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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

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August 15th, 2007

unixronin: A Siberian tiger (White tiger)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 07:23 am

I first have to start off by saying that yesterday sucked swollen goat balls through a straw.  Its suckitude actually started out with me failing to register that Monday was August 13, thus failing to set alarms for Tuesday morning, so that when I fell back asleep on Tuesday morning and drifted into the long, really strange and somehow disturbing Tombstone-based dream, I managed to miss an important hearing at Hillsborough County Probate Court at 0930 that now has to be rescheduled.  (I called the probate court as soon as I woke up and realized the error, about 1030, to see whether we'd come up on the docket yet and whether there was time to throw everyone in the car and race down there, but it naturally figures we'd already come up.  I was Not Happy.)

Today continued the theme of weird dreams, though.  As far as I can tell, I was at some kind of school or academy of magic — but no, almost nothing at all like Hogwarts.  The closest it comes to Hogwarts is, well, maybe if you imagine what a Hogwarts-like school, only more advanced, might perhaps be in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Except without the anime.

At a guess, I was one of perhaps a couple of hundred acolytes who were supposed to be meditating in a large outdoor area surrounded by about an eight-foot stone wall, sitting on the ground around a shallow, simple ornamental pool that might have had koi in it.  I was wearing a garment that had aspects both of robe and of gi, in white,  I had the feeling there were other people there I knew, but did not recognize any.  I also had the feeling I had some considerable ability, among the more adept of the acolytes, but on that day, focus would not come.  So I stood and began to try to practice blocks — inward, outward, upward — but it seemed as though every motion I made was physically resisted; my blocks were slow, clumsy and awkward, and took great effort.

After a short while, frustrated by my inability to perform my blocks, I went over toward a corner of the wall and tried throwing jumping kicks toward the wall.  My kicks weren't very good either, but at least I could do something.  It's at this point that [livejournal.com profile] paeyl showed up, wearing a black gi with a red belt.  He looked at me without saying anything, then began throwing standing side-kicks toward the wall that were higher and more powerful than my jumping side-kicks.

I said to [livejournal.com profile] paeyl, "Your chi flows, Andan-san.  Mine does not."  He looked at me, nodded gravely, and agreed, "No, it does not."

About all that I recall from there on is a vague impression that he began trying to help me unblock my chi.  But I don't remember anything specific.

Now I'm wondering whether this dream should be telling me something.  And if so, what.  (I'm assuming that any embedded message is something more substantial than "[livejournal.com profile] paeyl is a better martial artist than I am", because I know that already.)

Footnote:  I've just become aware that [livejournal.com profile] paeyl has mysteriously dropped off my friends list.  Now I'm wondering how and when this happened, and why I didn't notice at the time.  It's not the first time people have vanished off my friends list without me having any idea, later, how or when it happened.  Now I have to wonder:  Was there a reason...?

unixronin: GENERIC ICON (black and white) (ICON)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 09:03 am

Since it has been asked ... I really don't remember anything of significance about the Vaguely Disturbing Tombstone-Based Dream mentioned previously.  All I can recall is that I seemed to be more on the side of the Earps than the Clantons, but not directly allied with either; that I neither got shot, nor had to shoot anyone; and that I think I might have been trying to buy a horse from the Clantons or friends of theirs.  Not that I had any particular desire to buy from them, just that I wanted a horse of a very specific quality, and they had the horse I wanted.

unixronin: The caduceus (Medical/Health)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 09:16 am

From the Mayo Clinic:

Prolotherapy involves injecting painful ligaments and tendons with sugar solutions that are intended to stimulate production of connective tissue.  A typical course of treatment is six to 10 sessions, sometimes with multiple injections at each session.

[...]

A 2007 review of five well-designed studies involving 366 participants concluded that prolotherapy alone was ineffective in treating chronic low back pain.  However, when combined with other treatments — such as spinal manipulation and exercise — prolotherapy may improve chronic low back pain.

The question I have to ask here is, if prolotherapy "may improve chronic low back pain", but only when combined with "other treatments such as spinal manipulation and exercise" which are known to improve lower back pain, does prolotherapy actually yield any improvement not attributable to the other, known effective, therapies it's being combined with?  In the absence of any stated finding of synergism, this seems a bit like saying "Painting one's toenails blue may be effective against bronchitis, when combined with antibiotics."  The article appears to damn prolotherapy with faint praise.

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unixronin: A somewhat Borg-ish high-tech avatar (Techno/geekdom)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 09:52 am

A discussion elsewhere just reminded me of the copy of PC Magazine I picked up and glanced through in the waiting room yesterday evening.  It had a number of articles on broadband connectivity, including one talking about "DSL's high-speed future".  I never actually managed to find that one, but while looking for it, I stumbled across one in which the following caught my eye in the first or second paragraph:

"That's GIGA bit.  A hundred times faster than megabit; a thousand times faster than kilobit."

Hello?  Anyone flunk remedial math lately?  I've come to expect this kind of ignorant error from the mainstream media, but the writers and editorial staff of PC Magazine are at least purported to be at least somewhat computer-literate.  From a magazine that touts itself as an authority on computers and computer-related subjects, a gaffe as basic as this is simply inexcusable.

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