wow, way too much silence from the jester’s end of the world
this blogging thing began with the most impossible aims imaginable
a pure reflection of my general take on life;
namely that unless i’m doing something to make this world better,
i’m wasting my time

all my dreams scare me

at night
i toss and turn
wondering
what it’s worth

howling into the void

The device that has sparked their interest is an engine that generates thrust purely from electromagnetic radiation - microwaves to be precise - by exploiting the strange properties of relativity. It has no moving parts, and releases no exhaust or noxious emissions. Potentially, it could pack the punch of a rocket in a box the size of a suitcase. It could one day replace the engines on almost any spacecraft. More advanced versions might allow cars to lift from the ground and hover.

Read the whole story…

if you could feel my rage right now you would fear me
or if not me, you would fear the things i would be capable of
because right now my anger knows few bounds
and is just barely contained
by a few thin wisps of moral fiber
and a handgrip connection to those i love

i am furious about the state of things
the way these stupid polititians
try to prove to us that they are needed

Hoping to trigger an ant civil war, U.C. Irvine scientists are experimenting with a colorless potion that makes bosom-buddy arthropods try to decapitate one another, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

It could help rein in one of the planet’s most troublesome pests — the Argentine ant.

read the whole story…

Ok, this is really interesting and all that. But haven’t these people seen Sandkings?

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

Tehe. New Yorkers are finally learning about ayahuasca.

It’s been a busy weekend: Saturday afternoon with Sting at the Edvard Munch show at the Museum of Modern Art, Saturday night at a downtown rock show with Moby, and this evening visiting a bunch of people on dimethyltryptamine, considered the most potent hallucinogen on the planet. DMT, a harrowing seven-minute trip that feels like seven centuries, is Direct Mystical Transmission, says Pinchbeck — Drastic Magical Transport. It is “the doorway you can step through to greet the beings who run the cosmic candy store,” he has written. Smoking a bowl of it, he adds, tastes like “a shard of lawn furniture.”

3,015 Americans have died in Iraq as of September 9. 2,666 of these were military deaths and 349 were civilians.

The Republicans are fond of playing cheap number games with Iraqi casualty figures, and one of the ways they do it is by listing the deaths of enlisted personnel only. They’re hoping that a lazy press and an indifferent public will overlook the civilian losses, and to a large extent they’ve been right so far.

And to be honest who couldn’t use a laugh? This struck me as ridiculously funny . . . it’s a bird doing the moonwalk . . . and other strange behaviour captured on film.

The Bird.

(just click on the picture of the bird with the red head and yellow legs; then enjoy your laugh!)

Very cool stuff with a very cool background. Gonna be trying this soon.

Hikaru dorodango are balls of mud, molded by hand into perfect spheres, dried, and polished to an unbelievable luster. The process is simple, but the result makes it seem like alchemy.

So they’ve come a step closer to being able to grow solar cells. Would be cool to have a grove of trees that you could plug in to your house for power.

“A leaf is an amazingly cheap and efficient solar cell,” says Dr Deanna D’Alessandro, a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular Electronics Group at the University of Sydney. “The best leaves can harvest 30 to 40 percent of the light falling on them. The best solar cells we can build are between 15 and 20 percent efficient, and expensive to make.”

it’s good to have dreams come true

tonight, i feel like i have joined
a somewhat selective group
a weird cross-section of the populace
with loud secrets they’d like to share

there’s a monster in my basement
i helped to move it in . . .
a little heavy lifting,
the running of cords
and it powers up,
it growls and sings

my neighbors are going to love me
when this thing is fully on its feet
and broadcasting