"Some German guy is running around naked. Maybe someone should do something."

--note I saw on a trail register in the Henry Mountains in March

Debbie Downer thought of the day

Evolution needed to reward us immensely for eating and fucking, but perhaps it also punishes those who think too much about evolution by making them feel depressed when they realize they can view the raison d'être of all lifeforms as just wanting to exist as long as possible and also make copies of themselves. So if we're bummed by that thought, we'll stop thinking about it because it sucks and go back to sex and chocolate.

Once in a while I'll see someone smiling big at me on a commercial and then I'll remember that this person is lying to me for money and that's just one of the things people do with each other.

Cognitive enhancement

I recently tried two supplements reported to enhance cognitive ability - piracetam and sulbutiamine. They didn't work for me, but even if they had there's an issue. If they had worked well and I could focus better and I wanted to take them every day - would that be an addiction?

Stopping piracetam and sulbutiamine was a no brainer since they didn't work for me, but in general if it's not found in nature, and there are no large placebo controlled trials for effectiveness and safety I think it's best to stay away. (Here's a cool balloon race of supplements and their trial results. All in-vitro and small trials thankfully excluded.)

atm, I'm currently testing out creatine -- for my brain, not my body. There is a mechanism for creatine in generating ATP quickly in the brain when the brain is fuel limited. (My working assumption is that more ATP equals better mental performance, but is that right?)

It disturbs me when people don't realize how limited their knowledge is.




By the time your hair is that gray you should have a sense of the great mass of how little you know. More commentary at the NYT.

I drove around camping and hiking in Utah last week and went a good distance down some fairly remote dirt roads and it was a pleasant surprise to see how many people would stop and ask if I was alright. (At what point do people start to get concerned? 10 miles on a poopy road and snow on the ground?) John Krakauer said in Eiger Dreams that once you got out far enough in the Icelandic countryside, if you happened to stumble across a home, it wouldn't be surprising to see the woman who lived there running down the driveway towards you with a pitcher of milk.



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A while back I transferred nearly all of my savings from Bank of America to another bank when they started charging me fees to transfer out. I left $13 in the account but I didn't close it down. Somehow they decided to move that money to a money market savings account (without my consent) and charge me $10.00 monthly for the privilege of making 1 cent per month. Yeah.