Linkstew

Just like the night before, last night when I should have been working on my Linguistics midterm, I was instead procrastinating like crazy. Here were the three most interesting things I read last night, amongst innumerable others.

• Unspooled, a sadly nostalgic article about the death of the cassette tape, with a moderate focus on the art of the mix tape.
• On, Off, or Asleep? an article about the interface of power buttons.
• Dan Shafer on Baseball in response to Dave Winer on Baseball. I thought both of these posts were insightful, and I may have something to say of my own on this subject by the time it's baseball season again. ;-)

As it turns out, I was so effective at procrastinating last night, that by the time I fell asleep, I'd only written an outline for two of the three questions, which left me with about 4 hours to write 3000 some odd words of prose today before the midterm was due. It came out well enough, considering the rush.

However, it occurred to me that I probably shouldn't listen to my favorite blood pumping music when I'm rushed and stressed out of my mind. Though the music succeeded in getting my adrenaline flowing, when I listen to it in the future, it will just increase my stress levels in memory of this morning, which probably isn't what I want some of my favorite music to do.

I think epilepsy is my favorite neurological disorder. Sure, there are things to be said for Broca's aphasia or prosopagnosia, but in they end they're only interesting in and of themselves.

Epilepsy, however, is my favorite, because attempts to treat epilepsy have led to so many amazing discoveries about the way the brain works. An attempt to treat HM by removing his hippocampus led to amazing discoveries about the role of the hippocampus in memory.

Attempts to treat epilepsy with a Corpus Callosotomy led to amazing discoveries about the independence of the brain's hemispheres.

And now, epilepsy treatments have led to a possible neurological basis for out of body experiences.

Besides, how could you not like a disorder that has so much in common with an orgasm? Er, and sneezing, if that happens to be your thing.

(Link and witty subject via Kevin.)

One of the classic questions of cognitive science is "Why do things look as they do?" Two opposing answers to this question are "Things look as they do because we are the way we are," and "Things look as they do because the world is the way it is."

On the one hand, things look as they do because the world is the way it is. Photons are emitted by light sources, bounce off of things, and into our eyes. The wavelengths of these photons determines the colors we perceive.

But on the other hand, things look as they do because we are the way we are. Any optical illusion is evidence of this, because in an optical illusion we perceive something that is contrary to what exists in the world.

The Cognitive Science classes I've taken here at Berkeley concede the necessity of environmental stimulus, but beyond that are pretty organism-centric. The phenomenon of optical illusions (among others) is taken as evidence that our experiences of the world are dependent on our biology.

But "because we are the way we are" always seemed to be missing something for me, and today I figured out what it was.

Why do things look as they do?

Because we are the way we are because the world is the way it is.

We see the colors we do because our eyes are visible to a specific wavelength of light. Why are our eyes sensitive to visible light instead of infrared? Because the majority of the light that reaches the surface of the earth is in that wavelength. Why does the wagon wheel illusion occur? Because the proximity heuristic used to help solve the motion correspondence problem was more accurate than other failed (and hence unknown) heuristics, which gave the organisms with those heuristics an advantage.

If our species had developed on a world where gravity behaved differently, or where other wavelengths of light predominated, we would be different organisms, and we would most likely experience the world differently. Our brains were shaped by the environment in which they developed, making our experiences just as much a product of our environment as they are a product of our biology.

(Please note that I am not talking about "nature versus nurture." That's a whole other can of worms that I'm not even going to get into.)

Heh, the silly things I think of while taking a final:

One Final, Two Final,
Red Final, Blue Final,
But only if you're a Synaesthetic.

Sheesh, last semeser I came up with a jokeless punchline, and this semester I come up with Dr. Suess does Cognitive Science. I suppose it's worth noting that Synaesthesia had nothing to do with my final as evidence of how ridiculous I am.

By the way, of particular interest on that linked Synaesthesia page is the use of stroop effects to prove the existance of synasthesia. That's so neat. I love CogSci. I want to do this sort of thing when I grow up.

On the bright side, I'm done with finals.

State Dependent Learning is a pretty well studied phenomena. But in addition to the effects of chemical states and moods described on the linked page, evidence has also been found that a person who studies in the same environment in which he or she is tested will perform better.

So here I am studying for this final and thinking about State Dependent Learning (which has nothing to do with network protocols, I assure you). I'm wired on caffeine right now, but that's not a problem, because I'll be equally wired on caffeine while I'm taking the test. Hell, I'll probably be consuming caffeine while taking the test. I figure I'm not going to be able to take the test in my bedroom, so I'm not going to be able to do anything about the location factor.

But what I'm really pondering is Music. Of course I've been listening to music while studying, but I certainly won't be able to listen to music while taking my final. Instead, when I'm taking tests, I always have some song or another that I hum to myself. Obviously, to be maximally effective, it should be a song I listened to a lot while studying.

So let's see what I've been listening to today:

• Amon Tobin - Bricolage
• Amon Tobin - Permutation
• Amon Tobin - Supermodified
• Lamb - Lamb
• Moby - Play
• Moby - Play: The B-Sides
• Moby - 18
• Radiohead - OK Computer
• Radiohead - The Bends
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Radiohead - Amnesiac

Most of these are conducive to my studying because they either have no lyrics or I can easily ignore the lyrics. In contrast, I cannot study to TMBG no matter how much I love them, simply because I get distracted by unignorable lyrics.

Heck, the song I had stuck in my head during Monday's final was Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box off of Amnesiac, so I should be in good shape to focus on a song I've been studying to during the final tomorrow.

Assuming, of course, I actually study instead of writing about studying.

I know there have been studies of the effect of music on learning, but I don't have time to look them up right now and see if they thought to investigate state dependent learning effects as part of those experiments. Did they test the performance of the subjects with and without music? Did they poll the subjects to see if they were thought about the music they studied to while they were being tested? These would all be interesting questions to know the answers to, and seem extremely important to any study of the effects of music on learning.

Once again, Professor Palmer delivers the quotable goods:

"Yeah, this is the sort of thing that's really fun to do when you're stoned."
-- Professor Palmer, on the counter rotating spirals illusion.

Necessary background information: 1. I've been telling the "Palmer A-ness" story to pretty much everyone I've run into today, just because I find it so funny. 2. My roommate tutors a boy at Berkeley High School.

So when I got home, I told my roommate the "Palmer A-ness" story, and after he finished laughing at it, he told me a related anecdote:

"Just the other day, I was talking to Fernando about AP Chemistry, and he said 'I dunno why I like AP Chemistry... I think it's just the... AP-ness of it.'"
-- my roommate

Ha! Ha-hah!

So I was sitting there half paying attention to Palmer's Vision lecture about shape recognition today, when he accidently, but very effectively, got my complete and undivided attention. This is probably one of the funniest things I've heard in lecture, like, ever.

"So the problem is determining what features describe A-ness."
::after a moment of silence, the class bursts into laughter::
"Oh. Sorry about that. Aren't you glad I wasn't trying to describe P?"
-- Steve Palmer and the class

But then, of course, he started discussing the possibilities of using "generalized cylinders" for describing shapes, and I just didn't stand a chance at keeping a straight face.

On Wednesday, I walked into my (Visual) Perception class and sat down by my friend Alert. And right at the end of the lecture, I realized that I was sitting right behind My Evil Twin. I clutched my fist, and shook it at the back of his head, and pointed him out to Alert.

And Alert said "I know. I sat down here for a reason."

So that makes 8 for 8, and the cycle is now complete. I also think that means that if I talk to him now, we'll implode. Or maybe the world will just end.

My bank account is so manic depressive. And I think it suffers from seasonal affective disorder, too.

This isn't helped by the fact that my roommate lost his checkbook and so paid rent last month in fifties... Which just means I haven't deposited it yet, because I don't want to use the ATM to deposit that much cash.

And worse, he paid this month's rent in twenties, and of course, Berkeley rent being what it is... Damn my wallet is fat now.

Um... Forget I said that. Please don't mug me.

It was windy, blowing my mom's little SUV around on the road more than I would have liked, especially considering that I'd only been awake for about five minutes. I pulled the wheel through a curve, and glanced in my rear view mirror, and a thought occurred to me.

"54 mph? What an odd speed limit... oh, stupid mirror."

But boy did I notice that funny speed limit. It penetrated my drowsiness, and distracted me from fighting the wind, and in general, did a very good job of catching my attention. Because it was different. Of course, if they tried to get people to notice all the "we really mean it" signs (Take this turn at 25 mph. we really mean it.) by making each of those signs unique, people would eventually become habituated to the uniqueness, defeating the purpose.

Stupid brain.

AI looked interesting, and so I saw it. I would have paid to see it, but I happened to see it for free, and that made it's flaws much easier for me to overlook. But for me to write this, I'm going to have spoil a few things -- so if you're planning on seeing the movie and don't want anything spoiled, then go see it: it's worth it, as long as you want a thoughtful movie.

The movie clocked in over two hours, but thanks to some really strange pacing, it actually seemed much longer. The movie has three distinct pieces, but the transitions between the pieces were a little weak, and the final piece felt really tacked on -- almost like an afterthought. The movie was a futuristic Pinnochio -- In fact, AI admits up front that it's carved from the same block of wood as Pinnochio, and it's almost too easy to map everything in AI to Pinnochio. But though it effectively told the story of Pinnochio, AI managed to offer a new perspective on what it is to be human just because the idea of David hits close to what your average viewer thinks is possible.

The dialogue was stilted in places, but the actors did their best with what they had. But for me, the dialogue was more than made up for by the amazing images and ideas that were the focus of the movie. Even now, thinking about David exploring a submerged Coney Island brings me a sense of wonder.

So what is it that I thought was so ridiculous about the movie right at the end? That David is (more or less) granted his wish because a mechanical Teddy Bear had picked up a lock of hair from the ground. This turned a glaring spotlight on many little bubbles that I'd overlooked earlier in the movie, and which generally left me irritated. Oh well.

I don't feel satisfied with what I've said here about this movie, because it's a complicated movie, and I haven't really talked about what the movie said, just how the movie said it... But I enjoyed the movie, and I wouldn't have minded paying to see it. For the last third of the movie, in that final sequence, the whole audience was fidgety, and some people were outright laughing at it. And when the last light went out, people burst into words -- "Worst movie I've seen in a long time" -- "Who wrote this thing?" -- "I wish I hadn't wasted my money on this" (Heh, if only he knew) -- and so on. And all of those negative opinions made me double check, to make sure that I actually had enjoyed it. And I had. It made me think. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it made me think. I wish more movies did that. 4/5.