Today marks the 30th anniversary of the second day of the Alphacon III Science Fiction and Gaming Convention held at the Ithaca Ramada Inn in 1981. Continuing ExTechOps’ coverage, we turn to the archives.
As the Alphacon-er with badge number 0001 (one of the advantages of being the younger brother of the convention’s program book editor), I feel the duty to offer up the convention’s program book for consideration by The Singularity.
A joint research committee set up by the United Federation of Planets and the Gallifreyan High Council has released a startling report which reveals that all cybernetic life springs from a single fixed point in the multiverse of time and space. The time: Stardate 35336.6 (Earth: 1981 CE). The location: a sleepy university town on a nondescript planet in the western spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. What could it be?
That’s right! — It’s Omnivac’s appearance at Ithaca’s Alphacon III in 1981 that sparked the emergence of all past and future robots, cyborgs, and androids! (Well, at least this is true in my multiverse timeline…)
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Alphacon III Science Fiction and Gaming Convention held at the Ithaca Ramada Inn in 1981. Omnivac-I (or Omnivor) was the “Mechanical Guest of Honor” at the convention and was accompanied by its inventor Carl Frederick. Omnivac certainly made a memorable impression on me, as a young Padawan.
A year ago, I told this fellow that I was glad to see that Particle Physicists were at the rally to support the cause of Fear. Little did I know that within a year they would unleash their terrifying faster-than-light neutrinos!
This summer something odd happened in the UK-food section of my local Wegmans supermarket — British cookies started speaking Icelandic!
Normally the shelf had been stocked with Lyons Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits, but now “Homeblest: Kex með mjólkursúkkulaði” (icelandic for “Homblest: Cookies with Milk Chocolate”) have taken their place. The biscuits are identical — both Lyons and Homeblest are brands used by the UK’s Burton’s Food, so it appears to just be a packaging change.
So why are british biscuits with Icelandic packaging showing up in the US? I haven’t found an answer, but I can’t help speculating that it involves Iceland’s financial crisis and the row between the UK and Iceland over deposits in bankrupt Icelandic banks.
I imagine freighters full of biscuits destined for Iceland have been diverted to other Atlantic markets because either the Icelanders are now too poor to afford biscuits, or the British are too leery to do business with them.
Excellent! Spectre 3D is a new iPhone version of the classic Spectre game, and a Mac OS X version is on the way.
Now if I could just find a Localtalk to 3G converter, I’ll be able to play with all my friends again…
(news via Andrew)
The US Postal Service recently released a set of “Go Green” Forever stamps. The stamps promote various ways to “Go Green” like insulating houses and keeping car tires properly inflated. All sensible ideas.
However, something seems to be missing from the list of green tips — a way to go green that would eliminate 40 pounds of paper waste per person every year. How could the Postoffice have missed this tip? Of course, the tip is to cancel junk mail — or “direct/bulk mail” as the Postoffice prefers to call it. No doubt they have a blind spot, since the Postoffice generates most of its revenue from junk mail.
To help fill the gap, I’ve made this “Go Green” Never stamp to promote the cancelation of junk mail. Catalog Choice is a good place to start.
My comment to Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish about creating an iPhone App for the blog got published. My comment is the first quote encouraging a web-and-link friendly Responsive Design mobile web site, rather then a walled-in App.
Unlike most blogs, The Dish has no direct commenting system, but readers are encourage to email if they have something to say. If Andrew (and his team) think you have said something interesting, then it will be quoted in a follow-up post. Interestingly, all the comments are unattributed, so readers can speak freely and know that their comment will be judged on its weight of reasoning, and not on their name or position in the political pecking order.
Our old family cat, Indy, had to be euthanized last week. He was my familiar for the past year and a half — always present to help with my goal of total world control (being a persian, he was particularly keen on having the washing machine converted into a centrifuge).
The pictures above are from an attempt to take a Christmas letter portrait of Indy and me with a webcam. It took 41 tries to get a single picture where both Indy and I are looking at the camera — mouse over the small multiples to see the full set. What is the internet for, if not to post slightly embarising pet portraits?
Although his official name was “India’s Jasper,” I always preferred my father’s re-naming of “India Ink” — he was a flowing black cat, not a rock.
Indy’s cat sitter and his daughters left this nice note the last time they came to play with him.
He was a constant bother pleasure, as only a cat can be. Thanks for all the Caturdays, Indy!
Today* the latest collaboration of the Brothers Houpt has hit the scientific newstands! The boffins at the Houpt-Lab are proud to present:
Circular swimming in mice after exposure to a high magnetic field
by T.A. and C.E. Houpt
Paper and PDF can’t really show the effect directly, so here is a video of a mouse swimming immediately after exposure to the magnet. The output of Tracker is overlaid on the raw video to highlight the counter-clockwise looping. As the paper notes, the effect quickly wears off.
[video mp4="http://extechops.net/Circling-Mouse.mp4" poster="http://extechops.net/Circling-Mouse-Poster.jpg" width="640" height="480"]
Tom did most of the work of designing, executing, analyzing, plotting and writing up of the experiment. On experiment days at FSU’s Magnet Lab, Tom’s mentor and long-time magneto-collaborator, Dr. Jim Smith, helped with the magnet rigging equipment. I helped with the camera setup and then wrote the Tracker program to extract data from the raw video. Lab Tech Breyda Ortega helped with mouse wrangling.
With this publication, I’m right on track for my goal of one scientific paper per decade!
*The publication date on the issue’s cover is today, June 16th, but it appears that P&B posts its issues a month ahead of time. You’d think that the scientific press would be above the crass ploys of the commercial magazine industry, but apparently not. If I can’t trust the date on the outside of a scientific journal, how can I trust the data inside?
Once the Singularity arrives and we have all been uploaded to androids, we will surely dream of electric sheep. But how will we take care of these virtual flocks? Luckily, “The Sheep Enterprise” from 1950 explains everything one needs to know about raising and maintaining sheep, electric or otherwise.
The Sheep Enterprise: How to establish and maintain the farm flock
Circular 657 (revised version of Circular 534)
University of Illinois, College of Agriculture, Extension Service in Agriculture and Home Economics
By W. G. Kammlade and U. S. Garrigus
May, 1950
PDF with searchable text, 8 MB, 48 Pages, slightly chewed by mice.
