Rainbow People

Sister Lambert tells the tale of the Rainbow People meeting near her home town in Nor Cal. They call themselves the Flower Family, and have gatherings every year for whoever meets. It is a free wheeling experience where they try to be off the grid and commune with nature. Apparently there is a rumor that the Hopi have a prophecy about them. Which of course is totally bogus.

There is a website that looks 10 years old. But they do have a Paypal account. The movement began in the 1960's in San Francisco and has continued on for years.

As for me, I think I will be going to meet my Irish roots.

English Preposition

As a history major, I find out a lot of interesting things. Some of these things are interesting only to me. I doubt you care about ancient uses of pigs. On the other hand, there are things that seem to happen over and over again, of which pointing out does grab some interest. We make too many rules, and then get angry when the rules never actually work.

The best example is in the English language. Lets keep in mind, it is the big language in the world right now. There are all sorts of versions of English in this world. Just because a guy from Seattle and a Lady from Scotland speak the same language, doesn't mean they will understand each other.

English is an old Germanic language that slowly changed to what we know today. In the original tongue, Þe meant the. That strange letter is pronounced Th but looks a lot like a y. This is why you see Ye on signs whenever someone is trying to say something is old.

Seeing as English really is that old, there are some problems that no one wants to admit. Around the 12th century, the world was dominated by Latin. This meant that the smart people were all speaking Latin to each other, to show off how smart they really were. This wouldn't be too bad, but these same smart people started demanding that English follow the same rules. Keep in mind that Latin and German are completely different languages, and that trying to combine them creates a huge amount of confusion. This is coming from a kid who grew up speaking a Spanish/German mix as a kid. I still get headaches trying to figure out if a De means The or Of.

The Latin rule that gets misused too often into our language is prepositions. The word and idea are Latin and demand that a sentence never end in one. It never actually caught on, but the smart people kept demanding we follow this rule. This is not a joke, if it had caught on, then no one would ever correct another persons grammar on it. The English language has had so many people try to control it that the language itself is very confusing.

What gets my goat, is that the word for people who are constantly correcting English is Grammar Nazi. First, the word Nazi is a horrible thing to call anything. Germans in the US have huge festivals called Oktoberfest just to get everyone to stop calling them that word. Yet, Grammar Nazis are sort of proud that they know the rules so well. What is worse is that it is a completely incorrect name. They are correcting the Latin ideals of English, not the German common speech of everyone around them. Was sprache die?

Don't believe me? Here is a link to the Book of Mormon written in Dutch. It's OK to not know everything that is written, but I am sure you would notice that some of it looks and feels Pidgen. I could point to similar languages, where it seems almost like someone was speaking a Pidgen German instead of Swedish or Norwegian.

English changes as it wants to, and yes, gets new words all the time. Shakespeare is famous for creating all sorts of new words and ideas within his plays. Yet, today, if someone does the same thing, we call it stupid and make fun of the person. Keep in mind, these will likely be words that will be in the common speech soon enough. So to the Grammar Nazis who are ultimately ignoring the true rules of English just to make themselves look big, the word is actually Grammatist. Spell check doesn't even believe the word is real, but if you want English to be Latin, then you have to follow the rules completely.

Okotanpe the Glass Ball Juggler

Okotanpe is a glass juggler. He has a youtube account with his more advanced and artistic jobs. The opening flame one is pretty impressive. There is also a website dedicated to him, though it is entirely in Japanese.

Here is an interview with him.

The destruction of Libraries

A writer talks about what is very likely happening to hundreds of libraries around the world. The backlog of books in storage are being destroyed because it is assumed that the books will be found on Google Books.

The idea of destroying libraries because they will be found on a database somewhere was expected. With the introduction of eBooks and all of that stuff it was expected completely by economic theorists over a decade ago. Yet the idea of losing them so suddenly has had an impact on several people who love the feeling of books.

A historian explores old books to find information. The library is the natural state of a historian, and they tend to have a large supply of books at their homes. I have about 50 books just sitting around my room, these were entirely after leaving home to this school a year ago. Most of them are actually from the discontinued section of the schools library. It feels like a hunting trip to find things that no one else has seen before.

On the other hand, finding old texts is much easier now that it can be downloaded to an eReader like the Kindle. Let's also be honest that the price is way lower than some of the books that are required for school. Check that same link to see what some book sellers and dealers are trying to charge for buying the eBook.

So taking something from the past and changing it has its challenges.

Then we have publishers. There is Authonomy where an author can post their book and pray the other authors with the same desire like it. Then the eBooks market has two major publishers in Amazon and Google. We would include Apple in this, but it doesn't look like Apple gets it. They are using regular publishing companies to post their books.

The problems comes down to the reality that more people can write and would like to be published today then years before. Computers have made it easier to type and edit a book than in the days of Heinlein, Asimov and Kafka. This means that the usual means of publishing has hit a large snag. There is simply not enough people to read the slush pile, and not enough money to publish all of the books in the traditional way.

So the eBook wins, how people get published is unknown. What happens to the old printed books is unknown as well. We just know that it scares some people, and that libraries are going to be very different.

The Rubiks Cube

The Rubik's Cube is a device that was created to make smart people be quiet. I would set it up for my roommate Tuan and stop worrying about him for at least 5 minutes. He would have solved the cube about 4 times in that 5 minutes.

Will Smith likes the cube.


Of course the article doesn't realize that Will Smith is really good at the Cube anyway.


Will would be impressed by today's announcement that any Rubik's Cube can be solved in 20 moves. So I guess Tuan is now just going to look at the cube with disdain.

Beards of the World Unite!!

      The World Beard and Mustache Championship was a wild and woolly ordeal. Hope and Cheryl were on site to see the many wonderful beards in all their glory.
     I asked them a few questions to find out how it was. It was Hope began to describe it,"There were all sort of varieties. There was one in particular , it went down to his chin and went out 7-12 inches."
       She said her favorite beard was Beard of Warpath. He was shivering in the Oregon coolness.
      The Bearding personalities were varied some were, "Very serious about their beards. Some wouldn't even let Miss Oregon, a judge, touch them. Others were just silly and having a fun time."       Although there were no panels on how to properly grow a beard Hope did say, "...the host (emcee) wrote a book on facial hair."
       Hope was disadvantaged at the show because she was actually a 10 year old girl but if she could grow a beard it would be, "A cool one. One that is unique, flashy and in-your-face (ha ha)."     When asked if they would be returning Cheryl -Hope's Mom- said, "We wouldn't miss it! We met awesomely fun people, who traveled such a long way to be a part of this."

A Matter of Size

My brother and I were discussing the rate and price of memory. We realized that it would be far cheaper to buy 2 GB of Ram for a simple machine, than buying something much smaller. Lets put this in proper context, Windows XP can be run easily with 2GB. In fact, it can be run with 1. Let's say you had a small device that only needed about 4 bits of memory, but really, 2 GB was the best price.



This device wouldn't need wires, it connects by Wi-Fi, it wouldn't need a monitor, a computer over at central can connect to it and find out how it is doing. It would basically be exactly the computer you wanted 10 years ago, for about $5. What does it do? Screw things.



It is connected by USB dongle to a screwdriver robot. A simple machine, that only needs so much to do. Imagine the entire factory being controlled by all of these little computers, working away at these easy tasks. This is a nightmare waiting to happen.



You see, it is connected to a wireless network. This network can be accessed by a laptop. In fact, it is likely not even thought about how dangerous the problem is. One machine goes bad, ah well. The screws did not get in tight enough, the entire box it was making is faulty. The computer running it was too powerful for anyone to care if a seperate program took over and changed the commands just a little. Instead of 10 turns, this little screwdriver did 8. Just enough to give it room to work and then bust inside of warranty.



People would go looking for the culprit, but somehow he didn't show up. The Camera system and automatic gun system is controlled Via Wi-fi. In fact, most everything is connected now, and hacked just right. It appears that nothing happened, and no one was awake. The mocha machine somehow put in decaf that day. Except one guy, who was actually playing farmville. He was arrested as the suspect. He hacked the system, and was the only guy awake.



Imagine now the entire recall, because some guy with a laptop got ahold of that little computer. The tech guys won't know it happened, unless they go into every device and check the code. They don't know how many turns to make either, it was written down on a computer, which has access to the wireless network. So they change the code themselves to another screw. This one needed 10 as well, but got 15. If the box was squeezed in a certain way, the box cracks.



What does this box do? It controls the salt on McDonalds' french fries. They get salted badly, McDonalds goes under. Now imagine the Burger King with a laptop.



Ready for more insanity? Imagine that we create all new technology in the next 10 years. True holograms, and scanning devices are used to change communication forever. Now imagine this technolgy 10 years after that. You have to realize that the processing power and memory is far superior to the computer you have now, and it fits, inside of a pocket watch. It has 200 Petabytes, and can run calculations in numbers I can't even find in Wikipedia right now.



Programs like Windows simply don't grow with this and remain at something like 30 Terabytes. This device replaces the old stupid computer from 20 years before, the same one that got hacked into so easily. Guess what? This device is not only hackable, it can be sent back in time.



Now imagine picking up this device in 1972. Keep in mind, a Kylobyte is considered big stuff at the moment. A Gigabyte is something only Governments have, and the entire computer fits inside of a warehouse. This little device is picked up by a kid. He thinks it's cool. He can talk to people on it, he has no idea who. His parents worry that it is possessed by satan, and the government wants it for examination.



This device was cheaply made, and probably has some of the same stuff an iPhone does. It has a scanning device, like a camera, only it records it differently. It easily can tell you about things within a mile of it. This little boy is sent out on a magical quest. He finds the hearing dongle that connects to his ear. A special controller for games, and even a screen.



The government chases after this boy. The device he holds is able to tell him where the GMen are, and how to escape. It can make money from ordinary paper, if you get the printer.



Now imagine that the computer is fully put together, it can talk to our little boy, and tells him to give instructions to the GMen.



Screw= 27;



Somewhere out there, Ronald McDonald smiles. Revenge is a dish without salt.





Before you start thinking this is all made up stuff. Check this out. It's not built yet, but I for one want it.