Digest for Semiological Transcoding

Universal Mind-Body Dichotomy

dark matter brainchatter
circumnavigates the fluid center

ravens’ yang of carcass yin:

the nebular remnant,
the sand dollar cranial cosmos,
of gravity’s mass bursting

The Old Bailey

Can be found here.

The Boltzmann Brain Problem Explained

Excellent NYT science article here.

Fun Definitions from New York Magazine and H2G2

Stat-Arb: Statistical arbitrage, a.k.a. quantitative trading, a.k.a. "black-box trading." The computerized trading of thousands of stocks based on a set of models manned by "guys with a lot of physics and hardcore statistics backgrounds who come up with ideas about models that might lead to excess return and then they test them and then basically all these models get incorporated into a bigger system that trades stocks in an automated way."

Black Box: The computers that do the trading.

These definitions sounded vaguely familiar to me, and confirmed my long-held suspicion that, not only does life imitate art, but so too does day trading imitate science fiction --

Infinite Improbability Drive (From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy): Finite levels of improbability could easily be generated using an electronic brain and a strong Brownian motion producer (say, a cup of hot tea); yet scientists lacked the means to create a drive that could produce the infinite improbability field required to allow a ship to travel anywhere instantaneously. It was generally concluded that such a drive was virtually impossible.

Eventually, a student (left to sweep up the lab after a particularly unsuccessful party) reasoned that if such a machine were, in fact, a virtual impossibility, then it must also logically be a finite improbability. After working out exactly how improbable, he fed that value into the finite improbability generator, gave it a really hot cup of tea, and managed to generate the infinite improbability generator out of thin air, thus violating the laws of cause and effect. After winning the Galactic Institute's prize for extreme cleverness, he was later lynched by other scientists who had been trying to make the generator for years, and who finally worked out that what they really could not stand was a smartass.

An alternate blogoverse

In the trenches.

GOP Hellmouth

Iowans are gearing up to caucus. There is no better caucus than an informed caucus, especially among Republicans. In the interest of a more perfect Iowa caucus, a description of the views and backgrounds of those contending for the GOP nomination can be found here (by way of more or less obscure references to their counterparts in the buffyverse). Take note, Iowans! And all others!

Bilawal the Taliban Slayer

I have always known him as one of Benazir’s three children, for whom she and I drove around London buying Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books.

• Mahnaz Malik

Brother Elephant

Once there was a competition between Ganesha and his brother as to see who could circumambulate the three worlds faster and hence win the fruit of knowledge. Skanda went off on a journey to cover the three worlds while Ganesha simply circumambulated his parents. When asked why he did so, he answered that his parents Shiva and Parvati constituted the three worlds and was thus given the fruit of knowledge.

Six Degrees: The Thyssen-IG Farben-Bush-Wolf Blitzer-Mark Siegel-Benazir Bhutto Connection

For those who like the Kevin Bacon game or works by John Guare.

It is much more difficult to see (at least in America) the six degrees of George Walker Bush.

Prescott Bush is an obvious starting point. A popular Connecticut Republican Senator as well as a successful banker, he initially saw an opportunity in supporting Nazi Germany. The Bush family controlled W. A. Harriman & Company and the Union Banking Company, which sold fifty million dollars worth of bonds for Fritz Thyssen, who in turn financed the Nazi party during the lean years of the 1920's.

George Walker, President Bush's great-grandfather, financed the Hamburg-America Line, a shipping concern that is widely acknowledged to have been a front business for I.G. Farben's espionage activity in the United States on behalf of the national socialists in power in Berlin. Farben is better known as the company which produced Zyklon B - the most popular chemical used to kill victims of the holocaust.

Another hidden connection is President Bush's connection to his sister, Robin, who died at three when Bush was seven and her only sibling.

The Bush allegiance to the Saudi regime is common knowledge at this point.

Finally. I submit the following speculation on Bush's connections to Pakistan and the Islamists:

LA Times

Slate

McClatchy

Julien Gracq

Reuters obit here.