Coding In Paradise

Some responses to Rojo across the blogosphere (Disclaimer: I'm an engineer at Rojo):

• Niall Kennedy's Weblog
• PaidContent.org
• j's scratchpad
• Library Stuff
• Jeremy Zawodny's Blog
• Marc's Voice
  

According to Wikipedia, "Lucid dreaming is consciously perceiving and recognizing that one is in a dream while one is sleeping, and having control over the "dreamscape", the faux-reality dream world within a dream. "

The Lucidity Institute is a fascinating group down at Stanford that is attempting understand how to induce lucid dreaming.



They have created something called the Nova Dreamer, which I've actually owned for a few years:

"The NovaDreamer detects when you’re in REM sleep, then gives you a cue (flashing lights or sounds) to remind you to recognize you are dreaming. Cues enter your dream, becoming incorporated just like an alarm or radio will sometimes work its way into a dream. For example, NovaDreamer users have reported: 'I see a beautiful pattern of gold and yellow diamonds that fills my field of vision...,' and 'Im surrounded by the popping of flash bulbs with afterimages of orange circles...,' and 'I see a flash of light and press the button. No flash. I think, 'This is great; I must be dreaming!'"

There is currently a free webcast from Wisconsin Public Radio featuring many of the leaders in the field of lucid dreaming, including Stephen LaBerge, the creator of the Nova Dreamer and the Lucidity Institute. An overview of the audio program:

SEGMENT 1:

Journalist Andrea Rock is the author of "The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream." She tells Steve Paulson we still don't know very much about what the mind's up to when it's dreaming although we've always had theories. Now the military wants to develop soldiers that never sleep. Also, Steve Venwright runs a record label called Torpor Vigil Industries. They've put out a CD called "The Further Somniloquies of Dion McGregor." McGregor talks in his sleep like you've never heard before. We hear some samples, and Steve Venwright tells Jim Fleming how he came to have his recordings.

SEGMENT 2:

Stephen LaBerge pioneered the field of lucid dreaming research at Stanford University. He tells Steve Paulson that anyone can learn how to become aware while dreaming and use lucid dreaming as a therapeutic tool. LaBerge is the author of "Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life." Also, Novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of "Queen of Dreams." She tells Jim Fleming about her traditional Indian childhood and the Bengali dream-tellers she met while researching her book.

SEGMENT 3:

Paul Martin is the author of "Counting Sheep." He tells Steve Paulson that people don't get enough sleep these days and that our culture is wrong to diminish the importance and the pleasure of sleep.

California recently passed a stupid law that requires all P2P requests to include a valid email address. In response, John Hoffman on the BitTorrent mailing list posted the following proposal for modifying the BitTorrent protocol to be in compliance with this new, stupid law:

"In response to the new law in California requiring those sharing video and audio data over the internet to disclose their email addresses, I am hereby proposing an extension to the BitTorrent protocol to better improve compliance with this requirement.

(1) A new message code will be added to the P2P protocol. The ascii code 'E' for 'email' (69 decimal, 0x45 hexadecimal) will be used. A message with no data appended will be considered a request for the data, while a message with additional data appended will be used to transmit the email address.

(2) No change will be made to the option bitfield to specify this addition; the standard behavior of a client's dropping the connection in response to an unsupported message in the P2P protocol is adequate.

(3) The default value for the email address shall be 'blow.me.ahnold@kalifornia.com'."