24 Jul 2008 @ 23:03
The French Maid And The Mummy by Steven Stahlberg
Um… what do you think?
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's back! Remarkable bird, id'nit, squire? Lovely plumage!
Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.
(pause)
Owner: Well, o'course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its beak, and VOOM! Feeweeweewee!
Mr. Praline: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised!
Owner: No no! 'E's pining!
Mr. Praline: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!
Lotus is a five-piece instrumental band from Philadelphia. Their music is highly tempered by electronic styles such as deep house and drum 'n bass, but inside the sonic layers seep heavy doses of jazz, funk, and world music. Their high energy live shows feature tightly composed material balanced with stretched out improvisation. The sounds shift from spiritual and meditative to jubilant and energetic from dark dance floor burners to spaced-out waves of ambiance.
What's the true story with the Sargasso Sea? Is there actually a huge mass of floating seaweed in the middle of the Atlantic? Do ships have a difficult time traversing it? Are there abandoned ships stuck in it, and if so, how many and are there any famous anecdotes? I have heard that Columbus once encountered it; is this true?
In a new study detailed in the May 18 2007 issue of the journal Science, researchers have shown that eddies, episodic swirling current systems, pump nutrients up from the ocean’s depths to feed the phytoplankton.
“Eddies are the internal weather of the sea, the oceanic equivalent of storms in the atmosphere” said McGillicuddy, also the study’s leader.
Genetic programming creates growing new and unexpected designs out of the most basic code. After a series of breakthroughs in the early 2000s, Genetic Programming has had a formidable and rapid development which led to the production of computers that innovate and find solutions not only equal to but sometimes better than some of the best work of humans expert in some given fields. John Koza's invention machine earned a U.S. patent for developing a system to make factories more efficient, one of the first intellectual-property protections ever granted to a nonhuman designer.
One of the central challenges of computer science is to get a computer to do what needs to be done, without telling it how to do it.
In acting as an invention machine, evolutionary methods, such as genetic programming, have the advantage of not being encumbered by preconceptions that limit human problem-solving to well-troden paths. This is how it works.
The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow.
The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are
equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an
image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. There is something
tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in
itself the sense of both fascination and the terror of life.
Furthermore, the serpent represents the primary function of life, mainly eating. Life
consists in eating other creatures. The serpent is a traveling alimentary canal, that's about all it is.
And it gives you that primary sense of shock, of life in its most primal quality. There is not
arguing with that animal at all. Life lives by killing and eating itself, casting off death and being
reborn, like the moon.
[Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myths with Bill Moyers. New York, Doubleday, 1988 pdf]
This was then.
And this is now:
If indefinite lifespan is on the cusp, would people really want to live forever?
And if they do, what would that mean for the world?
An introduction to the science and art of perception management.
The phrase "perception management" is filtering into common use as a synonym for "persuasion." Public relations firms now offer "perception management" as one of their services. Similarly, public officials who are being accused of shading the truth are now frequently charged with engaging in "perception management" when disseminating information to media or to the general public.
Although perception management operations are typically carried out within the international arena between governments, and between governments and citizens, use of perception management techniques have become part of mainstream information management systems in many ways that do not concern military campaigns or government relations with citizenry. Businesses may even contract with other businesses to conduct perception management for them, or they may conduct it in-house with their public relations staff.
Perception management is a term originated by the U. S. military. The U. S. Department of Defense (DOD) gives this definition:
Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator's objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.
24 Jul 2008 @ 23:03
