Stories By Van

HELLO LOYAL READERS! All 7 or 8 of you if I'm not mistaken. Thank you for continuing to read my blog every day for the last 310 days! Or, if you've just clicked on the links without reading the articles, that's also okay because it still shows up as if you did read it, so thanks for even clicking the links at all. I'm sure they were getting annoying after around day 50. Good thing I went on for another 260! So, I've been thinking about this move for a while now, and I think today is the perfect day to do it. While, yes, this will be the last post on this specific platform, it will NOT be the last you hear of me chucking my random interests into your faces. In fact, I like to think of this as an upgrade. An upgrade that will benefit all of us! Now that I've finally figured out how Patreon works, THAT will be where any blog posts, interesting articles, short stories and general updates on what's going on in my life will be posted. This way I can...

With the Mueller report deposited (if not yet released), the right has set its sights on rooting out the “deep state” agents behind the alleged conspiracy to take down President Trump. They look for collusion behind the investigation of collusion. They dig for an illicit report buried even deeper than the report we cannot yet see. The idea of a deep state has been a hallmark of the Trump administration. But the ideas peddled by conservative outlets — including Fox News Channel’s insistence on purging a disloyal federal bureaucracy and Trump’s charge that the Justice Department is filled with “angry Democrats” — are not new. In the Nixon White House, ruminating about the threat of a deep state was common fodder. President Richard Nixon’s team sought to discredit, even destroy, political opponents, inside government and out, by pursuing them as un-American traitors. Nixon’s deep-statism illustrated the self-destructiveness undergirding conspiracism, and ultimately led to his res...

Imagine yourself at your 10-year high school reunion, a long anticipated get-together for you and all your old friends. You haven’t seen many of them since graduation day, and naturally everyone is comparing notes on the lives they have lived since then. This puts you in a reflective mood, but not in a good way. Life has been unkind to you—compared to the lives of your friends, who have all been spared your travails. For days after the reunion, you can’t focus on anything but your difficulties, and the unfairness of it all. If you’re a brooder, that is. Someone else might have the same reunion experience, yet come away with a very different interpretation. Every life has its ups and downs, and yours is not unusually good or bad. That’s life. Brooding is a particularly toxic kind of rumination, and it’s strongly associated with clinical depression. Brooders see their own problems as debilitating, and this self-focus sabotages any real effort to make things better. It leads...

The legend of the Leprechaun is one of the most enduring myths in Ireland and relates to a mystical type of fairy who is originally linked to the Tuatha De Danann of Irish mythology. According to fables, Leprechauns are tiny entities that normally take the form of an old man in a red or green coat. They are known to be mischievous little creatures that like to make shoes and store their gold coins in a pot of gold that is hidden at the end of a rainbow. If you happen to capture a Leprechaun, he will give you three wishes provided you let him go. Leprechaun Origin Most Leprechaun legends can be traced back to the 8th century tales of water spirits which were known as ‘luchorpán’ which means ‘small body’. It is said that these spirits merged with a household fairy and developed a penchant for heavy drinking so no cellar was safe! According to other researchers, the term Leprechaun actually comes from the Irish term ‘leath brogan’ which means shoemaker. It is inter...

Society influences people by shaping their belief systems, controlling their behavior and determining their values. It sends these messages to individuals through the media, school curricula, community leaders, family and churches. Family Matters One way that society influences people is through laws and rules that determine how they should behave. For example, parents establish rules for their families that show the children proper behavior. They may insist that children wait their turn before speaking instead of interrupting other or that children must sit or lie on the furniture instead of jumping and climbing on it. When the children fail to follow the rules, they face consequences. In this way, the children learn how to adjust their behavior to fit in with their families and with others. The Rule of Law Similarly, governments create laws that direct behavior. State and federal governments establish speed limits for roads that tell people how fast they can...

Has your mind ever hooked you with this question: "What do I want to do with my life?" Mine certainly has, and I can tell you: it’s a recipe for misery. The more you get hooked by this question, the more dissatisfied you become with the life you have. The problem is, this question is sooooo big, almost nobody can answer it (except for the tiny number of people who have some sort of grand calling or vision for their whole life, which is almost always to do with religion or politics). For most of us, this is not a useful question to ask; it’s just too big, too overwhelming. Here are some far more helpful questions to ask yourself: What do I want to do with … My evening My weekends My summer holiday The rest of this week The rest of this day This hour This next 10 minutes My body – today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year My job/work/career – today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year My finances – today, tomorrow, next week, next month...

Fun theory tells us that novelty makes things interesting and making something fun makes it feel good. When something is both novel and fun, it becomes intrinsically rewarding and we love doing it. What’s more, it can have a lasting effect, because when you do something fun you not only feel good about what you’re doing at the time, but afterwards you want to do it again. Fun can be mildly addictive which makes it powerful stuff. Fun is so powerful it can turn mundane and apparently ‘boring’ things into attractive options. Just think back to when PokemonGo was released and how it incited all sorts of normally sedentary gamers to get out of their bedrooms and go running around looking for Pokémon. Without any nagging, cajoling, incentives or lectures on the benefits of getting out and exercising. That’s the power of fun. It makes people want to do things. Making 'Boring' Things Fun, The Piano Stairs Way It just goes to show that fun can be used for serious pur...

1. Fibre Optics Fibre optic technology was first demonstrated in the 1840’s by Colladon and Babinet. Fibre optic tubes refract light within glass tubes with little loss of light over the length of the tube. In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell developed the technology to transmit voice signals over an optical beam. Bundled together, fibre optic cables are immune to electrical interference making them good for use in computer networking. Fibre optic transmissions are also much harder to snoop and are therefore considered more secure. 2. Graphene Graphene will completely revolutionise technology. Created at the University of Manchester, UK, graphene is a layer of graphite one atom thick. It is very strong, an excellent conductor of heat and electricity and is predicted to transform mobile devices. Imagine a flexible cellphone or tablet. 3. Cellphone Technology The technology to enable cellphones to communicate from a base station was proposed in 1947, h...

This article was first published by The Ecologist in December 2007.   Ii summarizes several in-depth and detailed articles written by the author on the HAARP program.   It should be noted that while the HAARP program based in Gakona, Alaska was closed down, the US Air Force which managed the HAARP project, nonetheless confirms that environmental modification techniques are slated to continue: “We’re moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do,” he said. “To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed.” The debate on climate change does not acknowledge the role of climatic warfare, namely the deliberate manipulation of climate for military use. “HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, capable of destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems globally. Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the ...

The ancient Egyptians' attitude towards death was influenced by their belief in immortality. They regarded death as a temporary interruption, rather than the cessation of life. To ensure the continuity of life after death, people paid homage to the gods, both during and after their life on earth. When they died, they were mummified so the soul would return to the body, giving it breath and life. Household equipment and food and drink were placed on offering tables outside the tomb's burial chamber to provide for the person's needs in the afterworld. Written funerary texts consisting of spells or prayers were also included to assist the dead on their way to the afterworld. To prepare the deceased for the journey to the afterworld, the "opening of the mouth" ceremony was performed on the mummy and the mummy case by priests. This elaborate ritual involved purification, censing (burning incense), anointing and incantations, as well as touching the mummy wit...

Like mortals, the gods could take each other as husband and wife, and would bear children. Sometimes though, a child could be born into the world as a terrible, misshapen form and be seen as a ‘monster’ by others, even their own parents. Such was the case with the Hecatonchires, also named the Hundred-Handed Ones. Mortals can see the helplessness of a newborn baby just by the way that the child cannot yet control its limbs or facial expressions; they see these motions as endearing, and cute even. Something about the baby’s helplessness is a part of what makes us want to care and nurture them. And the gods are no exception to this in life. And like mortals, they too are also able to see a monstrosity when it is born, as was the case with the Hecatonchires. Picture not a normal baby with two flailing arms, but one with 100 quivering, shaking, and unmatched limbs. Added to this were 50 wailing heads with wide-open mouths, producing furious cries that shook Olympus itself. Im...

The halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about his or her character. Essentially, your overall impression of a person ("He is nice!") impacts your evaluations of that person's specific traits ("He is also smart!"). One great example of the halo effect in action is our overall impression of celebrities. Since we perceive them as attractive, successful, and often likable, we also tend to see them as intelligent, kind, and funny. Definitions of the Halo Effect "Also known as the physical attractiveness stereotype and the "what is beautiful is good" principle, the halo effect, at the most specific level, refers to the habitual tendency of people to rate attractive individuals more favorably for their personality traits or characteristics than those who are less attractive. Halo effect is also used in a more general sense to describe the global impact o...

First, there is the basic existentialist standpoint, that existence precedes essence, has primacy over essence. Man is a conscious subject, rather than a thing to be predicted or manipulated; he exists as a conscious being, and not in accordance with any definition, essence, generalization, or system. Existentialism says I am nothing else but my own conscious existence. A second existentialist theme is that of anxiety, or the sense of anguish, a generalized uneasiness, a fear or dread which is not directed to any specific object. Anguish is the dread of the nothingness of human existence. This theme is as old as Kierkegaard within existentialism; it is the claim that anguish is the underlying, all-pervasive, universal condition of human existence. Existentialism agrees with certain streams of thought in Judaism and Christianity which see human existence as fallen, and human life as lived in suffering and sin, guilt and anxiety. This dark and foreboding picture of human life...