The Epistream

Knowledge is Power.

That being the case, please view this blog as a 9 volt brain-battery.

Go on, touch your tongue to terminals.

Feels good?

Yeah it does.

Want more?

Sure you do.

Consider it fact fuel. A little cleverness-coal with which to stock your synapse. Let's keep those little embers going 'til home time, shall we?

Well, first things first. Epistream. Not a real word. It's the result of the rough splicing of episteme and stream.

Stream, in this case, is taken to mean the continuous flow of data or information, which typically has a constant, or at least predictable, rate. In terms of the digital transmission of material, the parts which arrive first may be viewed immediately, while you're awaiting the rest. Much is the same here. You can enjoy today's info, safe in the knowledge (or anxious in the assumption, depending whether you're a glass half full or half empty person) that there is more flowing along behind.

Epi- was taken from Episteme. Coming from the Greek verb ἐπίσταμαι, "to know," episteme can be understood to mean a single unit of knowledge. Imagining our brain to be a ball-pool, each ball in the pool would represent one of these units of knowledge. If someone were to pull the plug on this ball-pool the resulting flow could be called an Epistream. Then, if they were to pass out each one, in no particular order and without proper citation, it'd look a lot like this blog.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope knowledge. The concept was introduced into English by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864). Michel Foucault (1926-1984) used the term épistémè in his work The Order of Things (1966) to mean the historical a priori. That is, knowledge that's independent of personal experience or based on theoretics.

It is not to be confused with an Epistrema. This is a genus of the moth family Noctuidae, or Owlet moth, which includes more than 35,000 known species.

Other moth facts:

In the first 56 days of their life, the larva of the Polyphemus moth eats 86,000 times it's birthweight.

The Hawk moth (Sphinx) is the worlds fastest flying insect attaining a speed of over 50 kph.

Moths are NOT attracted to lightbulbs. They're disorientated by them. Apart from the odd forest fire, earthly light sources have been in existence for a very short time in comparison to the moth and moths are therefore used to using only the moon and the sun as light sources to guide them. Because the moon and sun are very far away, the incoming light rays that strike the insect arrive virtually parallel to each other. Moths have therefore evolved to expect to receive light at a fixed part of the eye and as long as they fly in a pretty straight line, this visual pattern stays the same. When the light source is a nearby bulb, the rays of light are coming from all angles. The moth tries to follow a straight line but ends up spiralling towards it.