Penguicon in Michigan

Supporters of anarchism, the theory that you can "get things done" without coercion or government, can point to two modern cultural movements that relay on volunteers working together: The open source software movement and science fiction conventions. If you ever been to a Worldcon, you know that it's a big enterprise that provides entertainment and instruction to thousands of people.

Later this month, I plan to attend Penguicon, a convention in the Detroit area that combines traditional science fiction conventions with the open source software movement. I have been looking at the convention schedule,  and the variety of countercultural programming is amazing. At 9 p.m. Friday, for example, the choices include a drag show, "Sangria and Whiskey Cakes," a gathering to discuss "world building," a program on "Shisha mirrors for belly dance costumes," a program on how the convention's blinking badges were made, Tarot 101, the Breath Moss adventure game, another game called Chez Cthulhu, a gamer meetup, a program on becoming an airline pilot, a roast of the previous year's convention chairman, "Sleep Hacks," a reading by writer Johanna Gedraitis, a geeky comedy show, a software program on continuous integration and a software program on Drugal, an open source software system for building Web sites. We live in an interesting world.