Derren Brown - The Game Show

The second of Derren Brown's "Experiments" was a curious hour of television; an enjoyable disappointment with a decent ending, but nevertheless fairly hollow and conceptually flawed. "The Gameshow" concerned the social psychological concept of deinviduation (the idea that normal people can make monstrous decisions while anonymous in a large group). It's the kind of thing that leads to so-called "mob mentality", which is rather prescient after a summer of rioting across Britain, where deinviduation played a part in proceedings. Its effects can also be seen with the Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

"The Gameshow" took a different approach to Derren's usual style of shows. This was effectively the pilot of a realistic gameshow called "Remote Control", where the life of one man (unaware he's surrounded by cameras and actors) was momentarily controlled by the vote of a large studio audience. The audience could collectively give the man positive or negative experiences; ranging from being accused of sexual harassment, to being arrested for shoplifting. Unsurprisingly, all the positive experiences, like being awarded money, never won a studio vote, so the poor guy had a memorably eventful and dispiriting night out.

But was this 70-minute special really showing us that groups of people, anonymous behind white masks (more for effect than practicality), turned into a nasty mob when their individualism was removed? I'm not entirely convinced. Everyone voting was doing so in the context of being part of a television show (anonymous or not), and that backdrop comes with certain expectations that everything's been approved, tested, and is all good fun. Despite being made aware the "victim" believes whatever happens is genuine, the audience know actors are involved every step of the way. Take any member of that group and have them make a decision as an individual, and I'm sure most would still choose the "negative" experiences... because those were also the most entertaining experiences. You probably wouldn't want to choose the least entertaining "good" option, for fear of upsetting the majority of people watching you. And that's peer pressure, something entirely different.

So I think this special was conceptually flawed from the start. The TV gameshow format comes with cultural baggage that the experiment didn't take into account, in my opinion. However, the ending of "The Gameshow" offered a very enjoyable twist, as the studio audience opted to have the man kidnapped by a gang of thugs, before witnessing him unexpectedly escape from his attackers and get hit by a car while running away. Suddenly it dawned on everyone in the audience that their decision had led to someone possibly dying on television. Of course, the footage was actually pre-recorded with a stuntman, and no harm had come to the gameshow's unwitting star. But again, were the group culpable here? Weren't they all just shocked because the car accident proved the TV production team's negligence? Or does my thinking prove I'm perhaps more willing to offload responsibility onto other people, if I was ever in this situation myself?

Whatever you think, "The Gameshow" should be congratulated because it did make you think. It's just a shame it took so long to make a fairly simple point, although the actual gameshow was surprisingly good fun (Derren's a great host, the fake show's actors improvised brilliantly), and the finale just about rescued it from being a flop. But the more I think about it, the more I'm unconvinced the idea was a watertight way of testing deinviduation.

Written by Dan Owen

Dans Media Digest

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New Moon Structure Discovered

With numerous NASA leaks and off the record astronaut testimonies, it seems rather convincing that there could be an alien race maintaining a presence on the moon.

This new image shows a hexagonal object that has a very distinct clearing around the base perimeter.

I've also inverted the image to show another perspective of the object.

Please post your reply's to this blog and let us know your opinion.

Original Image

NASA GSFC AIRIZONA

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Spherical Flying Machine Developed by the Japan Ministry Of Defense

The sci-fi classic Star Wars: A New Hope features a famous scene in which Luke Skywalker practices Jedi Lightsaber skills on a small, flying sphere that can hover and move quickly in any direction. Now, Japan’s Ministry of Defense has developed what may be a precursor to the Jedi training ball, though they call it a “Spherical Flying Machine.”

Driven mostly by remote control, the 42-inch in diameter, 350 gram flying ball uses a combination of propellers and wings to hover, fly in all directions at up to 60 kph and even move along the ground and walls. Virtually nothing seems to stop the ball from “flying.”

According to Japanese ministry officials who demonstrated the flying ball this week at a DigiInfo Expo Conference in Japan, the sphere uses the propeller to lift off and land and the wings for lift as it flies forward. The secret sauce may by the sphere’s three gyroscopic sensors, which automatically right the ball when it’s on the ground or in the air. In the video, the ball lands and starts rolling around (thanks to the propeller). When it’s time to lift off, the gyroscopes help the ball position itself so the propeller is up top. There’s also a camera inside the sphere.

The Ministry of Defense built the robot to help them solve a problem. Apparently they’ve built aircrafts that can stand up vertically after flying horizontally, but take-offs and landings were difficult. Researchers then came up with the idea of a sphere as a potential solution. They then built this prototype with off-the-shelf parts for roughly $1,400. It’s unclear if the ministry plans on commercializing the flying sphere, but they do see some potential in the design. During the video, the demonstrator notes the flying sphere will be able to reach places that were previously hard to access by air.

For now, though, future Luke Skywalkers may have to wait awhile before they can start learning some Jedi tricks from a Japanese flying ball. Source

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Mayan Filmmaker Offers Photo As Proof Of Aliens

The filmmakers behind "Revelations of the Mayans 2012 and Beyond," who said that their film will reveal evidence of contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, have now released what they claim is photographic evidence of a pre-Mayan, alien civilization.

And they claim they've got Stephen Hawking on their side.

Producer Raul Julia-Levy supplied a photo (left), which he says was taken in southern Guatemala in the 1930s, showing a head carved in the jungle.

The monument, according to an accompanying letter by archaeologist Hector E. Mejia, dates back to between 3,500 and 5,000 B.C. and is evidence of a superior civilization unlike any known to have lived on Earth.

Mejia described the photograph as being "of a bust which at first glance can be seen to have an elongated cranium and fine characteristics which are not consistent with pre-Hispanic races of America."

"I certify that this monument presents no characteristics of Maya, Nahuatl, Olmec or any other pre-Hispanic civilization," he wrote. "It was created by an extraordinary and superior civilization with awesome knowledge of which there is no record of existence on this planet."

The photo is one of several purported pieces of evidence that will be shown in Julia-Levy's documentary, which he is making with the cooperation of the Mexican and Guatemalan governments keyed to 2012, the date the Mayan calendar ends.

"This explains who we are," said Julia-Levy, the son of actor Raul Julia. "This explains why these big f---ing monuments are all around the world."

And Julia-Levy then passed along a direct quote that, he claimed, came from no less than Stephen Hawking, whom he said "is going to work with us" and will be included in his film: "'I warn humanity that aliens are out there. Just because the aliens were friends with the Mayans doesn't mean they are our friends. Humans should avoid contact with aliens at all costs.'"

An email sent to a representative for Hawking asking about the authenticity of the quote was not answered.

Hawking has in the past said that that alien life is likely to exist in the universe ("to my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly natural"), and has speculated about the dangers of contact.

"If aliens ever visit us," Hawking has said, "I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

But Julia-Levy insisted that the words are Hawking's. He also claimed government conspiracies surrounding the photo and the head it depicts: After the photo was taken in the late 1930s, he said, it was published only once, in a magazine that was then immediately withdrawn from circulation by "the government of England."

He also said the head depicted in the photo, 17 meters (51 feet) tall and six meters wide, is no longer in the Guatemalan jungle but has been moved to the United States and hidden.

"I was informed by officials in the government of Guatemala that the U.S. government brought it here," he said.

According to Meija, "The creative style is not consistent with the civilizations that inhabited the southern coast of Guatemala prior to the arrival of the Spaniards ... It is indisputably pre-Olmec and pre-Maya ... [O]ne can assign an age between 3,500 and 5,000 BC."

Mejia is a licensed archaeologist affiliated with the Atlas Arqueological de Guatemala and the Institute of Anthropology and History in Guatemala, and with the University of San Carlos. His statement was written in Spanish. TheWrap had it translated.

Mejia goes on to compare it to other monuments, including "the Moais of Easter Island," "the Pascual Abaj monument ... in Guatemala" and "the Great Sphinx in Egypt." He said it was "created by an extraordinary and superior civilization" that "settled in the south of Guatemala and from there shone its light and knowledge on the hunter gatherers who were its first students and received its teachings."

Julia-Levy said that Mejia is part of an international team of archaeologists and other professionals assembled by the filmmakers because they are "willing to tell the world the truth" about the Mayan/alien connection.

"We have a gang of archaeologists and scholars and scientists that are going to come forward and show everything they have," he said. And, he swears, governments will do the same.

"I was told by the officials that the Mayans and the extraterrestrials had a history of exchange," he said. "This is official. This is as official as it can get."

Added Julia-Levy, "The world hasn't seen this. Nobody has seen this. But there's no doubt in my mind that the world is ready for the truth.

"This is going to create a worldwide impact in how people see things."

His movie, by the way, has yet to begin shooting. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in Mexico and Guatemala in mid-November. Source

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Justin Hall Tipping Freeing Energy From The Grid

What would happen if we could generate power from our windowpanes? In this moving talk, entrepreneur Justin Hall-Tipping shows the materials that could make that possible, and how questioning our notion of 'normal' can lead to extraordinary breakthroughs. http://www.ted.com

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The President who told the Truth about illuminati

A great video revision of JFK's famous speech against secrets and secret societies. I particularly liked the end part of the video when Alex Jones gets one on one with a presidential adviser & bohemian grove member George Gergen!

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Hillary Clinton Laughing At Gaddafi's Death

"We came We Saw He Died Ha Ha Ha" ohhhh how hilarious Mrs Clinton! I'm utterly amazed that you can find humour in Gaddafi's wrongful death at the hand of savages. What ever happened to a trial at the Hague, where all accusations can be dealt with in the appropriate manner?

The initial "WOW" Hillary Clinton felt prior to learning that Gaddafi had been killed.

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My Mum talks to aliens (Full Documentary)

Mary Rodwell is Australia’s leading authority on extraterrestrial phenomena, her son Chris Rodwell is a vet, a man of science and self-confessed alien skeptic – their relationship has reached a critical point and something has to give.

Mary’s beliefs led to the breakdown of her marriage and left a teenage Chris with some emotional scars, so the topic comes with baggage. Packing nothing but an open mind, Chris has agreed to enter Mary’s world via a road trip traversing Australia in order for her to attempt to convince him that the truth really is "out there" and that aliens exist, or she must never discuss the subject with him again.

Mary plans to leave no stone unturned in her efforts to convince Chris. They will meet a host of colorful characters from alien contactees to skeptical scientists. They will take part in a heated debate with university professors, put key witnesses under pressure with polygraph tests and scour the country for concrete evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Along the way they will argue until they are blue in the face about who is right, and for Mary, this really is her last chance to prove to Chris that she hasn’t gone loopy and that there really are other beings in the sky above. This is the search for the truth to save a relationship. Source

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12 Year Old Girl Paints Heaven, Unbelievable!

Akiane Kramarik was born in Mount Morris, Illinois to a Lithuanian mother and an American father. She is home schooled.

She is primarily a self-taught painter. However, she states that God has given her the visions and abilities to create her artwork, which is unusual for her family, considering both her parents were atheist at the time (they later converted to Christianity on account of Kramarik's paintings and visions). Kramarik started drawing at the age of four, advancing to painting at six, and writing poetry at seven. Her first completed self-portrait sold for US$10,000. A portion of the money generated from sales is donated by Kramarik to charities. According to Kramarik, her art is inspired by her visions of heaven, and her personal connection with God. Kramarik's art depicts life, landscape, and people.

At the age of 10, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and at the age of 12, on CNN.

Akiane Kramarik Website

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Derren Brown - The Assasin

As his career has progressed, so illusionist Derren Brown’s tricks have grown more elaborate. From nail-biting live rounds of Russian roulette, to enabling a fear-stricken flyer to control a plummeting plane in “Hero at 30,000 Feet”, Brown is constantly inventing new ways to wow us. It’s the psychological slant to his work that keeps things interesting – that and his desire to mix the mystery of magic with constant reminders that it’s all just a game.

Earlier this year, he put his skills to more serious use, with an exposé of charlatan American faith healers. Brown’s point was valid but his method (teaching a member of the public the tricks of the trade and then setting them up as a healer) was disappointingly humdrum. Perhaps then this new four-part series will put the wonder back in his work. In each stand-alone episode, Brown makes a provocative proposal and then sets about solving it using his usual repertoire of stunts and mind manipulation. Tonight’s controversial premise should certainly have some appeal. With characteristic flair, Brown attempts the ethically dubious experiment of hypnotising someone into killing a celebrity. But who will be the unlucky star victim? Source

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Why We Dream

Freud said that whether we intend it or not, we're all poets. That's because on most nights, we dream. And dreams are lot like poetry, in that in both things, we express our internal life in similar ways. We use images more than words; we combine incongruent elements to evoke emotion in a more efficient way than wordier descriptions can; and we use unconscious and tangential associations rather than logic to tell a story.

Freud essentially called dreams those poems we tell ourselves at night in order to experience our unconscious wishes as real. Dreams allow us to be what we cannot be, and to say what we do not say, in our more repressed daily lives. For instance, if I dream about burning my workplace down, it's probably because I want to dominate the workplace but am too nervous to admit that aggressive drive when I'm awake and trying to be nice to the people who might give me a raise.

Freud certainly had a catchy theory about dreams, but it was also limited. For him, every single dream was the picture of an unconscious wish. But people who have had boring dreams or nightmares might feel something missing from that formulation. In turn, recent theorists have tried to give a more accurate account of why we dream. In the following post, I'll list some of the current theories on why, at night, our brains tell strange stories that feel a lot like literature. I'd like to know if any of these theories resonate with you, or if you have your own belief about why we dream.

(Many great literary minds were obsessed with their dreams. Samuel Coleridge wanted to write a book about dreams--that "night's dismay" which he said "stunned the coming day." Edgar Allan Poe knew dreams fed his literature, and he pushed himself to dream "dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.")

Modern Theories on Why Dreams Exist:

Theory #1

The Evolutionary Theory: We Dream to Practice Responses to Threatening Situations
Ever notice that most dreams have a blood-surging urgency to them? In dreams, we often find ourselves naked in public, or being chased, or fighting an enemy, or sinking in quicksand. Antti Revonsuo, a Finnish cognitive scientist, has shown that our amygdala (the fight-or-flight piece of the brain) fires more than normal when we're in REM sleep (the time in sleep when we dream). In REM sleep, the brain fires in similar ways as it does when it's specifically threatened for survival. In addition to that, the part of the brain that practices motor activity (running, punching) fires increasingly during REM sleep, even though the limbs are still. In other words, Revonsuo and other evolutionary theorists argue that in dreams, we are actually rehearsing fight-and-flight responses, even though the legs and arms are not actually moving. They say that dreams are an evolutionary adaptation: We dream in order to rehearse behaviors of self-defense in the safety of nighttime isolation. In turn, get better at fight-or-flight in the real world.

Theory #2

Dreams Create Wisdom
If we remembered every image of our waking lives, it would clog our brains. So, dreams sort through memories, to determine which ones to retain and which to lose. Matt Wilson, at MIT's Center for Learning and Memory, largely defends this view. He put rats in mazes during the day, and recorded what neurons fired in what patterns as the rats negotiated the maze. When he watched the rats enter REM sleep, he saw that the same neuron patterns fired that had fired at choice turning points in the maze. In other words, he saw that the rats were dreaming of important junctures in their day. He argues that sleep is the process through which we separate the memories worth encoding in long-term memory from those worth losing. Sleep turns a flood of daily information into what we call wisdom: the stuff that makes us smart for when we come across future decisions.

Theory #3

Dreaming is Like Defragmenting Your Hard Drive
Francis Crick (who co-discovered the structure of DNA) and Graeme Mitchison put forth a famously controversial theory about dreams in 1983 when they wrote that "we dream in order to forget." They meant that the brain is like a machine that gets in the groove of connecting its data in certain ways (obsessing or defending or retaining), and that those thinking pathways might not be the most useful for us. But, when we sleep, the brain fires much more randomly. And it is this random scouring for new connections that allows us to loosen certain pathways and create new, potentially useful, ones. Dreaming is a shuffling of old connections that allows us to keep the important connections and erase the inefficient links. A good analogy here is the defragmentation of a computer's hard drive: Dreams are a reordering of connections to streamline the system.

Theory #4

Dreams Are Like Psychotherapy
But what about the emotion in dreams? Aren't dreams principally the place to confront difficult and surprising emotions, and sit with those emotions in a new way? Ernest Hartmann, a doctor at Tufts, focuses on the emotional learning that happens in dreams. He has developed the theory that dreaming puts our difficult emotions into pictures. In dreams, we deal with emotional content in a safe place, making connections that we would not make if left to our more critical or defensive brains. In this sense, dreaming is like therapy on the couch: We think through emotional stuff in a less rational and defensive frame of mind. Through that process, we come to accept truths we might otherwise repress. Dreams are our nightly psychotherapy.

Theory #5

The Absence of Theory
Of course, others argue that dreams have no meaning at all--that they are the random firings of a brain that doesn't happen to be conscious at that time. The mind is still "functioning" insofar as it's producing images, but there's no conscious sense behind the film. Perhaps it's only consciousness itself that wants to see some deep meaning in our brains at all times.

What do you think? We are all authors, in a way, every night. Is there a mind behind what's written in your dreams? Why are your dreams of use?

Source

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Quantum Levitation

Superconductivity and magnetic fields are like oil and water… they don’t mix. When it can, the superconductor will push out any magnetic fields from the interior in a process called the Meissner effect. It happens when a sample is cooled below its superconducting transition temperature, where it then cancels out its magnetic flux. What’s next? A superconductor. Now the fun really begins…

Even though scientists will claim otherwise, magnetism isn’t greatly understood. Because of electromagnetic induction (where an electric current is created when a conductor is moved through a magnetic field), a perfect conductor won’t change the magnetic flux when it cruises through at zero resistance. However, when cooled to the superconductor state the magnetic flux is expelled. Now we have perfect diamagnetism – where the interior magnetic field nears zero. At this point, if an external magnetic field is introduced, it will create an opposing magnetic field. This locks the two in place!

In the above video, a sample of yttrium barium copper oxide was cooled with liquid nitrogen to bring out its superconductive properties. The experiment shows it repelling the magnets which are loaded into the handheld unit. What’s unusual is that the sample can be angled, yet still held in place by the magnetic field. But keep on watching, because they’ve even created a “track” where the superconductor can be set into motion to either hover above – or below – the magnetic sensors.

While it might seem like just another science fair exhibit, think of the applications! You can almost envision mass transit gliding along carrying passengers inside a high temperature superconductor sourced vehicle… Or a warehouse where tow motors have become obsolete. Clean energy? Why not? Permanent magnets have been known to levitate. And when it comes to superconductors, electrons simply flow through in an orderly pattern without resistance. Why not “train” them?

Original News Source: Wired Science UK.

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