This is about a report that I did about 4 years ago during my A-Level. Today was about about flying and anti-gravity which reminded me of this Lifter experiments. The lifter is a project researched by JLN Labs, here is a quote of what the lifter is:

The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an additional payload.

It has been a very long time since I did the report and it has move forward quite a bit, but it is still a very interesting topics. The lifter has also been tested by [dstl] (part of the British Minstry of Defence). JNL Labs are also investigating in other methods of aviation and space travel. Here is a photo of one of the many lifters, please visit the JLN lifter page for more details.

• JNL Lifter Project Homepage
• My Report on Lifter

Tags:Project, Technology
Categories: Technology, Weblog
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This morning, Terry ask me how we get Linux to do read out a paragraph or sentence. I guess this is because he want to read Kamil’s blog on QuGee Friends but finding it too long. We did it before, but forgot how to do it, so after we found out how to do it I decided we will blog it for future reference or anyone else why want to try it. We are using Ubuntu, but similar for other Linux distribution.

We first need to get the software festival:

• sudo apt-get install festival

Once it’s installed, it’s very easy, there are two ways to do it:

To read from a text file (in the directory):

• festival –tts yourfile.txt

Or you can run festival first (type festival in the terminal) and then

• festival> (SayText “Hello word!”)

or read out a text file:

• festival> (tts “yourfile.txt” nil)

Enjoy!

Tags:Linux, software, Technology
Categories: Linux, Technology, Weblog
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I have been looking for the English article on Wisdom for a while and I finally found this website last night. Following is quoted from part of the page:

Wisdom in Buddhism can refer to two types of insight: conventional wisdom and ultimate wisdom:

Conventional wisdom relates to understanding the conventional world, or the world as we know it. Traditionally it refers to understanding the way in which karma functions; to understand which actions bring us happiness and which bring us suffering. Conventional wisdom covers all understanding of the world as it functions, including science, with the exception of ultimate wisdom.

Ultimate wisdom (jñana in Sanskrit) refers to a direct realisation which is non-dualistic, and contradicts the way in which we ordinarily perceive the world. The experience of ultimate truth or emptiness is beyond duality.

It is important to remember that emptiness here does not refer to nothingness or some kind of nihilistic view. Emptiness refers to the fact that ultimately, our day-to-day experience of reality is wrong, and is ‘empty’ of many qualities that we normally assign to it.

Describing this non-dual experience in words is not really possible, as language is based on duality and contrasts. Trying to explain this experience – which contradicts our normal perception – is a bit like explaining colours to someone who is born blind; difficult to say the least.

Follow this link to read the full article…

Other content on the article:

Conventional and ultimate wisdom
Why trying to understand it?
Interdependence
Perception and objectivity
Separateness
The philosophy of emptiness
How does this relate to me?
How to integrate emptiness into everyday life – by Lama Yeshe
How to practice?
To Think or not to Think?
Wisdom and Compassion

Tags:Buddhism
Categories: Buddhism
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May be things don’t have to be so complicated sometimes. We often try to find solutions for our problems and we often think too much and think that the solution has to be complicated. However it could be very simple, too simple that we don’t believe it’s the truth and we go and search for a more complicated solution. You will most likely have a different method and a way to live your lifes, and that’s up to everyone to choose. For me, I believe it’s very simple to understand but very difficult to do, just LET GO.

Just want to share a quotes on NON-SELF by Ajahn Chah:

Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You’ll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are – no holding on, no attachment, free.

Just another way of looking at problems, solution can be very simple. The question is are we strong enough?

Will also have a Chinese quote here:

平素大家经常听到‘我执’二字。人要是有病，就得吃药。什么病，就吃什么药。但是一种药不只冶一种病，是千变万化的，没病乱吃药就找麻烦。佛法中常说到一种大病，就是贪、嗔、痴。人人学佛都知道，不问那一宗，都坏在贪、嗔、痴上。贪心、嗔恨心、愚痴，名字叫三毒。这三毒那里来的呢？完全是你自己去求来的。‘自己求？’你一定说无此道理。这可是千真万确。自己求贪嗔痴，然后种在心上。这样就不能了生死。大家一定听古人说过：‘成佛不难，放下屠刀，立地成佛。’屠刀是杀猪牛之刀，杀生不是好事，只要把屠刀放下，就成功了。大家要记住‘放下’啊！三毒就是屠刀，咱们任何人专会拿屠刀，然后自杀杀他，这样怎会解脱呢？如果放下屠刀，再转拿剪刀，这也不行，必得全部放下。修净土法门，必得专心于阿弥陀佛上。禅宗讲‘一念不起’，那个人能一念不起，就是真正放下。如果办不到，就必须专念阿弥陀佛，靠著二力修行，往生才会成功，了生死才有希望。

摘錄自 苦口婆心话放下 – 李炳南老居士讲述

Tags:Buddhism, 佛教
Categories: Buddhism, 佛教
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As many of you are aware that GMail (Googlemail) supports POP, however when I tried it these few days for backing up some email on an account and transferring it to the new one I had problem. When I use Evolution and Thunderbird, I have the same problem, Thunderbird give me an error that says:

Sending password did not succeed. Mail Server pop.gmail.com responded: Username and password not accepted.

or something like:

Error (0x800CCC92) : Your e-mail server rejected your login

I know it can not be a problem on the settings as I have just done it for another account. At the end I find out that I need to unlock the account with Captcha at:

Unlock Captcha – http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

After the account is unlocked, everything works. If you are having the same problem try it and it should work. By the way, you will find this program useful if you want to backup or send all your other emails to your GMail account, you will find this program useful:

GMail Loader – http://www.marklyon.org/gmail/

The program is quite simple and it works, thanks to the developer Mark Lyon for the loader, hope you like it too.

Tags:Google, Internet, software, Technology
Categories: Google, Internet, Weblog
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Last night was the ICBS (Imperial College Buddhist Society) event “Buddhism without Borders”. We are very luckly to have Ajahn Khemadhammo to give us a talk on “Suffering and the Stopping of Suffering”. We also had Exhibition, Free Distribution and Free Food. Everything ran very smoothly thanks to everyone who helped out and everyone who was there making this event possible. I hope everyone enjoyed the event and learnt something last night, I myself have a lot to learn. I like the how Ajahn Khemadhammo said that Buddhism is very simple and how important the 5 precepts are. Something so fundamental but we oftn over look and try to find something more complicated. It’s bringing at end to the suffering which is important which leads to the 4 noble truths. These are accepted and agree by all branches of Buddhism, this remind me that we should be very clear with our aim. Everyone have a different view in Buddhism and we see it differently, but the most important is not to compare to differences between different school of Buddhism but to really practice it. But of course it’s important to find the one that we think fit ourselves and then we can concentrate on the practice.

Here are some photos to share kindly taken and processed by Jac.

You can view all the photos on her zoto following this link.

Tags:Ajahn, Buddhism, Dharma-Talk, icbs, Imperial-College, London
Categories: Buddhism, Weblog
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