From: aggregator Phone Scoop, and Associated Press.
 

Well, this doesn't look good for human kind. We live in a society that seems to get dumber and dumber in certain aspects as we tax our brains less and less.  I guess a price we pay for certain conveniences.
COVID-19 Leaves Its Mark on the Brain. Significant Drops in IQ Scores Are Noted

Quote:Research shows that even mild COVID-19 can lead to the equivalent of seven years of brain aging

Hey good people of DI!

So a funny thing happened in my world that has had an impact I could not have predicted...

A couple of weeks ago the weekly shopping was done. We have a large household and live about an hour from town - so two people make the trip once a week, taking lists of the things that the rest of us want or need. This streamlines and saves on trips.

When the items I requested were segregated and given to me I found a large candy bar in the bag. along with the items from the list I had provided.

Given that it is not uncommon for those who shop to buy a sale item or a small surprise to include in my bag, I thought nothing of it.

That night I broke off a couple of small squares of the chocolate bar and enjoyed a small, sweet, guilty treat.

The following night I did the same.

And the night after that.

Why this anecdote is relevant is that, as some of you are aware, I have issues with depression. Bipolar 2 specifically. It's been a decades long struggle for me. Over the years I have been placed on somewhere in the range of fifteen or twenty different antidepressants and most did not work at all. The few that did have some measurable effect always wound up causing side effects that were as bad, or worse, than the depression itself.

Given that we, in the US, are coming out of winter. Well, it's been several months of existing in a fairly constant depressed state for me. Energy has been hard to come by and my overall world was suffering for it. Laundry was stacking up. Floors were going unswept. Table tops and counters were slowly stacking up with items that needed to be put away and so on.

Thing is after three nights of essentially micro-dosing chocolate - I woke up on day four motivated and substantially energized. No sooner had I gotten out of bed and walked my dog than I began looking around at the state of things and feeling a desire to get it all back to right.

So I began cleaning and kept it up, off and on, for the duration of the day.

That night I ate my little bit of chocolate as usual. Again, just for a treat.

The next day - more cleaning.

Rinse and repeat for a few days and I found myself wondering what had caused my rebound in mood - as it was marked and, honestly, sort of profound. I felt like I had more optimism and mental clarity on top of renewed energy.

On a lark I Googled "Can chocolate help depression?" - as the addition of chocolate was the only factor in my life that had really changed - and was surprised to find that there is peer reviewed evidence that it might.

There are conflicting studies and opinions. That said, it's medicine and sometimes pharmaceutical companies will go to great lengths to bury simple fixes for issues that might impede their ability to make all the money from their patented medications... And the myriad variation of Prozac are one of the biggest cash cows they have going.

I guess my point in tabling this discussion is twofold:

First simply to put it out there that a square or two of a chocolate bar, each evening, seems to be doing more for me than any prescription previously has.

Also to ask if anyone else has discovered this same life hack?

I understand that we're all unique and that body / brain chemistry can deviate quite a bit from person to person and that what works for one will not work for everyone. Still...

Maybe it'll help someone else out.

So DI... Am I onto something? A placebo effect?

Thanks for reading!

Long ago, before the woke internet, before COVID, before 9-11, someone began an inquiry in the field of cosmology.

The cosmos presented us with a weird observation... not enough mass to hold the galaxies together.  The public was made aware of the popular concept of "dark matter" ... stuff we could not otherwise see... but that was only a theory, never proven, never directly measured (hence, "dark")...

but there was already another idea...
 

Archeologists in Turkey have discovered what may be the earliest "narrative" (story) depicted in Pre-Pottery Neolithic people.  Their excavation revealed many similarities with Göbeklitepe in style and apparent techniques.  But what makes this a bit different is that the story is told horizontally as opposed to otherwise. 

From Archeology: The World’s First Narrative



And much deeper information can be found here: (From Cambridge.org:) The Sayburç reliefs: a narrative scene from the Neolithic
 

From LiveScience: A branch of the flu family tree has died and won't be included in future US vaccines

There are two known circulating lineages of Influenza B virus, the one that went extinct was called the B/Yamagata line.  That particular virus type hasn't been detected since 2020, reportedly.

Since the late 1980's our vaccines were "quadrivalent."  Now they are changing up to trivalent.  (I doubt that will make them cheaper.)
 

That's great news for many people.

From LiveScience: We're finally close to a universal antivenom that works against cobra, krait and black mamba snake bites, say researchers
subtitled: A lab-made antibody can neutralize the neurotoxins in the venoms of cobras, kraits and black mambas, raising hopes for a universal antivenom treatment for snake bites.

And from Science.org: A lab-made antibody can neutralize the neurotoxins in the venoms of cobras, kraits and black mambas, raising hopes for a universal antivenom treatment for snake bites.

Under the heading of: Paralysis and death avoided
 

Since windows borked itself I’m thinking of diving back into Linux gaming. 

Seems a lot has changed for the better in the last few years. Helped greatly by the steam deck.

Found this video today which I wish I had had when I was doing this several years ago.

Hope this helps others thinking about Linux:



Sounds like Nvidia is still the major problem. If you’re amd pretty much any distro will work. Any experts on here wanna suggest best Nvidia distros?

I think I’m going to try Nobara

I hear it’s very gamer oriented. 

They are saying elementary os is out of date right now for gaming. It was my favorite.

solus was my other favorite and they are really trash talking it now. 

Love to hear from our resident experts before I dig back in…

The title says it all.

When I delete all my alerts I receive a message saying they were deleted, but then, when I should be sent back to the page I was I get a 404 error page.

Anyone else has this problem?

Good evening folks!
I was pondering about different lyrics and such in another thread when it occurred to me that we all listen to music in our own way. Some listeners are focused on lyrics, some on the music and some on the intricacies of the interplay of the whole…

I play guitar, but have of course learned to play recorder in elementary school, then trombone in junior high, before picking up a guitar in high school.

I would love to learn how to play keyboard in all its iterations (piano, organ, etc) but that’s for another time.

I want to know what you play. What makes you happy? Heavy Metal? Classical? Country?

Tecate

Do any songs have lyrics within them that leave a deep impression or stand out for a particular reason?

For me it has to be Scottish band The Blue Nile and their track 'Regret'.  Its a very deep song and from what I understand its about someone out of sync with a space and time. Anyone who has suffered with clinical depression will understand the lyrics below.  They describe the landscape of depression.
 

Quote:Though I'm standing still
I'm in a moving place
The wilderness is quiet
The wilderness

Corrado Malanga tells how after having worked for more than 40 years as a researcher within the National Ufological Center, he leaves the latter to dedicate himself completely to the study of Alien Abductions (alien abductions), through regressive hypnosis; after more than 3000 hypnoses performed on patients all characterized by unresolved traumas, the memory of which is poorly defined in the memory of these people, who all tell of the same trauma which would emerge, as Malanga says, only if subjected to regressive hypnosis, he arrived thus to a frightening conclusion to say the least: for hundreds of years aliens have been coming to earth, sneaking into the homes of the unfortunate, and sucking the Soul part of the abductees, through a system which, through the 432Hz frequency vibration, allows the patient's Soul part to be detached, to transfer it to a alien about to die.
The phenomenon of alien abductions is more real than you think, but indeed, he claims to be 100% certain of what he says.

https://youtube.com/@homo_conscious?si=k-WCTEiGgx4MAgDP

If my memory serves me right, there was a while ago some push to try convince public or at least some people that US goverment have alien technology , or about many UFO sightings...well the story took a new twist , with the new report ....


Pentagon report finds no evidence of alien visits, hidden spacecraft 


1 THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ALL-DOMAIN ANOMALY RESOLUTION OFFICE Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Volume I February 2024


 

Quote:Claims about secret government programs reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology are based on “circular reporting” and hearsay, investigators found.

Quote:A lengthy Defense Department review of U.S. government activities related to “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” more commonly known as UFOs, has found no evidence that extraterrestrial intelligence has visited Earth or that authorities have recovered crashed alien spacecraft and are hiding them from the public.

The review, publicly released Friday, covered all official U.S. investigatory efforts from 1945 to the present and examined classified and unclassified government archives.

It was unequivocal in its conclusions, finding “no evidence that any [U.S. government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.” Reports of flying objects or suspected alien craft usually turned out to have quotidian explanations: They were “ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” sometimes by well-meaning witnesses who thought they had spotted something otherworldly.

The report is likely to be scrutinized and rejected by independent investigators, former U.S. personnel and conspiracy theorists who appear convinced that the government is hiding evidence of alien life and has constructed an elaborate set of classified programs devoted to reverse-engineering their technology. Last summer, a former intelligence officer who had served on a Pentagon UAP task force sparked headlines and speculation when he told Congress that the government has a secret repository of downed alien spacecraft and corpses.

The new report, compiled by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), directly addressed those allegations.

“AARO determined, based on all information provided to date, that claims involving specific people, known locations, technological tests, and documents allegedly involved in or related to the reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology, are inaccurate,” the office stated in a 60-plus-page unclassified document.
Read the Pentagon's unclassified final AARO historical report
Even before the report was published, critics of the office had questioned whether investigators would be hamstrung by a lack of access to highly classified material. But the office devised a “secure process,” according to the report, working with government agencies to review so-called special-access programs that interviewees had identified, either by their supposed code names or description.

The office’s investigators were “granted full access to all pertinent sensitive [U.S. government] programs,” and when companies and contractors were identified, the office interviewed senior-level executives, scientists and engineers in those organizations, the report stated. Investigators had access to a wide range of government departments and agencies, including the Defense Department and the military services, the intelligence community — including records held by the CIA — the Energy Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Archives.

Quote:Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes

This is a somewhat 'sad' tale.

It goes more or less like this.

Someone, somewhere in Peru, crafted a couple of tiny skeletons out of small animal bones... then crafted two tiny people... including tiny clothes.  They were packaged up... and mailed to somewhere, in Mexico.  They looked like tiny three-fingered "aliens."

Postal examiners/customs agents discovered the contents of the package...

Peruvian press strikes like the found gold.  Public furor is aroused by exclamations in the press.  People naturally engaged... investigations were carried out... the thruth was revealed.

But never was anyone told whether the little alien dolls were meant to be foisted off as 'real.'  The press did present that idea as someone's "assertion" ... but it is unclear who, when, or how that knowledge came to them at all.  Or even if this was a tongue-in-cheek novelty made by some craftsman of the region, then sold to someone in Mexico.

Back in January of this year, the reported the truth about the dolls... couched in a sentiment of "hoax."  But who hoaxed whom?

I ran across this article which embeds the whole hoax angle... just as we have seen many, if not most, of todays' journalists are most inclined to do.

From Ancient Origins: Colombia Joins Mexico Publishing “Tiny-Alien” Nonsense
 

I created this thread in this forum because fake UFO images are discussed in almost all UFO cases that include at least one image, but this applies any subject.

16 years (time flies...) ago I decide to make a test to see if people were able to detect an altered image and what part(s) of the image were altered.
The results were interesting, as nobody could identify the changed area or even the changed image.

As suggested by quintessentone on this post, here are the images, just to see if anyone can detect the altered image and what part(s) of that image were altered.

To avoid spoilers and influences, anyone wanting to try it please send me the answers by private message.
(click on an image to download it)

Image 1


Image 2



So, what's the verdict? 

I dont know if you find this spooky/creepy .....i find it so personally . There was that super bowl event , and Alicia Keys was performing in it. Well the creepy part was , that the content was edited in real time.....only very short part when she sings, but nevertheless....






I mean is this supposed to happen ? or why it happen exactly? We are supposed to be humans which make errors , some of us quite often, and i dare  say it...it`s quite normal .

So what`s going on ? I am litle dazed about this. It just raises questions , like how often this " has" allready "maybe? " happened before without noticing it ? Am i missing something here ?  

How long they had the technology to do this ?


Edit:   Maybe the real time editing is wrong term or not accurate....but just the phenomenon where there is 2 different versions of something , yet people ( most ) dont even notice there is ......magic .

I remember to old days, I had to walk uphill both ways to and from school, my parents would smack me around if I got too uppity, dinosaurs roamed the earth, kids could go about their Halloween tricking and treating without an armed body guard watching them... and the heart-clenching sound of a modem trying desperately to "connect" with another modem on some bulletin board where we would share racy stories and adult-like conversations (and maybe take turns playing a game) ...

As it turns out, dialup services still exists today... two decades into the 21st century...

From Hackaday.com: DIAL-UP IS STILL, JUST BARELY, A THING
 

I was looking for something else and found this, as it relates to NDE's I figure it might be worth sharing here.

From the abstract:

Quote:Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been described consistently since antiquity and more rigorously in recent years. Investigation into their mechanisms and effects has been impeded by the lack of quantitative measures of the NDE and its components. From an initial pool of 80 manifestations characteristic of NDEs, a 33-item scaled-response preliminary questionnaire was developed

I mean really?

From CircleID: Millions of Smart Toothbrushes Hijacked in Cyberattack on Swiss Firm

I don't like criticizing what people believe, as a matter of principle.  "Believing something" doesn't mean religiously believing exactly, more like "holding an idea or concept close to one's heart."

I found this article, not much in the way of 'reading material' because it is relatively brief.  But the author manages to "describe" somethings that she believes... and I have heard such statements before, elsewhere... in real life, and/or uttered by some talking head of media note.

The problem I am having is that I can't resist adding my observations about these beliefs.  I wonder if that's a treatable condition.

From Cyberjournalist.net: Fighting Misinformation: Tools and Strategies for Journalists

The article self-describes when the author states "This article delves into the various technologies and methodologies employed in the journalism industry to combat the spread of false news ..."
 

From: Discover Magazine: Astronomers Accidentally Find A Galaxy That Hasn’t Birthed Any Stars
Subtitled : (A typo sent an enormous radio telescope to the wrong patch of sky — where it discovered an invisible galaxy-sized cloud of hydrogen gas.)

This is unexpected.  

... and a bit funny that it was found "accidentally."

It was an effort between the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the Nançay Radio Telescope in France... surveying faint galaxies.  But it seems a user error entered into the GBT made it look 'elsewhere.'  The GBT ended up finding ...
 

From Discover Magazine - Preceding the Inca, This Andean 'Stonehenge' Was a Space for Ceremony and Ritual
Subtitled: (Ritual circles — like the ancient stone plaza found in Peru's Cajamarca Valley — date back as far as 5,000 years ago. Researchers are digging into these sites to learn more about the Andean cultures that created them.)

I was intrigued because they evoked the idea of a "stonehenge,' which conjures up the other side of the world, in my head.
 

A little murder mystery slant to this thread, cluedo even?.

Corrryn was a lawyer prominent in the Western Australian legal community.  She went missing after attending a bootscooting class, her body found dumped in Kings Park, which is mostly bushland.

Her husband Lloyd, also a Lawyer, with some pretty big clients like Gina Reinheart and her claim against her fathers estate... I digress...

Quote:The Rayneys lived in the Perth suburb of Como and had two daughters,[sup][6][/sup] Caitlyn (born 1994) and Sarah (born 1997).[sup][7][/sup][sup]: 60 [/sup] At the time, Lloyd Rayney was involved in a Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry into the misconduct of police officers in a murder investigation.[sup][6][/sup] Corryn Rayney was employed as a registrar at the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

And I bought 150,000,000 of them for $320 from Ethereum on Feb 26th. When it was 0.000002145.

I keep clicking on videos saying it's a unicorn, and read things like this:

Quote:Some predict that if the current positive trend continues, Pepe could climb to $0.003. Others offer a more conservative forecast, suggesting an average price of $0.00000559 by 2024.