Both Wendy Chun and Vernor Vinge’s presentations were excellent.
Chun’s talk was wide ranging: she talked about imagined communities (ala Benedict Anderson) and Open Source and Free Software, Habermas and the epistolary novel, the Hong Kong Bus Uncle, and much more. I never thought I’d see someone use a packet sniffer at an academic talk. Altogether, an interesting, if head-spinning, treatment of community and knowledge on/with the internet.
Vinge’s talk was also riveting. He talked about scenarios as a tool for planning for things like disasters and other eventualities, and his own approach to science fiction. The notes for his talk can be found here.
For an exceptionally thorough synopsis of and reflection on the symposium, see Kevin Deegan-Krause’s blog.
