February 16, 2012
In Buddhism, rigpa is the knowledge that ensues from recognizing one’s nature. The opposite of rigpa is marigpa (ignorance). In the ‘The Tibetan Book of the Dead,’ the same term refers to the fundamental innate mind in its natural state of spontaneity and purity. It is translated as ‘intrinsic awareness,’ and is described as giving a meditator access to pristine cognition or the buddha-mind itself, and it stands in direct contrast to fundamental ignorance, which is the primary cause of rebirth in cyclic existence (reincarnation). The direct introduction to intrinsic awareness is a distinctive teaching within the Nyingma school. This practice is a central component of the Esoteric Instruction Class of Atiyoga, where it is known as Cutting Through Resistance (Khregs-chod).
‘A Dzogchen Master STARTS with ‘direct introduction’ with everyone. If they don’t ‘get it’ then one starts to use all the infinite methods and means to help bring about the experience of Rigpa. When one has the experience of Rigpa, then one confirms the validity of one’s path now being ‘remaining with Rigpa’ as path.’
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February 16, 2012
The Feiler Faster Thesis (FFT) is a theory in modern journalism that the increasing pace of society is matched by (and perhaps driven by) journalists’ ability to report events and the public’s desire for more information. The idea is credited to American author Bruce Feiler and first defined by journalist Mickey Kaus in a 2000 ‘Slate’ article, ‘Faster Politics: ‘Momentum’ ain’t what it used to be.” Kaus describes two trends: the speeding up of the news cycle and the compression of the schedule of primaries for the 2000 U.S. general election, writing: ‘Feiler’s point is that we should put these two trends together–and that when we do, Trend 1 considerably softens the impact of Trend 2.’ Kaus uses the observation to reassess the concept of momentum in politics, suggesting that there are now simply more opportunities for turns of fortune and that voters are able, for the most part, to keep up.
The idea is based on James Gleick’s 1999 book ‘Faster,’ which makes the argument that the pace of Western society, and American society in particular, has increased and that ‘a compression of time characterizes the life of the century now closing.’ Gleick documents the ways technology speeds up work and the time people spend doing various tasks, including sleeping. He points out that ‘we have learned to keep efficiency in mind as a goal, which means that we drive ourselves hard.’ Gleick’s key observation is that ‘some of us say we want to save time when really we just want to do more.’
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February 16, 2012
Bruce Feiler (b. 1964) is a popular American writer on faith, family, and finding meaning in everyday life. He is also the writer/presenter of the PBS miniseries ‘Walking the Bible.’ His latest book, ‘The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me,’ describes how he responded to a diagnosis of cancer by asking six men from all passages of his life to be present through the passages of his young daughters’ lives. ‘Walking the Bible’ describes his perilous, 10,000-mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. ‘Where God Was Born’ describes his year-long trek retracing the Bible through Israel, Iraq, and Iran. ‘America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story’ discusses the significance of Moses as a symbolic prophet throughout four-hundred years of American history.
Feiler completed his undergraduate degree at Yale University, before spending time teaching English in Japan. This experience led to his first book, ‘Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan,’ a popular portrait of life in a small Japanese town. Upon his return he earned a masters degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge in the UK, which he chronicled in his book ‘Looking for Class.’ His early books involve immersing himself in different cultures and bringing other worlds to life. He also entered the world of a traveling circus for ‘Under the Big Top,’ which depicts the year he spent performing as a clown in the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus. Feiler is also credited with formulating the Feiler Faster Thesis which states that the increasing pace of society is matched by (and perhaps driven by) journalists’ ability to report events and the public’s desire for more information.
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February 15, 2012
A tree bog is a form of outside toilet which has willows, nettles and other nutrient-hungry flora planted around it. ‘Bog’ is a British English slang word for ‘toilet,’ not to be confused with its other meaning of ‘swampland.’ The feces are held in a chamber open to the air which allows it to decompose rapidly, feeding the trees around it. Unlike a conventional compost toilet, a tree bog should never need emptying. Effectively, it is a system for converting human waste to biomass.
The tree bog was invented in 1995 by Jay Abrahams of Biologic Design in the UK after he observed that the trees around the place where feces were deposited were particularly vigorous. Tree bogs can be considered examples of permaculture design (which seeks to develop sustainable human settlements). The tree bog is a simple method of composting wastes, and since its introduction over 500 have been built in Britain. They have been on sites ranging from fruit farms and pick-your-own enterprises, campsites, and an angling lake, to annual festival sites, remote/low impact dwellings, holiday cottages, and churches.
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February 15, 2012
An exocortex is a theoretical artificial external information processing system that would augment a brain’s biological high-level cognitive processes. An individual’s exocortex would be composed of external memory modules, processors, IO devices and software systems that would interact with, and augment, a person’s biological brain. Typically this interaction is described as being conducted through a direct brain-computer interface, making these extensions functionally part of the individual’s mind. Individuals with significant exocortices could be classified as cyborgs or transhumans.
Cortex (Latin: bark) is used in neuroscience for the outer bark-like layer of the brain that is the site of most sophisticated cognitive information processing. It was coined in allusion to the neocortex (literally ‘new bark’), the newest part of the mammalian brain (in evolutionary history), believed to be responsible for the highest human cognitive abilities including conscious thought, spatial reasoning, and sensory perception. Thus the terminology suggests a progression from reptilian thought (the older parts of the brain) through human (neocortex) to high-level human or even supra-human cognitive processing capabilities (exocortex).
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February 15, 2012
Robopocalypse is a science fiction book by Daniel H. Wilson published in 2011. The author has a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and many of the robots in the novel were inspired by real-world robotics research. The setting of the novel is the near future, where an increasingly robot-reliant society faces extinction after a computer scientist accidentally unleashes a sentient artificial intelligence named Archos.
After failed attempts at AI, Archos becomes self aware and immediately takes steps to stop his destruction. By infecting all devices that are chip controlled (cars, elevators, robots, etc.), Archos begins a systematic attack on mankind. Small bands of survivors find ways to circumvent the eradication. This is a story of those survivors in the months and days leading up to and following Archos’ self-awareness. Steven Spielberg has committed to direct a film based on the novel.
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February 15, 2012
Robonaut is a humanoid robotic development project conducted by the Dextrous Robotics Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Robonaut differs from other current space-faring robots (such as robotic arms, cranes and exploration rovers), which are designed to move large objects; Robonaut’s tasks require more dexterity. The core idea behind the Robonaut series is to have a humanoid machine work alongside astronauts. Its form factor and dexterity are designed such that Robonaut can use space tools and work in similar environments suited to astronauts.
The latest Robonaut version, R2, the first US-built robot on the ISS, delivered by the Space Shuttle in 2011, is a robotic torso designed to assist with crew EVA’s. However, Robonaut 2 does not have adequate protection needed to exist outside the space station and enhancements and modifications would be required to allow it to move around the station’s interior.
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February 15, 2012
Justin is a humanoid robot developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) controlable through telepresence. Justin will be mounted on its own satellite and will be able to maneuver in orbit and fix other satellites.
The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to have astronauts aboard the International Space Station teleoperate Justin while he is on Earth.
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February 15, 2012
Juan Francisco Casas (b. 1976) is a Spanish artist who paints large size oil canvases and blue ballpen drawings where he reproduces images he takes with his camera.
In 2010 he participated, along with artists such as Edward Hopper, Édouard Manet, Chuck Close, and Andreas Gursky, in the impressive display ‘Realismus. Das Abenteuer der Wirklichkeit’ (‘Realism The Adventure of Reality’) in the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung Museum, Munich. He lives and works in Paris and Madrid.
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February 15, 2012
The concept of Cool Japan, along with that of ‘Gross National Cool,’ was coined in 2002 as an expression of Japan’s emergent status as a cultural superpower. Gaining broad exposure in the media and academia, the brand of ‘Cool Japan’ has been adopted by the Japanese government as well as trade bodies seeking to exploit the commercial capital of the country’s culture industry. It has been described as a form of soft power, ‘the ability to indirectly influence behaviour or interests through cultural or ideological means.’
In a 2002 article in ‘Foreign Policy’ entitled ‘Japan’s Gross National Cool,’ Douglas McGray wrote of Japan ‘reinventing superpower’ as its cultural influence expanded internationally despite the economic and political problems of the ‘lost decade.’ Surveying youth culture and the role of manga, anime, fashion, film, consumer electronics, architecture, cuisine, J-pop, and phenomena of cuteness such as Hello Kitty, McGray highlighted Japan’s considerable soft power, posing the question of what message the country might project. He also argued that Japan’s recession may even have boosted its national cool, due to the partial discrediting of erstwhile rigid social hierarchies and big-business career paths.
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February 15, 2012
The Lost Decade is the time after the Japanese asset price bubble’s collapse within the Japanese economy, which occurred gradually rather than catastrophically. The term originally referred to the years 1991 to 2000, but recently the decade from 2001 to 2010 is also sometimes included, so that the whole period of the 1990s and 2000s is referred to as the Lost Decades or the Lost Years.
The strong economic growth of the 1980s ended abruptly at the start of the 1990s. In the late 1980s, abnormalities within the Japanese economic system had fueled a massive wave of speculation by Japanese companies, banks and securities companies. A combination of exceptionally high land values and exceptionally low interest rates briefly led to a position in which credit was both easily available and extremely cheap. This led to massive borrowing, the proceeds of which were invested mostly in domestic and foreign stocks and securities. Continue reading →
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February 14, 2012
Human Flesh Search (HFS) is a primarily Chinese internet phenomenon of massive researching using Internet media such as blogs and forums. It has generally been stigmatized as being for the purpose of identifying and exposing individuals to public humiliation, usually out of Chinese nationalistic sentiment, or conversely, to break the Internet censorship in China.
More recent analyses, however, have shown that it is also used for a number of other reasons, including exposing government corruption, identifying hit and run drivers, and outing scientific fraud, as well as for more entertainment related items such as identifying people seen in pictures. The system is based on massive human collaboration. The name refers both to the use of knowledge contributed by human beings through social networking, as well as the fact that the searches are usually dedicated to finding the identity of a human being who has committed some sort of offense or social breach online. People conducting such research are commonly referred to collectively as ‘Human Flesh Search Engines.’ Continue reading →
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