Older blog entries for pfh (starting at number 32)

Well, that was easier than i thought. I now have clonidine.

I was dreading yet another fight with a medico and their catty authority. But my GP said OK almost immediately.

So, I am off propranolol, hopefully off zopiclone, taking modafinil+clonidine.

Observations, from one day's use (bearing in mind i usually have some placebo effect, lasting ~2 weeks): no more butterflies in the stomach, my mind is off permanent overdrive (big relief), i don't feel unnaturally calm (as i did on propranolol) but i do feel calm. On the negative, i have less drive/spark/holy-fire. Hopefully i can find a level of dose where i do have some spark and still be functional.

Singing/ I have been trying to develop my voice. I figure this is useful above and beyond a small chance of becoming some kind of religious idol -- useful for public speaking, or indeed private speaking. Major finding so far: posture is important, in particular the angle between the body and neck should be straight up and down. I find that i can hit notes a lot better if i do this, and that it sounds better. It is very easy to fall back into a slouch when not paying attention! Angle between neck and head, however, does not seem to be all that important.

Also important is the thing about opening up the back of the mouth and throat, as if there's a plum in there.

With these things, my voice gets a "metallic" edge, and a *lot* louder. I guess this is what is meant by "projecting your voice". The vocal cavity resonates a lot more, and thus does not need extra effort to be louder.

Another interesting thing is that by practicing *loudly*, i find my voice gains a nice edge to it even when soft. A sort of "i could be loud if i wanted to" quality.

Propranolol starting to poop out. Bother. Bother bother bother.

I've been quite stable and productive on modafinil+propranolol+zopiclone. It was nice not to have to worry about my health for a while. Oh well.

I am hoping to switch to clonidine. Just have to find a friendly doctor (one who can accept the dog role when appropriate, is it too much to ask?). I hate this bit.

Been thinking about psychosis.

The obvious model is something wrong with some of the neurons in the brain. ie they don't update their synaptic weightings apropriately given environmental stimuli.

By this model, if it applied to every neuron the person would just keel over and twitch. They'd de-tune really quickly. Probably stop breathing.

It's more plausible if it only applies to some neurons. But still, an error in updating rules means some part of the brain just plain fails.

Alternate model: psychosis is a rational reaction to a stimulus that is external to the brain (or at least external to its higher functions). Akathisia, for instance, is a feeling of inner restlessness. Everything has a pressing urgency, every sensation demands attention, the body demands ACTION! In other words, the brain is being rushed, the body is saying: take long shots, we need a solution to the problem NOW.

It's not irrational, when time is pressing and some terrible doom is iminent, to jump to conclusions and take wild leaps of faith. It may be one's only chance of survival. Mightn't these leaps look like psychosis? Theories that intigrate all the pressing details: the car that seems to be following you (even though it's just by chance), the person on TV talking about something surprisingly relevant, the person you don't know but keep seeing in odd places. And so on. A theory integrating these things, with a view to identifying the source of a sense of pressing danger, would look exactly like classic psychosis.

Rational psychosis :-)

Point being: higher brain functions in schizophrenia etc may be working just fine. The real problem may be in the body, or some simple regulatory gland stuff. Also: if psychotics are rational, they may be reasoned with. It might be worth giving them a little respect. Their rational mind may be capable of understanding and reinterpreting their gut feelings.

In other news: I am thinking of auditioning for Australian Idol. Maybe I can be the Australian One :-). (and anyway, what's to lose beside a little ritual humiliation?)

Been reading some old Heinlein.

From "Let there be light", 1940:

'... Why are we under attack?'

'We've go something they want.'

'Not at all. We've got something they want to quarantine -- they don't want anyone else to have it. So they try to buy you off, or scare you into quitting. If these don't work, they'll try something stronger. Now you're dangerous to them and in danger from them because you've got a secret. What happens if it isn't a secret? Suppose everyone knows it?'

I am somewhat reminded of Bruce Sterling's novel "Distraction". Incidentally, we now just about have the tech he was describing back then.

Heh, my new speakers actually have *fake* tweeters. It's just some fancy plastic moulding. Or maybe i should say "iconic" tweeters, indicating speakers capable of high frequency output. No, fake is definitely the word.

Makes you wonder: what are the consequences of surrounding ourselves with functional objects that are shaped like icons of previous devices that did their job. Hall of mirrors territory. Not to mention stupid.

This is of course endemic in computer interfaces. Calculator apps that look like... calculators. This surely has to be the stupidest interface design ever, if i want to type a number, i will type it on this keyboard i have right here. Python is easier to use as a calculator. Xine with its DVD-player icon. It's !@#$ annoying, all those fiddly inscrutible buttons, arranged in pointlessly neat grids. I want my pull down menus and tool bars. XMMS... an audio output application that takes all the worst design elements of actual CD players.

For that matter, buttons that look like physical buttons. Help systems that are actually separate from the application, like a physical manual. Windows that, like sheets of paper, are fully opaque, and sit on the desktop passively rather than flowing around each other as the focus changes. Toolbars with icons in neatly uninformative rows, where a well designed interface would emphasize some and push others to the background.

Until we embrace the full fluidity of computer displays, we're going to be stuck in the dark ages.

Weight: 113.1kg, Height: 1.88m. Two kilos less, thanks to the classic "Eat Less Food" diet :-).

I am reading The Great Unravelling. The USA is truly screwed. On the positive, I'm sure the various victims of IMF austerity measures will be amused when those wacky Americans do it to themselves.

Next year's politics should be... interesting. My prediction (er, random guess, whatever) is that the power balance in the world is going to tilt. It's currently focused in North America and Europe. But interesting things are happening in both Asia and South America, especially South Korea and Brazil.

Northern and Eastern Europe may also produce some surprises.

Africa, of course, will remain a basket case, without some really significant changes in attitude.

It would seem i am becoming an audiophile. I got sick of the lack of high frequencies on my old computer speakers, bought some new ones with tweeters. Much better. Occupational hazard when you do any sound editing i guess. I have some good headphones, but they're not so comfortable while Melbourne is slowly liquefying in the summer heat.

The ELECTRONIC SINGING TORTOISE now has a page to call its own. It was injured at a party last Saturday -- we think it broke the mind of one of our guests -- but a little super-glue put it right. So it is now the RESURRECTED ELECTRONIC SINGING TORTOISE.

I just read "Authentic Happiness", on the recommendation of Alex Chernavsky, and i'm impressed. Positive Psychology looks like some decent science, and that's not something I say lightly. The main thesis is that just as there are many ways to be insane, there are many ways to be sane, and that this is a worthy field of study. But there's rather a lot more than that. Worth a look. I haven't found a good summary of Positive Psychiatry on the web... i may have to write one.

My new laptop battery arrived. I can now record at least 3 hours of high quality audio with complete electrical isolation. Woot! This is going to make recording the choir's Christmas carols a lot easier.

I finished putting together a CD of the choir's last performance... it's an open music source music CD :-). Has a data track with the raw recordings in FLAC format, and MP3s of all the tracks for convenience.

Added BitPass microdonations to my website. I have it set up so that if you make a donation, the title-bar goes blue for a month, so it's easy to see if you have donated recently. All done with javascript and cookies. Would be nice to see this on other websites, since it is the kind of thing i would click on for the weblogs i read regularly. BitPass is a really nice cleanly designed system, looks like they've actually gotten the micropayments thing right at last.

I'm maintaining my medication schedule as described in my 24 November diary entry. Seems to be working moderately well, though i'm still tired and achey most of the time. My keyword of the week is "nonrestorative sleep". Getting a viscoelastic mattress for Christmas, yay!

I just had a religious experience. Well approximately religious anyway. I guess i can't hope for more, since i am approximately athiest. Let me recount it to you now, for it is very silly, and involves an ELECTRONIC SINGING TORTOISE. Or possible a turtle, i am not too clear on this point. Kind of like that Philip K. Dick story, but with singing.

Today i went for a walk. I wanted to clear my head a bit, and get a bit of exercise. It was quite hot.

I had walked for many miles, and reflected on my life so far and where i was headed, when i came across the first strange thing. It was the front garden of a seemingly ordinary home, but this garden was made of rocks, and in it was a dead tree, and on the tree were many strange ORNAMENTS, and no living thing grew there. And i thought to myself "neat", and then i thought "i wish i had brought a camera", and then i drank some electrolyte solution.

I continued on my way, walking beside the railway line. After some time, i came to the second strange thing. It was an ELECTRONIC TOILET. The door opened when i pressed a button. When i washed my hands, the toilet flushed automatically. Pleasant music played in the background. When it stopped playing, i took that as my cue to leave, for it was a self cleaning toilet.

I continued on my way. It was quite hot. I drank plenty of water, but i was feeling a little dissociated. Apparently some other guy, also called Paul, did something similar, some time ago, in a desert. Fortunately i did not go blind. Eventually i came to the city of Springvale, and this was heralded by the third strange thing, and it was as if i was in a foreign country. The third strange thing was a HOUSE WITH HORNS. And again i thought to myself "i wish i had brought a camera".

I wandered about Springvale for a time, and in something of a daze (as i had been out in the sun for several hours). Eventually i came to a shop selling many strange items, and all for a reasonable price. And while browsing about this shop, i heard a voice as of a child sing out! The voice greeted me, and proclaimed to me that it was feeling well. It then wished that i also be well. And i was filled with gladness.

From where had this voice come, with its marvelous and inspiring message? After some confusion, as there were many things in the shop, i discovered that it was the voice of the ELECTRONIC SINGING TORTOISE! I marveled muchly, for such a lovely voice to eminate from such an ungainly creature.

This is what it sang:

Hello, hello, hello, hello,
Hello, hello, how are you?
Thank you, thank you, I am fine,
And I hope that you are too.

And then it sang it again. And again. So i bought it.

Weight 115.8kg, height 1.88m. Blerg, time to loose a few kilos. The Chadstone Height And Weight Measuring Machine sayes it will see me again soon, and is probably right.

Been a while since my last diary entry, lots been happening...

My iBook battery has died in the ass. This apparently happens after two or three years with lithium-ion batteries. Have ordered a new one. Fortunately it didn't explode or catch fire, apparently due to some sophisticated (expensive) built in monitoring circuitry.

I am taking: 3 modafinil per day (morning, midday, evening), approx 4 propranolol per day (morning, midday, evening, night), and two temazepan every second day. Getting the temazepan involved the usual full on argument with my psychiatrist. Not entirely unjustified, the stuff is addictive, gives you a *nice* buzz. Result: I am moderately stable and productive at the moment.

Totally rethought the last third of my thesis (see here). I was planning on doing something on image compression, but this is much sweeter, and also easier to justify and write up. So my PhD is going quite well for once :-), just writeup now hopefully.

Finished polishing a recording of a performance of the choir I sing in. Lots of background noise to remove, a boost to the bass, and an annoying electrical hum to nuke. Hacked together some editing software with Python and Numpy, I really should clean up the code and release it at some point. Anyway, it's interesting that you can make a professional quality CD with a laptop, an iMic and a cheapish stereo microphone these days (well ok, not quite there yet myself, but with a little practice, no prob).

Went and got a second opinion, from a psychiatrist by the name of John Tiller. He's apparently Melbourne psychiatry's "second opinion guy". Works at the hospital I stayed in for a while last year, strange to go back there, if only for a consultation.

His suite was done up in classic psychological kitsch, which livened up the hospital architecture a bit. Nice "primitive" style statue of some guy screaming, and a sculpture of a child on a woman's back, crying. Which sounds slightly disturbing, but was really just a little self-conscious quirkiry.

Smart guy. We talked for about half an hour or so, then he dictated basically my whole personality in a letter to my usual psychiatrist (using some kind of voice recognition software, which was nifty).

And then, he did what is possibly the most insulting thing anyone has ever done to me, he refused to give me a copy of the letter to put in the public domain. He said I was not competent to make decisions about that kind of thing. My life has been quite unpleasant lately, but my sense of reality has never been compromised (sometimes i wish it was), i have never been psychotic (incidentally, my usual psychiatrist agrees with me on this (however, you'll have to take my word on that :-) )).

Anyway, here's what I can recall of what he dictated, blurred by memory and probably rather inaccurate:

• Tendency to Aspergers, doesn't seem to fit the depression profile too well.
• Flattened emotional affect, in excess of what would be expected as a result of taking propranolol.
• Taking modafinil at night is odd.
• Possibly "prodromal" (having symptoms typical before the onset of schizophrenia). Recommended (apparently rather unusually for him) further consultation with a specialist in the early treatment of schizophrenia.

There was quite a lot more, and put succinctly and with insight, but that is all that I can recall.

By the by, i'm more than a little disturbed by the concept of early treatment of schizophrenia. It may well be a good idea. But on the other hand, your typical anti-psychotic is a dopamine receptor blocker, and dopamine seems to be important in the experience of pleasure. So giving this kind of stuff to people who are basically still healthy is slightly worrying.