firehose

When Tilda Swinton’s twins reached 14, she wanted them to continue their schooling without the stress of tests. So two years ago she helped found a new school.

People who try to quit smoking go to great lengths. But the key to quitting might be found in a drug that’s illegal in much of the world. At least Matthew Johnson of Johns Hopkins University thinks so, after testing a therapy with double the success rate of other methods.

The drug in question is psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms. Research involving psilocybin and LSD in the 1950s and 1960s to treat addiction showed promise, until the drugs escaped the lab and became popular with the psychedelic set. After their use was criminalized, research ground to a halt.

However, in recent years, scientists have been trying to reopen research into these drugs. In 2008, Johnson co-authored human safety guidelines to promote the study of hallucinogens. Since then, as many as 460 sessions involving the use of psilocybin have been conducted at Johns Hopkins alone.

The most notable recent success came in a smoking-cessation program, a 15-week plan that features four sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and three sessions of psilocybin doses.

In CBT, psychologists ask smokers to reflect on their addiction. A key part of this is to memorize a personal mantra that captures why they want to quit.

For their dose of the drug, participants are taken to an incense-filled room where they are each given a wooden goblet containing a psilocybin pill. Once the pill is taken, researchers cover patients’ eyes and put on headphones. They are then asked to repeat their personal mantra.

The aim is to give the participants a mystical experience in a strictly controlled setting. “We usually discourage them from getting too chatty because it can be really easy to get absorbed in the interesting sensory things that are going on,” Albert Garcia-Romeu, Johnson’s colleague, told the BBC. “We try to encourage them to go inward and that’s really where a lot of the important work happens.”

It may sound a bit wooly, but in one small study in 2014 it was shown to work. In a six-month follow-up after treatment, 12 out 15 participants had not smoked for at least a week. By that measure, the result was twice as successful as other cessation therapies, which have a success rate of less than than 35%.

Johnson and his team can’t explain fully why their therapy works, but they believe that the key is probably purely psychological. The drug is not known to affect nicotine receptors, but they can’t rule out that it may have some indirect effect.

Psilocybin has also been used to treat anxiety in cancer patients, but more widespread use will need to overcome taboos before it gets anywhere near the mainstream. A large-scale study should be conducted to confirm the intriguing findings on its effect on smokers.

Thomas Insel, director of the US government’s National Institute of Mental Health, told the BBC that the lack of a “clear regulatory framework” for the use of hallucinogens in psycotherapy will keep them from becoming widely available as medicines any time soon. “But that’s not a reason to avoid developing the therapies.”

Just as blackouts in the early 2000s led to the adoption of smart electric meters in California, droughts will likely encourage water utilities to adopt the technology.

OED Word of the Day: pulchritude, n. Beauty.

joshreads:

i will be thinking about the talk page for the wikipedia pringles article for days

Houston coalition uses collaborative model to cut homelessnes by 46 percent over four years.

The Patriots got their Super Bowl rings this weekend. They are massive, they say "DO YOUR JOB," and they spent Sunday night in the club with the whole team. There is so much here, much of it thanks to Only in Boston.

First, here's a close-up of Jonas Gray's ring just glimmering to "Trap Queen":

On to better things #SB49Ring #Patriots #eazy

A video posted by Jonas Gray (@jgray84) on Jun 14, 2015 at 8:35pm PDT

Speaking of glimmering to "Trap Queen," here is Rob Gronkowski dancing very Gronkily to "Trap Queen" while the rest of the team watches:

OH. MY. GOD. Wiz Khalifa & Tom Brady watch Gronk break it down on the dance floor. https://t.co/0DpP9l5Bq2

— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) June 15, 2015

(Wiz Khalifa was there as well after his concert Sunday night in Mansfield.)

"Trap Queen" honestly may have played 40 times:

Brady, Wiz, Gronk, Chandler, Garoppolo, & Chung dance to Trap Queen. https://t.co/l0ei38QMaL

— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) June 15, 2015

But did Tom Brady fist-pump to "Trap Queen" wearing all 4 of his rings? Yes, he did:

Tom Brady fist pumping w/4 rings is incredible on so many levels. https://t.co/ETsl10aFqx

— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) June 15, 2015

Did he have a Migos dance-off with Julian Edelman? Yup.

Tom Brady v Julian Edelman dance off. I can't... pic.twitter.com/V97sdrC5bb

— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) June 15, 2015

Do you wish to see Robert Kraft dancing to Drake, or Robert Kraft dancing to Jeezy? Here you are:

Robert Kraft & Patriots players rock w/@WizKhalifa to Drake. #6God https://t.co/B9UZmVhgBw

— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) June 15, 2015

Who been to a party with Robert Kraft, the gronk and Tommy touchdown turnin up? Lol. Shoutout @mistercap wit the cameo

A video posted by KeepitGreal (@lakesheezy) on Jun 14, 2015 at 10:36pm PDT

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Combining ones love of Pachinko and drinking with Pa-Drink-O: the Pachinko Bar Bot. via instructables

Sharing a drink with friends is great. Sharing time with robots is great too. Playing classic arcade games? Fantastic. I deeply enjoy the electromechanical goodness of classic pinball machines, so in combining my interests, I set out to build my own bar ‘bot that had an arcade game interface. After many hours of research and a handful of sketches, I came up with the rough concept for Pa-Drink-O: The Pachinko Bar Bot.

This Instructable will demonstrate construction and proper operation of a drink dispensing “robot” in the style of a Japanese pachinko machine. The unit consists of several systems: bottle storage, alcohol dispensing mechanism, user input controls, ball release mechanism, drink platform, playfield sensors, and scoreboard. After dispensing balls into the hopper on top of the machine, the player is given a set time limit in which to score as many points as possible by aiming and firing the ball release mechanism toward targets on the playfield. Once the game timer has run down, the player will be able to select a drink depending on how many points they have earned.

Full tutorial

Whether or not the Doctor should get a gender-swapped regeneration can be a divisive issue—quite literally dividing fans between people who are jerks and people who aren’t, generally—but the ultimate authority on the issue already weighed in before a lot of us were born, and he’s 100% cool with it. Can we have Tilda Swinton!Doctor now?

The idea of a female regeneration for the show’s eponymous Time Lord has been a frequent topic of discussion lately.

No, really.

Like, a lot.

All the time, practically. In fact, the discussion practically consumes more of time and space than the Time War itself, and late Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman would probably be confused as to why a good part of the fandom seems so upset at the idea.

If we jump in our Internet TARDIS and head back to the ’80s, during Colin Baker’s time as the Doctor, Newman didn’t like how the show was going and went so far as to call it “largely socially valueless, escapist schlock,” in a letter to then-BBC One Controller Michael Grade, according to CultBox. His solution to regenerate the Doctor into a woman didn’t just beat all the current discussion surrounding the show to the punch, but he also wanted to portray a non-idealized version of a woman long before pop culture really got into that conversation, writing,

At a later stage, Dr. Who would be metamorphosed into a woman

…

[T]his requires some considerable thought—mainly because I want to avoid a flashy Hollywood ‘Wonder Woman’ because this kind of hero(ine) has no flaws—and a character with no flaws is a bore.

Sadly, Newman’s ideas never came to pass, but fans who would look to the series’ history to back up their anti-lady-Doctor crusade should remember that the person who created the show already destroyed your entire argument long before you ever started it.

(via Den of Geek)

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Online novelty retailer Archie McPhee has released a realistic-looking latex mallard duck mask that will help anyone out with their duck face selfie game. The mask is available to purchase online.

Finally, you can take real duck face selfies! When you wear this mask and people shout “duck” at you, they’ll just be describing you, not warning you about impending danger. This mask is beautifully detailed and we added a reflective layer that gives the green feathers a pearlescent sheen. In fact, it’s so realistic you may find yourself tramping through puddles and getting hungry for damp bread. If you get the urge to fly south for the winter, we recommend you buy you and your flock first class tickets to Miami. Fits most adult heads.

images via Archie McPhee

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Alien Cat Matilda is a beautiful and beloved classic tabby, whose eyes are a oversized due to a progressive genetic disorder. Over the past few months Mathilda unexpectedly developed retinal detachment in both of her eyes. The little feline receives frequent care with a veterinary ophthalmologist who regularly checks her “alien eyes” to make sure she’s not in any pain. Her last checkup was on June 12, and as Matilda reported on her Facebook page, all is well.

Friends: I had some great news today! I went to the veterinary ophthalmologist and she took many readings and tests and determined that I am not in any pain. The pressures in my eyes are normal, and aside from being big and googly they are actually quite healthy-looking! I do not currently have glaucoma. There is a teensy ulcer on one eye, but I have new eyedrops for that, and it can heal. All in all I am one lucky little kitten!

Matilda’s humans, the Lady and the Bearded Man (collectively known as “the Servants”), have promised to care for her for as long as she needs it and have even raised money to pay for surgery should Matilda ever need it.

After much discussion and consideration, The Lady and The Bearded Man decided with the veterinary ophthalmologist’s support that we would let Matilda’s eyes do what they naturally would, and would not intervene with a traumatic surgery that did not appear to be helpful. …As long as Matilda remained happy and healthy, that was the only thing that mattered. …Matilda’s servants take her to see a vet regularly and to see the ophthalmologist when necessary. She is always up to date on her checkups and shots, and they watch her very closely to notice any changes in behaviour that might suggest that she’s uncomfortable. No matter what happens, her servants think she’s perfect and beautiful and will love and care for her the absolute best way that they can for however long this little alien is here.

images via Alien Cat Matilda

via People Pets, Neatorama

bikinipowerbottom:

im not ashamed to admit that id let 26 year old Joe Biden hit it

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

HONG KONG—For the past year and a half, the city of Hong Kong has been fighting over how to introduce popular elections, with pro-democracy demonstrators occupying downtown areas and clashing with pro-Beijing groups. On Friday, when lawmakers are expected to vote down a Beijing-sanctioned plan that allows only pre-screened candidates to run for Hong Kong’s top office, that fight will grind to a halt.

“Life goes on,” says Charles Mok, a democratic lawmaker serving in the city’s Legislative Council. “If this proposal does not get us closer to true universal suffrage, as we believe, then we have no choice but to vote it down.”

In the days leading up to the vote, tensions are high. Police have arrested 10 people and may detain more over an alleged plan to detonate explosives around the city when the legislative council convenes tomorrow. Some activists believe the arrests are part of a conspiracy to smear the pro-democracy movement.

Nightly rallies outside government offices have continued since the weekend. The police are expected to dispatch 5,000 officers to surround the legislative chambers on the day of the vote. A commission against corruption is investigating one lawmaker’s claim that he was offered money to vote for the election plan.

For the vote to pass, two-thirds of the city’s 70 legislative council members need to approve it, but 27 lawmakers from pro-democracy parties have already promised to reject it. The difference between failure and passing is just three votes.

If the plan is voted down, in many ways Hong Kong goes back to where it was over a year ago, when the electoral reform process first began. The next election in 2017 will follow the same process that pro-democracy demonstrators had hoped to change: an election committee made up of business leaders and legislators will choose the chief executive, as has been the case since the city was handed back to Chinese control in 1997.

Chinese officials have already said that the process for electoral reform cannot be restarted and that the current framework involving a nominating committee could not be changed. Some have proposed looking ahead to 2022, many including Willy Lam, a professor of Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, believe Beijing will just offer more or less same formula then.

Hong Kong’s current chief executive, CY Leung, has said that the city can’t debate electoral reform forever and if the plan is voted down, the government will focus on the economy instead of politics. The pro-democracy camp also appears ready to turn its attention to new issues.

“We will focus on all the problems Hong Kong faces, politics being one of them,” says Emily Lau, a Democratic Party council member. The issue of universal suffrage is important she says, “but there are many other things too.”

Joshua Wong, one of the main student leaders of the pro-democracy movement, is looking further ahead as well. He is still focused on pushing for universal suffrage but the real question, he says, is what happens in 2047 when the fifty years of “a high degree of autonomy” that Beijing promised Hong Kong expires.

“We still need to fight for democracy and true universal suffrage. We need to think about what is the final aim for the democracy movement,” Wong says. “If we fight for democracy it’s not only to fight for universal suffrage, we also need to use the vote…to fight for the future of Hong kong after 2047.”

Some protesters are losing heart. Seanix Yu, 22, who participated in last year’s demonstrations, says lately the movement has focused too much on who to blame for the failure to implement real electoral reform. “I am disappointed in ourselves and society,” Yu says. “I hope that people are able to move the government to change a bit after its failure.”

Today Adobe is releasing InDesign CC 2015, with several very cool new features -- including one amazing feature/service listed as a "technology preview." Keith Gilbert is going to go in-depth into all the features, how they work, and why you want to use them in the July issue of InDesign Magazine, but for now, we just want […]

Adobe released the new versions of InDesign CC and 14 other Creative Cloud applications at 9 pm Pacific Time on June 15. The new update is called InDesign CC 2015. You can read about the features in InDesign CC 2015 in InDesign CC 2015. However, Adobe also made some changes in the installation process and […]

“#ICYMI last night, @Philae2014 warming up & revised trajectories for me! http://t.co/fR3K1TDkXh http://t.co/vEi6Xa8k4f ”

Pope Francis makes a fiery call to action on climate change in a leaked draft of his encyclical letter published on June 15 by Italian magazine l’Espresso.

In the first chapter, the head of the Catholic church blames humans for global warming, and concludes that the church must “listen to and promote honest debate between scientists.” Environmental justice is a recurring theme—the world’s poor suffer the worst from environmental degradation, he writes, while the powerful try to “hide” signs of climate change.

In its entirety, the 200-page letter includes an introduction, six chapters, and two prayers, including a “Prayer for our earth.” The final version is planned for release later this week.

Selected quotes from from the first chapter:

23. The climate is a common good: of everyone, for everyone. It is, globally, a complex system correlated to many conditions essential to human life. Scientific consensus indicates that we are near a worrisome warming of the climate system.

Humanity is being called upon to become aware of the need to change its way of living, producing and consuming, in order to fight this global warming or—at least—the human causes that create or aggravate it.

It is true that there are other factors… but numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and others) given off, above all, by human activity.

25. Many of the world’s poor live in the places hit hardest by phenomena connected to global warming, and their means of sustenance largely depend on natural reserves and so-called “ecosystem services,” such as agriculture, fishing and forest resources.

The flood of migrants fleeing poverty exacerbated by environmental degradation is tragic; they are not recognized as refugees in international treaties and carry the burden of their discarded lives without any protective law.

Sadly, there is widespread indifference to these tragedies, which continue to occur in several parts of the world. The lack of reaction in the face of the misfortune of our brothers and sisters is the sign of a loss of that sense of responsibility for those of our kind, which underpins any civilized society.

26. Many of those who hold more resources and economic or political power appear to be focused mainly on masking the problems or hiding their symptoms, and attempt to reduce only a few of the negative impacts of climate change.

But many signs indicate that these effects may be worse and worse if we continue with current models of production and consumption. It has therefore become urgent and pressing to develop policies to drastically reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other heavily polluting gases, for example, by replacing fossil fuels and developing renewable energy sources.

61. On many concrete issues, the Church has no reason to suggest a final word, and realizes that it must listen to and promote a honest debate among scientists, respecting a diversity of opinion. However, it is enough to look at reality with sincerity to see that there has been a great deterioration of mankind’s communal home.

The full text of Pope Francis’s letter is here (link in Italian).

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Natalie Walschots is a witch.

And like Hermione Granger before her, this Canadian pop-culture writer and videogames scholar is a studious witch, working on her PhD while boldly standing against hordes of Death Eaters, or as you probably know them, Gamergaters.

Walschots studies gaming from a feminist perspective at Montreal’s Concordia University. By natural extension, her research tends to focus on the depressingly unstoppable force that is Gamergate.

“I honestly don’t know how it’s possible to do any other work,” she says.

​​“Games scholarship right now has the spectre of Gamergate hanging over it at all times; they don’t like games journalists or academics, and so if you’re going to write about, analyze and work at all theoretically about games, you’re doing so in … this cultural context.”

But the problem with studying Gamergate is you can’t actually talk about Gamergate. As many women in the gaming world can attest, it can be nigh-impossible to write the word “Gamergate” on the Internet without inviting a vicious flood of organized hate into your life.

The backlash is so powerful and predictable that organizers of the Canadian Games Studies Association this month asked attendees not to use the word in their any of their tweets about the event.

“This made me so incredibly sad and angry that this was something that needed to be said, and instilled as an actual policy. That there was no way we could just be left alone to DO OUR WORK and discuss a cultural phenomenon without potentially unleashing a torrent of abuse,” Walschots says.

“Saying #gamergate online has basically become analogous to standing in front of an Internet Mirror and saying ‘Candyman’ at midnight.”

It reminded her of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, where wizards refer to the Dark Lord Voldemort as “He Who Must Not Be Named,” for fear of attracting his attention and fueling his power. Thus, the hashtag #Deatheaters was born.

“Death Eaters are also bigots in the HP universe, working to keep muggles and mudbloods out of the wizarding world. It seemed terribly appropriate all around.”

For a little while, it was the perfect workaround. Attendees were able to tweet their observations about Gamergate without bringing the Death Eaters’ wrath down upon them.

“Then, in the closing moments of the very last session, someone put out a tweet that used The Word. It was up for less than ten minutes and was a momentary, honest mistake,” Walschots says. When she woke up the next morning, she had “hundreds of mentions and there were thousands and thousands of tweets in the tag.”

It didn’t take them long to learn about Walschot’s PhD, and the ‘gaters did what ‘gaters do best — they gathered in dark corners of Reddit and began to organize.

“There have been calls to attend future conference panels that I am presenting on, to contact the dean of graduate studies at Concordia in an attempt to get me expelled, to buy up all the domain names associated with my name and handle to ruin my SEO for future employers,” she says.

On Twitter, she’s been on the receiving end of “everything from invitations to debate to crude insults, questions about the validity of my work and critiques of my appearance, hate speech to hentai.” One guy even accused of her witchcraft.

But if Gamergate is Voldemort and its supporters are Death Eaters — many have proudly taken up the mantle in GG forums — then Walschots is, indeed, a witch. And witches, as they say, get shit done.

“I flatly refuse to let this scare me away and engaging actually helps me handle it,” Walschots, who often engages her haters with grace and good humour, says. She takes her cue from feminist writer Lindy West, perhaps the Internet’s most famous troll–wrangler.

“Engaging seems to help them see me as a human being instead of a symbol or cartoon of a human, and it’s harder to lash out at an actual person,” she says. “Plus, I’m generally pretty hard to rattle, and have a genuinely incredible support system around me.”

Sheena Goodyear is a Toronto-based reporter and witch who works for Sun Media. You can find her on Twitter as @SheenaGoodyear or Tumblr as TheSkortingLife. Her familiar is a formerly diabetic housecat with one working ear, but her patronus is a mighty lion. 

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thisisnoise4ever:

satur-0 jjjjjj

New submitter arnoldjm writes: This story from the Boston Globe tells of the effort to bring publicly funded fiber-optic data transmission capabilities to Western Massachusetts. The Globe Reports: "The network, financed with state and federal stimulus money, will extend broadband to 45 isolated towns where 40 percent of homes have no Internet access... Leverett [one of the towns involved] has contracted a private company to provide Internet service, which will cost subscribers $65 a month. That's about same as Comcast and Verizon FIOS customers pay in Greater Boston, but the speeds in Leverett are about 10 times faster."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The South London crimefighter reveals that while his exploits only came to light last week, he's been patrolling the streets for three years.

hawkeyeMI writes: LastPass, the popular password manager, has been hacked. The company says that the “vast majority” of users are safe, and has posted a notice which begins: "We want to notify our community that on Friday, our team discovered and blocked suspicious activity on our network. In our investigation, we have found no evidence that encrypted user vault data was taken, nor that LastPass user accounts were accessed. The investigation has shown, however, that LastPass account email addresses, password reminders, server per user salts, and authentication hashes were compromised."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The truth is out there… probably somewhere in Vancouver.