The 23 Apples of Eris » Tools

LikeGASM: Printable Facebook “Like” Stickers

Professor Cramulus — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:50:10 +0000

(x-post from cramul.us)

These labels transform nearly any physical object into your very own facebook wall! People are DYING to know what you like or don’t like. These stickers will help you broadcast your opinion all over the freaking place.

This page is designed to be printed on Avery 5160 address label paper. If you don’t have any label paper, you could just cut them out and tape them places.

This idea is called LIKEGASM, and it is a part of project POSTERGASM. We like to make weird, funny, surreal modifications to day to day life, slowly transforming the world into the place we want to live.

If you take any pictures of these stickers in action, please upload them to flickr.com and tag them “LikeGASM“.

Printable Facebook “Like” Stickers

3177 Calendar Rough Drafts

the other anonymous — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:36:25 +0000

Five themes:

1. Work-Safety First
2. High Weirdness by Male (title courtesy of Ratatosk)
3. Fortean Phenomena
4. Broken Images
5. Fnord

And about the holidays.

Let me know what you think.

Updated: Second drafts, now with red Gregorian weekends.

Updated: Third drafts, now with differently red Gregorian weekends, and more holidays. The About page has also been updated.

Calendar Themes

the other anonymous — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:06:02 +0000

I’m starting work on the 3177 calendar early so I have time to make sure it isn’t super tiny. (Sorry about 3176.)

This year, I thought I’d ask for theme ideas from the community, rather than just winging it and ending up with “Girls of Discordia.” (How unimaginative!) In the absence of any good ideas, I’ll go with nude male models. (Fair is fair.)

Also, Holy Day requests are welcome, but not guaranteed since I’ve already found a lot of them just laying around. (Also: sorry about several misplaced holy days in 3176. Let’s just forget this year ever happened… is happening. Can we forget something that has not yet happened?)

One Line Meme Bomb Database

Professor Cramulus — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:00:55 +0000

The One Line Meme Bomb is like memetics in haiku form. One tries to refine down an idea until it’s as dense and provocative as possible. They often end up somewhere in between an adage and a non sequitur. A good one line meme bomb provokes a change, charge, or ripple in the person who thinks about it. Perhaps it’s the straw that makes the camel say “I’ve had enough!”, quit his job, and become a butterfly on fire. Or perhaps it’s something you scrawl on bathroom walls with a sharpie. Or shout it from a moving car. Or get it tattooed to your balls.

The One Line Meme Bomb database was coded by Triple Zero, a dashing Discordian hypersultan from the Netherlands. It aggregates input from Spags Like You, ranking them by popularity. This exercise was developed at The Pee Dee Forums, where there are well over 200 pages of these things, with discussion.

If you’re curious, a few people have talked about their goals for one line meme bombs, here. There’s also a few poorly organized “best of” lists here.

Rules for Life

Cain Aerte — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:40:42 +0000

Being Able To Look It Up Isn’t A Substitute For Thinking

Data you don’t know about and haven’t internalised can’t really be used for thinking, only for reference. The internet only makes you capable of finding things out, not what is worth knowing. Once you know something, you can use it, form connections with other pieces of knowledge you have. Therefore you should try and learn as much as possible, and not rely on being able to find information when you need it.

Attempts To Impose Order Increase Disorder

The Aneristic Delusion. Micro-managing or coercing people just causes them to rebel against you in covert and harder to detect ways, which then require more resources to deal with than whatever the original problem was. Enough said.

Knowing And Explaining Are Synonymous

If you can’t explain something, you don’t understand it, and if you don’t understand it, then you don’t know it.

Anything That Can Aid You Can Also Harm You

Every extra thing you rely on in your life to achieve your goals can be turned against you, or used in a way it was not originally intended. The more things you rely on, the more open to attack you become.

Rewards and Punishment

When studying any system, law, group or process, ask yourself what behaviour is rewarded and what behaviour is punished. Once you know how that system incentivizes people, you not only know how it works, but also how to manipulate or disrupt it, if you want. Also consider this if you are ever in the position where you have to create a system or law or anything similar.

Arguing Rarely Persuades People

More often than not, if you argue with someone, they will become more set in their ways and more stubborn, less open to criticism. If you have to convince someone, use examples, not words.

Human Nature Doesn’t Change

Any argument which implies this should be immediately dismissed. Conversely, what constitutes human nature is often wider than what many people suppose. Remember to take into account various other cultures and groups throughout history, to fully understand what is meant by this term.

Black Swans Are Rare

Real discontinuities in history or day to day life do not often occur. The ipod is a better cd player is a better walkman. The “communication revolution” of the 90s just speeded up processes that had been going on for decades, if not centuries. Things usually change by degrees and slow accumulation over time. When someone declares a change as revolutionary or life-changing, it is normally a sales pitch or attempt to obscure the past, or both.

There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Everything has a cost, in time, effort, money or some other fashion. If something is free, then a scam is in effect, probably with you as the mark.

Smartness Just Means You Have Better Excuses

If you twist logic into loops to “prove” your point, then you are wrong. Smart people can make you believe anything, given enough data to manipulate. This is the Law of Fives in effect in the real world, smart people are very, very good at seeing what they want to see, and sometimes at making others see the same thing. People like this are not to be trusted.

Hard And Complicated Are Not The Same

Climbing a canyon is hard work. But it is simple. You just walk until you are out. Conversely, building Lego models is easy, since all you are doing is clipping certain blocks together, but complicated. Especially some of the larger sets. Whenever someone tells you something is complicated, check to see if they mean it is hard or not. The same if they tell you something is easy. For instance, solving public debt is not complicated, but it can be hard as hell, since you either have to raise taxes, or lower spending.

Always Attack The Base Of Something

When dealing with people, attempt to either strike at the root of their power or their root motivation for conflict. Rendering them either powerless or without a reason to fight saves time and is a lot easier than fighting through attrition.

Accept What Is Obvious

People are not rational. Invading foreign countries will cause death of innocent people, resentment and hatred. The stock market has nothing to do with how most people live their lives. People who die for their beliefs are not cowards. You cannot declare an entire race or religion has certain innate characteristics. There is no such thing as perfect security. Popular does not equal good. Oil will eventually run out. If you cannot even accept the obvious, then when you try to understand what is complicated, you will fail.

Bureaucracy Is The Same Wherever You Go

One of the more strange beliefs of the modern era is that while a government bureaucracy will automatically fail and inflate costs when it attempts to do something, a corporate bureaucracy will somehow succeed, despite both having the same hierarchical model. Because both corporations and governments are structures designed to accumulate and direct power, they devote massive resources to centralization and control of access, which, because of the Aneristic Delusion, quickly becomes an unmanageable mess. Both only survive through increased taxation of the general public, which can offset the increasing costs of controlling and managing data, access and use of power (directly in the case of government, through “contracts” in the case of corporations).

Ideas Are Tools

No theory accounts for everything. Fit the tool for the job in front of you. Want to understand state versus state conflict? Read up on Realism. By contrast, if you want to understand civil wars, sociology and constructivism might fit better. Marxism is great for understanding how means of production and class interact, but not so hot on root causes of terrorism. Decontructionism in literary theory is cool, though not so good when it comes to hard sciences. Memetics is great for the viral spread of ideas, crap at understanding the current financial crisis. Anyone who is merely a Feminist or a Jungian Psychoanalyst or a Post-Modernist is an idiot, a one trick pony.

Never Trust A Liar

Lying here is not the same as making a mistake. If someone goes out of their way to mislead you in order to get you to do something, then you should never trust them again when they try and convince you about anything.

Read The Shortest Book

Getting to grips with a new area of inquiry? By all means avoid the classic texts, the materials which the discipline is based on. Instead, read the shortest thing you can find on it. So if you want to understand Nietzsche, read Iconoclasm For Dummies instead of The Will To Power. For Existentialism, read A Very Short Introduction To Existentialism, not Being and Nothingness. Any good short text has to cut out all the extraneous information and deal with the core of the subject. It also acts as a building block so you can later understand the bigger and more complex works. If you have to revise your thinking on the subject later, well, at least you have something to start with.

Putting A Gun To Their Head Wont Get You The Truth

Communication is only possible between equals. Threatening, coercing or otherwise attempting to force someone to give up information will not work for precisely this reason. The only way someone higher up in the hierarchy (social, organizational or otherwise) can get the truth out of someone from lower down is by treating them as an equal and not shooting the messenger.

This Crisis Is Bullshit

Most crisis’ are manufactured problems which will sort themselves out with minor adjustments and clear thinking. Whenever someone tries to sell you that there is a crisis, they want you reacting instead of thinking. And usually they want to get you into a panic so they can then sell you their own cure to the problem. Sometimes of course, the crisis is real, but not that often.

Hot Avatar Equals Ugly Girl

Also known as the TGRR Rule. On the internet, any female with an attractive avatar will likely be compensating, unless it is a picture of herself. The latter is very rare though, for obvious reasons.

Never Play Games Of Chance Against Someone Called “Doc”

Or mathematicians. They’ll take the shirt off your back if you let them.

(Also posted at Alamut)

Thee Holy Name Generator, v2.0

Professor Mu-Chao — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:32:02 +0000

The 23 Apples of Eris present Thee Holy Name Generator, a javascript-based random name generator that may or may not come up with your newly Ordained Holy Name. It will be updated with new terms sporadically. Since it is written in javascript, if you save the page to your computer it should still work.

Find Your Holy Name

The Discordian Code

Professor Mu-Chao — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:49:50 +0000

23ae.com is the home of The Discordian Code, originally written by Mark D. Carabas. Similar to Geek Code, it is different only because everyone knows Discordians are not geeks but instead very popular, beautiful people.

So far, these are the versions of the code that are available. For any changes or suggestions, you can try to email the Mark D., but he seems to have fallen off the face of the internet. Suggestions sent to Happy Fun Ball or Professor Mu-Chao will be added (eventually).

Version 1.3 (Current)
Version 1.2
Version 1.1

Thee Discordian Alphabeta

Professor Mu-Chao — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:55:25 +0000

or A Very Secret Apple Code

English : A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y etc…
Discord: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y etc…

English : 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 etc…
Discord: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 etc…

Please decode the following message to find out more about the Discordian Alphabeta:

Dear 23AE Members and Lesser Discordians,

DISCO967034975934875439875. We have vastly improved upon the cypher Mad Malik sent to Mal2 that was revealed in the fourth version of The Principia Discordia. As you can see, this code is very easy to remember and has the extra added bonus of having characters that are already on keyboards everywhere.

The only time this code should not be followed is in cases where the Discordian who is using it does not speak a language that uses the alphabet displayed above. In such cases, carefully make a chart resembling the ones above by writing out the chosen alphabet and duplicating it directly below.

I’m sure that on first glance, this does not look like a very secure code but after using it for many years, we here at the 23 Apples of Eris are very happy with it. So happy, in fact, that we guarantee that if you read this treatise carefully and adhere to it at all times, no cabbage will ever be able to break the cypher.

It is well known that cabbages cannot see what is directly in front of their heads. They live in a half-dream state all the time. Sure, they may be able to READ what you have written, but UNDERSTAND? As if!

Since we obviously have nothing to worry about as far as cabbages are concerned, why bother to use any code at all? The answer to this question is, of course, THEY.

THEY are much swifter than your ordinary, every-day cabbage and so may be able to both read and understand your messages if you do not take the proper precautions. Since this code somewhat resembles the language it is being translated from, you must add additional elements to the message in order to mask your meaning to THEY effectively.

Element #2: Misdirection

Misdirection can take several forms. We have found that the most successful misdirection is making THEY think that there is a different code embedded in the text so that THEY, like cabbages, ignore what is right in front of their heads.

Element 2 – Apple: Begin every message with a code-like word such as ALPHA or BRAVO or DISCO and misnumber everything.
Element 2 – Bongs: Follow this code with a string of numbers such as “3247237203902397023947234″, “967034975934875439875″, or “46″.
Element 2 – Chaos: Throughout the text, insert exclamations such as “REFER TO CDL”, “FNORD!”, “USE CRAG NEXT PARAGRAPH”, and “JOE”.
Element 2 – Drano: Say straight out in the letter that it is in code, such as “USE CYPHER 5″ or “WARNING: THIS IS IN CODE”.
Element 2 – Eriss: Prominently feature a literary equivalent to the Turkey Curse on every page as a warning to non-authorized readers.

Element #5: Slang

Be elaborate in your use of slang and terms that only another Discordian could ever understand. Remember, THEY have read the Principia Discordia and the Illuminatus Trilogy, so you must be creative. Pythonese is a good example of slang that just about any Discordian will pick up on, but THEY will be unable to decode.

Example: “I didn’t expect some sort of Spanish Inquisition!” is code for “Could you start again, I’m lost” and “There’s a dead bishop on the landing” means that you are having rats for dinner.

On second thought, only do this with very close friends. No one else will have a clue what you are talking about.

Element #3: Ranting and Boredom

THEY have a lot to do. THEY are uptight, high-strung, and always in a rush. The best place to communicate something that is extremely important is in the middle of a huge, senseless SubGenius-like rant because after the first few paragraphs, THEY are likely to skim until they come to a word that interests them, especially if you have long, drawn out sentences that go on and on (and on), and use commas, even when they are, unnecessary or, even, incorrectly used.

Therefore, this element works best when you are very careful to mask what you are trying to say as part of the rant, and don’t use any words that might attract attention near the gist of your message.

This method works best when used in conjunction with Element #3, as in the following example (edited for space):

…and lo, did Eris grin cheerfully and exclaim to all that were present how damned happy she was to be there with her golden dress and high-heeled, almost platform, shoes that looked almost a bit like rejects from the disco inferno, but one could never, tell her that, or else they might get sent to the Region of Thud wherein there is not much rejoicing at all due to the not quite massive amounts of fire and brimstone that is sometimes usually hurled, upon those who enter there without the correct password for it is true that the bouncers in the region of Thud pick up on the criminals quickly and furiously, for it is them who are themselves sometimes criminals and I even knew one once whose name was dikkens with two k’s, just like the well-known Dutch author who once wrote the sale of Two titties on a late night drinking coffee with horrible, horrible, things such as the bug Yog-Shoguns and nasty, smelly other animals that do not usually stay in zoos because there are no pentagrams to hold them, in, which is really quite a shame, but I guess that’s just the way the cookie monster crumbles.

Element #5: Paranoia

The most powerful piece of coding Discordians have in their arsenal is their deep-rooted paranoia. Due to this, we will never actually set down in plain language anything that is important, out of fear of it falling into the wrong hands.

Therefore, this system is useless. Please Discard.

The E-Jing-A-Ling Thing

Professor Mu-Chao — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:42:51 +0000

The I-Ching is an ancient Chinese system that is not unlike the western Tarot. Sticks or coins are thrown and they Mean Something.

For the E-Jing-A-Ling Thing, we took the I-Ching and created Discordian answers that had some similarity to the Chinese meanings (albeit, in some cases it is a stretch, but the Goddess TOLD us to do it).

There are 4 sections that should be studied and meditated upon for each throwing. The hexagram itself, the name of the hexagram, the quote or image that applies to that name, and our explanation of the hexagram’s meaning. Each one of these is just as important to understanding the hexagram as the other is, so don’t ignore the first three by any means.

We thought about creating a system that uses Pentagrams instead of Hexagrams (for obvious reasons), but figured we would duplicate and feed off of the old chinese sage’s wisdom first. When we feel up to it, we may create another E-Jing-A-Ling that relies on Pentagrams.

Think of a question and

Throw the E-Jing

Or view the

Complete E-Jing Chart

Or Download the Discordian Oracle AppleKation, which appears to have disappeared from the internet now that the creator’s website, Neuroatomic.com, is history. This is an exe file that allows you to throw an E-Jing-A-Ling-Thing (and get Discordian Cabalistic numbers for words) from the comfort of your own computer. Since I had nothing to do with the program, don’t come looking at me for support – it either works or it doesn’t.