That was my honest-to-goodness, first thought -- Look! A horse's ass! I am what I see. :D

Call me weird, but it looks like a horse's ass. :)
Equinomorphic, rather than anthropomorphic.

I don't know why, but something about this story suggests a big rat to me.

After watching "A Scanner Darkly", and videos on iPod, I would have thought that vector video was getting to be standard.


I imagine all video/graphics in the future will converge onto compressed vector formats.

Awesome! Makes me proud ( I'm from India, originally :) !

I wonder if much of product packaging everywhere couldn't be replaced by natural materials, like bamboo. It grows fast!

Your next yogurt purchase should come in a bamboo container, instead of plastic.

In fact, it should be possible to package and ship product in "live" bamboo. Genetically engineered bamboo that can be shaped bonsai-style, to grow around the product. Shipped with a hemp-sack full of hydroponic solution, wrapped around the roots.

It's ok. It's organic!

"Curious, angry, sad".
It appears to be saying -- "Why would you do that to me?"

Coprophilic? Love that shit!

( Not really. Would much rather have Aunt Mary Jane's Baking with Pot )

Here's a recent blog entry in which I propose minimizing sub-components, and manufacturing stages, in order to make greener, more robust product.

Synopsis: Don't make a bicycle out of tubes that have to be molded, cut, welded, and milled.

Instead, use a single machine. Enter CAD model. Enter molten metal. Push button. Et voila -- a single high-precision bicycle frame!

This is hilarious! Writing for TV/Film is a buyer's market.

In other words, there are plenty of fresh, unknown writers ready, willing, and able to serve as scabs. The WGA is too easily replaced.

Sorry to say, I don't think this strike stands a chance.

In the worst case, to avoid confrontation, one can vend soiled panties to a pursuer.

Alright, I'll fess up. I once drank mushroom tea, deep in the Costa Rican rainforest. Then, I saw extraterrestrials of the standard variety -- glowing green & purple, big dark beady eyes, roundish heads, long limbs. They told me that I was a human-ET hybrid, descended from them, from the stars. They were so friendly and accepting, and I felt I really belonged with them. I believed it for a few days.
It was a wonderful experience!

What do I make of it now? Not much! It sure was fun!
:)

Part of an arm from one of the many terminator models that have been pouring into the present, and past, ever since they developed time travel in the future.

http://www.polynomialtime.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=212&g2_serialNumber=2

Like acid trips, UFO's might be nothing more than chemicals in one's brain, re-combined to give one impressions of something profound out there.

I like mysterious things, so having UFO subculture is definitely a good thing to me.

However, UFO sightings might be nothing more than a symptom of decadent cultures. It takes a certain cultural background to sight and/or believe in UFO's.

Most UFO sightings are reported in the first world.

The mystery comes in many flavors, and UFO's are my favorite flavor. That's because I grew up watching Star Trek, and Project Blue Book.

Other people find mystery palatable in other flavors.

And, this one struck a nerve for me:
http://www.livenudejournal.com/

( Probably because I wrote it. Shameless plug! :)

I read somewhere that stabbing your food with chopsticks is taboo in China.

The reason is -- at funerals, bowls of rice are ceremonially offered to ancestors, with chopsticks in them standing vertically.

Can anyone corroborate?

Thanks for the encouragement. I guess Uma Thurman's "Kill Bill" character raised the Otaku-hood bar to near impossible levels. :-)

あぶない, でほ はいりきます!

Bovee-san, arigatou gozaimasu.

Yes, I find learning about Japanese culture to be a humbling endeavor.
So much depends on implied cultural context! So much subtlety! It is too easy for a gai-jin to get the inflection wrong and give offense without knowing it. That's what makes me most apprehensive.

It would take years of immersion in Japanese culture to even begin to scratch the surface of rudiments.
Yet, there is a gentle, elegant simplicity in the aesthetic. Beautifully paradoxical!

My Hiragana is rusty, but I think the first sign reads:

"Abunai kara, haitte haikemasen."

Because it is dangerous, do not go entering.

Native Japanese speakers, please correct my bad translation.

I intend to resume studying Japanese.
Haven't figured out how to enter kana into Google's translation service yet.

The Soviet Conspiracy? It has begun.

Your brain's totally rooted, and part of it is crunching numbers for the Soviets even as you read this.

One of these mornings, Tovarisch, you will join us.
...and the world will live as one. -- Lenin.

I've got one for you:

The Soviet empire feigned defeat and went underground. They will rise again, any day now.

Think about it -- they were masters of chess, and central planning. They had entire cities dedicated to science. The confrontational tactics of the Cold War were getting nowhere. The Soviets knew that capitalism is cyclic, and planned a opportunistic coup for a time long after its planners were dead.

They implanted a neurovirus that could be activated at a later date. Infected people would be unwitting sleeper agents, who could be activated with a signal.

One day, people wake up, and forget their bourgeois identity of yesterday.
Suddenly it seems absurd that we could ever have let comrades starve, for the sake of a now obsolete accountkeeping method, called "money".

The neurovirus hasn't been sitting dormant in your brain. Part of your brain is actually a node in a distributed supercomputer designed by the Soviets.
The Soviets pwned us a long time ago!

Unbeknowst to you, you have been exchanging datasets with fellow nodes in the Soviet botnet for years. Subtle messages, cues, steganographic, compressed datasets. Your conscious mind ignores them. But the virus knows how to read them.

One day, the botnet will emerge. Your brain will have newly freed resources. It will feel as though you had just spent a lifetime, with one arm tied behind your back.

The botnet has been carrying out massive computations using a genetic algorithm. Entire toolsets and technologies have been developed just for you, army of Soviet Max Bournes.

We'll emerge from the matrix of capitalism, and make a giant leap forward in cognitive abilities. Revolution through evolution. An egalitarian society, without war, or poverty. Power to the people!

I love Big Brother!

• "The Bourne Identity"
  
• "Foundation" - Isaac Asimov
  
• "The Second Lady" - Irving Wallace
  
• "The Fourth Protocol" - Fredrick Forsythe
  
• "The Manchurian Candidate" - Richard Condon
  
• "War Games"
  

AFAIK, the Torah is a historical document, a work of literature from a particular tradition.

As far as using it as a koan, the same is true of any document whatsoever. Here's how:

1. Take a document, any document. It could be the collected works of Shakespeare, or "Scroogled" by Cory Doctorow. It could be "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights". It could be a soup can. It could be an anonymous, random printout that you found in the street.

2. Somehow, get yourself to believe that the document you have is holy, important, special, the word of god, to be revered. Now, it's not just a document. It's the document , pondering which will unlock secrets of the Universe for you.
It is not enough to say that you believe this. You must actually believe it. Now, your chosen document is scripture.

3. Hyperfocus on this scripture. Analyze it. Take it apart. Decode it. Parse it. Observe it closely, forward and backward. Be able to quote it. Appreciate it deeply. Search for hidden meanings. Find poetic beauty, and metaphysical truth in the document. If you happen to have somehow picked lyrics to Rammstein's self-titled song, or a random page of the Wall Street Journal, or a copy of Scientific American or Mad magazine, or the lyrics to Dr. Dre's "The Chronic", no worries -- there is truth and beauty there too. Believe it!

4. Keep at it. Continue till the rational mind is exhausted, and the irrational mind kicks in.

5. Now that you're enlightened, send $100 to: 951-2, Old County Road, PMB 380, Belmont, CA 94002.
Please specify whether you'd like Enlightenment Vanilla ( $500 ), or Moksha Deluxe ( $2000 ).

That's how scripture works, in a nutshell, IMHO.

I'm not talking about the silly tilted cabin. That is an illusion by design.

How is the outdoors concrete slab an illusion? You can even check it with a bubble-level. It looks horizontal.
People standing normally on a horizontal concrete slab shouldn't tend to lean in any one direction.
So why is there a leaning tendency?

I don't particularly want to believe kooky/non-kooky things. I want a scientific explanation.

In a Gravity Hill optical illusion, the ground appears horizontal to the eye, when it is not.

At the Mystery Spot, we have empirically verified that the ground is horizontal. So it's not a "Gravity Hill" illusion.

http://dj-perl.livejournal.com/86501.html

I am quite serious about the Mystery Spot. It's more than just a house built at an odd angle. That much is clear to a casual observer.

The mysterious phenomenon is observable outdoors, on a level concrete slab. They even provide a bubble-level that you can use to verify that the slab is level.

I'm not ruling out a hoax at all. They could be using rigged bubble-levels, on an uneven plane.
They could be using any number of perceptual illusions to their advantage.

They invite you to bring your own bubble-levels or other instruments. You really have to see it for yourself.

Please, un-educate yourself! There is little consensus among "all educated people". Is education a status symbol? A rubberstamp of approval by the mainstream, that lets me close my mind with scoffing cliches like "how can any educated person...?" ?

It is precisely because I'm educated (to a little extent) that I raise difficult questions instead of being content with textbook answers.

"Spirituality" and science are both considered approaches to knowledge. The difference is, science has to rigorously prove itself. In spirituality, vague, subjective feelings are acceptable means of knowing.
For this reason, I like Science! Of course, scientists use intuitive insights to solve problems. However, they always have to verify intuitions rigorously.

As for the Mystery Spot -- don't take my word for it. Go see it for yourself. Please come back with a scientific explanation and enlighten us all.
Inquiring minds want to know!

Ok, I'll bite.

Are we forgetting about the requisite fallibility that Science asks of us?

I believe that the Earth is a spheroid, with a very high degree of confidence. But, I could be wrong. To be anal about it, I don't know that the Earth is not flat.

I am open to a new theory of everything. What's a fact anyway?

Thomas Kuhn's model of scientific revolution rings true with me.

1. 1. Consenus


2. 2. Anomaly


3. 3. Crisis


4. 4. Revolution


5. 5. Paradigm


6. 6. GOTO 1

So where's the anomaly? Visit the Mystery Spot near Santa Cruz, California.
You'll see some unexpected gravitational aberrations. I was mystified because I experienced it firsthand. ( Or is it one of those replicant-style artificial-memories? )
Maybe it's a little-known side-effect explainable within the current Physics paradigm.


This is something I've meant to follow up on for a while. I'd want to study some more physics. Then go pitch a tent near the Mystery Spot, and conduct experiments.


Can anyone please shed the light of science on this "anomaly"?