Acupuncture

I went to my first acupuncture appointment yesterday. It was ok, impossible to tell if it's had any long term effect given how variable my condition is but I certainly didn't feel much difference straight after.

I normally wouldn't touch alternative medicine with a ten-foot pole but black_samvara said it worked for her chronic fatigue, and my current approach is to try anything that has been specifically recommended by people who've gotten over chronic fatigue (or a specialist I was similarly recced) This approach has the benefit of giving me an excuse to choose not to take the well meaning advice of people who want me to try random stuff that helped them with stuff that was not chronic fatigue syndrome (no offense to people who mention stuff that helped them, since sometimes if it sounds plausible I will try it, it's the "You should do *blah*!" that's annoying)
( meandering description )

Worldcon

Who's considering going to Aussie con(*) in 2010? Cam and I are going, since I want to go to a worldcon with my entire being and it seems like a perfect opportunity. With my health as it is(**) I'm not really up to exploring strange cities etc, but we've been to Melbourne before so as long as we can get a hotel nearish to the convention centre I can pack a lunch, choose a comfy corner and just sit all day. And with enough notice we should be able to save the 3 grand or so it'll cost all up even given our currently constrained financial state.

Anyway, I know it's WELL early, we take ages to organise anything so I wanted to think about it in advance. And I was curious to know if anyone else we know is pondering it.

Anyone going to Montreal next year?

(*)Note to anyone using that website: don't miss the tiny, almost unreadable links on the side. They're actually pretty useful once you notice them :)
(**)I may be a bit better by then, but I may well not :/

Hard science fiction for all the other sciences

So I was thinking about the scifi that doesn't get the love it deserves, and had an idea for a con panel: Hard science fiction for subjects other than physics, maths, and computer science.

Where here by "hard" I mean "Fairly scientifically realistic (given one or two "what-if"s etc), someone with a degree in that field would think it was cool rather than painfully innaccurate". Normal (ie mathsy) examples in this field are people like Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter ("Raft" had me doing 3d intergration to figure out the gravity field of his space ship :)), some Asimov etc.

The problem is: I have a degree in maths and computer science, so what the hell do I know about these other subjects :D On the other hand, nico_wolfwood (who has volunteered to co-panelise it) has the right sort of degree but couldn't think of many examples :)

So, for those of you with a background in one of these other sciences what books do you feel make a genuine effort to explore the ideas of your field in an informed and inventive way? Any objections to our current suggestions?
( What we can think of )

Right. Now both my panel ideas are out there I feel much better. They're both doing ok in the panel voting and I at least feel semi-prepared for it if they do get taken up. And if I'm sick on the day nico_wolfwood etc have my notes to work from, should they feel the need :)

EDIT: More discussion here.