The one element that brings Snow Crash to the forefront of life's crowded melange of daily repressive machinations:

global skills commoditization.

Is it real? or is it an illusion, a perpetual threat that drives businesses to innovate?

Time is... money?

According to Dr. Braden Allenby, this must be the case due to global industrialization and the value mechanisms that have arisen due to increasing human involvement in the functions and direction of the earth itself. Even nature will be commoditized.

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.

Audio: Hooverphonic.The Magnificent Tree

PS> I like Hiro.

Inside/Outside

A Communication Arts article about the creative process, and the role of the audience in the interpretation of creative works.

Audio: Lamb.Gorecki

From Philip Humbert:

The founder of IBM, Thomas Watson, was once asked the secret of success. Without hesitation, he immediately replied, "If you would increase your rate of success, you must first increase your rate of failure."

Elephants can't jump.

Basal Metabolism Counter

How many calories are needed to meet basic daily needs?

For me on Sunday.June 24.2001 --

The Basal Metabolism Results Were Calculated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Based on Your Individual Criteria:

Input Weight is: 150 in U.S. Pounds
Input Height is: 68 in U.S. Inches
Input Age is: 20
Input Gender is: male

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Metabolism Results Are:

1708.4 calories per day is your Basal Caloric Rate.

This is:
no more then 56.949 grams of fat (30%) for your Basal Caloric Rate
64.068 grams of protein (15%) for your Basal Caloric Rate
234.91 grams of carbohydrate (55%) for your Basal Caloric Rate


2562.7 calories per day recommended for your Active Caloric Rate.

This is:
no more then 85.424 grams of fat (30%) for your Active Caloric Rate
96.102 grams of protein (15%) for your Active Caloric Rate
352.37 grams of carbohydrate (55%) for your Active Caloric Rate


No less then 1208.4 calories per day recommended for safe consistent Weight Loss.

This is:
no more then 40.282 grams of fat (30%) for your Weight Loss Caloric Rate
45.318 grams of protein (15%) for your Weight Loss Caloric Rate
166.16 grams of carbohydrate (55%) for your Weight Loss Caloric Rate

At this safe consistent Weight Loss Caloric Rate, you will lose 1 pound every 7 Days.

Something that amused me about the results was this:

... based on experience, the algorithms used - do NOT work, for those lean young men, who seem to be able to eat forever.

Uh oh ;)

Muhammad Ali --

He is teaching and preaching now. A new poetry, slower, no rhymes, stream of consciousness, deeper meaning.

"Make two hundred thousand a day.
Signing. Hundred dollars a picture
Long lines. Bring in millions of dollars.
I'm not fighting no more
I'll sign for nothin.' Give it to charity.
Get the money, give it to the homeless
Give it to soup lines
If I see someone who needs some
Here's a hundred. Here's fifty.
Soup vendor. Wino. Old woman with varicose veins.
Good deeds. Judgment.
I'm well pleased with you my son. Come into heaven.
That's eternal life. Maann! Maann!
Look at all the buildings in downtown New York.
People built them. They're dead.
Buildings still standing.
You don't own nothin'. Just a trustee.
Think about it. You die.
This life's a test. A test.
Trying to pass the test. I'm tryin.
Warm bodies. Shake hands. Gone.
All dead now. President Kennedy.
Whatever color you are
No matter how much money you have
Politics. Sports. You're gonna die.
Sleep is the brother of death."
Ali closes his eyes. He starts snoring. Reopens his eyes.
"Turn over now. It's morning."

Location : Tokyo : Dispatch 6

flow's idea of software has little to do with computer; they're thinking concrete space, not cyberspace. Buildings and walls are the hardware, and light, sound and network communication make up the software.

*dot.jp

(eneri loves you)

The most painful distance in the world,
is not between the living and the dead,
but it is when you can't see that I love you,
even though I stand right in front of you.

The most painful distance in the world,
is not when you can't see that I love you
it is when two hearts love but cannot be as one.

The most painful distance in the world,
is not when two hearts love, but cannot be as one
but when indifference must be feined, to a distance,
which in truth, binds the two souls together.

Finally, Jet Li decides to make a movie without using wires.

After all this time... and the article states that he is intent on using experienced martial artists for both Kiss of the Dragon and The One, not people who just trained for the movies. Go Jet.

... or rather, one of the many Buddhist understandings.

also, a refreshing Q&A from the Buddhist understanding about sexual energy...

entitled: Sexual Frustration

... and the strange thing about finding this information is that

1. I had just recently heard of Carlos Castaneda, and had been curious about finding more information regarding the man and his philosophies.

2. I was doing a search on Buddhist perspectives on finding a career that is in accord with the desire to help others. I wasn't actually looking for information about Castaneda, nor was I thinking about him. In all the time that I have been researching Buddhism, I have found no reference to Castaneda, Don Juan or Don Genaro... and now, suddenly, here it is.

Very interesting.

Feeling of Death

It's good to look at our opponents as worthy adversaries, as our teachers, and Death as the ultimate teacher. Carlos Castaneda referred to death as an "advisor". Death is the last opponent, which we are never going to defeat forever, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try impeccably. We know we are going to die--along with taxes, death is the one certainty in life--and presumably we know where we want to be spiritually when we die-- enlightened. So we can work back from there and decide how to live our lives to get there. Since we don't know when we are going to die, we need to live each day as though it is going to be our last.

Article from msnbc.com

Title: Crime's Face is Black, Exaggerated
Subtitle: Media depict African American males as criminals, says study

Simplica comment: More evidence that the mainstream news media manipulates information in ways that most people don't even consider...

- Another interesting tidbit:

Furthermore, watching television news can make you believe down is up. Homicides dropped 32.9 percent from 1990 to 1998. But you wouldn’t know it by network news homicide coverage, which jumped 473 percent during the same period, the Building Blocks report found.

The underlying question that I ask myself within all this is:

What is Objectivity?

... and if objectivity exists only in relation to subjectivity, isn't its very existence thereby negated?

re:Pearl Harbor, the movie

Romancing the Republic from The Village Voice

The first well-informed response to that movie that I've read so far. Hm... I need to read the news more.

Ah, right. Also: Mudra is also discussed on the True Buddha School web site [the Tantric Buddhists mentioned below].

And in the context of martial arts, Wayne Muromoto writes an interesting article for Furyu Online.

I must research breathing more thoroughly... meditation is a fascinating thing, and Zen is based in the concept of the importance of correct breath and posture.

In the martial arts, breathing is also of the utmost importance. To lose control of my breathing is to lose control of my ability to think quickly and intuitively. Having lost that ability, all technique falls into gross mechanical function rather than dextrous combination of thought and action.

Authentic Breathing Resources gives an interesting look at the health benefits and recuperative properties of conscious breathing.

... and of course there is the Tantric Buddhist point of view. Interesting how two drastically different approaches yield quite similar results. If not the same results entirely.

That makes me think back to the time when I heard something along these lines: Religion is a poor man's science. Of course, that point of view places science in the dominant role, however there is an interesting feeling to that statement. Perhaps it is because most people that I speak to eventually reveal that a prevalent reason for believing in a higher being is that they don't understand what could possibly have been responsible for those things that are beyond human comprehension.

Fear of death and uncertainty seem to create miracles out of the most mundane things.

The Brand Called You
Personal branding, and the marketing of oneself in the culture of symbolic recognition.

TomPeters.com

James Dean Is Not Dead, by Morrissey.

An interesting account about his life and death.

"Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today."