Yup, you heard it right, Brian Thompson, the Field Coordinator for the James Randi Education Foundation, will be on the video chat, September 9th, at the usual time (9pm ET) to talk about all of the upcoming JREF kick-ass-ed-ness, and if we’re lucky, he’ll be funny too. Don’t believe that such a stuffy and serious do-gooder can be funny? Check out his podcasts-a-plenty: Amateur Scientist, The Death Panel, and Ask a Canadian.

Trust me, he’s been on the chat before, it was fun, so you’ll definitely not want to miss it. JUST BE THERE.

Also, don’t forget the wickedly smart Fraser Cain [not Frasier Crane] will be on next week.

Since Aug 19th is Fraser’s 40th birthday, and I remember when I was that young (ahem, 2010), I decided to cut him some slack and not force him to hang out with us nerds that day. (Well, actually I stupidly scheduled it for that day) Therefore, there will be no chat this week, but come back next week, Aug 26th, for what will sure be an interesting event.

Here’s a little teaser:

In addition to co-hosting Astronomy Cast, Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, one of the most popular space and astronomy websites on the Internet. Fraser has been working in the software/Internet industry for the last 12 years, and was a partner in two software companies that are now traded publicly. He studied engineering at the University of British Columbia, and is currently completing his computer science degree. Fraser has written 3 books of his own and published a popular astronomy guide called What’s Up 2006. He lives on Vancouver Island, off the West Coast of Canada.

Here’s the link for Fraser’s chat:
http://connectpro30341441.adobeconnect.com/frasercain20110826/ 

Yeah, you already knew, but I thought I’d remind you, you know, just in case. I’ll be here, ready to share TAM stories (if anyone is interested) and we’ll be discussing skeptical topics, you know, light, easy discussions like the take-over of Skepticism by those troublesome atheists, and such…

By the way, the 2 year anniversary of VDS is coming up in September, so bring your ideas for virtual panel discussions! 

Here’s the link, see you Friday:
http://connectpro30341441.adobeconnect.com/socialgroup20110805/

Yup, there’s no video chat tonight, sorry. To be honest I’m still recovering from TAM. Don’t worry though, we’ll be back for a no rules social group chat next week, where we’ll be able to share stories of craziness and learning from Las Vegas!

In the mean time here’s a few reminders:

• There’s no rush, but I’m still looking for donations to help finish out the year.
• If you’ve ever had problems trying to the get the chat to work, I’m aggressively collecting technical information in order to help Adobe address these issues.
• In addition to next week’s Social Group chat, Fraser Cain, from Astronomy Cast will be special guest on Friday 8/19!
• Hey, what’d ya think of mah globey thing? 
• Yams yes, Raisins no. That’s right, I said it.

One of the really great things about using a paid, big-name service like Adobe Connect, is that you get access to the amazing, professional, courteous, quick, and efficient support staff. Hey, don’t laugh, really, it’s great… well, prejudice aside, I have great hopes that I’ll be able to get them to deal with our problems when they arise, really… *ahem*

Honestly though, the service has worked well enough so far, minus a few glitches that seem to keep cropping up:

1. Audio level problems - Unfortunately, each individual in the chat has exclusive control over their own microphone volume. This is a problem because they are the one person in the chat least qualified to tell if their mic volume is good. The result is individuals who don’t know they are blasting everyone out of the conversation, or others who are frustrated because no one is paying attention to what they saying, not knowing that they can’t be heard. There is an automatic audio leveling feature, but unfortunately it isn’t smart enough to deal with that one microphone with constant background noise. It would be nice, as a user, if I could boost or quiet individuals as needed for my own listening enjoyment.
2. Audio Latency - The internet is a busy place and a video chat is only as good as the slowest link in the chain. Since everyone’s video and audio signals have to be shipped to a server somewhere and then back out to each machine, of course there will be a certain amount of delay. Also, this delay should vary depending upon network traffic and network quality. That said, my expectation based upon using other video chat solutions (tokbox, skype, google hang-outs, and many others) is that we have more latency than should be expected, primarily, it doesn’t seem to be proportional to the number of people participating (frequent latency even with a low number of video/audio streams).
3. Missing Links - This one isn’t as common as the two above, but when it happens it is particularly nasty. Sometimes, usually after the video chat has been going for an hour or so, some people will no longer hear others. It’s as confusing to describe as it is to experience. Imagine listening to people react to something you can’t hear, or speaking and being interrupted by someone very rudely, not realizing they can’t tell that you’re speaking. 
4. It just plain doesn’t work - This one is the absolute worst and showed itself to one of our highly anticipated guests a few weeks ago. Certain people, with modern machines, up to date operating systems, modern browsers, good flash versions, high speed internet connections, adobe plugin installed, and who have passed the connect test - once they join the video chat, they just fail. Either there is so much latency that everyone hears them respond a minute later while their video has been frozen that whole time, or they just lock up completely, never to return (well, they usually try to connect again with the same results).

I know this sounds like a terrible service, but honestly this is best we’ve ever had it. Generally when we have a video chat, we manage to spend at least some time in meaningful conversation, and have a very enjoyable time, which is what it’s all about! 

So, what’s the point of this long post? Yeah, I’m getting to it… 

If you are one of the people in the past that has experienced any of the above problems, or if you ever experience a problem like the above (or any other for that matter), this is what I ask of you: Send me your information! WE WANT INFORMATION! *ahem* 

What I mean is that in order to get the best possible service from Adobe, I need to do whatever I can to provide them with as much information as possible about problems we encounter. My difficulty is that much of this information is related to problems I don’t have, I don’t have access to, or I don’t even know about. So, if you have a problem, and think of it (I’ll try and remind everyone repeatedly on the chat), send me the following:

1. Please state the nature of the medical emergency, um problem? When did it happen, for how long? 
2. What are the specifications of the machine you’re using? (Hardware specs, operating system, browser type and version, flash plugin version, and anything about your setup that you think might possibly be relevant)
3. Are you on wifi? If so, what type and what is the quality of your connection?
4. What type of internet connection do you have? Who is your internet service provider?
5. Have you run the connect test? What were the results?
6. If you are a clever hacker like me, do a trace route to one of the adobe servers (use the root domain of the video chat link) and send me the results. (If you don’t know what this is, don’t worry about it)
7. If you can think of ANYTHING remotely relevant (like: I just spilled my gin and tonic on my router and it began to smoke).

Send it all to briandavidgregory-at-gmail.com - got it!? Sweet! Thanks!

The most recent Virtual Drinking Skeptically video chat was a bit of a special event. Brian hooked up a computer and camera at TAM9 and invited all of us poor bast*rds who weren’t there to join him for a few hours via videoconference.  
The chat started at 9pm Pacific Time (aka Las Vegas time) on a Thursday night, which means it was 11pm for me, and midnight for anyone who chimed in from the East Coast. There were also some people streaming in from Europe, Canada and maybe from Australia. I think.* There were about six or seven of us, which I thought was a fairly small turnout until I remembered that a lot of the regular participants were…you know…actually at TAM.
 
The TAM attendees didn’t have any audio input or output; they were streaming from one of the on-site bars and it was too noisy to turn on the mic or speakers. We had to remember to type all of our questions and comments to the TAM participants (omg, it was like an old-school chat room!). That was a little awkward because audible conversation would break out in the room and we’d end up forgetting to include whoever was on the TAM line.

Let’s see…who visited? Brian obviously hung out for a while. Dr. David Gorski stopped by, which was a treat for me because I’m a fan of the Science-Based Medicine blog and his other writings. Sharon Hill sat down at the keyboard and answered a few questions. I’m almost positive that Sarah Mayhew, a TAM presenter and VDS regular, visited for a while.** One TAM attendee managed to sign in from his cell phone and spent a few minutes panning the camera around the room and telling people to wave at us. A happy gentleman in a cowboy hat came over and told us what a great time he was having at TAM.

Someone mentioned being very excited to hear Bill Nye speak, another couldn’t wait to see Neil deGrasse Tyson. A lot of attendees were very enthused just to be drinking at TAM. We can be very in the moment, we skeptics.

As for the conversation among those of us not at TAM, we discussed where we were from and the types of skeptic activities and topics we enjoyed. We took a headcount of who was going to be at Dragon*Con. But mostly we talked about how bummed we all were that we weren’t at TAM because they sure look like they’re having fun and why don’t they come entertain us?

One thing that would have made the TAM VDS better for me would have been to put the TAM computer in a quiet room, and to have a few attendees lined up who were willing and ready to talk about what they were excited about doing and their TAM experiences thus far. As it was, it seems like most people stopped by out of curiosity to find out why there were a half dozen faces peering into the bar from a computer screen.

I left around 12:45am my time (10:45pm TAM time). A few of us were yawning and rubbing our eyes, and as we left we all agreed that having a chance to peek in on TAM from hundreds of miles away had been a neat experience. I will likely attend again if it is available in the future.

*There was wine, and I didn’t take notes because I didn’t know I’d be invited to write a blog about it afterwards ;)

**See the previous bullet.
—
The previous was a guest post, written by Brianne Bilyeu (check out her blog), a Minnesota Skeptic, VDS regular, and one of the few people that joined the Virtual+nonvirtual Drinking Skeptically event last week from The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas.  Thanks Brianne!  - I hope you guys had fun! (sounds like you did)

Announcing special guests: Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galef. They will be joining us on Friday, July 8 at 9pm ET for a few hours to answer your questions in ‘virtual’ person.

You probably already know this incredibly smart duo does the blog and podcast thing called “Rationally Speaking”. And you’ve probably seen one or both of them speak at TAM, NECSS, or other places. No doubt you’ve also read, “Nonsense on Stilts”. Well, if you ever wanted to ask one or both of them something specific, or general, or just want to get another chance to hear them speak, well here you go.

—-

Prof. Pigliucci has a Doctorate in Genetics from the University of Ferrara (Italy), a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He has done post-doctoral research in evolutionary ecology at Brown University and is currently Chair of the Philosophy Department at Lehman College and Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of biology, in particular the structure and foundations of evolutionary theory, the relationship between science and philosophy, the relationship between science and religion, and the nature of pseudoscience.

Prof. Pigliucci is the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for fundamental studies of genotype by environmental interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology from pseudoscientific attack.” 

In the area of public outreach, Prof. Pigliucci has published in national magazines such as Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, Philosophy Now, and The Philosopher’s Magazine among others. He has also been elected a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Pigliucci pens the “Rationally Speaking” blog, hosts the podcast by the same name, and publishes the “5-minute Philosopher” videos on YouTube.

At last count, Prof. Pigliucci has published 113 technical papers in science and philosophy. He is also the author or editor of 12 technical and public outreach books, including Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism and the Nature of Science (Sinauer), Making Sense of Evolution: Toward a Coherent Picture of Evolutionary Theory (with Jonathan Kaplan, University of Chicago Press), and most recently Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (University of Chicago Press).

—-

Julia Galef is a New York-based writer and public speaker specializing in science, rationality, and design. She serves on the board of directors of the New York City Skeptics, co-hosts their official podcast, Rationally Speaking, and co-writes the blog Rationally Speaking along with philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci. She has moderated panel discussions at The Amazing Meeting and the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, and gives frequent public lectures to organizations including the Center for Inquiry and the Secular Student Alliance. Julia received her B.A. in statistics from Columbia in 2005.

—-

A few things to note about this chat: Unfortunately, Massimo can only commit an hour to the event due to other engagements, so if you want to talk w/ him, make sure to show up on time. I’m going to limit the number of people on video during that hour to minimize problems, but if you “raise your hand”, I’ll put you on video to ask your question. Also, since Julia appears to be quite busy this week as well, there is a chance she might not make it all.

Anyway, since I know we get a fun and intelligent crowd, I have no doubt that they will enjoy the experience enough that we’ll be able to get them back again sometime.

Be there!

Here’s the link to join:
http://connectpro30341441.adobeconnect.com/massimojulia20110708/

Come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth! Well, perhaps not the greatest, and well, perhaps not really a show either, well, it’s fun, and there will be other skeptical-types there, well, not really there physically, kind-of in virtual space, sort of like video chat, well actually, it IS video chat. No, we all do wear pants, well, actually, if our lower bodies do end up on camera we wear pants, but no guarantees. Anyway, *ahem*, yes, there is an event tomorrow, so come hang out with us and we’ll talk about the Vegas thing that’s happening in two weeks, or perhaps other stuff.

Here’s the link:
http://connectpro30341441.adobeconnect.com/socialgroup20110701/