Posts Tagged ‘paranormal’
“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”*…
… nor, perhaps, as widely read as it should be. “Urubos” is here to help…
The Extrapolated Futures Archive is a reverse-lookup for speculative fiction. Describe a situation you are facing, and find the SF stories that already worked through the implications.
The catalog connects stories (novels, novellas, short stories, films) to the speculative ideas they explore: thought experiments about technology, governance, biology, society, and more. Every idea is tagged with domains, scenario types, and outcome types so you can filter by the kind of future you are thinking about.
How to use it:
- Search by title, author, synopsis keywords, or idea descriptions
- Filter by domain (AI, biotech, climate, space, governance…), scenario type, outcome, decade, or series
- Browse ideas to find transferable thought experiments, then follow links to the stories that explore them
- Browse stories to see what speculative ideas a particular work contains
- Book Club discussions (marked with đź“–) offer section-by-section roundtable analyses by AI personas modeled on SF authors
- What-If Query (via the What-If Query page/link) lets you describe a real-world scenario in plain text and get ranked matching ideas
The archive is designed for decision-makers in government, industry, and NGOs who want to widen their thinking by surfacing fictional precedents for novel real-world challenges…
Over 275 ideas, which cluster into 20 different “domains,” explored in over 1,900 stories, via over 3,500 links…
Mapping real-world scenarios to the science fiction stories that explored them first: “Extrapolated Futures Archive“
*Â William Gibson
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As we ponder prescience, we might spare a thought for Charles Hoy Fort, the prolific chronicler of paranormal phenomena; he died on this date in 1932. Fort collected accounts of frogs and other strange objects raining from the sky, UFOs, ghosts, spontaneous human combustion, stigmata, psychic abilities, and the like, publishing four collections of weird tales and anomalies during his lifetime: Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932). So influential was Fort among fellow-questers that his name has become an adjective, “Fortean,” often applied to unexplained events… The Truth is Out There…
Being a brat…
PRESCOTT, Wis. — Ptacek’s IGA broke the world’s record for the longest bratwurst featured at a celebration that marked the family-owned store’s 100th anniversary.
The bratwurst, made in the store’s meat processing department, measured 52 feet and two inches. Why not 100 feet to commemorate the Ptacek family’s 100th year in business? The bun was the problem. The sausage’s length had to match the length of the longest bun the company could get.
“The bun had to fit in a semi. Laid corner to corner, 52 feet and two inches was the longest bun that would fit,” said Patrick Ptacek, co-owner — with his father and his siblings — of the 20,000-square-foot store.
“The biggest challenge of this whole thing was getting someone to bake the bun. We got Village Hearth/Pan-O-Gold Bakery in St. Cloud — about an hour away from here — to do it”…
Read the entire filling story at Supermarket News.
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As we load up on mustard, we might send eerie birthday greetings to Uri Geller; he was born on this date in 1946.  A performer who purported to demonstrate psychokinesis and telepathy, Geller’s trademark act was bending a spoon “with his mind.”  For most of his career, Geller insisted these effects were achieved via physic abilities.  Critics like James “The Amazing” Randi scoffed at his claims, accusing Geller of passing off magic tricks as paranormal displays; indeed, Randi often duplicated Geller’s performances using altogether “normal” (if amazing) stage illusions.  More recently, Geller has taken to characterizing himself as a “mystifier” and entertainer.
 source
Shooting down flying pigs…
Every year (appropriately enough, on April 1), James “The Amazing” Randi (magician and debunker of scientific frauds) and his James Randi Educational Foundation give out the Pigasus Awards:
…a dubious honor to people or organizations that have done their best in the past year to snuff out science and promote irrationality. The award is named after the beloved mascot of the JREF because, after all, when paranormal powers are proven, pigs will fly.
The five categories of the Pigasus Award are:
- To the Scientist who said or did the silliest thing relating to occult, supernatural, or paranormal subjects in the preceding twelve months.
- To the Funding Organization that supports the most useless study related to the occult, supernatural, or paranormal during the year.
- To the Media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous occult, supernatural, or paranormal claim.
- To the Performer who fooled the greatest number of people with the least effort in that twelve-month period.
- For the most persistent refusal to face reality.
This year’s (dis)honorees are:
- Dr. Colin Ross, who claims he can shoot electromagnetic radiation from his eyes;
- The Producers of the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”;
- Late night cable TV stations and Enzyte ads;
- Jenny McCarthy; who has written books and appeared on countless TV shows promoting measles; and
- Kevin Trudeau; who sold quack books even after the government fined him for it.
Details of these prestigious fakers are here— and are well-worth a look. Winners receive no actual trophy, no prize money, no plaque; just the publicity they generally seek, though perhaps not in the way they want it.
As we recover our sanity, we might recall that It was on this date in 1800 that President John Adams signed legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress,” thus establishing the Library of Congress.
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