, with chess tactics, resource management, and diplomacy, where players are chess pieces with agendas of their own.

I've been working on a variety of projects for a few years that have come together in this event, and it also borrows inspiration from Navia Dratp. Here's a link to the complete rules.

The object of ChessLARP is to capture the crowns of the Kings of both parties of chess pieces. Enter the board as a chess piece of your own design! Work together to capture whoever is the current King of the opposing party. But only do that in such a way that you are set up to backstab each other for one individual to wear both crowns! Watch out, the surviving members of the other party of adventurers can take their crown back! Will the two parties of adventurers work as a team to protect their crown, or will they munchkin in an attempt to keep it for themselves?

2006-09-06

Penguicon Yearbook

An idea for little digital photography studio at Penguicon that photographs everyone who's willing, and we publish it on disk as a yearbook after the event. Photographer wanted.

In the last blog entry I dropped one single tantalizing mention of the words "Yearbook Photography". At Youmacon at this same hotel (that's the anime convention that provides Penguicon's anime room), I noticed a backdrop that was set up to photograph the costume contest entrants. I'll be we can get such a backdrop from the same place we get our pipe and drape. Then if a good digital photographer will volunteer, we can set up several times for attendees to come by and give their name and get their picture taken if they want. Or at least give their name for a listing without a photo, if they're shy. (We won't use the registration database for names. We only want those who attended.) After Penguicon, I'll put the photos in desktop publishing software and turn them into a yearbook.

You don't have to pay to have your photo taken-- just to get the yearbook. Those who want to pay some trifling amount of money when they get their photo taken could give their address to which to mail the finished product on CD or DVD, depending on the photo resolution quality they want. It would just be enough money to cover the cost of the burnable media, label, and shipping. Or they could pay a certain amount to get their copy run off in black and white and saddle-stitched like a magazine. It breaks even before a penny has been spent on it, and involves no work during the runup to the convention.

The month immediately after Penguicon is always the time of year when I'm the most enthusiastic about it anyway, so I may as well put that to use, because I can't do most things at that time, because most of the others who worked on the con want to take a vacation from the work for at least a few weeks, because we're such a new convention with a small team that everybody was a little crispy around the edges by the time they reach that final transcendent weekend of acrobatic, sparkling, fizzing, white-hot fun, all in one incredible run-on sentence kind of like this one. So this is an opportunity to have something for me to do that doesn't depend on waiting for somebody else. Oh wait-- except the photographer has to give me the digital pictures!

Do you have a fine quality digital camera? Are you good at using it? Would you have fun doing this? Can I rely on you to get me the pictures before the end of April? Apply within!

Function Space Allocation

We had a programming meeting last night with the purpose of breaking out the function space.

I welcome everybody's feedback for this! We had a programming meeting last night with the purpose of breaking out the function space into the various things that take a room for the whole weekend. So, it was not so much designing specific events. The plan could change, but currently the general blueprint is as follows.

Ballroom A: Big Top. The Big Top is the sort of place where you have--

  • Opening Ceremonies
  • Bruce Schneier Keynote "The Future of Privacy"
  • Live Shadowcast of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Musical Episode"
  • "A Shoggoth On The Roof"
  • swordfighting demonstrations, a martial art performed with padded PVC safety swords

Ballroom B: Computer Lounge and Chaos Machine.

Ballroom C: Gaming. Half tabletop gaming, the other half would be live floor games like

Assembly: Junkpile Wars; Yearbook Photography.

Maple A, Promenade East, Northfield Rooms: Breakout Rooms.

Maple B: Anime.

Maple C: Dealers.

Oak Room: Non-anime Film Room, sometimes Breakout Room.

Promenade West: Concerts.

  • Tom Smith
  • Luke Ski
  • Clif Flynt
  • Rob Balder
  • Worm Quartet
  • ... others

Board Room: Writer's workshop, coffee with a guest of honor.

2006-09-05

They can summon carnivals into existence with the power of their MINDS

Time to report the latest additional fascinating and illustrious personages who you can meet at Penguicon 2007!

I haven't blogged yet about who is coming to Penguicon in 2007 so far. Here's a rundown of new faces at Penguicon.

The Guests of honor John Kovalic, Randy Milholland, Bruce Schneier and Christine Peterson you mostly know from our "About Our Guests" page. But yesterday Elizabeth Bear accepted our invitation to be a Guest of Honor! Thank you, Elizabeth Bear fan Yanni Kuznia, for helping us get this guest! Elizabeth Bear is Cambell-award-winning author of the Locus-award-winning Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired science fiction trilogy, The Promethean Age fantasy trilogy, and numerous short stories. She has a very active presence on the web through which she is very involved with her readers.
Elizabeth Bear Homepage.
Livejournal.
Livejournal of her writing process.
Discussion group about Worldwired.
Discussion group on The Internet Book Database of Fiction.

Nick Sagan will be attending as a Nifty Guest. Nick is the author of SF novels Idlewild, Edenborn, and Everfree. He is the son of Carl Sagan. Nick spent his teenage years operating The Freehold, an electronic bulletin board system dedicated to role-playing games. See his blog here.

David Louis Edelman is the author of a debut science fiction novel, Infoquake, and is a web programmer. By providing additional background material for his novel on the web, he's exploring a visionary territory of how fiction might be written in a future where text is hypertext. David did a search on MySpace, found my profile and contacted me. He'll fit with Penguicon like a hand in a glove!

Mark Sims, President of Nanorex, Inc, will present about their open-source nanotechnology simulation and CAD design software.

Ethan Watrall, professor of game design at Michigan State University, will give a Storyworld Design Workshop. He has an elaborate plan for this, involving a permanent wiki, and a lot of enthusiasm is building among those who know. I'll give this its own blog post eventually.

Sarah Monette will join us as well. She was a Campbell nominee this year, who writes fantasy, horror, and occasionally science fiction. She has been routed our way thanks to her frequent co-author Elizabeth Bear.

I said this list was about the newcomers, but why not also list some returning program participants? I just now, I mean just now while writing this, got word from Karl Schroeder that he'll make a repeat appearance in 2007. Penguicon's 2004 Gaming Guest of Honor Steve Jackson will return. Blogger and novelist John Scalzi, who won a Campbell win a couple of weeks ago, will definitely be back. I still vividly remember the panels I was on in 2004 with author Sarah Zettel and I'm glad she'll be here. Marshall Newrock will present on "Principles of Debugging". Jeff Lawton will present about Asterisk, the open source telephony software. Michael "Freon" Andaluz will give the Writer's Workshop again. And what Penguicon would be complete without Eric and Kathy Raymond? :)

Let's see, did I cover everything? I'll just have to keep blogging as the programming continues to shape up. Thanks to Anne K.G. Murphy, Penguicon's concom member in charge of guests, for all the invites she's been sending!

2006-09-01

Function Space Map of New Hotel

I've made a map of the function space!

This is the Troy Hilton, formerly known as the Northfield Hilton. Next up: I'll finish my map of the hotel room layout!

2006-08-29

Nanorex at Penguicon

Mark Sims, President of Nanorex, Inc. will present about their open-source nanotech simulation software at Penguicon 5.0 in 2007.

The world's first nanotech CAD/CAE software is developed locally to Penguicon, runs on Linux, and is open source under the GPL. And Mark Sims, president of Nanorex, will present about it at Penguicon!

Nanorex is a company based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan that employs K. Eric Drexler, the Father of Molecular Nanotechnology, as Chief Technical Advisor. (Dr. Drexler telecommutes from his home in California.) Other advisors include names I recognize from frequent mentions on Nanodot, the blog of Penguicon's 2007 Science Guest of Honor Christine Peterson-- names such as Ralph Merkle, J. Storrs Hall, and Robert Freitas, Jr.

Their product is Nanoengineer-1, which uses a detailed and accurate model of the laws of physics to simulate atomic interactions in 3D. Engineers can design and test nanosystems in this software rather than use trial and error with the expensive and slow mechanosynthesis process of one real, physical molecule at a time. It is for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is open source under the GPL.

Again: the world's first nanotech CAD/CAE software is developed locally to Penguicon, runs on Linux, and is open source under the GPL! And you get to see it at Penguicon 5.0!

2006-08-28

ID Chips + Capsule Vending Machine = ID Chips On A Vending Machine

A brainstorming blog post in which I am distracted by the shiny. But what to do with it? Click through to read the description.

BoingBoing has an entry about a capsule vending machine at Foo Camp which sold little gears, motors, switches, and other spare parts.

Hmm, what might Penguicon do if we had one of those vending machines? It would be neat to fill the capsules with iButtons. That's a cheap uniquely identified computer chip, which can hold a smidgen of data, enclosed in a tiny stainless steel can. You touch it to a contact to transfer the data.

But what to do with it? Would purchasing an iButton for $.50 at Penguicon...
Grant entry into some kind of alternate reality game or scavenger hunt, which requires you to find the contact points around the convention, and touch the chip to them?
Operate a beer-dispensing Keg Bot like they did at DefCon?
Let you register your head-count presence at a panel or other event?
What do you think?

Hilarious Bruce Schneier "Facts"

Check out the legends of myth and glory that are spreading about Penguicon's software guest of honor: https://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/

Check out the legends of myth and glory that are spreading about Penguicon's software guest of honor.

"Bruce Schneier's secure handshake is so strong, you won't be able to exchange keys with anyone else for days."

"Most people use passwords. Some people use passphrases. Bruce Schneier uses an epic passpoem, detailing the life and works of seven mythical Norse heroes."

"Quantum cryptography exchanged the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for the Schneier Dead Moral Certainty Principle when Bruce Schneier came to town."

... and so on. More Bruce Schneier Facts are added every day, and they now number in the hundreds!

-Matt Arnold

P.S. The reason why it's funny (for anyone who might not already know), is that it is a parody of another parody, "Chuck Norris Facts".


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