Being & Nothingness Cam Possibilities

The Being & Nothingness Cam Team was capturing a still from the B&N Cam this morning for our scrap book and found this. This must be another sortie of Being into Nothingness (or vice versa) and we still haven’t pinpointed the location of the Being Cam! We weren’t ready for anything this sophisticated yet.

The elongated ovals are interesting and evocative images and one B&NCT member asserted that Nothingness has taken on a “different look” due to the possible presence of Being. She’s the youngest team member and no one wanted to embarrass her, but our crankiest member said, dryly, “Being has an impact on nothingness? Gee, ya think?” I was going to take him aside, but then I remembered that he has ongoing personal problems.

What was especially interesting was that it was Dirk, our IT guy, who pointed out that the ovals look a lot like vitamins—maybe calcium, he said, or those horse-pill vitamin C’s. It is painful to contemplate that the first serious B & N interaction involves supplements. Dirk claims that if you look very closely you’ll see that one of the ovals reads, “Not labeled for individual sale,” but I can’t see it.

Evolution Update

There have been some interesting developments in the world outside B&N Cam Land.

Over the last two weeks the prairie dogs that I found in the back yard have shown no sign of evolution or natural selection and I have seen no notable changes in their form or function. I’m disappointed. They have, however, made significant changes to their environment, which is a mixed blessing. It shows that the animals are getting comfortable with their introduced surroundings, but it’s a problem since the surrounding is my home office.

You can see that they’ve expanded their territory beyond the cardboard box, and that someone has brought them hay and a fair amount of dirt. I wish I knew who. Since they are rodents and are burrowing, social mammals I think that my carpet is going to be messed up.

I may have been foolish in my determination to keep them until they change species.

B&N Cam Team Biographies

The B&NC Team has decided to unite and strive for a less godless universe (for now) and tell everyone a bit about themselves.

As a whole they’re a pessimistic and narcissistic group, so to keep each biography to fewer than 16,000 words I’ve decided to have them describe one another. We’re drawing names out of a hat. I thought this would be a good exercise in rational investigation of truth, but they are supposed to keep it upbeat.

I asked if they’d like to have photos of themselves posted, and they agreed unanimously to never come to a consensus on that point. I have to step carefully here, because while each team member asserted that they were joining the project in the hopes of forwarding moral, logical, and epistemological principles for all mankind I think most of them are angling for decent health care plans.

Epistemological. Try saying that three times fast when you’re drunk.

Being and Nothingness Cam Team Meeting

Too excellent! As you can see, the Nothingness Cam is up again and we didn’t even do anything to it. Suddenly there was just…nothing. Everyone keep your fingers crossed.

On the down side, the meeting that we had about the cease and desist order went on forever. We got very badly off track when some B&N Cam Team members found out that I had made the meeting room a no smoking area. Did I mention that we have some Europeans? Imagine their crazed indignation. We batted around the principles of choice longer than I thought was justified, but the Americans had to keep chiming in about who’s rights end where. Somebody mentioned the Supreme Court and that helped break up the tension. We couldn't stop laughing.

But there we were, arguing about free will—again--when we may have legal problems and no one knows a good philosophy attorney (one who will work pro bono, anyway). So no progress on that front.

In response to some of your requests I will ask the B&NC Team if they're okay with me introducing them to you and to what degree they are willing to share the nature of their souls, if, indeed, the soul exists.

B&N Cam Complications

Wow. Just when you thought it was impossible for our society to get more litigious I get a cease and desist from some group called the Sartre Society for violating their proprietary use of the Being and Nothingness Cam. We just got it running 7 days ago and someone’s already threatening legal action. The fact that the Nothingness Cam is borderline working and that we don’t know where the Being Cam is doesn’t deter them.

I don't see how they have a case. They have only a Being Cam because they were going to see how that went before they tried a nothingness cam.

The B&N Cam Team is talking about what we could/must/are able to do now, and, as always, this could be a fairly lengthy meeting. We have decided, despite legal threats, to post the most recent still from the Nothingness Cam. You can see that the quality is poor: it could be a faulty signal, wind gusts, or Being interference. That may be good news. Hard to say.