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creative uncategorized

I Am Not Kurt Vonnegut But Sometimes I Pretend To Be, or, This Is The Entire Thing So Enjoy It

I’m writing a book about a civilization so advanced that they no longer have disputes. However, they’ve also realized the need for warfare and now get to it every dozen or so years, for no other reason than that it’s jolly good exercise and allows for technological progress.

In the end, they realize that all of their scientific passions were in pursuit of destruction & devastation and the eradication of life, just seconds before blowing up the entire universe.

It’s going to be called either Oblivion Operations Protocol System or Automotivated Warfare: Syndicated Hostility Initiative Tokenization, with the title written out so you see the hidden message that reveals humanity’s final observation.

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I Am Not Kurt Vonnegut But Sometimes I Pretend To Be, or, This Is The Entire Thing So Enjoy It

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m writing a book about a civilization so advanced that they no longer have disputes. However, they’ve also realized the need for warfare and now get to it every dozen or so years, for no other reason than that it’s jolly good exercise and allows for technological progress.

In the end, they realize that all of their scientific passions were in pursuit of destruction & devastation and the eradication of life, just seconds before blowing up the entire universe.

It’s going to be called either Oblivion Operations Protocol System or Automotivated Warfare: Syndicated Hostility Initiative Tokenization, with the title written out so you see the hidden message that reveals humanity’s final observation.

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current events uncategorized

unholy thing

Oh my god. This creepy, unthinking mechanical thing is the precursor to the terrible things that will replace us. I, for one, welcome them with open arms.

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current events uncategorized

Cloaking Device Invented (sort of)

Scientists Take Step Toward Invisibility

Dr. [David R.] Smith warned against getting ahead of the day’s announcement and envisioning the disappearing Romulan warbirds of “Star Trek” on the horizon. The work “is really a scientific explanation,” he said, adding, “Whether it’s useful is always a question.”

Creating a cloaking device in the visible spectrum would be vastly more complex, he said, since the device would have to warp all of the wavelengths of light. The chance of creating such a device is “dim,” he said, but, “The theory doesn’t prevent it from an electromagnetic point of view.”

A real invisibility cloak? Wizard!

“Our cloak allows a concealed volume, plus the cloak, to appear to have properties similar to free space when viewed externally,” Professor David Smith, of Duke University, said. “The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a ‘hidden’ object, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all. The waves’ movement is similar to river water flowing around a smooth rock.”
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internets memories uncategorized

RuBot II- Rubik’s Cube solving robot

YouTube has an amazing video of RuBot II – The Rubik’s cube solving robot. I so want one. My birthday’s coming up, but the creator’s website isn’t, so I have no idea if they have a Wishlist feature. [UPDATE] I was typing in the wrong address; it’s http://mechatrons.com/.

[youtube]jkft2qaKv_o[/youtube]

This is the new version of RuBot by Pete Redmond from Dublin, Ireland. It’s very different to the prototype but it has to be the coolest looking robot solver ever. There are cameras in the eyes of the head that scan the cube before the pneumatic arms solve it. It usually solves the Cube in a max of about 50 seconds (not including the scan) no matter how much it is mixed up.

The solving algorithm is taken care of by Herbert Kociemba’s Cube Explorer software and usually solves the cube in a maximum of about 20 moves. In this video, the cube wasn’t mixed up too hard so RuBot was able to find the optimum solution.

Thanks to all of those who think it is too good to be true. That is a real compliment!

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creative internets memories uncategorized

Phase One of Creative Development

Do you ever get to the last steps of the first major phase of a project, only to freeze up? Don’t get me wrong. This particular freeze will only last, at most, a couple of hours. I’ve just realized that I will be done enough to upload and try out my new WordPress theme, Big Urgent Wish, once I create a few insanely simple GIF backgrounds. The only thing left for this phase is to install plugins and create stylesheets for print and small screen formats. Which I don’t even actually need to do at all at this stage. But then comes the daunting task of backing everything up, taking a deep breath, and hitting “transfer” on my FTP client.

Maybe if I create a safety checklist it will help me to feel a little better.

But I wonder if i just don’t want the initial design phase to end? I do so love the process of creation. There’s nothing more thrilling or exhilarating than starting nearly from scratch and making something cool, whether it be a work of prose, visual art, music, or merely a little theme for your blog.

And I don’t care quite as much for the next processes: final testing, installation, distribution, etc. Imagine spending countless hours putting your heart and soul and everything you’ve learned into creating a work of visual art, and then having to drive it to the gallery and install it yourself, then standing around waiting for someone to awkwardly tell you that they liked or didn’t like it, finally having to make arrangements to send it home with someone else.*

 

*Nearly unrelated: Incidentally, I’ve never been able to let myself sell or give away any of my visual artworks, either – thank “Bob” for digital distribution channels for my other creative ventures like music and web design, thusly letting me keep the originals!

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current events internets

Breaking robot/chicken news!

No matter how much you want to believe otherwise, you’re just not ever going to believe these startling, floor-dropping-out-from-under-you news stories of Ro-bots*, and of chickens. Science to the rescue?! I think not, good sir! If only we could turn back the hands of time toward yesterday, when things were so more… innocenter.

The tables have finally turned! Humans can now control The Ro-bots via thoughts! Never again will a Ro-bot control my thoughts, or control me with its thoughts! And i’m kinda glad about that, i guess, but i think that by some measure, i will miss the old days.

This just in: Egg came first after all. I really do wish i didn’t have to keep continually using this next phrase, but it certainly is warranted in this case: Sorry, chicken.

* or, as Holly calls these metal demons, “Ro-bits”

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current events

Light goes backwards… faster than self?!

So, ya know how those wacky scientists have been slowing down light more and more over the past several years now? To the point where you could physically see the motion? And even to the point where it’s stopped?

Now, Robert Boyd, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester, has actually slowed time so fucking much that it moves backwards.

That’s right. Backwards. But that’s not all!

It apparently does so faster than the god damn speed of light.

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current events

It’s time for America to leave the sinking ship of George W. Bush

I gotta say: Doug McIntyre, this talk radio host, has said what needed to be said. It’s now time for Republicans to flee like rats, appropriately enough, from the sinking ship of George W. Bush, the worst president in American history (and perhaps the worst “leader” of all time).

“I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.”
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current events internets media

videos, etc.

Video: I love this terrific, mind-bending sci-fi short story. I mean, really love it. It’s one of the reasons why i’m proud to be alive on this planet Earth and why i’m so lucky to be around at this time in history. Now, there’s a short film: Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat”

Video: Star Wars/Lord of the Rings mashup: Starlords

Etc.: Jane Siberry‘s got it right! This is how the music business should work… and the best part about it is that her business model actually does.

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current events internets

Mitch Kapor might be on to something

Pretty much what i’ve been saying for many years now: we need a new governmental paradigm; one that respects and builds upon the principles of America’s great Constitution and Bill of Rights… but one which is inherently more participatory and, for lack of a better phrase, “open-source.”
Mitch Kapor: A Movement for Fundamental Political Change

I love America, much more so than those idiots who strangle her with her own reigns… but something must be done to improve the whole culture of politics in this nation i live in. Something should be done to build us up past this new millenium, to make us a future-compatible society in which change is seen as good, but is never effected simply for its own sake (or, it goes without saying, for ill). Progress means growth. Lack of progress leads to stagnation, and that is where the greatest civilizations have all tended to fail.

I urge you to read this, and to think about its meaning, and what you can do to further the goal of improving our world.