On 8 Dec 1999, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> I hope to be on the internet so I can greet you americans from the
> other side of the millennium, but it seems Robert is planning to be in
> Moscow, so he might get to the future first
I think Damien and the other down under TH/EIs will beat me by a wide margin. If silly Motorola hadn't made the phones so expensive, we could have all called each other simultaneously in a rotating transition point to wish each other well.
However, that does raise an *interesting* idea!!!
I'm sure we could find some international company willing to facilitate multi-node real-time conference calls. Now, the real trick would be to be able to intermix dial-ins and dial-outs. It would be way too expensive to dial-out to dozens of people, but if people were willing to bear the dial-in expense I bet we could have a lot of fun with it.
John Grigg is sitting there all excited, screaming into the
phone "Its starting, the 60 second countdown is starting...,
59, 58, 57, 56, 55, 54....
In the background,
Damien Broderick: Are you folks *still* doing that....
Robert Bradbury: John, can you speak more softly, I've got
a wicked headache.
Anders Sandberg: Would anyone care to come to Sweeden to
help cleanup party leftovers?
Kathryn Aegis: Do you folks want omlettes or pancakes?
Eliezer Yudowsky: You folks are crazy, any sane AI knows that
the millennial transitation is no different from any other timeslice.
Greg Burch: I can't talk right now, my next-door-neighbors have let their
their cows run free over the fields because of some silly passage in
the Bible saying that the "Upon the resurection, the creatures of the
earth shall be unchained so that they too may reside with God" and they
are driving my pets crazy...
Gina (Nanogirl): John, whats the status of Nanotech research at U. of A.?
The Canuks in chorus: Ehhh?
Everyone suspects Max and Natasha are sitting quietly in the
background watching the world evolve...
tick tock, tick tock, a small voice in the background says "this is fun, are there any Extropians in Hawaii?"
Seriously though, I think this is doable -- any interest?
I would generally agree with Anders that the Internet is the best
way to do it, but this may not be available to many at the moment
of local-time-zone transition. We need a telephone-to-internet
bridge (or a pure telephone) interface that utilizes out-of-time-zone
connection infrastructure. I might feel bad about monopolizing
a Moscow operator at midnight, but I've got no problem doing it
to an operator in Sidney or San Francisco at midnight Moscow time.
Robert