What is the Meaning of Face Stealer?

When I look at an "app" (1) like Face Stealer from Yahoo Japan, I wonder what it is the author's were thinking?  If the author's were alienated teenagers writing a program to prototype looks for a horror film, then the app is a work of genius.

But if the authors thought they were merely doing something cool, or neat, then it is the app itself that is horrifying, as is their lack of awareness of impact of the results.

Faces are more than they appear.   We have a lot of perceptual machinery to perceive and interpret faces, and it is easy to go wrong.  This app supposedly maps another face from an image onto your face in real time.

The Internet is, among other things, a cabinet of perverse curiosities and Face Stealer certainly deserves to be collected.

Consider the following picture from Michelle Starr of Cnet/Australia.

We at Global Wahrman want to congratulate the authors of Face Stealer for creating a truly horrifying piece of software.

The app can be found here:

http://download.cnet.com/Face-Stealer/3000-2192_4-75886222.html

The article from Cnet can be found here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57574999-1/creepiest-app-ever-lets-you-wear-anothers-face/

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1. I wish to be the first to call for the death penalty for whoever came up with this stupid term, the "app". Oh "program" is not good enough for you, program?

Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Importance of Science Education

While we are on the subject of science education, c.f. the post on "Giant Intelligent Vegetable on Mars", I am happy to see that my friend Dr. Tyson is doing his job and speaking out about the importance of science and the importance of funding science and science education.

A recent NY Times article has an interview with Dr. Tyson in which he spins the recent meteor strikes into an impassioned plea for more science funding.

One of the many fringe benefits of working at the Hayden Planetarium many years ago was to be able to work with the many idealists at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), first among them being Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Neil is unlikely to use the word "motherfucker" in public.

To give you one example of this idealism, and because it always makes me laugh, at a meeting about the Digital Galaxy that we were building for visualization, the project leader, Dennis Davison, asked what measures we were taking to insure "the integrity of the data".   We hardly ever talk about the "integrity of the data" when working on Zombie movies or blowing up planets, generally speaking.

It is a slight exaggeration to say that Neil's job is to be public and get kids (and adults, but mostly kids) excited about science.  And he does this really well.  Part of the secret to his success is that he is completely sincere in doing so.  He thinks science IS important, and he thinks science education is very important and he charges out there in public and uses every opportunity to say so.

When the Hayden was being rebuilt and the AMNH was racing towards its end of the fake Millennium deadline, Neil engaged in a dialogue to have the AMNH create a small astrophysics department.  What you may not be aware of is that there have been almost no new astrophysics departments in this country since the great expansion in the science in the 1950s as part of the Cold War and the Space Race.   The AMNH was not jumping up and down about adding more costs  to their overhead, but Neil insisted and he won.  The point is, the AMNH is the only organization in this country (that I am aware of) that has as its mission doing real science and communicating results directly to the American people.  In other words, their mission is not to train more graduate students, Universities do that, and the AMNH has a good relationship with Columbia and many other schools.  The AMNH's job is to do both research and direct science education to the general population.   Hence, if you have a Planetarium, you should also have an Astrophysics department.

Neil has an interesting background, the whole story of which I am not completely clear on.  But I do know that he went to the Bronx High School of Science, scholarship to Princeton, and is a living example of the promise of higher education to create opportunity for minority groups (although I suspect that Neil is something of a ringer in this regard).

Astrophysics is a very tricky field.  It is incredibly elitist and the field as a whole can be quite nasty, and I assure you that Neil's immense popularity wins him no friends in the field of Astrophysics.  But he is on a mission, he is one of the most recognizable people in NYC, and I assure you he is completely sincere.

By the way, Neil is unlikely to use the word "motherfucker" in public, but I thought that the above image of Neil making a point at some public forum was very funny, so I stole it from a post someone did on Facebook.

_______________________________________________

American Museum of Natural History
www.amnh.org

Vast Thinking Vegetable Discovered on Mars! Scientists Attempt to Cover Up Truth!

On Oct 13, 1912, two and a half years after the approach of Halley's Comet to the earth, the Salt Lake Tribune's Sunday Section astounded the world with the announcement of a discovery on Mars of a giant thinking vegetable containing a single enormous eye.   You would think that such a discovery would have been published everywhere, but no, clearly the government in Washington wanted to suppress the truth because not only was the article not published anywhere else, but they even went so far as to issue flat denials.

Why is our government so intent on repressing news of the alien intelligent plant?  Is it perhaps because they want to hide the peaceful intent of the citizens of planet earth but co-opt the innocent plant into plots and intrigues our government has here on earth?

And why has the venal, untrustworthy scientific community not revealed this outrage against knowledge, why have they gone along with this conspiracy to repress the truth?   Perhaps they are not the selfless "searchers for truth" we thought they were.

I have reproduced this stunning article in its entirely as reported on the internet at the web link below.  Please spread the news as far as you can.  I wonder if our evil government isn't planning to spray DDT on this innocent and peace loving citizen of the galaxy?!

Original article is here:

http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=201202207190.the_mammoth_eye_of_mars

Here is the pathetic response from some toady at the Lick Observatory trying to spread scorn on the article and so suppress the truth.

We must demand a full-disclosure of everything involved with the Giant Intelligent Vegetable from our government at once.  I hope you will join me in this crusade.  I will investigate what is involved in a FOIA request over the next few days.

Predicting the Next Pope: Atlantean Crystal Wisdom Makes Shocking Predictions

[Addendum: now that the Pope has been selected we can see that the Wisdom was correct about items 1 and 4, the jury is out on 2, 3, and 6 and item 5 is a n/a.  So we are 100% so far with more to be seen in the future]

The Roman Catholic Church is picking a new Pope. Whenever this happens, the Western news media loses its mind a little bit as do many other people who, even though they are not Catholic, seem to know all about this and have plenty to say about who the next Pope should be, and why, and what they should do.

I feel it is time that I, as a student of the esoteric knowledge, who has been trusted with Atlantean Crystal Wisdom, reveal to you what I know about picking a new Pope and indeed to peer into the future, misty though it may be to make some predictions. Even now, I feel the cosmic energy forces collect, the gray wall begins to disperse and I see many things....

 The future becomes clear ... 

1. The next Pope will either be a Hasidic Rabbi or a Roman Catholic !

Yes I can see him.... he is ... a Catholic!  The next Pope will not be a Radical Nun or Richard Dawkins or a Jain, as interesting as those various religions and religious types may be. He won't even be an Orthodox Jew, although that is a funny thought. Nor will he be a secular businessman or politician or even Brad Pitt called to the cloth in these desperate times. He is going to be a man, within a certain age range, who has spent a great deal of his adult life, if not all of it, working within the Western (e.g. the Roman Catholic) church.

2. The next Pope will be a Serious Man Who Believes Things You Don't !

Oh my God, the Crystal Wisdom predicts that the next Pope will not be a white liberal Protestant who only thinks what we want him to think.   Thats horrible!   Yes, I think it is likely that the next Pope, or for that matter any Pope, is going to say things you don't want him to say. I recommend you lighten up about it, because there is nothing you can do. The fact is that not only is he going to be a Catholic, he is going to be a serious and dedicated Catholic and there are lots and lots of things such people study and worry about and you don't. So go ahead and get upset if the next pope reminds you/us that Europe as a concept came into being as a result of armed warfare with Islam. He is/was 100% correct and it was an interesting thing to say. Whoever the next Pope is, and whatever he does say, it is likely to be outside your experience, unless you have spent many years studying the theology of the modern Roman Catholic Church.

And you thought Black Tie was annoying

3. The next Pope Will Fail to Disavow Pauline Christianity !

Now the Crystal Wisdom is being cruel.   It has revealed the bitter truth.  The next Pope is not going to turn his back on the last 1500 or so years of Pauline Christianity.   He is NOT going to change fundamental doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in spite of the nice letter you wrote him.   That means no women priests, a rather negative opinion on birth control whatever the faithful may actually do, and at best a pass on homosexuality in the church. The Church  does have major theological issues to deal with here but they will do so in their own damn time and at their pleasure if they do so at all.  So the Crystal Wisdom reveals!

4. The next Pope will have some elements of being an Italian / Vatican insider as well as being a member of the international scene in some sense.

In order to be functional, the next Pope must have experience with the Vatican hierarchy and organization.  Whether he be from Zimbabwe or the suburbs of Rome.   And that means that he will have some history about something you do not like about the church.   Whether it is an opinion you do not like or a position on a scandal you do not like.  The odds are that you will find something you do not like.

5. Whatever Papal Infallibility Means It Probably Doesn't Mean What you Think it Does.

So don't worry about it.

6. The next Pope is NOT the Antichrist.  Trust me.

I know you have weird beliefs about the end of the world, and how Satan will occupy the Vatican and make all children have 666 on their foreheads and shit, but I have looked into the future and I see that the time is not yet. Be patient. The end of the world is coming, just not now. The Crystal Wisdom has revealed who the AntiChrist really is but the time has not come to reveal his Identity.  And no, it isn't President Obama or Hilary Clinton, so calm down.

I know its disappointing, but Obama is not the AntiChrist either.

It is pretty clear that the Pope is one of those "jobs" like the President of the United States for which finding the right person is nearly impossible because no normal human could possibly be up to the challenge, and because it would be difficult to build a consensus of what constituted a good solution anyway.   There are several levels here of both success and failure, from pure inspiration and brilliance to sheer disaster and with merely competent being in the middle and the most likely.  The Pope only has so much power, contrary to what you may read on the Internet, and the organization he nominally heads has a lot of momentum of its own.   

This is all that I am shown, the Atlantean Crystal Wisdom now grows dark.

My Favorite Story About Bill Hanna from Jetsons The Movie (1990)

[updated 3/15/2013 to mention Al Gmuer and Jerry Mills]

Many years ago, our little production company, deGraf/Wahrman, inc (dWi) ended up doing two Hanna-Barbara Projects at once. How it happened is a little complicated, but they were essentially two completely different projects: a motion platform ride for Universal Studios Florida and about 40 or so shots for the first Jetson's Movie directly for Hanna Barbara.

Our client for the latter was Bill Hanna personally, and it was one of the most endearing and positive client relationships we, dWi, or I, personally, have ever had. I have a few anecdotes from that project that is the point of the post, but I think it will be helpful to return to yesteryear and explain what was going on.

At the time, about 1989 or so, computer animation was not used in motion picture or animation production.

You might want to reread the above sentence a few times in order to get what I am trying to tell you, and then add a very important phrase: except for a few brave souls who would every once in a while try computer animation and see if it would work for them.   But when you examine those projects, good or bad, you can see that Hollywood is actually in its way trying to find a way to use this new medium.

Bill Hanna and Hanna Barbera was one of those brave souls / companies.

They had after many years managed to get Universal to finance a feature film around the Jetson's property and we were going to be included. I was and am such a fan of the Jetson's I can not tell you how thrilled I was.

It is now necessary to set the way-back-machine, Sherman, to get into the right mood. (3) In 1989, you could not easily use PC's in production like you do now, you had to use much more expensive machines such as Silicon Graphics and Symbolics. We had access to a factory floor of Symbolics Machines in Chatsworth (1), and about a dozen of various types of machines in West Hollywood. If you needed to record to film you had to provide your own film recorder, no motion picture oriented services were available. (4)

This is a good dWi image because it is dark and ambiguous

Above, a very low resoulution screengrab of a smoggy day in the Jetson's neighborhood, and the inspiration for the sequence from Los Angeles

The project was to do about 40 shots that were going to be BG shots with 2D animation on top. In a few cases we would composite George Jetson into his Jetcar while it whizzed past. Animation included a flock of Jetcars in a traffic jam, a hero jet car elevating out of the traffic jam, the Jetson's towers elevating out of the smog, and so forth. Many people worked on that project at dWi, all of them with distinction. I don't want to get the names wrong, so I will provide the names at a later date. (2)

Now for the anecdotes. The first one is minor, the second one will be hard to understand if you have not been in this or a related business.

One day while we were in a story board meeting with Bill Hanna, I got up the courage to ask him why they did not do more Jetsons and Flintstones, telling him honestly what a big fan I was of them. I could not understand how there could only be one season of The Jetsons and the Flintstones, one each.  He just laughed at me, and said, "We loved the Jetsons and Flintstones too.   But we never got the ratings. On the other hand, Scooby Doo is in its 13th season and we are happy to be working".

13 seasons of Scooby Doo but only one of The Jetsons?  No justice, clearly no justice in this world.

So after a rocky start having to do with the other project, the one administered by Universal Studios Florida, the project from hell, we start delivering lots of shots for the movie. And things are going along and, this is so amazing I can't believe it, one day I got a phone call from Bill Hanna.

And he said "Michael, you know those shots you just delivered?" I said, "Yes". "Well, it turns out that they are what it is we asked for, and of course we will pay you for them. But we think we would want some changes, and we wanted to know if you had the time to do some extra shots and if we could perhaps get a discount given that these shots will be very similar to the ones you just did" I was speechless for a few seconds and then either I, or possibly the producer, said "we would love to".

But what you may not appreciate is how unusual this is: He was not trying to get something for free.  He was not trying to blame us (believe me, we were not perfect). He was thanking us for our work, asking us if we had some more time, and wondered if he might have a discount.

It was such a change from the unbelievably evil project and people on the other side of the house that I had to sit down. Wait, a client saying "thank you"?   It does happen, that people say thank you in that business, but it is not all that common.   

We loved working for Hanna Barbera and for Bill.  I am sorry he is gone.

While I am on the subject, I do not remember all our friends at Hanna Barbera by name, but two names in particular stand out beyond Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, and that was Al Gmuer (sp?) and Jerry Mills.  Just wanted you guys to know how helpful I thought you were and what a pleasure it was to work with you.  (I am spacing out on the name of a third person, who I think was the senior Art Director there, but I can do some research and find it).  

William Hanna (1910 - 2001)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hanna

Jetsons The Movie (1990)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099878/

_______________________________________

1. Because the factory was in Chatsworth, and Chatsworth was where the farms were when I lived in Granada Hills as a kid, I called it the Render Farm. Years later, everyone was calling their render farm a render farm, but I doubt it was because of me. I think this is just a coincidence, I hope.

2. I think the people on the project included Jim Hillin, Phil Zucco, Ken Brain, Jay Sloat, Ken Cope, Michelle Porter, Allen Battino, Craig Newman, of course Brad and myself, and the usual crew of people who helped out on all our projects like Liz Ralston, our office manager and later producer, Anne Marie, Carter and Ladd McPartland. Who am I forgetting?   Did Greg Ercolano and J Walt Adamczyk work on this project?  How about Tom Betts (Did I get his name right, it has been a long time).  Did Steve Segal and Tuck Tucker work on this project?

3. This is of course a reference to Sherman and Peabody from Jay Ward.

4. The more I think about this, the more I realize that this could not be true.  It is true that excellent scanning and recording was not easily available the way it is today, as a commodity service.  But probably had we wanted we would have found someone who provided a film recording service on a CELCO or DICOMED or other device.   Nevertheless, we felt we had to do it ourselves.

What is Meant When It Is Said "Hollywood Needs Artists"

Many years ago in New York, a dear friend of mine who was head of NY SIGGRAPH called me up and announced "<Unnamed Studio> needs artists! <Unnamed Studio> needs artists!".

I laughed at her endearing naivete.

"Yes," I said, "Sure, absolutely, <Unnamed Studio> needs artists. No doubt. But what you mean by the word 'artist' and what they mean are completely different."

"Huh?" she said, completely baffled by my cynical response.

"When you say 'artist', you mean something along the lines of 'a person with a strong personal vision and an even stronger ego who works for years or decades to establish a unique or at least a personal style associated with their name, exhibits generally through galleries, establishes themselves within certain very specific contemporary art communities and strives within the very narrow bounds of whatever we currently call Contemporary Art, for grants, recognition and to become collectable. They cultivate their Art in America mentions, and other even more important critical venues whose name I do not even know."

"But when <Unnamed Studio> says they need 'artists', they mean something along the lines of 'a person who has been highly trained with certain specific technical skills associated with the visual arts who are able to use those specific skills under the direction of a hierarchy of other management and in peaceful coexistence with their fellow biped mammals, doing that exact same task, at a certain level of productivity in order to achieve on time and on schedule a very complicated entertainment-related consumer product. They are not expected nor are they likely to contribute any personal vision to the project, that vision is provided at another level and their input is generally not desired or tolerated. They will have no ownership of the project either creative or financial beyond very limited contracturally specified rights, generally of using material for a demo reel. They are the classic disenfranchised labor described by Marx and Engels and, when the project is over, the providers of capital expect them to attend a wrap party and go away.'"

The term "artist" is one of those terms, like "freedom" or "happy", that is layered with meaning that is culturally determined.  Not every culture, or industry, redefines all terms but when they do redefine a term, they do so with complete sincerity and, generally speaking, do so while being completely unaware that they are doing so.  It is important for a visitor or observer from outside to realize this and be sensitive to the issues.  So therefore, be aware, in the entertainment industry, the role of the artist is to manufacture consumer products in order to maximize shareholder value.

Also be aware that the term "artist" is often used as an insult, meaning self indulgent and difficult, as in "he/she is a real artist, if you know what I mean".

Art In America
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/

revised 1/2/2015

The Aesthetics of Earthquakes in Southern California

Well we finally had a decent earthquake after a long time. Not that great, but a 4.7 which is just ok. About 60 miles away. Pffft.  One good shock.  Is that it, I thought?  That's all you got?  Definitely not enough.

I may as well tell you that I have been very disappointed by the earthquakes I have experienced in S. California since I came back from the East Coast. Let me be blunt guys, its for your own good.  S. California is less than the East Coast in almost any measure one can use, its crummy weather, its crummy non-transit system.   Its failure to deal with civic planning.  The only thing it has going for it imho is earthquakes and a few other things like surfer girls and beachside Mexican restaurants.

Before I left for NY and Aspen in 1994 or so, I could count on a solid interesting earthquake every few months. One that would rattle the house, rattle the windows, annoy the dogs and set off the happy chirping of car alarms up and down Lookout Mountain. It was the car alarms and the barking that convinced the observer that the earthquakes were real and not just the result of a happy dream.

But since I have returned that old earthquake magic seems to be gone.  Dried up. Every once in a while  a dreary little rumble is felt, occasionally a shock to the house, more your imagination than anything substantial.

What happened?

No one knows. No one asks, No one cares.  Its like the rest of Los Angeles.  Dreary devolved robots, joyless, idealess, soulless.  Going through the motions.  Hoping that nothing will shatter the fragile illusion of normality that they clutch to their bosom so tightly.  That nothing will happen to make them fall into the abyss like so many of their friends, screaming soundlessly into the night, and then gone forever.

What constitutes a good earthquake? 

1. The earthquake should have structure, periods of intensity, periods of quietness. It shouldn't just be on and off.  One boom equals boring.  No, there should perhaps be a solid and dramatic initial shock to get your attention, then perhaps an anticipatory pause, then a good solid series of shakes building in amplitude to the point where you wonder if you should get out of bed to stand underneath a door jam. Then a pause again, and a few more shakes as a finale. Many variations on this theme are possible, this is not a hard and fast prescription. The general principle is that a good quake will reveal a structure and not just be one blow.

2. The earthquake should have solid aftershocks. After the main quake, in a minute or two, or five, or an hour, there should be another good earthquake or two. More than one if possible. Maybe not as ambitious and complicated as the first one, these could indeed be just one shock without structure, but an aftershock or two.  (1)

3. The house should demonstrate harmonics and vibrations. You should hear windows rattle, doors creak, and see or hear other examples of wave interactions.

4. The neighborhood should come alive with noise. Dogs barking, car alarms going, wind chimes chiming, radio announcers announcing.

MCA/Universal's Masterpiece starring Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner

5. Going beyond "good" to "excellent", an excellent earthquake should be violent.  It should wake you up and make you think.  It should make you wonder if this is it, if this is when you die, or someone you know dies, your existence forever extinguished.   An excellent earthquake makes you think about your own mortality.

6. After "good" and "excellent" of course is "Apocalyptic".    The "Wrath of God" Earthquake.  The one like the one you saw in disaster movies, but without the happy ending and Charlton Heston.   The earthquake that announces the "Last Days".  The one that demands your complete attention.  The one that does more than shake up your day.  The one that lasts a minute or two or five, is off the Richter scale, and leaves Los Angeles flattened, an even 1.5 or so feet of crushed plaster, with an oil derrick or two sticking out of the ruins and millions of BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus and Acura's alarms demanding attention but getting none until they finally run their battery down and one by one go silent.

Miles and miles of cars protruding above the crushed plaster, silent, motionless.

They stand silent forever, monuments to the shallow greed and the shallow graves of their former owners.

Soon, maybe, soon.

[Of course we do not really wish for the Apocalyptic earthquake to happen anytime soon, at least not until all the people we care about have sold their property in LA and moved out, especially the surfers and people who run beachside Mexican Restaurants. ]

_________________________________________________

LA Times Article on Today's Earthquake:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/03/more-than-100-small-aftershocks-follow-47-quake.html

Information on 4.7 Earthquake

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci15296281#summary

Information on All Recent Earthquakes

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/

Earthquake (1974) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071455/

_________________________________________________

1. The managed news media in S. California tells me that there were over 100 aftershakes after the one this morning.  Well, maybe.  But if so, I did not feel a *single* one.

Modern Historically Correct Computer Phonetic Alphabet

v 0.1 Beta  3/10/2013

[in progress]

Tired of being told words over the phone that you can not spell correctly and have the person on the other end fail to enunciate what they mean and too lazy to use an approved phonetic alphabet for voice communication?  Then consider the following new, rationalized, technology appropriate phonetic alphabet.  The words suggested below are intended to be highly redundant and recognizable words that are unmistakable for any other word on the list, and either have some value in a computer historical sense, or allow the speaker to get out some of their frustration using good Anglo Saxon idiom.

Each comma separated phrase is as good as another, there is no particular expressed priority between the terms. In other words, Burroughs is as good as Burnout.

A -- Alpha, Alphabet, Analog, ASCII, ARPANET

B -- Burroughs, Burnout

C -- Collossus, Channel, Cantaloupe, COBOL

D -- DEC, Dogshit, Data General, Digital Equipment Corporation

E -- Echo, Enigma, EBCDIC

F -- Fuck, Fuckit, Fucking

G -- Geheimschreiber

H -- Hacker, Honeywell, Hollerith

I -- Idiot, IBM

J -- Jerk

K -- Kernel

L -- Lemonade, Lichtenstein

M -- Moron, MIT

N -- Negative, Nebula

O -- Ohbaby, Orion

P -- PDP, Penis, Process, Punched Card

Q -- Quasi, Quack

R -- Ramo, Rancid, Rogue

S -- Stupid, Spacewar

T -- Turing, Teletype, Tron

U -- Ubetcha, User

V -- von Neumann, vector

W -- Woolridge, Whirlwind, Washedup

X -- Xray, Xanadu

Y -- Yessir, Yes Maam

Z -- Zebra, Zork

Examples

Bolt := Burnout Ohbaby Lemonade Teletype
Scumbag := Stupid Cantaloupe Ubetcha Moron Burnout Alphabet Geheimschreiber

References

Category of Phonetic Alphabets on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Phonetic_alphabets

Nato Phonetic Alphabet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

The Tragedy of Reverse "Mercury Retrograde"

[Update 03-13-2013 We have ascertained that Mercury was Direct when I was born, but was retrograde when I was conceived.  More research to do.]

[Disclaimer: The author in no way espouses a belief in what is popularly known as "Astrology" in this country nor is it my intent to encourage you to believe in it either.  What we popularly call astrology is in fact a decadent pastiche of many ancient belief systems that were held in high regard throughout the ancient world, each in their various ways, cultures and time periods.  As a field of academic study in what people believed in various times of history, I think Astrology suffers from a non-benign neglect because of a fear of being accused of believing in it.    On the other hand, I do get a lot of amusement when Astrology does seem to predict events as I believe it tells us something about how we perceive coincidence, if it is indeed coincidence, to fit certain categories and beliefs.  It would be disingenuous of me not to admit that there have been some striking coincidences over the years that does give me pause, and which I will narrate in this blog from time to time, but I do not believe that Astrology predicted them.  Rather I think they are obviously related to Atlantean Crystal Wisdom.    For those who are interested, I am a Leo with moon and sun signs in Scorpio.]

In this post I am going to introduce the concept of "Mercury going retrograde", describe some case studies of events that have occurred when Mercury was retrograde, and tell you why I think I am completely fucked due to this eternal and immutable astrological principle.

My first exposure to the concept of "Mercury in Retrograde" occurred in NYC about 1996 or 1997 when the esteemed NY ISP Interport.com lost my email address. A bill had come through unexpectedly and my ill-prepared credit card could not handle it, so a payment bounced and my email stopped working. I paid my bill, called Interport and spent about three weeks with them trying to debug their system: they were totally unable to get my email to work again.  They put many people on the problem, they did a very responsible job as far as I can tell, and they were totally stymied.  About that time, I was in touch with my friend Trilby Schreiber who informed me that "Mercury was starting to come out of retrograde" and that the account would probably start working again in a few days. And it did.

Just for fun, I started tracking Mercury going Retrograde because I thought it was an amusing concept and about a year or two later, a client of mine's phone system started going flooey about the time Mercury went into retrograde. Their voice mail system was hopelessly screwed up and they could not fix it, and weeks went by. I knew everyone in the company well and just for fun I mentioned that Mercury was still retrograde and that it would start going out of retrograde in about a week. They laughed at me! Can you imagine that?  They laughed at me!!! And about a week later, finally, their phone system mysteriously fixed itself and started working.  Mysteriously.  Perhaps they will learn from this experience.

Mercury going retrograde is the phenomenon of Mercury appearing to go backwards due to the elliptical orbits of the planets around the Sun. Due to the different speeds and orbits of the planets, it can appear as though a planet changes direction and goes backwards relative to its location to earth, even though in reality it is moving forward as it always does. So Mercury does really appear to go backwards, from our point of view. This happens about 3 times every year and lasts for 3-5 weeks each time.  To know when Mercury is going retrograde in any year, just type "mercury retrograde 2013" (or whatever year it may be) into your favorite search engine.

The astrological impact of this logically follows from the God Mercury (aka Hermes) being the messenger kid for the other Gods in Greek and Roman religion.  "Mercury going retrograde" implies that communications go weird, unreliable and/or prone to distortion.   Communication, negotiation, deals, contracts, and the like are unreliable, and a deal signed during a retrograde Mercury period may in fact turn out to be something other than you expected.    Also, for some reasons, machines like computers start acting perversely.    The Greeks and Romans did not have computers per se, at least not digital ones (1), of course, but they did have a large number of mechanical engines which were in constant use, and there is nothing like a four-story crane at a construction site going weird while raising a couple of (Roman) tons of marble to ruin your day.

But there is an elaboration that I read about that takes this to a higher level.  In this variation, there are people for whom the normal retrograde effect is itself reversed.   When Mercury goes retrograde, communication does not get worse for these people, it gets better.   The downside is that for the rest of the year, when Mercury is going forward as normal, they also experience the reverse effect on communication, etc.  It is like one long horrible "Mercury is Retrograde" for most of the year, broken up by brief periods of constructive normality.   This would be very bad of course for the individual who was so affected.

Who might be susceptible to this variation?  One explanation is that one is born during a retrograde period.  I do not know what other situations or events might cause this.  But I am highly motivated to know, because I have noticed for many years now that for most of the year I am completely paralyzed and isolated, unable to get anything moving.  Then, for some reason, things start working normally, for a brief period of time, but then stop and revert to their previous paralysis.

Just recently, a number of things started working and started showing progress after months of nothing.   A beloved and unique camera, a Contax AX, had been drop-kicked 20 feet along a concrete street and had sensibly stopped working, suddenly just started working again.    A friend indicated that he was working on getting me a project.  I started talking to the chair of next years SIGGRAPH on a variety of important issues.  This may lead nowhere, but it is such a delight to be able to talk to a real human involved at a senior level on these issues.  An old friend asked me to participate in a charitable visualization project.   I came up with a possible, amusing idea for a consulting business, and became more convinced than ever that a kind of software I have considered writing would be quite valuable if written.  This is all very odd and mysterious, I thought.   Why should anything good be happening to me?

Then I had a horrible thought and checked, and yes, it had all started when Mercury became retrograde about two weeks ago.  I think you see the obvious implications. If I am right, then the only time that communications, machines, ideas, deals and so forth can make progress and work for me is when Mercury is retrograde, three short periods of the year.

Mainstream post-enlightenment culture sees no other rational explanation for these events beyond sheer perverse randomness.    It is not about my effort, or my attitude, which is consistently bad, or because of how much energy I put into things because I always put a lot of energy into my work except when I hold my head in despair.   If not reverse Mercury retrograde, what other possible explanation is there beyond mere randomness or the untested power of Atlantean Crystal Wisdom?

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More about Mercury Retrograde

http://www.addictedtoastrology.com/p/mercury-retrograde.html

http://solarisastrology.blogspot.com/2013/02/mercury-retrograde-trickster-of-night.html

http://www.universetoday.com/22135/mercury-retrograde/
http://www.thespiraljournal.com/2012/03/mercury-retrograde-2/

The following is a table of all the times that Mercury went Retrograde in the last century (e.g. 1901 - 2000).  The term "MR" means "Mercury Retrograde" and the term "MD" means "Mercury Direct".

http://www.astropro.com/features/tables/geo/me-sta/me-sta26.html
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1. Actually the Romans did have computers, but they were analog and mechanical ones.  A sundial is a computer, so are many navigation devices etc.  These people were not dummies.

Toaster Oven or Computer? How Can We Tell The Difference?

[Note, I use the term "computer" here to refer to both the hardware and software.  Did anyone think that a computer did not include software?]

As citizens of our modern world (1), we are expected to promiscuously hop from computer platform to computer platform at the slightest hint of trendiness or novelty. To fail to do so is an unmistakable sign of imminent and unstoppable senility and creates the genuine possibility that you will be thrown under the wheels of the train of progress by your helpful and loving friends and colleagues.

So we embrace our new platforms and devices and pretend to be excited by whatever bad implementation of an old idea that is poked in our face as "the latest thing".

But some of us, for reasons that may not be our fault, are also called upon to do our "work" on these exciting new platforms (3) and that can cause a lot of problems, especially if the new device claiming to be a computing device actually turns out to be more like a toaster oven than a computer.

Does that modern looking toaster oven have an ethernet interface?   How about wireless routing?

Now this is not to in any way put down the noble art of the design of a good toaster oven, far from it. Toast can turn a formerly inedible piece of old bread into a tasty culinary element, no small feat.  Most of us would not consider having a toaster oven in our kitchen that did not have a satellite uplink and at least 1GB of main memory.  But a toaster oven is still conceptually different from a computer in at least one important way.

I maintain that the key distinguishing concept separating the computer from the toaster oven is the need to get work done beyond the controlled burning of bread. It is this idea that a computer is used to "get work done" that is considered so revolutionary and so threatening to the computer manufacturers of today who believe that a computer is first, last and always a device to extract money from the consumer.

A computer is not just to demonstrate a bankrupt user interface idea discredited 20 years ago at SIGCHI and implemented by morons: a computer is actually a tool intended to accomplish something that the biped mammal thinks is worthwhile... something as simple as writing a letter or as complicated as mapping the human genome.  (4) Or that was the naive and idealistic belief held by many of the original users of computers back in the day when we thought computers were going to help the world and not just torture it.

How can we easily spot the computer from the toaster oven in actual practice?  We have developed a procedure which is outlined here.  First find a comfortable location within easy view of a clock.  Cozy up to your computer candidate, note what time it is, and then try to perform the following simple tasks, taking note of how long it takes you to complete them.

A. How hard is it to find a command line interface? How hard is it to find a text editor that does not insist on changing your data in order to "fix" it?   Can you create a file without the computer screaming bloody murder and asking stupid questions about whether you want linefeeds in Vietnam? (2)

B. How hard is it to create a new program for the computer, even the simplest program, and run it on the computer?  Not their program (or "app" if you insist), but your program.  Almost any computer language will do, whether or not it is the "native" language of the computer.    Do you need to get permission from Jesus or the Pope before you run this program of yours?   Boy that would be pretty fucking arrogant if computer companies were actually trying to control the software you could run on the computer you just bought from them in a sleazy bid to extract more money from you, don't you think?

C. How hard is it to find good (e.g. useful) technical documentation for the computer?  Documentation that a reasonably knowledgeable technical person would want to know when programming or operating that computer?  Does such documentation even exist?  Or is it carefully kept only for the elite in order to avoid giving actual users the information they would need to program their computer?  They might hurt themselves!

D. Does the computer support open standards and protocols or did the manufacturer work with tremendous diligence and cynicism to make sure that any application written for this platform could never in a billion years be ported?

E. Does the computer allow you to easily get data on the computer and off of it again? Why would anyone want to do that?   

There are cases where something may not fulfill all the five categories above and still be a computer, but generally it is a special purpose computer that has a large support team around it, say the kind of computer we might use to blow up Iraq.

Consider the following four case studies: Redhat Linux 9.0 circa 1988, the DEC PDP 8E circa 1970, MAC OS X and the Android Nexus 7.

Redhat Linux circa 1998.    The subject was able to find a shell within about 30 seconds, a text editor in about 5 seconds, write a program in about 1 minute, find a compiler in about 20 seconds and compile and run a program in about 30 seconds after that.  The subject had trouble finding documentation because he had inadvertently not installed it by default, and he had to learn about the stupidity of the Info system for which GNU should be shot.  Definitely a computer.

DEC PDP 8E.   The subject discovered that the DEC PDP 8E, which his high school acquired about 1970, came with a built in line editor, a built in compiler (for FOCAL), and was running his own program within about 5 minutes.  One got data on and off with paper tape.  Definitely a computer.

A Real Computer

MAC OS X.  The subject had a project that required him to port a program from Linux to the MAC.   He was able to find wonderful technical documentation instantly, a good text editor in seconds, a compiler in a few minutes, and run a program in about an hour. Definitely a computer.

Android Nexus 7.   Subject had to deal with the immensely patronizing bullshit surrounding programming the Android for something like 6 weeks before getting a simple "hello, world" like program to run.  Said program was a page of insane java calls and the program itself needed to be embedded in a crazy hierarchy of useless directories and was painful to get to the designated tablet and to figure out how to run it.  There is no serious technical documentation. Anything involving a text editor, or getting data on and off, relies entirely on unsupported third party software that you have to find and install yourself without help or documentation from the manufacturer.

More toaster oven than computer, I think.

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1. And "modern" is such an old-fashioned word, too.

2. In order to discourage users from using public and open standards, Microsoft Office would put you through a battery of questions before allowing you to save a .txt file, including about line feed encoding in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or whatever that socialist paradise is called these days.

3. Sarcasm intended.

4. Or, conversely, as complicated as writing a letter and as simple as decoding the human genome.