I had a dream where there was this photographer who'd been in a lot of things.. various magazines including playboy (I don't know if they generally did nudes or if they did some) who had this idea.. and there was this team of young people (15-25.. I don't know their exact ages) that had to do something.. I don't know the parameters of "had to" - about once a month. anyway, because of the photographer's vision and their effort, they accomplished it.. they gathered up countless identical golden Buddha statues. They were cultural artifacts and there were difficulties in gathering them for that reason.. and there must have been at least hundreds of thoughs of them.

details of the Buddha...
the statues were all identical, made of gold, and stood 12-15 feet tall, each. They were the thinner curly haired Buddha with the hair in a top not sort of thing. Unlike most of the statues I've seen they were standing. Their right hand was held up with the thumb and index finger touching, and the 3 other fingers extended up.. it's left hand held a staff. it was fairly simple, but it was crowned with a "hollow" disk with a + shaped cross in the center, and 4 + shaped crosses up, down, left, and right. They weren't crosses in a Christian sense, but then, I don't know in what sense they were, or the symbolism that was meant by them. In any case, there is no way that such a large number of statues (which must have been no less than tens of thousands) could exist. I feel they were all made of cast gold, and I don't think that amount of cast gold is anywhere on this earth. It wore fairly traditional looking robes, but it was standing, which is kinda unusual in any of the Buddha statues I've seen. They were all about 3-5 feet apart.. I'm not sure exactly the distance, but they were very evenly spaced. They were all facing the same direction.. I think they were facing a mountain that was external to their path.. sometimes they were lined up like they were walking toward something, but other times they were turned the same something.. just all in the same direction no matter where they were on the path.

there was a world, with four "moons" that were north, south, east, and west, and were each the same size, about 1/4th the size of the original, and fairly close to it, with four "moonlets?" also north, south, east, and west, at the same scale and distance as the moons, from the moons. They didn't orbit or anything, the whole system was fixed. There were people living on the moons, and each of them had something that would cause the whole moon to explode that was small and fairly common. There was a guy and a girl who were trying to prevent the destruction. One of the moons was destroyed.. then a second one.. I don't remember how. The guy and girl, along with some others (who weren't a part of the dream) could be teleported. On the 3rd moon for some reason the girl didn't have whatever it was that allowed people to be teleported.. there was a wedding party and they were smacking the thing that would destroy the world. It was attempted to stop them but they "had to hit something as part of the wedding tradition, and it was there.." I don't even remember exactly what it was, maybe a bell. Anyway, it was too late and the girl was about to be killed.. but somehow she ended up in the place with the guy.. for some reason she grabbed her breasts when the world was about to be destroyed.. I think because they were such nice breasts that.. at least, I believe that was her reasoning. Anyway, safe.. it was strangeeee.

The difference between the government and capital driven industry is motive. Industry has a profit motive. Government has a political motive. While government has to put into place purchasing rules in order to assure some degree of (political) fairness, industry is concerned with the bottom line, and will to the best of it's ability make the choices with the lowest cost as a matter of business.

Put another way, in any given industry, cost to consumer will generally be lower, or quality higher, or both, than from a government run industry. If it is not, the difference is political- the government trying to buy the good will of the voter by using tax revenues or profits from sales to other countries in order to offset it's own costs. TNSTAAFL always applies. If you aren't paying for something directly, you are indirectly. If it's not in taxes, it's in jobs.

in Cuba, doctors aspire to work in the tourism industry. The pay is better. Because being a doctor is part of the great socialist machine of the island. Whereas, tourism is more or less the only place where capitalism is allowed. There is only so much of a man's wages you can take away before he no longer has an incentive to work. Overly generous social nets tend to cause industry crippling strikes. Whatever might be said, it's not normal for entire industries to shut down for months on end. Well, perhaps in Holywood.

Sort of.

I would never, when spoken aloud, is shorthand for "I would most likely not, in a near term timespan, baring extenuating circumstances, which may or may not include "when I think that I can get away with it."

sometimes shows exist only because of the desire to make use of a metal soundtrack.

I think one of the most important skills for any budding programmer to obtain is the ability to recognize a potential one-off error before it becomes bothersome.

I am working on this plan, so that I can run This. Today was my second walking day, and I walked for 30 minutes in a light rain. I feel more energetic than I've felt in a while, even as parts of my life fall apart. The mind and the body are connected, I have been sedentary in body and spirit for a while, so now I'm breaking into a run.

my sister challenge me to join her in a 5k run in September. I accepted the challenge. Today I walked for 30 minutes at an aggressive/assertive pace. I do that 2 more times this week, and next week I do similar, gradually trading up walk time for run time. In 4 months I'll only be running. I'll work on endurance and a little speed until the day. She can run a 11 minute mile, and I aim to finish within 1 minute of her. She's been doing this for a while and has youth and practice behind her. Also, she participates in triathlons. All I have at this moment is will. Think I can accomplish this? Place your bets.

Apparently conservatives can also do nude protests. Who knew?

"The Pearly Gates" is familiar to anyone who's had dealings with Christianity. Beyond those gates, lies heaven's kingdom. But why are they needed? You can't get to heaven without being "called." Saint Peter working as an elaborate doorman doesn't make sense, if you are judged, you are judged by god. There would never need be an old man with a giant book. So that leaves one to wonder, if you can't get there accidentally, then there is no reason for the gates to exist to keep people out. And if they aren't there to keep people out, then perhaps they're there to keep people in?

Created by Train Horn

disturbingly low pitched for only the under 25 set to hear. Very annoying. I am 36.

Quantum Sheep

Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Lamb Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top-secret project known as Quantum Sheep. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the Quantum Accelerator, and vanished.

He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brain-wave transmissions with Owl, the project observer, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, making light of that once which once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next sheep will be the sheep home.

Rideback
About 30 years into the future some revolutionaries of one flavor or another took over the world, but that's just the setting. It would seem that the revolution as such, is over, at least, as far as I've gathered from the first episode. The main character is an n generation ballet dancer who damaged herself in her first solo bit, and has apparently cast that life behind her. There is a new type a motorcycle that is sort of a cross between a Mech, a motor cycle, and I guess, a Segway. The device, and the anime for that matter, is called a "Rideback" - because one of the riding positions is basically riding on it's back. The girl, by the by, seems to have a talent for riding the thing, but you were expecting that. I know I was.

I would like to see more and plan to give it a few more episodes.

Sora o Kakeru Shoujo
In a somewhat more distant future, it seems that what dregs of humanity still live on earth are basically seen as throwbacks and hippies. The real action is in space. Cars transform into space craft and back into cars. Almost anywhere you would want to go involves going though 3 or 4 transport mode transformations. As far as it goes, it's well done, and seamlessly plucks the transport analogies from our day to day lives and transforms them a few hundred years forward. But, if that were all there were to it, it would be boring. This universe has R2 units. But they are cute floating potato people. And possibly biological. So there is a massive and psychotic space colony, with a somewhat bent AI with the same voice as Grell from Black Butler, and a personality only vaguely shy of Excalibur from soul eater. Also Psychic cops that are trying to arrest you one minute and helping you the next. And a girl with a cat ear hat who is is the sort of person who doesn't take shit from brick walls. Also, and this may just be me, but I think everyone in the anime is a lesbian. Even the guys.

Add to it an opening theme by ALI PROJECT, which might be enough of a reason to watch the 2nd episode right there.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

if you entangled a relatively obscene number of heavy hydrogen atoms with a relatively obscene number of hydrogen atoms, used half in a fusion bomb and half in 99 red balloons, would setting off the weapon cause anything interesting to happen with the balloons?

how about if you entangled half of the hydrogen atoms with the other half of the hydrogen atoms?

would this even be possible?

I'm shocked. Shocked.

Numerical superiority just doesn't match superior training and equipment.