General Technics

While in college in Chicago, I helped form General Technics, a technology-oriented science fiction group (or was that a science fiction-oriented technology group?), with friends Jeff Duntemann, Jim Fuerstenberg, Tullio Proni, and many other members of midwestern university science-fiction clubs. We originally coalesced around blinkies, robots, and the beginnings of personal computing, and have extended our grasp to high-altitude rocketry, high voltage, and raising kids. John Brunner, the author of "Stand on Zanzibar," the science fiction novel in which the General Technics corporation appears, graciously permitted us to use the name of his fictitious company.

GT has flourished in the intervening years, combining with a similar group from Michigan Technological University, and attracting members from all over the world. GT remains loosely organized. If you consider yourself to be "in" GT, you are! General Technics members are:

Steve Collins has no small part in JPL's Mars Exploration Rover program

Roxanne Meida-King was a participant on TLC's "Escape from Experiment Island"

Br. Guy Consolmagno, recently named the director of the Vatican Observatory, appeared in the Emmy-award winning WGBH production, "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens." You can find his book, "Turn Left at Orion," for sale at the Mauna Kea Observatory Visitor's Center, among many other places.

Congratulations to GT member Moshe Yudkowsky on the publication of his book, "The Pebble and the Avalanche," for sale at Amazon and elsewhere

Dale Yeo arranged to place a commemorative marker at the Keweenaw Rocket Range.

Congratulations to GT members Bruce Schneier and Neils Ferguson on the publication of their new book, Practical Cryptography.

GT folks see one another on a regular basis, and keep in continual communication via a numer of lively on-line discussion groups. At our get-togethers, we often gather to admire the projects that we build, as individuals or groups. We try to convey a "sense of wonder" to our kids and friends, and hope that they, too, appreciate our efforts.

Among other pursuits, GT members are active participants in Critter Crunch competitions, where we combine engineering design and hands-on skills to smash lovingly-constructed critters to smithereens!