Teaching English in my sleep -- to the Korean occupation forces

I dreamed that Korea invaded. They just sort of massed in the hills and mountains overlooking the city (the dream place looked a little like Kyoto) and then filed in. The young soldiers were polite and seemed a little sheepish, so you almost felt a little sorry for them. Since the occupation was non-violent, there was no violent resistance, either, but there were some arguments along the lines of "Hey! Whaddaya think you're doing? This is stupid!" Young women were deployed too as soldier/spokespersons for the occupiers. For some reason they had decided to use English rather than Korean or Japanese as the occupation language. I became busy talking with the Korean spokeswomen over how the meaning of various edicts changed when there was no article as opposed to the definite or indefinite article.

Post-human invader

Octopus Walks on Land at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjQr3lRACPI

We come in peace. To occupy your land.

Colonel Khaddafi's Jamahiriya

During the inspiring Egyptian uprising to overthrow Hosni Mubarak, I thought the best solution would be to offer Hosni a seat on the last space shuttle flight. The last minute training would surely draw him away from his duties as the president of Egypt as well as appeal to his ego. As far as I know, this is what happened. We don't really know what they told him, come this way sir, the palace is on fire, we must evacuate. How is your dinner this evening, sir. Are you feeling drowsy? I doubt that he actually resigned, based on what we know of his personality, but when Suleiman announced that the president had resigned, everyone seemed to take it as fact except me.

Offering a trip to space is not an option with Brother-Leader Colonel Murmeror Khaddaffi. It's too late and nobody would ever be able to pretend to want to go to space with him. Apparently, according to Murmeror Gadafi, everyone in Libya is on Israeli psychedelics. What a long strange trip it's been.

WTF Breakout?

Marc Maron's WTF popped up as a number 7 of the top 10 funny things(?) of the year in Rolling Stone and is the subject of an article in The New York Times. This is in addition to the minor appearances in other places such as Jewcy and Re:Comedy. The slideshow at the NYT has a few new pictures, too. I knew WTF was getting more listeners, but I'm a little surprised to hear Brendan McDonald say 200,000. It still feels like there are 200 or 2,000 of us listening.

Post-human Cyber-remains

The New York Times has a lengthy and interesting article by Rob Walker discussing digital immortality (or whatever you want to call it). Much of the article revolves around the late Mac Tonnies and his Posthuman Blues blog. Maybe you should download the article to your computer; you never know when The New York Times will suddenly disappear completely. The article include links to tribute sites Mac-Bots and Post-Mac Blues. According to one item in the article, the possibility of a real Mac-Bot is getting closer:

Something called Lifenaut.com has a product called a MindFile, “a database of personal reflections captured in video, image, audio and documents about yourself that can be saved, searched, downloaded and shared with friends.” This information is meant to be filtered through an “interactive avatar,” modeled on you, “that becomes more intelligent as you add more information.” The site welcomes you with a sweeping, ominous tone; the company’s tag line is “Eternalize.” VirtualEternity.com, from a company called Intellitar, also claims to convert the personal data you provide into an avatar — sort of like one of those chatbots that some online companies use for automated but more humanish customer service. “We want to give users the gift of immortality,” an Intellitar founder has said.

The Chaos

The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité - (1922)

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
But it is not hard to tell
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you're not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess-it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!


Sources:
http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php

(or, an earlier unattributed publication of the poem accompanied with the Cut Spelling alternate orthography)
http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/journals/j3/chaos.php

http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/vangogh/555/Spell/chaos.html

Kujira Katsu くじらカツ

Kujira Katsu くじらカツ, or Whale Cutlets, in the cafeteria of a university where I teach. You can see the dark beefiness of the meat compared to the lighter-colored chicken cutlets on the left. The price is right. Add a ¥31 bowl of negi-tofu miso-shiru and a bowl of rice for ¥100 and you're set for under ¥400. I wouldn't order it but I have tasted whale before.

Octoracle

The lyrics as well as I can make out:

Paul the Octopus
by Aiden Ajar

I'm just a cephalopod
I'm only 2 years old
oh--but I'm the 8 legged oracle
or so I'm told

oh wonderful octopus
you're the great prophet of our time
we need a leader to reveal us truth
if I feed you mussels will you please be mine?

all attention will be on your tank
we'll base our lives on the way you behave
be our master, be our saviour
most of all be our slave

I'm just a cephalopod
I've never even seen a tv
oh you think that I control your destiny
oh I don't even know I live in Germany

oh terrible octopus
you're the worst mollusk of our time
we needed you to reveal us truth
--well, I suppose you did but we do not like the truth--
we hold you responsible
off with your tentacles
I will eat you
I will eat you
I will eat you

I'm just a cephalopod
I don't even know what FIFA is!
don't barbecue me
don't cut me into pieces
don't crucify me
I never asked to be your jesus...

(edited 2010¤07·16°)

Posthumanist Mac Tonnies (さよなら)

More Human Than Human

R.I.P. GET BACK DOWN HERE!

I was visiting PostHuman Blues earlier in January and suddenly noticed that I was re-reading posts, although I hadn't been to Mac's blog for a long time. Then I noticed the dates were all October. Huh? I must be visiting older posts, I thought, and went to the top. What the heck--posts in October at the top... and so like many others, I considered various possibilities before eventually realizing the fact of Mac's death.

My condolences to all who knew him.

Damn. How can I be perhaps the last fan of Mac Tonnies to notice that he was dead? Well, I don't consider myself a Fortean, ufologist, or part of the blogosphere. I am unable to spare much time to read any blogs recently, although I guess I have read Talking Points Memo. Mostly I try to follow Google News and Yahoo news, plus some Linux news. I prioritize blogging for myself more than reading other people's blogs, or else I will never blog anything. I have 5 part-time jobs. I need to hunt for another job. There are multiple kids to look after. A language to learn. Other priorities I never get to, like sending Xmas or New Year's cards. Reading PostHumanBlues is so enjoyable and leads me to links that consume so much time and mind-space that I consider it a bit self-indulgent and not helpful in the task of caring for and putting food on my family. Excuses, excuses. I ask the forbearance and indulgence of those who find this state of isogashisa unimaginable/inexcusable.

Internet silence was the strongest evidence of his death. If I don't blog for a month, it means I'm busy. If Mac doesn't blog for a day, he must be dead.

We have access to his mind, not because his consciousness was uploaded by curious extra/crypto/terrestrial archivists, but because he documented his life "religiously" (his word) as a blogger and tweeter. Altho he labeled his posts "Tears in Rain," they were not. "Tears in rain" (a BladeRunner reference) denotes the meaninglessness of all of one's experiences and memories dissolving into the nothingness of death. Mac's posts were not tears in rain, but rather more like pearls, or perhaps grains of pollen, carrying their genetic information to the bottom of the lake or to the amber gem where the deposits can be studied by future archeologists or random web surfers. He was wise --and brave-- in that way to put his thoughts out there and not just sit in a room thinking to himself.

Mac called himself "an organic web filter" in response to a comment I made hinting that altho his link dump style posts were great, more of his original writing would be appreciated if he could spare the time from potentially profitable writing projects. We'll take what we can get, I concluded.

I think Posthuman Blues was the first site (and one of very few) to have a link to me. I'm not sure how he found me or why he linked to me. It could have been the shared "blues" element in the name, shared movie interests, (Blade Runner, other artificial intelligence themed movies), shared musical interests (The Smiths, Talking Heads, The Cure, Hooverphonic), the "metacognitive" label, the shared midwestern background, Discordianism, or some statistically improbable expression that Mac noticed. He noticed a LOT. Mac has, or had a discerning third eye and a high metacognitive index. I discovered his blog because it was linked to mine. I was surprised and pleased that he linked to me.

One time, in response to a question posted by Mac about a Blogger template (TicTac Blueberry), I set up a test blog and looked into the css to see if I could find the controls for the header (or banner) image placement. I don't know much about html/css, but it was the first or second place I looked. He was very grateful when I tipped him a solution to his problem, and he mentioned wanting to give me a copy of his book in return, altho he deleted the offer comment (after it had already come in my e-mail). It was a gracious thought that I didn't expect. I had just wanted to help him over that css bump as a tip (as in tip-jar) to thank him for all his great blogging.

I'm thinking one kind of dedication would be to create a mactonniesian feed. My concept is that everyone Mac linked to (at least in the sidebar) would be in a feed, so you could see the most recent post by each of these bloggers, in time order. I'm talking about the widget or gadget or gidget that Blogger has to put the feeds together and order them chronologically as a sidebar element. It would be the closest thing yet to automating the mactonniesian process, although still a weak imitation. The people Mac linked to circa 2009 will each change, grow, and develop in ways that parallel what Mac would have (probably) undergone. This feed of feeds could go into anyone's sidebar, but it might load so much information that maybe it deserves to be a blog in its own rite?

That makes me think of another possible tribute that I think Mac would love: a chat-bot. Try googling chat-bots, AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), personality forge, or http://www.chatbots.org/ to find out more. Due to Mac's (continuing!) online presence, we have access to Mac's face, various facial expressions, and enough information to create a high-definition avatar. Samples of Mac's voice can also be found in many radio programs and video snippets. These can create a voice-print pattern much like a font for sound. Finally, Mac's text, vocabulary frequencies, grammatical patterns are all available to use to create a complete text database with keywords and tags. His books, essays, reviews, and interviews would be digitized as well. This is rather large. At the very least, he could reply to questions like: "What do you think of...'s book...?" using say, book reviews that he's written. Even just randomly providing some quotes might be interesting. Ideally, the output of a posthuman-Mac-chat-bot would have the same mean sentence length, vocabulary frequency, grammatical patterns, and other statistical properties of Mac's speech while conveying his ideas as well. There are chat-bots for Eliza, Abraham Lincoln, God, and chat-bots are used for corporate web-sites to deliver information given out in FAQs in earlier decades. I think there are experiments to use them for phone-sex type use and customer service. The best can pass the Turing Test, indistinguishable from a human for at least a large proportion of judges. The posthuman-Mac-chat-bot concept requires an exceptionally talented person to put together, but he would be an excellent subject for eternal digital life on the internet.

Optimysticism
I don't know what it means, but I had a strong urge to tell Mac "South Korea." Maybe something wonderful was waiting for him there. Perhaps he would have found a job teaching English or Science Fiction as Literature or something like that at university with the freedom to do what he wanted, and have a research budget to travel around the world, or perhaps he would have fallen in love, had a physical exam that diagnosed and treated his health problem, saving his life, or something else. Maybe he had already been there or something about him was reminding me of South Korea for some reason. Maybe it was just because as the most wired country in the world, with the fastest internet, he would have liked it. I didn't know how to frame the "South Korea" message, so I couldn't find a way to send it.

Emptying my mind of all thoughts I meditate on Mac until some words burst forth:

"I was killed because I knew too much."

What? That's not something I expected. That's disturbing. I don't think it came from Mac, but even if it did, it could be his joke(?). Perhaps just the product of my subconscious mind releasing a paranoid thought which is not present in my conscious mind. Or someone else? Eventually I quiet the mind again and wait for another signal.

"You are, too."

That doesn't even make sense. Is it grammatical? I am what, too? I am... killed because I know too much? I don't know anything. I suppose it could be grammatical, from a point of view outside of time. It certainly is possible to know too much, in several different ways. Knowing the time, date, and means of one's own death is not desirable for the psyche, and maybe that is why we cannot develop our faculties in that direction until we lose attachment to the world. I stop the experiment. That's what I heard, for what it's worth. Your results may vary.

Deltas from his death: Seize the day. The night. The orb. If you love it, set it free after seizing it. Put it all out there, online, back out into the One Mind. Suck the marrow from... your vegetarian diet. And from your espresso. Write. Post. I should probably exercise more and not stay up until 4 AM. Life's short. It's later than you think.

I'd expect Mac to return soon, and not waste time. Various people carry components which we could identify as "Mac", or should we say "macian," "tonniesian," or "mactonniesian," but the entire "nexus" (;-) we called Mac Tonnies will be back soon. He may have already been reborn, perhaps in South Korea, as a woman this time, for a change, or perhaps as a man again. He wouldn't wait a full year or more to be reborn, and would choose a Buddhist family over a Christian one, I imagine. This isn't death, but merely a minor setback, a restructuring of the corporeal realm in preparation for future growth. Come to think of it, I think he'll want to speak English again, but if, on the other hand, North America is fated to fall into decrepitude while China explores the solar system, maybe he'll come back in ZhongGuo. Anyway, I reckon we'll be able to read a new, remarkably Mac-like blogger by at least 2026.

Digital death, digital decay, internet immortality, LANgevity
His Blogger page, and Twitter account may live on for years, until/unless Google or Twitter decide to delete inactive accounts some day. His Flickr, if unpaid, may eventually lose all but the last 200 of the 7-800 pictures he uploaded. His older "Cydonia" web site may eventually disappear(?) if no one is paying for the domain and server. I'd like to (re)browse and perhaps save his web site before that happens. Mac had read through many hundreds of books on ufology and other inexplicata, and by reading what he has written could help avoid many dead-ends, disappointing reads, money spent on bad books, and could steer one to the better-written material. There is no one on Earth whose opinion I'd trust more right now than Mac's. He was not a fanatic but a very skeptical, sincere seeker who calmly and analytically accepted the physical reality and the reality of the experiences of many and tried to find explanations. One great thing about Mac was that pretty much any idea you'd ever had about these phenomena, he had also considered, often more deeply. In addition, he had considered hypotheses which had never occurred to most people. That quality will be missed.

The high-pitched noises I hear all too often will also remind me of Mac. He suffered from this, too. The silence is screaming.


Links I went through related to this: (sorry for omissions--it's very incomplete--and sorry for un-hyper links) You could google many of these.

PostHumanBlues
http://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/

His older website top
http://www.mactonnies.com/

things related to his earlier book and pre-blogger website
http://www.mactonnies.com/cydonia.html

an excellent sample of Mac's writing and thinking
http://www.mactonnies.com/sentience.html

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/mactonnies

UFOs as Vanguards of a Post-Biological Intelligence
http://www.dailygrail.com/features/the-ancients-are-watching

The Pitch (Kansas City)
http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2009/10/and_were_back_5.php

Coast to Coast
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/mac-tonnies-r-i-p
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5FF1197EEC5082DB&search_query=mac+tonnies+coast+to+coast+am

UFOmystic
http://www.ufomystic.com/2009/10/23/remembering-mac/
http://www.ufomystic.com/2009/10/23/thoughts-on-mac/

A tribute with pictures
http://hemmingshousepictures.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html#4944516064707781346

George Dvorsky
http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2009/10/remembering-mac-tonnies.html

Ballardian
http://www.ballardian.com/rip-mac-tonnies

Paratopia (some artwork)
http://paratopia.podbean.com/2009/10/28/in-memory-of-mac-tonnies/

mentioned iN an iNteresting context, iThink
http://monkeybuddha.blogspot.com/2009/11/ithink-tech-evolution-of-mind.html

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=832

http://hermeticallyblond.blogspot.com/2009/11/ufos-are-weird-i-guess_23.html
The Alien Hypothesis / UFOs as trickster-like enigmas
Excerpts from the Sept 28, 2009, interview between Mac Tonnies and George Noory

from Cap'n Marrrrk
http://amplattner.com/ntm/2009/10/nature-of-mac-tonnies-health-problems.html
http://amplattner.com/ntm/2009/11/if-you-really-want-to-know.html

The other side of truth
http://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2009/10/mac-tonnies-passes-away.html

Greg Taylor
http://www.dailygrail.com/news/vale-mac-tonnies

Loren Coleman
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2009/10/tonnies.html

a note from his publisher
http://www.anomalistbooks.com/news/2009/10/24/a-quiet-escape-from-kansas-city/

Mac on Amazon
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After the Martian Apocylypse = $69.99 (used)
http://www.amazon.com/After-Martian-Apocalypse-Extraterrestrial-Exploration/dp/074348293X

Kindle version for $11.99
http://www.amazon.com/After-Martian-Apocalypse-Extraterrestrial-ebook/dp/B000FC1V6K/ref=sr_1_1_oe_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263576609&sr=1-1&condition=used

Kindle for PC a free download
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Kindle for PC de-DRM'er
http://i-u2665-cabbages.blogspot.com/2009/12/circumventing-kindle-for-pc-drm.html

Can you ear me now?

This story at Live Science is from June, but I didn't hear about it until recently.

Hearing in discotheques

In the first study, 286 clubbers were observed while they were talking, with loud music in the background. In total, 72 percent of interactions occurred on the right side of the listener. These results are consistent with the right-ear preference found in laboratory studies and questionnaires, and they demonstrate that the side bias is spontaneously displayed outside the laboratory.

In the second study, the researchers approached 160 clubbers and mumbled an inaudible, meaningless utterance (such as "babababa") and waited for the subjects to turn their head and offer either their left of their right ear. They then asked subjects for a cigarette (in Italian the request specifically was "Hai una sigaretta?" which can be translated in English as "Do you have a cigarette?"). Overall, 58 percent offered their right ear for listening and 42 percent their left. No link was found between the number of cigarettes obtained and the ear receiving the request.

In the third study, the researchers intentionally addressed 176 clubbers in either their right or their left ear when asking for a cigarette. They obtained significantly more cigarettes when they spoke to the clubbers' right ear compared with their left.

The applications of this science remain to be discovered. Can the results be generalized beyond cigarettes, club-goers, the "discotheque" environment, smokers, and Italians? It seems that "babababa" may have a different meaning in a club environment than outside of that environment. I'd assume it means, "I'm tripping too much to be able to use language; can you help me?" When the researcher then produces a coherent request, the subject may surrender a cigarette in relief.

This is your cephalopod tool-using brain with a coconut shell

Research led by Julian Finn as reported at Nat'l Geographic:



The evolving tool-use of the cephalopod community puts increased pressure on the dominant bipedal tail-less fire monkey. To those concerned about homonid civilization being overwhelmed by the rise of the octopi, I recommend ordering an extra dish of tako sushi ASAP or maybe throwing one of them on the "barbee" at your earliest convenience.

Intelligent life on earth: evolving, devolving, or revolving?

I recently watched a re-broadcast of the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. This may have sensitized me to the news story (which came to my attention via Posthuman Blues) of orang-utans using spears to attempt to catch fish as well as learning to swim. This, in turn, is reminiscent of recent reports of chimpanzees in Senegal using spears to catch and kill bush babies, their own primate brethren and preferred lunch, which they eat in a sashimi-like raw form, un-barbecued, having not yet played SimEarth or Civilization to the point where they realize the importance of acquiring the Fire technology.

But it is not just spear technology that our primate brothers are excelling in these days. Another recent report found that rhesus monkeys had the ability to estimate arithmetic sums visually only a little worse than university students. Before you hire a rhesus monkey to do your taxes, consider the fact that human intelligence (at least as measured by IQ tests) has been rising for decades, in a mystery known as the Flynn Effect. The accelerating pace of human evolution, 100 times above baseline levels, is probably not sufficient to account for changes in IQ observed over time frames as short as 10 years or less (unless a whole lot of people at the very bottom of the IQ scale are winning the Darwin Award, and the death rates are not high enough for that).

It strikes me that the documented rise in human IQs and the anecdotal rise in animal IQs are related. Some of the proposed explanations for the rise in human IQs are the increasing complexity of the environment, which surely applies to the novel use of tools by chimps and orang-utans. It may also be a case of them acquiring tool use by observing human use of similar tools. Alternatively, the explanation could be some kind of environmental toxin or virus which causes runaway growth of brain cells. It's better than the inverse!

(I've sometimes wondered what the affects would be of an epidemic outbreak of Information Thirst Virus, which would cause painful sensations if a person were not continually consuming information and learning. As far as I know this premise has not appeared much in science fiction as has, say, the perhaps overexploited premise of Flowers for Algernon.)

Interestingly, rising primate IQs (as measured by scientists at APE CONTROL) was part of the story in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, too. One report has Ape IQs rising by 3% a month, which alarms some officials, who have pre-knowledge of the coming fate of man (from Zira and Cornelius), but which is brushed off by another as "Productivity has also improved by 3%!"

(Pssst! Notice the orange jumpsuits apes were forced to wear, a motif appropriated by the Bush administration for their large-scale violation of human rights.)

I myself have seen many examples of animal intelligence. Just this last week, I watched a cat quickly scurry across the four lanes of traffic in Bunkyo-ku's Hongo-doori after carefully waiting for the rush of passing traffic to quiet down to nothing and pause in the pulse of changing lights. It wouldn't take many years or generations of (dead) cats to evolve that ability. I remember being similarly impressed at stray dogs in Taipei obediently sitting and waiting for the traffic lights to change before trotting across the street, mingling with pedestrians and scavenging around for food. Crows here in Japan seem to know which days are garbage days and wait for it to be put out, then using their visual abilities to identify tasty-looking bits of trash (through the transparent bags we need to use here for easier waste sorting) and then tearing strategic holes to pull out what they want. But my most indelible memory is of a zoo in Sumatra (or possibly Java). I came across a not-very-big old-style concrete cage about the size of a living room with iron bars around the outside and bars (the iron kind) inside for the orang-utans to swing on. Adult orang-utans are very large, shaggy, and intimidating, especially when they swing forcefully. I think they may be basically gentle, however. They have very amazing long fingers and very human eyes --more human than human, perhaps. A man was reaching out across a little fence which kept us back, and offering an orangutan a lit kretek cigarette. The orang-utan accepted the lit cigarette gracefully, and several of the orang-utans were offered and accepted kreteks. I was also a smoker at that time and offered a kretek and a Marlboro, as I recall, and the Marlboro was briefly drawn on and then thrown to the ground in an interspecies gesture of disgust. Kreteks have more tar and nicotine and are also sweeter, of course. It seemed appropriate to me that, if the orang-utans (Man (orang) of the Forest (utan)) were to be kept as prisoners, they at least deserved the simple pleasure of a cigarette accorded to most POWs. Anyway, the appreciation of smoking was somewhat amazing in itself, as you generally do not get that in your cat, dog, or typical barnyard, zoo, or wild animal. However, what really impressed me was the way the orang-utans carefully pressed the kreteks against the cold steel bars of their cage, and gently rolled them to cool all sides of the smoldering tip to prevent it from burning too quickly and being wasted between drags! It reminded me of similar techniques practiced by connoisseurs of other valuable smoked herbs. Ever since, orang-utans have been my favorite animal, and one I respect and consider very nearly human.

Before coming to the conclusion that the rising tide of human saturation of the earth's environments is lifting all boats of human and animal IQs universally, consider the dialectically opposite proposition. Aren't humans reducing biodiversity, clearing and simplifying habitat, and driving species like the Baiji dolphin and other intelligent species to extinction, thereby dumbing down the entire planet? (not to mention the effects of television) Or do these two effects (smart-up and dumb-down/extinction) cancel out and just add up to some kind of rotation of dominant species, e.g. reptile, cetacean. mammal, insect, etc.?

I don't know, Dave. There is not enough information.

An Interview with Hare Brane

A news item originally published in Current Biology and reported in New Scientist and Science Daily in early and mid-April documented the differences in cooperative problem-solving between chimpanzees and bonobos. New Scientist reported:

Brian Hare of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues tested how well chimps and bonobos coped with challenging social situations. Bonobos, they found, were more likely to share a plate of food, using play or sex to defuse social tensions. In contrast, chimps' more limited social skills meant one individual was more likely to take all the food.

The research was led by Brian Hare of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Unable to contact Mr Hare, and waste his time, I mistakenly contacted instead a persistent critic of Mr Brian Hare, his arch-nemesis, Dr Harry "Hare" Brane, Senior Research Fellow at the Brane-Phardt Institute's Center for Applied Primatology in Washington, DC. I spoke with Mr Brane at length. He was unable to hear me, however, due to the fact that the interview was conducted by e-mail. I should say at the outset that the Brane-Phardt Institute is considerably less prestigious than the Max Planck Institute, being funded entirely by donated methane emissions and unused processor cycles contributed by concerned and sympathetic –or simply pathetic– scientists. It is less a "Think-Tank" than a "compost heap of discarded thoughts and ideas". You too can help support Brane-Phardt, just by thinking about it.

I wondered whether resemblances (in the inability to solove problems by sharing) to the Deer Leader, our Chimperor-in-Chief, were accitentional, or purely interdental. Also, is this evolutionary divergence happening all over again, and would the bonobo and chimpanzee make better animal mascots for the two main political parties, despite W's ability to remember and revenge every insult, and John Kerry's uninspiring donkeyness? I meant to ask Hare Brane these questions, but the interview was conducted by the Vancouver staff.

Q.
> Could you explain all the back scratching the Republipanzees do?
> You know, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Is it vital
> to their survival?

A.
Republipanzees (Chimpublicans) do have some bonobo characteristics,
but differ from Demobonobos (Bonocrats) in that the Republipanzees
are willing to consider limited cooperation and conspire to work
together for the benefit of a small group of dominant alpha males.
That is, a small group of hairless tailless fire-monkeys will
cooperate with each other in order to steal from the masses of fire-
monkeys, and defend their privileged status collectively. They
cooperate with others in order to improve their domination or
exploitation of the greater hive. The difference, in other words,
comes from the large-scale hierarchies and social strata created by
hairless tailless fire-monkey hives.
Demobonobos, in contrast, while respectfully navigating these strata,
claim that their bonocratic alpha-males are defending rights of the
hairless tailless fire-monkeys who have previously been exploited by
Republipanzee violence. Another difference is that Demobonobos primarily
conspire in order to have extra sex and play without the knowledge of
other fire-monkeys, not to extract more resources.
These two major strains of fire monkey dominate terrestrial mammalian
orders on the mid latitudes of the North American continent.
Elsewhere, other primatological curiosities abound. Anarcho-rangutans
seek the elimination of all hierarchies and the violent control of
fire-monkey over fire-monkey, as represented by the anthropoid State,
used to unite groups of fire-monkeys in violent competition with
other bands of bipedal primates. These state formations are
frequently represented with an emblem, or flag, which hairless
tailless fire-monkeys display to demonstrate their submission to the
alpha males' power structure. Green-headed fire-monkeys strive for the
creation of a lush global forest with liberty, renewable energy, and
ample bananas for all.

In direct response to your query, the answer is yes. Republipanzees
have limited intellectual and moral faculties and can only survive by
banding together to form parasitic, exploitative social formations,
often seeking to gain armed control of vital public resources.

2007 04 14, at 1:36 PM:
Q.
Can they all survive or will one die out from competition of limited resources? The more selfish Republipanzees, by excluding others seem to ensure enough for their own survival, the sharing types may not keep enough for themselves. Remember it is a jungle out there.

A.
Because of their genetic weaknesses, and dependence on a source of exploitable worker-monkeys, one might think the Republipanzees to be in danger of extinction. This is far from the truth. The exploitable fire-monkeys are ample, the Republipanzees have squirrelled away heaps of resources, and when faced with starvation, they will reorganize into smaller cliques and casually cannibalize their former comrades. For this reason, they are thought to face no danger of extinction. Mr Bush is seldom seen together with Mr Cheney for this very reason: the danger that the larger and more aggresive Mr Cheney will attack and eat Mr Bush and his pudding-like brains during a lapse in Bush's wariness. Republipanzees' geographical isolation on the central latitudes of the North American continent is their greatest weakness. A nuclear or asteroid strike on their limited habitat is thought to pose the only credible threat to their existence.

Demobonobos are also so numerous, breeding rather quickly, and possess such a wide range of genetic diversity, that they are also in no danger of extinction.

Anarchorangutans were once thought to be extinct, but they periodically emerge from urban centers, mountains, islands, and other unlikely isolated locales, where they seem to breed underground. It also appears that spontaneous mutations of the Republipanzees and Demobonobos can produce Anarchorangutans on occasion.

The Green-headed hairless tailless fire-monkeys are also increasing their range from central, western, and northern Europe to small roving bands worldwide. They are unlikely to go extinct in all of these locations.

Apr 16, 2007, at 8:48 AM:
Q.
How about if the Republipanzees are assimilated into being Demobonobos? If interbreeding was done wouldn't the fewer Republipanzees eventually disappear? The attractive Demobonobos just have to seduce the Republipanzees until they die out and disappear – just like the Neanderthals.

A.
This approach has promise, and is currently being experimented with in a long-term study by Demobonobo Marian Schriber with her research subject, great ape-Repubabboon and Kaleefåüwnya Gubernator Arnholt Schnauzerschnitzel. Initial results indicate a maturing and softening of the Republipanzee tendencies even in the first generation. Long term study is needed to determine if antisocial Republipanzee traits recur in the offspring or second generation. Because of the sexual and playful strategies available to Demobonobos, they have an advantage in this area. Vigorous and repeated couplings with Republipanzees may placate them and exhaust their aggressive tendencies. This approach should be combined with birth control and safe legal abortion to limit the number of any Republipanzee throwbacks that may result. Researchers are cautiously optimistic, but the widespread revulsion of Demobonobos for Republipanzees limits this approach unless advanced techniques such as bondage and SM are employed. Fortunately for researchers in this area, Republipanzees, despite their amoral character, retain some residual "human" characteristics which cause them to feel guilt and crave punishment, which also sexually excites them. A number of Demobonobos are thought to also enjoy delivering punishment to particularly deserving neocon-macaques.