Fourier series and hybrid images:
“That’s not different wavelengths of light; that’s different wavelengths of the variation across the image. And it could be done fairly easily by anyone with knowledge of Fourier series and access to decent image manipulation software. But I think the images to be merged would have to be fairly similar to each other: Converting one block of text to another block of text is probably outside the range of possibility.” (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=419079)

Barthes: “Roland Barthes wrote a book in called ‘S/Z’ in which he put forward multiple readings of one short story. Later he published ‘The Pleasure of the Text’ – I think the title is telling.” (http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/gwy4e/gary_paulsen_on_what_the_author_thinks_versus/)

Algae, light, mice, mind control (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_optigenetics/all/1) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88TVQZUfYGw)

Similar: (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091015123552.htm) (http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/26/harvard-controls-the-minds-of-worms-with-lasers-video/)

Optogenetics and cyborgs (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_optigenetics/3/)

Cracked article (http://www.cracked.com/article_19191_7-bizarre-advances-in-animal-cyborg-technology.html)

Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking With Einstein. New York: Penguin Press, 2011.
“And crucially, the more you know, the easier it is to know more. Memory is like a spiderweb that catches new information. The more it catches, the bigger it grows. And the bigger it grows, the more it catches.” (pg 209)
“Thomas Bradwardine…described a means of memoria sillabarum, or ‘memory by syllables,’ which could be used to memorize words that were hard to visualize. Bradwardine’s system involved breaking the word into its constituant syllables and then creating an image for each syllable based on another word that begins with that syllable…In order to memorize a word by sound, its meaning has to be completely dismissed.” (pgs 131-2)

“Classified data has been digitally encoded since before computers were invented. Spies have used book ciphers for centuries to send numeric correspondence that can only be read when paired with the proper text. Bibles make good code books because of the varience between printed editions and the numbering of chapter and verse.” (Burn Notice, Season 4, episode 9. “Center of the Storm”) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_cipher)

“‘Amour peut moult, argent peut tot’ (love may do much, but money more). These are some of the sayings by which peasants characterized marriage in sixteenth-century France.” (Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. pg 1)

Michigan Journal of History (January 2011 — Present) – I’m the webmaster of this. It’s not much work, and I didn’t do any of the design, but I did format the pdf’s. Also, it comes with a nifty title: Senior Editor. Bow before me!

• Michigan Journal of History – http://www.umich.edu/~historyj/

Edmund Morgan. The Birth of the Republic.

Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

Pauline Maier. From Resistance to Revolution.

Michael Kammen. The Origins of the American Constitution.

Gordon Wood. Creation of the American Rupublic.

I had to read these for my class on the American Revolution. I’m reading them “lately” because I didn’t actually finish all of them when they were assigned.

MTV News has exclusively learned from Emmerich himself that “Foundation” will be a 3-D epic using technology similar to the CG motion-capture techniques used in “Avatar.” (MTV Movies Blog)

Why God why do these stories have to be special-effects extravaganzas? I mean, there are some parts that would be more demanding of special-effects than, say, an episode of Lost, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why a series that consists mostly of dialogue and exposition needs to be done in complete CGI? I think it’s a safe bet to say that these movies (there will be three of them) will probably diverge from their source material into some SFX-encrusted action-fest, like I, Robot. I’m sure the momentum of Dr. Asimov spinning in his grave right now is enough to power the entire Eastern Seaboard. (Roland Emmerich Fights Global Warming?)

If someone had asked me, I could probably have done it as a proper mini-series at about the same price per episode as an episode of Battlestar Galactica. But no-one ever fucking does ask me, do they? And now it’s ruined forever.

Ruined FOREVER.

Also, a faux text-trailor I found particularly amusing. (Courtesty of the Straight Dope.)

“Remember, to make reform work we have to have an individual mandate. And everything I see says that there will be a major backlash against the idea of forcing people to buy insurance from the existing companies. That backlash was part of what got Obama the nomination! Having the public option offers a defense against that backlash.

What worries me is not so much that the backlash would stop reform from passing, as that it would store up trouble for the not-too-distant future. Imagine that reform passes, but that premiums shoot up (or even keep rising at the rates of the past decade.) Then you could all too easily have many people blaming Obama et al for forcing them into this increasingly unaffordable system.”

—-Why the Public Option Matters

He’s absolutly right. With the idea of an individual mandate the most likely part of the reform package to pass, the public option is the only thing seperating a sensible attempt at healthcare reform from a massive handout to insurance companies. If there is no public option, there is no incentive for insurance companies to become more competitive price-wise, and yet they will still recive an influx of 50,000,000 customers.

Torture

White House to Declassify “Holy Grail” Torture Report that Could Undercut Cheney: A redacted version of the Special Review can be found here. I cannot find a more complete version online.

Hoekstra: Congress Knew

The Unbalanced: Sullivan on Cheney on Torture

Thiessen’s LA Tower Canard:

Bush OLC Torture Memos: Bybee and Bradbury

Army Human Intelligence Collector Operations: The Army’s Interrogation Field Manual

Waterboarding

Still torture, but these all were supposed to go in the same post.

Hannity Offers to be Waterboarded for Charity

Why we shouldn’t waterboard Sean Hannity: The guys kind of got a point.

Olbermann Rescinds Charity Offer For Cowardly Hannity, Donates $10K For Mancow’s Waterboarding

Conservative radio hosts gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture: Not Hannity, different guy

Man Waterboards self, says it’s torture

Wiretapping

New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ: from Glenn Greenwald

Obama Administration quietly expands Bush’s legal defense of wiretapping program

Obama

What exactly has “changed” under Obama?: A thread about this article, which sparked this hysteria on Reddit.

Obama’s 100-day-mark Press Conference

Baracknaphobia: from The Daily Show

You Gotta Protect the Ones you Serve

Other/Misc

John Stewart interviews Cliff May: I can’t play video on dial-up, so I have no idea what this is regarding.

But it’s easy to forget that the internet isn’t just the collected thoughts of some Anonymous being. These are people’s thoughts, and there has always been a certain part of the human population that’s been out of touch with reality in some way or another. The JFK assassination, alien abductions, etc have had their conspiracy theorists for decades. Strange cults and even major religions all started with someone who wasn’t fully grounded in reality. And there’s always someone out to get you. These were ubiquitous in culture even before the advent of the internet, it’s just that the web has made it cheaper for those voices to speak: what was once limited to the scribblings of a schizophrenic are now available on the web as the typings of the schizophrenic.

(Further Reading)