Your views are generally accurate with regards to religion, but your statements about Iraq and the UN, and the misery in Palestine/Israel are so very arguable that they carry little more weight than that of 'ignorant opinion'. --Not the sort of thing one ought to list when trying to support yet more opinion.
You would benefit from a LOT more research, particularly regarding Palestine and the partisan Jewish politics, -and far less indignant proclamation.
Clinton was no hero, but to blame Palestinian leadership for the failure of peaceful agreements being reached is the result of a severe lack of attention.
In four years the U.S. will have a Cybernetic president!
As one friend pointed out. . , "At least Arnie made good movies. Reagan's most popular film had the Gipper playing against a freekin' primate."
Arnie in office could happen. Easily. Hell, the populace voted for Bush, didn't they? (Or at least that's how the networks tell it.)
So we can look forward to having the world hacked down by Bush the Psycho and then ushered to its end by a freekin' Terminator. How painfully ironic is that? (In that dumbed-down American style of irony which the Apocalypse Cultists in the bible belt might be able to grasp.) What is it about living near water and mountains which raises awareness while being surrounded by lots of flat has the power to retard people into shucking-dung heaps? Something about perspective? Can it be that simple?
--Anyway, Arnie as Prez could happen unless of course Bush decides to crown himself god-emperor for life. Though, such a move might undermine the illusion of democracy. Couldn't have that! The people might actually DO something then! (Not bloody likely.)
I knew this was going to be a shitty day, but Bush? BUSH?!?! What the hell is wrong with everybody out there? (Not including two thirds of Slashdotters. --I'm happy that readers of this forum went largely Kerry in the Slashpoll. Lesser of two evils, sure, but lesser is something at this point).
And people talk about the Democratic campaign being a poor show. Whatever. I'd have voted for an actual donkey at this point.
Mandrake, fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Um, yeah.
And I hear they're also putting it on CD's.
Anyway, either you have me confused with somebody else, or 'Mandrake' is your own personal made-up grammatical extension, the meaning of which escapes me entirely. --It should be noted that in polite company, insanity is best experienced quietly and alone.
I want to get lynched by the cotton workers union.
From the article. ..
The tough silica particles resist abrasion. Meanwhile, the fluorine-rich resins do not absorb water, so the ink forms droplets that can be wiped off.
Uh. . , isn't Fluorine is sort of very, very, very corrosive? Of course, I'm sure TDK has taken that into account. ..
Cuz, you know, a slow-self-destructing CD wouldn't interest a company like TDK at all. Right?
If memory serves, the Man in the White Suit narrowly avoided getting himself killed by the unionists because his indestructible suit wore out after a few days.
And Jesus was a sailor When he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching From his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain Only drowning men could see him He said "All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them" But he himself was broken Long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him And you want to travel blind And you think maybe you'll trust him For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.
--Leonard Cohen, Suzanne
I'm with him right up until the 'travel blind' part. NEVER follow. Not following is a key. Walk beside, not behind. --And part ways on a moment's notice, on your own intuition. Every path must be walked alone in the end, and Christ knew this, taught this, but who listened?
Bush and half of America call themselves Christian. Anybody who calls themselves, 'Christian' is a follower, and followers are both mindless and dangerous, as we have seen time and again.
The Good Guys haven't lost. The war is fought through each one of us, and it is never over. Tomorrow will be what it will be. How you interact with it, what choices you make, -and I'm not talking about the vote- is what will determine your reality, whether you climb higher or sink lower. What you choose to see and do and think and believe.
This is THE idiot argument of the century. Nobody is right because the question is broken.
Religion is the tool of darkness and control.
Science fulfills the same function because it has been over-populated with borderline autistic practitioners who have deliberately turned off their intuitive powers through a form of virtual self-lobotomy in a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that Organized Religion is Insane. --Which is like refusing to play D&D because one kid jumps in front of a subway train yelling, "Black Dragon!"
Now everybody be quiet put your heads down until recess. Sheesh.
I imagine it's because we have overwhelming evidence that this is not how the universe works, and we've seen no evidence to support this type of universe model.
You have a powerful imagination.
My own explorations suggest, however, that the opposite is true.
Simple logic tells us. ..
All events happening now are the result of previous events, and those previous events are the result of events before them. The nature of Cause and Effect suggest that everything in existence can be mapped backwards like this.
If one accepts a 'Big Bang' theory, wherein all matter in the universe is derived from a single, infinitely small point, then all matter and all patterns share an ultimate, common beginning. --Which means that all matter, energy and motion is through Cause and Effect, fundamentally and irrevocably linked.
The stars above your head are of the same system of which you are also a part. This means that it must logically be possible to derive information about you by looking at the stars. --Because, in a very real sense, looking at the stars is the SAME as looking at you. The fact that our limited perspective does not make this connection obvious does not also make it untrue.
if my experiment can be tangentially connected to/affected by the arbitrary pattern of lights formed in the sky above a particular location on a particular planet hurtling through space (which is what astrology, for instance, is), why even bother experimenting?
The nature of reality is only worth examining if it happens to agree with pre-defined models? --And studiously ignored if it does not? That's not science.
There is nothing arbitrary about the lights in the sky. There is nothing arbitrary at all in the universe. All events happen as a result of other events which are subect to the rules of nature, which in turn means that all events can be understood and with sufficient data and study, predicted. This is one of the prime tenets of science.
The truth of the matter is that astrology works. The study of patterns which seem unrelated to a subject can in fact provide information about that subject. When the evidence is examined, (as it so very rarely is by those who claim to be scientists), this truth cannot be realistically denied or negated through conventional rationalizations.
This is not something to be scared of. It simply means that the universe is complex and that we do not understand it fully. I don't think anybody here would disagree with that.
Magic does not exist. All things can be measured and understood. Magic only exists for those who choose not to look under rocks.
Science is limited to the physical world, and most mindful scientists are very careful not to interject scientific theories on what are really meta-physical questions.
I disagree. After all, what is the 'physical world'? Particle science is all about pulling the physical world apart to see how it works. When pulled apart far enough, physicality -very literally- ceases altogether so that further study must rely heavily on mathematics. Indeed, Mathematics is a science which exists independent of all physicality.
Many scientists come and go, but those who have left their mark on humanity and whose names we remember and revere were those who drew their inspiration from meta-physical questions, who allowed their minds to explore beyond the limits of the purely physical.
that they assume that people who take interest in this stuff believe that baseball games cause election results when that is not necessarily the case.
There is another way of looking at this sort of thing which I have never seen the sceptic, (as opposed to the skeptic), consider. I'll try to present the idea in this highly simplified manner. ..
What if. ..
The universe we live in works like a fractal equation? --Think of such an equation represented graphically, like the fractal art which became popular during the nineties. Now consider that you and I, and all our world, everything there is, may all be interconnected, living parts of such an equation.
With me so far? Okay. ..
Now say there is a very tiny observer and that he lives as one portion of that fractal graphic. His life and actions are all built into the essence of the graphic. This tiny observer can look across space at another portion of the same graphic, far, far on the other side of the medium in which the fractal graphic exists, (say a computer screen). The portion he is observing on the other side of the screen bears no outward resemblance to the portion he happens to be part of. Further, because he is so very small in comparison to the size of the image as a whole, the fact that the portion he is part of and the portion he is observing on the other side of the screen are in fact connected, is not obvious to him. Indeed, thinks he is looking at a completely unrelated object.
However, because both portions of the image were generated from the same fractal equation, it stands to reason that information can be derived about the portion the observer is standing on by measuring the characteristics of the portion he is looking at.
Now, I don't know anything much about baseball, but the idea outlined above does raise some interesting possibilities, doesn't it?
Also interesting, I find, is that every hard-core sceptic I have ever discussed this subject with, (astrology in particular), has judged the subject very harshly without ever having fully exploring the subject being judged. --Nothing beyond laughing at paper place-mats in Chinese resturauntes or looking at the nonsense astrology section in the lifestyles section of the daily newspaper. These are certainly not proper representatives of a very deeply annotated subject which takes rather a lot of work to properly grasp. I have NEVER met a single harsh judge who has really looked that the subject. Not a single one.
This behavior in itself, (that of making strong judgments based on little or no research), runs counter to the very tenets of the scientific analytical process which is often touted as being the reason such systems cannot exist. Indeed, this paradoxical behavior appears to me to be based on a high degree of blind faith. --Which, according to everything I have learned on the subject, is a faith very much misplaced.
But that's old news to anybody who knows about this stuff. The truly fascinating and immediate question raised by all of this, is why do so many people have such strong automatic responses to the subject, (as evidenced by the various negative responses to this very/. article), and how does this affect society and the role of the human participant in that society?
Something to chew on. --Or reject out of hand, depending on whether you spell with a 'C' or a 'K'.
Except when the connections are logical and verifiable, apparently, --particularly when the results of the observation call for decision-making and back bone.
Bush should have been impeached a couple of years ago for lying and manipulating like a bastard.
The answer to that would be, "No." She died in 1949.
So whoever thinks they hold copyright here needs to be solidly kicked. 'Legal' is growing to be increasingly at odds with 'Right', and has for been some time. This is how Empires rot and fall.
(And please pardon the abrasiveness of my previous response. I was chiding myself seconds after hitting the 'submit' button.)
Here's what I mean. ..
There are very few instances in our culture when nearly everybody is focusing on a single event with such openness and enthusiasm as when Phantom Menace was nearing release.
During a time like that, it is possible, (it has happened before), to put across messages which everybody will hear at the same time, and react to by possibly adjusting their behavior at the same time. The mass consciousness of the entire industrialized world had turned the static way down, and was listening.
The messages in Star Wars are important and several. ..
1) The idea of Big Government being evil. The good guys in Star Wars were, very literally, the 'terrorists'.
2) The Phantom Menace was a story about how a democratic government can quickly be manipulated into fascism. --The means by which it was done in the Phantom Menace were nearly identical to how it was done through 9-11. --That is, a deliberately manufactured attack was used to create an emotional reaction among elected officials so that dangerous measures could be quickly pushed through and voted into power; measures which later caused the downfall of democratic government. (This is what happened with 9-11, patriot act). Had the story been properly told, it could have done its job in alerting the populace to the possibility and dangers of such manipulations.
But this didn't happen. Lucas dropped the ball. I suspect, given the stakes today, he was possibly influenced; there was a time twenty years ago when he understood and indeed created many of the rules he broke in making the Phantom Menace.
There were several other layers as well which could have created positive effects on our populace but did not. --The films could have reinforced standards of moral behavior, (through the actions of the Jedi). Instead we now have American soldiers, (kids in their twenties), acting like savages, performing torture on other humans.
Myths and Stories are perhaps the most powerful way to teach behavior to a culture. Star Wars was one of the pillars of our society, but it has been corrupted.
But at +5 Insightful, it seems you're not alone. The people here scare me sometimes.
And thank-you for being the smart-alec who sits in the back row and prevents good patterns from evolving through the constant application of smarmy remarks. --Hiding your painful level of low self-esteem by trying to transfer your feelings of self-consciousness to others.
fact that microwave cell technology impairs brain function and has simply decided not to care.
There is a REASON governments want entire population bases bathed in specific types of EM radiation.
You stupid fucks.
I'm almost looking forward to watching you all get liquidated as the temperature continues to rise. Have you all had your mercury-laced flu shots yet? Perhaps you ought to eat another carb and sugar-rich blitz of fast food and wash it down with a refreshing diet soda complete with brain melting sweeteners. Heck, just settle down in front of your CRT's tuned to hypnotically open your minds for the insertion of socially damaging messages! --You know, to enhance your ability to think (vote) clearly.
MAN, I'm feeling grouchy today! I've really been noticing recently the millions of morons out there molding reality with their thoughtless actions, and it's annoying the PISS out of me.
The Christian Right, under Bush, WANTS the apocalypse to come. This is why they want all the Jews in Israel and all the Moslems out and they are giving them 10 billion bucks a year to help make it happen. Bush is a fucking born again right wing Christian lunatic, and this is not a joke.
But yeah, wireless sure is 'cool' man. Hope my city installs a fucking microwave tower every three hundred meters and that all my neighbors install microwave generators in every nook and cranny so that I cannot escape being exposed to the mass brain-dulling even when I choose not to participate in the wonders of technology.
When you are gurgling in painful death throws under the heel of the impending police state, I hope you'll remember my bitching and feel appropriately stupid.
such as represented by Microsoft, Boeing or any lobe of the telecomunications and broadcasting industry, is quickly recognized as having social leverage, and is thus co-opted by the government.
When the day comes for an uprising, you won't be able to trust your phone or your computer or your local air carrier to help you out.
The idea of Capitalism being an instrument of freedom is an illusion sold to stupid people.
By the way, you should learn how to spell. It makes you sound as half-assed as your ideas.
This may be why Star Wars was so popular when if first came out, but when little kids and others watched it many years later in re-release or on video they were somewhat less impressed by the lesser quality film they were watching.
Or... "Gee it was more fun the first time when I was 10!" Well, that's because it actually was a better-looking film.
The original versions of the films also didn't have the new editing, new scenes, new shots, all of which greatly diminished the pacing and believability of the film.
There's a reason they give Oscars out for editing. --It really doesn't take much to ruin an otherwise good work. A single nail standing up on a water slide can make the whole ride a lot less enjoyable. And the re-release versions of Star Wars had a whole hardware store's worth of junk added!
Every three minutes while watching that thing, I felt, at best that I was having to deliberately overlook stupidity, (like those new digital droids floating around Mos Eisley which it was clear from the actors' body language, were not really there and thus created a discordant effect), to my feeling like I was being stabbed when Luke Screamed while falling down the throat of Cloud City.
So yeah, if I was a kid today watching those lousy re-release versions of Star Wars, I'd also think my elders were doddery and out-dated for raving about them; that they needed a patronizing pat on the head and a, "There, there, old timer; I'm sure they seemed like nice films in your day."
The wide-screen, color and sound restored, but otherwise un-adultered LD copies from the mid nineties are the best versions available of the original trilogy. --There are yet to be any pirate copies of those ripped to DVD floating around, but there damned-well ought to be!
Some of you out there have the capability to create these. DO IT. Star Wars is a vital part of our culture, and what Lucas is doing to erase it is as insidious as any 'terrorism'. --If Phantom Menace hadn't sucked, there is a good chance we could have avoided being in Iraq today.
People who still believe in the illusion of 'terrorists' at this point are being willfully blind.
The 'terrorists' upon whose actions all of this insane police state nonsense is based were funded and manipulated by both the U.S. and Israel specifically because the psychopaths in power want to stay in power so that they can have all the money, power, sex and cocaine. Having to work for a living, or serve in the military, is scary for them, and so they choose instead to trick all the trusting citizens into believing in 'terrorists'.
Anybody who looks at the details clearly will see the manipulation.
Remember the 'terrorist' passport they, 'found' on top of the smoking remains of the WTC?
That is just one of a hundred loose threads, and if it doesn't get your brain ticking, then you are either sleeping or dead, and you richly deserve the hell you are seeing rise around you.
"Oooh. But Conspiracies don't exist! It's impossible for a large number of people to keep a secret!"
Yeah? What the heck does that prove? NEWSFLASH: Conspirators do not NEED to keep secrets when the populace has been brainwashed into constantly looking the other way whenever a piece of evidence pops up.
People would rather fight and yell and argue in favor of the psychopathic manipulator rather than deal with the truly awful possibility that they are being raped. This, in fact, is exactly the reason psychopaths are so dangerous. Normal people are hardwired into certain behavioral traits which make them excellent marks for this sort of manipulation.
Any 'terrorist' who uses RFID passports to blow up Americans will be doing so with the consent of the military industrial complex, and your spreading of fear is making those jerks giddy with the joy of a mind-job successfully executed.
I have to live in this world, too, and imbeciles like you are contributing to the misery smart people also have to deal with. Arrogant? Gee, sorry. I'll just quietly go off to a barbed wire camp so you don't have to feel like an idiot.
People who still believe the lie at this point are being willfully blind.
The 'terrorists' upon whose actions all of this insane police state nonsense is based were funded and manipulated by both the U.S. and Israel specifically because the psychopaths in power want to stay in power so that they can have all the money, sex and cocaine. Having to work for a living, (or serve in the military), is scary for them, and so it makes more sense to them to trick all the trusting citizens into believing in 'terrorists'.
Anybody who looks at the details clearly will see the manipulation.
Remember the 'terrorist' passport they, 'found' on top of the smoking remains of the WTC?
If that doesn't get your brain ticking, then you are either sleeping or dead, and you richly deserve the hell you are beginning to see rising around you.
that my leg was hurting. I had this zit-like sore. When I looked at, a light started blinking under the skin.
Horrified, I dug out the offending material. It was one of those RFID chips the "Size of a grain of rice", --but in my dream it was more the size of a glass bean. It was also filled with lots of scary techno-bits and pieces whirring and blinking inside. Special effects in dream scapes tend to be a little over the top.
It is becoming increasingly rare that when I read a news story on the web that I almost never get a picture.
In an age when everybody has access to digital photography, and when publishing full color images is no more expensive than publishing black and white text, what gives?
Anyway, this story was incredibly uninformative.
It told me nothing I actually would have wanted to know, which is both typical, and in this case almost certainly deliberate. Reality often makes for boring copy.
If they didn't mention the tactile qualities of the so-called "fabric", it's probably because it doesn't have any. --Meaning, I bet they haven't made more than a continuous square centimeter of the stuff.
We are talking about atoms here.
Which is probably why, (in this case anyhow), there were no pictures.
Slashdot Mirror
You would benefit from a LOT more research, particularly regarding Palestine and the partisan Jewish politics, -and far less indignant proclamation.
Clinton was no hero, but to blame Palestinian leadership for the failure of peaceful agreements being reached is the result of a severe lack of attention.
-FL
As one friend pointed out. . , "At least Arnie made good movies. Reagan's most popular film had the Gipper playing against a freekin' primate."
Arnie in office could happen. Easily. Hell, the populace voted for Bush, didn't they? (Or at least that's how the networks tell it.)
So we can look forward to having the world hacked down by Bush the Psycho and then ushered to its end by a freekin' Terminator. How painfully ironic is that? (In that dumbed-down American style of irony which the Apocalypse Cultists in the bible belt might be able to grasp.) What is it about living near water and mountains which raises awareness while being surrounded by lots of flat has the power to retard people into shucking-dung heaps? Something about perspective? Can it be that simple?
--Anyway, Arnie as Prez could happen unless of course Bush decides to crown himself god-emperor for life. Though, such a move might undermine the illusion of democracy. Couldn't have that! The people might actually DO something then! (Not bloody likely.)
I knew this was going to be a shitty day, but Bush? BUSH?!?! What the hell is wrong with everybody out there? (Not including two thirds of Slashdotters. --I'm happy that readers of this forum went largely Kerry in the Slashpoll. Lesser of two evils, sure, but lesser is something at this point).
And people talk about the Democratic campaign being a poor show. Whatever. I'd have voted for an actual donkey at this point.
-FL
"And if you gaze for long into the abyss of pop-culture, the abyss of pop-culture gazes also into you."
I have not stared long enough. . . I shall re-visit the classic section at the local video shop.
-FL
Um, yeah.
And I hear they're also putting it on CD's.
Anyway, either you have me confused with somebody else, or 'Mandrake' is your own personal made-up grammatical extension, the meaning of which escapes me entirely. --It should be noted that in polite company, insanity is best experienced quietly and alone.
You are creepy. Please leave me alone.
-FL
From the article. .
Uh. . , isn't Fluorine is sort of very, very, very corrosive? Of course, I'm sure TDK has taken that into account. .
Cuz, you know, a slow-self-destructing CD wouldn't interest a company like TDK at all. Right?
If memory serves, the Man in the White Suit narrowly avoided getting himself killed by the unionists because his indestructible suit wore out after a few days.
-FL
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.
--Leonard Cohen, Suzanne
I'm with him right up until the 'travel blind' part. NEVER follow. Not following is a key. Walk beside, not behind. --And part ways on a moment's notice, on your own intuition. Every path must be walked alone in the end, and Christ knew this, taught this, but who listened?
Bush and half of America call themselves Christian. Anybody who calls themselves, 'Christian' is a follower, and followers are both mindless and dangerous, as we have seen time and again.
The Good Guys haven't lost. The war is fought through each one of us, and it is never over. Tomorrow will be what it will be. How you interact with it, what choices you make, -and I'm not talking about the vote- is what will determine your reality, whether you climb higher or sink lower. What you choose to see and do and think and believe.
Good luck.
-FL
This is THE idiot argument of the century. Nobody is right because the question is broken.
Religion is the tool of darkness and control.
Science fulfills the same function because it has been over-populated with borderline autistic practitioners who have deliberately turned off their intuitive powers through a form of virtual self-lobotomy in a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that Organized Religion is Insane. --Which is like refusing to play D&D because one kid jumps in front of a subway train yelling, "Black Dragon!"
Now everybody be quiet put your heads down until recess. Sheesh.
-FL
You have a powerful imagination.
My own explorations suggest, however, that the opposite is true.
Simple logic tells us. .
All events happening now are the result of previous events, and those previous events are the result of events before them. The nature of Cause and Effect suggest that everything in existence can be mapped backwards like this.
If one accepts a 'Big Bang' theory, wherein all matter in the universe is derived from a single, infinitely small point, then all matter and all patterns share an ultimate, common beginning. --Which means that all matter, energy and motion is through Cause and Effect, fundamentally and irrevocably linked.
The stars above your head are of the same system of which you are also a part. This means that it must logically be possible to derive information about you by looking at the stars. --Because, in a very real sense, looking at the stars is the SAME as looking at you. The fact that our limited perspective does not make this connection obvious does not also make it untrue.
-FL
The nature of reality is only worth examining if it happens to agree with pre-defined models? --And studiously ignored if it does not? That's not science.
There is nothing arbitrary about the lights in the sky. There is nothing arbitrary at all in the universe. All events happen as a result of other events which are subect to the rules of nature, which in turn means that all events can be understood and with sufficient data and study, predicted. This is one of the prime tenets of science.
The truth of the matter is that astrology works. The study of patterns which seem unrelated to a subject can in fact provide information about that subject. When the evidence is examined, (as it so very rarely is by those who claim to be scientists), this truth cannot be realistically denied or negated through conventional rationalizations.
This is not something to be scared of. It simply means that the universe is complex and that we do not understand it fully. I don't think anybody here would disagree with that.
Magic does not exist. All things can be measured and understood. Magic only exists for those who choose not to look under rocks.
I disagree. After all, what is the 'physical world'? Particle science is all about pulling the physical world apart to see how it works. When pulled apart far enough, physicality -very literally- ceases altogether so that further study must rely heavily on mathematics. Indeed, Mathematics is a science which exists independent of all physicality.
Many scientists come and go, but those who have left their mark on humanity and whose names we remember and revere were those who drew their inspiration from meta-physical questions, who allowed their minds to explore beyond the limits of the purely physical.
Fear creates limitation.
-FL
There are lies and then there are LIES.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out which is which.
. .
Then again. .
-FL
There is another way of looking at this sort of thing which I have never seen the sceptic, (as opposed to the skeptic), consider. I'll try to present the idea in this highly simplified manner. .
What if. .
The universe we live in works like a fractal equation? --Think of such an equation represented graphically, like the fractal art which became popular during the nineties. Now consider that you and I, and all our world, everything there is, may all be interconnected, living parts of such an equation.
With me so far? Okay. .
Now say there is a very tiny observer and that he lives as one portion of that fractal graphic. His life and actions are all built into the essence of the graphic. This tiny observer can look across space at another portion of the same graphic, far, far on the other side of the medium in which the fractal graphic exists, (say a computer screen). The portion he is observing on the other side of the screen bears no outward resemblance to the portion he happens to be part of. Further, because he is so very small in comparison to the size of the image as a whole, the fact that the portion he is part of and the portion he is observing on the other side of the screen are in fact connected, is not obvious to him. Indeed, thinks he is looking at a completely unrelated object.
However, because both portions of the image were generated from the same fractal equation, it stands to reason that information can be derived about the portion the observer is standing on by measuring the characteristics of the portion he is looking at.
Now, I don't know anything much about baseball, but the idea outlined above does raise some interesting possibilities, doesn't it?
Also interesting, I find, is that every hard-core sceptic I have ever discussed this subject with, (astrology in particular), has judged the subject very harshly without ever having fully exploring the subject being judged. --Nothing beyond laughing at paper place-mats in Chinese resturauntes or looking at the nonsense astrology section in the lifestyles section of the daily newspaper. These are certainly not proper representatives of a very deeply annotated subject which takes rather a lot of work to properly grasp. I have NEVER met a single harsh judge who has really looked that the subject. Not a single one.
This behavior in itself, (that of making strong judgments based on little or no research), runs counter to the very tenets of the scientific analytical process which is often touted as being the reason such systems cannot exist. Indeed, this paradoxical behavior appears to me to be based on a high degree of blind faith. --Which, according to everything I have learned on the subject, is a faith very much misplaced.
But that's old news to anybody who knows about this stuff. The truly fascinating and immediate question raised by all of this, is why do so many people have such strong automatic responses to the subject, (as evidenced by the various negative responses to this very
Something to chew on. --Or reject out of hand, depending on whether you spell with a 'C' or a 'K'.
-FL
Except when the connections are logical and verifiable, apparently, --particularly when the results of the observation call for decision-making and back bone.
Bush should have been impeached a couple of years ago for lying and manipulating like a bastard.
-FL
So whoever thinks they hold copyright here needs to be solidly kicked. 'Legal' is growing to be increasingly at odds with 'Right', and has for been some time. This is how Empires rot and fall.
Soon. .
-FL
Here's what I mean. .
There are very few instances in our culture when nearly everybody is focusing on a single event with such openness and enthusiasm as when Phantom Menace was nearing release.
During a time like that, it is possible, (it has happened before), to put across messages which everybody will hear at the same time, and react to by possibly adjusting their behavior at the same time. The mass consciousness of the entire industrialized world had turned the static way down, and was listening.
The messages in Star Wars are important and several. .
1) The idea of Big Government being evil. The good guys in Star Wars were, very literally, the 'terrorists'.
2) The Phantom Menace was a story about how a democratic government can quickly be manipulated into fascism. --The means by which it was done in the Phantom Menace were nearly identical to how it was done through 9-11. --That is, a deliberately manufactured attack was used to create an emotional reaction among elected officials so that dangerous measures could be quickly pushed through and voted into power; measures which later caused the downfall of democratic government. (This is what happened with 9-11, patriot act). Had the story been properly told, it could have done its job in alerting the populace to the possibility and dangers of such manipulations.
But this didn't happen. Lucas dropped the ball. I suspect, given the stakes today, he was possibly influenced; there was a time twenty years ago when he understood and indeed created many of the rules he broke in making the Phantom Menace.
There were several other layers as well which could have created positive effects on our populace but did not. --The films could have reinforced standards of moral behavior, (through the actions of the Jedi). Instead we now have American soldiers, (kids in their twenties), acting like savages, performing torture on other humans.
Myths and Stories are perhaps the most powerful way to teach behavior to a culture. Star Wars was one of the pillars of our society, but it has been corrupted.
-FL
But at +5 Insightful, it seems you're not alone. The people here scare me sometimes.
And thank-you for being the smart-alec who sits in the back row and prevents good patterns from evolving through the constant application of smarmy remarks. --Hiding your painful level of low self-esteem by trying to transfer your feelings of self-consciousness to others.
Go get not-laid somewhere else.
-FL
There is a REASON governments want entire population bases bathed in specific types of EM radiation.
You stupid fucks.
I'm almost looking forward to watching you all get liquidated as the temperature continues to rise. Have you all had your mercury-laced flu shots yet? Perhaps you ought to eat another carb and sugar-rich blitz of fast food and wash it down with a refreshing diet soda complete with brain melting sweeteners. Heck, just settle down in front of your CRT's tuned to hypnotically open your minds for the insertion of socially damaging messages! --You know, to enhance your ability to think (vote) clearly.
MAN, I'm feeling grouchy today! I've really been noticing recently the millions of morons out there molding reality with their thoughtless actions, and it's annoying the PISS out of me.
The Christian Right, under Bush, WANTS the apocalypse to come. This is why they want all the Jews in Israel and all the Moslems out and they are giving them 10 billion bucks a year to help make it happen. Bush is a fucking born again right wing Christian lunatic, and this is not a joke.
But yeah, wireless sure is 'cool' man. Hope my city installs a fucking microwave tower every three hundred meters and that all my neighbors install microwave generators in every nook and cranny so that I cannot escape being exposed to the mass brain-dulling even when I choose not to participate in the wonders of technology.
When you are gurgling in painful death throws under the heel of the impending police state, I hope you'll remember my bitching and feel appropriately stupid.
-FL
When the day comes for an uprising, you won't be able to trust your phone or your computer or your local air carrier to help you out.
The idea of Capitalism being an instrument of freedom is an illusion sold to stupid people.
By the way, you should learn how to spell. It makes you sound as half-assed as your ideas.
-FL
The original versions of the films also didn't have the new editing, new scenes, new shots, all of which greatly diminished the pacing and believability of the film.
There's a reason they give Oscars out for editing. --It really doesn't take much to ruin an otherwise good work. A single nail standing up on a water slide can make the whole ride a lot less enjoyable. And the re-release versions of Star Wars had a whole hardware store's worth of junk added!
Every three minutes while watching that thing, I felt, at best that I was having to deliberately overlook stupidity, (like those new digital droids floating around Mos Eisley which it was clear from the actors' body language, were not really there and thus created a discordant effect), to my feeling like I was being stabbed when Luke Screamed while falling down the throat of Cloud City.
So yeah, if I was a kid today watching those lousy re-release versions of Star Wars, I'd also think my elders were doddery and out-dated for raving about them; that they needed a patronizing pat on the head and a, "There, there, old timer; I'm sure they seemed like nice films in your day."
The wide-screen, color and sound restored, but otherwise un-adultered LD copies from the mid nineties are the best versions available of the original trilogy. --There are yet to be any pirate copies of those ripped to DVD floating around, but there damned-well ought to be!
Some of you out there have the capability to create these. DO IT. Star Wars is a vital part of our culture, and what Lucas is doing to erase it is as insidious as any 'terrorism'. --If Phantom Menace hadn't sucked, there is a good chance we could have avoided being in Iraq today.
-FL
The 'terrorists' upon whose actions all of this insane police state nonsense is based were funded and manipulated by both the U.S. and Israel specifically because the psychopaths in power want to stay in power so that they can have all the money, power, sex and cocaine. Having to work for a living, or serve in the military, is scary for them, and so they choose instead to trick all the trusting citizens into believing in 'terrorists'.
Anybody who looks at the details clearly will see the manipulation.
Remember the 'terrorist' passport they, 'found' on top of the smoking remains of the WTC?
That is just one of a hundred loose threads, and if it doesn't get your brain ticking, then you are either sleeping or dead, and you richly deserve the hell you are seeing rise around you.
"Oooh. But Conspiracies don't exist! It's impossible for a large number of people to keep a secret!"
Yeah? What the heck does that prove? NEWSFLASH: Conspirators do not NEED to keep secrets when the populace has been brainwashed into constantly looking the other way whenever a piece of evidence pops up.
People would rather fight and yell and argue in favor of the psychopathic manipulator rather than deal with the truly awful possibility that they are being raped. This, in fact, is exactly the reason psychopaths are so dangerous. Normal people are hardwired into certain behavioral traits which make them excellent marks for this sort of manipulation.
Any 'terrorist' who uses RFID passports to blow up Americans will be doing so with the consent of the military industrial complex, and your spreading of fear is making those jerks giddy with the joy of a mind-job successfully executed.
I have to live in this world, too, and imbeciles like you are contributing to the misery smart people also have to deal with. Arrogant? Gee, sorry. I'll just quietly go off to a barbed wire camp so you don't have to feel like an idiot.
-FL
The 'terrorists' upon whose actions all of this insane police state nonsense is based were funded and manipulated by both the U.S. and Israel specifically because the psychopaths in power want to stay in power so that they can have all the money, sex and cocaine. Having to work for a living, (or serve in the military), is scary for them, and so it makes more sense to them to trick all the trusting citizens into believing in 'terrorists'.
Anybody who looks at the details clearly will see the manipulation.
Remember the 'terrorist' passport they, 'found' on top of the smoking remains of the WTC?
If that doesn't get your brain ticking, then you are either sleeping or dead, and you richly deserve the hell you are beginning to see rising around you.
-FL
Horrified, I dug out the offending material. It was one of those RFID chips the "Size of a grain of rice", --but in my dream it was more the size of a glass bean. It was also filled with lots of scary techno-bits and pieces whirring and blinking inside. Special effects in dream scapes tend to be a little over the top.
Heil Shrub.
-FL
The U.S. Government bombed itself.
Time to wake up.
-FL
Funny thing is, I did. But I was also skimming through about twenty other stories on twenty other subjects at the time.
It's a big world. There's a lot to cram in over breakfast!
-FL
Grammar? Bah. You know what I meant.
-FL
In an age when everybody has access to digital photography, and when publishing full color images is no more expensive than publishing black and white text, what gives?
Anyway, this story was incredibly uninformative.
It told me nothing I actually would have wanted to know, which is both typical, and in this case almost certainly deliberate. Reality often makes for boring copy.
If they didn't mention the tactile qualities of the so-called "fabric", it's probably because it doesn't have any. --Meaning, I bet they haven't made more than a continuous square centimeter of the stuff.
We are talking about atoms here.
Which is probably why, (in this case anyhow), there were no pictures.
-FL