re: Connectivity/Synthesizing...

Kevin Kelly:

"Unified knowledge is constructed by the mechanics of duplication, printing, postal networks, libraries, indexing, catalogs, citations, tagging, cross-referencing, bibliographies, keyword search, annotation, peer-review, and hyperlinking...Knowledge is thus a network phenomenon, with each fact a node. We say knowledge increases not only when the number of facts increases, but more so when the number and strength of relationships between facts increases. It is the relatedness that gives knowledge its power."

As a follow up to this post (about the connective nature of knowledge/ideas)

Brass Eye: Cowsick Segment (Video)

YOUTUBE LINK HERE - Brass Eye, Crime Episode

"Kids 'burst shops' by filling them with rice, and pouring in water...then standing back and laughing, while the bricks are ripped apart by the swelling food."

...And last year, the mayor gave them a gold mine. "It actually worked for a bit, this, until someone clogged it up with sick."

Brass Eye is a British spoof/satirical news program created by/featuring Chris Morris. Wiki here

a pretty gg prespective

[friend Ryan's screenname]: it's gg just to be sentient

"The Treatment"

Historians Caro and Dallek consider Lyndon Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader in history. He was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every Senator stood, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to win him over... Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment",described by two journalists:

The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the LBJ Ranch swimming pool, in one of LBJ's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself — wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.

Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.

from LBJ's Wiki

The Treatment in action (click for a better view):

IMG from here