Fortezza, Umilitade, e Largo Core - Courage, Humility, and Largeness of Heart.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Why I love Dragon*Con

Dragon*Con is not just costumes and fandom

This weekend was my first full weekend of Dragon*Con. It is not just geek heaven but also nerd heaven. In case you were wondering what the difference between the two terms is:

Dragon*Con is not just Trekkies and Whovians in costumes, there is a wide assortment of cerebral panels to choose from as well. I spent most of my time in the nerdy, less crowded panels. Next year I may attempt to participate in the more popular panels with the big name stars but this year I was happy to sit in on the less attended, more cerebral panels. In other words, I completely geeked out on all the nerdiness. Some of the amazing panels I attended:
  • Why Mensa Will Never Solve World Hunger
    • a panel which discussed the difference between intelligence and rationality 
  • Of Mice and Men: How mice revolutionized our knowledge of neurogenetics 
  • Comics as Teaching Tools
  • The Moral Arc of Science
  • The Hobbit: One book, three movies
  • Why Everything You Know About Quantum Mechanics is Wrong
  • Tesla vs. Edison
  • Game of Thrones Religions: We want you for the Red God 
And yes, I took copious notes in all of them!

Historically, most of my friends are west coast Burning Man attendees. However we've gotten older, many have had kids, and we realize that washing playa dirt out of our nether regions is not as much fun as it was when we were younger. I am now on a campaign to convert them to east coast Dragon*Con-ers (is that the proper term? if not, what is?). I am not alone in this idea- Dragon Con: Where Grown-Up Nerds (& Kids) Go to Play .

Don't get me wrong, the costumes are amazing! Some links to pictures of these amazing costumes: All the Coolest Costumes and Props We Saw at Dragon*Con, c|net and my personal photos: CleverClover Dragon*Con 2013.  Sadly, I was not able to take pictures of the most amazing costumes, so if you want to see them, you'll have to just come next year and see them for yourself.

The moral of the story: Dragon*Con is not a one dimensional experience and holds something for just about everyone. Personally, I'm still completely blissed out by the experience.