Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Daria Black — Thu, 7 Sep 2006 18:47:53 EDT

A few months ago, I came by a news story that talked about a show that claims to have contacted John Lennon in the afterlife and recorded a message from him. Now I may not believe that God exists but I do not discount the possibility that ghosts do, having had my share of unexplainable experiences. However, there was just something a little odd about this show.First off, they charged $9.95 to see it on Pay Per View. Now I don't know about you but I tend to get a little suspicious when I have to pay to witness a supernatural event especially when the universe will gladly provide them to you for free. Second, this was the second act of an ongoing play with the first act having been a dismal failure. In 2003, these people tried to contact Princess Diana but apparently she was out to tea with Elizabeth I because they couldn't get a hold of her. However, they managed to rake in $8 million dollars for the effort.So they get $8 mil for a busy signal, I can only imagine what an actual pick up will bring in.Mr. Lennon answered their call through the voice feed of one the psychics they had onsite, classifying his contact as an EVP. EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon which is the belief that spirits communicate to us through radio and television signals. Think of the movie 'White Noise' with Micheal Keaton or 'Poltergeist I' where Karolann gets sucked into her closet and then later calls for her mother through the television set. Creepy.I, personally, don't believe the idea of EVP to be that far fetched. Even a cursory study of science will bring you in contact with things that exist but cannot be readily perceived by the senses. Gravity and atoms are two such items. The question I'm posing is, was it really the ghost of John Lennon that is speaking from the other side or the result of other, more logical, causes?On one hand, we don't know what happens to us after death. We only have best guesses and suppositions. When I studied Judaism, I was given the link to an interesting paper that talked about different levels of existence. The author of the paper stated that the "higher beings" vibrated at a high frequency and that "lower beings" vibrated at low frequency both of which were outside of our range of perception though both groups could clearly see us. What if it is true and sound and video waves vibrate at just the right frequency to bridge the communication gap between us and them?Then again there are a variety of logical origins for this type of phenomenon. It could be a mathematical anomaly like those caused in fractal music. Mathematical algorithms are used to compose this type of music. The result is often...interesting but one of the more bizarre things about fractal music is that every so often the algorithm will produce a series of sounds similar to a human voice speaking.Clearly, however, this is a result of music colliding with math and not some otherworldly being trying to make contact. Video and sound waves are constantly buzzing around us and mixing with air molecules, dust, bacteria and other unseen things. Who's to say that these things don't crash into each other at the right moment to produce, what sounds like, a voice from the grave.Not to mention that our expectations of an outcome go a long way toward influencing our interpretation of events. They were performing a seance at La Fortuna, one of John Lennon's favorite restaurants, with the expectation that whatever "contact" resulted from their efforts would be from him. This expectation mixed with Pareidolia, which is the condition where vague and random stimuli are mistaken for something recognizable, could very easily bring about a false interpretation.But my personal favorite is a cross between the supernatural and the mundane. What if these people conjured up this experience? It could be a hoax. Very easily. But on the other side of the spectrum, we are fully capable of manifesting the intangible with only our minds. We do it everyday.Everything in existence today began with a thought and through the manipulation of our physical space, came into being. Around the 1850's a gentleman by the name of Edourd Leon-Scott, got the idea to capture and record sound waves and invented the phonautograph. This device later inspired the invention of the phonograph which is the great-grandparent of the cds and dvds on the market today. These physical items are the product of an intangible thing. A thought.So what if the participants of the seance manipulated the energy of the people and objects in the room and produced John Lennon's voice? They would be unaware of doing it, of course, at least at the concious level. Who knows what our unconcious mind is up when we're not looking. Until we have technology sophisticated enough to accurately test this sort of thing, I guess we're stuck with best guesses and whimsical notions.He spoke to them, of which they have a recording that was convincing enough to turn a skeptic on the show into a believer. What he said, however, costed $9.95 to find out of which enough people paid to tell the world what he said. If you haven't heard this story before then bonus for you. John Lennon with all of his wit and glory said, "Peace, the message is peace."While a commendable and altruistic sentiment, you would think that the pop icon would have had something more interesting to say. Then again, echoing the words of Eliot Mintz, spokesperson for the Lennon estate, "A pay per view seance was never his style."

After surviving the trip out of the womb, Daria spent the next three decades trying to remember what she came here for in the first place. Deciding it had something to do with stringing words together in a coherent order, she became a freelance writer and founded Blueheart Writing Community an informative and supportive community for writers of all disciplines and skill levels. For more great articles by Daria, visit her blog found at Lexicon Indigo.

Blogcritics Author: Daria Black

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Can You Hear Me Now?