The Church of the Buttered Nose
Peter Watts on cats, gods and human sacrifice.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
A Giant, Glowing Cube in the Middle of Berlin
Remember "Cube," the 1997 dystopian psychological thriller? It's a lot like that, but without the angst.
Remember "Cube," the 1997 dystopian psychological thriller? It's a lot like that, but without the angst.
WMO to Seek Satellites to Monitor Climate Change
The United Nations' weather agency will ask NASA and other space agencies next week to make their next generation of satellites available to monitor climate change, a senior official at the UN body said on Friday.
The aim is to ensure that satellites launched over the next 20 years constantly record parameters such as sea levels and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.
Radioactive Hot Spots on Earth's Beaches May Have Sparked Life
Through strong tidal forces by a Moon that orbited far closer to the Earth than it does today, radioactive elements accumulated on the beaches could be gravitationally sorted. The chemical energy in these beach hot spots was probably high enough to allow self-sustaining fission processes (which occurs in natural concentrations of uranium). The main product from fission is heat, therefore powering chemical processes and the generation of organic, life-giving compounds.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Virtual Worlds To Keep Martian Astronauts Sane?
Suppose you're sending a "generation ark" to a remote star system. Why even bother letting the crew know? Surely they'd opt for VR decadence instead of the grinding boredom of workaday ship-board life.
For illustrative purposes, here's a brief excerpt from a story I began in 2003:
While NASA has dedicated hundreds (if not thousands) of scientists and engineers to ensure that the future humans traveling to Mars make it back to Earth in one piece, they have paid a lot less attention to the fact of them getting homesick.
In order to help lift their spirits (and perhaps counter cabin fever) NASA is considering building a "Second Life" virtual world that would enable them to communicate with friends and family.
Suppose you're sending a "generation ark" to a remote star system. Why even bother letting the crew know? Surely they'd opt for VR decadence instead of the grinding boredom of workaday ship-board life.
For illustrative purposes, here's a brief excerpt from a story I began in 2003:
Inside, the crew stirred within their communal environmental VR, roused by an unspecific sense of incipience. Zack felt it in the air, a certain heaviness that descended over the spires and narrow, cobbled avenues. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he stood in front of the noisy café. As he watched, the faces of onlookers morphed into pixilated anonymity. He experienced a rush of strange nostalgia as the sky over Prague grew metallic, strewn with listing spheres and half-glimpsed workstation icons. His muscles tightened and the noise of conversation and scuttling cars blurred into the sound of electronic surf, pounding endlessly against the shores of his consciousness.
A blare of synthesized instruments. Prague had redshifted to a niggling afterimage, and he was alone in a strange green room that smelled of discreetly rotting vegetation. A barbed device, looking something like a spider as conceived by an aspiring surrealist, detached itself from his scalp, leaving a constellation of reddened impressions.
A voice: familiar, unwanted: "Welcome home, Zack."
He sagged into a mattress of gengineered lichen that buoyed his limbs and spine as if offering him up for sacrifice. His ears buzzed. He could still taste coffee. The spider-interface dangled above his head, twinkling mockingly in the glow of the room's diagnostic screens.
"Lights," he heard himself say. "Turn on the damned lights."
The room erupted in yellow light, emitted from organelles embedded in the walls and ceiling. The room was alive; in fact, it appeared to have grown more verdant in his long sensory absence. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief. There had been fear of native biota wrecking the Isis' genetic architecture, leaving the ship an undifferentiated blob of metal and biomass hovering between stars.
Elsewhere, he knew -- or, more accurately, sensed -- his crewmates awakening in dimly glowing rooms of their own. The metal spider curled its limbs into a somehow dangerous-looking sphere and drifted on a tether of fiber-optic cable. For the first time, he noticed the microgravity; the only thing keeping him from ascending was the mattress' faintly adhesive embrace. He freed his arms and watched his thin, colorless hands with the studied patience of a forensic scientist happening across some vital and mysterious piece of evidence.
He hadn't used his body in . . . 203 years, ship time? Unless something had gone wrong . . . But the voice had said "welcome home," hadn't it? A chill raced down his spine as he considered the possibility of software corruption. Two centuries of exposure to interstellar space could have plunged the AI into a lethally premature senility.
Fictional radio-spaces
Using inspiration from richly illustrated books on botany, zoology and natural history, Ingeborg arrived at the concept of an encyclopeadia of radio waves that contains a selection of fictional radio 'species'. Armed with a well researched and advanced knowledge of the use, application and technicalities of each radio technology she created fictional visualisations of the ways in which radio waves inhabit space. These are creative expressions based as much on personal creativity as on technical or scientific data like range and signal strength.
(Via Information Aesthetics.)
Some of these electromagnetic critters look positively Lovecraftian. Well worth the click.
Using rabies to deliver drugs directly to the brain
This sounds alarmingly like the set-up for a biomedical disaster flick.
Marilyn sez, "Harvard Medical School researchers have developed an ingenious way to deliver drugs directly to the brain (in order to kill a tumor, for example), that uses the virus that causes rabies, which is extremely effective in infiltrating the blood brain barrier that blocks most other kinds of molecules."
This sounds alarmingly like the set-up for a biomedical disaster flick.
UFO researcher Ray Stanford ("Socorro 'Saucer' In A Pentagon Pantry") sets his sights on dinosaur tracks:
Read on for Stanford's pertinent comments on scientific investigation, UFOs and the sad state of "ufology."
Stanford, a 69-year-old Texan, has been combing Maryland stream beds for evidence of dinosaurs for the past 13 years. The result is an unprecedented collection of footprints that were left behind 112 million years ago -- found in an area where none had been reported before.
Stanford is about the furthest thing possible from a conventional scientist, and his lack of formal training -- he has a high school diploma -- is just the start. His first passion, one he still pursues, is UFOs; "anomalous aerial objects" is the term he prefers. Dinosaur tracking was just something he happened on. As it turned out, he has a knack for it.
Stanford has found hundreds of tracks in the suburbs of Washington and Baltimore. They reveal an extraordinary diversity of animals living in one place during the early Cretaceous period -- about twice the variety previously seen from that geological period. And he has found the fossilized remains of what he and a Johns Hopkins University paleontologist believe is a previously unknown species, a discovery he lovingly refers to as "Cretaceous roadkill."
Read on for Stanford's pertinent comments on scientific investigation, UFOs and the sad state of "ufology."
Friday, January 11, 2008
Here's a portion of "My Fake Baby," a documentary about the market for custom-designed plastic infants. Eerie yet weirdly poignant, this footage takes our mammalian heritage and fast-balls it into our faces.
(Thanks: Aberrant News.)
(Thanks: Aberrant News.)
Astronomers describe violent universe
Much of what they keep finding plays out like a stellar version of a violent Quentin Tarantino movie. The violence surrounds and approaches Earth, even though our planet is safe and "in a pretty quiet neighborhood," said Wheeler, author of the book "Cosmic Catastrophes."
One question readers of Whitley Strieber's "Communion" are forced to wrestle with: if Strieber is truthful in relating how the book came to be written, could the "visitors" have been using him as a vehicle for disseminating memes of their own?
If we grant that the "visitors" are real and possess at least a superficial understanding of human society, they must have known Strieber was an author and anticipated his writing about them. Could that have been part of their plan all along?
If it's easy to underestimate the success that greeted "Communion" in 1987, it's even more difficult to appreciate its multiplex impact on our culture. The cover painting alone almost single-handedly defined the "alien" to many thousands of readers. Strieber even devotes a section of the book to a hologram-like mental image that allowed him to describe the cover's iconic alien to artist Ted Jacobs, offering the possibility that "they" were complicit in the portrait's creation. (Even if their abductions are clumsy, the visitors seem to be consummate self-promoters.)
When Strieber and author Daniel Pinchbeck sparred on Strieber's Internet radio program, the former vigorously denied the possibility of being manipulated or seduced by a potentially negative alien intelligence. According to Strieber's writings (online and in print), the visitors -- whoever and whatever they are -- possess boundless insight into the very workings of consciousness and aspire to cultivate our species to the point where we can interact as equals. At the same time, their true appearance is compromised by our own perceptual limitations; as a result, we've come to fear them. (The visitor phenomenon, as described by Strieber, seems to epitomize the idea of "reified metaphor" espoused by the late Dr. John Mack.)
Whatever their actual intentions, the publication of "Communion" surely signaled a victory for any curious aliens. Never before had the notion of visiting extraterrestrials been allowed to reach such an expansive (and largely sympathetic) audience. Despite the mockery endured by the author, "Communion" helped mainstream the most unlikely prospect of awakening to the unannounced presence of enigmatic others. Not surprisingly, the "alien abduction" meme, previously confined to a relative handful of enthusiasts and Forteans, quickly cemented itself as a consumer touchstone. Pale-skinned aliens with ink-black eyes became commercial fixtures while leading an unremarked invasion of the collective psyche.
If the visitors' ability to relate to function in our reality depends on our acceptance of them (a concept found, interestingly, in Strieber's own writings), the cascade of "alien" imagery triggered by "Communion" and its successors could scarcely have done a better job. For better or worse, we seem to have been indoctrinated.
If so, what's next?
If we grant that the "visitors" are real and possess at least a superficial understanding of human society, they must have known Strieber was an author and anticipated his writing about them. Could that have been part of their plan all along?
If it's easy to underestimate the success that greeted "Communion" in 1987, it's even more difficult to appreciate its multiplex impact on our culture. The cover painting alone almost single-handedly defined the "alien" to many thousands of readers. Strieber even devotes a section of the book to a hologram-like mental image that allowed him to describe the cover's iconic alien to artist Ted Jacobs, offering the possibility that "they" were complicit in the portrait's creation. (Even if their abductions are clumsy, the visitors seem to be consummate self-promoters.)
When Strieber and author Daniel Pinchbeck sparred on Strieber's Internet radio program, the former vigorously denied the possibility of being manipulated or seduced by a potentially negative alien intelligence. According to Strieber's writings (online and in print), the visitors -- whoever and whatever they are -- possess boundless insight into the very workings of consciousness and aspire to cultivate our species to the point where we can interact as equals. At the same time, their true appearance is compromised by our own perceptual limitations; as a result, we've come to fear them. (The visitor phenomenon, as described by Strieber, seems to epitomize the idea of "reified metaphor" espoused by the late Dr. John Mack.)
Whatever their actual intentions, the publication of "Communion" surely signaled a victory for any curious aliens. Never before had the notion of visiting extraterrestrials been allowed to reach such an expansive (and largely sympathetic) audience. Despite the mockery endured by the author, "Communion" helped mainstream the most unlikely prospect of awakening to the unannounced presence of enigmatic others. Not surprisingly, the "alien abduction" meme, previously confined to a relative handful of enthusiasts and Forteans, quickly cemented itself as a consumer touchstone. Pale-skinned aliens with ink-black eyes became commercial fixtures while leading an unremarked invasion of the collective psyche.
If the visitors' ability to relate to function in our reality depends on our acceptance of them (a concept found, interestingly, in Strieber's own writings), the cascade of "alien" imagery triggered by "Communion" and its successors could scarcely have done a better job. For better or worse, we seem to have been indoctrinated.
If so, what's next?
"[Tonnies] rhetorically exploits contemporary fears, citing the possibility of an 'ecological 9/11' in support of the idea that humans must colonize space."
--Publishers Weekly on "After the Martian Apocalypse"
Of course, that was before Katrina.
I suppose that, theoretically, there can be a fine line between "rhetorically exploiting contemporary fears" and taking an honest look at what the future has in store. But when giving voice to legitimate concerns becomes "exploitation" or "alarmism," you just know there's a motherlode of repressed fear hidden beneath the zeitgeist's unassuming surface.
Kevin Randle ("Roswell Revisited," "The Abduction Enigma") eviscerates CSICOP -- er, "CSI."
The most immediately obvious problem with this group (at least to those familiar with the other side of the argument) is its selective use of information -- or outright omission, if that serves its skewed definition of "skepticism." CSI, ironically, has evolved into a sort of pseudointellectual cult.
After all, no one listens to them except the mainstream media.
Also: Take a look at a real-life flying saucer!
The most immediately obvious problem with this group (at least to those familiar with the other side of the argument) is its selective use of information -- or outright omission, if that serves its skewed definition of "skepticism." CSI, ironically, has evolved into a sort of pseudointellectual cult.
After all, no one listens to them except the mainstream media.
Also: Take a look at a real-life flying saucer!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Manned Cloud by Jean-Marie Massaud
I'd like to ride in this thing merely to gaze at the shocked faces of groundlings convinced they're seeing an alien mothership. And while Massaud's design is impressive in its austerity, would it hurt to add a few flashing colored lights and a search-beam or two?
Manned Cloud is a hotel with a capacity of 40 passengers and staffed with 15 persons, that on a 3-day cruise in 170 km/h permits man to explore the world without a trace: to re-experience travelling, timelessness and enhance the consciousness of the beauty of the world - and to experience spectacular and exotic places without being intrusive or exploitative.
I'd like to ride in this thing merely to gaze at the shocked faces of groundlings convinced they're seeing an alien mothership. And while Massaud's design is impressive in its austerity, would it hurt to add a few flashing colored lights and a search-beam or two?
NASA probe to fly past little, sun-baked Mercury
"Big surprises"? That sounds like a conspiratorial "insider" remark to me! I bet NASA's already dusting off the airbrushes!
Update: The above was an attempt at sarcasm and a veiled reference to a certain sensationalistic author. I don't really think NASA's gearing up to hide ET structures on Mercury, nor would I rate Mercury as a likely candidate for alien habitation. Then again, I suppose you never know.
NASA's car-sized MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to zip about 124 miles above the cratered, rocky surface of the closest planet to the sun on Monday, part of a mission designed to place it into orbit around Mercury in 2011.
"I think we're in for some big surprises," Faith Vilas, one of the scientists involved in the mission, told reporters during a conference call on Thursday.
"Big surprises"? That sounds like a conspiratorial "insider" remark to me! I bet NASA's already dusting off the airbrushes!
Update: The above was an attempt at sarcasm and a veiled reference to a certain sensationalistic author. I don't really think NASA's gearing up to hide ET structures on Mercury, nor would I rate Mercury as a likely candidate for alien habitation. Then again, I suppose you never know.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
New year, new "mascot"!
The elfin cryptoterrestrial that's haunted my sidebar has been replaced by a serene-looking female posthuman. (For related graphics, peruse the strange, mythic universe of Araqinta.)
The elfin cryptoterrestrial that's haunted my sidebar has been replaced by a serene-looking female posthuman. (For related graphics, peruse the strange, mythic universe of Araqinta.)
Whitley Strieber's 1987 bestseller "Communion" has been reissued in trade paperback. Featuring a compelling new preface by the author, the reissue is a good excuse to revisit Strieber's cryptic interactions with "the visitors," regardless of one's preconceptions.
This blog has been alternately sympathetic to and critical of Strieber's "visitor" mythos. On one hand, I think the cautious, questioning approach evident in Strieber's books is consistent with the bizarre events he describes. It's equally obvious to me that Strieber's own creative and intellectual predispositions have colored his testimony to some degree, although I find it extremely hard to blame him given the high strangeness of his encounters.
My criticisms of Strieber are almost universally leveled at his online endeavors. Specifically, I think his website is awful -- perhaps one of the worst high-profile sources of fringe news online, teeming with pointless filler, credulous "reporting" based on the exploits of Linda Moulton Howe, and incessant pleas to buy books and DVDs. Readers are forever reminded that their financial contributions are needed to keep the site online, a sentiment at odds with Strieber's duly reported success at selling his work to Hollywood. In his quest to turn UnknownCountry.com into the Web's biggest seller of fringe titles, we're asked to accept Strieber as a virtual pauper -- which may prove difficult for the myriad Fortean bloggers who do it both better and infinitely cheaper.
To some, Strieber's online sensationalism negates his testimony as an "abductee." But in our rush to pigeonhole "Communion's" author as a metaphysical huckster (thus erasing the bothersome -- if tantalizing -- specter of the "visitors" in a single stroke), we miss out on a potentially rich understanding of how the UFO phenomenon interacts with us on an individual level.
Strieber himself has emphasized the emphatically personal nature of the contact experience, suggesting that its operative intelligence has chosen to bypass bureaucratic authority in favor of a deeper, more pervasive dialogue with our species. Even if Strieber is wrong about everything else, I suspect he's struck a vitally important vein -- with or without the assistance of the diminutive humanoids that populate his books.
(For more on Strieber, refer to Beyond Communion.)
This blog has been alternately sympathetic to and critical of Strieber's "visitor" mythos. On one hand, I think the cautious, questioning approach evident in Strieber's books is consistent with the bizarre events he describes. It's equally obvious to me that Strieber's own creative and intellectual predispositions have colored his testimony to some degree, although I find it extremely hard to blame him given the high strangeness of his encounters.
My criticisms of Strieber are almost universally leveled at his online endeavors. Specifically, I think his website is awful -- perhaps one of the worst high-profile sources of fringe news online, teeming with pointless filler, credulous "reporting" based on the exploits of Linda Moulton Howe, and incessant pleas to buy books and DVDs. Readers are forever reminded that their financial contributions are needed to keep the site online, a sentiment at odds with Strieber's duly reported success at selling his work to Hollywood. In his quest to turn UnknownCountry.com into the Web's biggest seller of fringe titles, we're asked to accept Strieber as a virtual pauper -- which may prove difficult for the myriad Fortean bloggers who do it both better and infinitely cheaper.
To some, Strieber's online sensationalism negates his testimony as an "abductee." But in our rush to pigeonhole "Communion's" author as a metaphysical huckster (thus erasing the bothersome -- if tantalizing -- specter of the "visitors" in a single stroke), we miss out on a potentially rich understanding of how the UFO phenomenon interacts with us on an individual level.
Strieber himself has emphasized the emphatically personal nature of the contact experience, suggesting that its operative intelligence has chosen to bypass bureaucratic authority in favor of a deeper, more pervasive dialogue with our species. Even if Strieber is wrong about everything else, I suspect he's struck a vitally important vein -- with or without the assistance of the diminutive humanoids that populate his books.
(For more on Strieber, refer to Beyond Communion.)
Spaceman mystery?
The Templeton "spaceman" has long been one of my favorite Fortean enigmas. (Jenny Randles gives the subject a thorough treatment in "The Truth Behind Men In Black.")
Jim Templeton's photograph, which showed the mystery "spaceman" behind his daughter, was taken on Burgh Marsh in 1964 and has been seen around the world.
No-one has yet come up with an explanation for it but the Ministry of Defence is just about to reveal details of files which chronicle UFO (unidentified flying object) activity over Britain.
And Jim, who is 87 and lives in Coledale Meadows, Carlisle, believes they may contain some answers to a mystery that has puzzled him for half his life.
He said: "It would be absolutely amazing if there was something in the files about the Solway spaceman. It is incredible but I still receive letters about it now.
"I have no explanation for the image but what I can say is that it is not a fake. The film was sent away for processing and came back like that.
What is even more strange is that shortly afterwards the launch of the Blue Streak rocket at a base in Australia was delayed because two similar spacemen were spotted on monitors there.
"Apparently they searched the area at the time but could find nothing, They said the delay in the launch was down to a technical hitch and it went ahead later. The interesting thing, of course, is that the Blue Streak was developed at Spadeadam to the east of Brampton. I was told about this by someone who worked there at the time."
The Templeton "spaceman" has long been one of my favorite Fortean enigmas. (Jenny Randles gives the subject a thorough treatment in "The Truth Behind Men In Black.")
About a year ago I bored Posthuman Blues readers about my attempts to combat a sudden (and almost crippling) case of tinnitus. The problem has abated but it's far from gone. The good news is that there are some new treatment options:
New hope for tinnitus sufferers
(Thanks to Frank for sending this my way.)
New hope for tinnitus sufferers
Berthold Langguth, a neurologist in Germany, believes the hearing cells in the auditory cortex (the brain area perceiving sound signals) in tinnitus sufferers are overactive and is trying to normalise them.
By running an electric current through sections of wire he creates a magnetic field. When held over the head of a patient the magnetic stimulation reduces the neural activity and diminishes unwanted sound.
Only one patient so far has been completely cured but many have found the volume of their tinnitus reduced.
In Belgium, neurosurgeon Dirk De Ridder, has tried implanting electrodes directly into the brain of sufferers to permanently normalise the overactive neurons.
So far he has only operated on 30 patients but with some successful results.
(Thanks to Frank for sending this my way.)
I suffer from an unusual psychiatric condition: an acute fear of being tickled by feathers and then buried alive by young nude clowns with erections on Friday the 13th.
This post helps put it all in perspective.
(Thanks: Reality Carnival.)
China Plans for Big Year in Space
China is hoping to launch 15 rockets, 17 satellites and its third manned mission in 2008. This is an ambitious manifest for any country, and it appears China hopes to take its global emergence to new heights in a year in which it will also host the summer Olympics.
No details were provided regarding specific dates or the types of unmanned missions that will be launched this year.
Pink Tentacle links to Frédéric Gautron's exquisitely surreal "Urbano-végétal" photomontage series.
BladeRunner i-Fly VAMP RC Remote Control Bat
So far, so good -- although it bears noting that despite its intriguing name, the "BladeRunner i-Fly VAMP" has nothing to do with the famed Ridley Scott film.
By now you might have noticed a passing similarity to the "Mothman" apparition witnessed by residents of Point Pleasant, West Virgina and immortalized in John Keel's Fortean classic, "The Mothman Prophecies." Which puts me in mind of other paranormal toy ideas. We've already seen the faceless Pascagoula "wrinkled robot" rendered in multi-colored plastic; why not a remote control Hopkinsville goblin? Or an animatronic Flatwoods monster for discerning UFO geeks?
This scary-looking bat is right at the bleeding edge of toy design. Packing state of the art technology, alongside the Power Wings Pterosaur, it's one of the latest generation of RC flyers that provides an unparalleled level of control and stability both indoors and out.
So far, so good -- although it bears noting that despite its intriguing name, the "BladeRunner i-Fly VAMP" has nothing to do with the famed Ridley Scott film.
The Vamp differs from most other flying toys because it's an 'Ornithopter' -- which means it flaps its wings to fly through the air -- just like a real bat. Not for the faint-hearted, the flapping wings and glowing red eyes give the eerie illusion that it's a living (or undead!) thing, swooping through the darkness, for a truly terrifying sight.
By now you might have noticed a passing similarity to the "Mothman" apparition witnessed by residents of Point Pleasant, West Virgina and immortalized in John Keel's Fortean classic, "The Mothman Prophecies." Which puts me in mind of other paranormal toy ideas. We've already seen the faceless Pascagoula "wrinkled robot" rendered in multi-colored plastic; why not a remote control Hopkinsville goblin? Or an animatronic Flatwoods monster for discerning UFO geeks?
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
I've decided I'm going to put my paid vacation days to good use and finish "The Cryptoterrestrials," a book that's been far too long in the making. I've already written a good chunk (and posted portions online). A lot of the remaining work is assembly and polishing; I need to take what I've already written and render it into passable book form. I'm cautiously hopeful that I can finish a first draft in a week.
End of skeptic James Randi's million dollar challenge
Randi's "challenge" never had teeth because he reserved the privilege of choosing which claims to investigate. He dismissed many potential paranormal phenomena out of hand; while certainly convenient, this hardly reflected Randi's proclaimed objectivity.
(There's more here, but unfortunately the article I cite has since been taken offline.)
Randi's "challenge" never had teeth because he reserved the privilege of choosing which claims to investigate. He dismissed many potential paranormal phenomena out of hand; while certainly convenient, this hardly reflected Randi's proclaimed objectivity.
(There's more here, but unfortunately the article I cite has since been taken offline.)
Autism: Big Breakthrough
I wonder if scientists could induce a "designer" fever that promoted intelligence and reflexes in baseline patients . . .
To the laboratory!
In another study, researchers discovered that fever may restore nerve cell communications in regions of the autistic brain. This restoration may help children improve socialization skills during a fever.
The study was based on 30 autistic children between ages 2 and 18 who were observed during and after a fever of at least 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. More than 80% of the children showed some improvement in behavior during a fever and 30% showed significant improvement. Behavior changes included longer concentration span, increased amount of talking and improved eye contact.
I wonder if scientists could induce a "designer" fever that promoted intelligence and reflexes in baseline patients . . .
To the laboratory!
US and UK rival China for government surveillance
The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies", according to a recent study examining privacy protection around the world that gave the four nations the lowest possible rating.
The 10th annual report showed a global increase in surveillance and a decline in privacy safeguards during 2007, as concerns over immigration and border control continued to dominate national policy agendas.
(Via Nerdshit.)
Soviet icon surprises polar scientists
Is it just me or does this strange find recall the ending of "Planet of the Apes"?
Scientists trekking across a little visited part of Antarctica have discovered a bizarre relic of the Soviet Union is dominating the South Pole of Inaccessibility.
In the middle of no-where -- literally the point on Antarctica furthest from the sea -- an imposing bust of revolutionary Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin peers out onto the polar emptiness.
(Via Dark Roasted Blend.)
Is it just me or does this strange find recall the ending of "Planet of the Apes"?
Innovation Tower at Hong Kong Polytechnic University by Zaha Hadid
Click for must-see concept illustrations. For sheer vertiginous futurity, this place outdoes the Tyrell Corporation headquarters from "Blade Runner."
The fluid character of the Innovation Tower is generated through an intrinsic composition of its landscape, floor plates and louvers, that dissolves the classic typology of the tower and the podium into an iconic seamless piece.
Click for must-see concept illustrations. For sheer vertiginous futurity, this place outdoes the Tyrell Corporation headquarters from "Blade Runner."
US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists
"The logic that convinces us that evolution is a fact is the same logic we use to say smoking is hazardous to your health or we have serious energy policy issues because of global warming," University of Michigan professor Gilbert Omenn told reporters at the launch of a book on evolution by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
"I would worry that a president who didn't believe in the evolution arguments wouldn't believe in those other arguments either. This is a way of leading our country to ruin," added Omenn, who was part of a panel of experts at the launch of "Science, Evolution and Creationism."
(Via RCU.)
Monday, January 07, 2008
It's the Far Future of 1992 and Hot, Dominant Women Rule the World!
Oh, how I want to read this.
Welcome to the world of The Feminists, a pulp novel published in 1971. It's the story of cubicle drone Keith Montalvo, who has been caught consensually slipping the pink torpedo to a female co-worker. Unfortunately, it's 1992 and the Big-Sisterish "Committee" has outlawed all unauthorized heterosex, and his crime is punishable by death.
Oh, how I want to read this.
Our universe as virtual reality
Jacques Vallee, Hans Moravec and John Keel in the same sentence? Go for it!
Drones and Universes
The author of this post echoes Greg Bishop's thoughts on the nature of Whitley Strieber's recent "contact" experience. Indeed, the central mechanism behind the UFO phenomenon seems to be less technological that "mystical," for lack of a better term. I'm convinced we're dealing with a stimulus with profound implications for human consciousness, in which case liminal states of awareness might help our minds amplify a "signal" that goes otherwise unnoticed. (A rough analogy can be drawn to Nick Herbert's concept of "quantum tantra" for establishing a nonverbal rapport with the "outside" world.)
Strieber's account illustrates the tenuousness of relating such experiences. It would be easy to discount the experience as suggestibility (the passages Strieber read earlier dealt with a similar experience), although it's equally easy to suggest that we may be most able to perceive alternate universes in a quasi-conscious state, and that perhaps the drone had somehow enabled such an experience after Strieber's reading precognitively prepared him.
Regardless of where one falls on the issue, Strieber's account is an intriguing reminder of just how little we know about the boundaries between reality and non-reality.
The author of this post echoes Greg Bishop's thoughts on the nature of Whitley Strieber's recent "contact" experience. Indeed, the central mechanism behind the UFO phenomenon seems to be less technological that "mystical," for lack of a better term. I'm convinced we're dealing with a stimulus with profound implications for human consciousness, in which case liminal states of awareness might help our minds amplify a "signal" that goes otherwise unnoticed. (A rough analogy can be drawn to Nick Herbert's concept of "quantum tantra" for establishing a nonverbal rapport with the "outside" world.)
Sunday, January 06, 2008
The truth is out: X-Files go public
The cases, many from a little-known defence intelligence branch tasked with investigating UFO claims, will be published by the Ministry of Defence to counter what officials say is 'the maze of rumour and frequently ill-informed speculation' surrounding Whitehall and its alleged involvement with Unidentifed Flying Objects.
The public opening of the MoD archive will expose the once highly classified work of the intelligence branch DI55, whose mission was to investigate UFO reports and whose existence was denied by the government until recently. Reports into about 7,000 UFO sightings investigated by defence officials - every single claim lodged over the past 30 years - are included in the files, whose staged release will begin in spring.
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