Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] An interesting report on implants

From: "Brett Paatsch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 08:14:04 +1000

I haven't really followed the development of implant technology much
lately, about the last time I read up on it semi-seriously was when
I bought a copy of Kevin Warwicks, I Cyborg.

Newspapers tend to report operations, the implantation part, because
its newsworthy, but perhaps more important are how long the implants
continue to work. 

In the case of Warwick's implants, over time, a matter of months, the
number of connections to his implant increasingly ceased to work. 

I think a key thing to watch with implanted chips etc will be how long
they continue to operate once installed and whether or how soon 
biological immune responses etc eventually stop them from working.

Brett Paatsch

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From: "spike" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:19:27 -0800

I thank Amara for showing how interesting is cosmic dust.
She managed to write a doctoral thesis on the topic and
make it compelling enough to make me read every word.  Check
this:

HUBBLE TELESCOPE SPIES COSMIC DUST BUNNIES
------------------------------------------
Like dust bunnies that lurk in corners and under beds, surprisingly
complex loops and blobs of cosmic dust lie hidden in the giant
elliptical galaxy NGC 1316. This image made from data obtained with the
NASA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the dust lanes and star clusters of
this giant galaxy that give evidence that it was formed from a past
merger of two gas-rich galaxies.

  http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/31hubble/

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From: Damien Broderick <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:49:42 -0600

>   http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/31hubble/

At the same page, I see a link I can't open (not a subscriber) to:

Nanosat toss overboard
A foot-long Russian nanosatellite is flung overboard by the spacewalking 
International Space Station Expedition 10 crew. Station cameras watched the 
hand-launched deployment and the nanosat as it floated away.

=======
Wow. Love that nano-bloat. (Or is it fulla fullerenes or something?)

Damien Broderick

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From: "spike" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:23:18 -0800

> International Space Station Expedition 10 crew.

What they are calling a nanosat is a thing about the
size of a soup can.  I don't know what the thing
actually does. 

spike

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From: "spike" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:49:47 -0800

I heard they have given the pope his last rites.  But
what if he had been signed up for cryonics?  Would he
have been given second-to-last rites?  Or would he have
just waived his rites?

spike

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From: "spike" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:09:29 -0800

> what if he had been signed up for cryonics?...

And what happens if you are given your last rites
but you survive, and decide you really enjoyed those
rites and want some more rites?  Do two rites make
a wrong?  Are they really strict on the number of 
rites one can have?  And since they are performed 
by a nonprofit organization, can you rite them off 
on your taxes?

spike

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From: "scerir" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 08:22:56 +0200

> rites and want some more rites?
> spike

In 'last rites' the adjective 'last' is wrong.
In 'extreme unction' the adjective 'extreme' is also wrong.
It is just a sacrament (for somebody who is sick), the holy
unction, made of confession, absolution, communion, and
anointing (him) with holy oil.

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church;
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name
of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick,
and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed
sins, they shall be forgiven him".
-James, Epistle 5,  4-15

http://www.sspxasia.com/Newsletters/1999/Mar-Apr/The-New-Sacrament-of-Extrem
e-Unction.htm
(for the changes, in the sacrament, after the Vatican II)

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From: Damien Broderick <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 15:52:52 -0600

I see that:

<The Vatican denied Italian media reports that he had died. The first 
reports, picked up by the state broadcaster RAI, said his electrocardiogram 
had gone flat. The ADNkronos news agency said monitoring showed his brain 
activity had halted. But Sky Italia television later quoted Vatican sources 
saying both his brain and heart were still functioning. >

This raises a very interesting prospect. Once the Pope's brain activity has 
halted, it is to be hoped that his feeding tube remains in place, and that 
every miracle of medical science is used -- as God is now known to have 
intended -- to keep his mindless body ticking over. Catholics would then be 
in an interesting situation: an unreplaceable supreme Pontiff whose silence 
is infallible and indefinitely protracted.

Damien Broderick

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From: xllb <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 18:09:04 -0500

The Pope and Johnnie Cochran arrive at Heaven's Gate at the same time.
 Saint Peter takes them by tour bus to their respective, eternal
homes.  They stop in front of an Estate with pools, a golf course,
tennis courts and a heavenly mansion.

Saint Peter announces "Mr. Cochran, welcome to your new home."

Mr. Cochran lets out a whoop of joy and leaps out of the tour bus.

The bus continues on for a short distance and stops in front of a
neat, little bungalow.

Saint Peter announces "Papa, welcome to your new home."

The Pope is shocked.  "I've been The Pope for thirty years and all I
get is this shack?"

Saint Peter replies "We have dozens of Popes up here.  Mr. Cochran is
the first lawyer."

-- 
Hell is overkill.
Dogma blinds.

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From: "kevinfreels.com" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 17:21:27 -0600

Has anyone seen this? Thought it was cute. :-)

http://www.google.com/googlegulp/