Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-13-2009

[andrewducker]

• The hidden problems with living in a 24-hour world
  Sleepless? Stressed? Anxious? Exhausted? This (lengthy) article talks about various societal causes, and how we get ourselves into this state.
  (tags: health sleep life society)
• Use of LSD-25 for Computer Programming
  A software designer talks about using LSD as a visualisation tool when he was putting together a large application.
  (tags: programming lsd drugs brain technology)
• Why the #$%! Do We Swear? For Pain Relief
  People dipped their hands in freezing water and then chanted either swear words or neutral words. The ones who swore lasted 40 seconds extra...
  (tags: swearing science brain language psychology pain research)
• Stepping back
  Torchwood Writer talks about the fan reaction to the most recent series. No spoilers.
  (tags: Torchwood tv writing)
• 1,2,3,4 - I declare a Penis War!
  Warning. Not safe for work. Really. Didn't squick me, but your tastes may vary.
  (tags: penis bodymodification)
• Recommended quiet pubs in Edinburgh
  (tags: drinking pubs Edinburgh)
• Cheney ordered CIA to hide plan
  A plan we still don't know the details of.
  (tags: politics spying CIA usa)
• Czechoslovak dissidents' mental resistance
  A look at life under communism in the 1980s. Too many people don't know that this happened to real people.
  (tags: politics communism history society)

Comments

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

The hidden problems of a 24-hour world?: Shiftworker sleep syndrome that, fairly common type of insomnia, I get it from time to time.

Also with the swearing study: I can see one potential flaw peoples natural response to sudden pain or injury (in my experience (parents of young children and the like excluded) to swear or blastheme. Thus the activation nets observed in the study for those not allowed to swear could be more down to the concious effort "not to swear" rather then an actual difference between parts of the brain the activity activates.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Good links today. Have a biscuit.

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

Om nom nom nom.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see the swearing study done alongside non-word explosions also, though. Sure, "Fuck!" is more satisfying than "Spoon!", but I'm interested whether it's more satisfying than "Argh!"

From a linguistics POV I'd be interested in the phonetics of the 'neutral' words too of course, since there's no such thing as a neutral word. Bugger, fuck, bastard, even goddamnit and indeed most 'explosive' swear words are littered with plosives - consonants that involve the quick release of air. I would lay a bet that they merely sit towards the top end of the 'explosive word' scale, and that how satisfying or helpful neutral words are is also down to the phonetic nature of said words.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

from the swearing article:

"...includes a detailed analysis of swearing, compared the situation with what happens in the brain of a cat that somebody accidentally sits on."

Why did this make me laugh so much?

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Also, aren't there languages without swear-words as we have them? What do they say when they sit on the cat?

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

penises strangely not freaky at all. makes me curious as to how well they work....

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

hidden problems of a 24 hour world
isn't that basically a description of tapanui flu, ME or chronic fatigue syndrome or whatever is currently called

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love that link about swearing and pain relief. I swear a fairish bit, and my mother is extremely opposed to it and guilts me every time I do it. But it really *does* help in dealing with both physical and emotional pain.

Next time she gets on my case I'll cite this study. I doubt statistics on the benefits of swearing will change her opinion that it is "low-class" (euch, Mom, could you at least pretend that classism is not a major part of your outlook?), but at least I'll have something to say to go along with my eye-roll.