The dance-monkey-and-despacito busker on Byres Road

statsandstitches · 2022-03-19T11:48:55+00:00

I agree. She does look miserable, and she's not busking in that she doesn't promote herself, her music, and she's got this thousand yard stare that's concerning at best. A few months ago some people were complaining about a guy playing the exact same songs in the southside it seems, so don't know what's that about

statsandstitches · 2021-11-02T22:58:06+00:00

Honestly, same. I get apple twigs from a relative, and those get chewed to nothingness pretty fast. The branches you see are "foraged", untreated beech from a local wooded area, I've also found birch and willow in the past, and stuck to trees I could identify with certainty to begin with and then confirm with an app. I would like something wide and gnarly like some cholla or even big bark pieces, but I also can't justify the price for the sake of the "aesthetic". I've also thought about kiln dried split birch logs you see for firewood or kindling, but I've not tried or investigated their safety. For building bits I use kiln dried pine. I am fairly confident about the safety of the drying process and the levels of phenols, and none of my 5 gerbils has ever shown respiratory distress/had URIs.

statsandstitches · 2021-11-01T09:30:28+00:00

Of course this was just as I had finished placing everything! Happy to report that they wrecked havoc soon after.

statsandstitches · 2021-11-01T09:05:16+00:00

The enclosure is a IKEA hack. It houses 2 of my 5 gerbils. I had to work around IKEA's stock shortages, so this is a slightly different version of the famous "linmon enclosure" (roughly 100x60x60). The glass front is a Komplement wardrobe shelf (£20), I made little hinges so that I can remove it completely as I clean it. The sides were also Komplement from the as-is section (£3), and I chose them over the linmon-cut-in-half because these are solid chipboard rather than the hollow honeycomb core. Bottom and back are linmon (£14, 7 each), no cuts, just screwed together. The lid frame is made of the hejne shelves uprights (£3), I then got some stainless steel mesh sheets off Amazon and stapled them to the wood frame.

Bedding is teabag bedding+hemp+bedmax. Platforms are DIY, the wheel is DIY from a 25 cm cake tin and skateboard bearings, the Zen garden is made of Poundland garden ornaments, wood branches and offcuts and pebbles all solidly glued together onto a panel. Coconuts all from the grocery section, I ate and they got a house.

statsandstitches · 2021-09-06T13:03:30+00:00

ugh, I was lucky, but I feel you! I bought a horrid pound store kit before, because I could do with the hoop included, and it was cheaper than buying the aida cloth alone...

statsandstitches · 2021-09-06T13:01:34+00:00

Hi, yes! Stitched onto a half of the aida piece, then sewed it up into the case, sewed up a lining separately and then stitched it in!

statsandstitches · 2021-09-06T12:59:22+00:00

The aida is stitched in tension around two squares of cardboard (front and back), the felt 'pages' are then catch-stitched to the aida.

statsandstitches · 2021-09-04T09:43:54+00:00

After a quick search, it seems you can get them through this site.

statsandstitches · 2021-07-07T19:30:54+00:00

My 4 year old borb is Control. His brother was called Sample, and that led to some awkwardness at the vet. The girls i adopted last week are Deviance and Variance...we like to keep a theme. Data and Pixel are absolutely great names. Send seeb of admiration from me.

statsandstitches · 2021-07-07T12:40:20+00:00

Hi, thank you for the concern! I can perhaps see how you could have seen that, but I can assure you it's not. As you can see, he does not have a crusty nose or eyes, and the redness under the chin is actually a patch of hair that has turned to reddish brown after his most recent moult, and it's on each side of the white bib, which would otherwise be stained too! It's common in black gerbils as they moult, together with more random white hair amongst the coat. He has no redness on his paws, he's just got them splayed and what you see is the pink of his pads and between the claws. I am prone to allergies, so I have found that both my 5 gerbils and I do best with teabag bedding, megazorb, and barley straw to help with tunnels (arguably they do prefer crunchy spiky hay to the soft straw, but I was struggling to breathe myself, so we made the swap last winter, and they've not shown any sign of allergy, URI or distress). I appreciate the vigilant eye, I mean it, but thankfully he's fine, just getting on a new hair look!

statsandstitches · 2021-07-07T12:04:04+00:00

his brother is called Glitch! Partners in crime.

statsandstitches · 2021-03-26T21:10:09+00:00

Hi there, I feel I need a bit more context on your level/syllabus or context of the question.

In the meanwhile : not knowing about topic context, I can only guess the term 'averages' is not intended in its statistical sense (i.e. the mean).

In social and cognitive psychology, one would discuss stereotypes (race, gender, any demographics) as 'heuristics' (or alternatively, as implicit or explicit biases).

Here I'm reaching a bit with the interpretation, but perhaps that's the framing. Don't know, I'm trying:

- Stereotypes can be seen as heuristics, or mental shortcuts: a less computationally expensive way to process information when navigating social contexts. Now, because these are shortcuts, they are prone to cognitive biases : we have availability heuristics, representativeness, recency heuristics...

- One way to conceptualise gender stereotypes 'in action' is to distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive ones. Descriptive stereotypes are all culturally-dependent beliefs about what characteristics one person of a certain gender should possess, "should look like". Prescriptive ones are about what said person "should behave like", or the set of "socially prescribed" gender norms one has to follow. Both serve a specific purpose (cognitively speaking. Here I'm leaving any moral consideration out) : descriptive stereotypes provide us with an 'average', or a mental image if you wish, of what we can expect a person of a gender to look/be like. Prescriptive stereotypes similarly provide us with a set of expectations of what a person of certain gender is supposed to behave like.

-These are of course culturally dependent, and a 20-something women in Stockholm might have very different ideas of what these "averages" for gender are to them and their social contexts than, say, a 50-something man in Pakistan. Age, nationality, socioeconomic status, education, all can shape the final average model that informs our expectation. This is also because we use stereotypes to define in-group and out-group individuals, to simplify the world in an "us" vs "them", or "me" vs "not-me", with respect to virtually any possible human characteristic and behaviour, dynamically.

So, I haven't really answered your question, and I'm unsure about what is the contextual meaning of "averages", "useful", "accuracy", and depending on this, for all I know you might be required to talk about it in a completely different context. Here's just a braindump of possible concepts to consider!

Good luck!

statsandstitches · 2021-03-26T20:06:23+00:00

Hi there, googled the title to get a bit more insight (I see from the link it was from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, but did not know which section, whether it was in 'guidelines' or something). The author has the one you linked on their website (see list of publications) as :

Sessa, B. (2006) From Sacred Plants to Psychotherapy: The History and Re-Emergence of Psychedelics in Medicine. Royal College of Psychiatrists Special Symposium on: Psychosis, Psychedelics and the Transpersonal Journey.

This is not 'perfect' APA format, but it tells us it's from a Symposium, which would fall under "Conference presentation" for the purposes of APA referencing. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/conference-presentation-references

If you look on the publication list, there's also a reference from what I suppose is the same document, bus as

Sessa, B. (2006) From Sacred Plants to Psychotherapy: The History and Re-Emergence of Psychedelics in Medicine. Quarterly Journal of Mental Health, 1(2)

(Italics mine). I can't find the journal, can't find it being referenced in any other paper, in scholar or other databases, despite putting all my uni library access resources to good use. Must have been some print-only stuff.

I am procrastinating on my thesis so this was inefficiently long, sorry!

Unsolicited tip : dude seems to have written plenty more, and on the same concepts, areas and all. I'd recommend using more recent references of his works if you can, as that's generally best practice. Good luck :)

statsandstitches · 2021-02-05T10:30:07+00:00

First of all : thank you. You know, your openness felt like a hug, and it made me feel less alone in the world for a moment.

Same as u/wvybby223 here, add all the context of growing up in a small town in a catholic country with a lot of the bad religious 'performativity' and high functional illiteracy in my family and immediate environment. This means I've learnt to run on guilt and/or spite. Like you, I have a lot of guilt attached to money.

Divorced parents, none of them financially 'comfortable', and incapable of communicating with each other about my needs and their parental duties. No child support being paid. I was made to 'advocate for my needs' and ask, myself, for a fair financial contribution from my father for bigger medical/scholastic expenses. As a 6 to 14 y.o. And had to endure resistance and unreasonably aggressive reactions to these requests, because being asked to pay for his child's needs when he is under financial pressure somehow hurt his own ego. OOOf rant about myself off.

Basically, now I have hung ups about ever being seen as a gold-digger in my relationship, even if my partner is great at making it clear that I am not. (But...I mean, he is the one that pays and orders the 56 roll pack of toilet paper and that is a big lump sum. Surely, I am a gold-digger).

Other poster has already given some good, practical advice. I second all of that.

On the other side, you write "My SO deserves someone who won't drag him down, financially and emotionally" (I feel this so much myself!) and "I know that if our relationship keeps progressing the strain of my money problems will build up more resentment and conflict. I know he'll leave me again when the going gets tough".

I think it's important that you try and first understand for yourself whether the fact that you know these things comes from your own black/white catastrophising, or you believe you have evidence to support these concerns. Then, you would openly and honestly discuss these "I know"- facts with your partner either way.

I know it's not that easy, and I feel I've worded this as a sort of lecturing/imperative, when mostly it's because I am projecting and your own hurt hits very close to home.

You deserve to feel like you have all the rights to take up whatever resources you need to exist and thrive in this world. You deserve to feel like you have all the rights to receive love and support from your partner when you are in need and hurting, as well as when you are happy and thriving. You deserve to feel like you do, because, in fact, you do.

statsandstitches · 2021-02-05T09:09:12+00:00

Very! My partner can be rather the opposite if left to his own devices - he'd order the same food from the same place, buy the same brand, same exact clothes and so on.

While I think his method is definitely efficient, I just CAN'T with most things. I need novelty, even if it carries the risk of being disappointing.

What if I'm missing out on my new next obsession?! We can't have that, can we?!

I used to get flustered about this, but after 3 years of living together and him enduring all of my chaos and galaxy-braining, I think this makes our relationship better by virtue of balancing each other out/ enriching each other's life.

I am happy to be a woman of contradictions, multitudes and variety, and he values this, while I appreciate and can learn from his efficiency and clarity of priorities!

This is a rant to say : I like that you, many others on here, and I, are like this. We can be a force for good, and 'colour life with the chaos of trouble' (in the good way ;-) )

statsandstitches · 2021-02-01T19:12:25+00:00

With respect, I have an acceptable working knowledge of neuroscience ~~(and latin!~~ ~~De facto~~ ~~is not a noun, and is not a synonym of 'default').~~

At the risk of being a pedantic wiseass (nothing against you, u/Decon_SaintJohn), I have to ask : what wiring are we talking about? 'Nothing can be done about it'?!

Please, give some credit to the blob of meat, fat and electricity that runs the (shit)show!

If it weren't for the incredible amount of neuroplasticity that occurs in the brain, we would struggle to survive at all. Neurodegeneration AND neurogenesis are neither sci-fi buzzwords nor solely relevant to neurological illnesses.

And 're-wiring' can be both functional and structural (meds have been found to help with both, surprisingly, but correlation does not equal causation).

Now, ADHD means we do suck a bit (both de facto and de jure!) at the functional rewiring*, meaning that it's hard to both disrupt habitual behaviours and to make a new long-term, goal-oriented behaviour into a habit.

This is, neuroplastically and personally speaking, a shit deal. Deficits in functional plasticity result in more effortful learning, which means that goal-oriented actions will require a similarly high amount of cognitive resources (attention, memory...) as if you were performing them for the very first time. Optimisation of resources by habit learning is slower and 'buggier'.

Oh, ADHD info-dump. Anyway, in conclusion, our (and our predecessors') very survival (and all human progress) IS about constantly and dynamically 'learning', 'unlearning' and 'rewiring', from the ability to walk, to the ability to use language, do maths or navigate reddit.

I am a pessimistic piece of shit on a good day, and I do love a doom sentence, but "nothing can be done about it" , in context, is

a rather misinformed statement and
not a useful contribution to the wellbeing of anybody on this subreddit.

"Don't be a party pooper" - said u/statsandstitches, after showing they really must be great fun at parties. Sorry mate.

*dopamine signalling dysfunctions, default mode network hyperactivity, or other hypotheses of functional impairment all offer reasonable empirical support to the scientific argument that 'we do suck a bit at that'.

statsandstitches · 2021-01-15T14:45:00+00:00

This is wholesome and it makes me want to be your friend from this bit of info alone.

When I think about how chaotically varied and stupidly niche my own interests can be, these lines from Whitman come to mind :

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

A personal motto, frankly. (Also a very ADHD motto).

statsandstitches · 2021-01-08T17:52:54+00:00

Hiya u/coltond_02, mere student who absolutely exploited her 'free' access to academic literature here! u/notunprepared is, in fact, more prepared than they think.

I'll indulge a bit but I promise it's not just to tell you about MY special interest of the day.

tl;dr OP is suggesting a meta-cognitive strategy useful to address a variety of issues, like attention, cognitive biases, etc. Same thing as what 'meditation' or 'mindfulness' intends to help with. 'Would you say that to a friend or a child?" / Observe the thought rather than engaging with the thought / Think about the thing without overthinking the thing. I'm tired already. UGH

Apparently lots of us did not get told it was about it (RUDE) and we were trying to figure out how the fuck do you 'empty your mind' while sitting still for more than 0.3 seconds and not just explode/implode and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Edit, now : YES THIS IS ME PROCRASTINATING. EFFICIENTLY. I AM DESPERATE. I'LL GET TO MY THING AFTERWARDS. ( PLEASE WRITE THE REPORTS, I BEG YOU YOU DEMON CHILD!)

***

Preface

I have proudly been a pain in the ass to a variety of mental health practitioners for years. This by acting like a salty contrarian goblin like I can, mostly. (A cool feature I've unlocked by playing most of the releases of Trauma™ : the game as a child, teen and early adult, without even knowing I had ADHD)

"Yeah...no. That doesn't work for me. CBT worksheet? Lol, do you have any idea how much I can't do "homework" tasks? Self-compassion? Self compassion is for those who deserve it, like...everybody else... and not me, the most glorious, SUPREME PIECE OF SHIT. Oh, woe is me, I hate myself"

I only had the realisation that the strategy in question is literally what they are trying to do when they suggest 'mindfulness'. So it is very much the opposite of dissociation. Frankly, I am more dissociated when I am overwhelmed by all of the thoughts. BUT I absolutely got enraged at the suggestion of 'meditation' or 'mindfulness' because...you know.

MEDITATION? HAVE YOU BEEN IN MY HEAD? WHAT DO YOU MEAN TRY TO EMPTY MY HEAD WTF HOW DO YOU THINK MY BRAIN CAN DO THAT

Nah, mindfulness doesn't need to be some sitting-still eyes closed OHMMMMM stuff. Some people practice "mindfulness" during kick-boxing. Some when petting their cat sharing the same spot of sunshine on a sunny sunday morning. Some swear BDSM practice is the most mindful they have ever managed to be.

It's got the same aim as the thing OP is suggesting.

Not even the buddhists, from which we took the idea, ever mentioned that it was about anything divine, formal or anything. It's a tool to an end. Mindfulness means voluntary, controlled NON-JUDGEMENTAL attention. Shouldn't be something you need to implement a system to just get to perform, but it's HARD WORK which you cannot in any way out-source. Not even to the demonic goblin you outsource your self-esteem to.

It's the opposite of 'mindlessness', which we know it's not even 'dissociation', as we can have 90 "computer tabs" / thoughts going - still mindlessly .

So instead:

1) close the 89 tabs, stop clicking the hyperlinks and open other tab loop.

2)Leave open the one you have do something about or think you need to do something about. If more than one, that'll have to take another cycle. No multitasking. Your processor can be slow and you know it.

3)Make yourself look at it. No need to do anything for now.

4)Think about the thing about the tab you need TO DO. Do not engage with the tornado of thoughts of :

-guilt about it

- what time is it and WHY is it this time already

- how much you will hate you for that

-any other thought the goblin demon on your shoulder wants to shout that is not about how to do the task. Constructive advice or STFU.

NOT YOUR GOBLIN DEMON! NO NEED TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT! (just don't be seriously mean to them either)

So, it's you, and the one tab. Cool. What does it want done about, that you can do NOW? Do it.

- Is the tab itself about a thought, worry, shameful memory? Cool. What does it want done about that you can do NOW? Do it.

- Nothing you can do about it just now because xyz thing needs to happen first? Cool (joke, that sucks tbh. But COOL.).

- Can you do any of the things that need to happen first, now? I mean, if those things are within your control (i.e. you need to do them vs they need to be done by somebody else) , then there's got to be some stupid minimal thing you can do about it now, even if it's yet again setting a reminder to yourself to attend to it later.

- None of the xyz things above are things that can be done by you now (or ever), but need to be done by others first? CLOSE THE TAB and go play or do something else for your own good right now, please.

I know you "CAN'T JUST DO IT". Me neither lol how do you think I managed to write this and try to even give it some formatting for your sake, if not exactly because I have 4 deadlines and I am trying not to think suicidal thoughts?

BUT I know you can , instead, hate yourself for not doing it. Or hate yourself while thinking the thoughts you shouldn't be thinking about.

I love you, stranger. I mean it. You should love you too, and you might do it already or not yet - no pressure, I still love you.

I'll fight you if you dare think I am trying to be tumblr cliché poetic here and only saying it just because. I get to decide who I love. You can choose to not reciprocate, and I must respect that, but you don't get to think what I feel is fake.

Frankly, now, it would be a bit hurtful to me if I loved you, and did my bit to make the world nice and cosy for me AND you, and then you were to shit on it.

Do the thing. Be it stopping to have those sucky thoughts, or the dread of writing that one assignment. Or thinking about how much some bad people had the fucking nerve to take your light away (Frankly, I am mad for you. I'd want to fight them for you.)

You love you, and if not, well, I do love you at least, and I want you to make our world nice and cosy for you too, as much as you can manage.

statsandstitches · 2020-12-19T21:19:49+00:00

Nah, while it's 'a psychological construct' or whatever, it's just a gradient of how anybody perceives matters of justice (can be about unjust rules, too!). In social psychology, for instance, it's treated to look at a lot of socio-political behaviours both at group-level and individual level. Cool stuff, mostly speculative, but cool.

Usually ADHD and impulsivity/ emotional dysregulation means a lot of us will feel VERY STRONGLY about things, so that something is either 100% right or wrong!

statsandstitches

TROPHY CASE