You mean reality? 'Cause yeah, I am pretty invested in reality.

Well, okay, enjoy your semantics then.

As for the mental state thing; yes, you are more likely to injure yourself when you are panicking (although it might cause you to run across the hot coals faster, so it actually might be more helpful in this case). That's obvious and can lead to injury in a variety of situations; I actually don't see really what that has to do with what I brought up, really.

Panicked movements (or digging your feet in to it, or standing without moving) might add to more injury, because you do need to actually move across the coals to not get burned, obviously. There are physical behaviours you should follow to curb injury, but it has nothing to do with what you are thinking at the time unless those thoughts cause you to move your body in a way that would lead to injury (e.g. panicked "deer in the headlights" state standing in the middle of hot coals, for example).

A "special" mental state to firewalk? I completely disagree, and physics is on my side . I could be thinking about getting a hamburger, red hot firey coals, that dress I wore the day before, and/or the North Pole, and I 'm still not going to get burned, so long as I walk across fast enough.

And quantum physics as an "explanation" for anything other than quantum physics? You've really hit on one of my biggest pet peeves there, SoggyFox.

Of course they've been wrong a few times; doesn't mean they've been wrong every time, though. And in this case they are absolutely right, there is nothing magical about and very little danger to firewalking.

More info below:
Firewalking Myth vs. Physics
The Straight Dope: Can you Walk on Hot Coals in Bare Feet and Not Get Burned
The Physics and Fantasy of Firewalking

Oh man! Which medical industry is this?! What kind of doctors are you talking to?! I haven't met many (any?) doctors or medical professionals who would recommend getting over severe depression with only "happy thoughts" as the prescription.

(Although I will say, people can definitely walk on hot coals without getting burnt )

Mr.Boddy, I love Bill Nye too, but your avatar is really going to make me puke.

Here's some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_macro

And suck it, Calalily! I'm wiki-ing it!

Ehm, sorry to be a jerk, but do you have any studies that are independent from this site? Say, from an actual medical journal or what not and one that is not connected to the site you've linked to. As you said yourself, this page has a very strong lean in one direction, so I'm fairly dubious of the honesty of their claims and the material that they are reporting (that isn't to say I won't give it a thorough read through, though). I can see that they've referenced several articles and studies so I'll likely start there.

But people do eat a lot of citrus fruit, tomatoes, wine, etc., all of which produce formaldehyde in digestion. And even if they don't eat a lot of any one thing, they do generally eat many of these foods throughout the week in combination (i.e. grapefruit in the morning, tomato juice or a tomato based soup at lunch, a glass of wine with dinner, a mandarin orange for a snack, being as it is the winter time after all ). My everyday diet is apparently an invitation to death!

You make several references to the "dangerous" amounts of aspartame people are eating, but you haven't linked to any empirical data for this. Do you have any references for the daily amount of aspartame eaten by the general population of any country? Any (good) studies linking strongly high amounts of aspartame consumption to disease?


Absolutely, you shouldn't trust everything you read on the wiki; however, you can use it as a starting point to move to more information. And you should absolutely be skeptical of anything you read on the internet (especially all of those "Aspartame is poison!" sites ) and really break it apart and see where the information has come from first. There are many studies about aspartame and human health and it's a good idea to get your hands on those before making claims for either side (even if it's only the ones posted on the evil, lying internet). Quick note: you also might want to dial back from the conspiracy theories as well... just saying.

Don't toy with me! I told you I have more! MORE! BE AFRAID!


Not a huge fan of coke of any sort either, but if I was forced to drink a cola I would choose diet coke every single time (despite its bizarre, chemical after taste). Regular coke tastes so syrupy to me, and it hurts my teeth. Blech. I've never tried Irn Bru, but it sounds tasty.


See! Research wins again!

Pffft! And she ignores the 18 billion other links I put up (and, I doubt dear Calalily wants to be reminded of her own wiki wanderings; I have more too! Ha, ha! Blackmail! ). It's true that case studies are not infallible (on both sides of things), but blinded experiments and tests are pretty much the best way to really understand what is actually happening with both the product and the human body. Besides the more (good) tests that are done the closer we get to the truth of things; there are many small studies which show effects that disappear when re-tested with better controls and larger groups.

Plus, I'm hardly arguing for its tastiness, it does taste like crap (imo), and I don't use it myself (although I do prefer diet coke to regular coke, heh). However, I also just think accepting claims like many of those presented here on such scant and spotty evidence is not the best way to go.

Sorry, I'm not going to be convinced by arguments from authority or anecdotal evidence. While Prevention magazine may have many helpful, healthful bits of advice for the reader, it is also very obviously a business with its own products to push forward (as a matter of fact many of the links on its webpage go directly to advertisments and pushes for the reader to spend money to get healthy). As for the diabetic nutrionists, this basically tells me nothing; I don't know who these nutrionists are, I don't know what they've said and I don't know what they're basing their opinions on. Not exactly a great standard for evidence.

If you can find for me several good, large scale, blinded studies I'll give these claims a little more weight, but without that, this is nothing more than opinion.

I think most of you posting here are buying in waaay too easily to the belief that artificial sweeteners are poisonous and bad for you. While I admit that are many hysterical websites up with (fairly unsupported) claims that artificial sweeteners like aspartame are dangerous, most of the claims on these websites rely on logical fallacies, poorly reported studies, fear mongering and/or have their own products they hope to push forward (including the websites you've linked to Paden, I'm sorry).

Even if the claim sounds like it could be true (or is true, as in the case of formaldehyde being produced by digesting aspartame; of course, if you're worried about that, you had better give up eating tomatoes or oranges as they produce much higher levels of formaldehyde in digestion! ), you should never, ever accept something as fact without reading both sides, finding unbiased websites (and please try to avoid assuming that the government must be lying to you e.g. the FDA), and looking up the actual studies on the topic yourself (Google scholar is a marvel for that kids ). And since I feel like the current discussion has gotten a bit paranoid and unbalanced, I wanted to post up a few links about the topic on my own. These are for the most part about aspartame, but if you force me (please don't force me ) I can find stuff for other food additives as well. So here you go:

A Skeptoid podcast about aspartame from a couple of weeks ago
An article from Health Canada that addresses several aspartame claims and a short report on its safety from them as well
The Wiki entry on aspartame and their link to some info about the "aspartame controversy" (and so Calalily doesn't kill me, please check the external links! There are some good links within to actual studies by actual scientists )
The Urban Legend Zeitgeist report on a fear mongering email about aspartame
Snopes report on a fear mongering email about aspartame
The FDA's report on aspartame
The European Food Safety Authority's report on aspartame
The Food Additive Approval Process for Aspartame by the FDA
Scoop - Independent News story about the NZFSA's comments on aspartame fear mongering

If you want more I can find you more (phew!), but I was trying to link to some easier to read (or listen) bits of info for everybody. Have fun with the reading, everyone!

I like it, and it's much improved over the original. I still think the bed texture could use a bit of work (am I ever satisfied?!). The wood grain looks a little large for the size of the bed (although it could have been a giant tree ), and could probably be shrunk down a bit. I like the fact that you've started to think about defining the edges of the furniture, but I think the line may be a bit harsh. It could probably be helped by a bit of smudging, colour layering and blending. In terms of detail, I'm thinking it could use a few more light cracks, knots and the like. Even wood on an expensive, fancy bed is going to have some character. I'll use an example of a wood texture that I made some (a long, heh) time ago. Sorry the picture is so tiny!



You can see that I've darkened the edges slightly in order to define them from the rest of the wood and to highlight other objects. I've also added layers of cracking in order to build up definition and detail in the wood. Obviously, the wood I made here is meant to be distressed and messy, so you wouldn't have to go this far; however, layering up and adding detail and distressed areas will make a big difference to the success of the texture in the end. I know you hate texturing but it's the little things like this that will give it more depth, and maybe you'll, er, grow to love it at some point in the future.

Ah lovely! Now there's a bed skirt I can get behind , and the pillows look great (much more natural and relaxed). The slightly rumpled look makes a big difference; still a big, beautiful bed, but a big, beautiful bed that actually looks like it could be (and is) used. I like the headboard in the new position as well, much less overwhelming this way.