A Video History of the Ninja

The original videos I had embedded are no longer available on YouTube, so I found these two. Not sure how much alike they are, but two is better than one... I think?

 

The Rat Temple

The Karni Mata Temple is an important Hindu site. It is a beautiful temple made of marble with solid silver doors. However, it is not the architecture of this temple that attracts tourists; it is the thousands of rats that inhabit it. There are special holes and tunnels around the temple to facilitate the rats' movements as well as a wire screen over the courtyard to protect them from birds of prey.

Pilgrims are anointed with ash while the scurrying critters run over their feet. This is considered very auspicious as is spotting a rare white rat. Bowls of milk and water are strategically placed throughout the temple and pilgrims feed the rats balls of sugar. You may be asking, "Why all the fuss about rats?" Well, these pilgrims believe that the rats are their ancestors.

More interesting stuff can be found on my new website: Hey It's Me

 

Games Are Taking Over!

From CNN we have this interesting and creepy interview with Jesse Schell, a game designer and professor of Carnegie Mellon University. It's all about why games will take over our lives - there are even plans for a game in your toothbrush! Gamepocalypse is fast approaching!! Here's the article:

(CNN) -- If you think an electric toothbrush is high-tech, wait until you hear about the Internet-enabled version. Jesse Schell, a game designer and Carnegie Mellon University professor, says toothbrushes will be hooked-up with Wi-Fi Internet connections within five years.

The point? If the entire Internet knows how often you brush your teeth and for how long, there's an incentive to brush more often.

Toothbrush makers could offer rewards for frequent brushers, too. Say you brush your teeth twice each day for three months. A company like Crest or Procter & Gamble could reward you with coupons for more toothbrushes, since your well-used bristles would probably be frayed by then.

Schell says dental hygiene -- and, really, just about everything else -- will become a game. He thinks the "gamepocalypse," the moment when everything in our lives becomes a game, is coming soon -- if it's not already here.

The Web-connected toothbrush is just one example Schell touched on during a recent interview. Here's an edited transcript:

CNN: You've said games are showing up all over the place. What do you mean by that, exactly?

In short, we already see games creeping into our everyday lives in all kinds of funny ways. You go to Starbucks, and you get points if you have a Starbucks card. And, in fact, they have a whole leveling system. The more times you visit, the more you move from level green up to gold level, with special privileges and free soy milk.

Already, we have this whole system of economies floating around out there. And at the same time, we have all these technologies showing up that are allowing us to track new things, things that we couldn't do before.

CNN: What are we tracking now that we couldn't before?

A new example that's kind of a popular one is this new game Foursquare, which is a game that works off of the GPS in your phone.

We normally think, 'Oh, the GPS in my phone is useful in case I need to get directions to somewhere.' But there's no reason that your GPS can't track your location all the time. And, in fact, why not make a game of it?

So in the world of Foursquare, you get territory points based on all the places you visit. If you are the person who visits a place more than anyone else, you can become the mayor of that place, unless someone else visits it more than you, and then they take over the mayorship of the place.

New video gaming systems are coming out that track every joint of your body. It's basically going to become a normal thing for us to allow Microsoft to put a three-dimensional camera on top of your television set looking at you, which sounds like a Big Brother scenario if ever I heard one, but, still, it's what we're going to allow.

CNN: Do you think this will go so far that we'll be living a game?

I think people will find a great deal of their lives co-opted by games, sort of like how we saw advertising co-opt huge amounts of our lives in the 20th century.

CNN: Has it already happened?

I jokingly call this convergence of games into reality the "Gamepocalypse": the moment when every moment of life is actually a game. So many people have been interested in the topic that I made a blog called Gamepocalypse Now.

Do you know about this Green Goose product that you snap onto your bicycle and it tracks how much you ride ... and it has a system of rewards based on how much gas you save?

There's a lot of these things that are starting to happen now, and I think we're going to see more and more of them coming together.

CNN: What's going to happen next?

I think camera-based technology and tracking is going to be one of the things, in the next 10 years, we're going to see a lot of evolution in.

The idea of cheap little cameras and disposable cameras are going to become fairly normal. And when you combine that with the fact that we're getting used to touch-based interfaces and gesture-based interfaces, I think we're going to see these cameras in a lot of places for interacting with a lot of things.

You've got Google Goggles, where you take a picture of like anything, and it will tell you what it is. We haven't really started to make games with that yet, but I think we will start to.

And if you look at the new Nintendo DSi, which is their newest handheld, it has two cameras on it, which at first seemed kind of crazy to people, but the idea is you have one camera that faces out into the world and one that faces you the user, so it can look at your face and study your face.

No one's quite figured out exactly what that's for yet.

CNN: What do you think it's for?

I presume they want to go toward some facial tracking. They want to have games that involve tracking your face.

I think one of the things we'll start to see is common is, massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft will start to have a camera on your face, and then they'll map your facial expression to your avatar.

That's technologically not very difficult, and I think the potential for meaningful emotional expression and communication is significant there.

CNN: Will that change our everyday lives?

Anybody who has a product that can sense that the product is being used ... they're going to want to create motivations for you to use the product.

So fundamentally, they're going to make games out of it, because games are reward-based systems that motivate us to do things.

In fact, Oral-B is like halfway there. They already have a toothbrush that senses when you're brushing your teeth. And every 30 seconds, it beeps, meaning it's time now to change to a different corner of your mouth. So you do the four quadrants of your mouth, and when you've done all four, then it does a little special beep, and a happy face appears. And you don't get the happy face, you get a sad face, if you don't finishing brushing your teeth properly.

Now, that doesn't connect to the Internet yet, but, you know, it's about five seconds from connecting to the Internet. They already have a bathroom scale that uses Wi-Fi and connects to the Internet, so that every time you weigh yourself, it uploads it to a database so you can track your weight over time. You can configure it to automatically tweet your weight, in case you want that.

CNN: Is that supposed to be fun, or beneficial, for the consumer?

It depends on the product. If it's a product that gets you to brush your teeth more, or what if it not only it gets you to brush your teeth, but you floss?

That sounds health-giving. But if you look at people who make soda pop, they're going to try to incentivize you to do things that are less healthy. I hate to think about the systems the cigarette companies are going to come up with in order to incentivize people.

Whether it's fun is going to be important, because it's going to be competition. The 21st century is going to be this war for the attention of humanity.

CNN: Do you see a downside to people being watched and tracked all the time?

We all have choices to make about what aspects of our privacy we want to give away. We're already making choices like that all the time.

Anybody who uses Gmail has decided, "Yeah, I think it's OK for a major corporation to carefully sniff through every word of every e-mail I send and try to automatically come up with a profile of what sorts of things I might want to buy and then pop up distracting messages, specifically designed to distract me, based on my interests, on the side of the page."

So you could say, "Yeah, that's kind of creepy." Many of us say, "That's OK. I'm willing to give that up."

Is it OK for Amazon to know every word of every book you've read? Are you comfortable with that? Maybe you are. Is it OK to let everybody know you eat Corn Flakes? OK, but then there are certain products you might not want people to know that you're using. ...

The part that I worry about the most is sort of the perverse incentives that these systems are going to try to create. Largely, the companies won't be caring about our health and welfare. They're going to be caring about, "Can I manipulate you into doing things that help the company?"

CNN: Should we create regulations to keep that from happening?

That's hard for me to imagine. These things are going to creep up on us one by one, and it's going to be up to what can people take, and what can people tolerate?

CNN: Why are we attracted to games?

One of the main things that's appealing about games is that you know a game can be won. It's an unusual game that's impossible to win.

In real life, we have these problems, and the problems are hairy, and they're messy. You look at the problems that you face in your job or in your relationship or in your family, and it's like there's no clear winning, and there's no clear losing. Whereas, in a game, things are crisp and clear.

The game presents you with challenges that can be met, and then it congratulates you on your successes at those challenges. It's a thing we don't get everyday in life.

Unconsious Loops

Ok, so I found this sitting in here - in draft form - for almost a year. And I can't remember what i wanted to say about it, nor do I remember what was cool about it... clearly I was in some sort of unconscious loop. And now I'm sharing that loop with you! How cool is that? is that? is that? is that cool?

Alan Watts talks about money

The following is from another speech given by Alan Watts entitled "From Time and Eternity". I'm not quite sure what I think of it, especially since today I don't have enough money - and he says that money isn't real - and I say - ok.. but having to pay the bills is real... real for me... so - what do you think?



(sorry, looks like this video is no longer available on YouTube
but here's a link to the ones that are: Alan Watts on Money)

*"Do you remember the Great Depression? One day everything was going all right. Everybody was pretty wealthy and had plenty to eat. The next day everybody was in poverty. What had happened? Had the fields disappeared; had the dairy vanished into thin air; had the fish of the sea ceased to exist; had human beings lost their energy; their skills and their brains?

No, but on the morning after the Depression a man came to work building a house and the foreman said to him "Sorry chum you can't work today, there ain't no inches." He said "What do you mean there ain't no inches?" "Yeah" he said, "Yeah, we got lumber, we got metal, we even got tape measures." The foreman said "The trouble with you is you don't understand business. There are no inches. We have been using too many of them and there's not enough to go around."

Because what happened in the Great Depression was a slump in money. Human beings are so unbelievably stupid, that they confused money with wealth. They don't realize that money is a measure of wealth, in exactly the same way that meters are a measure of length. They think it is something that is valuable in and of itself. And as a result of that get into unbelievable trouble, in exactly the same way time is nothing but an abstract measure of motion.

And we keep counting time. We have the sensation time is running out, and we bug ourselves with this as we sit and watch the clock. Supposing you are working, are you watching the clock? If you are, what are you waiting for? Time off? Five o'clock, we can go home and have fun? Yeah, fun. What are you going to do when you get home? Have fun? Or are you going to watch TV, which is an electronic reproduction of life which doesn't even smell of anything and eat a TV dinner which is a kind of a warmed over airline nastiness until you just get tired and have to go to sleep. You know, the great society.

This is our problem you see. We are not alive, we are not awake. We are not living in the present."

*This speech was slightly edited for clarification.

Confusions of the Mind

Here we have Alan Watts audio from Disturbing confusions of the mind. I love this guy.



The Alan Watts Story While many in the 60's played the stock market and paid their mortgages, Alan Watts lived aboard a colorful houseboat, writing, speaking, and inspiring a generation to re-assess their values.

For more than forty years, Alan Watts earned a reputation as a foremost interpreter of Eastern philosophies for the West. Beginning at age sixteen, when he wrote essay for the journal of the Buddhist Lodge in London, he developed an audience of millions who were enriched through his books, tape recordings, radio, television, and public lectures.

In all, Watts wrote more than twenty-five books and recorded hundreds of lectures and seminars, all building toward a personal philosophy that he shared in complete candor and joy with his readers and listeners throughout the world. His overall works have presented a model of individuality and self-expression that can be matched by few philosophers.

His life and work reflects an astonishing adventure: he was an editor, Anglican priest, graduate dean, broadcaster, author, lecturer, and entertainer. He had fascinations for archery, calligraphy, cooking, chanting, and dancing, and still was completely comfortable hiking alone in the wilderness. He held a Master's Degree in Theology from Sudbury-Western Theological Seminary and an Honorary DD from the University of Vermont in recognition of his work in the field of comparative religions. He held fellowships from Harvard University and the Bollingen Foundation, and was Episcopal Chaplain at Northwestern University during the Second World War.

He became professor and dean of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, made the television series "Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life" for National Educational Television, and served as a visiting consultant for psychiatric institutions and hospitals, and for the United States Air Force. In the mid-sixties he travelled widely with his students in Japan, and visited Burma, Ceylon, and India.

Wash Your Hands Right Now!

Why?

Well, I just discovered that hand washing affects your moral judgment and gives a more lenient attitude toward sinners and wrong doers. And since I'm pretty sure I fall into both categories, it occurs to me that before reading this page a good hand washing might be in order!



I find this really interesting. It has all sorts of implications! For example - would something like this help when you're having a problem with your significant other? with your children? If someone gives you a hard time, couldn't you just suggest a good hand washing? It might be better than a hand wringing in a bad situation.... Does a picture of someone washing their hands have a similar effect? Could I post something like that on my front door? I'm intrigued by the whole thing. So... Here's the article, what do you think?

The old adage that cleanliness is next to godliness has now received scientific support after researchers discovered washing your hands can affect your moral judgment.

People who wash their hands make less severe judgments. A new study has found that people are more likely to be lenient in making decisions if they have just washed their hands.

British scientists who carried out the research said the findings suggest that jurors in criminal trials who have cleansed their hands may make their verdict less severe.

This suggests that voters may be more likely to excuse a politician's misdemeanours when going to the ballot box if they have just had a shower.

In the study, 22 people who had washed their hands, and 22 who had not, were made to watch a disgusting three-minute clip of heroin addicts from the hit film Trainspotting.

All 44 were then asked to rate how morally wrong they deemed the series of acts shown to them on a scale of one to nine, with one being acceptable and seven being very wrong.

The actions included stealing money from a wallet, lying on a job application, cooking and eating the family dog, killing a dying plane crash survivor to avoid starvation, and abusing a kitten.

All said they thought the actions were 'wrong'. However, the participants who had washed their hands were less likely to judge the actions as harshly as the group who had not.

In another experiment, a group was asked to read sentences with words such as 'purity' and 'cleanliness' before being posed the same moral dilemmas. Another group was given sentences with neutral words.

Again, the 'clean' group judged the unethical behaviour less harshly.

Lead researcher Dr Simone Schnall, a psychologist at the University of Plymouth, said: "We like to think we arrive at decisions because we deliberate, but incidental things can influence us.

"This could have implications when voting and when juries make up their minds."

Lancaster University psychologist Professor Carey Cooper described the findings as "terrifying". He said: "It suggests that washing can make us more prepared to accept wrongdoing. It is very scary when you think of the implications, especially in the judicial world."

Article by Murray Wardrop

Here's something really odd

I've been researching for the prosperity project (we're chanting for prosperity) and also for a mini-workshop I'm giving on healing chants and sound, and I came across this strange little video. It's a pictorial representation of sound... I'm not sure how successful it is, but it's so wierd that it's almost interesting.

Alan Watts is God

In this excerpt from a lecture, Alan Watts plays the role of a "delusional patient" who thinks he's God. He gets his students to ask him any question they please. The results are interesting.
So..
Again, I love this guy!

Nothing

Nothing comes from nothing...
Not true...
Geez I love this guy!

A Conversation With Myself

OK... wow!
This I love! Why am I not more familiar with Alan Watts?
So here you have my "deeply informative" post of the day!







These are a 1971 television recording with Alan Watts walking in the mountains and talking about the limitations of technology and the problem of trying to keep track of an infinite universe with a single tracked mind. Videos posted on YouTube by Alan's son and courtesy of alanwatts.com.

It's Talk Like A Physicist Day!

Yes, it's true! In honor of Einstein's birthday, it's National Pi day, otherwise known as "Talk Like A Physicist Day."


Not sure how to do it?

Not to worry, we've got it covered! Here are some pointers:


Terms that Physicists use:

Order of Magnitude: Use terms like “orders of magnitude” to describe significant differences of scale.

Negligible: When something is small, say it is “negligible” non-zero, but negligible.

Infinitesimal: If it is really really small, say it is infinitesimal.

Non-trivial: For a physicist, nothing is ever hard or difficult - it is always “non-trivial”

First-order approximation: That is only a first-order approximation to a good cup of coffee… “The living room is clean. Well…at least to a first order approximation.”

Canonical: Use “canonical” when you mean “usual” or “standard.” As in, “the canonical example of talking like a physicist is to use the word ‘canonical.’”

Orthogonal: Use “orthogonal” to refer to things that are mutually-exclusive or can’t coincide. “We keep playing phone tag — I think our schedules must be orthogonal”

Empirical Data: Any actual personal experience becomes “empirical data.” i.e. a burn on your hand is empirical data that the stove is hot.

Ground State: You’re not being lazy, you are in your ground state.

Extrapolation: A semi-educated guess is an extrapolation

Ideal Case: You aren’t ignoring details, you are taking the ideal case

Vanishingly small: A tiny amount is “vanishingly small” or “negligible.” Really small is “infinitesimal”

Potential Well: Stuck in a meeting is “trapped in a potential well,” though you hope you can “tunnel out.”

Blackhole: If there is no escape, you are trapped by a black hole, from which there is no escape.

Photons: It’s not light, they are photons. Turning on the lamp becomes emitting photons.

Exercise to Reader: The rest is history becomes “the rest is left as an exercise to the reader…”

Not even wrong: Someone is making an argument using assumptions that are known to be wrong, or are making an argument that can’t be falsified. Courtesy Wolfgang Pauli. “Wait, he’s assuming Ron Paul can still win the Republican nomination? That’s not even wrong.”

For very small values of: This one, I’m afraid, I can best explain by example. “So there are four of us going to dinner.” “Three.” “Okay, so there are four of us for very small values of four.”

Super position: If something seems to act like something else, I say that it’s in a “superposition of the two states”.

Other good words to add to your vocabulary:

• Discontinuity
• Renormalize
• Positive and negative work
• God Particle
• Dark Energy
• Space-time continuum

Other rules:
When you are asked a question, think of improbable ways a statement could be true and then at the end make sure to give correct answer.

For Example:
When a mere mortal is asked a question “Can a pig fly?” typically the answerer is “No.” However a physicist will respond as follows: “They could if there was no gravity, or in interstellar space, or if they had wings, or if they were dropped off a cliff (though it would be a short flight). Generally the answer is NO.”

Here is another example of the same rule:
Q: two trains are a approaching each other at 40 mph and are 8 miles apart, when will they cross each other? An untrained person would say “in about 6 minutes”.

A physicist would respond as:
"If the trains are on the same track, they will not cross each other but run in to each other; when you say approaching each other, are the trains engines facing each other? they could go around the world and then cross each other, but for that I need to know the location of the trains. Also, I need to know the lengths of each of the trains to accurately calculate this, but in a trivially simple situation, the trains will cross each other in 6 minutes. "

Again, make sure that the correct answer is always present at the end.

Still confused? This should simplify things for you:



And here's a diagram of the above information:



But wait, there's more! It's a physicist rap!!



And that's not all! I even found a lecture on on Quantum Physics by Prof.V.Balakrishnan, Department of Physics, IIT Madras. Watch and learn!!


Thanks to Sean, JerseyBoy, Swans on tea, dr. Dev. Stephan at Live granades, James Cronen and many others who have commented on various blogs on this issue.

A 256 Year Old Man!

Li Ching-Yun. Image from The People’s Republic of China

According to the 1933 obituaries in both Time Magazine and the New York Times, Li Ching-Yun was reported to have buried 23 wives and fostered 180 descendants by the time he died at the age of 256.

The Secrets to an Interminable Life

“Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.” These were the words of advice Li gave to Wu Pei-fu, the warlord, who took Li into his house to learn the secret of extremely long life.

Li maintained that inward calm and peace of mind were the secrets to incredible longevity. His diet after all, was mainly based on rice and wine.

Unsurprisingly, not much is known about Li Ching-Yun’s early life. We know he was born in the province of Szechwan in China, where he also died. We also know that by his tenth birthday, Ching-Yun was literate and had travelled to Kansu, Shansi, Tibet, Annam, Siam and Manchuria gathering herbs. After that, it gets a bit fuzzy…

Apparently, for over one hundred years, Li continued selling his own herbs and then subsequently sold herbs collected by others. He also (according to Time) had six-inch long fingernails on his right hand.

You might be thinking that he looked decrepit, shrivelled, leather-like and creepy, however sources at the time were astonished at his youthfulness. Was this suspect? Was Li Ching-Yun as old as he claimed he was, or was his birthday a clerical error or exaggeration?

Let’s take a brief look at both sides…

The Nine Lives of Li Ching-Yun

By his own admission he was born in 1736 and had lived 197 years. However, in 1930 a professor and dean at Minkuo University by the name of Wu Chung-chien, found records “proving” that Li was born in 1677. Records allegedly showed that the Imperial Chinese Government congratulated him on his 150th and 200th Birthdays.

So the question is, had he forgotten his own birthday? Was this even the same Li Ching-Yun?

Looking at all of this from a medical and documented perspective: Jeanne Louise Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 so far holds the title for the person who has roamed the earth the longest: 122 years, which is a phenomenal length of time.

That means, that if the records discovered by Wu Chung-chien were accurate, Li Ching-Yun’s age would surpass the official record by more than 130 years. Is this even medically possible?

The detail, which seems to prove both arguments and debunk them at the same time, is Li’s youthful appearance, noted in a 1928 article from the New York Times. Visually and physically, he appeared to look like a typical 60 year-old. Does this therefore signify a superhuman body capable of lasting one quarter of a millennium, or is the story of Li Ching-Yun based on a series of half-truths, lies or exaggerations?

Unfortunately, we may never know. You may draw your own logical conclusions. I have decided to believe it.

source

What Mike Rowe Has To Say

Ok, so I had to go find a replacement for the "How To Pull Sheep Testicles Out With Your Teeth" video, and I stumbled across this interview with Mike Rowe:



Here's the description of the video from the download page at YouTube:

Drawing on his experiences picking up roadkill, feeding swine, and castrating a lamb with his teeth, Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, discusses how modern American culture belittles necessary labor.

EG is the celebration of the American entertainment industry. Since 1984, Richard Saul Wurman has created extraordinary gatherings about learning and understanding. EG is a rich extension of these ideas - a conference that explores the attitude of understanding in music, film, television, radio, technology, advertising, gaming, interactivity and the web - The Entertainment Gathering

Mike Rowe has had more jobs than you. In fact, Mike has had more jobs than anyone.

As the creator and executive producer of Discovery Channels Emmy-nominated series Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe, Mike has spent years traveling the country, working as an apprentice on more than 200 jobs that most people would go out of their way to avoid. From coal mining to roustabouting, maggot farming to sheep castrating, Mike has worked in just about every industry and filmed the show in almost every state, celebrating the hard-working Americans who make civilized life possible for the rest of us.

On Labor Day 2008, Mike launched a Web site called mikeroweWORKS.com, where skilled labor and hard work are celebrated in the hope of calling attention to the steady decline in the trades and bolstering enrollment in trade schools and technical colleges.

In addition to Dirty Jobs and his mikeroweWORKS endeavor, Mike is the voice of Deadliest Catch and the national spokesman for Ford Trucks. He has traveled extensively for Discovery Channel, hosting Shark Week in South Africa, where he field-tested a steel-mesh shark-suit, and Egypt Week Live, where he opened and explored newly discovered tombs in the Valley of the Golden Mummies.

Too much thinking can rot your brain!

I just finished reading an article by Amrito MD, over at Osho.com. Here are some of the high points:

• Recent research has now established that thinking too much can rot the brain.
• Just as hard labor leaves marks on the hands, hard thinking leaves marks on the brain....

... I am so sorry, but this post has been moved to my new website, Hey It's Me, hosted at shirleytwofeathers.com, and can be found in its entirety here: Too Much Thinking Can Rot Your Brain!

Mongolian Felt Making

Ok, so I wanted to make up for the sheep testicle video... and article about eating testicles... and the concrete sheep with the large testicles.... so I'm uploading this educational video on felt making.

Have you ever made felt? It's not hard, all it takes is time and elbow grease... oh, and wool. I went to a felt making class once. It was a lot of fun. I made a pair of boots that were really cool. I wonder where they are...

A Memo From Howard Hughes

This is not a joke, just something that fell into my lap I must share. As far as I know it is a real, actual memo written by Howard Hughes at what appears to be the height of his OCD.

OPERATING MEMORANDUM

Subject: Proper operating procedure for Bungalow 1 C Date October 13, 1958

There are certain areas within the Bungalow 1 C area that have been set aside by Johnny Holmes for the storage of my personal things. There are also other areas that have been set aside for future use by Johnny and his people. These designated areas, which Johnny will mark clearly or designate verbally to all concerned, should be avoided by everyone outside of Johnny’s area of operation. I do not want anybody, under any circumstances, no matter what the emergency may be, to touch these areas or go anywhere near them. I do not want anyone to touch the telephone that Johnny uses, nor any of his equipment that he has put away in storage in the Bungalow or any of my things there, or anything connected with my things.

It is extremely important to me that nobody ever, under any circumstances, no matter what the emergency may be, no matter how extreme the emergency, no matter what pressures are put on, no matter how unusual the circumstances may be, goes into any room, closet, cabinet, drawer, or any other area which is either used by Johnny or indicated by Johnny to be reserved by him for my things in connection with my food operation or any other phase of my operation that Johnny takes care of. I want to make sure that nobody opens any doors to any rooms, closets, cabinets, drawers or in any way, touches any portion of these areas.

I say again, no matter how strong the emergency may be, no matter how extreme the emergency may be, no matter how unusual the circumstances may be, no matter how extreme the emergency, it is extremely important to me that nobody - nobody ever, ever goes into any room, closet, cabinet, drawer, bathroom, which is either used by Johnny or indicated by Johnny to be reserved for him, or which is used to store any of the things used in connection with my food, magazines or anything that is used for me.

I say once more, no matter, no matter what the emergency, no matter how extreme the emergency, no matter how unusual the circumstances, it is extremely important to me; I say once more, no matter how extreme the emergency, no matter how unusual the circumstances may be, no matter what may have arisen, it is extremely important to me that nobody ever goes into any room, closet, cabinet, drawer, bathroom or any other area used to store any of the things which are for me - either food, equipment, magazines, paper supplies, Kleenex - no matter what. And, it is also extremely important to me that no matter what the emergency, no matter how unusual the circumstances, no matter what may have come up, no matter what kind of emergency, it is also equally important to me that nobody ever goes into any room or bathroom or any other area which Johnny has indicated is to be reserved to him only, and it is also equally important that nobody ever touches my telephone or piece of furniture or any fixture or anything of that kind which Johnny has indicated is reserved for him.

Instructions should be given for the operators so that they are not allowed to put calls through there into Johnny’s telephone - which is Bung. I C - so that nobody calls there. Sometimes it rings and the third man has to stall around getting through to the operator to have it switched. Something should be done so the other phone is the one that rings - do you have that kind of deal? I don’t want the third man using that phone, and when it rings it’s a temptation for him to pick it up.

I want you to get the third man on the phone and give him all these Instructions and be awfully, awfully sure when you are talking to him, be sure, be certain, be absolutely positive when you are talking to your third man today or any other time, be sure that he is not using Johnny’s phone, that he is not in a room reserved for Johnny and that he is not in a room used to store any of my things. This is awfully, awfully important to me. I want you to be sure, awfully sure, be certain, be positive that nobody goes into any room or cabinet or closet that is used to store any things in connection with my operation. This is equally important to me - it is equally important to me that nobody ever opens any door or opening to any room, cabinet or closet or anything used to store any of my things, even for one-thousandth of an inch for one-thousandth of a second. This applies even when he does not go in, you understand, even if the man does not enter, it is equally important to me that nobody ever opens the door or the drawer even for a fraction of an inch for a fraction of a second - any drawer, closet, or room, you understand - that is used to store any of my things, whether they be stored or just sitting there, because I don’t want the possibility of dust or insects or anything of that nature entering. I want every thing I have indicated here to be followed to the letter.

I want everything I have said here to be clearly gone over, reviewed, and repeated to everyone concerned. Maybe it ought to be written up - typewritten - and given to the men out in Bungalow 1 C. In fact, I think it not only should be written up and handed to them, but they should commit it to memory and repeat it back to you (Kay) so that you are convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they have it down thoroughly.

Until further orders from me, I want nobody ever to set foot in that Bungalow (1 C) or any of those rooms we have anywhere near the Bungalow excepting only Johnny Holmes, and the two waiters - Karl and Charlie - and the number three men and Harvey. This instruction includes Roy, Harris and George.

Invisiblility - It is possible!

Belive it or not, there is a lizard on the trunk of this tree.
Can you see him?
He really is there!
Don't believe me?


Here's a picture of him in profile - on that same tree.
Give up?
Need a hint? Click here to see the lizard marked out in the bark.

Here's more about this intriguing little lizard.


These small lizards live in trees and are masters of Camouflage. If they are sitting on a bark without moving, its almost impossible to find them. On land they are clumsy and easy victims for predators. When scared, they run up a tree.


When threatened, they leap off the tree. With their "wings" stretched out, these long-tailed, lightly built lizards glide gracefully. The wings act like parachutes. They gently land on another tree, head up. When they land, they run up the tree, getting ready for their next flight.

During mating season, male flying lizards defend their territories. They court females by displaying their bright yellow throat flap as shown in the photograph above. They have to, as they are well camouflaged otherwise.

Pretty cool, huh? Just goes to show that it IS possible to be invisible - and that just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there!

Obama and the Palin Effect

This is what Deepak Chopra had to say about Obama and the Palin Effect. I thought it was really interesting! What do you think?

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:

• Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.


• Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad


• Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.


• Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.


• Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.


• "Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is."

The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

Source: DeepakChopra.com

The Effects of Sound

This is a video showing the effects of sound vibration.
Interesting, huh?



Here's another one: water vibration, cool but it's in German.



This one is like a tutorial - kind of nice I think!