[09:21 PM] Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | philipd:\>

The Loner's Manifesto

Salon.com | One is (not) the loneliest number

We do not require company. The opposite: in varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course the rest of the world doesn't understand.

Someone says to you, "Let's have lunch." You clench. Your sinews leap within you, angling for escape. What others thrive on, what they take for granted, the contact and confraternity and sharing that gives them strength leaves us empty. After what others would call a fun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood.

Excerpts from a book that speaks positively from the loner's point-of-view, includes examples like Da Vinci, and a lot of feel-good stuff for all the aloners out there.

The excerpt wasn't particularily titilating to me. However, I think it helps hermits "come out of the closet" and justify a loner's kind of lifestyle.

[08:00 PM] Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | More in Voodoo Schmoodoo | philipd:\>

I Ching and Creative Thinking

I Ching is an ancient Chinese psychic method. I first discovered it on DeOXY. I also noticed it was mentioned by This Guy in my previous post--he's the guy who "proved" that God is Math using I Ching.

So, how can YOU join in on the fun. First, read the Basics of I Ching

Good tidbit from the above site.

Because our Western systems of writing are phonetic rather than graphic, we tend to believe that written words are only representations of spoken words. Chinese writing, on the other hand, is historically based on drawings, not sounds, and the earliest written characters were rough sketches or drawings of the objects in question. As time passed, written Chinese became more and more standardized, the drawings came more to represent spoken words, and the pictographic richness of the original drawings began to fade and be forgotten.

That site is simple yet comprehensive... unfortunately at one part it handwaves about it, so I found this Terse I Ching Summary that gives you a quick method for consulting the Oracle.

I haven't tried it yet but I think it's probably the Eastern version of the Western Roger von Oech's Think Cards. These are a deck of 52 cards with advice to stir up your mind. Likewise, while I doubt I Ching has true psychic powers, I do think it can help you think creatively about the problems you're trying to solve.

Google searches:
I Ching

[07:29 PM] Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | More in Blogging | philipd:\>

Text-Decorations and Eyeballs

I'm experimenting with usages of text-decorations, such as Bold, to improve readers' experiences with online text.

My surfing habits are such that now I just scan instead of read websites. My eyes moves up and down between 100+ pages a day, and stumbles upon some keywords I like. I then continue to read, usually skipping around, until I get the juice that I'm looking for, and then I close or move on.

Unfortunately, a lot of the web, esp. blogs, are still written like stuff offline. News articles are still long columns of text, and blogs are like pages out of a diary.

I'd like to suggest using text-decorations and other font stuff to make scanning easier for people.

Here are the basic text decorations:
- Bold
- Italics
- Underline
- Normal
- HyperLink

Here are all the feasible combinations:
Normal, Bold, Italics, Underline, Bold-Italics, Bold-Underline, Bold-Italics-Underline, Hyperlink, Italics-Hyperlink

So there's 7 non-hyperlink classes of text that you can use. Various parts of your text should be classified with text-decorations to allow readers to scan for what they need.

I haven't figured out what the classes are, but tentatively, I'm thinking, make everything italics that is mere opinion, anything bold that are key facts that should be read, anything bold-underline being like the main punch-line fact, and anything bold-italics being a summary statement that captures the gist of what I'm saying. Normal is just filler, story, details, etc. And italicized-hyperlinks are links that are secondary. BlockQuote should be used for quotes. I haven't found a usage for bold-underline-italics, but we'll see.

People who posts essays and long posts online should keep in mind ADD-web-surfers like me and mark the "goods" properly so that we can all save time.

Coming Soon in other blogging experiments:
- My deal with the blogrolls at the top
- Using IE Histories to tell more about what you do
- Using google search terms into your blogs

[07:02 PM] Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | More in Mind Science | philipd:\>

Brain-Keyboard

The Brain Machine Interface

Basically all human-computer interfaces do is transfer that which is in the human brain into the computer. The goal is to then increase the bandwidth between brain and machine.

Pictures, Education on BrainWaves

Specific Product Names

My fingers hurt, even though I use a Dvorak Keyborad Layout and have a special keyboard. Input hasn't really revolutionized at all since Apple introduced the mouse, keyboard, and GUI. What a day it will be when all I can just run brain2blog.exe and be done.

Google Search Terms:
eeg input devices
eeg input devices neural control

[06:21 PM] Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | philipd:\>

BLANKJournal Explosion

DeadJournal.com

DeadJournal.com is a journal site (much like LiveJournal), but as you will quickly see, not all journals are apple pie and fruitcakes. Here is where you find the journals that nobody else wants to see, or even host.

They have 423,557 already signed up for this! It's just a knock-off of LiveJournal... same with Xanga. I smell $$$.

[03:39 PM] Comments (0) | More in Mind Science | philipd:\>

Are You Even Conscious?

Evolution/Involution of Consciousness

The Purporsive Evolution and Involution of Consciousness in the Universe

500+ Links attempting to unravel the secrets of consciousness.

So I was reading Consciousness Explained by Daniel Clement Dennet (a.k.a. Daniel Dennet). I started out with the following mindset:

Consciousness is such a mystery, what is it? Where is all the stuff that I see. Is there a mind's eye? And is there a mind's mind's mind's eye?

I trucked through the first 100 pages, and Dennet pinned down many of the concerns regarding consciousness, among them the following:

- Mind-Body problem (Descartes felt there was this other space where computation happened and would then port into our brains somewhere)
- The actual locaton of what we see
- The composition of mind-stuff

However, toward the end of my 100-page journey, Dennet actually started to unravel the mysteries. He demonstrated certain things about my consciouness that I thought were one way when in fact they were actually illusions of a process going completely another way.

He provides mental exercises that do affect your way of seeing the world. For a few minutes after some of them, I had trouble seeing things like a normal person, i.e. I had trouble walking or reading signs--I was too aware of the process and started to doubt things in the ways described by Dennet

Needless to say, I felt that the conclusion I was getting was that All sacred concepts such as I, or an inner self, was just illusions building on illusions of subjectivity, cohesivness of perception, and a separation of inner perception from outer perception

It was also a fun text with modelling that was creative such as composing an argument over whether your mind functioned in a Stalinesque or Orwellian fashion... i.e. whether it would, as Stalin would, alter reality by staging events, or as the members of Minitrue in 1984 would do by constantly changing the archives retroactively

Needless to say, my curiosity was satiated and I stopped reading. I knew that if I kept on reading further I would eventually have a complete understanding of consciousness. All I wanted to get was the certaintity that consciousness was explainable and that I could access it through hand-waving if necessary but actually fully understanding consciousness ceased to amaze me.

[03:29 PM] Comments (0) | More in Blogging | philipd:\>

From WinAmp to Blog

BlogAmp

Blogs your winAMP playlist... haven't tried it.

[03:28 PM] Comments (0) | More in Living | philipd:\>

What? You don't meditate?

Okay, we've probably all tried meditation at some point. I have, and I usually get into it, but I'm too quickly expecting that buddha-enlightenment-omega-woah-IChing point or whatever... needless to say, I don't get there, and I'm go screw it, I'll just play Super Collapse

How to Meditate

Solution: the above site divides medititation into a few basic levels with a page summary on each one. Start with the first one, like me, which is really easy and delivers results, albeit very simple ones. Then move on to the next ones.

[03:18 PM] Comments (0) | philipd:\>

Another hyper-wiggly blog

Technoccult

This link has been lying on my desktop for a week. Everytime I open it up, I read a few sentences a quickly close the browser... I start to see things that I know would enthrall me into colorful worlds of alternative education. I feel overwhelmed, and hence I stop.

I've been stressed out all this week... like I mentioned on my post re: stress test. So I haven't had the nerve to take serious plunges into anything...hence the short one-line links thats that have comprised the extent of my therapy... and by therapy I mean relaxation.

So, yeah, check out Technoccult.