Human Centered Design Workshop for PPE. (n.d.). Eventbrite. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.eventbrite.com/e/136323937567?aff=efbneb

My guess is that this is caused by a sleep surplus. I'd analogize it to the CBT-i recommendation to avoid napping because it will impair sleep drive that night.

“Mental models are one of the most important concepts in human–computer interaction (HCI).”

— Nielsen Norman Group

Stop Reset Go

How do we engage in bottom-up whole system change? Perhaps we need a model for understanding who we are serving that transcends the bias and limitations of personas as they are used in user experience design (UX).

What is a more holistic model for understanding human perceptions, motivations, and behaviours?

That's quite impressive. It's worth noting that benefits accrued throughout the entire study duration. There's likely further benefits over longer durations. I take the benefit to be from antioxidants.

This was achieved by a single size 0 capsule. The benefits would likely be proportionally greater with higher doses. Though, there is probably a cap depending on one's starting antioxidant status. I take it to be antioxidants that are providing the benefit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ7CyM1Zrqc

An interesting experiment to change one's schedule this way.

I feel like I've seen a working schedule infographic of famous writers, artists, etc. and their sample work schedules before. This could certainly fit into that.

One thing is certain thought, that the time of waking up is probably more a function of the individual person. How you spend your time is another consideration.

“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” ― Picasso

“Everybody has the same energy potential. The average person wastes his in a dozen little ways. I bring mine to bear on one thing only: my paintings, and everything else is sacrificed to it...myself included.” ― Picasso

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. —Picasso

see also: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/07/child-art/

Boy, don't they

What a great quote to include in the closing!

Josiah Wedgwood was apparently the first to institute a system of clocking-into work.

We attend to time in large measure as a need to be able to synchronize our work.

Eternal struggle of competition here. The workers (and the poet) admonish that one compares themselves against their neighbors (competitors) than simply themselves.

The fix for this is for the leadership/bosses to participate themselves to see if the yield isn't as good as it might otherwise be. So much could be fixed if the "boss" is involved in the actual work or physically on site at least some of the time to experience what is going on. Participation counts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Monday

These are the effects I was expecting to find. cGMP plays a role in SCN nighttime signalling, though I expect it has other mechanisms as well.

The Uncomfortable Truth is the Difficult and Unpopular Decisions are Now Unavoidable.

Topic is relevant across a span of global issues. Natural resources are Finite.....period! Timely decisions are critical to insure intelligent use of resources. DENIAL is the enemy and 800lb gorilla in the room. Neoliberisim and social dysfunction feed on any cognitive dissonance and poop it out as "crap". True believers of American Capitalism (yes there is a difference) have become "cult-like" and drink the fluid of the cult to the very end, human consequence is of no concern.

Point being: Reality is always elusive within a cult controlled (authoritative) mindset. Cult members are weak sheep, incapable of individual logic/reason. Authority can not be challenged. -- Denial, a human defense mechanism has been and is the common denominator in all personal and global conflict. Denial can be traced throughout modern history and rears its ugly head whenever the stakes are high.

This is probably due to nasal congestion.

Paul Lockhart in Lockhart's Lament

It's hard to say what this tells me about my hypothesis that the 7 mg patch increases HRV. It really depends on their blood levels. The second-hand smoke machine is extremely unrealistic. They were exposed to 30 puffs of 1.8% nicotine e-juice in the first measurement interval. Assuming 150 puffs per ml, that's 3.6 mg smoked in a single 15 minute interval! I've not read the full study to confirm this calculation. Nonetheless, it's clear that these insane conditions require scrutiny. That's not even counting the fact that there's no placebo (Or even control). How am I supposed to know if this is not just an effect of being concern about inhaling e-smoke? I'm still searching for studies on low concentration of nicotine and HRV.

@dancohen @ayjay, don't forget the noble professions of philosopher's clerk or secretary:

What it would be like to be a philosopher’s clerk: “It’ll be a matter of filing the generalisations, tidying up paradoxes, laying out the premises before the boss gets in.” —Tom Stoppard

For five years he [Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)] served as personal secretary to, yes, Francis Bacon. In fact, I’ve noted over a course of years that the job of a secretary can be utterly fulfilling just in case one’s boss happens to be Francis Bacon. —Daniel N. Robinson

(reply to https://micro.blog/dancohen/11752827)

‘No one wanted to read’ his book on pandemic psychology – then Covid hit. (2021, August 19). The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/19/book-psychology-pandemics-steven-taylor

This disproves my suggestion that 2 mg might increase HRV, but I was looking for 1 mg rather than 2. The 2 mg gum is still plausibly a higher dose than a 7 mg patch. I'm struggling to find studies in the lower doses. This may be because everyone wants to prove the harm of nicotine. There may even be publication bias (especially if there's no effect).

This was with a 14 mg patch. A 21 mg patch would probably reduce HRV given that a 4 mg lozenge does so.

I still expect to find enhance HRV with 7 mg. This study supports that hypothesis to an extent. That it, it shows that 14 mg may be the tipping point between increased or decreased HRV from nicotine.

Assuming a half life of two hours, I calculated a 7 mg per day patch delivers a peak dosage of around 0.8 mg. Given that a 4mg lozenge has a bioavailability of 79%, this is equivalent to a 21 mg patch.

Given that we know anything above a 7 mg patch disrupts sleep (while 7 mg enhances sleep), it's unsurprising that HRV was reduced. I expect that a 1 mg lozenge or gum would increase HRV. Given that the above citation lists the bioavailability of a 2 mg lozenge at 50%, 2 mg may also increase HRV.

Benefits accrued throughout the 8 weeks. I recall reading on Longecity forum that ashwagandha takes a month for benefits to kick in. This study demonstrates that benefits continue to increase over two months. I suspect they continue even further than that.

Interestingly, this is pretty similar to the two placebo controlled studies on antioxidants for sleep. Thus, I wonder of the benefits of ashwaganha extract are largely antioxidant capacity. This would be a bit surprising because the ORAC of dried ashwaganda is just slightly above raw pinto beans. Based on the recommended doses, the extract isn't vastly more potent than the whole root. Though, this comment saying that the Withanolide/Withaferin A (edit: withaferin A is purportedly cytotoxic) reside mostly in the leaves has greatly confused me. Either the extract has more antioxidant activity than I realize (directly or indirectly), or the benefits come primarily from the purported mechanisms of ashwagandha (which include cortisol reduction and GABAergic activity). Edit: the full text mentions a 15 to 1 extract ratio, which is enough to put the antioxidant mechanism back on the table. It's probably a partial explanation, but after seeing the full text I think the benefits are too great to be simply from antioxidants.

I see no mention of the time of day of administration. I'm assuming it was in the morning, which contrasts with the near bedtime dosing in the antioxidant studies. If I later find out that antioxidants in the morning don't help with sleep, then that will suggest ashwagandha works by other mechanisms. However, I expect antioxidants at any time of day help with sleep. Nonetheless, I'm not discounting that ashwagandha may work by other mechanisms.

I believe this roughly equates to the benefits from an increase in SWS.

Oddly, the strong adenosinergic pressure from ~20 hours wake combined from caffeine withdrawal didn't lead to increased SWS. Indeed, there was a nonsignificant trend towards a decrease in SWS. One possibility is that caffeine induced SWS surplus accumulation over the previous week, reducing SWS drive. However, this could alternatively be explained by the 60 minute nap.

Withdrawal restored REM sleep under these conditions. The withdrawal condition looks quite similar to placebo (both REM and SWS), which is rather surprising.

This aligns with intuition. However, they only tested a single night in each condition. The harm of eating at night may be a zeitgeber effect, taking multiple days to accumulate.

These results bring into question advice about avoiding food at night. Food quality likely plays a critical role. It remains unclear whether eating before bed is advisable, but this data gives reason to at least avoid making recommendations against it.

Though the effect was stronger in those with lower intake, the effects on mood in those with higher intake were still quite substantial, (full text). That is to say, both groups benefited. Selenium improved anxiety only in the low intake group, (full text).

Interestingly, the high and low intake groups had the same baseline scores. That is to say, it's not that selenium brought the low intake group up to normal, but rather that they were lifted above the high intake group. It's possible that they had adapted to their low intake, be it psychological or physiological adaptation. I recall a similar effect with creatine and cognitive performance in vegetarians.

This raises the question: does the benefit disappear over time as one adapts to their new selenium levels? Perhaps, but I find it more likely that the benefit drops only slightly. That is, I think what may be occurring is a a positive feedback loop where better mood makes you more optimistic, thus improving your mood; I expect this psychological mechanism to fade, leaving the biological component intact.

Of course, there is the possibility that this is a statistical fluke. Nonetheless, I'd expect the above mechanism to occur in general. If I learn more about statistics I could probably run a p-value test.

That is a moderate but worthwhile benefit over placebo.

Not only was is significant, but it was impressive! The 200 μg dose cut the score over 50%, compared to 20-22% reductions in the placebo. Everyone with RLS should be given selenium.

However, I disagree with the authors that this should be a replacement. Multiple treatments are likely necessary to achieve adequate relief.

Smith, M.-D. (2021, July 6). One mother’s human-rights victory over hardline COVID restrictions. Macleans.Ca. https://www.macleans.ca/society/one-mothers-human-rights-victory-over-hardline-covid-restrictions/

Galea, S. (2021). Elevating Dignity as a Goal for Health System Achievement in the COVID-19 Era and in the Future. JAMA Health Forum, 2(8), e212803–e212803. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.2803

As expected. This study was placebo controlled, too.

I'd be interested to see the effect of a 7 mg patch. 14 mg is too high for sleep, so I wonder if it is also too high for akathisia.

‘Trust the science’ is the mantra of the Covid crisis – but what about human fallibility? | Margaret Simons | The Guardian. (n.d.). Retrieved July 27, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/24/trust-the-science-is-the-mantra-of-the-covid-crisis-but-what-about-human-fallibility?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://theamericanscholar.org/blue-collar-brilliance/

Acknowledging the work and art that blue collar workers do is an important thing.

Sometime in the past six months I ran across a description of how migrant workers do this sort of activity in farming contexts. That article also pointed out the fact that the average person couldn't do this sort of work and that there was extreme value in it.

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Alan Jacobs</span> in July Check-In · Buttondown (<time class='dt-published'>07/01/2021 09:19:13</time>)</cite></small>

Idea of John Paul II's encyclical being a form of blogging in a different era. They're all essays in form, it's just about distribution...

This same sort of illusion also occurs in email where we're always assumed to be constantly available to others.

Kraemer, M. U. G., Hill, V., Ruis, C., Dellicour, S., Bajaj, S., McCrone, J. T., Baele, G., Parag, K. V., Battle, A. L., Gutierrez, B., Jackson, B., Colquhoun, R., O’Toole, Á., Klein, B., Vespignani, A., Consortium‡, T. C.-19 G. U. (CoG-U., Volz, E., Faria, N. R., Aanensen, D., … Pybus, O. G. (2021). Spatiotemporal invasion dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 emergence. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj0113

I concur. This merits human analysis. I'd be curious to know the subjective effects of combining the two. In particular, I'm wondering if mirtazapine reduces "wanting" while enhancing "liking".

The main reason I'd been thinking this is due to comparison to similar drug combos in humans. I'd heard that combining hydroxyzine and opioids was sometimes prescribed to enhance the effectiveness of opioids and/or use lower opioid doses; I'd also read on some harm reduction forum that some people enjoy combining opioids with antihistamines. Given that mirtazapine is to a large extent just hydroxyzine but with added adrenergic effects, it seems likely that much of these data can be cross-applied (between mirtazapine and hydroxyzine in particular).

PsyArXiv Preprints | Vaccine Equity and G7 Summit. (n.d.). Retrieved 22 July 2021, from https://psyarxiv.com/gx87e/

Hill, Ryan, Yian Yin, Carolyn Stein, Dashun Wang, and Benjamin F. Jones. “Adaptability and the Pivot Penalty in Science.” ArXiv:2107.06476 [Physics], July 13, 2021. http://arxiv.org/abs/2107.06476.

An interesting take on valuing one's time.

van Lange, P., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Human Cooperation and the Crises of Climate Change, COVID-19, and Misinformation [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6tpa8

Reis, E. F. dos, & Masuda, N. (2021). Metapopulation models imply non-Poissonian statistics of interevent times. ArXiv:2106.10348 [Physics]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2106.10348

reflecting on the year after george floyd for me is that the different responses that we all have right are valid and true and authentic and they create possibilities when they're read in you know its full context um but some of what is happening or some of what the role of the the classroom or the the person is to do is to try to say this is the range of the acceptable response and i feel like as a teacher our role is to kind of say you get to choose how you want to show up but base it in something that's real that's authentic that's not just about you this but it's about the collective so how do we cultivate that connection to collectivity how do we cultivate that ethical uh commitment and conviction to one another but at the end of the day how do we allow young people and everyone really the agency um to decide how they want to like show up—Christopher R. Rogers (autogenerated transcript)

This is a powerful teaching philosophy. Return to reflect on this.

a lot of our assessment system our accountability system in education is built around being able to say oh are you on the right path and not acknowledge the multiplicity of paths or in in some ways that the uh the things that are structuring this path is oppressive to our humanity in the first place—Christopher R. Rogers (autogenerated transcript)

He very carefully encapsulates a lot of the issues we've got in modern education here. Should we worry about the "standards" like memorizing and correctly using a semicolon over acknowledging our humanity and removing focus from eudaimonia?

when i was in high school just a high school in chester pennsylvania there was like english class there was also like a card game that was happening in the back of the room and no one like asked those students what they were teaching in that card game because we were like supposed to be doing worksheets in english class but that's also an intellectual practice so like ...—Christopher R. Rogers (autogenerated transcript)

I love the idea of this parable of a card game in an English class.

Moral: Don't marginalize the card game in preference for the supposed main topic as it has its own power and value, and may in fact be more valuable to the participants and their lives than the "main conversation". Value the thing for itself and not for some perceived other thing. View it in a positive framing rather than in a negative one. Simultaneously, don't attempt to subvert it either to reframe or re-capture the topic. Let it be what it is.

you could kind of go deeper with that is um do the work of like fred moten and stephanos harney's uh black study or radical study in in the undercommons of of this idea of like um there are these molds intellectual practice you know that sometimes we don't give you know uh you know credit to or sort of like survive underneath in the subterfuge of what's happening—Christopher R. Rogers (autogenerated transcript)

He's talking about work (scholarship) that may sit outside the mainstream that for one reason or another aren't recognized (in this case, because the scholars are marginalized in a culture mired in racist ideas, colonialism, etc.). At it's roots, it doesn't necessarily make the work any more or less valuable than that in

cf. with the academic samizdat of Vladimir Bukovsky who was working under a repressive Russian government

cf similarly with the work of Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Consensus can very often only be consensus until it isn't.

How do these ideas interoperate with those of power (power over and power with)? One groups power over another definitely doesn't make them right (or just) at the end of the day.

I like the word "undercommons", which could be thought of not in a marginalizing way, but in the way of a different (and possibly better) perspective.

We can't define ethics and human values in objective terms.

We do better with algorithms where the utility function can be expressed mathematically. When we try to design for utility/goals that include human values, it's much more difficult.

Defence Force service members told to get vaccinated or face being fired. (2021, April 23). RNZ. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/441066/defence-force-service-members-told-to-get-vaccinated-or-face-being-fired

Covid-status certificate scheme could be unlawful discrimination, says EHRC | Coronavirus | The Guardian. (n.d.). Retrieved June 18, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/14/covid-status-certificates-may-cause-unlawful-discrimination-warns-ehrc?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Quote from Daniel Markovitz

This does raise the point of whether or not some of the things elites are doing is actually good or productive for society. Many are only working at privatizing profits and socializing losses which can be phenomenally caustic to society as well.

This may be the case for high-earners, but where do these people sit with respect to the higher elite or "leisure class"?

Are these hard working high-earners a new class of people that has emerged that aren't the previous elite of the mid-1900s?

What effect does the rise of finacialization (versus manufacturing or service sectors) since the 1970's have on this shift? Did these high-earners arise out of a hole in the market to service the elites on the highest rung up to make their wealth grow faster?

There seems to be a hole in this argument with respect to the prior quote:

Fifty, 60, 70 years ago, you could tell how poor somebody was by how hard they worked. Today, that relationship has been completely reversed. Elites work for a living. They work harder than they used to. They work harder in terms of brute hours than the middle class on average, and they get most of their income by working.

This could potentially be explained due to variation in Tmax. That is to say, it may not be that half life varies dramatically. Rather, absorption into the bloodstream after intramuscular injection may be the cause. I'm no expert on IM injections.

This is not surprising. It seems that L-theanine is clinically useful in the exact ways one would expect.

Twas ever thus in corporate America

From the full text, they used 5 micrograms of naltrexone. Naltrexone dose is very finicky. There's low dose (LDN), very low dose (VLDN), and ultra-low dose (ULDN). This is a ULDN. I believe the type of effects I'm looking for occur at VLDN and LDN doses. If I recall correctly, I think 2 mg is optimal for analgesia, but I don't remember whether this was with or without morphine. 0.125 mg and 0.25 mg are effective in opioid withdrawal when combined with methadone. Thus, it's not too surprising that 5 mcg had little effect. At those doses, the effects it does have are like mediated by different mechanisms.

Kravitz, D. J., Mitroff, S. R., & Bauer, P. J. (2020). Practicing Good Laboratory Hygiene, Even in a Pandemic. Psychological Science, 31(5), 483–487. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620920547

Welle (www.dw.com), D. (n.d.). ECHR rules obligatory vaccination may be necessary | DW | 08.04.2021. DW.COM. Retrieved 19 May 2021, from https://www.dw.com/en/echr-rules-obligatory-vaccination-may-be-necessary/a-57128443

Burton-Chellew, M. N., & West, S. A. (2021). Payoff-based learning best explains the rate of decline in cooperation across 237 public-goods games. Nature Human Behaviour, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01107-7

Jacobson Vann, J. C., Jacobson, R. M., Coyne‐Beasley, T., Asafu‐Adjei, J. K., & Szilagyi, P. G. (2018). Patient reminder and recall interventions to improve immunization rates. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD003941.pub3

Zhang, Juanjuan, Maria Litvinova, Yuxia Liang, Wen Zheng, Huilin Shi, Alessandro Vespignani, Cecile Viboud, Marco Ajelli, and Hongjie Yu. ‘The Impact of Relaxing Interventions on Human Contact Patterns and SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in China’. Science Advances 7, no. 19 (1 May 2021): eabe2584. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abe2584.

Choe, Hyeryun, and Michael Farzan. ‘How SARS-CoV-2 First Adapted in Humans’. Science 372, no. 6541 (30 April 2021): 466–67. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi4711.

Low incidence of side effects certainly sounds superior to atypical antipsychotics and tricyclic/tetracyclic antidepressants.

Another specific example of this has been noted by Zeynep Tufekci of an economist becoming the face of criticism of the education space being open or closed during the coronavirus pandemic. The woman, who had no background in public health or epidemiology, became the public face of the argument about whether schools should be open or closed.

The ability to set the bounds of the discussion or the problem is a classical example of "power-over" instead of power-with or power-to.

Quintana, F.-J., & Uriburu, J. (2020). Modest International Law: COVID-19, International Legal Responses, and Depoliticization (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3659460). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3659460

Wischnewski, M., Bernemann, R., Ngo, T., & Krämer, N. (2021). Disagree? You Must be a Bot! How Beliefs Shape Twitter Profile Perceptions. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/8vyxr

I want this career!

One of the major problems that underlies our society is that the police represent power-over when what we really need is power-with or power-to.

An interesting break down of power.

This may mean ritanserin is superior. Amitriptyline is a dirtier drug affecting more than just serotonin receptors. Therefore, ritanserin likely has fewer side effects. However, I'm not currently aware of any studies demonstrating this.

More context on the Basecamp story

Seems fairly innocuous corporate speak until you think about it for a minute...

Korman, Maria, Vadim Tkachev, Cátia Reis, Yoko Komada, Shingo Kitamura, Denis Gubin, Vinod Kumar, and Till Roenneberg. ‘COVID-19-Mandated Social Restrictions Unveil the Impact of Social Time Pressure on Sleep and Body Clock’. Scientific Reports 10, no. 1 (17 December 2020): 22225. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79299-7.

Betsch, Cornelia, and Philipp Sprengholz. ‘The Human Factor between Airborne Pollen Concentrations and COVID-19 Disease Dynamics’. PsyArXiv, 16 April 2021. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hw9gf.