As we near completion of the current Year of the Rat, it feels appropriate to tell a story about how rat appreciation started, how the ratitor came to be, and how the organic unfolding of rat haus reality awareness manifested, first in the building of the balsa wood house itself (preceded by the rat cabin and ancestral rat hans), then in its image scribing, next as a gift-in-photo series, and now as this virtual gathering place for consciousness to further explore, expand, and extend itself.
posted by deanklear on Jan 20, 2012 - 6 comments

Ok, stop me if you’ve heard this one: an ex-cop accused of killing his fourth wife gets engaged a fifth time and tries to get a job in a brothel on a reality t.v. show (video), but before he can, he's arrested today for killing his third wife. [more inside]
posted by Smedleyman on May 7, 2009 - 40 comments

Writing has been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean we've mastered it yet. Want to make fiction? Perhaps it makes itself, perhaps it makes you... Self reference breeding infinite hyperrealities. Which world will you choose?
posted by 0bvious on May 10, 2006 - 9 comments

As the Pentagon ousts plans to turn insects into cyber war machines you'd be forgiven for asking the question: Where does the real digital end and the faked life begin? Are we simulating life synthetically? or just speeding up an entirely natural process? Technologically engineered life is here to stay. Its not far fetched to speculate that simulacra may become all there is.
posted by 0bvious on Mar 15, 2006 - 13 comments

' "Predictive programming works by means of the propagation of the illusion of an infallibly accurate vision of how the world is going to look in the future". Through the circulation of science "fiction" literature, the ignorant masses are provided with semiotic intimations of coming events. Within such literary works are narrative paradigms that are politically and socially expedient to the power elite. Thus, when the future unfolds as planned, it assumes the paradigmatic character of the "fiction" that foretold it...........' The Illuminati: an all encompassing conspiracy stranger than any fiction
posted by 0bvious on Dec 11, 2005 - 17 comments

If the universe is a hologram and the healthy human brain a valve of consciousness then where'd this mental infinity come from? Are we simply living the simulacrum? Or does Pi protect us all, forever, infinitely?
posted by 0bvious on Nov 22, 2005 - 39 comments