Brain Pickings, using a speculative survey of the nature of nothing and how chaos, harnessed for opportunity can come of that void as a provocative point-of-departure for talking about mindfulness, aggrandizement and general overall well-being and resiliency.
Research shows that the placebo-effect (from the Latin, I will please) is not negated after all when subjects know that they are part of an experiment and are taking an inert little helper, and the essay goes on to address those obvious but escaping maxims of circumspection, curiosity, hope and a sense-of-purpose that are so fundamental and basic to the good life. I know, easy to say and it's the most difficult thing in the world not to be an existential brat and hold everything in perspective—despite numerous studies showing that these clinical zeroes, just thoughts, calm and collecting, and the real negating notion that a disclosed sugar-pill is still not too much of a let-down, it is the concept of zero (from the Arabic, it is empty) that is really novel and interesting when applied philosophically. Maybe all other achievements, progress is really not due to complicity, cooperation or incorporation but the ability to dismiss that direct chemical intervention as a placebo. Though we can relate to nothing left or even indebtedness, nothing and nothing as a place-holder is a pretty abstract idea to grasp. It has developed significantly over the generations but I think a really concrete understanding of a void eludes us. What do you think? Can fulfillment or genuine needs be answered by a series of nothings?
Sunday, 29 June 2014
null-set or zero, my hero
catagories: ๐ง , health and medicine, lifestyle
Sunday, 24 February 2013
shoo fly
Experimentation is possibly demonstrating the waning efficacy of pesticides, namely in tests involving the pervasive chemical DEET. Mosquitoes that are spreading the scourges of mankind that defy overcoming on first exposure avoid the active ingredient, developed by the US military to make jungle warfare more tolerable, but upon their second encounter, seem inured to the taste and don’t seem to mind it so much, like acquiring a taste for coffee or beer and maybe even a liking for it.
catagories: environment, health and medicine
Saturday, 15 December 2012
arco de movimento or see, i can sit 'n stand by myself
A few days ago, the Daily Mail reported on a Brazilian study that seemed fairly comprehensive and scientifically balanced that supported a strong correlation between the ability to rise from a seated position on the floor without the aid of one’s hands or other supports and longevity. Conversely, the inability to raise oneself was indicative, apparently, of impending mortality—or at least atrophy in terms of muscle and skeletal integrity. I slipped and fell on my hinder just prior to reading that article (I blame the snow and ice but it was more likely some ice that had hitchhiked on the grooves on my boots rather than poor housekeeping) and have not quite regained full range of motion in my hips so I have not yet been able to reconfirm that I can indeed extract myself from a seated position on the ground (although I did jump right back up when I fell).
I am keen to put it to the test—like the nervous jitters that one gets from seeing those ubiquitous headlines that being sedentary for hours on end is a real killer, and maybe without hyperbole, which one invariable reads while seated at work and inspires one to jump to attention. I am sure that the corollary is true too—that training oneself to get up, stand up could stave off ill-effects, just as consigning someone with already limited mobility to a wheel-chair or outfitting them with raising beds and easy-chairs or stair-lifts seems like an unhelpful sentence in some cases. The science-desk at Boing Boing also recently expanded on an article from Slate Magazine that addressed this topic through the lens of cultural attitudes and characterization of maladies, which can colour a condition (or limn one into existence in many cases) and its interpretations as much as diagnosis and prescribed treatments.
catagories: ๐ง , health and medicine
Thursday, 4 October 2012
twenty mule team borax
Speaking of stained teeth, no where do I feel more self-conscious of my smile than when I see the contrast between something control-white, like when shaving or I suppose wearing a Santa Claus beard. All things considered, I like to think that my smile is fairly decent, and I don’t think teeth are meant to be gleaming whiter-than-white billboards, given modern and Western habits—but maybe that’s just sour-grapes.
catagories: food and drink, health and medicine, lifestyle
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
johnny appleseed or be you and I behind an arras then

catagories: ๐ฅธ, economic policy, foreign policy, graphic design, health and medicine
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
nickled and dimed or be gone dull care

catagories: economic policy, health and medicine, labour, psychology
Thursday, 21 June 2012
high-fidelity or bring me a pineapple that doesn’t sting, a bird that swims, a fish that sings
I suspected and it’s been confirmed several times over that this money-manager is gambling with people’s life-savings and that they benefited from their quasi-public status—however I didn’t suspect that they were actively hatching evil schemes for one’s money, apart from the expected trading in legitimized weapons companies, polluters and assassins. Their latest pursuit, I discovered through their advertisements (though little reporting and fact-finding is to be found supporting or otherwise questioning this image and vision) is something called synthetic biology, which is only a re-branding of terms that are waxing scary like cloning, genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms. Their promotion and prospectus implies that such research and development, which will one day triumph over Nature’s numbers and diversity, can produce bacteria to clean up industrial spills and halt disease by disabling its agents. This is a Brave New World with many goodly creatures but I can also easily imagine a genetic dystopia that failed to respect the dependencies and relations of ecology. Business has already been over-eager with introducing new crops that are untested and unsuited and have been less than forthcoming (with mounting resistance) and spent more resources on protecting patents and discrediting critics than on actual scientific research. It is one thing to make mosquitoes that don’t bite or self-cleaning beaches, but I would imagine that Nature would rebel and be less than compliant, mirroring the phenomena of drug-resistant germs created by keeping too clean. I don’t think it’s a good idea to mortgage one’s pension on such a future.
catagories: environment, food and drink, health and medicine, labour, technology and innovation
Thursday, 14 June 2012
as seen on tv
catagories: America, graphic design, health and medicine, lifestyle
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
halcyon or build your vocabulary
Cataflam
interjection.
Something the early Jerry Lewis used to bleat out in his movies. "Oy, Mr. Lady, please stop with the hitting and the hurting and the cataflam!"
It's funny because I don't know what any of these medicines are. What alternative definitions would you come up with for the products in your life?
catagories: health and medicine, language, networking and blogging
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
farmageddon, pharmageddon
Just because there is the gloomy, heavy drapery of bankers’ crises and the pummeling occasion of planters’ style democracy obscuring the next assault that’s waiting in the wings, we would be faithfully remiss to lose sight of what could come. Bread—or cake—is of course the honey-pot, the next investment opportunity aggressively peddled, of bread and circuses, and I believe it is not so kooky or implausible to imagine that the present chaos is apt disguise for a handful of companies that are merging farms and pharmaceuticals to make local governments fold and adopt measures that have become prevalent elsewhere.
catagories: food and drink, health and medicine
Monday, 2 April 2012
fuรpfad
Over the weekend, I took a long walk, seeking out a so-called Fossil Trail that I had seen posted beforehand in the area. The local foothill are built up of layer after layer of diatomaceous earth left by the denizens of the shallow sea that spread out from the Baltic millions of years ago. I followed the path for a little bit, but upon not finding a giant trilobite frozen in carbonite lurching from the cliff side, I got distracted. The trail, post-dating the signs which were somewhat lacking and aimless but maybe also removed for this healthy cachet, was modernized into a Nordic hiking path, which was quite nice too but kind of took away from the fossil hunting aspect. I did, however, come across an interesting installation early on: a reflexology (Reflexologie) experience with a little wading pool to refresh one’s tired feet.
catagories: health and medicine, lifestyle, Star Wars
Thursday, 29 March 2012
toxicity or mabel, black-label
The intangibles from the States are acquiring that flavour as well, including best-practices that have seen that same conduct go international. Elections too have become more a vote on personalities rather than platforms and the unseating process has become likewise prying, and fillers—tricks, short-cuts, hacks—have started to infiltrate German consumption as well. None here would tolerate anything toxic or questionable in their food yet, but the alimentary-hack of Aroma, essence and Ersatz is taking on. It's all very unpalatable and I worry for those under the tyranny of apparent and abundant choice.
catagories: environment, health and medicine, technology and innovation
Monday, 5 March 2012
blue laws
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, health and medicine, lifestyle, transportation
Sunday, 26 February 2012
long winter’s nap
BBC's news magazine is drawing on a body of evidence, anecdotal, historic and scientific, which strongly suggests that convention wisdom regarding sleep may be a very modern contrivance and something unnatural and possibly something that we are not ideally suited for. Rather than sequestering oneself for a solid, uninterrupted and sacrosanct period of eight hours, which does seem like an awfully lofty and impractical demand, mankind through most of its history had distinct periods of sleeping and waking during the night, a segmented sleep.
catagories: health and medicine, lifestyle, psychology
Thursday, 12 January 2012
sustenance or food goes viral
catagories: food and drink, health and medicine
Thursday, 5 January 2012
honeycomb hideout or zombee
A professor in the American state of North Carolina may have accidentally discovered the pathogen behind the mysterious and wide-spread die off of bee colonies.
catagories: environment, food and drink, health and medicine
Thursday, 15 December 2011
the holly and the ivy or plant hacks
catagories: health and medicine, holidays and observances, lifestyle
Sunday, 13 November 2011
hippocrates
catagories: graphic design, health and medicine, lifestyle
Thursday, 29 September 2011
negative reinforcement or forever blowing bubbles
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, America, economic policy, environment, food and drink, health and medicine
Monday, 30 May 2011
eschatology or a peck of pickled peppers
catagories: environment, Europe, food and drink, health and medicine