The Water Bearer

Kali Is the Hindu Goddess of destruction, the consort of Shiva. Skulls, cemeteries, and blood are associated with her worship. She is black and emaciated.

The Goddess Kali was born on February 17th. Kali is an Aquarian. This must not be ignored...

Audioconsumer v1.3

Audioconsumer allows you to obtain pristine digital copies of songs from noisy analog sources.

Standard Features:

• Interfaces to AM and FM Radio tuner hardware (see compatibility list)
• Fingerprints songs, and compares fingerprint to database to identify the song based on previous recordings.
• Compares multiple recordings of the same song. (They must have the same fingerprint, even slightly different versions will not work.) By taking multiple samples, Audioconsumer can separate the song from any noise, whether from the radio, vinyl records, or even background noise from secondhand recordings.
• Identification of compression codec and compensation of artifacts based on uncompressed versions.
• Lossless recompression for most codecs. This is useful if you have a CD burnt from a compressed copy. (e.g. iTunes)
• Automatic naming of songs from any online streams that include filenames.
• Time distortion compensation corrects some variation in playback speed, even if it variesover the course of the song. This is most useful for vinyl recordings.
  

New in Version 1.3:

• New algorithm finds the 'best agreement' between files for each segment, and ignores noisy files that are 'out of agreement'. This replaces the simplistic 'averaging' algorithm, and let you add even very low quality samples without adding noise.
  
• Some scripting that allows completely automated naming of songs based on playlist information from radio station websites. This will only work on some radio stations.
• Partial fingerprints allows samples of any part of the song (as small as 15 seconds!) to be identified and contribute to the comparison algorithm. This also allows automatic song naming using 'intro samples' from pay sites. (This is slow, and bandwidth intensive.)

Copyright 2009
Audioconsumer is released under the General Public License.

Moral Reasoning

There are a number of ways to encode behavioral modification statements.
Here I use murder as an example of an undesired behavior.

• Moral: Killing is wrong.
• Imperative: Do not kill.
• Value-based: I value human life.
• Imperative value based: Value human life.
• Personal conviction: I will not kill.
• Appeal to compassion: Killing causes suffering.
• Creating a positive ambition: Is that what you want to be? [a murderer?]

Others:

• You have no right to kill.
• People have a right to live.
• killing is 'disadvantageous'. (this can be based on legal ramifications, possible retribution, karma, or implicit psychological harm to the murderer.)
• Killing violates the social contract.
• I need to stop killing. (Generally this is more applicable to habitual vices like smoking.)
• Killing is illegal (Note, this is distinct from the 'disadvantageous' argument, as this advocates following the law for the law's sake, where that was focused on punishment.)
• Killing is a sin.
• Killing is repulsive. (disgusting, gross)
• Killing will not solve any problems.

There are of course many, many ways to get the same message accross. It is interesting to think about which are most popular, and which are most effective.

Extreme Rock Paper Scissors Team Game

A high-stakes game of surveillance, deception, and intrigue.

This is a simple game to be played by two teams of approximately equal size, at least two people per team, but probably five is needed for things to be interesting. This is a zero-sum game, that is, it has a winner and a loser. The game will be most fun if there is a prize of some kind for the winning team. Each game will have a set duration, and this can be of any length. It should probably last at least half an hour, the most interesting games will last for months or years. There is no upper limit on team size, the game duration, or the prize.

The goal of the game is to win an ordinary game of Rock, Paper, Scissors played between representatives of the two teams at the end of the team game. The teams may use any method they wish to choose who their representatives are, and what they are going to throw. However, the throw of the representative is final, regardless of the team's stated choice, so representatives should be chosen carefully. In the event of a tie, the final match is re-played until there is a victor. Teams should take care to prepare a number of successive throws.

The Fun Part

At any time before (or during) the final match, the teams may attempt to spy on each other. By determining what the other team is going to throw, they can throw the superior object. At the same time they may deliver misinformation to the opposing team, thereby controlling their opponents choice. The difficulty (and fun) lies in determining what information to believe, and what information to let leak out.

The Stakes

The complexity of the game will be related to it's prize, duration, and team size. Given enough time and enough motivation, resourceful teams will invent fabulous ways to observe and mislead their opponents. It think it would be interesting, and somewhat less bloody, if nations used this method to resolve conflicts. Interestingly, the spy game would be largely unchanged.

Cows are evil

Most complex life forms on this planet survive off of the life of other living things. As we pass through various reincarnations, we eventually reach a more virtuous state. We learn not to rely on the death of others for our own survival. Plants are the most spiritually advanced form of life, because they derive their energy from the sun, rather than the life force of other entities. The highest forms of plant life are fruit bearing plants, as they take nothing, yet freely provide food in a way that doe s not require death.
Herbivores such as cows are evil, as they destroy and consume innocent, virutous beings. omnivores and carnivores are more virtuous as they take energy from entities that have themselves taken life.

Food For Peace

Condiments are the basis of civilization.
You might think it's something else, like law, religion, agriculture, or family, but this is not the case. Humans are an argumentative lot, and weare especially nasty when we are under pressure. One of the best and most common ways to both relieve the psychological pressure, and improve personal relationships is eating together.
This stems from two basic physiological and psychological facts. We instinctively build friendly bonds with people we eat with, and having eaten, we are more relaxed. A hungry lonely lion is inherently more dangerous than a sleepy, well fed pride.

What are the foods that define americana? The hamburger, the hot dog, pizza. These are the foods we build our memories around because these are the foods we can share with the most other people. If you and your father have different tastes in food, when you go to a ballpark he might get his with everything and you might have just some mustard, but what you remember is you and you dad having hot dogs at the game. Condiments make it possible. With a little planning, even strangers with wildly different tastes can share the same pizza.
I propose a project: Food For Peace, an organization that delivers humanitarian food aid, with a broad range of condiments, to war-torn areas of the world. By shipping a wide array of food items, and an even wider array of condiments, we will make possible, even likely, for members of various factions to share meals together.

Alternative Lyrics

I'm an organ donor short and stout,
dead on arrival, there is no doubt,
If you need a new lung don't you pout,
Just rip me open and pull one out.