Leaving ... on a jet plane...

---

Ok so yes, im headed to germany today. Voot. See everyone when I get back. tata. Flight leaves at 8:00pm.

Wish me luck, and no shooting at planes tonight.

PIONEER 10 SPACECRAFT SENDS LAST SIGNAL


BBSNews - 2003-02-25 -- After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on Jan. 22, 2003.

NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt Feb. 7, 2003. The previous three contacts, including the Jan. 22 signal, were very faint with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was April 27, 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10.


RIP little buddy.

Peer performance in
haiku - probably not such
a good idea now

I support the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development.

Fears of a Child

Driven by the music I have been listening to, primarily remixes from Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2, this spawned its self from my subconscious.
The standard childhood fears are all there - monsters, death, fire, entrapment, darkness - but they combine in an strange way which makes them each more disturbing. I especially like how the flame (originaly an oil well fire) turned out when combined with the old building so that it actually seems cohesive. The skull xray could use more work, but I need a better peice to work from. And the dog... well, that just kind of did its self.

"She can't open her eyes - I'm getting a pulse, but she's barely breathing, the skin is so badly charred. Even when I change the bandages, the blood and puss just start oozing throug. Why? Why? What is keeping that child alive? I can't stand it any longer, I wolnt tell a soul, I promise. Please..."

Probably the most disturbing moment of Silent Hill for me was the realization of what Aylissa had been put through, which explained too perfectly the dark and twisted world she created to hide herself in.

I dont talk much about my personal life on here, and I try to avoid any mention at all of my family. But sometimes... they just get to me. My parents in particular. For the last month they have been fighting over a GPS system my mother bought for our trip to Germany. My father is outraged that she spent 1000$ on it and accessories for it, and cant quite get past the price of the thing. My mother thinks it will be usefull. My father keeps trying to make ME deside if we should return it or not. So the other weekend I went through everything and sorted them into Return and Keep piles. Most of the extranious accessories were to go back, keeping the main uint, power cable, software and memory card, all we realy needed.
I thought I had solved the issue.
Well today, exausted, cold, hungry and sore, I come home from a long day of work, class, and toil, to the same argument. My father wants me to go over the map and travel book, and see if we really need to GPS. RIGHT NOW. When I say no, he changes subject and hands me a letter from my shrink, which has my new apointment card for a change of apointment, and then procedes to question me what it is. He doesnt want them charging us any more, and is paranoid about it. He then changes the subject to our insurance, and how my shrink isnt on the insurance any more (at least at the moment).
And then he presses me to change doctors, or quit going, or something.

....


What on earth has gotten into my parents?

And now...

Capricorn
Deep-seated confusion pervades your philosophical views. Careful attention to Wittgenstein may induce writing block. Spread rumors about who's getting jobs where. Requirements figure prominently.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aquarius
Thesis looms, considerations from seemingly distant areas of philosophy relevant. A little hand-waving goes a long way. Back up your discs! Moon in Gemini means this time, like all other times, is inauspicious.

http://cda.mrs.umn.edu/~okeefets/horoscope.html

http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/archives/fall1997/entries/ontological-arguments/poem.html

Thus spake St. Anselm, thus spake St. Anselm,
Thus spake St. Anselm with weighty intent,
And we're awed as we read his proof so ontological
Would that we could understand what it meant.

And WHILE im on the topic

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, [some versions have 'Schopenhauer and Hegel']

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whisky every day.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.

http://www.things.org/~jym/fun/nietzsche-tech-support.html

On the Perfections Attributed to God
by P.D. Magnus

Scholastic philosophy made an industry of enumerating the perfections of God. Although such work is unlikely to result in an academic appointment in today's atmosphere of secular, naturalistic philosophy, it may be helpful to review the possibilities; perhaps it would allow one to enumerate the perfections that can be attributed to the Brain. What follows is a cursory list of perfections, with interpretive gloss and illustrative examples where appropriate.



omnipotence
the perfection of being all powerful
omniscience
the perfection of being all knowing
omnipresence
the perfection of being everywhere; ubiquity
omnibenevolence
the perfection of being all good; the problem of evil has motivated arguments that an omnipotent God could not possess this perfection
omnidoxence
the perfection of being all believing; this relativized form of omniscience may be used interchangeably with "gullibility"
omniabsence
the perfection of not being anywhere; one of the few perfections an atheist will admit of God
omnimalevolence
the perfection of being all evil; the problem of good has motivated arguments that God could not possess this perfection
omnisyllogence
the perfection of following as a conclusion from oneself as a premise; this appears to be the perfection critical to the success of the ontological argument
omniontologence
the perfection of being all things; observing that omnisyllogence only establishes the de dicto existence of God, some medievals claimed this was the perfection central to the ontological argument; yet, God is not a poached egg, and thus God is not omniontologent
omniomnience
the perfection of being all things to all people
omnicorpulence
the perfection of being every body; although some sources attribute this to God, one imagines that it would require a consensus
omnicrapulence
the perfection of being all messed up
omnihilism
the perfection of not meaning anything; the perfection granted to God upon his death
omnitemperence
the perfection of refraining from everything; renders omnipotence moot

wisdom, n. A state of clarity and understanding so complete and exhaustive, yet also so detailed and complex, as to be totally incommunicable.

Cartesian Evil Genius Alert:

The reader is advised that he or she may be subject to an illusion
generated by an evil genius, and that his or her "sensory fibers" may
be falsely manipulated at any time with neither advance warning nor
any possible legal remedy.


Probably a good warning for us all...

Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: A tree in a golden forest.

The Moral Of The Story (Ghaleon Rule)
Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired prettyboy and beating the crap out of him.

All this wisdom and more - The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés

CAPTURE THE FLAG: "DARWIN FISH" MAY BE A NEW VERSION OF A VERY OLD GAME, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA STUDY PROPOSES

This is why UGA scares me. They have too much free time.

Sleep.

I lay here, now it is 4:30 in the morning.
Yesterday I didnt get to sleep until 8am. I can't sleep.. i cant make myself sleep. I dont want to sleep.
Erik is asleep, has been since 12am. Yet I cannot go to sleep. Why?

My eyes are tired, yet i know if i log off and try to sleep, I will lay awake listening to the radio, or to The Saint, or something, because I do not want to sleep. Why can I not want to go to sleep.

I know I will be tired tomorrow... I was tired today.

Why then this? Why then am I awake?

Sleep is one of those things of the flesh I both love and hate. I love the rexlation it can give, the peace, the comfort. It claims us when no one else will have us, eases our worries, and returns us to the world renewed. Too, laying asleep with someone you love is one of the most bonding experiences. But sleep is also the time of nightmares, of the passage of time without awareness of it. It is too close to death for my liking. I am most aware of my own mortality when I face sleep, and I am more afraid of dying in my sleep than any other way. Because, I ask myself, if I die in my sleep... will i know?

It is a silly question. I know. But one that haunts me.
I did not used to fear death... but now I do. I do not want to leave those people who I love and care about without me. I do not want to cause that greif, that suffering, that loss. Havent I caused enough pain as it is?

I want to live forever... because I know the only boundary of Love is life, and even then, love continues. Souls find one another, again and again. And even we souls who had nothing and no one, will eventually be called to serve and love eventually. I know this is true.

[dream]
Someone is trying to steel my silverware. A knife, fork, and spoon. Not very nice, either, but the serving staff keeps trying to take them, and they are mine. So I keep them in a small yellow leather pouch on my wrist to keep them safe. Even that is not safe, for they still keep trying to take them. So I hide them in my pocket. They are safe there.
[/dream]

If anyone has any idea what the hell that dream meant, Id be really grateful.

Babylon

The word has so many connotations, mixed and strange.

the Greek form of BABEL; Semitic form Babilu, meaning "The Gate of God." In the
Assyrian tablets it means "The city of the dispersion of the tribes."

The capital of ancient Babylonia in Mesopotamia on the Euphrates River. Established as capital c. 1750 B.C. and rebuilt in regal splendor by Nebuchadnezzar II after its destruction (c. 689 B.C.) by the Assyrians, Babylon was the site of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Judeo-christian faith draws many of its conceptions of what is evil from what the Babylonians worshiped. Yet we borroed myths and gods and heros from them just as often as we shamed them and called them heathens. Gilgamesh's teacher became Noah, who survived the flood.
YHWH, the Shem Hameforash, has its roots in the fact that names lend the speaker the power over the named, and it should not be that any mortal has power over God, thus no mortal may speak His name.

"This practice is close to magic and idol worship, so as monotheism developed and broadened, the magical use of God's name was objected to. So while the name Yahweh remains written in Jewish liturgy, Jews felt that an invisible, omnipresent, omniscient part of reality cannot have a name."

And even Romeo and Juliet have their ancient Babylonian counterparts, Pyramus and Thisbe, who wispered their love through a crack in the wall.

Gods became monsters, and demons, and traditions were cast into sins.

Yet Babylon has other meanings, which should not be forgotten.

A city or place of great luxury, sensuality, and often vice and corruption.
A place of captivity or exile.

Thus why I have often named clubs in my stories Babylon - they are both a place of vice, and of captivity and excile. Never can you be more alone and trapped than in the center of a crowd.

And yes... it is our last, best hope for peace.

Babylon.

I am the Natural Number e I go with the flow _

what number are you?

this quiz by orsa

Theoretically, penises have higher bandwidth than cable modems, apparently.

Surely one would also have to consider throughput, latency and other information theory preoccupations. You may get a burst capacity of 78 Mbs over 5 seconds, but how many ejaculations can the average man reasonably be expected to have over a period of, say, one week? I would suggest that even with a John Holmes type, the cable modem will win out in terms of throughput over a sustained period.

All i have to say is... Wow, Imagine a Beowul.. ahh sorry wrong board.

Mourning is always a selfish act. It's not a gesture on the part of the dead. Mourning is for the purpose of the living, so that we feel better about those we've lost and about our own mortality. Someday we're gonna join them, be it in an afterlife or in oblivion, and we give others whom we cared for in life as good a sendoff as we can, in hopes that others will do the same for us when our time comes.

A very good quote from ZachsMind on Metafilter today.

I often times am tempted to blame my high anxiety levels on the type of educational enviroment I grew up in.I was an exceptionally bright child with an exceptionally mature interest in science, yet at the same time i struggled with things that were considered basic and fundamental skills. While my Science grades soared, my reading and math grades lagged painfully behind, to the point that I spent an entire summer home schooling in reading to catch up to grade level between third and fouth grade.
The dycotomy between being intelegent yet being subaverage was a major stressor in my early educational life, there is no denying that. At the same time I had people saying how intelegent and bright I was, I had the constant reminder of poor grades in reading and math, and the stigma that went with it.
There was no joy greater in my early life than fifth grade when I made four terms worth of A's, and the pride that I felt was a mirror of what my parents and teachers felt for me finally. This was the realization, the actualization of everything that I knew those others who were always doing better than me in certian fields must constantly have.
Yet no matter how I tried, I could never quite attain that again.
That has become especially true in college. I admit, I do not work nearly as hard as I should on my classes. I am slack about my reading, slack about studying for exams, and slack about my attentiveness in class. But that is a byproduct of a feeling I have come to find deeply seated in my heart. In some cases, no matter how hard I study, there are things I cannot acheive at the same level as others. It is simply the nature of who I am.
I will always do better on anylitical questions than rote responce - as I am fond of saying "I cannot justify a bubble". Yet I find myself drawn still to science, a world of facts and figgures. And this I do not understand.

---

Where am I going with this? Ok, yes yes, I will get to the point.
Point: Taking Astronomy this semester is making me realize how weak my mathematics really are in comparison to my raw anylitical skills. I can derive answers to problems logically where most would turn to numbers. Yet when faced with the numbers I choak and cannot find the same solution. It is frustrating in a way I cannot explain.
Point: Taking Anthropology this semester, I realize I do have a true love for experamentation. My mind is constantly asking the what if questions of evolution, searching for the answers to the why and why not of our existing physiological design. Too, I am making connections where it seems many antropologits have missed between other animals beyond mammals.

A Hobbit Conspiracy

I wish I could make up news like this. Oh god.

Must control... fangirl yaoi tendancies... must not say.. evil joke that came to mind...

Oh fuck it.

This gives strangely attracted to Frodo a whole new meaning.

Ok I'm sorry... im sorry... god im so bad....

"Another glorious chapter of Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the great Tribble hunt?"
- Odo

With no real good way to segway between what i usually post and the seriousness of the weekend, all I can say is this.

Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.
Da mihi porco amictum!

Bonus points for those who translate those two phrases.
Extra bonus points for those who can make them seem coherant together.

William Gibson
"Broken up and vanished. In the sky over Nacogdoches County. And I’m sad all the way back to the little boy with his stiff black book and his Bonestell rockets."

Neil Gainman
"It started out like a streak of orange flame, and then, as it rose, it burned bluer and brighter than anything I'd ever seen -- the nursery rhyme line "like a diamond in the sky" suddenly had meaning, a huge, blazing, blue-white diamond of flame.."

And this I rememberd from a wonderful collection of Japanese Death Poems. Maybe, maybe a fitting memorial can be found.
Tsumimono ya
nakute jodo e
tsuki no fune

(Cargoless,
bound heavenward,
ship of the moon)
-Dohaku

And of course:
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air,
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night
-Pink Floyd, Learning To Fly

Too much Bowie and CNN.
Metafilter seaping into my brain.

laurel clark: "There were roses in there, and they had been buds, and they had opened up to bloom," she said, "and it was so, so magical to have roses growing in our laboratory in space."

And now... remains have been found, with a charred NASA patch. If that thing isnt in the Smithsonian tomorrow, I will be upset.

Buzz Aldrin captured it this morning. He tried to read a poem about astronauts on television. He read these words: "As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky." And tough old Buzz, steely-eyed rocket man and veteran of the moon, began to weep.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you

(spoken)
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare

"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows"

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you....

"Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do."

"Terrible news and great sadness..."

"The Columbia is lost. There are no survivors."

"In the service of all humanity"

"We will miss them all the more"

"The sudden shock and greif."

"The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on."

"In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."

"The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth, yet we can pray that all are safely home."

To touch the face of god...

I admit it, I am in tears. Tragedy.
What more can I say? I wish still in my future to be one of these brave people who reach to go beyond the blue shroud of earth.


January 27, 1967 - Apollo One
Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF
Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF
Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN

HIGH FLIGHT" By: John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (Killed In The Battle of Britain, At the Age of 19 On December 11, 1942) No. 412 Squadron RCAF
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...

Wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through
footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;

and, while with silent, lifting mind
I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand,
and touched the face of God."


January 28, 1986 - 51-L(25), Challenger
Francis R. Scobee (2), Commander
Michael J. Smith (1), Pilot
Judith A. Resnik (2), Mission Specialist 1
Ellison S. Onizuka (2), Mission Specialist 2
Ronald E. McNair (2), Mission Specialist 3
Gregory B. Jarvis (1), Payload Specialist 1
Sharon Christa McAuliffe (1), Payload Specialist 2

"The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"


Febuary 1, 2003 - STS-107 (113)
Rick D. Husband (2), Commander
William C. McCool (1), Pilot
Michael P. Anderson (2), Payload Commander
Kalpana Chawla (2), Mission Specialist
David M. Brown (1), Mission Specialist
Laurel B. Clark (1), Mission Specialist
Ilan Ramon (1), (ISA) Payload Specialist

"May their sacrifice not be in vain..."

We have lost another bird....
Seven more lives given into the night
To reach up so powerfully
The price is never too high
Across the sky
Legacy written

"Roger..."

"PAPA LEGBA: The Archangel Gabriel might possibly cut some ice, but I personally would not want to have either Saint Isadore of Seville or Saint Clare of Assisi standing in for the Lord of the Crossroads. "

I seem to be quoting William Gibson allot recently. Having fun, life is good.

DEAD MAN WALKING!