Google Sidewiki entry by Jeremy

Also, thank you for helping programmers find jobs that tailor themselves to their programmer.

in reference to: About AIM in Gmail (AIM Federation) - Google Chat Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

THANK YOU

I love this! Now, I can stay in touch with my brother without juggling additional programs!

in reference to: About AIM in Gmail (AIM Federation) - Google Chat Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thank you, NPR, for the HNS

Hourly News Summaries hookin' me up. I get so out of touch, living overseas. Thanks, NPR. Click Listen>Hourly News Summary once an hour to keep yourself in the loop.

in reference to: NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR (view on Google Sidewiki)

Key things: The human body has an incredible capacity for long-term happiness

Chronic and long-term depression foregrounding a variety of frames is discussed in this article.


Key things to know: 

1. There are two basic chemicals/hormones that promote happiness.  Like happiness, these two chemicals come in a  variety of sub-types.  Enjoy them all but remember that they can all be drained.  Shoot for the long haul and don't go overboard.  Enjoy too much 'jocular catharsis', and you might wear yourself out.  Also, remember that bio-availability is essential to the physiological understanding of this issue of happiness while reading #2.  As is appropriate, restraint doesn't only increase the amount of joyful experiences overall, but it also increases a person's implicit appetite for happiness, which may be equally as satisfying as the happiness itself.
2. Be exercised and clean, especially inside!  People are always adding to their bodies to promote high health.  Sometimes, it's more about what you take away.  The body can only process so much.  Vegetarian diets (even temporary) promote high quality waste disposal, as does exercise.  Vegetables also have the elements necessary to regenerate the chemicals required for happiness and the enzymes to create them; on the other hand, meat offers little of what is necessary for these things.  Talk to yourself like an adult.  You can do these things.  And stay hydrated and stretched while exercising!
3. Most emotions are okay, with one exception: anger.  If you notice yourself covering your eyes, biting your lips, or picking your nails--self destructive--, you might be frustrated with what you are feeling.  Know the appropriate responses to all the emotions.  Work through or control the extremely stressful ones (for example, shame and confusion) and indulge in/retreat to/enjoy the ones that aren't trying and can even be relaxing for the body (for example, sadness and empathy).  

More on types of anger and their dealings:


People can be all kinds of angry, just like all kinds of happy.  So, it's often difficult to decipher.  That's why I'm trying to emphasize that you should look out for the behavioral indicators of "madness".  Let's look at some examples:

1. If you are sleeping in such a way that it will damage your face eyes or neck (flat on your face), or cause damage to your upper back or shoulder (on your side with your shoulders closed), you might be "grumpy".  
2. If someone says something that makes you feel sadness or disappointment, then weakness, then repression; or, if you find yourself talking endlessly to a person who is troublesomely non-communicative; you might be "frustrated".
3. If you find yourself biting your nails, chewing your lips, covering your eyes, gritting your teeth, etc., you might be "anxious".

Now that we have compartmentalized our emotions, let's look at what the above three forms of anger mean and some common approaches for dealing with them.  

Grumpiness: Grumpiness comes from worry, rumination, and other forms of personal investment.  Reassure yourself that activities will be around the next day and that entertainment isn't worth loss of sleep.  Also, be aware that sleep can be entertaining.  For example, think of a happy or peaceful place.  You can also try to focus on something that isn't typical.  In other words: try to unlock little-used components of your cognition.  So, if people consider you an artistic person, think about something analytical: if people consider you an analytical person, try thinking of something artistic.



Frustration: Frustration grows from situatedness in uncomfortable emotions and overcomplicated issues/situations.  Above, I listed two of the most trying emotions: shame and confusion.  In the case of shame, there are two options: silence and honesty.  For most people, silence is the most feasible, but they try to be honest, anyway.  True honesty means understanding your own emotions and expressing them.  Be honest: is expressing your emotions in public going to lead to indignation?  If so, try to save the truth for an appropriate (or rather, feasible) context.  


In the case of confusion, again, there are two options: distraction through acceptance and interest resulting from curiosity.  Especially in people with a low quality of self esteem, confusion followed by austere suspicion(s) can be extremely infuriating and damaging.  Get in touch with your curiosity.  Be prepared with commonly known, productive speaking structures, for people who are learning something knew (i.e., "Good to know!" or "Thanks, for this savory new information.").  In the case of acceptance, you'll need to have done some groundwork.  Topical issues and creative activities are a most excellent and useful distraction.  Try to juggle one in risky situations, just in case.  It's difficult to distract when there is nothing to distract to.  Note that distraction may be necessary in certain situations; such as, when you are dealing with somebody who is stubborn, or when you are in a social hierarchy that does not allow for querying.


Anxiety: What most people don't realize is that even the most basic definition of anxiety reveals that anxiety is an implication of both low quality self esteem and anger.  Fear, as well, is implicative of low quality self esteem and anger, but fear is typically combined with shame or confusion.  Attachment psychologists, for example, define fearful attachment systems as a combinations of anxious attachment styles and avoidant attachment styles.  Let's get back to anxiety, though.  It's probably no surprise that the best possible way to deal with self harm and harmful self-deprecation--to learn to feel good about yourself and treat yourself right--, is to work on your relationship with yourself.  The swiftest, most effective method to develop this relationship, quickly, is going to seem a bit crazy....  Talk to yourself.  


And why not?  People journal, to themselves.  People draw self portraits.  People sing songs they like.  And everybody "works things out" in their head, to some extent. Well, to all you anxious people out there: it's time to show your work.  A mass of psychological evidence has almost shown direct causation between low quality self esteem and repression of the oral thinking style.  Now, repression is often dismissed as "black psychology"--psychology that isn't legal by today's standards, or is borderline unethical, or is de-emphasized at the university level.  The truth is, I agree that it's black psychology; however, it would be incredibly obtuse and illogical to take that as a reason ignore the single  psychological gold mine research on repression has accentuated through sound methodology and scientific means.  More black psychology has revealed that self injurious behavior is coded into our DNA; perhaps, as a healthy defense mechanism against fear (a pathway back to sanity).  Repression and anxiety, in high doses, lead to NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) and DPD (dissociative personality disorder), to name just two.  This is why I urge you to focus on self esteem when dealing with your anxiety, rather than exposure.  


Here is a bonus set of tips for self psychology that my collection of books and professors have passed on to me:

• During self psychology, try to find comfortable topic matter.  
• Speak to yourself as you might speak to an awesome new friend.  
• If you can't be honest with yourself, who can you be honest with?  
• No issue is too big or too small.  
• Remember, even if a part of you is a child, the whole of you is an adult.  
• Talking to oneself is the healthiest of nervous tics because the tic is comprehensibly articulate, and our self-serving biases inspire us to placidity.  
• Most people only speak to themselves through creative filters; sometimes, however, we need to just dig in to the raw truth of how we are feeling in real time.  
• Do everything you can to treat yourself right because, hey, it's you.  And you deserve it! 
• Just dive right in: you'll be surprised at how naturally it comes to you.

That's it for now.  Hope you enjoyed the read.  Send me a comment or fan me, especially if you enjoyed the reading or have a psychological publication of your own.

The key to developing an excellent, university-level (or rather university-acceptable) research paper, I have found, is to begin with sources. My own personal method for developing a clean paper on the quick is to:



1) Get at least 1/4 of the paper's length in direct quotes or paraphrases into a text editor, with citation data.

2) Write in why each study is important.

3) Write in how all of the studies combine to for one generalized outcome.

4) Sort the citations by similarity of why statements and then generate topics, to organize and outline the paper.

5) Write, read, and edit out errors.



This simple pattern is the A pattern, I have found, but it has still never been enough. It is difficult to take confidence in my reflections on data, however convincing it may be to a professor or thoughtful it may seem to a laymen against these methods....
I think that the real problem is that I randomly commit type I and type II errors without even knowing due to an inability to clearly calculate and summarize datum weight. As a result of these negative assumptions, I often over-write and add a few extra pages to my research or spin expensively on examples at the end of each study explanation....



Graphing data first not only creates a clear and concise summary of the data for each individual study, but it also allows me to weigh the data against each other and come to a more clear, more accurate interpretation of data sets, no matter how small or large, the first time.



Prior to today, this paper may have been my favorite kind for understanding somethng new: http://www.ori.org/~keiths/bibliography/statistics-meta.html --the old method, a horribly one-sided review that corners the reader into a maximum of three axes and stone-walls them into a perhaps erronious assumption.



Sensitivity graphs, like forest plots and regressions to adjust for multiple outcomes, time-points, comparisons, and subgroups; to adjust for continuous moderators; or to find breaking points for better research proposals. I think that the key is, being able to plot a x-bar/y-bar range for as many similar outcomes as one can find, associated with as many hypernyms as possible, and then find the easiest and most difficult to answer questions. Also, being able to review old research and see how accurate it was is nice. For those of us who cannot help but to ask our readers questions.... Why not try one more method by which to answers these questions, ourselves? Especially questions like: "I can't be right, can I?" To which the answer is almost certainly yes and no.



To learn more about meta-analysis, go here: http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec1171/index.htm.

A comparison of ASPD and self-injurious behaviors

Many of the students who stop by the counseling center at the schools I work at have problems with cutting, either in themselves or with others. With some in this group, the issue of stalking also arose. While stalking may not always be the means, harmful acts to others on many levels often comes hand-in-hand with the psychological implications of self-injurious behavior (SIB). So, I will briefly mention stalking.

There are a few things I would like to mention in response to the cutting issue:
1) Anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) is marked by a person's rewarding themselves for having novel insight, by committing harmful or violent acts to others (i.e., stalking).
2) Presently, the highest correlated marker we know to happiness is 'rank' or 'position', as in a hierarchy; however, being given more rank may not work for people with low intrinsic self esteem, low intelligence (especially, social intelligence/EQ) and some other select populations.
3) SIB in high-functioning adults and teens is something I presently see as a glib cry for help, superlatively "a need for control/power". People hurt themselves, for power, because they feel they are powerless over themselves or in some other area of their lives and feel the need to compensate. It is especially strong in people with panic and anxiety problems, which are often treated with mindfulness, in ACT. While anxiety attacks or other forms of strong emotion are not common in individuals with ASPD, 'mock' anxiety attacks are a common method of social manipulation. Genuine panic attacks can accompany ASPD and SIB. A person with ASPD would seek out this intense rush of stimulation rather than avoid it.

Negative grading of peripherization, and the positive correlation between emotional intelligence and acceptance in arguments

A person's ability to care about others basically depends on two things:
1) Ability to constantly valuate individuals.
Our environment naturally reinforces 'ignorance' of the people around us. We walk down the street and 100 people walk by. Many people are afraid to make eye contact, smile, or say hello to strangers, let alone stopping to say hello. This isn't just true on the street but also it is even true even through to intimate social situations and everywhere in between. And even when speaking with people, it seems some have a tendency to monologue or talk about themselves, rather than pausing for real conversation and showing genuine interest in others.
2) Ability to maintain multiple simultaneous trains of thought and frequently select those which more accurately depict and develop an implicit self image.
Being able to maintain simultaneous cognitions or emotions is the foundation on upon which human empathy is built. It allows us to understand the multiple levels of acceptance people have for our ideas, in discourse, and it further allows us to consider that each person will, in any given situation, desire to hold onto a piece of themselves, without entirely giving in to someone elses opinion.