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...The efficacy of psychedelics with regard to art has to do with their ability to render language weightless, as fluid and ephemeral as those famous "bubble letters" of the sixties. Psychedelics, I think, disconnect both the signifier and the signified from their purported referents in the phenomenal world - simultaneously bestowing upon us a visceral insight into the cultural mechanics of language, and a terrifying inference of the tumultuous nature that swirls beyond it. In my own experience, it always seemed as if language were a tablecloth positioned neatly upon the table until some celestial busboy suddenly shook it out, fluttering and floating it, and letting it fall back upon the world in not quite the same position as before - thereby giving me a vertiginous glimpse into the abyss that divides the world from our knowing of it. And it is into this abyss that the horror vacui of psychedelic art deploys itself like an incandescent bridge. Because it is one thing to believe, on theoretical evidence, that we live in a prison-house of language. It is quite another to know it, to actually peek into the slippery emptiness as the Bastille explodes around you. Yet psychedelic art takes this apparent occasion for despair and celebrates our escape from linguistic control by flowing out, filling that rippling void with meaningful light, laughter, and a gorgeous profusion.
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Dave Hickey (Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy)
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To construct mechanically the brain of a somniferous tale, it is not enough to dissect nonsense & mightily stupefy the reader's intelligence with renowned doses, so as to paralyze his faculties for the rest of his life by the infallible law of fatigue; one must, besides, with good mesmeric fluid, make it somnambulistically impossible for him to move, against his nature forcing his eyes to cloud over at your own fixed stare.
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Comte de Lautréamont (Maldoror and the Complete Works)
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People say that certain sounds can melt a heart of stone. If there is anyone who has that sort of a heart―which I doubt (as far as I am aware hearts are made of fibrous materials, fluid sacs and pumping mechanisms)―if anyone does have a heart composed of granite or flint and therefore not at all prone to melting but just conceivably meltable when exposed to very beautiful sounds, then the sounds made by my cherrywood harp, I am confident, would do it. However, I had a feeling the heart of Ellie the Exmoor Housewife was completely lacking in stony components. I had a feeling it was made of much softer stuff.
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Hazel Prior (Ellie and the Harpmaker)
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The myth of quantum consciousness sits well with many whose egos have made it impossible for them to accept the insignificant place science perceives for humanity, as modern instruments probe the farthest reaches of space and time. ... quantum consciousness has about as much substance as the aether from which it is composed. Early in this century, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity destroyed the notion of a holistic universe that had seemed within the realm of possibility in the century just past. First, Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity. Atomic theory and quantum mechanics demonstrated that everything, even space and time, exists in discrete bits – quanta. To turn this around and say that twentieth century physics initiated some new holistic view of the universe is a complete misrepresentation of what actually took place. ... The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world.
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Victor J. Stenger
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I had never expected medicine to be such a lawless, uncertain world. I wondered if the compulsive naming of parts, diseases, and chemical reactions— frenulum, otitis, glycolysis— was a mechanism invented by doctors to defend themselves against a largely unknowable sphere of knowledge. The profusion of facts obscured a deeper and more significant problem: the reconciliation between knowledge (certain, fixed, perfect, concrete) and clinical wisdom (uncertain, fluid, imperfect, abstract).
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Siddhartha Mukherjee (The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes from an Uncertain Science (TED Books))
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By what incomprehensible mechanism are our organs held in subjection to sentiment and thought? How is it that a single melancholy idea shall disturb the whole course of the blood; and that the blood should in turn communicate irregularities to the human understanding? What is that unknown fluid which certainly exists and which, quicker and more active than light, flies in less than the twinkling of an eye into all the channels of life,—produces sensations, memory, joy or grief, reason or frenzy,—recalls with horror what we would choose to forget; and renders a thinking animal, either a subject of admiration, or an object of pity and compassion?
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Voltaire
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I am an old man now, and when I die and go to Heaven there are two matters on which i hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. About the former I am rather optimistic.
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Horace Lamb
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To drink when thirsty is right and natural; it shows that the blood is concentrated and is in want of fluid. But to drink merely for the pleasure of drinking, or to carry out some insane theory like that of 'washing out' the system is positively dangerous. The human body is not a dirty barrel needing swilling out with a hose-pipe. It is a most delicate piece of mechanism, so delicate that the abuse of any of its parts tends to throw the entire system out of order.
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Rupert H. Wheldon (No Animal Food and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes)
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I'd better light the charcoal," Gennie said after a moment.
"I didn't ask before," Grant began as they started down the pier. "But do you know how to cook on one of those things?"
"My dear Mr. Campbell," Gennie said in a fluid drawl, "you appear to have several misconceptions about southern women.I can cook on a hot rock."
"And wash shirts in a fast stream."
"Every bit as well as you could," Gennie tossed back. "You might have some advantage on me in mechanical areas, but I'd say we're about even otherwise."
"A strike for the women's movement."
Gennie narrowed her eyes. "Are you about to say something snide and unintelligent?
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Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
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The word piezoelectric is derived from the Greek words piezein, which means “to squeeze or press,” and piezo, which means to “push.” So it’s no coincidence that I ask you to hold your breath and squeeze those intrinsic muscles. When you do this, you are pushing cerebrospinal fluid up against the pineal gland, exerting mechanical stress on it. This mechanical stress translates into an electrical charge, and it’s this exact action that compresses the stacked crystals in the pineal gland and creates a piezoelectric effect: The crystals of the pineal gland generate an electric charge in response to the stress you’re applying.
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Joe Dispenza (Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon)
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Currently the best educated and the brightest minds of any nation are not among its elected, but among its public, and in much greater numbers.
But even having a great number of the best and the brightest amongst us does not make us capable of installing a working version of direct democracy right away.
People who claim that it does, may be there to voluntarily or involuntarily damage the credibility of direct democracy.
Direct democracy needs a yet inexistent infrastructure to support the new mechanism that will render the public capable of constituting the experience necessary to domesticate direct democracy, without destabilizing our societies with needless haste, emotions and fractures.
One way of doing it may be the constitution of a nation-wide, internet reliant hence fluid, non-political organism parallel but totally hermetic to our representative democracies, with a unique objective: creating the means, platforms and protocols necessary for the public and all the specialists it contains, to communicate horizontally.
The public may decide to keep for the moment our representative democracies, but in parallel create an experimental version of direct democracy until we all acquire the necessary perspective and invent new working mechanisms of self-governance. Later the public may decide to have both representative and direct democracies sharing governance for a time, and experience first-hand the advantages and disadvantages of both systems before deciding where to go from there.
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Haroutioun Bochnakian
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transparent model of the aorta filled with water to observe the swirls and flow. The experiments showed that the valve required “a fluid dynamic control mechanism which positions the cusps away from the wall of the aorta, so that the slightest reversed flow will close the valve.” That mechanism, they realized, was the vortex or swirling flow of blood that Leonardo had discovered in the aorta root. “The vortices produce a thrust on both the cusp and the sinus wall, and the closure of the cusps is thus steady and synchronized,” they wrote. “Leonardo da Vinci correctly predicted the formation of vortices between the cusp and its sinus and appreciated that these would help close the valve.” The surgeon Sherwin Nuland declared, “Of all the amazements that Leonardo left for the ages, this one would seem to be the most extraordinary
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Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
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The scientific world-picture vouchsafe a very complete understanding of all that happens—it makes it just a little too understandable. It allows you to imagine the total display as that of a mechanical clock-work, which for all that science knows could go on just the same as it does, without there being consciousness, will, endeavour, pain and delight and responsibility connected with it—though they actually are. And the reason for this disconcerting situation is just this, that, for the purpose of constructing the picture of the external world, we have used the greatly simplifying device of cutting our own personality out, removing it; hence it it gone, it has evaporated, it is ostensibly not needed.
In particular, and most importantly, this is the reason why the scientific world-view contains of itself no ethical values, no aesthetical values, not a word about our own ultimate scope or destination, and no God, if you please. Whence came I, whither go I?
Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears.
Science, we believe, can, in principle, describe in full detail all that happens in the latter case in our sensorium and 'motorium' from the moment the waves of compression and dilation reach our ear to the moment when certain glands secrete a salty fluid that emerges from our eyes. But of the feelings of delight and sorrow that accompany the process science is completely ignorant—and therefore reticent.
Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity—the One of Parmenides—of which we all somehow form part, to which we belong. The most popular name for it in our time is God—with a capital 'G'. Science is, very usually, branded as being atheistic. After what we said, this is not astonishing. If its world-picture does not even contain blue, yellow, bitter, sweet—beauty, delight and sorrow—, if personality is cut out of it by agreement, how should it contain the most sublime idea that presents itself to human mind?
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Erwin Schrödinger ('Nature and the Greeks' and 'Science and Humanism')
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Sometime in early 1926, after reading a paper by the young German physicist Werner Heisenberg, he realized that there was emerging a wholly new way of thinking about how electrons behaved. About the same time, an Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, published a radical new theory about the structure of the atom. Schrödinger proposed that electrons behaved more precisely as a wave curving around the nucleus of the atom. Like Heisenberg, he crafted a mathematical portrait of his fluid atom and called it quantum mechanics. After reading both papers, Oppenheimer suspected that there had to be a connection between Schrödinger’s wave mechanics and Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics. They were, in fact, two versions of the same theory. Here was an egg, and not merely another cackle. Quantum mechanics now became the hot topic at the Kapitza Club, an informal physics discussion group named for its founder, Peter Kapitza, a young Russian physicist. “In a rudimentary way,” recalled Oppenheimer, “I began to get pretty interested.
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Kai Bird (American Prometheus)
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Psychiatrists and headshrinkers from realm to realm associate dreams of flight with sex for a reason. The thematic and mechanical differences are obvious—fewer bodily fluids tend to be involved in flight if all goes well, and the typical flight’s also short on funny faces. But there’s a breathless novelty to the first touch of both that experience tends to mellow. A flightless being’s first takeoff introduces her to a new dimension; the twentieth time her case team boards a dragon gondola to some mid-Kathic city that barely rates a dot on the map, the rush fades. Spend enough time away from skies or sheets, though, and the novelty returns.
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Max Gladstone (Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence, #5))
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All manner of physical systems,” wrote Robert G. Jahn, “whether mechanical, electromagnetic, fluid dynamical, quantum mechanical, or nuclear, display capacities for synergistically interactive vibrations with similar systems, or with their environment. Coupled harmonic oscillators, all common musical instruments, radio and television circuitry, atomic components of molecules, all involve this ‘sympathetic’ resonance, from which strikingly different properties emerge than those that characterize their isolated components.”21
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Larry Dossey (One Mind: How Our Individual Mind is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why it Matters)
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As chiller creators we consider the solace cooling/cooling division and we other than consider mechanical cooling process applications over a system of undertakings including: sustenance, drink, plastic, substance, pharmaceutical, atomic power, repairing and fresh sparing. All through the most recent three decades, we have gotten from our experience and got quality in both solace cooling and mechanical cooling spaces. Chiller Manufacturer in Delhi for the most part repair our things to keep up to the most recent change to give the most strong, solid and competent things to our watching purchasers.
Picking the best and most confided in Chiller Manufacturer in Delhi is fundamental as this will pick the cut off that your unit accomplishes. Since there are such a fundamental number of in the nation, it is dejected upon you to pull back the best from the rest and see your call. At chiller creator in Delhi, the consideration is on buyer unflinching quality and building machines that are outrageous, solid and offer noteworthy association. You can rely on us for the best levels of relationship, until the moment that the minute that your technique is made, and after, when you need help, absolutely at whatever point. Every single one of our machines have been spread out and made, holding fast to client necessities and utilizing the most recent movement, with the target that you can get the best quality for your business. We recognize that our obligation in this little way, can take your business to exceptional statures. Consequently, turn around picking the plain best, and you won't be astounded.
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Chiller Manufacturer in Delhi
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These autonomous, self-regulating properties of holons within the growing embryo are a vital safeguard; they ensure that whatever accidental hazards arise during development, the end-product will be according to norm. In view of the millions and millions of cells which divide, differentiate, and move about in the constantly changing environment of fluids and neighbouring tissues-Waddington called it 'the epigenetic landscape'-it must be assumed that no two embryos, not even identical twins, are formed in exactly the same way. The self-regulating mechanisms which correct deviations from the norm and guarantee, so to speak, the end-result, have been compared to the homeostatic feedback devices in the adult organism-so biologists speak of 'developmental homeostasis'. The future individual is potentially predetermined in the chromosomes of the fertilised egg; but to translate this blueprint into the finished product, billions of specialized cells have to be fabricated and moulded into an integrated structure. The mind boggles at the idea that the genes of that one fertilised egg should contain built-in provisions for each and every particular contingency which every single one of its fifty-six generations of daughter cells might encounter in the process. However, the problem becomes a little less baffling if we replace the concept of the 'genetic blueprint', which implies a plan to be rigidly copied, by the concept of a genetic canon of rules which are fixed, but leave room for alternative choices, i.e., flexible strategies guided by feedbacks and pointers from the environment. But how can this formula be applied to the development of the embryo?
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Arthur Koestler (The Ghost in the Machine)
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There is no need to use classical mechanics because Lagrangian formalism (and its use in relation to differential equations) has proven to be adaptable enough to study continuous media, such as the vibrations of uninterrupted η-dimensional objects (like 1D strings and 2D membranes) and the flows of fluids.
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Eliot Hawkins (String Theory Simplified: What is Theoretical Physics?)
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The kitchen was baby-proofed, with locking mechanisms on all the below counter cabinets. The smell of rot was more prevalent, and Taylor spied a Wild Oats bag with a package of chicken in the deep stainless steel sink. Well, that accounted for the stink downstairs. If the victim hadn’t talked to her sister for two days, and the chicken was coming back to life, then there was a good chance she’d been dead at least a day. Taylor only put chicken in the sink if she needed to defrost it and had the time to do so. That would give a convenient timeline—a day to thaw and a day to start smelling. Though it just as easily could be the victim came home from grocery shopping and didn’t get all the packages stored before her assailant appeared. They’d need a liver temp or a potassium level from the vitreous fluid for something more accurate, but it was a start. Never assume, that was her mantra. Fruit
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J.T. Ellison (Judas Kiss (Taylor Jackson #3))
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Most creative scientists, even the most prolific and versatile, produce one theory per subject. When that theory has run its course they move on to another topic, or stop inventing. Maxwell was unique in the way he could could return to a topic and imbue it with new life by taking an entirely fresh approach. To the end of his life there was not one subject in which his well of inventiveness showed signs of exhaustion. With each new insight he would strengthen the foundations of the subject and trim away any expendable superstructure. In his first paper on elctromagnetism he had used the analogy of fluid flow to describe static electric and magnetic effects. In the second he had invented a mechanical model of rotating cells and idle wheels to explain all known electromagnetic effects and to predict two new ones, displacement current and waves. Evem the most enlightened of his contemporaries thought that the next step should be to refine the model, to try to find the true mechanism. But perhaps he was already sensing that the ultimate mechanisms of nature may be beyond our powers of comprehension. He decided to put the model on one side and build the theory afresh, using
only the principles of dynamics: the mathematical laws which govern matter and motion.
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Basil Mahon (The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell)
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_Vacuum tubes_ are known as _valves_ in England. This is based on the fact that they can be used to control the flow of electricity, similar in concept to the way in which their mechanical namesakes are used to control the flow of fluids.
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Clive Max Maxfield (Bebop to the Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics)
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Foods of animal origin have been associated with increased asthma risk. A study of more than one hundred thousand adults in India found that those who consumed meat daily, or even occasionally, were significantly more likely to suffer from asthma than those who excluded meat and eggs from their diets altogether.50 Eggs (along with soda) have also been associated with asthma attacks in children, along with respiratory symptoms, such as wheezing, shortness of breath, and exercise-induced coughing.51 Removing eggs and dairy from the diet has been shown to improve asthmatic children’s lung function in as few as eight weeks.52 The mechanism by which diet affects airway inflammation may lie with the thin coating of fluid that forms the interface between your respiratory-tract lining and the outside air. Using the antioxidants obtained from the fruits and vegetables you eat, this fluid acts as your first line of defense against the free radicals that contribute to asthmatic airway hypersensitivity, contraction, and mucus production.53 Oxidation by-products can be measured in exhaled breath and are significantly lowered by shifting toward a more plant-based diet.54
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Michael Greger MD (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
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Information Theory would inform a mechanical calculator in much the same way as, say, fluid dynamics would inform the hull of a ship.
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Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
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Behavioral adaptation is one of the fundamental mechanisms by which animals and humans maintain homeostasis. Our responses to hunger and thirst are manifestations of this, replenishing calories or essential nutrients or fluids. Physical activity, as Richter suggested, is another example of this behavioral regulation, in response to an excess or dearth of calories.
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Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease)
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Energy Drinks for Power Cyclist Cycling is a high intensity sport where huge amounts of calories are burned, muscle tissue broken up and a lot of water lost through sweat. To recover and regenerate energy and muscle tissue, your body undergoes a repair mechanism that depends on what you eat and drink. While eating proper foods keeps you healthy and builds your muscle stamina, taking energy drinks cannot be overemphasized as it increases energy and hydration needed for cycling and recovery. Energy drinks are formulated with ample supply of carbs and electrolytes ideal for maintaining high energy levels as well as replacing fluids lost during the rides.
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Neil Constantine (How to Build Cycling Endurance - Cycling training to make you ride faster and longer)
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If the human race ever wishes to master time travel then the answer is through chemical and not mechanical means. Speed is time travel. It will pilfer away at the space-time around you without your consent, propelling you forward through time. The human body is a vehicle of flux. It is exhilarating to move rhythmically, pulsing, stepping through pockets of your existence in fluid motions.
The time that speed steals from you, it gives back with interest, cold and hard on a Monday morning. It brings with it a terrifying despair that creeps upon you. It is a black, slow-motion suicide. The ceiling begins to drip and ooze grey-brown sludge. Aural hallucinations, the demons of psychosis, speak wordless words of pure dread...
Sometimes I would laugh and giggle hysterically at inane nonsensical stories that would play out in my mind. I would watch them unfold, like a lucid dream, weird images, Boschian forms, twisted nightmares...
And I would weep. I would weep for nothing with salty tears, rivers of anguish and existential pain running down my face, dripping quietly onto the carpet. Day after day, I would unravel myself, dissect, and analyse my life over and over until I was exhausted and insane.
Speed is not an insightful drug. It will not delude you into a false sense of spirituality like hallucinogens. It is the aftermath and the come down from speed that will rip open your ego and show you the bare, horrible bones of yourself. It will open the beautiful black doorway inside you and it will show you nothing. Through the darkness of internal isolation, the amphetamine comedown will show you no god, no spirituality, no soul, just your own perishable flesh, and your own animal self-preservation. It will show you clearly just how ugly you really are inside. In the emptiness of yourself, there is only the knowledge of your eventual death.
When you have truly faced yourself and recognised yourself as purely animal then you become liberated from the societal pretence that you are above or better than any other creature. You are a human animal. You are naturally motivated to be selfish. Everything you do, every act you partake of, is in its essence an act of survival. No act of the human-animal happens without the satisfaction of the ego’s position in existence…
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Steven LaVey (The Ugly Spirit)
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Although specific treatments for ALI/ARDS have been slow to emerge, the recent development of new strategies for mechanical ventilation that improve mortality, and fluid management strategies that reduce the length of mechanical ventilation, emphasizes the importance of identifying and appropriately treating all patients with ALI/ARDS. Although this point would seem to be straightforward, in practice, ALI/ARDS remains largely underdiagnosed,
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Jean-Louis Vincent (Textbook of Critical Care E-Book: Expert Consult Premium Edition – Enhanced Online Features and Print)
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Final cause is cause based on purpose or design: a wheel is round because that shape makes transportation possible. Physical cause is mechanical: the earth is round because gravity pulls a spinning fluid into a spheroid. The distinction is not always so obvious. A drinking glass is round because that is the most comfortable shape to hold or drink from. A drinking glass is round because that is the shape naturally assumed by spun pottery or blown glass.
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James Gleick (Chaos: Making a New Science)
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Neuroenology explains how the fluid mechanics of the wine in your mouth and the patterns of your breathing activate your sensory and motor pathways to create the taste of wine and, together with your central brain systems for emotion and memory, generate the whole perception of wine pleasure. We
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Gordon M. Shepherd (Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine)
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However, they do not seem to grasp that what they mean by design—perfectly engineered mechanisms—would be at home only in a frozen rather than dramatically fluid world. Along with Christian antievolutionists, Darwinian materialists are so preoccupied with design that they fail to feel the drama going on beneath their feet.
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John F. Haught (Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life)
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Final cause is cause based on purpose or design: a wheel is round because that shape makes transportation possible. Physical cause is mechanical: the earth is round because gravity pulls a spinning fluid into a spheroid. The distinction is not always so obvious. A drinking glass is round because that is the most comfortable shape to hold or drink from. A drinking glass is round because that is the shape naturally assumed by spun pottery or blown glass.
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James Gleick (Chaos: Making a New Science)
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Cars like the Honda Accord and Ford Focus were relatively popular among both the fixed and fluid. But there were more differences than similarities. Among the fixed, domestic cars outnumbered foreign cars by 64 percent to 36 percent. In contrast, 60 percent of the fluid drove foreign cars, compared with 40 percent who drove American cars. Also consistent with the YourMechanic study, the fluid were more likely to drive a small sedan (in car-rental terms, an economy, compact, or mini) than the fixed, while the fixed were more likely to drive an SUV.
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Marc Hetherington (Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide)
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Two appendages lowered from a port in the ceiling and passed a few feet from his face: they were complex, robotic hands, a left and a right. They were sleek in design, and had a flat-black finish. One of them positioned itself near Will's outstretched hand, and a glistening, curved blade popped out of one of its fingertips—the thumb. It moved in slowly, and all Will could do was watch as it approached. He felt cold metal touch his skin, and the blue-metallic blade slowly sliced its way under his left thumbnail, vibrating as it moved. It dug in about half way to the cuticle, and stopped. His thumb throbbed and burned at the same time, and the pressure mounted even though the blade remained still. After about five minutes, it continued on its path to the nail bed, and paused. His legs and arms twitched uncontrollably, but the blade remained stationary. A few minutes later, another blade popped out from the mechanical hand, and slowly carved a path under his left index fingernail. It took another five, long minutes to reach the nail bed. Will screamed sporadically, his voice diminishing to a raspy whisper, as the procedure was repeated for each of his fingers. After about two hours, the machine had finished inserting blades into the ten nail beds, and the program paused as the pressure in his fingertips increased. The fluid that oozed from under his nails had gone from blood to a clear liquid, and he heard it drip on the floor. Just as Will's nerves were beginning to settle, the bladed, mechanical fingers started to tap. Tap tap tap ... the machine played a tune of pain. Every muscle in his body convulsed with each minute percussion of the blades. After what seemed like an eternity, the program reached a final phase: the twisting of the blades. Will whimpered pitifully, continually on the verge of passing out.
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Shane Stadler (Exoskeleton)
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The human body is like a complex microchip with fluid circuits and connections to interconnected control systems, where its mimicry requires innovative technologies aided by nanotechnology.
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Edilson Gomes de Lima
“
Rolling streams, swinging pendulums, electronic oscillators—many physical systems went through a transition on the way to chaos, and those transitions had remained too complicated for analysis. These were all systems whose mechanics seemed perfectly well understood. Physicists knew all the right equations; yet moving from the equations to an understanding of global, long-term behavior seemed impossible. Unfortunately, equations for fluids, even pendulums, were far more challenging than the simple one-dimensional logistic map. But Feigenbaum’s discovery implied that those equations were beside the point. They were irrelevant. When order emerged, it suddenly seemed to have forgotten what the original equation was. Quadratic or trigonometric, the result was the same. “The whole tradition of physics is that you isolate the mechanisms and then all the rest flows,” he said. “That’s completely falling apart. Here you know the right equations but they’re just not helpful. You add up all the microscopic pieces and you find that you cannot extend them to the long term. They’re not what’s important in the problem. It completely changes what it means to know something.
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James Gleick (Chaos: Making a New Science)
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There is no more underrated and research-backed therapeutic tool than walking. It reduces back pain, and body pain in general, through dozens of mechanisms. Studies show that walking does the following: Increases circulation of natural opioids in the body175 Reduces pain sensitivity176 Stimulates production and circulation of synovial fluid within joints177 Improves lumbar (low back) function178 Strengthens foot muscles, creating a more stable and pliable base for the hips, back, and neck (especially in minimalist shoes)179 Reduces perceived pain levels, improves blood pressure, and strengthens feelings of personal power180 (if you walk with upright posture instead of slumped) Reduces bone density loss with age, helping to prevent osteoporosis and reduce osteoarthritis pain181 Is a surprisingly effective weight loss and weight management technique, which in turn keeps overall compression forces on joints down182 Increases blood flow to spinal muscles, improving oxygen and nutrient delivery required for cellular healing183 Speeds up elimination of cellular waste products through the repeated contractions of various muscle groups throughout the body183 Reduces the levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which has a correlative relationship with subjective pain levels184 (Barefoot walking) Improves body awareness and wound healing, reduces inflammation, and helps prevent chronic inflammatory diseases185 Walking doesn’t just help relieve back pain—it targets the central causes of pain. And as you can see from the many studies on walking and pain relief, the benefits are not limited to the locomotion of walking. It’s movement in general that increases circulation of natural opioids, reduces pain sensitivity, stimulates synovial fluid production, and supports cellular health.
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Scott H Hogan (Built from Broken: A Science-Based Guide to Healing Painful Joints, Preventing Injuries, and Rebuilding Your Body)
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The key concept, in the formation of a sense of life, is the term ‘important’. It is a concept that belongs to the realm of values since it implies an answer to the question: Important – to whom?... It means ‘a quality, character or standing such as to entitle attention or consideration.’...
It is only those values which he regards or grows to regard as ‘important,’ those which represent his implicit view of reality that remain in a man’s subconscious and form his sense of life…
A sense of life represents a man’s early value-integrations, which remain in a fluid, plastic, easily amendable state, while he gathers knowledge to reach full conceptual control and thus to drive his inner mechanism. A full conceptual control means a consciously directed process of cognitive integration, which means: a conscious philosophy of life.
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Ayn Rand (The Romantic Manifesto)
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Indeed, during a routine influenza season, usage of respirators rises to nearly 100 percent; in a pandemic, most people who needed a mechanical respirator probably would not get one. (The strain influenza puts on health care was driven home to me in a personal way on my book tour. In Kansas City, a flare-up of ordinary seasonal influenza forced eight hospitals to close emergency rooms, yet this was only a tiny fraction of the pressure a pandemic would exert.) This and similar problems—such as if a particular secondary bacterial invader is resistant to antibiotics, or shortages of such seemingly trivial items as hypodermic needles or bags to hold IV fluids (a severe shortage of these bags is a major
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John M. Barry (The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History)
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States has far fewer hospital beds than a few decades ago. Indeed, during a routine influenza season, usage of respirators rises to nearly 100 percent; in a pandemic, most people who needed a mechanical respirator probably would not get one. (The strain influenza puts on health care was driven home to me in a personal way on my book tour. In Kansas City, a flare-up of ordinary seasonal influenza forced eight hospitals to close emergency rooms, yet this was only a tiny fraction of the pressure a pandemic would exert.) This and similar problems—such as if a particular secondary bacterial invader is resistant to antibiotics, or shortages of such seemingly trivial items as hypodermic needles or bags to hold IV fluids (a severe shortage of these bags is a major problem as I write this)—could easily moot many medical advances since 1918.
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John M. Barry (The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History)
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of mechanical fluids, and— “Is that coffee?
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Andris Bear (Enter the Witch: A Cozy Paranormal Mystery (Witches of Whisper Grove Book 1))
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The US internet sales company, Amazon, was initially named Cadabra and sold books only. The owner, Jeff Bezos, later changed the name to Amazon.com after a lawyer misheard its original name as “cadaver”. The first book sold on the website was “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought” by Douglas Hofstadter.
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Nayden Kostov (463 Hard to Believe Facts)
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He’s a professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the local university. He is somewhat renowned in his field. This is what I’m told by his adoring colleagues and students at boring cocktail parties where I play the part of devoted wife. They always marvel at what it must be like to be married to the great Dr. David Foster III. They imagine, I think, that our nights are filled with romantic whisperings about fluid dynamics and heat transfer or the power of biomechanical joints. They forget that I am a writer and maintain only a cursory understanding of and interest in David’s work—just enough to assure him that my love is true.
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Roxane Gay (Difficult Women)
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As biological beings, we humans - anchored to our biology - can only experience a thermodynamic arrow of time in one direction but given our rapid technological advances and the forthcoming Cybernetic Singularity, that might change for good. The ultimate effects of future developments may appear quite strange to us, present-day humans, as the emergence of things like personalized 'non-linear' reality and fluid distributed identity could challenge our current biological and cultural assumptions. The resulting 'identity' architectures will transform our notion of personhood and form the kernel of posthuman civilization.
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Alex M. Vikoulov (The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics (The Science and Philosophy of Information Book 2))
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There is something perennial about the idea that any literal view of nature, when pursued to its ultimate ramifications, destroys itself from within. It is as though every literal model carried within itself the seeds of its own falsification; as if nature resisted attempts to be limited or otherwise boxed in. Whatever we say it is, it indicates it is not; whatever we say it is not, it shows it might just be. These are built-in mechanisms of growth and renewal in nature that we ignore at our own peril. Nature is as fluid and elusive as a thought. Indeed, it is a thought: an unfathomable, compound thought we live in and contribute to. The world is a shared ‘dream.’ In it, as in a regular dream, the dreamer is himself the subject and the object; the observer and the observed.
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Bernardo Kastrup (Meaning in Absurdity: What Bizarre Phenomena Can Tell Us about the Nature of Reality)
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Saasz hän ku andam szabadon--take what I freely offer. My life is your life, my blood your blood. Together we are strong.” He used the formal words, meaning every one of them. He would have given his life for their leader. The others began the ritual healing chant. They spoke in a hypnotic rhythm, and the ancient tongue was beautiful.
Behind him, Jacques heard the murmur of voices, smelled the sweet aroma of soothing, healing herbs. Carpathian soil, so rich in healing properties, was mixed with herbs and saliva from their mouths and placed over the wounds. Jacques held his brother in his arms, felt his strength, his life, flow into Mikhail, and he thanked God for his ability to help him. Mikhail was a good man, a great man, and his people could not lose him.
Mikhail felt strength pouring into him, into his depleted muscles, into his brain and heart. Jacques’s strong body trembled, and he sat abruptly on the edge of the bed, still cradling Mikhail in his arms, still holding his brother’s head to make it easier for him to replenish what he had lost.
Mikhail resisted, surprised at how strong Jacques still was, how weak he remained despite the transfer. Stop, Jacques, I endanger you. He said the words sharply in his mind because Jacques refused to release him.
“It is not enough, my brother. Take what is freely offered with no thought but to heal.” Jacques continued the chant as long as he was able, signaling Eric when he was growing too weak to continue.
Eric slashed his wrist without thought, without wincing at the gaping, painful wound, offering his wrist to Jacques, who continued to supply Mikhail with his life’s blood. Eric and Byron provided the soft rhythmic words of ritual while Jacques replenished himself and Mikhail.
The room itself seemed filled with warmth and love, and smelled clean and fresh. The ritual healing signaled a new beginning. It was Eric who called a halt when he could see Mikhail’s color had returned, when he could hear the steady beat of his heart and feel the blood flowing freely, safely, in his veins.
Byron put a supporting arm around Jacques, and helped him to a chair. Without a word he took Eric’s place, supplying life-giving fluid to Jacques.
Mikhail stirred, accepted the pain of his injury as part of the healing process, as part of the mechanics of living. He turned his head. His dark gaze sought and found Jacques, rested on him like a touch.
“Is he all right?” His voice was very soft, but commanding all the same. Mikhail was authoritative no matter the circumstances.
Jacques looked up, pale and wan, flashed a grin, and winked. “I spend a lot of time pulling your butt out of trouble, big brother. You would think a man a good two hundred years older than me would have the sense to watch his own backside.”
Mikhail smiled tiredly. “You get pretty cocky when I am lying on my backside.
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Christine Feehan (Dark Prince (Dark, #1))
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The strange attractor lives in phase space, one of the most powerful inventions of modern science. Phase space gives a way of turning numbers into pictures, abstracting every bit of essential information from a system of moving parts, mechanical or fluid, and making a flexible road map to all its possibilities. Physicists already worked with two simpler kinds of “attractors”: fixed points and limit cycles, representing behavior that reached a steady state or repeated itself continuously.
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James Gleick (Chaos: Making a New Science)
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Lorenz had found unpredictability, but he had also found pattern. Others, too, discovered suggestions of structure amid seemingly random behavior. The example of the pendulum was simple enough to disregard, but those who chose not to disregard it found a provocative message. In some sense, they realized, physics understood perfectly the fundamental mechanisms of pendulum motion but could not extend that understanding to the long term. The microscopic pieces were perfectly clear; the macroscopic behavior remained a mystery. The tradition of looking at systems locally—isolating the mechanisms and then adding them together—was beginning to break down. For pendulums, for fluids, for electronic circuits, for lasers, knowledge of the fundamental equations no longer seemed to be the right kind of knowledge at all.
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James Gleick (Chaos: Making a New Science)
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Electricity was a harder problem than steam had been. Though it was conceived first as a fluid, it wasn’t something that could be boiled up by heating a mass of liquid and released in controlled volumes to push a heavy piston to turn wheels. It was not a prime mover—a machine such as a windmill or a steam engine, which converts a natural source of energy into mechanical energy—it was a transfer agent. A Leyden jar discharged intermittently, in multiple bursts, each successive burst weaker than the last. A conductor—a wire, a river—could carry the charge, but when it reached the end of the wire or the other side of the river, it discharged all at once. Franklin’s electrostatic motor was powerful, yet it lacked a source of energy beyond a workman rubbing a sulfur ball to charge a Leyden jar. Assigning a workman to turn the spit by hand continued to be both simpler and less expensive. Again, unlike steam, electricity lacked obvious applications, however mysterious and fascinating it might be. With enough equipment—cat skin and amber, Leyden jar mounted with a spark gap—you could use it to light a candle. A few did, another parlor trick, but most continued to borrow a flame from the fireplace or strike a light with flint and steel.
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Richard Rhodes (Energy: A Human History)
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Sleep is a very active state, part of your waking life really. At times your heart rate and blood pressure soar. Your neural activity increases. There are rises in spinal fluid pressure and stomach muscle activity. Your little pee-pee-maker gets hard and fluttery. Under closed lids the most important thing of all is happening; your eyes are getting periodic exercise. Their rapid movements are coordinated in terms of conjugate function—a paired mechanism supplying a single vision.
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Don DeLillo (Ratner's Star (Vintage Contemporaries))
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Understanding the Importance of Pressure Relief Valves in Industrial Systems
Pressure Relief valves (PRVs) play a critical role in ensuring the safety and efficiency of industrial systems across various sectors, from manufacturing plants to chemical processing facilities. These valves are essential components designed to control or limit the pressure within a system by releasing excess pressure when it exceeds a set limit. The importance of pressure relief valves cannot be overstated, as they protect both personnel and equipment from the dangers of over-pressurization.
What Are Pressure Relief Valves?
A pressure relief valve is a safety device that automatically releases pressure from a system to maintain safe operating levels. It is commonly used in pressurized vessels, pipelines, and tanks where the pressure may rise beyond the acceptable limit due to unexpected changes in the system's operation or external factors. When the pressure reaches a pre-determined value, the valve opens to release fluid or gas, thus reducing the pressure and preventing potential damage or catastrophic failures.
The Safety Aspect: Preventing Equipment Damage and Catastrophic Failures
One of the primary reasons for installing pressure relief valves in industrial systems is to prevent damage to critical equipment. Excessive pressure buildup can cause pipes, tanks, or pressure vessels to rupture, which could result in expensive repairs, production downtime, and in the worst-case scenario, hazardous accidents. In industries where flammable or toxic materials are used, over-pressurization could lead to explosions, chemical spills, or leaks, endangering both workers and the surrounding environment.
For example, in the oil and gas industry, pipelines carrying crude oil or natural gas are constantly exposed to pressure variations. A pressure relief valve ensures that, even if the pressure suddenly rises, the system remains intact, minimizing the risk of pipeline rupture or explosion.
Regulatory Compliance
Pressure relief valves also help industrial systems comply with regulatory standards. Organizations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) enforce stringent rules on pressure management in industrial processes. These regulations mandate that systems incorporate pressure relief devices to ensure that operations are carried out safely and within regulated pressure limits.
Failure to comply with these regulations can lead to costly fines, operational halts, and legal liabilities. A properly installed and functioning pressure relief valve not only helps to avoid such consequences but also ensures that industrial operations are carried out without interruption.
Protecting Personnel
In addition to protecting equipment, pressure relief valves are essential for safeguarding personnel working in industrial settings. Over-pressurization can lead to dangerous situations, including the release of harmful substances or the failure of protective systems. By maintaining safe pressure levels, PRVs ensure that workers are not exposed to hazardous environments or conditions that could lead to injuries or fatalities.
Furthermore, the presence of a pressure relief valve in a system helps to create a more predictable and stable working environment, which is crucial for ensuring worker safety and boosting operational efficiency.
Conclusion
Pressure relief valves are integral components in modern industrial systems. Their ability to maintain safe pressure levels by preventing over-pressurization makes them crucial for the protection of equipment, personnel, and the environment. These valves not only ensure the longevity of industrial systems by preventing catastrophic failures but also help organizations meet regulatory standards.
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Pressure Relief valves