adamantine

““We might think of the culture as possessing a ‘symptom repertoire’ — a range of physical symptoms available to the unconscious mind for the physical expression of psychological conflict. In some epochs, convulsions, the sudden inability to speak or terrible leg pain may loom prominently in the repertoire. In other epochs patients may draw chiefly upon such symptoms as abdominal pain, false estimates of body weight and enervating weakness as metaphors for conveying psychic stress.””

- The Americanization of Mental Illness - NYTimes.com

"Giathra Fernando, a psychologist at California State University, Los Angeles, also found culturally..."

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:30:42 +0530

“Giathra Fernando, a psychologist at California State University, Los Angeles, also found culturally distinct psychological reactions to trauma in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. By and large, Sri Lankans didn’t report pathological reactions in line with the internal states making up most of the west’s PTSD checklist (hyperarousal, emotional numbing and the like). Rather, they tended to see the negative consequences of tragic events in terms of damage to social relationships. Fernando’s research showed the people who continued to suffer were those who had become isolated from their social network or who were not fulfilling their role in kinship groups. Thus Sri Lankans conceived the tsunami damage as occurring not inside their minds but outside, in the social environment.”

- How the US exports its mental illnesses - opinion - 20 January 2010 - New Scientist

"Perhaps the stage theory of grief caught on so quickly because it made loss sound controllable. The..."

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:23:39 +0530

“Perhaps the stage theory of grief caught on so quickly because it made loss sound controllable. The trouble is that it turns out largely to be a fiction, based more on anecdotal observation than empirical evidence.”

- Finding a better way to grieve : The New Yorker

"Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the..."

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:28:04 +0530

“Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the digital world to the realm of cooking. In essence, it is a three dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients.”

- Projects Details — Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy | fluid interfaces

"If the Apollo site does become, incredibly, a California state landmark, this decision will open a..."

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:13:57 +0530

“If the Apollo site does become, incredibly, a California state landmark, this decision will open a legal path for the location to be recognized as an official UNESCO World Heritage Site. This, in turn, will help protect it from vandalism during “unmanned trips to the moon by private groups, and even someday by tourists.””

- BLDGBLOG: Lunar Archaeology

Dayananda Dissanayake’s pained and pathetic post-election...

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:34:21 +0530

Dayananda Dissanayake’s pained and pathetic post-election speech is difficult to find on Youtube because the dude who uploaded it can’t spell “speech” or “commissioner”, but is still fascinating to listen to.

Drinking game: take a shot every time this translated transcript omits one of Dissanayake’s careful disclaimers.

Six degrees of Nirvana (Sinfest)

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:02:32 +0530

Six degrees of Nirvana (Sinfest)

Lockheed-Martin HULC Exoskeleton Why build an exoskeleton if...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:24:33 +0530

Lockheed-Martin HULC Exoskeleton

Why build an exoskeleton if you’re going to name it after the wrong comic-book character? I MEAN SRSLY U GUISE

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-24)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:43:51 +0530

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-24):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

"WALTER Didst thou attend the Knave’s tragic history, Sir Donald? DONALD Nay, good Sir Walter, I was..."

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:32:50 +0530

“

WALTER
Didst thou attend the Knave’s tragic history, Sir Donald?

DONALD
Nay, good Sir Walter, I was a-bowling.

WALTER
Thou attend’st not; and so thou hast no frame of reference. Thou art as a child, wandering and strutting amidst the groundlings as a play is in session, heeding not the poor players, their exits and their entrances, and, wanting to know the subject of the story, asking which is the lover and which the tyrant.

”

- Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, apparently to be actually performed (March, in NYC). Someone talk one of our hipster theatre troupes into doing this, and I might actually get very drunk and go see it.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-17)

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:50:59 +0530

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-17):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-10)

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:34:05 +0530

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-10):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

"A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which..."

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:23:49 +0530

“A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one”

- “It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck.”