This Initiation Well at Quinta da Regaleira near Sintra, Portugal, one of several connected by tunnels, was never used for water; rather, it was the site of Tarot initiation rites. While beautiful and intriguing, the first thing that ran through my mind when seeing this picture was this:
A recent article in Science Daily outlines some research on how the brain changes in response to curiosity. Executive summary: “The more curious we are about a topic, the easier it is to learn information about that topic.” I’ve long known this about my own mind – if I get really curious to learn something, it absorbs more easily and sticks around longer.
The study revealed three major findings. First, as expected, when people were highly curious to find out the answer to a question, they were better at learning that information. […]
Second, the investigators found that when curiosity is stimulated, there is increased activity in the brain circuit related to reward. […]
Third, the team discovered that when curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important for forming new memories, as well as increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit.”
The full article is worth a read.
Bill Watterson illustrated this principle delightfully almost 20 years before this study was ever done. Calvin and Hobbes find a snake in the garden. They marvel at its fluidity, the flicking tongue, wonder how they sleep with their eyes open, what they eat, and realize they know nothing about snakes. Hobbes suggests that perhaps Calvin’s mom would get them a book. It’s a captivating idea, until Calvin realizes that it’s summer vacation, and he’s determined to learn nothing, whereupon Hobbes intones, “If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.” The last panel makes the whole strip:
The problem with curiosity today is captured by Randall Munroe in his wonderful XKCD panel:
This holds true not just for Wikipedia or TV Tropes (Stay away! Stay away!) but for the Internet in general. Falling down the rabbit hole makes time compress in a way that Isaac Asimov could never have imagined.
That said, I would have paid dearly for the internet when I was a child in the 50s. I wanted to know things. I wanted to understand things. But I didn’t have the patience to search the World Book, or the Brittanica, or the Americana, or the card catalogs, only to come up with results for a single topic.
On the other hand, given what’s out there, it’s probably a blessing that it wasn’t available.
I struggle enough as it is.
The Old Wolf has spok… ooh squirrel!
A different kind of blog spam today:
| Lawrence [address obfusticated] lawrencejerry5@gmail.com 146.185.28.59 |
Submitted on 2014/10/01 at 6:37 pm
My name is Lawrence, I am from U.K. I want to share my testimonies to the general public on how this great man called Dr Osas cure my sister from Genetic Herpes with the herbal medication gotten from dr. osas, he cures other diseases too herbal is a great medication. To hell with the government and their insane policy, he have a medication that is hundred percent assured to cure genital herpes and you don’t need to spend so much money on anymore . I want you to contact dr Osas on: doctorosasherbalhome@junkmail.com. My family is now a brand new one, so stop your worries and go get your medication and set the family free of the deadly disease that hold no respect to family harmony. Thank you for reading my comment. THESE ARE THE THINGS DR OSAS DOES |
Is there a difference between “genetic herpes” and “genital herpes?” Interestingly enough, this is not the first junk comment on this topic that I’ve seen. Dude must be a first-class witch doctor if he can cure all these diseases and “cast and remove spell as well.”
I swear, people are desperate for money, don’t care how they get it, and display the morals of a crazed weasel.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Well, not really. This showed up on my Facebook feed, but it’s really a still shot from the 1929 film “The Wild Party,” starring Clara Bow in her first “talkie.”
But it sure looks funny if you re-frame it, and imagine the picture in that context.
Ironically, the girl in the second row on the right, the one with the sweet smile that says “been there, done that, bought the Woot! shirt” looks an awful lot like my mother did as a young girl:
But mom was born in 1916, and would have only been 13 that year… these young ladies look a lot older and more sophisticated, but to my eyes the resemblance is striking.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Lovely historical building, built in 1592, looking like it might have been built by Numerobis:
If you’re an Astérix fan, you’ll know what I mean.
According to Wikipedia, the thing went skeewompus because it was rebuilt with green wood in 1718. Of course, buildings tend to do this over time,
but contractors are always cutting corners:
I am put in mind of a couple of things:
Terre vasée, Krous, qu’est dément
En y vaquer Krous qu’est d’émail.
Il fondu Krous qu’est de si que se pince,
Agacer Krous qu’est déesse taille
Il botté Krous qu’est de quatre.
Vich côté Krous qu’est de mousse
Année olive tous guetteurs
Déracinés Krous qu’est délit Toulouse.
-Mots d’Heures, Gousses, Rames (van Rooten)
Image from Granfa Grigg Had a Pig, by Wallace Tripp. Some of the loveliest nursery rhyme illustrations I’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Just a little interesting history; one of only 11 made.
Famous enough that replicas were made of it:
More information and a lot more photos can be seen at Just a Car Guy and Hemmings Daily.
I used to be an avid collector of those die-cast models, particularly the Matchbox series by Lesney. I would have loved one of these in my collection.
Seen at reddit, user /u/papafree shares some stories from a homeopathic manufacturing plant.
Yes, there is always a starting material, however sometimes it can get really shady. Homeopathics are regulated by the FDA under CFR 211, so if you make stuff up (like lie about having a starting material), and they find out about it, you’re in big trouble.
For most herbals, the actual herb is purchased, then tested to make sure it’s the right variety. This can mean TLC (thin layer chromatography), which is what I was responsible for doing when I worked there. A lot of times we got in a different species of the herb, but used it anyway.
Sometimes a pathogenic starting material is used – in that case, we contacted out to a third party micro lab that keep strains in a controlled environment. We paid the micro guy a contract fee to do the dilutions himself which ended up being about $3500 because only he was licensed to deal with pathogens. We made 200 30 mL units out of that which sold for less than $1200 total. Such a waste.
Sometimes a material of animal origin is used. If it’s something weird, like bovine trachea, there really isn’t a good method to test it, so we kind of took the supplier’s word for it. Pretty shady.
One time we needed to do an extraction of “morning dew”, so we went outside in the morning, shook some water off of some weeds, weighed it, then did the dilution.
My favorite story is this one: We needed to do a dilution of uranium 200X. Problem, is you can’t get uranium (unless you’re Doc Brown), so we went to Hanford (this was a looong time ago) carrying a vial of water. When we got there and did a tour (the plant manager knew what we were going to do), we took the vial and held it up against a glass wall that was a close as we could get to the cooling chamber. That became our “1X” dilution. We went back to our lab and diluted it to 200X, in ethanol. We had a lot left over, and because it’s illegal in WA to dump large quantities of ethanol down the drain, we needed a disposal service. Unfortunately, when we tried to explain that it was a 200X dilution (and that there wasn’t even a single atom of uranium in there to begin with), they still wouldn’t take it, because it said “uranium” on the label. So we took a shovel and buried in the back of the plant, and never told anyone.
One time we needed to do a dilution of goldenseal. My lab partner dropped his pen in the mix. We didn’t want anyone to find out, so he reached in to grab it, covering his arm in goldenseal, a potent laxative. He spent the next several days with severe nausea.
One time a guy wanted us to make this product called singtu. It was a pretty standard herbal homeopathic, except at the end we were supposed to “sing to” the final product, using these chants that the customer prepared for us. At first we were like “no”, but money is money, so when he visited we sang the chants. After he left it became a joke to say the most vulgar things we could around it.
One time we needed to make a belladonna 1000X dilution. I had to sit there and make sure the compounder did it right. That was the most goddamn boring thing I have ever done. It took two solid days
If you look in the homeopathic pharmacopoeia under Teucrim Mar, you’ll see it as able to cure “anal itch” and “loss of smell”. We thought that was hilarious.
We made a product called “Feminine Tonic” that I don’t remember what was supposed to cure. Two of the ingredients were “Ovary Sarcode” and “Uterus Sarcode”. Sarcode basically means it’s from an animal. But which animal? No one knows.
Most everyone’s familiar with the family guy episode (it’s gross, but provided here for the curious who may not have seen it) where they imbibe ipecac and throw up all over the place. I was probably the only person who didn’t laugh at that scene because it brought back memories of when we decided to take a few drops of it on a dare. [Insert vulgar expression of total contempt here.]
We made lots of weird products, including:
Quietiva, to help children be quiet
Centaury, a product to help people who have a hard time saying “No”
Chestnut Bud, a product for people who don’t learn from past miskates
Elm, a product for people who are “overwhelmed with duties”. We put the label for this product in our bathroom right above the toilet.
Hornbeam, for that “Monday morning feeling”
Herplex: homeopathic herpes medicationThese stories are funny, but there was a part of it that made me really sad. We also made the following products:
Vaccination Detox: to help with the toxic effects of vaccines (of which there are none)
Enviro-Chem: to detox chemicals from the environment. IIRC, it featured a 10X dilution of the following: toluene, methyl methacrylate, sulfur, petroleum, creosote, trichloroethylene, and some others
Gout: to alleviate the symptoms of gout
Parasites: to alleviate the symptoms of parasites
Weightloss: a tonic containing a dilution of Butter 7X
No-GMO: a tonic made with glyphosate 10X to alleviate the symptoms of consuming genetically modified foods
Spinaflex: to alleviate the symptoms of a stiff spine
Staph/strep remedy: this was one we contracted out to the micro lab
These are stories from an individual who worked in a plant that made products that people will use.
The dangerous thing is that these same people are taking water – because that’s all it is – to cure diseases that can have life-altering consequences if not treated. I don’t claim to know everything about every alternative medical treatment or therapy out there, but I do know one thing: A solution of nothing cannot produce an effect beyond placebo or nocebo. It’s just not possible.
Click through for some information on homeopathic dilutions.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Tempus fugit. If you ever needed a reminder, this beautiful piece of craftsmanship is it.
This watch was manufactured in the mid-1600s by Jean Rousseau, grandfather of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is owned by the Louvre.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
… from Benin.
Riiiiiight…
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Attn: Beneficiary,
All the people that have their names in the list would be inset in our website any moment from now because we are charged to wipe away all the fraudulent transactions being held on the internet in which many people have lost their lives and properties. So it will be better for you to update us on the actual date in which you would be able to make the payment of $85 Usd to the agency over there in Benin for them to issue the FRAUD CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE to you because that is the only guarantee that would make us believe that your name and ID was really forged and not real as claimed because the German Business Man has contacted all the Crimes Agency on this matter and it was your ID that he has placed in all the Crimes Department for a search of you.
This Certificate will be attached along with the previous Clean Bill Certificate so that the attorney who is handling this process could get everything mandated as you have only 48hours to co-operate with this directives and this last Certificate as stated by the issuance department would cost you the sum of $85 Usd and this fees should be paid within a short while from now on.
The payment should be sent through either Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer with the below details:
Receivers Name: Simeon Ekwe
Location: Cotonou Benin Republic
Text Question: WHAT FOR
Text Answer: GOOD
Amount: $85 Usd.The payment details should be sent once the payment has been sent and don’t forget to include the Senders Name and Address and the MTCN NUMBER.
This is our advise to you and we do hope to get a positive feed back from you as soon as possible.
BEST REGARD
JAMES B. COMEY
DIRECTOR FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)
Never fall for these scams. Never send money via Western Union to a stranger, especially in a foreign country, especially in Africa. Just don’t do it.
Be careful out there
The Old Wolf has spoken.
I get pleasure out of sharing and promoting things which I enjoy. Yesterday on reddit the husband of watercolorist Beth Trott shared this lovely image:
It would be difficult for me to love this picture more than I do.
Ms. Trott is also a very serious artist:
Venice is one of my favorite cities in the world – I spent a night in what was once Tintoretto’s studio (or at least, one of them) so this picture captured my attention immediately.
See more of this lovely work at bethtrott.com. I have dreams of being able to create such lovely things, in perhaps a million years or so.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 