Friday, July 25, 2014
Despair.com
I love these things, being the natural pessimist, or I prefer, realist, that I am...they make me laugh so hard, I never tire of them. (Well, the ones that are not funny I tire of...)
Monday, July 14, 2014
Why Antonin Scalia was right to defend a drug dealer
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| English: Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
http://theweek.com/article/index/260329/why-antonin-scaliawas-
right-to-defend-a-drug-dealer
I have to agree with Scalia, but I have not read the majority opinion nor have I read the other dissents, in the interest of disclosure.
But those who think Scalia is a knee-jerk conservative right-winger should think twice, for what it is worth.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Insanity
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| Wordmark from Wikipedia logo 2.0 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Cover of Valis |
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Kierkegaard Quote
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| Soren Kierkegaard studying (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Soren Kierkegaard
I can relate...
Friday, June 20, 2014
A Commencement Speech for Those Watching Commencement Speeches Despite Having Graduated Some Time Ago : The New Yorker
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| The New Yorker (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I totally relate and feel so old...
Twitter Isn't Essential and Probably Never Will Be
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| Twitter Logo (Photo credit: Jon Gosier) |
mashable.com
http://mashable.com/2014/06/13/twitter-user-retention/Is this news? I always wondered what the fuss over Twitter was. How can anyone say anything in less than 140 words other than snippets- information, but just pure information isn't essential and probably never will be :).
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Lawyers Should Take Notes By Hand
Now today too there is also the issue of "losing" the notes with the help of technology, where as long as you are organized you can keep paper pretty much safe .
Lawyerist.com
New research confirms what many of us have believed all along: taking notes by hand — with a pen and paper — is better than typing.
Related articles
"Glenn Beck Admits the Right was Wrong on Iraq"
This is from my friend's blog with my comment- thought it was interesting...
Post a Comment On: Welcome to MARKADELPHIA
I Feel Like Google+ Is Infiltrating and Taking Over the Known World
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| Google (Photo credit: warrantedarrest) |
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| Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Français : Logo de Facebook Tiếng Việt: Logo Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
This article at Lifehacker explains my sentiments exactly:
http://lifehacker.com/facebook-vs-google-your-best-arguments-1479394128
Called Facebook versus Google+: Your Best Arguments
Another thing that makes me apprehensive is how much of my public information is going out there without me even knowing it. For example, I was on (apparently) Google Maps looking at where apartments were situated, and suddenly a pop-up occurred, from Plus, I think, saying, "Gina has just opened the link to so and so" and appeared about ready to publish it to my GooglePlus stream or profile or page. I quickly tried to shut that down and do not know what happened.
Or my photos- it has apparently hijacked them so that when I "have" to sync my Android phone with Google Contacts, the photos were suddenly up in a "sync" box both on Facebook and Plus, both saying, basically, that I had full control, relax, they won't be published unless you do this or that. Well, I never signed up for that, and to have to opt out of everything would be impossible at this point, since GooglePlus is connected to pretty much everything of Google's, like Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, Maps, every app.....no more ala carte I guess.
And the set up of Plus is so much like Grand Central Station- confusing, tons of groups to be in, with myself getting massive amounts of email from each group everytime someone coughs, and I don't know when I post if I am posting for the entire world to see or what.
Yes, I know this is all carefully explained in their help pages (how to ensure your privacy) but the average person is not going to have the time to do all that.
And yeah I wouldn't have to be on it at all, I know. But it is like being the only kid left out of a game, if you don't join in and try to learn and expand, you will be left behind. When the day comes that gmail is the only email option, or Android the only smartphone platform, or Google Wallet the only way to pay, etc. etc., then what. So I am trying.
But you can see I am not alone based on the numerous comments to the article here, some of which are nasty.
In fact I DO like Google a lot- I love Gmail, and Google Voice, and other stuff. At the time when Google Plus came out I found it a totally lame comparison to Facebook, like, what is the point. But now it seems to be sticking its hands into everything and gaining on Facebook. There are some really good things about Google Plus too, like the ability to meet new people with your interests easily, and to keep up with the news, etc., that Facebook does not have.
But it wears me and my ADD out, just going on there.
I would like to say thanks to someone who works there though who graciously helped me out fixing this Blogger thing that had gone haywire after the Google Comments installation that was practically forced upon us. Very helpful and a genius. Thing is, I am not, I do not do that for a living, and I am not going to be able to run to him or others all the time.
So am I going to get left behind here?
Remains to be seen.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Thought for the Day
"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." -
Lord Byron
Lord Byron
Monday, June 16, 2014
Done with This
I am so sick of this new forced attachment to Google Plus and the fact that my comments disappeared and I can't change the settings that I am going to import what I have to a new place, probably Weebly or something. I give up.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Where are all the Comments?
Hi, does anyone with a blog on here happen to know what happened to all my old comments from before Google Plus reared its ugly head, and why I cannot find any current comments anywhere on this blog or in Google Plus even though it says there ARE comments? The help pages are no help to me. I am wanting to go back to Wordpress or some other blogsite but am afraid I will lose everything in the process. Thanks...
Posted via Blogaway
Friday, June 13, 2014
Free Will?
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This is being proved more and more with cognitive neuroscience that eventually philosophy will have no valid argument for free will.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Surviving the Devil-An Account of Adoption And Abuse
I don't normally promote things but this is something very special that I wanted to get the word out about. My really good friend, Angie Cox, wrote the book described here: a very disturbing detail of her childhood abuse and overcoming it. It is an issue important to her and myself and many people, but still many refuse to acknowledge that it happens or that it's a big deal. Her book can be purchased at Barnes and Noble.com or Amazon.com with a percentage of the profits going to several children's child abuse charities. I also will be posting the book's Facebook Page link.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Kafka Quote
"He feels imprisoned on this earth, he feels constricted: the melancholy, the impotence, the sickness, the feverish fancies of the captive afflict him; no comfort can comfort him, since it is merely comfort, gentle head-splitting comfort glozing the brutal fact of imprisonment. But if he is asked what he actually wants he cannot reply, for--that is one of his strongest proofs--he has no conception of freedom." - Franz Kafka, in "He"
New Yorker Article -
I can think of a few reasons...maybe people just want to hold onto their belief, even if proven wrong, just to be stubborn and not admit they are wrong. Or it's a comforting belief, and who cares if it flies in the face of the truth? Another reason is plain old stupidity- like the people who would believe anything Jenny McCarthy has to say about ANYTHING over established medical scientists and doctors who have been proving the same thing for years. It's like if Justin Bieber said the sun revolves around the moon, there'd soon be a huge group of "activists" espousing that fallacy...And another is that science is not infallible, "facts" change as more information becomes available- like, for example, theoretical physics is a huge area that changes what is "true" about activity at the subatomic level. Things that people believed to be impossible, then get proved true in an experiment, then later, it is revealed the experiment was faulty, etc etc.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Quote For Easter
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| English: Dwight Lyman Moody, founder of the Northfield Seminary, Mount Hermon School, and the Moody Bible Institute, circa 1900. Edited image from the Library of Congress (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Dwight L. Moody
Depression
Science is proving more and more that depression and other mental illnesses are real, not merely hypochondria or laziness, and that is a very good thing...
LIFE MENTAL HEALTHResearchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have reversed depression-like behaviors in mice in an unexpected way. Rather than silencing the hyperactive neurons that triggered the rodents’ symptoms, the team boosted their activity even further. This triggered a compensatory, self-tuning response that brought the neurons’ firing—and the rodents’ behaviors—back to normal.
Triggering Resilience to Depression
In mice, boosting depression-causing activity in neurons can actually reverse depressive symptoms.
| April 17, 2014
LIFE MENTAL HEALTHResearchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have reversed depression-like behaviors in mice in an unexpected way. Rather than silencing the hyperactive neurons that triggered the rodents’ symptoms, the team boosted their activity even further. This triggered a compensatory, self-tuning response that brought the neurons’ firing—and the rodents’ behaviors—back to normal.
“There’s a saying in Chinese: If you push something to an extreme, the only way it can go is in the opposite direction,” said Ming-Hu Han, who led the study, published today (April 17) in Science. Although his team needs to confirm their results in humans, Han added, “it could give us new avenues for treating depression that are conceptually very different to the classical therapeutic strategy.” Rather than identifying the cause of an illness and reversing it, it may be possible to push those causes even harder and get the body to right itself.
The team subjected mice to 10 days of constant stress by housing them in cages with a dominant-aggressive rival. Under these circumstances, some susceptible mice developed symptoms similar to depression—avoiding social contact, losing motivation, and gaining less pleasure from rewarding activities like tasting a sugary drink. Other, more resilient, mice showed no such symptoms.
In earlier studies, the team showed that these differences depend on a brain region called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which is a hub for dopamine-producing neurons. If these neurons are too active, the mice are more likely to show signs of depression. And the team managed to convert resilient rodents into susceptible ones by stimulating the VTA’s dopamine neurons, and vice versa, by silencing them.
They also found that the VTA dopamine neurons in susceptible mice have an unusually strong Ih current—a stream of positively charged ions that flows into them after they fire and restores them to a resting state. These cells reset more quickly, and fire more frequently.
But when postdoc Allyson Friedman measured the Ih currents in resilient mice, she found a surprise: they were even larger than those in susceptible rodents. This should have driven the rodents’ VTA neurons into fits of runaway activity but, in fact, those neurons were firing normally. As Friedman discovered, they also had a stronger inhibitory current, which cancels out the excitatory Ih one. These currents balance each other out to make the dopamine neurons resistant to perturbations, and the mice resilient to stress.
The team wondered whether they could duplicate the same balance in susceptible mice by exaggerating their Ih currents rather than dampening them. “The idea looks crazy, right?” said Han. “We hesitated to go down that direction. What if we made things even worse?”
They team made the VTA neurons more active in three ways: they boosted their Ih currents with a drug called lamotrigine; they added extra copies of the HCN2 proteins that drive the Ihcurrents; and they stimulated the dopamine neurons directly by loading them with light-sensitive proteins and flashing them via optic fibers.
In all three cases, the treatments reversed the depressive symptoms of the susceptible mice after five days. The animals became more sociable and regained their sweet tooth. Their once-hyperactive VTA neurons became less excitable thanks to stronger inhibitory and excitatory currents, and started firing normally.
Han’s team has effectively discovered the neurological version of a psychological phenomenon—resilience. “It makes us re-evaluate what it means to be resilient,” said Michelle Mazei-Robisonfrom Michigan State University, who was not involved in the work. “We didn’t think of it as a continuum, where you almost have to push through the pathological response to bring things back into balance, rather than just having some sort of compensation. It’s a new twist, and very novel.”
The mechanism is conceptually similar to exposure therapies in which people with anxiety are deliberately and safely exposed to the objects or situations that worry them. However, Han cautioned that it would be foolhardy to try a similar strategy for people with depression. “They have a higher risk of suicide,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to make them even more depressed to try and get a treatment effect.”
Instead, he hopes that by studying the resilience effect more carefully, he can find safer and more efficient ways of triggering it in people. “Perhaps for people with depression, we can tap into their own homeostatic ability that’s hopefully there but that they aren’t reaching for whatever reason,” Mazei-Robinson added.
“It’s an exciting breakthrough with vast translational potential,” said Kay Tye from MIT in an e-mail. “Pushing the system one way could actually trigger the brain’s own homeostatic plasticity to push back. This could be a critical factor in the functionality of existing therapies, as well.” For example, lamotrigine is sometimes used to treat people with bipolar disorder who go through bouts of depression. “We never knew how it worked, but our study gives us an idea,” said Han.
The team still must address several issues. For example, not all of the VTA’s dopamine neurons are the same. The team found that they could only induce resilience by overstimulating the neurons that connect the VTA with the nucleus accumbens (NAc), rather than those that link to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).
The VTA also responds differently to different types of stress. In 2012, Han’s team managed to reverse depressive symptoms in socially-stressed mice by silencing their VTA neurons. But Tye’s group at MIT found that the same technique had the opposite effect in mice that experienced chronic, long-term stress. In these rodents, silencing the VTA induced depressive symptoms in normal mice.
“The VTA dopamine neurons have clear contextual dependence, and we don’t understand that,” said Han. “That’s a big issue in the field now.”
A.K. Friedman et al., “Enhancing depression mechanisms in midbrain dopamine neurons achieves homeostatic sesilience,” Science, 344: 313-9, 2014.
Tags
Friday, April 4, 2014
Twilight Zone Guy Quote
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| 1959 Series Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
― Rod Serling
Yeah, guess he was right...
Monday, March 31, 2014
From Markadelphia Blog
Food Stamp Myths
There are a lot of myths about food stamps and this site is an excellent source for correcting the misinformation. Here are a few basic facts.
76% of SNAP households included a child, an elderly person, or a disabled person. These vulnerable households receive 83% of all SNAP benefits.
These are real people, folks, with real problems. Lumping them all into one category as lazy, good for nothings is ridiculous.
Two-thirds of all SNAP payment errors are a result of caseworker error. Nearly one-fifth are underpayments, which occur when eligible participants receive less in benefits than they are eligible to receive.
The idea that there is something special about the "fraud" that goes on with SNAP is completely ridiculous. The errors aren't overpayments but underpayments.
Here is one of my favorite myths followed by reality.
Work Requirements
Myth: SNAP doesn’t do enough to encourage participants to get a job, and the program needs stronger work requirements.
Reality: SNAP already has strict time-limits for unemployed workers. Able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) may only receive 3 months of SNAP benefits during any 3 year period, unless they are working in a qualifying job training program. The SNAP benefit formula is structured to provide a strong work incentive – for every additional dollar a SNAP participant earns, their benefits decline by about 24 to 36 cents, not a full dollar, so participants have a strong incentive to find work, work longer hours, or seek better-paying employment.
We have enough problems with helping out those in need. Adding fake problems makes it worse. The next time you here some mouth foaming about food stamps, check out this site for reality.
76% of SNAP households included a child, an elderly person, or a disabled person. These vulnerable households receive 83% of all SNAP benefits.
These are real people, folks, with real problems. Lumping them all into one category as lazy, good for nothings is ridiculous.
Two-thirds of all SNAP payment errors are a result of caseworker error. Nearly one-fifth are underpayments, which occur when eligible participants receive less in benefits than they are eligible to receive.
The idea that there is something special about the "fraud" that goes on with SNAP is completely ridiculous. The errors aren't overpayments but underpayments.
Here is one of my favorite myths followed by reality.
Work Requirements
Myth: SNAP doesn’t do enough to encourage participants to get a job, and the program needs stronger work requirements.
Reality: SNAP already has strict time-limits for unemployed workers. Able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) may only receive 3 months of SNAP benefits during any 3 year period, unless they are working in a qualifying job training program. The SNAP benefit formula is structured to provide a strong work incentive – for every additional dollar a SNAP participant earns, their benefits decline by about 24 to 36 cents, not a full dollar, so participants have a strong incentive to find work, work longer hours, or seek better-paying employment.
We have enough problems with helping out those in need. Adding fake problems makes it worse. The next time you here some mouth foaming about food stamps, check out this site for reality.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Venting...
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| English: Portrait by Benjamin D. Maxham (daguerreotype), black and white of Henry David Thoreau in June 1856. The writer-collar post a beard and is dressed in a black frock coat, a white shirt and a black bow tie. Français : Portrait par Benjamin D. Maxham (daguerréotype), en noir et blanc de Henry David Thoreau, en juin 1856. L'écrivain poste une barbe-collier et est habillé d'une redingote noire, d'une chemise blanche et d'un noeud papillon noir. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I also did not intend this blog for me to be writing personal "diary" type stuff, but I just have to say it. Call me what you want, it's my truth. And yes, after this I will go back (hopefully) to writing about things that really matter, not my own personal opinion. :)
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
I think, therefore I am
I think, therefore I am | New Philosopher:
Posted via Blogaway
Quotes I am Reposting
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| Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. Deutsch: Winston Churchill, 1940 bis 1945 sowie 1951 bis 1955 Premier des Vereinigten Königreichs und Literaturnobelpreisträger des Jahres 1953. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
SOME GOOD QUOTES that I like!!
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." - Henry Ford
"Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give some people." - Anon.
"It is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved." -George MacDonald
"True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information." - Winston Churchill
"The power to stand alone is worth acquiring at the expense of much sorrowful solitude." - George Bernard Shaw
"Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave." - Wilson Mizner
"Men will wrangle for religion; unite for it; fight for it; anything but live for it." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known." - Michel deMontaigne
"He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals." - Ben Franklin
"Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give some people." - Anon.
"It is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved." -George MacDonald
"True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information." - Winston Churchill
"The power to stand alone is worth acquiring at the expense of much sorrowful solitude." - George Bernard Shaw
"Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave." - Wilson Mizner
"Men will wrangle for religion; unite for it; fight for it; anything but live for it." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known." - Michel deMontaigne
"He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals." - Ben Franklin
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"Glenn Beck Admits the Right Was Wrong on Iraq"
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“[Liberals] said we couldn’t force freedom on people,” Beck said at the start of his Tuesday radio show. “Let me lead with my mistakes. You were right. Liberals, you were right, we shouldn’t have.” “In spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said, ‘We shouldn’t get involved, we shouldn’t nation-build and there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free,’” Beck said. “I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free.”
On Tuesday, Beck admitted, “You cannot force democracy on the Iraqis or anybody else, it doesn’t work. They don’t understand it or even really want it.” Though Beck understands now that the right was wrong, he still doesn't seem to getwhy the right was wrong. The problem isn't that you "can't force freedom on people." The problem is that you can't invade a country and force people to be reasonable, fair and considerate. Too many people -- though not all by far -- are selfish and tribal. These bad actors say they want freedom, but they want it only for themselves. Freedom and power for their own religion and their own leaders to do whatever they want, while denying certain freedoms to their enemies.
They want to enforce their religion, their morality and their worldview on everyone in the country. They believe their religious leaders should be able to dictate the most intimate details of everyone's lives, even in the privacy of their bedrooms. They believe that their version of religion is the only correct version, that god is on their side, that he guides their every move and that this justifies and blesses everything they do.
They do not believe in justice for all, they believe in vengeance. They do not believe that everyone is created equal, they believe they are superior to those who are not just like them. They believe that women are less than men, that women should marry who they're told to marry (and certainly not other women), that women should only wear the clothes "that keep them safe," that women should behave a certain way to avoid giving men the wrong idea.
They think there's nothing wrong with preventing others from exercising their basic rights, such as women controlling their own bodies and deciding what hormones to take, letting women decide for themselves whether or how to delay having children. They have no problem using intimidation and other means to prevent their opponents from voting.
They don't believe in negotiating with their opponents to reach an accommodation that will satisfy most of what each side wants: they want everything their way and want to deny their opponents even the smallest victory. They view the tiniest compromise as a total betrayal of their core beliefs that will result in total destruction of their faith.
These bad actors don't believe that the whole country should work together in order for everyone to succeed. They separate everyone into us and them. They believe that themselves to be the only real defenders of their country, and that there are too many of those people -- people who are not just like them -- who are destroying it.
They believe that violence and the force of arms are a legitimate and immediate recourse against anyone whom they view as a threat.
Oh, wait a second. Were we talking about obstacles to democracy in Iraq or the conservative American political machine?
A democracy only works if there's give and take, if people negotiate in good faith to come to an agreement that lets everyone get some of what they want and need. Democracy fails when too many people insist on having everything their way and refusing to work together, demonizing opponents, constantly lobbing bombs (physical and verbal) at their opponents, constantly trying to gain the upper hand and gain control of everything, and then rig the system so that they can maintain that hold on power, by hook or by crook, forever.
By watching how Iraq is falling apart, we might learn a thing or two about how to make Americans work better together.