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Musica Manifesto
Who is that woman in the mask?
Why it's none other than one of the most spectacular and talented people on the planet, Caution Girl, aka mag/tif, aka Magdalen (all the flava and spice of Madonna with twice the Endarchy ), aka Tiffany Lee Brown. The rumors that years ago a young Ms. Brown may have been the inspiration for the character Teofila may indeed be true but then again, we may never know. During the last decade, the polymath Ms. Brown has stretched her artistic muscles in many directions ranging from her writing, editorial prowess, music, performance art and much more. If you're looking for the newest in underground music and what-nots then check out her blog, magdalen sez.
Tif recently told us,"i've actually been playing out a lot in Portland and at Burning Man under the name Passiflora. Collaborators include Tokage (Joshua Camozzi Milligan from Spacefairy on guitar, theremin, electronics), Rudement (illbient live PA), and Dorian (vocalist/guitarist of Sumerland). FYI, my favourite instruments right now are Optigan, Bulbul Tarang, and recycled parchment paper. oh, and voice too.

Mike Patton
In a classic case of endurance, Mike Patton has turned his music around, quietly phasing out the bloated and obsolete Faith No More and replacing it with the artier, less predictable rock of Mr. Bungle, and then on to a series of solo projects that reflect a wild assortment of clashing styles, contradictory goals, and occasionally spectacular results. Overwhlemed by the choices offered by Mr. Patton's prolific output? Ok, we reccomend these four to get started: Adult Themes for Voice, Fantomas, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Pranzo Oltranzista. You may also want to sample Tzadik peers John Zorn and Chaos Composer Elliott Sharp.

Doris Martini
The fact that it's an audiozine (possibly the first of its kind), in which the listener gets an eclectic mix of local bands, reviews of other subculture zines and Onion-inspired news via a CD, makes the experience all the more enjoyable. Released on a monthly basis, Doris Martini offers local bands of all persuasions (the November/December issue includes material by the Huxtables, Craig's Brother and Last Friday's Generation) a chance to be heard on a larger scale. The production work is top-notch and is the equivalent of one of those posh music and pop culture magazines found on snooty books store magazine racks. It's unclear if this is still in print or not but it's worth tracking down the many issues still out there.

Publishing’s Feral Child: Adam Parfrey sheds light on the dark sides of life.
Not many book publishers have been lauded as "equal parts P.T. Barnum, Rod Serling and Hegel," but that’s how Salon glowingly characterized Adam Parfrey, the force behind the eccentric Los Angeles-based publishing concern known as Feral House. ("Feral House" because, as its slogan says, it "refuses to be domesticated.") Parfrey founded the company a dozen years ago and has carved out a comfortable market niche by specializing in strange and often uncomfortable material. Feral House’s stock in trade includes journalistic and scholarly looks at serial killers, Satanists, and conspiracy theory.

Recreational mathematics and fractal graphics
A nice Metafilter thread about recreational mathematics. Lots of nice links.

The Voynich Manuscript
The Voynich manuscript is by far the most mysterious of all texts. It is seven by ten inches in size, and about 200 pages long. It is made of soft, light-brown vellum. It is written in a flowing cursive script in alphabet that has never been seen elsewhere. Nobody knows what it means. During World War II some of the top military code-breakers in America tried to decipher it, but failed. A professor at the University of Pennsylvania seems to have gone insane trying to figure it out. Though the manuscript was found in Italy, statistical analyses show the text is completely different in character from any European language. Studying the Voynich can lead you in many wonderous directions. Have fun!

F is for Fake (and FUNNY!)
Remember the Alan Sokal hoax paper, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", which the physicist managed to get a nonsense essay into a refereed journal of cultural studies? Well, according to the kids on Usenet, two French hoaxers have managed to get one back for the cult.studs. The brothers Bogdanov have succeeded in publishing at least three hoax papers in published physics journals, with titles like "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime". They're all nonsense, it turns out - and rumour has it they even managed to get a couple of Ph.D's out of it. I'm a bit wary of being hoaxed by a hoax, but something funny is going on here. (Via bb - via Robot Wisdom- via rec.arts.books)
The perfect dessert for this tasty entree is here at Mememachinego! Then pour yourself a cup of coffee and browse the library.

Buffy the Java Hacker?
Reader Review- This textbook for either an advanced data structures course or a first-year graduate course in algorithm analysis describes data structures. Methods of organizing large amounts of data and algorithm analysis and the estimation of the running time of algorithms. Sarah includes chapters on trees, hash tables, priority queues, sorting, the disjoint set algorithm, graph algorithms, algorithm design techniques, amortized analysis, and search tree algorithms, the -d tree and the pairing heap. Sarah is also totally hot!

Vatican to develop new "Holy See Plus Plus" programming language
The Vatican has enlisted Hewlett-Packard in its efforts to improve online access to the Apostolic Library. Since February 2001, HP has been providing the Vatican with hardware, equipment support and Web consultancy services necessary to allow faster access to the Vatican Library site and facilitate navigation of its vast bibliographic database. The Apostolic Vatican Library, founded by Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), houses some 1.6 million antique and modern printed volumes. It also contains 8,300 incunabula (books printed before 1501, of which 65 are printed on vellum), 150,000 manuscript and records volumes, 300,000 coins and medals, and more than 100,000 prints.

National Science Foundation to Sell Naming Rights to Elements
Citing a need to develop new revenue sources for large-scale scientific projects like the superconducting semicollider and a manned mission to Mars, the National Science Foundation today announced that it will begin to sell naming rights to the elements of the Periodic Table, which will hereafter be referred to as the Nokia Periodic Table of the Elements.
The naming rights for the first element (formerly known as hydrogen) were sold to the ExxonMobil Corporation for an amount rumored to be in excess of $1.7 billion. The new element, Exxonmobilium (EX), has an atomic weight of 1 and is the most plentiful element in the universe.

WOLF HUNTING from Ten Thousand Monkeys
The last wolf in France (before now) was killed, if I am not mistaken, by the Dauphin, the son of king Louis XIV, Louis Quatorze. So that would put it roughly 300 years ago, maybe more. Sorry, I was never good at dates. But this would have been back in the Three Musketeers swing of things. Swords skinging. Boots clomping. Pistols and big hats with plumes bobbing.
The last French ancestor in my family was run out of the country a little bit before the last wolf, by the same Louis.
I don't hold it against Louis. He was doing his job. But I remember asking some French kids who were playing with Tarot cards if Louis had been wrong, if my ancestor had been right. They laughed, and then they said, "OK, was Walter's ancestor right? Does Walter have a right to that land?" Then they put down the cards one by one, and their eyes got big.
It was funny. I do feel at home here. But those are just cards. - Walter Agnew Moore II

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (Click on the picture to the right to enlarge)
Renowned writer Octavio Paz observes that, undaunted by death, the Mexican has no qualms about getting up close and personal with death, noting that he "...chases after it, mocks it, courts it, hugs it, sleeps with it; it is his favorite plaything and his most lasting love."
November 1, All Saints Day, and November 2, All Souls Day are marked throughout Mexico by a plethora of intriguing customs that vary widely according to the ethnic roots of each region. Common to all, however, are colorful adornments and lively reunions at family burial plots, the preparation of special foods, offerings laid out for the departed on commemorative altars and religious rites that are likely to include noisy fireworks.
In most localities November 1 is set aside for remembrance of deceased infants and children, often referred to as angelitos (little angels). Those who have died as adults are honored November 2.

Incunabula by RICHARD CALDER
"...I was an Incunabulum... It was the 55th century. Mankind was extricating itself from the smother and obscurity of the last 4,000 years by discarding its grimoires in favour of those creatures whose existence provided a link with the all-but-forgotten past. Creatures like myself. Living books that had survived the corruptions -- both psychic and material -- of the interregnum. Books treasured, but feared almost as much as the mutant clans of rat, cat, shark, bear and insect people that had overrun the Earth in the days of the perverse and which, just beyond the marge of living memory, had been confined to the Netherworld, where they had passed from manifest danger into legend..."

Researchers transmit sense of touch, feel fine
The world got a little smaller Tuesday after scientists reached around the globe via the Internet and touched.
Or rather, the scientists -- in London, Boston and Los Angeles -- picked up a virtual cube on a computer screen at the same time and pushed it around. The scientists, holding robotic arms, could feel the force being exerted by the others as well as the texture of the cube.
Though computers have been able to transmit such sensations in close quarters for several years, the distance between the scientists was a new milestone that they hope will eventually lead to new collaborative applications in telemedicine, education and art.

lycanthrope
The Lycanthrope site is maintained by a non-profitmaking coalition of writers, artists, programmers, poets, researchers, and other folk with an interest in lycanthropes. For our purposes, we take a fairly broad definition of the term 'lycanthropy'. While some definitions apply specifically to wolves, in our book (that's the dictionary on the site admin's desk by the way) lycanthropy applies to someone who changes, physically, spiritually, mentally or otherwise into any animal.

A Brief History of Hallowe'en
October 31st, commonly called Hallowe'en, is associated with many customs, some of them mysterious, some light-hearted, some of them downright odd. Why do we bob for apples, carve pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, and tell ghost stories on this night? Why do children go door-to-door asking for candy, dressed in fantastical costumes? How is Hallowe'en connected to All Soul's Day, celebrated by some Christian denominations on November 1st? And what is the significance of this holiday for modern-day Witches?

Left Behind
Requires REAL
Novelist Tim Lahaye is the co-author of the popular Left Behind series. The books are apocalyptic Christian thrillers. The tenth and latest book is The Remnant, which debuted at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Lahaye is also the former co-chairman of Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, was on the original board of directors of the Moral Majority and was an organizer of the Council for National Policy which has been called "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of."
Journalist Gershom Gorenberg is an associate editor and columnist for The Jerusalem Report and a regular contributor to The New Republic. He's the author of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount.
We highly reccomend that you listen to both of these inerviews. Be prepared to crap your pants as it becomes apparent what's really going on here.

AUTOMATIC HORRORSCOPE
Hmmmmmmm... :D

gaianxaos
Welcome to a newly launched online interdimensional portal. This sacred space has been created so that the thoughts and ideas within the various projects can be shared freely amongst the global online community. The concepts which are explored within this site are intended as serve as gateways into the world of infinity, a world beyond words, definitions, cultural progamming, and spatial-temporal preconceptions. At this point, the site consists of thirteen capters, each lending a unique vantage point into the mysteries of chaos, conscioussness, and higher dimensions.

Start-ups duel big guns on wireless chip frontier
In the not-too-distant future, a single box in your home will be able to send different cable channels and Web sites to multiple screens over a wireless network. Your car will eventually be able to download maps, MP3 music files and detailed traffic reports as you drive by specified "info-fueling'" stations.

A Fibonacci Fountain
Lake Fibonacci is a recently created reservoir at the Maryland Science and Technology Center, bordered by Curie Drive, Science Drive, and Melford Boulevard. The lake's remarkable centerpiece is a massive, yet elegant fountain that spurts water as high as 36 feet into the air. The fountain's design embodies an intimate link between Fibonacci numbers and an irrational number known as the golden ratio, (1 + sqrt[5])/2, or 1.6180339887. . . . Ratios of successive terms of the Fibonacci sequence get closer and closer to the golden ratio. For example, the ratio 55/34 is 1.617647. . ., and the next ratio, 89/55, is 1.6181818. . ., and so on. Successive ratios alternate in overshooting and undershooting the golden ratio by decreasing amounts.

The Godfathers of Fringe Science Cool
The Journal of Borderland Research
Borderland Sciences' official quarterly publication originated as Meade Layne's Round Robin in 1945, and was changed to The Journal of Borderland Research in 1959. The Journal of Borderland Research is an information resource for scholars and researchers on the frontiers of science and awareness.
"We have actually touched the Borderland where Matter and Force seem to merge into one another, the shadowy realm between the Known and Unknown ... I venture to think that the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in this Borderland, and even beyond; here, it seems to me, lie Ultimate Realities, subtle, far-reaching, wonderful." – Sir William Crookes, 1879

Keelynet
Vanguard Sciences (sponsor of KeelyNet) was organized in December of 1986 in Dallas, Texas as an alternative means of communication with regard to the more science-based relationships of metaphysics and the paranormal. Kay West suggested the name (Vanguard) after much deliberation among a group of friends meeting at Ron and Kays house. The spelling was at one time Vangard, originally intended to prevent any collision with other VangUards (with a U). (Since 1995, we have changed to Vanguard.) Our original intent was to present public presentations in the form of lectures and workshops, perform basic research and practical development in various scientific and pseudo-scientific disciplines and provide regular meetings for anyone seeking to be actively involved in the study of the more unusual aspects of science.

BABEL
What is it? If you have to ask, you clearly don't get it. Requires Shockwave.