The Ossuary in Sedlec. Does this remind you of anything?

This looks like it might be worth a walk up the street.

Prince Charles Fearful Over Nanotechnology-Paper

"Unbowed, Prince Charles insisted scientists must listen to the worries of interested parties like himself."

I've never understood why the British put up with these "royal" morons.

Solar storms may have torn away Mars water

"Solar storms, like a big one that affected Earth last year, might have torn away the water that used to cover parts of Mars, NASA scientists said Thursday."

Not a bad theory -- but once again we're treated to NASA's ineradicable bias that Mars' demise was slow and gradual instead of sudden and catastrophic.

Wow -- Ken MacLeod blogs!

Click here for my unauthorized (and far from complete) fan-page.

I suppose the book discussion/signing was a success, insofar as a virtually unknown author with a book about Martians sitting at a table can be considered a "success." No rabid female Mars groupies throwing themselves at my feet, but still not bad. B&N kindly supplied me with a pen and ice water and I found myself talking at surprising length about Mars, SETI and the politics of belief (with an unexpected digression into Hungarian linguistics).

A few people even bought books. Blognaut Jason Sheets (Busy, Busy, Busy) actually came prepared with a copy purchased at Borders (where the book is classified as "Speculation" instead of "New Age"). And "Katmak," who flew in from Texas (!) to catch the gig, came with a copy of my fiction debut "Illumined Black." How about that?

I've been seeing this new car; I don't know who makes it. It's actually less of an actual car than an infantile idea of a car rendered in steel and glass -- an oddly 1940-ish embodiment of "car-ness." There's something disturbing about its obstinate contours; it looks like what Volkswagen might be manufacturing if the Germans had won World War II: sheer automotive malevolence; a disfigured metaphor gliding past me in a blur of chrome.

I finally finished Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" -- which didn't disappoint. Click here for my review.

Now, on to more weird stuff . . .

Oh, man --- Ars Electronica 2004. I'd donate a testicle to go to this. (In 25 years I'll be able to buy a new one, anyway.)

OK. At 8:00 "tonight" I'll be at Barnes & Noble discussing my book. (Don't quote me on this, but I think I get free coffee.) If nothing else, the radio spots have trained me to be somewhat quick on my feet when lobbed unexpected questions, so I hope I can put on a decent show. I fully expect a bit of hostility to the subject ("But NASA proved it's just a pile of rocks!" etc.) but that goes with the territory. I'll post a full report.

Song of the day: "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" (The Smiths)

Another funny one (via The Anomalist) . . .

Jesus actor mistaken for the real deal

"James Caviezel has been swamped with requests to perform miracles by Mexican fans who believe he really is Jesus Christ."

I strongly suspect there's a piercing observation to be made here about media, reality and the role of religion in post-Industrial Light and Magic society, but I have other things to do at the moment.

Naked man 'waiting for rocket ship' found in synagogue's ladies room

"Police had to remove the stall doors and physically remove the naked guy. He was transported to Western Psychiatric Hospital in Oakland, where the man said he has been a patient in the past, officers said."

It was all just a big misunderstading! Cut me some slack!

Stunning images from Saturn probe

"The Cassini-Huygens mission is living up to its billing, delighting researchers with the quality and abundance of data it is able to return to Earth."

It looks as if the ring system is due to a disintegrated moon. Before Richard Hoagland became synonymous with the Face on Mars, he was interested in a radio-emitting anomaly orbiting Saturn. I asked him if Cassini would be able to verify its presence and he thought it could -- if it survived orbital insertion (which it has).

Could it be Cassini, and not the Mars Global Surveyor, that returns irrefutable evidence that our solar system has been visited?

By the way, I actually asked the information desk at Barnes & Noble what "After the Martian Apocalypse" was doing sandwiched between books on psychic healing. As long as they're going to stick it in the "New Age" section, they might as well shelve it with the UFO books -- at least there's some commonality there.

It turns out the "home office" (I'm guessing it looks like the Castle from Franz Kafka's novel) calls all the shots and there's nothing anyone on the local level can do about it. I had sort of figured that might be the case. Go, corporate America!

Well, I just blew a 90-minute spot on a revered Kansas City radio show that wanted to hype tomorrow's Barnes & Noble discussion/signing. It was my fault. I wanted pretty desperately for it to be someone else's fault, but it was mine. In short, I've been waiting for phone confirmation for an interview that had already been scheduled.

So I managed to come across as a complete flake to

a.) my publicist,

b.) my editor

and

c.) the radio host.

All in one shot.

Oh, yeah -- and the PR coordinator at B&N will probably be mad when she finds out, too.

On a better note, my free copies are finally arriving, so those of you who contributed illustrations can expect your complimentary copies soon.

I gave an interview to radio duo Erik & Carson tonight. Erik and Carson (I didn't know which was which) asked relevant questions, such as: "You're not a scientist, yet you claim there is evidence of intelligent life on Mars. How come NASA hasn't noticed?" That qualifies as the first thoughtful question I've fielded from the ten-minute radio spots I've been doing; everyone else wants an excuse to mouth non-sequiturs about flesh-eating arachnids and postmodern rock-stars. (Of course, the show is taped, so I'm sure they can digitally sample my voice and make me say anything, but it seemed like they were trying.)

It's the way they spell my name on their website that frankly boggles me:

"Maqx Tonnies - Mars Expert, Author of 'After the Martian Apocalypse'"

"Maqx"? Sorry guys -- I write about Mars; I'm not from Mars.

Bloggers Suffer Burnout

"Billmon's inability to keep up with the demands of moderating comments in the face of a job, family and other responsibilities is just one manifestation of a problem increasingly faced by popular daily bloggers: burnout. While they enjoy what they're doing, many find that keeping up with the pressures to post regularly and to be sharp, witty and incisive is often too much."

Yeah, it's rough. The near-constant angst. The sleepless nights spent wondering what to post next . . . Smiling on the outside; crying on the inside. Man, you don't know the half of it.

A new space service?





"A new space service may or may not be a good near term idea. However, a wise Air Force officer once said that a Space Corps will be obviously needed once there are sufficient national assets in space to defend. Will a Space Force be needed to defend America's future space colonies? The debate promises to be fascinating."

Or nauseating. Depends on whether this "Space Force" is about defending or "liberating."

(Damn! I promised no more political remarks, didn't I?)

John Kerry's Office Building & The UFO Connection

"If you plan to write Senator John Kerry at his Washington office about UFOs, do be sure to mention that the building in which his third floor office is located, the Russell Senate Office Building, is named after the late Senator Richard Russell, whose UFO experience is legendary."

Do You Believe in Science? (review of "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion")

"Throughout history, humans have been obsessed with transcending the body and living forever. Until very recently, this primarily manifested as one religion or another. But over the past several decades, and especially the past several years, the promise of science in general and biotechnology in particular has given rise to a new cultural phenomenon, one now widely referred to as transhumanism."

Finally -- someone's addressing transhumanism from an anthropological standpoint.

Could unusual summer be sign of global warming?

"From wildfires to floods to lightning strikes -- it seems the weather this summer has been a hodgepodge of unusual events. Is it just circumstance, or a trend of things to come?"

Oh, come on. We're dumping toxins into the air and water, razing forests, and basically waging war on the biosphere. It's both "circumstance" and a "trend of things to come." Only the things to come will be much worse.

Old Galaxies in the Young Universe





"One of the main open questions of modern astrophysics and cosmology is how and when galaxies formed and evolved starting from the primordial gas that filled the early Universe. In the most popular current theory, galaxies in the local Universe are the result of a relatively slow process where small and less massive galaxies merge to gradually build up bigger and more massive galaxies. In this scenario, dubbed 'hierarchical merging', the young Universe was populated by small galaxies with little mass, whereas the present Universe contains large, old and massive galaxies - the very last to form in the final stage of a slow assembling process."

Oh, you are so wrong . . .

I think Blogger is back to normal. It was extremely messed up for a remarkably long time. Anyway, I came to understand just how narcotic the blogging thing has become for me; I actually have this fairly intense need to share bits of esoterica online on a daily basis. It sounds dumb. You're probably smiling to yourself, thinking "This guy's got issues." Go ahead; laugh. But try doing this for a year and a half; your perspective will change. Those bits of "weird news" and fragments of self-obsessed commentary take on a special importance; posting them becomes a ritual, arguably an obtuse form of worship. Blogger demands sacrificial offerings, and the foremost among them is your time. No wonder William Gibson threw in the towel.

There's an interview with me in the current edition of UFO Review. It's a PDF download. This was done over the phone; hence the "conversational" nature.

Cellphone gizmos require chromeplaced nude girls

A revealing photo by Bruce Sterling. This package is hysterical -- straight from "Blade Runner." American electronics packaging is wary of the "cyborg" motif; American cellphone ad campaigns are all about "individuality." You hardly ever see explicit robotic imagery.





But the chrome-plated gynoid in Sterling's photo reminds us that despite our misplaced fear of dehumanization, technology -- properly mated with sex -- is as chic as ever. We just don't want to admit it. Witness J.G. Ballard's "Crash."

State of mine: Many swear to benefits of inhaling radon

"In Eastern Europe and Russia, the use of hot springs with high radon content dates back some 5,000 to 6,000 years, according to the Free Enterprise Mine Web site. And radon 'clinics' and underground 'galleries' are popular there today." (Via The Anomalist.)

Excuse the scant posting; Blogger effectively flatlined for most of today, but it looks like the problem has been addressed.

Interesting synchronicity today: I met a friend at the bookstore and the very first book my eye fell on is none other than "The Mole People" (see earlier post), which I had assumed must be some impossibly hard-to-find small-press tome.

I immediately grabbed it and scanned the table of contents. The third chapter is titled "Mac's War." It's about a sewer-dweller who catches raccoon-sized rats by their tails and proceeds to pound them senseless. I'm certain there's got to be a useful metaphor in that.

So "The Mole People" shoots to the top of my nonfiction to-read list (along with Jack Black's "You Can't Win," the unsparing chronicle of hobo culture that inspired William Burroughs' "Junky").

I like reading about weirdos.

'Magic ink' that makes metal grow

"An eco-friendly way of 'growing' metal for circuitry or antennas has been developed by UK firm QinetiQ."

One giant leap for ubicomp?

Are there really "Mole People" living under the streets of New York City?

"Many tunnel people are solitary loonies not unlike the guys you see living aboveground in cardboard boxes in any large American city. In a few cases, though--this is where it gets truly weird--sizable communities have coalesced, some allegedly numbering 200 people or more, complete with 'mayors,' elaborate social structures, even electricity. Toth describes one enclave deep under Grand Central with showers using hot water from a leaky steam pipe, cooking and laundry facilities, and an exercise room. The community has a teacher, a nurse, and scampering children."

Good god; this is straight from Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" -- or perhaps the other way around. Although the page's author has posted a disclaimer of sorts, I think it's quite probable the basic gist of Toth's "mole people" mythos is accurate. How could it not be?

I'm also reminded of the paranoid subterranean tales of Richard Shaver.

More self-promotion

Allergic to paper? No problem! You can now purchase "After the Martian Apocalypse" as an e-book (ISBN: 1-4165-0333-1). For more information, visit Simon & Schuster.

Also, Paraview Pocket Books has launched a promo site. Movie rights, anyone? (I envision a "Mission to Mars"/"Day After Tomorrow" hybrid set-directed by Tim Burton . . .)

What kind of disease are you? Posthuman Blues:
Posthuman Blues is caused by sponges.	An infection of Posthuman Blues will cause you to become a Jedi. To cure Posthuman Blues, crossdress badly.
Name?

Quick! Someone get me an ugly blouse!

Fighter jets over the Plaza!

I heard them first. Four of them in a tight diamond formation, speeding insanely across the sky, leaving dramatic contrails as they move, as one, over buildingtops.

What if one of the pilots suffers a Gulf flashback and starts firing air-to-ground missiles? KA-BOOM! Abercrombie and Fitch -- right off the map! POW! There goes Banana Republic! Oh my god -- the Cheesecake Factory is toast!

Just don't hit LatteLand!

Adventures in meatspace

They're out there! Real, live human beings who read this blog!

Tonight at my favorite coffeeshop the barista made a comment about my proposed lithium-ion-powered espresso cup. That was the tip-off. We briefly discussed the workings of the cup; she didn't think it would hold up to repeated washings. I tried to emphasize that the battery pack would be removed prior to being washed and that, furthermore, none other than author John Shirley had told me that The Sharper Image might conceivably go for the idea. That's got to count for something.

I spent a good part of the evening diligently scanning MOJO's new commemorative Smiths/Morrissey issue. I might have to choke up the $12 or whatever it costs to actually purchase this; the retrospective album reviews are excellent, even insightful. Returning home, I mustered the strength to remove "You Are the Quarry" from my player and replace it with Morrissey's first solo record, "Viva Hate."

Title I'm considering for my new, as-yet-unwritten nonfiction book: "The Postbiological Cosmos: Artificial Intelligence and Extraterrestrial Visitation."

What am I doing for Independence Day? Nothing, thanks. I side with Einstein: Nationalism is an illness that must be overcome.

I like fireworks, though.

One possibility I regret not exploring more in-depth in my book is the idea that the Face on Mars was built by terrestrials of whom we know nothing -- possibly denizens of the "hidden substrate" I proposed a few posts ago. Richard Hoagland considered the possibility -- briefly -- in "The Monuments of Mars," but considered extrasolar visitors a better theory.





In hindsight, I wish I'd at least sketched the possibility of a vanished (or invisible) terrestrial civilization that visited Mars in antiquity; I don't think the idea is as unlikely as it sounds on first take, although I was admittedly quick to dismiss it not too long ago.

And yes, I'm aware I've posted this before.

Another flying triangle. Over a nuclear plant.

I think these could very well turn out to be a "black-ops" aerospace project of some kind. But why would you even consider test-flying one of these things over a nuke?

"The near-simultaneous sighting by Coleman's wife of a boomerang-shaped aircraft hovering only 100-feet from the ground was far more dramatic, according to Coleman, and the duration of that sighting was over 1-minute and discontinued due to traffic circumstances."

We like to watch

"Technology's inexorable advance has brought the world's democracies to a crucial juncture: will next-generation citizens keep an eye on each other in a golden 'age of transparency,' as famously imagined by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke in his 1988 novel, 2061: Odyssey Three? Or will the tools of surveillance and data analysis be wielded exclusively and with impunity by governments and corporations?"

Incidentally, we bloggers are helping facilitate the emergence of this "transparent society." So far we can photoblog and audioblog; I'm personally looking forward to "neuroblogging."

I've long been interested in "Occam's Razor" -- the scientific maxim that maintains that all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the correct one. But who gets the honor of defining "simple"?

It's a lot like Carl Sagan's "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." What, exactly, is "extraordinary"? "Extraordinary" to whom? Are the criteria subject to change?

Paranormal researcher Albert Budden nailed the problem when he pointed out that it's not science's goal to determine the "simplest" explanation; science should properly strive for the correct explanation.

All of which sort of leads the way to my new theory about UFOs and where they come from. I've been dissatisfied with the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis since encountering Jacques Vallee. But sometimes musing about a nonhuman "psychosocial control system" just seems too abstract, too vague and obtuse. Vallee himself pointed out that the prevailing materialist interpretation for UFOs is quintessentially American; Americans like to "kick the tires."

But could the phenomenon be both a physical, nuts-and-bolts reality as well as metaphysical? Arthur C. Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear indistinguishable from magic" certainly applies. But even Clarke was postulating arbitrarily advanced forms of known technologies; judging from his fiction, I doubt he invested much hope in "impossibilities" like telepathy and nonlocal consciousness -- both of which, I suspect, are slowly but certainly encroaching on the scientific arena.

One of the most interesting books I've read recently was Michael Cremo's exhaustively researched "Human Devolution." Cremo argues that the Vedic concept of the human soul is validated by various phenomena, including documented episodes of "psychic" activity and unexpected archaeological findings. Cremo's book is disappointing because he fails to synthesize his research into a coherent paradigm; it's fascinating reading, but his conclusion is little more than a thinly disguised rationalization for his personal religious beliefs.

I think the evidence demands a bolder revision of our role as sentient beings. By redefining human consciousness -- a process that 21st century neuropharmacology will almost certainly hasten, probably assisted by cybernetics -- it's possible to envision an Earth so utterly unlike conventional models that it may as well be alien.

My own thesis is both absurd and simple: We're sharing the planet with a home-grown intelligence that took a critically different evolutionary route in our own prehistory, exploiting consciousness itself as a technology while the recognizable "we" contented ourselves with the immediate, tangible world of physical matter. These others -- call them "aliens," simply for lack of a better word -- can access our own level of perception if they choose, but they don't inhabit a "parallel universe" of the type considered by theoretical physicists such as Michio Kaku. Our own universe is probably big enough for a far-flung ecology of nonhuman beings; we're just limited to an incredibly small portion of it, for reasons both biological and "spiritual." (John Keel's electromagnetic "superspectrum" is an especially useful metaphor, if nothing else.)

Maybe the reason we don't hear the incessant chatter of extraterrestrial radio transmissions or see megascale engineering works etched onto the dome of the night sky isn't because alien intelligences have uploaded themselves into addictive virtual environments; perhaps they've shed their physical forms, but in an altogether different fashion. They might inhabit a previously undetected cosmological substrate, enmeshed in the universe's deep structure as we twitch feebly on the surface, so many bacteria in an intergalactic Petri dish.

The familiar boundaries of space and time would be radically different to a being existing within this hidden order (what physicist/philosopher David Bohm termed the "implicate"). Interactions with lowly forms of intelligence like ourselves might be maddeningly cryptic; perhaps our only clues would take the form of Fortean anomalies: dark waves lapping silently against the shores of consciousness and batted furiously away if by some chance actually noticed.

This sort of cosmos is upsetting to Western science because it implies that consciousness is pliant and mutable, not necessarily dependent on a physical substrate. The implications are disturbingly theological: What purpose do we serve in this vast, secret world -- if any? Hindu texts, which describe a spectrum of conscious forms, forcibly suggest that humans are akin to larvae. If so, what are we to make of the myriad "humanoid" and UFO "occupant" reports that invariably surface year after year?

Maybe we can safely dispense with notions of interstellar visitors and wormholes. Our apparent visitors may not be "visiting" at all; conceivably, we are the newcomers . . .

If some human beings can function without developed brains, as medical findings suggest, then it's tempting to wonder if these individuals are truly conscious in the philosophical sense of the word. Rick Strassman thinks that DMT secreted by the pineal gland (technically, not part of the brain but situated within it) facilitates consciousness. It's possible that DMT is consciousness in some way -- perhaps what self-awareness looks like when we attempt to examine it empirically (an effort that may prove futile).





Relatively few people have had CAT or MRI scans of their skulls; could it be that there are abundant "brainless" (although not necessarily mindless) people in our midst? If so, what makes them tick? If DMT is indeed pivotal to the brain's interaction with the universe, then some "closet hydrocephalics" may be walking proof that consciousness isn't necessary in order to function "normally." (To my knowledge, no acknowledged geniuses have been autopsied and discovered to literally lack brains . . . then again, would we hear about it if they did?)





I'm reminded of Gurdjieff's disquieting conviction that the vast majority of human beings were literal biomolecular machines carrying out preprogrammed orders (shades of the virtually entrapped population of "The Matrix").

UFO Sightings Worldwide

"UFOs have been spotted in Louisiana, South Africa and Chile, making this a worldwide phenomenon."

Of course, it's always been a worldwide phenomenon. But it certainly seems as if credible sightings of weird lights and structured objects are on the rise.

And the winners are . . .

Chapel Perilous' Bsti just reminded me the deadline has arrived for the Posthuman Blues button design contest. All of the entries were pretty damned good. While I was really impressed with all of Bsti's animated designs -- and may well use one someday, with his permission -- I've decided that Kara (aka SpaceTramp) deserves top honors along with the tireless Sauceruney.

For their efforts, Kara and Saucer get signed copies of the bound-for-review, "in progress" version of "After the Martian Apocalypse."





Kara's design wins by virtue of its deceptive simplicity and eye-pleasing use of color.





Saucer's design says a lot and says it very nicely. It's the posthuman condition in a nutshell.

Thanks to all contestants. I ended up gravitating to the "static" (non-animated) buttons. If that hadn't been a deciding criterion, Bsti would have likely run away with it. So I'm brainstorming for a suitable Honorable Mention prize.

Car computer to stop you speeding

"An on-board computer linked to a satellite positioning system will use the digital map to identify the local speed limit. If drivers attempt to exceed the limit, they hear a series of bleeps and the accelerator pedal starts vibrating."

Oh, that's a good idea. Vibrating accelerator pedals. That will freak people out. They'll think something's wrong with their car, whether they knew about the Orwellian satellite system or not.

Here's an idea: Why not mate the traffic satellites with W.'s missile defense system? Blow those bastards right off the road!

The Dublin interview went exactly as expected. I fended off the inevitable jocular comments about literal Martian "spiders" as best as I could, to no real avail. At one point they were going on about looking for the "spiders'" eggs.




Whitley Strieber


I'm beginning to appreciate the media-hell Whitley Strieber went through when "Communion" was published. No wonder the rectal probe quickly became a staple fixture of alien accounts.

Chemtrails - The Final Verdict





"The Department of Energy's TAP Program Plan was launched in March of 2001 based on previous research and assessments carried out by the National Research Council, the National Science and Technology Council, and the North American Research Strategy for Tropospheric Ozone or NARSTO, which happens to be a hybrid organization that includes researchers from both government and the private sector. Furthermore, NARSTO has recently begun studying the effects of spraying aerosols in the atmosphere and the environment."

Speed of light may have changed recently

"The speed of light, one of the most sacrosanct of the universal physical constants, may have been lower as recently as two billion years ago - and not in some far corner of the universe, but right here on Earth."

This is simply appalling. Someone deserves to be publically horsewhipped over this. How about it, Wireless?