RG Speakers

Let’s take a look at some of the exciting things we’ve got planned at The Phull Mensa:

First, we’ve got food! There’s a Hospitality Suite stocked with goodies. Then, when you register, you’ll get Friday’s dinner, lunch and dinner Saturday and Sunday, and brunch Monday - all included in your registration cost! If you stay at The Days Inn, they provide a continental breakfast each morning as part of your room rate. That means you don’t have to spend a penny on meals!!

Then, we’ve got games! Leigh has planned several ice-breakers. Then we’ve got a Joke-Off, Trivia Quiz, and some unannounced fun that will happen as we go along.

Clinics! How about one on Stress and Health; a Sculpie Workshop, a Golf Pro, Magazine Feature Writing …

Speakers! Joe Arpaio, our resident Sheriff. Making straw houses; Bert and Nadine, Phoenix UFOs, Fibonacchi numbers, a music critic, weight control, parapsychology research, native animals (besides Mensans!) …

The MERF Auction! We’re collecting items that may be one man’s trash, but could be your treasure. It’s all for a good cause.

The dance! We’ll have an old-fashioned British seaside resort, with close-up sleight-of-hand, a fortune teller, and who knows what else (anybody volunteering for the Tatooed Lady role?).

Plus field trips on Monday! Right now we’re looking at going to Out of Africa (big, BIG cats), the Egyptian traveling display at the Phoenix Art Museum, The Mystery Castle, possibly Taliesen - these haven’t been finalized, and will change and be added to. But stay for Monday! Phoenix has a fantastic variety of things to see and do, and we want to share them with you.

Here are some highlights:

Artificial Intelligence

Nicholas V. Findler, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Mathematics at Arizona State University, will give, at the intelligent layperson's level, a brief outline of the history, objectives, accomplishments and outstanding problems of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI is a sub-discipline of Computer Science and also has close links with engineering, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, logic. mathematics, statistics, pattern recognition, operations research, musicology and linguistics. Some examples of the many practical applications will also be discussed. Finally, some speculative ideas about the future of the field will be discussed.

10 Reasons Why the Coming Age of Immortality is Closer Than You Think

Herb Bowie will talk about ten current trends that are all taking us closer to the time when we can expect to experience genuine physical immortality for human beings. Immortality will not appear the way we have been conditioned to expect it, in the form of unconditional immortality, but instead through "incremental immortality". Herb is the author of the book, Why Die? A Beginner's Guide to Living Forever, and the editor of the magazine, "Forever Alive", for seven years.

Marilyn Wurzburger, Head of Special Collections at ASU Hayden Library, will speak on the topic Books Worth Collecting. While she cannot evaluate a mountain of books, she promises to give you pointers and guidelines for analyzing the strengths of your own collection. Also she encourages each of you attending her talk to bring one or two books from your own collection and she will use them to demonstrate the points that may contribute to making that book "collectible" or undistinguished. She also promises to stay after the allotted time of the session to answer your questions about your own book collection if any of you wish to stay later.

Marilyn has been with the ASU Libraries since 1960, and Head of Special Collections since 1974. If you have some specific questions you may email her prior to the conference at: marilyn.wurzburger@asu.edu and she will try to answer them either by email or during her presentation.

UFO SIGHTINGS OVER PHOENIX.

On March 13, 1997 over 10,000 people saw a huge aerial craft over Arizona for 4 hours. Many witness shot videotape, the Air Force denied any knowledge, the Governor dressed up like an alien to ridicule the investigation. Every major World news discredited in a systematic process. What really happened? Who were the "Men-in-Black" who visited Phoenix? Learn of the investigation from Jim Dilettoso, who analyzed all of the videotapes, interviewed hundreds of witnesses, and went head to head with the skeptics. See the now famous videotapes and learn of the on-going incidents that occur to this day.

Jim Dilettoso is a computer scientist and founder of Village Labs. Jim is noted as a Concert tour producer(Moody Blues, Alice Cooper) and Inventor ( Movie Colorization, Field Resonant Imaging etc.

The Story of a Story: How an article for Arizona Highways magazine comes into being

Victoria Hay will give a talk on a work in progress. She has just begun on an assignment for Arizona Highways to cover "La Pastorela," a community-based Christmas play that will be staged this month in Guadalupe as a part of Arizona State University's "Untold Stories" festival. It promises to be an exciting and colorful event, bringing together local talents with those of a professional San Francisco theater company and an internationally renowned mask-maker, and will give us an opportunity to discuss something more than generalities. Victoria designed and served as founding director of ASU West’s new Writing Certificate Program, and (among other things too numerous to list) is presently writing a novel, whose working title is "Fire-Rider." Before joining the ASU West faculty, she left Arizona Highways Magazine, where she was associate editor, to found a 50-person agency called Writers and Artists, Inc. This company continues under her former partner, Philip Harrison.