Last post

This will be my last post for a while, at least on this blog. I'm going to France to be the Head of Personnel at Dechen Choling, a contemplative programme centre. I will document what goes on there in a different blog, will post the address when I know it.

Specialisation is for Insects

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-Robert A. Heinlein

Knoppix

Knoppix is a version of the LINUX operating system which runs off a CD. My lovely touchscreen laptop recently developed an unknown malady which swiftly caused Windows XP to become useless: it would not start up. It took me a few days to work out what to do, as the so called Recovery Disk that came with the computer seems to just overwrite the data on the disk with a new copy of Windows. I did not want to lose my data, particularly photographs that were on the hard drive. So I needed a way to boot up the computer AND see the existing files. There is something called the Ultimate Windows Boot CD, but that requires an existing bootable CD to make it, it seems. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. However Knoppix boots up from a CD and claimed that it would be able to see existing files on the computer.

I downloaded Knoppix and burned it onto a CD. When my computer booted up into Linux, I was so happy that little penguins appeared. It did what it said on the tin, and my data is now rescued. All that remains to do is download another version of Linux to install on the hard drive, as I've had it up to here with Windows!

Life is sweet in the beehive

Yes, I do work in a hive. It's the university study area. There is a real beehive outside, to inspire the students in their selfless dedication to the welfare of the colony. My job is to supervise it, which mostly consists of telling students to keep the noise down, their feet off the furniture, and to leave, if they get out of control.

Occasionally there is a bit more drama, I was threatened by some non-students who had managed to get in once, and a couple of days ago somebody stole the cashbox from one of the vending machines.

But today, much more significant events are unfolding. Today, a couple of big guys arrived with a new vending machine on a little trollyjack. They took out the old machine, which had vended, very occasionally, plastic cups of fruit squash. They then pushed the new machine into place, revealing the type of goods it would dispense. And just take a guess what it is...

PORRIDGE! Can you Adam and Eve it? My friend Debbie thinks I'm the luckiest person alive, and now I think my good fortune is complete! My mouth began to water immediately. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the sort to toil over oats and water first thing in the morning. But I can just imagine how sweet and sickly the Oats So Simple pumped product will be.

Unfortunately the machine doesn't work. The guys are still here, working hard, by telephoning people mostly, trying to fix it. Will it be here, dispensing fresh hot sticky goo the next time I work here? Watch this space.

Breasts

I have recently begun to realise that approximately 50% of the population is obsessed with breasts. I think you know which sector of the population that is. That's right, women. I suppose we all need a part of the anatomy to hang our pride, neurosis, perhaps our very identity on, and in the absence of a certain other part, this role is filled, often amply, by the aforementioned protruberances.

Size seems to really matter to women, whereas men profess that it is quality, not quantity, that counts. You have only to examine the pages of page three to see that breasts of all sizes are displayed.

I have a theory that there is a feeding response that is triggered in people of all genders by visible breasts. Possibly large breasts make one hungrier than small ones, somehow. (Another interesting response that I have noted is that of sympathetic eating: when one is watching somebody taking a mouthful of food, one naturally and subconsciously opens ones own mouth.)

It may have been Desmond Morris that suggested the similarity between breasts and bottoms is no coincidence. Evolutionary selection is responsible for shaping breasts into similar 'humps' to those on the posterior, the reason being that bottoms are primary sexual characteristics, triggering a sexual response in males. In our close cousins, the baboons, one can see how this can be taken a little far.

Since humans have walked upright, our posteriors and faces are not generally aligned in a way that presents the posterior directly to the eyes. Therefore, breasts have taken on that role, by imitating the shape and therefore stimulating the same response as the backside. It's a wonderful hypothesis, and I have given it a little thought, although I find it rather easy to get distracted in my research.

Energy Project Update

When I was about 12, I did a school summer project on Energy. It surpassed my previous year's project on plastics, both in interest and the number of "Good Show Ups" that it generated. Don't ask me what a good show up is, but we were awarded them for good school work, and I think I got four, the maximum, for this project.

What I found particularly exciting was that humans were on the brink of a new era of harnessing the freely available energy around us, rather than the polluting and finite fossil fuels on which we had become dependant. Well, that was 27 years ago, and I'm pleased to announce that now... we really are on the brink of a new era of harnessing the freely available energy etc. Possibly. That is if we manage to survive long enough.

I'm quite a frugal person, I suppose, having lived on meagre incomes for much of my life. I eat well, but I tend to buy secondhand clothes, and rarely splash out on new things. Perhaps my experience of feeling quite well-off as a student is not typical, but I really did, especially compared to being a gardener. In any case, if I am presented with opportunities to have something that I want for free, I tend to take it. That is, of course, if it is legal, although at various times I have allowed for some creative interpretation of this term.

So it struck me, even as a privileged public schoolboy, that using the freely available sources of energy such as the sun, the wind and the waves, was a no-brainer. Of course now that we know how to extract energy from totally renewable sources we will. But we didn't then. At least not on the kind of scale that I expected. At present, only 1.2% of UK electricity is generated by renewables. Ok, so our sunlight isn't the strongest in the world, but we have plenty of wind, waves and currents to take advantage of. What's happening in the UK? Makers of wind energy technology are closing factories! Why? They (Vestas) blame the nimbys. (Not in my backyard? You won't have a backyard if we don't do something soon.)

I don't want to get political, particularly, but I love that picture at the top, from the picketing Vestas workers.

Anyway, things are brightening up a bit, particularly in the energy-hungry States. Obama is pushing for reform in various areas, electricity generation and transmission among them. Solar thermal and high voltage DC transmission (video by John O'Donnell, energy and climate entrepreneur) are old technologies with fresh paintjobs and could go a long way to meeting the US's needs. The UK is committed to 15% energy generation from renewables by 2020, actually that's a European guideline. It is way behind almost all other European countries, Germany is over 10% already, and Scandinavian countries and Switzerland are much further ahead. (Bundles of EU statistics.)

To round off, one more little bit of data from the EU website (link as above):

Oil (in barrels)

• Total world reserves Jan. 1st 2009: 1206780968626

• World usage per second: 986

• Estimated date of exhaustion: 16:36 Oct 22, 2047

Pacifism, Passivity

Pacifism and Passivity are not the same. That will not come as much of a surprise to the finely tuned linguists that read this blog. I, on the other hand, am just beginning to work out the difference.

Pacifism is usually defined as not regarding war as a solution to problems. This is often in the context of international conflicts, but I am using it to define the Buddhist approach to life and one's own mind and problems. Passivity, on the other hand, has much more the sense of torpor, of taking no action.

Taking an attitude of Peace
The Buddhist approach is not one of conquering your life, but accepting who you are. The practice of meditation is the practice of peace, making friends with yourself (self in the sense of the thoughts and feelings that you experience) by looking inward without reserve or judgement. While the attitude is one of peace, action is required to start and accomplish the practice.

Many people assume that meditation is about stopping thoughts, about somehow 'gaining' peace through some kind of mental gymnastics or trance. While the practice of meditation does bring about some kind of peace, this arises due to a subtle combination of action and inaction. One allows one's own experience in all its colour, but brings the mind back to the present moment when distracted. This requires discipline. The paradox is that it is discipline to continually come back to naked mind, which requires no maintenance.