this is just so cool - global village constrution kit .

tempo - venkat rao. also 'destruction   & creation'  - boyd

1. artificial intelligence a modern approach  - peter norvig
2. algorithmic beauty of plants
3. laws of form - g spencer brown
4. complexity a guided tour - melanie mitchell ???
5. godel, escher ,bach :an eternal golden braid - douglas hofstadter ???
6. Lisp: A Language for Stratified Design  - Abelson, Sussman
7. Introduction to cybernetics - ross ashby
8. design for a brain - ross ashby
9. autocatalytic sets ?
10. complex adaptive systems, the difference - scott e page
11. atyonlh, witaoim, Intensive science and virtual philosophy - manuel delanda
12. *destratified/ erik davis 
13. Growing artifical societies - epstein , axtell
14. collapse of complex societies - tainter
15. medium is the message, understanding media - mcluhan
16. systemantics - gall 
17.  

parable of the one and one and two

The master speaks

but the idiots don't listen

and the disciples

sit and ponder

as days turn to night

and still they sit

This is brilliant . Original here - fakebuddhaquotes.com
 Excerpt from the Diamond Sutra

Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being, no perception of a soul, no perception of a person. Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma, or a perception of a no-dharma. No perception or non-perception takes place in them.
And why? If, Subhuti, these bodhisattvas, should have a perception of either a dharma, or a no-dharma, they would thereby seize on a self, on a being, on a soul, on a person.
And why? Because a bodhisattva should not seize on either a dharma or a no-dharma. Therefore this saying has been taught by the Tathagata with a hidden meaning: “By those who know the discourse on dharma as like unto a raft, dharmas should be forsaken, still more so, no-dharmas.”
The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as “the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment,” or is there any dharma which the Tathagata has demonstrated?
Subhuti replied: No, not as I understand what the Lord has said. And why? This dharma which the Tathagata has fully known or demonstrated – it cannot be grasped, it cannot be talked about, it is neither a dharma nor a no-dharma. And why? Because an absolute exalts the holy persons. 

From the Bruce Lee movie "Enter the Dragon" -
Shaolin Abbott: I see your talents have gone beyond the mere physical level. Your skills are now at the point of spiritual insight. I have several questions. What is the highest technique you hope to achieve ?
Lee: To have no technique.

I used to imagine that having no technique meant to become a spherical blob /cloud of protoplasm and engulf the enemy and then return back to your original shape and size, but I am beginning to see now that that is not what is meant by the above.

Think of this - you are in a train and you are passing stations one a second. Seriously. Try to roll with the imagery. Now, if your girlfriend asks you, over the cell phone , "Which station are you at now ?" And any answer you give will always be wrong. You wouldn't finish saying the name of the station before it passed by.

This train metaphor is  a re-hash of the one in the Pirsig book.
Pirsig's book,  which is sneaky  and roundabout and yet seeps the lessons into your subconscious without your knowing. Years after reading it  (and not understanding anything),  ideas and concepts from the book would still keep popping up from time to time.....

It's just "Be here now " (Ram Dass), for a very small tiny value of now , all the time.

Susan Blackmore nails it in 'Ten Zen questions' -
1)  am I conscious now ?  2) was I conscious of a moment ago ?

Unhygienix hits Fulliautomatix with a wet fish

*thwacK*

language is a lost cause because you have to create the universe from scratch for each word.

galcon ftw !!!

hindsight is 20/20 because by then your box has expanded.

"So I have just one wish for you--the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom."

The above is the concluding paragraph of Feynman talking about  cargo cult science.
In 1996, when I first read this, it set me on fire, ready to go tilting at windmills.
Now, I chanced upon it again, and it reminds me of still how relevant those words are, and how far astray flows the stream of life from it

This : 
youtube: dna replication animation
plus
matt (of 'illustrated PhD fame) Hunting down my son's killer
plus
books on complexity
=>  mind blown BIGTIME.

excerpt for #2 above:

Codons and the standard genetic code

In computing, most computers run on the x86 instruction set.
Remarkably, in life, there is also a dominant instruction set--the standard genetic code, as described in the DNA codon table.
The genetic code is an instruction set for making proteins by chaining together individual amino acids.
The genetic code is made up of instructions called codons.
Each codon is a three-letter sequence in DNA that encodes either an amino acid to insert or the command "stop construction of this protein."
For example, the codon TTG means "insert a Leucine."
With four letters in the alphabet, there are 4³ = 64 possible codons, but there are only 25 genetic instructions, since some codons encode the same amino acid and several encode "stop."
---

for all the little bits I knew about  genetics, this paragraph really really tied them all together into one big flash of light !!

peaceful warrior, with nick nolte playing the bearded wisey and revolver with a bald-mullet jason statham... what do they have in common ?