Paul2eD: How did I wind up with Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill on my iPod & her Walking the Witch on my laptop; both playing at the same time? WTF?

BobDobbs_: @Paul2eD My friend made this video: The Black and White Stripes 2 0 http://bit.ly/4Avvbz

R_A_W: Greg Archer: ‘The Vampire’s Assistant’ and 10 other reasons why we really dig vampires in 2009 http://bit.ly/G3nsq

Paul2eD: @BobDobbs_ @R_A_W  The two of you aren’t helping.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: @R_A_W What is the Purpose of Life? To be the eyes and ears of the Creator of the Universe, you fool.”

LaoTzu: Something cloudy and unclear / Before existence and non-existence, / Before heaven and earth / I do not know its name / So I call it TAO

BobDobbs: Hello Kitty “Anatomy” series http://bit.ly/HorMK

DrLeary: @Paul2eD Be cool. Don’t Panic. Chaos is good. Chaos creates infinite possibilities.

Bill Maher: Repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Because It Will Make Rush Limbaugh “Explode” (VIDEO) http://bit.ly/w3moO

Henry Miller: I am a man who pisses largely and frequently. This, they say, is a sign of great mental activity.

Steve Antczak: Moses parted the Red Sea, Oppenheimer split the atom, but “Bob” cut the crap.

Joshua Abraham Norton (c. 1819 – January 8, 1880), the self-proclaimed His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, proclaimed himself “Emperor of these United States” and subsequently “Protector of Mexico” in 1959.

Although he had no political power, and his influence extended only so far as he was humored by those around him, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments he frequented.

During the 1860s and 1870s, there were a number of anti-Chinese demonstrations in the poorer districts of San Francisco. Ugly riots, some resulting in fatalities, broke out on several occasions. During one such incident, Norton allegedly positioned himself between the rioters and their Chinese targets, and with a bowed head started reciting the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly until the rioters dispersed without incident.

“When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.” -Lao Tsu

One popular story suggested that he was the son of Emperor Louis Napoleon and that his claim of coming from South Africa was a ruse to prevent persecution. Another popular story suggested that Norton was planning to marry Queen Victoria. While this claim is unsupported, Norton did write to the Queen on several occasions and he is reported to have met Emperor Pedro II of Brazil.

“You must take the bull by the tail and look the facts in the face.” – W.C. Fields

Though he was considered insane, or at least highly eccentric, the citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence and his proclamations. On January 8, 1880, Norton collapsed at a street corner, and died before he could be given medical treatment. The following day, nearly 30,000 people packed the streets of San Francisco to pay homage to Norton.

“Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Herman Hesse. Hardly anybody understands Einstein. And nobody understands Emperor Norton.” – Malaclypse the Younger

Discordian Society  

A Bridge between Pisces and Aquarius

Text by Robert Anton Wilson & Wikipedia

Every computer consists of two aspects, known as hardware and software. (Software here includes information).

The software consists of programs that can exist in many forms, including the totally abstract. A program can be “in” the computer in the sense that it is recorded in the CPU or on a disk which is hitched up to the computer. A program can also exist on a piece of paper, if I invented it myself, or in a manual, if it is a standard program; in these cases, it is not “in” the computer but can be put “in” at any time. But a program can be even more tenuous than that; it can exist only in my head, if I have never written it down, or if I have used it once and erased it.

The hardware is more “real” than the software in that you can always locate it in space-time—if it’s not in the bedroom, somebody must have moved it to the study, etc. On the other hand, the software is more “real” in the sense that you can smash the hardware back to dust (“kill” the computer) and the software still exists, and can “materialize” or “manifest” again in a different computer.

(Any speculations about reincarnation at this point are the responsibility of the reader, not of the author.)

In speaking of the human brain as an electro-colloidal biocomputer, we all know where the hardware is: it is inside the human skull. The software, however, seems to be anywhere and everywhere. For instance, the software “in” my brain also exists outside my brain in such forms as, say, a book I read twenty years ago, which was an English translation of various signals transmitted by Plato 2400 years ago. Other parts of my software are made up of the software of Lao Tzu, Herman Hesse, my second-grade teacher, the Simpsons, the Beatles, my mother and father, George W. Bush, my various dogs and cats, Dr. Richard Dawkins, and anybody and (to some extent) any-thing that has ever impacted upon my brain. This may sound strange, but that’s the way software (or information) functions.

Of course, if consciousness consisted of nothing but this undifferentiated tapioca of timeless, traceless software, we would have no individuality, no center, no Self.

We want to know, then, how out of this universal software ocean a specific person emerges.

What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.

Because the human brain, like other animal brains, acts as an electro-colloidal computer, not a solid-state computer, it follows the same laws as other animal brains. That is, the programs get into the brain, as electro-chemical bonds, in discrete quantum stages.

- Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising.