If it's real, I have a lot more respect for him after reading it. He was clearly trying to put himself in his customers' shoes, asking the basic question "If I follow the instructions I see on screen, will I get what I want?"

If not, there is indeed a major usability problem, given that the majority of users are, in fact, fairly computer illiterate.

Either broadband customer service is a totally different department, or I've just had really good luck. Maybe if I had cable instead, it would be a different story . . . ?

Sounds like this was put together by a customer account rep justifiably fed-up with bad management policies and practices. Unfortunately, the demoralizing work environment the (presumed) employee describes doesn't sound very different from complaints I've head from friends who who've worked in other large tech/internet/telecom/media call centers.

I don't have this, but I do have what they call a "geographic tongue."

The tongue seems like an especially . . . don't know what the right word is -- maybe "biologically variable"? organ. For whatever reason, everyone's tongue looks weird and it's not at all surprising to find even more weird stuff on one's tongue.

Well I dreamed there was an island
That rose up from the sea.
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV.
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was saying: Look at me! Look at me!
Look at me! Look at me!

--Laurie Anderson

Gotta agree with felixfelix -- waterboarding isn't SIMULATED drowning. It is REAL drowning, and the fact that the drowning is more or less controlled doesn't make the drowning less real.

"Waterboarding = simulated drowning" is a pernicious, torture-justifying meme -- BoingBoing should know better than to propagate it.

I don't know if the article is a joke or not, but anxiety disorders can induce this sort of delusion.

The way to not get caught up in the paradox is to make a distinction between different types of delusions or mental illnesses.

The mental illness the patient has (some form of hypochondria, ocd, panic, or generalized anxiety disorder) isn't the one he fears he has (something more severe and far less treatable).

The "paradox" is a just trick of language (or rather a failure to make certain subtle but significant linguistic/conceptual distinctions).

#9 - devophill yes, you're right, and thank you for posting it.

On the other hand, what good does the link down here? Most people who click on the video probably won't bother reading the comments.

One thing to keep in mind as you watch these videos is that if Salvia hits you hard enough, it can cause total (but thankfully very short-lived) amnesia. During this phase, usually the most intense part of the trip (in terms of losing touch with most bodily input, finding oneself in constantly shifting realities, extreme distortions in perception of both space and time, etc), the person undergoing the experience might not any clue that they've smoked something, where they are, why they're so profoundly disoriented, how long they've been this way, who they are, etc. Which, I suppose, can look kinda funny from the outside, but from the inside, it can be profoundly terrifying and even psychologically scarring. Set and setting, kids.

Way to go, BoingBoing. This will *really* help keep the substance legal and encourage safe and responsible use of it.

You should have at least provided a link to what should be required reading for anyone contemplating trying it: Daniel Siebert's Salvia FAQ.

Olafur Eliasson's work is both mind-blowing and mind-blowingly simple. There's a fantastic exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art right now that is well worth traveling to. Among the highlights: a yellow room that makes you see in black and white, and visual experience of pure color -- no objects, nothing to focus on, no depth, just pure color.

"In space, nobody can hear you yawn!"

Then space would be the most inappropriate place imaginable for John Cage's 4'33".

This reads just like an Ellison essay. The stylistic tropes, the bravado, the pacing, everything. Ellison even did the photo-at-the-end thing in another essay -- don't recall the essay but it came out in a collection, I believe, called Harlan Ellison's Hornbook.

That makes reading this piece so much weirder and disconcerting.