feather
posted by Slade at 9:28 AM
0 comments
Monday, February 28, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
Stock Photos - Royalty-Free Stock Photos by Subscription at Photos.com
posted by Slade at 6:06 PM
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The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan: "Now one might ask: 'How can a thought live? In what way does it live? Has it a body to live in, has it a mind, has it a breath?' Yes. The first thing we should know is that a breath which comes directly from the source seeks a body, an accommodation in which to function. A thought is as a body. The breath which runs from the source - as a ray of the spirit which may be likened to the sun - makes the thought an entity; it lives as an entity.
It is these entities that are called in Sufi terms muwakkals, which means elementals. They live, they have a certain purpose to accomplish. They are given birth by man, and behind them there is a purpose to direct their life. Imagine how terrible it is if in a moment's absorption a person expresses his wrath, his passion, his hatred! A word expressed at such a moment must live and carry out its purpose. It is like creating an army of enemies around oneself. Perhaps one thought has a longer life than another; it depends on what body has been given to it. If the body is stronger, then it lives longer. On the energy of the mind the strength of the body of that thought depends.
Elementals are created by man. When the winds blow and the storms rage, creating all destruction, one looks on it as a mechanical action of nature. But it is not only mechanical action, it is directed by man's feelings, by the intense feelings of human beings. These feelings turn into huge lives. They push as a battery behind winds and storms, floods and volcanoes.
And so other thoughts which call for blessing, such as rainfall, must bring the mercy of God upon the earth. In the East they call the rain the divine mercy. The sunshine, when the sky is clear, and all other blessings of nature - the pure air that is exhilarating, the spring, good crops, fruits, flowers and vegetables, all different blessings from the earth or heaven which are given to us - are also directed by forces behind them.
"
It is these entities that are called in Sufi terms muwakkals, which means elementals. They live, they have a certain purpose to accomplish. They are given birth by man, and behind them there is a purpose to direct their life. Imagine how terrible it is if in a moment's absorption a person expresses his wrath, his passion, his hatred! A word expressed at such a moment must live and carry out its purpose. It is like creating an army of enemies around oneself. Perhaps one thought has a longer life than another; it depends on what body has been given to it. If the body is stronger, then it lives longer. On the energy of the mind the strength of the body of that thought depends.
Elementals are created by man. When the winds blow and the storms rage, creating all destruction, one looks on it as a mechanical action of nature. But it is not only mechanical action, it is directed by man's feelings, by the intense feelings of human beings. These feelings turn into huge lives. They push as a battery behind winds and storms, floods and volcanoes.
And so other thoughts which call for blessing, such as rainfall, must bring the mercy of God upon the earth. In the East they call the rain the divine mercy. The sunshine, when the sky is clear, and all other blessings of nature - the pure air that is exhilarating, the spring, good crops, fruits, flowers and vegetables, all different blessings from the earth or heaven which are given to us - are also directed by forces behind them.
"
posted by Slade at 5:11 PM
0 comments
The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan: "Does this idea not make us responsible for every movement we make, for every thought we think, for every feeling that passes through our mind or heart? There is not one moment of our life wasted, if we only know how to utilize our activity here, how to direct our thought, how to express it in words, how to further it with our movement, how to feel it, so that it may make its own atmosphere."
posted by Slade at 5:00 PM
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Meme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Meme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "There is a tendency in memetics to disparage religious memes. However, some authorities speculate that traditional religions act as mental immune systems to suppress new memes that can be harmful. Interestingly, this can be compared with a virus (here a religion - a 'bundle' of religious memes) being ineffective if it kills its host. For example, popular Christianity forbids both murder and suicide (an idea from St. Augustine's City of God), and its precise definitions of heresy assure that new religions that advocate such actions cannot be accepted by educated Christians."
posted by Slade at 4:55 PM
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Meme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Meme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "It is surprising to many memetics advocates to learn of meme-like concepts described long ago, which are prevalent in Sufi teaching. Muwakkals are considered separate beings, elementals, that make up human thought."
posted by Slade at 4:53 PM
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Someone please explain this to me
What the hell is the purpose of a blog that looks like
thetoyresourcecenter.blogspot
Because randomly surfing the Next Blog button results in a healthy percentage of blogs that look like this.
uniform posts totally in the thousands, linking to further lists of similar keywords scrolling down the page... the links go nowhere...
Is this some kind of "keyword inventory" or the result of some kind of robot generating domain name possibilities and automatically posting them? Is there a real human being that this MEANS anything to?
I'm awfully curious...
thetoyresourcecenter.blogspot
Because randomly surfing the Next Blog button results in a healthy percentage of blogs that look like this.
uniform posts totally in the thousands, linking to further lists of similar keywords scrolling down the page... the links go nowhere...
Is this some kind of "keyword inventory" or the result of some kind of robot generating domain name possibilities and automatically posting them? Is there a real human being that this MEANS anything to?
I'm awfully curious...
posted by Slade at 3:52 PM
0 comments
Self Evidence, with a grain of salt
Modern Marketing - Collaborate Marketing Services: Ready for the 5th Estate?
Jonathan Miller, Head of AOL in the US, testifies to the popularity of Citizen’s Media. He says that 60 – 70 per cent of the time people spend on AOL is devoted to ‘audience generated content’.
Technocrati.com tracks more than 4 million blogs and adds 20,000 a day to its register.
As I'm blogging facts & figures quoted from other blogs, about blogging, the question of fact-checking has struck me.
It would be SO easy to go out and find all the Yes-men I want for the ideas that interest me, to not only believe what I want to, but to present it as fact.
There's that game you play in a large group - it's called something like Rumour" or "Gossip" - passing word-of-mouth around a circle in whispers, for the purpose of comparing the initial seed to its last known repeated version.
Doesn't it always get changed?
Didn't all those scribes - some not so literate - all of them hand-copying texts from someone else's hand-written version - on precious materials, not so easy to come by - didn't their process collectively result in divergent texts - and aren't we paying the price in wars and social exclusion, the nasty residue left from flinging the stain of hatred around with more passion than precision?
The big mess of religious disagreement is powerful because the original sources no longer exist, and the evangelists have automatically become the definitive source themselves. And they can't be called up to clarify or confirm anything.
But isn't this discrepancy inherent (imminent?) in the history we proclaim to be the truth?
My Women's Studies History Professor in College, Miranda can't-remember-her-last-name was the first person to introduce me to the concept that History is a set of answers filtered through the Questions asked of it, and so ultimately, the Historian is the author of historical truth more than they may even consciously realize.
So, in order to believe something, we must believe the person telling it. This gives online grassroots publishers considerable bang for their blogs.
But, there is speedy set of checks and balances that comes to play - all the loud-mouth squeaky-wheeled dissenters and critics who will swarm a conversation and if nothing else shine their collective light on it. If there's a rat, and someone smells it, the blogosphere is a lot more likely to cough it up in the light of day and turn it inside out than the Big Brother Media on the other side of the room clinging to the idea of united fronts and a controlled, contracted agenda.
It goes round in circles.
Ultimately, it's up to the individual to invent their own opinion of the Truth and that's the end of the line, even if the conversation goes on to infinity.
You can't believe everything you read. Even the numbers can't be trusted - the Truth determined by a show of hands is as nuanced and shaded at its core as there are different fingerprints stirring it up in the air.
If you think Numbers don't lie, just ask them to raise their hands if they're a liar.
Jonathan Miller, Head of AOL in the US, testifies to the popularity of Citizen’s Media. He says that 60 – 70 per cent of the time people spend on AOL is devoted to ‘audience generated content’.
Technocrati.com tracks more than 4 million blogs and adds 20,000 a day to its register.
As I'm blogging facts & figures quoted from other blogs, about blogging, the question of fact-checking has struck me.
It would be SO easy to go out and find all the Yes-men I want for the ideas that interest me, to not only believe what I want to, but to present it as fact.
There's that game you play in a large group - it's called something like Rumour" or "Gossip" - passing word-of-mouth around a circle in whispers, for the purpose of comparing the initial seed to its last known repeated version.
Doesn't it always get changed?
Didn't all those scribes - some not so literate - all of them hand-copying texts from someone else's hand-written version - on precious materials, not so easy to come by - didn't their process collectively result in divergent texts - and aren't we paying the price in wars and social exclusion, the nasty residue left from flinging the stain of hatred around with more passion than precision?
The big mess of religious disagreement is powerful because the original sources no longer exist, and the evangelists have automatically become the definitive source themselves. And they can't be called up to clarify or confirm anything.
But isn't this discrepancy inherent (imminent?) in the history we proclaim to be the truth?
My Women's Studies History Professor in College, Miranda can't-remember-her-last-name was the first person to introduce me to the concept that History is a set of answers filtered through the Questions asked of it, and so ultimately, the Historian is the author of historical truth more than they may even consciously realize.
So, in order to believe something, we must believe the person telling it. This gives online grassroots publishers considerable bang for their blogs.
But, there is speedy set of checks and balances that comes to play - all the loud-mouth squeaky-wheeled dissenters and critics who will swarm a conversation and if nothing else shine their collective light on it. If there's a rat, and someone smells it, the blogosphere is a lot more likely to cough it up in the light of day and turn it inside out than the Big Brother Media on the other side of the room clinging to the idea of united fronts and a controlled, contracted agenda.
It goes round in circles.
Ultimately, it's up to the individual to invent their own opinion of the Truth and that's the end of the line, even if the conversation goes on to infinity.
You can't believe everything you read. Even the numbers can't be trusted - the Truth determined by a show of hands is as nuanced and shaded at its core as there are different fingerprints stirring it up in the air.
If you think Numbers don't lie, just ask them to raise their hands if they're a liar.
posted by Slade at 2:33 PM
0 comments
Saturday, February 12, 2005
First Person - The MIT Press
First Person - The MIT Press: "Some are arguing that digital games (as the heirs of the novel and of film) constitute the next great arena for storytelling; others respond that games are not narratives at all and require a different theoretical framework and a new discipline. Still others are describing their own exciting contributions to interactive fiction, poetry, or visual/verbal art. By the time you return from this virtual tour of the world of Game Studies, you realize that all of these rooms (and all these topics) are connected in an intricate and compelling architecture of ideas. You begin to understand the rich possibilities that computer games offer . . . as drama, narrative, and simulation. You come to appreciate the great theoretical task that lies before us in exploring both the formal properties and the cultural significance of computer games.'
--Jay David Bolter, Wesley Professor of New Media, Georgia Institute of Technology"
--Jay David Bolter, Wesley Professor of New Media, Georgia Institute of Technology"
posted by Slade at 8:04 AM
0 comments
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Web Pages That Suck presents the biggest web design mistakes in 2004 learn usability and good Web design by looking at bad Web design
Web Pages That Suck presents the biggest web design mistakes in 2004 learn usability and good Web design by looking at bad Web design: " I learned quickly that business executives didn't care about usability testing or information design. Explaining the importance of these areas didn't get us any more work. Instead, when we're in front of executives, we quickly learned to talk about only five things:
1. How do we increase revenue?
2. How do we reduce expenses?
3. How do we bring in more customers?
4. How do we get more business out of each existing customer?
5. How do we increase shareholder value?
Notice that the words 'design', 'usability', or 'navigation' never appear in these questions. We found, early on, that the less we talked about usability or design, the bigger our projects got. Today, I'm writing a proposal for a $470,000 project where the word 'usability' isn't mentioned once in the proposal.
When we work with teams, we teach them to follow the money and look for the pain. Somewhere in your organization, someone is feeling pain because they aren't getting the answers they want to one of the questions above.
I'm using these quotes only to show you the silliness of falling in love with web design belief systems. Unfortunately, while this attitude will may get you business, it is still Mistake #1 -- the organization is trying to solve its problems rather than the customers' problems."
1. How do we increase revenue?
2. How do we reduce expenses?
3. How do we bring in more customers?
4. How do we get more business out of each existing customer?
5. How do we increase shareholder value?
Notice that the words 'design', 'usability', or 'navigation' never appear in these questions. We found, early on, that the less we talked about usability or design, the bigger our projects got. Today, I'm writing a proposal for a $470,000 project where the word 'usability' isn't mentioned once in the proposal.
When we work with teams, we teach them to follow the money and look for the pain. Somewhere in your organization, someone is feeling pain because they aren't getting the answers they want to one of the questions above.
I'm using these quotes only to show you the silliness of falling in love with web design belief systems. Unfortunately, while this attitude will may get you business, it is still Mistake #1 -- the organization is trying to solve its problems rather than the customers' problems."
posted by Slade at 9:41 AM
0 comments
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Friday, February 04, 2005
Torres.com - Notes on Typepad
notes: "I picked TypePad because I find it makes me think more creatively about solutions for getting it to do what I want it to do. I figure there's a lot of people out there who might be dealing with those same problems but not know how to program, and that's just the kind of group I like to help out."
Amen.
However I am finally running the Real Deal Movable Type - and can I just confess?
--Don't tell the No-techs who are using Typepad because then they might just swarm the MT Proper... Especially now that they're allowing 3rd party hosting...
This new Movable Type 3.whatever is so much easier to use than Typepad!
The templating admin screens and the dropdown list for multiblogs is very straight forward compared to TP's requirement that you "export template sets" and all that. If you know a little HTML and CSS, the organization of templates and linked files seems much more obvious than it does in TypePad.
I would hang on to my TypePad, after having it since the end of the beta, but I'm really not using it enough to justify the expense. At present, it's mostly a Stylesheet Studio, and even though I wrecked my WordPress index template and will have a little work cut out for me getting that Kubrick layout back up (I modified it, yes, and only half-remember how) WordPress is still my tool of choice.
I always thought the MT installation was too daunting to try...
So, I've learned enough to finally come play with Movable Type, and I must say that I am very impressed with it. The template organization makes more sense than either WP or TP.
04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (2)
Amen.
However I am finally running the Real Deal Movable Type - and can I just confess?
--Don't tell the No-techs who are using Typepad because then they might just swarm the MT Proper... Especially now that they're allowing 3rd party hosting...
This new Movable Type 3.whatever is so much easier to use than Typepad!
The templating admin screens and the dropdown list for multiblogs is very straight forward compared to TP's requirement that you "export template sets" and all that. If you know a little HTML and CSS, the organization of templates and linked files seems much more obvious than it does in TypePad.
I would hang on to my TypePad, after having it since the end of the beta, but I'm really not using it enough to justify the expense. At present, it's mostly a Stylesheet Studio, and even though I wrecked my WordPress index template and will have a little work cut out for me getting that Kubrick layout back up (I modified it, yes, and only half-remember how) WordPress is still my tool of choice.
I always thought the MT installation was too daunting to try...
So, I've learned enough to finally come play with Movable Type, and I must say that I am very impressed with it. The template organization makes more sense than either WP or TP.
04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (2)
posted by Slade at 3:43 AM
0 comments
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
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