9 out of 10 monkeys believe they are not behind glass

From here:

Guys, it’s time for

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day

You must spend the entire day in costume and character. The only rule is that you cannot actually tell anyone that you are a time traveler. Other than that, anything’s game.

There are three possible options:

1) Utopian/cliché Future – “If the Future did a documentary of the last fifty years, this is how badly the reenactors would dress.” Think Star Trek: TNG or the Time Travelers from Hob. Ever see how the society in Futurama sees the 20th century? Run with it. Your job is to dress with moderately anachronistic clothing and speak in slang from varying decades. Here are some good starters:

- Greet people by referring to things that don’t yet exist or haven’t existed for a long time. Example: “Have you penetrated the atmosphere lately?” “What spectrum will today’s broadcast be in?” and “Your king must be a kindly soul!”

- Show extreme ignorance in operating regular technology. Pay phones should be a complete mystery (try placing the receiver in odd places). Chuckle knowingly at cell phones.

2) Dystopian Future – This one offers a little more flexibility. It can be any kind of future from Terminator to Freejack. The important thing to remember is dress like a crazy person with armor. Black spray painted football pads, high tech visors, torn up trenchcoats and maybe even some dirt here or there. Remember, dystopian future travelers are very startled that they’ve gone back in time. Some starters:

- If you go the “prisoner who’s escaped the future” try shaving your head and putting a barcode on the back of your neck. Then stagger around and stare at the sky, as if you’ve never seen it before.

- Walk up to random people and say “WHAT YEAR IS THIS?” and when they tell you, get quiet and then say “Then there’s still time!” and run off.

- Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, and yell “NOOOOOOOOO”

- Stare at newspaper headlines and look astonished.

- Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to some stranger, along with a phone number and say “In thirty years dial this number. You’ll know what to do after that.” Then slip away.

2) The Past – This one is more for beginners. Basically dress in period clothing (preferably Victorian era) and stagger around amazed at everything. Since the culture’s set in place already, you have more of a template to work off of. Some pointers:

- Airplanes are terrifying. Also, carry on conversations with televisions for a while.

- Discover and become obsessed with one trivial aspect of technology, like automatic grocery doors. Stay there for hours playing with it.

- Be generally terrified of people who are dressed immodestly compared to your era. Tattoos and shorts on women are especially scary.

And that’s it. Remember, the only real rule is staying in character and try to fit in. Never directly admit you’re a time traveler, and make really, really bad attempts at keeping a low profile. Naturally, the dystopian future has a little more leeway. And for the record, I’ve already tried out all of these in real life, in costume. It is so much fun you want to pee yourself.

I’ve set the tentative date for December 8th. Who’s in?

From here:

It’s a “kinetic work of art”, but the moves are surprisingly realistic, as you can see in the video clip from Matt below.

I think that as human beings, we are constantly and continually searching for the fantastic around us. Because we all ask ourselves, “Is this all there is?”

Some of us adore science fiction. Others look for the fantastic in religion. Others look for the fantastic by developing wild conspiracy theories.

My opinion is that there is actually nothing fantastic on this world. Occam’s Razor applies to pretty much everything.

So in that sense, conspiracies are bunk, the government really is that bad, and the outcomes we read in the news really are nothing more than a culmination of horribly inefficient human systems, random outcomes of random events, and all sorts of chaos. In fact the Chaos Theory best explains pretty much everything that makes us scratch our collective heads when we ask what is wrong with humanity. Why can’t we get simple things, like treating other human beings, right? Why is it, that throughout human history, humans are the one resource that is completely disregarded and considered disposable because of race or gender or belief? When human beings are the only species on this planet that can realize it?

The War in Iraq is great example of the Chaos Theory at work. Occam’s Razor is pretty easy to apply to all the circumstances and outcomes. Yet people think there is a huge conspiracy about terrorism and 9/11 and the War of Interests (otherwise known as the War in Iraq).

WTF?

I mean seriously, humans really are this stupid when they are a part of a greater population. People are smart, but systems made of people are horribly stupid. Human systems cannot have rational outcomes unless something completely profound occurs. Logic breaks down and new subverting systems take root and perverse outcomes. Human nature subverts the system, regardless of the quality of design.

But I am getting off my original thought. We keep thinking that there is something to explain it all, something supernatural, something greater than the human systems we create and try, try again. When in reality, there just isn’t anything, but what surrounds us and we in turn, take for granted.

We end up looking in the wrong places for it.

My baby girl is great reminder of what is important. She is something fantastic, something that I won’t take for granted. A great reminder that completely ordinary things can be of such huge significance in such a screwed up world.

And for some reason that fact alone fills me with hope about this world. I don’t know why.

I can credit Madeleine L’Engle with giving me the desire and passion to seek out and understand higher level math. When I first read A Wrinkle In Time, I was fascinated by the implications of relationships in space/time and higher dimensions. Probably more so than the author intended, but nonetheless, my mind felt opened to the great potential of dimensionality in our small limited frame of 3D constraints. I felt awakened by it… and for a ten year old – that is huge.

Thanks to her, I am forever devoted to anything that deals with multiple worlds, time travel, and other dimensions. My own writing always follows my passion for such things.

And thanks to her, I know what a tesseract is. And thanks to Carl Sagan, you can too.

Creative things said in recent bike rides into the office between my illustrious partner in commuting crime and I:

• I have christened my seat with a new name. The ass mangler.
• My seat is called the sodomizer 2000.
• Have you seen that south park with Mr. Garrison’s IT?
• My bike seat is writing checks that my ass can’t cash.
• After this, I am going to need a tractor seat.
• I think I am going to upgrade my seat to just a pole, that actually may be more comfortable.
• I feel like an overused ten dollar ho. I need a liberal application of aloe vera.
• Perhaps rubbing my ass against a belt sander would feel better.
• Did anyone catch the plate number of the truck that just drove up my ass?
• There is only so much abuse a human butt can take. Seats are designed by sadomasochists.
• And if I ever meet the sick bastard that designed my seat, I am going to beat him with it. Although he would probably enjoy it.
• Perhaps riding without a seat would be easier.
• Some things are just plain easier when you just stand up on your pedals.
• Deep knee bends on a bike seat are never fun, no matter how much the porn guys are paying you.
• Have you seen my bike seat? I think it has fused into my ass cheeks.