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presleepthoughts · 6 years ago

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i’m really just living for powerless and i need more. oxygen may run out soon. need it now. 😂😂

Dude 😂😂 I literally thought you were talking about yourself. Like you were powerless and I was like “What? What are you talking about?”. I needed a second to realize 😂

Thanks for liking it so much but it’s not worth dying over 😂 jk.

As always I’d love to hear your thoughts. I love seeing your reactions and it makes me feel happy when I get to talk to you. So please, leave some comments and we can chat.

Powerless - Chapter 4

Waking up feeling better than ever, Beca stretchedher muscles high over her head and was pleasantly surprised to found out thatshe wasn’t sore. Energy was crushing through her veins and she felt ready tostart the day.

As she turned on her side to leave the bed, thedoor busted open bouncing off the wall with a loud thud. Two men rushed intothe room and grabbed her by her shoulders, roughly trying to yank her to thefloor.

Beca screamed in fright and instinctively foughtback, leaning backwards to get away from their hold. One of them seized herwrist and pulled hard but Beca quickly pushed forward with her palm against hischest, sending the man tumbling into the wall. The other man halted at theunexpected counter attack and Beca took advantage, pushing him to the floor,hearing a satisfying crack as his head smashed backward, knocking himunconscious.

Breathing heavily, Beca stared at her palms equallysurprised and afraid at the ability she didn’t have a few days ago. Not wantingto waste a second before one of them got up and stroke again, Beca spring outof the bed and without thinking, jumped out of the window.

She closed her eyes mid-air and when she openedthem, she was on the ground and her bones still intact. Glancing up at herwindow, she spotted him watching her with fury displayed on his features. If hewas surprised about her ability, he hid it well.

“Watch your back, 24. I’m going to put you backinto the lab today even if I have to drag you myself.” An evil smirk appearedon his lips, which caused a shiver to ran down Beca’s spine. “We have some newexperimenting to do.”

Beca clenched her jaw and tore her gaze away,running from the backyard towards the school.

“Here you are! I’ve been trying to reach you sinceyesterday, you jerk. You had me worried!” Stacie exclaimed angrily as shestopped behind Beca, who was standing in front of her locker putting her booksaway.

The brunette turned around and rolled her eyes. Shetried to disguise her jumpiness and fidgeting all day long, watching over herback with one eye, his voice loud and clear in her mind. “I texted you where Iwas. You know why I had to leave.”

“It doesn’t matter. I was still worried.” Stacielowered her tone, her features softening slightly. “What happened?”

Beca shook her head and directed her eyes to thefloor. “Nothing that I couldn’t handle. It’s over anyway.”

Stacie swept her eyes over her petite figure,trying to find anything that would give her a hint about what happened. UsuallyBeca was forthcoming with details to Stacie but withdrawn when she reallydidn’t want to talk about something. Knowing prying wouldn’t lead to anything, Staciedecided to leave it for today. Beca would tell her if she wanted to.

While they stood in silence, Stacie noticedsomebody from the corner of her eyes and turned to the left, catching ChloeBeale walking by them, sending a smile toward Beca, causing the smallerbrunette to blush slightly and send a smile back. The leggy brunette mouthgaped open as the redhead disappeared down the hallway.

“Did Chloe Beale just smile at you? Okay, when didthat happen? Wha – Beca?”

Beca turned camisole and shut her locker, headingtoward the cafeteria for lunch. “I – um ran into her yesterday. Turns out sheknows my name and everything. Totally didn’t see that coming.” She left out thepart where Chloe found her unconscious on the floor.

“Beca, she’s the hottest girl in school.” Stacieinformed her with her eyebrow raised. “Well, beside Aubrey…and of course, me.But how did you get her to like you?” For a second, she got lost inside herhead. “Just imaging if I was into redheads… We would rule the world.” Staciestated like it was obvious.

Beca chose to ignore the last part. “Wow, wow, slowdown. She does not like me. We only had one conversation and it wasn’t anythingspecial. Just regular…awkward small talk that I love so much. Besides, I don’tthink she’s even gay.”

Stacie deadpanned as they turned the corner andwalked through the cafeteria door. “Beca. Are you blind? Chloe loves people ingeneral. Just like me she doesn’t see gender, she sees the person inside.”

“And how would you know that?” Beca asked, grabbingher regular hamburger from the shelf.

Stacie shrugged. “We hang out in the same circle. She’ssuper nice. Not like all the other cheerleaders. She totally breaks thestereotype.” She bobbed her head.

“Just admit it she’s hot.” Stacie urged as theystepped outside the building onto the grass and sat down with their lunches.

Beca felt like the only thing she does when she’shanging out with Stacie is rolling her eyes. “Fine, yes, she’s super hot. Shehas a banging body and her eyes are like killer blue. Like you could drown inthem it’s so blue. Are you happy now?”

“Wow, so many compliments already? You haven’t evenasked me out yet.”

Beca’s eyes widen in horror as the distinctivevoice of Chloe Beale sounded behind her all of a sudden. Beca’sdeer-caught-in-the-headlights expression was priceless and Stacie clapped ahand over her mouth to try and hold back her laughter. She saw Chloe smirk downat the girl.

“Hey, Chloe.” Stacie smiled widely.

The redhead directed her gaze toward the leggybrunette and smiled genuinely. “Hi, Stacie. How are you?”

“I’m great, thanks.” Stacie answered, looking backat Beca. “That was the best thing I’ve seen in my life.”

Beca snapped out of her daze at the dig. “Hey! Notcool.” She whispered to her.

“Stace, do you mind giving Beca and I a second? You’llhave her back soon.” Chloe spoke up.

Beca’s eyes rounded as Stacie easily nodded andprepared to stand up. Beca seized her arm and tried to keep her down. “What thefuck? Don’t leave me.”

“You can thank me later.” Stacie whispered backbefore rolling her eyes at the dramatics and smiled eagerly at the redhead. “She’sall yours. Take all the time you need.”

Chloe thanked Stacie and sat down opposite Beca. Thebrunette had trouble meeting the redhead’s eyes after her comment that wasn’tsupposed to be overheard. Chloe originally wanted to tease Beca further, likingthe pinkness on her cheeks but as she took in the girl, her smile softenedremembering the last time they saw each other.

“Hi.” She said kindly, tilting her head down to tryand catch Beca’s gaze. “Thought I’d check up on you. Are you feeling better?”

Beca snapped her head back before waving her handdismissively. “Oh that… I – I’m fine. Totally. It was not a big deal.”

Chloe looked skeptical but nodded. “I don’t know.I’ve never fainted before but if you say so. Did you at least go to the doctor?Or at least the school nurse?”

“I didn’t but my dad’s a doctor…he checked me out.There’s nothing wrong. Just…too much happening at once.” Beca thought backabout the unexplainable affect her body went through two days ago.

“I can relate to that… I almost lost my mind duringfinals last year. Cheerleader championship were on the same week as my two lastfinals and Aubrey almost didn’t want to let me leave the gym. I had to studybetween breaks.” Chloe smiled as she recalled the stress she was under but nowshe could laugh about it.

There was a dull in the conversation before Chloesmiled cheekily. “What about my date then?”

Beca panicked, looking everywhere but at Chloe.“I-I…wh – “

“Beca, I’m totes kidding.” Chloe laughed beforesmirking. “But if you really want to…we can arrange that…” The redhead winkedat the smaller girl and passing her a piece of paper. “We go to Tommy’s Burger almostevery day with my friends. You can join if you want to. Call me.” She said beforegetting up from her place and leaving Beca dumbfoundedly watching her walkaway.

Gaping Beca glanced down at the paper founding tendigits wrote in pink ink with the name Chloeat the bottom. Beca scanned around, thinking it must be a prank that thecheerleaders were pressuring Chloe to execute and someone was going to jump outof somewhere and…do something; Beca didn’t know.

At the back entrance, she spotted Stacie watchingher and unconsciously she held up the paper. Stacie’s jaw hung open before shesquealed and ran up to her.

“No way! You scored her number?! Lucky bustard.”

“Stacie, I don’t know what to do with this?!” Becaadmitted awkwardly.

Stacie rolled her eyes then sat down in heroriginal seat. “It’s not rocket science. Just call her and she’ll take control.Chloe’s like that.”

Beca frowned her eyebrows at the little snippet ofinformation. “I didn’t know you knew her so well.”

“I don’t need to. I can see it in her eyes.” Staciesmirked. “She’s feisty.”

“Okay.” Beca said finally and stood up, leaving herfriend laughing behind her.

“Subject is currently unavailable.” The bodyguardspoke out strongly as he stepped inside the laboratory, the professor sittingat his desk going through research data.

“I said get her. Was I unclear?” His gaze remainedon the paper, tone ever so calm.

“She’s in school. It’s not advised to proccedfurther until she’s out of the building. She’ll be vulnerable and we can ambushwhen she’s alone.”

“Didn’t you see the security camera footage fromthis morning?” He turned to look at the man. “She’ll never bevulnerable…something happened to her and I need to find out what! She foughtoff two of my men that were twice her size and jumped out of the window withoutinjury. The trial was successful. I needher. Now!”

The guard’s face turned serious and he noddeddetermined. “Yes, professor.”

#bechloe #beca mitchell #chloe beale #Beca x Chloe #Pitch Perfect #pitch perfect 2 #pitch perfect 3 #spiderman #spiderman au #marvel universe #fanfiction #requests #ask me anything #send me asks #loved to hear from you

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uiuxpsychology · 5 years ago

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Fitz Law in UX

📜This law states: - - ⏱️The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. - ___________________ - ▶️Now - 🤔This just sounds like common sense, right?? - ⏳Of course, it takes longer to get to a smaller button than a larger one. - ☺️Stating the obvious, aren’t we?! - 👩‍🏫But remember what we are doing is explaining the whys of human behaviour that underlies our UX decisions. - 👩‍🎨Design decisions that may come ‘naturally’ to us, still need to be effectively communicated with by logic & data. - 🥩This increases 'buy in' from all stakeholders, decreases conflict in the product process + shows UX is both a science & an art. ___________________ - 🔦To demonstrate - ---- 1. Why do we want to fill in form fields that are designed as empty rectangles? - -It creates a perceived larger target area than a plain line -- - 2. There is a conundrum on mobile e-commerce product pages. If you did a 'card sorting' exercise you would find that the 'buy now' btn is the highest priority. But in order for a user to 'do' this action, he needs to understand how much the product is, why he should buy it & what it look like. Pushing the 'buy now' btn down the visual hierarchy line. - - What's the solve? - Sticky BUY NOW buttons! - Plus this solution utilises Fitts' law, increasing surface area & decreasing distance for a primary user goal :)) - ----- - 3. A key influence Fitts’ law had on desktop software, was the right click, pop out menu. Displaying actions needed in context of current tasks. Effectively reducing ‘travel time’ - -A trend on mobile is for options to appear as an icon task bar with the ones 'they couldn't fit' inside the infamous meat - hamburger, kebab, meatballs - mobile menus. By using action sheets, we decrease travel time & no. of clicks + increase clarity too! cred:@misaac85

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backroombuzz · 6 years ago

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Scientists Discover Sea Of Fresh Water Under The Ocean, But The Debate On Climate Change Is Over?

For years we've been hearing "Climate Change Is Real... Man Is The Cause... DEBATE OVER!" Now They're saying "Hey Look What We Found!"

Let me say this at the start. I'm not a denier, Climate Change is real and I want to clean up the Earth as much as anyone, but do it responsibly where millions won't die and I'm not riding a horse to work. But when I see islands today that climate change scientist told me 40 years ago would be gone, then, YES, call me a denier because before we sign off on fundamentally changing our way of life. I don't want to pick up a paper and read "Hey look what we found" just miles from where morons are telling us we only have 12-years-left, and if we don't change now... WE'RE DOOMED! While the man-made climate change debate is supposedly over (as if it ever started), they just keep giving people like me ammunition to say 'Wait. What?" Despite, the fact that they claim to be "Experts" not one of their vaunted "We're Doomed" predictions has ever come true: It's been 19-years since climate scientist Dr. David Viner predicted “ Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” It's been 49-years since Stanford’s academic Paul Ehrlich said in 1970 Between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.” The same Paul Ehrlich said in 1971 "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people." Oh, and lookie here, just a few weeks ago CNN hilariously used the same Paul Ehrlich As Their Climate Change EXPERT in one of their "Climate Change Doom-n-Gloom Specials" where they spent and an hour telling us a million species will die in the next decade. Just one more from Paul Ehrlich just to prove exactly the type of "Expert" CNN used to prove how Humans suck. Ehrlich stated as fact:“By 1980, all important animal life in the sea will be extinct.” Umm, that'll be a NO! The AOC of climate change scientists. One of my favorite predictions,only because it's more recent and whenever one of their Doom-n-Gloom predications utterly falls flat on its face. Climate Change Scientists always use the excuse: "Our climate models are far better than they were back then because we know so much more, so 'NOW you can absolutely trust us because NOW we 100% know what is going to happen in the next 10, 20, 50 and 100 years.' Except... “More heat waves, no snow in the winter… Climate models… over 20 times more precise than the UN IPCC global models. In no other country do we have more precise calculations of climate consequences? They should form the basis for political planning… Temperatures in the wintertime will rise the most… there will be less cold air coming to Central Europe from the east…In the Alps winters will be 2°C warmer already between 2021 and 2050.” Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, September 2, 2008. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); A little over a week ago these same scientists announced

Scientists have discovered a sea of fresh water under the ocean

As told in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports: Scientists from Columbia University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (an organization considered to be the leading expert on Climate Change) spent 10 days on a research ship towing electromagnetic sensors from New Jersey to Massachusetts. By measuring the way electromagnetic waves traveled through fresh and saline water, researchers mapped out fresh-water reservoirs for the first time. It turns out the subterranean pools stretch for at least 50 miles off the US Atlantic coast, containing vast stores of low-salinity groundwater, about twice the volume of Lake Ontario. The deposits begin about 600 ft (183 m) below the seafloor and stretch for hundreds of miles. That rivals the size of even the largest terrestrial aquifers. The size and extent of the freshwater deposits suggest they are also being fed by modern-day runoff from land—and may exist elsewhere with similar topography.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Wait. What? NOW are saying "Look what we found!" After 50 years of climate science running amok telling us they know EVERYTHING about Climate Change and that man is evil, and their Doom-n-Gloom predictions are indisputable. NOW they're saying "Hey, Look what we found!" Since like FOREVER these same scientists have been saying "We are running out of fresh water... And it's all your fault so you better get used to drinking "AOC brand Toilet Water" But they already told us they have all the date and KNOW EXACTLY what will take place to the point where morons such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are proposing a "Green New Deal" bill which will absolutely 100% KILL millions of Americans. I'll assume because the 'Ends Justifies The Means,' and since the climate change, experts have ALL THE DATA everyone is just peachy with those millions of deaths, because, after all, 97% of Climate Change scientist agree billions will die because the "experts" have all the answers. All except missing the biggest freshwater aquifer on the planet! Oops! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); The Gulf Stream... The Gulf Stream... My Hairs On Fire... Then we have all those scientists who claimed that man-made climate change is changing the gulf stream that runs up the east coast of the United States, causing the world to heat up, which will result in all ocean life dying. Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years, studies show Warm current that has historically caused dramatic changes in climate is experiencing an unprecedented slowdown and may be less stable than thought - with potentially severe consequences Now, these same scientists discover a freshwater aquifer that covers hundreds of miles that's sitting right next to the very same gulf stream? I guess they will tell us putting a body of fresh water hundreds of miles long that next to the gulf stream doesn't change a thing in their 100% accurate, you can't deny it, we're doomed, climate change models? I'll give you a scenario so people will have a clearer picture of what a game changer this discovery is. Google Earth has pretty much rendered a nearly complete 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. If Google Earth had been saying: "We know exactly what the Earth looks like. We have exactly this much land available and in 50-years there will be no more land for man to occupy." "We're running out of the land, we must fundamentally change our way of life. We much conserve every inch of open space in order for our children to have a future" But if you happened to say "Oh, but what if in the future we discover more land?" you would be labeled a "land denier," and more than a few would suggest you be jailed for your blasphemy. Google, Twitter, and Facebook would delete your account because your a fake news "Fox News watching, Land Denier." They will scream Google Earth are the EXPERTS, and while they may have claimed in the past that "we will run out of land in 1998," they weren't wrong they just didn't have as complete a picture as they do today. Then they will pull out their soapbox and scream: NOW WE DO! IF WE DON'T CHANGE NOW! BY 2100 THERE WILL NOT BE ANY LAND LEFT. Period. End of story. Then Google Earth happens to announced today: We discovered the long lost continent of Atlantis. It was sitting right there, in plain sight, just floating in the middle of the Atlantic... Who Knew! I think many people would immediately ask "How in the hell do you miss a whole continent? And of course, they will also ask "So what else haven't you discovered, or DON'T KNOW? But today they're proposing to throw my ass in jail because I'm a supposed "Climate Change Denier" for asking "How can you be sure you have all the data?" How about we start by demanding these scientists explain how after the American taxpayer gave them BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in grant money, and they missed the biggest fresh water aquifer on the planet just miles from where they were telling us we're doomed, and millions must die to 'Save The Planet"? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Read the full article

#AtlanticOcean #ClimateChange #ClimateDenier #DoomandGloom #GreenNewDeal #GulfStream #SaveThePlanet #Seaoffreshwater

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evoldir · 3 years ago

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Fwd: Job: UHamburg.Phylogenetics.ExtendedDeadline

Begin forwarded message: > From: [email protected] > Subject: Job: UHamburg.Phylogenetics.ExtendedDeadline > Date: 1 June 2021 at 06:52:06 BST > To: [email protected] > > > > Deadline extended to June 6th, 2021: > > The Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) > seeks to hire a scientist in phylogenetics (w/m/d), at Hamburg > > The Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) > will be established in July 2021 as an integration of the Center of > Natural History of the University of Hamburg (CeNak), Hamburg, into the > Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig – Leibniz Institute for > Animal Biodiversity (ZFMK), Bonn. As such, the LIB will be a foundation > under public law and a research museum of the Leibniz Association. The LIB > will contribute to biodiversity research with its extensive collections > and through its research fields of taxonomy, morphology and molecular > science. LIB will further contribute to the conservation of global > biodiversity, to documenting and analyzing evolutionary and ecological > biodiversity change, and engage in science transfer activities on > biodiversity change and its potential causes. > > The LIB is looking for a scientist for a tenure track position in > phylogenetics, representing this field of research at an internationally > competitive level. The position holder will play a leading role in > advancing molecular research at highest scientific standards at the LIB. > > The successful candidate will closely collaborate with the LIB research > sections covering the entire animal diversity, apply and develop > advanced phylogenetic including genomic methods providing services and > collaboration to a broad range of projects at the LIB. > > We expect the candidate to > * hold a PhD in Zoology, Molecular Genetics or a closely related field > with strong emphasis on phylogenetics and phylogenomic methods; > * have advanced knowledge in the application and development of > phylogenetic methods for the analyses of molecular genetic and genomic > data for evolutionary and population genetic research; > * have relevant/extensive experience in the application of phylogenetic > approaches in biological systematics and related fields; > * have strong experience in data management and analysing DNA sequence > including also genome data; > * have experience in developing independent research projects and the > development of new methodological approaches; have experience in team > management and student supervision; > * have motivation to work in a team and take responsibility; > * closely collaborate within the LIB; > * instruct users in the usage of hardware and software for molecular > genetic data analyses > * excellent communication skills; > * acquire substantial third-party funding with other LIB researchers of > both localities. It is desirable that the applicant has/is: > * a good knowledge of the software R for programming, statistical > analyses or graphical visualization of data; > * experience with soft money acquisition; > * fluent in English; a good understanding of German is advantageous. > > The section of phylogenetics is part of the Centre of Molecular > Biodiversity Research with its branches in Bonn and Hamburg providing > knowledge and infrastructure to all LIB researchers. The Centre for > Molecular Biodiversity Research contributes to the ongoing development of > the LIB as a globally leading institute for the study of biodiversity > change. The work groups of both localities closely collaborate in > developing future strategic developments and perspectives and in making > their particular experiences available to all researchers in the LIB. > > Applicants are evaluated based on how well they fulfil the requirements > detailed above. Such evidence may include documentation of completed > course work, scientific publications, technical and analytical know-how, > and evidence of organisational skills. Whenever possible, statements to > these effects should be accompanied by objective or independent assessment > of the candidate's track record and potential. These may include links > to access published or unpublished material or letters of support from > supervisors or previous employers. The tenure procedure will evaluate > the above listed essential criteria. Working language is English, German > language skills should be acquired on long term. > > The Leibniz Association is committed to diversity and gender equity. The > LIB is certified as a family-friendly institution. We aim to increase > the proportion of women in areas, where women are under-represented > and to promote their careers in particular. We therefore strongly > encourage women with relevant qualifications to apply. Applications > will be handled in accordance with the Landesgleichstellungsgesetz NRW > (State Equality Act). Applications from suitable individuals with a > certified serious disability and those of equal status are particularly > welcome. Initial salary corresponds to grade TV-L E 13 in the German > Public Service Scheme. The contract will start as soon as possible, > earliest on July 1st 2021 and will initially be restricted to three > years. A tenure track will be subject to personal performance. > > Applications in English, accompanied by supporting documentation (CV, > certificates, lists of publications and funding) and a concept for > the molecular genetic research at the LIB Hamburg should be submitted > no later than June 6 th 2021 only digitally to Sandra Middelhoff: > https://ift.tt/3e2e2im > > For further information about ZFMK and CeNak please see: > https://ift.tt/3uSMD8x and https://ift.tt/2SLvw7D > > -- > Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig > - Leibniz-Institut für Biodiversität der Tiere - > Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn, Germany > www.zfmk.de > > Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts; Direktor: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof > Sitz: Bonn > > Meusemann Karen > via IFTTT

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datasciencecoursesinhamburg · 2 months ago

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#data science courses in Hamburg #online data science courses #best data science courses #data science courses in Europe

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digitalenergynet · 4 years ago

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Smart Mobility Startups: What’s Next?

Detroit Techstars Mobility Startup Accelerator ended the summer innovative and iterating, and 12 participating companies are now bustling on the way to the market. In this article, we will discuss the 8 leading mobility startups that we think are disrupting the transportation industry. The Hamburg start-up offers companies and cities a platform to offer their own mobility services to their end customers. IRider – IRIDER is a start-up that develops intelligent solutions for manufacturers of e-bikes, scooters and motorcycles, taking advantage of the boom in urban cycling. Sources: 0, 9, 12, 13

Big data can mean learning more about how users behave in order to create shared mobility, and smart mobility service developers should keep an eye on these actors. Fleetonomy provides artificial intelligence-based solutions to generate more insights and generate new revenue streams by introducing new smart mobility services, maximising the value of their services to their customers by increasing efficiency and generating more insights, the company says. Sources: 15, 17, 19

Sustainable mobility is the key to a better future, and startups can be the source of new concrete solutions. Innovation analysts have recently looked at emerging technologies and emerging – and – emerging startups working on solutions for smart cities. These watchdogs are likely to succeed, and 44% of mobility start-ups are on track to transform the future of transport. Sources: 2, 5, 23

Ford was looking for start-ups and developers who could develop apps for use in cars and help lead the mobile innovation. They spent three months developing a transportation solution that aligns with Ford’s vision of implementing autonomous mobility technologies. Sources: 6, 13

Ford has since joined forces with a number of other automakers to further explore a variety of connected car features. Lunch series showcases Ann Arbor mobility startups that are changing their business strategies to change market and consumer demand. Sources: 2, 8

Today, many of the IT start-ups assembled in the region are working hard to bring self-driving cars closer to their customers. With Ford’s recent announcement of its partnership with Google to drive the next generation of smart car technology and connected cars, some are trying to build their strongholds within the emerging mobility ecosystem. Sources: 1, 7

According to Israel Duanis, CEO of Fleetonomy, the company’s platform contains everything needed to run an intelligent mobility service. There is a clear trend: actors outside the automotive sector are the ones with the greatest potential for success for the next generation of intelligent transport. Sources: 1, 14

CRADLE plans to integrate its technology into Hyundai vehicles, whether in software or the cloud. AI and smart mobility will play a prominent role in the next generation of intelligent transport, “said CRADle’s co-founder and chief technology officer. Sources: 22

Mobility, especially in cities, will become smarter to become sustainable again, and mobility start-ups that can facilitate this will be desirable partners. The Netherlands offers a wide range of opportunities to foreign companies looking for the future of intelligent mobility. For foreign companies that want to adapt and innovate, it is a great example of how to implement smart mobility. Other mobility companies are attractive because they focus on the needs of potential partners rather than offering value. Sources: 2, 10, 11

Based on our dive, Smart Cities Dive has compiled a list of seven start-ups that represent the mobility challenges cities are likely to face in 2021. After visiting a number of smart mobility start-ups in the Netherlands and other cities around the world, we would like to draw some conclusions about their future plans and potential partners. Sources: 4, 20

Immense is an urban mobility start-up founded in the UK that offers a fully integrated city simulation. Ambitions and actions like these could perfectly sum up the path that sustainable mobility start-ups have to travel daily and quickly. Their ambition to become a smart mobility company was clear when they chose Silicon Valley as their new location. Sources: 5, 7, 16

To keep up with their counterparts in the automotive industry at Ford Motor Company, they need to develop intelligent mobility solutions. Ford Smart Mobility LLC has the ability to operate as an autonomous start-up at the same time, but has the advantage of having a large automotive company behind it. With this newly created subsidiary, Ford will compete with companies such as Uber, Lyft and others that have ventured into the field of smart mobility. As a result, Elemental Excelerator is doubling the number of mobility start-ups and is supporting them this year with a $100,000 grant from the US Department of Energy’s Science Department. Sources: 3, 21

Silicon Valley has many, many startups, which of course means that there are many open innovation organizations that are. There are a few reasons why we are enthusiastic about mobile start-ups: Many entrepreneurs are already trying to improve the logistics industry, and Silicon Valley, like many other cities, has had many for many years. We often exceed mobility in social, civil and community contexts at its best, and intelligent mobility is a great example of this. Although the Smart City offers many opportunities to improve people’s mobility, we often forget mobility forever. Sources: 6, 7, 15, 18

Cited Sources

https://www.wardsauto.com/vehicles/france-s-best-mobility-startups-pitching-us 0

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/start-me-up-where-mobility-investments-are-going 1

http://pcs-services.org/egg-white-ticta/f75e9e-mobility-startups-meaning 2

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/5-startups-unlocking-mobility-revolution 3

https://inseadssup.com/2020/09/14/the-smart-mobility-ecosystem/ 4

https://www.futuroprossimo.it/en/2020/06/5-startup-di-mobilita-sostenibile-che-possono-cambiare-il-mondo/ 5

https://www.axisinnovation.com/the-future-of-mobility-and-ford 6

https://news.hyundaimotorgroup.com/Article/Hyundai-Cradle-Dreams-of-Mobility-Future-in-Silicon-Valley 7

https://www.marketingdive.com/cms/sectors/automotive/23590.html?referrer_site=www.mobilemarketer.com 8

https://www.eu-startups.com/2019/07/10-mobility-startups-to-look-out-for-in-2019-and-beyond/ 9

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/the-future-of-mobility-is-at-our-doorstep 10

https://investinholland.com/news/a-dutch-model-for-smart-mobility/ 11

https://movmi.net/top-mobility-startups-2019/ 12

https://xconomy.com/detroit-ann-arbor/2016/09/26/catching-up-with-2016-techstars-mobility-class-what-did-they-learn/ 13

https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/resources/9-smart-cities-startups-are-reshaping-cities-we-know-them/ 14

https://aftertheflood.com/journal/smart-mobility-starts-with-the-city/ 15

https://stfalconcom.medium.com/7-best-mobility-as-a-service-startups-that-will-make-you-join-the-market-right-away-b5094b274401 16

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/65-global-startups-set-to-share-mobility-innovations-at-2019-automobili-d-300769165.html 17

https://www.seedstars.com/content-hub/life/mega-cities-emerging-markets-what-are-perspectives-smart-mobility/ 18

https://www.whataventure.com/blog/future-of-mobility 19

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/7-mobility-startups-to-watch-in-2021/592206/ 20

https://www.elkgroveford.com/ford-creates-new-subsidiary-company-for-smart-mobility-projects 21

https://www.cta.tech/Resources/i3-Magazine/i3-Issues/2019/September-October/Automakers-and-Startups-Align 22

https://www.startus-insights.com/innovators-guide/4-top-smart-mobility-startups-working-on-solutions-for-smart-cities/ 23

#startup #smart city #smart mobility #ai #bigdata

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markdecastroweb · 5 years ago

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Why I missed out on a weekend $22,000 lottery win, and 5 lessons you can learn from me

How did you get on with last weekend’s game?

I missed out winning over $22,000 in a weekend game - because I was too busy to play. My numbers came in, but my tickets (and brain) were on holiday!

I don't have an excuse. I had a trip up country the following day but I just didn't get round to buying the tickets as I tell everyone else to.

Like me, Kumaran missed out playing... and there's $500,000 he'll never see:

---

Hi Ken, Just thought I update you. The good news is 5 out of 6 (and the additional number) were in, in the last draw. The bad news is I had not bought the tickets. I'll be persistent from this time onwards... How do you do it Ken? Rgds Kumaran

---

And of course there's my friend Lester R who missed out on $1 million! You can see his sob story at the Testimonials page.

While any miss is disappointing, there are plenty of fish in the sea... many more opportunities in the next game, and the next. You've just got to climb back on the horse and try again.

Some players find it hard to bounce back after a losing streak. Others blame the weather or bad luck.

Sorry friend, it's all down to how often you play!

Here's how anyone can improve their persistence in 5 simple steps:

1) Believe that your winning day will come. As you've seen in the many testimonials on my web sites, my System works for many people. These winners to continue to play even when the last game was a no-win. They know the power of the System. They have stickability and persistence... and sooner or later it pays off.

2) Refuse to acknowledge misses. Whenever there are top people in their field, you can bet they got there through determination. Not all of them are exceptionally gifted, they're just hugely focused. Most have lost big-time in their lives, but fought on to make a comeback. Read any book on any of life's winners and you will discover the same thing... they all possess a gritty determination against huge odds. I get a few emails from Silverites who whine and whinge about not getting any wins, or having to pay too much. If they only realized that the lottery is the ONLY way to gain millions of dollars for less than the cost of a hamburger, they would sing a different tune!

3) Have a bigger goal. If you give up too soon, it's probably because you haven't set your winning target high enough. Tell yourself you are going to make it in two months! Then plan to make your winning a reality by playing more in the games that give you the best chance.

4) Get a ritual going. Go down to your local lottery shop at the same time each week. Go with the same friend each time. Park in the same spot if you can (or like me, walk - it's better for you). See the same assistant to have your tickets processed. Buy a paper and have a coffee afterwards in the same shop. These small rituals build on your play tactics so you'll feel as if you're missing out when you don't do it. That gives you an automatic incentive to keep going. Once you've done this a number of times, it will be easy to continue happily through the no-win periods.

5) Enjoy the game. You might only play 3 games before you build up a good winning streak... or you may need to play more. But whatever the number it takes, remember - it's not rocket science. You don't have to perform any mumbo-jumbo to do your tickets using my system. Trust the system to work for you.

One more tip... if you have had a string of bad luck in your past, don't worry. Winning a lotto game does NOT depend on how much bad luck you've had in your life.

Luck only plays a tiny part. As long as you keep moving and trying each week, you will make your own good luck.

Winners do more, play more, work harder. That's all you need to do too, to change your circumstances.

Could you win the lottery in 8 games out of 10? Why I missed out on a weekend $22,000 lottery win, and 5 lessons you can learn from me published first on https://188lotosite.tumblr.com/

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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Dog Ownership Associated With Longer Life, Here Are The Caveats

https://sciencespies.com/news/dog-ownership-associated-with-longer-life-here-are-the-caveats/

Dog Ownership Associated With Longer Life, Here Are The Caveats

Yes, I could make you feel better. Yes, I realize that I am quite cute. But before we establish a relationship, there are some things that you should know. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

PA Images via Getty Images

You dog! Two studies just published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes came out quite positive “fur” dog owners. Both suggested that owning dogs is associated with a longer life. But before you go “bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay” over these findings, make sure that you understand what they really mean.

One study was an analysis of data from the Swedish National Patient Register. The authors included Mwenya Mubanga, Liisa Byberg, Erik Ingelsson, and Tove Fall from Uppsala University, which is pronounced “Oops” (as in “Ooops, I did it again”) and “-ala.” Agneta Egenvall from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences was also an author. The Register had 154, 617 patients from 40 to 85 years old who had had heart attacks (i.e., acute myocardial infarction), 5.7% of whom had owned dogs, and 154,617 who had had an ischemic stroke, 4.8% of whom had owned dogs between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2012.

The results were sweet for the Swede dog owners. After suffering the heart attack, those living alone were 33% less likely to have died during the follow-up period if they had a dog versus didn’t have a dog. Those who had a partner or child (it is not clear how often the partner acted like a child) the likelihood was 15% lower for dog owners. For those who had suffered a stroke, the numbers were 27% and 12%, respectively.

The second study was a systematic review conducted by three researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada. A systematic review is when you search for all published studies that address a particular question of interest and meet some specified criteria and pool the results together. The research team found ten scientific studies published from 1950 to May 24, 2019 that compared survival between those who owned dogs and those who did not. Pooling these studies together revealed that dog owners had a 24% lower likelihood of dying from anything, 65% lower likelihood of dying after a heart attack, and 31% lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular-related issues during the period of time that they were followed. Of course, eventually death like taxes (well, actually not like taxes) is unavoidable. Dogs may be the Shiz-Tzu, but they cannot prevent death forever. These findings simply showed dog ownership to be associated with more people living beyond particular follow-up periods.

To the best of my knowledge, dogs did not directly fund either study. I asked several dogs for comments on the study. One of them growled. Another looked at me like I was a hamburger. A third seemed distracted.

Before you say that this proves that dogs can help you live longer, let’s press the paws button. All these studies show are associations, not cause-and-effect. There are many things that can be associated with both dog ownership and living longer. For example, if you have a very stressful and time-restricted life, you may not have the energy and bandwidth to own a dog. After all, you can’t just leave the apartment and house each morning and tell your dog, “OK, the keys to the car are over there, feel free to make yourself breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and oh, don’t watch too much Game of Thrones.” Similarly, owning a dog is not free and requires resources. Therefore, dog ownership can be a proxy for what resources you may have. It may mean that you have large enough living quarters and can afford everything that you need to provide your dog such as food, veterinarian visits, and very small tuxedos. After all, household income alone can not tell what resources someone may have. As you know, people may inherit lots of things.

Nevertheless, as I have written previously for Forbes, there are reasons why dog ownership may bring potential health benefits. They can provide companionship when you feel alone. They can get you moving around because, at the very least, they need to be walked. You don’t want to find out what happens when you never walk your dog. They can also facilitate social connections with other humans. For example, one of my medical school classmates once bought a dog specifically to meet women. By the way, it worked.

Here is a Harvard University report on how dogs can help:

Be careful though. Dogs cannot and should not be a replacement for human contact. It may be tempting to have someone around who won’t actively disagree with you, or at least not voice it. At least, you don’t hear when your dog mutters, “my owner is a bleeping idiot.” However, dogs cannot provide everything that humans can. Owning a dog should not mean that you can neglect other humans or treat them like dog poop.

Additionally, everyone is different and has different life situations and needs. Dog ownership is not for everyone. Like any relationship, both sides have to be vested in the relationship and not have hidden agendas. You actually have to want to care for your dog, which can be quite ruff if you are not into it. Your dog also should like you, and frankly not all dogs will. If your dog hates your guts, that can create some Real Housewives-like situations.

In the end, don’t be dogmatic about what observational studies like these two may suggest. Dogs can be so fetch, but they are not necessarily for everyone. A dog-human relationship is a two-way street. The Shania Twain song “(If You’re Not In It For Love) I’m Outta Here” applies here as well. Don’t just get a dog simply because you think a dog will help you live longer. That would be like getting married for the same reason.

#News

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europython · 6 years ago

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EuroPython 2019: Keynotes

We are proud to announce our keynote lineup for EuroPython 2019:

Getting Your Data Joie De Vivre Back!

Most of us work too much and play too little. When was the last time you smiled at something you made? Playing with fun datasets, especially big data sets, opens up weird new forms of technical recreation. Why not train an amusing model in a browser tab while you're waiting for that day-job Spark query to finish? I'll show you some data toys I've built using AI and interesting data sets: Most of them involve both backend data science and front-end visualization tricks. They range from poetry-composition helpers to game log analysis to image deconstruction and reconstruction. All of them taught me something, often about myself and what I like artistically, and sometimes about what "big data" actually means.

About Lynn Cherny

Lynn Cherny has had a distinguished career working in user research, data mining, and UX design at companies ranging from early internet startups like Excite.com to Adobe and Autodesk and Solidworks. Lynn was awarded a Knight Fellowship to the University of Miami in 2015, where she taught interactive data analysis and visualization courses. She also developed and taught introductory data science and NLP courses at EM-Lyon, a French business school, for 3 years. Lynn has written 2 books about early Internet communities and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford in Linguistics and an M.Phil. from Cambridge University in Computational Linguistics. She is regularly invited to speak at technical conferences on topics related to AI, Python, and data visualization. Lynn currently consults on AI and data science from Lyon, France; she is active on twitter as @arnicas.

AI in Contemporary Art

Over the past couple of years, there has been increasing interest in applying the latest advances in machine learning to creative projects in art and design. From DeepDream and style transfer to a GAN-generated painting selling for $430,000 at auction, AI art has moved beyond the world of research and academia and become a trend in its own right. Meanwhile, the contemporary art world's fascination with the social impact of facial recognition, recommendation systems and deep fakes has encouraged artists to explore AI critically as subject matter. This talk will give an overview of how artists and technologists are using and thinking about machine learning, its creative potential and societal impact.

About Luba Elliott

Luba Elliott is a curator, artist and researcher specialising in artificial intelligence in the creative industries. She is currently working to educate and engage the broader public about the latest developments in creative AI through monthly meetups, talks and tech demonstrations. This year, she is curating Impakt Festival in October, themed on post-truth and AI. As curator, she organised workshops and exhibitions on art and AI for The Photographers’ Gallery, the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and Google. Prior to that, she worked in start-ups, including the art collector database Larry’s List. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Modern Languages at the University of Cambridge and has a certificate in Design Thinking from the Hasso-Plattner-Institute D-school in Potsdam.

Why You Should Pursue Public Speaking and How to Get There

Fear of public speaking is the most common of all phobias. Want to speak confidently in front of the crowd? This talk shares tips on how to overcome the fear, and ways to get started. You will be prepared to brace presenting from a team meeting to a conference.

About Yenny Cheung

Originally from Hong Kong, Yenny is a full-stack software engineer at Yelp in Hamburg, Germany. Yenny has recently started her public speaking journey, so she still remembers how it was like to have stage fright. Since then, she has had the experience delivering keynotes and speaking at conferences like Europython, European Women in Tech, and PyCon.DE. She was also a guest speaker of the “Technical Lessons Learned on Pythonic Refactoring” episode of the Talk Python podcast, which has about 50,000 downloads.

Are women underrepresented in the High Performance Computing (HPC) community?

This study is the first attempt to understand the current gender demographics of the HPC community, and identify potential reasons and ways to tackle the gender imbalance. By listening to the people who constitute the community, the study offers a guideline on what the HPC community should focus on in order to become more attractive, accessible and useful to everyone.

About Athina Frantzana

Athina Frantzana has just completed her PhD studies at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her research focused on gender diversity in the High Performance Computing (HPC) community: the reasons for the gender imbalance, the problems this causes to the community, the benefits of increasing diversity, and the effectiveness of a range of approaches designed to improve gender diversity. She is also a co-founder of the Women in HPC (WHPC) Network and an active member of various organisations and initiatives which promote and support women in STEM. She works tirelessly towards achieving gender equality in STEM through her projects and by organising and participating in conferences, providing mentoring, taking part in outreach activities, writing articles and Wikipedia pages.

Python Performance: Past, Present and Future

Many past optimization projects are now abandoned or stale for different reasons: Unladen Swallow, Pyston, Pyjion, Gilectomy, etc. Victor also experimented register-based bytecode and FAT Python which he failed to finish. We will see what these projects have achieved, but also try to understand why they didn't complete. One common issue is the backward compatibility, especially the compatibility with C extensions.

Python now has a performance benchmark suite to track performance over time. There are mature solutions to optimize performance bottlenecks and works around the GIL limitation. PyPy is a drop-in replacement for CPython: it is way faster, fully compatible, and is now more efficient to handle C extensions (PyPy cpyext). Cython is a good compromise between speed and development time: it uses a syntax close to Python but emit faster machine code. multiprocessing makes easy to scale an application on multiple CPUs, and it supports shared memory since Python 3.8. asyncio is another approach to maximize CPU utilization using concurrency for I/O (ex: network and database connections).

The pickle has also been optimized in Python 3.8 (version 5) to reduce or even avoid memory copies. For scientific computation like numpy, numba and pythran can emit efficient code using SIMD instructions and GPGPU. There are also multiple on-going experimental projects. For example, the PEP 554 proposes to have multiple interpreter instances, called "sub-interpreters", per process, and run them in parallel: no single process-wide lock, but one lock per interpreter. The C API used by C extensions is also being reworked to hide implementation details and provide better forward compatibility. In the long term, it may unlock many new optimizations in CPython, and it may even allow to use the same C extension binary for CPython and PyPy.

About Victor Stinner

Victor Stinner is a Python core developer for 9 years. He is paid by Red Hat to maintain Python upstream (python.org) and downstream (RHEL, Fedora). Author of pyperf, faulthandler and tracemalloc modules, he is working on Python performance (https://speed.python.org/), security (http://python-security.readthedocs.io/ website) and stability (member of the Night's Watch, maintain Python CIs: Travis CI, AppVeyor, and the large fleet of buildbot workers). He is also mentoring Python contributors.

Enjoy, – EuroPython 2019 Team https://ep2019.europython.eu/ https://www.europython-society.org/

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evoldir · 3 years ago

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Fwd: Job: UHamburg.Phylogenetics.ExtendedDeadline

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iuphilanthropy · 6 years ago

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Another warm welcome from sunny Amsterdam

By Kate Jarvey

I can hardly believe it’s been over a week since I wrote my last blog. The days have rushed by and the learning curve has increased with each passing day and experience. Today was another beautiful sunny morning, and Amsterdam was looking its shining best as we took the easy tram ride to Vrije University.

The University has a very spacious feel to it with many open spaces for working alone or in groups. It was a real pleasure to meet with fellow students from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. Our colleagues and friends from Hamburg University were also there.

Everyone was welcomed by Professor Dr. Rene Bekkers. He went on to open the morning session by offering some very interesting insights into the differences between countries (US and the Netherlands) and specifically the differences in their values of philanthropy.

He emphasised that when the big questions about giving were addressed in Europe, research based answers were sought. The VU Philanthropic Matrix chart is an excellent example of the type of research conducted. The chart denotes evidence based answers to questions such as; what is the historical context of giving in Europe, how has that affected behavioural giving, and what are the consequences. Although research answers are available in the US, there is a case to say that research in general terms is not always used as the first informational guide to answers about philanthropy and giving.

Another fascinating comparative was made between the approach and funding of philanthropic studies at VU and universities in the US. At VU, philanthropic studies is incorporated in the department of Social Sciences. This department also houses many other research disciplines. The funding stream for research is directly linked to the number of students enrolled. In the case of Social Sciences, this is comparatively few students, especially when compared with say the School of Medicine. This is of course a fundamentally different system from the research funding streams available at US universities.

The VU Department of Social Sciences does receive some funding from the Ministry of Justice. This of course led to the question of the government seeking influence relevant to the funding provided. The answer was that the Justice Ministry is interested in the outcomes but not from an influential perspective, rather in terms of broader research outcomes.

More general discussion ensued with regard to Government in the NL. There was an unequivocal statement by Professor Bekkers to say that in the NL, people are satisfied with their government because it works! Furthermore, the higher tax rates paid in the NL (relative to US tax rates) are not a political issue.

To come back more specifically to the topic of philanthropy, one very interesting point was that corporate giving is very difficult to track as they are not obliged to report giving. VU has conducted corporate giving surveys on a two year rotational basis. However, this data is not deemed to be conclusive. The best available data shows philanthropic giving sourced as follows; 40% individuals, 40% corporations, 20% foundations and legacies. US giving by individuals would most certainly be much higher.

It was important to receive authoritative information about different countries having different giving patterns across the spectrum of philanthropic endeavours. There is so much to be learned from these differences. Of course the transformational work will be to apply this learning to our own philanthropic careers. I learned today that just honouring difference, although important, will not positively impact the racism, stigma, and ignorance that all to often defines difference in our world today. Taking positive learning from differences and applying it in our lives and our work can make a positive impact. As I reflect on these important messages I cannot help but continue to be in awe of this beautiful city, abounding in green spaces and rich history at every turn in the road.

#philanthropy #study abroad #amsterdam #research #difference

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yourbrotherzulu · 6 years ago

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A Woman and a Miracle

so... i just thought, I’ll give you a little context here. All y'all funky people don't even know where I am. Besides in a hammock in Peru. With a monkey.

But there is more than this monkey here. There is also the second monkey. I think they are a couple but have some beef at the moment.

There is a shaman. But he doesn’t like the word shaman.

There is a bunch of russians. They don't really smile so much. Like never.

And there is a woman. Well... THE woman. (not the monkey woman, although tecnically we’re all monkeys)

And there is of course:

A MIRACLE

(tadaaa, drums please!)

(thank you, thank you. yeah. alright.)

PART I

You see... miracles are for the truthseeker what data is for the researcher. It is evidence. Spiritual evidence (not the only one of course). Without miracles, faith is just a believe. But with miracles... faith becomes knowing. And life becomes a magic carpet ride. A magic magic carpet ride. Fireworks to the left, music to the right, signs all the way through.

And one thing becomes very clear.

That miracles actually aren't miracles. They are lawful events.

They are just the natural effects of causes set in ones inner realm. Every little thing happens according to laws. Within, without, everywhere, all the time.

If ones perspective towards reality shifts, the whole universe responses. If your perspective shifts to one that is closer to the truth, things immediately run more smoothly. If it shifts a little more, things run in flow state, meaningful coincidences happen, synchronicities, fireworks, music and shit like that. If one perspective shifts right to the center, you hit the jackpot and get a miracle that changes your life with a 180 in an instant. This is the magic of reality. If you have experienced this for a certain number of time, believing stops, knowing starts, knowing that one has a intimate relationship with the universe.

Knowing this, that the cosmos is aware, that the cosmos responds, that the cosmos cares enables one to accept its love. Knowing that you are deeply loved and having an ongoing experience of that

is the real miracle.

Living with this knowledge naturally, lawfully makes one a person touched by grace. The love you receive will overflow. The light that shines on you will reflect to anyone you come in contact with. That kind of person.

A person that perceives abundance instead of scarcity, harmony where once was chaos, beauty where once was disgust, peace where once was turmoil. It changes this persons frequency and makes them saintly, free of greed, ill-will, animosity. This person surely will act beneficial for himself and for others and thus will be someone who bears good fruits, as JC said it.

Miracles, they make one eager to learn more about the spiritual laws, and become more disciplined in their application. One wishes to uncover more and more of this treausure one has stumbled upon inside so that one day one fully realizes ones own Buddha-Nature.There is a little line, if that line is crossed one finds oneself fully in the gravitational field of the selfless Self, the One in the Many, the Soul of Souls.

Because of that, one begins to understand that there is a difference between the morality of religions and societies and the morality of the cosmos that encompasses the whole law of being-ness. One begins to understand that if one does good and contribute to the harmony, peace and happiness of our earthling-family, that includes our brothers and sisters of the animal- and plant-kingdoms as well, one gets rewarded. In the inner kingdom one experiences good vibes, good thoughts, good energy and in the outer realm of the kingdom one is blessed with good relations, harmonious circumstances and material wealth. One begins to understand the true meaning of the Kingdom, which is in fact a fractal. Understanding leads to love. Love leads to care.

And the Kingdom begins to care for one.

As a mother cares for her child.

As a master cares for his student.

As a lover cares for his beloved.

As a friend cares for his friend.

The Kingdom IS the mother, master, lover, friend for such a person.

And this is the beginning of heaven.

Just the beginning. But it changes everything.

That is the teaching. And there is a way. And that way, the beautiful Dhamma is a great jewel in each and every persons life who has come across it.

People will notice. Something is different with you. Wherever you go people will feel the natural mystic in the air. They feel there is no evil in you.

There is a Path. Attaining the Path is the first goal. And practicing it is of utmost importance.

"Practice! Practice a lot, Ananda" said the Buddha to His disciple "and you will find a master hard to find."

“Doing Good. Avoiding doing bad. Purifing oneself! This is the whole of the Dhamma” the Buddha said.

“Love! Love your neighbor as yourself and love your God with all your Heart and Strength and Might! This is the Law and the Prophets” the Christ said.

Practice! Love! Practice Loving! Love Practicing!

Until you cross the thin line and enter the stream.

Then all will be good.

Sotapana.

The Path leads to the line, merges into the stream that carries one to the ultimate.

Practice!

Morality. Mastery over the mind. Wisdom. These are the three disciplines.

...

just a sec

...

shit ran away with me a little

...

lets take a little break

...

la la la

...

intense shit, right?

hmm where were we?

lets start at the beginning...

PART II

ah ja, there were monkeys, shamans, russians (which are actually not important),there was a woman and a miracle.

And all that in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. Where else would one expect monkeys and shamans?

Ages ago, at least one lifetime, I was studying medicine back in Germany. I was quite good and managed it with surprising ease. But I was also a rebel. Ask my mother, she can tell you I already annoyed everyone in kindergarten. I was always critizising what I was doing and testing if the trench we all sit on is really suitable for the future. Many people liked it. Many didn’t. I never cared. I believed in my wings.

So I started researching other ways of healing. I believed in science. I believed in God already. I didn’t believe in religion. And I haven’t had found out yet, that science is a religion in itself. I researched, and smoked a lot of weed, I read testimonials of people who got cured of cancer in the jungles of South America, got healed by this or that ancient herb in God knows what mountain village or African bushtown. I knew people myself, who meditated their diseases away. I heard incredible stories and decided to take them seriously.

And one day I had to come and see for myself.

Now, many years later I am here. In Peru. I quit med-school long ago. I don’t need a professor anymore to teach me the reality of my body and mind. I don’t need a doctor who knows all the theories about health but looks like a bag of old potatoes. I close my eyes and meditate to see the reality of my mind and body. I open my eyes and tap into the present moment to see the reality of the world. I feel my body, use my body, stretch my body, exercise my body, fill my body with good shit, try to avoid bad shit. Try to find balance, stability, strength and ease in posture. I don’t need to study health. I need to practice it. From moment to moment

In Peru, in the remote center of Don Pepe, somewhere in the moskito-infested jungle, taking care not to kick a chicken with every step I take, I am witnessing some amazing stuff.

There is this old abuela. Yesterday I hold her sweating arm, while Pepe was treating her foot. You see, the foot is dead. I mean rotten-dead. Cut-it-off dead. Seeing-the-bones dead. The doctors wanted to amputate. Any sane person would advise this. But not Don Pepe. He was treating it. And the tissues were growing back. Every day. Little by little. The black stinking flesh is regaining color. Where there is no flesh, it is growing back. Fat. Nerve. Muscle. And this is just normal business here.

At night, when we drink Ayahuasca, I see jacked giants breaking out in tears, sobbing for their mother, facing the emotional traumas they have buried deep down in their souls and forgotten about it. At daylight I see them again. Changed. More open. Less dark. Lighter.

And although medical miracles... Not the miracle I want to share tonight.

The miracle has to do with the woman.

But I gotta go back in the days for that. Way back.

When I was studying medicine, I also fell in love with... drugs. Hamburgs techno-scene was hot, the music was fresh, the people cool. Still to this day I believe Hamburg has the dopest people of all cities on Earth. I was taken by it. The MDMA allowed me to open to others, connect in a way I never knew before. I felt as if I was part of something bigger, something beautiful. I felt beautiful myself. I was less tense. More smooth. People genuinely liked me all of a sudden. Chicks liked me. And I liked them. I loved them. I loved the music. I loved the dancing, the sweat, the sexyness. I loved the vibrations. I loved the rush. Not long until I was completely addicted to it.

I needed money. For entries. For drinks. For drugs. For more drinks.

I lied to my mother. I requested money for this or that new medical book, plastic sceleton, or whatever shit I came up with. When she stopped sending me money, because it was just too much, I had a drink with a friend of mine and the next day we bought a few hundred pills and pushed them in the clubs ourselves.

He stopped soon. He said, it destroyed the parties for him. I didn’t stop. I just started. For me it didn’t destroy the parties. It just changed the game to another level. At the beginning it was cool. It was just a side hustle, for a few minutes when I went from the dancefloor to take a piss and someone asked me for something in the bathroom. I was amazed that instead of spending a hundred bucks per night I went home with an additional hundred.

Then two hundred.

Then five hundred.

Then I realized that I can sell pills in Berlin for double the price, triple even, quadruple sometimes. In Hamburg we were family, we knew each other, we couldn’t rip each other off. But in Berlin, my hometown, nobody gave a shit.

Each friday morning, when I was finished raving in Hamburgs `”Baalsaal” I took a ride to Berlin, where I would keep on partying the weekend, to be back in university on monday morning.

In Berlin I made a thousand. Per night.

I always loved the Berghain. It was just another thing. More mature. More naked. Rough and sexy.

They had their own dealers. Not that they worked for the club, but they had their claims there. But soon I realized, they came quite late, because late is when the real party starts. But the tourists didn’t know that. And the tourists were the ones who needed shit. My shit. And I could ask any price I wanted. Because they had no fuckin’ clue. And there was nobody else anyway.

It was fuckin’ gold-rush

Before the first of the home-dealers arrived I already made 2 grand.

For what? For having a great time!

It took a few weeks and I didn’t give a shit about the dealers anymore. They knew me, they liked me, I liked them. I had my regular customers who would party every weekend and would get a line or pill for free every now and then.

Everyone knew me. Everyone knew my shit was awesome. Everyone was my friend. I felt like the coolest cat in the coolest club of the world.

I was shining. I was the sugarman. I was King-fuckin’-Kong!

And I literally had unlimited money.

And then I saw her. Sitting on a black, worn-out leather couch, between two good looking dudes.

Her face was a masterpiece. Her hair looked liked fuckin’ silk. You know, like in the commercials. Like L’oreal or something like that.

She had the vibe. Fresh. Light. And dirty at the same time, ‘cause there are only dirty people in this club.

Before I even said “Hi”, I was in love. Struck by lightning

I said I liked her face. It was a stupid line. But she liked it and smiled.

“I am Josi!” she said. And I was lost. She had me. She just needed to take it.

We talked and danced and heeell yeah

she had a groove.

A girl with a groove like that, a girl who knows how to bounce the shit out of the dancefloor, that is rare, like purple moons. They exist. I saw them. But only a few times.

Her life's goal, she said, "is just being in the Here and Now"

My God, I would have killed anyone for this woman.

I had already sold all my stuff that night and had now only eyes for her. I liked to pay for her drinks and get massive bundles of money out of my pocket. She was pushing dope herself and when she heard how much I already made that night she just couldn't believe it. Like she really didn’t believed it. Until I showed her all my money. I tried to impress her by telling her I sell dope since I was 14, which was true, but I stopped at 18 and started doing armed robberies instead.

She wasn’t focused, so I took the rest of her dope and pushed it within the next 30 minutes.

We drank so much. We snorted even more. I put two lines on the screen of my phone and she sniffed them both away with a single stroke. We laughed. The smiles in our faces wouldn't stop.

But we didn't go home with each other.

The whole week I was thinking about her. Monday, while looking into the microscope. Tuesday, while cutting of some fat of some old dead dude. Wednesday while reading stuff in the library. On Thursday Night I started my business, back in Hamburgs “Baalsaal”. On Friday Night I continued in Berghain. She wasn’t there. I should have slept afterwards. But I didn’t. Saturday Night, still without sleep, I walked like a zombie to Berghain. I had to see her.

As usual, I had shitloads of pills and powders in my bag. I always hid my stash in the bushes somewhere in walking distance to the club and would take only smaller amounts at once with me into the club, hidden in a secret pocket of my fluffy red jacket. But today wasn’t always. Today was pay-day for my sins.

I forgot to hide my shit.

When they checked my bag at the entrance, and they always check everyone, they pulled out hundreds of pills and God knows how many bags with speed.

As the police arrived, all I was thinking was

"fiNaLly...sLEep"

Not counting the countless nights I spend in cells of different police stations in Berlin, it was about to enter my second real jail-time.

My mind couldn’t process what was going on. I really couldn’t comprehend at all what was happening. Just a minute ago, I was havin’ fun, dancin’, bouncin’, makin’ cash and now... what? I mean... whaaaaat?

It was just too many drugs. Too many months, too many weekends, too many nights. At the end I took more than ten pills per night, not knowing how many lines of speed and other stuff. The stop was too abrupt. It was as if my life stopped from 200 to zero in a second and my mind just crashed through the front window and I was flying through a void without anything to tell me where the fuck is up and where is down.

The second night in prison, I took the pants of the pyjama, that they gave me, tied one nice knot around the bars and another one around my neck. When I jumped, I realized that the knot wasn't nice after all. I was sitting on my butt, hurting, thinking "fUck iT" and went to bed.

The next day I was brought to my permanent cell, and the first thing I did, as the warden stepped outside and closed the heavy door behind him, was making a really nice knot, but this time properly.

I hung a few moments from the bars, then my bodies adrenaline was having a word with me and instinctively my feet were reaching for the edge of the bed. After 7 very long seconds, they managed to get hold of it, slide it a little closer and finally stand on it.

“gODdaMn” I thought with a messy mind... “I hAve a pRoBlemmm”

On the same day, I went to the doctor, told him that I am not stable and definitely gonna kill myself in here. I told him the whole story, he seemed to be really cool. He put a red dot on my cell’s door so that the wardens would check every hour whether I was still alive and fresh or already dead and stinky.

The next day I was brought to a double cell where I would live together with an arab dude who got catched selling heroin in the subway for a wage of 50 bucks a day. He was alright. Jerking off every night like there is no tomorrow... on the top floor of our bunkbed. But otherwise he was decent..

There I was. Looking out of the window. Seeing nothin’ but walls and barbwire and grey clouds.

It was winter.

And the months passed by.

I was praying, begging, crying. I felt abandoned by God, whom I met in my first jail-time as an 18 year old. I had no hope. My lawyer told me, for sure it's gonna be a few years, especially concerning my criminal record. I couldn’t grasp my situation. Just a moment ago, I was a bright young man, studying medicine, on his way to become a childrens doctor or a surgeon or whatever, the pride of his mother... and now... in prison... because I sold drugs on dirty toilets to dirty people of whom I was the dirtiest of them all.

My mom was visiting me once a week. She developed an ulcer in her stomach due to the intense stress and worry her imprisoned child caused her. That ulcer made her breath stink like shit and when I was brought back to my cell I would cry for hours while realizing what I have done to her. Silently, without sobbing. I wasn’t alone in the cell after all.

And I knew what was I about to do to her next would kill her. But I was so done. My brain was properly fucked by tons of drugs. My life was properly fucked anyway. And God left me. I was in Satan's custody now.

There was no hope.

I waited for my cell's companion to go to a certain appointment. I planned everything carefully. I pushed everything out of reach this time. No bed, no chair, nothing. I whispered my last words: "Sorry. For everything."

And then...

I fell asleep. Right where I was standing.

And then someone gave me a heavy slap right in my face.

I must have fallen on the floor. Two big muscular men with the white dress of psychiatry-nurses where standing over me. One white man and one black man. Both of them had tattoos all over their visible skin and army-like haircuts.

"Yo!" the white man was barking at me.

"Get yourself together, fool! Get your fucking shit together. You can do this! You have the strength. Just get your fucking shit together. You’re here for a reason. Stop whining and start learning, fool!"

And I was like “whaaaat?”

Then they both took me at the collar and threw me upwards.

And I was thrown through the ceiling of my cell, even through the ceilings of the cells on top of that and through the roof and I was flying further and further up until I came to a hold around 200m above the prison, overlooking the whole district, the buildings, the cars and the tiny people that would move like ants all around. The air was crisp and birds were flying around me.

And then gravity kicked in.

"Oh shit!"

I was falling back down with an incredible speed, smashed back in my body, and woke up.

I was feeling fresh, energized and alive. There was hope after all.

For the first time in months there was a certain calmness in my mind.

I spent my days puzzling or writing love letters for all the arab inmates in my block, so that they could send them to their wifes outside, since every letter had to be in German, so that the wardens could read it before it would be sent. In return I received little jars of plum-jam or chocolates. Eating something sweet can be incredible nice in such a pale environment.

I returned to my regimen of workouts in the cell. Push-Ups and Sit-Ups. I stretched and bend.

And as my mind became clearer and clearer and more and more letters from my friends arrived I started to realized what I did on the spiritual level. You see, and I am kidding you not, I always took Jesus first miracle, when he turned water into wine into some kind of legitimation for taking drugs. But I just completely lost all measure. My friend, who stopped dealing after a few parties was wiser than me. I didn’t see clearly. I let my mind to be corrupted by greed, clouded by money. I reversed-enginereed the situation I was in and recognized, that for the last months I was only thinking about money, money, money. All day long I was calculating the numbers. How much I would spend on new supplies. How much I would earn in this club or that club and how long it would take to be really fuckin’ rich.

I read the many letters of my friends outside who were thinking of me and wishing me good luck. Before my arrest I degraded them all to mere customers. I recalled that when I met any of them I only cared about whether they need somethin for the next weekend. That was all. I didn’t hang out with them anymore if they didn’t buy stuff. I was a shell. God didn't abandon me. I abandoned him. And I didn’t even notice.

I smiled. Now I knew why I was here. Not because God stopped loving me. But because He was loving me so much, that he needed to correct me with some tough love. Because He cared, I was here. So that I can change. And become righteous once again.

A few weeks passed by and they revisited their decision whether to leave me in custody until the trial or not as it is the formal procedure in the land.

I was brought to a little court-room inside the prison.

Above the door of the room, where I would meet the judge was a triangle with an eye inside of it. And I knew God would be in there too.

The judge opened the procedure. He read my criminal records. All my arrests for fist-fights, for breaking in to cars or other stupid shit. But strangely my conviction for armed robbery was not in the list, although this was by far the heaviest crime of them all.

They had the results from the laboratory, he said. He didn’t smile.

Apparently I was selling pills the weekend I got arrested that were so heavily stretched that there was almost no real MDMA or other classified substance in any of them. The same was the case for the powders. I remembered, that on that weekend quite a few people came back to me and complained about the quality of the dope, or even wanted their money back.

You see, God works in mysterious ways. Especially when it comes to tweaking numbers. He seems to have a thing for that.

They had to let me go. The amount of substance in the drug was just too little.

Hope.

I couldn't believe it. They found at least two hundred pills and another hundred grams of speed and now they say it all was just smarties and baking powder.

What a miracle!

And still, not the miracle I want to talk about.

My mom picked me up from the prison gate. She was crying. Relieved. And disappointed of course. Realizing that she didn't know the young man in front of her who used to made her proud, who was to become a doctor, her little boy.

She made me clean up the garden. It was still freezing cold. The winter was long.

All I could think about was Josi. The angel I just met before I went to prison.

I called her. Her voice was cold. She didn't want to meet me.

And my heart fell together in itself like a ballon pierced by needle.

...

Although they gave me a lifelong ban in Berghain I managed to slip in a few times. Dancing in Panorama Bar I saw her standing with a friend on the little balcony from which one could see the whole dancefloor. She pointed towards me and I clearly heard her saying to her friend: "That's him! That’s the guy I told you about!" You see the F1-Soundsystem in that joint is quite remarkable and can erase those frequencies out of the music that are used when humans are talking with each other. This allows you to actually have conversations although the speakers are pumping sound like anything.

I knew that she knew that I was there. But when I approached her she pretended to be surprised to see me and I noticed how uncomfortable she was just talking to me.

I was desperate. So in love. And she didn't give a shit. It seemed. Some friends of mine told me she was always asking about me. I was confused. So confused. Maybe she was too... But I felt I am somehow still important to her.

Although I was not in jail anymore, I was still imprisoned.

Although I had received a little bit clarity of mind in the prison, it was all gone by now. The drugs took their toll. I had to pay my debts now. My mind was not functioning. My emotions were completely in chaos. My thoughts were dull and messy. I had problems to process language. My memory had no grip at all. All my attempts to do anything worthwhile failed. My relationships were bad. Most of my friends somehow abandoned me. I hated myself. I was a broken human being. Completely kaputt. I was staring right at it. And I just couldn't escape.

I started an apprenticeship in a carpentry workshop but I just couldn't make it work. Whatever I did, it was full of flaws, uncomplete, dirty and way too often I even damaged the work of others by accident or just mere mindlessness. I was slow, forgot too many things and noticeably wasn't mentally present. While my thinking had no power at all, the power of my emotions was way too much to handle and brought me down to my knees every day. I wouldnt pray. I would beg for mercy, whining and wailing. Especially in construction, where there is sharpness required and a lot of testosterone in the air, this emotional turmoil just completely fucked me. Every half an hour I went to the toilet to have a panic attack, to cry, to look in the mirror and saw some kind of clown I didn’t recognize. My co-workers started to talk behind my back. At first. Later they talked shit about me while I was standing right in the damn room.

I couldn't talk to friends, although there were a few who sticked with me, who were deeply worried. But I couldn’t accept their love. I couldn’t be loved.

I begged God for my death. Even for my mother to die, so that I could kill myself without hurting her.

Every free moment I was thinking about suicide. Or about Josi.

It was a Dark Night of the Soul. And a very long one.

I lived in a community then with a few people. My presence always had and still has a big impact on the atmosphere in a room. In those days for the bad. I was grumpy, frustrated with myself, alone, hopeless. The others were increasingly irritated by my presence, my moodyness, my tensions and I noticed that painfully every moment on every single day. And thus I stepped into darkness even more.

I wrote a letter. Took a kitchen knife with me. Went to the graveyard right around the corner, sat next to a tombstone, took a deep breath and was about to start the cut.

I closed my eyes.

All of a sudden I saw images. Vivid. Deep. Colorful. High Resolution. As if I would be right in them. There was an ocean, sparkling water, warm sunshine. An amazing coast. There were friends and me on a sailing boat. We were laughing. I saw myself in a nice room, playing guitar, singing. I saw myself in front of a canvass, painting, wearing torn clothes with red and green sprinkles on them. And a hat. I saw myself standing on top of a mountain. Watching the world in 360 degrees. I saw myself holding a child in my arms.

I opened my eyes.

I dropped the knife and felt hope once again that there might be a future for me, a life, in bright colors with red and green sprinkles. One day.

But for now everything was still grey.

A friend told me about a silent ten day meditation retreat. It was called “Vipassana”, she said. I had never heard about it.

And although I was always interested in meditation and yoga, I didn’t applied for the sake of meditating. All I wanted to everyone around me to shut the up for ten days. For me shutting up for ten days. For being alone. For not disturbing anyone with my mere existence.

Without that course I would be dead by now, that much I know. And now, many years later, I would go through all of it once more, just to be brought to this technique.

From the first day on afterwards, my cognition started to function again. Little by little but tangible. My emotions were still chaotic and I panicked a lot, almost every day. But whenever I remembered to apply what I have learned from Vipassana, my emotions immediately became less abstract, less overwhelming.

Emotions stripped away from there mental projections and reduced to physical sensations were something I could handle. My panick stopped being a violent rush of self-doubt, negative memories, bad projections of the future and started to be an increased heartbeat, a weird feeling in the stomach, coldness in my limbs. That was still unpleasant, but nothing that would whoop my ass.

What once were huge, dangerous monsters in my bedroom became just the shadows of a little dwarfs standing on my sideboard as soon as i switched on the light of awareness that Vipassana taught me.

I came back to life. I stretched and breathed. I meditated. I bought a guitar.

I wasn't able to write again, but I hoped... maybe one day I will have the strentgh, joy and confidence to speak once more. Maybe one day I my spirit would be strong again, so that I would dare to inspire. Maybe one day I would have a voice again.

The colors came back. One after the other.

But Josi didn't. She avoided me. Sometimes we met by coincidence. There was no affection from her at all. And I turned into a little puppy, needy for her affirmation, her confirmation that I would exist.

Back then I knew nothing about masculine or feminine energies. I didn’t know what a man was, or a woman, and that a true man or woman has always both energies in state of balance. I only knew I was in love with an angel that would rather eat glass alone then have a dinner with me.

But I kept on thinking and dreaming about her.

...

Fast forward a few years.

...

PART III

The Golden Gate Bridge was a fucking majestically thing. The bay sparkled blue and the sky was as blue as a sky can be. I loved San Francisco, especially when I could see it from my friends balcony in Oakland.

Visiting California was always on top of my bucket list.

I was feeling great that morning. I had a funny dream the night before and dreamt about Josi, what would happen every few months. After I woke up, still half asleep on the couch, I opened her Facebook page and saw that she had an Instagram account which I checked out for the first time. I saw hundreds and hundreds of professional model-photos. She made it. I was happy. At first.

It took just a few moments and I felt like a total loser. The images in my mind of her being with beautiful actors, models, fashion-creators or whatever society-shit there is, overwhelmed me. I felt small. I didn’t accomplish anything. I was just traveling the world, doing nothing worthwhile besides finding myself. While she must be quite wealthy by now, or having a rich man by her side, I had nothing to offer. The only thing I had was God, but at least the relationship between Him and I was improving for a while now.

Something inside of me wouldn’t have it. Something inside me wouldn’t crawl back under the blanket and feel sorry for myself. If she can pursue her dreams, than I could do the same thing.

I made myself a nice coffee, lit up a cigarette, booted my laptop and did something I haven’t done for years.

I wrote.

Nothing long. Nothing good even. But at least something.

I found my mind back years ago. My Heart some months ago while in India.

But my passion I found back that very morning.

I felt grateful. I enjoyed my life. Very much. But not to be able to write was always tormenting me in the back of my mind.

I stepped outside into a beautiful sunny day and decided to contact Josi after so many years. A textmessage wouldn’t be good. It needed to be something more personal. So I made a video for her and expressed my gratefulness for the Inspiration I received from seeing her following her dream. I believe to this day, that this is the best way to help others. By living oneself to fullest. Living life like it’s golden. I sent the video. Stepped into my car. And drove north where I would sit my second Vipassana-course, 5 years after my first one.

And again it completely changed my life.

That course, I realized already on the third day, would be one of the most important events in my life. I had a certain experience that is called "Bhangha". A complete dissolution of a solidified area next to my spine. I had a pain there that tormented me for two years. It couldn’t got cured by doctors, chiropractors or yoga-asanas. Vipassana is a pali-word, the language spoken by the Buddha and means as much as seeing things as they are. And by exactly doing this, observing the painful sensations, aware and equanimously... it just melted. It was as if I threw a tablet into a glas of water and what was a solid peace at first just bubbled away. That happened to other solidified spots too. I felt opened energy lines, the nadis, vibrating throughout my body. Sometimes it was as if it was raining the other way round, that thousand of tiny drops would leave my back and ascend to the sky. Bhangha!

Bhangha. One the most important and at the same time most dangerous experiences for a meditator. A milestone. That is why it is called little stream-entry. It shows one the true power of the technique, and thus one realizes what’s gonna happen if one continues with it. It shatters one’s view of the reality of ones own mind-body phenomenon. Naga-Rupa. And it is probably the most pleasant experience ever. Even if it just occurs partially, as it did to me. This amazing pleasantness itself and the simultaneously happening dissolution of unpleasant pains... that is why it is not only one of the most important experiences but also one of the most dangerous. They warn you! You can meditate wrong! You can create new impurities and tensions if you develop cravings for the sensations of it or for the progress that it seems to be! But somehow, during that retreat I didn’t hear that. I would pay a price for that. Much later.

In that retreat, I had a few openings of the third eye as well. I saw the structures and the fractals of the cosmos, the blueprint of creation, of myself, of God. I received the second represantion of the meaning of the Kingdom. But besides that it was just spectacular. I was thinking about fire and BOUM was sitting right in front of a camp-fire, feeling the warmth, hearing the crackles, seeing the vivid red and orange of the flames. I was thinking about water and BOUM was standing naked right in a waterfall, feeling the fresh cold, hearing the splashes, seeing the vivid blue and turquoise of the water. I saw a whole bunch of other stuff too, archetypes, galaxies, battles in outer space, even Darth Vader coming out of a solidified sensation with a laser-sword. It was a trip. But although definitely induced by my brains own DMT (the way things look are just too unique) it was much more controlable, integratable and memorizable then smoking the shit.

When the course was over there was not a trace of doubt left, that I hit the jackpot with this technique. I studied in the years before many spiritual ways, healing techniques, philosophies and will always practice the eight limbs of Yoga. But this technique, taught and applied by the Buddha himself, was the only one I have encountered, that would lead to full Enlightenment. As it did for himself and for so many others after him.

I was heavily meditated. Calm, clear and confident.

When I activated my phone there was no reply to the message I sent to Josi though.

But I knew in that moment, probably for the first time in my life, that regardless if I see her ever again, I will be happy. This knowing was on a very deep level and increased my peace even more. I knew it didn’t matter at all what happened. What I did with either way, was what mattered.

You see. A miracle is not just the effect. The cause is what really counts. And the cause is always a change in one’s perspective. That is the true miracle. Whatever happens in the outside then, is merely a confirmation that one’s view has been corrected. And that the cosmos is very well aware. This awareness of the cosmos, it's responsiveness and care for the issues of it's inhabitants... this is what I call God.

When I took my phone the next time, there was a little red dot with the number one inside in the corner of the app. I received a message. It was Josi.

The next day came another one. We texted back and forth. I didn’t feel like a puppy anymore. But I felt like it's christmas everyday, with every message I received. When she switched to voice messages, and I could listen to her voice once again, my face consisted only of a big fat smile all day long.

We didn’t manage to have a call though. There was the time-difference between California and Berlin and since I was staying in a house of a ganjafarmer far out in the californian nowhere I had only a very shitty connection. If at all.

Then... suddenly... the last message ended with...

"I just can't live anymore"

And then nothing more. Internet was gone again. I was freaking out. Whatthefuck? Whatthefuck? Whatthefuckisgoingon?

I drove to the next city. Called her.

She told me that she was very sick. That the many years of drugs took their toll. That she continued long after I was out and took some heavy shit. Her mind was broken. She only had fake friends, that stole all her money. She was alone. Therapies didn’t help. She didn’t had hope.

...

"Then join me to Peru!" I said.

It took her a few days, but then

..she agreed.

I couldn't believe it. I would have traveled around the globe to see her once again. Just one more time. And now she would. Not to see me maybe, but to find healing, but nonetheless we would finally meet.

I find it always astonishing. In the moment were you stop craving for your dreams to come true, when you allow the universe to work, what once was chased for so long just turns around and knocks on the door. Although with a bitter by-taste this time. But broken things can be repaired, so not too bitter.

Worry not about what you shall eat, or what you shall wear, where you shall live. Your heavenly Father knows what you need. Worry only about the Kingdom and everything else will be given to you.

In thee days she comes.

And that is the miracle.

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