TTE 179 – The Roses and a Mandelbrot zoom
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
One of the things I do from time to time is transcribe recordings by people who have something interesting to say. The person whose recordings I’ve transcribed the most is Sydney Banks, and I learn a huge amount every time I do it. The one I’ve done most recently is a talk called “The Oneness of Life” from his series, “The Hawaii Lectures”. Here’s a line from it that’s resonating with me and the promise I see these principles holding for humanity:
“Right now, you’re all sitting enlightened… and you don’t know it… you know that saying, ‘I am what I seek’?… that’s the oneness of life… and the oneness of life… is the greatest thing in the world that you can realise… and I hope someday, that everybody in this world can realise that… that’d be a marvellous thing…”
2. I love a Mandelbrot zoom!
Don’t know what a Mandelbrot zoom is? You’re about to find out. Benoit Mandelbrot is the mathematician who coined the term “fractal” and is a stone-cold genius imho. A Mandelbrot zoom is a visual expression of a ‘mandelbrot set’; a set of self-similar, repeating patterns which is wildly hypnotic. This one set a record in 2017 with 750,000,000 iterations! Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSg2Db3jF_4
3. This week’s glimpse of the future
Alpha Zero is the name given by the DeepMind team to an extraordinary game-playing Artificial Intelligence. “Over the course of nine hours, the chess version of the program played forty-four million games against itself on a massive cluster of specialized Google hardware. After two hours, it began performing better than human players; after four, it was beating the best chess engine in the world.” This New Yorker article about Alpha Zero is slightly technical, but well worth a read: https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/how-the-artificial-intelligence-program-alphazero-mastered-its-games
4. Sydney Banks for the UK and the rest of Europe
As you probably already know, I’m a huge fan of Syd Banks books, videos and audios. Last year, we acquired the Sydney Banks Products website which handles distribution for Syd’s materials in the UK and the rest of Europe.
We want to clear out all our remaining stock, so for the rest of the month (or until they’re gone), the Sydney Banks Products website is having a ‘flash sale’ on all products.
There are a limited number of DVD sets as well as assorted CDs and DVDs, so if you’d like to build or complete your collection, I’ve got a special code you can use to save 20% on everything.
Just go to https://sydneybanksproducts.com and use the code FLASHSALE2019
BTW, we’re sold out of all Syd’s books except Second Chance, but we still have some of his DVDs and CDs in stock. We’re not planning to re-order these DVDs and CDs, so once they’re gone, they’re gone! Head over to the website to see what we’ve got left.
5. This week’s 3-minute miracle
This week I realised it’s 29 years since The Stone Roses released their classic single, Fool’s Gold. I still remember the moment I heard it for the first time, and its iconic rhythm and melodic pattern seared itself into my brain. Once heard, never forgotten. If you’ve never heard it before, you’re in for a treat. If you have, here it is again, sounding as fresh as the day it was made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSD11dnphg0
That’s it for this week!
Jamie Smart