Hygger med web-design. 40 min til valgfag v. lit.vid. hvor Erling vil tage sig godt af os.

Gentlemen Broncos [2009] fra parret bag Napoleon Dynamite:

Keep it real.

The joy of sense pleasures, first nectar, then poison, is rajasika.

The joy of self-delusion, bred by sloth and folly, is tamasika."

The discipline that leads to wealth, success, and honor is rajasika.

And that which breeds sloth, fear, grief, worry, and conceit is tamasika."

I would not kill them, not for the three worlds, let alone the earth.  I had rather they killed me, Krishna."

The children don't believe him.  They know the world's not structured to give you whatever you want.  You have to struggle very hard for the smallest reward - and, of course, others always seem to get the plums, for they have what is known as 'connections.'

They smile knowingly.  The uncle leaves.  

No sooner has he left, however, than they rush to the Tree, and start wishing. They want sweets - and they get stomachache.  They want toys - and they get boredom.  Bigger and better toys - bigger and better boredom.  

This worries them.  Something must be wrong somewhere.  Someone is tricking them.  What is this unpleasant unsuspected unwanted extra that tags along with the sweets and the toys?  

What they have not realized yet is that the Wish-Fulfilling Tree is the enormously generous but totally unsentimental cosmos.  It will give you exactly what you want - 'this world is your wish-fulfilling cow,' says Krishna - and with it its built-in opposite.  The tragedy of the world is not that we don't get what we want, but that we always get exactly what we want, along with its built-in opposite.  Wish it, think it, dream it, do it - you've got it! - and literally, you've had it.  That's it - having and being had.

So the children grow up and become, euphemistically, 'young adults.'  They really are just a bunch of over-grown kids, all trapped under the Wishing Tree.  Instead of sweets and toys - childish trifles! - they now crave Sex, Fame, Money, and Power, the four sweet fruits that hang from the tree.  Bittersweet fruits.  There are, truly speaking, no other fruits.  There is nothing else to be had.

They reach out and bite each of these four fruits and get the same bitter after-taste of disappointment and disillusionment.  But they go on wishing, because there seems to be little else that one can do under the Wishing Tree.  Creatures come and go; the Tree is always there.

Then they grow old, and are stretched out under the tree, lying on their death cots.  Pathetic old men and women, kindly referred to as 'garu-jana', 'respected elders.'  They lie huddled in three security-seeking groups.  The first group whispers, 'It's all a hoax.  The world's a farce.'  Fools, they have learnt nothing.

The second huddle whispers, 'We made the wrong wishes.  We'll wish again.  This time we'll make the right wish.'  Bigger fools; they have learnt less than nothing.

The third group is the most foolish.  'What's the point living?  Nothing makes sense.  We want to die.'

The obliging tree quickly grants their last desire.  They die - and they get the built-in opposite of the death-wish - they are reborn - and under the same tree, for where else can one be born or re-born but within the cosmos!

There was also a young crippled boy who hobbled to the tree, but was shoved aside by his more agile friends.  So he crawled back to the hut and gazed at the marvelous tree from the window, waiting for a chance for him to go and make the wish that lame boys make.  What he saw from the window awed and almost unnerved him.  

He saw his companions wanting sweets and getting stomachache, grabbing toys and getting bored.  He saw them scrambling for Sex, Fame, Money, and Power, and getting their opposites, and agonizing - and not realizing the cause of their anguish.  He saw them divided into three groups - the Cynics, the self-appointed Wise Men, and the hope-bereft Death-wishers.  He saw this clearly, with the poignant brilliant sharpness of naked truth.

The spectacle of this cosmic swindle so impressed him that he stood stunned in brief, lucid bafflement.  A divine comedy, a divine tragicomedy, the panoramic cycle of karma, was being enacted in front of his eyes.  A gush of compassion welled in his heart for the victims of karma, and in that gush of compassion the lame boy forgot to wish.  He had sliced the cosmic fig-tree with non-attachment."

Você já ouviu falar do Large Hadron Collider ou LHC?

Bom, eu ouvi um pouquinho e quer saber de uma coisa? Esse negócio vai acabar com o mundo... é... foi mais ou menos isso que falaram.

LHC é mais uma das máquinas criadas pelo ser humano e tem um dos maiores poderes destrutivos que já se imaginou. E não pense que esse poder destrutivo é como o da "Bomba Atômica", é muito maior que isso...

Alguns dizem que ele se compara a estrela da morte do filme “Star Wars”, que pode destruir um planeta outros afirmam que é o próprio Armagedom. Isso se deve pelo fato de que essa coisa é capaz de criar um "Buraco Negro" e os buracos negros engolem tudo que vêem pela frente, não é!? Para engolir o nosso planeta será questão de tempo. E pensar que tínhamos medo da Bomba-Nuclear"...

Nós decretamos o nosso FIM!

Não é nada disso minha gente...

Alguém deve ter dito alguns absurdos e muita gente acreditou.

O Large Hadron Collider é um acelerador de partículas "grandão" que foi desenvolvido para estudos científicos, assim como muitos outros que já existem. Na USP tem um, por exemplo, a diferença é que esse está instalado em uma sala e não em uma base subterrânea como o LHC.

Ao acelerar as partículas e elas se encontrarem ou simplesmente passarem muito perto uma das outras, haverão eventos que ainda não conhecemos. É isso o que acontece hoje nos aceleradores e o que irá acontecer nesse novo acelerador.

O conceito para leigos é mais ou menos assim:

Partículas diferentes se colidindo geram coisas diferentes que geram resultados desconhecidos e inesperados.

Então... o Large Hadron Collider acelera coisas, essas coisas se colidem e ao se colidirem vão criar alguma outra coisa diferente das coisas iniciais que ainda não foram vistas.

Acredita-se ainda, que alguns eventos que serão conhecidos nas pesquisas realizadas no LHC, podem estar acontecendo em algum lugar do universo ou em um "Tempo" diferente do nosso. A exemplo da pesquisa que tenta indenficar o que aconteceu nos primeiros momentos do surgimento do universo.

Entendeu, entendeu? Não!?

Então acesse o Muitas Coisas que tem um monte de coisas explicando essa coisa.

Clique aqui e acesse o site oficial do LHC.

Clique aqui e confira o acelerador da USP.

More information on this year's Letters About Literature contest is available on the Washington State Library's website.

Back. Back in Afghanistan. Back in Mazar-i-Sharif. Back in the winter's adhesive mud and bitter cold. Shivering showering in a bucket. Stinky, sooty diesel heaters that… no, no wait, that was 2003.

We are back in Afghanistan though. And we are showering in a bucket. But, it is great to be back, and we feel strangely happy. It probably seems hard to understand why we keep coming back to this place: you may have to come and visit to experience the particular beauty of this country and the pull it exerts on your heart.

We arrived in Kabul last Friday – a week ago. It was a long flight via Singapore and Delhi, but comfortable. On arriving in Kabul, we were pleased to find all our bags had come with us and not ended up in Bogota. Then began the long ridiculous trek from the airport to the carpark: because of security, cars are not permitted closer than a kilometre to the airport, thus ensuring a brisk trade for porters and an annoying end to the journey. While we were locating our transport, a fight ensued between two porters, which was resolved by a policeman wading in and swinging his fist; unfortunately on his backstroke he biffed our daughter in the face. Welcome to Afghanistan.

After a few days in a guesthouse, we flew in a tiny plane up to Lal wa Sarjangal, in central Hazarajat. This part of Afghanistan is easily the poorest and most marginal in a poor and marginal country. The town, Lal is a street with mud houses scattered either side, a scrounge of stray, violent dogs and a river. Onions and flat Afghan bread are generally available, as is tea, second hand clothes and a smattering of other goods – soap, rope, broken motorcycles and oil cans, tyres and shovels. My colleague here, Andy, needed a key cut – a modern type key that you would typically use for a door or padlock. He asked his Afghan co-worker where he could get another cut here, and the co-worker laughed, as though he'd been asked where the local gym and day-spa was. 'You can't do that here! No, no, no! you have to get that done in Kabul.'

Andy then produced another key, an old-fashioned one, the sort your grandmother used to lock her wardrobe with. Here, these keys are still in common use and are cast in cheap metal and then filed to shape. It is iron-age technology. 'What about this key?', Andy asked tremulously. 'Ha! No! No, that you must also get done in Kabul. Here is it impossible. Send it on the plane that comes next week. In a few weeks he will bring you a new one.'

Such is life in Lal. We travelled out to a village last week, as part of the assessment Julie and I have been asked to do. This village is 40km away, and it took us two hours to get there. Andy was wearing a pedometer, wanting to know how far we walked around the village, but before we even got out of the car, it registered 5.2km in bumps travelled.

But our children are happy. Our son in fact told us he wants to buy the house we are staying in and live here when he is married. It is unlikely that even by then (he is 4), there will be running water or electricity: presently, we pump water by hand from the well and cart it to the house. A fair part of each day is simply spent filling buckets. But it is comfortable and clean and warm, unlike the homes of people we have seen in the villages. It is difficult to imagine how life in some of these villages goes on. It is something like -30 in the winter, and the ground so unyielding that only potatoes and onions might grow. The diet here, day in, day out, year in, year out, is bread and tea. People count themselves lucky to have a spud: meat and fruit are luxuries in the same way that a ride in a limousine might be in Australia. No, not a limousine. That is attainable for most people, and probably not novel. A ride in a private jet, is a better metaphor.

Poverty and peace. It is interesting: those parts of the country that are in some ways wealthiest from poppy crops, are also attracting the greatest donor interest, in an effort to stem opium and replace it with legitimate, 'friendly' crops. Peaceful areas, like Lal, on not on anyone's radar screen for investment or reconstruction.

Later.

Sigue el Tarantwitter

This video represents my understanding of the mischief makers "according to Quran", specifically in reference to the issue of "Lal Masjid" and the tragic showdown.

To agree or disagree with my understanding is your PREROGATIVE.