eleven

reptilia

blue

Predatory and dangerous, yet soothing.

EyEs

Fascinating!

Profile of David Eagleman

"Although Eagleman and his students study timing in the brain, their own sense of time tends to be somewhat unreliable. Eagleman wears a Russian wristwatch to work every morning, though it’s been broken for months. “The other day, I was in the lab,” he told me, “and I said to Daisy, who sits in the corner, ‘Hey, what time is it?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know. My watch is broken.’ It turns out that we’re all wearing broken watches.” Scientists are often drawn to things that bedevil them, he said. “I know one lab that studies nicotine receptors and all the scientists are smokers, and another lab that studies impulse control and they’re all overweight.” But Eagleman’s ambivalence goes deeper. Clocks offer at best a convenient fiction, he says. They imply that time ticks steadily, predictably forward, when our experience shows that it often does the opposite: it stretches and compresses, skips a beat and doubles back."

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experiment on the medicalization of deviance

Suppose two teenagers fall in love, and thus begin making bad (irrational) decisions. For brevity's sake, we'll say they were "in love". Now, as scientists have shown 'love' to be merely a variation in normally functioning brain chemicals (oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine, etc), what would be the distinction between treating love as a deviant behavior, and others (eg depression, adhd, obesity, etc.)? If treated, the boy will do better in school, life, etc. How is the distinction to be made?

the Catbird

"Worst Reply"

I find everyone bipolar to different degrees. I've never met a person who isn't different happy than sad. It's going to be another few decades before people pick up on the concept of variable thought as opposed to binary. People need to pick one of two sides, they can't handle the thought that every attribute is a degree.


His response was a look so contemptuous it was all I saw for the next several hours.

Mitt Romney to Remain Completely Still Until Primary

"Simply put, after the last debate, it became clear to me that all the other candidates were self-destructive.  If left to their own devices, they’ll ruin their own chances at the nomination.  I have arrived at the conclusion that the only way for me to not win the nomination is to do something incredibly stupid.  To minimize the chances of that happening, I have decided to remain completely motionless until the week of the Republican primary."

Another US Presidential candidate out of touch with
and disillusioned by reality. Shocking.

in a bubble

Can you drown a fish?

Something  or someone inside me woke up and I was suddenly running though I didn't know why or where.

What felt like people chasing me quickly melted into the familiarity of a race, though I couldn't recall a beginning and I didn't know where the end was. I would have stopped and asked myself, "What am I doing?", though I couldn't because I was nervous it was all real and if I did I would LOSE and they would WIN.

The maddening pace of others around me picked up, while my dream legs grew weary and cumbersome. As the others accelerated I fell behind, until they were a pinpoint in the distance that I lost sight of over the next curve. Sweat broke out over my forehead, every drop pricking my eyes with salty defeat. Reverse tears, as if this were a thing to cry about.

The forest ended sometime between two heart beats, the picturesque woodlands simply dissolving before my eyes into a sanctuary I knew all too well. A vast panorama of an estuary with boats cruising up and down it, the only visible part of them from this colossal distance being their white sails, permanently puffed out to full capacity by the strong wind.

Aware of the uphill to my left, and craving the status of being alone, I turned right. If it takes me or breaks me, I hope it makes me, well, better. Such is the thought process. I blink twice and I'm driving the Honda CR-V, heading west towards the setting sun. Less alone knowing I'm not the only one, more done though because my heart feels a heavy ton. Don't worry though, Mum, 'cause home here I come.

So I kept on going.
Going.
And going.

too many people?

By 2100, I expect that all international disputes are going to be decided by sword-duel between the respective leaders.

War is so tedious, and this way would be so much simpler.

old man winter

linear

Better Buddha

Make Love Not War

Have you been keeping up with the news? I find the American propaganda machine disgusting. It's why I've rescinded my Political Science major. Only evil and the despicably wicked think they should manipulate people into what they want.

Let be, be.

through mine eyes

As a people, the modern age fascinated and perplexed them. They yearned for a simpler time, when the Sun was still just the son of the Moon, and she was still the goddess that came down and spoke to them through their dreams. The Rocks and Trees they lived amongst had changed and were no more, or perhaps the spirits that inhabited these hollow vessels had since moved on.

In any case, once swelling with promise and glimmering with life, now the world seemed grey and sullen, like a pot of tea leaves already used one too many times.

And so, they decided to leave.

____________

 "Black girl, black girl, don't lie to me 
 Where did you stay last night? 
 I stayed in the pines where the sun don't never shines 
And shivered when the cold wind blows" 

herpes is now slightly more popular than Congress

Lost in a Crowd

Deindividuation: The loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people can't be identified (such as when they are in a crowd), leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts. 

No Child Left Behind

Many Afghans Shrug at 'This Event Foreigners Call 9/11'

"Never heard of it," he shrugged as he lined up for water at the camp's well, which serves thousands of fellow refugees. "I have no idea why the Americans are in my country."


In a nearby tent that is the camp's school, his teacher, 22-year-old Mullah Said Nabi Agha, didn't fare much better. He said he has never seen the iconic image of the Twin Towers burning. He was vaguely aware that some kind of explosion had occurred in America."I was a child when it happened, and now I am an adult, and the Americans are still here," Mr. Agha said. "I think the Americans did it themselves, so they could invade Afghanistan."

79-year-old Florida man Richard Smith went to the hospital complaining about breathing troubles and stomach pains

After his nurse accidentally injected him with Pancuronium

—a drug that's given to death row inmates during the execution process—

Smith's health troubles were gone. But so was he

By Way of Beauty: Louis CK, Technology, and Philosophy

By Way of Beauty: Louis CK, Technology, and Philosophy: It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein Comedian Louis CK can be extremely p...

wordless

double

In retrospect it's both scary and quite quite funny, but as a child I assumed that by the age of 20 I'd have everything figured out.

you're quite smart too though

it's feels like that a lot.
but then you pull through in the end because you are actually a smart boy.
as long as you never give up you'll be golden.

Sometimes I don't know though. The struggle just seems so hard . . .

but eh, there's always pleasure in work, 

and its healthy to just bury oneself in it every once in a while.

What do you mean?

I miss all of my loves.

  If jealous you must,

know that I miss you the most.

haikus and garbage

Origami crane,
Angular perfection sits
Atop another.

Just a distraction,

or more? Must every answer

involve a question?

Wild-eyed mathematics majors merely manifest my own doubts.

My mishap is simply that; a mistake.

Murmuring, hopefully not of the heart.

That wouldn't be romantic,

And you'd probably have to go to the hospital.