Mon
Oct
26
More than anything else or bothering with the tedious arguments of pros and cons, I just don’t see why we’d slow our energy revolution investing in something that isn’t essentially free and clean energy, such as solar, wind, wave, etc. I just don’t get it.
Thu
Oct
22
I remember when I took social psych in college. On the first day of class the professor began by complaining about the old adage, “sociologists spend their lives demonstrating that which everyone already knows”. “Not true!” he argued. He then proceeded to list five or six facts and then asked everyone if they already knew that or if they figured it was intuitive. Everyone agreed that it was fairly obvious (aside from me, but I’ll save my bragging for another day), and the professor looked dismayed… until he told us that everything he mentioned was absolutely mistaken and, in fact, the opposite was true.
One of the best professors I ever had. I still remember him bringing in old episodes of candid camera for class on occasion. fun times. (Too bad he didn’t recognize me when I spotted him in the street not too long ago. I even yelled, “hey professor!”, but he seemed creeped out and just warily walked on by… unless I was an unknowing participant in his own experiment which, knowing him, is very possible.)
Anyways, that lesson he taught on the first day of class is really one of the lessons I best remember, and an article I saw today (here) reminded me of it.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, sometimes expressing doubt about one’s opinion will sell an item better. The study found that experts who expressed doubt about their opinion (and novices who expressed certainty in their opinion) were more persuasive.
So let’s stop bashing sociology and give it the credit it deserves already!
… even if it is just a “soft science” ; )
A few weeks ago I mentioned a study about a parasite that may have killed off the T-Rex (here). Today I saw (here) an article which proposes that toxic algea may have caused several of the mass extinctions.
As always, I’m fascinated by the idea that our greatest foe may have been microscopic. Classically, we’ve always associated size with danger, so it’s neat to see that perspective changing.
I’m also fascinated by the fact that we still aren’t sure what killed off the majority of the Earth’s inhabitants.. several times! Of course, it’s excusable, having occured millions of years ago. But still, prima facie, it’s a bit absurd. Imagine if Europe disappeared and no-one was really sure how it happened. That’s pretty much what it’s like.
p.s. here’s that War of the Worlds photo I owed you from last time.
A new article (here) details how scientists from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University have successfully created a super-smart-rat by over expressing a gene that helps neurons communicate longer with each-other as is normally found in juveniles as opposed to adults.
These rats were able to reason and remember approximately 3 times as intelligently as the normal breed of Long Evans rat (considered to be the most intelligent breed). (Sorry, I know psychologists and others studying theories of learning are grimacing at a statement like “3 times as intelligent”.)
The scientists hope that these findings will be applicable to humans as well and can help us to understand to treat illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s or mild dementia.
While the scientists urge some practical caution over assuming these results will automatically translate the same way for humans (after all, our intelligence is likely due to a variety of factors not involved in rats or at least not in this phenomenon), I’m still left wondering: How long till we create the Rats of NIMH!? (Seriously, that’ll be cool.)
p.s. See reference they make there to another article from last year in which scientists were able to successfully create and *erase* specific memories from rats. I remember being blown away when I had read about that at the time. (And disappointed that it didn’t get more media attention.)
p.p.s. Is anyone else getting the feeling that we’re finally opening up the “black box” of the “mind” and getting closer to an answer to the “hard problem”? I mean, creating intelligence, deleting memories, reading minds (I refer to the many fMRI studies. e.g. this), BCI, and even the oft unappreciated psychology revolution itself which, thanks to Freud, Adler, Skinner, and others, opened us up to a previously unknown universe itself - the universe of our mind and its workings. Considering the status the mind had enjoyed as an utter enigma for so long, we must really confess that we’re making excellent progress.
![ragbag:
[robo-facial recognition]
the fact that modern day photo programs like picasa and iphoto have the ability to recognise my face gives me the heebie-jeebies. i have tried to disguise myself by: growing a beautiful mustache, wearing XL hipster glasses, and shaving off my exquisite unibrow to no avail—picasa can still somehow distinguish between me and my many handsome associates. how far would i have to go to keep these systems from recognising me? furthermore, what is the threshold of abstraction for a face to still be understood as a face? enter scott mccloud and his graphical abstraction scale from understanding comics.
before i start presenting this groundbreaking chart at siggraph, i should note that the function of facial recognition in photo programs is to help catalogue your photo database, it is NOT for helping you organize your manga collection. thus neither iphoto’s literal view of the world or picasa’s high tolerance for icon is better than the other.
__
many many thanks to my taekwondo sparring partner for running this image through iphoto and reporting back the results in the scientific manner that this issue deserves.
Another novelty we take for granted: Facial recognition. It’s quite a feat that a computer to learn to distinguish a face - of all different types - from a random assortment of pixels. (How long till they start recognizing other things, like trees, houses, etc.?)
Which behooves - yes, behooves - us to marvel, once again, at our brains that are able to perform this feat easily. And not only humans, I might add. This ability is deeply rooted within us, which is why you often hear people say, “I’m better with faces than with names” (names being a rather new invention). In fact, some software creators are considering using a series of faces in place of a traditional password. (e.g. here, one program used by certain government offices.)
Though it does occasionally happen that someone loses the ability to recognize faces. Seriously. It’s called prosopagnosia (wiki). Some people may have heard of it from the book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”, which is one of the best non-fiction book titles I’ve ever seen in my life.](http://10.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_krx6rgRTzP1qzrip0o1_r1_500.png)
