Witling’s Laws:

 
1. Any child who chatters nonstop at home will adamantly refuse to utter a word when requested to demonstrate for an audience.
2. Any shy, introverted child will choose a crowded public area to loudly demonstrate newly acquired vocabulary (damn, penis, etc.).

Dr. Milton. Ericson

Erickson’s Early Life:

Since Erickson was born and raised in pioneering and rural farming country, there were few medical or educational facilities. “Schooling” was simple and basic, which may be whey not one (apparently) noticed that the young Milton was experiencing the world in his own unique manner. Many of Erickson’s earliest memories dealt with the way his perceptions differed from others’ due to several constitutional problems: for one, he was colour-blind*; for another, he was tone deaf and could neither recognize nor execute the typical rhythms of music and song; and still another, he was dyslexic – problem which was indeed perplexing to his childhood mind and which he only recognized and understood by hindsight many, many years later. *(There is common myth that Erickson could see only the color purple as a result of a rare type of colour blindness. According to Betty Erickson, this was not true. Milton had a common type of red-green blindness called “dichromatopsia.” Purple became his favourite color, but he probably perceived it as a kind of darkened blue. Betty suggest that he chose purple early on because at that time it was rarely used for garments – and Milton thoroughly enjoyed being different. Eventually purple became his own personal trademark.)

The misunderstandings, inconsistencies and confusions that arose because of these deviations from the common, everyday world view might have inhibited another person’s mental functioning. In the young Milton, however, these differences apparently had the opposite effect: they stimulated wonderment and curiosity. More importantly, they led to secession of unusual experiences which formed he foundation for a lifetime of research into the relativity of human perception and the problems that arose because of it; and into therapeutic approaches dealing with those problems. (p. 5)

One day, when he was in his early seventies, Erickson recounted and discussed some of these experiences with me and fellows: As a six-year-old child Erickson was apparently handicapped with dyslexia. Try as she might, his teacher could not convince him that a “3″ and an “m” were not the same. One day the teacher wrote a 3 and then an m by guiding his hand with her own. Still Erickson could not recognize the difference. Suddenly he experienced a spontaneous visual hallucination in which he saw the difference in a blinding flash of light. (P.5-6)

Erickson: “Can you imagine how bewildering it is? Then one day, it’s so amazing, there was a sudden burst of atomic light. I saw the m and I saw the 3. The m was standing on its legs and the 3 was on its side with the legs sticking out. The blinding flash of light! It was so bright! It cast into oblivion every other thing. There was a blinding flash of light and in the centre of that terrible outburst of light was the 3 and the m.” (p. 6)

Depth of trance:

“You want to go into trance; you want to achieve certain results. You don’t know whether it’s a light trance, a deep trance, or a medium trance that you want , and neither do I. I think you and I ought to let your unconscious mind us whatever amount of light trance, whatever amount of medium trance, and whatever about of deep trance that your unconscious naturally feels will be most helpful.” (p. 133)

The Permissive Technique:

Now I would like to discuss the matter of producing results.

When you want to ask your patient to do something. I think it is a very serious error not to ask him first to cooperate with you – unless, of course, you have a specific reason for not doing so. I like to use a permissive technique. In certain cases, however, you may need to use the authoritative technique: “I want you to move your finger.” When a patient rouse from trance in the middle of his operation the anaesthesiologist can say very sweetly but very emphatically: “Now, that you have awakened and you notice that everything is fine, you might as well go right back to sleep.” And the anaesthesiologist ought to mean that and to say it in a sufficiently authoritative fashion so that the patient responds. But to elicit the cooperation of the patient one ought to be permissive for best results. One really ought to ask the patient to cooperate in achieving a common goal. You should keep in mind the common goal is a goal for the welfare of the patient wherein the patient is cooperating with you to achieve something that primarily is of benefit to him. (P.165-166)

PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE:

Hypnosis has long been recognized by people, but its history in terms of scientific recognition has been rather short. That is because hypnosis has been regarded as a matter of mysticism, cultism, and superstition. (But hypnosis is really a matter of mental mechanisms,) and why shouldn’t science be interested in the function of those mechanisms: The brain cells do control the body in a great variety of ways – neurologically, physiologically, and psychologically as well.

Hypnosis really got its start in modern medicine in the second decade of this century when people became interested in that peculiar concept called “psychosomatic medicine.” Frances Durbar was very much criticized and ostracized when she first began her studies on psychosomatic medicine, because who on earth was going to believe that business worries or marital worries, or any kind of worries in the head could result in ulcers of the stomach!

Yet, the general public adopted that notion, understanding that worries, be they real or imaginary, could produce a great many physical complaints and physiological alterations. And because that general public go behind the notion of psychosomatic medicine, the physicians who were so dubious about it were literally forced to consider and investigate it. With this recognition of the importance of brain/mind functioning on the rest of the body and the subsequent development of psychosomatic medicine, provision was made at last for the induction of hypnosis as an adjunctive technique in the practice of medicine. (p 181)

PSYCHOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF PAIN:

 To understand pain still further you must realize that it is a neuro-, psycho-, physiological compels characterized by various understandings of tremendous significance to the sufferer. It is precisely for this reason that pain as an experience is amenable to hypnotic treatment. Because pain varies in nature and intensity, it acquires many and varying secondary meanings to the individual in the course of a lifetime, and this in turn, results in widely varying interpretations of it. Thus the patient may regard his pain in temporal terms – experiencing it as transient, recurrent, persistent, acute, chronic; or he may regard it in emotional terms – finding it irritating, troublesome, all-compelling, incapacitating, distressing, depressing, intractable, vitally dangerous; or he may regard it in terms of sensation – experiencing it as dull, heavy, draggy, sharp, cutting, twisting, burning, nagging, stabbing, lancinating, biting, cold, hot, hard, grinding, throbbing, gnawing, and a wealth of other adjectival terms. (p. 221) It is awfully important to have your patient describe his pain in his own words, and to have him describe it fully. (p. 221-222)

TRANCE DEEPENING AS FUNCTION OF PATIENT NEED:

Regarding this matter of deepening hypnosis, I have found that often too much effort is put into deepening a hypnotic trance. My feeling is that patients should go no deeper into trance than they need to go. Therefore, I tell my patients the following: “Now, some patients need to go very deeply into hypnosis and some patients can accomplish everything they need to accomplish while they are a very light stage of hypnosis. Neither you nor I know what degree of hypnosis is requisite for you, but I think you are willing to develop that degree of hypnosis that is requisite for you to give your full attention to the therapeutic accomplishments that you need. I think that you are willing to develop that degree of hypnosis that is requisite for you to accomplish the therapeutic achievements that you desire.” (p. 248)

I state it in such a way that patients are free to be in a light, a medium trance, or a deep trance. I have not made an issue out of going deeper; I have not made an issue out of staying in a light trance; I have not made an issue out of staying in a medium trance. I have simply made an issue out of going as deeply as they need to go. Why should patients go any deeper than they need to go? If you are afraid of deep water, why not swim in water that is shallow?; after all, you can swim in water that is thirty feet deep! Why not let your patients have that same freedom? (p. 248-249)

MILTON ERICKSON ON FREUD AND FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS: JEFFREY ZEIG: A TEACHING SEMINAR WITH MILTON ERICKSON: BRUNNER/MAZEL: NY: 1980:

You see, I don’t believe in Freudian psychoanalysis. Freud did contribute a lot of good ideas to psychiatry and psychology. A lot of ideas that psychiatrists and psychologists should have found out for themselves and not waited for Freud to tell them. And he also invented that religion called “psychoanalysis”-wherein that religion or therapy fits all people, of both sexes, at all ages, in all cultures, in all situations. And situations where Freud himself didn’t know what those situations were.

Psychoanalysis fits all problems in all times. Freud analyzed Moses. And I am willing to bet anything that Freud never had any contact of any sort with Moses. He didn’t even know what Moses looked like, yet Freud analyzed him. And life in the time of Moses was far different from life in the time of Freud. And Freud analyzed Edgar Allen Poe from his writings, his letters and newspaper stories. I think any doctor who tries to diagnose appendicitis from an author’s stories and his letters to his friends and newspaper stories about him ought to be committed. (Erickson laughs.) Yet Freud analyzed Edgar Allen Poe on gossip, hearsay and Poe’s writings. He didn’t know a thing about the man. And Freudian disciples have analyzed Alice in Wonderland. And Alice in Wonderland is entirely fictional. The analysts analyzed it, though. And in Freudian psychology, whether you are an only child or one of 11, the only child has as many sibling rivalries as a child with 10 brothers and sisters. There is the father fixation and the mother fixation, even if the child never knows who his father was. There is always an oral fixation, anal fixation, Oedipus complex, Electra complex. The mere truth doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a religion. And I am very grateful to Freud for the concepts he contributed to psychiatry and psychology. And he also discovered that cocaine was an anaesthetic for the eyes. (103)

MILTON ERICKSON ON PSYCHOANALYSIS:

 Now I told you how I corrected that bed wetter. Because I didn’t have much to do that day, I saw her for an hour and a half. That was really more time than she needed. I know that a lot of my fellow therapists could have spent two, or three, or four, or five years. A psychoanalyst could have spent ten years on her.

I remember a very bright resident in psychiatry that I had. He got it in his head that he wanted to learn psychoanalysis, so he (104) went to Dr. S, a Freudian disciple. There were two leading psychoanalysts in Detroit. Dr. B and Dr. S. Those of us who didn’t like psychoanalysis called Dr. B, “The Pope,” and Dr. S, “Little Jesus.” And my very bright resident went to “Little Jesus.” In fact three of my residents did so. And Dr. S. told my brightest resident in the very first meeting that he would have to be therapeutically analyzed for six years. Five days a week for six years. And then he explained that he would have to be analyzed for six more years in a didactic analysis. The first meeting, he said 12 years for Alex. And he told Alex, his wife, who “Little Jesus” had never seen, would also have to have six years of therapeutic analysis. And my resident underwent 12 years of psychoanalysis; his wife underwent six years. “Little Jesus” said that they couldn’t have a baby until he said so. And I thought that Alex was a very, very bright young psychiatrist.

Now Dr. S said he did orthodox analysis the same way Freud did. And he had the three residents, A, B, and C. A had to park his car in parking lot A; B had to park his car in parking lot B; and C had to park his car in parking lot C. A came in at one O= clock and left at 1: 50. He came in one door; “Little Jesus” shook hands with him. He lay down on the couch and “Little Jesus” moved his chair to the left side of the couch, 18 inches beyond Alex’s head and 14 inches off to one side. When analysand B came in, he came in this door and left by another door. He laid down on the couch and “Little Jesus” was 14 and 18 inches to the left.

All three analysands were treated the same way-Alex for six years, B for five years and C for five years. And I think of what a crime it was, because Alex and his wife were very much in love, and to have “Little Jesus” tell them to wait 12 years for parenthood is an outrage.

Now here is another bedwetting case:

A 12-year-old boy came in for bed wetting-12 years old, six feet tall, a very big boy. His parents came with him, and told me how they had punished him for bedwetting. They rubbed his face in the wet bed, and deprived him of desserts; deprived him of playing with his playmates. (105) They scolded him. They spanked him. They made him wash his own bed linen, make his own bed, and deprived him of water beginning at 12 noon. And Joe went to bed every night for 12 years and Joe wet his bed every night for 12 years.

Finally his parents brought him to me in the first week of January. I said, “Joe, you are a big boy now. I want you to hear what I have to say to your parents. Parents, Joe is my patient and nobody interferes with my patient. And, mother, you are going to wash Joe’s bed. You are not going to scold him. You are not going to deprive him of anything. You are not going to say anything about his wet bed. And you, father, you are not going to punish him or deprive him. You treat him as if he didn’t wet the bed, as if he is a model son. I have everything to say about Joe.”

I put Joe in a light trance and said, “joe, listen to me. You’ve been wetting beds for 12 years, and learning to have a dry bed takes time for everybody. In your case it’s taking more time than usual. That’s all right. You’re entitled to take your time in learning to have a dry bed. Now this is the first week in January. I don’t think it would be reasonable for you to have a dry bed in less than a month, and February is a very short month, so I don’t know whether you want to quit wetting the bed on April Fool’s Day.”

Now to a 12-year-old the first week of January is a long, long time before St. Patrick’s Day, before April Fool’s Day. That is, to a childish mind. And I said, “joe, it’s nobody’s business whether you quit wetting the bed on 51. Patrick’s day or on April Fool’s Day. It’s not even my business. That is a secret that belongs to you.”

In June his mother came to me and said, “Joe has had a dry bed for I don’t know how long. I just happened to notice today that his bed has been dry every morning for quite a long time.” She didn’t know when the dry beds began. Neither did I. It might have been on St. Patrick’s Day. It might have been on April Fool’s Day. That’s Joe secret. His mother and father didn’t know about the dry bed until June.

Now another 12-year-old boy who wet the bed every night for (106) 12 long years. His father rejected the boy, wouldn’t even speak to the boy. And when mother brought him in to tell me, I had Jim sit in the waiting room while mother told me the story. She gave me two valuable items of information. Father had wet the bed until he was 19. Mother’s brother had wet the bed until he was about 18.

Mother felt very sympathetic toward the son. She thought that his bedwetting might be inherited. So I told the mother, “I will talk to Jim in your presence. You listen carefully to everything I say. And you do everything that I tell you to do. Jim will do everything that I tell him to do.”

I called Jim in and said, “Jim, I found out all about your bed× wetting from your mother and I know you want to have a dry bed. That is something that you have got to learn. And I know a sure way for you to have a dry bed. Of course, like all other learning, it’s hard work. I know you will want a dry bed enough to work for it, just like you had to do hard work to learn how to write. Now this is what I am going to ask you and your family to do. Your mother says that seven o’clock in the morning is the time the family gets up. All right, I’ve told your mother to set the clock for five o’clock in the morning and she is to come into your bedroom and feel your bed. If she feels wetness, she is to awaken you and the two of you will go to the kitchen, turn on the lights, and you will start copying some book. You can choose the book.” He chose The Prince and the Pauper.

“And, mother, you like to sew, knit and crochet, and make patchwork quilts. You will sit in the kitchen with Jim while Jim copies this book he has chosen. You will sit silently sewing or knitting or crocheting, from five in the morning until seven. That’s giving enough time so that Jim will dress and father will dress. Then, you will prepare breakfast, and a regular day will take place. And each morning at five o’clock you will feel Jim’s bed. If it is wet you will awaken Jim and take him out to the kitchen without a word and start your sewing, and Jim starts his copying of the book. And each Saturday you bring over the copy work to me.”

I sent Jim out and said, “Now, mother, you’ve heard what I (107) said. Here is one thing that 1 didn’t say. Jim heard me say you are to feel his bed and if it is wet he is to be awakened and taken to the kitchen to do his copy work. Some morning, Jim’s bed will be dry. You go back quietly to bed and sleep till seven o’clock. You wake up, then wake up Jim and apologize for having overslept.

Within a week, Mother found the bed dry, so she went back to bed and apologized at seven o’clock for oversleeping. 1 saw him the first of July; by the last of July, Jim had a dry bed every night. And his mother kept on oversleeping and not awakening him.

Because 1 had made my message that mother would check the bed, and if she finds it wet, “You will get up and copy.” And if you look at that sentence carefully, it means, “Your mother will touch your bed and if it is wet, you will get up and copy.” The opposite implication is, “If it is dry, you won’t wake up.” So a month later, Jim had his dry bed. And his father took him fishing, his father’s favorite sport.

Now there was family therapy there to be done. I had mother do some sewing. She was sympathetic. And as she sat there in the kitchen sewing, Jim couldn’t look upon being awakened and asked to copy a book as punishment. He was learning something.

And in the office, 1 had Jim come over and see me. 1 took out all his copy work, arranged chronologically. And Jim looked at the first page and said, “That’s awful. I missed some words, and 1 misspelled some. 1 missed whole lines. That writing is awful.” And as we turned the pages in chronological order, Jim looked more and more pleased. His writing improved and his spelling improved. He didn’t miss words or sentences. By the time he got to the end of his writing he was very pleased.

After he went back to school for a couple of weeks-three weeks -1 called him over and asked him how he was getting along in school. He said, “You know, it’s funny. Nobody ever liked me at school before. Nobody would play with me. I was very unhappy in school, and I got poor grades. Now this year, I am the captain of the baseball team and I am getting A’s and B’s instead of D’s and F’s.” All 1 had done was reorient Jim about Jim. (108) And Jim’s father, whom I had never met, took Jim out fishing after disowning the boy for years and years. His poor work at school-he found out that he could really write well, copy well. So he took that knowledge to school with him. He knew he was good in writing, thus he was able to find out that he was good at playing and socializing. That was therapy for Jim.

I-f, Ferenc van der Sluijs, het geweten van de vaderlandse electro of eigenlijk dance, is geïnterviewd door Fact Magazine. Ook in Engeland weten ze dat I-f niet de minste is.

Hoewel het interview vooral over de radio-activiteiten van Van der Sluijs gaat, laat hij het niet na om nog wat om zich heen te meppen, zoals we van hem gewend zijn.

“Electro was once something to be proud of but now you’d rather not be identified with it”, zegt hij. En: “Making music nowadays is really easy if you have zombies as an audience.”

Leuk leesvoer dus. Alleen wordt er een wonderlijk onderscheid gemaakt tussen West-Nederland en Oost-Nederland. Alsof de muzikale verschillen zo groot zijn, maar dat kan een Britse preoccupatie zijn.

How much blood has been spilled in Afghanistan? It is very difficult to say; official estimates speak of an improbable 12,000 to a more probable, but still conservative, 32,000 casualties. Of these deaths, the “insurgents” of various affiliations (so not only the Taliban) would have been responsible, according to very conservative statistics, for almost a sixth. Certainly, as repugnant as they may be, the suicide bombers and road-side bombs as well as the Taliban’s punitive and revenge killings cannot be compared to the 30000lb air-bombs dropped by NATO.  

Despite all the calculations to avoid “collateral damage” behind the decision to air-strike an Afghan village in order to kill a supposed Taliban leader, the result may be disastrous, with the cost being, even from an arid military perspective, counterproductive. The Nobel Laureate President Obama is pondering whether to give in or not to the request of some US Generals to increase the US military presence and increase the use of force to achieve the aim of a democratic, secure — or at least less deadly–Afghanistan which might in turn secure the US and international community from another 9/11.

Leave aside that a “safe” Afghanistan does not equate to a safe world, it appears that operation Enduring Freedom, which has come at a high price (also for American and British families), is surely enduring but sadly unsuccessful in providing any real freedom to the Afghan people.

Indeed, the Afghan population has not even enjoyed the minimal right that any democracy, as young as it may be, should guarantee: a fair election of its leaders. The Afghan elections have been a total farce in which western democracies have legitimated a massive undemocratic fraud.  No democratic state, and certainly not the ones which today affirm that the election result  in Afghanistan is fully legitimate, would accept for itself what currently exists in Afghanistan.  But is the Afghan “democracy’ really the prize at stake for the sea of blood and suffering that Enduring Freedom has become? Is it really for fear of the Taliban returning? And are the Taliban really interested today in controlling Kabul and entering back onto the international political stage?

Afghanistan has many resources (leaving aside the strategic value of the country) and surely the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s would not have spent so much money and blood to merely export their political beliefs. You do not need to search very far to discover (and the mass media have been quite silent about this) that entire pieces of the country, together with resource potential, are now ready for auction: from iron deposits to import investment.

How much of these resources will remain in the hands of the Afghan people? Local businesses and entrepreneurs will face an impossible level of competition from international companies and stock holders. Recently, even the telecommunications company, Afghan Telecom, has been privatized - and I tend to guess that the investors will not be Afghans. It is also clear that the main interest is aimed at building the economy first and the civil society later, so that a fake democracy is acceptable and the economic parameters for growing foreign investment are respected. Yet corruption is surely less acceptable.

Unsurprisingly, instead of clear calls for new and fair elections, the UN and the US have asked the questionable Karzai to stand firm against endemic corruption. Of course, here we are not speaking of the village system of gift exchange, so often studied by anthropologists, but rather the politicians’ interest in those above economic activities; in other words, traditional western-style political bribery. Indeed, the World Bank and the IMF are a very distant reality for the great majority of Afghans today.

Afghanistan is a rural country with a high level of unemployment. How many Afghan citizens have access and the possibility to partake in economic games orchestrated by international players? Likely, the answer is very few and quite probably those same individuals who control Afghan political life.

The few Afghans who are able to enjoy the wealth directed towards the devastated country are those whom either engage in bribery, thanks to their being of Karzai’s entourage, or have the right connections with western companies. The reality is a divided country with few rich and a mass of desperate people whom, expecting democracy, have seen only the decadence of corruption.

Not surprisingly, an increasing number of young people turned to the “Islamic Emirate” (the name the Taliban use for their regime in Afghanistan) not only to express their frustration but also for their livelihood. Fighting, often, is just a matter of choice between risking a bullet or slowly decaying in humiliating poverty.  Meanwhile, in stately homes, Kabul parasites from the failed operation Enduring Freedom are shielded, through electoral fraud and tribal kinship, from the real consequences of a democratic and proper juridical system.

Let us observe where the “Western money” is going in Afghanistan:

1. $57 The foreign aid per capita to Afghanistan
2. $250,000 Typical salary of foreign consultants in Afghanistan, including 35 percent hardship allowance and 35 percent danger money. Afghan civil servants typically receive less than $1,000 a year.
3. $22bn The shortfall in donations compared to the international community’s estimate of Afghanistan’s need – around 48 per cent.
4. 40 percent Share of international aid budget returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries – more than $6bn since 2001.
5. $7m Daily aid spend in Afghanistan. The daily military spend by the US government is around $100m.

You do not need to have a great sense of intuition to understand what the war in Afghanistan is all about. It is about plutocracy covered up as democracy. I am not surprised that the so-called Taliban have, despite some atrocities committed, the support of a considerable part of the countryside population, and consequently can resist and even keep in check the almighty NATO.

Corruption and nepotism were endemic in Afghanistan long before the Russians or the Americans entered the country in an attempt to impose their social political and economic systems. Yet those acts of corruption, nepotism and even oppression where performed within the framework of a cultural context that was acknowledged and known to the majority. Not that this made it less painful and frustrating, but it made it familiar. The degeneration of the western model of democracy today, as it was at the time of Athens, is a mix of unplanned imperialism, fear of the ‘other’, a search for the ‘enemy within’, and an increasing oligarchic plutocracy.

This model is something that the Afghan people have been, without real consultation, asked to test, accept and live with. Eight years of suffering have offered the great majority nothing tangibly better than the poverty they were used to, the violence, killing and rape they suffered before, as well as both a lack of security and real future.

Yet the model has added an element of irony to this depressing reality: after witnessing the movement of wealth on their land, the likes of which has been unknown in centuries, which only a choice few (and this time without the mediation of the tribe, the clan and the village structure) can grasp through the mysterious system of global “democratic” neoliberalism,  poverty and suffering in long beards, burqu’ and thobe may seem both more familiar and even illusorily just .

I read this blog post over at Kiss Kiss Bang Bang today and my immediate reaction was ‘hear, hear!’

The writer’s point being that just because she has chosen to work in the porn industry (be it artistic or mainstream) and there are now photos and videos of her nude body & being sexual  out on the web, it doesn’t give you the right to be rude or disrespectful.

She talks about the misconception some viewers have that the women who appear in porn are all “hot sluts just gagging for it” (with them). They’re not.

What you as the viewer (and hopefully purchaser) of the porn videos get from the experience of viewing is your own, individual experience. Enjoy your fantasies as you watch. That’s what the sites, photos and flicks are there for. But don’t assume, don’t transfer your feelings on to the person on the screen.

What the women and men who make porn get out of the experience, well, that’s their own thing.

If you’re going to email or contribute to a forum with the contributors (the stars), don’t continue on with your fantasy. Be polite, be respectful. For goodness sake, be downright grateful! For without these willing stars, there would be no decent, ethical porn vids to watch.

For the readers of this post unaware of the existence of decent, respectful, ethical porn, I direct you over to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s blog again.  She has lots of nice, sexy links. Click.

Kara says:

 Good day!

Amanda says:

 HOLA

Kara says:

 Tell me about your weekend

Amanda says:

 I’m trying to think of some things haha

 you?

 I’m increasingly interested in porn

Kara says:

 hahaha well that’s interesting, what kind of porn?

Amanda says:

A friend mentioned it to me

 it’s like nothing I’ve seen. I’m not a huge porn person. But it’s pretty great

 the women aren’t ridiculously good looking etc.

 www.ifeelmyself.com

Kara says:

 and what do you find interesting about this?

Amanda says:

 its honesty maybe.

Kara says:

 What do you, personally find great about it?

Amanda says:

shut up

 this isn’t an interview

 look for yourself.

 How was your weekend?

Kara says:

 yes it is.

 hahaha

 I had an amazing weekend, Friday I was at a house party and I got extremely fucked up, I don’t remember half of it. Saturday I went to visit my aunt kim, and met a couple of pagans. I had a huuuge conversation with them.

 It was amazing, they inspired me, and one of them looked like stevie nicks.

Amanda says:

 ha ha. Inspired you how?

Kara says:

 They just had really free and good and positive energy, it was beautiful.

Amanda says:

 that is beautiful. That’s how I felt about the show I went to on Friday

Kara says:

 What’d you see?

Amanda says:

 It was a cd release party for “My Lovely Son” and the woman that opened was incredible.

 Nikole Texidor

Kara says:

 ahhh i see, what kind of music do they play?

Amanda says:

 it’s hard to explain, just check it out: www.myspace.com/mylovelyson

 So house party how was that?

Kara says:

 It was fucked, they called it a swingers party, which ha-ha funny its not really going to be a swingers party….but it was with the kind of people that it could have turned into an actual swingers party and not surprised anyone.

 I remember people wearing fur coats and panties…

 dance parties, and that’s all I recall

Amanda says:

 that’s pretty hot depending on the people.

 I want to get into photography I think.

 that would be a nice start.

Kara says:

 It was fantastic. I think that is a beautiful hobby, you should think about it. I’ve been thinking about buying a nice camera

 and getting my friend ryan to teach me how to take pretty pictures.

Amanda says:

 On a completely unrelated note. Your thoughts on porn?

Kara says:

 I’m down with porn, I find the concept interesting, I enjoy hearing about what people are into, it’s always shocking, and generally very different from how their own bedroom romps.

 operate.

 hahaha

Amanda says:

“This stuff is pretty artistic: “IFM is a project that defies categorisation. Our society tends to draw distinctions between pornography and erotica, art and sex. We desire to allow them to intersect without exclusivity, and we want to cross the borders between these categories to create a holistic erotic experience. “

it is quite cool.

Kara says:

 thats quite a mission statement.

 its ballsy.

 hahaha

Do you think it’s as tasteful as they are saying it is?

 in your opinion.

Amanda says:

 Yes.

 for the most part.

 I don’t have much to compare it to but it reminds me of this grassroots lesbian erotica film series I watched last year. This woman who wanted to depict a less stereotypical lesbian sex experience

 it’s tough though right because it’s all generalities.

 I like something with a story. Drama. Tension.

Kara says:

 climax. hahaha

 I can’t say I really look that deeply into things, i’m going to have to inspect this tasteful porn. I’ll be honest here though, while i’m all for porn, i just don’t get the point.

 I’d rather make my own.

Amanda says:

 how so?

Kara says:

 I think that would be more interesting to watch.

Amanda says:

 I agree…but it can become problematic.

Kara says:

 more so then…”wow, that womans pussy squirted 12′, how’d she do it?”

 ya know

Amanda says:

 I get a kick out of people who get paid to review porn

 tough day at the office for a writer.

Kara says:

 I think it would be awful. How do you make the most natrual human interaction fresh every day?

Amanda says:

  by using lots of consonance and assonance.

Kara says:

 how many different ways can we say hot pussy

 hahaha

Amanda says:

  you would be surprised.

chaud chat.

Kara says:

 hahaha

 jesus, tell me something exciting.

Amanda says:

 hardly

 I’ve been up to my eyeballs in a book proposal

Kara says:

 oooo

Amanda says:

 you’re the unemployed freshly single person

 are you not?

Kara says:

 I am. and I have stories…off the record stories though

Amanda says:

 booo

Kara says:

 it has to be that way.

 hahaha

Amanda says:

 you’re an asshole.

 how’s living in your parent’s basement?

Kara says:

 It’s not so bad, my mom is a sweetheart. I could see how it might be rough if she was a gay hater, but i know I could bring home 5 lesbians at any given time for any given reason, and she really wouldn’t care. Not that i’d want to bring anyone to moms basement.

 But its nice knowing she’d be fine with that.

 haha

Amanda says:

 it might be a turn off.

  I have been wheeling and dealing on craigslist for cheap furniture

Kara says:

 ohh anything particular your looking for?€

 I need a bed.

 haha

Amanda says:

 a bed would be nice. kitchen table and chairs. couch. jukebox. etc.

Kara says:

 ooooooo

 going all out

Amanda says:

 Ash and I really want to make it our own little nest. One item at a time.

 it will all be second hand

 vintage living

Kara says:

 mmmm sweet.

 thats how it happens…one item at a time…

 should the worst happen, remember, anything you want you have to move.

 juuuuust sayin

 haha

Amanda says:

 You feeling bitter?

 haha

Kara says:

 a little. but is that so wrong?

Amanda says:

 No. Are you undergoing the castration complex from losing your tv?

Kara says:

 Oh god no, it has nothing to do with things at all. I couldn’t care less about the tv at this point. What frustrates me is…

 fuck.

 hahaha

 I don’t even know how to explain it… it still beyond words at this point.

Amanda says:

 hahahha

  you should write about it!

Kara says:

 I know I should…. that’s another thing I’ve been thinking about…writing.

 just to sort things out ya know

 a lot of silly stuff has been happening and I’d like to have it written down before it gets lost in the fog

Amanda says:

Goodnight dear. I’m going to get lost in the fog.

ifm close

IFM: Closed my position in Infomedia today at 0.38 for a 2.5% loss.  And this is annoying.  Small loss, but this one frustrates me.

This is my worst exit in a while – 3 clear exit signals where given to me, but I held on thinking I might at least close out even.  BIG MISTAKE.

The price fell through my trailing stop loss (first circle in the picture), then on the third day hit the uptrend line I had on my chart – and fell through that too.  The price then tracked along the bottom of the trendline before taking a dive again yesterday.

Yes I still reckon the share may recover – but that is irrelevant – I didn’t stick to the plan….I should exit, observe from the sidelines and jump back in when the conditions are right.

I have been lucky actually – if this was the market about a year ago, a break below that trendline and the buyers would have been heading for the exits leaving me with a rapidly falling stock price and the commensurate hole in the pocket.  It must be a bull market – they reckon anyone can make money in a bull market – and I got out lightly here.

Repeat … trade the plan … repeat … trade the plan …

all open

ALL:  Opened a position in Aristcrat Leisure today for the first time in years, at 5.06.

I was drawn towards the share from the market heat map, which showed higher price movement than usual.  A review of the daily chart showed:

• break through downwards trendline yesterday
• new mid term high today
• 200 day SMA turned up about a month ago
• good volume

On top of this the share was in a consolidation pattern for some time – so lets see if it shakes off the shackles of the bottoming process.

Whatever happens – follow the plan!

7th win of the season for championship leader Jules Bianchi in the Saturday race at Barcelona ahead of Alexander Sims, the Brit repeating the result on Sunday from 7th on the grid Renger van der Zande scored the first Formula 3 Euroseries win for Team Motopark Academy from Pole Position on his comeback in the series after competing in the British F3 Championship this year.

- Alexander Rossi wins the final International Formula Master round of the season at Imola
- Gabriele Tarquini wins Race 1 of the WTCC round at Imola ahead of Yvan Muller and Rob Huff
- Also at Imola newly crowned Formula 2 champion Andy Soucek wins the Sunday race of the series

Siebter Saisonsieg für Tabellenleader Jules Bianchi im Samstagrennen in Barcelona vor Alexander Sims, der Brite wiederholte am Sonntag sogar das Resultat von Startplatz 7 aus, während Renger van der Zande bei seiner Rückkehr aus der britischen F3 von der Pole Position aus der Motopark Academy den allererste Sieg in der Formel-3-Euroserie bescherte.

- Alexander Rossi gewinnt den Finallauf der Internationalen Formel Master in Imola
- Gabriele Tarquini siegt in Rennen 1 der WTCC in Imola vor Yvan Muller und Rob Huff
- Andy Soucek gewinnt als neuer Champion das Sonntagsrennen der Formel 2 in Imola;

ipl open

IPL:  Opened a position in Incitec Pivot today at $2.95 on market opening this morning.  Incitec has been a reasonably volatile mover over the last couple of years, and has been a reasonable earner for me in the past.  The share has been at its highs for the year lately, and has just dipped to the previous medium term high.

I’m using this previous resistance as a potential support point – but I wont actually know for a while.  This does allow a tight stop to be set however which is good from a risk management perspective.

ifm pyramid entry

IFM:  Increased my position in Infomedia today by placing another buy at $0.415.  The share actually took quite a dip during the days trade when the bears dragged it down in early trade, but it recovered healthily closing near the high.

Readings… Change on the Horizon?

Looking at Stockgawk, there is an interesting article where Andrew Finkle talks about his reasons why he thinks we’re about to see a reversal… a key item he mentions that I have observed is

The past few days have shown a lot of Dojis. … a Doji is a reversal day – where price gets rejected … This makes me think back to Ralph Block … who used to say “Volatility is the precursor to a change in trend.”

Looking at my recent trades (published here and my unlisted ones) I am seeing price fluctuations that, whilst bearish in the short term, seem ‘undecided’ when looked at over a slightly longer period of time.  I listen to the talk at work, and its like everyone is waiting… this is not the increased excitement I was detecting just a couple of weeks ago.

So, as you may have noticed I trade more to the bull side of the market, but this is more affected by the sorts of trades I can comfortably pull off.  As I have a full time day job I don’t tend to make trading decisions by day, I just act on earlier plans – but in my experience to play the short side of the market (with options / warrants / CFD’s) I need a closer contact with the market in order to maintain a chance of securing profits I might make – the speed of movement isn’t always in my favour in those areas.

So – why did his article resonate with me?  Well, many have heard of the magazine front page effect, ie: when everyones talking about it, you are probably too late.  I had one of those moments tonight – on the news here in Australia there was a commentator who said “Its a champagne moment for Australia” when commenting that we had effectively dodged a bullet as far as the economic crisis is concerned.  I spose you had to see the gentlemans exhuberance.  What I saw, combined with my recent views of the market, has me pulling my stops in on my plans, and keeping a close eye.  Despite me having issues managing short trades – that doesn’t mean I don’t enact the plan!

Anyway, US market down looking undecided in the first 2 hours of trade, and I need to know how that goes before I set my entry trades for the open – if I do at all!

Tracklist

1. Sauveur Mallia – Blue Lazer // Automation // Tele Music (TM 3078)

2. Unit Black Flight – No Turning Back (Legowelt Remix) // Where is Carlos ? // Strange Life
Records // SLR 010

3. Heinrich Dressel – Fohat Digs Holes in the Amphora // Mons Testaceum // Strange Life Records // SLR 013

von: Marco Tulio Thrash News Wire

ewc close

EWC: Closed today in two peices as the price fell after the first sale – my tweet said a lightening in position, but soon after I closed the full position – for a gain of 3%.  Note the similarity of the last few days to the graph in yesterdays post for the closing of the CHC position.  Anyway, did not quite break the stop loss, but considering the acceleration of some parts of the market, combined with the ‘lower low’, I thought it prudent to cut the trade.

ifm monthly

IFM: Opened a position in Infomedia today at 0.37 – just look at the monthly graph to the right.  From the monthly graph the telling signs that have caught my interest are the low and declining volume over the last 6 months, combined with a volume spike just prior to the share price pushing aggressively through the down trend.  Below is the daily graph.

The share was located on a heat map by my broker with high volume today. I have sketched in the volume on the bottom of the graph.

ifm (Infomedia) today

Reasons for entry:

• volume spike about a month ago  to start uptrend
• volume spike today
• gap up
• impressive break of monthly downtrend

The factors I can see against this entry are:

• I’d expect a retracement after this level of run-up
• Possible H&S bottom over the last months indicating that I have entered just short of the standard price projection expectation of a H&S bottom formation.

Anyway, lets see how we go.

Stefan Fuchs and Gerd Hirzinger

Recently, ToF-cameras have attracted attention because of their ability to generate a full 2 1/2 D depth image at video frame rate. Thus, ToF-cameras are suitable for real-time 3D tasks such as tracking, visual servoing or object pose estimation. The usability of such systems mainly depends on an accurate camera calibration. In this work a calibration process for ToF-cameras with respect to the intrinsic parameters, the depth measurement distortion and the pose of the camera to a robot’s endeffector is described. The calibration process is not only based on the monochromatic images of the camera but also uses its depth values that are generated from a chequer-board pattern. The robustness and accuracy of the presented method is assessed applying it to randomly selected shots and comparing the calibrated measurements to a ground truth obtained from a laser scanner.

Stefan Fuchs and Stefan May

This paper presents a method for precise surface reconstruction with time-of-flight (TOF) cameras. A novel calibration approach which simplifies the calibration task and doubles the camera’s precision is developed and compared to current calibration methods. Remaining errors are tackled by applying filter and error distributing methods. Thus, a reference object is circumferentially reconstructed with an overall mean precision of approximately 3mm in translation and 3 deg in rotation. The resulting model serves as quantification of achievable
reconstruction precision with TOF cameras. This is a major criteria for the potential analysis of this sensor technology, that is firstly demonstrated within this work.

SP0013

What the IMF says about the World Crisis

By Juan Chamero, from Caece University at Buenos Aires, Argentine, April 15th 2009

Source: WEO, World Economic Outlook, IMF

Subject: Economy, finance, global finance

Info Source: Global bank losses likely to reach $4.1 trillion, says IMF, by Larry Elliott , The Guardian, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 April 2009.

The global financial sector faces write-downs of $4.1tn (£2.8tn) from the toxic assets that have crashed in value since the start of the credit crunch 20 months ago, the International Monetary Fund said today .

In its first comprehensive study of the impact of the crisis on banks and other financial institutions, the Fund said that it had increased its estimate of the potential losses in the US from $2.2tn to $2.7tn as a result of the deepening economic slump over the past three months.

Europe and Japan between them account for $1.3tn of the write-downs, with UK banks facing losses of up to $316bn (£216bn). The Treasury last night disputed the UK figure, saying the IMF had offered a range of costs between 6% and 13% of GDP, and that £216bn was at the highest end of this range

………..

The key challenge was to break the “downward spiral” between a weakened financial system and the global economy. The Fund set out a detailed program of reforms, including curbs on credit growth during booms, tougher regulation of a limited number of institutions ­considered “too big to fail” and better cross-border supervision.

In its breakdown of the losses on toxic assets, the IMF said two-thirds of the write-downs affected banks. But the FSR warned that pension funds had seen the value of their assets

Comment: This report could be interpreted as the first formal evaluation of the worldwide Crisis deepness and reach. However in despite of its dramatic tone it could be considered too optimistic. See our next entry SP0014 about the effect of “politically correct” measures in times of crisis. From a “systems” point of view the recovery trajectory towards the next future looks highly improbable. The history tells us that society inertia is so “high” that recoveries, whether occurred, take decades.

We mean that the failure is so big and extreme that a new system should be buildup and it takes time.

Tags: IFM, GDP, WEO, the guardian, guardia.co.uk, Larry Elliot, global bank losses, politically correct, credit crunch, society inertia, global economy, global finance, FSR,

Es gehört schon Mut dazu, in Zeiten der Finanzkrise, in denen so sehr nach ethischen Maßstäben des Wirtschaftens gerufen wird, das folgende Statement zu veröffentlichen:

“Die Vermutung, CSR zähle zu den Faktoren, die Unternehmen in ihrem Wachstum begünstigen, bestätigt sich nicht. So erweist sich gemessen an objektiven Faktoren wie dem Beschäftigungswachstum weder der Umfang der eingesetzten CSR-Instrumente noch eine systematische Kombination der Instrumente als maßgeblicher Erfolgsfaktor für ein Unternehmenswachstum.”

So geschehen durch das Institut für Mittelstandsforschung, die letztens eine Studie zur Wirksamkeit von CSR veröffentlicht haben.

Dass dieses nüchterne Ergebnis durchaus kritisch diskutiert werden kann, versteht sich von selbst. Das wichtigste Argument ist vielleicht, dass es nicht nur um die Messung betriebswirtschaftlicher Erfolgskennzahlen, sondern auch um die Beantwortung der Frage gehen muss, wie menschen- und umweltfreundlich Wirtschaft sein soll.

Womit wir wieder mitten in der Debatte um die schwierige Meßbarkeit sozialen Engaments wären, die ja auch soziale Initiativen zunehmend erfasst.

Schon spannend, so an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wirtschaft und Sozialem…:-)