Clipmarks | drashokn's clips

5 Astonishing Mystical and Bewitched Caves

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:30:49 GMT

clipped by: bellapria

5 Astonishing Mystical and Bewitched Caves

Caves — a mysterious world of the underground for which no 2 are alike with vast chambers and complex labyrinths of stalagmites and geological formations carved into earth and sea beds over centuries. Throughout history primitive peoples have used caves for shelter, burial, and religious sites — several are even told to bear curses. Here are 5 of some of the most astonishing, mystical and bewitched caves of breathtaking wonderment.

Bats leaving cave. Photo Tolka Rover

Tags: astonishing, mystical, caves

sad

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:25:20 GMT

clipped by: drashokn

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Brain chemistry winter blues link

Scientists have pinpointed seasonal changes in brain chemistry which may cause some people to suffer from the winter blues.

Seasonal affective disorder, which can be debilitating, is linked to lack of light exposure on short winter days.

The latest study suggests this might make proteins which clear the brain of the mood-regulating chemical serotonin more active.

The University of Toronto study appears in Archives of General Psychiatry.

Seasonal affective disorder is linked to lack of energy, fatigue, overeating and a tendancy to sleep longer as well as depressed mood.

The condition affects thousands of people in the UK.

Top 100 Mental Health and Psychology Blogs

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:56:46 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.universityreviewsonline.com

Top 100 Mental Health and Psychology Blogs

Whether you work in the field of mental health or are simply interested in the subject, keeping abreast of the news, opinions and commentary within the online blogging community can be overwhelming. There are literally thousands of blogs that focus on mental health, running the gamut both in terms of focus as well as in quality.

Although it was difficult to narrow thousands of noteworthy resources down to the top 100, below is a categorized list of what we feel are the most popular, informative and/or unique mental health and psychology blogs on the Web

General Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Forensic Psychology

Psychiatry

Neuroscience

Addiction

Anxiety

Austism

Bipolar Disorder

Depression

While any list of this kind is subject to oversights and omissions, it is our hope that with these top 100 sites you will find an excellent resource from which to educate yourself on mental health and psychology issues.

Tags: mental health, psychology, psychiatry

"paintings are talking you, beyond word" ...Buddhist art...

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:57:09 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "The Buddha did not initiate the creation of sacred images. Once he said to a disciple, who wanted to see him before dying: «Oh, Vakkhali, why do you want to see this body, composed of unclear substances? He who perceives Dharma, Vakkhali, perceives me. He who perceives me perceives Dharma». Thus, as far as we know, there was no worship of the Buddha’s image in the early Buddhist community after his Parinirvāṇa.

Clip Source: www.buddhistdoor.com

For a Buddhist, any Dharma images or symbols belonging to any Buddhist tradition or place of origin are associated with the Awakened

Clip Source: www.buddhistdoor.com

Art is also used to facilitate meditation and different ritual practices. The Buddha image, for example, serves as a base for śamatha meditation, and different Tantric images are needed for certain initiation ceremonies, etc.

Clip Source: www.buddhistdoor.com

Buddhist art may remind the viewer of the meaning of the Dharma: “. . . if you have the inner experience of what the [image] symbolizes, every time you see a Mahayana painting, a deep positive imprint is placed upon your mind, and you receive transcendental wisdom. In fact, these paintings are talking to you, beyond words.” - Lama Yeshe, Becoming Vajrasattva: the Tantric Path of Purification. Wisdom

Clip Source: www.buddhistdoor.com

Awesome Ineractive Websites

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:28:12 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

Clip Source: www.webupon.com

Here are 10 websites that are a combination of the fun, the weird, the educational or the simply bewildering. Prepare to be awed!

Alien Empire

The Universcale

This amazing site shows you scale as you have probably never seen it

will give you a real idea of your place on the planet - or indeed the universe.

The Mini-Mizer

Interactive Radio

You can choose the genre, the mood of the music and the era from which it should come.

The website will then give you a very specific selection of the type of song that you have requested

Kaleidoscope

Hypnotic and mesmerizing fun!

Mr. Picasso Head

Have you ever wanted to paint like Pablo Picasso? Here you get the opportunity

Autopsy

It is a step by step guide to what happens during an autopsy procedure

Neon Bible

A music video that is interactive? Possibly the shape of things to come,

Neave Television

If you enjoy channel hopping then this might be that ultimate experience you have been waiting for. Click on the screen to start hopping

Make a Flake

The amazing pictures of an artist dangling horizontally out of a skyscraper

Fri, 02 May 2008 10:29:48 GMT

clipped by: zamanikarmana
clipper's remarks: Chinese artist Li Wei has produced an unsettling series of self-portraits involving his face reflected in mirrors in public places, and photographs of himself crashing into walls and sidewalks.

His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality.

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

The amazing pictures of an artist dangling horizontally out of a skyscraper

Chinese artist Li Wei has produced an unsettling series of self-portraits involving his face reflected in mirrors in public places, and photographs of himself crashing into walls and sidewalks.

His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality.

Li Wei

Li Wei uses props such as metal wires to create his spectacular work

Wei's photos depict him free falling from tall buildings

A giant arm appears to save the artist from a spectacular fall

The 37-year-old's work has been successful all over the world

Li Wei sees his art as a mission to set the scene for the perfect photograph and a perfect performance

He specialises in creating the illusion of dangerous reality

The artist employs a mix of acrobatics

Wei admits sometimes he is in real danger

The 'jumper' says he aims to go as high as possible with his work

Here he appears buried in the ground

Tags: performance, art, photogr

Top 10 Most-Positive Habits of Life

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:22:42 GMT

clipped by: AScomputer
clipper's remarks: “Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits”
Robert Puller

Clip Source: www.egodevelopment.com

Top 10 Most-Positive Habits of Life

“Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits”
Robert Puller

Habits have a very important role in your life. The character of a person is determined by his habits. You can start seeing the benefits of most-positive thinking in your life when you apply positive thinking consistently. You can and must make positive thinking one of your good habits and enjoy a better quality life.

1.Set goals.

2. Stop worrying.

3. Appreciation.

4. Don’t be afraid by failure.

5. Find a good mentor.

6. Start everyday with a positive mind-set.

7. Practice gratitude.

8. Cultivate patience.

9. Always learn something new.

10. Respect and treat your body right.

Tags: habits, life, positive

The Biology of Attraction

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:38:18 GMT

clipped by: drashokn

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

In an apocryphal story, a colleague once turned to the great British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane, and said, "Tell me, Mr. Haldane, knowing what you do about nature, what can you tell me about God?" Haldane replied, "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." Indeed, the world contains over 300,000 species of beetles. I would add that "God" loves the human mating game, for no other aspect of our behavior is so complex, so subtle, or so pervasive. And although these sexual strategies differ from one individual to the next, the essential choreography of human courtship, love, and marriage has myriad designs that seem etched into the human psyche, the product of time, selection, and evolution. They begin the moment men and women get within courting range—with the way we flirt.

The Biology of Attraction

The Anasazi mystery

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:32:01 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn’t seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising

Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

These Anasazi newcomers

were distinctive in other ways. They liked to build with stone

Why, in the late 13th century, did thousands of Anasazi abandon Kayenta, Mesa Verde and the other magnificent settlements of the Colorado Plateau and move south into Arizona and New Mexico?

Looking beyond climate change, some archaeologists are studying the effects of warfare and the increasing complexity of Anasazi society. They are looking deeper into ancient artifacts and finding hints of an ideological struggle, clues to what was going through the Anasazi mind.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Amazing 3Dimensional Wall Paintings

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:57:36 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz

Clip Source: www.linkinnn.com

Amazing 3Dimensional Wall Paintings

Tags: paintings

The Iconoclasm of the Taliban

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:38:48 GMT

clipped by: Johanna_G
clipper's remarks: Deutsche Fassung:
Zerstörung der Buddha-Statuen von Bamiyan - Der Bildersturm der Taliban

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

Seven years ago Taliban militias in Afghanistan destroyed the two largest standing Buddha statues in the world. The shrine at Bamiyan was part of our world cultural heritage, and the international public outcry was enormous – but the loss was worst of all for the art and history of Afghanistan.

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

The Buddhas of Bamiyan: evidence of Afghanistan's pre-Islamic period. The Taliban weren't the first to attack the statues - they had already been ravaged in the 17th century

The Taliban are iconoclasts – the depiction of human forms is considered an act of presumption tantamount to humans placing themselves on equal standing with God, the Creator. The destruction of the statues was also a way of obliterating the insignia of the non-Islamic or pre-Islamic cultural tradition of Afghanistan.

Along with the statues, the Taliban also destroyed almost all of the exhibits in the National Museum in Kabul that stemmed from the country's Buddhist days.

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

The Bamiyan Valley in 1963

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

The biggest Buddha of all time

Tags: taliban, afghanistan, buddha statues, bamiyan, iconoclasm

The blog post that wouldn't die

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:35:44 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: I want to talk about atheists and anger.

This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.

But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.<<

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/

Clip Source: gretachristina.typepad.com

I'm angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality.

I'm angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.

I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.

I'm angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism.

I'm angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children

with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.

I'm angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do.

But perhaps most of all, I get angry -- sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry -- when believers chide atheists for being so angry.

"Why do you have to be so angry all the time?"

October 15, 2007

Tags: blogs, atheism, religion

The True Face of Leonardo Da Vinci

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:27:31 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Is it?...

Clip Source: www.ted.com

Leonardo Da Vinci's life and work is well known -- but his own face is not. Illustrator and activist Siegfried Woldhek used some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face of Leonardo. Here, he walks viewers through exactly how he did it.

Siegfried Woldhek knows faces -- he's drawn more than 1,100 of them. Using sophisticated image... Read full bio »

Tags: leonardo da vinci, art, face

String Theory, Black Holes, and the Laws of Nature

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:48:03 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: athome.harvard.edu

For centuries, we have been trying to understand the basic laws which govern the universe. The most promising candidate for our next step forward is string theory. Surprisingly, strings and black holes have been found to be inextricably intertwined, and the understanding of one is giving new insights into the other.

Select from the following to begin viewing the presentation:

Complexity Theory and Depression

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:12:43 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: web.ukonline.co.uk

Psychiatry constructs depression within the supposedly meaning-free paradigm of 'objective knowledge'. Depression is therefore said to be a wholly valueless experience, a 'disease'. This is part of a wider prejudice lying deep in the roots of the new global 'technoculture', a prejudice that sees all painful or undesired experience, even including death, as unnecessary evils which we will (hopefully) eventually eliminate by continually improving our understanding of ourselves and the universe we live in. Civilization - as a rational utopia - is thus identified with the power to have everything the way we want it. This is what Illich meant when he spoke of the 'anaesthetic society' - a society that uses pharmaceutical technology to blank out experiences that it does not value.

The model of depression that is outlined in the following article is constructed within the paradigm of Self-Organization, and is therefore a theory based on the new sciences of complexity.

Tags: complexity, depression, ideology, cognition