I dreamed up a nanny-state monitoring system for NYC motorists: 15 seconds of free "for emergencies only" horn time per month, beyond that you start paying 50 cents a second. Sadly people would probably still willingly rack up $45/month in horn fees.
Take a note: New Yorkers who rely on trains and cabs shouldn't claim authority on "reality" either. Leave that to us New Yorkers who commute by bike 12 miles a day;D
Here's an interesting thought: thousands of guys who learned to drive on the insane streets of Mumbai/Colombo/Nairobi now driving ultra-silent electric vehicles so I can't hear them screaming up behind me to cut me off when turning a right (without use of a directional signal, naturally.)
I say the sooner New Yorkers stop being over-priveleged babies that need to be chauffeured around, the happier we'll all be.
I love telling Windows fan-boys about how many years of excellent service my Mac has given me. Then I tell them that Macs cost less than Pee Cees because they cost less per year of service.
Excellent. I'm in the same boat, posting this from a Sawtooth 500 --> Dual 1.2Ghz, 1.5GB RAM. Kind of mind blowing to think our motherboards are downright paleolithic by computing standards and still chugging along like little champs. I myself opted out of 10.5 until I finally feel the final itch to get new iron. Guess that'll be once enough software stops supporting Tiger (and PowerPC). Flash video is the only real bummer on this 100mhz FSB (ugh not even 133mhz). I think the power supply's finally giving up. Whenever the CPUs get thread heavy you can actually hear the fans slow down a couple notches at this point.
Previous to this I owned a 1st Gen 601 60mhz upgraded to 266 (via PDS/NuBus slot) which itself lasted me 6 years of loyal service.
I'm 6'2" with a 36" inseam; cyclist who gets inanely violent leg cramps in constricted seating positions. And I'd probably get the shaft for being under the clause height.
Makes me want to bathe with human liposuction soap.
The target for the Macbook Air is the road-warrior, the person who racks up enough frequent flyer miles in a year to fly to Paris for Christmas.
I'm at the other end of a fairly wide spectrum, someone who cycles all around Manhattan between two real estate offices doing lightweight print design and down to school in Chelsea in the evenings. I was originally tempted to get a BlackBook for my needs, but anticipating the inevitability of the Air over the last 6 months I held off, and boy was the wait worth it.
The fact that my class is 90% women who are going to constantly fawn over it is just puddin';D
note I'm not sure what a "HDD power line jumper", and power supply cable is rather cryptic
Pizza Box form factor Dell, PS cable cluster only had 1 plug available for HDD's, floppy's power cable was far too short (and non compatible maybe?). Simply needed a female->male->male(->male) ecksten-sor. The drive chassis even allows for a second HDD by design. Was fairly certain a place with the prefix "Comp" would carry something like I described, but yeah retail space is at a premium in midtown. Radio Shack probably does *shrug* I wound up buying it online.
...and actually did carry much in the way of essential hardware such as fans, heatsync compound, screws, and other misc things
Last month I took a little bike trip to the CompUSA in midtown Manhattan looking for a simple HDD power line jumper. Zilch. SATA ribbons, ATA/IDE... No power cable supplies.
If you have to resort to drugs to alter your state of reality, you are living a quite pitiful life.
Pitifully naive sentiment riddled with ad hominem fallacies. Who said anything about "have to"? On the other hand, if someone has an experience that facilitates positive change or an advancement in their spiritual or intellectual work, who are you to deny them of it? And what would your denial be based upon? Obviously not first hand experience.
No, it's very evident you're coming from a flawed initial assumption: that there is no such thing as a worthwhile entheogenic experience. That somehow such experiences are outside the fabric of 'acceptable' or 'wholesome' human activity. That one must be "bored" to seek out alternative states of consciousness or perspective. You might think to meditate on exactly whose bias is speaking through you on the matter.
Performing a YouTube search for "Cat on LSD" serves as a good drivers-ed style shock tactic for not taking too much LSD at once. Or, perhaps, taking it ever depending on the individual.
I agree, the actual 'trip' when freebasing, insufflating or smoking DMT (I've only freebased it, and once) is far too strong for immediate reflection. I also agree that setting can have a profound influence on the direction of the ride. I understand that ingesting it in an Ayahuasca or Pharmahuasca capacity brings about a longer more subtle trip that allows for in-process realizations. I now regret the decision to not travel to the Amazon region when visiting Peru last year as a result. I found a storefront in Cuzco that offered Huasca ceremonies but I simply knew that going to a tourist-oriented source was counter-intuitive. McEpiphany? Not likely.
A couple hours after my initial n,n DMT experience almost 2 months ago as I was riding my bicycle home I slowly pieced together the nature in which setting influences what will happen. Even though I was 'heading up' I somehow realized that my friend was hitting the pipe as well and it seemed to create a 'cold space' in the room that caused me to hold back and not fully release past the exciting seemingly 5-dimensional tesselations appearing before me. Sort of a vague "oh wait somebody has to stick around here in case of emergencies" sentiment. I decided that on my next attempt I would have my girlfriend laying laterally across my lap as I rub her back. I can't think of a more applicable 'safe zone' than that--my daily tactile ritual, something to keep me very happily and safely grounded to allow the previously elusive 'release.' People speak of "female energy" which always struck me as new-agey hokum. Nowadays I'm generally open to the effect of psychic presence, however it might be explained rationally and scientifically.
So contrasting the psychological impressions of a threshold "burn BRIGHT, not HOT" DMT experience, a profound experience I had 10 years back with mescaline (one in which a switch was euphamistically flipped that fomented my becoming an avid cyclist and generally more fit, healthy individual) against my youthful LSD experiences I personally don't see much of a correlation. I'm fully willing to grant that I likely never took enough LSD to reach higher echelons of experience coupled with the fact that I was treating the experiences trivially, and that only triviality could come out of them. I can't imagine Buddhist meditation would produce much worth if entered with a frivolous mindset either. LSD had me coming back for more, the other two experiences made me go "ah, here's something I need to hold at a safe distance, experience rarely, and try to make the most of every time through post-process reflection."
Just FYI, LSD is disassociative and carries the risk of negative psychological response you're worried about. DMT is the real deal, widely regarded as 'psychologically safe' and no reported lingering after effects (flashbacks). Negative responses to the experience generally stem from 'not being ready for the message' rather than pre-exsisting temporal neuroses/psychoses as with LSD. Essentially, if you're free minded--the type of person who can 'just enjoy' an amusement park ride without constantly feeling the pings of imminent danger--you'll respond well to DMT.
That said, the reason I believe entheogens can foment scientific breakthroughs as discussed is attributable to two factors brought about by the process.
1) The manner in which these serotonin receptor 'confusers' suppress (or amplify, again LSD) our everyday neuroses. The immediate and lingering effects of 'clear headedness' allows for purer thought. Often, when the person taking entheogens is a mush-melon who goes in to the experience trivially to 'get off' their 'pure thought' afterglow leads to far fetched conclusions. Take the same molecule and apply it to molecular biologist or highly trained Buddhist and truly remarkable work can be accomplised.
2) On an individual level, entheogens can be described as agents for allowing the subject a unique perspective temporarily removed from their primary and secondary socializations (as described in sociology), that is to say the scripts that define your personality are removed to a certain degree. This is often described as 'ego death.' This is also a primary goal of Buddhist and Taoist meditative ritual. Even a little taste of 'ego death' can inspire mountains of unencumbered thought.
This can manifest itself in realizations such as "Jesus why am I so weak about smoking cigarettes? Where does that come from? It's so clear now how to turn it off" or "There's absolutely no reason why a DNA template subset can't be exponentially amplified using heat-stable DNA polymerases.";)
Wow. My girlfriend and I have been out of the publishing industry for a couple of years. Glad to see that Quark has kept up thier high quality standards.
I still think back to the original announcement of InDesign and how positive I was that Quark would be extinct by this mid decade (was a college Mac lab tech at the time, easily 75% of student issues pertained to Quark. Man, 4.5 on OS 9, what a wonderful combination).
I miss my Pac Man sheets. I wonder if anyone sells retro ones in Queen size these days. Oh, never mind I share that bed with a female. Yes, I'm new here.
If they charge a "toll" for any traffic south of 86th, and EVERYONE pays it, how does that help the traffic?
The theory is, fewer people will mindlessly drive in to the city on a regular basis rather than park-n-ride, carpool etc. Even a 10% mitigation of traffic would be highly welcome in Manhattan.
I visited last September. I don't think most of those fees are purely commercialization, rather a country with very limited natural resources--ravaged by many decades of greedy dictatorships and horrendous social upheaval--taking advantage of an internationally renowned cultural treasure. The side effect of the relatively high capital investment it takes to visit limits the amount of people trampling over the terraces every year.
Aguascalientes is another story, I wish the train we caught from Ollantaytambo dropped us off at 4AM to directly catch the bus up so we could limit our exposure to that place.
every day i see at least one cyclist come this close to getting creamed on the street in front of my apartment in brooklyn. you couldn't pay me to commute on a bicycle in this town.
Just like any undertaking, you don't go in to it acting like an oblivious idiot, you never run in to trouble. Also, that's Brooklyn. More low income drivers. I frequently ride from LIC down to Flushing Ave to visit friends. High stress riding to be sure. Same reason I try to avoid the Bronx (though many areas of both boroughs are very pleasant to ride through).
I see it as a direct parallel to the smoking in bars ban.. Originally we were all "wtf bars are for smoking"...
Nowadays you go in to a bar, you notice "hey why isn't there a giant psychic gloom hanging over my head? Why do I not get that instantaneous cancer patient feeling?" (though i basically never go in bars so it's probably far more dramatic for me than most)
And naturally I'm biased towards the initiative being a hardcore cyclist, but I honestly and objectively see more good coming out of it than bad.
49th and 43rd Ave around the corner from Hugo's TaeKwonDo and that new gentrifying 8 story condo structure.
(really the 7 train which is my line has 1 train between 2am and 4am!!)
Oh pshaw! I've landed in Chinatown at 3 AM and had to take the 456 to the 7 to home more than once. Fail to recall sitting at Grand Central for an hour waiting for a train. Sure it was a wait, but not a "one train between the hours of 2 and 4" kinda wait. Methinks the fumes have started to invade the psyche.
Anyway you argue against cabs and against cars so I can't really agree with most of what you say. Yes I would like the city to be more bike friendly but penalizing drivers and cabs is not the right way to go about it.
Oh I'm not arguing against all automotive use in the city... Just mitigation thereof. And it seems we agree. I also don't see the So86th levy as a "penalization" against drivers any more than the $7.50 toll coming across most major inroutes.
My distinction was clear: livery cabs. There's a reason taxi cabs are painted bright yellow on these chaotic streets. There's zero reason why the same 3rd-world-trained drivers should be allowed to climb in a black Continental, drive just as poorly, and not be subjected to the same statutes. It's just nonsense to me. Perhaps I'm a more adventurous cyclist, but those things are my mortal enemy on the streets of Manhattan. (jaywalkers not really posing a mortal threat other than to themselves)
When you have to move furniture, or when you are traveling as a group and you don't all have bikes.
The levy will only be in effect during business hours, move the couch at night. It's a sensible plan that doesn't ream natives too hard imho
It was interesting, a few weeks back (being a regular bike commuter) having rented a car at LaGuardia to drive down South... Holland was the logical out-route. Foolishly waited until 3:30 PM to head out on a Friday.
Being an absolute hater of "box blockers" I would pause at every cross street until I had a definite spot across to fill in to. Drove people behind me in to absolute frothy mouthed rage. People in parallel lanes would wrecklessly veer in front of me to fill the space.
I'm reading this entire thread laughing my ass off at how out of touch most people are with the root of the situation that warranted Bloomberg's announcement of the initiative. "fill in government overhandedness manifestation that pisses me off the most" *sigh;D
- They say the subway is great. They are people that haven't really lived in NY for longer than 1 year.
That made me chuckle, very true. I live in Sunnyside LIC, come in to the city every day, don't drive... And yet somehow avoid the horrors of the rush hour subway experience... It's called a bicycle. This is a great city to be a cyclist! Aside from this one issue.. oh what was it...
- And NOW Bloomberg wants to charge us money to drive down below 86th St. He is creating a straw man problem -- there is NO PROBLEM with traffic in Manhattan!
OH! That's right! All the goddamned traffic congestion! "No problem" my highly-exercised ASS! I won't be happy until every freakin' livery cab goes up on craigslist because it's too damned expensive to chauffeur lazy prick New Yorkers around town (who hopefully won't stand for $50 to get from midtown to SoHo). Holy Mary Mother of GOD I wanted to kiss Bloomberg on the LIPS when he announced this new initiative!
Interesting how every issue has differing perspectives, eh? You may say "hey it's New York, it's supposed to be a honkfest gridlocked fumegarden!" but I guarantee that given 2 or 3 years of this new South-of-86th levy we'll start noticing positive change across the board... From cleaner air to more congenial sidewalks to cabbies not being so goddamn frantic.
they don't have the money to build it so they plan to make us charge for our own surveillance using the very technology it is paying for in the first place. this is getting carried away, people need to start waking up and start voting these people out of here.
Something tells me you're not a New York City bicycle commuter. Nor have you likely ever found yourself in the middle of an avenue downtown in the heat of Summer suddenly gasping for oxygen... a result of fumes from high vehicle congestion converting to ozone, rendering the atmosphere anaerobic.
Rather, you're just an armchair pundit whose knee jerked to attention when he saw "license plate surveillance" and rendered a true tinfoil-hat-worthy connect-the-dots behind this entire initiative.
And yet, even if your take on the issue has any accuracy whatsoever, people like me still won't have to worry. Only the sorry lazy-assed fools that think that driving a motor vehicle in Manhattan is necessary/viable. Might I add that said vehicles are already highly surveilled when crossing our bridges and tunnels.
We're referring to the statements made in the Apple commercial, which is along the lines of "PC's get them, but not Macs" which is pretty objective. And entirely true on its face. Parsing hairs, is it valid to state that Macs point-blank DON'T GET VIRUSES, when anything's truly a possibility, even with an entirely confidential architecture? That's a better line of argumentation than pulling out that tired old '5% goat' that doesn't give milk anymore.
In any event, the ads are allegory. Trying to pin down each little statement with GOTCHAs is truly the realm of the nerdly. Trying to stamp Accurate/Conjecture on 'truisms.'
Slashdot Mirror
I dreamed up a nanny-state monitoring system for NYC motorists: 15 seconds of free "for emergencies only" horn time per month, beyond that you start paying 50 cents a second. Sadly people would probably still willingly rack up $45/month in horn fees.
Take a note: New Yorkers who rely on trains and cabs shouldn't claim authority on "reality" either. Leave that to us New Yorkers who commute by bike 12 miles a day ;D
Here's an interesting thought: thousands of guys who learned to drive on the insane streets of Mumbai/Colombo/Nairobi now driving ultra-silent electric vehicles so I can't hear them screaming up behind me to cut me off when turning a right (without use of a directional signal, naturally.)
I say the sooner New Yorkers stop being over-priveleged babies that need to be chauffeured around, the happier we'll all be.
Excellent. I'm in the same boat, posting this from a Sawtooth 500 --> Dual 1.2Ghz, 1.5GB RAM. Kind of mind blowing to think our motherboards are downright paleolithic by computing standards and still chugging along like little champs. I myself opted out of 10.5 until I finally feel the final itch to get new iron. Guess that'll be once enough software stops supporting Tiger (and PowerPC). Flash video is the only real bummer on this 100mhz FSB (ugh not even 133mhz). I think the power supply's finally giving up. Whenever the CPUs get thread heavy you can actually hear the fans slow down a couple notches at this point.
Previous to this I owned a 1st Gen 601 60mhz upgraded to 266 (via PDS/NuBus slot) which itself lasted me 6 years of loyal service.
I'm 6'2" with a 36" inseam; cyclist who gets inanely violent leg cramps in constricted seating positions. And I'd probably get the shaft for being under the clause height.
Makes me want to bathe with human liposuction soap.
The fact that my class is 90% women who are going to constantly fawn over it is just puddin'
No, it's very evident you're coming from a flawed initial assumption: that there is no such thing as a worthwhile entheogenic experience. That somehow such experiences are outside the fabric of 'acceptable' or 'wholesome' human activity. That one must be "bored" to seek out alternative states of consciousness or perspective. You might think to meditate on exactly whose bias is speaking through you on the matter.
I agree, the actual 'trip' when freebasing, insufflating or smoking DMT (I've only freebased it, and once) is far too strong for immediate reflection. I also agree that setting can have a profound influence on the direction of the ride. I understand that ingesting it in an Ayahuasca or Pharmahuasca capacity brings about a longer more subtle trip that allows for in-process realizations. I now regret the decision to not travel to the Amazon region when visiting Peru last year as a result. I found a storefront in Cuzco that offered Huasca ceremonies but I simply knew that going to a tourist-oriented source was counter-intuitive. McEpiphany? Not likely.
A couple hours after my initial n,n DMT experience almost 2 months ago as I was riding my bicycle home I slowly pieced together the nature in which setting influences what will happen. Even though I was 'heading up' I somehow realized that my friend was hitting the pipe as well and it seemed to create a 'cold space' in the room that caused me to hold back and not fully release past the exciting seemingly 5-dimensional tesselations appearing before me. Sort of a vague "oh wait somebody has to stick around here in case of emergencies" sentiment. I decided that on my next attempt I would have my girlfriend laying laterally across my lap as I rub her back. I can't think of a more applicable 'safe zone' than that--my daily tactile ritual, something to keep me very happily and safely grounded to allow the previously elusive 'release.' People speak of "female energy" which always struck me as new-agey hokum. Nowadays I'm generally open to the effect of psychic presence, however it might be explained rationally and scientifically.
So contrasting the psychological impressions of a threshold "burn BRIGHT, not HOT" DMT experience, a profound experience I had 10 years back with mescaline (one in which a switch was euphamistically flipped that fomented my becoming an avid cyclist and generally more fit, healthy individual) against my youthful LSD experiences I personally don't see much of a correlation. I'm fully willing to grant that I likely never took enough LSD to reach higher echelons of experience coupled with the fact that I was treating the experiences trivially, and that only triviality could come out of them. I can't imagine Buddhist meditation would produce much worth if entered with a frivolous mindset either. LSD had me coming back for more, the other two experiences made me go "ah, here's something I need to hold at a safe distance, experience rarely, and try to make the most of every time through post-process reflection."
Just FYI, LSD is disassociative and carries the risk of negative psychological response you're worried about. DMT is the real deal, widely regarded as 'psychologically safe' and no reported lingering after effects (flashbacks). Negative responses to the experience generally stem from 'not being ready for the message' rather than pre-exsisting temporal neuroses/psychoses as with LSD. Essentially, if you're free minded--the type of person who can 'just enjoy' an amusement park ride without constantly feeling the pings of imminent danger--you'll respond well to DMT.
;)
That said, the reason I believe entheogens can foment scientific breakthroughs as discussed is attributable to two factors brought about by the process.
1) The manner in which these serotonin receptor 'confusers' suppress (or amplify, again LSD) our everyday neuroses. The immediate and lingering effects of 'clear headedness' allows for purer thought. Often, when the person taking entheogens is a mush-melon who goes in to the experience trivially to 'get off' their 'pure thought' afterglow leads to far fetched conclusions. Take the same molecule and apply it to molecular biologist or highly trained Buddhist and truly remarkable work can be accomplised.
2) On an individual level, entheogens can be described as agents for allowing the subject a unique perspective temporarily removed from their primary and secondary socializations (as described in sociology), that is to say the scripts that define your personality are removed to a certain degree. This is often described as 'ego death.' This is also a primary goal of Buddhist and Taoist meditative ritual. Even a little taste of 'ego death' can inspire mountains of unencumbered thought.
This can manifest itself in realizations such as "Jesus why am I so weak about smoking cigarettes? Where does that come from? It's so clear now how to turn it off" or "There's absolutely no reason why a DNA template subset can't be exponentially amplified using heat-stable DNA polymerases."
Wow. My girlfriend and I have been out of the publishing industry for a couple of years. Glad to see that Quark has kept up thier high quality standards.
I still think back to the original announcement of InDesign and how positive I was that Quark would be extinct by this mid decade (was a college Mac lab tech at the time, easily 75% of student issues pertained to Quark. Man, 4.5 on OS 9, what a wonderful combination).
I miss my Pac Man sheets. I wonder if anyone sells retro ones in Queen size these days.
Oh, never mind I share that bed with a female. Yes, I'm new here.
make that dark and *visible* not *real*... ugh
Any theories suggesting that dark energy 'clumps' in the same way dark and real matter 'clump' in our imperfect fabric of space?
Aguascalientes is another story, I wish the train we caught from Ollantaytambo dropped us off at 4AM to directly catch the bus up so we could limit our exposure to that place.
Nowadays you go in to a bar, you notice "hey why isn't there a giant psychic gloom hanging over my head? Why do I not get that instantaneous cancer patient feeling?" (though i basically never go in bars so it's probably far more dramatic for me than most)
And naturally I'm biased towards the initiative being a hardcore cyclist, but I honestly and objectively see more good coming out of it than bad.
49th and 43rd Ave around the corner from Hugo's TaeKwonDo and that new gentrifying 8 story condo structure.
My distinction was clear: livery cabs. There's a reason taxi cabs are painted bright yellow on these chaotic streets. There's zero reason why the same 3rd-world-trained drivers should be allowed to climb in a black Continental, drive just as poorly, and not be subjected to the same statutes. It's just nonsense to me. Perhaps I'm a more adventurous cyclist, but those things are my mortal enemy on the streets of Manhattan. (jaywalkers not really posing a mortal threat other than to themselves)
The levy will only be in effect during business hours, move the couch at night. It's a sensible plan that doesn't ream natives too hard imhoIt was interesting, a few weeks back (being a regular bike commuter) having rented a car at LaGuardia to drive down South... Holland was the logical out-route. Foolishly waited until 3:30 PM to head out on a Friday.
Being an absolute hater of "box blockers" I would pause at every cross street until I had a definite spot across to fill in to. Drove people behind me in to absolute frothy mouthed rage. People in parallel lanes would wrecklessly veer in front of me to fill the space.
I'm reading this entire thread laughing my ass off at how out of touch most people are with the root of the situation that warranted Bloomberg's announcement of the initiative. "fill in government overhandedness manifestation that pisses me off the most" *sigh ;D
Interesting how every issue has differing perspectives, eh? You may say "hey it's New York, it's supposed to be a honkfest gridlocked fumegarden!" but I guarantee that given 2 or 3 years of this new South-of-86th levy we'll start noticing positive change across the board... From cleaner air to more congenial sidewalks to cabbies not being so goddamn frantic.
Rather, you're just an armchair pundit whose knee jerked to attention when he saw "license plate surveillance" and rendered a true tinfoil-hat-worthy connect-the-dots behind this entire initiative.
And yet, even if your take on the issue has any accuracy whatsoever, people like me still won't have to worry. Only the sorry lazy-assed fools that think that driving a motor vehicle in Manhattan is necessary/viable. Might I add that said vehicles are already highly surveilled when crossing our bridges and tunnels.
In any event, the ads are allegory. Trying to pin down each little statement with GOTCHAs is truly the realm of the nerdly. Trying to stamp Accurate/Conjecture on 'truisms.'