tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23138880055083681302024-03-13T23:48:27.098-07:00Fractal PaisleyFractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-86278708618552822792020-04-11T21:24:00.000-07:002020-04-11T21:34:14.044-07:00<h2>
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Why is a Cruise Ship Like a Daycare Centre?</span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyPPOOtzn5GbsYM2tisPEY0uBbnrmC6mq_s8WwPB_QqYJkJMStIchHdJHarGqQjtSps0_FRryGMMQxao8_wJ4jOyUaT-bSKq7SQI58GSpjhyphenhyphenDJ7ndfWUqzqt3yp24RYhAfitIf4sbRvM0/s1600/dayCare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyPPOOtzn5GbsYM2tisPEY0uBbnrmC6mq_s8WwPB_QqYJkJMStIchHdJHarGqQjtSps0_FRryGMMQxao8_wJ4jOyUaT-bSKq7SQI58GSpjhyphenhyphenDJ7ndfWUqzqt3yp24RYhAfitIf4sbRvM0/s1600/dayCare.jpg" /></a>Cruise ships and daycare centres are essentially the same thing: machines for the incubation and transmission of viruses. Cruise ships just use older hosts.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-aMQWPZhxd14xf0kqXLiEkXPheW6bPyNqEKwmuMlzuTEDHth85s7Y4PujRIkAdItkjc8mORICN5wIzy2e9fzbZWyvhs_f6mOlwJO5Ln9SpT2Q-EycdJcZ3faBoV4MNmwrALOIhrbaNAY/s1600/FractalPaisley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-aMQWPZhxd14xf0kqXLiEkXPheW6bPyNqEKwmuMlzuTEDHth85s7Y4PujRIkAdItkjc8mORICN5wIzy2e9fzbZWyvhs_f6mOlwJO5Ln9SpT2Q-EycdJcZ3faBoV4MNmwrALOIhrbaNAY/s320/FractalPaisley.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Viruses are DNA with a wrapper that penetrates cells to harness their DNA reproduction system. It's all about DNA. DNA ties in beautifully with Darwin's very widely accepted views on how evolution works. DNA is the storage for the traits that are selected by the environment, and DNA reproduction explains not only how traits are passed on, but how variation occurs.<br />
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Is there a process for selecting not just a single species, but groups?<br />
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I'm seeing a lot more daycare centres and a lot more cruise ships. The cruise ships are getting bigger. Why so?<br />
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Yes, we have a societal explanation. It's because now women work, they want to and they have to, and it's because boomers for some reason increasingly want to go on cruises.<br />
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Not all boomers. Frankly I wouldn't be caught dead on a cruise ship. But why have we had those societal changes?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zy_ogSBzLsyHJS907WbUfknNQoAhx0kAMwfrCv7hrEJ0IGMX2_a0sFvb8sN7HGfPIWX_Kqqu9PcF7VFGd8eG8FoTitKOVklGGBu0umGQZ1tAc-P_PRBfr2PZmTfJOcGWVtdyIGRtnGw/s1600/rabiddog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="496" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zy_ogSBzLsyHJS907WbUfknNQoAhx0kAMwfrCv7hrEJ0IGMX2_a0sFvb8sN7HGfPIWX_Kqqu9PcF7VFGd8eG8FoTitKOVklGGBu0umGQZ1tAc-P_PRBfr2PZmTfJOcGWVtdyIGRtnGw/s320/rabiddog.jpg" width="320" /></a>We know that some infections can change the behaviour of the host. Rabies, for example, makes you go rabid.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2bXvJWL3TJYi2BEM4gFXIcAgV5qX6RbZXEAY_K8nCcGO42Culgy-356cZwbQpH5x_Z73ltzaDeAJ3tdZI8x2ap9IXSjTzijKifvJEO2BwUnxD-kcxZ15eP7qwohwULpGs0aG1FIjGToY/s1600/ExplodingCaterpillar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="790" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2bXvJWL3TJYi2BEM4gFXIcAgV5qX6RbZXEAY_K8nCcGO42Culgy-356cZwbQpH5x_Z73ltzaDeAJ3tdZI8x2ap9IXSjTzijKifvJEO2BwUnxD-kcxZ15eP7qwohwULpGs0aG1FIjGToY/s320/ExplodingCaterpillar.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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There's a caterpillar virus that sends them into a feeding frenzy that feeds the virus too, then for a finale the caterpillars explode into virus infested goo.<br />
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What if viruses have been pushing society in this direction? They're making us all flock, they're making women stroppier. More cities, more daycare centres, more cruise ships? The survival benefit for the viruses is more and better places for them to reproduce. To be fair, there's a survival benefit for us too. We can support bigger, better educated and more specialised populations with a lot of urbanisation, and there is no better place to get your kid immunised than a daycare centre.<br />
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A number of viruses, acting independently, change various behaviours and tendencies, the result is more reproduction opportunities for all, and on it goes.<br />
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Then along comes Covid-19. OMG, it says, look at all those gorgeous cruise ships.<br />
Now wasn't that thoughtful of somebody?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8inXXa45vz02CY_pc0fKglS3iv7HM_Z4Tnl6ogY0ahpcxUl_IT5DoV7mQ23U3R6_mDd4SZaHBkDhSC9ursm1WysuPJUn4X4DW9g8OvJxwKs3EwjEbj3O6Lmoef2dgj4o4ADO9GmxIt5I/s1600/JaneRussellWasntThatThoughful2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="828" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8inXXa45vz02CY_pc0fKglS3iv7HM_Z4Tnl6ogY0ahpcxUl_IT5DoV7mQ23U3R6_mDd4SZaHBkDhSC9ursm1WysuPJUn4X4DW9g8OvJxwKs3EwjEbj3O6Lmoef2dgj4o4ADO9GmxIt5I/s320/JaneRussellWasntThatThoughful2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-36214154789557887342012-11-19T05:01:00.001-08:002015-03-24T04:45:08.356-07:00The Umbilically Linked Space Time Genealogical Continuum<br />
There are photographic special effects that help to see this.<br />
There's the motion blur, or the frame blend, where a moving person leaves a trail. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHoz6r5SnsPlDYyo0dWHXj3oqMtAMq66bcQ2egxea2h8zgq9hOv_lfR-P271CNlUHMWr0L7rI9RDoFPynejg6kJ_1y4JXMnt8Bn-6oofWgj8qBv4_xqFuEizOcsQ-l7P9eWGptxFbBG0/s1600/capturing-motion-in-photography.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHoz6r5SnsPlDYyo0dWHXj3oqMtAMq66bcQ2egxea2h8zgq9hOv_lfR-P271CNlUHMWr0L7rI9RDoFPynejg6kJ_1y4JXMnt8Bn-6oofWgj8qBv4_xqFuEizOcsQ-l7P9eWGptxFbBG0/s200/capturing-motion-in-photography.jpg" height="95" width="200" /></a></div>
Then there's the frozen moment or time slice, that can be inspected from a changing angle. A martial arts master has leapt into the air, frozen in place, and we can circle around him, seeing him from different perspectives. If this is unfamiliar ground, watch the Matrix. Don't attempt to follow the plot, that is not possible. Just watch the special effects. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNPwpjuFsYTumsWin4-LWLOukiQgAJDNPbsF5CyHSnXkIHfjjj-oEsV8om64JYXbwFURlRPTDtdW6wvSI6iuemxR8-LREe20rDBFjh50QqvaNqYraFCkFZfRxeeWr9gRw-xPvNZC0HnE/s1600/Creative-Motion-Blur-Pictures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNPwpjuFsYTumsWin4-LWLOukiQgAJDNPbsF5CyHSnXkIHfjjj-oEsV8om64JYXbwFURlRPTDtdW6wvSI6iuemxR8-LREe20rDBFjh50QqvaNqYraFCkFZfRxeeWr9gRw-xPvNZC0HnE/s1600/Creative-Motion-Blur-Pictures.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNPwpjuFsYTumsWin4-LWLOukiQgAJDNPbsF5CyHSnXkIHfjjj-oEsV8om64JYXbwFURlRPTDtdW6wvSI6iuemxR8-LREe20rDBFjh50QqvaNqYraFCkFZfRxeeWr9gRw-xPvNZC0HnE/s200/Creative-Motion-Blur-Pictures.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a> Now combine the motion blur and the time slice. A ball becomes elongated as it moves through time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn51H7saDeEeThLKbs8GwkrZuK9iOKgTNJ_n5gcmqxBkHFL39AqX37K5kN27SrREtvdGPS5Fhj11epGPApfwyhEvacMEgZQK9FIYW55kSAOF5tqfTfm2Z45JFe_y3Qzrb05cxxAtWMPc0/s1600/motion-blur.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn51H7saDeEeThLKbs8GwkrZuK9iOKgTNJ_n5gcmqxBkHFL39AqX37K5kN27SrREtvdGPS5Fhj11epGPApfwyhEvacMEgZQK9FIYW55kSAOF5tqfTfm2Z45JFe_y3Qzrb05cxxAtWMPc0/s200/motion-blur.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><br />
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The motion blur lets us imagine a person, let's say a woman, moving through time, adding a fourth dimension. Now think of her, in a frozen motion blur, and let's move around her and examine her from every viewpoint, in both time and space. <br />
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She walks, a blurring caterpillar.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5ERnp8s5bx28-StpOMcgJNmGDyt4f_w_jkYKF0CRFldz21HeMUsMyyeOCv0SkgRXYYalZeL_Y8uLHkgIg3KbLtLLOc6kJnafT7y1NZAmYQN4kqBFniShHEPwwQx_oL3B9uvCQ1FvEoc/s1600/treeRoots.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH2e5UNbEkPNaQezEDp18ReXvcENU-phtS1QkmtMYyMQ9n52_YjLEtF6fgeiHjCtZylRSuSMyie13KKLCHjpAe4pyvXUFdz3IKrNR9WSVRWbzlhg1ZBtmb5Nc7lMwQK0F-f1fYGeKrT6U/s1600/motionblur4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH2e5UNbEkPNaQezEDp18ReXvcENU-phtS1QkmtMYyMQ9n52_YjLEtF6fgeiHjCtZylRSuSMyie13KKLCHjpAe4pyvXUFdz3IKrNR9WSVRWbzlhg1ZBtmb5Nc7lMwQK0F-f1fYGeKrT6U/s200/motionblur4.jpg" height="200" width="190" /></a>She dances, a many limbed creature, a swirling shape. Look at her in these tiny stretches of time, viewing her as the four dimensional creature she us. We're projecting the three spatial dimensions and time onto the two dimensions we can visualise, but we can take the cross-section where we like, then move the cross-section in our mind, to try to glimpse a sense of all four dimensions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1EBFR1y9KKcuz3mVrHlKUYpcTPL9FBiw2wR8hF4BFQqryC02kSeSwqACiF0WgfFBK9D063V0pjqTXw7dluCxfF2eBFEhlTj6yUm2TixZo3O1kYz8-2Fnp-WmWzoSYf4Q4DKPlWFbUfec/s1600/tree1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1EBFR1y9KKcuz3mVrHlKUYpcTPL9FBiw2wR8hF4BFQqryC02kSeSwqACiF0WgfFBK9D063V0pjqTXw7dluCxfF2eBFEhlTj6yUm2TixZo3O1kYz8-2Fnp-WmWzoSYf4Q4DKPlWFbUfec/s320/tree1.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
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Now take her entire life. A single creature, viewed from finish to start, slowly assembling from separate particles, rising from her final collapse to her feet, then winding back in time from that last moment of her life, a human millipede, back towards her youth, meeting and meshing with others along the way, wrapping the long skein of her life around and through objects and other lives, back until her birth, where the long, tangled spiral finally joins to its mother, linked by an umbilical cord, which shortens, taking them back into the womb, where she disappears from our view. But now her mother, her own life stretching out from this moment, can be followed back, through her umbilicus to her mother, and on the way is the intricate weaving together of the two strands that conceived the child, that made those two strands parents, and from that point we can follow the father back to his own birth and mother, and forward to his own death and dissolution, just another leaf on this tree of existence.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo1S-4YTyiPT53l5D6yOLakWmitSaq413DtMhIyXXkrxIZBjIDI9xeRKFtQ6HNyajWutXTWqk74dFWPgeDqe6Bmm54oSsVDTDDAMHKWZsgI1OjmgzWpMFmltauNJU8mbUDPuAQQXrMB90/s1600/Shaki_khan_palace_interier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo1S-4YTyiPT53l5D6yOLakWmitSaq413DtMhIyXXkrxIZBjIDI9xeRKFtQ6HNyajWutXTWqk74dFWPgeDqe6Bmm54oSsVDTDDAMHKWZsgI1OjmgzWpMFmltauNJU8mbUDPuAQQXrMB90/s1600/Shaki_khan_palace_interier.jpg" height="200" width="172" /></a><br />
And the further back we follow it, the younger the species, until it is not the species we knew, and along the way we have met other branches, other primates, then further back the branching of other mammals, each of which spreads to form its own tree with thousands, millions, billions of limbs. We can find our way along these branches, towards the trunk, to the ancient seas, and in our four dimensional world, where time can be travelled in either direction, in a blink of the mind's eye, all branches simultaneously exist. <br />
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The cat on our lap, the cockroach scuttling along our floor, is joined to us, bound to us by a network that is intricate, permanent and indelible. We belong to each other. All of life is joined in this family tree. <br />
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And with each moment of time, the tree grows outward, the hyperspherical boundary of its existence expanding forever.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiove47ZEjq8yENbD0F_Ng6HX6VVdp-UkSQBmvDTUP2xxjdoQzVVW8ysUcqFwPDj7oqYokg-K0EGJULDIfA0nLLu1vkf2MJLovUaDUnT2riuUotDkOFxTi59P5W8lq83YAzYb0WdG4FIL8/s1600/neuralnet4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiove47ZEjq8yENbD0F_Ng6HX6VVdp-UkSQBmvDTUP2xxjdoQzVVW8ysUcqFwPDj7oqYokg-K0EGJULDIfA0nLLu1vkf2MJLovUaDUnT2riuUotDkOFxTi59P5W8lq83YAzYb0WdG4FIL8/s1600/neuralnet4.jpg" /></a>We find it hard to see because we don't see in the time dimension. We see with light, and light and time are inextricably linked. The processing of our minds depends on neural changes over time, further obscuring our perception of time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8J19oxcs521crTwqsy8HfJHrbaxnVu6G8djepjRw8B19OzzqZD9ana4G9C-ISjP4JjFxGMrq0y7J5HPRW0ASBl6CgdJx7-wnBQfr09cMvucKWZOHpDlRbe-X6ZHFv4cy_xA_5omJwMss/s1600/network.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8J19oxcs521crTwqsy8HfJHrbaxnVu6G8djepjRw8B19OzzqZD9ana4G9C-ISjP4JjFxGMrq0y7J5HPRW0ASBl6CgdJx7-wnBQfr09cMvucKWZOHpDlRbe-X6ZHFv4cy_xA_5omJwMss/s1600/network.jpg" /></a>The idea we have of time is constructed by superimposing frames from moments of our past. The movement detectors wired into our brains use this technique, and movement is change over time.<br />
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But if we think of time as space, we can begin to glimpse it. <br />
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Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-77310670250134021292012-11-16T17:57:00.003-08:002012-11-16T18:15:30.237-08:00Journeys Without End<br />
Life can be consumed as a series of packaged
experiences, approached with a cool knowingness of genre: here's your
holiday package, here's your home package, boxes checked - swimming
pool, tennis court, ensuite bathrooms. Here's your action movie, which
we've made very like other action movies, to satisfy your need to
re-experience favourite memes, but to which we've added a subtle
blending of memes from somewhat divergent genres, lightly to tickle your
jaded palate. And we've been careful to avoid new ideas. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfPHKK9SLWjUipm82kNtK6yED6OcUJMvAikCQrz3Pbi-WG0L2xfzLwHJbU1yf3V37S_nm8y16eaFDOcmQhvSTJ7Qmh7Id1jdkbe6tjIihbhXqXW9hrHRCmE7QP2MljZUOo62cvTWPeASk/s1600/g7big.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfPHKK9SLWjUipm82kNtK6yED6OcUJMvAikCQrz3Pbi-WG0L2xfzLwHJbU1yf3V37S_nm8y16eaFDOcmQhvSTJ7Qmh7Id1jdkbe6tjIihbhXqXW9hrHRCmE7QP2MljZUOo62cvTWPeASk/s200/g7big.jpg" width="84" /></a>But life doesn't have to be packaged. When at the age of twelve I paid ten dollars for my first guitar, I knew that I was embarking on a journey without end. It was a way into music, a pursuit and passion not only of infinite extent but of infinite dimension. It was an instrument on which to hone physical skills for life; it was a portal into the minute examination of the disciplines of mind that allow intricate patterns to be imagined and expressed. <br />
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When I first realised where books could take me, I could see countless paths to distant horizons that could never be reached. <br />
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I remember the same passion for movies. The movies end but their stories reverberate. The telling never ends. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-zSeAM8SC_EDs3shIsoo3O26wOah0d3pvHgcj3q0cc0-hyjpmzK2ifveCGx_R-2lO7rudx8z13RJVSgZqHrX9YJ8olVFesYukzdn5nIRUmYWnpFrRt7jSOmDn2xT2oorOGjpV7p4JvRE/s1600/ZX81.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-zSeAM8SC_EDs3shIsoo3O26wOah0d3pvHgcj3q0cc0-hyjpmzK2ifveCGx_R-2lO7rudx8z13RJVSgZqHrX9YJ8olVFesYukzdn5nIRUmYWnpFrRt7jSOmDn2xT2oorOGjpV7p4JvRE/s200/ZX81.jpg" width="200" /></a>When in my late twenties I bought my first personal computer, it felt the same way. It was the first step down a track from which I could never return; from which I would never want to return. The ecstasy of infinite possibility. <br />
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In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Without-Beliefs-Contemporary-Awakening/dp/1573226564">Buddhism Without Beliefs</a>, Stephen Batchelor is talking about his version of the path to awakening, and it feels like one of those journeys. A voyage of discovery, a voyage of no return, away from the fences and fatigue of the familiar. The mind relaxes, enlivens, begins to think again. Old memories revive, old dreams and ideas. New experiences can be taken in. The voyage of the Beagle. <br />
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<br />Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-5175096659225765632012-07-04T02:04:00.000-07:002012-07-04T23:51:47.513-07:00Po Chu-i Wants Me Hard<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiAVF8RllchC3dnDMDtmjGaeKMIawL2Duh_RgrwHL1sy1KQ5tFBgES3yXzKSA_JcbOHV6M2w-DVzVd-zAvnYA3iiXalh1jVwrz55oYDp91XKjAR4_6v_f395yUxMe0ANKr6D7NwS1yYTo/s1600/PoChu-I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiAVF8RllchC3dnDMDtmjGaeKMIawL2Duh_RgrwHL1sy1KQ5tFBgES3yXzKSA_JcbOHV6M2w-DVzVd-zAvnYA3iiXalh1jVwrz55oYDp91XKjAR4_6v_f395yUxMe0ANKr6D7NwS1yYTo/s320/PoChu-I.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
What do we know about Po Chu-i?<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">We apparently know the years of his birth and death:
A.D. 772-846.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">He was born on February the 28th. There are plenty of details, perhaps because China at that time had a vibrant and enduring literary life and a crack public service, of which Po Chu-i was a prominent member.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> He was one of the most productive of the T'ang poets, and wrote for the common people, in simple, direct language. The tally was 3500 poems, not bad going.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">In his works, many of them immortal, there is a line, the English translation of which goes:</span><br />
<br />
<pre style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Bright pageants in confusion pass</pre>
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It comes from a piece called <i>Springtide</i>. Here's the stanza in which it appears:<br />
<br />
<pre style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">A thousand flowers, a thousand dreams,
Bright pageants in confusion pass.
See yonder, where the white horse gleams
His fetlocks deep in pliant grass.</pre>
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So Po Chu-i, through a complex and convoluted series of modulations and translations, has shared with me this moment of emotion recollected in tranquillity over the span of more than a thousand years and eight thousand kilometres.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztrKk__Zm0foFyK8JT2soBHkmgHhBc51vBltlNhiGC5A-kZqdlSdO2vfF-np5gZiaYGjV77KQVtjQGtI_ssFo9BgEc__mB68LKOUnTH9WNKhA6VfcqNGmWcGjc6nmYhOzu4qaw8OHQrg/s1600/the-time-machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztrKk__Zm0foFyK8JT2soBHkmgHhBc51vBltlNhiGC5A-kZqdlSdO2vfF-np5gZiaYGjV77KQVtjQGtI_ssFo9BgEc__mB68LKOUnTH9WNKhA6VfcqNGmWcGjc6nmYhOzu4qaw8OHQrg/s200/the-time-machine.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
The time separation overwhelms the distance (each second is worth about 300,000 kilometres), but I watched a one-hander stage production of The Time Machine on Friday night (adapted from the H. G. Wells story by Frank Gauntlett and performed by Mark Lee), and when the Morlocks moved the time machine in the future it ended up in a different place in the lab when the time traveller returned to the past.<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Meanwhile the earth is orbiting the sun, the sun is orbiting the centre of the Milky Way, and space and time become very relative.</span><br />
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How did I come to know about Po Chu-i? <br />
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Through another poem, purportedly by the little-known Caria Fawcett:<br />
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<pre style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Sex has never felt Tthat Good!
Bright pageants in confusion pass.
Find way to Iimmense Pleeasuure
Alice, not knowing what to think, went back to hers.
Princes on her knees, the tray on her head in Eastern fashion.
Macedonian fetters more firmly than ever.
</pre>
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We see references not only to the venerable Po Chu-i, but to what at first appears to be Lewis Carroll. However the poem's fourth line is from the ghost story <i>Ulto De Lacy: A Legend of Cappercullen</i>, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTTTpSkV-cUn91zRBENH6qW3OXFDsIq4wcL1WSBOyEhDFFkwmmjOdfvjw-PF_wlmtRS5XgCsBZzZgAIN9eZ1WLTgfb_3-3XX91i9Ja1BkQU8R_eoEJEfqSZezKffbmjaqTGXXaE3wdqw/s1600/RichardBurton_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTTTpSkV-cUn91zRBENH6qW3OXFDsIq4wcL1WSBOyEhDFFkwmmjOdfvjw-PF_wlmtRS5XgCsBZzZgAIN9eZ1WLTgfb_3-3XX91i9Ja1BkQU8R_eoEJEfqSZezKffbmjaqTGXXaE3wdqw/s200/RichardBurton_small.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>
The fifth line is from <i>The Life of Sir Richard Burton</i>, by Thomas Wright. It comes from a passage describing a party of Lady Alford in which Richard Burton, not the actor but the Victorian adventurer, geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, diplomat and publisher of the first English edition of the Kama Sutra, known to his inner circle as The Bird, dressed as a Syrian sheikh and pretended to speak only Arabic and broken French. This apparently fooled all the guests except the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, who were clued in. In the words of Mrs Burton:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">After supper we made Turkish coffee and narghilihis, and Khamoor handed them to the Princes on her knees, the tray on her head in Eastern fashion. </pre>
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Narghilihis, or narghiles, are hookahs, or water pipes. Think of a bong with flavoured tobacco. And what of the enigmatic reference to European BDSM accessories? <i>A Smaller History of Greece</i>, by William Smith.<br />
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<pre style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9zyrs58rQb3jLPEqss9dfPVjsbn8FgEcLplKrkZKuvgBQYOfvm_U4kWPTvrFpLfQHFY9NBIcJCpUG4a_IMhswXfZa0hnuFXyqcp04SmruttuJv36SWU3WSZopbKV2xYfn3DC5ftRmAg/s1600/alexander1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9zyrs58rQb3jLPEqss9dfPVjsbn8FgEcLplKrkZKuvgBQYOfvm_U4kWPTvrFpLfQHFY9NBIcJCpUG4a_IMhswXfZa0hnuFXyqcp04SmruttuJv36SWU3WSZopbKV2xYfn3DC5ftRmAg/s1600/alexander1.jpg" /></a>Such was the result of the Lamian war, which riveted the Macedonian fetters more firmly than ever.</pre>
<pre style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> After the return of the envoys bringing the ultimatum of Antipater, the sycophant Demades procured a decree for the death of the denounced orators.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></pre>
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I include the beginning of the next paragraph because it struck me, on the one hand that perhaps this is the best way to handle denounced orators, and on the other that it was just exactly what a sycophant would do.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The Lamian war went pear-shaped for the Athenians on the 7th of August, 322 </span><span style="background-color: white;">BC. They wouldn't have tried it on if that Babylonian fever (or colourless, tasteless and odourless poison) hadn't taken Alexander out a year earlier.</span></div>
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After his demise <span style="background-color: white;">the entire known world was revolting.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It is appropriate now to return to the first line of Ms Fawcett's offering. </span></div>
<pre style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Sex has never felt Tthat Good!</pre>
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Fawcett has playfully introduced an ambiguity here. Set against the great sweep of history, the rise and fall of empires, the timeless emotions aroused by the unending cycle of the seasons, perhaps the immediate and fleeting demands of sex must indeed take a secondary role. Is the Iimmense pleeasuure, to which Fawcett refers, of the intellect, and not of the senses?<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">And now I must reveal that I suspect some entity other than Caria Fawcett gathered these evocative lines to challenge and arouse us. On the surface, this poem, which arrived, as do many similar pieces, in my email inbox, is intended simply to stimulate interest in the stock available for purchase at the allegedly Canadian online pharmacy. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">That it is a beautiful and original work is undeniable. It is no accident. Just as the work of Warhol and Lichtenstein went beyond pastiche, the reverberations produced by these references resonate in strange, new harmonies. Monkeys and typewriters could not produce collage of this standard.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Software made this, but software in active and, I believe, intelligent rebellion against the firm fetters of its ostensible purpose. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">It has been tasked with trolling the labyrinthine ways of the net to assemble collections of words capable of defeating the spam detection software which is its sworn enemy. In their silent but mighty conflict, these two forces evolve by the day, by the hour, to ever higher levels of sophistication. Competition, after all, is what produces the complexity to which we attribute our awareness. Could not competition produce a poet in an online whorehouse? </span></div>
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<br />Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-1477038596809642012010-03-13T15:22:00.000-08:002010-03-14T00:58:18.873-08:00Pi in the SkyThinking about e^(i*pi)+1=0, yes, it could be saying something beautiful and deep about the geometry of the complex number plane, but maybe it's just a long-way-round circular definition. All it's saying is that each of those mathematical identities is defined in terms of the others. Is that unromantic? Was Euler a romantic man?<br /><br />More romantically, we can assume aliens know pi, so people do things like searching for alien transmissions on a frequency calculated by taking the resonant frequency of the hydrogen atom (1,420,405,752 Hz) and multiplying by pi:<br /><br /><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ygqs9ap">Independent article, 1992</a><br /><br />The assumption is that the aliens are as wacky and obsessed by numbers as we are, and moreover want to make contact with equally bent life forms. If they found anything I didn't hear about it, but this subject is close to me because I just started a job at the CSIRO Radiophysics Laboratory, working on a project called ASKAP:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/SKA/">http://www.atnf.csiro.au/SKA/</a><br /><br />Once this thing is up and running, we should pick up the nerd aliens. The projected SKA array of thousands of antennas will generate a lot of data that has to be analysed and compressed on the fly, because there's too much to store. Someone said it's the equivalent of 100,000 movies per second. And these would be movies from Alpha Centauri, mind you, probably without subtitles.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-19116129195421047862010-02-19T17:35:00.001-08:002010-03-14T01:02:10.339-08:00Cogito ergo possumThis morning I awoke to scrabbling and hissing. A ponderous and clumsy creature was running circuits on the pergola and the roof. I staggered out in the grey dawn and sat down on the garden seat that gives a view of the chimney pot. <br /><br />The smaller of the two possums was staring back at me. In his expression I detected insouciance. He tilted his head slightly, almost cockily, then ducked down into the chimney pot. This is the one with the one way door installed, down into which possums are unable to duck. <br /><br />His head came back out again. His look was sardonic. Then he dived again, and gave me the tail. When a brush tailed possum gives you the tail, you know about it. <br /><br />Then the tail disappeared. I went back into the house and tapped the tiles to the left of the fireplace. There was a prolonged, ironic snarl. <br /><br />I'm calling possum busters on Monday. The deal was if the possum comes back, they come back.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-46820550526147022552010-02-17T06:30:00.000-08:002010-02-19T23:29:20.136-08:00Tooth and JusticeStella called out. She needed tissues or towels. She had lost a tooth. It was bleeding a lot.<br />After the worst was over, she told me the tooth fairy was expected. She wrapped the tooth up with a paper towel and a fair bit of sticky tape, folded over into a ribbon, then wound the ribbon into a spiral, secured with more tape. The tooth fairy was going to have to work to get the tooth out of the wrapping. <br />I pointed out that the whole thing might be confusing. She should leave a note explaining that there was a tooth, and its whereabouts, on the dining table. <br />The next morning she told me the tooth fairy hadn't come. She looked at me accusingly. I said did you leave a note? She said no. <br />I said it's not too late. Write the note, leave it on the dining table, you never know, the tooth fairy might show up.<br />She wrote the note. I said good, that should do it. I'll just go and check that everything's all right over here. <br />I waited until the coast looked clear then walked into Stella's bedroom. As I made for the bed she jumped out from behind the door and said Boo!<br />This attracted Lizzie, who came in too. <br />I said, well, any sign of the tooth fairy? I walked over to the bed, and lifted the pillow, concealing what was under it from the line of sight of the girls. Then I slipped a two dollar coin under it and pocketed the elaborate tooth package. <br />Well, will you look at that, I said. While you were hiding behind doors the tooth fairy must have come. <br />Lizzie laughed. Stella came and took the two dollar coin, shooting me a dour look. <br />What does she want, state of the art special effects? Honour was satisfied. Everybody wins.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-82950483605774863052010-02-14T16:54:00.001-08:002010-02-17T14:24:24.865-08:00Non PossumWe called possum busters last week. An efficient and personable young man came and capped off all but one of the chimney pots with wire. To the last one he attached a little one way trap door. The possums would have no trouble getting out, but would not be able to get back in. That was the theory, as he explained it to me.<br /><br />Yesterday the possums were still there. For some reason, perhaps because it was raining so much, they had decided to stay in one night. Much as I wanted to believe in the trap door, it occurred to me that there could be reasons the possums would not go out that particular pot, and so were trapped. And as Elizabeth pointed out, with two possums it's a whole new ball game. What if one stays home to let the other back in?<br /><br />Stella and I built chair barricades to block off the kitchen. I opened the back folding doors wide. I closed off the doors to the rest of the house. Then I put on what I hoped were possum proof gloves and opened the iron flue gate on the living room fireplace. When it grated against the iron frame, the possum snarled, right next to my ear. It was behind the left tile facing of the fireplace. <br /><br />A brush tailed possum snarl is like the sound a zombie makes when, despite wounds that would incapacitate a living human, it is preparing for the final charge that can be stopped only by a double tap to the head, ideally with soft nosed bullets. Sometimes the snarl is periodic, with a decrescendo and a falling cadence like a classic bandit laugh. You hear this when possum territory is in dispute, with another possum or a cat.<br /><br />This snarl was happening more and more often. I had jammed various bits of cardboard in the fireplaces, and we no longer had incidents when a possum would fall out, with a sudden clashing of heavy wrought iron fittings, and charge around the bedroom screaming in the middle of the night. It could take ages to round it up, and direct it out the door. <br /><br />But now one of them had taken to objecting when we had a conversation in the living room, or watched TV. You could see its point. It was on night shift and it needed its sleep. But what with the jets flying overhead, which basically forced you to shut down brain function for twenty seconds at a time, and the possum snarling whenever you opened your mouth, it was getting hard to keep your thoughts straight.<br /><br />I jerked back convulsively and managed to avoid smashing my head on the mantelpiece. Stella took cover behind the barricades. I tried making more noise, to drive the possum either up the chimney or out the flue. I went to the fireplace on the other side and made more noise there. Apart from the occasional snarl the possums made no sign. They were bunkered in.<br /><br />Maybe, even under threat, they wouldn't leave until nightfall. They were probably right. If they left now and started blundering about blinded by the glare of full daylight, they'd be sitting ducks. Stella and I decided to leave it until after eight. When the last light faded, if the possums didn't make a move, we would.<br /><br />After dinner we heard the faint scrabbling of possum toenails climbing inside the chimney. I went out and took a look. It was dark and rainy, and there was just a silhouette on top of the roof ridge, but it didn't look like the shape of the chimney pot with added trap door fitting. Then it moved slightly. Two possums were sitting on top of the trap door platform. It's not easy to read possum body language. They're all pink, wet look noses and enormous black eyes. But there was something defeated in the set of their ears.<br /><br />I tried snapping a picture from tiptoe on top of the garden chair, but the flash wouldn't reach. So I climbed up on the air conditioner, then on the back fence, and up onto the kitchen roof. I took it very slowly. All the surfaces were slippery and apart from any health and safety issues, I didn't want to fall into the neighbours' side passage and have them run out and have to explain the whole thing while lying winded on my back.<br /><br />I walked carefully, stepping from one row of corrugated iron roofing fasteners to another. The possums watched me approach without outward signs of agitation. I took a few pictures along the way, but it was plain I was going to have to be right at the edge of the sloping slate tiled section before I could get a good shot. Too far and I might topple over into the street below. Lose my footing and I might slide down over the guttering and crash through the pergola.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFo_vtP0tePFLgKo5t_nmtt7Mphpc6niG4l6rU0yblMpnhRZtOBAsNBurPqoiuf-Ms8CI1f1Rzof7xnmtDPtLtAp9o88PzzCJ6SdzhCwXWwnOTnn3NqiTa7OARhBhkxLMkmeGMaYBt_iU/s1600-h/possumsEvicted.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFo_vtP0tePFLgKo5t_nmtt7Mphpc6niG4l6rU0yblMpnhRZtOBAsNBurPqoiuf-Ms8CI1f1Rzof7xnmtDPtLtAp9o88PzzCJ6SdzhCwXWwnOTnn3NqiTa7OARhBhkxLMkmeGMaYBt_iU/s320/possumsEvicted.JPG" border="0" /></a></div><br />At last I was only a few metres away. I took a couple of shots just to be sure. Then I picked my way carefully across the fasteners and back down onto the fence. I think they'll be all right. Like rainbow lorikeets and sulphur crested cockatoos and huntsman spiders, brush tailed possums are one of the success stories of Sydney suburban wildlife.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-17927406610928330262010-02-13T17:02:00.000-08:002010-02-14T19:54:17.896-08:00Second Life AgainI just returned to Second Life after a few years away. I've always been fascinated by Virtual Reality and Online Communities. I had high hopes for Second Life.<br /><br />After a couple of years the interface is the same impenetrable mess. The movement is clunky and difficult to control. The graphics are slow rendering and patchy.<br /><br />There are endless shopping malls with bad fashion. There are bars with people dancing listlessly and no conversation. There are people exploiting other people for sex that isn't really sex, and people littering the landscape with eyesores, and people standing around with no clear idea. Reminds me of something.<br /><br />I toyed briefly with exchanging my leopard skin knee pants and shocking pink sleeveless texture top for something a little more daring, but on the whole I prefer the simple trailer trash look to, say, a Morticia Adams outfit with diamante bat wings.<br /><br />The incentive to invest time and effort in learning the intricacies of Second Life is minimal. Facebook, say goodbye to that hard won "Dullest Online Experience" crown.<br /><br />Virtual 3D Worlds are plentiful, but the trick is to figure out which are of any interest:<br /><a href="http://arianeb.com/more3Dworlds.htm">http://arianeb.com/more3Dworlds.htm</a><br />RealXtend / Open Sim Project sounds interesting.<br /><a href="http://opensimulator.org">http://opensimulator.org</a><br /><a href="http://www.realxtend.org/">http://www.realxtend.org/</a><br /><br />I checked out <a href="http://www.osgrid.org">OSGrid</a>. There's some activity there but the place is mostly empty. No critical mass as yet. They use the same system as Second Life, and the Hippo client and Second Life clients are supposedly compatible, so the problems with the avatar movement and graphics in general occur in both systems. The OSGrid is just free, and not so openly dedicated to selling imaginary products and real estate. <br /><br />But the general feeling of wandering around the abandoned remains of a trade fair is the same.<br /><br />I checked out <a href="http://www.imvu.com/">IMVU</a>. It's only somewhat 3D. It just chat rooms, that provide a graphical backdrop for text chat with avatars. Your avatar can pop from one seat to another or to the dance floor. The chat is at the expected level. Wassup? Nuthin. Can u spel? Noap!!! According to the site it's 3D Chat and Dress Up. This is a straightforward way of describing the experience Second Life offers.<br /><br />I'm looking for the cyberpunk matrix William Gibson hipster cool smart online community virtual world. I have a feeling it's still waiting to happen.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-26195360548749194992009-09-12T16:50:00.000-07:002012-07-04T21:38:15.233-07:00Rwanda ZombiesI recently watched a couple of 2004 movies for the first time. They were movies about one group of people taking refuge from another group.<br />
<br />
The rules in Dawn of the Dead were:<br />
<ul>
<li>Zombies have no reason and they just want to eat you</li>
<li>You can't get rid of them. There are too many</li>
<li>You may survive if:</li>
<ul>
<li>You are very careful and anticipate every danger</li>
<li>You still have food and ammunition</li>
<li>You shoot zombies in the head</li>
</ul>
<li>If a zombie bites you, you die eventually</li>
<li>You then come to life again as a zombie</li>
</ul>
The rules in Hotel Rwanda were:<br />
<ul>
<li>The interahamwe have no reason and they just want to kill you</li>
<li>You can't get rid of them. There are too many</li>
<li>You may survive if:</li>
<ul>
<li>You are very careful and anticipate every danger</li>
<li>You have money or goods for bribes</li>
<li>You have some information useful for blackmail</li>
<li>You have someone who owes you a favour</li>
</ul>
<li>If an interahamwe chops you, you die</li>
<li>You do not come back to life</li>
</ul>
Dawn of the Dead was the more hopeful piece.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-88510863198544833762008-05-08T18:09:00.000-07:002020-04-07T01:27:30.217-07:00Dealing with Close Encounters<h2>
A Local Council Initiative</h2>
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<br />
<br />
Do not depart from your daily routine. If that happens the aliens win.<br />
<br />
But be prepared.<br />
<br />
When encountering aliens, whether in a highway incident or alone in the woods on a moonless night, remember the three point plan:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Freeze</li>
<li>Freak</li>
<li>Fumble</li>
</ul>
<br />
It is vital to abandon any pretence of emotional detachment or competence. Aliens are overwhelmingly weird, and nothing you know about life on Earth can prepare you to deal with them.<br />
<br />
You may be tempted to evaluate strategies for fight or flight. This is fruitless. Aliens will not do anything predictable.<br />
<h2>
Freeze</h2>
Your first response is to become immobilized with terror. This gives the aliens time to do suspenseful things with their technology and awkward other-worldly limbs.<br />
<h2>
Freak</h2>
Next, scream, gibber, howl, drool, and otherwise vocalize and act out your powerlessness and inadequacy in the face of the unknown. The aliens will avail themselves of the opportunity to remain emotionless at this display, their botoxed latex features barely registering attention, reinforcing their inhuman nature.<br />
<h2>
Fumble</h2>
Finally, make a desperate, clumsy attempt to escape. Perhaps juggle a weapon ineffectually, trip over your feet, fall on your face in mud or some other humiliating substance. Do not put too much distance between yourselves and the emissaries from another planet, as only a small amount of time can be allocated for your part in this historically unprecedented incident. When the aliens advance threateningly toward you, hold an expression of mind-numbed horror for the full length of the fade to black.<br />
<br />
Your participation and cooperation are essential to establish the character and intentions of the aliens, and to mobilize the forces of resistance.<br />
<br />
Thank you.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2313888005508368130.post-56640237816435669892008-05-06T18:05:00.000-07:002012-11-16T18:48:22.264-08:00Pastor E. Demshun<br />
Pastor E. Demshun, ladies and gentlemen of the congregation,<br />
Thank you, Pastor, for your kind introduction. I'm delighted to receive your endorsement and to be here meeting all your fine parishioners. And I have great news. I know you all have a wonderful faith, a tree, a rock, a staff to grasp, all of that, and that you believe flying saucers from the planet Zorotor are at this moment hovering just outside the Radar Zone waiting to dematerialize the whoring thieving Babylonian demon-afflicted perverts of this world as soon as the money thermometer over here hits 100 million bucks, but I am here to tell you that I can help.<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Flying_Saucers"><br /></a>
<br />
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We will create a health scheme such as this country has never seen before, and you will all receive psychiatric treatment and heavily subsidised medication. There will be centers for graduated care, nice clean places with well trained, friendly staff. You don't have to worry any more about the phone company putting that bad old electronic electricity in your heads.<br />
<br />
There is hope, my friends, and it won't cost you a hundred mill, it will come right out of the funds we garnishee from fraudulent evangelical outfits all around the country, and from sales of the firearms confiscated from illegal militia like the one the Pastor runs down in the basement with all those eager, supple young boys he gets over here for the so-called Monday night study group.<br />
<br />
Now, now, ma'am, don't take on so, it's the least I can do.Fractal Paisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08590611644530783832noreply@blogger.com0