Bob Alberti is a photographer, performer, writer, and Internet pioneer.
Photographer
Bob's photography tends to portraits and landscapes, with a lot of theatrical photography due to his interests in the performance community. He has lately been exploring immersive (360-degree) photography.
Performer
Bob is a proud member of Vilification Tennis, an insult comedy troupe begun at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival decades ago. Vilification Tennis performs monthly at Strike Theater in Minneapolis, and will return to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in September of 2025 for one weekend.
He has performed many dramatic comedy roles, including the lead vampire in
"The Secret of Gravethwait Manor," an old cat rancher in
"Cowboy Cat: the Musical," and "Mr. Gold" in his own Minnesota Fringe creation, "
Principia Discordia."
Writer
Bob has written books and plays, among which are the aforementioned "Principia Discordia," for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, "Anxiety: The Musical" with Becci Schmidt and produced at the Historic Mounds Theater, and "Hard Wired" with Susanne Becker produced at the Bryant Lake Bowl. The short play "Leap of Faith," written for Fearless Theatrical Productions (which he cofounded in 2012) will be published in "First Folio" by Culture Cult Press in July 2025.
Bob is also the author of the two-volume role-playing supplement, "Mitlanyal," which describes the religions of the world of Tekumel, Empire of the Petal Throne.
Internet Pioneer
Bob has been using the online handle 'Albatross' since the Ford Administration. He started using computers in 1976 beginning with the Minnesota MECC and TIES timeshare services, and in 1977 his first job was teaching computer summer camp for middle school students. In 1983 Bob started GāmBit MultiSystems, which offered the world's first commercial MMORPG, Scepter of Goth. In 1991 Bob was one of the six co-authors of the Internet Gopher protocol (RFC 1436) the very first browser for searching the Internet. After 20 years of programming, in 1996 Bob switched from software development and has worked in the field of Internet security ever since. He obtained the CISSP security certification in 2001, and the SABSA security architecture certification in 2015. In 2026 Bob will celebrate 50 years online.