Procrastinating

When I procrastinate I bake. Simple.

I will start posting my recipes up here soon, my aim is to eventually make a vegan cookbook. 

But for now I've just managed to perfect the super scrumptious vegan chocolate cake!

Health and positive psychological interventions.

This little thing has made me look like i've been to hospital for the last three days. In actual fact i'm currently participating in a study which is trying to find out whether there is a link between cortisol and your mood and it is an Actiwatch-Score, it is a watch which asks me to rate my mood five times a day. As well as this i have to collect saliva samples six times a day using a MEMSCap bottle which calculates the time it gets opened, so no lying basically! Let's hope all this inconvenience is worth it.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid.

James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.

Otherwise known as the 'DNA folk' - between them these four discovered DNA.

James Watson and Francis Crick had the idea and Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin had the evidence, at first both pairs were in upmost competition with each other. It was all thanks to Maurice Wilkins purposefully leaving his office open for the opposing two to find his evidence; the material inside a nucleus of a cell carrying all the genetic information. It's weird to think that the simplicity of it, 4 bases of chemical compounds which pair off can make up everything that's so complex.

Dour festival.

This is the line up for 2011, (un)fortunately I am going to be in Thailand at this time so will miss it. Festival of 2012 if the line up is going to be this good?

Beer-battered avocado.

Served with a chilli dip. I made this for my parents today, not only being able to up my level on vegan cooking but show them I can actually make something delicious. I think it did the job!

The result of this is self-taught German sessions.

A week of good film.

Biutiful; not a 'feel good' movie but beautiful none the less. 

The Edukators; a reminder of my love for Daniel Brühl and German film.

Never awake, never asleep.

'With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.'

Too true.

So glad I'm vegan.

To get rid of battery hens, only then to starting battery farming with cows is horrendous. People seriously need to start thinking about what they are eating, even more reason to become vegan in my eyes!

Reprise.

I can safely say this was one of the best movies I've seen in a while. It's a typical 'indie' movie with it's slowed-down pace and camera work, but with it's unique narration, storyline and structure makes it very different from probably anything else I've seen. Also, this was the first Norwegian film I've seen, I definitely think going to look out for more if they are as good as this. Oh, and to top it off they quoted Wittgenstein "the important things in life are expressed through music, not words". Oh oh, and don't listen to the cover "trainspotting with better furniture" - I don't know whether the Independent has seen trainspotting, or this movie, but they are nothing alike!

Belief and Knowledge.

Knowing entails believing, if something is known it must be true and a known belief must be justified.

The Tripartite (JTB) theory:

S knows p, if and only if:

1. S believes p
2. p is true
3. S is justified in believing p

However, Gettier, 1963, argued against this theory by the flaw of the third cause. This is the belief being true, but in fact the subject does not have justification for the belief. For example, believing that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris, without having true justification (seeing it yourself). This means the basis of knowing does matter, so even though a belief is true, because of false or no justification, it can not be known. This made me think does that mean all ones knowledge can only be real knowledge if there is verifiable evidence from ourself? Surely this means that all information given to us from books, media and teaching is really just belief until we have seen it ourselves, but then again there is the question of true reality and trusting everything we see for ourselves. For we are aware that there is still the complication of our mind not really seeing everything and actually being pretty unobservant to everything around us. ahh, too much of a philosophical day filled with circular arguments, but and yet agains and complete questioning!

reading diary.

Today I finished Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road', it's about the author himself travelling around America in the 1940's; falling in love with everything, drugs, jazz and driving. It's filled with all sorts of crazy stories, a real good read. Now it's time for Charles Bukowski.

Dash Snow

This guy seemed like a right character, he's taken simplistic photos which are eye catching and memorable. I wish I managed to see his polaroid wall for real. Never the less, rest in peace dash snow. 

Shepard Fairey

He is just too god damn good.

FOUR YEARS. GO.

Today I made the conscious decision to make my commitment to the Four Years. Go. campaign. This is an organisation which is determined to change humanity over the next four years.

Watch the video, sign up.

sigmund freud.

Today i learnt that by far the most well known and arguably the most influential psychologist so far, also in fact thought cocaine was the best thing for mankind. "I take very small doses of it regularly and against depression and against indigestion, and with the most brilliant success" - however, after giving some to his patients he realised it actually didn't have the same effect for everyone else. 

So, maybe not everything he said was worth listening to.