Drink With Transhumanists and Pick Their Brains While They Pick Yours

If you’ve been following the h+ summit, or even if you haven’t been, perhaps you have questions regarding transhumansim, human augmentation, radical life extension, germ line genetic engineering, etc, etc.  I know I do.

So, I’ll be headed down to Sprout for the h+ beer meetup sponsored by DIYBio.

When?  6pm until 8ish.

Where? 339 Summer St, Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

Pain which leads to satisfaction

So, this past Thursday, I had my final session with Troy Talmadge an incredible tattoo artist in Lynn, Ma. Troy is fantastically easy to work with.  He’s an artist with a unique, lyrical vision.  I highly recommend him, but I will warn you, because his work is high quality, you may have to wait a bit for an appointment.  It’s well worth the wait.  I already have another one in mind.  I don’t think I’ll work on this design for 20 years though.

I’ve had this design, in various incarnations, in my head for over twenty years, since, while in the deepest, darkest part of my life, I stumbled upon the works of Robert Anton Wilson.

As I wrote here, I truly believe Wilson’s works saved my life, or, more accurately, enabled me to save my own life.

Why the tattoo? It’s partly commemoration, partly a reminder of truths easily forgotten, partly a wake up call. Perhaps it’s a sigil. Perhaps it’s a link to archetypal power. Perhaps it’s there just to confuse the enemy.

23 skidoo, baby, 23 skidoo.

Oh, and so far I have 40 pages of my script done for ScriptFrenzy. I’ll update my page count Sunday evening, after I put the next block of dialog in.

Welcome 2008

Happy New Year!

I’ve always been one to avoid New Year’s resolutions. They always struck me as being somewhat unhelpful, more an exercise in frustration than anything else.

I’d much rather focus on continuous improvement, than a yearly revised set of goals.

That being said, there are some things I should attend to sooner rather than later…

• The living room and parlor must be finished.
• My membership in the World Transhumanist Association – http://www.transhumanism.org/ – needs renewing, plus, they’re in the midst of a fundraising campaign.
• The time has come to look seriously at cryonics. It won’t be as inexpensive as it would have been had I signed up at 30, but I should be able to do so now.
• Fantastic Dimensions goes onto a regular publishing schedule. Next one due on or before Jan 31, 2008. Let’s see if I can keep up a monthly schedule.
  • Sigh. Nope, didn’t do it.
• This coming April is Script Frenzy – http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/. Will that mess up the April edition of Fantastic Dimensions?

Hi 2008. Glad to be here.

Crazed

So, I’ve lost my mind again, but this time something might actually come of it.

I’ve gone ahead and signed up for Script Frenzy, which is to stage screen plays what NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is to novels.

You can keep track of my madness here.

June will be very busy with preparations for NEARFest, Readercon and Big Brothers.

Sigh…

I still have yet to edit the video I shot at Readercon, Worldcon and the Echolyn concert.

For Readercon and Worldcon, I’m sure I have enough footage from each to make a couple of five minute pieces for each. And I still need to pick opening and closing credits music. Maybe some Hawkwind? Kitaro? Tangerine Dream?

I still have to register Fantastic Dimensions.

The Echolyn footage is another matter. The video is great, but the audio from the board is far to bass heavy to be of any use. I should ask Paul if I can use the audio he recorded instead. Since it was a simultaneous recording, everything should sync up just fine.

Yahoo Web Beacons

If you belong to any Yahoo Groups this is important .

Yahoo is now using something called “Web Beacons” to track YahooGroup
users around the net and see what you’re doing and where you are going — similar to cookies, but not cookies. Yahoo is recording every website and every group you visit.

Take a look at their updated privacy statement:
http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy

About half-way down the page, in the section on cookies, you will see a link that says web beacons.

Click on the phrase web beacons. That will bring you to a paragraph entitled “Outside the Yahoo Network.”

In this section you’ll see a little “click here to opt out” link that will let you “opt-out” of their new method of snooping.

Once you have clicked that link, you are exempted.

Notice the “Success” message on the top of the next page. Be careful because on that page there is a “Cancel Opt-out” button that, if clicked, will *undo** the opt-out.

Mini Me

Have any of you built a box using a mini-itx form factor mobo? If so, would you mind sharing some of your wisdom with me?

Are there particular pitfalls I should look out for?

Any particular mobo manufacturers I should keep in mind?

Any I shold avoid?

Share this:

updated 9 March 2005 (posted here so that we have it wherever we are in the world) — we now use bacon grease for both the gumbo and the added cornbread muffin recipe. Serve BLTs for lunch the day before gumbo, and reserve the bacon grease.

Marlin and Ron’s Sinful Seafood Gumbo

A Bunch Of Fish

Amount	Measure	Ingredient
5	Pounds	Shrimp – Raw – Peeled – Deveined
2	Pounds	Crab Meat (you can use the canned stuff if you want)
2	Pounds	Scallops
1.5	Pounds	Clams + their juice (canned works here too)

A Bunch Of Veggies

Amount	Measure	Ingredient
1	Cup	Green Bell Peppers
1	Cup	Red Bell Peppers
2 to 5	Cloves	Garlic (more if your guests can stand it)
1	Cup	Chopped Scallions
6	Large tomatoes quartered and crushed
1/2	Cup	Parsley chopped
2	Boxes/Bags	Frozen Chopped Okra
1	Cup	Yellow Onion Chopped
1	Cup	Red Onion Chopped
1	Cup	Celery Chopped

A Bunch Of Spices

Amount	Measure	Ingredient
3	Large	Bay leaves
1/4	Teaspoon	Thyme
1	Tablespoon	Kosher salt
1/4	Teaspoon	Tabasco or other Hot Sauce
1/2	Teaspoon	Cayenne pepper
1/2	Teaspoon	Black pepper
1	Tablespoon	Worcester Sauce
3	Cubes	Chicken Bouillon
2	Teaspoons	Old Bay or similar seafood seasoning
2	Teaspoons	Basil
2	Teaspoons	Oregano

A Bunch of Other Stuff

Amount	Measure	Ingredient
1/2	Cup	Olive Oil (substitute bacon grease for yummy extra sinful artery blocking properties)
1/2	Cup	Flour
1	8 oz. Bottle	Clam juice
4	Quarts	*Seafood Stock – Throw together your seafood stock byboiling the shells from cleaning the shrimp and crab, a couple celerystalks roughly chopped, a quartered onion, a couple of cloves of crushedgarlic, salt & pepper to taste. For yummy extra sinful gumbo, add a big fish head to the boil. A porgy works quite well.
???	???	Gumbo Filé Powder to taste –add to finished bowls (never cook Filé Powder!)
4 to 5	Cups	Rice (optional)

A Bunch of Time – Set aside about 4-5 hours from beginning to end. Subtract anhour or so if someone else has cooked your crab meat and cleaned/deveinedyour shrimp.

Open a good bottle of wine and enjoy liberally while cooking.

1. Make your *Seafood Stock
2. Chop up your veggies
3. Cook your Okra
   1. In a large heavy skillet, not cast iron, heat 4 tablespoonsof olive oil/bacon grease.
   2. Add all of the okra and cook over medium heat
   3. Stir often until the stringing stops, about 40 to 50 minutes.
   4. Add more oil/bacon grease as necessary to prevent burning
   5. Corona beer makes an excellent deglazing medium!
4. Make your Roux
   1. In a 5 quart (or larger) stock pot, blend the remainingcooking oil and the flour
   2. Cook over medium heat
   3. Stir constantly until dark brown
5. Add ingredients to the roux
   1. Add the onion and celery to the roux
      • Cook until tender
   2. Add the green & red pepper, scallions,garlic and cook about 3 minutes
   3. Add tomatoes, bay leaves, thyme, salt, Tabasco (or otherhot sauce), cayenne, black pepper, Worcester sauce, Old Bay, Basil, Oregano,Chicken Bouillon. Stir until well mixed.
   4. Add the Okra. Stir until well mixed.
   5. Gradually stir in the Seafood Stock. Reserve about a cupto use if the Gumbo becomes too thick.
   6. Stir in the clams and bottle of Clam Juice
   7. Bring to a boil then drop the temperature to a simmer.
6. Add the Seafood to the Gumbo
   1. Add the crab meat
      • Simmer for 20 minutes
   2. Add the shrimp and scallops
      • Simmer for 20 minutes

Add chopped parsley just before serving.

Serve over steamed rice if you wish. Freezes well.

Feeds – An Army (20 to 24)

Darpa Grand Challenge 2005

The DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 was run on 10/09/2005.

As of this time, 11:55 pm Eastern yesterday, four teams have completed the course, just over 131 miles: Red 1, Red 2, Team Gray, and Team Stanford. This is amazing. Last year, the farthest any team got was just over 7 miles.It seems that there is some confusion as to just who has won. They’re still computing the times to complete the course. Wow, what a technological leap!

It is all coming back to me

It feels like a part of my brain I put into sleep mode long ago is awakening. After reading screenplay after screenplay, the feeling for when plot points should occur has come back.

After a few hours of playng around with Adobe Premiere, that feeling of knowing where an edit should take place is starting to come back.

Feels good. Really good.

Now to start collecting equipment. I get the feeling that eBay and I are going to get to know each other quite well over the next few months.

Bits of Mental Flotsam and Jetsam

Some things you can expect over the next few days & weeks.
Appearances of Flash video here.
A website redesign.

Who knows what else…

Oh, and I was wondering earlier today, what is the evolutionary purpose of respiratory allergies? I can understand food alergies (to some extent). If Chaka over there nibbles on some leaf and then swells up like Violet Beauregard, well, everone probably figures out not to eat it. But what good does it do the band if you’re traipsing across the Olduvai and suddenly one of your number starts sneezing her head off?

Just wondering…

Brains, Brawn, More Brains

So, is there a sexier male geek on television than Patrick Norton? The kilts, the guerrilla tech, the road trips, the affinity for punk rock. Sure he’s a big boy, but he looks like he’s been traveling the road from chunky to hunky. Perhaps he’s truly the sexiest geek alive.