Indulge me in your special interest.

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Denis Istomin is my favorite inspirational tennis player/athlete. He overcame a serious car accident to succeed on the ATP tour. He is of Russian descent and plays for Uzbekistan.

I could go on forever about my favorite special interest, cats. My favorite cat was a Siamese mix named Samantha who lived to be 20.

I collect and stream music I like. Mostly Japanese pop & subculture such as Shibuya-kei, denpa, touhou, vocaloid & doujin music.

I have all the Pokemon games yet but ultra sun and ultra moon.

Fascinating.

Have heard that guillotines were actually invented in Germany, but a certain French medical doctor named Guillotine advocated their use the device got his name stuck on it. But this Halfix Gibbet thing maybe as old as any other similar device on the continent of Europe. And ironically guillotines actually were the first attempt at high tech "humane" modern capital punishment (the forerunner . Before they would hang you, or would use a big dude wielding a big axe to chop off your head. The big dude would probably miss a couple of times and cause you a lot of pain before making the right stroke to end your life quickly.

^ Yes. During the French Revolution there was also the idea to make capital punishment more egalitarian by making the means of execution the same for all citizens. Prior to that in many places, the nobility would have received the "humane" option of decapitation, whereas a commoner would be more likely to be hung, drawn and quartered; burnt at the stake; broken on the wheel etc.

Interestingly (to me, anyway ), one of the UK's last Chief Executioners was from around here, Albert Pierrepoint. He had a fascinating life, including officiating at the executions of Nazis convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials. Oddly enough, he was said to be skeptical about capital punishment; his conversations with the condemned convinced him that it didn't work as a deterrent.

I'm not sure quite why I'm so fascinated by this subject; I abhor the infliction of pain and suffering, but I have spent many an hour satisfying my morbid curiosity.

links plz

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~ Wherever Particular People Congregate ~

Rejseholdet
Prior to 1927, a Danish police executive named 'Mensen' pitched the idea of a Danish FBI. A team of specialist police officers who could assist local police forces in their work, should it be lacking in any way.

His idea was shot down. However, as a significant number of arson related incidents started to happen around the country, the local police divisions were at a loss to figure out what was happening. Between 1925 and 1927, a total of 47 fires happened, and the average percentage of solved cases fell from 81% to 46%. So with all of Denmark's insurance companies begging for someone to do something, Mensen's dream came true; Rejseholdet was born on August 23rd 1927.

At first, they were only supposed to deal with the arsons, but were later granted access to 70 old murder case files, that had gone cold, where the oldest was from 1825!

Rejseholdet did good, both on arson cases (the thing it was born to do) but also murder cases, kidnappings, rape, narcotics smugling etc. It became very popular with the general public.

A tv-series by the name Rejseholdet (English name: Unit One) aired in 2000, and followed a main cast of 7 characters for 32 episodes. All episodes were based on real cases that the real Rejsehold had dealt with over the years, though with altered names and locations, potentially also some altered details to spare the victims and their families.

Additionally, The Fibonacci Sequence

The Fibonacci sequence can, as many people know, be found in nature all around us, if not at least the principles of it. The number of spirals on a pine cone, turning each way. The segments of a pineapple. How branches sprout from a tree, and how leaves sprout from a branch, in order to get the optimal exposure to sunlight. The spirals in which sunflower seeds are sorted, so that it can contain as many seeds as possible. And the ever so famous nautilus shell, although that one is actually a logarithmic spiral, not a golden spiral.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987...

The numbers themselves can be toyed with in fascinating ways.
Take two numbers from the sequence, following each other (89 and 55 as an example) and divide the two: 1,61818181818... However, the first 3 decimals are the ones that matter: 1:1,618. This is also known as The Golden Ratio, phi. Some people see this as a sign of god. I don't know really.

Another fun thing to do is:
Take a number, let's say 3 for simplicity.
Divide 3 with each number in the fibonacci sequence, but only by 'wholes', and write down what remains.
Example: 13/3 = 4 + 1 = 1 is the remaining number and the one that is important right here.

So, using that principle, here goes with the number 3...
0, 1, 1, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1...

Do you see that?
It repeats itself in 0 1 1 2 0 2 2 1

You can take any number, follow this principle, and it will give you an additional sequence that repeats itself, over and over again (some of them are longer than others).

I recognise that location - Bradford (for its Trolley Busses, retired in 1972 I think.

Queensbury - and the triangular station.

A little extra bit - the foremost authority on the Geology of the Pennines, and the history of lead mining, Arthur Raistrick, was also a prominent ILP member

It's Fibonacci sequence in a closed (finite? I don't know proper english name) group (in this case it's modulo 3). In this group you have three numbers 0,1 and 2. Adding is the same as with natural numbers with the exception of 2+1=0 and 2+2=1
So if you go from the start, 1+0=1; 1+1=2; 2+1=0; 0+2=2; 2+0=2; 2+2=1; 1+2=0; 0+1=1; and now it repeats itself for obvious reasons.

Collatz algorithm:
a) Take any natural number A
b) If A equals 1 then STOP
c) If A is an even number, take its half (A/2) and go to step b)
d) If A is odd take 3*A + 1 and go to step b)

example A=3
3 is odd so we take 3*3+1 =10
10 is even so 10/2=5
5 is odd so 3*5+1=16
16 is even so 16/2=8
8/2=4
4/2=2
2/2=1 STOP

you should always get 1 in the end, but no one proved it (as far as I know)

We have a winner!

I thought it would be fun to edit out the place names to see if any other folks of a historical bent would identify the place. I go walking quite a bit along and around the old Bradford/Halifax/Keighley "alpine route" railway line - it's very sad to see how little of it is left now, but at least some of the track-bed is now a cycle path, including the beautiful S-shaped viaduct at Thornton. Queensbury Tunnel is hanging by a thread, last I heard; I went to the local meetings about trying to open it as a cycle path, but the powers that be seem intent on blocking it up and letting it flood (it was half flooded last time I took a look.)

I have a couple of Arthur Raistrick's books in my collection; they were very useful when planning mine trips in the Northern Dales back in the days when I was more adventurous. He writes beautifully about the lifestyles of the miners and their families, as well as about the mines and the local landscape. I wasn't aware of his personal life and connection to the ILP, though, so I may have to do a bit of Googling once I'm done here for the day; thanks for that!

He was both a Quaker and ILP member, and consciencious objector, choosing not the easy way which was to go before the trinunal as a Quaker, but instead as an ILP member and making his objection Political rather than just religious.

I did see him once at the Meeting House in Skipton where he was a member.
His ashes were scattered on the moors above the source of the Wharfe near Huberholm

I’m only gonna indulge in one at a time. I don’t wanna post a novel on here. Lol

Way back in February, I went in special interest mode about grains and as special interest mode works, I dropped everything, stopped sleeping, and spent about 3 days looking at nothing besides grain related things. I looked at Millet, Wheat, Spelt, Oats, Rye, Buckwheat (which isn’t actually related to cereal grains, it’s more closely related to rhubarb), Barley, and Rice. After careful consideration, I decided to grow millet, as it would be best for my climate and soil. Then, after further research, I discovered that millet can exasperate hypothyroidism, and both my parents have a bad thyroid. So millet was off the list (but remains as a backup, which is what it’s purpose is in African countries), then I started looking at spelt. Spelt is a close relative of wheat but isn’t as high maintenance and is very tolerant of soils with a lot of clay (which our terrible Georgia soil has), but the planting season for spelt isn’t until late August to early September. Oats are off the list as a first time grain crop because apparently, they are a bit tedious to process. Rice is a bit too much work. Barley isn’t as forgiving to terrible soil, so I settled for wheat. There is Winter wheat, and there is spring wheat. There is hard, and soft, red and white. After careful consideration, I chose Hard Red Spring wheat. Spring, because I wanted to grow some as soon as possible and the planting season for spring wheat was coming up fairly soon. Hard red because of its gluten content is good for certain things, like bread. It’s not the best for bread, but it is pretty neutral, it is ‘okay’ for pretty much everything, and not too specialized. I can’t wait until I get to harvest and thresh my grain . The threshing concept is my favorite. I like the idea of growing grains because, think of how many staple foods we eat revolve around grain. My bread, pasta, pizza, etc. are all gonna be from my backyard. The grain can be stored for 30 years. Once the special interest high wore off, I started learning how to make these thing by hand. I made my own pasta, it was cool.

Unfortunately, it seems I may have to treat my little crop with a fungicide because I’m noticing some disease

Ok! I'll talk about the theory of structural dissociation, particularly in cases of (C-)PTSD then. It's interesting (I think!), fairly introductory for understanding the theory, and is disconnected enough from my study to avoid potentially biasing participants.

(I apologize in advance for how incredibly long this is)

I'll start by explaining the terms. The theory of structural dissociation is a theory which seeks to unify disorders which involve posttraumatic intrusions of varying levels of complexity. PTSD, or posttraumatic stress disorder, is the most well known posttraumatic disorder. C-PTSD is complex-PTSD, and it refers to presents of PTSD that arise from chronic, interpersonal, often very severe traumas (such as child abuse, human trafficking, kidnapping, domestic violence, or being a prisoner of war) which lead to more identity confusion, dissociation, and shifts in one's views and how one interacts with the world.

Structural dissociation is based off of knowledge of human development and information integration. Basically, no one is born with an integrated sense of self. The areas of the brain that are responsible for a unified sense of self, namely the prefrontal cortex (especially the orbitofrontal cortex, which integrates information across self states) and hippocampus (which is responsible for forming long term memories), don't reach critical points in development until around ages 6 to 9. Before that point, the child has different self states for eating, playing, throwing a tantrum, etc, and there's not a full transfer of emotions and knowledge across states. Traumatic stress can disrupt the integration process so that some self states aren't correctly integrated into the child's understanding of self or their memory of their personal history. This is because the long term presence of stress hormones can stop the brain from developing as it should. In a young child, this can lead to "multiple personalities," or multiple self states remaining disconnected from each other and so either developing semi-independently or failing to develop at all.

What's more important for the purpose of this discussion is that a similar process can happen in adults. Once someone has an integrated personality, their core personality can't be broken. The idea that multiple personalities result from a single person splitting into parts was a misconception based on theories not backed by child development research. However, what can happen in adults is traumatic information failing to integrate. This means that when an adult goes through a trauma, if the trauma overwhelms their ability to process the situation, their brain might fail to correctly combine the information with information about the rest of the individual's life. This leads to two self states forming, the apparently normal part (ANP; the majority of the individual) and the emotional part (EP; the materials related to the trauma).

The EP can hold anything and everything from memories, emotions, reactions, urges, and thoughts related to the trauma. Because the EP isn't integrated with the majority of the individual, these materials usually aren't consciously accessible to the individual. However, when the EP is activated (triggered) by reminders of the trauma, they become prominent. This can manifest as a full flashback, in which the individual loses all sense of the present time and truly believes that they're experiencing the trauma again, or a partial flashback. Partial flashbacks can involve re-experiencing certain sensory components of the trauma, becoming extremely angry or mournful in reaction to the trauma, having an urge to fight or flee as if the trauma is still happening, or being overwhelmed by thoughts related to the trauma such as "the world is unsafe" or "the trauma was my fault." Basically, all of the re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD are the result of the dissociated traumatic materials intruding on the ANP. The extent to which these symptoms are experienced at any given moment depends on how prominent the EP is. Again, the EP in PTSD is composed solely of unintegrated traumatic materials, so the EP exists as a snapshot of the mind during the trauma. When the EP is fully in control, it has no awareness of how life has changed since the trauma or that the trauma is over.

As for the ANP, all that they want is to continue life as they did before. They can't handle the trauma on their own, so any reminders of it are extremely overwhelming to them. In some cases, memories of the trauma might be partially or completely inaccessible to the ANP (dissociative amnesia) because the barriers between the ANP and EP are so strong that the ANP has little or no conscious awareness of anything related to the EP. However, in other cases, the ANP has to actively avoid the EP intruding. The ANP might develop poor coping mechanisms such as trying to bury themself in work, using substances, or avoiding all strong emotions to reinforce their avoidance efforts. The avoidance symptoms of PTSD result from the ANP trying to avoid anything that might activate the EP. Other dissociative experiences, such as feeling like the world isn't real or numbness, can also be the result of the ANP's lack of connection with their trauma history. However, this drains the ANP's energy and limits the range of experiences that it can tolerate. In the long run, this can lead to other mental health problems and is counter productive to healing from PTSD. Healing requires that the ANP slowly integrate with the EP so that the individual can process the trauma and correctly interpret the trauma as something that affects them but happened in the past.

C-PTSD is similar, but it's secondary instead of primary structural dissociation. What this means is that it involves one ANP but multiple EP. Someone with C-PTSD may have one EP that contains all traumatic materials associated with fighting when faced with trauma or reminders of trauma; when this EP is active, the individual may be angry, aggressive, and view others with suspicion. Another EP in the same individual may handle all flight related impulses and be very scared, hypervigilant of threats, and quick to try to escape from tension. Yet another EP may try submit in the face of threats by acting very accommodating, not reacting to the body's needs, and even seeking to return to aggressors in order to placate them. Borderline personality disorder that's associated with trauma and negative childhood attachment experiences is similar in that it can involve multiple EP that handle different interpersonal needs (such as EP that are desperate to attach but other EP that fear and avoid attachment).

Disorders that involve multiple personalities -- dissociative identity disorder (DID) and other specified dissociative disorder subtype 1 (OSDD-1) -- are the same but have the potential to involve both multiple EP and multiple ANP. When multiple ANP are present, an individual may have one part (alter) that handles school, another that handles home life, another that handles socializing with friends, and so on. What differentiates DID and OSDD-1 from other disorders is that in these cases, the dissociated parts have more independence and autonomy because they've been handling different aspects of life without help from other parts from a very young age. Parts may have their own names, ideas of how old they should be, preferences, opinions, abilities, and even physiological traits (such as reactions to medication) based on how much exposure they've had to life as an independent part. In the case of DID, parts are additionally partially or fully amnesiac to the activities of other parts. What's important to remember is that even DID and OSDD-1 are, at their core, disorders that are primarily about avoidance of trauma.

This is very long, so I'll stop here. Hopefully it was at least a little interesting!

^ Yes, very interesting indeed.

I am fascinated by the concept of different parts of the mind coming into and out of conscious experience, depending upon situational need and emotional state. I've spoken a few times here about the way in which, if my mind is occupied with a problem, I can walk miles in the countryside, and return home with no clear idea where I have been or what route I took. Stranger still, when I am immersed in the experience of walking, and conscious of doing it, I seem to find it harder to do and I accidentally injure myself more often. It's as if the walking and navigating part of my brain can separate itself off, and seemingly functions better, at least sometimes, under "auto-pilot" rather than conscious control.

Partial shut-downs due to sensory or emotional overload can be particularly bizarre in this respect; I can entirely lose skills such as speech, understanding language or eating a plate of food; sometimes I am aware that I should know how to do them, other times I don't seem to recall that I ever even had that skill. Likewise if I have a melt-down and flee - I'm incapable of communicating coherently, yet navigating away from the stimulus, again even for miles, seems to happen entirely automatically while consciously all I'm aware of is complete chaos (so far as I can remember and from other's observations, that is; remembering melt-downs is like trying to remember a very vague dream.)

Something that occurred to me recently was; is it that this switching of parts of my mind into and out of consciousness is in some way unusual (I assume that all minds do it, but does autism make it differ), or is it simply that I am more aware that it is happening than other people? (trying to discuss this with most people just results in blank stares, so I assume they don't notice it much!)

i am interested in autism/Asperger syndrome and medical and mental health issues.