PC462 : Sept 2009
Maybe my Ukraine adventure has turned into a bit of a failure
... I was travelling around Ukraine hoping to bump into some work, but maybe I was too naive. I didn't really brush up my Russian .. I didn't even take a dictionary. The thing is with the language and cultural complications like soviet mentality at the station you need to have 130% mentally. Which normally I can do.

- But I didn't realise that all the time I was losing 2-3 hours each day through being tired cos I was sick with mild typhoid so I just didn't have the concentration I needed. So I travelled around all the main places East, Odessa, not Crimea and made it to Lviv, but didn't have that lucky break that I have had in other countries.

- As a tourist ukraine doesn't really have much except for an insight into soviet/Slavic culture ..Czech has better castles etc
- OK if one is a big smoker and drinker then maybe Ukraine is a great country to live, but I'm more intellectual type.
-I know there is an element of deep thinking people in Slavic countries, but I rarely meet them.

- So now I am in Lviv for 8 days just thinking. the Typhoid does seem to have largely faded

Reassessment of travel
- What's wrong ? - I am "losing my touch"

It used to be stay at home and nothing happens ... travel and by magic exciting things happen .. you end up on TV, you find a great job YOU GET LUCKY
.... The more diffcult the country.. ultimately the bigger rewards.. Like in Japan ..it was hard but lucky things happen but in the last few years it's stopped working for me ..there have been no amazing adventures ... yet I used to have many

- Malaysia wasn't that great and now I hate the places I visit ..Nepal and India

- The way I have been doing things seems to be keeping me away from the luck
- Perhap it's cos I am staying at the cheapest places etc, so get more hassle and meet lower quality people ?

- Preparation makes a difference and so does skepticism.

- making Contacts through hostels and university noticeboards make a difference.

- There are 2 interesting effects
- 1. "Oh I have seen better before" - The law of diminishing satisfaction - When you haven't travelled everything is new and exciting, but to maintin the excitemnet the superlatives have to get biggger and bigger e,g, climbing a active volcano instead of just a mountain.
- In jobs now I reject ones which don't pay enough or aren't good enough whereas I would have accepted them before/
- 2. Increased negativety - People like to have other people say things that reinforce their dreams, but now that I am experienced I am often to put down many dreams and offer a more realistic angle. People don't like this ..therefore they don't like me, they close down to me so I miss the opportunities I might get through their network.

- Amazing Things aren't that Common - Yes amazing things have happened through travelling and bumping into things, but I think only once every over 2 years.
- What can I do to increase the frequency ?

- The 3 Things in life need : From ABC lifematters podcast
- http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2009/2569070.htm
by Dr Gordon Livingston
1. Someone to love
2. Something to do
3. Something to Look forward to

Some good podcasts

- lots on ABC counterpoint including the journal of spurious Correlations www.jspurc.org which is a great idea, but disappointing that 2 years after founding in 2007 it has not yet published anything.

And on ockhamsrazor there is an interesting article about an Australian companies make good methanol engines.
also another ockhams razor show talked about about people being scammered by magic fuel additives etc.

have 2 kids then you need a car
- I never understood why people buy cars, apart from if you live in the deep countryside, then you can get by with public transport and a bicycle. Even for 2 people it's not worth the hassle and expense. Then I saw that Oleg had saved & bought a car. He lives outside town with 2 children under 5. So for him I can see it's really worth it. If one child has a hospital appointment in the other end of town they can all they have to do is jump in the car. This is a lot easier than walking all the kids and stuff to the minibus, waiting then sitting in a crowded minibus, getting down walking to the next minibus stop etc.

Animals : more sleeping = longer life
- The sleep scientist on Science in Action said an interesting thing : You have to understand that sleep is the normal state not being awake. When animals are sleeping they are safe and efficient as they are losing less energy. Wild animals mostly only leave sleep so that they can come out and get food. And when they come out to do this then life is more difficult like there are predators to attack them etc. . But humans are strange out of all the mammals humans sleep the least. What can we hypothesise about human lifespan .. surely to some extent the same that applies to animals applies to them so in an evolutionary sense the more time humans spend sleeping the longer they should live.

Your body gets a lot of water without drinking
- Homeplanet explained that fish don't injest much seawater as water is the by product of many metabolic processes like dijesting sugars etc . So cos they don't need to drink. This explains why when I hike I always need much less water than they say.

Max Mavin Mindreader criticized scoffing skepticism
- On Point of Enquiry explained that skeptics should be open to the paranormal being possible
- and the fact that magicians can emulate psychics with trickery is not proof that psychics are conciously using the same tricks.
- I disagree I don't like this be fair to everyone approach when the 100th psychic says the same as the last 99 who were proved fakers then you don't give much time.
- Yes those maths or memory guys can do "almost magic" for real but a magician could emulate them with trickery.

- On SGU recent episode the whole panel did scoff at someone believing in dowsing explaining you a never more than 1m away from something which can be said tto be a correct find e.g. Water at some depth or other , cable etc, They did not explain they all knew that in the many properly controlled trials done dowsing always completely failed.
- In the case of dowsing they shouldn't have scoffed they should have explained.

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