Were Vikings aware of the Buddha?

Where is beauty greater than Estonia, Russia, Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, and Belarus?

Bring me back one of those metal statue figurines, Warrior. I'll give you this charmed fruit.

Hey, that guy's Black! Were there really Black Vikings? The media says they were all redheads

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Viking Buddha: Helgo Treasure

Were Vikings Buddhists? First of all, Vikings is a general term that means "Pirates" more than redheaded Icelandic peoples. Second, what would it have taken for them to be Buddhists?

They would have had to understand the language of the Asians with whom they came in contact. It is more likely, given their reputation, that they raided rather than traded.

• The Buddha was Indo-Aryan from Central Asia (the "Middle Country" [between East and West, called the Majjhima-desa in the texts) with a mother from what is now part of Iran (formerly Persia), below his home country of Gandhara (in a Scythian region that is modern Afghanistan), according to maverick Indian historian Dr. Ranajit Pal: Amazing “Viking” treasure featuring gold, silver, and a vase is from IRAN may not be VIKING at all
• 9th-century Viking hoard found undisturbed in Norway
• 'Incredibly well-preserved' arrow older than Vikings found in melting ice
• The surprising answer to, “Were there Black Vikings?”
• Europe’s most extraordinary archaeological discoveries, ranked
• Archaeologists unearth oldest fortified settlement in Europe

Norwegian Olympian with "Viking" spirit

White Buddhists of Europa and Scandinavia

• (Where in Europe is Scandinavia? Upper left)
• The Land of the Vikings
• Buddhism in Sweden
• Buddhism in Norway
• Buddhism in Denmark
• Rampant white-on-white violence: Vikings in Norway were much more likely to die violent deaths than those in Denmark (Live Science)
• Buddhism in Finland
• Buddhism in Estonia
• Buddhism in Scotland
• Indigenous Sami peoples of Lapland Sápmi (Finnmǫrk)
• Buddhism in Iceland
• Buddhism in Kalmykia (only indigenously Buddhist Europeans)
• Buddhism in Europe
• Buddhism in Buryatia
• Buddhism in Belgium
• Buddhism in the Czech Republic
• Buddhism in Russia and Siberia
• Buddhism in Ukraine

We were also interested in art

Archeological discoveries indicate contact with Asia and knowledge of the Buddha, which they would have seen as the "Light of Asia," the "Prince of Peace," a massive figure in the ancient Orient.

That they traded in Asian wares suggests that they knew what they were dealing in, seeing significance in the beauty of figurines and pieces of advanced art from that part of the world.

There is a Viking Buddha, and now we find a ten-year-old piece is actually a much older work of art from Asia found in Scotland.

Viking Guru, the Great, on Audible podcasts

Interestingly, the greatest Viking today is a Buddhist or in any case very friendly to Buddhists. He is the interviewer known as Viking Guru, who has repeatedly interviewed British Buddhist teacher Beth Upton and others.

Here is the latest headline from the Viking Era: A Viking Era vessel found in Scotland a decade ago turns out to be from Asia

• Researchers left baffled after discovering early presence of Europeans in the Americas, not just as genocidal invaders and rapists but as visitors
• The real reason Bibi Netanyahu won't end genocidal attacks on Gaza (to stay in office and save his own skin in court where he faces three cases charged with corruption)
• Study: Bonze Age treasure was made with extraterrestrial (MSN)
• We dig up the 30 biggest gold nuggets ever discovered
• CARTOONS: 10 best The Far Side collections ranked
• Atlantis rises, Lemuria falls: the war that sank a continent
• New species of titanosaur found in Spain dates back 72-million-years
• Woodstock to the World: 14 famous hippies
• Giant iceberg breaks away from Antarctic ice shelf, a global concern
• 19 behemoths of the natural world
• Miners unearth pink diamond believed to be the largest seen in 300 years
• Thor? Brahma? God? Flying Spaghetti Monster? 3 ways in which science suggests a higher power created the universe
• What killed the last woolly mammoths? (Was it Vikings?) Scientists say it wasn't inbreeding
• Ancient human face carvings emerged in the Amazon after 2,000 years
• 22-million-year-old forest and new species discovered on remote island in Panama
• NASA's Perseverance Rover captures oddball rock on Mars
• 18 incredible treasures found in public parks
• Geraldo Rivera (aka Jerry Rivers): American ambiguity over helping Israel kill Palestine in this "conflict" (genocide) is disturbing, Cuomo
• Betelgeuse's countdown to Supernova explosion to take the night sky all over the world Will it be this generation's Harmonic Convergence?
• 19 images of gigantic things that are larger than life itself
• Before Stonehenge? Colossal stone monument built 1,000 years before Stonehenge shows Neolithic engineers understood science
• 40 extra large versions of normal things
• Historical photos of America's deadliest tribe Let's exterminate them then revere them as the "deadliest" to ease our minds about killing them off because they were the deadliest
• Written out of existence: Native Americans in Kentucky push for recognition of culture
• 15 facts about Native Americans (from white people's point of view) most people don't know
• Look beneath the surface to fully appreciate Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park
• 31 photos of just plain awesome stuff
• The 30 largest gold nuggets ever unearthed
• Facts about Fool's Gold Is it valuable after all?
• North Dakota fossil site reveals when asteroid killed off all the dinosaurs (or most, or are they still alive, or was it something else?)
• Scientists discover evidence of dinosaur catastrophe imprinted in DNA of modern birds
• America s golden treasures: 7 states where gold abounds (And you can have it for the taking, just get your pan out)
• 15 US states where you can still find gold
• Scientists unearth ancient evidence on the origins of life dating back 1.75 billion years
• Extremely rare mammal-like fossils from Jurassic discovered in Utah
• 40 interesting photos that show things from a different perspective
• 20 fascinating photos of our fascinating world
• 34 cool things you seldom see
• The Earth Factory: The total amount of life that has ever existed on Earth is mind-blowing
• 25 picture perfect photos of our amazing world
• Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The limits of computing -- a paradox (video)

Jade Tan-Holmes, Up and Atom;; CC Liu, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hey, Jade, who is math genius "Cleo"?

How this one question breaks computers

(Up and Atom) June 21, 2023. The Nature of Computation: Cristopher Moore.

CHAPTERS

• 0:00 A double edged sword
• 1:00 Universality
• 3:09 Thanks Nebula
• 4:32 How do we know there are problems computers will never solve?
• 6:05 Hilbert's Program
• 7:59 Decidability
• 11:39 Turing hears about the Entscheidungsproblem (uh-oh)
• 13:27 The Halting Problem
• 16:42 Undecidability

Creator: Jade Tan-Holmes. Written by Zoe Cocchiaro and Jade Tan-Holmes. Animations by Tom Groenestyn.  Editing by Standard Productions. Music: epidemicsound.com.

Computer Science Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription! go.nebula.tv/upandatom

Recommended shows

• Is Math Invented or Discovered?
• Becoming Human
• What is Code?

Hi! I'm Jade. [Give me money.] Like to consider supporting Up and Atom? Head over to the Patreon page: patreon.com/upandatom. Visit the Up and Atom store store.nebula.app/collections... Subscribe to Up and Atom for physics, math, and computer science videos: upandatom. For a one-time donation, head over to PayPal: paypal.me/upandatomshows. Sources matjaz.substack.com/p/why-are... khanacademy.org/computing... udacity.com/course/intro-...

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FTX, WTF? Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto crimes

Kevin T. Dugan, Matt Stieb, THE MONEY GAME (NYMag.com, Intelligencer, 11/16/22); Sheldon S., Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Awkward, on the spectrum, math genius Sam (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images)

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8 more disturbing revelations about Sam Bankman-Fried

The first stage of any collapse is confusion, maybe even schadenfreude (German for "delight in another's misery").

A polycule of 10 live in sex partners for Sam

It was no different during the wild week when [the new oversexed Bernie Madoff] Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the supposed crypto wunderkind and founder of FTX, tried and failed to sell his imploding empire only to find himself totally broke, his companies bankrupt, and his sexual polycule (FTX circle all "dated" each other in the Bahamas crypto mansion) perhaps no longer in the mood. (Read about all that sex story here).

OMG! I could have lived like Sam did!!!

The stage after that, though, is fear — and that is precisely where we are now. The sum of Bankman-Fried may have added up to less than his parts, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was deeply interconnected with the worlds of politics and finance beyond the relatively small world of digital currencies.

Since his bankruptcy filing, the crypto empire Bankman-Fried presided over has been subject to even more embarrassing and damning revelations, and he is the target of multiple investigations.

It is still too early to say that he’s headed for prison: If the prior big financial crisis taught us anything, it’s not to be shocked when nobody gets arrested for obvious crimes — but that is certainly a strong possibility. Here’s what we’ve learned about SBF since Friday.

• LISTEN: Follow Cover Story: Seed Money a podcast about the secret life of a billionaire

FTX software had a very illegal-sounding back door for moving huge sums of money

Who can judge but a magistrate, so it’s not up to us to decide what’s against the law. But we’ve got eyes.

Over the weekend, it was revealed — first by Reuters — that a back door was written into the code at the FTX crypto exchange that allowed Bankman-Fried to move customer deposits from that platform to his (supposed completely separate) hedge fund, Alameda Research.

In essence, this was a way to keep quiet the alarm bells that would have started to ring if anyone else had been aware that he was moving this money. All told, Reuters reported that $1 billion was missing. More

Home-free American herder-gatherer guy

Aaron Fletcher, Kirsten Dirksen, 10/22; Pat Macpherson, Ash Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The life of a modern American "herder-gatherer" is not easy but it is fun and creative.

Home-free American shepherd shares shepherd-gatherer diet and survival tips with Kirsten Dirksen

(Kristen Dirksen) Oct. 16, 2022. For more than a decade, Aaron Fletcher (123homefree.org) has lived as a nomadic shepherd in the U.S., mostly out of a micro-camper pulled by sheep.

A sadhu (spiritual wandering ascetic) in India

He supports himself as an itinerant farmhand through work-trading and bartering sheep’s milk for food and supplies.

He also skill-shares in exchange for food, “including wool felting, wool spinning, cheesemaking, survival, bushcraft, etc.”

He considers himself a herder-gatherer, and his diet consists of a lot of milk and cheese (courtesy of his friendly sheep), as well as foraged foods (wild greens, seeds, and even ingredients to make his own toothpaste) and some traded flesh, potatoes, and citrus (especially after learning he was deficient in Vitamin C and dying of excess protein consumption).

I should meditate or smoke ganga or DMT or sumtin

He’s lived in apartments and conventional homes, and he was about to purchase a home before deciding to go nomadic a dozen years ago. He now lives all year, even during the snowy Oregon winter, in his tiny sheep cart that is fitted out with a bed, folding table, solar freezer, wood-burning stove, dehydrator, and solar cooker.

He defines himself as “homefree” or “the opposite of being homeless...it’s also the opposite of being housed [a householder bound to property, taxes, and expenses], it’s like the third side of a coin. There have always been the haves and the have-nots (possessions), but homefree means being a have-not-want.”

He sees his sheep-pulled covered wagon as the ideal-sized home: more equipped than living off pack boxes and less cluttered than a traditional house.

• Aaron Fletcher's YouTube channel:
• youtube.com/user/123Homefree
• Blog: 123homefree.org/about
• On *faircompanies: faircompanies.com...

Comments (1,754)

(Brian Mahoney, Oct. 2022) The value of this video is that without it I wouldn’t ever even imagine that someone was doing this. I feel like I’ve been really caught up and maybe feeling a little trapped in the system. It’s so refreshing to see this guy demonstrating that life isn’t limited to the lanes that are painted by other people.

• How to make a "hobo stove" for free (Waypoint Survival)

Why I could never be a Christian (video)

Wells, Xochitl, Liu (Wisdom Quarterly)

What cabal controls this back-door government and its front-office administrations? And what spirit possessed this good person to stand on her dung heap reviling everyone else's?

• VIDEO: Insane Christian breaks down

This seems to prove that a fundamentalist can easily be possessed by the "dark side" s/he so fears. We saw this when it originally aired and never got over it. We don't blame good Saint Issa, nor do we think that all or even most Christians are like this. Yet, our psyches still feel damaged. An amazing accomplishment if it is Mara or some other inimical force (like FOX) at the root of this astounding display of all that's wrong with closed minded people. What set off this good person? She was exposed to a liberal radio show discussing the unthinkable, atheism, as seen here on "Trading Spouses."

Reality? This aired on broadcast TV in prime time.


Jesus Camp for children -- with parental force.

(BBC) Creationists conquer evolution and high school.

Stocks fall on belief global recession at hand

Tim Paradis (AP)

Panic on trading floor as global stock prices plunge indicating economic fears

NEW YORK – Wall Street capped another difficult week with steep losses Friday, sending the major indexes to their lowest levels in more than five years as markets around the world skidded lower on the belief that a punishing economic recession is at hand.

• World Market Freefall
• Slideshow: Stock Markets

It was a dramatic, fractious day on the Street, with the Dow Jones industrials falling more than 500 points soon after trading began and, following the pattern of recent sessions, recovering ground only to fall sharply again. They ended the day with a loss of 312.

• Video: What's next financial 'disaster'? (60 Minutes)
• UK economy in reverse (Reuters)

The pullback on Wall Street wasn't as steep as some observers had feared after stocks plunged overseas in response to another round of grim corporate news. A profit warning Friday from electronics maker Sony sent its shares tumbling in Japan and offered only the latest example that companies are girding for a slowing economy and a pullback among consumers worried about falling home prices and losses on their investments.

And in Germany, Daimler's stock fell sharply after the automaker reported lower third-quarter earnings and abandoned its 2008 profit and revenue forecast. That followed news in the U.S. late Thursday from Microsoft Corp., which issued a weaker-than-expected forecast for its fiscal second quarter, pointing to the economy.

"People have been saying that we're in a recession. This is the realization," said Scott Fullman, director of derivatives investment strategy for WJB Capital Group in New York.

It is clear that many investors are convinced the world economy is headed for a severe downturn even as governments have raced to jump-start credit markets on the hope that a return of more normal lending levels by banks and other financial houses will fan economic activity.

But some say the recent pullbacks have been set off by forced selling, keeping some bargain-seeking traders from entering the market.

"There's nothing new going on," said Scott Bleier, president of market advisory service CreateCapital.com. "This is all about the unwinding of massive leverage."

Bleier attributed the declines to margin calls and investors in hedge funds and mutual funds cashing out. A margin call occurs when investors are forced to sell holdings, like stock, to raise cash at the demands of brokers.

"Market participants' fear is not that the economy is slowing," he said. "The fear is there is an endless supply of things for sale, regardless of price."

Steve Gross, principal at alternative investment and advisory firm Penso Capital Markets, said most large hedge funds have already slashed their positions. Instead, he sees a lack of demand: "There are no buyers at all."

Investors were nervous going into the session after U.S. stock futures — the bets traders place on where the market will go — fell so sharply before Friday's opening bell that selling halts were imposed.

By the close, according to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 312.30, or 3.59 percent, to 8,378.95 after falling 504 in the early going. Still, the blue chips remained above the 8,000 level; at its recent low of Oct. 10, the Dow traded as low as 7,882.51.

Broader stock indicators also fell. The S&P 500 index declined 31.34, or 3.45 percent, to 876.77, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 51.88, or 3.23 percent, to 1,552.03.

Friday's finish was the lowest for the Dow since April 25, 2003, when it ended at 8,306.35. For the S&P, it was the lowest ending since April 11, 2003 when the index finished at 868.30.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 18.80, or 3.84 percent, to 471.12.

Declining issues outpaced advancers by about 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.58 billion shares.

Friday was the 79th anniversary of the day that, according to many market historians, the October 1929 stock market crash began. Selling began on Thursday, Oct. 24, and accelerated the following week on the days that have since become known as Black Monday and Black Tuesday, Oct 28 and 29.

For the week, the Dow fell 5.35 percent, the S&P 500 lost 6.78 percent and the Nasdaq fell 9.31 percent.