Language : Music : Culture

Researchers found that English had more of a swing than French, a rhythm produced by a tendency in English to cut some vowels short while stressing others. The melodies of the two languages also differed, with pitch varying far more in spoken English than French.

The team then did the same kind of analysis on music, comparing the rhythm and melody of English classical music from composers such as Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams, with that of French composers including Debussy, Faure and Roussel. "The music differs in just the same way as the languages," said Dr Patel. "It is as if the music carries an imprint of the composer's language.
Here is the full story.
(Via Marginal Revolution.)

And Brazilian music sounds just like their language... Pretty logical conclusion, really. What would be more interesting to me is how that changes for a musician/composer who is multilingual. English and Italian, Cantonese and French, Vietnamese and German. I have met European kids who speak 4 languages fluently by the time they are 6 years old. Will they create the new European music? That may be all it takes to bring people together - teach your kids multiple languages and watch them create something that transcends one culture and creates a new combo-culture. Sidenote: it is very hard to hate a people, if you can speak their language and have experienced their culture. Forget your eyes being the window to the soul - it's your language and its underlying rhythm and melody...

Brain Wave Tats

What if tattoos could change? They could be made with thermo-chromatic inks that change color with fluctuations in body temperature. We could have hormone sensitive tattoos that could indicate ovulation or pregnancy. Or pH sensitive inks that could indicate mood.

Hm, wouldn't it be interesting if a tat could turn different colors depending on your brain pattern... One color for Beta, others for Alpha, Theta and Delta... "Oh, I am sorry, I don't want to disturb, I see you are daydreaming Theta..." or as an aid in teaching meditation...

Big Mind DVD now available

The Big Mind DVD is now available.

Genpo Roshi leads a live audience through the complete Big Mind process. Professionally filmed, this is a unique introduction to Big Mind - a 2-disk set: disk 1 includes an introuction to the process, and the experience of speaking from the personal, dualistic voices. On disk 2 Roshi guides us through the non-dual or transcendent voices.

Download Order Form here.

Roshi's European Tour

Big Mind Events in Europe with Genpo Roshi:

January 8/9 in Amsterdam, Holland
Big Mind Workshop - see PDF

January 10-22 in Ameland, Holland
Big Mind Western Zen Retreat - see PDF

January 22/23 in London, England
Big Mind Workshop - contact Manu Bazzano in London at 0044 (0) 20 7267 6147 or Email: hazymoon (at) onetel.net.uk

Solar Spain

Times Online - World

SPAIN wants to take advantage of its sunshine by making solar panels compulsory in new and renovated buildings — to save fuel costs and to improve the environment.
(Via vedana.net.)

Lead the way, Spain... because the USA obviously cannot.

Illuminati

Here is proof they are alive and well....

Rumor

There's a rumor going around that there are places where people think losing control is actually quite sane. These places let you sit down for thirty minutes, a week, or as long as you want and give up control. At a Zen Center, nobody will think you are weird if you sit down and let your mind go. It's the Zen thing to do.

Genpo Roshi sent me his book The Path of the Human Being, just in time for our journey to Mexico tomorrow. Beautiful book. Perfect timing. Roshi would make a fine drummer...

How a ballot-receipt should look

Wired Magazine's back-page each month features a photoshopped image that is meant to represent a telling found object from our future. They're often good, but this month's -- a receipt from a paper-trail-leaving voting machine -- is the best so far. Wow.
Link
(Via BoingBoing.)

Voting machines should run open source code that any hacker can run up against until it is rock solid, should produce receipts such as the one pictured, and the voter should be able to check/verify their vote on a web site. Total transparency is the sign of a modern democracy. But hey, I am just a foreigner.

Promessa Organic Cremation

Promessa Organic AB's Sustainable Cremation

Yossarian, one of the characters in Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22, had decided "to live forever or die in the attempt." While many of us have a similar wish, a Swedish biologist, Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, set up a company to deal with the reality. Promessa Organic AB may seem an odd name for a burial business. Until you learn just how they've developed an environmentally friendly form of passing on...

Within about 10 days of death, the body is frozen in liquid nitrogen, making it very brittle. Once vibrated, it turns into an organic powder. In a vacuum chamber any water is evaporated away to leave a dry power (about 1/3 of original weight). A metal detector removes surgical pins, dental amalgams and such forth. The remains are then placed in a corn or potato starch coffin, to be be buried in a shallow grave. Within 12 months, or less, this has composted in a loam soil. The company suggest a tree or bush can be planted at the burial, so the loved one's body will directly nourish a new living thing, serving as a symbol of the person.

(A cremation they say can use up to 23 litres (6 gal) of fluid oil and 0.5kg (1.1 lb) of activated carbon, while adding an annual contribution of 1/3 of total mercury emissions in Sweden.) The first facility is expected to be operating in Sweden in 2005.
Promessa
(Via Treehugger.)

This has got to be the coolest way to deal with my rotting corpse. But, don't Tibetans wait longer than 10 days before they dispose of bodies, in order to give the atman more time to find a suitable next vessel. We wouldn't want to have to rush into just any body now, would we!

Tangential aside: when I was in India, many people thought my name was Atman instead of Ottmar. Acha, very good name you have, they said and shook their heads in that inimitable fluid Indian way....

Big Mind 2005

Big Mind Workshops in 2005:

Feb 5-6 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Apr 16 in Idlewyld, California
Apr 22-23 in Portland, Oregon
May 28 in San Diego, California
Jun 10-12 in Austin, Texas
Jul 24-29 in Rhinebeck, New York.

- for details follow the title link.

Supersizing of Americans results in extra jet fuel use

Supersizing America
Interesting article about the effect that the increased average weight of US citizens has had on jet fuel use.

"American's growing waistlines are hurting the bottom lines of airlines as extra pounds on passengers cause a drag on planes."

"Through the 1990s, the average weight of Americans increased by 10 pounds, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"The extra weight caused airlines to spend $275 million to burn 350 million more gallons of fuel in 2000 to carry the additional weight".

Link
(Via BoingBoing.)

$275,000,000 worth of extra fuel. Those are amazing numbers.

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell: "Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
[Motivational Quotes of the Day]..."
(Via Mekka.)

To quote Dennis Hopper in The American Friend: "There is nothing to fear, but fear itself."

Another World Is Here: The Brasilia Consensus and Gilberto Gil's Dreadlocks

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: The Brasilia Consensus, Free Software and Gilberto Gil's Dreadlocks:

The buildup of technology knowledge and access in the (previously) third world, due to their use of Open Source, is going to have interesting effects. It's going to give millions of people a voice and get them used to HAVING a voice. This isn't just going to change these countries materially (though it definitely will) it's also going to radically alter them politically in previously unsuspected democratic ways. Open Source voting is much easier to prevent or detect tampering in than Diebold! Just as democracy, self-belief and forward thinking stagnate in the North-Western world, a new form of democracy will rise forcing it to change just to keep up. It's going to be an interesting ride, ladies and gentlemen! (as if you hadn't noticed that already).
Posted by: Daniel Johnston at November 5, 2004 05:15 PM

I am actually posting a comment to the story linked at the top. I think the comment is very concise and food for thought. I think the so called Third World is just about to make some important jumps forward in this decade.

Which One Are You?

Stuart lets us have it.

sometimes with spirituality or the integral thing, people think well, if you have really strong opinions, or if you take a position, then you have 'fallen asleep' again, then you are lost in the relative world. but that's just not the case. the spontaneous expression of LOVE is action in the world, is engaging life with vitallity and exuberance. now, whether that means hugging my mom or driving my car carefully so i don't hurt other people in an accident, or working hard to put the most highly developed officials into elected office- it is CRUCIAL i take a position, i have to have a perspective to take an action. the mystics who realize the Absolute and then hang out in the Void all the time are NOT Non-Dual. Genpo Roshi said something one time that i have always loved, and it was something like "the worst kind of non-duality is the non-duality that thinks it's better than non-non-duality." another way of putting it:

Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form

Righteous, brother!

Having no opinion and taking no stand does not show enlightenment - it shows disinterest.
Question: isn't only wanting to rest in Emptiness the same as not taking the Bodhisattva vow?

The Bodhisattva vows, out of compassion, not to enter nirvana until all beings have entered nirvana. This means the Bodhisattva practices not for her or his enlightenment alone, but for the enlightenment of all beings. The Bodhisattva vows to remain in this world of ignorance and confusion, vows to be willing to experience whatever living beings experience, until all beings are liberated.

Isn't it ultimately easier to rest in Emptiness, provided you achieve this in the first place, than to switch back and forth between Emptiness and Form in order to fulfill both? To reject the world by saying it is nothing but Samsara is a cop-out, is it not?

Yes, it is a big cosmic game, but guess what, you are in it and somebody is trying to pass the ball to you right now!

And Stuart continues:

1st tier perspectives are the 'sleeping perspectives', they each believe the dream, and they believe their particular role or perspective is THE right one.

2nd tier perspectives (which are integral, and include include the trans-rational perspectives) are a different story. starting with Yellow / Integral are a bit more awake. they realize that ALL the perspectives, ALL memes are crucial, indespensible aspects of one dynamic, fluxing spiral. you don't get Green without Orange, you don't get Orange without Blue, Blue would not arise without Red, Red could not exist without its predecessor Purple, and i actually left out our good Buddy Beige, which is primal existence (basic hunger, protection, sex, etc). no one, no individual, no society, NO-ONE skips stages. it does not happen. people move through stages in different ways, at different speeds, but no one ever skips stages of development, and these memes are indeed stages of development. Green emerged about 30 years ago in signficant numbers, before it Orange emerged about 300 years ago (with the Enlightenment), Blue about 3,000 years ago, Red before it about 30,000 years ago, and so on. hearing that you might imagine Yellow and the 2nd tier perspective would be here in flowering, full force.

statistics show us that only about 1-3% of the population in the U.S. is integral or 2nd-tier according to this developmental scheme. if you've read this far and this all makes pretty good sense to you, you may be one of them.

How about a slogan: It's not too late - start to meditate....

when you reach about 21 years old, where ever you may be on the spiral (orange? blue? red?) you STOP developing. you do not develope up through any more stages until maybe toward the end of your life, when you have a fucking melt down, you're about to croak, and the shit gets stirred up a bit. the ONLY KNOWN EXCEPTION to this rule is MEDITATORS. i'm not kidding you. the ONLY EMPERICALLY known exception / instance where people continue to develop up and out through stages after the age of 21 is those who have a daily meditation practice.

HELLO? is anyone hearing this shit? the ONLY EMPERICALLY KNOWN EXCEPTION. now THAT is something worth being radical about, that's a fundamentalism i can totally get into. as in: the fundamentals of development are such that if you want to evolve, if you want to develop through stages of consciousness after the age of 21, the one and only proven, reproducable, emperical method know to us is:

DAILY MEDITATION PRACTICE.

knowing this, i have to wonder, if we are not meditating, just what are we thinking? once you know this kind of information, in my opinion, to NOT meditate is to steal from humanity, it is to choose to shrink away from your role as an agent of transformation on the planet.

Stuart is in rare form. Word!
I excerpted from his post and added the color.