pred.txt The selected rants of Michael <predator> Carlton Cover design by Stacy Scheff "Note: I consider my "grabs" to be GPL Copyleft. Available for nonprofit distribution, I retain ownership, not to be copyrighted, and not to be used by for-profit corporate entities." -From "mol" by <predator> First printed in Sydney, Australia November 2004 Breakout Design + Print P.O. Box 386, Broadway, NSW 2007 This printing was a limited run of 150. Any additional copies will be retained by cat@lyst: [email protected] The .pdf of this book will be linked from http://tinyurl.com/2tzxq Table of Contents Introduction - Stacy 2 Introduction - GDM 3 Predatory, a quote 4 I luv a sunburnt country 5 The approach text on drain exploration 6 The Information Paradigm 74 Thoughts on the information-systemic nature of reality 195 Why nature's large complex pesticides are less likely to engender resistance in target organisms than the simple ones we humans manufacture 240 Thoughts on molecular genetics 255 The blogs 292 Introduction to the blogs - Joss................293 consent.txt...................................294 gutful.txt....................................297 gutting.txt...................................308 gutted.txt....................................317 hunting.txt...................................326 bill_me.txt...................................348 getting_it.txt................................359 losing_it.txt.................................373 ides.txt......................................397 march.txt.....................................426 foolish.txt...................................463 fools.txt.....................................464 mayday.txt....................................505 Epilogue 526 1 Introduction - Stacy I started this project because Andy Nicholson offered to print out pred's blogs for himself and some friends because it was hard reading so much text on the screen. I thought it would be nice to have them printed and bound in a book instead. GDM generously offered to typeset the blogs, and Joss to proof-read. My thanks to them. I wanted to include some of his other writings, especially "paradigm.txt" because it was previously only a hidden file on his home directory, and I knew that he'd been working very hard on it. It was meant to be his PhD thesis, but his proposal to UNSW was knocked back, so he decided to work on it by himself. I find that kind of dedication remarkable. I thought I could fit everything into this book, but then I saw how much there was - it would be the encyclopedia predatorica! So I selected the ones that I thought were the essential pred experience. I know that he did not finish some of them, and probably would have made many changes if he had the chance, but he didn't, and all we have left is what's there, so that's what you get, typos and all. But as he says on his webpage (cat.org.au/~predator), "No, I don't care what you think!" I sent out an email to see if others were interested. It had the subject line "Pred in book form" because that's what I consider this book to be. As he said in "paradigm.txt", our personalities are combinations of variables, and bits of us are everywhere. I have tried to gather as many of those bits as possible into this vessel. But when I compare it to the real thing, it seems more like a sieve. Each of us that knew pred has a bit of him that is unique to our memory. My hope and dream for this book is that we can keep those bits alive between us for a little while longer. For this reason, I have set up an email list for discussing pred and his writings. You can subscribe here: http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/m/listinfo/pred-discuss You can also read and contribute comments at his memorial site on Sydney Indymedia: http://tinyurl.com/2tzxq Stacy Scheff, aka the Cookie Manufacturer 2 October 2004 i only met predator a few times, and i corresponded with him as well over email - on some of the cat lists, and between ourselves... we had discussions about surfactant: a substance naturally produced within the lungs by type II pneumocytes, a type of alveolar cell. i was pretty amazed, because i hadn't met too many other people who were fully conversant in subjects i was interested in - medicine and politics and open technologies such as free software: you don't get that combination too often. and here was someone who knew so much... and even more, wanted to share that knowledge, debate it and expand it further. well, it perhaps wasn't all to be, but there's a hell of a lot in the blogs. a lot of stories, a lot of lessons, a lot of life. i recognised this the first time they were shown to me - and i sat down and read through them continuously. fortunately, i read pretty fast, so i was able to get through them all online - but boy! did my eyes hurt... so when the idea was first mooted of turning the blogs into a book, i was really enthusiastic. to actually be able to read it all thoroughly, take notes, use the ideas, learn from pred's knowledge - - and for this to be available to _anybody_ - now, there was an idea! what was even better, too, was the fact that there were all the other articles: a whole archive of writing that had been done over a period of several years, all locked up in his home directory on the catalyst server. well, here they are. the complete printed blogs, some additional essays and pictures, an epilogue and some introductions. may you get from them as much as i have, and may you be stimulated on your quest for knowledge as much as was intended. --GarconDuMonde 3 Predatory (A quote found on pred's home directory) "The search for truth is predatory. It is a literal hunt, a conquest. There is that exemplary instant in Book IV of The Republic, when Socrates and his companions in discourse corner an abstract truth. They halloo, like hunters who have unearthed and run down their quarry.... [even if enjoined from the scientific quest,] somewhere at some moment, a man alone, a group of men addicted to the drug of absolute thought, will be seeking to create organic tissue, to determine the nature of heredity, to produce the cloud- chamber full of quarks. Not for renown, not for the benefit of the human species, not in the name of social justice or profit, but because of a drive stronger than love, stronger than even hatred, which is to be interested in something. For its own enigmatic sake. Because it is there." - George Steiner, 1978 "From Creation to Chaos" (B. Dixon, Ed) Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1989 4 I luv a sunburnt country I luv a sunburnt country, a land of screaming planes Which fly above it daily ‘cos the planners have no brains. I luv her choked horizons, the toxins in the sea I luv this little country It’s a slice of anarchy!! I love her flattened forests, (sheets of which are in your hands) I love her strip mined mountains, which we’ve sent to other lands. I love the Queensland coastline, concrete interspersed with gaps... but now it’s not our problem! Cos we’ve sold it to the Japs. The deroes in the gutters and the litter in the street, The addicts and the homeless kids with cut-up, dirty feet would be a tad more bearable if Messrs Hawke and Keating would act upon the messages the people keep repeating. The hatred, muggings, violence, dereliction and disease, pollution, prostitution, and our huge debt overseas are things that make us legends... they make our country great! But we hide behind a Fosters thinking “Sure... No Worries, Mate! So where will this land end up – like the beaches caked in shit? The natives ran it better ‘ till we kicked them out of it. WE, readers, are the leaders of the future! Do not sob; Commit yourselves to trying hard – and do a better job. Michael Carlton 5 APPROACH.TXT The approach text on drain exploration http://conway.cat.org.au/~predator/approach.htm 6 _________________________________________________________________________ __ FILE : APPROACH.TXT __ _ AKA : APPROACH.DOC, DRAINING.FAQ _ _ BY : of Sydney Cave Clan [email protected] _ _ DESCRIPTION : A sprawling manifesto on the art of Drain Exploring. _ _RELATED SPORT : Reservoir Diving, Train & Elevator Surfing, Vadding. _ _ FORMAT : Extended ASCII, Unix codepage437, fuck MS-word and PDF._ _ ORIGIN : http://cat.org.au/~predator/approach.txt _ _ LAST UPDATED : December 7 1999 _ _ FILE SIZE : 130560 bytes _ _ STATUS : Late 20th Century Edition _ _ Ensanguining the skies How heavily it dies Into the west away. _ _ Past touch and sight and sound, Not further to be found, _ _ How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day. _ _ A.E. Housman _ __ __ _________________________________________________________________________ \/\/hen the Sydney branch of the Cave Clan first started back in 1990_1991 we had little in the way of experience about how to find drains and other things of interest. I personally have now done 147 drains in 6 Australian states, in addition to numerous rail tunnels, bridge rooms, abandoned bunkers and other concealed underground places... this experience led me to compile this .TXT on how to approach the pastime scientifically. The focus of this . txt is drains, but also has information related to other things of interest. It includes a lot of info from its previous versions and contains lots of new data too. ______________________________________________________ _ 1) Why are there drains? _ ______________________________________________________ Drains in general used to be creeks, streams, marshy areas or rivers.