anamnesis

Have you ever noticed that our brain comes up with "answers" for whatever we put to it? It's curious that many otherwise intelligent and creative people abuse this natural tendency of their minds to hobble themselves. If we ask ourselves why we are so screwed up, our brains will shift into gear coming up with all sorts of reasons that it thinks we are asking for. If we ask, instead, how best to deal with situation "x", or how easily we can resolve "y", it will go to work on that thread instead. To be careful what we ask for, may strike a chord much closer to home than we typically realize. And there seems to be an art to asking questions skillfully, to both ourselves and others, in a way that brings out resources and capabilities rather than judgments and indictments; the way we frame our questions in life seems fundamentally linked to the type of answers we are receiving; and yet, how quickly the question fades from our awareness, leaving us only wit...

So I was sipping some wine and playing on the computer, outside people were talking, it was about 12:30am and I figured some kids were rendezvousing between parties. Glanced out and saw a group of teens and a couple of cars. 45 minutes later they were still at it; looking more closely this time, it seemed a bunch of them were sitting on the back of one car while the driver was spinning in the ice. Noobs. So, I grabbed my jacket and put on some shoes. "You guys stuck?" "Yeah. This is not working. We started back there an hour ago!" pointing about 15' back to the intersection. They all tried pushing again from the front while the tires spun. "OK, let's rock it." I showed them how to push then let it rock back then push again. The car backed out several feet now. "Alright, what gear you have it in, first?" "Yeah" "K, put it in second. Now lets rock from the back" Car fish-tailed, almost side-swiping a neighbor's car, ...

Even though we were socked in this year, and missed our annual escapade to Marbella's for Christmas; I just wanted to express our appreciation and admiration for the continuing efforts that little red hen has put into making this season special for our families. Every year, rain, ice-storms, snow or shine; whether she is sick, tired or chipper, there is always a porch light on for distant travelers and a big hug waiting at whatever wee hour they happen to stumble in. I've always been amazed at the depths of her determination and passion to pull this rag-tag group together and make everyone feel that whatever the circumstance they were family and that meant they were loved. I don't care who gets the awards for the biggest light-shows in the city, her and Gem always are the brightest star on the horizon this time of year. Our deepest love and thanks!

A military statesman once said, big lies are more believable than small ones (Hitler.) Which got me thinking about a certain claim by a certain cell-phone company that they have "the fewest dropped calls of any carrier." Now Ger-beans is probably not a good test case, or maybe he is, but just about every conversation with him and said carrier involves a dropped call at least once during the conversation. So I got curious about how one substantiates the "fewest dropped calls claim." Especially since cell phone outage statistics are private. Can't have them terrorists knowing which carrier they should use, after all. On their site, the only reference the carrier makes to the research is "based on nationwide experience among national wireless carriers." Nothing about how many in the sample, how the research was conducted or by whom. Other carriers tout that they, in fact, are the "most reliable" or the "highest ranking in customer satisfac...

My back is SORE. Shoveled 50 yards of 2-3' snow. Discovered this lady frozen on the path, so brought her back home and propped her next to the fireplace. Our "Holiday Blizzard" crawled its way over to Kansas, but seems motorists are still stuck in eastern Colorado. I suspect between the accumulated snow, rain and subzero temps that the plains across I-70 are going to hellish to travel for several more days, even if they do open it tomorrow. We'll be think'in of all you revelers in the South, have some eggnog for us! Marbella, let yer family pamper ya a bit and get well soon! And Ger-beans, best of luck man, Via Con Dios!!

Last night I was out for my semi-regular walk. It was around midnight, and the cold was condensing the way it does before a big snow. The chill in the thick air gave it a little bite, but I was cozy enough with my trusty jacket and Slovenian hat. Sometimes I get lost in just the rhythm of my footsteps or the stars or the wind on bare branches; sometimes I meet critters: deer, coyotes, muskrats, a beaver once (earlier in the day.) This night I rounded a corner on the trail, lost in thought, and came to an abrupt stop in front of a large red fox. He was about 5' in front of me and we both kind of looked up from our walks and thoughts and checked each other out for what seemed like 30 seconds or so. Then he tilted his head back down to level and walked past me, just like someone else out for a walk at night might do, not swerving, but continuing along his course, passing about 2' to my right side, lost in his thoughts again as I continued on my way too, wishing him a silent good...

Wow . . . sort of loosely following the diabetes, High-Fructose Corn-Syrup thread which started with this blog entry and continued here . This article on the Case Against Soda sings to the same choir. The whole thing is definitely worth reading, but here are some quick take aways: ...according to a study last year, soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks have become the largest source of calories in the American diet, replacing white bread. They tracked the diets of 548 teens for 19 months and found that kids who drank sugar-sweetened beverages regularly were more likely to be overweight than those who didn't. The researchers also found that the odds of becoming obese increased 60% for each can or glass a day of sugar-sweetened soft drinks. the type of sugar used in the majority of soft drinks may be making things worse. Although the research is controversial, there's evidence that the man-made high fructose corn syrup used in most sodas fails to suppress the production of gh...

Brings back fond memories of ninja training; especially those multiple choice quizzes.

Not only are eyes the window of the soul, but it seems they have a bit to say about the mind as well. Some observations on the eye. How much the pupil dilates and contracts may tell how much of your cognitive capacity is in use. Studies have shown the pupil dilates incrementally as each new item of a list is memorized. This happens up to your maximum storage capacity of short term memory and then the eye contracts as you recite the items back. When you're finished holding on to them. People with dilated pupils are also judged more attractive in controlled studies. Even though subjects of the experiments were not consciously aware of pupil sizes. Of course, medieval babes knew this long before the social psychologists created the studies. In Europe in the middle-ages, eyedrops made from the deadly nightshade plant were popular with women specifically for use in dilating the pupils. The plant earned the name "belladonna" or, beautiful lady, for this reason alone. Other stu...

Incredible may be a hyperbole, but this could be really cool. When I saw the floating bed here for 1.5mil I thought why not a floating chair? It would be cheaper and easier to make, just superglue some p owerful magnets on the legs, superglue an eyehook in them and attach a short elastic cord to a similar eyehook on some magnets on the floor (to avoid drifting off the magnets.) You'll have to play with the magnet strength to adjust it for the right amount of "cush" for your weight, but it should let you wiggle around kind of like a rocking chair. Do you think it would feel floaty or would it basically be exactly like a chair with legs on the floor (other than the wiggle factor?)

Why I'm not an animator.

Some interesting evidence on how speeding up thought processes can improve your mood . In the study they used a simple process of accelerated reading; but I think accelerating listening would do just as well.

I don't want to turn this into a conspiracy blog, but occasionally you may notice certain themes popping up. A particular interest of mine, both professionally and philosophically, is privacy; I think privacy is a curious marker that reliably indicates how a culture interprets the role of the individual against the requirements of the collective. America, ostensibly, is all about the individual and protecting them from the dictates of the group. At least in theory. The "collective" is a strange construct because it doesn't really exist. There are no "rights" for groups, for example, just individuals. A semantic distortion. And the "morality" of these collectives, be they government agencies, corporations, or political factions are really the checks and balances in the behavior of individuals that constitute these groups. And when a group has a certain power over individuals, regardless of the stated mission and higher causes behind the group...

It's a wonder no one has tried to have Mary Vernon's medical license revoked. Since 1999, the 52-year-old family doctor has been treating diabetic patients in Lawrence, Kansas, with an approach that was abandoned by most physicians in the 1930s. Worse, this Depression-era remedy is the opposite of the current guidelines established by the American Diabetes Association, a nonprofit organization that spent nearly $51 million on research in 2005, and so should know a thing or two about how to handle diabetes. So starts an interesting and informative article ...

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save. -Mary Oliver

More BioTech Futures... "If there were a pill you could take after experiencing a painful or traumatic event that would permanently weaken your memory of what had just happened, would you take it?" The Memory Pill But maybe you already have a few of these packed in your home first-aid/trauma kit? Or in the medicine cabinet alongside provigil , another nifty little chemical enhancement that seems to actually allow you to skip 2 or 3 days of sleep with no ill-effects or sleep deficit. So if you gain back 1 day (16 hours) in every 3, does this mean you can live 9 days a week while everyone else is living 7? Personally, I enjoy sleep, particularly naps, but it would be nice to have an option where I could pack in 40 hours straight on a project or research without paying for it days afterwards. To have this option though, you'd need to convince a doctor you were narcoleptic. There is a curious taboo on people using chemistry to actually enhance their lives instead of fix wha...