I’ve read a few stories about the holographic principle, but none as mind bending as this one. The story’s got possible evidence and some good journalism going for it. If you aren’t familiar with it, the “The Matrix” has nothing on this idea from theoretical physics;
…Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”
The idea that we live in a hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.
The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard’t Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.
Even though this idea is gaining momentum due to “noise” that could turn out to have a mundane source, it’s exciting that results from the GEO600 could lead to further investigation into this, in the near future; “We are very eager to find out what we can learn about the possible holographic noise over the course of the coming year”, says Prof. Dr. Karsten Danzmann, director of the Hannover Albert-Einstein-Institute. “GEO600 is the only experiment in the world able to test this controversial theory at this time… You could say that this has placed us in the very centre of a tornado in fundamental research!” That was about a year ago, so I’m hoping there’ll be some update in the next few months.
The Sun and ABC news recently published the image “Underwear with Explosive Packet”, of the Northwest Flight 253 bomb, whilst BoingBoing and Wired Danger Room ran some of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s alleged posts from gawaher.com, including;
Basically, the problem I’m having is that I’ve been having extreme loneliness…for many years. I don’t really know what to do because I’m not the type who likes to go out much, and I’m just shy and quiet. Even on the internet, I don’t feel comfortable posting much because it exposes myself. Sometimes people are so mean.
So I’m trying to figure out what to do. I just wish I had someone to give me attention and stuff. I wish I had someone who would be there to listen to me, and always be nice to me. It really hurts to have someone neglect me or be mean. Unfortunately, a weakness of mine is that I’m sensitive, but I think I became more sensitive after something bad happened some years ago.
I wish I had at least one nice person to talk to, maybe over e-mail or Messenger. Of course, if I could find someone to marry, then Insha’Allah I would have someone in real life to give me all the attention and affection I wanted. So far, the families we’ve met aren’t interested in me, though.
This story from the Mirror claims snipers in Afghanistan are using a cheap iPhone app, downloaded from the internet, to help hit their targets. Someone from BAE, who are using processors from the PS2 to power the next wave of military engineering designs, is quoted as saying;
“Historically the military have invested in developing technology to meet their specific requirements. This technology has then filtered down to everyone else. But, increasingly, modern consumer gadgets are so powerful and so highly competitive that they’re often ahead of the game – and much cheaper to buy in and adapt.”
Anyone can download BulletFlight, which was developed from games software for military use. It costs £2.49 for a basic version or £18.78 for the full program. It is one of dozens of iPod Touch and iPhone apps endorsed by the US military for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, including maps, survival books and tactics guides.
This is brilliant- a web site that’s a YouTube video with buttons within the image. The only slight niggle is that it isn’t possible to stay embedded when clicking on any of the buttons- since it takes you to a different video. Great though.
Update: This was uploaded a few months before the BooneOakley.com video- YouTube Street Fighter;
Here’s a collection of the excellent work of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp. Bladerunner was the first movie to take sci fi into cigarette-butt-floating-in-styrofoam realism but Blomkamp’s sensibility adds a further twist, with documentary style footage used in conjunction with excellent CGI. The setting of some of his work in South Africa also adds something really interesting. The familiarity of the environment from news footage and the careful placing of the narrative within that world create a very authentic feel;
Alive in Jo’Burg (the short that led to District 9);
The objects and situations Höller has created are bewildering in their variety. His work since the early 1990s has encompassed buildings, vehicles, slides, toys, games, narcotics, animals, performances, lectures, 3D films, flashing lights, mirrors, eye-wear and sensory deprivation tanks. This diversity not only defies all formal categories of art-making; it also blurs the lines between what it means to be an artist and what it means to belong to a whole range of other professions, even in an era when the Postmodern slogan ‘anything goes’ has become a cliché. The job descriptions Höller’s work calls to mind include zoologist, botanist, paediatrician, physiologist, psychologist, occupational therapist, pharmacist, optician, architect, vehicle designer, evolutionary theorist and political activist. Most of these belong to the scientific sphere, which reflects Höller’s own educational background, to post-doctoral level, in phytopathology and agronomic entomology. (By the late 1980s, when he first began making art, he was specializing in insect communication.)
For Höller the problem with science is that the profession forces you down the route of ever-increasing specialization. Contemporary art, by comparison, represents a wide-open field. Since his unusual career shift Höller, as much as any of his contemporaries, has been responsible for making that field even wider. Ironically, much of this has been done by transforming devices and techniques originating in different areas of scientific research into various forms of participatory sculpture and installation.
I’m in London at the moment and this ad is on TV all the time, or at least a shorter version of it. I can’t remember the last time I saw a perfume ad that I thought was really good!
In a Wall Street Journal op ed, James Franco claims that his appearance in the daytime soap “General Hospital” was subversive performance art;
Performance art is all about context. “If you bake some bread in a museum space it becomes art, but if you do it at home you’re a baker.” Likewise, when I wear green makeup and fly across a rooftop in “Spider-Man 3,” I’m working as an actor, but were I to do the same thing on the subway platform, a host of possibilities would open up… It would be about inserting myself in a familiar space in such a way that it becomes stranger than fiction, along the lines of what I’m doing on “General Hospital.” I disrupted the audience’s suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn’t belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world. In performance art, the outcome is uncertain-and this was no exception. My hope was for people to ask themselves if soap operas are really that far from entertainment that is considered critically legitimate.”
I love his self determined and self reflecting portrayal of the spaces that he’s describing, and his idea that his celebrity as an actor gives him authenticity. And what bold aims! I guess soap fans everywhere are applauding his efforts. Although, by his own definition, the world of Spider Man 3 is capable of cloaking his “authenticity”, whilst the world of General Hospital is too flimsy to contain it. I’m confused.
It’s making me wonder what would happen if James Franco appeared on a subway platform as The Goblin. I mean, not for that long because it’s obvious what would happen- people would assume it’s a publicity stunt. When a dead animal was washed ashore in Montauk, people thought it was a publicity stunt. Or when a guy was stabbed outside of a store where people were queuing for the release of GTA 4, they assumed it was a publicity stunt. There was even a case recently in London when an unusually pink cloud appeared in the sky and was photographed by large numbers of people. The fact that many people thought it was a publicity stunt, rather than a natural phenomenon is, truly, stranger than fiction.
Researchers from the university of Montreal, conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users, stumbled at the first hurdle when they couldn’t find a man who hadn’t watched porn. “We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn’t find any.” On average, the men they interviewed first started watching it when they were 10 years old. They also found that 90% of them used the internet to access porn. None of which is that surprising- what is a little surprising, is that they made a point of saying that none of their sample group had a pathalogical sexuality (the sample group was 20 people).
