
Are you down with the underground? :)
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:58, Reply)

Buying the box set http://www.amazon.com/Peel-Back-Slowly-Velvet-Underground/dp/B000002GM5box was the best musical investment I ever made.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:30, Reply)

I've never watched the TV show ('cos it's just too f*****g childish for
me).... but I thought this guy did a brilliant job with the theme music.
Apols if GC.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:52, Reply)

ABC News on Video Games from 1982 (part 1)
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:49, Reply)

A simpler time when plying a computer game for 2 and half hours was considered astonishing!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:55, Reply)

Seriously, playing some of those first gen games makes me wonder how they stayed alive :-s
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 11:40, Reply)

only to find the bloody thing didn't work!!
110 data 23,44,66,11,45,76,201,11
112 data 12,32,123,44,11,22,33,3.......
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 12:50, Reply)

they are `re-modelling` their offices and for some reason no longer have any room for a badly stuffed dog, which before needing rehousing was used as a guard dog.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 8:04, Reply)

In my defence it was from Vimeo and not YouTube so GC checker didn't pick it up mumble mumble grumble whinge moan ..... etc ...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 8:36, Reply)

An amazing read. 2,000 years later people are only just discovering the hidden musical tones in Plato's writings. Pretty mindblowing
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 6:05, Reply)

in the dishwasher once.
Think it was a loose bottle top that did it.
www.physorg.com/news196943667.html
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 7:02, Reply)

www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=5894
'imma guessing this is the link you are looking for.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 7:53, Reply)

I'm not saying trouble follows him around, but I'd stay out of Manchester ;)
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 8:00, Reply)

tbh isn't this a bit of a "non-story" if they don't even have a link to this fucking music they have found? I want to listen god damnit!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 8:56, Reply)

The Greek musical scale had 12 notes (I suppose ours does, if you count it in semitones) and some of these notes are harmonic with the fundamental, and some discordant. He's apparently found that Plato wrote about specific emotions at points multiples of 1/12 through the text. This sounds like bollox to me. A bit Bible code-ish.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:21, Reply)

spent the last 15 mins tracking the paper down and researching what Apeiron is (as a journal. It isn't main stream, I'm pretty sure there will be further debate about the validity of the work, but it's still interesting and exciting stuff :-)
Where is Enzyme? He does philosophy, I want to know what he thinks.
Anywho: personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/jay.kennedy/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeiron_%28journal%29
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:24, Reply)

Yup: I'm a philosopher, and a philosopher at the University of Manchester to boot, so I share an institution with this guy. I'll check it out if I get the chance: I'm a touch busy at the moment.
My initial hunch is that any talk of a Plato Code is - as Smale says up ^there^ - distinctly iffy...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:56, Reply)

I'm going to look at the paper to see what his specific claims are and what the implications are.
My impression of Apeiron as a publisher is a bit dodgy, but it will be fun to see if there is anything it what he says. Reply here or wizz me a pm if you get 5! Cheers!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:16, Reply)

(the one with picures, I thought it might be simpler). Without spending more time understanding his evidence I'd say his decision of what is 'harmonic' and 'discordant' in the writing is subjective. His location of speeches within twelfths of the text also looks suspicious, since he includes bits of non-speech to pad it out. It's not clear to me whether he's using strict line-counting or not. Even if he is, it looks very much as if he doesn't define the start and end clearly, meaning it could just be that Plato wrote 10 speeches with a prologue and an epilogue. Either way, it's hardly a code hiding something else. If he's right then Plato just found a handy form to structure his writing around. I think his quarter-note theory is baseless, and introducing the golden mean seems a bit arbitrary... So I'm not impressed.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:35, Reply)

It's a shame though, it would have been fun to have an actual simple code hidden in his writing. A bit like finding a brilliant game that has the konami code secretly placed in for a secret message. Having said that I don't see why it would have taken all this time to discover an ancient konami code that Plato made.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 11:05, Reply)

I know I said I was busy, but I couldn't resist.
First, the stuff about mathematics in there is trivial. Yes, mathematics is very important for Plato, and he has some odd ideas about the soul that reasonably frequently get lumped alongside his mathematical stuff. But, really, so what? (I'm not going to sweat this, though, because I'm by no means a Plato scholar.)
Second, one has to ask oneself why this paper hasn't appeared in a mainstream philosophy or history of philosophy journal. The fact that it hasn't isn't evidence of the paper's scholarly qualities... but, still, there's a whiff about it.
But here's the real reason why I don't buy it. Plato is, at times, a really good writer. As the Aperion paper makes clear, he's not averse to throwing in a good pun or joke now and again. As a dramatist, he's not bad - again, unsurprisingly, given the importance of the drama in Greek education and religion at the time.
BUT... If the hypothesis of the paper is true, it'd seem to imply that Plato sat down with a piece of paper before composing each dialogue, and planned to the line what would go where. And that doesn't seem plausible. After all, it'd mean that the arguments advanced would have to play second fiddle to their place in the dialogue, and be stretched or cut to fit. That is not the way to generate a philosophical system that was influential for two and a half milennia. You might be able to write an opera like that - but not philosophy.
To give an analogy: a philosopher (or scientist) might try to structure an essay by deciding to devote 10% to the introduction, 10% to the conclusion, and to share the remainder between the premises and different parts of the argument. But if that's the only criterion for what goes where, he probably won't generate an essay of a standard that's anything more than... well, barely undergrad. The chances that this essay would still be read 2500 years later are slim. And the chances that he could pull the same trick with tens of different essays of different lengths defies belief.
Yet this seems to be exactly the strategy that Kennedy ascribes to Plato. There's a serious credibility gap.
EDIT: Right, have to go now. There's a bloke here who wants to do things to my computer. I might add more comment later.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:29, Reply)

I could buy that he wrote using a particular form, but when it comes to placing punctuation in mathematically pre-ordained places, he's getting a bit thin on the plausibility.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 11:00, Reply)

But for it to be that precise, and for it to generate anything worth reading... naaah.
Props for the Seldon reference, though: I keep meaning to re-read those...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 11:42, Reply)

You should organise a secret Santa in your department this year, and buy him a copy of 'The Da-Vinci Code' :-D
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 12:00, Reply)

Fortunately, he's not in my department - I'm in the law school, and he's in life sciences.
I've never knowingly met the guy. I don't think I'm missing much.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 12:19, Reply)

(I'm saying I don't buy it)
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:42, Reply)

Show your children how much you love them, the Star Trek way.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 5:43, Reply)

I...uh...mean, uh, shutup.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 6:20, Reply)

But this time it is performed by a mentalist.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 5:33, Reply)

She is dedicated to her art I'll give her that.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkIEW3r673U&feature=channel
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 10:48, Reply)

No animals were harmed in the making of this video...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 3:19, Reply)

A goat beauty pageant? Only in Arabia...
and if you followed this far, the next in the series is even better!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 3:32, Reply)

WTF, Google, seriously.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:51, Reply)

AS mentioned bellow. This is a great vid for it also :)
Audio quality on this version is bad, but video quality is better... www.youtube.com/watch?v=97GzBd92kWk
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:26, Reply)

www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=29D00236C88FC89E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=qB8m85p7GsU
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:34, Reply)

Kiding aside I am going to watch this now :) cheers me dears!!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:44, Reply)

I love how Mandelbrot Set's kinda look like my grandad's paisley PJ's ;)
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:46, Reply)

...
...
...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:55, Reply)

Cthulhu fhtagn Cthulhu fhtagn Cthulhu fhtagn Cthulhu fhtagn Cthulhu fhtagn ....
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:21, Reply)

I watched this and then my internet connection died. How long before I have fishmen at my door?
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:45, Reply)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tTHn2tHhcI&feature=related
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:54, Reply)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVR8PRwQUCw&feature=related
There seem to be an awful lot of these on youtube.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 8:18, Reply)

Odd that you bring up that video now...
...in his house at R'Lyeh...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 23:39, Reply)

Fck this shit. If that was South Africa we would have shot these wankers. What's the point of taking the day off to riot.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:19, Reply)

actually there are reasonable suspicions that some of the agitators are undercover canadian cops. they have prior on this...a lot of prior actually, I happened to be reading about it today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:38, Reply)

riot? about 6 people destroying private and state property, about 6000 people with cameras loving the theatre.
This pisses me off so much, not least the grinning fuckwit jumping on the police car (sooo naughty, post that on facebook).
Can someone inform me about anything that might lend the G20 (or indeed any of the anti-globalisation) protesters a shred of credibility, please.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:08, Reply)

He looks like fucking Dougal. He's delighted his Mammy let him out to play with the big kids
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:42, Reply)

..that a lot of protests these days are full of people going "oooh, I'm protesting...about stuff...and the government...and ooh it makes me mad. I jumped on a police car lol"
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:33, Reply)

"Worldwide Campaign Against Globalisation"
I hope it was a joke, but suspect they were serious.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:38, Reply)

using the mayday protests as cover for their actions.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 7:53, Reply)

That was wicked!
So whats the defenition of fractal? ones ive seen have clearly been the result of a code punched in and a graphic representation. That looked more like something modeled then...erm...made bigger.. kinda..
Drunkness doesnt lend to explaining my awe ;)
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:33, Reply)

it takes your brain to another dimension.
I think this is a 3D way of looking at the fractals. So expand the forumla by cubing the results.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:58, Reply)

My fav's still got to be this one just for Sammy D Jr.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZKBbNuW2s
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:23, Reply)

But each time I've spent a long time perusing each and every advert in that section in the museum, all really entertaining, which is the point really :)
Saying that about touristy, Ive done my fair share of micro/smaller brewery tours. And though they dont come close to that experience both Guinness and Jamesons give a good experience considering how many people they need to cater for. I got 4 free pints on my second visit to the St.James's Gate. Though nothing will ever top drinking several pints with Mr.Theakston him self in my local brewery...
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 1:41, Reply)

which means you can cut out a little bit of it, and zoom it up and you get a copy of the original. The Mandelbox uses a similar set of equations to the Mandelbrot set, just over 3-D space with a couple of transformations to make it more "boxy" and 3-D.
Fractals are a bit weird. Take that triangle one, (Sierpinski Gasket) for example. If you stick three copies of it together, in a triangle, you get a Sierpinski Gasket twice as big as what you started with. Fair enough, you might think, but think about this - if you wanted to make a simple 2-D triangle twice as big, you'd have to put four copies of it together. And if you wanted to make a line drawing of a triangle twice as big, you could make it out of the lines from two copies. So the Sierpinski Gasket isn't really a 1-D drawing or a 2-D drawing. I think it's technically a 1.585-D drawing, more or less.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 14:03, Reply)

Like a roccoco borg cube. Or something.
Damned impressive!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 8:59, Reply)

Reminds me of something from Ken McLeod's novels; the post-human AI constructs called 'macros'.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 9:55, Reply)

If you don't listen...then the hell with yooooooo.
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:15, Reply)

I'm waiting to post that to facebook at the perfect moment!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 0:40, Reply)

Which makes it twice as funny!
( , Tue 29 Jun 2010, 3:49, Reply)

Anyone seen the new "redesigned photo page" spiel on Flickr? Click the link (if you're an account holder), go to one of your pics, and then scroll across to the last part of the tour.
( , Mon 28 Jun 2010, 23:33, Reply)

"I can actually drive well enough to escape a crowd of zombies should the need arise. Yeah, my highway code is rubbish and I always shift down too late but I'd be alive and the zombies would be eating dust."
So I made this and stuck it on his Facebook.
( , Mon 28 Jun 2010, 22:46, Reply)
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