Russell Davies

Lizardman's Constant, see also, Laughing Gnome

Wikipedia:

"In the 2013 post "Lizardman's Constant is 4%", Alexander coined the term "Lizardman's Constant", referring to the approximate percentage of responses to a poll, survey, or quiz that are not sincere. The post was responding to a Public Policy Polling statement that "four percent of Americans believe lizardmen are running the Earth", which Alexander attributed to people giving a polling company an answer they did not really believe to be true, out of carelessness, politeness, anger, or amusement.

Alexander suggested that polls should include a question with an absurd answer as one of the options, so anyone choosing that option could be weeded out as a troll.^"

^{I might propose an extended/obvious corollary. The public will vote for whatever makes things most interesting/amusing. Laughing Gnome NME poll / Boaty McBoatface etc.}

Ties for the powerful: the comeback

Is it happening?

Versus

Notes on simplicity

Tesler's Law

And

We always want to add stuff

No coffee morning tomorrow: am not around

Interesting 2025: Lessons in Resistance from South African Sci-Fi

I missed one! And it's going to be extraordinary. The talk is going to be 'Lessons in Resistance from South African Sci-Fi' and it's going to be presented by Lauren Beukes and Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nwalo. 

Interesting 2025: more tickets

Some returns have come in, so there are some more tickets available, if you fancy...

No coffee morning tomorrow

...in case you care

Interesting 2025: waitlist

Managing this waitlist is proving quite tricky.

I think the simplest thing is this: if I have a ticket to refund I will do it at 7pm every evening. So, if a ticket becomes available, that'll be when to look. And this'll be where.

And, I'll email the next people in line to tell them that.

Interesting 2025: Dispatches of the infraordinary

I think this is it, our final speaker. The marvellous sound artist Daniel John Jones is going to talk about Dispatches of the infraordinary.

Lovely. That's it. That's all the speakers. Now I need to add them up and work out how we're going to squeeze them all in.

More details to follow.

Interesting 2025: you should read the obituaries section of the papers

Almost there! Our next speaker is the estimable Anthony Dhanendran. He's a product manager and former journalist and says "I'm going to try to sell you an idea: that you should read the obituaries section of the papers."