In the 60 year history of computers, there has been a constant improvement of computational speed.  Ever faster has always been one of the driving metrics of the industry.  Moore’s Law has been manifested with desktops and laptops to the point where the computers we use are as fast as we need.  The machines we use today are incredibly faster that those we used at the turn of the century.  The power of these machines however is dwarfed by the super computers now being developed.

It is in the arena of super computers that both the outer and inner reaches of reality can be explored.  The advanced computer modeling and the running of complex scenarios and of course the ability to beat a human chess grandmaster is the realm of super computers.

The world’s fastest computer is being built and installed at the Argonne National Laboratory in the western suburbs of Chicago. IBM Corp. and the Department of Energy, which owns Argonne, have contracted for a new supercomputer that is now being installed with a peak capability of 445 teraflops, or 445 trillion calculations per second. The current record-holder is the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which has an IBM Blue Gene/L with a peak capability of about 360 teraflops….

Finally, the Dalai Lama was formally invited to visit a President in the White House. This week the Dalai Lama visited the White House prior to receiving the Congressional Gold Medal at the U.S Capitol. Finally, the leaders of the most powerful democracy in the world have stopped being bullied by China and have recognized one of the great spiritual leaders in the world, who is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

All the issues about lack of leadership in Washington D.C. that have been addressed here on this blog aside, hearty congratulations to the U.S. Congress and to President Bush for honoring one of the greatest living human beings on the planet. This is the first time a President has ever stood with the Dalai Lama in a public ceremony. Every U.S. President over the past four decades has been bullied by China to not give any public recognition to the spiritual leader of Tibet. This week, while President Bush compromised and met the His Holiness in the private part of the White House and not the Oval Office, and did not allow pictures, he did have his picture taken with him at the ceremony at the Capitol.

I have long admired the current Dalai Lama. I have casually studied Tibetan Buddhism and find it one of the more enlightened and open of all religions. I will never forget a day, when, as a young man, I first encountered the spiritual high of Tibetan Buddhists. …

Through out the entire course of human history, there has been consistent reference to happiness.  Many philosophers have basically come to the conclusion that the fundamental goal of a human life is to be happy, to find and share happiness.  This thread exists from the earliest writing to the present day Dalai Lama.  Perhaps the most succinct advice came from the great 20th century spiritual teacher Meher Baba who said “Don’t worry, be happy!”  Of course, twenty years after Baba’s death, Bobby McFerrin recorded a wonderful song in honor of this simple reduced prescription for how to lead one’s life. 

The quest for happiness, the definition of happiness, the enjoyment of happiness, the meaning of happiness is a through line of cultures all around the world.  In just the last two years there have been several best selling books published on the subject, and a number of magazine cover articles.  Happiness as a subject is more popular than ever.  It seems pretty obvious that people want more than they have.  Type the word “happiness” into Amazon.com and the response is that there are 214,554 titles (as of today).  So people are on the hunt for happiness.

It has always struck me as odd that current cultures and governments do not focus on happiness.  If happiness is what we all …