X-Message-Number: 472
From att!cup.portal.com!Eric_S_Klien Tue Sep 24 22:10:12 PDT 1991
From:
Subject: Alcor Boston Minutes
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 91 22:10:12 PDT
ALCOR BOSTON MINUTES
Sunday Sept 8th 3:30 - 8:30 PM
*****************************************************************
Important notice! We will be having a meeting on Sunday,
October 6th, at 3 PM at my place. Why have I scheduled a meeting
on the first Sunday of October when I didn't even have a meeting
scheduled for October anyway?
Because according to a message on my tape machine, Fred and Linda
Chamberlain, the *FOUNDERS* of Alcor will be able to show up on
that date.
*****************************************************************
Meeting Dates
-------------
Our next meetings will be on *Oct 6*, Nov 10th, and Dec 8th at 3:00
PM. Location of the meetings will be at the home of Eric Klien, 28
Kenmar Dr. #272, Billerica, MA 01821 until further notice. (508)
663-5480 Work, (508) 670-5235 Home, e-
mail. The Oct 6 will be a special first Sunday of the month meeting.
To get to my house take 128 to 3 north, then take the Concord Rd
exit, where you should make a right towards Billerica. The second
right after Saint Theresa's Rectory will be Kenmar Dr, make a right
on it. Note that Kenmar Dr is not marked. Follow Kenmar past
building 6 on your left, building 3 on your right and then building 8
on your left (this building has a swimming pool) and building 5 on
your right and then make a left. Travel over the million speed bumps
until you have reached the last building on the street. That will be
building 28. If you miss the left turn after building 8, you will
find yourself on a street that has building 27, not building 28. If
this happens, backup and make the correct left which will now be a
right for you.
Additional informaton for those that get lost: Kenmar Dr. is the
first right before the fork of Concord Rd and Charnstaffe. It is
also the fifth right after the Concord exit, about 1.3 miles from the
exit. There are a lot of little rights before Kenmar Dr. If you
take any of them, just travel left until you can't go any further.
You will then be on Kenmar Dr. If you accidently get on Charnstaffe,
make your first two lefts and you will be back on Concord Rd, with
Kenmar being your second left.
Member Recruitment
------------------
Only four old people showed up so no meeting was planned for the
following month. But since I am guaranteed two new people for our
next meeting plus that these two people happen to be the founders of
Alcor, I will make an exception and schedule a meeting for October.
If anyone reading this can promote our next meeting I would
appreciate it. I am especially looking for ways to do local mass
mailings. And of course, two of our subscribers publish their own
zines and could mention the dates of my next meetings...
Finances
--------
It was voted to send our $40 postage surplus to the Alcor New York
group to purchase equipment necessary for training and for use in the
field. This will help the New York group achieve Emergency Response
Capability in the Northeast.
Alcor Connecticut
-----------------
Doug Lamm, contacted me from the Alcor Connecticut group. His group
contains *TWO* Alcor members, twice what we have in Massachusetts.
He is working on a booklet that will complement the booklet that
Alcor provides. One thing that he is looking into is mortiary laws
in different states. For example, he wants to know the mortiary
practices of body transportation and who is allowed to inject
embalming fluids. He was able to find this out for every state but
Massachusetts because our local legal system has collapsed. (A
Howard Saxner at the Public Health Dept. just brushed him off.) I
told him to call the Lowell District Court and ask for a copy of the
Chapter 1-14 that he was looking for. I gave him the necessary phone
number. If anyone has any information they would like to share with
him look for his address and phone numbers in my mailing list above.
DO NOT mention that you are calling about cryonics if you call his
work phone number!
By the way, you can take advantage of our collapsed legal system.
For example, I got a ticket in April and when I called them a few
weeks ago, they said they were now trying cases for 1987. By the
time they get to my case, the police officer may have left the state
which would mean that I would automatically win the trial. Actually,
I will have left the state by that time, but if I don't feel like
visiting you guys to make the trial I will be able to plead guilty
and will have gone a couple years without getting an infraction put
on my record and infractions only stay on your record for about six
years after the date of the offense.
FDA
---
The FDA is trying to declare that vitamins and minerals are drugs
which is having the following impact:
** **
I have already written to the attorney mentioned below, The Wall
Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, CNN Special Report,
Insight, Longevity, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and TV
Channel 5 about this. The least you can do is to write to the
attorney!
** **
[ Contents of cryonics mailing list message #446 (FDA Jail Threat) removed
to eliminate redundancy and save network bandwidth and disk space. If you
missed message #446, please let me know and I will send it to you. - KQB ]
Congresscritters
----------------
It turns out that the Senator Diane Watson that I mentioned last
issue was on the California Senate. So she isn't a congresscritter.
Hopefully everyone remembered to write to her any way.
Time Travel
-----------
Here is the end of my time dilation discussion with Brian Wowk, we
ended in agreement. We both agreed that speed is the key to slowing
down time. Acceleration is only needed to make two objects that are
currently going at the same speed and therefore the same forward
movement in time to go at different speeds and therefore different
rates of time.
[ This is an interesting, but long, discussion on a topic rather removed
from cryonics. I have, for now, placed it as message #0472, which anyone
can retrieve by sending to me email with a subject line of the form
"CRYOMSG 0472". (Yes, this message (#472) is distinct from #0472.) - KQB ]
Wasp Venom Gives Clues To Some Brain Traumas
--------------------------------------------
This was the title of a Aug 30, 1991 Wall Street Journal article. In
strokes, heart attacks and other traumas that deprive brain cells of
oxygen, an excess of glutamic acid destroys brain cells. This venom
can be used to bind to the receptors that accept glutamic acid.
IBM Scientists Create a Switch With One Atom
--------------------------------------------
This was the title of a Wall Street Journal article that demonstrated
that it is possible to make a tiny mechanical transistor. The
drawback to this device is that you have to hook up a STM machine to
move the atom. (STM = Scanning tunneling microscope.)
Bacteria Protein May Help to Miniaturize Computers
--------------------------------------------------
This was the title of a Sept 4, 1991 Wall Street Journal article. A
group of researchers from Syracuse University reported they optically
stored and retrieved data in three dimensions in a tiny block of
molecules of the protein bacteriorhodapsin. This molecule has the
ability to capture two photons simultaneously and therefore can store
information three dimensionally.
Washington Ballot on November 5
-------------------------------
In about a month, Washington voters may pass a bill that allows
Thomas Donaldson to deanimate himself before the brain tumor kills him.
Tidbit
------
92.4% of doctors say they have issued "do not resuscitate" orders.
(from the Boston Globe Aug 10, 1991) Hmm, I thought doctor-assisted
suicide was illegal.
The Woburn Five Cents Savings Bank
----------------------------------
Alcor has managed to stay in business longer than the bank that
provided me with life insurance was able to. Luckily, SBLI insurance
in Massachusetts is maintained separate and distinct from the assets
and liabilities of the banks that issue the insurance. One of the
advantages of SBLI insurance is that it is nearly impossible for it
to fail unlike the situation when you are dealing with just one
insurance company. SBLI insurance is backed up by the assets of tens
of banks and also by the state of Massachusetts. Paying only
$99/year for $100,000 insurance is also a really good deal. (They
also have good rates on whole life.)
Future Entertainment
--------------------
The following information is from the book "More Future Stuff" by
Malcome Abrams and Harriet Bernstein:
The Ultimate Fly-Drive Package, available now.
For under $10,000 you can buy a RX2000. This vehicle can travel for
up to three hours on six gallons of gas, does up to 48 miles per hour
and can climb a 35-degree incline. It's 13 feet long, 7.5 feet
wide and carries two adults or a payload of 550 pounds. It does
this while traveling eight inches off the ground.
Holographic Food, 80 percent chance of being available in 1992.
Holograms will embedded into edibles -- everything from standard fare
to candy bars to pills. The actual incorporation of the holograms
into the food is simple. Workers at Dimensional Foods mold
microscopic ridges onto the surface of foods, or, in the case of
lolipops, the ridges are molded into edible film that is then
embedded into the candy. The cost is expected to be near zero.
Personal Submarine, 75 percent chance of being available in 1993.
This egg-shaped craft is 15 feet long and weighs 8000 pounds. It has
a two day oxygen supply and can carry two to four people. It can
dive to 100 feet, making it the perfect vehicle for fish and flora
sight-seeing in clear waters. It will cost $100,000 until it is
mass-produced when it will drop to $35,000 in price.
Boy With a Bomb in His Brain
----------------------------
This was a Reader's Digest story about a boy with an aneurysm. To
operate on the boy they turned off all blood flow to his brain for
*72* minutes. They cooled his body down to 56 degrees so he could
survive the operation.
Paul Wakfer's proposal
----------------------
Paul Wakfer in the September issue of Cryonics offered to lend money
to people who wished to donate money to Alcor. I offered to donate
$10K to save the UK facility based on this plan. I haven't heard
from Alcor since I offered the money.
Looking for women cryonicists
-----------------------------
We mentioned my personal ad in the September issue of Cryonics. If
anyone knows any women cryonicists, please tell them about me!
Late For Dinner
---------------
This movie about two guys who are frozen from 1962 until 1991 came in
second at the box office last week. I'll have to go see it!
Questions
---------
If any e-mail people reading these minutes have questions that they
would like answered in future meetings, send me the questions and
they will be answered in the next minutes published.
Mistakes
--------
If any of these minutes reflect mistaken information, let Eric Klien know!
Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=472