A song called “Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt” is currently at N.2 in the U.K. singles chart.
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The Danger of Knowledge - Zhuangzi - Chapter 3 (The Basics of Nurturing Life)
CC Tsai illustration: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Way_of_Nature/1ZuBDwAAQBAJ
Full text Translated by Burton Watson: https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html -
“All technical progress exacts a price. We cannot believe that Technique brings us nothing; but we must not think that what it brings it brings free of charge.”— Jacques Ellul, “The Technological Order” (1962)
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US Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught (politico)
The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks, officials directly familiar with the matter said. Investigators found suspicious activity in networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation and the Richland Field Office of the DOE.
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"No Bubble" - #Comedy #Economics #fuckcars
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The Cost of Sequencing a Human Genome ($942 in 2020)
#Comment: This chart (and the culture that produced it) is comedic on many levels. Firstly, Moore's Law has come to an end and is deeply miss-understood: While technologists like to frame it as "number of transistors double every 2y" - they never truly inquire "WHY does it double?". Its no magic: The law is a metric of unfettered economic growth and mindless accelerationism. The same "let's reduce reality down to a singular number and optimize that like crazy" mentality seems to be a primary driver in the biotech field, with the added bonus of saying "its about your health!". Are there any adults in the room to watch Dr.Frankenstein?
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China’s Genetics Giant Wants to Tailor Medicine to Your DNA (Bloomberg) (Archive)
BGI is racing toward a world where your DNA informs your medical decisions—and maybe some of your personal ones. Things could get weird.
"There are limits to what Wang says he’s prepared to contemplate. The company, he points out, is no longer studying the genetic origins of intelligence. But he suggests that, if researchers are able to truly identify genes that produce smarts, a Gattaca-esque push for designer babies is probably inevitable, especially in ultracompetitive China, where there’s already a robust market for genetic tests that supposedly gauge innate talent for math or music. BGI has no plans to help parents customize their offspring, but “there’s lots of people who want to do it,” Wang says. “People never stop searching for interesting things.” Unless, that is, someone stops them."
Related: BGI Group - The Biggest Genomics Company in the World?
Related: Chinese scientists have put human brain genes in monkeys—and yes, they may be smarter
Related: Chinese Researchers Use Genetic Modification to Make Buff Beagles -
"Die Konstruktion von Paradoxien. Eine Anleitung" - Vortrag von Josef Mitterer (wikipedia)
"Anstatt einen fortschritt in Richtung auf ein Ziel hin, kann ich von einem Schritt fort von dort wo wir jetzt sind reden" - Josef Mitterer
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Quiet Is More than Words - Essay by Lu Shirong
The practice of Health Qigong is inseparable from the quiet, and the “three regulations” also need the quiet. People can talk about the quiet freely in the non-practicing status, but all language activities will disappear or fade when entering into the meditation state. At this point, practitioners will feel pleasant and wonderful, caused by the integration of the body, mind and breathing, which is the meaning of “Quiet Is More than Words” talking about in this article.
First of all, the “quiet”, which usually talked about, is the review of the pleasant experience in the meditation after the practice. As we all know, the meditation state of the practice is beyond description, which is a character of quiet. The quiet described in the words is not the original ecology. In terms of general practitioners, the cognition of quiet is mostly from the oral transmission of teacher before participating in the practice and the cognition of quiet also needs to be found with the guide of the predecessors after participating in the practice. While entering into the meditation state, the cognition of quiet is beyond description, or the mentality in the meditation state has disappeared without a trace before opening the mouth. Thus, the quiet expressed by language has been away from its nature and converted to the quiet in the language environment, which can be expressed as fleeting or brief stopover or enduring caused by penetrating into all aspects of daily life. Therefore, practitioners still miss the wonderful quiet after leaving the meditation state. So they try to find some words to praise that kind of quiet. For example, quiet is a basic condition of Health Qigong, quiet is an essential kind of temperament of practitioners, and quiet is an accomplishment of practitioners. All these are the reviews and aftertastes of the meditation state. That is true. Quiet is the key factor to observe all things, so as to practice in high spirits. Most people cannot feel the taste of quiet, because of being capricious and busy. Unquiet mind leads to ineffective ideal condition. The so-called meditation refers to the quiet mind rather than the quiet physical condition, and the physical condition is never quiet. In this sense, the integration of three regulations in the practice of Health Qigong is to pursue the quiet of the body, mind and breathing, achieving the state of quiet and emptiness and observing all things with that kind of mentality. Then all things will exhibit the natural charm, and the exercisers can focus on the most subtle place, or even the infinity vast universe, caring deeply about all tings. As Su Shi said, “To make wonderful poem, poet must keep quiet and empty, so as to take in all things”, which is a kind of pleasant experience of meditation.
Secondly, the survival conditions for human language have gone in the meditation state, which is the essence of “Quiet Is More than Words”. Language is a tool for thinking and communication, closely linking with thinking, which is the carrier of thinking, substances housing and pattern of manifestation. Language is a symbolic system, which is a system combining with voice, semantic, vocabulary and grammar organization law.
On the one hand, after entering the language system, people have to express their mind through speaking or writing. Precisely at this link, "talking and writing” are contrary to “forgetting everything” required by the meditation. In that case, exercisers must only choose one of the two. So, to choose meditation, the language must be given up. The pattern of “Quiet Is More than Words” is formed. The Chinese character “Jing ( Quiet)” is composed by two characters, namely “Qing (blue)” and “Zheng (scramble)”. How to scramble the blue? Raise head to see the blue sky, which is the original quiet. How wonderful it is! On the other hand, from the beginning, conversion and implementation stage of meditation and formation of language, we can find that the formation of language is completely opposite to the direction of meditation. In the initial stage, language is used to express thoughts according to the purposes, while the meditation is to eliminate distractions. In the conversion stage, convert the thoughts into the form of language conform to the syntactic rules, while the meditation is to achieve the state of the integration of three regulations. In the implementation stage, the language is used to speak or write the contents in their own forms, while the meditation is to be tranquil and nothingness. In short, there are insurmountable barrier between the meditation and language, the mutual exclusiveness makes the view of “Quiet Is More than Words” sensible, reasonable and logical. Of course, exercisers may not be able to enter the meditation state without words, which is not in the scope of this paper.
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What is Health Qigong? What is your benefit with practice any Health Qigong movements?
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The Great Conjunction - 21st December 2020
On the 21st December 2020 a rare astronomical event will occur. The "great conjunction" of the two largest planets of our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn, will bring them to only 0.1 degree apart, the closest they've been since 1623 and the closest that can be observed since 1226.
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The Natural Order, according to Qigong. The western scientific mindset is upside down confused.
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The Super Nintendo's audio subsystem was 8 Bit and had 64 KB RAM. What Artists managed to do with this highly limited system is truly astonishing even by today's standard. It should serve as a wakeup call for modern composers, that require super computers to produce even basic garbage.