NIMLAS Studios will be at Dragon*Cant!

Every year geeks flock to Dragon*Con and WorldCon and many other cons, while more geeks are left at home wishing they could go.  Three years ago a joke on twitter between @BrandG, @SVallie, & @Nlowell became a haven for those of us left out of the con club.  Dragon*Cant, the virtual con, the un con, the all the con with none of the crud has grown and flourished over the past three years.

Through the magic of the internet (Ustream and Google Hangouts) we are able to not just host or attend a panel but to participate in them.  Not only are the panels but meeting in the bar in between panels.  With Twitter and Google hangouts over the next few days you can interact with geeks from all over the world, some your friends, and others friends you haven’t met yet.  Both prior Dragon*Cants have brought me new friends I had never met before and gotten me closer with people I had only just seen on twitter.

Last year I hosted a panel on Pop Art, this year on Sunday, I will be hosting two panels and The Clockwork Doctor (our intrepid GunGeek columnist) will be hosting a panel of his own.

  • Panel: Nutty Debate: Listening to Fiction, or reading fiction, which is better?
    Host: Nuchtchas
    A panel of debaters will discuss the pros and cons or reading from a book vs listening to a podiobook when it comes to fiction.
    Platform: Google+ Hangout
    Starts: 2:00 pm – Ends: 3:00 pm, September 2, 2012 (Eastern Time)
    More details
  • Panel: Our Friend Newton: How real physics should be used in Sci-Fi
    Host: the Clockwork Doctor
    A humorous, geeky panel with the working title of “Our Friend Newton: How real physics should be used in Sci-Fi”.
    Platform: Google+  Hangout
    Starts: 3:00 pm – Ends: 4:00 pm, September 2, 2012 (Eastern Time)
    More details
  • Panel: How to visually represent your audio project
    Host: Nuchtchas
    In this panel we would cover album artwork, the visual aspect to your website, what’s needed in a facebook group/page or google+ page to grab your listeners attention between episodes. If there is time, we will also cover the elements of cover art for prose.
    Platform: Google+ Hangout 
    Starts: 4:00 pm – Ends: 5:00 pm, September 2, 2012 (Eastern Time)
    More detailsYou can find the rest of the schedule at www.dragoncant.com/schedule, follow on twitter @dragoncant, Facebook, and Google+,  and keep checking back as new panels get added every day.  I hope to see you there

Daily Creativity: Baby Mulligan & April Fish


Baby Mulligan Smith from Flash PulpAnother bit of Fan Art for FlashPulp.com. We were discussing the idea of what some of the characters would have looked like as babies, so I started with a toddler version of Mulligan Smith. I always have an issue drawing children, they always look much older than I intend them to look. And yes, that is a slurpee in his bottle thank you very much.

You might notice I started dating my drawings. It’s something I saw Stanton Friedman do at the station the other day and it got me thinking it was a good idea. I think the date does more than just establish someone signed something, but when, when in their career. I though it was a nice touch, so I’m doing it now. Thoughts?

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April Fool's Day Fish
Today is April Fool’s day, I hate pranks and I really don’t like the idea of tricks or people having a justified reason to pick on people. That said, I do enjoy a good Joke, like Google Maps having quest mode where you can look at the maps in 8bit, or the funny offerings at ThinkGeek (A K Cup that dispenses donuts? Priceless) Make sure you go and look up the Mass Effect Saturday Morning Cartoon on YouTube, that was awesome.

Years ago my husband explained to me the french custom (I don’t know if it is just Quebec or something they do in france too, but its part of his culture) of giving people fish on April First, so for the past few years I have honored this custom by drawing fish, here is this year’s fish.

Daily Creativity: Heinrich Hertz

Hertz
Today is Ash Wednesday and that marks the beginning of Lent for us Catholics.  For any of my new readers since last year, let me explain what that means for this blog.  Often for lent people give things up, that doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t make me feel closer to God at all, instead I take something on.  Every day of lent I MUST do one “Daily Creativity”, one creative work of art.  Then I post it with a little bit about the piece on this blog.  I also make sure that every day in March I do this for “Art Month”, since this year lent and art month coincide it’s  no extra work and 40 days of daily creativity.

Today while looking for inspiration I opened up google to find a google doodle in honor of Heinrich Hertz, so I decided to do his portrait.  I must say, he died young but gave science to much.

Ranting on the internet works… really?

“It comes in threes”

GoDaddy learned we don't like fascismIn an apathetic world like today it’s easy to feel defeated and without hope.  I know I do, often, ever since NDAA passed I had lost my faith in the “people.”  Then something great happened, first, GoDaddy backed the SOPA bill, then the internet found out and the boycott started.  It didn’t take long and GoDaddy reversed their position, of course that doesn’t take back any testimony, but it was a big hit to the pro-SOPA community, they saw, with our dollars how not listening to their customers could hurt their business.

SOPA and PIPA can go the way of the DoDoNext, there was the Internet Blackout Day, Wikipedia, many blogs and other sites on the internet went dark, even Google had a doodle showing their distaste for both SOPA and PIPA.  Many Senator and Congressmen’s websites went down that day, not by choice but from the flood of traffic from people who followed links on blacked out websites looking to contact their local politicians to make sure they knew their voters were against this.  The next day we found out that both SOPA and PIPA were shelved.

Komen thinks it can push planned parenthood around, they were wrongThe other night I learned from Planned Parenthood that the Susan B. Komen Foundation had decided to cut their funding for breast cancer screening because PP overs abortions. This was an outrage and something close to my heart, along with other men and women on the internet I shared my links and voiced my complaints on twitter, facebook and google plus.  This morning I woke up to find that SBK has reversed their decision.

That’s right people, the internet has been heard.  Now while I often shy away from talking politics on social media (never talk politics or religion right?) I am starting to think that’s not a good idea.  When it comes time to make a change, we need to be more vocal.  Just think what would have happened if we has all gotten upset over NDAA?  Would it have passed?  I think not.  I think seeing these three examples is enough to show people that apathy is not the way, that we can make a difference if we rant loud enough.  We have the money, we have the voice, we have the power.  Don’t think you can’t win, don’t think your one voice won’t change the world, thanks to social media, it can.

A couple of things:

The Year of the Dragon

It is now the year of the dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac and that’s just fine by Rory and me, a water dragon to be more specific, and while that’s not nearly as cool as a Northern Furred Dragon, it’s pretty sweet.

I’m not very into the Zodiac, not for any other reason other than it just seems irrelevant to me.  I know many people who swear by it, some who plan to have their children in certain years because of it and many other superstitions that are tied to it.  I like the stories though, stories are always interesting.

I was a bit surprised there wasn’t a special Google doodle for the year of the dragon, what’s up with that Google?  No love for dragons? OK I guess there was one, but I couldn’t access it because I’m in Canada? I boo that. Google doodles should not be country specific, except when it makes sense.

What’s your favorite astrology story?  What’s your favorite Dragon?  (After Rory of course)  Share your favorite Dragon images with us today.