Playing Tetris may ease post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms
24 September 2024
Sara E. Teller, writing for Legal Reader:
The research, published in BMC Medicine, focuses on the use of video games, particularly the well-known Tetris game that has been around for decades, to help reduce intrusive memories, a core and sometimes debilitating symptom of the condition.
Invented in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris is a straightforward yet fun, video game. Anything that can help PTSD survivors, in any way, has to be a good thing.
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entertainment, games, health, psychology
Writing a book may be a health hazard, just ask a writer
23 September 2024
American writer and researcher, Gwern Branwen:
But how can I not want to write a book? And I get it: writing a book is sacred and unquestionable, the ultimate achievement for Western intellectuals — better than being arrested in a protest (because you don’t have to get sweaty), better than a PhD (because not so devalued), and better even than going to Harvard (because that mostly means you got lucky in admissions).
I’m no intellectual, but I’ve been banging away at a book manuscript for years, ten years actually. On the other hand, I’ve been writing here at disassociated, on and off, since the late nineties. But what do people I know ask about the most?
A book that may never see the light of day? Or a blog that is updated regularly, and has some sort of readership (excluding the neighbour’s cat)? Surprise, surprise, it’s not the blog.
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Your coffee order, a subliminal yet revealing, job interview question?
23 September 2024
Applying for a job, going through the interview process and what not, is much like walking on eggshells. Take one wrong step, and all your efforts may be for nothing. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the way you like your cup of coffee prepared, could be your undoing:
I won’t say what work we do, but it involves judgement and discernment. I keep thinking that if this person is making such bad decisions about coffee, what other bad decisions are they capable of?
I say play it safe in such a situation, and once you’ve been hired, then reveal your true coffee drinking colours. But if you do want your choice of coffee to reflect well on you, this PsychCentral article by Sian Ferguson, may be useful.
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Unfortunately, colonising Mars is not a great idea
23 September 2024
There’s the challenge. There’s the adventure, the pioneering spirit, of setting off to another planet. Not everything is, or should be, easy. But are those really the right reasons for wishing to establish a human colony on the fourth rock from the Sun, Mars?
Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars’s dead core? No? Well. It’s fine. I’m sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let’s discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.
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Be first in line for Intermezzo by Sally Rooney in Sydney tonight
23 September 2024
Tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September 2024, is the day Sally Rooney fans have been waiting for. That’s when the Irish author’s fourth novel, Intermezzo, is published. And from what I (and everyone else) can gather, anticipation is at fever pitch.
The good news, for some Australian fans of Rooney, is they don’t have to wait until bookshops open, as usual, on Tuesday morning. They can go along to Gleebooks, in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill, late this evening, where Intermezzo will be on the shelves, on the stroke of midnight.
We don’t see too many midnight releases of novels, so I’m hoping that says something about how good book number four is…
Update: since queuing this post late on Friday, I’m advised the Gleebooks event is fully booked. Sorry, Tuesday morning, regular bookshop opening times, it is, I’m afraid.
Update II: For those who missed out on the midnight release this evening, Dymocks George Street, in Sydney CBD, will be selling Intermezzo from 8AM tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September 2024. A free coffee is on offer all day for anyone buying the novel.
I’m happy to cover for you, if you want to tell work you’re in a meeting with a content producer, for several hours while you go somewhere and read the book (thanks Sara).
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books, literature, novels, Sally Rooney
Another day, another problem with Voyager 1, solved
20 September 2024
Data the nearly fifty-year old deep space probe was returning to Earth earlier this year, was getting all scrambled up. But dutiful mission controllers sorted that out. This despite Voyager 1 being so far away that it’d take a day to reach, assuming we had a vessel that could travel at the speed of light.
More recently, Voyager 1 has been having have trouble using correcting thrusters that keep the probe’s antenna pointed at Earth. Fuel pipes to the aging thrusters have begun to clog up, rendering them inoperative. Mission controllers, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, however have been able to re-activate another set of thrusters — unused in decades — and effect a fix.
As a result of its exceptionally long-lived mission, Voyager 1 experiences issues as its parts age in the frigid outer reaches beyond our solar system. When an issue crops up, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have to get creative while still being careful of how the spacecraft will react to any changes.
If you want a tricky problem solved, ask a mission controller from one of the automated space missions to help. And of course Apollo 13.
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astronomy, science, technology
LinkedIn is collecting user data for AI training
20 September 2024
Professional social network (assuming there’s such a thing) LinkedIn has started collecting user data to train its own AI bot.
No surprise there.
They’ve apparently auto opted all members in, whether they like it or not.
No surprise there.
Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, has posted instructions on how to opt-out, on X/Twitter.
I deactivated my LinkedIn account — after my then GP, of all people, invited me to join — well over ten years ago.
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artificial intelligence, social networks, technology, trends
Accidentally Wes Anderson exhibition now on in Melbourne
20 September 2024
Photography exuding the aesthetic of American filmmaker Wes Anderson, is on show in Australia at the Accidentally Wes Anderson exhibition, in Melbourne, until early November 2024.
“Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition” is a journey through more than 200 of the most beautiful, idiosyncratic, and interesting places on Earth — all seemingly plucked from the whimsical world of Wes Anderson. 10 themed areas provide you a personal passport to visual inspiration and adventure with amazing photography and immersive moments throughout.
Surely a treat for Wes Anderson fans, and an excuse (for some of us) to visit the southern capital.
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film, photography, Wes Anderson
The disassociated podcast, web design in the wild west of 1997
20 September 2024
I’ve always thought setting up a podcast show would be fun. But, you know, I have no proper recording equipment, nor any idea what sort of subject matter such a “show” would feature. So the idea has sat dormant all these years.
But yesterday, I learned about NotebookLM, Google’s “personalized AI research assistant”, while reading a blog post by Robert Birming. Among NotebookLM’s features, is the ability to take some text, say a blog post, load said text into NotebookLM, and then apply the “Audio Overview” function.
Curious to try it, I took a post I wrote in 2022, about my early experiences of building websites, uploaded the text to NotebookLM, and waited for the result. This quite fun fireside chat, between the two “hosts”, a woman and a man, is what emerged:
The “hosts” confused me with the author of a book I referenced in my post, Jay Hoffmann, but, some people call me Jay, so not all is lost.
And that’s where web standards come in. Hoffman [er, Lampard] talks about using HTML 3.2. Early on he was a rebel, but a structured one.
Update: thanks to long-time disassociated reader, and one-time collaborator CoffeeGirl (AKA Stephanie), for this version of the podcast (dare I call it a remix?) based on my post about web design in 1997. This is a little more on point. #DeepDiveNinetiesWeb
This little snippet is fantastic:
Back then, choosing a domain name was a statement. You were declaring your independence from traditional media.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the record, I didn’t get the disassociated domain name until 1998, and when I did, it was disassociated.com.au. I tried to obtain the . com extension, but someone else had it. They contacted me, offering it for sale (at a premium), which I declined. Later, when the name became available in early 2003, I grabbed it.
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artificial intelligence, podcasts, technology, trends
Sweden wants to curb screen time for children under two
19 September 2024
Amelia Nierenberg, writing for The New York Times:
The intention of Sweden’s policy — and others like it — is to cut down on distractions, promote healthy development and help preserve the innocence of childhood. But some experts wonder if the guidance — however well-intentioned — may be too unrealistic and too judgmental to stick.
These are guidelines, not dictates, or bans, and Swedish health authorities are aiming for zero hours screen time for children under two years of age. I’m not sure what value, say, a one-year old child derives from any screen time at all, but the perspective of a parent of a child close to two years of age, may be different. Being able to temporarily distract a child with a game or cartoon show, may be a boon for any time-poor parent.
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