Shared posts

03 Aug 00:57

Hitchhiking Robot That Relied on Kindness of Strangers...

Tertiarymatt

This makes me really remarkably angry in a way that is a bit difficult to explain. I guess all I can say is: have a look at America. via ThePrettiestOne

02 Aug 03:16

Physics Week in Review: August 1, 2015

Tertiarymatt

Worth clicking thru for the graphene piece, at the least.

Folding graphene like origami, the physics of how cereal gets soggy, and left-handed W bosons are among this week's highlights.

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
02 Aug 02:05

Whiskey Lover's Cognac

by David Driscoll
Tertiarymatt

I'd be quite interested to try this, I think.

A customer recently asked me in an email whether we had what I might refer to as a "whisky lover's Cognac". His goal was simple: he likes whiskey, he wants to try Cognac; which Cognac would be the best fit for a whiskey drinker?

What I ended up writing back was a prescription to try one of our new Armagnacs, explaining that the spice and the intensity of the Gascogne brandies are far more tailored to today's single malt or Bourbon fan. Cognac is often a spirit more suited for today's, well...Cognac consumer. They're blended to be smooth, soft, and seamless, rather than expressive and explosive. Most whiskey drinkers are searching for originality and individuality. They want to understand what makes each whiskey unique, so they look for different flavors and explanations as to why they exist. With Cognac, it's often about airbrushing away anything out of the ordinary in favor of the mainstream desire. It's about absolute harmony rather than artistic integrity. Not that one can't enjoy both sides of the spectrum (because I most definitely do), but rather that a Cognac bottle wouldn't be the first thing I reached for to put into the hands of a self-described Bourbon or single malt drinker.  But then I walked by the shelf today and I saw the 1996 Giboin Fins Bois Cognac that we just recently reloaded on. Actually....

Francois Giboin is an interesting guy. He's definitely not looking for uniformity and equality in his Cognacs (but I think he does sympathize with communism, so go figure). Unlike all other producers we deal with directly, Giboin is not located in the Grand Champagne or Petit Champagne; but rather in the Fins Bois—a region not known for producing a particularly fine spirit. But it was exactly because of that pre-conceived belief (that all the best Cognacs come from Grand Champagne) that we wanted to meet someone in the outer reaches of the Charentes who was actually bottling their own stuff. If Fins Bois was considered to be automatically inferior to the Champagne districts of Cognac, we wanted to at least know it for ourselves.

What I love about Giboin is that he's proud of his locale, so much so that he tells you all about it on the back label. There's a map of the six main crus, a sign that shows you his position, and an description of the property complete with family history. We liked him right off the bat. He definitely understood what we were looking for: a unique expression of flavor and place.

So we dug around Giboin's cellar and discovered the lovely little 1996 vintage, from which this most-recent batch was bottled in April of 2015. Still an 18 year old spirit, the earthy and leathery flavors, intermixed with the caramel and richness from the oak, make it one of the most rustic Cognacs I've ever tasted. Whereas almost all other Cognacs I've tasted showcase fruit and/or sweetness, you get neither on display in the Giboin. The nose is all caramel and vanilla, but it all instantly fades on the palate which brings forth a heavy dose of leather, savory spices, earth. It's a Cognac that is decidedly un-Cognac-like.

Whether it's for whiskey drinkers, I don't know. But if I had to pick one Cognac to put in a whiskey lover's hands, this is the one I'd pick. 

-David Driscoll

31 Jul 13:11

Clarity Is Job One

by Christopher Wright
Tertiarymatt

A THING MAY HAVE OCCURRED

31 Jul 02:33

"Count-Up" Is More Accurate

by Christopher Wright
29 Jul 21:41

Form Vs Essence

by Brad
Tertiarymatt

#SamHarrisiswrong beat

My friend Gesshin Greenwood wrote a great article in the current issue of Buddhadharma magazine. It’s the cover story! Do you know how many times I’ve gotten the cover story in one of the Buddhist magazines? Let me go through my files and count. OK. Here you go… never. Not once. But am I bitter? NO! Because I am above all bitterness! I am that f—ing enlightened!

Anyway. Whatever.

Gesshin’s story is all about whether one can strip away the cultural forms of Buddhism and get to its real essence. Regular readers will know that this is one of my favorite pet themes.

The Mindfulness™ movement takes the stance that yes, we can strip away the forms of Buddhism and toss them aside while only dealing with the important essentials. Sam Harris says, “Most people who teach mindfulness are still in the religion business. If you are declaring yourself a Buddhist you are part of the problem of religious sectarianism that has needlessly shattered our world. And I think we have to get out of the religion business.”

In her article, Gesshin gives us her teacher’s metaphor of Buddhism as wheel where the essence is at the center and the forms are at the rim. The wheel can’t move forward without its rim. She also talks about this common image of “stripping away” the forms of Buddhism to find the naked truth inside and says maybe we should get to know each other a little better before we get naked.

The way I see the history of Buddhism is that our man Siddhartha or Gautama, the historical Buddha, tried out various religious approaches to the problem of what life was and how to live it and found them wanting. So he looked deeply within himself and found another way. He also found that rituals are very useful in making what is merely intellectual into something that involves the body as well as the mind. When you wear a special costume, you tend to embody the spirit of that costume. When you put on a bunny outfit you feel like a bunny. When you put on Buddhist robes you feel like embodying the essence of Buddhism.

Sam Harris also says, “It just so happens Buddhism almost uniquely has given us a language and a methodology to do this (turn consciousness upon itself and thereby discover truth) that is really well designed for export into secular culture because you can get to the core truths of Buddhism — the truth of selflessness, the ceaseless impermanence of mental phenomena, the intrinsic unsatisfactoriness of experience. These features of our minds can be fully tested and understood without believing in anything on insufficient evidence. So it’s true to say that despite all the spooky metaphysics and unjustified claims of Buddhism you can get to the core of it without any faith claim and without being intellectually dishonest.”

Now here he is not talking just about trashing the bowing and incense lighting and chanting and funny clothes and haircuts. He’s saying we can also dump pretty much all of what my teacher called “Buddhist philosophy” too. I don’t feel like either of these is a very good idea, because if you do so it’s like trying to reinvent physics because you don’t like Einstein’s ideas about mustache grooming or Stephen Hawking’s preference for the far inferior Star Trek: The Next Generation over the much better Star Trek: The Original Series.

It’s true that people hear talk about karma or the Four Noble Truths or the Buddhist Precepts, or hear ideas about rebirth and about Bodhisattvas who can offer us help although they are either long dead people or entirely made up beings; they hear those things and assume they are spooky metaphysics or unjustified claims that must be accepted on faith. Unfortunately sometimes Buddhism really is taught that mistaken way. In his book Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist Stephen Batchelor says that’s how Tibetan Buddhism was presented to him, as a set of untestable doctrines that must be believed.

That’s the wrong way to understand Buddhist philosophy.

The right way to understand all that stuff is like this. For thousands of years across a variety of cultures, people who meditate have tried to put their experiences into words that they hoped others who did not meditate would get. Because our entire way of understanding life, the universe, and everything is fundamentally wrong, these teachers were forced to speak in metaphors. But all of the best Buddhist teachers said this quite explicitly. Quoting the historical Buddha, Dogen said, “Our Highest Ancestor in India, Shakyamuni Buddha, once said, ‘The snowcapped Himalayas are a metaphor for the great nirvana.’ When he uses the term ‘snow-capped Himalayas’, he is using the actual snowcapped Himalayas as a metaphor, just as when he uses the term ‘great nirvana’, he is using the actual great nirvana as a metaphor.” So even “great nirvana” is just as much of a metaphor as “snow-capped Himalayas.” This is only a single example. There are thousands more throughout all of Buddhist philosophy.

What these teachers have left for us is far too often treated as if it is Holy Scripture. But it’s not. Like all supposed “Holy Scripture” it is the words of people like us trying to convey an experience that is, in some ways, holy but also very human. As Chung-La said, “Before Buddhas were enlightened they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old.” If we learn to read the words of ancient Buddhist teachers in that spirit, we no longer see them as doctrines that must be accepted on faith alone but as attempts to tell us about an experience that is not easy to put in words.

It’s a kind of cultural arrogance to think that we can figure out what’s truly important in Buddhism better than the people who’ve been practicing it for centuries. I myself spent years believing that I understood Buddhism much better than those stuffy old Buddhists of ancient Asia. So I get it. But I never really understood what the forms of Buddhism actually were until I started doing them, and I never really understood what the so-called “doctrines” of Buddhism were until I actually started working with them.

So maybe try working with the tradition a little bit before you dismiss it all as useless baggage.

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 14-16, 2015 Munich, Germany 3 DAY ZEN RETREAT

August 19, 2015 Munich, Germany LECTURE

August 24-29, 2015 Felsentor, Switzerland 5-DAY RETREAT AT STIFTUNG FELSENTOR 

August 30-September 4, 2015 Holzkirchen, Germany 5-DAY RETREAT AT BENEDIKTUSHOF MONASTERY

September 4, 2015 Hamburg, Germany LECTURE

September 6, 2015 Hamburg, Germany ZEN DAY

September 10-13, 2015 Finland 4-DAY RETREAT

September 16-19, 20015 Hebden Bridge, England 4-DAY RETREAT

September 20, 2015 London, England THE ART OF SITTING DOWN & SHUTTING UP

September 21-25, 2015 Belfast, Northern Ireland SPECIFIC DATES TO BE DETERMINED

September 26-27, 2015 Glastonbury, England 2-DAY RETREAT

October 26-27 Cincinnati, Ohio Concert:Nova

November 6-8, 2015 Mt. Baldy, CA 3-DAY RETREAT

April 23, 2016 Long Island, New York Molloy College “Spring Awakening 2016”

ONGOING EVENTS

Every Monday at 8pm there’s zazen at Silverlake Yoga Studio 2 located at 2810 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039. All are welcome!

Every Saturday at 9:30 there’s zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial Complex located at 4117 Overland Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. All are welcome!

Plenty more info is available on the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles website, dsla.info

* * *

The form and essence of my economic life is your donations. I appreciate your on-going support!

29 Jul 00:30

No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons (Re-reloaded)

Tertiarymatt

Well, this is a thing, right here.

For decades now, I have been haunted by the grainy, black-and-white x-ray of a human skull.

It is alive but empty, with a cavernous fluid-filled space where the brain should be. A thin layer of brain tissue lines that cavity like an amniotic sac. The image hails from a 1980 review article in Science: Roger Lewin, the author, reports that the patient in question had “virtually no brain”. But that’s not what scared me; hydrocephalus is nothing new, and it takes more to creep out this ex-biologist than a picture of Ventricles Gone Wild.

The stuff of nightmares. (From Oliviera et al 2012)

The stuff of nightmares. (From Oliviera et al 2012)

What scared me was the fact that this virtually brain-free patient had an IQ of 126.

He had a first-class honors degree in mathematics. He presented normally along all social and cognitive axes. He didn’t even realize there was anything wrong with him until he went to the doctor for some unrelated malady, only to be referred to a specialist because his head seemed a bit too large.

It happens occasionally. Someone grows up to become a construction worker or a schoolteacher, before learning that they should have been a rutabaga instead. Lewin’s paper reports that one out of ten hydrocephalus cases are so extreme that cerebrospinal fluid fills 95% of the cranium. Anyone whose brain fits into the remaining 5% should be nothing short of vegetative; yet apparently, fully half have IQs over 100. (Why, here’s another example from 2007; and yet another. Let’s call them VBNs, or “Virtual No-Brainers”)

The paper is titled “Is Your Brain Really Necessary?”, and it seems to contradict pretty much everything we think we know about neurobiology. This Forsdyke guy over in Biological Theory argues that such cases open the possibility that the brain might utilize some kind of extracorporeal storage, which sounds awfully woo both to me and to the anonymous neuroskeptic over at Discovery.com; but even Neuroskeptic, while dismissing Forsdyke’s wilder speculations, doesn’t really argue with the neurological facts on the ground. (I myself haven’t yet had a chance to more than glance at the Forsdyke paper, which might warrant its own post if it turns out to be sufficiently substantive. If not, I’ll probably just pretend it is and incorporate it into Omniscience.)

On a somewhat less peer-reviewed note, VNBs also get routinely trotted out by religious nut jobs who cite them as evidence that a God-given soul must be doing all those things the uppity scientists keep attributing to the brain. Every now and then I see them linking to an off-hand reference I made way back in 2007 (apparently rifters.com is the only place to find Lewin’s paper online without having to pay a wall) and I roll my eyes.

And yet, 126 IQ. Virtually no brain. In my darkest moments of doubt, I wondered if they might be right.

So on and off for the past twenty years, I’ve lain awake at night wondering how a brain the size of a poodle’s could kick my ass at advanced mathematics. I’ve wondered if these miracle freaks might actually have the same brain mass as the rest of us, but squeezed into a smaller, high-density volume by the pressure of all that cerebrospinal fluid (apparently the answer is: no). While I was writing Blindsight— having learned that cortical modules in the brains of autistic savants are relatively underconnected, forcing each to become more efficient— I wondered if some kind of network-isolation effect might be in play.

Now, it turns out the answer to that is: Maybe.

Three decades after Lewin’s paper, we have “Revisiting hydrocephalus as a model to study brain resilience” by de Oliviera et al. (actually published in 2012, although I didn’t read it until last spring). It’s a “Mini Review Article”: only four pages, no new methodologies or original findings— just a bit of background, a hypothesis, a brief “Discussion” and a conclusion calling for further research. In fact, it’s not so much a review as a challenge to the neuro community to get off its ass and study this fascinating phenomenon— so that soon, hopefully, there’ll be enough new research out there warrant a real review.

The authors advocate research into “Computational models such as the small-world and scale-free network”— networks whose nodes are clustered into highly-interconnected “cliques”, while the cliques themselves are more sparsely connected one to another. De Oliviera et al suggest that they hold the secret to the resilience of the hydrocephalic brain. Such networks result in “higher dynamical complexity, lower wiring costs, and resilience to tissue insults.” This also seems reminiscent of those isolated hyper-efficient modules of autistic savants, which is unlikely to be a coincidence: networks from social to genetic to neural have all been described as “small-world”. (You might wonder— as I did— why de Oliviera et al. would credit such networks for the normal intelligence of some hydrocephalics when the same configuration is presumably ubiquitous in vegetative and normal brains as well. I can only assume they meant to suggest that small-world networking is especially well-developed among high-functioning hydrocephalics.) (In all honesty, it’s not the best-written paper I’ve ever read. Which seems to be kind of a trend on the ‘crawl lately.)

The point, though, is that under the right conditions, brain damage may paradoxically result in brain enhancement. Small-world, scale-free networking— focused, intensified, overclockedmight turbocharge a fragment of a brain into acting like the whole thing.

Can you imagine what would happen if we applied that trick to a normal brain?

If you’ve read Echopraxia, you’ll remember the Bicameral Order: the way they used tailored cancer genes to build extra connections in their brains, the way they linked whole brains together into a hive mind that could rewrite the laws of physics in an afternoon. It was mostly bullshit, of course: neurological speculation, stretched eight unpredictable decades into the future for the sake of a story.

But maybe the reality is simpler than the fiction. Maybe you don’t have to tweak genes or interface brains with computers to make the next great leap in cognitive evolution. Right now, right here in the real world, the cognitive function of brain tissue can be boosted— without engineering, without augmentation— by literal orders of magnitude. All it takes, apparently, is the right kind of stress. And if the neuroscience community heeds de Oliviera et al‘s clarion call, we may soon know how to apply that stress to order. The singularity might be a lot closer than we think.

Also a lot squishier.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if things turned out to be that easy?

28 Jul 19:56

Heavy Metal Yoga Is a Thing

Tertiarymatt

#DoomHippieActivities

Heavy Metal Yoga Is a Thing

It's a Tuesday night and I am sitting on a yoga mat in the back of a former grocery store in Pittsburgh, spreading my legs as far as they can go. I reflexively turn to see how the woman next to me is managing her dragonfly pose when I realize I can barely see her. The room is lit only by two tin can-shaped-and-sized lights sitting in corners they offer about as much illumination as a pair of Yankee jar candles. Kimee Massie, the heavily tattooed instructor, comes over to help me put a foam block under my ass. It gives me some leverage and I feel a greater stretch in my inner thighs, but I still look over again to see how far the woman on the neighboring mat has gotten. I squint and make out the words on her t-shirt: "Fuck This. I'm Going Skateboarding."

Meanwhile, there is a dark, droning sound coming out of the stereo. Imagine the hiss that is omnipresent in David Lynch's Eraserhead overlapped by the slow diddling of an autistic noise-rock guitarist. It's oddly comforting in its non-invasiveness and consistency and I remember to inhale deeply.

See also: Interview: David Lynch on Creativity, Meditation, and Collective Experience (But Nothing on That New Sparklehorse / Danger Mouse Collaboration)

This is Black Yoga, a take on the ancient Indian practice/frequent girlfriend bonding ritual for those who "get bored with the sound of birds and waterfalls," says Kimee, who concocted the class with her husband Scott (vocalist of a thrash band called Storm King). The room is dark, the new-age talk kept to a minimum, and the soundtrack a mix of trip-hop, industrial rock and doom metal.

"I don't think of it as better or worse than your typical yoga class--just different, for a different crowd," says Kimee (who also teaches more a traditional class at a suburban health spa).

The Massies--a definitively alt couple who are both covered from neck to toe in black clothing and tattoo ink-- hit on the idea during Kimee's second year as an instructor. They were on a road trip and wondered if there was a play list for a yoga class somewhere in the massive collection of CDs from dark, commercially unnoticed alt-rock subgenres they brought along.

Scott, who is used to shifting through the work of fringe bands as the head of a small label called the Innervenus Music Collective, compiled the first few mix CDs, with selections from the likes of Earth, Dark Space, Sunn O))) and two bands whose names indicated they were formed just for a project like this: Om and Dark Buddha Rising.

All are bands from the darker, more ambient fringes of heavy metal, but Scott says, "It's not so much about finding the right kind of bands as it is the right kind of songs. Every band we like has that one obscure song that could work. I put the mellowest song from Type O Negative on one these CDs."

Mellowness is actually an important factor for Black Yoga (sometimes stylized as Black Yo)))ga in honor of Sunn O))), the standard bearers of doom rock). The songs must share a few traits with the warm mood music and sitar jam sessions more common in yoga studio stereos: They have to be atmospheric and non-intrusive. Kimee doesn't want anything rhythmic or loud enough to distract students from their poses.

"I think people see the flyers and assume we are head-banging to Sepultura and calling it yoga," says Scott. "That is definitely not the case."

Still, they have attracted a slew of punk and metal musicians to their twice-weekly classes (held on Tuesdays in a brick storefront that was once a mom-and-pop grocery and now hosts a weekend holistic mini-mall and on Wednesdays in the back of a printing shop). On the night I went, I spotted what was obvious a de-spiked Mohawk in the crowd. The Massies say the classes often have an even male-female ratio. This one was more like one man for every two women, which by yoga standards is still a sausage party. (Most yoga classes have the male-female ratio of a Stephanie Meyer book signing.)

Kimee says one reason she flips the light switch is to create a nonjudgmental environment for a crowd that might not live and breathe fitness--to defuse the aspect of yoga class that has become like the gym, a show-off spot for gorgeous people in tights (though the lighting is still enough to make out her poses as she leads).

Heavy Metal Yoga Is a Thing

My hour of Black Yoga also made me realize how seldom in other classes I listened to the instructor. Instead, I followed the students around me. Yoga in the dark provides a solid link from teacher to pupil. My only reliable cues were Kimee's commands of "bend your right knee" or "hands in heart position."

But of course, the truly unique feature of the class was the soundtrack, which is a pleasant relief from some of the more bullshitty aspects of yoga.

Yoga asks you to embrace peace and serenity, not just for 90 minutes but as a pervading, self-cultivated outlook, a message bolstered by chanting-and-nature-sounds playlists. I always valued yoga as a low-impact workout that made me feel really, really good -- a perfect mix of self-massage and endorphin release -- but I'm too cynical for the more meditative part of it. Whenever the stick-figure woman at the front of the class launches into a Maharishi routine, I find myself tuning out and glancing at the perfect apricot-shaped asses around me. At best, yoga it offers me a break from my life as an impoverished millennial with an instable freelance career and intimacy issues, not a solution to it.

See also: Nitty Scott MC Talks Psychedelic Pizza and Meditating Weed Rappers

Peace and serenity are not what doom metal, the central genre of Scott's playlists, are about. Bands like Earth and Sunn O))) relay the opposite: a feeling of strife, anxiety and occasionally eminent death. I listened to their hissing static and lumbering guitar as I moved through poses, and I felt like I wasn't being asked to part with my stress and angst. The sound of trepidation was right there on the stereo -- but it was small, manageable and came in a predictable rhythm, and I was still able to work towards something as I experienced it.

Maybe for cynics and hard asses attracted to metal that's a more honest and appealing message than that of birds and waterfalls.

A Black Yoga Playlist: 
New Risen Throne - "Orbiting Gates"
 Sunn O))) - "Orakulum"
 Genocide Organ - "Their Mighty Slaughter"
 Wolves in the Throne Room - "Dia Artio" 
Mustard Gas and Roses - "IV" 
Ulver - "Theme 03"
 Earth - "Raiford (The Felon Wind)" 
Bunk Data - "Angelus Rector"

The 25 Creepiest Heavy Metal Album Covers Our Favorite Online Resources for Metal Knowledge How Not To Write About Female Musicians: A Handy Guide

Follow @soundofthecity

28 Jul 16:31

Why I Don’t Do Psychedelic Drugs

by Brad
Tertiarymatt

Many of these objections are, I think, kind of uniformed, weak-sauce add-ons to objection number one. Ironically, for some people a meditation practice is potentially as dangerous as taking drugs, and having proper set, setting, and a sitter matter tremendously for safe meditation as well. This is why people are constantly saying "find a teacher, find a teacher".

MDMA is a truly potent and impressive compound that can radically alter people's lives for the better, though (as are LSD and psilocybin). It has huge promise in treating things like PTSD.

EcstacyMollyPills350A couple days ago I participated in a webinar about Buddhism and Psychedelics presided over by Allan Badiner, author of the book Zig Zag Zen.

At the end of the discussion Mr. Badiner referenced something I’d said earlier. I was talking about my previous experiences with LSD. The fourth and final time I took it, I had an incredibly bad trip that scared the bejesus out of me. After our session was over he told me that maybe I wasn’t doing psychedelics anymore just because I was scared of them. He said that if I were to try any again I ought to do MDMA (aka Ecstasy, Molly, “E”, etc.). He said it had opened his heart and made him more compassionate.

So I thought about it, and I asked myself why I do not do psychedelics. Can I answer that question and not just give a knee-jerk reaction? Because if I just said it’s because of Buddha’s Fifth Precept against using intoxicants, aren’t I just like someone who says, “The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it”?

So here’s why I don’t do psychedelics. Not why you shouldn’t. Why I don’t.

Number One, they scare me. The last time I tripped was an epic nightmare. You can read all about it in my book Hardcore Zen. I spent most of that night in abject terror on a drug I desperately wanted out of my system with no choice but to wait until it wore off. I also lost my concept of time, so even though I understood that I’d be OK again in a few hours, I could not figure out what an hour was to save my life. The concept was still available to my brain, but I could not make any sense of it. So for all I knew I was going to stay high and terrified forever.

But that’s not the only reason I don’t do those drugs. I spent a few minutes after the webinar was over just letting my mind roll over the possibility of getting ahold of some MDMA and trying it out for myself to see what actually happens. Then I realized a few things.

For one thing, I wouldn’t trust any so-called “MDMA” I might be able to get in Los Angeles no matter what the source claimed. At best, it would be something cooked up by some dodgy chemist in a basement mixing up stuff to sell to high school kids. I would not be able to fool myself into believing that the major market for this drug is responsible adults engaged in safe consciousness exploration in controlled environments.

Bull shit. If you’re making MDMA – or LSD, or growing ‘shrooms, etc. – your target market isn’t a handful of people using that suff as a sacrament for religious purposes. Your target market is kids who wanna party. I don’t want to support the people who supply that market or put anything they make into my body.

You might be inclined to counter that by asking if I examine the entire manufacturing and distribution chain of everything I purchase to determine if it was sourced ethically. Obviously the answer is “No.” But that’s irrelevant. I may not be certain whether or not underpaid children in a sweatshop in Malaysia made my shoes, but I do know for certain that any MDMA or other psychedelic drug I might purchase comes from a highly unethical source.

I also don’t want to incapacitate myself for an indeterminate length of time and require someone to babysit me. Because that’s what all the “set and setting” crap that people who are into drug-based consciousness exploration talk about really means. It means someone sober has got to be around to make sure I don’t hurt myself. Who am I to demand someone look after me like I’m a child?

And what about all this stuff where people say MDMA or other such substances made them more compassionate? Does this mean that now that the ravers of the 90s are adults we live in a kinder, gentler world where everybody’s nice because they all learned real compassion from listening to techno music while high on Molly? I don’t see it. Plus, I hung around a bunch of young MDMA fans on a few occasions recently. They were no more compassionate than anyone else I ever met, in fact they were kind of jerks to each other.

Real compassion is a skill. It’s not just a big warm fuzzy feeling in your “heart space.” It’s knowing what to do with that feeling. It’s knowing when it’s appropriate to get all huggy and when it’s not. Because sometimes a hug is the least compassionate response. And sometimes being all warm and cuddly is a way to run away from what really needs to be done.

Also, one of the best reasons not to do those drugs is staring every single user right in the face every single time they use it. After our conversation Allan Badiner very kindly and in the interest of being helpful sent me an email detailing how to use MDMA properly if I ever wanted to try it out. It involved taking a large dose of Vitamin C first, along with magnesium and amino acid supplements both before and after the MDMA. And, of course, the proper “set and setting” which includes the aforementioned babysitter.

The fact that I’d need to do so much preparation indicates to me that maybe I’d be doing something that’s kind of dangerous and probably not actually good for me.

As a Buddhist I would also have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to try to convince myself it was proper behavior. For example, apparently a lot of folks into Buddhist-based drug-induced consciousness exploration like to say that the Fifth Precept was actually specifically about alcohol and can be extended to other supposedly “consciousness restricting” drugs but does not apply to “consciousness expanding” drugs.

No. Sorry. The precept is not against alcohol or drugs. It’s for sobriety. It’s not saying “don’t get drunk.” It’s saying “stay sober.” There is a difference.

Besides, “consciousness expanding” drugs were well known and widely used in India in Buddha’s time for spiritual exploration. There is no evidence the early Buddhists used them at all. The whole argument is so full of holes I couldn’t possibly accept it on any terms.

More to the point, if I have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify any action, that is a clue that the action itself is problematic and probably ought to be avoided.

So that’s why you won’t see me at any raves any time soon. Besides, I hate techno music.

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 14-16, 2015 Munich, Germany 3 DAY ZEN RETREAT

August 19, 2015 Munich, Germany LECTURE

August 24-29, 2015 Felsentor, Switzerland 5-DAY RETREAT AT STIFTUNG FELSENTOR 

August 30-September 4, 2015 Holzkirchen, Germany 5-DAY RETREAT AT BENEDIKTUSHOF MONASTERY

September 4, 2015 Hamburg, Germany LECTURE

September 6, 2015 Hamburg, Germany ZEN DAY

September 10-13, 2015 Finland 4-DAY RETREAT

September 16-19, 20015 Hebden Bridge, England 4-DAY RETREAT

September 20, 2015 London, England THE ART OF SITTING DOWN & SHUTTING UP

September 21-25, 2015 Belfast, Northern Ireland SPECIFIC DATES TO BE DETERMINED

September 26-27, 2015 Glastonbury, England 2-DAY RETREAT

October 26-27 Cincinnati, Ohio Concert:Nova

November 6-8, 2015 Mt. Baldy, CA 3-DAY RETREAT

April 23, 2016 Long Island, New York Molloy College “Spring Awakening 2016”

ONGOING EVENTS

Every Monday at 8pm there’s zazen at Silverlake Yoga Studio 2 located at 2810 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039. All are welcome!

Every Saturday at 9:30 there’s zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial Complex located at 4117 Overland Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. All are welcome!

Plenty more info is available on the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles website, dsla.info

* * *

If you send a donation it will not be spent on Molly. I appreciate your on-going support!

27 Jul 22:12

Current status.(via wikimedia commons)



Current status.

(via wikimedia commons)

27 Jul 20:46

Sticking to the Script

by Christopher Wright
Tertiarymatt

Helpdesk returns.

26 Jul 15:36

sweetteascience: urbpan: wheremyfeetfall: sarahmckayart: Semp...

Tertiarymatt

TARDIGRADE



sweetteascience:

urbpan:

wheremyfeetfall:

sarahmckayart:

Semper minimum ursi #waterbear #tardigrade

LOL

Need this on a tshirt

Absolutely motivational.  Also, where is this t-shirt?

25 Jul 01:13

Some bands I am considering going and seeing. Levels and Year of the Cobra seem most interesting, I...

Tertiarymatt

So, went to this last night. A quick Doom Hippie Review:

Skunk Rider opened. They were okay. Missed the initial part of their set, but while they weren't bad players and kept good time, didn't fuck up, etc, they had no real groove. And the guitar player had some rather Tufnelesque moments of wheedling.

Levels was next, and they went hard, and were remarkably danceable for a lightly mathy band. This was apparently the last show for their current drummer. I dug their set a lot.

Year of the Cobra played next. This is a two piece bass & drums band that I think are a married couple. I had already spoken to Amy before the show. They were also pretty solid, though Amy had severe gear issues (eventually revealed to be her pedalboard power supply cutting out) that kept interrupting their songs. She took it with extremely good grace, and ended up trying not to laugh while singing about wizards. They seem to be really nice people, and remind me a bit of Rosalind (if she were slightly taller, played bass, and didn't sing as well), and Capt. Bunker (if he were a skinny straight-edge looking drummer).

Last up were Lords of Beacon House, which are an interesting power trio from LA. The guitar player came up in a battle jacket, while the bass player and vocalist would be best described as "Rock n' Roll Sex Jesus, circa 1968". And their drummer looked like Simon Pegg crossed with Kirk Hammett' hair (and who also never looked at the crowd). They were heavier live than their record, and quite good. If a little disappointed with turn out and the low-key nature of a Seattle crowd.

Some bands I am considering going and seeing.

Levels and Year of the Cobra seem most interesting, I think.

V by Levels Smoke Serpent by Skunk Rider Lords of Beacon House by Lords of Beacon House The Black Sun EP by Year of the Cobra
24 Jul 02:17

Things that are true, but not much fun: one in an infinite series

Tertiarymatt

I'm kind of having a shitty week, in some respects.

There is a very accomplished, awesome, activist scientist on OkCupid (and OKC claims we are mad compatible) that I have messaged. I am very confident that we even know at least one person in common. 

I am also very confident she is never going to message me back. 

This is an idea I have to get comfortable with, even though it is really depressing. 

24 Jul 01:17

becausebirds: A perfect duet. This young individual is very...

Tertiarymatt

click for vid



becausebirds:

A perfect duet.

This young individual is very entertaining.

23 Jul 18:12

How I overwintered ten out of ten

Tertiarymatt

Rusty on over-wintering her bees.

I have been thinking about this post for about a month, but I didn’t dare write it until spring was here for sure. But on Thursday, when a fur-coated bumble bee alighted on the patio and a bee fly examined my shoe lace, I knew I could call it.

To be more specific, I went into September with nine Langstroths, one top-bar, and three nucs. Today, with April just a breath away, I still have nine Langstroths, one top-bar, and two nucs. Not only are my colonies still alive, they are bursting at the seams. Bees are pouring through the entrances and climbing up the walls. I am elated.

Those of you who have read my blog for a while know that “overwintering” is my main honey bee interest. I usually manage to overwinter 60-80 percent of my hives. But this year I decided to “pull out all the stops.” I tried everything I could think of to help the bees make it through the winter.

The result, of course, is no controlled experiment or repeatable design. In fact, there are so many variables it would strain the organizational capacity of Excel. So all I can do is tell you what I did and why.

Before reviewing my steps, I’ll give you a quick overview of my local climate. In one of my very first posts on this blog I wrote that “all the challenges are local” and I still believe that. Beekeeping is not performed in a vacuum, and your local climate plays an immense role in the life of your bees.

I live in western Washington in the middle of the Puget trough. The word “trough” reminds me of water, and that pretty much sums it up. It rains nearly constantly in the nine-month period from September through June. It doesn’t add up to a lot—annual averages are about 51 inches—but it rains a little bit all the time. The three-month period of July, August, and September is hot and dry, dry, dry. No rain. Zilch. Nada. Everything is crisp.

Although I live at 47°N latitude, I am in USDA hardiness zone 8, which means it doesn’t get very cold in the winter. It dips down in the teens and twenties, but doesn’t stay very long. We get snow in the lowlands, but only two or three times per year. The average winter day is 40°F and raining.

So here are the steps I took to overwinter my bees, beginning in June 2010.

• By June 30, all honey supers were off my hives.

Comment: I live adjacent to a 91,650-acre state forest and the only farm crop in the immediate area is hay. So my bees forage almost exclusively on spring-flowering trees and roadside weeds. By the time the hot dry months arrive, there is almost no forage to be had. Whatever honey I get accumulates from April until June.

• During June I collected enough swarm cells to begin four nucs.

Comment: I wanted to carry one or two extra queens into the winter in case one of my colonies went queenless. So I started four nucs with swarm cells. Three of these produced viable queens. By fall I had three healthy nucs “just in case” something went wrong with one of my colonies.

• In August I treated for mites.

Comment: First off, I never use any conventional pesticides in my hives. However, if mites are a problem I use one of the all-natural products made from thymol (an essential oil of thyme) or formic acid (an organic acid.) Unlike conventional pesticides, these are difficult and time-consuming to use.

This year I used ApiLife Var (a thymol product) which requires multiple applications over the course of three weeks. Honey supers cannot be in place. But it is the timing of treatments that is important for overwintering.

The thymol and formic acid treatments should be used when little brood is present—so later is better. But you want to treat summer bees for mites, not winter bees*—so earlier is better. You have to make a judgment call. In this case, I set aside August for mite assault.

*In case I lost you here, summer bees live an average of 4-6 weeks. Winter bees can live many months—all the way into the following spring. If you treat for mites after the winter bees are born, it is too late to protect them from viruses carried by mites. In other words, a late mite treatment will still kill the mites, but only after the viruses have been transmitted to the winter bees. This way, you have gained very little. You need to kill mites in the summer bees so the hive is relatively free of viruses when the winter bees are born.

• In September, I checked the hives for honey stores. Any hives that appeared to be short on honey were given some extra frames reserved from the harvest in June, or given sugar syrup mixed with Honey-B-Healthy, or both.

• Entrances were reduced on all hives to protect them from robbing and yellow jackets.

• All Varroa drawers were removed from the screened bottoms to provide maximum ventilation.

• The slatted racks remained in place in the Langstroth hives all winter long.

Comment: I consider slatted racks basic equipment in Langstroth-style hives, so I never remove them in any season. In summer they provide a place to hang out during hot muggy days, and the queen tends to lay eggs further down on the brood frames–apparently because this area is no longer near the “front door.”

In a traditional winter hive with the Varroa drawer in place, the slatted rack adds an insulating layer of air between the brood nest and the Varroa drawer. This will not exist in the same way with the Varroa drawers pulled out. However, during cold snaps (see “weather forecasts” below) –or other times when the Varroa drawers are in place–the slatted racks again provide a “dead air” space that helps to keep the bees a few degrees warmer.

• Each hive was topped with a quilt box outfitted with four ventilation holes and filled with wood chips.

Comment: Of all the changes I made, this one had the most visible result. In prior years I always had condensation dripping down on the bees from the inner cover. This year none of that moisture reached the bees. They were dry and happy all winter long.

Originally I had anticipated having to change the wood chips every couple of weeks. As it turned out I never changed the wood chips. The ventilation holes seemed to play a big part in preventing the chips from getting soggy. About one-inch of the two-inches of wood chips got wet in each hive.

In my opinion, the combination of more ventilation and less moisture accumulation were the two most-important changes I made to the hives.

• As always, I checked my hives every day or two. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular except for fallen trees or bear damage. Usually I just walked by each hive and flicked the dead bees off the landing board.

• It was on one of these routine checks that luck played a big part in this year’s success. On December 15, just as I was about to flick a dead bee off of hive #2, I realized it was the queen. Darn! I knocked on the hive and it was loud and robust. I examined the queen: she looked freshly dead. So I put one of my nucs in a deep brood box and, using a slit piece of newspaper, combined it with hive #2.

Comment: I still haven’t opened this hive except to add feed. But when I get near it I can hear it roar like a caged lion. Luck definitely played a role here, but pre-planning gave me the queen I needed to keep the colony alive.

• I paid attention to the weather forecasts all winter long. Three times the temperatures dropped into the twenties for an extended period (more than a day or two). In each of these three cases, I inserted the Varroa drawers under nine of the hives and put both the nucs and the top-bar hive in the garden shed.

Comment: My husband convinced me the hives would stay a lot warmer with the bottom drawers in, so in very cold weather I gave them a little help. This compromises ventilation, however, so as soon as the temperatures got back into the 30s, I removed the drawers again.

The nucs were small, so I put them in the shed which is about ten degrees warmer than the outside. The rest of the time they were outside, stacked with double-screen boards between each.

I coddled the top-bar hive because it was a July swarm that moved in by itself, and it couldn’t possibly have had a lot of stores. So, when the nucs went inside, the top-bar hive went in as well. But it, too, came out as soon as the temperature climbed above freezing.

• Right around the end of December, I added a feeder rim to each hive. I placed it just above the top brood box, but underneath the quilt box. I added sugar patties to each hive during January and February.

• In mid-February I began adding pollen substitute to the sugar patties. I continued feeding pollen-enriched patties until now.

Now that it is spring and my hives are boiling over with bees, I’m already worried about swarming. Wouldn’t you know it? If you succeed at one thing, you’ve got to worry about something else.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

23 Jul 03:10

How Fair Housing Will Turn Liberal Cities Conservative

Tertiarymatt

History suggests that wealthy white people are not going to share their space.

Thomas B. Edsall posed an indecent question in a Wednesday column in The New York Times.

“Can Republicans turn the Supreme Court and [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] decisions and the renewed drive to integrate residential housing into a wedge issue to weaken Democratic allegiance?”

No, that’s not the question. That question is practically rhetorical. By the time that HUD released its final rule on the Fair Housing Act—a 377-page tome on homes titled Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing—the spittle was already flying fast and furious. National Review’s Stanley Kurtz wrote that the new ruling “gives the federal government a lever to re-engineer nearly every American neighborhood.”

There’s no doubt that Republicans want to work the Supreme Court’s decision on disparate impact. Rather, the indecent question Edsall asks is whether fair housing will make Stanley Kurtzes out of liberals. Now that white communities are required to make room for poor and minority households, will white liberals in those communities continue to vote with the Democratic Party?

Even ruder: Will the prospect of black neighbors turn liberals into conservatives?

The conservative policies that will win over liberal white homeowners won’t mention race or class directly. But they will restrict the density that makes sense for affordable housing.

Of course, it isn’t a rude question at all. It’s a real-keeping question. The history of the U.S. details how white homeowners have used every tool at their disposal to enforce racial segregation—explicitly and implicitly, legally and illegally—in nearly every American neighborhood. Edsall’s perceptive question is simply in tune with the history of housing.  

Edsall points to Westchester County in New York for evidence that Republicans can pick up seats in white liberal jurisdictions by exploiting fear and hate. (The same fear and hate that Kurtz demonstrates in his piece—which is perceptive, too, in its own way.) There in predominantly Democratic-voting Westchester County, a Republican, Robert Astorino, won the seat for county executive, in 2009 and then again 2013. He won by the largest margins in the dozens of white communities where his Democratic predecessor had approved the construction of some 750 units of affordable housing.

For now, all Edsall can say for certain is that the new rulings from HUD and SCOTUS may mean even larger margins for Astorino the next time around. But Edsall is onto something so much larger. Affirmative rulings on fair housing may prompt a new era of There Goes the Neighborhood–ism. And thanks to broad shifts in demographics, fair housing could affect the pH balance of major metro areas over the long term.

What follows are some sketches to show how justice in housing could erode the Democratic advantage in cities, a prospect that should give pause to partisans on both sides.

Cities are growing richer—and that wealth isn’t trickling down

“Across the 50 largest cities, households in the 95th percentile of income earned 11.6 times as much as households at the 20th percentile,” reads a Brookings Institution report on cities and inequality from March. Their report finds a larger inequality gap in cities than in the nation overall.

In 12 of the 50 largest cities, the rich (households in the 95th percentile for income) grew a great deal richer between 2012 and 2013. In 11 of those 50 cities, poorer households (20th percentile) made big gains over the same stretch. But there was very little overlap: Only in Jacksonville, Florida, and Houston, Texas, did both rich and poor households make gains. And in most cities (31 of 50), lower-income households were worse off in 2013 than they were in 2007.

(Brookings Institution)

Rents are rising, but you knew that already. Soaring rents plus soaring incomes at the top in growing cities means a larger and larger disparity gap for affordable housing to bridge. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, we’re talking about building low-income housing in affluent neighborhoods that are growing richer and richer.

The culture wars are over(ish)

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion for Obergefell v. Hodges didn’t declare a formal end to hostilities between liberals and conservatives on social issues. But with the argument over same-sex marriage off the table for good—an issue that galvanized liberals and one that more than a few conservatives have hoped to shelve for years—there’s that much less daylight between Democrats and Republicans on culture.

Of course there are other issues that will continue to divide left and right. Transgender rights, for example. But as LGBTQ advocates fear, success in the effort to secure same-sex marriage rights may lead many allies and activists to declare victory and go home. Elsewhere, the sweeping surrender on Confederate symbols suggests that the next culture wars will look different than today’s.

This is all to say that, while immigration or religious freedom or #TeamTaylor vs #TeamKaty will continue to divide people, the configurations of these skirmishes and their salience in down-ticket elections could change.

Liberal in the streets, NIMBY in the sheets

If Republicans can counter the narrative that they hate gay people, black people, poor people, women people, migrant people, etc., then they may find a way in with liberal white homeowners who vocally support tolerance—but very much do not want to live near black people or poor people.

This is a tough sell, today: Donald Trump is winning the GOP field right now on an anti-Mexican platform. Presumably, however, that won’t always be the case. Liberals may never trust Republicans when it comes to elections for the person who appoints seats on the Supreme Court. When it comes to zoning and housing decisions, though, liberal white homeowners may find themselves less allergic to the Republican Party going forward.

The struggle has shifted to zoning, where owners have the edge

Take a look at Astorino’s state of the county address from Westchester County back in 2013. “Let me say this loud and clear: There is absolutely no place for discrimination in our county,” he says. “The biggest and really the only issue going forward is zoning.”

He adds: “Washington bureaucrats, who you will never see or meet, want the power to determine who will live where and how each neighborhood will look. What’s at stake is the fundamental right of our cities, towns, and villages to plan and zone for themselves.”

Two years later, Astorino 2015 state of the county address echoes many of the same themes. It details the county’s ongoing struggle with HUD about enforcing the original 2009 fair-housing settlement—the one that required the affordable housing to be built in the first place:

From the day I took office, I made it very clear that my administration would fulfill the county’s obligations under the settlement. Like it or not, the law is the law. The rule of law is what binds us together as Americans.

But I also made it clear I would not allow unelected bureaucrats at HUD to create new obligations for the county that were never agreed upon in the settlement.  

Throughout, Astorino speaks of his commitment to affordable housing. He notes with pride the county’s diversity. He delivers part of his address in Spanish. And year after year, he pledges to protect the county’s exclusionary zoning against federal efforts to expand affordable housing.

NIMBYism is never about race, except when it is

It’s hard enough to build new market-rate housing in the cities that need housing most. In Washington, D.C., the zoning commission just decreased the maximum height on “pop-up” additions and construction in the parts of the city growing most rapidly. Homeowners in D.C. say that they want to protect the character of their neighborhood and the quality of construction during this boom time.

Even at the most granular level, NIMBYism can take the form of an entitled localism that sounds positive. A hyperlocal petition started by a condo-owner to keep a 7-Eleven out of a nearby storefront is a crypto-case of There Goes the Neighborhood–ism.

The arguments and policies that will win over liberal white homeowners will not mention race or class directly (the way they surfaced in McKinney, Texas). But the policies will have the effect of restricting the density that makes sense for affordable housing or the amenities favored by low-income populations.

In The Wall Street Journal, Jason L. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow, writes that HUD is compelling communities such as Westchester County to “construct cheap housing units in wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods and then actively recruit poor minorities to move in.”

Expect white homeowners to zero in on the “cheap housing” aspect of this question. In the new There Goes the Neighborhood–ism, the focus will be on homeowners’ zoning rights—meaning policies that keep housing elite and expensive.

#Not all liberal white homeowners

First of all, there won’t be as many white homeowners in the future, in a manner of speaking. The Urban Institute developed a nifty interactive mapping tool that shows population projections between now and 2030 across 740 U.S. commuting zones. Even assuming only modest population growth, the white share of the population will fall everywhere as the nation grows more and more diverse.

From left: Population change for white, black, and Hispanic communities, 2010–2030. Dark blue indicates growth of up to 40 percent, while dark red indicates decline of up to 40 percent. See the interactive tool for greater detail. (Urban Institute)

Second, at least a few municipalities are bound to recognize that homeowners do not have their city’s best interests at heart by radically restricting zoning.

Seattle, for example, is rolling out a dramatic and progressive new housing policy in a bid to promote justice in housing. The panel tasked with coming up with the policy acknowledged up front that single-family zoning is the product of race- and class-oriented discrimination. That panel—and now, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray—recommends changing all of the Seattle residential area zoned for single-family housing to low-density zoning that will accommodate more and more affordable housing.

Seattle’s next mayoral election in 2017 ought to be a test of what liberal white homeowners there think of justice in housing—not just statutorily legal integration, but really breaking down barriers to diverse, affordable housing in wealthy neighborhoods.

“At the local level, the Obama administration drove Westchester into the arms of the Republicans,” writes Kurtz. “The same thing could happen nationally, at every political level.”

Of course Kurtz neglects to mention that white supremacy is inflecting these gains, but no matter. He’s right. Fair housing is coming, slowly but certainly. Racism isn’t going away so soon.

23 Jul 02:49

A song for anyone with attractive friends

by Andrea Romano
Tertiarymatt

Pretty much the case. via A.Kach.

Musician_hot_friends
Feed-twFeed-fb

Having hot friends can be a real drag.

YouTube musician Nikola in the Pond has a ton of attractive friends and while she loves all of them, it can be a little difficult relating to their lives. Luckily she has a healthy sense of self-deprecating humor to get through the day.

Also, there's wine.

More about Youtube, Viral Videos, Videos, Musician, and Funny
23 Jul 02:44

A Unique Elliptical Pool Table and ‘Loop’ Game Designed by a Mathematician

by Glen Tickle
Tertiarymatt

This looks like great fun, actually. It'd be really interesting to build tables of different eccentricities. Via. A. Kach.

In a recent episode of Numberphile, mathematician Alex Bellos demonstrates his custom-built elliptical pool table. The table can be used to demonstrate some interesting mathematical properties. In particular, it can be used to demonstrate elliptical focus points. When the ball is shot from the complementary focus point from the hole it should always go in, regardless of the direction of the shot.

Because a traditional game of pool would be impossible to play on the table, Bellos also invented a game called “loop” which uses the table and four balls to make the most out of the table’s unique properties.

Bellos explains additional details of the table itself and the game of loop in separate Numberphile videos.

loop table 2

loop table 1

photos via Loop

23 Jul 01:59

Maybe some time you could talk about Susan and what it would be like if she didn't desert Narnia

Tertiarymatt

This is so amazing.

How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn’t deserted Susan?

What if, instead of sending a stag to lead them astray, the Pevensies had been given time to end their first rule– to have finished their reports, their negotiations and treaties, that letter in the bureau Lucy was half-done penning to Mrs. Beaver to thank her for the fruitcake and to ask about her grandchildren. 

They had lived there more than a decade then, grown from children to kings and queens, to brave young adults with responsibility heavy on their shoulders. They had lived through storms and wars, peace and joy, lost friends to battle and old age and distance. They had made a home. What if they had been given time to say good-bye? 

What if we didn’t tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn’t have again. 

There is nothing wrong with Lucy loving Narnia all her life, refusing an adulthood she didn’t want for a braver, brighter one she built herself. But there is also nothing wrong with Susan trying to find something new to fall in love with, something that might love her back. 

You can build things in lipsticks and nylons, if you don’t mind getting a few runs in them. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be pretty, especially when pretty is the only power left to you. 

Let’s talk about being the last one left. No, really, think about it. You get a call in the middle of the night, in the little flat you can just barely afford, and you are told there has been an accident. 

Think about it, that moment– you scramble over everyone you know, everyone you love, and try to figure out where they all are that night. There are things rushing in your gut, your fingertips, your lungs, your ears– there are words in your ears as the tinny, sympathetic voice starts to tell you: it is everyone. 

They were on a train. Something went wrong. They probably died instantly. A rushing sound. A bright light. (You try to imagine it, for years. You try not to think about it. You imagine it, for years–a rushing sound, a bright light.)

Your little sister, who you always felt the most responsible for, who you never understood, really– Your big brother, who disapproved of your choices but loved you with a steadiness you could never regret leaning into– Your little brother, a smug and arrogant ass except for the days when he drowned in self doubt– Ed was going to go far and you knew it, were waiting for it, were shoring up your defenses and your eye rolls for the days when he’d think he ruled the world–

Your mother is gone. Your father, with his stuffy cigar smell and big hands and the way he got distracted telling stories– he is gone. Your cousin Eustace, who suddenly lost that stick in his ass one summer. That friend of his, Jill, who you’d never actually quite met. Gone. A rushing sound. A bright light. 

Go on. Walk through this with me. You can’t sleep all night long, because you still can’t understand it, still can’t quite breathe in a world where you are the last Pevensie. You finally fade sometime between midnight and dawn and when you wake up you don’t remember for half a second. You think ugh and you think sunshine why and then you remember that you are an orphan, an only child. You remember there probably isn’t anyone else to handle the funeral arrangements. 

Get up. Make tea. Forget to eat breakfast and feel nauseous and empty all day. Call the people who need to be called. Your work, to ask for the time off. The mortuary, to ask about closed caskets. Distant relations. Friends. Edmund’s girlfriend and Peter’s boss. You listen to Lucy’s friends weep hysterics into the phone while you stare out the kitchen window and drink your fourth cup of tea. You call Professor Diggory, out at the old house with the wardrobe that started it all, and it rings and rings. You don’t find out for three days that he died in the train crash too. When you do, you stare at the newspaper article. You think of course

You are twenty one years old. You have ruled a kingdom, fought and won and prevented wars, survived exile and school and your first day as a working woman. Nothing has ever felt worse than this. You have a necklace in your dresser you meant to give your mother, because she loves rubies and this glass is painted a nice ruby red and it is all you can afford on your tiny wages. 

Excuse me, a correction: she loved rubies. She is dead. You never wear the necklace. You cry yourself to sleep for weeks. The first night you don’t cry, the first morning you wake up rested, you feel guilty. You wonder if that will live in the pit of your stomach all your life and you don’t know. The years reach out in front of you, miles and eons of loss. You are on the very shore of this grief and you do not know how you will survive feeling like this for the rest of your life. But you will survive it. 

Get up. Make tea. Make yourself eat breakfast. Make plans with a school friend to do lunch. Go to work and try to bury yourself in the busyness of it. Remember that you’d promised to lend Peter a hand with some task or other, but you don’t even remember what it was– Collapse. Hide in the bathroom until you’re breathing again. Redo your makeup and leave work the moment your shift is over. Drop your nylons and your sweater and your heels in the apartment hallway. Fall into bed and pull the covers over your head. 

Get up. Make tea. Eat. Don’t think about them for weeks. Don’t feel guilty when you remember. Feel proud. Spend an indulgent weekend in your pajamas, reading Lucy’s favorite novel and making Ed’s favorite cookies and remembering the way your mother smelled and how it always made you feel safe. Love them and miss them and mourn them. Keep breathing. Cry, but wash your face after in cool water. Wake in the morning to birdsong and spend three hours making breakfast just the way you like it. 

Imagine the next birthday, the next Christmas, the next time you hit one of those days that herald the passage of time, that tell you how much you’ve grown and how much they haven’t. 

Lucy, Peter, and Edmund will be at the same height for the rest of your life. Lucy will always be seventeen for the second time. You see, you think you know, when you lose them, what the dagger in you feels like. But it grows with you, that ache. You grow with it, too, learn how to live with that at your side but it grows, that ache, finds new ways to twist– 

At the first friend’s wedding you go to, you cry because it’s lovely, those two smiling and promising and holding hands– but you also cry because you wonder what Lucy would have looked like in white, joyous and smiling and promising the rest of her life to a boy who deserved her. 

Go on. You tell me if Susan deserted a world or if a whole life deserted her. You tell me who was left behind. 

So yes, let’s talk about it– what if Narnia hadn’t deserted Susan? What if lipstick and nylons were things worn and not markers of worth? 

What if we had a story that told little girls they could grow up to be anything they wanted– all of Lucy’s glory and light, Susan’s pretty face and parties, the way Jill could move so quiet and quick through the trees? 

Because you know, some of those little girls? They were the little mothers, too old for their age, who worried and wondered, who couldn’t believe like Lucy or charge like Jill. Susan was reasonable, was hesitant and beautiful and gentle, was pretty and silly and growing up, and for it she was lost. She was left. And when Susan was left, so were they. 

The little girls who worried louder than they loved, who were nervous about climbing trees and who would never run after the mirage of a lion, who looked at the pretty women in the grocery store and wondered if they would grow up pretty too– some of them looked at their little clever doubting hands, after they read Peter and Eustace and Jill scoffing at Susan’s vanities, and they wondered what they were worth. 

Imagine a Narnia that believed in all of them. Imagine a Narnia that believed in adult women, lipsticked or not. Imagine Susan teaching Jill how to string a bow, arms straining. Imagine her brushing blush on Lucy’s cheeks, the first time Lu went out walking with a boy she was considering falling in love with. Imagine that when the last door to Narnia was shut, there was not a sister left behind. 

23 Jul 00:21

El-P + Killer Mike = Run The Jewels

Tertiarymatt

Click thru to listen to the first remix/re-edit off of Meow the Jewels.

21 Jul 19:35

Tabla Trap by Jomy George

my new project "TABLA TRAP" I dedicate this to my DAD am only here because of him. hope u guys like this , some of u been asking for a solo, here it is my ki...
21 Jul 19:13

July Update

by Bob Crowley
Tertiarymatt

I didn't realize so many SEM machines were laying around.

Note: This identical text may appear in the Kickstarter update section as well, but may not contain links or images. We had the pleasure of a visit by Steve Herchen of The Impossible Project, and a great lunch at Stone's Public House which is highly recommended. TIP, and Inoviscoat, are a partly combined entity and are interested in doing synergistic work that could lead to OEM arrangements, which we will consider as we move along.  We'd like to hear your opinion on us working more closely with TIP going forward.

In general, progress has been steady and a number of important milestones have been met. These include:

The Sleeve Machine is operating and produces usable assemblies. The system still needs to be calibrated, mounted on a rigid base, and the feed system needs to be built. One problem is the motor control which is too coarse so we will have to replace the servo with a stepper. Another problem are the tape guides which are too wide and need to be redesigned. None of these problems require discovery.

The Receiver Sheet design has progressed considerably but is not near completion.  A new reduced-step formula has been experimented with by Ted McLelland and Jake Kellett, and a number of test impressions have yielded fair Dmax and image formation, with some evidence of color control. We discovered that the neutralization scheme used by Polaroid to stabilize their receiver sheet is not very aggressive. We also saw using scanning electron microscopy the original receiver sheet which has lower porosity than imagined from the literature.  This is a puzzle.  An intensive discovery experiment plan will remain underway for this important component. The versatility of silver and its many forms astounds us!   I like the Ag2S the best, personally.

The Secondary Operation Tools - ten or so of them - are being designed and the next one is the cutoff tool followed by the corner notcher. We need to invent a method of heat bonding or using another adhesive step for the sleeve formation, and this is ahead of us for August, in all likelihood.

Test Samples of paper bases from an important vendor have arrived in small quantities. This is just the first step in what looks like a circuitous chain of events including laminating, rerolling, converting, coating, and further converting, in at least three location widely separated by geography.  Still, it all seems possible.

Our first film supplier agreement was finalized by Sam and there is now a production, shipping and payment schedule in place which will - if all goes right - result in about a third of our first production order arriving at our dock in August. The hot weather at that time makes us worry about heat damage so some heat sensors will travel along with the first shipment.  Sam will be visiting this vendor along with our importer/agent to assure that there is a proper understanding and commitment in place as we progress to production quantities.

The infamous clip tooling has finally been ordered. There was a lot of back and forth on this deceptively complex part regarding dimensions and tolerances, surface finish, base material, and edge radii. The clip is still about 7 weeks out due to a delay in the tooling order, but that is now in place and the vendor appears to be getting to it this week.

The air conditioning in the upstairs lab now works well, which means we can operate in the safer environment with a good fume hood and not melt.   I can't imagine what the electric bill will be like this Summer.

I am also still running after acquiring our own scanning electron microscope. There are dozens of these surplus for under 10K, so one would think we could get one in here and operating for 25K or less.  It is not clear we can, but I am still trying.

In general, much progress has been made but there are many things yet to be done, and some discovery in the form of coatings technology that still will require attention, possibly up to product release - and perhaps beyond.






21 Jul 10:13

MYRKUR - Onde Børn (Official Music Video)

Tertiarymatt

There's a few moments in here where part of my brain expected to hear some real shrieking. Can't decide if I'm disappointed or not.

The official music video for ""Onde Børn"" by Myrkur. Purchase at Relapse: http://bit.ly/Myrkur Purchase on iTunes: http://radi.al/MyrkurM Purchase at Bandca...
21 Jul 03:13

worldofthecutestcuties: I took my cat on his first walk...

Tertiarymatt

I have occasionally been on the end of the leash.



worldofthecutestcuties:

I took my cat on his first walk yesterday

My first girlfriend used to take her cat for a walk, and this is what would happen every time. She’d just be left there, holding a leash up a tree. Contending with smartarses driving past yelling ‘just talking your tree for a walk eh?’. I found it endlessly amusing, but was not game enough to laugh. 

20 Jul 23:54

Psychedelic Zen

by Brad
Tertiarymatt

I like that he altered the footnote on this one.

jesus-LSD-82406144563Tonight at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern I’m a guest at a webinar on the topic of psychedelics and Buddhism hosted by Allan Badiner, author of the book Zig Zag Zen. I contributed to the new edition of the book, although I have not received my copy yet.

Those of you who have read Hardcore Zen may recall that I did not speak very highly of Zig Zag Zen in that book. Actually, I remember thinking the book itself was kind of cool in terms of its graphics and what-not. But far too many of the essays contained within it were written by people who imagined that a Buddhist “enlightenment experience” and an acid trip were pretty much the same thing.

I’ve taken LSD four times. All four of those times I took it in the spirit of consciousness exploration that the many of the people who wrote essays in Zig Zag Zen talk about. I did not do acid for recreation or to escape boredom. I was serious, man!

Here’s my take on it.

We are living in reality. Yet our bodies and minds can’t perceive or conceive of the fullness of that reality. So our brains take already degraded sensory input and organize it into a conceptual framework that serves most of us well enough to get by. We learn to align our conceptual picture of reality with that of those around us by listening to their descriptions of their lives and comparing them to our own. Through a process of sharing with each other what we imagine is going on, we refine and reinforce that conceptual picture. We define adulthood as the age at which the majority of people get some kind of reality picture together that fits the consensus well enough that they can cope with other people without a whole lot of assistance.

This consensus way of looking at reality is not the only possible way to look at it. If you go to other countries, you’ll find they have a different consensus that works for them. But you also find that there is a larger consensus view held by most human beings no matter where they come from. Most of us stop there and figure that consensus view is reality.

But it’s not. If you ingest certain substances, these substances can change the chemical balance in your brain and you end up seeing things differently. Reality remains as real as ever, you’re just processing it differently. By processing it differently you may end up noticing aspects of reality that you normally do not. The change from one way of looking at things to the other when brought about by a chemical substance is very abrupt and shocking, which can lead you to believe that you have had a very amazing revelation.

Meditation does not work this way.

Nobody really knows yet precisely what happens in the brains of long-time meditators. I’ve seen some theories that say chemical changes take place and that some of these are like the changes that occur when you do drugs. I’ve never done a chemical analysis on my own brain but I can tell you what it felt like.

Around ten to fifteen years into my life as a daily meditator, I began to notice that the world was starting to look different. I’m not using the word “look” in the conceptual sense, as in the sentence, “Things look different when you know all the facts.” I mean that things really looked different, as in, “Things look different when you wipe off the cream pie that Moe just smashed in your face.”

Colors were brighter. My visual perception was sharper. The same was true of other senses as well. I heard more clearly, smelled more smelly-ly, tasted more tastefully and I could feel stuff I never felt before. I mean “feel” in both the sense of emotional-type feeling and the physical sense of touch. It was kind of like I’d been living my whole life with a burlap bag over my entire body and somehow that bag had been removed.

The only other time in my life when something like that had happened before was when I was on LSD.

Yet in every other possible way it was entirely different from being high on acid. I didn’t see trails everywhere. I could still drive a car or go to a business meeting and not giggle the whole time. What’s even better, I was not scared out of my fucking mind the way I was the last time I had tripped. It also did not go away 6-8 hours after it started.

My understanding of time was also, in some ways, like it had been when I was on LSD. Now seemed infinite. The past and future were clearly unreal. But, unlike when I was on acid, I could still make sense out of what people said about the past and future. I could, for example, figure out when I needed to be at the dentist. If you’d asked me to do something like that while high on LSD, I could not have made any sense at all of the question.

I don’t regret my acid experimentation. I think the LSD explosion of the 60s and 70s had more positive than negative effects overall – Revolver is a great record! I am glad things have loosened up such that researchers can once again legally work with these substances. I hear that LSD is very effective on cluster headaches, and as a sometime sufferer of those myself (though not in a while, thank God), I welcome anything that can help.

But psychedelic explorers who make great claims for what they’ve learned about reality while stoned do not impress me at all. They get way too excited, for one thing. Which is an effect of how drugs work. They shoot you off into the stratosphere without a parachute and that’s pretty exciting. But it’s too fast and it’s over too quickly for anyone to get much of a sense of what’s going on. And if you have to depend on a drug to make this stuff happen, well that’s just lame and lazy. Sorry. But it really is, kids.

I’m unimpressed by druggies for many of the same reasons I’m unimpressed by those who seek out so-called “enlightenment experiences” and then make great claims for them. It’s too exciting and unusual.

I like exciting and unusual things as much as most people. But in the end, that’s not where my main interest lies. I find the supposedly mundane and ordinary world too endlessly fascinating.

Why the hell are we here at all? What is this? The very fact that I’m sitting here at an apartment in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles typing this on a laptop… that’s a-may-zing. Brushing my teeth on a random Thursday morning is an incredible, improbable, weird, wild event.

Nothing is ever boring at all if you start paying attention.

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 14-16, 2015 Munich, Germany 3 DAY ZEN RETREAT

August 19, 2015 Munich, Germany LECTURE

August 24-29, 2015 Felsentor, Switzerland 5-DAY RETREAT AT STIFTUNG FELSENTOR 

August 30-September 4, 2015 Holzkirchen, Germany 5-DAY RETREAT AT BENEDIKTUSHOF MONASTERY

September 4, 2015 Hamburg, Germany LECTURE

September 6, 2015 Hamburg, Germany ZEN DAY

September 10-13, 2015 Finland 4-DAY RETREAT

September 16-19, 20015 Hebden Bridge, England 4-DAY RETREAT

September 20, 2015 London, England THE ART OF SITTING DOWN & SHUTTING UP

September 21-25, 2015 Belfast, Northern Ireland SPECIFIC DATES TO BE DETERMINED

September 26-27, 2015 Glastonbury, England 2-DAY RETREAT

October 26-27 Cincinnati, Ohio Concert:Nova

November 6-8, 2015 Mt. Baldy, CA 3-DAY RETREAT

April 23, 2016 Long Island, New York Molloy College “Spring Awakening 2016”

ONGOING EVENTS

Every Monday at 8pm there’s zazen at Silverlake Yoga Studio 2 located at 2810 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039. All are welcome!

Every Saturday at 9:30 there’s zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial Complex located at 4117 Overland Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. All are welcome!

Plenty more info is available on the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles website, dsla.info

* * *

If you send a donation it will not be spent on drugs. I appreciate your on-going support!

20 Jul 10:26

How Morally Justifiable is Advertising?

by martyb
Tertiarymatt

I hadn't thought about advertising in terms of market failures, but this an interesting take on it. via Arnvidr.

c0lo writes:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation carries a piece of analysis/commentary on the societal ethics of advertising. I found it fascinating by the depth of arguments (true, there is a bias, but it's likely that most of us soylents share it); do take your time to read it in full, my attempts to summarize it below is bound to fail:

Advertising is a natural resource extraction industry, like a fishery. Its business is the harvest and sale of human attention. We are the fish and we are not consulted.

Two problems result from this. The solution to both requires legal recognition of the property rights of human beings over our attention.

First, advertising imposes costs on individuals without permission or compensation. It extracts our precious attention and emits toxic by-products, such as the sale of our personal information to dodgy third parties.

Second, you may have noticed that the world's fisheries are not in great shape. They are a standard example for explaining the theoretical concept of a tragedy of the commons, where rational maximising behaviour by individual harvesters leads to the unsustainable overexploitation of a resource.

A classic market failure

The advertising industry consists of the buying and selling of your attention between third parties without your consent. That means that the cost of producing the good — access to your attention — doesn't reflect its full social cost.

...Since advertisers pay less to access your attention than your attention is worth to you, an excessive (inefficient) amount of advertising is produced.

...It's a classic case of market failure. The problem has the same basic structure as the overfishing of the seas or global warming. In economics language, people's attention is a common good.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

20 Jul 01:23

Ant-Man Review

Tertiarymatt

I remain a fan of Drunk Cap.

17 Jul 20:50

Two recent entries from my Art of the Day: Gene Kelly and Alvin...





Two recent entries from my Art of the Day: Gene Kelly and Alvin Ailey.

17 Jul 00:46

The whoppers start after researchers trick guys into thinking they’re not so manly

Tertiarymatt

Standard disclaimers for psych research (college undergrads = normal, smallish N, etc), but this is both hilarious and pitiful.

Tell a guy he’s scoring lower in a masculinity test, and watch the lies begin — about the number of his sexual partners, his handiness and even his height, concludes a study by a University of Washington psychologist.

Pity the male of the species.

It’s so easy to threaten his masculinity, then watch him try to compensate by simply lying about himself.

Manning Up” is a recent research paper headed by Sapna Cheryan, a University of Washington associate professor in psychology.

It begins in a rather unusual manner for an academic study — by quoting from Johnny Cash’s 1969 hit, “A Boy Named Sue.” The one that goes, “Some gal would giggle and I’d get red … ”

Then the study catalogs the reactions from guys the researchers duped into feeling masculinity-impaired through phony results from grip and personality tests.

The sampling was a bunch of college undergrads recruited at a dorm in exchange for $3 gift cards.

The students:

Lie about their height. Lie about their number of sexual partners. Lie about how handy they are. Lie about their athleticism.

For example: The “non-threatened” undergrad group said in follow-up questions that they had had an average 1.76 sexual relationships in their lives.

The “threatened” ones said they had had an average 3.12 encounters. That’s a 77 percent increase.

The study was a bit more diplomatic, not using “lie” but “exaggerating.”

The study also concluded that guys who feel masculinity-impaired also distance themselves from what they perceive as girl stuff.

Go to a basketball game? Yes. Go to a body spa? No way.

Movie and popcorn, yes. Watching a dance ensemble? Ha.

Home Depot, yes. Banana Republic? Hmmm, no thanks.

“Guys don’t relate to going shopping for clothes,” says Cheryan.

And the study showed something else: how gullible we all can be, if a test looks scientific enough.

The undergrads, all from Stanford University, which is where Cheryan was when the research was done, fell for a couple phony tests, with phony results, that made them believe their masculinity was in question.

In one test, the 36 guys were told the strength of their grip would be measured.

They squeezed on something called a Jamar Handgrip Dynamometer, which had a meter attached, kind of like on a bike pump.

“We couldn’t even read it,” Cheryan says about the meter. It didn’t matter. It just had to look sciencey.

Then the guys were shown phony results.

One group was told they scored right in the middle for a masculine score.

But another group was shown a bogus bell curve that placed their grip strength similar to that of a woman.

Let that sink in, 20-year-old male undergrad.

In the other test, guys were given multiple-choice questions to supposedly measure their “masculinity compared to those of other men.”

For example, they were asked whether they’d prefer to drive a Honda Civic, Ford Taurus, Toyota Camry or Volvo C70.

The questions were designed “so that no answer was obviously masculine,” according to the paper.

One group of guys was told they had scored 73, and that the median score for a guy was 72. These guys didn’t exaggerate later.

And then there was the other group, who were told they had scored … 26.

No, no, no, 26! What?

And so the lying began from the masculinity-threatened guys.

Cheryan points out that everyone knows their height — from a driver’s license or filling out various forms. The researchers had the actual height measurements for the subjects.

The threatened guys “exaggerated their height by three-quarters of an inch,” Cheryan said. Not so with the non-threatened guys.

By the way, government figures show the average American male in his 20s is 5 feet 9.4 inches tall. Six feet and over puts you in the top 20 percentile.

The threatened guys also exaggerated their handiness by 16 percent when asked questions such as, “How handy are you with tools?”

They also exaggerated their athleticism and their aggressiveness by some 25 percent.

But you women who log onto OKCupid are familiar with all that.

Cheryan said she does feel a bit sorry for the male species.

As other researchers have put it about masculinity, she says, “Hard won, easily lost.”