Orycon2017

I will be (was) on 4 panels at Orycon 2017. Here's some links to more content. Hopefully I won't be tempted to mansplain during the panels, I'll just point to this page and its links.

• Rockets and Space Drives Saturday November 18, 1 to 2 pm

  • Pettygrove Keith Lofstrom, Dan Dubrick, Elton Elliott, Hugh S. Gregory, G. David Nordley, Blaze Ward

• KIC 846252 also Known as Tabby's Star Saturday November 18, 6 to 7 pm

  • Pettygrove Ethan Siegel, Keith Lofstrom, Pat MacEwen , G. David Nordley, Victor Lyle Thorn

• Asteroids or Mars? Sunday Nov 19, 10 to 11 AM

  • Pettygrove Dan Dubrick, Keith Lofstrom, Joyce Reynolds-Ward , Blaze Ward

• The August 2017 Eclipse Sunday Nov 19, 2 to 3 pm

  • Pettygrove Ethan Siegel , Keith Lofstrom, G. David Nordley, Roy Torley, Tom Whitmore

Somewhere in here, we should talk about the recent flyby of an interstellar asteroid, and the recent discovery of half the missing mass as intergalactic gas filaments.

Also, possibly, U.Sask. astronomer's Rachid Ouyed's claims of "double-pulse" supernovae, possibly due to brief quark star intermediate behavior, which sheds suspicion on distant 1a supernovae as standard candles. If there is no dark energy, and filaments disturb the large scale uniformity in the cosmic microwave background, perhaps we will learn that the universe is flat, and that there is no dark energy or non-baryonic dark matter, merely accounting errors. I'm no cosmologist, but I do know how physicists penchant for phenomenological symmetry can mislead them about our complex and detail-filled universe, with behavioral oddities explainable by surprising assymmetries rather than uniform invisibles.

Earlier this year, I was a little bummed out that I was not given the opportunity to present long form slide explanations of new ideas in 2017, but I've been pretty busy developing those ideas. I packed rooms in 2015; many fans are (like me) tired of the S.O.S., and want something new from science fiction. Perhaps in 2018 I will be allowed to make solo presentations again, so I can better explain some of the new ideas that I will briefly mention in the 2017 panels.

I am a party pooper about most exotic scientific hypotheses, because "unexplainable" phenomena are almost always explained by the theories we've already got that the "discoverer" hasn't bothered to learn. Many "discoveries" - cold fusion, quantum thrust, etc. - result from incompetent experiments.

I'm an engineer. We combine newly-discovered phenomena and scientific explanations to produce amazing new inventions. Fringe pseudo-science is a distraction. If a story needs it, it is fantasy, not science fiction.

I will continue to update this page and the panel-specific pages as more phenomena are discovered and more inventions occur to me. Never stop learning and thinking. Never be afraid to change your mind and admit you were mistaken!

Here's my presentations at Orycon 2015