I saw these guys last month and checked them out, this seems to be the official website. Preebs.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Hedonistic Imperative
This manifesto outlines a strategy to eradicate suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is ambitious, implausible, but technically feasible. It is defended here on ethical utilitarian grounds. Genetic engineering and nanotechnology allow Homo sapiens to discard the legacy-wetware of our evolutionary past. Our post-human successors will rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout the living world.
Why does suffering exist? The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved only because they served the inclusive fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. Their ugliness can be replaced by a new motivational system based on gradients of well-being. Life-long happiness of an intensity now physiologically unimaginable can become the heritable norm of mental health. A sketch is offered of when, and why, this major evolutionary transition in the history of life is likely to occur. Possible objections, both practical and moral, are raised and then rebutted.
Contemporary images of opiate-addled junkies, and the lever-pressing frenzies of intra-cranially self-stimulating rats, are deceptive. Such stereotypes stigmatise, and falsely discredit, the only remedy for the world's horrors and everyday discontents that is biologically realistic. For it is misleading to contrast social and intellectual development with perpetual happiness. There need be no such trade-off. Thus states of "dopamine-overdrive" can actually enhance exploratory and goal-directed activity. Hyper-dopaminergic states can also increase the range and diversity of actions an organism finds rewarding. Our descendants may live in a civilisation of serenely well-motivated "high-achievers", animated by gradients of bliss. Their productivity may far eclipse our own.
Two hundred years ago, before the development of potent synthetic pain-killers or surgical anaesthetics, the notion that "physical" pain could be banished from most people's lives would have seemed no less bizarre. Most of us in the developed world now take its daily absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as "mental" pain, too, could one day be superseded is equally counter-intuitive. The technical option of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of political policy and ethical choice.
From the link, I've read the intro and the first chapter.
I don't even know what to say at this point.
Jon, if you get a chance, tear this apart.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Stephen Colbert on Meet the Press
Presidential candidate and South Carolina's favorite son goes at it with Tim Russert.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Immunity Update
Chris Dodd of Connecticut, former boyfriend of Princess Leia and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has informed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will be placing a legislative hold on the FISA bill providing retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that provided communication information to the US government.
You can add your voice to his here.
More on holds from Kagro X at Daily Kos.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Seriously, quit playing with your dicks and check this out right now.
FUCKING INCREDIBLE MULTI-TOUCH SCREEN
It's the link to the multi-touch display Kev was talking about. I'm had to repost this information to reiterate how fucking awesome it is and how you all should check it out. Really, it's so fucking cool, I just head-butted a baby.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Virtual Desktop
"Yod'm 3D provides four virtual desktops for your PC, all of them contained in a spinning 3D cube.
Virtual desktops are great for cutting down on window clutter and improving PC productivity.
Yod'm keeps it simple, giving you four virtual desktops on a rotating "cube." Just press Ctrl-Shift and the left or right arrow key to cycle between them. (You can assign different activation-key combinations, which is good: I need Ctrl-Shift for Word.) You can also hold down the activation keys and drag your mouse left or right, which provides a better rotating-cube-in-space effect. If you want to jump directly to an open application in any desktop, you can click the Yod'm icon in the System Tray and select the app."
(via http://lifehacker.com/software/virtual-desktops/download-of-the-day-yodm-3d-windows-255448.php)
I use this myself, and its really cool.
Download a previous version here
(http://yodm-3d.uptodown.com/en/)
or here
(http://keznews.com/2705_Yodm_3D_-_3D_Desktop_for_Windows_XP_and_Vista)
because it was bought, developed, and re-released with a pricetag..its now called 'deskspace'
(http://www.otakusoftware.com/deskspace/index.html"
Radiohead Album bought for $1000
Give these guys a hand...
Purebuttons.com, LLC has purchased the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, for $1,000.00 in support of Radiohead's "silent" effort to revolutionize the music industry.
Multi Touch!
Last year Chris and I shared a video of a presenter named Jeff Han showcasing his prototype multi-touch display at the TED conference:
He started his own company and is workin on developing and marketing "the most advanced multi-touch system in the world"
http://www.perceptivepixel.com/
Later I found Microsoft Suraface, which utilizes multi touch and is due out this winter (click the link for some awesome video demos)
microsoft.com/surface/
This really reminds me of some sci-fi movie shit! We live in such an exciting time!
Thank God: Looks like they'll tour after all.
An excerpt from an interview with Jonny Greenwood:
Have you been trying to reduce your use of air travel because of carbon emissions?
Yeah, that’s basically why. It’s difficult because we want to travel and tour and do musical things and we’re just looking at ways of doing it without going to the other extreme. It’d be crazy to not tour for that reason but it’d also be crazy to tour in too greedy a way. So we’re just working on the balance for it. And I can’t really justify going to New York just for my own sort of thing.
Are you working out plans to tour in America at this point?
We’re talking about touring somewhere in the world next year. Now that the album’s out that’s what we’re talking about. I hope you’ll get to see some good shows.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Reservoir Dogs tie
This is the cheapest I could find them - not bad @ $4.50, plus $5.50 shipping (it's coming from the UK). However, if we all order together, shipping well be negligible - that being said, I need to know who's participating - pronto. And guys - let us not, each one, be the guy who doesn't want to have fun on motherfuckin' Halloween; let's make this shit happen.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Das Simpsons
The Go Cocks reference in the Simpsons - a classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiZ-na19RlY
I'm Moving to Kentucky, boys!!!
The Wildcats are my new best friends. Although I fear the suicide rate may triple here now that LSU has lost, I bask in the warm glow of mass dysphoria. Go Cocks!
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