Apollo Lemmon

Laura Taylor

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:29:00 -0500

Laura Taylor is a wonderful photographer who is located in Los Angeles, California.

bubbly skyscraper water purifier

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:15:00 -0500

French firm Design Crew for Architecture has come up with this interesting design for a water purifier. From Inhabitat:

In order to facilitate water purification, the tower will be made up of several circular tanks filled with brackish water (water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater), which will be enclosed in spherical greenhouses. Using tidal powered pumps, the brackish water will be brought up into the tower and circulate through the mangrove plants, which have the unique ability to thrive on brackish water and perspire freshwater. The freshwater sweat then evaporates and condensates into dew on wall of the greenhouse and is collected in a freshwater tank. The resulting freshwater can then be distributed to the fields using gravitational flow.

According the designers, one hectare of mangroves should be able to produce 30,000 liters of freshwater a day. In other words, the tower would be able to irrigate a one-hectare field of tomatoes per day.

Underwater skyscraper is a self-sufficient city at sea

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:13:00 -0500

Ocean levels are rising around the globe, so rather than tethering our buildings to the sinking shoreline why not suit them for a life at sea?

That’s the approach behind the Water-Scraper, a futuristic self-sufficient floating city. A special mention in this year’s eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the design expands the concept of a floating island into a full-fledged underwater skyscraper that harvests renewable energy and grows its own food.

Marit Larsen - Under The Surface

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:44:00 -0500

Spider Robinson podcast his Halifax-set story "Satan's Children" at http://goo.gl/5ZRI. Spider shares delicious spec fic and music monthly.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:50:00 -0500

Gigabytes of Free Music from SXSW

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:07:00 -0500

Every year music lovers from across the country head to Austin, Texas for SXSW, and for the past six of those years, SXSW has offered hundreds of DRM-free tracks from artists playing at SXSW—and it's all available via BitTorrent. Just head to the Home of the Unofficial SXSW torrents to grab the first torrent, featuring 646 tracks and weighing in at 3.35 GB. These songs are all freely available on the official SXSW web site, but this handy site wraps them all up into a much more convenient torrent. A second torrent is on the way (with over 200 more free and legit tracks). The site also hosts every collection since SXSW 2005, so if you're in the mood for some new music or just free (and legitimate) music, head on over and get your download on.

A Few Asanas - Lotus

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:02:00 -0500

Most people cannot do Lotus Pose the first time they try, or the second. It is important, therefore, to pursue the pose gradually in stages, and to work at it patiently and consistently over a sustained period of time. If you pursue it properly you should be able to sit in Lotus within a year, probably sooner. It may take you longer. You may never get it. In any case, work it slowly, carefully, gently. A year is not a long time.

A meditation hour is being followed by some Skee-lo. I'd write one more haiku for the day if it wasn't time for sleeping.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:11:00 -0500

Last.fm Top Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7)

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:00:00 -0500

Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
Aretha Franklin
Steve Miller Band
Les Paul & Mary Ford
Brother Ali

Marit Larsen - If A Song Could Get Me You

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:19:00 -0500

Books in the Age of the iPad

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:55:00 -0500

As the publishing industry wobbles and Kindle sales jump, book romanticists cry themselves to sleep. But really, what are we shedding tears over?

We’re losing the throwaway paperback. The airport paperback. The beachside paperback.

We’re losing the dredge of the publishing world: disposable books. The book printed without consideration of form or sustainability or longevity. The book produced to be consumed once and then tossed. The book you bin when you’re moving and you need to clean out the closet.

These are the first books to go. And I say it again, good riddance.

Once we dump this weight we can prune our increasingly obsolete network of distribution. As physicality disappears, so too does the need to fly dead trees around the world.

You already know the potential gains: edgier, riskier books in digital form, born from a lower barrier-to-entry to publish. New modes of storytelling. Less environmental impact. A rise in importance of editors. And, yes — paradoxically — a marked increase in the quality of things that do get printed.

The Zendo Workspace

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:51:00 -0500

Many people often remark that they wish their workspace was more relaxing or meditative, very few people actually construct their workspace to be a Zen meditation chamber. Lifehacker reader Scott Zagarino wanted a workspace that brought the reflection and creativity of his experiences as a Zen practitioner into his present work. He writes:

As a former zen buddhist monk, I spent a great deal of time on a cushion in silence. Often times my best "work" came from the quiet, and the occasional reflection that "work" is only what I call a thing when I'd rather be doing something else. Today I run a nonprofit [whose] values are deeply entrenched in "saving all sentient beings." Consequently, while my workspace is rather large, it is also a zendo where work and practice are not separate. It started out as a big empty room downstairs with no walls, a great view and green paint....this is how it looks today. Scott Zagarino The Sportsgrants Foundation

The LXD: In the Internet age, dance evolves ...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:17:00 -0500

I'm 4 days into the #90sits challenge. Four days straight of meditating for an hour each day is already my longest run ever. #meditation

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:56:00 -0500

A Bodhisattva Meditation for Cultivating Loving Compassion for the Self

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:33:00 -0500

The one responsibility of the bodhisattva is to not cause suffering. The one commitment of the bodhisattva is to love all beings pervading space and time, regardless of any beings ability to return, or even receive, that love. We’ve all been in situations where we have offered love to someone unwilling to return that love – for instance, we still love our child, even when in the a rage of differentiation she yells, “I hate you, Mom!”. We often call this unconditional love. Those of you who have made a practice of cultivating compassion have probably intentionally cultivated love for someone who has withdrawn their love, or someone who doesn’t agree with out beliefs or lifestyle, and therefore, at least on a hypothetical level, does not want your love. These may be political or historical figures. Or they may be estranged family. My largest breakthrough in the depth and breadth of this commitment was when I realized that I was one of those beings pervading time and space, that deserved the love of my bodhisattva self, even when I was incapable of returning, or even receiving that love.

World Leadership Crisis. Exhibit A: Climate Change

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:51:00 -0500

As leaders on scales both large and small, it's our job to grapple with hard problems. At times, with the mere mention of these problems, we feel a weight settle upon us. One such weight looming large for many world leaders is climate change. You can probably feel the difficulty of the whole situation. Time is short, uncertainty is high, and the stakes may be even higher. Competing business and political interests collide every day. The tensions run deep, driven by conflicting values and differing needs. This is the nature of the hard problems of our time: they are densely interconnected, emotionally-charged and complex. They also change rapidly, often without warning. In effect, these are what scientists call "adaptive problems" (or "wicked problems"), where the problems may actually evolve by the day. (In contrast to adaptive problems are technical problems, which tend to have a static solution where the skills, needs and capacities to solve them are known.) Climate change is immensely difficult because it is an adaptive problem, and requires adaptive leadership to address. Confronting an adaptive problem takes more than a bag of tricks, it takes a whole new way of being with a broader and more complex mindset on the world—a way of being that is naturally able to:

Matthew Sweet - Ugly Truth Rock

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:34:00 -0500

30 Albums in 30 Days: 3

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:00:00 -0500

Continuing since my last music post, I have listened to at least one new album each day. For the 30 days spanning February 16th and March 18th I will be listening to at least one album I have not yet heard each day. Here is the third set of 9 albums.

February 26, 2010 Calle 13 – Calle 13 Amanda Palmer – Who Killed Amanda Palmer February 27, 2010 Various Artists – New Tales To Tell: A Tribute To Love And Rockets Love and Rockets – Hot Trip to Heaven February 28, 2010 Aretha Franklin – Respect March 1, 2010 Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs – Live at Old Town School Of Folk Music; Chicago, IL (Bootleg from 09/12/09) March 2, 2010 Sonic Youth – The Eternal Black Mountain – In The Future March 3, 2010 Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

@BuddhistGeeks just launched a digital magazine and it's wonderful! The podcast has delivered stellar content and the mag is as great.

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:30:00 -0500

Happiness – There’s an App For That

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:24:00 -0500

He explores with us some of the potential shadow sides of technology, as well as some of the remedies that can be used in balancing our internal life with our external. He suggests that focusing more consciously on our internal world actually puts us in a position where we can use technology, instead of technology using us.