Pj's Pinnwand

Fucking Slashdot

Pj — Sun, 5 Sep 2010 22:03:26 GMT

No one ever reads anything I post to Slashdot, so fuck, I guess I'll reply on my blog:

But if we exceed the speed limit, even a little, we die. Speed kills! Speed is the most important factor in car crashes! Incompetence? Distraction? Tiredness? They don't matter! Only speed matters! One car travelling faster than the other, law-abiding, drivers will cause untold carnage instantly!!

At least, that is what authority has been telling me these last several decades.

That's strange, I don't recall anyone telling me that. However, what I do keep hearing all the time goes along the lines of "Speed is irrelevant! Incompetence matters, distraction matters, sleepiness matters, but speed? No, dammit, speed is irrelevant!"

...and then there's this:

Every day it's proven in Germany that high speed on a properly laid put highway is not an invitation to a high rate of accidents.

Yes, because we're not just repeating a meme here, we actually know the accident rates of roads in Germany.

People don't know the fucking accident rates of roads in the United States.

Well, the government makes it easy to figure out how you're going to die. Just go to this web site, fill out the form to match your personal details, and get your data. Just don't specify a custom age range because that seems to confuse it.

For white non-hispanics age 25 to 35 in Ohio, like myself, 131 died in car accidents in 2007, while only 26 were murdered. The only way I am more likely to die is if I am accidentally poisoned. If I can avoid that, and I assume that I can since a lot of it is probably alcohol poisoning and the like, then the next thing to worry about is a car accident, and then I just have to make sure that I don't kill myself. At that point I've prevented 77% of what is likely to kill me. Then there's probably nothing I can do about the risk for cancer, but I can reduce my risk of homicide by not hanging around with criminals, and I can avoid heart disease by not being totally obese, and at that point there just isn't a whole lot left that might kill me. So really, other people's driving is quite likely what will do me in, if anything does. Second to that, cancer might well kill someone my age if they don't have health insurance, otherwise it's often survivable. Other than those two things, someone like myself doesn't have a whole lot to worry about.

Now, I'm sure people will look at those 131 deaths and say "well, it isn't that many people, it's only 5 times the rate that people die from murder," but when you advocate higher speed limits, you advocate everyone assuming additional risk, not just yourself. Just what sort of accident rates are you going to insist that we all accept so that you can drive faster? Check out the statistics on the 15 to 24 age group, for which car accidents are the #1 cause of death. So you say it isn't enough that car accidents are #1, that we all need to drive even faster than we do now? ...or do you suggest that we employ some elaborate system where less experienced drivers have lower speed limits? You do realize that, if we raise the speed limit for you, its raised for everyone, right?

...but, I guess people realize that side of the argument on their own, so they argue that higher speed limits won't result in higher accident rates.

Start at zero miles per hour. No accidents. Increase the speed limit 1 MPH every day. Once you reach 1000 MPH, and give people cars that are capable, you'll find just about everyone killing themselves and each other on a regular basis.

What am I supposed to believe? That we start with no accidents at 0 MPH, go up to the rate we have now at 55 MPH, then it levels off and no more accidents occur as a result of speed increases until we reach a 200 MPH limit? ...oh, no, it can't be that, because that would mean that speed limits below 55 MPH are valid, which doesn't fit the premise that the average Slashdot poster should be allowed to drive however fast he wants to. Apparently the deaths we have are just inevitable at any speed.

Sorry, but I'm not believing that. Just slow the fuck down, it isn't going to kill you. ...and stop talking on your cell phone too. Yes, I know you're a skilled driver and so you can do these things when everyone else can't, but you know what? That's what everyone thinks until they're in an accident. No one does things that they feel are dangerous, they do them because they don't realize the danger. ...but I suppose your sense of danger is as infallible as your driving skills...

Learning another language the lazy way...

Pj — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:06:51 GMT

After listening to music backwards, as I was going to sleep, the backwards sounds were still in my head, as if my brain were still trying to figure them all out. It seemed to me that if my brain was going to be busy trying to understand the unintelligible things I had subjected it to during the day, then perhaps I should find something more productive for it to analyze.

So, I tried to find some audio CDs to learn Spanish, but just like the rest of the world, the language CD industry is firmly set on a price of $10 per CD, regardless of the actual cost involved in producing the disc. As cheaply as Mexicans work, there can't be that much cost in having one read a children's book. Just make a CD out of it, sell it along with the children's book, and there you go. ...but, no, no one is doing that.

So, instead I went to YouTube, looking for video blogs in Spanish. ...but not just any vlogs. I've been trying to find ones with speech and nothing but speech throughout the entire video, reasonable sound quality, and no music or sound effects. That way I can turn them into MP3s and listen to them repeatedly without being disturbed by any nonsense other than the language I can't make any sense of.

Like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGNX9TX0XqQ

Such videos are amazingly difficult to find. It seems most people like to have some sort of title sequence for their videos, and most of the rest like to have some background music.

Anyway, I'm sure that listening to Spanish audio isn't the most productive way to learn Spanish, but its certainly more productive than staring into space, which I do a lot, and so I might as well listen to Spanish audio instead.

It's only been three days, and I expect it should take a lot of listening to really learn anything, but I was surprised to figure out the word 'y' just from watching the videos on the first day. It was kind of obvious the way it was being used. Same for 'pero' except that, curious why I was hearing it all the time, I looked it up as soon as I realized I was hearing it often rather than waiting to see if I could figure it out. Lately I've noticed a lot of 'mas' but I think I'll just try to figure it out rather than look it up.

It would probably make more sense to most people to use actual Spanish lessons, and there are a few on YouTube, but I just can't get into the way people want to teach languages. They want to start out teaching stuff like "hello" and "goodbye" even though such parts of speech are special cases and so the knowledge isn't reusable to form other sentences. ...and what good does it do me to learn "hasta luego" anyway when it's apparent from YouTube that everyone in Mexico simply says "bye" instead?

Just as everyone in the U.S. can understand "halo" when they hear it, everyone in Mexico probably knows "hello" well enough and so there probably isn't a less productive way to begin learning Spanish. When do I learn to make statements that communicate information, like "esta es stupido?" Seems to me that 'es' should be the very first word in any Spanish course, but it isn't.

Reflective Fluorescent Backpack

Pj — Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:39:59 GMT

After thinking about riding to Hueston Woods in the dark, I realized that my backpack would obscure the view of my awesome reflective fluorescent orange vest from drivers behind me, to whom it was most important that it be seen.

So, I went to Wal-Mart to look at their backpack offerings. They're quite unimpressive, even from the perspective of wanting a plain ordinary backpack, nevermind one that is highly visible. I was thinking of just removing some reflective striping from another reflective vest and sewing it to a plain backpack, but backpack designers are in love with adding little extra compartments all over their backpacks, and like all designers, they aren't much into plain flat surfaces. It seems dumb to me. If you want more space in your backpack, why not just make the main compartment larger, rather than add a wart-like compartment to the side?

So, I decided to simply use the fabric from a fluorescent reflective vest to make a new backpack. Then I would avoid non-ideal backpack designs while having the brightest and most reflective backpack in existence.

I first set to work removing all of the stitches from the reflective vest, which was a lot easier once I figured out how to properly use the stitch removal tool. ...or, so I think I've figured out how to use it; the damn thing didn't come with instructions. Then I decided that, to make the back of the backpack (the part that goes near my back) and the straps, I should just remove the stitches from my old backpack and use that portion of it. So I worked on that for a while, and then I broke the stick removal tool. So then I used a razor blade which seems to work just as well. Finally, I removed a zipper from the old backpack to use in the new one, once I realized that the zipper I had wasn't actually a backpack zipper.

So, after hours of removing stitches, hours of thinking about how to make the backpack a.k.a. being to tired to do anything, and then some more hours of sewing, this is what I have:

Using the back side and straps from an existing backpack was definitely the way to go. It wouldn't look nearly as nice if I had made those parts myself, and it saved me a lot of time as well.

The bottom half (below the yellow) is two layers of fabric, with denim on the inside, to make it stronger. I wanted to use two layers all around, but it would have meant more work (which would have increased the likelihood that I would have never completed the project) and it would have required my sewing machine to sew through more layers of fabric, particularly where several doubled-up pieces joined in a corner. My sewing machine kind of sucks.

The yellow part rather annoys me, and so I wish I'd used only orange. It might look better if it were the entirety of the top which was yellow, particularly since I could have then used the yellow zipper that was part of the vest, but there wasn't that much yellow fabric in the vest, just a few yellow stripes on an otherwise orange vest. The yellow is also full of little holes from where the reflective striping was sewn to it. The orange fabric looks a lot better since I only used a fraction of what I got out of the vest and so I got to use portions which didn't have a bunch of holes in them.

I also wish I had put more reflective striping on it. I have about 60% of the reflective striping left over, but I only had one long piece which I cut in half to make the two stripes. The rest is four pieces which weren't quite long enough to be used for that, and I still can't think of how I could have used them in a way that would look nice.

I'm tempted to remove the yellow and replace it with orange, but it would be a lot of work. I put a lot of tight little stitches into it, whereas the vest and the original backpack had stitches with wider spacing, and the stitches in the vest were rather loose. So removing that yellow portion might end up being as much work as making a new one. So I think I'll just use it for a while and see what other ideas I come up with and then make a new one.

Anyway, here's a picture from the rear, which is what cars will see as they approach from behind:

I took it outside and used my flashlight to compare it to other things. I put it next to a stop sign with the red reflective stripe on its pole. It was as reflective as the sign and the pole, but not as noticeable since the backpack is a lot smaller and only part of it is reflective. I also placed it on the back of a car. It was a lot brighter than the reflectors incorporated into brake lights, and maybe 50% brighter than the license plate, which was about the same size as the reflective material of the backpack.

Overall, it's probably bright enough, but I'm still a little disappointed. ...but, it is the brightest and most reflective backpack I've ever seen, so it isn't like it's bad or anything.

Here's a photo without the flash, showing the normal color of the reflective striping:

I wouldn't mind having a backpack that was entirely reflective fabric, but I tried to find some on the internet and it seems it only comes in stripes up to four inches wide, and at a cost that makes you wonder how Wal-Mart can turn it into vests and sell them for so little.

The Zeo Alarm Clock

Pj — Sun, 5 Sep 2010 08:15:06 GMT

I was thinking about the Zeo, the alarm clock I had a few months ago which comes with a headband to monitor your sleep via EEG, and so I went to their web site to see if they're still encrypting the data it writes to its SD card.

It seems they've decided to no longer do that. In an announcement about a data decoder library I learned that they created a firmware update which causes the data to be written unencrypted, and they've also written this library to read the data files.

Also they're working on real-time raw data output from the device.

This all makes me wonder to what extent I was the cause of their decision to be more open. In reply to this blog entry I wrote a wonderful digital camera analogy that makes it incredibly obvious just how wrong it is for the data on the SD card to be encrypted, and I also wrote that the expansion port on the back of the device should "obviously" output every piece of data it has, which appears to be what they are going to do with it.

I nearly want to order one again. I was thinking about it until I read my previous blog entries and remembered that it wasn't just the one night with really light sleep when it detected REM sleep while I was almost awake, but also on most nights it indicated far more REM sleep than normal, even though I was getting far less REM sleep than normal.

With real-time output of the electrode potentials, that may not matter if I can write my own software to analyze the waveforms. ...but then it might still matter if the problem isn't the "neural network" approach they took to analyzing the waveforms, but instead it is the relative uselessness of the signals available from the forehead.

I suppose what I should do is my own EEG of the forehead and see what sense I can make of the data, but EEG has been on hold for so long waiting on me to design a better electrode amplifier, and so I don't think that's going to happen soon.

In any event, it's definitely nice that the Zeo doesn't encrypt the data anymore. If it hadn't to begin with, I don't think I would have sent it back. I was happy enough with it, since despite the poor EEG staging, I figured that the numbers it was spitting out were related to my sleep, even if not an accurate representation of it. It wasn't until I noticed some errors in the data I was writing down, and thus became extremely annoyed that I was having to copy numbers onto paper at all, that I decided to return it.

Bicycle Ride at Night

Pj — Tue, 3 Aug 2010 13:42:21 GMT

For whatever reason, a couple of weeks ago I got the idea that I should ride my bicycle in the middle of the night.

In preparation, I bought a nice LED Maglite flashlight and a bright orange reflective vest.

The flashlight is rather nice. It runs on two AA batteries, like my previous LED flashlight, but since LED technology has improved over the few years since I bought it, my new flashlight is a lot brighter. In fact, according to the numbers on the packaging, it's a lot brighter than the bicycle headlights. The batteries don't last as long as the bicycle headlights, but 18 hours is enough to get me through the night. ...and I wouldn't go without some spare batteries anyway.

The reflective vest is rather nice too. I love the silver reflective fabric, since it reflects more than plastic reflectors do. So much in fact that if I place my new flashlight between my eyes and point it across the room at the reflective vest, it's nearly blinding.

Reflective materials are important for night-time riding. I know this from my experience as a pizza delivery driver. Every time I encountered a bicyclist without reflectors, I didn't see them until I'd damn near ran over them. ...and I wasn't one of those stereotypical always-in-a-rush delivery drivers. I didn't give a rats ass if the pizza was late or not. Despite popular misconceptions, there's no correlation between when the pizza arrives and the amount of the tip (and even if there were, it wouldn't cover a speeding ticket), and everyone was always in fear of the circus that would surround any pizza delivery accident. The consensus was, if you're in an accident, ditch the pizzas and pretend you were on your way to or from work if anyone asked any questions. The first time I heard this I thought it was just the owner trying to protect himself from any liability, but after thinking about it, I realized there was more to it. Even if the other person was at fault for the accident, how do you think the fact that you were delivering pizza will affect the judgment of the accident investigators? Losing those pizzas is as much to protect yourself as anyone else. The fact is that pizza delivery is a lot like truck driving: You're on the road all the time and so you're a rather experienced driver, but end up in an accident and everyone will want to blame you automatically.

One of those near-accidents involved the bicycle-riding police officer, who really should know better than to ride a bicycle with no reflectors. I was approaching a stop light, with another car in front of me, when moments before hitting the guy I noticed he was behind that car, right between its two taillights. He had some LED bicycle seat which either wasn't very bright or the batteries were low, but no reflectors. I think that the only reason I noticed him was because of his obstruction of the center-mounted brake light of the car. Otherwise, between the black bicycle, the black uniform, and the bright brake lights of the car in front of him, the guy was invisible. Thankfully I was approaching a stop and so I was moving slowly enough to stop before hitting him.

So, reflectors are a must, and by law, so are headlights. Why reflectors aren't a law I don't know. Hell, maybe they are a law and that idiot cop just doesn't care or thinks that he needs a reflectorless bicycle so that he can sneak up on criminals. Anyway, car headlights are bright, and so they make bright reflections from road signs, and drivers kind of expect everything to be so brightly lit. In reality, things that aren't reflective are quite dark, even if they're bright white. Take something shorter and smaller than a road sign, like a person, and stick them on the other side of a small hill, and you end up with a short amount of time to notice something that isn't very easy to see.

Now, technically, people should be driving slowly enough that they're prepared for such situations, but the reality is that when the speed limit is 55, people assume they have a right to drive that fast, even if visibility is limited by darkness, rain or snow. Sometimes they don't even slow down for fog. Can't be late for work, you know. So, as a result, car accidents are, by far, the leading cause of accidental death. They're also more common than the leading cause of intentional death, which strangely enough, isn't homicide.

Anyway...

I decided to leave at 4:00 AM, since that seems to be the time of night when most people are sleeping, which is good, since it means the drunk drivers are already home.

It took an amazingly long time before I encountered a car. It was at least ten miles into my trip, and only happened because I intentionally turned onto a road where I knew there would be traffic because I wanted to test how well my vest worked. It seems to work well. Most of the cars turned off their bright lights about 500 feet away, totally far enough for them to come to a stop if they weren't able to pass.

Once the sun started to come up, I was amazed at how much the orange color of the vest glows. Orange is clearly a better color for being noticed than the brighter yellow vests. Yellow may be brighter, but white is brighter still, yet no one wears white vests in an attempt to be noticed. Orange works so well because it is such an unusual color. You don't see it often except for safety-related reasons, whereas yellow isn't so unusual.

Here's a map of my ride:

At the beginning, I was really tired, and breathing really hard, probably because I haven't eaten a whole lot over the last few days. However, like usual, after about 20 minutes I found some more energy. Supposedly that's how long it takes for the body's metabolism to change. Eventually I also wasn't so sleepy, which made it rather enjoyable, whereas before that it was kind of like "fun bicycle riding + unfortunate sleepiness = whatever." By the time I made it to Monroe Central I was feeling rather good, and thought it unfortunate that I hadn't decided to ride in the direction of Hueston Woods.

In all, I went 25 miles in 2 hours 50 minutes, for an average speed of 8.8 miles per hour. If I'd gone towards Hueston Woods, I'd be there. I'd be without food, water and sunblock, and so I'd be in rather miserable shape by the time I returned, but I'd be there.

I might really want to go in that direction next time. Last time I went I'd only rode 25 miles locally before going for the 50 mile round trip to Hueston Woods, and this time I wasn't even really all that tired before deciding to come home. I was just out of water.

I'm thinking I should go during the night. It's cooler without the sun and the temperature is lower too. I could leave after midnight, get there at 3 AM, stay for a while, and come back without too much sun exposure. Plus, being the middle of the night, I'd nearly have the park to myself. Technically it's closed, but there aren't any signs that say so, and people fish there all the time during the night, so I would hope that the park rangers would look at someone on a bicycle with a bright reflective vest and assume he isn't causing any trouble. The time I was kicked out for being there during the night, the two nights before park rangers had seen me there and simply driven by real slow pointing the light on their car at me, so apparently the park hours aren't a very firm rule. I'm not sure what made them decide to tell me to leave, but I suspect they wouldn't have if I'd went up to their car and talked to them the two nights before, to put whatever concerns they had at ease.

Never-Ending Sleep Nonsense

Pj — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:44:59 GMT

So, where were we?...

Well, I went to the doctor to see about possible stuffy nose causes and solutions. After an x-ray to check for sinusitis, and a CT scan to check for nasal polyps, he asked what I thought we should do. Well, I didn't have any ideas. Just before I left, he asked if I'd tried the "Breathe Right" nasal strips. I hadn't, since they seemed a lot like bullshit, but he seemed convinced that they weren't. So I bought some and tried them, and amazingly enough, they aren't bullshit.

The strips aren't enough by themselves, but combined with the saline spray, and the nasal rinse, they seem to keep my nose clear through the night.

So I started sleeping about 12 hours a night after using the strips, which I figured just meant that I was making up for lost sleep, then that went down to 8 hours a night, then eventually that went to me going to bed but not falling asleep immediately, and that went to me going to bed and not falling asleep and then after a while being awaken by leg movements, then being tired the whole next day.

I think I have one of those circadian rhythms that is more than 24 hours long.

I've thought of this before, but rejected the idea since it seemed as if it wasn't more than 24.5 hours long, and supposedly if you take a normal person and deprive them of cues about what time of day it is, they'll keep a 24.5 hour cycle, and so it didn't seem so unusual. ...but then I was thinking about it, and I'm not a person deprived of cues about what time of day it is, and so it shouldn't be 24.5 hours for me. If I were to live in a box with no clocks and no sunlight, that 24.5 hours might well turn into 25 hours or 26 hours. It might be that the only reason my circadian rhythm appears to be so close to 24 hours is because cues about what time of day it is are able to reduce it to almost but not quite 24 hours. Naturally, it is probably a longer cycle than that.

This does make a bit of sense with what I remember about my sleep patterns. The advancement of the cycle around the clock seems to slow down as I stay up later and later each night, but once it gets to the point where I'm staying up until 10 AM, it rather quickly advances until I'm going to sleep at a normal time. It's like, at first my brain is reducing the cycle to 24.5 hours in order to try to wake up earlier, but eventually I'm so far off that it sees that going to sleep later is an easier path to being awake during the day, and so it expands the cycle to 25.5 hours.

I'm also reminded of when I had a job and I'd always wake up just half an hour before I had to be at work. It was probably the case that I had to be outside in the sunlight immediately after waking up in order to have any ability to maintain that cycle, and of course without having to get up to go to work, there just wasn't any chance of it happening at all.

I guess I need to draw a chart to plan a 25-hour or 26-hour sleep cycle and see if that makes me feel better. I've always thought for years that I should do this, but never had simply because I don't know what number of hours to use for the cycle. I guess that, if I'm ever to know, I need to just try something and see how well it works.

...or, maybe just see what my limit is for staying up later and later each night, then pick the half-way point between that and 24.25 hours, which seems to be the lower limit of the cycle length.

I don't know... I'm already tired.

Bicycle Ride to Hueston Woods

Pj — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:46:57 GMT

The other day I decided to ride my bicycle to Hueston Woods.

In order to avoid problems with park rangers, I decided to leave at 3:30 AM in order to arrive at sunrise.

The ride there was nice and comfortable. If it'd been over at that point, it would have been a very nice bicycle ride. ...but, it wasn't.

I first went to the south side of the park to the picnic area near the damn, where I decided to rest for an hour or so. I realized that I was becoming sleepy, but being in the park, I couldn't go to sleep. So I decided to move on.

Something compelled me to decide that riding all the way around the lake rather than turning back was a good idea. I think it was the pointlessness of riding to the park only to turn around and leave. Usually I'd hike around in the woods for several hours, but I didn't want to become too tired before riding back, and I couldn't decide where it would be a good idea to ditch my bicycle either.

The hills in that park suck ass. It's like, hills in other places seem so bad, but then I'm going up the first hill and my legs are so sore by the time I reach the top that I think "I'm not even going to attempt to pedal up the rest of the hills, I'll just walk." Then I see the next hill and it's so much bigger.

Eventually I reach the picnic area at the north end of the park, where I decide to rest until the muscles in my legs are no longer sore. I also for some reason need to urinate every half hour, and so I decide to stay for a while longer since there won't be any restrooms on the way back.

After several hours of urinating, I realize that walking around in the grass has soaked my shoes and socks. So I lay them in the sun to dry. After 40 minutes, they've dried a little, and I don't feel the need to urinate, and so I decide to leave.

With the sun up, riding is much less enjoyable. It probably also didn't help any that I was rather tired, but I mostly just remember the sun. I was rather thirsty, but tried not to drink too much of my water since I only had two quarts left.

I really wish my body hadn't decided to piss away all of that hydration earlier. Why it decided that was a good idea, I don't know, other than that it likes to do that a lot when I am trying to sleep, and that I was somewhat sleepy at the time. I think it just likes to annoy me.

After stopping to drink some water, and resting in a small bit of shade, I took a picture of a hill:

Thankfully, most of the route is relatively flat with just a few hills near the park and near New Paris.

With the sun kicking my ass, I was constantly hoping to spot a tree under which I could rest, but the stupid farmers had cut them all down. When there was a tree, it was directly in front of a house, and I didn't want to stop and sit in front of someone's house. Over the whole route I think there were all of three places where there was some shade to stop and rest in that wasn't directly in front of someone's house.

Eventually I came to the cemetery just south of New Westville, where I spotted a tree that wasn't in front of anyone's house, and so I stopped to rest.

While resting, I thought about the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" and how, at the end, the guy hides stuff under a tree in a remote place, which made me think that perhaps I should see what might be hidden near the tree I was under. So I looked and I found this:

Wow... Those things are far easier to find when you're not looking for them.

So, I signed it and then put it back where I found it.

That really kind of made my day. Up until that point I wasn't too happy with how miserable my bicycle ride was turning out to be, but for it all to lead to something vaguely amazing like finding a geocache without even looking for one kind of made it all better. Yes, it sucked that the sun was out, but if it wasn't, I wouldn't have stopped to rest under that tree, and so I wouldn't have found that geocache. I don't know why something so trivial should have such an effect.

I really need to find somewhere closer, but I can't think of where to go. While the map indicates about a dozen airports that are as close as Hueston Woods, it doesn't indicate any other large wooded public areas. It's sad that there are more small airports than decent parks. It's like I live in a Libertarian paradise or something.

Myths

Oneiros — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:58:09 GMT

The 24.5 hour thing is a myth. Or, it started out as researchers doing experiments while thinking that indoor lights could not affect the rhythm so they actually did measure a longer than 24 hour rhythm, but ever since they started being careful about all light sources the natural rhythm is supposed to be 24 hours and 11 minutes ± 16 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Enforced_longer_cycles

I drew a schematic!

Pj — Sun, 1 Aug 2010 15:48:12 GMT

Also of news, I redesigned my Z80 EEPROM programmer to be a simpler and more reliable circuit.

Moon Time

Pj — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:00:52 GMT

According to wikipedia, people normally have daily cycles averaging 24.18 hours, while abnormal people have cycles averaging 25.12 hours.

Attempting to keep a longer daily cycle is probably something I should have tried a long time ago. It's always been the case that it's impossible for me to go to sleep at an earlier time than the day before. If I'm anywhere near a normal sleep cycle, any little accident that pushes my bed time back by 15 minutes gets it stuck there. ...and, in fact, I think it's always moving along regardless.

Every now and then my sleep cycle moves around to where I'm awake during the day and asleep at night, and so I try to keep it there, because it's nice like that. So I try to go to sleep at the same time each night, and set my alarm clock so that I can wake up at the same time each morning. After a few days, I find waking up a little more difficult, and going to sleep more difficult. After a while I just have to sleep in for an hour or two. Then one night I forget to go to sleep at the right time, since I wasn't thinking about it since I wasn't even a little tired, and the next night I can't possibly go to sleep any earlier.

Perhaps it was just from listening to too many people bitch at me during my life, but for some reason I've always thought that sleeping a 24-hour cycle isn't impossible.

A few months ago I was researching sleep disorders and I came across an article written by someone with delayed sleep phase syndrome who wasn't able to find any relief until he intentionally kept to a non-24-hour sleep cycle.

It occurred to me the other day that keeping a non-24-hour cycle isn't the same thing as going to sleep and waking up whenever I want. I still look at the clock, see that it's 7:00, and since I was going to sleep about that time last week, I think that it's about time to go to sleep. I still need to go to the grocery store sometimes, and so I still try to be awake at a time when I can use my mother's car. I still see the sunlight even through my black denim curtains. I still interact with other people on their schedules. Jenoa still comes over once a week at a time independent of when I might otherwise be sleeping. Keeping with a non-24-hour cycle is totally different from all of that.

So, over the last few days in my attempts to go to sleep at a later time each night:

Zeroth night: 1 a.m.
First night: 3 a.m.
Second night: 5 a.m.
Third night: 8 a.m.

I'm sure I could have stayed up later, but I was bored, kinda tired, and I figured two hours was enough. Then on the third night I wasn't quite so bored so I stayed up for another hour. ...and then I slept for 6 1/2 hours, and despite sleeping less and less each night, I can't say I feel any worse for it. Not better, but not worse.

I figure if I really tried to stay up later as hard as I try to keep a 24-hour schedule, I'd be able to take it to 3 or 4 hours later each night, but I'm not sure that finding that limit is relevant, since I don't think that being forced into a cycle longer than your natural cycle is necessarily comparable to being forced into one that is shorter.

Imagine you naturally wanted to sleep a 23-hour cycle. Every night you'd want to go to sleep 1 hour earlier than other people, and every morning you'd want to wake up 1 hour earlier. So, you go to work, come home, force yourself to stay up that one extra hour, and then wake up early the next morning. If you wake up too early, and miss out on some more sleep, you're more tired and so you either take advantage of the fact that you want to go to bed early and actually do so, or you sleep in the next day, which you can probably do since you're always waking up early anyway.

Contrast that to a 25-hour cycle. Every morning you want to sleep in, so you're not waking up until there isn't a moment to spare before you have to leave for work. When you get home, despite being sleep-deprived, you simply can't fall asleep earlier than the day before. The next morning, you can't sleep in, because you have to go to work.

I just can't imagine that keeping an longer cycle is anywhere near as stressful as keeping a shorter cycle. So, whatever my upper limit is on cycle length isn't likely to indicate the natural cycle length simply by taking the average of the minimum and the maximum.

So, again I don't know how to figure out what sort of cycle length I should attempt. I guess the 25.12 hours mentioned on Wikipedia might make sense, but I had another idea:

Moon Time

The moon rises and sets just like the sun, but it does so on a cycle that's like 24 hours and 49 minutes. I figure that moon time is an awesome idea for the following reasons:

1. If I'm going to be outside at night a lot, I might as well schedule that time so that it occurs when there is a full moon, so that it is easier to see.

2. I have a aversion to arbitrary things, and synchronizing my wake/sleep cycles with the moon makes the choice of cycle length less arbitrary. After all, the moon is the second brightest object in the sky, and since the sun has failed to be an appropriate source of synchronization, it only makes sense to try the moon next. What could be less arbitrary than that?

3. Such a schedule also guarantees that I'll be awake for any solar/lunar eclipses.

So I found a web site with sun/moon rise/set times. Then I wrote a Perl script to read the table, figure out "moon noon" by averaging the rise and set times, then declare my "wake up" time to be 8 hours before moon noon, and my "go to sleep" time to be 8 hours after moon noon.

So now I know when to sleep: (actually the table indicates when to be awake)

2010-08-30: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXX

2010-08-31: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                          [XXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

2010-09-02: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
            [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

2010-09-03: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
              [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

2010-09-04: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
                 [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

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                    [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

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                       [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

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                            [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

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                               [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

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                                 [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]

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                                    [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            ]                          [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

2010-09-13: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
            XXX]                          [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXX]                          [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXX]                          [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

2010-09-17: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
            XXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                          [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

2010-09-19: |00|01|02|03|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|
            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                         [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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            XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]                          [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I'm a bit out of sync with it at the moment, but a few more days of staying up a few hours later should allow me to catch up.

I'm going to be really disappointed now if it turns out that 24 hours and 48 minutes isn't long enough. This moon idea is just too cool, and I don't think the rise/fall times of Venus, Mars, Saturn, or anything else in the sky is all that different from that of the sun, and all of the stars are on sidereal time which is less than 24 hours.

Continuous Sleep Bullshit

Pj — Tue, 7 Sep 2010 12:52:28 GMT

When doing my own EEG recordings, I noticed that around the short periods of eye movements, there was a stage of sleep that looked just like REM sleep, just without any eye movements. From the way it looked, I guessed that my brain was trying to go into REM sleep, but every little eye movement killed my breathing, and so it was hesitant to go all the way, since every time it did, difficulty of breathing would wake me up within 60 seconds.

So, then the other day I was reading the forums on the Zeo web site where someone was talking about how there were two stages of REM sleep, one without eye movements called "tonic" and another with eye movements called "phasic."

So everyone has these two stages? It's almost funny that I've never heard about them before, considering that I've read everything I can find about sleep, and that the two stages are incredibly obvious on the EEG, easier to spot than any other stages, and so every sleep researcher should have noticed them too. Yet no one talks about them, as if they're unknown or something. Even my sleep specialist didn't seem to know, in as much as he cared to pay any attention to anything I had to say.

So I search the internet for "REM sleep tonic phasic" and find pretty much only one web site with anything resembling a little bit of information on the subject:

http://www.sleephomepages.org/sleepsyllabus/fr-d.html

If you look at figure 7, the top trace is a respiratory volume trace, which is essentially the same as my airflow traces, and it looks much like the sort of thing I recorded in my phasic REM sleep. The web site claims that this is normal breathing, despite the 20 seconds of non-breathing indicated in the tracing, which is greater than the 10 seconds required by those idiot sleep researchers I'm always bitching about, and so it should count as an apnea, right? ...but, the web site doesn't say it is an apnea.

So, then, that sort of thing is normal?

Well, that's also what these people say, though I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $5 to read the article.

So, searching PubMed for some free full-text articles, I find this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2231075/?tool=pubmed

It's a bit confusing to read, but if I'm reading it correctly, it can be summed up like this: "We heard some sleep researchers saying that phasic REM sleep normally contains restricted respiration. We tested some healthy people in order to observe this, but we don't see it."

So then it isn't normal?

I feel compelled again to bitch about the present state of sleep research. ...or at least the past state. The web site is from 1997, the first article is from 1991, the second article from 1998. As for the present, I can't find it on the internet.

I think the only way I'll figure this out is to record the sleep of some normal people, to see what normal is supposed to look like, then compare that to myself. I should publish what I find on the internet as well, since no one else seems to be doing that. Fucking researchers...

...but only about 1/3 of the people I know are "normal" enough that I'd really believe that, if their breathing looks the same way, then it's normal for everyone, and that might well be what the problem is here. Researchers compare "normal" people to "abnormal" people, but the outcome of the study is dependent on the accuracy of that initial assessment.

Hell, just the other day I saw a television program about how some researchers were having no problem finding kids with ADHD which was caused by sleep apnea. They remove the kids' tonsils and suddenly the kids are better. So, last year these kids had a psychiatric condition but no sleep disorder. This year they have a sleep disorder but no psychiatric condition. Last year their sleep was normal, this year is isn't.

In any event, I need to build another EEG if I'm going to study this further. Regardless of how normal this breathing is or not, what's important is how my sleep is affected. My previous EEG recordings showed that it was affected since I woke up after more than 60 seconds of phasic REM sleep, and my total REM sleep was less than normal. As for how things are now that I've been focusing on preventing nasal obstruction, I suspect I have more phasic REM and total REM sleep, but it's impossible to know without further EEG.

It's also apparent that information from the internet isn't sufficient to determine which aspects of that EEG are normal and which are not, nor can I count on any doctor I show my recordings to to know what is and isn't normal, and so I need to EEG some other people for comparison data.