Jun. 6th, 2008 @ 06:42 am This is some high grade crazy
Why finding fossils on Mars would be bad for humanity. Short version? If there's proof of life on Mars, then it could evolve all over the place. If it evolved all over the place, then our search for ET intelligence should have turned up something by now...That it hasn't can only be down to two things (according to this out there opinion): 1) The rise of intelligence is rare so even if we're not exactly alone, intelligent life could be so scattered as to amount to the same thing; 2) There's some other thing that always crops up that keeps intelligent life from exploring space. Whatever it may be, it's stopped everyone else from exploring, and it'll stop us, too. If there's life on Mars we'll just never leave our solar system, y'all.

It's called "The Great Filter Theory", but personally I think it's got too many holes to filter effectively.

link via disinfo.com
About this Entry
What do you think?
Permanent Link
Jun. 6th, 2008 @ 08:38 am WWANTWANTWANT
Are you a big ol' fan of notebooks? I love notebooks, and particularly with illustrated covers. Which makes this link from Boing Boing particularly dangerous.








About this Entry
What do you think?
Permanent Link
Jun. 6th, 2008 @ 09:35 am It's an art day, appparently
Current Mood: enthralled
Tags: ,

This is some fucking amazingly gorgeous art.


About this Entry
What do you think?
Permanent Link
Jun. 6th, 2008 @ 01:17 pm I think Susan Blackmore is a little crazy
Tags: ,



One of the things I like best (for a given definition of 'like') is the concept - an old concept that comes in many guises - that we are neither responsible for, nor in control of, our actions. It's all down to 'genes' and 'memes', contaminants, pollutants and hormones.

Mind you - I ain't saying it's not true. WTF do I know? What I find amusing about that stance is that it renders itself irrelevant. Blackmore's talk about 'temes' possibly destroying us...how is it useful or relevant? If we are merely a battleground of parasites and viruses?

The other thing I find interesting about this talk, is that it is a perfect example of someone taking an interesting model and hypostatizing it. I think folks do the same with the Singularity, and apparently Warren Ellis agrees with me.
About this Entry
What do you think?
Permanent Link
Jun. 6th, 2008 @ 02:44 pm Missed...
This is a very funny page on the Fight Club/Calvin and Hobbes Connection. It's quite clever.

It misses one thing, though (possibly on purpose) - the reason for the non-naming of the narrator of Fight Club. Well, what I see as the reason...the (deliberate?) blurring of which one of them is "real". Tyler Durden, the psychopathic macho man? Or Tyler Durden, the man who infiltrates support groups for human contact? Which one was there first? Remember - Marla (Helena Bonham Carter's character) knows the narrator as Tyler Durden - meaning he'd been using that name for longer than he'd known the 'other' Tyler.

It's always amused me to think the 'rational/even-tempered' Tyler was the alternate personality...
About this Entry
What do you think?
Permanent Link