Once upon a time, oh say back in 92, 93, I participated occasionally on
this list. Many of the "old-timers" know me as I have attended west
coast extropian parties, extro 2, participated in a cryonic suspension
and promoted one particular extropian meme - wearable computers.
Now, I find myself in the Boston area, after attending the International
Symposium on Wearable Computing held at MIT over the last three days.
Yesterday, during the questions part of a session moderated by Marvin
Minsky, with a panel of science fiction authors (Gregory Benford, Vernor
Vinge, and Frederick Pohl!), I thought I heard the melifluous tones of
Sasha asking a typically intelligent Sashaesque question. I couldn't see
him to well from where I was seated, but later on at the wearable
computer fashion show, I bumped into him, sure enough.
Now, I know it is very late notice, but I am staying in the Boston area
till sometime Saturday evening, and would like to get together with any
extro types I can, pretty much any time, anywhere, between now and my
departure. I had to conserve financial resources and relocate from the
Cambridge Marriot. I am staying at the Boston Motel in Weymouth
617.337.5200, rm. 42. I'll be up late tonight, though probably on the
net, but you can feel free to attempt to call me up to 2am. Or email me.
I have with me some interesting artifacts from the history of wearable
computing as well as my current rig, and I'm incredibly fun to be with,
unless I'm wrong about that.
In other news, if you would like to see some pictures from the wearable
computer conference, you can find them at my website.
It was great fun meeting and speaking with Vernor Vinge, Gregory Benford
and Thomas Bass (author of Eudaemonic Pie and reporter for Wired). I had
hoped to get Vinge's autograph on True Names, but alas I didn't get the
chance. But Marvin Minsky had written the afterword to the first
edition, so I got his autograph, and more importantly, some of his DNA.
I doubt my protocol was very good; I had him rub his finger on his head
and place it on a piece of sticky velcro which I then stuck to the
inside back cover of the book. I didn't have any Benford books, but I
got his DNA and sig on the back of True Names as well. This was a first
for each of these guys. I also have Eric Raymonds's DNA (hopefully) on a
signed copy of The Hacker's Dictionary. BTW, Benford will be
re-releasing Chiller (an excellent cryo-thriller) under his own name
shortly.
That's all for now.
Doug Platt
dplatt@voicenet.com
http://www.voicenet.com/~dplatt
http://www.krash.org