Remember when American soldiers given amphetamine "GO pills" accidentally dropped a laser-guided bomb on Canadian and British soldiers during the invasion of Afghanistan?

Now American soldiers traumatised by their war experiences are being asked to volunteer for simulated nightclubs, where they will take ecstasy. The ecstasy is meant to help them make an emotional connection with their therapist and thus free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.

After years of being highly illegal, trials of ecstasy started quietly last year on victims of sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, in preparation for the trial this year with soldiers.

Researchers are hoping that the MDMA in ecstasy can help traumatised people speak about their experiences without triggering anxiety attacks.

The ecstasy therapy lasts around eight hours while music is played to the patient. They may be given a hundred and twenty-five milligrams of ecstasy, or they may be swallowing a placebo, they don't know. Kind of like the way its taken in a real nightclub.

With MDMA back in the fold as an acceptable therapeutic drug, researchers are now looking at the psilocybin in magic mushrooms to see if they can successfully treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. No word yet on how the US military plan to make use of the research.

References:

Go Pills routine for US Pilots (Edmonton Journal)

US Pilots face trial for Canadian "friendly fire" deaths in Afghanistan

US Bomb kills Allies in Afghanistan (BBC)

MDMA Research page

Ecstasy trials for combat stress (The Guardian)

Ecstasy News - Common Sense for Drug Policy

Teleportation: or the penetration of the wave function into a classically forbidden region by Ian Woolf

The Theory and Practice of Teleportation by Larry Niven: "Definition:
Teleportation is any method of moving from point to point in negligible
time. Over short distances we will take lightspeed as negligible. Over
longer distances (interplanetary and interstellar) we will require
infinite or near-infinite speed."

From Harry Harrison's matter transmitters to Alfred Bester's Jaunts,
teleportation has long been a favourite in science fiction stories.
Some authors, like Larry Niven, take great care to try and get all the
scientific implications right, while others like Star Trek
misunderstand them.

The traditional Newtonian method is matter transmission or "beaming".
The matter transmission has usually been visualized as a breaking up of
the original substance by scanning the molecules and atoms one at a
time, then blasting out this scanning signal to be rebuilt at the
receiving end.

In Poul Anderson's The Enemy Stars, a side effect is that the body is
vapourized, so that one winds up with a complete record of the
passenger plus a cloud of superheated plasma. The gas is sucked through
a grid to be stored in a matter reserve, to await the next incoming
signal. The record of the passenger is sent across space, by radio. A
receiver picks it up and uses it, plus the plasma in its matter reserve
to reconstruct the passenger. As Niven says, "I wouldn't ride in one of
the goddamned things." The earliest recorded story of a matter
transmitter was in Edward Page Mitchell's "The Man Without a Body" in
1877, where a scientist invents a machine that breaks down the atoms of
a cat and transmits them by wire to the receiver, where the animal is
reassembled alive and well. He tries it upon himself, but the battery
dries up before he can transmit more than just his head. Technical
problems are loss of power, signal interference, intervening dust and
gas, and red and blue shifts due to gravity and relative velocities.

Sometimes the signal is stored rather than being broadcast which leads
to fun and games when the same person is rebuilt over and over again
from his recordings. Also you can store and copy the passenger's
record, beam it to several receivers, and end up with multiple copies
of people. If we advance that technique, and the original mug doesn't
need to get vapourized, then you get to go and stay at the same time.
This would lead logically to related technologies such as matter
replicators, and resurrection. After all we don't, by radio or TV send
images or sounds anywhere, they remain at their point of origin.

World without distance by Arthur C. Clarke "Can any words or
description span the gulf between the photograph of a man - and the man
himself?"

However Quantum physics suggests that there is a good explanation for
the destruction of the original. Measuring a quantum system changes
what you are measuring. The act of observation will change the original
state to something unpredictable, so you'll have your information, but
the original state of the brain has been scrambled.
There are two distinct physical states of matter, definite-observed and
uncertain-unobserved, what Greg Egan in "Quarantine" calls "smeared".
Making an observation of a smeared electron will change it. There are
many qualities that are incompatible, the measurement of one fuzzes the
other further into uncertainty. Quantum logic as might be used in human
brains and future computers, rely on the smeared state for their
computational power. Thus accurate copying of a complex quantum system
is impossible, and the attempt will change the system you are
attempting to copy.

Star Trek originally made use of this kind of system, although they
often went without receivers. The New Generation Star Trek have changed
the nature of their teleportation explanations through several
episodes. Scotty stores his signal in a pattern buffer and is revived
later. The possibilities for immortality are ignored. Crewmembers can
be reconstructed wrongly if their DNA is not recorded correctly. A
mistake in one episode causes Picard to beam in as a child due to
missing genes, hinting that the new transporter reconstructs them
according to their DNA, and not according to the positions of all the
atoms as did the old system. If so, all injuries, scars, and suntans
would disappear. A malfunction could then have interesting results. A
leather belt, cotton shirt, denim jeans could result in a cow being
reconstructed with you, cotton plants draped over your shoulder, hemp
plants draped around your loins and you with a hideous case of
indigestion.
Riker is beamed away from a station during heavy interference, and this
produces a second Riker, with the original left stranded on the
station. The original mysteriously grows the same beard as the
duplicate we are familiar with. Star Trek sometimes explains its
teleportation as displacement, where the passenger actually changes
location. For example Barclay in one episode becomes aware of transit
time and is bitten by creatures in the beam, and rescues people trapped
in the beam. This seems related to Anne McCaffrey's teleporting dragons
who travel "between" in some sort of otherspace.

In all known cases the laws of conservation of energy and momentum hold
rigorously. In Larry Niven's "The Alibi Machine" series the potential
energy of teleporting uphill is an important part of the story. When
teleporting uphill, potential energy is gained so that energy must be
lost somewhere else. People can get colder when teleporting uphill in
his story. The difference in angular momentum between different point's
on Earth's spherical spinning surface is taken into account with
momentum-damping buoys floating in harbours. Many other authors ignore
these necessities, particularly when the displacement is caused by
psychic means as in Bester's "The Stars My Destination" (Tiger Tiger).
Psychic teleportation in Vernor Vinge's "The Witling" takes these into
account with the person teleporting from water to absorb both the
difference in motion and the temperature difference harmlessly.

Relativistic uncertainty could be a problem over interstellar
distances. The more distant one's destination, the less certain is its
location in space and time. According to Einstein time runs at
different rates at different places in the Universe. Also everything
moves relative to everything else in space, so your destination is
constantly moving. In this case large computers and spaceships become a
necessity.

Quantum jumping is a mechanism for displacement. In modern electronics
tunnel diodes take an electron from here and put it there without
allowing it to occupy the intervening space, or as the textbooks drily
put it, "the penetration of the wave function into the classically
forbidden region." Scanning tunneling electron microscopes work on this
principle. An electric field applied to a metal tip so that the
electrons in the tip have enough energy to reach a metal surface
underneath for a short distance. However the electrons cannot exist in
the vacuum between the tip and the surface. A small current results
from the electrons tunneling out of the tip, teleporting from the tip
to the surface. No electron can be detected between the tip and the
surface. However macroscopic passengers would have to beware of
appearing in the midst of existing matter, and dying of embolism, or
worse. James H. Schmidtz in "The Lion Game" has a predator tricked
into teleporting into a hill, and exploding. Niven has the entire
contents of teleport booths swapped to avoid this problem, other
authors have vacuums created when you leave and air rushes away from
where you appear. Some authors simply say its impossible to teleport
unless the destination is empty.
In April 1995, photons were teleported across 12 centimetres in the
laboratory to send a signal at 4.7 times the speed of light using the
tunnel effect. Probability can be manipulated in some electronic
devices such as lasers, where the emission of light of one frequency by
one atom affects the probability of other atoms doing the same until
you have all the atoms behaving in step and you get coherent light.
Thus it may one day be possible to use this principle to get all the
atoms in a macroscopic body to teleport at the same time to the same
location.

References:

"Faster Than The Speed Of Light" by Julian Brown, New Scientist 1 April 1995

"The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" by Larry Niven, All the Myriad Ways

Quantum Mechanics by Alistair Rae 1990

Superforce by Paul Davies 1984

Profiles of the Future by Arthur C. Clarke 1973

The Visual Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction edited by Brian Ash, 1977

Science

Quantum computing

Quantum Computing at UNSW
Quantum Computing at Oxford
Quantum Computing at Imperial College
Clare Warwick's Quantum Computing
The Tao of Interaction-Free Interrogations
Quantum Mine Sweeper game
Computing without computing
Quantum Teleportation at IBM
Mind-Brain Quantum role?
Jack Sarfatti's Quantum physics

Biology

The Interactive Frog Dissection
The Interactive Human Dissection
Work Well Together
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Robotics

Real Robots
Robot & Vision Research
Floppy the Robot - build a computer controlled robot from an old floppy disk drive

Space

Solar images at SDAC
Artemis Project the Lunar Underground
SETI Australia
The SETI League

Mind

UTS Mind Switch
!HOT ROD YOUR HEAD!
Transhuman Web Alliance

Experiments to try at home

The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project
The International Society of Mad Scientists
Fun with Grapes - A Case Study
Talk.origins archive for debating with Creationists
Hot AIR: rare and well done tidbits from the Annals of Improbable Research
Fortean Times on line

Artarmon gathering Peter's Birthday Fidel and Jen Artarmon again

Thanks to Iain's reference I couldn't resist the meme and had to try it myself. Now my secret identity is out.
DEVIL/PAN "the joker, worker, stabilizer" You are gifted when it comes to protecting yourself
from judgements cast upon you by others. In
fact, you are not easily thrown by external
reality. You have the capacity to work and
play hard and to laugh at yourself. This is
the card of humour and sexuality (it is the
only card with genital symbols).
"Devil" spelled backwards is
"lived", and it is very fitting. You
live with humour and have a stable foothold on
life. Of course, you do love setting the
occasional bit of mischief into play.

which major arcana of the thoth tarot deck are you? short, with pictures and detailed results
brought to you by Quizilla

RS³ is Open Source software to take news from an RSS feed, summarize the full entry, and then convert the summary to speech and save the sound as an OGG vorbis file (or MP3 if you must). Basically, web to speech, for busy people who have a LOT of RSS newsfeeds to absorb every day, and want to listen to the content being read to them on their portable digital music device of choice. In February 2002 and again in 2004, Matthew told me that he wanted something to read the news to him from the web. Your wish is granted! This also has a huge potential to help disabled people access any RSS feeds on the net. It takes the latest full entries from the RSS feed, converts it to simple text without any ads or pictures using the GNU Open Text Summarizer. This gets fed to the Festival speech synthesis program from the University of Edinburgh, and your favourite blogs get converted into sound bite podcasts.

CafePress are keen.

Futurian Society of Sydney

Meets on the third Friday of the month at the University of Technology, Sydney in room 1615 at 7pm. Each meeting has a topic around which discussions are centered. Contact Gary Dalrymple for meeting information The Sydney Futurians have recently joined the UTS Students Association. This is great news, because it guarantees a continuing meeting place in the UTS Tower building, and invites new members from the science fiction reading students and staff of the University. Evelyn Leper's picture of a Futurian meeting

Photograph courtesy of Cat Sparks

Ron Clarke (Editor of "The Sydney Futurian" and "The Mentor"), Ian Woolf, and Peter Eisler.
Ted and Gary's mirror Futurians site (last updated August 2004) David Bofinger's Auxillary Futurians page

people who have attended Sydney Futurian meetings and have web space

(if you'd like to be added or removed from this list, or have your URL updated, please mail me) Ted Scribner Garry Dalymple Eric Lindsay Graham Stone and here Brian Walls David Bofinger John August Cat Sparks Zara Baxter Leigh Blackmore

About the Futurians

The Irish SciFi News reported correspondence with the Sydney Futurians in 2003 Trufen.net give us a mention

History

The Sydney Futurians were revived in their current form by Ron Clarke in 1994, and have continued to have regular meetings of science fiction fans on the third Friday of the month. Previously: 1960's Fan History Outline reports: "-- but by far the most important fan organization, not only in Sydney but in all of Australia, came into existence in November 1939: the Sydney Futurians >> originally, the group was to be called the Sydney Science Fiction League, but when word spread about the group, surprisingly as far as New York City, Don Wollheim persuaded them, via corespondence, to take the name of the legendary New York fan group instead >> initial meeting was at Veney's parents' house >> the group managed something the previous groups could not: longevity; it survived, with periods of non-activity, for many decades --- it was the first fan organization to revive after the end of World War Two >> but back in 1930s and 1940s, it was the vehicle that brought some new people into fandom, most notably Don Tuck and Graham Stone, though Stone left the organization for a while in the 1950s as the result of a feud >> in the 1950s, the Sydney Futurians had grown large enough where it was meeting three times per week in its own clubroom, with attendances of as many as 40 fans on occasions when there was a party [additional source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] --- it could not stand all the prosperity, though; there were feuds and schisms with splinter groups forming >>> one of them, the so-called 'Thursday Night Group' or more descriptively, the 'Bridge Club Rebels', consisted of people expelled from the Sydney Futurians for seemingly minor infractions; Dave Cohen, who spoke for the group, said he would pay for meeting space in the Sydney Bridge Club clubrooms, and anyone except Graham Stone would be welcome [source: Nicholson 16Dec91 letter; Foyster 14Nov00 email] >>> another of them (name?) had enough stability to last until about 1960 and even host a visit by Robert A. Heinlein during his trip to Australia in 1954 --- it was the independence of some of these splinter groups that caused some friction with some fans, notably Stone, who believed that Sydney fandom was better served by a single monolithic organization [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] -- but in 1951, Stone himself had started what could be regarded as a splinter group, the Australian Science Fiction Society [source: Warner AWoF] >> the organization was a bit different than most, as it had no rules, no constitution, and except for Stone (who served as secretary), no officers >> its purpose seemed to be to keep all fans in the country informed on what other fans were doing, which it accomplished via its newszine STOPGAP >> membership soon grew to about 150, but it soon became embroiled in a series of feuds, mostly between Stone and some factions of the Sydney Futurians -- another subset of 1950s Sydney fandom was the Australian Fantasy Foundation, which was most noted for its publication FORERUNNER, one issue of which was so slickly produced and with such high-quality fiction that it was comparable to the prozines > by the mid 1950s, there was enough division and dissention in Sydney fandom that it couldn't really be called 'organized' any more -- at the business meeting of 1955 National Convention, there was much acrimony involving the Bridge Club Rebels and what remained of the Sydney Futurians [source: "Sea Green Sunday"] >> this led to the 48th issue of the Melbourne clubzine ETHERLINE carrying an 'In Memoriam' page that read "Sacred to the memory of organised Sydney fandom, which passed away after a lingering attack of schizophrenia April 1st 1955. Resting in the hope of a Glorious Resurrection." [source: Foyster 2May99 email] -- if there was one fan who was nearest the center of all the dissension, it was Graham Stone; he had become involved in an escalating row about who had control over the Sydney Futurians sf library that was the source of much of the unpleasantness at the 1955 Natcon business meeting [sources: MSFC web site; "Sea Green Sunday"] -- there was also dissension over who would sponsor any future Australian National Convention, there were enough hard feelings that Graham Stone never again supported another Australian convention >> however, by then, it was apparent that none of the Sydney splinter groups were capable of hosting another convention in the forseeable future [source: Foyster 7Nov00 email] -- another Sydney club appeared almost immediately, and it assumed the name of the Sydney Futurian Society >> some of the prominent members were Molesworth, Doug Nicholson, Arthur Haddon, and Dave Cohen --- Haddon, a tattooed ex-sailor, was one of the mainstays of the club; according to Nicholson, "he brought perhaps somewhat deficient literacy but enormous vigour to the pursuit of fannish activities." [source: Nicholson 16Dec91 letter] --- Cohen, who had been involved in prior Sydney fandom schisms, (describe him briefly) --- Nicholson (brief description) > but as the 1960s began, the Sydney Futurians seemed in decline -- the meeting sites were a succession of ever-smaller rooms [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] >> in effect, Stone was running the club as a one-man show, handling all the activities associated witht he club's library with occasional help from Alan South and Kevin Dillon [source: RClarke 24Nov00 email] -- some of the Sydney fans, most notably Doug Nicholson, started spending much of their time in a intellectual/Bohemian group called the 'Sydney Push' [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] >> Mike Baldwin, another of the fans in that group, gained some unwanted visibility when a story of his titled "God in the Marijuana Patch", which had been published in a University magazine, got that magazine banned and himself prosecuted for blasphemy [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] -- at the end of 1963, Stone took a job in Canberra, and Vol Molesworth's health started a rapid decline that ended with his death in the middle of 1964 [source: RClarke 24Nov00 email] >> it was clear that change was needed if the club were to last much longer > but the change did come, and Sydney fandom became revitalized by an influx of new faces -- Ron Smith, who had won a Hugo Award for his fanzine INSIDE, moved to Australia from the United States in 1963 [source: Foyster 7Nov00 email] >> he had become unnerved by the Cold War escalations in the United States, which was one of the reasons for the move to a subjectively safer part of the world >> once he relocated to Sydney, he leveraged his small press publication skills and became employed by the publisher Horwitz [source: Foyster 7Nov00 email] --- by the late 1960s, found that he could make more money working for a publisher of soft-core pornography >> after arriving in Australia, almost immediately he located Sydney fandom and became a part of it --- (more details needed) -- in August 1964, Ron Clarke and some of his friends at Normanhurst Boys High School in Sydney published the first issue of a new fanzine, THE MENTOR [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] >> Clarke had discovered fandom in 1963, after seeing a notice about an upcoming meeting of the Sydney Futurians in an issue of the British prozine NEW WORLDS [source: RClarke 24Nov00 email] -- on the night of the meeting, as he later remembered, "I ventured into Sydney to 96 Phillip Street, up the dark and musty stairs to the room on the 2nd floor where dwelt the Futurian Society of Sydney library. There I met Graham Stone, Kevin Dillon, and Alan South, as well as coffee whose taste and odour I can still taste and smell to this day." >> soon afterwards he became a member of the Sydney Futurians [source: Clarke 22Nov00 email] --- he quickly obtained the address of an active fanzine publisher in Melbourne, John Foyster, who sent him a copy of his fanzine SATURA --- Clarke soon experienced the urge to 'pub his ish', so Foyster got him in contact with another active fan, John Baxter, who lived in Sydney --- Baxter provided him copies of his fanzine, SOUFFLE, but more importantly, helped him select a manual typewriter --- Clarke, who was in his last year in high school, then founded the sf club there that would publish the first few issues of THE MENTOR >> the first issues were not very memorable, published initially for the pupils at the school, and were dismissed by Clarke himself as little more than crudzines [source: Clarke 22Nov00 email] >> after graduating from high school in 1966, Clarke continued THE MENTOR as his own fanzine --- by the seventh issue, the editorship had been reduced to Clarke himself, and the only reason it as published, according to Clarke, was to "show the flag" at the Melbourne Conference of May 1968 [source: Clarke 22Nov00 email] --- but things improved after that, with monthly issues over the next four months in quality and size, that established THE MENTOR as one of Australia's best fanzines --- Clarke's philosophy with THE MENTOR was to publish a mix, from fiction to poetry to articles of fanhistorical interest; he later wrote that "One of the main reasons I publish TM is to give stf fans the opportunity to see their stories in print and to hear what other people, stf readers like themselves, think of them." [source: Clarke 22Nov00 email] --- Clarke continued to publish the fanzine, with minor interruptions, until the late 1990s >> Clarke himself, perhaps because of THE MENTOR, later became of one Sydney's most prominent fans --- he attended first convention in 1966 --- one of founders of Sydney Science Fiction Foundation and ANZAPA --- in the 1970s, besides continuing to publish TM, he was active in helping to revive the Sydney Futurians from yet another moribund period, and even chaired one of the Australian National Conventions in that decade (in 1974) [source: Foyster 2Apr99 email] > one of the more important events in Sydney fandom in the 1960s was the visit, in (when?), of famous writers Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton -- John Bangsund, a Melbourne fan of whom more will be mentioned shortly, wanted to make sure Brackett and Hamilton would meet some fans while they were in Australia, and contacted two people he knew in Sydney to organize the event: Betsy (lastname?) and John Danza [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] >> little was heard of the organizers after that hurriedly-arranged event, but the event itself was so successful that it gave organized fandom in Sydney a needed boost >> an organization of fans came together as a result of the event, and became known as the Sydney Science Fiction Foundation > Sydney Science Fiction Foundation -- pretentious-sounding name aside, it was a science fiction club similar in intent and style to other Sydney sf clubs [source: Foyster 8Nov00 email] -- (details? purpose? prominent fans? activities?) -- the prime mover-and-shaker of the organization was Gary Mason >> Mason considered himself more of a comics fan than a science fiction fan, but he was the organizational force that kept the SSFF active in its early years [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email] -- other members included Ron & Sue Clarke, Shayne McCormack, Kevin Dillon [source: Foyster 8Nov00 email] >> there were crossovers from other Sydney fan groups, including even the local STAR TREK club -- in the end, the organization proved to be somewhat long-lived, but not with permanency; it survived well into the 1970s, but passed from existence by the time the 1980s had arrived [source: Foyster 5Nov00 email]"

The September 1998 meeting opened with the announcement that Australian science fiction writer Richard Harland will be coming to speak with us for the December meeting. The ABC has withdrawn from sale South Park "Kick the Baby" t-shirts because a lobby group against child claimed that the t-shirt would encourage child abuse, but they are still available everywhere else. David Bofinger reported that the SAS had recently invaded his office and killed his mannequin. David attended the Australian Science Communicator's "Science in the Pub", where Tim Flannery had spoken on his thesis of The Future Eaters. It was summarised as follows "African animals evolved alongside humans so that they had time enough to grow smart enough to cope, but animals in newly colonized countries such as Australia had no such luck, and so most died out when people discovered these amazingly easy to hunt animals in the new places". Humans took a long time to recognize the effects of their behaviour and modify it to stop wiping out species. This was discussed at length. Graham Stone then fearlessly introduced Michael Guiness's theory of the Australian aboriginals that he was certain would offend everyone. "Its well known that city people are smarter than country people." There were murmurs at this statement, but he bravely pressed on with his explanation: This arises because bright people leave the country and don't come back, and those who stay behind have kids. A rural "brain drain" that causes a differential to arise. In prehistoric Australia the equivalent of the city was the coast, where the living was much easier, and all mod cons were laid on. Over 40 000 years, the same thing happened, the inland stock became less bright because the intelligent folk drifted to the coast. Then the Europeans arrived and killed them. This charming picture was quickly demolished by other people present. David Bofinger pointed out that the demographic heartland of aboriginals was to a large extent the Murray-Darling basin, and then continued to describe the "Science in the Pub" meeting and how Tim Flannery met a largely hostile audience. The meeting was recorded for the ABC "Science Show". One of our members then asked if he could give a talk on his favourite topic of Ritzian anti-relativity theories at a "Science in the Pub" meeting in the future. He was encouraged to ask them, but it was pointed out that an experimental demonstration of these unorthodox theories would be more convincing. It was reported that the Powerhouse Museum was having SETI and Space talks in the next week, but it required booking and an entry fee. The 1998 Locus awards were announced. The best SF novel was The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons, and the best Fantasy novel of the year was Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers. The best first novel was Great Wheel by Ian Macleod. "The Lord of The Rings" will be getting the full live action movie treatment. Each book will be a separate movie. Peter Jackson is directing and writing. Hobbits will be normal sized actors shrunk through digital special effects. Greg Egan's short story "The Extra" is being filmed by a Canadian production house "Welcome to Paradox". Toy stores have "Barsoom" action figures as marketing from the special effects video version of Tarzan. New theories reported in New Scientist on the origin of life were discussed. It's speculated that early in Earth's history, the planet was bombarded by large meteors on a regular basis. These strikes would liberate enough energy to vaporize oceans. Life established a tenuous foothold, only to be blasted away by the next violent meteor strike. This happened several times on Earth, until some life found its way deep underground where it was safe from the blasts. Possibly some life was aboard the chunks of debris that were flung from the Earth and some of it returned to re-establish life when the bombardments from space were less often, and so life finally took hold of the Earth. New Scientist also reported on the invention of "artificial atoms". Very small holes are etched into silicon, and the trapped electrons in these holes act like flat two dimensional atoms unlike anything found in nature.These atoms are larger than natural atoms and therefore they have a huge potential for new physics and chemistry. A British rocket enthusiast has taken liquid rocket fuel, mixed it with epoxy and foamed it with liquid oxygen. He was inspired by Aero chocolate bars and is sponsored by them. Australian producers are investigating the possibility of doing a movie based on Robert Silverberg's The Man in the Maze. Channel 9 is making a series about an abducted astronaut in collaboration with the Jim Henson's creature workshop - Farscape. The Kenneth Starr report released on the Internet at the same time as it was released to the US government was an historic event. Its the first time people on the other side of the world had simultaneous access to a government document, before it was even printed on paper. The new parliament house flagpole has four spines pointing down from the centre, if you take what would be the resulting pyramid, then there is a slab of granite in the Members chambers at the exact place where the sarcophagus would lie in an Egyptian pyramid. Its suggested that this is where the GST policy was found. Brian Walls opened the topic of Jupiter in science fiction by explaining how Jupiter is mainly light elements, water and gases, as opposed to the rocky nature of the inner planets. Issac Asimov's Buy Jupiter is about advanced aliens who wish to trade Jupiter for high technology. The aliens use Jupiter as a space highway billboard to sell a popular beverage. Humanity's reaction is to try and sell Saturn for a higher price to the beverage's competitors. Poul Anderson has hydrogen breathing aliens buy Jupiter to settle on in his Ensign Flandry series. James Blish's novel Cities in Flight has cities in force fields settled on Jupiter. A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke details an encounter with intelligent Jovian gasbags floating in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The movie 2001 was on Jupiter, and the book's events were around Saturn. 2010: The Year We Make Contact followed the movie and had Jupiter ignited to form a second sun. Clifford Simak's City series, in which both humans and dogs are enhanced to be able to survive on the surface of Jupiter despite the pressure and gravity. Both have transcended to a higher state they don't wish to return from. Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" covers much the same territory, with human minds transferred to synthetic bodies on Jupiter. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century visits a Jupiter with habitable plateau mountaintops where the pressure and gravity are low enough for terrestrial life. This is similar to Larry Niven's Gift from Earth, where the colony of Plateau is on a very tall mountain that makes it the only habitable place on the extra-solar planet. The TV marionette series "Space Patrol" had a character called "Jerry the Jovian". Isaac Asimov wrote Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter in which a seeing-eye dog in a spacesuit turns out to be a robot spy. "ZZ1 ZZ2 ZZ3" by Isaac Asimov in which Jovian aliens decide to exterminate all humans upon learning of our existence. The humans send robot ambassadors to the Jovians who assume that they are humans. They are so impressed with the robot's strength and endurance that they crack and surrender. Asimov's "Not Final" has further on the hostile Jovians, who are working on a force field that will enable them to take to space to kill humans. A remote outpost on Europa is doing parallel research and proves that a force field is so unstable that it can only last a second and therefore never be useful to Jovian astronauts. He is collected to report his triumphant news in a new spacecraft with a force-field hull that flickers on and off several thousand times a second. E. E. 'Doc' Smith's Spacehounds of Ipc had Jovian northerner Hexans fighting southerner Vorkurlians. "By Jove!" by Walter Rose written in 1937 has a South African backyard rocket lost on its way to Mars, ending up on Ganymede where the crew meet up with big insects who wish to join the British Empire. And lastly, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a John Carpenter novel called "Skeleton Men of Jupiter", a story so bad that even Graham couldn't read it.

The meeting of the 19th September 1997 opened with David Bofinger's news that he is quoted in , a book about the Vinge-ian Technological Singularity. We were informed that Rice Bubbles are presently sold with Wallace and Grommit toys in the boxes, soon to be a blob of stuff that self-assembles into the figures. At last a commercial use for nanomachines!

In further news, we were informed that Princess Dianna died, this prompted the rhetorical question "Where will the meeting go?", and the observation that Agnes Bojhaxia had also died.

ABC TV's "Quantum" program had a feature on smart pigs. Researchers fitted computer screens to the wall of a pig-pen, along with a snout-operated joystick, and a smartie reward system. The pigs played ever more complex computer games and had no trouble co nceptually mapping the action of the joystick with the cursor on the screen. Scientists now estimate that pigs are at least as intelligent as chimpanzees, and are developing a language to communicate with them. I hope the outcome of this research is not more chimpanzees being eaten.

New Scientist reported that the Martian magnetic field has been decaying rapidly, and there is speculation that perhaps, if there was Martian life in the past, that this life died when the planet's magnetic field no longer provided protection from cosmic rays, solar wind, and getting lost when their compasses failed.

New Scientist also mentioned an interesting tangent off superstring theory, involving gluon clumps called Q-balls. These clumps can be any size from an atomic diameter, to the size of a planet. The inside of a q-ball has different physical laws to the out side universe; effectively making these objects miniature universes. Theorists are proposing the very exciting use of this extremely exotic technology is to generate electricity by immersing a 1 gram q-ball in water. Since almost any other physical laws than the ones we use, result in protons decaying, they propose firing a proton into the q-ball, and letting it decay and therefore release large amounts of energy. No mention is made of what this will do to the q-ball.

The new Digital Video Disk being released in the USA comes complete with subtitles in 150 languages, however the manufacturers are being charged with racial discrimination because Navaho was not one of these languages.

Tax lawyer Richard Lead announced on the Radio National Religion report that he will be trying to get the Universal Life Church recognised as a religion under the Tax Act. The twist here is that he hopes to fail, so that in failing he gets to take away all religions' tax exemptions in Australia. Ian announced an intention to investigate if they can also be recognised under the Marriage Act. The plan is to then hold a mass marriage under the new authority of the Universal Life Church, however this time instead of the traditional hundred couples and one minister, we will have one couple and one hundred ordained ministers performing the service. The ministers could be sponsored, so that the event also generates money for charity.

An upcoming UTS talk on Nanomachines was announced, as was a UNSW talk on Quantum computers.

Brian Walls shared reviews of the movie "Contact", from someone who has also read Carl Sagan's book. Five people travel the star-buggy in the book, whereas only Jodie Foster travels in the movie. As her credibility is in question, this makes a huge differ ence to the tone and emphasis of the story. Brian was amused that the novel has the SETI researchers finding an urgent need to call "Ian in Sydney".

Brian gave us further movie news, "Kull the Conqueror" is apparently a funny politically correct barbarian movie.
In Alien 4, Sigourney Weaver finally has sex with the alien.

Peter Eisler announced that Scarlett Fish, a role-playing game based on the James Bond movie formula, co-written by Ian and Peter, would be running at Necronomicon over the October long weekend. Garry Dalrymple announced that he had a box of glow-in-the-dark aliens for sale. There was speculation as to their origin, and whether they were a fair swap for the people who have been abducted. Garry also announced that Professor Ian Plimer has mounted an appeal against the court's decision that the Ark folk were accepting money for goods and services but not indulging in business because they were religious. The Hubble Telescope has for the first time displayed images of the volcanoes on Io. Garry finally reported that on "I Dream of Jeanie" (with the original bottle blonde), someone had decided to make Roger King of Basenjisland.

David discussed how the reports of global warming seem recent because we weren't paying attention. The latest compilations of old data appear to show that a quarter of the Arctic sea ice disappeared during the time nobody was watching. David pointed out that this was a little dubious, and may be an artefact. David then presented a counter-intuitive brain teaser.

If you have a Christmas decoration that is a perfectly smooth sphere, and you shine a torch on it, at what angle is the reflected light the
brightest?

The topic of the planet Mercury was opened with a reference to Isaac
Asimov's robot story "Runaraound". The story involves robots stuck because of conflicts between Robotic Laws One and Three, and people being saved by old mute machine intelligences abandoned on Mercury. This story, like many Mercury stories, describes the planet as having one face always pointing towards the Sun. Modern astronomers have found that Mercury slowly rotates, and the year is thus shorter than the day.

Larry Niven's "The Coldest Place" describes the dark side of Mercury, and an encounter with a Helium II monster.

In Arthur C. Clarke's Islands in the Sky a contest wins a boy a trip to a space station, which finds the need to land a ship on the night side of Mercury, where they encounter an 8-legged crab. A factory slowly follows the twilight zone of the planet.

Alan E. Nourse's "Brightside Crossing" is about several expeditions
endeavouring to cross the day side of Mercury.

Isaac Asimov's The Big Sun of Mercury , is a Space Ranger novel set on
Mercury. Larry Niven's "Madness has Its Place" features military lasers on Mercury organised by licensed manic paranoid psychotics.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" has the Titans go to Mercury to instead of Earth, where they stay in caves.

Graham Stone described "Lord of Death" by Homer Flynt, where a Mercury expedition finds an Earth-like Mercury depopulated but for a dictator under glass. Graham revealed it was a godawful story with water-powered spacecraft manned by Adam and Eve who headed for Earth. This book is apparently one of a series not recommended by Graham, the second to avoid is "Queen of Venus".

It was decided to move the next Futurians meeting on "Black Holes" to
October 24th, so that members could attend the premiere of "JB Forever" at the Chauvel, starring Cat Sparks as Cat Galore and Iain Triffit as Dr FU Farquar.

This delicious topic for the meeting was suggested by David Bofinger.
Garry Dalrymple opened the meeting with some bad news, Nick Stefoplis has
had a heart attack. G. Harry Stine has died, and George Hayes has died. We
congratulated Futurian Mark Phillips on becoming a father. We were warned
that a new movie has been released that may have been intended as a
prequel for Frank herbet's "Dune", called "Spiceworld". There is also a
rumour that a six hour TV miniseries of "Dune" is being planned. The new
Kevi n Costner film "The Postman" based on a david Brin novel has gotten
mixed reviews. Reports ae that David Brin is happy with it, but then the
press releases always say that. When reviewed on the SBS "Movie Show",
they praised the content and the issues but damned the execution. To me,
this sounds like the novel would be worth reading, but the movie misses
the point.

Brian Walls reported that the "Starburst" science fiction magazine now
comes with a CDROM. Peter Eisler announced that the CanCon roleplaying
game convention would be held over the Australia Day weekend at Lake
Ginanderra College, Belconnen, Canberra. David Bofinger related that the
lunar prospector has reached a 100km orbit of the moon, and is sending
data back at the amazingly slow speed of 3600 bits per ssecond. Most
modern computer modems operate at around 33600 bits per second. The lunar
prospector i s searching for ice on the moon using neutron scattering. The
robot has found that the moon has a magnetic field. This is the first
scientific moon mission since Apollo 17.

Eric Lindsay regaled us with tales of the practical jokes you can play in
the cardiac ward of a hospital. Apparently cardiac patients are connected
to their heart monitor via an antenna. Eric found that if he moved out of
the door, the antenna moved out o f range with the heart monitor and the
nurses thought he had died when his heart signal stopped registering. Eric
has also participated in a double blind test of an experimental new heart
drug.

Mark informed us that the Reading Group would be meeting on Thursday 28th
January at around 6pm at Galaxy bookshop, before moving on to their room
in the Imperial Arcade nearby. They would be discussing Gene Wolfe's "Book
of the New Sun". The Powerhouse M useum held a "Space fact and fantasy"
festival over January, including talks on SETI. The Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

On the TV news and in News Scientist its been reported that longevity
scientists ahve been able to successfully extend the life of cells by
applying an enzyme that extends the telomere "fuse" that determines how
long a cell lives before self-destructing. This has applications to heart
disease, eye diseases and cancer treatments. How long individual cells
can live was once the absolute upper limit on how long it was possible for
humans to live, regardless of treatments for aging and disease. This limit
n o longer applies. Further in New Scientist, the USA is experimenting
with laser powered spacecraft. The laser engine stayss on the ground and
heats air in a bell under the craft in a pulse that pushes the craft into
orbit on a column of heated air. A patent has been taken out on a unisex
aphrodisiac based on chilli, that is supposed to be applied to the
genitals directly. If the wrong dose is used, it may be a long time before
any sort of aphrodisiac can help your love life. I receieved in email an
advert isement from an US company that is planning on taking people into
the upper atmosphere for 3 minutes of weightlessness - "civilian
astronauts".

The topic of humans treated as meat in science fiction was opened for
discussion. In Larry Niven's Known Space novel "A Gift From Earth",
colonists are used for spare organs for an aristocracy's medical needs. In
"The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton", a future i s portrayed in which people are
regularly abducted by organised criminals to be broken down into orrgans
to be sold on the black market to wealthy customers. Once the problems of
rejection and reattachment are solved, a healthy organ transplant can cure
a lmost any disease or injury. In other short stories, Larry Niven relates
how these medical advances lead to executed criminals being forced to
donate organs to public organ banks, and a greedy public voting in the
death penalty for smaller and smaller crimes.

Greg Egan's "The Extra" has people growing clones at home from kits. ""A
planet called Sheol" by Cordwainer Smith and "Aplanet called Treason" by
Orson Scott Card feature people who grow extra organs on their bodies for
harbvest and off-planet export. The movie "Seconds" is about organlegging,
as is the movie "Freejack", where they steal organs from people in the
past using a time machine.George Alec Effinger's "A fire in the Sun"
features organlegging - black market sales of human ogans for transplants.
The movie and TV series "Max Headroom" featured a gray market organ bank
where they weren't too particular whether the bodies they bought were dead
yet. In fact they paid extra for a "live dead body". In the Star Trek
episode "Spock's Brain", aliens steal Mr Spock's brain for their computer
system. Dr McCoy is able to supply a temporary replacement while they
chase after the thieves.

Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" has an entire human illicitly constructed
from the organs of several dead people. Garry insisted we include the
story of Genesis from the Old Testament, as Eve is cloned from Adam's rib.
Movies such as Woody Allen's "Sleeper" have an attempt to reconstruct a
dictator from the only organ left after an assassination - his nose. In
the movie "Alien resurrection", the central character's body is cloned
along with her stored personality after her death - the company literally
own her soul. Other bodies owned by the company are hijacked. "World Out
Of Time" by Larry Niven has a future where the minds of cryogenically
preserved people are extracted and transplanted to condemned criminal's
bodies.

In "Piecework" by David Brin, women rent their uterus for
nanotechnologically built hardware to be grown in. They give birth to the
hi-tech tools and parts.

"The Great Galactics" by A E Van Vogt features alien vampires who feed on
blood and life energy. The movie "Dark Angel" starring Dolf Lundgren has
alien vampires mugging people for their endorphins. "Liquid Sky" has
aliens stealing endorphins from men hav ing sex.

Larry Niven's "Assimilating our Culture" is about aliens who take tissue
samples during a "routine medical", and then clone them for human organs
to use as delicacies. The Shepherd" by Orson Scott Card is about a man who
saves a colony from human-eating alien invaders by serving them up as
dinner a piece at a time rather than killing them outright.

Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep" features a malevolent aline who fits
whole planets of people with modems and uses them as remotes. Neuromancer
by William Gibson had prostitutes who ran on electronic auto-pilot while
renting out their bodies. "Plague of Demons" had aliens abducting people
to use their brains in military tanks. "Software" by Rudy Rucker has
sentient robots ginding up h umans to extract their mental software, and
the robots surgically implanting electronic "rats" in people's heads in
order to operate them as remotes.

"Dead Man Switch" by Timothy Zahn features a Faster Than Light drive that
can only be operated by someone who is killed as the drive is started.

"Bordered in Black" by Larry Niven is about bleak future world of
cannibals. "Soylent Green" by Harry Harrison is about a bleak future with
cannibals.

Phillip K. Dick's "Prepeople" has a dark future where the legal definition
of humanity is an ability to do algebra. Hence young children and Arts
students are "prepeople" with no legal right to live.

The next meetings topic will be "Earth", the seventh planet in from the
edge of the solar system.

The invention of sound operated fridges was reported in New Scientist.
Apparently, sound waves compress the referigerant gas, instead of mechanical
compressors. Such refrigerators don't need polluting CFC refrigerants, and are
therefore A Good Thing. The question was raised: Why not use Maxwell's demon?
For those unfamiliar with thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon is a thought
experiment that uses a demon to do your refrigeration. A demon sits in your
fridge at the door, and only allows the slow moving cold air molecules to come
in, and only the fast hot molecules to leave. The result is that the inside of
the fridge is cooled down. The answer to why we don't use Maxwell's demons to
cool refrigerators is because some scientists don't wish to sell their souls!

It was pointed out that firemen use a device to impose a spin to the water to
stabilize it, so that it goes further without breaking up into little drops.
They found that cold water travels faster down a firehose than hot water. The
difference was particularly noticeable when you were ten feet away from the
hose, we were informed. The lesson seems to be that you shouldn't stand ten
feet in front of a firehose, unless you happen to be on fire.

The plight of young scientists in Australia was encapsulated in a simple riddle:

What did the Arts graduate say to the Physics graduate?
"Do you want fries with that?" Because *he* had a *job*.

The Australian Skeptics journal had an article about the difference between
anecdotal evidence and scientifically valid evidence, with reference to a
six point criteria for calibrating human instruments for use in scientific
observation. To be a reliable instrument the human in question must be:

Knowledgable as far as is possible in the subject to be observed;
experienced in witnessing or observing;
properly equipped and trained in the use of the equipment;
trustworthy and motivated to be truthful;
sober;
sceptical.

This led Eric to point out that most UFO spotters do not fulfill any of these
criteria, whether they be for or against the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Eric
then came up with a list that all UFO detecting people should carry in order to
give reliabel and useful information on the UFO phenomena:

magnetic anomaly detector - a compass will do;
polarizing lens;
diffracting lens;
weird sound detector;
recording device for make up for inevitablly lost memory (can be disguised as
weird sound detector).

The topic of this meeting is the Sun in science fiction.

Lucian of Samosata (2nd Century C.E.) wrote a trip to the moon that involved a
war against the Sun in "True History of Things Discovered in the Moon" .
Cyrano de Bergerac wrote a story about travelling to the Sun.
Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven is about the Sun going nova.
Sundiver by David Brin is about a trip into the Sun to search for intelligent
life.

Issac Asimov wrote stories about the future Weather Bureau which controls Earths
weather by making adjustments to the sun.

Whipping Star and Dosadai Experiment by Frank Herbert, where stars, including
Sol, are sentient beings that enable humans to teleport. The Crucible of Power
by Williamson features Martians who had a system of collecting power from the
sun by an enormous spaceship near the sun. Golden Apples of The Sun by Ray
Bradbury tells of human spacecraft dipping into the sun to steal some sunstuff
for study. In "The Fourth Profession" by Larry Niven, a doppler-shifted light
source with the same spectrum as our sun turns out to be a light sail operated
by merchants. "The Time Machine" by HG Wells was the first of many stories of a
future Earth where the sun is larger and cooler. In "World Out Of Time" by
Larry Niven, The Sun has cooled so the Earth is moved around to Jupiter's orbit
and its fired up as a mini-sun. The Robert Heinlein story "Let There Be Light"
is about the inventors of cheap efficient photovoltaic cells threatened by
vested interests. In the comics, Superman gained hios superpowers by the yellow
sun of Earth; more recently, Nuclear man in Superman 4 was solar powered. In
the Killion Empire of Time series the destruction of Earth is from focussed
light from the sun in one of the alternate timelines. Doc Smith also spun tales
using focussed sunlight as a weapon. Astroboy cartoons had ice asteroid shaped
like a lens that went into orbit around the Earth burning things. Amazingly bad
luck.

Icarus of Greek legend flew too close to the sun, whereupon the wax holding his
wings together melted and he fell to a watery death. Why don't seagulls get
affected the same way asked one Futurian? The answer is that their feathers are
not usually held together by wax; they have better technology. "Why don't they
get too hot?" he persisted. How do you know, was the reply, have you ever
managed to catch one?

Red Dwarf has Ace Rimmer slingshot around the Sun in an experimental craft.

George Zebrowski wrote about an alien group that made the analysis that if any
intelligent alien lifeform came in contact it may come into conflict with them
ultimately. Therefore they destroyed any intelligent life they discovered, and
searched for radio signals to find any lurkers. They reasoned that this was
justified because otherwise they'll do it to you first, having followed the
same reasoning as you. Earth gets hit and the Sun is one of the places that
human civilisation hides.

The next Futurian meeting will be about the planet Mercury in science fiction.

The meeting of 20/6/97 opened with Graham Stone reporting Kevin Dillon has
left yet another flat due to the floor collapsing. If this keeps
happening, people start to notice, and an X-file may be opened. New
Scientist further recorded that apparently the reports about ice on the
Moon were premature. It was further reported that the Earth has a new moon
orbiting between the orbits of Mercury and Mars, this object is apparently
5 kilometres in diameter, and has yet to be named. Astrologers have been
slower to incorporate the new moon into their ephemera than they were with
Pluto's companion Charon, but rest assured, they will incorporate it as
soon as they get a name. We don't know how they will cope if Astronomers
break with tradition and don't name the tiny moon after a mythological
figure. It may be hard for a client to fork over a large sum of cash for
an astrological reading that starts "Stimpy J. Cat is in the house of
Leo at the moment and reaching its closest approach - beware of
hair-balls".

It was reported that three times as many people die of heart attacks on
airplanes than die in plane crashes. In response to this Qantus airlines have
installed defibrillating equipment and trained Flight attendants to use them.
It is not reported whether any research into whether people susceptible to
heart attack should be warned not to fly. A Friends of Science Fiction meeting
is scheduled this weekend at the Sydney Centrepoint Tower (missed it). No
gerbils please - we're Finnish. New Scientist June 7 1997 reported that a
lemming mediated disease killed Finnish soldiers.

Professor Ian Plimer's complaint of business fraud against Mr Roberts was
dismissed by the Judge because he decided that Mr Roberts' supernatural beliefs
meant that although he took money in return for goods and services, he was not
operating a business. However his Honor's judgement was that Mr Roberts had
indulged in deliberate deceit and fraud, which were not illegal under the Trade
Practices Act if they didn't involve a business. For those unfamiliar with the
phenomenon, people who practice "Creation science" pretend that their cosmology is
scientifically proven, and not merely an assertion of truth by faith. In truth
their entire belief system is anti-science, both in content and practice. They
hold that every single branch of science is wrong, while at the same time use the
authority of science to support their supernatural beliefs.

In an American case of people with supernatural beliefs having more rights under
the law than other people, a basketball player was fined $50 000 for saying
"Mormonism sucks". Further on the supernatural, Reverend Garry Dalrymple noted
that the Science Show reported on a survey that showed that basenjis scored 79 out
of 80 on a scale of intelligence.

The Japanese apocalyptic mystical secret society Aum Ryoko have been linked
with a strange seismic disturbance that happened a few years ago in Western
Australia near a property owned by the group. Studies show that the seismic
disturbance does not look like an earthquake, a conventional explosion, or a
nuclear explosion. There is international concern, because the religious
society has many scientists among its members, and has a strong interest in
plasma weapons as their chosen agent for bringing about the end of the world.
Speculation runs rife that this seismic disturbance was the testing of such a
weapon. Aum Ryoko have been charged with the sarin nerve gas poisonings on the
Tokyo train system. They have been caught trying to smuggle ingredients for
nerve gas into Australia. The irony was that all of the chemicals were already
legally available here in Australia. New Scientists reports that white mice
have been genetically engineered to reflect UV so that they glow under black
lights. Glow in the dark mice should prove popular on the Gothic scene.

Brian Walls assures us that Queen Elizabeth has a special relationship with the
Faeries, and that all of her staff are Faeries. Meanwhile in the USA, Southern
Baptists have officially shunned Disney. No Disney films or books are to be
viewed by Southern Baptists such as President Bill Clinton because they are
said to be "anti-family", "pro-homosexual" and "anti-christianity". Mr Clinton
has opposed the directive. "I can watch Disney if I want to."

Disney will be remaking "Buck Rogers" in retaliation. "Green Bicentennial" and
"Hard Wired" by Walter Jon Williams are also to be filmed. "Scanner Darkly" by
Phillip K. Dick is to be made in Australia by Universal Pictures. Brian
announced "If I was going to take a drug, then LSD would be the drug; and you
can quote me on that". So naturally, I did. The movie "Contact" based on the
novel by Carl Sagan has been released in the USA and has had good reviews. So
far we don't know whether it has the same unfortunate Pi in the Sky ending that
the novel had. Unfortunately the Hollywood version of "Godzilla" has also been
released.

Eric Lindsay reported the sad news that George Turner died recently.

Insects thought to be extinct have been revived in Germany by military tanks
churning up the mud that long gone Bison used to churn for them. Mean Green
fighting machines?

Graham Stone opened the topic of Aliens in science fiction by explaining that
among the earliest writings on the subject were by Lucian of Samos in 2 AD. In
the story, mariners sail west, and are carried by a whirlwind to the Moon.
There they encounter carnivorous trees with trunks in the form of women saying
"Hello sailor", who capture them by the penis and engulf them entire. Freud
would have had a field day with that one! Powerful Jinns in the stories
collected in "One thousand nights and a night" translated by Sir Richard Burton
flew by controlled flatulence.

H.G. Wells' Martians lived on an older, dying world and covet a younger Earth
in "War of the Worlds". Arthur C. Clarke in "Meeting with Medusa" tells of
Jovian life as bloated flying gasbags,; not entirely unlike our politicians.
"Heavy Planet" by Leigh Gregor told of a world where every material thing was
weaker than the inhabitants, who then meet shipwrecked humans. In "Mission of
Gravity" by Hal Clement describes a world has a strong spin. Humans and native
aliens can only survive at the equator. Orson Scott Card explored alienness in
"Speaker for the Dead", in which alien atrocities arise from good intentions
and alien values as to what is "good".

Joe Haldeman defined degrees of alienness as these levels:

0. Us - your tribe

Sydney science fiction fans

1. Uitlanning - people who do not live in your town but are like you

Other science fiction fans

2. Framling - People who are different to you but clearly human

Media SF fans

3. Ramen - People who think differently to you and are not human, but which you
can recognize as intelligent beings.

Readers of mainstream fiction and soap operas.

4. Varelse - Things you do not recognize as intelligent, beings that you cannot
reason with.

Players of "Magic: The Gathering"

The topic of the next meeting will be Communication in science fiction.

Brian Walls showed us the January 1997 Locus issue with the photo of the
secret masters who control the world and their editor. There was much
science fiction and fantasy on TV and at the movies this week in January.
"Chain Reaction" actually contained real science in the form of
sonoluminescence, but was so badly made that nobody could tell if they
hadn't been sent a press release. TV had the following shows: Duckman, not
approved by Mark's wife, but recommended by us. Space Precinct made by
Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds fame, is not worth watching. Babylon 5 is
highly recommended. Aeon Flux is magnificent and fulfills the promise it
showed in Liquid Television, which is alos showing this week. The Tick is
back on TV and always worth watching, Spoon!

Brian reported that Colin Wilson is working a sequel to "Space Vampires".
The movie was known as "Life Force". Volcano movies are soon to be here.
Dante's Peak will be released soon, and a second movie about a volcano
under a different American city. Alien 4 is still being made. "Men In
Black" will be released later this year. The new "Starship Troopers" movie
based on Robert Heinlein's novel of the same name, is reported to look
like a cross between "Space Above and Beyond" and "Aliens".

Peter warned everyone that the Eighth Anniversary of "The Rocky Horror
Picture Show" audience participation show at Sydney Hoyts was coming up on
Friday midnight May 23rd.

Mark reported that the SciFi network cable channel has been wired to the
Whitehouse due to a request by President Clinton's daughter. Consumption
of 10 grams of sorbitol from sugarless gum causes diarrhea. This is equal
to eight sticks of gum. Ozemail has become a third long-distance phone
carrier by routing phone calls through its internet cables. An article in
"The Annals of Improbable Research" proves the existence of God by using
the techniques used in a recent study of alien abduction victims. The
psychologists reported that as so many people had reported being abducted
by aliens, that they therefore HAD been abducted by aliens. Therefore
aliens existed. The author thus reasoned that because many people believe
that they are God, that therefore, they must BE God, and so God exists.
Africans are reported to be using plastic bottles, left in the sun, as
emergency water purification. Americans ahve patented possible future uses
of mistletoe, without specifying what these uses might be. This opens the
way to patenting any naturally ocurring organism, including human DNA.

Digital Video Discs have a secret censorship agenda. The new video players
will only play discs released in a specific georgraphical region, for
example you cannot play US or UK video discs on an Australian player. In
addition, you can only play pre-recorded disks. This means that if a movie
has not been released offically for your geographic region, that you will
be unable to watch it.

Las Vegas will have a Star Trek themed hotel, with big budget special
effects.

The topic of Taxation in science fiction was not greeted enthusiastically.
Piers Anthony's "Bio of a Space Tyrant" employs innovative drug taxes.
Robert Anton Wilson's "Schroedinger's Cat" trilogy features the
Libertarian Immortalist party who sweep to government on a platform of
"An end to Death and Taxes". Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat
gets Drafted" has a tax system where currency is in community man-hours,
rather than cash. "The Sexuality Theory of Value" by Soo-Lee wherein women
have all been disenfranchised and are controlled by the banks, and are
the tax collectors. All governments are now on the "pussy standard".

Mark closed the meeting by telling us he had nothing to say.

The 18/10/96 meeting opened with Garry Dalrymple informing us that Robyn
Williams of exploding scotsman fame, was seen at the Sydney WhoCon the
previous weekend. There were no panels at the Convention, instead guests
were asked stupid questions about foot shots in particular Doctor Who
episodes. There were surveillance cameras everywhere. Garry also reported
that a second Martian meteorite has been found to contain what may be
traces of fossil life. This prompted the concern that perhaps the Martian
asterods may be breeding. We may be hip-deep in them by the end of the
year. Garry suggested that we start a campaign of subversion in the public
library system by replacing the standard free bookmark list of dead
politically correct science fiction authors with our own list of live
politically correct science fiction authors. This was agreed to by the
meeting. Funding was discussed, and elaborate plans were made. Again.

A new member Vanessa Whatshername under duress admitted that she had been
to a Palliative Care Conference. The other members of the meeting then at
last reluctantly put away their thumbscrews and hot pokers.

Brian Walls revealed Prime Minister Howard's death wish in his closing
down the Asteroid Watch program. This program was to watch for asteroids
that have an orbit likely to result in a collision with Earth, causing
destruction of Life As We Know It. Mr Howard obviously believes that if he
can't see it, then it can't hurt him. This was part of an international
collaborative effort. Mr Howard has yet again shown that he believes that
you shouldn't look back because it might be gaining on you. Brian then
went on to a spoiler for "Escape from L.A." by asking for an explanation
of Electromagnetic Pulse weapons. He went on to inform us that in "The
Island of Dr Moreau", Marlon Brando did not play the island. Hollywood is
looking at making a movie out of David Brin's "The Postman" with Kevin
Costner. A movie based on Robert E Howard's "King Kull" is also in the
works. "The Wole Wide World" a biographical film of Robert E. Howard was
nomina ted for an Oscar. A new Godzilla movie is also being made.

Peter advertised that there is an Anime club at Mind Sports on the second
Saturday of the month from 12pm to 6pm. Mind Sports meet above Atlantis
Gaming, 369 Pitt St Sydney. Peter next advertised the Dymoks bookshop
Halloween night. (You missed that) Dymoks organised for fire-eaters, story
readings and a costume competition. All staff appeared in costume,
customers were requested to show up in costume. (All but three ignored
this request, and two left before the costuming was judged). The
Fun-In-The-Dark-Sydney-audience-participation-cast of the Rocky Horror
Picture Show would be going the mountains to be seen in front of The Edge
cinema's Maxivision giant screen. The shows will be helping to raise money
for the "People Living with HIV in the Blue Mountains Support Group".

Damien Broderick is writing a new book about Vingean Singularities, and
has been sent a copy of the Futurian article about the subject. UFO
sightings this last week over Queensland and Tasmania curiously
coincidentally correspond to an international UFO convention being held
in Australia at present. Perhaps the UFO's came to be seen? New
Scientist reports that the European Space Agency is facing planned
massive budget cuts that are certain to cripple it over the next three
years. NASA will be shutting down the International Ultraviolet
Explorer, an orbiting ultraviolet telescope due to government budget
cuts. This flies in the face of reason as more than two thousand
astronomers have used the observatory and their observations have been
the basis of over three thousand five hundred scientific papers. A new
vaccine against Hepatitus B is being grown in a genetically engineered
strain of bananas. New Scientist reported the scandal of the
contaminated Polio vaccine. Anyone vaccinated by injection before 1961
may be at risk of cancer. New Scientist (21 Spetember 1996 page 7)
reports on a possible new discovery in antigravity. A Finnish physicist
submitted a paper describing where a thirty centimetre torus of
superconductor is set spinning above magnets. A fifty gram mass
weighed over the spinning torus measures only forty-eight grams. Thus
the torus appears to give a gravity-shielding effect. The paper was
independently reviewed and approved for publication. Then at the last
minute, the co-worker listed in the paper denied knowing the physicist,
and the university denied that the research was being perfromed there.
THEN, the scientist himself withdrew the paper before publication,
muttering about patent rights of the funding body. The Australian
Federal Government has decided to fund religious private schools by taking
away money from public schools at a ratio 4:1. The public school system
will collapse, and Australia is set to become a theocracy that won't even
know when the sky is falling.

Ian reported that he had attended the Australian Skeptics Convention in
Melbourne the previous month. When skepticism was expressed about this
event, Ian was unfazed; he simply pulled out the card from his pocket
that had written on it "I predict that you will say that you don't
believe in the Skeptics Convention". Ian admitted that at the
Necronomicon he won 9 Thuderbirds videos for inventing the best
explanation for the "F.A.B" used to end broadcasts between characters
in the show. Some of the winning entries included:
Foxy Aristocrat Babe
For A Buck
Foreign Alien Babble
Fawning Adolescent Bufoons
Flat Ageing Bag
Fantastically Arrogant Bastard
For A Bet
Fatuous Animated Banter

Iain Triffit reported that Omni magazine has gone completely online, and
is now only available over the World Wide Web, and no more papers versions
are planned. The pay TV channel Showtime is showing Alien Nation. Rumours
of a new TV series made for cable will be called "Baywatch Nights"
combinging the bodies of Baywatch with the mysteries of The X-files. David
Hasselhof gets physical with a sea monster in an early episode. At last
intelligently made SF with the best of both worlds. "Homeboys in Outer
Space" is another upcoming title to make you rush out and buy pay TV.

Catriona Sparks announced that she had read the Australian science fiction
magazine Aurealis and it was Good! Lloyds of London have now underwritten
a policy against alien impregnation and immaculate conception in the year
2000. Catholic mothers worried that the AntiChrist was foretold to be born
in the year 2000.

Graham Stone requested not to be mentioned in this article.

Eric Lindsay reported the unbelievable news that the Scientologists have
taken over DAW books.

Susan Smith reported that "The Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon" is mathematical.

"Animals in science fiction", the topic had no sooner left Ian's mouth, than
"A Boy and His Dog" by Harlan Ellison was blurted into the discussion. In post-holocaust USA a boy and his dog look for sex and food, but not necessarily in that order.

Sirius by Olaf Stapleton is about the romance between a girl and a dog.

"The Island of Dr Moreau" by H. G. Wells is about a isolated vivisectionist
matchmaking for a Catwoman and an Englishman.

"Carmen Dog" by Emschwaller is about a future when all animals transform
into women abd a basenjis becomes the deputy leader. The men become animals,
thus providin yet another chance for the feminist press to demonstrate the
romance between a girl and her dog.

"Instrumentality of Mankind" by Cordwainer Smith features animals uplifted to
"underperson" status and human form, including the professional Girlygirl cat woman C'mell.

"Monkey Planet" by Pierre Boulle features a planet where apes are technology weilding and civilised, and humans are wild animals. An Englishman arrives and marries one of the wild animals.

"Howard The Duck" was a Marvel comic and movie about a sapient duck and his human girlfriend.

"Pigs In Space" from Jim Henson's Muppet Show featured pigs in space and
the romance of a frog and a pig.

"The Zen Gun" by Barrington Bayley is about the brief empire of the pigs, a
modified ape and the ultimate weapon.

"Sacred Martian Pig" by Margaret St Clair is about an evil Martian cult and a
conspiracy to kill the pig.

"Therein Lies The Wub" by Phillip K. Dick a Martian furry pig provides truth
and immortality. Not necessarily in that order.

"Night of the Lepus" rabbits attack people.

"City" by Clifford D. Simak has dogs inheriting the Earth.

"Bambi meets Godzilla."

"Into Your Tent I'll Creep" by Eric Frank Russell is about a telepathic alien
learning the true nature of dogs.

"Homo Saps" by Eric Frank Russell, camels are recognized as superior intelligences by Martians.

"Me and Flapjack and the Martian" by Mack Reynolds, mules are recognized as
superior intelligences by Martian invaders.

"Guns with Occasonal Music" by Lethem involves bioengineered kangaroo
gangsters.

"Battle of Forever" by A E Van Vogt is in a future with uplifted
animals and dreaming macroencephalitic humans.

The meeting agreed that there were animals in science fiction.

Eric Lindsay announced that the bid for the 1999 World Science Fiction
Convention - WorldCon to be held in Australia has been won. George Turner is
a possible guest of honour. The longer you wait to get a ticket, the higher
the price you pay when you realize that you must attend.

David Boffinger admitted that despite his doctorate he knows nothing. Brian
Walls drew people's attention to the new "Australian Review of Books".
"Mystery Science Theatre 3000" is showing at the Valhalla in Glebe and is
highly recommended. Garry Dalrymple informed the meeting that there would be
a Dr Who Convention in Melbourne the next day. Mark Phillips has finally
caught up and seen the movie "Ed Wood". He recommends that anyone who hasn't
seen it should remedy the situation. Kevin Dillon reports that President
Clinton has committed to have a robot on Mars by 2000, when no doubt, "no
child shall live in poverty, aaaaaaaahhhh". It was pointed out that this
promise is meaningless because there is ALREADY a robot on Mars from 20 years
ago.

Garry, inspired by the Sydney Observatory brochures, proposed a fold out card
promoting the Sydney Futurians. Funding for this was left as an exercise for
the members. The Sydney Observatory ceased being a real working observatory
when the Sydney Council decided to turn on all the lights on the Sydney
Harbour Bridge, thusmaking it impossible to see much of the sky. The Sydney
Observatory was over 100 years old as a functioning observatory, but now its
a sad museum.

The topic of Non-gender-specific Students in Science Fiction was naturally
opened by Peter speaking about Anime.

Project Ako - two schoolgirls battle it out for the love of another
schoolgirl. The battle involves extraterrestrials and a Gazebo.

Sailor Moon is about 14-year old sailor-suited superheroines destined to save
the world from the evil Negaverse.

3x3 eyes - a schoolboy has his soul captured by a suicidal Three-Eyed
Immortal schoolgirl.

Vampire Princess Miyu - a vampiric schoolgirl destroys Elder Gods.

All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku - an android schoolgirl with the
brain of a cat destroys cities while having fun.

Tenchi Muyo - a schoolboy saves the Earth because he is secretly of a
Galactic Royal family.

F.M.Busby - Star rebel series. A student of the Earth-based Starfleet Academy
rebels against the Evil Earth Empire.

Orson Scott Card - "Ender's Game", a student saves Humanity. [Any further
information would be a spoiler.]

H.P. Lovecraft wrote may stories where students died as a result of learning
Things Too Terrible To Know [in the Biblical sense].

The Matador series by Steve Perry features a bodyguard school that breaks an
evil Empire.

"Only You Can Save Mankind" by Terry Pratchett is the flip side of "Ender's
Game", only different.

James Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" is about the adventures of a group of
schoolgirls and their reluctant boyfriend. The Telzey series is about a
psychic schoolgirl secret agent's adventures in the Galaxy.

Kevin J. Anderson's Star wars - The Jedi Academy series features Jedi
students.

Star Trek - Starfleet academy stories

Harry Harrison's "A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born" starts with Jim DiGriz as a
student of Crime. "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" is about a pair of
college lads, their girlfriend and the school janitor go into space for a
lark.

Zena Henderson's The People series has many stories about psychic student
aliens on Earth.

Roger Zelazny's "Doorways In The Sand" is about the Galactic adventures a
perpetual student.

Robert Heinlein's "The Menace from Earth" is about a jealous schoolgirl on
the Moon. "Tunnel in the sky" is about teenage planetary colonists. "Red
Planet", schoolboys on Mars save the world with help from friendly natives.

Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life" - Young boy has absolute God-like powers.

Harry turtlelove's Earthgrip - Science fiction student applies thinking
skills to Galactic problems.

C J Cherryh's "Cuckoo's Egg" - Human child raised by aliens as ambassador.

J. Haldeman's "There is no darkness" - A group of Galactic schoolkids on E
trip to arth have pointless adventures.

Elizabeth Hand's "Waking the moon" - Ancient Gods awaken on campus.

The Tomorrow People TV series was about Psychic students' adventures.

AC Crispin's Star Bridge series is about a co-educational Academy, where
aliens are busseed in to inspire a cultural mix.

WE Johns' Planetoid series about dashing young chaps on a planetoid.

Undercover print journalist X visited the meeting, and
unlike us, took extensive notes. Thus you really should be
reading her article, not this one.

Entertainment Tonight showed scenes from the work in progress of
the new movie "Starship Troopers", based loosely on the novel of
the same name by Robert Heinlein. The Amway corporation is
now rumoured to own more than 50% of the Republican party.

Ian fielded questions while sneaking looks at a nearby copy
of New Scientist. Life on Mars has been promised by NASA
media flacks after meteorites dug up from ice sheets in
Antarctica showed convincing indications of having been
chipped off a nearby rocky planet with a carbon dioxide
atmosphere, and maybe having some arguable signs of
microscopic fossils. This announcement has been very
convenient to the Clinton USA presidential election
campaign, and very useful to NASA's ailing budget. Not
mentioned in any of the media circus surrounding the
announcement, are references to the fact that the Viking
martian lander twenty years ago got a positive result to all
three of its tests for life. However, as there was no
election, and the geological test was negative for
graveyards, so the return trip was delayed until the Clinton
campaign. There was more evidence and reason for a return
trip from the Viking results than are apparent from these
meteorites. Several members also expressed reservations
about the emphasis on finding life, and what would happen to
the space program if life is not found on Mars after all.
With all the hype, it may just kill the space program, until
the next opportunistic politician. Having discovered
micro-organisms on Mars, one has to wonder if they would
then send in the marines to warn them against throwing any
further rocks at our planet. The USA must show everyone that
their police presence cannot be ignored anywhere. Perhaps
Martians are being set up to be the next villains after
Iraqi oil is safely owned by the USA. Oh well, the rocks are
very old, they come from another planet, they just might
have the remains of some sort of micro-organism. So after
the next Mars mission, we might be able to feel that we
share the universe with tiny bugs, and Fred Hoyle gets to
say "I told you so!".

Jupiter's moon Io has been observed by Galileo to have a
massively powerful electron beam death ray flowing from its
surface to Jupiter. A new solar cycle has started, which
will upset your radio reception and give you lousy weather.
A new treatment for organic depression involves the
application of very powerful magnetic fields to the brain.
New Scientist also announced that the repair of spinal cord
injuries will be happening real soon now. Herpes sufferers
will be glad to hear that ordinary tea is an effective cure
if applied to the skin. People from all over the world have
since written praises to New Scientist for revealing this
simple cure. An ethical committee has given the go ahead for
NASA to send monkeys into space for new experiments, as they
promise to bring them back this time. Several comments were made
about the well-known fact that they all came back
super-intelligent in all the previous trips.

John Baxter has written an unauthorised biography of Stephen
Spielberg in which he claims Spielberg reads only comics.

Brian Walls reported on the Locus awards. Best novel was won
by "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Best novella
was "Remake" by Connie Willis. Best Fantasy novel was "Alvin
Journeyman" by Orson Scott Card. Best dark fantasy/horror was
"Expiration date" by Tim Powers. Best Artist was Michael
Whelan.

"The Forever Knight" is sometimes seen Fridays at 4am on channel Ten.

The illustrious Reverend Ron Clarke Esq. was interviewed on ABC
Regional Radio about the announced discovery of possible
Life On Mars.

The topic for the meeting was corporations in science
fiction.

The "Foundation" series by Isaac Asimov featured merchant
princes as the centre of spreading civilisation after the
collapse of Galactic society, predictably.

Poul Anderson's "Polesotechnic League" series featured merchant
princes who spread civilisation throughout the galaxy, after
the collapse of the previous Galactic society.

Larry Niven's "Known Space" series features alien Puppeteer
merchant princes who spread civilsation throughout the
galaxy.

"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson has a future North America
ruled entirely by giant corporations.

"The Space Merchants" By Frederkik Pohl and Cyril KOrnbluth
is about a future North America ruled entirely by evil giant
advertising corporations.

"High Justice" by Jerry Pournelle is about a future where
giant corporations become more important than governments
and take better care of the environment and the citizens of
the world.

The movie "Terminator" is about a future North America
destroyed by evil giant corporations, and really bad time
travel.

"Gladiator at Law" by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth is
about a future North America ruled by giant corporations who
settle their disputes by bloodsports.

"The Jagged Orbit" by John Brunner is about a future North
America dominated by giant arms dealing corporations.

"Vickers" or "Corpse" by Mick Farren is about a future North
America run by giant corporations who use hitmen to settle
disputes.

"The Cold Cash War" by Robert Asprin is about a future North
America rulled by giant corporations who settle their
disputes through pretend hitmen.

"The Investors" by Bruce Sterling is about an alien race
of merchant princes. They trade with
humans and other races. Every race they trade with learns
about the ultimate nature of reality and transcends to
godhood. The aliens avoid this horrible fate by cultivating
greed, shallowness and banality.

Star Trek has similar racial stereotypes called "Ferengi".

The "Max Headroom" TV series was about a future North
America ruled by giant TV corporations with no control over
rogue viral reporters.

The movie "Bladerunner" based on "Do Androids dream of
electric sheep?" by Phillip K. Dick is about a future
controlled by giant corporations who manufacture superior
humans as slave stock and are surprized when they object.

"Robocop" is about a future North America controlled by
giant corporations.

"Heavy Time" by C. J. Cherryh is about asteroid belt mining
colonies controlled by giant corporations. No paper is
allowed because it might be used for subversive posters.
Toilet paper is manufactured with enzymes to break down
quickly so it cannot be used for notepaper pulp. Education
has all cultural elements stripped out.

The "Alien" movies were about a giant corporation who wanted
to bring back dangerous organisms but failed.

Andre Norton's "Far Traders" series featured giant
spacegoing corporations persecuting the small independent
spacegoing traders.

"Oath of Fealty" by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven is about
a giant building, an "arcology" owned by a corporation that
gives its residents accomadation, shops, parks, and all the
features a community needs. When attacked by terrorists,
they use the motto "think of it as evolution in action".

"Islands in the Net" by Bruce Sterling has a future world
where the worst criminals are pirate corporations which
steal and sell technology and information.

"Distress" by Greg Egan features a peace-loving pirate anarchist
nation harrassed by giant international corporations.

"Analogue Men" by Damon Knight features a future ruled by
giant corporations who control their populations by brain-implanted
"guardian angels" who make sure the citizens do things the
corporate way.

"Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson features a world divided
into clan-style corpoorations instead of nations.

"Search The Sky" by Frederick Pohl features corporations
sending their hero to save the human race from extinction.

"Tiger Tiger" or "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred
Bester, features future aristocrats who have derived from
corporate empires based on present big name products, and
who chose not to teleport because it is a vulgar way to
travel.

"Zodiac" by Neal Stephenson features a rogue chemist
fighting evil corporations who pollute for profit.

"Little Fuzzy" by H. Beam Piper is about evil corporations
exploiting cute fuzzy little aliens.

"Stark" by Ben Elton has evil corporations realizing they
have poisoned the Earth and thus devising an escape plan.

"Battlefield Earth" by L. Ron. Hubbard is about an evil alien
corporation strip-mining the Earth.

"Schoolgirls in science fiction" was disapproved of by the
Political Correction Police, so next meeting's topic will be
"Non-gender specific students in science fiction".

Grahame Stone started the meeting by dictating what can never be
written about in science fiction. "Perhaps I'm not politically correct,
BUT...there should be a moratorium on this topic for fifty years...".
He then related a story about women warring with men, he didn't like
the book, and can't remember the author or title, and we have no idea
why he chose to share this with us.

Leigh Blackmore reported that Michael Moorcock did not visit Dymoks
bookshop this year. Glayne Louise has seen a sneak preview of
"Independence Day" and spoiled the movie for everyone by telling us
that the alien spaceships are IBM compatible and cable ready, everybody
including the aliens drink Coke (tm) and the butler did it. The special
effects were so good that apparently even the fire looked real.
"Independence Day" grossed US$87 million in its first week of US
release. There will be 11 science fiction movies released in Australia
in the next 12 months promised Glayne.

For some reason Iain Triffit ventured the opinion that "Stargate" was
intended to justify the Gulf War. He announced that Arthur C. Clarke
will be releasing "3010 AD" the fourth book of the novel of the movie
of the short story.

Cat Sparks reported that she was shy. Nobody believed this.

Peter Spicer explained that he works in a radio program on 2SER 107.3
FM called "Future Shock" aired some Thursdays between 12pm and 1pm.

Peter Eisler related that he attended the Phenomenon Role Playing
Convention the previous weekend. Margaret Weiss author of books, was
Guest of Honor at the convention. Peter then reported on the Rocky
Horror Picture Show twenty-first anniversary Bobby Goldsmith Foundation
Charity event. First the traditional audience-participation version of
the movie was screened at Hoyts, then the guests moved across the road
to the new Planet Hollywood for the remainder of the evening.

Mark Phillips plainively begged our attention to inform us that "Babylon
5" had finished its season on Sydney TV. Thanks Mark.

Ian reported that the "UK TV" station on Foxtel cable TV will be
carrying the "Doctor Who" and "The Goodies" series from August 1996. A
live Hong Kong version of the Japanese Anime "Wicked City" would be
airing on SBS that weekend. A web site devoted to Australian author
Greg Egan had been discovered in Switzerland, which for no known reason
has a country designation of CH on the internet. Ian mentioned that he
had been interviewed by Peter Spicer the previous day on 2SER. A
report in New Scientist revealed that once again, billions would be
made from basic research, with none of the money going to the
researchers. In the 1970's a biologist published his study of lobster's
eyes in a scientific journal. The research was done purely out of
curiosity. An astronomer read the paper about the fact that lobster
eyes use mirrors instead of lenses to focus light. They have narrow
mirror-lined tubes as focussing devices. The astronomer thought that he
could use this principle to focus x-rays to make an x-ray telescope.
Again, he did this purely out of a desire for knowledge. After several
years of development, his team created the materials necessary to focus
finely collimated beams of x-rays and built their telescope and made
astronomical discoveries. Now indutrialists have seized on the
technique as a method for focussing x-rays into fine beams that can
etch extremely tinier circuits into microchips than is possible with
present techniques. This will become a billion dollar industry with
smaller and faster devices. There is no plan for any of this money to
go back to either biology or astronomy.

Victor Kay revealed that he had attended as a result of the 2SER
interview.

The topic of "Games in Science Fiction" was opened by Ron Clarke's
list, consisting of "The Players of Null-A" by A. E. Van Vogt in which
non-Aristotelian game-players compete for government, and "Squares of
the City" by John Brunner which was not discussed by agreement as the
game-reference gives away the punch-line. But thanks for playing Ron,
you've been a great sport.

Mark Phillips lept in with John Crowley's "The Deep". Mark explained
that he is sure the novel has chess in it, but admitted that he hasn't
actually read the book.

In Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Chessmen of Mars", the real hero is played as
a chess piece.

Leigh extended the chess theme with Henry Kuttner's "Chessboard Planet", in
which people on a planet play chess.

Cat added "Welcome to the Monkey House" by Kurt Vonnegot, in which the
hero plays chess with real people for pieces.

Peter Eisler then unfurled his chess list. Poul Anderson's "Circus of
Hells", in which Flandry plays chess with a big computer. Roger
Zelazy's "Unicorn Variations", in which a man plays chess with a
Unicorn, the stakes being the fate of humanity. Peter then raised his
favourite TV show, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", where, despite a
complete lack of pockets, the crew regularly manage to play
three-dimensional chess games.

Leigh reported that Terry Dowling's books involve something called "Firechess",
but he chose not to elaborate

Iain Triffit reported that some of Harlan Ellison's books involve
telepaths playing chess with suicidally sharp chess pieces.

Graham mentioned "Gentlemen be seated" by Robert Heinlein, which
involves real men on the moon playing imaginary chess.

"Carrion Comfort" by Dan Simmons features chess-playing with real
people pieces.

Glayne reminded us that Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" has
heavy chess motifs. As a result of her sad TV upbringing Glayne was
able to reminisce that Wonder Woman had to win her magical artifacts
through a series of not-chess games.

Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity" series featured a world of competitive
games integral to the social structure.

"The Manchurian Candidate" features murder by solitare.

There is now a computer game based on Haran Ellison's "I have No Mouth
But I must Scream". The object of the game is successful suicide.

The "Glass bead game" by Hesse, is about a game with glass beads.

John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider" features a Robin
Hood-style competition to smoke out an escaped wily supergenius. He
outsmarts them.

Stepehen King's "The Running Man", features death by gameshow.
William Harrison's"Rollerball" (a poor rip-off of The Goodies classic
"RollerEgg"), in features death by football game.

Peter's pool references began. Isaac Asimov's "The Billiard Ball",
involving a fatal game of billiards. Red Dwarf (Grant Naylor) had a
planetary pool shot involving a white hole. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams has a reference to a planet being potted
into a black hole in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. In the
Doctor Who episode "Pyramids of Mars", to get past the robotic mummies,
the Doctor must solve many puzzles and riddles.

"The Gameplayers of Titan" by Phillip K. Dick, features the people of
Earth play swinging card games for sex. "Only You Can Save mankind" by
Terry Pratchett features computer games with real aliens. "Better Than
Life" by Grant Naylor is about a computer game based on your dearest
fantasies designed to be so subtle you forget its a game. "Virtuosity"
features a computer game that escapes.

Fritz Leiber's "Big Time", in which the different sides of the War
extend their dogma to the types of games they are willing to play.
"Roll Them Bones" by Ra A Lafferty has a gambler dicing with the devil.
Disney's "Tron" takes place inside a computer game during the movie and
was ruthlessly exploited as a computer game after the movie was
released. "War Games" also features a computer who's reality check
bounces. Fred Saberhagen's "Octagon" features a play-by-mail computer
who's reality check bounces. Andrew Greely's "God Game" features a
ganme-playing priest who's reality check gets cashed.

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card features training war games.

Mark tried to push Julian May's "Saga of the Exiles", Metapsychic
Olympics as a game.

"Deathrace 2000" features a motorist's dream where the object of the
game is to kill as many pedestrians as possible.

Phillip K. Dick's "Return Match" has an alien pinball machine that
fights back.

Michael Moorcock's "Blood", in which the aristocrats of society are
gamblers.

John Christopher's "City of Golden Lead" and "Tripods" TV series
featured games in which the winner gets stuffed.

Robert Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" has football recreated in the
future by a time-travellor from the twentieth century.

"Sandkings" by George RR Martin features chess with real sandkings.

"Hoka!" series by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson features Role
playing aliens.

"The Prisoner" TV series featured chess with live people.

"Gladiator at Law" by Fred Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth has legal disputes
settled in violent games.

"Ambient" by Jack Womack features corporate takeovers settled by
gladitorial games.

Garry Dalrymple couldn't remember the title or author but the story was
about giant carnivorous tapeworms in gladiator fights for nice houses.
[If you've read this far you deserve this one]

"The Seventh Seal" has the hero playing chess against Death.

"Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure" features the heroes playing Battleship,
Twister and Cluedo against Death.

"Cold Cash War" by Robert Aspirin features a corporate cold war with
virtual assassinations.

"Dream park" series by Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes is about a
virtual reality role playing theme park.

"Last Call" by Tim Powers features cosmic poker games.

Robert Sheckley's "Tenth Victim" is about an assassination game.

Sherri S. Tepper's "True Game" features board games with real psychic
people.

Graham told us that the heroes in Heinlein's "Farnham's Freehold" sell
the game of bridge to people in a post-holcaust future. Hey, you wanna
buy bridge, really cheap??

Graham Stone opened the meeting by announcing that "homosexual SF has
arrived". He explained that he has searched UTS library for a book he
wanted by using the keywords "Gay Mens Press", to be told that the
volume was "not available at present", which were instantly translated
by his friendly librarian into "some bastard has nicked them".

Peter announced that the Phenomenon Role Playing Convention would be
taking place in Queenbeyan from Friday 12th July, to Sunday 14th July
[yep missed it again]. The boring sod had no further news.

Eric Lindsey reported that the WorldCon in Melbourne Australia for 1999
bid is progressing well. It costs A$40 for an Los Angeles Worldcon
membership, plus a$50 support fee before you can be eligible to vote
for the location of the WorldCon in 1999. However, having voted, you
will get discount tickets to the Con when it happens; if the bid is
successful you'll save heaps on air tickets. Eric estimated that the
Wolrdcon in Melbourne will need space for at least 2000 people for
events such as the Hugo awards and the Masquerade.

Mark Phillips [no relation], reported that "Terminal Experiment" by
Robert J Sawyer won the Nebula award this year.

Glayne Louise reported that the new film Independence Day will be
released in August, and that it had terrific special effects.

Garry Dalrymple warned us that the Pathways Predictions Psychic Pfair
might be on in the future. Or not.

Ian reported that in the Freakazoids cartoon aired that week, a
character called "Fanboy" is offered his own Harlan Ellison, which he
rejected. The cartoon Harlan Ellison then wandered off into the
convention looking confused. The real Harlan Ellison has suffered a
heart attack and was in hospital recovering. Ellison asked that fans do
not send flowers. Many reported this fact with an address not to send
them to. Bryan Dart in Melbourne has put out a call for actors in the
SF community for his new SF series. The Mechanical Engineering degree
at UTS requires students to study some compulsory humanities electives.
One of the subjects offered is Science Fiction. The course actually
teaches students to write a Science Fiction short story. Arnold
Schwartzenegger's new movie Eraser, has had to be digitally re-edited
at the last moment. The producers didn't check whether the fictional
evil corporation's name was in fact in current use by a real computer
corporation. It is. Cyrix weren't very happy. The new version will be
released soon.

Ron Clarke started discussion of the topic by asking the question "did
Arnie's disguising himself as a woman in "Total Recall" count as
cross-dressing?" Peter quickly pointed out that this scene fitted the
topic regardless.

Peter continued with the observation that the Simon Hawke "Time Wars"
series, one of the central characters "Andre La Croix" disguised
herself as a male knight. Female characters disguising themselves as
males is a very common theme in Science Fiction, and of course was a
favourite of Shakespeare. Ian observed that in modern Western society
women can dress as men without being thought to be cross-dressing,
wheeras men in the same situation are transvestites.

Graham Stone admitted to secret cross-dressing and to being part of the
nylon raincoat brigade. Graham explained that he felt compelled to add
fake press studs to his woman's raincoat so that it appeared to
function as male dress. He informed us that Robert Heinlein's "Year of
the Jackpot" featured compulsive undressing in public while waiting for
a bus. The story "The Lost Race" written in 1941 [Graham HAS read
something written after 1939!!], features humans disguised as giant
spiders to fool aliens.

Eric was reminded of "Gold The Man" by Joseph Green, in which a man
hides in a control room in a Giant's skull in order to infiltrate.
Peter commented that in Keith Laumer's "Retief" series, entities hiding
in zombies was a common theme. A. E Van Vogt's "Slan" series featured
a cephalopodic featured telepath disguised as a mere human. [The
horror, the horror...Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft was discussed
sometime during the meeting by Glayne according to our surviving notes,
but nothing has been permitted to be recalled]. Robert Heinlein's "The
Moon is a Harsh Mistress" featured a sentient computer called "Mike"
who disguised himself as a human by putting out video signals and
always communicationg by video phone.

Peter said that "Who Goes There?" by Joseph Campbell featured a
shapeshifter, as did many other science fiction stories. Phillip K.
Dick's "Handful of Darkness" is about an alien world where nearly all
lifeforms are shapeshifters. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is almost
science fiction that featured cross-dressing that was not a disguise.
All Peter's other examples were supressed in the name of good taste.

Mark mentioned Zenna Henderson's "The People" series as an example of
aliens disguised as humans.

Garry mentioned "Ensign Flandry" by Poul Anderson, which features a
lizard-like spy who is so mutilated in an accident that the surgeons
are able to make him pass for human.

Graham Stone ended the discussion by noting that Algis Budrys' "Who?"
fits the topic, as a man with mask.

Brian Walls admitted to being one of the selfish bastards who waited 3
hours for the celebrities to show up outside Planet Hollywood and thus
completely blocked access to George St to legitimate pedestrians. By 4pm
Sunday afternoon, people were close to rioting from the crowding, and the
fact that they could enter the crowd in the direction they wished to
travel, but were prevented from moving once they were trapped within the
crowd. People trapped in the centre of the crowd were observed to be
having anxiety attacks from fears of being crushed and trampled. Only a
pedestrian versed in collapsing eigenstates and higher geometries was
capable of traversing the distance against the will of the fans.

[The crowding fans and organisers were the criminals, and I, the
pedestrian, was the Evil Genius - Ian [A likely excuse to be late for a
pool game - Peter]]

Brian reported that Variety magazine had information about the special 3-D
remake of 15 minutes of the movie Terminator-2. A new movie "Escape from
LA" is being planned as the sequel to "Escape from New York", no doubt to
be followed by "Escape from America" in time. A movie to be called "Men In
Black" is in production, but we're not allowed to say anything further.
Yet another Roswell movie may have prompted this move.

Graeme Stone once again lamented that we never show up to his Southern
"group". He also reported that he had been interviewed on radio about his
nonexistent connections to Elron Hubbard.

Eric Lindsay reported that Harlan Ellison had suffered a heart attack and
been hospitalised.

David Bofinger related the story from a novel related by a friend, of an
Evil Genius who would regularly pick up people in bars, take them home,
scramble their brains with a fine platinum wire, then return them to the
bar; as a lark.

"The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson was
raised by Brian as an example of an Evil Genius in science fiction. Fu
Manchu was never caught in the Fu Manchu series by Sax Rohmer. Professor
Moriarty from the "Sherlock Holmes" series of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has
been used in may science fiction stories as Genius hero and villain. One
view holds that Moriarty was based on a blend of Nietzche and Freud.
Moriarty also found his way into the BBC Goon Show. Brian then propounded
on apparent similarities between the Unabomber in the USA and Professor
Moriarty - they were both Mathematics Professors.

James Bond stories seem to always feature a criminal who believes he is an
Evil Genius.

The "Skylark" series of books by E.E. 'Doc' Smith featured an Evil Genius
called Blackie DuQuesne.

D. Wingrove's "Chung Kuo" series features an Evil Genius subtley called
Howard Devoure.

Frank Herbert's "The Dosadi Experiment" featured a Governmental "Bureau of
Sabotage", sanctioned to commit crimes.

Rudy Rucker's "Software" series features robots who kidnap people, and
finely dice their brains to extract the structure and then reproduce their
minds in mainframes.

Larry Niven's "World of Ptavvs" features a criminal with the power of
telepathic hynosis. In "Protector", a race of genocidal parents look out
for their young.

H.P. Lovecraft's stories soley concerned Evil Geniuses learning Things Man
Was Not Meant to Capitalise, er Know.

The TV series "X-Files" regularly features criminals and Evil Geniuses.

Richard Condon wrote "The Manchurian Candidate", wherein an innocent
bystander is programmed to perform a political assassination on facing a
post-hypnotic trigger.

Stephen Bury wrote "Interface", about a worldwide conspiracy that uses a
brain prosthetic to control a presdential candidate.

"The Syndic" by Cyril Kornbluth is about an Ameria ruled by Organised
Crime syndicates.

"The Demlished Man" by Alfred Bester, features an attempt at a "perfect
crime" in a world policed by telepaths.

George Alec Effinger's "Marid Audran" series features a detective working
for a criminal organisation, who fights crime by other criminals.

"The Stanless Steel Rat" series by Harry Harrison is about a master
criminal who fights Evil Geniuses.

Neal Stephenson's Zodiac is about a crusading Eco-guerilla who committs
crimes to stop Crimes Against Humanity by evil coporations.

The "Illumnatus!" trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea features
an embarrasment of riches. More Evil Geniuses and crimnals than you can
poke a stick at, if that's your idea of a good time.

One of our members explained that the Crusaders were repelled by sheep.
Apparently an entire castle was manned by sheep, fooling the Crusading
knights into a prolonged siege. Wayne Turner reported his WA trip to
SwanCon. Among the SwanCon special guests were Terry Dowling, Neil
Gainman, Jack Dann and Storm Constantine. Garry Dalrymple reminded
everyone that Star Trek Voyager was starting to be screened.
There.was.great.enthusiasm. Sliders was also coming to our screens that
very night, nobody had remembered to tape it. Bugs was also starting.

Brian Walls reported that TV series based on a toned down Mad Max was in
the works, so look out for Mild Max. Babe of course was the toned down
version of Razorback. Manga animation "Ghost In the Shell" was showing at
the Mandolin theatre and the Valhalla Cinema. Aliens 4, starring Wynona
Ryder and a clone of the late Ripley is also in the works, and will
hopefully stay there. Strange Days had started the night before and was
highly recommended. A feature of the movie is millennial celebrations
being held a year early on December 31st 1999, the writers apparently
missed this point. Brian mentioned that the technical term for Russian
scientists entering Chernobyl for pre-retirement study, is "stalkers"
taken from the Strugatsky novel "Roadside Picnic", released as the movie
"Stalker". However as most scientists read science fiction, this is not
surprising.

Ian then proceeded to some scientific tidbits culled from New
Scientist magazine. The painkiller ibuprofen, found in such
over-the-counter drugs as Nurofen, and Naprosyn has shown an ability to
help prevent Alzheimers disease and is useful in treating the
illness. Unfortunately it has such drastic effects on the stomach with
long-term use that it is unusable.Rock-eating bacteria with no reliance on
sunlight have been discovered living happily 1000 metres below the Earth's
surface in conditions similar to Mars. This means that either similar
organisms may be discovered on Mars, or failing that, that these bacteria
could be introduced in a terraforming effort. The sub-surface
lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystem is known as SLIME for short. They
subsist on hydrogen generated in a reaction between water and ferrous
silicates. NASA is preparing to protect itself from lawsuits from
green-exploiting anti-technology eco-luddites for its upcoming Martian
missions. They are carefully getting lawyers to scrutinize their two dozen
failsafe quarantine systems for bringing Martian soil back to Earth for
study. Earth First representatives are believed to be carefully holding
several meteorites for questioning. Star Trek tricorder-style scanners
have been developed to detect jaundice in babies so that they can be
properly treated with the conventional blue and green lights. Against
traditional wisdom, it has been discovered that human nerve cells can be
induced to regrow after damage. Statistically, people who drink co ffee
have a lower suicide rate. A new no-risk treatment for short-sightedness
is to mould the eyes into the required shape instead of putting lenses in
front of them or cutting them with blades or lasers. New nappy linings
made from sugary hydrogel can hold more than 1 litre of urine.

The politically-correct self-censoring Internet software service
"Surfwatch" banned the entire Whitehouse domain due to the evil actions
of the Clinton's cat Sox on his Web page. The web page contained the
naughty word "coup les", so it was banned, as is this article. This
same action of banning material based on automatic keyword searching
has led to America Online pulling the plug from the International
Breast Cancer Support group discussions. Clinton's staff called the Sur
fwatch company and the Whitehouse was given a special exemption from
the consequences of Sox's crime. This appears more than hypocritical in
light of Clinton's recent Communication Decency Act. The Easter Long
Weekend saw the SydCon roleplaying game convention. Peter and Ian
co-wrote and co-ran a comedy troll freeform game, and won trophies for
another game. The UNSW Unisearch House second-hand booksale was on the
following weekend [yes you missed it, and its only on every two years].
Ian produced his certificate of Sainthood from the Universal Life
Church. Peter's was in the mail.

Having learned his lesson from previous meetings, Peter opened the topic
of Rebels and Revolutionaries in science fiction with the observation that
Steve Perry's Matador series is the thinking man's Star Wars. Whereas the
rebels in Star Wars relied on mys tical powers and a magic knife to win
when the badly formed plans failed completely; the revolutionaries in the
Matador series rely on skill and detailed plans that work. Peter then
continued his list of appropriate titles. Lloyd Biggle Jnr's "The Still
Small Voice of Trumpets" and "The World-Menders" both have a Galactic
Government agency set up to foment revolutions that end in democracy, but
which have a strict code of secret subtlety, because "DEMOCRACY IMPOSED
FROM WITHOUT IS THE SEVEREST FORM OF TYRANNY". F.N. Busby's Tregare
series has a rebellion against a tyrannical Earth-based government. C.J.
Cherryh's Alliance-Union-Cyteen series involves a civil war between the
tyrannical Earth-based government and the rebels over hundreds of years
and sever al worlds. Robert Frezza's "Small Colonial War" involves rebels
fighting a Japanese-culture Earth-based tyrannical government, where the
government troops choose to side with the rebels. Simon Green's
"Deathstalker" has a miltary hero leading a rebellion against his Empress'
Earth-based tyrannical government. Frank Herbert's "Dune" concerns the
drug-based rebellion against the Galactic Imperial tyrannical Earth-based
government. Elron Hubbard's "Battlefield Earth" features humans rebelling
against an alie n tyrannical Earth government. Michael Moorcock's
Runestaff series is about a hero who fights an evil tyrannical Earth
government despite his headaches. "Fallen Angels" by Jerry Pournelle,
Michael Flynn and Larry Niven features organised science fiction f ans
rebelling against an evil green-exploiting anti-technology eco-luddites
American-based tyrannical government. Voerman's "Weird Colonial Boy"
rebels against a British-based tyrannical government by being silly. Brian
reminded us that Star Wars had rebels, too. And so did Total Recall,
Johnny Mnemonic, and Logan's Run.

Ian brought out his list. Earth, by David Brin features physicists
rebelling against United Nations restrictions to bottled black hole
research. Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano" has people rebelling against an
automated tyrannical Earth-based government. "L ord of Light" by Roger
Zelazny has people rebelling against a tyrannical Hindu-based government.
"Software" by Rudy Rucker is about Lunar robots that rebel against a
tyrannical Earth-based government. "A Gift from Earth" by Larry Niven is
about colonists who rebel against a tyrannical organ-transplant based
government. "Footfall" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is about science
fiction writers rebelling against an alien tyrannical Earth-based
government. "The Space Merchants" by Cyril Kornbluth and Fre derick Pohl
is about a rebellion against a tyrannical advertising agency government
based on Earth. "Bio of a Space Tyrant" by Piers Anthony is about someone
who rebels against a democracy and sets up a Jupiter based tyrannical
government. Garry explained that Piers Anthony has owned a Basenjis.

Garry raised Sterling and Gibson's "The Difference Engine", which featured
the computer revolution arising simultaneously with the steam revolution.
Cyril Kornbluth's "Syndic" features rebels against the Mafia-based
tyrannical American rulers, without any help from the unelected US
government-in-exile. The "Alien Nation" novel, "Day of the Descent" by
Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens is about alien rebels seeking refuge in
an Earth-based government. During the gravitational recession that we had
to have, Barrington Bayley's "Zen Gun" features a colonia l girl rebelling
against an Earth-based tyrannical cosmic pig empire utilizing "the
absolutely ultimate weapon that can never exist". "The Weapon Shops of
Isher" and "The Weapon Makers" by A. E. Van Vogt has magic weapon shops
selling extremely automatic weapons and pushing people to revolt against
the tyrannical Earth-based government with the slogan "THE RIGHT TO BEAR
WEAPONS IS THE RIGHT TO BE FREE"; only in America. Nineteen Eighty-Four by
George Orwell is a light romp through an Earth-based tyrannica l
government by one of its rebels. The TV series "V" featured rebellion
against Lizard Nazi tyrannical Earth-based government.

Wayne Turner told us about Phillip Jose Farmer's Dayworld series, and
its rebellion against a tyrannical Earth government, and his Riverworld
series which involved a rebellion against a tyrannical Riverworld-based
government. Kevin Dillon raised Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress". This is about Lunar revolution against a tyrannical
Earth-based government. Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" features a
super-rebel against a Eugenic Earth-based tyrannical government. His
"Sixth Column" or "The Day after Tomorrow" features a Reverend-led
rebellion against Han Chinese tyrannical Earth-based government. Kim
Stanley Robinson's Mars series features 21st Century Martians rebelling
against an Earth-based tyrannical governmen t. In Armageddon 2419 by
Phillip Francis Nowlan, Buck Rogers rebels against the Han Chinese
tyrannical Earth-based government. In John Varly's "Ophiuchi Hotline"
human rebels survive alien invasion and a tyrannical Earth-based
government by use of the ultimate galactic 0055 number.

On "Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty Day" the meeting
started with much table moving to accomodate the hordes that descended on
the Futurian meeting. Fame of the Futurian experience drew a record 17
people, including Kevin Dillon and some interstate visitors.

The meeting turned serious at Eric Lindsay's news that Bob Shaw had
recently died. Eric also distributed more Australia in 1999 WorldCon
fliers. Eric reported that Australian fans had made a deal with Las Vegas
fans because they still don't want the Con that Chicago say they have to
have. An offer they couldn't refuse. Eric then showed us his Australia in
1999 WorldCon Web site.

Brian Walls reported that the science fiction society that meets at
Infinitas Bookshop in Parramatta will be gathering on the first Thursday
of March at 7pm (you missed it). They are open to suggestions for names
but will turn yours down. The Ned Kelly Cr ime Fiction award details are
available at Abbey's bookshop, because Brian wasn't telling. A movie is
being made of Robert E. Howard's lifestory called "Whole Wide World". Yet
another Ed Wood documentary film "The Haunted World of Ed Wood" was shown
with "Crossroads of Loreador" at Academy Cinema on February 25th (but you
missed this one too).

Susan and Brian visited Ozcon. "Space Above and Beyond" was previewed and
comes highly recommended.

Garry reported on a documentary on White Surpremists he saw called "Blood
in the Face", which revealed that you can tell Aryans, but not much. The
documentary featured Poised Koreans.

Eric reported that world-renowned Evolutionary Dentist Richard Dawkins
will be featured at this years Skeptics convention in Melbourne, in
September. He will be accompanied by his wife Lala Ward, once Professional
Companion (nudge-wink) to Dr Who.(Don't m iss that one).

Garry cried Free Basenjis! He then distributed the literature, and
explained he had seen the results of an attack. Garry then reported that
the Sydney Tourist Authority have a Heritage Trip of a bus following
around a firetruck.

Saint Ian reported that the two Manga films Ghost in the Shell and Gunhed
had been shown at the Hoover Complex in Goulburn St (did you miss that?);
and that Reverend Peter had become a Professional RPG Convention goer.
Reverend Peter then performed the ri tual trophy passing and gloating
session. SydCon will be enjoyed over the Easter long weekend, 5,6,7 & 8th
of April. Greg Egan's story collection "Axiomatic" was highly recommended.
Greg Egan's open letter to SF fandom was read out. He requested that nobo
dy ever vote for him in the Ditmar awards. Eric mentioned that the Hugo
awards were to be voted on. The Retro-Hugos are awarded for stories
written in the years before Hugos were awarded, regardless of how
contradictary a notion that is.

St Ian reported the discovery that you can become ordained as a Minister
of Religion in a matter of minutes, in the Universal Life Church, by using
the internet. Revealing that he'd been Canonized that very day with the
words "We only wish there were more of you, a clone of about 10,000
individuals identical to you could rule the world." Pursuant to this plan
11 Futurians were ordained on the spot, and another four in absentia. The
Universal Life Church will ordain anybody that believes in freedom of reli
gion and doing what they believe is right. People with no internet access
may send postcards. The ordination is legal in the USA, where ULC
ministers may marry people. As the Universal Life Church is illegal in
Australia, it was suggested that Australian ministers could marry couples
by internet tele-presence in America, and that this might be legal in
Australia when they returned.

One of our members snorted "the most beautiful sight in the world is your
name in print", whilst passing around a copy of the Canberra SF Club Inc
newsletter and mumbling about phallic umbrellas. Reverend Ron Clarke
explained that "Mentor" readers only get sent copies of the magazine if
they contribute letters.

Reverend Eric recommended "Chicks in Chainmail" which he had recently
read.

Reverend Sarah Murray-White explained that she was unable to get to LACon
as the Airline told her they were "too busy" to sell her a ticket, every
time she called them.

Reverend Peter opened the topic by passing around his centuhedral die, and
a couple of pool balls for no apparent reason. In reply to reverend Ron's
request for an explanation of the topic, he illustrated the Breakdown of
Probability with the example from Red Dwarf, where sick people get lucky.

"All the Myriad Ways" by Larry Niven, in which people with imaginations
commit suicide.

"The Number of the Beast" by Robert Heinlein featured monkeys with horns
that broke down probability after losing gyroscopes.

"Patterns of Chaos" by Colin Kapp featured causality reversals about a
generation ship.

"Foundation" by Isaac Asimov featured a future science that predicted mass
human behaviour perfectly, until upset by an intelligent mule.

In "Snowball Effect" probably by William Tenn, sociologists create a
monster.

The Church of the SunGenius preaches of the Infinite Luck Plane.

One of our members interrupted the meeting pointing and shouting "Look a
U.F.O.". Reverend Peter corrected him "AN U.F.O." Everyone looked out the
windows at the 16th floor view, and when asked if the UFO was near the
crane light, the member was forced to admit that it WAS the crane light on
a nearby building. It was thus established that the so-called "UFO" was
neither an U., nor an F., but definitely an O.

Reverend Ron returned us to the topic by mentioning "The Hitch-hiker's
Guide to the Galaxy" featured an Infinite Improbability Drive based on the
Brownian motion in a goood cup of tea.

"WellWorld" series has a character who is unconsciously God, and thus the
Universe conspires to help him.

David Brin's "Practice Effect" features a Universe where tools get better
when you practice with them, but humans still wear out.

Phillip K. Dick's "Solar Lottery", "Gameplayers of Titan", "Variable Man",
"Counter-Clock World" and many of his other stories feature a Universe
where probability breaks down.

Mary Gentle's "Rats and Gargoyles" has a University of Crime, where
academics cheat at Tarot to manipulate the Universe.

A E Van Vogt's "Weapon Shops of Isher" has a character who gains a
"Calidetic" talent in a Casino and wins all the games.

In the "Dune" series by Frank Herbert, Seers try to choose between the
futures they see.

Daniel Keyes Moran's "Armageddon Blues" features a character who is
ignored by the law of Entropy in convenient ways.

The "Ringworld" series by Larry Niven has the Human genome distorted by
birthright lotteries.

"The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline", and
"Thiotimoline to the Stars" by Isaac Asimov describe a substance that
dissolves BEFORE you add water to it.

Greg Egan's "Quarantine" featured humans who bend probability by choosing
realities.

Peter Hamilton's "MindStar Rising" featured a precog who narrows down
suspects by viewing alternative futures.

Keith Laumer's "World Shuffler" series features a character who slips the
restraints of those who would stop him manipulating reality by fighting
back with garlic sausage.

Steve Perry's "Hellstar" features fundamental changes to reality
increasing as a starship travels further away from Earth.

Tim Powers "Last Call" combines Tarot card manipulation of probability
nexuses by a Fisher Jack.

Mike Resnick's "Prophet" is about a Precog who selects her desired future
by not spilling a drink.

Luke Rhinehart in "Diceman" features a group who make all decisions on the
roll of dice.

And finally, Leo P. Kelly in "Coins of Murph" has a post-apocalypse society
that decides everything on the tosss of a coin, naturally the leaders have
two-headed coins.

BlogMap is a cute API that locates your blog geographically and shows how close local bloggers are. Its using Microsoft MapPoint, and it works with Atom as well as RSS feeds, so all those LiveJournal people can play with this, too. All you have to do is visit BlogMap and enter your blog address, and your geographical location, as vaguely or accurately as you prefer. They generate code you cut and paste onto your blog.

I was in Canada around Halloween, and managed to buy some Duncan Tulip glowing fabric paint for my t-shirts. Today I had the idea of knitting with glow in the dark yarn. How cool would that be? And you'd want it to be comfortable and to really glow for a long time. I put in a quick google search, and found a Swiss product Glow Yarn. This seems like a terrific product that does everything I would want: its not rough with paint like the competition, and it glows a long time. However its been very hard to find someone to sell me some. Swicofil only sell to merchants, and have a huge Euro-form for me to fill in with details of my company and its manufacture and rival prices. Even assuming I was going to sell the stuff instead of just learn to knit with it, how can there be a rival price for a unique product? Or if you're using it the first time? I've emailed them. In the USA, its marketed by www.glowyarn.com, however their "Order" page has "coming soon", instead of prices. I emailed them, too. In fact, a deep search finds lots of extinct references to using it as fishing bait, including Amazon. There are a few references in the knitting blog community, but nobody there appears to have actually bought or used any. There's some people selling knitted items using it on ebay, so somebody is able to buy the stuff. Knottie Knitter says she's visiting Korea where she can buy direct from Glow Yarn Co. There's NiteLite Extraglow Thread for embroidary, but its not really knitting. Last time I attempted to knit, I was still too sick from Ciguatera to hold the needles long enough to do something without major pain. When the Swiss respond, I have a good motivation to try learning to knit again. Just like Cary Grant in "Mr Lucky", a movie with men knitting and a good routine about Australian rhyming slang, which I'm plannning to get on DVD. I really wish I hadn't recorded over it after the ABC Cary Grant festival ended.

Just how Orwellian is the Howard regime prepared to become? There really, and truly is a Minister For Participation, Peter Dutton. "The new Minister for Participation, Peter Dutton stated that: " a combination of coercion and incentive could be used to get people off the pension." "With the Federal Government controlling the Senate from 1 July 2005, it will be able to pass legislation without the need to negotiate with other political parties." Welfare Rights Australia in the "Rights Review" report that after the 2004 Federal election: " Policy responsibility for Newstart Allowance, Disability Support Pension, Parenting Payment and Youth Allowance (unemployed) has been shifted from the Department of Family and Community Services (DFACS) to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR)." "DEWR is far more ideological and hard-line than DFACS. It refers to the unemployed people passing through the Job Network as “stock flows” and is far more numbers and “outcomes” focused."

Guy produces the PsyKe Out, Australian-based Psychedelic Trance show on the Net Radio station PulseRadio.net, Tuesdays at 8pm. My cuz dropped in on Tuesday. Naturally he's looking into podcasting his show, which is already available for download. I think DirCaster is the PHP script for the job.