Paperclip Guy Can Also Cut Grass

In a perfect world, everyone would have to cut their grass with blunt, rusty, old-school, mechanical lawn mowers like this one.

Is Scott Adams A Member Of The Secret Society ‘Ordo Templi Orientis?’

A few years back, Scott Adams released a book that was quite different than the Dilbert cartoons which made him famous. The book was called God’s Debris, essentially a ‘thought experiment’ that challenged the reader to consider the meaning of life from an illusive mentor who seems to arise from “a wrinkle in time.”

I read it. It’s good. Go read it. Download it free here.

Adam’s wrote a follow up book that portrays a different perspective, called The Religion War. This time, the protagonist is on a mission to stop the world’s two largest religions, Christianity and Islam, from starting a nuclear holocaust.

The subject matter has obvious parallels with the political climate today, with the world seemingly a hair-trigger away from an epic religious conflict. Or is it?

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Aldous Huxley: Don’t Mistake The Trickle For Ultimate Reality

You are more than the mind occupying your body.

In fact, you have a tenuous connection with your Higher Self, a part of you that is connected to the rest of the universe.

It’s a common thread weaving through much spiritual literature. Some call it by different names, such as the Soul, the Buddha-Nature, or as Aldous Huxley made famous in his book The Doors of Perception, it is your Mind at Large.

The book details Huxley’s personal experiment with mescaline, a hallucinogenic drug naturally occurring in certain cacti. He discovered the drug has the effect of removing the mental filters our brain uses to shut out 99% of actual reality:

“Each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. [...]

But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.”

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The Home Office: Fiction vs Reality

What home office workers want you to think:

What home office workers are actually doing:

That’s not to say we’re not working. We just work a little differently.

You Can Never Go Home Again…Oh Wait, You Can

I read somewhere that 80% of people settle within 25 miles of their place of birth. The reasons made sense: people generally like their own culture, they enjoy living near their family and friends.

Basically, it was the safe choice.

I remember thinking, “That’s not going to be me.” I didn’t want to count myself among those people who made the easy decisions, preferring to keep things simple, rather than exciting.

I wanted to live in exotic places like…Cairo or Easter Island. I wanted to leave the mundane behind. I wanted to always have interesting stories to tell about playing cards in the Himalayas, or running from tropical pirates.

I was admittedly untraveled at the time. In the years hence I’ve managed to knock off a fair amount of countries on my list, and I’m positive I’ll continue that trend. But I’ve realized an important fact along the way: my hometown is actually pretty nice.

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How Free Music Is Quickly Becoming Free Everything

Like most people who enjoy music and are technologically savvy, I have a lot of tracks on my hard drive.

And by that I mean somewhere in the range of 32 gigs. iTunes tells me that I could hit ‘play’ and leave town for 17.3 days, and it would still wouldn’t have played all the available tracks.

That’s a bit ridiculous. Especially considering with a few clicks more, I have access to a seeming unlimited amount of free internet radio stations. I have way more music that I know what to do with.

What a difference from 10 years ago. Remember when your library was constrained by your wallet and the physical limits of the cd rack in your bedroom?

In essence, music has become free (and I don’t mean because your pirated it). It’s abundantly available for very little or no cost. And in most cases, it’s the distributors, not the producers that care. And it’s rapidly becoming the same for TV shows,

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VancouverIAM.com Launches Citizen Journalism Portal

It’s a wonder it didn’t come sooner – but citizen journalism has finally landed in way that’s accessible and even…dare I say…revolutionary?

Here’s the official word from the press release:

VancouverIAM.com is a unique online platform and new destination for people who want to know what’s going on in Vancouver. It provides Vancouverites with the tools and support to become video journalists, Internet TV and film producers, and active commentators on local politics and everyday issues about life in Vancouver.

You be asking yourself, how is that different from someone creating your own website and using Youtube as your distribution platform? Why would you need to get involved with VancouverIAM? Well here’s a few reasons:

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My Debut On ‘The Lab With Leo’

Last December (I think) I was asked to appear on The Lab with Leo – a tech show shot in Vancouver. The list of possible topics was pretty open, so after batting around a few ideas, I went with “How to Find Royalty Free Music.” Here’s the Episode show notes.

It was kind of neat seeing how a show is put together, even though it was a bit off-the-cuff. Unfortunately, I think the show has been cancelled – but hey, at least I scored a free donut out of the gig.