First things first. Cheers to Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh. You engineered mind control in monkeys. New York Times article here, actual Nature paper (which if you can successfully read, you're pretty awesome) here. I agree with those who showed me this article (thanks Annie) that the possibilities for prosthetics now explode and amplify by infinity, give or take.
I'll give credit where credit is due, this makes Hilary seem awfully badass. Maker's Mark, impressive.
David Patterson, you also rock. I think my med school classmates should be pretty amped that he gave the commencement speech.
A recent Radio Lab made me think about Schrodinger's Cat, quantum mechanics, Heisenberg, and the Copenhagen interpretation. (Not think deeply, just think). You guys may have heard of the "wiggle experiment" that tells us that there is no free will (if not, here.) To me, this is kind of a dumb experiment because its asking you to be reactive to an unconscious cue. Better to measure some sort of response that is truly self-generated (so, not really a 'response' at all). But doesn't the setup itself (aka, an experiment, unless the subjects don't know they are the subjects) create responsiveness? I mean, you can't just put people in a room and watch them until they do something. I think they'd notice. Plus, sadly (actually not sadly) they wouldn't all do the same thing, which would make this data kind of difficult to plot. So to do this experiment on free will, we need to be able to monitor subjects (oh, and their brains activity with PET scans!) without soliciting any behavior from them. And the measured behavior needs to be consistent across all of the subjects. So, Jeff Morrow, figure this out.
Slate really killed it this week. Here are some of their awesome links.
1. Is the Wii Fit any good? (Rich, this one is for you). The verdict? Good for the morbidly obese, but not good if you have a resting heart rate under 100.
2. The normalization of oral sex. People preparing to have kids, have your panic attacks in advance.
3. Why Ken Griffey, Jr.'s rookie baseball card is so popular. Just an interesting read.
Finally, an awesome article from the Freakonomics blog on why fears about globalization are vastly overstated from a perspective of language homogeneity. Pretty cool huh? Franklin Foer would agree, though I guess he would be more pessimistic.
Oops, almost forgot about quick music reviews!!
Okkervil River - I think I'm following in my former roommate Joe Shin's footsteps and getting more into bands that aren't all 3-piece stomp. I enjoy Okkervil River's instrumental diversity. Download "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe"
Raconteurs - Ironically, this is currently my favorite album of the bunch, and it is basically 4-piece stomp, except that its got a more bluesy rock feel mostly because of Jack White's personal style. I think if I could play guitar like anyone (alive) it would be him. Check out "Consolers of the Lonely"
Silversun Pickups - a little late on this one. For some reason I didn't listen to them even though I heard "Well Thought Out Twinkles" on KEXP's podcast. Well, this album is great and diverse, and full of urgency. They're a little into that fuzzy guitar sound, but it makes things sound full, so what the heck. Check out "Future Foe Scenarios"
Tokyo Police Club - Well, this album basically sounds like their last album. But that's not so bad. They're good musicians and their stuff is pretty engaging. Kind of a half-hearted review I know, but there's not really that much to say. The album is good. Listen to "Sixties Remake"
No comments:
Post a Comment