OFFICE PLANT #1...Michael Mateas, in collaboration with Marc Bholen, are presenting their robotic sculpture, Office Plant #1, a "robot ressembling a plant that responds to email", at the Visual Arts Museum at the School of Visual Arts in New York as part "The Sixth Annual New York Digital Salon." This international juried exhibition features prints, sculptures, animations and Net-works made with the computer. The show, which began with a reception November 9, will be on display until November 28. It next travels to the Digital Salon in Europe, including stops at Circulo de Bellas Artes (Madrid, Spain), Triennale di Milano (Italy), Center de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (Spain), and Sala de Exposiciones CAM (Alicante).

MOBOTS 101...A special Mobot Open House will be held Tuesday, November 17 at 6:00 pm in Wean 5409. Members of the Mobot Committee and past race participants will be on hand to review the Mobot Kit, official rules, and other special topics. Questions are encouraged. All potential race participants or those just in "consideration" mode are welcome. Pizza will be served in respect of the dinner hour :-) So mark your calendars! The 5th Annual Mobot Slalom Race is scheduled for Friday, April 16, which is much closer than you think :-)

ECE ETHICS ROUNDTABLE...or, "On a scale of 0-10, how do you rate the overall ethical environments at CMU"?, will be presented on Wednesday, November 11 from 3:30-5:00 pm in the Singleton Room, Roberts Hall. All members of the CMU community are welcome to attend. Angel Jordan (Keithley University Professor of ECE and Robotics), Indira Nair (Vice Provost for Education, Associate Professor and Associate Department Head, EPP), Jim Hoburg (Professor, ECE), and Matt Vojik (Senior, CivE) will rate the CMU ethical environment and describe the factors leading to their conclusions. Questions from the audience are welcomed.

SPECIAL LECTURE PROGRAM...Dr. Kishore Swaminathan, Associate Partner, Andersen Consulting, and Senior Researcher, Andersen Consulting's Center for Strategic Technology Research (CSTaR), discusses" Managing Knowledge in the Enterprise of the Future", as the first speaker in a series of five lecturess sponsored by Andersen. The talk, scheduled for Thursday, November 12 at 4:30 pm in Wean 7500, will be followed by future programs on: Electronic Commerce Strategies, Data Mining Strategies (Jan 21), Core Collaborative Infrastructure (Feb 12), and the Market Place of the Future (Mar 3).

CAREER: INFORMATION SESSIONS...
**EPIPHANY's will host an Information Session on Monday, November 16 at 5:30 pm in Wean 5409. Pizza will be served. Bring a resume and win a digital camera! More info: careers@cs.cmu.edu
**HARRIS Corporation's Information Session is scheduled for Sunday evening, November 15 at 7:00 pm in Hamerschalg Hall B131. Pizza will be served. Campus recruiting is scheduled for Monday/Tuesday, November 16/17.

ARE YOUR WRISTS ACHING?...CSD is sponsoring a lunchtime presentation on the prevention and treatment of repetitive strain injury (RSI) on Tuesday, November 10 at 12:30 pm in Doherty Hall 1112. Dr. Mark Baratz, Vice Chairman of Research and Educational Programs, Allegheny University Hospitals, and Allegheny General Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and Bruce Jacobs, OPR, of the same, will offer tips for recognizing the most common symptoms of RSI and examine simple techniques for the prevention and cure of this family of injuries. The program is open to all members of the SCS community.

SCS INVITED TALKS...GARY MILLER presented "Using Sphere-Packing for Mesh Generation, Refinement, and Coarsening, and Mesh Partitioning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Computer Science Distinguished Lecturer Series on November 2. MARY SHAW will offer "Building Software Systems from Parts: How Software Architecture Helps Explain Why It's Hard" on December 7 as a speaker in this same series.

FLASH OF GENIUS..."What gives people intuition? Can you teach it? Can you replicate it on a computer? Nobelist Herbert Simon has some insights on the subject." Thus begins an article in the November 16 issue of FORBES magazine, where he notes "If we understood how people think, we could teach them better. We could also program more smarts into our computers." Always great reading. Copies available from scstoday@cs.

FORSCHEN FUR UBERMORGEN..., focussing on Labs of the Future, was the featured article in the October 22 issue of STERN magazine. Accompanied by a 2-page photo of the Xavier Lab (with Amelia streaking by at lightening speed!), and a shot of the Stage3 Virtual Worlds Lab, the author notes, "computers of the future will be able to understand speech, recognize pictures and solve problems autonomously. Or they'll walk around in the form of a robot..." Among those quoted (albeit in German) are Raj Reddy, Alex Waibel, Jaime Carbonell, Scott Stevens, and Asim Smailagic.

SCS GRADUATE COMPASS, OR WHERE HAVE ALL OUR GRADUATES GONE?...
**Margaret Reid-Miller (CS) has accepted a position at Lycos, in their Pittsburgh Offices.
**Lalitesh Katragadda (RI) and John Murphy (RI) are building Astrobotics, a new robotics startup on the west coast that develops and produces robots for space and entertainment.

HO-HO-HO..."HO"ld the date Friday, December 11 on your calendar! The Annual SCS Holiday Brunch will be celebrated from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm in the Connan Room, University Center.

OPEN ENROLLMENT HAS BEGUN...for faculty and staff benefits. Remember, the deadline is Friday, November 20. There is an online enrollment process, but you need to check the details in the package you have (by now!) received in the mail. Don't delay.

WORDS FOR THOUGHT:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10
**SPECIAL SEMINAR: Yannis Manolopoulos, University of Thessaloniki, "Processing of Spatio-Temporal Queries in Image Databases", 1:00 pm, Wean 4601.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11
**HCI SEMINAR: Chris Dede, George Mason University, "Virtural Reality as a Learning Aid in Mastering Complex, Multidimensional Information", 3:30 pm, Wean 5409.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13
**ROBOTICS SEMINAR: John J. Leonard, Department of Ocean Engineering, MIT, "Concurrent Mapping and Localization for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles", 3:30 pm, Adamson Wing, Baker Hall (refreshments: 3:15 pm)

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