The Game of Life

this may be one of my most interesting posts if you take the time to really explore this program. The program is called "the game of life" and it was created by john conway ( not the son of me and melanie conway, just some dude). Basically the program shows how the self automaticity of simple cellular life could work. The program runs on simple rules, which you can change if youd like, but i recommend leaving the rules the same unless your experienced with the program. The rules are similar to representations of how neuron activation might work in your brain or how single cells might live in a cimple organism. the rules are as follows

Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by loneliness.
Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives, unchanged, to the next generation.
Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.

these rules make it so the program will continue to run once you hit go and evolve on its own without any later input. This shows how a small living organism can do things like move without a real brain or intention, just based on a principle called self organization.

so basically if you want to mess around just click a few boxes adjacent to eachother or diagonal to each other and hit go to see how it grows. start at zoom 4 until your being gets too big, although it probably wont. change the speed from 20 to 1 so u can see whats going on. I also suggest trying some of the pre-formatted starting shapes that you can find on the website which evolve into some really cool shapes. The program is a lot cooler if you understand the theory behind it, and how it relates to our brains and small organisms work. i didnt do the best job explaining it so if you interested i suggest reading something on wikipedia or a more qualified source.

heres the link to a good program the game of life. click enjoy life in the upper left corner to start, make a few shapes and explore while you ponder the implications of whats going on.

Biotech Crops

im posting this because it would make my pops happy.

Here is a link to the article BIOTECH PROPAGANDA MEETS SCIENTIFIC REALITY

and here are some important quotes in case your too lazy to read about how our government is corperatized lying jerks.

"In its mad bid to privatize and control the world’s agriculture and food supply with its patented biotech seeds and cushy revolving door within governmental regulatory agencies, Monsanto cannot be very happy with a recent Soil Association report that shows GM crops decrease yields, whether it’s cotton or soybeans or corn."

"A 2007 study from Kansas State University that showed Roundup Ready soy (biotech soy) has suffered “yield drag” since it was introduced, producing an average of 9-25% less per acre than conventional soy."

“Since 1996 more than a billion acres have been planted with biotech crops in the U.S. We don’t really know what are the pros and cons of this important new agricultural technology.”

i thought that studies showing that biotech bioengineered crops produced less yield would be something we would look into before we deployed the mass use of them. Not to mention we havent thoroughly looked into the effects of the DNA expressed pesticide bioegineered into all of our cotton....

Mexican Blanket

Very interesting new pair of air max lights dropped by nike, dubbed the mexican blanket because of the aztec like pattern on the heel. You know how i love my air max.

Sand Art

this might be one of the most unique forms of art ive seen in a while. what i like about it is its almost a show the way the artist transitions from piece to piece with the music in the background. This particular video is by accomplished sand artist llana yahav. guess this is what you learn when you grow up in the desert. if you like the video and want to check out more there are a bunch on youtube.

Ben Folds is still alive

Ben folds forgets that he is supposed to cover a popular song live on this australian tv show, so he finds the most recent song played on his ipod, grabs some drummers from the studio, gives them some random shit to play on...and this is what he creates, utter badassness.

Goggles

Stunna shades meets phantom of the opera. I want these.


fresh out the water with my linda farrow goggles.

Mute Math

so this is a pretty old song of mute math's, it was their first single called typical off their self titled album. The video is pretty old too but its pretty cool, and i recently learned something interesting about it. the whole video is backwards, which is a pretty neat idea, but what makes this video even cooler is the fact that alot of the video had to be preformed backwards in order for it to match up to the song when played in reverse. Check out the video first (top one), then check out the making of the video ( second one). The drummer actually learned his parts in reverse in order to play them for the video, complicated stuff. Their drummer is beginning to be one of my favorites, although i think its impossible for anyone to reach erin tate status. if you don't know who erin tate is, dont worry about it, your probably a nerd.