I uploaded some files on molecular manufacturing.

Ahoy hoy!
The last discussion was a good one! A small group, informal enough
that it was basically a really good and constructive conversation more
than a meeting.
We addressed a couple of issues that called for eventual action. One
was research that will lead to a draft for a bill blocking unwelcome
ultrasound advertisements (coca-cola is attempting to patent this),
just as subliminal (few frame, doesn't really work new evidence shows)
ads on tv have been blocked.
Also, since all of these thoughtless teens are blogging thier lives
away, and may later regret it when they learn to think (and it's too
late), we considered the idea of organizing a mass request somehow on
livejournal etc., that they warn teens of this upon signing up, and
give them an option there to make the journal default to friends-only
entries.
We covered a lot of other things, and came up with some general
strategies for security in social software when Augmented Reality
takes off or finds its way in cell phones. There were good thoughts
for anyone in the social internet business.

Everyone who came to the meeting agreed that everyone should use this
/scfuture for discussion and sharing of cool resources, so do just
that! I'm going to upload a lot on Augmented Reality soon, and I know
Max is all over nanotech.

Finally, since our next big meetings aren't going to be discussions
but speakers, it was proposed that we meet informally on the second
Sunday of the month. There will be another post on that later - I'm
about to be late to class, so ciao.

-Nick

Dear all,

       The Santa Cruz Futurists will be having an informal meeting and
discussion on Sunday the 12th at 8PM at Caffe Pergolesi
(www.theperg.com) on 418 Cedar St. Anyone on the Bay Area
Transhumanist list is also welcome to attend.

Max

Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:56:44 -0500
From: "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes@...>
Subject: Transhuman talk Feb 23, Lafayette

"Are Religion and Science Really in Conflict?"

St. Perpetua Church, Religious Resource Center, 3454 Hamlin Road,
Lafayette.

An exploration series with Ron Olowin, department of physics and
astronomy, St. Mary's College.

Feb. 16, 7-9 p.m.: "The Question of Life: a Biophylic Cosmos"

Feb. 23, 7-9 p.m.: "Transhuman and Posthuman Future"




Miguel F. Aznar
Director of Education
Foresight Nanotech Institute
www.foresight.org
(831) 465-6513


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Just a reminder: tonight (Sun, Feb 12th) at 8pm we're getting together
at Cafe Pergolesi to chat about the future, have a few drinks, socialize,
and maybe sort out what types of things we want to do with the club
and upcoming meetings.  Hope to see you there!

--
Jeff L Jones <jeff@...>     "Nothing in life is to be feared.
UCSC Physics Dept, graduate student       It is only to be understood."
                                                             - Marie Curie

Christopher Scott, author of Stem Cell Now, is interviewed on today's Fresh Air
with Terry Gross (NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5204335).  His visit to the
Santa Cruz Future Salon, currently scheduled for
March 19, is being rescheduled to avoid finals week and break.  When we have a
solid date, it will be announced on this list and
posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scfuture/.

Robert Cormia is confirmed to speak at our February 26 Future Salon on "energy
equity."


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Director of Education
Foresight Nanotech Institute
www.foresight.org
(831) 465-6513


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Our next Santa Cruz Future Salon will be 2006 February 26, Sunday 5:00 pm @ ISB
231, UCSC campus:

Energy Equity

Robert D. Cormia
Foothill College
rdcormia@...

250 years into the Industrial Age, humans still have a hunter-gatherer approach
to managing energy - we are yet to develop an
agrarian approach to harvesting energy. This presentation will outline ten key
challenges to creating an energy infrastructure that
builds equity, and slows the growth of greenhouse emissions. Zero emission
technologies including solar and wind create jobs, drive
new technology, and will help to build a new 'electron economy'. The United
States can and should be a world leader in transforming
our energy economy into the digital age, just as the Internet revolutionized
e-business.


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director / KnowledgeContext
(831) 465-6513
Website: knowledgecontext.org
Newsletter: yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/


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I saw a hilarious video clip today that made me wish we had this to
play at our last Privacy meeting.  Here's what it might be like to
order a pizza in 2010 or so:

http://www.adcritic.com/interactive/view.php?id=5927

Also, there was a brief Wired article recently on some new
transistorless logic gates... researchers from Notre Dame have
come up with a type of chip which uses nanomagnets (110 nanometers
wide) that behave just like transistors and could be used to help
extend Moore's Law beyond where transistors can takes us:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70190-0.html?tw=rss.index

--
Jeff L Jones <jeff@...>     "Nothing in life is to be feared.
UCSC Physics Dept, graduate student       It is only to be understood."
                                                             - Marie Curie

**Free Event**
http://www.brainjams.org/
http://www.brainjams.org/reg_berk.html
http://brainjams.org/wiki/index.php?title=BrainJams25Feb2006

BrainJams Unconference
Saturday February 25, 2006
9:00AM to 5:00PM

On Saturday February 25, 2006, we are very excited to have Lee
Felsenstein joining Chris Heuer as a co-facilitator of our next
unconference. In a sense, Lee is reprising his role from the beginning
of the PC revolution as co-founder and facilitator of the Homebrew
Computer Club. In addition to focusing on discussions about how we use
emerging social media tools like blogs, wikis, podcasts and other Web
2.0 tools, Lee and Chris will begin the day with a discussion on
learning from other disciplines, finding/borrowing/improving on patterns
through experimentation and collaboration in the commons. What we have
been trying to do with BrainJams is very much what Homebrew did 30 years
ago - we follow in their footsteps and are very honored to have him
sharing his experience and wisdom with us.

We are very excited to be hosting this event on the campus of UC
Berkeley thanks to the generous support of the UCB Office of the CIO.
Also thanks to the generous financial support of our Patrons,
LockerGnome, Gada.be, Rate It All and Laughing Squid, we will have
plenty of refreshments and lunch for all participants. If you end up
staying, we also should be able to buy a round of beer afterwards at
Jupiter Pizza.

For this event, we would like to encourage participants to consider
presenting a blog post for the afternoon conversations as researchers
present papers for traditional conferences. Please tag all such posts
(or even articles) with ForBrainJams25Feb2006 so that we can all have a
chance to read your thoughts beforehand.

To register, please complete our registration form that will be used to
help us all get the most from the day we invest with each other learning
and contributing to one another's passions. As with all BrainJams, this
event is free to attend, though we do request you consider making a
small donation so we can sustain and expand our efforts to a wider
audience. We will be closing the event at 120 participants, so be sure
to register early. For more information about the event, visit the event
details page on our wiki and then you can check out (and add your
thoughts to) the day's agenda on the wiki.

Web 2.1: A BrainJam for the rest of us is a grass roots organized event
to serve as an alternative to more costly events for those people who
want to come together to discuss what Web 2.0 is and what we want from
Web 2.1
BrainJams events are open to everyone, but are primarily intended for
facilitating cross discipline knowledge sharing between technologists,
business people, non-profits, artists, writers, journalists, government
employees, elected officials and any other individuals actively seeking
to make the world a better place through the appropriate use of emerging
technologies.

Contact: Chris Heuer, joinus@...
Venue  UC Berkeley Campus - Lipman Room, Barrows Hall, Barrow Ln At
Eshleman Rd Berkeley, CA, 94701
Directions: http://polisci.berkeley.edu/lipman/LipmanMap.html

A short story about a post-singularity society...

http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/stross-doctorow/stro\
ss-doctorow1.html

Annotated slides for Professor Cormia's presentation on Energy Equity are posted
on our site at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scfuture/files/.


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Director of Education
Foresight Nanotech Institute
www.foresight.org
(831) 465-6513


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Futurists,

This article in the Onion just came to my attention:

"Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory"
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512


Should we schedule a Future Salon showcasing the controversy?  Could we find
anyone willing to defend "secular gravity"?  :)


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director / KnowledgeContext
(831) 465-6513
Website: knowledgecontext.org
Newsletter: yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/


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I just became aware of a nanotechnology conference they will be having
at Berkeley in April:

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~nano/

I'm not sure if there will be an entrence fee, but one or more of us
might want to go to that, especially if we can make ties with the
Berkeley Nanotech Club and/or recruit speakers to come down here to
talk.

Also, I saw a really cool article a few days ago on physorg.com about a
new laser plasma technology invented in Japan which can project actual 3D
images floating in the air... basically, it's a literal "hologram" in
the Star Trek sense (as opposed to the much more boring everyday sense
in which you hear the word used).

http://www.physorg.com/news11251.html

(It's well worth clicking this link, even if just to look at the amazing
pictures!)

--
Jeff L Jones <jeff@...>     "Nothing in life is to be feared.
UCSC Physics Dept, graduate student       It is only to be understood."
                                                             - Marie Curie

Sunday, April 2, at 5:00 pm the Santa Cruz Future Salon will host Christopher
Thomas Scott, Executive Director of the Program on
Stem Cells and Society at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and the
author of Stem Cell Now.  We will meet at Borders Books
at 1200 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (Phone:831.466.9644), where books will
be available for signing.


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director / KnowledgeContext
(831) 465-6513
Website: knowledgecontext.org
Newsletter: yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/


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These two podcasts are recordings of a speech by Cory Doctorow on the
history of digital rights and the current state of affairs.

Part 1:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=16905

Part 2:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=16906


Max

From today's New York Times, an article on the science behind the movie(s) What
the Bleep:


Far Out, Man. But Is It Quantum Physics?
By DENNIS OVERBYE

Can physics save your soul?

Two years ago, a movie with the unpronounceable title "What the #$!%* Do We
Know!?" became an underground new-age phenomenon, raking
in $11 million out of midnight screenings and word of mouth, spawning an
industry of books, tote bags, clothing, DVD's and
"biofield" jewelry.

It purported to argue, based on the insights of modern quantum physics, that
reality is just a mental construct that we can
rearrange and improve, if we are enlightened or determined enough. Science and
spirituality have tied the knot, and the world is
your infinitely deformable apple.

This winter an expanded version, "What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole," began
to play to audiences who say that the movie confirms
what they already thought about the cosmos, some vibe they had that it is a
slippery, woo-woo-woo kind of place. The movie just
finished a two-month run in New York and is to be shown in May at the Quest for
Global Healing Conference, in Ubud, Bali, with
luminaries like Walter Cronkite and Desmond Tutu attending.

Like its predecessor, this film features a coterie of talking heads: physicists
with real Ph.D.'s, biologists, philosophers and a
woman who claims to be channeling a 35,000-year-old spirit warrior from
Atlantis. It tells the story of a sourpuss photographer
played by Marlee Matlin who learns to love herself and take a chance on life.

Like its predecessor, the film touts the alleged power of meditation to affect
the crystalline structure of water, as revealed in
photographs by Masaru Emoto, a doctor of alternative medicine in Japan. Love and
gratitude make for symmetrical and intricate
crystals, according to the film, while hatred produces an ugly mess.

If thoughts can do this to water, imagine what they can do to humans, who are,
after all, mostly water - at least so runs the mantra
repeated several times in the film.

When I first heard that Marlee Matlin had made a movie about quantum theory, I
was excited. (Total disclosure: Ms. Matlin once
bought an option on the film rights to an essay of mine about Albert Einstein
and his wife.) What could be more deserving of
wide-screen cinematic treatment than the weirdness and mystery of the laws that
sculpture our space-time adventures?

But hours and hours spent watching the two films and navigating their splashy
Web site have tempered my enthusiasm. These films and
the quantum mysticism industry behind them raise a disturbing question about the
muddled intersection between science and culture.
Do we have to indulge in bad physics to feel good?

The "rabbit hole" in the title refers to the philosophical muddle that the
contemplation of quantum mechanics, the paradoxical laws
that govern subatomic life, can lead to. And it is a legitimate and maddening
one. Quantum physics proclaims, for example, that an
electron (or any object, elementary particle or not) is both a particle and a
wave before we look at it, a conundrum neatly
illustrated by a cartoon featuring "Dr. Quantum" in the new film.

Physicists have been at war for the last century trying to explain how it is
that the fog of quantum possibilities prescribed by
mathematical theory can condense into one concrete actuality, what physicists
call "collapsing the wavefunction." Half a century ago
the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Eugene Wigner ventured that consciousness
was the key to this mysterious process.

Wigner thereby, and inadvertently, launched a thousand New Age dreams. Books
like "The Tao of Physics" and "The Dancing Wu Li
Masters" have sought to connect quantum physics to Eastern mysticism. Deepak
Chopra, the physician and author, has founded a career
on the idea of "quantum healing," and a school of parapsychology has arisen
based on the idea that things like telekinesis and
telepathy were a result of probing minds' manipulation of the formless quantum
potential. And now the movie.

All of them promote the idea that, at some level, our minds are in control of
reality. We are in charge of the holodeck, as one of
the characters in "Down the Rabbit Hole" says. And if it doesn't work for you,
it's probably because you don't believe.

So what's wrong with that? Like everyone else, I am inspired by stories of
personal change. The ideas that consciousness creates
reality and that anything is possible make for terrific psychology.

We all know that self-confidence breeds its own success. I wish I were a member
of that club. But physics has moved on. The
parapsychologists were booted from the American Association for the Advancement
of Science 30 years ago. It has been even longer
since anybody took Wigner's idea seriously, said David Albert, a professor of
philosophy and physics at Columbia, who has the
dubious honor of being one of the talking heads in both "What the Bleep" films
and is not pleased with the results.

Many physicists today say the waves that symbolize quantum possibilities are so
fragile they collapse with the slightest encounter
with their environment. Conscious observers are not needed. As Dr. Albert
pointed out, Wigner framed the process in strict
mathematical and probabilistic terms. "The desires and intentions of the
observer had nothing to do with it," he said.

In other words, reality is out of our control. It's all atoms and the void, as
Democritus said so long ago. Indeed, some physicists
say the most essential and independent characteristic of reality, whatever that
is, is randomness. It's a casino universe.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. There's a great story to be told
about atoms and the void: how atoms evolved out of fire
and bent space and grew into Homer, Chartres cathedral and "Blonde on Blonde."
How those same atoms came to learn that the earth,
sun, life, intelligence and the whole universe will eventually die.

I can hardly blame the quantum mystics for avoiding this story, and sticking to
the 1960's.

When it comes to physics, people seem to need to kid themselves. There is a
presumption, Dr. Albert said, that if you look deeply
enough you will find "some reaffirmation of your own centrality to the world, a
reaffirmation of your ability to take control of
your own destiny." We want to know that God loves us, that we are the pinnacle
of evolution.

But one of the most valuable aspects of science, he said, is precisely the way
it resists that temptation to find the answer we
want. That is the test that quantum mysticism flunks, and on some level we all
flunk.

I'd like to believe that like Galileo, I would have the courage to see the world
clearly, in all its cruelty and beauty, "without
hope or fear," as the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis put it. Take free will.
Everything I know about physics and neuroscience tells
me it's a myth. But I need that illusion to get out of bed in the morning. Of
all the durable and necessary creations of atoms, the
evolution of the illusion of the self and of free will are perhaps the most
miraculous. That belief is necessary to my survival.

But I wouldn't call it good physics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/science/14essa.html



Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director / KnowledgeContext
(831) 465-6513
Website: knowledgecontext.org
Newsletter: yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/


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This idea may be a bit far-fetched.  But I find it pretty interesting that
the Pentagon is reportedly now working on a way to implant devices into insects
to help with their spy tactics... MEMS powered by insect heat, insteresting
concept:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4808342.stm

--
Jeff L Jones <jeff@...>     "Nothing in life is to be feared.
UCSC Physics Dept, graduate student       It is only to be understood."
                                                             - Marie Curie

Listen to a radio interview of Christopher Thomas Scott, Executive Director of
the Program on Stem Cells and Society at the Stanford
Center for Biomedical Ethics and the author of Stem Cell Now.  He will be heard
on Santa Cruz's KUSP 88.9 FM, streamed at
www.kusp.org this Wednesday at 10:30 AM (PST).

This is in advance of his joining the Santa Cruz Future Salon on Sunday, April
2, at 5:00 PM at Borders Books at 1200 Pacific Ave,
Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (Phone:831.466.9644).  Planned schedule: Talk, Q&A, book
signing, and adjourning to a café or restaurant for
the roundtable discussion that is the hallmark of the Santa Cruz Future Salon.


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director / KnowledgeContext
(831) 465-6513
Website: knowledgecontext.org
Newsletter: yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/


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The Future Salon scheduled for April 23 has been rescheduled to later in the
year.  Tyler Emerson is busy preparing for the May 13
Stanford Singularity Summit (http://www.singinst.org/news/), which is free to
the public and will have the following participants:

     * Dr. Nick Bostrom
       Director, Oxford Future of Humanity Institute
     * Dr. K. Eric Drexler
       Chief Technical Advisor, Nanorex
     * Steve Jurvetson
       Managing Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
     * Ray Kurzweil
       CEO, Kurzweil Technologies
     * Dr. Max More
       Chairman, Extropy Institute
     * Dr. Barney Pell
       CEO, Powerset
     * Christine Peterson
       VP of Public Policy, Foresight Nanotech Institute
     * John Smart
       President, Acceleration Studies Foundation
     * Peter Thiel
       President, Clarium Capital, Former CEO, PayPal
     * Eliezer Yudkowsky
       Director and Fellow, The Singularity Institute


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director / KnowledgeContext
(831) 465-6513
Website: knowledgecontext.org
Newsletter: yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/


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Christopher Thomas Scott, Executive Director of the Program on Stem Cells and
Society at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
and the author of Stem Cell Now, will speak at the Santa Cruz Future Salon on
Sunday, April 2, at 5:00 PM at Borders Books at 1200
Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (Phone:831.466.9644).  Planned schedule: Talk,
Q&A, book signing, and adjourning to a café or
restaurant for the roundtable discussion that is the hallmark of the Santa Cruz
Future Salon
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scfuture/).

Borders is a large, well-lit store and we will be unable to show slides on a
large screen.  Because Dr. Scott would like to
illustrate some of the issues he's addressing, we will try a workaround of
showing slides on laptop computers placed around the
seating area.  If you would bring your laptop and advance the slides in sync
with the talk, please contact me at aznar@...
to discuss details.  You will need either MS PowerPoint or a way to view
PowerPoint slides (Microsoft offers a free download of a
viewer).  Volunteers will meet at 4:30 at Borders to load their laptops.

Thank you.


Miguel

Miguel F. Aznar
Director of Education
Foresight Nanotech Institute
www.foresight.org
(831) 465-6513


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New Nanotechnology Analysis: Tiny Tech Brings Huge Changestopic
posted Sun, March 26, 2006 - 4:51 PM by  Mike

Advertisement
- Center for Responsible Nanotechnology engages leading experts to
discuss nanotech's impact -

NEW YORK, NY – March 27, 2006 – The Center for Responsible
Nanotechnology (CRN) today announced its first series of new research
papers in which industry experts predict profound impacts of
nanotechnology on society. Eleven original essays by members of CRN's
Global Task Force appear in the latest issue of the journal
Nanotechnology Perceptions, published today. From military and
security issues to human enhancement, artificial intelligence, and
more, these papers give readers a peek under the lid of Pandora's box
to see what the future might hold.

Ray Kurzweil, renowned inventor, entrepreneur, and best-selling
author, explained, "As the pace of technological advancement rapidly
accelerates, it becomes increasingly important to promote
knowledgeable and insightful discussion of both promise and peril.
I'm very pleased to take part in this effort by including my own
essay, and by hosting discussion of these essays on the 'MindX'
discussion board at KurzweilAI.net."

Nanotechnology Perceptions is a peer-reviewed academic journal of the
Collegium Basilea in Basel, Switzerland. "We jumped at the chance to
publish the CRN Task Force essays," said Jeremy Ramsden, editor-in-
chief of the journal. "To us, these papers represent world-class
thinking about some of the most important challenges that human
society will ever face."

In August 2005, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, a non-
profit research and advocacy organization, formed its Global Task
Force to study the societal implications of molecular manufacturing,
an advanced form of nanotechnology. Bringing together a diverse group
of world-class experts from multiple disciplines, CRN is spearheading
an historic, collaborative effort to develop comprehensive
recommendations for the safe and responsible use of this rapidly
emerging technology.

"Our plan from the beginning was to concentrate first on defining the
challenges posed by nanotechnology," said Mike Treder, executive
director of CRN. "What risks do we really face? How do they relate to
each other? What is most important to know in order to cope wisely
and effectively with molecular manufacturing?"

Like electricity or computers before it, nanotechnology will bring
greatly improved efficiency and productivity in many areas of human
endeavor. In its mature form, known as molecular manufacturing, it
will have significant impact on almost all industries and all parts
of society. Personal nanofactories may offer better built, longer
lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for
communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture,
and for industry in general.

However, as a general-purpose technology, molecular manufacturing
will be dual-use, meaning that in addition to its civilian
applications, it will have military uses as well—making far more
powerful weapons and tools of surveillance. Thus, it represents not
only wonderful benefits for humanity, but also grave risks.

"Progress toward developing the technical requirements for desktop
molecular manufacturing is advancing rapidly," said Chris Phoenix,
CRN's director of research. "These new essays examine many of the
radical changes that molecular manufacturing will bring to society.
We hope our readers will decide to get involved in the vital work of
raising awareness and finding effective solutions to the challenges
presented to the world by advanced nanotechnology."

The CRN Task Force essays also will be posted online at
KurzweilAI.net and Wise-Nano.org. A second collection of essays
exploring additional concerns will form the next issue of
Nanotechnology Perceptions. Both series are available for publishing
or reprint under Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL). The first
group of essays are:

1. "Nanotechnology Dangers and Defenses" - Ray Kurzweil

2. "Molecular Manufacturing: Too Dangerous to Allow?" - Robert A.
Freitas Jr.*

3. "Nano-Guns, Nano-Germs, and Nano-Steel" - Mike Treder

4. "Molecular Manufacturing and 21st Century Policing" - Tom Cowper

5. "The Need For Limits" - Chris Phoenix

6. "Globalization and Open Source Nano Economy" - Giulio Prisco

7. "Cultural Dominants and Differential MNT Uptake" - Damien
Broderick

8. "Nanoethics and Human Enhancement" - Patrick Lin & Fritz Allhoff

9. "Strategic Sustainable Brain" - Natasha Vita-More

10. "Is AI Near a Takeoff Point?" - J. Storrs Hall

11. "Singularities and Nightmares: The Range of Our Futures" - David
Brin

* This essay is (c) Robert A. Freitas Jr., and is not released under
GFDL.


LINKS:
Press Release - crnano.org/PR-essays.1.htm
List of Essays - crnano.org/CTF-Essays.htm
CRN Task Force Members - crnano.org/CTF.htm


About the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRNano.org), a non-profit
think tank concerned with the major societal and environmental
implications of advanced nanotechnology, is headquartered in New
York. CRN is an affiliate of World Care, an international, non-
profit, 501(c)(3) organization. The opinions expressed in the essays
described in this press release are those of the individual authors
and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Center for
Responsible Nanotechnology, nor of its parent organization, World
Care.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1079797626827646234&q=building+gods&pl=t\
rue

I just ran across a flyer on the door to the McHenry library on
campus.  Good thing I happened to go over there, or we might have
missed this!

http://library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/exhibits/end_of_cyberspace.html

Dr. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, research director at the Insitute for
the Future is going to be speaking at the library on The End of
Cyberspace (a book he's working on, as well as a blog he runs).

Since we don't have a Future Salon scheduled for the rest of
April, and our next one is in late May, I'd suggest we all go
to this lecture and maybe we can have a discussion at the library
afterwards.  Max and I are planning on going anyway, but the more
the merrier.

--
Jeff L Jones <jeff@...>     "Nothing in life is to be feared.
UCSC Physics Dept, graduate student       It is only to be understood."
                                                              - Marie Curie

Apologize for any cross-posting:

--Sunday, April 22 @ San Mateo---------

Maker Faire - this looks to be several hundred pounds of fun, like science fair
+ show and tell for geeky adults.
http://makezine.com/faire/

"The creators of MAKE magazine, the MythBusters, and thousands of tech DIY
enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs,
students, and authors at MAKE's first ever Maker Faire!"

--Sunday, April 23 @ The DNA Lounge---------

  Also I'll be peforming at the upcoming, CD-release party for the group Drop
Black Sky. I'm sure many of you weren't aware that I did music.

I've been a part of the transhuman music community for a few years, and finally
have gotten out of the virtual world. I do something called live looping, which
means with no prerecorded or sampled elements I create loops and stack them
ontop of each other to create harmonies and rhythms across a wide variety of
musical styles. It's a fun show!

Some comments from the last show:

"I loved your opening and closing songs, particularly 'cello.' It's kind of
stuck in my frontal lobe at the minute ... and I don't mind at all."

"Your show was fabulous and if you have it on a CD I'd buy it."

"It was a fun show! I didn't know what to expect, and I now know I couldn't
have expected what I saw and heard. :)"

"It was like one man accapella.and felt kind of 'Druidic'"

I have a few songs on tech/geek lifestyle (all of them approachable I promise)
My studio has gone from mainframe to roughly one TabletPC in about a month
(how's that Mr Moore!).

Here's more info:
http://www.troygardner.com/thegreyman/

And this is the last weekend to purchase discounted tickets and it's quite an
eclectic show: pancake jugglers, stunt performers, performance painters and of
course the soothing sounds of Drop Black Sky (kinda like DCD with volume on
11).

Drop Black Sky CD Release Party *
http://www.lighthousepromo.net/dropblacksky.html.
* Ticket = $9
* CD & Ticket = $12

Troy Gardner -"How you live your seconds, is how you live your days, is how you
live your life..."

http://www.troygardner.com -my world
http://www.troyworks.com - building Rich Internet Applications
http://www.intrio.com -helping bridge the gap between the humans and machines.
Home of the Flickey™

Our biggest event so far is coming up on Thurs. May 25th 7-9pm in the
Media Theater.  Dr. James Hughes, Executive Director of both the
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology, and the World Transhumanist
Association, will be speaking on Transhumanism and Human Enhancement.
He's also the author of Citizen Cyborg:  Why Democratic Societies Must
Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future (which I recently finished
reading and I'd recommend picking up), as well as the host of Changesurfer
Radio on the web.

We've done a lot of work to make this happen, and I think it's going to
be spectacular.  So if you haven't come to any of our Future Salons so
far, I'd highly recommend showing up to this one.  The Media Theater
seats 390 people, so we can accomodate a very large crowd (I don't
realistically expect we'll get anywhere near that to show up, but it's
nice to know we have the space just in case!)

I tried attaching the main flyer for this event, but it was too large
so instead I'm going to link you to a copy of it on my home server.
It's a bit slow, being ADSL, but feel free to download the pdf and
print it out to give to friends or coworkers, or download the png image
which works better to repost in web blogs and online forums.
We're working on getting a better webspace to host this image from, but
for now I'll just hope it doesn't get slashdotted and kill my already tiny
bandwidth.

Main flyer
-------------
PNG image:  http://spoonless.net/james.hughes-may25.png
PDF image:  http://spoonless.net/james.hughes-may25.pdf

Alternate flyer, slightly more cheesy
-------------------------------------------
http://spoonless.net/james.hughes-cyborg.pdf

If the turnout for this event is good, this should be a big step for "putting
Santa Cruz on the map".  We're also looking into possibly publicizing via
local radio and newspapers, so if you have any ideas or contacts regarding
that please respond to this message and let us know.

For directions to the Media Theater on UCSC campus, see
http://maps.ucsc.edu/cmartscenter.html (it's in the Arts Center).

We'll probably send out at least one more reminder about this when it gets
closer.  Hope to see you there!

--
Jeff L Jones <jeff@...>     "Nothing in life is to be feared.
UCSC Physics Dept, graduate student       It is only to be understood."
                                                             - Marie Curie

Greetings - just a short note to introduce myself.  My name is Sha Lar and I'm a
6th year
PhD candidate in History of Consciousness, where I work on science fiction (sf)
under the
direction of Donna Haraway.  Sf in all forms is my passion: my PhD,
Farfetchings, focuses
on what I call the "sf mode", including chapters on Le Guin's sf theory of
language, Sun
Ra's slaveship earth, the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, and a recent-future
sf religion I
call the Church of Meme.  Indeed, first summer session I'll be teaching my first
lecture
class, "Science Fiction Religion", starting June 26th, all guests welcome.  That
first week
we'll be covering creationism, intelligent design, the anthropic cosmological
principle, and
the singularity, all under the heading "anthropocentrism".  After that, we'll be
getting our
hands dirty with deep ecology, ecofeminism, panafricanism, afrofuturism,
exotheology,
and much much more - email me for syllabus etc. if you're interested.
Well, hope to meet any or all of you on Thursday night: I'm the one with the
funny hat -
please say hi if I don't first.
Remain in light,
Sha

Revolution?
I'll show you mine if you show me yours!