Instanssi/Revision 2022

This weekend, I took part in a Revision 2022 satellite party, hosted by the Instanssi organizers. I participated in the "Modern Graphics" competition with this work:

Samatha

This work is titled Samatha, meaning a mind abiding in calmness. I made it using Ultra Fractal, Gimp, Inkscape, and a photograph taken at Aurinko (=Sun) shop with my Ixus 170, like my previous Buddha images. Prints on RedBubble.
It is a basic reclining Buddha, bathed in golden light. The rays emanating from the head are arrayed according to "nautical lines", that is, they are 1/32th of a circle, or 11.25°, apart.
Regarding "calm abiding", here is an excerpt from Saṃyutta Nikāya 35.116:

"Monks, that dimension should be experienced where the eye [vision] stops and the perception [label] of form fades. That dimension should be experienced where the ear stops and the perception of sound fades... where the nose stops and the perception of aroma fades... where the tongue stops and the perception of flavor fades... where the body stops and the perception of tactile sensation fades... where the intellect stops and the perception of idea/phenomenon fades: That dimension should be experienced."

The picture did not make it into the compo. I am unsurprised. One of my earlier works elicited the comment "when you have no talent, you have to intentionally do shit". Well, I'll admit that I've previously done semi-intentionally bad prods as a self-deprecating gesture, but, even when I try, I am reminded of the saying "shit has its maker" - and, dear reader, it is I. 

I also took part in the Animated Gif competition with this work:

Scroll of Happiness

Unsurprisingly, it was disqualified as well. In fact, since the organizers of the party are german, and you can find a swastika in there, I think it might've even been illegal if they'd shown it publicly.

These days, overly strict rules and rigid adherence thereto are colloquially called "nazi". So, it's ironically funny that this ageless symbol is the subject of this kind of "nazi" regulation. As a buddhist, I will continue to try and take back the Swastika. After all, the "nazis" were a mere blip in the history of the Swastika, the NSDAP no longer exists, so I see no reason for the continued demonization of this ancient symbol. Furthermore, since the Swastika is a sacred, holy symbol in several world religions, banning it is religious persecution - inadvertently, perhaps.

So, in the spirit of reclaiming this symbol, here's another Swastika animation. This was done in Processing:

Assembly Creative Tech 2021

I went to Assembly Creative Tech 2021, an event held in lieu of Assembly Summer this year. I took part in the Freestyle Graphics competition with this picture:

Buddha field

“If a disciple were to speak as follows, ‘I have to create a serene and beautiful Buddha field’, that person is not yet truly a disciple. Why? What the Buddha calls a ‘serene and beautiful Buddha field’ is not in fact a serene and beautiful Buddha field. And that is why it is called a serene and beautiful Buddha field. Subhuti, only a disciple who is wholly devoid of any conception of separate selfhood is worthy of being called a disciple.” - Diamond Sutra 

For this picture, I took a photo of this miniature Buddha in my light box. The listing identifies the Buddha as Maitreya, the coming fifth of the Buddhas of our kalpa; so, it is fitting that there are more than one Buddha pictured. It is said in the Vimalakirti Sutra that our kalpa is to have 1000 buddhas in total; thus, it is called "the worthy kalpa".

The software I used are Inkscape, Gimp and a program called Inspirit. The image layout is based on a vision I had once.

Prints are available on RedBubble.

It placed 11/12 in the compo. Here it is being shown on the main screen:

Vortex 2019

I participated in the Graphics competition of Vortex IV with this image, Vajra Samadhi:

Vajra Samadhi

It placed 4th out of 6.
The backgroud is made in Processing, while the image itself is composed in Gimp, of elements made in Inkscape and Flame Painter.
The translation I read renders Vajrasamadhi as "the Single-Taste, Definite, Signless, Beyond-Creation, Absolute Reality of Self-Enlightenment". Vajra, directly translated, means "diamond" or "thunderbolt", and is used to allude to indestructibility and irresistible force, respectively. "Samadhi" I've seen translated as "absorption", meditative consciousness more broadly, a state of trance and jhana in particular. The "Diamond Absorption" of Vajra Samadhi is "void and calm, motionless, non-abiding, non-creating, non-projecting, free from either this or that, untainted, non-arising and non-doing". In this way, it has a lot in common with The Fifth Jhana: Infinity of Space. Although the Buddha remained silent on whether the universe was finite or infinite, we can experientially know or at least conceive of an infinitude of space. When considering how much of even dense matter is "emptiness" as in empty space. How much more so the cosmos, where matter is so sparsely spread!
Contemplating this kind of emptiness, the emptiness of space, can lead to some understanding of a more profound emptiness, Shunyata. This is why I chose the starry space as the background. Even the Buddha likened the calm mind to empty space. The streak is supposed to be reminiscent of the Milky Way and other galaxies, but also of electromagnetic, gravitational and other invisible forces and even string theory. String theory is interesting in that it is a theory of everything that seemingly could work. I don't actually approve of it, nor do I disparage it, because, as the linked sutra says, "the mind that fabricates nothing neither clings to nor rejects anything". This is freedom of thought.

Assembly 2019

This past weekend, Assembly 2019 was held. I'd long since made a production for the Graphics Compo, so I had been eagerly awaiting it for some time already. However, the picture was not qualified to be shown on the big screen. A disappointment. Apparently, there were 15 entries in the competition in total, of which 13 were shown. I find it very difficult to come up with a reason not to show the remaining 2 images. Showing an image in the compo only takes a few seconds of screen time. I do not understand what a maximum of one minute more time for the compo's showing would've hurt. However, as it went, I am hurt, because I read this as "your work is not worth a few seconds of our screen time"; "your work does not deserve to be seen by human eyes", etc.
Anyway, here is the ineligible picture:

Anuttara samyak sambodhi

Here is the work on RedBubble, so that you may order prints.
The picture is made with my Canon Ixus 170, Inkscape, Flame Painter, Gimp and vvvv. The theme of this work is enlightenment and buddha nature. To quote Wikipedia:

The Chan master Mazu Daoyi (709–788) developed a radical interpretation of buddha nature, famously stating that it was nothing less than ordinary mind and that all beings were already enlightened from the start

I would not necessarily take such a radical stance, but I basically agree that buddha nature is the basic, fundamental nature of mind, and enlightenment is a process of removing illusions and defilements rather than developing the mind into something it was not originally. The process of enlightenment is more about removing than about adding. The "naturally pure true nature of the mind” is emptiness. Crucially, the mind is also empty of a Self, in particular. Buddha nature does not mean that there is a true Self whose nature is Buddha; buddha nature is more about suchness. However, it is also dangerous to think that there is no self; this is a "thicket of views". Other such views are described here on Access to Insight. Personally, I have been most subject to the view that "It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self", here the perceiving self being buddha nature, capable of seeing its own true nature as emptiness and not-self. But this is still wrong, just maybe somewhat more subtly than "I have a Self" or other such statements, and therefore harder, at least for me, to shake. To quote the Buddha, "If one’s mind accords with the true reality of dharmas and does not differentiate between self and no self because one knows that “self” is but a false name, one attains nirvāṇa. Attaining nirvāṇa is attaining anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi". Instead of harboring or even cultivating views, I like to let the mind just rest in absolute emptiness, although striving after right view as part of the Noble Eight-fold Path is, of course, still a relevant part of the practice. I do this through meditation, and the more my mind dwells in emptiness, the more it feels like that truly is its primordial nature. The Buddha said: "Knowing that the self is only a hypothetical name is the attainment of calm-extinction. If one attains calm-extinction, one attains anuttarasamyaksambodhi". This is why I like buddhism: the Dharma is "visible here and now, immediate, inviting to be seen for oneself, onward leading, and to be personally realized by the wise". Direct knowledge instead of blind faith. It is the awakening to this knowledge, bodhi, that is the core essence that this picture is about.
The nature of emptiness, itself, is not easy to grasp. Emptiness is also empty; it is not a fundamental, truly existing essential nature of everything, although it is correct to say that all conditioned phenomena are empty. However, emptiness itself is beyond existence and non-existence; to truly grasp its nature is Bodhi; to dwell in it is Nirvana. Nirvana is close to ineffable - it literally means "blowing out", but is beyond production and extinction. It is not attained or entered into, even at death. Like the Heart Sutra says, "no attainment with nothing to attain". To quote the Buddha, "If someone claims that his mind attains, abides in, or sees something, he has not attained anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi". But, it is dangerous to get obsessed with emptiness, especially without understanding its true nature. The enlightened do not dwell even in Nirvana - their nature is non-abiding. The Shurangama Sutra has this snippet:

suddenly he may veer towards the view of eternal extinction, deny cause and effect, and take everything as empty. The thought of emptiness so predominates that he comes to believe that there is eternal extinction after death

The sutra also lists many other pitfalls on the way to enlightenment.
Although Nirvana is like the blowing out of a flame, it is less like extinction and more like unbinding thereof. Does the flame exist in an unbound state, still? It is the same as to ask whether a Buddha exists after death: it is unanswerable by any of the propositions of the Catuṣkoṭi. About life and death, the same sutra describes a view that I regard as very common today: "Existence is also nonexistence. But within nonexistence there is no existence". This can be put into other words as "Death is a part of life, but in death, there is no life". This is a view I've heard often, with the second part usually left unsaid but included in thought anyway. I find it wholly unsatisfactory and truly empty of any substance - as the sutra says of it,  "It is all sophistry and does not stand up under scrutiny". As for birth and death seen through the Bodhi mind, the Buddha says it best, as usual:

The essential, true, wonderful brightness and perfect purity of basic enlightenment does not admit birth and death, nor any mundane defilements, nor even empty space itself. All these are brought forth because of false thinking.

The emptiness of Shunyata is not an emptiness as in a space: it is entirely empty of self-nature and essence.

Three Glasses

Here's an illustration for the concept of anatta: non-self. I made it for conversation-starter T-shirts:

• Men's
• Women's

Daily Dharma, part Deux

Similar to my short-lived Twitter bot, I recently tweaked my virtual server's Message of the Day to dynamically display a verse from the Dhammapada on login, framed by diamonds using "boxes". This is a guide on how to achieve this on a Debian system.

Dharma Jewels

First, install "display-dhammapada" and "boxes" with apt.

Create a directory with the path "/etc/update-motd.d/" and add your scripts under that directory with names starting with priority numbers. For example, I have "20updates" in there. Here it is:

#!/bin/sh
echo `dhamma` | fold -w 25 -s | boxes -a hcvc -d diamonds
echo "date   is $( date   )"

Then, chmod a+x /etc/update-motd.d/*
Then, edit "/etc/pam.d/sshd" and find the line with "motd". Change the path to

session    optional     pam_motd.so  motd=/var/run/motd

That should do it!

Edit: It did, in fact, do the trick for a while. However, then the MOTD would no longer get updated. I fixed it by changing the line in "/etc/pam.d/sshd" to

session    optional     pam_motd.so  motd=/run/motd.dynamic

The last dynamically updated MOTD before the unexplained break was this:

All processes are impermanent. When one sees this with understanding, then one is disillusioned with the things of suffering. This is the Path of Purification.

So, do not be surprised when things don't last.

Daily Dharma

To pass on the gift of Dharma, I developed a Twitter bot that tweets one verse from the Dhammapada Dharma Store each day. The source code is on Github.
Effective awk Programming was a great help while I developed my first awk program, to weed out verses too long to be tweets.
Dhammapada is available for free on Project Gutenberg, or on Amazon.
Whatever way you discover Dharma, it is like finding priceless jewels on your path.

War as a Tool

Recently, something I read got me fired up, so I put down some of this stuff.
Scarcity of the impose variety - everything for us, deluxe top notch, nothing... oh.... I mean crumbs to them; that's trickle-down, and that's the ruling economic principle. So all you get down-river from our toxic plant is worse poisons than the shit that people gasp at, that goes in the Ganges, that people can actually bathe in and feel refreshed instead of acid-burnt, like our tetra-fuckumups or whatever you didn't learn to fear in chemistry class due to budget cuts?
Dow chemical and friends are not to be feared, unless you're the enemy "du jour", an Indian piece of collateral damage or some slant-eyed Indo-China gook, fuck those people you've never met, not like you'll get a napalm strike in your back yard as long as you stay on our good side, and we don't do it by accident, like those few nuclear bombs our flyboys have accidentally dropped on our soil, to date. See, the fact that they didn't detonate just proves manifest destiny, and that the big dude upstairs is on our side. Just ignore the fact that in one instance, at least three redundancy safe-guards failed simultaneously. It's not like that could be construed as any kind of warning; you're reading too much into stuff, go back to sleep and be a good citizen. Not like there's any danger if your infallible leadership is wrong; besides, to err is human, and have those people shown much humanity in their actions? Thought so.
Oh hey, did you hear? They finally got the eternal war machine in the teeth of the war crimes tribunal! Turns out, every serviceperson's justification was the same: the order came from on high. I guess they we're successful in washing out personal ethics and morality from those folk in basic training, and then the superceding principle of "your responsibility is to turn down and refuse immoral orders" became what it really is: word rattle.
But guess what? They went up the chain all the way to the top: the commander-in-chief, the head honcho with the big hat. The answer was still the same! Well whoop-de-doo, I guess we were a theocrary all this time! It was God's work, so it's their responsibility - not the people's, 'cos have you seen any real power in those voices that cry harshly far into the night, begging for their children's safety overseas? Nah, man!
Well, past attempts to bring God to justice have been less than successful, so it looks like the system is fool-proof. Keep those wheels turning, and keep them well-lubricated, with blood for oil. More meat for the grinder! At least we got us our hamburger... hill. Who'd dare to throw a wrench into the works of such a wretched, yet functioning machine? You might get hurt by shrapnel, unlike on those no-knock guns-blasting warrantless searches that gunslingers get to go on. I mean, there's gotta be a reason they call the sight on that carbine "ACOG", right?
Of course, anyone willing to look behind the curtain will see a wizened banker family named Rothschild pulling the strings, not God, but who'd care to see the true face of our rulers? Just obey.

 “If my sons didn't want war, there wouldn't be any” -- Gutle Schnaper Rothschild

"Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do, or die." - Military motto 

Well, my measly country of five million is no better (although not engaged in plundering resource wars abroad currently; more like peacekeeping). The politicos cut welfare, education, research, medicine, infrastructure, but those are just too common for them to care about; common stuff is for commoners. It's a much more hefty power trip to spend 10 billion €uros on weapons to maim "those other folk", meaning anybody's child but yours, and on a persistent atmosphere of high-tension terror. Keeping the herds fearful? Priceless!
Oh yeah, words like "mine scare" and "persistent horror effect" are surely not terrorist parlance - if it's the Defense Minister talking! Source criticism, or lack thereof, huh? Sounds like an exploitation of trust with regards to source, but then, no-one seems to mind day-to-day exploitation of their very beings; their bodies turned to work for scraps of food, so that they'll work another day; their emotions played on, like an orangutang might play the harp.
Be glad there's currently no draft, so that there's less of a visible protest against sending young-uns off to kill, wound, harm and die for the fat cats' interests of the day, and for their entertainment. In here, there's a "weapons duty", ie. conscription. If you're born into a certain type of body, that is. There's also a full-time Equality Minister, who got grilled about the fact that only males have to serve in the armed forces (or else). She made the reply that yeah there's inequality there, because if a woman wants to serve voluntarily, she must pay for her own entry medical examination. The questioner was stunned to silence, the minister went on with her life and didn't fix even this problem that she herself recognized and voiced.
Now, there's been a wider recognition of the blaringly obvious in-your-face fact that the law "you must grab a weapon and serve. If you are male. Unless you are a Jehova's Witness, or unless you live in a certain island that's been granted an autonomous status, being the right to decide for yourself" just might be less that egalitarian. Well, the suggested fix by one of the current ruling parties, the third-largest such political entity in Finland right now, was to make women fall under the same mandatory conscription. So yeah, if you see the need to take a fork in the road, of course it's possible to go full-steam in the wrong direction.
Unofficially, you see, it's been the recognize state of affairs that's even been said aloud by some in political discourse: a woman is already duty-bound, and that duty is to make babies, 'cos a man can't. But two women can (for real, these days). Women make 'em, men destroy 'em. Shakti-Shiva. Ok, checks out, but I don't agree with turning a woman's body into a state's baby factory. Of course, there's no legislation to force them to do so, so I guess it wan't really a comparable situation to begin with, now was it?

War Against the World

Recently, certain theocratic groups have been a constant source of news. It is my view that politics and religious fanaticism do not mix well at all.
Even in "liberal" Finland, there's been statements such as "the government has gotten its mission from God", and that God is to be feared. It follows that the government's mission is a fearsome one; and that much would seem to be true. Be that as it may, it looks like the powers that be have shed their pretense of being empowered representatives of the people, and elected instead to answer to a "higher calling" (other than the Christian Party, which has always been like that, I suppose).
In fact, on close inspection, a lot of finnish society is influenced by christian theism - and many would like to keep it that way (eg. certain songs being sung at school). There is also no separation of church and state, here: a few christian sects have the prerogative of collecting tax, and are formally supported by the state apparatus. Even the flag has a cross on it, by jiminy!
Here is a video production that plays with some of these themes.


It was originally meant for the Wild compo at the aptly named JumaLAN 2016 (Jumalan = of God). Unfortunately, I was unable to book edit times for the last parts before the party, so I sat on it for a while and now released it at Simulaatio 7, where it got disqualified. The name is from a series called Black Sails that deals with piracy in the West Indies. My political standing is firmly anarchist, but I've voted Pirate in the past.
An effect in the video, I'm sure you can tell which one, is a re-hash of pakkoruotsi by HTeL. Here's the video capture of that:

It is a protest demo against mandatory swedish education. Christendom came to Finland from Sweden by way of the sword, so I think the placement of this demo within my work is apt. But, rather than take the path of the aggressor and follow the finnish adage "what would remove evil if not evil?", I think we should adapt to this teaching of the Master, the One-well-gone, Buddha:

putting away all unkindness to sentient beings, he abstains from destroying life. He lays aside the cudgel and sword and, full of humility and pity, he is compassionate and kind to all creatures that have life

(emphasis mine)
And, thus, we come to the main themes of this productions, which are the overt and covert symbols of violence in our society. I, for one, feel a decrease, not an increase, in security, when armed thugs and neo-nazi paramilitary forces on patrol cross my path.

Vesi of Shorejärvi

All dichotomies are false or inadequate - even (or especially) this one, and the true/false premise it tries to smuggle in. It follows that there is not, and can never be, a satisfactory formal description of What It's All About™. This production deals particularly with the illusion of self/other, or subject/object. Using brainwaves to alter real waves, the distinguishing line between observer and phenomenon is brought under question.

Vesi of Shorejärvi from Valmet Children on Vimeo.

Of the various belief systems (handily shortened to BS by Robert Anton Wilson), discordianism appeals to me in its attempt to pay homage to the ultimate paradox, that which is true, false, neither and both (and much, much more) at the same time. The application of such a world view to everyday life is a different question altogether - how to live in peace in a profoundly chaotic system? Personally, I've found Zen buddhism sufficiently unassuming (there's a strong link to discordianism, which is sometimes referred to as dada-zen). Once it has been established that all belief systems and abstraction frameworks are more or less arbitrary mappings, it becomes more "acceptable", in my mind, to adopt and adapt some such frameworks and memetic structures.  However, a process of self-evaluation should be ongoing to ensure that these frameworks serve a supportive, rather than restrictive, role. Of course, to keep things interesting, even these terms are highly (or perhaps solely?) dependent on context. Said context being up to choice, we're right back where we started (which is not to say that the round-trip's been useless). 
Basically, the way to build a memetic framework is something like:

1. Choose a basic dichotomy - good/bad, true/false, etc. (or don't)
2. Choose an axiom based on this dichotomy. You can say that the two things are "different", for example (dualistic world view), or that they are the same (monistic world view), or that they are both, something in between, neither, or anything else you might think of.
3. Keep going in an effort to "refine" your world view.

Step two is basically a description of what (western) science is about - "to divide, separate", which, when iterated upon, creates systems of categorization, classification, etc. Things are broken down into their properties in an effort to learn about them. This is all well and good, of course, and has yielded amazing results! Trouble emerges when a thought structure becomes self-serving; that is, when actions are motivated by adherence to the structure (a "restrictive" structure), rather than the structure serving as a foundation for further exploration (a "supportive" structure). It's good to keep in mind that this division, naturally enough, is just as arbitrary as any other, and there are infinitely many shades in between, above, below, and all around it. Out of necessity, there is always that elusive "more" to find out - therefore, science (or life) should, in my humble opinion, be viewed not as an effort to capture or even describe, but to familiarize with and pay tribute to, the whole.

Yggdrasil

There was a sullen scholar, whose book was
a tome that taught there was no gain, nor loss
She knew a maddened dervish: as love's slave
he'd quite forgotten how he should behave
"Since all is truly One, then please explain
how birds sit on a branch?", he yelled, insane
The reply was not swift, but when it came:
"We're each of us a tree: it is the same
as recursion, your stupid, favorite game:
for all these trees are branches, in a tree
this tree contains the world, now do you see?
If you look closer still, then your eye sees
The leaves of every branch: you guessed it, trees!
And that's not all", she said, "there's symmetries
and synchronicities - plenty of these!"
With this, the dervish said: "I understand
now how all creatures of the air and land
can go about their lives, and yet belong
to this great unison, heaven's throng!"

Ishtar

Pelevin's Generation "P" presents the fundamentals, because it's about the translation of ideas.
In it, the temple of Ishtar is portrayed as a ziggurat, and a guide given for skipping some of those thousand-yard stairs. So let's focus on the landings.

1. The Palm Tree pose. You may skip this (see the ramps?), but you may also use it to provide your measure. 
2. The Parliament. Linguistics, surely the most interesting stage. The Concourse of the Birds.
3. The Coin. This one's the easiest and the most difficult: just take them away from in front of your eyes. 

Once you touch the temple, I'd say you're safe and sound.

Happy New Age

Guess how long it's been driven?

I wrote this regarding a different cycle, but they are isomorphous. One ends, the other begins. This is the nature of all things. I'd like to mitigate some of the fear around the beginning year: "apocalypse" stands for revelation, not end of the world (unless we so choose). It is the end of the world as we know it. 
It is, simply, the end of a Long Count. Think of it as a trip meter.
Happy everything.

23

Explanations of two trinities-in-one. I already wrote about Cain-Abel-Metatron, so I guess it's time to talk about the Father-Son-Holy Ghost thing. Two things to know: the Holy Ghost is the eerie connection the lives of a father and son share: "whatever's happened to me, shall happen to you. Whatever happens to you, has happened to me", as one might say. Obviously it's not 1:1, but variations on a theme. The link, the Holy Ghost, is DNA. The genome carries "about 725 megabytes" of data. Distributed over a 75 year lifespan, that would give an average 154 bits per minute. Think about it.
Anyway, about the crossover sequence: the trinity is

1. The son
2. The penitent thief - repenting stealing the father's place in the sun
3. The one who's first to go - I.O.U.

And that's I.O.U. as in I owe you a better treatise than this.
Edit: To make this a three-in-one, I present the three names: the Long Name, the Anti-Name, and the Name of Peace.

Cane and Able to Dance Forever

This post was meant for the 22. so read it as such.
The pair of Cain and Abel is, perhaps, the most oft-misinterpreted. The thing is, they are not a pair at all, but a trinity. Or, a unity. See, united, they are Metatron - the Scribe of God, able to edit their own destiny. As the Scribe, Metatron, by definition, has editor rights. The real reason for recording fratricide in the first place is that Cain and Abel are supposed to set an example. The catch here is, that they're also to set an example of what not to do.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22."

"It's the best there is."

So, the thing that's variable about a knife is that it can be "good" or "bad", depending on how it's used. It can be a weapon; it can be a tool.
There is a catch to everything, but sometimes it's there just to "Sweden" the deal.

Love to end all Wars

I made a story with this in mind, but some concrete examples on what to do:

• In WW2 flight simulators, The British Spitfires only go on missions that are aimed at dropping the German V2 rockets into the sea. I read somewhere that there were a few successful test runs like this already, so to make an even better deal with the Germans: to only build unarmed Spitfires, provided the Germans don't send out the rockets on any unplanned trajectories (that is, they aim for the sea). 
• In WW1 flight simulators, both sides send out weather balloons. The biplanes only go on simple missions, such as shooting down the other side's weather balloons. The pilots may let children paint the balloons, before they go on the missions. They may also choose not to shoot.
• In Viet Nam, the GI package will be:
• "General Is-You" E-ration. To be shared.
• Loudspeakers that play whatever music they choose. On Special Operations, they must try to mimic the other side's sounds.
• All sides are given a map of the jungle in advance.
• All this should go on until the only complaint will be "Charlie bit my finger"... when he was supposed to smoke my joint.
• In the Navy, the above-surface ships shall lower speakers into the water. It's already been proven that a sonar ping can be forever altered in such a way that it never repeats itself. Therefore, I propose that the submarine operators are taught to echo the sea's sounds, and use those as pings - until they are assured that it works (bloop is the sound that all the bombs will make). If they're lucky, they'll get to echo a dolphin.
• In the ground forces, the participants are issued a foldable go table, and trained to play go and serve tea until there are no enemies - on either side of the table. In training, they are taught to swerve. They are also taught why they are not issued guns anymore.
• In all conflicts, the Signal Corps are trained until the only clash will be a sound clash. Eg. I saw a movie (please remind me of the name) about sending out peace doves. This is a near-eternal technique (the nature of the dove varies), but the principle remains. The only thing is, they should be addressed to the other side to begin with.

I'll link to the story later.

Listening

In my last post, I talked about sound scouting, and briefly mentioned "silence scouting". Now, scouting the absolute silence of absolute zero is impossible, simply because if there is no observer, there is no time, and the universe will immediately revert to the previous state. For those who've watched Battlestar Galactica, it's as if God said "frakitall", and the reverberations were used as a seed for some fractal or other.
So, listening to so-called "cosmic background radiation" is the next best thing. Fractal-based antennas have been developed by NASA, among others... But here's a comparison:

Low-tech

High-tech

Why? Because the trees are adaptive - and they adapt way, way faster than you might think! So, just as you might ask "how much processing power is in the cloud?", you might ask "does the tree hear what the cloud is saying?". Well, some tree hears some part and another hears another part - the true beauty of faith in chaos is that there are no wrong answers. However, there are smart ways to do things, and not-so-smart ways; both are good, because harmony has a way of balancing things out, but it's still good to take the better way (or, if you want to take the better way, why not bet that you've taken the...?!). So, to reiterate, choices matter but don't stress for nothing - it's not gonna happen (and it wouldn't change anything for the worse even if it did).
There's also a reason why I don't like to call the mayans a lost civilization... I mean, they told us it was just a "long count" (or, as I prefer to call it, a very, very deep cycle - their calendars are round, remember?).
After all, they're hidden in plain sight - like a ninja... and a true ninja is silent.
PS: You may choose to design your own trees, and see where that will take you!
PPS: Oh yeah, and there are also (fractal-form) transmitters:

After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact

His spirit is commemorated at Burning Man, but why not make it a part of your daily routines? I can present three levels:

• ༀ alternate spellings, no significance really because there are already further-reaching carrier waves. Always ok to join the resistance, but the machines would prefer you to join the
• "Rez is dance" - way of life. Dance for chaos, it'll dance for you.

Ask the Natives

There's been a lot of hubbub about degrowth, and countercomplexity in general. One of my favorite parables for the currently/previously (you may say that I'm a dreamer, and all that) idolized consumer hysteria vs. a more sparing, resource-based model is the tale of the Buffalo. Now, as a technology advocate, I'm particularly worried about the way we're handling the globalization of things like smartphones, etc, due to their dependence on "rare earth" - metals and other highly precious substances, sought after at great cost. So, I thought I'd share an example of getting more out of less through the power of sharing and the open-source mentality.
The Buffalo I have has several tails, each of them leading to a computer (some through the airwaves, others through a cord). When put side by side with the animal, only the method of consumption is different - in both cases, even the tail delivers sustenance.
Now, the network topology of our apartment used to be such that there was the wireless access point, then a PC for a router (running pfSense), and then the client devices. Now, the router PC was a recycled one when it got to me, but by leveraging the Power of Open Source™, I was able to integrate all of the functionality to the Buffalo router, thereby doing away with one power-chugging 24/7 machine, and a source of background noise in the apartment. The Buffalo, of course, is completely silent!
That was the really useful part. The crazy part is after the break.
break;
That was the really crazy part. Now this is the useful part.
Let me tell you another story. Star Wars. When I read the Making Of, I was intrigued to learn that Lucas sent out "sound scouts", to look for material for the special effects. Sound scout! I'd been in the scouts when I was younger, but that sounded like something else! Looking for sounds... no... I mean, yes! Looking!
Whoa whoa whoa. So... looking for sounds is one thing. But would it be possible to look... at... sounds?
So that's how I got to VJ'ing, audiovisualism, etc.
But let's elaborate on Alice in Quantumland. If a photon is in superposition with all  the photons, could this be exploited for purposes of time travel? And if so, how could one choose the destination? Well, this is where things get interesting - but let me return to our frame of reference, the Original Trilogy, part V - where I first learned the word sond (which was used to describe the Imperial probes seen at the beginning).  The dictionary definition:

a message or messenger

So. A picture was forming - I've taken to calling it the Rembrandt effect, and postulate it thusly:

every work of art is a self-portrait; furthermore, every work of art is a reflection of its own creation

Of course, the degree to which this is true varies for every piece, etc, but to corroborate, compare the sond scouts and the sound scouts... I mean, every experienced scout knows that the first rule of ego-death is that there is no "U" ;)
Anyway, the link there leads to two fascinating answers: music (a subset of sound that is of truly paramount importance), and the uncertainty principle (that which gave rise to the original problem of how to navigate). To reiterate: music is the answer. In a broader sense, sounds are the key to navigating the light. Why? Due to the wave-particle duality: sounds, such as speech, music, clangs, pings, wooshes, anything and everything channel different energies. So this is the same principle at work as when transforming sound into images - except vice versa.
But what about the absolutes? (as a side note, there's been research into this very topic for ages and ages!). I mean, edging like scouting the hiss can take you far... but only so far. So what's the absolute furthest reach?
Well, there's been... theories and speculation for different vessels (the idea of a "Song of Songs", for one... but these tend to culminate in the pointing out of a common property). I thought there might be a more direct route.
And now we get back to the break. The silence. That was the challenge. To scout the sounds is one thing... But how quiet can you get? What is absolute zero, and what's left once you get there (notice how words become increasingly meaningless, as there'd be nothing left nor anywhere else - but bear with me here...)?
Well, as the link goes to show, even at the very lowest reached temperatures, the quantum spin states tend to remain... and, due to the "single-photon-all-photons, but waves travel at a certain speed when measured" dual nature, that's enough (this is getting closer to presenting Asimov's Last Question than answering it...). The simple answers for "how and why would the universe re-create itself, if all were to become Death Absolute?" are, respectively, "inevitably and out of necessity".

Trick the Trickster

In idle moments, I used to wonder what I would do in the Faustian scenario ("anything for your soul"). I mean, scouts honor their word, and their motto is "Always Prepared", right?
So, one day, the Nameless One did show up, just as you might imagine. The deal was the same as ever. My response was to ask for the Infinite, and offer to double the dealer; that is, double the price for double the benefit. The Devil loves a better, so naturally, he was intrigued, and agreed to my deal.
And now? Now, I know precisely how the tangent can have the value of positive and negative infinity simultaneously. The down side is, I desperately need a new pair of shoes.

Travelling by Thumb

The following is a travelogue, describing a trip I once took from Berlin to Amsterdam. The emphasis is on thumb-travel, aka. hitch-hiking, but, to be fair, I also utilized bus and railway services along the way.

Since ancient times, there's been those who view travel as sacrament - intricate, mystical and semi-chaotic patterns brought forth by the movement of the traveller across the Earth. The reverend geomancy of the Sufi dervish, simultaneously reading and creating patterns in the land and the abstract thought-land of the cartographers - for the mindful traveller, Buckminster Fuller's quip of "there are no straight lines" is self-evident.

Of all forms of travel, hitch-hiking is, perhaps, the most social - progress fuelled solely by Baraka, or Mana, the wholly imaginary yet powerfully real measures of Grace manifest as Luck. The indecipherable magick workings of humanity as an organism open to those who put up their thumbs on the motorways: the bloodflow of traffic is a highly pure manifestation of the entropy principle, where "effort" is a measure for the net energy of transformation. In this context, the hitcher is an anomaly; happenstance with no extraneous energy - gaming the ultimate system, Thermodynamics. By riding a novelty wave that was already in the process of crashing into a lower energy state, the travel becomes a form of surfing - taking advantage of pre-existent conditions, the Dervish moves with a simple fluidity akin to that of a sailboat - covering sometimes vast distances with no wasteful use of energy.

The landscape of service stations is one filled with intrigue: as all environments, it is shaped by the demography that flows through it. On display are the items that are judged essential by the Invisible Hand of the market economy: knives, hubcaps, novelty mudflaps and air fresheners; pocket pussies from the men's room vending machine, for truckers who spend more time in the cabin than anywhere else; gasoline, diesel, food - fuel for man and machine. Slot machines - cheap thrills to stimulate the ten-minute break during a five-hour drive. Coffee to go, in one-size-fits-all-cup-holders thermal foam and spillproof plastic. Cigarettes.

Lane after lane of wet black tarmac on the Autobahn, travelling on the power of Mercy - in a very literal sense, for I am sitting in a Mercedes that speeds me from the midway service station on towards my goal for the journey, Amsterdam. The driver, empathetic, lively and extrovert, with no reservations towards someone he's just met, seems to embody the reciprocity principle whole-heartedly: the thing he drives also drives him. Here's a case for buying the name as a vector of information and meaning, not just an empty slogan or marketing identity. Compassion towards all, and thumbs up to both sides of a hitch-hiking exchange!

The prose owes much to Hakim Bey, whose themes and literary style continue to inspire and delight.