Well, I know, this may be offending or provocative to some. If so, please blame me in the comments. But I have to ask you this:
He is still free.
What about you?
(geekleft.org, via futur.plomlompom.de)
This perspective just stroke me! To think of one self as free doesn’t nesseserly mean it to be true. On the other hand, being not free physically can’t anticipate to be free. We all know that.
So, again: What about you? Are you?
Just in case you missed it: America got a new president, and his middle name is Hussein. And he wants to talk with the world. He’s not a creationist. He’s not elitist. He seems to look for the root of problems. In a scientific manner. All this is just great I think.
But best of all, I think, is dear Michelle! What is the saying? Behind every great man there’s a greeat woman.
So watch out Barak, big sister is watching you, and she ain’t swimm with the tide! While everyone is talking on hope for change, this is my biggest hope: That, should Mister Obama be of two mind after talking to the Neocons, Mrs Obama will haul him over the coals.
Especially if the dumb boys start playing their old game of longer, bigger and thicker… Maybe they find out for themselves that there is no need to kill if one talks to each other. Tolerance and sharing is the key to peace!
Talking of poverty most of us thinks in terms of money. I would like to bring up another point: It seems to me that povertys mainly reason is that we – who rule the world – are poor at heart. If not, we would help the poor in an efficient way. The world is talking all about — and does nothing. Not for the so-called third world neither our own local neighbors.
Many of us are educated enough to see the „Big Picture“, how all and everything is connected: „We would like to give you some millions development aid — and see what nice armored vehicle and guns we have! If we can put our leash on you as our pitbull in war against terrorism, you can have it all for free. And we sell cheap Tomatoes and Chicken too. You want technology? Sit up and beg…“ (I know it’s not that simple. However, it is like that. 😉 )
But few of us are educated enough at heart to feel the „Big Picture“. Only if one can feel it, one will change life and take responsibility. But poor hearts don’t feel, they calculate.
The world hunger index 2008 made official today in Berlin tells us there are 923’000’000 (923 Millions) hungry people, 75’000’000 more than last year. Currently one says that the financial crisis costs us 1’400’000’000’000 $ (1.4 Billions, IWF 7.10.2008). The loosings of only the ecosystem wood are acording to the study „The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity“ (TEEB) about 5’000’000’000’000 € (5 Billions) yearly, overfishing 50’000’000’000 (50 Mrd).
I found this today in a magazine:
www.publik-forum.de (german)
He: «Now it’s scientifically proven: If Fathers educate children, they become more intelligent!» She: «Who — Fathers or children?»
So it seems we’re on the same level again. Fathers of the new Millennium are working in the household, but the principle stays the same: Higher, faster, further. Fathers evolution ain’t complete yet — they’re still the same old men.
By the way: It’s not your fault, that the world is like it is. But it’d be your fault, if it stays like that…
:oldman:
As a football freak a can’t wait for Euro 2010, so I did some research and came along some very interesting news you’ll want to know! The economically oriented think tank „Profeetball“ found out that with some new, interesting rules sales could be doubled by minimum!
So they asked: If football falls flat, why not play with flat fool footballs to kick off the business? With less injuries estimated, insurance rates will be massively lower, slow runners catch more balls and even chinese manufacturers should have no problems with quality control.
So less expenses and more turnover will follow. Governments already pays for infrastructure, tax exemption should follow for Euro 2012, making it the perfect event: Circuses for all, bread for some and profits for a few.
But that’s not all: Bala Fuss, a Swiss member of the think tank, brought in another idea. Since flat building land will become rare and expensive in future they plan alternative football pitches:
The idea is, all 22 player walk the street at the bottom, kicking upwards. The team making a goal has to run up and down as many times as they have scored goals yet. This new kind of fairplay aligns with the marketing trend of fairtrade, fairtravel, fairvote, fair whatever. So less trained, cheap or child teams have a chance too.
To lean in the „fair“ trend to polish UEFA image some more, used foolballs should be donated to help feed the world.
But Mr. Fuss stated that content must be delivered by NGOs. Development aid for stockholders eats up all of UEFAs excesses. The possibility of child work could be met with the slogan „children help children“.
Ain’t that big news? There’s a whole new world of football awaiting! Speaking of the future: A new discovery proofs the beginnings of football:
According to the newest historic researches where ancient men kicking each others balls to pay tribute to the last man standing. It took some centuries and some women’s heads until they started team playing with two „real“ balls, but since men are overstrained in multitasking they could only manage one — so football was born. In American football some ancient rules seems to have survived and are considered as proof.
Now it will be a question of time until the new political correctness from subway stations will influence football. Possibly a player then will ask a member of the other team kindly «Could I get the ball, please?». On negative answer the whole first team will kick balls on the questioned player, while the audience goes nuts. It’s called „back to the roots“!
Personally I wouldn’t mind to hand out clubs to players, even to the audience. This could speed up natural selection on mankind.
(Pics: pixelio.de)
Have you ever bought a radio for € 7.50? Ever asked yourself how it is possible to pay for the high tech insides, the plastic housing, the disposal of toxic waste from production, the fees, the transport from China, the margins of producer, dealer and seller with out of this low amount?
Did you ever thought about what goes on before and after you buy stuff? In this 20 minute animation you’ll get a firm overview of the whole process: earn resources, production, distribution, selling and disposal of waste. Where does our consumption lead us?
Probably this is nothing new to you — nevertheless it’s fun to watch this piece of art, which shows in a surprisingly clear and funny manner the complex connections, the big picture of what is going on when you buy stuff.
You won’t feel sad after, because Annie don’t point a finger at you saying «You’re a dumb, mean destroyer». You’ll feel like «Wow, why don’t we change that, I want to».
This is great educational stuff! Show and talk about this with you children and everyone who wants to know or wonders. And them who don’t too! They will go 😯 !
So, first, let me throw some numbers at you:
(via misswirtschaft.blogspot.com, german. Get the data on US-income here.)
In the 1920s we had about the same extraordinary mess, followed by the great depression in the 30s. As a consequence (also because WW II), in the middle 50s the highest US tax rate was 91 %, the one for corporate profits 45 %. But today?
We all know who is responsible for todays inequity. It’s not me, not you (well, the chances are about 1:10), it’s not God, it’s neither Mickey Mouse nor Dagobert Duck. It’s THEM! If one points at someone, three fingers point at yourself, so we know who is THEM: We ALL are.
We are in the advantageous situation where we all vote every day several times. Do you buy Nestlé or regional products? On which bank do you save your money? Do you use escalators and go to your fitness center by car? Who do you vote for, politically? Do you buy fast or organic food? Do you buy and travel fair?
Profit (or a real fair amount of) belongs to the one who spins the screw driver. Why let we the one who paid for the screw driver steal the profit? And, finally, why is this thefts income tax rate even lower than the one of them who are cleaning his office? Who is doing the real work here, the dollar?
We all know from our own inner temptation that everyone thinks of himself first. So why do we vote for the rich? Do we believe the rich must be wise? Or do we believe they do know to deal with crisis because they became rich? Have we all missed Dagobert Duck stories in our youth?
Everywhere you can read who and what is responsible for the actual crisis. The Neocons/-liberals have proofed themselves as not survivable without their hated, „over regulating“ governments and state banks paying for their mess. Why can’t we simply stop this behavior? What are we afraid of? Of loosing our employment? Todays production is in China because we vote for the thefts rules — we vote for our own crisis every day. Why is this so hard to understand?
:dontget:
Diversification is good for social stability — but it seems we don’t want a peaceful society. In the end we shoot ourselves in our homes, schools and on streets, out of frustration and fear. Sometimes this system is unbelievable: We vote for our own slavery while believing to be free, and when we check our misery, we execute ourselves. Is this the meaning of life? Or maybe an intermediate step in our evolution? Hopefully we will evolve a bit cleverer than lemmings…
Yesterday I was in my favorite guitar shop, Saitensprung in Schaffhausen, because I might have some neck problems with my Goldtone (a Beard license production) and I wanted to check it out with my dealer. I’m not there often, because of the distance.
So there I was, and some squarenecks were too (this is always bad!). A National (with no bass), a Beard Mike Auldridge Signature (nice, sadly all in black and expensive), an other expensive Beard, the Beard Vintage R (very warm tone, a bit less expensive), two cheaper Goldtones.
Look at this beautiful Beard Squareneck Vintage R. And I think you guess it – I left my old one for repair, left some more € 1’900.– and went home with some kilos of nice glued woods and chromed metal packed in a case.
After two years playing kind of a low cost instrument I’m very happy to have a good middle class squareneck now. Generally I’m not very vintage oriented, in the sense of „it must be good and worthy because it’s named vintage“. But as for this Beard and for the D42 with its vintage-style bracings: It’s the sound that really convinced me.
The downside from all this squarenecking is, my D42 was lurking around in its case the last two years – blame me, I know! It’s a shame! But time literally slides through my hands…
Hmm, now that I think of it: If you got me € 4’800.–, you can have it. Surely it will be happy to be released from its case and played again. Be the knight in shiny armor! (Imagine a fanfare here…)
This pic I found at www.igfm.de. It’s a german site from „international society for human rights“, on a subpage for notifications. From another subpage you can find some postcards and posters.
Are the Olympic Games good for chinese people? I’m not shure what to think of it. Boycott china means isolation and there would be no communication, no influence. Doing the Olympic Games in China means thousands of press people sniffing around and even China will not be able to control them all, wouldn’t they? Or will China simply throw in enough snitchers? 😕
China can censor the internet, but can hardly control all the informations exchanging between chinese people and foreigners. So if we go there, we have much more possibilities. In the meantime, we have to turn a blind eye or two to todays circumstances. Which is something I really hate!
I tend to belive that the KP somehow is of the same kind like the Bush administration and so many other: They want to rule, the more, the better. Others are bad, don’t know nothing, are doing wrong, in general are the enemies. This is thinking of the past millenniums, of our biological heritage, which will destroy us if we can’t get behind it.
If the average human would be this bad, we would have died off since long. I assume there are some 15 to 25 % us who are holding the rest back to do the next step – and in general they do it like this nowadays.
But we may realize that today humans are more economic on death: Most western systems tend to do less physical harms to its people to control them. The modern systemic pressure is more of psychological and economic kind. Human work power is understood as assets, it is understood that physical force leads to physical opposition – see todays Tibet, Iraq or Palestine, etc. This modern slavery seems perfect: People believe in being free, while they do drudgery and are cash cows themselves. But in counts of lives it could be considered as an advance. Nevertheless, many leaders didn’t got this change yet…
So are the Olympic Games good for chinese people? I think, they have nothing to loose. So they can only win.
Are the games good for Tibet? Running the torch through Tibet is one of the biggest affronts I can imagine, if you think of the original, symbolic meaning. This is so… it makes me want to be the boxer above! This is so pretentious! It’s the sheriff with the thickest gun, openly dealing with the gangsters, showing off in front of his office: «Look here, how I f*ck you people, and it feels daaamn goood!» But be sure must of his functionaries believe credulous they do help people…
I really don’t know. I dream of 25’000 olympic photographers rushing tibet on one day, occupying the occupiers to flood the KP-occupied chinese media, so chinese people can reoccupy their land, confound the sheriff. But usually men – and not women – just change roles in the above boxing match…
:dontget:
On YouTube I stumbled upon this actual lecture about Climate Change. It is mainly in three parts:
The question of why America sends annual 300 Mrd $ to foreign countries for oil, which is answered with Lenin’s quote „The capitalists are so hungry for profits that they will sell us the rope to hang them with.“, and the addition „…and they will send us the money to buy the rope“ is a very typical view for Americans somehow, I think. 
Nevertheless, with todays technics our vehicles could be 50 %, buildings 80 % more efficient without change in lifestyle. Acting is not a question of money or ideology, but of intelligence.
What not comes in numbers here is the benefit in public health due to better air and water quality. Nothing is really new here, but the arguments may help you out in the field…
(Dr. Lester Lave, Co-Director Carnegie Mellon Electrical Industry Center; Dr. M. Granger Morgan, Director of the Climate Decision Making Center; Edward Rubin, Professor in Engineering and Public Policy and Mechanical Engineering, 1:15)
If you wanna know it really exactly, watch the following video too, which outlines the research and the process behind the Global Climate Change Report to the Bush administration in 2002. So yes, they know: Global warming is fact, it’s due human activities, without sun activities being a reason etc.
(And yes, this is a very dry one, but gives an excellent overview on the complexity of the matter, if you’d like to be fed with data, numbers and formulas by Ralph Cicerone, Chancellor of the University of California at Irvine, 1:10)
(Update Nov. 2009): German Article on Zeit Online http://www.zeit.de/2009/21/PD-Markram
On futur:plom I stumbled over a link to an article „Out of the blue“ on seedmagazine which describes the Blue Brain Project (with some nice simulation videos) from Lausanne here in Switzerland. It started in 2005 and aimed in a first step at creating a digital model of a single neuron.
In December 2006 the project reached the goal of simulating 10’000 neurons, which equivalents a 0.5 x 2 mm slice of a rat brain. To get me right: This project is not about emulating a brain by translating brain work into digital code in form of a tamagotchi – this is a supercomputer with 22.8 teraflops to simulate neuron networks on a biological level. The computer doesn’t think like a brain, the computer is acting as a neuron network.
Next step will be simulating a whole rat brain, then a human brain. The road map of ten years to this point may be a bit scary, but I like the approach because this is not reductionist science. By digitally rebuilding a brain we may get a better understanding of nature, which is more a holistic system than a four-dimensional machine. We may enjoy a paradigm shift in the near future… :please:
Now the really interesting part is about consciousness. Will this computer get one? Today I think possibly yes, because I don’t see consciousness as something mystical – thinking words, imagine pictures and planning strategies is simply an evolutionary advance. But there’s too this kind of consciousness one can reach by hushing the brain. In ordinary words: Will this computer get charity? Mercy? Will it see dying soldiers simply as collateral damage?
I guess so. In fact, from a certain point of view, the individual is not important – only the surviving of the system is. Valuation of individuals is a relatively new phenomena and actually bad for the gen pool.
It depends on what is defined as the system. Is it a tribe or an ethnic group, humanity or the earth, the universe? At this point Stanislav Lem comes to mind, especially his story „Golem XIV„. This technological singularity judged war simply as illogical (By the way: „Golem XIV“ is a must read in many ways!). However, I don’t think such computers will find a benefit in meditation – aside from standby mode.
Since „Out of the blue“ is a nine page read, you can get a small excerpt if you click on read more. And what do you think: Can a technological singularity reach higher consciousness? Speaking in the concept of souls: Can a machine get a soul? Or can humans „bewitch“ machines and get them a soul? Or is anyway everything illusion, including me typing this?
Wow, it’s definetly true: America is the country of the unlimited possibilities! President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney now may want to think twice about any vacation plans in the Green Mountain state, where the voters of Brattleboro today voted to seek an indictment of the president and vice president and arrest them if they show up in town.
Read more here on michaelmorre.com, globalresearch.ca or boston.com.
Before I was reading this article from Deepak Chopra, «Why Jesus lost Nomination». The first comments are mostly evangelical, I only thought «oh my god, America is lost!». Later one Commenter wrote: To discuss with evangelicals is like kicking a big rock – no move, but your foot hurts. So you better go around and leave it.
How ever, on the other hand, there is now an indictment article on Bush and Cheney in Brattleboro. Nature tries to keep the balance, it seems. I can live with that… :peace:
Just found this very interesting site: Science Museum England. It’s very well done with a great look and feel. This applies also to this beautiful game:
If you loved playing Leco Technic, you’ll love Launchball too! Having fans, batteries, switches, copper, magnets, mirrors, beams, jumppads, heaters, iceblocks, escalators etc. at your hands, you’ll have to guide a ball in its goal. If you like, you can create your own levels and share them with others. Perfect to tinker a little while.
But be warned – CAUTION: If you click this link above, say goodbye for the next two hours. If not, you never were a true Lego master. 😉
Here’s a small view in our communication future. Imagine a piece of plastic film which fulfills all your needs in every days live:
(Seen on futur.plomlompom.de)
Some thought about this:
Seriously, I believe technology can help to save our future – especially with efficiency. Also I believe in the importance to stay in focus with the real problems. What advantage do I have if I’m connected with the whole world but loose the connection to myself.
Maybe it’s evolutions way that we need to play around until it gets boring – so we can turn in searchers for truth again. Hopefully nature gives us enough time.
After a slow but steady work I finally got it fixed: With the upgrade to WordPress 2.3.3, which brought some major changes (esp. tags-support), I rebuilt my whole theme from the scratch.
A year ago I started with this theme Beckett as a graphical template and 
this other theme Magellan-10 as structural template, (both seems not to be maintained anymore), by joining them together to my needs.
So I made my first steps with CSS and PHP. I scripted and fiddled and designed and designed and scripted and fiddled a few (or much more) nights away till I finally got me this: 
At the end especially the css-sheet was a real pain in the ass to finetune or change something in the theme. With upgrading WordPress from 2.1 to 2.3 I had a good reason to rework the whole thing – and here it is.
I know there’s to much in the sidebars, to much different stuff in the pages and categories. But I don’t like the idea of having 73 different blogs for my interests. So I’m sure my site feels like my brain – everything’s pinched on a pin head and thrilled well…
(Edit: Damn Internet Explorer – why can’t it do like all the other browsers are doing. Hope, I’ll fix it shortly. Meanwhile, get Firefox…! :firefox: )
(Edit 2: Fixed – basically. I still can’t get the headings on the linkpage to work in IE 7. But is usable so far…)
(Edit 3: Fixed – complete. :whew: Now I feel as a IE-conqueror! And it feels good. But, hmm, was it worth the effort?)