The Testing Ground |
|
Archives
E-Mail: JohnnyTest or Tim X! AIM: JohnnyTest00 Remember to sign the Guest Book!
Daily Rounds *bwana* *chaotic christ* *delphi forums* *diepunyhumans* *internsthecomic* *laurennmccubbin.com* *lynch-walker scattershot* *mack white* *meme23* *newsmap* *the persistant illusion of reality* *starchy* *technorati profile* *tribe.net* *view from a broad* ~Reading List~Finished: This is the way the world ends Working on: The King in Yellow Condensed Chaos Sound Stuffs:
|
Friday, January 30
Yay Democracy! The Bush administration intensified its defense of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act yesterday, threatening to veto legislation in Congress that would scale back key provisions. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a letter to Senate leaders, said the changes proposed in the Security and Freedom Ensured Act would "undermine our ongoing campaign to detect and prevent catastrophic attacks." Ashcroft told reporters that President George W. Bush would veto the bill if it reached his desk. Thursday, January 29
Why does he keep putting all of this conspiracy stuff on his blog? Captain Joyce Reilly Joyce has proved that she has amazing contacts inside the military. Two weeks before the capture of Saddam, her sources told her that they were about to roll out their ace in the hole, now Joyce is getting intel that they will soon trot out bin laden. Intelligence Sources Confirm bin Laden is Dead (Originally published August 2002) Alex Jones, the radio talk show host based in Austin Texas, claims to have received inside intelligence that suggests Osama bin Laden is dead and will be publicly pronounced so by the Bush administration just before the next presidential election in November, 2004. Jones' credibility soared on September 11th after he predicted the previous July that the globalists would use bin Laden to attack lower Manhattan, New York, with reference to the World Trade Center, in order to advance their agenda to create a one world government and a police state. U.S. forces going after bin Laden Sources: Planned operation into Pakistan seeks to destroy al-Qaida U.S. forces are planning an offensive operation against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida in Pakistan, hoping to destroy the terror network and capture its notorious leader, the Chicago Tribune quotes military sources as saying. The report says U.S. Central Command is putting together a team of intelligence officers in Pakistan ahead of what is being referred to in internal Pentagon messages as the "spring offensive." Bin Laden in custody by Christmas THE US-led coalition in Afghanistan is confident of capturing al-Qaeda terror network chief Osama bin Laden, who has long eluded determined efforts to catch him, by the end of the year, a US military spokesman said today. Monday, January 26
Dear NYPD, Stop shooting unarmed people!! It's not nice and it scares all of us! Dear PBA President, Stop being a prick!! Saturday, January 24
MoveOn.org During this year's Super Bowl, you'll see ads sponsored by beer companies, tobacco companies, and the Bush White House. But you won't see the winning ad in MoveOn.org Voter Fund's Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest. CBS refuses to air it. This is not a partisan issue. It's critical that our media institutions be fair and open to all speakers. CBS is setting a dangerous precedent, and unless we speak up, the pattern may continue. Watch the ad and join the call for CBS to air ads which address issues of public importance today. Watch the Ad! Boycotting TV is fun! A recent Bad Signal E-mail from Warren Ellis warren ellis BAD SIGNAL If you think Britney Spears is sexy, you're a probable paedophile who masturbates over the imagined sound of Minnie Mouse having an orgasm. That is all. Return to your duties. -- W Thursday, January 22
DESTINO 
In 1946, Salvador Dali and Walt Disney planned a cartoon together. But the short subject Destino was left unfinished after Disney and its partner, RKO, decided it probably wouldn't make any money. But as David D'Arcy reports, Walt Disney regretted the decision. And Disney's nephew Roy Disney, who now heads the company's animation division, decided to revive the project. Wednesday, January 21
My Moral Compass 75% liberal, 25% conservative * You tend to hold progressive/liberal values, but are more traditional on some aspects. * When it comes to social morals, you feel that society's current laws need to be more liberal and flexibile across the board. * You believe that government is too conservative and would prefer it to change several of its political and practices. * You enjoy having novel experiences and seeing things in new ways. * You probably enjoy spending quiet time alone. * You tend to consider the feelings of others. * You probably remain calm, even in tense situations. Tuesday, January 20
The OQO ultra personal computer (uPC) is a fully-functional Windows XP PC small enough to fit in your pocket, yet powerful enough to replace your laptop. The OQO computer is the much-anticipated mobility solution for people who until now had to choose between the bulk and awkwardness of a laptop and the limited capability of a PDA. 
Sob...it's beautiful! Monday, January 19
Friday, January 16
Thursday, January 15
Wednesday, January 14
Dungeons and Dragons/Fantasy Roleplaying as a Shamanistic ritual "As [the dungeon master] describes your surroundings, try to picture them mentally," advises the manual, walking novices through a hypothetical labyrinthine dungeon. "Close your eyes and construct the walls of the maze around yourself. Imagine the hobgoblin as [the dungeon master] describes it whooping and gamboling down the corridor toward you. Now imagine how you would react in that situation and tell [the DM] what you are going to do." What had happened, in effect, was that the cloaking of the map had also hidden the player's token self, the game-piece, thereby compelling the player to put himself psychically in its place. As a result, D&D players weren't merely represented by their richly detailed characters -- they were identified with them, in a relationship so distinctively intimate that in time it came to be recognized as the definitive feature of both D&D and its scores of eventual imitators, which to this day are known generically as role-playing games. As apt as the name is, however, it doesn't do justice to the breadth of the innovation, for the same mechanics that made D&D's style of role-play so vivid also made D&D more than just a new kind of game. They made it, frankly, a whole new mode of representation -- an undomesticated crossbreed, combining the structured interactivity of the map game with the psychological density of literary fiction, yet eluding the ability of either medium to fully embody it. Indeed, the grab-bag of primitive media actually used in playing Dungeons and Dragons -- pencil and paper for making maps, dice for resolving combat situations and character details, and the spoken word for just about everything else -- tended to give the impression that the technology hadn't yet been invented that could single-handedly manage the unwieldy hybridity of the new form. - Julian Dibbell - "My Tiny Life: Crime And Passion In A Virtual World" Tuesday, January 13
The [true] world according to Phillip K. Dick VALIS (acronym of Vast Active Living Intelligence System from an American film): A perturbation in the reality field in which a spontaneous self-monitoring negentropic vortex is formed, tending progressively to subsume and incorporate its environment into arrangements of information. Characterized by quasi-consciousness, purpose, intelligence, growth and an armillary coherence. - Great Soviet Dictionary, Sixth Edition 1992 "We hypostasize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of information. This is the language we have lost the ability to read." With this Adamic code scrambled, both ourselves and the world as we know it are "occluded," cut off from the brimming "Matrix" of cosmic information. Instead, we are under the sway of the "Black Iron Prison." "We are not individuals. We are stations in the single mind" Space and Time are mere mechanisms of separation. Two realms there are, upper and lower. The upper, derived from hyperuniverse I or Yang, Form I or Parmenides, is sentient and volitional. The lower realm, or Yin, Form II of Parmenides, is mechanical, driven by blind, efficient cause, deterministic and without intelligence, since it emanates from a dead source. In ancient times it was termed "astral determinism." We are trapped, by and large, in the lower realm, but are through the sacraments, by means of the plasmate, extricated. Until astral determinism is broken, we are not even aware of it, so occluded are we. "The Empire never ended." Fusion:Anomaly Thursday, January 8
Fresh off the AP News Wire President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night. The president also wants to build a permanent space station on the moon. The initiatives are part of a broad, new commitment to manned space flight, three officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Any chance he'll be one of the Americans sent? Wednesday, January 7
Tuesday, January 6
Did we all have a nice Holiday? New Year? Welcome back! Bush Grabs New Power for FBI While the nation was distracted last month by images of Saddam Hussein's spider hole and dental exam, President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA Patriot Act. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 grants the FBI unprecedented power to obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge. Under the law, the FBI does not need to seek a court order to access such records, nor does it need to prove just cause. Rolling Stone Vidizine Issue #15 "Serious Issues" - K. D. Bryan shares his thoughts with us on the newly reissued "Use Ointment - The Best of the Fungal Issues" by Mariannar Trent I am sitting on a wicker chair, beside a calico kitty, in the middle of a tropical bungalow, across from a legend, below a thatched ceiling, over a river and through some smoke, as I stare openly at the infamously reclusive K.D. Bryan. My jaw hangs agape and a trickle of drool falls unnoticed as Bryan, now aged 67, prepares for the installation of a SubCue receiver. His famous intensity does not seem to have been dulled by age. His pupils still stare with the fevered passion seen on the album covers of the mid 00's, his hands seem as powerful as when they beat a man to death with drumsticks for booking the FI's on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, his eyebrow is raised in the same manner it was raised when his famous wedding photos with Gina Gershon were shot, his - "Are you just going to keep staring at me like that? 'Cause you're giving me the heebies." His voice sends tremors of excitment up and down my internal organs. I desperately wish for the days of his youth, when young reporters could use laptop computers to cover the obvious bulges in their pants or pocket protectors to hide their frenzied nipples. I am armed only with my excitement and can sense that we will get nowhere fast unless I get right down to business. I try to hide my aching desire through a sheen of haughty disdain. "This is your first time using SubCue? That surprises me, given your producer and manager status of newer music. How do you keep cutting edge with your clients, like The Hatefuck Trio?" K.D. merely sighs, muttering "I fucking hate reporters. Somebody get me another Banana Shooter." I am flush with anxiety and eroticism. Soon, the installation is complete and the living legend in front of me settles back deeply into a wall of pillows. "Let's get this fucking show on the road. Trivia about the hits on the ablum, quality of the transfer, blah fuckity blah. Right. C'mon. Here we go. Where's my fucking shooter?" Bryan's kimono-style Fiberwear nestles in tightly around his veiny torso and his eyes close. Soon, very soon, he shares the tidbits, comments and profane commands that you can only read here in RSI. First, please enjoy this comvid for delicious Supple, the drink that gives you firmer skin - now in muscat, ginger and milk flavors! The vibrations of the music begin, causing his head to vibrate slightly. The small Bryan smile, so recognizable from billboards and posters, comes into view. I fight to keep from molesting myself. His comments are as follows: "Shiny Like A Ninja's Heart!" from their debut album "No Time for A Title" "Mmmmm. Yeah. This is what put us on the map. At first, we were worried that it wouldn't get enough airplay because of that line about [performing oral sex] on the corpse of Emily Dickinson. But, heh, I remember Brian - good old Brian, he went to every major airplay market in the country and he - He had this voice changing machine he bought at a dollar store. What he did was, he called every radio station and said he'd blow it up if they didn't play the new single from the Fungal Issues. Ahhh, Brian. What a guy. I think Sarah showing up at that record executive's door naked with a riding crop probably helped a lot too. That and well, the music itself still makes me fucking proud as hell. Travis' wood block solo on this one? I STILL get chills just listening to it. We've had our differences but that, man? That was golden." "Nativity Sex" from their third hit album, "Infectious Fingernails" (Continue) |
