ubcome

Become The Singularity

2011-02-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

What will it mean to become when machines and humans blend?

I was at a Bocci Party in Chelsea, talking to a guy about the global consciousness, the noosphere, becoming more concentrated in the age of the internet.
He said, "That's the singularity, read "The Singularity is Near", by Ray Kurzweil."
Below are a couple of videos about The Singularity. In one Ray Kurzweil talks about the coming together of human and machine intelligence. The other video demonstrates the incredible implications of exponential growth.

If machines' and human minds will merge, how will this impact consciousness?

Ray Kurzweil Explains the Coming Singularity
Futurist Ray Kurzweil details the technology timeline leading up to 2029 including the downsides to Singularity.

How to live a balanced life -Nigel Marsh

2011-02-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

What does living a balanced life mean? How can a busy person in the peak years of career and family raising, find balance to satisfy all areas of physical, spiritual, work and family needs.

Regina Brett's 45 lessons Life Taught me

2011-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio.
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I've ever written.
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what thei journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wea purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that yo loved.

39.. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

Absolute Elsewhere - Earthbound

2011-02-01T15:47:00.001-08:00

This video is beautifully edited story of humanity.
Warning there are some flashing images of a cartoon character in the video. There may be many subliminal messages. I'm more moved by the overall message. Being about humanity, it is about all of us. Is it true for U?

(In wikipedia Absolute Elasewere is a 1976 Bill Bruford album In search of Ancient Gods.

The Ripple Effect Experiment of Shared Resolutions

2010-12-30T11:53:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year.

Looking back.

Looking forward.

Reflecting. Resolving.

New Years and the Holidays.

The gifting.

Our values converging.

This is a good time to drop our pebbles into the water.

The ripples may become waves.

Drop your resolution comments here. See what happens.

The road to become never ends.

2010-12-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

The road to become never ends.
It is a road in your mind that you choose to travel. At the end is a light. You never reach it.

If you are on this road, where are you and what are you doing to get there?

(I now passed the computer on to someone else to get their response. They passed it one. You are invited to add on via comments.)

Where am I: Stalled, directionless.

What will I do: Hang out, Have a couple of drinks until I figure out that I want to do, another drink.

Is to become having a goal? The times I've set goals but I usually don't get to them. So I'll let the universe take me a long and but I'm not sure I know where it I want to go. What I want to do. I don't know what I want to do. I'm good at a lot of things. So I haven't focused on one thing and haven't gotten anyplace, but it has been an interesting life and I like what I've been doing.

So to become is to achieve something? I've not done this and I don't know what it would be.

_______________

I am well aware that I am trying to improve, which is what I think to become is. I think being aware adds meaning to my life, but I'm not sure that in the actual process of becoming I am really making changes.

I guess to become requires changing but I don't know if I would know what to change, but I know when it is getting better.

I guess if I were on an unfamiliar road I'd hope for a happy accident, that would lead to a rewarding

direction.

___________

Andrea Noel Kroenig - Fine Art

2010-12-06T18:57:00.000-08:00

Andrea Noel Kroenig - Fine Art

I liked reading Andrea's bio and I like the artwork as well.
The internet is making it possible to do art and get it seen without the need of middle people/gatekeepers. This website also lets artists sell their creations themselves. Good luck.

So many artists need to have other jobs. Andrea's other job is not a stereotypical one. Chemist.

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

This is my first blogged event. I'm going to make up a name for this: blog 'n party.

My computer was out on Thanksgiving open to the blog. Everyone was invited to contribute. It was fun. 'm enjoying it even more now. (Even the soup from the leftover turkey has been digested.)

Welcome to Thanksgiving. Feel free to add a post of your own. You might say what you're thankful for or anything else. If you know how, insert a picture, a link, even a video. Later we'll see what we've done.

thanks.

Thanksgiving is a time to remember all the good things we have in our life and give thanks. I am thankful to be surrounded by people who care about me and are so amazing. I am also appreciative to have my health and education and everything I usually take for granted. Happy Thanksgiving.

thanks....

I have sat in the subway and seen my reflection in the window and felt good.

thanks

Food was good.
thanks

I think being thankful is a gift to myself. I am thankful when I see the beautiful shapes and colors
I see in the sky. This year I've been noticing the yellow leaves in front of the dark green trees and find it beautiful. I'm grateful for the love that has been multiplying through new friends in the last few years and the sturdy sweet love of my family that is always with me.

thanks

I am thankful that I have a friend like Madeline who always will be there, never judge me and help me to grow and appreciate the happenings around me. I also noticed a beautiful red tree in the park the other day. I just stood in the middle of the street and started yelling "look at that tree, look at that tree! It's amazing.!"

thanks

Sharing photos with my friends Otto and Harry

Thanks

Three clowns resting from the bigtop circuits :)

Thanks

Fat Albert Otto

Thanks

Quotes on becoming by Abraham Maslow

2010-11-17T20:09:00.000-08:00

Abraham Maslow, was influential in the understanding of the drive to become. Here are quotes by him to inspire you to become who you are meant to be.

What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
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A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization.

Classic economic theory, based as it is on an inadequate theory of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self actualization and the love for the highest values

If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

ubcome - a religion and a business

2010-09-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

This web effort of ubcome and 1u1us is my passion. My mission. My way of becoming.

I wondered about whether it can be also my business venture and decided yes.

First, if it weren't a business venture I would not be able to devote so much time to it. How would I survive and how would I explain what I'm doing to the people that depend on me. As it is, it doesn't sound very promising when I tell people my religious drive is my work.

Second, it is honest to just be upfront about mixing religious work and income. All religions have financial resources. My religious work and my fund raising are tied together.

Third, making an income is a very good measure of success. It's a way of knowing how many people respond to my work. It is also a way to let others see.

ubcome does not make money by selling ads. The advertising is for affiliate stores. ubcome earns a commission on sales that are started from links on it's pages. So far ubcome has earned $100.
It's a start.

Being Human Today- a blog on Becoming

2010-09-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

This is a nice blog about becoming.
http://beinghumantoday.blogspot.com/

Community Be Good, Please

2010-05-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

Click to go to the CommunityBeGood.com website.

I've been collaborating with my long time friend Lisel Burns. Like me she is doing her work and hopes that it can sustain her now and into the future. She has moved on in her life to where she is no longer employed so she has to make an income some other ways. Luckily she has assets and resources. She has a guest house in Park Slope. She is Leader Emeritus of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. She has many years of experience as a wedding officiant and ceremonial and memorial leader. She is also an activist, organizer and life coach. She calls her enterprise Community Be Good. Lisel had me create her website. I also made a video for her guest house and we're working on one where she introduces herself to wedding couples seeking to create their own marriage ceremonies.
We'll get to that in another blog.

Here is the video. Please excuse the condition of the guest house that was occupied at the time.

Care Giving During Health Debate

2010-04-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

I spent the month of March in Health Care. I was in Florida with my parents, who have just moved there in November. They are in a senior community. My father has Parkinsons Disease and has fallen. I needed some medical supplies and a job. I got both here. The customer service was first rate. Mr. Lecker hired me for a video. I'm now using his project to jump start ubcome.com
My father is getting better. That's a longer story.

Who is u b? What is u b watching?

2010-02-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

The ubcome logo is more than a logo to me. It is also a message and the name of the website. But for me it is the smiling face that is key.
The face is looking at me as I become. It is a reminder to be self aware in order to grow.

The eyes represent myself watching myself.

It is similar to what Pinocchio had in Jimminy Cricket. UB watches me. UB has the same vision I have for my life. UB is there to remind me of the vision.
UB is there for consulting when choices are made.

When I don't have UB watching me I pretend I do.

What it means to become

2010-02-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

To become is to bring together all the pieces that makes something whole. When wholeness is reached that something has become what it is.

Physical and chemical objects become when all the elements are brought together under the right forces.

Living things become with the bringing together of the ingredients (genetic) in the right conditions where they reproduce and grow from what they get from the environment.

Unlike other living things humans need more to be whole than just to remain alive. A person needs air, water food, shelter, protection from predators and a person also needs to feel that life has purpose.

To become for a person is to bring into one's life the things that will make them complete. They are material things that will give the person security and comfort, they are the things that will make the person liked and things that will make them respected. They are things that make justice and beauty in a person's life.

To become is to be on the path to self-actualization.

What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.
Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow was studying people who had attained the highest levels of contentment. He was searching for a common factor in their lives, and he found it. It was the drive to growth into the person they felt they were to be, to self-actualize. He found that this drive to self-actualize was universal. To self-actualize meant to fulfill ones needs. These he organized in the order which they were most often accomplished. This is now known as The Hierarchy of Needs. There are many diagrams of this triangle or pyramid , some show a figure climbing up. It is healthy to keep growing and wanting to do so in different areas of our lives and personalities.
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Maslows hierarchy of needs also shows all the different kinds of needs that people have.They include fulfillment in knowledge, beauty, creativity, spirituality, respect as well as the needs for food, shelter, clothes,etc.
The tree with needs has some hard to reach fruit and also some we can reach easily. The needs are our needs and also the needs of others. Sometimes helping others get their need met gets our needs met at the same time.

The hierarchy of needs from the bottom up is :

the physical need for survival (air, water, food, warmth, shelter)
The security needs - to have the physical needs into the future for selves and family, having an income, protection from criminals
having friends, family, being accepted,
having self esteem, getting respect from others, being valued
Having truth, beauty, creativity in ones life.

Here are two different renditions of this triangle.

There are many ways that people use the understanding of these needs.

Sales people use knowldege of the different needs to help persuade by fulfilling the different kinds of needs a customer might have.
For example a coat might meet the need for respect and self esteem as well the basic need of worth.

Negotiators use the different needs when they give and take from the needs at different levels. (offering a higher title and more status, perhaps).

A healthy person will try to get the needs on all the levels met. It isn't that one need must be met before the next one is attempted. We can fulfill higher needs as we meet our more basic ones.
We grow in many dimensions.
When we are aware of the many different needs we have and give them value we are making it possible for us to feel that we are becoming when we move towards meeting them.

Here are some books on Maslow and The Hierarchy of Needs:

Public Speaking - Become a good speaker

2010-02-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

This is a good talk about public speaking and making power point presentations. The speaker, Scott Berkun, is author of Confessions of a Public Speaker. His point is that many people have to speak to groups of people at some time, there are ways to do this well, and that it requires practice. The speaker owes it to the listeners to be prepared.

Scott has written three books that might interest you.
This is a link to his website.