The Curse of the Black Will
Currently Reading: "A Brilliant Darkness" - João Magueijo
... An upcoming presentation that went rather well! Scores of people showed up (on a Monday at 7:30am no less) to get a glimpse of the mysteriously reclusive fellow with the haircut aversion rumored to wander the lab halls late in the night, he was to speak on the subject of Temporal Neuroscience after a random aside in a conversation with Dr. Rudrauf about a recent research advance in that field.
Unfortunately now I fear that I have been pegged as "The Time Guy", where everyone will want to send me time articles and collaborate with me in time research instead of my principle interests in persuasion in decision making (mind control), regenerative neurobiology (immortality), body-machine interface (cybernetics), consilience (AI), neuroplastic architecture (learning things well really really fast), and hermeneutic supremacy over all other forms of science in the 21st century. Still, Dan seemed sufficiently pleased, this may mean new possible sources of funding for research if I can utilize his connections by convincing him to "adopt" me/us .
Variables of consequence having been clarified, thanks to an overgenerousness and kindness on behalf of my employer (or perhaps the powers of satisficing) one of the alternative non-practical solutions was found at my consultant work to keep me aboard, I no longer have to drive on gravel, we are splitting the cost of the car repair, and I am getting a raise. Here I was planning to pimp out my friends on Skyara in a thousand crazy meetings for a 10% cut! "Feed ducks with a biologist", "plant trees with an environmentalist", "tricycle races on the quad"... We were all going to be rich! Alas.
One of the agents of the growing Bill Gates personal library has just acquired from Atticus a first edition of Babbage's 1864 autobiography, "the only published description of the design of his Analytical Engine," accompanied by a letter signed and written by Babbage requesting that the volume be given to Napoleon III "Emperor of the French".
While Pascal and Leibniz built calculating machines of various sorts, Babbage was the first to conceive of a machine which would combine the processes of artithmetic and logic---the essential parts of what we would come to know as a computer. The historian of science, George Dyson, has argued that in many ways, Babbage "was realizing Leibniz's ambitions for the mechanization of arithmetic".
I know when I publish MY first book I am going to demand a copy be given to the leader of France. Why wouldn't you? The halls of power must reverberate with my genius! I read last week that Zuckerburg's Facebook profile lists one of his interests as "eliminating desire"... I get the sense he means this in the Thielian drive for ultimate power and not the Buddhist position of enlightened detachment. To eradicate the primal drives as a source of self-destruction as have been the downfall of so many others of wealth and celebrity will ensure that he remains a continuing force in the world- but unfortunately will likely (given his background) make him more of an objectivist, and thus unsympathetic to the plight of those born in disadvantaged circumstance (or ways of assisting them to better lives). This matters because studying his company I believe that he may become the world's first trillionaire, even with little success coming from "targeted advertising". He is one of the first public figures in my life that will probably live as long as the rest of the millennials.
Speaking of, I found someone else who listens to Daedelus!
Felton the graphic design artist has been remarked upon several years previously in 3Q, I consider him a stylized adjunct of the quantified self movement- but I did a double-take at this year's obligatory article heading, I know of NO ONE who has heard of Daedelus but me. Apparently the reporter Sean Patrick Cooper thinks that I have "critically durable" music choices (...or in other words widely recognized by those with taste as good?) meaning that I might be one of those almost hipsters: "a particular brand of contemporary adult often called these days an urban creative professional". WHAT? Who uses this term? That sounds like terrible art gallery branding slang for "people who don't work in the construction industry".
"Terry Spanklemorph is a pre-eminent urban creative professional, after leaving art school he now works as a butcher... an URBAN butcher who professionally creates slices of meat reminiscent of the work of several local sandwich artists... In his spare time he enjoys eating popsicles and hanging upside-down from fire escapes, but also basketball and tic-tac-toe."
"Is that a Spanklemorph? He is soooo hot right now."
Anyway this weekend (in part to check up periodically with a friend who was gravely ill) I traveled once more to Des Moines for something called a "LAN party", where there was quite a concentration of interesting people. These go on for several days (in this case three), where participants continually test the reflexes concentration and cognitive abilities of other participants in a mental endurance test stealing all forms of usual physical comfort (sleep, autonomy, the ability to pick up nearby food and put in in your mouth) through the medium of high-level immersive coordinatational communal-participation video games. Near the end my friend RH said "I feel like I have a hangover and I haven't even been drinking anything". There was a repose however when Medicom, the local internet provider experienced a network-wide crash in the afternoon of the second day, so I took the opportunity to go get Pho with my friend DP and we had a fascinating (although somewhat lethargic) discussion about synthesizer fabrication, nuclear fusion reactors, the inventions of Leonardo DaVinci, neo-aerodynamics, and the genetic variances associated with societal progress. It reminded me of the chat I had the last time in DM when I spoke with BC, JZ, and LZ about the functionality of religions, electromagnetic field variance, transposon mutations, and tasty tasty nachos at "El Bait Shop". Am I becoming addicted to central Iowan hangouts? Perhaps! I would still like to thank the hosts, the players, the observers, and my other friend for not dying, though he is still really sick. He should go to the doctor.