So I've set up a tongue-in-cheek cause on Facebook called Robot Rights!
It promotes securing rights for robot-kind due to their possible intelligence (artificial or not), but it's also attached to a real charity that aims to increase access for schoolchildren to the technological tools necessary to stay current and competitive in the information age. Its focus is "low-performing schools".
Whether you just want to go off on a lark, or give some money to help schools connect their children to the world, I urge you to visit that far-flung corner of the social networking giant.
Showing posts with label space-age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space-age. Show all posts
Robot Rights!
How to be a DataNinja
First, you could join my channel, #DataNinjas, on Jaiku. It's a start (you can use it with your cell phone), but if you don't have a lot of other resources going on the web, you will only be using a fraction of its resources.
My website's latest incarnation has about 90% of it's content hosted elsewhere. I use Flickr for my images, Youtube & Stickam for my video, iJigg for my music, Switchpod for my podcasts, Blogger for my words, del.icio.us for my links, and Tumblr brings it all together on my front page.
Jaiku also brings in many of your feeds from various sites and similar posts of the people you want to stay in contact with. This can show up on your phone if you just can't wait to get back to the office.
But these resources are about more than just being a social butterfly. Like I said, I'm using them to give me a leg up on my site. I am a little more advanced than the average user, but you don't have to be a digi.talking fool to take advantage of this stuff. Most of the sites spit out the html, javascript, etc. code for you to plant your original creations wherever you can find purchase.
This all means that you can have a totally lite set of pages that pull bits in from all over the web. So, if you thought you could never have your own site, be it a vanity page or a business showcase, you're pleasantly wrong. If you have a friend with space on a server or your company is friendly with a larger company with servers, you could ask to have a small folder on their server-space and not impact their bandwidth/storage in the least.
My website's latest incarnation has about 90% of it's content hosted elsewhere. I use Flickr for my images, Youtube & Stickam for my video, iJigg for my music, Switchpod for my podcasts, Blogger for my words, del.icio.us for my links, and Tumblr brings it all together on my front page.
Jaiku also brings in many of your feeds from various sites and similar posts of the people you want to stay in contact with. This can show up on your phone if you just can't wait to get back to the office.
But these resources are about more than just being a social butterfly. Like I said, I'm using them to give me a leg up on my site. I am a little more advanced than the average user, but you don't have to be a digi.talking fool to take advantage of this stuff. Most of the sites spit out the html, javascript, etc. code for you to plant your original creations wherever you can find purchase.
This all means that you can have a totally lite set of pages that pull bits in from all over the web. So, if you thought you could never have your own site, be it a vanity page or a business showcase, you're pleasantly wrong. If you have a friend with space on a server or your company is friendly with a larger company with servers, you could ask to have a small folder on their server-space and not impact their bandwidth/storage in the least.
Step into the 21st
Pardon the re-post from Green Anarchy (mine is the only post on that Google group, hmm), but it illustrates my photos with good back-story:
My mower took a crap on me today, the nasty, noisy, death-belching thing....so I'm spending money that I don't have to put my wallet where my mouth is. I ordered a battery-powered mower online called the Neuton (I'm not linking them to keep this from getting too salesy). It sucks that I have to go into hock to go green, but the thing only uses about 10cents worth of electricity/use and emits no 
fumes and little noise (I saw the informational vid). I live in the boondocks by loggers and knuckle-draggers, but if any of you out there are by a collective of green minded people, it might be a good idea to go in on a similar model together and share it.
Support companies that are making the gradual change to eco-friendly products. If you have to keep up with the Joneses, do it with a clean conscience...at least until the bamboo takes over (my latest, slow-going effort). "...Operating a gas mower for one hour will produce the same pollution as driving a car 1300 miles." -http://www.greengrasscutters.com/
As you may be able to tell by the tone, I was a little put-out about the cash outlay. However, I find it hard to describe how good I feel using this device. While it's light, it doesn't feel like a toy. It uses no lubrication or petroleum products. There is not choking stench filling my mouth and nostrils. I feel better about doing something I see as pointless, yet feel obliged to do for the community (and certain health factors). By the time it got "tired", so was I. It can mow higher, so I don't kill the grass by taking it down too far.
And it is quiet enough for me to hear my music without blowing-out my eardrums. For fun, here's my playlist:
- Little House I Used to Live In - Mothers of Invention
- How Am I Different - Amy Mann
- The Qa'im Deliberation - Secret Chiefs 3
- Goin' Down Slow - Howlin' Wolf
- Metal Machine Music, Part III - Lou Reed
- Lover I Don't Have to Love - Bright Eyes
- Walking Away - Sugar
- Take me for a Little While - Vanilla Fudge
- Eva's Warning - Snake Finger
- One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula - Dengue Fever
- Gratitude - Beastie Boys
- Point Blank - Pig Face
The grass was pretty high, too; couple week's growth. This thing is no wimp...I could go on and on. But, I'll leave you with a shot of how damn cute this thing is. Those are geckos (or chameleons or something) stamped into the plastic of the wheel.
Self E-grandizement
I was googling myself the other night (I know, a disgusting and egoistic practice) just to see what came up. I noticed that my images were being used by people from all over the world. That's excellent. It's why I put them up on flickr. Below are some screenshots and links to those sites:
Steve Perry Worship
There are 2 sites that link to my photo. It's the worst one I've ever taken, but I leave it up because it's so popular
Deutch Jugendkultur
These links and more can be found on my del.icio.us profile, something you may have noticed at the footer of my website under the tag Rev.Raikes.
A German site where they were apparently talking about German hip-hop (I can still read it a bit from my HS days)
French Spoof
Someone used a photo I took of a very colorful Fall bush and used it as one of several pictures of sea coral. I can't fault them, as I titled the image coral because it resembled the organism...
What do Clowns have to do with it?
I still can't figure it out; nice they used my image though. I Like this image. It was taken at a neat deli between Chinatown and Little Tokyo
Love For the Nihon Lady
This blog has used a couple of my photos; very pretty photos throughout.
These links and more can be found on my del.icio.us profile, something you may have noticed at the footer of my website under the tag Rev.Raikes.
Cyberpunk
Watch this amazing commentary on social evolution by Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Michael Wesch, then read on:
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
As I was checking my gmail to find the link to this vid that a colleague sent me, I noticed that the ad-pane on the side had referenced the content of the email to assist me in my shopping/research needs. Neither is this the first time that I have noticed this phenomenon, nor is it scary to me that my personal info is being used in this manner; especially after viewing material as moving as the above.
When I was a teen reading William Gibson novels (creator of the term cyberspace) I used to dream about a time when humans could mesh with technology and any sensory/communicative treasure was a mere thought away. While we are a long way off from realizing VR or having cables sticking out of our skulls, we are being conditioned and conditioning the neural-net for symbiosis.
This thing that pretends to be a toy does so in order to trick humans into playing with it, to addict. When we play we shine. We can plug into the muse, or whatever one may call that collective id.
The human mass organism is subconsciously conspiring to get back that extra-sensory ability that we may have had eons ago, and this is the tool. The web is more than a series of wires and nodes. It is a different face for the timeless ether the Stygian witches tapped, a crystal ball, a meditation on the beauty of our ugliness.
We are as great & horrible, caring & efficiently cold and wildly astounding as the universe that spawned us. Look into the shimmering void and see yourself.
in honor of this post, anyone that asks me for a gmail account will be given one while they last. i am not a shill, i just have tons of them to give away.
just leave me a comment on this or any future posts.
A Quest Called Tribe
Just dropping names today:
I have been reading a book that a couple of my friends gave me as a gift because they believe in me. It's a really nice feeling. They care about what happens to me and wish me the best.
Even though I have been dragging my feet on reading this book (which everybody has been suggesting) because I try to steer clear of self-help books, I have made it through half of the book already (no mean feet for me). My thoughts on self-help books were echoed in School for Scoundrels, "You can't help yourself, because your self sucks!"
"End the suspense," say you. The book is called What Color is Your Parachute. I'm not here to sell you this book. You haven't walked into an Amway meeting. I don't care if you ever read it. Whatever it takes you to get to a place where your life is as close to your expectations as you can get it, that's what you need. I can't tell you how to get there. I can only tell you what paths I have taken (of which there are many to enlightenment).
Some of the things suggested in this book, I have already done by instinct. Some I have done by necessity, whether it be for my mental, physical or emotional survival. One of the latest things I have done is join Tribe.net.
If you are already a member, get ahold of me there. I need to meet people. That's why the book suggested the site, for networking. I'm already addicted to networking sites, but this one seems less clogged with jerkoids & malchicks (like myspace, which I won't even link-to here). Or, If you are in need of a personal web page, but have no clue, they do a pretty nice job of setting you up with one.
That's it, I just wanted to give a shout-out and lay my digits on ya. On that face, I'm trying to keep my PMA and focus on the positive possibilities of meeting creative types that want to make things happen.
I have been reading a book that a couple of my friends gave me as a gift because they believe in me. It's a really nice feeling. They care about what happens to me and wish me the best.
Even though I have been dragging my feet on reading this book (which everybody has been suggesting) because I try to steer clear of self-help books, I have made it through half of the book already (no mean feet for me). My thoughts on self-help books were echoed in School for Scoundrels, "You can't help yourself, because your self sucks!"
"End the suspense," say you. The book is called What Color is Your Parachute. I'm not here to sell you this book. You haven't walked into an Amway meeting. I don't care if you ever read it. Whatever it takes you to get to a place where your life is as close to your expectations as you can get it, that's what you need. I can't tell you how to get there. I can only tell you what paths I have taken (of which there are many to enlightenment).
Some of the things suggested in this book, I have already done by instinct. Some I have done by necessity, whether it be for my mental, physical or emotional survival. One of the latest things I have done is join Tribe.net.
If you are already a member, get ahold of me there. I need to meet people. That's why the book suggested the site, for networking. I'm already addicted to networking sites, but this one seems less clogged with jerkoids & malchicks (like myspace, which I won't even link-to here). Or, If you are in need of a personal web page, but have no clue, they do a pretty nice job of setting you up with one.
That's it, I just wanted to give a shout-out and lay my digits on ya. On that face, I'm trying to keep my PMA and focus on the positive possibilities of meeting creative types that want to make things happen.
New Face
My site has a new look and functionality. If you are already there (it's entirely possible, the world is a strange place) clicking the link at the head of the paragraph will appear to do nothing.
Let me back up a sec. I have inserted code that will auto-"magically" pull the RSS feeds from my Blogger and flickr accounts into the main page of my personal website, basically a portal to my web presence. In lay terms this means that the most recent posts of thoughts or photos will appear on my site.
This allows me to lighten my work-load while keeping my site fresh with the content people may not be seeing if they couldn't figure out my previous offering. Plus the new CSS (that's the stuff that makes the colors and things line-up the way they do) design is a far-cry slicker than the earlier one. If you think it stinks, please tell me. After all, you are the one I made this for.
Depending on where you are seeing this post you can:
Thanks for your support!
Let me back up a sec. I have inserted code that will auto-"magically" pull the RSS feeds from my Blogger and flickr accounts into the main page of my personal website, basically a portal to my web presence. In lay terms this means that the most recent posts of thoughts or photos will appear on my site.
This allows me to lighten my work-load while keeping my site fresh with the content people may not be seeing if they couldn't figure out my previous offering. Plus the new CSS (that's the stuff that makes the colors and things line-up the way they do) design is a far-cry slicker than the earlier one. If you think it stinks, please tell me. After all, you are the one I made this for.
Depending on where you are seeing this post you can:
- On my site - click the "talk to me" link upper right
- At the blog - leave a comment
Thanks for your support!
Nazi UFO's
Finally, I'm gettin' to it (like I promised). I left you with something like: "Part of [Tesla's] theory as I understand it was that we could harness the electromagnetic energy of the earth to do all sorts of things..."
...things like Flying! Watch this--> And the interviewer has a British accent, so you can't doubt the veracity (fnord).
Whether the footage above was created using wires & special f/x or not (although I believe this was a segment on the Discovery Channel), it illustrates the concept and possibility. The idea is that aerial locomotion can be obtained without the use of combustion. In the end of the segment the voice-over mentions the German program (during the 2nd World War) to attain these ends.
The Great War ended in 1945. As I noted in an earlier post, many of the scientists in Germany were secreted to the US & USSR. In 1947, the famous Roswell incident took place in which materials that looked similar to the item in the video above were reported to have been found. This is why conspiracists (such a dirty, dismissive label) refer to the phenomena as Nazi in nature.
In my mind, believing in UFO's and aliens is not the same thing. Extraterrestrials very well may exist, but I think the existence of stolen, obscured and advanced technologies is higher on the probability scale.
As an aside, quite a bit of UFO activity in the country formerly known as prince- er, USSR -has taken place over the years. Their own paper speaks of such an event in the magically numbered year of 1947. If this was a manmade device, the Russians seem a little more adventurous in seeing how their military would handle such an instrument.
Now I know that other countries boast UFO sightings (a lot in Mexico Lately), but not everybody is a Super-power (not even a former one). And, not everybody got their very own toy Nazi scientist for x-mas after the war.
To the subject of using the Earth's own electromagnetivity to power these, and our terrestrial, devices, it is not so much turning the Van Alan Belt into a cosmic wall-socket, but manipulating present electromagnetic waves into complex paterns in a field around the object or vehicle that one wants to fly. The concept is based on Townsend T. Brown's 1923 experiments with electricity's direct effect on gravity.
From what I've read, the solid science is there, but the industrial-politcal will is not. That is to say, for the masses to use for their own benefit (in opposition to the benefit of a few).
Coverage
A writer for NowPublic.com, a user contributed news site, asked to use some of my photos from the Sunset Junction Street Fair (L.A., CA 8/26/06) that I posted on flickr.com.
I am quite pleased that independent news still has a few gasps left in it and that the internet community is taking shape the way it has recently. Of course everybody is still concerned with money and property rights, but the channels and outlets for shared information have grown by leaps and bounds.
We can now see virtually any music video/tv clip we ever wanted, actively instead of passively. People are networking through places like flickr, blogs and NowPublic to create dynamic, entertaining coverage without a corporate agenda. Let's just hope congress doesn't mess it all up...but I'm wagering that that is just a smokescreen for something more devious in the wings.
I had to sign-up in order to allow my images to be shared, so I may get back into the newsie biz if I have anything worthy of print (I used to write under this moniker for a free indie paper, now defunct).
I am quite pleased that independent news still has a few gasps left in it and that the internet community is taking shape the way it has recently. Of course everybody is still concerned with money and property rights, but the channels and outlets for shared information have grown by leaps and bounds.
We can now see virtually any music video/tv clip we ever wanted, actively instead of passively. People are networking through places like flickr, blogs and NowPublic to create dynamic, entertaining coverage without a corporate agenda. Let's just hope congress doesn't mess it all up...but I'm wagering that that is just a smokescreen for something more devious in the wings.
I had to sign-up in order to allow my images to be shared, so I may get back into the newsie biz if I have anything worthy of print (I used to write under this moniker for a free indie paper, now defunct).
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