Language Specific madness

Just some quotes from an article i found on a psychology blog. The article covers some evidence linking certain mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, to specific languages in bilingual individuals. Im not sure of the deeper implications of this study, but the findings are interesting none the less.

I've just found this fascinating study on language and psychosis that found that multilingual psychotic patients can present with either different or less psychotic symptoms depending on the language they use.

This is from the introduction, which outlines some of the curious effects:

Zulueta’s (1984) review article on the implications of bilingualism in the study and treatment of psychiatric disorders showed that certain psychotic fluent bilinguals, who had learnt their second language during or after puberty, could present with different psychotic phenomena depending on which language they used. Most of these patients tended to present as more disturbed in their primary ‘mother tongue’ and as less disturbed in their second language (Castillo, 1970; Hemphill, 1971).

Some patients were thought disordered in one language and less so or not at all in their other language; some complained of having delusions in one language and not in their other language, and some experienced auditory hallucinations in one language and not in another. Moreover, some patients who were fluent bilinguals lost their linguistic competence in their second language during their psychotic illness (Heinemann & Assion, 1996; Hughes, 1981).


all snipets taken from mindhacks.com

Video Navigation

and interesting program that makes scrolling through videos a lot easier and more interactive. Technology is getting sweet these days.

1996 Dunk Competition

i stumbled across some kobe highschool all american dunk competition clips while surfing the web, which is sweet cause i love the way kobe has been tearing up the spurs recently. He puts down some pretty nice dunks, however the real gem i discovered here are the dunks by highschool all american and eventual kansas bench warmer lester earl. Make sure and check his dunks out, kid dunks like hes pissed at the world because he already knows hes gonna blow his potential and never become and NBA star.

fresh out the water

with my linda farrow goggles.

The Game of Life

this may be one of my most interesting posts if you take the time to really explore this program. The program is called "the game of life" and it was created by john conway ( not the son of me and melanie conway, just some dude). Basically the program shows how the self automaticity of simple cellular life could work. The program runs on simple rules, which you can change if youd like, but i recommend leaving the rules the same unless your experienced with the program. The rules are similar to representations of how neuron activation might work in your brain or how single cells might live in a cimple organism. the rules are as follows

Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by loneliness.
Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives, unchanged, to the next generation.
Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.

these rules make it so the program will continue to run once you hit go and evolve on its own without any later input. This shows how a small living organism can do things like move without a real brain or intention, just based on a principle called self organization.

so basically if you want to mess around just click a few boxes adjacent to eachother or diagonal to each other and hit go to see how it grows. start at zoom 4 until your being gets too big, although it probably wont. change the speed from 20 to 1 so u can see whats going on. I also suggest trying some of the pre-formatted starting shapes that you can find on the website which evolve into some really cool shapes. The program is a lot cooler if you understand the theory behind it, and how it relates to our brains and small organisms work. i didnt do the best job explaining it so if you interested i suggest reading something on wikipedia or a more qualified source.

heres the link to a good program the game of life. click enjoy life in the upper left corner to start, make a few shapes and explore while you ponder the implications of whats going on.

Biotech Crops

im posting this because it would make my pops happy.

Here is a link to the article BIOTECH PROPAGANDA MEETS SCIENTIFIC REALITY

and here are some important quotes in case your too lazy to read about how our government is corperatized lying jerks.

"In its mad bid to privatize and control the world’s agriculture and food supply with its patented biotech seeds and cushy revolving door within governmental regulatory agencies, Monsanto cannot be very happy with a recent Soil Association report that shows GM crops decrease yields, whether it’s cotton or soybeans or corn."

"A 2007 study from Kansas State University that showed Roundup Ready soy (biotech soy) has suffered “yield drag” since it was introduced, producing an average of 9-25% less per acre than conventional soy."

“Since 1996 more than a billion acres have been planted with biotech crops in the U.S. We don’t really know what are the pros and cons of this important new agricultural technology.”

i thought that studies showing that biotech bioengineered crops produced less yield would be something we would look into before we deployed the mass use of them. Not to mention we havent thoroughly looked into the effects of the DNA expressed pesticide bioegineered into all of our cotton....

Mexican Blanket

Very interesting new pair of air max lights dropped by nike, dubbed the mexican blanket because of the aztec like pattern on the heel. You know how i love my air max.