From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Mar 20 2001 - 21:59:47 MST
Years ago I went to USENET conferences and NEXT conferences.
Back in the '80's I used to go to that zoo otherwise known
as COMDEX every few years. Almost every year now, I go try to
go to the TIGR (www.tigr.org) genome conference that used to be held
at Hilton Head, NC until it got too big and had to move to Miami.
In the past decade I've been to something like 70 conferences.
Now some conferences stand out for their speakers. And other
conferences stand out their connections you make or what you learn.
But the *most* important conferences are those that stand out
for what you can take home and contribute to others. For those
purposes there is nothing better than a T-shirt. There is nothing
better than walking around in a T-shirt with a genome diagram or
a molecular bearing graphic to get people interested in *what* it
is that you know that they don't.
I've got my "Preparing for Nanotechnology" T-shirt from a
Foresignt Nanotech conference. I've got my "11th" and "12th"
"Genome Sequencing and Analysis Conference" T-shirts. I've got my
old Extro 3 T-shirt that I think I bought one of the last of
so it was a size too small (and is therefore shrinking and
becoming too uncomfortable to wear).
There have been and will be a limited number of "defining moments"
in human history where we engage ourselves with the vod behind
the curtain and attempt to chart a path through chaos.
Extro 5 will *be* one of those moments.
And DAMNIT I want a T-shirt to wear to remember those moments by.
I want something else that those people who were to too stupid
to NOT be there will be jealous of. I want something to sleep
in to remind me of who I am and what I stand for. I want something
that when I go on the antique appraisal show on PBS in a hundred
years and show them *my* Extro 5 T-shirt they are stunned and
astounded by it and say that its value cannot be ascertained
because a billion sims in the solar system would be freely willing
to give up their computronium to wear it for but an hour. I want
them to tell me that it could never be put up for auction because
it would most probably start a war.
We have artists on this list. We have people capable of creating
extraordinarily clever contra-indicatd interdomain links. I challenge
you to come up with a T-shirt that I will be compelled to buy a dozen of
and squirrel them away in numerous safe locations so in a hundred years
I can still sleep in one of my Extro-5 T-shirts.
Do we want DNA twisting into Nanocomputers? Do we want an elderly
(benevolent) vision of a SysOP beckoning us forward? Do we want
the extropians laying themselves down before the "Green" knights
sacrificing themselves because of their respect for consciousness
(sidebar -- carefully having uploaded themselves first...).
Do we want to see the extropian nanobots swarming the ISS
in a takeover coup to create an refuge before we depart for
the nearest brown dwarf to constuct Utopia???
WHAT SAY YOU? What do you want your T-shirt(s) to express and how
will you make sure you can buy one at Extro-5? Should we have
two variants "I was there at Extro-5" and "I really wanted to be
there at Extro-5" so we can acknowledge the spirit but realize that
at times our other obligations may intervene?
Or will I be the one wearing the T-shirt that says
"I went to Extro-5 and all I got was this dumb T-shirt"?
Robert
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