Okay, sorry about the delays. My mother was down visiting for the last two-and-a-half weeks so my days have been spent working or touring around. Not only did we travel all over Qatar but we did trips to Dubai and Muscat just so she could have a feel for the region. By the way Muscat is really nice and if anyone in the region is reading this I recommend Muscat for a nice relaxing getaway vacation, moreso than Dubai.
Anyway, back to TAM. What’s sad is that it has been more than 5 wks since TAM ended and I haven’t finished my review. I have really got to get my butt in gear on these things.
Day 1 continued:
Lori Lipman Brown – Secular Coalition of America
The SCoA is an organization that lobbies for tolerance for all faith practices, including for atheists, humanists and other nonthiests. Though most of their members are not religious per se their website states that they welcome religious members who support the right of people to practice their faith/non-faith without discrimination. Lori discussee life as an atheist/nontheist lobbyist in today’s America as well as upcoming projects by SCoA (I can’t make myself shorten it to SCA as my whole life I’ve known the SCA as those guys who wear medieval armour and do battle). The highlight project for the SCoA is the official announcement of the ‘coming out’ of a member of Congress/Senate as a nontheist, which is to happen shortly. At least it was at the time of TAM – that announcement has now been made. (Congressman Pete Stark, D-California)
Penn & Teller – professional magicians
If you’ve never heard of Penn & Teller, these guys are top-tier magicians who have a nightly show at the Rio in Vegas, and also host the TV Show BullSh!t where they take a critical look at various topics. Big fans of JREF, they’ve been presenters at all three TAMs that I have attended.
This year they decided to just do a Q&A from the audience, something that I’m not supportive of. If you’re scheduled to give a 45-minute talk the least you can do is prepare something in advance, even if it’s just 15 or 20 minutes, then have a Q&A. Don’t just walk onstage and go “any questions for us?”
Well they found out why doing that might not be a good idea – without presenting something first to give a general topic for people to ask questions about you open yourself up to be bombarded with anything – including the most inane and random questions. There were times that as soon as the question was asked they’d both look at each other like ‘huh’. So remember folks, if you just have a Q&A without specifying a topic, prepare to be asked if you and your sons are circumcised (no, I’m not making that up)
Richard Wiseman – psychologist & magician
Richard Wiseman is another TAM standard, having been at all three TAMs that I’ve attended. A researcher in Britain he is also a consistently entertaining presenter, he’s funny and combines his presentations with some magic tricks to keep things. You learn while you laugh.
Like many of the presentations that day his slideshow was plagued with technical difficulties, primarily due to a faulty cable in the Riviera’s IT set-up. It appeared that Richard was getting a little upset with the problems and I don’t blame him, when you give high-energy presentations you don’t want the flow to be interrupted with tech problems.
Richard discussed some of the investigations he made during the year, including a ‘telepathic dog’ that would go to the window whenever its owner was about to come back to the house from whatever errands she was on. I think this dog got a bit of press in Britain for its ‘powers’, but Richard and associates filmed the dog while its owner was out for many hours, finding that the dog went to the window numerous times (multiple times an hour) thus shedding some much-needed doubt on this dog’s telepathic abilities. Why are people so willing to quickly accept things like telepathic dogs anyway?
Anyway he also discussed another project that gained some press in Britain – research into finding the funniest joke. This proved to be a huge success with their internet site getting flooded with jokes that they had to wade through and grade using various processes. I won’t give away the eventual winner, you will have to look it up yourself.
Despite the technical delays Richard gave a great talk as always.
Thus ended the first day. The rest of the evening was taken up with dinner, drinks, gambling and fun. Just the way I like my Vegas!
Day 2 summary to follow tomorrow, I promise!
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