so, are we just tiny microscopic life forms in the greater context of a much wider biological entity, possibly with some kind of consciousness?

i'm just struck by the synchronicity of the dimming of the sun with the warming of the atmosphere, almost as though one is acting to balance the other out - and while some may want to interpret this as a sign of a higher power, i think a more naturalistic explanation lies in something mechanistic, like the parts of a living organism. maybe the stars that form this organism even arrange into a constellation of a duck, if you could see it from the outside, which we will never be able to, because we are on the inside of it. well, maybe we could catch a reflection, somehow. or be lucky enough to catch a glimpse into some curvature in space. but, we can't see ourselves in the night sky.

now, you could run a computer simulation to determine the empirical question of whether our mathematical understanding of the universe projects a duck into other parts of the galaxy, if we have anything approximating enough data. you could potentially model it on a computer screen, but you'd have to go to virtual reality to really see the duck that we may or may not project. and, there would always be uncertainty levels.

no, to truly determine the empirical question of whether or not the galaxo-spacial biological entity we exist as a component of appears as a duck to other parts of the galaxy will require travelling there to see for ourselves. that's settled.

but, then, what if the constellations that we see are also galaxo-spacial biological entities? see, as i've mentioned a few times, i'm kind of open to the idea of religion as a ufo cult - and astrology was at one point a religion. contemporary westerners of a liberal scientific mindset tend to scoff at astrology as a lot of contrived nonsense, and they're not technically wrong, but their scorn obscures the fact that these ideas come from a lost religion that acted as a syncretic bridge between mathematics, astronomy and mysticism - that this is actually derived from legitimate ancient science. that doesn't mean that there's any value to the zodiac - this is not my argument, don't misunderstand me. but, it does suggest that there are maybe ritualized relics embedded in the zodiac that remember the relatively advanced science of the babylonian era, which was a high point for astronomy in the ancient world, this period of learning itself spurred by even more ancient stories, such as those told in egypt.

they kept very careful records, apparently. they were tracking things, looking for patterns. but, people don't realize how long this period of early civilization really was, before the languages started to change in the middle east, with the persians and then the greeks. if you're standing in babylon in the year 500 bce, you have 4000 years of astronomical records to draw on. the egyptians had even more than that. our science is based on a few hundred years of observation. so, they had more observations than we do, and more data to infer from. one has to think that inferences were made. if we could retrieve this data somehow, we might be able to predict the next several solar cycles better, if we could see a longer term pattern.

some of these patterns may be hidden in the zodiac, but you'd have to be careful, because it's also full of traps. first, if it finds a pattern, it's inevitably going to project it too perfectly, and project a cycle far less chaotic than reality. second, the mathematical writing that they used was cumbersome, and it produced a lot of error due to crude approximation arising from difficulties using that system. so, their calendar was actually wrong. and, it's been out of sync for centuries. it would require a lot of calculation to resync this, and then it wouldn't even be clear what you're comparing. it seems absurd to consult a source for predictive value when it can't even get the date right, right?

still, there could be useful information in there, if it's calibrated right. we'll never know until we pass through it and look back and reconstruct it. why were they so interested in the stars in the first place, though? and what's with all these stories of people coming up and down from the sky?

if there are living galaxo-spacial biological entities in the universe, then perhaps the movement of bodies in the sky has more to do with how the ancients imagined it than we currently think.

"have you seen my cat?"

that's twice, this week. and, here's the hard truth for windsorites: your cat ran away to join the colony, and you'll have to deal with it. the feral cats here have a really strong invisible network of scent signals that will lure your cat away immediately, if you let sight of it for even one second, outside. i wouldn't even be surprised to hear about cats darting out when doors are left open a crack, after waiting all day to follow the smell, as it walked by outside.

i've been arguing that the city needs a serious straight out feline cull. i know what they say about how trap, neuter & return is a preferable option, but that presumes a certain level of manageability. we may, unfortunately, be at the point where we require an all out slaughter of feral cats, because their existing numbers are already too much of a problem for a t-n-r to cut down on.

but, the colony will in some way affect your cat, even if it's isolated enough from the aromas that it only gets  the odd sniff of it. the ones that it drags out, zombie like, will be converted to the cause of the colony upon arrival. and, this is simply hormonal - no amount of pleading will change your cat's minds. once assimilated, they are gone - never to return to snuggling, or to the far more subversive kneading, at that. their minds are washed of their existence as slaves to humans, however absurd that formulation is when related to cats, and given a new life of meaning to protect, defend and expand the colony. do not waste your time - they are gone.

as it's purely chemical, and we're both basically the same kind of mammal, of course this is possible in humans, if you can find the right magic password, the right chemical bonds. you can get an idea of how we're sometimes driven purely by hormones when you look at the fight or flight response; we literally don't think in these situations, we just succumb to this hormone that forces us to react. this is a ways from actual chemical mind control. and, the instincts available to program are likely to be biological responses that might not be useful and might even be dangerous - lust, for example. but, i think the chemistry likely exists to turn a human's brain right off in order to accomplish a biological urge, and it would probably be experienced by the conscious host as a blackout in memory. one could no doubt find detailed examples that fit this description.

if you lose your cat around here, though? it's gone. to the colony.

i think i'm done my distraction with the usb key, now. i didn't salvage anything off of it, but i convinced myself that what was on it was routine. i was just paranoid about forgetting something. if i did, there's no evidence it existed.

i still don't know what happened with that; i stopped writing to the key immediately after the weirdness happened, so the files should have been easily accessible. but, they only came up on a deep scan, and they came with some directory corruption, as though they'd been decaying on the drive a while. it's all very strange.

what i remember doing is deleting two files in the root directory, leaving a folder called bd-2 in tact. that's a little blurry as to the exactness of the directory structure, which is what it causing me all of this pause. but, the whole drive wiped. my initial thought was that i accidentally deleted the folder and it should be a quick undelete. but it seems more like that the thing collapsed under itself; it just vanished. do file directories randomly collapse like that, or is it further sign of intrusion?

dude. remember the prime directive. you can't be fucking with my files like this. i actually have no delusions as to the nature of "network privacy", but zapping my usb key crosses boundaries. if somebody did zap me, please don't do it again.