psychiatry – Stilgherrian

06 February 201606 February 2016

A dog of a rather different colour

[This is one of my more personal posts. If they’re not your thing, and you’d rather wait until there’s a podcast or a whinge about the Attorney-General or something, then skip this one, and come back on Monday.]

“Arriving at @blackdoginst. I hope mine is a kelpie,” I tweeted as I arrived at the Black Dog Institute on Wednesday morning. Well, I didn’t get a kelpie. But I didn’t get what I’d expected either.

Australia’s Black Dog Institute is a “world leader in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mood disorders,” and they’ve developed their own model of depression. So science, yes, but no dog for me at all, kelpie or otherwise.

Continue reading “A dog of a rather different colour”

19 April 201207 February 2024

Going Wolf Creek on the hipsters again

I reckon Benno Rice was right when he tweeted that this card is definitely for me. Consider this little sequence from Twitter early this morning.

Leslie Nassar had just tweeted that he’d had a dream where Channel Seven’s Sunrise program was “throwing One Direction celebretweens at super-fat versions of TV chefs carrying butterfly nets”.

I responded thusly (here with some minor improvements to the flow):

In the last dream I recall, the hipster wouldn’t shut up so I slowly sawed off both his hands at the wrist with a knife.

At first he thought I was joking, but as the blade worked through the tendons he realised in terror that I was serious. Blood everywhere.

I threw his hands onto the floor in front of where he was sitting against the wall and left him there, whimpering. His friend went quiet.

And then I woke up. Pulse racing. Sweating. Breath gasping. I couldn’t go to sleep after that, so I made coffee and read the news.

Why am I telling you this? Well, a week from today I’ll be flying to Perth to… to… [gulp] to speak at #DigitalMe. Yes. Speak. That’s it.

I would like to have a dream with butterfly nets. I think butterfly nets would be quite lovely fun.

I think I will make a coffee now. And read the news.

The title of this post comes from a subsequent tweet by the Snarky Platypus. “Are you going Wolf Creek on hipsters again?” He makes it sound like a bad thing…

Incidentally, if you do a Google Images search for the text “I don’t get nearly enough credit for managing to not be a violent psychopath” you will discover moist, sticky muffins and a dwarf-eating hippo. You’re welcome.

08 September 2009

Links for 28 August 2009 through 09 September 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 28 August 2009 through 09 September 2009, gathered automatically and then forgotten until today:

REAPER | Audio Production Without Limits: I haven’t encountered this audio/music production tool before. It’s perhaps worth a look.
Experts look to Australia’s Aborigines for weather help: As it happens, the Aboriginal tribes of the Sydney basin recognised six season, not the European four.
The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer: This was published back in March, but it’ll show you how trust in various things has changed over time.
Salvage Techniques for Wet Electronics | Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA): The title says what it is. Yes, I have wet electronics. I dropped my phone in a “moist environment” and it’s now sitting with silica gel and probably never working again. Read this guide now so you know the drill for the future.
For SEC, tech-savvy fans might be biggest threats to media exclusivity | St Petersburg Times: The US Southeastern Conference of college sports is trying to stop fans communicating about the game in the most stringent restrictions ever seem. A pity they can’t possibly work.
User driven service bingo | Doc Searls Weblog: A checklist of activities to see whether some web service or other is truly “user driven”. Does this apply to organisations too?
Electronic Warfare: Airborne electronic attack – a new offensive role for the RAAF | ADM: Someone took me to task for suggesting the RAAF buying F/A-18 Super Hornets was a waste. He suggested the electronic warfare capability of the “Growler” model was a worthwhile addition to Australia’s defence capability.
Stop Using the Word “We” | Ted Dziuba: A plea for more direct communication within the corporation. Yes please.
Economics is not a Natural Science by Douglas Rushkoff | Edge: “Some of us analyzing digital culture and its impact on business must reveal economics as the artificial construction it really is. Although it may be subjected to the scientific method and mathematical scrutiny, it is not a natural science; it is game theory, with a set of underlying assumptions that have little to do with anything resembling genetics, neurology, evolution, or natural systems.”
Impatient CEOs are all of a Twitter, but it doesn’t work like that | The Observer: John Naughton points out a real dilemma: CEOs have to generate profits to a quarterly cycle, but the business benefits of “social media” (or whatever it’s called next month) will take decades to emerge.
Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released | In Development: The New Zealand government’s draft policy recommends that government agencies use the most liberal Creative Commons licensing possible.
Stark realisation: I no longer depend on Google to find stuff | Alex J Campbell: Alex differentiates between “finding” and “locating”, and along the way observes that the changes in the way we do these things has profound implications for businesses trying to get customers online.
Words for Webstock – Bruce Sterling: Bruce Sterling sees the Future, and it’s banal. Just like today.
Last Year’s Model: “It’s totally normal to lust after the hottest new geeky gadgets. It’s also cool to put some thought into what we buy, and what we throw away. So this is a place to show the world that a lot of us are choosing to use Last Year’s Model.” Their slogan is “Saving the planet through sheer laziness”, but it’s also a call for a more informed choice about consuming less.
OSX Timemachine and Samba/Windows share | Hupio’s Weblog: How to use Apple’s OS X 10.5.2 Time Machine backup software with a Linux server, Windows server or Windows network share. It presumably works just as well with later versions.
The next 100 years | New Statesman: An extract from Stratfor founder George Friedman’s book of the same name. Can you imagine a war between a Japan-Turkey alliance and US-Poland?
Depression’s Evolutionary Roots | Scientific American: New research seems to indicate that depression isn’t something “broken”, but rather the brain going into an altered state so that “deep rumination” can be uninterrupted, leading to better analysis of a complex problem. If so, doesn’t that mean anti-depressant medications are preventing the problem being solved?
John Thompson-Mills: John was the producer of Club Escape, the dance music program I presented with Scott Thompson on Triple J back in 1990 or whenever it was. Happy to have stumbled across this.
CHART OF THE DAY: Actually, Kids Don’t Hate Twitter Anymore! | Silicon Valley Insider: “While Twitter’s user base historically favored older users, people between ages 12-24 have been Twitter’s fastest growing age group of late. And now that age group is actually disproportionately visiting Twitter, according to comScore.”

25 April 200925 April 2021

Anzac Day 2009: Sacrifice

Photograph of a sprig of rosemary, for remembrance

The cat vomited this morning. Again. Artemis has this habit of gorging her food and then, five minutes later, throwing up wherever she’s standing.

Today it was a projectile effort from the heights of the TV stand, a reddish-brown spatter right across the living room floor.

Remember that last time you threw up? How the acrid stomach acids burnt your throat and mouth? How it felt like it was surging up into the back of your nose? It’s just like that. Freshly warm and mixed with the reek of cheap fish.

You can’t help but get it on your hands as you wipe it up.

I’ll bet just the thought of that smell is causing tightness in your sinuses, clenching in your throat.

Wiping up cat vomit first thing in the morning is rather unpleasant, no?

If wiping up cat vomit is the worst you have to think about today, then you’re one of the luckiest bastards on this planet. It’s not a particularly demanding sacrifice to make in return for some furry companionship.

Today is, of course, Anzac Day, our national memorial for those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and that other country.

15 November 2008

Links for 15 November 2008

Here are the web links I’ve found for 15 November 2008, served with a mild mustard and posted automatically.

New Twitter Anti-Spam Bot Causes Chaos | ReadWriteWeb: The real reason Kevin Rudd’s Twitter account was misbehaving.
Too many twitters drown out Rudd website | theage.com.au: The Age‘s article claiming the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Twitter account “crashed&” because of overload.
Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Joins Twitter – The Reponse: No Clean Feed | Young PR: Australian PR expert chap Paull Young’s take on Kevin Rudd’s launch into the Twitterverse. He reckons it’s a waste of time because the audience is too small.
Internet addiction disorder | Wikipedia: The Wikipedia article says that the definition and status of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is still somewhat controversial.
China classes Web addiction as clinical disorder | The Inquirer: China appears to be the first nation to official classify Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) as a clinical condition.
Reservoir Thunderbirds | YouTube: YouTube recommended that I watch this mashup of Thunderbirds and Reservoir Dogs. I agree.
Was Simpson Desert closed because of aliens? | AdelaideNow…: The South Australian government refuses to rule out that their closure of the Simpson Desert Conservation Park was due to the presence of aliens.
A senior fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence | International Herald Tribune: The news report that Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent was a hoax, set up by two guys developing a character for a new TV series.

02 May 200802 May 2008

Savoradin on Depression

I just stumbled across this quote about depression by Antonio Savoradin: “Depression, probably the most obvious condition leading to suicide, is a prison filled with repeat offenders, and the crime of melancholia has a startling recidivism rate. But it is not a prison in which rights are respected, nor is humane treatment the standard fare. Rather, the jailer is a fickle torturer who punishes his charges without mercy. The depressed person inhabits a cell with a tiny window and iron bars, is beaten, burned, electrocuted, and flayed by the guards, left shivering and in pain, while relatives and friends may visit, blind to both the unbearable wounds he suffers and to the bars which hold him. Bewildered, they cannot understand why he doesnâ€™t rise and walk through the empty doorway; they do not understand his pain; and they may inflict guilt or further torture by sneering at his condition or offering pointless advice (‘Whatâ€™s the matter with you? Just leave!’) which only exacerbates his suffering. Because they do not see the bars, the walls, the jailer, the prison grounds, they cannot take his pain seriously. It is an enigma to them. They can give him little, if any, comfort.” Hat-tip to Andrew Barnett.