I keep reading the news and I’m reminded of the Pastor Martin Niemöller. Here is a modern adaptation of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem First They Came…:

When they sued the file sharing mothers,
I remained silent;
I switched to another network.

When they tapped our phone lines,
I did not speak out;
I no longer used my phone.

When they came for the guitar tabs,
I remained silent;
I no longer played the guitar.

When they opened and read personal letters,
I did not speak out;
I no longer used the mail service.

When they told us not to think,
we already no longer used our minds.

—–

Original
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestierte.

Translation
When they came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

For those of you who haven’t heard, there is a very bad “zero-day” (8^]) exploit for Windows exploding in the malware world.
I’ve written a detailed explanation below, which comes from various sources, but primarily the latest Security Now podcast
Microsoft has no working fix for it yet but there is a third party fix:

Creators Site:
http://www.hexblog.com/index.html
Mirror:
http://www.grc.com/miscfiles/wmffix_hexblog14.exe

I suggest installing this as soon as possible. All versions of Windows from 95-XP (including NT and 2K) are affected by this exploit.
When Microsoft finally fixes this problem, you can uninstall this patch.

Exploit details:

Windows *.wmf files are a scripted image format similar to scalable vector graphics (*.svg). Unfortunately, these files do not need to be named with the .wmf extension for windows to execute them so any file on any web page or attachment or floating around in a worm may contain executable .wmf code.
The simple exploit takes advantage of a built in error function execution in .wmf files. If the .wmf file has an error (can’t be rendered for some reason–such as intentional poor coding), Windows will automatically execute whatever error function is built into that file. This function can contain any malicious code that the creator wishes and allows transparent installation of malware such as Trojans, spyware, key loggers, etc…

Patch Details:

The patch (http://www.hexblog.com/index.html) simply installs a .dll, which prevents the error function execution by removing it from the Windows metafile handler. It will not affect the system in any visible or functional way besides preventing this unnecessary feature.

I just came down from my shower and Lena’s in the kitchen shoving stuffing up a turkey ass. Later, I’m going to make the cranberry sauce and pecan pie. I don’t have a problem eating turkey and I could roast one if it came down to it. Stuffing it’s lifeless corpse with breading is something else though. It looks like some sort of ritual killing, which I guess is really what it is. What else have we traditionally done throughout the ages?

But on a lighter note, the cranberry sauce will be made with shiraz and the pecan pie will be made with Malibu rum and Sambuca (it was supposed to be bourbon but the liquor stores are closed–bad planning on my part).

Now it’s time to clean the house before the guest arrive…

So, my sleep experiment may be at an end–for the time being. My schedule is a little too booked to fit time for naps in the middle of the day (and at night). Since I missed about 5 days worth of evening naps and overslept the next morning on each occassion, I think the schedule would definately be doable if the rest of my life permitted it.
I’m not taking classes next quarter, so I think I’ll try it again at the start of the new year. Until then, I’m going to keep logging my sleep times to have a regular schedule to compare it to.
I won’t stop the blog either. I’ll write my dreams and whatever research I come up with. By mid December, my full research paper will be online.

Something about last night that was interesting:

Pictures soaked in glass jars full of water, enlarged for viewing. Some sort of way to find people.
Flowers, dripping bloody stems when cut by men for their women, a ritual sacrifice of beauty. Some sort of way to regain youth.

I just found a few more encyclopedias in the Library. I decided to check out the general psychology books and found a plethora of sleep information.

Record
It seems that Randy Gardner [wikipedia entry] is the leading Guinness record holder since 1965 for staying awake the longest. He managed to stay awake for 264 hours (11 days) and at the end showed no signs of mental or physical deficit. I stumbled over this in Magill’s Encyclopedia of Social Science Psychology vol. 4. After the 11 days, he supposedly slept only 14 hours 40 minutes, then the next day 10 hours 30 minutes, 9 hours for the third day and then resumed the 7 hours a day schedule he had before the experiment.
Scientific American speaks of this and claims that Randy Gardner was “basically cognitively dysfunctional at the end of his ordeal.”

I’m not sure how accurately I can trust this one experiment. In 1965, communcations and witness were both much easier to trick. I’d like to see the records for the past couple of years. It’s possible that this was a hoax. If it is, the record may hold because it may not be merely unsurpassable but actually unattainable. I’m not sure what, if any, checks the Guinness Book has against older records. If anyone has any info, comment and post a link to a resource.

Diet
Something else that was interesting is animals that don’t sleep in long blocks tend to eat smaller portions more sporatically than large predatory animals, which usually eat few large meals.
I’ve been eating snacks rather than meals for quite a long time and I find it works best for a napping sleep schedule. I haven’t been consuming caffiene or sugary foods either, which I think eases up on unnecessary drowsiness.

Resources
Carskadon, Mary A. Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming. New York: MacMillan Publishing
     Company, 1993.
Kazdin, Alan E. Encyclopedia of Psychology vol. 7. Washington, D.C.: American
     Psychological Association, 2000.
Piotrowski, Nancy A. Ph. D. Magill’s Encyclopedia of Social Science Psychology vol. 4.
     Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, Inc, 2003.

I just saw “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
It was a great film but it’s too bad it didn’t come out 3 years ago. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the terrorist party? I suppose some americans are still suffering from Bushism so maybe it’s still a good time to have this movie come out.

I did some more research and I found yet another contradiction. Does anyone have a real firm grasp of how sleep works? Everyone says something different. I want my own EEG machine so I can just see for myself.

Here’s the deal:
Most research says that the stages of sleep are NREM 1, NREM 2, NREM 3, NREM 4, NREM 3, NREM 2, REM -> repeat.

However, I just found a very recent publication, which says that there is a very short slipping into REM right away, then sleep progresses all the way to deep sleep and back to NREM 1 before it returns to REM. This model makes much more sense when considering the ease of waking up during each phase–REM being the easiest and progressively getting more difficult down to NREM 4.

From “Complete Home Medical Guide” © Dorling Kindersley 2004

This would explain why everyone seems to agree that the most vivid dreams happen in REM. Since, I always fall asleep dreaming, it would make sense that there is at least a short phase of REM right away.

And now that I’m looking for it, here is another resource with the same claim — and another.

CX717 has been in the news since August. I keep getting hits for it with my research queries.
Anyway, it’s a new ampakine drug, which targets specific areas of the brain. It’s been tested on monkeys, giving them better than ever mental test results even after 30-36 hours (equivalent of 3 days to a human) of sleep deprivation.

I wonder how long it will take to get on the market. I’m taking Ginkgo Biloba, but that’s just not the same :)

here’s a link:

BBC: Drug ‘reverses sleep lack effect’