#The person in the Ghost subreddit who told me off for calling them out for supporting the genocide of autistic people is gonna love this /s

[genderful-ghoul]

”Semi-autistic”? “Semi”-autistic my ass. /j

This is the most autistic music project I’ve ever followed.

When tobias said "in my semi-autistic world" I felt that spiritually

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #352

my head’s a mess and a half, i can’t think of lyrics to put here so yeah here’s the survey

What’s the last vegetable you ate, and when did you eat it? Uh I think it was a pepper in this Healthy Choice dinner bowl I had yesterday. What was your last Facebook notification for? A friend liking this photo I shared of some beautiful, small rock and pebble sculptures of people. What bands have you seen live? Just Alice Cooper. Tell me an interesting fact about your mother: She only has one kidney due to the other being taken out because of kidney cancer when I was a kid. Coincidentally, her father was actually born with only one as well. What do you think is the most important thing to happen to you before the age of 13? Nothing really comes to mind. What were you super against as a young child but aren’t anymore? SUPER against? I dunno, man. What are your plans later today? I don't know. Yesterday my mother informed me that Jason's mother died, and since then I've been in shock. I was in awful condition yesterday because I absolutely adore(d) her like she was MY family, and once upon a time I thought she would be officially, and I still feel very, very dead. I doubt I'll get anything done today. Are you doing anything exciting this weekend? Definitely not exciting... Mom and possibly I are probably bringing Jason's family food for the family get-together they're having (we're not staying for... obvious reasons), but she's unsure because it might be a bit too awkward. I'll stay in the car because I don't want to disrespect Jason's space, but I REALLY want to go through with this. His mom was so important to me, and I don't want to just... do nothing as if she meant just that. I want the family to know I never stopped caring just because there was a breakup. Plus I wanna give Jason his favorite chocolate bar to try to bring him a bit of happiness. I can't imagine what he's feeling, and my instinct of "I need to protect him" absolutely never went away. Who do you talk to the most? My mom. What are some things you do regularly that make you feel old? Go to bed before 9PM, sometimes even before 8. And my knees pop like a motherfucker. Who is your best guy friend(s)? Girt and Sam. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? Neither; instead, I just wish it was clearer. I have extremely dry skin, especially on my arms, so I have little bumps and marks there, as well as little freckles over my body. Having like, porcelain skin would be amaaaazing. If you had a tiny scar on your face, would you get it removed or just keep it? Keep it. Look more badass, haha. Have you had an x-ray in the past year? I think so, on my legs. It may have been over a year ago, idr. Do you think your first love still loves you? I don't want to know. I really don't. What is something that is “going right” in your life? *blinks* When did you feel ready to start dating? Seriously, probably late middle school. When was the last time your pet bit you? If you don’t have a pet, have you ever been bitten by someone else’s? My snake Venus has never bitten me. Meanwhile, my cat Roman lightly (and sometimes not so lightly...) bites me pretty much every day when I play with him, lol. Where were you the last time you made out? My bed. When was the last time you cried tears of joy? I probably haven't done that since I met Sara irl. How do you type your sad smileys? One of these three: :( or :c or :< Do you have “decorative hand-towels” that cannot be used in your house? No. What was the last soda you drank? Mountain Lightning, a Mtn. Dew ripoff bc we're cheap, lol. What was the last thing someone made fun of you for? I don't know. Have you ever had any type of surgery? Yeah, a cyst removal as well as tubes in my ears. Should kids be allowed to get tattoos/piercings without parental consent? Uh no????? Who was the last person to hit on you? That I'm actually aware of, Sara. I'm quite sure nobody has since. What was the last thing you decided not to do, that you were supposed to? I was too weak to even clean the litterbox last night. I just wanted to go to bed. I need to do it today. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to tell someone? Hm. Maybe that I didn't love Joel? It was just really awkward and I felt awful about the whole situation. What do you put on hot dogs? Ketchup and mustard. Ever fallen in the shower? I've fallen OUT of the shower. I was extremely dizzy and was trying to get out, and I just passed out onto my chin. Broke some molars and got a concussion. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever called someone you care about? Probably a bitch or something. Do you think that things will get better? I sure hope so. Have you ever legitimately saved a person’s life? I guess I kinda have. My WoW friend Lisa and I were talking, and she wasn't feeling well at all when she suddenly disappeared. Coincidentally, her husband got home RIGHT when I messaged her again, wanting to check up on her, and he heard the alert so checked it out. Lisa was knocked out on the couch having some medical emergency with a name I can't remember, and he just thought she was sleeping. Because of seeing the chat, he took her to the hospital when she probably would've died otherwise. She insists I saved her. What’s your favourite book genre? Fantasy. Have you ever walked out of a movie at the theatre? No. Do dogs like you? They definitely seem to. Animals in general honestly do. Would you say that you project an air of authority? Definitely not. Have you ever jumped off a high dive into a pool? No. I've always wanted to, but I was too scared at any opportunity. Do you use one towel when you shower or two? (one for hair, one for body) I just use one. I dry my hair first, then my body. Have you ever been to one of the great lakes? No, but I did see one of them from a plane when I was flying to Sara's. Who do you know that had a baby recently? My high school friend had her daughter Persephone literally a couple days ago. Cute little thing. Do you like Usher’s songs? Oh wow, what a blast from the past. I don't even recall the names of any, but I remember I enjoyed some as a kid. When was the last time you went to a waterpark? Wow, it has been YEARS. Like, not since I was a teen. Have you ever ridden a train? No. What do you eat your French fries with? Ketchup, sometimes. Do you have family problems? Not really. What’s the last food you ate that was stale? Bread, I think. How do you like your grilled cheese? Just a normal 'ole grilled cheese. What is the most challenging meal you have ever cooked? I don’t cook. What was your favorite thing to do as a little kid? Play video games. Have you ever been close to drowning? Yikes, no. Have you ever had a panic attack? Countless. Do you like doing housework? No, who does? Would you ever get implants? Nah. Do you own a robe? No. Do you have a little sister? What’s her name? Yeah, Nicole. Do you like crust on pizza or do you cut it off? I don't trust people who don't eat pizza crust. What was the last song you listened to? "The Ghost of You" by My Chemical Romance. It's making me cry, but I really need to. Have any of your family members been to jail? No. None that I know of, anyway. Is there anyone that you feel you still need some closure with? An old friend, yes. Can you remember when you first learned how to read? No. What event in your life has transformed your personality the most? My mental illnesses as a whole. Have you ever had any teeth pulled? No. Do you still want to be what you wanted to be in elementary school? No, but only because it's not realistic. I don't want to travel. What’re some TV shows that you would like to get into? I don't care about TV 'til MM resumes, and then absolutely whenever The Edge of Sleep is released. Mark is a key actor in it. How would you feel if you were drafted for the military? I couldn’t be. What is your favorite Queen song? Ha, I'm aware this is probably everyone's answer, but "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the bop of all bops. Do you know how to use any foreign currency? No. Been kissed by someone who you knew was “bad” for you? BEEN kissed, yeah. By Juan. Ever taken an at-home pregnancy test? No. When was the last time you were at a loss of what to do? Now. What did you do on your favorite date with a guy/girl? It was a group date where we went to this big arcade one night. What’s a movie you have seen in the theater more than once? None. What is the reason you’re still alive? That's a big answer that I'm not in the mood to ramble about. Have you ever had sex in someone else’s bed/bedroom? Yeah, oops. Do you ever brush your hair before you go to bed? No. Have you ever had a dream about sleeping with a celebrity? (You don’t have to give details.) HAHA this was the only lucid dream I've ever had lmfao. Has anyone ever told you that they needed you? Do you think they meant it? I don't remember. How did you feel when you woke up today? What was the first thing you thought about? Like shit. "Virginia's still dead" just bitchslapped me. Do you still tell your parents that you love them? Well yeah. Have you ever said “I love you” to someone you weren’t going out with? Yes, because I really did. Have you ever been threatened before? Yes. Would you date someone with a physical disability? Yeah. Think of the last person you had sex with. Do you think they’ve slept with anyone else since they last slept with you? Probably. The last time you dyed your hair, what color did you dye it? Red. Think of the last time you went out to eat. Who paid? My mom. Do you save at least 15 percent of your income? What income? Do you ever go on Reddit? If so, what are some of your favorite subreddits? No. Were you ever a flower girl or ring bearer in anyone’s wedding when you were little? No. Are your parents in good health? Not especially. They're both probably unhealthier than the average person. Dad smokes way too much to be healthy, and Mom has a plethora of issues. Have you ever been a caregiver to a sick/disabled relative? No; it sounds awful, but I'm very doubtful I could be because I canNOT clean another human being. Is there any type of medicine you can’t take? For what reason? No. Do you have a favorite pair of pajamas? What do they look like? They're black Pokemon pants with Pikachu jumping by the logo. Do you have any interesting pillow cases? No. If something on your body hurts, which part is it most likely to be? My knees. Are you more afraid of spiders or bees? Both, but situationally. Have you ever worn fake nails? If so, what did the last pair you wore look like? Only once for prom. They were maroon, like my dress. Wait... or maybe I didn't wear them? Fuck, idr. Is Russian or Native American history more interesting to you? Native American history is way more fascinating to me.

[entergamingxp]

Modern Warfare battle royale leaks • Eurogamer.net

Activision is fighting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare battle royale leaks with subpoenas and online takedowns.

Modern Warfare’s upcoming battle royale, reportedly dubbed Warzone, is one of the worst-kept secrets in all of video games. While it remains unannounced, players have found themselves accidentally transported into its tutorial, and there is detailed information relating to its map and mechanics online.

In fact, if you boot up Modern Warfare today you’ll see a “classified” portion of its main menu. Clearly, this will turn into battle royale once Warzone launches. And Activision even released what very much looks like a teaser for the battle royale, with one soldier saying “the gas is closing in” before fan-favourite character Ghost drops in to say “they’re targeting their own”. The camera then pulls back to show soldiers dropping out of a plane into a warzone with, yes, a green gas closing in.

But that hasn’t stopped Activision from filing multiple takedowns of social media and website posts on copyright grounds. And in a rare development, it has demanded Reddit hand over the personal details of a user who posted what looks like the cover art for Warzone.

As revealed by TorrentFreak, Activision obtained a subpoena from a US court ordering Reddit to dish the dirt on a redditor called Assyrian2410, who posted a thread on the Modern Warfare subreddit titled: “I found this image online. Not sure what it is. Possibly Battle Royale.”

The thread linked to an image that showed characters from Call of Duty standing on a downed chopper underneath the text: Call of Duty Warzone. Assyrian2410 has since deleted their Reddit account, and the image has been scrubbed.

It’s clear Activision is keen to find out the original source of this leak, but its efforts haven’t stopped with Assyrian2410. It has forced offline a tweet from a Call of Duty subreddit moderator who posted the image, and the Twitter account of Call of Duty leaker TheGamingRevolution, who claimed the image was “legit”, was suspended. TheGamingRevolution has also removed a video published to YouTube showing footage of the Warzone tutorial in action.

CALL OF DUTY WARZONE THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE CALL OF DUTY FRANCHISE pic.twitter.com/tXW912vhqM

— CARSON J KELLY (@CARSONJKELLY) February 12, 2020

Elsewhere, other Reddit posts have been caught in the crossfire. The founder of a subreddit dedicated to Modern Warfare’s battle royale, r/modernwarzone, told Eurogamer they received a takedown from Activision after they posted the leaked image of Warzone to their Twitter account.

“In the email they sent me concerning the takedown, they linked every other tweet that contained the same image that was removed, and there was quite a long list,” DougDagnabbit said.

“Every other takedown that’s come since has been more of the same, with the community’s original content being affected adversely due to them copyright striking anything that they see fit. Even information that’s easily available in-game without using exploits or cheats of any kind.”

Various links have now been deleted in a megathread posted on r/modernwarzone that rounds up all the information on Warzone discovered so far. And with Call of Duty fans hungry for more on the inevitable battle royale, Activision has come under fire for its aggressive takedown strategy even as it teases the release of the mode within Modern Warfare itself.

“They really handled this in the worst way possible,” DougDagnabbit said. “If they would’ve shown restraint and not have had such a knee jerk reaction to the original leaked image none of the current leaks would’ve happened. The subreddit wouldn’t have been created in the first place. I also think that adding the menu blade of ‘classified’ was a terrible idea on their part to build hype. I’m sure they didn’t intend on any of this to happen, but the public opinion of them has definitely gone down since everything started, and everyone knows the current public opinion on Activision isn’t exactly great.”

Activision declined to comment when contacted by Eurogamer, but its course of action comes as no surprise given the nature of the leak. What we have here could be considered the artwork for the next big Call of Duty release, given Warzone will reportedly be available to download for free seperate from Modern Warfare. The company no doubt feels within its rights to protect its intellectual property in this case, as opposed to responding to accidental leaks of its own making, such as via data-mining.

But, according to DougDagnabbit, Activision has targeted more than this leaked art.

“I would say it is within their rights, but some of the things they’ve taken down have been ridiculous,” DougDagnabbit said.

“One of our most active users, u/SlammedOptima made the original superimposed image of the Blackout map compared to the Warzone map. The Warzone map info had been posted months beforehand and was public knowledge, and the Blackout map information was public knowledge as well. Our user spent time making approximate calculation of size based off of things available in-game to everyone without any sort of exploitation and it was still taken down within 24 hours after several major news sites posted about it without crediting the original author or seeking his permission to use.”

Meanwhile, Reddit has until 29th February 2020 to hand over the personal details of Assyrian2410, although it’s unclear whether the subpoena will amount to much. As Gizmodo points out, when Reddit faced a similar case in 2019, the courts decided anyone from anywhere can rely on the right to anonymous free speech under the First Amendment because Reddit is an American platform.

Online, the wait for an official Warzone announcement has become a meme within Call of Duty subreddits, although some moderators remain on edge.

Y’all didn’t hear? They are starting to protest in the streets! There is outrage across the globe! from r/ModernWarzone

“We may have gained Activision’s attention, but we did not intend to break any terms of service or copyright law and we are strictly vetting the content that is posted to ensure that it is legal and contains no material that isn’t the poster’s original content,” DougDagnabbit said.

“If Activision decided to come after me, not only would it be terrible PR for them, but there’s tens of thousands of others out there that they would need to go after as well. We are all just huge fans of the new Modern Warfare, and are hyped to see battle royale release.”

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/modern-warfare-battle-royale-leaks-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=modern-warfare-battle-royale-leaks-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[datingadviceonreddit]

A bit of a long post and based off a shower thought I had, but figured it'd be worth sharing. After being in the OLD world for a little bit and reading people's stories here and on other subreddits, I've noticed there's tons of parallels between online dating as a guy [27M here] and my experiences with the job market. It's probably pretty vain to equate romantic relationships with jobs, but this is more about the context and my experience anyway. Hopefully this isn't too off topic, so for what it's worth, here it is.​When I first graduated college and was on the hunt for a job, I pretty much did what most people do: set up a LinkedIn profile, drafted a resume, got some nice professional clothing, etc., and started browsing online job sites. I saw a wide range of jobs: some were with high-profile companies that had great pay and interesting work, all the way to postings at companies I've never heard of with low pay and vague or boring (and sometimes sketchy looking) job descriptions.At first, I just applied to all the jobs that I thought I would like, which usually ended up being the high paying, interesting, and cool looking jobs. I put a lot of effort into pursuing them with my resume and custom tailored cover letters and follow-up phone calls, only to have my efforts met with almost complete silence. I realized that basically everyone wanted those jobs, so my application was just getting drowned in a sea of other applicants flooding their inbox, so most of them would just ghost me without even a rejection letter.As time went on, I eventually just decided to go with a "shotgun" approach, where I just sent a presentable, but generic, resume and application off to as many places as I could. I got phone calls back, and even a couple interviews. I also had some places search me out and call/email me without me even sending them an application, but the ones that seemed too good to be true mostly just turned out to be scams after some investigation.After a while of no success though, I started becoming discouraged, and after reading posts online by other jobseekers, I became convinced that the job market was flooded and basically everyone was getting flooded with applicants. During this time, a contracting company from out of state called me up for a phone screen, and after passing that, set up a Skype interview. After the Skype interview, I got a phone back offering me a job! Exciting, but over the course of the interviews, I saw that the job wasn't that interesting, wasn't in a city I liked, and didn't pay very well. Against my better judgement, and figuring I wasn't going to get anything better, I decided to accept the job.I was in a pretty dark place mentally for the year I worked at that job. On tops of the issues I had before, the workplace was boring at best and toxic at worst and the management was abusive (things like threatening to fire employees to get them to work harder were pretty common, and we were all hired as contractors so we were basically disposable anyway). Eventually, I came to my senses, and realized that I deserved better than to be somewhere that treated me the way they did, so the days I wasn't working late I spent updating my resume and hitting the online job sites again.After a little over a year, I managed to have a stroke of luck. I went to visit an old friend for his wedding, and during some catching up, the conversation topic eventually became jobs and what each of us were doing after college. I shared my story about the long string of rejections and settling on a company and how that company was currently treating me. After that story, my friend mentioned that he knew of a company that I might be a good fit with and that I should apply.A few weeks after the wedding, I found that company online and saw that they had job openings available. The job description looked pretty interesting, was in a pretty cool city, and the pay, while not at the top of the spectrum, was definitely enough for me to be happy with. With a renewed sense of purpose, I cleaned up my resume, drafted a nice cover letter just like I used to, and sent in my application. A few days later, I got a call back!After a phone interview, they told me they were impressed and would like to set up a Skype interview (the company was, again, out-of-state so in-person interviews weren't really feasible). During the Skype interview, I got to find out more about the company and really developed a good connection with the people interviewing me. Sure enough, a few days later, I got another call from them informing me that I got the job, which I promptly accepted! Shortly after that, I turned in my two weeks notice, and in a few weeks I was off to a new city to start my new job.The job ended up being something I enjoyed, the management is nice, and the company culture is fantastic! After working there for about a year, I noticed that they do regularly scheduled hiring phases and based on that schedule, they started posting job openings shortly after I settled with that first company. If I had only widened my search a little bit and kept on searching a little while longer instead of just settling for that first company, I would have found them over a year ago during my first search! I'm still with that company today, and this has definitely been a good chapter of my life!TL;DRI guess the moral of the story here is love, like a good job, takes patience and perseverance to find and you'll save yourself a lot of pain and misery by sticking to that, rather than caving to despair and settling for someone who makes you unhappy simply because you just want an immediate relationship. If you made it this far, thank you for reading my long winded, late night ramblings! via /r/dating_advice

[theconservativebrief]

Every week, critic at large Todd VanDerWerff and internet culture reporter Aja Romano get together to discuss the latest episode of HBO’s sci-fi drama Westworld. This week, they’re discussing the second season’s eighth episode, “Kiksuya.” Spoilers follow! Proceed with caution if you haven’t seen the episode!

Todd VanDerWerff: “Kiksuya” could have — and probably should have — gone so, so wrong.

For as much as I admire Westworld’s attempts to depict a kind of uber-struggle for respect, autonomy, and self-definition that represents every oppressed person in the history of humanity, by using the hosts to stand in for all of them (and often explicitly coding them as such), there have been plenty of times when the show has tossed these balls in the air and then had no idea what to do with them, just barely catching them on the way down instead of starting to nimbly juggle.

When you mix that with the idea of an episode about the Native American “Ghost Nation” hosts, performed almost entirely in Lakota, there are so many places where the whole enterprise could absolutely shatter into tiny pieces . That’s before I even start in on some of the episode’s creative decisions, like the fact that it’s basically an episode-long flashback ostensibly delivered as an expository monologue to a young child (who is actually an ancient host, but you know what I mean).

Yet when you consider that Westworld’s primary storytelling mode is, “Here is what’s happening and why,” it’s not surprising that an episode that is mostly exposition works as well as this one does. I wouldn’t call “Kiksuya” perfect, but it does fill in some gaps in the Westworld timeline, occasionally too conveniently — see also that encounter with Logan out in the wilds of Westworld. It also offers a couple of terrific scenes, including a nighttime meeting between Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon) and Ford (Anthony Hopkins) that takes place amid a gruesome tableau of Ghost Nation hosts frozen in place and has more of the horror and eeriness of the “creation meeting the creator” feeling the show strives for than almost any other scene of its ilk. I even liked the sense that Ghost Nation had adapted the circumstances of what happen to hosts after they die into its mythology.

All told, it’s a little languid and could have lost 10 minutes without too much trouble. (There are a lot of gigantic landscape shots, which eventually grew repetitive.) But “Kiksuya” has the visceral emotion that the series often lacks, and McClarnon is a terrific leading man. This is probably my favorite episode of the season so far, which I would not have expected going in. What did you think?

Lots and lots of wide shots… HBO

Aja Romano: I definitely agree. McClarnon is a superb actor and this episode could have fallen flat in multiple moments, but I felt like it was all held together by his dawning realizations and the tremor of understanding in his eyes.

The moment in the scene where he meets Ford, when Ford orders him to analyze and he realizes that he can’t fight his own programming, is as close to pure horror as Westworld has ever gotten for me, and the writers (Carly Wray and Dan Dietz) get there mainly by reliance on character and emotion. That’s a strong choice, and shows just how much they had to work with in McClarnon, because the narrative of this episode otherwise gives us more of Westworld’s tendency to really drag out explanations and plot reveals. But ultimately, even when I noticed the lagging pace and the redundancy of the exposition, I just didn’t care because I was enjoying the characterization and the emotional impact of the story so much.

I think where this story loses a little bit of momentum is in how it ultimately connects with its two contemporary tentpoles — Emily’s love/hate relationship with her father, and whatever the hell is going on with Maeve. Akecheta’s encounter with Emily felt anticlimactic and cryptic, and it didn’t tell me anything new about either character. (She’s definitely a hybrid, though!)

I feel like the reveal that he was attempting all along to protect Maeve’s daughter, not steal her, is too easy, sidestepping some of the the complicated implications of how season one habitually framed his actions as threatening. And it implies that Maeve may have somehow had racial biases programmed into her reactions to him, which is a huge thing to hint at but gloss over.

Of course, his framing of the narrative could well be false, especially given what we see of Maeve at the end of the episode. I’m not entirely sure what to make of their exchange, mainly because I’m not sure what he gained from it. She gained a new ally, and he gained the chance to explain himself. But it didn’t seem to move the plot forward at all. What did I miss?

Take my heart with you when you go. HBO

Todd: I guess the implication here is that Maeve and Akecheta now form an axis of power devoted to escaping the park before “the deathbringer” (Dolores) destroys everybody. As story development goes, this isn’t bad, but it relies too heavily on us thinking Maeve might really perish, a victim of Delos’s disinterest in preserving anything but her rogue code, and I just don’t think for a second Westworld is going to unceremoniously kill off its second lead.

One of the things that frustrates me about “Kiksuya” is the way in which much of it seems to exist solely to prove to skeptics that much of the story was planned out from the beginning. That made for some gorgeous imagery — Maeve confronting the maze in the dust chief among those images — but the way that Westworld can feel a little schematic, like assembling a piece of furniture where it’s not quite clear how everything fits together until the end, is heavily tied to this sort of planning. I haven’t quite been able to escape the idea that the show thinks its core audience is everybody who reads the Westworld subreddit. And, honestly, maybe it is.

Still, I have to agree that the episode came as close to being a horror tale as Westworld ever has, rivaling even some of the darker moments for Dolores in season one. Akecheta’s journey to the underworld in search of his disappeared love was weird and gorgeous and mythic, one of the few times this season that the mash-up of very old stories and very new technology has hit its true potential to reveal the messy underside of both aspects of the show. When he came across her frozen, empty body, standing amid so many other decommissioned hosts, boy, McClarnon makes every single second of that revelation play. It’s horror and myth and tragedy all at once, hitting the sorts of heights I wish the show was able to attain more often.

There’s been a lot of speculation that Ghost Nation would tie a lot of this season’s mysteries together once its backstory was revealed, and I guess “Kiksuya” sort of does this. Now that we know the maze is something Akecheta and those he “woke up” are deliberately spreading and that he’s come to think of his “tribe” as encompassing all awakened hosts around the park, certain aspects of the series make more sense. And I love that he’s the one who first came up with the idea of a “door,” when he saw a massive construction project and realized he lived in the wrong world. I just wish the maze felt to me like something more than a cool image, that it felt like an actual symbol for something deeper than a riddle.

But that’s all quibbles. The idea that the world is wrong has always been a potent one on this show, and season two has drifted from it just a tiny bit. I’m glad it had such centrality here, and even if I’m not sure why Maeve and Akecheta are teaming up, I’m glad they are. Somebody has to stop the Deathbringer. We’ve only got two episodes left, Aja, so where do you think all of this is headed? And is there any way to redeem my onetime favorite Dolores?

Aja: I think if we keep thinking about the mythology of Westworld, we end up where we started, enmeshed in cyclical pathways, probably with a giant inferno in the bargain, given how much fiery foreshadowing we’ve been treated to this season. Given where we seem to be headed — a giant cast reunion in the Valley Beyond — my speculation is that the question of Dolores’ redemption might be answered through the maze itself.

At this point, the only thing that could really redirect her course is to be faced with a direct threat that requires her to join forces, with the other hosts or the humans or both. And we know that at the center of every proper Grecian labyrinth is a proper Grecian minotaur. It seems to me that the best method to bar the way out of Westworld, introduce an escalated conflict for season three, and give Dolores a chance to redeem herself, is to unveil the bull at the center of the maze in the final act — whether it’s Ford 2.0 or something new.

Of course, this could also be a feeble attempt on my part to play Westworld’s game of catering to its subreddit. I hope not, because the lovely thing about an episode like this one is that its emphasis on character development reminds us that the emotional and socially conscious core of Westworld is much more rewarding than the endless gamification of its story about gamification.

Season two has been steadily leading us toward an intersectional awareness of systems of oppression, in which we see characters like Akecheta — and Lee, whose abrupt tearful apology to Maeve I didn’t wholly buy, but which seemed in keeping with the episode’s theme — becoming aware that their problems aren’t solely their own.

That intersectionality is almost certainly going to end up manifesting physically in the final episode. Whether Dolores gets on board or not, it seems fitting if, ultimately, we learn that the only way out for the characters we’ve met along the way is to wage an even bigger power struggle against a monster yet unseen.

Original Source -> “Kiksuya” is Westworld season 2’s best episode so far

via The Conservative Brief

[gossipnetwork-blog]

Hurricane Harvey: What Happens to Drug Users During a Storm?

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/hurricane-harvey-what-happens-to-drug-users-during-a-storm/

Hurricane Harvey: What Happens to Drug Users During a Storm?

Johnny Durst headed into the streets of Houston equipped with toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and water on the evening of August 30th, just days after Hurricane Harvey had ravaged the city. He went straight for the parking lot of the Fiesta Mart south of downtown, just to to north of the Highway 59 bridge where a large number of homeless folks, many of them active drug users, rode out the storm in tents. Durst, an outreach worker with the Montrose Counseling Center, had other important supplies to give out to people who needed them – bleach kits for IV drug users to sterilize their syringes. Clean water, intended for drinking purposes, also becomes an important item for people who need to prepare their injection equipment.

In his syrupy Texas drawl, Durst explains over the phone that people told him they “did what they had to do to get what they needed.” That meant that, while other people may have been seeking out small amounts of food or water during breaks in the storm, these people were out looking for drug dealers when the rain let up, hoping to score enough to hold them over until the next lull. For people who are physically dependent on a substance, their need to avoid withdrawal symptoms could trump their ability to tend to other crises happening around them.

It’s not just people whose addiction has led them to homelessness who prioritize drugs during storm prep. Posts on the subreddit r/opiates show people trying to figure out how to stock up on drugs before Harvey hit Texas, or wondering whether dealers will serve them during a hurricane. One commenter wrote: “Before a storm everyone was buying out all the water and bread and I was buying all the dope to last through the floods.” Another poster said he was planning for two to three days of “a ghost town,” while commenters offer suggestions like trying to get ahold of Suboxone, an opiate blocker that can be used to stave off withdrawal symptoms.

“If a person in active addiction is seeking a drug of use, they usually know where they can go to get something,” says Matt Feehery, CEO of Memorial Hermann Prevention and Recovery Center (PaRC), an alcohol and drug treatment center in Houston. “If there is a disruption to that, where the people they usually see or access drugs from leave or are displaced, they will be left trying to find someone who has it and can provide that.” On another post in r/opiates, a commenter wrote: “[Hurricane] Matthew fucked our shit up. The entire town was in ruins, yet the day after, there I was driving through down trees, debris, live power lines, no traffic lights, cops everywhere, but I still got my shit.”

A 2011 study following Hurricane Katrina found that many active drug users chose not to evacuate before the storm. As Eliza Player, who was addicted to heroin in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, wrote in an essay for The Fix, “I stayed behind because I didn’t have enough heroin to last more than a day. I never even thought about leaving my beloved home city. Why would I venture to some unknown place where I had no idea where to score?” Not only that, but many navigated the flooded, debris-strewn streets, choosing to expose themselves to danger in order to try to get what they needed, much like the people who stayed under the Highway 59 bridge in Houston instead of seeking shelter.

Research looking at IV drug users who experienced Hurricane Sandy in New York found similar results. They often had to make risky decisions regarding their use, like sharing injection or preparation equipment with people they normally would not have. The study also showed that 60 percent experienced withdrawal and 70 percent on medication assisted treatment could not obtain sufficient doses of their maintenance medications. Researchers concluded that “though relatively brief, a hurricane can be viewed as a Big Event that can alter drug environments and behaviors, and may have lasting impact.”

This impact, which is often traumatic for those who experience devastation, loss, or displacement as a result of these storms, can lead people to self-medicate with substances. “I numbed the flashing images from those days of Katrina with alcohol and pills, trying to drown out the anxiety and depression just like the floodwater drowned New Orleans,” wrote Player. The Centers For Disease Control found that rates of hospitalizations for substance use disorders increased in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, more so in the areas that experienced the most flooding. Even among people who had evacuated to Texas, they saw a spike in treatment numbers. Similar results were found after Sandy, too.

Feehery says that makes sense, and that research shows a direct link between people who suffer traumatic loss and reach for substances as a way of coping. “When people go through a lot of stress, anxiety, depression and loss, there’s a grieving process that goes with it, an emotional response,” he says. “Many people may turn to self-medication to manage those feelings of grief or loss.”

Jemma Dinsmoor, 34, says that the fallout from the severe storms she experienced as a child in North Central Florida led to the beginning of her substance use problems. She says her family was poor and isolated and lived in a small trailer outside the town of Citra, where they stayed during hurricanes, tropical storms and thunderstorms that ravaged their home. “We would wait out storms with no supplies, no way to evacuate,” she says. “Our pets would be gone or worse in their pens outside. You never knew what you would wake up to.” In fifth grade, Dinsmoor began drinking when her parents would go outside to clean up the wreckage of the storms. “I couldn’t deal with the anxiety and sadness of what came when they came back inside.”

Dinsmoor says that the experience has caused her immense anxiety, even today. She has struggled with addiction to alcohol and drugs for most of her life, though she is currently sober. “Even tropical storms make me panic now,” she says. “I over-prepare to the point of breaking the bank… I make sure my animals are over tagged with identification, I make sure we have an exit plan, I make sure that we have batteries and lamps and technology so that we know exactly where everyone is and where to go and we have evacuation routes and we have plans if there’s flooding and we have a high place to go.”

The Right Step, a drug and alcohol treatment program with multiple locations throughout the Houston area, said they evacuated the patients in their residential treatment program last week, prior to Harvey making landfall. Because they have many locations, they had the ability to move patients with relative ease, says Chris Karkenny, the chief executive officer of Elements Behavioral Health, The Right Step’s parent company. Karkenny says that many of their outpatient locations have been closed at some point over the past week, but that they’re in the process of opening them all back up again, and as far as he knows, no one has called seeking a detox bed specifically because of displacement or withdrawal as a result of Harvey.

According to Feehery, PaRC never stopped admitting patients and they currently have open detox beds available. He also says it’s too early to tell whether Harvey will result in a spike of people seeking treatment. “If you’re in the middle of a different kind of crisis, people know how to self-medicate and manage through it. It’s part of a survival technique and, being someone with addiction, you know how to manage and maintain and hold it together until you can’t anymore,” he says.

PaRC has deployed social workers and mental health professionals to serve at evacuation shelters to help identify people struggling with mental health and substance use issues. Mental health professionals at the shelters should also be able to provide drugs like buprenorphine and naloxone, opiate blockers that can prevent withdrawal symptoms in someone with a physical dependence, or be prescribed as medication assisted treatment for people with opiate addictions.

As the clouds clear and the sun shines over the city of Houston, many people are stepping out into the light to survey the damage. Durst says that activity near the Fiesta Mart is picking up, too. “There were so many people out [on Wednesday] and it was like everyone was trying to catch up, making [drug] deals and trying to get money,” he says.

But for Plaza, Katrina was the catalyst that spurred her to eventually get sober, though it wouldn’t happen for several more years. “Although I’d escaped New Orleans, I hadn’t escaped the confusion, fear and regret in my head,” she wrote. “For years to come, I would struggle with the bloated images that rolled like a movie reel through my thoughts.” But drug users in Houston are still too close to the storm, still in the thick of the trauma, to know how this event will shape their lives and their addiction.

Source link

[nancygduarteus]

The Tastiest Medicine

Until about middle school, I got an annual ear infection, as well as a bout of strep throat about once every two years. For these ailments, I would inevitably be prescribed what was referred to in my home as “the pink stuff.” It was the antibiotic amoxicillin, in its pediatric liquid form, and it was a bright, chemical pink. It was delicious.

My recurrent infections may have given me more experience with amoxicillin than the average child, but the flavor was beloved enough that the internet nostalgia factory has picked up on it. A subreddit dedicated to nostalgia has a couple posts about it, one with more than 13,000 likes. There are rhapsodic tweets, and pins on Pinterest, and the pink stuff even made a cameo on a Buzzfeed list of ’90s childhood memorabilia. (Although amoxicillin has been on the market since 1972.)

What does it taste like, to inspire such devotion and meme-ing? That’s harder to answer than it seems like it should be. The flavor is often described as bubblegum, but that’s not how I remember it. I remember something fruitier, an artificial strawberry-adjacent taste.

“In my recollection it’s like a chalky, not-very-sweet strawberry, or other anonymous fruit,” says Nadia Berenstein, a Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of flavor science. “I remember a sort of anonymous fruitiness. But definitely the chalkiness.”

An informal office poll that I sprang on my co-workers who remembered taking the drug in their youth yielded mixed results. A couple votes for bubble gum, a couple for “chalk.” My colleague Vann Newkirk provided the most evocative description: “cheap strawberry syrup, but with an aftertaste somewhere between chewing rubber gloves and aspartame.”

If I concentrate, I can summon the sense memory of the taste like a ghost to the back of my throat, and I believe I’m remembering it correctly, but I can’t quite describe it accurately. So I went on a quest to figure out just what this flavor is, where it came from, and maybe, just maybe, to taste it again.

* * *

The original formulation of amoxicillin was created by Beecham Laboratories, which later, through an elaborate series of mergers, became GlaxoSmithKline. I contacted Glaxo to see if anyone there could shed some light on where the flavor came from. “What I have been told is that the pink bubble-gum flavor which I think you are referring to was developed specifically for the U.S. market at a former GSK site in Bristol, Tennessee, and the reason for this was that the penicillin molecule has an inherently bitter taste,” a spokesperson for the company told me in an email. (Amoxicillin is in the penicillin family.) The artificial sweetener aspartame is sometimes described as bitter—so my colleague Vann was really onto something there.

But amoxicillin has been available as a generic drug since shortly after it went on the market in the 1970s, which means the version of the drug that I and my fellow ’90s babies had was probably not usually the one manufactured by GSK. “Amoxicillin is one the first drugs that developed a robust generic market,” says Jeremy Greene, a professor of the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. A further impediment to trying to pinpoint the precise flavor I remember is that apparently many pharmacies now offer a variety of flavors that can be added to any children’s medicine.

I bothered a pharmacist at my local CVS to help clear this up. Though most of the amoxicillin he had in stock was in pill form, he also showed me a jar of powder, which he would mix with water to create the pink liquid suspension, should a child be prescribed some. “I can smell it, you know, when I prepare [it],” he told me. “It has a flavor.” It’s fruity, he said, “somewhere between strawberry and cherry.” This particular CVS gets its amoxicillin from Teva, one of the biggest manufacturers of generic drugs, the pharmacist said.

Here’s where it gets interesting. On Teva’s website, two of the four strengths of liquid amoxicillin the company offers are listed as being “Mixed Berry Flavored.” The other two are described as “Pink, Fruit-Gum Flavored.” Now, Teva is not the only generic manufacturer of amoxicillin by any stretch (one made by Sandoz that I found contains raspberry and strawberry flavors). But the existence of these two similar-but-different flavors might explain why some people remember the pink stuff as tasting like bubble gum, while others remember fruitiness.

Another potential explanation is that human memory is endlessly fallible, but I like the idea that favors my detective skills more.

* * *

Taste is a factor in children’s medicine in a way that it’s just not for adults, who are prescribed pills for most things. And children often need the extra enticement of a familiar flavor to be coaxed into taking their medicine. But flavor used to be considered a more integral part of medicine for all ages—more than just something added to make it palatable.

Under the humoral theory of medicine, Berenstein says, “tastes themselves were correlated with the body’s humors.” So if someone’s four humors—black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm—were seen to be out of balance, they’d likely be advised to avoid certain tastes, and eat more of others. A melancholic person, for example, might want to avoid vinegar (sour—just like them), and eat more sugar to balance themselves out. “It wasn’t about a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down,” Berenstein says. “A spoonful of sugar was the medicine.”

And for bitter herbal preparations that served as medicine, Greene adds, the bitter taste was “proof of efficacy”: If it tastes gross, it must be working. But in the 20th and 21st centuries, the Western understanding of medicine came to focus on active ingredients. What Greene calls “the sensuous dimensions of medicine” got “systematically written out of the stories we tell ourselves about pharmaceuticals and the way they work.” But medicines “nonetheless have physical properties,” he says, “and those physical properties certainly influence our experience of them.”

Making children’s medicines tasty makes the experience of being sick less stressful for kids, and  helps doctors and parents get kids to take them peacefully. But there is also the danger, if they are too tasty, that kids will consume them in secret, and overdose.

Children’s aspirin is a stark example of that. St. Joseph Aspirin for Children was released in 1947. It was orange-colored and orange-flavored and often advertised as “candy aspirin.”  And “within a few years of its introduction, the incidence of aspirin poisoning in young children increased dramatically, almost five hundred percent,” writes Cynthia Connolly, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of pediatric health care.

“I, myself, am a former aspirin-poisoned child,” Connolly told me. It happened in 1961 or 1962, when she was 3 or 4 years old, she says. “My parents kept it up high because they knew I loved it. It had a wonderful granular taste; it tastes like a Sweet Tart. One time when they weren’t looking, I got up there and got the St. Joseph Aspirin for Children, took almost the whole bottle, and then fell off the counter and broke my arm. While still holding the medicine by the way.” Her parents found her when she screamed, and she had to go to the hospital and get her stomach pumped—and her arm set.

The dangers of candy aspirin led to the development of the safety cap, Connolly writes. And the pharmaceutical industry came to realize that it probably wasn’t a great idea to sell medicine as “candy.”

“You may recall the public service announcements from the ’80s,” Greene says, “of pills singing a chorus that went, ‘We’re not candy, even though we look so fine and dandy. Too much of us is dangerous.’ It’s a great song.”

* * *

It has been suggested to me by a couple well-meaning dream-crushers that perhaps if I tasted amoxicillin again today, it wouldn’t be the same, either because the formulation had changed, or because my palate had. Or, perhaps it was never really as delicious as I remember.

“Our memories, especially memories of being patients, are so wrapped up in moments and experience and become invested over time with additional meaning,” Greene says. “Either your vulnerability at that moment and the ability of the medicine to help you feel better, or perhaps a certain childhood relishing of this sick role, of remembering those days in which you get to stay home and watch television. I think it’s likely that you’re both encountering nostalgia for flavor and the way that particularly significant memories are oftentimes associated with smells and flavors.”

I was thwarted many times in my attempts to taste amoxicillin again. Greene initially offered to let me do a taste test, then retracted that offer after thinking it through. I asked colleagues to let me know if their kids got prescribed the drug. One person had just thrown some away, and the only other person who got some while I was reporting—my colleague Ian Bogost—lives in Georgia. Ian and I talked about finding a way to get the amoxicillin to DC, but ultimately we were too worried about the legality of transporting his child’s prescription across state lines, just so I could taste it (even if it would be a very small taste).

But while I was reporting on amoxicillin’s flavor, several people mentioned to me that the flavor they most associated with childhood illness was that of grape Dimetapp cough syrup.  Greene was one of those people—but he says he recently got it for his kids and tasted it, and “it does not live up to the nostalgia that I have generated for it in my head.”

As it became clearer and clearer that I was not going to get to taste amoxicillin again, I thought that at least my colleagues could revisit their childhood memories. Unlike the flavor I was seeking, Dimetapp can be purchased over the counter. So—not that I encourage anyone else to do this—I purchased some cough syrup and fed it recreationally to myself and my colleagues. We had a Dimetapp taste test at my desk, taking very small sips of the bright purple liquid off of plastic spoons from the kitchen.

It’s not something I ever had as a kid. My adult assessment is that it tastes pretty good. Like a melted grape Jolly Rancher, but slightly more acrid. It did not disappoint my boss Ross Andersen, who grew up with it, though. “That’s like the Proustian madeleine,” he said, after tasting a couple drops. It took him right back to his temps perdu. Vann Newkirk similarly found it “classic” but perhaps a little more medicinal than he remembered.

But my madeleine moment was not to be. Regarding his daughter’s amoxicillin, Ian assured me, “It tastes just like you think it does,” which is both small consolation, and an impossible thing for him to know with any authority.

“I’m trying to think of what the analogy is here,” Greene says. “Not the forbidden fruit, but somehow this is almost like a sort of ambrosia that you have no access to.”

Part of the nostalgic aura that surrounds amoxicillin’s flavor may well be because there isn’t a great way for adults to taste it again, unless you have kids who get prescribed it. It’s easier to romanticize something that can never be recaptured again—much like youth itself.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/the-tastiest-medicine/533937/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

The Tastiest Medicine

Until about middle school, I got an annual ear infection, as well as a bout of strep throat about once every two years. For these ailments, I would inevitably be prescribed what was referred to in my home as “the pink stuff.” It was the antibiotic amoxicillin, in its pediatric liquid form, and it was a bright, chemical pink. It was delicious.

My recurrent infections may have given me more experience with amoxicillin than the average child, but the flavor was beloved enough that the internet nostalgia factory has picked up on it. A subreddit dedicated to nostalgia has a couple posts about it, one with more than 13,000 likes. There are rhapsodic tweets, and pins on Pinterest, and the pink stuff even made a cameo on a Buzzfeed list of ’90s childhood memorabilia. (Although amoxicillin has been on the market since 1972.)

What does it taste like, to inspire such devotion and meme-ing? That’s harder to answer than it seems like it should be. The flavor is often described as bubblegum, but that’s not how I remember it. I remember something fruitier, an artificial strawberry-adjacent taste.

“In my recollection it’s like a chalky, not-very-sweet strawberry, or other anonymous fruit,” says Nadia Berenstein, a Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of flavor science. “I remember a sort of anonymous fruitiness. But definitely the chalkiness.”

An informal office poll that I sprang on my co-workers who remembered taking the drug in their youth yielded mixed results. A couple votes for bubble gum, a couple for “chalk.” My colleague Vann Newkirk provided the most evocative description: “cheap strawberry syrup, but with an aftertaste somewhere between chewing rubber gloves and aspartame.”

If I concentrate, I can summon the sense memory of the taste like a ghost to the back of my throat, and I believe I’m remembering it correctly, but I can’t quite describe it accurately. So I went on a quest to figure out just what this flavor is, where it came from, and maybe, just maybe, to taste it again.

* * *

The original formulation of amoxicillin was created by Beecham Laboratories, which later, through an elaborate series of mergers, became GlaxoSmithKline. I contacted Glaxo to see if anyone there could shed some light on where the flavor came from. “What I have been told is that the pink bubble-gum flavor which I think you are referring to was developed specifically for the U.S. market at a former GSK site in Bristol, Tennessee, and the reason for this was that the penicillin molecule has an inherently bitter taste,” a spokesperson for the company told me in an email. (Amoxicillin is in the penicillin family.) The artificial sweetener aspartame is sometimes described as bitter—so my colleague Vann was really onto something there.

But amoxicillin has been available as a generic drug since shortly after it went on the market in the 1970s, which means the version of the drug that I and my fellow ’90s babies had was probably not usually the one manufactured by GSK. “Amoxicillin is one the first drugs that developed a robust generic market,” says Jeremy Greene, a professor of the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. A further impediment to trying to pinpoint the precise flavor I remember is that apparently many pharmacies now offer a variety of flavors that can be added to any children’s medicine.

I bothered a pharmacist at my local CVS to help clear this up. Though most of the amoxicillin he had in stock was in pill form, he also showed me a jar of powder, which he would mix with water to create the pink liquid suspension, should a child be prescribed some. “I can smell it, you know, when I prepare [it],” he told me. “It has a flavor.” It’s fruity, he said, “somewhere between strawberry and cherry.” This particular CVS gets its amoxicillin from Teva, one of the biggest manufacturers of generic drugs, the pharmacist said.

Here’s where it gets interesting. On Teva’s website, two of the four strengths of liquid amoxicillin the company offers are listed as being “Mixed Berry Flavored.” The other two are described as “Pink, Fruit-Gum Flavored.” Now, Teva is not the only generic manufacturer of amoxicillin by any stretch (one made by Sandoz that I found contains raspberry and strawberry flavors). But the existence of these two similar-but-different flavors might explain why some people remember the pink stuff as tasting like bubble gum, while others remember fruitiness.

Another potential explanation is that human memory is endlessly fallible, but I like the idea that favors my detective skills more.

* * *

Taste is a factor in children’s medicine in a way that it’s just not for adults, who are prescribed pills for most things. And children often need the extra enticement of a familiar flavor to be coaxed into taking their medicine. But flavor used to be considered a more integral part of medicine for all ages—more than just something added to make it palatable.

Under the humoral theory of medicine, Berenstein says, “tastes themselves were correlated with the body’s humors.” So if someone’s four humors—black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm—were seen to be out of balance, they’d likely be advised to avoid certain tastes, and eat more of others. A melancholic person, for example, might want to avoid vinegar (sour—just like them), and eat more sugar to balance themselves out. “It wasn’t about a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down,” Berenstein says. “A spoonful of sugar was the medicine.”

And for bitter herbal preparations that served as medicine, Greene adds, the bitter taste was “proof of efficacy”: If it tastes gross, it must be working. But in the 20th and 21st centuries, the Western understanding of medicine came to focus on active ingredients. What Greene calls “the sensuous dimensions of medicine” got “systematically written out of the stories we tell ourselves about pharmaceuticals and the way they work.” But medicines “nonetheless have physical properties,” he says, “and those physical properties certainly influence our experience of them.”

Making children’s medicines tasty makes the experience of being sick less stressful for kids, and  helps doctors and parents get kids to take them peacefully. But there is also the danger, if they are too tasty, that kids will consume them in secret, and overdose.

Children’s aspirin is a stark example of that. St. Joseph Aspirin for Children was released in 1947. It was orange-colored and orange-flavored and often advertised as “candy aspirin.”  And “within a few years of its introduction, the incidence of aspirin poisoning in young children increased dramatically, almost five hundred percent,” writes Cynthia Connolly, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of pediatric health care.

“I, myself, am a former aspirin-poisoned child,” Connolly told me. It happened in 1961 or 1962, when she was 3 or 4 years old, she says. “My parents kept it up high because they knew I loved it. It had a wonderful granular taste; it tastes like a Sweet Tart. One time when they weren’t looking, I got up there and got the St. Joseph Aspirin for Children, took almost the whole bottle, and then fell off the counter and broke my arm. While still holding the medicine by the way.” Her parents found her when she screamed, and she had to go to the hospital and get her stomach pumped—and her arm set.

The dangers of candy aspirin led to the development of the safety cap, Connolly writes. And the pharmaceutical industry came to realize that it probably wasn’t a great idea to sell medicine as “candy.”

“You may recall the public service announcements from the ’80s,” Greene says, “of pills singing a chorus that went, ‘We’re not candy, even though we look so fine and dandy. Too much of us is dangerous.’ It’s a great song.”

* * *

It has been suggested to me by a couple well-meaning dream-crushers that perhaps if I tasted amoxicillin again today, it wouldn’t be the same, either because the formulation had changed, or because my palate had. Or, perhaps it was never really as delicious as I remember.

“Our memories, especially memories of being patients, are so wrapped up in moments and experience and become invested over time with additional meaning,” Greene says. “Either your vulnerability at that moment and the ability of the medicine to help you feel better, or perhaps a certain childhood relishing of this sick role, of remembering those days in which you get to stay home and watch television. I think it’s likely that you’re both encountering nostalgia for flavor and the way that particularly significant memories are oftentimes associated with smells and flavors.”

I was thwarted many times in my attempts to taste amoxicillin again. Greene initially offered to let me do a taste test, then retracted that offer after thinking it through. I asked colleagues to let me know if their kids got prescribed the drug. One person had just thrown some away, and the only other person who got some while I was reporting—my colleague Ian Bogost—lives in Georgia. Ian and I talked about finding a way to get the amoxicillin to DC, but ultimately we were too worried about the legality of transporting his child’s prescription across state lines, just so I could taste it (even if it would be a very small taste).

But while I was reporting on amoxicillin’s flavor, several people mentioned to me that the flavor they most associated with childhood illness was that of grape Dimetapp cough syrup.  Greene was one of those people—but he says he recently got it for his kids and tasted it, and “it does not live up to the nostalgia that I have generated for it in my head.”

As it became clearer and clearer that I was not going to get to taste amoxicillin again, I thought that at least my colleagues could revisit their childhood memories. Unlike the flavor I was seeking, Dimetapp can be purchased over the counter. So—not that I encourage anyone else to do this—I purchased some cough syrup and fed it recreationally to myself and my colleagues. We had a Dimetapp taste test at my desk, taking very small sips of the bright purple liquid off of plastic spoons from the kitchen.

It’s not something I ever had as a kid. My adult assessment is that it tastes pretty good. Like a melted grape Jolly Rancher, but slightly more acrid. It did not disappoint my boss Ross Andersen, who grew up with it, though. “That’s like the Proustian madeleine,” he said, after tasting a couple drops. It took him right back to his temps perdu. Vann Newkirk similarly found it “classic” but perhaps a little more medicinal than he remembered.

But my madeleine moment was not to be. Regarding his daughter’s amoxicillin, Ian assured me, “It tastes just like you think it does,” which is both small consolation, and an impossible thing for him to know with any authority.

“I’m trying to think of what the analogy is here,” Greene says. “Not the forbidden fruit, but somehow this is almost like a sort of ambrosia that you have no access to.”

Part of the nostalgic aura that surrounds amoxicillin’s flavor may well be because there isn’t a great way for adults to taste it again, unless you have kids who get prescribed it. It’s easier to romanticize something that can never be recaptured again—much like youth itself.

Article source here:The Atlantic

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #208

"if you want to soar with vultures, you'll have to swallow crow."

What may we call you? Brittany/Britt or Ozz/Ozzy. When can we send you a birthday card? (Figuratively, of course.): February 5th. And, where are you calling from? (Again, figuratively.): Please free me of the sweltering grip of North Carolina. What is your favorite Hostess/Little Debbie snack? BIIIIIIHHHHH that's too hard. I love that shit. I love the honeybuns, Twinkies, those little chocolate cupcakes... and really just most things lkdjalksdjwoe. Do you/your family buy loaf from the bakery or bagged on the shelf? Bagged. White, wheat or other? Mom usually buys whitewheat, but sometimes just wheat because she knows I prefer it. Have you ever fixed something without knowing just how you did it? I'm sure I have at some point. When was the last time you were on a plane? Last December. Where were you going and why? To Sara's for her birthday. What’s the best news you’ve gotten lately? Mom found a serious deal for a brand new Canon camera with more focal length range than my previous one and she bought it right in time for the wedding I shot yesterday. :') ^And, the worst? My niece may already be developing schizophrenia. If you could invent something, what would it be? Uhhhh... just one is hard. I literally just thought about this for like 5+ minutes and can't think of one singular invention that would actually be important. Well, maybe some sort of totally natural, long-lasting preservative for food? That'd help so many people and would greatly decrease the amount of fruits and such we waste, and it would also save money with probably slightly decreasing the frequency of grocery shopping. Tell me about your favorite pair of pants. I literally just have black yoga/dance pants lmao. Do you like getting dressed up? NO. Is your technology up to date? Depends on how "up-to-date" you mean. My stuff definitely isn't totally current. Ever been stuck next to someone really annoying on a LONG plane/train ride? Nah. Would you be embarrassed to find out you snored loudly in public? Yeah. Are you afraid of heights? Yes, to a degree. What is a compliment you get most often? "I like your hair"/stuff like that. Tell me about the last frightening/weird dream you had. This is hard, I like, never remember my dreams. Now, about the last pleasant dream you had. AHA I actually do remember this one: I got the rare-as-all-fuck and beautiful as all hell heavenly onyx cloud serpent in WoW, which I've tried getting every week for years. @_@ My eyes like popped open and I nearly gasped. Do you feel guilty about killing bugs? Sometimes. If there is a spider in your room, will you be up all night knowing that? YUP. How do you feel about coconut? I hate it. ^ Ever cracked one open? No. If you like someone, what do you do? Generally get shy and smile a lot when interacting with them. If you DON’T like someone, what do you do? Try to avoid being around them, keep talking to them to a minimum. What do you feel most insecure about? What DON'T I feel insecure about? Do you do your part to save the earth? I do what I can as not an independent adult (ex., I don't have my own car, so we don't drive to the dump). I turn the water off when brushing my teeth, I don't linger in the shower, I absolutely will not litter, things like that. Does it ROYALLY piss you off when your intended username is already taken? Yeesh, it doesn't even make me mad, it's just annoying. Describe your sunglasses. I don't have any. What’s the most you’ve spent on a pair of sunglasses? N/A ^Or, ladies, what about a purse? No clue, but definitely not a lot. Actually, what’s the most expensive clothing item/accessory you own? Again, I don't know. What is your favorite spoken language to listen to? Latin. Is there a TV switched on in the room you’re in? There is no TV. If so, what’s on? N/A What room of the house are you in anyway? My bedroom. Do you own anything that is special edition? I think some games, maybe? Maybe other things? Do you have any funky bookmarks? I have one of those moving 3D ones of meerkats. Do you know anyone with a British accent? Not personally. Are you reading any books at the moment? No. If so, tell me the plot briefly. N/A. When did you last get delivery pizza? A few weeks back. Drake Bell or Josh Peck? Back when the show was current, I preferred Drake. I know nothing about him now; Josh is cool, though. When was the last time you had a tick on you? EW idk I don't even wanna think about it. Do you watch Adult Swim? No, I hate it. It's crawling with immature humor. Have you been to the Grand Canyon? No. What is your favorite type of donut? Glazed or plain. Who usually makes dinner in your household? Mom. Name ALL the colors you’re wearing. Oh jeez, I have on a really colorful Day of the Dead-style skull tank top. Literally like every possible color. Are there more females or males in your family? Females. Have you submitted anything to Urban Dictionary? No. Did you have a Gameboy? If so, do you still have it? Yes to both. Is there a playground anywhere near your house? Define "near." Not very. Does anyone in your family snore loudly? Mom. What’s your favorite cereal? Probably Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Or Crunch Berries, the all berries kind. Do you read reddit? If so, how often and what subreddits do you like? No. Do you know anyone who’s had a baby recently? An old best friend from high school. When was the last time you ate marshmallows? Not since Sara was here and we had s'mores last summer. Do you listen to any podcasts? How do you listen to them? No. What brand of toilet paper do you usually buy? I don't pay attention to whatever Mom gets. Why did you leave your last job? The stress was giving me panic attacks. Have you ever eaten at a restaurant and left without paying? No. What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud? Probably Mark or GameGrumps. How old were you when you first became sexually active? 16. What’s your opinion on The Simpsons? I don't have one. Do you know anyone who has been through a divorce? Plenty of people. Do you have to pay for parking in most places in the town/city you live in? No. Can you hear lots of traffic from your house? Does it bother you? A moderate amount. We live on a busy road. Would someone being either a cat or dog person effect you dating them? No. What is the smallest thing you lose your temper over instantly? Hm, idk. Talk to me like I'm an idiot will definitely get me, actually. What’s a job that doesn’t get enough respect? Mfckn teachers. They are WAY WAY WAY underpaid. What did you take for granted until you visited another country? Never left the country. What is the worst first date you’ve been on? Tyler had a flat tire, and we had to walk to the gas station for something I don't remember and back to the sketchy tire place, and it was SO cold and windy. It didn't actually bother me, like he felt godawful and it wasn't like it was in his power, but from a date standpoint, yeah, that was an event. Who is your favorite scientist and why? I'm not educated enough on various scientists for this. Do you prefer emoticons or emoji? Emoticons. What’s the hardest task you’ve ever had to do? Open my mind in partial hospitalization to let Jason go and recover. How did you meet your pet? Teddy was from a friend of a family friend who knew we were looking for a dog. He was a present for me, so I didn't actually pick him, but rather Ashley chose the last remaining puppy with brown on him, and boy did she make the best decision. Roman was one of the shitload of kittens Ash's mother-in-law had; I was immediately drawn to him with his beautiful blue eyes. <3 Venus was from an online hub of ball python breeders, and I just absolutely fell in love with her colors. Kaiju and Mitsu were both from Craigslist. Do you look like any of your grand- or great-grandparents? I don't have a clue. Did/Do you have any PEZ dispensers? Oh yeah. Do you like grapes or raisins better? I only like grapes. What is the most extreme weather your area has ever experienced? I looked it up; the coldest in history is -9*, highest is 105*. Is there anything you plan on watching on TV today? No. Are there any broken appliances in your house? Maybe. Mom may still have my old Sager in hopes of fixing it one day or something, but I feel like we finally got rid of it. What color is the lampshade in the room you’re in? I don't have a lamp in here. At school, what is/was your worst area in math? I don't remember. Have Jehovah's Witnesses ever called to your door? Yes. Do you ever throw money in those ‘wishing’ wells? No. Waste of coins. Ever take money out of them? No. Are you well known by people in your area? No. What is the picture on the desktop on the computer you’re using? A meerkat. Have you ever had your future told? No. Do you 'spit on it’, to seal a deal? No no no ew. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? No, thank god. If so, have you had any scary hallucinations? N/A Do you believe in ghosts? Totally. Would you ever stay overnight in a haunted house? Sure thing. When was the last time you had an injection? What for? Months ago when I was getting a cavity filled at the dentist. For some reason, I would NOT go totally numb until they gave me like 5+ doses. Is there anything you cannot wait to be over? This eternally-looping groundhog's day bullshit. I want a job, to be in school, friends, just a damn purpose. Do you have any enemies? "Enemies," no. People I don't like that also don't like me, yes. What was the last thing you had done at the dentist? Speak of the dentist, lol. Said cavity filling. Do you scrunch your face up when eating sour things? No, I'm not very affected by sour things. As a child, did you ever get the chance to go to Disney World/Disneyland? World, yes. <3 Are you someone who is really committed to politics in your area/country? No. When was the last time you were on a boat? Where did you travel on it? Two summers ago when I was fishing with Colleen, her husband, and dad. Does your family ever have any kind of weird traditions in your house? No. What would you consider your favorite movie from a different decade? The Lion King. Do you ever take bubble baths only to relax yourself in some way? I never take any kind of bath. When was the last time you were sick? What were you sick with and why? I don't remember. Have you ever wanted your significant other to get rid of a friend? Yes, though I had serious reason, but I wasn't in any way demanding about it/nothing was actually affected by them remaining friends. If you have siblings, have they moved out or do they still live with you? They've both moved out. Do you know anyone who has or has had any kind of mental illness/disorder? I'd love to meet someone who can possibly say "no" to this. Do you ever go to Blockbuster? How frequently would you say you go? *stares off into the distance wistfully* Is your mother a stay-at-home mother or does she work somewhere? She never stops working. What food would you just want to disappear off the face of the earth? Nothing? I'm not going to take away the diet of people depending on some source I just happen to hate. Do movies with super heroes intrigue you in any way? Why is this? Yeah, I just like fantasy stuff, and I enjoy the majority of the plots. I also just enjoy the idea of superheroes existing. Do you watch those late-night talk shows? What’s the best part about them? No. Do you ever listen to music so you can actually change your emotion? I try to sometimes. Do you like shopping alone? I've never really shopped alone. Does your best girlfriend have any talents that you don’t? Yeah, like she can animate pretty well! Have you ever written a song? I wrote a fucking song to the Nintendogs theme as a kid lmfao. Does anybody send you money in the mail for your birthday? My grampa always did, but he's sadly passed away, so now, no. Do you own any shirts that have a year on it? Ha ha, I have a Back to the Future shirt stored somewhere with the date on it, and it says "I was there." What do you think about mullets? I absolutely hate them. Would you rather date an actor or an athlete? I find actors more talented. I'd be afraid of an athlete s/o getting hurt, too. Do you have any scratches on your cell phone? No. Somehow. When was the last time you blushed? I don't remember, it's definitely been a while. Who is one person you met and automatically didn’t like? A doctor for my tremors. She was a BITCH with just such an unlikable, dull personality. Never went back to her. Do you have any video game systems in your room? Which one(s)? I have a Nintendo DS Lite somewhere... and then my laptop is actually a gaming laptop. What movie coming out do you really want to see? The. Live action. TLK. First day? I'm fuckin' THERE son. Is your skin tone lighter or darker than your mom’s? We're about the same. What is the best thing about the beach? All I care about is if the water's warm. Have you ever done another person’s make-up? I gave Jason a makeover once lmao. Have you ever spied on your neighbor? No. Do you think they’ve ever spied on you? No. What color eyes does the last person you kissed have? Brown. Honestly, do you double dip? No, I break chips apart. I will if I'm eating by myself, though. What color is your birthstone? Purple. What is one thing you don’t like sharing? Hmmm. Oh, probably candy, lmao. Where on your body would you NEVER get a piercing? Downstairs. Which Adam Sandler movie do you like the most? He's been in so many, I don't have a clue. I like him, though. Who was one of your first celebrity crushes? Jesse McCartney was my husband. Did your parents ever read stories to you before bed? Mom did. What are you listening to? "Queen For Queen" by Motionless In White. Do you like hickeys? If they're not in an obvious spot. Do you hate the person you fell the hardest for? No. When was the last time you talked to one of your best friends? I don't have a best friend besides Sara, and I talk to her everyday. Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them? Sara. Do you believe what goes around comes around? Not always. Do you have any summer plans yet? No. I'd like to go up and visit Sara, but I have no clue if that'll happen, especially with me trying so hard to get a job. Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex? One. Do you have a secret that you’ve never told anyone? Yes. Have you ever regretted kissing someone? Yes. Do you think age matters in relationships? To an extent when a minor is involved. Even huge gaps in adult relationships creep me out, but there's nothing morally wrong with it. How many people have you had real, strong feelings for since high school ended? Two. Do you believe exes can be friends? It depends on the intensity of the relationship, I think. Plus what went wrong. Did you ever lose a best friend? Yeah. Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry? Lol poor thing's seen me sob. Are most of your friend guys or girls? Girls. When was the last time you took a long drive? A few days ago to my psychiatrist. About an hour drive. Have you ever played Spin the Bottle? No. Have you ever TP'd someone’s house? Well, considering I've never been that damn immature, no. Who do you text the most? Sara. What was the last movie you saw? Detective Pikachu. It was cute, although I was expecting it to be more targeted towards an older audience with Ryan Reynolds playing Pikachu. (I knew nothing about it going into it.) Are you a monogamous person or do you believe in open-ended relationships? I'm monogamous. What do you most like about making out? The touching/caressing. Have you ever casually made out with someone who you weren’t seriously involved with? No. Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already? No. Do you miss your last sweetie? Not romantically. It'd be nice to hang out again, though. Have you ever gotten back in touch with an old flame after a time of more than 3 months of no communication? No. If you could kiss anyone who would it be? Y'all been known. What’s your favorite flavor of soda, pop or whatever else you call it? Blue raspberry. Have you ever attended a religious or private school? Yes; I went to Sunday school. How many cars does your household own? One. What time do you usually have dinner? 4:00 for fasting reasons. What’s your favorite meat? Probably chicken. Do you need glasses to read or drive or need them all the time? I always need them. Are you a very forgetful person? I'm so forgetful that I literally sometimes have borderline anxiety attacks that I'm developing dementia or something at age 23 lmao. What is the best gift anyone has ever gotten for you? My dog. Do you look anything like you did 3 years ago? I guess somewhat, though I was way bigger and my hair was much longer. Have you done something dramatic to your looks in the past year? No. Make up or no make up? I think everyone inevitably looks better with make-up as it enhances features and dulls imperfections, but I personally couldn't care less if you wear it or not. I almost never do, so I can't talk. What’s your favorite thing to watch on the TV? IF I was to watch TV now, probably things like animal documentaries. Would you rather be anorexic or obese? Actually go fuck yourself. Do you upload videos to YouTube? Definitely not regularly. I don't know the next time I'll make one. Do you own any albums by Michael Jackson? No. Do you like your phone on silent or vibrate? Vibrate. Do you like Beavis and Butthead? I don't watch it, but it honestly seems pretty damn stupid. What do you believe happens after we die? Who even knows, really. I believe there's something after we die, but we'll have to wait to find out what. Does the concept of eternity scare you? It kinda... does, actually? Like, wouldn't it get boring eventually? Are you happy that you were born and raised where you were? I suppose. Are your parents still together? No. Do you know anyone who is pregnant right now? Yes, and I want to see their fckng son he's gonna be so cute. She's due soon and I pray I get to take pictures of him. Is there a band you like but don’t like the people in it? Blood On The Dance Floor and Otep. Well, Otep is respectable in some areas, but all things considered, she is a bitch. What tabs do you have open right now? Fucking five YouTube tabs, dA, and Tumblr. Who was the last person to write on your wall on Facebook? No clue, and I don't feel like looking. Have you ever seen a tornado in person? Thank Christ in Heaven no. Are you between the ages of 30 & 40? No. How much was a gallon of gasoline when you first started driving? I have no clue, when I got my permit. What was your first car? N/A Who taught you how to drive? My driver's ed teacher and my mom. What was your high school mascot? A firebird. Did you go to your senior prom? Yes. What did you do after graduation? Honestly? I don't even remember, almost at all, lmao. I either went to Jason's or went home/Jason came with me. Any posters on your bedroom walls growing up? When Nicole and I shared a room, she literally covered the fucking walls in Jonas Brothers shit while I was at a friend's house, and I was. Very. Very. Unhappy. Do you remember the first time you drank a beer? I've never had beer, don't want to. Did you ever try cigarettes? No. How did you spend your summers growing up? Swimming, hanging out with friends, playing outside, riding bikes, playing softball with Dad, playing video games... If you could change anything from your teenage years, would you? Hey, could I have been like, a happy teenager??? Do you remember your first time? No considering at that time I didn't realize it essentially was sex, so it wasn't something that stood out at the time. After high school - straight to college or straight to work? I went straight to college. Favorite home-cooked meal growing up? Spaghetti. Favorite place to eat out growing up? It was probably McDonald's. How many stuffed animals do you own? I literally have multiple huge bags in the attic of childhood stuffed animals I couldn't get rid of, lmao. Are you good at comebacks? WOW no. When’s the last time you watched the news? I don't have the slightest idea. Do you love Christmas time? Of course. Do you really think that the number 13 is unlucky? No. What’s your favorite flavor of cough drops? Omggg I love those strawberry ones. Do you have a fan in your room? Yes. I wouldn't survive without it. Do you think Cookie Monster is cute? I don't really feel either way. Do you like candy canes? Yes. Have you ever had a dream where you killed someone? Yes. Which is worse: stuffy nose or runny nose? Probably stuffy? I don't have a runny nose much, but I've got pleeeenty of experience with stuffy noses. Which is worse: Sick to your stomach or sore throat? THE FORMER. What’s your favorite smiley face? c: Do you think your last relationship was a disaster? No. How many concerts have you been to? One. :/ Would you ever join a band? If I was actually talented with the guitar, maybe, but as things are now, nope. Which internet browser do you use? Chrome. Do you know anyone who is a firefighter? No. What was the last wedding you went to? Just a few days ago for a lady who contacted me about shooting hers. It was a great one, and honestly wonderful to see an interracial wedding here in the South. You do nooot see that everyday. What’s your favorite alcoholic beverage? Margaritas. When was the last time you saw a photo of your ex? Probably the last time I was uploading pictures from my old phone; it's the one I take the once-a-year selfie because the Samsung camera is ACTUAL trash. Do you “binge-watch” TV shows? No. Well actually, on the occasions Sara and I have, I can only handle a handful at a time before I completely lose focus on it or, at that time anyway, interest. What is your opinion of clowns? I don't have one. Do you play any games on your phone? Only Pokemon GO if I'm somewhere I can actually play it. Do you plan ahead when it comes to your outfits? No. Have you ever shaved your face? We have this tiny automatic razor thing for your upper lip, and I use that like once a month or less because yay having dark body hair. What color is your front door? White. What was the last vaccination you got? Whatever those mandatory ones are when you become a teenager. Idr. Would you ever try herbal medicine as opposed to conventional medicine? No. If I need medicine for something, I'm using something I know works. Have you ever been to a petting zoo? I think as a kid? Do/did you have a curfew set by your parents? It wasn't heavily enforced, but Mom preferred I be home by 10 if I went somewhere. How many times have you consumed alcohol? *shrugs* When was the last time you wore a hat? What kind? I have noooo clue. When was the last time you sang an ENTIRE song? Good question. I rarely sing an entire song, rather just parts. Do you consider yourself to be attractive? I don't mind my face, but I do NOT like my body, so overall, no. Are you addicted to anything? Technology. What are you craving right now? I've had an insane craving for hot dogs on the grill for like a week now lmao. Mom's doing that and buying some drinks today for the two of us. I wanted my sisters to come for some family time, but my younger sister has homework, and then Ash and kids like... never come here. "Because of the dogs," according to her husband, but I don't believe that. Are you a forgiving person? I'm way too forgiving. Do you have a brother? Yes. Have you ever had a dream of stabbing someone? WHOA actually I think I semi-recently had a nightmare of me going ham stabbing someone for some reason I don't remember. What would you want your last words to be if you could choose them? "I love you" or then "see you on the other side" is cute to me and also indicates we'll be together again. So probably the latter. What band can’t you stand listening to? I reeeaaally dislike Mumford and Sons. His voice is awful. What is your favorite mystery/crime/FBI related show? Does Sherlock count as a mystery show? Would you ever have a bird as a pet? Nah. How’s your relationship between you and your grandparents? Not wonderful. I don't like her very much, and evidence says I'm not her favorite person, either. Do you have a photographic memory? No. Have you ever had to speak at a funeral? No. Do you know someone who’s been cremated? Hm, don't think so. Have you ever talked to someone when they were high? Yes. Your ex is on the side of the road, on fire. What do you do? Uh, call 911??? Dunk water on him if at all possible? I'm not just gonna drive past anyone who's on fucking fire. It’s 2 in the morning and you get a text message, who is it most likely? Sara. I only ever text her and Mom, and Mom would be right outside my door asleep, so. Ever cried while you were on the phone with someone? Is there anyone who hasn't? When was the last time you saw your father? Not since his birthday last month. Do you like any of Justin Bieber’s songs? No. Any time when you need to search something on the Internet, which search engine do you use? Google. Do you believe saving your virginity for marriage or no? I don't care. I believe in saving it for someone you truly, deeply love. When you were a kid, did you ever like Barney? Yes. Omfg I just remembered something with my older sister; when she was little, Barney was her "boyfriend." She was "talking on the phone" with him once, and when Mom interrupted her, she scoffed and said, "I'm talking to Barney." And then Ash and Barney had an ACTUAL "ceremony" for a divorce. That's a thing that happened. What’s the capital of state, country, or providence you live in? Raleigh. When you open your web browser, what is your home page set to? Why did you select this? Google. I think it was automatically set. Would you allow a camera crew to follow you around and make a reality series out of your life (no matter how boring it is) if you got paid well? Why? No. I'd get so fucking annoyed, I'd feel under constant scrutiny, and I don't want fame. If your car broke down would you call a friend or family member to pick you up or would you call AAA (or something like it)? I'd call my mom and listen to her on what to do from there. Do you put a lot of thought into the gifts you buy for people? YEAH. It's rare I actually have my own money to buy gifts for anyone, so when I can, I think hard. On an average day do your thoughts tend to be more positive or negative? Negative, I think. Do you ever trust anyone else to drive your car? If you don’t have a car, do your friends and family ever allow you to drive their vehicles? I don't have my own, but Mom lets me drive hers. Name at least one thing you like about each season. Winter: SNOW. Spring: Flowers!! Summer: swimming. Autumn: visuals. What amount of time do you think is perfect for a vacation? I guess a week?

[shirlleycoyle]

Meet The Redditors Using Astral Projection to Escape Quarantine

Late last year, the internet was crackling with plans to stage a million-strong raid on the supposed alien stronghold, Area 51. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing everyone to quarantine at home, venturing farther than the local park seems like a dream from a lost reality.

But what if there was a way to explore our planet that didn't put us in harm's way and was more stimulating than scrolling through Google Earth? And what if, while we were at it, we could storm Area 51 too?

According to a group of paranormal enthusiasts on Reddit, astral projection could be the vehicle we need.

Falling somewhere between a lucid dream and a near-death experience, astral projection is the sensation of separating from your physical self, keeping your mind awake while your body is asleep. Early records of the practice trace back to the Roman Empire. Experiences feel profound, and astral travelers have even claimed to learn things they otherwise couldn't have known.

Today, thousands of practitioners not only trade success stories for consciousness-expanding cosmic exploration, but have built a network to share techniques for traversing time and space using a toolkit available to everyone—the human mind.

Reddit's /R/AstralArmy is a focal point for the psychically curious to embark on out-of-body “missions” to off-limits locations, including military bases, Wuhan, the Pentagon, and supposed hives of paranormal activity like Skinwalker Ranch. The idea is intriguing: if you could go anywhere at all, what secrets could you learn?

A nineteen-year-old Wisconsinite who goes by Commander XXX told Motherboard via voice call that he started the subreddit (motto: “projection for protection”) because he was intrigued by the possibilities of group astral projection.

Here's how he says it works: the traveller creates an “astral scape” by visualizing a location in great detail. How do you visualize somewhere you've never been? Well, you use your imagination.

Then, you connect this visualization to a “sigil,” an occult symbol that is energized with a certain intent. By meditating on this sigil and recalling it in the out-of-body state, you can use it as a shortcut to the desired location, mirroring fast-travel in a video game. There's even a sigil for hanging out together, like an astral group DM.

There is a long history of out-of-body experiences (or OBEs) as religious events, with biblical explanations concerning the soul, or more recently, 19th-century new-age spiritualism. Today, there's reams of discussion on faith forums about whether astral projection is real, allowed within a religious framework, or simply total nonsense.

One group that took OBEs seriously was the US government’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In 1995, the CIA declassified details of the DIA's nearly two decades of psychic research, the $20 million Stargate Project. From 1978, the program investigated the potential for psychic spying during the Cold War. Some of the wildest accounts of “remote viewing” entail visiting civilizations inhabiting the red rocks of Mars.

Skeptics ultimately lambasted the project. But the archive continues to fascinate parapsychology researchers, and clearly inspires Reddit's astral travelers.

"Most people are pretty basic astral projectors," Commander said, amid a baffling explanation that their missions are not necessarily representative of physical locations, but could be muddied by the interplay of how thoughts impact reality. His argument is that you never know if anything is objectively true anyway, a concept about competing forms of perception that is not as far-fetched as it first appears.

"We choose to believe what we want to believe for the most part," he said. "I don't think astral projection is any less a question of being real, as the physical."

Some of the Redditors who had claimed to infiltrate the Pentagon or the White House reported running up against barriers that prevented them from exploring further, feeling physically drained, or in one case, encountering astral Green Beret-esque guards.

Others made even more extraordinary claims, including encountering a moon base protected by a gigantic bubble, and speaking to nautical folk legend Davy Jones aboard the ghost ship, The Flying Dutchman—a conjoining of myths pioneered by The Pirates of the Caribbean. Some of this, I felt, stretched the realms of believability, and I wondered if this was an elaborate form of crowdsourced role-playing.

**

But the group isn’t setting out to convince anyone, including me: they just wanted to discuss their experiments in consciousness undisturbed. Commander didn't care whether people believed, and would rather mainstream science did not investigate.

Some scientists are interested in out-of-body experiences, however.

Jane Aspell, a cognitive neuroscientist at Cambridge's Anglia Ruskin University, told Motherboard that one of the first studies was led by Olaf Blanke, who sought to determine whether people who had undergone these experiences had anything in common—say, brain damage.

Blanke discovered a shared abnormality among five patients—four with epilepsy, and one who suffered frequent migraines—in the temporal parietal junction (TPJ), a part of the brain which deals with cognitive function and perception.

Suggesting a link between the TPJ and OBEs is a 2007 paper about a 63-year-old man who had intractable tinnitus and was implanted with electrodes to alleviate his condition. Instead, the researchers found they were able to consistently induce OBEs in the patient by stimulating these regions with the electrodes.

But the very nature of OBEs—that they tend to occur erratically, if at all—means they're incredibly difficult to study in a lab.

"We think this area is not functioning correctly, either because of damage, epilepsy, migraine, a stroke—or all kinds of reasons," said Aspell. "Or by stimulating it you can cause it to behave abnormally, so any kind of abnormal activity in this area can give rise to an out-of-body experience."

Whatever is happening, there's still much that's unknown.

"What they see can be very detailed," said Aspell. "They can see objects in the room, maybe people in the room, and obviously they're not really seeing it from there. But what's in this person's brain knows what's in the room because they've looked at it at some point. The brain is somehow reconstructing how that room would look from above. It's as if you had to draw a picture of your office or your bedroom for a bird's eye view—you could do that mental transformation consciously.”

"The brain is able to do it spontaneously, in a very rich and vivid way. We don't know how that can happen," she added.

Astral projection has never been proven in a scientifically controlled way, but Aspell doesn't think most experiencers are lying.

"They're as old as humanity, I think," she said, adding they may not even be limited to our species—chimpanzees might be having them too.

There's also a proposed link between quantum physics and consciousness. While perhaps the most famous OBEr in science, Dr Susan Blackmore, has put distance between her own experiences and these theories, the ideas persist.

Anthony Peake, who authored The Out Of Body Experience: The History and Science of Astral Travel, took me on a whirlwind tour of quantum physics, theorizing that entanglement, where particles are innately linked by some special quality, suggests instantaneous communication at a distance could be possible. If every particle that exists has a single source (the Big Bang) can we perhaps tune into "certain information fields non-locally?" Peake suggests maybe this is what happens when we travel out of our bodies.

But Dr Alastair Butcher, author of Super Smart Science: Astrophysics Made Easy, said that although seemingly instantaneous communication occurs between certain particles, there's no way of externally accessing this information. "These phenomena are extraordinary and throw up questions about the nature of quantum mechanics and, therefore, reality itself," Butcher told Motherboard.

"There are many interpretations of quantum mechanics, each with interesting implications. However, they're not currently provable or, more importantly, disprovable,” Butcher continued. “It's tempting to take one and run with it, especially as an explanatory device for something else not fully understood such as consciousness. However, this is an unscientific and in many cases unprovable approach to determining the nature of things."

Clearly, the only way I'd be able to see if there was something to all this would be to try it out myself.

Short of stimulating my TPJ by jamming a q-tip deep into my ear, I would have to rely on tried and tested techniques to astrally say "hiya" to my target: my cat, Zeus, who I'm cruelly separated from at this time.

I had a head start: a decade ago, I started lucid dreaming regularly during a period of insomnia. Being generally anxious, these perturbations spilled into my dreams, so when I reached the buzzing sensation practitioners associate with bodily separation, I would awake in a panic. Rather than roll out of body and into the cosmos, I'd roll out of my bed and onto the floor.

I tried the "Wake Back To Bed Technique" first. You wake up and go back to bed, holding the intent to astrally separate. The “back to bed” part was easy, but that's all that happened for me beyond better dream recall.

Next, I experimented with a technique an /r/AstralArmy mod outlined for me called “half-projection,” which is a little like remote viewing.

Although I could clearly visualize Zeus, I wasn't convinced I really was using some innate psychic ability to grossly impinge upon his privacy. I could easily have been merely imagining the one activity I know he gets up to day in, day out: waiting between refills of his crunchies bowl.

The author's cat Zeus was the first target of astral spying.

I turned to the organization that had perhaps achieved more than any other in popularizing out-of-body experiences, the Monroe Institute, founded by the guy the Simpsons loosely based Dr Marvin Monroe on. Monroe, a former radio executive and author of Journeys Out Of The Body, was mystified by his OBEs, and financed efforts to better understand them, especially with sound design, using himself as a test subject.

He found something called binaural beats could expedite inducing OBEs, and these would be developed into the Institute's patented “Hemi-Sync” meditations.

According to Luigi Sciambarella of the Monroe Institute UK, binaural beats consist of two separate sine waves played independently to each ear. To square the difference, the brain generates a beat frequency of its own.

For example, if you play 100 Hz in your left ear and 104 Hz in the right, the brain cancels the competing sounds and leaves you with a 4 Hz pulse, not actually in the audio file, but generated by the brain.

Sciambarella claims that with practice, listeners can lull themselves into a "mind-awake, body-asleep state" with relative ease after about ten minutes.

Anyone can try a free sampler. You have to pay hundreds of dollars for more, though—or just look on YouTube.

Sciambarella says that other reasons for using the tools could include personal growth or tapping into the creative qualities of the mind. In the same way that “mindfulness” exercises claim to help us pay attention to our waking lives, he believes OBEs can help us pay more attention to our sleeping selves.

Sciambarella says these “mind awake, body asleep states” occur on a spectrum. While we may think of OBEs as peeling away from your physical body, the Institute views them as "moving out of connection with our physical body to different degrees."

Daydreaming—which comprises almost half our waking life, according to researchers at Harvard University—is somewhere on that spectrum, for example. Sciambarella compares it to a familiar car ride: your body operates on autopilot while your mind's elsewhere.

This all made me feel better about my failure to explore moon bases with a lunar sigil. But I still wasn't getting very far.

Sciambarella offered some advice: Start small with visualization exercises where you engage your imagination in easily repeatable actions, like playing with a door handle. Intention is key, too. And relax.

Even with that guidance, I haven't managed to leave my corporeal self behind. While I'm doubtful I'll be exchanging ripostes with Davy Jones soon, my psychic disembodiment efforts have allowed me to reach states of relaxed stupor I hadn't thought possible.

Given the isolated nature of our current reality, there's hardly been a more opportune time for inward reflection. If that leads to outward psychic adventures, well, that's a bonus.

Meet The Redditors Using Astral Projection to Escape Quarantine syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/