Present were:
A British company has created a fabric that acts as a keyboard to be integrated into a pair of jeans (for instance). This could solve the “no tactile feedback” problem. They are working on a necktie that acts as a mouse. Presumably this is for convenience while riding a steam locomotive to work.
There is great debate whether Battlefield Earth is bad enough to be funny. General consensus seems to be “not quite”.
Ted Scribner distributed pictures from Freecon that were much better than the secretary's. Ted pointed out that the secretary didn't appear in one of them, and that this may be why they were higher quality. The secretary's indomitable ego chooses to interpret this suggestion as an implication that the picture was taken by the secretary.
DUFF ballots are out (send an Australian SF fan overseas). Eric is a candidate.
Ian Woolf has registered the domains futurians.au.com and freecon.au.com [sic] for free at an internet trade show. We have it free for a year and then have to start paying ... if anyone thinks that's worthwhile.
Cyberware: The use of surgical modifications as fashion statements has been popularised by writers such as Gibson and Betancourt. Pat Cadigan's Synners has eye replacement as near-universal. This led to a tangential discussion of the ability of decapitated cockroaches to dodge blows, and the third eye of the Tuatara.
Useful Art: In a Poul Anderson story The Winter of the World (?) one character has a tattoo with useful information encoded into it, which he uses to construct a radio from bear skins and stone knives (no, wait, that's someone else). Characters in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series had implanted watches which displayed directly onto their skin. There was a debate on the subject of “it's useful, but is it art?”
Tattoos: Most famous example is the semi-eponymous tiger from Alfred Bester's Tiger, Tiger/The Stars My Destination. In Larry Niven's Flatlander the “Hellflare tattoo” indicated someone had been on Kzin during a Man-Kzin war. The Star Trek: Voyager character Chakotay has a tattoo and so, briefly, did The X-Files character Dana Scully. One Futurian thought that the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character Jadzia Dax had tattoos but others believed they were natural, it's perhaps a comment on >i>Star Trek that Kira Nerys' ear-ring is worth a mention.
Virtual Reality Body Images: Hardly even science fiction any longer, these appear in many stories, such as Vernor Vinge's True Names and Other Dangers, Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi, Niven et al's California Voodoo Game and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
Mystically Effective Art: Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man has tattoos that act as oracles.
Concealment as Body Art: A story, possibly by Eric Frank Russell, has body-snatchers that pretend to be ear-rings.
Body Art as a Indication of Intelligence: It was suggested that the existence of body art suggested a sophont creature. A proviso here was that the creature carrying the art may not be the sophont, but something analogous to a poodle, with something sophont in the general vicinity. Also, is there any reason a bower bird couldn't choose to carry decorations about, instead of leaving them somewhere?
Uniforms: Lois McMaster Bujold's Cetagandans use face paint as part of their uniform. Having just a small piece of colour on one cheek, instead of covering everything, is a modern fashion subject to disapproval by traditionalists.
Avoiding Body Art:In John Varley's The Barbie Murders a religious sect try to appear as similar to each other as possible.
Some changes to dates of future meetings:
Peter Eisler brought out a copy of The Bluffer's Guide to Women with a view to selecting a topic from the list of other Bluffer's Guides in the back. David Bofinger suggested “Bluffing in Science Fiction” instead, which was carried on the understanding the subject might be extended to such related subjects as “Big Lies in Science Fiction”.
I welcome feedback at David.Bofinger@dsto.defenceSpamProofing.gov.au (delete the spamproofing).