irondance

the city of samba : rio tilted

2012-02-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
a while back i posted a beautiful tilt-shift video of a ski resort, so it is only fair to include one of a city on the beach that is known as the "marvelous city" during one of the most intense and magical celebrations in the world
}

The City of Samba from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Tilt shift of the Carnaval celebration in Rio de Janeiro.

Made by Keith Loutit and Jarbas Agnelli.
Captured during Carnaval of 2011.
Music by Jarbas Agnelli.
Special thanks to Rede Globo, Liesa and Jodele Larcher.

madiba : the life and times of nelson mandela

2012-02-23T04:00:00.000-08:00

{

since the eighties' and the "free mandela" movement, i have always had a lot of admiration for mandela ... at the end of the day, he is just a man, but what great things he has done as one

}

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born 18 July 1918, served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. Mr. Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

source: mandela wiki

invictus

As President from May 1994 until June 1999, Mandela presided over the transition from minority rule and apartheid, winning international respect for his advocacy of national and international reconciliation. Mandela encouraged black South Africans to get behind the previously hated Springboks (the South African national rugby team) as South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. (This is the theme of the 2009 film Invictus.) After the Springboks won an epic final over New Zealand, Mandela presented the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner, wearing a Springbok shirt with Pienaar's own number 6 on the back. This was widely seen as a major step in the reconciliation of white and black South Africans.

to preserve our rights

2012-02-15T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
can you light your tap water on fire?

a repost from the author's facebook page
}

[UPDATE: Following Fox's arrest, the Working Families Party wrote a petition asking for Rep. Harris to apologize and commit to open hearings in the future. As of Monday, the petition had garnered over 22,000 signatures.]

To Preserve Our Rights, We Must Stand Up For Them.
by Josh Fox
on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 3:02pm

This morning, the charge of "unlawful entry" brought against me was dismissed without condition. The US Attorney dropped the case, finding it baseless and without merit. Although this is a personal victory and I am very grateful and relieved at the US Attorney's decision, it serves as a painful reminder that we do not have rights unless we exercise them .

On February 1st, I was arrested, briefly jailed, and charged with "unlawful entry" for attempting to film a public hearing in the Science, Space and Technology committee. I did not enter unlawfully, I lined up outside just as everyone else did and walked in when the room opened. I set up my tripod and camera where cameras normally are set up in that particular hearing room and I was calm and peaceful. I did not disrupt the hearing nor did I intend to do so. I believed I was within my first amendment rights, as a journalist and filmmaker. I was reporting on a case that is intensely personal to me, that I have been following for 3 years.

The House had convened a hearing in the House Energy and Environment subcommittee to challenge EPAs findings that hydraulic fracturing fluids had contaminated groundwater in the town of Pavillion, Wyoming. I have a long history with the town of Pavillion and its residents who have maintained since 2008 that fracking has contaminated their water supply. I featured the stories of residents John Fenton, Louis Meeks and Jeff Locker in GASLAND and I have continued to document the catastrophic water contamination in Pavillion for the upcoming sequel GASLAND 2. It was clear that Republican leadership, including Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland, who ordered my arrest, was using this hearing to attack the three year Region 8 EPA investigation involving hundreds of samples and extensive water testing which ruled that Pavillion’s groundwater was a health hazard, contaminated by benzene at 50x the safe level and numerous other contaminants associated with gas drilling. Most importantly, EPA stated in this case that fracking was the likely cause.

When I was being led out of Congress in handcuffs, Representative Paul Tonko, Democracy of New York shouted out "This is the People's House!" in disgust. Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina, moved to suspend the rules so that we could continue to film the proceedings stating "All god's children should be allowed to film this hearing!" It was a surreal moment. Later that day, Congressman Maurice Hinchey would write, "This is blatant censorship and a shameful stain on this Congress."

But if it is not now the "People's House", it is now, more than ever the "people's media". I was able to watch my own arrest on youtube because members of the audience filmed it and posted their videos. It was the citizen journalism that first documented people lighting their water on fire in gas fracking areas. It was citizen journalism that posted videos of the recent mass arrest of peaceful protestors in New York and in California. The people's media is our system of accountability and transparency and we must continue to practice it.

The First Amendment to the Constitution states explicitly “Congress shall make no law…that infringes on the Freedom of the Press”. Which means that no subcommittee rule or regulation should prohibit a respectful journalist or citizen from recording a public hearing.

I have huge respect for those who make the immense personal sacrifice to do public service and represent their constituents and the American people. I believe we elect our representatives with good will and trust and the hopes that they serve us honestly and respectfully and I believe that we, as citizens, send them to Congress with love, pride and well wishes for the future of the nation. However, I have no respect for or deference to those who would misuse the power granted them by the American people to upend the institutions of democratic government and the rights of the citizenship they have ben sworn to uphold for private gain, political leverage or because they are beholden to corporate influence or corrosive ideology.

The people of Pavillion deserve better. The thousands across the US who have documented cases of water contamination in fracking areas deserve their own hearing on Capitol Hill. They deserve the chance to testify before Congress. The truth that fracking contaminates groundwater is out, and no amount of intimidation tactics –either outright challenges to science or the arrest of journalists –will put the genie back in the bottle. Such a brazen attempt to discredit and silence the EPA, the citizens of Pavillion and documentary filmmaking will ultimately fail and it is an affront to the health and integrity of Americans.

We cannot take our democracy and the rights of our citizenship for granted. Democracy is not handed to us from on high or guaranteed to us by battles fought by our ancestors. It is perpetually under siege by those with power, money and influence who would rather our nation of laws becomes a nation of affiliation. It is clear to me that I was arrested to serve the interests of oil and gas companies, whose interests often run counter to those of ordinary American citizens.

I was arrested because I refused to turn off my camera at a public hearing in the US congress. I have filmed hundreds of public hearings around the country and the first amendment guarantees my ability to report on what happens in public.

And I continue to refuse. I refuse to let Congressmen blatantly attack science in the the Science committee without the light of the media shining out their transgressions. I refuse to be silenced and not report on the misdeeds of those representatives who are clearly influenced by oil and gas companies beyond loyalty to their own citizen's health. I refuse to stand down and let oil and gas companies lie about what they are injecting into the ground and emitting into the air. I refuse to let the bill of rights collapse under the weight of a 250 million dollar lobbying campaign. I refuse to let money, power and influence define the next American century over the will of the people. I refuse to turn of my camera and sit idly by as huge areas in 34 states become sacrificial drilling zones. I refuse to turn my back on the good and great people that have entrusted me with their stories of oil and gas contamination and walk away from the fight they have inspired me to wage on their behalf. I refuse to let the oil and gas industry bury their cancerous secrets for us to unwittingly drink. I refuse to bow and walk out of congress leaving it to the influence of those with money to peddle in its halls. I refuse to relinquish my understanding of the law and of justice. I refuse to surrender my citizenship and my dignity, head bowed in submission, to the influence of corporate power. I refuse to forsake the American dream of the many for the financial gain of the nationless few. I refuse to walk away, from my home and my country.

The fact that my case was dismissed so readily only attests to the ridiculousness and unfairness of my arrest, the US attorney has refused to pursue it.

I woke up one morning and declared myself a journalist. I had to. My home was under siege by the gas fracking industry. I felt that I had to not only seek out the true effects of the largest natural gas drilling campaign in history on public health and the environment but also to report what I found to my community.

The first amendment states that anyone can do the same. Anyone can wake up in the morning, declare themselves a journalist and enjoy the protections of the First Amendment. In the era of instant media, youtube and social networks, this becomes even more relevant and exciting; anyone with an iphone can rock the world. It was citizen journalists who first posted police pepper spraying peaceful protestors in New York and California and it was citizen distribution that virally spread those horrific videos of police brutality until the whole world was infected with the truth of what is happening in the USA today. It was citizen journalists who first documented water catching on fire at the kitchen sink as a result of gas fracking. It was citizen journalists who woke up one morning and decided to show the water contamination and air pollution due to gas drilling in Texas, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and in states across the nation.

This year we have seen severe repression of journalism in America. Hundreds of journalists have been arrested this year simply trying to do their jobs. Whether they were covering oil and gas issues or issues of economic inequality during the Occupy demonstrations.

"Recently, Reporters Without Borders released its 2011–2012 global Press Freedom Index. Due to journalist arrests and press suppression at Occupy Wall Street-inspired protests, the United States has dropped significantly in the rankings of press freedom, from 27 to 47." Truthout reports.

Having personally witnessed the outrageous police brutality and repression which was an unwarranted response to occupy protests and to citizens who were acting in defense of their towns and neighborhoods against gas fracking and other egregious human rights violations as the result of fossil fuel development, I feel it is necessary to stand with all of those who have had enough of inequality and enough of big business having undue influence over the government.

So please accept my invitation, and the First Amendment's authorization, to declare yourself a member of the Press. Declare yourself a witness to history and a fighter for transparency and equality under the law. And if you feel like it, go film a congressional hearing. Don't bother to ask for permission, permission was just granted to you by the US Attorney. You don't need credentials, you have your rights. Assert them.

Josh Fox
2/15/12

p.s. I am very thankful to Reporters Without Borders, The Society of Environmental Journalists, Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, Ed Schultz, Michael Lumpkin and the Independent Documentary Association and to the 30,000 people who signed the Working Families Party petition on my behalf and to all of my supporters for your help well wishes and statements of outrage and strength. I am also very grateful to all of the reporters, news outlets and journalists who reported on this travesty.

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox was handcuffed and arrested Wednesday as he attempted to film a Congressional hearing on the controversial natural gas drilling technique, known as fracking, which the Environmental Protection Agency recently reported caused water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming. Fox directed the award-winning film, "Gasland," which documents the impact of fracking to communities across the United States, and is now working on a sequel. Fox says he was arrested after Republicans refused to allow him to film because he did not have the proper credentials. "We wanted to report on what happened [at the hearing]. I was not interested in disrupting. It was not a protest action," says Fox. "I was simply trying to do my job as a journalist and go in there and show to the American people what was transpiring in that hearing, so that down the line — as we know there will be a lot of challenges mounted to that [Pavillion, Wyoming] EPA report, and frankly to the people in Pavillion who have been sticking up for themselves and demanding an investigation into the groundwater contamination — to make sure that people could view that in a larger forum than usually happens."
democracynow.org

Josh Fox is the writer and director of "Gasland", a 2010 American documentary film that focuses on communities in the United States impacted by natural gas drilling and, specifically, a stimulation method known as hydraulic fracturing.

see more:

original post on facebook
wiki on hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a., "fracking"
short documentary report on fracking in the marcellus shale
Gasland website
josh fox on the huffington post
josh fox in the village voice

{
don't let anyone frak your life, health, enjoyment or freedoms
}

image of the day : tat for tit

2012-02-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

curta : the amazing handheld mechanical calculator

2012-02-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

Curt Herzstark

{
the curta as a mechanical device is as fascinating as it is unique ... sometimes called the "peppergrinder" due to its shape, it saved its inventor's life in a nazi concentration camp
}

The Curta is a small, hand-cranked mechanical calculator introduced in 1948. It has an extremely compact design: a small cylinder that fits in the palm of the hand. It can be used to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square roots and other operations. The Curta's design is a descendant of Gottfried Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner and Thomas's Arithmometer, accumulating values on cogs, which are added or complemented by a stepped drum mechanism.

The Curta was conceived by Curt Herzstark in the 1930s in Vienna, Austria. By 1938, he had filed a key patent, covering his complemented stepped drum. This single drum replaced the multiple drums, typically around 10 or so, of contemporary calculators, and it enabled not only addition, but subtraction through nines complement math, essentially subtracting by adding. The nines' complement math breakthrough eliminated the significant mechanical complexity created when "borrowing" during subtraction. This drum would prove to be the key to the small, hand-held mechanical calculator the Curta would become.

Herzstark, the son of a Catholic mother but Jewish father, was taken into custody in 1943, eventually finding himself at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Ironically, it was in the concentration camp that he was encouraged to continue his earlier research: "While I was imprisoned inside [Buchenwald] I had, after a few days, told the [people] in the work production scheduling department of my ideas. The head of the department, Mr. Munich said, 'See, Herzstark, I understand you've been working on a new thing, a small calculating machine. Do you know, I can give you a tip. We will allow you to make and draw everything. If it is really worth something, then we will give it to the Führer as a present after we win the war. Then, surely, you will be made an Aryan.' For me, that was the first time I thought to myself, my God, if you do this, you can extend your life. And then and there I started to draw the CURTA, the way I had imagined it."

An interactive Flash simulation of Curta operation
(click on the red bits to operate)

3D VRML simulation

AT&T Tech Channel interview with Clifford Stolls about the Curta

see also:

curta.org (english)
curta.de (german)
a great curta fansite
excellent PDF Scientific American magazine article by Cliff Stoll
gearhead porn : curta disassembly

Clifford Stoll reminds me of Doc Brown.
Here he is giving a TED talk.

tibet burns for freedom

2012-02-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

{

dear world

you, strong, who proudly and loudly deliver freedom from the oppression of cruel, vicious government, for sixty years the peaceful peoples of tibet have offered an unique opportunity to enjoy the righteous glory of which so many are enamored and this for the most of noble causes

the people of tibet are burning for freedom

free tibet
}

There are reports of a build-up of security forces and police in and around the city of Lhasa, and its key monasteries, Ganden, Sera, and Drepung. Furthermore, draconian measures to restrict movement of Tibetans in the capital could further aggravate the tense situation in Tibet. With Tibetan New Year on
February 22nd and the March 10th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising coming up, we fear there will be further bloodshed and loss of lives. The Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan community’s democratically-elected representative, urges the international community to directly and immediately engage the Central Chinese leadership to assert its control over local authorities and forbid police violence and shooting of unarmed citizens.

BBC

Al Jhazeera

"The reality of China is really different from the picture of the country that the C.C.P. gives. The inequalities are increasing, corruption is spreading more and more in every level of the system, the condition of the farmers, that are the majority of the population, keeps on deteriorating economically, socially and ecologically. Even the economic growth, where it started, didn’t improve at all the condition of life and working of the majority of the workers and all the basic freedoms keep on being denied.

Therefore, the widespread social protest is increasing continuously, as it is acknowledged also by the official sources of Beijing itself. Besides, it has to be added the non-violent resistance of the supporters of the spiritual movement “Falun Dafa”, the fighting of the workers that try to organize some free Trade Unions and the resistance movements against the Chinese colonial occupation that are reorganizing in eastern Turkestan and in southern Mongolia.

In the international framework, the Chinese politics is everyday more aggressive politically, economically and militarily (the dizzy rise of the outlay for armaments could be aimed to a possible military action against Taiwan). " ~ excerpt from The Declaration of Turin

The government of China is incurring huge expenditure in transferring and consolidating the Chinese population in Tibet. Massive investment has been made to build a network of modern highways all over Tibet. China can also boast of having laid the highest railway track in the world that connects Lhasa with Beijing. In fact, China often complains that its civilizing mission in Tibet is costing the government and people of China large amounts in terms of subsidies to an under-developed region. According to official Chinese statistics, the level of annual subsidies to the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) in the late 1980s was around 1 billion yuan or $270 million. However, all the infrastructure that China has built in Tibet has not made the lives of the native Tibetans any better; it has only taken the exploitative apparatuses of the Chinese government deeper.

But most importantly, the humans who live there, the people of Tibet, do not want the Chinese there.

see also

official tibetan government in exile website
tibet wiki
other tibet related wiki articles
the chinese plunder of tibet
tibetan centre for human rights & democracy
china’s favorite propaganda on tibet and why it’s wrong
tibet: her pain, my shame
lucky to not be a party member
videos related to tibet
why support tibet

{ tibet does not have oil (that we know of), but perhaps they can compensate american altruism some other way }

babbage : the difference engine

2012-02-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
always a bit of a geek (years ago i even learned to use an abacus, [thanks, dad]), i was an avid reader of omni magazine, and later ran an opus bbs and read cyberpunk & steampunk - johnny memnonic, burning chrome, neuromancer - these the origins of cyberpunk and the matrix ...

one day, while looking for more of this genre in a seedy austin bookstore on the drag, i asked the clerk about similar styled reading and was told i should have asked the guy who had just been standing next to me while i waited my turn - bruce sterling

soon afterwards, i learned of babbage's difference engine while reading the eponymous book by william gibson and bruce steriling and was captivated with the idea of a room-sized precision mechanical calculator made of brass gears
}

Basically the difference engine is a mechanical, analog computer.

A paradigm of logical complexity and physical science. It was so far ahead of its time so as to be beyond the comprehension of most people and never built. Until recently.

“I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam!”
~ Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer. Considered a "father of the computer", Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans.

Credit: Science Museum

Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Nine years later, the Science Museum completed the printer Babbage had designed for the difference engine, an astonishingly complex device for the 19th century.

The project confirms Babbage's standing as a designer of formidable ingenuity. It also demonstrates that achievable precision was not a limiting consideration in Babbage's failures. It appears that the 19th century outcome had as much to do with politics, economics, and personalities, as with technology. We can say with some confidence that had Babbage built his engine, it would have worked.

Manufacturing parts for his engines stretched the standards of engineering practice of the time. The intricate shapes required special jigs and tools and the Engines’ mechanisms demanded hundreds of near-identical precision parts. Babbage conceived his Engine designs at a time when production techniques were in transition between craft traditions and mass-production and there was not yet the means of producing repeated parts automatically.

A machinist mills parts for the DE2
Credit: Science Museum

Babbage conducted an extensive survey of manufacturing techniques and practice by visiting manufactures and craft workshops in England and on the Continent. He concluded that the precision and intricacy required for the construction of his Engine were beyond the capabilities of the technology of the day. This study, conducted during the 1820s, formed the basis of his influential book entitled On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, published in 1832.

The discoveries of Babbage (as to a lesser extent Herschel, de Morgan and George Boole) have been seen by some as being influenced by Indian thought, in particular Indian logic. Mary Everest Boole claims that Babbage, along with Hershel was introduced to Indian thought in the 1820s by her uncle George Everest:

Some time about 1825, Everest came to England for two or three years, and made a fast and lifelong friendship with Herschel and with Babbage, who was then quite young. I would ask any fair-minded mathematician to read Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and compare it with the works of his contemporaries in England; and then ask himself whence came the peculiar conception of the nature of miracle which underlies Babbage's ideas of Singular Points on Curves (Chap, viii) – from European Theology or Hindu Metaphysic? Oh! how the English clergy of that day hated Babbage's book!

Principle of the Difference Engines Difference engines are so called because of the mathematical principle on which they are based, namely, the method of finite differences. In general, calculating the value of a polynomial can require any or all of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Modern construction, Difference Engine No. 2, 2005 - image: Doron Swade

An advantage of the method of finite differences is that it eliminates the need for multiplication and division, and allows the values of a polynomial to be calculated using simple addition only. Adding two numbers using gearwheels is easier to implement than multiplication or division and so the method simplifies an otherwise complex mechanism.

See Also:

a timely rain of coconuts

2012-02-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

Timely Rain

by Chogyam Trungpa

In the jungles of flaming ego,

May there be cool iceberg of bodhicitta.

On the race track of bureaurocracy,

May there be the walk of the elephant.

May the sumptuous castle of arrogance,

Be destroyed by vajra confidence.

In the garden of gentle sanity,

May you be bombarded with coconuts

Of wakefulness.

website

{

the rain was frozen but no less timely

}

image of the day: dick pairy

2012-02-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

dkr : simple truth

2012-02-08T04:00:00.000-08:00

Simple Truth : A teaching by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Every thought, every action – i.e. every step we take is for happiness. Even eating bittergaut for example is for some kind of satisfaction. Yes, everything is for happiness.

Happiness is the end. And the Buddhist term for happiness – the ultimate happiness that is, is nirvana. But how do we get there? There are many different ways. Many thinkers thought that we can reach it through materialism. But if you want to have happiness, you have to know the truth. This truth isn’t any divine, god-made, beyond-ordinary truth. It is a very simple truth.

We’re all born; we all die – and this is the incorruptible truth. We know many people have died before us – but we forget this after a while.

And yes, everything in this world is designed to take us away from the truth. We call people who plan ahead a visionary person, a person with good management, but we don’t even know if we are going to live until that time. And when we say ‘long’ we mean forever. We have to plan, but we have to keep reminding ourselves of the truth. If we have this alarm set on all the time, it will help us economically, as well as environmentally. This will bring a balance in everything.

View, the truth, such as death is important but to live with it is difficult. To achieve this, we need to meditate. Truth of impermanence of death is only one aspect of the truth. Then, what is the whole truth? Everything by nature is perfect – and this is the truth. The primordial perfection is the truth. This truth is too simple to believe, too close to see. We can achieve it only by doing nothing – by not touching it, or trying to alter or distort it.

The quintessence of Buddhist teaching is to keep things as they are – undisturbed – without fabrication and manipulation. You don’t have to leave behind the life you lead now to be enlightened. You feel you should leave your job and lead an ascetic life of a monk because you hold Milarepa and the like as your model. But there are many like Ashoka for example, who led a worldly life and still was enlightened. What is important is perseverance and consistency.

We are always trying to secure ourselves from problem that may or may not come. But then, how do we solve the problem? The problem that the ‘I’ creates? The answer is to just watch. Don’t try to find solution, simply let it be and watch. Mind can be destructed and the destruction of mind is enlightenment. Don’t judge – just watch. Break the habit of finding solutions to problems and just watch. This is Buddhism.

website

delicious nettles

2012-02-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
useless trivia: this blog was originally named after this wonderful plant for it's many nutritional properties and as an homage to the great yogi milarepa ... sometimes a sting can cure [tudo que arde cura]
}

Stinging nettle or common nettle, Urtica dioica, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant, native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, and is the best-known member of the nettle genus Urtica. The plant has many hollow stinging hairs called trichomes on its leaves and stems, which act like hypodermic needles that inject histamine and other chemicals that produce a stinging sensation when contacted by humans and other animals. The plant has a long history of use as a medicine and as a food source.

Nettle leaf is a herb that has a long tradition of use as an adjuvant remedy in the treatment of arthritis in Germany.
Nettle is used in shampoo to control dandruff and is said to make hair more glossy, which is why some farmers include a handful of nettles with cattle feed.
Nettle root extracts have been extensively studied in human clinical trials as a treatment for symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia

Stinging nettle has a flavour similar to spinach when cooked and is rich in vitamins A, C, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium.

In this video, Matt Berry of the Regenerative Design Institue (RDI) discusses the finer points of stinging nettle harvesting. Harvesting nettles can really adhere to the principles of permaculture by using the surplus nature has to offer. In many places, nettle is in extreme abundance and requires little or no input to grow. In this video, Matt shows us a particular type of sustainable wildcrafting technique. If you top the nettle at the right time when it is young and good to eat, more nettle will grow back. This can help the plant and increase the harvest. Nettle is by far the most nutritious plant in my garden, being a superfood with loads of vitamins and minerals, including chlorophyll and calcium. The poison in the stinging spines on nettles are rendered harmless by drying or cooking. You can also check out some cool nettle beer recipes in Buhner's Sacred Herbal and Healing Beers as well as figure out how to make lacto fermented nettle beer in Jessica Prentice's Full Moon Feast: The Hunger for Connection.

Nettle Soup

Ingredients

1 pound stinging nettles

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 white onion, diced

1/4 cup basmati rice

4 cups chicken broth

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil with 2 teaspoons of salt. Drop in the stinging nettles, and cook 1 to 2 minutes until they soften. This will remove most of the sting.
Drain in a colander, and rinse with cold water.
Trim off any tough stems, then chop coarsely.
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat, and stir in the onion. Cook until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, chicken broth, and chopped nettles. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender, about 15 minutes.
Puree the soup with an immersion blender, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

previously on irondance
blogspiration

gentle blue giant

2012-02-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
not much to say today ... please enjoy today's offering
}

The blue whale is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales (called Mysticeti). At 30 metres (98 ft) in length and 180 metric tons or more in weight, it is the largest known animal to have ever existed. Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-grey dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. As with other baleen whales, its diet consists almost exclusively of small crustaceans known as krill.

Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the twentieth century. For over a century, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected by the international community in 1966. A 2002 report estimated there were 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide. Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239,000.

see also

Inside Natures Giants Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4
Amazing Blue Whale Images & Video
Whale Facts
National Geographic video on a study of whale song
Sri Lankan colony

sopa soup

2012-02-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
a repost from miss cellania ~ a sopa themed link dump for your perusal
}

SOPA UPDATE

check out these links and educate yourself about the SOPA bill.
And then take action.

Please go to Stop American Censorship to add your name to the many who oppose these bills.

Get Involved

/r/sopa
List of companies that have expressed support for SOPA or PIPA.
List of tech companies, and their contact info, that have expressed support for SOPA or PIPA.
List of companies that have expressed concern with SOPA and PIPA.
Take Action Checklist at Stop American Censorship.
Contact Your Representative with info and a widget to find them by EFF and Wired for Change.
Directory of Representatives
Senators of the 112th Congress
Helpful info on making phone calls to your Senator or Representative.
SOPAOpera.org keeps track of where your Congressmembers stand on PROTECT-IP and SOPA.

Ten million signatures. Thank you.

The Story Behind the SOPA Blackout, from Mother Jones.

MPAA lobbyist Chris Dodd threw a hissy fit about the SOPA blackout. You can read about it or listen to it.

A couple of days later, Dodd says he would welcome a dialog between internet companies and content providers. "...the entire industry was surprised by the intensity of the objections that arose in the last couple of weeks."

After the blackouts: What's next for SOPA? Millions responded and both Senators and Representatives dropped their support, but the legislation may come back.

An incredibly clear explanation of SOPA for those of you who haven't bothered to read the details yet (or were scared off by text written in legalese). From a webcomic.

The balance of congressional support for SOPA/PIPA is shown changing graphically.

Senate websites went down under the crush of response from internet users.

The public responded to the blackout just as we expected.

How Copyright Industries Con Congress. The statistics on piracy turn out to be pretty much just made up.

The Super PIPA-SOPA Action/Info Flowchart Reference Guide. With links!

The results of Wednesday's animated GIF about SOPA from The Oatmeal. "...getting koala lovemaking on CNN is the highlight of my career and I wanted to share the moment with you."

blogspiration

you are what you eat

2012-02-01T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
last night while making dinner (reheated feijoada no less) i was reminded of the ingredients often used to make original feijoada of the empire - notably, the unwanted leftovers of the slaughterhouse - ears, lips, loin, tongue, feet ... i remembered a louis ck talk about ethnic food ... today i signed a petition against monsanto's problematic genetic meddling and poisoning of the food chain, and then ran across a post about the special ingredients used to make dumplings ... and there you have it!
}

Your diligent and inquisitive blogger attempted to research a bit on this tasty topic. He was hard pressed to find any actual information, there being an apparent black hole of information regarding this delicacy. There is however a very interesting article on the statistical aspects of boneless pork rectums (link below).

One website, did have this candid testimonial:

__________________________________________

Boneless Pork Rectum
by SociallyUnacceptable » Wed Sep 08, 2010 1:19 pm

As promised to J.C. in a conversation he and I had on facebook, here it is by demand of Bone's Lair crew:

As you all know I just moved to Iowa and have recently gotten a job working at a hog slaughterhouse for tyson foods. Upon the the first plant tour of the place, the only thing that most of the other new employees and I could remember was boxes upon boxes labelled "boneless pork rectum." I thought this may have been a joke of sorts so we asked. Apparently it is considered a delicacy in asia to eat pig assholes. When they say they use ever part of the hog....THEY MEAN IT!!!. Apparently the asians enjoy giving the occasional swine rim job or two. (pause for mental image)

In my orientation class somebody had to ask the obvious question... How do they make a boneless pork rectum? Well apparently one of the trainers actually was in this position before and explained. When the hog comes down the line they have it hanging ass up in the air. One person stands on this platform with this long metal rod with a type of saw blade at the base. Of all the official name for this particular item the official Tyson name for this item is called....the bum gun (couldn't make it up if I tried). All this person does is ram the "bum gun" up the hogs ass, hits the trigger and the saw cuts the hogs asshole off and drops it into the hog to be removed. The only claim to fame this position has is the fact that when someone asks what you do for a job, you can smile and say that you shoot assholes for a living.

This is my proof to bone's lair that a pigs asshole is tasty in asia, but not safe from anal probing here in the cornfields of Iowa.

____________________________________________

Ever wonder what’s in those delicious dumplings? What gives them that special tang? The flavor that cannot quite be named? Wonder no further! For the secret has been revealed.

And the secret is…boneless pork rectums, finely diced. All the hush-hush is over because these boxes were allowed to be photographed just before they were hustled into a restaurant in Taiwan. But now that their presence has been revealed to the world, the silence surrounding dumpling recipes can be broken.

Take a careful look at the labels. Not only are these rectums boneless—all the best ones are (mine is) —but they are inverted! Culinary insiders have long known that it is only in the cheapest dumplings that one finds non-inverted rectums.

Read the rest of this end all article on "The Mathematics of Boneless Pork Rectums", on wmbriggs.com

Louis CK on food

Louis C.K. - Duck Vaginas - watch more funny videos

website
blogspiration

correspondence : griffin and sabine

2012-01-31T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
as so much becomes digital, new meaning is found in tactile books and long-play vinyl ... griffin and sabine is a wonderful dance of word, image and sensation
}

It all started with a mysterious and seemingly innocent postcard, but from that point nothing was to remain the same in the life of Griffin Moss, a quiet, solitary artist living in London. His logical, methodical world was suddenly turned upside down by a strangely exotic woman living on a tropical island thousands of miles away. Who is Sabine? How can she "see" what Griffin is painting when they have never met?

Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence is an epistolary novel by Nick Bantock, published in 1991. It is the first novel in The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy and was a bestseller. The story is told through a series of removable letters and postcards between the two main characters and is intended for an adult audience, as some sources describe the artwork as disturbing.

Griffin Moss is an artist living in London who makes postcards for a living. He is unhappy and lonely, though he is unaware of these feelings. His life is changed forever when he receives a cryptic postcard from Sabine Strohem, a woman he has never met. Like Griffin, she is an artist (she illustrates postage stamps) and comes from a fictional group of small islands in the South Pacific known as the Sicmon Islands. The two begin to correspond regularly.

the crystal palace of naica

2012-01-30T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
uncovered when miners broke through by chance, a wonder of the world, the cave of crystals
}

When the cave was first discovered it was just an accident. Miners working in the Naica silver mine broke through the walls of the cavern and were astounded to discover these enormous crystals - the biggest anywhere on Earth.

To enter the cave, special gear needs to be worn. When the first people went in to explore, they were almost overcome by the conditions - and there's some pretty hairy video footage of them coming out of the cave on the verge of losing consciousness.

In Mexico's Cave of Crystals, a thousand feet below the Chihuahuan Desert, it's about 122F / 50C , but it's the +80% humidity added on top that makes it a potential killer. Naica is filled with giant crystals; some of the largest ever discovered. The high temperature and humidity and sharp edges everywhere make the cave one of the deadliest, and most beautiful, environments on earth.

Short BBC documentary

dkr : currents

2012-01-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

Some say the dark age, age of vice, Kaliyuga, is here now, or at least coming soon. Some even fear that at the end of 2012 the world as we know it will end. What determines if an age is dark or golden? What are the symptoms or omens? Earthquakes, violet skies, meteoric activity, these are not the omens of doomsday as we are made to believe. Likewise, cherub's flying, a sound economy, freedom of information, peaceful times are also not necessarily signs of a golden age. The age of light is said to be when people value empathy and forgiveness, when they have a willingness to see other people's view, and are contented with what they have. When such values are systematically sabotaged, then you can say that the dawn of the doomsday has begun. When we look at a harmless beggar as a pest and envy billionaires who routinely destroy the earth,we are inviting doomsday to come.

Like Buddha taught, everything is dependant on cause and condition. Dark and golden ages are no exception. They are not predestined, nor are they random or chaotic. Destiny is conditioned, Chief among the causes and conditions is one's own individual self, you can create your destiny. Your choices are your destiny. What and how we are now depends on what and how we have been in the past. What and how we will be in the future depends on what and how we are now.

Shakyamuni with his lotus feet may approach your doorstep for alms but if we keep on being obsessed with Patek Philipe watches, fame or friends, or six pack abs, then Buddha's truth is an annoyance, an inconvenient truth.

Even though we may be in midst of Kaliyuga and are subject to endless causes and conditions of the dark age—easily distracted and confined to thinking of our own self preservation, aspiring to reach benchmarks based on materialistic, consumerist values—we can take advantage of it. It is said that during the degenerate times, the compassion of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas ever more stronger. A savvy spiritual person could take advantage of that opportunity. The dark age can be a reminder of the urgency and preciousness of the Buddha, dharma, and sangha.

As beings that are dependant on conditions, we need to search for light, and cultivate the conditions that will brings light. We need constant reminding of the opposite of materialism. For that we need the image of the Buddha, the sound of the dharma, and the structure of the sangha.

In the past few years, we have lost some of the greatest appearances of the Buddha, such as Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, and Mindroling Trichen Rinpoche and Penor Rinpoche, who were all great reminders. But even though their appearance has dissolved, bear in mind that their compassion does not know the meaning of limitations.

In the spirit of where there is a demand, there is supply, we should have aspirations and longing for the appearance of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas to never to cease, and—to put it in a trendy term—their swift rebirth. But this rebirth should not be limited to a Tibetan child who has been raised in a particular culture or tradition. We can wish for Buddha's rebith in all forms, even as something seemingly insignificant as the breeze, to remind us of the values of love and compassion and tolerance. We must aspire to galvanize myriad manifestations of the Buddha, not just throne-hopping, Rolls Royce-driving tulkus who are a product of nepotism.

DJKHYENTSE. 28.1.2012

time dance : one yogini

2012-01-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

meghan currie : handstands, motorcycles, smells, safety pins, bicycles, music, moss, languages, books, trees, beets, mud, dancing,
diagrams, sewing, teaching, surprises, shaking, yard sales,
anatomy, instruments, sleeping outside, wisdom, nonsense, sprouts, spoons, seeds, cats, insects, fears, rocks, giving, essential oils, foods that vibrate, photos, ocean, laughing, naps, spinach, crying, sewing machine parts, singing, love, wrinkles, long walks, good talks, all creatures, trees, apples, raspberries, learning, breathing....being...

(by meghan currie)

in case it is not immediately apparent, these are timelapse videos
of a yoga instructor going through her asanas

Original Music Composed By Philip Glass

website

video of the day : the best of twenty-eleven

2012-01-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

"Sure, I have change for a dollar!"

{
best of? ~ a compilation, anyway
}

Time is relative, so a minute can seem like a lifetime and a lifetime can flash by in a second.

blogspiration

the origins of the mp3

2012-01-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
back in the day, my dad proudly showed me the guts of his hi-fi system and that citadel of glowing vacuum valves ... i used a converted 8 track player (an automotive model in a wood case with AC-DC adapter) to listen to wind & wuthering while i read the hobbit ... i made quite a few mixtapes from long-play albums using german needles on japanese electronics to play on my walkman ... i once produced a series of audio CDs using a special CD recorder and printer ... and i have used itunes to download purchased digital music and video to my ipod ... i like to watch a movie while i ride the bus.
}

MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer III and it is a standard for audio compression that makes any music file smaller with little or no loss of sound quality. MP3 is part of MPEG, an acronym for Motion Pictures Expert Group, a family of standards for displaying video and audio using lossy compression. More commonly referred to as MP3, it is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players.

the iconic diamond rio carbon 6gig mp3 player

The use in MP3 of a lossy compression algorithm is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent the audio recording and still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio for most listeners. An MP3 file that is created using the setting of 128 kbit/s will result in a file that is about 1/11 the size of the CD file created from the original audio source. An MP3 file can also be constructed at higher or lower bit rates, with higher or lower resulting quality.

The compression works by reducing accuracy of certain parts of sound that are considered to be beyond the auditory resolution ability of most people. This method is commonly referred to as perceptual coding. It uses psychoacoustic models to discard or reduce precision of components less audible to human hearing, and then records the remaining information in an efficient manner.

When compact discs were introduced in 1982, consumers marveled at the amount of information they could store. For every three-minute song, a CD uses about 32 megabytes of data. But that size proved to be unwieldy in the early, pokey days of the Internet. Using an old, dial-up modem, it might take eight hours to transfer or download a single song.

In the early 1990s, German engineer Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg pioneered digital compression techniques for the MP3, crunching the size of audio data by a factor of 11. While tweaking the format, Brandenburg used Suzanne Vega’s 1987 a cappella rendition of “Tom’s Diner” as the benchmark for sonic quality. He reasoned that if he could get her warm vocals to sound good on MP3, then the new platform would work with just about anything. So, if you love downloading music, thank Vega for having such a pretty voice.

Frauenhofer developed the first, however, unsuccessful MP3 player. In 1997, developer Tomislav Uzelac of Advanced Multimedia Products invented the AMP MP3 Playback Engine, the first successful MP3 player. Two university students, Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev ported AMP to Windows and created Winamp. In 1998, Winamp became a free MP3 music player boosting the success of MP3. No licensing fees are required to use an MP3 player.

The era of MP3 portability began with the introduction of Diamond Multimedia's Rio in the U.S. and Saehan Information Systems's MPMAN in Korea. They are the first headphone stereos that used solid-state flash memory to store and play compressed MP3 music files, either downloaded from the Internet or "ripped" from a music CD. The ensuing popularity of MP3 portables led dozens of companies to offer compressed-music portables, and it led to the development of additional audio codecs for use in PCs and in portable devices.

website
more info
blogspiration

design : the M.A.D. gallery

2012-01-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
boundaries of delightfully mad industrial and mechanical design are blurred at the mechanical art device gallery
}

MB&F isn't going to be releasing a new watch this month. Instead, we see the official opening of the very first M.A.D. Gallery, a concept store under the MB&F umbrella in the heart of Geneva. But, MB&F only makes around 150 watches per year, so how could they fill an entire store with them? Well, the thing is, they can't, and they wouldn't want to anyways. The MAD Gallery is about finding friends who believe in the same sense of design as MB&F, and giving them a place to share the spotlight with the MB&F Machines. Don't really understand? Watch the video to see Mr. Büsser explain exactly what the MAD Gallery is.

MB&F M.A.D.Gallery from MB&F.

M.A.D. Gallery
Rue Verdaine 11
1204 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 508 10 38 Fax: +41 22 310 97 11
Email: info@madgallery.ch

website
blogspiration

dance on a skyline : rendez-vous houston

2012-01-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

{

from 1986 an amazing multimedia event - the whole of downtown houston became a surreal musical adventure with motion and still image projections, lasers, lights and fireworks spread across the center of town and everybody in the area tuned to the radio station transmitting the audio so that music came from every boombox we passed as well as the enormous speakers at the venue
}

Rendez-vous Houston: A City in Concert was a live performance by musician Jean Michel Jarre amidst the skyscrapers of downtown Houston on the evening of April 5, 1986, coinciding with the release of the Rendez-Vous album. For a period of time, it held a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest outdoor "rock concert" in history, with figures varying from 1 to 1.5 million in attendance. Rendez-vous Houston is remembered for being the concert which celebrated the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which had happened only two and a half months beforehand. One of Jarre's friends, astronaut Ron McNair, had been killed in the disaster. He was supposed to play the saxophone from space during the track "Last Rendez-Vous"; his substitute for the concert was Houston native Kirk Whalum.

The concert is often considered a milestone in Jean Michel Jarre’s career. The event was broadcast on TV all over the world and made Jarre a concert legend.

bear seventy one

2012-01-23T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
the frontiers of technology and immersive media are doing more than provide shock value and
moving toward providing an arena for better understanding
}

Bear 71 Live is a project that observes and records the intersection of humans, nature and technology in a live, Internet connected event. Questioning how we see the world through the lens of technology, this multi-user, interactive story blurs the line between the wild world and the wired one. And it involves an augmented reality app.

Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison’s poignant interactive documentary about a bear in the Canadian Rockies illuminates the way humans engage with wildlife in the age of networks, satellites, and digital surveillance. Audiences from around the world can use their smartphones to become part of an interactive forest environment rich with bears, cougars, sheep, deer, and people as they follow an emotional story of a grizzly bear tagged and monitored by Banff National Park rangers.

Bear 71 from National Film Board of Canada.

image of the day : mlk

2012-01-22T04:00:00.000-08:00

exercise your rights

so you don't lose them

land of the sheep

2012-01-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

{
home of the naive
}

“Go to work, send your kids to school
follow fashion, act normal
walk on the pavements, watch T.V.
save for your old age, obey the law
Repeat after me: I am free.”

-Graffiti artist, Windmill Hill, England

A nod to those comfortably numb United Statesians who call themselves "patriots" and argue in favor of "big business and small government", yet reduce the freedom of all, by allowing their profit oriented political representatives to recognize corporations as having the same voting rights as ordinary people ~ the same who ignore that those representatives are not representing the interests of the majority, but rather the interests of a FEW wealthy, powerful and ACTIVE people - and by the way, since corporations are frequently MULTINATIONAL, policies will favor economic interests of other states, and likely conflict with their own ...

WAKEY-WAKEY!!!

blogspiration