Walking into music theory class yesterday, I noticed the upright piano at the front of the room had it's lid open. This made me curious. Our teacher explained that he had "loosened up the action" in order to give us a demo.

He proceeded to very lightly press the key for a low C, just enough so the hammer wouldn't be on the string, but not enough to sound the note. He then struck the C above it quickly. We all perked up our ears, because after the higher C had sounded, there was a much quieter version of the note that lingered on. The lingering note was actually sounding on the lower C string, entrained into vibrating when the higher was played.

This was the first demonstration of the overtone series I had ever heard, and it was pretty neat!

Of course, it's all basic physics. The strings have a fundamental frequency at which they vibrate, but integer multiples of that frequency also vibrate just as readily. These distinct frequencies are called the normal modes or natural frequencies of a system. In music, they call them overtones, and, I just learned, they apparently govern what notes sound consonant relative to one another. Cool!

As I was sitting there watching the demo I become curious, though. For you see, I recently acquired a Kawai MP5 Stage Piano. I mainly got it for its key action, which is fantastic, but it also sounds great (apologies for the poor playing.) I knew it was supposed to have some kind of simulation of resonance between key strings, but I wasn't sure whether it could pull of anything like the physical process I had just seen.

So I went home, performed the same ritual (minus messing with the action!) and lo-and behold, it worked! I mean, I may be a complete digital piano newb here, but I was really surprised! Without sounding the bottom C, just keeping the virtual string open, I could "entrain" it to notes all the way up the overtone series! Notes off the series would just die away regularly, but once you hit the overtone it would linger. They weren't all the same either, I noticed some sounded louder or differently than others, but that may just be the speaker setup.

So yeah, that pretty much just satisfied me in all manner of geeky ways! Now I want to go practice some piano...

I wish the pictures on my dream cameras would transfer to my real world cameras... I sometimes even check my camera when I wake up in the morning on the off chance magic has occurred this particular day. No go =(

I guess the real problem is that it DOES sometimes work when I'm dreaming about dreaming. When I come out of my dream dream my camera still has all those awesome pictures on it.

Also, every freaking time I start bouncing in a dream (my prefered way of getting around in dream world) I'm like "Yes! I finally figured out how to do it in the real world!" ... And then I wake up. =(


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I don't post on here as often anymore because I ussually post my link commentary on my StumbleUpon page if you are interested.

Things I learned in India:

• Up is Down. (on light switches)
• Left is Right. (on roads)
• Hot is Cold. (on faucets)
• Indian driving is awesome and the horn is the most important part of your vehicle.
• I don't exist. (not a direct experience... yet.)

So yeah, I had a wonderful time! The field of devine energy there at the campus was amazing... I went through alot of emotional detox, and as I went through it the negative charges were removed. That is a big part of what the process there is. Basically it went like this:

1. Some kind of synchronicity or "chance" occurance sparks some nagative emotional stuff in you. (everything happened exactly when it needed to happen.)
2. You feel like crap, but the "teaching" they give advises you to stay with it as well as you can. You stay with it and the stories that are attached with the emotional feelings start coming out and you just kind of watch them. It can sometimes go back a long ways, sometimes even to childhood.
3. You move on. For me this would happen pretty quickly.
4. Another event comes through and tries to trigger the same emotion. You notice how somehow you just don't feel as bad this time. Or maybe you don't feel bad at all. You remember what bothered you so much before, but it just doesn't anymore

And that was a large part of the process. There was alot more going on behind the scenes... They were really -- as one of the guys put it -- upgrading our hardware. All we did outwardly was come and listen to teachings everyday, meditate, eat, sleep. Internally we were going through alot of emotional stuff as outlined above, and behind what we could perceive there was alot of work being done on us.

All of this process was paving the way for us to have a personal connection to our own form of the devine. Whether it be The Absolute, God, the Dao, Buddha, Allah, or however you personally view it. The whole process really lets you see it and feel so grateful... and to top it all off, it's personal. The God who resides in my heart is my water brother, my friend, my companion. That personal connetion is so important, because God is not some impersonal thing "out there".

That's why it is called the Oneness Movement. They are helping man feel one with the devine, the universe, eachother. The 21-day process I attended was just an initiation... the process continues. It also was to give me the ability to give "Deeksha" as it was called before, or "Oneness Blessings" as it is called now.

The real work of the Oneness Blessing is nothing that I do... all I do is call my version of the devine and ask it to help the person I am placing my hands on. The intention is exactly the same as everything I said above: help people with their mind, body, soul, and mundane problems so they can feel the devine in their lives. Really good stuff!

When I get "Oneness Blessings", it's a bit different depending on who's giving them, but ussually I feel some energy coming in through the head, then I just feel really content. Other people have had alot more pwerful experiences... I'm sure you can find pages and pages of them on the web in various places. The blessing is expereienced differently by everyone. It might even bring up negative stuff you've been avoiding, and you might go through a bit of an emotional detox like I mentioned above.

So yeah, I had a really great time! I have lot's of great stories if you're interested and am around if you have questions. Also if you are interested in getting a "Oneness Blessing" I'd be more then happy to send one your way! I get one whenever I give one and it can be done over the internet, phone, etc.

Namaste all!

I'm packed and out the door, heading to the other side of the planet in seach of my navel. Will let you know when I get back how far I've transitioned. I hope you all have a good Roman New Years celebration for me (if that's your thing.)

Much love and Namaste!

Check out this excellent speech by legendary physicist David Deutsch. He communicates excellent thoughts throughout and does so with a sense of humor, but his point at the end is quite important.

From the paper

Once upon a time, years ago, I was driving through a number of stop/go traffic waves on I-520 at rush hour in Seattle. I decided to try something. On a day when I immediately started hitting the usual "waves" of stopped cars, I decided to drive smoothly. Rather than repeatedly rushing ahead with everyone else, only to come to a halt, I decided to try to move at the average speed of the traffic. I let a huge gap open up ahead of me, and timed things so I was arriving at the next "stop-wave" just as the last red brakelights were turning off ahead of me. It certainly felt weird to have that huge empty space ahead of me, but I knew I was driving no slower than anyone else. Sometimes I hit it just right and never had to touch the brakes at all. Other times I was too fast or slow. There were many "waves" that evening, and this gave me many opportunities to improve my skill as I drove along.

I kept this up for maybe half an hour while approaching the city. Finally I happened to glance at my rearview mirror. There was an interesting sight.

It was dusk, the headlights were on, and I was going down a long hill to the bridges. I had a view of miles of highway behind me. In the neighboring lane I could see maybe five of the traffic stop-waves. But in the lane behind me, for miles, TOTALLY UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. I hadn't realized it, but by driving at the average speed of the traffic around me, my car had been "eating" the traffic waves.

The paper goes in to much more detail. Really, I think this should be required reading before getting your licence. Check it out!

So, first of all, awesome news! I have my passport and visa for India as of last saturday and I have a flight schedule as of today! I'm still waiting to be accepted to go, but plans are mostly set. I'm very, very excited! For those of you who don't know, I'm going to the Kalki Temple for the Oneness Movement. I'll be there for 3 weeks reciving this energy in sustained meditation. Extremely awesome.

But the time of my flight generated a very interesting theoretical question that has turned out to be much more complex then I originally thought.

The tickets are for December 31st, with me flying east overseas that evening and arriving the morning of Jan 1, 2007. So, I'll be in-flight during New Years. Or wait, will I?

I'm flying east, which means as I fly I'll be loosing hours due to time zone shifts*. With the time shifting forward a little less then once an hour it seems entirely possible to me that we could cross a timezone at 11:15 on one side and come out at 12:15 on the other. Which would mean technically I wouldn't have a New Years! I think that would be pretty unique.

Since I want to know if I'm having a New Years, I've been devoting some thought to figuring out how to correctly determine what time zone I'll be in at a certain point in the flight -- namely 12:00 AM Jan 1st Local Time. The more general question -- What time is it on an airplane? -- was posted on MetaFilter, but noone really had an answer, just thought it was a silly question. I have an important reason to know!

I'm not going to have a GPS device to provide my location at any particular moment on the airplane. If I did, it would simply be a matter of finding the time zone lines and checking my position on the hour, every hour. Since I don't, I have to come up with a function into which I can plug the time we take off and get out my position at a certain time. This poses some realistic problems though.

• First : Great Circles. That is, airlines don't fly directly East-West as one would view a map. They choose the shortest possible paths which ussually arc north or south quite a ways. Why is this important? It means that the timezones won't be coming evenly spaced in terms of distance. As the arc of my flight to India goes North, the distance between the timezones will slowly decrease. Then after the apex of the arc north it will increase. Seems likely that there might be a logrithimic relationship there.


• Second : Planes don't travel at a constant rate. What I'm guessing is that they accellerate up to cruising speed, stay there, and decelerate down. It could be much more complicated then that, but for my purposes I may be able to assume the more simplified model.


• Third : A million other tiny factors that could effect ones precise position at a specific time, including: turbulence, plane weight, tail winds, etc, etc. My solution for this could be to answer the question in terms of probability. I could perhaps even run the function through a chaos visualizer.

So first of all, I would need the method for finding the Great Circle lines. Then I would need at least a basic understnading of how the flight computer optimizes the flight speed while climbing to cruising altitudes. Finally, all of my answers would be probable at best, increadably varying at worst.

Still, even with all that, I think a general estimate of probability would be sweet. With it, I can say, "there's a 89% chance I won't have a new years this year!"

Thoughts?

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* : This is assuming standardized times, not astronomical time.

Check out this FoxTrot

And if you want to know more about why you should be scared this election, read this

Hybrid Solar Lighting is a technology that can light houses with natural solar light. It captures solar light and channels it directly into the rooms using optical fibers.

This is actually an idea I had about a year ago, so it's cool that it's manifested now =) I really like their implementation, esspecially the sun tracking solar dish that filters unnecissary wavelengths.

Gripes include, but are not limited to the fact that the dish itself runs off standard electricity to power the GPS/motor tracking system. Wouldn't it make sense to just have some small photovoltaics on there and a battery to run those? Also, the plastic fiber material they are using looks like it wastes alot of the potential light both from the fact that it looks like it isn't sheilded on the outside wall and because it's .. well.. plastic.

Deeksha

I've been doing alot with Deeksha lately: Receiving internet deekshas whenever I can, hands on from my Dad and Carrie, and invoking it on my own. It's very pleasant and deeksha coupled with positive imagery can be pretty damned powerful in manifestation.

An important part of deeksha is invoking the divine presence with the Moola Mantra and the other day it became about as clear as a blow to the head that when done correctly, you don't necisarily have to speak the mantra at all. This realization occured when I thought of the mantra and the first word, OM, resnonated like a sheet tearing inside my head. Great stuff that! So I tried to say each syllable that way, one after the other... and boy let me tell you it was tough. Each one was like lightning cracking and I would be flooded with so much bliss that it was hard to concentrate on the next word... I don't know if I ever made it all the way through without stopping or being interupted. In the end I was left with a silly grin on my face and so much bliss that I was kind of slow in reacting to anything else.

Since, I haven't had anything as powerful as that, but the tool is still there. I have since realized that I can map that resonante sphere that is the third eye on to any other point on, or out of, my body. So saying the moola mantra for every chakra in the body in a loop is pretty entertaining.

Qigong

As an extension of above, I keep forgetting what an audio/tactile person I can be in energy work. One of the most powerful things for me is finding the resonances of things. (As a banal example of this kind of resonance: have you ever sat in the bathroom, started humming at the lowest note you could reach, and slowly moved the pitch up in a continous manner? Try it if you haven't. You'll find one note will be a bit, or alot, louder then the rest. It can help if there's a fan you can try and tone match. In such cases, I often find I can "feel" the whole bathroom resonanting off my chest.)

So anyways, I've discovered and rediscovered how much internal sub-vocalization can trigger energetic resonances in me. So, I need to investigate more methods of energy work or meditation involving sounds or special words/mantras. Hosh was telling me there are words associated with each of the Hsing-I fists. Have to look into that or it's equivilent in Ninjutsu when I get there.

Also, qigong is infinitely more useful when you are in situation that generates stress. School isn't really too stressful in general right now, but the way I approach it is. So I'll go through long periods of quiet and calm followed by short periods of lots of stress. This isn't the healthy way to go, but with qigong it's quite managable. It makes it really easy to identify what you need to heal and balence ;o)

Oh, and if anyone knows how to ground out a whole bus load of people coming to and from work, let me know. I've been experimenting with different methods and suggestions and have only had minor sucess. It really needs to happen though, people are STRESSED!

Martial Arts

First off, I need to spar with my friend Matthew more often. This isn't news, but I always rediscover this fact whenever I am fortunate enough to do push hands with him. He has been doing Taiji for a long, long time. So he has the capability for a metric shit-ton of chi and I'd bet you a dollar he doesn't realize it. Most of the time I think it's latent, or maybe I just don't notice it. But when he goes into MA mode it activates and BAM I'm sweating, moving more chi, more sensitive, and grounding more. It could also be that we have a good rapport -- likely based on the years that he has spent around Taiji masters and the years I have spent getting in rapport with everything. We are both very empathic.

Secondly, I need a Dao. Badly. It finally occured to me, after all these years, that the Dao is my most natural style. Chopping and slicing with the rounded end, all circular motions, one handed, etc, etc. The jian is great and I want to get alot better with it, but I find myself doing Dao movements with the tip all the time. The Katana is too linear for me. So I'm in the market for a Dao and my standard shop isn't cutting it this time.

A camera using only one light sensor to create high resolution images is being developed at Rice University. The camera uses a an array of tiny mirrors that move in a sequence of random patterns to reflect different parts of the image onto the sensor.

I think the most interesting part is this:

... the patterns have to be random, it will not work as well if a regular pattern is used. Essentially, this random measurement is just white noise, similar to the fuzzy screen you get on a television when you tune into a dead channel.

"White noise is the key," according to Baraniuk. "Thanks to some deep new mathematics developed just a couple of years ago, we're able to get a useful, coherent image out of the randomly scattered measurements."

So what in the hell are these deep mathematics?? Does the camera have to have a true random number generator, or does it just churn out some pseudo random equations? If the latter, I'm somewhat less impressed, but if it's the former, this is kind of a "holy crap" type of deal, wouldn't you think?

Here's a good adaptation: offshore wind turbines situated on platforms inspired by oil rigs. This would allow them to be built in much deeper waters then conventional* offshore designs which use tower construction. Benefits include much more consistant, heavy winds further out at sea; cheaper construction and installation -- they can litterally be floated fully constructed to and from the site; and being out of sight of land.

One thing not mentioned is how the tie in to the grid would work. There may be an obvious answer worked out by people doing current offshore sites. My guess would be a very large floating (perhaps buoyant, but submerged?) step-up transformer connected to high-voltage, undersea transmission lines.



The towers are tethered to oceanbed anchors so they don't travel. Perhaps the interconnecting lines between turbine and transformer could run along those tethers and across oceanbed floor as well. That's at least the most durable system I can think of.

Really neat stuff!

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*: I enjoy the fact that offshore wind turbines have become, in any sense, conventional ;o)

My response to a random post claiming that North is down:

...
The only directions that make any true sense are out -- understood as "up" by terrestrial based humans -- and in.

The orientation of North, West, East, and South on a map in relation to in and out are unimportant. The Earth should be studied on an accurately rendered beach ball with no political boundries drawn. Getting hit in the head with Asia repeatedly will give you a new and profound sense of geography.

Now this is just way freaking cool.

As part of their operation, hard disks measure vibrations in order to keep the read-write head of the disk on track. These measurements can be read from some hard disks. The Tsunami Harddisk Detector captures this vibration data and shares it with computers in other locations connected via a peer-to-peer (P2P) network to determine whether an earth tremor is occurring.

In the P2P network, several participating computers act as supernodes, which analyze the data received from the other "sensing" nodes. The supernodes are able to ignore vibrations generated by a computer being kicked or shaken by recording how many computers report the same vibrations simultaneously.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Buckminister Fuller: Because we have not yet designed and implemented true,
constantly forwardly/backwardly evolving, energy-transforming living
machines which will enable us to perform all functions from the informedly
turbining hub of a single autonomous in-spiralling/out-radiating network of
space-connected information vector transforms. Had the chicken been
supplied with my Dymaxion Tensegrity Coop, it would have remained at home,
un-tempted by such risky spatial-temporal translations.

Check out this video of the GM Highwire

Runs off hydrogen, totally digitial controls, and some really fun outside the box thinking!

I really like the idea of having the bottom part of the car be all the mechanical parts and the top being completely swappable. Check it out to see what I mean.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

[ Continued ] [ Edit: I found this video version completely randomly right afterwards ]

Hehehehe

I'm really suprised I've never read Dune before -- I've had different people suggesting it to me for a good long time. I probably would have liked it back then, but I wouldn't have appreciated it's depth. It really is a masterpiece.

Frank Herbert weaves sociology, mysticism, anthropology, religion, science, ecology, all together to form a compelling sci-fi story. My only complaint is that the guy reading the audiobook either didn't get the emotions of what was going on or was just a terrible voice actor. To really give it justice, it probably would have required a cast of actors who really understood their roles.

Now I'm stuck though, there's five more of these books I'll have to read now. :: sigh :: another series.

Awesome!!

The book starts out as the kind of "theory of everything" book I so thoroughly enjoy: redefining ones understanding of life in the context of emergence, networks^[1], non-linear dynamic^[2], and a new theory of the beginning of life. Which then of course he cross references with consciousness. Which then of course he cross references to the social realm. Which then ranges into sociology, politics, ecology, and more, more!

Everything from a pretty comprehensive overview of what really goes on in your cells and DNA to the World Trade Organization. From the details of genetic engineering to Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives. It ranges all over the place and my brain giggles with joy as it soaks it all in.

He goes through his, I think, rather well laid out synthesis of what Life and this whole emerging culture of Sustainability is all about. Eco politics, agriculture, and ecodesign^[3].

I'm excited how, yet again, all the books I'm reading link to each other so well! Maybe more later.


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[1]: Cross reference with Out of Control by Kevin Kelly

[2]: Cross reference with Chaos by James Gleick

[3]: Cross Reference with Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart