Psychology

New York State’s Minimum Age to Charge Juveniles is 7 Years Old

Posted on by elemonated

I thought about reviving my blog with another fragrance review. Something nice, light, fun, topical even. In fact, I attended a Zoom sniffing of the Ulrich Lang line with Sniffapalooza just last night and while it’s always fun, I was actually very impressed by the frags themselves, which is not always the case. In fact, I put Anvers back on this morning because it’s cloudy and rainy in New York, and Anvers feels like I’m putting on a really nice jacket, and I have my window open on Beautyhabit’s pay page because I’m very seriously considering purchasing APSU.

Unfortunately Twitter had another idea this morning, as this link came across my feed:

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5 Ways to De-Stress Your Hustle

Posted on by elemonated

Subtitle: Maybe if I write this out I’ll take my own advice or something I dunno.

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Take your frustrations out on this very heavy cube in Astor Place. Alcohol not included but semi-recommended.

What is: hustling.

Hustling is when you bust that backside and get things done in a fast-paced, excellent way, keeping up energy and pace while doing so. If you rode the New York City subway anytime during the warmer months this year, Vitamin Water had a whole campaign about their difference elixirs supporting your hustle. Casper mattresses support your hustle. In fact, I think the only services not promoting a hard working culture were like, the antisocial Seamless/GrubHub ads and the StreetEasy ads targeting gentrifiers but I digress.

New York City freaking hustles, mmkay. Read More

Starting off November with a bang

Posted on by elemonated

Picture from the NYTimes article linked below

Drinking three glasses of champagne ‘could help prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease’
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/drinking-three-glasses-of-champagne-every-day-can-help-prevent-alzheimers-disease-a3109626.html
The article has been amended to say that it’s three glasses of champagne a week, not a day! Which is good because I don’t think anyone was trying to push someone to expensive alcoholism in the pursuit of avoiding mental degradation. As someone with a grandmother with Alzheimer’s, and have a terrible memory in general, I feel like I should probably start drinking champagne just in case. Preventative measures and all. Read More

Til It Happens to You

Posted on by elemonated

In light of Lady Gaga’s new music video for “Til It Happens to You”, I would like to remind everyone that a victim does not have to be 100% innocent to be a victim, no matter what the law says. Anyway, victims do not have to argue liability; the rapist is on trial for a crime. The victim is not on trial for a negligence tort. But the law isn’t there to be a moral compass, it’s there to enforce the more extreme cases of ours.

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6 Scents 6 Selves

Posted on by elemonated

These are all male-leaning or unisex, but I have no problem wearing Fils de Dieu or Le 3’ Homme myself and I am a tiny, rather unimposing female. The Jungian personalities that I decided would be best suited to each fragrance is also just my opinion. I would never discourage anyone from wearing what they like unless they ask for it explicitly! Mr. Chokkattu and I decided that these were the most versatile that we collectively own, so the list is obviously biased in our direction.

Nearly all of the fragrances in mentioned in this list come from Twisted Lily’s The Sands sample collection which I purchased for him a few months ago. I would like to take this moment and congratulate myself on being able to choose gifts really well, and also bask in the smugness of getting Mr. Chokkattu’s older brother in on the fragrance game without actually having to interact with him. (He basically stole the sample of Tom of Finland Mr. Chokkattu had received from Scent Trunk.) Anyway.

Enjoy the list!

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Why dogs are the best

Posted on by elemonated

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/02/21/280640267/how-dogs-read-our-moods-emotion-detector-found-in-fidos-brain

You need me to lie still inside this noisy MRI scanner for 10 minutes? No problem. Just give me some treats. Volunteers pose with the brain scanner at the MR Research Centre in Budapest.

Photo from article

Humans detect one another’s emotional states without body language because of a piece of brain neurologists call the “voice area” that is stimulated specifically when vocal sounds are heard. The brain filters out non-vocal noises like tapping and snapping and pays attention specifically to highs, lows, and the length of what’s being processed. It is located in the back of the brain behind the ears.

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High-Strung

Posted on by elemonated

The trials of the high-strung person are so vividly captured in another one of Lev Yilmaz’s super-relatable Tales of Mere Existence.

It’s worse if you were raised to keep it quiet. Then when you can’t, and because you’ve been taught to keep it quiet you also have no idea how to express it all in a way that makes sense to anyone, your friends and family have no idea why you’re suddenly freaking out and all fronts of being a calm, cool, collected person go out the door.

Coping mechanisms?

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Poverty and Food Stamps

Posted on by elemonated

I found this interesting little chain of videos about the affects of poverty on the mind and food stamps. As someone whose family whose circumstances once warranted the use of food stamps, the amount of prejudice I’ve encountered over the years is staggering. My mother was pretty obviously not a welfare queen and there was no one waiting in those offices that even came close to the image that’s stuck in someone’s mind for a reason.

How Poverty Changes Your Brain:

How Food Stamps Work: 

What Living on Food Stamps is Really Like: