Enfascination 2010

mage:AncientBrain.pngDear Loved Ones, and Loved Ones Once/Twice Removed,

You are invited to the Seventh Annual Enfascination Lectures on Friday evening, May 7th

Everything is fascinating, but I haven't realized it yet. The Enfascination Lectures are designed to help that epiphany along. You, in your private enthusiasm for some arcane backwater of All Human Knowledge, are the one person who is best suited for communicating its greatness and wonder. I would be grateful for your help. Since 2003, Enfascination has supported the transmission of hundreds of trivial zingers to as many minds, all around the USoA.

Here are notes and video from last year: Enfascination_09

format details

Each guest is invited to give a five-minute talk on any subject. After a few hours, that is lots of knowledge.

–– Your talk must be on something that you find really exciting –– It must not exceed five minutes –– To encourage effortless conformance to the five-minute limit, your audience is entitled to become pesky after this time(but not before!) –– Tangible bonus points for excessive erudition and for actually doing research in advance –– Among the amenities will be food and support for visual aids, and we might support teleconferencing again –– You don't have to give a talk, baskers welcome –– If you don't live in the middle west, you are welcome to follow the tradition of submitting notes or a recording –– Tell me your topic in advance if you think of it in

practical details

The event will be from 7PM and on into the evening. Drink Provided. Probably snacks too.

• Friday, May 7th
• 7:00PM, and on for a few hours
• The beautiful Woodburn Hall, Room 003, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.

Special thanks to the student group SFSFSF for hosting the event.

Here is the Facebook event

more, fascinating details, constituting the bulk of past gatherings

For Your Procrastinative Pleasure, A Selection of Previous Lecture Topics, Providing a Sense of Scope and A Nagging Curiosity:

Counting the Permutations of Digit Strings
Conceptions of Time in History
Chili Peppers
How to cross a glacier
The Singularity
Indiana Jones
Rural desert water distribution systems
Hexaflexagons
Small precious things
Wilderness Camps as Commodity
DIY Cooking
Roman Emperor Deaths 
Joy of Science
Salt 
Three Great Banquets in Italian History
How to Sharpen a Chisel
Some Properties of Numbers in Base Ten
The Physiological Limits to Human Perception of Time
Geophagy
Pond Ecology
Superstition: For Fun and Profit
Counterintuitive Results in Hydrodynamics
The Wolof Conception of Time
Arctic String Figures
The Seven Axioms of Mathematics
Dr Seuss and his Impact on Contemporary Children's Literature
Motorcycle Life and Culture
Cultural Differences Between Japan and the US
Brief history of the Jim Henson Company 
Insider Trading: For Fun and Profit
Film of Peter Greenaway
A Typographical Incident with Implications for the Structure of Thought
Cooperative Birth Control
Tones in Mandarin
Unschooling and Deschooling
Q&A: Fine Beer
DIY Backpacking
Chinese Nationalism in Tibet
Biofuels
The Yeti
The Health Benefits of Squatting
The Big Bang
How to Pick Stocks Like a Pro
Food Preservation Technique, or Managing Rot
Demonstrations in Number Theory
Rangolis, Kolum
The Hollow Earth
Edible Mushrooms: For Fun and Profit
Human Asexuality
A History of the California Central Valley Watershed
An Account of the Maidu Creation

best,
seth.