Maddening!

"Rock is especially popular because it emphasizes the musical intervals whose frequency relationships..."

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:51:01 -0800

““Rock is especially popular because it emphasizes the musical intervals whose frequency relationships are those we hear in the human speech ,” Purves said. “That’s one of the reasons people like it so much.””

- The Biology of Music: Why we like what we like Boing Boing

"(b) sense-pleasure clinging: if one assumes that one will completely disappear after this life, then..."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:56:24 -0800

“(b) sense-pleasure clinging: if one assumes that one will completely disappear after this life, then one disregards the next world and clings to sense desires.”

- Upādāna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Buddha stated that all volitional constructs are conditioned by ignorance (avijja) of the..."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:42:20 -0800

“The Buddha stated that all volitional constructs are conditioned by ignorance (avijja) of the reality (sacca) behind appearance.[10] It is this ignorance that ultimately causes human suffering (dukkha). The calming of all such fabrications (sabba-saṅkhāra-nirodha) is synonymous with Enlightenment (bodhi), the achieving of arahantship.”

- Saṅkhāra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"“There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American,..."

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:14:49 -0800

“

“There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensitive to every duty, regardless of principle, bent only on amassing a fortune.”

That party was the Republicans, a bit more than century ago, led by Teddy Roosevelt.

The next governing majority will be guided by independents, and include liberals, conservatives and people whose great-grandparents left the Republican Party a century ago. It will also include a whole lot of Budweiser drinkers, wondering how the world changed so quickly, without them.

”

- The Betrayal - Timothy Egan Blog - NYTimes.com

Tao-Rusyr Caldera, Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands : Image...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:17:45 -0800

Tao-Rusyr Caldera, Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands : Image of the Day

"In fact I was proud of my service, and try though I did I could not reconcile my blue-collar..."

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:44:47 -0800

“

In fact I was proud of my service, and try though I did I could not reconcile my blue-collar patriotism, visceral to the point of fists clenched, with the virulent hostility to all things “imperialist” that passed for the common wisdom in those interminable days of rage. BRING THE WAR HOME. Although I came to loathe the war with a passion, my estrangement from the 60s was very nearly complete, and it wasn’t until I discovered who the real veterans on campus were — nearly a thousand strong as it turns out — that I could forgo the bristling stance and turn my hypos to fraternal account.

Thanks to the campus chapter of Veterans For Peace I learned to be a veteran. A veteran on the Berkeley Campus, no easy feat with two intramural wars raging. Moreover a veteran committed to peace, tutoring the martial campus in the irenic arts. Ceasefire Now. Thanks to the power vacuum created by the incessant war of attrition, On Strike Shut It Down, we became — for an all too brief, almost apocryphal time — Big Men on Campus. The administration couldn’t go more out of its way to accommodate us, and the Plateglass Revolution couldn’t think to avoid us. (No one dared spit on a veteran, and indeed we were met with the grudging respect of the ultras in the Movement.)
The Berkeley Wars might have had a far different storyline had we exerted our authority, but that was asking too much. Reentry to civilian life was difficult enough without having to take responsibility for the ivory tower under siege. Instead we became exemplars, role models even, and because we were antiwar and spoke from (often harrowing) experience those middle class students who scorned the military came to think twice about the lockstep uniforms they wore. For those of us who savored that fraternity and got a fleeting glimpse of that lost treasure, every Veterans Day since has been a memento mori, of the fugitive peace we brought home during that well-nigh apocalyptic time of defiance and despair.

Robert Andersen, Kittery, Maine

”

- Lives During Wartime - Home Fires Blog - NYTimes.com

Personal Health - A Breathing Technique Offers Help for People With Asthma - NYTimes.com

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:59:06 -0800

Personal Health - A Breathing Technique Offers Help for People With Asthma - NYTimes.com

NGM Blog Central - The Story Behind Our Photo of Grieving Chimps - National Geographic Magazine - NGM.com

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:42:34 -0800

NGM Blog Central - The Story Behind Our Photo of Grieving Chimps - National Geographic Magazine - NGM.com

Photo of the Day: Fall Foliage Photo Gallery - National Geographic

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:40:14 -0800

Photo of the Day: Fall Foliage Photo Gallery - National Geographic

"One of them, AB920, requires the utilities to compensate a homeowner whose solar array or small wind..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:43:59 -0700

“One of them, AB920, requires the utilities to compensate a homeowner whose solar array or small wind generator produces more electricity during the year than the customer uses. Until now, if a homeowner’s panels produced more energy than the home used in an entire year, the utilities got the excess for free.”

- Governor signs bills that boost solar power

i’m such an energy nerd that i know what all three of these bills are.

"So I did a time study where I calculated on average how many pages of a paper I could read when I..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:53:33 -0700

“So I did a time study where I calculated on average how many pages of a paper I could read when I had a movie on in the background versus when I didn’t. I found I could read at about 80 percent efficiency.” So the distraction was worth it; it meant he could go on reading for much longer stretches.”

- 18 and Under - Texting, Surfing, Studying? - NYTimes.com

"Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I..."

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:27:39 -0700

“Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.”

- David Foster Wallace - Commencement Speech at Kenyon University

El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:57:19 -0700

El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles

The Mason Jennings Band

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:57:03 -0700

The Mason Jennings Band

Mason Jennings, El Rey

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:56:47 -0700

Mason Jennings, El Rey

Mason + Guitarist

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:56:30 -0700

Mason + Guitarist

Mason Jennings

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:56:18 -0700

Mason Jennings

"I just try to let them answer their own questions,” Jennings says. “I’ll just ask them what they..."

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:52:33 -0700

““I just try to let them answer their own questions,” Jennings says. “I’ll just ask them what they think.” For instance: “My son will be like, ‘What’s above space, Dad?’ And I’ll say, ‘What do you think’s above space?’ And he’ll say, ‘Probably tornadoes.’””

- Synthesis : Music : Mason Jennings : Mason Jennings : Touched By Mother Nature’s Wrath

IMG_0481

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:08:30 -0700

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Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:08:24 -0700

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