I never met Jack Layton although I wish I had. There was something about him, some special quality, that you just couldn’t resist. While I never agreed with his political views I had nothing but respect for him on a personal level.

Too many times we see a politician take a stand on a particular issue out of convenience. Jack Layton was a refreshing change. The position he took on various issues was borne out of a genuine belief that he was doing what he felt was the right thing. The man had passion and the desire to do good – qualities sorely lacking in today’s political scene.

He was a fighter right to the end vowing to return after stepping down to deal with his failing health. Canada lost a great man today.

RIP Jack.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

• Direct link to video. [link]
• Direct link to Matthew Brown’s profile page on Vimeo. [link]
• Direct link to Kenneth Treister’s portfolio. [link]

But is the possibility of creating a sentient computer really that far-fetched? If not, what sort of legal ramifications would follow? In other words, if one could build a sentient computer, should said computer have legal status and the rights that accompany that status?

For a interesting look into this fascinating topic check out this piece by Benjamin Soskis in the online journal Legal Affairs. The article begins with the mock trial of a computer accused of trying to prevent its shutdown by the company that owns it.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened – but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

Dr Roger Nelson of Princeton University is heading a project, based on earlier research, called the Global Consciousness Project. The aim of the research is to determine whether mankind shares a single subconscious mind. The research actually began in the 1970s by Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton who was one the first scientists to take paranormal research seriously. He focused his work on the areas of telepathy and telekinesis using then state-of-the art technologies.

He used a black-box, or random event generator (REG), to generate two numbers – a one and a zero – in a totally random sequence akin to coin flipping. The generated patterns were then plotted on a graph and not surprisingly produced a fairly consistent flat line, precisely as the law of chance dictates. Small deviations did occur from time to time and appeared as gentle curves on the graph.

Professor Jahn wanted to know if the power of suggestion alone could influence the results of the electronic coin flipping – his results were remarkable.

Dr.Nelson took notice of his colleague’s work and expanded upon it. He brought these machines along to group meditations and duplicated Prof.Jahn’s results over and over. What these men were seeing were dramatic shifts in the generated output.

Flabbergasted, Nelson decided to hook up a series of these REGs to each other via the internet. The REGs were located in various locations around the world to maximize the randomness. Again, the endless stream of data produced a fairly consistent flat line – until 06 Sept 1997. On that day the graph suddenly shot upwards recording a massive shift in out-of-sequence numbers. REGs from around the world were recording the same thing. Whether it was a coincidence or not 06 Sept 97 was the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, watched by an estimated audience of 1 billion.

That did it for Nelson who was now convinced the two events were somehow related. Joined by scientists from around the world in 1998 the The Global Consciousness Project was born.

There are now 65 EGGS (renamed REGs) located in 41 countries and they continue to produce unusual results. Massive shifts in data were recorded just prior to several major world events such as Nato bombing of Yugoslavia to the Kursk submarine tragedy to America’s hung election of 2000. They even routinely record global celebrations like New Year’s Eve.

Then something happened that truly stunned the researchers. Just hours before the murderous terrorist attacks on Sept 11 the machines went crazy. It happened again in December just 24 hours before the earthquake and resulting tsunami struck.

But what does this mean? Dr.Nelson and his colleagues may be stumped but they are not without theories – one of them being time travel. Not to sound like a re-broadcast of the Art Bell show, time travel is not at all that farfetched.

Strange as it may seem, though, there’s nothing in the laws of physics that precludes the possibility of foreseeing the future. It is possible – in theory – that time may not just move forwards but backwards, too. And if time ebbs and flows like the tides in the sea, it might just be possible to foretell major world events. We would, in effect, be ‘remembering’ things that had taken place in our future.

Prof Bierman at the University of Amsterdam explains,

There’s plenty of evidence that time may run backwards. And if it’s possible for it to happen in physics, then it can happen in our minds, too.

You have to read the rest of this article – it’s amazing stuff.

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649#121

Editor’s note: rednova.com is no longer online. I have found a cached version of the original article. It appears below.

Can a black box see into the future?

Deep in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened — but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep-sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers.

‘It’s earth-shattering stuff,’ says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the ‘black box’ phenomenon. ‘We’re very early on in the process of trying to figure out what’s going on here. At the moment we’re stabbing in the dark.’

Dr Nelson’s investigations, called the Global Consciousness Project, were originally hosted by Princeton University and are centred on one of the most extraordinary experiments of all time. Its aim is to detect whether all of humanity shares a single subconscious mind that we can all tap into without realising.

And machines like the Edinburgh black box have thrown up a tantalising possibility: that scientists may have unwittingly discovered a way of predicting the future. The project is also the most rigorous and longest-running investigation ever into the potential powers of the paranormal. Professor Robert Jahn, of Princeton University during the late 1970s, was determined to study the phenomena using the most up-to-date technology available.

One of these new technologies was a humble-looking black box known as a Random Event Generator (REG). This used computer technology to generate two numbers — a one and a zero — in a totally random sequence, rather like an electronic coin-flipper. The pattern of ones and noughts — ‘heads’ and ‘tails’ as it were — could then be printed out as a graph. The laws of chance dictate that the generators should churn out equal numbers of ones and zeros — which would be represented by a nearly flat line on the graph. Any deviation from this equal number shows up as a gently rising curve.

During the late 1970s, Prof Jahn decided to investigate whether the power of human thought alone could interfere in some way with the machine’s usual readings. He hauled strangers off the street and asked them to concentrate their minds on his number generator. In effect, he was asking them to try to make it flip more heads than tails. It was a preposterous idea at the time. The results, however, were stunning and have never been satisfactorily explained.

Again and again, entirely ordinary people proved that their minds could influence the machine and produce significant fluctuations on the graph, ‘forcing it’ to produce unequal numbers of ‘heads’ or ‘tails’. According to all of the known laws of science, this should not have happened — but it did. And it kept on happening.

Dr Nelson, also working at Princeton University, then extended Prof Jahn’s work by taking random number machines to group meditations, which were very popular in America at the time. Again, the results were eyepopping. The groups were collectively able to cause dramatic shifts in the patterns of numbers. From then on, Dr Nelson was hooked.

Using the internet, he connected up 40 random event generators from all over the world to his laboratory computer in Princeton. These ran constantly, day in day out, generating millions of different pieces of data. Most of the time, the resulting graph on his computer looked more or less like a flat line. But then on September 6, 1997, something quite extraordinary happened: the graph shot upwards, recording a sudden and massive shift in the number sequence as his machines around the world started reporting huge deviations from the norm.

The day was of historic importance for another reason, too, for it was the same day that an estimated billion people around the world watched the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Dr Nelson was convinced that the two events must be related in some way. So, in 1998, he gathered together scientists from all over the world to analyse his findings. They, too, were stumped and resolved to extend and deepen the work of Prof Jahn and Dr Nelson. The Global Consciousness Project was born.

Since then, the project has expanded massively. A total of 65 Eggs (as the generators have been named) in 41 countries have now been recruited to act as the ‘eyes’ of the project. And the results have been startling and inexplicable in equal measure.

For during the course of the experiment, the Eggs have ‘sensed’ a whole series of major world events as they were happening, from the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia to the Kursk submarine tragedy to America’s hung election of 2000. But the project threw up its greatest enigma on September 11, 2001.

As the world stood still and watched the horror of the terrorist attacks unfold across New York, something strange was happening to the Eggs. Not only had they registered the attacks as they actually happened, but the characteristic shift in the pattern of numbers had begun four hours before the planes even hit the Twin Towers. They had, it appeared, detected that an event of historic importance was about to take place before the terrorists had even boarded their fateful flights.

The implications, not least for the West’s security services who constantly monitor electronic ‘chatter’, are clearly enormous. ‘I knew then that we had a great deal of work ahead of us,’ says Dr Nelson. What could be happening? Was it a freak occurrence, perhaps? Apparently not, for in the closing weeks of December 2003, the machines went wild once more. Twenty-four hours later, an earthquake deep beneath the Indian Ocean triggered the tsunami which devastated South-East Asia, and claimed the lives of an estimated quarter of a million people.

So could the Global Consciousness Project really be forecasting the future? ‘We’re perfectly willing to discover that we’ve made mistakes,’ says Dr Nelson. ‘But we haven’t been able to find any, and neither has anyone else.’ It is possible — in theory — that time may not just move forwards but backwards, too. And if time ebbs and flows like the tides in the sea, it might just be possible to foretell major world events. We would, in effect, be ‘remembering’ things that had taken place in our future.

• 1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
• 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
• 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
• 1 to move it to the Lighting section
• 2 to argue then move it to the Electricals section
• 7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
• 5 to flame the spell checkers
• 3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
• 6 to argue over whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb” … another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
• 2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is “lamp”
• 15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that “light bulb” is perfectly correct
• 19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
• 11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum
• 36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
• 7 to post URL’s where one can see examples of different light bulbs
• 4 to post that the URL’s were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL’s
• 3 to post about links they found from the URL’s that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
• 13 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add “Me too”
• 5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
• 4 to say “didn’t we go through this already a short time ago?”
• 13 to say “do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs”
• 1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again.

Ricky Martin Lathlin worked as a roofer here in Winnipeg. Not only was he a co-worker, he was a friend. It sounds like an old cliche but Rick was very much the person who would do anything for anyone. He was a source of comfort and inspiration for everyone who knew him. Battling his own personal demons, Rick always had time for others as he truly possessed a heart of gold. Everyone in his neighbourhood loved and respected him, even the children. This is where Rick excelled – his interaction with children. Whenever I dropped Rick at home after a day’s work all of the neighbourhood kids would run up to the truck to greet him. I can’t count the number of times we arrived at Rick’s home on a Friday evening and he would jump out of the truck and buy ice cream for all of the kids present. This is but one small example of the kind of person he was – there are many more.

And this is how Rick died – putting others before him. Last weekend, Rick was visiting a friends house enjoying a few drinks after a long week of work. Suddenly and without warning all hell broke loose. A group of people (as large as 10 by some estimates) smashed the front window of the home he was visiting. The attackers then barged in through the unlocked front door. The son of the person Rick was visiting met the intruders at the front door only to be physically assaulted. This is where Rick jumped in. Pulling his friends son out of harms way Rick interjected himself into the situation and was fatally assaulted with a meat cleaver as a result. The attackers fled but the damage was done. By the time emergency services arrived it was too late. The blood loss suffered by Ricky was too much to overcome and he passed away.

It seems as if each time I pick up the paper or turn on the radio or television I hear about a stabbing or shooting. But this is the first time it involved someone I knew and cared about.

Ricky was far too good of a person to die this way.

originally published at riteturnonly.com 24 April 2010

The Dull Men’s Club is a place where dull men share thoughts and experiences, free from gliz and glam, free from pressures to be in and trendy — free instead to enjoy simple, ordinary things.

Read about thought provoking items such as New park benches built especially for Ottawa or Safe Excitement on a winter morning . . . defrosting the car windows or Historic/Commemorative Plaques in Paris . . . “Nothing Happened Here on April 17, 1967″, among many others.

If that’s not enough for you, they also boast features like Airport Carousels – The world’s largest database on the direction airport luggage carousels turn — clockwise or counterclockwise with new reports coming in almost daily.

Wow. You can even change the appearance of the website if the few colours they use are too exciting for you. Of course they also provide links to dozens of other boring & dull sites. This is great stuff, check it out.

X = msgbox("Your Computer has been infected by a virus. Immediate action required!", ,"WINDOWS SECURITY ALERT!")

Save the file with whatever name you want but make sure it has the extension .VBS

Next, right-click the Start Menu button and navigate to Explore All Users > Programs > Startup and place your newly saved file there. This will activate it the next time the machine is booted. If you want to test it simply open it. This is what it should look like,

If you really want to be irritating copy that line as many times as you can. For instance, if you save the file like this …

X = msgbox("Your Computer has been infected by a virus. Immediate action required!", ,"WINDOWS SECURITY ALERT!")
X = msgbox("Your Computer has been infected by a virus. Immediate action required!", ,"WINDOWS SECURITY ALERT!")
X = msgbox("Your Computer has been infected by a virus. Immediate action required!", ,"WINDOWS SECURITY ALERT!")

… it will create the popup a total of 3 times, one for each time the popup is closed. Obviously the more lines you add the more the popup will appear.

You can use this technique to create any type of message you want. Use your imagination.

If you want some ready made pranks to run RJL Software has a fairly good selection to choose from. A word of warning if you decide to use any of them – most modern antivirus apps will flag them because they are considered nuisance software. They are not malicious.

The Dialectizer takes text or other web pages and instantly creates parodies of them! Try it out by selecting a dialect, then entering a URL or English text below.

You have several choices including Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, Hacker and my personal favourite Elmer Fudd.

You can dialectize a block of text or an entire web page.

Paleo-Future has amassed an impressive collection of media related to the study of paleo-futurism. The site is rich with material divided into decades starting with the 1880s. Although I haven’t actually counted the images they must number in the thousands.

It’s difficult to say which part of the site is my favourite but if I had to choose I’d say I really enjoyed the section documenting postcards from the early 1900s depicting life in the 21st century. Here is one such example, an image depicting a moving sidewalk.

Paleo-Future is one of those sites you just have to bookmark. Think of it as a virtual museum where you could easily spend a few hours roaming around.