MonthSeptember 2008

September Moon

“This New Moon happened on August 30, and it is the first Blue Moon of the year. A Blue Moon is when the Julian calendar and the 13 months of the Moon are in conflict.

8+3=11, which is the Strength card, take it out and set it down. Now remember that this moon covers the Julian month of September, so think 9+3=12 and take out the 12th card, The Hanged Man. Place it down, crossing the Strength card. And consider both the positives and negatives of The Hanged Man.

This is a Moon that you can not prepare for. Bluntly, expect some personal betrayals this moon. Batten down the hatches and try to ride it out.

Historically, The Hanged Man, who in years gone by was referred to as the ‘traitor’ who under this Blue Moon is influenced by Strength, is going to be a guest that we shall long remember.

While this view is short on words, it is not short on warnings. A tough month in many personal ways is ahead for us.

Step carefully, and tremble humbly, considering the unknowns of ‘betrayal’.

This New Moon was in Virgo, so throughout this month we can expect the judgementalness that is associated with this sign. Because this Moon creates the conflict between the natural cycle and the man made Julian calendar, we can expect this judgementalness to carry through each cycle for the rest of the year, diminishing slightly each New Moon until the natural cycle and Julian calendar are re-aligned.

The New Moon will be on 9-15, so take The Hermit (the 9th card) and The Magi (the 1st card), set them down and add 9+1+5=15: The Devil card. The Full Moon will be a Moon of lusts and temptations, as well as a somewhat playful time. It would be wise to recall the humility of The Hermit as well as the mystery of The Magi as the Moon is full.

Whilst the Moon waxes it will be the Justice card that rules, which instructs us to consider the pleasures of the solitary person who seeks truth in their surroundings. As the Moon wanes, it will be governed by The Magi, which leads us to accept the mysteries that surround us. Due to the fact it is a Blue Moon, be prepared for exposure to some of the sour side of the mysteries.”

Natalia Vladimirova Tikimirov

Klingon Beauty in Eye of Beholder

http://enterprisevidcaps2.netfirms.com/Judgment/female%20klingon%2011.jpg

“Kelly Sheckler is blond with a heart-shaped face and a warm smile. Five feet tall on a good day, she’s mother to three children, wife to Tom, employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, keeper of a tidy home in Lawrenceville. But when she crosses a stage at the downtown Sheraton Sunday, she will be something else altogether: KhaZelia VanGough — warrior, leader and Miss Klingon Empire 2008 hopeful.

Miss Klingon Empire is an annual pageant at DragonCon, the sci-fi/fantasy geek gathering that descends upon Atlanta every year to pay homage to Superman, Storm Troopers and Star Fleet, among others. To win Miss Klingon Empire, a contestant need not have the best costume or the prettiest (ugliest?) face. Simply, she must embody a Klingon, a fictitious alien race famous for its ridged forehead and brutal manner that debuted in the original ‘Star Trek’ TV series and has been a part of the ‘Trek’ franchise ever since.

Contestants don’t catfight — female sci-fi lovers tend to stick together — but they don’t play around, either. Thousands of audience members won’t let them. When a past contestant appeared on stage in a Hooters uniform, the audience was at first entertained but quickly dismissed her, judges recalled. Klingon women may be known for ample bosoms, but they’d never show them that way. And once the queen is awarded her crown, trophy, sash and flowers, judges name no first or second runner-up. In the Klingon world, there are only winners and losers.”

(via ajc.com)

(Related: “Klingon Like Me” via Techgnosis)

Build a Polar 3-D Printer from Legos

3dprintermadeoflegos

ave you ever dreamed of having one of those replicators from Star Trek? Ever wanted to make just about anything at the flip of a switch?

Well guess what? You’re in luck, because in this Instructable I will show you how to make the closest thing to a replicator that current technology can manage; a 3D printer.

Wait a minute, isn’t there another Instructable on how to make a 3D printer from Legos? Yep, there is, but this 3D printer is different; it’s a polar 3D printer and it’s capable of printing out so much more than just chocolate.

Now at this point in the intro you’re probably thinking what do I mean by polar 3D-printer. Is it a 3D-printer that only works in the in the polar regions?

A polar printer is a printer whose principal axes, or how it can move, are radius(in and out), angle(spin clockwise/counter clockwise), and as opposed to a Cartesian printer whose principal axes are X(left/right), Y(up/down). In other words, it moves just like a polar coordinate system.

So why did I make a polar 3D printer instead of a good ol’ Cartesian 3D printer?

1. I didn’t have enough Legos to build a Cartesian printer.
2. I hope to eventually add a 3D laser scanner to it so I can scan in objects and send them to another printer somewhere else in world. Making sort of a ‘teleporter’.

Full Story: Instructables

(via Bruce Sterling)

Finding balance through?skateboarding

Every time I ride a skateboard, I fall over. I slip out, wheel bite, hang up, over rotate, undershoot, overflip, or misstep in one way or another that sends me stumbling, sliding, or crashing to the ground. It’s not that I’m into pain or macho ideas of self-destruction – in fact quite the opposite. I like skateboarding because it is an ideal scenario for testing the limits of control, repeatedly walking a metaphorical tightrope between success and failure. Falling in skateboarding is not a sign of defeat, it is a sign that you are challenging yourself and learning and progressing. The continuous prospect of eating shit on a skateboard helps keep you humble and awake.

Skateboarding is an ongoing exercise in finding balance, using abstract motions to perpetuate the central principle of a perpendicular stance over moving ground. Courting the edge of frictional stability allows the radical insight and expression of the form. Skateboarding is an accessible state of liberation: the hands are free, the feet are not connected to anything, and the skateboard exists between the skater and the solid earth only by careful positioning in the cradle of gravity.

Full Story: Arthur Magazine

Fascism watch: Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than “fire code violations,” and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Full Story: Salon

(via Disinfo)

I know I’m late with this one, but I was away from the Internet for the long weekend and I’m still catching up.

xkcd on furries

xkcd furries

Link to full sized comic (with bonus mouse-over)

Kudos to XKCD. (I try to save my mockery and scorn for people who really deserve it)

Theocratic Sect Prays for Real Armageddon

Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous “supernatural healing revival” in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don’t bat an eye when he tells them he’s seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. “He was looking very Jewish,” Bentley notes.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read “Joel’s Army.” They’re evidence of Bentley’s generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that’s gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other “hyper-charismatic” preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel’s Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian “dominion” on non-believers. […]

Joel’s Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.

Dominionism’s original branch is Christian Reconstructionism, a grim, Calvinist call to theocracy that, as Reconstructionist writer Gary North describes, wants to “get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

Full Story: Alternet

(thanks Bill!)

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