SovietMen

HPPD, the drug-induced disorder which can be brought on by psychedelic substances

…HPPD results in disturbed vision, where a sufferer may constantly see visual snow, haloes or trails.

Many also experience out-of-body sensations and extreme anxiety.

It’s triggered by the use of psychedelic drugs and has been described as the “trip that never ends”.

With the use of illegal drugs on the rise and the emergence of psychedelics in the treatment of mental health disorders, there are calls for greater awareness and more research into the condition.

Sheree said her son’s experience of HPPD was “a living hell”.

Joey developed HPPD after taking a psychedelic drug at the age of 17 when he was in his final year at school, affecting his vision.

“Where school was concerned words were starting the slide off the page so he couldn’t study, he couldn’t read, and reading was something that he was very good at,” she said.

Song lyrics getting simpler, more repetitive, angry and self-obsessed – study

“Across all genres, lyrics had a tendency to become more simple and more repetitive,” Zangerle summarised.

The results also confirmed previous research which had shown a decrease in positive, joyful lyrics over time and a rise in those that express anger, disgust or sadness.

Lyrics have also become much more self-obsessed, with words such as “me” or “mine” becoming much more popular.

The number of repeated lines rose most in rap over the decades, Zangerle said – adding that it obviously had the most lines to begin with.

“Rap music has become more angry than the other genres,” she added.

The researchers also investigated which songs the fans of different genres looked up on the lyric website Genius.

Unlike other genres, rock fans most often looked up lyrics from older songs, rather than new ones.

Previous research has also suggested that people tend to listen to music more in the background these days, she added.

Put simply, songs with more choruses that repeat basic lyrics appear to be more popular.

Ten Years of Sobriety

…I did it the same as everyone. AA meetings. Talk to alcoholics. Work the steps. This always works. No one who does this has not stayed sober. Almost everyone who does not do this does not stay sober.

They don’t want to. I don’t blame them. It’s amazing to drink. You can talk to women. I was at a reading. My reading, my name was on the flyer in big font. I looked good, I had a quality haircut, I wore a cool leather jacket someone with taste helped me pick. I can’t have sex. I don’t want to have sex outside a relationship. No stakes to my conversations with women. But I was nervous talking to women. I need to impress them. Afraid they’ll reject me from pussy I don’t want. Or if they respect me they’ll stop. I could solve this easily. With one drink of alcohol. Steroids for liking people. Feeling like people like you.

What you learn in sobriety is to eat that bad feeling and get through it. Just let it pass by.

Keep doing this. One day you can just handle it.

30 Kentucky prison guards had sex with inmates over just 16 months — while 14 others smuggled drugs in: report

At least 30 Kentucky prison guards had inappropriate relations with inmates in just 16 months — with one female staffer becoming pregnant by a prisoner — while another 14 smuggled in drugs, according to a report.

After a protracted battle with state officials over records access, the Herald-Leader newspaper obtained a trove of internal reports that offered a rare glimpse into official misconduct behind prison walls.

The documents pertained to cases that arose over 16 months, ending in November 2023.

In one incident, Trista Fox, 39, was charged with third-degree rape in December 2022 after fellow guards walked in on her having sex with a Kentucky State Penitentiary inmate in Lyon County.

Another female guard who resigned after being confronted about her relationship with an inmate told investigators that she was vulnerable to her jailed pursuer’s romantic advances.

“He just caught me at the wrong time one day. I mean, I don’t know what else you want me to say,” she said, according to the Herald-Leader.

‘Risky levels’: Australia is the drunkest country in the world, survey finds

The international survey found Australians drank to the point of drunkenness an average of 27 times a year, almost double the global average of 15. Almost a quarter of Australians reported feeling regret for becoming intoxicated…

The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education chief executive, Caterina Giorgi, said the statistics were “concerning”, and that a clear picture of the impact of harmful alcohol use during the pandemic was only just emerging.

“Australia tops the world in both the number of times people report getting drunk and in seeking emergency medical treatment for alcohol … Both of those indicators suggest people are drinking at fairly risky levels,” she said.

“We’ve seen a steep increase, which has sustained for calls for help to drug and alcohol hotlines, and increased alcohol involvement with family violence callouts.

“There’s an emerging picture [that] there is a significant proportion of people who are drinking at riskier levels … to cope with stress and anxiety. Those habits are hard to undo as we continue to live in this Covid environment.”

Giorgi said there had been a $3.3bn increase in alcohol sales into people’s homes in 2020 – a trend continuing in 2021.

“In such an uncertain time, there’s been a sustained change in the way alcohol is sold. Companies have been aggressively marketing, and using Covid and preying on anxieties to sell their products,” she said.

“We have this perfect storm for an increase in alcohol harm and we’re only just starting to see that.”

A joint Turning Point and Monash University study found ambulance attendances for alcohol-related harm increased by 9% in Victoria last year, at the same time the state was under Covid restrictions…

There’s a magazine called The Cut that no one had ever heard of until suddenly this week when two of its articles went viral.

First:

The Lure of Divorce

I’ve used up my free articles so I can’t quote any sections. It’s what you’d think but 10x more so.

The next one is by their financial advice columnist:

The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger: I never thought I was the kind of person to fall for a scam.

“My colleague will be there soon. He is an undercover CIA agent, and he will secure the money for you,” he said. What exactly would that entail? I asked. “Tonight, we will close down your Social Security number, and you will lose access to your bank accounts,” he explained. “Tomorrow, you’ll need to go to the Social Security office and get a new Social Security number. We’ll secure this money for you in a government locker and hand-deliver a Treasury check for the same amount. You can cash the check and use it for your expenses until the investigation is over.”

Kentucky Headhunter’s post reminded me of this song.

Award-winning author’s AI use revelation roils Japan’s literary world

The commotion surrounding Kudan’s novel comes after she said at a press conference upon claiming the prize that “around 5 percent of the book’s text was taken directly from generative AI.”

Shuichi Yoshida, a novelist who sits on the prize’s selection panel, said that AI hardly came up in discussions during the evaluation process, adding that “it may have been perceived as just another character in the story.”

But Kudan’s comments about using AI have stirred debate, with arguments coming from both sides on social media. 

Edited machine translation follows:

There’s an extreme housing shortage in Australia:

Australia’s rental vacancy falls to record low as Sydney and Melbourne feel squeeze

The national rental vacancy rate has hit a new record low, with new data showing rental conditions worsening in Sydney and Melbourne.

Australia’s vacancy rate hit a new low in October, falling 0.06 percentage points to 1.02% over the month, according to the latest PropTrack Market Insight Report.

That’s a new record from the 1.10% recorded in September, and well below 3%, which is seen as a healthy vacancy rate . . .

Low supply and strong demand have created skyrocketing rents, with the national median on realestate.com.au for the last quarter sitting at $550, up 14.6% from the year before.

“The national vacancy rate has been trending down for well over three years now – a trend that looks likely to continue off the back of strong population growth and a slowdown in the supply of new housing.”

Via Bing, here is an international comparison:

German health authorities plead to parliamentary committee that they have yet to evaluate adverse vaccine events because there are too many of them

The major German political parties will never investigate the pandemic response, because they are all complicit in it. Across the entire political landscape of the Federal Republic, the right-populist Alternative für Deutschland stands alone in its critical stance towards lockdowns and mass vaccination, and only in the state parliament of Brandenburg do they have sufficient seats to gather an investigatory committee on the transgressions of the Corona era. On Friday, 1 September, the AfD-convened Brandenburg Corona Committee summoned Robert Koch-Institut Chief Lothar Wieler (the German counterpart to Anthony Fauci) and Brigitte Keller-Stanislawski, head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Safety and Diagnostics at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut. They were questioned for six hours on the Covid vaccines.

Journalists who eagerly reported Wieler’s every utterance during the Covid pandemic almost totally ignored his committee testimony. Among the few exceptions is Larissa Fußer, who has provided extensive reporting at Apollo News. The picture she paints is incredible: Neither the RKI, Germany’s public health authority, nor the PEI, our pharmaceuticals regulator, have taken even the most basic steps to evaluate the frequency or nature of vaccine injuries, or even the effectiveness of the vaccines in general. Technical problems, staff shortages, and the sheer extent of the data, has prevented them from fulfilling their most basic duties…

It’s 2024, a year which before too long will fade into the past like all the rest. “Remember 2024?” we’ll ask each other. “Those were the days. Different world back then. A more innocent time.”

Book event disinvites queer author because his disability aid makes others “uncomfortable”

Queer, autistic, erotic sci-fi author Chuck Tingle accepted an invitation from the Texas Library Association (TLA) to speak at its annual conference this April. However, the TLA recently rescinded their invitation because the group refused to let Tingle speak while wearing his trademark mask — a pink, pillowcase-like hood that covers most of his face. The TLA told his publisher that they worried that his mask might make attendees feel uncomfortable.

Tingle — who has become famous for writing short fiction with such titles as Space Raptor Butt Invasion and Unicorn Colonel Haunts My Ass — wrote a public post about the TLA’s actions, explaining that his mask is a disability aid to ease his autistic and chronic pain symptoms. After his post gained social media attention, the TLA re-invited him. However, Tingle has publicly refused their re-invitation, citing worries that the conference may not accommodate his other disability needs.

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