http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/12/scientists-extract-images-directly-from-brain/
Scientists extract images directly from brain
12 Dec 2008
Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.
Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.
For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, suggests that improving the measurement accuracy will make it possible to reproduce images in color.
“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”
The researchers suggest a future version of this technology could be applied in the fields of art and design — particularly if it becomes possible to quickly and accurately access images existing inside an artist’s head. The technology might also lead to new treatments for conditions such as psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, by providing doctors a direct window into the mind of the patient.
ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”
The research results appear in the December 11 issue of US science journal Neuron.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Oldest Computer Music
Link
'Oldest' computer music unveiled
| By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News |
The music was played on the successor to Manchester's "Baby"
A scratchy recording of Baa Baa Black Sheep and a truncated version of In the Mood are thought to be the oldest known recordings of computer generated music.
The songs were captured by the BBC in the Autumn of 1951 during a visit to the University of Manchester.
The recording has been unveiled as part of the 60th Anniversary of "Baby", the forerunner of all modern computers.
The tunes were played on a Ferranti Mark 1 computer, a commercial version of the Baby Machine.
"I think it's historically significant," Paul Doornbusch, a computer music composer and historian at the New Zealand School of Music, told BBC News.
"As far as I know it's the earliest recording of a computer playing music in the world, probably by quite a wide margin."
The previous oldest known recordings were made on an IBM mainframe computer at Bell Labs in the US in 1957, he said.
"That's where the whole computer music thing started but they were not the first to have a computer play music," said Mr Doornbusch.
That honour goes to a third machine called CSIRAC, Australia's first digital computer, which "stunned" audiences with a rendition of Colonel Bogey.
"It played music months or weeks before [the Manchester] recording," said Mr Doornbusch.
However, no one has yet unearthed a recording of CSIRAC in action.
Mood machine
Documentary evidence of the Manchester machine's musical abilities exists thanks to a BBC outside broadcasting team who had gone to the University to record an edition of Children's Hour.
At the time Manchester was home to a Ferranti Mark 1, the first commercially available general purpose computer.
"Word must have got around that this electronic brain could play music," explained Chris Burton of the Computer Conversation Society (CCS).
The music program was written by a friend of computing legend Alan Turing called Christopher Strachey, a maths master at Harrow.
"My understanding is that Chris Strachey got on and wrote a program for playing draughts and when the program terminated it played God Save the King," said Mr Burton.
Others contend that the program was purely for playing music.
Either way, following the recording, a university engineer called Frank Cooper asked if he could have a copy. Unable to give him the original, the BBC team cut him another version.
 The Ferranti Mark 1 was a polished version of Baby |
"At the time of the recording outside broadcasts were recorded on to acetate disks," explained Mr Burton. "You can hear the presenter tell the recording engineer in the van 'lift Jim' and that meant lift the cutter off to stop recording."
During the session, the temperamental machine managed to work its way through Baa Baa Black Sheep, God Save the King and part of In the Mood.
Following one aborted attempt, a laughing presenter says: "The machine's obviously not in the mood."
The disc was eventually passed to the CCS, who, along with the University of Manchester, has released the recording to mark the 60th anniversary of the Ferranti machine's forerunner.
Modern marvel
In the late 1940s Manchester was a hotbed of computer innovation following the birth of Baby, or Small Scale Experimental Machine, in 1948.
 |  Programming the machines took a great deal of hard work  |
Enlarge Image"Baby was the first universal computer," explained Mr Burton.
"It would perform any task - within its capacity - depending on what program was put in."
The memory was built from a Cathode Ray Tube and allowed scientists to program 1024 bits, compared to the billions in today's modern computers.
Before Baby was built, computers such as ENIAC and Colossus had to be rewired to perform different tasks, said Mr Burton.
"You couldn't easily change what they did," said Mr Burton.
Baby successfully ran its first program - to determine the highest factor of a number - on 21 June 1948.
"That particular program was devised solely to make the machine work very hard so we could see where it was about to go wrong," Geoff Tootill, one of the builders of Baby told BBC News.
"If you gave the problem to a mathematician, he would take a fraction of a second to give you an answer."
However, companies quickly capitalised on Baby's unique abilities, giving rise to machines like the Mark 1.
"It was the start of the computer age," said Mr Tootill. "Although we didn't know it was going to be epoch-making or earth-shattering other than for weather forecasting and other scientific disciplines."
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Possibly the coolest thing ever:
http://flickrvision.com/maps/show_3d
That page will show you the most recently uploaded image to Flickr and where on the globe it originated. Cool stuff...
That page will show you the most recently uploaded image to Flickr and where on the globe it originated. Cool stuff...
Monday, March 3, 2008
Incredible AIDS breakthrough
Researchers discover gene that blocks HIV
February 28, 2008 - Edmonton - A team of researchers at the University of Alberta has discovered a gene that is able to block HIV, and in turn prevent the onset of AIDS.
Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, says his team has identified a gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus.
"When we put this gene in cells, it prevents the assembly of the HIV virus," said Barr, a postdoctoral fellow. "This means the virus cannot get out of the cells to infect other cells, thereby blocking the spread of the virus."
Barr and his team also prevented cells from turning on the TRIM22 gene - provoking an interesting phenomenon: the normal response of interferon, a protein that co-ordinates attacks by genes like TRIM22 against viral infections, became useless at blocking HIV infection.
"This means that TRIM22 is an essential part of our body's ability to fight off HIV. The results are very exciting because they show that our bodies have a gene that is capable of stopping the spread of HIV."
One of the greatest challenges in battling HIV is the virus' ability to mutate and evade medications. Antiretroviral drugs introduced during the late 1990s interfere with HIV's ability to produce new copies of itself - and though beneficial, the drugs are unable to eradicate the virus. Barr and his team have discovered a gene that could potentially do the job naturally.
"There are always newly emerging drug-resistant strains of HIV so the push has been to develop more natural means of blocking the virus. The discovery of this gene, which is natural in our cells, might provide a different avenue," said Barr. "The gene prevents the assembly of the virus so in the future the idea would be to develop drugs or vaccines that can mimic the effects of this gene."
"We are currently trying to figure out why this gene does not work in people infected with HIV and if there is a way to turn this gene on in those individuals," he added. "We hope that our research will lead to the design of new drugs, or vaccines that can halt the person-to-person transmission of HIV and the spread of the virus in the body, thereby blocking the onset of AIDS."
The researchers are now investigating the gene's ability to battle other viruses.
Barr's research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. The findings are published in the Public Library of Science Pathogens.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Interesting Article: Scientology: what it is and why we fight it
1. What is Scientology?
To understand Anonymous – what it is and why it exists – it is necessary to understand the Church of Scientology and why it has attracted the attention it has over the last half-century or so.
Scientology was created by L Ron Hubbard, an American science fiction writer. In 1950 he published the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In it, Hubbard claimed that problems facing human beings were the result of engrams, negative experiences stored in an area of the brain called the reactive mind. Through Dianetics techniques – in particular a form of counselling known as auditing – these engrams could be cleansed from the body, freeing the mind and leaving the person with the status of Clear.
At the time Hubbard's theories were discredited and dismissed by most critics, on psychological, medical and scientific grounds. Undeterred, Hubbard continued his work, moving from Dianetics as a theory of the mind to Scientology as a religious philosophy. Critics have drawn much attention to this, due both to the fact that Scientology did not begin as a religion, and Hubbard's oft-circulated quote that “if a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."
As Scientology and Dianetics grew, a number of aspects were added. In particular, a form of recinarnation, in which a person's soul (or Thetan) passed from one body to the next on death, is described in Hubbard's book Have You Lived Before This Life? Engrams were thus described as resulting not only from experiences in the subject's current existence but also from past lives, some lived on alien worlds over a history spanning trillions of years (a figure disputed by scientists as longer than the known age of the universe.) These engrams, much as those incurred during this lifetime, could be cleared through Scientology practices – for a “nominal fee,” of course.
Beyond the status of Clear lie “hidden” levels known as Operating Thetan. An Operating Thetan is a person who, having cast off those forces holding them back, is able to function as a Thetan – a spiritual being. There are a number of Operating Thetan levels (fifteen in total, of which eight have been used so far), each of which reveals another portion of the Church's teachings, again for a “nominal fee”, the cumulative total for OT8 (that is, Operating Thetan Level Eight) being approximated as nearly three hundred thousand US dollars.
The Church of Scientology now has centres worldwide and the endorsement of celebrities such as Beck, John Travolta, and – perhaps most prominently – Tom Cruise. As the Church has grown, however, so has concern over allegations of authoritarian control of its members, harassment and intimidation of its critics, excessive fees for membership, and cult-like behaviour.
2. Fair Game.
One policy of the Church of Scientology to gain the most criticism is known as Fair Game. L Ron Hubbard, in an internal policy document, described Fair Game as follows:
***
ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.
***
SP in the above refers to Suppressive Person, the Church's term for its critics.
Perhaps the most infamous application of the Fair Game policy was its use against journalist Paulette Cooper. Cooper wrote an article in 1970 criticising the Church, which was later expanded into a book, the Scandal of Scientology. In it she condemned several activities of the Church, including its financial exploitation of its members, its authoritarian, cultish structure, and abuse within the Church's elite sector known as the Sea Org.
In response, the Church launched an attempt to drive Cooper to a mental institution or jail through escalating harassment. Methods included obscene phone calls, death threats, blackmail, and the staging of two bomb threats in Cooper's name against the Church. Attempts were made on her life. This was to be followed by Operation Freakout, in which fraudulent threats supposed to be from Cooper would be made to foreign consulates and the President and Secretary of State.
3. Operation Snow White and the FBI
This, however, was not to be. Another Church “Operation”, dubbed Snow White, had Church agents carrying out infiltrations of and theft from offices of the US government and other entities, in order to purge documents which were unflattering towards the Church in general and Hubbard in particular. This has been described as the largest single infiltration of the US government in history.
During the government investigation into Operation Snow White, the FBI conducted a series of raids on Scientology offices. These raids resulted in the seizure of documents related to other issues, including the plot against Paulette Cooper described above. Another Church project uncovered as a result of the raids was codenamed Project Normandy, the Church's plan to take over the town of Clearwater, Florida. After purchasing the Fort Harrison Hotel under an assumed name the Church has gradually extended its influence throughout the town, hiring police officers as private security and infiltrating local media.
Operation Snow White was carried out by the Guardian's Office, an organisation with a mandate to oversee the Church. Following the FBI raids and subsequent jailing of key members of the GO, the Office was shut down, to be replaced by the Office of Special Affairs which continues today.
4. The Sea Organisation
The Sea Organisation (or Sea Org) was founded by Hubbard in 1966 and based on a number of ships located in the Mediterranean Sea. Hubbard, a former member of the US Navy, pronounced himself Commodore and structured the Sea Org along naval lines, a practice which continues today although the majority of Sea Org bases are now on land (with the exception of its ship, the Freewinds). Sea Org staff are required to sign one billion year contracts, pledging to return to work at the Sea Org when their Thetan returns to take control of a body.
Workers for the Sea Org who fail to live up to Scientology standards may be referred to the Rehabilitation Project Force, a series of work camps run by the Org to “rehabilitate” troublesome members. In addition to studying Scientology, residents of the RPF are required to perform gruelling manual labour and live in appalling accomodation. While the Church compares them to the Boy Scouts or US Marine Boot Camps as projects combining labour with ethical instruction, critics see them as more reminiscent of the gulags of the Soviet Union. One former Scientologist described the RPF as follows:
***
It was essentially a prison to which crew who were considered nonproducers, security risks, or just wanted to leave the Sea Org, were assigned. Hubbard's RPF policies established the conditions.
RPF members were segregated and not allowed to communicate to anyone else. They had their own spaces and were not allowed in normal crew areas of the ship. They ate after normal crew had eaten, and only whatever was left over from the crew meal. Their berthing was the worst on board, in a roach-infested, filthy and unventilated cargo hold. They wore black boilersuits, even in the hottest weather. They were required to run everywhere. Discipline was harsh and bizarre, with running laps of the ship assigned for the slightest infraction like failing to address a senior with "Sir."
***
Testimony from other ex-members indicates that conditions on land bases are little better. RPF members, as well as working on Sea Org bases, may be deployed to other Scientology sites, allegedly including a number of the “Celebrity Centres” run for the cult's elite members.
Those who are deemed to have failed to meet the RPF's standards may be sent to the RPF's RPF, an even more brutal regime.
5. Lisa McPherson
It is difficult to research Scientology without encountering the tragic story of Lisa McPherson. Lisa, a 36 year old Scientologist, was involved in a car accident in Clearwater, Florida, in 1995. While physically relatively unharmed, her behaviour led hospital staff to believe her to be mentally unstable, and to request that she remain in the hospital for observation. Due to Scientology's opposition to psychiatry, she, with the help of other Scientologists, checked herself out of the hospital and was placed under the care of the Church.
This care, in line with Scientology teaching, included regular doses of vitamins, protein supplements, and natural remedies. As her physical and mental condition continued to deteriorate, the Church eventually consulted a Scientologist doctor who advised that she be taken to the nearest hospital, an option refused by the Church due to fears that she would be placed under psychiatric care. Instead, she was taken to the doctor in question's hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The original coroner's report on her death concluded that it was the result of an embolism triggered by dehydration, and estimated that she had been without fluids for five to ten days. It was also estimated that she had been unconscious for up to 48 hours before being admitted to hospital. A number of marks on her body were identified as consistent with cockroach bites, triggering concerns about the unsanitary conditions in which she was held prior to her death.
6. The Internet
The Church's relationship with the internet has been a strained one. In 1991, a newsgroup was created named alt.religion.scientology for the purposes of discussion of Scientology and the Church. The group would quickly become a source of heated debate between Scientologists, former Scientologists, critics and agents of the Office of Special Affairs.
In 1994, internal Church documents were leaked to the newsgroup detailing the “secret” Operating Thetan levels. Among these was the aspect of Scientology most known to the public: the story of Xenu, which forms part of Operating Thetan Level 3 (OT3). This story runs as follows:
***
75 million years ago, the dictator Xenu was ruler of the Galactic Confederacy, an alliance of planets including Earth (then known as Teegeeack.) Xenu, with the aid of psychiatrists, herded people from these worlds onto space ships (which were exact replicas of Douglas DC-8 aeroplanes, but with the ability to fly through space) under the pretext of a tax inspection, and took them to Teegeeack, where they were arranged around the outside of volcanoes. Xenu then detonated hydrogen bombs inside these volcanoes, killing them all.
The souls (Thetans) of the murdered aliens were then captured and brainwashed (“implanted”) with misleading information including all other world religions and a number of other concepts. These Thetans clustered together in their thousands to form Body Thetans, which attached themselves to then-primitive human beings and continue to this day to cause us problems from depression to sickness to war.
***
As the writers of South Park put it in their episode satirising Scientology, THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE.
The posting of these documents led to legal action on the part of the Church, who claimed the Xenu story to be copyright and a trade secret – while simultaneously denying its existence. The Church also attempted to have the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup removed, a move attacked by advocates of free expression.
Other actions taken by the Church with regard to the Internet include:
* A lawsuit against Arnaldo Lerma, ex-Scientologist and critic, for republishing the story of Xenu.
* Use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force AT&T Worldnet, an internet service provider, to reveal the identity of one of its subscribers who had been posting anonymously to alt.religion.scientology
* Legal action against Google, again using the DMCA, to remove Operation Clambake (a popular anti-Scientology website) from its search results. While Google initially complied, the decision was reversed following mass complaints.
A number of other websites, such as Slashdot.org and YTMND.com, have been the targets of cease-and-desist orders from the Church of Scientology for republishing excerpts of the original Xenu materials.
In 2008 an internal video featuring Tom Cruise was leaked onto the website gawker.com and quickly gained attention due to Cruise's behaviour, described by many as erratic, bizarre and fanatical. The video was in turn placed on a number of other websites. The Church issued cease and desist orders against websites, including YouTube and Gawker, hosting the video, demanding it be removed.
7. We Are Anonymous
Now we come full circle. As the Church attempted to have the video removed, another video, titled simply “Message to Scientology”, was distributed online. This video, a declaration of war against the Church, coincided with Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks which succeeded in disabling a number of key Scientology websites. This – later described as an opening salvo to grab the attention of the public and the media – quickly evolved into a movement pushing for global demonstrations against the Church on the 10th of February 2008. Demonstrators wore masks resembling those from the film and comic V for Vendetta, to protect their identities from later reprisals from the Church's Office of Special Affairs, as a symbolic statement against tyranny, and to reinforce the concept of Anonymous: that it is everywhere and nowhere, everyone and no-one.
Described by the church as Nazi-Communist hate criminals in the pay of the German government (which has refused to grant the Church tax-exempt religious status) and the psychiatric establishment, and by the media as “hackers on steroids”, Anonymous is chaotic, disorganised, organic, viral, confusing, amusing and growing. It is in this structureless, leaderless, anarchic environment that many find strength when put against an organisation which is based on, and can only understand, the most rigid forms of authority.
8. Conclusions
As I write this, preparations are already underway for the 15th of March, the next round of global demonstrations, timed to take place close to the birthday of L Ron Hubbard. Critics have come forward to voice their support, ex-members have been given the courage to speak out, and people worldwide are becoming aware that the kooky sect with some strange ideas is the home of a rotten and destructive core. Only time will tell what effect this will have in the long term, and whether the Church can adapt to face its new challenge, but one thing is clear: the Church is under threat.
We are Anonymous.
Expect us.
Taken from: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/391429.html
To understand Anonymous – what it is and why it exists – it is necessary to understand the Church of Scientology and why it has attracted the attention it has over the last half-century or so.
Scientology was created by L Ron Hubbard, an American science fiction writer. In 1950 he published the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In it, Hubbard claimed that problems facing human beings were the result of engrams, negative experiences stored in an area of the brain called the reactive mind. Through Dianetics techniques – in particular a form of counselling known as auditing – these engrams could be cleansed from the body, freeing the mind and leaving the person with the status of Clear.
At the time Hubbard's theories were discredited and dismissed by most critics, on psychological, medical and scientific grounds. Undeterred, Hubbard continued his work, moving from Dianetics as a theory of the mind to Scientology as a religious philosophy. Critics have drawn much attention to this, due both to the fact that Scientology did not begin as a religion, and Hubbard's oft-circulated quote that “if a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."
As Scientology and Dianetics grew, a number of aspects were added. In particular, a form of recinarnation, in which a person's soul (or Thetan) passed from one body to the next on death, is described in Hubbard's book Have You Lived Before This Life? Engrams were thus described as resulting not only from experiences in the subject's current existence but also from past lives, some lived on alien worlds over a history spanning trillions of years (a figure disputed by scientists as longer than the known age of the universe.) These engrams, much as those incurred during this lifetime, could be cleared through Scientology practices – for a “nominal fee,” of course.
Beyond the status of Clear lie “hidden” levels known as Operating Thetan. An Operating Thetan is a person who, having cast off those forces holding them back, is able to function as a Thetan – a spiritual being. There are a number of Operating Thetan levels (fifteen in total, of which eight have been used so far), each of which reveals another portion of the Church's teachings, again for a “nominal fee”, the cumulative total for OT8 (that is, Operating Thetan Level Eight) being approximated as nearly three hundred thousand US dollars.
The Church of Scientology now has centres worldwide and the endorsement of celebrities such as Beck, John Travolta, and – perhaps most prominently – Tom Cruise. As the Church has grown, however, so has concern over allegations of authoritarian control of its members, harassment and intimidation of its critics, excessive fees for membership, and cult-like behaviour.
2. Fair Game.
One policy of the Church of Scientology to gain the most criticism is known as Fair Game. L Ron Hubbard, in an internal policy document, described Fair Game as follows:
***
ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.
***
SP in the above refers to Suppressive Person, the Church's term for its critics.
Perhaps the most infamous application of the Fair Game policy was its use against journalist Paulette Cooper. Cooper wrote an article in 1970 criticising the Church, which was later expanded into a book, the Scandal of Scientology. In it she condemned several activities of the Church, including its financial exploitation of its members, its authoritarian, cultish structure, and abuse within the Church's elite sector known as the Sea Org.
In response, the Church launched an attempt to drive Cooper to a mental institution or jail through escalating harassment. Methods included obscene phone calls, death threats, blackmail, and the staging of two bomb threats in Cooper's name against the Church. Attempts were made on her life. This was to be followed by Operation Freakout, in which fraudulent threats supposed to be from Cooper would be made to foreign consulates and the President and Secretary of State.
3. Operation Snow White and the FBI
This, however, was not to be. Another Church “Operation”, dubbed Snow White, had Church agents carrying out infiltrations of and theft from offices of the US government and other entities, in order to purge documents which were unflattering towards the Church in general and Hubbard in particular. This has been described as the largest single infiltration of the US government in history.
During the government investigation into Operation Snow White, the FBI conducted a series of raids on Scientology offices. These raids resulted in the seizure of documents related to other issues, including the plot against Paulette Cooper described above. Another Church project uncovered as a result of the raids was codenamed Project Normandy, the Church's plan to take over the town of Clearwater, Florida. After purchasing the Fort Harrison Hotel under an assumed name the Church has gradually extended its influence throughout the town, hiring police officers as private security and infiltrating local media.
Operation Snow White was carried out by the Guardian's Office, an organisation with a mandate to oversee the Church. Following the FBI raids and subsequent jailing of key members of the GO, the Office was shut down, to be replaced by the Office of Special Affairs which continues today.
4. The Sea Organisation
The Sea Organisation (or Sea Org) was founded by Hubbard in 1966 and based on a number of ships located in the Mediterranean Sea. Hubbard, a former member of the US Navy, pronounced himself Commodore and structured the Sea Org along naval lines, a practice which continues today although the majority of Sea Org bases are now on land (with the exception of its ship, the Freewinds). Sea Org staff are required to sign one billion year contracts, pledging to return to work at the Sea Org when their Thetan returns to take control of a body.
Workers for the Sea Org who fail to live up to Scientology standards may be referred to the Rehabilitation Project Force, a series of work camps run by the Org to “rehabilitate” troublesome members. In addition to studying Scientology, residents of the RPF are required to perform gruelling manual labour and live in appalling accomodation. While the Church compares them to the Boy Scouts or US Marine Boot Camps as projects combining labour with ethical instruction, critics see them as more reminiscent of the gulags of the Soviet Union. One former Scientologist described the RPF as follows:
***
It was essentially a prison to which crew who were considered nonproducers, security risks, or just wanted to leave the Sea Org, were assigned. Hubbard's RPF policies established the conditions.
RPF members were segregated and not allowed to communicate to anyone else. They had their own spaces and were not allowed in normal crew areas of the ship. They ate after normal crew had eaten, and only whatever was left over from the crew meal. Their berthing was the worst on board, in a roach-infested, filthy and unventilated cargo hold. They wore black boilersuits, even in the hottest weather. They were required to run everywhere. Discipline was harsh and bizarre, with running laps of the ship assigned for the slightest infraction like failing to address a senior with "Sir."
***
Testimony from other ex-members indicates that conditions on land bases are little better. RPF members, as well as working on Sea Org bases, may be deployed to other Scientology sites, allegedly including a number of the “Celebrity Centres” run for the cult's elite members.
Those who are deemed to have failed to meet the RPF's standards may be sent to the RPF's RPF, an even more brutal regime.
5. Lisa McPherson
It is difficult to research Scientology without encountering the tragic story of Lisa McPherson. Lisa, a 36 year old Scientologist, was involved in a car accident in Clearwater, Florida, in 1995. While physically relatively unharmed, her behaviour led hospital staff to believe her to be mentally unstable, and to request that she remain in the hospital for observation. Due to Scientology's opposition to psychiatry, she, with the help of other Scientologists, checked herself out of the hospital and was placed under the care of the Church.
This care, in line with Scientology teaching, included regular doses of vitamins, protein supplements, and natural remedies. As her physical and mental condition continued to deteriorate, the Church eventually consulted a Scientologist doctor who advised that she be taken to the nearest hospital, an option refused by the Church due to fears that she would be placed under psychiatric care. Instead, she was taken to the doctor in question's hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The original coroner's report on her death concluded that it was the result of an embolism triggered by dehydration, and estimated that she had been without fluids for five to ten days. It was also estimated that she had been unconscious for up to 48 hours before being admitted to hospital. A number of marks on her body were identified as consistent with cockroach bites, triggering concerns about the unsanitary conditions in which she was held prior to her death.
6. The Internet
The Church's relationship with the internet has been a strained one. In 1991, a newsgroup was created named alt.religion.scientology for the purposes of discussion of Scientology and the Church. The group would quickly become a source of heated debate between Scientologists, former Scientologists, critics and agents of the Office of Special Affairs.
In 1994, internal Church documents were leaked to the newsgroup detailing the “secret” Operating Thetan levels. Among these was the aspect of Scientology most known to the public: the story of Xenu, which forms part of Operating Thetan Level 3 (OT3). This story runs as follows:
***
75 million years ago, the dictator Xenu was ruler of the Galactic Confederacy, an alliance of planets including Earth (then known as Teegeeack.) Xenu, with the aid of psychiatrists, herded people from these worlds onto space ships (which were exact replicas of Douglas DC-8 aeroplanes, but with the ability to fly through space) under the pretext of a tax inspection, and took them to Teegeeack, where they were arranged around the outside of volcanoes. Xenu then detonated hydrogen bombs inside these volcanoes, killing them all.
The souls (Thetans) of the murdered aliens were then captured and brainwashed (“implanted”) with misleading information including all other world religions and a number of other concepts. These Thetans clustered together in their thousands to form Body Thetans, which attached themselves to then-primitive human beings and continue to this day to cause us problems from depression to sickness to war.
***
As the writers of South Park put it in their episode satirising Scientology, THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE.
The posting of these documents led to legal action on the part of the Church, who claimed the Xenu story to be copyright and a trade secret – while simultaneously denying its existence. The Church also attempted to have the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup removed, a move attacked by advocates of free expression.
Other actions taken by the Church with regard to the Internet include:
* A lawsuit against Arnaldo Lerma, ex-Scientologist and critic, for republishing the story of Xenu.
* Use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force AT&T Worldnet, an internet service provider, to reveal the identity of one of its subscribers who had been posting anonymously to alt.religion.scientology
* Legal action against Google, again using the DMCA, to remove Operation Clambake (a popular anti-Scientology website) from its search results. While Google initially complied, the decision was reversed following mass complaints.
A number of other websites, such as Slashdot.org and YTMND.com, have been the targets of cease-and-desist orders from the Church of Scientology for republishing excerpts of the original Xenu materials.
In 2008 an internal video featuring Tom Cruise was leaked onto the website gawker.com and quickly gained attention due to Cruise's behaviour, described by many as erratic, bizarre and fanatical. The video was in turn placed on a number of other websites. The Church issued cease and desist orders against websites, including YouTube and Gawker, hosting the video, demanding it be removed.
7. We Are Anonymous
Now we come full circle. As the Church attempted to have the video removed, another video, titled simply “Message to Scientology”, was distributed online. This video, a declaration of war against the Church, coincided with Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks which succeeded in disabling a number of key Scientology websites. This – later described as an opening salvo to grab the attention of the public and the media – quickly evolved into a movement pushing for global demonstrations against the Church on the 10th of February 2008. Demonstrators wore masks resembling those from the film and comic V for Vendetta, to protect their identities from later reprisals from the Church's Office of Special Affairs, as a symbolic statement against tyranny, and to reinforce the concept of Anonymous: that it is everywhere and nowhere, everyone and no-one.
Described by the church as Nazi-Communist hate criminals in the pay of the German government (which has refused to grant the Church tax-exempt religious status) and the psychiatric establishment, and by the media as “hackers on steroids”, Anonymous is chaotic, disorganised, organic, viral, confusing, amusing and growing. It is in this structureless, leaderless, anarchic environment that many find strength when put against an organisation which is based on, and can only understand, the most rigid forms of authority.
8. Conclusions
As I write this, preparations are already underway for the 15th of March, the next round of global demonstrations, timed to take place close to the birthday of L Ron Hubbard. Critics have come forward to voice their support, ex-members have been given the courage to speak out, and people worldwide are becoming aware that the kooky sect with some strange ideas is the home of a rotten and destructive core. Only time will tell what effect this will have in the long term, and whether the Church can adapt to face its new challenge, but one thing is clear: the Church is under threat.
We are Anonymous.
Expect us.
Taken from: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/391429.html
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Songwriting
Here's a link to a cool article about songwriting:
http://www.quamut.com/quamut/songwriting/page/how_to_write_melodies_for_songs.html
http://www.quamut.com/quamut/songwriting/page/how_to_write_melodies_for_songs.html
You Will Never Get a Record Deal
Great article about the new face of the record industry:
[url]http://www.unsprungmedia.com/unsprung_wisdom/2008/1/24/you-will-never-get-a-record-deal.html[/url]
[url]http://www.unsprungmedia.com/unsprung_wisdom/2008/1/24/you-will-never-get-a-record-deal.html[/url]
Monday, February 18, 2008
Debunking Psychics, Mediums, etc.
Great video on Google Video about mediums, etc:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218293233140975017
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218293233140975017
Saturday, February 9, 2008
19 Movies you probably didn't see in 2007 but should.
http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/12/24/best-19-movies-you-didnt-see-in-2007/
I've seen 2 - Air Guitar Nation and Fido. Check those out.
I've seen 2 - Air Guitar Nation and Fido. Check those out.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)