110216 Hackintosh

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Prefer Bing to Google? Not sure why anyone uses Bing, but here’s an interesting article. Basically it seems that Microsoft are copying Google’s search results. To prove it, Google fixed a couple of fake search returns for a search like ‘djksijljeejjw’ or something, so it would return one page that had nothing to do with this search string. The very same nonsense search on Bing returns the same page! It’s not against the law, but someone from Google, who put a lot of resources into refining their search algorithms, said it’s like looking over someone’s shoulder in an exam. Microsoft; never original.

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Back to Google, here’s a You Tube internal error message I saw today:

500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
If you see them, show them this information:

ZIf_ar2jfRmr7JcVVsJWAfNznnucO5iItQlLBks_BSQihlIGVHaznxT_v8rs
pZGSETqkFWoOaNU2TF9ZEDDvQmqxhDQqgMnTU_WKVBLhdxqapoyWEOsBOfWR
Z6E2HtctdG5w-tFRDo7zS4JDeggKFH3Go-FRApMF0J6DOhHKwBsg9L6mg5ws
E7GJpqJg3MfxVGLVy7iOyHrwXviXqnoLkgBnUTJdHvP3BX-20RH6lU8z-glS
SULOhWrecoVhLPCxP0P5iDMzHq-zMjgmFpRT_KVQPsVSJsFOsrUhWEQY2… etc

– while uploading this:

Vic and Noel, different generations, same humour.

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I’ve been looking into building a PC for a Hackintosh experiment. Thanks to Kakewalk and iBoot/Multibeast it’s apparently easier than ever to run OSX on PC hardware. You have to make sure the hardware is compatible to what Apple uses. So far it’s looking like I can build a brand new high end i7 silent PC for around £640. (i.e. near Mac Pro performance for the cost of a Mac Mini)

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Steps stepped: Not very many. I’ve been at home sick most of the day.

100215 Feeling the fear and doing it anyway

Posted on by Duncan Toms

It’s all caught up with me today, almost exhausted after the moving, decorating, the underlying emotions of C moving, the work on the flat here and this evening, the yoga teaching. I didn’t have much ooomph for the class but I enjoyed teaching it once I was there. Beforehand, as each week, the flight response so strong, the wanting to cancel, to walk away, to not bother, to find any excuse. But each week I go through with it and despite the nerves it does ease something deep inside that has long been fearful. I was very much in touch with this shameful fear on the yoga teacher course, often listening to a small voice asking why are we doing this, not wanting to it, wanting to stay with mother, stay safe, and not mix with these outsiders. To this I listened, I accepted, I loved. And now I am doing something I never thought I would be able to, something I have run from my entire adult life and most of my childhood. It’s hard but there is nothing else for it. And I get to share the thing I love, the thing I have stuck with longest in this life: yoga. I have total respect for this ancient art.

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Steps stepped: 6044

110214 Domesticity

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Finally got everything put away in its right place. The bedroom is now a study as well:

The kneeling chair is C’s but she’s not using it so I get to have it for my desk. And the living room:

This area where the sofa is may become a day bed if I get the other memory foam mattress from the attic. But for now I like the sofa.

This is the most at home I’ve felt since I was a teenager. Moving the furniture around at the weekend felt just like back in Broughton Gifford where I would often spend Sunday afternoons rearranging things, to get that just right feeling. And then the novelty of going to bed that night everything tidy and facing a new direction, and forgetting where you are when waking up in the morning.

For a while researching running OSX on PC components. May sell the MacBook Pro and small TV and get a PC (for OSX), a large TV and an iPad 2 when it comes. A real domestic day, what with the supermarket run with the girls this evening. Yet I could give it all up no problem, fine with a bed and a book.

This morning’s yoga was a run through of tomorrow’s class. It feels a good one. I will further investigate the poses in the morning to learn some more subtleties to teach. Less of the standing poses tomorrow, with seated forward bends. Looking forward to using the Tibetan Singing Bowl for the first time too, to end savasana.

Plastic Rice, Anyone?

Posted on by Duncan Toms

China’s history with food safety is a rocky one, but even in the annals of robbery and abuse, this will go down in infamy.

Various reports in Singapore media have said that Chinese companies are mass producing fake rice made, in part, out of plastic, according to one online publication Very Vietnam.

The “rice” is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked.

The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong reported that the fake rice is being sold in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province.

“A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag. Due to the seriousness of the matter, he added that there would be an investigation of factories alleged to be producing the rice,” Very Vietnam noted.

via China’s poor treated to fake rice made from plastic: report | The Raw Story.

110213 Eye Exercises

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Roland gave an eye health workshop at the school this evening. First we learnt about the main bones that make up the eye sockets and practised some simple exercises to ease this area. Then we leant about the multiple muscles that control the eyeball and practised some exercises to touch upon where the muscles meet the eyeballs. The next exercises were those I’ve done in yoga before, and same as in the Bates eye exercises:

Without moving head or neck

Look far right
Look far left
Repeat five times each side

Relax the eyes

Look up
Look down
Repeat five times each direction

Relax the eyes

Look top right
Look bottom left
Repeat five times

Relax the eyes

Look top left
Look bottom right
Repeat five times

Relax the eyes

Rotate the eyes 12, 3, 6, 9
Repeat five times then five times counter-clockwise

Relax the eyes

Look at something near
Look at something far
Repeat five times

Relax the eyes

Rub hands together and cup palms over the eyes, feeling the heat and darkness relaxing them

Lastly, we worked in pairs and imagined energy moving between our hands as we cupped one over our partner’s right eye, the other behind the head. This was very relaxing and I felt the muscles I’d exercised previously let go. After the workshop my eyesight had improved slightly compared to the rest of the day and my head felt clear of tension.

We use our eyes all day and hardly give them a second thought. It is good to rest the eyes each hour, and to do the above exercises once a day.

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Steps stepped: 4647

What the Egypt Revolution Might Mean

Posted on by Duncan Toms

For those who don’t understand why President Obama and his European allies are having such a hard time siding with Egypt’s forces of democracy, the reason is that the amalgam of social and political forces behind the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt today – and who knows where tomorrow – actually constitute a far greater threat to the “global system” al-Qa’eda has pledged to destroy than the jihadis roaming the badlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen.

Mad as hell

Whether Islamist or secularist, any government of “of the people” will turn against the neoliberal economic policies that have enriched regional elites while forcing half or more of the population to live below the $2 per day poverty line. They will refuse to follow the US or Europe’s lead in the war on terror if it means the continued large scale presence of foreign troops on the region’s soil. They will no longer turn a blind eye, or even support, Israel’s occupation and siege across the Occupied Palestinian territories. They will most likely shirk from spending a huge percentage of their national income on bloated militaries and weapons systems that serve to enrich western defence companies and prop up autocratic governments, rather than bringing stability and peace to their countries – and the region as a whole.

They will seek, as China, India and other emerging powers have done, to move the centre of global economic gravity towards their region, whose educated and cheap work forces will further challenge the more expensive but equally stressed workforces of Europe and the United States.

In short, if the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system than the one that has dominated the global political economy for decades, especially since the fall of communism.

This system could bring the peace and relative equality that has so long been missing globally – but it will do so in good measure by further eroding the position of the United States and other “developed” or “mature” economies. If Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel and their colleagues don’t figure out a way to live with this scenario, while supporting the political and human rights of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa, they will wind up with an adversary far more cunning and powerful than al-Qa’eda could ever hope to be: more than 300 million newly empowered Arabs who are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more.

via The shaping of a New World Order – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

110212 Durford Walk

Posted on by Duncan Toms

I really enjoyed this TED video of Benjamin Zander that my friend Seppo put me on to. Zander’s measure of success is not wealth or fame but how many shining eyes there are around him. He speaks with real passion about his notion that classical music is for everyone. I know next to nothing about classical music but his descriptions and playing makes me want to understand more. What a character!

We went for a walk this morning over to the Rother the other side of Petersfield at Durford Mill. We started at the old bridge:

The east along the old Petersfield Midhurst branch line, a large sandpit to the south on West Heath Common. Get off my land, warn the children:

Not just lava, but boiling lava.

We went south to Down Park Farm where there were many dead rusting vehicles, including a couple of Fordson Majors:

Then back west to the Rother, enjoying the sun as we trekked across open fields, glad of the non-sticky sandy soil, passing some friends:

And to Durford Abbey Farm:

With the usual happy hostages:

Another varied walk not far from home. There was a feeling of spring in the sunshine with the birdsong reflecting the change of mood.

This afternoon we got the flat together, with the desk and drawers now in the bedroom by the window and the large bookcase in the living room. I am really happy to live in such surrounds, internally and the countryside.

Steps stepped: 9477

110211 Tibetan Singing Bowls

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Awake in the night again last night. Listened to perhaps the most profound music I have ever heard. Profound in its effect on my body. The music was by Danny Becher, using Tibetan Singing Bowls. It began at root of the spine and slowly proceeded up the body all the way to the crown. It was very definite, the effect on each part of the body, as though that part was hearing those particular tones rather than my ears. Several times, many times, my body shook and the chest lifted off the bed and then my head involuntary went forward or back, sometimes staying like that for minutes. When the tones and music went up to the neck and head, it struck my lower jaw and the tension there was incredible, like nothing I have ever felt. I tried to move it but it was locked in such tightness. Then as quickly as it came, my jaw was free and loose and not at all tense. At the end of the piece, the tones were harmonious and my whole body felt relaxed and tingly. I then slept deeply until 0930.

This morning was assembling the IKEA drawer unit for my desk, and staining the pine table I bought as a desk. My flat still isn’t up together but tomorrow I can get everything in place and finally find a home for everything. C came over after her driving lesson. It’s her birthday so we went out with CC to Portsmouth for a meal again. There was no movie we all felt we wanted to see, so did a little shopping then back to Brockwood, avoiding the Motorways.

This two home situation is going to work out so well. My nights are very different without another being lying next to me. Somehow it frees up the chance for the night t be more restful and more to happen, exploring tension and relaxation. I am aware that for a long time I have desired to be asleep. If there’s nothing going on I want to be doing something or asleep. How is it just to lie still and breathe? Or listen to some ancient bugged out healing music made with bowls:

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This is some evil shit right here – people seemingly OK with Assange being murdered.

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Steps stepped: 5085

110210 A sense of space

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Addressing a problem without taking sides was the theme of tonight’s staff dialogue. Is there another way to look at things? It has to involve looking anew, listening, a new action other than a reaction or defence. And there’s me this very morning reacting to someone saying prisoners should not be allowed to vote. I feel prisoners should be allowed. I mean, why not? To deny the vote, is it to punish them more? What is wrong with a prisoner voting? So for me this isn’t a real problem. The real problem is… well, I’m not sure at the moment; things are going well. A feeling of space, of things falling into place, of lightening of burdens and of letting go. But for sure last night my dreams were raw. Emotions running high. Supreme jealousy and anger. It’s hard to take at the time but it is refreshing to touch something real and deep. This always happens when I am alone. If it’s not touched deeply nothing much can be understood or resolved. So things are going well but there is real work going on. Not work I am doing, but a touching, an awareness of the actual state I’m in. Getting real.

If it was up to me people wouldn’t be in prison anyway, or very few. I would choose a system of one on one help and connection with that person. Non-isolated people do not tend to harm others. It must cost a fortune for people to be housed in prison, and what assistance do they get? Next to none. That money could be used much more constructively for healing and real help. But of course it is much easier to lock people away.

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I’m highly sceptical about the climate change sceptics. Only 3 in every 100 scientists dispute mankind-produced climate change.

A graphic summary of just some of the evidence for global warming. When someone tells you global warming isn’t happening, this serves as a visual reminder that you need to consider all the evidence to understand what’s happening to our climate. Signs of warming are being found not only all over the globe but in many different systems. Ice sheets are shrinking. Tree-lines are shifting towards the poles and up mountains (i.e. to cooler regions). Glaciers are retreating. Spring is coming earlier. Species are migrating to cooler regions. And so on…

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Got my new pedometer, an Omron Walking style III. Just opened it now. From tomorrow I am aiming for at least 5,000 steps a day.

110209

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Was I the only one last night who had a hip hop session on the iPod in the middle of the night, followed by listening to a Pema Chödrön talk? I suspect so. The beginning of a series of talks on shenpa (how we get hooked):

Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens — that’s the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself. And maybe if you have strong addictions, you just go right for your addiction to cover over the bad feeling that arose when that person said that mean word to you. This is a mean word that gets you, hooks you. Another mean word may not affect you but we’re talking about where it touches that sore place — that’s a shenpa. Someone criticizes you — they criticize your work, they criticize your appearance, they criticize your child — and, shenpa: almost co-arising.

At one point last night she talked about going to the place no one wants to go to. This is exactly my path over the last decade and more. The hardest journey but maybe the only worthwhile one. And I am open to the possibility that there is no journey, and no place to go, but while time and space bound, is there anything else to do but address the issue? Of course, there is another, more common, more exhausting option: run and keep running.

A short taster:

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My cheap pedometer collapsed today and refused to count. I stomped around watching the display and the counter wouldn’t budge. A new, better one, is on it’s way.

110208

Posted on by Duncan Toms

First night in C’s new home. I went over after teaching yoga. I was exhausted from the moving, decorating and the emotional upheaval but got through the class OK. People really liked it. There was a tangible quiet as we all sat together at the end, and it was a shame to have to get moving to put the chairs back in the assembly hall.

The first night, neither of us slept well. Caroline didn’t sleep until gone two, and that’s when I woke up. Face next to the white wall and in the glow of a street lamp I thought I was in an Arctic expanse, snow stretching as far as I could see. As I came to, I remembered where I was, a cosy room in Alresford next to a lovely girl.

110207 Stuff

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Total domestic day, buying stuff we used to share – pillows, towels, a table to use as a desk, duvet cover, sheets, rug, a set of drawers to keep my papers organised. Retail overload; that’s enough shopping for the year, for homely things. But the new rug looks great, oh yes. Too tired to write anything more today. Pictures will follow. Goodnight.

110206 The Move

Posted on by Duncan Toms

I now live alone. Except when I don’t, like now when C is here for the evening and night. She’s all moved in to the Alresford place and it looks very cosy in her new room, with her desk, the cabinet with all the acupuncture equipment, the oriental rug and her plants. It felt good in the lounge too, really… normal. The big TV on, the same in all the other houses in the cul de sac, like that’s what we are supposed to be doing. The flat at Brockwood looks quite empty now, rug gone, paintings gone, much of the furniture gone, just some of my scruffy stuff which all needs tidying. A lot of the style of the flat came from C, and she has good taste. Now I can have my input as to how this place looks – some more reds, maybe an old desk and perhaps replacing the small sofa for a day bed. I was sad for a while today, us having done these major moves always together over the last 6 years and now C moving alone. I had a cry. We are still together, only doing things in our usual unconventional-but-feels-right way.

Plotted the yoga class for this Tuesday after we watched Top Gear and ate hearty vegetable stew.

110205 No one is ever really powerless

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Painting C’s new room in Alresford this afternoon and evening. Pure Brilliant White. It’s looking good and tomorrow we can move some furniture. We got our hopes up a little when the landlady had a new carpet rolled in the spare room. We thought it might replace the green in C’s room but no, it’s for the bathroom, to replace the purple one there. So the good news is no more purple carpeted bathroom.

I’m looking for a new desk. I fancy having a desk again, for the first time since… when I was a student.

Listening to the Flaming Lips – Embryonic. It’s freaky deaky. Some of it is too much for me but I’ve kept seven tracks, including:

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Food prices on the rise, big time:

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More freakyness with a strange light over Jerusalem:

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Bible stories they don’t preach so much:

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Not sure how many steps stepped, but a lot of standing with a roller.

Scrap Book: David Blaine in Box

Posted on by Duncan Toms

13 October 2003 I was in London and went along to see David in his box. Nothing much was happening. Occasionally he would wave. I imagined he was waving at me. No pelting with eggs that day, or that hour.

The Times reported that eggs, lemons, sausages, bacon, water bottles, beer cans, paint-filled balloons and golf balls had all been thrown at the box.

Sausages?

Blaine emerged on schedule on October 19, murmuring “I love you all!” and was quickly hospitalized.

George W Bush said: “The last noted American to visit London stayed in a glass box dangling over the Thames. A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me.”

Slacker Disease

Posted on by Duncan Toms

There are those who want change in the world.
They say that the businessman is evil. But do not stop buying his products.
They say pollution will fry us all. But do not stop driving their cars.
You can tell the environmental changes that are no big deal because of the ease at which they are adopted.
Recycled paper; money for the recyclers.
Recycled cans, glass; cheaper for the producers.
I think we are all lazy. I think we are getting lazier.
It’s getting so hard to be motivated by anything at all and my friends are the same.
And it goes much deeper than the cannabis they smoke.
It is in their bones like an unknown creping disease that will not let up.
It isn’t displeasurable so no one wants a cure.
The world will be run by the squares soon, those who haven’t got this bug.
Those who are still motivated by… what?
Money? Yes, but not enough money to escape this stinking system.
By what? Conditioning. Do well at school, get a good job, be happy.
By power. I guess that’s the politicians.
More diseases. Power disease, money disease.
Slacker disease seems rife. Dope. Music. Television.
Once we found energy to dance but this has now faded.
We were going places.
We have our favourite TV shows and when they are not on we can put up with the other crap quite easily.
Just don’t ask me to do anything.
We might go to work. We slop about. We discuss and procrastinate but we do not do.
That has always been the problem and why nothing has really ever changed.
The things we do are within the sameness.
Those who want change don’t do anything about it and so the same old forces get the run of things.
So you want a revolution?
Yeah man – hey, can you do it for me, I’m busy watching stuff.
Too fucked from late night drinking and smoking to cause any disruption to the order of things.
What is wrong with what we have?
Crime? Fine as long as me and my mates (and possibly my family) aren’t hurt.
Corruption? Wouldn’t you be just as corrupt if you could be?
Distribution of wealth? That’s fucked up. But would you give some money to the bloke next door who hasn’t worked in years and smells of vests and spits when you pass?
Share the wealth. Easier said than done. Give a little to charity.
They can do the work.
Yes, we are fucked. Headed for disaster.
The world will survive, it’s just us fucked humans who will not.
We think we are important. And mildly panic when we see what all this pissing around is doing to our planet.
2012 they say it will change.
If I was the world I would sneeze or something.
Shudder so that the humans fly off and burn up as they get too high.
We seek an answer through God.
We don’t believe in him we say. But when the ship is going down who then will not pray?
We meditate. This brings us in tune with the natural forces and makes us feel damn good.
But once it is over, yes we might be more relaxed and caring but we carry on the same way.
Not believing in God is pretty much the same as believing. You still have a theory.
God doesn’t exist but there is a force in everything, all around.
Do you know this? You believe it.
Any belief is the same. But some beliefs have ways of life attached to them. That’s the difference.
Procedures to follow. Guides for your life. Set in stone.
Which may or may not be appropriate.
God is now a kind of Buddhist Flow that can be tapped into.
Believe what you like. Unless you experience it and live it it means not a thing.
Don’t kill. We have been for years.
Don’t steal. We do if we can.
Morality is an invention.
We can think what we want. Thinking doesn’t change much.

110204 Retro Materialistic Delights

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Another trip to the dentist, this time for the hygienist. What is it with Alresford Dental Care? Even the hygienist was happy and into her job. I was flossed, brushed, scraped and varnished into shape, and motherlyly told off for not flossing often enough. Actually, I am inspired to look after my teeth a little better and not count on my luck which has meant only one small filling in the last 20 years.

Another three day weekend coming up, with packing tomorrow morning of C’s things for Alresford, then decorating the room. Sunday will be the actual move and then Monday helping her to settle in. I can’t quite believe she is actually moving. It’s been so long coming that now it feels like it’s not quite real.

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Really enjoying looking at this old Argos catalogue; a snapshot of 1985.

Sinclair Spectrum!

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Game & Watch! Speak & Spell!

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Crossfire! Tank Command!

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Every page a retro materialistic delight.

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Google have driven their Google Street View cars inside famous galleries, to bring you this: Google Art Project

I don’t know much about art but I like the idea of a virtual gallery.

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Hedging their money on our food, distorting prices and starving people:

Food speculation: ‘People die from hunger while banks make a killing on food’

It’s not just bad harvests and climate change – it’s also speculators that are behind record prices. And it’s the planet’s poorest who pay

Food speculation graphic Illustration: Katie Edwards

Just under three years ago, people in the village of Gumbi in western Malawi went unexpectedly hungry. Not like Europeans do if they miss a meal or two, but that deep, gnawing hunger that prevents sleep and dulls the senses when there has been no food for weeks.

Oddly, there had been no drought, the usual cause of malnutrition and hunger in southern Africa, and there was plenty of food in the markets. For no obvious reason the price of staple foods such as maize and rice nearly doubled in a few months. Unusually, too, there was no evidence that the local merchants were hoarding food. It was the same story in 100 other developing countries. There were food riots in more than 20 countries and governments had to ban food exports and subsidise staples heavily.

The explanation offered by the UN and food experts was that a “perfect storm” of natural and human factors had combined to hyper-inflate prices. US farmers, UN agencies said, had taken millions of acres of land out of production to grow biofuels for vehicles, oil and fertiliser prices had risen steeply, the Chinese were shifting to meat-eating from a vegetarian diet, and climate-change linked droughts were affecting major crop-growing areas. The UN said that an extra 75m people became malnourished because of the price rises.

But a new theory is emerging among traders and economists. The same banks, hedge funds and financiers whose speculation on the global money markets caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis are thought to be causing food prices to yo-yo and inflate. The charge against them is that by taking advantage of the deregulation of global commodity markets they are making billions from speculating on food and causing misery around the world.

As food prices soar again to beyond 2008 levels, it becomes clear that everyone is now being affected. Food prices are now rising by up to 10% a year in Britain and Europe. What is more, says the UN, prices can be expected to rise at least 40% in the next decade.

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My yoga practice has changed this week. I’ve just been getting on the mat and moving the way I feel I need to. No schedules, sequences, timings, guidance.

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Steps stepped: 4282

Scrap Book: Mossy Mushroom Tree on Dartmoor

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Another from 2003. After a long featureless trek across the open moor, C and I found ourselves in a small valley, with a group of gnarly oaks surrounded by a crumbling dry stone wall. Everything within the wall seemed to be covered with moss. Within the mossy trunk of this tree, hundreds of fungi:

It felt ancient there and not a little wriggly.