flynn-the-cat

[flynn-the-cat]

She said she had repeatedly found that “people who are more sensitive to physical pain are more upset by rejection.” (…)

This is a known thing in ADHD, and why we experience RSD (rejection pain) so strongly that it has its own name. Pain is pain, the brain doesn’t really know the difference. Which is her whole area of study, really.

It also overlaps with fibromyalgia and ME; part of those conditions are the brain being overly sensitive to fatigue/pain signals (either the brain amplifying, or a genuinely higher intensity from higher nerve density). Muscle fatigue signals turn into muscle pain through intensity. Sometimes I take a painkiller so I stop feeling physically fatigued. 

Anxiety in me is usually a symptom of either pain avoidance (i.e. a learned behavioural response), or just my brain being too overloaded/low on energy to cope and just sputtering out anxiety signals instead. If I rest/eat/drink/take painkillers it just goes away on its own. But it’s always a ‘something is physically wrong’ signal.

Hardcoding that into my brain means that now I stop and wonder why I’m feeling something, but when your brain is flipping into survival mode, one of the things it tends to do is just... take away the ability to sit back and critically consider your overall health right now. You just focus on the things you can do, and put the rest aside, and only later look back and realise you were hurting and that’s where all your resources went.

How Pain Tolerance and Anxiety Seem to Be Connected (Heather Murphy, The New York Times, Mar 30 2019)

“An article this week about Jo Cameron, who has lived for 71 years without experiencing pain or anxiety because she has a rare genetic mutation, prompted questions from New York Times readers.

The notion that the same gene could be responsible for the way a person processes physical and psychological pain left many perplexed: Aren’t they totally different? (…)

Dr. Eisenberger studies the similarities in the way that the brain processes physical pain and the “social pain” that results from rejection.

She said she had repeatedly found that “people who are more sensitive to physical pain are more upset by rejection.” (…)

Adam Woo, a consultant in pain and anesthesia at King’s College Hospital in London, has worked with thousands of patients dealing with pain.

Patients with high levels of anxiety tend to be more sensitive to pain, he has found. “If you have anxiety, it makes your perception of pain worse,” he said. 

And if two patients are facing the exact same kind of injury, the one with more anxiety tends to have a “higher complaint score,” he said.

Debra Kissen, executive director of Light on Anxiety, a treatment center in Chicago, believes that some people truly are just more sensitive — as in they seem to feel more intensely.

That said, she has observed the way that anxiety and physical pain can amplify each other.

Afflicted with chronic pain, a person may start to feel anxious that they have no control over their body.

Then their anxiety may increase their focus on the pain, exacerbating it. Treat either one and it will sometimes help both, she said.

What she finds most intriguing about the two kinds of pain is the consistency in her patients’ answers to a choice.

“I’ll ask someone, ‘You can either stub your toe and it hurts an eight, or feel emotional despair,’” she said. Patients always pick the toe.”

[flynn-the-cat]

Microsoft announces it will shut down ebook program and confiscate its customers' libraries

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/02/burning-libraries.html

[flynn-the-cat]

some of you have never read evidence based or peer reviewed science with understanding and it shows

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[flynn-the-cat]

if you want a vision of the future picture fox news trying to own alexandria ocasio cortez with a graphic that says something like ‘foolishly thinks workers should have better lives’

[flynn-the-cat]

Among the people I spoke with in detail, several mentioned replacing their evening wine with an evening bowl. “I smoke weed to unwind—thank you, California,” says Vanderbyl. For her, cannabis lacks the lingering effects that drove her away from alcohol: “I can wake up in the morning feeling ready for the day.” She’s not alone in making that switch. A 2017 study found that in counties with legalized medicinal cannabis, alcohol sales dropped more than 12 percent when compared with similar counties without weed. Recreational legalization has the potential to bolster that effect by making cannabis products even more broadly accessible.

Millennials Are Sick of Drinking | But they’re not giving up booze just yet.

Interesting data point.

(via wilwheaton)

[flynn-the-cat]

We’re Hugo nominated authors y'all. We did it.

[flynn-the-cat]

Photo and detailed explanation of the site, plus comments from two of the foremost KT-boundary extinction experts in the world, called in as consultants by the grad student who made the discovery.

It says something about the nature of this site that they were called in. After reading this account, I can see why. Any ONE of the discoveries in this deposit would be an exciting find and a source for numerous papers.

Mind you DePalma’s first paper on the site has not yet been peer-reviewed, and he has gained something of a reputation as a showboater. But I’m reassured that Alvarez is onboard with this. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, just like his discovery of the iridium layer providing the first evidence for an asteroid impact.

I think DePalma may turn out to be the Heinrich Schliemann of our generation.

i recommend the above article, because it’s the most informative one I’ve found in the geo-blogging sphere since this discovery was announced, providing more details than mainstream news media.

@earthstory

[flynn-the-cat]

Went to the Aboriginal artifact exhibit in Chicago. And it’s interesting. How many blankets and masks and totem poles say ‘unknown source’, because every five seconds my mom would stop and point to something and say. “Pauline’s grandmother made that,” or, “That belongs to Mike’s family, I should call him” because. It’s all stolen

[flynn-the-cat]

Confession time; while I may have started making my girlfriend lunches purely because I love her there’s now a little bit of gay spite involved as well. I want the straight girls she works with to see what they’re missing and hold their men to higher standards.

[flynn-the-cat]

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

[flynn-the-cat]

Things they don’t tell you about top surgery

- Talk to the surgeon about the size you want your new areolas/nipples (don’t be afraid to ask)

- Numbness. No one talks about this for guys who are about to have surgery. You’re going to be numb all in your chest area, especially where the incisions were. They cut nerves as they pass along your chest, and it can take up to a year to regenerate those nerves. Still, feels super foreign for the first two weeks

- Make your bed into a pillow chair, body pillow, two on each side, and two for your head. 

- Sleep alone. I tried to sleep with my girlfriend and it was miserable. You really do need the entire bed for yourself

- Go on Groupon, & get yourself a 10 foot lightning cable iPhone charger, BEST THING EVER, can reach from wherever you are

- Don’t take a week off from work, take two. You will regret the one week, and love the extra time

- When they say “don’t move too much, even after the first week”. LISTEN. I moved way too much and got so sore super quickly. 

- Drink lots of water & eat if your taking the pain medication, otherwise your stomach feels super funky.

- Get stool softeners, & don’t be afraid to take those babies. Don’t wait a week to poop. you’ll surely regret it. 

- The drains are scary & they may hurt while draining or rewrapping your dressings, but once they come out, the second they do, its no more pain, its crazy. 

i hope this helps someone, because i wish i knew all of this when i was having mine a month ago. Looking back its like everyone forgets all the real negatives, its a great experience, & i healed very well & quick compared to most, but the first few days are crazy. They hurt, suck but it gets better. 

[flynn-the-cat]

Hot take: Eddie Brock and Carol Danvers are on opposite ends of the bisexual spectrum being disaster bi and functional bi respectively. Smack dab in the middle is Steve Rogers who manages to be a huge mess while somehow still having people see him as one of the sanest people in the room.

[flynn-the-cat]

I found this so interesting I had to share it

[flynn-the-cat]

So can we talk about the absolutely stunning duplicity going on here?

[flynn-the-cat]

Okay so I don't know why people say sex or love is what makes us human. Lots of organisms in nature have sex or mate for life. You know what makes us human? Cooking. Nothing else in nature cooks except humans. Checkmate aphobes. Sincerely, an ace cook.

….

…

is that true??

Holy shit!!