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Te video of a break-dancing toddler reminded me of another report, that, in my eyes, clearly shows that there are past lives which we sometimes access if the stimulus is just right. This report tells about a little girl that remembers that it knows Thai-dance, and can actually perform it well beyond the abilities of a child her age.

Watching this toddler performing his break dance…

…it makes a lot more sense to me that he or his body remembers from last time around when he was a real good break dancer than to shoe-horn accepted reality into the observable facts and believe that this little guy who is called a ‘toddler’ for a reason has suddenly left all toddling behind just because I had observed some break dancers for a while. Even if the dad is an accomplished break dancer that would not explain his ability to control his body well beyond what other toddlers can do. I had seen and heard my dad sing opera all the time, but I could not do that! And I am sure that there are kids of accomplished pianists that see their parent practice for hours every day that don’t suddenly start ripping some Chopin.

Anybody else with clear proof that past lives exist?

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The following are some quotes of Stefan Molyneux’s videocast about fake and real heroism:

Heroism is never where you are.

It’s never anything that you can achieve in your own life to become a hero – all you have to do is sit around and whine until some old dude in an old blanket comes along and whisks you off to a life of adventure and combat.

…

All these mythologies which have remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years, are entirely about enslaving you, and turning you into useful cannon fodder for your masters.

Real heroism is something that you can achieve here, today.

Sounds interesting, yes?

Imagine that I consider myself a Star Wars and science fiction appreciater (no, I do not call  myself a fan of anything!) so, it was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. But all real change starts with discomfort as – by definition – we have to move out of our comfort zone.

But, Stefan says it best, so you better grab a coffee, make yourself comfortable on the sofa and give Mr. Molyneux a chance to stir you up a bit to get off that sofa…

You are still on that sofa of yours – OK, here is part 2…

Are you still on your sofa? – - – - – Pity!

Beverly sends the following story:

Something To Think About . . .

THE SITUATION

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing.  He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later:

The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

At 6 minutes:

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At 10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly.  The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time.  This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent – without exception – forced their children to move on quickly.

At 45 minutes:

The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.  Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This is a true story.  Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

• In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
• If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made . . .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

That’s for the story from Beverly – thank you! It’s a great story, may it be true or may it be false, but I did not want to leave it at that so I used almighty Google to see if this story was, indeed, true and found it to be factual. If you have too much time on your hand you might want to read (and view) the whole accord at the Washington Post.

This TED talk by Adora Svitak moved me…

Don’t have much to add to it, except maybe that it changes dramatically how I see my son and what comes from him.

Do you sometimes have the urge to run around the house with some scissors in your hand? Are you sometimes so fed up with all the well-meaning advise to be safe?

Here is an article that gets to the crux of it all, and article that I found (again) in the deep crevices of my hard drive, and who’s author I do not know. Sorry, author, that I can not credit you, but these words need to get out, so here they are…

People over 35 should be dead. Here’s why:

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, or even maybe the early ’70s probably shouldn’t have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, … and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to forget the risks we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the  garden hose and not from  a bottle.

Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day.     NO CELL PHONES!

Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt! We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.  They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren’t as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.

Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.

Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And if you’re one of them, congratulations!

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good!

People under 30 are WIMPS!

Something I found when cleaning up the hard drive. I think a better place is here than hidden deep in the bowls of my drive D.

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just leave me the hell alone.
2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.
3. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.
4. Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.
5. No one is listening until you fart.
6. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.
7. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
8. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
9. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.
10. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
11. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
12. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
13. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
14. Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield.
15. Don’t worry; it only seems kinky the first time.
16. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
17. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
18. A closed mouth gathers no foot.
19. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
20. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
21. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.
22. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
23. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
24. We are born naked, wet, and hungry, and get slapped on our ass… then things get worse.
25. The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.

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I have been intrigued by the story of Miles O’Brien, when I first heard about him being fired by CNN after 16 years of reporting about technology in general and space in particular.

I believe I heard about it on BoingBoing in a report that he is still doing the same job but now on his own. It was so fascinating for me because here was somebody creating a new business model for the dying news business. It all fits in nicely with my quest to understand how a stateless society can work were interactions happen on a voluntary, more individual, basis.

I had looked at the extreme example of a teacher in public school. Here you have somebody who is hired and most likely will remain hired unaffected by the satisfaction of his customers – the students. The money to pay him is extracted, if necessary by force, by the population at large.

Contrast this to a society based on voluntary interaction where the teacher has to provide a good product with customer satisfaction in order to be paid. How much better would the product, education, be!

Back to our journalist in question. Here we certainly do not have a case as extreme as the school teacher, but his job is definitely detached from his clientele, as he is employed by a very big news organization that, by its sheer size, obtains government properties. After being ‘let go’ (a nice way to say ‘fired’) by CNN there is probably not too many other employment opportunities. Here is where I admire Mr. O’Brien’s handling of the situation – he just went into business for himself. There is not much precedence for this at the tier of Mr. O’Brien. Sure, many bloggers are small-time journalist, but I don’t know of any case where a high-profile news man went into business for himself.

And what a good job Mr. O’Brien does! His video blog – or news-cast – This Week in Space – is something I am now looking forward to. It is interesting to see how creative use of modern technology makes up for the high budget of CNN. Instead of sending a crew with two cameramen and a lighting crew, Mr. O’Brien interviews Buzz Aldrin over Skype.

It is so simple now – there is the guy who delivers something I want and I, voluntary, give him money for it. The only thing we have to get rid of is the notion that we now have to pay for something that we previously got free. We actually did not get it free, we paid with our time and attention by watching commercials on CNN. If I put a high value on my time I might even get it cheaper now. If, as an example, I value my time at about $100 per hour and I watch commercial on TV for 10 minutes out of very hour, I paid more than $10 for watching that show right there.

I paid Mr. O’Brien $10 today and feel that I got a much better deal as I feel I’m good now to watch his shows for a month or two.

To sample his work, if you are interested in space flight, take a look…

By the way, another advantage of this closer relationship is that comments have a much better chance to get to the person they are intended for and have an effect.

At the last New Years party I overheard a conversation about Morgan Freeman and this independent movie he was involved in and that this movie was well worth seeing.

As I generally liked the characters Mr. Freeman played it was a given that I would have to watch this movie – I had made noted down the title on my smart phone – 10 Items or Less.

Today I finally managed to see it.

Turned out to be absolutely worth seeing, Not only does it tell a great story of a friendship between two very unlikely people, it also brings to the screen beautiful Paz Vega, whom I had just seen in the movie Spanglish.

As I got this great favor from the person whom I don’t remember any more I guess I have to pass that favor on to the world and recommend this movie to the world at large. This film is a few years old so you will not,  most likely, catch it at the movies, but watching it on DVD is actually better. The DVD includes a great documentary about the making of the movie – which took only and incredible short 15 days of shooting – which is an enjoyable experience in itself.

So, put it on your Netflix queue or look for it at Blockbuster. Here is a trailer to water your appetite…

What a difference the music makes!

It is a well known fact in the film industry that the right sound track for a movie can be essential for the success. Just look at the Star Wars Saga – the music, that today so many people know and connect with these movies, is just necessary for the movie, it would not be what it is without that sound track – even though we might not consciously notice it.

The music slides in under the radar, so to speak, and communicates emotions directly.

We all might have seen one, or a few, or many launches of real-world rockets, from the Saturns that brought some dudes to the moon to all the shuttle launches ferrying components into orbit to construct the International Space Station.

Now Mike Interbartolo has posted a video of the ascent of Shuttle Mission STS 129, compiled by the SE&I imagery team at Johnson Space Center from all of the ground, air, ET and SRB assets – and in good Hollywood tradition, has laid a dramatic sound track under the video footage.

That made me get real emotional!

I have this thing for space and reaching new frontiers, so SciFi was always the one genre that got me going. With this video it became real to me that we are actually doing it – right at this time!

If now we could only get the government out of this business to slow things down, then we would be really going. I am sure that without the bureaucrat’s involvement we would not have taken 40 years to get – perhaps – back to the moon, and then beyond. My son might actually realistically consider prospecting on the moon to make a fortune.

But without further ado, here is this great piece from NASA’s JSC…

Here is a little presentation that explains in detail how you can become happy. There are not too many steps necessary reach this goal but all of them are essential and you can’t leave out a single one – so you better watch this little piece of wisdom carefully…

Thanks, Kathie, for sending me the story of this Wise Old Man.

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