What is the Web for? Funny memes (video)

 

Memes compilation #125

(MEMES COMPILATION) April 9, 2022 #125. Here are the best and funniest memes compiled into just one video. #meme #dankmemes #memescompilation Tags: memes, memes compilation, dank memes, coub, best cube, coub compilation, dank, funny, dank memes vine compilation, dank memes compilation, gifswithsound, try not to laugh.

• Physicist reveals what the fourth dimension looks like

Sexy and Scary Movies: Ghost Stories (video)

Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Pat Mapcherson, Crystal Quintero, and Sheldon S., Wisdom Quarterly  EVER GROWING MUSIC AND MOVIE OPTIONS

(MC) "Ouija" WARNING: There really are many kinds of unseen beings, shapeshifters, entities, hungry ghosts (Petas), deceptive and parasitic spirits eager to find an in to steal energy!

Buddhist "Ghost Stories"
Wisdom Quarterly (wiki edit)

Preta, peta

The Petavatthu is a set of Theravada Buddhist texts, included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Pali canon's Sutra Collection.

It is composed of 51 verse narratives describing specifically how the effects of bad karma can lead to rebirth in he unhappy world of petas (Sanskrit pretas, "ghosts") in the doctrine of karma (actions with the power to produce future results).

This set of sutras gives prominence to the doctrine that acts of merit -- such as giving gifts to enlightened individuals or the entire community of enlightened individuals collectively -- can benefit the ghosts of one's departed relatives  by the "transferring" of merit.

This is not because the merit, or particularly good karma, literally travels to them. It works IF the departed are made aware and approve of the giving. This is because in doing so they generate merit for themselves by generating the (mental) karma of appreciation, gratitude, and joy-for-others (mudita) multiplied by the recipient/recipients, who being enlightened carry the greatest weight in terms of karma.

Appreciation is good karma.

Any gift giving or good deed offered for the benefit of the departed able who can receive it, which depends on which world they now reside in, can work in this way. But gifts of the Dharma or to the Noble Sangha (the community of enlightened individuals) will be the weightiest.

• See Stories of the Departed (Petavatthu translation), Henry S. Gehman, in Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, Vol. IV, 1942, Pali Text Society, Bristol, England.

[Bigfoot] "Exists"
(Indie) "Exists" (2014) Bigfoot legend as an Eduardo Sánchez horror movie

• Remains belong to missing Virginia student
• Real-life horrors: crimes at sea, Cruise Victims
• "Amityville: The Awakening" (2015) - Bella Thorne

(JB/joblo.com) "10 Rules for Sleeping Around" or if you prefer lame, by-the-numbers, paranormal melodrama, try "If I Stay" with funny and talented Zach Galifianakis.

Cheesy books become trashy movie

(HOT) "Fifty Shades of Grey" (2015) - Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson

Should we kill gays and  throw them in bonfires? 

(Isn't that what the God wants? No! He want us to use stones.)

(Irishman Andrew Hozier Byrne) "Take Me to Church" I worship at the shrine of your feet...sharpen your knife...and take me to church.

"I want you by side so I'll never feel alone again..."

(Milky Chance) "Stolen Dance"

Hip hop means scary materialism

(Kreayshawn) "Gucci Gucci" -- the horror of obsession with materialism for the sake of self-soothing (and, of course, earthly riches). Hey, Fitch, is that the way Mama Zolot raised ya? Guess so. Because life is hard in the ghetto. Follow-up with "Go Hard (La.La.La)" and disappointment with 2Chainz? Bye, bi baby. Maybe V-Nasty (or Riff-Raff) will include you in her solo stuff or Work with Iggy.

"American Society"

(Eddie & the Subtitles) I don't want to drown in "American Society"

Protesting is better than watching: Buddhist Occupy, UK

(RT/RT)

At least one person was arrested on Sunday in London’s Parliament Square, after police removed Occupy Democracy protesters who have been protesting on the square for three days. Between 50 and 100 demonstrators remained. English comedian and actor Russell Brand bought pizza for them all.

CIA Horrors

(RT/YouTube)

U.S. (CIA/Corporate) Military-Industrial Complex warplanes are carrying out a new series of airstrikes on Muslim "jihadists" in the endless war for strategic and geopolitical control of the Middle East, here in the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria. After months of fierce attacks, the defenders of the town have reportedly managed to halt the onslaught of ISIS, ISIL, the Caliphate, the "Muslim Invasion," or simply an Islamic State. Now, Kurds are slowly retaking the districts of Kobani, street by street. RT's Murad Gazdiev met with those who survived the jihadi occupation -- and they've told him of the atrocities the group is committing [with training and prompting by CIA handlers]. RT LIVE: rt.com/on-air

• No Israeli Funding of the Arts

  

  Israel's war crimes? Yeah, but...

  IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, IJSN.net) is centrally involved in the No Israeli Funding of the Arts initiative: We want everyone we are in touch with to know that the UKJFF (UK Jewish Film Festival) is taking place this year in cinemas in Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, and Nottingham, between November 6-23. IJAN has written to all the cinemas and are asking that you contact your local (or even a distant) cinema by phone, email, website, leaflet, or street protest, and let them know what you think of them hosting an Israeli-funded event. More

Scientists translate dreams into YouTube videos

Gallant Labs UC Berkeley, Wisdom Quarterly, The Consumerist

(GallantLabUCB) Left clip: segment of Hollywood movie trailer subject viewed while in fMRI machine. Right clip: reconstruction of segment from brain activity measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Translating brain activity into YouTube videos
Phil Villarreal (The Consumerist, Sept. 26, 2011)

BERKELEY, California - Science is getting closer to letting people see through the eyes of others. UC Berkeley scientists have designed a way to read brain activity and reconstruct YouTube videos.... broadcasting the mental images people create, meaning you could soon watch others' dreams.

• It would be amazing to hook up Buddhist saints (Noble Ones) or at least monastics and asking them to meditate or "see" nirvana. We know those who have seen it exist.

(Meggito/Flickr)

The Gallant Lab at UC Berkeley had people watch videos while hooked up to an MRI machine, then matched the data and brain activity to shapes, movement, and colors. The computer model the researchers created blurry, dreamlike images. More

• AUDIO: SCPR's Patt Morrison to cover topic in depth
  
• Now you can see images from someone else's mind
• UC Scientists "see" images in people's minds (ABC News)

Procedure
1. Record brain activity while subject views hours of movie trailers.

2. Build dictionaries (regression model) to translate between shapes, edges, and motion in these movies and measured brain activity. A separate dictionary is constructed for each of several thousand points in the brain at which brain activity was measured.
3. Record brain activity to a new set of movie trailers that will be used to test the quality of the dictionaries and reconstructions.

4. Build a random library of approximately 18,000,000 seconds of video downloaded at random from YouTube (that have no overlap with the movies subjects saw in the magnet).
5. Put each of these clips through the dictionaries to generate predictions of brain activity.
6. Select the 100 clips whose predicted activity is most similar to the observed brain activity.
7. Average those clips together. This is the reconstruction.

• See related video. See the related (Nishimoto et al., 2011, Current Biology) scientific paper. More information: gallantlab.org
• PUBLIC RADIO VIDEO: Roasting Charlie Sheen (X-rated)
  

The Real India: Lonely Planet

Map of India (courtesy of LonelyPlanet.com)

Visiting India can be daunting. But the allure of fulfillment promises adventure, growth, and no small dose of culture-shock. Lonely Planet guides, the shoestring traveler's Bible, have been escorting intrepid pilgrims for years. Here's a sample excerpt.

Morning bathing, Ganges river, ancient Benares (Lonely Planet)

• Varanasi, the city of Shiva, on the bank of the sacred Ganges, is one of the holiest places in India. Hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the waters of Ganges, a ritual that washes away all sins. The city is an auspicious place to die, since expiring here offers moksha -- liberation from the cycle of birth and death. It's a magical city where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public on the city's famous ghats [bathing steps]. It's this accessibility to the practices of an ancient religious tradiontion that captivates so many visitors. In the past, the city has been known as Kashi and Benares, but its present name is a restoration of an ancient name meaning the city between two rivers -- the Varuna and Assi.

For independent and first-time travelers, a good guide is a must. One that tucks away in a backpack is ideal. You'll get the most out of your trip at the lowest possible price by following its timely advice. Frequently updated and rarely outdone, Lonely Planet is the gold standard in down to earth travel information.

Volunteering in India (Korina Miller, Lonely Planet, June 2007)Group of Paharia children (Lonely Planet)

The week before I arrived, they found a cobra in the kitchen. I'm not a snake person (nor a bug person for that matter) and when I'd agreed to volunteer for a month in the foothills of Jharkhand, in India, I hadn't realised that tree snakes, cobras and scorpions would be part of the deal.

Not that it would have stopped me. As an undergraduate in Communications and Development, I wanted first-hand field experience, and Dakshinayan promised me just that. Cheo Project was based amidst a group of small villages of mud and grass huts, home to the Paharia tribes. Considered "untouchables" in the Indian caste system, these communities survive by hunting, gathering, and cultivating maize. Maize is roasted on campfires and eaten all day. Every day.

My life in the village was a stripped-back existence. I was teaching rudimentary English in an informal school to a group whose numbers ranged from three to thirty students, depending on how much work there was to do at home or in the fields. Three times a day I carried buckets of water from the well, which was the only water source and a 20-minute walk away. I learned how to make chapatti (flat bread) and how to keep the cookfire going in the rain, so I was able to help out with meals. I walked on the narrow forest trails from village to village for meetings, classes or visits. I'd trek the three hours to the weekly market and back up the hill with supplies. Checking my sleeping bag for scorpions and the tree near the outhouse for deadly snakes became second nature. Such drastic adjustments to my lifestyle were quickly absorbed into routine. What required more time was fitting in.... Read the entire story

All that adventure and potential danger, too!

• Travel Warning: Areas of Conflict
  Foreigners in the western state of Rajasthan should be aware of ethnic conflict in the region....On June 18 [2008], the Gujjar community reached a peace deal with the Rajasthan State government and this is expected to relieve tension; however, travelers in both Delhi and Rajasthan should stay alert and avoid getting caught up in any public protests. Several Indian regions are prone to occasional conflict; Jammu and Kashmir (as distinct from [predominantly Buddhist] Ladakh) are subject to political violence and travelers should seek consular advice before entering any area bordering Pakistan. Similar advice should also be sought before travel to Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, and Manipur in northeast India. There are militant groups operating sporadically in some rural areas of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Orissa.

Well, package tours and traveler's insurance are always available. Of particular interest to Buddhist wanderers is India's only remaining Buddhist city, the enchanted Leh, Ladakh. If you visit the Buddhist Circuit, remember to walk directly into Nepal to see the Buddha's birthplace and hometown, Lumbini and Kapilavastu. The real danger is actually invisible and likely to take you down unless you're meticulous, as one female traveler found out:

• Dani Katz (writing for Whole Life Times)
• Also recommended: short videos shot in India

For everything you need: Lonely Planet - India