Circuit Breaker Quotes

Traumatic events, by definition, overwhelm our ability to cope. When the mind becomes flooded with emotion, a circuit breaker is thrown that allows us to survive the experience fairly intact, that is, without becoming psychotic or frying out one of the brain centers. The cost of this blown circuit is emotion frozen within the body. In other words, we often unconsciously stop feeling our trauma partway into it, like a movie that is still going after the sound has been turned off. We cannot heal until we move fully through that trauma, including all the feelings of the event.

But, honestly, I hope you’ll tell me that I’m enough.” She smiles. “You’re more than enough. You’re my circuit breaker.

Some guys had lousy circuit breakers in their heads. They tripped easy, and once they did, those guys would burn on until they burned out.

This week in live current events: your eyes. All power can be dangerous: Direct or alternating, you, socket to me. Plugged in and the grid is humming, this electricity, molecule-deep desire: particular friction, a charge strong enough to stop a heart or start it again; volt, re-volt-- I shudder, I stutter, I start to life. I've got my ion you, copper-top, so watch how you conduct yourself. Here's today's newsflash: a battery of rolling blackouts in California, sudden, like lightning kisses: sudden, whitehot darkness and you're here, fumbling for that small switch with an urgent surge strong enough to kill lesser machines. Static makes hair raise, makes things cling, makes things rise like a gathering storm charging outside our darkened house and here I am: tempest, pouring out mouthfulls of tsunami on the ground, I've got that rain-soaked kite, that drenched key. You know what it's for, circuit-breaker, you know how to kiss until it's hertz.

And once it comes, now that I am wise in its ways, I no longer fight it. I lie down and let it happen. At first every small apprehension is magnified, every anxiety a pounding terror. Then the pain comes, and I concentrate only on that. Right there is the usefulness of migraine, there in that imposed toga, the concentration on the pain. For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. I open the windows and feel the air, eat gratefully, sleep well. I notice the particular nature of a flower in a glass on the stair landing. I count my blessings.

Maybe speech and communication have been corrupted. They're thoroughly permeated by money - and not by accident but by their very nature. We've got to hijack speech. Creating has always been something different from communicating. The key thing may be to create vacuoles on noncommunication, circuit breakers, so that we can elude control.

A switch flipped in me. It was like one of those breaker switches...Like on a circuit box. You know how they take a lot of pressure to flip? But then once they catch, they switch over with force? I switched over. I knew, right then and there, that I needed to get away from this person. That I had to take care of myself. Because if I didn't... He wasn't gonna kill me but he would let me die (276).

The second half of the twentieth century was an information-technology era, based on the idea that all information could be encoded by binary digits—known as bits—and all logical processes could be performed by circuits with on-off switches.

Two revolutions coincided in the 1950s. Mathematicians, including Claude Shannon and Alan Turing, showed that all information could be encoded by binary digits, known as bits. This led to a digital revolution powered by circuits with on-off switches that processed information. Simultaneously, Watson and Crick discovered how instructions for building every cell in every form of life were encoded by the four-letter sequences of DNA. Thus was born an information age based on digital coding (0100110111001…) and genetic coding (ACTGGTAGATTACA…). The flow of history is accelerated when two rivers converge.

there was something worrisome in the skinny guy’s face. He’d seen it before, back in his Road Saints days. Some guys had lousy circuit breakers in their heads. They tripped easy, and once they did, those guys would burn on until they burned out.

A switch flipped in me. It was like one of those breaker switches... Like on a circuit box. You know how they take a lot of pressure to flip? But then once they catch, they switch over with force? I switched over. I knew, right then and there, that I needed to get away from this person. That I had to take care of myself. Because if I didn't... He wasn't gonna kill me but he would let me die.

System 2 and the electrical circuits in your home both have limited capacity, but they respond differently to threatened overload. A breaker trips when the demand for current is excessive, causing all devices on that circuit to lose power at once. In contrast, the response to mental overload is selective and precise: System 2 protects the most important activity, so it receives the attention it needs; “spare capacity” is allocated second by second to other tasks. In our version of the gorilla experiment, we instructed the participants to assign priority to the digit task. We know that they followed that instruction, because the timing of the visual target had no effect on the main task. If the critical letter was presented at a time of high demand, the subjects simply did not see it. When the transformation task was less demanding, detection performance was better.

System 2 and the electrical circuits in your home both have limited capacity, but they respond differently to threatened overload. A breaker trips when the demand for current is excessive, causing all devices on that circuit to lose power at once. In contrast, the response to mental overload is selective and precise: System 2 protects the most important activity, so it receives the attention it needs; “spare capacity” is allocated second by second to other tasks. In our version of the gorilla experiment, we instructed the participants to assign priority to the digit task.

Suddenly she felt someone- Most likely the Good wife, and boy, had she ever underestimated the intestinal fortitude of that lady- running for the switches which governed the circuit-breakers in her head. Goody had seen tendrils of smoke starting to seep out through the cracks in the closed doors of those panels, had understood what they meant, and was making a final, desperate effort to shut down the machinery before the motors overheated and the bearings froze. there was an intolerably bright flash inside her head and then the lights went out. She did not faint prettily, like the heroine of a florid stage play, but was snapped brutally backward like a condemned murderer who has been strapped into the hotseat and has just gotten his first jolt of juice.

In 1979, Christopher Connolly cofounded a psychology consultancy in the United Kingdom to help high achievers (initially athletes, but then others) perform at their best. Over the years, Connolly became curious about why some professionals floundered outside a narrow expertise, while others were remarkably adept at expanding their careers—moving from playing in a world-class orchestra, for example, to running one. Thirty years after he started, Connolly returned to school to do a PhD investigating that very question, under Fernand Gobet, the psychologist and chess international master. Connolly’s primary finding was that early in their careers, those who later made successful transitions had broader training and kept multiple “career streams” open even as they pursued a primary specialty. They “traveled on an eight-lane highway,” he wrote, rather than down a single-lane one-way street. They had range. The successful adapters were excellent at taking knowledge from one pursuit and applying it creatively to another, and at avoiding cognitive entrenchment. They employed what Hogarth called a “circuit breaker.” They drew on outside experiences and analogies to interrupt their inclination toward a previous solution that may no longer work. Their skill was in avoiding the same old patterns. In the wicked world, with ill-defined challenges and few rigid rules, range can be a life hack. Pretending the world is like golf and chess is comforting. It makes for a tidy kind-world message, and some very compelling books. The rest of this one will begin where those end—in a place where the popular sport is Martian tennis, with a view into how the modern world became so wicked in the first place.

Despite international calls for Chernobyl to be decommissioned at once, it endured a very gradual demise. On October 11th, 1991, just five years after the Unit 4 explosion, there was a third major accident at the plant, this time at Unit 2. Prior to the event, the Unit had been taken offline following another accident - this time a fire in its section of the turbine hall, which had broken out during minor turbogenerator repair work. After extinguishing the blaze, the generator had been isolated and its turbine coasted down to about 150 rpm when a faulty breaker switch closed, reconnecting it to the grid. The turbine rapidly sped up to 3000 rpm in under 30 seconds, then, according to a 1993 report by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “the influx of current to TG-4 overheated the conductor elements and caused a rapid degradation of the mechanical end joints of the rotor and excitation windings. A centrifugal imbalance developed and damaged generator bearings 10 through 14 and the seal oil system, allowing hydrogen gas and seal oil to leak from the generator enclosure. Electrical arcing and frictional heat ignited the leaking hydrogen and seal oil creating hydrogen flames 8 meters high, and dense smoke which obstructed the visibility of plant personnel. When the burning oil reached the busbar of the generator it caused a three-phase 120,000-amp short circuit.”265

Rapamycin works at a fundamental level of cell biology. In the early 1990s, scientists at Novartis’s predecessor, Sandoz, discovered that a rapamycin molecule inhibits a key cellular pathway regulating growth and metabolism. This pathway was eventually dubbed “target of rapamycin,” or TOR, and it’s found in everything from yeast to humans (it’s known as mTOR in mammals). MTOR is like the circuit breaker in a factory: When it’s activated, the cell grows and divides, consuming nutrients and producing proteins. When mTOR is turned down, the “factory” switches into more of a conservation mode, as the cell cleans house and recycles old proteins via a process called autophagy. One reason caloric restriction extends life span in animals, researchers believe, is because it slows down this mTOR pathway and cranks up autophagy. Rapamycin does the same thing, only without the gnawing hunger. “Really what rapamycin is doing is tapping into the body’s systems for dealing with reduced nutrition,” says Brian Kennedy, chief executive officer of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif. “We’ve evolved over billions of years to be really good at that. When things are good, we’re going to grow and make babies. And when things are not so good, we go into a more stress-resistant mode, so we survive until the next hunt. And it just so happens that stress resistance is good for aging.

CIRCUIT BREAKER MEDITATION First, settle into your body and your breath, as described in the Basic Mindfulness Meditation in Chapter 3. Invite yourself to move slowly through the meditation exercise, taking your time with each step. Bring your awareness to your jaw and your mouth. Allow your tongue to relax inside your mouth and let your jaw open slightly. Feel your breath passing easily through your relaxed throat. When you feel ready, gently place your hand on your heart, in the center of your chest. Place your other hand on your lower belly, below your navel. Imagine your hands getting warmer, the tiny capillaries and arteries relaxing just a bit to allow warmth to flow into them. Breathe gently and deeply, imagining the breath going into your heart and your belly. With each breath, invite yourself to also breathe into your heart and your belly any sense of goodness, safety, trust, acceptance, or ease that you’re able to bring to mind. Once that’s steady, call to mind a moment of being with someone who loves you unconditionally, someone you feel completely safe with. This may not always be a partner or a parent or a child. Those relationships can be so complex and the feelings can be mixed. It may be, for example, a good friend or a trusted teacher. It may be your therapist, your grandmother, a third-grade teacher, or a beloved pet. Pets are great. As you remember feeling safe and loved with this person or pet, see if you can feel the feelings and sensations that come up with that memory in your body. Allow yourself to really savor these feelings of warmth, safety, trust, and love in your body. When that feeling is steady, gently release the image for now and simply bathe in the feeling for 30 seconds or so. As always, when you’re done with your formal practice, gently and gradually bring yourself back into the room and into the stream of

One of the methods that he and Bowie used on Low was the “Oblique Strategies” he’d created with artist Peter Schmidt the year before. It was a deck of cards, and each card was inscribed with a command or an observation. When you got into a creative impasse, you were to turn up one of the cards and act upon it. The commands went from the sweetly banal (“Do the washing up”) to the more technical (“Feedback recordings into an acoustic situation”; “The tape is now the music”). Some cards contradict each other (“Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities”; “Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics”). Some use Wildean substitution (“Don’t be afraid of things because they’re easy to do”). And several veer towards the Freudian (“Your mistake was a hidden intention”; “Emphasise the flaws”). The stress is on capitalising on error as a way of drawing in randomness, tricking yourself into an interesting situation, and crucially leaving room for the thing that can’t be explained—an element that every work of art needs. Did the Oblique Strategy cards actually work? They were probably more important symbolically than practically. A cerebral theoretician like Eno had more need of a mental circuit-breaker than someone like Bowie, who was a natural improviser, collagiste, artistic gadfly. Anyone involved in the creative arts knows that chance events in the process play an important role, but to my mind there’s something slightly self-defeating about the idea of “planned accidents.” Oblique Strategies certainly created tensions, as Carlos Alomar explained to Bowie biographer David Buckley: “Brian Eno had come in with all these cards that he had made and they were supposed to eliminate a block. Now, you’ve got to understand something. I’m a musician. I’ve studied music theory, I’ve studied counterpoint and I’m used to working with musicians who can read music. Here comes Brian Eno and he goes to a blackboard. He says: ‘Here’s the beat, and when I point to a chord, you play the chord.’ So we get a random picking of chords. I finally had to say, ‘This is bullshit, this sucks, this sounds stupid.’ I totally, totally resisted it. David and Brian were two intellectual guys and they had a very different camaraderie, a heavier conversation, a Europeanness. It was too heavy for me. He and Brian would get off on talking about music in terms of history and I’d think, ‘Well that’s stupid—history isn’t going to give you a hook for the song!’ I’m interested in what’s commercial, what’s funky and what’s going to make people dance!” It may well have been the creative tension between that kind of traditionalist approach and Eno’s experimentalism that was more productive than the “planned accidents” themselves. As Eno himself has said: “The interesting place is not chaos, and it’s not total coherence. It’s somewhere on the cusp of those two.

By analogy with electrical engineering, democracy might be defined as a system of safety switches and circuit breakers for protection against currents overloaded by the national or social struggle. No period of human history has been—even remotely—so overcharged with antagonisms such as ours… Under the impact of class and international contradictions that are too highly charged, the safety switches of democracy either burn out or explode. That is what the short circuit of dictatorship represents.

I think that you have as much of a chance of having a sexual relationship with Penny as the Hubble Telescope does of discovering that at the centre of every black hole there is a little man with a flashlight searching for a circuit breaker.

And once it comes, now that I am wise in its ways, I no longer fight it. I lie down and let it happen. At first every small apprehension is magnified, every anxiety a pounding terror. Then the pain comes, and I concentrate only on that. Right there is the usefulness of migraine, there in that imposed yoga, the concentration on the pain. For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. I open the windows and feel the air, eat gratefully, sleep well. I notice the particular nature of a flower in a glass on the stair landing. I count my blessings.

If you accept the first dart for what it is, that’s like a circuit breaker interrupting the flow of second darts.

In the realm of financial markets, volatility is an inherent characteristic. Prices of stocks, commodities, and other securities can experience significant fluctuations within short periods. To manage such volatility and protect the interests of investors, circuit breakers are implemented. These circuit breakers impose upper and lower limits on price movements, which temporarily halt trading. In this blog post, we will explore the concept of upper and lower circuit limits, their purpose, and how they impact the functioning of financial markets. Defining Upper and Lower Circuit Limits Upper and lower circuit limits are predetermined price thresholds that trigger temporary trading halts. These limits are set by exchanges or regulatory bodies to prevent extreme price movements and provide stability to the market. When the price of a security reaches or breaches the upper or lower circuit limit, trading is paused for a specified period. This allows market participants to reevaluate their positions and absorb the information driving the price volatility. The Purpose of Circuit Breakers: The primary objective of circuit breakers is to safeguard the financial markets from excessive price volatility and potential panic selling or buying. These mechanisms help prevent extreme price movements that could be detrimental to market stability and investor confidence. By temporarily halting trading, circuit breakers provide a cooling-off period, allowing participants to assess new information and avoid making impulsive decisions. Moreover, circuit breakers ensure orderly trading and prevent the market from being dominated by high-frequency trading strategies that thrive on short-term price fluctuations. They offer investors an opportunity to reassess their strategies and risk exposure, reducing the likelihood of knee-jerk reactions based on short-term market movements. Understanding the Upper Circuit Limit : The upper circuit limit represents the maximum price movement permitted for security within a trading session. When the price of a security reaches or surpasses the upper circuit limit, trading in that security is halted. The upper circuit limit aims to prevent excessive speculative buying and provides a pause for market participants to analyze the new information or demand driving the price surge. During the trading halt, market participants can evaluate the situation, adjust their strategies, and determine whether to buy, sell, or hold the security when trading resumes. The duration of the halt varies depending on the exchange or regulatory body and is typically predetermined. Understanding the Lower Circuit Limit: Conversely, the lower circuit limit represents the minimum price movement allowed for security. When the price of a security falls to or breaches the lower circuit limit, trading is halted. The lower circuit limit is designed to prevent panic selling and provides market participants with an opportunity to reassess their positions. Similar to the upper circuit limit, the duration of the trading halt triggered by a lower circuit limit breach is typically predetermined. During this time, investors can evaluate the reasons behind the price decline, analyze market conditions, and make informed decisions. Impact of Circuit Breakers on Financial Markets: Circuit breakers play a crucial role in maintaining market stability, particularly during periods of heightened volatility and uncertainty. By temporarily halting trading, they allow time for market participants to process new information, reassess their positions, and avoid making impulsive decisions based on short-term price movements. Circuit breakers also facilitate the restoration of liquidity in the market. When trading is halted, market makers and other participants have an opportunity to recalibrate their pricing and liquidity provision strategies, which can help smooth out price discrepancies and enhance market efficiency.

The ancient circuitry of the brain is continually driving you to react one way or another—and equanimity is your circuit breaker. Equanimity breaks the chain of suffering by separating the feeling tones of experience from the machinery of craving, neutralizing your reactions to those feeling tones.

I'd never recited poetry to anyone before; I've never done it since. I have a highly sensitive mechanism, a circuit breaker of reticence, that keeps me from opening up too far, from revealing my feelings; and reciting verse seems to me more than just talking about my feelings, it is as if I were standing on one leg at the same time; a certain unnaturalness in the very principle of rhythm and rhyme embarrasses me when I think of indulging in it in anything but solitude. But Lucie had the magical power (no one after her has ever had it) to bypass the circuit breaker and rid me of the burden of my shyness.

Hollywood Hotel was the first major network show to broadcast from the West Coast. The film capital was rich in nationally known talent untapped by radio. It had remained untapped because of a telephone company policy that cost the networks up to $1,000 to reverse radio circuits: everything then was geared to broadcast from east to west, and it was sometimes said that a producer could bring a film star east for a five-day train trip for less money than it cost him to air a radio show from California. In 1934 the radio centers were Chicago and New York. This all changed with Hollywood Hotel. Hostess Louella Parsons immediately offset the technical tariff by persuading the elite of the film world to appear on the show without pay. Parsons was then the most feared and powerful newspaper columnist in Hollywood: her column, which appeared across the nation in Hearst newspapers, was widely seen as a maker or breaker of films and careers. She lined up stars who otherwise might be paid $1,000 for a single radio appearance, and scheduled as many as half a dozen each

Blue Gamma has done what it can to minimize abuses; all the Neuroblast digients are equipped with pain circuit breakers, which render them immune to torture and thus unappealing to sadists. Unfortunately, there’s no way to protect the digients from things like simple neglect.