We might think that the outer space is an empty vacuum, but this is not at all the case. The “Space Weather Center” gives you daily forecasts and storm alerts, so that you can be prepared for your next trip:-) .

On the site you read: ” To the unaided eye, space appears to be a vast, dark void, and the Sun a tranquil sphere of light. But in fact, space is not empty because Earth’s orbit lies within the atmosphere of our dynamic Sun. Our solar system has the cosmic equivalent of wind, clouds, storms, and hurricanes called space weather.”
It is an educational website with interesting sections about plasma, “living within a star”, or the protective shield of our earth. On the site of the US-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website (NOAA) (: do they want to administer the oceans?) of the Department of Commerce you find links to a number of scientific sites about the atmospheric influences.

Last Wednesday there was an x-ray eruption on the sun with a related plasma shock wave, which is just causing a geomagnetic storm (see the sitebar of our blog for actual information). These storms are causing auroral activities and sometimes even breakdowns of electronic communication or electricity.

The sun has an 11 year activity cycle, and next May is expected to be the minimum. So modern science confirms what the ancient scientists of wisdom say, that space pulsates and is filled with innumerable waves of the ocean of the space waters.

For its 50th birthday, the science magazine New Scientist has asked over 70 of the world’s most brilliant scientists for their ideas what will be the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years. As to be expected, the answers show the specialities and disciplines of the scientists -and are often marked by the materialistic paradigm of today.

The oceanologist Daniel Pauly, gave an interesting reply reflecting a thought from the wisdom teachings which say that humanity will become more and more sensitive of all forms of life:

“In light of the time span considered here, I think the most important development for the oceans would be a device that could detect, amplify and transmit to us the emotions and fleeting, inarticulate “thoughts” of animals in such a form as to evoke analogous emotions and thoughts in human brains. This would first work with primates, then mammals in general, then the other vertebrates including fish. This would cause, obviously, a global revulsion at eating flesh of all kinds, and we would all become vegetarians.”

A vegetarian diet has to do with good will, for this way we contribute to reduce violence towards the animal kingdom. You might want to read our booklet “Ideas and Recipes for a Lacto-Vegetarian Diet“.

The European edition of the US weekly mewsmagazine Time has chosen Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux system, on its list of heros of the last 60 years. By giving away his software, the Finnish programmer had earned a place in history, Time writes. They chose him in the category “Leaders and Rebels”. He was just 21 when he changed the world by writing the kernel of a new computer operating system called Linux. He posted it for free on the internet and invited anyone interested to help improve it.

“Today, 15 years later, Linux powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones around the world, and Torvalds has achieved fame as the godfather of the open-source movement, in which software code is shared and developed in a collaborative effort rather than being kept locked up by a single owner”, Time writes.

The power of giving is a central spiritual principle. You can read more about it in the issue on Giving and Taking of the Good Will in Action.

Yesterday I came across an article in the NZZ (New Zurich Newspaper) about the missing co-operation between doctors and building biologist (in English they also use the word Baubiologie, as the word was coined in Germany). Often general practitioners don’t recognize morbid environmental influences and see the causes of unspecific functional pains as psycho-somatic diseases. The people don’t fimd themselves taken seriously and turn to paramedicals or building biologists. There is a whole spectrum of possible influences, from asbestos, radon to electromagnetic pollution, which building biologists take into account. Electromagnetic pollution, from mobiles, computer micro-waves and the like is much disputed and the pro-advocators of mobiles see the symptoms of diseases often just as existing psychiatric diseases.

In Switzerland an association of doctors for environmental protection has just been formed who is trying to sensitize medical practices in the whole of Switzerland for the questions of building biology. If you would like to know more about the spiritual dimension of buildings you might read the issue on “Body and House” (pdf) of Good Will in Action.

Yesterday while surfing in the noon pause I came across a note on the Computerbild-website, a German computer magazine, telling that there will be compatibility problems between older and the new version of Microsoft “Office 2007”, which will be launched probably next February (for enterprises: from end of November 06 on).

Documents produced in the new version of the software are saved in a file format which normally cannot be read by old versions of word, excel or powerpoint. Therefore Microsoft has now published a free “Office Compatibility Pack“. The software can be inserted in “Office 2000”, “Office XP” and “Office 2003”. After the installation loading and saving of Office 2007 documents is possible.

Remembering well the problems I had with the documents of the recent 2003-version, when I still had the older 2000 version, I immediately installed the file (27,1MB) and informed my friends about the problem. I hope that Microsoft doesn’t have more “surprises” for other or older system users hidden in the new Office and Vista versions, with their quasi market monopoly.

Yesterday pictures of the fastest moving matter waves ever photographed were presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the division of plasma physics in Philadelphia, USA. The waves have nearly the speed of light, of 1 billion miles per hour. The waves, known as wakefields, are generated in the wake of an ultra-intense laser pulse. They are travelling oscillations in a sea of electons known as a plasma, giving rise to enormous electric fields. The electron “surfs” on the electric-field that accompanies the plasma wave, and accelerates almost instantaneously to near-light-speed.

Researchers from the University of Texas designed a holographic-strobe camera to take the pictures. Their method, called Frequency Domain Holography, sends two additional laser pulses though the plasma along with the ultra-intense pulse. The pulses are sent into a spectrometer where they interfere holographically and are subsequently analyzed to produce images of the wave structure in real-time, revealing theoretically predicted but never-before-seen features.

If you would like to know more about the nature of light and colours from a spiritual view and for the inner work, you might have a look at the Lunar Messenger on Light and Colour.

Yesterday I participated in a workshop of the Swiss federal administration on accessibility and usability for the websites of the Swiss government. Until the end of 2006 all websites of the federal administration have to correspond to accessibility guidelines (see my post on web accessibility – overcoming obstacles).

The workshop was conducted by two persons of the foundation Access for All, one of them being a person who is blind since birth and is a specialist for accessibility testing. He intruduced us into the way handicapped people, especially blind persons, work with the internet as a window to the world. He had a bluetooth Braille keybord and a screenreader software. He gave us several examples of how obstacles for the blind can be overcome by better naming of links or by creating an easy-to-navigate website. He also showed us an extract of a “hearing film” – from a know cinema, where all action was being described, including the scenes. But he also described about the many ways there are created obstructions even by good-meaning people.
Fascinating how with a good will and creative know-how handicapped people can be helped to be partners in the world which is mainly being shaped by the majority having a relatively free command of their senses and bodies. It needs a sensitivity to open up to the world of people with another way of living side by side.

After some months I yesterday looked again into the admin of the E-Card-system on the good-will website and found over 12000 mails sent over the last 3 months – mainly spam mails praising sex, drugs and replica watches. Dirty mails with dirtiest links. I quickly tried to block the system, for every day they were dispatching via my system their stinking messages, but this wasn’t enough. Since 4 years I hadn’t installed an update of the system, and this was urgent now.

Peter Sundstrom, the kind owner of Ginini technologies (Ginini is an aboriginal word meaning sleeping woman, the name of a mountain range “down under” in Australia) and programmer of Postcard Direct (a good multi-language e-card system, which I have installed) quickly gave me a reply what to do.

Nevertheless it took me some hours until everything was in the right forms again, for there had been several changes in the system. Now the e-cards are running again (and I have re-installed the dropdown with a music-selection) – and most important, a look into the logfiles on the server this morning showed that the dirty messages were no longer being sent from my server.

It reminds me of the wakefulness needed on the spiritual path. When you try to progress without having “fixed” your system of living and of motives, egoistic tendencies start flourishing in you and gushing their stinking waters into you and your surroundings.

Yesterday I installed the new Google Earth 4 Beta and was astonished about the accuracy of details one can see from the cosmos. You could even see the shadow of the small bushes in our little garden. Soon you even might even see the “Flowers on the Wayside” from space…

Luckily as far as missile targeting is concerned 😉 the name of our village, Muri, was about 1 kilometer in the wrong direction, but this is also already a great increase, since some times ago it was still about 5 kilometers in another direction, where a different village is located.

The Elon University, USA, together with Pew Internet have asked about 742 technology thinkers and analysts to give their opinions about the future of the internet in the year 2020. The site “Imagining the Internet – A History and Forecast” invites people to add their forecasts or to read others’ forecasts. The opinions of the specialists are to be found in a study, which shows the range of hopes and fears about control over technology and being controlled by manipulators, about addiction to virtual realities, where people might lose themselves or about world-wide access to information or about widening gaps and greater social fragmentation and cyber-violence.

There is a sentence in the study of the 20th century visionary and architect R. Buckminster Fuller saying that “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” And Alan Kay commented on this by adding: “The only way you can predict the future is to build it.”

This sentence is very true also from the spiritual standpoint. With every act we shape our destiny – as individuals as well as with society. And this holds true for the internet as well: We decide whether we use it for activities and purposes of good will, constructing better human relations, or by using the interconnection the web offers to expand egotism, despotism and misuse of money, sex and power.