Wednesday, June 24, 2009

12 transformative mantras for Iran






INTRODUCTION: I serve Universal Democracy Revolution as a tiny channel of metaphysical mantras for much-beloved Iran. Join gentle heaven in forming similar thoughts on your own mental plane as it tilts toward Universal Infinite Love which is Eternally Invincible.

"Now abideth faith, hope and love, but the greatest (most essential and exalted and mighty) of these is love." - St. Paul


1 / Now we unite in radiating Omnipotent Compassion to aggressors, oppressors, and impostors in Iran and the twenty trillion worlds.

2 / He who sits on seat of corrupt power has ass eaten up by rats.

3 / Wicked rulers who oppress their own people cannot trust even their own shadow not to assassinate them.

4 / Hate only makes wicked rules more violent. If they cut you in a million pieces, let each piece radiate compassion for all.

5 / Transform lofty oppressors into angels of love by converting low rank thugs into gentle breezes.

6 / Oppressors in the temporal realm personally design & decorate their hellish prison in the eternal realm.

7 / Defiance defeats fear, as sun evaporates puddles.

8 / Mind of compassion gains eternal heavens that rain down retribution on hearts of hate.

9 / Soul of oppressor is fish in sea of steel.

10 / Soul of oppressor is bird at the bottom of the ocean.

11 / When a compassionate being is slaughtered, all the stars in heaven tremble with karmic justice soon to arrive.

12 / Mind of compassion gains eternal heavens that rain down retribution on hearts of hate.







Tuesday, June 23, 2009

18 metaphysical reflections on iran






1 / Suppression of public protest spawns underground subversion.

2 / You may seem to stop The People, but nothing can stop Karma.

3 / What you force your will upon becomes your grave.

4 /
Stepping on the will of The People is putting your head in the lion's mouth.

5 /
Hurting people is the attempt to kill God.

6 /
The misanthropic insanity of oppressors is the root of their vulnerability.

7 /
Transmit infinite mental love waves toward tyrants to forcibly transform them into blissful oceans of kindness.

8 / Compu-telepathic blessings of enormous soaring euphoria & super-real tranquility descend upon all people everywhere.

9 /
Tyranny evaporates in ecstatic pulsations from new dimensions of universal, invincible love.

10 /
Violence disintegrates in the whirlpool of perfect bliss radiating from the deliriously beautiful hearts of all humanity.

11 /
Ghosts of fear vanish in the kaleidoscopic haze of serenity spheres shining in joy & compassion toward all.

12 /
Gentle breezes delight & subdue all souls in blissful tides of cascading flowers from sweet eternities.

13 /
Minds of oppressors melt into vast shimmering pools of divine soothings.

14 /
Hate subsides into a single dot that dissolves into total love in every living being in all infinities of worlds.

15 /
Violence, hate & destruction will NEVER cause their opposite. Be Peace. Be Love. Be Triumphant.

16 / Your mind, my mind, their mind, our mind are all indelibly imprinted with peace.

17 / Love is already overwhelming all that is not yet Love.

18 / Love.




Sunday, June 21, 2009

Twitter, Iran, and Citizen Intelligence Agents



Twitter is proving its value once again, in connection with the new revolution in Iran. As usual, the mainstream media (MSM) is floundering around like chickens with their heads cut off.

MSM journalists, especially on CNN, keep whining about how they don't have direct access to events unfolding in Tehran and other parts of Iran. They bitch about how they can't verify social media sources or citizen journalist reports. But the new media continues to bury the old with tons of YouTube videos, blog posts, and Twitter messages.

CNN imposes "Amateur Video" on videos that come from citizen journalists in Tehran. This allows the mainstream media to posture as having "high standards" and "professional journalism", when we all know how flawed, biased, and unprofessional the old media can often be.

CNN does very poor research. A good example is how they try to explain how Twitter works. From what I've seen on CNN, they do a lousy job, so far, of defining such things as RT and # (pound symbol, hash tag).

RT in a Twitter message means ReTweet. It's how we identify a Twitter message, or tweet, that we are quoting and re-messaging. RT is almost always followed by @username, giving credit, and linking, to the originator of the message.

So if I, as Twitter user "vaspersthegrate" (title of my old blog), tweet a message that someone else likes, agrees with, and wants to spread across the Twitter realm, they will send it this way:


RT @vaspersthegrate Governments cannot kill & imprison the entire population. #iranelection


Notice the hash tag: #iranelection. This hash tag, the pound symbol #, is used to make it easier to search the specific topic "Iran Election". What's more, if this topic is hot, with lots of Twitter users talking about it via tweets, the topic could end up as a Trending Topic in the sidebar of everyone's Twitter page.

Thus, if you want to read the latest, second by second updates on the Iran Election topic, you can click on (select) #iranelection under Trending Topics. When you tweet on this topic, ending your tweet with #iranelection, you'll see your own tweet in Trending Topics.

What we also need to understand is how social networks, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and other New Media is auto-correcting, self-policing.

On Twitter, for example, you'll see people arguing about the legitimacy and credibility of various tweets. Other Twitter users will tweet warnings about certain users, like jimjones45 who are spamming or who keep harping about how the rebellion in Iran is entirely instigated by America and England.

Twitter users who spam, lie, rant recklessly, or tweet unverified reports are identified, shunned, and eventually diminish, even to the point of abandoning their account. This procedure works quite well.

A new twist was introduced when, and I complied with this request immediately, some Twitter users were asking us to change our Twitter settings to display our location as Tehran, with a Baghdad time zone (the nearest time zone on Twitter settings to Tehran). We do this to confuse the Iran government thugs who are trying to crack down on Tehran Twitter users.

Let's look at some messages in the Twitter Trending Topic #iranelection and you'll see what I've been describing.

NOTE: due to the barbaric nature of the repressive regime in Iran, RTs are often not attributed to the originator, to protect their identity. Thus, you will often see RT with no @username.









Green_iran_normal jeremiahabrams Validate your sources and facts before you RT on Iran, disinformation can mislead/hurt people on the ground. #iranelection less than 10 seconds ago from web



Gambler_normal pzyktzle UNCONFIRMED JUST IN from fb: Mousavi and wife arrested http://bit.ly/3yYbV #IranElection #Neda #gr88 less than 10 seconds ago from TweetDeck



Hafez_normal trawnaman Facebook has authentic-sounding details ( http://bit.ly/hjUXX ) on yesterday's shooting death of innocent Neda. #iranelection #neda less than 20 seconds ago from web



Green_normal jwprentice Please sign& RT this 'Appeal to the UN on Iran' http://301.to/2iu alyssa: only 3400 have signed this? #iranelection (via @Alyssa_Milano) less than 20 seconds ago from Twitterrific



Minha_foto_normal luisfelipe8395 PLEASE RT We need 1 million people outside of Iran to change timezone on Twitter to GMT +3:30 & location=Tehran #iranelection RT half a minute ago from web

(NOTE: Twitter does not have GMT + 3:30, you have to use GMT + 3:00 which is Baghdad, close enough in my opinion).



Anne4_normal aafromaa RT @bubblychampers: Does BBC News feel threatened by amateur journalism on Social Networking sites? http://bit.ly/VsMZk #iranelection #BBC half a minute ago from twhirl



Default_profile_normal Simon1881 RT NO NEWS NETWORK IS BROADCASTING THAT MOUSAVI WAS ARRESTED. THIS IS A LIE! DON'T BUY IT! #Iranelection #Neda #GR88! half a minute ago from web



Green_3250_2008-10-06-cropped_normal n4rky RT @IranRiggedElect: Mousavi's facebook page: Ghalamews is ostensibly hacked, be wary of what you read there #iranelection #neda half a minute ago from Spaz



Iran-tw-33_bigger_normal RussSte UNCONFIRMED RT @persiankiwi: There are rumours that Gov is losing control of army - #Iranelection #tehran half a minute ago from web




Never-give-up-churchill_normal hardknoxfirst RT henksijgers @101110: Fake 'Iranian' Twitter accounts. Some setup with purpose of getting intel. http://twitspam.org/?p=1403 #iranelection half a minute ago from web




Untitled_normal freeIran134 URGENT RT pt80 BLOCK, don't trust and don't RT @obama45 - it's another spammer #iranelection #gr88 #tehran please RT half a minute ago from web



Bestphoto_steve_normal stevemahfouz RT IDENTITY SECURITY: Be wary if you are asked for ID info of any kind (web site,etc.) Some online petitions are gov't traps. #iranelection less than a minute ago from web


3882_normal tinekefranssen show your support for the people of iran by going green - http://iran.greenthumbnails.com #iranelection half a minute ago from iran.greenthumbnails.com




Georgewbush_normal obama45 US army killed OVER 600.000 people in Iraq, now they don't hesitate to overthrow n replace the Iranian government. #IranElection Tehran less than a minute ago from Perl Net::Twitter





12707-212_normal luciferos @Obama45 you're likely part of the regime. Tell us your location. #iranelection less than a minute ago from TweetGrid



Hand_iran_normal RoSiTa08 RT @treetracker: @persiankiwi fake twitter accounts: http://twitspam.org/?p=1403 #neda #IranElection less than a minute ago from TweetDeck




Green_4254_default_profile_normal_normal Deskprotestor RT NO evidence from independent internet news sites that Mousavi has been arrested, STOP RT this ! #iranelection #gr88 #neda less than a minute ago from web




Dsc06550_normal HamyDeh CNN has confirmed Mousavi has NOT been arrested. Please do not suggest this unless you have confirmation. #IranElection 1 minute ago from web





Neda_normal BobKat7 @Alyssa_Milano @LaraABCNews Writing a TV script on the latest #Iranelection news. Pls send over pics/vids from today if you've seen them. 2 minutes ago from web




Monasmall_normal monaeltahawy Battle of the clerics as Iran arrests Rafsanjani's daughters/relatives. How do clerics fight it out? My verse vs your verse? #iranelection less than a minute ago from web




B_normal DalekGirl93 RezaliteitRT Lets get a million users to pressure UN! New hash tag #whereistheUN #iranelection #tehran #neda #iran09 #gr88 RT PLZ RT ! 1 minute ago from TwitterFon



26ii_normal Wolfman80 kill Basij who enter homes knives hammers forks Basij Tehran #IranElection Neda #Khamenei_Must_Go 1 minute ago from web




Green_2794_n640118087_715_normal greenrevolotion @iranianyabber RT block obama45 he's a government agent spreading disinformation Tehran, #IranElection, gr88, #neda





SpaceyG SpaceyG Video: "Iran goon squad chases iranian people, june 21 2009." #IranElection http://bit.ly/i6fbX





What you're seeing, as it happens in real time, is the effort of citizen journalists to validate, verify, warn, encourage, and support.

We are working out our own journalistic standards on the fly as we testify, report, and reach out to our brothers and sisters in Iran. This is difficult, as there probably are Iran government thugs with Twitter accounts, who are spreading disinformation and traps to catch dissidents.

Not just "citizen journalists" anymore. We are also "citizen espionage operatives" and "citizen intelligence agents" as we attempt to unravel the fakes, spies, and repressive regime Gestapos.


UPDATE: Also see "Iran Elections: A Twitter Revolution?" at the Washington Post, one of the few mainstream newspapers online that actually includes hyperlinks in their editorial content.

And: "Iran: How I Helped Tweet the Revolution from San Fransisco" at the Rag Blog.

Plus: "#iranelection Crisis: A Social Media Timeline" on Mashable.


"Today we are all Iranians."


Saturday, June 13, 2009

lyrics to 75 by Touch






Remember the Kingsmen, and their hit "Louie, Louie"?

Not long after that, they turned into a classy psychedelic hippie band called Touch. Their only album was released in 1969.

When I was a teenager, I would play their only album over and over again, especially the song "Seventy Five". At ten minutes and 78 seconds, it seemed to go on forever. I thought it was the entire side B of their album, until I recently purchased a used copy at Younger Than Yesterday record shop.



The band began recording at Sunset Sounds but sessions were soon plagued with hype and out of control partying. Word quickly spread about the mind blowing music Touch had been recording at Sunset Sounds.

Grace Slick, Mick Jagger, and the great Jimi Hendrix stopped by the studio to witness Touch in action. What they heard on those sessions was thankfully put down to wax and released at the tail end of the decade.

The Touch album is graced with the adventurous spirit of the 60s, a record overflowing with ideas, killer musicianship, and great performances. It’s one of America’s first progressive rock albums albeit one that still has a strong psychedelic hangover.

The above mentioned track, the nearly 12 minute Seventy Five is one of the great early progressive rockers with a fabulous guitar solo and a wonderful, atmospheric vocal performance from Jeff Hawks. Seventy Five is often described as a theatre-of-the-mind epic but is by no means an overblown ELP keyboard extravaganza.

-- The Rising Storm on Touch




A friend of mine requested that I provide the lyrics to this beautiful, soaring song, perhaps, along with It's a Beautiful Day's "White Dove", the most exalted and majestic tune of the 60s hippie revolution.


Read about Touch at The Rising Storm ... a free mp3 blog. There, you can download another beautiful song, "Alesha and Others" by Touch. Too gorgeous to even describe. Heavenly music!



"Seventy Five"
by
TOUCH





Each night
I close my eyes
and see the sights
of things long past
and yet to be.

Things that you don't see.

Your eyes
they just see truth
you make them lie.
If you could only
let them see.

Why not set them free?
why not set them free?

I see
the look of thoughts
upon your face.

There's something moving
in your mind.

You're coming alive.
Coming alive.



!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

composing with WolframTones cellular automata






In my research into new ways to compose, perform, and record music, I have tried a lot of tools.

Over the past few years alone, I've used Audacity audio editor, old Casios, plastic musical snowmen, harmonicas, slide whistles, three-string acoustic guitars, digital delay processors, web-based loop machines, online beatboxes, virtual online instrument simulations, and softsynth programs.

Currently, I'm composing music with WolframTones cellular automata. This tool provides some beautiful, gentle tones with lovely melodic parameters and meteoric metier.


Listen/download FREE mp3s on Last.fm, CLICK HERE:

Str8 Sounds "Other Dimensional"




From the WolframTones website:


[QUOTE]


When prominent scientist Stephen Wolfram published A New Kind of Science in 2002, it was immediately hailed as a major intellectual landmark. Today the paradigm shift that Wolfram's work initiated is starting revolutions in a remarkable range of areas of science, technology--and the arts. WolframTones is an experiment in applying Wolfram's discoveries to the creation of music.

At the core of A New Kind of Science is the idea of exploring a new abstract universe: a "computational universe" of simple programs. In A New Kind of Science, Wolfram shows how remarkably simple programs in his "computational universe" capture the essence of the complexity--and beauty--of many systems in nature.

WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music. Each program in effect defines a virtual world, with its own special story--and WolframTones captures it as a musical composition.

It's all original music--fresh from "mining" Wolfram's computational universe. Sometimes it's reminiscent of familiar musical styles; sometimes it's like nothing ever heard before. It's a taste of what it's like to explore the computational universe--and a hint of what's to come.

WolframTones is based on a core discovery of Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science: that in the computational universe even extremely simple rules or programs can give behavior of great complexity. Wolfram first found evidence of this surprising fact in his experiments in the early 1980s on systems known as one-dimensional cellular automata (now often called Wolfram automata). WolframTones is based on these very same types of systems.

The basic setup for Wolfram's cellular automata is very simple. There is a row of cells, each black or white. Then there is a rule that says what color each cell will be, based on the colors of a certain neighborhood of cells on the row above. What pattern one gets depends greatly on the rule one uses--which can be specified by saying what color a cell will be for every possible arrangement of neighboring cells.

Here's one example, in which one starts with a single black cell--and gets a simple checkerboard pattern:

Wolfram's Rule 250 Cellular Automaton

Evolution of Wolfram's Rule 250 Cellular Automaton
replay animation

There are altogether 256 so-called elementary rules, which involve only one neighbor on each side. Stephen Wolfram's crucial experiment in the early 1980s was systematically to run all these rules. Here's the result he got:

Wolfram's 256 Elementary Cellular Automata
enlarge

Many of the rules do only very simple things--or at least make patterns that may be intricate but are ultimately very regular. The first one that doesn't is rule 30. Here's a larger picture of it:

Wolfram's Rule 30 Cellular Automaton

If one looks carefully at this picture, one can see some regularity. But what's remarkable is how complex--and in many ways random--the whole picture looks. Ordinary intuition would tell one that to make something as complex as this would somehow require a complicated setup, with complicated rules. But rule 30 shows it doesn't. And that's the discovery that launched Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science--and that now seems to shed light on some of the fundamental secrets of nature, and long-standing mysteries of science.

It's also what makes WolframTones possible. Because what it shows is that in the computational universe it's easy to find rules that make complex forms. And that's how WolframTones manages to create so many different complex musical compositions. Each composition in a sense tells in music the story of some system in the computational universe. And because the system follows a definite consistent rule, the compositions inevitably have a certain internal consistency--which is probably what makes them so effective as music.

Making Music

How does one take a pattern generated by a cellular automaton, and render it as music? The key idea of WolframTones is to take a swath through the pattern:

Slice of Rule 30 Used for WolframTones Score

and tip it on its side, and treat it as a musical score:

Rule 30 Slice Tipped on Its Side

Once the cellular automaton pattern has been "tipped on its side" so that time runs across the page, the height of each black square is related to the pitch of a corresponding note. The specific mapping from height to pitch is determined by the musical scale that is used. Each scale picks out certain of the 12 standard tones in an octave. The C major scale, for example, picks out the following:

Musical Scale

WolframTones uses various Mathematica algorithms to form music out of cellular automaton patterns. The most straightforward is to take every block of contiguous black cells at a certain height, and map it to a single note played by the same instrument. Here's the result for rule 30, starting from a single black cell, played on a piano in C major:


playstop playing

WolframTones supports multiple instruments, as well as percussion. Everything is always derived from a single underlying cellular automaton pattern. But different instruments can be set up to pick off different aspects of the pattern--say to correspond to a melodic line or a bass track. WolframTones also supports a number of algorithms for deriving percussion from cellular automaton patterns.

Searching the Computational Universe for Music

There's already interesting music to be found just among the 256 elementary cellular automata. But WolframTones normally operates in a larger part of the computational universe. Typical are rules in which the color of a cell is determined from five neighbors, rather than three. In the simplest case, there are 2^2^5, or about 4 billion, rules of this type.

Some of these rules generate only very simple behavior that isn't appropriate as a basis for any ordinary music. But given a target style of music, what WolframTones does is to search the universe of possible rules for ones that have relevant kinds of complex behavior.

Without the intuition of A New Kind of Science it wouldn't seem plausible that one could just search for music in this way. But the remarkable fact is that--much like in nature--complex behavior is actually common enough in the computational universe that one can find it just by searching. Wolfram's phenomenon of computational irreducibility shows you can't expect to know in advance where you'll find any particular kind of complexity. But you can always just explore--and WolframTones shows you what you can find.

It's an early glimpse of the immense power of exploring the computational universe.



[END QUOTE]


Monday, June 8, 2009

Str8 Sounds hello




Str8 Sounds "Hello" CD is now complete and being distributed via FREE mp3s at Last.fm and as physical CDs. CDs will be available free by personal request and for only $3.00 each at Coop Records.

Str8 Sounds "Hello" at Last.fm



Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Peoria Underground Music compilation CD




A new Peoria Underground music compilation CD, sponsored by Sludge Farm Records, is now accepting submissions.

Specifications:

* All genres accepted.

* Peoria area/Central Illinois bands are invited to participate.

* CD will initially be distributed FREE via Coop Records, Barnes & Noble, Eamon Patricks, and other fine local establishments.

* Primary distribution will be conducted at a CD release party at Kingsway East: cover charge will be $3.00 per person, the CD will be given to each attendee.

* FREE CD will include money-saving coupons for local businesses, lyric sheets, and other goodies.

* Each band appearing on the CD will receive 20 copies of the CD to sell or distribute free.

* We ask each band to submit 2 songs for review.


How To Submit Your Entries


1. Post a comment here, or email:

vaspers [at] inbox [dot] com


2. Provide a link to where your mp3s are hosted on the web (e.g., GarageBand, Last.fm, SoundClick, Pure Volume).


3. If you have no mp3s, you may submit a home made CD-R, and we'll convert your tracks to mp3.


4. If you have mp3s, but not hosted on the web, we suggest starting a FREE mp3 hosting account at:

http://last.fm


Probably the hardest part of this project is coming up with a title. For now, we're callin it simply "Peoria Underground Music". Perhaps you can think of a better title. Please feel free to suggest a title. If we choose your title, we'll give you credit for it. (No half titles, please!)