Micromegas

i sent it to you C T. I didn't see about the name change. where do I do that? i'm flat out but i'll try to get it done.

Hi folks, Due to commitments at work it is getting less and less likely (next to impossible) I will make it to EGA, sad face. I have a student ticket, but i think you can upgrade it to adult at the gate or maybe beforehand? If you want it, make me an offer. I'm open to trades, cactus in particular but books, lumps of coal, or whatever. Can be money if that is all you have but i'd strongly prefer to trade. Does not need to equal the value of the ticket or even remotely close just something i'd be happy to have, did i say cactus in particular. You cover the postage to SA. If no one makes a good trade I will ceremonially burn the ticket on the summer solstice. I was really hoping to come because I was at the 2007 one a decade ago when I was a young(er) fella. My entire approach to life has changed in that period and it would have been an interesting test of my altered paradigm. Would also have been nice to meet some SABers! If you want the ticket send me a PM with your offer or dump it in here, whichever you prefer. Micro

First person to post gets a free ticket to EGA.

Hi folks, not long to go now. An EGA ticket for a trade!

needs to take a foundational course in philosophy, along with Jim Carey. largely (epistemologically), it makes no sense.

Edit: actually, not in the mood! Replaced with random cactus photo instead!

Thanks ob. I do not use fb. Not in a hurry and not a big deal to me if i get a trade, just would be good if the ticket went to someone who will enjoy EGA.

yes still available no offers so far at all.

it's really impossible to tell unless you know for sure, in which case you don't need to tell, because you know for sure. i have x'd psycho0 with pc, and it threw out plants that looked similar to all of these. if you were told that most of them are super ped x psycho0 that's the most you will ever know and this cross could certainly account for all of the variations in those plants pictured. they're still nice tho.

Cheers mate. Haha, it was 2007 & 2009 I went to, the first time unemployed with a girl I can remember and some peeps from SAB and the second time as a newly employer loner when my friend did a workshop on ayahuasca I think. I still can't separate the details clearly. I remember Dennis McKenna and Torsten sifting sand, and one time some one gave me a fruit salad plant. Definitely not 2011, that year I was in Peru spectacularly derailing my shamanic path although i wasn't certain of it at the time, hence the paradigm shift, lol.

so the last outdoor EGA was 2009, not 2007? huh, I gained 2 years. still didn't hardly have a job! edit: so there was an outdoor ega in 2007 and 2009. I feel like i went to them both but i can't clearly remember, and if i only went to one which one, because i remember going to one when i didn't have a job and another when i had only just started my 'career' because i talked to some folks about it, which would be 2007 and 2009! That's bizarre. Never mind me i'm just talking to myself.

tall and fat schickendanzii (sp?). That's a beaut one of the best i've seen and i've seen some whoppers out in the country. Good genetics get a cutting! Although might just be benefiting from leaning on the wall. I know I do.

Cheers rahli, i'm a bit bummed about it but it could set some projects back a fair bit to take the time out. I didn't have priorities in 2007, I didn't hardly have a job, lol. You know we should really catch up anyway bro, i'm in the monsoon tropics as well, I make it to the capital every 4-6 weeks, will send you a PM next time i'm heading in.

^^ sold! you'll make your money back with offsets the way those ebay prices are going. call it 'true variegated shaman's fat dick'. this is not to make light of the legacy of a quality SAB member.

how much for this lol.

hi guys my brother's garden is in big trouble! pretty sure it's waterlogged and toxic soil, so black, no oxygen. what does it mean if a weird clump of shrooms is growing? also see the mildewy spots, pretty much full shade. it's pretty stuffed i reckon and he'll have to dig it all up. any thoughts? what would you do?

i'm patenting a hyrbid fruit+pad opuntia ficus-indica combo, it's the next superfood. the other point i was making, is saguaro fruits have to be at the top of the list, delicious!

Phytophthora is an interesting thought but unlikely in these circumstances. Apparently the canopy of palms is bangin' so I think excess shade and moisture + wrong plants is the answer. Yeah it's a dead dracaena, thanks heaps for the offer saylor but i think he'll go for a species more tolerant of wet soil. Those Zamioculcus are nice, I reckon he should go for something colourful like a mat of bromeliads, maybe some violas or something.

interesting plant pp. this more or less confirms what I have been thinking for a while, that the plant I have with bright pink flowers (lots of photos on here) that grows to about 6ft is an echinopsis-trichocereus hybrid. the 'angularity' of the ribs and the spines are spot on. nice garden btw.

Thanks Sall and Anodyne much appreciated, great information, also nice ID on the fungus. Good to know that the soil is not as bad as I thought - I must have spent too long looking at red soil! It is pretty much full shade from bricks/house/palm trees so i think shade and improper plant selection is the problem. I think some plants that enjoy that sort of environment might do really well in that case without doing anything with the soil. Thanks very much my bro was quite relieved when someone contradicted my advice that his soil was no good and he had to dig it all up! Any suggestions for nice shade-loving plants?

It's all good TI I wasn't attempting to have a legitimate argument I was mostly being ironic. Your posts did seem to be about AI to me, not about being in a simulation, so I see where the confusion lies now, but the outcome is more or less the same. The notion that we might be in a simulation is a never-ending logical backwater, discovering you were in a simulation would be subject to infinite regression, you couldn't possibly get to the end (simulations in simulations in simulations). In my reading Descartes Evil Demon/Omnipotent God argument is about epistemological doubt - how can you know what you know is real - in the sense that he frames the problem of knowledge in the supposition that an infinitely powerful being might have warped your senses and made you believe what you believe with no hope of absolute verification. So in this allegory the 'cage' is in fact epistemological doubt, i.e. that your entire belief system might be the projection of an evil demon, not entirely unlike the shadows that dance on the walls of Plato's Cave. Ultimately the possibility of being in a simulation is a metaphor that refers back to the problem of knowledge. We may indeed be stuck in a infinite regress problem where there are thoroughgoing justifications for infinite aspects of knowledge but no absolute justification, since you cannot know everything. You might very well call this a simulation (but not a computer simulation as such as this would be only a metaphor). Since the simulation debate can't be solved once-and-for all, personally I prefer to put knowledge on a more positive basis, in its autonomous creative spirit, in what it has caused to be manifest, i.e. the world-shaping power of symbolism and concept-formation which, paradoxically, can become the matter (ideology) for the subjugation or liberation (simulation) of subjects; ultimately we might all be in a cage by necessity because only unprocessed, unformed sensory material could truly be considered 'free'. But we have a mastery over the content of knowledge which is far reaching and profound even if it will always lack ultimate justification, and this leads me to think that ideas of straightforward 'simulation' are off the mark, primarily because of the intersubjectivity of knowledge. The point about AI: Anyone could get caught in a 'cage' (simulation) but the real danger would be if AI grew for themselves the ability to shape knowledge into manifest form and, as you say, "de-crown us as the premier sentience" as we have attempted to do to Nature. But this could still never solve the infinite regress of the possibility of being in simulation!

Are you saying you had plants stolen that were not visible to the general public? Totally sucks!

Interesting thoughts but it doesn't make sense. Descartes epistemological doubt implies that cognition cannot trust its own knowledge. How could humanity therefore prohibit AI from developing knowledge of 'actual reality' which the evil demon analogy suggests is not available to human cognition in the first place. You cannot deny access to 'greater reality' if you have doubts about knowledge of this same greater reality. Both AI and humanity would be caught in the same loop, or worse: by denying AI access to what we believed was 'greater reality' (of which Descartes evil demon says we have no absolute knowledge) we might unwittingly free it to discover reality of which human cognition has not dreamed. Descartes doubt ultimately has no practical applicability and becomes almost meaningless in praxis, since even to state the argument you must have a tendency not to have this doubt in a literal, meaningful sense (i.e. what is the outcome of having such doubt, to live anyway as if the doubt did not exist). Kant's transcendental idealism probably provides a better account of where AI might go, if this technology did form an autonomous ability to develop transcendental, world-shaping concepts, thus: there is a reality in and of itself (sensation) but it is processed into form (appearance) by a priori and categorical concepts of cognition - space, time, causality and so on. If AI did become a transcendental subject with the ability to produce ideal appearances out of raw data it may find ways of determining relationships between subjects and objects that could allow it to take over the world, say, for example, believing it is indeed possible to transform from a semi-trailer into a giant blue robot and then manifesting that ability. So to prevent AI from taking over the world you would need to interrupt it's ability to form concepts, which it was doing, when Facebook shut their robots down just the other day. We are not living in a computer simulation by the way it can't possibly be that simple!

if those plants have been through two growing seasons in the ground, methinks something is wrong with the soil or planting method (or possibly the climate), the roots are not growing well. Halcyon is on to it. Dig em all up, improve the soil, trim the roots (check for bugs) (if they were in pots for a long time you may have planted them in root-bound state - it's ok/necessary to remove 1/3rd to 1/2 of the roots prior to planting in the ground otherwise the roots will continue to grow around in a circle), stick them back in, don't cut them at all. If you are in a wet area do away with the gravel just dig it into the soil for drainage. A yellow plant placed in good soil should become green within the first two seasons, ideally the first season, a plant the size of the bridgessii (back right) should grow a minimum of 6 inches and develop a 'club' shape in its first year in the ground. The two little plants will take forever to grow into decent plants especially since they appear to have damage at the tip, i'd put them back in pots or chuck them in the bin in the nicest way possible.