Interesting Stuff Group

Next Meeting: Saturday, June 13, 2009, at 6:30 PM. at the home of Doug Whalen. Email Doug for directions.

Topic: Life, the Universe, and Everything

The meeting is a tribute to Vince Gulisano, because he suggested both of the books that we will be reading and for many other reasons.

Readings

Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade.

Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes, by Charles Seife.

Supplementary Reading

For supplementary nonfiction reading, Simon suggests this controversial article on a possible relationship between genetics and tone in language (email Simon if you don't have a subscription). More here.
For supplementary fiction, Steve Witham has suggested The Pains by John Sundman. Here is his email about this: "John Sundman has finished and published The Pains, ... Simon and I read chapters 1 & 2 a couple years ago. It's like, what, A Canticle for Leibowitz meets Snow Crash in the year 1984 or something. A meditation on a romp wrapped in a debacle. With kewl illustrations, ooooooooh. --Steve"

Video

As always, Elliot Saltzman will be selecting the video. I am sure that we will be in for a treat and that, by the end of the evening, probably only Elliot and I will be left watching.

A little history...

The IS (Interesting Stuff) Group was started some time in the dim past by Elliot Saltzman and Philip Rubin to discuss interesting stuff. In particular, we felt that this group would afford us the opportunity to read stuff that we really wanted to read but would otherwise never get a chance to (science fiction, comic books, nonlinear dynamics, evolution, complexity, biology, fractals, ontology, connectionism, faith healing, etc.) More importantly, the meeting also provided another good chance to eat lots of junk food and watch really crappy movies.

If you decide to come to one of these meetings, please bring beer, lots of junk food, beer, and, not to forget, some beer. The after-meeting movie is not mandatory, but it is truly the reason that we have these meetings.

For more detail, see the IS Archive, and be sure to check out the I.S. Blog