I found most of the conference to otherwise be overly regimented without enough unstructured time.
I actually agree with this completely. That was my main piece of constructive advice for the conference: more unstructured time. The best conversations were around the hot tub. Funny how that works.
Hank,
That is not your call to make. If you don't like how the conference is run, don't go. Encourage others not to go by telling them how the event is organized, not by throwing around wild, entitled accusations of mental illness. There is no evidence that the conference organizer is mentally ill. Writing "lol" is the functional equivalent of pointing and laughing - what gave you the right to point and laugh? You shouldn't be surprised that appearing and being petty is not rewarded in this forum.
If you had written what iceman wrote, you wouldn't...
Edit 1: context: Cryonics is a common topic on Less Wrong. There are a lot of Less Wrong cryonicists... and a good portion of people to whom this warning is relevant to are Less Wrongers. So this seems like as good a place as any to post this, since I'm just trying to get some potentially helpful information to these people.
Edit 2: It also occurred to me that if you just randomly see this you might have no idea if it's legitimate... feel free to message me if you'd like references to back up the story or anything... all you have to do is ask
Sent this to a friend, and I thought I should share:
Warning on the Young Cryonicists Gathering: The lady who runs this is quite literally, nuts. Cairn Adun will revoke your scholarship for petty reasons and leave you screwed. I had to heroically bargain down her punishment on two friends who were late to breakfast and missed the sign-in sheet. Another guy missed his flight or something and showed up late and had his entire scholarship revoked.
I went last year and escaped unscathed (as did most everyone). You can certainly do it, and yes I would recommend setting independent alarms, ample planning time, etc. I would also recommend going ahead and just sending Cairn an email saying hello, you know maybe thank her for putting the event together, you're looking forward to seeing her (lol) and you're having no problems so far (and make sure you let her know right away if there are any problems, and that it isn't your fault). When you get the chance maybe try to cautiously elicit what exactly her criteria are for screwing someone (lol), and try to be extra responsible (make sure you fill in all the fields in all the stupid forms she hands out, with at least some decent BS or something - don't give completely sarcastic answers or anything, I think she had it in for some from the beginning for half-trolling in their answers).
They will encourage you to stay out late Saturday night, and if you miss breakfast Sunday morning, multiple people were having their entire scholarships revoked, without ever being told about any of these criteria beforehand (I've heard that some of this is stated more explicitly in the contract this year). They didn't really seem to be standing up for themselves, so I went and pleaded with her as best I could and she agreed to only revoke their hotel scholarship. (Which they did end up having to pay.)
But don't freak out about it too much if you're already committed. This conference is absolutely full of interesting weirdos :) so just go and be yourself and enjoy it. I don't know if it's worth it to eat any charges you've already committed. Interested in taking Florida vacation? lol.