2009.11.06 19:00 - Grace Notes

The Guardian for this meeting was Pila Mulligan, sitting in for Dakini Rhode; comments are by Pila.

doug Sosa: Is that steve out there is the dark?
doug Sosa: hi pila.
Pila Mulligan: hi Doug
doug Sosa: steve seems out there in the dark a bit.
Pila Mulligan: he likes to fly in, maybe he has wing icing
doug Sosa: ha!

doug Sosa: Hey what do you know about the buddhist "pure land" idea?
Pila Mulligan: nothing :)
doug Sosa: pure..
Pila Mulligan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism
doug Sosa: I went to a seminar at stanford yesterday about it, in the sutra, some, about rebirth.
Pila Mulligan: looks Japanese 15th century per wiki
doug Sosa: So quick!
Pila Mulligan: fastest google in Puna
doug Sosa: more to read.
Pila Mulligan: oh, it was in China, and earlier: 'Pure Land Buddhism is based on the Pure Land sutras, first brought to China as early as 148 AD...'
Pila Mulligan: later to Japan then, it seems
doug Sosa: i see there is a new book on Google, by ken auletta
Pila Mulligan: how was the seminar?
doug Sosa: very obscure to me. in the buddhist study center, mostly about textual analysis and the difficulty of being certain about anything about the texts.
doug Sosa: Content was avoided to my sorrow, beause its why i went.
Pila Mulligan: sounds like bible studies
doug Sosa: yes.
Pila Mulligan: the dead sea scrolls really mess up the literalists
doug Sosa: why is that?
Pila Mulligan: well, they are not consistent
Pila Mulligan: literalists need consistency
doug Sosa: oh its easy, just dismiss the parts that don't one's own prejudices.
Pila Mulligan: if one version of a text says one thing and another says something else it counfounds rigidity
doug Sosa: one is right one is wrong. and i (says the fundamentalist) know which one it is.
Pila Mulligan: yep
doug Sosa: How has your week been?
Pila Mulligan: removing ambiguity seems to make them more comfortable
Pila Mulligan: pretty nice here, Doug
Pila Mulligan: and yours?
doug Sosa: well, i didn't mean the weather :)
Pila Mulligan: yes, me too
doug Sosa: Mine has been eventful. All my projects are heating up and there is more to do which means i have to be clearer and more focused than i like.

doug Sosa: Wish I had the money for another round of computer buying: that always feels like house cleaning and refreshing.
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: keeping up with Intel
doug Sosa: intel and hardware.
Pila Mulligan: I was pushed into getting some new stuff a month or so ago -- it made a difference
Pila Mulligan: after a crash
Pila Mulligan: about 2x what the old system was, and not more expensive
doug Sosa: same cost and faster yes, what did you get?
Pila Mulligan: a new AMD processor and 4 gb memory on a Gigbyte motherboard -- I assembled it
Pila Mulligan: the processor is something from star trek
doug Sosa: terrific. i probably could do that but my time hhas to go other places.
doug Sosa: do you notice the 4 vs 2 gig diffeence?
Pila Mulligan: it used to be easier to understand the specs -- I've been assmbling systems I've gotten since the '90's but I've lost touch with new tehchnology
Pila Mulligan: yes indeed, the 4g memory makes a difference
doug Sosa: what i want is a tablet (i've got my second one now) fast enough for really good voice recognition. it is ok on my lenovo 1.6 but could be better.
Pila Mulligan: I am intrigued by the Kindle
Pila Mulligan: speaking of tablets
Pila Mulligan: not a pc but a fun idea
Pila Mulligan: the Amazon book reader
Pila Mulligan: it will read the book to you, too
doug Sosa: i've got one.
doug Sosa: also have an iphone..
Pila Mulligan: cool -- do you like it?
doug Sosa: and they share kindle files..
Pila Mulligan: them? :)
Pila Mulligan: nice
doug Sosa: if i read on the kinde it updates the place marker in the iphone.
Pila Mulligan: :)
doug Sosa: i really do, especially because of long battery life and ability to read walking on the beach.
Pila Mulligan: is it easy to read, the Kindle?
doug Sosa: takes a slight bit of getting used to but i find it very easy, especially cause if it is a little dark you can up the font size.
doug Sosa: six levels.
doug Sosa: when it is possible to more easily annotate the book in the kindle (or whoever gets there first) it will be about all i need.
Pila Mulligan: ahh, yes -- can you do any notes presently with it?
doug Sosa: not easily, but you can save any page and it attaches to a file that gives the full reference, so at the end of say a month you can print or download that file to the pc and its a great reminder.
Pila Mulligan: my interest is mostly for novels, but since you mentioned it it would be interesting to see how it worked with work related stuff also
doug Sosa: some how this is related to 9 sec. the transition bettween out and into 9sec and back out is like shifting media..
Pila Mulligan: :)
doug Sosa: i am reading the three musketeers and the aeneid on it now.
Pila Mulligan: nice
Pila Mulligan: I'm on a Robert Heinlein stream, re-reading a lot of books I've had a round from before
doug Sosa: it is incredible having 150 or so novels on one machine and being able to search to a character or remembered phrase in a few seconds.
Pila Mulligan: yes, and to get a new book so easily
Pila Mulligan: I just found a Heinlein collection i did not previously have and ordered it (book on paper) from Amazon today
Pila Mulligan: next week sometime it will arrive
doug Sosa: Only read a little of his writing, mostly in the 70's. i like things with can we say better language?
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: I like his story telling
doug Sosa: did your sunrise just start in SL?
Pila Mulligan: for better language novels i like Salman Rushdie and John LeCarre
doug Sosa: I wish i could hear him talk about climate change.
--BELL--
doug Sosa: Just reading a review of Lovelock's Gaia in the NYRB.
Pila Mulligan: yes, the SL sun seems to be rising in the east -- you wish to hear ______? talk about climate change?
Pila Mulligan: Lovelock?
doug Sosa: sure.

Pila Mulligan: I see Gore endorsed civil disobedience today
Pila Mulligan: for climate issues
Pila Mulligan: interesting step
doug Sosa: i haven't read his words. what i saw was something like "might be useful."
doug Sosa: I'll check later. important.
Pila Mulligan: yes, but I agree with the idea
Pila Mulligan: having been civilly disobedient myself, relating to Vietnam and nuclear energy
doug Sosa: The real issue is governanace can't cohere and civil disobedience will be dealth with harshly. think of seattle, burma, iran. ugly.
Pila Mulligan: yes, terrorist laws are easily warped to punish civil opposition
doug Sosa: me and vietnam, yes. What amazes me is i thought by ending that war we really ended wars. So naive. but charming :)
Pila Mulligan: indeed -- The Revolution :) it was something
doug Sosa: where were you? I was in Berkeley.
Pila Mulligan: like WWI -- to end all wars
Pila Mulligan: I was in the Navy :) -- then Iowa as a civilian
Pila Mulligan: I became a pacifcist in the Navy
doug Sosa: The episode yesterday in texas, ft hood. hint at the destruction to the psyche of wars. leaders don't read things like war and peace.
Pila Mulligan: yes, violence is the first problem
doug Sosa: we have to love our fellow human beings, what they have to cope with inside and outside themselves.
Pila Mulligan: the idea that ego separates us physically has been nicely stated here by SophiaSharon on some recent occasions
Pila Mulligan: hi Storm
Storm Nordwind: Hi guys
Pila Mulligan: discussing war and peace
Storm Nordwind: The book or the concepts?
Pila Mulligan: both
doug Sosa: After back from Honolulu, time to unpack and then pack for stanford -- that leaders don't read such books.
Storm Nordwind: Can't help you with the book, sorry!
doug Sosa: messed up my sentence there but you get it.
Pila Mulligan: :) yep
doug Sosa: When the war in vietnam started i had read some books about the french experience in indochina, but later discovered, through intereviews, that none of the pentagon planners had read those books.
Pila Mulligan: I joined the Navy in 1965 as part A and left in 1970 as part B of my previous life within a life
Pila Mulligan: in between I went thru a learning process and saw how foolish it was
doug Sosa: Just like now they haven't read about the British defeat in afghanistan.
Pila Mulligan: war planers are not serious people
doug Sosa: hm, does part A connect easily post part B?
Pila Mulligan: not much
Pila Mulligan: part A was a residual figment from something pre-birth is my guess
Pila Mulligan: part C is like wow, what a crazy world
Pila Mulligan: as they said, Iraq resulted from a failure of intelligence
doug Sosa: To me it seems less crazy, though i had a conversation yesterday
doug Sosa: where i aked
doug Sosa: so when god made the world
doug Sosa: in six days, did he think of it
doug Sosa: as work, or as play?
Pila Mulligan: or perhaps a trial run
doug Sosa: Was he trying to get it right, or just having fun?
Pila Mulligan: there are serious people at work/play these days, but they have more craziness to overcome than they may imagine
Storm Nordwind: You weren't expecting a serious answer I presume? :)
doug Sosa: i ws hoping i wouldn't get one, but you never know :)
Pila Mulligan: we spoke earlier about the Revolution of the 60's-70's -- it was romantic, but I tihnk it also had a real impact
Storm Nordwind: A Hindu might have told you that it was "lila"
Pila Mulligan: play :)
--BELL--
doug Sosa: when a child plays it is always serious .
Pila Mulligan: :)

doug Sosa: I keep thinking about how the 9 sec is like other things i do. like getting into the shower, falling asleep, noticing that it is about to rain.
Storm Nordwind: You fall asleep in the shower???!! ;)
doug Sosa: two separe things! .
Pila Mulligan: :)
Storm Nordwind: You mean it's a simple regular habit?
doug Sosa: getting into the shower is like the 9ec. falling asleep is like the 9 sec. :)
doug Sosa: opening a novel I am in the middle of is like the 9 sec. these transitions..
doug Sosa: all interesting.
Pila Mulligan: cusps
doug Sosa: at the boundary?
Pila Mulligan: au huli in Hawaiian -- the small moment of a change
Pila Mulligan: like the moment a tide changes
doug Sosa: ah. friend says change never happens in time. always instantaneous. .
doug Sosa: Tide? How can you tell - feel - it?
Pila Mulligan: it is probably a stillness, but I have never felt it
Pila Mulligan: au huli is the idea
Storm Nordwind: There are many such pauses in the world, almost impreceptible
Pila Mulligan: yep
doug Sosa: i was on a beach north east on diamond head maybe thirty miles. the waves went from small to big in one wave, then back to small after fifteen minutes, but back to big after about six.
Pila Mulligan: yep -- the sets
Pila Mulligan: surfers learn them
doug Sosa: i was going to go in, but i watched the boogie boarders get dropped.
Pila Mulligan: :)
doug Sosa: what causes a set?
Pila Mulligan: they can be dangerous
Pila Mulligan: I do not know Doug
Storm Nordwind: It depends where you are. I used to live on the beach on the south of England. The characteristics were different there. Quite local I guess everywhere
Pila Mulligan: probably a function of sub-sea topography, currents, moon position ...
doug Sosa: on martha's vineyard there did not seem to be sets. rather slow changes in the waves.
Storm Nordwind: And the Isle of Wight which gave some locales 4 tides a day instead of two
Pila Mulligan: yes, Cape Hatteras is a constant too --a meeting of two major currents
Pila Mulligan: anyone figure out how it got 4 tides?
Storm Nordwind: Sure
Pila Mulligan: how?
Storm Nordwind: The sea rushes around the island into two separate channels at different times which then merge into one in Southampton water
Pila Mulligan: hmm, wonders how it works sitll :)
Pila Mulligan: my slow brain, Storm, not your explanation :)
Storm Nordwind: The tides are not the sinusoidal normal tides. They are more harmonics added
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pila Mulligan: that make sense
doug Sosa: that is actually a helpful idea - the harmonics.
Pila Mulligan: yep
Pila Mulligan: dumps two tubs into one
doug Sosa: i can see it on a guitar string plucked in different places.
Storm Nordwind: Actually the site http://www.southamptonweather.co.uk/doubletides.php says it's no longer thought to be due to the two channels
Pila Mulligan: hmm
Storm Nordwind: It was fun though living on Hayling Island with 8 knot harbour outflow currents!
--BELL--
doug Sosa: ok, to stick to the theme, i wonder if going in and out of the 9 sec has harmonics at the edges?
Storm Nordwind: Can you give an example doug of what that might mean?
doug Sosa: not sure. there is a kind of complexity at the boundary, as though the openness of the 9 sec is in tension with the non-9 sec world
doug Sosa: and the movement from one to the other gets them, that tension, in kind of rips in the passing from one to the other.
Storm Nordwind: meaning perhaps a tension in the mind as it changes states of awareness perhaps?
Pila Mulligan: or maybe even an actual physcal tension
doug Sosa: yes, not continuous, going "in" sometimes seems to be a sinusoidal passing, but if there are several at the same time, then harmonics!
doug Sosa: (like my bad typing!)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Storm Nordwind: fascinating. I'd never considered it before
doug Sosa: I've been looking for 9 sec like transitions that I hadn't before consdiered as part of the 9s sec, like going back into a story.
doug Sosa: oops, as I was saying back from honolulu monday night, back to stanford tuesday morning, and just got home a few hours ago 0 those are trips. But dinner is ready so I am off. Good talk as so often here.
doug Sosa: so bye for now.
Pila Mulligan: have a nice evening Doug
Pila Mulligan: bye for now
Storm Nordwind wonders whether these are more like grace notes than harmonics
Storm Nordwind waves
Pila Mulligan: :)
Storm Nordwind: I will be going now Pila. Nice to see you as always
Pila Mulligan: have a nice evening Storm -- yes, always a pleasure
Storm Nordwind: Namaste
Pila Mulligan: aloha `oe