Christian Hunter

Collection of Favorite Quotes

2025-10-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

Favorite Quotes

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

**Henry David Thoreau:**

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

**Oscar Wilde:**

"Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary."

**Epictetus:**

"You cannot learn that which you think you already know."

**John Greenleaf Whittier:**

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

**Jerzy Gregorek:**

"Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life."

**Mark Twain:**

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

**John Green:**

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

**John D. Rockefeller:**

"A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship."

**Alexis de Tocqueville:**

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

**Voltaire:**

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

**Donald Winnicott:**

"The catastrophe you fear will happen has in fact already happened."

**Hunter S. Thompson:**

"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the 'good life', whatever it is and wherever it happens to be."

**Charles Bukowski:**

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."

**Jim Hayes:**

"An old friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a dead body."

**Stephen King:**

"When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, 'Why god? Why me?' and the thundering voice of God answered: 'There's just something about you that pisses me off.'"

**George Carlin:**

"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow just can't handle money!"

**Dave Evans:**

"You can’t solve a problem you’re not willing to have."

**James Clear:**

"Habits can be the compound interest of self-improvement."

**E.L. Doctorow:**

"Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

**Winston S. Churchill:**

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

**John Adams:**

"The happiness of society is the end of government,"

Huge Idea from Yuval Hariri

2020-09-12T02:19:00.003-07:00

Another hugely important idea from one of our greatest contemporary intellectuals. We may find ourselves nostalgic for the comparatively simple time when wealth and resources were the primary distinction between classes.

Despite being a longtime proponent of transhumanist technologies, it's impossible to ignore the enormous risk and friction they'll likely impose on society:

The Best Toy my Pomeranian's Ever Had!

2020-08-22T06:43:00.004-07:00

I'm pretty late to the having dogs game, and still have a lot to learn. That said, I've put a lot into finding better and better toys for my Pomeranian, Winston Wigglesworth. This newest toy, which I customized a bit, is by far his favorite ever! We've played many many hours over months now, and he's as excited about it today as he was when we first got it...actually, more, WAY MORE! At first I think he was a bit afraid of it. I remember trying to obscure the pole from his view (which is funny in retrospect).

To my knowledge dogs are the only animal in the world that'll look in the direction you point or gesture. (Even chimpanzees will stare at you blindly while you furiously point at something.)

Then there's this stupid toy with its 3 components: pole, cord, and toy. Winston's walnut sized brain appears wholly incapable of making the connection between them. That means every time I reach for the pole, his toy comes magically to life. He completely loses his mind with excitement, then chase the thing for 10+ minutes before it slithers back into the closet it lives in. We usually have a few of these sessions a day.

My previous gf had two Pomeranians and those guys lived their entire lives having never engaged in play like this. Knowing what I know now I think that's a terrible shame! It's also the main reason behind this post. If you're interested in learning more about this or any of the other toys we've tried along the way, it'd be my pleasure to try and help you bring more happiness into your dog's life!

Are We Too Busy Dying from Coronavirus to Die From Anything Else?

2020-04-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

Estimates of up to 2 million deaths in the United States, mortality rates trending at 3%, and new infections growing rapidly into March were enough to bring much of the country to a grinding halt.

Kinsa's new Health Weather Map

Recent predictions however are trending dramatically lower, with 70k-100k deaths anticipated this year. This could be evidence of the power in social distancing, but could also speak to a much less lethal disease than originally feared. If there’s any merit to the idea I’m about to share, then we’ll see mortality rates driven dramatically lower still.

Until we better understand the true number of infected, we won’t a know the actual infected fatality rate (IFR) for coronavirus; but with an estimated 85% of coronavirus-positive patients believed to suffer mild (or no symptoms at all), it’s possible there’s an already huge number of overall infected coronavirus patient pool that’ll radically reduce the current trending mortality rate of ~3%.

There’s another factor, however, one that could lower mortality rates even further, and as we move into April, it’s receiving effectively zero press attention. It has to do with how we’re classifying coronavirus fatalities in patients with already deadly diseases (“comorbidities” such as advanced cardiovascular and respiratory disease).

Given roughly 94% of coronavirus deaths are in patients with an already potentially deadly disease [UPDATED LINK], how we report underlying causes of death in coronavirus-positive patients is hugely consequential and, as presently organized, is hugely flawed.

The United States relies on the “NVSS” (National Vital Statistics System) to set standards for the designation and reporting of underlying cause of death nationwide. Such data is aggregated and, together, forms the basis for determining mortality rates for the things that kill us. The NVSS is managed by the CDC, and serves as a model for similar agencies and reporting systems around the world.

In the context of coronavirus fatality reporting, their standards may be contributing a unique and potentially enormous vulnerability in the way we consider coronavirus’ potential for harm. It all has to do with a fairly inane seeming detail around how we attribute fatality reporting: by that I mean, we pair each death with a single, primary underlying cause.

Said another way, our national fatality reporting system has a single-attribution bias. When we die, a coroner or medical examiner will list one, single underlying cause of death as the cause; even in instances where comorbidities played a strong (even dominant) contributory role in killing us.

By it's very nature, a single-cause biased system cannot account adequately for the contributions coexisting diseases play. But for all its flaws, the system worked well-enough in peacetime. Today however, the system seems wildly unfit to help us understand a virus whose very lethality all but requires deadly preexisting comorbidities be present.

The coronavirus data being acted on is noisy, the stakes are high, so radical action may ultimately be justifiable. However, the relative softness of certain key variables (like the number of actual infections vs test-confirmed cases) alone are enough to haunt policymakers. Nobody paying attention would be surprised to see mortality rates drop dramatically owing to that factor alone. Now layer-in the structural flaw in how we’re counting coronavirus fatalities at the most fundamental level, it’s not hard to imagine coronavirus approaching the proverbial “n word” of comparisons: “flu like mortality”

What might that look like on paper? If it turns out the number of infected are exponentially higher than confirmed cases (which isn’t hard to imagine given coronavirus manifests as with light or no symptoms in 85% of those infected), and if we controlled for the single cause of death attribution bias, we could see the mortality rate go from 3% to as low as .12%.

The bias is real. The overwhelming super-majority of fatalities from coronavirus are in patients with preexisting, often deadly underlying conditions.

I’m suggesting we stay vigilant to the possibility we're so busy dying from coronavirus we forget to notice we’re not dying from everything else.

April 7, 2018

Supplemental Thoughts:

As of last week, the National Vital Statistics System issued guidance that instructed Medical Examiners and Coroners nationwide to identify Coronavirus disease deaths using the ICD–10 code “U07.1”. Specifically, “Deaths are coded to U07.1 when coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 are reported as a cause that contributed to death on the death certificate. These can include laboratory confirmed cases, as well as cases without laboratory confirmation. If the certifier suspects COVID-19 or determines it was likely (e.g., the circumstances were compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), they can report COVID-19 as “probable” or “presumed” on the death certificate.”

That means deaths from coronavirus needn’t be confirmed with testing to be counted.

For context, roughly 2.8mm people die in the United States every year (about 65mm globally). Each death is assigned a primary underlying cause of death and made available to various stakeholders, from government to media.

My concern has to do with our single-attribution-minded model for classifying underlying cause of death in coronavirus fatalities. Specifically, I haven’t been able to determine if medical examiners and coroners are controlling for possible bias in attributing fatalities to coronavirus when there are one or more comorbidities present (as is the case in ~94% of coronavirus fatalities).

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Every year it claims roughly 650k Americans. The fourth leading cause (behind cancer and accidents) are chronic respiratory diseases. They kill 160k Americans. Coronavirus requires the presence of those deadly diseases (or similarly deadly comorbidities such as cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, and pneumonia), to kill 95% of the time. It’s well established that coronavirus exacerbates both chronic respiratory and underlying cardiovascular illness, and while the data isn’t yet in, we’ll almost certainly see a significant drop in fatalities from the typical leading causes of death. How big a drop is the $20 trillion dollar question.

The New York Times recently wrote a story entitled “Where Have All the Heart Attacks Gone?”.

While ~85% of heart attack patients typically go home, 10-15% don’t (roughly 647,000 per year). It’s a grim reality that coronavirus patients predisposed to heart attacks are more likely to suffer a fatal heart attack.

Similarly, stroke specialists in New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle, report seeing stroke and transient ischemic attack (TIA) patient counts down 30% to as much as 50%. Fear of exposure to coronavirus at hospital, could be a contributing factor, but doesn’t explain a similar reduction in patients being experienced in telestroke and virtual care networks.

It seems a distinct possibility that coronavirus may hastening death in a significant number (or even a majority) of patients who would otherwise die this year.

Supplemental Resources and Reporting Tools:

Here are some of the data I regularly consult, as well some interesting articles and useful reporting technology.

Primary sources of data for new infections/fatalities:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States

New reporting technology that uses anonymized data from cell phones to score actual compliance with social distancing by area:

http://www.j.mp/DistancingScoreboard

Unacast Social Distancing Scoreboard

Two articles: the first concerns likelihood that fatality rates are exaggerated by an order of magnitude. The other is a revised estimate from the same Imperial College scientist who scared the s*** out of the world a week ago with estimates of millions dead (now down to 20k or a few thousand in the UK). His last estimate won the Imperial College a $10mm grant from UK gov't.

http://www.j.mp/OrderofMagnitude

http://www.j.mp/RevisionofEstimates

At minute 38:40 in this podcast Marshall Burke, an assistant professor at Stanford's Department of Earth System Science, says the better air quality caused by shutdown in China “will likely save 50,000 lives in China”:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/409-the-side-effects-of-social-distancing/id354668519?i=1000468837584

(It’s worth noting those are just the impacts from temporary suspension of pollution activity. They exclude reduction in traffic fatalities, reduction in other communicable disease fatalities from isolation measures, etc.) The main takeaway being this: running our world, as it is today, costs a lot of lives.

Here's a similar article:

https://nypost.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-may-have-saved-thousands-by-reducing-air-pollution/

And here are assumptions and a forecast on the pandemic from HealthData (interestingly, I noticed they revised their death forecast down..I have screenshot one forecast pre-revision...no law says you can't revise, but seems a bit shady to not account publicly for errors)

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

And lastly, here's a very cool utility that uses millions of anonymized IoT thermometer readings to create a national "health weather map":

https://bit.ly/HealthWeatherMap

The Best New Senolytic Isn't a Drug...or New For That Matter.

2019-05-28T18:57:00.005-07:00

In the last 20 years I've spent an ungodly sum of money on the most promising anti-aging treatments available. From visits to Ray Kurzweil and Dr. Terry Grossman's Colorado longevity clinic, consults with leading longevity experts, and dozens of different supplements, pharmaceuticals, therapies, and treatments; I've tried them all. However promising, I continue to take only a handful of the hundreds of longevity remedies I've tested.

In the past I've been really enthusiastic about a few developments (and I continue to be confident in metformin, rapamycin, and telomerase activators), but never once have I written about any of them. That is, until now.

I'm writing today because I've found an anti-aging treatment that may not only slow, but in some ways reverse the effects aging. What's more incredible: this treatment is already available, cheap, and likely very safe (probably side effect free).

The treatment? It's a flavonoid called fisetin.

If you're like me, you're immediately prejudice to the idea that a food derivative (derived from fruit, like strawberries) could do anything to actually move the line in slowing or reversing some of aging's deleterious effects. You probably figure, as you should, that if it was effective, we'd have figured it out long ago.

That sort of thinking is almost always right. In this instance, however, it looks like most everyone (of the very few who've taken fisetin with any discipline) were taking far too small a dose to experience any of its anti-aging benefits.

I'll come back to that.

For those interested, fisetin works as a "senolytic", meaning it works to induce death in senescent cells.

A senescent cell is one that's stopped dividing but hasn't undergone apoptosis (programmed cell death). These zombie-like cells accumulate throughout our body as we age, and secrete toxic, proinflammatory signals that kill nearby cells. More senescent cells create more senescent cells; a vicious cycle that's believed to contribute significantly to aging.

The understanding of how senescent cells contribute to aging is still relatively new, but it's already mobilized an enormous amount of capital and effort in the pharmaceutical space among those who wish to be the first to discover an effective senotherapeutic compound.

More intriguing is the recently discovered possibility that nature may have beaten pharma to it. By that I mean, until just a handful of months ago, the most promising senolytic candidates were drugs (with the leading candidate being a combination of the chemotherapeutic drug dasatinib and the supplement quercetin (D+Q). Then, around early 2019, two significant discoveries were published. One was a landmark study that trialed many different potential senolytics in animals and found them to meaningfully increase both lifespan and healthspan. The other was the first ever drug trial of senolytics on humans. In the human trial, the University of Texas tested D+Q and found it to work substantially better than the best available treatments for the deadly age-related disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Even more intriguing was this study which trialed a number of senolytic candidates against D+Q.

The study in animals confirmed that senotherapeutics increased health and lifespan, but, more significantly, that the flavonoid fisetin was better than the most promising senolytic dasatinib + quercetin, but at (human equivalent) doses roughly 10X higher than the standard doses available for fisetin.

I'm pressed for time but have been meaning to get this information out there. I'll circle back soon to fill in more detail around dosage and frequency (the prevailing belief is that a high-dose cycle of fisetin need not be daily, but instead should be ~5-day short-course therapies once every 3-5 months or so. Until then, feel free to share any thoughts or questions you may have below.

Christian Hunter

3 Amazing Nootropics, and 4 Really Good Ones

2018-07-01T00:25:00.003-07:00

I've invested a ridiculous amount of time and money exploring, obtaining, and personally testing many dozen substances and protocols in the nootropics and longevity spare. I'm writing this post to share what I've learned, and perhaps turn you on to some options you didn't know were available.

One of my two overflowing supplement cabinets

First, here's the headline takeaway: Most (and I mean a good majority) of what's marketed today to improve cognition is useless. Now it's worth noting that while useless, the great majority those substances aren't harmful either.

And it's not all bad news. In fact, the reason I'm updating this post is because, just in the last few years, a few nootropic options have proven themselves to be effective, reliable, and generally safe.

By "effective" I should clarify that each "effective" nootropic option I'm aware of offers a fairly narrow scope of benefit. Meaning, none have been able to improve overall cognition (as many claim) but instead, offer benefits to one or more of the many different components that broadly makeup cognition.

With that said, below you'll find a list of the most effective nootropics currently available today, divided into two groups. The first group are the most effective nootropics I'm aware of, the second are the most effective cognitive enhancers. There's a difference I won't get into unless asked. So for now, here then are the most effective nootropics:

Adrafinil

Phenylpiracetam

Semax

Melatonin (for those over 35 years of age)

Melatonin might seem a bit unrelated, but I offer it as an option because few substances can do more to improve your overall health and cognition than getting regular and restorative sleep.

Now for those who looking for more hard hitting and immediate cognitive improvements (such as those looking to substitute their Adderall or Ritalin prescriptions with a safer alternative) and are willing to risk the uncertainty that attends less-proven options (and/or are willing to take a prescription) here’s the second list:

Provigil

Tianeptine

Cyclazodone

Only the first drug (provigil) in the above list requires a prescription. The rest are presently legal, and capable of provoking an immediate and noticeable effect (with very little to no loading required, as is common with many of the slower acting nootropics). Also, each of those cognitive enhancement options offer a unique method of action from the other (in how they support improved mood and/or thinking).

A warning: Some of the options listed above carry a risk of tolerance and addiction. With that in mind, as with any drug, treatment, or supplement, it’s critical you seek the advice of a doctor before taking any of them.

I hope you found this update helpful. Feel free to post a comment or question below.

Thanks,

Christian Hunter

Austin, TX

Rank Theory and The Evolutionary Cause of Depression

2015-03-24T03:24:00.001-07:00

Some time ago I became fascinated with the physical ravages of depression on the mind and the body which, in addition to the more popularly understood psychological trauma caused, will often leave the depressed in a state of perpetual illness, thoroughly fatigued, and – as recent research has found – even smaller brained!

Depression doesn't play the helpful evolutionary role it once did!

Despite the extraordinary resources marshaled at every level of society to combat depression, it still left me questioning why do we get depressed to begin with?

More specifically, what role, if any, has depression played in human evolutionary development? Is depression the psychological equivalent of the appendix, or could it possibly serve a defensible evolutionary purpose?

It's against that basic backdrop of curiosity that I came to learn of a fascinating body of work developed recently by Anthony Stevens and John Price, known as "Rank Theory". Rank Theory proposes that there is in fact an evolutionary role for depression in humans. In fact, they argue that depression is an involuntary and adaptive response to defeat (and loss of social rank) which has played a vital role in maintaining social order and helping insure survival.

The mechanics of Rank Theory state that in the aftermath of human conflict, the defeated are often subject to an automatic internal inhibitory response that set off a cascade of maladies. Those include general fatigue, feelings of helplessness, disturbed sleep, and loss of confidence (among myriad other ailments); all typical characteristics of depression.

Often called the "yielding subroutine", this inhibitory response has its uses: among them is in physically and psychologically discouraging the loser in a status conflict from re-challenging their opponent and suffering further injury, losing additional resources, being extricated from their group, or even losing their lives.

It could be said then that depression has played a key role in helping preserve the stability and competitive efficiency of human society in general. A good thing to be sure.

One of the major advantages to a human living amongst his or her fellow humans is the safety the group confers from predators, which includes protection from other homo sapiens. Therefore living within a group became essential to humans for their very survival, as well as for access to resources, co-operative hunting of big game, and for reproductive success.

A feeling of "belonging" has therefore become absolutely crucial to the physical and psychological well-being of an individual. To become well-liked and to maintain a high rank within an organization or group are both exceptionally desirable states of being. Alternatively, to see oneself as unpopular and without social desirability will unfailingly sponsor anxiety and unhappiness, and rejection altogether by ones group typically has devastating psychological (and eventual physical) consequences.

It's with regard to these variables and by studying the correlation between ones relative psychological well-being and their social standing that grief and happiness, mania and depression, satisfaction and anxiety can be most cleanly recognized and understood. And in taking that into consideration perhaps the implications of contemporary "defeat" (in its manifold forms) ought to be considered even more seriously and with greater concern for their potentially significant long-term implications on both our psychological and physical well-being. After all, the conflicts we have today, while perhaps more frequent, are dramatically less significant in their impact and ultimate consequence to the health and longevity of the defeated. Yet, it would seem, our brains, blocked perhaps by countless generations of social adaptation, have yet to get the memo.

Rank Theory, if proven accurate, suggests to me a stronger and more pronounced interdiction at the earliest evidence of onset-depression to combat our antiquated physiological response to defeat.

http://www.biopsychiatry.com/depression/adaptive.html

http://www.wireheading.com/rankmood/socrank.html

Be well,

Christian Hunter
Austin, TX

A collection of Alexis de Tocqueville's greatest quotes and observations.

2015-02-28T22:51:00.004-08:00

A Random Assemblage of Favorite Quotes and Excerpts from
Alexis de Tocqueville

Born under another sky, placed in the middle of an always-moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which sweeps along everything that surrounds him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything; he grows accustomed to naught but change, and concludes by viewing it as the natural state of man; he feels a need for it; even more, he loves it: for instability, instead of occurring to him in the form of disasters, seems to give birth to nothing around him but wonders...

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.
Letter to Arthur de Gobineau, 22 October 1843

...while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

"But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom".

Despotism under a democracy could see "a multitude of men", uniformly alike, equal, "constantly circling for petty pleasures", unaware of fellow citizens, and subject to the will of a powerful state which exerted an "immense protective power".

On majority rule and mediocrity:
Beyond the eradication of old-world aristocracy, ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence, and these natural elites could not enjoy much share in political power as a result. Ordinary Americans enjoyed too much power, claimed too great a voice in the public sphere, to defer to intellectual superiors. This culture promoted a relatively pronounced equality, Tocqueville argued, but the same mores and opinions that ensured such equality also promoted mediocrity. Those who possessed true virtue and talent were left with limited choices.

Tocqueville said that those with the most education and intelligence were left with two choices. They could join limited intellectual circles to explore the weighty and complex problems facing society, or they could use their superior talents to amass vast fortunes in the private sector. Tocqueville wrote that he did not know of any country where there was "less independence of mind, and true freedom of discussion, than in America".

He blamed the omnipotence of majority rule as a chief factor in stifling thinking: "The majority has enclosed thought within a formidable fence. A writer is free inside that area, but woe to the man who goes beyond it, not that he stands in fear of an inquisition, but he must face all kinds of unpleasantness in every day persecution. A career in politics is closed to him for he has offended the only power that holds the keys." Tocqueville, in contrast to previous political thinkers, argued that a serious problem in political life was not that people were too strong, but that people were "too weak" and felt powerless; the danger is that people felt "swept up in something that they could not control", according to Kaplan's interpretation of Tocqueville.

The men sent to Virginia were seekers of gold, adventurers without resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony ... Artisans and agriculturalists arrived afterwards...hardly in any respect above the level of the inferior classes in England. No lofty views, no spiritual conception presided over the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an immense influence on the character, the laws and the whole future of the South. Slavery...dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. On this same English foundation there developed in the North very different characteristics.

In 1855, he wrote the following text published by Maria Weston Chapman in the Liberty Bell: Testimony against Slavery

I do not think it is for me, a foreigner, to indicate to the United States the time, the measures, or the men by whom Slavery shall be abolished.

Still, as the persevering enemy of despotism everywhere, and under all its forms, I am pained and astonished by the fact that the freest people in the world is, at the present time, almost the only one among civilized and Christian nations which yet maintains personal servitude; and this while serfdom itself is about disappearing, where it has not already disappeared, from the most degraded nations of Europe.

An old and sincere friend of America, I am uneasy at seeing Slavery retard her progress, tarnish her glory, furnish arms to her detractors, compromise the future career of the Union which is the guaranty of her safety and greatness, and point out beforehand to her, to all her enemies, the spot where they are to strike. As a man, too, I am moved at the spectacle of man's degradation by man, and I hope to see the day when the law will grant equal civil liberty to all the inhabitants of the same empire, as God accords the freedom of the will, without distinction, to the dwellers upon earth.

Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville:
I have come across men of letters who have written history without taking part in public affairs, and politicians who have concerned themselves with producing events without thinking about them. I have observed that the first are always inclined to find general causes whereas the second, living in the midst of disconnected daily facts, are prone to imagine that everything is attributable to particular incidents, and that the wires they pull are the same as those that move the world. It is to be presumed that both are equally deceived.
p. 80

For the first time in sixty years, the priests, the old aristocracy and the people met in a common sentiment—a feeling of revenge, it is true, and not of affection ; but even that is a great thing in politics, where a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
Alternative translation: In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
p. 96

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

Chapter XII.
A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Chapter XIII.
In America, conscription is unknown; men are enlisted for payment. Compulsory recruitment is so alien to the ideas and so foreign to the customs of the people of the United States that I doubt whether they would ever dare to introduce it into their law.

Chapter XIII.
The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

Chapter XIII.
In the United States, except for slaves, servants and the destitute fed by townships, everyone has the vote and this is an indirect contributor to law-making. Anyone wishing to attack the law is thus reduced to adopting one of two obvious courses: they must either change the nation's opinion or trample its wishes under foot.

Chapter XIV.
An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say "Gentlemen" to the person with whom he is conversing.

Chapter XV-IXX
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

Chapter XV.
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.

Chapter XV.
Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

Chapter XVI.
In cities men cannot be prevented from concerting together, and from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are members; their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates, and frequently executes its own wishes without their intervention.

VARIANT TRANSLATION: In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries.

Chapter XVII.
If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests.
Variant translation: Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.

Chapter XVII.
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.

Chapter XVIII.
The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

Chapter XVIII.
There are at the present time two great nations in the world—allude to the Russians and the Americans— All other nations seem to have nearly reached their national limits, and have only to maintain their power; these alone are proceeding—along a path to which no limit can be perceived.

Chapter XVIII.
In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years in it and he sells it before the roof is on. He plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing. He brings a field into tillage and leaves other men to gather the crops. He embraces a profession and gives it up. He settles in a place which he soon afterward leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure he instantly plunges into the vortex of politics and if at the end of a year of unremitting labour he finds he has a few days' vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days to shake off his happiness.

They certainly are not great writers, but they speak their country's language and they make themselves heard.
Book One, Chapter XIII.

By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.
Book One, Chapter XIII.

The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

Book Two, Chapter I.
Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.

Book Two, Chapter II.
Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations... In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

Book Two, Chapter V.
Americans combine to give fêtes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way. Finally, if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association. I have come across several types of association in America of which, I confess, I had not previously the slightest conception, and I have often admired the extreme skill they show in proposing a common object for the exertions of very many and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.

Book Two, Chapter V.
I am far from denying that newspapers in democratic countries lead citizens to do very ill-considered things in common; but without newspapers there would be hardly any common action at all. So they mend many more ills than they cause.

Book Two, Chapter VI.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances—what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.

Americans cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die,… They clutch everything but hold nothing fast, and so lose grip as they hurry after some new delight. An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he will clear a field and leave others to reap the harvest; he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere with his changing desires. If his private business allows him a moment’s relaxation, he will plunge at once into the whirlpool of politics. Then, if at the end of a year crammed with work he has a little spare leisure, his restless curiosity goes with him traveling up and down the vast territories of the United States. Thus he will travel five hundred miles in a few days as a distraction from his happiness. Death steps in in the end and stops him before he has grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes him. At first sight there is something astonishing in this spectacle of so many lucky men restless in the midst of abundance. But it is a spectacle as old as the world; all that is new is to see a whole people performing in it.
Book Two, Chapter XIII.

The First thing that strikes a traveler in the United States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to emerge from their original condition; and the second is the rarity of lofty ambition to be observed in the midst of the universally ambitious stir of society. No Americans are devoid of a yearning desire to rise, but hardly any appear to entertain hopes of great magnitude or to pursue very lofty aims. All are constantly seeking to acquire property, power, and reputation.
Book Three, Chapter XIX.

What chiefly diverts the men of democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of the exertions they daily make to improve them.
Book Three, Chapter XIX.

What most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.

Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.
Book Three, Chapter XI.

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.
Book Three, Chapter XVIII.

Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions; it loves to temporize, takes delight in compromise, and studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating, flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until obliged by the most absolute necessity. Commerce renders men independent of each other, gives them a lofty notion of their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions.
Variant translation: Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.
Book Three, Chapter XXI.

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.
Book Three, Chapter XXI.

In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult—to begin a war and to end it.
Book Three, Chapter XXII.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.
Book Three, Chapter XXII.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
Book Three, Chapter XXII.
Book Four

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

The surprising health benefits of smoking cigarettes

2014-09-01T05:11:00.002-07:00

I’ve been fumbling myself at the doorknob of addiction to cigarettes for my entire life, but my girlfriend is addicted. She’s smoked for years and I wanted to arm her with all the information I could find to help her objectively decide if and when she ought to quit. Below is a compendium of some of the more counter-intuitive findings .

To be clear, I have no horse in this race whatsoever, but I’m also not a doctor and the information below is not medical advice (you should talk to a doctor before doing anything that could affect your health).

At the start I expected to find a damning litany of studies admonishing everyone to run, not walk, from smoking. What I found instead was quite surprising. It seems there are some benefits to smoking cigarettes and, for those at high-risk for particular diseases, even a net health benefit to smoking (especially if in the right amount and along with certain “harm-reduction” strategies).

To be sure, smoking kills an absurd amount of people every year and if it were up to me every tobacco executive who knew the dangers of smoking (but hid it, or otherwise intentionally deceived the public) would be in prison. Most are acutely aware of the dangers of smoking, here are some of the interesting and surprising benefits associated with smoking.

I got a good laugh at the irony associate with the fact that the oldest woman (Jeanne Calment), in fact the longest living human ever in recorded history (she lived to be 122 years and 164 days old) was...you guessed it, a smoker since she was a teenager. That’s literally over a hundred years smoking:

I know, shocking. But the irony wouldn't be complete without her male counterpart:

The longest living man (Shigechiyo Izumi) in history, himself living to be a staggering 120 and 237 days old was...well, you get the idea; the dude was a lifelong smoker as well.

Now they both look fairly busted to be sure, but how do you think you’ll look at 122 years old? Perhaps smoking is the only way you’ll find out. Eheh.

In the 70’s the government funded extensive research into the dangers of smoking. Their findings continue to confound in that the overall impact on longevity was far less pronounced than expected. amsters who "smoked" daily lived 22% longer than their buzzkill non-smoking peers:

http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=bmp54d00&fmt=pdf&ref=results

There also appear to be a number of “harm reduction” techniques that work to offset the clear toxicity of cigarette smoking, these range from IV glutathione to resveratrol (as discussed in the following study):

Resveratrol Protects against Cigarette Smoke–Induced Oxidative Damage and Pulmonary Inflammation

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jbt.21586/abstract

Biodynamics of smoking cigarettes

Interestingly smoking is both a stimulant and depressant and Arousal is increased by the increase of norepinephrine.

Research suggests that, when smokers wish to achieve a stimulating effect, they take short quick puffs, which produce a low level of blood nicotine. This stimulates nerve transmission. When they wish to relax, they take deep puffs, which produce a high level of blood nicotine, which depresses the passage of nerve impulses, producing a mild sedative effect. At low doses, nicotine potently enhances the actions of norepinephrine and dopamine in the brain, causing a drug effect typical of those of psychostimulants. At higher doses, nicotine enhances the effect of serotonin and opiate activity, producing a calming, pain-killing effect. Nicotine is unique in comparison to most drugs, as its profile changes from stimulant to sedative/pain killer in increasing dosages and use.

Pain is also reduced by the increases of acetylcholine and beta-endorphins. Anxiety is reduced by the increase of beta-endorphins, and nicotine also extends the duration of positive effects of dopamine and increases sensitivity in brain reward systems. Most cigarettes (in the smoke inhaled) contain 1 to 3 milligrams of nicotine.

Smoking appears to lowers risks from these and other diseases, cancers, and ailments.

Parkinson's disease

An association between smoking and a lower incidence of Parkinson's disease has been observed in a number of studies. An analysis of longitudinal studies found a protective effect against Parkinson's disease for current and former smokers compared with those who had never smoked; the risk of Parkinson's disease was reduced by about half among everyday smokers (RR 0.51; 95% CI, 0.43–0.61) and this protective effect was more pronounced among current smokers, where the risk was about one-third that of never smokers (RR 0.35; 95% CI, 0.26–0.47). Similar findings of a protective effect for Parkinson's disease were also reported from a case–control study conducted in Japan.

Nicotine is thought to be the chemical in tobacco smoke mostly likely to be implicated in this finding, but there may be other chemicals or compounds involved. Based on data from 2004–05 we can derive theoretical estimates that about 97 deaths from Parkinson's disease are prevented by smoking in Australia annually. Finally, recent research also suggests that nicotine can improve compromised semantic processing in Parkinson's disease, and also influence semantic processing in healthy older individuals.

A study has shown a protective effect of nicotine itself on neurons due to nicotine activation of α7-nAChR and the PI3K/Akt pathway which inhibits apoptosis-inducing factor release and mitochondrial translocation, cytochrome c release and caspase 3 activation.

Pre-eclampsia (hypertension in pregnancy)

This part below is probably of most interest to women considering pregnancy and worth considering:

Pre-eclampsia is a potentially serious condition in pregnancy in which the mother develops high blood pressure, fluid retention and abnormal kidney function. Smokers are less likely to develop pre-eclampsia than non-smokers; recent research points to the impact of smoking on the ratio of soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFlt-1) to placental growth factor (PlGF) as one possible pathway20, however the mechanism by which the observed protective effects occur remains poorly understood.

Nicotine reduces the chance of preeclampsia, and atopic disorders such as allergic asthma. A plausible mechanism of action in these cases may be nicotine acting as an anti-inflammatory agent, and interfering with the inflammation-related disease process, as nicotine has vasoconstrictive effects.

The teratogenic properties of nicotine has been investigated. According to a study of ca. 77,000 pregnant women in Denmark, women who used nicotine gum and patches during the early stages of pregnancy were found to face an increased risk of having babies with birth defects. The study showed that women who used nicotine-replacement therapy in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy had a 60% greater risk of having babies with birth defects compared to women who were non-smokers.

While 60% is a terrifying number, we should first think about what percent of 77,000 women had babies and weren't exposed to nicotine had babies w/ birth defects…that would be a very low number…it’s that number that you’d increase by 60%…still scary, but not terrifying.

Tobacco use among pregnant women has also been correlated to increased frequency of ADHD. Children born to mothers who used tobacco were two and a half times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Froelich estimated that "exposure to higher levels of lead and prenatal tobacco each accounted for 500,000 additional cases of ADHD in U.S. children".

A study using Swedish birth registry data on more than 600,000 births examined the effects of snuff and cigarette smoking on pre-eclampsia risk and whether changes in tobacco habits during pregnancy affected the risk of developing term pre-eclampsia. Compared with non-tobacco users, light smokers experienced a one-third reduction in risk (OR 0.66; 95% CI, 0.61–0.71) and heavy smokers a halving of risk (OR 0.51; 95% CI, 0.44–0.58) with OR lower for term than preterm pre-eclampsia. The study found that tobacco combustion products rather than nicotine are the probable protective ingredients against pre-eclampsia in cigarette smoke and further concluded that it is smoking behavior in the middle or late rather than in the beginning of pregnancy that seems to have the greatest effect on the risk of pre-eclampsia. The US Surgeon General has concluded that 'the decreased risk of pre-eclampsia among smokers compared with non-smokers does not outweigh the adverse outcomes that can result from prenatal smoking. These conclusions are underscored by findings from a recent case–control study conducted in Canada where notwithstanding a (non-significant) reduction in the risk of pre-eclampsia, persistent smoking was also associated with a 10-fold increase in the risk of low birthweight (OR 10.2; 95% CI, 2.49–41.8) and a four-fold increase in the risk of preterm birth (OR 3.59; 95% CI, 1.06–12.1).

Liver disease

Those at risk for Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis “PSC” might want to drop their wheatgrass shots and pick up the closest cigarette. Kidding of course. In Norway, Denmark, and Sweden PSC is the main cause of liver transplants. A new study there involving 500 PSC patients found that smoking cigarettes exerted significant protection from the disease:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131214144837.htm

Cognitive benefits

Here are some of the more pronounced dangers and benefits to human cognitive function associated with smoking:

Nicotine's mood-altering effects are different by report: in particular it is both a stimulant and a relaxant. First causing a release of glucose from the liver and epinephrine(adrenaline) from the adrenal medulla, it causes stimulation. Users report feelings of relaxation, sharpness, calmness, and alertness. Like any stimulant, it may very rarely cause the often uncomfortable neuropsychiatric effect of akathisia. By reducing the appetite and raising the metabolism, some smokers may lose weight as a consequence.

β-Carbolines (BCs), present in tobacco smoke, also exert an unexpected stimulatory effect on dopaminergic neurons and act as cognitive enhancers, elevating dopamine levels in the hippocampal formation, and increasing synaptic proliferation.

When a cigarette is smoked, nicotine-rich blood passes from the lungs to the brain within seven seconds and immediately stimulates the release of many chemical messengers such as acetylcholine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, vasopressin, histamine, arginine, serotonin, dopamine, autocrine agents, and beta-endorphin. This release of neurotransmitters and hormones is responsible for most of nicotine's effects.

Studies indicate that nicotine can be used to help adults suffering from autosomal dominant nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy. The same areas that cause seizures in that form of epilepsy are responsible for processing nicotine in the brain.

Studies suggest a correlation between smoking and schizophrenia, with estimates near 75% for the proportion of schizophrenic patients who smoke. Although the nature of this association remains unclear, it has been argued that the increased level of smoking in schizophrenia may be due to a desire to self-medicate with nicotine. Other research found that mildly dependent users got some benefit from nicotine, but not those who were highly dependent.

Research at Duke University Medical Center found that nicotine may improve the symptoms of depression. Nicotine appears to improve ADHD symptoms. Some studies have focused on benefits of nicotine therapy in adults with ADHD.

While acute/initial nicotine intake causes activation of nicotine receptors, chronic low doses of nicotine use leads to desensitisation of nicotine receptors (due to the development of tolerance) and results in an antidepressant effect, with research showing low dose nicotine patches being an effective treatment of major depressive disorder in non-smokers.

Nicotine (in the form of chewing gum or a transdermal patch) has been explored as an experimental treatment for OCD. Small studies show some success, even in otherwise treatment-refractory cases.

A meta-analysis of research into the effects of nicotine and smoking on human performance found positive effects of nicotine or smoking on six domains: (i) fine motor, (ii) alerting attention-accuracy, (iii) response time (RT), (iv) orienting attention-RT, (v) short-term episodic memory-accuracy, and (vi) working memory-RT (effect size range = 0.16 to 0.44). There is evidence that nicotine may stimulate immediate and sustained improvements in working memory, that nicotine replacement in smokers avoids cognitive impairment through direct pharmacological effects on brain neuronal activity, and that nicotine may improve prospective memory (the retrieval and implementation of a previously encoded intention).

Interesting reference material:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10601921

http://www.forces.org/evidence/hamilton/other/nicotine.htm

Here is a link containing additional information that better explain the biomechanics of cigarettes, for good and ill as it were:

Nicotine biomechanics

In smaller doses (an average cigarette yields about 1 mg of absorbed nicotine), the substance acts as a stimulant in mammals, while high amounts (500–1000 mg) can be harmful. This stimulant effect is likely a major contributing factor to the dependence-forming properties of tobacco smoking. According to the American Heart Association, nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break, while the pharmacological and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those determining addiction to heroin and cocaine. The nicotine content of popular American-brand cigarettes has slowly increased over the years, and one study found that there was an average increase of 1.78% per year between the years of 1998 and 2005. This was found for all major market categories of cigarettes.

Medical uses

Although population level effectiveness has not been demonstrated, the primary therapeutic use of nicotine is in treating nicotine dependence in order to eliminate smoking with the damage it does to health. Controlled levels of nicotine are given to patients through gums, dermal patches, lozenges, electronic/substitute cigarettes or nasal sprays in an effort to wean them off their dependence.

For instance, studies suggest that smokers require less frequent repeated revascularization after percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI). Risk of ulcerative colitis has been frequently shown to be reduced by smokers on a dose-dependent basis; the effect is eliminated if the individual stops smoking. Smoking also appears to interfere with development of Kaposi's sarcoma in patients with HIV.

Tobacco smoke has been shown to contain compounds capable of inhibiting monoamine oxidase [this is mainly what Selegiline does], which is responsible for the degradation of dopamine in the human brain. When dopamine is broken down by MAO-B, neurotoxic by-products are formed, possibly contributing to Parkinson's and Alzheimers disease.

The relationship between smoking and inflammatory bowel disease has been firmly established, but remains a source of confusion among both patients and doctors. It is negatively associated with ulcerative colitis but positively associated with Crohn's disease. In addition, it has opposite influences on the clinical course of the two conditions with benefit in ulcerative colitis but a detrimental effect in Crohn's disease.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/26/9/1488/2390957 https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/?tid=bmp54d00&fmt=pdf&ref=results https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2012.07708.x

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10601921

http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=bmp54d00&fmt=pdf&ref=results

http://www.forces.org/evidence/hamilton/other/nicotine.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131214144837.htm

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jbt.21586/abstract

Overclocking your brain with tDCS

2014-08-15T19:51:00.002-07:00

So I’ve been looking forward to sharing my notes on tDCS, easily the most powerful, even life-changing of any cognitive enhancers I've yet used, but condensing the exponentially increasing trove of data on the subject proved a far more challenging undertaking than expected.

Traditional Cognitive Enhancers

Before reading on, please be advised that I have absolutely no financial stake in tDCS, nor do I have ties to anyone with a stake of any kind in tDCS technology. Also, bear in mind I'm not a doctor either, so none of the following should be relied upon in making decisions about matters that may affect your personal health. Please consult with your doctor before using any of the technology or methods described below.

Now then, with that preamble out of the way, here’s a quick overview of this new and groundbreaking technology:

Novel DIY tDCS Headset

At the most basic, “tDCS” stands for transcranial direct current stimulation. Transcranial simply means that the direct current is passed across a region of your brain between two electrodes (the cathode and anode) to form a circuit within the body. The constant, low-current delivered directly to the brain is a form of neurostimulation which primes the neurons in the target cortical system to fire faster (increasing their “action potential”). The particular benefits of a tDCS session are dependent on where the tDCS electrodes are placed on the scalp and/or body (each unique placement of tDCS electrodes is known as a “montage”).

And there’s clearly a lot to be excited about when you consider the sheer breadth and variety of uses for which tDCS is proving useful. The notes and links you'll find below will connect you to research and studies which demonstrate tDCS's utility when applied to accelerate learning, augment working memory, recover from brain trauma, and even in alleviating treatment resistant depression.

After having personally used transcranial direct current stimulation for going on two years now I can say, without reservation, that transcranial direct current stimulation has been the closest thing to a miracle I've yet tried. In fact it's dramatically exceeded my expectations, becoming the most effective of all cognitive enhancers in my arsenal. It's even proven beneficial in other meaningful ways that I never expected it could (which I describe in more detail below).

Transcranial direct current stimulation was originally developed to help patients with brain injuries recover from ischemia and neural insults brought about by strokes and other trauma. However, more recently tests on healthy adults have demonstrated that tDCS can markedly increase cognitive performance on a variety of tasks (again depending on the area of the brain being stimulated), diminish lethargy, and bring about feelings of well-being.

By contrast to many available cognitive enhancers, tDCS stands as one of the most thoroughly tested. A good number of studies have demonstrated the technology particularly effective in learning language, speeding reaction time, augmenting mathematical ability and problem solving, increasing attention span, and working memory, among others. In some of the more interesting studies below you'll read about how tDCS has, in clinical trials, been proven to enhance overall learning speed by a factor of 230%!

Of note, even when the tDCS session is terminated the beneficial effects are proven to continue enhancing the subjects working memory ability to learn new skills. These effects have been proven to continue post-session for not less than 1-2 hours, perhaps even days.

Many experts continue to advise that you not try transcranial direct current stimulation at home, but the genie appears well out of the proverbial bottle on this one, accelerated by mass produced DIY tDCS devices like the Foc.us. And it’s no wonder, given the parade of amazing results that researchers have reported achieving on subjects in the lab. It seems like you can make people better at just about anything if you just put the electrodes in the right place. To name just a few of the findings:

Applying the electrodes to the prefrontal cortex can improve learning and increase your working memory.

Stimulation of the parietal cortex can improve numerical reasoning.

Applying tDCS to the motor cortex can raise your threshold for pain and even make you more adept with your non-dominant hand.

Position the electrodes above the posterior portion of the left perisylvian area (in right-handed people) and tDCS can facilitate rapid language acquisition.

And the list goes on and on, from depression, to motor reflexes, to recovery from all sorts of ischemia and neural insults. Very quickly we’re seeing a surge of interest in tDCS as it continues to outperform other choices in cognitive enhancers both in terms of efficacy and safety. tDCS technology is increasingly being employed to significantly speed healing and restore functionality in stroke victims, and on the other end of the spectrum was recently deployed by every branch of the United States military to augment working memory and effectively train soldiers (sometimes twice as fast!) in skills that vary from flying fighter jets to firing sniper rifles!

“The military has been looking at how to improve vigilance for the past 50 or 60 years,” said Andy McKinley, a civilian biomedical engineer who has been studying tDCS at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.“At minimum we get a twofold improvement in how long a person can maintain performance. We’ve never seen that with anything else.”

A few studies claim results that are even more jaw-dropping. In Neuroscience Letters last year, Australian researchers reported applying tDCS to 33 people as they tried to solve the notoriously tricky “nine-dot” logic problem. Not one was able to crack it without stimulation, or with “sham” stimulation (in which electricity is applied only briefly to mimic the feeling of tDCS). However, among those augmented with tDCS, a shocking 40 percent of that group solved it!

Among cognitive enhancers tCDS certainly ranks among the least convenient, if not intimidating. Many fear the sessions will be painful or unpleasant but hold in mind that 1 to 2 milliamperes (1mA - 2mA) is an incredibly low amount of electricity. Wikipedia states that "A person can feel at least 5mA of direct current". Among those who have used tDCS, the reported effects have seemed, in many instances, too good to be true. Many subjects report a tickling or burning sensation from the electrodes, and some say they feel different when the current is flowing, with time seeming to pass quickly. But far from finding it painful, an editor at New Scientist who tried it out during a marksmanship test described tDCS as “the most powerful drug I’ve ever used in my life” and “a near-spiritual experience.” The editor, Sally Adee, wrote:

“When a nice neuroscientist named Michael Weisend put the electrodes on me, what defined the experience was not feeling smarter or learning faster: The thing that made the earth drop out from under my feet was that for the first time in my life, everything in my head finally shut up. … I felt clear-headed and like myself, just sharper. Calmer. Without fear and without doubt. From there on, I just spent the time waiting for a problem to appear so that I could solve it.”

Oh, and she nailed the target.

Here you'll find links to the latest tDCS research and my favorite tDCS devices

The Latest and Best tDCS Research and Devices.

2014-08-15T19:46:00.002-07:00

Below you'll find a collection of some of my favorite articles, research, and devices using tDCS technology.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation articles:

http://j.mp/PopSCItDCS

http://j.mp/shockingtdcsAustralianstudy

tDCS devices for use at home

http://j.mp/tDCS

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427177/diy-kit-overclocks-your-brain-with-direct-current/

http://j.mp/tDCSstudy

http://j.mp/tDCSstudysummary

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literally-shocks-your-brain-to-attention/

http://www.diytdcs.com/

http://theweek.com/article/index/226196/how-electrical-brain-stimulation-can-change-the-way-we-think

Here are my favorite two devices available for purchase by an ordinary consumer without medical supervision. When cost is weighed in as a factor, I believe the Foc.us tDCS headset to be the best device on the market today:

BEST PRODUCT:

http://soterixmedical.com/hd-tdcs

Foc.us tDCS headset

BEST PRODUCT FOR THE MONEY:

http://www.foc.us

Additional tDCS manufacturers, suppliers, and DIY instruction sites:

http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/activadose-ii/

Manufacturers and suppliers of tDCS parts or alternatives to tDCS:

http://pocketneurobics.com/product/complete-cap-kit-all-sizes-included/

http://www.mindmodulations.com/prod-emwave-pc.html

http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/activadose-ii/

Interesting product providers (various uses):

http://www.mindalive.com/index.htm

http://www.fisherwallace.com/how-cranial-electrotherapy-stimulation-works

An example of a practicing tDCS clinic in Atlanta:

http://www.transcranialbrainstimulation.com/

Everything you want to know about tDCS

2014-08-14T06:34:00.003-07:00

So I’ve been looking forward to sharing my notes on this life-changing technology known as Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation, or "tDCS", for quite a while now, but condensing the exponentially increasing trove of data on the subject proved far harder to do than anticipated.

Alas, below you'll find my first attempt at a high-level summary of tDCS technology, as well a collection of what I found to be the most compelling information and scientific basis for its benefits:

Before you go further, please know that as incredible as what you're about to read sounds, every claim in the text to follow is supported by myriad clinical studies and objectively quantifiable scientific evidence. I can say without reservation that it worked miraculously for me, and I now evangelize for the technology at every chance I get.

The framework for the tech I keep referencing has been around for 200 years. Though it languished basically ignored (industry preferring the far more lucrative pharmaceutical means of addressing all that ails us); lately however tDCS has been gaining a great deal of attention and praise as an efficacious and safe alternative to drugs.

How does it work? It's as simple as attaching one electrode to your scalp (above the part of the brain you want to stimulate), and another electrode either on somewhere innocuous like your shoulder (at a site on your scalp above an area of the brain you want to inhibit).

The two electrodes form a circuit of sorts in the body. Then you turn on the juice!

Figuratively anyway.

In actuality you're only sending somewhere between 1 to 2 milliamperes of electricity through the brain, but the reported effects have seemed, in many instances, too good to be true.

Almost every expert who talks about tDCS will tell you, “Don’t try this at home.” But fact is, a lot of people are starting to do just that. And it’s no wonder, given the parade of amazing results that researchers have reported achieving on subjects in the lab. It seems like you can make people better at just about anything if you just put the electrodes in the right place. To name just a few of the findings:

Applying the electrodes to the prefrontal cortex can improve learning and increase your working memory.

Stimulation of the parietal cortex can improve numerical reasoning.

Applying tDCS to the motor cortex can raise your threshold for pain and even make you more adept with your non-dominant hand.

Position the electrodes (the different coordinates on the scalp and head where the electrodes are placed are known as a “montages”) above the posterior portion of the left perisylvian area (in right-handed people) and tDCS can facilitate rapid language acquisition.

And the list goes on and on, from depression, to motor reflexes, to recovery from all sorts of ischemia and neural insults. Very quickly we’re seeing a surge in tDCS interest and use across a wide spectrum of early adopters. tDCS is increasingly being employed to significantly speed the healing and restore functionality in stroke victims, and on the other end of the spectrum was recently deployed by every branch of the United States military to effectively train soldiers (sometimes twice as fast!) in skills that vary from flying fighter jets to firing sniper rifles!

“The military has been looking at how to improve vigilance for the past 50 or 60 years,” said Andy McKinley, a civilian biomedical engineer who has been studying tDCS at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.“At minimum we get a twofold improvement in how long a person can maintain performance. We’ve never seen that with anything else.”

A few studies claim results that are even more jaw-dropping. In Neuroscience Letters last year, Australian researchers reported applying tDCS to 33 people as they tried to solve the notoriously tricky “nine-dot” logic problem. Not one was able to crack it without stimulation, or with “sham” stimulation (in which electricity is applied only briefly to mimic the feeling of tDCS). However, among those augmented with tDCS,40 percent of that group solved it!

You might suspect the procedure would be painful or unpleasant. Many subjects report a tickling or burning sensation from the electrodes, and some say they feel different when the current is flowing, with time seeming to pass quickly. But far from finding it painful, an editor at New Scientist who tried it out during a marksmanship test described tDCS as “the most powerful drug I’ve ever used in my life” and “a near-spiritual experience.” The editor, Sally Adee, wrote:

Oh, and she nailed the target.

Here's a company that I bought my tDCS unit from:

http://www.foc.us

Let me know if you have any questions further questions about this very interesting tech. I'd be happy to help however I can.

Below you’ll find an extensive collection of additional notes and scientific basis I aggregated from various studies online, as well a peppering of some of my own thoughts and experiences with tDCS:

tDCS Notes:

To give its full name, tDCS stands for “transcranial direct current stimulation”. Transcranial simply means that the direct current (i.e. from a battery rather than the AC mains) is passed across a region of your brain. In the case of the Foc.us headset that I’ve been testing, the direct current passes between the cathode and anode, which are placed over your prefrontal cortex using a fixed-position montage that’s designed to have either an excitatory or inhibitory effect.

Different montages elicit different effects, one could position the tDCS system to improve mathematical reasoning, or when the anodes and cathodes of a tDCS system are positioned to activate cortical neuronal systems, neurons are primed to fire faster and elicit faster reaction times in the wearer.

Even when the tDCS session is terminated the beneficial effects are proven to continue enhancing the subjects ability to learn new skills. These effects have been proven to continue post-session for not less than 1-2 hours.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a form of neurostimulation which uses constant, low-current delivered directly to the brain through various vectors or “montages” (benefits to unique cognitive functions are dependent on where the tDCS electrodes are placed on the scalp).

tDCS was originally developed to help patients with brain injuries such as strokes. However, more recently tests on healthy adults have demonstrated that tDCS can increase cognitive performance on a variety of tasks, (again depending on the area of the brain being stimulated).

tDCS can modify brain behavior by inducing changes in its function. To better understand the effects of tDCS, study examines tDCS' impact on performance on working memory and underlying neural activity

Below is a collection of some of my favorite articles and information resources on tDCS:

http://j.mp/PopSCItDCS

http://j.mp/shockingtdcsAustralianstudy

http://j.mp/tDCS

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427177/diy-kit-overclocks-your-brain-with-direct-current/

http://j.mp/tDCSstudy

http://j.mp/tDCSstudysummary

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literally-shocks-your-brain-to-attention/

http://www.diytdcs.com/

"Anodal tDCS" may be overall better than "cathodal tDCS", though at least one study disputes that belief.

http://www.fisherwallace.com/index.php?main_page=products_all

Excellent informational resource detailing proper use of tDCS technology as well as offering useful insights into tDCS montage locations (translated: instructions that show where to place anodes and cathodes to get certain benefits):

http://speakwisdom.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/user-built-tdcs-research-device/

Here are my back-of-the-napkin ratings for each tDCS device available for purchase by an ordinary consumer. These ratings don’t take price into consideration. If they did, I believe the Foc.us tDCS headset to be the best device on the market today:

BEST PRODUCT:

http://soterixmedical.com/hd-tdcs

2ND BEST PRODUCT:

http://www.foc.us

3RD BEST PRODUCT:

The product used by Atlanta based clinic you can find at:

http://www.transcranialbrainstimulation.com/

Additional tDCS manufacturers, suppliers, and DIY instruction sites:

http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/activadose-ii/

Manufacturers and suppliers of tDCS parts or alternatives to tDCS:

http://pocketneurobics.com/product/complete-cap-kit-all-sizes-included/

http://www.mindmodulations.com/prod-emwave-pc.html

http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/activadose-ii/

Interesting product providers (various uses):

http://www.mindalive.com/index.htm

http://www.fisherwallace.com/how-cranial-electrotherapy-stimulation-works

Excellent tDCS article:

http://theweek.com/article/index/226196/how-electrical-brain-stimulation-can-change-the-way-we-think

Anode and Cathode placement on scalp:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwGIF5aCnqg

Further definitions and articles:

A widely cited definition characterizes cognitive enhancement as “interventions in humans that aim to improve mental functioning beyond what is necessary to sustain or restore good health”

Abstract

The term “cognitive enhancement” usually characterizes interventions in humans that aim to improve mental functioning beyond what is necessary to sustain or restore good health. While the current bioethical debate mainly concentrates on pharmaceuticals, according to the given characterization, cognitive enhancement also by non-pharmacological means has to be regarded as enhancement proper. Here we summarize empirical data on approaches using nutrition, physical exercise, sleep, meditation, mnemonic strategies, computer training, and brain stimulation for enhancing cognitive capabilities. Several of these non-pharmacological enhancement strategies seem to be more efficacious compared to currently available pharmaceuticals usually coined as cognitive enhancers. While many ethical arguments of the cognitive enhancement debate apply to both pharmacological and non-pharmacological enhancers, some of them appear in new light when considered on the background of non-pharmacological enhancement.

How it works:

The physiological changes involve the modulation of spontaneous neuronal activity through polarity-specific shifts of the resting membrane potential in the direction of de- or hyperpolarisation. The direction of the change is governed by the direction of current flow, the spatial orientation of the neuron, the type of neuron and the total charge.

Abstract

The ability to detect errors during cognitive performance is compromised in older age and in a range of clinical populations. This study was designed to assess the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on error awareness in healthy older human adults. tDCS was applied over DLPFC while subjects performed a computerized test of error awareness. The influence of current polarity (anodal vs cathodal) and electrode location (left vs right hemisphere) was tested in a series of separate single-blind, Sham-controlled crossover trials, each including 24 healthy older adults (age 65–86 years). Anodal tDCS over right DLPFC was associated with a significant increase in the proportion of performance errors that were consciously detected, and this result was recapitulated in a separate replication experiment. No such improvements were observed when the homologous contralateral area was stimulated. The present study provides novel evidence for a causal role of right DLPFC regions in subserving error awareness and marks an important step toward developing tDCS as a tool for remediating the performance-monitoring deficits that afflict a broad range of populations.

All known human societies have maintained social order by enforcing compliance with social norms. The biological mechanisms underlying norm compliance are, however, hardly understood. We show that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is involved in both voluntary and sanction-induced norm compliance. Both types of compliance could be changed by varying the neural excitability of this brain region with transcranial direct current stimulation, but they were affected in opposite ways, suggesting that the stimulated region plays a fundamentally different role in voluntary and sanction-based compliance. Brain stimulation had a particularly strong effect on compliance in the context of socially constituted sanctions, whereas it left beliefs about what the norm prescribes and about subjectively expected sanctions unaffected. Our findings suggest that rLPFC activity is a key biological prerequisite for an evolutionarily and socially important aspect of human behavior.

It's still so early, but this is very exciting:

Remarkably, MRI brain scans revealed clear structural changes in the brain as soon as five days after TDCS. Neurons in the cerebral cortex connect with one another to form circuits via massive bundles of nerve fibers (axons) buried deep below the brain's surface in "white matter tracts." The fiber bundles were found to be more robust and more highly organized after TDCS. No changes were seen on the opposite side of the brain that was not stimulated by the scalp electrodes. Amping Up Brain Function: Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning

http://j.mp/tDCSspeedslearning

Amping Up Brain Function: Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning Electrical stimulation of subjects' brains is found to accelerate learning in military and civilian subjects, although researchers are yet wary of drawing larger conclusions about the mechanism By R. Douglas Fields

Antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy are the first line treatments for depressive disorders. If efficacy is not satisfactory, supplementary biological treatment procedures can be used. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has established itself as a possible new approach in the treatment of depressive disorders. The hypothesis is that stimulation of areas relevant to the pathophysiology of depressions will induce metabolic and biochemical processes—both in the stimulated areas and in associated subcortical regions—that have an anti-depressive effect. On the basis of this pathophysiological model, tDCS was investigated as another non-invasive method of brain stimulation. The approach is based on the physiological knowledge that anodal stimulation of nerve cells, i.e. stimulation with positive charge, causes a depolarization of the membrane potential in the underlying neurons, whereas a negative external charge from a cathode hyperpolarises a negative membrane potential.

Everything you want to know about tDCS:

2014-08-14T06:28:00.002-07:00

Alas, below you'll find my first attempt at a high-level summary of tDCS technology, as well a collection of what I found to be the most compelling information and scientific basis for its benefits:

The two electrodes form a circuit of sorts in the body. Then you turn on the juice!

Figuratively anyway.

In actuality you're only sending somewhere between 1 to 2 milliamperes of electricity through the brain, but the reported effects have seemed, in many instances, too good to be true.

Applying the electrodes to the prefrontal cortex can improve learning and increase your working memory.

Stimulation of the parietal cortex can improve numerical reasoning.

Applying tDCS to the motor cortex can raise your threshold for pain and even make you more adept with your non-dominant hand.

Position the electrodes (the different coordinates on the scalp and head where the electrodes are placed are known as a “montages”) above the posterior portion of the left perisylvian area (in right-handed people) and tDCS can facilitate rapid language acquisition.

Oh, and she nailed the target.

Here's a company that I bought my tDCS unit from:

http://www.foc.us

Let me know if you have any questions further questions about this very interesting tech. I'd be happy to help however I can.

tDCS Notes:

Below is a collection of some of my favorite articles and information resources on tDCS:

http://j.mp/PopSCItDCS

http://j.mp/shockingtdcsAustralianstudy

http://j.mp/tDCS

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427177/diy-kit-overclocks-your-brain-with-direct-current/

http://j.mp/tDCSstudy

http://j.mp/tDCSstudysummary

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literally-shocks-your-brain-to-attention/

http://www.diytdcs.com/

"Anodal tDCS" may be overall better than "cathodal tDCS", though at least one study disputes that belief.

http://www.fisherwallace.com/index.php?main_page=products_all

http://speakwisdom.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/user-built-tdcs-research-device/

BEST PRODUCT:

http://soterixmedical.com/hd-tdcs

2ND BEST PRODUCT:

http://www.foc.us

3RD BEST PRODUCT:

The product used by Atlanta based clinic you can find at:

http://www.transcranialbrainstimulation.com/

Additional tDCS manufacturers, suppliers, and DIY instruction sites:

http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/activadose-ii/

Manufacturers and suppliers of tDCS parts or alternatives to tDCS:

http://pocketneurobics.com/product/complete-cap-kit-all-sizes-included/

http://www.mindmodulations.com/prod-emwave-pc.html

http://www.diytdcs.com/tag/activadose-ii/

Interesting product providers (various uses):

http://www.mindalive.com/index.htm

http://www.fisherwallace.com/how-cranial-electrotherapy-stimulation-works

Excellent tDCS article:

http://theweek.com/article/index/226196/how-electrical-brain-stimulation-can-change-the-way-we-think

Anode and Cathode placement on scalp:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwGIF5aCnqg

Further definitions and articles:

A widely cited definition characterizes cognitive enhancement as “interventions in humans that aim to improve mental functioning beyond what is necessary to sustain or restore good health”

Keywords:

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, tDCS, Nootropics, Memory, Attention, Intelligence, Cognitive Enhancement

Abstract

HOW IT WORKS

Abstract

It's still so early, but this is very exciting:

http://j.mp/tDCSspeedslearning

August 25 2013 Key notes:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604631/

TDCS is comparable to that of modern pharmacological drugs, with no negative side effects.

Nowadays, tDCS is a routine technique used for various pathologies at the Saint Petersburg Municipal Center for Medical Rehabilitation of Children with Psychoneurological Disorders (Pinchuk, 2007). Since 1988 till 2011, more than 1400 children and adolescents aged from 9months to 17years and more than 350 adult patients with various nervous system diseases have undergone tDCS treatment in the Center. tDCS procedures appeared to be also effective in the treatment of headaches (HA). Based on results obtained we tried to identify the possible mechanisms underlying the clinical effectiveness tDCS in the treatment of HA. We are aware that this work is as yet incomplete but taking into consideration the importance of the problem, great number of patients with HA, combined with the high degree of effectiveness of the technique and almost complete absence of undesirable effects, we consider advisable to inform specialists working in this field of our experience in using tDCS technique for HA treatment.

In the analyzed groups we used three basic localizations of stimulating electrodes on the scalp out of 17 used during tDCS. For the first electrode position (1EP), an anode was placed over the frontal pole (medial edge of the electrode was situated at the boundary of the interhemispheric fissure) of the hemisphere subdominant in motor skills; a cathode was located at the ipsilateral mastoid process. For the second electrode position (2EP), an anode was placed in the center of the forehead, 1.5cm above the nasal bridge, at the projection of the interhemispheric fissure; a cathode was placed 2cm higher the mastoid process of the hemisphere subdominant in motor skills. For the third electrode position (3EP), an anode was placed in the center of the frontal pole of subdominant hemisphere; a cathode was placed 2cm above the ipsilateral mastoid process.

Stimulation time was 30–45min both in children and adults; current intensity ranged from 60 to 90μA for children to 100–150μA for adults; electrodes were made of medical conductive rubber and were placed in 6.25cm2 saline-soaked multilayer flannel cases. The current densities we use (0.001–0.024mA/cm2) almost do not differ from those used in majority of studies on tDCS (0.029–0.066mA/cm2) (Bastani and Jaberzadeh, 2012), and they are in the range permitted by the Ministry of Health of the USSR (now the Russian Federation) when performing transcranial stimulation with galvanic (direct) current (0.01–0.2mA/cm2). By the way, these figures are almost the same as the parameters of current density which were used at the end of nineteenth to twentieth centuries (0.01–0.3mA/cm2). The time of stimulation we use (30–45min) is somewhat longer than the one traditionally used in procedures of tDCS (10–20min). However, in several studies (Schlaug and Renga, 2008) longer time is used (up to 30min). Lengthening the time of exposure leads to greater charge of electricity than during the traditional use; tDCS – 0.09–0.12C/cm2, where 1C is the amount of electric charge transported in 1s by a steady current of 1A (Stagg and Nitsche, 2011), in our studies these values range from 0.19 to 0.26C/cm2. Although, there are works where these values are higher than the ones we used. So in the study of Schlaug and Renga (2008) the maximum total charge was 2.4C/cm2. However, in this case the values are much lower than the acceptable safety regulations (up to 200C/cm2) (Yuen et al., 1981). The number of procedures for a course varied from five to nine with 4–7days interval. Stabilization of HA level was a criterion for treatment course completion. Treatment was conducted in compliance with modern generally accepted standards of biomedical ethics.

According to patients’ self-reports, tDCS, when using the 1EP, has led to fast HA relief (already during the first two to three sessions). This localization has been more effective at CPTH and migraine (more than in 85 and 78%, respectively), at FETTH (52%), at CTTH (only in two patients out of seven, i.e., 29%). The 1EP was more effective in patients with dominating increased tonus of parasympathetic nervous system (according to Lüscher test – so-called criterion of vegetative balance) (Belova and Shepetova, 2002).

With migraine, the number of attacks decreased; if developed, they were shorter and less intensive. The pattern of HAs changed: during the attack, HA was dull instead of acute and disappeared rather fast. Duration of pain attack reduced from 9–24 to 3–8h. The number of vegetative manifestations (flushes, feeling hot, sweating, nausea, etc.) sharply decreased. Amount of analgesics, relieving the attack, decreased from 2–6 to 1–2 tablets.

Chronic Post-Traumatic HA (CPTH)

After tDCS course in patients with CPTH, along with marked reduction in HA level, the following was observed: significant reduction of asthenic syndrome manifestations (reduced tiredness and irritancy, normalization of sleep), reduction, and in some patients almost complete disappearance of vegetative lability symptoms. In 52% of patients with CPTH, after tDCS course HA completely disappeared for at least 4.5months; in 28% of patients the number of days with HA decreased by at least 50% from baseline for at least 4.5months; tDCS had no effect in 20% of patients. Subjective assessment of HA level in patients with CPTH decreased by 3.5 points on average in the group (from 5.4±1.8 prior to the treatment to 1.9±1.2 after tDCS course, p=0.0006).

After tDCS course, in patients with FETTH the feeling of head compression reduced significantly or completely disappeared, the number of days without HA increased, amount of analgesics being taken reduced. Level of pain in patients with FETTH when using the 1EP reduced by 1.88 points on average in the group (4.92±2.89 prior to the treatment, 3.04±2.82 after the treatment, p=0.062). Positive clinical effect was obtained mainly due to the subgroup of patients with TTH combined with muscular tenderness of pericranial muscles. Out of 18 patients with TTH, receiving tDCS in the 1EP, TTH combined with pericranial tenderness was observed in 13 patients. Out of these 13 patients, HAs completely disappeared in 4 patients for a period longer than 4.5months; in 6 patients, the number of days with HA reduced by at least 50% compared with baseline for a period longer than 4.5months; only in 3 patients no effect was observed. tDCS clinical effectiveness assessed by the decrease of days with HA in total is 76.9% in the subgroup of patients with FETTH combined with pericranial tenderness. According to NRS, reduction of HA intensity is significant (from 5.05±3.01 prior to the treatment to 2.87±2.11, p=0.0429). Reduction of HA intensity significantly (p<0 .05="" 1ep="" 35-years="" a="" accompanied="" after="" all="" and="" anxiety="" associated="" at="" beck="" both="" by="" correlated="" course="" decrease="" depression="" dizziness="" due="" female="" fetth="" five="" font="" former="" ha="" has="" in="" increasing="" ineffective.="" inventory.="" inventory="" level.="" level="" manifestations="" nausea="" not="" of="" old="" patient="" patients="" pericranial="" procedure="" s="" spearman="" spielberger="" stabilized="" state="" tdcs="" tenderness="" terminated="" termination="" the="" third="" to="" treatment="" vegetative="" was="" week="" with="">

Although TTH and migraine are traditionally considered to be different diseases, a significant clinical effectiveness of the same electrode localization (the 1EP) at tDCS both in patients with migraine and in patients with TTH rather indicates common pathophysiological mechanisms in these HA types. We tend to agree with D. Greenberg et al. (2005), who consider migraine and TTH to be two opposite poles of a single clinical spectrum. Psychosocial stress is believed to be a provoking factor for TTH, and personality traits (high incidence of anxiodepressive and somatoform disorders) predispose to development of cephalgia (Karakulova, 2006). However, these factors and, in particular, anxiodepressive syndrome of varying degrees are revealed in almost 60% of migraine cases (Gusev et al., 1999; Osipova and Levin,2006). NRS HA intensity level correlated significantly with state anxiety parameters according to Spielberger’s Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory in our study both in patients with migraine and in patients with TTH.

Apparently, changes in balance of frontal cortex activity, its shift toward activation of left hemisphere frontal cortex, determining the positive emotional background, is one of the reasons for improvement following tDCS with the 1EP, taking into consideration anxiodepressive component in HA clinical picture (Deglin and Nikolaenko, 1975; Heller, 1993). tDCS inhibitory regimen (exposure more than 35min) (Pinchuk, 2007) applied on the structures of the right orbitofrontal cortex resulted in a decrease in its activity and in reciprocal activation of the left hemisphere released of the right hemisphere inhibiting influence. This leads to a marked mood improvement, reduced anxiety, more adequate assessment, and response to environment and to regression of concurrent psychovegetative symptoms and reduction of HA intensity.

Transcranial direct current stimulation with the 1EP has predominantly caused an increase of sympathetic ANS activity which manifested in a feeling of energy surge, in decreased sleeping period, however, without feeling fatigued, in increased libido (prior to that it was decreased on average). Insignificant transitory systolic arterial pressure increase (by 5–10mm Hg) was observed in some patients directly after tDCS. An increased level of sympathetic ANS activity is supposed to result in rebalancing of parasympathetic and sympathetic ANS. Due to this fact, among others, this localization in patients with symptoms of increased parasympathetic ANS activity is the most effective one. However, abrupt HA reduction during tDCS cannot be explained only by improvement of patient’s psycho-emotional condition. Alterations in brainstem reticular formation (RF) and, particularly, in mesencephalic RF during tDCS seem to play an important role in observed effects. Activating locations with similar low threshold for activation and inhibition reactions as in non-specific RF structures of mesencephalon and thalamus are revealed in different cortical areas (Penfield and Jasper, 1954; Andreyeva et al.,1979). Our results also suggest the possibility of targeted alteration in RF functional state by influencing the modulating cortical areas (Pinchuk, 2007).

Complaints between attacks point to a chronic dysfunction of hypothalamic system both in patients with migraine and in patients with TTH. Low tolerance for different provoking factors (low “migraine threshold”), also stress and vasodilator factors indicates the same. Improved hypothalamus functioning during tDCS manifests in normalization of patients.

Doctors are experimenting with tDCS to treat severe depression and help stroke victims regain their speaking skills. Students in theory could use it to solve math problems or pick up Chinese. Air Force researchers are using it to make people better at guiding killer drones, and DARPA has found it could improve snipers’ marksmanship.

Other noteworthy studies:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23507876

The facilitation of all subcortical neurons were potentiated by repeated applications of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and outlasted the polarization by at least 1-2 h, replicating tDCS effects on indirect activation of cortical neurons. The results indicate that the beneficial effects of tDCS on motor performance in humans may be due to more efficient activation of not only cortical but also subcortical neuronal systems. Combined actions of tDCS on cortical and subcortical neurons might thus further improve recovery of motor functions during rehabilitation after central injuries.

The current from Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is tiny - just 1 to 2 milliamps - and though the mechanism is not fully clear, tDCS appears to increase the excitability of neurons, making active areas of the brain work even harder. Depending where you place the electrodes (the different coordinates on the scalp and head where the electrodes are placed are known as a “montages”), it can lead to an enhancement in cognitive functions including attention and vision.

Roi Cohen Kadosh, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, is particularly interested in tDCS's potential to give our brains a boost. He has been looking for the part of the brain that is responsible for mathematical ability. In 2007, he pinpointed this to the right parietal lobe, just above the right ear. When his team "short-circuited" this area using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) - a stream of magnetic pulses which temporarily disables a targeted area of the brain - they found that people got worse at numerical tasks. In fact, their performance resembled people with dyscalculia, who have difficulty comprehending mathematics.

Having disrupted our ability to use numbers, Cohen Kadosh wondered whether he could improve it too.

He now has his answer. Cohen Kadosh managed to improve numeracy in volunteers by applying tDCS to the right parietal cortex. He zapped his volunteers while they familiarized themselves with made-up symbols representing the numbers 1 to 9. The volunteers had no idea which symbols stood for which number but had to work it out by trial and error. After each training session they were given tests to see how well they could perform calculations using the symbols. Those given tDCS learned the symbols faster and did better in the tests than those given a sham procedure. It did not affect other brain functions, Cohen Kadosh's team found. Cohen Kadosh, who announced his results at a conference at the University of Oxford in June, had another surprise in store - the improvements have lasted six months so far.

Since we constantly encounter numbers in our daily life, Cohen Kadosh said it is really important that people who have difficulties with numbers know about these kind of options for improving their cognition, as an alternative to drug therapies.

Electricity can also boost visual memory. Richard Chi and colleagues at the University of Sydney, Australia, used tDCS to increase activity in the right anterior temporal lobe, near the temple, which is involved in visual perception and memory. His volunteers experienced a 110 per cent improvement in a subsequent visual memory task compared with a group who received a sham treatment (Brain Research, vol 1353, p 168).

It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to see where this could all be heading. Cohen Kadosh reckons tDCS could be packaged into a portable gadget. "In the future I can see it being of use in schools or at home, to advance the abilities of children with learning difficulties." He says that it is much safer than other types of brain stimulation because tDCS does not cause neurons to fire directly, it merely makes them more responsive.

Godaddy plans 700 new top-level domains & Google plans to make them "dotless"!

2013-09-06T09:33:00.002-07:00

Like Gordon Gekko, the infamous power broker in the movie "Wall Street", I'm having mixed emotions lately on Godaddy's upcoming plan to create and release as many as 700 new generic top level domains (like .com, .net, etc).

Gordon put his mixed emotions best, saying of them, "buddy; it's like [my nemesis] Larry Wildman going off a cliff....in my brand new Maserati."

Sounds right. Because on the one hand, until reading about the massive deluge in new GTLD's, I'll bet very few who were sold or brokered high-value .com's were, at any point in the decision-making process, counseled to be conservative. For instance, I don't remember hearing:

"Hey [Godaddy customer], before you pull the trigger on this six-figure domain purchase, just hold in mind that we've got like 700 more of these babies coming out in a year or two...so…".

That said, there are numerous and easy to appreciate benefits to such an enormous change in gTLD availability (many of them itemized in Godaddy's gTLD press release).

These new gTLD's won't come cheap! In fact, the evaluation fee alone is $185,000 PER GTLD! That means shelling out $130,000,000 to ICANN just to get them through the evaluation phase!

Once approved, there is a fixed fee of $25,000 a year per gTLD (so another $17.5mm/year just in registration fees alone. Not cheap!

Perhaps all these fees had something to do with ICANN's recently announcing its rejection of Google's plans for a “Dotless .Search” gTLD".

Anyone have ideas on where this rapidly changing URL configuration technology is heading?

Thoughts would be appreciated!

Christian Hunter
Austin, TX

Can Foc.us tDCS enhance cognition and cure depression?

2013-08-23T11:03:00.002-07:00

So I've been testing the new Foc.us tDCS headset and wanted to share some early observations.

The technology, known as "tDCS" (an acronym for "Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation") has been getting attention lately with largely positive, even glowing, anecdotal reports (and an increasing number of favorable clinical studies) testifying to its efficacy in improving cognition and mood.

While not the first company to address the growing demand for at-home tDCS systems, www.foc.us is the first well put-together tDCS headset designed to be useful by any consumer, even those without any training in its application.

I recently got mine and am more than a little excited to use it! Check back as I plan on posting my experience with it soon!

In the interim, I'm sharing some notes (below) I collected for those looking to learn more about tDCS technology:

Transcranial direct current stimulation is a form of neurostimulation which uses constant, low-current delivered directly to the brain through various vectors (various cognitive functions appear to be affected more significantly depending where on scalp electrodes are placed).

tDCS was originally developed to help patients with brain injuries such as strokes. However, more recently tests on healthy adults have demonstrated that tDCS can significantly enhance cognitive performance on a variety of tasks, increase working memory, alleviate depression, the list goes on, and the benefits depend on the placement of the electrodes on the head and area of the brain being targeted for stimulation.

tDCS has thus far been utilized to enhance language and mathematical ability, attention span, problem solving, working memory, learning, and coordination. In some of the more interesting studies below you'll learn that tDCS, being used by the US military, reliably increases overall learning speed by 230%!

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427177/diy-kit-overclocks-your-brain-with-direct-current/

http://j.mp/PopSCItDCS

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) can modify brain behavior by inducing changes in its function. To better understand the effects of tDCS, study examines tDCS' impact on performance on working memory and underlying neural activity

http://j.mp/shockingtdcsAustralianstudy

http://j.mp/tDCS

http://j.mp/tDCSstudy

http://j.mp/tDCSstudysummary

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literally-shocks-your-brain-to-attention/

http://www.diytdcs.com/

Hope you found the above information of use. Please take a moment to share your experience with this (or any) tDCS system.

Four killer SEO best practices to instantly surge your video traffic!

2013-07-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

This post will describe in simple easy terms how to use basic seo best practices to boost search engine ranking and massively increase traffic from your videos.

One of the most common mistakes amateurs make when they upload a video is to forget seo best practices...even the most basic SEO for that matter. You should remember that not paying attention to video SEO has the same effect on on traffic that ignoring SEO for a common text-based page has!

The basic video SEO elements available on YouTube.com

There lies the biggest problem: despite video SEO being just as easy (or easier) as "regular" SEO, the basic search engine ranking work needed for video content just isn't being done. That's also the opportunity: it's far easier to use basic SEO marketing techniques to boost your video search engine ranking across the major search engines than boosting ranking for an ordinary text page.

Many don't understand that unlike the way search engines rank a text based page, search engine ranking today is "blind" when it comes to automatically contextualizing, categorizing, and indexing video content. So just as with an ordinary text webpage, search engines rely on the same titles, descriptions, and tags that to determine the search engine ranking for a video page! Search engines today are expert at making sense of non-optimized text-based webpages (given that a non optimized text-based page at least has text-based keywords in it...among many other useful attributes). All to say, video content however is far more enigmatic and must be decoded or "unwrapped" by a search engine to in order to properly categorize and determine search engine ranking.

The good news is, optimizing your video for search engines is just like optimizing SEO for your website and blog copy...in some senses a lot easier! Below you'll quickly learn that the best SEO best practices for text media can be utilized for video media. That's all to say that the same methods you use to determine what key words and phrases people will use to search for your web pages and blogs you'll use to determine the keywords and phrases in your title, metadata, and page description of your videos.

Read on to learn the exacts of how to do this:

This brief tutorial reminds us that if you want high traffic to your video then it's absolutely essential you leverage popular high-traffic sites that have already partitioned (or make it simple for you to partition-out) demographic "lookalikes" on their site for you to target.

A lookalike is a visitor on another site with the same basic demographic composite as the visitors to your site. All you have to do to tap into those massive pools of potential visitors is to get their attention!

The link below shows you how you can target your demographic in search engines with feeds and links which will, if done right, shuttle traffic from these high traffic sites over to your video page (or serve up the video directly to them by embedding or other means). One such site with a massive and demographically diverse rushing river of traffic to target is Pinterest.com.

Read on for a step-by-step instructional on the use of the Pinterest.com site to drive traffic to your Youtube video:

The following one-page tutorial assumes you understand how absolutely critical relevant keywords are in determining rank on all major search engines. It goes further and delves into the simple mechanics of optimizing your video for specific search keywords. So, for instance, when you first upload your video onto youtube.com or vimeo.com the existing filename on that video becomes the video name by default. Almost always those video file names aren't optimized for search engines. As an example, your video filename might be “video_01.mp4” once uploaded to youtube.com; this link will show you how to optimize titles and the rest for video SEO best practices, so your uploaded video might instead read "Danes Body Shop Austin TX - personalized coaching gym pricing.".

Read more to learn how to easily optimize your newly uploaded video for high search traffic:

The following is one of the broadest and most comprehensive one-page tutorials that'll show you everything you need to know to get your proverbial "associate's degree" in online video SEO marketing. This sweeping instructional covers Titles and Descriptions, Tags and Categories, the increasing importance of Transcription (transcription of the audio/voice within the uploaded video itself) to video SEO marketing now, as well the importance of securing solid traffic right out of the gate to help boost the SEO rank of your uploaded video.

They also cover thumbnails, embedding, analytics, and all the rest!

Read on to check your knowledge of SEO marketing on Youtube and Vimeo before you upload your next video online!

Below are a number of additional educational resources you may find useful in your video SEO best practices marketing and traffic generating efforts. Do you have any good ones? If so, please add in the comment section below!

Thanks,

Christian Hunter
Austin, TX

Links to additional video SEO information resources:

http://m.entrepreneur.com/article/226926

http://m.clickz.com/clickz/column/2262954/optimizing-videos-for-youtube-search

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2013/03/youtube-seo-google-trends/

http://www.reelmarketer.com/2012/11/10-ways-to-optimize-keyword-tags-for-video-seo/

http://beingyourbrand.com/2013/02/24/5-steps-for-optimizing-youtube-videos/

http://relevance.com/blog/guide-youtube-video-optimization-for-dummies/

Exit Through the Giftshop

2013-05-14T09:07:00.001-07:00

I'll just go ahead and acknowledge straight-away the fact that there's a bigger universe of possible television or movies for you to watch (other than this film) tonight than there has ever been in the history of our species, even more available tomorrow night. So why would you watch internationally acclaimed and cult-artist Banksy's documentary "Exit Through the Giftshop"? Well I'm not saying you should.

However, if you dig street art, even a tiny little bit, then odds are you're going to be really glad you chose to watch this fantastic film:

First, a little background on my own personal preference: I like art. Now I don't go totally bananas when Claude [insert super Euro 14th century last name] blah blah's lithographs find their way into town under armed guard. Hard pass.

To me there's something far more more interesting, compelling, and relevant about an artist who, well, who's actually seen a car in his or her life, and who has something to say about their experiences in this very alien world we now live in today. That's all even more true when that artists principal motivation isn't fame or money, but pride in their work.

The guys and gals whose exhausted bodies are compelled, from a rare nights sleep, up out of bed and into the streets to not only work for free, but to do it because they LOVE it! They thrive on breathing life into the cold edges of our cookie-cutter urban sprawl, and care far more about impacting hurried passers-by than some career critic; they seek to "wow" their involuntary constituency to attention, and in that moment, however fleeting, is their opportunity: many street artists exploit that attention to shock or amuse their observers, some merely insight or perpetuate awareness of their brand, but the best, challenge our preconceived notions, our bias, our politics and even ethics.

A good mix of artists from the totally obscure to internationally famous can be found in this spectacular documentary; I got a chance to watch again recently, and it was even better the second time.

"Exit Through the Giftshop" follows a loosely networked collection of artists, each seemingly equally adept at holding your interest. A bit surprising is how, as vanguards of contemporary urban/graffiti art today, these artists remain so impossibly modest, especially true given the fact that most of them are also every bit as eccentric, fascinating, and thoughtful as you would expect them to be.

Watch them sneak, dive, duck, and creep through the night, buckets of paint in each arm, jonesing to discover a new and unique medium where, once found, they'll hurriedly apply their art.

While actively hiding in plain view, these rock-ribbed all the while seemingly fearless; their ambitions electrified by the night, and illegality of it all. often jaw-droppingly cool .

This is an interesting and entertaining little gem of a movie that's perfect for anyone who loves urban street art, and also desires to learn more about the still largely enigmatic artists who have no qualms with routinely risking their freedom (as well their very life and limb); to conjure into overnight-existence their increasingly sought after and sophisticated art, and field it on the frontlines of some of the most heavily fought for asset in the world: a share of your attention.

The Movie Page

Film edited in bedroom on a Macbook wins Oscar

2013-02-25T07:28:00.001-08:00

The magic between these two is remarkable

QUESTION: What do you get when you combine a quickly written screenplay shot in 7 days with a 3 person crew (each publicly unrecognizable), then edit the film from your bedroom on a retail application (Final Cut 7) using an ordinary Macbook?

ANSWER: You get an Oscar!

Or at least Shawn Christensen did. Shawn Christensen is the writer and director of the film "Curfew" (and, as of last night, is also an Oscar winner having snagged "best live action short" film award for the 19-minute long gem). Shawn Christensen has a very bright future! A bright future indeed!

Having chosen Curfew to watch on a whim, I was immediately taken-in by how well-done it appeared. This gripping drama and a fascinating aesthetic piece also affected a curious empathy in me from the first frame; I believe the director intended this, and wisely entrusted its preservation to the deft acting performance of the films few central characters.

In Curfew, Shawn Christensen expertly couples just the right mix of cinematography with a captivating tight-as-a-drum script, expert cinematography (despite his editing the film in his room on a Macbook Pro!), absolutely first rate acting, and a frighteningly perfect musical score.

And then there was the dance scene.

It was this films own little slice of Travolta and Thurman, and it was nothing short of film magic. In fact, it's scenes like that one in Curfew which serve as the contemporary cinephile's raison d'être. Films like Curfew do so much to sustain our faith.

Shawn Christensen and his acting mates Fatima Ptacek and Kim Allen delivered up so much up in such a small package. This film is a wonderful way to spend 19 minutes, and is a wonderfully deserving recipient of the Oscar award last night!

You're not going to die today.

2012-12-21T06:50:00.002-08:00

It's 6:43am on Friday December 21st, and as many of you know, today we're all supposed to die.

Or at least that's what the Mayans would have us believe.

Those wild and crazy Mayans – unsuccessful apparently at predicting the demise of their own society – have enjoyed incredible success post vitam in convincing many that today will be their last.

Some apparently are taking their prediction so far as to take their own life in anticipation of the "inevitable". Or, as in the case of this complete ding-dong, plan on dying tonight so that he may spare the rest of us from certain planet-destroying death. How? That's simple. He plans on flinging himself off a huge rock in Sedona: http://j.mp/hesprobablynotgoingtojump

Media coverage leading up to this day has been frenetic. We all know that the news industry can't help themselves but go positively berserk for sticky news stories like this one, fueled by good ol' fashioned coal-fired-fear.

Print, television, and every media distributor between them count fear-based story lines such as this Mayan prediction among their favorite types of "news"; and why shouldn't they, it's dirt cheap to produce, can hold the public's increasingly finicky attention span for days, weeks, months, or longer. And best of all, where a product of good journalism typically requires expensive legwork in the field, all a media producers need do now is play a few clips or quotes of convincing fear salesmen, then pan to their proverbial audience, hysterical and wide-eyed with fear...mmm, cheap ratings!

Yep, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more successful story type than those which scare the daylights out of their own audience.

So, as an exercise in rational thought, I thought it'd be fun to post research showing just how unique these types of large-scale predictions of death and apocalyptic destruction really are, and also shed some light on the types of glue-huffing half-wits that were successful in getting their 15 minutes as it were in the apocalyptic limelight.

Here below is an incomplete (but completely entertaining) list of end-of-days predictions which, for obvious reasons, didn't quite materialize as expected.

Egg, meet face, face, egg.

Enjoy:

Idea for a social-centric traffic management system in Austin

2012-11-19T21:58:00.001-08:00

I submitted a proposal to the Austin Dept of Transportation (http://j.mp/AustinTraffic) a somewhat far-out alternative to traditional traffic management strategies (road-widening, etc). In it, I loosely outlined a plan to create a government regulated social-transportation and traffic management platform; one designed to relieve Austin's intensifying traffic problem by radically increasing the human density of each Passenger Car Equivalent "PCE" on IH-35 and similarly congested Austin roadways. Of course this system, to the extent it has merit, could be of equal use to any metropolitan area besieged by traffic.

I proposed the development of an online utility to incentivize and simplify the conversion of vehicles – specifically the exceedingly large percent of single-driver vehicles congesting our roadways – into a marketplace of fast-moving micro-shuttles.

While no small undertaking, the relative cost to develop this network would be negligible in contrast with traditional stopgap measures employed by cities like our own, most notably the undertaking of centi-million dollar roadway expansions.

One might be tempted to immediately dismiss the following proposal overview as a glorified ridesharing scheme. I would suggest however that while this proposal does bear some similarity to such a program, advances in technology have rendered the topographical landscape of opportunity in the rideshare vector almost indistinguishable from any contemplated and/or deployed in the past. This plan, quite simply, would not have been technologically feasible even a short five years ago.

Success of a government sponsored traffic mitigation network would hinge upon factors such as compelling incentive(s) to both driver and passenger, an extremely high-degree of participatory safety, network usage simplicity (for both driver and passenger), as well as sufficiently ubiquitous public awareness and participation in the system upon launch.

There are a number of means by which to incentivize a driver to pickup a passenger, and a similar number that could compel individuals to participate as a passengers, including the following:

Economic - for most, the idea of offsetting costs of fuel as well as wear-and-tear on their vehicles is an attractive one

Social - a novel program incentive would be the result of an intelligent vehicle-grouping model, one that contemplates doing away with the traditional "stiffs" and strangers that comprise the stigmatized rideshare or carpooling passenger. Instead, through the use of highly sophisticated modeling (based upon the systems knowledge of each participant, their publicly disclosed preferences, privately disclosed ones, behavioral analysis, and other variables), the system could autonomously select and tune its passenger grouping in real-time, with the goal of creating dynamic, interesting, fun, and valuable driving companions which consistently pose a more attractive alternative to driving alone.

Environmental - fewer single passenger (or severely underutilized passenger carrying capacity) on the road means fewer resources expended and corresponding – potentially significant – environmental benefits to be had.

Obligational - the most controversial of incentives (but worth considering) is one that would tie-in local law-enforcement and the proposed system to allow for (at the discretion of the offender) offsets of monetary penalties for traffic and/or parking related violations through participation as driver or passenger on the network.

Any consideration paid for transportation, or "fares", transacted between passenger and driver would benefit greatly from a friction-free system which autonomously tabulates each fare and seamlessly exchanges payment (in whatever form(s) ultimately decided upon) with little or no effort required by either party.

From a technological "how to" perspective, I believe mashing-up existent technological infrastructure to comprise the super-majority of the network is more than a possibility, it's now practical. I envision using geofencing technology, accelerometers, and wireless payment technologies (be they "near field", "RFID", or other even simpler technology) among other technology already embedded in present-day mobile phones to comprise the hardware-backbone of this proposed system.

Should a plan like this find success, funding to incentivize passengers (to the extent required) could in theory require no public participation. However, as a practical matter, the enormous public savings realized in radically increasing more efficient use of existent infrastructure could almost certainly provide sufficiently compelling financial incentive in the form of fully funded or partially subsidized fares to encourage broad participation amongst both driver and passenger.

Should this concept find traction, questions such as "do we measure fare-increments in feet, miles, or minutes", or "should the quality of a vehicle be modifier to fare-increments", and all such matters I'll leave to be debated by those more qualified than myself.

From an elevated view however, the proposition is uniquely Austin in that it leverages and enhances the city's technological sophistication, its open-mindedness, and our public desire to retain a small-town interconnectedness against a significant and ever-mounting problem as the city grows. Best of all, it promises to do so without expending any additional resources or further taxing our environment.

While this is clearly a niche topic, I'd appreciate any thoughts and input you may have.

Christian Hunter

Austin, Texas

Despite controversy, Stacey Dash's following surges.

2012-10-09T18:40:00.004-07:00

Stacey Dash braves racist backlash

One Twitter named "Brooke" asked this of "Clueless" star Stacey Dash:

“You ready to head back the fields, jigaboo”

This angry and racist tweet was in response to a Twitter post by Dash late Sunday night to “Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future”

Dash, 46, accompanied the post with a patriotic photo of herself clad in a red bathing suit and almost immediately it unleashed a torrent of racist rage from Obama supporters. Within minutes those supporters, and a number of detractors, began flooding the web with angry posts:

“She’s an indoor slave, you know that,”

said Sherrick W., who tweets as @SimplySher. She herself as a black woman in a different tweet.

Another tweeted: “We’ve been letting you slide for years! It's OVER.”

What has yet to catch mainstream attention however is the fact that since posting the controversial tweet Sunday night, the subsequent two days saw Stacey's online Twitter following surge by over 20,000 users Monday, and is now over 302,000 as of Tuesday evening (this according to Twitter stats site: TwitterCounter.com):

It would appear that users have been flocking to support Ms. Dash despite all the negativity.

As of just now, she's got one more follower in me.

Christian Hunter

Austin, TX

Apple's new topographic maps defy criticism

2012-09-25T20:58:00.001-07:00

The press gets a huge collective "FAIL" in my opinion for neglecting to cover one of the most, if not "the most" important features ever released on the iPhone! A feature which, incidentally, is embedded in Apple's new and much complained-about topographic maps system. The feature? How about the fact that Apple's new voice guided topographic maps system will doubtlessly save lives!

Depth perception and voice nav!

Anyone who's "chased the blue dot" while driving and using Google maps to guide them on the iPhone (don't give me that look, you know you've done it!) knows that using Google maps for guidance while driving is DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS!

I live in Austin, Texas and have used the new Apple topographic maps a number of times. In each instance it worked not only flawlessly, but in a way that didn't require me to look down at it (except for the occasional glance to marvel at how accurately its 3-D positional guidance feature was working) unlike when using Google maps.

Clearly there are some areas affected by insufficient or erroneous Apple maps data coverage on iPhone's new topographic maps. That sucks, I feel for those folks, and suggest they go back to using Google maps for now. But let's remember that they're in the minority and it's Apple we're talking about here. Yeah, they get plenty wrong, but they tend to correct quickly and not make similar mistakes again.

I think those Google maps users who haven't used the new Apple topographic maps system on the iPhone are going to be very pleasantly surprised. I also think, far more importantly, by using them they'll be safer.

Enjoy,

Christian Hunter

Austin, TX

iPhone 5 Release Video

2012-09-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

Here you'll find a leaked video describing the key features of the iPhone 5:

Some of the researched improvements to the iPhone 5 not featured in this video are its exact screen dimensions. Here below are the exact measurements of the iPhone 5 screen:

iPhone 5 dimensions:

3.567 inches length
2.058 inches width

iPhone 4S dimensions:
3.023 inches length
2.044 inches width

iPhone 5 screen thickness:
.091mm screen thickness

iPhone 4S screen thickness:
1.01mm screen thickness

The iPhone 5 screen is also remarkably scratch proof! In a side-by-side scratch test using a key the iPhone 4 showed considerable scratching whereby the iPhone 5 showed none!

A full detail of all the changes made to the iPhone 5 should be made today at 1pm Pacific Standard Time.

Scratchproof iPhone 5 Screen

iPhone 5 and 4S side-by-side comparison of dimensions

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke drops cognitive deuce on Colbert Report

2012-09-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke demonstrated heart-stopping ignorance this evening during her Colbert Report interview. To paraphrase the most outrageous parts of the interview: when asked by Colbert essentially what the 11th District Congresswoman from New York would say if she could be transported via time machine back to Brooklyn in the year 1898, she said that she'd proclaim to her captors "let me go!".

Somewhat confused by what the Congresswoman was referring to, Ms. Clarke made sure Colbert knew she'd demand the state of slavery that existed in 1898 come to an immediate end...35 years after we fought the whole Civil War thing that ended it!

Somewhat shocked (as all but Colbert's most profoundly idiotic viewers were) Colbert asked who exactly (as a black woman) she would demand to win her hypothetical freedom from...and this is where it got far weirder: the Congresswoman replied "the Dutch" [insert gasps, and various iterations of "holy shit" made audible by those watching...in my home anyway].

Here's a link to the full video of Yvette Clarke on the Colbert Report

Almost as though on Repo Games, Colbert served up numerous "are you suuuure..." type looks and pauses in an effort to free Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (pun intended) from the heart-stoppingly ignorant display she was putting on (or at least keep her congressional seat from being repo'd). But no, the Congresswoman would have nothing of it. Instead she denied Colbert every opportunity afforded her to escape the interview without looking as shit-brainingly idiotic as possible, insisting that in 1898 it was about time those sneaky Dutch and their slaveholding ways came to an end!

If Colbert really wanted to decimate her he'd ask when the Dutch no longer held political control over New York and it became a state, you know, the one she represents in Congress!? We have at least one member of the House who, among other things, doesn't know that the United States has been around a bit longer than 114 years!

The Congresswoman is proud of her interview

Even after the interview, just two short hours ago, on Congresswoman Yvette Clarke's Twitter account, she was advertising the interview as though proud of it!?

Can someone tell me how this woman was elected?

If not, at least offer me some hope that this will end her career as a member of our Congress?

Is the United States now owned by China?

2012-09-03T09:37:00.003-07:00

Public concern with China's increasing political and economic might, coupled with our inability to get comfortable with the federal budget deficit (no matter its percent of GDP) are teaming up nicely to amplify anti-Chinese sentiment.

Few look favorably on China's role in our economy; this despite the inarguably positive impact it's had in lowered our cost of living (keeping domestic inflation in check, and in turn lowering our cost to borrow for everything from cars to homes).

I disagree. In fact, I believe we have China just where we've been moving (both politically and commercially) to put them for decades. Going back to Nixon, it was clear then that the Chinese were a very different brand of communist than their comrades to the north (for which they too held a distrust that rivaled our own...and still do to this day). Nixon understood the Chinese had been capitalists for thousands of years, and at the core of their Marxist push was a steely-cold and calculating plan; one that recognized no iteration of Jeffersonian democracy could leapfrog the better part of a billion people over the craggy and risk-ridden transition from agrarian to industrialized with nary a scratch. Anyone who's had the chance to take a gander at the awesome (and democratically-impossible scope of the) Three Gorge Dam (and the near 1.5 million people it displaced) can sympathize with the fact that sometimes tough and wildly unpopular decisions paved the way to more than one democracy (or republic as the case may be).

Yet fears of Chinese hegemony is increasingly influencing public opinion, in a mood that harkens back to the 1980's when, prompted by the fear-mongering media, many Americans believed Japan would surely overtake the US economically. Japanese xenophobia climaxed with the purchase of the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall in New York...what was next, The White House!?

Not many years would pass until, much like the Japanese economy, the very same company that triumphantly plunked down $900 million to own Rockefeller Center would walk away, selling their ownership for what they paid out of concern that it was a "losing investment" (its value today is in the many billions).

Fast forward to present day and, much like the Japanese love for American real-estate, the Chinese can't seem to get enough of our national debt. Or so the media would have us believe.

As a consequence, a significant percent of America's public today believe we have a dangerous reliance on China, oft citing Chinese and, to a lesser extent Japanese, purchases of America's nearly $16 trillion in our national debt as their chief concern.

The only problem with those headlines is the fact that they're just not true. While yes, the Chinese, Japanese and plenty of other foreigners do own meaningful percentages of US national debt, it's actually Americans themselves who buying up most of our treasuries.

Below is a fascinating breakdown of who actually "owns America" (in terms of how much US national debt is owned by foreigners) as of 2007 and, well, it sure isn't the Chinese:

Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9%)

Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1%)

Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1%)

Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5%)

Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6%)

Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2%)

Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1%)

State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2%)

Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4%)

United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4%)

Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5%)

State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5%)

Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4%)

U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6%)

China: $1.16 trillion (8%)

The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3%)

Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19%)

So out of the $15+ trillion in national debt (which is a fraction of America's net worth), America owes foreigners only about $5 trillion of it…the other $10+ trillion is owned by us. For good or ill.