Here is a fascinating video from YouTube of a talk of Steve Jobs from Apple to graduates of Stanford University. It just came to me via an e-mail sent by a friend, though Steve Jobs gave the talk already on June 12, 2005. He is speaking about his biography, his way he met with failures, love and death. He never graduated from university, dropped from college, met with great crises, when he was fired from Apple, the enterprise he founded, was confronted with cancer.

He learned many things like calligraphy (beautiful writing) which revealed only many years later what they meant in his life. He was following his intuition and fascination and came out of great transformation processes:
“Don’t let the voice of others’ opinions make you decide”, he told the students, “stay hungry, stay foolish”.

A beautiful inspiration for openness towards life and striving.

Here you find a transcript of his talk.

This morning I remembered an e-mail I yesterday got from a friend in Argentina. It was a powerpoint with a cry for help stopping the slaughter of baby seals. I first put it into the trash, after having seen several videos in the last time about cruel animal massacres, and having published several blog-posts about them. There could have been many more about incredible atrocities of humans against other fellow humans, with which I’m confronted at my professional work. A feeling of palsy and insensibility could creep in, a compassion fatigue.

I then read this morning in the Vaisakh Newsletter of this month: “Be not complacent of evil. Do not be blind to it. Evil cannot be eliminated. It is the by-product of the creation. It exists as along as creation exists…”

So I decided to do an English translation of the file about killing the baby seals, here is it as a powerpoint (with music) or as pdf (without).

The text in the Vaisakh Newsletter went on: “Remember! It is not wise to hate evil. If you hate evil you attract it faster… Prayers done in love and for welfare of mankind can open the vaults of heaven to normalise the situation and such prayers have to be done with greater effectiveness.”

I got an e-mail from friends about dolphin massacres in Japan and a petition to the Prime Minister of Japan:

“Dear Friends and lovers of the ocean. Sometimes the ocean needs our help, and this is one of them To view the video is very disturbing, to not act in stopping such behaviour would be a travesty … At the very least please sign this online petition. Lovers of the ocean and it’s inhabitants – this is a clear call to action. To do nothing is to approve of it.

Please take the time to look at the video and sign the online petition. From little things, big things grow…….. And then send it on to as many like minded people that you know. If we build the numbers, we will be heard eventually and things will change, one way or the other. Please help! We must change the way people think about their oceans and inhabitants for the good of us all.”

See also our blogposts on the killing the baby seals, A Glimpse of a Life-Size Whale, “Earthlings” – Dealing with Animals, Vegetarianism – A Contribution to Fighting Climate Change and Ideas of World’s Most Brilliant Scientists for the Future.

There are many theories how the Great Pyramid of Giza (Cheops) has been constructed, but it is still a mystery. The French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has now presented a totally new theory with the help of a 3D computer simulation, that a ramp had been built mainly inside the pyramid. He asked Dassault Systèmes to help him realise a demo of the reconstruction. They now have online a fascinating journey through time and space in real-time 3D. You need however install a plugin for you browser. Spiegel.de online has some photos of the presentation. You can also download a pdf about Jean-Pierre Houdins project.

Dassault Systems

The pyramidal structure contains many spiritual principles which help reorganising our energy patterns.

Yesterday I was at an Office 2007 and Sharepoint launch event of a Microsoft partner agency, for my job. At first there were high-flying slogans about a colourful future with “wow”-effect by a Microsoft official (“Empower the people with the right tools and softwares and there is nothing they cannot do…”), decorated with video-clips (WMF streaming), which didn’t run that well as the promised future. After a presentation of functionalities (the best presentations are not much usefull when you forget that beamers have other colour resolutions than laptop screens, and a big part of the texts wasn’t readable) and a practical example of complex group co-ordination, there was a fascinating talk about “Increasing Productivity in Information Work” by a collaboration researcher:

The number of people who don’t collaborate face to face has been tremendously increasing during the last few years, and they had done researches on the impact of these changes on new ways of collaboration at distance. I don’t want to go into details, only 2-3 thoughts:

A few years ago everyone was happy with more features available in a program, today the difficulty is to sort out and reduce the complexity to what is really relevant to the people. This sorting-out is mostly done with our head and not by the softwares available.

Most workers in our society are brain workers, but this is nowhere noted in the assets of an enterprise. A major part of our business activities isn’t organised along the needs of creative work, but of a work environment structured differently, in old patterns. In the knowledge work 90% is not visible and only 10% physically visible work.

For the tremendous changes going on in society new forms of collaboration are needed. I was thinking of the collaboration not only at work, but also in the different good-will activities I’m in. Our monthly Lunar Messenger for example, a small project, involves people not only here in Switzerland, but also in Germany (the French translation), Mexico and the US. I’m working in other projects involving also Belgian, Spanish, Argentinian co-workers. It needs quite a lot of co-ordination and brainwork, but the outcome is fascinating, and all are working for free. All this is a group collaboration going on at distance. So also “Good Will in Action” on Cooperation.

In collaboration good networking is important. Cables, Bhutan

The Korea Times reports that the Korean venture start-up Xtive has developed an inaudible sound sequence, that is incorporated in games and tells gamers after a certain time to stop playing on their own. The messages are told 10,000 to 20,000 times per second,” Xtive President Yun Yun-hae said. “Game users can’t recognize the sounds. But their subconscious is aware of them and the chances are high they will quit playing. Tests tell us the sounds work.”�

Korea Times says: “Experts point out roughly 10 to 20 percent of high school students can be categorized as Web junkies who need treatment. And many believe that is a conservative perspective.”

Xtive has applied for a patent for the phonogram and wants to use the technology in other sectors, too: “We can easily change the messages. In this sense, the potential for this technology is exponential.”

Many teenagers spend too much time playing computer games, not only in Korea – I have two of these at home… Sound is very powerful and is used in spiritual techniques, as you can read in Basics of Spiritual Life on The Power of Sound. However, using subliminal messages to manipulate people, even “for their good” infringes free will – even if the will isn’t that free with game addicts. If people voluntarily submit themselves to these influences, why not. But using them, pre-installed, in games or in other contexts – just imagine shops – is violating our human identity.

A Californian friend just sent me a heartwarming news video clip about the friendship between a man, his dog and a Canadian goose in Michigan by the name of Daisy Kare. It is fascinating to see how this friendship goes beyond the boundaries of species which normally keep them apart. An inspiring example for living together with differences.

You can see the short clip either in a rather bad quality from YouTube or, if you have Windows Media Player, as a streaming from here.

The UN has published a computer game called “Stop Disasters” in order to sensitise people how to prevent natural catastrophies. There are scenarios of measures against conflagrations, tsunamis, hurricanes� or floods. The goal of the game is to save the population in dangerous areas. This free game is a way to bridge the digital divide between the so-called developed world and third-world countries.

The UN World Food Program has also launched a game where you can help to satisfy the world hunger: Food-Force. There you not only have the game, but also information about the reality, a blog as well as a possibility to donate. And another game entitled: “Darfur is Dying” uses the means of the web to call for help stopping the crisis in Darfur. Very interesting new ways of informing about disasters and entertaining. And a great way to motivate people for goodwill actions.

A friend just sent me a spectacular powerpoint presentation entitled Blue Beauty – beautiful images of our earth seen from space – especially impressive are the photos of nightfall. (1.7 MB). Enjoy

A friend from Spain sent me a link to the YouTube video on “Spiritual Reality” by Basically Shetai. It is a film about the journey of spiritual evolution through meditation, a journey towards the self. They are visualising with computer animation inner experiences of meditation, healing, pyramid power, astral traveling (out of body experiences) and going through the different stages of life and beyond.

A fascinating attempt to give an understanding of subtle realities. However, you have to use your discrimination not to take it as a 1 : 1 representation or guideline. Otherwise you get the wrong impression that the spiritual path is just “meditation” as a miraculous magic wand. Don’t space out and forget your practical day-to-day activity and doing something useful to others 🙂 . You might like want to read the Lunar Messenger on “The Journey Inside“.