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nihilist_1137 writes: "Zdnet has a story on how companies are looking at making gamers pay to play online games. It goes over the problem of how to make a game great but yet at the same time appealing to people who pick it up."
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You know the Microsoft destroys the night, Linux devides the day...
pants of fury, biznatches
fp!
--Crapflooder
definatly not
You can't say "but yet".
This weekend I had a hole drilled through my skull. I read that this increased one's consciousness permanently. I read about the supposed de-conditioning properties. I read about more parts of the brain working simultaneously as there would be more blood up there to help this happen. The arguments for it all seemed to be quite lengthy, quite detailed, thought out and researched, and very intelligent. The arguments against it were based solely on the opinion that it is 'crazy' and talk like, "What's more conscious than conscious?". I heard from an acquaintance on telephone that she was glad she had done it, felt more mental energy, and had days of brilliance. I came to believe that the key to a permanent consciousness increase was a hole in the skull, to restore the full brain pulsation of infancy. After several months of research, discussion, speculation, watching surgical videos and trepanation documentaries, and even an actual viewing of a trepanation, I decided I certainly did want to be trepanned, and sought a way to do it.
My girlfriend and I met a friend at the airport and took him out to dinner first, and then went home to discuss how things would go. We made a list of some things we needed that we didn't have yet. List in hand, we went out over the next two days to home medical supply stores, hardware stores, to autoclave our bits and get smocks, to a pharmacy, and some hobby shops. We picked up the drill, the gloves, sterile gauze, sheets of plastic, sodium chloride, hypodermic syringes, sterile wipes, irrigation syringe, etc. etc. After acquiring all that we needed, we set up my best friend's bedroom as the operating room and prepared to perform the operation. After talking about it at length, two of my friends who were to be present during the operation were expressing extreme apprehension due to the overall lack of experience, and one of them was really concerned that a suture was necessary and none of us were equipped or knowledgeable enough to do a good one. Not suturing could potentially cause a rather hefty amount of scarring and possibly complicate the healing process. Since we were both hesitant to proceed without my friends', and since they were scaring us a bit, we didn't do it that night.
I awoke the next morning still very much wanting to move forward with the operation. I thought to myself, "The key to more consciousness is sitting in the next room over. How can I know this and not unlock the door?" I explained my sincere desire to my girlfriend, and though she was still apprehensive, she agreed to try to be there for me if it was really what I wanted to do.
We had coated every wall of a room in plastic sheeting, had a placement tray ready (a sterilized tray to set the instruments on), had the drill sterilized and ready to go, autoclaved bits set out, etc and proceeded to trepan me. One person was to do the drilling and another was to help by passing instruments, turning the drill off and on, by holding a light in the right place at the right time, and by irrigating the wound every so often. (Irrigating is rinsing, with Sodium Chloride in this case, the blood away so the doctor can see what he/she is cutting) All was finally ready to go.
Everyone put on smocks and masks and entered the room. I had already shaved the cutting area (and two or three inches around it in every direction) with a razor and washed it w/nutri-biotic soap (kills many germs and combined with the sterile wipes we used would've even killed TB). I put on a shower cap (that had been washed with sterile wipes) and cut a square hole in it where the cutting and drilling would be done. I made the blood rush up to my head by choking myself so we could see the veins, and using a sterile pen we marked the major veins so they would be more noticeable and avoidable. We drew up 1cc of a Lidocaine/Epinephrine mix and injected it all around the area to be cut. This was done to numb my skin and nerves for the incision (the Lidocaine) and to constrict all the blood vessels in the area to decrease bleeding since head wounds bleed a lot (the Epinephrine). We waited a few minutes for the numbing action to occur, and then proceeded. My friend, using a sterile scalpel, pushed the blade in all the way to my skull and made the incision in the shape of a half-circle a little bit bigger than a nickel's size in diameter. The plan was to pull that flap back and tape it down while drilling. We just thought it'd peel away from the skull like chicken skin or something, but it did actually adhere to the skull though, so one person held the tip of the flap with forceps and another cut away the adhering tissue from below and pulled the flap back. It laid back on it's own and did not require tape. Then one person irrigated, the other applied pressure with sterile gauze, dripped a few drops of the Epinephrine on a few of the bleeder veins, and the bleeding quickly subsided to a workable level. Then we turned on the drill to speed 4.
We were using a flex-shaft Dremmel with a ball burr and a flame-shaped burr. The process would turn the bone and marrow to dust which would be rinsed away as we went, down to the meninges, at which point the brain would be pulsating visibly as our sign of success. We began drilling and the sound was resonating extremely loud through my skull. He was calm as was I, and one of was very noticeably uncomfortable, but not about to pass out or anything. We drilled and rinsed, drilled and rinsed, occasionally wiping with sterile gauze to keep it very visible. The first layer of skull was through in about 20 minutes, the marrow in about another 20 to 30, and it took about an hour to get through the final layer because of more concern then.
We slowed the drill speed to 2 or 3 and began with extreme caution, the final layer of skull between me and full pulsation. I was feeling no pain and was doing fine. The person drilling for me was sitting Indian style on the floor with my head in his lap for more control (plastic over everything including his lap, and wiped with medical hard-surface disinfectant wipes from the medical supply stores). A friend asked me to follow his finger and tested my eyes for focus, twitches, etc. He said I seemed to be fine and normal.
As it got closer, we drilled more and more slowly. At one point he hit what we thought might be meninges because it squirted a bit of blood but quickly subsided. We were still doing OK. It was just a bone vessel and we knew that it might happen once or twice more. Luckily it did not. We drilled more and more, slow and careful and eventually saw what we were fairly certain was meninges. As he said he was seeing it, I felt a shivering tingle of energy up my back and up the back of my neck. We told him how to probe to be sure.
He turned one of the bits over and tapped around in the hole. Most of it went click click, because it was hitting bone still, but one part did not make sound. He had made it through to the meninges! I saw a video of this moment, and yes, you can see the brain pulsating!
Now we just had to widen the hole. As it was being widened I felt another shiver in the same way. Minutes later, they were sure the hole could be opened no more before risking cutting scalp with the drill, so we were done. Then I sat up and had it sutured and discussed what to watch for during healing. We discussed how to clean and not to clean too much till it was healed. The follow-up cleansing has been minimal to be certain, but enough to do the trick. We are still using Sodium Chloride to clean it.
I was overjoyed. I would attribute most of the joy at being done with the whole affair, as it was months in the coming, and it was about a 3 ½ hour procedure overall. I immediately went to the bathroom after, 'cause I'd been holding it in the whole time, and then went to my place to hang out, chill, and feel the effects. The room seemed taken on an intense clarity and I was able to pay attention to my thoughts and the world around a little more simultaneously. I thought at the time that by having multiple parts of the brain starting to work a little more simultaneously, since they would have enough blood to do so, it was enabling a different faster thought process and more quickly assimilating somatic sensations my perceptions of them. I that's what was giving a clearer picture. That night I was fairly blissed and weirded out, glad to be alive and well, and out of the hospital. My major fear, even more so than a mistake happening, was that I might have to rush to the hospital and they might've committed me if I told them how the hole got there. All went smoothly though, and I was successfully trepanned! I went to bed about 5 hours later with a bandage on my head. I paid very close attention to the sensations of the veins in my head and neck. They were pulsing in an effort to establish a new equilibrium between the cerebral spinal fluid and the brain blood volume. I had achieved a return to full pulsation, rallied together with several good friends to safely pull off an ancient medical procedure, in my own home. Much like the many millions of tribes before us, we worked together to get what was needed to do the deed and do it well. I fell into a contented series of dreams. I awoke the next morning feeling even better, and still in great spirits. I attributed the growing pleasure sensations to two things: it may take varying degrees of time from body to body for the Cerebro-spinal Fluid
I had read that it increased dream memory recall, and so far this has proven to be true. I have remembered my dreams in some detail every morning since. I've also read however, that if you smoke marijuana regularly, and suddenly stop, that you begin to remember your dreams more. I stopped smoking so I could be clear on the trepanning effect. I have mostly noticed a general increase in mental energy and alertness. I haven't been drinking coffee every morning like I used to. I just wake up, and moments later I am ready to go and in good spirits. I have continued to notice an increase in clarity of thoughts, more rapid thought processes in general, and a higher degree of focus. Everything has taken on a new glow of sorts, and I feel great. I have also noticed an increase in sensitivity to somatic sensation of all kinds. I generally feel more alive, more awake, closer to the now.
I've not had a moment to ponder intense intellectual or philosophical matters, as my friend is still in town and hanging out has mostly consisted of going from one place to another, but I will keep notes of everything I notice. I believe it will take quite some time for all the changes that this will cause to actually happen and make themselves noticeable. For now, it is a mild trip, a permanent one. I will give it a week's time to see which effects remain, and which may be placebo. At present, I am glad I did it, and look forward to the rest of this life, with all eyes open.
mirror here
Once again, thanks to Gabe for the Mtn. Dew.
Also, I don't think this page is wide or long enough. Someone should go about fixing that, eh?
--Mark [Gabe's Apartment-mate]
I've been into punk since I was 12, i've been to many shows, seen many bands.
Last night I was at the usual in san jose, faction was there (really old school punk band) To celebrate the fact that one of my favorite bands as a kid was there, I thought it would be fun to go into the pit.
Well, I didn't even make it through a whole song. I was happily moshing around when some jackass standing at the side of the pit grabbed me by my jacket, and elbowed me really hard in the nose. Throbbing pain, then fluid began to pour from my eyes and my nose. Anyone who's ever been socked in the nose knows what I mean by tears. I got out of the pit, ran my hand under my nose and there was BLOOD! No shit this asshole had hit me hard enough to cause a nosebleed.
Well, one of the bouncers took notice, big ass black gorilla looking motherfucker. He grabbed the guy and tossed him out, but by that time the damage had allready been done. If this is the way punk shows are now, I really don't want to spend my money there anymore.
I guess, this is really a plea to those that go to the shows. The troublemakers I saw were all in their late teens early twenties. So this message is really for you.
How long before your behavior totally drives people away from the scene? I remember back in 1991 going to see mudhoney up at slims in SF, that show was WAY bigger than the faction last night, but there was unspoken rules of the pit back then, mainly just no hitting above the neck, and rush to help anyone that has fallen.
I sit here now, sucking blood flavored snot through my nose, thinking about how fucked up this is.
The group I went with last night, we were all in that late 20's early 30's range. We used to go to these shows till the clubs kicked us out. We would never dream of leaving in the middle of the headliners set. Yet as the violence escaladed we all slowly made our way out of the club, with barely 3 songs being played in the set.
The sad thing is, I doubt I'm ever going to a faction show again. If thier crowd has gotten this lame, fuck them. They don't deserve my money, and i'll pirate the shit outta their songs on MP3. It's not the bands fault sure, but the reason punk was so non-violent in the beginning was we had aware people like Jello Biafra telling the kids that being a violent beligerant jackass was not cool. So the kids had fun in the pit pushing and shoving, never grabbing and elbowing.
This situation has a lot of similarities to the current state of slashdot. Where we used to have a pretty good collection of smart nerds, has deteriorated into a violent mosh pit of 14yro wannabe sysadmin and programmers. All going for the pavlov dog response of karma. dolts.
Hey Cmdertaco no random number crapfloods today?