A Quiet Watercourse

This has no doubt been mentioned elsewhere, but I just thought this was something I had to share.

A team of Scientists from 8 countries have sequenced the genome of a 4000 year old Eskimo, who they’re decided to call “Inuk”. They’ve learned a lot and this opens a fascinating window, allowing us to peek into the past.  Opportunities like this don’t come by every day, and I think this work does us a great service by revealing another precious fragment of our evolution as one people of the Earth.

I recently started re-reading Carl Sagan’s book “Cosmos”, I’m starting to regain the feeling I used to have of how awesome the universe is and how the story of the universe from Big Bang to the present day really is the greatest story ever told.  Years ago, Carl’s books inspired me to look deeper and begin to really question things and start to appreciate the beauty of the universe.  I’m planning to broaden my remit here at Quiet Watercourse, I plan to have some fun along the way as well.

I’ve been watching the economics news over the last couple of weeks of writers’ block with a sinking feeling.

Nobody mentions the Elephant in the room, the end of Oil and the limits to growth.  There just seems to be a vague feeling of ‘oh, somebody must do something’, but no sense that business as usual is not possible long term and that certain limits are approaching.

I have spoken to people who see the end of oil, it makes me wonder that if those of us on the ground can see it with a simple common sense, why can’t those in charge?  The technology is there, but maybe because it’s not shiny and new; some kind of shiny impersonal Ithing with no soul, nobody wants to know.

One of the things that made me smile in all this cold weather was the story of a modern diesel locomotive rescued by a steam engine in England.  I’ve been of the opinion for quite some time that newer ways aren’t always better, reading Robert M Pirsig’s view in Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that the correct question is not “what is new?” but “what is best?” confirmed my beliefs.

I’ve seen folks arguing that the renewable technologies need huge factories and lots of energy to build and all sorts of things, but windmills and water wheels have been around for centuries, they’re and ancient and time honoured technology and can provide a valuable contribution without all the rare elements and industrial wizardry, what is so hard to understand about that.

Or maybe we’re in denial because it’s not shiny and doesn’t fit our self image?

I’ve been taking notice of the feedback I’ve received on the online version of my meditation timer. I’d like to thank everyone who’s given me feedback and I’ve made a few changes to it.

This is what I’ve changed:

• Added details to instructions to clarify what to expect when running the timer.
• Changed wording and meta tags to use the phrase online timer.
• changed header when inside the timer to be a lot smaller, this should be better for smaller screens.
• Added a changelog that incorporates the pre-existing desktop changelog.

You can find my online medition timer here.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a little program called SitQuietly.  This is a GNU/Linux meditation timer, nothing fancy, just a simple tool for a simple enough job.  Just as it should be.

Well, just as the original filled a couple of needs I had, namely to learn Python and to get a Free Software meditation timer, I’m very pleased to announce that there is a new kid on the block.

I needed to get back into web design, PHP, HTML and CSS.  I’d also had the idea of of a completely web based version of my timer knocking about in my mind for about a year.  Well, I started it and then had data loss and got busy.  But I restarted it from memory very recently and after some work and a little swearing at Internet Explorer (don’t ask) you can find the results of my endeavours at http://sitquietly.quietwatercourse.co.uk/.

Now I’ve tested this on the most recent versions of all major browsers and as long as you have your Javascript turned on and an up to date copy of Adobe Flash Player, you should be laughing.  If you find a problem, or think things could be clearer, don’t be shy, tell me!

And yes… those are the words “Facebook Edition” on the site, I’ll keep everyone posted on that one… after the Web Edition itself only took a year to emerge! Lol!

I saw the film “Angels and Demons” last night, it’s a good film and I recommend it.  I’ll not spoil the plot, I hate it when people do that, but something in there got me thinking this morning.  I’ve come to believe that we have a tendency to defend fixed ideas rather then living truths.

In Buddhism we know that the cause of our suffering is that we tend to form crystallised ideas of the world and pretend they’re the reality, then get all hurt and confused when the ever changing world has moved on.

For example, we have people defending the idea that climate change is a fraud based, one look at the seasons and the state of the arctic ice is enough to make you say “hang on a minute…”.  But we tend to take our concepts, our ideas and try to make the world fit them.

In IT circles, we have various Operating System technologies which are considered by some proponents to be superior in all aspects to the others.  They’ll insist blindly that they are right, come what may.  The truth is that the choice of technologies adopted should be driven by the needs in reality, not the ideology in your head.

In religion, we have conflicts between doctrines and never mind the friction between science and religion.  Many people on all sides of the divide are busily defending their doctrine, not looking into what is real.

I was going to query the reasons we defend the ideas, are they the right ones?  Are we defending out of belief in their rightness or terror of the consequences if they’re wrong?

I question whether we should be defending them at all.

We know we have a global problem, and if we’re serious about tackling it, the effort must start with us individually.  We cannot afford to wash our hands of this and rely exclusively on the authorities.  I’m going to sketch out the territory where I see the solutions being, and I’ll do it over a few posts.  I’d like to start by pointing out that I’m speaking from a UK perspective here, so your mileage may vary.

We use a huge amount of our energy in transport, I’m finding the march to electric cars and other ‘alternatives’ interesting to watch.  We already have the problem that without cheap, plentiful and energy dense fuel, we can no longer use the methods of air travel that we do, how much more true is this for cars?  The fuels we use in cars and planes provide us with a lot of energy in a small space, more than you might think, in fact they are far superior to any solid fuel, to quote a site that covers alternate energy sources:

“to replace your petrol tank with plant biomass, for instance, it would require two and a half times the mass (rather simplified, of course).” -  The Wolf at the Door. (the graph in figure E2 is illuminating)

The problem we have is getting that much energy around the place, and generating it in the first place.  We can keep pace with our current energy demands, but what happens when everybody starts plugging their electric cars into the electricity grid and demanding that sort of energy from it several times a week?  Remember, we don’t have to generate all that energy in oil, it’s conveniently there already.

The alternative fuels revolution is looking, at least to me, like us sticking our head in the sand and pretending we can keep doing “Business As Usual”.  I don’t agree with this, we can’t keep on this way, I’m increasingly of the opinion that “BAU” is not a viable option.

So, where do I see our options?  Greater use of Public transport is a good place to start, allowing us to quickly increase the efficiency of our travel with services that are already in place and working.  Of course, public transport networks do need improvement in many areas, and in others are, for the moment, almost unavailable.  For freight, rail travel is much more efficent than road, with the advantage of removing the huge HGVs from most of our roads.  I think that a network of mostly light rail and walkable / rideable cities, with the option of electric vehicles for commercial use will go a long way towards making a much more pleasant environment for us and our children and keep the wheels turning in a more sustainable way.

There is another option, one that’s good for our waistlines as well as our bank balances. Many of us can act quickly to improve our health, cut our emissions and our fuel bills by cycling around the place.  Even if it’s just one day a week to work, or to the shops and back, we should try to replace car trips with bike trips.  A bike uses, far fewer resources to make, maintain and run than many other modes of transport.  A good cycling advocacy website is Why Cycle?.

So, am I preaching from my armchair here?  No, I bought a mountain bike and some accessories on the weekend of the 4th April and started practising with it, and I’m having a really enjoyable time.  I have a greater degree of choice on my routes than I do with a car and also few of the associated costs, unlike a car, I can expect the bike to pay for itself with fuel savings.  Maintenance is something that needs doing, but is enormously cheap compared to a car.

I’m also discovering that if you’re a little outgoing with it, you speak to people more and it makes things much more rewarding.  I’m finding something Robert M Pirsig said to be very true, in Zen and The Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, he says that on a motorbike you’re part of the scene, not seperated from it by a car.  As I’m travelling more slowly and quietly, I’m finding that very true, even more true for a bicycle than a motorbike.  This changes the whole nature of travelling.

I’m also getting into situations that are completely new to me, let me give a very cool example from the morning of Sunday 12th.

I’d gone out for a ride along the local canals and got to a local nature reserve, I decided to try my lights and went through the Netherton Tunnel, nearly 2.8 km (1.7 miles) of darkness with light and air shafts in the ceiling.  I got through there fine and had a ride round the canals at the other end then turned and came back.  As I got to the tunnel a narrowboat was going in and the driver and his wife joked about me riding a bike through the tunnel.  So I slowed down and kept pace with the boat through the tunnel, using their boat headlights to provide much better light than my smaller lights.  We wound up having a good conversation while travelling for nearly an hour way underground and bumped into some other cyclists on the way.

I’ll no doubt return to my bike in future posts.

If you read me regularly, you’ll know I’m a Secondlifer.  I’m happy being involved in the Metaverse, and I think it can make positive changes in the way we communicate and interact.

What interests me recently, is the amount of people who absolutely seperate “Second Life” (SL) from “Real Life” (RL).  In short, the total denial of the outside world.

I think that we can, due to this seperation, risk losing sight of our ethics in SL.  That’s a thought, does the Dharma go with us into the virtual?  In my mind the answer is a firm yes, as even though you have a virtual representation (an “Avatar”) it’s the same mind doing the piloting, you’re still you.  Regardless of whether behaviour is virtual or not, it can still be unskillful in the Buddhist sense.

SL is a very complex, flexible, powerful platform.  There’s a lot of potential for both good and bad in there.    It’s easy to get lost and to deny the outside world, but also to start neglecting our real needs and those of our nearest and dearest.  It’s also possible to hurt them very deeply, romantic affairs in SL do happen and there have been some that have hit the media when they ended in divorces.

I think that other worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft) are like application software, but SL is like an operating system, you can build worlds and applications within it.  I’ve explored virtual landscapes and cities and seen entire imaginary worlds inside SL, I’ve attended meetings of more than one virtual Buddhist group.  I’ve also created things in there, I have an idea of what it could do and that’s far more than any mere game.

It’s very important that we approach this whole thing carefully, this virtual universe is not seperate, wishful thinking won’t change that and using it to “escape” our real world issues is very ill advised.  I know that SL can be used to raise awareness of world issues and I do believe that SL is at it’s best when used to enhance our Real World communication ability especially in Education.

But to simply use it as a fantasist escape and to try to enforce some sort of schizophrenic seperation from reality?  I think that misses out a huge amount of it’s potential and opens some very dangerous doors indeed.

I came across this Youtube video over the weekend.  It’s just under an hour long and is a very interesting and worthwhile lecture on the spread of Buddhism.

I was reading an interesting article by Cory Doctorow and as I know a few folks on Facebook and other such sites, I thought I’d link to the article here.

It’s an interesting read and I have to say I can certainly see his point, though he doesn’t cover the use of Facebook and other social sites for spamming.  I know I had to deal with spam friend requests on MySpace, and I expect to have to do the same with Facebook in the fullness of time.

It makes you question, as I have been, the exact amount of quality Facebook adds to a persons experience in cyberspace.

I’ve had a little time off from work this week, so as well as my favourite holiday pastime of not getting out of bed. I spent a little time asking and maybe answering a question. What good is Second Life and can a person who is interested in spiritual awakening make any use of it? I think the answer is a definite yes. Read on…..

There are several groups of Buddhists in Second Life, I joined “SL Buddhists” and later “Skeptical Buddhists”. A quick search turned up some meditation gardens and even a whole island devoted to dharma. I’ll write about Bodhi Island first.

Bodhi Island is run by a non profit group, it’s an entire island in Second Life (hereafter SL) devoted to Buddhist teachings, as a quick aside, SL is made up of large islands, which are subdivided into plots so residents can own and/or rent property of their own. teleported straight to the island and was deposited on a Lotus flower amid some trees. After taking in my surroundings and touching a few landmarks for more information, I started to explore. As I wandered the island, I found gems embedded in the landscape which when touched gave me snippets of Buddhist teachings in the Theravada tradition. As I reached one point in the landscape, a Dharma talk started streaming, i found it pleasing to just sit and listen for a while.

There are hidden areas all over the island for the determined visitor to find, which made my subsequent visits very enjoyable, as I found more hidden nooks that I’d missed. I think that this island just shows what can be achieved when someone thinks creatively, further, there are examples of architecture on this island that most visitors will probably never get to see up close. I’ve illustrated two of these in the screenshots, but there are more. Second Life has been criticised for being frivolous and of little value, but I’m finding that it can provide new and interesting ways of putting information across. I would never have had the chance to walk round and examine the buildings and structures I’ve seen faithfully reproduced on Bodhi island with using Second Life.

While wandering in SL I had the  good fortune to find a Buddhist sangha, The Skeptical Buddhists,  that meets regulary for both discussion and meditation and was able to join them for a discussion meeting.  Once again this brought home the fact that SL is a new angle on communication, reference notes were distributed quickly and effectively and we were able to review the history of what had been said. I found it particularly gratifying, given my sometime unreliable memory, to be able to copy and paste the chat into a text document so I can reread it later!

I think this has been a good start, I’m looking forward to seeing where this journey leads me!