Robert Anton Wilson Day in OM

Santa Cruz marked 23 July as Robert Anton Wilson Day on their calendar, and for a few years we European students met up face-to-face on that day (also the first of The Dog Days) just for the hell of it, though we seem to have slipped, for now.

Obsolete Magazine (OM) has a celebratory post in honor of the day - which you can read here.

Note:

OBSOLETE! Magazine is a newsprint tabloid publication in the tradition of the International Times, OZ, The East Village Other, The Berkely Barb, The Chicago Seed, The Whole Earth Catalog, PUNK! and the other great underground rags of days past....


OBSOLETE! is distributed FREE OF CHARGE, thanks to donations of readers, friends and fans. You can get it mailed to your door for a small charge to cover shipping, OR, request a bundle to distribute to your area bookshops, music stores, coffee shops and other independently-owned businesses. Help us keep the underground press alive!


It's time to repurpose our culture, hack our technology, and untether our preconceptions- reality is happening- be there!

Turning Information into Knowledge?

Google Knowledge Graph getting rolled out as a new model.

As the Google car drove past my house this morning, updating the view of the street where I live,  I took it as a small synchronicity hint that I should also give this new model a try today.  I tried Bob:

Of course, this display will shift with the Feedback button under the thumbnails, but above you can see an initial sample.

Article on Mashable about this service (The long-awaited "Semantic Web" aka Knowledge Graph).

Give it a try, maybe?


Wilson: All we can say now is we got a model that seems to work -- for the present. It probably won't work in another ten years; the lifetime of models is getting shorter.
Walker: Why is this?
Wilson: Because of the information explosion: information is doubling faster all the time. It took from the time of Jesus to the time of Leonardo for one doubling of knowledge. The next doubling of knowledge was completed before the American Revolution, the next one by 1900, the next one by 1950, the next one by 1960. You see how [it keeps] moving faster? Now knowledge is doubling every eighteen months.
With all these new bits, bytes, blips of information, no model can last long because models only include the bytes of information that were available when the model was made. As new bytes of information come in it gets harder and harder to adjust our old models to include the new blips and beeps of information, so we've got to make new models.

KBOO-FM Interview with Robert Anton Wilson
by Cliff Walker
The 1990 (or so) interview with Robert Anton Wilson on KBOO FM, Portland, Oregon

Also check out the RAW Links on Bob's website

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY!

"When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! And he answered with a main cry: Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green Street like a shot off a shovel."
– JAMES JOYCE, ULYSSES

ERIC WAGNER

 

I am very pleased to share w/ the previously uninitiated Eric Wagner's weblog: "Ask Eric" 

(Which can also now be found amongst the increasingly wonderful collection of newsfeeds in the OM sidebar)

I shd also like to help propagate the news that Eric will be teaching another wonderful class at the Maybe Logic Academy beginning August 13th!  Schrodinger's Cat: A Chronotransduction

Obviously and of course you shd also check out An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson: Eric’s indispensable exegesis on the hidden symbols and other jokes & profundities in RAW’s immortal works.  Along w/ my own accompanying artwork and Tom Jackson's interview w/ Eric about the book.

You could also listen to Eric's appearance on The RU Sirius Show #78: Robert Anton Wilson Lives!

For even further Wagnerian goodness check out Eric Wagner on RAW and Misunderstanding Finnegans Wake which tells the story behind this portrait of Mr. Wilson: "RAW BURGER"

Be Seeing You!

Good to see the Maybe Logic Academy open again after a sabbatical, with forums, courses, etc.

Upcoming Events

July 23 - RAW Retrospective, tele-seminar, free as can be

July 24 - Initiation, online course with Lon Milo DuQuette

July 30 - Cosmic Trigger, tele-course with Erik Davis

Aug 13 - Schroedinger's Cat, online course with Eric Wagner

Aug 20 - RAW Politics, tele-seminar, free for enrolled students and MLA Initiate members