Your Freewill Astrology for this Week
Aries	Libra
Taurus	Scorpio
Gemini	Sagittarius
Cancer	Capricorn
Leo	Aquarius
Virgo	Pisces

Technorati Profile

This is where we are.
Clicky-clicky.

The Uncanny Valley: Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating?
Japanese roboticist Doctor Masahiro Mori is not exactly a household name — but, for the speculative fiction community at least, he could prove to be an important one. The reason why can be summed up in a simple, strangely elegant phrase that translates into English as “the uncanny valley”.
Though originally intended to provide an insight into human psychological reaction to robotic design, the concept expressed by this phrase is equally applicable to interactions with nearly any nonhuman entity. Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human “look” . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete.
This chasm — the uncanny valley of Doctor Mori’s thesis — represents the point at which a person observing the creature or object in question sees something that is nearly human, but just enough off-kilter to seem eerie or disquieting. The first peak, moreover, is where that same individual would see something that is human enough to arouse some empathy, yet at the same time is clearly enough not human to avoid the sense of wrongness. The slope leading up to this first peak is a province of relative emotional detachment — affection, perhaps, but rarely more than that. - Metafilter Discussion

New Jersey Pinelands - Ghost Towns: There's no 'There' there
On November 10, 1978, Congress began what was commonly referred to as an experiment: It designated 1.1 million acres in New Jersey as America's first national reserve.
The New Jersey Pinelands stand as an ecological marvel and as a testament to legislation that preserved the environmentally sensitive area in the nation's most urbanized state. Fun site that has info on NJ Pine Barrens Folklore, History, People, Ghost Towns and more. There's no 'There' there.
Now where have we heard that before?

Get Your Game On!
International Journal of Game Theory is devoted to game theory and its applications. It publishes original research making significant contributions from a methodological, conceptual or mathematical point of view. Indexed/Abstracted in: International Abstracts on Operations Research, Current Contents/ Social & Behavioral Sciences (CC/S & BS), Compumath Citation Index (CMCI), International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, International Current Awareness Services, Journal Contents on Quantitative Methods, Journal of Economic Literature, Mathematical Reviews, Science Abstracts, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Statistical Theory & Method Abstracts, Zentralblatt für Mathematik.

Fractals Help UCLA Researchers Design Antennas for New Wireless Devices
Antennas for the next generation of cellphones and other wireless communications devices may bear a striking resemblance to the Santa Monica Mountains or possibly the California coastline.
That is because UCLA researchers are using fractals — mathematical models of mountains, trees and coastlines — to develop antennas that meet the challenging requirements presented by the more sophisticated technology in new cellphones, automobiles and mobile communications devices. These antennas must be miniature and they must be able to operate at different frequencies, simultaneously.

Books Online, NO US ACCESS
Warning! Restricted Access!
The following books are by authors that have died more than 50 years ago, which places them in the public domain in many countries, particularly those outside the US and Europe. However, they remain copyrighted under United States law, where works copyrighted in 1923 or later can be protected for up to 95 years after publication.
Do NOT download or read these books online if you or your system are in the United States or in another country where copyright protections can extend more than 50 years past an author's death. The author's estate and publishers still retain their legal and moral rights to oversee the work in those countries. (Also, in many European countries, copyrights have recently been extended to last 70 years past the author's death.) Follow this link for more details on copyrights laws of various countries.
Right! You got that? DON'T CLICK ON THESE BOOKS AND DOWNLOAD THEM ! Did you hear us? In fact DON'T READ THIS ARTICLE! Move along! There's nothing to see here!

Ellen Feiss Fan Club: beep beep beep
"It was, like, beep beep beep beep beep beep beep, and then, like, half of my paper was gone. And I was like, nnnn?. . .It's kind of. . .a bummer." The combination of Feiss' characteristic teenage "upspeak", slow, slurred speech, and seemingly bloodshot eyes has sparked much fiery online debate over her sobriety in the ad spot. Several fan sites, and even merchandise such as t-shirts and coffee mugs, devoted to Feiss have sprung up, as have a video remix of the ad, a short movie of her entitled Damn I have the munchies, and takeoffs on the Apple slogan, including "Think Stoned".

E y e s <-> <-> O n l y
Hollywood will turn the comic book Beautiful Killer into an action vehicle for Jessica Alba. The actress is currently following her run as TV's Dark Angel. The picture is based on the single "Beautiful Killer" issue published so far by Black Bull comics.

Cashing in on catastrophe
While rescuers sprang into action following the events of Sept.11, so did Taiwan's enterprising computer game manufacturers
For all the CIA knows, Osama bin Laden may be sipping cocktails in Tahiti. But in the virtual world of cyberspace, he's nowhere but in your crosshairs, thanks to some enterprising software programmers.
On Sept. 12, the managers of INSREA, a Taiwanese game software firm, convened a hasty meeting at their downtown Taipei office to discuss how to make the events of the previous day into a gripping video game.

Enigma Stew: Sometimes people just send a pile of links as their suggestion.
Time Travel, HDR, Jesus, UFOs, Locksmith, Mayo, Perhaps Transparent, Enigma, or just funny? There's a secret message there, you can bet on it!

MIND INSURGENT HANDBOOK Official Field Manual for the Revolution of Reason
For thousands of years, mankind has suffered under the surreptitious tyranny of an alliance among confusion, deception, and ignorance. An inevitable and incognizant confusion results from the self-deceptions that must invariably occur when those with human intelligence live together in groups for any extended period of time; and this confusion and these deceptions continue their universal reign because humans have yet to understand the true nature of his unique mental process, and its inherent vulnerability to the inevitable self-deception born with society. The time has now come for man, through the knowledge of the truth, to quiet the illusory stratagems of his imaginative, but misdirected and thus mischievous mind.

Tempus fugit
Summary: A time traveller leaps exactly 100 years into the future, and discovers that it's a bad idea to bet against technology.
A dapper gentleman from 1902 displaced himself forward in time a hundred years to arrive in my living room. He materialized in a flick, hurled forward through the generations like a toy boat in a pond would be shifted by dropping a heavy rock next to it. In fact, an hour after he arrived he arrived again and then disappeared just as quickly to an hour earlier—evidently a ripple caused as the fabric of time snapped back to fill a vacuum and toss the human sediment around a bit. “When am I?” he asked after he'd checked himself over to make sure he was all then.
“Uh... October 8th, 2002” I said, finishing off a devil dog.

Excellent little ditty about Parallel universes with discussion on Metafilter
Parallel universes
Alternate universes may exist besides our own in some ghostly manner. Various science-fiction series explore parallel universes, but what do serious physicists think? Hugh Everett III's doctoral thesis outlines a controversial theory in which the universe at every instant branches into countless parallel worlds. Physicist Andrei Linde's theory of self-reproducing universes implies that new universes are being created all the time through a budding process. Stephen Hawking's quantum cosmology also suggests the possibility of other universes connected by wormholes. Some scientists feel that the famous photon double slit experiments proves the existence of parallel universes in which a photon from one universe interacts with a photon from another. Black hole theory suggests that black holes may be portals to parallel universes.
Science-fiction stories about parallel universes always delight the mind. Two of my favorite SF novels on parallel universes are Heinlein's Job and Number of the Beast. Several others intrigue me, such as The Neoreality Series, Diaspora, and Parallelities. Science books on the subject include a famous book by David Deutsch.
Do you have any favorite books on parallel universes or parallel realities, fiction or nonfiction?
What do you think? No doubt, scientists and science-fiction authors will continue to explore the concept in the decades to come.

Greens Eggs and LAM? (from The Second-Hand Book-Stall)
The LAM Statement, by Kenneth Grant, 1987. Copied to one of Rovelli's Yahoo Groups files sections...
This work was issued by the O.T.O. [Typhonian] in 1987 c.e., at the time of the Spring Equinox. That was a significant time, in connection with the Time System of the Code of the Eternal, for that is the year and time of year that the Age of Aquarius actually began. In it, we are told about the portrait of LAM, and how it came to be, who LAM is, and Crowley's contactee experiences. It is also stated that it was necessary to issue this publication,
"...to regularize and to examine results achieved by individual members of the O. T. O. who have established contact with the Magical Entity known as Lam. We are therefore founding an Inner Cult of this dikpala for the purpose of amassing precise accounts of such contacts.." -- Part I, Preliminary.
The publication goes on to give the details as to how to practice the exercise. In Section III, is given the reason why the Cult (or dikpala) of Lam was founded at that time:
"The Cult has been founded because very strong intimations have been received by Aossic Aiwass, 718'.' to the effect that the portrait of LAM (the original drawing of which was given by 666'.' to 718'.' under curious circumstances) is the present focus of an extra-terrestrial -- and perhaps trans-plutonic -- Energy with which the OTO is required to communicate at this critical period, for we have now entered the Eighties mentioned in the Book of the Law. It is Our aim to obtain some insight not only into the nature of LAM, but also into the possibilities of using the Egg as an astral space-capsule for travelling to Lam's domain, or for exploring extra-terrestrial spaces in the sense in which OTO Tantric Time-Travellers are exploring the Tunnels of Set in intra-cosmic and chthonian capsules.
So, we are told that the reason is because 1987 was the "Eighties" mentioned in the Book of the Law. Who knows? One thing that is very interesting, is that the idea of creating "an astral space-capsule for travelling to Lam's domain, or for exploring extra-terrestrial spaces..." according to the style of the OTO Tantric Time-Travellers, reminds us of the Incunabula papers. And the Mystery of Ong's Hat events were taking place about the same time. The Incunabula book catalog that circulates on the internet is not a hoax, it actually existed, because one lies in the archives of Borderland Sciences.
All we can say about the LAM Statement, is that we may not have belonged to one such Order, earthly-wise, but something definitely did happen, in 1990-1992, which involved our communion with the very same entity. And, when we started getting creative with the computer, one of our earliest pieces of art ended up becoming Father_ACME. That graphic has a life of its own, and whenever we try to modify it, to get the dark shadows cleared up a bit, fix parts of the face, add the top to the head that is cut off a bit, we never prevail, because this is the picture that is intended to be seen. Even if we apply thousands of Photoshop effects to it, that is fine. But change its shape, fix it up a bit, no dice.
Ian Blake wrote a commentary to the LAM Statement that was fairly comprehensive. It appeared in a small periodical known as The Excluded Middle.

Top secret stealth jet revealed
A formerly top secret, bat-winged stealth jet has taken the aviation world by surprise, after a low key unveiling in St Louis, Missouri.
It may look like it flew straight off the screen of a sci-fi movie, but the Bird of Prey is no flight of fancy - it could translate into serious business for its makers, aerospace giant Boeing.
"Here we have an example of a classic 'black' programme: an aircraft which has been built and flight tested for a number of years - and no one outside the programme knew about it," says Nick Cook, aerospace consultant to Janes Defence Weekly. Other highly classified aircraft that have ultimately been revealed included the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes and the B-2 stealth bomber.

Abbie Hoffman's Lost Sequel to "Steal This Book"
In one of Hoffman's last interviews (published in Pranks! from RE/Search Publications (1987)), Andrea Juno asked him: "Have you ever considered writing a sequel to Steal This Book?" He replied:
I did--it was 500 pages long. I submitted it to a publisher who went bankrupt and lost it--the only copy. I was totally heartbroken because it was the definitive work on counterfeiting, jewel smuggling--you name it. It's what people think Steal This Book is.
In the introduction to Steal This Book, Hoffman gave some hints about what else could've been in the lost sequel:
Watch for a special edition called Steal This White House, complete with blueprints of underground passages, methods of jamming the communications network, and a detailed map of the celebrated room where according to Tricia Nixon, "Daddy loves to listen to Mantovanni records, turn up the air conditioner full blast, sit by the fireplace, gaze out the window to the Washington Monument and meditate on those difficult problems that face all the peoples of this world." Via MemoryHole

Is it just us or does anyone else remember when the tin-foil helmet crew was more fun? Back in the "good old days" several people showed a tremendous amount of tenacity in their method of distribution and even a sly, subtle humor in the content of their screeds. It is true that a few of those people fell victim to the trap of “falling for your own hype” but some of us remember when this whole thing had to do with pushing the envelope on human potential and unlearning the ingrained behavior patterns that are layered upon us, even before birth. Maybe the web has taught us a thing or two about people’s actual ability to handle responsibility. Maybe this whole Internet experiment was a training wheeled trail run in a relatively safe, controlled, minimal impact environment. How are we doing?

You have one new message, from alienbeings@farfaraway
What's the best way to look for signs of intelligent extraterrestrials? You're probably thinking about giant radio dishes scanning the sky, and scientists who spend months sifting the data for meaningful signals. But Allen Tough has a much more direct approach: put up a website and invite aliens to e-mail you.

Building Emotional Machines
What is an emotional machine? Usually this term is applied to a machine-soft- or hardware-that is able to recognize, express and perhaps even 'have' emotions [1]. The objective of these machines is to better understand their user and model their behavior accordingly, in order to provide a smoother and more intuitive interaction. Think, for instance, of a computer that detects that you are nervous and actively starts providing tips on how to perform the task at hand. Or the robot that knows you are tired, and brings you a bottle of beer as soon as you sit on the couch. (But don't think of the Microsoft paper clip).

Liquid Space: I'm Swimming in the Void, Just Swimming in the Void...
IS SPACE just space? Or is it filled with some sort of mysterious, intangible substance? The ancient Greeks believed so, and so did scientists in the 19th century. Yet by the early part of the 20th century, the idea had been discredited and seemed to have gone for good.
Now, however, quantum physics is casting new light on this murky subject. Some of the ideas that fell from favour are creeping back into modern thought, giving rise to the notion of a quantum ether.
This surprising revival is affording new insights into the nature of motion through space, the deep interconnectedness of the Universe, and the possibility of time travel. Ingenious new experiments may even allow us to detect the quantum ether in the lab, or harness it for technological purposes.
If so, we'll have answered a question that has troubled philosophers and scientists for millennia. In the 5th century BC, Leucippus and Democritus concluded that the physical universe was made of tiny particles-atoms-moving in a void. Impossible, countered the followers of Parmenides. A void implies nothingness, and if two atoms were separated by nothing, then they would not be separated at all, they would be touching. So space cannot exist unless it is filled with something, a substance they called the plenum.
If the plenum exists, it must be quite unlike normal matter. For example, Isaac Newton's laws of motion state that a body moving through empty space with no forces acting on it will go on moving in the same way. So the plenum cannot exert a frictional drag-indeed, if it did, the Earth would slow down in its orbit and spiral in towards the Sun.