From: John Thomas (jwthomas@sonic.net)
Date: Tue Mar 20 2001 - 23:36:37 MST
Reserve a "Too Dumb to Attend Extro-5 " T-shirt for me, please.
At 8:59 PM -0800 3/20/01, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>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
--
-Regards,
John Thomas
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