...and so St. Nick somehow managed to find our small little condo yet again, as evidenced by presents under the tree, stockings full of stocking stuff, and some bites taken out of the cookies we left out.
Ok, so we didn't leave out any cookies, but we still managed to start off what could have been one of the most stressful days of the year with an enjoyable exchange of gifts. Then both TLM and I went into full family-holiday-preparation mode, a process involving not only showering, shaving and getting ready to go out, but also preparing ourselves mentally for the socialization that lay ahead.
As opposed to what many of you many be inferring right now, this didn't have anything to do with mustering up enough patience to deal with an annoying relative or friend, but rather beating back the trepidation of us (ok, me) saying something stupid, incoherent, or (and this is my forté) entirely inappropriate to anyone during the course of the day. I think that save for a side conversation I had in front of my uncle's mother about a novelty book about "how to swear in every language", I did ok. Many others will not be able to say the same, I'm sure, before the day is done, and it is in recognition of such accomplishments of verbal tomfoolery that Wired has put out their 2007 Foot-in-Mouth Awards.
My personal runaway favorite from the list: James Watson of Watson and Crick DNA discovery fame:
James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, talked his way into retirement by telling a London newspaper that he feared for Africa because black people aren't as smart as whites.
Watson told The Sunday Times he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says, not really."
No, this isn't just an attempt to get you to say "tanks" (though I would feel obliged to follow up accordingly, for those who know what I'm talking about). This is for real...I think.
Some reports indicate that the U.S. Army are working on a kind of cloaking technology, rendering their vehicles virtually invisible, as in not visible to the naked eye. It gets even more sci-fi: this technology reportedly could involve "an artificial type of matter called metamaterials" that "guide light around an object, rather than refract or reflect the light".
Wow.
Imagine planes, bombs, tanks, even soldiers (and their shadows!) becoming no longer visible. I like watching it in movies, but for some reason the idea of this existing in reality makes me very, very nervous.
Whenever I come across stories about new discoveries of prehistoric anythings, I make note. A couple of days ago scientists at the University of Oslo in Norway (my favorite country at Epcot) found what they think to be a new species of prehistoric sea reptile. There appears to be some controversy, though, as they're not sure this new species is really new. Um, ok...it doesn't make for a great story per say, but it's an excuse to include images like this one:
Also, in a more exciting and less vague declaration made by scientists on Monday, a dinosaur mummy has been found, complete with bones, skin, and maybe even organs and muscles. This is great news as now we don't need to mine for those pesky prehistoric mosquitoes fossilized in amber to get our dinosaur DNA for our dinosaur amusement parks...
Today is Evoloterra. This is an interesting holiday in that it celebrates "human achievement in general", and its date commemorates the anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon. We have all heard those famous words uttered by Neil Armstrong upon his first descent down onto the lunar surface, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the top 5 U.S. quotes of all time (though I read he flubbed it a little bit, and actually meant to include an "a" before "man").
I like the idea of encouraging invention and innovation and putting its pursuit in a good light, without a doubt. Having said that, as I looked around for content on the subject, I came upon a lot of stuff on the "moon landing hoax". Now, I love conspiracy theories and I'd heard of this one before (remember Carl Everett's interviews with Dan Shaughnessy? He didn't believe in dinosaurs either.), and as I dug deeper I found lots of articles and vids on the subject. The vids in particular were captivating, and though many were obviously done in jest, some were seriously trying to present a case where NASA, the U.S. Government, and Stanley Kubrick, among others, conspired to film a sequence in a studio that would convince the people of the U.S. (and the world) that men had landed and were walking on the moon. Some approach the topic in "documentary" form, like one I found on YouTube (in pieces) called "Moon Landing: A Fake or Fact?". Others try to prove the hoax by showing inconsistencies or mistakes in the footage, like being able to "see the wires" in the clip below.
Whether these guys really did land on the moon or not, one thing is true: some of the "human achievements" we can celebrate today are those in the realm of imagination, skepticism and doubt.
This day is in honor of the unexplained, commemorating the first recorded eclipse of the sun. The popular opinion is that it was ancient Chinese astronomers who first recorded this important astronomical event, around 2136-2137 BCE. In one mythical telling of the event, Chinese astronomers Hsi and Ho fail to prevent or predict or properly react to an eclipse and are ordered to be executed by an angry emperor. Doh...
I should start by saying I've never been a fan of college football. Check that: I like the actual football, but I can't stand the system by which the bowl games are "calculated". That's right, rankings.
Even when approached with seemingly the most scientific methods, college football ranking systems have always seemed vague and completely subjective to me (and the end of the year awards presented to individuals too for that matter). Science News recently had an article outlining how such systems' ability to produce "reasonable results" are inherently impossible.
In a paper published in a recent issue of SIAM Review, Paul K. Newton and Kamran Aslam of the University of Southern California argue against the widespread belief that it is possible, with just the right tweaking, to come up with a ranking system that yields reasonable results and eliminates logical inconsistencies—and, hence, settles all arguments, leaving everyone satisfied.
At the heart of the argument is the challenge of assumptions made when coming up with the various ranking systems. Highlighted is the assumption that "when team A is ranked higher than team B, and team B is ranked higher than team C, then team A is ranked higher than team C...seems like a reasonable requirement". This assumption is shown to be faulty, particularly when votes are part of the process.
So how do the bowl games get determined, if not by some ranking process? That's the million dollar question (not that the collegiate atheletes get any of it, at least not legally...). Well, unless another option is presented, science be damned (uh?), as the current system is what we have that works best so far.
Tangentially, this reminded me of a (not-so-recent) post on InsomniousPolitico where there was an attempt to classify various popular dichotomies (the term is used loosely) into two distinct groups; an attempt met with many vociferous comments as the ultimate goal seemed to be grouping logic, men, and conservatism against emotion, women, and liberalism (go see and decide for yourself). In this Science News article, the aforementioned faulty assumption and the example they chose to illustrate it (the selection of the top men's tennis player in 2002) is also exactly why Jaz's attempt to make two mutually exclusive groups won't work.
Let's say you have 3 groups of 2 instead of 3 individuals, groups A, B, and C. Group A may match up with group B in a particular way, and group B may match up with group C in a particular way, but that does not say anything about the relationship between group A and group C, which must be handled seperatly (particularly when the matching up of groups is as subjective as was outlined in the post). As in the tennis example, it is possible to have, even in a sample space as small as 3, a circular state of relation between the groups. Consider the following pairings:
Pairing 1
Pairing 2
Pairing 3
A1
A2
B1
B2
A1
A2
B1
B2
C1
C2
C2
C1
There are only eight possible ways the three groups can be grouped together, and all of them will go against how we defined the group pairings above in exactly one way.
Potential Group
Bad Because of
A1, B1, C1
Pairing 3
A1, B1, C2
Pairing 2
A1, B2, C1
Pairing 1
A1, B2, C2
Pairing 1
A2, B1, C1
Pairing 1
A2, B1, C2
Pairing 1
A2, B2, C1
Pairing 2
A2, B2, C2
Pairing 3
Well, you can't blame a guy for trying (to equate conservatism with logic). Anyway, sorry for what was I'm sure way too much information...I have occasional relapses into math education background. And I miss making tables.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid is aamznig. Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and you awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!
Happy Agnostica! This holiday, celebrating Science, continues for an indeterminate amount of time, as dictated by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (duh). What I didn't know until today was that it is a holiday placed in the holiday season with specifically a non-religious nature. The definition given at agnostica.com is decidedly less, well, agnostic in tone:
Agnostica is the only truly secular winter celebration. It is a celebration for the scientist in all of us, celebrating not some contrived story written thousands of years ago and translated seventeen times over until the Hebrew word for "rope" gets turned into "camel," and then inexplicably the whole deal is replaced by consumer-frenzy dictated to us by a fat child-labor mogul in a fur-lined red suit, but rather of ourselves, the perfect self-defining nature of the universe, and of being proud of the human intellect.
I found this on LifeHacker. In the words of Jake Mandell, it's creator, it's a "quick online way to screen for tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability.", so it's made intentionally to be pretty difficult, but it's fun so give it a shot. All you have to do is listen to 36 pairs of musical phrases and hit one of two buttons: "same" or "different"....it's that easy. The test was created while Mandell was working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel in Boston.
I got an "exceptional performance" at 91.7% correct (and was surprised to see so). Good luck!
Today is "Evolution Day", and amazingly it has nothing to do with the David Duchovny / Julianne Moore / 7-Up Guy / Stiffler comedy classic. It is celebrated today because it is the anniversary of when Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" first came out back in 1859. This was of course the famous publication that outlined natural selection and an explanation of human evolution, the theory currently accepted by scientists and taught in science classes across the world.
There are, of course, other explanations of our origins, several of which are known as Creationism (that's a nice science-y sounding word). The most prominent of these use the most popular piece of literature in the world as a primary source of information: the Bible. There has been debate in some parts of the US as to which theory should be taught in schools, and though I am completely sold on the theory of evolution, I can see how those who believe otherwise would not want that taught to their children. In fact, in places like Georgia "alternative theories" to evolution are already being taught. Is there a conflict of interest here? Science is never fact, it is simply the best idea we have about things at the time (see "the world is flat" and "the earth is the center of the universe"). In the case of public schools in particular, is there a mixing of church and state?
Well, all of those issues aside, I thought it interesting that a Creation Museum is opening in 2007 in Cincinnati, Ohio, described as a "walk through history" that "will proclaim the Bible as supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice in every area it touches on" and "will counter evolutionary natural history museums that turn countless minds against Christ and Scripture." I wasn't sure what kind of exhibits this museum might have, so I went on the "virtual walk-through". I recommend you go and do the same; it gives some insight into what the purpose of this museum really is. Here are some of my favorite stops on the tour and their descriptions:
Stargazer's Room Peer back into the deepest recesses of the heavens, and discover that the latest images of the stars confirm an all powerful Creator, not a random bang!
Bible Authority Room The Bible is true. No doubt about it! Paul explains God's authoritative Word, and everyone who rejects His history-including six-day creation and Noah's Flood-is ‘willfully’ ignorant.
Ancient Babylon Witness the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel and the subsequent dispersion of peoples. Unravel the mystery of the origin of the so-called ‘races.’ Discover how the science of anthropology actually confirms the Bible’s history!
Creation Explore the wonders of creation. The imprint of the Creator is all around us. And the Bible’s clear—heaven and earth in six 24-hour days, earth before sun, birds before lizards. Other surprises are just around the corner. Adam and apes share the same birthday. The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all! God’s Word is true, or evolution is true. No millions of years. There’s no room for compromise.
Random bang? So-called 'races'? No room for compromise? If one thing is evident it is this: of all of the differences one may describe between science and religion, none seems more prominent than the fact the science allows for evolution, in more ways than one.
Directions: Remove your mouse from the image above. Focus on the black dot in middle of the image for twenty seconds. Keep focus on the dot while you move your mouse back over the image, and the image will appear to be in color. What's cool is that once you do move your eyes away from the dot, you see the picture for what it is: a black a white image.
So, how does it work?
This illusion forces your brain to see color in a black and white photo. It works by first saturating your visual memory with shade and line data, which occurs when you stare at the first picture for more than ten seconds or so. Upon flipping to the second picture, the spectral opposite of the original color data is imposed on the grey lines and shading of the photo.
If the illusions works, it will immediately begin to fade once you move your eyes. This is because a saccade, or a quick lateral eye movement, will effectively "clear" the visual memory buffer with the assumption that the eye is seeking a new pattern to focus on. Even though the visual memory buffer clears with a slight glance in any direction, you will still see a slight fading of illusory effect as the neurochemical saturation in your visual cortex fades.
That explanation was taken from an article at tripzine.com, which looks to be a site devoted to the study of all things scientifically psychedelic, so take it with a grain of salt (or whatever else floats your boat, I guess).
So here's one for all you algebra 1 buffs / students. Why does this "Flash Mind Reader" work? After being wowed a couple of times (or not), try to find a pattern in the numbers you end up with then an explaination and proof to solve it.
I put a solution in the comments, if you want to see if you are right (or you're just lazy).
I've always been interested and entertained by how our brain works, or more specifically how we use it to percieve things. There are of course physical pieces to the puzzle (eyes, ears, etc), but there are also the important ingredients of previous experience and memory. What we expect to see or hear sometimes (most of the time) influences what we think we do see or hear. The perennial examples of how to play on our perception are undoubtedly optical illusions.
Firstly, please check this out. This illusion is an interesting take on some older ideas. We've seen images that play on color before, but few that throw in actual, and not perceived, animation. The effect, in this case, is that of disappearing dots, and I do not doubt that it revolves around color theory and (I think) persistence of vision.
Here's another color-related favorite of mine. The brain here makes it difficult to ignore the words we are reading. I find it indicative of our evolved dependence on the written word. Think you can do it? Try moving quickly by the words; that seems to help.
Lastly, I'll throw out this one, one of my favorite examples of percieved animation:
Imagine a global society in the future where technology has advanced enough to produce a viable, universal translater. Everyone around the world can communicate with each other without having to learn any kind of new language thanks to two small implants, one that acts as a broadcaster and the other as a receiver. Whatever a person is saying gets transmitted out and then picked up by whomever is in earshot (which of course could span miles!) and subsequently translated into a language the person who is "listening" can understand. Sounds great, eh? What kinds of consequences could such a technology have?
In this futuristic society, the transmitting part of the technology depends on reading the muscular movements of the speaker alone, and no actual sound is required. Over time, as the popularity and availability of the implants increased, people became so dependant on them and got them at such an early age, the need for actually producing sounds diminished. Many people never even developed their vocal chords, as they never had any use for them in their life whatsoever. Communication had become almost strictly technological, and the transmitter could be easily fine-tuned to broadcast to a wider range, or even limited to an individual (their form of whispering)...even stereos and televisions (or, more appropriately, their future counterparts) transmitted sounds without sound in every language. Though none spoke, however, many people had become pretty good at whistling.
As strange as it sounds to us, this future world had an incredible international scene, thanks in no small part to the universal translator. Once people from different parts of the world could understand each other, a remarkable and unexpected thing happened: they resolved most differences and figured out how to get along. Commerce, technology, government, education, medicine, and the collective knowledge base of our planet increased exponentially. From the point of view of an alien, things seemed well in the world.
The domestic scene, however, was far from ideal. There developed a great rift between the haves and the have-nots, moreso than ever in history, due ironically to a lack of communication. Those who couldn't afford the implants were pushed lower and lower in class, until they were eventually shuffled under the rug by the powers that would be. As one may have predicted, it was only a matter of time before these surpressed peoples, or "talkies", as they were called, began to organize and revolt. They used crude weapons and guerilla strategies that revolved around high-pitched sounds, exploiting a weakness their enemy developed through sustained use of their "precious technology". Unfortunately, the universal translator did not speak Pissed Off Lower Class.
Well, as fantastic (and wildy fictional) as this may sound, the aforementioned technology is already making an appearance in a primitive form. Read on:
This raises questions about language, and (very) indirectly, about how one thinks. People have been in search of patterns to how we think about things for centuries; how far away from that are patterns to how we communicate with each other?
We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened....The little word "my" is the most important one in human affairs, and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the same force whether it is "my" dinner, "my" dog, and "my" house, or "my" father, "my" country, and "my" God. We not only resent the imputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of the canals on Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus", of the medicinal value of salicin, or of the date of Sargon I is subject to revision. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to it. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
Content found on The Neoteric is of no particular genre, topic, or focus, other than it was all at some point, in some way, interesting enough to me to write about.
I should start by saying I've never been a fan of college football. Check that: I like the actual football, but I can't stand the system by which the bowl games are "calculated". That's right, rankings.
