January 03, 2005

• Kris Kristofferson would have done it for me. But as an audio tech of some years experience, who has experimented a lot with subliminals when I worked in studios, I can tell you that they mostly don't work. IMHO. The hearing range of different individuals is too different for any predictable results. Same sort of thing went on back in the 50s-60s when the CIA were experimenting with mind control drugs. Turns out they were largely responsible for the spread of LSD use! Nothing ever came of their experiments, but John Marks (I think) wrote a rather interesting book about project ARTICHOKE called 'search for the real manchurian candidate' which is quite an eye-opener, believe you-me. The biggest surprise is how fucking incompetent these spooks are.
• The CIA was responsible for developing LSD? Really? Tell me more!
• The CIA was responsible for developing LSD? Maybe start here, then keep clicking.
• There's a bunch of real, um, you know, research by people who didn't buy their lab coats at the halloween store that all shows that "subliminal" messages are a folk legand and simply don't work. Sure, some real scientists thought they *did* work back in the 50s or something; but psychologists know better now. It doesn't work. It's bullshit. Infrasound does have a real effect, but it's emotional. You'd not get infrasound on a boom box, anyway.
• When they really want to break them, they force them to listen to Creed.
• Nothing would surprise me. Subliminal advertising is still strong and well as depicted in elegent alcohol advertisements. Take a good look at who's lurking in those ice cubes.
• Jon Ronson kicks ass. I highly recommend his book Them, it's a great read.
• Subliminal advertising may not work, but it makes looking at the ads a lot more fun. Kinda like a word search game for poorly rendered ice-cube boobies. It's better if you're drunk. Man...I need a drink...
• dxlifer & TP: Do you have examples of this? All the claimed examples I've seen are about as convincing as Jesus sightings on tortillas.
• Do you remember when they chased Noriega out by playing classic rock at him? It worked! And, what's more, I got rid of a bat infestation in my collapsing Maryland farm house the same way. The bats were living in an interior wall between two bedrooms. I turned a boombox set to the most obnoxious classic rock station I could find at maximum volume, speakers to the wall, and went away for a week. When I got back, the bats were gone, and they never returned. however, lighthearted music=torture stuff aside, this Guantanamo bay shit makes me physically ill
• Hmm. Link not work. . . try this. I'm not fully back from vacation yet.
• Screeches, bangs, compressed gas. All sorts of things. Jumbled noises. . . . Not computer-generated. Industrial. Strange noises. And mixed in with it would be something like an electronic piano. Not as in music, because there was no rhythm to it. Pitchfork's giving it an 8.4.
• Screeches, bangs, compressed gas. All sorts of things. Jumbled noises. . . . Not computer-generated. Industrial. Strange noises. And mixed in with it would be something like an electronic piano. I guess Tom Waits just isn't everyone's cup of tea.
• I think it was Lenny Bruce that commented that if they stuck a funnel in your ass and brought out the molten lead, you would tell them things YOU didn't know you knew. As for the music route, the Barney Song is almost as bad...
• "What are silent sounds?" The sound of one hand clapping(?).
• *Wacks lilnemo with a stick of bamboo*
• keeping with the musical vein, i am reminded of the van hagar video "right now" in which the following line pops up on screen: "right now your government is doing things you thought only other governments did." rocket88: you made me spit coffee. :) mygothlaundry: don't know about bats, but i successfully quieted my downstairs neighbors using full-blast soundgarden. they used to play what i can only desacribe as arabic rap at high volume until the wee hours of the morning... one night i couldn't take it any longer (this was after the cops unsuccessfully tried to shut them up - they couldn't hear the officer knocking at their door!) i won in the end. guess my speakers were bigger than theirs, 'cause they turned it down and i finally got some sleep. to my midwestern ears, arabic rap is pretty weird...
• There's a bunch of real, um, you know, research by people who didn't buy their lab coats at the halloween store that all shows that "subliminal" messages are a folk legand and simply don't work. Maybe that's what they WANT you to think. It's hard to stamp out what they've convinced you is "tinfoil beanie territory". And while we're at it, beaming microwaves at you, whether they carry any intended content or not, is also not good; for an illustration pop some corn. Has anybody seen any "exposes" that the danger of toxic waste is "over-stated"? Invite the (usually government or government-funded) "expert" to prove it by camping on a dirty site for a month. Sorry, but I've been seeing a lot of "it's not so bad" stuff since Reagan's first term. Soon I expect they'll be telling people that inhaling coal dust HELPS the lungs, etc.
• Has somebody been beaming microwaves at you, Big Davey?