BRAINSTURBATOR BIRTHDAY BONANZA

Brainsturbator has been up and running for over a year now, which amazes me.  I can’t tell if I think it’s been 5 years, or just a few months, but doing this site has been the most educational and valuable experience I’ve had in awhile.  I’m very grateful to everyone who provided feedback, corrected my endless mistakes, and helped build this into the monster it is now.  To celebrate, we’ve sat down with our tracking software—which I highly recommend, we use Shaun Inman’s program Mint and it’s the best analytics software I’ve ever seen—to compile something unique. 

I’m including 4 of my personal favorite articles, but everything else here is based on your favorite articles.  According to Mint, these are the most popular, most linked-to, most talked-about articles I’ve done.  A number of articles I spent an excessive amount of time on flopped completely—and several articles I put minimal effort into have gone on to be hugely successful.  Someday it will all make sense, right?  Probably not...but in the meantime, I love each and every one of you, and I hope Brainsturbator will continue to be useful in 2008.

--thirtyseven

In-House Resources for Power Weirdos

HOLY SHIT THESE ARE GREAT WEBSITES As you might have noticed, Brainsturbator doesn’t have a lot of outgoing links.  This is my salute to the websites that keep me informed, motivated and fascinated by the Universe.  I recommend all of them unconditionally, and most of these sites are way, way better than Brainsturbator will ever be.

The Power Weirdo Reading List.  After answering the “can you recommend any books?” email a few hundred times, I suddenly realized I should just set up a reading list.  This is that—I hope you find it useful.

The Brainsturbator Fractal Toolkit. I busted my ass on this one and I still say it’s one of the best single-page resources on the concept of fractals you will find anywhere online.  I am very open to being proven wrong, though, so please let me know if you find something better—I will happily link to it and incorporate it into this toolkit.

Personal Favorites

Your Fear is All They Have. I’ve been told many times by many people that this is a superficial essay and I’m not saying anything new.  Just the same, I think this is one of the most important statements I’ve made on this site, and if you read only one article, I would humbly ask that you make it this one. 

Humans Ruin Everything: Animals of War A very depressing but amazing look at the human use of animals in warfare.  I was blown away by how much material I found, and all of it is Weird on a level I can’t even describe.  This article was a huge hit with animal rights activists, who seem to have a bottomless appetite for reading stuff that will piss them off: I want to thank them for making this article so popular, and I wish them the best in 2008, when caring about helpless animals (or even the environment) will get you branded as a “domestic terrorist.”

The History of “What if We Dosed the Water?” I wanted to write a quick summary on the history of psychedelic drug warfare—I had no idea what a rich vein of history that was.  Still one of my favorite Brainsturbator articles of all time, this is of course intended as mere education.  I would never be so irresponsible as to advocate feeding people drugs without their knowledge and consent.

More Dirt on the Demon Box: TV Science.  This is a personal favorite not because of the content, but because of the reaction: I was astonished to recieve more hatemail over this article than anything else I’ve ever published. Apparently TV is a very touchy and sacred issue for a lot of people!  I learned a lot writing this article, but I really got my eyes opened after I published it.

Lunatic Optimism

Brainsturbator to USA: We Are Winning the Fight I was pretty unsure about this one when I posted it up.  I was, in fact, ready to call it a mistake and take it down, but the response really blew me back.  There was exactly 0% neutral feedback on this one, people either thought I was a jackass masturbating his ego, or they felt like it was exactly what they needed to hear to make it through a shitty week.  This could be the closest thing in Brainsturbator history to a Rorschach test—see how you react to it and let me know.

Food Not Bombs: Or, Free Bread and Soup is a National Threat. This is a salute to the activist group Food Not Bombs, and a look at the reaction of local authorities to the “threat” of free food.  Did you know that many government agencies have classified Food Not Bombs as a terrorist organization? If that sounds insane, it’s just the tip of the iceberg—read this.

Urban Assault Forestry—this will get overhauled soon, but the seed is still there.  A look at how to harness the power of nature to undo the ecological damage of urban human sprawl.  Also check out the Canadian site Heavy Petal, who have taken this seed and run with it: Resistance is Fertile.

Let’s Steal the Election Ourselves This Time.  Rather than engage in hand-wringing and bitchery about stolen elections, let’s step up and steal the damn elections.  2008 is on the way, this is 100% possible, and we can do this.  Read up, arm yourself, and get ready.  (This is very similar in spirit to an earlier article, Defusing the Apocalypse.)

Weird Science

The Brainsturbator UFOlogy Library 2.0 This was a pretty good resource before, but the overhaul is just plain badass.  I hold no firm theories on the cause and nature of the UFO phenomenon, and I have no “answers” or “explanations” for you, just a large stream of documents and data to enable you, the reader, to make your own conclusions.  Let me know if this was useful—feedback is oxygen for me.

Networks, Bacteria and the Illusion of Control.  I’ve had a lot of people say this is their all-time favorite Brainsturbator article, which I enjoy a great deal.  You see, all I actually wrote was the intro—the rest is a mixtape of other sources.  With this, I was trying to create a “brain-bomb”—carefully cultivated information, laid out sequentially, designed to trigger a serious change in how you think about your body, your mind and your “self.” Apparently, it worked.

Our Fractal Universe: A Sneak Peek at the New Cosmology I got a shout-out from mad scientist and geometry genius Dan Winter for this one, and it’s been one of the most-visited science articles I ever did.  As usual, I bit off more than I could chew and this is just an overdose of information and links, but it’s all thought-provoking and important material.

Mere Politics

Plain and Simple: Fuck 9/11.  I still get occasional hate mail over this one, and I still stand by everything I said.  One of the most interesting criticisms I got was this: “Invoking ‘starving kids in Africa’ is the lowest, cheapest form of moral pornography.” I’m still not sure what to make of that one, but if anyone reading this can help me figure it out, please let me know.

Facebook, the CIA and You.  I still think this is one of the best articles you’ll find on this topic, especially since the competition is mostly parroting Alex Jones.  Does Facebook compile your personal information to build detailed files about you?  Of course it does—but to demonize Facebook is to miss a larger and much more important issue: so does pretty much every other site on the internet.  This article is a meditation on the death of privacy and the new playing ground for information warfare.

How to Win the War on Terror and Save America, Too Some common-sense, detailed advice on how to pursue an actual solution to terrorism, and also reverse America’s current economic and political decline.  This is another article that earned me no shortage of hatemail—interestingly, most of it was from alleged “liberals” who were outraged that I’d refer to terrorists as “cowards and low-grade human scum.” I still stand by that.  Killing women and children is not cool, I don’t give a fuck what your cause is.

Maurice Strong: Another Hidden Ruler I still think Maurice Strong is one of the more fascinating power players on the world political stage, especially since he remains mostly unknown.  You will find a great deal of food for thought here, wether you’ve heard of this man or not.

Best of “We Salute You”

Aledandro Jodorowsky. Visionary director, artist, magician and poet—a walking, talking inspiration to Do Crazier Things.

Yoshiro Nakamatsu Japanese super-inventor with dubious credentials and infinite energy, this guy will surprise the hell out of you at least five times.

In Closing

How could Brainsturbator be more useful to you? What does Brainsturbator do that drives you up the fucking wall? Is there anything that’s obviously missing from the site?  Are you aware that we’ve also got a Brainsturbator forum that contains even more info than the site itself?  Have you made use of the BIPT Library? Have you found our links page, Thirtyseven.info?