If you have the time, the popular articles from the site.   Lots of good information for managing life.

Just received this email:

Beta testers needed for Integral Naked 1.1!! IN community, Integral Naked is about to reveal the first of many web advancements we have been working diligently on behind the scenes over the past year. We have plugged IN into...The Multiplex!!! While the changes to the surface of this next-gen IN will be subtle, the engine will be much more powerful, allowing IN to overcome the challenges to the site we have discovered over the years and innovate in ways never before possible. The most obvious improvements will be in the login process, your account management and the Forum. This will also be the seamless platform to access all I-I future offerings. The final step in this development is the obligatory Beta test in which we enlist a couple hundred of our best friends to comb over the site looking for every last little bug that may be hiding under the rugs. This is where you come in. To help us out go to: http://betain.integralinstitute.org

I logged into this - not much different so far, from a very cursory glance. 

A couple of changes in the Forum, a bit more flashy graphics embedded into the engine, possible a new column of announcements.  I'll look around, see if there is anything else.

I have put up a continuation post on Individual and Existential Life, over at Generation Sit. 

Take a look, feel free to comment.

Distinguishes between development and maintenance, of different practices.

Check it out.

Here it is.

It would have been great to have a little bit more about George the man, but still worth reading.

I should have more time for posting over the holiday break.

In the meantime, if you don't know this already, check out Integral Awakening's book recommendation list!

From Katherine at Obsidian Wings:

September 11 started the war. When will it end? Maybe never. Where is the battlefield? The entire world, including the United States. Who is an enemy combatant?  Anyone the President says is an enemy combatant, including a U.S. citizen--no need for a charge, no need for a trial, no need for access to a lawyer. What if they're found not to be an enemy combatant? We can keep them in prison anyway, and we don't have to tell their families they're alive or their lawyers that they were cleared.  What can you do to an enemy combatant?  Anything you want. Detain him forever, for the rest of his life, because this is a war like any other and we have always been able to detain POWs for the duration of the war. But you don't need to follow the Geneva Conventions, because this is a war like no other in our history. And oh yes--if the President decides that we need to torture a prisoner for the war effort, it's unconstitutional for Congress to stop him. They took that position in an official memo, and they have not backed down from it. They have said it was "unnecessary" but they have never backed down from it.

Another happy saga in the overreach of the Pentagon.

This is a political day for me, it seems. 

From War and Piece.

Or something like that.

I had a chance last Thursday - along with 13 other people in our group - to go see King Kong.

While it was long - over 3 hours - that is perfect for me.

An amazing fusion of the latest animation ability - which was awesome - as well as harkening back to a lot of mainstay Hollywood movies. 

The girl in distress.
The amoral producer/director.
The adventure to a strange land.

Old New York of the 1930's, was painstakingly recreated, and a joy to see. 
While some thought a lot of the sub-plots say, on the ship, were unnecessary, I found them to enrich the main storyline.
The introduction of the islanders was also done well - very believable "otherness", definitely giving one the willies.
King Kong was animated wonderfully.
And the battles between King Kong and the dinosaurs were incredible as well.

There were a couple of moments that ended up cheesy - like a herd of dinosaurs not stomping all over the party - but other than a couple of minor miscues, this picture WAS Hollywood - the grandeur, the reaching back to an impeccable representation to a lost time, the evocation of the emotional connection between the beauty and the beast, the gorgeousness of the sets and animated actors...

This is THE big action movie to see this Christmas.

From Personal Level (scroll down, don't know why his site is acting up) his review of what he considers his integral practices, and most of which he does/has experience with.

Detailed list!  He is a focused guy, I must say.

Here is the official announcement.

What this does is:

Include a FEED from Google Blogsearch, giving you information about ANY site you go to, and immediate access to what blogs have to say about the site.

Why is this scary? 

This has made it THAT much easier to immediately see "what do other people think about this site/person/product?"

Here's an example from my site - NOTE:  I expanded the listing of comments, normally it's a very small little icon in the bottom of the browser.

Why is this scary?  Well, two reasons -

a. Take a scenario - you want to bash on someone? Simply publish a lot, and perhaps your criticism of a site/person/product will IMMEDIATELY be accessible to anyone with this extension.

It's like reviews on mega-steroids, backed up by Google speed, backed up by the "relevance" engine of Google.

Goodbye to any other review site - why are they needed?

2. If someone develops a way to RATE blogposts,- quickly and easily - and this is added to Google's relevancy engine - then you will get the most recommended reviews/thoughts/ruminations/rants of a site/person/product, immediately.

I have referenced this before - here for Yahoo Local Reviews, and here for The Long Tail.

But this particular Google implentation means that this immediate impact from PEOPLE, and their silly/good/bad/rantish voices, are now embedded in the browser - and Oh So Easy - to get to.

While my focus is practices, and learning functionality, the immediate impact may be on product and product pages - but the impact on people will be felt immediately after.

One thing that will need to be fixed is to EXCLUDE blogposts FROM that site that you are on/looking at, or same person, as this clogs up the "what do others think?" functionality.

How does this get onto Internet Explorer?  Simple - by updating the Google Toolbar.

For this proof, check out this article about Mahamudra and the Halo computer game. 

I was cracking up, I gotta say, it's quite the tongue-in-cheek.  An example:

Use HALO to meditate on the anger that fills our world and the wrath that people desire to inflict on each other.

Use HALO to meditate on impermanence and the fragility of life.

Know your life can be wiped out like a candle flame in the wind.

So do not waist time your life is not guaranteed.

HALO is a spectacular live mirror.

So, what are the thoughts?  Is this a:

1. Serious rationalization, of a psychological game addiction?
2. A brand new mystical method of meditation, arising for the future virtual worlds of tomorrow?
3. An article which belongs in The Onion?

This is an easily digestible analysis of the "Millenials", and the impact on education, and it makes for interesting reading.  Pretty simple, but some nice statistics.

As a certified GenX'er - (and BTW, how do you separate Gen X, Gen Y, and Millenial?),  but a semi-technologist, I recognize some of this analysis, as applying to me.

But all I had to do was look at page 3 - the instant message/texting shorthand - and realize I was completely out of the loop here!   I knew what 4 of 12 shorthands were.

How about others?  You guys closer in age to the Millenials, or actual Millenials?  Did you know all the shorthands?

Once there is the beginning of a resting in oneness, I have noticed a few different dangers that begin to happen to the experiencer of the non-dual state - or at least to this particular experiencer. The largest is the fusion and confusion between the the enlightened state, experienced as it is, and the perceptions from this place aligning with various incorrect concepts of the separated self. I don't believe this gets enough attention from the various teachers out there, at least as I see the issue. Since I view this as incredibly important, I hope I can do justice, in words, to communicate this.   more »

Okay, I need to slow down on this somehow - it is simply SO easy to add feeds to google reader, when I come across something interesting - I don't access my feeds for three days, suddenly I have 773 items that are "unread".

Whoo. 

And this isn't because I, all at once, added 100 feeds.  This is one month of finding interesting feeds, adding them (So Simple!), and then going about my business...

It's a problem if it takes me over an hour to even SCAN all the items from feeds that I deem interesting...

Integral Spirituality is going to be one of the new books released by Ken Wilber, in early 2006.

From the IN site:

This 118-page essay is not to be confused with the 350-page book Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World (to be published by Integral Books/Shambhala in the summer of 2006). This book will also be pre-posted in its entirety at www.IntegralSpiritualCenter.org in January, 2006

I would like to start the analysis of this draft - and then later the book by analyzing the truth claims of the draft (at least to start). 

In the first place, the fundamental thesis that I am positing that Integral Spirituality is - more so than any previous work of Wilber's - at its base, a philosophical work of  a rich, detailed, and inclusive EPISTEMOLOGY - both inividual and collective.

(Here is also the Wikipedia page on epistemology.)

As such, quite separate from substantive and ontological claims by Wilber, this work can be judged on the merits of the epistemological claims.

This multi-part analysis is going to follow the following structure.

Part I:  Brief historical analysis of the development of Wilber's thought.
Part II:  Historical predecessors - some analysis of previous work, that has similar analytic trends and thoughts as Wilber's.
Part III:  You down with the IMP?  Yeah you know me! (and us)
Part IV:  An exercise in Figure Drawing - Quadrants, Cubes, and Octahedrons
Part V:   The Claim of One Direction Complexity- Lines and Levels
Part VI:  Shifting Sands:  Expanding Outward into Science, Psychology, and Spirit.
Part VII:  Further Shifting Sands - or Wilber recapitulates Habermas


That's the plan.  Let me know if there are any thoughts on this. 

I don't know myself, but looking at the statistics for this site, I am getting an extra 20 hits a day, simply from google and technorati searches, looking for Stuart Davis.

Considering that:

1. This is new - I've never gotten an extra 20 hits for Stuart Davis before.
2. I haven't blogged anything recent about Stuart Davis in 6 months.

At any rate, here is his site, from anyone who gets referred to this site, looking for him...

I have taken the VALS survey.  It was interesting.  Apparently, I am an Innovator.

What is interesting is that this particular survey represents my SELF-IMAGE - i.e. what I value, look at, and BUY - this survey is meant as a consumer tool.

And it is probably accurate.  Whether in "reality", I am an innovator, well, clearly I'm not much of one - but my interests sure do follow, in terms of keeping up with the latest RSS tricks, looking at great adventures to take, etc, etc. 

So what is sophisticated about this particular survey, or at least the leap and assumption the survey makes, is that my self-image reflects my buying and spending habits. 

I often wonder if some of the simpler assessment tools - particularly the enneagram to reflect types - are aware of this disconnect between self-image and the "reality" of the person.

Luckily, as a consumer test, they don't have to worry so much about the reality!

I figured that Yahoo would buy del.icio.us, actually.  With flickr, and Yahoo's commitment to tagging, seemed the perfect match.

This is a good article about Web 2.0. 

A couple of things -

a. I would add to this, that the web 2.0 applications, are, for the most part hosted, and therefore always improving in real-time.  Google Reader is an example - while it's first iteration was blase, it quickly added the necessary features, and continues to get better, as do all the other hosted applications.  Especially given the "lightness" of most of the applications in question, it's not such a big deal to add feature sets.

Also, as discussed here, there is a challenge using Web 2.0 for "softer" applications.  Either those in HR/CRM/ERP, where complicated software is required, or, in those systems where a history and profile has to be maintained over a significant amount of time.

Here is the link to a great Health site.  Given my annoyance with cooking, I love the 10 and 15 minute recipes!


Thanks to Pashmina's delicious bookmarks!

THIS appears again, out of nothing, out of everything.

Heart shining, transparent, through all that I see, inside and out.  This pulse of life, pulse of God, beats in the face in the mirror, in the sky that I view out the window, in the cars driving by.

And innocence is restored. 

As is wont, I am swept away by these glimpses.  This I, that small self, is just another wave of this pulse of the Heart, and the Divine, as real as a puppet.

And every moment, the pulse is here.

And in every glance, eyes widen with recognition. 

In every breath, shines out the joy of the Universe.

The Chronicles of Narnia was probably the first "trilogy" that I ever read, when I was a kid.  I don't remember my exact age, but I must have been ten or younger.

I was enraptured and enthralled by the books - even now, Aslan remains in the childhood memories as an ultimate force of Good.

I had a chance to see a sneak preview of this movie last night at the Kabuki theaters, and because of my childhood memories, was fairly excited at the prospect.

However, I have never re-read this trilogy, and, now that the movie has been released, I must come to the reluctant judgment that the story of the books, most likely don't wear well, as one gets older. 

At least in my judgment of the movie, there were simply too many jarring discrepancies between the plot, as dictated by the movie, and my own internal sense of the flow and internal logic, within the movie.  However, the graphics in this movie were simply amazing - Aslan in particular being a highlight.

What do I mean by that?  Simply that there were some "momentous" scenes for children, forced to quickly grow up, that rather than being meaningful, struck me as fairly cheesy  (I'm not going to say which scenes, or give away the movie).  This didn't seem to be the movies fault, however, but probably is the fault of the books - like I said, I'm not sure they wear well into adulthood.

Given that, why do I recommend the movie?

The main reason is because the graphics are just simply spectacular - really, just amazing.  Aslan, and the voice of Aslan, were picture and tone perfect.  The animators did an incredible job of capturing the Aslan of my childhood projection, and seeing him up there on the screen gave me goosebumps, and made my heart do a little jump for joy. 

The battles.  The flow, and the smoothness, believability of all the various and sundry characters in Narnia, was done amazing well.  Like with the latest Harry Potter, the smoothness and detail on the characters keep getting better and better, and in this case, struck me again with that sense of "wondrous awe", that I treasure so much.

The actors were children, and a bit wooden.  They two girls were believable, but the male characters are the ones that strayed into cheesiness.

At any rate, my two cents..

From Lifehacker, a link to a list of free music sites.

If anyone has an opinion on any of these sites, let me know.

Thanks!

Saw this article about Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales thinking of establishing a reputation system, and again, made me think about using some of the established  reputation and review systems to rate various practices.

Here's a couple of examples -

1. Question:  What is the mechanism, right NOW, to rate the I-WET weekend, or any of the Integral Universities weekly seminars?

2. David Deida - I've read his books, and met the man, having picked him up at the airport once (many years ago), and he was a great guy.  But, where would you go to find ratings of David Deida's seminars, and their experiences?

A friend of mine went to a three day workship of Deida's a few years ago, and in his opinion, he pretty much covered what he covered in the books, and not much more. 

And that makes some sense, actually.  Various PARTICULAR psychosexual and partner situations, are just that - particular and invididualized.  It would seem to me the most help one could get from Deida-type work, is working with a counselor trained in some of the Deida "techniques", for lack of a better word.

I don't mean this to detract from Deida, as he was a great guy in my experience.  But again, what is the best way to apply his insights to individuals and groups - and is the way he is applying those insights the best?  Open reviews by those with good reputations (to prevent gaming of the system) would help quite a lot, wouldn't you agree?