Archive for the ‘Meetings’ Category

Open Discussion

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

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Please note time change: meeting starts one hour later than usual.

February 08, 2008 Meeting - Open Discussion

http://hplusclub.com/tucson/meeting20080208

Open Discussion

Date and Time: Friday, February 08, 2008 from 5:00pm until 6:00pm MST

Location: Tubac Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ, USA 85721-0017 | Google Maps

Description: Open discussion: hacktivism and Anonymous, holographic display breakthrough by UA scientists, upcoming events, and more.

Presentations

  • No presentations, just discussion.

Nanotechnology Discussion

Monday, January 28th, 2008

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February 01, 2008 Meeting - Nanotechnology Discussion

http://hplusclub.com/tucson/meeting20080201

Nanotechnology Discussion

Date and Time: Friday, February 01, 2008 from 4:00pm until 6:00pm MST

Location: Tubac Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ, USA 85721-0017 | Google Maps

Description: nan'o-tech-nol'-o-gy n. - 1. the science and technology of creating nanoparticles and of manufacturing machines which have sizes within the range of .1 to 100 nanometres. Source: Wiktionary -
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nanotechnology

H+ Tucson club members will present different aspects of nanotechnology, followed by group discussion.

Presentations

Clinton “Cosmo” Mielke - “War in the Shadows”; Mark Obrenovich

Monday, January 14th, 2008

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http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20080118

Clinton "Cosmo" Mielke, University of Arizona undergraduate - "War in the Shadows"; Mark Obrenovich

Date and Time: Friday, January 18, 2008 from 4:00pm until 6:00pm MST

Location: Tubac Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ, USA 85721-0017 | Google Maps

Description: Hour 1: Cosmo Mielke is a University of Arizona undergraduate. He will provide a look at the landscape of cybercrime today and implications for the future of information security:

I will begin by discussing my work with the Shadowserver Foundation, a nonprofit group of watchdog information security professionals dedicated to the investigation of cybercrime in the information age. After giving insight into the world of ubiquitous malware, botnet attacks, and identity theft, I will motivate further consideration to cyberterror and information manipulation.

I will close with thoughts of the future, in regards to the role of information security in the virtual age, including consideration given to citizens privacy, trust networks, and global security.

Hour 2: Mark Obrenovich is a prominent researcher in the field of advanced glycation endproducts. He will discuss his research.

Meeting Notes

2nd Hour:

Ascorbic Acid

Jeanne Calment - lived to 122 years

Cataracts
- major cause of visible disability
- big problem for poor countries

Millard's Reaction
- important for agronomy, food science, medical science
- cartilage, white turns brown, like a slow cooker

AGEs
- pigmentation increases in eyes
- possibilities to be found in fish
- the lens is never turned over
- diabetes live shorter lives

Lens protects itself

Ascorbic Acid
- low in nocturnal animals
- high in diurnal animals
- protection against UV rays

Rodents take up less vitamin C than humans

By sucking air and eating sugar, we turn brown
- accelerated in diabetics

Jim Schwiegerling, Ph.D.

Monday, January 14th, 2008

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http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20080125

Jim Schwiegerling, Ph.D., Associate Professor Ophthalmology and Vision Science, and Optical Sciences
Optics

Date and Time: Friday, January 25, 2008 from 4:00pm until 6:00pm MST

Location: Presidio Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ, USA 85721-0017 | Google Maps

Description: Dr. Schwiegerling will talk about some of the latest advances in improving visual acuity and restoring faulty retinas.

Presentations

Meeting Reminder - “Mind Uploading Discussion”

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Friday, December 07, 2007 meeting details: http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20071207/

Meeting Reminder - “The Limits of Biology and The Promise of Technology”

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Wednesday, November 30, 2007 meeting details: http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20071130/

Meeting Reminder - “Transhumanism and the Personal and Private Space Industry”

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 meeting details: http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20071128/

Meeting Reminder - “Designing a path to organism emulation”

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

Friday, November 16, 2007 meeting details: http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20071116/

Leadership Meeting - November 13, 2007

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

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http://hplusclub.com/tucson/leadership20071113

Leadership Meeting - November 13, 2007

Date and Time: Friday, November 13, 2007 at 5:00pm

Location: Room 121, Charles P. Sonett Building, 1541 E University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85719

Description: Now that we have prioritized our activities, we can start creating an action items list for each activity. The priorities were:

  • Wiki and Technical Roadmaps
  • h+ Chapters
  • Dues and Money
  • Video, audio, outreach

The action items to date were:

  • Richard - Send request to UA students to register on UA h+ website - COMPLETED
  • Matt - $500 club funding
  • Richard - Meet with John Smart about wiki on November 15
  • Matt - Compare wiki options and explore what needs to be done to customize available software to fit our requirements
  • Fyodor Trestoyevsky - Put me in contact with the person who wants to start an h+ chapter - COMPLETED
  • Everyone - think about the top three opportunities (or any of the rest) and how you might be able to help out

Leadership Meeting - October 30, 2007

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

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Meeting Notes

During our h+ Leadership Meeting on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 4:00 PM we discussed recent opportunities and the direction of h+. The following outline lists these opportunities in order of priority based on the votes of those in attendance:

  • Futurepedia.org and Technical Roadmaps (first vote count is for Futurepedia and second vote count is for Roadmap, but we decided to combine both into a single opportunity.)
    • 1 - 2 people | 0 people
    • 2 - 1 person | 2 people
    • 3 - 0 people | 2 person
    • 4 - 1 person | 0 people
    • 6 - 0 people | 1 person
  • h+ Chapters
    • 1 - 2 people
    • 3 - 1 person
    • 7 - 1 person
  • Dues and Money
    • 2 - 2 people
  • Video, audio, outreach
    • 1 - 1 person
    • 3 - 1 person
  • Roaming Transhumanist Conference
  • Singularity Summit 2008
  • Website development team
  • Terasem link on h+ site

Whiteboard Voting

Image credit: h+ club member. We listed the opportunities and activities h+ currently has and then we voted on our favorites. This determined our club priorities.

Action Items

Some of these were not assigned during the meeting, but seem to make sense now that I have completed these notes. Please let me know if you cannot take on this action item, have comments about them, or have suggestions for new action items.

  • Richard - Send request to UA students to register on UA h+ website - COMPLETED
  • Matt - $500 club funding
  • Richard (and Matt?) - Meet with John Smart about Futurepedia.org
  • Matt - Compare wiki options and explore what needs to be done to customize available software to fit our requirements
  • Fyodor Trestoyevsky - Put me in contact with the person who wants to start an h+ chapter
  • Everyone - think about the top three opportunities (or any of the rest) and how you might be able to help out.

Reminder: please do not commit to something if you are not able to support the effort. This should be fun and we should ride this momentum, but make sure you pay attention to your own priorities.

Futurepedia.org and Technical Roadmaps

Basically this is a wiki (Matt might be able to improve the wiki format with Digg-style participation.) John Smart suggested that we join him in this effort, while coming up with a business plan to seek funding from Peter Thiel. I will be meeting with John Smart on November 15 in Phoenix to discuss this in more detail.

Eon suggested we use the wiki format to develop technical roadmaps (for example, a roadmap to uploading,) similar to what John Smart and others did while creating the Metaverse Roadmap. These roadmaps not only provide a technical road forward, but also help weed out bad ideas, provide outreach opportunities, and create a baseline for comparing later successes or failures. We decided to merge the wiki and roadmap opportunities into one, as they are closely related and will be based on the same software.

h+ Chapters

We can spread our h+ brand to other schools through chapters, based on the original idea by Fyodor Trestoyevsky. The idea is to create a network of clubs based around our hplusclub.com domain, perhaps using WordPress MU which allows easier management of multiple WordPress installations. I would provide initial setup support, and chapter leaders would be given administrative privileges to modify their own WordPress blog for their own club. Some oversight would remain with us.

We would provide h+ branded flyers and materials, presentations (for example, an "Introduction to Transhumanism" presentation or video,) and other content for use by other chapters. We would also like to share content they create.

Ultimately, h+ and its chapters could serve as competition with TSN, which is currently in a transition phase. Competition might not be a bad idea, because it could spur both of us to greater heights. We have a particular approach to transhumanism that so far has been very successful in Tucson, and could serve as a platform for spreading across the globe.

Dues and Money

Matt will take care of applying for the minimum level of funding provided by the university, to be used for things like printing costs, equipment rental and reimbursement, catering, website hosting, travel, conference expenses, etc.

We discussed dues ($5 a semester?) without a firm idea how we would use these funds. However, I think we leaned toward dues as a way to fill up our coffers to pursue future opportunities.

Other Opportunities

Other opportunities of lower priority still might be accomplished with the right tiger teams and appropriate delegation of responsibilities. I touched on the difficulty of getting people to commit their time and effort. I am willing to do a lot, but cannot currently support all of these opportunities without assistance from others.

Next Leadership Meeting

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 from 4 PM - 5 PM.