Bruce Schneier is always right. I think he was wrong once, but it was such a trivial matter that I don't even remember what it was. What he says about computer security is what we should do.

Regarding space junk, I reckon that shit was expensive as hell to get to where it is, and we're gonna need shit just like it where it is soon, so we should be looking at harvesting it for use manufacturing in situ IMHO.

Consciousness is far trickier than folks think, I reckon. It's not one thing. I am aware that I have several consciousnesses and this is not schizophrenia, but the result of lucid dreaming. I know now when I am dreaming that I am conscious of dreaming. Dreams are still difficult to recall, and I don't make any special effort to do so, but I remember being irked just last night at the ridiculous scenario I was crafting (all my consciousnesses are me) for me to suffer dreaming.

I have experienced three separate consciousnesses during my dreams, all separate, and all me. The first is the dreamer, or the script writer. The second is the clueless noob being subjected to the usually bizarre reality of the dream, and the third is me, watching from the cheap seats and shouting advice to the actor, like 'Don't get out of the car!' or 'Always triple tap when they're down!'. Shit like that. I suspect I am particularly mean to me when writing dreams, and the resulting existential terror caused me to invoke my conscious me consciousness me (sigh, this gets very difficult to wrap my head around verbally) so that I could add my strength to wrassling the scripwriter to craft scenarios that weren't terminally terror inducing. When my kids were young, I, being merciless, crafted dreams in which my kids were perennially killed horribly, falling off cliffs, out of airplanes, and what not. Being damned intent on them not falling off cliffs and what not, when the script called for my kid's hand to slip out of mine, or the rocks to crumble, or whatever, I, the strong arm help, would STOP. REWIND. REWRITE. and catch my kids hand, or whatever was necessary for them to not perish in front of my eyes.

I think that's how I started becoming aware of the multiple me's being me. Additionally, because of my grasp of this consciousness being effected, reckon there are other me's too, like the me invoked for various tasks I undertake. I note the automotive mechanic me has a terrible memory, and the biologist me has a great memory, for example. Thuja plicata. Upupa epops. Ajaia ajaja. I have no particular reason to remember these latin names, other than liking the way they roll off the tongue. The thingamajigs comprising a doodad in the framistan, however, I find very difficult to remember, perhaps because I am naming and learning of them while invariably upside down in a puddle of molten ice bearing various particulates in solution that inevitably include decomposed corpses and poop, engine drippings, and my own blood oozing from some particularly pain sensitive appendage.

Not sure at all about how consciousness is effected by the brain, but am aware that it's derived from a myriad of circuits, or networks, that each contribute concepts bubbling into consciousness from which an ego is assembled, if that makes any sense to you. It is via the ongoing assembly mechanism that we choose who to be, by choosing beliefs and attitudes, and being aware of this enables me to change my mind more easily rather than being bound by cognitive dissonance. In fact I think cognitive dissonance is caused by lack of awareness that who we are is voluntary, and folks feel bound to be who they have been and are, which makes them resistant to changing their minds.

Anyway, enough speculative, anecdotal drivel from me. I probably dreamed it all up, anyway.

Thanks!