tag > Culture
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Roman God Mercury with his caduceus, in his chariot, drawn by cockerels.
Engraving by Carlo Lasinio after Raphael, 1516. Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals and a god of trade, thieves, and travel, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His characteristics and mythology were borrowed from the analogous Greek god, Hermes. Mercury has influenced the name of many things in a variety of scientific fields, such as the planet, and the chemical element. The word mercurial is commonly used to refer to something or someone erratic, volatile or unstable, derived from Mercury's swift flights from place to place. He is often depicted holding the Caduceus in his left hand.
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The biopsychosocial model is an interdisciplinary model that looks at the interconnection between biology, psychology, and socio-environmental factors. The model specifically examines how these aspects play a role in topics ranging from health and disease models to human development. This model was developed by George L. Engel in 1977 and is the first of its kind to employ this type of multifaceted thinking.
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Victor's way in County Wicklow, Ireland, is a privately owned meditation garden notable for its black granite sculptures. The the park is dedicated to cryptographer Alan Turing. The Fasting Buddha icon-cum-sculpture is a copy of a 1st century AD stone icon (called ‘the ascetic Bodhisattva’) robbed by British archaeologists in the 19th century from an ancient Buddhist pilgrimage site in Taxila, Pakistan. The original, created in the Gandhara Period in Greco-Roman style (note the dramatic, wholly un-Buddhist appearance + the Roman toga + the typically Roman hairdo and beard), is approx. 60 centimetres high and made of Schist stone. It’s on view in Lahore Museum.
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Dark Comedy: JPMorgan Drops Terms 'Master,' 'Slave' From Internal Tech Code and Materials
JPMorgan Chase is eliminating terms like "blacklist," "master" and "slave" from its internal technology materials and code as it seeks to address racism within the company, said two sources with knowledge of the move. Reuters reports:
#Comment: Just how many unaccounted trillions did the Bankers and their Spook & Billionaire friends extort in recent years? Luckily they can easily hide all - as public attention is for sale.
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"Any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure." - Melvin E. Conway
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"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" - Pascal
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Lenin on World Government
“There is no doubt that the development is going in the direction of a single World trust which will swallow up all enterprises and all states without exception. But the development in this direction is proceeding under such stress, with such a tempo, with such contradictions, conflicts and convulsions not only economical, but political national, etc. etc — that before a single world trust will be reached, before the respective financial national capitals will have formed a “World Union” of ultra imperialism, imperialism will explode and capitalism will turn into its opposite." - Vladimir Lenin, (Introduction to Imperialism and World Economy by N, Bukharin, Martin Lawrence, 1917)
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Ainu Art from Sakhalin: Illustration shows a seta kiraw, a head decoration for the lead dog.
Sakhalin is at the southern edge of dog-sled culture in East Asia. The equipment and names used among the Sakhalin Ainu are very similar to those of northern peoples. The illustration shows a seta kiraw, a head decoration for the lead dog.
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Humans fundamentally misunderstood Evolution
"700,000 Years Of Progress" - Art by Alfred Frueh (1880-1968) The evolution of species is not going always "upwards" as commonly understood, but it is arguably even going "downwards" in recent times. Perceiving humans as more "advanced" as Trees, Worms or Dolphins is a very arrogant, reductionist, stupid joke. In the bigger picture, there is no discernible "objective function" or "arrow of progress" at all, only temporary patterns and habits in time. Evolution is not going anywhere at all. There is no "answer" or "destination" at the end of the rainbow - contrary to the gospel of the religion du jour (science), which keeps preaching visions of a "mathematically beautiful end state which we are racing towards" (which is essentially the science version of God).
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Finland became the forerunner of understanding and accepting digital culture in general and the Demoscene in particular as cultural heritage. Right before the Easter weekend the Finnish Heritage Agency announced, that the Ministry of Education and Culture listed the Demoscene on proposals from the National Board of Antiquities and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Expert Group as national cultural heritage of humanity together with eleven other cultural practices.
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Microsoft’s new mixed reality headset, the HoloLens 2, was featured in a commercial and campaign starring artist Marina Abramović, who is known for promoting and practicing arts such as Spirit Cooking.
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Standard of Cyrus the Great The Achaemenid Empire, also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire based in Western Asia founded by Cyrus the Great. Ranging from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, it was larger than any previous empire in history, spanning 5.5m km2. Incorporating various peoples of different origins and faiths, it is notable for its successful model of a centralised, bureaucratic administration, for building infrastructure such as road systems and a postal system, the use of an official language across its territories, and the development of civil services and a large army.
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Eating Animals is the root cause of many of our current global challenge.
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Thinker of the day: Paul Feyerabend (1924 - 1994)
Feyerabend defended the idea that science should be separated from the state in the same way that religion and state are separated in a modern secular society (Against Method (3rd ed.). p. 160.). He envisioned a "free society" in which "all traditions have equal rights and equal access to the centres of power" (Science in a Free Society. p. 9.). According to Feyerabend, science should also be subjected to democratic control: not only should the subjects that are investigated by scientists be determined by popular election, scientific assumptions and conclusions should also be supervised by committees of lay people. He thought that citizens should use their own principles when making decisions about these matters. He rejected the view that science is especially "rational" on the grounds that there is no single common "rational" ingredient that unites all the sciences but excludes other modes of thought (Against Method (3rd ed.). p. 246.).
