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Created by Erik Fleuter.
Sophie … Prom?
Amber spotted this scene this morning when she dropped me off for work. We were trying to figure out the backstory behind this one - Looks like someone is asking Sophine to the prom and maybe Sophie is responding to the affirmative? If it is Sophie, why did she only answer ‘YES!’ to a few of the fliers?
I hope it’s not a mirage - think I am finally out of the weeds.
The big project I have been working on the past few months is finally winding down and I feel like I will finally be able to get back to writing on this blog. I was really enjoying the last sprint I had and would like to delve deeper into more shamanic studies. On the other hand, here are a couple of videos that have put what I’ve been talking about into a new perspective:
I think that some of the issues raised in this video are important to keep in mind while continuing to investigate these things, but I am not going to use them as a deterrent for reading and trying out different techniques. I’ll report back on my findings.
Coyote Ugly
Amber started her Sunday morning perusing the local listings for estate sales in the area. I was still half asleep under the covers, but as soon as she began to read one of the the ads my interest was peaked:
“CB Radios, Hunting Equipment, Leather Chaps, Leather Whip … ”
That was enough to get me to shoot up and off the bed and I was so excited I started putting on Amber’s shoes FOR HER so we could get out the door faster. She continued:
“Cattle Prod, Coyote Urine …”
I screamed in pain & ecstasy - “WE NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW”.
It wasn’t until ‘Fondue Pot’ that she found her own motivation to leave, and soon we were bolting towards Ballard.
When we arrived at the house we were first struck by a small little video projector screen that the woman working the estate sale quoted at $5 bucks. I snatched it up right away.
One of the benefits of going to estate sales is that rush of getting to enter otherwise ‘forbidden’ places, digging through dresser drawers and artifacts of strangers. The story slowly unveiled of just why all these belongings were being given away: the property had been sold to an architect who wanted to fix it up. The former tenants had left everything behind. The second floor had at one time been squatted by raccoons. The inside of the house was falling apart and the walls were stained from thirty years of wear and tear. Theories went around the shoppers digging through the rubble - conjectures on whether ‘the daughter’ wanted ‘nothing to do’ with her parents place and the bad memories so she had left their belongings to the vultures.
It took a while, but I eventually found the coyote urine along with a bright orange button that said ‘Hunt Safely’. The current owners said they were glad it was going to a good home and we scored a whole slew of items for just ten dollars. Less to go to the dump, I suppose.
Just before I left, I found an old VHS camcorder in it’s original case and I pulled it out to see a tape inside. I ejected it and made it my final purchase before we left the property to revel in our good luck. Later in the afternoon as the sun set, I watched a home movie of the man I am calling ‘The Duke’ shoot his guns out in the desert with his buddies on my brand new projector screen.
Urban Shaman Action Network
Without any direct call to action, I’ve begun receiving periodic urban shaman sightings from friends. Here’s a new one:
I’m really enjoying how my friends are reacting to the idea of an ‘urban shaman’ - it seems to resonate with a lot of people, even if at just a surface level they just think it’s funny.
Also, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how fun it is to sort of play with creating an identity online and to have that bounce back and reflect on what you feel comfortable experimenting w/ in your day to day life. For instance, a small thing I’ve been doing is wear this piece of leather around my head - mostly for practicality of keeping my long hair out of my eyes, but also because it feels like part of a new identity. I can’t tell if I am just being a LARP’ER (Live Action Role Player) or if it has any sort of meaning to it at all?
Part of me is disappointed that I’m not teaching myself to do anything that is actually indicative of a shaman, but I try not to beat myself up too much about it and just take things as they come. If I need to just slowly ease into this that’s okay. You know, it’s sort of like that technique of someone just learning a new musical instrument only carrying around the mouthpiece for a few months. They can blowing into that little metal tube all they want, but it takes a long time of imagining and preparing until they actually start attempting to hold and play the trumpet.
I also received this from someone in my band today (who’s been pestering me about getting a new bass):
what better bass for an urban shaman?
haha
And here’s the bass he was suggesting:Tribal Bass
DO NOT TEMPT ME. I REPEAT. DO NOT TEMPT ME.
Turbo Encabulator : Mantra’s For Electrical Engineers
I want to memorize this and use it as a morning prayer.
In 1946 one of the earliest references to the turbo-encabulator appeared in Time on, April 15, 1946 by Bernard Salwen, a New York lawyer working in Washington, DC. Part of Salwen’s job was to review technical manuscripts. He was amused by the jargon and wrote the classic description of a non-existent turboencabulator.
The following quote is from the Time article. “General Electric”, “Chrysler” and “Rockwell Automation” use many of the same words.[1]
“Work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a machine that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such a machine is the ‘Turbo-Encabulator’.
“The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the pentametric fan. … The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible trem’e pipe to the differential girdlespring on the ‘up’ end of the grammeters.
“Forty-one manestically spaced grouting brushes were arranged to feed into the rotor slipstream a mixture of high S-value phenylhydrobenzamine and 5% reminative tetryliodohexamine. Both of these liquids have specific pericosities given by P = 2.5C.n^6-7 where n is the diathetical evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition and C is Cholmondeley’s annular grillage coefficient. Initially, n was measured with the aid of a metapolar refractive pilfrometer … but up to the present date nothing has been found to equal the transcendental hopper dadoscope. … Undoubtedly, the turbo-encabulator has now reached a very high level of technical development. It has been successfully used for operating nofer trunnions. In addition, whenever a barescent skor motion is required, it may be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocating dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.”
Today - the internet is abuzz with Omegle. Strangers meeting strangers.
I found a link to this new web service today called Omegle that hooks you up randomly with a stranger so you can have a conversation. That’s all there is to it!
I tried it out immediately and had a short polite talk about ‘being on the planet earth’ (which is one of my favorite conversation starters). But @jaredrules had an encounter with a ’stranger’ that blows mine outta the water.
ENJOY
You: Hello
Stranger: hi
You: How are you doing?
Stranger: what’s going on?
Stranger: i’m pretty good
Stranger: how about you?
You: Eh, I’m just killing time til I can figure out what to do with myself
Stranger: well this seems like an ok way to do that
You: yeah, could do a lot worse
Stranger: figure out what to do with yourself in what sense?
You: just for today
Stranger: you could go for a walk
You: Yeah, thats not a bad idea
Stranger: is it nice weather?
You: I did a lot of walking today though
You: no it’s raining
Stranger: ah
You: I don’t have a car
You: so I walk a lot
Stranger: anything good on tv?
Stranger: i don’t have a car either
Stranger: and i walk a lot as well
You: Don’t have TV currently :-)
Stranger: nice
Stranger: me neither
Stranger: are you me?
You: Whoa
You: That would blow my mind
Stranger: wouldn’t that be weird?
Stranger: totally
Stranger: our mind, i suppose
You: That’s a question I would ask!
Stranger: now you’re freaking me out
Stranger: what’s your favorite color?
You: Green, you?
Stranger: no way
You: you’re lying
Stranger: not at all
Stranger: i wish you could see how not lying i really am
You: Maybe you’re me from the future?
You: or the past?
Stranger: that would be cool
Stranger: but in that scenario, i would know what you should be doing with yourself right now
Stranger: unless i’m you from the past
You: oh right?
You: But I would remember this conversation…
Stranger: that’s true too
Stranger: unless, while you were walking,
Stranger: you hit your head and had amnesia
You: oooh
You: and I probably wouldn’t remember doing that
Stranger: exactly
You: man…
Stranger: i think that’s probably what happened
Stranger: to one of us
You: do you have hoverboards in your time?
Stranger: nope
You: damn, me neither
Stranger: unfortunately
Stranger: yeah things here are pretty boring
Stranger: no flying cars either
You: no jetpacks or anything!
Stranger: nope
You: whatta ripoff
Stranger: maybe you should be inventing those things
Stranger: instead of killing time here
Stranger: ever thought of that?
You: If I could invent a hoverboard, I already would have
Stranger: unless you were on the cusp of the invention, then hit your head and had amnesia
You: noooooo!
Stranger: i’m not saying it actually happened
Stranger: but it could have
You: and we’d never know
Stranger: so perhaps what you should do, is go for a walk
Stranger: like, where you would normally walk
Stranger: see if you have deja-vu
Stranger: and maybe jet packs and hoverboards will be forthcoming!
You: If I invented a hoverboard or a jetpack I would be my own hero
Stranger: and mine too
You: well you are me
Stranger: exactly
You: totally
Stranger: so that was a bit redundant
You: redundancy is good sometimes I feel
Stranger: in what context?
You: it reinforces knowledge
Stranger: sure
Stranger: learning by rote
You: I’m beginning to wonder if Omegle is actually a huge test in Artificial Inteligence
Stranger: and building muscle memory
Stranger: that could be
You: it just hooks people up to what they are told are “strangers”
Stranger: that’s true
Stranger: but i know i’m a real person
You: but it’s actually a super computer attempting human conversation
You: that’s what a computer would want me to think!
Stranger: it’s not doing too badly, i have to say
Stranger: it’s got me fooled
You: that’s how good you are!
Stranger: so what could you ask that would prove it wasn’t a computer on the other end?
Stranger: is there anything?
You: maybe ask a paradoxical question and see if you get “error: does not compute” as a response
You: like
Stranger: right
Stranger: well, i’m sorry if i haven’t helped you figure out what to do with yourself
Stranger: but i have helped you kill time
You: that is true
You: and I thank you for that
Stranger: so this you-robot is good for something
Stranger: and thank you!
Stranger: i’m going to go make supper and perhaps a walk afterwards, now that you’ve inspired me
You: I am totally gonna send this conversation to a friend of mine
Stranger: do it
You: Supper is such a good word
Stranger: even better is supper club
Stranger: i would say: don’t you agree? but I know you do
Stranger: because we are one
You: it’s true
You: alright, later Me
Stranger: later
Stranger: see you in another dimension
Message in a Bottle
Yesterday, Amber called me and said “Hey, what’s this song?” and then she held up a little electronic kids guitar up to phone and made it play one of the demo songs. Apparently, the little boy that she nanny’s is really into the song and wanted to know what it was called. I listened closely but it was hard to figure out all distorted through the phone mic. She played it again and I realized that it sounds vaguely like a ‘The Police’ song. I don’t really know anything about that band but somehow I could tell it was them. Then I picked out a lyric by singing along with the melody, yes: “Message in a bottle”.
Then later that night I was at a band meeting hanging out at someone’s house. The keyboard player in my band picked up the guitar and immediately started playing a tune. I said: “Wait a second! WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING”. And he said “Message in a Bottle”. I asked him if he played it a lot and he said “huh, you know, I haven’t played this song in a really long time.”
It’s kinda sick how much this idea excites me: GNU Radio
Tim just wrote me this:
i really want: a mobile transmitter that will allow me to make use of whatever communications systems & signals are nearby and will convert them to whatever weirdo channels i want them to be converted to and transmitted on. you know what i mean?
And as I was casually looking up the current state of software and radio integration, I came across this:
“Software radio is a revolution in radio design due to its ability to create radios that change on the fly, creating new choices for users. At the baseline, software radios can do pretty much anything a traditional radio can do. The exciting part is the flexibility that software provides you. Instead of a bunch of fixed function gadgets, in the next few years we’ll see a move to universal communication devices. Imagine a device that can morph into a cell phone and get you connectivity using GPRS, 802.11 Wi-Fi, 802.16 WiMax, a satellite hookup or the emerging standard of the day. You could determine your location using GPS, GLONASS or both.
Perhaps most exciting of all is the potential to build decentralized communication systems. If you look at today’s systems, the vast majority are infrastructure-based. Broadcast radio and TV provide a one-way channel, are tightly regulated and the content is controlled by a handful of organizations. Cell phones are a great convenience, but the features your phone supports are determined by the operator’s interests, not yours.
A centralized system limits the rate of innovation. We could take some lessons from the Internet and push the smarts out to the edges. Instead of cell phones being second-class citizens, usable only if infrastructure is in place and limited to the capabilities determined worthwhile by the operator, we could build smarter devices. These user-owned devices would generate the network. They’d create a mesh among themselves, negotiate for backhaul and be free to evolve new solutions, features and applications.”
