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 7 Jun 2006 @ 17:29, by ming. Legal, Justice
A while ago I mentioned a site that was showing an assortment of variations of the London tube map, using anagrams, and a bunch of other funny things. The original site was taken down, and is still down, because Transport of London's lawyers contacted the owner of the site, and forced him to take it down because the Tube logo and the map is their "intellectual property". Which is rather ridiculous for a public institution like that to spend money on lawyers to threaten people who love the tube, and who spend their time getting creative with its symbols.
Now, as a number of other people who thought it was stupid, I put up a mirror of that site. And, now, 3 months later, the lawyers for Transport of London have contacted me and asked that I take down that site. Their letter is below. They had first written me without saying who they were, asking what the rules were for my site in terms of materials that violate copyright or trademark laws.
Anyway, hm, I'm not sure what to do. It makes little difference to me whether I have a page with silly tube maps or not, but the principle is important. But I'm not sure if it is important enough to put up a fight and let them try to sue me. More >
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7 Jun 2006 @ 12:30, by vector8. Spirituality
Last night I watched a documentary on television that cited several major cities under threat of flooding and other "natural disasters" due to "global warming." Scientific experts predicted how long it would take for this to happen.
The knee-jerk reaction is to ask: When are people going to realise that if you project something like a disaster to some future time, you're going to "create" what you expect to happen? Is there any point writing more articles about how thoughts, beliefs and expectations "create" reality, albeit a dream reality? Besides, there are thousands of articles on the Internet already, zillions of books in print and being printed, about the same old stuff. Even if you are open to these ideas, it takes discipline to break out of the habit of focusing your attention away from what you don't want, to being focused on the love that you are. More >
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 6 Jun 2006 @ 13:46, by scotty. Environment, Ecology
I don't play the fear game and usually avoid negativity when ever possible ... however some things need to be looked at square on in order to waken up to what's happening and take some positive action !
"Extreme poverty, intractable wars, virulent disease, hatred of all stripes–these are a few of the scourges we live with today. And yet global climate change trumps them all; for if it's not addressed, all life on the planet will be devastated, regardless of geography, class, race, or creed. The Inconvenient Truth is the gripping story of former Vice President Al Gore, who became interested in this startling issue while at college 30 years ago, and now devotes his life to reversing global warming. Traveling the world, he has built a visually mesmerizing presentation designed to disabuse doubters of the notion that climate change is debatable. The heart of Davis Guggenheim's film is this elegant multimedia lecture itself, where Gore indisputably correlates CO2 emissions with exponentially rising temperatures, already responsible for dramatic climactic shifts like ice-cap melting, drought, and rising sea levels. Interwoven with this riveting public address are intimate moments revealing the poetic, searching side of Gore as he struggles to define his purpose in the aftermath of the 2000 election. This is activist cinema at its very best, for it serves to popularize and demythologize a problem long obscured by those most threatened by the solution. With humor and searing intelligence, Gore outlines crucial steps we must take to avert impending disaster and proves that inaction is no longer an option–in fact, it's immoral."— Caroline Libresco
The film is not a story of despair but rather a rallying cry. ... An Inconvenient Truth[link]
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 5 Jun 2006 @ 21:41, by ming. Technology
So, Reboot was great. One of the best tech conferences around. Not that I go to many conferences these days, but I heard that said a number of times. See the list of participants, the program, blog posts via Technorati, and shared photos via Flickr.
The theme was renaissance. I can't think of a better theme. Ben Hammersley gave a hilarious (as usual) presentations on "How to be a Renaissance Man".
Otherwise, great speeches by Doc Searls, Stowe Boyd, Rebecca Blood, Hugh Macleod, Euan Semple, Loic Le Meur, Lee Bryant and many others, but those were some of the more well-known characters.
Particular topics I find interesting: The Global Microbrand, i.e. come up with something really unique and present it to the whole world; mobile or geo-aware applications of various kinds; practical application of standard tools and protocols (blogs, wikis, RSS, etc) for better information systems; Creativity; Participatory Culture; new kinds of economies. And Renaissance.
I would have liked more space for deeper dialogue. OK, the best value of conferences is usually in who you meet in-between, but it would be nice if it actually was scheduled more. You know, one spends most of the time listening to people who talk to you, one-way. That's a little tiring in length. I'd want to do something too.
Overall, very enjoyable, well-organized, by people who have a clue, and fun gettogethers before and after the conference. More >
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5 Jun 2006 @ 15:08, by vector8. Spirituality
[[Majnum knocked on Leyla’s door.
"Who’s there? "
"It is I."
"Go away. There is no room here for you and I."
Majnum retreated to the forest, meditated for a long time, and then returned.
"Who is it?"
"It is you."
The door opened. The Sufi Book of Life]]
[["The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11: 6-9)]]
I watched a documentary recently about a man who plays with king cobra snakes. The man said he eats a particular plant that is supposed to act as anti-venom. He claimed he’d been bitten 17 times and he has lost several fingers from the poison. Playing with king cobras is now his livelihood which people pay to watch. In the documentary, several boys were being trained in the lost art of how to infuriate a cobra and then try to avoid being bitten. More >
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 5 Jun 2006 @ 10:30, by scotty. Violence, War
I’m not Arab - I’m not Muslim - I’m not Jewish …I don’t know much about Middle East politics so why should I even care ?
The hardships of the occupation are creating a decline in quality of life and many innocent people are dying .
This is a conflict in which neither Palestinians nor Israelis are benefiting. Families are mourning on both sides of the security fence.
OK more people are dying in Sudan and Tibet is occupied too and the AIDS epidemic in Africa is getting worse. So - why should I care about what happens in Palestine? More >
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 4 Jun 2006 @ 14:12, by jhs. Philosophy
An Intellectual Sunday Brunch for June 4th, 2006:
mx sez:
All is fine analyzing the game patterns of individual humans, major and minor Gods and Goddesses, of groups and their wars, nature, all the 42-stuff...
Objectives, purposes, rules, all cool... goals, subgoals, supergoals, stop!!! so what's the ultimate supergoal of playing all these games?
Here is a principle to shed light on the structure of the games, and all of them, ahem...
The Meme-Amplifier-Theorem (Sandor, 2006)
========================================
The top-level supergoal of any observable process in this Universe consists of obtaining a maximum resonance to one, and only one, super-energy.
Notes:
- a local process ends exactly when a local resonance is found
- a local process will a this point compete with other local games to dominate the next higher level of processes
- if the resonance obtained is sufficiently close to the original super-energy, the process will auto-destruct (duplication theorem)
- auto-destruction occurs via the phenomenon of the 'resonance catastrophy'
- the auto-destruction can be an implosion or an explosion
- implosions do not leave ANY trace
- explosions, even though destroying the structure of the original meme-transporter, will infect parallel systems via its exploded fragments
- a process that ultimately will end in an implosion is called a 'destructive game'... More >
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4 Jun 2006 @ 13:55, by beto. Philosophy
In this beggining of a new millenium, the scientific community faces a deep and painful CLASH OF PARADIGMS - in the epistemological renewal of thought under process. To know what's happening is crucial to understand what's going on. More >
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3 Jun 2006 @ 19:59, by purelove1. Relationships
Human love in marriage or relationships cannot last unless it divinely expresses itself. If you do not have the power of magnetizing divine love whose source is alone in God, marriage will fail to entertain. That means the husband should start quitting some of his baseball, football, hockey, boxing, and all the sports of the world. I have a friend who spends six hours watching football games when they are on; it is one football game after another, but married people are supposed to entertain each other and care for each other.
Married couples fail to respect one another and when that happens their marriage goes on the rocks. Beauty, sex charms, intellectuality, personal magnetism, and culture are not enough to happily keep married couples together when "divine love" is not there. What does that mean? Love is not a human quality. Love is God himself. When you love people you have allowed God to flow through you momentarily. It is He who loves when you think you love your mother; it is He who loves your mother; it is He who loves your father and; it is He who loves your children. You are being blessed being the recipient of that love. You must understand it is God who loves the wife through the husband and it is God who loves the husband through the wife. If neither one is spiritual nor you find a spiritual man or a spiritual woman... do not get married; you will not be loved. This is what every mother and every father should teach their children. In life we get what we deserve; but remember you have the power of prayer and if the power of prayer cannot change your husband or your wife, it would surely change you. There is one problem in married life; do you know what that is? You always want to be understood, isn’t it? You can not; no more than you can understand each other. We have twelve billion neurons in our brain, each brain has different neurons. Therefore to be able to communicate with one another the psycho neuron biochemistry in the brain must be in tune. So how are you going to change each others brain? To get in tune with each other you will need to change the chemistry of your brain by meditating together.
Every thought, every action is based upon a burst of energy which directs the neuron biochemistry into our brain and unless we get in tune with love, it is impossible to understand each other except through that love. Love embraces, love understands all things, and it becomes intuitive. Many people have so many prejudices in their minds simply because they are frustrated. Do you know where those frustrations come from? They come from the inner loneliness which your husband or your wife can never fill. God has made his creation full proof...without Him you will never know love. The less love you have the lonelier you feel. The lack of love is the lack of God. Your soul has forgotten its relationship with God through countless incarnations. In your subconscious mind deeply buried is the remembrance of His bliss. We can get in touch with this bliss through meditation. Someone asked about marriage in front of two thousand people: “When the romantic spark in marriage has dulled and it seems that I as a wife can never do enough or be enough or pray enough for help because I don’t have enough energy, enthusiasm or time for unselfish devotion anymore; are we both to simply act out our role as spiritual marriage because it’s right to do so without any feeling with it? How can we really make this relationship more meaningful when I feel spiritually drained like a draft horse in harness with my fellow teammate? We are certainly not mounting God-ward with wings as eagles.” Now, this woman was very poetical, that was magnificent. Well, my dear, the moment we enter into this world we enter into the collar of a straight jacket, remember that.
Here are the qualifications for a perfect marriage; a marriage so utterly beautiful that every day you are in love without anger and in total union with your husband or wife; you can feel, think and act together in perfect unison. How can you achieve this? Do you believe it is possible? The wise masters say it is but there is a little cleaning up first before you get married and ...that is the eight menaces or snares of the heart. These are the mild forms, anger, jealousy, hostility, hatred, and cynicism, acts of violence, nagging and caustic remarks. Also included are guilt, shame, fear, insecurity, and the worst of all... gossip. Each time you criticize anybody you are automatically in tune with that person and you are pulling out the bad karma from him or her. You are taking to yourself the very bad qualities of that person. You have no idea how you are being connected. We are all connected with our brain with fibers of energy and we are one with this creation and we share the good and the bad according to how we tune in. The affection for gossiping is the affection for meanness to harm the souls of others. Even though the criticized is harmed, the one who criticizes is harmed even more. While the unjustly criticized becomes untainted, the evil wrongdoers are fated by the inescapable law of karma and are condemned by their own conscience. They are convicted to live in mental anguish in their own self-inflicted jailhouse. These are sick states of the mind and condemnation has to be cleaned up before you get married. Pride of family, race prejudice and smugness which means the highly satisfied who knows everything. Therefore that grinding process which you do not like in married life is totally natural. You are helping one another to gradually remove all the kinks and limitations you have.
If you refuse to do it in your married life and you get divorced and get married again and then divorce and get married again. Do you know where you will be in your next life? ...to a monastic order and you won’t be able to get out. This bondage which forces you to reincarnate life after life has to be worked out into the monastic order or to the married life. The best advice for selecting your mate is carefully analyzing the forces of attraction. Most people want to make an independent choice in choosing their marriage companion. This is what a parent should tell his son, or daughter when asked for advice. What are the qualities that a man should look for when he is choosing a wife? "She must be home loving and affectionate as the homing pigeon, with the loyalty of a dog, with the purity of a dove and the wisdom of an elephant, and have the sweet voice of the nightingale." What are the qualities that women should look for when she is choosing a husband? “The faithfulness of a dog, the strength and bravery of a lion, the wisdom of the elephant, be like the homing pigeon who loves his home.” Most young couples are attracted to each other because of good looks and similarities of things in common. For example, we "love" each other because we enjoy the same kind of profession and she makes a perfect business-companion. We also love the same types of movies and sports. We share the same interests in music. She understands my business which is great having a wife interested in my profession. A wrong choice could hurt my business. Never marry on impulse or when you are excited as you can mistake the pleasure of the senses for love. This type of pleasure will mislead the romantically involved. If you marry for beauty alone the rule is those attracted by beauty and good looks soon part after the good looks wane and then a pretty face could look ugly. When a woman marries for money alone or a man that would love to marry into money usually hears these words, “she married me for my money.” You can’t get rich quick marring for money. Humiliation goes with the territory for the man and the woman becomes miserable because she is never gratified with her mate; and some of these husbands beat their wives. There are those who would gain money by climbing the social ladder into society by marring for social position and these too usually end in failure. Pure love is the greatest love potion there is. You can only describe pure love when you feel it. Pure love is free from conditions and beautifies the mind and the body.
Copyright-2005-Gary Zalben - You may reprint this article as long as the author/source is kept intact. For additional life skills advice visit my website at [link] More >
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3 Jun 2006 @ 10:03, by nemue. Activism
My faith in the voice of the people has been restored this week with a landmark victory that led to the reversal of a decision that had been made by two of our State Governments and our Federal Government to sell off one of our most significant national assets, the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme.
Snowy Hydro is to remain in public hands after a community-inspired back flip by Prime Minister John Howard. Within an hour of Prime Minister Howard announcing yesterday that the Commonwealth would withdraw its 13 per cent stake of Snowy Hydro from sale, the NSW and Victorian governments did the same with their larger shares.
The turnaround is the result of unprecedented community anger at the proposed $3billion sale. This decision just goes to show that if people stick together and speak out they can bring about change.
The Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme is an engineering marvel and one of the seven listed engineering wonders of the modern era. Its construction marked a major turning point in Australia's multicultural history. It was Ben Chifley in 1949 as the then Australia Prime Minister, who told the people of Australia, "The Snowy Mountains scheme, the greatest single project in our history, is a plan for the whole nation, belonging to no one state”. Over 100,000 workers from 30 countries toiled for 25 years to build the Snowy Hydro-electric scheme. More than 130 people died during the construction.
While it generates only 3 per cent of the country's power, Snowy Hydro supplies about 2,100 giga litres of water to the Murray Darling Basin, supplying inland irrigators along the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers. So this decision also had a noteworthy impact in retaining one of our major water supply authorities in the hands of the people and not private enterprise.
PEOPLE POWER long may it reign More >
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