Probably the biggest lesson I learned in 2008 is this: don’t make announcements about a project until that project is done. I apologize for the false alarms and empty hype, but finally, Brainsturbator is back.  This year I’ve moved across the country, started a business and lost my mind at least three times.  I’ve also been busy over-extending myself on dozens of projects, but I think that was a nescessary mistake.

Now I’m back and more focused than ever.  Brainsturbator is The One Project that’s worth sticking with, so this article is a summary of everything else I’ve been up to. 

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You’ve already noticed things look different.  Charles Blingus, the mastermind behind Back Brain Media, has been itching to re-design Brainsturbator for over a year now.  With some help from our friend Gomar, we’ve finally got a fully operational Brainsturbator 2.0 up and running.

I’m also working on a ton of new articles, and if you’re curious where things are headed, I did a rambling forum post outlining some of it.  Meanwhile, the most logical way to kick off the new design is a quick explanation of our new features.  It’s also an open call for user feedback, so if you’ve got some, please drop a comment here.

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We were brainstorming ideas for this title, but I decided that instead of making something catchy up, I should just f***ing swear. After all, what separates Brainsturbator from all those other weird science sites is 1) my cheerful willingness to be offensive and immature, 2) my total contempt for copyright laws and common sense, and 3) my voracious consumption of psychedelic drugs.  There’s no sense in pretending we’re some sort of respectable operation when I give out awards.  Hell, odds are a few of these sites would rather not be associated with me.

This is a collection of what I consider to be some of the best websites on the internets.  I spend a truly unhealthy amount of time on the internets, so I appreciate finding someone who’s put in work and built a quality resource.  This is in no particular order and not all of it will be interesting to you: I tend to have a much wider Curiosity Zone than most people I talk to.  A number of these websites are truly amazing and completely obscure, because the people who run them don’t want to deal with Search Engine Optimization, Web 2.0, keywords, or any of the other obligatory bullshit of “blog” culture.  And that’s a beautiful thing. Here’s a toast to Fucking Art—let’s begin:

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I realize I might be alone on this one, but 2008 has already started for me.  The last time Brainsturbator was cranking, I was writing about time: the concept of the Chronon, a series on Chronobiology, and a meditation on synchronicity.  Appropriately enough, in the past month my perception of time has changed radically.  A single day can take me up to a week.  I just spent 8 hours in a vocal booth that felt like a 20 minute workout routine.  Weirder still, I find myself experiencing moments from the short-term future in advance lately.  I will explain this (to some extent) later on.

Most of what I write about myself is a self-depreciating joke.  However, most of the emails I write these days are an explanation of Who I Am and What I Do, and I can’t keep rephrasing the same content.  I do love you all, but I want to love you all efficiently and effectively. In the past I have used many names and many outlets, and the challenge for 2008 is clearly going to be integrating everything back into, like....a single human being.

Brainsturbator has covered South American torture camps, the fractal Universe, and the UFO phenomenon, yet the most difficult article I’ve written turns out to be a simple accounting of my own life.  Allow me to reintroduce myself.

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This is a series I’m working on with Garett Heaney, editor of Wishtank magazine and a friend of mine.  We’re having a cycling discussion about organization, motivation and focus.  I hope it’s useful, and please feel free to contribute advice of your own.  I would appreciate the added value, and so would anyone who reads this.

--thirtyseven

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“EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG.” That’s such a cliche it became a joke before I was even born.  The good news is, I’m not here to sell you on mere paradigm change.  (Although, if you’re looking for some, check out Hump Jones.) What I’m referring to here is Euclidian mathematics—flat surfaces, straight lines, and solid objects.  I have no words to explain the rage I felt when I first got into fractal math and realized I’d been saddled with useless, outdated bullshit in high school.  I’ve been working on correcting that ever since (and as anyone can see, failing more or less completely).

I’m not going to explain why everything you know is wrong.  Too much work. Instead, I’ve compiled the single best collection of resources for fractal self-education that exists.  I say that with total confidence because I’m psychotically arrogant—but also because I’ve spent a long time building up this collection and I haven’t seen anything better.  Furthermore, anything online that comes close to this is already included here, so this list has eaten the competition, at least according to Set Theory: Brainsturbator contains them, yet they do not contain Brainsturbator.

With no further ego sickness, and not even another word of sarcasm, I proudly present to you the Brainsturbator Fractal Toolkit.

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The Codex Serpahinianus has a reputation as a mysterious, impenetrable book.  Having gotten ahold of an excellent scanned copy, I have to say that reputation was unfounded.  The Codex is an early study of the fractal dimensions of apparently “flat” surfaces, such as paper, and the shapes generated by ink along that landscape.  As you will see in the first two scans, all of the intricate species, landscape and cultures within the pages of the Codex are the result of iterative changes in a chaotic environment—just like you and me.

The extraordinary “Codex Seraphinianus” is a book of 400 pages in the form of an encyclopedia—graphical letters, signs, animals and plants, anatomy and chemistry, creating a book to view and to admire. Its writing, completely invented, could never be deciphered even with the most technologically advanced machine, but it can be intuited, loaded with emotional meaning that washes over the eyes.

I give away the scan without malice—I don’t think I’m exactly hurting the market for existing copies of this book.  The Codex is ultimately an artifact, not a message—it’s a reminder that flesh-surface of actual paper has a power that electrons on a screen do not.  Everything in the Codex was written and drawn by hand—evoking illuminated manuscripts and Da Vinci’s legacy of dope notebooks.  Some of the best tea I ever had in my life was picked by monkeys in the Fujian province of China.  It’s called Monkey-Picked Tea, and it’s $37 for 3 ounces.

At least the Codex is free.  Much love to Luigi Serafini, the primate who hand-crafted this:

Sorry, due to traffic this file has been removed for a bit, digg + 150meg pdf is crippling my server.


CODEX SERAPHINIANVS (150 MB SCAN)

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...I’ve been moving for the past few days, so I haven’t had time to finish up any of the Brainsturbator articles in the oven.  This has bothered me, since I have a rather offensive and alienating article up, but Lo! This morning a good friend of mine solved the problem.  Back Brain Media—the brilliant mind behind the architecture and coding of Brainsturbator, as well as the entire network we’re plugged into, has debuted another quality site, Wishtank.

Wishtank is more of a magazine than a blog, and I feel relaxed and confident recommending you check it out.  The content is quality and diverse, so I’m sure you’ll find at least one article you really dig today.  Once everything is settled down in my life, I look forward to ramping up Brainsturbator even further, especially since our new sister publication Wishtank is looking so damn slick and nice.

By the way, the art is by our friend Phil Wassell, who also did the cover and design for the soon-to-be-released Algorhythms EP.

CHECK OUT WISHTANK

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This is probably long overdue.  Although Brainsturbator has attracted a lot of flattering attention from the publishing industry (as well as Scientologists) for flagrant violation of copyright law, I’m still a big fan of real damn books, the kind you can carry around with you and read in the backyard.  PDF files are great, but my laptop would give me testicular cancer if I tried using it like a book. 

The classic excuse for pirating mp3s is really true, at least in my case: when I download a book I really like, I will go out and buy it.  This was true for Kevin Kelly‘s masterpiece Out of Control, and just this past week, that was true for Ben Mack‘s outstanding marketing book, Think Two Products Ahead.  If the book is important enough to be re-read and referred back to regularly—and damn few of them are—then it’s worth investing money into getting a hard copy.

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