daily 03/09/2014

• Astral projection – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians is more generally agreed to refer to the astral planes;^[16] “I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago, (whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God knows) such a one caught up to the third heaven…”^[17] This statement gave rise to the Visio Pauli, a tract that offers a vision of heaven and hell, a forerunner of visions attributed to Adomnan and Tnugdalus as well as of Dante‘s Divine Comedy.

• A Sea of White People: Day Two at CPAC

  • Her friend wasn’t as hesitant, saying, “Other diversities come in here and they want opportunity, they want change, and like, we aren’t really about change, we’re more of like, these are our viewpoints and our standpoints and we want to stick to them because they’ve been working for the last 200 years.”
  • “I feel like the different views and the different standpoints and going back to the Constitution and how we’re founded, and small government and there’s so much to it, and having a Christian belief makes me want to stand for what the Constitution stood for.”
  • “I think its mostly just because the conservative movement is very inward looking, in a sense, and a lot of people see the growing diversity and open-mindedness in society as a bad thing, sadly.”
  • Young Republicans are so stupid they don’t realize the era they most worship, the 1950s, was when unions were strong and the middle class was at its zenith, and the rich were a small group that were heavily taxed. Republicans have zero understanding of history.

• Ever-so-slight delay improves decision-making accuracy — ScienceDaily

  • The decision process itself, however, does not distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. Hence, a task is made more difficult if irrelevant information — a distractor — interferes with the processing of the target. Distractors are present all the time; in this case, it might be in the form of traffic lights regulating traffic in other lanes. Though the brain is able to enhance relevant information and filter out distractions, these mechanisms take time. If the decision process starts while the brain is still processing irrelevant information, errors can occur.

• How ‘True Detective’ Will End: What We Know Up to Episode 7 “After You’ve Gone” – The Daily Beast

  • They tell us, as Pizzolatto put it to me, that Dora Lange is ‘meant to stand in for the universal victim for this type of show’; that Ledoux, with his comically archetypal 666, pentagram, and swastika tattoos, is the universal serial killer; and that True Detective is a form of metafiction. 
  • “It really isn’t. Exactly. I knew the guy was dead as soon as he showed up after being gut shot in the second close.
  • “I question it. I don’t think me outright lying to you is “fooling’ you. Chinatown, for instance, is a kind of smart trickery that is rewarding. You didn’t get lied to in Chinatown. You just couldn’t see all the pieces of the picture. And then when you saw it, you realized not only was this about the corruption of an entire state, but it was mirrored in the corruption of an American family.
  • In short: the finale isn’t going to head off in some strange direction. It’s going to flow naturally out of what we already know.  
  • “We left something undone,” Cohle says. “We got to fix it.”
  • “Because you have a debt,” Cohle fires back. “Because of the way shit went down in ‘95”—because Cohle helped cover up the fact that Hart lost his cool and shot Ledoux—“this is on you, too, buddy.”
  • Meanwhile, the “lone star” on the head of each beer-can man, the black stars Ledoux was whispering about before he was shot, and the pentagram tattoo on Ledoux’s back—all of them have five points. 
  • Cohle proceeded to break into Tuttle’s houses. In one of them he found 15-year-old photographs of a blindfolded girl wearing antlers: Marie Fontenot. He also found the snuff film depicting her death. Tuttle killed himself shortly thereafter. He thought he was being blackmailed. 
  • “See, once she had it done to her,” the old woman said, “he didn’t like ‘em but that one time.”
  • Reggie Ledoux and his brother (who both died at their compound in the 1995 “shootout”) were two of the three “younger men.” The third was the man with the scars—likely the “spaghetti monster with green ears” who was reported to have chased a girl through the woods in 1995 (and who was later sketched by police).
  • “I think his daddy did that to him,” she said. “He was a Childress.”
  • We don’t know that she was sexually abused as a child, but Pizzolatto seems to be suggesting as much
  • Based on the evidence above, I suspect that in next week’s finale (“Form and Void”) we’ll learn that the Five Horsemen were Sam Tuttle, Billy Lee Tuttle, Eddie Tuttle, and two other figures who may or may not be Sheriff Ted Childress and (his son?) Errol Childress. 
  • Pizzolatto, he told me that “one of the major themes of True Detective is the damage that men do to women and children.” My guess is that in the final moments of the season the supernatural elements of the show will recede. What remains will be all too real.

• ‘True Detective’ Season 1 Spoilers: Was Marie Fontenot Pregnant? Theories And Clues About The Yellow King And Tuttle Family [PHOTOS]

  • Who exactly is Marie Fontenot? Well, she’s a former student of Tuttle who went missing five years prior to Dora Lange’s death. When the detectives visited Fontenot’s uncle to gather more information, they were informed by the woman living in his home that everyone assumed Marie had run off with her father — including the sheriff’s department.
  • She had admitted that the Tuttle family was made up of illegitimate children and it was because Sam Tuttle never wanted a woman more than once.

• OMGosh… Guy, did we just solve the case? | A Guy, A Girl and Cthulhu

  • Dora Lange was the first victim of this killer who was drugging, binding, stabbing and then posing the bodies publicly.
  • when Rust and Marty went out to investigate Dora’s murder, they visited her neighborhood, they found that another girl who had lived there was missing; Marie Fontenot… though she was never found.
  • And then on the road sign we see that  Stacy Berhart was murdered two years before Marie went missing.
  • This is where Marty was right about Rust bending the narrative.
  • She was a giant clue wrapped up with a ribbon (okay, rope) for the police.  At this point, I said to Guy,
  • Another point in favor of the killer being a cast off from the cult, or striking back at the cult, is that the painting of the kneeling woman in the church was after it was burned down, and that was one of the churches where Light of the Way was housed.
  • it’s someone burning down the church and then painting his message in warning or whatever to the cult…
  • And since we know that our Deer Princess cult likes to keep things in the family, we had to go on the assumption that most likely Marie Fontenot was taken by he who is surrounded by his children of all types, Sam Tuttle…  So, that places Marieat one of the Tuttle compounds… safe and sound and perhaps not murdered at all…
    • How do we know they like to keep it in the family?

  • “What if…

     

    The Killer…

     

    Is Marie Fontenot!”

  • I had been actually thinking Maggie at that point but it’s just so implausible…  but I could really sink my teeth into Marie…  Yeah… that was a bad Hannibal Lecter pun… my bad.
  • someone to read.
    • But the cops were able to keep this all out of the paper
  • Then for a moment we didn’t know what each other was talking about…  but when the conclusion cleared, we had both come to the conclusion that Marie Fontenot was not only alive, but she was hiding in plain sight as the lovely prostitute Lucy:  Please note her beautiful tattoo work… that is 5 black stars on either arm with an infinity symbol at the crook of her elbow.  Lovely.
  • What we concluded about Lucy was that…  She was blonde, had star tattoos and was the only one who had the infinity sign tattooed on her… which all together has to mean something, right?
  • Girl: “Hey… what if a lot of the girls are in on it? The black star tattoo girls…”
  • So…  There you have it.  We think that all the black star tattooed girls were abused by the costume wearing cult and have formed their own vigilante group in order to get revenge on the cult for all of their dastardly and sickening deeds…  And this is our little angel at the helm…
  •  Black stars everywhere, on the bodies of women.
  • The killer is a He, Marie is Dead, and someone involved in the Cult set up Dora and the other girls bodies to be found by the police.
  • WHY in the hell would a cult which clearly seems to want to remain hidden draw so much attention to itself by displaying the murder of Dora Lange so prominently?
  • This is someone’s way of bringing attention to the cult, to ‘out’ them.
  • And what happens in the CID when the case goes public?  Good old Rev. Tuttle descends with all speed to take over the investigation, and make sure it gets spun just the way he wants it to be.
  •  None!  In fact we know she didn’t die in the filmed ceremony, because we have pictures of her pregnant, which clearly is post VHS tape.
  • So, where is Marie?!?!  Is she Lucy?  I strongly suspect that the children fathered by this insane cult, at least the girl children, end up as prostitutes in that ‘Camp’ by the lake-the trailer park, or elsewhere.  And they probably bear the mark, black stars.  Could Lucy be Marie?  That I really don’t know, but it would make sense.
  • One more astounding correlation brought up by girl.  Remember when Dora’s ex-husband said Dora told him she was going to become a Nun?  What do Nun’s do?  They live only with other women!  Who would this group of other women be?!?!?!?!?   Girl notes that Nun’s who get pregnant have often committed suicide…

• The Satanic Child Sex Abuse Case That May Have Inspired ‘True Detective’ – The Daily Beast

  • “This is hard to talk about and harder to believe, but some of the suspects have told us their intention in all of this was devil worshipping,” Edwards told the Baton Rouge newspaper.
  • All these years later, it’s still unclear if the devil worshipping and occult details that were given to detectives ever actually happened. There was no physical evidence, such as the existence of pentagrams on the floor or buried remains of sacrificed animals, presented at Lamonica’s trial.

• Craziest Theories of How ‘True Detective’ Will End: Killer Marty, the Five Horsemen, and More – The Daily Beast

  • The show has also, with its myriad references to the occult, recurring imagery, elliptical-philosophical dialogue, and general weirdness, prompted viewer’s imaginations to run wild, cooking up far-fetched (and not-so-far-fetched) theories of how the show will wrap things up.
  • “An overlooked detail provides Hart and Cohle with an important new lead in their 17-year-old case.”
  • Also, we know that Audrey became a problem child in 2002, having been caught with two older boys having sex in a car, and later, in 2012, she is heavily medicated, according to Maggie. Was Audrey a victim of the Five Horsemen, and will some terrible fate befall her?
  • My life’s been a circle of violence and degradation as long as I can remember. I’m ready to tie it off.”
  • I lack the constitution for suicide.” Perhaps. But that was in 1995. In that same conversation, Rust tells Marty he isn’t religious, even though a huge cross hangs in his Spartan apartment. Rust says it’s because: “I contemplate the moment in the garden… the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.”
  • His/her evidence for this theory is that Rust and Marty “somehow not only found, but ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in the backwoods of Louisiana,” and that most of the people linked to the cult have been “white guys with white power ideals” like LeDoux and Lange, who would probably refer to a Vietnamese person as “yellow.” Furthermore, there’s the scene where Rust describes LeDoux’s “little shop of horrors as being reminiscent of the way his father described Vietnam,”

• True Detective finale theories: vote for your favorite with these pulp magazine covers. (PHOTOS)

  • Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle
      After Errol, Reverend Tuttle may be the likeliest Yellow King—perhaps he’s even more likely, given where that hideous videotape was found. And then there are the subtler clues: the apparent Wellspring cover-up, his eagerness for the task force to take over the investigation, the yellow tie. If Tuttle’s the Yellow King, we won’t be surprised.
  • Jake Herbert
     Maggie’s dad, who’s listed as Jake Herbert on IMDb, has appeared in only one episode so far—but it was a memorable cameo. “Everything’s sex,” he groused, complaining to his son-in-law Marty about kids these days. His large house suggested the wealth one might expect from the leader of this apparent conspiracy. And Michelle Monaghan, who plays Maggie, told the Daily Beast, “Our family—everybody—is still going to be part of the plot going forward.”

• Charlie Strong wants Texas A&M, but under the wrong circumstances | CollegeFootballTalk

  • Call me old-fashioned — I can take it — but it seems to me that if we were able to get Texas and Texas A&M back together again, then playing it in Austin or College Station should be the only way to go. Considering the tradition and passion that ignites when these two long time historic rivals get together, the sport would benefit much more from that than playing a game of this magnitude and hype in an NFL stadium. But hey, cash is king, right?
  • Playing nine games makes it difficult for some teams to get in a preferred seven home games each season, which means sometimes some school is going to have to bite the bullet and budge. With the stadium sizes at Texas and Texas A&M, losing a home game any given year is noting either school would look forward to. But if a broadcast partner and the Dallas Cowboys or Houston Texans got involved with the planning and organization (and the funding), then it is a different story.

• A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Masking in Photoshop | Design Shack

  • Layers are probably the single most important addition to Photoshop since the original version, but layer masks are a close second. I would posit that until you thoroughly understand how and why to use masks, you simply don’t understand the power of Photoshop.
  • At its simplest definition a mask is a way to apply something to a very specific portion of an image.
  • clipping masks and layer masks.
  • Where layer opacity controls the transparency of the entire layer at once, a mask gives you more precise controls over very specific areas.
  • On this invisible canvas, you can paint white, black or any level of gray in-between. The color that you paint tells Photoshop how opaque to make the pixels at that point. White means 100% opacity and black means 0% opacity.
  • Clipping masks are very similar to layer masks only they use one layer to determine the transparency of another. In this scenario, you stack two layers on top of each other with the bottom being the determining factor of the transparency of the top.

• Malaysia Airlines’ missing flight is the latest sign of a safety crisis in the region

  • Malaysia Airlines and other flag carriers in East Asia are being squeezed on both sides by low cost carriers and deep-pocketed Middle East airlines. Passenger traffic for Malaysia Airlines grew 28% in 2013, the Centre for Aviation reported, “some of the fastest growth in Asia,” but the airline still had a third quarter loss because of high fuel costs and stiff competition that put pressure on prices.
  • Less than 35% of the airlines in Southeast Asia are certified by the IATA, an industry trade association, but Malaysia Airlines is among those certified. Asia accounted for 43% of all airline fatalities (pdf, pg. 10) in 2012, the latest annual statistics available, second only to Africa with 45%.

• Why Malaysia Airlines jet might have disappeared – Yahoo News Malaysia

  • Capt. John M. Cox, who spent 25 years flying for US Airways and is now CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said that whatever happened to the Malaysia Airlines jet, it occurred quickly. The problem had to be big enough, he said, to stop the plane’s transponder from broadcasting its location, although the transponder can be purposely shut off from the cockpit.
  • ne of the first indicators of what happened will be the size of the debris field. If it is large and spread out over tens of miles, then the plane likely broke apart at a high elevation. That could signal a bomb or a massive airframe failure. If it is a smaller field, the plane probably fell from 35,000 feet intact, breaking up upon contact with the water.
  • Pilot disorientation. Curtis said that the pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow went off course and didn’t realize it until it was too late. The plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact, putting it up to 3,000 miles away. This is unlikely given that the plane probably would have been picked up by radar somewhere. But it’s too early to eliminate it as a possibility.
  • Failure of both engines. In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 1,000 feet short of the runway at London’s Heathrow Airport. As the plane was coming in to land, the engines lost thrust because of ice buildup in the fuel system. There were no fatalities.
  • A bomb. Several planes have been brought down including Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988. There was also an Air India flight in June 1985 between Montreal and London and a plane in September 1989 flown by French airline Union des Transports Aériens which blew up over the Sahara.
  • Pilot suicide. There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s — a SilkAir flight and an EgyptAir flight— that are believed to have been caused by pilots deliberately crashing the planes. Government crash investigators never formally declared the crashes suicides but both are widely acknowledged by crash experts to have been caused by deliberate pilot actions.
  • Accidental shoot-down by some country’s military. In July 1988, the United States Navy missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidently shot down an Iran Air flight, killing all 290 passengers and crew. In September 1983, a Korean Air Lines flight was shot down by a Russian fighter jet.

• Malaysian Airlines MH370: two passengers used stolen passports.

  • A European security official tells the Wall Street Journal that it isn’t all that uncommon for passengers to board flights using stolen passports. Still, NBC highlights that having two people on one flight with stolen passports is “very rare.”

• $2,400 “Introduction to Linux” course will be free and online this summer | Ars Technica

  • Students can either audit the course, which means they’d get access to all the course materials but not have to commit to completing the tests and assignments, or they can take the course for a certificate of completion, which will be offered for free. (On some edX classes, “verified certificates of achievement” cost a fee.)

• Austin bar accused of withholding employees’ tips | www.statesman.com

  • To reduce the amount of tips employees received, the suit claims gratuities were “artificially converted” into sales retained by the bar.
  • “Because Rio offers (among other beverages) bottles of liquor and champagne costing hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars each, a customer’s tab after visiting Rio often reaches four or five figures,” the suit states. “Indeed, some of Rio’s more wealthy patrons regularly accumulate and pay tabs of many thousands of dollars. In doing so, these patrons have directed that servers and bartenders (like plaintiffs) receive gratuities of several thousand of even tens of thousands of dollars.
  • As an example, the suit claims Joe Liemandt, founder of Austin software firm Trilogy, left an $11,000 tip one night in August 2013, followed by another $10,000 tip later that night.
  • Tips were supposed to be distributed amongst most of the bar’s employees, the suit said, with servers getting 55 percent; bussers, 20 percent; bartenders, 5 percent; and the remaining 20 percent going to “the house.”

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