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Yellowstone has been on many people's minds lately, since it's been getting a bit uppity. This is a concern because Yellowstone is not only the largest volcano on the planet, but it's long overdue. Yellowstone tends to erupt every 20,000 years with the force roughly equivalent to Mt. Pinatubo. It's been 70,000 years since this has happened. However, every 600,000 years she really lets go, and explodes with enough force to destroy mountain ranges and blanket the entire planet with ash. It's been 640,000 years since that happened last.

Volcanoes often get quiet for a long time before a big blowup.

I'd been seeing many reports of increased activity in Yellowstone on the net for a while now, but it's always hard to know how much faith to put in these kinds of reports.

Yesterday, I got an email from one of my oldest and most reliable friends. He is a long-haul truck driver, and frequently drives through the area. I thought his report was interesting enough to post here, because it's the only first hand layman report that I know is trustworthy. Here's what he had to say:

The last couple days I've been running around the northwest perimeter of Yellowstone and I'm noticing some really wierd animal behavior. Seems like everyone's on the run.

Now ordinarily, I don't hit animals in the road -- I tell them I'm coming
through and urge them to leave the roadway, and they do. Quite often, I see them standing on the shoulder, and they make eye contact as I go by and say hello. But these last two days, it's as if they can't hear me. And they all seem really freaked out.

Last night I probably ran over five or six rabbits and had many more near misses. It was like they were flinging themselves under my truck. And the field mice -- I can't even count how many field mice I ran over. Rabbits and mice, are often random but I also very nearly hit an owl and a crow -- those guys are usually very alert and ordinarily I never need to brake for them.

And then tonight, I saw a fox sitting on the shoulder watching me pass (very wierd, since the foxes usually don't pay any attention to traffic, they just cross and go on their way), and later, I saw another fox running across the median into oncoming traffic. I told him to stop, but he just kept running straight into it. An hour or so later, three deer ran right into me...there was no time to react, it wasn't like they were trying to cross and screwed up the timing, but more like they wanted to be hit! [My dog] is with me and she's been much more than typically stressed these last couple days -- normally, she has a pretty nervous disposition, but lately, she won't even get out of the truck, she just cowers and shakes on the floor whenever I open the door for her to get out.

I can only speculate on causes, but effects are undeniable: I almost never hit animals, because I tell them I'm coming, but these last two days, they've been throwing themselves under my wheels almost as if they wanted to die...

This type of animal behavior is very common shortly before volcanic eruptions. Is Yellowstone about to blow? It could be.

Here's a report that appeared in a local paper

Here's other man-in-the-street reports that corroborate what my friend said

Breaking News: The largest geyser in the world has erupted unexpectedly again.

Could this be "it"?

Analysis of DNA samples from patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related illnesses suggests that these neuropsychiatric disorders affecting mood and behavior are associated with an uncommon mutant, malfunctioning gene that leads to faulty transporter function and regulation. Norio Ozaki, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the collaborative study explain their findings in the October 23 Molecular Psychiatry.

Also see: PLAYING THE FUTURE: WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM DIGITAL KIDS by Douglas Rushkoff

via techno§hamanic

Graves robbed by Dumbya's grandpappy Prescott W. Bush.

The First Web Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Works


First Web Folio edition is currently composed of all Shakespeare's plays—poems will join them eventually—and a search engine. First posted 4/17/00, in anticipation of Shakespeare's 436th birthday.
Presented in First Folio order, to the play of your choice. You can also scroll to the bottom of each page to machine translate a scene to one of the major European languages. Translation quality is not guaranteed - and for long scenes it won't be complete - but at least it should be fairly literal.

John Dee: MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA ('THE HIEROGLYPHIC MONAD')


This is John Dee's enigmatic treatise on symbolic language. Although published in 1564 at age 37, he considered it valuable throughout his life. The Monas is a highly esoteric work. In it he claims himself in possession of the most secret mysteries. He wrote it in twelve days while apparently in a peak (mystical) state: “[I am] the pen merely of [God] Whose Spirit, quickly writing these things through me, I wish and I hope to be.” He claims it will revolutionize astronomy, alchemy, mathematics, linguistics, mechanics, music, optics, magic, and adeptship.
from “Twilit Grotto—Esoteric Archives”

The New Atlantis:
This is in Adobe Acrobat Reader(PDF) format



The New Atlantis, 1627, is essentially a utopia, in which Bacon outlines an ideal state. It has sometimes been interpreted as an elaborate allegory with hermetic (and even Rosicrucian) undertones. from The Alchemy Web Site

an excerpt:

And it came to pass that the next day about evening we saw within a kenning before us, toward the north, as it were thick clouds, which did put us in some hope of land, knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown, and might have islands or continents that hitherto were not come to light. Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance of land, all that night; and in the dawning of next day we might plainly discern that it was a land flat to our sight, and full of boscage, which made it show the more dark. And after an hour and a half's sailing, we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city. Not great, indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from the sea. And we thinking every minute long till we were on land, came close to the shore and offered to land. But straightway we saw divers of the people, with batons in their hands, as it were forbidding us to land: yet without any cries or fierce- ness, but only as warning us off, by signs that they made. Whereupon being not a little discomfited, we were advising with ourselves what we should do. During which time there made forth to us a small boat, with about eight persons in it, whereof one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with blue, who made aboard our ship, without any show of distrust at all. And when he saw one of our number present himself somewhat afore the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment (somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing- tables, but otherwise soft and flexible), and delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written in ancient He- brew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish these words: "Land ye not, none of you, and provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen days, except you have further time given you; meanwhile, if you want fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repair, write down your wants, and you shall have that which belongeth to mercy." This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubim's wings, not spread, but hanging down- ward; and by them a cross.

The Rosicrucian Manifestos:
-These are in Adobe Acrobat Reader(PDF) format -


It is useful to recount the manner and order in which the Fama Fraternitatis and Confessio Fraternitatis were printed. The Fama was in circulation in manuscript form starting around 1610. The first known printing of the Fama occurred in or around August of 1614, and was printed in Cassel in Hesse by Wilhelm Wessel. The volume contained a preface (the First Preface), followed immediately by a satire on the General Reformation, then the Fama, and ending with a letter by Adam Haselmeyer. Although the letter was included in the book to give credence to the Fama and the fraternity, it would have been possible to dismiss the publication without much effort. Benedict J. Williamson.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY
3910 Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles, California



"Hence the disciple of the Ancient Wisdom is taught to realize that man is not essentially a personality, but a spirit." Manly P. Hall

P.R.S. is a nonprofit organization founded in 1934 by Manly Palmer Hall for the purpose of providing thoughtful persons rare access to the depth and breadth of the world's wisdom literature. The Society is entirely free from doctrinal, political, or ecclesiastical control and therefore provides a learning environment sheltered from any interest intending to coerce or convert. The Society's University and programs make a harmonious personal integration of religion, philosophy, and the science of psychology possible.

I watched a man go insane.

It was a slow process, but over the course of three weeks, he went from his usual snarly self to completely insane. He spoke incoherently, laughed like a freak, cried like a child, spent money on things he did not need and made absolutely no sense.

AIROS:American Indian Radio on Satellite:


AIROS - providing you with authentic Native American music, news, entertainment, interviews and discussions of the current issues in Indian Country and the world. AIROS is an international distributor of Native American programming through the Public Radio Satellite System.

Selling you a new past



You've eaten a chocolate bar and you didn't really like it. Can a commercial afterwards persuade you that you did? 'Memory morphing' could be a powerful weapon for advertisers. But, asks David Benady, will they dare use it?

21 October 2003
Is your memory playing tricks on you, or did you find shopping at your over-priced supermarket last week a wonderful experience? Did you have a great time on that lacklustre package holiday a couple of years ago? And are you quite sure whether you enjoyed that cold, tasteless meal the other day?

Advertisers have found a new way to mess with your mind.

A group of US marketing researchers claim that brand owners can make their customers believe they had a better experience of a product or service than they really did by bombarding them with positive messages after the event. Advocates of the technique, known as "memory morphing", claim it can be used to improve customers' perceptions of products and encourage them to repeat their purchases and recommend brands to friends.

Robert Tilton's Fun & Games Page


Animated Slide-Show
This clever animated slide show will give you background information on my ministry. In it, you will see me battle with Satan, annoint prayer cloths, and pray over your prayer requests in my special "prayer chamber".

Sound Clips
These sound files were recorded when I was touched by the holy spirit. The Holy Spirit touches me often, and sometimes, he touches me in a special place. Sometimes, it makes me want to touch myself. Now you can be touched by clicking on these Holy messages from God.

LIMITED TIME OFFER



Jesus and Elvis meet Diana and Mother Theresa at the Gates of Heaven!

The original is on a plush black velvet canvas with even more of a striking appearance than can be reproduced on your screen! A limited number of these were painstakingly and lovingly created by Juan Maguetinez deJesus Latino and now you can own one to treasure for eternity! You CAN take it with you!

Landover Baptist Church

Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung and the Challenge of the Unified Psychophysical Reality


In December of the year 1947 Carl G. Jung wrote a letter to Wolfgang Pauli in which he asked him to be a scientific patron of a C.G. Jung Institute, planned to be founded by students of him.

Pauli agreed with this proposal and wrote back: "The way your research and alchemy coincide is to me serious evidence that what is developing is indicative of a close fusion of psychology with the scientific experience of the processes in the material physical world."

As a Muslim who lives in a Western country, I have come to realise that the greatest harassment comes from a Christian sect that numbers a mere 6-7 million; the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Muslims come across them so often for the very factor that they come knocking on their doors. The group was born in the U.S.A. (Like almost every other cult you might come across) and every weekend they come armed with their contrived New World Translation Bible and their Awake, Watchtower magazines; they'll come pounding on your doors. Yes, the lady and the gentleman who come dressed in business suits. No their not trying to sell you products, but "simply" to destroy your Iman in exchange for their humorous "The world is coming to an end" cult.

I recommend for Muslims who regularly come into contact with Jehovah's Witnesses, to print out the scanned Photostat articles following from the links below. Trust me, once you've shown them this. They'll give you a pathetic defense and stand their pretending their shocked, and most of them will never come to your houses again. It's difficult for someone to swallow their own past failures that now go against their dogma.

Earl Spencer, who believed the accident had been "probably avoidable", said his sister had been worried about being bugged but had never mentioned being afraid of a car crash to him.



"Diana felt quite beleaguered by what we call the establishment in Britain and looked at ways they might get at her.

"But, as I say again, we have never ever seen any evidence of conspiracy."

Benoit Mandelbrot

In 1963 Benoit Mandelbrot introduced the fractal concept.

Fractals are shapes or behaviors that have similar properties at all levels of magnification. Just as the sphere is a concept that unites raindrops, basketballs and Mars, so fractal is a concept that unites clouds, coastlines, plants and strange attractors.

Dr. Mandelbrot dropped in for a visit during our 2001 series of webcasts about Antarctica. We took some time out from the freezing cold to interview him.

Click the link on the top ,link to the page, to view the webcast. You'll need the free RealPlayer.

Information in the Holographic Universe

Theoretical results about black holes suggest that the universe could be like a gigantic hologram




By Jacob D. Bekenstein

excerpts:

Ask anybody what the physical world is made of, and you are likely to be told "matter and energy."
Yet if we have learned anything from engineering, biology and physics, information is just as crucial an ingredient. The robot at the automobile factory is supplied with metal and plastic but can make nothing useful without copious instructions telling it which part to weld to what and so on. A ribosome in a cell in your body is supplied with amino acid building blocks and is powered by energy released by the conversion of ATP to ADP, but it can synthesize no proteins without the information brought to it from the DNA in the cell's nucleus. Likewise, a century of developments in physics has taught us that information is a crucial player in physical systems and processes. Indeed, a current trend, initiated by John A. Wheeler of Princeton University, is to regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals.

The GSL allows us to set bounds on the information capacity of any isolated physical system, limits that refer to the information at all levels of structure down to level X. In 1980 I began studying the first such bound, called the universal entropy bound, which limits how much entropy can be carried by a specified mass of a specified size [see box on opposite page]. A related idea, the holographic bound, was devised in 1995 by Leonard Susskind of Stanford University. It limits how much entropy can be contained in matter and energy occupying a specified volume of space.

Using anti-de Sitter spacetime, theorists have devised a concrete example of the holographic principle at work: a universe described by superstring theory functioning in an anti-de Sitter spacetime is completely equivalent to a quantum field theory operating on the boundary of that spacetime [see box above]. Thus, the full majesty of superstring theory in an anti-de Sitter universe is painted on the boundary of the universe. Juan Maldacena, then at Harvard University, first conjectured such a relation in 1997 for the 5-D anti-de Sitter case, and it was later confirmed for many situations by Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and Steven S. Gubser, Igor R. Klebanov and Alexander M. Polyakov of Princeton University. Examples of this holographic correspondence are now known for spacetimes with a variety of dimensions.

Proteins are the basis of how biology gets things done. For this reason, we've sequenced the human genome -- the blueprint for all of the proteins in biology -- but how can we understand what these proteins do and how they work? One important step is to study how proteins self-assemble, or "fold." This is an extremely computationally intensive task, since proteins fold no slower than a 10 microseconds (10-6 seconds), but we can only routinely simulate nanoseconds (10-9 seconds).

We've developed a new way to simulate protein folding which can break the microsecond barrier by dividing the work between multiple processors in a new way -- with a near linear speed up in the number of processors. Thus, with 1000 processors, we can break the microsecond barrier and unlock the mystery of how proteins fold.

Artificial Proteins Assembled from Scratch
October 21, 2003



Current efforts to construct new proteins follow two approaches. In the first, scientists painstakingly design strings of the protein building-blocks known as amino acids according to the atomic interactions of the entire molecule. In the second, amino acids are randomly thrown together in all manner of combinations, the logic being that given enough combinations, a promising new protein should result sooner or later.

Michael H. Hecht of Princeton University and his colleagues, the authors of the new report, have developed a tactic that seems to wed the best of both worlds. By imposing a few rules on the so-called combinatorial libraries of amino acid sequences--rules favoring sequences bearing the basic structure of natural proteins--the researchers have been able to eliminate a number of the hopeless molecules from the outset. Specifically, they produced focused libraries of artificial sequences by dictating the pattern of water-loving and water-fearing amino acids--but not the exact identities of the amino acids--so as to encourage proper, protein-like folding while fostering the creation of novel combinations.

Super-strong adhesive planned with hooked carbon strands.
22 October 2003
The researchers estimate that nano-velcro would be about 30 times stronger than conventional epoxy adhesives. It would bond most solids together so powerfully that the materials themselves would break before the pads of hooks came apart. It would also be about 3,000 times stronger than a microscopic version of Velcro made by carving tiny hooks into silicon wafers.

Current Issue - September 25th, 2003 -
The Last NUFOC?...What Really Happened in the Berwyn Mountains?...MUFON Goes Hollywood... Rael Unwelcome in Korea...Firmage Tries Again...RIP Paul Bennewitz...RIP Ellen Crystal... Huggins Has Show in East Village...Mud on Mars?...Chinese Yeti Hunters Showered With Disrespect... Hillary's Alien Consort...

If you talk to God, you are praying;
If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist;
If God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic.


--Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin,
Anchor/Doubleday, Garden City, NY. 1973, Page 113.

"Myth of mental illness." Mental illness is a metaphor (metaphorical disease). The word "disease" denotes a demonstrable biological process that affects the bodies of living organisms (plants, animals, and humans). The term "mental illness" refers to the undesirable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons. Classifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying the whale as a fish. As the whale is not a fish, mental illness is not a disease. Individuals with brain diseases (bad brains) or kidney diseases (bad kidneys) are literally sick. Individuals with mental diseases (bad behaviors), like societies with economic diseases (bad fiscal policies), are metaphorically sick. The classification of (mis)behavior as illness provides an ideological justification for state-sponsored social control as medical treatment.

The brief transition between wakefulness and sleep we experience each night has been known by many names: the 'borderland state', the 'half-dream state', the 'pre-dream condition'. Its technical name is the hypnagogic state and, along with dreaming, it is one of the most fascinating altered states of consciousness we can experience without the use of drugs.

In the hypnagogic state, visions, voices, weird insights and unusual sensations greet us as we drift out of consciousness. Faces may appear, threatening or comical. A landscape may open up, with distant mountains and wide, expansive vistas. Geometric forms, jewels, diamonds and intricate patterns may dance before our mind's eye, not unlike those seen under the influence of certain psychoactive substances. Splashes of colour, flares, sparks and cloud-like forms-known as 'entoptic lights', 'phosphenes' or eigenlicht, may drift through our drowsing consciousness, accompanied by strange, nonsensical sentences announcing portentous truths. We may feel we are floating, or that our body has grown to enormous proportions, or that we have suddenly grasped the answer to the riddle of the Universe.

(excerpts from FLASHBACKS, an Autobiography by Timothy Leary)

"Your plan to teach prisoners to brainwash themselves is simply delicious. There's even a slight chance you can pull it off. Do you know what that might mean?"

"A great boon to society," I suggested.

Dr. Monroe crossed his legs gracefully and laughed. "My dear, you don't really understand what you're getting into, do you? Sooner or later you're going to discover that law enforcement people and prison administrators have no desire to cut crime. They want more crime and more money to fight it. I'll cover you from the medical and psychiatric end, but sooner or later, if your methods work they'll start coming down on you. Reporters, bureaucrats, officials. 'Harvard Gives Drugs to Prisoners!' And you're going to have to do the impossible. Cure prisoners with your left hand while you try to hold off the entire bureaucracy with your right. "

The physicist and best-selling author demystifies the ultimate theories of space and time, the nature of genius, multiple universes, and more

Few people can take more credit for demystifying string theory than Brian Greene, a Columbia University physics professor and a major contributor to the theory. His 1999 book: The Elegant Universe reached number four on the New York Times best-seller list and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Greene is now host of a three-part Nova series on PBS and has just completed a book on the nature of space and time.
(posted on behalf of DW)

In the mid-1980s, an MIT graduate named Eric Drexler published a book, The Engines of Creation that fired the hopes and imaginations of scientists, fiction writers, and neophiles all over the world. Drexler predicted a new technology — nanotechnology — that would give us complete control over the structure of matter, allowing us to build any substance or structure consistent with the laws of nature, molecule by molecule. Drexler imagined a world of almost unimaginable economic bounty, in which self-replicating “nano-bots” would nearly automatically create any desired manufactured article from (for instance) dirt and sunlight. Cellular repair machines embedded in every cell in the body would retard or reverse the effects of aging and disease. Jet engines would be built in moments, grown as seamlessly and perfectly as crystals, from liquid solutions containing nanomachines, ad infinitum.
(posted on behalf of DW)

The film is set to air during next month's Sweeps. It stresses Reagan's moments of forgetfulness, his supposed opinions on AIDS and gays, his laissez-faire handling of his staff members. The scenes often carry a disapproving tone.

During a scene in which his wife pleads with him to help people battling AIDS, Reagan says resolutely, "They that live in sin shall die in sin" and refuses to discuss the issue further.
(posted on behalf of DW)

The Daily Mirror tabloid said Diana wrote the letter to her butler Paul Burrell in October 1996 — some 11 months before the Paris car crash that killed the princess, her companion Dodi Fayed and the car's driver, Henri Paul.
Fayed's father, Mohammed al Fayed — who has long contended the crash was part of a plot to kill the couple and not an accident — called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to hold a full and independent public inquiry or stand accused of colluding in a cover-up.
The letter confirmed ''the suspicions I have so often voiced in public and which have thus far been ignored,'' al Fayed, the owner of Harrods department store, said in a statement.
(posted on behalf of DW)

This FAQ shows how quantum paradoxes are resolved by the "many-worlds" interpretation or metatheory of quantum mechanics. This FAQ does not seek to prove that the many-worlds interpretation is the "correct" quantum metatheory, merely to correct some of the common errors and misinformation on the subject floating around.
As a physics undergraduate I was struck by the misconceptions of my tutors about many-worlds, despite that it seemed to resolve all the paradoxes of quantum theory [A]. The objections raised to many-worlds were either patently misguided [B] or beyond my ability to assess at the time [C], which made me suspect (confirmed during my graduate QFT studies) that the more sophisticated rebuttals were also invalid. I hope this FAQ will save other investigators from being lead astray by authoritative statements from mentors.

I have attempted, in the answers, to translate the precise mathematics of quantum theory into woolly and ambiguous English - I would appreciate any corrections. In one or two instances I couldn't avoid using some mathematical (Dirac) notation, in particular in describing the Einstein- Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiment and Bell's Inequality and in showing how probabilities are derived, so I've included an appendix on the Dirac notation.

[A] See "Does the EPR experiment prohibit locality?", "What about Bell's Inequality?" and "When does Schrodinger's cat split?" for how many- worlds handles the most quoted paradoxes.

[B] Sample objection: "Creation of parallel universes violates energy conservation/Ockham's razor". (See "Does many-worlds violate conservation of energy?" and "Does many-worlds violate Ockham's Razor?")

[C] eg "In quantum field theory the wavefunction becomes an operator". Er, what does that mean? And is this relevant? (See "What about quantum field theory?")

Multi-Worlds Slideshow
(posted on behalf of DW)

"You have no frame of reference, Donny. You're like a child who walks into the middle of a movie..."

Where do these quotes come from? The amazingly delicious Coen Brothers movie starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, and Steve Buscemi. Money, mistakes, nihilism, and, of course, bowling.
(posted on behalf of DW)

"Earworm" is the term coined by University of Cincinnati marketing professor James Kellaris for the usually unwelcome songs that get stuck in people's heads. Since beginning his research in 2000, Kellaris has heard from people all over the world requesting help, sharing anecdotes and offering solutions.

"I quickly learned that virtually everybody experiences earworms at one time or another," he said. "I think because it's experienced privately and not often a topic of conversation, maybe people really long for some social comparison. They want to know if other people experience what they experience."
(posted on behalf of DW)

Gamer-friendly notebook maker VoodooPC has introduced an AMD Athlon 64-based machine to its line of Envy Pentium-based portables.

Aimed at home users, the PCV-100G also operates as a TV and a TiVo-style personal video recorder, activated using the machine's remote control unit and powered by a built-in Giga Pocket MPEG 2 Realtime Encoder/TV tuner board. Stereo speakers are built-in too. Sony bundles its own Vaio Media software, which allows music, movies and photos to be shared over a local network.
(posted on behalf of DW)

Broken heart? No problem. New liver? Coming right up. The road to regeneration starts here.

By Jennifer Kahn

an excerpt:

By the time he was 45, cardiologist Mark Keating had reached the pinnacle of a doctor's career. He was preparing to move from his prestigious post as an investigator at the University of Utah to an even more exalted position as a professor at Harvard. He'd just won three important prizes for his comprehensive work on the genetics of heart arrhythmias. He seemed destined for even more glory in the field of cardiac genetics.

Keating remains convinced that newts hold the key to human healing. Our bodies, he points out, can already regenerate to a degree, repairing broken bones and regularly trading dead cells for new ones. Skin cells, for instance, last about two weeks, and our stomach lining molts once a month. This constant replenishment is what enables our 70-year lifespan, but cell growth is calibrated to run at a trickle: too slow to fix major damage. Lose an arm or a kidney and that's it; we can't generate the lost part any more than a car can sprout a new transmission.

Adding further proof that America's children aren't the precious little cherubs they once were, Electronic Gaming Monthly recently rounded up nine children of the PlayStation generation - ages 9 to 12 - and forced them to play a variety of titles from the late'70s to the mid-'80s. If you grew up with these classics, prepare to feel very old.

Some excerpts [these are about Pong & Donkey Kong]:
"I don't even see the point of having sound on this."
"My line is so beating the heck out of your stupid line. Fear my pink line. You have no chance. I am the undisputed lord of virtual tennis. [Misses ball] Whoops."
"Watch out, Tim—fire. It's smarter than you think."
"How can you die from a fall of a whopping 3 inches?"
[via Tapland]

an excerpt:

Free Inquiry: According to polls, Mother Teresa is the most respected woman in the world. Her name is a by-word for selfless dedication in the service of humanity. So why are you picking on this sainted old woman?

Christopher Hitchens: Partly because that impression is so widespread. But also because the sheer fact that this is considered unquestionable is a sign of what we are up against, namely the problem of credulity. One of the most salient examples of people's willingness to believe anything if it is garbed in the appearance of holiness is the uncritical acceptance of the idea of Mother Teresa as a saint by people who would normally be thinking - however lazily - in a secular or rational manner. In other words, in every sense it is an unexamined claim.

It's unexamined journalistically - no one really takes a look at what she does. And it is unexamined as to why it should be she who is spotlighted as opposed to many very selfless people who devote their lives to the relief of suffering in what we used to call the "Third World." Why is it never mentioned that her stated motive for the work is that of proselytization for religious fundamentalism, for the most extreme interpretation of Catholic doctrine? If you ask most people if they agree with the pope's views on population, for example, they say they think they are rather extreme. Well here's someone whose life's work is the propagation of the most extreme version of that.

That's the first motive. The second was a sort of journalistic curiosity as to why it was that no one had asked any serious questions about Mother Teresa's theory or practice. Regarding her practice, I couldn't help but notice that she had rallied to the side of the Duvalier family in Haiti, for instance, that she had taken money - over a million dollars - from Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loans swindler, even though it had been shown to her that the money was stolen; that she has been an ally of the most reactionary forces in India and in many other countries; that she has campaigned recently to prevent Ireland from ceasing to be the only country in Europe with a constitutional ban on divorce, that her interventions are always timed to assist the most conservative and obscurantist forces.




(posted on behalf of DW)

Nearly all of us - nearly all of us who live in the United States, at least - have spent all our lives looking at the same style of paper currency: those things that say "Federal Reserve Note" and have a dead President in the center of the bill in an oval frame. Now that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has begun distributing a new design of U.S. currency, we've started seeing some variations in the theme; certainly we get to see the details of the portrait engravers' work much more clearly. Still, though, we rarely stop to appreciate the skill and artistry of the engravers... after all, it's just money. We just take it out and spend it.

But what if the Bureau of Engraving and Printing decided, as they did in the 1890s, to use our paper money as a showcase for art?

The death in 1923 of George Herbert (Lord Carnarvon), the financier of the expedition that unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamen, unleashed a sensation in the international newspapers. He had developed erysipelas at the site of a mosquito bite, which resulted in septicaemia and pneumonia. The speculation was that his death was due to a "mummy's curse." The press reports of the time had the death of every man and his dog being associated with the curse, no matter how obscure the connection. This was literally the case for Lord Carnarvon as his three legged canine was said to have bayed at the very time his master succumbed and promptly turned up his paws.

As Alb Lythgoe, another individual exposed to the tomb, lay in his hospital bed dying from a stroke, Herbert Winlock, the Director of the Egyptian Section of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, felt compelled to refute the so called curse. He pointed out that at the time (1934) only six of the original 24 people present when the tomb was opened had died. He noted also that Carter had had swabs taken from the sarcophagus and sampled "specimens of air" because of fear of contagion but these had been "absolutely sterile." While we may doubt the veracity of the last statement it is fair to say that there was considerable scepticism by those considered at risk. However the mummy's curse still persists as an urban myth. I investigated whether such a phenomenon exists by comparing the survival of those exposed and unexposed to the mummy's curse using a retrospective cohort design.

Most tombs in Egypt were opened and ransacked in ancient times, usually as "inside jobs" soon after burial. Therefore it is impossible to ascertain if the mummy's curse also applied to these grave robbers. In modern times only one pharaoh's tomb has been discovered relatively undisturbed, that of Tutankhamen. It was found in November 1922 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter, unobtrusively concealed by 20th Dynasty workers' huts in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor. He was leading a dig under the patronage of Lord Carnarvon.

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(posted on behalf of DW)

Entertainment company Viastar has announced that they have signed the exclusive rights to produce and distribute "Music From God", a musical production of compositions said to be mathematically derived from the original Hebrew text of the Bible.  
 
The Music From God website explains:  
http://www.musicfromgod.com/

The Music From God project is a collaborative effort to produce a new kind of Biblical translation. By decoding the Hebrew letters of the Torah into their own musical notes, we have made the power of the original Hebrew text of the Bible available in the universal language of music.  

Our new CD, "Days of Majesty," represents the culmination of over eight years of painstaking research and development. Letter by letter, we have translated the Hebrew text into its equivalent musical note.

(posted on behalf of DW)

an excerpt:
 
GENEVA - Researchers have more than doubled the world speed record for internet data transfer.
Scientists at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Switzerland sent the equivalent of a full-length DVD movie in about seven seconds.
Colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) received the data.
The land record was set on Oct. 1 by transferring 1.1 terabytes of data over a 7,000-kilometre link in less than 30 minutes, the team said

(posted on behalf of DW)

SF Indymedia's release - A load of leaked Diebold internal memos have been posted all over the place and shut down all over the place.

"bear in mind that GEMS programs 1.11.14 and 1.17.17 are certified -- and check out how many times they are installing 1.14.xx and 1.15.xx series and using them in elections! (Totally illegal: what this means is the software used in these elections was never looked at by ANYONE except a handful of programmers in Canada.) Pretty much throws the whole certification and testing argument out the window."

Diebold Issues Cease and Desist to Indymedia

ISP Rejects Diebold Copyright Claims Against News Website - "What topic could be more important to our democracy than discussions about the mechanics and legitimacy of electronic voting systems now being introduced nationwide?" said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "EFF won't stand by as corporations like Diebold chill important online debate by churning out legal notices to ISPs that usually just take down legitimate content rather than face the legal risk."

Diebold Doing End-Runs Around Certification - "If certification isn't being done properly, the whole house of cards falls. Below are actual copies of internal Diebold memos which show that uncertified software is being used in elections, and that Diebold programmers intentionally end-run the system."

blackboxvoting.org - "Diebold tried to force www.blackboxvoting.org to shut down, claiming copyright because of a LINK on the site, but also sent a cease & desist letter to Global Free Press demanding removal of a search engine which quickly and easily finds information in the memos. By running search terms like "fake" "hack" "fix" "broken" and "boogie man" it quickly becomes apparent that evidence critical to the public interest is being hidden."

BBV to Go ''Open Source'' - As the author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," I will make a PDF version of the book available to everyone, free of charge. "Black Box Voting" is designed for action, to provide facts and information so that voting can once again belong to the people. Many of those most at risk of disenfranchisement may be unable to afford this book. Therefore, the PDF version is completely free.