Invisible College II - The Blind Spot

2011-08-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Another Memorial Day

It's been a long long long time. A long strange journey. It hasn't been easy. I look back to the words my friends have shared with me and they are still alive. Living words. Living language. Sometimes I am haunted by them... but not in a bad way, but feeling like I've almost solved the biggest puzzle in the world, but then the person you most wanted to share it with is gone... out of reach. It's strange, I look in the mirror and sometimes I see the ghost of a face I once knew. And I wonder if I'm keeping him alive or if he is keeping me alive. There are all these words. Lots of words. They all seemed so important to me at the time. Now the most important things seem to be those things that transcended the words all together.
I'm sitting here looking at visions of other worlds. Their secret meanings. And like Philip K. Dick's anamnesis, I find great irony that I was looking for someone else to show me the way to get where only I know how to go. I'm looking at these other worldly visions, and looking back I realize that I had forgotten about my own until only recently. And I remember the things which have yet to happen. I know my time here is short. Each day I feel the Event drawing nearer.
Last night the music sang to me such sweet and embracing tunes, that I was ready to leave right then and there. At this point I feel like I really don't belong here anymore and I'm just biding my time till the Mothership comes. My ego tells me I'm doing important things here and that if I stay I will live a wonderful life. But in my soul and all the rest of me longs for adventure... for travel. I remember where it is I will go next, and after that, and after that, and after that... and I find I miss those places that I've never yet been to, again. I know that sounds strange. But from my point of view, I'm standing on a wave that has been standing still since time began. Timewave zero perhaps. And now I'm feeling this strange mix of boredom, malaise, sadness, joy, excitement, anticipation, awe, fear, and probably the strangest... loneliness. That strangest of all sensations when one is surrounded by people, some of them who even like you... and some who even love you. I know beyond a shadow of all doubt, this was the Buddah's feelings before he departed. And in my mind I can see the Day Light all ready. I need not make the same journey to find what is already here. And yet... and yet... and yet and yet... something still is not right. I am still here. I haven't made the journey yet. I am overwhelmed. I keep putting it off. I'm waiting for that blue malibu to show up with the swirling rainbow lights to and the driver that makes me smile ear to ear.
I believe in miracles. Life is a miracle. That I can write this here and now, and remember it from there and then at the same time, is a miracle. I smile. The whole universe smiles. I cry the whole universe weeps. When did I begin being separate from the whole? That's right, I'm not. I never was.
I remember swooping down and trying to comfort myself. I made the musical utterly magical. I did everything I could to make the whole universe sing. But it was heavy and dark because I was brooding and tearful. Then somehow, some miracle happened. A quick rabbit flashed by. Was it my imagination? Did the rabbit in the gym mirror really exist? And we all know about rabbits and their holes that go to other worlds. Take Alice for example. She SHOULD HAVE smoked a fat one with the rabbit then bought him a drink. Things would have gone more smoothly I imagine. Then somehow, some miracle happened. Anamnesis. I remembered what I had forgotten my whole life. And it's so strange. Because I realize it was always there. I just somehow wasn't conscious of it. I've spent my whole life searching for it without knowing I was.
I found that which is even more precious than even the philosopher's stone. I've tried to explain it to many people. But they never understand or they think I'm crazy or lost in "magical thinking". But I understand them! I understand how they are misunderstanding me. And yet I never seem to be able to cross that divide. I have an easier time communicating to my kitty cat. Strangely, SHE understands me better than most people. But then again, she spends more time listening to everything I have to say. Watching it unfold and learning to understand. Lately, I've tried to communicate the EXPERIENCE of what I've found. The few brave souls who dare to let me share, are usually 'freaked out' or blown away. My musician neighbor nearly lost it a few nights ago when as we talked... I told him all about his deepest innermost thoughts and desires... without meaning to. Quoted all his song lyrics. All his conversations. All his great motivations. And I knew in my own self, that it was like he was closer than a brother. I knew him inside and out. And I remembered him and all his potentials, even if he had forgotten me in HIS amnesia. I feel that way about pretty much everyone I meet these days. People stare at me for a long time as I walk down the street. They are busy trying to place me. I look so familiar to them, but they don't know from where. But I do. Sometimes they even approach me once in a while and say something like... "you look so familiar. I know you from somewhere." Then I smile big and playfully and reply, "I get that alot." This is Hollywood after all. Everybody is trying to be seen. Haha... how funny it is that I'm trying NOT to be seen. But each day, as I draw closer and nearer to the Event, it becomes harder and harder to stay hidden. My instinct is to flee with great urgency to the forest. To hear the whispers of the trees. The ethereal voices and ghosts of ages past whisper reassuring messages in the wind. But I guess I did that last time. I guess this time I'm SUPPOSED to be here in the middle of all these people with their money and fancy cars and Starbucks lattes and "snide drunken remarks".
My fortune cookie message says, "You should be able to undertake and complete anything." So I've chosen to undertake the Event.

2008-12-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

I am ...

People may mean many things when they ask for a sign as I did. Trying to be completely open to whatever may show up and interpreting it as a sign. But our old friend sure does have a sense of humor. haha... I asked for a sign and well that's exactly what I got.
On the way to the gym last night I encountered yet another sign. I took the wrong freeway exit and turned down an alley to turn around, and at then end of the street was this sign. Again several of the lights were out with the three remaining lights conveying a very different message.
hmmm... the game's afoot... boys... ;)

2008-12-24T18:22:00.000-08:00

A message from the Blind Spot

In a strange and wonderful synchronicity, the following name appeared lit up in neon on a 'boyga joint'. Hmmm... ;) Possibly a funny message to let us all know that a dear old friend has found and made it past the 'golden arches'?? or perhaps he just always wanted to see his name in neon lights ;) ... or maybe even a change of preference to let us all know that mcD's ain't so bad after all. In any case when you ask for a message and a sorely missed friend's name shows up in neon lights... well thats always a good sign!! Seems the game isn't over after all, but only just beginning...

2007-10-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Defense Dept. Orders
Fleet of Real Flying Saucers

Oct. 12, 2007 — Think "flying saucer" and UFOs or 1950s B movies come to mind (see "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still"). But now researchers have built an unmanned aerial vehicle that looks and acts like the imagined thing.

The disc-shaped device can take off vertically from any surface, land practically anywhere, and if it accidentally contacts a building or cliff, it won't explode into a fireball, like those rascally helicopters.

These features could make the aircraft uniquely suited to flying in urban war zones, aiding with search and rescue in disaster areas, inspecting crops and pipelines, and taking aerial photographs...

2007-10-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

"the Lazarus Phenomenon"

[Originally posted 5/15/2007 12:04 am]
Brain Death caused by too much O2. Heard an article on 'CoastToCoastAm' Sunday 5/13 on 1570am at 6pm, while driving home from a bit of a road trip. Looking for references. Researcher said that brain death is caused by getting too much o2 to the brain when it stalls. that the brain cells go into a state of using almost zero o2 then when the heart is massaged and o2 pumped into the lungs, the sudden overdose of o2 kills the neurons. That there is a way to bing someone/thing back from the dead by SLOWLY ramping the brain up with 02 as slowly as it became deprived. that a gradual increase in o2 will let the brain come back gently and not shock it to death and the person will wake up when they have enough o2. Implications for comas and 'brain dead': more o2 may awaken those who are in deep comas as well as the 'dead'.

If anyone can find the researcher, book, or articles. Please let me know in comments.

Update [10/11/2007]: I haven't dropped this one. Just found the name of the phenomenon. Its called "the Lazarus Phenomenon". I still can't find any references to the interview I heard, the book, or the medical doctor who was interviewed. Very strange and amazing indeed. Something's stirring...
Also, the above image links to a dvd on the topic, but it seems very religiously oriented. I chose it and the link, because it seems to have all the themes from the non-extant radio show I heard. This really is science... somewhere... so don't be overly put off by the religious stuff, it'll have to do until I find the real stuff I'm aiming for. Should make for an interesting study topic though.

2007-08-24T12:35:00.001-07:00

Scientists Induce

Out-of-Body Sensation

Scientists used virtual reality goggles, a camera and a stick to induce the sensation, a journal reports.

2007-05-10T00:14:00.000-07:00

So two cannibals are eating a clown. One gets a bewilderd look on his face turns to the other and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"

2007-05-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Strange Craft

The craft is almost completely silent and moves very smoothly. It usually moves slowly until it decides to take off. Then it moves VERY quickly and is out of sight in the blink of an eye. MORE THAN ANYTHING I simply want to understand what this is and why it is here?

It is almost totally silent but not quite. It makes kind of "crackling" noises. It's hard to describe them but they are only intermittent and not very loud, but you can notice them. Sometimes there is a very slight hum that sounds kind of mechanical, almost like when you are near very large power lines. But it is nothing loud like a jet engine, it is very quiet for the most part.

It moves almost like an insect. If you have ever seen a bug on a pond, it is kind of like that. It is VERY smooth and slow most of the time, but then every now and then it will rotate very quickly and go VERY fast into another direction, then stop, and repeat the process all over again. There is just something very unnatural about the way it moves.

2006-12-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

AUDIUM
Sound Sculptured Space

We are conceived in sound
we grow
and emerge in its wake.
Our history is a collection
of sound sensations,
experiences, emotions
All uniting into an aural identity.
It is this ocean
of recollections, sound images,
dreams, memories
We share.
-- Stan Shaff, Composer

Thanks to Peruny for this find.

2006-11-24T15:22:00.000-08:00

Realm of the Sufi Saints

.. once you master every single part of your physical body with your will power, you may dress your physical body with your spiritual body. Meaning: your spiritual body is then no longer imprisoned in your physical body; instead you pull your spiritual body over the physical. Then physical laws like time and space do not apply anymore. You can then fly even to Heaven without wings, just with your will. The condition for such powers is, that a person is completely in charge: that the will power controls, not the desires.

2006-11-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

Sufism's Many Paths

"Sufism or tasawwuf, as it is called in Arabic, is generally understood by scholars and Sufis to be the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, however, many Muslims and non-Muslims believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Nevertheless, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the foremost scholars of Islam, in his article The Interior Life in Islam contends that Sufism is simply the name for the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam.

After nearly 30 years of the study of Sufism, I would say that in spite of its many variations and voluminous expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is quite simple. It is that the Sufi surrenders to God, in love, over and over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's consciousness (one's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, as well as one's sense of self) as gifts of God or, more precisely, as manifestations of God."

2006-11-22T10:23:00.000-08:00

Persian Poetry of Rumi

"This house wherein continually rings the sound of the bell- staff—ask of the master what house this house is. What is this idol-form, if it is the house of the Kaaba? And what is this light of God, if it is the Magian temple? In this house is a treasure which the whole of being cannot contain; this house and this master are all a fiction and a pretence. Lay not hand upon this house, for this house is a talisman; speak not to the master, for he is drunk since last night. The dust and rubbish of this house is all ambergris and musk; the noise of the door of this house is all verse and melody. In short, whoever enters this house has found a way to the King of the world, the Solomon of the time."

2006-11-07T00:46:00.000-08:00

Firm's operations could trouble voters

Diabold touch screen voting machines

www.reconscious.com

A company whose touch-screen voting machines won state certification in Missouri last month has been raising money through stock placements that found their way to unlicensed securities "boiler rooms" in Europe.

AccuPoll Holding Corp.'s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that the company's financial backers include the children and business associates of a man who went to prison for fraud in the 1990s.
http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/000269.php

August 13, 2005

By Christopher Carey, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Black Box Voting
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

2006-11-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

"It's A Strange New Millennium"

while wandering around some Internet Sites, I came across this one called " The Wulf Bytes Archives". Since we are preparing for our General Elections on this next Tuesday I began to think about the many things that have taken form since we have had this administration. I have been postponing my search and study of the measures and candidates put before us to vote on, when usually I proceed with gusto thinking that I have been heard, as all USA citizens should be. But I have this underlying fear of what we will get in return for our honest ballots. Then it hit me ! We really are being conditioned.......being hit over the head over and over until we are immune to it..........the conditioning I mean. This Country is ours. The Government is not it's own entity. Every citizen works and pays for it. Camon people, WAKE UP before she is ruined beyond repair and we with her! If she means this much to me she has to mean this much to you. She has been our child for generations and we her children. We must do right by her as she has done right by us and all those before us. wake up future generations NEED us!

2006-10-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Hiroshi Ishiguro builds his evil android twin: Geminoid HI-1

Ishiguro, a senior researcher at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories outside Kyoto, has created a machine in his own image -- a robot that looks and moves exactly like him. It sits on a chair and gazes around the room in a very humanlike fashion, just like its creator. In fact, the robot is an exact duplicate.

Ishiguro's silicone-and-steel doppelgänger was made from casts taken from his own body. Powered by pressurized air and small actuators, it runs on semiautonomous motion programs.

2006-10-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Cloaking and Invisibility

Our group studies the interesting electromagnetic properties of artificially structured materials, or metamaterials. As remarkable--sometimes even science-fiction like--as these metamaterials are, we usually run into the problem that it is difficult to convey their importance to non-experts. However, we have recently had the opportunity to study a new type of electromagnetic metamaterial that has a function easily understood by all. In a recent paper published in the journal Science, we have outlined a theoretical method to design a material that would render objects invisible. This topic has raised an enormous amount of interest worldwide, and with that interest inevitably comes rampant speculation about what might be possible with this new paradigm. With all the speculation it can become easy to blur the line between what is science fact and what remains science fiction! So, we thought we'd describe here, in a non-technical way, our view on the prospects of invisibility, and try to sort out the fact from the fiction.

2006-10-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

Exploring Stephen Hawking's Flexiverse

A Universe in a Box

HERE’S how to build a universe. Step one: start at the beginning of time. Step two: apply the laws of physics. Step three: sit back and watch the universe evolve. Step four: cross your fingers and hope that it comes out looking something like the one we live in. That’s the basic prescription for cosmology, the one physicists use to decipher the history of the universe. But according to Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge and Thomas Hertog of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the steps are all backward. According to these physicists, there is no history of the universe. There is no immutable past, no 13.7 billion years of evolution for cosmologists to retrace. Instead, there are many possible histories, and the universe has lived them all. And if that’s not strange enough, you and I get to play a role in determining the universe’s history. Like a reverse choose-your-own-adventure story, we, the observers, can choose the past.

Site - http://www.newscientistspace.com

2006-10-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

You are made of space-time

LEE SMOLIN is no magician. Yet he and his colleagues have pulled off one of the greatest tricks imaginable. Starting from nothing more than Einstein's general theory of relativity, they have conjured up the universe. Everything from the fabric of space to the matter that makes up wands and rabbits emerges as if out of an empty hat.

This promising approach to understanding the cosmos is based on a collection of theories called loop quantum gravity, an attempt to merge general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single consistent theory.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125645.800?DCMP=NLC-ezine&nsref=
mg19125645.800

2006-10-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

What is the Purification

... and whom was it meant for?...

"There's a tremor in the Force. The last time this was felt it was in the presence of... "

Arizona

2006-10-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

The May Day Mystery

The Game seems to revolve around May 1st, commonly known as May Day.
The solution to solving the puzzle lies within unraveling a series of complex, detailed, and interwoven pages that are printed every May 1st in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student run newspaper on the University of Arizona Campus.

2006-10-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

How Time Travel Will Work

Ideas of time travel have existed for centuries, but when Albert Einstein released his theory of special relativity, he laid the foundation for the theoretical possibility of time travel. As we all know, no one has successfully demonstrated time travel, but no one has been able to rule it out either.

2006-10-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Time Traveler Wanted

2006-10-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

Alien Dreaming
The Enigma of the Archons

The Gaia Mythos describes how the impact of the Aeon Sophia upon the density of atomic matter produced a massive fracture, like the shatter pattern on an ice pond. The pattern has a center where Sophia is located (identified by the Mandelbrot Set), and a spider-web extension of fracture lines that run in all directions (the frozen sea of fractal waves). Episode 9 describes how Sophia, situated in the center of the impact zone, sees around Her something like a sea of tensile waves, and riding the waves, or actually composing the waves they appear to ride, are self-repeating forms that resemble seashorses. These seahorses are similar to the forms that appear at high reiteration of the equation for the Mandelbrot Set. These forms correspond to the anatomical type spontaneously generated from formless atomic matter by Sophia's impact, a type called the "shadow body," haibes in Coptic.

2006-10-01T13:51:00.001-07:00

RIDDLE
Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling
In mystic force and magic spelling
Celestial sprites elucidate
All my own striving can't relate

The number PI, the digits of which are illustrated by the length of each word in the riddle.

2006-09-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

Clown & Balloons

2006-09-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Ingenious Transactions

Newton, Einstein and a monstrous calf

The first page of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, which debuted in 1665. Robert Boyle contributed papers on thermodynamics and the appearance of a very strange calf to the first volume of the journal.

For the first time, the Royal Society is making the complete archive of its journals freely available online. For a two month period, the public will be able to access scientific papers going back to 1665, when Henry Oldenburg published Philosophical Transactions, the first-ever peer-reviewed journal in the English language.

The archive contains classic scientific papers from the likes of Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein, and Francis Crick. At the same time, the journals provide a direct glimpse into the fascinating history of science; particularly Philosophical Transactions, which in earliest years published papers on a wide variety of subjects and blurred the distinction between science and everyday reportage.

“The journals in question were for some time the most significant of their kind in the world, and certainly the most important publications in Anglo-American science until the prominence of Science, Nature and other journals,” said Rob Iliffe, reader in the History of Science at the UK's Imperial College, and Editorial Director of a project, which aims to make all Newton's writings freely available online.

Author: Darius Nikbin http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/10/9/11

2006-09-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

Stresses determine the shape of life

Patterns are everywhere in nature, from the leopard's spots to the nautilus's spiral shell, but scientists struggle to understand the mechanisms that produce them. Researchers in the US now believe that physics of microtubules is an important piece in the puzzle.

Jim Valles and Jay Tang at Brown University, have worked out that physics is behind the patterns formed by microtubules – proteins that play a fundamental role in cell division and organism development. "What's exciting is that this finding may provide insight into how the shapes that make up the human body are created".

2006-09-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

Animal welfare: See things from their perspective

Your dog falls ill, so you take him to the vet. After a quick consultation you take him home, and soon he appears to be better. But he is not. You and the vet have failed to realise that he is still in severe pain, and the drugs the vet has prescribed will turn him into a social outcast, a dog that may be shunned or even attacked by others.

Such mistakes can happen, say animal behaviour specialists, because our understanding of animal welfare is inadequate, and at times misguided. The human tendency to anthropomorphise means we miss out on animals' real feelings and needs, with the result that we often provide them with inappropriate housing and medical care. This is leading to the health and well being of millions of animals kept as pets, livestock or in zoos being adversely affected.

23 September 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Andy Coghlan

2006-09-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

Surprises from the Edge of the Solar System

A schematic diagram of the sun's heliosphere. Anomalous cosmic rays are supposed to come from the Termination Shock--but Voyager 1 found otherwise. [More]

Sept. 21, 2006: Almost every day, the great antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network turn to a blank patch of sky in the constellation Ophiuchus. Pointing at nothing, or so it seems, they invariably pick up a signal, faint but full of intelligence. The source is beyond Neptune, beyond Pluto, on the verge of the stars themselves.

It's Voyager 1. The spacecraft left Earth in 1977 on a mission to visit Jupiter and Saturn. Almost 30 years later, with the gas giants long ago seen and done, Voyager 1 is still going and encountering some strange things.

2006-09-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

Toxic spill on the International Space Station

US astronaut Jeffrey Williams packages air samples he took after a toxic spill aboard the ISS (Image: NASA TV)

Three astronauts cleaned up a chemical spill onboard the International Space Station on Monday morning. The cleanup appears to have contained the problem and NASA believes the crew is safe.
NASA says a small amount of toxic potassium hydroxide may have been released from an oxygen vent that is part of the Elektron oxygen generator on the Russian side of the space station.
When inhaled, potassium hydroxide can cause a burning sensation, cough, sore throat and shortness of breath. The crew collected air samples to send to Earth later and activated a filtering system to try to rid the air of the chemical.

* 19 September 2006
* NewScientist.com news service

2006-09-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

Secrets From the Lost Bible: Hidden Scriptures Found

Ancient scriptures, hidden from the world for centuries, have recently attracted unprecedented popular attention. Some were found among the ancient library of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Others include assorted mystical writings known as Kabbalah, and a host of books that never made it into the Bible,...
http://www.treasuresintime.org/

2006-09-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Big Brother: I'm Talking to You!

In the town of Middlesbrough, in the U.K., Big Brother is not only watching you, but now, barking out orders via loudspeakers attached to cameras in public places. "Bad behavior" and "antisocial" acts like littering and fighting can trigger a verbal warning from control room operators, such as Warning - you are being monitored by CCTV… you are in an alcohol-free zone, please refrain from drinking.

Read more at the Daily Mail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id
=405477&in_page_id=1770

2006-09-23T12:37:00.001-07:00

Fish Egg 'Miracle' Needs Cracking

Fish Inside Duck's Egg

During a field trip to the French Alps, University of Manchester biologists found a duck egg in a small pond. Noticing movement inside the egg, the group cracked open the shell and found three live minnows living inside it. The researchers are "baffled" by the find as the egg appeared to be sealed with no visible breaks. Read more at BBC News.

2006-09-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

Virtual reality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment. Most virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced and experimental systems have included limited tactile information, known as force feedback.

2006-09-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

ThinkBack Memory Backup Drive

Never forget anything again! After downloading every moment, dream and experience you've ever had through the ocular interface (resembles a pair of goggles), the ThinkBack Memory Backup Drive stores them on a special hard disk, which will allow you to review your memories on the LCD screen.

2006-09-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

Brainstorm (1983)

Brilliance way ahead of its time.
whats next... ?

2006-09-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

XistenZ (1999)

2006-09-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

The Rosicrucian Manifestoes

"We, deputies of the principal College of the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, are staying visibly and invisibly in this town by the Grace of the Most High, to whom the heart of the just turns. We show and teach without books or masques how to speak the language of every country where we wish to be, to bring our fellow men out of the error of death."
- Rosicrucian broadside

2006-09-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

Gold in the Crucible: The Alchemists

Study what thou art,
Whereof thou art a part,
What thou knowest of this Art,
This is really what thou art.
All that is without thee,
Also is within,
Thus wrote Trismosin. -- From the Aurum Vellus, 1498

2006-09-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

The Budweiser Girls

Bud... wise... er
roughly equivalent in German to...
Bud... knows... him/her

2006-09-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

Heart of a New Machine

While most robots are designed to serve a single dull, utilitarian function, Quasi's reason for being is charm. The machine's creators, all graduate students at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, wanted to build a captivating character that would go well beyond the standard animatronic amusement park figures that spew out canned patter to bored preschoolers. They wanted to build a robot that would make people forget it's a robot.

2006-07-02T00:54:00.000-07:00

From the present to the past

Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking and his CERN colleague Thomas Hertog have proposed a radical new approach to understanding the universe that studies it from the "top down" rather than the "bottom up" as in traditional models. The approach acknowledges that the universe did not have just one unique beginning and history but a multitude of different beginnings and histories, and that it has experienced them all. But because most of these other alternative histories disappeared very early after the Big Bang to leave behind the universe we observe today, the best way to understand the past, they say, is to trace our knowledge back from the present (Phys. Rev. D 73 123527).

2006-06-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

Infowars.com

Everything you read in the paper, everything you see on the TV, everything your neighbor thinks about terrorism, 911, civil rights, immigration rights- it's all information. Information carefully designed to spin the truth to make you do want THEY want you to do. Infowars makes clear that this information is part of a very powerful battlefront in the age of information. Some lies are deadly.

2006-06-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

TIME AND DESTINY with CHARLES MUSES, Ph.D.

JEFFREY MISHLOVE, Ph.D.: Hello and welcome. Today we're going to pose the eternal question: what is time? My guest, Dr. Charles Muses, is certainly an expert in this area -- a mathematician, philosopher, and computer scientist; the author of numerous books and articles, including Destiny and Control in Human Systems and The Lion Path. Charles, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you on the program.

MISHLOVE: You know, in your book you describe time in ways that are rather untraditional. You suggest that time is multidimensional, and also that time is qualitative. Could you give an example of what you mean by the qualitative nature of time?

MUSES: Well, actually, this is quite traditional, but you have to go back quite a way before it becomes traditional, and it's possible to make it traditional again, only with quantum physics. The idea, I suppose, is to imagine a person in a rather routine job -- say in a bank, or some civil service work, where they're doing much the same thing every day, with the same group. But you hear them say, "Oh, today everything was just wrong, everything went wrong today;" or, "Today everything was smooth." So time itself, independent of the people, independently of the situation, has a quality.

2006-06-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hypernumbers and the Magic Square

That Musaios considered hypernumbers would play a crucial role in the evolution of humanity can be seen from his remarks at the end of chapter 8: "The contemplation and use of hypernumber forms and properties will prove and already has proved both by self-experience and teaching to be a most efficacious and irreplaceable method of evolving into conscious access the powers and capabilities of our superconscious selves. And that way man's future lies."

Now Musaios discovered that there are seven kinds of hypernumber that exist beyond the square root of minus one (also referred to as u2,) which he called u3,, u4,, u5, u6 , u7 , u8 and u9. Now these eight kinds of number actually map upon the eight powers of the outer ring of the Magic Square and thus also correspond to the seven pleromic worlds of the central Q-universe and the 7-D universe that lies beyond it

2006-06-02T23:01:00.000-07:00

FREEZE-FRAMER® FOR ADULTS

This graph shows how emotions affect our heart rhythm patterns. The chaotic rhythm associated with frustration and other negative emotions taxes our body and drains our energy. It also adversely affects the brain and our ability to think clearly and make sound decisions. Positive feelings such as appreciation are associated with harmonious and coherent heart rhythms, and heart and nervous system health. They are associated with increased energy levels, mental clarity and a wide range of health benefits.

2006-05-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

Entangled Minds

As we explore the concept of psi as "entangled minds," we'll consider examples of psi experiences in life and lab, we'll review the origins of psi research, we'll explore the results of thousands of controlled laboratory tests, and we'll debunk skeptical myths about psi. Then we'll explore the fabric of reality as revealed by modern physics and see why it's becoming increasingly relevant to understanding why and how psi exists. At the end, we'll find that the 19th century English poet, Francis Thompson, may have said it best:

All things by immortal power,
Near and Far
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,

2006-04-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Giant Bubble Bullies Our Space

"When stars explode as supernova, they carve giant bubbles in space. Our own solar system is enveloped by such a structure from a long-ago explosion.

Now scientists have shown that our bubble is being pinched and bullied backward by another expanding bubble forged from multiple supernovas.

Our bubble is called the Local Bubble by astronomers. It’s shaped like an hourglass. The bully goes by the name of Loop 1 Superbubble; it’s the result of several exploded stars over the past few million years, researchers figure.

Superbubble’s outer boundaries are marked by hot, expanding gas that radiates low-energy X-rays."

2006-04-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

Lost Book Of Judas

Lost for centuries and bound for controversy, the so-called gospel of Judas was unveiled by scholars Thursday.

With a plot twist worthy of The Da Vinci Code, the gospel — 13 papyrus sheets bound in leather and found in a cave in Egypt — purports to relate the last days of Jesus' life, from the viewpoint of Judas, one of Jesus' first followers. Christians teach that Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but in this gospel, he is the hero, Jesus' most senior and trusted disciple and the only one who knows Jesus' true identity as the son of God.

2006-04-06T17:50:00.000-07:00

Chaos=Order:

Physicists make baffling discovery

According to a computational study conducted by a group of physicists at Washington University in St. Louis, one may create order by introducing disorder.

While working on their model – a network of interconnected pendulums, or "oscillators" – the researchers noticed that when driven by ordered forces the various pendulums behaved chaotically and swung out of sync like a group of intoxicated synchronized swimmers. This was unexpected – shouldn't synchronized forces yield synchronized pendulums?

But then came the real surprise: When they introduced disorder – forces were applied at random to each oscillator – the system became ordered and synchronized.

2006-04-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

PROJECT DANTE
by Princeton University

The Princeton Dante Project opened for local use on 18 May 1999.The PDP combines a traditional approach to the study of Dante's Comedy with new techniques of compiling and consulting data, images, and sound. The text of Dante's poem is always at the center of the user's attention, and he or she is able to consult, within the confines of the PDP itself, the following materials:

The Petrocchi text of the poem
New verse translation of Inferno
Recitation of the poem in Italian
New commentary notes
Direct link to the Dartmouth Dante Project
Links to Dante sites all over the world
Pestilence

2006-04-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

George Orwell"s 1984

Students for an Orwellian Society (SOS) is a nationwide student group. Although SOS has always been a nationwide student group, there is evidence to suggest that it first appeared at Columbia University. The mission of SOS is to promote the vision of a society based upon the principles of Ingsoc, first articulated by George Orwell in his prophetic novel, 1984.
A book absolutely worth reading. It is a "negative utopia" (a bad future vision), and shows a world ruled by totalitarianism.

2006-04-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

Twice Told Tales

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne's famous collection of tales — published originally in magazines and newspapers and then in two separate editions during Hawthorne's lifetime — includes many of his best stories, from "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Wakefield" to "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe" and "The Lily's Quest. the struggle between chaos and order, animal impulse and the specter of eternal damnation, purity of action against the power of temptation and the fear of isolation," these stories — like all of Hawthorne's work — remain powerfully contemporary.

2006-04-02T00:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's Memories

Yesterday's Memories Every Saturday Night
- LIVE over the Internet, starring Ed and George on Saturday nights, from 6pm till midnight (Eastern time). 3:oopm to 9:00pm Pacific time. The broadcasting from Marshfield, Massachusetts.

I have tried to stump the D.J with my requests. I haven't tricked them yet! Ed and George have the greatest assortment of Motown and Rock-n-Roll ever.
-annblogs

Plus Ed is my uncle... ;oD
-Nexus

2006-04-01T23:50:00.000-08:00

Evidence for Universe Expansion Found

Mar 17, 7:06 PM (ET)
By MATT CRENSON

Physicists announced Thursday that they now have the smoking gun that shows the universe went through extremely rapid expansion in the moments after the big bang, growing from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second.
The discovery - which involves an analysis of variations in the brightness of microwave radiation - is the first direct evidence to support the two-decade-old theory that the universe went through what is called inflation.

It also helps explain how matter eventually clumped together into planets, stars and galaxies in a universe that began as a remarkably smooth, superhot soup.
"It's giving us our first clues about how inflation took place," said Michael Turner, assistant director for mathematics and physical sciences at the National Science Foundation. "This is absolutely amazing."
Brian Greene, a Columbia University physicist, said: "The observations are spectacular and the conclusions are stunning."
Researchers found the evidence for inflation by looking at a faint glow that permeates the universe. That glow, known as the cosmic microwave background, was produced when the universe was about 300,000 years old - long after inflation had done its work.
But just as a fossil tells a paleontologist about long-extinct life, the pattern of light in the cosmic microwave background offers clues about what came before it. Of specific interest to physicists are subtle brightness variations that give images of the microwave background a lumpy appearance.
Physicists presented new measurements of those variations during a news conference at Princeton University. The measurements were made by a spaceborne instrument called the Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe, or WMAP, launched by NASA in 2001.
Earlier studies of WMAP data have determined that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take a few hundred thousand years. WMAP also measured variations in the cosmic microwave background so huge that they stretch across the entire sky. Those earlier observations are strong indicators of inflation, but no smoking gun, said Turner, who was not involved in the research.
(AP) This graphic provided by NASA illustrates the idea that the expansion of the universe over most of...
Full Image
The new analysis looked at variations in the microwave background over smaller patches of sky - only billions of light-years across, instead of hundreds of billions.
Without inflation, the brightness variations over small patches of the sky would be the same as those observed over larger areas of the heavens. But the researchers found considerable differences in the brightness variations.
"The data favors inflation," said Charles Bennett, a Johns Hopkins University physicist who announced the discovery. He was joined by two Princeton colleagues, Lyman Page and David Spergel, who also contributed to the research.
Bennett added: "It amazes me that we can say anything at all about what transpired in the first trillionth of a second of the universe."
The physicists said small lumps in the microwave background began during inflation. Those lumps eventually coalesced into stars, galaxies and planets.
The measurements are scheduled to be published in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

2006-04-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

Shugborough Coat of Arms Relates To Merovingians and the Alien Nummo

"The Merovingian bloodline appeared in the Holy Blood Holy Grail and in the Da Vinci Code fiction, where the Frankish royal family was supposed to be descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. According to my research, the Merovingian bloodline is much older than the biblical Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It predates these myths by thousands of years.

Through my research of the ancient African Dogon religion, I have found links between the fish and serpent like alien Nummo talked about by Dogon, and the Merovingians. According to legend, the Merovingians traced their ancestry back to Merovée, a semimythical person who was born of two fathers. One was a king named Clodio and the other a sea monster that seduced his mother when she was swimming in the sea. The Merovingians were supposed to have been descended from aliens, who were the offspring of "nephilim" or fallen angels. Because of their ancestry, Merovée and his descendants were reputed to have supernatural powers and unnaturally long lives."

2006-04-01T01:19:00.000-08:00

Machine Poetics Code Time

Code Time
So, you’ve thrown the I Ching. Aleatory textual systems — you kinda get it. In fact, you’re feeling pretty good about your command of multiple stochastic variables as a generator of modular meaning structures. But are you ready for a little server side PHP script hacking?

Oh yeah. Oh hell yeah.

I wasn’t sure about this… but your fearless TA Dan Richert shown us the way with a thoughtful, detailed boo-yah directed at the subject of Random Seed Variables in the Wu Name Generator.

We’ll get there. First, we have some ground to cover….

Please Note: using an oracle is not consulting an external system - it is placing yourself within a system as one aspect of it... so- into the matrix we go...

2006-04-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

Theory of Expanding Planets

Comic book legend
Neal Adams, who is currently creating a six part series of Batman, discussed his research on a new model for the Universe. His theory proposes that the Earth, and by extension, all moons and planets, expand in size from the inside as they age.

The bottom of the ocean is only between 70 to 180 million years old, said Adams. He hypothesized that Earth was originally ¼ its current size, and that the tectonic plates fit perfectly together on this smaller world which had significantly less areas of water. 600 million years ago Jupiter was also smaller, he said, and thus larger meteors came into the inner solar system, hitting Mars and our moon (as evidenced by their craters). Further, his notion of a growing universe negates the Big Bang theory, and he outlined how a solar system could come into existence as matter is attracted to a sun's electromagnetic field.

2006-04-01T00:08:00.000-08:00

Bird Flu Resides Deep in Lungs, Preventing Human-to-Human Transmission

SCIENCE NEWS March 23, 2006 -- To date, roughly 103 people have been infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus--or bird flu. Yet few, if any, of them have spread the disease to other humans. A virus's ability to spread is the key to its ability to create a pandemic. New research shows that this bird flu currently lacks the protein key to unlock certain cells in the human upper respiratory tract, preventing it from spreading via a sneeze or a cough.

Virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and University of Tokyo and his colleagues tested strains of H5N1 isolated from respiratory tissue in the noses, throats and lungs of infected humans. Although regular human flu viruses bound easily with the receptors found in the nose and throat cells, H5N1 strains attached only to those receptors on cells found in the deepest regions of the lungs.
"Deep in the respiratory system, receptors for avian viruses, including avian H5N1 viruses, are present," Kawaoka explains. "But these receptors are rare in the upper portion of the respiratory system. For the viruses to be transmitted efficiently, they have to multiply in the upper portion of the respiratory system so that they can be transmitted by coughing and sneezing." Viruses require entry into such cells in order to replicate themselves and spread to yet more cells. Only one H5N1 strain--A/Hong Kong/213/03--showed the ability to latch onto either type of receptor and thus gain such access. The findings suggest one way in which H5N1 must mutate if it is to become a highly contagious virus, the researchers argue in their paper in today's Nature. It also reveals a way to monitor for the emergence of such a strain. "Identification of the H5N1 viruses with the ability to recognize human receptors would bring us one step closer to a pandemic strain," Kawaoka says. "Recognition of human receptors can serve as molecular markers for the pandemic potential of the [isolated strains]." --David Biello

2006-03-31T23:42:00.000-08:00

The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
By Michael Baigent

The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception is a book that details the explosive contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the Church conspired to suppress them. Another startling fact was that the type of society that the Essenes had practiced for 200 years was very similiar to early Christianity recorded in the book of Acts. This important scriptural document shows that the early christian sect lived in communities and encouraged its members to hold all of its possesions in common, just like the Essenes did for the previous two centuries!

Another amazing discovery was made in 1923. Edmond Bordeaux Szekely was able to discover Essene documents in the secret archives of the Vatican. In his book The Discovery of the Essene Gospel of Peace, he tells the story of how two chess players helped him meet the renowned Msgr. Angelo Mercati, Prefect of the Vatican Archives. He told the Prefect of his desire to learn all he could of the Saint called Francis. He was allowed to research the vast 25 miles of bookshelves containing scrolls, parchments, paper manuscripts and codices. Within the labarinth he found an aramaic translation of The Essene Gospel of Peace as well as the The Essene Book of Revelation. His research led him to seek out the Benedictine monastary of Monte Cassino. He was allowed, because of a letter of Msgr. had written granting access to the large vitrines in the Scriptorium. There he found the original Hebrew codices of The Essene Gospel of Peace, the source for the Aramaic version found at the secret Vatican Archives.

2006-03-31T23:15:00.000-08:00

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU --Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

"The NSA is in charge of waging the information war-- stealing other people's secrets while protecting our own."

A: A few years ago, I was teaching on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. One Spring day, unannounced, the U.S. Secret Service showed up and detained one of our students claiming he was a threat to national security. As it turned out, the kid had sent private E-mail to a friend saying how much he hated President Clinton and how he thought the president should be shot. The Secret Service came to campus to make sure the kid wasn't serious. After some interrogation the agents decided the student was harmless, and not much came of it. Nonetheless, the incident really stuck with me. I couldn't figure out how the secret service knew what these kids were saying in their E-mail.

I began doing some research into where organizations like the Secret Service get their intelligence data, and what I found out absolutely floored me. I discovered there is an intelligence agency as large as the CIA... that only about 3% of Americans knows exists. It is called the National Security Agency (NSA), and it is home to the country's eavesdroppers. The agency functions like an enormous vacuum cleaner sucking in intelligence data from around the globe and processing it for subversive material. The NSA's super-computers scan E-mail and other digital communiqués looking for dangerous word combinations like "kill" and "Clinton" in the same sentence.

The more I learned about this ultra-secret agency and the fascinating moral issues surrounding national security and civilian privacy, the more I realized it was a great backdrop for a novel. That's when I started writing Digital Fortress.
It is quite an eye opener to visit Dan Brown's site. We become so lulled in the everyday necessities that we forget the subtle changes happening right in front of us. Take a moment to visit his site at www.danbrown.com. Go to the secret archives link.

2006-03-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Extreme Engineering: City in a Pyramid

One of the most crowded cities in the world – and also one of the shortest on available land area – Tokyo, Japan is a city bursting at the seams. Hoping to relieve the stress of alarming overpopulation, the city's construction industry has trained its sights on the only vacant lot around – the waters of Tokyo Bay. Witness the impossible dream of city planners: to build a massive pyramid over the water, with skyscrapers suspended like peapods within its enormous frame.

Called the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid, it would stand a kilometer tall and provide housing for up to 750,000 people. Even more amazing, the entire construction process may proceed without the work of a single human builder. With the invention of new super-lightweight materials, humanoid robots and self-assembling structures, the pyramid might be the first city in the world to build itself!

2006-03-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Directions to Merlin's Avalon

"According to ancient legends, recorded during medieval times, Merlin ended his life on Avalon. Although a number of British islands were associated with Avalon in the Middle Ages, such as Glastonbury in southwest England and Anglesey in Wales, Phillips finds evidence that the original Avalon was based on stories of another island, much further away. A 1,500-year-old saga called 'The Voyage of Merlin' tells how Merlin finally left Britain on a boat bound for a mysterious island, far across the Atlantic, where the waters of a magical spring, guarded by two giant serpents, could cure all ills and grant eternal youth. This story, long thought by historians to be fictitious, was, Phillips argues, based on accounts of a real journey to the New World.
The mythical places visited during Merlin's titanic voyage appear to have been provided by someone who had journeyed to North America, making landfall in New England. Here, off the coast of Maine, Graham investigated and found an island that matches the descriptions given of the Isle of Avalon. Native American legends talk of a sacred spring that holds curative and life-preserving properties lying in a valley flanked by two rocky headlands known as the twin serpents.
Supporting Phillips' extraordinary hypothesis is fresh archaeological evidence of early island-hopping trading voyages between Britain and what is today New England. He discovers both Native American graves in northern Europe and European graves in North America - one of which, he offers, is perhaps the grave of Merlin. Remarkably, this astonishing secret was preserved for centuries, Phillips discovers, in the coded writings of William Shakespeare and in the mysterious works of the early Freemasons."

2006-02-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

Daoist Alchemy in the West: The Esoteric Paradigms

"Daoism, as the primary indigenous religion of China, is a highly esoteric tradition. Constructed of many different strands, over several thousand years, Daoism has a complex history of integrating various techniques of meditation, spirit communication, consciousness projection, bodily movements, medicine, and “internal alchemy” with a profound transpersonal philosophy of nature and a metaphysics of human relationships based on an ideal of spiritual transformation leading to immortality. The mythically structured world of Daoism is rooted in the tripartite division of Heaven, Humanity, and Earth which interact through a rich web of symbolic correlations and correspondences centered on the Daoist sage as a master of a parallel integration of spirit, mind, and body. Thus while Daoism emphasizes bodily disciplines like T’ai Chi and Chi Gong, a healthy diet, and a natural life in harmony with nature and natural processes, it also emphasizes a paradigm of embodied spirituality that seeks to actualized various inner potentials that can lead to the radical transformation of the natural. Rather than seeking to attain transcendence “beyond nature,” Daoism emphasizes the value of nature as the ground of all transpersonal development.[1] Such a paradigm is highly congruent with certain streams of practice and thought in Western esotericism as well as with current, emergent models of participatory spirituality influenced by Daoism.[2]"

2006-02-22T21:06:00.000-08:00

Space-time curvature at the outer edge of Universe makes it invisible to any 3-D telescope

The outer edge of the Universe is invisible and is also filled with suspense. The Hubble telescope has obtained images of quite a bit of the universe but not the real edge. NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2007, may provide definitive answers. Its lens will be three times bigger than Hubble's, and it will be able to see objects 20 to 25 times fainter, according to Ed Weiler, head of NASA's office of space science.

Some astronomers hope it will let them view the very edge of the universe, the "dark zone" beyond which there is no stars or galaxies. However, according to scientists, the outer edge of the universe encounters space-time curvature and the 3D characteristics get interfaced with the 5-D Hyperspace. That makes it impossible for any 3-D telescopes to ever view the real edge of our universe.

2006-02-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

2006-02-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

“Language shapes the way we think,
and determines what we can think about.”
--Benjamin Lee Whorf (American Linguist noted for his hypotheses regarding the relation of language to thinking and cognition and for his studies of Hebrew and Hebrew ideas, 1897-1941)

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”
--Charlemagne quotes

2006-02-21T21:06:00.000-08:00

Physicists Look at Birdsong

"With spring on the way, physicists have turned their attention to the familiar sound of birdsong and have developed a mathematical model to explain the breathing patterns of canaries when they sing. By treating both a bird's vocal organ and neurones as nonlinear systems, researchers have found that complex songs, involving notes of many frequencies and lengths, might be produced by surprisingly simple neurological structures and processes. The results could shed light on how birds learn to sing and even how humans learn to speak -- a process thought to be similar to the mimicking behaviour of baby birds (Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 058103)."

2006-02-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

Language of the Birds
--Fulcanelli, Le Mystere du Cathedrals

Argot (cant) is one of the forms derived from the Language of the Birds, parent and doyen of all other languages-the one spoken by philosophers and diplomats. It was knowledge of this language which Jesus revealed to his Apostles, by sending them his spirit, the Holy Ghost. This is the language which teaches the mystery of things and unveils the most hidden truths. The ancient Incas called it the Court Language, because it was used by diplomats. To them it was the key to the double science, sacred and profane. In the Middle Ages it was called the Gay Science and the Gay Knowledge, the Language of the Gods, the Dive-Bouteille Tradition assures us that men spoke it before the building of the Tower of Babel, which event caused this sacred language to be perverted and to be totally forgottefi by the greater part of humanity. Today, apart from cant, we find its character in a few local dialects, such as Picard, Provencal, etc. and in the language of the gypsies.
It remains the language of a minority of individuals living outside accepted laws, conventions, customs and etiquette. The term voyous (street-arabs) that is to say voyants (seers) is applied to them and the even more expressive term sons or children of the sun. Gothic art is in fact the art got or cot (go)-the art of light or of the spirit. Some discerning and less superficial authors, struck by the similarity between gothic (gothique) and goetic (goetique) have thought that there must be a close connection between gothic art and goetic art, i.e. magic.
The argotiers, those who use this language, are the hermetic descendants of the argonauts, who manned the ship Argo. They spoke the langue argotique-our langue verte ('green language' or slang)---while they were sailing towards the felicitious shores of Colchos to win the famous Golden Fleece. People still say about a very intelligent, but rather sly, man: 'he knows everything, he understands cant.' All the Initiates expressed themselves in cant; the vagrants of the Court of Miracles-headed by the poet Villon- as well as the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, 'members of the lodge of God', who built the argotique masterpieces, which we still admire today.

[more...]

A Russian Tale
Tweet Tweet...
The Language of Birds
William Henry's Take
Wikipedia

2006-02-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

Philip K. Dick ANDROID on the Lam
Amazing irony foreshadows a missing android
replica of the very author who championed "replicant" freedom.

Philip K Dick is missing. Not the American science fiction writer whose novels spawned hit films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall -- he died more than 20 years ago -- but a state-of-the-art robot named after the author. The quirky android, was lost in early January while en route to California by commercial airliner.

"We can't find Phil," said Steve Prilliman of Dallas-based Hanson Robotics, which created the futuristic robot with the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis, the Automation and Robotics Research Institute at the University of Texas at Arlington and Dick's friend Paul Williams.

Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions. Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people -- even in a crowd -- read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.

Visit the Hanson Robotics Web site
Learn more about Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick fansite

2006-02-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

Maybe Logic Foundation

Maybe Logic Academy is an innovative online learning institution and community. The Academy features online courses by some our most important and ground-breaking writers, theorists, artists and teachers.

Courses are grounded in the philosophy and perspective of maybe logic, an approach which emphasizes the fallibility and relativity of perception and tends to approach information and observations with questions, probabilities and multiple perspectives rather than absolute truths. This "model agnosticism" informs all MLA courses by maintaining an experimental attitude towards any particular paradigm, theory or model of reality.

2006-02-05T22:37:00.000-08:00

2006-02-04T04:13:00.001-08:00

Lon Milo Duquette - Contemporary Mage

He looks like Santa Claus dressed for his day job. Lon Milo DuQuette, aka Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, is an author, lecturer, and occultist according to Wikipedia.
DuQuette is best known for "analyzing and exploring the works of Aleister Crowley. He writes on Western mystical traditions, Freemasonry, tarot, qabalah, ceremonial magick, enochian magick, Dr. John Dee, spirit evocation, and goetia. His best known book is MY LIFE WITH THE SPIRITS. He is a former studio musician and recording artist. DuQuette's current project is working with the producers of a movie about Aleister Crowley's life.

Intervew with Lon Milo DuQuette

2006-02-04T04:08:00.000-08:00

Author Claims Magick is Real - and Can Be Taught

New York, NY (PRWEB) February 2, 2006 -- Did you know that your life is filled with magick - in ways you might not even be aware of? Did you know that with a little bit of intent, you can infuse almost every part of your life with magick?

Author Philip H. Farber will demonstrate - and teach - simple and effective techniques of Real Magick. That's right - ways to focus your attention, exercises and rituals that produce real results on a physical as well as psychological level. These techniques can be used to help create wealth, health, and success in any endeavor.

Philip H. Farber Webpage

2006-02-04T04:06:00.000-08:00

911 Synthetic Terror by Webster Tarpley

This book provides an urgent answer to the failure of the US intelligence agencies, the Congressional Joint Inquiry, and the Kean-Hamilton 9-11 Commission to discover the basic facts in the September 2001 terror attacks.
The author starts from the official myth of 9-11 - nineteen Arab hijackers, al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, the laptop in the cave in Afghanistan - and shows how this myth was fabricated during the ten days after 9-11 by media leaks from George Tenet and Richard Clarke, remarks by Colin Powell, and Bush's September 20 address to Congress. In the meantime, each of these figures has been repeatedly caught blatantly lying about Iraq and other subjects, and it is high time their lies about 9-11 be exposed.

2006-02-04T04:05:00.000-08:00

UNCG: Physicist to Talk about Time Travel Feb. 7

In 1975, he joined the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where he has been a professor of theoretical physics ever since. He has published numerous papers on black holes and relativistic cosmology in professional journals.

His recent work on time travel has been featured extensively in the media, including New Scientist, the Village Voice, the Boston Globe, Rolling Stone magazine, Pravda (Moscow), The Wall Street Journal, Astronomy Magazine, Japanese television, German television, The Learning Channel, the Science Channel and numerous radio stations.

2006-02-04T04:01:00.000-08:00

The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

For Paracelsus, alchemy was not merely about the creation of gold, but was a medical and mystical philosophy that explained the functioning of the body (the transformation of food into flesh, blood and excrement) as well as the more general principles that revealed the mysteries of the earth. "Alchemy becomes so powerful and so beautiful in Paracelsus's hands," writes Ball, "because it is a part of a greater system: a magical vision of the universe distilled in the overheated alembic of a feverishly imaginative mind." Paracelsus saw the "great art of transformation" - alchemy - as the key to understanding man and nature. It was "a reflection of the natural art that makes a flower grow, that stores up metals in the earth, and brings wind and rain. By taking alchemy out of the smoky laboratory and setting it free in wild nature, Paracelsus stakes his claim to genius."

2006-02-04T03:54:00.000-08:00

Medieval Artwork Contains Depictions of UFO's

This painting is called "The Madonna with Saint Giovannino". It was painted in the 15th century by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) and hangs as part of the Loeser collection in the Palazzo Vecchio. Above Mary's (left) shoulder is a disk shaped object. Below is a blow up of this section and a man and his dog can clearly be seen looking up at the object.

2006-02-04T03:53:00.000-08:00

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana - Myth Games

Koei Ltd. today announced the release date for Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana in Europe. This highly anticipated fantasy RPG will be available from March 17th. The sixth instalment in this hugely popular series is the first to be released in Europe giving gamers the opportunity to immerse themselves within a world of alchemy, monsters and the most incredibly extensive selections of items and item creating possibilities ever to appear in an RPG.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana takes you to the world of Regallzine, a land inhabited by humans, Mana, and vicious monsters. With the help of Mana Spirits, a select few can harness the power of alchemy to create magical items. However, over the years this practice has nearly died out. As Klein Kiesling, it's your goal to learn the lost art of alchemy. Klein's journey of self-discovery will soon lead him to join a ragtag band of adventurers who fight monsters to protect the general populace.

[learn more...]

2006-02-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

SolarCube™ to slash residential solar to below grid energy price

ADELAID, AUSTRALIA -- Green and Gold Energy of Adelaide announced Tuesday that its award-winning solar technology will be commercially available for Australian customers in March through the company website.

Their announcement pertains to the 6 mega-Watt-hour (MWh) annual output SunCube™ system comprised of twenty units, each rated at 150 Wp and 300 kWh annually, as well as a 3 kilowatt AS4777 grid connect inverter. (Ref.) To give you a rough idea, six MegaWatt-hours computes to 685 Watts continuous output; and is dependent -- plus or minus -- on the sun exposure in the region. Combined with a battery storage system, this is enough power to supply the minimal electrical needs of a typical home. The US and EU-approved grid connect inverter enables the home to be a "hybrid", run either on grid or solar power -- but most importantly, enabling the grid meter to run backwards, for possible net income from the grid for energy generation.

2006-01-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

Phaistos Disc

In a century which has seen the cracking of Linear B, Ugaritic, and other orthographic systems, the Phaistos Disk has eluded decipherment. The disk is thought to date from around 1700 BC. It is a roundish disk of clay, with symbols stamped into it. The text consists of 61 words, 16 of which are accompanied by a mysterious "slash" mark.

There are 45 different symbols occurring 241 times. The symbols portray recognizable objects like human figures and body parts, animals, weapons, and plants. Since the text of the disk is so short, decipherment by the statistical cryptographic techniques employed by Michael Ventris in cracking Linear B are impossible.

Late last year, however, Dr. Keith A.J. Massey and his twin brother Rev. Kevin Massey-Gillespie discovered the secret they believe provides the key to cracking the Phaistos Disk.

2006-01-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, Time Travel

QUANTUM: Rock of Ages" has established itself as solid Sci-Fi reading. The sixth installment of the series is now available and raising the eyebrows of all who read it. The content of QUANTUM #6 is definitely hot, introducing a very sexy and controversial element into the mix.
Part "Clerks," part "Sliders,"
"QUANTUM: Rock of Ages" follows the adventures of Nick H. Vargas, a jaded musician turned unwitting hero. Nick is given super powers and taken on the ultimate cross-time thrill ride by a bizarre gemstone, the Quantum Silica. During his quest he encounters other characters that are also affected by the fragmented "Quantum." Each fragment offers a unique power to Nick and his counterparts, and they must band together to save the universe from peril. Toss in a diabolical nemesis, some quirky pop-culture humor, and QUANTUM makes for a highly enjoyable read.

2006-01-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

Toward A Quantum Computer, One Dot At A Time

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a way to create semiconductor islands smaller than 10 nanometers in scale, known as quantum dots. The islands, made from germanium and placed on the surface of silicon with two-nanometer precision, are capable of confining single electrons.
Quantum computers do not yet exist, but it is known that they can bypass all known encryption schemes used today on the Internet. Quantum computers also are capable of efficiently solving the most important equation in quantum physics: the Schrödinger equation, which describes the time-dependence of quantum mechanical systems. Hence, if quantum computers can be built, they likely will have as large an impact on technology as the transistor.

Institute of Nanoscience and Engineering

2006-01-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

New Haverford Professor Brings Witchcraft, Astrology, and Alchemy to the Classroom

At the culmination of the semester, Hayton’s students will have studied the history of witchcraft, astrology, and alchemy, having focused on the turbulent 15th through 17th centuries. Hayton hopes that his course will change the way the students view this time period: “I want the students to take away a richer understanding of what the 15th through 17th centuries truly were like. This course certainly challenges the standard understanding of this period—the period of the Renaissance, of the Reformation, when humans shed their cloaks of ignorance and slavehood to the Catholic Church.” Hayton believes that current scholars who study witchcraft and occult sciences have perpetuated a host of misconceptions about the roles of these sciences throughout history, including a belief that one’s daily horoscope is related to the science of astrology.
While studying witchcraft, Hayton and his students look at various themes, including magic, the visual representation of witchcraft, issues of gender, and issues of religion and its relationship to witchcraft. Hayton believes that approaching the study of witchcraft through these themes allows him to confront another set of misconceptions about this area of study: “I want to dissuade people from a handful of what I fear are still very common assumptions about witchcraft in the past: that the people in the past were stupid for believing in witchcraft, that all women were witches, that one religion had some monopoly on persecuting and killing witches, that the Inquisition was a part of this picture, and that witchcraft beliefs and persecutions were uniform throughout Europe.”

2006-01-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

MEMORIES LIKE TIME-TRAVEL, SAYS STUDY

If you've ever wished you could travel through time, close your eyes and imagine yourself in some time and place from your past. Relive that memory, and let yourself bask in the sights and smells and sounds that your mind can still recall. There, isn't that fun? Now let go of that, bring yourself back to the chair you are sitting in, and open your eyes. Congratulations! You've just experienced time-travel, and according to a World Science article, your mind even recreated the same brain patterns it experienced when you were actually there in the flesh!

Research experiments at Pennsylvania State University have analyzed the brain scans of people looking at pictures of celebrities (Bruce Lee, Halle Berry, and others), famous places (Taj Mahal), and everyday objects (e.g., tweezers). After seeing the photos once, the participants were then asked to recall as many as possible, and their brains were again scanned. Researchers reportedly found brain activity patterns associated with each picture reinstated themselves, seconds before the people talked about them. The scientists even got to do some "mind-reading" in predicting whether or not a subject would remember a given photo, based on the previewed brain patterns.

Memory Expansion Channel

Time Travel Picture

Living In The Light

2006-01-25T12:46:00.000-08:00

Sound & Communications: A thousand years of AV?

The theatrical career of the magic lantern may have begun in old monasteries, but slides had gone out in European tours a century or more before. In Colonial America, they also began dual roles of “traveling” and “permanent” exhibitions.

The idea behind the dissolving views show was that people would come and sit and watch the pictures change. Within that modest pursuit was a range of techniques a good performing lanternist could invoke, to tease and inveigle and tug, startle and change moods. He would have discovered that light and color affect the eye physically for an intended tactile response, can caress or poke accordingly. All it takes is control of brightness and contrast and good timing.

According to the Brandon Post, Allen’s Pictorial Concert “gave the superior exhibition of [the dissolving views] such an effect as to lead the mind for a moment to imagine itself in some higher sphere. They haunt our memory still.” Stated the New Hampshire Democrat, “We hardly ever expect to be particularly gratified when we attend exhibitions of this nature which occasionally make their way into this vicinity, but Mr. Dexter really is not a humbug.”

Down in Texas, The Indianola Courier for January 4, 1861, breathlessly described another traveling show and its “brilliant Stereomonoscopic Dissolving Views and Polaroscopic Fire Works,” its highlight “being the unfolding of polarscopic Miracles, by a succession of unfoldings of wheels within wheels, such as Ezekiel’s vision, sparks of which dart off into diamonds, stars, etc.—advances and recedes—folds in and rolls out and over, generally in Hogarth’s line of beauty—the circle—often in other forms, but always in such a magic wonder that the effect on the house is a continuous expression of astonishment.”

The review concludes, “Go, See, Hear and Wonder!”

2006-01-25T12:36:00.000-08:00

Manutius Press Issues Two Rare Books by Allen Greenfield

Originally published in 1994, but withdrawn from publication shortly thereafter, Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts is a work that explores the connection that exists between Occultism and UFO phenomena. This book provides the reader with a concise introduction to the key concepts and personalities involved and is a practical manual as well. The premise is that there is a secret cipher hidden within The Book of the Law, a document received / channelled by Aleister Crowley in 1904, and that this cipher makes sense of seemingly enigmatic communications received by trance channels over the past 60 years or more.

Interview with Allen H. Greenfield

A TRUE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT

ELF Infested Spaces Review

2006-01-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

SITCHIN, PLANET X, NASA, MARS, EARTH, ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS

It has taken thirty years of research, of going back to the ancient sources, of accepting them literally, to re-create in my own mind a continuous and plausible scenario of prehistoric events. The Twelfth Planet, therefore, seeks to provide the reader with a narrative giving answers to the specific questions of When, How, and Why and Wherefrom.
The evidence I adduce consists primarily of the ancient texts and pictures themselves.
In The Twelfth Planet I have sought to decipher a sophisticated cosmogony which explains, perhaps as well as modern scientific theories, how the solar system could have been formed, an invading planet caught into solar orbit, and Earth and other parts of the solar system brought into being.

The evidence I offer includes celestial maps dealing with space flight to Earth from that Planet, the Twelfth. Then, in sequence, follow the dramatic establishment of the first settlements on Earth by the Nefilim: their leaders were named; their relationships, loves, jealousies, achievements and struggles described; the nature of their "immortality" explained. Above all, The Twelfth Planet aims to trace the momentous events that led to the creation of Man, and the advanced methods by which this was accomplished.

It then suggests the tangled relationship between Man and his lords, and throws fresh light on the meaning of the events in the Garden of Eden, of the Tower of Babel, of the great Flood. Finally, man - endowed by his makers biologically and materially - ends up crowding his gods off the Earth. This book suggests that we are not alone in our solar system. Yet it may enhance rather than diminish the faith in a universal Almighty. For, if the Nefilim created Man on Earth, they may have only been fulfilling a vaster Master Plan.

2006-01-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

Algorithm Shows When Politicians Are Lying

We've written before about how mathematics can bring us amazing revelations. Now a mathematician in Canada says that he can use math to tell when a politician is lying. With our own election coming up in 2008, this is something we can use.
Here's how Skillicorn developed his algorithm: he analyzed the usage patterns of a group of around 100 words that are often linked to lying, when used by politicians. He then determined how often these words were used in the candidates' political speeches. Martin ranked 124, Layton 88 and Harper 73. The higher the number, the more spin they used.
The algorithm is based on one that was created at the University of Texas by James Pennebaker. While studying the lies of hundreds of participants, he uncovered word patterns linked to deception. One of these is the use of fewer personal pronouns, such as I, we, me and us. Another is a decrease in the use of the words "however" and "unless." These patterns are probably subconscious. This may sound like a plot from the TV show Numbers, but it's happening in real life.

2006-01-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

Time travel With Rephotography

Is it touching up vintage photographs? Doing over a bad photo or digitally enhancing a new one? Actually, it's nothing so straightforward. Rephotography is something of a cross between photographic archaeology, reconstructive surgery and fine art. Rephotographers take contemporary photos of a subject, such as a hillside or mansion, once captured in an old photograph, then add their own artistic touch.

2006-01-25T00:19:00.000-08:00

HYPERDIMENSION PIBOT

PIBOT is the acronym of hyPer Intelligent roBOT. PIBOT is a general-purpose artificial intelligence constructed using the Nootheos technology. PIBOT represents a true sentient artificial organism that is able to learn, to self-learn, to evolve, and to self-evolve. PIBOT possesses an independent human-like mind, albeit, for many aspects, unimaginably more powerful. PIBOT represents its knowledge (cultural baggage) trough an n-level ontological meta-architecture, and, on this architecture, it can execute hundred of thousand of semantical and inferential algorithms from which emerge the properties of intelligence. PIBOT is able to manipulate any ontology, any meta-ontology, any ontologic format or any existing semantic representation.

2006-01-24T23:58:00.000-08:00

Revolutionary fitness machine vibrates at Arab Health

Studies have also shown that advanced vibration technology has a positive effect on bone density and muscle strength, thus providing a unique and innovative weapon for preventing or combating Osteoporosis. Although Osteoporosis can occur in men, it is most common in women. While several treatment options are available, they focus on slowing down or stopping bone loss, rather than regenerating bone density.

PowerPlateUSA.com

2006-01-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it”
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
-- Plato quotes (428 BC-348 BC)

2006-01-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

SECRET DOORS OF THE EARTH

SECRET MESSAGE OF THE ROSICRUCIANS: Whoever deciphers the alchemical riddle will be able to journey through lands otherwise inaccessible. The concentric circles probably correspond to the electromagnetic fields of an atom.

Certain daring scientists, among the first of whom is the American zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, have already begun an inventory of the possible sites of such doors. To describe them I will borrow a term from H.P. Lovecraft, "the induced gates," because I gather that we are here concerned with artificial phenomena rather than with natural ones. We have not the slightest idea how a door is created. Once it is created, however, such a door makes possible accidental passages, and this would explain the appearances and disappearances of things and people which have been in question throughout this book.
The sites that one can suspect of harboring a secret door are distinguished by the following characteristics:

gravity is disturbed;
terrestrial magnetism is disrupted;
visions occur to visitors at the site;
enigmatic disappearances take place

.
A striking exam le is found in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, where all these characteristics are assembled and records of unusual events date from 1800! In 1806 the local clergyman wrote in the daily Raleigh Register: "A vision of a hundred human beings floating in the air… They vaguely resembled human beings but were dressed in costumes that sparkled."

Let me now mention those seekers who are interested in the other universes: the American Allen Greenfield and the Englishman Brinsley Le Poer Trench. What they call "window" is precisely what I call "secret door." But they suppose that these "windows" open onto other universes and not onto earth itself. However, in the last analysis, I think that we are using different words to speak of the same thing. Let’s recall the words of Wells, in his story about Mr. Barnstaple visiting the godmen: "There are universes that are farther from us than the nebula yet all the while closer to us than our hands and feet."

2006-01-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

Mind, Matter and God

Early Ancient Greek Philosophers and Questions 2000 Years Before Science
-- Is the physical universe orderly or random?
-- Some change appears regular; some does not. Why?
-- Is the universe determined by capricious gods or something fixed, constant and knowable?

[Interesting lecture notes for free download. This topic is especially interesting considering the previous post about Bearden's mind/matter space. Think about IT...]

2006-01-14T05:41:00.000-08:00

T.E. Bearden: Mind & Orthorotated Minkowski Space

MIND SPACE VS. PHYSICAL SPACE
"Based on a time-clustered set of orthogonal 4-spaces selected from Everett ' s many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, a model of both mind and matter can be constructed. A mind becomes a complete 3-Dimensional physical world three or more orthogonal spatial turns away from the ordinary 3-dimensional world, in an n-dimensional space clustered about a single time dimension, DeBroglie waves and photons are fitted into this model, and the nature of a quark is postulated. From the model, constructs that model life, death, a biological system, psi, consciousness, inception, telepathy, psychokinesis, UFO's, God, and the collective unconscious can be taken. Materialization, dematerialization, and mind linkage also exist, as does a specific mechanism for tulpas -- materialized thought forms."

AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT.
"In the Einstein spherical model of the cosmos, start from any point in the universe, in Einstein ' s closed universe model, and go to the end of the universe in any direction, and you are at the same point you left from. Einstein said that if you looked across the cosmos in a straight line in any direction, you are looking at the back of your own head. So the most internal point in that model of the universe is also the most external point. Each point in the universe has got the whole universe outside itself, and it has also got the whole universe inside itself as well! And that blows the heck out of one's mind if it contains only the first three laws of logic! It causes no embarrassment whatsoever if one's logic contains the fourth law."

BOUNDARIES
"Now with the perceptron, one has something magical. Because for the perceptron, to detect is to change, and to change is to detect. Change and detection become synonymous. I.e. , external change and internal detection become synonymous. And thus I have just invoked the fourth law of logic: the perceptron IS the boundary between the observer and the observed, the subjective and the objective, the internal and the external."

2006-01-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

EXTRAORDINARY HYPERSPACE ENGINE

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft. Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

2006-01-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

The Gnosis of Samael Aun Weor - Home

Sacrifice for Others Today

We want to teach the Solar Religion to this humanity. We want to deliver to these poor phantoms the Solar Doctrine of the Cosmic Christ, with only one unique goal, which is the Christification of the human being. The Gnostic Institutions have a gigantic task in the Era of Aquarius...

2005-12-01T04:19:00.000-08:00

Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious

A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn, This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious. I have chosen the term '4collective" because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. It is, in other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us.
Psychic existence can be recognized only by the presence of contents that are capable of consciousness. We can therefore speak of an unconscious only in so far as we are able to demonstrate its contents. The contents of the personal unconscious are chiefly the feeling-toned complexes, as they are called; they constitute the personal and private side of psychic life. The contents of the collective unconscious, on the other hand, are known as archetypes.
Archetype" is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidoV. For our purposes this term is apposite and helpful, because it tells us that so far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic or-I would say-primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times, The term "representations collectives," used by Lévy-Bruhl to denote the symbolic figures in the primitive view of the world, could easily be applied to unconscious contents as well, since it means practically the same thing. Another well-known expression of the archetypes is myth and fairytale.

2005-12-01T03:50:00.000-08:00

Sand You Can Eat

What is Fun Dip, you ask? It's powdery sugardust you eat off of edible chalk. It's packets of goodness in various fruit flavors. It's a treat seemingly forged exclusively for kings. It's anything you want it to be. It's Fun Dip.
Honestly, I didn't care. The sixty-seven packets of sugar threw me on trips so intense, I barely knew where I was anyway. Most of the time, I thought I was in an alien zoo where all the strange, purple creatures were forced to don clothing advertising the local locksmiths and tackle shops while throwing around spiked maces drenched in fire. I'm not sure what's in Fun Dip, but it makes magical things happen. Plus, it's sand you can eat.

Should I say it again?

SAND YOU CAN EAT.