I’m using my Chrome browser as an experimental arena to see what happens when you mess with your basic web interface. What happens when you corrupt the very basis of communication?

Well, here’s what happens when you achieve 100% corruption. (Unfortunately, I don’t know enough CSS to make this work on non-wiki pages.)

If you take i seriously, it’s sort of overwhelming to try to read Wikipedia when the text is Wingdings. There is zero comprehension. But once you decide *not* to try to read them, you can appreciate them for their aesthetic value, and maybe start to make up meanings.

View high resolution

riteaid:

//11-21-11

I went to my first session in the sensory deprivation tank today, walked down the boardwalk along the Pacific Ocean and found the Float Lab at 801. When I went into the office, a small anteroom with two photos of Albert Hoffmann (the chemist who created LSD) I knew I was at the right place, and when the owner, Crash came inside and made eye contact with me, I knew immediately serious mental work was being done, as his look put the kind of energy up through my lower back and skull I normally only get after 3-4 minutes of eye contact with someone. He asked why I was there and I told him I have a blog about rituals. “You mean like going to the top of a pyramid and sacrificing virgins?” “No, meditations.” “You gotta work your way up, huh?” He gave myself and another a rundown on the use of the tank: go through this door and wash thoroughly using special soap, shampoo and conditioner. Put in earplugs to prevent the epsom salt from accumulating in the ears, climb into the tank, and lie down face up, feet towards the door. No instructions were given for what kind of meditations would be appropriate. I opened the black steel door and climbed in, laid on my back and began to focus on my breath. I was planning on using the space for chanting, silent breathing, and Jung’s active imagination, but I realize now the most conducive activity is to just let go. (Letting go seems always the most ‘conducive’ activity, but some things, like cardio exercise or meditation require focus on one task even when other desires arrive, I still wonder about the relation of these ‘building’ activities to staying truly in line with the will of the universe.) After about 10 minutes euphoria began to creep up my toes and through my whole body. I cut this process short as well, thinking I “needed” to use the time wisely, not considering I’d have many opportunities in the future to take control and guide my experience. Because of my fear of falling asleep in the water, I didn’t allow myself to relax, and because I’ve disconnected myself from the variety of activity of my unconscious in society in order to focus on certain parts, I was unable to bring those things to surface without what would’ve been the appropriate thing to do, letting go completely and hitting the pre-sleep dream state. I’m hoping to start going twice a week for at least the next 3 months, and will report further on my experiences.

This is the second time float tanks have come up in the past week. That’s not quite synchronicity. The connection feels profound in the way synchronicity is profound.

I’ve found two places in Seattle that offer tank sessions, and I’m setting up an appointment for next week.

(Source: ritualaid)

I love things that seem both futuristic and ancient. Banged up metal like this could be from both the present, the future, and the past.

Could be:

• Light factory detritus from any time in the 20th century
• A modern emergency blanket
• Tin foil from a modern kitchen
• Gold-faced metal insulation from a satellite
• A bent vessel from the Bronze Age,like the Ringlemere Cup

(via internetdrugs)

View high resolution

fancygriptape:

ianbrooks:

Rorschach Shuttle by Timo Meyer

What do you see?

Artist: flickr / twitter / website

I see a man preaching.

The outline of the shuttle is the ultimate science totem.

(Source: ianbrooks)

View high resolution

Big baskety things by Sopheap Pich at the Henry. The vertical elements of those conical baskets are made of one piece of bamboo slit into many many bars.

Great shadows.

View high resolution

The lack of a period makes this image on the Wikipedia entry for Michigan’s “Thumb” look even sadder.

Rigid, golden Chimu burial gloves. Replicating the hand tattoos of the deceased, these were placed on the dead person’s hands in burial. What a great idea!

And look: these gloves have fingernails.

"The universe is your prison, or is it a womb?"

One last quote from my dad. This time about…well, everything, I guess.

"Got any surprisingly nanotechnology that’ll heal me?"

My dad again, this time about his Lyme disease.

"I have some genetic traits I should tell you about."

My dad, calling to tell me about his hypothyroid condition.

bashford:

James Bridle speaking about the New Aesthetic at Web Directions South.

“Waving at the machines”, a 50-minute, 120-slide vector through the idea, an idea that still seems massive and nebulous, but which it is possible to fire a laser through and illuminate some motes. I’m not sure I managed to phrase the camouflage stuff quite right, and the need for an ending always feels like a cop-out, but nevertheless, I cover many of the bases.

The New Aesthetic: Waving at the Machines

James Bridle’s “New Aesthetic” has been really useful to me. He’s put a name on the visual trends that seem to have arisen organically out of a variety of technologies and media styles. His explanation of the idea and ongoing tumblr are extraordinarily useful in determining what the distributed science fiction of the present looks like. Bridle is the modern Hugo Gernsback, only he can draw his images from reality.

The reason I haven’t watched the video yet is because I can’t get past the opening video still. Bridle’s choice of clothing is completely perplexing and amazing. A black tee worn over a starched white button-up shirt is so crisp and clean and embodies so many confusing elements:

It’s casual and formal at the same time.

It’s both totally nerdy and weirdly fashion-forward.

It’s a “look” and a “non-look”.

It’s composed of mundane elements, but looks really alien.

it’s the clothing equivalent of a Zen garden in the middle of a server farm.

More than anything James Bridle has documented in the New Aesthetic, his outfit in this talk might be the most most futuristic thing I’ve ever seen.

(Source: vimeo.com)

View high resolution

i wonder if there’s a) a market and b) a supplier for origami cranes folded aboard the ISS.

Until there is, I’ll just follow the station’s progress wistfully, wishing I was folding paper in space.

The Monster at the End of This Book is the best-selling Sesame Street property in its history, and it was written for one purpose: To teach kids how to read to the end of a book. It is both rather amazing, and rather obvious, that finishing a book is a skill, not a trait.

The Divergent Timeline of Lego: Space

ckck:

Friday Mini-Feature: Space Lego of the 80s (and late 70s).

Also known as the best Lego ever made.

Lego’s Space line was obviously, my favorite Lego line. I had sets from the 80s to nearly the 90s.

Looking back at it now, it’s initial striking how mundane and rooted in actual space exploration technology some of the sets were.Things got weirder pretty quickly, though.

Read more

View high resolution

More in the tunnel.