In attendance were
A little common sense will show this attendance list to be completely inadequate and largely inaccurate. At least two or three people were present who didn't bother to sign, Eric "the unkillable" Lindsay being the only one I remember. I'm 90% sure we didn't have an alien called Ftiove present either, but that's what the signature looks like. The same comment applies to the name "Seinbner".
The nominal topic was "Prisoners in Science Fiction". In practice this didn't get as much air time as perhaps it deserved.
The Reverend Dalrymple reported on a chain letter for someone who wants "with compliments" slips. This appears to the same person whose home is now buried beneath three-quarters of a billion tons of business cards. The Reverend claimed that he was studying the evolution of chain letters, using a "capture and tag" approach, releasing the chain letters into the wild in the vicinity of high schools. It was clear to all perceptive listeners, however, that he was merely fishing for compliments.
He then went on to discuss an antique brass telescope, and 1880 vintage 6 inch refractor for sale at only $9500. It was distinctive for having no maker's marks, and it was speculated that they had been filed off to conceal theft. Apparently it had been acquired for a movie that fell through, starring Liz Taylor and someone else whose name was not recorded. It wasn't made clear whether the intent was to peer through Ms Taylor's caravan window on site, or just to avoid the cost of admission at the drive-in.
The International Space Station has slipped again. (It seems pointless to call something stationary if it slips.) First launch planned for November this year, research starts early in 2000, final launch in November 2002.
David Bofinger, who has developed an irritating habit of talking about himself in the third person, quoted New Scientist concerning a new video tape. In order to get the tape as thin as possible the makers are using a layer of "diamond-like carbon". To David's way of thinking this seems to be the forerunner of the materials revolution we are promised in nanotech lectures. In the future, it's said, everything will be immensely strong because it will be made of cross-linked diamond. I had a joke about underwear here but I took it out.
Thylacon: Nobody went. Nobody knows anything. Peter Eisler's copy of Good Omens was sent there, it brought back a signature from Neil Gaiman but it ain't telling us nothing without a lawyer.
Something called Phancon, run by Phantasia bookshop in Penrith, is on the 11th to 12th July. As is traditional it clashes with an Eric Lindsay party on the 11th. (047) 223 600 is a relevant number.
New Scientist also reports that the West Atlantic ice sheet is disappearing fast. Two-thirds of it has disappeared in the last eleven thousand years, and the rest will be gone in one to five thousand years. Antarctic beach resort futures, you heard it here first. Presumably this ignores the possibilities of nuclear winter, global warming, extinction level planetoid impacts, nanotech catastrophes, antiterraforming by Martians in tripods, election of a One Nation government, modification of the value of pi, passage of the Wik legislation for the Antarctic aborigines, overturning on appeal of the laws of physics describing the phase diagram of water, mass-migrations of deranged genetically engineered killer penguins, or Vinge singularities. But apart from that, it's a dead cert. The article also remarks that the sea level is rising two millimetres a year, and that science up until now could only explain about half of this. Maybe Antarctic scuba diving futures would be a safer move.
Eric Lindsay is planning parties, as usual they clash with everything else.
Graham gave an impromptu history lecture, it was mostly wasted as I didn't write as fast as he spoke. It began in 1935 with the Sydney SF League, a small cog in the world-spanning corporate empire of Hugo Gernsback. The Futurians qua Futurians started up in 1939, but as Graham put it “There was nothing we could do: science fiction was effectively banned” (i.e. nobody was making or importing any) "and we were being drafted one after another." Graham was instructed to write this sort of thing down, if it doesn't appear as a web page soon blame him.
Tutors from the TAFE teach travellers on trains. The trains are on the Penrith line, the subjects include Japanese and investment. The obvious question “has the idea of people doing non-transport-like activities on transport been used in SF and where” doesn't seem to have been asked, or if it was asked I wrote nothing down. Question will be answered next month.
Science in the Pub (last Wednesday of the month, Duke of Edinburgh pub, near the Pyrmont post office) has a talk on communicating science.
For some reason naked mole rats came up. (Normally they stay down in their holes because they are embarrassed to come out without their clothes ha ha.) Naked mole rats were, neutrino-like, predicted before they were discovered. They have a hive structure and don't use tools. I mention this last point in order to get the last word in an argument as to whether an unmodified object carried about for a specific use was a tool. Mole rats look very little like Basenjis.
A couple of spinoffs from the tamagochi craze: the automatic tamagochi minder and the love-getty, which beeps when someone compatible with a love-getty passes by.
A plan: We will take over the world, beginning with a small theatre called Encore. We need ten or fifteen people to cow the owners into submission, whereupon they will show us science fiction films and sell us popcorn at absurd prices. Warriors of science fiction, step forward! Any who die will go straight to their choice of a John W. Campbell or Hugo Gernsback utopia.
A researcher in New Zealand has found some evidence of pre-Maori New Zealanders cooking rats. Peter wondered whether they had developed the technique of cutting the rat's whiskers off, speeding up their drowning process. There was a long discussion of New Zealand wildlife.
David Bofinger has a web page, of which he is inordinately proud, at http://geocities.datacellar.net/Athens/Troy/5799.
Ian Woolf wanted to buy a camera in a watch for James Bondery and found out it was just as easy to get one with a video camera. Science Fiction seems to be being left behind.
Donations were asked in order to pay for the production of this newsletter. The members scraped up ten dollars and ten cents between them. The secretary knows he put in the ten cents.
John August wants to talk about an alternative model to explain results normally ascribed to special relativity. The relevant web page is http://phaedra.apana.org.au/johna/RITZ.html. John thinks his model explains all current results and is more elegant. Ian Woolf demanded to know whether it allowed faster than light travel, John very wisely said yes. The rusty and inertia-bound wheels of the society were slowly swung into action to think of a good time for him to do this.
By this time many members had left, but an attempt was made to discuss the topic anyway. Also, there was discussion of an egg-timer rule for news, which lapsed for want of consensus.
Next Week: The Belt. (Have we done "Suspenders in Science Fiction"?)