The use of herbs has aided shamans since days of old. Even with their high level of experience in traveling the depths of unconscious thought, it can be difficult to start without altering one’s state of mind.

Salvia Divinorum is a highly valuable tool for seeking altered states. It is what Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s series of books would to refer to as a “teaching plant”. It doesn’t dull your senses like alcohol or enhanced your existing senses. Instead you figuratively discover senses you didn’t know existed. Experiences with Salvia prove to be fascinating to creative minds.

One of the finest sources for Salvia is Salvianoid.com. The quality of the extracts are very good and best of all there is a great selection of strengths. You can get anywhere from 5x (ideal for trying out Salvia for the first time) all the way up to 60x (this is the highest concentration I’ve seen anywhere). Also of note is the Rookie Pack. It packages together different strengths so you can work yourself up to a special experience.

The mythological sources of Neopaganism are many, including Celtic, Norse, Greek, Roman, Sumerian and others. There is probably no widely known mythology or religious tradition that has not been used as a source by some group at some time. Some groups focus on one tradition; others draw from several or many. All mythologies are believed to contain truth, seen from different perspectives. Neopagans seemingly borrow or adapt from any tradition they find useful. For example, the Charge of the Goddess, a text by Doreen Valiente, used materials from the Gospel of Aradia’ by Charles Leland (1901), and Aleister Crowley’s writings. It is commonly used to invoke the “Goddess,” beginning with the words: “Listen to the words of the Great Mother, Who of old was called Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid, and by many other names”, showing a glimpse of Neopagan eclectism.

Some Neopagans also draw inspiration from living traditions, including Christianity, Buddhism and others. Since most Neopaganism does not demand exclusivity, Neopagans can and do sometimes practice other faiths in parallel.

Animism is the belief that spirits inhabit every existing thing, including plants, minerals, animals and, including all the elements, air, water, earth, and fire. This was probably the first form of worship.

Dualism is the belief (sometimes known as Gnosticism) that there are only two fundamental things or substances or constituents of things in the world at large or in the human soul. An example would be that both good and evil simultaneously exist and that they balance each other even though they are independent of each other.

Henotheism is the belief in one god, but at the same time does not deny the existence of other gods. It is a variation of polytheism which holds that there are many gods, but one of them is supreme and the other ones are only ancillary and don’t have the same level of “god-ness”. Some forms of Greek and Roman classical polytheism fall into this category. Hinduism is another very widespread example. The term has come to mean in recent years that one believes in multiple god/esses, though the worshipper “borrows” from various cultural groups and may worship one above the others. An example would be worshipping a Greco-Roman god for one reason and then asking a Celtic god for something else. This form of henotheism supposedly occurred commonly in early Judaism and as such is very much discouraged in the Torah or Old Testament.

Monolatrism- forms a type of henotheism. Its adherents believe that many gods do exist, but these gods can exert their power only on those who worship them. Thus, a monolatrist may believe in the reality of both the Egyptian gods and the god described in the Bible, but sees him or herself as a member of only one of these religions. The gods that he/she worships affects their life; the other gods do not.

New Age is a synthesis of many beliefs, some Christian some Pagan.

Pantheism is the belief that god is the universe and the universe is god — or, more generally, that the universe is divine. It is most often explained as having the feeling that existence has a divine or awe-inspiring aspect.

Polytheism is the belief in more than one god/dess. In some beliefs it is said that all these god/desses are of equal power and authority while in others, there is a hierarchy. This is best demonstrated by the Greco-Roman deity structure.

Panentheism is the belief that god is both immanent in creation and transcendent to it. God creates, contains and sustains the universe, but exists partly outside of it. Dualism is an illusion. Matter and spirit are two sides of the same coin. They come from the same source and share the same essential nature.

Suitheism is the belief in the deity of one’s own self without denying the existence of other god/desses. This is common in Thelema and among Left-Hand Path occultists.

The research of swarm robotics is to study the design of robots, their physical body and their controlling behaviors. It is inspired but not limited by the emergent behavior observed in social insects, called swarm intelligence. Relative simple individual rules can produce a large set of complex swarm behavior. A key-component is the communication between the members of the group that build a system of constant feedback. The swarm behavior involves constant change of individuals in cooperation with others, as well as the behavior of the whole group.

Unlike distributed robotic systems in general, swarm robotics emphasises large number of robots, and promotes scalability, for instance by using only local communication.

Potential application for swarm robotics include tasks that demand for extreme miniaturization on the one hand, as for instance distributed sensing tasks in micro-machinery or the human body. On the other hand, swarm robotics is suited to tasks that demand for extremly cheap designs, for instance a demining task, or agricultural foraging task.

Both, miniaturization and cost, are hard constraints that emphasize simplicity of the individual team member, and thus motivate a swarm-intelligent approach to achieve meaningful behavior on swarm-level.

Execessive research is needed to find methodologies that allow for designing, and reliably predicting, swarm behavior, only given features of the individual swarm member.

The unit is a disc, thirteen inches (34 cm) in diameter and less than four inches (9 cm) high. A large contact-sensing bumper is mounted on the front half of the unit, with an infrared sensor at its top front center. Besides the on/off switch, there are three buttons on the unit marked ‘S’, ‘M’, and ‘L’. A carrying handle is fitted on the top of the unit. It also comes with a “virtual wall” infrared transmitter unit which can be used to prevent the Roomba from going into areas its owner wants it to avoid. The Roomba operates with internal batteries and requires being recharged regularly from a wall plug, although newer Discovery models have a self-charging base they can automatically find.

Using the Roomba consists of carrying it by its handle to wherever the owner would like it to start, turning on the power switch, then pressing any of the three buttons to tell the Roomba how large the room is (small, medium, or large). The buttons control how long Roomba will operate until it decides that it’s finished.

When a button is pressed, Roomba beeps a few tones, then begins its work. First models were not smart enough to vacuum a room’s entire carpet in an orderly fashion, instead they used a simplified random walk algorithm which allowed to cover much of the floor without needing to map out its terrain. Simple sensors detected bumping into walls and furniture, as well as “virtual walls” used to limit Roomba to certain parts of the room. Newer models have additional visual and sonic sensors that allow them to detect particularly dirty spots and change the mode of operation accordingly and to keep away from dangerous stairs.

The net result is that Roomba reaches most of a floor regardless of room configuration. After a preset length of time (decided by whether the owner pressed S, M, or L), the Roomba stops and beep a few triumphant notes. The owner then removes the dustbin from the unit’s rear and empties it into a trash can. Newer Roomba models will automatically return to a charging base station after finishing.

The Roomba is not as effective as a traditional vacuum cleaner at deep cleaning, but it does a good job of picking up dust, lint, and carpet fuzz. It can sense stairs and other ledges and avoid them (with varying success), and it is also low enough to go under a bed or other furniture. If at any time the unit senses that it has become stuck (on rug tassels, for example), it no longer senses floor beneath it (it has been picked up), or it decides that it’s worked its way into a narrow area from which it’s unable to escape, it stops and beeps a mournful sound every minute or so to help its owner find it.

Over time, powerful samurai clans became warrior nobility (buke) who were only nominally under court aristocracy (kuge). When samurai begun to adopt aristocratic customs like calligraphy, poetry and music, some kuge also begun to adopt samurai skills. In spite of various machinations and brief periods of rule by various emperors, the real power was in the hands of the shogun and warriors.

Various samurai clans struggled for power over Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunates. During the 14th century seppuku, the ritual suicide, became more common.

Sengoku jidai (”warring-states period”) was marked by the fact that caste was still somewhat flexible. Those born into other social strata could sometimes make name for themselves as warriors and become de facto samurai. Formal bushido did not count for much when 150 warlords fought for dominance.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became a grand minister in 1586, himself the son of a poor peasant family, created a law that the samurai caste became codified as permanent and heritable, and that non-samurai were forbidden to carry weapons.

During the Tokugawa era, samurai increasingly became courtiers, bureaucrats and administrators rather than warriors and the daisho, the paired swords of samurai (katana and wakizashi) became more of a symbolic emblem of power rather than a weapon used in daily life. They still had the legal right to cut down any commoner who did not show proper respect; in what extent this right was used, is unknown. When the central government forced daimyos to cut the size of their armies, unemployed ronin actually became a social problem.

Scholars codified the bushido in its eventual form in the Tokugawa era. Also, the most famous book of kenjutsu, Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, is from this period (1643). Still, the incident of 47 samurai caused some debate about the righteousness of their actions. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo is a manual of instruction into the way of the samurai. It illuminates one of the core practices of that way, known as shudo, or the way of the young. Shudo involved a young samurai choosing an older warrior as lover and mentor, a relationship so intense it often conflicted with a samurai’s devotion to his daimyo.

As the regional clans allied with each other and gathered manpower and resources, they formed a hierarchy centered around a toryo, or chief. This chief was a distant relative of the emperor and lesser member of one of three noble families, the Fujiwara, Minamoto, or the Taira. Though originally sent to provincial areas for a 4 year term as a magistrate, after completion of their term, knowing that they would only be able to take only sideline roles in the government, they decided to stay and not to return to Kyoto. Their sons inherited their positions and continued to lead the clans in putting down rebellions throughout Japan during the middle and later Heian.

Because of their military and economic power, the clans eventually became a new force in the politics of the court. Their involvememt in the Hogen Rebellion in the late Heian only consolidated their power and finally pit the rival Minamoto and the Taira against each other in the Heiji Rebellion of 1160. Emerging victorious, Taira no Kiyomori became an imperial advisor, the first warrior to attain such position, and eventually seized control of the central government establishing the first samurai dominated government and relegating the emperor to a mere figurehead.

The actual armies of the emperor on the other hand, were nothing but groups of conscripts assigned to provincial areas of Japan in case of war or rebellion. They were modeled after continental Chinese armies and were composed by a third of the able-bodied adult male population, however, in contrast to the imperial guards, each soldier had to supply his own weapons and support himself.

In the early Heian, the late 8th and early 9th centuries, the emperor Kammu sought to consolidate and expand his empire in northern Honshu. He sent his armies to conquer the rebelling Emishi (ancestors of Ainu) which proved unsuccessful due to their lack of motivation and discipline to fight. He introduced the title of shogun and began to rely on the powerful regional clans to conquer the Emishi.

These clans originally were farmers that had been driven to arm and protect themselves from the tyranny of the imperially appointed magistrates sent to govern their lands and collect taxes. Trained in mounted combat and archery, they came to be exclusively used by the emperor to put down rebellions, while the armies were eventually fully disbanded. By the mid-Heian, they had adopted Japanese style armor and weapons and laid the foundation of bushido.

For most of the later feudal period, the era of the rule of the samurai, the term yumitori (“bowman”) remained as an honorary title of an accomplished warrior even when swordsmanship had become more important. Kyujutsu, Japanese archery, is still an important part of the war god Hachiman.

Sushi is made up of three simple ingredients; rice, rice vinegar, and fish. So one would think that the cultivation of rice was necessary, however, the history of sushi begins before rice. The first “sushi or 鮨” might have been a salt pickled pork.

The first use of “鮨” appeared in the oldest Chinese dictionary “爾雅” believed to be written in 3rd or 4th century BC. It is explained as “魚謂之鮨 肉謂之醢”, literally “Those made with fish (are called) 鮨, those made with meat (are called) 醢”. “醢” is a sauce made from minced pork and “鮨” is a sauce made from minced fish. The Chinese character “鮨” is believed to have a much earlier origin, but this is the earliest recorded instance of that character being associated with food. “鮨” was not associated with rice.

Five hundred years later, in 2nd century AD, “鮓” appeared in another Chinese dictionary: “鮓滓也 以塩米醸之加葅 熟而食之也”, which translates as “鮓滓 is a food where fish is pickled by rice and salt, which is eaten when it is ready”. This food is believed to be similar to Narezushi or Funazushi and was eaten after removing the rice.

A century later, the meaning of the two characters had become confused and by the time these two characters arrived in Japan, the Chinese themselves did not distinguish between them. The Chinese had stopped using rice as a part of fermentation process, and then stopped eating pickled fish altogether. By Ming dynasty, “鮨” and “鮓” had disappeared from Chinese cuisine.

Origin of Sushi

In 718, the first written record of “sushi” in Japan appeared in the set of laws called Yororituryo (養老律令). As an example of tax paid by actual items, it is written down as “雑鮨五斗 (about 64 liters of zakonosushi or zatsunosushi?)”. However, there is no way to know what this “sushi” was or even how it was pronounced. By 9th and 10th century “鮨” and “鮓” are read as “Sushi” or “Sashi”. These “Sushi” or “Sashi” were similar to today’s Narezushi.

For next nearly 800 years, until early 19th century, sushi slowly changed and the Japanese cuisine changed as well. Japanese started eating three meals a day, rice was boiled instead of steamed, and most important of all, rice vinegar was invented. The time of fermentation gradually decreased and rice could be eaten as well. Soon, Oshizushi was made by using vinegar and skipping the fermentation process. This new process gradually took shape in Muromachi period. In Azuchi-Momoyama Period, Namanari was invented. In 1603, a Japanese Portuguese dictionary was published and this had an entry of Namanrina Sushi, lit. half made sushi. This namanari was believed to be fermented for a period less than that of narezushi and possibly marinated with rice vinegar. It still had the distinctive smell of narezushi.

The smell of narezushi was likely one of the reasons for shortening and eventually skipping the fermentation process. It is commonly described as “a cross between blue cheese, fish, and rice vinegar”. A story from Konjakumonogatarisyu written in early 12th century makes it clear that it was not an attractive smell, even if it tasted good. A man visited a friend in Kyoto and got on a horse to go home. A drunken woman sleeping nearby woke up startled and got dizzy and she vomitted on a bowl of narezushi she had been selling on foot. Instead of throwing away or trying to scoop out, she quickly mixed it into narezushi. The man stingingly pointed out that narezushi was like a pile of spit to begin with and those who bought them most have eaten them anyway. He would from this point on, tell any one who would listen to him to not to buy a narezushi from anyone or any store.

From Oshizushi to Sushi

In the early 18th century, Oshizushi was perfected in Osaka and it came to Edo by the middle of 18th century. These sushi were sold to customers, but because they still required a little fermentation time, stores hanged a notice and posters to customers on when to come for a sushi. Sushi was also sold near a park during a hanami period and a theater as a type of Bento. Inarizushi was sold along oshizushi. Makizushi and Chirasizushi also became popular in Edo period.

There were three famous sushi restaurants in Edo, Matsugasushi (松が鮓), Koube (興兵衛), and Kenukisushi (毛抜き) but there were thousands more sushi restaurants. They were established in a span of barely twenty years at the start of the 19th century. Nigirizushi was an instant hit and it spread through Edo like wildfire. In the book Morisadamanko (守貞謾稿) published in 1852, the author writes that for a cho(100 by 100 meters or 10,000 square meter) section of Edo there were twelve sushi restaurants, but that only one soba restaurant could be found in 12 cho. This means that there were nearly 150 sushi restaurants for every soba restaurant.

These early nigirizushi were not identical to today’s nigirizushi. Fish meat was marinated in soy sauce or vinegar or heavily salted so there was no need to dip into soy sauce. Some fish was cooked before it was put onto a sushi. This was partly out of necessity as there were no refrigerators. Each piece was also larger, almost the size of two pieces of today’s sushi.

Well I hope you have been rick rolling your dumb little friends. If not, watch the above video n00b.

The new way is to Barack roll the people that disagree with your political convictions. Why argue about politics when you can just slam a silly video in-front of them!

John McCain gets Barack roll’d in this EPIC video. 10 million people just became democrats.