All that variety would explain why people who keep rats often have so many of them.
Not too long ago I had a narrow interest in aviation. I'd spend hours on airliners.net just looking at all the pictures of planes. I found the Russian cargo jets to be among the most interesting (design characteristics, etc.). Then there's the new A-380. On that site, you could track the progress, from when they started bringing the parts for the first one to final assembly, to where they started doing all the test flights, including one with a finished interior and actually used to carry passengers. And you could keep up just by looking at what new pictures had been posted. I rarely go to that site now, but one nice thing is the balcony of my apartment makes for some good spotting, because within spotting range are a small airport, an Air Force base, and an international airport. It's not unusual to see as many as four or five aircraft in the sky all at once. Night is the best time for that.
Science fiction conventions and all the subcultures that feed into them are a long-standing interest of mine. Add photography into that. When I bought my digital camera (Sony F-828, then at the top of the product line) a few years ago, the big criterion was how well the camera would perform in the dim light typical of the venues where these conventions occur. A narrow interest of many other attendees (not so much myself) is hall-costuming, which provides a neverending source of subject matter for photography. I once took 700 pictures at one convention! Odd thing is, the pictures just get filed away on DVD+R and rarely looked at.
A while back, I said...
..Odd thing is, the pictures just get filed away on DVD+R and rarely looked at.
Okay, I set up an e-frame (like a picture frame but with an LCD that changes pictures every minute) on my desk, just as a little distraction and to be able to see the pictures without having to get out the disks or otherwise make a big deal of it. Every few days I might take the SD card out of the frame, put it in the computer, and remove the less interesting pictures and replace them with more interesting ones from the disks.
Library book shelving errors. Fifteen years into my research on this.
Shelving errors annoy me a bit, actually. (There's just no order to the universe!!
) ...Because they make things harder to find.
YES!! Exactly. So I'm determined to crack the code and make things easier to find.
The Salvation Army co-op has a large section with books and it's quite orderly but some customers seem not to see the meaning of order or even that there are others who might be after the books they treat badly. I'm always putting books back in their right place or fixing the mess of books leaning in faulty manner. Sometimes I spy on others as they rumage through the shelves, on the brink of screaming; "Don't you fuckin treat them books like that, Idiot!"
So nice. In a store I think people aren't thinking the books are in exact order, whereas in the library (I hope) they know they are. It's the idiots that we have to accomodate, hence my study of errors. The non-idiots make fewer errors, in my opinion, with some research to back me up. Anyway, glad to hear from someone else who cares about books!!
I tend to have a major obsession and one passing interest that can get pretty intense, but once the knowledge has been extracted, I'm done with it. It's interesting, but it's not 'OOMMMGGG' every time I hear the name of the subject. Most of these interests are also part of my general one, so they just get piled onto that.
Major one: Neurons and Amygdala!
The nervous system is the best. The neuron is the excitable cell in the nervous system. There are other types of cells called glia. There are many different types of neurons and glia. The brain is roughly 90% glia and 10% neurons (depending on what research paper one cites! But this is a pretty common figure used).
Neurons communicate with each other using neurotransmitters. There is a gap between neurons called a chemical synapse, it is very small. Neurotransmitters can go from one neuron to another here. In the central nervous system, the brain and the spine, the synapses are pretty accurate, so release from a pre synaptic neuron goes to specific area on the post synaptic neuron. In the peripheral nervous system, the synapse is called a varicosity and the neurotransmitters tend to diffuse all over the place. Glia were once thought to be mere support cells, but now some people hypothesise that they control attention!
Neurotransmitters are a *bit* like keys to locks. The locks in this case are the receptors. But it works a little differently to a key. A neurotransmitter, of which there are heaps of types, will go to a binding site on a receptor. Gosh, receptors. There are many different kinds and each neurotransmitter can usually bind to a whole bunch of different receptors. It is usually the receptors that define the function of neurotransmitter, not the transmitter itself (man, that sounds confusing). Like you can use compounds that are simmular to the neurotransmitter to stimulate the receptor. Kind of like pikcing the lock with something shaped like your key but not a perfect match. This is called an agonist, and drug companies make these. Or there are compounds which are simular and can bind to the receptor, but they don't actually stimulate the receptor. Kind of like trying to make a key that fits into the lock, but can't turn it, so it ends up taking up the lock so a key that works can't get in. This is an antagonist. Again, drug companies use these.
The amygdala. There are two of these (like most brain structures) in the brain in the temporal lobes, but deeper in the brain. It is named amygdala because it comes from the word 'almond' and they are shaped that way. Sort of. There are different nuclei (groups of cells) in the amygdala but I haven't found a good paper on it in HUMANS. We know rat and monkey pretty well. Though the basolateral and central neuclei of the amygdala are important in fear conditioning. That is learning to assosiate something neutral with something that is naturally fear inducing (such as pain). In rats, they like to pair an electric shock with a tone. After a few shocks and tones, the rat learns that when the tones plays, it will get shocked. So then you can play the tone without the actual shock and the rat still exibits a fear response. The rat has been fear conditioned, yay! If you lesion the poor rat's amygdala, it won't be as good at learning the fear. Because of limitations in research (for example, it is practically impossible to perfectly remove the amygdala. You might remove surrounding areas or not enough of the amygdala. Most of these studies are done on non human animals also), it can't be said that for sure, the amygdala does fear conditioning. But it is very well known for this role in neuroscience. Sort of the like hippocampus and memory. Amygdala is also thought to be used in possitive (not fear) conditioning. Most of the early observations made about the amygdala's role in fear condioning was based on studies where like half the temporal lobe was cut out! There is heaps more to that area than just the amygdala.
Bored yet??? I could keep going! Long term potentiation? How about getting more specifc on recepors and get talking G-proteins. What about those oxytocin receptors in the amygdala. What about the genes expressed there, or the connections (I think there are about 53 in the monkey). This is why I'd like to be a lecturer, because then I could go on about it all day and get paid for it! Yay!
Could you tell me what theese cards are?
Like,are they tarot-cards,for example?
Yu-Gi-Oh is a Trading card game. It's similar to "Magic the Gathering", actually (I don't play that, but I know a friend that does).
One of the most prolific serial killers of England was a woman; Mary Ann Cotton. She is thought to have killed 25 people, her own children and lovers, and to have escaped detection by moving around the country. Also, at that time, there was a high mortality rate in children and people did die of gastric fever which was the illness doctors thought her victims died of; altho they were actually poisoned with arsenic.
Mary Ann Cotton was eventually arrested after she poisoned her stepson. A neighbour was suspicious that the boy died right after Mary expressed her regret that she couldn't move in with her latest lover cuz the boy was in the way. Mary was convicted and sentenced to death. She was hanged, with the hangman botching her execution; she struggled for many minutes on the end of the rope before expiring.
After Mary Ann Cotton's execution, the type of shawl that Mary wore to her hanging went out of fashion, and children sang in the playground a song that started "Mary Ann Cotton, she's dead and rotten." Altho the conservative estimate by the court was that Mary killed about 20 people, modern historians place the number more at around 25, and it could even be more.
My narrow interest tends to creep people out, yes. XD
Kryten: Remember Captain Oates? "I'm going out for a walk, I may be some time."
Rimmer: Yeah, but the thing about Captain Oates... the thing you have to remember about Captain Oates... Captain Oates... Captain Oates was a prat. If that had been me, I'd have stayed in the tent, whacked Scott over the head with a frozen husky and eaten him.
Lister: You would too, wouldn't you?
Rimmer: History, Lister, is written by the winners. How do we know that Oates went out for this legendary walk? From the only surviving document, Scott's diary. Well, he's hardly likely to have written, "February the 1st, bludgened Oates to death while he slept, then scoffed him along with our last packet of instant mash." How's that going to look if he gets rescued? No, much better to write, "Oates made the supreme sacrifice" while you're dabbing up the last of his gravy with some crusty bread.
The old system of hangings meant that the criminal would often strangle to death for many minutes on the end of a rope, in front of a huge crowd. Sometimes it was possible to save their life; for example, a woman became known as "Half Hanged Meg" after her friends cut her body down soon after she was hanged for infanticide and bore her away in a coffin. Soon after the party had stopped to rest at a crossroads, a knocking was heard from inside the coffin, the lid was opened and Meg found to be alive and well. Soon after her ordeal she remarried her husband.
The new system of the long drop method was developed by Marwood, and eventually, hangings were conducted behind prison walls. This wasn't for the benefit of the criminals, but cuz public hangings were dangerous, with people being thrown to the ground and trampled in the crush as the crowds pressed closer to the scaffold. The new method resulted in a criminal dying instantly from a broken neck, which was far more humane. There were a few errors before the system was perfected, with heads being torn off by the action of the rope on the neck; caused by a too long drop.
There were a few errors before the system was perfected, with heads being torn off by the action of the rope on the neck; caused by a too long drop.
... and a too thin rope.
That would also end up with a rope snapping. People used to buy pieces of the hangman's rope after a hanging for good luck charms. Some murderers used to be displayed in gibbets as a warning to others. The smell of the rotting flesh was appalling. John Lee became known as The Man Who Could Not Hang after 3 attempts were made to hang him, and each time the trapdoor wouldn't open.
By the way, it's nice to see someone else sharing my interest. ^_^
That would also end up with a rope snapping.
Not necessarily. There is strong thin rope out there (e.g. made of some plastic). Even cable has been used, which most likely cuts the head off.
... because hypocrisy in that department is more common with them, as it is regarding money and power with the others? And maybe, the others are geting away better, because the population expects them to have money and power.