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The annual Cult Television convention has announced its programme for 2003. Promising that it will celebrate the best in "contemporary cult tv and sci-fi", tragically, this actually means that the guest lineup currently stands at Richard Dean Anderson and a laptop logged on to BBCi.
"Our discovery of this much carbon monoxide gas in such an extremely distant and young galaxy is surprising. It means that, even at a very early time in the history of the Universe, galaxies already had huge amounts of molecular gas that would eventually form new generations of stars," said Chris Carilli, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Socorro, New Mexico.
The distant galaxy, dubbed J1148+5251, contains a bright quasar powered by a black hole at least a billion times more massive than the Sun. The galaxy is seen as it was only 870 million years after the Big Bang. The Universe now is 13.7 billion years old. J1148+5251 would have been among the first luminous objects in the Universe.
The original atoms formed in the Universe within the first three minutes of the Big Bang were only hydrogen and helium. Carbon and oxygen -- the atoms making up carbon monoxide -- had to be made in the thermonuclear furnaces at the cores of the earliest stars.
Dummy collars have had to be fitted to some sheep, after researchers found those wearing the real satellite collars were treated as outcasts by other members of the flock. "The sheep wearing the collars became persona non grata," Scully quipped.
So these are human patterns that have shown up on the Internet, not because of the software, but because it's being used by humans. Bion has identified this possibility of groups sandbagging their sophisticated goals with these basic urges. And what he finally came to, in analyzing this tension, is that group structure is necessary. Robert's Rules of Order are necessary. Constitutions are necessary. Norms, rituals, laws, the whole list of ways that we say, out of the universe of possible behaviors, we're going to draw a relatively small circle around the acceptable ones.
He said the group structure is necessary to defend the group from itself. Group structure exists to keep a group on target, on track, on message, on charter, whatever. To keep a group focused on its own sophisticated goals and to keep a group from sliding into these basic patterns. Group structure defends the group from the action of its own members.
 | You Are Edward From "Edward Scissorhands." You are very shy and often misunderstood. Innocent, sweet, and artistic, you like to pass your days by daydreaming and expressing yourself through the arts. You are a truly unique individual. Unfortunately, you are quite lonely, and few people truly understand you. |
Viruses you suffer from:
Junkfood
Eat some real food. Something which you can identify the source of every ingredient, not the point of manufacture.
Sci-fi
Stop wearing the stick-on ears.
Religion
Read "God's Debris" by Scott Adams (yes, the Dilbert guy)
8-Bit
Polygons, all the polygons you can get are not enough.
Politics
Stop caring!
Hippyism
Free love is passe and potentially dangerous, and patchouli smells like cat piss.
Conspiracy Theory
Face it, the elected government is in control. Actually that's quite scary.
Environmentalism
Consume more stuff! It's easier to buy new stuff than to recycle.
Viruses you might suffer from:
USA (80%)
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves! [repeat]
Gaming (70%)
Life is not a game. Roll 3D6. On a 4 or more go out and do something with your life.
British (70%)
No need for cure. Benign virus.
Discordia (90%)
Buy a suit. Invest your money. Eat hotdog buns on a friday.
Brand Names (65%)
Having a well-known name doesn't make it good.
Computer Games (60%)
Stop staring at the screen and get some fresh air. You should see a doctor about the RSI in your thumbs.
Prog Rock (60%)
Long hair looks dumb with a bald spot. Listen to CD's they don't crackle.
First approach your lettuce. Do it slowly and from the shadows, allowing your pointed teeth to be the first thing it sees. While it is frozen in terror by your awesome presence, hack the unfortunate vegetable to pieces with a sharp knife. (Certainly, a blunt knife might be crueler, but we are under certain time constraints.)
Make the tomatoes watch.
 I am an Asteroid.I am a drifter. I go where life leads, which makes me usually a very calm and content sort of person. That or thoroughly apathetic. Usually I keep on doing whatever I'm doing, and it takes something special to make me change my mind. What Video Game Character Are You? |
Fast jet and rocket-propelled mail planes made it so hard for telegraph companies all over the world to compete with the postal service that dormant facsimile-transmission systems had to be revived. It takes no more than a minute to transmit and receive in facsimile a five-page letter on paper of the usual business size. Cost? Five cents.Heh. Well, I suppose it would have been far too much for someone in 1950 to have been able to predict e-mail. Then there's the usual off-base 1950's predictions: that the dominant power source would be solar (well, at least they didn't say "atomic"), that families would have their own personal helicopters, that telephones would all have video screens. Oh, and they also predicted factory robots (sort of), but kinda blew it when they got to the part mentioning that "only a few trouble shooters are visible, and these respond to lights that flare up on a board whenever a vacuum tube burns out or there is a short circuit." Oh, yeah, those blown vacuum tubes are a major problem in modern automated factories!
When Jane Dobson cleans house she simply turns the hose on everything. Why not? Furniture (upholstery included), rugs, draperies, unscratchable floors--all are made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor (later concealed by a rug of synthetic fiber) Jane turns on a blast of hot air and dries everything. A detergent in the water dissolves any resistant dirt. Tablecloths and napkins are made of woven paper yarn so fine that the untutored eye mistakes it for linen. Jane Dobson throws soiled "linen" in the incinerator. Bed sheets are of more substantial stuff, but Jane Dobson has only to hang them up and wash them down with a hose when she puts the bedroom in order.Mind you, as bizarre as that image is, it's the blithe assumption that of course it's Jane Dobson and not her husband who's going to be doing all the cleaning (and, elsewhere, the cooking and shopping) that strikes the oddest note to my own 21st century mind. Social trends are so much harder to predict than technological ones...
