Learnin'

Hinduism went over really well. They had lots of questions about the nature of Brahman and Karma and reincarnation, and how "evil" works.

Confucianism... Not so much. Confucius (Kong fu tze) is admitedly very dry, and all the talk of Filial Piety and the Virtuous Ruler can get a little... iffy.

Taoism, however, is full of poetry, magic, and mysticism. And they seem to be taking to it, quite well. We've studied some of the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) material, and we're moving into the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing), tomorrow.

After that? Zen.

Aw yes.

The Long Con

My entire life is a path-walking, a will-work, spell-craft.

The ultimate goal of my magic is only to cause one moment of pure, uncut, Utter Comprehension. One moment of Complete Understanding, shared between All Conscious Minds.

Because I am an utterly evil person.

Good night.

Dreams of Sir Patrick

Because Bob's rewatching TNG, from the beginning, and Katie West Wrote This, and I was watching The Legend of Korra, and I've been teaching Taoism

I dreamed that we were leaving a thing like a convention or a particular kind of seller's party, and that Sir Patrick Stewart was the owner of Eagle Eye Books. We were going to drive back to the Shop, but we found it closed, and all of the lights off, so we had to drive Sir Patrick home, instead. I try to keep my cool, but, inside myself, I'm freaking out that I'll get to see Patrick Stewart's home.

His home was in this large-stepped gated community of connected houses, arranged like the monasteries of certain Mountain Buddhist sects or the craggy upcroppings of Greek islands. I say something which indicates that I always had an idea that it would look like this, and that it's very much like a castle.

Ssomething after theis about unknownbinaries walking around outside, holding the cats. Really strange.

Trying to figure out this weekend. Many things to do.

Ta.

Numbers

I will say the name of a coin. You tell me what number it makes you think of. Please go a bit deeper than the value of the coin. Ready?

2000 Brittish One Pound Coin (Dragon Passant) 20

1990 One Deutsche Mark 89

1971 100 lira coin 5

1980 Susan B Anthony Dollar 25

1995 Irish Ten Pence

1971 JFK Fifty Cent Piece. 7

One coin per person. Go.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU GUYS! THE MACHINE QUESTION SYMPOSIUM!

This came in the email, today:

Damien,
Congratulations, your submitted abstract has been selected for inclusion in the poster session at AISB/IACAP 2012 World Congress in Birmingham, UK from 2-6 July 2012. Currently we do not have exact dates for the poster session, but this information will be provided shortly.

You should now begin working on a draft of your full paper and plan to get the document to us by 15 May 2012. We ask that all papers be in AISB format and submitted as ?camera ready?. Please send us your completed document as PDF by the due date of 15 May 2012.

This first version of your paper will be published in the conference proceedings and distributed to all participants at the congress. You will retain copyright over this publication. We also plan to solicit and publish revised articles in a dedicated issue of an academic journal after the event. The exact publication will be discussed during the symposium, but we welcome communication on this now.

Please access the symposium web site http://machinequestion.org/symposium for additional information about the meeting and links to related sites. Registration and accommodation information can be found at http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/turing12/registration.php Please note that AISB/IACAP will accept early registration up to 1 June 2012. After that date, we expect registration rates to increase significantly.

Please contact David Gunkel ([Email Redacted]) and/or Joann Bryson ([Email Redacted]) with any inquiries, concerns, or comments.

Thank you again for your interest in the symposium, and we look forward to meeting you in Birmingham.

David J. Gunkel
Joanna Bryson"

I AM FREAKING OUT SO GOD DAMNED HARD RIGHT NOPWERAFSDFA SFSFASDCFASEDFA sdfsdcva AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Gotta... Breathe.. Figure out... How... Gonna get... to Birmingham, UK...

*Faints*

[EDIT 12.23am--- First look at Expedia finds a round trip for two comes to about $3,000. *vomits.*]