April 2004 | Technoccult

Interesting collaborative game

April 30, 2004 / Klint Finley

I’m quite interested in the possibility of using games to get work done, and here’s a quite interesting application. Boing Boing explains:

The game throws up an image in a Java applet, then asks you and an anonymous “partner” elsewhere on the net to type in keywords until both of you have a word in common — IOW, until you and a stranger can agree on a good label for the picture. Presumably, this is being added to a metadata database for the purpose of cataloguing all the images on the net. Neat idea.

Colonel Condor

April 30, 2004 / Wu

Behold the world of Colonel Condor, where performance art, psionics, mind-control and all manner of deviancy meet by
uncle chuckie

I was going to reference Charles Cosimano in the Tesla post below, having first read about magnetic helmets in his writing, but after actually finding his website, I realized he needed a post all his own.

Tesla

April 30, 2004 / Wu

Someone, for some reason, wanted Tesla’s work suppressed…

At the top of the suspected conspirator list is Thomas Edison. Edison despised his former employee’s success with AC, and it is known that he set out on a campaign to smear Tesla’s name. He held demonstrations at which animals were lethally electrocuted with AC-powered devices, in a deceptive and inhumane effort to warn the public of the danger posed by Tesla and Westinghouse’s “unsafe” new electrical system. Edison also sat on the War Department advisory board that rejected Tesla’s proposals of the death ray and his radar-like device.

J. P. Morgan is also implicated in the anti-Tesla cover-up. Morgan counted on increasing his already monumental wealth by exploiting Tesla’s ideas, until he learned that Tesla was considering the free distribution of energy — a terrifying idea to any self-respecting capitalist. He ended his funding of Tesla’s experiments at once, and some think he used his considerable clout to ensure that no one else would bankroll Tesla’s threatening schemes[Source]

Tesla’s (web archived) life story: index, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6 (originally hosted at parascope.com)

There was a PBS documentary, and there’s some interesting (albeit derivative) information at viewzone.com on modern uses ov Tesla’s inventions and research, from radio transmitters to weather control to transcranial magnetic stimulation through electromagnetic fields (God Helmets – DIY)

(and that’s without mentioning Project Rainbow, the Montauk Project, or the whole Ong’s Hat mess)

Another do-it-yourself project: Building a Tesla Coil

personally, I think Tesla rocked

Synchronicity

April 29, 2004 / Michael

Synchronicity’s a word the seminal psychoanalyst Carl Jung coined to refer to a seemingly occult phenomenon he had noticed anecdotally: two apparently disconnected but at minimum thematically related events occurring more or less simultaneously, as if some more complex form of cause and effect was at work. You pick up the phone to call someone you haven’t spoken with in a long time and find them on the other end of the line calling them, that sort of thing. Jung chalked it up to a function of the collective unconscious, and for a long time in the ’70s, ‘synchronicity’ became a catch-phrase for both the self-help shrink crowd and the ‘magic is real’ crowd, and still pops up now and then, though the word’s almost never used as Jung meant it.

Full Story: Comic Book Resources: PERMANENT DAMAGE: Issue #137

(via Cabbages & Kings)

Processing: visual arts programming

April 29, 2004 / Klint Finley

Processing “programming language and environment built for the electronic arts and visual design communities. It was created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as an electronic sketchbook.” (via Bev Tang)

Experiences are the new status symbol

April 29, 2004 / Klint Finley

From a Trendcentral newsletter from earlier this month, posted here before I forget about it:

Experiences are the new status symbol and, for many, are becoming more important than products.

We?ve seen a shift from wanting ?things? to wanting ?experiences?. Products can break, go out of style, or can quickly feel obsolete due to the introduction of new and improved versions. The actions and emotions involved with a particular activity, and the stories and memories associated with it, are what people are searching for.

When asked if they had an extra $500 to spend, 75% of trendsetters and 55% of mainstream respondents said they would rather spend it on an experience than a product.

The Shaman of Alta

April 26, 2004 / Michael

Feeling a little historic.

“A criminal case was brought against a Sami shaman (noaidi ) called Quiwe Baarsen, working as a servant for Norwegians at Aaroya, in Altafjorden. From 1603 until 1607 he lived in Lappojavrre, at this time in the Swedish-Norwegian borderlands (Lapland). In 1608 he moved to Porsangerfjorden and after 1613 we can find him at Talvik and Lagnes in Altafjorden before settling down at Aaroya in the early 1620’s. He is one among twenty-six Sami accused of witchcraft in Finnmark (or Vardohus Len) in the 17th century.”

The 1627 Witch Trial Of Quiwe Baarsen

Tearing down Moscow

April 26, 2004 / Klint Finley

This is a series of articles examining the crisis facing Moscow’s historical buildings, the effects it is having on local communities, the activists fighting the changes and ideas from experts on how the design and planning of the city could be improved.

(via Things magazine)

Thookam Ritual

April 23, 2004 / Michael

Tension erupted at a Kerala temple Thursday when 13 of its office bearers were arrested in a bid to prevent a “barbaric” ritual that was to be revived after 17 years.”

“The ritual involves three people being lifted by a metal hook pierced through their back and hung from a scaffold. The men are brought down after three minutes.

The ritual is called “Thookam” and looks to be Hindu.

Full Story: Keralanext

Asatru

April 21, 2004 / Michael

Wes’ post on Icelandic magick got me thinking about other Scandanavian magick systems. The fastest growing (in practitioners) probably being that of Asatru.

I was once acquainted with an individual who belonged to this religion – he was in the process of writing a book on runes. He informed me about how he spent one day a week at various prisons in the area teaching Asatru. It seems that (and we all know that in prison you usually have to align yourself with one group or another) there are plenty of white inmates that don’t wish to align themselves with skinheads. Asatru – with its tough Nordic ancestry – has become the number one alternative.

Other links:
The Asatru Alliance
Religious Tolerance Info

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MonthApril 2004