From chaos at cs.swarthmore.edu Sat Jul 17 20:04:09 1999 Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 17:28:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Chaos Golubitsky To: "SWIL: the amoeba": ; Subject: Everyone Run! The Circles Are Coming! or SWILNews #1 At high noon Saturday, a largish group of Swillies entered Sharples Room 4, all feeling strangely unstressed ... only to find that someone had turned the tables on us! To be more precise, had turned them from rectangles to circles!! And that stressed us out, so all was well with the world. Homework for next meeting: figure out a creative design involving four largish circular tables and four old rectangular tables. Then prove it as an application of the travelling salesman problem. SWILBUSINESS Live Chess At high 1:30 PM (well, almost), a cry went out across Parrish Beach. It echoed in the valley and it rumbled in the dell. Heads turned towards the strangely tiled section of lawn to the south where hordes (very small hordes) of evil forces gathered to face off with a small band freedom fighters for truth, justice, and procrastination -- the forces of good. [hey, procrastination is one of the forces of evil, dammit! --hlokk] [how are the forces of procrastination going to win a battle? --goll] [oh, we'll worry about it later. --h] [so that's how! --g] Somehow, the forces of good prevailed. (Actually, it was with Kn F3-G5 Qu D1-H5 Qu H5-F7 checkmate) SWILMovie The SWILMovie this past Monday was GATTACA. GATTACA taught us many things: we're more popular than we think, for which we can thank our Miniprops, Amy Swift and Jimmy Kong; that red dot in Kohlberg 115 looks really cool in outer space scenes, kind of like a planet [gee, if only we'd watched 2001 in Kohlberg, it might've made more sense --skogul]; and, no matter how many copies of the movie you have, two public safety officers can't open the video cabinet in Kirby under pressure. Attendance was 50! (we think. [two people's estimates can't be wrong, right? --h] [i estimate that there are 350 people in this room right now. right? --g] [i estimate that you're about to get hit with this shoe ... --h] Here's the schedule of SWILMovies for this semester: 14/09 akira 21/09 the last unicorn 28/09 misfits of science 05/10 they live 12/10 19/10 bill and ted's excellent adventure 26/10 the craft 02/11 flight of the navigator 09/11 flash gordon 16/11 wizards 23/11 event horizon 30/11 labyrinth 07/12 totoro 14/12 space camp 21/12 a clockwork orange Star Wars Trilogy In classic SWIL tradition, an excess of unnecessary [hey, i misspelled that word in a spelling bee in sixth grade once --s] SWIL-votes resulted in our electing to show the complete original Star Wars trilogy. The showing will start at 7 PM Thursday in Kirby Lecture Hall (in Martin). Maybe this time the Dark Side will win ... Ren Faire Every year, Elizabeth Regina holds court at the Mount Hope Winery near Lancaster, and every year, her loyal subjects from the fine college of Swarthmore pay their respects to Her Royal Majesty. This year, SWIL will travel on Saturday 19 September, and will be gone from about 9 to 7. If you want to come (and didn't sign the list at meeting or activities fair), email us; if you did sign up and find you can't come, also email us. If you want to find Sir Walter Raleigh and ask him about "Kroatoan", you're out of luck this year, but if you want to taunt James of Scotland, you're in for a fine time! Huzzah! Pterodactyl Hunt Ben has volunteered to help run this year's hunt, but he'll need help. If you want to be suckere--er, if you're interested in helping to run the hunt, please let us know. The Pterodactyls come out of hiding on 23 October. Birdwainer The Cordwainer Bird Science Fiction Library (aka Birdwainer (aka those comfy chairs on Cornell second (aka the secret lair of the dragon (ok, just kidding about the Cornell second part))) is our science fiction library, maintained by Hannah (hannahs at sccs). Stop by, read books, take a nap. SWILoween Lindsay will be running SWILoween, and has reserved Sharples III from 9 PM until 11 AM. Supposedly ... of course, if the alarm goes off, a> it's just part of the fun, and b> hey, it's tradition! Good food, games, and the truth about ... well, stuff. [should we say what day this is? --s] [yeah, probably --h] [october --g] [thirty-first. as in halloween --h] Yeah, Lindsay, we love Lindsay! (lnherron at sccs, just in case you need to e-mail Lindsay to tell her how much you love her.) BEM Submit to BEM! Heather's still in charge, and wants it to look good. So start writing, drawing, and whatevering now! If you're interested in helping with BEM production, talk to Heather. (e-mail bem at swil.org) Number 9, Number 9, Number 9, ... or, PhilCon Every year, PSFS (no, not the Mellon Bank! the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society) hosts PhilCon, a large SF convention drawing together a veritable grepload of authors, artists, merchants, fans, and carpet lint to the Adams Mark Hotel in Philadelphia. Some of the carpet lint is in the pockets of the delegation from SWIL which attends each year [Get robe. Don robe. Look in pocket. Take analgesic. --s] Come for the guests -- Bruce Sterling headlines this year [highly recommended; i've seen him speak before --s]; the Dragon Lady; or the erotica in SF panel ... Kira will arrange registration. Early registration is Real Soon Now (tm) (next week), and costs $30. Later registration is possible, but costs more. If you're interested in buying into part of a hotel room (commuting can happen, but events go late into the night, and the con is about 40 minutes from Swat), contact chaos. If there's enough interest, we'll get a room. Cost two years ago was about a hundred-something, but split seven ways or so it's not so bad ... The early registration form will be mailed after meeting this coming week, so if you want to get in at the $30 rate, bring $30 (check preferable) to meeting or get it to Kira before then. NON-SWILBUSINESS Buffy Buffy showings will be in Megan's room Mondays at 9 PM and Tuesdays at a time to be determined around folk dance. The season premiere is 29 September. Contact Megan (mhallam1 at sccs) if you want to know where her room is. B5 The very-anticipated final five episodes of Babylon 5 will air Wednesdays on TNT starting in late October and will finish just before Thanksgiving. Showings will be arranged closer to the time. Over the summer, Will taped the entire first three seasons of B5 (ah, the joys of cable), and periodically he'll show episodes or mini-arc bits. These will be announced. Gaming Gaming happened Saturday night. It will happen again. It was good. Attendance List - 5/9: John "Here I am, back again" Finkbiner Heather "for lo!" Weidner Ben "namweN neB" Newman Beth "I'm a stupid freshman" Tsai Lindsay "They put me on the 20-meal plan, & I'm very upset about it but that's okay because the operas are good this year." Herron Sonia "what have I gotten myself into" Mariano Jimmy "The squirrels are revolting and so is Sharples" Kong Kellen "Can I survive such insanity?" Jackson Alice "Eat Grapes & Die" Unger Megan "I need my stereo! Currently, all I can do is _look_ at my CDs, which is not nearly as fulfilling as I had originally hoped..." Hallam Dave "The guy with the tools" Phillips Sarah "Tee hee - fresh blood" Bergstrom Robert "Who are these people?" McFarland Tom "Not a master of Kung-Fu" Stepleton Anna"nnannanna" Hess Jennifer "Hellebore" Tyson Catherine "and every valley shall be exalted, and perhaps I'll be tall _then_." Osborne Kyla "I think I'm doing far too much at the activities fair - at least I'm not Cantatrix's treasurer, too" Tornheim Cathy "I'm just visiting" Leamy Amy "Oh, sure, I don't need to set an alarm to get up before noon" Swift O. Propper Alastair "multi sunt ditcendum. fuck" Thompson [if you want your latin spelled right, put it in english -h] Jessica "all dressed up and no hostile species to kill" Harbour -Hlokk, Goll, and Skogul