There is no connection between Cayce and Case; no meaningfulness. Gibson explains that as part of his novelist craft, he goes through a complicated artistic ritual in order to summon his characters out of the ether. In this ritual, coming up with the right name is the crucial first step. And the process by which he came up with Cayce, he declares, had nothing to do with Case. "Cayce" was its own "found object" -- much as the name Case, from "Neuromancer," was also a found object, inspired originally by Case pocketknives.

Nodal point

] Beds were placed at a 20 degree angle, making them
] near-impossible to sleep on, and the floors of the 6ft by
] 3ft cells was scattered with bricks and other geometric
] blocks to prevent prisoners from walking backwards and
] forwards, according to the account of Laurencic's trial.
]
] The only option left to prisoners was staring at the
] walls, which were curved and covered with mind-altering
] patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines and spirals
] which utilised tricks of colour, perspective and scale to
] cause mental confusion and distress.
]
] Lighting effects gave the impression that the dizzying
] patterns on the wall were moving.
]
] A stone bench was similarly designed to send a prisoner
] sliding to the floor when he or she sat down, Mr Milicua
] said. Some cells were painted with tar so that they would
] warm up in the sun and produce asphyxiating heat.

The Guardian | Surrealist art used as torture...

Rekna's Comments:

This is totally awesome. At one point in my life someone more schooled than myself in the arts explained that art was generally reflective of what was happening in the society at large when it was produced. This really made sense to me.

I've seen some fitful starts in terms of technology/art integration, but someone finally pulled it off.

From the front page:

Motion sensors embedded in the space detect the movement of people, creating a reactive relationship between the real and virtual environments. Movement within the space effects creatures' empathy towards each other. Also, the biomass 'feeds' off people's movement within the space (an empty room corresponds to a barren environment). Over time, creatures adapt according to the behaviour of people in the space.

Eden

] A British television station defended a show in which a
] Chinese performance artist apparently eats a dead baby,
] calling it a "thought-provoking film about extreme art in
] China."

] Channel 4, which upset viewers with a dissection of a
] human corpse last month, plans to air the documentary in
] which artist Zhu Yu shows off photographs of himself
] washing a dead stillborn baby in a sink and putting its
] dismembered parts in his mouth.

] In a preview provided to Reuters, Zhu is also shown
] having a piece of his own body grafted onto a pig.
] He describes his work as expressing his Christian
] faith, saying: "Jesus is always related to death,
] blood, wounds, etc."

I'm at a lack for words. This is pretty extreme.

Link from boingboing.net.

Artist eats dead baby & grafts piece of his own body to pig

This is a new web comic from the same guy who did Exploitation Now. It appears to be set in your standard fantasy world type place with elves and all that crap.. I'm giving it a chance because the last web comic from Poe was filled with tasteless jokes, bionic lesbian chicks with big guns, and loads of violence.

Errant Story

] Ok, so. I am now doing Megatokyo full time. Technically,
] I now work for all of you. A lot of people have commented
] on how great it would be if I could ever quit my day job
] and do Megatokyo full time. Well, now we'll get to see if
] hey are right. First, lets talk about what will change
] around here, now that the site has my undivided
] attention.

I have blogged MegaTokyo before. I'm a big webcomic junkie.

It appears Piro got laied off from his job. Common problem among many people the past year or two, myself included. He is now trying to devote himself full-time to doing his webcomic.

I urge his users to support him. Running a website or any other creative envenour is a very hard, time consuming, and expensive thing to do. It takes a lot of energy and love. As you browse all those little websites out there you like, remember that we have to find a way for the community that visits these websites to fund their operation and development. Its the big challenge ahead of us if we do not want to be limited to big media that produces content solely for the lowest common denominator. Little media needs the support of its user community in order to function and grow.

MemeStreams is in a similar situation...

Remember: Feed your artists or you will have no art. Feed your coders, or you will have no code. MTV will be all you will have left in the end if you do not take it upon yourself to support the little e.

MegaTokyo: Piro goes it full-time

This is an old friends band. Trippy kinda lounge stuff.. Radiohead and Portishead fans will surley dig.

Fake Gimms Website