************************PLEASE FORWARD FREELY*********************<br><br>WHAT: March DORKBOT: Retro-Dork<br>WHEN: Wednesday, Mar. 7, 2007, 7:30 PM (7:00 for a bit of socializing!)<br>WHERE: 911 Media Arts Center, 402 9th Ave N, Seattle
<br>ADMISSION: Free, all ages and species, donation encouraged.<br><br>********************************<br>Greetings, Dorks! On Wednesday, March 7th at 7:30 PM at the 911 Media Arts<br>Center, we will have two fabulous presentations about dorkish history and
<br>alternate dorkish history: Things that were and things that could have been.<br><br>Mark you calendar! (but not your PDA, they haven't been invented yet)<br><br>********<br>Donald Martin Ph.D. will present COMPUTER HISTORY: A Personal Look at a Few
<br>Early Computers. Massive computing machines with sonic mercury delay line<br>memory, vacuum tubes, punched paper tape, hundreds of words of memory,<br>analog/digital hybrids, and on up to Large Scale Integration. Computing was
<br>not for the squeamish.<br><br>********<br>Phil Foglio, artist and co-creator of Girl Genius, will present the<br>"gaslamp fantasy" Girl Genius.<br><br>Girl Genius is an ongoing "gaslamp fantasy" story by Phil and Kaja Foglio.
<br>It started out in 2000 as a periodical comic book, which is collected into<br>three (and counting) larger volumes. Girl Genius follows the career of<br>Agatha Heterodyne --- a hapless student at Transylvania Polygnostic
<br>University who discovers that she has more going for her than she thought.<br><br>Influences include Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard. The genre is also<br>called "steampunk." Expect big, clanking Victorian-style tech, old-fashioned
<br><br>clothes, Frankenstein monsters and airships. Lots and lots of airships. Is<br>it magic? Is it science? A little of both, I suppose---it's Mad Science.<br><br>Girl Genius has won the Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for Best Science
<br>Fiction 2007 (<a href="http://ryanestrada.com/wcca07/">http://ryanestrada.com/wcca07/</a>) and was on the SF Site's<br>Editor's Choice list for 2006 ( <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best07.htm">http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best07.htm
</a> )<br><br>****************<br>Doors will be open at 7:00 if you want to show up early and schmooze with<br>your fellow dorks! If you would like to take the mic for a few moments at<br>"open dork" after the presentations let me know.
<br>Dust off that retro gadget for show 'n tell!<br><br><a href="http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsea">http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsea</a> will also have full information about the<br>talks shortly. Please send any questions or comments to Shelly, your Dork
<br>Overlord, at <a href="mailto:shellyhivemind@gmail.com">shellyhivemind@gmail.com</a>. Or specific to this retro meeting,<br>you can contact Toby at <a href="mailto:toby@paddfam.com">toby@paddfam.com</a> or Jeremy at <a href="mailto:trochee@gmail.com">
trochee@gmail.com</a>.<br><br>Looking forward to seeing you all on the 7th! Special thanks to 911 Media<br>Arts Center (<a href="http://www.911media.org">http://www.911media.org</a>) for<br>providing a venue!<br><br>********************************
<br>More about the presenters:<br><br>Donald C Martin Ph.D.<br><br>As a teenager, I attempted to build a small computer from salvaged pinball<br>machine relays. This was one of my more instructive failures and the best<br>
five dollars that I ever spent. A pinball machine is probably a good<br>metaphor for my career.<br><br>My academic career had a fine sense of indecision. My initial majors were<br>electrical, mechanical and industrial engineering. I then switched to
<br>physics and then to psychology. When financial problems forced me to drop<br>out of college, I took a low level job with RCA Service Co. at Cape<br>Canaveral in Missile Range Data reduction. This was my first exposure to a
<br>computer. I studied mathematics and was promoted to mathematician at RCA but<br>I had not completed any degree. I went back to Florida State University. By<br>the time I was forced to graduate I happened to be majoring in mathematics
<br>with a minor in physics (note 1).<br><br>A chance question caused me to start graduate studies in statistics although<br>I had never had a statistics course. I was soon working in the Academic<br>Computing Center. My initial academic appointments were in Biomathematics
<br>and Engineering Research (note 2) at North Carolina State University. I<br>promptly became entangled with more computers. Burnout from 60-hour weeks of<br>research and teaching became a problem. We started breeding and showing
<br>(conformation and obedience) Old English Sheepdogs. We then moved to the<br>University of Washington where my appointment was in Biostatistics with an<br>Adjoint appointment in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (note 3).
<br><br>One way or another, I kept getting involved with computers. At one time I<br>was Director of Computing Activities for the UW Health Sciences. I also<br>developed a successful specialized programming language. I have
<br>approximately 100 scientific publications. Unlike most statisticians, I have<br>a great deal of experience in actually doing experiments. At one time I was<br>teaching dog-training using operant conditioning. Perhaps a step up from the
<br><br><br>business statistics class I had taught at FSU. I retired from UW in 1996 and<br>moved to part time in Health Services Research at the Veterans<br>Administration Hospital. Much to my surprise I then became a surrealist
<br>photographer (note 4) and Dorkbotter. I had never previously heard of ether<br>calling.<br>(1) Remember: I dropped out of Physics.<br>(2) Remember: I dropped out of Engineering.<br>(3) Remember: I dropped out of Psychology.
<br>(4) Sorry but I never tried majoring in photography or art.<br><br>********<br>Phil Foglio, is an artist and co-creator of "Girl Genius"<br>(GirlGeniusOnline.com) and other SF and fantasy comics. Other works (not so
<br>retro) include "Buck Godot" (<a href="http://zapgunforhire.com/">http://zapgunforhire.com/</a>) and the 1980s<br>"What's New with Phil and Dixie" ( <a href="http://www.studiofoglio.com/growf.html">
http://www.studiofoglio.com/growf.html</a>).<br><br>**********************************************************************<br><br>........................................................................<br>.........dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity..........
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