Saturday, July 26, 2008

There Are No Bad Things

This is a statement I believe - and as with all beliefs, putting them into practise does not always go smoothly. I think it is the developing of beliefs and the putting them into practise, that make up the important part of our life.

Of things that happen to you, there are no bad things and conversely, no good things either - just things.
I know this to be true as I have observed many of the same things happen to different people and result in very different reactions. Meaning that it is the internal workings of the person that change a thing that happens into a bad thing or a good thing - not the thing itself.
For myself I know that in different parts of my life the same things have happened to me and *I* have reacted very differently.
Take the last few days for me, for example.
I have had some things happen - more than usual and although I know from my beliefs these are just things - in the very least they were extreme in the ups and downs department. The single most personally devastating conversation with a person of long standing importance in my life, meeting and shaking the hand of our prime minister, a hearing test confirming significant hearing loss in my right ear, a stressful situation at work, an astounding opening of a Tibetan photography exhibition, and a beautiful meditation class.
There are no bad things or good things - just things, and our reaction to them.
Some people when presented with things that happen see a pile of nasty sour lemons and screw their faces up and complain, other people, when presented with the same things see the opportuntity to make themselves lemonade and others take that lemonade and give it to their family and friends - others still take the lemonade and share it with everyone.
The things I listed are all just things. In the past I would have crumbled and been resentful of the world and miserable. Now days I am more contemplative. I am selfreflective about the feelings that arise for me. I ponder. Most of all I am grateful. I inwardly say thankyou for all things and the insights they bring me about myself. Just as I allowed myself to feel pride that I had worked hard to be in a position to meet our prime minister and I smiled, I also felt sad and wept for the devastating conversation.
I am grateful for both experiences and the opportunites they give me for personal growth.

There are no bad things or good things that happen - just things that happen.
We live in a world and it is the nature of this dynamic living wonderful world that things happen.

Things happen.

I think that to label them as bad or good sets up an environment where it is possible to fall into the trap of being judgemental and assigning blame. This thinking makes it easy to be unhappy and feel overwhelmed with the fact you cannot control things that happen.
You cannot control things that happen. You can waste a lot of energy and time trying.
You cannot control things that happen. You cannot control how people will react to things that happen and you cannot control how anyone thinks.
You can only control yourself, your thoughts and your reactions.

There are no bad things or good things that happen - just things. You are not responsible for the things that happen. They are not in your control. You are responsible for your actions and reactions. These you can control.

Do we always react, think, do the wise, sensible, responsible action, thought, reaction?
No. Because we are imperfect beings, humans, in this life to experience what the universe has for us to learn. We do the best we know how to do and when we know better, we do better.
Do not be so hard on yourself for your percieved mistakes. Learn from them, don't be ashamed. Give yourself some credit where it's due, be kind and forgiving to yourself. If we were perfect we would be elsewhere.
Life on Earth is about trial and error, experiments, having a go, adventure - adapting to what comes.
Making the most of the things that happen.

Enjoy it.
And say thankyou.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Human Ego vs The White Whale

Found this article today on the BBC news page. At first it’s innocuous enough but then some things are said that just, quite frankly, p*** me off.

New white whale spotted


"A new white humpback has been sighted off Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia.

The newcomer, which was filmed by a television news helicopter, has excited marine scientists who think it may be related to Migaloo - to date, the only known all-white humpback whale.

Migaloo is somewhat of a celebrity down under. Why? "Because as far as we know, he is globally unique," said Professor Peter Harrison from the Whale Research Centre, Southern Cross University.

It now seems that Migaloo, (whose Aboriginal name means "white fellow") might have competition."



The last line there is the kind of thing that exasperates me about the most journalism and reporting. The competition they are referring to is for the media spotlight. Migaloo has been a ratings boon for various reporters and news sites and tv stations since he was first sighted by people. I can understand it.. I find him as interesting as all get out and I already LOVED humpback whales. But seriously… the whales don’t even have a perception of the media reporting on them other than the annoying fact that almost every time they come up for air in Aussie waters some helicopter or another is buzzing over them or some boat is polluting their sound reception systems with unimaginably annoying frequencies of noise.
The competition they are referring to is of their own creation and if they had a splattering of anything other than creating more money for themselves they would not make such statements.

Although predominantly white, the new whale does have some black markings near its head and tail. So who is the newcomer?

A white calf was spotted with a normal humpback mother in Byron Bay two years ago. Experts say the new whale could be the offspring of Migaloo but further tests need to be carried out.


This last sentence makes me cross at the “scientists”. Further tests NEED to be carried out??? Who are you kidding? Leave the whites whales alone! You are creating a reason to hunt, chase, SAMPLE these creatures for the satisfaction of your own human ego selves. If you need something to do go and create a humane instant kill system and give it to the Japanese. THAT is something that will help the whales in the here and now.

There is a bit more article so click the article title above to check it out if you want.
Sites about migaloo www.migaloowhale.com, wiki and Migaloo's aussie site (note the term MARKETING at the top of the page *sigh*)

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

"This is how we love, Buddha-style:

impartial to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and expectation;
accepting, tolerant, and forgiving.
"
Lama Surya Das, “A Buddhist Valentine"

some people label this avoidance.


I thought I had more to say on that... turns out I don't.

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Mexican Medium and My Wasted Data Allowance

i missed ep one of season four of medium last week coz i went out to the science lecture in such a rush I forgot to turn on the recorder... so i have been driving myself nuts to get this torrent of it downloaded
Have been on limited browsing for days to try and get the torrent download finished
Stayed up late to wait for it just now (because some one was leeching it off me and i didn't want that to go on all night because it uses up my data allowance for the month)
It has been creeping in soooOOOOooOooOOooOoO slowly (av 1.5kbs)
It just finished
So i open it, straight away to watch and it is a really great quality clip!!!


except it is in mexican...

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Audio Books - no good for carbon emissions

and possibly a contributor to road rage and I'll tell you why...

I was recently putting into practise the concept of making the most of what one has by utilising the tape deck in the Ravi Shinecar and cycling through some of my 80s album collection.
Well.. one morning not long ago, I came across the new idea of utilising my time in the vechle to overcome my current lack of fiction reading time.
First step in this plan was to trawl an online auction site to see if there was anythgin worth picking up. no immediate joy. So in the meantime I want something to listen to so I went to the library .... the collection there was literally crap. crap. crap. Very disappointing. Only one thing that gained my interest so I got it.
Memoirs of a Geisha - which I never saw the movie for for some weird reason.

Now I just want to drive my car everywhere so I can listen to it (no biking to work or weekend markets this weekend!)
And not only that, but driving slowly, so I get to hear as much as I can.

Other people on the road are not impressed with me.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Bruce Wayne, meet John Connor...



You gotta watch it first (it's only a minute) ... I'll wait.




I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to hear who I heard in this trailier!!! I am watching thinking.. ahhh that sounds like < doesn't spoil surprise for those who didn't watch>... if only they could have got him, that would so be a great move possible for this film.... "HOLY CRAP!!! No way... no.... way.... WHOA! NO WAY! IT IS HIM!!! OMG! This is gonna rock so hard!"

This makes the Terminator series a most unique creature in the movie industry.
To have a sequel as good and in some ways better than the original film and to be able to come back from, let's be honest, a crappy third film with a one minute trailer that is worth the whole third film put together *giggles* and guarantees this fourth film will kill the others until they die from it!

I am so psyched about this right now I might pee!

The Official Biography of Douglas Adams

arrived for me in the mail today.

I opened the parcel and read the title

"Wish You Were Here"


It made tears well up because I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I do.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

William Smith and the heretic origins of Geology...

Shine spent her evening @ a science lecture about William Smith and the map that changed the world!
William Smith is a man to be admired! A man who spent a large portion of his life thanklessly beavering away at something no one else had ever thought about. He is now recognised as the father of geology but it was certainly a struggle for him to gain recognition for his life's work when he was alive. It was not until late in his life that he was awarded any accolades at all - he was the first person to be awarded the Wollaston medal, with the words below.

If, in the pride of our present strength, we were disposed to forget our origin, our very speech betrays us: for we use the language which he taught us in the infancy of our science. If we, by our united efforts, are chiselling the ornaments and slowly raising up the pinnacles of one of the temples of nature, it was he that gave the plan, and laid the foundations, and erected a portion of the solid walls, by the unassisted labour of his hands.

To even begin to appreciate the achievements of this man it is pertinent to set the scene of the era to which he was born and grew up.
Smith was born in England in 1769. England at this time was still deeply immeshed in a religious domination that had been going on for 1000 years. The church was the boss of everything and ruled with fear and keeping people ignorant. The printed word was not common - although printing was possible, it was controlled by the church and people with money (usually one in the same) and anyway, reading was frowned upon if you were not associated with the church.
Understanding and interpreting the world around you was done through the thick veil of religious dogma. Everything that you might ponder or wonder about the natural world was spun to prove the existence of God ("You found something on the ground in the middle of England that looks like it's from the sea? Well of course! There was the biblical flood and Noah build the ark, see! proof!!")
The words limestone or basalt weren't invented, let alone the term "geology".
Your status in the world was determined by heredity - not by accomplishment or even economic standing.
In cities, legislation designated what dress different urban groups should wear so as to keep them separate.
Slavery was yet to be abolished as was the whipping of females for punishment. Public executions were still "entertainment".
The Napoleonic Wars had not yet occurred. The bank of England had not yet printed the first pound note. Captain Cook had not yet discovered Hawaii. The First Fleet had not set sail.
85% of the population were peasants and small pox was prevalent.
America was fighting for independence.
Mozart was alive and for the upper classes clothes kinda looked like this.


It was into this world, where these things were soon to happen, that William Smith was born. His father died when he was young and his mother gave him up as an orphan for his uncle to raise. He developed a curiousity for stones. He did ok at schol but there was not enough money for him to go to university.
As the Industrial Revolutions started to kick in there began to be a focus on coal and coal production. Canals began to be built to transport coal. These actually turned into a vast network through England - a barge pulled by one horse up a canal could tow as much coal as 400 horses with out a canal.
Smith happened to meet a surveyor when he was quite young and the surveyor took him on, interested in a few of Smith's observations about rocks. Smith became a very good surveyor and began to gather fossils and much observed data about the rocks and land he saw in his travels. He began to develop theories about layers of rock and types of rock and fossils that were very much heresy in the times he lived in. At this time scientific thought was very much in conflict wiht the church and science views not discussed but didn't matter though as he was the ONLY person at this time that had any thoughts remotely like this and he had no one to talk to that was even interested in these concepts and ideas about the land around him.
(Perhaps, like me, you can appreciate the amazing nature of him even having thought to think the thoughts he thought!)
As Smith was a great surveyor he was appointed to survey for coal production and canal production and was ecstatic as this gave him the very opporuntity he desired - to be paid to collect data on layers of rock, types of rock, fossils - all the things to help him with what he knew to be his life's work. Making a map of rock types in Britain.
Remember, this was a time when the printed word was rare... maps could not be printed. They were carved on lithographic plates (his map - which would not be completed into well into the 1800s would eventually be individually coloured by hand - although he had no concept of the idea of using colour then - he did not come across the idea of colour until much later when he saw a rare map, which had colours representing different breeds of pig in England!)
Smith began to earn a great wage and I have to say, the only thing really against him is the fact he made poor financial choices.
He bought a big house and a large property for 1600£ and you can imagine how vast that must have been 200 years ago...
Things went very well for him for a number of years and he travelled and travelled around England gathering data and fossils (7000 individual specimens) until a dispute with the canal company who wanted to put a canal route through his property, prompted him to be fired. Immediate loss of income.
Smith carried on (somehow!) funding his own travel and working on the map.
He had many sets backs. A sick wife with mental health issues, a nephew he adopted (more strain on his finances), a burnt down flat, and expensive rent in London to be close to the printer, a friend taking his map of Bath and printing it with no credit to Smith himself and the sale of his extensive fossil collection to the London Museum to cover some costs (the fossil collection was the backbone and evidence supprting his method of classifying and comparing different kinds of rock - a revolution in it's own right and something he is most famously remembered for developing.)
Probably the worst of all was that when the term Geology was finally invented and a number a rich fellows created the Royal Geology Society in London - they excluded him (the first and only real geologist that existed) from being a member because of his class. And after struggling for a futher 14 years under his own steam to create the map (which was to be 7 feet tall as it was of a scale never made before - 5miles to the inch) the president of said society went to see Smith under the guise of being a sponsor, to look at the work to see if it had any worth, then went back to London with a wad of money and paid the printer to give him every one of the 16 map plates that made up the map and published it and sold it AS HIS OWN (plagerism was also not invented it seems).
So, his life's work, his hardship and struggles worth of beautiful amazing geological map did not sell once published (and publishing it was a very expensive business). Smith was broke. He was bankrupt. He then spent time in debtors prison and was released to find all his worldly goods gone.
He moved to Yorkshire then, and because he was such a great surveyor he was able to make a living.
It was then that one of the gentlemen he did work for, a member, coincidentally, of the Geological society (which in the intervening period had become a bit less about money and a bit more about actual science) recognised him as the man that had really created the map claimed by the president of the society. Finally Smith began to get the recognition he deserved.
And apparently he died a happy man at 70.

Here is his map...

Please remember again the times into which he was born, the hardships he faced as a child, the lack of formal education and his inability to read or write very well. Remember that he had no collegues with which to discuss and refine his ideas and extensively the terms for which we easily label the things he was first to notice now , were not invented then.
Also pay heed to the fact that his methods, his classification strategies for using fossil differences to identify and compare rock and his mapping colour scheme are the precise ones we use today to make an equally detailed map with the benefit of the combined knowledge of about 6000 professionally educated and experienced people, satelite and computer technology and the basic methods William Smith developed literally from scratch on his own at a time when not only had no other person even concieve a notion like it, but it was basically heresy to do so.

I hope you will join me in being pretty darn impressed with this man and value his persistence and ability to stick by his "crazy notions" alone and without support and see them to fruition - not to mention the kind of mind that would come up with the things he came up with when he came up with them!

*giggles* ok.. it's really late here, cut me some slack!!

For comparison.. here's a modern one.



More on Smith

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

No Direction Home


aka Speaking of Bob (Dylan) Ok, we weren't but I am about to...


I have always loved bob dylan's music but not understood the man
He is one of two people I consider living music legends (the other is Bjork)
My urge to find out more about him has been growing over the last year
Spurred on I think by the fact I knew there were some films coming out about him

Come writers and critics...
Who prophesize with your pen...


I am in the middle of watching no direction home
i watched part one the other night
It's aptly titled as he really did reinvent himself as a kind of circus orphan, even taking on a new name at a young age to put some distance between himself (which I don't think he has ever actually defined for himself) and his home/parents who he says he realy could not believe they were related to him.

And keep your eyes wide...
The chance won't come again...


I have recently seen two other Bob films (Don't Look Back and I'm Not There)
but this one is by far the best I think - or perhaps i can't say that in light of not having known what it would be like to have seen this one alone without the other two...

And don't speak too soon...
For the wheel's still in spin...
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now..
Will be later to win...


but seriously... he has some issues
serious ones

For the times they are a-changin'.

he is one weird dude.
quite the engima
it is almost liek he is a channel for some wise spirits
the force of one's ideas and inspiration can drive one quite mad...and you begin to get good hints at that in these three films about him.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.


He denies being political and carries an urge to fight off any labels, categories or groups that anyone identifies him with
Is that the curse of feeling pinned down and trapped; constrained and his denial is his struggle to stay above ground in the face of that limitation on his creativity?


I think Bob did a lot of pretending, denial whatever you might call it - in his personal relationships and in his ability to understand himself and accept himself. Some of his songs seem to be written about himself although he denies it. The same songs can be seen to be about false messiahs.

So swiftly the sun sets in the sky,
You rise up and say goodbye to no one.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don't show one.
Shedding off one more layer of skin,
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.


You're a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds,
Manipulator of crowds, you're a dream twister.
You're going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister.
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame,
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.


He semantically avoids responsibility for things he has done in his life that aren't right (eg: going into someone's house when they were away and taking their rare collection of woody guthrie albums - defending and justifying this as a righteous act from his background as a "musical expeditionary"). He seems to be lazy in the personal growth side of himself - preferring to let himself be distracted by the drama he willing created resisting how people wanted to see him rather than just accepting that's how they wanted to see him. I can understand why, as an artist , you would want to do that.
I think it is that kind of weight from the public that killed Jimi Hendrix who had similar experiences with audiences demanding he stick to his original stuff that they first heard when his heart wanted to explore other styles and forms.
It really flies in the face of all that a true artist is - to be tied, constrained, pinned and held to something. You can't fully be creative if you aren't liberated. You can't be yourself and for most true artists they are extremely sensitive to this kind of pressure.
But perhaps this is how Bob managed to survive. He's still around! It is never really the drugs or the alcohol but just the art or genius itself that kills.
We lost many good artists to suffering far to early; Nick Drake, Jimi Hendrix, River Phoenix, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Michael Hutchence, Jim Morrison, Elliott Smith, Janis Joplin...
So maybe this is how Dylan secured his future in this life.


I am a man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my days
I'll say goodbye to Colorado
Where I was born and partly raised.


He seems to be craving people to listen to him expressing himself and then resenting them for doing it but the audience had a part to play - especially, I think, the british tour.


Dylan got badly treated by fans when he went to Britain. He had picked up an electric guitar and had a band behind him and the britsh fans did not want a bar of it and were so rude to him!
they all wanted to hear him play folk. You turn them on once and thats all they want to hear... until it gets old... and then they want to hear it again, only different, only the same
In those days that is what the audience did. They bought tickets went to the show and booed and abused him. But they don't do that now.
fandom has taken over
robbie williams could lie in the gutter and vomit and his fans would think it was gold.
they would still flock to his concerts
I am talking about crazy creepy idolization and commercialization of pop icons.
music is not about music anymore.
but robbie williams has changed his style a few times.. so has madonna.
peopel accept it and love it and buy it. they don't buy tickets, go the the concert and boo.
they just don't buy the tickets in the first place if they don't liek the new stuff.
in those days they went to the concert, booed and told him to go home.
it's astounding.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before its washed to the sea?
Yes, n how many years can some people exist
Before theyre allowed to be free?
Yes, n how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesnt see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.


I had not realised the extent to which bob took on woody guthrie. When he was young, before he was known, he really spent a lot of years literally being a bunch of different people (a theme picked up on in I'm Not There)



The wounded man looks up with his one dyin eye...
... said why'd you bring him in here, he ain't the guy.


at one stage I was wondering if every song of his I liked was someone elses.
But no... he kicked in writing his own stuff after a while
but he spent a long time immersing himself in other people's stuff.
no direction home is really a great film about him.

I have always loved and respected Bob Dylan's music but never understood the man.
Through these films I have come to accept that is probably because the man doesn't understand himself.

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody has ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you're gonna have to get used to it
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
A complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

Monday, July 14, 2008

Weighed Companion Cubes: you know you want one

I had so many ideas for blog posts today and THIS is what I end up with *laughs @ self*

i was sitting in a chat room this evening and there was mention of cake. I was excited because... well Shineyshine loves cake.
And then befor eyou could say "pierce my nipples and send me to Alaska" it turned out this cake thing was part of a much bigger thing I hadn't ever heard of.
OMG - how did I get out of touch!
The companion cube...

From wiki
Portal is a single-player first-person action/puzzle video game developed by Valve Corporation. The game was released in the bundle package The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007,[2][1] and for the PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007.[5] The Windows version of the game is also available for download separately through Valve's content delivery system, Steam[7] and was released as a standalone retail product on April 9, 2008.[6]

The game consists primarily of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player's character and other simple objects using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (dubbed the "Portal Gun"), a unit that can create an inter-spatial portal between flat planes. The player character is challenged by an AI named "GLaDOS" to complete each puzzle in the "Aperture Science Enrichment Center" using the Portal Gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The unusual physics allowed by the portal gun are the emphasis of this game, and is an extension of a similar portal concept in Narbacular Drop; many of the team from the DigiPen Institute of Technology that worked on Narbacular Drop were hired by Valve for the creation of Portal.

Portal has been acclaimed as one of the most original games in 2007 despite being comparatively short in length. The game has received praise for its unique gameplay and darkly humorous story (created with the assistance of Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek of "Old Man Murray" fame), the character of GLaDOS (voiced by Ellen McLain), and the final credits song, "Still Alive" (written by Jonathan Coulton for the game). The game's popularity has led to official merchandise from Valve as well as fan creations using elements of the game.


I had to read that a few times.
Value is the maker of my fav ever FPS game...



awwwwwww
I haven't even played the game and I want a weighted companion cube!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Mountain biking today....

I spent a few hours mountain biking today… although perhaps a better term would be mountain braking, lol!


I have had two serious accidents in my life involving me and the road and the bike . There was an incident with cheap brakes, rain and a curb and there was a time more recently when I was hit by a car. Since that last time I have not been on the bike and the accident shook me up quite a lot. It effected me driving a car for a long time too.
The point being - i have taken to offroad biking and I bike to work whn I can. Both these things I find mentally very challenging. The mind holds on to trauma and works very hard and oftenin subversive ways to prevent any further trauma from happening. The mind speaks very loudly and as it is your own mind it is hard not to listen. It takes a great deal of honesty with oneself and some self reflection to sort out the helpful from the "while I appreciate your intention it's really not working for me anymore".


So .. i went mountain biking but you can perhaps appreciate that for Shine any seemingly ordinary thing is more than that, it's about honesty and trust and personal growth.
Or perhaps you can't see that coz personal growth is not a priority for you and you choose to not find lessons in the goings on of your daily life and you just turned up here to read about mountain biking.
And if you're happy and not struggling and whinging through each day that way, that's ok, you can just look at the pictures...

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Plasma blobs hint at new form of life

Physicists have created blobs of gaseous plasma that can grow, replicate and communicate - fulfilling most of the traditional requirements for biological cells. Without inherited material they cannot be described as alive, but the researchers believe these curious spheres may offer a radical new explanation for how life began.
Most biologists think living cells arose out of a complex and lengthy evolution of chemicals that took millions of years, beginning with simple molecules through amino acids, primitive proteins and finally forming an organised structure. But if Mircea Sanduloviciu and his colleagues at Cuza University in Romania are right, the theory may have to be completely revised. They say cell-like self-organisation can occur in a few microseconds...
Finally, they could communicate information by emitting electromagnetic energy, making the atoms within other spheres vibrate at a particular frequency. The spheres are not the only self-organising systems to meet all of these requirements. But they are the first gaseous "cells".

Sanduloviciu even thinks they could have been the first cells on Earth, arising within electric storms. "The emergence of such spheres seems likely to be a prerequisite for biochemical evolution," he says.
full article here

So.... plasma eh!
This is very interesting research. Romania is where the plasma is at!
*wonders what the funding application for this research looked like*

and the point of the research?
But perhaps the most intriguing implications of Sanduloviciu's work are for life on other planets. "The cell-like spheres we describe could be at the origin of other forms of life we have not yet considered," he says. Which means our search for extraterrestrial life may need a drastic re-think. There could be life out there, but not as we know it.

It's great to see some research like this getting done, most research ideas now days only go forward with tag of global warming woven into it somehow.

it is certainly interesting to think about what constitutes that physical manifestation that makes us 'living' and 'thinking'.
I mean... think on it some - if you took apart a human atom by atom, you'd have a pile of somethings that alone constitute nothing that is living but together is something alive and cognitive and as unique as a fingerprint.

At what point does the magic of energy reactions kick in?
Good find!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Transitions, Community and being the change you want to see

It's about putting your money where your mouth is... or rather, perhaps, not - as the case may be. But certainly a case of action speaks louder than words.

Words are easy, you know...but actions, they're a tougher breed of thing altogether. Words can be cast around flippantly with little effort to suit the occasion you are trying to manipulate, the message you're trying to convey, the image you are trying to give. But actions.... that's where the energy is.
You can't be flippant about actions, or can we? I was about to launch down a different path with this blog, but I have just digressed myself onto a path worth processing now...

As creatures we invest energy in things - except, unlike the rest of the creatures, we have created for ourselves this easy system where the energy is to easily replaced for a growing majority of us. Most living things expend energy to get energy - they can't be flippant about it becuase energy supply is not guaranteed. The survival of a species can be made or ended on chasing the wrong piece of food. If you don't catch it, that might have been your last chance.
Not us people. Most of us don't expend anywhere near enough energy to burn up the amount we consume. For goodness sake.. a lot of us actually go to gyms to burn off the stuff we didn't break a sweat to gather. What have we become?
Is this the pinacle of evolution that all creatures should aspire to if only they have the cognitive power to do so? Are we now at the top of some ridculous ladder of greatness that some ethnocentric scholar created?

No. We aren't. We're a sad by-product of our own misguided intelligence. And we are apathetic about it. We may not have lost more knowledge in the last half decade than we've gained but I would suggest that the quality of that knowledge and the skills the majority of us have not bothered to pick up translates to make that loss very important. Can you grow things? Do you know how to feed your family from your garden? Do you know how to preserve food for the winter? Do you knit or sew? Can you make tools? Purify water? Do you even know where your nearest supply of water would be if your tap stopped magically delivering it to your kitchen? Some of these things will be things you remember from your childhood. Someone knitted in your family, someone grew things and cooked them and put them on the table for you to eat.

Do you know where the rubbish goes when it leaves your house? What about the water from your kitchen sink or your shower? Humans are the only animal that doesn't live in a sustainable manner. Basically we shit where we live. In the natural world that's stupid.
Unfortunately, due to wonderful infrastructure and management systems, the majority of us live well isolated and disconnected from the way things actually work. Do your kids know where milk comes from? Do they know that beef is a cow? what about bacon? What are chips made of? When things start to go bad, they will do so in such a rapid way we will be forced to exercise our ability to adapt radically to changing circumstances. I yearn to be ready for that.

I decided to be the change I want to see in the world. It started off small. With me doing what I do, saying what I say, thinking what I think. But it's all very well me having the attitudes I do and the knowledge I do and the awareness I do, but in real terms it means little. It doesn't change the world enough to keep me sleeping at night. My desrire for social action is growing to match my ability to make it happen.
Tonight I attended a public meeting. A gathering of people who understand something is happening and want to know what to do. We are not sitting by and waiting for government to do it - because that would be too late, it's already too late. Government is too big and slow and unweldy. We are going to take back what is really important and just start doing things ourselves.
My town is a transition town. We are not the first one and we will nto be the last one.
A transition town is a group of people living in a place wanting to explore ways to live in a more sustainable way, a more responsible way - a way that will provide for us through the period we are moving into - decline of oil supply and changing climate patterns. Transition Town initiatives will facilitate creative and pro-active responses to energy resource depletion as well as being a ripping good bonding time for the community!
We are a group that is re-localising our community to make it stronger, "resilient and truely sustainable".


The meeting raised many issues that people wanted to explore and then we broke into smaller groups based on what drew our attention and focus. We discussed ideas in these groups and created next steps and actions. I am interested in local organic food and this is the area I have been drawn to over the last half year, in particular the concept of permaculture. I keep banging into it everywhere I go so I joined that discussion and by the end of July I shall be part of a permaculture culture! Things are changing, and they are changing now!

It's exciting!

Below are some links if you want to explore the Transition Town global movement.

Totnes - the first transition town
Transition Towns New Zealand

Guru Purnima

I went with my family (including 2 year old nephew) to the celebration of Guru Purnima (sacred to the memory of the great sage SRI VYASA BHAGAVAN or Sri Krishna Dvaipayana) last night!

The concept is swell! Although not well thought out or delivered where I live.
It is a hindu festival celebrated all over the world during the full moon of july/august.

it's about showing worship to a guru.. but I worship whomever the mood suits.

It manifests in my town as a gathering of mantra singing and you take an instrument and you play and sing and dance to your hearts content.
At the start we have to sit quietly and meditate and hum a mantra... in the middle of this Rain shouts out "SING SHINEYSHINE SING!" *giggles*

I spent most of our time there dancing with Rain (my nephew) - when he wasn't busy playing his guitar!


MAHARISHI VEDA VYASA

Monday, July 7, 2008

Flowers and the origin of Zen

Although I am a nature girl at heart and always have been, and am well versed in the way plants work - I have never been particularly drawn to flowers.
Don't get me wrong, I love plants. But don't give me flowers. I appreciate them much better when they are on the plant.
I tried to be into flowers once. In highschool... I hooked up with some girls and in an attempt to be cool (little did I know I was cool already.. but that's another story and one you're likely to never hear) I went with them on a "flower raid" which involved going to a botanic garden in the wee small hours and robbing a rhododendron of almost all it's blooms and filling my car with them (an old blue morris minor, the kind with the split windscreen and the flip out side paddle blinkers that handled about as well as a marble... but that's not relevant at this juncture). And I do mean filling. I felt pretty bad for that tree for quite some time after. Actually there were a lot of things I did in my teens that I have taken my lifetime to forgive myself for and accept that that was who I was and now that I know better I do better. But I digress..

I like things to be green.
Flowers are, by their very nature, mostly flashy showy attention grabbers and that is not something that appeals to Shine. It's far to easy to like those flashy things in life. Those things that easily catch your eye. To me that saying "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" is not a positive thing really. I far prefer the quiet underdog aspects of life that not many people take the time to notice and generally flowers just don't fit that bill.
Having said this, it was interesting to note tonight in my bookdwelling, a story about flowers that I do appreciate.
It is the story of one ordinary white flower, and the birth of Zen and involves one of the principal disciples of Buddha - Mahakasyapa.



Buddha was one to prattle on for great lengths delivering the dharma to his disciples - one day, they all gathered, as they did, including Mahakasyapa, expecting to hear him deliver some buddist equivalent of the sermon on the mount.
But Buddha did not speak. Instead he pulled from his sleeve a flower and held it there for hours, gazing tranquily at it.


Legend says that Mahakasyapa was the only one to realise this flower gazing was, in fact, the sermon and he smiled having the realisation and appreciating the special delivery of the dharma that the flower sermon brought him. It was the onlyness of this smiling that prompted Buddha to say
"I have the eye treasury of right Dharma, the subtle mind of nirvana, the true form of no-form, and the flawless gate of the teaching. It is not established upon words and phrases. It is a special transmission outside tradition. I now entrust this to Mahakasyapa."
And thus from this smile was born a new way within buddhism of delivering the dharma in a practical way rather than through the scriptures. This smile, this realization, was passed down through Mahakasyapa and through a succession of twenty eight masters and eventually flowed into what became The Zen.

In writing this recount for you I have just had a realisation myself. I can see why this story is the one I have picked to share tonight, why it has struck a cord with me.
My own dharma in this life comes from a similar experience as was shared between Buddha and Mahakasyapa in this tale.
"Dharma transmission isn't a matter of giving and getting, but an acknowledgement of intimacy, an acknowledgement of One Mind, Buddha smiling at Buddha."
Nothing makes me feel more connected to the strength of my purpose* and worth in this world than this buddha smiling at buddha concept. The intimacy of the shared wavelength, the inside joke, if you will, that comes from a shared experience. This is the closest one can experience to ever really knowing you are understood by another.
It is of course, a fallacy, as it is impossible to be truely understood or understand the reality of another (and you really are fooling yourself if you cling to the idea that you are and do) - but it is the closest to that that you can get. And it is through this that we feel our true belonging and purpose in this world.

That we are validated, that we make a difference, that we are cared for, that we matter.

And it is The Feeling.

*NOTE: the use of one's purpose in this piece depends not one whit on you ever knowing or understanding what that may be, just that one exists for you. The sooner you just accept that you do have one and that it may never be revealed to you and that it is not important for you to know it, the more smootly things will flow.

Ravi Shankar

no... not my car!



Have been meaning to find some more of his music and have just managed to get my hands on a 5 cd set including

Ravi Shankar & Ali Akbar Khan-1995
Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass-Passages-1990
Ravi Shankar-Raga-Original soundtrack-1971
Ravi Shankar-Sound Of The Sitar
Ravi Shankar-The Sounds Of India-1968

If you can get hold of them, do it... we can compare listening notes!

No idea who Ravi Shankar is?
Well... he was pretty important to a number of popular musicians so you should know if you think of yourself as a music fan!
Check out these links for a start
Ravi Shankar on Wiki
Ravi Shankar Website
Some free mp3 downloads

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

People at the store know NOTHING - especially when they say they do.

So when you go to the store and explain to them that you want an external hard drive and the other one you have stopped working and even when it did work it did not go on your apple even though the last people said it would and the store people tell you all the ones we have go, you just plug them in and no special measures required... and you tell them that is what the last people said.. but they also said that it it best to plug the external into the apple first before the pc, and the people at this store tell you that is rubbish and it's actually the opposite, you plug it into the pc first and then the mac..Which is useless to me as my pc is not working at all hence the reason I need an external as I have no where else to put my hoarded files...
ANYWAY my advice is , don't bother wasting your breath because these poeple don't know anything.

Don’t listen to anything the people tell you at the store.
Don’t do anything they said

here is what you should REALLY do.
Go to the store and buy the external. Bring it home and plug it in and notice that you can see the drive but you can't copy anything onto it.Then do this stuff which is the 200$ worth of advice I got from the apple store on the phone, for free, coz they rock!

Making a external hard drive work on a mac


Plug in external as directions state
Open finder window and see hard drive just sitting waiting for you to put all your stuff on
Open disk utility and click on main title for hard drive the shop told you would work fine without any special measures
Start special measures
1. select PARTITION
2. under volume scheme select 1 partition
3. next to format make sure it says Mac OS extended (journaled)
4. Next to name put something smart like “Shinestuff” coz , well, you can
5. Click partition
A warning will come up but you don’t need to panic coz the external was useless to you until you do this so DO IT.

You can now use your external to put on all your horded files that you want to keep so you can get a whole bunch more!!!*giggles*

EDIT: Note from future me (7th May 2011) I so rock for leaving this note for myself! This time I got a 500gb and this blog post was like exactly what happened again! This time I created two partitions which load like two drives. Thanks me, we rock!