Mindbridge Foundation » Dan Wojcik

ICON 35 Guest Artist of Honor

Dan Wojcik — Sat, 29 May 2010 14:04:46 +0000

Daniel Dociu was born in Cluj, the capital of Transylvania, Romania. He studied art and architecture graduated in 1982 with a Masters Degree in Industrial Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in his home town. He worked as a product designer for several years before taking a teaching position for the same school. He moved to the US in 1990 after having worked for two years as a graphic designer in Athens, Greece. Between '91-'93 he designed toys. Next he got involved with interactive entertainment and has been working as an Art Director in the video games industry ever since. Among the companies he worked for are Squaresoft, Zipper Interactive, Electronic Arts and Microsoft. For the past seven years he has been the Studio Art Director for Arenanet, where his primary responsibility is leading the art department in the development of the Guild Wars series. Since '07 he has also taken on the role of Chief Art Director for NCsoft West. His work can be found at tinfoilgames. com

Icon 35 Update

Dan Wojcik — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:20:56 +0000

ICON 35 is pleased to announce that Susan Leabhart has agreed to be our Fan Guest of Honor. Along with her involvement with DAGOBAH, and contributing great programming to Icon and other area conventions, ICON 35 believes her presence would be a great addition for this year's convention, particularly with steampunk-related programming.

AnimeIowa Staff Recruitment

Dan Wojcik — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:35:38 +0000

Do you like Anime?
Do you like conventions?
Ever said to yourself, "how can I help?"

Well here's your chance!

On Saturday March 20th at 4pm, stop on by the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Convention Center. AnimeIowa will holding a Staff Recruitment Drive.

Find out what the different departments handle!
Don't want to run a department? That's ok. Our trained staff can help to ease you into the convention circuit life one foot step at a time. Start out by joining a department and before you know it, you could be running the convention with the support of the Mindbridge Membership and the AnimeIowa Staff!

So come on down on March 20th at 4pm and see if you are the Otaku we are looking for!

ICON 35 Author Guest of Honor – Cory Doctorow

Dan Wojcik — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:59:50 +0000

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing, and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

His novels are published by Tor Books and simultaneously released on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their re-use and sharing, a move that increases his sales by enlisting his readers to help promote his work. He has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, and been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards. His latest novel, New York Times Bestseller Little Brother, was published in May 2008, and his latest short story collection is Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present. In 2008, Tachyon Books published a collection of his essays, called Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future (with an introduction by John Perry Barlow) and IDW published a collection of comic books inspired by his short fiction called Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales Of The Here And Now. His next novel is Makers, due from Tor Books in October, 2009.

He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc, the Organization for Transformative Works, Areae, the Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, and Onion Networks, Inc.

In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called him, "The William Gibson of his generation." He was also named one of Forbes Magazine's 2007 Web Celebrities, and one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders for 2007.

He is presently working on a new young adult novel, FOR THE WIN (about union organizing in video games).

On February 3, 2008, he became a father. The little girl is called Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, and is a marvel that puts all the works of technology and artifice to shame.

NaNoWriMo

Dan Wojcik — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:15:57 +0000

NaNoWriMo? What's that you might be asking. Well for those of you who have been paying attention, NaNoWriMo is the acronym for National Novel Writing Month which kicks off in November.
So break out your Word programs and begin writing!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

ICON 34

Dan Wojcik — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:49:13 +0000

Only seven days until ICON 34 kicks off. Start planning out your weekend now with the latest and greatest pocket program:

www.iowa-icon. com/programmings chedule.pdf

ICON 34

Dan Wojcik — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:56:06 +0000

The ICON hotel block will end tomorrow. Get your room ASAP so that you 1) get the discounted rate and 2) help ICON fill our room block with fen (rather than getting mundanes mixed in).

Only 9 DAYS before ICON 34 starts! See you there!

Local Events

Dan Wojcik — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:49:15 +0000

This Weekend May 23 - 25, is the Annual Ren Fair in Little Amana, IA. If you interested in jousting, swords and sleight of hand, then you should go and give it a look.

May 30th at the Barnes and Noble in Coralville at the Coralridge Mall , Sarah Prineas, author of "The Magic Thief" will be doing a reading and book signing of her newest book "The Magic Thief: Lost" which came out earlier this month. Check with the local Barnes and Noble for the time of this event.

May/Annual Meeting

Dan Wojcik — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:30:00 +0000

Hello everyone,
it is coming to be that time of the year again when we have our Annual Meeting. One of the few elements which is required from the membership is to supply the PrePlanning Committee with a list of names of people that they would like to see as potential guests or each of the conventions. If everyone could please put together a list of 5 names or each project with a ranking of 1 - 5, it would be appreciated. Please list people as first pick, second and so on and so forth. If you do not know the first thing about one of the projects and are uncomfortable making suggestions, then please do not make any for that project.

Thank you and I look forward to getting teh results at the May meeting so they can be presented at the Annual Meeting.

Mindbridge Film Discussion Group

Dan Wojcik — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:14:11 +0000

As mentioned previously, Mindbridge is starting up a Film group. We've held our first meeting to select the initial movies we'll be watching. Our first film is Let the Right One In and we plan on discussing it on Friday, April 3rd at the home of Bryon Stump -- 108 Prospect Street Blairstown, IA (directions available upon request).

Below is a list of the movies we have selected to watch and discuss over the next 12 months.

2009

April: Let the Right One In
May: Star Wars (IV)
June: The Man in the White Suit
July: Brazil
August: Baron Münchhausen (1943) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)
September: The Man Who Could Work Miracles
October: A Chinese Ghost Story
November: Nausicaa
December: Time After Time

2010

January: The Thing
February: The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
March: Darby O’Gill and the Little People