i still fully support the writers strike, but i’ve been anxiously awaiting the next installment of battlestar reimagined. and i’m crossing my fingers very tightly that when they find earth, it won’t be 1980 again.
here’s a new trailer now airing for the show
some thoughts on the 12th cyclon below the fold. warning: spoiler potential if you’re not current with the series.
i’ve read a couple interesting things about logo design this week. in one, new york times magazine explains how the biohazard logo was designed in 1966. the team from dow chemical created a number of logos and they tested them for memorability. how does one test for memorability? they showed a set of sample logos to a group, then returned three weeks later to ask which they remembered from the previous test. and the chosen logo was the one that most people had a solid memory of.
hi all. i’m slammed with work this week and next. may have some time for some thoughts here within that but for the most part i’m going to be too busy. but life is good in the midst of exertion.
dharmasun is hosting a video of dzongsar khyentse rinpoche discussing the origins and categories of buddhism. He is one of my favorite tibetan teachers; he’s brilliant and funny. i really recommend watching the video or just a few moments to see what i mean. it’s in english past the very short introduction in tibetan.
he jokes about how having a mobile phone is important to buddhism, and uses that as an example, as one example of his silliness.
jamie wheal, an executive management consultant, released an interesting set of slides under creative commons, called Free Your Ass, and your Mind will Follow. he advocates mental and physical training - including bio-feedback games and other mental skills exercises - as something that all business leaders should pursue. he cites the military and nasa as examples where this kind of training is being used effectively.
like him it really surprises me that mental exercise like meditation and mental training is not more commonplace. especially after neuroplasticity studies are finding that mental training at all ages actually reshapes the brain in positive ways.
colloquially, games like cross word puzzles, sudoku, riddles, card games, board games, and the like are all probably performing this function for people; as is work itself. but research is finding meditation beneficial in many areas, and games designed specifically for the task do much better at growing new brain cells than common puzzles.
there was an update to the apple tv, and movie rentals, and happily they got all the major studios to play in the rental space. that’s HUGE. even if they’re not all selling the movies on itunes it’s a huge step forward for apple in terms of relationships with the content providers. many of whom were reluctant to play in the itunes space until now.
but no ipod docking with the apple tv! i still think that would be a useful addition for ipods and would allow non-computer users to use an ipod with movie rentals. they need to do it for apple tv!
cudos on the MacBook air though, that design is super sexy. i think apple’s design philosophy is to create products so significantly better than the competition as to create a “lust factor”.
i find the church of scientology fascinating. especially their military sea org wing. i don’t have a problem with their religion really, seems very similar to hinduism and buddhism philosophically and in terms of method. but they definitely have an interesting culture to me. and by interesting i also mean odd.
a nine minute video of tom cruise speaking to church members, with a hilarious and corny mission impossible background music and afterward narration, is posted on gawker.
according to wikinews, the acronyms he uses mean:
KSW = keeping scientology working, policy of ensuring the churches survival
SP = suppressive persons
PTSP = potential trouble source
go tom!
the churches attempts to have this video removed from the Internet is another example of how efforts like that backfire. i heard about the video because of that effort, and i’m writing about it in part because of it.
UPDATE: MTV has an article explaining more of the scientology lexicon tom uses.
ok, i’ll play. today is ‘guess what apple will announce tomorrow’ day.
there may be a new macbook mini or even a new newton (apple has had a handwriting recognition software team working still all these years); i’m as interested in where they go with TV and consumer electronics.
the apple tv product has potential. add DVR, docking to ipods and the iphone, and throw in ten free movie rentals and tv subscriptions. maybe a stretch, but with an interesting content announcement to go with it…
adding ipod docking would be good for two reasons.
you could buy an ipod and an apple tv and together do all your music syncing and shopping and tv show renting or downloading all without a computer. that opens up a much larger potential base of customers. now you need a computer - and to be comfortable with one - to use an ipod or iphone.
buy or rent TV and movies and take them with you on a portable device.
then another super interesting feature would be to add a camera to apple tv, and setup video ichat between apple tv and iphone users. then i could get an apple tv for my grandma, and video chat with her from my iphone…
i hope they add “ecosystem value” more than individual product value, building on how the devices interact and support each other.
gesar was an epic hero in tibet, like king arthur to the english. Matjaz Trontelj just posted in his blog pictures of gesar’s home town from his trip to eastern tibet. really stunning pictures. if you click to his selected photos, you’ll get a further treat like a picture of monks at shechen monastery.
it’s difficult to explain the buddhist notion of emptiness to people. sounds quite nihilistic. how can it describe the ultimate nature of reality, are they saying that it is a complete void? early buddhist translations made this even worse, when they translated the sanskrit word shunyata as voidness. but it’s really quite the opposite of that, it’s about the interdependence of all things.
this quote by sogyal rinpoche just came by my email inbox:
Nothing has any inherent existence of its own when you really look at it, and this absence of independent existence is what we call “emptiness.” Think of a tree. When you think of a tree, you tend to think of a distinctly defined object; and on a certain level it is. But when you look more closely at the tree, you will see that ultimately it has no independent existence.
When you contemplate it, you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle net of relationships that stretches across the universe. The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it, all the seasons and the weather, moonlight and starlight and sunlight—all form part of this tree.
As you begin to think more and more about the tree, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is; that it cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else; and that at every moment its nature is subtly changing. This is what we mean when we say things are empty, that they have no independent existence.
this is true of trees and everything really, but what’s even more amazing, it’s true of us too.
monkey see, monkey do serves as a personal blog and creative outlet for
