Just Me

Russell Barkley explains ADHD

2012-01-28T11:18:00.001+08:00

This is a collection of clips, with subtitles in Norwegian, where Russell Barkley speaks about the motivation, emotion, behavior, hyperactivity, attention, accountability and focus aspects of ADD/ADHD. Barkley recounts the latest research in the field, and this video can be a good tool for explaining the disorder to parents, teachers and even physicians and therapists.

Misinformation about this disorder is extremely widespread, even in the medical community, and ADD/ADHD sufferers are often misdiagnosed with other disorders, such as personality disorder or depression.

If you're convinced that you're suffering from ADHD, take this screening test:http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/ncs/ftpdir/adhd/18%20Question%20ADHD-ASRS-v1-1.pdf

Be completely honest. Give the questions some careful thought. Don't check the "Often" or "Very Often" boxes unless you're confident that you are experiencing these issues more frequently than what's usual among your friends, family, coworkers or classmates. Do not use take test unless you are a legal adult (different diagnostic criteria apply for children and teenagers), and remember that it is only a screening test.

If you test positive, get referred to a professional, but realize that regular therapists or psychiatrists won't do in many cases, since their knowledge is often outdated by decades, and they still see the disorder as an inattention and hyperactivity problem. Just seek out a specialist immediately if possible. Otherwise, prepare to argue with numerous uninformed therapists, who in turn will label you as a difficult patient. Doctors, too, have egos, and they do not like it one bit when patients are better informed than them.

Shortened to just the ADHD part

Bernas "Sek Fan" Ad

2012-01-26T17:17:00.002+08:00

Humble chief gains national attention

2012-01-26T17:17:00.001+08:00

Source

MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. (AFPN) -- All of the attention embarrasses him, but as this chief master sergeant learned recently, a lifetime of caring and good deeds is bound to catch up with you eventually.

Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt, superintendent of the 22nd Wing Medical Group here, recently gained worldwide attention for a photo of him holding an injured Iraqi child. The photo was taken about a month ago, while he was deployed to Balad Air Base in Iraq.


Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt cradles a young Iraqi girl as they both sleep in the hospital. The girl's entire family was executed by insurgents. The killers shot her in the head but she survived. The girl received treatment at the U.S. military hospital in Balad, but cries often. According to nurses at the facility, Chief Gebhardt is the only one who can calm down the girl, so he holds her at night while they both sleep in a chair. Chief Gebhardt was assigned to the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at Balad Air Base, Iraq. (Courtesy Photo)

The young infant had received extensive gunshot injuries to her head when insurgents attacked her family killing both of her parents and many of her siblings. The chief had a knack for comforting her and they often would catch a cat nap together in a chair.

Now, he is back at home in Wichita, Kan., with his wife, Mindy. They have a warm, hospitable home five minutes away from McConnell Air Force Base. His son Ryan, 25, and daughter Amber, 23, have long since outgrown being cradled and he said he thought about them constantly while he held the Iraqi child.

"I got as much enjoyment out of it as the baby did," he said. "I reflected on my own family and life and thought about how lucky I have been."

His affection for children is no secret to his wife, Mindy. While dating John in high school, she watched how he bonded with the child of a coach of one of his athletic teams. That softer side of him is one of the reasons she married him.

"People see him as this tough guy," she said, "but I always see that other side of him that is full of compassion."

The chief, who grew up in Jordan, New York, is not at home in the spotlight. When asked to talk about himself, he always tries to switch the focus to the other military people who served with him at Balad.

While deployed to Iraq, the chief tried to help out any way he could. He figured holding a baby that needed comforting that would free up one more set of arms that could be providing care to more critical patients.

"If I have an opportunity to help out, I look for that opportunity," he said. "They had more than enough to do."

The chief was not alone in volunteering at the hospital. There were more than 800 different volunteers at the hospital during the time he was deployed to Iraq, he said. Some of them volunteered so much that he mistakenly thought they were assigned to the hospital.

When Mindy describes the best qualities of her husband, the first word out of her mouth is integrity. She said the photo of her husband and the Iraqi child truly represents him. She believes he has been so successful because he is such a straight-shooter and puts others' welfare ahead of his own.

"He never leads anyone astray," she said. "He will never do something for himself that would have a negative effect on someone else. He always tells it like it is."

But, the chief attributes his success to his family.

"Without their support I don't know where I would be," he said. "I definitely wouldn't be in the position I am."

And it is the chief's hope that families in Iraq will receive the same kind of support in the future. They are just like American families, Chief Gebhardt said.

"I pray for the best for the Iraqi children," he said. "I can't tell the difference between their kids and our kids. The Iraqi parents have the same care and compassion for their children as any American."

Life is calmer for Chief Gebhardt now that he is back home, and even though his recent "fame" has highlighted an eventful 27-year career, he said he wouldn't change a thing.

"If I had to do it over again, I would sign up and give it another ride," he said.

Fry & Laurie - Reunited

2012-01-21T00:46:00.000+08:00

Internet Meme - Friendzone Johnny

2012-01-17T01:37:00.001+08:00

His side of the story:

Followed by:

but ultimately:

Berserk Trailer

2012-01-16T10:47:00.002+08:00

IMO needs more "forces"

RSA Animate - Dan Pink: Drive, The surprising truth about what motivates us

2012-01-16T00:37:00.001+08:00

Most Elaborate Marriage Proposal

2012-01-10T00:08:00.001+08:00

Ang Pow For Wedding Dinners

2012-01-09T18:56:00.001+08:00

Saw this on facebook. Useful

Vision Test

2012-01-07T23:42:00.001+08:00

Hands-only CPR Ads

2012-01-04T21:10:00.002+08:00

Creativity vs Deadlines

2012-01-03T16:31:00.000+08:00

Sweet Meme Marriage Proposal

2012-01-02T09:46:00.000+08:00

This Is My Story - Ben Breedlove

2011-12-31T14:50:00.000+08:00

After cheating death three times, Ben Breedlove, 18, finally lost his life on Christmas night after suffering from a heart attack.

But not before he recorded videos of his life and near-death experiences and how at peace he felt when he believed he was leaving the world.

The Austin teenager had a life-threatening heart condition he fought every day as he was growing up.

He had a near death experience when he was four, fourteen and then less than a month ago.

In the video, he shares these experiences, including the bright light that brought him peace the first time around and the time he was wearing a suit and standing in a white room with his favourite rapper Kid Cudi.

Of this experience, he wrote: 'I then looked in the mirror, I was proud of myself of my entire life, everything I have done. It was the BEST feeling.'

The rapper posted this message on his blog after hearing of Ben's death: 'I am so sad about Ben Breedlove. I watched the video he left for the world to see, and him seeing me in detail, in his vision really warmed my heart.

'I broke down... To Ben’s family, you raised a real hero, he’s definitely mine. You have my love.'

Talking about the white light he saw in the hospital when he was four he wrote: 'I couldn't take my eyes off it, and I couldn't help but smile. I had no worries at all, like nothing else in the world mattered.

Ben had a popular YouTube channel OurAdvice4You in which he dealt out relationship advice to his peers.

It was in his last YouTube video, uploaded on December 18, that he made the heartbreaking video, using a series of flash cards to talk about growing up with the heart problem.

He revealed he regrets not being like everyone else: 'I was never allowed to play sports that my friends did. It kinda sucks that I missed out on that part of my life.'

Sigh, we all grow old

2011-12-29T02:42:00.000+08:00

Do you recognise these old geezers?

These were my heroes! Here they are in their glory days, in the same order

Epic Beard Man - The Movie

2011-12-24T17:59:00.002+08:00

Aki Ra - Badass disables 10,000 land mines for free

2011-12-22T19:56:00.001+08:00

As a child soldier in Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge army Aki Ra laid many landmines. He now clears these deadly bombs with a stick and a pocketknife, more than 10,000 to date. It is very dangerous. No one pays him to do it. Aki is the real deal.

FFUUUUUU

2011-12-22T03:45:00.002+08:00

Comic Book Proposal

2011-12-22T03:09:00.002+08:00

Pass It On

2011-12-20T01:16:00.000+08:00

Internet Meme: "I Used To Be An Adventurer Like You..."

2011-12-18T14:26:00.006+08:00

Images

“Arrow In The Knee” on Youtube

The quickly spreading phrase is most prevalent on YouTube, where it receives highest rated comment often, and is parodied constantly.^[9] Just a small selection of the videos across YouTube covering this line are available below. A far more extensive list of videos on this topic can be found by simply searching.^[9]

Fly Board

2011-12-17T13:28:00.004+08:00

Vice Guide To Pakistan Gun Markets

2011-12-15T19:36:00.001+08:00

Hobo signs

2011-12-15T11:04:00.000+08:00

Cool Video - Frozen Heist

2011-12-15T07:26:00.000+08:00

5 words Babies Use

2011-12-13T21:44:00.000+08:00

Where's Wall-E

2011-12-13T21:43:00.000+08:00

Vice Guide To Athen Riots

2011-12-09T20:46:00.001+08:00

Upon arriving in Athens we find a city whose streets are disappearing under uncollected waste. There's a sense of desperation overcoming the citizens. In the run up to a 48-hour national strike we meet teenage anarchists who are desperate for police blood, communists praying for revolution, and civil servants struggling to understand what has happened to their country.

The first day of the 48-hour hunger strike. A crowd of hundreds of thousands makes its way to parliament to protest the proposed austerity measures. We hear about the tactics used by the anarchists and police before seeing it for ourselves. Tear gas, flash grenades, and rocks fly as the city unites in angry disenchantment and attempts to storm parliament.

The Greek parliament meets to vote on proposed austerity measures while outside their society polarizes itself. All pretenses of togetherness vanish as the lines between authority figures and protesters are blurred, leading to street battles and, ultimately, one man's death.

Vice Guide To Belfast

2011-12-09T20:37:00.003+08:00

VICE headed over to Belfast, in the lead up to this year's Twelfth parade, and tensions were running higher than any period in recent memory: It was only a few months since a 25-year-old Catholic police officer was murdered by dissident republicans (to dissuade others from joining the force) and just weeks after altercations between nationalists and unionists in east Belfast ended in riots and multiple shootings, including a cameraman. What better time to explore Belfast and marinate in the divisive hate?

On the eve of the parade, we further explore the divide between the Protestant and Catholics in the Belfast community. We discovered that both sides share a commonality: the involvement from the youth.

It's the day of the July 12th parade, and everyone's celebrating

After the march, we head over to the Catholic area of Ardoyne, and and see tensions are running high. The police are here, in full riot gear. With angry citizens and a massive police presence, we wonder how this will end...

Senna driving F1 turbo race car in 1985 - 1400HP

2011-12-09T20:09:00.000+08:00

Of all the lonely people, the loneliest

2011-12-09T00:21:00.005+08:00

Source

Joyce Carol Vincent's body lay unnoticed in her English apartment for three years

In 2006, someone finally decided to check up on a London woman named Joyce Vincent who was badly behind in her rent.

What they found was a skeleton on the couch. She had been dead for nearly three years, the TV still on and the Christmas presents she had wrapped for friends lying on the floor along with a landslide of mail piled up inside the front door of her apartment.

Vincent, 38, lived alone in Wood Green, a declining but packed area of London, a city of eight million people. Her corpse was so desiccated that the coroner couldn’t figure out a cause of death, couldn’t even identify her from dental records until the police tracked down a photograph of her that showed her smiling.

It could happen to any of us. Apparently she just sat down and died as the TV, turned to BBC1, flickered and chattered away for cycles of leafy springs, hot summers, endless rain and every news event you and I lived through in those years. Her window was open in her busy apartment block above a street-level shopping mall, but the smell from nearby garbage bins disguised the stench of her rotting body.

Vincent had been estranged from her father and four sisters — her much-loved mother had died when she was 11 — but by all accounts, she was a vivacious, accomplished woman, said to resemble a pre-decline Whitney Houston. She had a pile of friends and a terrific job at Ernst & Young until, without apparent reason, she quit in 2001.

Not that there were many accounts. It took a determined filmmaker named Carol Morley many years to hunt down any truths about Vincent’s depressing — even horrifying — death and make a documentary called Dreams of a Life, now playing at the London Film Festival. Morley posted ads in newspapers and on the doors of the black cabs that shoot around the city, but even then it was tough to track down people who’d admit their shame at having let Vincent slip from sight.

The story is paralyzingly sad, all the more because Vincent was the model of what women especially set out to be: smart, kind, ambitious and attractive, and yet these qualities failed her. Perhaps they actually doomed her and contributed to the howling loneliness of her death. Morley talked to her local MP, Lynne Featherstone, one of the few who tried to investigate how and why she died. “I gather she was very beautiful, which for reasons totally spurious makes it more poignant because we always think beautiful people have everything go their way,” Morleywrote recently in The Observer.

The boyfriend of her youth, who kept in touch with her until 2002, bitterly regrets his inattention, but told Morley that Vincent always seemed confident and in control. “The trouble with Joyce was that she was very fanciable,” he said. “Wherever she went and whatever she did, there were people trying to get her into bed. It was a burden that she was so beautiful and she was very clever, a lot more intelligent than she let on. I think she had several lives.”

She seemed to have linked up with a brutal boyfriend. It was a battered women’s shelter that placed her in the subsidized rental where she died, and she may have felt ashamed of her perceived failure.

But why didn’t the friends whose names were on the wrapped gifts ever track down their mysteriously vanished friend?

The scariest thing about Vincent’s death is of course that with a few wrong turns, any of us could die this way. A lost job, divorce, a time of lying low and the remorseless nature of living in one of the huge cities that dot the planet and, bang, you vanish.

This is the kind of truth that keeps serial killers like Robert Pickton going, but there’s no indication that Vincent was murdered, no knife nicks on her bones at any rate. It’s just the nature of the city. It’s why Liz Lemon of the TV comedy 30 Rock teaches herself the singleton’s Heimlich manoeuvre, throwing herself onto the back of a chair to regurgitate a piece of steak.

Urban non-myths like Vincent’s death tableau are why people gird themselves to date even the sad prospects they have met online, their faces frozen into panicked smiles. It’s partly why people marry unsuitably or have children they don’t really want, why rural people resent urban types who seem to have prospered by definition, why so many of the seven billion on earth flock to the city—they fear solitude but think it surmountable.

Urban loneliness is asphyxiating, as Jonathan Raban wrote in his poignant 1974 sociology classic, Soft City. “Just as the city is the place where you can choose your society, so it is also the place where you can ‘drop’ discarded friends, old lovers, the duller members of your family.” And where you yourself can be dropped, as happened to Vincent.

The city is hard, not soft, Raban wrote, meaning that you can make no impression on it. “Lonely people often feel sick with guilt that they are suffering in the middle of such apparent abundance; what is wrong with them that they should be singled out to watch TV while millions are on the street below their windows.”

No one questioned Vincent’s non-stop TV. No one smelled her from the littered pavement. This was the price she and hundreds of millions like her pay for chasing the urban dream and finding it “vain, wanting and destructive,” as Raban described it.

I often look at the condo towers seeding like a forest all over Toronto and its suburbs and wonder about the stark lives being lived. People put out hopeful little café tables and chairs on their balconies, but I have yet to see a brunch party a few hundred metres from the Gardiner or Hwy 407. Who is huddled inside staring out at a city of sociable plenty and yearning for recognition?

Ah, look at all the lonely people. Shuddering at Vincent’s awful end, I suspect we could all end up like Eleanor Rigby. We must die alone by definition, but who will help us if no one notices.

Stop and Hear the Music

2011-12-06T16:36:00.001+08:00

‎"In Washington DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After about four minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About four minutes later, the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

At six minutes, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At ten minutes, a three-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.

At forty-five minutes: The musician played continuously. Only six people stopped and listened for a short while. About twenty gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After one hour: He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

This experiment raised several questions: In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? If so, do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context? One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made… How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?"

Anti Bullying Video

2011-12-05T19:15:00.000+08:00

Crazy & Stupid Skydiver

2011-12-03T09:51:00.001+08:00

Pics That Make Me Think "Holy Shit"

2011-12-01T02:08:00.000+08:00

Star Trek vs Star Wars

2011-12-01T01:27:00.004+08:00

Leonard Nimoy getting in on it!!!

TheRealNimoy Leonard Nimoy

Carrie Fisher says her hair buns in Star Wars are better than Spock ears. I don't agree. Her hair can't hear. LLAP

Alpine Coaster in Imst, Austria

2011-11-26T11:18:00.001+08:00

At 3.5 km, the world's longest coaster

6 Thoughts That Change The World And The Way We Look At It

2011-11-23T15:21:00.001+08:00

History of English in 10 Minutes

2011-11-23T15:02:00.001+08:00

The Iran Job

2011-11-23T10:31:00.002+08:00

Source

THE IRAN JOB follows American basketball player Kevin Sheppard as he accepts a job to play in one of the world’s most feared countries: Iran. With tensions running high between Iran and the West, Kevin tries to separate sports from politics, only to find that politics is impossible to escape in Iran. Along the way he forms an unlikely alliance with three outspoken Iranian women. Thanks to these women, his apartment turns into an oasis of free speech, where they discuss everything from politics to religion to gender roles. Kevin’s season in Iran culminates in something much bigger than basketball: the uprising and subsequent suppression of Iran’s reformist Green Movement – a powerful prelude to the currently unfolding Arab Spring.

HOW THE IRAN JOB STARTED:

In the fall of 2008 – shortly after Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the destruction of Israel – we had a Skype call with Kevin Sheppard, a flashy point-guard from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Kevin was about to start a basketball contract in the Iranian Super League. A minute into the conversation he had us rolling on the floor laughing in spite of the prospect of playing in a country that's supposedly full of illegal nukes and Islamic terrorists. We decided to start filming, even without a budget. (Fellow filmmakers: please don’t do this to yourselves, especially when you’re married with a small child and another on the way...) Till (husband/director) filmed Kevin in Iran over several visits, until on his last trip - in the run-up to Iran’s 2009 election - he was informed that he had been placed on a "black list" (for reasons still not clear to us), and was put in detention in a kind of "hotel-prison" inside the glitzy new Tehran airport. Sara (wife/producer) was at home, 5-months pregnant with kid number 2, while Till was in Tehran hand-shredding some not-so-cool-documents-when-you’re-stuck-in-Iran and flushing them down the toilet. He was sent back to New York on the next plane -- a stroke of luck in retrospect given the number of filmmakers and journalists recently arrested in Iran.

WHAT WE'RE DOING:

We need to raise at least $50,000 by the end of the year to prepare the film for a 2012 release.

WHY NOW:

With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq winding down, and the world's attention laser-focusing on Iran again this is a critical time to take a fresh look at Iranians. It may even be crucial in avoiding the next war in a Muslim country.

Besides … the NBA is locked out, so you might as well watch exciting basketball in Iran!

PARTNERS & SUPPORTERS:

Abigail Disney - executive producer of Academy Award shortlisted Pray The Devil Back To Hell and Academy Award nominated Sun Come Up, and creator of the PBS series Women, War and Peace – is our executive producer. Berlin’s The Post Republic (Waltz With Bashier) is our German co-producer. Christiane Amanpour graciously co-hosted a fundraiser. Gloria Steinem noted the film’s unexpected nexus of male sports and women’s rights – for while THE IRAN JOB is about men's basketball, above all it gives voice to three very brave Iranian women. We’ve also won the support of Karim Sadjapour, associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

And we're thrilled THE IRAN JOB features some of the most cutting-edge Iranian rap and hip-hop, including such artists as Shahin Najafi, Jadugaran, ZedBazi, and A2.

WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO SUPPORT THE IRAN JOB:

Make a pledge today via Kickstarter. Any contribution, no matter how small or large, will make a difference. And all contributions will be rewarded! Please check out the donation tiers to your right to find the level and gift that’s right for you!

Spread the word by telling your friends, family and social networks about our film and this Kickstarter campaign. Please send the URL of this page with a heartfelt endorsement to everyone you know! "Like" and Share the link on Facebook, Twitter, by email or blog. Encourage people to follow us. We can be found online here: Facebook, Twitter, www.theiranjob.com

If you have other ideas how to help please contact us!

HOW KICKSTARTER WORKS:

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects, driven by an all-or-nothing modus. If we don’t raise our goal of $50,000, we lose everything, and no money changes hands. If we do reach our goal, the film will come out in 2012. Our campaign will last for 50 days. 50 days go by very fast. If you can, please pledge now – it will help build crucial momentum.

During our campaign and beyond we will keep you updated on the progress of the film, and we welcome any feedback and comments. Thank you very much for helping us complete this journey!

With much love and gratitude,

Sara Nodjoumi & Till Schauder

Bruce Wayne's physical

2011-11-20T22:41:00.001+08:00

Source

Patient: Wayne, Bruce

DOB: 2/16/1971

Occupation: Industrialist

Insurance: Self-pay

Emergency Contact: Dick Grayson, XXX-269-9637

Interval History: Patient was seen for his last annual physical approximately one year ago. Since that time he has had numerous visits for acute illnesses or injuries, generally accompanied either by his companion Mr. Grayson or Alfred, a senior member of his household staff. These recent maladies appear to be in keeping with the pattern that has emerged over the past several years, in which significant medical problems are associated with odd or incongruous explanations. Most recently, patient was seen for numerous areas of lower extremity cutaneous blistering, erythema and thickening, consistent with moderate to severe frostbite. Patient had reportedly gotten lost while camping in the mountains, but could not account for how he had sustained these injuries in mid-August.

Past Medical History: As stated, patient has a somewhat lengthy and complicated medical history, best summarized by system –

Orthopedic: By far the greatest contributor to patient’s ongoing morbidity are his multiple and seemingly ceaseless musculoskeletal injuries. The most significant of these was sustained several years ago, when he was rushed to GCGH with several fractures of his lumbar vertebrae, reportedly after falling while rappelling. Skeletal series obtained at that time revealed numerous (>20) areas of orthopedic injury in various states of healing, which could not be fully explained by recent fall, including areas of all extremities and many ribs; confirmatory bone scan similarly showed many areas of increased uptake. Patient’s robust stature is not consistent with osteogenesis imperfecta, and skin biopsy was negative for abnormal collagen and P3H1 or CRTAP genetic defects. Malignancy was suspected, but eventually ruled out following oncology consultation. Patient explained most of these (and most subsequent) injuries as being the result of membership in a private and apparently quite intense mixed martial arts club. Patient has denied being the victim of domestic abuse by Mr. Grayson following indirect and direct questioning on numerous occasions.

Neurologic: Patient has been evaluated numerous times over the past several years with complaints of headache, blurry vision, memory deficits, nausea and emotional lability. As with above injuries, most of these symptoms occur following some blow to the head during MMA sparring or competition, and were diagnosed as consistent with concussion. (Patient reports that the club frowns upon protective headgear, a stand with which he seemingly complies despite numerous exhortations to do otherwise.) Following the third such episode, patient was referred to neurology due to significant concern about second-impact syndrome. While no gray matter changes in the cingulate gyrus or white matter hyperintensities were noted on magnetic resonance imaging, given history and known risk factors neurology has recommended MRI to be repeated every two years, and they are arranging for diffusion tensor imaging in the near future.

Allergic: Earlier this year, patient was again rushed to GCGH for what appeared to be severe anaphylaxis, with marked angioedema of the face and hands, and widespread urticaria. After administration of high-dose IV Solu-Medrol, patient’s angioedema resolved sufficiently for him to report “tripping into a bunch of weeds” while hiking, and he eventually left the emergency department against medical advice. On outpatient follow-up, patient was referred for urgent allergy testing given the severity of his reaction. Skin-prick testing was negative for all food allergies, but was markedly and instantly positive in reaction to all plant allergens, such that a dose of IM Decadron was administered by allergist in the office. Despite was appears to be an extraordinary hypersensitivity to phytochemicals, patient has had no further symptoms following the one episode.

Psychiatric: During most visits, patient displays a somewhat somber and flat affect. Numerous inquiries into his mood yield answers that it is “just fine,” followed by requests to change the topic of questioning. While dysthymia or frank depression is suspected (particularly considering patient’s voluntary participation in flagrantly harmful recreational activities), patient seems to have avoided any major depressive episodes. More worrisome was an episode about a year and a half ago, during which patient appeared to have a psychotic break. On arrival at GCGH, patient was found to be suffering from vivid, terrifying hallucinations, rendering him essentially incoherent and requiring high doses of both benzodiazepines and haloperidol to abate. After regaining consciousness several hours later, patient stated that the “stress of [his] job” had gotten to him. He vehemently refused evaluation by Arkham consulting psychiatrist, and eventually left the ED AMA.

Social History: Patient denies smoking, drinking or taking any illegal controlled substances. He resides with Mr. Grayson, reportedly without romantic involvement. Diet consists largely of meals prepared by private household cooking staff. He reports serially monogamous sexual relationships with female partners. When asked, he states that he “usually has proper equipment,” which is interpreted to mean that condoms are used for contraception and STI prevention.

Family History: Both parents deceased (homicide). Generally assumed to be non-contributory

Physical exam:

Temp 98.7, HR 60, RR 12, BP 113/68

General – well-nourished, well-appearing adult male in NAD; alert, oriented, cooperative

Skin – confluent, symmetrical, faintly erythematous rash extending from anterior hairline onto malar region (“from the hazmat mask they make me wear when I visit the lab”); four linear, well-healed lacerations on left pectoral (“fencing accident”). Numerous ecchymotic areas in various stages of healing

HEENT – small area of firm edema on the left occiput, c/w contusion. PERRLA, EOMI. TMs grossly intact bilat. Nares patent. Oropharynx normal. Good dentition, with evidence of repaired trauma

Chest – CTAB

CV – RRR without murmur. Radial, femoral pulses +2/4

Abd – soft, NTND, no HSM, + BS x 4.

Ext – well-defined (borderline hypertrophic) musculature. Limited active ROM in shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, ankles, consistent with healing contusion/sprain or overuse injuries in numerous joints. Normal tone, strength UE/LE bilat.

Neuro – CN 2-12 grossly intact. ? faint resting tremor. FTN intact, no dysdiadokinesia. DTR +2/4 at patella, Achilles. Gait normal. Refuses MMS exam (“I have an aversion to riddles.”)

Psych – well-groomed, pleasant and conversational. A & O x3. Affect somewhat flat (baseline, as stated above)

Assessment/Plan — 40-year-old male with complicated past medical history as noted. Generally normal exam, excepting the following:

Rash — Patient advised that mask seems to be causing an irritant rash, and advised him to have lab personnel fit him with another, less occlusive size.

Resting tremor — Given risk factors stated above, there is some concern about early Parkinsonism. Will contact patient’s neurologist to have next follow-up appointment moved up.

Joint stiffness — As with previous visits, patient was advised to consider recreational activities that carry less risk of ongoing physical injury, or at very least allow himself to heal fully from previous trauma before returning to participation. Given the apparently quite aggressive tendencies of patient’s MMA club, advised him that almost any other activity he might choose is likely to confer less risk of ongoing morbidity (or even mortality). Patient responded to this advice with his usual polite indifference.

Looking more globally, there is some concern that there is an underlying illness that accounts for some of patient’s extensive symptomatology. Discussed with patient that there may be some obscure syndrome that includes brittle bones, but also propensity for severe hypersensitivity, psychiatric symptoms and skin damage. Advised him that many journals publish reports of puzzling cases, which may allow other physicians to comment helpfully about treatments or diagnoses that might be pertinent. Patient politely but emphatically refuses consent for such publication at this time.

Advised patient to limit stress, continue with (hopefully more benign form of) physical activity, continue with healthy diet. Flu shot administered. Planned follow-up in one year, sooner as needed.

(Note to clerical staff — please exclude the following note if there are future record requests. An alternate explanation, more plausible than the histories associated with many of patient’s injuries, is a series of industrial mishaps. As head of Wayne Enterprises, patient presumably takes a very active role in the company’s various subsidiary R&D departments. These subsidiaries include biotech, chemical and numerous other firms that traffic in hazardous materials. One might infer that some of patient’s more extreme medical problems stem from exposure to these hazards while taking a hands-on approach to running his company. There are a few understandable reasons that patient might wish to keep the true nature of his injuries private, despite assurances of medical confidentiality given that leaks of this information might undermine confidence in his company’s governance or alternatively might jeopardize secret government contracts. While it is somewhat regrettable that patient does not feel comfortable revealing the true nature of these injuries and exposures, it is nevertheless understandable.)

Paleo Diet -- Doug McGuff MD Provides Concrete Medical Support

2011-11-13T00:52:00.001+08:00

Doug McGuff, MD became interested in exercise at the age of 15 when he first read Arthur Jones' Nautilus Training Bulletin No. 2. His interest in exercise and biology led him into a career in medicine. In 1989, he graduated from the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio and went on to train in Emergency Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock where he served as Chief Resident. From there, Dr. McGuff served as Faculty in the Wright State University Emergency Medicine Residency and was a staff Emergency Physician at Wright-Patterson AFB Hospital.

Throughout his career Dr. McGuff maintained his interest in high intensity exercise. Doug realized a lifelong dream when he opened Ultimate Exercise in November, 1997. Over the past 13 years Dr. McGuff and his instructors have continued to explore the limits of exercise through their personal training clients at Ultimate Exercise.

In addition to his work at Ultimate Exercise, Dr. McGuff is a partner with Blue Ridge Emergency Physicians, P.A. Dr. McGuff Lives in Seneca, South Carolina with his wife of 25-years, and their Children Eric and Madeline.

RSA Animate - Iain McGilchrist: The divided brain

2011-11-12T18:21:00.001+08:00

Unwanted Celebrity

2011-11-10T18:23:00.004+08:00

Source

Angie Varona, 17, had her Photobucket account hacked when she was 14, causing her world to turn upside down.

The image-hosting website held several inappropriate pictures, each one starring Varona in bikinis and lingerie wear. She never appeared naked.

“I had been notified by a close friend who had seen me in a porn site ad,” Varona said. “I spent the whole summer trying to take down all the pictures, but it was virtually impossible to track down who hacked me. I felt like crap knowing my life was going down the drain.”

After her schoolmates at John A. Ferguson Senior High found out, massive rumors spread like wildfire.

“I remember walking down the hallway, hearing people talk and watching people stare at me,” she said. “There were rumors that I was becoming a porn star.”

In reality, school was the least of her worries.

“I began getting real stalkers,” Varona said. “People from other states found out my address and took pictures of my house. They threatened to rape me.”

Three years later and now homeschooled, Varona is still coping.

“They’re not even getting my pictures from Photobucket anymore,” she said. “They’re getting them through my Facebooks. I can’t even have my real name. I’ve had like six Facebooks now.”

Her initial action of taking pictures for her boyfriend evolved into something she couldn’t imagine. Although her parents were supportive, they were disappointed at her for taking such sexual pictures and having them in the incapable hands of the Internet.

This popular trend of posting nude or sexual pictures has been practiced since cellphone cameras came on the scene.

“It’s everywhere, even where you least expect it – like on your teen’s computer, cellphone and game device,” Parry Aftab, a pioneering Internet law lawyer, said on her website.

“Forty-four percent of boys in coed high schools we polled reported seeing at least one image of a fellow female classmate in the nude,” said Aftab, who practices law in New Jersey. “Most saw images of more than just one girl. And many saw multiple images of each girl. Your daughter may be among them.”

A survey conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reveals that nearly one in five young people have sent nude pictures electronically or online.

“They’re posting these pictures trying to look older, cooler,” Aftab said. “They’re posing in their bras before they’re old enough to wear them. Now, when they’re passing the pictures from kid to kid afterwards, the kids that are passing them are being charged with child pornography.”

Because federal law doesn’t make any distinction about who creates the child porn, teens who take nude photos of themselves and child pornographers who abuse and exploit children can receive the same punishment.

That means that a child could spend up to five years in federal prison for simply possessing their own naked picture. Sending it out to others, however, can get a 15-year term.

Bryan Roussell, a detective in the Special Victims Unit of the Hollywood Police Department, has received many calls from parents who also don’t realize the consequences.

“[Parents] don’t understand that their daughter or their son is the one who started the crime by taking the picture of themselves and posting them on the Internet,” Roussell said.

“If a kid has a bunch of stored nude images [of minors] on his computer, he’ll be arrested for that and he’ll have to go through the judicial system like anybody else, whether he’s an adult or a child.”

Also, in many states, like Florida, if a person is convicted of a crime against children, it automatically registers him/her with the sex offender registry, a lifelong curse.

What really perturbs authorities and parents is why adolescents take these pictures. Therapist Ana M. Moreno, a licensed mental health counselor in Miami, believes self-esteem plays a role in these behaviors.

“The cases I have worked with that have engaged in this behavior are looking for outside validation. These teen girls feel that their sexuality makes them ‘popular’ and attracts attention,” Moreno said. “They may not feel good about their decision to share sexual pictures; however, if positive validation is received, they tend to feel content and sometimes elated with the feedback.”

Child pornography prosecutions skyrocketed in 2004, the same year as the creation of Facebook, creating a 650 percent increase from 1994.

“Those pictures are going to get out and you know how it is in school. Everyone will call these kids names. Now she becomes a ‘slut’ and she’s going to have to deal with that social issue,” Roussell said.

The trend is affecting people at all levels. Even celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Vanessa Hudges have been caught in the act of “sexting” and sending nude photos to people in confidence.

Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, said the trend is not limited by gender.

“It’s not just teen girls,” she said, “but it’s also teen boys who are sending these images. When the images start to go viral, however, far more often, girls’ images go viral. It’s developmental, stupid behavior where nobody intended to harm anybody.

“One of the categories that ‘sexting’ falls under,” Willard said, “is when young people are trying to find a partner, trying to find someone to tell them things like ‘I love you, babe.’ Then the images end up getting posted to the Internet and they go viral.”

According to a survey Willard conducted, when minors were asked what they’d do if they were asked to send a nude picture, 94 percent of the group said “No way, never, goodbye.”

“The problem is that the hot, amazing junior boy is asking for nudes from the cute, little freshman girl, and all the while saying ‘everyone does it all the time, it’s a normal thing, I’d never send it to anyone, it’ll just be between you and me.’

Schools should begin surveying young people to show that freshman that, no, not everyone is sending nude pictures,” Willard said.

Everyone has a different mindset on where this trend will take society if it continues without fix.

“Learning about sexuality could start happening at a younger age,” Brandon Mercado, 16, said. “It could become popular and even become widely accepted.”

Many believe that since it’s a teen behavior problem, the duty of fixing it relies on the parents.

“Parents are encouraged to set rules and consequences,” Moreno, the therapist, said. “Every moment can be a teachable moment.”

Drivelapse USA - 5 Minute Roadtrip Timelapse Around America

2011-11-10T00:03:00.000+08:00

Internet Meme: Jian Sword Dancing

2011-11-06T13:08:00.004+08:00

Everything about this video is awesome,
Weird brother,
Fat dog,
Old ass granny with shades and a beer,
Last but not least synchronized sword dancing.

More awesomeness

You are blind for 40 minutes EVERYDAY.

2011-11-04T22:23:00.001+08:00

It's not that your eyes aren't working. Your mind is actually blocking images all the time, and refusing to process them. Whenever your eyes move, your brain doesn't process what would normally be very dizzying blurry images coming from the retina. To fill in the gaps of time, your brain creates an illusion for a fraction of a second to keep us from noticing. This is called "Saccadic masking" and it keeps us from experiencing motion blur. Your brain replaces the blurry images with static images of your next object of focus. Whatever you look at after moving your eyes appears to stay still for a long period of time, because it is actually the same image stretched for a longer period of time to cover up the blur. This is called the "stopped-clock illusion", when the first second on a clock after you turn to look at it appears to take longer than all the other seconds.

Europe According To Europeans

2011-11-02T18:18:00.001+08:00

According to the Swiss:

According to the Vatican:

According to the British:

According to the French:

According to the Germans:

According to the Greeks:

According to the Italians:

According to the Poles:

According to the Russians:

According to the Turks:

According to the Americans:

According to Silvio Berlussconi

Vulture rams paraglider mid-air

2011-11-01T21:20:00.001+08:00

Brother Sharp: Beggar Hailed Most Handsome, Fashionable

2011-11-01T09:36:00.000+08:00

Source

From QQ:

Fashionable beggar becomes famous online, encounters human flesh search

“Those sad eyes/that sad expression, the sad mustache, the miraculous godly hair, and that messy hair, all of it has deeply captivated me.” …Recently, a very hot/popular beggar post has become famous on the internet, the post narrating what netizens have hailed as “The Ultimate Gorgeous #1 Passerby Handsome Guy” beggar. Owing to his unconventional, nondescript appearance as well as his original “mashup”, netizens have begun following him, even “human flesh searching” him.

Tianya calls him “犀利哥”, xīlì gē, “Brother Sharp” or “Sharp Brother”.

It can also translate to “Brother Penetrating” or “Penetrating Brother” … but…

The only living master of a dying martial art

2011-10-30T23:25:00.000+08:00

Source

A former factory worker from the British Midlands may be the last living master of the centuries-old Sikh battlefield art of shastar vidya. The father of four is now engaged in a full-time search for a successor.

The basis of shastar vidya, the "science of weapons" is a five-step movement: advance on the opponent, hit his flank, deflect incoming blows, take a commanding position and strike.

It was developed by Sikhs in the 17th Century as the young religion came under attack from hostile Muslim and Hindu neighbours, and has been known to a dwindling band since the British forced Sikhs to give up arms in the 19th Century.

Nidar Singh, a 44-year-old former food packer from Wolverhampton, is now thought to be the only remaining master. He has many students, but shastar vidya takes years to learn and a commitment in time and energy that doesn't suit modern lifestyles.

"I've travelled all over India and I have spoken to many elders, this is basically a last-ditch attempt to flush someone out because if I die with it, it is all gone."

Mr Singh is searching India and Pakistan for a young successor

He would be overjoyed to discover an existing master somewhere in India, or to find a talented young student determined to dedicate his life to the art.

Until he was 17 years old, he knew little of his Sikh heritage. His family were not religious - he wore his hair short and dressed like any British teenager. He was a keen wrestler, but knew nothing of martial arts.

He spent his childhood between Punjab and Wolverhampton and it was on one of these trips to see an aunt in India that he met Baba Mohinder Singh, the old man who was to become his master.

Already in his early 80s, Baba Mohinder Singh had abandoned life as a hermit in a final effort to find someone to pass on his knowledge to.

"When he saw my physique he looked at me, even though I was clean-shaven and he asked me: 'Do you want to learn how to fight'," recalls Nidar Singh. "I couldn't say no."

On his first day of training, the frail old man handed him a stick and instructed Mr Singh to hit him. When he tried, the master threw him around like a rag doll.

"He was a frail old man chucking me about and I couldn't touch him," he says. "That definitely impressed me."

Open-minded

Mr Singh spent the next 11 years on his aunt's farm, milking the buffalos in the morning and spending every day training with his master.

In 1995 he returned to Britain to get married and took work packing food in a factory. He began to teach shastar vidya and immersed himself in research on early Sikh military history.

Soon he had enough interest from students to go into teaching full-time. He now travels around the UK to teach classes and to Canada and Germany where eager students have asked him to share his knowledge.

History of shastar vidya

When Sikh leader Guru Arjan Dev was murdered by the Mughal emperor in 1606, his son Guru Hargobind set out to militarise the Sikh people
Men were instructed to carry arms - including the kara (iron bracelet) and kirpan (small blade) still worn by orthodox Sikhs today
Hair was worn long and wrapped around the head to protect the skull
Hargobind also set up schools to train an elite warrior caste called the Akali Nihang, the immortal crocodiles, which developed secret fighting techniques
They also adopted a unique belief system with the martial art as a main tenet of their faith

"The people who are here are open-minded," he says. "I have Muslims and Christians here as well as Sikhs."

But even his most advanced pupils have only recently reached the stage where they can fight him with weapons without getting hurt.

Shastar vidya often gets confused with Gatka, a stick-fighting technique that was developed during British occupation of Punjab and was widely practised among Sikh soldiers in the British army.

Though it is a highly skilled art it was developed for exhibition rather than mortal combat. It is much easier to practise in public.

By working to revive a culture and practice that left the mainstream more than 200 years ago, Mr Singh has come up against a lot of resistance from within the Sikh community.

He says he received 84 death threats in his first two years as a teacher, from other Sikh groups who disagree with the ideology of shastar vidya and the beliefs of the small Nihang sect, which he identifies with.

"It is not just martial technique, there is a lot of oral tradition and linguistic skills that has to be there as well," he explains.

Nihangs still maintain some tenets of the Hindu faith, they have three scriptures rather than one and these extra books contain influences from Hinduism.

Many Nihangs also eat meat and drink alcohol which fundamentalist Sikhs disagree with. Traditionally they also drank bhang, an infusion of cannabis, to get closer to God.

"Sikhism has gone through several stage of evolution," says Christopher Shackle , a former professor of South Asian studies at Soas, University of London. "When the Nihangs were formed at the end of the 17th Century they were a very powerful group but they became rather marginalised."

An Akali Nihang soldier in 1865

When the Sikhs established their own kingdom under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he realised he needed a modern army to keep the British out, and he hired ex-Napoleonic officers to train up his soldiers, sidelining the Nihangs.

The Nihangs were further isolated when the British Raj defeated the Sikh state in 1849 and forced Sikhs to give up arms.

"The British introduced a shoot-to-kill policy," says weapons collector and historian Davinder Tool, adding that accounts of British army officers show some troops fired on any man with a blue turban and a firearm.

"There is a sense that the Nihang's got left behind by time," says Mr Shackle.

Mr Singh spends a lot of time travelling to India and Pakistan researching the art, searching for descendents of the Akali Nihang and adding to his vast collection of weapons.

So far he has only met four people who could claim to be masters, now all dead. The last of these, Ram Singh, whom he met in 1998, died four years later.

"Nidar Singh is like someone who has walked straight out of the 18th Century," says Parmjit Singh, who has worked on several books on Nihang culture with the master.

"He is like a window into the past."

He is also still hoping to be a door to the future, opening up the path for new practitioners of the art to follow.

5 Scientific Reasons Your Idea of Happiness Is Wrong

2011-10-28T21:49:00.002+08:00

Source

Our two favorite subjects at Cracked are the elusive concept of human happiness and Batman. This article is about the first one.

If you're looking for an answer to "How can I be happy?" then the response from the experts is, "You're asking the wrong question." The better question is why our idea of happiness is so screwed up that most of us wouldn't recognize the real thing if we saw it. Well ...

#5. What We're Calling Happiness is a Recent Invention

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This should blow your mind: The entire concept that you can become happy via some action you can take is a relatively recent invention. And the concept that a person should be happy, and that anything else is the result of some unusual breakdown in the system, is extremely recent.

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"I'd define happiness as less than four types of lice on my body."

Now, before everyone digs out their old goth clothes and screams, "Aha! We told you that the world was just an endless black ocean of suffering!" that's actually the opposite of the point we're making. It appears that the reason so many people profess to be miserable is specifically because they think they're missing out on some magical emotion that "happy" people feel all the time. They're tormenting themselves over the loss of something that nobody actually has, because that thing doesn't even have a definition.

See, the thing is that humans have never actually settled on what "happiness" is. A historian named Darrin McMahon exhaustively studied how happiness has been viewed over the last few thousand years and found that it was constantly changing.

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"I'd say I define happiness as less than three types of lice on my body."

Go back to ancient Greece and it's very simple: Happiness = Luck. Either the gods dribbled their joy juice on you or didn't; either way, there was nothing you could do about it. And that was it, end of conversation. It was nothing to get upset about. In fact, in every European language, the root of the word for happiness is some older word that meant "luck." Ours comes from the old Norse and Old English word "hap", and hap simply means "luck."

Flash forward to Aristotle's day, 335-ish B.C. Philosophers of the time considered happiness to be synonymous with virtue. In other words, do good to feel good. If you didn't feel good, it meant you weren't being virtuous enough. Now, we don't want to come off as cynical here, but it almost sounds like this was when they started using this elusive idea of happiness as a motivational tool. Happiness is the carrot on the stick that makes you do all of the things that keep society running smoothly.

Getty
"All of this will be worth it, once I'm able afford that crack habit I've been longing for."

After that, you get into medieval times when early Christians saw happiness as something a soul was to be rewarded with in heaven, and not something attainable in the mortal world. Then the Renaissance came along and brought us the concept of pleasure equaling happiness. Keep in mind, those two ideas weren't always connected -- the old-school thinkers described happiness as the overall state of somebody who had lived their life well, completely separating it from that feeling you get when you eat a warm cookie or play with a puppy.

"I'm deeply, spiritually satisfied about the number of puppies I've played with."

But the new definition of happiness seemed to be "you feel like you're playing with a puppy, all the time." Then the Enlightenment declared that everyone had a right to be happy, and by the time the American Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, the "pursuit of happiness" was declared an inalienable right, endowed by the creator. That's a damned 180-degree turn from what the ancient Greeks thought. And if we're defining happiness as 24/7 puppy time, then it doesn't work.

"... with liberty and puppies for all."

Not according to science, anyway. Because ...

#4. You Physically Can't Feel Happiness for Very Long

Getty

Quick: What's the final line of every fairy tale you know? "And they all lived ..."

Yes, everybody realizes life is not a fairy tale, or a Hollywood movie (where 99 percent of the time, the final shot implies, "And they lived happily ever after"). We say we realize that, anyway. Yet, people still talk about happiness like there is some finish line. Once you cross it, you'll have "achieved happiness."

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"The first 10 to not hate their lives win a free hat!"

Don't take our word for it -- go to Amazon.com and search for the words "achieve happiness" and check out how many self-help books promise they'll get you to that destination:

Amazon.com
Yes, the No. 1 result is by Russell Simmons.

Well, science says it's not possible.

As it turns out, the human brain is equipped with "hedonic set points" which not only establish where our base mood is (optimistic, pessimistic or indifferent); but also adapts rather quickly to our surroundings and returns to our base frame of mind. Basically, we all have a built-in buzzkill app.

Getty
"Laugh all you want. That romantic comedy won't halt your inevitable demise."

In 1978, a research group studied lottery winners, regular assholes and those who had suffered injuries rendering them paraplegic or quadriplegic. All groups reported a similar number of good days versus bad days, with no clear victor in the happiness race.

On the bright side, these studies show that people adapt better than they think they would to devastating situations. The triumph of the human spirit, etc. But on the flip side, if you're completely miserable now, achieving your goals will probably only result in a slight surge on the happiness meter and then you'll be right back to your crotchety old self.

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"This Nobel Prize is lovely, but right now, I'm much more interested in learning the banjo."

Some psychologists refer to this trend as the "hedonic treadmill," saying that we experience only a brief moment of fleeting happiness when we achieve a goal before our minds look forward to the next conquest.

And ... look at that. There's the carrot and the stick again. Only instead of coming in the form of some philosopher or book telling you if you do the following, you will be happy in the future, it's your own brain. It's triggering a built-in mechanism to keep you from getting complacent. Either way, the promise of happiness just over the next hill turns out to be a tool to keep you climbing hills.

#3. Money Can Buy Happiness. .. Sort of

Getty

It's no shock that personal satisfaction goes up with income, though not to the degree that some people think. There is no question that the anxiety that comes with knowing somebody is going to repossess your house at any moment is hard as hell on your happiness levels.

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But once you have no home at all? Pure bliss.

But when you do have some above-poverty level of income, how do you spend the money? When it comes time to splurge on something fun, some of you focus on new possessions (a TV, a video game console, a family of multiracial blow-up dolls) while others are more likely to buy experiences (a massage, dinner at a fancy restaurant, a concert, a "massage").

Well, you don't have to look very hard to find a study saying that materialism has a devastating toll on the happiness fund as well as the bank account. While we have an entire economic system and popular culture built to cater to it, science says that endless pursuit of stuff leads to decreased life satisfaction, decreased happiness, depression, paranoia and narcissism. Holy shit!

Getty
That's a hollow smile on his face.

The obvious problem is that possessions are like a physical manifestation of the hedonistic treadmill we just discussed -- your fancy new car accumulates scratches and door dings and burrito sauce stains on the seats. It degrades right in front of your eyes. The new computer gets slower every day you own it. And, before long, somebody you know will buy a nicer one that makes yours look like a sad, computer-shaped turd and then all of your new-gadget happiness is released into the atmosphere in a black cloud of euphoria emissions.

You get better results, the experts say, from spending money on experiences -- a concert, a vacation, a clothing-optional cruise. If those events go well, they tend to get better in your memory as time goes on.

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"In a few years, we won't even remember how much puking we did this week."

But get this -- when doing a study of vacationers, the happiest people were the ones in the weeks leading up to a vacation. It was all about anticipation. Again, it looks like our brain rewards us more for working toward a goal than for actually arriving there. The study actually suggests taking more frequent, shorter vacations. You know, so you can spend more time anticipating them.

Wait, didn't we say that in medieval times their whole thing was just telling people they'd be happy after they died? So they'd spend their whole lives in that anticipation mode? We're not experts. Just throwing that out there.

Getty
"Just a couple more decades of backbreaking labor and then cash-out!"

#2. Freedom of Choice Doesn't Always Make You Happier

Getty

If you're reading this, you probably live in some kind of a free society. And we're guessing that you place pretty high value on freedom, and that approximately zero of you stare out the window and long to move to North Korea. But freedom to choose everything you do comes at a price.

Getty
"But which brand of hazelnut is the hazelnuttiest?"

For instance, there are two kinds of people: those old enough to remember a world without the Internet, and those who are not. If you were born in the 1970s, you probably remember a household, not only without a computer, but with a television that had three channels. And UHF. Total. And no video games.

Thank goodness we had Vietnam to keep us occupied.

Since then, the entertainment choices have gone up infinitely. We have our food choices, and toothpaste choices, and career choices. Don't scoff at that last one ("Ha, I'd love to have even one career!") since a lot of your job anxiety comes from the fact that there are so many choices that it isn't at all obvious which one is right for you. Once upon a time, you knew what you were going to do when you grew up: You were going to work on the goddamn farm, just like everybody else. Now, you spend the last year of high school knowing that of the thousands of possible careers, you will probably suck at all but one or two. And the results if you pick wrong can be devastating.

Getty
"If only I'd been a fry cook."

That everyday anxiety over making the wrong choice is why having a vast selection of choices tends to make people less happy in general.

You have that agonizing selection process, repeated over and over again with decisions big and small (and some of you reading this have worried yourself sick over whether to go with LCD or plasma -- don't say you haven't) which not only leads to anxiety, but decreased satisfaction even when we do chose correctly. After all, once you make the decision and get locked in, you never stop thinking "What if."

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"I was this close to a spot on the cast of Mad TV, but I threw it all away for politics."

Hell, regret is the whole basis of the "midlife crisis" people go through in their 40s and 50s. "What if I'd chosen some other career? Or some other wife? Or chosen to spend more time with my kids instead of working?" It's the fact that there is not enough time left to redo any of those decisions that triggers the "crisis."

And all of it comes back to the elusive nature of happiness. You picked X because you thought it would make you happy, but you're not happy, so you probably should have picked Y instead. Then you would have been happy, dammit. Which means the pressure is really on when you make this next decision. Because happiness is right over that next hill, and you'd better pick the right way to get over it. Don't fuck this up! Everything rides on this!

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But don't get stressed out! Shithead!

Maybe that explains what is going to be the weirdest statistic you'll hear all month: The countries and states with the highest happiness levels also have the highest suicide rates. People in New York state rank 45th in reported life satisfaction. They also have the lowest suicide rates. Hawaii unsurprisingly has the second-highest life satisfaction, it being an island paradise and all. But it also ranks in the top five in suicides.

Also, it looks kind of like a noose from above.

The answer, researchers guess, is that the people reporting happiness are not in fact the same people who are committing suicides. No, they think the source of the depressed people's despair is being around all of these happy people. Think about how that magnifies all of your mistakes, and highlights what you missed out on.

#1. Treating Happiness as a Goal is Bad News

Getty

Let's go back a couple of thousand years, back to the era when happiness was either all about luck, or the result of living a virtuous life. In both of those schools of thought, it sounds like the message is, "Don't even bother trying to be happy, because these are ancient times, we all live in filth and that's just the way it is." But according to the experts, they may have been onto something. Just in a roundabout way.

"Does anyone else feel oddly fulfilled?"

A study published by Perspectives on Psychological Science found that participants, when asked to read and act out steps in a self-help article or to watch an upbeat film, usually concentrated too hard on trying to improve their mood and therefore ended up feeling cheated and more downtrodden.

The study's co-author and a member of the psychology department faculty at Yale University, June Gruber, said: "When you're doing it with the motivation or expectation that these things ought to make you happy, that can lead to disappointment and decreased happiness."

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Not unlike the Smurf movie.

So what does jolly Old June suggest?

"... the best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy and instead divert your energy to nurturing the social bonds you have with other people ... If there's one thing you're going to focus on, focus on that. Let all the rest come as it will."

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Also there are other alternatives. Giant handfuls of them.

The very act of trying to achieve happiness made people unhappy because of the anxiety they felt when they failed. They were happier when they weren't trying. You know, like if somebody had told them it was out of their hands, or that they should focus on doing good things and declare the result to be "happiness," regardless of what it looked like.

And also, they should avoid reading articles about happiness at all costs.

Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

2011-10-28T21:48:00.001+08:00

Dermablend - Go Beyond The Cover

2011-10-25T16:57:00.001+08:00

I guess that tattooed guy managed to get a modelling job after all

Dodged the bullet

2011-10-24T23:13:00.003+08:00

The year 2000 as envisioned in the year 1910

2011-10-20T00:08:00.000+08:00

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In 1910, French artist Villemard produced a series of illustrations depicting what life might be like in the year 2000. Yeah, he pretty much nailed it.

Man Posts Story On Reddit, Gets Movie Deal

2011-10-16T01:13:00.001+08:00

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Recently, there’ve been a lot of negative storiesgoing around about the social link-sharing website Reddit and it feels like it’s been way too long since we had a genuinely good one. Today, though, we got a doozy. One month ago, a Redditor asked a simple hypothetical (“Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?”) and it caught another user’s interest. That user,James Erwin, began writing a narrative using that scenario, it quickly went viral, and now he’s gotten himself a damn movie deal!

It all started when Erwin, a two-time Jeopardy champion from Iowa, posted this, the first part of a book:

“DAY 1 The 35th MEU is on the ground at Kabul, preparing to deploy to southern Afghanistan. Suddenly, it vanishes.
The section of Bagram where the 35th was gathered suddenly reappears in a field outside Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber River. Without substantially prepared ground under it, the concrete begins sinking into the marshy ground and cracking. Colonel Miles Nelson orders his men to regroup near the vehicle depot – nearly all of the MEU’s vehicles are still stripped for air transport. He orders all helicopters airborne, believing the MEU is trapped in an earthquake.
Nelson’s men soon report a complete loss of all communications, including GPS and satellite radio. Nelson now believes something more terrible has occurred – a nuclear war and EMP which has left his unit completely isolated. Only a few men have realized that the rest of Bagram has vanished, but that will soon become apparent as the transport helos begin circling the 35th’s location.
Within an hour, the 2,200 Marines have regrouped, stunned. They are not the only moderns transported to Rome. With them are about 150 Air Force maintenance and repair specialists. There are about 60 Afghan Army soldiers, mostly the MEU’s interpreters and liaisons. There are also 15 U.S. civilian contractors and one man, Frank Delacroix, who has spoken to no one but Colonel Nelson.
Miraculously, no one was killed during the earthquake but several dozen people were injured, some seriously. All fixed-wing aircraft and the attack helicopters were rendered inoperable by the shifting concrete, although the MEU did not lose a single vehicle or transport helicopter.
As night falls, the MEU has established a perimeter. A few locals have been spotted, but in the chaos no one has yet established contact. Nelson and his men, who are crippled without mapping software and GPS to fix their position, begin attempting to fix their location by observing stars. The night is cloudy. Nelson orders four helicopters back into the air at first light, to travel along the river in hopes of locating a settlement.”

For the next few week, Erwin wrote a little more each day. Redditors quickly fell in love with the story, so much so that they created a whole Subreddit (one of the many individual boards that Reddit uses to categorize posts) for him to encourage him to continue. And continue he did. Fans got to watch in real time as the story was crafted before their own eyes, seeing Erwin fix elements he’d changed his mind about and use the site to ask actual Marines for help with details.

And now the story, entitled Rome Sweet Rome, will become an actual movie. The whole thing’s pretty crazy.

Really though, I think we’re all just hoping some movie execs hit up the Mediaite comments section. Obviously Commie Fascist: All You A**holes Are Wrong would make an excellent summer blockbuster.

Latest update Day 8

A Thousand Breasts for Putin

2011-10-15T12:02:00.003+08:00

One man was allowed to grab a thousand breasts in a row because Putin. That was his entire strategy. Russian comedian Sam Nickel had a chance to shake hands with the Russian prime minister, wanted to pass on two kilotits of "positive energy and tactile experience" through his hands and kept a straight face while explaining that to a thousand women. He maintained a fierce scowl of concentration throughout the project, possibly to prevent himself from giggling, "It's working!"

He actually tried it on five thousand women, proving that simply saying "Putin" gives you a 20 percent chance of getting to second base. That's one word per thousand gropes. Even pick-up artists don't claim rates that good, and desperation, bullshit and ridiculous online claims are their entire deal. He finished off this electronically-recorded 1,000-grab combo with a triple-hit-finisher, something which is normally the opposite of touching tits.

And.. Putin's Army

The woman who aged from 23 to 73 in 'a few days'

2011-10-15T08:16:00.003+08:00

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These pictures may look like an attractive woman in her 20s and her grandmother.
But they are said to be the same person – apparently taken just days apart.

The young Vietnamese woman at the centre of the improbable medical case, Nguyen Thi Phuong, claims the transformation may have come about because of an extreme allergy to seafood.

Nguyen, 26, says she developed this puffy face and sagging skin in 2008 but was too poor to seek treatment. Earlier this month, doctors said they would examine her free of charge.

Nguyen’s husband, carpenter Thanh Tuyen, insists the story is true and his love has not faded for his once-beautiful wife.

Rapid ageing: A mystery condition has apparently caused Nguyen Thi Phuong's face to sag and wrinkle over a matter of day. She is pictured aged 21 on the left and 26 on the right

She has always worn wear a mask in public to hide her appearance from prying eyes, but she has now sought help from doctors to see if they can reverse the 'ageing' effect.

Displaying photos of a beautiful 21-year-old woman on her wedding day in 2006, Mrs Nguyen said: 'Five years ago, I was rather pretty and not so ugly like this, right?'

Mrs Nguyen believes her condition was caused by a life-long allergy to seafood.

She said she had suffered a particularly bad reaction in 2008.

'I was really itchy all over my body. I had to scratch even while sleeping.'

Phuong said she took some medicine bought at a local pharmacy instead of going to the hospital because her and her husband Tuyen, now 33, were too poor to afford it.

She said: 'After one month of taking the drugs, I became less itchy but hives remained on my skin.

Then I switched to traditional medicine and all the hives disappeared, together with my itching. However, my skin began to sag and fold.'

Mrs Nguyen then took another kind of traditional medicine to treat her rapid-aging skin problem - but to no avail.

Doctors say it may have been the long-term use of traditional medicines that caused the condition as they are often spiked with corticoids. These steroids speed up the effects of the unregulated remedies but could also have triggered the rare skin disease mastocytosis, where the body produces too many mast cells.

The couple do not remember what the medicine was or which pharmacy they got it from.

Our love hasn't faded: Tuven (pictured) said he still loved his wife but they hadn't had children as their lives were too difficult

Mrs Nguyen said: 'We considered that it was our destiny and I quit treatment in 2009. Now I always wear a face mask whenever I go out.

'The skin on my face, chest and belly have folds like an old woman who has given birth several times although I have never had a child.

'But the rapid-aging syndrome hasn't affected my menstrual cycle, hair, teeth, eyes and mind.'

In 2010, the couple migrated to the southern province of Binh Phuoc's Bu Dop District where they rent a small wooden house.

Mr Nguyen continued to work as a carpenter while Phuong got a job at a cashew-nut processing factory. Both earn a total of less than £92 a month - which means they cannot afford an examination at a major hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.

Tuyen said his wife's disease has not affected his love for her or their relationship.

He said: 'I married Phuong when she was a beautiful woman. I have followed her through her disease and have never been shocked at all.

'It's not easy to talk about one's own marital affairs. Just simply understand that I still love her very much.'

Mrs Nguyen said her husband's love is the reason she is able to persevere in the face of adversity.

She said: 'He still loves me like before despite the fact that I look old and ugly.

With him, I feel more confident to live and work.'

On October 2, doctors from Nguyen Dinh Chieu Hospital in Ben Tre Province said they would examine Phuong for free and send her to the HCMC Dermatology Hospital if they failed to diagnose her condition.

There is already some disagreement among doctors over the cause of the rare condition.

Doctor Vo Thi Bach Suong of the HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy, said: 'She might have taken corticoid for a long time. Many traditional pharmacists use corticoid in their medicine, leading to side effects like swelled face and abnormally-growing skin sections.'

Nguyen Hoai Nam, another lecturer at the university, agreed that Phuong may suffer from the wrongful use of corticoid.

He said: 'A sudden stop in using corticoid could easily lead to Cushing's Syndrome, which is clearly seen through affected skin.'

However, doctor Huynh Huy Hoang of the HCMC Dermatology Hospital has doubts over this diagnosis.

He said: 'It's really strange. This is the first time I've heard of such a case of rapid-aging process on an adult. It's not lipodystropy syndrome.
'However, aging is not a common sign of Cushing's Syndrome either.'

Doctor Yen Lam Phuc of the Vietnam Military Medical Academy agreed with Hoang, saying the rapid aging could not be a side effect of a medical substance. He said: 'It could be a totally new syndrome.'

Meanwhile Tuyen said that he and his wife do not dare to have a child, even though they have been married several years, because their lives are so difficult.

He said: 'Our only wish is to have some philanthropists or doctors help my wife to make her normal face again.'

Doctor Hoang Van Minh from the Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University Hospital claims Phuong, could regain some of her previous beauty with medical treatment.

Dr Hoang visited Phuong this week at her house in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre where he said it was likely she did have mastocytosis. He said Phuong's face still swells and she is itchy with frequent diarrhoea, which are common signs of the disease.

There is currently no cure but there are many medicines to help treat its symptoms.

'She needs to be treated for her allergies first,' Dr Hoang said.

He added that his treatment plan could restore between 50-70 percent of her skin to normal and laser therapy could reduce the folds.

Dr Hoang said there should be more tests to verify his initial diagnosis and find any other diseases she might have.