I haven't read the Maxim article in question. I've seen "Altered States" a few times, though.antithesist wrote:You mean it's not real? Next you'll be debunking "Cat People." It was just a joke. To clarify, I meant that the Maxim article mentioned ayahuasca.
Back when I was in college, Dennis McKenna (Terrance McKenna's brother) gave a presentation on the chemistry of ayahuasca at a house I was living in. It turns out that ayahuasca works on having a mixture of plants, and the individual plant components don't do much on their own. The "yagé" vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, has a bit of a sedative effect, but its primary usage in ayahuasca is to act as an MAO inhibitor. Some of the other plants in ayahuasca contain DMT, which is a super powerful hallucinogen, but is broken down by MAO when taken orally. By combining the DMT containing plants with Banisteriopsis caapi, the result is a brew that has the effects of DMT when taken orally. Dennis emphasized how weird and remarkable it was that this particular mixture of plants had been discovered, presumably through trial and error.
Trying to tie things back into audio effects: I should note that a lot of my algorithms are created by combining DSP theory with trial & error. I often have strong hunches/instincts that a given idea will work, but I don't have the math to work out all the details, so I just code the thing up and see how it sounds. A lot of the ideas end up sounding horrible (I have about 3 times as many unused algorithms for ValhallaRoom versus what has been released). Fortunately, once I have a plugin framework for a given concept, the process of coding and testing different variants of that concept can be fairly quick.
Sean Costello
) - different taste to green tea - and no caffeine -> if your a "hot drink" kinda guy. Just don't believe te marketing blurb around it - it's just an alternative - and should not be overpriced. 
