Soft sex robots coming: ChatGPT's Omni

Can you make one in the image of my ex?

The Daily Show's Desi Lydic talks about the AI (artificial intelligence) program, OMNI (the OpenAI version of ChatGPT) to fuel the sexbots to come, all soft and siliconey, wet with H20 and scented with synthetic pheromones for the full immersive experience of sex beyond human ability. Who will go back to mere roasted coffee after indulging in meth-laced pharmaceutical grade amphetamines like Ritalin?

Realistic-looking robot with soft skin, soothing voice

(FOX 11 Los Angeles) Uncanny valley, anyone? Her name is "Harmony," a Scottish lassie. She's a realistic-looking robot with soft skin and a soothing voice. She is what some are calling "the future of relationships." FOX 11's Gina Silva reports: foxla.com/news...

What if a man with no robotics training could build his own "anatomically correct" Scarlet Johansson robot at home? It's like Moliere's School for Husbands (School for Wives) all over again.

My DIY "anatomically correct" ScarJo robot

(Quartz) Machines with Brains (S1 E3): Chinese Christian Mr. Ricky Ma has no formal training in robotics. He spent three years and $50,000 building a robotic Scarlett Johansson. Mr. Ma is a graphic designer from Hong Kong. Without formal training, he spent three years building "Mark One," an extremely lifelike robot that looks exactly like Scarlett Johansson, famous for her role in Her (2013) out of hardware store supplies. Oh, and it she's not a sexbot (sex robot), so don't even go there (or I face legal action from a recently very litigious Mrs. Colin "SNL" Jost, who refuses to become the voice of the next Siri/Alexa).

ABOUT: This video is part of Machines With Brains, a series about what it means to be human in a world that’s increasingly filled with robots. Quartz is a digitally native news outlet dedicated to telling stories at the intersection of the important and the interesting. Visit at qz.com to read more. Become a member of Quartz, an exclusive guide to the global economy: bit.ly/2E7e7jB.

• Desi Lydic, The Daily Show; Soft Robots (YouTube); Ricky Ma, Quartz, July 24, 2017; Abyss Creations, FOX 11 Los Angeles, May 13, 2017; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Trump should be made dictator, says Trump

Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

Trump endorses idea he should be able to assassinate opponents without being prosecuted

MAGAots with weapons at the insurrection: Trump demands a recount on Jan. 6th.

.

Fudge all of them! I'm the King!

Could Trump really be this dumb? His side argues that he cannot be prosecuted for anything he did while in office, even

• having VP Pence killed,
• or violently overthrowing the government,
• or fomenting an insurrection,
• committing treason,
• Jan. 6th: "Trump Treason Day," 3rd anniversary
• selling or revealing state secrets,
• stealing classified documents and keeping them at his house,
• committing financial fraud for his businesses,
• charging the government for use of his buildings when he's in them,
• assaulting and raping women,
• incestuous child molestation,
• refusing subpoenas,
• or endlessly lying...

When the court seems incredulous, the judge asks Trump's team if -- that being the case, that a sitting president can't be prosecuted for anything done in the official capacity of the office -- Biden, being president, could direct SEAL Team 6 to assassinate his rival Trump?

I miss Trump' who would slip up and tell the truth

• Trump's lawyer was then pressed by Judge Florence Pan, who said: “I asked you a yes or no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival...would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”
• “Qualified yes – if he is impeached and convicted first,” replied Trump attorney D. John Sauer.
• 'Control your client': Takeaways from closing arguments in Trump's NY real estate fraud trial
• Trump lashes out in court (msn.com)

Would that be okay? The rhetorical question failed to shut Trump up. His own lawyers can't keep him quiet. Now he's in for the fine of his life, perhaps a quarter billion for financial fraud. Will that make him zip it?

But Trump, talking as much as he does, says he's always misquoted by the "fake media."

Morning NPR.org hosts were laughing at him today because they were reduced to arguing with him whether or not he wanted to be "dictator," which he did, and for how long.

He claims he just wants to for ONE day, but he might change his mind and make it a few more for all anyone knows. Trump imagines the country should let him try being an authoritarian autocrat, the way G. W. Bush put his foot in his mouth by admitting that he, too, wanted a dictatorship so long as he was the dictator.

These judge think they're smarter than me?

"Democracy is the WORST form of government...except for all the others," we are told. We have neither a democracy nor much of a republic. The US suffers under the weight of its ONE-party system, with two wings.

The Money Party is in power, with a monopoly of two wings, Dems on the left, Reps on the right, and everyone arguing and distracting while the movers-and-shakers laugh all the way to the bank, supporting Big Pharma, the Military-Industrial Complex, Central Bankers...

I said I wouldn't talk, but I did anyway. So what?

The deception is that elected members of Congress decide much of anything other than what they are induced to support, back, and vote on. The White House is no better, as Bill Clinton revealed. He could never decide if he was the king of the castle or the beneficiary of the best welfare housing had to offer.

Trump liked the hoopla, calling endless attention to himself, being the best kind of politician The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' Book could ask for: not someone who wields power but rather distracts attention away from those who actually do.

Hey, look at me, Everybody, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox! (HHGTTG reference)

.

The headline now reads:

• Trump endorses idea he should be able to assassinate opponents without being prosecuted (Independent via MSN)

Is the British mainstream media exaggerating, misquoting him, getting it just right? Have they tricked him into telling the truth on himself again?

Transgender sports imposed by CIA: Lia Thomas

DailyWire+, June 9, 2023; Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

"You will regret it!" NCAA female swimmer threatened if she breaks silence

(DailyWire+) UPenn swimmer, Lia Thomas' teammate, and "What is a woman?" whistleblower Paula Scanlan speaks out about the injustice she endured as a female Division 1 swimmer.

(Jordan Peterson) Lia Thomas entered women's locker room | Riley Gaines

Scanlan tells her personal story of being silenced and censored by the NCAA and her Ivy League university when she dared to question the decision to put a [male] transgender athlete on her team. Now, she joins Riley Gaines in the fight to protect women’s sports. 

(Jordan Peterson) The monster behind Gender Theory and lie he based it on

Watch "What is a Woman?" on Twitter: https://twitter.com/realdailywire/sta... Watch @MattWalsh sit down with the former UPenn swimmer from What is a Woman?: • Former Teammate O... Join DailyWire+ and watch all ad-free content NOW: bit.ly/3RzxiDM. Shop Daily Wire merch. #womenssports #femalesports #savewomenssports #paulascanlan #rileygaines #liathomas #dailywireplus #dailywire #sports #lgbtq #pridemonth

Chinese Empire eats Hong Kong (video)

Guest Danny Haipong (Black Agenda Report), Host Jimmy Dore (jimmydorecomedy.com); Sue Lin Wong (Financial Times); Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pro-democracy campaigners Jimmy Lai and Martin Lee talk to The Financial Times about Beijing's attempts to override Hong Kong's mini-constitution while the world is distracted by a pandemic.

American Exceptionalism

Did the USA really “save the world” in World War II? Should black athletes stop protesting and show more gratitude for what the country has done to for them? Are we actually spreading freedom and democracy when we fight wars? Or is this all fake news?

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News -- From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror examines the stories we’re told that lead us to think that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, regardless of it crimes against humanity:

• chattel slavery,
• Native genocide,
• and more than a century’s worth of imperialism and wars of aggression the U.S. has wrought on the planet.

Hong Kong is crowded with apartment blocks.

Co-authors Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong detail what Captain America’s shield tells us about the pretensions of U.S. foreign policy, how actor-ambassador Angelina Jolie and vaccination-profiteer Bill Gates (W.H.O.) engage in "humanitarian" imperialism (hegemony), and why the Broadway musical Hamilton is a monument to white supremacy. More

Gil Fronsdal on everyday mindfulness

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Gil Fronsdal (insightmeditationcenter.org)

Read or download

The Issue at Hand is an excellent book written by Gil Fronsdal as a gift to the community. It is freely given and available online in the following languages:

• English (PDF)
• Español – Spanish (PDF)
• Français – French (PDF)
• Deutsch – German (PDF)
• Italiano – Italian (Partial)
• 한국어 – Korean (PDF)
• Chinese (Partial)
  • Traditional PDF
  • Simplified PDF
• Português – Portuguese (Partial)

Order a free English or Spanish paperback in the U.S.:
Contact IMC.IssueatHand@gmail.com, and include your name and address. Allow up to three weeks for delivery.

Donations: are always welcome.

Gil Fronsdal is the primary teacher for the "Insight Meditation Center" in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975.

He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers' Council.

Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He is currently serving on the SF Zen Center Elders' Council.

Gil has an undergraduate degree in agriculture from UC Davis, where he was active in promoting the field of sustainable farming. In 1998 he received a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University studying the earliest developments of the bodhisattva ideal. He is the author of The Issue at Hand: Essays on Mindfulness Practice, A Monastery Within: Tales from the Buddhist Path, and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications.

Hundreds of Gil's talks on meditation and Buddhist practice can be found on audiodharma.org.

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The Rise of America’s Secret Gov't (audio)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Tavis Smiley (tavistalks.com)

Israel operates as CIA arm in the Middle East

David Talbot, founder of the online magazine Salon.com, offers an eye-opening look into the life of [mass murderer and spy] Allen Dulles, the first civilian director of the CIA, in a new biography, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. Talbot joins us to explore how Dulles’ policies resonate today in foreign policy, civil liberties and intelligence gathering.

The Devil's Chessboard
Harpercollins.com

An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful -- and secretive -- colossus in Washington, D.C.

America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA.

Drawing on revelatory new materials -- including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials -- Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.

• Talbot is the founder of Salon and author of the New York Times bestseller about the assassinated Kennedys, Brothers.

This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow)

Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA, which he used to further his public and private agendas, were dark times in American politics.

Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” [murderer] Dulles saw himself as above the law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy corporate elite -- who were his personal friends and professional clients -- colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Italian Mafiosi in the process.

(Black Op Radio) Host Len Osanic interviews David Talbot with Jim DiEugenio in Oct. 2015.
(“Watching the Hawks”) Tyrel Ventura, Tabetha Wallace, and Sean Stone discuss how prisoners of the CIA's secret prison “black sites” are suing the psychologists who provided cover and legitimacy to Pres. Bush’s torture program. David Talbot talks about his new book, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. Paula Slier joins live from Tel Aviv for the latest Israeli violence in Palestine. Also what's new in bikini science? A new bathing suit that cleans water as you swim. The 68th anniversary of Chuck Yeager’s breaking the speed of sound barrier for the first time ever in a jet plane. More

• AUDIO: David Talbot on the CIA

This is how we spy on the USA, suckers.

The CIA under Dulles began targeting and assassinating foreign leaders, overthrowing democratically-elected governments and, Talbot charges, employing those same illegal tactics to further his goals at home: He offers shocking new evidence about the US government's assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy.

 

As an exposé of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping history. It explains the rise of the national security state and America's hypocrisy. More

Dulles's decade as the director of the CIA began a dark period in American politics. The megalomaniac spymaster was above the nation's laws and elected leaders. He manipulated American presidents in the pursuit of his own interests and those of the wealthy elitists he counted as his friends and clients -- colluding with Nazi war criminals and the Mafia.
 
Talbot charges that the CIA utilizes the same ruthless tactics in America as it employs abroad -- assassinating foreign leaders and overthrowing legitimate governments -- to further his goals at home in the USA.

• Does the CIA favor Israel's abuse of Palestinians?
• Does the CIA favor police killing U.S. civilians?

Do Black Lives Matter? This movement has been the source of both inspiration and controversy since its inception in 2013. Prof. Melina Abdullah, chair of Pan-African Studies at Cal State University, Los Angeles, one of the 30 activists who organized Black Lives Matter, talks about movement’s goals and the challenges it faces.

"Everybody dies but...

NOT everybody lives"

(Red Bull)
  

After flying to an altitude of 39,045 meters (128,100 feet or 24.26 miles) in a helium-filled balloon, daredevil "astronaut" Felix Baumgartner completed a record breaking jump for the ages. He is "the man who fell to Earth."

• Felix sky dives to Earth from space
• Meditation too hard? Try Parkour!

From the edge of space, exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound-barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane, Felix broke the record in a special airtight suit. He reached a maximum freefall speed of 1,342.8 km/h (833 mph) through the near vacuum of Earth's stratosphere.

Beavis & Butthead, Jackass, are teens already trying this at home?

He was later slowed down by the friction of our atmosphere during his 4:20-minute-long drop. The 43-year-old Austrian skydiving expert also broke two other world records (highest freefall, highest manned balloon flight), leaving the record for the longest freefall to project mentor Col. Joe Kittinger, who was manning Mission Control during the jump.

 

Watch the full Recap

 
Red Bull sponsored extreme sports compilation (2012)
 
Parkour (Freerunning) in Kuwait at The Art of Motion
  

What is "Red Bull"?

Pat Macpherson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

I'm not real, just here to sell mo' sugar.

Legend has it that a traveling toothpaste salesman was passing through Buddhist Thailand when someone offered him an energizing syrup. It worked (caffeine kick), so the salesman tracked down the elixir-concocter and said, We should sell this to the West. But first we carbonate it. 

The taste, apparently, never mattered. Is it healthy? Who cares? Do people drop dead at raves chugging it with Vodka? Maybe. So what, the maker says. That's not his problem. Red Bull gives you [corporate jingle] wings! There is no evidence that Felix Baumgartner was a drinker. But Aunt Jemima don't eat no pancakes neither. That doesn't keep a room full of mostly White male executives (at RB or General Mills, Inc.) from cashing in on their comforting brand logo/mascot. 

  

Auntie J originally came from an old timey racist minstrel show of White people in blackface promoting stereotypes. The corporation puts the best spin doctoring on its product's public face. Red Bull may not be good for human consumption, but they do sponsor great feats in extreme sports and funny commercials. If the Honey Boo Boo Thompson Family uses it to make Go-Go Juice and bring on obesity, diabetes, and gray hair, why would anybody blame the corporation that produces it? Soda doesn't help anyone do anything worthwhile, but brand affiliations might. White sugar is toxic, but the artificial sweetener Aspartame is worse.

  

 

RECIPE: How to make Go-Go Juice at home using Red Bull

• Pay more taxes to have less sugar in soft drinks?
• FREE three-day Yoga Workshop in Los Angeles 
• What is transforming Kim Kardashian's face?
• Extended raw footage (hide annotations to clear screen)

Red Bull sponsored extreme sports compilation (2011)

Floods of Merit, Abhisanda Sutra (AN 8.39)

Dharmachari Seven, Wisdom Quarterly translation, Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, Book of the Eights, Abhisanda Sutta (AN 8.39)

"Disciples, there are these eight higher results [yields or floods] of merit, floods of skillfulness, nutriments of happiness, resulting in happiness, celestial, leading to heavenly rebirths, leading to what is desirable, pleasant, and welcome, to well being and joy. What are the eight?

"A disciple of the noble ones goes to the Buddha for guidance (sarana). This is the first higher result....

"A disciple of the noble ones goes to the Dharma for guidance. This is the second higher result of merit...

"A disciple of the noble ones goes to the [accomplished] Sangha for guidance. This is the third higher result of merit...

• Do Buddhists go for "refuge"? No, they go for "guidance."
  

Five Great Gifts
"In addition, there are these five great gifts -- longstanding, traditional, ancient, unchanged -- that are reliable, beyond doubt, which wise wandering ascetics and temple brahmins find no fault with. What are the five?

"A disciple of the noble ones abandons the taking of life and abstains from it. By doing so, one gives a gift to others: freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to an uncounted number of beings. By so giving, one gains in return a share in unlimited freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, and freedom from oppression. This is the first great gift...

"Abandoning the taking of what is not freely given, a disciple of the noble ones abstains from it. By so doing, one gives a gift to others: freedom... [and] gains... This is the second great gift...

"Abandoning sexual misconduct [defined in a limited way as sex with ten kinds of partners that are out of bounds or more generally as doing harm to oneself and/or others when seeking to satisfy one's sensual impulses], a disciple of the noble ones abstains from it. By so doing, one gives the gift to others: freedom... [and] gains... This is the third great gift...

"Abandoning false speech, a disciple of the noble ones abstains from it. By so doing, one gives a gift to others: freedom... [and] gains... This is the fourth great gift...

"Abandoning the use of intoxicants, a disciple of the noble ones abstains from it. By so doing, one gives a gift to others: freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to an uncounted number of beings.

"By so giving, one gains in return a share in unlimited freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, and freedom from oppression. This is the fifth great gift -- longstanding, traditional, ancient, unchanged -- that are reliable, not doubted, which wise wandering ascetics and temple brahmins find no fault with."

“Understanding Virtue” Cal Tech lectures

Virtue (arete, "excellence") personified as a goddess. The most articulated value in Greek culture is areté. The word means something closer to "being the best you can be" or "reaching your highest human potential" (Wikipedia/Celsus Library, Turkey).

Fuller, Caltech lecture series “Understanding Virtue”

What causes a person to do “good”? To act kindly, generously, heroically? Does special brain activity contribute to virtuous behavior in some people?

Fuller Seminary's Travis Research Institute and CalTech are partnering in a two-day lecture series to better understand the mysteries and nature of virtue through the twin lenses of neuroscience and philosophy.

• Talk: “Why Habit Matters: The Bodily Character of the Virtues"
• Prof. Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School
• Thursday, May 19, 7:30-9:30 pm
• Pasadena Presbyterian Church

Dr. Hauerwas holds a joint appointment in Duke's Law School and Divinity School, is a noted ethicist, peacemaker, and writer, and was named "America's Best Theologian" by Time Magazine in 2001.

CalTech Prof. Steven R. Quartz (Philosophy), leader of the Brain, Mind and Society Ph.D. Program will respond, drawing on his research on fundamental problems of the mind -- how the mind emerges from the developing brain and how we make decisions, including those with moral dimensions.

• Talk: "The Vicarious Brain: The Neural Basis of Empathy, Learning by Observation, and Sociopathy"
• Prof. Christian Keysers (Social Brain, Univ. of Groningen, Netherlands)
• Friday, May 20, 7:30-9:30 pm
• Beckman Auditorium on the CalTech campus

Dr. Keysers will describe how vicarious brain activity is strong in empathic individuals and reduced in sociopaths, suggesting that vicarious brain activity plays a role in the normal development of virtue.

Prof. Nancey Murphy (Christian Philosophy, Fuller Seminary) will respond, speaking from her research on the relationships between theology, neuroscience, and philosophy of the mind.

• FREE lectures, open to the public, are part of a major conference funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The conference brings together scientists, philosophers, ethicists, and theologians for a discussion of interdisciplinary perspectives on the neuroscience of moral action.

Pasadena Presbyterian Church: 585 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena 91101
CalTech’s Beckman Auditorium: 332 S. Michigan Ave. (south of Del Mar), Pasadena 91106.

• INFO: Fred Messick, Associate VP of Public Affairs, Fuller Seminary, fmessick@fuller.edu, (626) 584-5367
• Deborah Williams-Hedges, Interim Director of Media Relations, CalTech, debwms@caltech.edu (626) 395-3227

Dissecting Einstein's Brain

(LINK)

Dissecting the Genius of Einstein's Brain

When it comes to brilliance, do exceptional brains exist? To find out if there is a link between brain structure and genius, scientists look to the gray matter of renowned physicist Albert Einstein. WSJ's science columnist Robert Lee Hotz reports.

• Writer's Birthdays: Franken Pope
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