Also, grabbing audio from Youtube will have nothing above roughly 11khz, as the compression method will remove it, regardless of how the source was captured...

Engineers Tip: Check your mix in a car. Excessive bass will make the plastic door panels vibrate as it tries to move excessive air (assuming door mounted L/R speakers). Back in the day, this used to work for me flawlessly. Also, never do a final mix using headphones, ever; they roll of badly below 60Hz, and cut completely below 20Hz.

I agree.

I've always liked the translation of that that last line that goes "The Tao follows its own ways"

Reminds me of Laurie Anderson's "O Superman"

Cause when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justive is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!

I'm a little confused by the formatting here. I'm pretty sure I'm not using markdown anywhere apart from three hyphens (---) for the lines.

It's a beautiful work... thanks for sharing :)

Thanks! It is, and has been a real learning process. I already had a good idea of how to use all the basic hand tools, and I knew roughly the steps that were involved, but this course has really shown me the subtleties behind instrument making.

Looks great, quite a fascinating process, is it not?

nice concept

This one seems to be a straightforward comment on wu wei, actionless action. Wu wei does not involve striving, it involves accepting. When one identifies with Dao rather than the individual self, all of the world's gains are the gains of the sage, all of the losses, the losses of the sage. To understand this is unleash boundless love for the world.

Since the Tao is Void, it can manifest as all the myriad things, as all the aspects and attitudes of the world. The Sage must also be like this, living in the flow of the world, becoming what it is needed, leaving behind what is not, letting the world take its course. Water follows the path of least resistance, but cuts through the mountain. Water changes its shape as needed, but cannot be cut.

To me, it means I need to get off Diaspora this morning, because I've been on for too long. Beyond the obvious too much of a good thing is quite bad meaning, I think there is also the sense that being too invested in any sort of "goal" or "progress" actually causes more harm than good and feeds the flames of desire, discontent, self-importance, and selfishness.

To me: know when to stop in the pursuit of wealth and power - too much of either brings heartaches.

Well, in the time it was written being rich was dangerous; there were always plots to get your wealth. This does not apply so much anymore...

Though jealousy is always in the human heart and those that posses something like money, beauty, intelligence, fame often feel its paws.

But earth (and heavens) were born from the ashes of the universe (and who knows where that was born from) and they will vanish when there time comes.

coincidentally, i just looked up this chapter last week because it reminded me of joshu's mu (chinese wu). http://sped2work.tripod.com/chao-chou.html

I completely what you mean (although you took your time saying it!). My aim was never to do some kind of pompous 're-interpretation' of the TTC, but merely to see what other people thought it means, so as not to be stuck with what I thought it meant — and to enable others to do the same. So far it's been pretty interesting, and has altered the things I read into some of the passages.

Relating back to today's chapter, you could say I'm trying to detach myself from my interpretation in order to engage better with possible broader meanings.

except sometimes it IS better to not use words. Like... right now. :)

Yeah I agree that it's about Yin and Yang. This stuff is a bit weird in the contemporary context as it's tied up with symbolism associated with the patriarchy and gender roles of the context it came from. But from a metaphysics point of view it's right on. He's just saying, don't be all Yang guys. Try listening and responding to what's happening once in a while rather than trying to impose your will all over the place. That's where novelty comes from. Simple really :).