The Ten Precepts from The Georgia Guidestones

Let these be Guidestones to an Age of Reason

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

Please Boycott Google Mars until Google adds Cornwall’s Capitol City to it’s Weather Gadgets Now!

Today I was outraged by Google. I found that in it’s Weather Gadgets, Google lists ZERO locations in the Nation-state of Cornwall. These weather gadgets are used in the Google Homepage and in Google’s popular spying application, Google Desktop. This is injustice.

The Continent of Cornwall is used to such exploitation by search engine giants. Most residents of Kernow still refuse to use Yahoo search since it’s 1996 mistake of suggesting Cornwall was, in fact, a part of England. And indelibly etched on the expatiations of Cornish IT companies is the shortly lived askjethro.com; after pioneering multi-layered Cornish search heuristics in 2003 askjethro.com was obliterated by the legal canons of A very nameless corporation. I can’t even wrote that coperation’s name from within the Cornish internet without being sued or a getting mundane rendition to Abu Ghraib.

Tread carefully, said the badger.

Whether it is marauding mercenaries, mercenary missionaries or men from Microsoft, Cornwall is used to getting shafted. But until now (excluding the infamous “Grampound Line”), the proto-omniscient Googemon has remained on the side of the Kernotropolis.

We have always felt deeply at one with “The G”. When Cornish citizens needed to find out about things in other counties, and sometimes even other times, Google was there. When Cornwall petitioned for a modern progressive online democracy instead of disinterested Westmister-quangol scrag-ends, Google was there with the technology to facilitate and liberate... wouldn’t it be great.

So why... now... have they forsaken us?

The injustice that the closest weather information Das Googen can supply is Plymouth is a bitter injustice. And anyone who has ever been to both Plymouth and Cornwall will know how much better the weather always is in Cornwall. Plymouth isn’t Cornwall. They can’t even swim there.

Outrage at injustice often leads to action. I took action. I decided that I would Boycott all Google Services. I would give “The G” “The Bird”.

After less than a minute I realised that this would not be possible. On an Information and Communication Hunger Strike I made a shoddy Bobby Sands. Simply, the sacrifice of my protest wasn't worth the victory.

However, not one to give in totally, I "fine tuned" my anti-Google protest to the totally encompassing and lifelong new protest: The Boycott of Google Mars.

Whilst they mock and ridicule the people of the Empire of Kernow I shall not be looking at their Online map of The Red Planet. And in this I shall be steadfast - Unless, say, the kids are using it for their homework and they need my help?

It doesn’t matter if you live in Cornwall or not, this is an almost global issue. If you don’t believe me, simply imagine the slight annoyance you would feel if your Capital City wasn’t listed in the Weather Gadgets. I rest my case, and... with you, I pick up my war flag.

My clarion call that shall rattle down these digital ages shall also echo aeons across my small and badly lit office!

I am Lexographically Famous!!

I have always been interested in words, as a child I was even taught some.

Until yesterday I had only discovered three new words in my life. These being:

1. "Bumgollier" - A homophobic term for a homosexual ("gay") man.
2. "Architechtonics" - The art of creating deep/complex technical systems.
3. "Flangeina" - Like a "mangina" but on a female human.

An impressive trio, I am sure you will agree. But it gets better...

Yesterday I came up with a new term that in a matter of hours, powered by its own etymological etiology, became wrought into the semantic framework of an entire planet. Not bad for a boy from the wrong side of the Grampound Line.

You can see the word here: http://tinyurl.com/ctmgf8

Note: Although the Dictionary doesn’t state this, the term is also synonymous with "anticlimax"

Reminises: Taking Tramps for Dinner

When I was about twenty seven and a half I took two homeless men to dinner in Chinatown, London.

I met them in Leicester square one Friday evening. We were sharing the lawn and they started chatting to me, as tramps tend to.

I had just been paid and so a few "starter cans" of Stella in it was like "I'm hungry, do you guys want a Chinese". (I had recently finished reading Songlines where the narrator does the same, only in the Outback (In Australia not the Franchise Antipode bar))

They accepted. I remember one was called just "Billericay" and he was, you got it, Oirish.

I assume the cause of their acceptance was the sound of a free meal rather than any desperate need to spend more time with a lanky "student twat type" (My quotes) but nonetheless, as a trio, we did go.

Hing Loon’s was our destination, it’s still there and remains my fave - I was there last time in London. I had been going there for years with friends and family and, on that summer in the late 90s, two pissedup tramps. Both of whom, in the confines of a building it was revealed, stunk like they had been living on the streets for decades.

We sat on a big round table.

We sat under a drizzle of uncouthness that gradually, by the time the Won Ton's had arrived, increased to an embarrassing torrent of uncouthness.


I don’t think the tale needs the details.

It was a truly educational experience. One I was keen to end fast (I think we skipped the ice-cream with Lychees) and even more keen never to repeat.


Don’t ever take drunken tramps for dinner.

Another Problem with Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager is one of the last stands for even vaguely coherent faith based beliefs.

Pascal's Wager (wiki):

"Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of Godcannot be determined through reason, a person should "wager" as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose. It was set out in note 233 of his Pensées, a posthumously published collection of notes made by Pascal in his last years as he worked on a treatise on Christian apologetics."

In other words, you should belive in God because if you are right, you are rewarded and if you are wrong you don't loose. You cannot be penalised by a possibly existing God if you belive in it absolutly.

There are a number of arguments against Pasca's Wager, here is mine (I think its mine?):

Argument

The wager doesnt take into accont the potentially signigant compromise in the truth, reason and quality of life that one must make if one believes in God. Lets call this the "Payload" of the belief in God. Its the potential to reduce a valued aspect of whatever system we are abstracting about (individual, society...)

The Personal Payload is things like guilt due to the belief or related ideas (eg religion itself), reduced possibilities due to indoctrinated morality or sexual repression.

The Social Payload of a belief in god and what has historically followed from that is the dominating masculin religious establishment globally, the damage this has casued is infinitly incalculable, both throughout history and currently.

I think there is also a Truth Payload as well, in that accepting the wager NOW isn't the same as in Pascal's time. We can stare into creation and life with blinding clarity. We don't know it all, but there is much less mystery than in Pascal's time, and this signifigantly skews the good money away from the stupid bet.

:)

What are Things?

Is the last book you read a thing? If it was a paperback, you would probably answer "yes" If your reading it as an ebook, it might not be so clear. It wouldn't exist like paper does, it would just be a "thing" of information on a memory chip. What about if it was an audiobook?

What are things?

Birds are things. Bird's beaks are things. Molecules are things. Chairs are things, as are galaxies and atoms and waves. I could list of an infinite list of potential candidates for being a thing and you could say for each, "Yes" or "No".

Its a thing. Or Not. Sometimes.... you may pause...

What about the number seven? Is that a thing? Or the number 7.34243 Or the square root of minus one? Or the meaning of the word "ironic" or twentieth King of France. Are they things? Its not so clear.

What do dictionaries say? Things like:

"A thing is an entity, an idea, or a quality perceived, known, or thought to have its own existence."

This dictionary definition points us in the right direction but it doesn't really capture the features of things, nor does it explain the features of non things and, it doesn't explain or contain any information about why what it contain is the case. For example, why are ideas things? Are experiences ideas? Are numbers ideas?

We use things lots in our conceptual framework, but most people, including me, haven't a clear answer of what things are.

An Elemental Definition specifies all statements that are true of the thing defined.

An Elemental Definition of "a thing" will be true of all things and there will be no elements of the definition that any given thing does not posses. Each element is necesaary but not sufficient for "thingdom".

"Thing":

1. A thing is contingent; it can only be, if certain other things are.
2. A thing is divisible; it contains elements that exist independent of the thing.
3. A thing is elemental; it can be an element in another distinct thing.
4. A thing is interconnected; it can exist in relationships with other things, as will its parts.
5. A thing is a reference; it can be represented.
6. A thing is countable.
7. A thing is possible.
8. A thing is imperminent; it can either be or not be.

So what things are thing, on this definition. All objects we interact with in he physical world are clearly things. Bank accounts are things. The experience of a tea ceremony in a Japanese tea-house is a thing. The penumbras of shadows are things.

That, is what I think things are:)

I can be followed on Twitter.com now

I'm not doing much blogging at the moment as I am doing lots of writing, but I am also sending in inande thoughts and actions toTwitter at matripley

I had a big breakthrough with Buddhism yesterday.

I have been a practicing Buddhist for about seven years, which is less time than I have spent studying and tutoring Western analytic philosophy at University. Unlike Buddhists without this background, I feel I have been able to come to an understanding of Dharma without the cultural and historical accoutrements of Buddhism that have augmented the Dharmic System system over the millennium, often in ways incongruous with the initial teachings of The Buddha.

In a very concise nutshell this is what I believe:

Foundational Dharmic Truths

• There is no God
• There is no soul
• There is no self
• There is no heaven
• All is impermanent
• Decay is inevitable
• Dukka: suffering and strain, are intrinsic to the human condition and experience
• There are definite reasons why this Dukka is the case (Thirst, Attachment, Ignorance..)
• The Noble Eightfold Path is the path away from Dukka and towards happiness and enlightenment.

This might not look very interesting or satisfactory as an account of Buddhism. But that's because people in the main come into Dharma from the top down, from the abstractions of Kama, mental formations and - in many schools of Buddhism - speculations about the endless cycles of rebirth what they entail for one's life.

But as I have written elsewhere, I have found it impossible to meaningfully link the core truths of Dharma with the idea of rebirth and its corollaries: that there is more after this life.

But today I had a revelation which for me at least removes the problem of rebirth and closes Dharma off to be specifically what the Buddha Intended, not how it has been variously interpreted.

The Problem with Rebirth

1) Rebirth doesn't fit architectonically with the Dharmic System.

2) Rebirth doesn't fit with the natural observable world whereas the core Dharma does perfectly.

3) Buddhists, even very leaned scholars, cannot answer the question of where Rebirth fits in with Dharma with the same clarity that the rest of Dharma fits together.

The Problem with Buddhist Enlightenment

1) We know that the Buddha was born a normal man who reached enlightenment in his thirties and lived for fifty more years as an enlightened being.

2) We know that whatever enlightenment is, it was a change of state in the Buddha's understanding.

3) We know that enlightenment, at the time, was communicable by the Buddha. Many people became enlightened just by spending a short amount of time talking to the Buddha.

4) In modern times, the idea of Enlightenment is shrouded in so many layers of mystery and profound inaccessibility that to even ask, "what could this state change (enlightenment) in the Buddha have been?" is met with something close to ridicule. This has always troubled me.

So I have been in this situation where I feel I deeply understand the Core Dharma from a ground-up perspective but have been unable to answer what enlightenment could possibly be or why the Buddha even mentions rebirth at all.

Until yesterday I was unable to answer the enlightenment question. My answer to the problem of Rebirth went something like this:

Rebirth has become entwined in Buddhism because the Buddha used it as a metaphor for the change in our lives as they pass by, with each moment a new life, a new birth. This kind of made historical sense because we know the Buddha used many metaphors and we know that all of the people of the time were familiar with the idea of Rebirth because of the Hindu/Brahmin culture.

And thus the metaphor of rebirth became entwined in Buddhism (in various ways and schools) until now people assume it's part of Core Dharma when in fact it seems totally incongruous. It kind of made sense, but I wasn't pleased with it.

The Penny Drops

But yesterday it clicked. It made sense. I had an epiphany. This is what I now think:

The Buddha wasn't using Rebirth as a metaphor, he was using it quite literally, he was referring directly to the doctrine of rebirth/reincarnation that had been the dominant cultural doctrine for over a thousand years before his birth. He was saying, this endless idea that there is more to life than this life is a fundamental part of the problem of Human Suffering.

He was saying, to be happy one must extinguish the Hindu idea of Rebirth because he realised by philosophy and meditation that it was false; in fact the idea itself constituted part of the problem.

The Buddha found the path to enlightenment. This path required the removal of attachment to many various and related notions, such as self, immutable things and discrete things. But also, the Buddha realised, that to be enlightened one must extinguish completely the idea that there is anything supernatural, anything beyond this single short life and world of ours.

You cannot be truly enlightened in this life if you place yourself within the possibility space of some life after this. There is none.

To extinguish that last flickering candle of hope, that there is something more than this life of Dukka, is to reach the final stage in extinguishing this Dukka.

I am a Buddhist. I am an Antitheist. This is my only life. There is no rebirth.

Salt tops historical award

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2403/17-molecules-altered-human-history-molecules-changed-wold

Bad Times, a Letter to Muji

To:Customer Services 
Muji Europe Holdings Limited 
8-12 Leeke Street 
London 
WC1X 9HT 

Dear Sirs/Hunnies,

I have long been a fan of Muji's functional minimalism. I believe your pencil cases are the stationary equivalent of a Zen Koan, and for this I thank you.

However, this festive season you failed me, and, in a deeper sense, you failed yourselves.

I received two Muji gifts from Santa, a pumice stone and an Egg Timer. The pumace stone was a well cut piece of solidified pyroclastic froth that will perform adequately upon corns and dry skin (which I currently dont posses). 

The egg timer leaves me with an incredulous sense of despair at your quality control. Both the package and the device specify it is a 3 minute egg timer but, after multiple tests, including the one on this youtube video, it saddens me to say the timer times a period of 2 minutes and 56 seconds.

I hope you will agree that a four second error is simply not acceptable when determining such relatively short metrics.

I like this egg timer, it looks good, and, before realising the temporal blasphemy this timer commits every time it times, I was going to carry it around with me to time things. This is no longer possible.

I am sure you will refund me whatever this item cost, but I don't want that. I want a either a three minute Muji egg timer that times for three minutes exactly, or twelve Muji egg timers with an error margin of no more than five seconds in either direction. This latter option provides the possibility that when needed I can use all twelve timers and average out the result. Thus, we would hope, achieving something like accuracy.

My address to send either one accurate, or twelve inaccurate, Muji egg timers is:

**********

********************

Once recvived I hope we can put this malign point in our supplier/consumer relationship behind us.

Warm regards,

Mat.....

To USB a Pirate

I found a USB Key

On a memorial bench, overlooking the sea.

Contents: Rolling Stone, 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Who owns these? I found them, are they mine?

Come Back Mickey Rooney

Today I met Mickety Rooney in a lift,

He was smaller than the smallest man ever,

And so wrinkly; like a grumpy mad wallnut,

I asked if I could shake his hand,

And he told me "No, I can't 

I've just broken it."

Snap.

Good Docs Just Started Sucking Big Digital...

Way before Google Docs was Google Docs it was called Writely. If you search this blog you will finjd many prasiworthy refrences to it. I was Zelous about it then.

Last week a colleague lost his laptop harddrive and was having tremendous issues getting it all back, a year ago I said "use google docs" and this week I had the chance to say, "If you had been using..."

I' writing my novel, Kingmaker,  in Google Docs. Its going very well, I have a single document for the text and google Site for the notes, structure etc.  The fact whever I am I can edit a cetrl version with full history is just brilliant. Googl Docs rules! Until about ten mins ago when I was writing away and got this:

Pantaloons!!!!

Thats crazy, I am only at 25,000 words into Kingmaker and it say no!!!! 

I guess I'll just have to stop writing and play Fallout 3 instead, until Google can quit with their stupid file size limmit on this. Oh Calamity!

Review Proporta Silicon Soft Touch Ipod Touch Case

I recently was forcibly upgraded to the new second generation Ipod Touch and this time I was determined to keep it as shiny as new; the back is a magnet for scratches.

In order to do this I got myself a new case for it, from Proporta:

I have been using Proporta PDA cases for years, their innovation and customer support is beyond compare. So they were the first choice - I went and got myself  their new Ipod Touch dual skin case and a screen protector.

I had a Proporta  silicone cases for the first gen Touch, it was good, but wasnt double skinned like this new one. 

Its kinda weird- the double skin - you can see in the picture above how the white skin is beneath the outer black skin -  the of two-tone-tech-bone aesthetic actually increases the look of the Touch, a feat I never thought possible.

I could probably wax on pretentiously about this for a few more paragraphs, but suffice it to say, its the best case for the ipod Touch.

Check it out at Proporta.com

Is Nick Berry More than We Think?

Today, for reasons unassociated with this moment, I was deconstructing Nick Berry's groundbreaking song, "Every looser Wins," and in it  found a depth and poinancy I was genuinly not expecting.  Is this a Threnody for the Victims of The Hegemony?  I'll let you decide,

Every Looser Wins

We nearly made it 
We nearly found the perfect combination 
The road was right, we must have read the signs wrong 
And now it's all gone 

But if we'd made it 
Could we be sure that it was for the better 
Who could say we would have stayed together 
Nothing is certain, in a changing world 

Every loser wins, once the dream begins 
In time we'll see, fate holds the key 
And every loser knows, the light eternal shows 
Will shine on you, and all those who knew 
We nearly made it 

Suddenly we seemed to stop and lose our way 
But did it really matter anyway 
For that was yesterday 
And we must live for now 

Coz every loser wins, once the dream begins 
In time we'll see, fate holds the key 
And every loser knows, the light eternal shows 
Will shine on you, and all those who knew 
We nearly made it 

Stand up and count me 
I know you're on my side 
Shine down on me 
And those who believe 
That we can make it

Booootifully Stupid: let's Boycott Bernard Matthews Turkey products just because they must be stupid.

I have written three poems inspired by the new range of turkey products from Bernard Matthews. I have tried make each poem able to stand on its own thematically, whilst each offers the others stylistic support when they are read one after the other, as intended. I feel that "Drummers" should come first but I am sure a lot of the less buffy poetry slammers might want to try deconstructing it by flipping the order they are read, it's up to you. Incidentally, this paragraph is also a poem.

Turkey Twizzler

Aeons, Bernard Matthews, You have sold turkey eaters turkeys, for tea.

Today,  Bernard Matthews, A new range of turky stuff, You tried to sell me.

But, Bernard Matthews, the name of the range is insane, Are you thick?

What, Bernard matthews, could have led to the Big Green Tick?

Which part of the process of your corportate might

Missed the part about the Turkey's parasites?

The tick?

The tock.

The Penny Drops.

Turkey Drummer

Once I respected you, Though I am not sure why,

You reminded me of an uncle, Wholesome inside.

Bright red cheeks and kinda lame tweed,

Peddling your poultry on my 80's TV.

I wouldn't say I was a big fan, as turkey is kinda dry,

But as Corporate bosses go you seemed my kinda guy,

But you went too far, there is nowhere to go,

There is a big green tick next to big daft bozo.

Family Ipoddery

We have a new Ipod Touch 16 Gigs in the House. It is a thing again of beuty beyond compare. Those billions of you that read thesaltedsolution will know that I was one of the first prosumers to get the Ipod Touch in the UK and now, over a year down the line I still think its just so so so good and getting better.

However since getting a shiny new model and knowing how much it can loose its polish,  it is no longer known in the house as the "ipod" but as "mypod."

;-)