"On his descent to madness, Tesla embodied the archetype of the mad scientist. In fact, in the classic Frankenstein movies, the machine that brings the monster to life is a modified Tesla coil known as a Jacob's ladder." ¹

"The subject of this etching remains something of a mystery, despite the best efforts of scholars and collectors. The present title, Faust in his Study, first appeared in the inventory of the Delft collector Valerius Rover, in 1731, and has been widely used ever since. However, there are no passages in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, which appeared in 1588, that correspond to the scene depicted here. In the 17th century the print was known as The Practicing Alchemist, or at least that was the title in the inventory of Clement de Jonghe's collection. The print, however, does not conform to the traditional representation of alchemists, and the shining disk, with its inscription INRI and the surrounding anagram, has yet to be satisfactorily explained.
Whatever its exact meaning, Rembrandt's etching is a masterful depiction of an elderly scholar in his study. Obviously interrupted at his work, for he still holds his pen in his right hand. He is transfixed by the apparition that appeared before him. This spectral light is quite different from the light that filters in through the window at the read and the scholar's rapt immobility is balanced by the agitation of the mysterious drapery above his head."²

Anyway, this etching caught my attention after an hour of observing at the information desk, the last half spent in conversation with a colleague about popular representations of "THE END OF THE WORLD." It was, of course, the first time I had stopped in the hallway that houses the exhibit that engendered the huge banner on the outside of the library [sidenote]. I was on my way upstairs to pick up books on the topic of "web usability for children," a topic of vital importance for anyone sincerely interested in dispensing with the top-down authoritarian fascist structures that inhabit the cores of our very beings (or for anyone who is giving a presentation on the topic in the upcoming week). What have I learned so far about web usability for children? Limited data suggests that children prefer large fonts.

Hmmm. Where were we? Ah yes, the initials INRI turned up a few days later while perusing the discussion boards over at Rigorous Intuition, my interest in this forum peaked after reading the comments to the article in the most recent update to our fascism web portal. It was the morning after this that disinfo.com posted a link to the conspiracy archive and Terry Melanson's article about the Illuminati. Disinfo.com was back in its odd synchonistic form, providing link after link to articles relevant to my recent thought processes, and which were in fact responsible for most of the themes in today's thoughts, the literary value of which is no doubt lacking, both in terms of the execution of ideas, as well as in the karmic rewards it will bring to the whole of humanity. We can do better. And we shall.

Recommended reading:

The Dialectic of Sex
by Shulamith Firestone (1970)
sample quote:

To question the basic relations between the sexes and between parents and children is to take the psychological pattern of dominance-submission to its very roots.

FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication (Hardcover)
by Neil Gershenfeld (2005)
I haven't read this one, but I did watch this guy give his shpiel on CSPAN at some librarian hosted knowledge sharing type event back when I was living in New Jersey and smoking filterless Lucky Strikes. And it was written up by our old friend George "Fire in the Mind" Johnson. You know, he's the guy who wrote the biography about Murray Gell-man. You know, the book in which my reading of it corresponded with my reading parts of Bill Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse, which includes Gell-man in a list of, I don't know, scientists associated with the Council on Foreign Relations or something. Something to do with JASON, if I recall. Anyway, the Neil Gershenfeld book deals with open source hardware.