Category: Uncategorized

in camera, ex cathedra, and big pimpin’

  1. In 2008, there is only one choice that makes sense.
  2. Here’s a fascinating 3D graphical recreation of the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna. The gallery of images is at this url in case you have trouble finding it.

    hats

  3. Ikea does The Matrix.
  4. Now that she’s not a freaked-out teenager, Fiona Apple is getting really beautiful, I think.
  5. Google has an RSS reader now.
  6. The Ring: Nigerian edition.
  7. Hurray! There’s a wiki now for swear words!
  8. Budgie diapers? Flight suits for pet birds?
  9. Technology professionals wanted for international nonprofit organization. Must have strong video and design skills, back-end Web programming experience, and fanatical devotion to radical Wahhabi Sunni Islam. This is a fast-paced environment requiring excellent multitasking skills. The ideal applicant will be a suicidally fanatical Muslim with 5 or more years experience managing video production and high-traffic websites while the world’s only superpower attempts to destroy him with all available resources. Benefits include full health, dental, vision, and suicide benefits including a Paradise of lithe and luscious houris. No phone calls or women.
  10. Flu week continues with are we ready for a bigass pandemic?
  11. I for one welcome our new robot prostate surgeon overlords.

rumors on the internets: neurofeedback

I decided to do some armchair research on this thing I’m trying. First stop was wikipedia, where a neurofeedback article had been flagged as both “neutrality disputed” and “needs to be cleaned up since May 2005”. Uh oh. Sure enough, there are links to Scientology everywhere, and the tone of the article is not only dismissive but actively disparaging. Not very wikipedia. A link is provided to the talk page which is the usual ridiculous holy war involving pro- and anti-neurofeedback parties and of course Scientology.

It was depressing in that “Oh man, there goes that Internet Guy again” way. That guy in this case being njyoder, a talented and energetic troll who baits feminists and particularly rape awareness organizations.

The actual professional association seems to be pretty sane and know their limits.

New cures bring enthusiasm, messianic prose, The Solution To Everything, cranks, and naysayers. Looking around the web in a first-click way I see all of those in about ten minutes. From my point of view it’s worth a try, since it doesn’t seem likely to break my brain. At the worst I’ll lose $200 a week for a while and then get disgusted. Since I’m already disgusted, here we go.

EEGcellent.

I had an EEG and consultation for neurofeedback today.

As I expected, it was fascinating. I sat down in front of a PC running a crappy looking Windows program, attached to a pair of weathered speakers and a little junction box thingy with wires coming out of it.

The woman doing the evaluation was a talkative, intelligent New Agey psychologist. She had the evangelistic attitude of healers whose art isn’t quite accepted yet. The approach she has is to detect evidence of injury with EEG, and then to use a neurological form of biofeedback therapy to fix the problem.

I had three EEGs: one on the left side, one on the right, and one in front. They all showed up abnormal by her standards. Apparently big differences between two different voltages are indicative of problems, as are wide variations in the waves. I have a pattern consistent with injuries in the areas that would cause despair, inability to clean up my room, bad times with relationships, sudden inexplicable anxiety, frustrated rage fits, and assorted medical problems. Hey, whaddya know.

It’s odd watching waves go by and seeing them fly out of control when I swallow or blink, or even when the neurofeedback lady walked around behind me.

Anyway I’m going to try neurofeedback for a while, twice a week. I can afford it now that my car is paid off.

Sexy list

Sexy:

  1. Dirty blonde hair
  2. Swimsuit under sundress
  3. Opinionated
  4. Beat up Converses
  5. Sarcasm
  6. Expressive hands
  7. Intensely focused reading
  8. That walk you got.
  9. The space between the hairline and the collar on the back of the neck
  10. Girls who don’t take shit from anyone
  11. Louise Brooks haircut
  12. Men’s shirts on women
  13. Singing

tinfoil hat update

When I was making my appointment for the EEG tomorrow, the woman who’s doing it asked me if I wore any hair products. I said “No, in fact I don’t have a lot of hair, so this will be an easy one.” She laughed and said that a fair number of clients have arrived wearing hair mousse. Apparently the plastics in mousse get on the scalp and cause the signal for the EEG to be degraded by about 50%.

So! Tinfoil hat wearers who fear government death rays, mind control, and the church steeples forcing you to have sexual thoughts about manhole covers! Just use lots of mousse!

LOTS AND LOTS of mousse.

Another health tip from Substitute Industries.