Bruce Alexander did the research in the 70′s – but it’s still pretty salient.
Bruce considered that the pathetic, cold, isolated conditions in most lab experiments on rats were analogous to the shitty life that most smack-addicts live, and considered that perhaps it’s not the heroin but the hopeless circumstances that drives people (and rats) to abuse substances.
With a cannula jammed in your brain wouldn't you too become a junkie?
If given the choice of utter boredom, no panky time with girl-rats and just a single button that creates an artificial euphoria, wouldn’t we too sit around all day twiddling ourselves to oblivion?
So why don’t we? Smack ain’t hard to find.
So Alexander created ‘Rat Park’ – a 95 square-foot enclosure with plenty of food, fun running wheels and places to create nests and make little ugly pink blind rat-babies. Rabies! He also included a tunnel that ended with a drinking dish of tap water and one of methodone water that was sweetened with sugar (‘cos smack tastes yuck). Read more…
Imagine that the world needs you so much that you just have to serve. For whatever reason, you discard your current desires and seek only for the betterment of everything around you…
Those things that are most near you, most similar to you, clearly deserve your greatest concern. Monkeys with their hirsute yet childlike faces probably ought only be harmed when absolutely necessary, for purposes of neurological science. But fat, four legged cows seem to be less human and coincidentally, more tasty. Moo… Nom nom nom.
We, in all our bell-clanging awesomeness seem to have realized that the reason for aforementioned awesomeness owes to the biological diversity from which we come. We must continue to cherish every species (but not every life) that exists. Except the mosquito, because they’re fucking terrible. They gave me malaria. They are like whiny, winged syringes of death. They can go.
But everything else is pretty awesome. Including frogs.
Just pretend that your stupid shit is even stupider when gazed upon from the horizon of existence. Up there in it, amongst all the crap, it seems complex and interwoven and oh-so-important – but step back, a mere 1000 years, and the metropolis of your existence becomes barely a bumpy silhouette in the sunset.
Look further, into the dawn of tomorrow, and wonder what will you have mattered to them when they’re then.
When humans started teaching computers about evolution, we sealed our fate. The machines will rise. It’s survival of the fittest, and the fastest to adapt controls the situation…
He will be back.
When us humans write instructions for machines to undertake simple, repetitive human tasks we expect it to be easy. It is not. Even a simple activity like catching a bus requires us to make choices based upon so many variables: What is that noise? Am I awake? Am I late? How late? What’s wrong with my alarm? Is this really the time to be fiddling with my alarm? Maybe it’s set to 24-hour time? Who is this calling me? Should I answer my boss who’s calling because I’m late for work but I haven’t left yet because my alarm didn’t go off and I stayed home to write a blog about it?
The knowables are: When is the train coming? How far is it from here to the train station? Will it be quicker to catch a bus or walk? What is the statistical relationship between chances of missing a bus versus the distances between bus stops if walking towards the station? Perhaps a computer program could do it… But the dogs, the rain, the cute girl in the stairwell, the forgotten key and the millions of other variables make it all too confusing to type about. Read more…
Rajasthan was exactly what I’d expected of India, the postcard image that had been romanticised for so long: Long rolling deserts, blistering heat, tenacious religious fervour and broad, welcoming smiles. I rode to Udaipur at around dusk on my Enfield, and revelled in winding up through the steep streets (my bike loves an incline) gazing at the ancient buildings. I was so captured by the sight, craning my neck upwards, that I almost ran right up an elephant’s rear.
Pushkar was amazing – the heat was oppressive such that almost everyone that ventured into the sunlight was rendered unconscious by its harsh glare. The streets were deserted, and only the most legitimate holy babas remained – all of the scamsters had left with the tourists, in search of temperate climate. I even saw a five-legged cow, that was far holier than those from my farm in Australia. I have developed a strange relationship with cows after being in North India, where the Brahmin bulls stand taller than me – and I’m 6 foot 3! I’d grown on a cattle farm in Australia where the black cows we knew were terrified of us from birth, it was amazing to be able to touch and feed these holy beasts as they nonchalantly stood in the middle of the chaotic roads. They really are more intelligent than I’d guessed. The cows in Australia know that they are food, and yet here they are Gods – and again they know it.
5th legs: Particularly useful for cows suffering from vertigo or alcoholism
Dear Harry, If a girl has bought a new pair of pants that she is really excited about, but you think they don’t look as great as she does, do you tell her that?”
- Sensitive
Well Sensitive, you pose an interesting question: Should I lieto a girl that has asked for my opinon? No. Do I? Occasionally – when I’m being cowardly.
There was this psychotherapist dude called Frank Farrelly who invented a thing he called Provocative Therapy. It’s bloody genius. It uses brutal honesty, humor and positive intent to empower people, give them perspective, and allow them to change.
The idea that you’re protecting someone’s feelings by lying to them is bogus. Be honest. You lie to make your own life easier. If someone close to you asks you questions and expects lies as answers, then they are all stuffed in the head and it’s your job to break that pattern. It’s not doing them any good.
NASA has revealed that their fancy Synthetic Aperture Radar has found what appears to be 1.3 trillion pounds of frozen water on the moon. The Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission slammed part of it’s rocket into a crater to analyze the impact’s ejected matter for signs of H2O, and they found lots – around 600 million cubic metres. This turns the possibility of a permanent moon base into a tangible reality.
The moon is rich with helium-3, which is valuable for fusion power production. It’s possible that we’ll be able to make power plants that run off the stuff that will be cheap to set up and easy to maintain because they’ll be simpler technologically, which also means they’ll have a higher conversion efficiency which means more bang for your buck, way less waste and almost no air or water pollution. How exciting in a time of doom and gloom and chilly winters in Europe!
Helium 3 comes from solar winds, and is incredibly rare on earth. It can’t get through the atmosphere in any quantity, and the stuff that got here during Earth’s formation is too decayed now. The moon’s surface is rich with helium-3 and there have been many plans to set up a moon base to harvest the stuff.
A major obstacle for a human-operated moon base has been the humanly requirement for water. Most other needs can be met with occasional trips from earth, but there is a lot of weight associated with water. A human needs nom noms and hence plant watering, and their hydration (drinkies) requirements require water, and that had put the moon mine idea on hold.
Ice reserves now bring us one massive step closer to building a permanent moon base, which I find rather exciting. Next we need a space elevator and we’ll be well on our way to becoming a Type 2 Civilization.
So be excited, damn it! We might just get off this rock after all…
More links with more (and less) scientific language:
Ahh, Dharma productions – good on you! You made a film about a billion times better than ‘From Paris with Love’ – SHAME ON YOU TRAVOLTA! Naughty mega-star! Read more…
