[ExI] A video tour of the ALCOR facility

[robot at ultimax.com]

Over three decades ago, Keith and I shared a good laugh at a comic strip 
by Matt Groening, before /Simpsons/ fame): "Akbar and Jeff's Cryonics 
Hut--where the Elite Beat the Heat and Avoid Having to Meet St.Pete" 
(wiht a nice comparison of traditional burial (downsides: "chunks 
missing, wormy") vs. head-in-a-cryonic-jar ("looking good!").

The one and only time I ever wrote for /Mondo 2000/ was a report from 
the field at the First General Conference on Nanotechnology held in Palo 
ALto in Nov 1992, per request of "St.Jude".  See Mondo issue #9, Feb'93. 
  Some cross-dresser on the cover, IIRC, as opposed to that spectacular 
Italian astrophysicist the month before.  I was being cagey and used a 
/nom de plume/ but I needn't have bothered.

As I've said before, a couple of books I read at that time changed my 
worldview.  Vinge's /Marooned in Realtime/ and the short story "The 
Ungoverned".  Drexler's /Engines of Creation/ was another.  A year 
later, when I was interviewing for my Fellowship (ended up working for 
the Space Subcommittee), I was citing those books, and Scott Pace (then 
at RAND in DC) hilariously tagged me as a "robo-Marxist".  It was almost 
correct...

K3

On 2020-07-28 00:23, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote:
> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:22:13 -0400
> From: Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> Keith, I was just having a little fun with the head in the jar comment.
.                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[snip]
> When I read Drexler's book many years ago in my much younger days, it
> absolutely blew my mind and got me more interested in futurism than I
> already was (BTW, does anyone else miss Mondo 2000 around here?!).   I 
> have
.              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> to say though, I'm a bit disappointed how far away we seem to remain 
> from
> Drexler's vision of nanotechnology.