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I wanted to start this essay with this sentence: "Like everyone else I have been fascinated with recent events in Tehran and the role of social software in them."
Only I can't.
You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.
Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.
We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.
And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.
(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)
For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!
It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?
And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?
But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.
And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.
Only I can't.
You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.
Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.
We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.
And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.
(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)
For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!
It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?
And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?
But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.
And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.
This short video is pretty much sheer genius. The filmmaker really gets VR; as well as the extra dimensions which VR can add to human angles.
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
About six months before Anita passed away I set up a new website for myself, using my full name for the domain. (It was jackwilliambell.com, but I'm not linking; more on why later.) The hosting company took care of the domain name and I did a quick and dirty home page intending to revisit it as part of my sekrit projekt, then added a couple of other domains to the account (using a separate registrar) which I actually did things with.
Then Anita passed away and I found myself having a hard time making progress on the sekret projekt. Actually that and, quite frankly, pretty much anything else. Over time I kind of forgot about it. My other registrar warned me about those domain names when it was time to renew, but my hosting company apparently didn't. (Instead they claim they automatically renewed my personal domain for me as part of my paid service.)
Only apparently something else happened. The domain consisting of my name was transferred to one of those outfits which pick up domains and sell them to the highest bidder. I didn't even notice it until a couple of months ago when I started trying to drag myself out of my funk and get caught up on my personal projects. I then contacted my hosting company, who expressed mystification. They had no record of it being transferred and showed it still in my name.
So I tried to figure out how it got transferred. That started a long process of non-discovery where I found out that, apparently, no one keeps track of this stuff. I even contacted ICANN and stuck with it long enough that I managed to talk to a real person over the phone. They couldn't even tell me what company actually did the transfer because a third party Internet privacy firm was acting as a cut-out -- and they had no contact info anywhere!
So I gave up last weekend and filled out the form on the website my domain was now pointing to. I made them an offer of $50, but stated that I wouldn't pay any more because it just wasn't worth it to me. This is the response I got back (I am including the contact info on purpose):
This was my response:
Yeah. Can you smell that smell?
Then Anita passed away and I found myself having a hard time making progress on the sekret projekt. Actually that and, quite frankly, pretty much anything else. Over time I kind of forgot about it. My other registrar warned me about those domain names when it was time to renew, but my hosting company apparently didn't. (Instead they claim they automatically renewed my personal domain for me as part of my paid service.)
Only apparently something else happened. The domain consisting of my name was transferred to one of those outfits which pick up domains and sell them to the highest bidder. I didn't even notice it until a couple of months ago when I started trying to drag myself out of my funk and get caught up on my personal projects. I then contacted my hosting company, who expressed mystification. They had no record of it being transferred and showed it still in my name.
So I tried to figure out how it got transferred. That started a long process of non-discovery where I found out that, apparently, no one keeps track of this stuff. I even contacted ICANN and stuck with it long enough that I managed to talk to a real person over the phone. They couldn't even tell me what company actually did the transfer because a third party Internet privacy firm was acting as a cut-out -- and they had no contact info anywhere!
So I gave up last weekend and filled out the form on the website my domain was now pointing to. I made them an offer of $50, but stated that I wouldn't pay any more because it just wasn't worth it to me. This is the response I got back (I am including the contact info on purpose):
Hello Jack
I am following up on your recent email regarding jackwilliambell.com.
I regret that the offer you presented via our online form was not sufficient to meet the reserve for the domain.
You can make an increased offer or if you would like information on the seller's asking price for the domain, let me know.
If you wish to no longer receive emails in regards to this domain, please reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject line and I will remove you from my follow up list for this domain.
Best Regards,
Jacob
AcquireThisName.com
jacob@acquirethisname.com
This was my response:
Enjoy the domain then. I have no interest in paying some exorbitant amount to get the domain back. Especially considering that there may be an issue with how it was transferred. (Note: I'm not certain about the transfer problem, but that is what my ISP says. If I can ever get the records of the transfer I might know for sure. But that turns out to be extremely difficult.)
Since the domain only applies to me -- no one else could possibly want it -- and it is just going to cost you money every year, I hope you choke on it.
Bitter? Not really. But, even if it turns out there wasn't an issue with the domain transfer, your entire business model is based on a suspect morality. Like following behind people and waiting for them to drop something, then grabbing it quickly and insisting they pay you for it if they want it back. Perhaps not illegal, but certainly a whiff of carrion about it.
In the meantime, if you decide to cut your losses, my $50 offer stands for another month.
Jack
Yeah. Can you smell that smell?
One year ago today I lost Anita. I have been dreading this anniversary for weeks.
At work I made some good progress on my current project in the morning and then I was given an interesting puzzle which kept me unmindful of the day until after lunch.
After that it got hard. I finally gave up and went home early, to sit and get my act together. A year ago at 4:40 PM I held Anita's hand as she stopped breathing and went into fibrillation, feeling her pulse flutter against my fingertips and then stop. Today I spent that same minute sitting by myself in my living room, as alone as anyone can ever be.
Thirty minutes later I picked up my grandson from after-school care and we did chores together around the house. After a late dinner we watched the J.P. Patches 50th anniversary special on PBS before I put him to bed. It was kind of fun sharing that bit of my childhood with him.
Funny thing, but I didn't cry today at all, until now as I write these words. Yes, this dread day has gone by and a year of living without Anita is behind me. But it doesn't change the important things a bit. She is still gone. I'm still here. This day will come again and again, hopefully for me it will come for a great many years.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how good I was to her. And, honestly, I don't think it was good enough. Anita gave far more to our relationship than I. Yes, the same was probably true of every relationship Anita had with another human being; it was her way. Still, I owed her more than she got and I will regret to my dying day every little moment of discourtesy, every time I didn't respond to 'I love you' in kind, every hurt feeling I ever caused her. Certainly these things were not common, nor large. But they happened and, in the human way we all have of remembering anything self-judgmental, they loom enormous in my mind.
But my year of rain has passed. Yes, the clouds are still there. It will rain yet again, without doubt. Still, I live in hope of sun. I haven't broken through my grief and depression in the way I described wanting to do nearly a month ago, but I didn't expect the process to be fast or easy then. So I'm not disappointed in myself, in that way. Although I haven't been writing fiction much, I have been playing guitar again and have even started composing a couple of new songs.
Most likely I will process my emotions through my music until I can understand them; it is what I have always done. What I need to do new, in this, is to record the songs and write down the lyrics. Always before I have composed what I called 'ephemeral music'; songs I would write, sing for a week or a month, and then forget. It drove Anita bonkers when I did that; she would ask me to play some song I had written not long before, which she had liked, and I would just shrug my shoulders helplessly. It bothered her that I would forget them and it bothered her even more that it didn't bother me that I would forget them.
I usually write songs for myself, you see. And not sharing them with others (unless they happened to be there when the songs are with me) is yet another small selfishness of mine.
So, for Anita, I must fix into a matrix of remembrance those songs I will write over the next few months. The funny thing is, I still don't feel a great need to do this. It isn't like I am creating great music that will touch a million souls. It isn't like I expect to gain a thing from doing it. But it was an oft-repeated wish of hers and one I want to honor.
Quite literally, it is the least I owe her...
At work I made some good progress on my current project in the morning and then I was given an interesting puzzle which kept me unmindful of the day until after lunch.
After that it got hard. I finally gave up and went home early, to sit and get my act together. A year ago at 4:40 PM I held Anita's hand as she stopped breathing and went into fibrillation, feeling her pulse flutter against my fingertips and then stop. Today I spent that same minute sitting by myself in my living room, as alone as anyone can ever be.
Thirty minutes later I picked up my grandson from after-school care and we did chores together around the house. After a late dinner we watched the J.P. Patches 50th anniversary special on PBS before I put him to bed. It was kind of fun sharing that bit of my childhood with him.
Funny thing, but I didn't cry today at all, until now as I write these words. Yes, this dread day has gone by and a year of living without Anita is behind me. But it doesn't change the important things a bit. She is still gone. I'm still here. This day will come again and again, hopefully for me it will come for a great many years.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how good I was to her. And, honestly, I don't think it was good enough. Anita gave far more to our relationship than I. Yes, the same was probably true of every relationship Anita had with another human being; it was her way. Still, I owed her more than she got and I will regret to my dying day every little moment of discourtesy, every time I didn't respond to 'I love you' in kind, every hurt feeling I ever caused her. Certainly these things were not common, nor large. But they happened and, in the human way we all have of remembering anything self-judgmental, they loom enormous in my mind.
But my year of rain has passed. Yes, the clouds are still there. It will rain yet again, without doubt. Still, I live in hope of sun. I haven't broken through my grief and depression in the way I described wanting to do nearly a month ago, but I didn't expect the process to be fast or easy then. So I'm not disappointed in myself, in that way. Although I haven't been writing fiction much, I have been playing guitar again and have even started composing a couple of new songs.
Most likely I will process my emotions through my music until I can understand them; it is what I have always done. What I need to do new, in this, is to record the songs and write down the lyrics. Always before I have composed what I called 'ephemeral music'; songs I would write, sing for a week or a month, and then forget. It drove Anita bonkers when I did that; she would ask me to play some song I had written not long before, which she had liked, and I would just shrug my shoulders helplessly. It bothered her that I would forget them and it bothered her even more that it didn't bother me that I would forget them.
I usually write songs for myself, you see. And not sharing them with others (unless they happened to be there when the songs are with me) is yet another small selfishness of mine.
So, for Anita, I must fix into a matrix of remembrance those songs I will write over the next few months. The funny thing is, I still don't feel a great need to do this. It isn't like I am creating great music that will touch a million souls. It isn't like I expect to gain a thing from doing it. But it was an oft-repeated wish of hers and one I want to honor.
Quite literally, it is the least I owe her...
It isn't that I expect happiness. I don't consider a state of happiness my god-given right as a human being and an American. I don't think happiness is a normal base state and consider any deviation from it a disfunction. Hell, I can remember few intervals longer than a day out my life that I would describe as 'happy'.
So, why complain about it now? Because I am actively unhappy. Not just depressed; normal depression includes in its baggage a dreadful ennui which precludes any deliberate action. No I went past that state a while back and have moved into a death-spiral form, possibly unique to me, where I am fully aware of what is happening to me and have begun to lean into the curve instead of coasting my way down (normal depression) or trying to fight my way out (my normal way of dealing with normal depression).
Quick note to all of you out there: Please do not read into the foregoing any clues that I am about to do something drastic to myself. I am deliberately using purple prose and loaded language to convey my feelings. In actual fact I am far too ornery a bastard to do myself in.
Second quick note: Those who have been reading me for a while are probably surprised to the extent of which I am baring my soul here. Sure, I have done a little of that kind of thing in the past, but normally I avoid talking about what I 'feel' in this journal and instead focus on what I 'think'. This may be changing; read on...
So I am in a nasty state where I am angry and hurt and unhappy. Not a lack of happiness, but a surfeit of its polar opposite. I haven't been making much progress on my various creative projects because I am not creative when I am depressed. I haven't been writing here much because I don't have a lot to say other than the kind of thing I am saying now. I haven't talked about it much, even with my closest friends, because I don't have much to share besides bile. And I am self-aware enough that I have chosen instead to either pretend differently around others or just avoid social situations entirely.
I haven't stopped living my life, but I have stopped enjoying it. This has to end!
Now I certainly have plenty of excuse for melancholy. Enough for anyone. I don't need to go into details; those who know me can stand witness and those who don't can believe or not. But that doesn't mean I have to wallow in it. Nor does it mean that, as I approach December 10th, I have to descend to some nadir of the soul. To surrender entirely to the velvet embrace of dark dejection.
I fear that I will struggle with depression every year about this time for the rest of my life. But, in truth, my current state isn't just about losing Anita. It is also about aging. About my fears for my children and my grandchildren. About work. About the fact I haven't done so many of the things I wanted to do and the fact I may go to my death-bed without even a Wikipedia stub-entry.
Yes, the last one is stupid. It is also very real. Please forgive my egoism at wanting to have something to be humble about. (And yes, I would make a great show at not displaying pride were I even a little bit famous.) But you don't get to my point in life without wanting to skim away the dross and focus on what is truly important to your being. And part of my anger right now is at myself: for being angry that I haven't achieved a minimal level of greatness. Crazy huh?
Well, depression isn't about rationality. Being the kind of person that I am, the unreasonable unreasoning of depression is one of the things feeding into the downward spiral: I want rationality. I want control dammit! I do not like it when a feedback loop in my brain starts running my life. Whether or not I have free will, I want to choose. And I choose not to be unhappy any more.
That doesn't mean I will be happy. It does mean I can move in that direction instead of further away. Over the next few months I will actively work to break the spiral. I will not feed the demon. If I must, I will seek help; professional and convivial. Most importantly, I will get back on the creative horse!
What that means here is that I probably will be writing a bit more. However I think this little corner of the Web is about to segue into the kind of thing a 'Journal' is supposed to be; more personal, more personable. I think I may try to open up a little more in this space. (Believe me, there is a robot in the back of my brain right now, waving its dryer-hose arms and shouting 'Danger Will Robinson' to a Star Trek 'Red Alert' accompaniment: I fear sharing. It's a guy thing, maybe. Certainly a John Wayne thing.)
As to writing about what I 'think', that will be moving elsewhere. After all, one doesn't achieve Wikipedia stub-level fame without having a prestigious address and, although LiveJournal isn't the MySpace slums, it isn't exactly downtown either.
Don't expect this transformation to happen very quickly. I am all about rationality and, let's face it, it's going to take me a while to break away from my pain and focus on my future. Expecting anything else is just plain stupid. There will be reverses and life will get in the way. There will be times when I feel like giving up.
But I'm not gonna. I'm not.
I'm not!
So, why complain about it now? Because I am actively unhappy. Not just depressed; normal depression includes in its baggage a dreadful ennui which precludes any deliberate action. No I went past that state a while back and have moved into a death-spiral form, possibly unique to me, where I am fully aware of what is happening to me and have begun to lean into the curve instead of coasting my way down (normal depression) or trying to fight my way out (my normal way of dealing with normal depression).
Quick note to all of you out there: Please do not read into the foregoing any clues that I am about to do something drastic to myself. I am deliberately using purple prose and loaded language to convey my feelings. In actual fact I am far too ornery a bastard to do myself in.
Second quick note: Those who have been reading me for a while are probably surprised to the extent of which I am baring my soul here. Sure, I have done a little of that kind of thing in the past, but normally I avoid talking about what I 'feel' in this journal and instead focus on what I 'think'. This may be changing; read on...
So I am in a nasty state where I am angry and hurt and unhappy. Not a lack of happiness, but a surfeit of its polar opposite. I haven't been making much progress on my various creative projects because I am not creative when I am depressed. I haven't been writing here much because I don't have a lot to say other than the kind of thing I am saying now. I haven't talked about it much, even with my closest friends, because I don't have much to share besides bile. And I am self-aware enough that I have chosen instead to either pretend differently around others or just avoid social situations entirely.
I haven't stopped living my life, but I have stopped enjoying it. This has to end!
Now I certainly have plenty of excuse for melancholy. Enough for anyone. I don't need to go into details; those who know me can stand witness and those who don't can believe or not. But that doesn't mean I have to wallow in it. Nor does it mean that, as I approach December 10th, I have to descend to some nadir of the soul. To surrender entirely to the velvet embrace of dark dejection.
I fear that I will struggle with depression every year about this time for the rest of my life. But, in truth, my current state isn't just about losing Anita. It is also about aging. About my fears for my children and my grandchildren. About work. About the fact I haven't done so many of the things I wanted to do and the fact I may go to my death-bed without even a Wikipedia stub-entry.
Yes, the last one is stupid. It is also very real. Please forgive my egoism at wanting to have something to be humble about. (And yes, I would make a great show at not displaying pride were I even a little bit famous.) But you don't get to my point in life without wanting to skim away the dross and focus on what is truly important to your being. And part of my anger right now is at myself: for being angry that I haven't achieved a minimal level of greatness. Crazy huh?
Well, depression isn't about rationality. Being the kind of person that I am, the unreasonable unreasoning of depression is one of the things feeding into the downward spiral: I want rationality. I want control dammit! I do not like it when a feedback loop in my brain starts running my life. Whether or not I have free will, I want to choose. And I choose not to be unhappy any more.
That doesn't mean I will be happy. It does mean I can move in that direction instead of further away. Over the next few months I will actively work to break the spiral. I will not feed the demon. If I must, I will seek help; professional and convivial. Most importantly, I will get back on the creative horse!
What that means here is that I probably will be writing a bit more. However I think this little corner of the Web is about to segue into the kind of thing a 'Journal' is supposed to be; more personal, more personable. I think I may try to open up a little more in this space. (Believe me, there is a robot in the back of my brain right now, waving its dryer-hose arms and shouting 'Danger Will Robinson' to a Star Trek 'Red Alert' accompaniment: I fear sharing. It's a guy thing, maybe. Certainly a John Wayne thing.)
As to writing about what I 'think', that will be moving elsewhere. After all, one doesn't achieve Wikipedia stub-level fame without having a prestigious address and, although LiveJournal isn't the MySpace slums, it isn't exactly downtown either.
Don't expect this transformation to happen very quickly. I am all about rationality and, let's face it, it's going to take me a while to break away from my pain and focus on my future. Expecting anything else is just plain stupid. There will be reverses and life will get in the way. There will be times when I feel like giving up.
But I'm not gonna. I'm not.
I'm not!
A while back I wrote a short essay about Using your Google Brain where I described mainstream media scare stories about the Internet which reminded me of:
Now someone has written a book on the subject and, predictably, the mainstream media scolds are piling on with articles about how the Internet is making us all stoooopid.
What a stinking barrel of carp!
As I said in my essay; the Internet makes me smarter. Perhaps it doesn't do it by making me more able to memorize a Robert Frost poem. But it does do it by giving me instance access to the poetry of Frost:
So, fire or ice? Maybe. But doom arises not from Internet-induced stooopidity. (That was the Time's spelling. Maybe they should have looked it up?)
So, scolds, I say you are the ones lacking the intelligence to use the tools. And, as to the danger of distractions, tell that to a stock trader from the 1970's or a new mother in any age: We are descended from creatures who lived in jungles and survived because they were able to split their attention fine and then rapidly focus on the clues that prey or predator were near.
There is growing evidence that Autism spectrum conditions like ADD/ADHD evolved as a trait which, by providing creative and inventive individuals, enhanced the survival of the population. (I am talking about the light-touch form of ADD shared by many geeks here, although research into autism and savants shows there are specific gene encodings behind the brain differences involved.) Moreover, the concept of continuous partial attention somewhat explains how those of us with the ability to do so have adapted to the firehose coming out of our ethernet ports.
Those unwilling or unable to adapt can scold from the sidelines. Me? I've got a fat pipe and a feed reeder and I'm not afraid to use it...
. . . similar articles from the 1970's describing how kids were starting to use calculators in school, all of which invariably ended in dire predictions of impending innumeracy.
Now someone has written a book on the subject and, predictably, the mainstream media scolds are piling on with articles about how the Internet is making us all stoooopid.
What a stinking barrel of carp!
As I said in my essay; the Internet makes me smarter. Perhaps it doesn't do it by making me more able to memorize a Robert Frost poem. But it does do it by giving me instance access to the poetry of Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
So, fire or ice? Maybe. But doom arises not from Internet-induced stooopidity. (That was the Time's spelling. Maybe they should have looked it up?)
So, scolds, I say you are the ones lacking the intelligence to use the tools. And, as to the danger of distractions, tell that to a stock trader from the 1970's or a new mother in any age: We are descended from creatures who lived in jungles and survived because they were able to split their attention fine and then rapidly focus on the clues that prey or predator were near.
There is growing evidence that Autism spectrum conditions like ADD/ADHD evolved as a trait which, by providing creative and inventive individuals, enhanced the survival of the population. (I am talking about the light-touch form of ADD shared by many geeks here, although research into autism and savants shows there are specific gene encodings behind the brain differences involved.) Moreover, the concept of continuous partial attention somewhat explains how those of us with the ability to do so have adapted to the firehose coming out of our ethernet ports.
Those unwilling or unable to adapt can scold from the sidelines. Me? I've got a fat pipe and a feed reeder and I'm not afraid to use it...
Some people are wondering what happened to the Obama they supported during the primaries? Meanwhile John Scalzi demonstrates why he gets all the link love with a little rant about who gets to call who an elitist.
As always, I'm the guy who hates the leading politicians on both sides. That means I get to say "I told you so." when people complain about Obama acting like a politician. I should point out that this doesn't mean you shouldn't vote for him in the general elections. It just means you have to be a realist. He obviously is and, quite honestly, that raises his credit with me...
As always, I'm the guy who hates the leading politicians on both sides. That means I get to say "I told you so." when people complain about Obama acting like a politician. I should point out that this doesn't mean you shouldn't vote for him in the general elections. It just means you have to be a realist. He obviously is and, quite honestly, that raises his credit with me...
So there I was at Penguicon for three days. In that space of time I never touched a boob. (Not even my own as far as I can remember.) Nor did I see the infamous buttons. (Not that I knew to look for them.)
Yet that seems to be the only thing the entire blogosphere wants to talk about in relation to Penguicon ever since. I guess boobies always win out over Singing Tesla Coils; no matter which side of the argument you fall on.
Me? I'm all for personal freedom and for people being able to make choices. No means no. Yes means yes. The absence of either is a default no. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about touching a part of someone's body or eating a bite of their chocolate bar. Each person gets to define their own limits.
That includes the toucher as well as the touchee: Should I have known about this 'Open Source Boob Project' I wouldn't have participated. I know what boobs feel like and, while I do enjoy them greatly, it isn't something I want to reduce to groping strangers in a hallway. I'm not wired like that.
So I missed it. And, frankly, I'm glad I missed it. But then I didn't rub Vernor Vinge's bald head either. (Something that apparently was quite the rage there and something which I want to do far less than I want to rub titties.) I managed to miss talking to John Scalzi at every opportunity. I blew off a crapload of programming. I never met 'the XKCD guy'. I didn't slam a single jello shot or quaff a single pirate rum ration.
In other words I missed a lot of other things, many of which interested me more than 'Open Source Boobs'. Life is like that...
Yet that seems to be the only thing the entire blogosphere wants to talk about in relation to Penguicon ever since. I guess boobies always win out over Singing Tesla Coils; no matter which side of the argument you fall on.
Me? I'm all for personal freedom and for people being able to make choices. No means no. Yes means yes. The absence of either is a default no. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about touching a part of someone's body or eating a bite of their chocolate bar. Each person gets to define their own limits.
That includes the toucher as well as the touchee: Should I have known about this 'Open Source Boob Project' I wouldn't have participated. I know what boobs feel like and, while I do enjoy them greatly, it isn't something I want to reduce to groping strangers in a hallway. I'm not wired like that.
So I missed it. And, frankly, I'm glad I missed it. But then I didn't rub Vernor Vinge's bald head either. (Something that apparently was quite the rage there and something which I want to do far less than I want to rub titties.) I managed to miss talking to John Scalzi at every opportunity. I blew off a crapload of programming. I never met 'the XKCD guy'. I didn't slam a single jello shot or quaff a single pirate rum ration.
In other words I missed a lot of other things, many of which interested me more than 'Open Source Boobs'. Life is like that...
Atheist and evolution blogger P.Z. Myers was ejected from a screening of a pro-creationism film because the director didn't want him to attend. The punch-line is delicious!
There's a guy at work who often wears a t-shirt that reads "There's no place like 127.0.0.1".
If you live a significant portion of your life online you might find there is some truth to that t-shirt. It used to be said that 'home is where you hang your hat', but today home is usually where you can get wifi on your laptop. Given an Internet connection you can chat with your friends, check your mail, pay your bills, play games, watch videos, keep up with the latest gossip, you name it. If you are into Metaverses like Second Life or MMORPGs like WoW you might even have a virtual 'home' you can hang out in online, complete with furniture and pictures on the walls.
One could argue that home is the place you keep your stuff. The problem with these virtual homes is that none of them are places where you can keep all your virtual stuff. Sure, in Second Life you can keep things appropriate to Second Life. Same for Facebook or LiveJournal. But what about documents and media files? What about 'valuable' things like passwords? Where do you keep that stuff?
Right now you probably have your virtual stuff scattered over several different computers, media players, and maybe even a 'thumb drive' or two. And this represents a problem. It would be nice if you could store it all on the Internet somehow. Someplace where you could get to whatever you need from anywhere you can open up a browser window. Only you can't.
Certainly, there are appropriate online places for nearly all of it. For documents you can keep word processor and spreadsheet files in Google Docs and others of its ilk. Links can easily be saved with del.icio.us or other social bookmarking sites. There are similar sites offering 'secure' online storage for things like passwords.
There just isn't one place to bring it all together under one 'roof'. And there is another problem: Trust. To what extent do you trust these sites (no matter what their corporate motto is) to keep private the things you want to keep private? You probably already have more personal information about you freely available on the Internet than you are comfortable with. And the problem is only going to get worse as you start to capture more stuff you care about in the form of bits and bytes.
I have a feeling someone soon is going to offer an online service to provide you with a single place to keep all your stuff, along with the tools you need to locate which stuff you need when you want it and work with it when you need to change it or use it. That will be great, except for that trust problem I mentioned before. And there are other issues. Like, what if they go out of business? Or what if they have a fire and it turns out they didn't do as good a job backing things up as they advertised? What then?
Can I suggest an alternative? Don't keep it in one place. Keep it everywhere instead...
There is an existing online anonymizing system called TOR (a recursive acronym for TOR is Onion Routing). TOR works by splitting up messages you send and receive into encrypted chunks and spreading them around hundreds or even thousands of other TOR nodes. There have been several experiments at doing similar things for files; mostly revolving around file sharing systems, but appropriate for this purpose as well. One, Freenet, is very similar to the kind of system I am describing here.
The idea is to tear your data up into little bits and spread it out across thousands of nodes made up of computers belonging to other people like yourself. This is done in a way that lets you get to that data and bring it back together, but only you. (OK, only you within the normal limits of your password getting out or someone finding a way to hack the system. Nothing is perfect. Including the door lock on your physical house) Combine this with some changes to browser technology to work with this distributed data store and some nice indexing tools to help you find that file you can't quite remember the name of and you could have a virtual home for all your stuff. One not residing on any property you personally own, yet available to you anywhere, anytime.
All in one place. Safe.
Or, rather, safe if you can trust the computer you access it from. Safe if your government doesn't require you to cough up your keys on demand. Safe if some criminal doesn't figure out a way to break in and steal it. In other words, pretty much as safe as a real home.
I can live with that level of safety. But then I am fine storing documents on Google and sharing links with del.icio.us. Personally I am more concerned with the existential angst about going home raised by a certain Supertramp song. (Lyrics.)
If you live a significant portion of your life online you might find there is some truth to that t-shirt. It used to be said that 'home is where you hang your hat', but today home is usually where you can get wifi on your laptop. Given an Internet connection you can chat with your friends, check your mail, pay your bills, play games, watch videos, keep up with the latest gossip, you name it. If you are into Metaverses like Second Life or MMORPGs like WoW you might even have a virtual 'home' you can hang out in online, complete with furniture and pictures on the walls.
One could argue that home is the place you keep your stuff. The problem with these virtual homes is that none of them are places where you can keep all your virtual stuff. Sure, in Second Life you can keep things appropriate to Second Life. Same for Facebook or LiveJournal. But what about documents and media files? What about 'valuable' things like passwords? Where do you keep that stuff?
Right now you probably have your virtual stuff scattered over several different computers, media players, and maybe even a 'thumb drive' or two. And this represents a problem. It would be nice if you could store it all on the Internet somehow. Someplace where you could get to whatever you need from anywhere you can open up a browser window. Only you can't.
Certainly, there are appropriate online places for nearly all of it. For documents you can keep word processor and spreadsheet files in Google Docs and others of its ilk. Links can easily be saved with del.icio.us or other social bookmarking sites. There are similar sites offering 'secure' online storage for things like passwords.
There just isn't one place to bring it all together under one 'roof'. And there is another problem: Trust. To what extent do you trust these sites (no matter what their corporate motto is) to keep private the things you want to keep private? You probably already have more personal information about you freely available on the Internet than you are comfortable with. And the problem is only going to get worse as you start to capture more stuff you care about in the form of bits and bytes.
I have a feeling someone soon is going to offer an online service to provide you with a single place to keep all your stuff, along with the tools you need to locate which stuff you need when you want it and work with it when you need to change it or use it. That will be great, except for that trust problem I mentioned before. And there are other issues. Like, what if they go out of business? Or what if they have a fire and it turns out they didn't do as good a job backing things up as they advertised? What then?
Can I suggest an alternative? Don't keep it in one place. Keep it everywhere instead...
There is an existing online anonymizing system called TOR (a recursive acronym for TOR is Onion Routing). TOR works by splitting up messages you send and receive into encrypted chunks and spreading them around hundreds or even thousands of other TOR nodes. There have been several experiments at doing similar things for files; mostly revolving around file sharing systems, but appropriate for this purpose as well. One, Freenet, is very similar to the kind of system I am describing here.
The idea is to tear your data up into little bits and spread it out across thousands of nodes made up of computers belonging to other people like yourself. This is done in a way that lets you get to that data and bring it back together, but only you. (OK, only you within the normal limits of your password getting out or someone finding a way to hack the system. Nothing is perfect. Including the door lock on your physical house) Combine this with some changes to browser technology to work with this distributed data store and some nice indexing tools to help you find that file you can't quite remember the name of and you could have a virtual home for all your stuff. One not residing on any property you personally own, yet available to you anywhere, anytime.
All in one place. Safe.
Or, rather, safe if you can trust the computer you access it from. Safe if your government doesn't require you to cough up your keys on demand. Safe if some criminal doesn't figure out a way to break in and steal it. In other words, pretty much as safe as a real home.
I can live with that level of safety. But then I am fine storing documents on Google and sharing links with del.icio.us. Personally I am more concerned with the existential angst about going home raised by a certain Supertramp song. (Lyrics.)
End result? A case study in the Lancet. Of course...
We've all been there. That perfect moment that you want to last forever. Maybe it is a sunset and a lover watching it with you. Maybe it is a child's first steps, a box of puppies on a sunny day, or a steelhead taking the hook at your favorite fishing hole. Maybe it is hearing an old song in a new way at a rock concert. Maybe it is simply standing inside a cathedral as clouds move across the sun and fill the nave with a shifting kaleidescope through the stained glass...
Whatever that perfect moment is, you know it when it happens and you know you will never be able to capture it in a way you could share it with others or (most sadly of all) with your own future self. Yet it is a very human thing to try -- from cave paintings to HD cameras, we have applied technology to the problem with varying degrees of success.
And yet, in most cases the best we can do is to capture a memento of that perfect moment; the personal equivalent of a snow globe from Las Vegas. Often little more than something to jog our own memory and almost never enough to put another person into the same space we inhabited right then. This is why we love to show our vacation pictures and others find them so boring.
(Interestingly, we have focused largely on visual representations as mementos despite the fact memory is tied more strongly to the sense of smell. Recent research indicates that you can even force the loss of long term memory in rats via blocking a brain enzyme related to olfactory processing.)
Of course, to some extent the quality of our mementos is dependent on the person making it. There is a definite artistic component involved, whether the person is sketching with charcoal or taking a photograph. If someone is good enough with a particular medium they can bring us, more or less, into that perfect moment. If the artist is truly good we invoke our imagination, suspend our belief in our current reality and, (almost magically) we inhabit that moment in a way that transcends the limitations of the medium. But, like all art, this response is personal and only works for those attuned to it. The next person to look at the painting or watch the movie in question may have a different, and less moving, experience.
Still technology marches on and that which was only available to the rich becomes a tool of the masses. We are rapidly approaching the moment when half the planet will carry a camera-equipped cell phone in their pocket. The quality and quantity of mementos produced increases even if the people making them lack the skill and perceptions of the true artist. We saw the first step in this evolution with the Brownie camera and now we have easily affordable HD camcorders and panoramic cameras.
Recently we entered into Steam Engine Time for the technology of creating mementos: The tools have reached a cusp point. Everything required is there to enable anyone to capture a moment in a way that makes inhabiting that perfect moment anytime in the future a better quality experience than the best great artists can accomplish with the mediums currently at their disposal. All it takes is a little integration work.
I could create this technology myself. Give me six months, an electrical engineer, and four other programmers and I could demo a consumer device that represents the first stage of this new memento technology. Give me twenty programmers and another year and I could give you the second stage. The third, and final, stage requires some technology that isn't ready for prime time, but is getting there.
And, if I can think of this thing, most likely someone else, smarter and better funded that I, has as well. Somewhere in the world engineers are already working to make this new device a reality. What will the first version look like?
There would be a base unit. It might look like a pole on a conical stand or it might be something you can mount on a camera tripod. Besides the base unit there will be at least three, and possibly more, satellite units that look much like the base unit, only smaller. At the top of each unit will be a rotating camera and a stereo microphone. To use it you will place the base unit in the center of the place you want to record and scatter the satellite units around at some distance to record the same scene from other angles.
That's pretty much it, other than some software to integrate the results. When activated the device would establish the exact positions of all its units and then scan its surroundings for a short period of time. The results would be fed into the integration software and the end result would be a looping 3D animation of the place and time you wanted to record. If the software (or the person operating it) was really good, and the recorded scene supported it, you could even make the loop seamless to the extent that it would be difficult to tell when the loop reached its end and started over. When replaying it you could 'walk' around the recorded space and time in any way you liked, inspecting many details and hearing the ambient sounds as if you were actually there. Yes, it would be on a computer screen. But it would be amazingly detailed and lifelike, barring some artifacts introduced by the recording process and the software.
How can this be? Converting photographs into 3D models is nothing new, but recent improvements in visualization software have enabled a whole new landscape of possibilities. As I said, all the other pieces (panoramic cameras, 3D rendering, virtual environments) already exist; all it takes is putting it together.
And this is just the first stage. The second stage will do the same thing without the satellite units or by automatically deployed satellites (perhaps autonomous remote units the size of flies) and the results will have much higher definition than the first stage. Moving elements like humans, animals, and machines will be rendered with much more precision and detail. The playback technology will improve as well, possibly via head mounted displays.
The third stage? Just improve the second stage incrementally and add the ability to record smells as well.
Like any medium, this new one will work best in the hands of the true artist. But even the most thumb-fingered individual will be able to record amazingly lifelike representations of a child hitting their first home run. It will enable new arts as well; interactive 'movies' may finally enter into the mainstream. Websites could host the scenes to allow a form of virtual tourism. Places that do not exist or that cannot be reached may be rendered by artists so that we can enjoy a concert in fairy-land or stroll on the surface of the sun.
The only downside is the distinct possibility that experiencing something with all this detail may not be anywhere as good as simply remembering it from behind a filter of years...
Whatever that perfect moment is, you know it when it happens and you know you will never be able to capture it in a way you could share it with others or (most sadly of all) with your own future self. Yet it is a very human thing to try -- from cave paintings to HD cameras, we have applied technology to the problem with varying degrees of success.
And yet, in most cases the best we can do is to capture a memento of that perfect moment; the personal equivalent of a snow globe from Las Vegas. Often little more than something to jog our own memory and almost never enough to put another person into the same space we inhabited right then. This is why we love to show our vacation pictures and others find them so boring.
(Interestingly, we have focused largely on visual representations as mementos despite the fact memory is tied more strongly to the sense of smell. Recent research indicates that you can even force the loss of long term memory in rats via blocking a brain enzyme related to olfactory processing.)
Of course, to some extent the quality of our mementos is dependent on the person making it. There is a definite artistic component involved, whether the person is sketching with charcoal or taking a photograph. If someone is good enough with a particular medium they can bring us, more or less, into that perfect moment. If the artist is truly good we invoke our imagination, suspend our belief in our current reality and, (almost magically) we inhabit that moment in a way that transcends the limitations of the medium. But, like all art, this response is personal and only works for those attuned to it. The next person to look at the painting or watch the movie in question may have a different, and less moving, experience.
Still technology marches on and that which was only available to the rich becomes a tool of the masses. We are rapidly approaching the moment when half the planet will carry a camera-equipped cell phone in their pocket. The quality and quantity of mementos produced increases even if the people making them lack the skill and perceptions of the true artist. We saw the first step in this evolution with the Brownie camera and now we have easily affordable HD camcorders and panoramic cameras.
Recently we entered into Steam Engine Time for the technology of creating mementos: The tools have reached a cusp point. Everything required is there to enable anyone to capture a moment in a way that makes inhabiting that perfect moment anytime in the future a better quality experience than the best great artists can accomplish with the mediums currently at their disposal. All it takes is a little integration work.
I could create this technology myself. Give me six months, an electrical engineer, and four other programmers and I could demo a consumer device that represents the first stage of this new memento technology. Give me twenty programmers and another year and I could give you the second stage. The third, and final, stage requires some technology that isn't ready for prime time, but is getting there.
And, if I can think of this thing, most likely someone else, smarter and better funded that I, has as well. Somewhere in the world engineers are already working to make this new device a reality. What will the first version look like?
There would be a base unit. It might look like a pole on a conical stand or it might be something you can mount on a camera tripod. Besides the base unit there will be at least three, and possibly more, satellite units that look much like the base unit, only smaller. At the top of each unit will be a rotating camera and a stereo microphone. To use it you will place the base unit in the center of the place you want to record and scatter the satellite units around at some distance to record the same scene from other angles.
That's pretty much it, other than some software to integrate the results. When activated the device would establish the exact positions of all its units and then scan its surroundings for a short period of time. The results would be fed into the integration software and the end result would be a looping 3D animation of the place and time you wanted to record. If the software (or the person operating it) was really good, and the recorded scene supported it, you could even make the loop seamless to the extent that it would be difficult to tell when the loop reached its end and started over. When replaying it you could 'walk' around the recorded space and time in any way you liked, inspecting many details and hearing the ambient sounds as if you were actually there. Yes, it would be on a computer screen. But it would be amazingly detailed and lifelike, barring some artifacts introduced by the recording process and the software.
How can this be? Converting photographs into 3D models is nothing new, but recent improvements in visualization software have enabled a whole new landscape of possibilities. As I said, all the other pieces (panoramic cameras, 3D rendering, virtual environments) already exist; all it takes is putting it together.
And this is just the first stage. The second stage will do the same thing without the satellite units or by automatically deployed satellites (perhaps autonomous remote units the size of flies) and the results will have much higher definition than the first stage. Moving elements like humans, animals, and machines will be rendered with much more precision and detail. The playback technology will improve as well, possibly via head mounted displays.
The third stage? Just improve the second stage incrementally and add the ability to record smells as well.
Like any medium, this new one will work best in the hands of the true artist. But even the most thumb-fingered individual will be able to record amazingly lifelike representations of a child hitting their first home run. It will enable new arts as well; interactive 'movies' may finally enter into the mainstream. Websites could host the scenes to allow a form of virtual tourism. Places that do not exist or that cannot be reached may be rendered by artists so that we can enjoy a concert in fairy-land or stroll on the surface of the sun.
The only downside is the distinct possibility that experiencing something with all this detail may not be anywhere as good as simply remembering it from behind a filter of years...
Der Spiegel has a fascinating interview with Pan Yue of China's ministry of the environment, "The Chinese Miracle Will End Soon":
This miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Acid rain is falling on one third of the Chinese territory, half of the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless, while one fourth of our citizens does not have access to clean drinking water. One third of the urban population is breathing polluted air, and less than 20 percent of the trash in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner. Finally, five of the ten most polluted cities worldwide are in China.
It's going to take me a while to digest this one...
James V. Stone of Sheffield University has a research article ponderously titled Distributed Representations Accelerate Evolution of Adaptive Behaviours. In it he describes something called (rather more prosaically) 'Free Lunch Learning':
Now this might seem like a scientist spending a lot of fifty and seventy-five cent words to say something obvious, but he goes on to apply this to evolution:
I don't want to get too far out there into woo-woo land on this. For example, I don't actually believe in Leary's circuit model of consciousness nor am I certain Stone's FLL ideas will stand up to scientific scrutiny. (Heck, I'm not even certain I actually understand it correctly.) Plus I am bypassing his real point; that evolutionary changes in individuals will result in a genetic scaffolding for certain learned behaviors within thirty generations. (WTF? Thirty generations?)
Still...
James V. Stone of Sheffield University has a research article ponderously titled Distributed Representations Accelerate Evolution of Adaptive Behaviours. In it he describes something called (rather more prosaically) 'Free Lunch Learning':
In humans, FLL has been demonstrated using a task in which participants learned the positions of letters on a nonstandard computer keyboard. After a period of forgetting, participants relearned a proportion of these letter positions. Crucially, it was found that this relearning induced recovery of the non-relearned letter positions.In a nutshell, this means that you can learn a group of things one time, forget them, and by simply re-learning a single part of the group the whole thing comes back to you.
More recently, a set of theorems provided a formal characterization of FLL in linear neural network models. In essence, FLL occurs in neural network models because each association is distributed amongst all connection weights (synapses) between units (model neurons). After partial forgetting, relearning some of the associations forces all of the weights closer to pre-forgetting values, resulting in improved performance even on non-relearned associations . . .
Now this might seem like a scientist spending a lot of fifty and seventy-five cent words to say something obvious, but he goes on to apply this to evolution:
Now consider an organism b2 which is born with a genetically specified set of neuronal connections. These connections are organised such that, if b2 learns one subset A2 of associations then another subset A1 is usually learned. In other words, the organism b2 happens to be born with neuronal connections similar to the connections of an organism b1 which had once learned and then forgotten subsets A1 and A2 (e.g., isotropically distributed around w0 in Figure 1). Just as FLL ensures that if organism b1 relearns A2 then subset A1 is usually relearned (see Figure 2), so if b2 learns A2 then A1 is usually learned. In both cases, FLL ensures that learning one subset of associations induces learning of the other subset. Critically, whereas the FLL exhibited by organism b1 depends on previous learning and forgetting, FLL in organism b2 depends on being born in a state such that the first time A2 is learned, the associations A1 are also usually acquired. Such a network can be evolved using a genetic algorithm, as shown below.This concept of a 'scaffolding' for skills is interesting on several levels. Applied to machine learning it means that the trick is to create the right scaffolds. Applied to human learning it means that we might be able to actually do the kinds of things predicted by Timothy Leary's theory of an 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness; specifically the Neuroelectric Circuit and metaprogramming.
The use of two distinct subsets in this paper is clearly unrealistic when considered in the context of skill learning. However, the use of two subsets lies at one extreme along a continuum of tasks. At one extreme, associations are learned one by one in a strict order, and at the other extreme, all associations are learned simultaneously. In a biological context, the components of a skill which are learned first act as "scaffold" for others, and this effectively imposes a temporal order to the acquisition of different skill components. This is the type of scenario assumed for the simulations reported in this paper. Essentially, learning A2 is assumed to consist of a subset of skill components which provide a scaffold for the skill components in A1.
I don't want to get too far out there into woo-woo land on this. For example, I don't actually believe in Leary's circuit model of consciousness nor am I certain Stone's FLL ideas will stand up to scientific scrutiny. (Heck, I'm not even certain I actually understand it correctly.) Plus I am bypassing his real point; that evolutionary changes in individuals will result in a genetic scaffolding for certain learned behaviors within thirty generations. (WTF? Thirty generations?)
Still...
Scientists may have isolated the part of the brain that makes us human (as opposed to just being hairless apes); the Amygdala appears to be related to the senses that govern social behavior:
Semendeferi lead a group that measured area of the 12 amygdalas and low and behold found that the human amygdala was much larger than those of the other apes. That’s not too surprising. Our brains are the largest of the group they compared, so I would expect regions within the brain, like the amygdala to be proportionally larger as well.Gene Expression comments on this as well.
Curiously, though, the lateral nucleus occupied a bigger portion of the amygdala than the other sub-regions in humans than the other primates compared. On top of having a larger lateral nucleus, more incoming connections from the temporal lobes, were noted in the human brain as well.
The temporal lobes are home to some critical social senses. The primary auditory cortex is located in the temporal lobe, and so the temporal lobes specialize in auditory processing. They are also heavily involved in speech and vision processing. This implies that as humans, the larger lateral nucleus in the human amygdala allowed more auditory and vision information to be processed.
It seems the City of Seattle is paying buskers to play in City parks on weekdays. The buskers come cheap, about minimum wage, but I guess you could call that a 'floor' salary as they can pick up tips as well.
What a great idea!
What a great idea!
I thought the only kind of slavery in China was the official kind. You know, where the government forces prisoners to work? (This is the reason I avoided buying certain goods made in China for many years.)
Well, I was wrong. China has the classic kind of slavery as well. At least they are starting to do something about it, despite the fact there was government collusion going on there also.
Note: I consider this kind of human slavery to be one of the worst possible crimes, deserving of the ultimate penalty. Preferably applied by the victims...
Well, I was wrong. China has the classic kind of slavery as well. At least they are starting to do something about it, despite the fact there was government collusion going on there also.
Note: I consider this kind of human slavery to be one of the worst possible crimes, deserving of the ultimate penalty. Preferably applied by the victims...
The Republicrats and the Demicans are doing it again...
Swept into power by a wave of revulsion against how the Republicans were running things, the Democrats have already returned to pre-election approval ratings. Probably because they promised to clean up Congress's act and then delivered more of the same old thing. (No, this isn't new. Anyone remember the 'Contract with America' when the Republicans followed the same script?)
In the meantime the Republicans are underscoring the corruption in Congress by moving to eject Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from Congress following his indictment for accepting bribes. Although Jefferson probably deserves expulsion from Congress (and jail time) this effort is likely to backfire as the Democrats respond with some tits for this tat. After all, this is definitely a case of Republican pot calling Democrat kettle black...
In other words, things haven't changed a bit. And, so long as we continue to believe in a false dichotomy of left versus right in a power culture where those labels only apply to the rhetoric and not the substance, they will stay the same no matter who appears to be running things.
Don't believe me? That's OK. People do seem to prefer their comfortable illusions over prickly reality. That's the road leading to where we are today because it is how much of history was made. Expecting differently is expecting human nature to change; a fools quest if I ever heard of one.
This coming election year is not going to be any fun at all for people like me, who abhor the entire political class equally.
Swept into power by a wave of revulsion against how the Republicans were running things, the Democrats have already returned to pre-election approval ratings. Probably because they promised to clean up Congress's act and then delivered more of the same old thing. (No, this isn't new. Anyone remember the 'Contract with America' when the Republicans followed the same script?)
In the meantime the Republicans are underscoring the corruption in Congress by moving to eject Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from Congress following his indictment for accepting bribes. Although Jefferson probably deserves expulsion from Congress (and jail time) this effort is likely to backfire as the Democrats respond with some tits for this tat. After all, this is definitely a case of Republican pot calling Democrat kettle black...
In other words, things haven't changed a bit. And, so long as we continue to believe in a false dichotomy of left versus right in a power culture where those labels only apply to the rhetoric and not the substance, they will stay the same no matter who appears to be running things.
Don't believe me? That's OK. People do seem to prefer their comfortable illusions over prickly reality. That's the road leading to where we are today because it is how much of history was made. Expecting differently is expecting human nature to change; a fools quest if I ever heard of one.
This coming election year is not going to be any fun at all for people like me, who abhor the entire political class equally.
I suppose it really isn't any sillier than using a treadmill or a stairstepping machine. But the Shovelglove seems weirder to me for some reason.
I don't know... Pretending to shovel dirt or churn butter just seems wrong, while pretending to ride a bicycle seems like a normal thing to do. Is it because the one is a simulacrum of work while the other is ersatz recreation?
I don't know... Pretending to shovel dirt or churn butter just seems wrong, while pretending to ride a bicycle seems like a normal thing to do. Is it because the one is a simulacrum of work while the other is ersatz recreation?
