KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.

Pledge your support by donating here: bit.ly/konydonate and continue to share this story. GOAL: 500,000 shares

It’s rare for me to find a video that makes me smile with absolute awe; but tonight folks I have found just that. The University of Pennsylvania’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab have been the stars of the Quadrotor scene, by first showing the extremities of quadrotor flight, and now with this perfectly executed musical number #007. The video was revealed to the world yesterday at the TED2012 conference based in California.

Here’s your debriefing on how they managed to make it all come together: Firstly, the room was heavily equipped with infrared lights and cameras, which was used to get an exact barring on where each quadrotor was. The data received was then relayed wirelessly back to the machines to make them aware of their own location, and of their flying comrades.

All the Quadrotors were programmed to follow three-dimensional waypoints, which they had to reach at precise moments in time. Even though the coordinates had been programmed by skilled operators, it was entirely up to each robot to figure out a way to reach it’s appointed waypoints on time, and without disturbing the rest of the mechanical orchestra. I can’t wait for what else they’ll dish out in the future!

Colours can make you feel anxious, scared, happy or calm; they can be the catalyst to opening you up to a range of feelings and if used in the right way can be ascetically pleasing to the eye, so it’s important to master them. Experienced designers can intuitively tell what colour works well with another (they can smell them) and can also understand the relationships between the many different tints in a spectrum. Using complex algorithms, colorschemedesigners can choose perfect colour combinations for you, or to give you a general idea of what goes well with what- so take that you experienced colour expert people!

The image you see above is the result of me choosing the colour red after clicking the triad button; it instantly chooses two other colours to complement the one I have selected. Underneath you have a choice of picking out a preview of what the colours might look like on a webpage, you have two choices: The light page preview has a white background to it and (you guessed it) the dark page has a dark back drop to base the website on.

 Here you can see that i’ve chosen the light background and have been given an example of what it might look like on an actual web page, pretty cool no? You also have the choice to change the secondary colours by clicking the example webpage to get feel of what you want. You can apply this site-tool to numerous things: interior design, posters, screen prints, websites or (if you don’t have a fashion sense) selecting your own clothes. If your interested in checking the site out click on the link:colorschemedesigner

It was in college Harvey started his love affair with photography, a love that came about from his fixation on the cameras magical ability to freeze a moment in time. Along with the camera was his passion for illustration and by throwing both loves into the mixing pot he’s come up with a rather unique photography style. By digitally placing his figures into a photograph, it allows the mediums to collaborate with each other, creating a rather bizarre and mystifying effect; one that tugs on the sympathetic heart strings.

As he takes his pictures, Harvey has more on his plate to chew than your average photographer; not only is he tweaking with his ISO, he’s arranging the elements of his shot to serve as a reference for lighting and perspective so that he can build a dramatic stage for his characters to act upon. The culmination if his labor resulted in his thesis work called Left Behind, a “meditation on personal indignities and an allegory on the passing of childhood.” The graphic narrative approach of this work is later expanded on in two of his following series: The Conductor & Castaways.

The biblical passage from Matthew,“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” was a conceptual starting point for The Conductor series. Harvey asked himself “who are the meek and what happens when they inherit the earth?” from this he imagined an empty world only inhabited by creatures that are broken in both body and spirit. Among these creatures he pictured “a displaced corporate mascot, abandoned by a society that once revered him, a stilted beast of burden who has grown complacent with being manipulated, and a puddle-bellied brute fascinated with socks.” He drew upon influences such as comic books, films, cartoons like Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and the dark visions depicted in Goya’s Los Caprichos. Overall, The Conductor is a reflection on the many social strifes people face day-by-day, with themes of abandonment, humiliation, and disappointment in falling short of one’s ambitions and other’s expectations.

Castaways was conceived after Harvey discovered his old sketches marooned in a dusty drawing book of his; he thought of how his abandoned creations were never fully realised for at the time their potential was locked away, ready to be found in a distant future. So the perspective gained through the passing of time helped him fulfil these unrealised illustrations- this lead to the theme of the entire series: A dedication to the departed and an elegy for everyone left behind, hoping for a reunion in the imaginary places they miss.

If you like what you see, go check out the rest of his work here!

The five designers of BioLite have mated together a portable stove the size of a bottle with a gadget charger that utilises the excess heat from a fire. You can burn anything from sticks, twigs, pine cones and other renewable resources you have available; these fuels are a much better alternative to petroleum gas, and brings water to a steaming boil in practically no time at all.

The additional containment of the fire helps capture wasted potential energy and lessens the toxic smog an open wood fire creates due to incomplete combustion. The carefully designed stoves that implement fans to blow air into the fire can significantly improve combustion, but unfortunately such stoves require small amounts of electricity to power the fans, which sucks if your out in woods. BioLite however, resolves the problem by converting a fraction of the fire’s thermal energy into electrical energy, powering the fans and the devices you attach. Costing only $130 it practically sells itself but if you’re still not convinced watch the video below for more information. If you are interested in buying the product click on this word.

On the day before the big race, he decided to wonder around the streets with his Canon 5D camera with attached EF70-200mm lens. As he neared Leicester Square, he spotted and aimed his camera at a young homeless woman, huddled in a sleeping bag surrounded by empty chinese food containers- he took the shot. Jeffries recounts what happens next, “She spotted me and started shouting, drawing the attention of passersby, I could have just walked away in an embarrassed state, or I could have gone over and apologized to her.” He chose the latter and crossed the street and sat with the woman.

The eighteen-year-old, whose complexion indicated she was abusing drugs, told Jeffries her saddening story: her parents had died, leaving her without a home, and she now was forced to live on the streets of London. This single moment had a profound ripple effect in Jeffries life, intensifying his focus on the subject matter of his street photography -to the homeless- and defining his approach to capturing pictures.

He didn’t want to exploit these people or steal photographs from them like so many others who’ve seen the homeless as easy pray. Instead, he would connect with them in order to create intimate portraits that reveal an all-to-human story. Jeffries says, “I need to see some kind of emotion in my subjects. I specifically look at people’s eyes—when I see it, I recognize it and feel it—and I repeat the process over and over again.”

Keeping the conversations as informal as possible, Jeffries rarely takes nots as he believes it might raise some suspicion, blocking some of the more natural expressions; so he takes his pictures while talking with them and doing so enables him to freeze those “real emotions” within his subjects with the click of a button. “I’m stepping into their world,” he says. “Everyone else walks by like the homeless are invisible. I’m stepping through the fear, in the hope that people will realize these people are just like me and you.”

Being self-funded Jeffries has used vacation time to travel to Skid Row in Los Angeles three times, as well as Las Vegas, New York, London, Paris and Rome, to continue his project. His style of underexposing a shot then later dodging back light to where he wants it is a direct reference to the religious overtones he felt while photographing the beggars and homeless in Rome. Even after he has had these heavy emotional experiences, it sometimes lingers while he processes his pictures. Jeffries says, “When I’m talking to these people, I can’t then leave that emotion, so when I get back to my computer so emotionally involved, sometimes I will start to cry when processing the image.”

So passionate is he with his photographs that he’s turned his project into a life long mission to help those who are helpless by raising funds, posting to flickr, and entering his work in competitions to bring about awareness. Over the past three years Jeffries has placed third, second and second in an annual Amateur Photographer magazine award contest, and has won separate monthly contests which come with a camera as a reward. Each of the half dozen cameras he’s won has been donated to raise funds for charities, including homeless and disability organizations.

The proceeds from Jeffries’s Blurb book, which features homeless portraits, go to the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles and the photographer allows any charity to use his images free of charge. Jeffries also runs the London and New York marathons to raise money for Shelter, a U.K. housing charity. He’s committed himself at a more personal level too, buying lunch for a man who had lost his fingers and toes to frostbite or taking a woman with a staph infection to the hospital when she was sick. Jeffries estimates he has given thousands of dollars to these individuals, but what he has given them in terms of a sense of dignity and outpouring of concern is immeasurable.

If you want to support this amazing artist go check out his Flickr, and help out by donating some funds to your local charity/homeless shelter!

Do you know what a master equipment operator is capable of? The video above flaunts Youtube user Bobcatninja2124‘s amazing ability to manipulate his mechanical dinosaur (a Bobcat E50) with utmost accuracy- he’s so good at what he does he manages to do this feat on his first try. What a boss.

Basically NeverWet works by harnessing the power of fear, or rather, angled microscopic nanoparticles to force the water to cluster together into a droplet. The angle of the nanoparticles is all important, and is what divides the waterproof or water resistant from the super-hydrophobic. For a surface to be hydrophobic it must have a contact angle of 150 degrees- NeverWet has a contact angle as high as 165 degrees. The benefits are not only dryness and saving a killing from laundry costs, but also improving ones own health since bacteria thrive in watery conditions. Superman can ricochet bullets but really, who needs that power when you can deflect deadly stains, spills and warmongering bacteria? I’ve laid out below a few videos which better explain the effectiveness of  NeverWet, and a link to the site where you can get this miraculous product: http://www.neverwet.com/

I asked her about her upbringing and discovered that It was rough living in Warsaw, Poland during the 80′s. Riots were breaking out after the end communism, economic instability ensued and martial law declared- this was the time when Julia was born. When she was 16 she got herself an old camera, a “rather not impressive one, since living wasn’t easy” and started experimenting with Photoshop for fun.

So started her love for photography, a passion tenderly fostered to become a integral part of her own life. The heroin addict has his needle, Julia has her camera and states that “Its a kind of addiction, that you cant imagine living without,” and a much healthier one at that! She also added that she has a tattoo to remind her to get her daily photography fix.

After maturing her relationship with the camera she looked into becoming a freelance photographer, which goes along with that lovely saying ‘follow your bliss.’ Staying versatile in her shooting, she’ll do anything from capturing weddings, portraits to interior spaces and anything else she finds interesting or artistically quirky. She shoots in RAW format, which gives her more control over color correction and processing on the computer, allowing her to place a part of herself in every shot.

Her current camera companion is a D300 but already she dreams of another more adept partner in crime: the Nikon D800. The other part of her merry camera crew are the Nikkor and Tamron lenses along with the Nikon SB900 lamp (although she prefers natural light.) She’s been trying to build her own unique style of photography, basing it upon many influences (a list too long to be named) and searches for more throughout the vast expanding universe of the internet and in galleries she stumbles across in her travels.

She is currently in Ireland, having a whale of a time and sharing that enjoyment through her lovely pictures- if you guys want to check out her travel blog it’s http://ilovegalway.wordpress.com/ On top of picture taking she’s been involved in some graphic design just as a means to realizing her potential. “I just need to create and be creative, i found a lot of things i really want to do (i.e., decoupage,) but feel like i need to focus on photography and graphic design instead.” For other down time activities she loves “cooking, Meeting friends, going to parties, that is what makes me who I am – a trully, 100% life-lover!” If you enjoy her work, take a look at more on her website!

Make some room in that big brainy head of yours because SillyReverie is going to pack it in with some genius new talent, fascinating new inventions, philosophical conundrums, stunning deigns & much much more!

I found this unbelievably amazing video today of Charlie Chaplin giving one of the most impressive monologues; I was left with my jaw agape, this was the first time i ever heard him produce any sort of sound- I feel obligated to watch the rest of his works. I nabbed a transcript of it and posted it below (With another bonus video!):

“I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these things cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.” The misery that has come upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to these brutes who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle and use you as cannon fodder! Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are men! With the love of humanity in your hearts! Don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to the happiness of us all. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite!”

Here is the same monologue but with inception music; it’s pretty amazing what a well placed tune does to the emotional value of a speech- give it a watch!

Are you some sort of bad ass spy or at least think you are? Here is one highly original way you can break into a building to steal whatever documents or cigars you need- all with the amazing versatility of Lego’s! This scene was taken off of a 1979 Danish movie called The Olsen Gang Never Surrenders, click on the title if your interested in knowing more.

She has stated that she chose to crochet as a means to do two things at once: to watch movies and make some great art. She has been quoted saying, “Life and art are inseparable. The movies I watch while crocheting influence my work, and my work dictates the films I select.” I’d do the same to keep myself interested for the many hours of knitting to be done.

Her artistic goal is to bring renewed color, life and energy with a splash of surprise to a living space- presenting these spaces to the public. Her installations covering some very iconic structures, such as the business district bull.

She often collaborates with neighborhoods to highlight the, “economic and social reality in our community,” and takes advantage of New York’s many diversified areas to do so.

Olek’s work has been presented in galleries from Brooklyn to Harlem; Istanbul to Venice; Poland and Brazil- her work has also been featured in many great magazines and newspapers around the world. If you like what you see go check out her site!

If there are any sociopaths out there who want a step-by-step guide on destroying civilization, you’ve come to the right place. This hilarious 3D animation created with motion capture technology guides you through all the things needed to culture an unstoppably destructive strain of nanobots and additional information on how to loose your soul; so you can go through with your diabolical plans! Nukes- boring. Incurable virus- boring. Nanobots are where it’s at. Enjoy!

Ramette sculpted his way to fame in the 90′s as part of the French contemporary art scene; creating odd wooden and metal objects & instruments. The next logical step in his career was photography, and through it he has created a strange, neo-romantic universe, using well planned, yet utterly irrational situations. His works seem to create a statement about gravity, weightlessness and man’s relationship to the landscape.

Ramette still sees himself as a sculptor and goes to extraordinary lengths to create his highly implausible set-ups, building hidden metal supports that he calls “sculpture-structures”. He has metal rings tethered to him by the ankles as he hangs from buildings, and metal seats hidden by his suits jut out from cliff sides to hold him up; all of these recreated from sketches that he considers storyboards- this is probably why his photographs have been compared to the work of Buster Keaton and the world of silent cinema.

The image you see above was shot in the middle of Hong Kong’s harbour, the inspiration of this scene came to him in a dream in the early 90′s. For the shot, a watertank served as an underwater float for the balcony and was put in place by a barge and crane; Ramette then secured his feet on supports, leaned back and clung to the wood. During the initial attempts, he was soaked by waves and had to swim to safety.

Yearning for the effect of absolute, implausible serenity Ramette dives under the waves for his series Rational Exploration Of The Undersea, which was set off of the coast of Corsica. Wearing lead weights under his suit and around his ankles, he hired a team of divers to supply him with oxygen when needed. Waiting for the bubbles and the divers to move out of frame, Ramette’s team would capture the effect of stillness. Ramette has commented on the experience saying, “there I was in a suit on the seabed, weighed down and able to walk underwater as if on land, unaffected by the currents. For me, that was a real pleasure.”

If you enjoy his works, you can see more picture here!

I have my psychology exam coming up and along with the enormous amounts of cramming being done, is the rekindling of my passion for Jungian and Freudian thought. I decided today to spend some time building up my science category, to even out the site a bit; the artsy side of my mind has been subduing the more rationally oriented parts it seems. Here in this lecture we have Alan Watts (a legend) discussing Jung’s “enduring contributions toward the science of psychology”. In the first part of this three parter, he expands upon the influence Jungs’ work had on himself, and exposes the reality of good and evil as a part of the internal structure of an individuals psychology, which we unconsciously project outwardly- truly fascinating stuff!

In this second part, he continues to talk about the ‘evil’ aspects of the human mind, justifying it’s existence as an intrinsic part of our humanity. You do not become perfected by conquering this facet of your self with malice and self-contempt; you recognize it (accept it) as you and build a relationship with it. As with any healthy relationship, it is built with love and trust, “manure contributes to the fragrance of the rose”. I’ll leave this part with Jungs last quote so you can dwell on it:

“People forget that even doctors have moral scruples and that certain patients’ confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow. Yet the patient does not feel himself accepted unless the very worst in him is accepted too. No one can bring this about by mere words, it comes only through reflexion and through the doctors attitude towards himself and his own dark side.

If the doctor wants to guide another or even accompany him a step of the way, he must feel with that person’s psyche. He never feels it when he passes judgment. wether he puts his judgment into words or keeps them to himself makes not the slightest difference. To take the opposite position and to agree with the patient off-hand is also of no use, but estranges him as much as condemnation. This feeling comes only through unprejudiced objectivity.

This sounds almost like a scientific precept and it could be confused with a purely intellectual abstract attitude of mind, but what I mean is something quite different.

It is a human quality, a kind of deep respect for the facts, for the man who suffers from them, and for the riddle of such a man’s life. The truly religious person has this attitude: he knows that god has brought all sorts of strange and inconceivable things to pass and seeks in the most curious of ways to enter a mans heart. He therefore senses in everything the unseen presence of the divine will. This is what I mean by unprejudiced objectivity, it is a moral achievement on the part of the doctor, who ought not to be repelled by sickness and corruption.

We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses and I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not his friend and fellow sufferer. I do not in the least mean to say that we must never pass judgment when we desire to help and improve, but if the doctor wishes to help a human being he must be able to accept him as he is, and he can do this in reality only when he has already seen and accepted himself as he is.

Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult.

In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple, and so acceptance of one’s self is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ; all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ.

But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most imputed of all offenders, yay that the very fiend himself, that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved, what then?

Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed. there is then no more talk of love and long-suffering. We say to the brother within us: “raka!” and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world, we deny ever having met this least of the lowly in ourselves, and had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.”

I found a transcription of this final bit- I’d advise you to read along while you listen to Watts’ smooth voice. Hope you enjoyed!

in other words our rage, and our very proper rage against evil things which occur in this world must not overstep itself. for if we require for a justfication for our rage a fundamental and metaphysical division between good and evil, we have an insane and in a certain sense schizophrenic universe, of which no sense whatsoever can be made. all conflict, jung were saying, all opposition has it’s resolution in an underlying unity. you cannot understand the meaning of ‘to be’ unless you understand the meaning of ‘not to be’ you cannot understand the meaning of good unless you understand the meaning of evil. even st. thomas aquinas saw this, for he said: “that just as it is the silent pause which gives sweetness to the chant, so it is suffering and so it is evil which makes possible the recognition of virtue” this is not, as jung tries to explain, a philosophy of condoning the evil. to take the opposite, he said, and to agree with the patient off-hand is also of no use, but estranges him the patient as much as condemnation. let me continue further, reading from this extraordinary passage:

“healing may be called a religious problem. in the sphere of social or national relations, the state of suffering may be civil war, and this state is to be cured by the christian virtues of forgiveness and love of one’s enemies. that which we recommend with the conviction of good christians, as applicable to external situations, we must also apply inwardly in the treatment of neurosis. this is why modern man has heard enough about guilt and sin. he is sorely beset by his own bad conscience and wants rather to know how he is to reconcile himself with his own nature. how he is to love the enemy in his own heart and call the wolf his brother. the modern man does not want to know in what way he can imitate christ, but in what way he can live his own individual life, however meager and un-interesting it may be. it is because every form of imitation seems to him deadening and sterile, that he rebells against the force of tradition that would hold him to well-trodden ways. all such roads lead for him in the wrong direction. he may not know it, but he behaves as if his own individual life were god’s special will which must be fulfilled at all costs. this is the source of his egoism, which is one of the most tangible evils of the neurotic state. but the person who tells him he is too egoistic has already lost his confidence, and rightfully so, for that person has driven him still further into his neurosis. if i wish to effect a cure for my patients, i am forced to acknowledge the deep significance of their egoism. i should be blind indeed if i did not recognize it as a true will of god. i must even help the patient to prevail in his egoism. if he succeeds in this he estranges himself from other people, he drives them away, and they come to themselves as they should, for they were seeking to rob him of his sacred egoism. this must be left of him for it is his strongest and healthiest power. it is as i have said, a true will of god, which sometimes drives him into complete isolation. however wretched this state may be, it also stands him in good stead, for in this way alone can he get to know himself and learn what an invaluable treasure is the love of his fellow beings. it is moreover only in the complete state of abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures.”

this is a very striking example of jungs power to comprehend and integrate points of view as well as psychological attitudes that seem on the surface to be completely antithetical. for example, even in his own work, when he was devoting himself to the study of eastern philosophy, he had some difficulty in comprehending the, let’s say the buddhistic, denial of the reality of the ego. but you can see that in practice, in what he was actually trying to get at, he was moving toward the same position which is intended in both the hindu and the buddhist philosophy about the nature of the ego. just for example as the hindu will say, that the “i” principle in man is not really a seperate ego but an expression of the universal life of brahman or the god-head, so jung is saying here that the development of ego in man is a true will of god, and that it is only by following the ego, and developing it to it’s full extend that one fulfilles the function of this, you might say, temporary illusion in man’s psychic life. for he goes on, he says here:

“when one has serveral times seen this development at work, one can no longer deny that what was evil has turned to good and that what seemed good kept alive the forces of evil. the archdemon of egoism leads us along the royal road to that ingathering which religious experience demands. what we observe here is a fundamental law of life: enantiodromia or ‘conversion into the opposite’. and it is this that makes possible the reunion of the waring halves of the personality, and thereby brings the civil war to an end.”

in other words he was seeing that, as blake said: “a fool who persists in his folly will become wise.” that the development of egoism in man is not something to be overcome or better integrated by opposition to it, but by following it. it’s almost, isn’t it, the principle of judo: not overcoming what appears to be a hostile force by opposing it, but by swinging with the punch or rolling with the punch. and so by following the ego the ego trancends itself, and in this moment of insight, the great westerner who comes who comes out of a whole tradition of human personality which centers it upon the ego, upon individual seperateness, by going along consistently with this principle comes to same position as the easterner. that is to say, to the point of view where one sees conflict which at first sight had seemed absolute, as resting a primordial unity and thereby attaining a profound, unshakable peace of the heart, which can nevertheless contain conflict. not a peace that is simply static and lifeless but a peace that passes understanding.

You can find the whole transcription here and more of Alan Watts talks, go check them out!

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary mind of the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. In 1907 Sigmund Freud met a young man and fell into a conversation that is reputed to have lasted for 13 hours. That man was the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. Freud is celebrated as the great pioneer of the 20th century mind, but the idea that personality types can be ‘introverted’ or ‘extroverted’, that certain archetypal images and stories repeat themselves constantly across the collective history of mankind, and that personal individuation is the goal of life, all belong to Jung: “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart… Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens”, he declared. And he also said “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you”.

Who was Jung? What is the essence and influence of his thought? And how did he become such a controversial and, for many, such a beguiling figure? With Brett Kahr, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London and a practising Freudian; Ronald Hayman, writer and biographer of Jung; Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology at the University of Essex and a Jungian analyst in clinical practice. Hope you enjoy this intriguing talk!

Holymotherofgod, this is shocking! Ian Millhiser, Center for American Progress joins Thom Hartmann. Is the Supreme Court about to give corporations the right to commit genocide? Believe it or not – that may happen. The High Court has agreed to hear the case of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum which could give corporations immunity from any lawsuits for their employees murdering, raping, or torturing people in the areas where they’re drilling for oil or fielding mercenary armies – just as long as they’re carrying out the atrocities under the heading of corporate business.

These guys have done it; in one hilarious music video, they have single highhandedly captured every meme on the internet. If you go online more than once a year you’ll still know at least one or two of these memes.  To name a few: Nyan Cat, Rage guy, Troll Dad, Trololo, O RLY, Keyboard Cat, Chuck Testa, Numa Numa, Rick Roll and Chacarron.

He was born in Queens, New York and at a very young age showed a natural flair to the arts; a passion that his mother fostered, motivating him to pursue it as a career. He became a teacher and from 1993 to 2006 Ray taught art to grade K-12 students in Bellaire, Michigan. It was during this time he decided to play around with pumpkin sculpting, initially as a fun project for his students and himself.

His popularity grew with the students’ parents as he started getting requests for custom-carved pumpkins; this made him realize he was on to something and so he started offering them to local hotels and restaurants- it soon became his fall hobby for several years.

His pumpkin sculpting hobbies were brought to an entire new level in 2007 when he was contacted by High Noon Entertainment and asked to participate in the Food Network’s Challenge Show, Outrageous Pumpkins. Ray competed as one of four professional pumpkin sculptors, impressed the judges enough to sweep all three rounds and was awarded the Grand Prize. Outrageous Pumpkins logged the highest ratings of any other Challenge episode, and a second invitation was extended to Ray in 2009. They wanted him to come back and defend his title in their Outrageous Pumpkins Challenge II. Ray defended his 2008 title and took home the 2010 Grand Prize from the Food Network’s Pumpkin Challenge II.

The ensuing exposure of Rays unique talent and creativity ushered in a whole new appreciation for pumpkin “carving”, and his artistic take on the traditional jack-o-lantern has granted him invitations from across the globe for VIP Galleries (Very Impressive Pumpkins). From the President’s Quarters in the White House to Bermuda’s Sousa’s Gardens, Ray’s pumpkins have gathered a cult-like following. He also does some very impressive sand sculptures as well as making some fantastic looking collectables.

If your interested in more of Rays’ magnificent pumpkins, go check out his site!

Decided to gather the videos about LSD that have a scientific/philosophical approach and expanded on the powerful effects it has on the human mind. Found this really fascinating clip from a 1956 television program on mental health issues. Dr Sidney Cohen at the time was dosing random volunteers at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Los Angeles; he is the one sitting at the table wearing a lounge suite asking the housewife all the questions. The housewife’s last remarks are what get me, “if you can’t see it, you’ll never know about it. I feel sorry for you.” The doesage she took, if you didn’t catch it was 100 gamma of LSD 25- one tenth of a milligram, the equivalent of one 600th of a grain. It’s interesting to see her accept this ‘new’ reality so readily and how she feels whole, unified with everything and everyone; I wonder if our sense of empathy is related to the DMT that’s naturally made in our brains. Not so keen about the message at the very end though, once you read more about the leaders of the psychedelic movement you’ll find that they had good intentions, which were shot down by the strictness of the Nixon era.

God, i love this man. Richard Alpert before he became the famed Ram Das, talks about the shifts society could have taken to become more collaborative, motivational and whole. I loved the slogan the presentor saw, which said “all wars are civil wars because all men are brothers.” It’s quite saddening that a powerful psychological tool like this would have such a negative stigma labeled onto it. Keep it in the labs and off the streets, no need to ban it from science as well. Then maybe we can start to recreate Huxley’s more utopian society that he wrote about in Island; a civilization that is truly ‘civilized’ without the “I’ve got to fuck you over to get where i want to get” mentality.

This video is so great, it shows the effects of LSD on military personnel during a military training exercise. Some of the things they do are just straight up comical, it’s almost like they’re children again.

Another experiment tested LSD with artistic ability, a series of 9 drawing were created during the trip; the test was conducted by the US government during it’s dalliance with psychotomimetic drugs in the late 1950′s. The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils. If you want to see the results go to this link!

A friend showed me this interesting video on how to make a laser microscope; with three simple steps you’ll be exploring the microscopic world at home- makes for a fun project to do with your friends or kids! Check it out and try it out.

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A short story about the Semantic Web. Some Internet experts believe the next generation of the Web – Web 3.0– will make tasks like your search for movies and food faster and easier. Instead of multiple searches, you might type a complex sentence or two in your Web 3.0 browser, and the Web will do the rest. For example, you could type “I want to see a funny movie and then eat at a good Mexican restaurant. What are my options?” The Web 3.0 browser will analyze your response, search the Internet for all possible answers, and then organize the results for you. That’s not all. Many of these experts believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant. As you search the Web, the browser learns what you are interested in. The more you use the Web, the more your browser learns about you and the less specific you’ll need to be with your questions. Eventually you might be able to ask your browser open questions like “where should I go for lunch?” Your browser would consult its records of what you like and dislike, take into account your current location and then suggest a list of restaurants.