Technoccult

Mutate Your Mind

Show menu Hide menu

MonthNovember 2007

Fuck Guy Fawkes

November 7, 2007 /

OK, I’m a day late on this one but I’ve been in Canada, so I’m catching up and I can’t not bring this up. Individualist anarchist Wendy McElroy (who I think is a Paul supporter but I could be wrong):

I don’t get it. So Guy Fawkes was used as a role model in a comic book (actually a wonderful graphic novel V for Vendetta that was trashed by its movie adaptation)…does that make him a libertarian ideal? There was nothing libertarian about Fawkes. He was a Catholic crusader who wanted to blow up Parliament as part-and-parcel of removing a Protestant monarch from power. He wasn’t against government or tyranny; he was against one form of government that he wanted to replace with another form he liked better: a Catholic one. There is no indication that Fawkes was a champion of the people whose personal vision of political power would have produced less tyranny than what proceeded it. Certainly, 17th century Catholic states were no more tolerant than Protestant ones — indeed, the Protestant Netherlands were freer and more tolerant than most. If wanting to overthrow a government per se makes you a libertarian, why not idealize Che Guevara? At least he was a successful revolutionary.

Full Story: WendyMcElroy.com.

Eternal Egypt

November 6, 2007 /

“Welcome to Eternal Egypt, which brings to light over five thousand years of Egyptian civilization. Eternal Egypt is a living record of a land rich in art and history, people and places, myths and religions. The stories of Eternal Egypt are told using the latest interactive technologies, high-resolution imagery, animations, virtual environments, remote cameras, three-dimensional models and more.

There are many ways to begin your journey through Eternal Egypt. The guided tour is a quick way to experience the best that the site has to offer. You can also begin with one of the cultural highlights below, or make your own discoveries using one of the many other ways to explore.”

Eternal Egypt virtual tour

Plan 9 From Outer Space

November 6, 2007 /

“Fears of an alien invasion created greater alarm in the US than the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack, writes Philippe Mora.

In January 1979, The New York Times reported that despite repeated, feverish denials, the CIA had indeed investigated the UFO phenomenon: “CIA Papers Detail UFO Surveillance” screamed the headline. The report is said to have so upset the then CIA director, Stansfield Turner, that he reportedly asked his staff: “Are we in UFOs?” The answer was yes – since the late 1940s, apparently. But exactly how, what, when, why and who remained layered in mystery, leaving grist for the conspiracy mill.

But this year a raft of newly unclassified CIA documents revealed that the remote possibility of alien invasion elicited greater fear than the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack.”

via The Sydney Morning Herald

No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims

November 5, 2007 /

Not that this is a surprise to anyone. Just a confirmation of the obvious. So all you Rads and various outsiders out there, take note! Soon they’ll be RFID-ing the used tissues in your garbage, thrown out after a raucous night of lovemaking. And don’t forget to pay for your groceries and gas by using your fingerprint. It’s fast, convenient and ‘secure’! …sheesh.

via The Register

Brainloop: A Brain-Computer Interface For Google Earth

November 5, 2007 /

“Researchers from Austria and Slovenia have developed a device called Brainloop which can be used to navigate in Google Earth:

Brainloop is an interactive performance platform that utilizes a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system which allows a subject to operate devices merely by imagining specific motor commands. These mentally visualized commands may be seen as the rehearsal of a motor act without the overt motor output; a neural synapse occurs but the actual movement is blocked at the corticospinal level. Motor imagery such as “move left hand”, “move right hand” or “move feet” become non-muscular communication and control signals that convey messages and commands to the external world. In Brainloop the performer is able – without physically moving – to investigate urban areas and rural landscapes as he globe-trots around virtual Google Earth. Through motor imagery, he selects locations, camera angles and positions and records these image sequences in a virtual world. In the second half of the performance, he plays back the sequence and uses Brainloop to compose a custom soundtrack by selecting, manipulating and re-locating audio recordings in real time into the physical space.”

(Be sure to check out the video on the Neurophilosophy site)

via Neurophilosophy

Brainloop

50 years after his death, supporters promote Wilhelm Reich’s work

November 5, 2007 /

“It was 50 years ago that physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich, best known for his discovery of a purported cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm, died in federal prison, his books burned and his equipment destroyed by the government.

Ridiculed at the time, the European-born psychiatrist is today largely forgotten and his work on what he called orgone energy remains outside the scientific mainstream. But a small number of scientists and other believers are working to advance his studies — and resurrect his reputation. “Personally, I think it’s going to be a long time before all of his work is understood and recognized,” said Reich’s granddaughter, Renata Reich Moise, a nurse-midwife and artist in the coastal town of Hancock.

Also this month, archives comprised of nearly 300 boxes of Reich’s unpublished papers that were placed in storage at the Countway Library at Harvard Medical School will become available to researchers for the first time. Before going to prison, Reich directed in his will that the scientific papers, journals and diaries only be opened 50 years after his death. He also specified that his laboratory at the 175-acre site he dubbed Orgonon that overlooks Rangeley Lake be converted to a museum.”

link- Boston.com

Space Exploration 3.0 about to begin

November 4, 2007 /

“Space exploration is about to enter a third age where nations will cooperate to explore the solar system.

Nicolas Peter, a research fellow at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), told the meeting in Vienna that the era of launching space missions to bolster national prestige was long past and that new opportunities for cooperation had emerged since the end of the Cold War. He predicted that an imminent third phase of space exploration could inspire nations to work together in a spirit of discovery.

The Vienna conference Humans in Outer Space – Interdisciplinary Odysseys on October 11-12, was billed as ‘the first comprehensive trans-disciplinary dialogue on humans in outer space.’ It brought space scientists face to face with historians, lawyers, political analysts, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, writers and others. It was organised jointly by the European Science Foundation (ESF), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Vienna-based ESPI.

What Peter described as ‘Space Exploration 3.0’ is about to begin. He said that while humans will play a major role in space in future it would no longer be in the context of competing states but in cooperation between many parties. ‘It will involve industry, universities and other non-governmental organisations. This adventure will be driven primarily by a quest for knowledge, involving not only the hard sciences but arts and humanities as well. We’re evolving towards an open market situation where a lot of new actors will be able to join the new space race.’

via EurekAlert

Philip K. Dick’s Phylogenic Memory and the Divine Fire

November 4, 2007 /

In my book Gods of Aquarius: UFOs and the Transformation of Man[Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976], I introduced the concept of the Star People, individuals who feel that they bear within their genes awareness acquired by extraterrestrial interaction with humans in prehistoric or ancient times and who have now been activated by DNA memory to fulfill a mission in assisting others in their spiritual and evolutionary advancement.

Sometime after the book’s publication, I received a letter from Philip K. Dick, who told me that he suspected that he was such an individual as those whom I had profiled in the book. He had first realized this in 1974 when his own ‘DNA memory packet’ began to fire within his psyche.

Alternate Perceptions Magazine: Philip K. Dick’s Phylogenic Memory and the Divine Fire

Updates On The West Memphis 3 Case

November 3, 2007 /

“Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence? The same police officers coerced an error-filled “confession” from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late- Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.

Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.

For ever 14 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment.”

Discussing newly obtained DNA test results, Tom Fedor, a forensic expert retained by the defense, said, “None of the DNA evidence connects any of the defendants to the scene of the crime.” However, DNA tests could not rule out the stepfather of one of the victims as the source of a hair found in the knots binding the victims, he said. Also, DNA tests could not rule out a friend of the stepfather as the source of a hair found on a tree stump at the scene of the crime, Fedor said. The friend was with the boy’s stepfather on the day of the killings, he said. ”

Defense attorneys discuss new evidence in West Memphis child killings-

link- WM3

Sending His Cancer A Signal

November 3, 2007 /

“John Kanzius, sorely weakened by leukemia treatments, drew on his lifetime of working with radio waves to devise a machine that targets cancer cells. The miracle: It works.

Kanzius did not have a medical background, not even a bachelor’s degree, but he knew radios. He had built and fixed them since he was a child, collecting transmitters, transceivers, antennas and amplifiers, earning an amateur radio operator license. Kanzius knew how to send radio wave signals around the world. If he could transmit them into cancer cells, he wondered, could he then direct the radio waves to destroy tumors, while leaving healthy cells intact?”

via LA Times

Older posts Newer posts

Archive by Subject

Archive by Date

© 2024 Technoccult

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑