just wanted to say 'thanks elena -- for being our eyes into this fascinating wasteland'. your photo-journal is one of the most haunting things i've ever seen. safe speed be with you.
People like us, who believe in physics,
know that the distinction between past,
present, and future is only a stubbornly
persistent illusion. (Albert Einstein)
Man will, in time, manage to implant the death-forces in man,
related to electrical and magnetic forces, with external machines.
He will then be able to direct his intentions, his thoughts into the machine.
(Rudolf Steiner, Individuelle Geistwesen und einheitlicher
Weltengrund, November 25, 1917, Dornach Switzerland)
rule of thumb: you should pay about the same for your stereo system as you pay your whole music collection.
example: say you've the kind of person who's only bought 10 CDs. at ~CDN$15/each, that's about $150 - so you shouldn't buy a stereo worth more than about $150 - a cheap gheto blaster will do you fine.
on the other hand -- say you're the kind of person who's really into music, and you've bought yourself about 300 - 400 CDs - at the same rate, that's about $4500 - so you shouldn't feel bad about going out and getting yourself the high-end LINN stereo system to listen to them on, since you're probably also the kind of person who's going to appreciate that kind of system.
if you're in the middle -- say you've got a modest collection of about 30-50 CDs - at ~$15/each -- well then the cost of an ipod would about match that, and you'd be in the right range to be buying such a device.
the cost of the player shoud roughly equal the cost of your collection.
now instead of hijacking a plane, all a terrorist has to do is to remotely fool the GPS into avoiding a mountain while its actually next to an office building...;->
Re:TRS-80 Nostalgia
on
First Computers
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
i'll never forgot my first computer, back in 1976, went to a radio shack on welland avenue in st. catharines (ontario) -- there was a black and white TV, with a typewriter keyboard -- how curious a TV-typewriter... since i'd liked radios, and saved desperately for an LED alarm clock (which i got for christmas), and coveting the most electronic thing i had ever seen in my life up to that point -- my accountant unkle's LED four-function calculator.
so i typed on this keyboard, and the words appeared on the screen. tried that 'return' button, and some words appeared on the screen that i hadn't typed myself, they said:
?SYNTAX ERROR _
soon a friend showed me what happened when you typed:
CLOAD
there were no disk drives, it made a sound, like a modem, and i had to record that into the second-most electronic thing in the house: my dad's panasonic gheto-blaster. this was at 600/1200 baud, but the modem was 300 baud, and there was a popular hack to overclock that to 450 baud. there was no internet, so we used bulletin boards, and eventually hooked the bulletin boards together with a free mail-relay system called 'FidoNet'.
programmes were all typed in uppercase, because there was no lower-case -- the extra 8th bit would have to be purchased, and soldered-in separately no provide lowercase on the monochrome 64x16 display (128x48 graphics).
my father had agreed to buy me a used TRS-80 computer for $450 from my friend anton epp in virgil. his father gave my father some advice -- 'john, its just the beginning'. truer words were never spoken, because since then, it has been one long continual upgrade.
the trs80 model I level II had an 8 bit zilog Z80 which ran at 1Mhz. life was getting good with an expansion interface which held 48k of RAM, a parallel printer port, a real-time clock, optional RS-232, and a western digital floppy disk controller (for 5.25" single-sided floppies which held 70k each). i couldn't afford one of these wonders in my early teens, so i found a sympathetic computer store owner who let me have an old 5.25" drive that didn't WRITE, but still READ okay -- but without a power supply (which i couldn't afford). so my dad and i went to that same radio shack, and bought a circuit board and etching solution, and built a 5-12 volt power supply, and that gave me the ability to boot from LDOS which was before MS-DOS, and had some really nifty device indepent sort of behaviour -- it abstracted the file system so you could read the myriad disk formats that existed in those days. you could also run macros on anything you typed by sending it through KEYFLT, and it would expand your commandline macros on the fly.
the PC, excel, and windows hadn't been invented yet. the spreadsheet was Dan Bricklin's VISICALC, and the word-processor was 'Scripsit' (and later wordstar).
most programmes were written in BASIC, but if you wanted to get games, and had no money, you had to use TASMON and SUPERU to zero-out the jump-pointers to the disk protection code, and resave the memory image to disk.
my cousin vic goosen had some time-life books on the future in their rec room on a farm in virgil. being the 1970's one of them happened to have an article by a man named 'alan kay' who said that in the future, children will carry small notepad sized devices in which they would keep all their notes. why would someone want to do all that when we've got paper notebooks which already superseded portable chalk slate boards? i wondered.
then in grade 10 high-school (governor simcoe in st. catharines), we ran into a room full of commodor PET computers -- all with green monochrome 40x25 (and the 'good' ones had 80x25) text displays. the also had basic -- there were no games. if you wanted games, you had to write them, or swap files on the data-cassettes with others in the class who did. i only managed to make a 'Centipede' imitation: you could move the cursor, and it would have a tail with a definable length, and a robot would track its movements towards
"The fairy story may be made a vehicle of Mystery.
That at least is what George MacDonald attempted,
achieving stories of power and beauty when he succeeded." (J R R Tolkien)
"I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him
[George MacDonald] as my master; indeed I fancy
I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him."
(C.S.Lewis)
when lewis carrol had doubts whether to publish the 'alice' books, it was George MacDonald who encouraged him to do so. he came out with some incredible fiction, among them, 'lilith' and 'phantastes'.
one could say that macdonald was to carroll as tolkein was to lewis. madame l'engel called him the grand-father of the fantastic. some of his descriptions make such demands upon the imagination, that sometimes i think that 100 years later, the technology to make a film out of the book 'LILITH' still doesn't exist.
Tesla had this problem licked early last century, until funding dried up, and they tore down his Magnifying Transmitter... and we're stuck without powerless - here's in 1900's:
My belief is firm in a law of compensation. The true rewards are ever in proportion to the labour and sacrifices made. This is one of the reasons why I feel certain that of all my inventions, the magnifying Transmitter will prove most important and valuable to future generations. I am prompted to this prediction, not so much by thoughts of the commercial and industrial revolution which it will surely bring about, but of the humanitation consequences of the many achievements it makes possible. Considerations of mere utility weigh little in the balance against the higher benefits of civilisation. We are confronted with portentous problems which can not be solved just by providing for our material existence, however abundantly. On the contrary, progress in this direction is fraught with hazards and perils not less menacing than those born from want and suffering. If we were to release the energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and unlimited power at any point on the globe, this accomplishment, instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving rise to dissension and anarchy, which would ultimately result in the enthronement of the hated regime of force.
The greatest good will come from technical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and my wireless transmitter is preeminently such. By its means, the human voice and likeness will be reproduced everywhere and factories driven thousands of miles from waterfalls furnishing power. Aerial machines will be propelled around the earth without a stop and the sun's energy controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation of arid deserts into fertile land. Its introduction for telegraphic, telephonic and similar uses, will automatically cut out the statics and all other interferences which at present, impose narrow limits to the application of the wireless. This is a timely topic on which a few words might not be amiss.
(Nikola Tesla, From 'The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla')
The reason for many of the errors of modern natural science to lie in the completely incorrect standing that science had assigned to the simple sense impression. Our science transfers all sense qualities (sound, colour, warmth, etc.) into the subject and is of the opinion that "outside" the subject there is nothing corresponding to these qualities except processes of motion of matter. These processes of motion, which are supposedly all that exists within the "realm of nature," can of course no longer be perceived. They are inferred on the basis of subjective qualities.
But this inference must appear to consistent thinking as fragmentary. Motion is, to begin with, only a concept that we have borrowed from the sense world; i.e., it confronts us only in things with sense-perceptible qualities. We do not know of any motion other than that connected with sense objects. If one now transfers this attribute onto entities that are not sense-perceptible--such as the elements of discontinuous matter (atoms) are supposed to be--then one must after all be clear about the fact that through this transference, an attribute perceived by the senses is ascribed to a form of existence essentially different from what is conceived of as senseperceptible. One falls into the same contradiction when one wants to arrive at a real content for the initially completely empty concept of the atom. Sense qualities, in fact, even though ever so sublimated, must be added to this concept. One person ascribes impenetrability, exertion of force, to the atom; another ascribes extension in space, and so on; in short, each one ascribes certain characteristics or other that are borrowed from the sense world. If one does not do this, one remains in a complete void.
That is why the above inference is only fragmentary. One draws a line through the middle of what is sense-perceptible and declares the one part to be objective and the other to be subjective. The only consistent statement would be: If there are atoms, then these are simple parts of matter, with the characteristics of matter, and are not perceptible only because their small size makes them inaccessible to our senses.
But with this there disappears any possibility of seeking anything in the motion of atoms that could be held up as something objective in contrast to the subjective qualities of sound, colour, etc. And the possibility also ceases of seeking anything more, for example, in the connection between motion and the sensation "red" than a connection between two processes that both belong entirely to the sense world.
It was therefore clear to the editor that motion of ether, position of atoms, etc., belong in the same category as the sense impressions themselves. Declaring the latter to be subjective is only the result of unclear reflection. If one declares sense qualities to be subjective, then one must do exactly the same with the motion of ether. It is not for any principle reason that we do not perceive the latter, but only because our sense organs are not organized finely enough. But that is a purely coincidental state of affairs. It could be the case that someday mankind, by increasing refinement of our sense organs, would arrive at the point of also perceiving the motion of ether directly. If then a person of that distant future accepted our subjectivistic theory of sense impressions, then he would have to declare these motions of ether to be just as subjective as we declare colour, sound, etc., to be today.
It is clear that this theory of physics leads to a contradiction that cannot be resolved.
This subjectivistic view has a second support in physiological considerations.
Physiology shows that a sensation appears only as the final result of a mechanical process that first communicates itself, from that part of the corporeal world Iying outside the substance of our body, to the periphery of our nervous system, into our sense organs; from here, the process is transmitted to our highest centre, in order to be released there for the first time as sensation.
apple macintosh QUADRA 700 - vintage 1992 - 68040 processor at 25Mhz, 20Mb RAM, 10baseT ethernet hooked into cable-modem. running system 7.6, netscape 4.7 (web browser), photoshop 3.0, bbedit 5.1 (text editor), and a copy of OIDS 1.3. just using it this last weekend (october 11) at my parent's house in st. catharines (ontario, canada), and it still boots faster than a 486...:-}
don't know if this other one qualifies as 'using it' anymore -- a macintosh plus (1Mb RAM, 8Mhz) from 1985 booting system 6.0.7 off a floppy drive (full windowing system, and networking into the new machines via LocalTalk - ethernet bridge) -- running as a Cookoo Clock (with digitized cookoo sound), and steve capps original 1983 morphing clock).
The reasons given for why humans recognize words is erroneous, because the Meaning / Content Doesn't Exist merely in what you See; their unity is first given only in conceptual form to our cognition.
here's a little background, if you actually care to be thorough about such matters...
--| Thought as a Perceptual Instrument for Ideas |---
Does thinking even have any content if you disregard all visible reality, if you disregard the sense-perceptible world of phenomena? Does there not remain a total void, a pure phantasm, if we think away all sense-perceptible content?
That this is indeed the case could very well be a widespread opinion, so we must look at it a little more closely. As we have already noted above, many people think of the entire system of concepts as in fact only a photograph of the outer world. They do indeed hold onto the fact that our knowing develops in theform of thinking, but demand nevertheless that a 'strictly objective science' take its content only from outside. According to them the outer world must provide the substance that flows into our concepts. Without the outer world, they maintain, these concepts are only empty schemata without any content. If this outer world fell away, concepts and ideas would no longer have any meaning, for they are there for the sake of the outer world. One could call this view the negation of the concept. For then the concept no longer has any significance at all for the objective world. It is something added onto the latter. The world would stand there in all its completeness even if there were no concepts. For they in fact bring nothing new to the world. They contain nothing that would not be there without them. They are there only because the knowing subject wants to make use of them in order to have, in a form appropriate to this subject, that which is otherwise already there. For this subject, they are only mediators of a content that is of a non-conceptual nature. This is the view presented.
If it were justified, one of the following three presuppositions would have to be correct.
1. The world of concepts stands in a relationship to the outer world such that it only reproduces the entire content of this world in a different form. Here 'outer world' means the sense world. If that were the case, one truly could not see why it would be necessary to lift oneself above the sense world at all. The entire whys and wherefores of knowing would after all already be given along with the sense world.
2. The world of concepts takes up, as its content, only a part of 'what manifests to the senses.' Picture the matter so~nething like this. We make a series of observations. We meet there with the most varied objects. In doing so we notice that certain characteristics we discover in an object have already been observed by us berore. Our eye scans a series of objects A, B, C, D, etc. A has the characteristics p, q, a, r; B: 1, m, b) n; C: k h, c, g; and D: p, u, a, v. In D we again meet the characteristics a and p, which we have already encountered inA. We designate these characteristics as essential. And insofar as A and D have the same essential characteristics, we say that they are of the same kind. Thus we bringA and D together by holding fast to their essential characteristics in thinking. There we have a thinking that does not entirely coincide with the sense world, a thinking that therefore cannot be accused of being superfluous as in the case of the first presupposition above; nevertheless it it still just as far from bringing anything new to the sense world. But one can certainly raise the objection to this that, in order to recognize which characteristics of a thing are essential, there must already be a certain norm making it possible to distinguish the essential from the inessential. This norm cannot lie in the object, for the object in fact contains both what is essenti
The reasons given for why humans recognize words is erroneous, because the Meaning / Content Doesn't Exist merely in what you See; their unity is first given only in conceptual form our cognition.
here's a little background, if you actually care to be thorough about such matters...
--| Thought as a Perceptual Instrument for Ideas |---
Does thinking even have any content if you disregard all visible reality, if you disregard the sense-perceptible world of phenomena? Does there not remain a total void, a pure phantasm, if we think away all sense-perceptible content?
That this is indeed the case could very well be a widespread opinion, so we must look at it a little more closely. As we have already noted above, many people think of the entire system of concepts as in fact only a photograph of the outer world. They do indeed hold onto the fact that our knowing develops in theform of thinking, but demand nevertheless that a 'strictly objective science' take its content only from outside. According to them the outer world must provide the substance that flows into our concepts. Without the outer world, they maintain, these concepts are only empty schemata without any content. If this outer world fell away, concepts and ideas would no longer have any meaning, for they are there for the sake of the outer world. One could call this view the negation of the concept. For then the concept no longer has any significance at all for the objective world. It is something added onto the latter. The world would stand there in all its completeness even if there were no concepts. For they in fact bring nothing new to the world. They contain nothing that would not be there without them. They are there only because the knowing subject wants to make use of them in order to have, in a form appropriate to this subject, that which is otherwise already there. For this subject, they are only mediators of a content that is of a non-conceptual nature. This is the view presented.
If it were justified, one of the following three presuppositions would have to be correct.
1. The world of concepts stands in a relationship to the outer world such that it only reproduces the entire content of this world in a different form. Here 'outer world' means the sense world. If that were the case, one truly could not see why it would be necessary to lift oneself above the sense world at all. The entire whys and wherefores of knowing would after all already be given along with the sense world.
2. The world of concepts takes up, as its content, only a part of 'what manifests to the senses.' Picture the matter so~nething like this. We make a series of observations. We meet there with the most varied objects. In doing so we notice that certain characteristics we discover in an object have already been observed by us berore. Our eye scans a series of objects A, B, C, D, etc. A has the characteristics p, q, a, r; B: 1, m, b) n; C: k h, c, g; and D: p, u, a, v. In D we again meet the characteristics a and p, which we have already encountered inA. We designate these characteristics as essential. And insofar as A and D have the same essential characteristics, we say that they are of the same kind. Thus we bringA and D together by holding fast to their essential characteristics in thinking. There we have a thinking that does not entirely coincide with the sense world, a thinking that therefore cannot be accused of being superfluous as in the case of the first presupposition above; nevertheless it it still just as far from bringing anything new to the sense world. But one can certainly raise the objection to this that, in order to recognize which characteristics of a thing are essential, there must already be a certain norm making it possible to distinguish the essential from the inessential. This norm cannot lie in the object, for the object in fact contains both what is essential and inessential in undivided unity. Therefore this nor
Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it. (John Lennon)
--| The Law of the Wild |---
And this is the law of the wild, As old and as true as the sky. And the wolf who keeps it will prosper, But the wolf who breaks it will die!
Like the wind that circles the tree trunk, this law runneth forward and back. The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. (Rudyard Kipling)
The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others. (The Fundamental Social Law, Rudolf Steiner, 1905)
--| Thomas Jefferson on Ideas |---
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an IDEA, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
(Thomas Jefferson)
--| The Hate Mirror |---
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. (Hermann Hesse)
--| The Soul's Awakening > Machines and Art |---
Manager: So much is happening that makes it clear how our production slackens more and more and how we're failing in our obligations. Too many are complaining that our products are growing worse in quality and so the other firms are starting to outdo us. Our well-known punctuality is lacking, as many customers have rightly claimed. Soon all the best friends that the firm has made will find themselves no longer satisfied.
Hilary: The one who wishes to create the new must calmly watch the old things pass away. I will no longer carry on the work as up to now it has been organised. It seems to me degrading when a business-- is profit-making in the narrowest range-- and throws the workers' output thoughtlessly upon the general market of the world, quite unconcerned with what becomes of it. I've gained this view since I have realised how human work can take noble form, if human spirit puts its stamp upon it.
Thomasius, the artist, shall direct the workshops that I build for him nearby. The products made by our machines will first be formed with art by his creative spirit and so supply for daily human needs things useful that are truly beautiful. Thus craftsmanship will be combined with art and bring good taste to ordinary life. So I would add to what I see today, as corpselike body in our work, the soul that can alone bestow on it true meaning.
(The Souls Awakening, by Rudolf Steiner, 1922)
---| Constructing Machines as a Divine Service |---
Humanity must learn to deal with nature as the gods have done; it should learn not to construct machines in an indifferent way but to fulfill a divine service and bring sacramentalism into everything that is produced. (Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Vocation, Dornach, Nov1916)
bikes never need batteries, and will always be cheaper and simpler to build -- less to go wrong. why not build a village for bicycles. segway users would find it a great place to get around in if they so choose.
here in toronto, there are portions of the city getting power. where i am (college and dovercourt), there is still no power. this was a rare opportunity to observe a city of people without electricity.
a report of what it was like being here -- actually quite nice. its the first time i've ever been able to see the stars at night from inside the streets of toronto. the moon is just past full, and mars sits there like a jewel to her lower right, with the whole glittering firmament behind her. it was quite beautiful.
around 4:15pm yesterday, we were all at work, when the screens in front of our faces went dark, and a big gasp and then a golden moment of silence, and you could just hear some birds chirp, and no more fans. then people were wandering about aimlessly -- like unplugged borg. there was no more point in carrying on, since we need our machines to produce anything, so the crew was soon packed-up to go home.
since it was nice weather, the patios along king street the street lights were out, it was little use trying to get anywhere by car, so people started walking. at the intersections, some people were still using light-driven habits, and many others quickly negotiated intersections by looking across with glances. its amazing how well people keep going without with simply the communication provided by LOOKING. i could finally understand the traffic dispersal patterns of old black and whitee photos taken in times before traffic lights -- people wandering an intersection, and negotiating the passage by glances is really a good experience.
Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now
multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed,
nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air,
space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without
anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably
cheap imitation of it. (G. K. Chesterton)
of course, i wish all the best efforts towards those helping those who were stuck in elevators, or had emergency situations. most of us just went down the stairs. one of the programmers used the light on his gameboy to get down the ten flights. those in cars were especially afflicted with bad traffic getting home. but the phones were working, the water is working, and the weather is fine. a lot of people used this time to start talking with their neighbours. if you had a case of beer (which couldn't be bought -- since all the tills need power), then you were lucky.
yes, it was strange to see lights out on abandoned and stopped street-cars, but since things were actually quiet in the middle of the city for the first time in memory -- you could hear things better, and you could hear a lot of people talking, and socializing and laughing with people in the backyards -- many of them lit with candles. riding bike along bloor street, there was a fellow in a darkened shop window selling candles with a transistor radio on, and that's how we found out it was the whole east coast. you ask, is it the building? the block, the city? progressively the scope of the blackout became known as people called relatives outside the zone.
also of note -- it is a lot cooler without the air-conditioners. without all the air-conditioners drawing power and producing heat, the overall general OUTDOOR air-temperature is much cooler, and everything is quite nice. we still don't have power, so i've not ventured to ride my bike in to work yet. but right now, the sun is shining, there's no loud droning of air-conditioners all over the place, you can hear the morning winds in the trees wafting, and birds chirping, and neighbours walking around outside talking with each other. i hear they have power now a couple blocks over from my section in the downtown core -- maybe i'll be able to dail-in to slashdot,
Nah, its just Distributed Now - TIA, Echelon
on
The Beast of Brussels
·
· Score: 3, Informative
> Said machine was supposed to track all world trade through > monitoring the buying and selling of every citizen on the planet... > These could be seen by infrared scanners at 'special verification > counters' (cash tills, to you and us).
so, now we can finally all rest assured, since it was all just a fiction... OR CAN WE...!?:-\
ECHELON attempts to capture staggering volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic... This massive surveillance system apparently operates with little oversight.
The goal is to track individuals through collecting as much information about them as possible...
The project calls for the development of ultra-large all-source information repositories, which would contain information from multiple sources to create a 'virtual, centralized, grand database.' This database would be populated by transaction data contained in current databases such as financial records, medical records, communication records, and travel records as well as new sources of information....biometric technology to enable the identification and tracking of individuals. DARPA has already funded its 'Human ID at a Distance' program, which aims to positively identify people from a distance through technologies such as face recognition or gait recognition. A nationwide identificationsystem would be of great assistance to such a project by providing aneasy means to track individuals across multiple information sources.
TIA Report to Congress May 2003. http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/m ay03_re port.pdf
Congress Report Executive Summary and FAQ May 2003: http://www.darpa.mil/body/tia/TIA%20ES.pdf
TIA System Description (PDF, 4.5 MB): http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/ti asyste mdescription.pdf
Poindexter's August 2002 Speech: http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/poindex ter.html
Evolution isn't a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation but...is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this point is then a descent to more and more simple forms. (Rudolf Steiner)
Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. (Albert Einstein)
"The fairy story may be made a vehicle of Mystery.
That at least is what George MacDonald attempted,
achieving stories of Power and Beauty
when he succeeded." (J R R Tolkien)
if you like tolkien - pay a visit to the grandfather of modern fiction -- the guy who encouraged lewis carrol to publish the 'alice in wonderland' books -- check out 'Phantastes' and 'Lilith' by George MacDonald' for some of the best fiction, last century or this.
if you want to be lean, you actually have to weigh MORE, since lean strong muscles weigh more than fat, but they look more toned.
therefore, using weight to guage fitness is totally bogus. a lean person will look 'skinnier' but weigh MORE.
the other thing that makes people fat is 'Low Fat' food. if all you eat is low-fat stuff, your body never gets the nutrition it needs, and hence you have to eat more of the stuff to make up your body's requirements. the best thing to do if you want to lose weight is to eat more of the 'Regular Fat' foods, and then your body won't need so much of the stuff to feel 'full'.
Slashdot Mirror
just wanted to say 'thanks elena -- for being our eyes into this fascinating wasteland'.
your photo-journal is one of the most haunting things i've ever seen.
safe speed be with you.
john penner
(toronto)
einstein didn't think so...
People like us, who believe in physics,
know that the distinction between past,
present, and future is only a stubbornly
persistent illusion. (Albert Einstein)
'HEAT IS THE FOURTH DIMENSION'
regards,
john.
this was predicted in 1917:
Man will, in time, manage to implant the death-forces in man,
related to electrical and magnetic forces, with external machines.
He will then be able to direct his intentions, his thoughts into the machine.
(Rudolf Steiner, Individuelle Geistwesen und einheitlicher
Weltengrund, November 25, 1917, Dornach Switzerland)
It is recorded that the ancient Roman generals required the engineers
to stand under the bridge as the army marched across it.
What would happen if software engineers had to stand behind
their software in a similar way?
rule of thumb: you should pay about the same for your stereo
system as you pay your whole music collection.
example: say you've the kind of person who's only bought 10 CDs.
at ~CDN$15/each, that's about $150 - so you shouldn't buy a stereo
worth more than about $150 - a cheap gheto blaster will do you fine.
on the other hand -- say you're the kind of person who's really
into music, and you've bought yourself about 300 - 400 CDs - at the
same rate, that's about $4500 - so you shouldn't feel bad about going
out and getting yourself the high-end LINN stereo system to listen to
them on, since you're probably also the kind of person who's going
to appreciate that kind of system.
if you're in the middle -- say you've got a modest collection of about
30-50 CDs - at ~$15/each -- well then the cost of an ipod would about
match that, and you'd be in the right range to be buying such a device.
the cost of the player shoud roughly equal the cost of your collection.
regards,
johnrpenner.
not nearly as much as the cost of time
wasted by countless slashdotters
reading and discussing ABOUT the virus!
now instead of hijacking a plane,
all a terrorist has to do is to remotely fool
the GPS into avoiding a mountain while its actually
next to an office building...
i'll never forgot my first computer, back in 1976, went to a radio shack on welland avenue in st. catharines (ontario) -- there was a black and white TV, with a typewriter keyboard -- how curious a TV-typewriter... since i'd liked radios, and saved desperately for an LED alarm clock (which i got for christmas), and coveting the most electronic thing i had ever seen in my life up to that point -- my accountant unkle's LED four-function calculator.
so i typed on this keyboard, and the words appeared on the screen. tried that 'return' button, and some words appeared on the screen that i hadn't typed myself, they said:
?SYNTAX ERROR
_
soon a friend showed me what happened when you typed:
CLOAD
there were no disk drives, it made a sound, like a modem, and i had to record that into the second-most electronic thing in the house: my dad's panasonic gheto-blaster. this was at 600/1200 baud, but the modem was 300 baud, and there was a popular hack to overclock that to 450 baud. there was no internet, so we used bulletin boards, and eventually hooked the bulletin boards together with a free mail-relay system called 'FidoNet'.
programmes were all typed in uppercase, because there was no lower-case -- the extra 8th bit would have to be purchased, and soldered-in separately no provide lowercase on the monochrome 64x16 display (128x48 graphics).
my father had agreed to buy me a used TRS-80 computer for $450 from my friend anton epp in virgil. his father gave my father some advice -- 'john, its just the beginning'. truer words were never spoken, because since then, it has been one long continual upgrade.
the trs80 model I level II had an 8 bit zilog Z80 which ran at 1Mhz. life was getting good with an expansion interface which held 48k of RAM, a parallel printer port, a real-time clock, optional RS-232, and a western digital floppy disk controller (for 5.25" single-sided floppies which held 70k each). i couldn't afford one of these wonders in my early teens, so i found a sympathetic computer store owner who let me have an old 5.25" drive that didn't WRITE, but still READ okay -- but without a power supply (which i couldn't afford). so my dad and i went to that same radio shack, and bought a circuit board and etching solution, and built a 5-12 volt power supply, and that gave me the ability to boot from LDOS which was before MS-DOS, and had some really nifty device indepent sort of behaviour -- it abstracted the file system so you could read the myriad disk formats that existed in those days. you could also run macros on anything you typed by sending it through KEYFLT, and it would expand your commandline macros on the fly.
the PC, excel, and windows hadn't been invented yet. the spreadsheet was Dan Bricklin's VISICALC, and the word-processor was 'Scripsit' (and later wordstar).
most programmes were written in BASIC, but if you wanted to get games, and had no money, you had to use TASMON and SUPERU to zero-out the jump-pointers to the disk protection code, and resave the memory image to disk.
my cousin vic goosen had some time-life books on the future in their rec room on a farm in virgil. being the 1970's one of them happened to have an article by a man named 'alan kay' who said that in the future, children will carry small notepad sized devices in which they would keep all their notes. why would someone want to do all that when we've got paper notebooks which already superseded portable chalk slate boards? i wondered.
then in grade 10 high-school (governor simcoe in st. catharines), we ran into a room full of commodor PET computers -- all with green monochrome 40x25 (and the 'good' ones had 80x25) text displays. the also had basic -- there were no games. if you wanted games, you had to write them, or swap files on the data-cassettes with others in the class who did. i only managed to make a 'Centipede' imitation: you could move the cursor, and it would have a tail with a definable length, and a robot would track its movements towards
"The fairy story may be made a vehicle of Mystery.
That at least is what George MacDonald attempted,
achieving stories of power and beauty when he succeeded." (J R R Tolkien)
"I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him
[George MacDonald] as my master; indeed I fancy
I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him."
(C.S.Lewis)
when lewis carrol had doubts whether to publish the 'alice' books,
it was George MacDonald who encouraged him to do so. he came
out with some incredible fiction, among them, 'lilith' and 'phantastes'.
one could say that macdonald was to carroll as tolkein was to lewis.
madame l'engel called him the grand-father of the fantastic.
some of his descriptions make such demands upon the
imagination, that sometimes i think that 100 years later,
the technology to make a film out of the book 'LILITH'
still doesn't exist.
Tesla had this problem licked early last century, until funding dried up, and they tore down his Magnifying Transmitter... and we're stuck without powerless - here's in 1900's:
My belief is firm in a law of compensation. The true rewards are ever
in proportion to the labour and sacrifices made. This is one of the
reasons why I feel certain that of all my inventions, the magnifying
Transmitter will prove most important and valuable to future
generations. I am prompted to this prediction, not so much by thoughts
of the commercial and industrial revolution which it will surely bring
about, but of the humanitation consequences of the many achievements
it makes possible. Considerations of mere utility weigh little in the
balance against the higher benefits of civilisation. We are confronted
with portentous problems which can not be solved just by providing for
our material existence, however abundantly. On the contrary, progress
in this direction is fraught with hazards and perils not less menacing
than those born from want and suffering. If we were to release the
energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and
unlimited power at any point on the globe, this accomplishment,
instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving
rise to dissension and anarchy, which would ultimately result in the
enthronement of the hated regime of force.
The greatest good will come
from technical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and
my wireless transmitter is preeminently such. By its means, the human
voice and likeness will be reproduced everywhere and factories driven
thousands of miles from waterfalls furnishing power. Aerial machines
will be propelled around the earth without a stop and the sun's energy
controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and
transformation of arid deserts into fertile land. Its introduction for
telegraphic, telephonic and similar uses, will automatically cut out
the statics and all other interferences which at present, impose
narrow limits to the application of the wireless. This is a timely
topic on which a few words might not be amiss.
(Nikola Tesla, From 'The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla')
The reason for many of the errors of modern natural science to lie in the completely incorrect standing that science had assigned to the simple sense impression. Our science transfers all sense qualities (sound, colour, warmth, etc.) into the subject and is of the opinion that "outside" the subject there is nothing corresponding to these qualities except processes of motion of matter. These processes of motion, which are supposedly all that exists within the "realm of nature," can of course no longer be perceived. They are inferred on the basis of subjective qualities.
But this inference must appear to consistent thinking as fragmentary. Motion is, to begin with, only a concept that we have borrowed from the sense world; i.e., it confronts us only in things with sense-perceptible qualities. We do not know of any motion other than that connected with sense objects. If one now transfers this attribute onto entities that are not sense-perceptible--such as the elements of discontinuous matter (atoms) are supposed to be--then one must after all be clear about the fact that through this transference, an attribute perceived by the senses is ascribed to a form of existence essentially different from what is conceived of as senseperceptible. One falls into the same contradiction when one wants to arrive at a real content for the initially completely empty concept of the atom. Sense qualities, in fact, even though ever so sublimated, must be added to this concept. One person ascribes impenetrability, exertion of force, to the atom; another ascribes extension in space, and so on; in short, each one ascribes certain characteristics or other that are borrowed from the sense world. If one does not do this, one remains in a complete void.
That is why the above inference is only fragmentary. One draws a line through the middle of what is sense-perceptible and declares the one part to be objective and the other to be subjective. The only consistent statement would be: If there are atoms, then these are simple parts of matter, with the characteristics of matter, and are not perceptible only because their small size makes them inaccessible to our senses.
But with this there disappears any possibility of seeking anything in the motion of atoms that could be held up as something objective in contrast to the subjective qualities of sound, colour, etc. And the possibility also ceases of seeking anything more, for example, in the connection between motion and the sensation "red" than a connection between two processes that both belong entirely to the sense world.
It was therefore clear to the editor that motion of ether, position of atoms, etc., belong in the same category as the sense impressions themselves. Declaring the latter to be subjective is only the result of unclear reflection. If one declares sense qualities to be subjective, then one must do exactly the same with the motion of ether. It is not for any principle reason that we do not perceive the latter, but only because our sense organs are not organized finely enough. But that is a purely coincidental state of affairs. It could be the case that someday mankind, by increasing refinement of our sense organs, would arrive at the point of also perceiving the motion of ether directly. If then a person of that distant future accepted our subjectivistic theory of sense impressions, then he would have to declare these motions of ether to be just as subjective as we declare colour, sound, etc., to be today.
It is clear that this theory of physics leads to a contradiction that cannot be resolved.
This subjectivistic view has a second support in physiological considerations.
Physiology shows that a sensation appears only as the final result of a mechanical process that first communicates itself, from that part of the corporeal world Iying outside the substance of our body, to the periphery of our nervous system, into our sense organs; from here, the process is transmitted to our highest centre, in order to be released there for the first time as sensation.
(Rudolf Steiner, Goethean Science XV, 1883)
apple macintosh QUADRA 700 - vintage 1992 - 68040 processor at 25Mhz, 20Mb RAM, 10baseT ethernet hooked into cable-modem. running system 7.6, netscape 4.7 (web browser), photoshop 3.0, bbedit 5.1 (text editor), and a copy of OIDS 1.3. just using it this last weekend (october 11) at my parent's house in st. catharines (ontario, canada), and it still boots faster than a 486... :-}
don't know if this other one qualifies as 'using it' anymore -- a macintosh plus (1Mb RAM, 8Mhz) from 1985 booting system 6.0.7 off a floppy drive (full windowing system, and networking into the new machines via LocalTalk - ethernet bridge) -- running as a Cookoo Clock (with digitized cookoo sound), and steve capps original 1983 morphing clock).
regards,
john
[error in posting, sorry; corrections follow]
The reasons given for why humans recognize words is erroneous, because the Meaning / Content Doesn't Exist merely in what you See; their unity is first given only in conceptual form to our cognition.
here's a little background, if you actually care to be thorough about such matters...
best regards,
john.
--| Thought as a Perceptual Instrument for Ideas |---
Does thinking even have any content if you disregard all visible reality, if you disregard the sense-perceptible world of phenomena? Does there not remain a total void, a pure phantasm, if we think away all sense-perceptible content?
That this is indeed the case could very well be a widespread opinion, so we must look at it a little more closely. As we have already noted above, many people think of the entire system of concepts as in fact only a photograph of the outer world. They do indeed hold onto the fact that our knowing develops in theform of thinking, but demand nevertheless that a 'strictly objective science' take its content only from outside. According to them the outer world must provide the substance that flows into our concepts. Without the outer world, they maintain, these concepts are only empty schemata without any content. If this outer world fell away, concepts and ideas would no longer have any meaning, for they are there for the sake of the outer world. One could call this view the negation of the concept. For then the concept no longer has any significance at all for the objective world. It is something added onto the latter. The world would stand there in all its completeness even if there were no concepts. For they in fact bring nothing new to the world. They contain nothing that would not be there without them. They are there only because the knowing subject wants to make use of them in order to have, in a form appropriate to this subject, that which is otherwise already there. For this subject, they are only mediators of a content that is of a non-conceptual nature. This is the view presented.
If it were justified, one of the following three presuppositions would have to be correct.
1. The world of concepts stands in a relationship to the outer world such that it only reproduces the entire content of this world in a different form. Here 'outer world' means the sense world. If that were the case, one truly could not see why it would be necessary to lift oneself above the sense world at all. The entire whys and wherefores of knowing would after all already be given along with the sense world.
2. The world of concepts takes up, as its content, only a part of 'what manifests to the senses.' Picture the matter so~nething like this. We make a series of observations. We meet there with the most varied objects. In doing so we notice that certain characteristics we discover in an object have already been observed by us berore. Our eye scans a series of objects A, B, C, D, etc. A has the characteristics p, q, a, r; B: 1, m, b) n; C: k h, c, g; and D: p, u, a, v. In D we again meet the characteristics a and p, which we have already encountered inA. We designate these characteristics as essential. And insofar as A and D have the same essential characteristics, we say that they are of the same kind. Thus we bringA and D together by holding fast to their essential characteristics in thinking. There we have a thinking that does not entirely coincide with the sense world, a thinking that therefore cannot be accused of being superfluous as in the case of the first presupposition above; nevertheless it it still just as far from bringing anything new to the sense world. But one can certainly raise the objection to this that, in order to recognize which characteristics of a thing are essential, there must already be a certain norm making it possible to distinguish the essential from the inessential. This norm cannot lie in the object, for the object in fact contains both what is essenti
The reasons given for why humans recognize words is erroneous, because the Meaning / Content Doesn't Exist merely in what you See; their unity is first given only in conceptual form our cognition.
here's a little background, if you actually care to be thorough about such matters...
best regards,
john.
--| Thought as a Perceptual Instrument for Ideas |---
Does thinking even have any content if you disregard all visible reality, if you disregard the sense-perceptible world of phenomena? Does there not remain a total void, a pure phantasm, if we think away all sense-perceptible content?
That this is indeed the case could very well be a widespread opinion, so we must look at it a little more closely. As we have already noted above, many people think of the entire system of concepts as in fact only a photograph of the outer world. They do indeed hold onto the fact that our knowing develops in theform of thinking, but demand nevertheless that a 'strictly objective science' take its content only from outside. According to them the outer world must provide the substance that flows into our concepts. Without the outer world, they maintain, these concepts are only empty schemata without any content. If this outer world fell away, concepts and ideas would no longer have any meaning, for they are there for the sake of the outer world. One could call this view the negation of the concept. For then the concept no longer has any significance at all for the objective world. It is something added onto the latter. The world would stand there in all its completeness even if there were no concepts. For they in fact bring nothing new to the world. They contain nothing that would not be there without them. They are there only because the knowing subject wants to make use of them in order to have, in a form appropriate to this subject, that which is otherwise already there. For this subject, they are only mediators of a content that is of a non-conceptual nature. This is the view presented.
If it were justified, one of the following three presuppositions would have to be correct.
1. The world of concepts stands in a relationship to the outer world such that it only reproduces the entire content of this world in a different form. Here 'outer world' means the sense world. If that were the case, one truly could not see why it would be necessary to lift oneself above the sense world at all. The entire whys and wherefores of knowing would after all already be given along with the sense world.
2. The world of concepts takes up, as its content, only a part of 'what manifests to the senses.' Picture the matter so~nething like this. We make a series of observations. We meet there with the most varied objects. In doing so we notice that certain characteristics we discover in an object have already been observed by us berore. Our eye scans a series of objects A, B, C, D, etc. A has the characteristics p, q, a, r; B: 1, m, b) n; C: k h, c, g; and D: p, u, a, v. In D we again meet the characteristics a and p, which we have already encountered inA. We designate these characteristics as essential. And insofar as A and D have the same essential characteristics, we say that they are of the same kind. Thus we bringA and D together by holding fast to their essential characteristics in thinking. There we have a thinking that does not entirely coincide with the sense world, a thinking that therefore cannot be accused of being superfluous as in the case of the first presupposition above; nevertheless it it still just as far from bringing anything new to the sense world. But one can certainly raise the objection to this that, in order to recognize which characteristics of a thing are essential, there must already be a certain norm making it possible to distinguish the essential from the inessential. This norm cannot lie in the object, for the object in fact contains both what is essential and inessential in undivided unity. Therefore this nor
might be a good idea for a couple local public libraries to get a set -- i'm sure they'd be popular.
--| Free Music |---
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
(John Lennon)
--| The Law of the Wild |---
And this is the law of the wild, As old and as true as the sky.
And the wolf who keeps it will prosper, But the wolf who breaks it will die!
Like the wind that circles the tree trunk, this law runneth forward and back.
The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
(Rudyard Kipling)
--| Social Threefolding |---
The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others.
(The Fundamental Social Law, Rudolf Steiner, 1905)
--| Thomas Jefferson on Ideas |---
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an IDEA, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
(Thomas Jefferson)
--| The Hate Mirror |---
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. (Hermann Hesse)
--| The Soul's Awakening > Machines and Art |---
Manager:
So much is happening that makes it clear how our production slackens more and more and how we're failing in our obligations.
Too many are complaining that our products are growing worse in quality and so the other firms are starting to outdo us.
Our well-known punctuality is lacking, as many customers have rightly claimed.
Soon all the best friends that the firm has made will find themselves no longer satisfied.
Hilary:
The one who wishes to create the new must calmly watch the old things pass away. I will no longer carry on the work as up to now it has been organised.
It seems to me degrading when a business-- is profit-making in the narrowest range-- and throws the workers' output thoughtlessly upon the general market of the world, quite unconcerned with what becomes of it.
I've gained this view since I have realised how human work can take noble form, if human spirit puts its stamp upon it.
Thomasius, the artist, shall direct the workshops that I build for him nearby. The products made by our machines will first be formed with art by his creative spirit and so supply for daily human needs things useful that are truly beautiful.
Thus craftsmanship will be combined with art and bring good taste to ordinary life.
So I would add to what I see today, as corpselike body in our work, the soul that can alone bestow on it true meaning.
(The Souls Awakening, by Rudolf Steiner, 1922)
---| Constructing Machines as a Divine Service |---
Humanity must learn to deal with nature as the gods have done; it should learn not to construct machines in an indifferent way but to fulfill a divine service and bring sacramentalism into everything that is produced.
(Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Vocation, Dornach, Nov1916)
best regards,
john
rule of thumb: your stereo should cost about as much as your CD collection.
so, if you've got a small CD collection (10 CDs * $20) - then you should get a $200 gheto blaster to play them on.
if you've got a larger CD collection (100 CDs * $20) - then you shouldn't feel bad about getting a good stereo (~$2000) to listen to them on.
your mileage may vary...
john
BIKE VILLAGES
bikes never need batteries, and will always be cheaper and simpler to build -- less to go wrong. why not build a village for bicycles. segway users would find it a great place to get around in if they so choose.
john
so long as entropy exists, so will bitrot, and the finer you pack-em, the more ephemeral they'll become.
experiential memory will outlast data.
august 15, 2003 - 9:56am (toronto)
here in toronto, there are portions of the city getting power.
where i am (college and dovercourt), there is still no power.
this was a rare opportunity to observe a city of people
without electricity.
a report of what it was like being here -- actually quite nice.
its the first time i've ever been able to see the stars at night
from inside the streets of toronto. the moon is just past full,
and mars sits there like a jewel to her lower right, with the
whole glittering firmament behind her. it was quite beautiful.
around 4:15pm yesterday, we were all at work, when the screens
in front of our faces went dark, and a big gasp and then a golden
moment of silence, and you could just hear some birds chirp, and
no more fans. then people were wandering about aimlessly -- like
unplugged borg. there was no more point in carrying on, since we
need our machines to produce anything, so the crew was soon packed-up
to go home.
since it was nice weather, the patios along king street the
street lights were out, it was little use trying to get anywhere
by car, so people started walking. at the intersections, some
people were still using light-driven habits, and many others
quickly negotiated intersections by looking across with glances.
its amazing how well people keep going without with simply the
communication provided by LOOKING. i could finally understand
the traffic dispersal patterns of old black and whitee photos
taken in times before traffic lights -- people wandering an
intersection, and negotiating the passage by glances is really
a good experience.
Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now
multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed,
nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air,
space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without
anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably
cheap imitation of it. (G. K. Chesterton)
of course, i wish all the best efforts towards those helping
those who were stuck in elevators, or had emergency situations.
most of us just went down the stairs. one of the programmers
used the light on his gameboy to get down the ten flights.
those in cars were especially afflicted with bad traffic getting home.
but the phones were working, the water is working, and the weather
is fine. a lot of people used this time to start talking with their
neighbours. if you had a case of beer (which couldn't be bought --
since all the tills need power), then you were lucky.
yes, it was strange to see lights out on abandoned and stopped
street-cars, but since things were actually quiet in the middle of
the city for the first time in memory -- you could hear things better,
and you could hear a lot of people talking, and socializing and
laughing with people in the backyards -- many of them lit with
candles. riding bike along bloor street, there was a fellow in a
darkened shop window selling candles with a transistor radio on,
and that's how we found out it was the whole east coast.
you ask, is it the building? the block, the city? progressively
the scope of the blackout became known as people called relatives
outside the zone.
also of note -- it is a lot cooler without the air-conditioners.
without all the air-conditioners drawing power and producing heat,
the overall general OUTDOOR air-temperature is much cooler,
and everything is quite nice. we still don't have power,
so i've not ventured to ride my bike in to work yet.
but right now, the sun is shining, there's no loud droning of
air-conditioners all over the place, you can hear the morning
winds in the trees wafting, and birds chirping, and neighbours
walking around outside talking with each other. i hear they
have power now a couple blocks over from my section in the
downtown core -- maybe i'll be able to dail-in to slashdot,
> Said machine was supposed to track all world trade through
:-\
:r g/irp/program/process/echelon.htm
...biometric technology
m ay03_re port.pdf
i asyste mdescription.pdf
x ter.html
> monitoring the buying and selling of every citizen on the planet...
> These could be seen by infrared scanners at 'special verification
> counters' (cash tills, to you and us).
so, now we can finally all rest assured,
since it was all just a fiction... OR CAN WE...!?
>> ECHELON
http://www.echelonwatch.org/
http://www.fas.o
ECHELON attempts to capture staggering volumes of satellite,
microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic... This massive
surveillance system apparently operates with little oversight.
>> TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
The goal is to track individuals through collecting as much
information about them as possible...
The project calls for the development of ultra-large all-source
information repositories, which would contain information from
multiple sources to create a 'virtual, centralized, grand
database.' This database would be populated by transaction
data contained in current databases such as financial records,
medical records, communication records, and travel records as
well as new sources of information.
to enable the identification and tracking of individuals.
DARPA has already funded its 'Human ID at a Distance' program,
which aims to positively identify people from a distance
through technologies such as face recognition or gait recognition.
A nationwide identificationsystem would be of great assistance
to such a project by providing aneasy means to track individuals
across multiple information sources.
TIA Report to Congress May 2003.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
Congress Report Executive Summary and FAQ May 2003:
http://www.darpa.mil/body/tia/TIA%20ES.pdf
TIA System Description (PDF, 4.5 MB):
http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/t
Poindexter's August 2002 Speech:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/poinde
???
Evolution isn't a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation
but...is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this
point is then a descent to more and more simple forms. (Rudolf Steiner)
Perfection (in design) is achieved not when
there is nothing more to add, but rather when there
is nothing more to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
Everything should be made as simple as possible,
but no simpler. (Albert Einstein)
cheers!
"The fairy story may be made a vehicle of Mystery.
That at least is what George MacDonald attempted,
achieving stories of Power and Beauty
when he succeeded." (J R R Tolkien)
if you like tolkien - pay a visit to the grandfather of modern fiction -- the guy who encouraged lewis carrol to publish the 'alice in wonderland' books -- check out 'Phantastes' and 'Lilith' by George MacDonald' for some of the best fiction, last century or this.
George-MacDonald.com
phantastes - amazon listing
cheers,
john.
if you want to be lean, you actually have to weigh MORE,
since lean strong muscles weigh more than fat, but they
look more toned.
therefore, using weight to guage fitness is totally bogus.
a lean person will look 'skinnier' but weigh MORE.
the other thing that makes people fat is 'Low Fat' food.
if all you eat is low-fat stuff, your body never gets the
nutrition it needs, and hence you have to eat more of
the stuff to make up your body's requirements. the best
thing to do if you want to lose weight is to eat more
of the 'Regular Fat' foods, and then your body won't
need so much of the stuff to feel 'full'.
best regards,
john