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nice collection! do you grow under lights in winter then outdoors in summer?

one of the first things I saw after getting off the ferry in tas was a massive brugmansia tree leaning over a locals front yard.

nice find, seems to be well written with a thorough bibliography. slowly reading through it... this "existential intelligence" theory sounds interesting, have not heard of Howard Gardner before. http://www4.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/learning/ninthintelligence.htm

the British Government seems to love their Orwellian imagery. That metro poster is incredible, I had to do a google search to convince myself it wasn't a joke. Although I see the merits of events such as the Olympics for celebrating the unilateral human spirit etc, when I see imagery like this it seems to make it clear that governments are using these events to instill a fear based nation state paradigm that they need to remain relevant. People need to stop identifying themselves by the country border that surrounds them and more as a human being. Don't let fear control us.

Oops your right, my apologies to Mr Sagan

wow, I never suspected Carl Sagan to be stoner. I think some one on hear recently posted a youtube audio clip where Graham Hancock asks him if he would ever consider taking psychedelics and he gives the most text book reductionist intellectual response (oh yeah maybe mescaline or lsd coz huxley did it and I consider myself as sophisticated as him, ah but actually you can get the same effect with electromagnets and meditation so no I won't go near those nasty drugs). Maybe I need to be more accepting but that guys confidence in his scientific pardigm really annoys me...

I remember in Switzerland they sold hanf ice tea in vending machines, the orange one with the green leaf and ice cube. Tasty stuff! Europe is definitely more progressive in these matters, shame about the shitty climate

The usual, cliched, philosophical question: "What is the meaning of life?" never really made any sense to me. It is like a computer asking what electricity means... doesn't really mean much, but it sure has a purpose. So, it seems more pertinent to ask what is the purpose of life. For me, it seems the purpose of life can be summed it in one word: creativity. At a fundamental, biological level, as sexual organisms, our purpose is to reproduce. This involves creating a new individual that is novel in both is genetic makeup and epigenetic context (i.e. the environment that the child is brought up in). On a materialistic level, one of our purposes can be said to be creating physical (including pseudo-physical things such as software) tools that extend our capabilities in 4D space and time. At a more abstract level, we humans seem almost compelled to create art (of all kinds, poetry, painting, drawing, music, writing, gardens, computer code etc) simply for the gratuitous pleasure of it. Life itself can be seen as an act of evolutionary creativity; each new generation, and each successive species in the tree of life are novel adaptations on previous forms. The acknowledgement of creativity as a basic principle of life is useful as it provides a compass on what to do with our own lives - to absorb the creations/manifestations in the world around us, process them in our alchemical vessel that is the body and mind, and excrete our own unique creations. This then begs the question, what it is the end state, or attractor, for this creativity? Was the universe created so that humans could be created, so that we could create electronic circuits that could create a new universe in another dimension? Does this resonate with anyone? What do you believe the purpose of life to be? Does it even have a purpose?

you guys are lucky to live australia where at least you get some sun light in winter to help with melatonin levels. if you do night shifts in the northern hemisphere in winter, god help you.

I wonder what the conclusions of the study had been if instead of an IQ test the participants were asked to construct a piece of art? essentially what this study shows is that use of cannabis makes people less valuable to the materialist dominator culture. this is why the powers at be will fight tooth and claw to prevent legalisation, even more so for cannabis than psychedelics. maybe i should used cannabis when an adolescent, then I wouldn't be such a reductionist bore.

I think most people who use cannabis habitually are essentially self medicating themselves. ESP adolescents. Society needs to address the cause of this not the symptoms.

nice, how does the psychotria do indoors?

Theology... thats the word I have been trying to think of. more to follow, nice contributions here!

beautiful, a ufo captured in a full 1 pixel glory.

buy a yoga mat and go to ubud? get a ferry to lombok? but seriously: soak in the amazing food, hindu culture and lush vegetation.

I don't like Campbell Newman or the liberal party, but isn't this partly the forces of economics at work? Less money to spend, less people the government can employ. I guess it comes down to your political ideology; do workers (Labor), the bottom line (Liberal) or the environment (Greens) get priority when it comes to the crunch. Do we keep all tradespeople employed even if the economy collapses, and no one is even using the public infrastructure they are up-keeping? An extreme example, but my point is we can't expect the governments of the world to keep industries and careers afloat irrespective of the economic climate.

I stopped using Tor because its frequent change of IP address would lead to some sites forcing me to log in again and again (like every 5 minutes). Is there a solution to this?

experience in dealing with pesky channel 7 reporters is also highly valued

life is the most incredible thing in the universe, and I guess what I want to know is simply: why? As in, why does life exist? I had the idea that by asking what the purpose of life is, it might be possible to work out how it came into existence in the first place. If one can't understand something, a good strategy seems to be to ask 'what does it do?'. So I guess I was looking for peoples perspective on what life does, or from a more philosophical perspective, what is the purpose of life. when we analyse natural ecosystems we see that each species has a purpose in the context of the ecosystem as a whole, e.g. the mushroom provides the tree with minerals, the trees roots provide the mushroom with carbohydrates, so one could say a purpose of mushrooms is to provide the tree with minerals. so what if we define the ecosystem as the universe, and then ask what does this gene swarm called life do? it seems to do two things: (a) reproduce, and ( become more complex in time. what is life going to become or do through this process? this seems key to its purpose.

Very interesting, but I do not completely follow . You argue firstly that life has no purpose, and therefore shouldn't exist. Then you make the observation that life is 'constantly creating and making the universe more complex'. So not only does life exist, but it is the bleeding edge of novelty in the universe. Why would a system such as universe put so much time and energy into a phenomenon such as life if the system as a whole or another phenomenon will not benefit? Then you state that by seeking meaning life creates a false notion of existence. I think I get what you mean, like our body may exist, but the placement of consciousness in said body creates the illusion that the body is consciousness? But even if the association of human consciousness with the body is illusory, this does not prevent biological life in general from having a purpose. But as you state the computer game character does have a purpose. It exists to entertain us. What then is our purpose? What if we disregard our own personal existential dilemma for a moment, and ask what is the purpose of life generally? Why did animate, metabolising lifeforms emerge from the static, inanimate universe?

any euro or travelling SAB'ers going to ozora? going to be awesome

the grey area is good for getting hold of the best strains, then take a walk along the canals to haarlemmerstraat for a coffee and a smoke or vape at barneys.

the festival was amazing, 50000 people in the searing hot hungarian sun for over a week of psychedelia. there was a great vibe for the first three or four days, then the police came and around 100 people were arrested. seeing the police marching up to the main stage while the crowd was going nuts to sensient was quite surreal. these big festivals are great when everyone is smiling in the sun and having a good time, but then the mood gets a bit dark at night when the dark-psy starts and the zombies come out. the main stage at night time was something to behold, it looked like an alien spacecraft landing pad with the moon and stars shining above, and the bass was intense even 500m away. not sure if I will go to such a big festival again, but glad I have experienced it. made me think how we can improve psychedelic gatherings such as these. i love electronic music, but I'm not sure having bass driven music playing the whole time is the best way to go about it. there needs to be a larger variety of music and activities at these festivals. I made a gallery of some photos I took: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=569

After an 8 month journey to the red planet, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to land at the Gale Crater in 3.5 days from now, so thats about 3pm Monday on the east coast of Australia. This is arguably the most sophisticated planetary entry, landing and surface exploration vehicle ever built. If it succeeds, it will boost space exploration tremendously in the coming decades. Its the type of technology we need if we are to send people to Mars. NASA is going to have a live stream of government agency propaganda, interviews with scientists and cool animations etc before and during the entry. But there is a 15 minute or so delay in radio signal transmission from mars, so not really live. Here is the link for the stream: http://www.nasa.gov/...satv/index.html And the schedule: http://www.nasa.gov/...V_Breaking.html Might make some interesting entertainment for a monday afternoon <3