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From: pgs@ai.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 93 17:33:56 EST
To: all-ai
Subject: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: GSB Friday 5:30 p.m., 7th floor playroom

                      FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
                       PROGRAMMING WITH FUZZY OBJECTS
                  FOR HYPERMEDIA APPLICATIONS IN CYBERSPACE
                          Cambridge, Massachusetts
                             September 31, 1993

1. AN EMERGING PARADIGM.  It is becoming apparent that the fuzzy object
   approach holds great promise for rendering knowledge from data in
   cyberspace.  Fuzzy entities and their relationships provide a unifying
   model for development of the software of the future, in which the
   cybernauts of the future -- the "knights of the virtual high frontier" --
   will elaborate complex systems while situated in a virtual reality of
   software artifacts.

2. THE CONFERENCE FOR RESEARCHERS, DESIGNERS, AND MANAGERS OF THE CYBERSPACE
   OF THE FUTURE.  Fuzzy objects (fuzzobs) are _the_ programming paradigm of
   the nineties, and ICPFOHAC will be _the_ forum for presenting advances in
   information lenses, media hypertechnologies, collaborative intelligent
   scripting languages, concurrent enabling dynamical systems, personal
   cybertechnological assistants, ubiquitous situated nanoagents, ponytail
   styling systems, and PowerBook carrying cases in leather and leatherette
   -- all developed using the fuzzy-object paradigm.

3. A STORY.  Once I went to the Draper cafeteria for lunch.  Even while aware
   that I was still only in filthy old Cambridge, I felt a vertiginous sense
   of freedom, surrounded as I was by male engineers in white, short-sleeved
   shirts, with ties and glasses and pocket protectors, the designers of ICBM
   guidance systems.  I felt on the verge of something; I felt myself
   delivered into a clean, plutonian America of the 1950's, as though I could
   emerge from the laboratory to find myself under a brilliant sky as blue
   and pure as a gas jet, surrounded by ochre fields of wheat stretching to a
   straight and empty horizon.  Feeling renewed by this lustral epiphany, I
   ordered the featured entree: "Roast Beef au Jus."  The cafeteria manager,
   his tie tucked into his white shirt, his white paper garrison cap at a
   jaunty angle, proudly and efficiently served me a roast beef sandwich.  As
   I walked away with it, he called to me, his voice a little anxious, a
   plastic container of drippings proffered in his hand.  He called, "Sir!
   Sir!  You forgot your au jus!"

4. REGISTRATION is US$1000.00 per person, and must be paid IN ADVANCE.  A
   student discount of US$10.00 will be refunded to student registrants
   presenting valid identification at the conference registration table.
   Send registration fees by 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 2, 1993, to:

                    Prof. G. S. Benefit
                    7th Floor Playroom
                    MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
                    Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

   No refunds will be given under any circumstances.  The program committee
   will meet at this week's

                     G I R L   S C O U T   B E N E F I T

   at 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 2, 1993, in the seventh floor playroom.  We
   will consider the conference program, muse on technological power
   fantasies, and count up the registration fees while drinking cold ale and
   root beer.