Citing unsafe practices and potential toxic contamination, the Environmental Protection Agency shut down a small ghost- entrapment operation in downtown Manhattan today, and had four of the business’ spectral-containment specialists arrested in the process.
According to EPA agent Walter Peck, employees of the company-located in an old fire station in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York-had repeatedly refused to grant him access to their storage facility, which posed a health hazard to the surrounding community.
MonthSeptember 2008
Amazing true story of survival and the strength of the human will. Two mountaineers, Simon Yates and Joe Simpson climb the Suila Grande in Peru. They reach the summit, and on the descent (where about 80% of all fatalities happen) Joe breaks his leg. Simon attempts to help him down the mountain when Joe is left hanging over an icy cliff by a rope with no ability to climb it. Simon realizes that if doesn’t cut the rope they both will die, and he cuts the rope. Joe falls into a crevice, and is given up for dead. The story then focuses on Joe’s journey, injured and alone, but determined to make it back to base camp alive. With the mountain as a metaphor for life and death, this movie is an inspirational testament for the indomitableness of the human body and spirit.
The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian. Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some scientists predict the end of lying as we know it.
Now, well before any consensus on the technology’s readiness, India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.
(via Disinfo)
The usual shit talking about Hollywood plus an update on his current projects, including:
There’s also a huge sort of reference book of magic that he is toiling on with contributions from notable artists and writing peers. It delves into Kabbalah, astral projection, seance, tarot, practical applications of magic and deep research into the origins of magic history, such as the true beginnings of the Faust tales. Talking about the book, the skeptical shaman of comics sounded positively giddy, especially for a parchment wizard trapped in a crass digital age.
“Magic is a state of mind. It is often portrayed as very black and gothic and that is because certain practitioners played that up for a sense of power and prestige. That is a disservice. Magic is very colorful. Of this, I am sure.”
(via Tomorrow Museum)
Soldiers barking orders at each other is so 20th Century. That’s why the U.S. Army has just awarded a $4 million contract to begin developing “thought helmets” that would harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops. Ultimately, the Army hopes the project will “lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone.”
If this sounds insane, it would have been as recently as a few years ago. But improvements in computing power and a better understanding of how the brain works have scientists busy hunting for the distinctive neural fingerprints that flash through a brain when a person is talking to himself. The Army’s initial goal is to capture those brain waves with incredibly sophisticated software that then translates the waves into audible radio messages for other troops in the field. “It’d be radio without a microphone, ” says Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program. “Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that way.”
Kevin Kelly follows up his comments in the Plenty Magazine oral history of the Whole Earth Catalog:
As I read the dense, long reviews and letters explaining the merits of this or that tool, it all seemed comfortably familiar. Then I realized why. These missives in the Catalog were blog postings. Except rather than being published individually on home pages, they were handwritten and mailed into the merry band of Whole Earth editors who would typeset them with almost no editing (just the binary editing of print or not-print) and quickly “post” them on cheap newsprint to the millions of readers who tuned in to the Catalog’s publishing stream. No topic was too esoteric, no degree of enthusiasm too ardent, no amateur expertise too uncertified to be included. The opportunity of the catalog’s 400 pages of how-to-do it information attracted not only millions of readers but thousands of Makers of the world, the proto-alpha geeks, the true fans, the nerds, the DIYers, the avid know-it-alls, and the tens of thousands wannabe bloggers who had no where else to inform the world of their passions and knowledge. So they wrote Whole Earth in that intense conversational style, looking the reader right in the eye and holding nothing back: “Here’s the straight dope, kid.” New York was not publishing this stuff. The Catalog editors (like myself) would sort through this surplus of enthusiasm, try to index it, and make it useful without the benefit of hyperlinks or tags. Using analog personal publishing technology as close to the instant power of InDesign and html as one could get in the 1970s and 80s (IBM Selectric, Polaroids, Lettraset) we slapped the postings down on the wide screens of newsprint, and hit the publish button.
People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button social issues, according to unusual new research being published today.
The finding — certain to stir debate in the middle of a presidential campaign — suggests that people who are particularly sensitive to signals of visual and auditory threats also tend to adopt a more defensive stance on political issues, from immigration and gun control to defense spending and patriotism. People who are less sensitive to potential threats, by contrast, seem predisposed to adopt more liberal positions on those issues.
(Thanks Bill!)
For five happy years they enjoyed simple lives in their straw and mud huts.
Generating their own power and growing their own food, they strived for self-sufficiency and thrived in homes that looked more suited to the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings.
Then a survey plane chanced upon the ‘lost tribe’… and they were plunged into a decade-long battle with officialdom. […]
With green issues now getting a more sympathetic hearing, the commune has been given planning approval for its roundhouses along with lavatories, agricultural buildings and workshops.
(via Cryptogon)
A new Psychic TV album will be released October 20th. They will also be performing live in NYC November 9th.
Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted on the internet Wednesday.
The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.
Looks like WikiLeaks is down right now so I don’t know what the messages say, I’m guessing nothing shocking or THAT would be the story.
Update: WikiLeaks is working now, and Gawker is also mirroring the content
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