Phobias - What are you afraid of?

Do you remember moments in your childhood when you were afraid of some things? For instance, you were scared to sleep alone at night and go outside alone in the dark or be locked in a dark room. Maybe you have problems with looking down while standing on a high edge? You say you like animals. Are you sure? Don’t you get the creeps when thinking of spiders or snakes? I can still remember vaccinations in primary school – nearly all of the girls were terrified before entering the nurse room. Were you terrified?

All of these mentioned situations are caused by phobias.

A phobia is a persistent, irrational fear that causes a person to feel intense anxiety. Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorders. According to the American National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 10% of people suffer from one or more specific phobias.

The full list of phobias is almost limitless. It can be anything that someone could fear. However, some phobias are much more common than others. Here’s a top ten list of the most common phobias.


Acrophobia - Fear of Heights



Acrophobia in general is a fear of heights. Depending on the phobia's severity, an acrophobic person may fear being on a high floor of a building, or even climbing a ladder. It is sometimes confused with vertigo - a physical condition that causes dizziness or disorientation when looking down from a great height.


Claustrophobia - Fear of Enclosed Spaces



Claustrophobia is the fear of having no escape and being closed in places like: small rooms, locked rooms, cars, tunnels, cellars, elevators, subway trains, caves, and crowded areas


Nyctophobia - Fear of the Dark



It’s one of the most common children phobias. In most cases childhood nyctophobia passes when children grow up. This fear is probably a natural consequence of evolution, because night is the time when most predators hunt.


Ophidiophobia - Fear of Snakes



Like nyctophobia, some researchers believe that this phobia may be evolutionary developed by our ancestors as a survival mechanism. However, would not explain why snake phobias are relatively common, while fears of predatory animals, such as tigers, are rare. People who suffer from this phobia are not only afraid of touching snakes. They also show fear when viewing pictures of snakes or even talking about them.


Arachnophobia - Fear of Spiders



This one is extremely common. Sufferers generally fear spider webs and other signs that a spider may be nearby. They also fear pictures of spiders.


Trypanophobia - Fear of Injection or Medical Needles



Trypanophobia is a medical phobia. It may result in serious physiological responses including very low blood pressure and fainting. In some cases, severe trypanophobia may lead the sufferer to avoid all medical care.


Astraphobia - Fear of Thunder and Lightning



Like nyctophobia it is mostly common among children. Both adults and children tend to deal with the fear by seeking shelter, securing themselves in windowless areas where the storm cannot be seen.


Nosophobia - Fear of Having a Disease



It is the irrational fear of developing a disease. Sufferers may become frequent visitors of the doctor’s office, or may try avoiding doctors because of fear of hearing bad news.


Mysophobia/Germophobia - Fear of Germs



It is similar to nosophobia. It is an intense fear of becoming contaminated by germs. People suffering from this disease very often repetitively wash their hands to remove the contamination.


Triskaidekaphobia - Fear of the Number 13



This phobia unlike the others does not fit neatly into a clinical definition of a specific phobia. The number 13 is not an object or a situation, and it can be impossible for the sufferer to avoid. Nonetheless, triskaidekaphobia has actually influenced the modern world. For example, it is common the hotels or offices don’t have the 13th floor. Many people refuse to live in homes with a 13 in the address. Even public transportation is affected; some airplanes don’t have the 13th row



So, what are YOU afraid of?

Do you have any of the common mentioned phobias, or maybe you have a rare unusual one?

Have you heard of any unusual or even funny phobia?

Why do we even have phobias? Do you think they are something natural?

2012: The end of the world?

There has been a lot of talking lately about the theory that the world is going to end in year 2012. Is this something that we should take seriously? Is Earth in danger? Before you answer these questions let me present you some facts and theories.

So, why 2012?


Primarily this date is based on the ancient Mayan calendar. According to some calculations it ends on December 21, 2012 and marks the end of an era that lasted 5126 years. Ancient Mayans where remarkable mathematics and astronomers – we can have no doubt in that, but can we treat this calculation as a “prophecy”? The ending date of the Mayan calendar is not meant to represent the end of time, but rather the end of their calendar cycle. Just as our calendar begins again on January 1, their calendar will begin a new cycle on December 22, 2012. The main difference here is that their calendar has cycles much longer than 365 days.



The second reason of the apocalypse coming in 2012 is that some say there will be an planetary alignment that will start a chain reaction that will cause huge weather anomalies (just like those in Hollywood super productions “Day After Tomorrow” and “2012”). But… this is not true ;). First there is not going to be any major alignment of planets or any other objects in our solar system for at least the next few decades. Secondly, even if such thing would happen, there is no reason (nor proof) to believe that it would have any impact on Earth.



The next theory is based on phenomenon of Solar Magnetic Shift. Approximately every 11 years the magnetic poles of the Sun flip. It’s a time when there is the greatest appearance of Sun spots, solar flares and other solar activities. The next magnetic pole flip of the Sun is predicted to be in 2012, but may not happen until 2013 or even later. Some believe that this flip will bring the largest "solar storm" in history. If it will, this actually would be a big threat. It could cause telecommunication shutdown, electricity blackouts and other problems with electrical devices. Will the storm be large and dangerous? Maybe… but certainly will not end the world.



Like the Sun, the Earth also can flip its magnetic poles. While the Sun does it every 11 years, the Earth needs roughly 400,000 years. It’s been now longer that, but still there is no evidence that it might happen soon. Even if it would it certainly would not cause the Earth to start spinning in the opposite direction or flip the whole Earth upside down.



One of Hollywoods favorite version – the Asteroid Collision. Yes, an asteroid or comet could someday collide with Earth – in fact meteorites do it every day (however most of them burn in the atmosphere) – but it’s highly improbable we wouldn’t know about it long before. NASA is continuously cataloging and monitoring the large objects in our solar system, and there is a zero probability that they could miss a giant object on a collision trajectory.



While all these theories might be a great ideas for a movie script, the likelihood that any one would happen is null…… or not? What’s your opinion? Do you believe in prophecies? Have you heard about any other interesting calendar besides the Mayan one?

Aquascaping

Aquascaping is the craft of arranging aquaristic plants, rocks and drift wood, in and aesthetically pleasing manner within an aquarium. It’s like underwater gardening. In the world of aquascaping and planted tanks, there are two major schools of thought: the garden-like Dutch style and the Japanese-inspired nature style.

Dutch aquariums



Dutch aquariums are the oldest style of aquascaping. It was started in the early 20th century in Holland. This style primarily concentrates on neat rows of plants. Lower plants are put in the front and taller in the back, creating a depth effect.

Dutch aquascapes often also feature more colorful water plants. They can be compared to a well kept garden, where every plant is arranged with a purpose and well trimmed. This type of aquascaping doesn’t aim to copy nature, but is extremely beautiful and visually interesting.


Nature style aquariums



The nature aquarium style was pioneered by Takashi Amano in the 90’s. Unlike Dutch style this style is primarily focused on nature. It aims to imitate both natural landscapes and snapshots of natural environments. It means that a nature style aquarium can look like a miniature version of a mountain range, or it can try to copy the way some river looks beneath the surface. Nature style aquascapes are often also one of three shapes: concave shaped, convex shaped, or triangular. Concave means that the plants are arranged in a way that higher ones are at the sides and decrease to some central low point. Convex is the opposite and look like and island or hill – plants are low on the sides and height in the middle. The triangular aquascapes are shaped like a triangle – the height slopes gradually from high on one side to low on the other. All nature aquariums have one very important common feature – the main focal point which is almost always positioned according to the golden ratio


How to

I'd like to present you an 11 step guide to successful aquascaping.

1. Imagination

Imagination is the key to aquascaping. Imagine the plants and accessories you are about to use and try combining them in several ways. If it’s too hard. Maybe start by coping an arrangement you saw and like. With time you’ll get better in this.

2. Choosing a background

There are several types of background. You can choose from different types of wood, painting, foliage or even color paper. No matter what you must choose a background. It’ll look unnatural with the wall or even wires behind. When choosing colors make it black or blue – they look the most natural.

3. Choosing your substrate

Your tank will look unnaturally with colorful gravel. Choose rather dark colors like brown, gray or even black.

4. Choosing the shape of the layout

There are several common types of layouts.

Concave layout:



Convex layout:



Triangular layout:



It is important that to create an illusion of depth. To do this, avoid using rectangular layouts with constant plant heights.

5. Choosing the accessories

When choosing stones or driftwood use different sizes and shapes, instead of picking just one element. One single stone will look artificial, but two or more can make a natural look. Never use different types of stones or wood. A composition of ugliest stones of one type will look better then the most beautiful but different.

6. Setting the main focal points

You should aim for one, maximum two focal points. These are the points which please your eyes. If you choose one focal point it should preferably be in the point calculated by using the golden ratio. If you stick it just in the middle it won’t look right. Rather try moving it a bit to the left or right. The Greeks calculated long ago that the best ratio to please your eyes is 1:1.618.



7. Foreground, Midground, Background

Too create depth you should use different plant and accessories sizes. The rule here is that the smaller the more in the front you put it.


8. Planting order

Start planting form you focal point. Then go with the small, medium and at the end the large plants. Always plant very dense.

9. Plant leaves and colour

Try using plant with different sizes and colors. This will create a more natural look and give more depth. In smaller tanks choose plants with smaller leaves. They will make an illusion of the tank being bigger. Red plants give contrast but be aware that one red plant standing out from the rest of the composition will be a focal point.

10. Fishes

You shouldn’t add fisher just after the start of the tank. Rather choose groups of smaller fish than single big ones. Choose fishes that won't disturb your aquascape. Avoid one that will try to dig and eat you plants.

11. Maintenance

Setting it all up is one thing, maintaining and keeping the good looks is totally different. Regular plant pruning, water changing and keeping the right balance of nutrition and CO2 will do the job. Sometimes you might even have to throw a plant always because it may become too big and ruin your original composition.


Examples

Now I'd like to show you everything I’ve been writing about. I’ll present you some of the finest arrangements from the most popular aquascaping contest in the world, the ADA Aquascaping Contest.

Year 2008

1st place


2nd place


3rd place


4th place


5th place


6th place


7th place


8th place


9th place


10th place


Year 2007

1st place


2nd place


3rd place


4th place


5th place


6th place


7th place


8th place


9th place


10th place



Try finding some interesting information about the golden ratio and post it here.

When it comes to nature combined with art, Japan is known not only for nature style aquascaping. Please lookup Ikebana and Bonsai and write something about it.

Do you like the idea of aquascaping? Would you say it’s art?

Do you have any experience in aquascaping? Maybe you have made an arrangement of your own? Please share if so.

Which of the presented compositions are your favorite ones? Mines are 1st and 3rd from 2008 and 10th from 2007.

Laugh is health - PART III

In this part of my presentation, I would like to present few from many polish cabarets and polish series “Spadkobiercy”. I think you would agree that in Poland we have many talented comedians, not only in cabarets but also in stand-up’s. At this point I mean Marcin Daniec, Maciej Stuhr or Cezary Pazura. I couldn’t mention Daniec not remembering about this



I bet you have seen it before but if not, you should watch whole three parts.

Kabaret Moralnego Niepokoju

In this cabaret we can see five people: Robert Górski, Przemek Borkowski, Mikołaj Cieślak, Rafał Zbieć and Kasia Pakosińska. All five of them is great, but personally I prefer Robert and Kasia. Also Mikołaj is great, especially with his facial expression. In my opinion the best sketches are Wizyta Księdza and Drzwi. Here you can see one of them




Ani Mru Mru

Not everyone knows that at the beginning in 1999 there were four people in this cabaret: Joanna Kolibska, Grzegorz Tatara, Maciej Wojnarowski and Marcin Wójcik which is the originator. Later, in 2001 team changed – Marcin Wójcik and Janusz Bronkiewicz stayed and Michał Wójcik was invited as a mime. They are cracking people up this whole time and I think they are still object of interest after all those years. I guess that most people have seen great sketch Maciej i Smok (or Król I Wieśniak) or Otwarcie Supermarketu, but have you seen great sketch Dylemat Studenta? Very good one and not only for students 





Spadkobiercy

This series is to be the some kind of polish version of WLIIA. Base for this show is no script – actors just before entering the scene are told to who and on what subject they have to speak, also the scene-ending sentence is known. The series takes place in Los Angeles in rich Owens family. It is rather improvised soap opera, but still great comedians (Robert Górski, Marcin Wójcik, Michał Wójcik, Grzegorz Halama, Piotr Bałtroczyk, Artur Andrus, Maria Czubaszek, Roman Żurek, Joanna Kołaczkowska, Wojciech Kamiński, Janusz Rewers, Agnieszka Litwin, Tomasz Łupak, Wojciech Tremiszewski and Marek Grabie) make it very funny.
Here you may see mix of bloopers



I also heard that TVP2 is planning to make something more similar to WLIIA, but it was unconfirmed. Maybe somebody knows something about that?

Which is your favorite polish cabaret?

Laugh is health - PART II

Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles were playing at the same time in WLIIA and The Drew Carey Show. Sometimes performers made jokes because of that. I really wanted to find a video to post it here, but unfortunately I was unable to do that. Also they made fun of his second name(Allison) and, if I remember well, Greg once asked Drew is he Jim or Mariah (because of the same surname). Drew also wrote a biography called “Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined”.

Colin Mochrie, a Canadian comedian, because of his baldness was sometimes victim of jokes in the show. Take a look at this scene

Since 2002 with Brad Sherwood has toured North America as a two-man stage show called, "An Evening with Colin and Brad," playing mostly in small theaters. He also played in few movies.

Ryan Stiles was also sometimes a victim of jokes, because of three things: height (198cm tall), big feet and big nose. Here is one from many situations

He often wore really crazy shoes. I can’t find link to jokes, but here is a funny compilation

Here are my personal best of scenes from WLIIA

Arctic Tern

Wrong Name

Scenes From a Hat

Maltese Burger

Those were just few of my best of, it’d be impossible to place all of them here. If you enjoy the show, visit Youtube.com for more, especially see Special Episode – Best of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

In my next presentation I will review some groups from polish cabaret scene.

Laugh is health - PART I

In my presentation I would like to say something about guys that make people laughing out loud all the time. Everyone knows dictum “Laugh is health”. This is why I want to review few of them which are my favorites for a bad day.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? is a TV show, in which four comedians act totally improvised scenes creating various characters in funny situations. The host gives subjects for performers to act in different scenes. Many of them are based on suggestions from audience asked before the show. After the game, host gives “Points-that-don’t-matter” for comedians usually giving a humorous reason for his decision. Also sometimes host participates in scenes with performers. In many games the audience is asked by the host for the subject for performers to act, but also takes part in few kind of scenes. In the end, there is a winner chosen by a host(no, not because of points - totally arbitrarily) and his prize is either act a scene with the host or sit and watch other performers play a game with the host.

What is interesting, the show was created as a BBC radio show in 1988 in Great Britain in which credits where presented in a funny way. Then it was turned into TV show which was a bang on. There were 10 series with total of 136 episodes in UK, hosted by Clive Anderson. Show was ended due to dropping ratings. Fortunately, in 1998 show was brought to the attention of U.S. comedian Drew Carey. He and Ryan Stiles were stars in U.S. TV sitcom The Drew Carey Show. Carey convinced ABC(U.S. TV network) to make some test episodes. There were 8 seasons with 225 episodes. The production ended in 2004 and from 2005 to 2007 earlier unaired episodes where showed.

In U.S. version most of the performers where from UK version. Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles appears in every episode. Two remaining performers where mostly from those: Wayne Brady(from the second season he also became a regular), Greg Proops, Chip Esten, Brad Sherwood, Jeff Davis and Kathy Greenwood. Sometimes celebrities joined the show, like: Robin Williams, Stephen Colbert, Kathy Kinney, Kathy Griffin or Whoopi Goldberg. Also, in single scenes appeared: Sid Caesar, David Hasselhoff, Florence Henderson, Jerry Springer, Joanie "Chyna" Laurer, Richard Simmons, Katie Harman, Jayne Trcka, the Loyola Marymount University cheerleaders, Hugh Hefner and Lassie.

There are plenty of different games for performers to improvise. There are so many of them, I will give you a link to read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_from_Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F
Notice, that there are games from both UK and U.S. versions of the show. I personally love Scenes From a Hat, Irish Drinking Song, World’s Worst and If You Know What I Mean. But, honestly, they are all great games, specially performed by Drew, Ryan and Colin, which for me are the best from the whole cast.

Here is the sample of their genius with Colin’s dance 



Due to many mistakes and unmentionable vocabulary, show was never aired live. From all games played on set every day, producers chose some from which episodes were made.

In my next presentation I will place here my personally few best scenes and say something more about my favorite the performers.

Do you like the idea the show is based on?
Do you think this kind of show could be popular in Poland?

Analog / Digital music

My last post was about portable players, but this time I would like to say few words about music format.

As we know most popular format of digital music is mp3. It's understanding, because one mp3 file size is not too big, and quality of sound is at acceptable level. But mp3s isn't one and only format.

Not very much known, but much better than mp3 is OGG. We can get this format in easy way. We need only CD record to rip music by some program, for example - foobar2k. OGG weight more than mp3s, but sound quality is much better and bitrate is higher. Almost every new portable player has OGG support. If we want same sound quality in digital files as on CD, we can simply rip to loseless format FLAC. This format is perfect for those, who want the best sound quality. Unfortunately, one song in FLAC size is even 50mb. If you want to have music in that format on our portable player, you must read carefully technical specs, because in these days not every player can play FLAC.

Obviously music formats is not only mp3, OGG or FLAC. There's much more of them, but today these are in use most. Digital formats were CDs, sometimes vinyls, casettes, everyone had "walkman". There were for important music only. Next "discmans", even with mp3 support.

Now almost everyone has mp3 player. We can rip music from CDs, but also we can buy songs on Internet, e.g. in iTunes Store or just download from an artist site (legally of course ;) like album "In Rainbows" by Radiohead in 2007, when people can download it and pay how much they like or none). So, what is the future off recording music? Sandisk thinks, that the future is in digital formats and microSD cards. Why? Because they made player with microSD slot and 0mb internal memory - Sansa SlotRadio. They think, that this cards will replace CDs in few years.

Vinyls is still in use, so what will be with CDs? What will be next? Will they invent something better and more popular than mp3/OGG/Flac?

Portable Sound Players

Nowadays, everyone wants to have music with them, and no one is surprised now seeing portable players, because almost everyone has it.

Players have two primary categories:  hard-drive-based and flash-based.

Main merit of HDD-based player is big capacity. They're usually build about 1,8 inch hard drives, so players have even 160Gb space. Frequently, their price is similar to flash players with smaller capacity (for example, iPod nano 16Gb - 169$, iPod Classic 160Gb - 235$). HDD-based players unfortunately have demerits. Above all we must be carefull, because we can easily damage hard disk, for example - while we running. These players is also bigger, just because they have greater battery. In the other hand, players can hold even about 30,000 songs! Often they have much more functions too, like picture viewer or movie player.

Flash-based players don't have moving parts, so you can safely play some sports. They're mostly cheaper than HDD-based and battery can hold more energy (even 60 hours of still playing). We can define many types of portable players.

First type is small players for music only so-called DAP (Digital Audio Player). They have small display (or none). DAPs haven't many functions, basically music players. They're perfect for playing sports, running or something.

Next category are players, who have bigger screen (about 2,5 inches). They're also build for music, but we can play some movie, but often it's not comfortable. This size is quite universal, they're not too big, so you can easily put them in pocket.

Third - players with display around 3,5 inches so-called PMP (Portable Media Player). Here music is important in the same way as movies or photos. PMPs have many functions and big size screens, so they are perfect for traveling to, for example watch some movie or play a game. Now, almost each PMP has touch screen. It ensure a lot of aplications, for example, we can use fingers to paint or type something.

There is one more primary type of players - it's also PMP with display size above 3,5". It's also called MID (Mobile Internet Device), because many of them have Wi-Fi function, so you can find a hotspot and surf on the internet for free. Some of these devices have also GPS module or TV receiver. Also, most of them have operating system. Unfortunately, we must remember, that many functions comes in pair with large price.

For good player you must buy good earphones. I think, that the best combination is warm-sound (more down frequency – bass etc.) player with cold-sound (more high frequency – e.g. percussion) earphones. These features is complementary to each other and generate real good synergy set.

 

I choose flash-based small iPod Nano 1st generation. It's really tiny and sound pretty well. My headphones is not quite portable, but I'm very satisfied of them – Panasonic HTX7.

 

So what is your combination of portable sound system and what is your opinion about that?