Nationals (Day 1)

This weekend for some Magic players meant that they would attend Nationals. Our country - Czech Republic - is one of those that had Nationals set for this date and that is why my weekend was rather busy.

My plan for Nationals was pretty similar to WMCQs. I would go there with a deck, see what the format looks like, have some fun, meet players I haven't seen in a while and go home happy full of experiences.My expectations were something like 2-3 drop, not wanting to draft.

When people started asking me for cards and decks (I loan them) I decided that my deck of choice would either be UW Monument or BG Delirium/Aggro. That is why I kept these cards and loaned the rest. A week before Nationals it was 100% clear that my deck wouldn't really do much at Nationals since it isn't well matched against Temur nor Ramp which obviously became very popular. I was reluctant to change a deck on last minute as that is something I do not like to do, but since my preparation for Nationals was rather brief, in the end I decided to change the deck. The question was what deck I could possibly put together after I loaned so many cards.

Someone suggested that I try to play UB Control, Temur Black or Ramunap Red. I was sure I didn't want to play the red deck but I could possibly play UB Control or Temur Black. So with a little bit of a friend's help I put both decks on Magic Online and started playing. I played against Temur Energy and it was a very frustrating experience with both decks. UB Control was good against Ramunap Red and Ramp, but these two decks would most probably be on the different ends of the tables at Nationals (because one preys on the other). I didn't really feel in control of the game. The deck runs some counterspells and removal but it can't draw the right cards in a way more traditional deck can. It is way more tempo based and requires knowledge of the format. It is a good deck and have won a GP but I would be a rather bad pilot of it since my knowledge of both the tempo and metagame wasn't great.

So I switched to Temur Black which seemed as a very strong deck. I asked a player to whom I loaned the cards I needed for the deck to give them back and then tried playing few matches. I decided to go for the Black version because I saw what the UB God was doing in the control deck. I expected people to come up with ways how to deal with it, but it seemed possible that many wouldn't be prepared for it and well I always had the possibility to board that out and I wasn't a big fan of Skysovereign, Consul Flagship. Also I learned what the card actually does and when. When I switched to Temur Black I actually had my own creatures in a graveyard so that did wonders with my own creatures that died earlier (4/4 Torrential Gearhulk is not that cool if all it can replay is Grasp of Darkness without a target or Censor also without a target, anyway it was still overpowered).

During these matches in the late night before Nationals I learned some things that I didn't know, one of which was that Rhonas is Indestructible and has Deathtouch. I made a fool of myself few more times in similarly silly situations (if you can imagine me trying to kill Rhonas and failing at that) but those were very important to me. I learned about those things before Nationals. They wouldn't happen again during Nationals.

Since MODO helped me with my triggers I also had a fairly good idea what cards do something (like when they trigger and what the triggers do). I just didn't know how I'd be doing that in paper, I was a bit disordered at the event. My opponents were nice though and waited till I managed to put everything in order.

Having the deck online didn't help me much with having deck in paper so it came down to me looking for a long forgotten RGu Pummeler deck which shares a big amount of cards with Temur Energy. I made Temur Energy out of it and fetched a Swamp, Blooming Marsh, Tireless Tracker and Dispossess from my BG Constrictor deck. I wrote down my decklist and wondered if someone would provide me with Glorybringers and Chandras that I loaned to several other players so I couldn't play with mine. After asking several players switching from Temur to something else I got all the cards I needed and I'm very grateful that they brought the cards for me. During the night when I was trying to play with Temur Black online I was also looking for cards for other players. It was a total chaos in my room and I was looking for cards I hardly heard of.

In the morning we got to the site with Patrik who provided majority of the cards I needed. I loaned him bunch of cards as well for his totally awesome and funny deck (see screenshot above). We ordered breakfast, put our decks together and wrote decklist. I was glad I did it, because I realized that I forgot to include the Scarab Gods.

Round 1
I played against BR Midrange and easily won game 1.

In game two my opponent was on play and after he toasted my creatures landed Chandra, Torch of Defiance which didn't help matters better. I had no Glorybringer, no other means to deal with her and thought I'd die. At that time a coverage team decided to take a picture of me so that is how I look like when things go wrong.

I top decked a Chandra of my own though and with the collective help of the said planeswalker and my deck I managed to get rid of the opposing Chandra. Then we ended up in a top deck war. Glorybringer threatened to kill me but then I drew The Scarab God and things started to look good even though I was down to 1 life or something similar (and my opponent had like 18 life or something).

Round 2
I played against Temur Energy. I tried to destroy all the 'smaller' creatures like Longtusk Cub and make my Bristling Hydras bigger than my opponent's ones. I won easily most probably my opponent was somehow screwed. Well, dealing with creatures that can get Hexproof is tricky anyway.

In game 2 my opponent seemed to have me but then I produced Glorybringer which made it better for me. My opponent had his own but didn't realize that Glorybringer cannot kill another Glorybringer. Also he didn't realize that Rhonas has deathtouch which helped me get rid of a Bristling Hydra I couldn't deal with otherwise (I could just trample through it). Thanks to this I won the second game as well.

Round 3
I played the most awesome match of the event. I played against Tomas Langer who in the end became the National Champion. We were paired against each other at table one and I soon found out that he was on GW Ramp which wasn't something I wanted to play against. When my opponent didn't play a 3CMC ramp spell though things got better for me so I tried dealing as much damage as I could and keep enough attackers in my and after Fumigate would deal with my board. I wasn't particularly sure how to divide the damage and what amount of damage I need to get through. I won game 1 though after my opponent drew many cards but was unable to get to any Eldrazi or Fumigate in time. Actually it was Chandra's ultimate ability that won the game. I had two Harnessed Lightning cards in my hand and I really needed my opponent to play something. He did. He played World Breaker dealing with my Lumbering Falls that I wanted to target next turn so I was happy (I didn't have enough to animate my land and play the burn spells).

In game two everything seemed very similarly. All I needed was to find a land to be able to play Negate. Unfortunately for me...I didn't draw the land nor Attune and I lost the game.

In game 3 things were a bit better for my opponent (meaning that his deck was still laughing at him). Fumigate came a turn later, he couldn't produce a creature that mattered and I could win. I just needed one more blank on his side. He drew a creature. I didn't have any removal in my hand and didn't draw it either. I still could win though. I still needed either removal, Negate or a fifth land so I could play Glorybringer and win before my opponent would gain life. Unfortunately I didn't draw either of the cards, Fumigate killed my board and I died soon after to Ulamog, Ceaseless Hunger.

It was an awesome and memorable match and my opponent was very kind to me.

Round 4
I faced a friend of mine playing the same deck who actually got prepared against opposing Scarab Gods. My opener was good and relied heavily on my mana dork surviving. The Servant of the Conduit survived so I just landed my rares and my opponent had a difficulty keeping up because he didn't have that mana dork available and was simply behind.

In game two things didn't really look good for me and I expected that game 3 was inevitable. My opener contained both Longtusk Cubs that I didn't board out (I kept two in). My hand wasn't particularly good but gave me the possibility to take the game into a different direction - one which the mirror player wouldn't expect. So I played the cats and hoped they could deal with bigger threats and gain some energy (didn't happen). When things didn't look good and I gave my opponent the chance to stomp me to death I drew The Scarab God. Since I was drawing lands and my opponent was mana screwed my God could actually do something if it would survive till my upkeep. It did. I eternalized one of the Cubs that died earlier, scried into land (put on bottom) and drew a land. Next turn I would keep a land on top because it would allow me to use the Gods ability twice and I could deal with the opposing God. My opponent indeed played his own God but unlike me he was still mana screwed. He had enough energy and enough mana to eat my God out of the graveyard though so I wasn't really glad about it. My creature survived though so I ate two more Longtusk Cubs. Later my God was targeted with Harnessed Lightning which surprised me. I won a bit later with my army of 3 Longtusk Cubs.

Since my opponent was upset about the outcome of the game and was unwilling to accept that he could have actually managed to keep tempo in game 1 and win game 2 I didn't ask him about the Harnessed Lightning nor told him that he may have made a mistake. I signed the result slip and waited for him to decide whether he wants to drop or not. It was time to eat something so I could survive few more rounds.

Round 5
I lost (mirror match, got mana screwed).

Round 6

I was quite high on the list of 3-2 players so my pod was quite good. I drafted a black-red aggro deck which unfortunately lacked some Manticores as my finishers (or the 3/3 Afflict 2 creatures that can pump themselves). Nevertheless I was content with my deck and was ready to play a game. I thought that 2-1 record with this was actually likely, but I knew that I was tired and that winning a single game might be a problem.

Pairings were posted with like 35 minutes delay due to players in a pod being originally seated next to each other. That waiting drained all the remaining energy from me...or rather what was in my system keeping me alert dissipated and I really wanted to sleep.

I faced a player that I know from Online and terribly died to his 1/3 Feral Prowlers and bunch of Walls that I just couldn't deal with. I was waiting for some of my higher CMC cards but they never showed. The match didn't go that badly, my draws were poor.

Round 7
In this round my brain decided to shut down and my opponent had to think I'm an idiot. He knows me though so I suppose he figured that I was just too tired to play Magic. I won game one even though I missed lethal twice and sacrificed few of my creatures in total nonsense way (my opponent flooded).

Game 2 my opponent got a better draw but was mana screwed. During the time though I did not manage to kill him and I missed a trigger on one of my creatures which meant I didn't deal additional damage I needed to get through. I think I don't need to mention that I lost the match because of this. I certainly made way more mistakes on the road but this one is the one that lost the game.

In game 3 I had the chance to win the game still in a relatively even game but In Oketra's Name wrecked my board. I think there was a way for me to win, it could have featured killing my own Earthshaker Khenra or just pinging my opponent all the time. No matter what my brain was unable to process information well and I lost the game later. I felt seriously embarrassed and ready to drop, but I needed that one more win not to feel totally badly.

Round 8

I won^_^.

After the event was over I went over to the Judge Booth to say 'hi' to the judge sitting there. I encountered there a group of players trying to figure out a rules question. I read the question and tried to figure out the answer too. I also asked if I can try to answer some questions and get some goodies. I got them right! My questions were easy though. Anyway I learned few things and I also learned that my understanding of some things actually got better, most probably thanks to MODO. When thinking about one question a MODO prompt showed up in my head 'Choose which replacement effect you want to use'. I realized that thanks to this I can answer the question and correctly even (I know MODO is sometimes wrong about stuff).

This is what I got as a reward! Sweet foil tokens from Eloneth, Ultimate Price that seemed to be the only playable promo among the cards I could choose from and Zur that looked the best out of the remaining Judge promo cards (guess I was the only one who picked a card based on how it looked like). I was very content with this and it was also a very nice change from trying to figure out how to attack or block with my RB aggro (at which I totally failed).

During the day, we could also defeat Garruk (Roman Pivec cosplaying Garruk) and win a pack. So I took my Temur Black deck and tried winning against Modern Mono Green Stompy. I played creatures, Garruk played creatures. I kept removal for when my opponent would alpha strike and possibly kill me with Aspect of Hydra (and Rancor). I wouldn't be able to do anything with Vines of Vastwood but at least I could try. I was lucky to draw Rhonas in the meantime which meant I could start sending that card into that wall of green creatures and occasionally kill one of them. Later I drew Whirler Virtuoso which meant I could just fly over and pump my Thopter tokens for the win. I talked a bit with Garruk and the coverage team and then it was time to leave the site. Klara was doing the coverage with Lobo and with the help of Mirrari (a Hearthstone player you may actually know) and we should thank them for the good job they did!

The event was very well organized and I really have to give thumbs up to the TO. Everything was well done, I really enjoyed it and it far surpassed my expectations. So I hope more events will be like this and the players will appreciate it.

I headed then to the bus station and went home. There I unsleeved my draft deck so I coul use those sleeves for PPTQ the next day and eventually went to sleep. It was a good day. One I would have good memories of.

Here is our metagame breakdown for those interested.

Temur Energy	27	15,6%
Ramunap Red	18	10,4%
Black Temur	12	6,9%
Zombies	12	6,9%
Mardu Vehicles	12	6,9%
Jeskai Gift/UR/UW Gift	7	4%
RG Ramp	8	4,6%
UW Approach	7	4%
BG constrictor	6	3,5%
UB Control	5	2,9%
UR Control	4	2,3%
RG Pummeler	4	2,3%
GW ramp	4	2,3%
BG Energy	4	2,3%
UWR Approach	3	1,7%
White eldrazi	3	1,7%
WW/Humans	3	1,7%
UW monument	2	1,2%
Black Eldrazi	3	1,7%
Eldrazi vehicle	3	1,7%
Other	26	15%

Dinosaurs and Vehicles? Sure

Random Photo of the Day

Poromagia - Worldcon 75 Interlude

Ongoing Modern event, with some EDH players in the front. Arn (the player in the green t-shirt) is the one who helped me finding games (and not only that).

While attending Worldcon 75 I sometimes had to leave the convention center. There was simply too many people for me to handle and especially after I spent ages waiting in a line just to see the door closed in front of me I felt even worse. At first I thought I'd just go out of the building, sit down on a bench in the nearby park and chill. My curiosity about the Magic community was too great and I ventured to Poromagia - a local game store. I planned on going to the store for certain but I didn't expect to go there every single day. So what made me visit the place every single day?

I went there soon after the store opened and there were few EDH players. I walked around the store to check some games and other products, their prices (expensive) and the place in general. Then I went to ask the person behind the counter about events and the community. I was curious about eternal scene. I know that German Highlander is kind of big there but I don't understand how it came to be like that. He told me that the most played format is Modern and EDH. I also learned that they don't have that many events like we do for example, but they also have League play that obviously works there. Then he told me one more thing that surprised me - he said that normally the store is full most of the time. This is something that doesn't happen in our stores. People come there to either buy/sell cards but they don't usually stick to play a casual game of Magic or something. We come to LGSs to play in events and after an event ends the store becomes empty once again. That is also why League play doesn't really work well here. I didn't believe what he was saying but later I learned that it wasn't a hyperbole. It was reality! By 2 pm the store was full of people, playing Modern and EDH mostly. He also mentioned that the players would even loan me a deck if I would want to play few games. I didn't have the courage to talk to anyone, but he asked the players in my stead and I found myself having a deck in front of me and several opponents. That was certainly very unusual for me considering experiences from our stores. Note that those people never heard of me, knew that I am a foreigner and had no idea what my skill level is. They were willing to teach me Magic even, if I wouldn't be good enough at Magic.

I'll digress a bit to make one remark. The players had problems with figuring out my gender and age and I was too afraid to correct them or give them the right idea (this usually means even more hate for me, but I was silly not to try. The people were too nice there for this to happen...). Even though this was obviously confusing to some, they all treated me well no matter what they thought about me. I'm very grateful for this. I felt like a human being there. I really wish LGSs and the Magic community would be like that here too. This experience at Poromagia gave me hope that things can actually get better and if not that I can retreat to a different country and things would get better for me.

Arn, the Jarad player, checking if anyone of us could deal with his Lord of Extinction that would kill us next turn...we lost

After we finished pregame procedures I was asked if I know how to play the game. I answered that I know how to play Magic. I had to reconfirm that few times (note that everything on me screamed Magic, but obviously a Magic player without a deck is kind of strange) and then we could play our first match. I'm not entirely sure what deck I had in my hand for the first time (but the deck wasn't really good). The other decks on the other hand were nice decks, not competitive or anything but built to win. That was another oddity because in our playgroups many players somehow forget that a game of Magic usually ends with a player winning. Often when that player is me, more often than not, I become always the number 1 target. In this case nothing like that was happening. The players were happily killing each other and no one really complained (well, sometimes a player or two got screwed which didn't make them happy, but that's normal) about it (At one point I was playing a combo deck and I had to ask if I can kill them with Bomberman or if the game should go on. Obviously no one had problem with dying immediately).

I was coming back each day and always played some cool games of EDH. I had a great time. I was asking the players about their community and formats they like and if they don't have problems in their EDH groups. Actually their community looked like one big group rather than many small groups which is the case here. I also wondered if the same people playing EDH play also Highlander but found out that is not the case. Also while these players liked winning they were far from being the competitive kind of players we have here. I was very happy to be among players that enjoy the game and accepted me without a problem right away.

My artifacts were useless because of Stony Silence somewhere on the table, so they were pretending a board presence. Later on I actually managed to get some creatures and I could find Craterhoof Behemoth and possibly swing for lethal. My attempt failed and I died to very big plants with trample instead...

Apart from meeting very nice people I was also surprised by other stuff. I already noticed that the people in Finland 'work on mutual respect basis' and that they reach higher levels of efficiency because of it. That is something that doesn't work here at all but ordinary people tend to be ok. In Magic community, respect is often gone completely and the players find ways how to insult others or how to do some harm or steal. While this got slightly better overtime you can still see that people pack all their belongings if they just want to go to the bathroom (and I highly recommend doing this in our country, not joking). It's not like someone would just leave while leaving stuff (a deck for example) on the table and a bag on the chair. That is why I was rather shocked when many of the players went to fetch food in the nearby restaurant leaving everything behind unattended.

The decks I played were combo Breya (finding out that this deck often can piece two cards together, but Breya is still a beating), Jarad (that could also kill everyone in one turn), Jhoira (that didn't want to suspend anything and by some accident got more board presence than midrange and ramp decks!), Kruphix (that wasn't that bad afterall), mono black zombies (Gisa? With this deck I terribly flooded so I didn't really see much of it). I also had the opportunity to see a Shapefshifter Tribal deck, Saskia aggro, Ambassador Laquatus mill deck and Neheb the Eternal (that killed everyone with a Comet Storm with the help of Neheb swinging for 19). All the decks were interesting and seemed lots of fun (while also doing a lot of mean stuff).

This was an epic game that was all about hidden information and how I and my opponent would read each other. I decided to go with the safest route in the end and lost because of that.

As for competitive play, the decks at the events I saw - Modern, Standard, Standard once again (Standard Showdown), HOU/AKH draft - were varied. It wasn't the very compact metagame of top 8 decks from latest big event. I've seen anything from Turbofog to RDW and the skill level was very varied as well. Everyone seemed to be nice to each other though and the events were going smoothly without too much delays (with an exception of one round where two people took 8 minutes to try to kill each other, ending up in a draw). There was no arguing about where people would sit, no one was going outside to smoke when the round already started, people talked to each other in friendly manner... Everyone was organized and even there wasn't too much space to move around they all calmly sat down and started playing. I was amazed. Here sometimes one feels like entering a zoo instead of a local game store.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that their community is awesome. If I lived there I wouldn't have the need to play on Magic Online because I would have no problems finding players willing to play with/against me. And as I thought playing on Magic Online was rather looked down upon by many.

If you will show up in Helsinki, you love Magic or retro gaming, make sure to visit Poromagia (check their website). The address of the store is Opastinsilta 7B, 00520, Helsinki. It's close to Pasila train station which you'll most probably end up/pass through if you will travel around Helsinki.

Worldcon 75 - Day 0, Day 1

The 75th World Science Fiction Convention was held 9-13 August 2017 in Helsinki, Finland. Since the convention found its way to Europe again it was a great opportunity to attend again.

I did not manage to find other people that would like to come with me so I prepared for the trip alone and it cost me a large amount of money. To that day I did not even know how expensive the country be. I was scared it would be similar to Sweden and Norway which I couldn't really afford. All was well though. About it a bit later.

My flight to Helsinki was rather uneventful which was good. Me and my sister were taking the same plane though, what a coincidence. We also sat almost next to each other. When we got there I ventured on a 50 minute trip to the hotel I was staying at. The adventure started. I bought a day ticket because I expected to travel few more times during the upcoming 24 hours. At the metro station I was confused because it seemed that both directions lead to Helsinki. I asked about where to go and I was indeed told that I can take either train to arrive to Pasila.

When nearing Pasila there was an announcement that the Pasila station is under reconstruction. I didn't really know what that would mean for me but I suspected some problems. Anyway I got off there and looked for Pasilan Asema from which I should have continued to Herttoniemi. Google was suggesting that from there I could get directly to where I needed it wasn't something I'd see anywhere else. So a long search for platform 28 started. I've been running around Messukeskus (the exhibition/convention center) for about an hour after I totally gave up. Note that the bus station was supposed to be on a perpendicular line to the Messekuskes 400m away which I assumed was easy to find. I also knew that two blocks from the center there was a local game store - Poromagia - from which I could walk another two blocks to arrive at a different bus stop from where I could go to the place I was headed. I didn't find the shop either (assumed it would be very easy to find it as well). My despair was rather big and I was hungry. Luckily for me there was Subway that I really appreciate. Got a 6 inch Steak and Cheese and coffee and then ventured in a totally different direction, in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. There I found signs showing that buses 50, 58, 59 go from a certain stop, so I followed it and ended up at a bus stop from which I could reach my destination (not the one I was originally looking for).

While I was running around I was also supposed to receive an entry passcode for the hotel. It obviously reached my mailbox but thanks to Google denying me to login I couldn't read it. I was also supposed to get it in an sms but I didn't receive it. So I called to the hotel's office if they could send it to me again somehow. After quite a while I got it! I was ready to take the bus. After 16 minutes later or so I got of in the middle of a highway which was supposedly the stop I was to get off (it was the right stop).

There I found out that the hotel is actually at an convenient place since there was pretty much everything I could need from grocery store, Subway, a cafe, post office etc (including a gas station, tire shop and a car wash ^_~). There was a metro station and the bus station, both being very close. In the hotel there was a public kitchen, sauna, public showers, laundry room etc so all was good!

After finally putting down my bag full (hardly) of clothes I called my sister to see where she is. She was at the Messukeskus getting her badge. I returned there and didn't get lost on my way to the Messukeskus. I got my badge as well and then we headed to the city center where we decided to go to a Thai restaurant and get something good for dinner. I ordered Green curry with chicken which was supposedly the most spicy meal but it wasn't really spicy. It was good though!

I took the metro to Hertoniemi. There I realized that I would have to somehow cross the highway and such. I managed that.

At the hotel there was supposed to be a wi-fi connection for free. Obviously it worked since my phone got online but my notebook didn't. That was rather a disappointment but well nothing I could do about it.

The first day of Worldcon started at noon because since 9am there was registration open. Since I passed through it the day before I didn't need to go there and stand in a line forever. So my first programme of the day was Always Connected, it's Mandatory.

Always Connected, it's Mandatory.
When I entered the room it was totally full but I decided to stand there and still hear what the people had to say. So how does social connectivity affect our lives? One thing that we learned is that even when we are not actively online using our phones the presence of our phone can be distracting us. The reason is because many of us are thinking about what they could have possibly missed. I usually go through my wall on FB and Twitter once per day and then I don't really care what is going on but obviously there are people that have the need to follow what is going on in real time (and they probably have access to the internet 24/7). When walking around I can see people staring at their phone screens and most of the time I see a Facebook on the screen. During the Worldcon it was also one of the most spotted apps, followed by Grenadine, Twitter and Pokemon Go.

Since most people have a phone and access to the internet people expect others to respond immediately or pick up their phones. People should learn that sometimes the person called can't comply or shouldn't because for example the person is driving, is not present or is asleep. Many of us have their phones or other devices turned on and online during the night for example. I'm used to getting messages during the night but some people should realize that there is a high chance that I won't reply. I also do not really have my phone around most of the time so getting hold of me is not that easy. I may find out that someone called or sent me a message 10 hours later. All this doesn't mean that I ignore you or do not want to talk to you. Some people accuse me of this and later become aggressive and start threatening me because I haven't replied to their 20 messages they sent me that I didn't see yet. Honestly, I don't like this and it shouldn't be happening. That's also a reason why I usually close Facebook while playing an event. I don't want to be distracted while playing. My response time will be likely somewhere between 30-50 minutes when that happens. One more thing people should realize is that I don't actually have internet access on my smartphone. Sending me imessages or messages on FB won't get an immediate response because I need to get online first. I may be an exception but after you find this out it shouldn't be too difficult to understand this, right?

What was discussed the most was the use of phone while driving. Different countries have different measures and sometimes even laws that prohibit the use of a cell phone while driving. Certain apps won't be accessible while the person is moving too fast for example and this thus applies to both the driver or passenger. Sometimes enforcing the law is not really going to help much. We have countries in which using the phone while driving is forbidden but in those countries for example the use on a bike is not forbidden, that's also quite an interesting thing. The game Pokemon Go brought many problems that people (or Niantec) didn't expect. People were paying attention to the game rather their surroundings and it sometimes ended in an accident. In some countries after people filed complaints about pokemon spawning at strange places Niantec actually changed the spawn locations. The pokemon stopped spawning at highways and railways for example since those are dangerous places to be catching pokemon at.

We also talked about social networks. There is also a certain behavior people adopted and many people want to be up-to-date to what their friends are doing etc. This is something that can be also devastating for some people because they somehow want to be as cool as their friends etc. This can lead to depression in some cases and I believe that. While I'm fairly immune to this I'm not immune to a large flood of comments on something that is going on. The reactions of people are often very aggressive and since now things are rather aggressive in the USA we can learn a lot about some of our friends and many people we don't even know. Racism, transgenderism are the topics of today. What one can read are often hate posts and that is something I don't really want to read. I get a lot of hate everyday in my ordinary life. Since I'm part of the oppressed group I can see what happens in reality, seeing people claim something else while having no idea how things are is painful. Getting hated for stating the facts is even worse.

Another thing that can have a weird impact are targeted ads. I'm also a person who ignores ads and if I pay attention to them it's usually because I'm interested in how I was targeted for a certain thing. In my case I'm often targeted with Asian Dating Sites, Poker and Expat ads. If you don't know me, this isn't because I'd be particularly searching for dating sites or something, one of the most used keywords on sites I visit or search is 'Singles' which refers to a single trading card game card (at least that's my explanation for being targeted with these ads^_^).

Here you can see that the algorithm used is totally wrong. Those ads are just strange but not hurtful. Imagine though someone who is expecting a child. This person will be looking for all kind of things they need to take care of a newborn child. Now imagine that the person experienced a miscarriage. The child won't be born but that is something that the ad targeting 'thing' won't know. It will still show ads related to newborn children which will be a painful reminder of what happened.

Life announcements are kind of weird of FB as well. Why would I want to learn about such things via Facebook? I noticed that many people actually give a very big importance to those on FB to that extent that they take that as the primary means how to announce things. Well, if I'd want to get married I'd send a paper invitation or announcement to those I care about.

What else I learned at this panel was that people probably use Facebook for staying in touch with their friends. It is more of a communication platform than a social media platform nowadays and many people are leaving Facebook. Advertisement and such were moved primarily to Twitter.

There is an upside to Facebook though - it is a good place where to raise awareness to things (it works). BTW If you think that FB knows everything about you, you should note that Google knows even more about you since it actually mines data from everything from searches, purchases and overal online behavior. This is something you can observe yourself.

Go watch Black Mirror if you haven't seen it already

Exotic Cosmologies
After the first panel I failed to get where I wanted several times due to very long lines and me not getting into the room. Next, I managed to get to a talk about Exotic Cosmologies. The presentation is available here. The talk was a good one but there isn't much I can comment on so if interested you can download the presentation to see what it was about.

Destroying the Universe with Vacuum Bubbles
I wasn't really sure what this talk would be about but I found it soon. In 2013, at CERN, Higgs boson was confirmed to be detected (the particle was discovered but it wasn't certain that it was Higgs boson). During those years there were people trying to warn that collisions of particles in LHC could possibly destroy the universe. While it was explained that this won't happen since LHC is not 'good enough' to produce such collision (the collider would need to be bigger than the planet Earth) the feared effect is something that could possibly happen based on what scientists observed and calculated. So what the feared effect was? A vacuum bubble.

In order for us to understand how a vacuum bubble (caused by vacuum decay) could come to existence and destroy the universe we needed to know what is a Higgs boson, Higgs field and Quantum tunneling. Since some people may not even know what a particle and force is we also got a short explanation of Standard model and different kind of forces.

In exotic cosmologies we learned not only about obsolete models but also about some theories how the universe could be destroyed. Big Rip, that we learned about, is just one of the possibilities. Another one and rather recent one is Vacuum decay which this talk was about. In order for this to happen we have to consider Higgs field being everywhere in the universe with non-zero value of strength. The strength varies depending on its potential (how much energy it has).

The Higgs field potential determines the state of the vacuum permeated with that Higgs field. It can either have a low energy state or a lot of it. We in theory live in a universe which is in a meta state, meaning that it can go either way. Either start decaying which can result in a vacuum bubble or become stable. In this state it is possible that a certain part of the one vacuum could 'move' by quantum tunneling into the other vacuum (talking about positive/negative vacuum) creating a bubble that would then start expanding (at light speed) and destroy the whole universe (the other way round it would create a singularity to which everything would collapse). Quantum tunneling isn't very likely though so for this to happen we would have to wait for roughly 10^600 years (an example).

Apart from this not being likely to happen, there are in theory ways how to avoid that - little 1 gram black hole could deal with the vacuum decay.

Red Mars/Green Mars
For years many people talk about colonizing Mars even though we don't even know how to get a manned ship there. There are people that believe that we would eventually colonize the planet. Some want it to be terraformed and some wish the planet would stay as intact as possible. There are many scenarios of what can possibly go wrong and how things would be handled. During the past convention and this convention I listened to various opinions on this matter and they highly vary. Apart from technological problems, there are also issues with laws. The Outer Space Treaty is very outdated and not specific enough. It certainly should be updated. It doesn't even specify what 'harm' is. There are things that are not even considered or talked about in the Treaty - terraforming and colonization did not seem as something that would be possible in the near future. Note that one of the 'problems' is the fact that space flights might turn commercial and this is something no one expected decades ago.

Anyway Mars is not the only planet or rather object that we could colonize or land on. There are other interesting places we could possibly try to go be it some of the moons like Europa, Titan or our Moon. Before we get to Mars though we should first explore objects that are closer to us, be it Moon or an asteroid.

While I didn't really enjoy this panel due to it being far too theoretical there is something that caught my interest. Sheyna Gifford was the moderator for different panels throughout the convention. She was part of a Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation mission #4 that consisted of 6 people (a field biologist, a fluid physicist, an astrobiologist, a space craft engineer, a medical doctor/neuroscientist, a space architect) living for a year in a 1200 square foot dome located on a Mauna Loa Volcano slope (8200 ft above sea level). These kind of missions are important if one day humankind would really go into space, land on a planet and try to live there for a while.

The first day at Worldcon was rather frustrating because getting to a room was very difficult. There were simply too many people and I failed to get where I wanted several times. I was actually very lucky I made it anywhere. Here's a picture of one line that was way too long for all of us to get in (me included). Note that this is only a part of the line...

When the first day of Worldcon was over I went back to the hotel. I bought something for breakfast, an energy drink so I wouldn't need to wait a long line for a coffee and pay a lot for it (lines everywhere at the convention center), and also something to eat for dinner. I ate and then spend the rest of the evening and part of the night talking to lowman02. I was very happy I could do so. He brought joy to my life and I really hoped I could meet him one day in person. He is like my twin. Finding a person who is similar to me is really awesome and it means a lot to me. I never thought I'd ever meet such a person and obviously I really needed such a person in my life. I'll still have to travel to meet lowman02 but I already know that such person is within my reach.

Since my computer didn't really manage to connect to the internet I couldn't chat with lowman02 via Magic Online where we ran into each other and where we usually 'interact' (lowman02 got interested in me after I ran into SugarDaddy and SugarDaddy told lowman02 about me). Lowman02 mentioned that I can also contact him via Skype so I installed the app on iphone and hoped that the phone would survive it. Unfortunately this app shares one thing with Magic Online. Both are serious memory leaks and drain the battery very fast. So next time I should bring a power bank with me!

It was a very long day and it was time to sleep. I managed that and looked forward to another day at Worldcon (more posts may come).