In the face of a global economic catastrophe, I’m not paying much attention to the news. “Our leaders” are lying like always. Sure, there’s Big Changes ahead—but scaremongering and cynicism are a waste of precious life.  I’m actually more optimistic these days than I’ve ever been, and it’s all because of Africa. The most innovative solutions and inspirational success stories I’ve found are coming from the Mother Continent, and I can’t imagine a better remedy for American Fear than this.  No matter what kind of nightmare collapse scenario you can imagine for the United States, Africa has already been there and back.

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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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The first website I ever got lost in belonged to a rambling genius named Tony Smith, a cowboy from Georgia who’s physics theories were too radical for Cornell.  That kind of resume will definitely get a high school kid’s attention, and years later, one of the first Brainsturbator articles was a bunch of links to Tony’s site.  This is an expanded version, which quotes a lot of the material since the site has disappeared completely several times now.

Brainsturbator is here for the long haul, so I’m doing this for the good of humanity...kind of like our backup Paul Laffoley Gallery, which is also under re-construction.  (Meanwhile, check out Laffoley Archive. Like Laffoley, I honestly cannot understand a great deal of what Tony Smith is trying to tell me.  Like everyone else I consider a teacher, though, he provides so much to think about that even Not Getting It becomes an educational experience.  I hope you dig it.

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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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I wrote this for Nick Pell at Key 64.  I’m very glad he asked me to write it, because it did me a lot of good to get my thoughts organized, and the response to this piece has been huge.  I’m backing it up here because I like my formatting more, plus I fixed a number of typos.

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When I started Brainsturbator, I still had a lot to learn about good web content.  Most of the early material in the archives is pretty weak, and I’m gradually fixing that.  The UFO Library probably needed an update the most, because there’s not enough good information online. What I mean is, it’s very difficult to find data about UFOs, but it’s very easy to find theories about what they are.  I’m much more interested in getting people to ask their own questions, than in summarizing my opinion about what the important questions are. 

Just the same, this libary is shaped by my own biases. I see the UFO phenomenon as fundamentally unexplained, and probably involving multiple causes that human science in 2007 cannot explain or predict.  This phenomenon is real, global, weird and important.  This library is my humble effort at making it a little easier to answer your own questions.  Enjoy.

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When you come across someone who is going to change your life, you know it immediately.  Looking over my life in retrospect, I think that’s been nearly 100% true.  You never know how, why or when, but that basic super-electric charge is there the second the connection is made.  I’ve been learning many things from many people, here on these internets, but I owe more to Ben Mack than pretty much anyone else I can think of.  I am writing this as a thank you to Ben, and as a heads-up to you, the reader.

There are serious problems in the world today and I have no interest in complaining about them. Whatsoever, yo. I expect my friends to slap me as hard as they can when I start backsliding like that.  Because when I find myself asking “Why?” at this point, I’m just lying to myself.  I know exactly why, I know exactly how to change it, and neither answer is comforting. How do we break the cultural hypnosis?  How do we expect to get people to wake up and change their own lives?  I’m bringing this up here because I believe that Ben Mack has a great deal to teach about mass media, about persuasion and the creation of consensus reality, and most of all about realistic solutions to these problems.

Interested? 

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