Clemens Blog

Loss and Longing

2012-01-17T23:46:00.003+01:00

Or life, love, loss.

Father and Daughter HD

Better to directly watch on the YouTube site for bigger video resolution - and make sure to turn the sound on...

Thanks to Youyou.

Brazil 1982

2011-12-16T23:57:00.000+01:00

and then there was the French midfield in 1982 with Platini, Girese, Tigana... Germany also had a good team (Breitner, Magath, Littbarski, Matthäus, Müller - Schuster had resigned), of course Italy. Still today IMHO the best midfield ever (individually and as a team) is the present Barca squad: Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, plus if you consider them midfielders, Messi+Sanchez...

A memory to Socrates and Co.

Brazil 1982 - A tribute to the art of football

Brasil 1982 - The 11 Greatest Goals

Wake Up To Your Life Audio Book

2011-12-04T16:13:00.000+01:00

The book Wake Up To Your Life by Ken McLeod explains the meditation techniques developed over hundreds of years by Tibetian Buddhist's. More over it is a practice guideline, a program, a roadmap, or a How To document. The book format is also very good to quickly skim through, to get an overview, and to look things up (and btw, for the recent paperback price at Amazon for USD 11.43 it is a real bargain for what you get!).

However there is also an audio version available, the whole book is red page by page by Ken McLeod himself.

It gives the content a whole new dimension. While I can read much faster than listening to the audio, it is much more emotional, personal, intense - overall a deeper experience, to listen to the text, content, speach. After all, text is just a codification to what we normally would hear. Actually it is images that we put into words, that we put onto paper. Each time we add a very complex layer to communicate in order to overcome time and distance. So if you like the book, you might give the audio book a chance as well. I am sure you will like it. Last not least, you might also like his podcasts. They are also qualitatively different from the audio book. The podcasts are interactive, more spontaneous, natural, and like a conversation, while the audio book is actually red from a fixed text, it is more structured, prepared, and concentrated. Both forms have their advantages and place.

cdbaby
Amazon.com

BTW, I hope there will be an ebook version out at some point in time. It would be nice to carry the book around easily at most times.

Here is a review of the book by one of his students, George Draffan.

Review of Ken McLeod's "Wake Up To Your Life", March 21, 2001

By George L. Draffan

Originally published in the Northwest Dharma News www.nwdharma.org

Hundreds of books on Buddhism have been published in recent years, but Wake Up To Your Life, a new book by Ken McLeod, is one of the first systematic curricula written by a Westerner thoroughly trained in traditional Tibetan ways. With deep insight, clear instructions, and entertaining stories, McLeod has given us a comprehensive manual for a lifetime of spiritual work.

Wake Up To Your Life begins as many books do, introducing the context and motivations for practicing meditation, and covering basic topics such as the four noble truths, the three disciplines of morality, meditation, and understanding, and the cultivation of mindfulness. It continues with contemplations on death and impermanence, karma, reactive emotions, and the four immeasurables, and ends with difficult practices for mind training, insight, and direct awareness.

McLeod breaks new ground from beginning to end. For example, the differences and synergies between mindfulness, awareness, and attention are clearly delineated, and active attention ("volitional, stable, and inclusive") is the central principle. That has practical implications, one of which is that ethical behavior becomes primarily a natural expression of attention, rather than a set of rules dictated by an authority or tradition.

Wake Up To Your Life is especially valuable in making explicit what has been hidden from or confusing to many practitioners. Those who have struggled to practice with insufficient instruction will benefit from McLeod's pragmatic approach. For example, he makes clear the important differences between the purpose, methods, effects, and results of meditation practice. Thus the meditator who has been instructed to "open your mind" or "be centered" will learn that being open and feeling centered (as well as distraction, clarity, sleepiness, and euphoria) are effects of meditation, and not methods. The book is packed with tools for choosing and working with a teacher, for cutting through confusion and self-deception, and for discriminating between genuine insight and passing mental states and energy surges.

Those who have been bewildered by Tibetan visualization and contemplative practices will see how they are rooted in basic Buddhist principles, and those who have been confused or put off by cosmology and deity practices will find clear explanations and a sensible approach. We see how the six realms are the worlds projected by our reactive emotions, and how an understanding of the five elements and five dakinis can help us transform the energies of our reactive emotions into pristine awareness.

The chapter on karma is a significant contribution to our understanding of meditation and of psychology. Detailed analysis of how our beliefs, reactive emotions, and habituated behaviors create and perpetuate the suffering in our lives is integrated with practical exercises for dismantling the components of those beliefs and behavioral patterns. McLeod has formulated the practices in terms directly relevant to modern audiences, and encourages the reader to rely on experience rather than belief. Waking up to your life does not depend on exchanging Western assumptions for Eastern ones; it depends on direct experience.

In the debate over whether teachers should transmit the Dharma just as it was received, or whether each culture and each generation must make the Dharma their own, McLeod is squarely in the second camp. He integrates age-old Buddhist methods with modern psychological sensibilities, and uses science and Sufi teaching stories to make his points, but the result is no sweet New Age concoction. Confusion is cut at every juncture, and no slack is given for wishful thinking. "You would probably prefer not to look at some parts of your life, but to ignore the areas of life that are uncomfortable to look at is not a good idea. If we protect any aspect of our life from the practice of attention, the habituated patterns connected with that part of our life absorb the energy of practice and gradually take over our lives. We become what we don't dismantle."

While Wake Up To Your Life is intellectually challenging and satisfying, it is ultimately a manual for spiritual practice, and not an exercise in cultural reeducation, religious history, or philosophical doctrine. Its only purpose is to provide a set of tools to deal with the challenges we encounter while engaging the work of "waking up from the sleep in which we dream that we are separate from what we experience."

Both beginning and experienced students and teachers of Buddhist meditation will benefit from using the methods in Wake Up To Your Life, but McLeod's pragmatic and integrated approach applies the power of attention to social, work, and personal relationships as well as to formal meditation practice. The book will be valuable to psychologists, mediators, managers, parents, and anyone else who deals with people and their reactive emotions. It's for anyone who has felt the suffering and confinement caused by their habitual patterns, and is serious about cultivating presence and freedom.

Uni Zurich

2011-10-29T13:31:00.000+02:00

Zurich University and Lichthof, 2011-10-28

1.		2.
3.		4.
5.		6.
7.		8.
9.		10.

Tripod

2011-10-02T11:18:00.004+02:00

Zurich main station, Switzerland, 2011-10-01

Instead of getting a new bigger sensor camera, decided to take out the old cheap hand tripod I once had gotten along with a former camera (the good old Kodak wide angle) and see what can be done at night with the Panasonic compact. Thought will be getting a new mini tripod with a level gauge soon.

Decisions

2011-09-11T12:34:00.000+02:00

If you happen to be on a Mac, there is simple and cheap decision support tool ala Benjamin Franklin's Pro/Con list made by Jonathan Clark.

Mac App Store: Decisions

Here is the original letter from Benjamin Franklin describing the process, thanks to Aaron Stannard's further elaborations:

To Joseph Priestley

London, September 19, 1772

Dear Sir,

In the Affair of so much Importance to you, wherein you ask my Advice, I cannot for want of sufficient Premises, advise you what to determine, but if you please I will tell you how.

When these difficult Cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because while we have them under Consideration all the Reasons pro and con are not present to the Mind at the same time; but sometimes one Set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of Sight. Hence the various Purposes or Inclinations that alternately prevail, and the Uncertainty that perplexes us.

To get over this, my Way is, to divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then during three or four Days Consideration I put down under the different Heads short Hints of the different Motives that at different Times occur to me for or against the Measure. When I have thus got them all together in one View, I endeavour to estimate their respective Weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out: If I find a Reason pro equal to some two Reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two Reasons con equal to some three Reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the Ballance lies; and if after a Day or two of farther Consideration nothing new that is of Importance occurs on either side, I come to a Determination accordingly.

And tho' the Weight of Reasons cannot be taken with the Precision of Algebraic Quantities, yet when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less likely to take a rash Step; and in fact I have found great Advantage from this kind of Equation, in what may be called Moral or Prudential Algebra.

Wishing sincerely that you may determine for the best, I am ever, my dear Friend,

Yours most affectionately

B. Franklin

Political Message

2011-08-16T21:54:00.004+02:00

Fribourg, Switzerland, 2011-08-06

Natural Awareness

2011-08-12T10:30:00.002+02:00

George Draffan's Natural Awareness Blog with wonderful buddhist wisdom.

Cheers!

Tribschen

2011-07-03T13:33:00.003+02:00

Richard Wagner Museum

Here are the touristic photos, and here the artistic...

Emmental

2011-05-28T20:29:00.000+02:00

2011-05-28

Burgdorf

Focus

2011-05-18T20:01:00.000+02:00

Steve Jobs about Focus at AppleInsider:

Jobs outlined Apple's intense focus during an interview with Fortune in 2008. "Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we've got less than 30 major products. I don't know if that's ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully," Jobs said.

"I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don't put information into it.

"Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market's going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won't really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn't have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn't have seen it coming."

Bach - Labèque Sisters

2011-04-01T18:10:00.001+02:00

The Labèque sisters play Bach with Il Giardino Armonico

Do I Want This?

2011-03-08T19:46:00.001+01:00

One day, while staying at a friend’s house, Nasrudin peered over the wall into the neighbor’s yard and saw the most wonderful garden he had ever seen. He noticed an old man patiently weeding a flower-bed and asked,

“This is a beautiful garden. I’d like to have one just like it. How do you make a garden like this?”

“Twenty years hard work.”

“Never mind,” said Nasrudin.

From: Three Questions from Ken McLeod

Better Than A New Year's Resolution

2011-02-06T11:52:00.001+01:00

30 Day Trials

Not sure Steve Pavlina invented them, maybe - whatever, it's a very effective way to change a strong habit, to direct attention to it, and to work on it with persistence.

30 Days to Success

Start the New Year With a 30 Day Trial

I find that I do best when I take time to prepare for about a week in advance. I immerse myself in the new habit I want to install by reading about it, thinking about it, and imagining what it will be like. I hold myself back from starting until I feel a strong internal pressure to begin. This helps me make it through the first several days with high enthusiasm, which helps a lot since the first week is usually the hardest.

30-Day Supertrials

Your level of self-discipline will have a strong impact on your self-esteem. The more disciplined you are, the more you can adopt positive habits and shed negative ones. Positive habits yield positive results, and positive results feel good. Feeling good gives you more energy, and that feeds into more positive actions, which in turn become positive habits.

30-day trials can be very challenging, but they’re also very effective. This is my #1 favorite tool for habit change.

Now in the past, I’ve cautioned people not to overdo it. Many people who are new to the concept of 30-day trials go kittywompus and try to install 5-10 new habits simultaneously. And almost without exception, they crash and burn. Usually they don’t even make it past Day 3.
It’s like trying to juggle too many balls at once. You end up dropping all of them. Zero results.

So I’ve advised people to stick with one 30-day trial at a time. One trial will be plenty challenging. And you can do 12 of these per year if you’d like. Even if you only succeed at half of them, that’s still a tremendous amount of improvement within a year.

SimpleGoals

SimpleGoals is a tool for the iPhone or iPod touch to easily and conveniently track your status or progress of reaching your habitual goal(s). Thought with this tool it is easy to track too many things you might want to change all at once and get frustrated by falling back and failing with too many "resolutions". As Steve Pavlina wrote above, it is much easier and effective to concentrate just on a single behavior and let the rest follow by itself (month after month:).

Conducting Talent

2011-01-08T20:06:00.002+01:00

3 year old Jonathan conducting to the 4th movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony

Thanks to the courtesy of Lena.

It Ain't Over

2010-12-19T19:23:00.002+01:00

'til it's over...

Swiss Ants

2010-11-20T11:59:00.002+01:00

Ämesse, Omeisele, Äbese,
Aweissi, Ameisi, Uweisse,
Wurmeissi, Wurmeisle, Wurmasle,
Harmäusli, Ambeisse, Umbeisse,
Hampeissi, Lombeisse, Empeisele,
Ambitzli, Wumbitzgi, Humbetzgi,
Ambessgi, Umbasle, Hobäsle,
Wurmasle, Wambusle, Bumbeisgi

Source: Peter von Matt,
Tages-Anzeiger, 2010-10-16

I. Have. No. Words. For. This.

2010-09-12T18:38:00.002+02:00

How to turn yourself into a Heuballen. Naked.

Thanks Alvis.

Ein bisschen Spass

2010-08-30T22:47:00.002+02:00

muss sein...

Deutsch mit Roberto Blanco:

Lyrics:

Ein bisschen Spaß muss sein,
dann ist die Welt voll Sonnenschein.
So gut wie wir uns heute verstehn,
so soll es weitergehn.

Ein bisschen Spaß muss sein,
dann kommt das Glück von ganz allein.
Drum singen wir tagaus und tagein,
ein bisschen Spaß muss sein.

Heute Nacht feiern wir,
machen durch bis um vier.
Fragen nicht nach Zeit und Geld,
weil es Dir und auch mir so gefällt.

Ein bisschen Spaß muß sein,
dann ist die Welt voll Sonnenschein.
So gut wie wir uns heute verstehen,
so soll es weitergehen.

Ein bisschen Spaß muß sein,
dann kommt das Glück von ganz allein.
Drum singen wir tagaus und tagein,
ein bisschen Spaß muß sein.

Draußen wird's langsam hell,
und die Zeit geht viel zu schnell.
Noch ein Glas und einen Kuss,
ja, und dann ist noch lange nicht Schluß!

Ein bisschen Spaß muß sein,
dann ist die Welt voll Sonnenschein.
So gut wie wir uns heute verstehen,
so soll es weitergehen.

Ein bisschen Spaß muß sein,
dann kommt das Glück von ganz allein.
Drum singen wir tagaus und tagein,
ein bisschen Spaß muß sein.

Ein bisschen Spaß muß sein,
dann ist die Welt voll Sonnenschein.
So gut wie wir uns heute verstehen,
so soll es weitergehen.

Ein bisschen Spaß muß sein,
dann kommt das Glück von ganz allein.
Drum singen wir tagaus und tagein,
ein bisschen Spaß muß sein!

Elise Visually

2010-07-27T22:15:00.002+02:00

Beethoven - Für Elise (fur Elise, piano solo)

Chihuahua

2010-06-17T20:11:00.001+02:00

A cantopop cover by Joey Yung of a Swiss DJ BoBo song:

Chihuahua - Joey Yung

Thanks to Carrie and Yolanda for the pointers.

Elise From Scratch

2010-06-12T23:22:00.001+02:00

For your practice (if you need it:), here are only the first five notes from Beethoven's Für Elise, played by Detlef Kraus (BTW, my piano teacher's teacher): either for download e.g. into iTunes here, or to listen to in the web browser in a separate tab or window (just click on the link).

E, D#, E, D#, E

Here are four more bars a bit further down, again either for iTunes or to listen to directly in the browser.

Further more, love this improvised version by Yoke Wong:

Fur Elise Piano Demo By Yoke Wong -Watch Beethoven Fur Elise

This is also a wonderful visualisation and way to learn music, IMHO this application alone is worth getting an iPad!

Magic Piano for iPad [Fur Elise]

Last, not least, Artur Schnabel, Ivo Pogorelich, and also Detlef Kraus:

Beethoven - Fur Elise - Schnabel

Beethoven - Fur elise

Ludwig van Beethoven: Für Elise

Tiefenbrunnen

2010-05-29T14:16:00.003+02:00

Tiefenbrunnen, 2010-03-16 23:14:23

Mozart / Haskil

2010-05-23T12:04:00.004+02:00

Mozart: 12 Variations "Ah, vous dirai-je, maman" KV 265 (Clara Haskil)

With music score - very convenient for memorizing and studying (best interpretation by Clara Haskil anyway)!

Another very nice interpretation by Walter Gieseking:

GIESEKING - Mozart 12 Variations on Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman K.265

Update 2010-08-07

Here is a free music sheet of KV 262 from free-scores.com.

Kosta Fostiropoulos

2010-04-27T23:18:00.005+02:00

The story of my brother-in-law's PhD time in the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, by Roland Knauer:

Fußball aus Kohlenstoff

Aus Papier bastelte Kroto ein mögliches Modell des Moleküls mit 60 Kohlenstoffatomen. Am Ende hatte er ein Gebilde in seinen Händen, das aus 12 Fünfecken bestand, die mit 20 Sechsecken eine Art Kugel bildeten. Als er Mathematiker bat, dieses Gebilde näher anzuschauen, verrieten sie ihm den Trivialnamen dieser Struktur: „Wir wissen ja nicht, wie Sie zu diesem Ding sagen, aber wir nennen es einen Fußball!“

Die Forscher hatten damit eine völlig neue Form des Kohlenstoffs entdeckt. Jahre später, 1996, wurden sie dafür mit dem Chemie-Nobelpreis ausgezeichnet. Zunächst hatte die Entdeckung der Wissenschaftler eher akademischen Wert, denn mit der Lasermethode ließen sich nur sehr wenige Moleküle der nach einem Architekten benannten „Buckminster-Fullerene“ herstellen. Es sollte noch einige Zeit vergehen, bis es gelang, auch größere Mengen von Fullerenen zu erzeugen. Das gelang schließlich in Heidelberg.

Niedriger Druck und niedrige Temperaturen simulierten die kosmischen Bedingungen, als dem Praktikanten Bernd Wagner im Herbst 1988 ein Missgeschick passierte und er versehentlich viel zu viel Helium in den Lichtbogen leitete. Obwohl der so entstandene hohe Druck von Weltraumbedingungen weit entfernt war, zog der Jungforscher das Experiment durch. Am Ende erhielt er kleine Mengen einer Substanz, die offenbar aus den seltsamen Kohlenstoff-Fußbällen bestand.

Das Praktikum von Wagner war längst beendet, als Konstantinos Fostiropoulos 1990 in seiner Doktorarbeit dieses schiefgelaufene Experiment wieder aufgriff. Viele Monate lang variierte er die Bedingungen, bis er immer größere Mengen der Substanz erzeugte. In seiner Experimentanordnung drückte dabei die Feder eines Kugelschreibers auf einen Stift aus Kohlenstoff, der im Lichtbogen verdampfte. Der aufsteigende blaue Dunst enthielt die Fullerene, die vier eng begrenzte Wellenlängenbereiche im infraroten Licht absorbierten.

Danach experimentierte der Forscher mit großen Grafitstäben, die 20 Zentimeter lang waren und entsprechend größere Fullerenmengen hergaben. Aber noch immer entstand ein Ruß, der im besten Fall zwölf Prozent Fullerene enthielt. Dann erhielt Fostiropoulos einen Tipp von einem Chemiker: Fullerene mit 60 Kohlenstoffatomen sollten bei ungefähr 500 Grad Celsius verdampfen. Der Doktorand stellte daraufhin seine Apparatur entsprechend ein – und der Dampf schlug sich in nennenswerten Mengen auf einem in der Nähe befindlichen Quarzkristall wieder nieder. Jetzt hatte Fostiropoulos tatsächlich reines Fulleren hergestellt. An einem Tag erhielt er damals bis zu einem Gramm der Substanz.

Seit dieser Entdeckung vor 20 Jahren arbeiten Wissenschaftler an möglichen Anwendungen der runden Moleküle. Sie kommen beispielsweise als Katalysator infrage oder als Schmiermittel. Auch die Herstellung künstlicher Diamanten aus den runden Kohlenstoffmolekülen wird erforscht.

Eine andere Anwendung verfolgt Konstantinos Fostiropoulos, der mittlerweile am Helmholtz-Zentrum für Materialien und Energie in Berlin forscht. Dort entwickelt der Wissenschaftler mithilfe der Fullerene Systeme, aus denen sogenannte organische Solarzellen gefertigt werden können.

Fun Stairs

2010-04-06T23:46:00.000+02:00

Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se

Amazing, 11 million people saw this. Thanks to Ann for the pointer.

The sponsor was a bit of a downer, but then their stock is also good for some fun (at least for some, but not for all):

Basel Botanic

2010-03-31T23:26:00.002+02:00

Basel university botanic garden, 2010-03-28
(enlarge, big screen version).

Stray Dogs Using Subway

2010-03-22T20:37:00.003+01:00

abc news: Stray Dogs Master Complex Moscow Subway System

Once joined the apartment complex with a cat named Moritz, who was using the elevator at his pleasure.

Via naked capitalism.

Word Designs

2010-03-20T23:19:00.002+01:00

There are some good ones:

30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less

Pointer by Alvis.

Seung Sahn

2010-03-10T22:14:00.001+01:00

From Open Buddha: “Completely Become One” by Zen Master Seung Sahn

After one week, my heart was only making one or two mistakes, and my doctors said, “This is wonderful! Most people take two or three months to come down to only one or two mistakes each minute!” So I said, “Thank you very much; you have helped me, so I can get better quickly. But this is only fix-your-body meditation. This is not correct meditation.”

“Why isn’t this correct meditation?” they asked.

“You can fix your body, your heart, your diabetes. In Korea, China, and India, there are people who do yoga. They go to the mountains and do breath-in, breath-out meditation. They can live 500 years and not get sick. Keeping their bodies for a long time is possible; even flying in the sky is possible. Trying this style body meditation, anything is possible. A body is like a car. Use the car a lot, and in three years, it is broken. Only keep the car in the garage, then keeping it for a long time is possible. But finally, after 500 years, then these yoga people die. Then what? Live a long time, then die; live a short time, then die–it is the same! Dying is the same.”

The doctors understood. “What is correct meditation, then?”

I told them, “I always try meditation. Meditation means always keeping one mind, not-moving mind.” They thought meditation meant only concentration and keeping your body still. So I said, “Meditation means keeping one mind. You must understand–What is life? What is death? If you keep one mind, there is no life, no death. Then, if you die tomorrow, no problem; if you die in five minutes, no problem.”

“What do you mean, no problem’?” they asked.

“Maybe you do fix-your-heart meditation. Then, ‘My heart is good; my body is good.’ It is very easy to become attached to this meditation. But, when you get old, and your heart is not so good, then you try this meditation. Maybe it is still not so good. Then, ‘Why doesn’t my meditation work?’ Then your body, your meditation become hindrances. If your meditation cannot help your body, then you don’t believe in your meditation. Then what? So, this style meditation is no good.

“Correct meditation means correctly understanding your situation moment to moment–what are you doing now? Only do it! Then, each action is complete; each action is enough. Then no thinking, so each moment, I can perceive everything just like this. Just like this is truth. Sick-time, only be sick. Driving-time, only drive. Only go straight–then, any situation is no problem.”

2010-03-13

Reminds me of this exercise by Ken McLeod.

Google - Translating

2010-03-09T20:25:00.000+01:00

BTW, if the article is not accessible directly, goto Google News, search for the title, and go from there. At the moment most pay per view articles are free for Google users.

BTW BTW, this will be an area very difficult for Apple to compete in. Thought Apple has the cash reserves now, they don't have the expertise and no synergies to other areas of their business. They try already to catch up for maps.

BTW BTW BTW, the biggest progress in terms of artificial intelligence (well, since the invention of AI, whatever) is IMHO the Google Search database/engine. It is maybe not much more than a big big memory, but memory IS a VERY big part of intelligence! And every further software/module/engine/project can be build on top of that, with whatever new results and effects that might bring! However, and here is the problem with any further global progress and with Google itself, you better work for Google if you want to have the means and to have access to the goodies. Google has a treasure with nothing comparable in human history (gold, oil, land, resources, money, people, armies, you name it). And as you can see below, they intend on using it.

NY Times article: Google’s Computing Power Betters Translation Tool

Creating a translation machine has long been seen as one of the toughest challenges in artificial intelligence. For decades, computer scientists tried using a rules-based approach — teaching the computer the linguistic rules of two languages and giving it the necessary dictionaries.

But in the mid-1990s, researchers began favoring a so-called statistical approach. They found that if they fed the computer thousands or millions of passages and their human-generated translations, it could learn to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts.

It turns out that this technique, which requires huge amounts of data and lots of computing horsepower, is right up Google’s alley.

“Our infrastructure is very well-suited to this,” Vic Gundotra, a vice president for engineering at Google, said. “We can take approaches that others can’t even dream of.”

...

“This technology can make the language barrier go away,” said Franz Och, a principal scientist at Google who leads the company’s machine translation team. “It would allow anyone to communicate with anyone else.”

Mr. Och, a German researcher who previously worked at the University of Southern California, said he was initially reluctant to join Google, fearing it would treat translation as a side project. Larry Page, Google’s other founder, called to reassure him.

“He basically said that this is something that is very important for Google,” Mr. Och recalled recently. Mr. Och signed on in 2004 and was soon able to put Mr. Page’s promise to the test.

While many translation systems like Google’s use up to a billion words of text to create a model of a language, Google went much bigger: a few hundred billion English words. “The models become better and better the more text you process,” Mr. Och said.

Chinese Food

2010-03-06T10:55:00.000+01:00

... in the West

TED presentation:

Jennifer 8. Lee hunts for General Tso

Thanks to Sharon for the tip.

No Mouse

2010-03-03T23:47:00.002+01:00

Oh yeah!!!

Inside Apple's iPad: iPhone OS vs Mac OS X

The thing that makes me frustrated is that so many users think that using the desktop version of os X is the way to go, and as you guys pointed out, doesn't work. What I think people are failing to see is that apple has finally figured out a way to make an OS that doesn't use a mouse. They designed it for the finger and they have done it very well. I think that apple should continue in this direction, and perhaps what they are looking to do is to eliminate the use of mice all together in favor of multi touch, and a keyboard. Could apple be using the iPhone/iPod touch OS as their map for mac OS 11? If that's the case then I'd say they are moving in the right direction.

I think the reason they don't allow for multi tasking on their mobile devices is because they are still seeing the iPhone OS as a beta for OS 11. They don't want to introduce multi tasking untill it is perfected, and can be done better then it has ever been done before. I hope other companies finally get the picture, and create finger friendly OSs.

I also beleive that there is more then enough evidence for OS 11 to be multi touch ONLY: apple has been moving their devices more and more towards multi touch, starting with the two finger scroll in their ibooks and ending on the computer end with the Magic Mouse and current macbook trackpads, and on the other side the ipad. If apple continues in this way, I beleive that the next step they have to take is to start making the iPad start eating the sales from their Macbooks when they come out with the iPad 2. If they can do this then we may see OS 11 be made just for multi touch and we will no longer need a mouse.....

But a keyboard still would be nice...

Amanda in Wonderland

2010-02-07T12:01:00.001+01:00

Amanda Baggs is autistic. If you give her three minutes, she starts speaking/typing in our language:

In My Language

And from Alice:

Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on 'And how do you know that you're mad?'

'To begin with,' said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

'I suppose so,' said Alice.

'Well, then,' the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

'I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

'Call it what you like,' said the Cat.

Pointer via Caroline Birks on unmind.ning.com.

Gone With The Sand

2010-02-02T23:19:00.004+01:00

This is great! Give it three minutes. Already 12 million views on YouTube, so not the first one to recognize it, yet in case... Also the audience alone is worth the money;-).

Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation (Україна має талант / Ukraine's Got Talent)

Pointer via When Martian Unicorns Dance.

The Known Universe

2010-01-28T22:42:00.003+01:00

Very well done and fantastic video.

Astronomy Picture of the Day has some comments.

The Known Universe by AMNH

Pointer via Pat Stacey/UM Ning.

New Blog: Unfettered Clips

2010-01-17T03:11:00.002+01:00

Exactly a month ago I started a new blog which I was working towards (on and off) for much of 2009 and of which I was first dreaming since exactly the time of this blog post, 2009-01-01. It has been and is a team effort as there is a group of people that took great effort to transcribe (and they still do) a lot of audio files and also Ken McLeod supports these projects and generously makes his material freely available to the public.

So what is it?

It's a kind of The Best Of Ken McLeod's teaching classes. Ken McLeod is a Western Buddhist teacher and author of the book Wake Up To Your Life (which is also available in audio form).

Personally I find his material full of wisdom, insight, and also practical value. A friend wrote about it: "I always think Buddhism indeed is among the wisest religions, or rather philosophies regarding the attitudes towards life. It is easy to understand, but also easy to forget. Thank you for reminding me these deep wisdoms. Ken McLeod did a very nice job in communicating these ideas."
Personally for me it is the other way around:), counter intuitive and difficult to understand, but once understood easier to remember. But maybe that's why I need a Western translator.

So I hope you enjoy this stuff:

Unfettered Clips & Quotes
QUOTATIONS AND AUDIO CLIPS OF BUDDHIST TEACHER KEN MCLEOD

Clips already posted and that I want to mention explicitly as I consider them especially important are the following three:

- Basic Skills
- Progression
- Manifesting Things

Cheers!

Largo d'Orta

2010-01-09T14:14:00.001+01:00

Isola San Guilio at Largo d'Orta

Click on the image for a larger view (or if you have a big monitor even better here is a full screen version).

This photo here from Wikipedia was the reason to go to Orta San Guilio when looking for a place in the Piemont to hang out over the Christmas days of 2009. We didn't regret it (despite no internet and a rocky train ride).

From The Independent:

Lake Orta, one of the smallest and least-known of northern Italy's sub-Alpine lakes, is a place for sublime moments. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who visited the lake in May 1882 and believed that the experience changed his life forever, inscribed the date "von Orta an" ("from Orta onwards") as a preface to his masterpiece Thus Spake Zarathustra. Other 19th-century writers enchanted by its quiet beauty include the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, who wrote rapturously of this "grey pearl in a green jewel-box"...
...

Strangely, despite such praise, Orta seems nowadays to have become rather a secret place - so secluded that many Italians have never heard of it. But to those who know its fairy-tale setting, the lake is Cenerentola (Cinderella): the beautiful, self-effacing maiden ordered to stay at home while her flashy elder sisters go to the ball. As visitors flock eastwards to the comparative fleshpots of the nearby, much larger Lake Maggiore, pretty Orta offers altogether quieter, more mystical pleasures.

Robina Courtin

2010-01-08T19:37:00.003+01:00

Slow start, but she speeds up, believe me.

Be Your Own Therapist

Da Hammer

2010-01-01T22:31:00.000+01:00

What would you do with a hammer?

Peter, Paul & Mary - If I Had A Hammer

The Beatles- Maxwell's Silver Hammer with lyrics

IF I HAD A HAMMER
words and music by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
All over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

Social Sites

2010-01-01T15:15:00.001+01:00

Interesting graphic and list of social sites from Focus: The Boom of Social Sites

As one commentator (named "How the Common Man Sees It") said it:

Wow. I’ve heard of about 10% of those. I now consider myself officially out of touch with the internet.

And from Stephen Welton:

Wow! The common denominator is that people are meeting people! That will never change.

While these sites all facilitate great new services and ways of interacting, my problem with them is, they mostly try to fragment, privatize, and monopolize the internet in order to cash in. E.g. they all invent email again:). Same for blogging etc. But all just inside their network.

The same that happened on the PC with propietary file formats is bound to happen again. Companies setting standards by using their first mover advantage and then it takes a decade of establishing open standards to wring back control of your own data.

Well, guess what, I don't want to sign into Ning or Xing in order to read or send a message to another person. How can I disable on Facebook making public the list of people I am interested to play around with. Why do I need Xing or LinkedIn to publish a list of people that have "officially" confirmed to be connected with me? The good think now, the masses (aka the kids) are way faster in moving further along if it so pleases them or something better or new comes along.

Pointer via The Big Picture.

Olten

2009-12-20T17:32:00.002+01:00

Olten, Switzerland

Olten is not a famous town in Switzerland, except that it lies strategically at the crossways between Bern/Berne and Basel, Zurich and Lausanne or Geneva. And then, while the offshore accounts in Switzerland are all stored in mainframes in and around Zurich (and some bits in Geneva, Basel, or Lugano), the physical stock certificates of all Swiss bank clients safe keeping accounts are actually held in a vault in Olten some meters underground surrounded by the ground water of the river Aare.

So as a train hub many travelers go through or change tracks in Olten every day, yet few make a stop to have a look at the lovely old town and formerly strategic bridge above the Aare river.

From 2009-12-19:

1.		2.
3.		4.
5.		6.
7.

A Yurt in Biel-Bienne

2009-12-08T23:07:00.002+01:00

2009-12-07, 2009-12-08

Think And Grow Rich

2009-12-03T20:46:00.003+01:00

Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill in its original edition (1937) is actually in the public domain.

Here is an HTML and an ASCI text version. Either one might be handy if you want to quote something or make some notes. Here is the google book version.

Hiromi Uehara

2009-11-07T20:44:00.003+01:00

Hiromi Uehara - I've got Rhythm

Yes, she got.

Soon Gone

2009-10-31T10:54:00.004+01:00

The end of building is ruin. (Ken McLeod)

Santiago Calatrava Zurich Law Library

2009-10-17T17:50:00.005+02:00

From 2007-02-10:

Santiago Calatrava Zurich Law Library - Elevator Ride

1.		2.
3.		4.
5.		6.
7.		8.
9.		10.

And here is another "still" video from the same visit:

Santiago Calatrava Zurich University Law Library - Student Ants

Influence

2009-07-11T18:53:00.006+02:00

Bill Russell stories about Red Auerbach and Bill Bradley in "Red and Me", p. 114 ff.:

He was an extraordinarily intuitive psychologist and motivator, and every now and then he made a move on me. I always saw it coming, and I'd let him know it. But I knew it was always in the team's best interests, so I accepted it. Sometimes it even worked on me. For example, my second year I came out like a wild beast and we ate up every opponent, one after another, By the All-Star break, we had a twelve-game lead, and nobody had a prayer of catching us. Maybe that seeped into my psyche because, just after the All-Star game, Red called me into his office. I didn't know it, but I was about to get my first Red Auerbach pep talk. He lit a cigar and said, "I'm so mad, I could bite the head off a ten-penny nail."

"Red. What are you mad about?"

"We got the division sewed up already and we both know that."

I thought that was a good thing. "That's why you're mad?"

He said, "You're coasting! We got the big lead, so I can understand why you're letting up. But all you're doing is coasting just enough to get ready for the playoffs. Even you ain't that good. You can't turn it on and off in this league. You have to go hard all the time, Russ. Christ, you got these guys so terrorized, they can't play against you. But if you let up on them, and they start believing they can play against you, then the can play against you." He puffed at his cigar. "You know, at the end of the year, you should be the MVP in this league. But if you let up, and there's another player on the same page, he'll get it. So you have to take it off the table. Leave no doubt at all."

It was a masterful performance. Half scold, half flattering pep talk, in a soft, calm tone. He knew I was a very proud man. He was punching me to make me play with more pride, and tougher and meaner. He might as well have said, "Remember Kenny Sears!" He left something unsaid on the table, too. He was hinting subtly that the NBA was over 90 percent white, which we both knew was a factor in MVP selections. That night, I went out and broke the league record for rebounds in a game with thirty-nine.

...

Red worked me over this way all season, sparking me here and there, trying to keep me ferocious to win, just like he was. As always, his real target was implied rather than overt. One time, he casually remarked that an opposing player had been on a run against me lately, playing great. I barely heard it, yet it marinated until I wondered, "Now, when did that guy ever play me good?" Bang! I couldn't wait to get to that guy the next time we played. But if you let up on them , and they start believing they can play against you, then they can play against you.

In one game in the mid-1960s, Bill Bradley, the gifted small forward on the New York Knicks, was having a particularly good night against my teammate Satch Sanders. Satch was a very good player, but on this night, Bradley kept finding ways around him to make all these open shots. Now, I was on the floor trying to help my teammates. But, just like Red on the bench, I couldn't help Satch physically, so I decided to try my own psychology. I always strived to play what I called The Perfect Game. My perception of The Perfect Game involved a whole bunch of criteria: shooting percentage, free throw percentage, total rebounds, total blocked shots, assists, screens - and conversations. Why conversations? The power of language.

I took Satch aside and said, "You know, Satch, on the uniforms there's a big number and a small number. The big number's on the back. The small number's on the front. I know you haven't seen that small one yet, but trust me, it's there." Translation: "That's Bradley's back you're seeing as he goes by you. Front him more, so he can't get past."

It didn't help. In the last quarter, one of the Knicks was at the free throw line, ready to shoot a foul shot. I was standing on one side of the foul lane and Satch was on the other side, right next to his friend, Mr. Bradley. I saw these two guys standing together and I thought, "Something's wrong with this picture." I was team captain then, so when the guy prepared to shoot the foul, I called to the referee, "Hold it up." The referee took the ball back, and I stepped slowly across the lane to Satch and looked him in the eyes, hard. Then I talked just loud enough for him and Bradley to hear. "Satch, can you guard this motherfucker?" I rarely used that word. I was telling Satch, without saying it, "This guy you're guarding isn't just another ballplayer. He's a motherfucker! He has no respect for you! He thinks you can't guard him!"

Satch grunted, "Yeah, I can guard him."

I said, "Well, goddamn it, do it!" I turned around and stepped back to my side of the lane. That performance was for Bill Bradley's benefit - it had nothing to do with Satch. In fact, Satch didn't do anything differently after that. But Bradley did: he had a lousy final quarter, and that was a big reason we won the game. Years later, when Bill Bradley ran for president, I went around the country with him. In Iowa one night, he reminded me about that incident - it still bothered him! He said, "Russ, what the hell was that?" I told him it was designed to get inside his head. He said, "It did. It threw off my concentration and I couldn't do anything right the rest of the game." I said, "Courtesy William F. Russell, Doctor of Psychological Warfare!" And we shared a good laugh

JavaNCSS

2009-06-01T11:34:00.005+02:00

JavaNCSS is a little Java source measurement tool and open source project that I started some 12 years ago. It's the personal software project of mine that got the most traction and is still in some use, even thought I stopped developing in Java myself and had very little time to keep up with the support and development work that was neccessary.

With lot's of effort did move the programm to support the new Java 1.4 grammar back then, but still, some esoteric open bugs with new grammar features like annotations remained.

Then some people using the tool in their project (Sonar) and a vivid maintainer of the popular Maven build tool showed up, wanting to move things forward. With the help of Simon Brandhof and Hervé Boutemy the project got opened up, first Simon helped giving JavaNCSS an all around infrastructure (at Codehaus.org, which also hosts the JRuby, Jetty, and Groovy projects), with mailing lists, a public bug tracking system, and a source code repository that allows multiple people to work in parallel on the software. Then Hervé worked on the code to bring it into the Maven world, allowing other people and projects to include and invoke JavaNCSS easily through this popular build infrastructure.

Both changes had the effect that we got a lot more input from the user community with explicit error reports AND contributed code solutions! Over the years I had always gotten individual error reports and particular fixes, but this had all been hidden for the other users before a release and notably a bottleneck had been that changes to the Java grammars are very very tricky and time consuming without the experience. Now we got important and difficult grammar fixes contributed by Sébastien Reynaud. Freddy Mallet even made a prototype of a whole new architecture and grammar system based on the visitor pattern.

Yesterday we released the third version since these changes took place, but it has been the first one where all code changes have been done by Hervé (including test cases) with major bug fixes supplied by Sébastien!

Happy to see JavaNCSS opening up and to get a life of its own, thanks to all the people now and over the years who have given it their support...

Steph Davis

2009-05-30T20:22:00.001+02:00

Impressive and versatile woman... Steph Davis on Freerider

I started learning yoga about two years ago. At about the same time, I became a vegan (don't eat any animal products, or refined sugar). Physically and spiritually, these two practices have changed my life, and brought my climbing and running to another level.

And: She Rocks

STRUGGLE IS PART OF LIFE, AND ONCE WE ACCEPT THAT, THINGS WILL BE MUCH EASIER.
...
Snaking past buttresses and long cracks, Freerider rises 38 pitches to the summit of El Cap. Davis's training program was part masochism, all discipline: Two or three times a week, she'd hike ten miles to the summit, self-belay a thousand feet down to the lower pitches, and climb up alone. "Most people don't just walk up to El Cap and say, ‘Oh, I'm going to free it,' " she says. "It's like playing piano: taking something big and breaking it down and then trying to achieve a perfect performance."
...
As it turned out, Freerider was a turning point in her relationship with Dean: The couple finally accepted that their marriage, weird though it was, actually worked. "Our roles started to materialize," says Davis. "We agreed that there are some things we'll do together and some things we'll do apart. The reality is, I wouldn't really want someone following me around, bearing my rock shoes on a pillow and saying, ‘Rah-rah, Steph!' That would get on my nerves!"
...
"To be a professional climber, you have to sell yourself and convince everybody you're the best," Davis says. "But I don't think there is a 'best.' The minute you say you want to be better than someone else, you've immediately put a limit on yourself, and you're a fool!"

Here is her blog.
And book: High Infatuation: A Climber's Guide to Love and Gravity

New F200EXR

2009-05-24T00:35:00.006+02:00

Thursday was a day off and used it to spent the first day (almost) with the new Fujifilm F200EXR camera. I was lured into this camera because of its new suposedly superior sensor, which should handle low light situations better than any other digital compact camera. Also, as I started to make more and more pictures with my Panasonic (have a look at my first impression back then) in ISO 400 mode to get faster shutter speed even under normal light conditions, I was also interested to use a higher sensitivity for normal light conditions. Now it is to early to confirm that I like this Fujifilm's handling of colors and special light situations better than the Panasonic DMC-TZ5's, but the 28mm wide angle has been an immediate disappointment with quite strong barrel distortions. After all in comparison it looks like the Panasonic's Leitz (Leica) lens is quite special! Same can be said to my old Kodak's Schneider Kreuzach lens!

Anyway, here are a few first shots from Lucerne on 2009-05-22.

Joe Hisaishi: Summer

2009-05-02T23:58:00.001+02:00

Not so long ago (2009-02-27) heard this piece played live by Kamura Kizilboga in the Storchen Bar in Zurich and it was fantastic!

Here the composer Joe Hisaishi plays it himself:

Joe Hisaishi Live - Summer ( from Kikujiro )

Here is the sheet music, if you like to play and practice it yourself.

Very sweet:
Ethel Poh (6-year-old) - "Summer" composed by Joe Hisaishi

Thanks to Xin.

Crazy Stuff

2009-04-22T04:31:00.001+02:00

Must see: an old mankind dream come true (literally)...

wingsuit base jumping

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Via thedanzatap (where else).

---

In comparison, this is only moderately crazy, but certainly skillful:

Inspired Bicycles - Danny MacAskill April 2009

Thanks Aldo for the pointer.

Raw Food

2009-04-19T10:04:00.007+02:00

Interesting and motivating report by Steve Pavlina on going on a 100% raw food (vegan) diet: Raw Food Diet and Energy Gains

Here are his thoughts before he started his 100% raw food trial.

In this update he recommends a book by David Wolfe:

I recently read an awesome book about raw food nutrition called The Sunfood Diet Success System by David Wolfe. I met David briefly in Sedona last year. His book is very long and detailed (almost 500 pages), and it filled in many of the gaps for me. Many of the tweaks I’m making to my diet this year are based on recommendations from his book, which is an outstanding guide for long-term success on the raw diet. Practically every question you may have about raw food nutrition is thoroughly addressed. There are whole chapters on specific foods like avocados and olives. I especially liked the menu plans in the appendix. There are week-long sample menus for transitioning to raw, 80% raw, and 100% raw.

I don’t recommend David’s book for raw food beginners unless you’re really committed because I think the complexity would overwhelm most people. It’s too much information to assimilate unless you already have a strong background in raw nutrition.

Mrs. Mississauga for President

2009-04-10T20:01:00.004+02:00

While Mr. Obama is all talks as far as I can see, this lady seems to have a track record.

Welcome to Mississauga

‘Hurricane’ Hazel McCallion, who has won every mayoral election contested since 1978. Even at 84 years old she shows little sign of withdrawing from Canadian politics, gaining re-election in 2003 and receiving the Order of Canada in 2005... She is the longest serving mayor in Canada and has kept the city debt-free since her first term of office.

Via Jesse's Cafe Americain.

Meditating on Sound

2009-03-22T09:52:00.008+01:00

My recommendation, go and sit in a life performance of a Bruckner Symphony or some big choire piece and just listen to the sound sensations...

Yongey Minyur Rinpoche: The Joy of Living

P. 151

Meditating on Sound

Meditating on sound is very similar to meditating on form, except that now you're engaging the faculty of hearing. Start by just allowing your mind to rest for a few moments in a relaxed state, and then gradually allow yourself to become aware of the things you hear close to your ear, such as your heartbeat or your breath, or sounds that occur naturally in your immediate surroundings. Some people find it helpful to play a recording of natural sounds or pleasant music. There's no need to try to identify these sounds, nor is it necessary to focus on a specific sound. In fact, it's easier to let yourself be aware of everything you hear. The point is to cultivate a simple, bare awareness of sound as it strikes your ear.

pp. 152

One of the great benefits of meditation on sound is that it gradually teaches you to detach from assigning meaning to the various sounds you hear. You learn to listen to what you hear without necessary responding emotionally to the content. As you grow accustomed to giving bare attention to sound simply as sound, you'll find yourself able to listen to criticism without becoming angry or defensive and able to listen to praise without becoming overly proud or excited. You can simply listen to what other people say with a much more relaxed and balanced attitude, without being carried away by an emotional response.

I once hear a wonderful story about a famous sitar player in India who learned to use the sounds of his instrument as a support for his meditation practice. If you're not familiar with Indian instruments, a sitar is a very long-necked instrument, usually constructed with seventeen strings, plucked like a guitar to produce a wonderful variety of tones. This particular sitar player was so gifted that he was always in demand and spent much of his time traveling around India, in much the way some modern rock bands are often away from home on tour.

After one particularly long tour, he returned home to discover that his wife had been having an affair with another man. He was extraodrinarily reasonable when he discovered the situation. Perhaps the concentration he'd learned over the years of constant practice and performance, combined with the sounds of this lovely instrument, had calmed and focused his mind. In any case, he didn't argue with his wife or lash out in anger. Instead he sat down and had a long conversation with her, during which he realized that his wife's affair and his own pride at being asked to perform across the country were symptoms of attachment - one of the three mental poisons that keep us addicted to the cycle of samsara. There was very little difference between his attachent to being famous and his wife's attachment to another man. The recognition hit him like a thunderbolt, and he realized that in order to become free of his own addiction, he had to let go of his attachment to being famous. The only way for him to do so was to seek out a meditation master and learn how to recognize his attachment as simply a manifestation of his mental habits.

At the end of the conversation, he gave up everything to his wife except his sitar, toward which he still felt a strong attachment that no amount of rational analysis could dissolve, and went in search of a teacher. Eventually he arrived at a charnel ground, the ancient equivalent of a cemetery, in which corpses are more or less deposited without being buried or cremated. Charnel grounds were scary places, covered with human bones, partial skeletons, and rotting corpses. But they were the most likely environments in which to find a great master, who had overcome his or her fear of death and impermanence - two of the fearful conditions that keep most people locked in the samsaric conditions of attachment to what is and aversion to what might occur.

In this particular charnel ground, the sitar player found a mahasiddha - a person who had passed through extraordinary trials to achieve profound understanding. The mahasiddha was living in a ragged hut that barely provided him protection against wind and weather. In the way that some of us feel a strong connection with people we meet during ordinary course of our lives, the sitar player felt a deep bond with this particular mahasiddha and asked him if he would accept him as a student. The mahasiddha agreed, and the sitar player used branches and mud to build his own hut nearby, where he could practice the basic instructions on shinay meditation that the mahasiddha had given him.

Like many people who begin meditation practice, the sitar player found it very difficult to follow the instructions of his teacher. Even spending a few minutes following his teacher0s instructions seemed like an eternity; every time he sat to meditate, he found himself drawn to his old habit of playing his sitar, and he gave up his practice and started to play. He began to feel horribly guilty, neglecting his meditation practice in favor of simply strumming his sitar. Finally he went to his teacher's hut and confessed that he just couldn't meditate.

"What's the problem?" the mahasiddha asked.

The sitar player replied, "I'm just too attached to my sitar. I'd rather play it than meditate."

The mahasiddha told him, "That's not a big problem. I can give you an exercise in sitar meditation."

The sitar player, who'd been expecting criticism - as most of us do from our teachers - was quite surprised.

The mahasiddha continued, "Go back to your hut, play your sitar, and just listen to the sound of your instrument with bare awareness. Forget about trying to play perfectly. Just listen to the sounds."

Relieved, the sitar player returned to his hut and started playing, just listening to the sounds without trying to be perfect, without focusing on either the results of his playing or the results of his practice. Because he'd learned to practice simply without concern for the results, after a few years he became a mahasiddha himself.

And just a good advise to practice on your instrument as well: "play your sitar, and just listen to the sound of your instrument with bare awareness. Forget about trying to play perfectly. Just listen to the sounds."

Meditate on sound and the music will follow...

You & Me

2009-03-16T07:53:00.002+01:00

The Headless Way

Science’s Answer
What you are depends on the range of the observer. At several metres, more or less, you are human, but at closer ranges you are cells, molecules, atoms, particles… Viewed from further away your body becomes absorbed into the rest of society, life, the planet, the star, the galaxy… Science’s objective view of you – zooming towards and away from you - reveals a hierarchically organized system of layers that is alive at every level, intelligent and beautiful. Thus you have many layers, like an onion. You need every one of these layers to exist. Your human identity, vital and important as it is, is just one of these layers. You are also sub-human and supra-human. (See interactive panel on the left. See also: The Hierarchy of Heaven & Earth.)

What are you at the Centre of your many layers? The scientist cannot say because she can only observe you from a distance. However close she gets to you, she remains outside you. What or Who you really are, the Ground of your Being, remains a mystery.

Other People’s Answer
Other people are like the scientist because they cannot see what you are at Centre either, only what you are peripherally. Reflecting back to you what they make of you, their feedback is about you as a person.

Your Answer
You are not distant from yourself, not outside yourself. You – and you alone - are therefore perfectly placed to see what you are at Centre. All you have to do is look.

Well, while I think that indeed You alone are able to have the inside view, that doesn't mean You are perfectly placed without any blind spots or system immanent - because self-referential - limitations (Gödel anyone;).
Nevertheless, while You have this privileged position, why not have a closer look!

Via Unfettered Mind.

Hudson River Landing

2009-03-08T20:20:00.002+01:00

Hudson River Plane Landing (US Airways 1549) Animation with Audio

Via The Big Picture.

Happy Face

2009-03-07T12:58:00.008+01:00

2009-01-26

Cheers!

Arnold Toynbee

2009-02-04T22:00:00.006+01:00

Via Unfettered Mind:

When historians look back at the 20th century, they won't have much interest in things like communism or capitalism: those will be ripples in the great historical picture. What will really be significant is the impact of Buddhism as it enters the West
—ARNOLD TOYNBEE, historian (1889-1975)

Don't know if he is any good, but this sounds like a smart statement. Communism has been knocked out already for a while, now capitalism is bringing itself down as well. We will see what remains after the current crisis. In both cases corruption fuled by reckless greed has brought the systems out of balance.

Talking of balance and the West, the other significant development of the 20th century, science and technology, has been transforming the East in return.

Intention In Practice

2009-01-01T19:01:00.008+01:00

Early podcast by Ken McLeod about the importance of your intention in buddhist meditation practice:

Learning from the Lives of Lineage Holders - Lives 03: Khyungpo Naljor

The gist of the message is from 00:17:58 to 00:20:05 and from 00:22:46 to 00:26:27 (so less than 6 min).

---
Always the same old question: What do you want?

Few people actually know (and those who know have a big advantage).

Frohe Ostern

2008-12-11T22:47:00.007+01:00

It's too early to wish you happy easter, but this one can't wait...

Frohe Ostern

BTW, Andi Brehme (world cup champion 1990) used to play for Uli Hoeneß'es (BTW world cup champion 1974) team with greatest success.

Uli Hoeneß (Opel): Mensch Andi schön dich zu sehen!
Andi Brehme (the person sitting): Ja Frohe Ostern!
Uli: Na dir aber auch!
Andi: Was machst du denn so?
Uli: Na Eier suchen!
Andi: Viel Spass!
Uli: Werd ich haben!

"Hey Andi, nice to see you!"
"yes, happy eastern!"
"Yeah you too!"
"What are you doing?"
"Searching for eggs!"
"Have fun!"
"I will!"

Meditation Books

2008-12-10T21:22:00.004+01:00

Favorite Meditation Books

1. Matthieu Ricard: Happiness - A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

2. Geshe Michael Roche: The Diamond Cutter - The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life

3. Ken McLeod: Wake Up To Your Life - Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention

4. Ajahn Brahm: Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond - A Meditator's Handbook

5. M. Williams, J. Teasdale, Z. Segal, J. Kabat-Zinn: The Mindful Way through Depression - Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness

If I had to pick a single book to keep, it would be Ken McLeod's. But if you would like to read only one of these, go for Matthieu Ricard's (and then you will likely read the other ones anyway:).

Furthermore, Ken McLeod has an ongoing Recommended Reading list.

Johan Cruyff

2008-12-07T21:48:00.008+01:00

Johan Cruijff The Total Footballer

Johan Cruyff Dribbling Compilation

Johan Cruyff Compilation

Gerd Müller

2008-12-03T21:18:00.001+01:00

While Bill Russell is the biggest winner in sport history, no one has ever been more goal oriented than Gerd Müller. Literally. No matter how, he just got the ball in.

And no one understands how he did it. But he once told the trick (reciting from memory): "the ball needs to go into the goal - and not next to the goalkeeper." So now you know.

Gerd Mueller - goals and skills

After seeing this video, there is no need to go over his statistic, it's breathtaking anyway.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

2008-11-14T21:46:00.008+01:00

Autumn Clouds

At his monastery in Nepal, my master's oldest living disciple, the great Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, had come to the end of a teaching. He was one of the foremost teachers of our time, the teacher of the Dalai Lama himself, and of many other masters who looked to him as an inexhaustible treasure house of wisdom and compassion. We all looked up at this gentle, glowing mountain of a man, a scholar, poet, and mystic who had spent twenty-two years of his life in retreat. He paused and gazed into the distance:

"I am now seventy-eight years old, and have seen so many things during my lifetime. So many young people have died, so many people of my own age have died, so many old people have died. So many people that were high up have become low. So many people that were low have risen to be high up. So many countries have changed. There has been so much turmoil and tragedy, so many wars, and plagues, so much terrible destruction all over the world. And yet all these changes are no more real than a dream. When you look deeply, you realize there is nothing that is permanent and constant, nothing, not even the tiniest hair on your body. And this is not a theory, but something you can actually come to know and realize and see, even, with your very own eyes."

From "The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche, page 24/5.

Photo by Matthieu Ricard.

Ajahn Chah

2008-11-09T21:38:00.002+01:00

I haven't red this book (actually all his books in a single pdf file), but I like another book of one of his students (Ajahn Brahm) very much. Ajahn Chah is the most famous monk in Thailand and has influenced many Western teachers as well. If you don't like reading ebooks, you can order the books from amazon as well. But at least here you can get a taste first-hand.

The Teachings of Ajahn Chah: A Collection of Ajahn Chah's Translated Dhamma Talks
by Ajaan Chah, translated from the Thai by the Sangha, Wat Nong Pah Pong (2007; 3.6Mb/725pp.)

A comprehensive anthology of Ajaan Chah's Dhamma talks, translated into English. The talks include all those that have been previously published in the following books: Bodhinyana (1982), A Taste of Freedom (fifth impression, 2002), Living Dhamma (1992), Food for the Heart (1992), The Path to Peace (1996), Clarity of Insight (2000), Unshakeable Peace (2003), and Everything is Teaching Us (2004).

In the following section he describes the most basic meditation practice:

The Practice of Concentration

The training in samadhi (concentration) is practiced to make the mind firm and steady. This brings about peacefulness of mind. Usually our untrained minds are moving and restless, hard to control and manage. Mind follows sense distractions wildly just like water flowing this way and that, seeking the lowest level. Agriculturists and engineers, though, know how to control water so that it is of greater use to mankind. Men are clever, they know how to dam water, make large reservoirs and canals – all of this merely to channel water and make it more useable. In addition the water stored becomes a source of electrical power and light, further benefits from controlling its flow so that it doesn’t run wild and eventually settle into a few low spots, its usefulness wasted.

So too, the mind which is dammed and controlled, trained constantly, will be of immeasurable benefit. The Buddha himself taught, “The mind that has been controlled brings true happiness, so train you minds well for the highest of benefits”. Similarly, the animals we see around us – elephants, horses, cattle, buffalo, etc. – must be trained before they can be useful for work. Only after they have been trained is their strength of benefit to us.

In the same way, the mind that has been trained will bring many times the blessings of that of an untrained mind. The Buddha and his noble disciples all started out in the same way as us – with untrained minds; but afterwards look how they became the subjects of reverence for us all, and see how much benefit we can gain through their teaching. Indeed, see what benefit has come to the entire world from these men who have gone through the training of the mind to reach the freedom beyond. The mind controlled and trained is better equipped to help us in all professions, in all situations. The disciplined mind will keep our lives balanced, make work easier and develop and nurture reason to govern our actions. In the end our happiness will increase accordingly as we follow the proper mind training.

The training of the mind can be done in many ways, with many different methods. The method which is most useful and which can be practiced by all types of people is known as “mindfulnessof breathing”. It is the developing of mindfulness on the in-breath and the out-breath. In this monastery we concentrate our attention on the tip of the nose and develop awareness of the in-and out-breaths with the mantra word “Bud-dho”. If the meditator wishes to use another word, or simply be mindful of the air moving in and out, this is also fine. Adjust the practice to suit yourself. The essential factor in the meditation is that the noting or awareness of the breath be kept up in the present moment so that one is mindful of each in-breath and each out-breath just as it occurs. While doing walking meditation we try to be constantly mindful of the sensation of the feet touching the ground.

This practice of meditation must be pursued as continuously as possible in order for it to bear fruit. Don’t meditate for a short time one day and then in one or two weeks, or even a month, meditate again. This will not bring results. The Buddha taught us to practice often, to practice diligently, that is, to be as continuous as we can in the practice of mental training. To practice meditation we should also find a suitably quiet place free from distractions. In gardens or under shady trees in our back yards, or in places where we can be alone are suitable environments. If we are a monk or nun we should find a suitable hut, a quiet forest or cave. The mountains offer exceptionally suitable places for practice.

In anycase, wherever we are, we must make an effort to be continuously mindful of breathing in and breathing out. If the attention wanders to other things, try to pull it back to the object of concentration. Try to put away all other thoughts and cares. Don’t think about anything – just watch the breath. If we are mindful of thoughts as soon as they arise and keep diligently returning to the meditation subject, the mind will become quieter and quieter. When the mind is peaceful and concentrated, release it from the breath as the object of concentration. Now begin to examine the body and mind comprised of the five khandhas : material form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. Examine these five khandhas as they come and go. You will see clearly that they are impermanent, that this impermanence makes them unsatisfactory and undesirable, and that they come and go of their own – there is no “self” running things. There is to be found only nature moving according to cause and effect. All things in the world fall under the characteristics of instability, unsatisfactoriness and being without a permanent ego or soul. Seeing the whole of existence in this light, attachment and clinging to the khandhas will gradually be reduced. This is because we see the true characteristics of the world. We call this the arising of wisdom.

Finance Forum With Rolotec

2008-11-06T21:48:00.005+01:00

The previous two days have been a first high light for me with my new employer Rolotec: the Finance Forum in Zurich, a major annual event in our humble Helvetian financial center.

My colleague Hans Fischer found the right words (in German) to capture the athmosphere at our company's blog (with a few photos from yours truly).

There you can also get an impression of the news sentiment visualisation demo my colleagues Sombra, Michel, and Markus created for this event.

Grigori Sokolov

2008-11-02T16:48:00.015+01:00

He (Sokolov on the right side) won the Tschaikovski competition at age 16 in 1966 with Gilels heading the jurors.
Then he only was allowed to play in the west since the late 80s, a whopping 25 years later.
Yet, he mainly tours through Europe and does only sparely record live CDs that do hardly any justice to his music.

Have a look at this Couperin Tic -Toc -Choc! It is fantastic, yet the sound just gives a glimpse at what it is to hear him live!

He will play the Mozart sonatas soon on 2008-10-06 in Zurich. Here is a report in the New York Times of someone who has heard the program before.

The Web, on which he can be found on YouTube, giving astonishing performances, clearly doesn’t substitute for hearing him live. Neither do discs, which, as a perfectionist, he stopped issuing in 1995 (this partly explains his American situation), although years ago Mr. Sokolov’s recordings sent me hunting for a chance to hear him in person.

Fully agree, just, that I myself never listen to his recordings and would have missed his live performances had I not been pointed to his concerts.

He tackled two Mozart sonatas before the Chopin preludes Tuesday night. In his case an imposing, muscular, distinctly Russian technique combines with large, church-bell sonority. Even small preludes occasionally invoked Mussorgsky. A tendentious, soulful interpreter by inclination, he avoids any hint of routine. One imagines he never allows himself to play anything the same way twice. Sometimes, as in the Mozart, this leads toward mannerism. Humorous he is certainly not. Purists might balk, but never is he just perverse or uninteresting. At heart he’s a colorist, an intimist, melancholic, with astonishing tonal nuances and an endless, much-trafficked variety of touches.

The slow movements of the sonatas acquired moments of gravity that seemed almost to have physical weight. But the preludes were the true revelation: profoundly original, magisterial, heartfelt. The audience sat through them in complete, rapt silence. Long lines breathed to an elastic rhythm. Preludes like the one in B flat minor galloped and raced. Those in F sharp and D flat produced moments of faraway, unearthly beauty. I can’t at the moment recall anything like them.

Here was a great artist. If his case proves anything, it’s that Europe and America remain separated by more than an ocean. After he had been called back for encore after encore — a half-dozen by the end — the crowd still stood and roared. Mr. Sokolov finally retreated, as he had arrived, expressionless, with a brusque nod, bent slightly at the waist, one hand fastened behind his back like a captain on the deck of his ship, facing into a nasty head wind.

BTW, to my surprise he is a totally different personality back stage. While on stage he and his music is as serious and grave as it can get (well, somewhere in the Arrau and Richter ball park), afterwards with the visitors he was totally relaxed, friendly, smiling, and talkative.

Pit Bull & Chicks

2008-11-01T15:39:00.003+01:00

Great Pit Bull PR

La Chance

2008-10-29T22:25:00.003+01:00

Lucky moments

Via BizarroBlog.

Bill Russell's Blog

2008-10-18T00:40:00.006+02:00

My favorite sports man, Bill Russell (if you want to know why, here is a short presentation of mine about him), did blog on the 2007 NBA season.

It is great to have a recent look at his mind (BTW, I don't think what he is saying is very specific to Basketball). I am sure he could have been a great coach too (well, maybe he was: 1 championship as player coach, once to the final, his team won the championship the following year after he left to raise his daughter).

NBA.com Blog: Bill Russell

I also want to throw one of my games in there from the '62 NBA Finals. We went to overtime and won by three points, defeating the Lakers 110-107. I had 30 points, 40 rebounds and seven assists, which I don't think is that bad. You know what reminded me of that? When LeBron had that great, great game in Game 5 and he said how tired he was. After that game that I had, it was a month before I could walk straight. I was so tired. I don't know if you've ever been that tired where you feel like your bones are aching, but when he said he was really tired, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

I'll Say It Again, It's All About Passing

What the Spurs demonstrated during the first half versus Utah in Game 1 was something I have been saying for a long time: The key skill in today's basketball is passing the ball. That is even more important than being a good shooter offensively because it gets better shots for your teammates. The first half, the Spurs shot close to 65 percent and a lot of that was because of the excellent passes they made throughout the lineup as a team. Steve Nash is a great passer, probably the best passer of the last decade since Magic, but the Suns don't have a whole team of good passers like the Spurs do.

During a game, if you play good, hard defense, it makes you tired. Defense is hard work. So if you go down the other end and have to work just as hard offensively, you're not as good. But if you're a good passing team, you don't have to work as hard to get shots. You don't have to break somebody down every time. It doesn't take any energy. What you have to understand is that energy and energy flows are an extraordinary part of the game. A good passing team doesn't use a lot of energy. You can turn around and use that same energy on the defensive end. That's not saying that Utah wasn't a good defensive team, because they are, but just as in baseball where good pitching will nullify good hitting, good passing will circumvent good defense.

Rebounding: It's Not All About Height

By averaging 25 points and 14 rebounds against the Warriors thus far, Carlos Boozer, who is 6-9, has been receiving a lot of national attention for his play, particularly for doing what he's done as a perceived "undersized" frontcourt player. In my opinion, though, once you get past 6-9, it doesn't make any difference what size you are, you can play with anybody. Like I was telling some people last week, when I was in college, with a running jump I could touch the top of the backboard because I was one of the world's best high jumpers. But most rebounds are taken below the height of the rim. So if I jump up and touch the top of the backboard, there are no rebounds up there. In fact, when I was at my best, if I had to outjump somebody to get a rebound, that was the last line of defense. In other words, I was under duress. I hoped to never let it get to that where I had to outjump a guy. Rebounding is positioning and timing. That is why Bill Laimbeer and Paul Silas were both quite good at rebounding even though neither one could jump very high.

The Importance Of Passing

Dallas has to do a better job of getting its big shooter, Dirk Nowitzki, isolated. When the Warriors double and triple team him, guys have to go to specific spots so he doesn't have to worry about where he is going to pass after he gets the ball. He should know that if they double team, this spot is open. A good pass is just as difficult as a good shot. There are two kinds of passes, one pass to get rid of the ball and one pass to make a play. The attitude of passing is to make good passes because if you make good passes, then shots become easier. If you make good passes you distract the defense. The coach should theoretically know his team and know how to help it accomplish what it wants to. In practice, the coach should watch the players passing the ball to certain spots and if they can't do that, then figure out why they can't. Likewise, if the target that they are passing to is not in the proper place, then why isn't he?

A Similar Situation – My Own Playoff Experience

In 1968 we were down 3-1 to Philadelphia and had to play them the next three games, with two of them in Philadelphia. We had a rookie named Mal Graham on the team. So we get ready for the next game, and I told him, "Well, we're going to beat these guys and this is how we're going to do it." And I broke it down. My theory was always never to concentrate on what you did wrong, concentrate on what you do right. That is how you want to play, but teams have ebbs and flows. When things weren't going right, we'd always call time out and figure out that we weren't playing the way we wanted to play, but the way they wanted to play. Well, that's when you have to decide, when you're playing good, what do you usually do? You emphasize going out there and doing what you do when you're playing your best. What I did was I individually went over what plays to use to our advantage. Sometimes we would play a whole quarter running the same play. What made me do that? Well if they can't stop it, why would we do the other guys job and stop doing it? Basically I never talked about winning three straight, but I talked about winning the next game. That is the one thing. All we wanted to do was win the next game, which is what I told the guys. You don't lose until you lose. We ended up winning the series in seven games.

Spreading Some Knowledge

I said, "During the playoffs, there are certain things that determine the winner. One of the things is matchups. If you take Norm Nixon and Michael Cooper against Maurice Cheeks and Andrew Toney, that's a wash. The way Jamaal Wilkes has been playing, he and the Doc (Dr. J) will offset each other. That's a wash. Jim Chones is a weak link, but he won't be overshadowed too much by the guy who is guarding him, either Darryl Dawkins or Caldwell Jones. The next guy is totally screwed. He has to try to guard Magic. Magic is big and strong and can guard him, but he is nowhere near the athlete to guard Magic.

Indeed, you can be the weakest player in your team, if you play better then the weakest player in the other team, that will likely tip the outcome in your team's favor!

One thing I have to emphasize, it is a complete team game. Magic had 42 points – I don't know who was trying to guard him that game because you never saw them together – and everyone talks about that, but Jamaal Wilkes got 37 and a guy named Brad Holland came off the bench and scored 10 points. Ninety percent of the people that know anything about that game don't even know that he played. So I never engage in picking favorites.

Inmotion

2008-10-14T22:53:00.002+02:00

2008-10-12

2008-10-14

2008-10-11

Night Light

2008-10-14T22:32:00.015+02:00

2008-10-11

New Camera

2008-10-12T12:12:00.020+02:00

Being very sleepy I let my good old rusty Kodak V705 camera drop on the concrete floor at a Sunday morning museum tour. And it was real concrete, not some soft marble inside the museum, but before entering. First it looked like only the body was scratched with the lens cover having to be forced open manually. I could even do a few more shots with it, but then soon the electronic stopped working.

What I liked so much about this model was the 23 mm wide angle. Also not very big, and now I must say also very robust, I kept this camera in my pocket every day, being able to let the motives get to me without actively going on a photo safary!

Two days ago I got a Panasonic DMC-TZ5. The main reason was the 280 mm max zoom and the price was good as it was a special offer (as with 9 megapixel it is already becoming a bit outdated, but I couldn't care less than about the resolution). At the same time it also has a 28 mm wide angle. Really an exceptional range for a relatively small camera. Unfortunately it is not as small as the old Kodak or other compact cameras. Still, nothing to campare to a big d-SRL camera. Now, my preference was for a very small and super wide angle digital camera. To bad Kodak stopped working on a successor of the V705 and doesn't even sell this old gem any more.

But I am really happy with this now zoom, which offers great new artistic possibilities I did not have at all before. These are just two test shots right from my lovely home environment (the second has gotten some color saturation and contrast manipulation thought):

But what was a bit unanticipated is, that the panasonic also seems to be decent at night shots. Those were completely impossible with the old Kodak. Thought I loved making photos at night (as a teenager and student with an old Minolta X-700 SLR), as the surroundings in artificial light in general make for a great athmosphere.

So, technically speaking, I am very happy with these two first results from yesterday evening with an ISO 100 setting and a small tripod.

BTW, I don't know if with the old camera better night results would have been possible, it just never occured to me before that it might be possible to change the default ISO setting. Still, the first night picture above has been done with an exposure of 8 seconds (and the lowest ISO), I doubt that would have been possible with the other camera.

Still, I am spoiled from the Kodak in terms of a decent wide angle and 28 mm won't cut it anymore. Now still need to do something about that:).

Sad Guys On Trading Floors

2008-10-08T20:37:00.000+02:00

C'mon guys, it's just money...

Sad Guys On Trading Floors

Someone made a blog of this. Lot's of interesting face expressions.

Via The Big Picture.

The Moon

2008-10-05T15:27:00.003+02:00

Photo by Michael A. Stecker, click here for the full size image.

Ultimate Pie Chart

2008-09-19T22:01:00.003+02:00

Graph by Jamie Schimley

Thanks to Alvis.

Hotel Ukraina

2008-09-14T20:59:00.005+02:00

Moscow river sunset time lapse

For a bigger video size, follow the link.

Had a good year as a teenager living behind the hotel Ukraina at Kutosovski Prospekt.

Windfall

2008-09-10T23:07:00.001+02:00

Windmill Fail

Thanks to Alvis.

Intergalactic

2008-09-07T10:26:00.005+02:00

Quite old and you might have seen it before (the book or the film in school), but in case you haven't, it is a must see (also nice for a refresher) and here it is at YouTube (who knows for how long):

Powers of 10

Did you know we (our Milky Way galaxy) are headed for a big crash with the Andromeda galaxy?! With huge consequences for both of them. Well, not sure anyone can explain what it means exactly. But as a buddy in the office responded when we first learned about this fact: "Well, it is not my biggest concern at the moment."
10 things you don’t know about the Milky Way Galaxy

Thanks to Alvis.

Talking of concers, well, looks like we will soon find out if the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will create mini black holes or other beasts or not (and if so how small and long lived they will be:).

2010-01-28

The video above has been removed from YouTube, but here it is again! Cheers.

Urban Soccer

2008-08-31T14:09:00.001+02:00

:)

FOOT 2008 - REMI GAILLARD

Thanks Alvis.

Death Experience

2008-08-26T21:18:00.004+02:00

OK, story is about a near death experience.

In German from Der Spiegel: Angriff der Killer-Möwen

Doch Matrose Martin bekam nach kurzer Zeit eine Panikattacke. "Holt mich raus! Holt mich raus!", schrie er. Die Besatzung zog ihn aufs Schlauchboot - und tuckerte zurück zur "Poseidon". Ich konnte es nicht glauben. Es war fest vereinbart worden, dass das Schlauchboot zur Sicherheit immer neben den Testpersonen blieb. Ich rief noch hinter ihnen her, doch sie konnten mich offenbar nicht hören.

Möwen greifen an!

Ich trieb in der offenen See und versuchte, meine Furcht zu unterdrücken. Der Wind, der zu Beginn des Tests mit Beaufort vier wehte, frischte immer mehr auf. Das Wetter änderte sich dramatisch: Schneetreiben setzte ein und Böen der Stärke sieben peitschten über das Meer. Ich konnte "Poseidon" nicht mehr erkennen.

Zähe Minuten. Wie lange ich im Wasser trieb, weiß ich nicht, denn Zeit fühlt sich in einer Lebensgefahr ganz anders an. "Die wissen an Bord, wo ich bin und holen mich jeden Moment raus", redete ich mir ein.

In meinen Jahren als Seemann war ich zuvor zwei Mal knapp dem Tode entkommen. Auf dem Fischdampfer "Württenberg" traf mich ein schwerer Eisbrocken am Kopf, doch ich fiel nicht über Bord, sondern bewusstlos aufs Deck. Ein anderes Mal geriet ich mit einem kleinen Schlauchboot in die Schraube eines Trawlers, die mich wie durch ein Wunder nicht zermalmte, sondern nur einige Rippen brach. Nun schien mein Glück aufgebraucht zu sein.

Ich sah plötzlich einen hellen Schatten auf mich zukommen. Noch einen. Möwen! Ein Schwarm Möwen griff mich an. Sie zielten mit ihren spitzen Schnäbeln immer wieder auf mein Gesicht, direkt auf meine Augen. Es war wie in diesem Horrorfilm. Ich versuchte, mich zu schützen und durch die ruckartigen Bewegungen und den Seegang kippte ich immer wieder auf die Seite. Das angewärmte Wasser lief aus dem Anzug. Mir wurde kalt. Wenn eine Welle mich anhob, drehte ich verzweifelt den Kopf, um nach dem Schiff Ausschau zu halten. Keine Spur der "Poseidon."

Ich wusste, dass ich sterbe

Meine Beine wurden taub. Ich spürte, man muss das so ausdrücken, wie der Tod kam. Ich wusste, dass ich nun sterben würde. Seltsam war, dass es mir nicht sonderlich schwer fiel, mich zu verabschieden. Ich weiß noch, dass ich darüber nachdachte, ob ich als Seemann alles richtig gemacht hatte. Ich tröstete mich, denn ich war überzeugt, meine Aufgaben so gut es ging erfüllt zu haben.

In meinem Kopf sah ich einzelne Bilder: Meine Frau, unser Zuhause, wie Fotos aus unserem Leben. Ich ging mein Leben schnell durch, blieb dabei aber ganz ruhig. Dass die Möwen immer aggressiver wurden, bekam ich noch mit. Dann wurde es dunkel in meinem Kopf, als drehte jemand einen Lichtschalter ganz langsam aus. Es war mir, als sinke ich hinab in ein finsteres, tiefes Loch.

Als ich wieder zu mir kam, spürte ich in einer Art Dämmerzustand, wie mich starke Arme über Deck schleiften und man mich entkleidete. Ich selbst konnte mich nicht bewegen, es war, als sei ich gelähmt. Was nun geschah, war an Absurdität kaum zu überbieten, denn den Gefahren des Ozeans und den Möwen war ich entkommen, nicht aber dem Mediziner an Bord der "Poseidon". Der Doktor ließ mich entkleiden, unter eine heiße Dusche stellen und flößte mir einen halben Liter Punsch ein.

Nach 24 Stunden wieder Wachdienst

Mein unterkühlter Körper bäumte sich im Schock auf, ich zitterte, ich flatterte regelrecht, es war ein furchtbares Gefühl, das nicht enden wollte. Erst nach einer Stunde stabilisierte sich mein Kreislauf allmählich. Es grenzt an ein Wunder, dass mein Herz nicht aussetzte. Man brachte mich auf meine Kammer. 24 Stunden durfte ich ruhen, dann teilte man mich wieder einem Wachdienst auf der Brücke zu. Was ich erlebt hatte, die Furcht, die Todesnähe, beschäftigte mich noch einige Tage lang. Ich überlegte, Kapitän und Arzt mit meinen Vorwürfen zu konfrontieren, ließ das aber sein. Sie hatten zwar fahrlässig, aber nicht absichtlich falsch gehandelt.

No Comment

2008-08-09T12:29:00.003+02:00

Via Take A Report.

Rogerio Ceni

2008-07-22T16:29:00.008+02:00

Actually I wanted to make a post about maybe the greatest free kick taker ever. But before so, I had to post about someone else first, who comes very very close, namely Rogerio Ceni. Ceni is a great free kick taker (46 free kick goals) and seems to be the greatest scoaring goal keeper ever (78 goals in total).

Rogério Ceni goals

Apparently he is also doing a good job protecting his own goal: GERRARD VS ROGERIO CENI RÓGERIO SÃO PAULO F C INDEPENDENTE

Breathing

2008-07-15T17:25:00.002+02:00

From The Diamond Cutter by Geshe Michael Roach, pp. 150:

The idea is to focus your mind within for your silent time by blocking out every other thought and experience; we do this by tying the mind to the breath, as it goes in and out.

Except we start with the out, and then go to the in! It works like this. You fix your mind on the inside of the two nostrils of your nose, up toward the holes. Imagine you're like a sentry who's been posted at these two little caves to watch and see if anyone is coming or going. As you breathe in and then out try to be aware of the touch of the air on the inside of your nose: the cooler, drier air coming in and the moist, warm air flowing out. Remember to stick to your post: Your mind is not allowed to stray from the inside of your nose and the touch of the air coming and going. If someone slams a door or talks loudly, you might be distracted for a second, but you are strict about bringing yourself back to your breathing as soon as you can.

The ancient custom is to repeat this for the length of ten breaths, with the caveat that - if you are distracted in a major way and lose count - then you have to start over again. The outgoing breath counts as the first half of a number, and the incoming breath as the second half. This way of counting a breath (which is the opposite of our own way, where taking, holding, and releasing a breath might be counted as a single breath, say, in swimming) is said to have an added power of bringing the mind inward, of focusing the thoughts within. If you find yourself losing count frequently before you reach ten, it's a sign that you're having trouble concentrating. This will affect everything about your business performance, and you should take special care to observe your silent time more regularly, every morning.

You can close your eyes or leave them open; it doesn't matter much, as long as you don't get distracted. If you close your eyes you might find yourself getting sleepy, again due to the conditioning of a lifetime of sleep. If you open your eyes you might find yourself looking around the room at things and losing your train of thought. The ancient Tibetan books say then that, if you leave your eyes open, you should try not to focus them on anything in particular: just let them stare out into the space in front of you, as if you were in a great daydream, and just looking off to nowhere. It's good thought if you can turn your eyes downward a bit, with your eyelids down just a touch too.

Lichthof

2008-06-26T11:22:00.004+02:00

Uni Zurich 2008-02-29

Psychology And Buddhism

2008-06-22T13:43:00.001+02:00

Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being
by
Paul Ekman, Richard J. Davidson, Matthieu Ricard, B. Alan Wallace

BTW, Paul Ekman is the authority in interpreting facial expressions and author of the very interesting and practical book Emotions Revealed and Matthieu Ricard wrote the wonderful book Happiness.

Dreamjob

2008-06-12T22:06:00.003+02:00

Mein Traumjob

Seem's to have a microwave, but I am not so sure about internet:). And I am not sure this will last for much longer.

Deepest Niedersachsen (north of Germany) in the year 2006. Gatekeeper Laumann.

If you ask me, this is located here on google maps (just a small excercise on local history and geography:). Btw, in the video they show the Bauerwiese, the dead alley they talk about is in the opposite direction... Sorry:o).

"... and otherwise, there is not much more, except this post, and this house and the two families over there."

"A car hasn't come by all day. Horse I also haven't seen yet today."

"So, today is Tuesday, Tuesday we have to test signal tools, let's start with the signal horn - OIIIINK!" "And?" "Signal horn is all right."

In moments like these, it's experience that counts.

Also, funny comments in German here.

Thanks to Christoph.

Cognitive Surplus

2008-05-24T12:16:00.002+02:00

Below are two links about what Clay Shirky has to say that made me remember a chat (I mean a real chat, like Internet Relay Chat aka IRC:) with a pal named "Empe" more than 10 years ago. Back then we were playing Quake online, chilled out and organized the next couple of games in chat rooms, and observed the whole scene and how web pages got created all around it (I remember for Capture the Flag it was made obligatory to study a certain web page with all the strategic positions for the standard maps that were played. As there were a few young kids who didn't speak English, one guy took the effort to translate the page into German.) So basically Empe said, people are bypassing the whole media and commercial system by entertaining each other and they are not even spending much while doing so.

Anyway, Clay Shirky's point is how much time is spent watching TV compared to the time that was needed to create something like Wikipedia. Furthermore he compares TV (before the emergence of the Internet) to the time when the industrial revolution started and the cities for the first time became really big and crowded and people were basically killing the time drinking Gin and before society started to create all kinds of new institutional forms to organise and make use of all the people stuck in one place.

Cognitive Surplus
Cognitive Surplus Part II (contains a video)

Pointer is from The Big Picture.

Malcom Gladwell

2008-05-24T11:25:00.004+02:00

Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and The Tipping Point) on video about hiring.

Pointer is from The Big Picture.

Bach Cello

2008-05-02T08:46:00.002+02:00

BACH Prelude for Cello PaulTortelier MasterClass&Performance

Pierre Fournier plays Bach

Rostropovich plays the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1

Beethoven Parody

2008-04-26T23:10:00.002+02:00

This is so funny, haha:

Dudley Moore Beethoven Sonata Parody

A Painting Elephant

2008-03-30T23:27:00.006+02:00

and an elephant painting

This is just amazing! Watch till the end...

Elephant Paints Self Portrait

Click on both pictures below if you want ot see the full size of Mwana from the Magdeburg Zoo.

Swisstrains.ch

2008-03-26T23:50:00.003+01:00

Die spinnen, die Schweizer!

www.swisstrains.ch

Welcome! For all of you visiting this website: this site is still in ALPHA-phase, we keep on developing. The current view is based on the Swiss traintimetable, and does not yet show the actual GPS-positions of the trains. But, as Swiss trains are almost always on time, most of the time the position is accurate.
In the meantime, please help us solving the buglist by mailing me at robert (at) swisstrains (dot) ch .

23.1.20008 - We're happy to inform you that we will shortly be adding the realtime position of the trains, based on the delay-information on http://prosurf.sbb.ch.

One of the coolest functions is one that is a bit hidden: click on a moving train, and click in the unfolding menu on the button "Follow". This will show you from a bird's eye view via satellite images, the moving train.

My English collegue Bill once told me about his consternation, that all the Swiss people were nerviously looking at their watches on the platform because the train was 2 minutes late when working here and waiting for the train home. No one in London would have been the least surprised.

Thanks to Aldo for the pointer.

Dancing Walrus

2008-03-19T13:12:00.002+01:00

Dancing Walrus

Tale Of Two Brains

2008-03-16T13:57:00.002+01:00

Comedy by Mark Gungor on how the male brain differs from the female.

Thanks to G.

Paulus

2008-03-07T21:44:00.003+01:00

This week I have been twice to a choir. First time ever (of course, only the first session). Would have never thought. Yeah, astonishing how people can change :o).

Practicing Paulus Oratorio from Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
Here is a really bad sound quality sample from Amazon. Still I get goose bumps listening to it.

Linus On Source Control

2008-03-03T22:27:00.003+01:00

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

In case you want to see the Linux creator - an embodiment of common sense, pragmatism, independent thinking, and good judgement.

The topic is very technical. Source code versioning systems (or however you want to call them SCM/software configuration management systems bla bla).

Few people care about that. But, most software is written in teams. For comparison, imagine a book written by many authors. Everyone can edit everything. You sure would like to have a way to restore and get back previous versions. If something stops making sense, you would want to know who changed what when. You can imagine the whole process has lots of social "dynamics". So the software you use to version computer files has quite some impact on the way people work together and how software is build. Now the funny thing is, in most cases the software used is actually an ancient piece and the world hasn't settled yet on a new system. And also, it is actually a difficult problem to understand and also technically quite challenging to address.

So enter Linus Torwalds, as he had the same basic problem (or pleasure) as every other programmer out there. How to work together with other programmers.

Plane Almost Crashed

2008-03-02T19:04:00.002+01:00

A plane almost crashed in Hamburg. See the video.