At Long Last, the Beginning

Finally, after much Tarantinoesque discontinuity, here I am at the beginning.

At roughly 9am Hal Bidlack took the stage announcing himself as the host (as he is every year) for the next 55 hours worth of content.

He did a quick straw poll of how many people were attending TAM for the first time.
The answer – a lot. Somewhere between a third and half. I expect that a lot of Trans-Atlantic skeptics forsook TAM this year for TAM-London, bringing the overall number as well as the number of returnees down a bit... but that is little more than a guess. It would certainly be good for skepticism if it were true, as the conference had a record number of attendees this year.

Indeed it was a very full room.

A picture is worth a thousand nerds.

He also announced that the greatest percentage of women had shown up ever – 30%.

He noted the shift of presidency from founder James Randi to celebrity astronomer Phil Plait. The Amazing Randi is getting old, and while still full of energy he is focussing on writing and other things one would associate with someone in the winter of their season doing so as to do their best to tie a bow on their life's work.

He noted that despite being TAM-7, that this was in fact the 8^th TAM due to TAM 5.5.

He imparted the story of his family going on an accidental ghost-tour through the building that Stephen King wrote The Shining in (often mistaken as the place where it was filmed.) He told how the guide pointed out that over a dusty carpeted staircase was the best place in the house to shoot ghost-orb photos... if you know your flash-photography you know why that is.

He encouraged us to make the most of the conference to remind ourselves that we are not alone – a subject that many a newly-minted skeptic (even as recently as myself in the 'awareness of the movement' sense) needs demonstrated to them – and TAM could not be a better place for it. As he said "we are already friends... we are a large family... at the James Randi family reunion."

After a failed joke (Which apparently happens regularly with Hal – he later in his greeting alluded to the long standing tradition of the audience "pretending to not like" his jokes.) he informed us that his only real joke would occur Saturday at 3.

He made a quick outline of SkeptiCamp – which would be the only mention of any depth of it on stage, though there was a SkeptiCamp booth (which I manned at lunch with Jesse Brydle from the Vancouver CFI) at the back of the room which provided people with information all weekend long. It sounds (incidentally) as though at least one SkeptiCamp has risen from the weekend – as it's to be hosted by the NYC Skeptics it'll probably dwarf all of us early adopters in no time.

He also reminded us that we – the people who attend TAM are "no more cookie-cutters than those who argue which Star Trek series is the best. Oddly he got the answer to that wrong, by identifying "The Original Series" instead of DS9 – a ridiculous error that only the misinformed could make. We are a large tent and there is a sense of inclusion. We can disagree. Randi is an atheist, Hal is rather famously not.

Another stat he threw out which became a running joke over the weekend was that twenty eight people at the conference were named 'Dave.'

Before wrapping up he thanked a number of folks who deserved thanking for their part in making the conference happen.

He then announced something that had been brewing since before people started arriving... there was no conference code for the WiFi. Excuse a tangent... the WiFi situation at the hotel was ridiculous. It cost $13 per day for internet in your room – PER COMPUTER. If you wanted WiFi in the conference centre – it was an additional fee (I believe it was $80 for four hours!) I had paid for one day of in-room WiFi the day before around 5pm. Later Friday afternoon around 2 (I only arrived at the hotel at 2 the previous day.) I went to the room to get a few messages off (including a post or two on this blog) before my time ran out. My "24 hours" was over. What a fucking joke. I was so incensed that I decided they were getting no more of my WiFi money over the weekend. To be fair – the conference itself eventually found itself a work-around. There were a lot of computer folk in that room to trouble shoot it. By that time I'd already relaxed into a wirelessless routine and didn't worry about it.

And... I need to remember this... TD Bank has a special promotion wherein the bank will donate a portion of your yearly balance at no cost to you to the JREF. Gotta sign up for that. The James Randi Educational Foundation Affinity Program. And Amazon has a JREF store – but you have to go to Amazon through the JREF web-page. Standard affiliate marketing – good for the JREF, at no cost to the purchaser.

Then he introduced Phil and Randi... (Funny... Dr. Phil Plait is "Phil" but James Randi is "Randi.")

Phil didn't spend much time talking. He said that we were there for three reasons:

1. To hear the speakers – of course.


2. To see Randi – he is the father of the modern skeptical movement.


3. For the community. "There are so many people here because there are so many people here." Somehow the JREF reached critical mass and became the touchstone of the skeptical movement.
   

One important thing Phil said that I'm going to transcribe directly:

As Hal said, we may disagree on religion, we may disagree on politics – I'll guarantee you that, we may disagree on the existence or non-existence of UFOs. But we all agree on how to disagree, we all agree on how we decide whether were going to agree or disagree and we all agree on how we're going to reach those conclusions. That's the rational process, skepticism, critical thinking and hopefully the lack of logical fallacies that we see out there so much. And it's those logical fallacies that we are here to try to minimize. ...As long as we have squishy grey matter in our heads we are never going to totally get rid of them.

He used that thought to segue into discussion of the Million Dollar Challenge and the test that was coming on Sunday. After a brief overview of the intent of the MDC and the decision that was previously made to discontinue it, Phil announced that that decision had been over turned and that the MDC will continue into the future. That received a big round of applause. While the MDC is a hammer – when you have a hammer, everything is a nail. They need to adjust the process to make it less work than it has been, but they are going to continue using it as a tool to show the world what is reality.

When Phil turned the podium over to Randi the applause went on for about thirty five seconds and he hadn't even said a word. I think that many of us have been having similar thoughts. Randi is getting old. Every TAM may be his last, and the fact that he had be not in the least bit inconspicuously going around in a wheel-chair could not have been far from folks minds. Paul and I had mused about it as we got ready that morning – was it part of the 'mentalism feat' he was to perform at the end of the weekend – was it showmanship? Or was it for real? We did not know at that time that the mentalism had been cancelled and that we were about to find out that it was in fact real. Randi wasted very little time telling the crowd some sad cryptic news...

"Greetings all. I have a lack of shirts at home in Plantation Florida and they
are used for different purposes.... This is my happy shirt. I look out and see
this crowd that goes back as far as my eyes can penetrate in the haze. Feeling
extremely proud and humbled by the fact that all you folks have shown up here to
hear what we all have to say about the skeptical movement. ...The JREF staff and
I have been repeatedly astonished over the years if not amazed... and we are
appropriately grateful and humbled for your presence here, but I must explain my
somewhat subdued appearance. This what we call folks a major bummer. During a
routine examination a more than a month ago we found that I had a rather nasty
visitor inside of me. Yet another stunning example of intelligent design at
work. My doctors went in and removed it and things are looking up again. I'll be
weak for a few months yet. ...but I'll be able to keep up with my duties as the
treatment proceeds. ...My prognosis is good eventhough I've decided to go along
with this old fashioned, what do you call it? Oh yes, orthodox medicine."
(Edited for brevity.)

Randi took special effort to thank his assistant Shawn McCabe as well as a small army of JREF staff members and Volunteers without whom the conference would only operate as a pale shadow of the version we were witnessing.

Randi also expressed his great pleasure that Bob Lancaster – creator of the Stop Sylvia Brown web-site – who suffered a stroke last year was able to make it and that he was in such great condition.

He went on noting other notable skeptics in attendance before announcing that 1007 people had registered as of him taking the stage and that the number was inevitably going to grow as late-comers arrived over the weekend.

He expressed his delight thinking about TAM London being sold out in an hour of going on line and that preparations for TAM 8 were already in the works.

He re-affirmed that people should genuinely feel free to greet him and by extension all other skeptical friends celebrities and otherwise before assuring us that he would beat his current health issue and thanking the crowd deeply for simply being in attendance.

Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe Breakfast Shows

Once again my intention to move sequentially has been scuttled by a lack of foresight. Because the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe was recorded over the course of Friday and Saturday morning breakfasts, and the entire show was posted in their podcast feed today, I'll cover both in one shot here and now.

Friday morning began really early.

I dragged myself out of bed around 6:30 am after having laid awake for over half an hour already. I had last looked at the clock a little after 2:00 am. That was my fourth night in a row with less than four hours of sleep. It was not the last. I figure I was still pretty excited about the upcoming days' events, so I'm going with that as the reason I would wake so early without provocation.

Paul and I each showered and compared notes on our plan of attack for the day. Before we knew it, it was after 7:00. We already knew that there were around a thousand registrants to the conference, so getting a good seat would be... well, hardly a given.

We arrived at the conference centre before 7:30. Even though it was in the same building, the trip easily took over five minutes most times. Depending on elevator traffic it often took even longer.

Walking into the room, there was already a line-up for the breakfast buffet, and 80% or so of the seating in the front-most section (There were four or five roughly even sections front to back.) was taken already. The second section was beginning to fill and there were scattered people throughout the remaining sections.

1000+ chairs... it was a BIG room.

We chose a pair of seats close to the door in the front row of the second section. It turned out to be a pretty good seat. Good for people watching as there was a lot of traffic – including virtually ALL of the celebrity skeptics at one point or another – and it meant that for taking video I didn't have to deal with people sitting right in front of me... though the nearly constant traffic was an ongoing issue.

The line-up for breakfast was quite long, but as it split into four, it moved quite quickly. It was in the breakfast line that I had my first realization that despite the great level's of friendliness in the group, due to the specific demographic there is going to be a higher than usual level of socially awkward men. I tried to strike up a conversation with the fellow in front of me, but it was a painful experience. I honestly would not have been surprised had he started mumbling about his stapler.

As I was making my way back to my seat the familiar opening of the SGU began and TAM7, for me had truly begun.

If there was one thing I was most excited about in advance of the conference it was attending the SGU live recording. It was definitely fun to have done and I doubt that ever going again will match the experience of those two mornings. The show itself had a lot of visual content so doesn't play as well in the audio-only podcast format.

Saturday morning also started early – again I failed to get more than four hours sleep. Paul beat me out of bed Saturday morning. I got up while he was in the shower. He headed for poolside to do some blogging while I went and reserved some seats in the conference room. I could have had the exact seats we had on Friday, but I opted for a pair in the same row, but on the opposite side of the room.

The SGU recording on Saturday was less in depth than the previous morning. It began with the premiere of Jay's ghost-hunting movie – which has already been linked in a previous entry.

There was one more news item: "Genie Sued" – the other four news items were recorded the first day.

On Friday morning, Evan's regular segment, "Who's that noisy?" had been a special "TAM" version – I assume it's never going to appear in the show. "Who's that noisy?" is a weekly clip of audio – sometimes a quote, sometimes... well, a noise – which the listeners are challenged to identify, with the answer being revealed the following week. For TAM the noise was a heavily processed voice laughing maniacally and declaring itself to be Satan. My first thought was it might be Phil Plait the president of the JREF, but I settled on a guess of Penn Gillette. It somehow seemed more likely to me... I don't know why, I should have gone with my first guess. It WAS Phil Plait as revealed on Saturday.

Following "Who's that noisy?" was a second Q&A session, there had been a first session on Friday morning. The second question was Sid Rodriguez... I've mentioned and linked this previously too.

Sid & Rebecca got married on stage. For real. As pointed out in the SGU podcast (which featured an edited version of it) it may have been the world's first podcast wedding.

It was fun to witness, and be a part of – it was kind of a skeptical 'in-joke' as Rebecca has been fielding marriage proposals since she first joined the SGU. Hopefully putting the wedding on the podcast will put an end to all that for her once and for all.

But I have a small issue with it. As can be heard in the podcast, it was played – reasonably well – as an ambush of Rebecca. It seems as though they have anticipated every single reservation she has and answered to them. On the audio-recording I made Paul and I wonder if this is for real, or is it all set-up. We decide (or to be fair, I decide and then inform him) that it is for real when one of the Skepchicks – I'm not sure who – takes the mic and excitedly squeals about how hard it was to keep it a secret (presumably from Rebecca first and foremost). I may have misinterpreted this, but listening to it all again on the podcast... I think it was still part of the facade that Rebecca had no idea what was about to happen.

And it was a facade. Rebecca, without ever copping to it being a deliberate attempt to mislead, does outline in a post on Skepchick all of the planning that went into it and it is clear that she was in on it from the start. At least it's clear now – and if it had been a deliberate effort to mislead they didn't stand behind it for long at all.

Anyhow... I'm not going into further detail on the two SGU recordings as most of it is either already posted earlier in this blog or can be heard on the podcast for the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.