... seeking simple answers to complex problems, and in the process, disrupting the status quo in technology, art and neuroscience.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Instead of Burning Man...

(These just get better and better...)

Pay an escort of your preference to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig,dance naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.

Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When they leave, followthem back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things. Stack all your fans in one corner of the living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.

Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.

Lean back in a chair until that point where you're just about to fall over, but you catch yourself at the last moment. Hold that position for 9 hours.

Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away.

Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 3 days. Hide all the toilet paper. Set your house thermostat so it's 100 degrees for the first hour of sleep and 50 degrees the rest of the night.

Before eating any food, drop it in a sandbox and lick a battery.

Spend thousands of dollars and several months of your life building a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Hire people to come by and alternate saying "I love it" and "dude, this sucks". Then burn it.

Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum'n'bass until the embers are cold.

Make a list of all the things you'll do different next year. Never look at it.

Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you're hallucinating. Lust after Bugs Bunny.

Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body.Forget how you did it. Don't go to a doctor.

"Downsize" last year's camp by adding two geodesic domes, a new sound system, art car, and 20 newbies.

Don't sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotionaltering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend, or both.

Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.

Shop at Wal-mart, Cost-Co, and Home Depot until your car is completely packed with stuff. Tell everyone that you're going to a "Leave-No-Trace"event. Empty your car into a dumpster.

Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think youare going to scream. Scream. Realize you'll love the music for the rest of your life.

Spend 5 months planning a "theme camp" like it's the invasion of Normandy. Spend Monday-Wednesday building the camp. Spend Thurs-Sunday nowhere near camp because you're sick of it or can't find it.

Walk around your neighborhood and knock on doors until someone offers you cocktails and dinner.

Bust your ass for a "community." See all the attention get focused onthe drama queen crybaby.

Get so drunk you can't recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.

Tell your boss you aren't coming to work this week but he should "gift"you a paycheck anyway. When he refuses accuse him of not loving the"community".

Search alleys until you find a couch so unbelievably tacky and nasty filthy that a state college frat house wouldn't want it. Take a nap on the couch and sleep like you are king of the world.

Ask your most annoying neighbor to interrupt your fun several times a day with third hand gossip about every horrible thing that's happened in the last 24 hours. Have them wear khaki.

Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali's more disturbing, but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.

Or just go to Burning Man!

See you in the dust!


Wednesday, August 04, 2010

King Tut and Colin Chapman





This picture made me realize how minimal transportation can be.  In Tut's time, horses were too small for a man to ride.  It took TWO of them just to get pulled around.  Which makes this chariot maybe the best example of Colin Chapman's, "Simplify and add lightness".

King Tut's Ride

Now, if we can just get a modern low-cost car under 2000 lbs.