| Qobuz streaming music service now $14.99 per month for 1st 100,000 subscribers, until Jan. 31, 2020 |
|
Saturday, November 9th, 2019 06:11:54 GMT |
| Music |
The Qobuz hi-res music service costs money to subscribe to or to buy DRM-free downloads from - but happily, there is a 1 month free trial.
I've been a delighted customer of Qobuz since March 2019, and it's my favorite music service ever. Their audio quality is the best I've ever heard!
Quoted from https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/music/streaming/offers:
Qobuz Studio Premier gives you access to the best library of
streaming music in Hi-Res and CD lossless quality. Because your
music is worth it.
Only $14.99 per month.
End of quote.
If, like me, you were already a "Studio Premier" subscriber, you'll automatically have your subscription price lowered to $14.99 per month! Here's Qobuz's FAQ about this promotion.
That page also says that referral link will only work for subscribers in the US and UK, and, quote:
End of quote.
(DRM is probably short for Digital Rights Management, but the Free Software Foundation points out that a more appropriate term would be Digital Restrictions Management.)
I'm also pleased that this page from a website by the Free Software Foundation lists Qobuz as a website where you can buy DRM-free music.
Again, here's my Qobuz referral link.
But, many people like listening to music before or during sleep. Here's an article I haven't read most of yet, from a scientific journal:
Yet again, here's my Qobuz referral link.
The usual price of a "Studio Premier" subscription is $24.99 per month, but there's a limited-time promotion going on.
Offer limited until January 31, 2020 to the first 100,000 subscribers.
Enjoy a free 1 month trial with no strings attached."
If you use my (or anyone else's) Qobuz referral link to subscribe, this page which explains the Qobuz referral program says you'll get a $5 voucher to use in Qobuz's download store.
"Be aware that your friend should only sign-up on the Qobuz website (www.qobuz.com). Any sign-up on the Qobuz Mobile App or in the Apple store will not be taken in account."
I haven't yet bought from Qobuz's download store, but, I'm very pleased with the fact that all the files are guaranteed to be without DRM.
You don't even have to subscribe to Qobuz to be able to buy from the Qobuz download store, though I've read you get discounts if you sign up for a yearly Sublime+ subscription for $249.99 per year.
I usually don't sleep with music in the background, nor even ambient non-musical audio tracks like ocean waves. I usually find it more useful to run a loud fan to block dog barking and other noises.
Nov. 14, 2018 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Here's my Git repo of Qobuz-related vuemaps which contain links to Qobuz playlists I made, and various notes on Qobuz, like details on how I got Qobuz to work for me in Puppy Linux.
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| On Neil Postman's book "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology" |
|
Tuesday, October 22nd, 2019 08:28:58 GMT |
| Books |
I recently read a fascinating book:
Hopefully, this book will be available on your local library's OverDrive website, which has legally free ebooks you can borrow and read on your computer or phone.
Among other things, the sample contains a paragraph about the origins of the mechanical clock, and the unintended, unpredicted side effects it had on the world, which I guess probably contributed a lot to our present-day predicament of being oppressed by strict, inflexible schedules.
If I recall correctly, the book doesn't mention sleep issues at all, but it does have a lot to say about the field of medicine and its history, among many other things.
I don't entirely agree with everything the book says, but it was still one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in a while (or ever), so I wanted to mention it.
The book is copyrighted 1992, but, I think much of what it says is still worth pondering even 27 years later, because our world's societies have become even more engulfed and transformed by technology than they already were when the book was written.
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| Link: "The Neurodiversity Case for Free Speech" |
|
Thursday, October 17th, 2019 01:46:04 GMT |
| Freedom |
Last modified Oct. 16, 2019 at 10:07 PM EDT.
Quotes:
[...]
Here's an interesting article I found recently:
July 18, 2017 from Quillette.com
It even mentions sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, and fatigue.
Also, sleep disorders affect over 20% of people, and the resulting sleep deprivation reduces inhibition. These kinds of transient neurodiversity can also interfere with social sensitivity, Theory of Mind, and verbal inhibition, so can reduce the ability to comply with speech codes. Unless universities want to outlaw fatigue, hunger, heartbreak, meds and coffee it's hard to maintain the delusion that everyone's speech will be 100% inoffensive 100% of the time.
Campus speech codes discriminate against neurominorities. They impose unrealistic demands, fears, and stigma on the large proportion of students, staff, and faculty who have common mental disorders, or extremes on the Big Five personality traits, or transient disinhibition due to sleep deprivation or smart drugs. As a practical matter, it is virtually impossible for someone with Asperger's, bipolar, ADHD, low Agreeableness, low Conscientiousness, extreme fatigue, or Modafinil mania to understand what kinds of speech acts are considered acceptable, and to inhibit the production of such speech 100% of the time, in 100% of educational and social situations.
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| American presidential candidate Andrew Yang's giveaway of 10 Freedom Dividends; universal basic income & human-centered capitalism |
|
Monday, September 16th, 2019 09:41:31 GMT |
| Freedom |
I don't pay as much attention to politics as I maybe should, and it's actually pretty hard for most politicians to even get much of my attention, because I'm somewhat cynical, and also so preoccupied with the usual things I'm preoccupied with - my own projects (mostly programming), reading library ebooks, and trying to maintain my health, and not relapse back into being fatigued, headachy, and poorly nourished.
However, American presidential candidate Andrew Yang has succeeded in getting my attention, because he's actually strongly promoting the ideas of universal basic income and human-centered capitalism!
Make sure you read the fine print - the rules.
Quoted from the rules page:
I don't think $1,000 per month for 12 months is enough for me to be particularly happy to appear in the media in connection with anything political. Actually, probably no amount of money would make me really happy to do that.
Especially since the media, and many in the media's audience, are sometimes quite unkind to people who have failed to lem.
I still haven't learned very much about Andrew Yang yet - but, promoting universal basic income and human-centered capitalism seems very wise and prescient, given that a future outcome of increased technological automation will likely be increased unemployment.
I was intrigued to learn that, according to this interview of Andrew Yang by Stephen Colbert after around 2 minutes, 23 seconds - Martin Luther King and Thomas Paine also were in favor of universal basic income.
It would make life so much better for anyone with sleep issues (such as circadian sleep issues, or other sleep issues) who is being literally tortured by work schedules which clash with their body's circadian rhythms.
Anyone trapped in a career they loathe would finally have a much easier time quitting and doing something else instead.
Many homeless people might finally be able to afford their own apartment or other home, at least in parts of the USA where apartments, rental houses, or even mortgages still cost less than $1000 per month.
But, even with "only" $1,000 of universal basic income per month - no longer having to live in fear that we might not be able to afford to pay our mortgage would be wonderful!
- Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) 11:30 AM - Aug 27, 2019
I particularly like "2) recognize and reward the nurturing work being done in our homes and communities every day".
I think for people who want to be stay-at-home parents or caregivers, a sufficiently large amount of universal basic income would probably be much more helpful than any very time-consuming guaranteed job outside of their own homes. Or even inside their own homes.
Especially if that guaranteed job was also guaranteed to be as flexible as I would need, due to my sleep issues (possibly Non-24-hour Sleep-Wake Disorder) often making it torturously difficult for me to deal with any fixed schedule.
Here's a blog post I wrote which (among other things) explains why I am against all taxation:
In that, I also mentioned some possible alternatives to taxation: lotteries, or crowdfunding via something like Kickstarter.
$20,000 goes to the winner of the raffle, while the rest goes to DCU for Kids.
The tickets often sell out so fast, I've sometimes missed my chance to buy a ticket! But even though I've never won any of those raffles so far, I'm very happy that at least my money is going to some good causes. (And also pleased that a 1 in 3000 chance of winning $20,000 is much better than the odds of winning a huge lottery.)
So, perhaps universal basic income could actually be funded completely voluntarily via similar raffles?
Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America
Hopefully, these books will be available on your local library's OverDrive website, which has legally free ebooks you can borrow and read on your computer or phone.
But so far, I'm definitely very impressed with Andrew Yang.
Andrew Yang is doing a giveaway of ten Freedom Dividends - $1,000 of basic income per month for 12 months, which you can enter to win at:
The Promotion begins on September 12, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and ends on September 19, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (the "Promotional Period"). All entries must be received within the Promotional Period to be eligible to win the prize. Sponsor reserves the right to reopen submissions at any time and set a new deadline for additional submissions.
I'm actually reluctant to enter, because if I win, I'm not sure I'd really want that much public attention.
But, even though I'm reluctant to enter the giveaway, I just thought I'd blog about this, since a Freedom Dividend could be of great financial help to probably many people reading this, and I'm very happy that a plausible presidential candidate is actually promoting the ideas of universal basic income and human-centered capitalism.
I think it would be wonderful for everyone to be able to be free of having to pursue money, which would give everyone more time, peace of mind, and opportunity to engage in the pursuit of happiness, and give everyone a break from being pursued (and/or slowly digested) by the life-destroying monster that is poverty.
However, housing and apartments can be so extremely expensive that I think some amount of universal basic income more than $1,000 per month would be a much more comfortable amount. I think my family's mortgage here in northeast Ohio went up from something like $860 to $960 per month in recent years.
I still adore Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders and @SenSanders on Twitter), even though I don't agree with him on everything (such as taxation, or a jobs guarantee). I think universal basic income would give people a lot more freedom than only a jobs guarantee:
From TheHill.com
A tweet by Andrew Yang quoted in that article:
Bernie ignores the facts that money in our hands would 1) create hundreds of thousands of local jobs and 2) recognize and reward the nurturing work being done in our homes and communities every day. He also assumes that everyone wants to work for the government which isn't true.
But, I definitely think it would be nice to be able to have both universal basic income, and also the option of getting a guaranteed job.
I just wish there were a way other than taxation to fund universal basic income. Perhaps there is?
July 4, 2018 from Non24.com
I think raffles would be another good idea. One of the credit unions (non-profit bank alternatives) I use - DCU (Digital Federal Credit Union) - raises a lot of money every month for the DCU for Kids charity by holding raffles, in which they sell 3,000 raffle tickets for $20 apiece, for a total of $60,000 per raffle!
The DCU for Kids raffle is real-world proof that raffles really can work brilliantly and reliably for raising large amounts of money for good causes.
Andrew Yang wrote 2 books! I haven't read them yet, but I definitely want to.
by Andrew Yang
by Andrew Yang
I'm going to read them before I decide whether or not I'm going to vote for Andrew Yang in 2020.
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| Link: "Wired magazine's Memorial Day sale - $5 for 1 year of print and digital access" |
|
Monday, May 27th, 2019 03:09:36 GMT |
| News |
Last modified May 27, 2019 at 6:42 AM EDT.
Also, Wired's normal non-sale price of $10 per year for print and digital access seems quite excellent to begin with.
Here's Wired.com's search page, which lets you search the entire Wired magazine archive.
If you'd rather browse the archive instead of searching it, you can go to Wired.com's Site Map page.
I found no articles when I searched the Wired magazine archive for "non-24" (in quotes), non24, "advanced sleep phase disorder" (in quotes), and "delayed sleep phase disorder" (in quotes). Perhaps someday that will change.
However, I searched for various other words and phrases related to sleep or sleep/circadian issues, and found:
Here's a link to a recent post on my personal blog about a sale currently being offered by the technology magazine Wired:
May 26th, 2019 blog post from Astroblahhh.Com
If you miss out on that sale, hopefully there will be future sales just like it (probably around other holidays).
Anyway, it's definitely not a magazine devoted to sleep issues or circadian issues, but there are at least some articles mentioning some of those topics. And tons of interesting articles on other topics, usually somehow related to technology. It's actually one of my favorite magazines.
Again, here's the link to my blog post on my personal blog about the sale currently being offered by the technology magazine Wired:
May 26th, 2019 blog post from Astroblahhh.Com
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| Sleep deprivation makes people more emotionally sensitive; and various of my coping methods |
|
Monday, August 27th, 2018 14:24:30 GMT |
| Self-Help |
I always had the impression that sleep deprivation and poor sleep make me a lot more emotionally sensitive, socially anxious, and more anxious in general than I am when I'm well-rested.
[...]
[...]
Walker described the heightened emotional response in the weary as "profound," noting, "We've never seen a magnitude of increase between two groups that big in any of our studies before."
[...]
End of quotes.
I suspect part of the reason I became such a so-called "left-brained" person (one of my favorite hobbies is computer programming), and why I've often wished I could be even more like Spock from Star Trek, is because I often had to overcompensate for my intense anxiety by trying very hard to use logic to try to rationalize myself out of being so emotional.
I'm very glad the "left-brained" aspects of my character are as strong as they are. They help me tremendously, and without them, my life and emotions would probably often be a lot more difficult to endure.
And when sufficiently well-rested, I might actually have more self-discipline than the average person, due to having had to somehow get through my days despite often being exhausted.
I've heard great things about veganism, but haven't tried that yet.
And some newer details are in my food vuemaps and self-help vuemaps - though I am still pretty far from having what I would consider an ideal diet, health, and exercise routine.
Also, rather than a health expert, I'm just a layperson who hasn't seen a doctor since 2008 (if I recall correctly). So, please don't blindly mimic me or assume I always know what I'm talking about.
I feel like even caffeine alone often helps me to some extent, as long as I don't overdo it. I have to be careful, since I am far more caffeine sensitive than a lot of people. (Not sure if caffeine sensitivity might have been what made me get possibly Non-24 in the first place. But quitting caffeine for most of a year definitely didn't cure my possible Non-24.)
I believe theanine might be the top reason why I usually preferred tea over coffee, and always felt like tea made me feel different and better than coffee does. I've read that theanine helps take some of the edge off of caffeine and is very helpful for stress.
I used to just use pre-packaged tea. But my tea-drinking is even more enjoyable now that I put both caffeinated and decaf tea in the same teabag, for both extra theanine, and for flavor.
And they have the best decaf tea I've ever had. It's made with the carbon dioxide method of decaffeination, which is reputedly much healthier and leaves much more of the flavor intact than other methods of decaffeination.
Another tasty way to imbibe some theanine is decaf organic iced tea. I find it especially good with lemon juice.
This old article I found recently on Scientific American confirms my impression:
Study shows that sleep deprivation leads to a rewiring of the brain's emotional circuitry
Oct. 23, 2007 from ScientificAmerican.com
Quotes:
In fact, psychologist Matthew Walker of the University of California, Berkeley, says that "almost all psychiatric disorders show some problems with sleep.'' But, he says that scientists previously believed the psychiatric problems triggered the sleep issues. New research from his lab, however, suggests the reverse is the case; that is, a lack of shut-eye is causing some psychological disturbances.
Fourteen subjects spent 35 straight hours without getting a wink before being rolled into a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners where their brains were observed while they viewed a set of 100 photos that became increasingly disturbing as they progressed.
The researchers mainly monitored the amygdala, a midbrain structure that decodes emotion, and observed that both sets of volunteers had a similar baseline of activity when shown the innocuous images. But, when the scenes became more gruesome, the amygdalae of the sleep-deprived participants kicked up, showing 60 percent more activity relative to the normal population's response. In addition, the researchers noticed that more than five times more neurons in the area were transmitting impulses in the sleep-deprived brains.
"I think we may start to think about a new potential function for sleep," says Walker. "It does actually prepare our emotional brains for next-day social and emotional interactions."
Sounds right to me! No wonder I was such a socially withdrawn hermit for most of my life, especially in recent years, when I often had to struggle with fatigue (possibly from low iron or low ferritin) on top of my possible Non-24. (And I still have trouble with fatigue if I revert to my bad habits of self-neglect.)
So, that might actually be a good thing my sleep issues have done for me - they might have made me a lot more "left-brained" and logical than I might have been if I had never had to cope with such intensified emotions inflicted upon me by sleep issues.
But I think what actually helps me even more, and often feels much easier than just trying to stifle my emotions through logic and sheer willpower, is physical solutions such as getting enough restful sleep, eating better, taking various vitamin and mineral supplements, exercising more, and trying to get enough iron in my diet.
A lot more details of what I do (or used to do) are in my health diary blog posts part 1 and part 2 on my personal website.
I definitely feel like drinking tea helps me quite a lot, and I think I'm much happier and better off with it than without it.
I like caffeine + theanine (found in tea) even more than I like just caffeine. I also like theanine without caffeine, but I think I usually prefer it with caffeine. Either way, theanine seems to greatly improve my mood and make me feel less stressed out.
I typically start my day with a mug of tea made using a paper teabag which I filled myself with 1 teaspoon of a caffeinated organic black tea, plus almost 2 teaspoons of whatever decaf organic black tea(s) I want.
I usually get tea from Arbor Teas, which sells organic, fair-trade tea, which is some of the best-tasting tea I've ever had.
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| Steve Pavlina's Deep Abundance Integration live video series |
|
Monday, July 30th, 2018 18:14:08 GMT |
| Self-Help |
Steve will host a live video call every day from Aug. 1 to 30, which will be influenced by feedback from people who signed up.
So, if you want to participate, it looks like you can still sign up!
Or, if you'd rather wait, you'll probably be able to buy the completed videos, etc. eventually when they are released as a product.
End of edit.
And the vast majority of what's there is free - not only free as in price, but also free as in freedom, since much of it is actually uncopyrighted!
Polyphasic sleep is a very bizarre sleep routine which, to me, actually sounds even more difficult to adjust to and work around than Non-24.
And I definitely don't recommend attempting polyphasic sleep. Even far less extreme modifications of sleep patterns, such as chronotherapy, might carry a risk of actually causing Non-24 in people who didn't have Non-24 to begin with, according to this page on the New England Journal of Medicine website, Wikipedia's chronotherapy article, and various people's messages on the Niteowl mailing list.
But I really appreciate Steve writing about his polyphasic sleep experiment in so much fascinating detail, and I'm also very happy that he seems to be doing very well despite having put himself through such an ordeal.
So, I highly recommend checking out StevePavlina.com, and signing up for Deep Abundance Integration if it appeals to you.
This costs money ($97), but, since it's by the wonderful Steve Pavlina, I'm sure it will be marvelous, and worth far more than $97. I signed up today.
Edit, Aug. 1, 2018, 1:12 PM EDT The signup page no longer shows a deadline, and the count of signups keeps growing.
And if you can't (or would rather not) buy anything - Steve has a wonderful, fascinating website:
Of particular interest to people interested in sleep issues might be his fascinating articles on his 2005-2006 experiment with polyphasic sleep:
Oct. 20, 2005 from StevePavlina.com
I doubt I'll ever attempt polyphasic sleep myself - I wouldn't even consider it until I greatly improve my health and diet, and give up caffeine again.
I don't always agree with everything Steve says, but I always find his perspectives thought-provoking and well worth reading or hearing. And over the years, I think his writings, podcasts, and videos have definitely influenced me greatly for the better.
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| Bras might reduce melatonin and increase the risk of breast cancer |
|
Sunday, July 29th, 2018 19:49:36 GMT |
| Health |
Quotes:
[...]
Japanese researchers found they can lower melatonin by 60%. Melatonin has anti-cancer properties. And Spanish researchers wrote about the use of melatonin in breast cancer prevention and treatment. (Mercola.com)
End of quotes.
So, I wonder if that up to 60% reduction in melatonin might possibly cause some havoc with many women's circadian rhythms?
However, I think maybe I really do sleep better when I sleep without a bra.
A "properly-fitting", nice-looking bra actually makes my boobs ache, especially when I finally take it off.
Perhaps I'd be better off (health-wise) without even that, but, I'm just hoping it's harmless enough, since I find totally doing without a bra impractical, awkward, and worrying in a variety of ways.
Here's a link which probably every woman should read:
July 1, 2014 from FearlessParent.org"There's evidence of a relationship between bras and breast cancer"
"BRAS AND GIRDLES CAN REDUCE MELATONIN LEVELS
Melatonin has a lot to do with sleep and circadian rhythms.
Unfortunately, occasionally going constantly braless definitely wasn't a cure for my possible Non-24.
And I definitely think usually wearing a loose bra, rather than a tighter and more aesthetically pleasing bra, feels much better and is probably better for my health.
My loose bra is so loose I can easily take it off or put it on without even unlatching it.
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| Link: "The Wisdom of the Sloth: Is Sleep a Lost Virtue?" |
|
Friday, July 27th, 2018 14:25:06 GMT |
| Health |
Recently, Walker went on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast to share his perspective on sleep as a neuroscientist and promote his new book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. During their conversation, Walker and Rogan discuss what is perhaps the most appalling irony of ironies: that medical doctors - the very people who are supposed to be caring for our health - are often complacent in creating today's sleep deprived culture.
New medical residents serve 30 hour shifts, and this sleep deprivation affects not only medical residents, but also their patients. Indeed, Walker states that "Residents working a 30 hour shift are 460 percent more likely to make diagnostic errors in the intensive care unit relative to when they're working 16 hours." Doctors' lack of sleep may literally be killing patients.
End of quote.
I wonder what shift length would be ideal to reduce errors.
So, maybe it would be best if doctors (and others) were assigned shifts that match their own circadian rhythms - or no specific hours at all, if they have Non-24.
But if there were, I'm guessing they might function best if they were allowed to flexibly come to work, or not, anytime they feel well-rested enough to do a good job - and allowed to leave work anytime they wanted or needed to.
With more freedom and flexibility in the hours they work, doctors (or anyone) would probably be much better-rested, happier, and would probably make far fewer mistakes.
Which could save lives. And maybe also reduce malpractice lawsuits.
Here's an excellent article I found today via Aeon.co:
June 14, 2018 from KnowingNeurons.com
Here's a particularly shocking quote:
Moreover, we often fail to take sleep deprivation as seriously as alcohol intoxication, even though both immediately impair our behavior and cognition. According to Matthew Walker, "After 20 hours of being awake, you are as impaired cognitively as you would be if you were legally drunk." Driving after 24 straight hours awake gives similar levels of sleep impairment as driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1, higher than what is considered drunk driving in many jurisdictions.
30 hour shifts?!?!!!!!!! I think even 16 hours seems quite excessive, given that a "normal" 9-to-5 workday is "only" 8 hours.
But shift length is definitely not the only relevant factor to take into consideration. Some people function best at night, while others function best in the day, or for part of the day and part of the night. And Non-24 people continually vary.
I don't know if there are any doctors who have (or are aware they have) Non-24.
Actually, perhaps that's the way it should be even for people without Non-24.
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| Link: "There Is No Right Decision" |
|
Monday, July 16th, 2018 07:30:14 GMT |
| Self-Help |
There Is No Right Decision
July 2018 from Raptitude.com
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| "Failure to Launch" is actually Failure to Lem |
|
Wednesday, July 4th, 2018 13:52:38 GMT |
| Freedom |
In my opinion, real independence is being at least a millionaire (or maybe even just a several-hundred-thousandaire) - and/or being able to survive in the wilderness like Survivorman.
Certainly not becoming a debt slave and wage slave, and being desperately dependent on having to make money, because of having too high expenses, too little income, and almost no savings, forcing you to live from paycheck to paycheck, and/or to live on debt if your paychecks are too small or scarce.
And the same for our older people!
(But I think this should all be accomplished through voluntary charity and voluntary fundraising - not taxation, nor any other ways of stealing people's money.)
(Or who were forced to be a lemming by their parents and society, which both failed to provide an adequate launchpad.)
So, instead of "failure to launch", I think it's more like, "failure to be a lemming", or "failure to launch yourself off a financial cliff only to fall to your doom".
(Unless the "gift" comes with intolerable strings attached - in which case it's more of an attempt at manipulation than a gift.)
Without as many bills to pay as someone "independent" (but actually probably extremely dependent on having income) - you have a chance to build up a large nest egg much sooner than someone who has to spend probably most of their income just to keep a roof over their head, and pay for transportation, food, and other basics.
It's not "failure to launch", it's "failure to lem" - and it's a good thing. :-)
Poverty spoils a lot more children than wealth ever did.
Also, I think "privilege" is quite the wrong word for wealth, because I consider wealth something that everyone is entitled to - a human right.
Here's an excellent essay (or small book) on the evils of income taxation. I don't totally agree with absolutely everything in it, but I think it makes a lot of good points:
You can also get it on this page in the annoying PDF format, or the slightly less annoying EPUB format.
Which is often more like bureaucrat support, or ex-wife support, rather than child support, and which harms and traumatizes children and their families in numerous ways, which you can read about here:
But even if it's done with the genuine intention of helping the poor, stealing is still wrong.
I actually don't know if Robin Hood is said to have refrained from stealing from any innocent rich people who earned their money honestly and legitimately.
But, I think Robin Hood is best known for taking back what had been stolen from the poor by rich criminals. (Not innocent rich people who stole nothing from the poor and did the poor no harm.)
And it doesn't seem accurate to call the recovery of stolen property, and returning it to its rightful owners, "stealing".
In fact, taxation mostly punishes people too honest and law-abiding to engage in tax evasion - so taxation actually punishes virtue. (However, having the spine to resist complying with evil laws is also virtuous, so I don't regard tax evaders as automatically bad people.)
And taxation is also harder on the poor than the rich, because being deprived of any amount of money (even the seemingly "small" percentages confiscated by sales taxes) can easily reduce poor people's ability to buy groceries and other basics for themselves, their children, their elderly relatives, their pets, and any of their struggling other relatives or friends.
(Many poor people are very kind and generous, and do a lot to help each other out. And sometimes poor people who almost start to rise out of poverty get dragged back into poverty because of helping the people around them.)
And the government programs for poor people probably usually fail to enable most of the poor to escape continued poverty and dependence.
And those programs often involve policies that actually harm poor people, such as the horrendous, evil "individual mandate" that was a part of the misnamed "Affordable Care Act", which fined people a massive $695 a year per adult (and $347.50 per child) for the disservice of NOT having any health insurance at all!
So, because I thought it might do my family more harm than good if I somehow managed to make too much money for us to stay on Medicaid, but quite possibly not enough money to compensate for the possible loss of Medicaid - I felt like I had little choice but to (again) postpone seriously trying to figure out how to make a living.
It wasn't all bad - at least it was nice finally not having live in fear of not being able to afford to see the doctor or dentist if a health crisis happened.
But what would have been even nicer would have been being able to make a significant effort to earn my own living without having to worry that doing so would seriously harm us all by possibly getting us kicked off of Medicaid and costing us thousands that I couldn't imagine that I (or any of us) would ever be able to afford.
In my experience, taxes are yet another thing that kick poor people when we're already down. I still remember how robbed and violated I felt when I saw all the deductions from my first paychecks way back in 2002 - particularly because at the time, I DESPERATELY NEEDED EVERY LAST CENT I HAD EARNED.
And every year, my family and I have to waste a lot of time doing our taxes. And since a lot of our income has been from self-employment rather than conventional jobs, and we often have had to live on all our income and couldn't afford to set aside any for taxes, we've often had to worry that in April we might get financially kicked when we're already down (yet again) by suddenly "owing" a lot of money.
Or, if we were lucky enough to get a refund of our own hard-earned money that we never should have been deprived of in the first place - we had to wonder when or if we will ever receive it, and at least once, it got delayed.
In my opinion, taxation needs to be 100% abolished for all - poor, rich, and middle class alike, because stealing and extortion are wrong no matter how rich the victim is.
But I think more ethical, non-coercive ways to raise funds for the good things could and should be used instead.
Perhaps lotteries? Or even something like Kickstarter?
Also, the stereotype that poor people are lazy is usually false. Some people talk like they think laziness is so evil that it ought to be punishable by poverty. But that's a monstrously cruel punishment, since poverty can be torturous and like a death sentence.
(Such as if you get seriously ill in a society where health care costs a huge fortune, and where insurance is still unaffordable despite a misnamed law to supposedly make it affordable.)
Or other nutritional deficiencies - which poor people tend to be extra prone to, because many of us (including me and my family at times) can't always comfortably afford enough good, healthy food and vitamins.
So, if you think about it, being against laziness and in favor of people being coerced to work, actually equates to being against freedom, and in favor of slavery!
But there is nothing at all noble about making people into slaves, such as by coercing "lazy", or even truly lazy, people to work.
And people are not bad, or "lazy", or lazy, or suffering from "drapetomania", just because they aren't eager to be a slave.
Living with your parents and learning how to do something difficult but valuable like computer programming is probably a much better option in the long run than "launching" (or being launched/evicted) too early, then ending up endlessly struggling to survive with possibly only a minimum wage job, and having much less time and energy to study anything.
If the person saying such things is sincere, and not just trolling you to try to deliberately hurt your feelings, then they're probably a lot more enslaved by conformism and internalized oppression than you are - and that at least partly explains why they say such illogical but hurtful things.
You might not have as much outer freedom as many of our critics, many of whom grew up in more financially fortunate eras and don't understand how different things are now. But, you probably have more inner freedom than they do.
And, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said,
But freedom and human rights are not mere privileges - they're rights, and everyone truly is entitled to them.
And if we all don't have enough "entitlement" and self-respect to insist on freedom and human rights, we all might eventually end up with our freedom and human rights being trampled upon by tyrants.
So, I think having low tolerance for oppression (including internalized oppression), and feeling strongly entitled to freedom and human rights, is actually a good thing.
And I think we'd all be better off taking the words of great heroes such as Frederick Douglass to heart, rather than the misguided, self-destructive notions of anyone who argues that demanding human rights and freedom is just being "spoiled", "privileged", or "entitled" - as if all feelings of entitlement are illegitimate and bad, and as if freedom and human rights are nothing but revocable privileges.
Another comforting thing to read might be the Slightly Aggressive Affirmations blog.
And even I should read more about history and other cultures to broaden my perspective even more, and make it even more comfortingly obvious how narrow-minded, provincial, and ignorant it is to mindlessly believe that current conformist mainstream opinions on how people should live are "normal" and "universal", rather than irrational, twisted and warped in contrast to wiser cultures, both past and present.
Being a careful tortoise is a much more mature, responsible approach to life than being a reckless, delusionally optimistic hare, or a willingly-following-the-crowd-over-a-cliff lemming.
(However, in some circumstances, leaving as quickly as possible might actually be the more appropriate course of action, such as if you're living with someone who is dangerously abusive.)
I also think it's wrong to automatically and indiscriminately be against all rich people, since it is quite possible to become wealthy in honest, legitimate, perfectly moral and honorable ways.
And I think the more wealthy and prosperous everyone becomes, the freer we'll all be.
I think what would be more virtuous than disempowering oneself would be to remain wealthy, and keep generating more and more money (and other valuable resources) to give away to worthy causes and individuals.
So, if any well-meaning rich people who unfairly torment themselves with guilt are reading this, I hope that makes you feel better.
And I welcome donations and microdonations. :-)
So, as a woman, I would like to point out that despite all the despicable propaganda there is out there which bashes men who live with their parents - not all women are so conformist, short-sighted, and/or gold-digger-like as to scornfully look down on all men who live with their parents.
I actually consider living with one's parents as probably indicative of a man who is unusually strong, rational, sensible, and wisely resistant to conforming to illogical and harmful societal standards that simply don't make sense, especially in a society as financially oppressed as ours. A man who is not a sheep or a lemming - a man to admire!
A man with the strength and confidence to stand his ground and stay his course, despite the media and the flocks of conformist sheep, lemmings, and trolls who viciously bash men like him.
I feel sorry for the sheep, lemmings, and trolls who attack such men, since those sheep, lemmings, and trolls seem so misguided, so full of internalized oppression, and so unaware that in cultures other than the USA, it's actually considered normal and wise to fail to launch yourself off a financial cliff like a lemming. Some examples:
Brother, Can You Spare One-Point-Seven Million, at 6.25%?
And if you have already lemmed, I hope that you will be (or already were) lucky enough to sprout wings and learn to fly. :-)
And I hope those who somehow still think being a lemming is a good idea will wake up from their folly in time to make better life decisions, and free themselves from believing that debt slavery, wage slavery, and going along with the crowd all somehow equal independence and freedom.
Many millenials (and others) these days are criticized for not moving out and becoming debt slaves and wage slaves to (barely) support themselves, and are picked on for "failing to launch" and become "independent".
"Independence" is such a frequently misused word nowadays. Similar to how "royalties" are probably usually just pittances - what is commonly called "independence" is usually not even close to real independence.
I think as a society, we should be far kinder to and more respectful of our young people, and simply give them all the resources they need or want, debt-free, to thrive and to build a better future for everyone.
Quite often, picking on someone for "failure to launch" amounts to picking on someone for being too rational to jump off a cliff just to follow a lot of conformist lemmings who succumbed to peer pressure or societal pressure, and were all too willing to take the plunge into probably lifelong debt slavery and wage slavery.
If your parents (or other relatives or patrons) give you the gift of being able to avoid joining the rat race or lemming race which most people lack the freedom to (comfortably) refuse to participate in - I think probably the most rational course of action is to accept it.
Similarly, I think anyone who has rich parents ought to just guiltlessly accept the many advantages their parents made/make available to them, and not feel bad about themselves when jealous people pick on them for supposedly being "spoiled" or "privileged".
However, I don't think that right entitles anyone to steal others' property. So, no, I'm not advocating communism or socialism - I'm 100% against all taxation, and I think when people have their property extorted from them by things like taxation, their human rights are being violated.
I'm sure my family would have had a much easier time surviving and thriving if we had been permitted to keep all our earnings, instead of being deprived of so much of our hard-earned money by taxes and other forms of oppression, such as the evil, corrupt so-called "child support" system.
Rather than coercive communism or socialism - I am in favor of people earning their own money, and also all voluntary charity. I am totally against plundering or extorting anyone's honestly-earned wealth through taxation or any other form of coercion, even if it's done supposedly in the name of helping the poor. Usually, it's really to help bureaucrats rather than the poor.
However, one reason I don't consider the legendary Robin Hood a villain is because he meant well, and possibly none of his "stealing" was truly stealing.
Some people seem to think taxes are like Robin Hood because taxes steal from the rich and supposedly give back to and help the poor - but, I definitely don't see taxes that way, because unlike Robin Hood, taxation punishes everyone without distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent.
And much of the plunder extracted from so many honest hard-working people of every class (whether rich, poor, or middle class) gets wasted by bureaucrats, often on horrible things such as war.
And for a few years, I was afraid that if I earned too much money, it might harm my family by possibly getting us kicked off of Medicaid, since I definitely didn't think I was capable of making enough money to pay for insurance for us all, nor the $695 penalty fee per person if we went without insurance.
So, I definitely don't believe that taxes play a heroic Robin Hood-like role of recovering the poor's stolen property and giving it back to them.
So, I think taxes are much more like the Sheriff of Nottingham than like Robin Hood. (And actually, that Wikipedia article says: "He is generally depicted as an unjust tyrant, who mistreats the local people of Nottinghamshire, subjecting them to unaffordable taxes.")
Admittedly, taxes do pay not only for many bad things, but also for many good things. (But I wonder if they pay for more bad things than good things?)
It's completely heartless to say it's acceptable, or in any way good, for poor people and their children to either suffer and die, or else become wage slaves and debt slaves with hardly any realistic chance of ever escaping poverty no matter how hard they work.
Also, what seems to be "laziness" can actually be a medical problem (rather than just a psychological issue or moral failing), resulting from things like sleep issues, such as circadian disorders, or fatigue from something like low iron, which is one of the world's most common nutritional deficiencies - especially amongst the poor.
However, even if someone's "laziness" is not excused by medical issues, I believe that freedom actually includes the freedom to be lazy, since being coerced to be unlazy - being coerced to work - is the very definition of slavery, and slavery is an opposite of freedom.
Certainly, it can be very noble to choose to work rather than do nothing to help others.
Also, not every form of work significantly helps anyone. For example, I don't think teenagers (or anyone else) should be encouraged to waste their time on jobs like flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant instead of studying, and learning more valuable skills.
So, if anyone ever picks on you (or someone similar to you) for being an "entitled", "spoiled", "lazy", "irresponsible" millenial (or older or younger person), I hope it won't make you feel bad about yourself.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
I feel more sorry for such people than offended by them. It's truly sad that some people seem to think insisting on freedom and human rights is just being "entitled" and "spoiled" and demanding "privileges".
Frederick Douglass said:
"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
If any struggling millenials (and older and younger people) who the media and others like to kick when we're already down are reading this, I hope this blog post makes you feel better.
Here's a blog post I wrote about 10 years ago:
Another thing that comes to mind is the fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare who "launched" quickly had a superficially more impressive start, but the slow and steady tortoise won the race in the end.
I think caution, learning valuable skills, avoiding debt, and building up a nest egg are usually a much wiser, more mature approach to independence than launching yourself (or being forced) into the world poorly prepared and too soon, with debt being the closest thing you have to a safety net.
People picking on fortunate people such as rich kids, rich people in general, and people whose parents don't kick them out or treat them like slaves, make about as little sense to me as a slave arguing in favor of making non-slaves into slaves, instead of arguing to end slavery for all.
And I hope that well-meaning rich people DON'T feel guilty and DON'T believe that to be good people, they must make themselves poor (and relatively powerless) by giving away most of their wealth.
Nowadays, women are definitely under some pressure to "launch", but still probably not as much pressure as men.
Oct. 24, 2012 from VoicesOfNY.org
Feb. 13, 2008 from HuffingtonPost.com
So, if you have failed to lem, I applaud you. :-)
Also, Happy Independence Day (July 4th) to all!
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| Link: "Heard that GitHub will be acquired by Microsoft, so I deleted all my GitHub repos" |
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Tuesday, June 12th, 2018 19:51:05 GMT |
| Making a Living |
Last modified June 12, 2018 at 8:54 PM EDT.
I am not yet an example of someone who has a thriving programming career despite severe sleep issues - but I have no doubt such people exist.
Programmers getting a lot done at bizarre hours is a well-known (and often true) stereotype.
So, I'm guessing many employers of programmers might be more accommodating of unconventional schedules than the average employer.
From Sept. 2007 to April 2008, I tried selling closed source software in the virtual world game Second Life, which has a virtual currency which can be converted to real money.
But, after reading this great essay by Richard Stallman, I decided to release my product - the MagnaMural - into the public domain.
And at times from 2012 onward, I was tempted to write iPhone apps after a friend I briefly dated gave me an iPhone and MacBook after we parted. And I was tempted to write Roku apps at times ever since I got a Roku in maybe 2012, and tempted to write Android phone apps ever since a relative gave me a couple Android phones.
But, so far, I've resisted those temptations, with the result that I don't have any experience at all with those methods of earning a living via software. Just Second Life.
Sometimes I think maybe I should try selling physical products produced via a site like Lulu or Zazzle, but I haven't done that yet either.
(See my blog post for links to the zip files containing my former GitHub repos.)
And I'd probably still be working on it now if Microsoft hadn't acquired GitHub. Once I found out about that, I couldn't bear to keep my code on GitHub anymore, and have been trying (with some success) to figure out how to set up a GitHub alternative on my own websites so I can continue easily publishing my own code.
Or suddenly dropping everything just to create relatively frivolous knick-knacks on Zazzle or Lulu for people to buy.
So, perhaps some random whims will strike me, and I'll suddenly feel actually inspired to create some relatively frivolous but sellable knick-knacks, or look for freelance jobs on Upwork, or get Second Life working on my computer, or check my email and see if anyone who wants to hire me might have contacted me in the past several years that I've been mostly putting off reading most of my email.
(Sorry for being so unreachable! But I'm actually probably going to continue to be mostly unreachable, since too often, dealing with email just seems like too much stress and/or distraction, for too little reward.)
In any case, I should probably not firmly declare any project to be my top priority, because doing that tends to make me start wanting to work on something else instead.
You can read about non-coercive self-motivation in these great blog posts from SophiaGubb.com:
How To (Give Yourself Permission To) Rest
How Non Coercive And Coercive Self Motivation Feel Different
I welcome donations and microdonations, and maybe someday I'll really feel inspired to offer services, or to create and sell some sort of physical products.
I definitely don't want to sell exclusively digital products, because I'd prefer for my digital creations to reach and help as many people as possible, and any price at all above zero would stand in the way of that.
Digital creations such as software, blog posts, and large pages of free (as in freedom and as in price) technical documentation like this: Some Puppy Linux Basics. (Which needs updating because I've learned a lot since 2013.)
And maybe music if I get inspired and figure out the technicalities of creating music with GNU/Linux software. Or perhaps even art if I ever manage to make some good enough art. And maybe someday I'll get more interested than I currently am in photography.
I'm reluctant to reopen the spam-ridden forums because it can take a lot of work to maintain a good forum that isn't just a wrecknological waste of time and energy.
It's run by the wonderful Circadian Sleep Disorders Network, which I am not a paying member of, but would like to be someday when I can comfortably afford it. (I'm so worried about money that even $5 a year doesn't feel comfortable for me yet.)
One of Non24.Com's main topics (besides sleep issues) is freedom, so this link to my personal blog is on topic:
June 4, 2018 (plus later additions), from Astroblahhh.Com
Also, I still think one of the best possible careers for someone with sleep issues might be programming.
However, I can't speak from personal experience with that, because I never seriously tried to get a "normal" job with a typical software company, since I exclusively write free (as in freedom), libre, open source software.
In all these years, due to fatigue, and procrastination, and focusing so much on my hobby projects (with the vague but not totally unfounded hope that maybe someday they'll help me earn enough money somehow) - I still haven't figured out what the best way to support myself might be.
What I'd most like to do is just finish the renovated version of APSK (Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit). I made huge progress with that in April and May, especially.
I'm definitely not eager to lose even more of my programming momentum by letting my financial worries push me into looking for freelance jobs on a site like Upwork or something.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I'm a structured procrastinator, a concept described in the wonderful self-help book The Art of Procrastination.
It seems like in general, non-coercive self-motivation works much better for me than trying to force myself to work on anything in particular.
Anyway, I guess that's mostly all I feel inspired to say here for now. I hope it's helpful, provides some ideas for how people with severe sleep issues might be able to make a living, and also explains why I'm usually so quiet.
I wish I knew what else to do with Non24.com and Non24.org.
If you're trying to find an excellent sleep issue-related forum, try the Niteowl mailing list.
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| April 22nd is Earth Day |
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Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 09:36:50 GMT |
| Environment |
And one major prerequisite of freedom is, a planet in good enough condition that we can all continue to live healthily and comfortably on it.
The Office - Shareholder Meeting (Episode Highlight)
So, to celebrate Earth Day, here's a clip from one of my favorite TV shows:
Currently, the entire TV series The Office is available to watch on Netflix.
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| Link: "SLIGHTLY AGGRESSIVE AFFIRMATIONS" |
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Monday, April 9th, 2018 08:49:58 GMT |
| Self-Help |
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| Spider silk: the ultimate material for an air mattress? |
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Tuesday, March 27th, 2018 20:30:59 GMT |
| Beds Ideas |
I miss them so much that if I were rich, I might actually seriously pursue the whim of getting into the air bed business to try to figure out how to make the best, most truly durable air beds humankind has ever known.
TRULY durable - not "durable" in marketer language, which probably too often translates to "pathetically fragile" in good, honest English.
Totally ignoring the issues of cost and profitability, I tried to brainstorm whatever I, as a layperson (with sometimes a lot of interest in scientific topics) could think of that might possibly work.
Other than rubber (an idea I'm not sure I like, since rubber has a smell, and rubber tires wear out eventually), spider silk was one of the first specific ideas to pop into my mind.
So, might it work for an air bed?
If specially-prepared spider silk is good enough for parachutes, maybe it would be good enough to prevent an airbed from so easily acquiring holes, tears, or a distorted stretched shape?
But, since I'm not rich, and there are many other things besides air bed creation that I need to get done, I'm just writing this blog post.
And hoping someone rich (or exceptionally motivated) will create such an air bed, and maybe send me a free one, or better yet, a reward of lots of money for giving them such a (hopefully) wonderful idea that might make them rich(er).
A gal can dream...
...and keep pointing out her donations and microdonations page. :-)
I'm still missing my now-useless way too fragile airbeds, which I already wrote about in this previous blog post.
But, since I'm not rich, I'm probably just going to publicly daydream about my ideal air bed, and share this possibly good idea I thought of today.
I think I heard or read in the news many years ago that spider silk is reputed to somehow be as strong as steel.
This article makes me think the answer might be yes:
Sept. 3, 2017 from DailyMail.co.uk
Here's another interesting page:
I really wish I were rich, because if I were, nothing would be stopping me from dropping everything and trying to figure out if a spider silk air bed (or any other probably untried possibly plausible material for an air bed) is a truly feasible, good idea or not.
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| Do cows have better airbeds than humans? |
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Sunday, March 25th, 2018 02:39:06 GMT |
| Beds |
Unfortunately, that first one was accidentally punctured by me lying on top of some hard granola bar crumbs.
I recently got a second one, and this time, I took the precaution of covering it with a sheet. But, I think I may have accidentally overinflated it, so that one's useless now too.
And I found out too late that I probably should have tried to sandpaper away the fuzzy material on the top side of the mattress where the holes appeared, before trying to apply the single patch each airbed came with. Oh, well.
But, after reading this scary article, I'm sort of glad to be rid of them, even though I'm not sure whether my airbeds were actually made of bad materials or not. They definitely had a strong smell when I first got them, though that mostly went away in maybe a few days:
I'm even more skittish about the possible toxins in the kinds of glue often used to fix air mattresses, so, repairing them with superglue or something is unfortunately not an option for me. And duct tape didn't work.
I have an office chair which is amazingly resistant to cat claws - even tremendously more resistant than my cat's mostly shredded scratching post which was specifically made for cats.
My cat loves that office chair, and I'm sure a huge king-size airbed covered in the same material would probably delight him.
I wish someone would make human airbeds which are that durable, and yet as comfortable as my former airbeds. And which my cat can enjoy too without destroying it. I definitely can't keep buying $25 airbeds that lasted maybe a month (1st one) or perhaps a couple of weeks (2nd one).
Heartfelt applause to all the makers, sellers, and buyers of cow airbeds!
And I believe if they ever start selling an incredibly durable yet comfortable human airbed made of good, safe, healthy materials, that might have an extremely good chance of becoming the most popular product in the human airbed market.
Back in January, I tried this $25 air mattress.
I miss my airbeds, since I think they were the most comfortable mattresses I ever used - even better than a friend's waterbed.
June 2013 - LivingNaturalToday.com
I guess my ideal airbed would be made of definitely safe, non-toxic, unsmelly materials, and would be practically indestructible, and even impervious to cat claws.
I wonder if perhaps these cow airbeds are more durable than most or all available human airbeds? They must be extremely durable if they can survive a cow laying on them.
I think it's really sweet that some people care so much about cows as to create, sell, or buy cow airbeds.
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| My imperfect modified version of a blackstrap molasses gingerbread cake seems to need a lot more spices |
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Sunday, March 18th, 2018 15:49:11 GMT |
| Recipe |
Thanks to the creator of those recipes!
I was actually quite tempted to put even more ginger and cinnamon in. But, I was expecting this cake to already have quite a rich, intense, deep, dark flavor just from all the blackstrap molasses I put in. (3/4ths of a cup - equivalent to 12 tablespoons - and it sure was as slow as molasses to pour!)
So, I thought I probably ought to be cautious with the spices, to avoid possibly making this cake any more extreme. I definitely don't like to overdo ginger, especially, since too much of it can be quite spicy hot.
My version definitely didn't turn out fudgey, nor particularly intense in any way. Its texture is just like an ordinary cake. I wonder if the extra egg made that happen? Or did I get some of my math wrong when I tried to halve most of the ingredients?
Whenever I make anything with blackstrap molasses that I haven't ever made before, I'm always half-expecting a quite noxious result, because raw blackstrap molasses is one of the most foul-seeming yet edible substances I know of. (Though I recently discovered that uncooked buttermilk is pretty disagreeable too.)
But this cake wasn't bad at all. I wouldn't describe it as bitter, and in a blind taste test, I probably never would have guessed it even had so much (or maybe any) blackstrap molasses in it. Astonishingly, this actually just seems like a normal cake, with a nice, moist, normal cake texture, and a far more mild flavor than I was expecting.
I wonder if the non-overwhelming level of sweetness is another result of the extra egg, or maybe I lost too much blackstrap molasses when I didn't try a bit harder to scrape more of it out of my mixing bowl.
I guess what would make this cake more convenient to make would be, mixing all the dry ingredients together in advance and storing that mix, so whenever I want to make some cake, I won't have to measure and mix as many different ingredients, since part of the work will already have been done.
Having two ceramic pasta bowls to mix stuff in was convenient, and fortunately, all the mixed together ingredients ended up fitting perfectly in my ceramic casserole dish. As usual, I greased the casserole dish with organic raw coconut oil, which successfully prevented the cake from sticking to the dish at all.
I'm definitely not usually a fan of mixing cheeses and cakes, so, predictably, I wasn't super-thrilled by it. But it was good enough, and definitely better than having no icing at all. It tasted pretty much how I'd expect cream cheese mixed with boiled milk, sugar, and flour to taste.
Another topping I liked for this cake was some of this organic maple syrup. (Though I think I'd prefer one of the stronger-flavored later-harvested syrups like this one, or maybe this one which I haven't yet tried.) And some extra ginger and cinnamon.
Here's my blog post on why I've been trying to consume more blackstrap molasses:
Today I made a cake, and I modified this recipe in a few ways, to make about half as much cake, increase the amount of spices, and remove some ingredients I didn't want:
From SplendidTable.org
And also this icing recipe:
From SplendidTable.org
For my modified version of that cake, I put in half the amount of most ingredients, except:
But, when I tasted it, I wished I had put in a lot more spices, because the gingerbread taste was so tantalizingly faint. Also, the cake looked so much like chocolate, it was also a little disappointing that it didn't taste like chocolate.
Anyway, it was still pretty good, and will definitely be an enjoyable way to increase my consumption of blackstrap molasses over the next several days.
I'm having a hard time deciding if it needs more sugar or not - I'd almost describe it as semi-sweet, but I think actually it's closer to being almost, but maybe just short of, sweet enough. Or maybe quite sweet enough, depending on my mood. I often actually like not being overwhelmed by excessive sweetness.
If I ever make this cake again, I will definitely use a lot more spices, and maybe I will try using just one egg next time. And maybe a little bit more brown sugar. Also, I think I'd rather make an even smaller quantity of cake, because I think I prefer eating such things fresh-baked.
For the icing, I used only 1 bar of cream cheese, but I didn't halve the other ingredients, and I used powdered sugar instead of ordinary white sugar, and no vanilla.
I might make this again someday, but I will definitely be adding a lot more ginger and cinnamon next time, and I should probably use a cheeseless icing.
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| My slightly modified version of River Cottage soda bread is good even with blackstrap molasses |
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Saturday, March 17th, 2018 16:01:53 GMT |
| Recipes |
There's a similar but different recipe, which takes longer to cook, on their website:
Thanks to the authors!
I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, then I mixed together all the dry ingredients first, in my big ceramic pasta bowl.
1 cup of flour (I used whole wheat graham flour instead of white flour), 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of baking powder (which I wasn't sure was going to work because it had an expiration date in Feb. 2014! But, it seems like it worked fine).
However, I found out recently that blackstrap molasses is actually an ingredient in some pumpernickel bread recipes, so, maybe the worst thing that would have happened would have been, my bread would've turned out a bit more like pumpernickel?
Here's my blog post on why I've been trying to consume more blackstrap molasses:
I mixed the ingredients together a bit with a spoon, but mostly kneaded the dough with my hands, which didn't take long at all. I shaped it into a somewhat oval shape about 2 inches high or maybe a bit less. I skipped dusting rye flour (or any other flour) all over it.
I didn't have a baking sheet, so I used my ceramic casserole dish, which I greased up with organic raw coconut oil, which prevented sticking pretty well - only a couple small parts of the bread got a bit attached to the dish, and detaching them wasn't hard at all. I used so much coconut oil that the bottom of the bread tasted a little coconutty, but I liked it.
With a spoon's handle, I drew some intersecting lines in the top of the dough and poked it in random spots. Then I let it cook for 25 minutes.
Somewhat dense, and chewy on the inside, with a crunchier exterior. Bland in a good, traditionally bread-like way. And, probably fortunately, I couldn't detect the taste or smell of blackstrap molasses at all - neither its foulness nor its sweetness. It also didn't remind me of graham crackers, despite the fact that it was made with whole wheat graham flour.
At first, I was tempted to put extra salt on it, but, just putting a lot of butter on it made it quite good. It is still pretty chewy on the inside after cooling down, and the crunchier exterior is still good too.
Or maybe a slightly smaller quantity if I'm making it for just myself, so I can eat it all at once with no leftovers.
Definitely a good, tasty way for me to increase my consumption of blackstrap molasses! Very easy, too. That was the first time I ever tried to make soda bread, and it turned out quite well, I think.
Today I made soda bread using a slightly modified version of a recipe from The River Cottage Bread Handbook.
From RiverCottage.net
I never made soda bread before, and I wasn't sure I was going to like it, so I reduced the amount of the ingredients to roughly 1/4th of the original amounts.
Then I added an item that wasn't in the recipe. (Except I notice now that the recipe's variation section suggested a tablespoonful of "dark molasses", but I don't think that means blackstrap, judging by this page.) I put in just 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses, because I didn't want to risk ruining the bread with too much of that foul stuff.
Finally, I put in some buttermilk - at first just 1/3rd of a cup, but I soon found that wasn't enough to make all the dry ingredients moist enough to knead into dough, so I added some unmeasured but small amounts more, alternating between trying to knead it, and adding small amounts of buttermilk, until it seemed probably moist enough.
The result was definitely bread! Being so inexperienced with making bread, I had been afraid my modifications might somehow result in a dry brick, especially since I let it cook for a full 25 minutes (though the book had said 20 to 25 minutes) - but, it was quite fine.
It was pretty quick and easy to make, so I probably will make this again, though I'll probably make a larger quantity if my relatives also like it.
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| Blackstrap Molasses, Iron and Ferritin Deficiency, Menstrual Health, and a Yummy Dessert Recipe |
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Friday, March 16th, 2018 16:53:10 GMT |
| Nutrition |
Last modified July 4, 2018 at 12:18 PM EDT. (Fixed typo and replaced a broken link with an Archive.org link.)
Here's this website's disclaimer page.
End of quote.
And I suspect iron deficiency might actually be the top reason why I've struggled so much with fatigue these past several years, until recently. (A lot more details are in my health diary blog posts part 1 and part 2 on my personal website.)
So, I believe blackstrap molasses might possibly be one of the best things I ever found for my health, since it contains a lot of iron, which I suspect I need.
And, recently, after a while of mostly neglecting to consume blackstrap molasses because I felt so fine, energetic, and well-rested, and following my most recent time of the month - I relapsed a bit into often feeling fatigued and strangely not very refreshed by sleep.
Though, among other things, I also think Vitamin D and magnesium help me quite a lot. (Though I now try to avoid overdoing Vitamin D, and haven't taken Vitamin D in supplement form since sometime last year, since I suspect I might have taken too much for a while.) Also, this page says:
Plenty more details about what I think helps me are in my health diary blog posts part 1 and part 2 on my personal website.
Chronic fatigue should be evaluated by a physician and iron supplements taken only after laboratory tests confirm the need for one."
End of quote.
Iron pills scare me, so I much prefer to get iron exclusively from food. This other page says:
End of quote.
Still, I'm guessing it's quite possible to get too much iron even via diet, such as if you eat a ridiculous amount of blackstrap molasses and/or liver and/or beans.
So, I hope everyone will please be careful.
Surprisingly (to me), there can be quite large differences between brands. (Edit, Nov. 5, 2019, 2:36 PM EST. Or even the same brand can somehow change quite a lot.) A while back, I tried the Brer Rabbit brand, and that was actually more palatable to me, but it only had 4% of the "Daily Value" of iron per tablespoon.
Until today, I only had basically two acceptable ways to consume blackstrap molasses:
Both of those are quite surprisingly good, especially the soup (which I sometimes vary with slightly different ingredients and spices). Not just tolerable, but actually good!
But, due to having them so often, I've been getting a bit tired of them, even despite my slight variations of the recipes. So, it has been getting more difficult for me to consume blackstrap molasses as frequently as I'd like, to help ward off the debilitating fatigue I had been dealing with most of the time for the past several years until recently.
Thanks and much praise to its creator!
But, I definitely like peanuts and peanut butter. (And, happily, they seem to help my energy levels.) And this recipe sounded so overall healthy, easy, fairly quick, and possibly good despite my doubts, that I decided to try it.
And I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it actually is quite good. Even the uncooked mix was a lot better than I expected, though I definitely prefer the cooked version.
Also, I was a bit dismayed at how much dry oatmeal there was even after I tried to thoroughly mix the ingredients together (but maybe that's because I used a spoon, not an electric mixer). Anyway, to moisten it and make it blend together better, and also since I guessed it would probably help the taste, I added almost an entire stick of butter (partway melted in the microwave), and even an unmeasured but small amount of whole milk.
I didn't have chopped roasted peanuts, so, I just threw in some Great Value roasted peanuts, a brand available at Walmart.
My ceramic casserole dish wasn't big enough to hold all of the mix (which fit quite well in this nice big ceramic pasta bowl). So, since I only had one ceramic casserole dish, I cooked two consecutive batches using about half of the mix each time. And I globbed most everything together without trying hard at all to make separate cookies.
I also decided to cook it longer, since after 8 minutes, my version was still so moist and soft that I wanted to see if I could make it harder and more cookie-like. But, I didn't keep careful track of how long I was cooking it (and sometimes I forgot to turn the oven back on after checking on it), so I'm not sure how long I cooked my version. Maybe 20 minutes? I was tempted to cook it even longer to try to make it crispy instead of so soft, but I ran out of patience.
My version of this recipe never did end up being cookie-like - it's more like pie filling. Next time I make it, I might cook it in some pie crusts instead of my ceramic casserole dish.
It also reminded me a little of baklava filling, but less gooey and less sweet - which I think is a good thing, even though I do like baklava in small amounts.
I'm guessing spices like cinnamon or ginger might go well with it, and/or probably other spices too.
I had to save most of it for later, since it was so rich I felt satisfied with just a small amount of it. I stored the leftovers in two of these great smoothie glasses with lids.
Blackstrap molasses is far from the only way to get more iron in my diet, but, I feel like it somehow works better for me than other things I eat more often, like breakfast cereal with lots of iron. (I've read that milk might interfere with iron absorption, though I've also read that it doesn't particularly interfere, so, I don't know who's right about this.)
And I have misgivings about eating a lot of meat, both for moral reasons, and because I suspect meat from mistreated animals raised in horrific and unhealthy conditions might also be bad for human health in various ways.
After consuming even just 1 spoonful of blackstrap molasses (usually in vegetable juice or sometimes in soup), I tend to feel better and more relaxed, similar to how I feel after taking a magnesium supplement, and I feel like it somehow helps me sleep better.
And fortunately, the more my fatigue recedes, the easier it gets for me to make significant progress.
So, hopefully at some point I'll eventually get around to doing more with Non24.com.
Disclaimer: I'm not a health care professional or nutritionist, just a layperson with some interest in health issues, and none of this blog post is intended as health advice. I'm just sharing some of my personal thoughts and experiences with things which I believe helped me, and some links to (and quotes of) informative articles, etc. I found, in case anyone might find this stuff helpful and/or interesting.
Here's a quote from an article titled 9 Signs Of An Iron Deficiency Doctors Say You Should Never Ignore:
"In fact, iron deficiency is the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world, according to the WHO, which estimates that some 2 billion people - or 30% of the world's entire population - have anemia, which is caused by lack of iron."
As a 36-year-old woman with a perhaps above average amount of menstrual flow, I believe I lose a significant amount of iron every month. And since I have often had the terrible habit of neglecting to eat, or of not eating well, I suspect I often haven't sufficiently replenished my lost iron.
My energy seemed to improve a lot after I started trying to consume about a spoonful of blackstrap molasses at least every few days. (At first, for a while, I tried to have it daily, but I guess I'm just not that fond of vegetable juice and soup. Also, I don't want to possibly get too much iron, since too much iron is quite dangerous.)
Here's the article where I first learned about how important proper levels of iron and ferritin are for refreshing sleep. It's sad at first, but it has a mostly happy ending:
From AdoptionNutrition.org
I haven't asked a doctor about my iron or ferritin levels (or anything else, maybe since 2005!), so I'm not 100% certain my problem is low iron or low ferritin, but, given how my fatigue seems to correlate a lot with my time of the month, and given how much better I felt back when I was making more of an effort to consume blackstrap molasses and other sources of iron, such as beans - I strongly suspect my fatigue is quite possibly primarily from low iron or low ferritin.
"When you're taking magnesium, you need to consider calcium, vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 as well, since these all work synergistically with one another."
Here's a great video I found about blackstrap molasses and how it might help with menstrual issues:
And here's a great article I found about iron deficiency in women:
July 10, 2012 from TheAtlantic.com
And here's an important quote from that, warning about the dangers of excess iron:
"A person who feels fatigued should not self-diagnose and take an iron supplement. A supplement could obscure a serious medical condition such as a bleeding ulcer. Taking too much iron can also be problematic and dangerous as iron levels may build up in the body and cause major organ failure.
"Most people don't need to worry about getting too much iron from food alone. Even the best food sources contain only about 5 milligrams per serving, and most foods contain less than 3 milligrams per serving. Iron deficiency is much more likely than iron toxicity from foods."
The brand of blackstrap molasses I use is the Plantation brand, since it has 20% of the "Daily Value" of iron per tablespoon. (Edit, Nov. 5, 2019, 2:33 PM EST: Unfortunately, the last bottles I got had only 15% (3 mg of iron) or 8% (1.5 mg of iron) of the "Daily Value" of iron per tablespoon (21g)! So, I'm going to try some other brands.) Also, it's organic, and made in the USA.
One major problem with blackstrap molasses is, if it's not mixed with the right other ingredients, it tastes quite vile - at least to me, and plenty of other people.
So, today, I tried out a slightly modified version of this surprisingly good recipe:
From ConnoisseurusVeg.com
I was quite skeptical that I was going to like that recipe, since for me, blackstrap molasses (eaten by itself, or mixed with the wrong things) is horrendously bad. And instead of typical sugar, that recipe has only a banana for additional sweetness, beyond the significant amount of sweetness blackstrap molasses surprisingly provides despite its vileness. And bananas are usually just something I tolerate rather than something I particularly enjoy.
However, I did modify the recipe a bit. I didn't use vanilla extract because vanilla extract often has alcohol in it, and cooking might not remove all alcohol.
I didn't have a baking sheet, so, I used this ceramic casserole dish, which I greased up with organic raw coconut oil to hopefully keep the cookies from getting stuck to the dish. It (and/or the butter) seemed to work! (It also was probably subtly good for the flavor, without making it taste obviously coconutty to me.)
In any case, the result was astonishingly pleasing - a rich, but not overwhelmingly sweet flavor, good both with or without a little additional sweetening in the form of a little organic maple syrup, which only subtly changed the flavor. (Perhaps because I was using the mild-flavored Extra Rare early-harvested syrup, and only a quite small amount of it.)
Since this is the kind of thing I only really enjoy in rather small amounts (like baklava, fudge, certain pies, and walnuts), I'm going to keep trying to find (or maybe create, or remix) some blackstrap molasses-containing recipes which I'll be more likely to want to eat frequently and in larger amounts.
Another thing I like about blackstrap molasses is its other nutrients besides iron, like magnesium and some of the B vitamins, among various other things.
My current top priority (other than overcoming my fatigue, again) is various computer programming projects.
| The Hans Free Electric Bike |
|
Friday, August 4th, 2017 17:44:36 GMT |
| Energy |
I learned about it when I stumbled across this news story:
Feb. 24, 2016 from DailyMail.co.uk
It could even help many people in the USA - even me and my family! Many Americans can't comfortably afford the cost of electricity, and even I and my family have at times been afraid we wouldn't be able to afford to keep our electricity on.
Huge thanks to everyone involved in the Hans Free Electric Bike project!
Today, I heard about a wonderful new invention - the Hans Free Electric Bike.
This is some of the happiest news I've encountered in a long time, since I believe it might truly drastically reduce poverty worldwide. It could also reduce pollution, and slow down global warming by reducing the need to burn fossil fuels, wood, etc. for energy or heat.
According to the official Frequently Asked Questions page by Billions in Change:
"The latest estimate is that the Hans Free Electric™ bike will be available to buyers in the US and India sometime in late 2017."
I'm definitely interested in possibly buying one. I just recently started riding an ordinary exercise bike just for health and aesthetic reasons, but I would absolutely love being able to put all that energy to even more practical uses, such as saving my family a ton of money on electricity, and saving the world from pollution and global warming.