SF Trajectories

Okay, not quite.  In fact, it’s a while before we see any of this.  But it’s fascinating.  The Casimir force works because the vacuum is bubbling with exotic particles that flitter in and out of existence.  (See the wiki definition:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_force) If two plates are close enough together, the force from the particles that push the plates from the outside pushes against the force from the inside.  The force then pushes the plates together.  This is because there is almost no space between the plates to push back.  Now, if something called a perfect lens is used, which can bend the pressure from the inside outwards, then it can use the exotic energy to keep the plates apart.  In theory, this can work over larger and larger distances.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/30670

My friend Chris recommended a book to me which I eventually got around to reading. I’ve been grateful to him ever since. The book is called, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King.

To paraphrase Chris, this book “teaches you the basics that you must have before submitting a work for publication”. He’s absolutely right. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is not receiving intelligent critiques. Until recently, I’ve had tremendous difficulty improving my writing. Part of the reason was finding people to critique my stories. Those that have read them have either liked or hated the stories. (I’ve also been accused of being derivative of writers I’ve never read!) But no one has critiqued the stories with the eye of an editor. Writing in isolation, the best I could do was practice my writing and improve merely by intuition. A sentence ’seemed’ better when written a certain way. And, although the bookstores sold a lot of books on writing characters, plots, etc, they didn’t sell books on improving the writing itself.

This book does that. It tells you much of what you need to know. Here are some chapter titles:
Show and Tell, Characterization and Exposition, Point of View, Proportion, Dialogue Mechanics and much much more.

So go buy it. Right now. Learn what they tell you. Your writing will improve drastically. It will appear professional.

This is several years old, and although it is long after the Feng Shui craze has ended, I thought I’d put it up. My cohort in this exercise of stupidity is Jina Oshiro. I hope she doesn’t tell Vlad…

In the mists of time, long before Lillian Too and Barnes and Noble rip-offs, the famous Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, sent an expedition from his native land of Wallachia and across the Asian Steppes to learn the exotic philosophy known as Feng Shui. Along the way, the group faced dangers too numerous and fictitious to bore the gentle reader. Needless to say, they returned with this precious knowledge. They were promptly killed. But not before they taught Vlad:
FANG SHUI!!!

Testimonies:

“He appeared in a shimmering mist, and took our garbage can out of the corner of prosperity!”

“A great flock of bats showed up one night and replaced all of our toilets with big tanks of cichlids. No explanation, just this note reading “Turbulence bad, fish good“. At first we were skeptical, but decided to install an outhouse, buy some feeder guppies, and give this whole ‘fang shui’ thing a try. We’ve been considerably more prosperous ever since!”

“We awoke one morning to find that our front door had been painted red. My husband, furious at this obvious invasion of privacy, immediately had it re-painted blue. Unfortunately, it turns out that painting your front door blue is considered VERY bad fang shui, and greatly increases your likelihood of being found impaled on a spike in the vegetable garden! Who could have known? I couldn’t find that rule in _any_ of the books at Barnes & Noble… Anyway…I re-re-painted the door red the very next day, and no one has been found impaled on a spike in the vegetable garden since! Fang Shui works for me!”

“I was told by this Vlad fellow that I was to put a podium in front of my door!”, said Ethyl Baumgardner of Skogie, Illinois. “I mean, right in front of the door, where people come in! I couldn’t understand why, but he just fluttered in front of my face, and said, ‘If you don’t, I’ll make your anus pucker so tight you could launch ballistic missiles out of it.’ Well, I’d expect that kind of language from a Marine, but not European Aristocracy. But I did it, and my household energy just stayed home, instead of flowing out the door! I must say that intimidation has made my life just blossom into prosperity!”

Recently, Bastard Squad™ was given the opportunity to interview the legendary Interior Designer/Bloodthirsty Menace Vlad Tepes at his lovely home in the Romanian countryside. While none of our interview team returned alive (due, we are told, to “several separate tragic accidents in which spikes and exsanguination were entirely uninvolved“), we do have the transcript of the interview as was transmitted to us via live satellite feed.

(editor’s note: during the interview, the satellite feed was interrupted several times by an unusual disturbance in which faces out of hell itself materialized before our eyes. Several technicians fell ill and regurgitated their mocha latte’s, but recovered shortly after the garlic pizza arrived. Also, after Carrie Mossberger, the resident fundamentalist who sports a nice crucifix necklace returned with a two liter bottle of Diet Pepsi, the disturbance disappeared completely in a pixellated mosaic while the disturbing cacophony of tortured screams faded into the background noise.)

BS: We’re here live with Vlad Tepes: Undead European dictator, Enfant Terrible of the interior design world, and originator of the latest trendy pseudo-spiritual home improvement craze, “Fang Shui“. Thanks ever so much for joining us, Mr. Tepes-“

VT: Please, please, call me Vlad. “Tepes“ sounds so, well, outdated, and rather… negative, don’t you think? Rather like “Enfant Terrible“, yes?

BS: Ah…yes, of course. So Vlad, we understand that…What is that?

VT: Pay no attention to my children of the night. They suckle because they love you.

BS: Indeed, yes, of course. Suckling. Ahem, Fang Shui, not simply for poseurs?

VT: Absolutely not. Of course, you’ll find it in the homes of many trendy bourgeoisies, but our goal is to bring Fang Shui to the masses.

BS: Are they ready?

VT: Of course. While I am grateful to Hollywood and Cannes, Fang Shui is far greater than a few minimalists and pop icons.

BS: Soooo sleepy. Can you tell us how you became…

VT: Involved?

BS: Thank you, involved in Fang Shui?

VT: Of course. You see, the fifteenth century was rather blasé. The renaissance had yet to arrive in Eastern Europe, and the Ottoman Empire, well, I don’t need to speak of them. I mean, The Turks? I fancied a little Orientalism of my own. Yes, your eyelids are getting heavy.

BS: Heavy, heavy, sleepy… Hey Jim, hand me that latte, would you?

VT: Silence, media drone. As I was saying, I fancied a little Orientalism of my own, so I sent a convoy of my most trusted and beloved lackeys to the Far East. Upon their return, I asked them to show me all of what they had learned on this journey, this quest, this grand — not to mention expensive — mission to acquire knowledge. They showed me, with great enthusiasm, what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a new way of arranging furniture. Naturally, I had them all executed, and-

BS: I’m sorry, I could have sworn you just said you had them all executed.

VT: My, aren’t you… lucid. Drat these modern stimulants. Why yes, yes, I had them all executed. After all, I had sent them out to learn of military strategies, the art of war, that sort of thing, and what do they bring back? Crystals. Superstitions. “Positive energy“.

BS: So, like, New Age stuff?
VT: What?

BS: Never mind. So what happened after that?

VT: As I was saying… I had each of my useless minions executed in horribly painful ways. In fact, many years had gone by before I even thought to examine the decorative techniques that had brought about their doom.

BS: And you discovered that they had been useful after all?

VT: Absolutely not. I discovered, in fact, that they had been vastly misled.

BS: I’m confused.

VT: Yes. You see, most of what my unfortunate lackeys had learned was useless. Harmless, admittedly, but utterly devoid of value nonetheless. They were attempting to apply potent, ancient knowledge to aesthetics, furnishings, inanimate objects. As everyone knows, multiplying zero by any other number results in zero…

BS: I’m afraid you’ve lost me.

VT: Yes, that seems to be a prevalent theme in our discourse.
BS: Pardon?

VT: Oh… nothing, nothing. You must understand, I am trying to make you understand. Come closer. I will give you some rare knowledge, yes? An ancient Fang Shui secret, from the master himself.

BS: Shoot.

VT: (garbled)

BS: Now, hold on for just one minute-

VT: I wasn’t finished. (transmission scrambled by demonic interference)

BS: So what you’re saying is… so what you’re trying to say is…

VT: Fang Shui is far more than a decorating style, it is a way of life. And, of course, of death. In fact-

BS: God, this is so, like, Martha Stewart meets Psych 101. I totally get this. You’re trying to, through your choices in décor, express the angst of modern life, right? Like the red door. I mean, people might think that signifies blood-

VT: Well, actually-

BS: -but really what it’s representing is the human heart, the life, the soul, that link that ties all of us together. You’re really saying, “C’mon in, man, we’re all the same in here“. It’s so obvious! The loneliness inherent in the human spirit, the need for sexual companionship as symbolized by the running water…

VT: Tell me — do you actually understand the things I say, or do the words just sort of… echo off of the insides of your skull? It is really quite fascinating.

BS: Excuse me?

VT: Fool. It seems to be a trait of your kind, your generation, spouting off about things you have no comprehension of. Attempting to hide your ignorance behind exotic verbiage, heavily laced with “it’s so obvious“… Fascinating, yes, but hardly endearing. In fact, I think I may really have to order you strangled with your own viscera…

BS: What?!?

VT: Never mind. In fact… forget I said anything. Ha ha. Now… where was I?

BS: Uh… dammit, I need another latte… I think you said something about Fang Shui secrets, from the master himself.

VT: Ah, yes. You see, young man, most of the more… esoteric… elements of Fang Shui have long been concealed from the general public.

BS: Is that so? How about an example?

VT: We-e-ell. Okay. If I could just beg the use of your stimulant-toting dogsbody… “Jim“, is it not?

BS: Um, I don’t know if that’s-
VT: There’s a good boy. Now, as my worthy and nimble-fingered acolytes are demonstrating, this is the proper way to bind and gag an enemy.

BS: Hey! I don’t think that’s-

VT: Red cord, you see? It ensures that you will receive the maximum benefit of positive energy.

BS: Good Lord, what do you think you’re doing? Jim, can you breathe? He looks like he can’t breathe-

VT: Silence. As I was saying, the use of red cord ensures that you will receive the maximum benefit of energy from the eventual sacrifice-

BS: Sacrifice? Hang on, now-

VT: Oh, I assure you, we are only… play-acting today. Relax. Acolytes, take Mister… Jim… into the salon, have him unbound and cared for. He’s been an exceedingly good sport.

BS: I’m starting to think that you aren’t an interior designer at all. I’m starting to think that Jim is tied up in that other room, and I’m starting to suspect that my other assistant wasn’t really called away for an afternoon photo session with the Wallachian bikini team. In fact, I’m half-tempted to-

VT: You know, you really are, despite all evidence to the contrary, quite an irritatingly insightful young man on occasion. It is a pity you are feeling so very fatigued, I would love to continue this discussion if you weren’t so obviously just about to fall into a very deep sleep.

BS: You can’t just… You can’t… *yawns*

(transmission ends)

Aphorisms of Fang Shui:

When impaling your enemies upon the pike, position them in a circle so that Chi will move clockwise.

Placing a mirror in your home greatly increases your good luck. Unless you happen to be Vlad himself, in which case it is only useful for party tricks (“look into that mirror, the milk is disappearing into thin air! How does he do it?“)

Dr. Bruce Lipton, website:  http://www.brucelipton.com who wrote the book, The Biology of Belief, has a compelling view of the unconscious.  I don’t know if his view is based on the work of other scientists, or if it is completely his, so forgive me if I don’t give credit where it’s due.

He believes that the unconscious is a tape that tells us how to behave for the million or so circumstances that we encounter every day.  We use our unconscious 99 percent of the time.  For example, when we drive through a traffic light and later wonder if the light were red or green, it is because the car is driven by our unconscious.  

This is a wonderful tool.  Unfortunately, it is also a hindrance, because it is the reason we fall into patterns that are destructive.  The reason we repeat the same mistakes over and over and over and over is because we are simply playing the program that was built inside of us.  I know many of my million or so astute readers will know of Jung’s collective unconscious and wonder how that fits in.  I don’t have a clue.  But let’s put Jung aside for the moment.

Unfortunately, according to Lipton, is that all the psychological, and all the new (and not so new) age therapies are useless.  The reason why they don’t work is because they cannot change the unconscious.  These programs do not have a record button on that tape.   Affirmations don’t get recorded into the unconscious.  Neither does positive thinking.  Forget them.

Lipton does have an answer.  He says, “A variety of energy psychology modalities, such as Psych-K, Holographic Repatterning and BodyTalk, are among the variety of programs that can be found on the web.” Also, the Buddhist technique of mindfulness is helpful.

I think one could dabble in another way.

Lipton mentions that the unconscious is formed by the age of six.  During this time, our EEG waves are delta and theta.  We’re in a hypnogogic state and learn by copying the behavior of our elders and peers.  After age six, the waves change to alpha.  Theta is still produced, during REM sleep.  

Is that the record button?  Can I induce delta and theta waves on me to change my unconscious?  That’s fascinating as only a mad scientist like me would think.  The one way that this could be done would be to use a mind machine such as the Proteus:  http://www.3pounduniverse.com/Proteus_Mind_Machine_p/mm4.htm

What would be the result of prolonged delta wave exposure?  Would the brain be entrained into a sympathetic rhythm?  If so, then a door could be opened and the unconscious reached.    If I were to focus on specific thoughts, affirmations I suppose, then I could change the tape.

Or go insane.  Who knows?