die puny humans


Friday, February 14, 2003
Buildings of the future could be "clothed" in a flexible, power-generating material that looks like denim. The Canadian company developing the material says it can be draped over just about any shape - greatly expanding the number of places where solar power can be generated.

The inventors hope their power-generating material will enable architects to design complex, curvy buildings that can nevertheless carry solar cells. One day, consumer products such as personal stereos and cellphones might also harness "denim-power" to charge their batteries.

Unlike conventional solar cells, the new, cheap material has no rigid silicon base. Instead, it is made of thousands of inexpensive silicon beads sandwiched between two thin layers of aluminium foil and sealed on both sides with plastic. Each bead functions as a tiny solar cell, absorbing sunlight and converting it into electricity. The aluminium sheets give the material physical strength and act as electrical contacts.

The idea comes from Spheral Solar of Cambridge, Ontario, which acquired patents on the concept in 1997. Spokesman Milfred Hammerbacher expects the company to start making its flexible panels next year.

(Found by George Gehlmann, thanks)



I've been listening to this song all week, by Joy Zipper: It's called "Check Out My New Jesus" and it's a free mp3 download on their website. Consider this my Valentine's Day gift to puny humans.


If an impact from space debris was a factor in the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, NASA had been given ample warning. A report published in 1997 predicted a scenario that has disturbing parallels with what may have befallen the spacecraft.

Written by an expert panel convened by the US National Research Council, Protecting the Space Shuttle from Meteoroids and Orbital Debris, warns that debris impacts that penetrate the leading edge or underside of a shuttle wing or fuselage might not be immediately critical or detectable.

But it goes on: "The consequent thermal heating on re-entry could have a 'blowtorch' effect inside the wing that causes loss of flight control or failure of the primary structure resulting in the loss of the vehicle..."



The ice cap at Mars' south pole is made almost entirely of ice made from water, rather than from carbon dioxide as had previously been thought, scientists say.

New data from an unmanned spacecraft in orbit around the planet show that the south pole is very similar to the north pole, which is made up of frozen water, with just a thin covering of frozen carbon dioxide.

The findings - from scientists at the California Institute of Technology - indicate that any astronauts visiting the planet would not be short of water. But it also means that it would be difficult to make Mars habitable in the future because there is less carbon dioxide there than previously thought, and carbon dioxide is what is needed to trap heat and warm the planet up...



Happy Valentine's from Bára:





Hiptop Nation:
picpicpicpic


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
KS2 LAUNCH PARTY: THIS SATURDAY, FEB. 15 WITH THE QUAILS & CONDOR
Please join us in celebrating the arrival of KS2 at Ego Park Gallery and Mama Buzz Cafe this Saturday, February 15, at 7pm. SF bands The Quails and Condor will be playing out back and art from Sue Costabile, Maizie Gilbert, KS2 illustrators & more will be on display. Hint: come early to catch the bands!

THE DEETS:
KS2 LAUNCH PARTY
music by: the Quails & Condor
art by: Harrell Fletcher, Maizie Gilbert, Sue Costabile, the Budget
Gallery & KS2 illustrators
Ego Park Gallery 492 23rd at Telegraph
7pm-12 am
$7-$20 ($10 gets you a free mag; all proceeds go to KS3)

***ENTER through MAMA BUZZ CAFE, 2318 TELEGRAPH***
[btw. 23rd and 24th street, right next to the Stork Club around the corner from Ego Park. |look for the blinking orange sign, you can't miss it.]

DIRECTIONS

from SF: exit 880 south (first exit on right after the bridge)
take (first exit off 880 ramp) west grand exit
go straight (through six or seven lights) and take a left on telegraph
next right is 23rd, mama buzz is right past 23rd on the right.

Map

from BART: exit at 19th street downtown oakland, walk up broadway one block past west grand is 23rd, take a left onto 23rd, make a right at telegraph and you're there!

Have a listen:
The Quails
Condor

NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: If you are planning on coming to the party, please stop by the mag table and pick up your copy! We'll have your name on a list.

We could use some help! Want to give us some? Send an email

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KS 2 NOW AVAILABLE

KS2, the regret issue, is here! Contents include: suburban violence, Joshua Clover on regret, a feminist's love for Led Zeppelin, how to get your FBI file, Bay Area art after the bust, Dave Fear on melodrama (plus his interview with Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufmann), sympathy for music magazines, the Mountain Goats/Destroyer conundrum, a lesson in how to prick your meat, and an exploration of the question: is staying together the new breaking up?

Get it now:
http://www.kitchensinkmag.com/about.php?mainsection=subscribe

KS3: THE STALKER ISSUE
Though we can barely believe it ourselves, we are currently working on KS3, where we explore the concepts of stalking and obsession--in some sense, it's our take on a "love" issue. A few tidbits: following PJ Harvey, an interview with agent provocateur Chuck Barris, tales from an art world refugee, the new back-to-land movement, the pros and cons of cannibalism, and an exploration of unrequited love.

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THE KS UPDATE

EGO PARK BENEFIT: SAT. 3/1 with MATMOS, CRACK W.A.R, & more
Come back to Ego Park in 2 weeks for a benefit show featuring art by Aisha Burnes and music by Matmos sound system, Crack W.A.R., Experimental Dental School, and Uprock. Show starts at ??,please come out and support Ego Park!

MAMA BUZZ OPENS
Because KS editor-in-chief Jen Loy and Webmistress Nicole Neditch did't feel like they had enough to do, they recently bought the café formerly known as Papa Buzz at Telegraph and 23rd in Oakland. Be sure to stop by for coffee, waffles,sandwiches, KS meetings, art shows and lit readings. Go: www.mamabuzzcafe.com

KS ARTISTS TAKE THE BAY AREA
Laurenn McCubbin, Michelle Tea, Jesse Reklaw, benjones, Andrice Arp, Lark Pien, Peter Conrad and FC Brandt are just a few of the KS cartoonists and illustrators that appear in the newly released Penny Dreadful Travel Guides Vol. 1: The San Francisco Bay Area. A series of sequential art stories about life in the Bay Area, the Travel Guides are hand-constructed works of art in themselves. Check them out at Mama Buzz, Comic Relief or online at www.pennydreadfulpress.com




Thursday, February 13, 2003
Subj: NOTE: venue change!
Date: 2/13/03 11:51:54 PM GMT Standard Time
From: andrew@beezwax.net

The Organs & Romance show being put on by the Underwear Collective has been moved!

Sadly, we've suddenly discovered that the Xenodrome in San Francisco can no longer hold shows at night. Fortunately, we've got another place for the same night! All other information is the same -- see below.

Saturday, March 1, 2003
$9-13 sliding scale
doors open 8pm

NEW LOCATION:
The Black Box, 1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, CA -- (510) 451-1932

(Note that there will be art on display in the Black Box gallery that's unrelated to our show -- our art will be shown in the back of the room where the performances will be taking place. I mean, you can look at that other art too, and you might even like it; it just doesn't have anything to do with us.)

"Alex Woad," listed below, is me. A copy of my book, bound by Shannon Kelley, will be on display in our gallery show, surrounded by various illustrations from it by me and others.

ORGANS & ROMANCE:

8-9pm Art Exhibited by:
Jacob Tillman, Peter Mendes, Shayne Keeler, Manny Silva, Vikki del Rosario, Kris Jensen, Kimberly Mascaro, Alex Woad, Shannon Kelley, Deth P. Sun

9-10:30pm Modern Dance by:
Alma Esperanza Cunningham, Samantha Giron Dance Project, Lesley Braithwaite, Triada, Debrah Hurley, Raw Footage, Isabelle Sjahsam.

11-2am Live Electronica by:
Mayam, Cat 5, Concepts



Yes, still got total fucking brainrot, thanks for asking



CLEARED PRISONER 'WASN'T TOLD FOR EIGHT YEARS' : (AOL News)

A PRISONER in India spent more than eight years in prison after being declared innocent, because no-one told him he was free to go

Pratap Nayak, 28, was cleared by the High Court of the eastern Indian state of Orissa in 1994. But, neither officials nor his family bothered to tell him the good news, so he remained in prison, it is reported. Including time spent in jail during his trial, Nayak spent a total of 14 years in prison.

He said: "No one bothered about me. Not even my own family. They did not have the money or the interest. Naturally, I languished in jail." He was originally sentenced to life imprisonment after getting caught up in a violent clash between two families in his village. In 1994, the court declared Nayak and his five co-accused not guilty. The other five defendants had already been released on bail. But, by the time the judgement was announced, Nayak's lawyer had died and no-one bothered to inform him or the jail.



Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Man requests Jesus for legal help: (Found by Dan Harvey, cheers)

GAINESVILLE, Missouri (AP) -- A Missouri man is calling on a higher power for his legal representation.

Richard John Adams requested Jesus Christ as his trial attorney during a hearing Wednesday on tampering charges. Adams, who described himself as a patriot and a Christian, says lawyers are "devils" who are trying to undermine the Constitution.

Ozark County Circuit Judge John Moody told Adams the only person who can speak for him in the courtroom is a lawful attorney.

Adams is charged with tampering with a judge for hostile comments made during an earlier traffic case. He faces a maximum of 14 years in prison if convicted of both counts.



The remains of a wealthy and powerful man were discovered five kilometres from (Stonehenge) in May 2002. Known as the Amesbury Archer, this man was buried with the oldest gold and copper artefacts ever discovered in Britain, dating from as far back as 2470 BC.

Although there is no direct link between the man and Stonehenge, he is thought to have lived at the time the landmark was erected, about 2300 BC. This, along with the proximity of his burial site and his enormous wealth, has led archaeologists to speculate that he played a role in the stone circle's construction.

Analysis of his tooth enamel now shows that he grew up not in England, but in central Europe, most probably the Swiss or German Alps. Lighter oxygen isotopes in the tooth enamel indicate that the teeth were formed in a colder climate than Britain...



"...image, unveiled on Tuesday, was taken by the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft during a 12-month scan of the entire sky. It is the most detailed all-sky image of the infant Universe, just 380,000 years after the Big Bang.


"From it, Charles Bennett, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and his team have extracted the age of the cosmos and its main ingredients with unprecedented accuracy. They have also revealed the moment the very first stars sprang to life..."



Taken right now, in my office, with total fucking brainrot at 1.27am GMT



Taken in Paris Saturday night:



Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Stuart Moore:
"I’m worried for New York now -- worried about the possibility of another attack as the Bush administration moves inexorably toward war. And I’m angry that our cynical, manipulative President has, by turns, opened my city up to attack; lied outright about providing it with aid to recover from that attack; used the attack as justification for an unjust war in a blatant, emotional appeal to the American people; and, through that very war, greatly increased the possibility of further terrorism in the city."




Monday, February 10, 2003
Poster art for Bangkok Haunted:



In a good week, they may be able to sink into the squalor of a filthy bath three times. Simply saying "good morning" is enough for a fine or even a beating. They're shut away in tiny cells about 9 meters square. They might be allowed to meet somebody every now and again, but the visitor would have to be really famous.

Japan's prisons have long copped flak from Western human rights organizations, but solitary confinement in Japanese penitentiary can be a living Hell that lasts for decades and has few crueler counterparts throughout the world, according to Flash (2/18).

"Overseas, the longest a prisoner would be kept in solitary confinement would be three months and anything over a year would soon be banned, but there're at least 30 prisoners in Japanese jails who've been in solitary confinement for at least 10 years. At least one prisoner has been in there for 39 years..."





Solar-powered Indian man says he doesn't need food (Ananova)

An Indian man who claims not to have eaten solid food since 1995 says he gets all of the energy he needs from the sun.

Hira Ratan Manek, 65, from Calicut in Kerala, says he has conquered hunger by absorbing solar energy through his eyes.

He believes people can induce changes in their bodies by gazing at the sun every day during the first hour of sunrise or last hour of sunset while standing barefoot on the ground. He said: "After a few days of practice, you will feel the energy entering the body through the eyes. By receiving the sun rays through the eyes, the brain gets charged and brings out its unutilised powers."

The mechanical engineer underwent a 411-day fast beginning January 1, 2000 under the observation of doctors in Ahmedabad, and had lived without food for 211 days prior to that. It is reported he has not eaten solid food since 1995.

Mr Manek told The Asian Age: "Solar energy absorbed through the eyes eliminates mental illness, physical illness, spiritual ignorance and makes life happy and peaceful. One's hunger just disappears. It also activates the dormant human brain and awakens the infinite powers in human beings."



Conversations between dangerously stupid people I know:
[00:13] Charlie Chu: you are like ogami to my lil' daigoro
[00:13] NickLocking: If you were here, I'd stick you in a diaper, and put Ron Perlman on one side of the room, and a plastic raincoat on the other.
[00:13] NickLocking: And force you to choose.
[00:14] Charlie Chu: shouldn't that be a sword or a ball?
[00:17] NickLocking: RON PERLMAN. PLASTIC RAINCOAT.
[00:17] Charlie Chu: i'm just saying
[00:17] Charlie Chu: why would i ever choose a plastic raincoat?
[00:18] NickLocking: Well, obviously, you'd be unworthy.
[00:18] Charlie Chu: when forced to choose, ALWAYS CHOOSE RON PERLMAN
[00:18] NickLocking: Corr! ect!


Sunday, February 09, 2003
Found by Jean-Pierre Dionnet:

"...Uyoku — right-wing extremists — are obsessive about dates and anniversaries. All provide a good excuse to dress up for the day and head out in a convoy of sound trucks to exhort unfortunate passers-by to greater feats of Yamato spirit, the essence of Japaneseness. The senden ka, literally “propaganda vehicles,” come in a variety of colours, favourites being black with gold kanji or military olive green, most have speakers mounted on the roof, grilles on the windows, and a few add a battering ram on the front, Mad Max style..."



Thursday, February 06, 2003
Off to Paris tomorrow on French Film Business. DPH will go quiet until Monday, but I can be trailed by dropping a blank email to badsignal-subscribe@lists.flirble.org for live and direct bullshit transmitted by wireless modem.


North Korea has warned the United States that any decision to send more troops to the region could lead the North to make a pre-emptive attack on American forces.


North Korea also warned that any US strike against its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon would trigger "full scale war".





Athanacia is busy turning into something new: