ZPi Logo "Serving the Paranoid
since 1997"
Lyle Zapato

Aluminum Oxynitride

Lyle Zapato | 2005-10-19.2070 LMT | Aluminum | Technology

(This story appeared on Slashdot apparently and someone emailed me about it so...)

The US Air Force is testing new transparent armor made using aluminum oxynitride (developed by Raytheon and trademarked ALON®).

Transparent aluminum compounds are neither new nor unusual. Corundum (aka aluminum oxide) is the base substance of ruby and sapphire (which differ only in impurities), both of which are currently used for armor coatings in military/police equipment. If you need to see through something and not have bullets or shrapnel destroy it, chances are aluminum is involved. (See here for a ~600Kio PDF with lots of technical details about aluminum compounds used in transparent armor.)

AFDBs will develop a natural coating of aluminum oxide with exposure to air, so paranoids are already protected. (Paranoid seniors: try abrading your beanie and quickly sprinkling it with chromium dust for a stylish ruby coating.)

The testing of ALON® for military purposes is not new either. Here's a press release from 2002 announcing an agreement between Raytheon and Surmet Corp. to develop and market ALON® products commercially for the first time, whereas previously it was "developed as advanced military material and kept as a well guarded secret" (Warning: the terms "synergy" and "commercialization engine" are leveraged, although with the last one they had enough shame to put scare quotes around it.)

Radical Sasquatch

HOWL: BOUNTY!!!

Radical Sasquatch | 2005-10-17.4700 LMT | Sasquatch Issues

Desperate Human perverts in Maine want a picture of Sasquatch or Yeti that will help them squatchnap one of us and they are willing to pay ONE MILLION DOLLARS for it! THAT IS A LOT OF ECHINOID SKELETONS!!! The skeletons are being provided by a shadowy Human company, WHO ISN'T NAMED!!! What sort of company could gather that many sand dollars to barter for a picture? And why must they group us with Loch Ness Monster? WE ARE NOT PLESIOSAUROIDAL!!! Perhaps they are interested in cephalopodivores? I have heard howl from my Grendel cousins that Nessie likes peat ammonites...

BUT I DIGRESS!!!

Fellow Hominoids, and our new Plesiosaur allies, hear my howl! Stay away from Maine when the Cryptozoologists gather prior to the new moon! And to counter their contract on us, I will offer a bounty of 100 PINECONES for each Human camera you can take from the cryptopaparazzi! 200 IF THEIR ARMS ARE STILL ATTACHED TO IT!!! These are the good pinecones too, not those puny little Douglas fir cones, but MIGHTY SUGAR PINECONES!!! Excellent for personal hygiene use! Make great Life Day presents!

2005-10-19 UPDATE!!!

Human cryptofetish site reports the shadowy Human company has withdrawn its bounty claiming concern for the safety of Sasquatch! THIS IS A LIE!!! In reality they are worried about being sued by amature cryptopaparazzi who might end up getting delimbed! The company has turned out to be called WIZARDS OF THE COAST!!! This explains how they gathered all the sand dollars -- TIDALMANCY!!!

Lyle Zapato

GPM #16: The Smurfs

Lyle Zapato | 2005-10-10.8210 LMT | Government Propaganda Mascots | NWO | Belgian Conspiracy

The Belgian Federal Government calls Smurfs "typically Belgian". Do I even need to say more?

I have already lightly covered their role as propaganda mascots for the Belgian Conspiracy on the "Truth about Belgium" page (and I believe a guest blogger mentioned them too). Their Saturday morning antics were designed to promote certain socio-political themes that stem from their Communist leanings, including the loyal following of charismatic leadership (Wikipedia has an article on Smurf Communism, although the Wikikommissars have targeted it for deletion -- read it while you can!)

The centralized authority inherent in the Communist system is useful for the Belgium Conspiracy, who seek to make themselves the virtual seat of the NWO Government, so it's no wonder that they would want to promote it among children, even if in an abstracted form.

Now Smurfy propaganda has taken a disturbing new turn, as reported by Daily Telegraph:

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

...

Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the 25-second film earlier this week, when it was shown on the main evening news. The reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror.

...

The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom-shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The cartoon was produced by the Belgian branch of UNICEF, a United Nations organization. Of course, the people mentioned in the article -- written by David Rennie, who claims to be "in" Brussels -- weren't actually watching televisions but rather were having the shocking images transmitted directly into their brains while they lie deluded in their Belgian Citizen Pods under Euro-Disneyland.

It's no coincidence that this comes near Halloween, as the NWO has been long running a campaign to get kids to "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" (i.e. collect psychotronic-circuitry-laden coins from citizens' home in order to retrieve the brainwave patterns recorded on them for subversive thought analysis). The timing makes the cartoon's message obvious: Kids, gather pennies for us or we'll bomb your favorite cartoon characters back to the stone age. By first indoctrinating kids into the virtual commune of Smurf Village, the Belgian Conspiracy can now use the threat of violently taking the commune away to get them to do the dirty work of its NWO colleagues.

Lyle Zapato

25 Digit Advantage

Lyle Zapato | 2005-10-06.4420 LMT | Polydactylism

Devender Harne, who has 25 working fingers and toes (photos), is the next step in human evolution leading toward the manifestation of the Handlebrot set.

According to the mother of the 10-year-old from Nagpur, India: "I feel that he should make more progress in life that people with twenty fingers are not able to achieve."

Indeed, while the Babylonians recognized the inevitable rise of humans with six digits per limb with their sexagesimal numeral system, they could not have foreseen the beneficial mathematical complications of an extra toe. Devender may be the harbinger of a revolution in fuzzy numeral systems with variable bases.

The perception of extra digits is a common experience of people in altered states of consciousness. This link between the subconscious and dactyl evolution was explored in the documentary Altered States, in which William Hurt used psychotropic drugs and a sensory deprivation tank to force himself to transcend common pentadactylism.

As the Handlebrot archetype spreads through the collective subconsciousness, we should expect to see more instances of lateral polydactylism spurred by gathering morphogenic fields, eventually culminating in true fractal dactyl progress.

Lyle Zapato

Cyberterrorism

Lyle Zapato | 2005-10-03.6240 LMT | Letters | Complaints Department

In response to my response to some hat-related spam, our friends at Star Position dropped us a letter:

One of my people emailed you in error. You've seen fit to put her phone number on it. In case it has not dawned on you, you are actually by doing this in violation of certain Penal Codes for the State of California -> look up 'cyberterrorism' 'cyberstalking' specifically California Penal Code 646.9 'actions which would be designed to put an individual in fear for their safety'

I'm going to look at your site again in 24 hours. You are going to be a good chap and remove any phone numbers from any postings relating to my company, Star Position. And before you blow this off, or do something truly even more stupid than what you have done, I suggest you do a google search for California Penal Code 646.9 and related topics. We are based in California.

Best Regards,

Robert Sexton
Director of Business Development, Star Position US and Star Position UK

Toll Free: [REDACTED!], extension [REDACTED!]
International: [REDACTED!]

Websites:
Star Position US: WWW.[REDACTED!].COM
Star Position UK: WWW.[REDACTED!].CO.UK

Proud member of the Better Business Bureau

Apparently, revealing telephone numbers for businesses, even ones that are routinely spammed to public listserves and fora (see here, here, here, here, and here), constitutes "cyberterrorism" in California, at least in Rob's view.

(Here's the actual text of the 646.9 code. I'll leave it up to the reader to figure how repeating a publicly available business number once constitutes two or more acts of harassement against a specific person with a credible threat to his or her safety. Also note that "terrorism", cyber or otherwise, appears nowhere in the text. But hey, it sounds cool.)

Anyway, to ease any fears, rational or otherwise, that Rob or his people might have for their safety by having their business numbers in one additional place on the Net that I may have unintentionally caused, I have redacted the numbers from this and the previous email. I also redacted the web addresses above, since I'm just that good of a chap.

On a side note, Rob's people seem to have some issues with sending emails in error. Perhaps he will be a good chap and look into fixing that.

UPDATE 2007-09-03: (I just noticed I forgot to link to the post that prompted the above exchange, so I updated the first sentence accordingly.)

My attention was drawn back here thanks to an email from Amy Alkon at the Advice Goddess Blog, who has had a run in with Rob. She was fed up with getting spam from him and his refusal to remove her from his spam lists after repeated requests, so she contacted one of the clients he spams for. That got his attention, and he promptly threatened to sue her for "tortuous interference with a business". Responding to Alkon's complaint on the Better Business Bureau site, he then told some fibs (according to Alkon) and summarized his response as "Ms. Alkon needs to calm down". Funny, coming from a guy who accuses random bloggers of "cyberterrorism".

Lyle Zapato

Seeking A Good Source Of Different Types Of Hats

Lyle Zapato | 2005-10-01.2820 LMT | Letters | Fashion | Crass Commercialism

Yesterday I received another business inquiry regarding hats:

Subject: Seeking a good source of different types of hats.. please read (September 30, 2005)

Hello,

Some of my clients are searching online for a reputable source of different types of hats. My job is to find one place to send them to for specific markets. I'd like to discuss an arrangement with you about this.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience. I will be in today (Friday) from 8:00 AM PST to 5:00 PM PST. You'll need to be at your computer when you call me. Please call when you have a few minutes and I will a) demonstrate how you would benefit from what we do and b) answer any and all questions you have.

Best Regards,

Liz Monteroso
Business Segment Analyst, Star Position

Phone (US): [REDACTED!] extension [REDACTED!]
Outside US: [REDACTED!]

PS: I am not referring to a leads-based system. It is my job to send my clients looking from the search engines to one place at the exact moment they are looking. We have over 17,400,000 people on our network, and growing.

To which I replied:

Hi,

Zapato Productions intradimensional (ZPi) does not sell hats nor direct traffic to people who do, although I can understand your confusion since we come in 5th on a Google search for "hat".

What we do do is offer instructions for people to make a certain type of hat called an Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie (AFDB). This hat, as the name implies, is made of aluminum foil and is able to deflect psychotronic mind control of the sort employed by the New World Order, the NWO's various subsidiaries, marketing firms, lone evil geniuses, and paraterrestrial entities, thus keeping the wearer's thoughts secure. It's like Macrovision for one's head.

Again, we do not sell these hats. In fact, we discourage people from buying them as a matter of mental security. Purchased AFDBs may contain psychotronic circuitry that allows the seller a backdoor into the penetralia of the buyer's mind.

While that ability may seem beneficial to you as an Agent of Marketing, I hope you can understand why this would be undesirable from the point of view of paranoids and others concerned about mental property (MP) rights management. Mental piracy is an increasing concern, as technological advances have made it easier for people such as yourself to steal the mental works of innocent thinkers.

We at ZPi are strongly opposed to this, and would be working towards the introduction of legislation aimed at stopping such practices if it weren't for the government being deeply involved in them. Instead, we offer paranoids technological solutions to take MP protection into their own hands with, among other things, hats.

Regards,
Lyle Zapato
CEO, Zapato Productions intradimensional

(As astute readers will have noticed, the AFDB page has moved down one whole spot on the Google hat search since the previous inquiry in May. Such is the unfortunate realities of the cut-throat hat search game.)

The Business Segment Analysts at Star Position are very busy seeking reputable sources of various things, including Harley-Davidson motorcycles, fencing materials, health and beauty products, information on skateboarding, and gay fetish websites. Who knew there were so many diverse business segments?

According to Star Position's website (the address of which I'll let you figure out), they are a so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company that sells Keywords (Patent Pending). Keywords are what the domain name system would have been like if was designed by unctuous middlemen instead of bearded anarchists -- less URI and more ROI.

A Keyword is a word that one can type into one's browser address bar and be taken directly to the site of whoever licensed that word -- assuming that one first downloaded and installed a "browser upgrade" from some shifty marketing firm. Why wouldn't anyone want to do that? According to their FAK (Facts About Keywords):

Q: How many individuals have upgraded their browsers to accept keywords?

A: Millions. Everyday hundreds of thousands of people upgrade to a keyword browser globally. Keywords are quickly becoming the Internet standard for direct access to web addresses.

What's that you say? You are using one of those old fashioned, non-standard browsers that doesn't let you go directly to www.hotferretlovin.com when you type "ferret" in your address bar? How can you live in such a state of barbarity?

Keywords were created to make it quicker for potential customers to get to your site. Instead of searching on Google or typing all sorts of tedious technogobbledygook like http:// or www or .com, your potential customers only have to type one word.

But what if the word is too long or difficult to spell? Do you really expect customers to spend all their precious time typing or looking up the word in a dictionary? In the time it takes them to do that, your competitors could swoop in and steal your sales! Fortunately, we at ZPi have a solution:

ZPi Keyword Keywords (Patent Pending)!

Keyword Keywords let potential customers go directly to your Keyword, and thus your site, without all that excess typing or spell checking!

Let's say you have licensed the Keyword "unctuous" for direct access to your online snake oil store. Instead of having to type out the whole, oddly spelled word, your potential customers would only have to type the Keyword Keyword "unc". When they hit enter, their browsers -- which have been upgraded with ZPi Keyword Keyword technology (Patent Pending) -- look up "unc" on our Keyword Keyword Server, find that it has been licensed to link to the Keyword "unctuous", then enter that Keyword, thus taking them directly to your site. It's just that simple!

But hurry! There are an even more limited number of Keyword Keywords than Keywords. If you don't license your ZPi Keyword Keyword today, your potential snake oil customers might end up being directed to a mohel or gay fetish website instead!

UPDATE: See follow-up post where I am accused of cyberterrorism by Liz's boss.

Lyle Zapato

Aluminum Foil Defeated The Nazis

Lyle Zapato | 2005-09-30.2020 LMT | Aluminum

ZPi reader Harry H. emailed this interesting historical note found in the Sept. 29th entry of Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac marking the birthday of Enrico Fermi:

[Fermi] almost discovered nuclear fission in 1934, when he was still living in Italy, in a series of experiments with neutrons. And if he had not made the mistake of using tinfoil to wrap his sample of uranium, nuclear energy would probably have been discovered that year, might even have been used by Hitler to win the war.

Let this be a lesson to all of you: wrap everything in foil. The future will thank you.

Lyle Zapato

Gun-Slinging Lord Kelvin Speaks!

Lyle Zapato | 2005-09-26.2470 LMT | Kelviniana

Voices of History 2: Arts, Science & Exploration, a new CD set of rare and historic recordings from the British Library, features the only known recording of Lord Kelvin speaking. Unfortunately, no word on what he has to say. It's available on the 28th.

Also newly available: Edison's Conquest of Mars (IEEE review with background info) -- the first full reprint with original illustrations of the unauthorized, serialized technothriller sequel to H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, written a year later in 1898 by astronomer and science journalist Garrett P. Serviss.

The novel, a classic example of Edisonade (Victorian and Edwardian era science fiction -- see here for more info on the genre), is primarily about Thomas Edison leading a counter-attack against the Red Scourge of Mars, and features cameo appearances from other famous contemporary scientists, including a "disintegrator-gun-slinging Lord Kelvin."

I haven't read it, but I hope while blasting Martians he gets in some good action lines like "You, like radio, have no future!" or "To measure is to know, but to disintegrate is to DIE!"

UPDATE: I have since read it and added a review.

The Typing Octopus

Calamari Sutra

The Typing Octopus | 2005-09-26.1780 LMT | Cephalopods | Nature

Weird Sex: Giant Squid Do It Deeper (WARNING: not safe for hatchlings):

Although mating has never been observed in giant squid, it is thought that what happens is that the male injects his sperm packages into the female's arms. The process is likely to be a fairly violent affair as the female is probably not that keen on being injected. This is a problem for the amorous male as females are normally a third bigger than they are.

But males get round their inferior size by being endowed with a particularly long penis, which means they can inject the female without having to get too close to her chomping beak. The male's sexual organ is actually a bit like a high-pressure fire hose and is normally nearly as long as his body - excluding legs and head.

But having such a big penis does have one drawback: it seems that co-ordinating eight legs, two feeding tentacles and a huge penis, whilst fending off an irate female, is a bit too much to ask, and one of the two males stranded on the Spanish coast had accidentally injected himself with sperm packages in the legs and body. And this does not seem to have been an isolated incident since two of the eight males that had stranded in the north-east Atlantic before had also accidentally inseminated themselves.

Lyle Zapato

The Monorail-Paraterrestrial Connection

Lyle Zapato | 2005-09-26.1140 LMT | Monorail Danger | NWO | Paraterrestrials

Thanks to the last minute pressure from Seattle Mayor and pneumatic-tube-supporter Greg Nickels, Cascadia is safe from NWO monorail incursions for the time being.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Las Vegas are just now starting to understand the true Monorailist agenda:

Klingon and Andorian ride the monorail

Sept. 22, 2005 -- Twelve aliens suddenly materialized from a wall of space fog as they invaded the Las Vegas Monorail today. Klingon Lieutenant Commander Voq'ha announced that the delegation of Klingons, Vulcans, Borgs, Romulans, Ferengi, and Andorians would ride the Las Vegas Monorail each day until the end of the year. As they visit Earth, on an intergalactic reconnaissance mission, they will interact with the tens of thousands of Las Vegas visitors who ride the monorail every day.

...

"From the farthest reaches of the universe we have watched the Las Vegas Monorail operate flawlessly since the Earth month of January,"* proclaimed Lieutenant Commander Voq'ha ... "We consider this invasion a peaceful reconnaissance mission and plan to learn more about the monorail which we have identified as the most technologically advanced public-transit system in the Milky Way galaxy."

(* Note how this conveniently overlooks the less-than-flawless operations prior to January.)

While the paraterrestrials were fake (as far as we know), this stunt clearly shows that Monorailists are conspiring with real paraterrestrial forces to inculcate acceptance of paraterrestrial activities on Earth's public transportation systems. Furthermore, Monorailists want to share our secrets with them:

"It is an unprecedented honor to welcome this prestigious delegation to Earth," said Curtis Myles, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Monorail Co. "We intend to openly share our public-transit technologies with Lieutenant Commander Voq'ha and the other delegates, and we will communicate them as necessary during their three-month mission."

Lest you think such Monorailist-Paraterrestrial conspiring could never happen in Cascadia, consider this: Is it just a coincidence that the current Seattle Monorail was built in proximity to the Space Needle or that it runs through the Science Fiction Museum via a hole next to a large, clawed flying-croissant (near where it burst into flames a year ago)?

monorail and flying-croissant
What really happens to monorail riders as they pass through there?
Do any of them experience "missing time"?

Seattlites: remember to vote NO in November for the new monorail ballot proposal -- that is, unless you want to be assimilated.