The most important thing, maybe not to Nasa, but certainly its' astronauts, is the availability of water in space. To solve this problem, Nasa engineers have developed some wonderful methods to retain every ounce of water possible from the surrounding environment. This includes everything from gathering surplus moisture in the air to even extracting it from urine. These new methods of water recycling show some promise for possible house-based water plants.
“A nation which makes great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” - THUCYDIDES, 460 B.C.
"For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.”
"The human being may be no more real than is a cinematograph film. When the projected light is switched off all that remains is a blank screen. That which has been projected by light was a series of 'stills'. Such also is what is being projected by 'life'. The more you consider the analogy the more perfect it seems to be: it could help us to understand."
Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Ray Kurzweil discusses the future of technology by the year 2020. Ray talks about what is currently being developed and the future infusion of technology into biology that society will see. His views of the exponential growth of engineering and evolution are very powerful and clear. Get ready for a wild ride into the 21st century!
I find the strangest things sometimes. Apparently National Geographic did a special a while back on the world's first head transplant. It was performed on a monkey. Doing some research you'll find there have been other such experiments with other animals. Something about this that reminds me of Shakespeare's Hamlet...
Hans Rosling, a professor of international health at Karolinska Institutet, the medical university in Stockholm, Sweden, has found a fascinating way of presenting data. In the following TED video presentation, Hans uses the world's data from 1962 onwards to compare the world's health vs. the world's wealth. Mr Rosling's unique methods of data representation are not only cohesive, but eye-catching as well. Enjoy!
Current electrical power generation plants currently use nuclear energy to create copious amounts of steam that in turn motivate turbines to generate our electricity. Seems kind of ridiculous to use a nuclear reactor to create steam right? Well, thankfully, Liviu Popa-Simil, former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear engineer and founder of private research and development company LAVM and Claudiu Muntele, of Alabama's A&M University, feel that transforming the actual radiation into electricity is a little more practical; not to mention more efficient. Read more from the full article.
"A militant kind of aggressive religiosity, sometimes called "fundamentalism" has grown up in every single one of the major world traditions as a rebellion against this unbalanced world; a rebellion against humiliation... powerlessness. And there's a sense of rage expressed in religious terms. 'Every religion, as i understand them, has a history of intolerance; and every religion has principles for overcoming intolerance.' I want people to hear the compassionate voice of religion, I want to change the conversation and bring compassion to the forefront of people's attention.
... And we need to somehow find a way to implement the Golden Rule globally, so that we treat other nations, other peoples, whomever they may be, as we wish to be treated ourselves. We need a charter for own souls, for our own sake, but also for the sake of our powerlessly divided world; one that has been drawn closer together more than ever before. The world will be invited to make their own contributions, their own comments, tell their own stories about compassion or their lack of it.
... The task of our generation, whether we're a relgious or secular people, is to build a global community where people of all persuasions can live in peace and harmony."
When it comes to creative spark and design, few can deny the awesomeness of the "innovation and design" firm Ideo. In the following TED video, the CEO of Ideo, Tim Brown, presents the strong connection of creativity and play; bringing ideas and experiments back from the psychedelic drug induced sixties all the way through present approaches, all of which lean toward breaking the barriers of our conservative adulthood. The 30 circles experiment works quite well when stuck in the muddle of contorted professionalist demeanor.
The video below is a presentation by Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht, the co-founders of Inventibles. They show off some pretty nifty breakthroughs in science with some clever ideas for application. Worth the 15 minutes.
The French have launched their own version of Google called Quaero. You just type in the subject you’re interested in, and Quaero refuses to look it up for you.
Below is the foward to the book, "Everything Forever" by Gevin Giorbran. This book describes the timelessness of the universe. As Einstein once said, "this distinction of past, present, and future is only an illusion." The book also divulges heavily into zero and the ultimate quandary of nothing versus something. A good read for the curious mind.
"If someone picks up this book and reads only this one page I want them to be left knowing what is to come in the future. In 1998 astrophysicists discovered that the expansion of our universe is accelerating. We all know the universe is accelerating away from the dense and hot conditions of the big bang, but what are we now accelerating towards? Recently physicists are beginning to state openly that time ends in the future with our universe evolving into empty space. Of course empty space is the ultimate zero, the bottom end to all physics. If our universe reaches zero all space will be stretched perfectly flat and no matter will remain. A single unified space will then extend infinitely in all directions. So is this final space the ultimate nothingness? Actually many physicists and mathematicians think of zero as the most ordered state of all possibilities. Zero is balance. Zero is perfect symmetry. But what is this ultimate zero doing in our future? The answer is that zero is timelessness. Absolute zero is the timeless quantum superposition of all the universes that exist. Zero is the great sum of all. An ultimate zero has always existed, and will always exist. Zero is the native state of existence, or what the physicist David Bohm, Einstein’s favorite student, called Implicate order. It sounds odd at first but we are inside zero.
Today in science the second law of thermodynamics suggests our single universe is becoming increasingly disordered with time. Many scientists claim our universe is winding down and dying of disorder. It is certainly true that entropy, the measure of spent energy, is always increasing. However, half of the second law is wrong. Our universe is not becoming increasingly disordered with time. Quite the contrary, we are headed for zero, and zero is a powerful kind of order.
The timeless zero in our future is the internal complexity of everything and the outer simplicity of nothing at the same time. There cannot be the simplicity of the single whole without all the inner complexity of universes that enfold into and create zero. What zero is not, is nonexistence. As Parmenides said, nonexistence cannot be. There is no state more extreme, either less than or more than the perfect zero. Zero is the default setting of reality.
The big mystery of “why is there something rather than nothing?” is answered simply by understanding that nothing still exists. All possible moments of time and all possible universes physically exist simultaneously, because all are merely fragments of a physically real zero. In the same way all colors exist in white light, or just as all positive and negative numbers sum to zero, all the moments of time sum up to construct a greater balanced whole we call zero. Zero is like a whole pie that can be sliced up infinitely many ways, but always remains a single whole. It is a difficult mental switch to adjust to, but everything we know is less than zero, not simply more than nothing. And so our beautiful universe is not dying. The very surprising purely scientific truth, as explained in this book, is that our universe is in the process of merging with the timeless sum of all, with the infinite whole, with everything forever."
The brilliantly hilarious theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman, had a very interesting notion of the universe, which eventually lead to his theory on quantum electrodynamics of which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965. The notion I speak of is best stated in a passage from another wonderful theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku, in his book, "The Physics of the Impossible":
...Feynman revealed the true secret of antimatter: it's just ordinary matter going backward in time. This simple observation immediately explained the puzzle that all particles have antiparticle partners: it's because all particles can travel backward in time, and hence masquerade as antimatter. (This interpretation is still the explanation currently accepted today.) With his thesis advisor, John Wheeler, Feynman then speculated that perhaps the entire universe consisted of just one electron, zigzagging back and and forth in time. Imagine that out of the chaos of the original big bang only a single electron was created. Trillions of years later, this single electron would eventually encounter the cataclysm of Doomsday, where it would make a U-turn and go backward in time, releasing a gamma ray in the process. Then it would go back to the original big bang, and then perform another U-turn. The electron would then make repeated zigzag journeys back and forth, from the big bang to Doomsday. Our universe in the twenty-first century is just a time slice of this electron's journey, in which we see trillions of electron and antielectrons, that is, the visible universe. As strange as this theory may appear, it explains a curious fact from the quantum theory: why all electrons are the same. ...Maybe the reason is that the entire universe consists of thesame electron, just bouncing back and forth in time.
Maybe it's just me, but every road traveled in science tends to lead toward the notion of a singularity.
Beyond the iris captures all All with whom light shares its power Power concentrated in form of flower Flower arranged like atoms of ours Our selves left curious connected in strains Strained to wonder if all will remain The same in repeat or repeated defeat
The answer lay beneath the eyes Within every tear of joyous cries Reflecting eternity in love's return Encapsulating the sea's roar with yearn As the heart beats' strength brought her to me The winds of Autumn carried sensuously A seed of Heaven that rooted Your Humble Our pasts burst forth another path for each other Looking back at the future we outlasted our dreams Our hearts mended minds' past memories And when time returned entranced and paired We spent every moment eternally shared
"The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest precept is continual awareness. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest generosity is non-attachment. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. The greatest patience is humility. The greatest effort is not concerned with results. The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances."
It seems like yesterday that the U.S. government decided to provision its' citizens with a nation-wide tax refund. Literally, the Federal Reserve printed money and gave it to people that had given them money through taxes. This in turn devalued the global U.S. dollar; in other words, the amount of money in your bank account is now worth less so that the nation can receive a check for few hundred bucks. However, not EVERYONE in the U.S. received a check. There were many people whom had owed back-taxes; thus their refund check was returned to the Federal Reserve. Many found their check in an endless route of the U.S. mail system with the constant message of, "it's on the way," drilled in their ear by a "friendly" I.R.S. spokesman.
Then came the "surprise" failure of the Bear Stearns investment bank. Purportedly due to a failed approach to sub-prime mortgage investments. Few have really talked about their partnership with the Citic Securities, a Chinese company, in the fall of 2007 in which they swapped shares.
Shortly thereafter, in March of 2008, the Federal Reserve lent $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns. Just days after this line of credit was approved by the Federal Reserve, JPMorgan Chase bought out Bear Stearns for one-tenth of the firm's market price.
Next comes yet another "surprise." The U.S. government's take-over of the previously government owned, now "sponsored," home loan banks: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The result of this take-over was quite odd. In exchange for $1 billion worth of equity in each of the institutions, the US government has allowed itself to infuse as much as $200 billion of American tax payers money. That's right. You didn't read that wrong. That 30-50% portion of your paycheck that is ripped from your grasp with little effort nor choice is being used to give 2 privately owned banks $100 billion a piece for simply bad business. Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Senator and head of the Senate Banking Committee, raises some very intriguing questions in this NPR interview.
Now the current turmoil of the banking industry has brought more trouble to the American People. Three other private banks are now seeking "help" from the fed for their failed interests in the sub-prime market. The proposed solution by top government officials? A $700 billion bailout to cover the banks losses!? Supposedly to help "recover" the financial markets to prevent a "world-wide depression." I certainly hope the FBI's investigation turns up with some juicy truths of scandalous proportions so that those whom have caused this mess are rightfully jailed instead of given money and a gag-order.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur talks about the bail-out plan and the recent state of the financial markets. In the end, it all seems to be a game that you play once you reach a certain tax bracket.
"A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden."
"Every kind of work can be a pleasure. Even simple household tasks can be an opportunity to exercise and expand our caring, our effectiveness, our responsiveness. As we respond with caring and vision to all work, we develop our capacity to respond fully to all of life. Every action generates positive energy which can be shared with others. These qualities of caring and responsiveness are the greatest gift we can offer."
Today at 10:28 a.m. the world's largest particle accelerator (Large Hadron Colider: LHC) started up for the first time. The LHC fires selected particles directly at one another around a 27 kilometer ring at speeds around 99.99% the speed of light. The collisions will create energy never before seen outside of a telescope, roughly equivalent to the energy used in the Big Bang. These collisions, which occur 600 million times a second, will generate temperatures more than 100,000 times that of our Sun's core!
Several experiments are being undertaken to find out more about what our universe is composed of, how these components interact, and how the interaction brings about matter.
The six experiments at the LHC are all run by international collaborations, bringing together scientists from institutes all over the world. Each experiment is distinct, characterised by its unique particle detector.
The two large experiments, ATLAS and CMS, are based on general-purpose detectors to analyse the myriad of particles produced by the collisions in the accelerator. They are designed to investigate the largest range of physics possible. Having two independently designed detectors is vital for cross-confirmation of any new discoveries made.
Two medium-size experiments, ALICE and LHCb, have specialised detectors for analysing the LHC collisions in relation to specific phenomena.
Two experiments, TOTEM and LHCf, are much smaller in size. They are designed to focus on ‘forward particles’ (protons or heavy ions). These are particles that just brush past each other as the beams collide, rather than meeting head-on
The ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb detectors are installed in four huge underground caverns located around the ring of the LHC. The detectors used by the TOTEM experiment are positioned near the CMS detector, whereas those used by LHCf are near the ATLAS detector.
In the following TED video presentation, Brian Cox describes the experiment he is working on at the LHC: ALICE. ALICE "...will collide lead ions to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang under laboratory conditions." Brian does a wonderful job of describing this experiment and the promise that it has in allowing us to better understand our existence.
The cause of this suffering and stress is desires of physical instincts.
If desire can be removed, then suffering and stress will be ended.
Desire can be removed by following the Eightfold Path: Right Views, Right Thoughts, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.
I recently came across a phenomenal article on a Vedic approach toward attaining business excellence. The article creates some wonderful abstractions to management concepts and connects these with a bigger picture using philosophical ideas. The article divulges into historical events and how these events created the change toward higher quality business through excellence. This is a must read for anyone entering the entrepreneurial realm.
"Man has been searching for excellence since evolution. He has an instinct to remain happy. Happiness can be attained either through self-contentment or through the fulfilment of the desires. While Vedic philosophy stresses on the former, the latter has played a crucial role in the business excellence journey. The goods produced or services rendered can bring happiness only when they meet the desired objective. Man has been in constant pursuit of more and more to satisfy his ever-growing desires. The search for excellence has been going on for thousands of years. ... 'SangathanSukta' presents a perspective of excellence for society, where every member is willing to sacrifice his gains for the well being of others. Thus every member of society gets his lower level needs fulfilled, which leads to building of higher moral values for all. Thus slowly we attain a level of excellence where all remain happy and healthier. The Vedic concepts of growth are based on self-management and self-discipline.
My eyes pry deep disguise none but in sleep So the next time you look in mine be sure to speak For the last moments wake may bring the truth you seek
This is a moment of truth A moment for brute Force in the youth Imagine if joy sold Every toy ever bought Would it really change All that time that you lost Slaving your mind With every day at the job Do your children redeem All those markets you fought All the money you raised Was it won or forgot? Ten years gone by Still standing in place But if you keep on running All you'll see is a chase
The future is gone Withdrawn and replaced It's all up to you Which light will you face When time comes to the door Which path will you choose A fan in the crowd Or leading the race
My eyes pry deep disguise none but in sleep So the next time you look in mine be sure to speak For the last moments wake may bring the truth you seek
The answer is always part of the question. Not to be is not always void, as not to see is not always wasteful! Sounds and rhythms keep all in a prism, for know all and all will feel seasoned. Grow not for disdain, for what remains contained continues.
It is important to recognize the power of our emotions--and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced.
It is interesting reading about the advances and enhancements that have been made to this thing we call life. Only in the past century have we truly begun to understand the functions of our dimensions; and only recently have we been capable of altering and adding to these functions. We've reached a point in science where we are to decide on the ultimate fate of its direction and synergy with technology. We are either to alter our existing biology, or we are to engineer new biological structures. Solutions for these directions are already being researched and developed. The evolution and expansion of nanotechnology has provided for an interface to access these solutions and propel us into a future, like always, we thought would never come.
This past year, Engineers in Japan have created the first nano-CPU at only 10 nanometers in length capable of dynamic receptor-based computation. In other words, computation based on the cellular interaction of engineered neurons. Shortly these CPUs will be networked to create Neuronets equivalent to the human brain, with the exception being that each computerized neuron will contain a mini-CPU of its own capable of processing instructions, and eventually thinking for itself. R&D labs across the world are forming new means of interacting with the atoms of our composition.Chemical brains are capable of controlling nanobots(cellular robots) to perform functions that only living things used to be capable of performing. As stated in the article, "the molecular device - just two billionths of a metre across - was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test."
Reading and writing DNA becomes the next big topic of future technology structures. Studies are being undertaken, in an effort to map the ocean's biodiversity, to accomplish this very task. A brief overview of the project is given in the following video from TED:
These studies involving the decoding of genomes has taken vast leaps in progress. Juan Rodreguez speaks in the following TED video describing the next steps of decoding the future with Genomics. This fascinating video divulges into the depths of genomic research and development projects that are bringing some of these futuristic ideas to fruition.
Well now that we have a solid foundation underway for genomic classification, engineering, and assembly, what would some of the technological applications look like? Well one example would most obviously be within the medical field. Imagine being capable of regenerating limbs much like that of a Gecko. Impossible? Well Alan Russell, Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine speaks in this TED presentation on the work of his research in the regenerative medicine field, and the direction of the applications their findings are bringing about.
The future is best propagated through knowledge and innovation. However, at what point does innovation overcome knowledge, and at what cost is this path hindered? In this phenomenal TED speach, Juan Enriquez describes how all hydrocarbons are really just compressed sunlight, and how we might soon be able to use this fact to not only start growing our own energy, but even using light as a source of food.
All of this information and technology leads us to believe that we are heading toward an age of agelessness, where we forever create worlds and realms that are more than virtual. To some It may appear as if our innovation is destined to outlast the very civilization that built it. I will leave you with one last TED talk by Aubrey Degrey on why we age, and how we can avoid it. In his fast paced speech, Mr. Degrey outlines a possible future for an ageless society.
Ataraxia (Ἀταραξία) is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a limpid state, characterized by freedom from worry or any other preoccupation.
For the Epicureans, ataraxia was synonymous with the only true happiness possible for a person. It signifies the detached and balanced state of mind that shows that a person has transcended the material world and is now harvesting all the comforts of philosophy.
From: Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Translated by R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933., p. 19, ISBN 0-674-99301-2
"Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1 ) What I did was wrong. 2 ) I’m sorry that I hurt you. 3 ) How do I make it better? It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself."
"I gave way to delight, as mystics have for centuries when they peeked through the curtains and discovered that this world- so manifestly real was actually a tiny stage set constructed by the mind. We discover abruptly that everything we accept as reality is just social fabrications."
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
"I think there is so much more in existence besides matter, energy, and time. Nineteenth-century physics had those in an orderly arrangement, but it is too weird to be just that.
If you think about yourself as something going through time, how thick are you? You've got to have a certain finite "thickness" in time, or you wouldn't exist. So you might be a fraction of a second, or a second wide, or five, sliding through time.
It might be that certain parts of you are weeks, months, or years wide. Or maybe some part of you is 'now' all the time--from your birth (or maybe even before birth) to your death. Some part of you is in the future at any moment, and some part of you is in the past, because you couldn't possibly be just in this infinitesimally thin thing we call 'now'--because there wouldn't be room for you in there!"
- Kary Mullis, 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry
First cars that run on water, then temperature sensitive color morphing materials, now fuel-free energy generation using just magnets. A wonderful bunch those Aussies are.
"States have been storing blood samples from newborns since blood screening for genetic defects and diseases began in the 1960s. The samples can help detect and treat a wide range of diseases, but in the age of the genome, the issue of storing samples has taken on unprecedented importance. Blood samples contain DNA that can be unambiguously linked to individuals, which may in the future present tempting data to governments, businesses and health providers."
This is a clip from a recent article on Wired.com. It makes you wonder why a government would pass legislation to archive medical histories of it's citizens. It certainly can't be due to the implementation of a national health care system. We spend so much money killing people that we're too broke to provide medical aid to our communities. I guess that's what they call Karma.
"We imagine that waking-life is real and that dream-life is unreal, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this belief. Chuang Tzu, in the third century B.C., put it in an amusing way; having dreamed that he was a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, he stated that he was now wondering whether he was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man. "
One thing comes into mind when reading this article: if a two year old gets a hold of one of these, they just might stop asking their parents, "...and what's that!?"
Just think of it as a hand-held price scanner, interactive encyclopedia, and once the world's police get their hands on one: portable facial recognition.
I was lost in love Then drowned to swim I've since built a boat Now I'm floating the brim
You can't replace the love lost and retraced Displace misery with happiness in place Laugh outside with an inside grin Breathe in deep with the verse in repeat Then exhale strong for none to defeat For life is a record in a groove and a beat.
Society seeks out the love of each other People seekin' out the love of another Seekin' a time to remember a place Accelerating dreams as we launch into space Exploring the stars and every last trace Life exploding suns and wormholes for fun Connecting light sewn spots on the run Swirling we are, imploding we might Exploading is the wake of what's done so far
I sit in the wake of where I begun I live life through just tracin' the sun I feel in love with the planet I'm on Its heart beats felt strong and spun Strung in feats of strengthening dawn Stretched through nights moonlit and redrawn I wonder why galaxies circle and spawn
Clifford Stoll is a brilliantly eccentric scientist. His enthusiasm and broad range of knowledge enables him to think on levels most have difficulty comprehending. I very much enjoyed this speech, as wild as it is, and hope that you may enjoy it the same. He begins with a note on where to learn the future (experienced Kindergarten teachers), and ends on answering the ever elusive question: Why are we here?
"One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires."
I just recently saw George Carlin's new HBO special: It's Bad For Ya.
It seems age only seems to help Georgie. At 70 he continues to drill the truth into everyone with the use of laughter. There was one piece of this special that was of particular note: his rant on rights. Amongst all the world's chaos, crises, and concerns, the one thing that few seem to notice, or care about, is our very own rights. Carlin goes in depth on the rights of a people, and the people that formulate these rights.
WARNING: I will never censor any content, especially quotations. Every word has its meaning and its use, and in order to accurately express the true emotion in thought requires, at times, words that convey even the harshest tone. With that said, if you are still bound to the obedience of your parent's will for your well being, or are not permitted, by your state laws, to view media rated PG-13 or worse, then you should stop reading now. If you are so close-minded that you reject anyone or anything that contains "dirty words" then you have come to the wrong website.
And now...without further ado: GEORGE CARLIN!!! (*Applause*)
"Boy everyone in this country is running around yammering about their fucking rights. "I have a right, you have no right, we have a right."
Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. But if you think you do have rights, let me ask you this, "where do they come from?" People say, "They come from God. They're God given rights." Awww fuck, here we go again...here we go again.
The God excuse, the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument, "It came from God." Anything we can't describe must have come from God. Personally folks, I believe that if your rights came from God, he would've given you the right for some food every day, and he would've given you the right to a roof over your head. GOD would've been looking out for ya. You know that.
He wouldn't have been worried making sure you have a gun so you can get drunk on Sunday night and kill your girlfriend's parents.
But let's say it's true. Let's say that God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights?
The Bill of Rights of this country has 10 stipulations. OK...10 rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week, because we've had to ammend the bill of rights an additional 17 times. So God forgot a couple of things, like...SLAVERY. Just fuckin' slipped his mind.
But let's say...let's say God gave us the original 10. He gave the british 13. The british Bill of Rights has 13 stipulations. The Germans have 29, the Belgians have 25, the Sweedish have only 6, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fuckin' god damn god given deal is that!?...NO RIGHTS AT ALL!? Why would God give different people in different countries a different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn't sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning . Sounds more like one group trying to control another group. In other words...business as usual in America.
Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it.
In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps.
Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter.
Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible.
Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all."
I recently came across a blog post by Simon Quellen Field, whom found a wonderful gem of news, nearly a year ago, regarding research done at Wake Forest University School of Medicine that has discovered a unique breed of mice that contain "anti-cancers". Technically speaking, the mice's white blood cells enable their immune system to fight off cancer.
The study found that the mutation is inherited in subsequent generations, leading to a notion that the mutation may be caused by a single dominant gene.
"That gives us hope that there's one simple switch that you can throw somewhere in the signaling pathway to turn on this tumor-fighting behavior," researcher Mark Willingham says.
If this were to be true, then a drug could easily be formulated to trigger this tumor-fighting switch.
Maybe it's just me, but this sounds a lot like the start to a real version of the X-Men movie. That said, I'll wait for the expedited-cell-rejuvenating mutation followed by a nice Adamantium dip.
"Let go of the past! Let go of the future! Let go of the present and cross over to the farther shore of existence. With your mind wholly liberated, you shall come no more to birth and death."
"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to."
"The Art of Peace does not rely on weapons or brute force to succeed; instead we put ourselves in tune with the universe, maintain peace in our own realms, nurture life, and prevent death and destruction. The true meaning of the term samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love."
Holding back the lust Turned face with distrust Following a path in mind Bringing life to the dust
When the time is right Choose the path to keep your passion intact Decide upon the vision you hold in your grasp With the power of love, life lends you its' hand Time mending connection for the rest to last True friends transform the best of the past Beaming eyes reprise in the height of the future Pulsating rhythms keep your mind on the sutras Lies conquered deep claiming heart warming mantras
Pry into yourself, not into the beat Realize inside there's nothing to defeat Release. Retry. Transcend to recognize That knowledge is you.
I recently saw an exhibition at NY's Guggenheim featuring the collective works of an artist by the name of Cai Guo-Qiang. This is a must see for anyone in the NY area. His phenomenal style and use of gunpowder create a truly unique and powerful sensation. His reasoning for using gun powder in his paint, and proceeding to ignite it once complete, is that in order to create we must destroy.
Having grown up during China's Cultural Revolution, Cai's pieces consist of many passionate portrayals of the Eastern cultures and the dramatic impact of its politics. My favorite work is the Fetus Movement II: Project for Extraterrestrials No.9 (above). For this piece, Cai created trenches to outline the symbol in the picture above, and then loaded the trenches with explosives. He then sat in the center strip of land, hooked up a monitor to his heart, hooked up a seismograph to the ground, and then proceeded to ignite the explosives wired around him. Once he was finished, he created the painting using the readings from the monitors to show the close connection of humans with the earth.
He will also be the mastermind behind this years Olympics in China.
"Having found no self that is not other, The seeker must find that there is no other that is not self, So that in the absence of both other and self, There may be known the perfect peace, Of the presence of absolute absence."
With genius devotion Surrealists in motion Hearts' eyes intertwine Reveal imagination
As time unravels its' life Matter fuses and folds Spiraling rears to implode Time apart but remaining the same Congeals to the few, obedient and contained
The ideas in this animation come from the first chapter of a popular new book "Imagining the Tenth Dimension." The movie succinctly covers the new concepts of string theory and the multiverse as well as the current dimensional model of reality: space, and time. I think it gives a fairly clear view on how dimensions work in general, and allow for a much more accurate perspective on how they mesh together.
"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like something like the following:
There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be nonwhite
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
All 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death;
1 would be near birth
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent."
- Phillip M Harter, MD, FACEP Stanford University, School of Medicine - Found on Flatplanet
A little boy asks his father what politics is. His father tries to explain. "Well, son," he says, "I go out into the world every day and make money - so imagine me as Capitalism. Your mother handles the budget for the house - so you could regard her as the Government. Your nanny, who looks after you and your baby brother, works very hard - so we will call her the Working Class. You are in the midst of all this - so consider yourself as the People. And your baby brother? Look on him as the Future."
That night the boy goes to bed pondering his father's words. In the middle of the night he is woken by his baby brother crying, clearly wanting to have his diaper changed. He goes into his parents' bedroom and sees his mother fast asleep. He is unable to rouse her.
He goes to the nanny's room and finds his father and the nanny making love. He tiptoes quietly out without being observed and goes back to bed.
At breakfast in the morning, the boy says to his father: "I was thinking about what you told me and I think I understand about politics now, dad." His gratified father looks up from his toast and asks, "Oh yes, how is that?" "Well," replies the boy, "Capitalism is screwing the Working Class. The Government is asleep. The People are being lied to and the Future is in deep shit."
David Bolinsky, an animator for the medical industries, has begun a relatively large project, in collaboration with Harvard, to put together a visual guide to how our bodies work. The clip below provides a 3 minute clip of the inner workings of a cell, and his recantation of the body's story elaborates on the beauty behind it all. A wonderful glimpse at what is in store for future education of the human body. If you can't wait for this DVD, I recommend an excellent book by DK Publishing: "HUMAN". It is a visual guide, not only to how our bodies work, but how they interact with reality and the others sharing its space.
Can you see a sound? Can you hear light? Can you unite your senses? Can you turn inward?
What we are all seeking is clarity. Forget about religious rationalizations. Forget about elaborate explanations. What we all want is clarity. What we abhor is ignorance. Ignorance confuses us, brings us misfortune and sorrow, and makes us miserable. If we have clarity, then we can live with equanimity.
It is a misconception that spirituality brings everlasting happiness. There is no such thing. Sadness still comes to the wise, but, unlike most people, their clarity of mind allows them to see beyond the temporal emotionalism of the moment. They are farseeing, and so happiness and sorrow become the same to them.
True clarity is more than just begin smart, more than just being wise, Clarity manifests from meditation. It comes when you can unite all the faculties of the mind and unify them into a magnificent light of perception. It is hard to talk of this in anything but mystical terms. Our language is unfamiliar with the frontiers of the spirit because few have ever seen those limits, let alone described them. But let's try.
If you unite sound with vision, then you will create light. That light is the concentrated force of the mind. It is by that brightness that truth is revealed.
"One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts."
"In Buddhism, there is a teaching called the "three bodies" (sanjin), also called the "three properties" or the "three enlightened properties". These are the three kinds of form that a buddha may manifest as: 1) the Dharma Body (dharmakaya or hosshin) is the form in which a buddha transcends physical being and is identical with the undifferentiated unity of being or Suchness (Skt. tathata, Jp. shinnyo); 2) the Bliss or Reward Body (sambhogakaya or hojin) is obtained as the "reward" for having completed the bodhisattva practice of aiding other beings to end their suffering and having penetrated the depth of the Buddha's wisdom. Unlike the Dharma Body, which is immaterial, the Bliss Body is conceived of as an actual body, although one that is still transcendent and imperceptible to common people; 3) the Manifested Body (nirmanakaya or ojin) is the physical form in which the Buddha appears in this world in order to guide sentient beings. It is considered that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, is nirmanakaya. Honen believed that Amida is sambhogakaya."
Snakes of color Spirals deploy Wrapped in time Cloaked for ploy Plant sewn crystals Water and vine Red serum slumber Heavenly rewind Unfurled fumes Gaseous and confused Twists all matter Focused and reused
In another article by Ethan Zuckerman, a brilliant tale of consciousness through the eyes of a stroke victim, whom just happens to be a research psychiatrist at Harvard studying the differences in the brain between those we call "normal" and those with "disorders," Jill Bolte Taylor goes through a tremendously detailed account of the experience of her stroke and the sensations that followed. A must read for all those interested in the conundrum known as reality.
Artist's view of star formation in the early universe. By Adolf Schaller. Source: NASA.
I recently came across an article, by Ethan Zuckerman, on Murray Gell-Mann, a world renowned theoretical physicist (having worked on the atomic bomb, and discovering quarks to name a few). In the article, Gell-man briefly describes the trials and tribulations of forming theories and discovering the laws of the Universe. Here is a succinct snippet from the article:
[Murray] Gell-Mann tells us that in 1957, he and colleagues put forth a theory of the weak nuclear force that contradicted seven experiments. But it was very beautiful. And it turned out to be right - all seven experiments were proved wrong. What’s striking, he tells us, is that in fundamental physics, a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than an inelegant theory.
Gell-Mann points out that Einstein was famously indifferent to experiments that contracted his theories. “It’ll go away,” he’d dismiss an experiment that appeared to contradict his work.
What do we mean by beauty and elegance? It’s not a human role - these laws aren’t just the construct of the human mind, they’re really big. Newton believed that natural philosophy was about discovering these laws. A clue that you’re onto a law is that it “can be expressed concisely in terms of mathematics that we already have.” That’s Gell-Mann’s mathematical definition of beauty.
In trying to build laws of the universe, it’s a mistake to think of a “theory of everything”. Any theory that works will be a quantum theory, which means that it will be probabilistic, even if some of those probabilities are near certainty.
In discovering these laws, we’re “peeling the skin of the onion”, using higher levels of energy, getting deeper into particle structures and closer to the fundamental law. As we peel the onion, we see that each layer is similar to its neighbors - they require similar mathematics. “The manifestation of the law at different scales exhibit approximate self-similarity” - Netwon called this “Nature Conformable to Herself”
Gell-Mann clearly states a truth of truths: amongst chaos, beauty reigns king. I agree with most of what is said in the article. However, the thing that struck me as odd was the notion that the laws of the universe are contained at the smallest possible level. This theory is rather ignorant of the universe itself. Take for example: time. Time is the result of the laws of the Universe put into motion. Yet the driving force for this motion seems to have no laws except itself. Fundamentally creating a paradox for the Universe as a whole. However, every force is the result of a transfer of one form to another. What I propose is that this so called "peeling the skin of the onion," should not be limited in scope to an inward view of reality, but an outward one as well. Laws of the universe exist not only on a small scale, but a large one as well. I think that what we will find to be true in the future is that we are on a very small ring of a very large onion. Only time will tell, and even then, it will be a mystery.
Evelyn Glennie is the only person I have witnessed speak so clairvoyantly about the substance of music, and with such accuracy. In this 30 minute speech, she elaborates on her unique understanding of sound and how it reverberates through our body, and how our body translates this vibration through every facet of our senses. Through the use of emotions, our senses propagate a unique experience of perception that allows us to step aside from our corporeal selves to visualize the essence of these very vibrations in relation to reality.
In light of the music moment, I'd like to share a phenomenal song I came across recently that I just can't seem to stop playing. I don't care much for the video, but the song blew me away.
Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.
"Rinsing away dreams is a way of saying that we must not only dispel the illusions and anxieties of our sleeping moments but those of our waking ones as well. All life is a dream, not because it isn't there, but because we all project different meanings upon it. We must cleanse away this habit."
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
"There is no time, there is no space. What was, is, and ever shall be. You are you, playing chess with yourself... You are the referee. Morals are your agreement with yourself to abide by your own rules. To thine own self be true or you spoil the game." -Heinlein, Time Enough For Love p.586
"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun."
“’Gratitude’ is a euphemism for resentment…The Japanese have five different ways to say ‘thank you’—and every one of them translates literally as resentment, in various degrees…Enlgish is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing.”
"A painting, like all art, is nothing more than a transgression of ideas; as is every form and every communication. This is best expressed through time itself. For if time is ever held captive to a moment, its content would lose all meaning. A work of art, in the same sense, must never be subjected to a moment's time. The reason is simple: depth requires flexibility of perception, and when the perception is captivated in a moment of time, the subject transforms into a biased interpretation of reality. Thus fixating the audience on an unreal moment of perplexed chaos. In order for beauty to come from chaos, either the subject must be real, or the moment must reflect infinitely."
People search for a world of peace What they find is a world with peace in mind Never ending cycles repeating sorrowful kinds Revolving around time, held close and divine Missing the reasons for life and true perspective Caught in the hustle with everything disconnected Losing purpose then passing on reflected Lost and confused? Well rebuild and fuse With kindness in presence You can't forget your essence You can't lose that past self Just bring it to the present For your present is your past Reconstructed in your mind's thought of the future Intertwined with like minds that suit ya Speak to your heart, and it speaks back Speak to your mind, and it echoes in time Speak to another, and another replies A question echoes the answer And the answer echoes back Understand the know how Study the how-to See the patterns in things Connect each with a string Where they overlap genius is born Where they reconnect brilliance is shown Life braced with just an H and an OH Built on blocks of variations Vibrations and calculations Misinterpretations It's the truth that will guide you past the end The sensations felt without from within Shared amongst kin Rapped, spoken and shared through song Forever every word must belong Take each verse and replace with your own For I will die before the day that your mind is fully sewn.
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