[svfig-announce] Meeting October 24

[Kevin Appert]

--- SVFIG Meeting Saturday, October 24, 2009  ---
AM - Sunnyvale at HSC
PM - Palo Alto at Stanford
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Please note that the times listed below are precise but not
accurate.  We might go a little long or short on any agenda
item.  If you're desperate to see something at a particular
time, please let us know!  Remember that there are bugs in
any non-trivial SVFIG meeting announcement.

We'll be on the fifth floor of Terman Engineering Center --- Room 556
Directions and map links are below.

There are two buildings named Terman on campus so be careful. The
Searchable Map has the one you want as "TERMAN (FREDERICK E) ENGRG
CENTER  (04-700)  380 PANAMA MALL"
The Official SVFIG Announcement Editor's Parking Lot recommendation is
the lot near the intersection of Teresa St and Morris Way.

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AGENDA
10:00 --- Coffee and a Chat

10:30 --- Quantification of Health - CH Ting
Hear this: "Health can be measured!"

Health is generally considered to be a very nebulous concept. Everybody 
talks about it, but nobody knows for sure what they are talking about. I 
would like to conduct two experiments in a effort to measure willing 
participants' health. I will initially ask everybody to contribute a 
urine sample, for which I will measure its Oxidation Reduction Potential 
(ORP), which is a fairly accurate measure of health. I will then ask 
everybody to take orally 10 grams of sodium ascorbate (a form of Vitamin 
C) every two hours, to see how much Vitamin C results in diarrhea. The 
amount of Vitamin C causing diarrhea is the most reliable quantitative 
measurement of one's health. I will injest these amounts of Vitamin C 
myself, to show everyone that it is perfectly safe to do so.

Vitamin C is like Forth - it is a very simple solution to a very complex 
problem - if you know what the problem is. So, I think this is an 
appropriate topic for the SVFIG meeting.

11:40 --- Lunch
Lunch on-campus. To avoid the "noon lemming effect", we'll leave a 
little early.

13:00 --- Introductions, Announcements, Rumors, and Random Access

13:30 ---Blog - Sam Falvo
"Boring details of my website's new blog implementation" - tentative

14:30 --- Break

15:00 ---  Interesting Items - Volume 14 - Dave Jaffe
Dave will continue his survey of interesting newly-introduced 
microcontrollers, I/O peripherals, sensors, products, and gadgets that 
can provide useful and unique capabilities to Forth embedded systems. If 
anyone has come across anything that fits this category, pass them along 
to him for inclusion in his presentation.

16:00 --- Adjourn

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The schedule above may be reformatted or line-justified but
please transmit verbatim or not at all.   Any font you like is
alright with me.

No Newsgroup posts or other media distribution this month please!

_______________________________________________

Wireless Internet access is anticipated (though not guaranteed) at
Stanford, so bring your wifi-enabled laptop.

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Coming to SVFIG:
<<<FORTH DAY in November<<<

* Bring speaker suggestions TO EVERY MEETING!

* Mitch Bradley's Forth in C (somebody needs to volunteer)

* I've sent an email to the implementer of the PACE FIG-Forth and he
responded.  I think he got the idea that my invitation to present was
'one-time' rather than 'any time'.  Hopefully when there is something
else PACE-related on the program he'll join us and present.

* Furthering the Cause of Forth - John Rible
IntellaSys has imploded, or something.  We'd be pleased to hear about
John's new outreach project when formulated.

* Engineering TV
http://engineeringtv.com/
Fifty engineering topic channels. Four new episodes per week.

* BOTBASH 2000 --- Video
A cheepie video of  a May 2000 robot rumble in Mesa Arizona from these
guys:   http://www.battlebots.com/

* Meet the Mac --- Kevin Appert
I'm having trouble emailing Ward McFarland, the Carbon MacForth guy.  If
anybody knows a good way to buy a copy, fill me in!  The email doesn't
bounce but it doesn't get answered.  The phone number is out of service
but the web site is still up.
I'm also getting error boxes when I try to start PowerMops under OS-9.1,
so if anybody wants to help out there I'd be grateful.

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Check the SVFIG web site at http://www.forth.org/svfig/
for last minute changes to this schedule.
The most up-to-date meeting information is at
http://www.forth.org/svfig/next.html

Many thanks to our wonderful Webmaster, Dave Jaffe.

Preliminary agenda along with schedule updates and
discussion may frequently be found on the SVFIG email list.
To subscribe send email to geoperry_at_gmail.com

Please let us know if this isn't your preferred email address for the
SVFIG-Announce mailing list.  Thanks for your patience.

Please suggest a speaker or present at a SVFIG meeting.

Please do not attempt to reply to svfig-announce at ...
send instead to forther_at_comcast.net
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NAVIGATIONAL ADVICE

Terman Engineering Center can be found on these maps - just search for
Terman: (going to maps.google.com gives an erroneous result)

http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/map/

Searchable Stanford Campus Map:  http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/map/

There is open parking on weekends. Park in any A or C or metered space,
no coins needed even if there's a meter there.The Official SVFIG
Announcement Editor's Parking Lot recommendation is the lot near the
intersection of Teresa St and Morris Way.

Go to the Stanford links, Google maps has no idea where Terman is!

The building's door may be locked, there will be a number to call posted
after the meeting starts and we will come down and check once in a while.

Once you reach Terman, take the elevator to the 5th floor. Walk across
the foyer and up the ramp just to the left of the glassed-in office.
Room 556 is at the top of the ramp - entrance on the left.
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