James Robey

When many of us were kids, we used to eat cereal and milk every day without any trouble, and “lactose intolerance” was unknown. But as we grew up, I think a lot of us probably stopped eating cereal. I know I did.

So now, whenever I try to have some milk and cereal I get bloated, get gas, runny nose, etc. No fun. Fortunately I can still handle cheese just fine.

I found a trick to be able to eat cereal and milk without having problems though. The secret is all-bran cereal. The fiber does something but basically I found that if I had all-bran, no problems at all.

I imagine that if you want to build tolerance quickly with minimal trouble, just have a bowl of all-bran cereal once a day for awhile. The body will probably start producing more enzymes to help break down dairy products.

What is the correct response in a zombie attack, when most people around you have become the walking undead, after you survive the first 24 hours?

Should you keep running? Move from place to place? Maybe you want to find your family, or maybe you just want to hole up somewhere remote that happens to have food and water?

Chances are other people will be attempting the same thing. Which is bad news, it means more exposure to zombies by uninfected people. The aggressive nature of zombification also means that there’s a rather high chance that if one person gets infected, he will end up taking out another teammate. That’s no good. Zombie Survival 101 rule #1: Do not increase the number of zombies!

Ultimately, keeping on the move in a zombie-challenged world leads to high rates of attrition. Yet, the alternative of hiding in one place might not do much to reduce the risks. Zombies may be attracted to where you are, or you might run out of supplies. One moment of complacency and *BAM* a rogue zombie out of nowhere has just tagged you.

The best course of action is to reduce your risks, by controlling the number of zombies near you. That is, start reducing the numbers of zombies as quick as you can. What you need are zombie traps.

Zombies are dumb and attracted to sound and lights. They also have one kill point, their head. Simple traps that aren’t dependant on electricity or gas would be ideal. Traps could be entirely temporary, with people making lots of noise, standing on concrete fences to funnel zombies down a path and swing make-shift maces at the zombie heads. It could possibly be a spring noose trap, that grabs the zombies by the feet and dangles them upside down, perfect height for lopping off their heads.

Another big thing to worry about is body disposal. You don’t want your trap getting clogged up too quickly. Perhaps build your trap at the top of a steep hill (so the bodies roll back down). Or on a cliff. Or near a river.

It would be very important to quickly setup multiple zombie traps in a given neighbourhood. The traps would help drastically reduce the number of zombies in the immediate area. This brings a tremendous boost to general safety, because it gives everyone the chance to re-group properly, gather resources, etc.

Join your local neighbourhood association and make a safety plan for zombies. Be ready for any zombie attacks!

True mind fucks, singularity/quantum mechanics:
Permutation City, Planck Drive, etc by Greg Egan
Accelerando by Charles Stross

Favorite example of capitalism/economics in Sci-Fi:
First Contract by Greg Costikyan

Exo-Skeleton/human enhancement:
Armor by John Steakley *** Amazing psychologically ***
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

Some cool nomadic/social technology ideas I liked:
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling

Scariest First Contact:
Blindsight by Peter Watts

Superhuman, central figure that changed history:
Childe Cycle series by Gordon Dickson
Dune series by Frank Herbert
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Distancing effect of time-dilation effects from space travel:
The Forever War series by Joe Haldeman

This is just a bare fraction of the scifi I have read and enjoyed.

I am blogging this for posteriority. My prediction is that within the next century from now, the Big Bang theory will be discarded.

Right now, the theory seems to adequately explain the current expanding behaviour of the universe, and various properties of space-time.

Some months ago I was studying the nature of time and the dimensions of space, and I intuitively grasped that the Big Bang Theory is actually nonsense, even though it fits most of our current understanding of things.

I fully expect that the current Big Bang model will be replaced by a different model.

My intuitive grasp is that there is actually no beginning to the universe, that you cannot go to before time existed, that time never not existed (even though it is an artefact of our dimensions).

I think I probably have close to 34 bits of data that leads me to realize there’s a high probability that there is no beginning to the universe, or no Big Bang. Something else is going on that makes it look like the universe started from a small point and is rapidly expanding, but I have no hypothesis to put forward to explain that.

Perhaps the so-called dark matter have something to do with the fundamental “origin” or properties of the universe.

This is a warning and a note for any lawyers looking to sue Proctor & Gamble.

My contention is that Head & Shoulder shampoo is designed to cause dandruff in the long term and temporarily alleviate it in the short term.

I used to be dandruff free until I started using Head & Shoulder shampoo. Then one day I foolishly bought their “extra strength” shampoo for no reason.

After using that shampoo, after awhile, I started noticing massive dandruff anytime I didn’t use Head & Shoulder.

No dandruff + Head & Shoulder = Dandruff.

So now if I want to get rid of the dandruff caused by the very same shampoo designed to “fight” dandruff, I’m expected to use more Head & Shoulder shampoo? This is a definite SCAM.

This was back in 2006. I still have intermittent dandruff trouble even now. But I do my best to avoid Head & Shoulder because that exacerbates the problem.

Diabetes type-2 is caused by insensitivity to insulin. Every time you eat food with carbohydrates in it, the body produces insulin to deal with the carbohydrates. Unfortunately, in the diabetes-affected person, insulin doesn’t get taken up by the muscles and organs, which results in too much insulin in the body. This causes a whole host of troubles, including high fat uptake, heart disease, high cortisol/stress levels, low testosterone, and the cherry on top – high serotonin levels. Why do high serotonin levels matter? Because it creates a _real_ physiological addiction to carbohydrates in the first place! It gives you all the cravings.

Fucking insulin insensitivity huh? It makes you fat, makes you crave fat-creating levels of sugary carbohydrate goodness, fucks your health, and to add insult to injury, ends up giving you type-2 diabetes!

Well good news. There’s a cure for insulin insensitivity. A cure for type-2 diabetes.

Take 5 grams of Omega-3 EFA (Essential Fatty Acids) pills a day. Get the good stuff, with the atlantic salmon or flax and borage etc. Mix it up. It’ll be rather expensive, but if you take it daily for at least 3 months, you’ll start to notice an improvement. Take all 5 grams at once because some of it will be used up by the liver, and you want the rest to get into the body.

Why does it work?

Basically, that modern diet of yours that you’ve had over the years was actually low on Omega 3 _Essential_ Fatty Acids. Why is it essential? Because the body builds the cell walls out of this bad boy. So what has the body been building the cell walls with? Crappy fats.

How the fuck does that affect insulin sensitivity? Well, the cell walls built out of crappy fats can’t actually uptake the insulin very well. Which causes the problem.

Fortunately, the cells in our body die and are replaced by new cells all the time. That’s why taking lots of Omega-3 EFA pills every day for 3 months minimum is required. Your body will build new cells with the healthy fatty acids and those cells will become permeable to insulin again.

Viola! A simple and effective cure. If you stick to the plan, you will have cured yourself of type-2 diabetes. But even better than that, your addiction to carbohydrates will reduce, you will binge less and gain less fat. If you make sure to take Omega 3 EFA pills regularly, and strive to eat a diabetes friendly diet, you will lose a lot of weight, and be more resistant to the problems that carbohydrates cause.

So you’re all excited about the coming singularity! You can’t wait for AI to come by and evolve themselves into super intelligences and start kicking our butts all over the floor.

Yeah well, screw AI. Telepathy is where it’s at. Hook everyone up with WIFI implants in their brains and start thinking about what kind of super intelligence would result from 7 billion brains. Just imagine it, 100 billion neurons multiplied by 7 billion and now we’ve got something cooking!

It was inevitable. From our very beginnings to where we are going.

Many people recognize that technology is getting overwhelming, that every new technology comes with a whole host of extra requirements. For instance, the average smartphone user quickly finds that they require multiple phone apps to be satisified. Basically, every level of technology is increasing the choices and engendering various requirements and getting us ever more tangled up in technology.

In a way, technology is beyond our control. We are the foundation, the base upon which we created technology for our use. And then we act to support technology, as it grows more and more complex. From a systems point of view, we basically become cogs in the machine of the Technicum.

Many people, when they become aware of this, they might feel like either helplessly ignoring it or rejecting technology like the Unabomber. They might worry that the eventual rise of AI or some such would result in the obsoletion and removal of humanity.

Worry not. Man is technology. It is pointless to rebel against ourselves. No amount of religion, brainwashing, or totalitarian control will “fix” the inevitable rise of technology and the inevitable “out of control” feeling that we might get. Ultimately, we are capable of communicating complex ideas. Unlike other animals, we are doomed to progressively create technology, given enough time, and end up again with a mass of technologies, ever growing, faster and faster.

But, are we really doomed?

This feeling of being out of control, the feeling of being swallowed up and rendered obsolete is quite understandable. However, don’t forget that we ARE technology. No matter how far the Technicum goes, it cannot exist without humans. Future AIs like the Skynet will be built on top of the layers of technology, and and because of that, will depend on Humanity – for man is technology.