I’m sad that Tokyo 2020 is postponed, primarily because the opening ceremony was rumoured to include an artificial meteor shower.
From 2016:
The project, Sky Canvas, goes beyond your average fireworks display: It involves launching a satellite into space “loaded with about 500 to 1,000 ‘source particles’ that become ingredients for a shooting star”
Sky Canvas, by ALE Co., Ltd: The man-made shooting star particles are 1cm spheres made of various substances that burn up with different colours. Visibility is about 200km range per shooting star particle.
I think what I like most about the meteor shower is that it’s an omen. Meteor showers in ancient times were portentous: see one, and you’re anticipating a great harvest or terrible war just around the corner.
But for the 2020 Olympics, the knowledge of the event precedes the artificial portend! The thing is happening anyway, and the Tokyo organising committee have post-hoc bolted on the omen using satellites and chemistry.
Thinking about the function of omens…
There’s a concept called stochastic resonance in which a signal that is normally too weak to be detected by a sensor, can be boosted by adding white noise to the signal.
Meaning… some hint that is too faint to detect can be amplified and noticed simply by adding some noise or static. Wikipedia lists some examples in human perception.
So, putting aside any supernatural origins, perhaps the function of omens is to add noise to our natural sense of anticipation, amplifying our unconscious hunches about future events and boosting them to awareness?
For example, you’re an ancient Roman general going off to war, and you walk down the via as - just by coincidence - all the nearby birds stop singing. Noticing the portent, you consider more seriously the possibility of failure – and, in doing so, are better prepared for the battle ahead.
I think the reason this works at all is that some portents are actually meaningful. As previously discussed: in the ancient world, birds did indeed tell the future.
So I wonder if there are everyday, domestic omens that I could be more sensitive to?
Like: my internet sometimes slows down. And mostly that’s random. But every so often it’s because a massive PowerPoint is landing in my inbox, and that means there’s work to do.
Could domestic omens be created artificially?
Like: if I have a day of back-to-back meetings, maybe the sound of distant thunder ten minutes before would remind me to refill my water bottle?
Maybe I could pay that Japanese company to drop an artificial meteor across South London, just before I go to bed, visible from my window, if I’m doing a conference talk the next day?
Halfway through a meeting, when the team’s AI facilitator discerns that an overdue decision may be imminent, the conference call is zoombombed by a tongueless dwarf silently pointing at a whiteboard.
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
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I’m sad that Tokyo 2020 is postponed, primarily because the opening ceremony was rumoured to include an artificial meteor shower.
From 2016:
Sky Canvas, by ALE Co., Ltd: made of various substances that burn up with different colours. Visibility is
I think what I like most about the meteor shower is that it’s an omen. Meteor showers in ancient times were portentous: see one, and you’re anticipating a great harvest or terrible war just around the corner.
But for the 2020 Olympics, the knowledge of the event precedes the artificial portend! The thing is happening anyway, and the Tokyo organising committee have post-hoc bolted on the omen using satellites and chemistry.
Thinking about the function of omens…
There’s a concept called stochastic resonance in which
Meaning… some hint that is too faint to detect can be amplified and noticed simply by adding some noise or static. Wikipedia lists some examples in human perception.
So, putting aside any supernatural origins, perhaps the function of omens is to add noise to our natural sense of anticipation, amplifying our unconscious hunches about future events and boosting them to awareness?
For example, you’re an ancient Roman general going off to war, and you walk down the via as - just by coincidence - all the nearby birds stop singing. Noticing the portent, you consider more seriously the possibility of failure – and, in doing so, are better prepared for the battle ahead.
I think the reason this works at all is that some portents are actually meaningful. As previously discussed: in the ancient world, birds did indeed tell the future.
So I wonder if there are everyday, domestic omens that I could be more sensitive to?
Like: my internet sometimes slows down. And mostly that’s random. But every so often it’s because a massive PowerPoint is landing in my inbox, and that means there’s work to do.
Could domestic omens be created artificially?
Like: if I have a day of back-to-back meetings, maybe the sound of distant thunder ten minutes before would remind me to refill my water bottle?
Maybe I could pay that Japanese company to drop an artificial meteor across South London, just before I go to bed, visible from my window, if I’m doing a conference talk the next day?
Halfway through a meeting, when the team’s AI facilitator discerns that an overdue decision may be imminent, the conference call is zoombombed by a tongueless dwarf silently pointing at a whiteboard.
I’m rambling.