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Saturday, January 31, 2004
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From the Edge of America: Le Show
Le Show is now in its nineteenth year of disservice. It's heard on radio stations all over America (except for Washington and Boston--are they hip or what?). I'm proud to say that, since 9/11/01, absolutely nothing about Le Show has changed, except that I've had to speed up work on my John Ashcroft characterization. As have we all.
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YAWN!
New YAWN is on-line.
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Disinformation: The Original Captain Trips
Before Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band... before Timothy Leary... before Ken Kesey's band of Merry Pranksters and their Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests... before the dawn of the Grateful Dead, there was Alfred M. Hubbard: the Original Captain Trips.
You will not read about him in the history books. He left no diary, nor chatty relatives to memorialize him in print. And if a cadre of associates had not recently agreed to open its files, Captain Alfred M. Hubbard might exist in death as he did in life--a man of mirrors and shadows, revealing himself to even his closest friends only on a need-to-know basis.
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Are aliens hiding their messages?
In an article to appear on May 10, the New Scientist carries a fascinating answer to the problem of why we never -- yet -- caught any signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Here is a link to a preview of this article.Two physicists have come up with an intriguing solution. They suggest a way in which aliens could send messages to each other across space that not only disguises their locations but also makes it impossible for a casual observer to even distinguish the messages from background noise. Messages sent by this method could be criss-crossing our Galaxy without us ever knowing.
Check this column for more comments, including how it is possible and what would be a potential usage for such a technique.Paul Shuch, director of the SETI League in New Jersey, points out that being able to disguise a sender's location would be extremely useful for secure military communications here on Earth. "In a few decades, when it's declassified, we may well find that such a technique is already in use." |
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More uses for RFID tags
From other articles:
- The ePC ("electronic product code") numbering system will be used to identify and track every product produced on the planet (unlike the UPC, it assigns a unique number to every single item).
- Items will report when they are stolen and their smart tags will serve as a homing device toward their exact location.
- The European Central Bank will embed RFID tags in Euro bank notes by 2005, allowing money to carry its own history by recording information about where it has been, thus giving governments and law enforcement agencies a means to literally "follow the money" in every transaction.
- Shopping carts will automatically bill consumer accounts (cards would no longer be needed to link purchases to individuals).
- Refrigerators will report their contents to the supermarket for re-ordering.
- Interactive televisions will select commercials based on the contents of a home's refrigerator.
- Auto-IDs embedded in pills will allow doctors to remotely monitor patient compliance with prescriptions.
- Police could scan the contents of a car's trunk without needing to open it.
Good news: Some RFID tags may come with a "kill switch".
- Your washing machine will inform you that you've mixed the whites with the colors.
- The "Counter Intelligence Project": your kitchen counter will speak to you with baking instructions...will tell you when there's enough nuts in the bowl.
- Grocery stores will flash ads on wall-sized screens based on your spending patterns, just like in Minority Report.
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Artificial sperm
Researchers are very close to creating sperm outside of the body for the first time. The feat has already been achieved with eggs. Both were created using stem cells from mouse embryos, but experts see no reason why the technique would not work with human embryonic stem cells, too.
Among the implications: gay men could create their own eggs and sperm, and a man could fertilise his own egg.
Other medical news...
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Electronic paper
Scientists have developed an ultra-thin, flexible electronic display that they believe will be the forerunner of the much-vaunted e-newspaper.
The black and white display is less than 0.3 millimetres thick, is viewable from almost any angle and can be bent to a wide angle. It can even survive after being rolled into a cylinder just four millimetres wide although - unlike paper - it cannot be folded.
The device works thanks to a conductive layer carrying millions of tiny capsules of black or white pigment. The display can be refreshed in 0.25th of a second -- too slow for a video display but fine for reading.
The display could be used in wearable computer screens, electronic newspapers and smart identity cards.
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DNA ink pens
A Japanese company is planning to produce a pen that would allow individuals to sign contracts or wills with ink containing their DNA information to prevent forgery.
DNA taken from a client would be used to make "synthetic DNA", which carries DNA sequences particular to the person but not information about any diseases he or she might have. The synthetic DNA is mixed with light-reflecting pigments to make the special ink.
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Dr Who and the Tardigrades
Completely compelling and wierd site devoted to tardigrades, (or "water bears" due to their funny shapes and "claws") microscopic critters who are so unusual they have a phylum of thier own and according to maker of the site, seem to have a certain "joi de vivre"....
Be sure to look at the "swimming water bear" clip- cute!
via Geisha Asobi Blog
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The incredible stubborn-mindedness of people who evangelize monotheistic religions never fails to amaze me. I ran across this astoundingly non-logical preacher, Rev. Dr. Robert Donaldson, while doing cursory digging to research some other rant I was punching out. What incredibly simple answers to the understanding of reality he gives us.
Recently in my travels, I found a man who made this proclamation. Quoth he: "It is ONLY YOUR PRESUPPOSITION that the statements in the Bible are true, that each pronouncement in it is correct. NO RELIGION is sure. We do not know."
In fact, there is a myriad of mistake in this statement.
(1) The statement is a presupposition itself, for it assumes that the only God has not spoken.
(2) To imagine that the Being of infinite wisdom and personal character is to be mixed like orchids with ageing cars, with man, is the height and very extravaganza of irrationality.
You conclude that his presupposition and your presupposition are both presuppositions. And your point is? Your slip is showing: it slips beneath the limbo-line of logic. Instead of answering to the idea that the idea of Biblical proof is a presupposition, you accuse the unbeliever of himself presupposing - thus saying absolutely nothing, really. (And what's with this "orchids and ageing cars" line? That totally came from out of nowhere.)
Well, Donaldson...what can I say. You do your thing, I do mine. You answer to the divinities that speak to you, and I answer to mine, or my lack of same, depending on what perceptual framework I am hanging my reality upon on at any given time. As long as we recognize each other's right to cognitive liberty and freedom of belief, we'll be just fine. My religion isn't exactly completely sensible either: it's just that I don't go around evangelizing it all over the place.
Those who promote the writings of the Judeochristian bible - original and sequel alike - do. Sadly, they're very good at it, a lot of the time - even though the Bible is to be full of notions that I've come to look upon as purposeless, contentious, outmoded thinking. One of the most central of these notions is its stalwart insistence upon its own absolute truth. I continue to see zealous adherents of Christianity - a religion which has as its centerpiece a symbolic representations of an act of torture by human beings upon a human being who manifests divinity - telling its cautious believers, unbelievers and disbelievers of the world that THEY ARE ALL WRONG, PERIOD, and that CHRISTIANITY is UNWRONG.
I am at turns an atheist, an agnostic and a believer in...a collection of powers invested with divinity which I've decided are the closest I can come to being "God" -and also simultaneously "Gods", since there is a Monad, a Dyad and a Triad involved. The Monad is a hyperintelligent, complex meta-ness defined as the sum total of the interaction of all vibrations. This system encompasses all the diverse visions of God you've ever known or not known; each culture puts its own face upon It, but mine has taken them off like masks. I sought to purge gender and other human personification from It, and I have given It no other assigned form. I figure: if It can create form from void, it seems that It might just be a bit beyond possessing any form Itself. It did not "create the universe" as much as It "IS creating the universe" in a quasi-quantum, non-chronolinear context, with the Beginning and End always happening somewhere and somewhen, instead of their merely existing as two points on either end of a long rope stretched through the millennia.
I never felt that Monad would "think" or "feel" with any logic or emotion that a human being would have access to...the idea that "God loves me" has always struck me as wishful thinking. Who knows. Maybe It does tend towards concern for those of Its creations which are the most personally concerned for It, but more often It seems to dispense favour or disfavour on the basis of madly random whims of circumstance.
On another level, one I have given the label of autogenic reality, it is one's individual self that is Creator - the world arises from that which has been sensed and processed by one's brain; in this reality, something does not become "real" unless you know of its existence, by either sensing it yourself, or inferring its reality from evidence correlating to stored memories. This is the reality at which the input-reciever (yourself) is placed at the center of all things, but not as an omnipotence: you cannot delete the existence of something by "unthinking" it, though you can direct your mind to highlight those perceptions which you find useful, or choose to marginalize the "realness" of other perceptions - such as, perhaps, the notion that war is a necessary part of the development of a civilization - on the grounds that they're unuseful or harmful to life.
Since the autogenic level of reality does not provide a proven source for all that the senses tell one about what ostensibly exists out there - since it is essentially unscientific, lacking the "control group" element of the input of minds other than one's own - I don't think of such hyper-subjectivism as capital-T "Truth", but as an incomplete, albeit relevant, part of the whole. But I also think the same about consensus reality which calls something "real" if two or more other people agree with you about it.
If there IS anything like purely objective, capital-T "Truth", it would be something like a layering and intermeshing of these separate levels of reality. But most people just can't wrap their minds around any sort of worldview involving as much contradiction as this; they want their beliefs to be as undifficult and straightforward as possible. While it's their right to have them be that way, it is unfortunate that the more incontrovertibly simplistic a worldview is, the more likely it seems to be that the ones espousing it will feel some compelling compunction to try to get other people to have the same beliefs, too.
Why? Perhaps the more people invest belief in the reality of a thing, the more real the thing becomes, rather like Neil Gaiman's American Gods, who lose their very substantiality when no one thinks of them. The more True Believers you have in any given environment, the more likely it will be that the unbelievers will change their beliefs to accommodate them...they'll do it out of convenience, or because they're given no choice, or simply because when everyone around you says "It is so!" and you're the only one saying "It is not so!", you start feeling unsane, broken, and less able to function with your own personal beliefs, even though they may seem so much more sensible and real to YOU. Before you know it, you either end up adopting the beliefs of those living around you, or put on a reasonable mimicry act of doing so - or, if you don't, you become a social hermit, or even a pariah. Some people are wired to handle aloneness better than others. Some cannot handle it at all. I wonder sometimes about all the lost ideas, perceptions, inventions, notions...all the creations of the mind that has been discarded because they were just too complicated and complex for the ones with stripped-down, all-or-nothing worldviews to grasp.
Donaldson never thinks of these things, of course:
As to His existence...it is sure; and demonstrated. As to His speech, it is a pre-condition of ANY truth about ANYTHING. To approach Him, you may indeed use reason, and find as we have shown, that it demonstrates His existence, speech and requirements; and when this is found, and the Bible with its extrinsic and scientific verification is found, then reason is fulfilled. The VALIDITY is demonstrated in this, that the RESULT of reason is the location of that self-attesting, constantly verified word of the Lord, and through this, next, the enablement to call upon and perhaps find the Lord of the word, who likewise is self-attesting and constantly self-verifying; and since this is shown by reason, then the validity of this reason is retrospectively confirmed.
It's true because it's true. God exists, Just Because He Said So. I wonder how it feels to just never have to think about anything, or prove your belief is believable by common standards to which beliefs in consensus reality are usually held. I dunno, Donaldson. I might feel slightly less skeptical if I could hear and see your God guy dictating all those florid stories and pithy proverbs in the Bible, instead of God getting some of His creations - who are all supposedly born impure and screwed up to begin with, to take dictation for Him. All my senses and logic tell me is that, simply enough, some people insisted that they heard God, and wrote what He said in some books that became - after a lot of translations and mistranslations which tweaked the meanings up, down and sideways - The Bible.
If I were to have a convo with Monad and transcribe this, it would get no authenticity points from these folks, since the Godspeakers of old wired a no-revisions clause into their transcription. Result: their idea of God ended up going down in history instead of up in flames when the next good-sounding idea came along.
If there really were an anthropomorphic God, I'd hedge a bet that He'd find such a narrow identity as the die-hard Christians assigned to Him to be something of a putdown: it implies an awfully small God-concept. Not much room there - especially for something as wide and expansive as any Supreme Being worth His, Her or Its salt ought to be.
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Peep Show Stories
I am very honored to have been invited by Mr. Matheny to blog on this most enlightening and stimulating site. I regret that I have not posted earlier, but I guess I felt a little intimidated. I hate to self-promote on my first post, but...I just started a new blog and I hope you will check it out. The site is called Peep Show Stories, wherein I write about my experiences as a peep show girl at a peep show in Seattle, WA. If you should venture to try it out, I must warn you that the first story is not for the faint of heart. Enjoy!
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SARS Report of Cases in the United States
Information in this table will be updated Monday through Friday. |
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Drug-test spiders weave their way home
A SPIDER'S skill at spinning its web is so obviously affected when it is under the influence of drugs that Nasa scientists believe the creature could help them to test the effects of chemicals.
Different drugs alter the architecture of the web spun by a house spider in various ways, according to research reported today in New Scientist.
Spiders on marijuana are too laid back to finish the job, while those dosed with the sedative chloral hydrate drop off before they can lay down more than a few silky filaments. On an "upper", such as the amphetamine benzedrine, the spider demonstrates great gusto but not much planning, leaving large holes in the structure. Caffeine jitters turn webs into a haphazard affair.
The deformity in the web is related to the toxicity and dose of the chemical. Using a computer program, a Nasa team at the Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama has analysed the alterations in the webs and thinks it will be possible to quantify these effects to measure toxicity.
The spider could then offer an eight-legged alternative to testing on mammals. The team has found that one of the most telling measures of toxicity is a decrease in the numbers of completed sides in the cells within a web. The greater the toxicity, the more sides that the spider fails to complete. |
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Kris Kuksi
I just met Kris Kuksi- a Fantastic/Visionary painter who was just in Seattle. His work blew me away for it's unbelievable detail and imagination, by turns spiritually uplifting and then very dark. Check out his awesome site (some parts are still being built-but the rest is intense!)
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Link Dump
"Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire." -Teilhard de Chardin
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=65-1570752486-1
Gaian Politics
http://www.earthlight.org/2002/essay47_peters.html
Beyond a Culture of Fear
http://www.earthlight.org/2002/essay47_deboer.html
CIA: Syria Harboring More Than 15 Million Known Arabs
http://www.theonion.com/onion3916/syria_harboring.html
Pigs at the Trough
http://www.ariannaonline.com/books/pigs_intro.html
Arianna Huffington says we can't depend on leadership from Washington. It's time to turn to the leader in the mirror.
http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/
The View from Wonderland
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/042503Partridge/042503partridge.html
A Prayer For George Dubya
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/04/16/notes041603.DTL
Ashcroft Rejected by Newly Created Bride of Ashcroft
http://www.theonion.com/onion3916/ashcroft_rejected.html
Rediscovering Fire
http://www.earthlight.org/essay39_king.html
The Universe Story
by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0062508350-0
The Shamanic Response: As a marginal figure standing outside secular society, the shaman is in the position to question the predominant moral authority. This is required in this time of moral vacuum in the White House and rampant political and corporate greed.
http://www.earthlight.org/2002/essay46_deboer.html
The Non-Profit Universe: The primordial fire that sparked millions of galaxies is the same fire that sparks the human creative impulse.
http://www.earthlight.org/2002/essay46_spring.html
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The Interplanetary Internet
On the freezing surface of Mars, a sensor takes readings of the thin atmosphere and transmits the data to an automated rover, which relays the information to an orbiting satellite. From there, the data packets are sent to an approaching research ship, where astronauts study the readings and send their findings back to Earth, via e-mail.
The Interplanetary Internet (IPN) would form a backbone connecting a series of hubs on or around planets, ships, and at other points in space. These hubs would provide high-capacity, high-availability Internet traffic over distances that could stretch up to hundreds of millions of miles.
IPN researchers have already assigned Internet addresses to all the planets, satellites, and spacecraft in our solar system. Scientists are hoping to launch a series of IPN-equipped satellites, possibly as soon as 2005.
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Meet "His Holiness" Rael
J. Preston, The Sunday Telegraph -- Canadian Claude Rael runs a bizarre sect that claims to have cloned three human babies. He also says he's met Jesus and has been visited by green spacemen.
It's no easy business getting to see Rael...For a start, his headquarters, a down-at-heel theme park called UFOland, are out in the desolate, snow-covered flatlands of Quebec, far away from anything apart from a pig farm. The main condition - among several rules he lays down for our meeting is that I should address him throughout as Your Holiness Rael. Questions must be submitted a week in advance, and he reserves the right to leave at any time if he doesn't like the way things are going, or if anyone should display "an arrogant, disrespectful or offensive attitude".
He has a large medallion around his neck and his dark, thinning hair is pulled up into a topknot.
"Your Holiness," I say, "it's a great pleasure to meet you..." more
Also see: more Raelian stories from The Ross Institute
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Monday, January 05, 2004
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 Ong's Hat: The Beginning |
| "I got really into this "time-travel cult" called Ong's Hat when a computer-game programmer I know told me she was contacted by a physics scholar who said that a bunch of her recent games reflected their canon. This dude told my friend that someone from Ong's Hat had befriended her and inspired her to create certain games without her realizing it. Whoa, right?" - Jane Magazine |
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