StumbleUpon | laodan's blog posts

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/11041214/

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:34:54 -0700

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Daily shared .. My daily shared web discoveries on friendfeed.

Crucial talk .. Personal blog about art.

Web Gallery .. Paintings, digitals, prints, tapestries, paper-cuts.

Photo Gallery

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Book .. About the meaning and societal function of visual arts.

I'm interested in the meaning of life and I think that it resides in thinking about what is human reality. Society being an assembling of individuals it finds its cohesion through the sharing by all of a common worldview (thinking about what is reality by the men of knowledge of the day). I use this blog as a tool to collect and store the most significant info about today's cultural, scientific, and economic changes that, I believe, are shaping the contours of an emerging post-modern "global worldview" that is humanity's best hope to cope with the accumulating side-effects of modernity. My comments are like first draft material that I later use when writing articles and those articles serve as the articulation of more elaborate works. (written or visual)

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/26007420/

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:53:02 -0700

Via Modern Art Obsession

So why should I vote?
Don't vote...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtHwWReGU0

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/17287860/

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:22:34 -0800

Yes we can ... Change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
Yes, We Can! - Si, Se Puede!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs
We've been thinking for a long time that earnest people reacting to a candidate is the future of music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVe0kMzqN0U
Elect Obama

20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack by Lawrence Lessig

I'm afraid that the party shall be followed by extremely nasty daily realities. So let's party while we can!

Burning Down the House
The Long Emergency, will play out against the background of a society that has pissed away its oil endowment, bulldozed its factories, arbitraged its productive labor, destroyed both family farms and the commercial infrastructure of main street, and trained its population to become overfed diabetic TV zombie "consumers" of other peoples' productivity, paid for by "money" they haven't earned.

Good luck my friends.

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/8857497/

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:15:34 -0700

I have been occupied lately redesigning my website and had thus no time to post on StumbleUpon. I will also be flying to China beginning of next week so I'll only restart posting around may 1st.
In the meantime have a good time stumbling.

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/6447508/

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 19:07:05 -0800

The Toriton Plus - Water and light music interface.
via Metafilter / loquacious, in youtube

The Toriton Plus A new electronic music interface using water and light.

Little Scale.
The Toriton Plus
Make your own toriton.

Toriton Plus: Water Surface as Music Controller II

Water surface as a cheap music controller.

Amazingly cool new music instrument by Little-Scale.

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/6361523/

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:43:54 -0800

Richard Dawkins: 'The Root of All Evil: The God Delusion'
via Science Blog, in Channel 4 Online
From "The Root of All Evil?":

Richard Dawkins describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science.

In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress - to become more enlightened and more tolerant.

The Root of All Evil? Episode 1: The God Delusion
The Root of All Evil? Episode 2: The Virus of Faith

There is only one thing missing in this rationalist presentation and that is the societal process.

"Dawkins touches on the sense of belonging promised by religious groups but dismisses this as 'seductive group solidarity', which he describes as a 'shared delusion' ".

This is where Dawkins is wrong. You just can't throw societal reality to the dustbin of history, it is history and the non-understanding of the societal process that makes history is costing rationalists their sanity.

Knowledge and power have been going together since the beginning of civilization. Only sometime along the 19th century have power and knowledge been disconnected and as a result the men of knowledge of the day have fallen on a level playing field with all kinds of charlatans... Here lay the contradiction leading Richard Dawkins to being "astounded that religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth based on hard evidence."

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/6260788/

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 17:12:45 -0800

Mark the lark on Hinduism

... Hinduism (which was akin to animism and the root for the other religions that followed) is a collection of philosophical thoughts and a very broadly defined way of life and has no name for itself. The name Hindu (those living on the other side of the river Indus) is a name given by the either the Muslims or possibly by the Greeks during Alexander's invasion. There is major difference between Hinduism and the Judaic Religions. The later took the path of defining reality (God) as "the One"; while Hinduism took the path of describing reality (God) as "the Infinite". This led the early sages to contemplate many (endless) possibilities of reality including that there is no reality (and no God). So intense was the wonder at the concept of infinity, I think, that in trying to imagine it, they inevitably chanced upon its obverse side - nothingness. Zero. Which apart from changing mathematics plays a major role in Indian philosophy.

There are, therefore, many schools of thought in Hinduism. There is a dualistic version and non-dualistic versions. The Indian mind is, to say the least, very accommodating to conflicting theories. In fact it takes great delight in contradictions. Any description of ultimate reality (and any ultimate ideas of good/evil, right/wrong etc) is treated with great suspicion.

Good and evil are, in a way, relative because they are, in the Hindu mind, tied to the concept of `dharma', a word, which serves two meanings - religion and `duty'. It can be refined to mean duty which destiny or `karma' assigns to a person. Good is doing one's dharma and evil is forgetting or willfully ignoring one's dharma. One man's meat can be another man's poison.

Diwali is celebrated to commemorate the return of the epic hero Rama to his city of Ayodhya after defeating the `rakshas' (evil) king Ravana as recounted in the `Ramayana' one of the two classic epics of Hinduism, the other being the `Mahabharata'. Both deal with dharma and its various interpretations. Both Rama and Krishna, on whom the Mahabharata is centred. are avatars of Vishnu one of the triumvirate of Gods (the others -Shiva and Brahma) who are aspects of Brahman, the indefinable (and ultimate?) reality.
In the Ramayana, Ravana abducts Sita, Rama's wife, and takes her to his kingdom of Lanka. The major part of the epic is about how Rama gets Sita back. The various episodes deal with how the various characters who take part deal with their dharma. Ravana, the `evil' king has great powers bestowed on him by Shiva as a reward for his penances and devotion to him, so there is a lot of good in him. He is a great and mighty king who forgets his duty to his kingship when he abducts Sita for personal reasons.

The ending is very interesting. Rama too falters. In one version of the epic, on his return, some of his subjects question Sita's virtuousness when she was in Lanka. Rama, as king, is torn between his duty to satisfy his people and his duty to stand by his wife. He puts his kingdom before all else and Sita is asked to prove her virtue. She agrees and calls Mother Earth as her witness, who opens up and takes her into her bosom. So Rama loses Sita, his beloved wife.

What is right? What is wrong? What is good? What is evil? The Ancient Greeks would have loved the Ramayana. ...

Art Copyright ExoticIndianArt.com

I wrote the following in my comment about Diwala on October 22: "Ok, now about Diwali. I read in Wikipedia that "the 'Festival of Lights' symbolizes the victory of good over evil". This surprises me. From the very little knowledge I have about it I always thought that dualism was not a central feature in Indian philosophies. And here is a festival celebrating the victory of good over evil...
Could someone who knows something about the subject write some commentary please? I'll just ask my friend mark-the-lark "

Mark answered me a few days ago and authorized me to publish his answer. It is here above.
Thanks Mark. This was very helpful indeed.

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/6164054/

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:17:59 -0700

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/6129582/

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 11:43:14 -0700

Hardcore unicycle, "trial" style.
in youtube by anomymous Frenchman.

URL: Hardcore unicycle, "trial" style.

Great to relax from all the other heavy stuff...

http://laodan.stumbleupon.com/review/6037086/

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 16:35:19 -0700