Sleep, the Final Frontier
As you get older, you seem to be become more aware of the things that science can't explain rather than those it can. Two of these I've always been fascinated by - Sleep and dreaming.
Specifically, the fact that nobody knows exactly what sleep is for, how it works and why you must have it.
This is an interesting article on the danger of not sleeping for a prolonged time -
http://www.slate.com/id/2218092/
It references these experiments too -
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/05/magazine/awakening-to-sleep.html?sec=health&pagewanted=5
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) - An important treatment for Auto-immune and other Diseases
I've started a couple of other blogs which are aimed at promoting the use of this important drug and providing information to patients who are interested in it.
Please see my post on the Sensible Party Blog for more information LDN and why it matters.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Why Do I Watch 'The Wire'?
Having had enough of the constant articles telling me how great it was, and finally being persuaded by the recommendation of a work mate of good taste, I finally watched series 1 of The Wire.
I watched an episode about once every 3/4 weeks and every time I watched it, or thought about doing so I had an odd feeling about it. Now I've finished watching it I have come to realise why this is. For a TV drama, The Wire seems 'real' on a level that few are. There's little in the way of humour or stylistic touches, it's not shot in that documentary/cinema verite style but is real in the sense that there is virtually no bull involved - It tells it like it is in a way few programmes do.
So I came to this conclusion - In some sense, watching The Wire is like watching the news or reading a newspaper. You know there is seldom anything positive reported, that most of what you will see and read will hold a mirror up to world and show you the most unpleasant and base aspects of what men do to each other in pursuit of power and cold, hard cash. Yet, you still watch and read because you know you should. This is what watching The Wire is like - it's not pretty, it's seldom uplifting but you know you should watch it because it's telling you about the real world and you should know how that is, lest you bask in blissful ignorance and believe the way things are is acceptable and that you can do nothing about it.
Having had enough of the constant articles telling me how great it was, and finally being persuaded by the recommendation of a work mate of good taste, I finally watched series 1 of The Wire.
I watched an episode about once every 3/4 weeks and every time I watched it, or thought about doing so I had an odd feeling about it. Now I've finished watching it I have come to realise why this is. For a TV drama, The Wire seems 'real' on a level that few are. There's little in the way of humour or stylistic touches, it's not shot in that documentary/cinema verite style but is real in the sense that there is virtually no bull involved - It tells it like it is in a way few programmes do.
So I came to this conclusion - In some sense, watching The Wire is like watching the news or reading a newspaper. You know there is seldom anything positive reported, that most of what you will see and read will hold a mirror up to world and show you the most unpleasant and base aspects of what men do to each other in pursuit of power and cold, hard cash. Yet, you still watch and read because you know you should. This is what watching The Wire is like - it's not pretty, it's seldom uplifting but you know you should watch it because it's telling you about the real world and you should know how that is, lest you bask in blissful ignorance and believe the way things are is acceptable and that you can do nothing about it.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Crohn Can Keep his Disease to Himself Thank You Very Much
So, my Gastro consultant says a biopsy I had taken on my colonoscopy (Done on Christmas Eve, 2007, what a great early Christmas present), shows signs of Crohn's Disease. Bit of a pain in the arse in more ways than one!
Thinking about this reminds of that scene at the start of City Slicker's, when Billy Crystal - demonstrating signs of the mid-life crisis so collossal that dressing up as a cowboy was need to resolve it - relates the escalation of old age beginning in your 30s with surgery, which you call a 'procedure'.
It seems in your teens nothing is bigger than the angst of not getting enough of everything your not supposed to do. In your 20s you get some cash, enjoy yourself and don't much worry about your health - you seem to be able to drink what you want, eat what you want and generally be OK providing you spend the first half of both Saturday and Sunday sleeping.
Then you get to the 30s and it's all work, spending, earning and never seeming to have enough dosh and then more visits to various doctors and consultants and then an odd condition like this.
I suppose the irritating thing is, once you develop Crohn's your stuck with the bugger. It can be put into remission by treatment but it's always waiting to jump out and get you again. And it seems the majority of folk end up with some sort of bowel surgery - not the most attractive medical proposition. Still, it doesn't kill you, so it could be a lot worse and Anastascia seems fine on it : )
So, I'm now on 4 x 1.2g (Yes, 4.8g folks) of Mesalazine every morning (Reducing to half that after 8 weeks if it is working OK). Basically, this is like swallowing 4 jelly beans with your breakfast, and I'm not talking the itsy bitsy Jelly Belly ones.
So, fingers crossed it works OK - I'm sure it will and that I have a pretty mild case. And I'll be doing all I can to ensure it stays that way, beleive me.
http://www.ulcerativecolitis.org.uk
Thinking about this reminds of that scene at the start of City Slicker's, when Billy Crystal - demonstrating signs of the mid-life crisis so collossal that dressing up as a cowboy was need to resolve it - relates the escalation of old age beginning in your 30s with surgery, which you call a 'procedure'.
It seems in your teens nothing is bigger than the angst of not getting enough of everything your not supposed to do. In your 20s you get some cash, enjoy yourself and don't much worry about your health - you seem to be able to drink what you want, eat what you want and generally be OK providing you spend the first half of both Saturday and Sunday sleeping.
Then you get to the 30s and it's all work, spending, earning and never seeming to have enough dosh and then more visits to various doctors and consultants and then an odd condition like this.
I suppose the irritating thing is, once you develop Crohn's your stuck with the bugger. It can be put into remission by treatment but it's always waiting to jump out and get you again. And it seems the majority of folk end up with some sort of bowel surgery - not the most attractive medical proposition. Still, it doesn't kill you, so it could be a lot worse and Anastascia seems fine on it : )
So, I'm now on 4 x 1.2g (Yes, 4.8g folks) of Mesalazine every morning (Reducing to half that after 8 weeks if it is working OK). Basically, this is like swallowing 4 jelly beans with your breakfast, and I'm not talking the itsy bitsy Jelly Belly ones.
So, fingers crossed it works OK - I'm sure it will and that I have a pretty mild case. And I'll be doing all I can to ensure it stays that way, beleive me.
http://www.ulcerativecolitis.org.uk
Curb Your Enthusiasm - The British Disease?
(With apologies to Larry David)
While watching Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture (BBC2, Wednesday, 9PM), it ocurred to me that all of the people I pay attention to on TV and elsewhere all have something in common - enthusiasm. Real, honest to goodness enthusiasm and passion for their subject is what makes them interesting to read and / or watch. OK, ability and communication and presentation skills matter too but with a good dose of enthusiasm and command of your subject, you're most of the way there.
I can easily rhyme off a list of such people whose programmes or books I am happy to consume :
Dan Cruickshank (Of course)
Dr Iain Stewart
Ray Mears
James Burke
Henry Rollins
Dr Kathy Sykes
John Simpson
Derren Brown
Stephen Fry
Gordon Ramsay
Sir John Harvey Jones (RIP)
What this got me thinking though, is that, as a country (WARNING - Sweeping generalisation ahead), it seems this is something we often find quite irritating. Moreover, I think this is a big part of what we often find annoying about the US character. We seem to be a lot more pessimistic and this seems to make us desparate to suspect the motives of the enthusiastic proponent of some subject or other - what's he/she really up to? What are they trying to sell? Why are they so bloody enthusiastic??!!
Personally I blame that Jamie Oliver ; )
(With apologies to Larry David)
While watching Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture (BBC2, Wednesday, 9PM), it ocurred to me that all of the people I pay attention to on TV and elsewhere all have something in common - enthusiasm. Real, honest to goodness enthusiasm and passion for their subject is what makes them interesting to read and / or watch. OK, ability and communication and presentation skills matter too but with a good dose of enthusiasm and command of your subject, you're most of the way there.
I can easily rhyme off a list of such people whose programmes or books I am happy to consume :
Dan Cruickshank (Of course)
Dr Iain Stewart
Ray Mears
James Burke
Henry Rollins
Dr Kathy Sykes
John Simpson
Derren Brown
Stephen Fry
Gordon Ramsay
Sir John Harvey Jones (RIP)
What this got me thinking though, is that, as a country (WARNING - Sweeping generalisation ahead), it seems this is something we often find quite irritating. Moreover, I think this is a big part of what we often find annoying about the US character. We seem to be a lot more pessimistic and this seems to make us desparate to suspect the motives of the enthusiastic proponent of some subject or other - what's he/she really up to? What are they trying to sell? Why are they so bloody enthusiastic??!!
Personally I blame that Jamie Oliver ; )
Monday, March 17, 2008
Amazon Kindle Coming to UK Soon?
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/54968-big-bang-launch-for-e-books.html
Fingers crossed.
Still, no doubt the deal will be a lot less sweet than the cheap wireless one US buyers are getting.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/54968-big-bang-launch-for-e-books.html
Fingers crossed.
Still, no doubt the deal will be a lot less sweet than the cheap wireless one US buyers are getting.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Empire Online Reports Watchmen Film Will Include Tales of the Black Freighter
Much as it will almost certainly disappoint in some regard, I fully admit to being really desparate to see the film of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen comic book and graphic novel that comes out in a year's time.
Particularly interesting is that they are still going to include the comic book within a comic book story from Watchmen. as a DVD extra. Tales of the Black Freighter, is to be animated in the Anime stylee and voiced by Gerard Butler from 300.
Much as it will almost certainly disappoint in some regard, I fully admit to being really desparate to see the film of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen comic book and graphic novel that comes out in a year's time.
Particularly interesting is that they are still going to include the comic book within a comic book story from Watchmen. as a DVD extra. Tales of the Black Freighter, is to be animated in the Anime stylee and voiced by Gerard Butler from 300.
HOWTO Upgrade the Firmware on your Nokia N95 and use VOIP
After being really fed up with my provider, Orange, and their complete lack of interest in supplying branded firmware updates, I de-branded my Nokia N95 and upgraded the firmware to Nokia's release - Mainly to have a play with VOIP.
Since I didn't find the information too easy to find, here's what I did -
Followed the instructions in this blog post to de-brand and upgrade the firmware :
http://clear-nokia.blogspot.com/2007/05/nokia-n95-debranding-guide.html
Set-up a Skype account (Yes, I am ungeeky/old enough not to have set-up and used Skype yet...) and lastly, I installed Fring on the moby as the client to use for VOIP (It also is a useful wee IM/chat/twitter client too)
Apart from that, the only thing that wasn't obvious was the need to make sure the numbers in my contact list were stored with the country code prefix, i.e. +44141xxxyyyyy for a Glasgow, UK number.
Now it's all sorted it works really quite seamlessly.
After being really fed up with my provider, Orange, and their complete lack of interest in supplying branded firmware updates, I de-branded my Nokia N95 and upgraded the firmware to Nokia's release - Mainly to have a play with VOIP.
Since I didn't find the information too easy to find, here's what I did -
Followed the instructions in this blog post to de-brand and upgrade the firmware :
http://clear-nokia.blogspot.com/2007/05/nokia-n95-debranding-guide.html
Set-up a Skype account (Yes, I am ungeeky/old enough not to have set-up and used Skype yet...) and lastly, I installed Fring on the moby as the client to use for VOIP (It also is a useful wee IM/chat/twitter client too)
Apart from that, the only thing that wasn't obvious was the need to make sure the numbers in my contact list were stored with the country code prefix, i.e. +44141xxxyyyyy for a Glasgow, UK number.
Now it's all sorted it works really quite seamlessly.
The Number 27
Saw a short film about this guy's work on Current TV. After playing with these sites, and others such as this google newsmap, you start to see that most web sites are pretty dull and unimaginative from a UI point of view. Well worth a look and a play :
Saw a short film about this guy's work on Current TV. After playing with these sites, and others such as this google newsmap, you start to see that most web sites are pretty dull and unimaginative from a UI point of view. Well worth a look and a play :
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Can a Random Number Generator Predict The Future?
An oddity of an article on http://www.rednova.com Basically the theory is that there is some sort of collective, global-consciousness than can be tapped into. This affects a load of random number generators by making them tend to throw more 'heads' than 'tails' when global events such as the Asian Tsunami and September 11th happen.
intriguing stuff. I tend to believe there might be some truth in something like this more than entertaining the idea that there is a "God".
An oddity of an article on http://www.rednova.com Basically the theory is that there is some sort of collective, global-consciousness than can be tapped into. This affects a load of random number generators by making them tend to throw more 'heads' than 'tails' when global events such as the Asian Tsunami and September 11th happen.
intriguing stuff. I tend to believe there might be some truth in something like this more than entertaining the idea that there is a "God".
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