A 'Bookish' Librarian, Art, Words, and a Rambling Lemming

Giuseppe Arcimboldo's The Librarian, painted in 1566, currently residing at Skokloster Castle, Sweden.

If artists paint what they see, Giuseppe was deranged; which has little to do with "Home on the Range;" although spending too much time where the antelope roam might.

On the other hand, maybe his paintings are incisive social commentary; or clever puzzles; or maybe he was essentially not in madness, But mad in craft. Bill had a knack with words: like when Hamlet said "unpack my heart with words," and it's funny how unpack sounds like knack, except that first k is silent, and the Lemming's train of thought jumped the track, which also rhymes with knack.

Which reminded the Lemming that Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted a quartet of seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, except they came about ten years apart: the first two and the last two, that is; and October is in autumn, followed by November and December, which got those names because they're the eighth, ninth, and tenth month; but that was when Romans only had ten months in a year, since winter didn't count. Sort of.

That was a long time ago, or maybe not so much. It depends on your frame of reference, and the Lemming definitely needs sleep.

Allegedly-related posts:

• "From the Mind of the Lemming"
  (January 6, 2012)
• "Gingerbread, Fruitcake, and Eggnog Nightmare #2"
  (December 23, 2011)
• "Museum of Modern Art: MoMA isn't a Japanese Cartoon Character"
  (December 7, 2011)
• "Color Theory, Color Wheels, and a Nifty Bracelet"
  (October 12, 2011)
• "Alexander Calder, Mobiles, and Encouraging the Kids"
  (July 22, 2011)

Turing Tests, Subcognitive Low-Level Association, and Perambulators

Today is Friday the 13th, which has very little to do with artificial intelligence, Turing tests, or the number 11:

• "Lemming Tracks: Triskaidekaphobia and a Rambling Lemming"
  (January 13, 2012)
• "Eleven; and Why is Six Afraid of Seven?"
  (November 11, 2011)

Computers That Think: Just Around the Corner (Again)

"Artificial Intelligence Could Be on Brink of Passing Turing Test"
Brandon Keim, Wired Science (April 12, 2012)

"One hundred years after Alan Turing was born, his eponymous test remains an elusive benchmark for artificial intelligence. Now, for the first time in decades, it's possible to imagine a machine making the grade.

"Turing was one of the 20th century's great mathematicians, a conceptual architect of modern computing whose codebreaking played a decisive part in World War II. His test, described in a seminal dawn-of-the-computer-age paper, was deceptively simple: If a machine could pass for human in conversation, the machine could be considered intelligent.

"Artificial intelligences are now ubiquitous, from GPS navigation systems and Google algorithms to automated customer service and Apple's Siri, to say nothing of Deep Blue and Watson - but no machine has met Turing's standard. The quest to do so, however, and the lines of research inspired by the general challenge of modeling human thought, have profoundly influenced both computer and cognitive science.

"There is reason to believe that code kernels for the first Turing-intelligent machine have already been written...."

Artificial intelligence, the sort exhibited by C3PO and HAL 9000, has been 'just around the corner' for decades. So far, what's been achieved is the release of several movies; and some robots. The robots are, sometimes, useful. But "intelligent?" Not so much.

• "Meet Fenway the Robot, Hospital Helper"
  (September 21, 2010)
• "HAL 9000, Skynet, and C3PO"
  (January 26, 2010)
• "Robovie-II and Robovie-IV: Robot Assistants for Store and Office"
  (January 7, 2010)

Part of that may have to do with how computers and the human brain are designed. Not the hardware: the functional parameters of the systems.

• Computers
  • Get correct answers
    • Based on vast quantities of data
      • All of which is precisely correct
• Human brains
  • Get correct answers
    • Based on very little data
      • Most of which is wrong

There's a bit of Murphy's Law in that joke. Besides, human beings process large amounts of data on the fly, without being aware of the process: as folks who started designing robots that can sense their environment discovered.

The point is that so far, artificial intelligence has been very good at doing rapid calculations that involve accurate data. Humans have survived because they're pretty good at sorting out relevant information from the deluge of data fragments pouring into the brain.

Back to that Wired article.

Subcognitive Low-Level Association, Dental Hygiene, and Perambulators

"...'Two revolutionary advances in information technology may bring the Turing test out of retirement,' wrote Robert French, a cognitive scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, in an Apr. 12 Science essay. 'The first is the ready availability of vast amounts of raw data - from video feeds to complete sound environments, and from casual conversations to technical documents on every conceivable subject. The second is the advent of sophisticated techniques for collecting, organizing, and processing this rich collection of data.'

" 'Is it possible to recreate something similar to the subcognitive low-level association network that we have? That's experiencing largely what we're experiencing? Would that be so impossible?' French said...."

"...The human mind was thought to be logical. Computers run logical commands. Therefore our brains should be computable. Computer scientists thought that within a decade, maybe two, a person engaged in dialogue with two hidden conversants, one computer and one human, would be unable to reliably tell them apart.

"That simplistic idea proved ill-founded. Cognition is far more complicated than mid-20th century computer scientists or psychologists had imagined, and logic was woefully insufficient in describing our thoughts. Appearing human turned out to be an insurmountably difficult task, drawing on previously unappreciated human abilities to integrate disparate pieces of information in a fast-changing environment...."
(Brandon Keim, Wired)

The Lemming isn't sure that it's accurate to say that the human brain isn't "logical" because it doesn't operate the way that an Intel chip does. It sounds like saying that calculus isn't mathematics because it works differently from high school algebra. But the Lemming also thinks that parameter sounds like perambulator, and some calculus has more to do with dental hygiene than integrating functions. And that's another topic. Topics.

Good Question

"...He [Robert French] continued, 'Assume also that the software exists to catalog, analyze, correlate, and cross-link everything in this sea of data. These data and the capacity to analyze them appropriately could allow a machine to answer heretofore computer-unanswerable questions' and even pass a Turing test...."
(Brandon Keim, Wired)

Okay, let's assume that. An ideal set of software, loaded into an ideal computer, run by an ideal operating system, could - ideally - slice and dice a whole bunch of data. Really fast.

And, ideally, after lots and lots of data-crunching, this system could pass a Turing Test.

Maybe French is right, and real-world equivalents of C3PO are just around the corner. That would be - very impressive.

And, from the Lemming's point of view, very surprising. Making the jump from writing a sentence that human brains will process and put in the 'this might work' category is one thing.

Getting real software and hardware to process data, and successfully imitate what human brains do? That, so far, has been a fascinating and rewarding occupation.

But we still haven't seen an AI that can pass a Turing test. Some chatbots get pretty close to emulating the responses of a sleep-deprived, hung-over, heavily-caffeinated college student: and that's yet another topic.

Impossible! Or, Not

Does the Lemming think that AI will become intelligent? Briefly:

• Yes
• No
• It depends

A lot depends on what's meant by "intelligent." For quite a while, at least some folks figured that being "intelligent" meant being able to memorize enormous amounts of information, and recite it accurately. Which would make the Lemming's camcorder very intelligent.

A somewhat more sophisticated version of that assumption was that being "intelligent" meant being able to memorize lots of information, and use bits and pieces of it in appropriate ways. That's probably why authors often used playing chess as a way to say 'this character is really smart.'

Then Deep Blue turned out to be a better chess player than some human. The Wired article mentions that AI.

The point is that definitions of "intelligence" have shifted, as folks have realized that an overclocked abacus can out-memorize any human being.

What we don't have, yet, is an AI that can successfully handle large amounts of fuzzy facts; find patterns that are vaguely similar to previous experiences; reject the patterns that are silly; and come up with a shifting short list of patterns that might - or might not - apply in the current situation.

The Lemming thinks that an AI that's able to pass a Turning test might be possible: but it may require a new sort of logic. We've had this sort of thing happen before, sort of. Newton (or Leibniz, or Madhava of Sangamagrama, or somebody else) pulled calculus out of his head, when he needed a mathematical tool that didn't exist yet.

We know that it's possible for a data-processing system to act the way human beings do. Human brains do it all the time. The trick, in the Lemming's opinion, will be learning just how human brains pass Turing tests; developing a system to represent the process in an abstract way; and then developing languages and hardware to process data using that system.

That's a whole lot of developing.

Along the way, though, folks are likely to learn quite a lot about how human beings think, and how the human brain works. And, occasionally, doesn't work.

And those are - what else? more topics.

Related (sort of) posts:

• "The Lemming Meets Cleverbot"
  (January 27, 2012)
• "Nine Decades of Robots Turning on Their Masters"
  (January 25, 2011)
• "Asimov's 3 Laws, Real Robots, and Common Sense"
  (August 20, 2009)
• "Memristor: Cool New Technology from HP Labs"
  (April 30, 2008)
• "C3PO Will Have to Wait: Artificial Intelligence Today"
  (February 9, 2008)

Lemming Tracks: Designing Better Street Lighting

"Overexposed"
Charles Linn, FAIA, Architect Magazine (March 1, 2012)
"A newfound appreciation for dark skies, a model lighting ordinance, and LEDs may help maintain night vision by reducing outdoor illumination levels.
Lemming Tracks: Designing Better Street Lighting
"In cities around the world, telling a child, 'I used to see stars from my backyard,' may soon sound as credible as, 'I used to walk 10 miles to school in 6-foot-high snowdrifts uphill in both directions.' Sky glow, light pollution, and light trespass are the consequences of development and outgrowth in urban and rural landscapes. The damage isn't merely aesthetic. Research suggests that excess night light can harm nearly everything living under the sun. The offender may be as simple as stadium lights fatally mistaken by fledgling birds for the moon, or the neighbor's porch light that beams into your bedroom, resulting in fatigue and diminished productivity...."

What the Lemming noticed second about this article was the long paragraphs. If this wasn't written for and published in an ink-and-paper magazine, and then posted: It's the Lemming's guess that it was written by someone who learned the craft before the Information Age started.

So did the Lemming: and that's another topic.

The first thing the Lemming noticed was that this is another 'light pollution' article. These have been popping up at intervals for years. Some make sense, some tell more about the author than the subject, a few make good points.

This one, in the Lemming's opinion, makes sense. And makes good points.

Another trio of massive paragraphs, then the Lemming will opine.

Gigawatt-Hours, IDA, and Tradeoffs

"...The amount of energy and money expended to illuminate what is essentially water vapor and floating particulates in our atmosphere is not trivial. According a 2009 document published by the nonprofit International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the U.S. expends 22,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity—the equivalent of 3.6 million tons of coal—each year in light pollution. At the rate of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, this energy translates to $2.2 billion annually....

"...In the past half-century, the light source of choice for streets and parking lots was high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, which included mercury vapor and low-pressure sodium lamps, but mostly the ubiquitous yellow-orange high-pressure sodium (HPS)....

"...It is difficult to design optics that can control stray uplight and glare without significant tradeoffs in luminaire efficiency. Despite their notoriously poor color rendering, HPS lamps are inexpensive, can last up to 24,000 hours, and output a lot of light initially; the output declines as they age. In the last 30 years, the use of metal halide, an HID source that produces whiter light than HPS, has increased, but HPS still dominates...."

This article gets points for discussing the technologies involved in outdoor lighting, the legal and regulatory situations: and, particularly, the awkward economic decisions folks need to make.

Is sky glow a real problem? Even though the Lemming's read some angst-filled articles about frightfully vital wildlife, and slightly-restrained rants by amateur astronomers who can't see through the haze overhead: yes, the Lemming thinks there's a real problem here.

Maybe not on the 'and we're all gonna die' level: but it does look like human beings are designed with 24-hour lighting cycle in mind: one where the lights are out for several hours each night. Humans are adaptable critters, and can survive bright light 24-7: but they do seem to thrive better with regular darkness.

Amateur Astronomers and the Asteroid Patrol

At the risk of being overly dramatic, the Lemming thinks it's prudent to recall that the bit of debris that upset the dinosaur's world wasn't alone.

Amateur astronomers often are the first to notice some new bit of cosmic stuff swinging by Earth's neighborhood. Most new asteroids and comets don't come particularly close to this planet. A few do.

And, every once in a while, one of their orbits gets them up close and personal with Earth. When that happens, something like the Tunguska event happens.

So far, humans have been lucky. The explosions haven't happened near cities. Of course, there are a few ancient civilizations that simply stopped being there: and that's probably another topic.

Right now, there's a chance that an amateur astronomer would notice something big enough to make an inconvenient gap in, say the eastern seaboard. Before it got so close that everybody could see it. For a few seconds, anyway.

Here is where 'light pollution,' sky glow, whatever comes in. All amateur astronomers that the Lemming knows about are on Earth. If the sky gets so bright at night that they can't 'see out:' well, we could lose more than some really good science.

Enough said.

On the 'up' side, quite a few folks have been working at finding practical solutions to bright city skies.

Allegedly-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: Toxic Light Bulbs For a Brighter Future"
  (January 16, 2012)
• "Bright Lights of Broadway: On Another Planet?"
  (November 7, 2011)
• "IceCube Neutrino Observatory: Again"
  (December 28, 2010)
• "Ben Franklin and Daylight Saving Time: Even Homer Nods"
  (November 7, 2010)
• "Big Impact on Jupiter: Astronomers' Field Day"
  (July 21, 2009)

QWERTY, Keyboards, Fluency, and Feelings

"The QWERTY Effect: How Typing May Shape the Meaning of Words"
Dave Mosher, Wired Science, Wired (March 7, 2012)

"A keyboard's arrangement could have a small but significant impact on how we perceive the meaning of words we type.

"Specifically, the QWERTY keyboard may gradually attach more positive meanings to words with more letters located on the right side of the layout (everything to the right of T, G and B).

" 'We know how a word is spoken can affect its meaning. So can how it's typed,' said cognitive scientist Kyle Jasmin of the University of College London, co-author of a study about the so-called 'QWERTY effect' in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 'As we filter language, hundreds or thousands of words, through our fingers, we seem to be connecting the meanings of the words with the physical way they're typed on the keyboard.'..."

Basically, what's on the right side of the keyboard tends to be easier to type than what's on the left - and folks tend to react better when something's easy.

Basically. There's a detailed explanation in:

• "The QWERTY Effect: How
  typing shapes the meanings of words"
  Kyle Jasmin & Daniel Casasanto (2012)

By page two, you'll be reading things like "...analyzed valence-normed words from three corpora...." Jasmin & Casasanto don't crank up the fog factor in an egregious to emulate erudition, unlike some academic stuff the Lemming's had to read: but some of what they discuss is a trifle technical.

Why "QWERTY?"

"...The QWERTY layout dates back to 1868. Until then, typewriters frequently jammed because some letters sat too close to one other on the keyboard. When typed in rapid succession, they sometimes stuck together.

"In response, inventors created the QWERTY layout and sold it to the Remington company. The layout has stuck ever since, and with the transition from typewriters to personal computers, it became ubiquitous...."

You'll find pretty much the same thing in Jasmin & Casasanto's paper.

Dvorak keyboards were all the rage a few years back. Maybe you use one. That keyboard arrangement makes sense - also from an ergonomic viewpoint - for folks who use today's non-mechanical gadgets with keyboards. And who feel like taking time to learn a new keyboard layout.

The Lemming uses the same sort of QWERTY keyboard that just about everybody else in the English-speaking world does - and that's another topic.

Bad News for Leszczynska

"...Jasmin and his colleague Daniel Casasanto, a social psychologist at the New School for Social Research, knew from previous research that the difficulty of using an object affected how positively or negatively people viewed it.

"The effect is called fluency, and it even seems to affect abstractions such as people's names. The more difficult it is to pronounce a person's name, for example, the less positively we might view that person...."

That could be bad news for a brilliant young attorney whose name is Jarizleifr Leszczynska. If he wants to get ahead in the firm of Johnson, Smith, and Roberts: well, that's another topic. Topics.

Chirality!

"Chirality?!" That means:

• "property of non-surimposable entities (for example, the right hand and the left hand)"
  (Glossary, PCAS)

Turns out, words with lots of letters on the right side of a QWERTY keyboard tend to be seen more positively than others. Particularly newer words, coined since QWERTY started being widely used.

Which brings up more questions:

1. Do folks who are left-handed react more positively to 'left-handed' words?
2. Is there a sinister bias involved?
3. Are kung fu fighting invisible ninjas behind it?

For what it's worth, the Lemming thinks:

1. That's a good question
2. Depends on what's meant by
   • Sinister
   • Bias
3. Not likely
   • At all

A tip of the hat to Brian Clark, copyblogger, on Twitter.

Slightly-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: "password" As a Password?!"
  (November 21, 2011)
• "A Touching Bit of Research: Tactile Sense and Decision-Making"
  (June 28, 2010)
• "Strange New Keyboards"
  (March 18, 2009)
• "Determined to Do Dvorak? Remap Details Discussed"
  (December 10, 2007)
• "Dvorak Keyboard: Great Idea!"
  (December 10, 2007)

Hoarding is Not the Name of an American President

It's the day after Christmas, the season when comic strips to 'last year's Christmas tree' gags, some folks tidy up the house in preparation for a New Year's Eve party, and a few add another layer to a growing layer of debris in their home.

Hoarding, not to be confused with Warren G. Harding, is no joke. It's also a perennial favorite topic for folks who make documentaries. Here's what got the Lemming started with this post:

It's Not the Mice, It's Not the Poop: It's the Hantavirus

"Hoarding: Deadly Mice Dangers"
HowStuffWorks Videos "Compulsive Hoarders Videos," The Learning Channel
video (2:02)

The playlist has three more videos:

• Hoarding: Hoarding Denial
  (01:48)
• Hoarding: No Space for a Shower
  (01:23)
• Hoarding: Stacks Up to the Ceiling
  (02:00)
  

Letting so much clutter collect isn't a good idea.

Hoarding is Not Collecting

"Hoarding"
"Definition"
Mayo Clinic staff, MayoClinic.com

"Hoarding

"Hoarding is the excessive collection of items, along with the inability to discard them. Hoarding often creates such cramped living conditions that homes may be filled to capacity, with only narrow pathways winding through stacks of clutter. Some people also collect animals, keeping dozens or hundreds of pets often in unsanitary conditions.

"Hoarding, also called compulsive hoarding and compulsive hoarding syndrome, may be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). But many people who hoard don't have other OCD-related symptoms.

"People who hoard often don't see it as a problem, making treatment challenging. But intensive treatment can help people who hoard understand their compulsions and live safer, more enjoyable lives."

There's more at the MayoClinic.com website, starting with "Symptoms," and "Causes" (basically, 'we don't know'). Later, there's a long 'to do' list under "Preparing for your appointment." The bottom line is that hoarding is a problem: and a person can do something about it.

By the way, the Lemming was glad to see that MayoClinic.com said, "hoarding is not collecting," and described the differences. The Lemming is a bit of a packrat collector. Despite what some disciples of Martha Stewart may believe, obsessively throwing out anything more than a year old isn't necessarily a sign of good taste.

And that's another topic.

Somewhat-related posts:

• " 'It's Okay to Ask For Help!' - a Look at Suicide"
  (January 20, 2011)
• "A Touching Bit of Research: Tactile Sense and Decision-Making"
  (June 28, 2010)
• "Another Face Transplant: News, Video, and Opinion"
  (April 25, 2010)
• "Music, Language, and Workarounds for (Some) Stroke Victims"
  (March 11, 2010)
• "Have a Paranoid Valentine's Day?"
  (February 14, 2010)

More:

• "Hoarding"
  MayoClinic.com

Dorodango!

"Hikaru Dorodango - Making Japanese Polished Dirt Balls
relache, Hub Pages

"The Art of Polished Dirt Balls"

"Proving they really do have an art for just about anything you can imagine, the Japanese have perfected the art of making hand-polished dirt balls. Steady, patient, manual compression is all that it takes to make these simple, smooth forms.

"Think of it as the Zen of Dirt...."

The Lemming is not making that up. There are photos and a how-2 on the page. Looks like an absorbing pastime. And probably good for developing patience. Or tolerance for tedium, at any rate. Which is also useful.

More:

"泥だんご"
Kayo, Fumio, kyokyo-u.ac.jp

"Dorodango"

This how-2 is available in Japanese, German - and, happily for the Lemming, English.

Dorodango was featured on a Mythbusters episode aired today on a cable channel here in central Minnesota: and it looks like, as the Lemming said before, a good way to develop patience. And/or tolerance for repetitive tasks. And yes: dirt can be made to shine. It takes time, though. And a whole lot of manual work.

The Lemming might try it - but vast tracts of time are not something that exist in plentiful supply. Besides, the sort of research the Lemming does for these posts serves much the same purpose.

A sort-of-related post:

• "When Your Mind Wanders: Do You Worry That it Won't Come Back?"
  (November 12, 2010)

'It's Okay to Ask For Help!' - a Look at Suicide

First a post about leeches, now this. The Lemming really should lighten up.

First, though, there's this:

"'It's OK to ask for help!' School adopts suicide prevention program"
Carol Moorman Staff writer, Sauk Centre Herald (date unknown: after December 1997)

"It's OK to ask for help!

"This was the message Rachel Schott and Darren Reed left with Sauk Centre Junior High students Tuesday morning during a presentation on the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program, an outreach program of the Light for Life Foundation of MN. Students were given Yellow Ribbon Ask-4Help Cards which reminds the carrier it's OK to ask for help.

" 'This card will speak for you when you don't have the words,' said Schott.

"She explained the card is a tool pointing out three things a person who receives the card should do.

• Stay with the person. You are their lifeline
• Listen, really listen
• Take them seriously
• Get or call help immediately

The card also gives the recipient instructions on how to help and where to call. 24-hour toll free crisis lines include the Listening Ears at 1-800-854-9001; Central MN Crisis Line at 1-800-635-8008 and National Crisis Line at 1-800-SUICIDE...."

PLEASE NOTE: The crisis hot line numbers are from a central Minnesota newspaper article that's probably about 10 years old. The Lemming confirmed that the numbers are listed in county websites: but they are quite likely strictly regional. The national 800 number should still work - at least in the United States.

Another thing: Those numbers aren't the only places to find help.

Sadly, people do sometimes kill themselves. And it's not always someone else.

This is another serious post - the Lemming seems to be a tad grim today. That Sauk Centre Herald article came when the Lemming was doing research for a post in another blog. The advice seemed sensible, the phone numbers checked out: and the Lemming has a personal interest in suicide.

More about that after these related posts:

• "Looks Like Suicide Really isn't the Smart Choice"
  (June 4, 2010)
• "David Carradine 1936-2009: What if It's Suicide?"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (June 4, 2009)
• "The Catholic Church Won't Even Let People Kill Themselves"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 28, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Suicide and the Catholic Church
    • We're told
      • It's a bad idea
      • We shouldn't do it
  • Killing Myself Only Affects Me?
    • Not unless you're the last person left in the universe
      • Even then - but that's another topic
  • Catholic Teachings on Suicide Don't Take Today's Science Into Account?
    • Not true
      • If you assume that psychology is a science
• "Blue-Colored Streetlights Reduce Crime, Suicide?!"
  (December 17, 2008)

The Lemming writes that other blog, A Catholic Citizen in America. I'm a practicing Catholic - which gives me a somewhat counter-cultural view of suicide.

Responding to a comment made on the January 28, 2009 post. I replied, in part: "...I was diagnosed with major depression recently, and am no[w] on medication. Thank God, I was able to deal with suicidal impulses. I can understand, from the inside, how someone might not...."

Then there was the time a woman who meant a great deal to me killed herself. I sympathize with folks who feel like life isn't worth living. I also sympathize for folks caught in the backwash of suicide. Like the fellow said, we aren't islands. (No, Joan Baez didn't write that - it was a dude named John Donne, about four centuries back now.)

And since the Lemming seems to be on an autobiographical kick, here's more about medication and me:

• "Brilliant, Talented, and On Medication"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (November 30, 2010)
• "ADHD, an Apostolic Exhortation, Another Document, and V8"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (November 11, 2010)
• "Medication for Depression? Yeah: The Catholic Church is Okay With That"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 25, 2010)

As I see it, asort of bottom line, about what I've of Catholic teachings and life is: "we're called to holiness, not stupidity." (A Catholic Citizen in America (May 19, 2010)

---

About a close call for a hotline number:

• "FCC rescues 1-800-SUICIDE"
  Matthew Lasar, Telcom, ars technica (October 19, 2009)

When Your Mind Wanders: Do You Worry That it Won't Come Back?

"People spend 'half their waking hours daydreaming' "
BBC (November 12, 2010)

"People spend nearly half of their waking hours not thinking about what they are actually doing, according to a US study conducted via the iPhone.

"More than 2,200 volunteers downloaded an app which then surveyed them about their thoughts and mood at random times of day and night.

"The Science study suggested minds wander, even from demanding tasks, at least 30% of the time.

"A UK expert said other studies confirmed people are easily distracted.

"The iPhone was a novel research tool for researchers at Harvard University...."

You've probably read about this somewhere else today: the news seems to be pretty big in the English-speaking world.

Here's what probably makes it so interesting. Not the nuts-and-bolts of the test procedures, what comes after that:

"...While their study sample was composed entirely of people who owned the device, and were prepared to download and be disturbed by an app of this kind, the researchers said it provides an insight into how our minds can wander during the day.

"After gathering 250,000 survey results, the Harvard team concluded that this group of people spent 46.9% of their time awake with their minds wandering.

"Dr Matthew Killingsworth, one of the researchers, said: 'Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities.

" 'This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present.'

"Happiness

"In addition, the survey data on happiness appeared to show a modest connection between the degree of mind-wandering and the level of happiness.

"People who were most distracted away from the task in hand were more likely to report feelings of unhappiness.

"Reports of happiness were most likely among those exercising, having a conversation or making love, whereas unhappiness was reported most while people were resting, working, or using computers.

"Dr Killingsworth said: 'Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness.'..."

Killingsworth could be right. The Lemming's mind wanders quite a bit. And I've been diagnosed with major depression. And my mind wanders. A lot. Which shouldn't be surprising, since more recently I've been diagnosed with ADHD-inattentive.

Four-plus decades of undiagnosed ADHD might have something to do with major depression, or maybe it's the other way around. The Lemming's guess is that both have something to do with each other and could very well have a common cause. Which isn't the same as being part of an American nonprofit outfit that isn't political at all according to them. Sort of, although "nonpartisan" and "apolitical" aren't the same as being a politico.

Oops. The Lemming's mind wandered again. Time to haul in the leash.

Wandering Minds and the BBC

I'll get back to wandering minds and the BBC right after this. I've written about ADHD, major depression, and me in another blog. These posts should give a pretty good background on the subject. (I'm not trying to 'make' you read these posts - like I could. Deciding whether or not to follow these links is strictly up to you.)

• "ADHD, an Apostolic Exhortation, Another Document, and V8"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (November 11, 2010)
• "Original Sin, Free Will, ADD, and There Goes the Air Conditioner"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (October 15, 2010)
• "Aspergers, Meditation, Tolerance and a Loud Pump"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (September 3, 2010)
• "Medication for Depression? Yeah: The Catholic Church is Okay With That"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 25, 2010)

As the name of that other blog suggests, I'm one of those people. You have been warned.

Let's see. Mind-wandering research. Happiness. The BBC. An interesting correlation.

Conclusions, Assumptions, and 'More Research!'

In the words of Uncle, in Jackie Chan Adventures, the Lemming thinks Dr. Killingsworth's findings call for "MO-O-ORE RESEARCH!"

For starters, the population studies were folks who had iPhones. That's a good way to stay in touch with folks 24-7, but it also limits - as noted - the study to folks who have decided to get fairly up-to-date information technology. And are willing to participate in a fairly intrusive psych study.

Maybe the results of this test show that folks who are prone to wandering minds are less happy: if they've got iPhones.

Or that folks who own information technology are more likely to be happy, if they're the sort whose minds plod along in the same rut, day in and day out, no matter what opportunities for other experiences are available.

There have been times when the Lemming could have used that tendency to focus exclusively on whatever's in front of a person's head at the moment. It helps when studying for tests, or chopping beets. The Lemming had a job chopping beets, once. I wasn't very good at the job - and have a scar to prove it.

Back to that research - which the Lemming thinks calls for more research.

It's interesting - but hardly, in my opinion, conclusive. It's like Uncle said.

Lemming Tracks: 'Voting Our Way = Ice Cream'

The basic idea is okay: giving students an idea of what voting was like.

How that idea was executed? Well, the Lemming has discussed "apathy" before.

"Lawsuit: CPS pushing Democrats"
OH Courts, Cincinnati.com (October 18, 2010)

"Three van loads of Hughes High students were taken last week – during school hours – to vote and given sample ballots only for Democratic candidates and then taken for ice cream, a Monday lawsuit alleges.

"The complaint was made by Thomas Brinkman Jr., a Republican candidate for Hamilton County auditor, and the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes against Cincinnati Public Schools.

" 'They plan to bring four more high schools (to vote) this week,' Christopher Finney, COAST attorney, said Monday after filing the suit.

"It seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent school officials from participating or helping students participate in partisan politics during school hours or with school property or employees involved.

"But the school district's lawyer denies any school connection.

" 'No CPS personnel engaged in the promotion of candidates or any political party, CPS attorney Mark Stepaniak noted in a written release.

"CPS spokeswoman Janet Walsh said taking students on school time to vote has been done before. 'It has to be scrupulously nonpartisan,' Walsh said...."

Given the sort of Monty Python logic the Lemming has come to expect from American courts, Cincinnati's government schools may very well win this one.

Particularly if the ballots just happen to be destroyed, and someone speaks with the students and their parents about graduation requirements. No evidence? No testimony? No conviction.

Is it unthinkable: that a school system, or some folks in the system, would destroy evidence and threaten witnesses? The Lemming would like to think so.

But then, the Lemming would like to think that 'religious freedom' day wouldn't be celebrated by banning Bibles. (A Catholic Citizen in America (July 1, 2010))

We live in interesting times.

Rewarding Desired Behavior: That's Smart

The idea of associating ice cream with voting, though: that's smart. And makes sense. Providing some sort of treat after a child has performed action is a way to reinforce desired behavior. Parents used that sort of practical psychology for a very long time. Up to around 50 years ago. What's fashionable in child-rearing now, in America, the Lemming doesn't know.

'Non Partisan,' 'Educational,' and Voting With Your Feet

This sort of 'non-partisan,' 'educational' activity is one reason why this family home schooled (and are home-schooling, in one case) our kids in graded 7 through 12. Their choice, by the way.

Posts touching on American education:

• "Beaten High Schooler to be Home Schooled"
  (April 9, 2008)
• "School District Celebrates Religious Freedom Day: By Banning Bibles"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (July 1, 2010)
• "Home Schooling: Students Miss the 'Socialization' "
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 28, 2010)
• "Home Schooling: It May Not be What You Think"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 20, 2010)
• "Police Handcuff Dangerous Student! School Protected From Erasable Marker!"
  (April 6, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Home Schooling isn't What You May Think"
  (March 31, 2010)
• "Home Schooling, Religious and Moral Instruction, and American Culture"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 6, 2010)
  Particularly
  NOT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE DOLTS

Gliese 581g, Space Aliens, and the Canals of Mars

"Claim of Alien Signal from Planet Gliese 581g Called 'Very Suspicious' "
Denise Chow, Space.com (October 11, 2010)

"The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.

"Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail online. [Alien Planet Gliese581g: FAQ]

"Bhathal is a member of the Australian chapter of SETI, a non-profit scientific organization that is dedicated to research, exploration and education in the field of astrobiology. ..."

So far it's like that stock situation in old-school science fiction: brilliant scientist discovers new planet/alien menace/mutant mouthwash; tries to warn others; is ridiculed by scientists who aren't as handsome as he is; is vindicated in the final reel.

Think Jor-El and the Kryptonian Science Council.

That can make a pretty good story.

In this case though, I think we're looking at something a bit more like the canals of Mars. Back to that Space.com article:

"...'Whenever there's a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects,' Bhathal told the Daily Mail. 'Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal. We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we're looking for – a very sharp spike. And that is what we found.'

"Still, there are some scientists who are skeptical of Bhathal's assertion.

" 'I know the scientist, and when he first announced it, I asked him for the details, and he wouldn't send them to me,' astronomer and SETI pioneer Frank Drake told SPACE.com. 'I'm very suspicious.'..."

Scientists, when they've got something really hot to share with others: generally share it. Moderately hard evidence of space aliens signaling us from a planet that was discovered just last month? That's hot.

Or would be, if the evidence exists.

Rainbow Acres, Percival Lowell and Barsoom

There are three (at least) reasons why something that doesn't really exist may be presented as if it's real.

Honest Mistake

The Lemming's mentioned Percival Lowell before. He's the astronomer who says he saw "canals" on Mars. He probably did: or, rather, thought he did. There's a bit of a story behind that. (March 14, 2009)

Opticians, psychologists, and others have written quite a bit about just what they think Lowell really did see. But when we started sending spaceship to Mars, the canals weren't there.

The Lemming thinks that Lowell really did think that he saw "canals" - helped along by a bad translation of an Italian astronomer's observations. And less-than-stellar viewing conditions. He lived before adaptive optics and orbiting observatories.

Writing Fiction

Then there's Barsoom: Edgar Rice Burroughs' setting. That was a fictional Mars, and Burroughs knew it. Unless he was nuts, of course: and that idea I haven't run into. (Most) of Burroughs' readers knew Barsoom was a fictional setting, too.

Burroughs wasn't lying, as the term's usually used. He was writing stories. People don't, generally, expect places like the worlds of the Star Wars movies or Burroughs' Barsoom to be real places.

Deceit

A novelist is expected to make up 'facts' for the story. The rules are different when property's being sold.

Shady real estate brokers of a few decades back inspired terms like "rainbow acres." Quite a few folks heard or read glowing descriptions and rushed to grab a 'deal of a lifetime.' When the suckers got a look at their property, it often turned out to be a tract of swamp, a forsaken patch of the American southwest, or some other comparatively useless bit of land.

"Secluded" was one of the terms used to describe places like that: as in "you need a helicopter to reach it."

Aliens on Gliese 581g - And Drumbeats Across the Water

I rather hope that we're looking at a 'Percival Lowell' scenario here - and that the astronomer's unwillingness to let others look at the data has an innocent explanation. One possibility is that he took another look, and got skeptical himself.

Last excerpt from that article:

"...Bhathal claimed to have detected the puzzling signal in Dec. 2008, almost two years before researchers announced the Gliese 581g finding, and long before it was announced that habitable planets were found orbiting the star Gliese 581 itself.

" 'I'm not aware of the location that was claimed for the source of that light, and [Bhathal] refused to tell me where it came from,' Drake said. 'I think it's very unlikely that it came from the direction of Gliese 581.'..."

'Puzzling' Doesn't Mean 'People'

Puzzling signals are nothing new. For example, the first pulsar discovered didn't act like stars were expected to. It flashed, or pulsed, too quickly. Then another rapidly-pulsing star was found. Pulsing at a different rate. As more pulsars were discovered, it wasn't entirely unreasonable to speculate that we were looking at navigation beacons set up by some starfaring culture.

More data came in, and it turns out that pulsars are stars. Odd ones, really small, and spinning like crazy: but stars.

So much for the 'beacon' idea.

Space Aliens May Not be Human

The Lemming would be delighted if there really were people out there - who were so much like us that they:

• Wanted to communicate
• Used communications channels that we do

Wouldn't everybody use radio, or light, or something like that, to communicate over long distances? Here on Earth, for the last hundred years or so - yes. Actually, semaphore signaling is much older than radio.

Space aliens might use radio, or some sort of electromagnetic radiation, to send signals to other stars. Or, they might not.

Think about it this way: let's say that folks living on a really, really remote island decided to try detecting signals from someone 'out there.' The islanders use drums to communicate - so they sent folks with unusually keen hearing out as far from shore as was safe: and listened for drums.

Those drum-listeners had the right idea: listening for signals. What they didn't take into account was the possibility that not everybody uses drums to communicate over long distances.

Finally, the drum-listeners and most SETI proposals I've encountered share a common assumption: that the people 'out there' are very much like us.

That assumption may be accurate. Space aliens, if they exist, may all be highly social people with an occasionally-lethal urge to boldly go where anyone with good sense - wouldn't. Like Antarctica, or Minnesota in winter.

Or, ET may be - alien. I've discussed that in another blog. (Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (December 9, 2009))

Related posts:

• "Gliese 581g, Alien Angst, and the Lemming"
  (October 4, 2010)
• "Gliese 581g: Life? Maybe"
  (October 2, 2010)
• "Gliese 581 Planetary System: Possible Habitable Planet"
  (September 30, 2010)
• "Nuclear Weapons, Space Aliens, Conspiracy Theories, and Getting a Grip"
  (September 24, 2010)
• "Gods, Demons, and Used Spaceship Dealers"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (February 13, 2010)
• " 'All We Want is Peace and Quiet' - Another Look at the Mind of the Alien"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (December 9, 2009)
• "Move the Planet - or - Safety First"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (December 9, 2009)
• "Earth May Not Be a 'Class M' Planet"
  (December 5, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Doesn't Everybody Dream of Flying?
• "Happy birthday, Giovanni Schiaparelli: Observer of Canali on Mars"
  (March 14, 2009)

More related posts:

• "Posts About the Gliese 581 Planetary System: Including Gliese 581g"
• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"
• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

The Sky is Blue, Folks Sing the Blues: Just What does Blue Mean?

"Blue"
Jacci Howard Bear, Desktop Publishing, About.com

"Calm and Cool:

"Blue is calming. It can be strong and steadfast or light and friendly. Almost everyone likes some shade of the color blue.

"Pantone has selected the color Blue Iris (PANTONE 18-3943) as the 2008 Color of the Year telling us: 'Combining the stable and calming aspects of blue with the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple, Blue Iris satisfies the need for reassurance in a complex world, while adding a hint of mystery and excitement.'

"Nature of Blue:

"A natural color, from the blue of the sky, blue is a universal color. The cool, calming effect of blue makes time pass more quickly and it can help you sleep. Blue is a good color for bedrooms. However, too much blue could dampen spirits.

"Culture of Blue:

"In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, brings peace, or is believed to keep the bad spirits away...."

This is a pretty good resource for someone who's getting started in design.

An important point: it addresses how different cultures use the color blue differently. And not-so-differently.

The Lemming's opinion is that we're in an age where Western civilization is sorting out what's common to all of humanity - quite possibly hardwired into our brains - and what's assigned by cultures.

Like the color white, which is 'obviously' a color of purity. Also death and surrender. Depends on who's seeing it.

And that's another topic.

Related posts:

• "Blog Header Design: Pretty Good Advice"
  (March 30, 2010)
• "Color, Psychology, Emotions and Mood"
  (January 30, 2010)
• "Interior Design: A Pretty Good Learning Resource"
  (September 24, 2009)
• "Blue-Colored Streetlights Reduce Crime, Suicide?!"
  (December 17, 2008)
• "Are Moods Really Blue? Color, Psychology, and Culture"
  (May 21, 2008)

Almost-related posts:

• "Designing Art for Billboards; and a Fictional Small Town"
  (January 3, 2010)
• "Color Perception: An Impressive Illusion"
  (June 27, 2009)
• "Online Software for Interior Design and Decorating"
  (June 20, 2009)
• "Online Color Wheel: Dial Your Own Color Scheme"
  (June 1, 2009)
• "What Color is Your Blog? Why? An Online Discussion With Resource Links"
  (February 12, 2009)
• "Lots of Words Mean "Red" - Damask Isn't One of Them"
  (January 3, 2009)
• "RGB to HEX to RGB Online Do-it-Yourself Conversion Software"
  (June 10, 2008)

More:

• "Color Psychology and Marketing"
  "Business, Sales and the World Wide Web Are In Color"
  Precision Intermedia

Five Strange Video Games

"5 just-plain-weird video games"
Tech, CNN (September 7, 2010)

"From turning random household objects into giant balls to stuffing princesses full of cake until they're morbidly obese, the video game industry has no shortage of strange ideas.

"It's a feat of absurdity compounded almost daily, thanks to the efforts of iPhone, Android and downloadable-software creators who crank out bizarre titles celebrating everything from angry birds to garishly colored cartoon blobs.

"Unlike app makers, designers of titles sold through GameStop and Wal-Mart often have to constrain their creativity because their amusements have to appeal to wider audiences.

"But this logic doesn't apply to the following retail games, each of which are bound to leave you wondering just who'd dream up -- let alone buy -- such oddball concepts...."

I don't know about that. I see nothing odd about playing a game that pits me against chickens on roller skates ("Chicken Blaster"). It sounds like fun.

Oh, wait: I'm the guy who named his blog "Apathetic Lemming of the North," and calls himself "the Lemming." In the third person.

Never mind.

Silly Season

"Silly Season, LFTV, and Howard Leland"
Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette (August 20, 2010)

"Ever notice how, in August, you're more likely to see news about, say, off street parking or prize beagles on the front page? It's called the silly season. I read a post on Boston.com about this phenomenon: what Miriam Webster online says is 'a period (as late summer) when the mass media often focus on trivial or frivolous matters for lack of major news stories.'..."

This is another shameless plug for another blog. It's not the first time I've done a micro-review on one of my own posts. (August 8, 2010)

That "silly season" post in Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette is mostly about one of the fictional Minnesota town's more eccentric citizens, Howard Leland.

Now, about what another fellow wrote on Boston.com:

---

"August: The media's Silly Season"
Mark Leccese, Gatekeeper, Boston.com (August 19, 2010)

"Come August, the institutions to which the media devotes most if its time and toil are closed and gone fishin' — the government, the schools, the courts, big business. All that's left is the Red Sox and Tom Brady's unfortunate haircut.

"The British media, for 150 years, have been calling August the Silly Season, defined by Merriam Webster Online as 'a period (as late summer) when the mass media often focus on trivial or frivolous matters for lack of major news stories.'

"Two examples:

"* As of noon on Thursday, Google News listed 2,940 articles — that's right, from 2,940 different news outlets — on Brett Favre reporting to the training camp of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings.

"* A scant 833 articles from 833 different news outlets reported that Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler has been chosen (through what rigorous screening process I don't know) as a judge on 'American Idol.'

"Here in Boston, the fervor to report every last available detail and every response to the jail suicide of so-called Craigslist Killer Philip Markoff continues with Silly Season abandon...."

There's more. I think it helps if you live in the Boston area: but you'll probably enjoy reading what Mark Leccese has to say even if you've never been east of Kansas City.

The Lemming did, anyway.

And you'll learn a bit more of the phenomenon that's partly responsible for an outsize rat-thing being international news, earlier this month. (August 20, 2010)

Rabbit Terrorism: You Can't Make This Up, Folks

"Court rejects teacher's suit against student for 'rabbit terrorism' "
The Local, Germany's News in English (July 10, 2010)

"A German court on Tuesday threw out the case of a schoolteacher against a pupil who allegedly tormented her by scrawling pictures of rabbits on the blackboard to aggravate her rabbit phobia.

"The court in Vechta, northern Germany declined to hear the complaint by the 60-year-old geography teacher, who was seeking an injunction against the 16-year-old girl to stop her from making the drawings or spreading rumours that the plaintiff had a paralysing fear of rabbits....

So, naturally, the teacher takes the teen to court. Because rabbits don't bother her at all. And nobody is supposed to say that they do.

Back to the article:

"...Chief Judge Hermann Pieper did not give a reason for the ruling, but said the case was business as usual. The teacher, who did not appear in court, has the option to appeal...."

"...Two years ago at another school, the teacher took a pupil to court in a similar case and reached a settlement in which the teenager agreed never again to claim that the plaintiff 'freaked out' when she saw a rabbit or heard the word...."

The alleged rabbit terrorist had been at the school where this teacher was absolutely not bothered by rabbits at all, when the previous rabbit incident occurred. So maybe the teen plotted to make witnesses see the teacher break down, sobbing, when she wasn't at all bothered by a picture of a rabbit.

If this sounds crazy, you probably don't live in Germany. Apparently this sort of thing isn't all that unusual in that country:

"...Judge Pieper said that while the case may seem curious to outsiders, 'mobbing and strife in the schools' were frequently brought before the court."

I don't know what to think of that teacher. If she's really terrified of rabbits, the word rabbit, or a picture of a bunny rabbit on a blackboard: a school full of teenagers is among the last places she should be. For her sake, and that of the teens.

If she's not, and just likes to yank someone's chain: she missed a great opportunity. By watching a copy of Night of the Lepus (1972, MGM), she could have gone to court and sued MGM for everything they've got.

On consideration, though: that would probably mean traveling to America - and I'm not sure that the courts here are quite as eager to jump on those 'emotional pain and trauma' cases any more.

---

A tip of the hat to irish_brigid, on Twitter, for the heads-up on this article.

Here's Looking At You: Chicago Gets the Eye

"The odyssey of Chicago's new Eye sculpture"
Arts, Chicago Tribune (July 3, 2010)

Or, "How the giant sculpture got from rural Wisconsin to the Loop"

"On the ides of June, while squinting at a cluster of threatening clouds from his perch on a grassy construction site just outside of Sparta, Wis. this small city, Chicago sculptor Tony Tasset is, to use his words, totally freaking out.

" 'You know those reality shows?' Tasset says, a slightly uneasy smile on his face. "This is that part when the team is up against their deadline, and it looks like they're never going to finish on time.'

"Tasset's 'team' is made up of a half-dozen fiberglass workers at Sparta's Fast Corp. (Fiberglass Animals Shapes and Trademarks), who have been assigned to construct the artist's largest piece to date: a giant eyeball aptly named Eye, which, upon completion, will stand three stories tall and stare east from the Loop's Pritzker Park, at State and Van Buren streets. Tasset was commissioned for the job last fall by the Chicago Loop Alliance, and Fast Corp., with which he had collaborated on prior sculptures (including a 12-foot-high eyeball), took the engineering reins earlier this year...."

Maybe a more important question than how this titanic eyeball got to Chicago's Loop is why?! The article answers that, too:

"...Eye was commissioned by the Chicago Loop Alliance as part of its premiere Art Loop installation: a new, temporary work 'by an important artist' to be installed each summer in the Loop and paired with free programming. For its part, the CLA is promoting the sculpture as if it were the next 'Bean.'

" 'We wanted to have someone do something that we thought was fun and a little irreverent,' said CLA Executive Director Ty Tabing, who sat on the committee of art-centric locals that picked Tasset as the debut Art Loop artist. 'His art is not too highbrow,' Tabing said via telephone in June, 'and still very provocative and thought-provoking at the same time.'..."

I'm not sure that "thought-provoking" is quite what I'd call a 30-foot eyeball staring across the heads of Chicago's commuters. Or maybe I'm being too narrow in the way I define "thought."

It's possible that the sight of that outsized, disembodied eyeball will encourage some to give up drink, see a psychiatrist, or run - screaming - to fling themselves in Buckingham fountain a few blocks east. Provided the traffic doesn't get them on the way.

Okay: "a few blocks east and a little south."

One thing puzzles me about the article. I don't mean some group of citizens intentionally arranging for a huge ersatz eyeball to be placed in their city: 'art' folks have been doing weird, bizarre things for most of my life.

It's that cryptic reference to "Bean." Someone who lives in Chicago and follows culture and the arts there probably knows what "Bean" is - and if that person is you, I'd appreciate it if you'd share your knowledge in a comment. Thanks in advance!

A Touching Bit of Research: Tactile Sense and Decision-Making

"Sense of Touch Affects Decision-Making? Maybe Not a Crazy Idea"
Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind (June 25, 2010)

"When I read this article's headline and first paragraph, I was ready to dismiss the whole thing as silly science: the sort of thing that folks with letters after their name do sometimes, to increase their own status or push some political preference. Or maybe because they don't know any better...."

That blog post is brilliant! Insightful! Thought-provoking! The Lemming should know: I wrote it myself.

Seriously? I ran into a Wired Science article last Friday: "Sense of Touch Shapes Snap Judgments," whose headline and cleverly-written first paragraph encouraged me to dismiss the whole thing as more silly science.

I'm glad I kept reading, because I think the researchers are onto something:

"...The experiments included would-be car buyers who, when seated in a cushy chair, were less likely to drive a stiff bargain. The findings don't just suggest tricks for salesman, but may illuminate how our brains develop.

" 'The way people understand the world is through physical experiences. The first sense they develop is touch,' said study co-author Josh Ackerman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology psychologist. As they grow up, those physical experiences shape how people conceptualize abstract, social experience, he said. 'Later on, you can do what we did — trigger different physical experiences, and produce changes in people's thoughts.'

Published June 24 in Science, the study is the latest addition to a booming field of embodied cognition, which over the last decade has scientifically eroded the notion that mind and body are distinctly separate...."

"The notion that mind and body are distinctly separate?" Okay - although I thought we'd known that we use our brains for thinking for - well, quite a long time. (More about that in another of my blogs: "State-of-the-Art Neuroscience, About Two Dozen Centuries Back," Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (June 1, 2010))

Anyway: My post over in Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind wasn't much more than a sort of 'hey, this might be useful' heads-up. Plus a suggestion that soft chairs for clients might be a good idea.

Besides practical marketing applications, I think this "embodied cognition" research is very interesting: because it looks like we may be discovering a physical angle on the development of metaphor.

"Metaphor?" If you're not very familiar with that term, you've got lots of company. In my opinion, Western civilization may be the culture which has most successfully ignored metaphor and poetry in general. Which is another topic. (More: ""God Created Man in His Image" wasn't Written by An American," A Catholic Citizen in America (January 25, 2010))

'The Voices in My Head' - Such a (Cute?) Kitten

(from lolcat.com, used w/o permission)

I've seen this photo in - well, quite a few places. I've no idea who took the original, or who merged the photo with this caption.

It is, however - in my opinion - funny. And cute.

Disturbing, but cute.

Google's New Look, Being Upset, and VCRs That Flash 12:00

"Google's New Look: Why is Everybody So Upset?"
PCWorld (Jun 10, 2010)

"Google has changed its traditionally stark white homepage by slapping on a big old picture on it. It didn't take long for the blogosphere to blow up with questions and complaints. But why, exactly, is everybody so upset and confused?

"Google already has a customizable homepage: iGoogle. With iGoogle, users can add widgets, designer backgrounds, and more.

"But Google took the beauty pageant one step further and lent Google.com a high-resolution photographic background which can be customized by using 'a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album, or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos.'..."

Right now, I'm using a remarkable rendering by Jeff Koons: a sort of Deco Tech floral arrangement. It's the first - and third - choice I made today: and I think I'll stick with it. For a while, at least.

As the 'opening page' for Google, that is. I use iGoogle extensively, to browse through top-picks from a variety of sources.

I was surprised, and a little nonplussed, at seeing the new 'image' background, but decided to see what it was about before going ballistic over the change.

Back to that PCWorld article:

"...For reasons unbeknownst to me, writers across the Web had a visceral (and ridiculous) reaction to the change. Most cry 'Bing rip-off!' Some even go so far as to herald this as the death of tradition...."

Oh-kay. I recognize that reaction. Looks like the kinda now, kinda wow, totally hip, with-it and sophisticated legion of bloggers don't take change very well.

Me? I'm okay with the new Google look - largely on the strength of the National Geographic stock images and that Jeff Koons graphic.

But then, I'm an old coot who's seen color television replace the hallowed traditions of black-and-white TV, cable trample on broadcast television channels, and the Information Age thrust the good old boys of American journalism into a tizzy. I even learned how to set my VCR to the right time, so it didn't keep flashing "12:00."

Good grief! I remember when transistors were new - I'm used to change. Four or five decades from now, maybe the folks having fits today over Google's upgrade will be used to it, too.

Funny, Freakish Critter's Feet: the Photo

"Lullaby, and goodnight, your freakish feet are a fright."
Prongs, via Cute Overload (June 7, 2010)

"OK, perhaps there's nothing we can humanely do about their disproportionate size, but would an emery board be so horrible?"


(from Prongs, via Cute Overload, used w/o permission)

Oh, I don't know: they're not that big. But then, I'm used to looking at critters. I think one of the - problems? - with creatures that look a little like us is that we see features that are almost, but not quite, human. (more about the "uncanny valley:" May 20, 2009)

Like those - feet? hands?

Even so, I think it's cute.

Looks Like Suicide Really isn't the Smart Choice

Suicide is not a happy topic. This post's title isn't so much a joke as a sort of summary of some really interesting research:

---

"Suicide attempts less likely in men with higher IQs"
CNN (June 3, 2010)

"Young men with low IQs are much more likely than their peers to attempt suicide later in life, a new study has found. In fact, men with the lowest IQs are about four times more likely to attempt suicide as those with the highest, and the risk tends to go up as IQ drops.

"This may seem surprising to those who associate suicide with tortured geniuses like Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh.

" 'There's a perception that people with higher IQs might be more neurotic, more anxious, and more depressed--Woody Allen style,' says Karestan Koenen, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

" 'But the literature is very consistent that people with lower IQs are at increased risk not just of mental health problems, but of all kinds of physical health problems,' adds Koenen, who was not involved in the new study but has researched IQ and mental health.

"In the study, which was published on the website of the British Medical Journal, researchers followed 1.1 million male military recruits in Sweden for an average of 24 years. All of the men took a standardized IQ test between the ages of 16 and 25...."

Smart People aren't All Crazy?

I've figured that a person could be a functional human being and still be fairly smart - stereotypes about angsty artists and suicidal poets notwithstanding. Whaddaya know: now there's some evidence to back up that assumption.

The researchers seem to have known what they were doing, when it came to analyzing the data:

"...Even after other factors that may influence suicide risk were taken into account--such as socioeconomic status, education, and even body mass index--the men with the lowest IQ were still about 3.5 times more likely to attempt suicide.

" 'We're not talking about a hospital group or a sick population, so these findings are generalizable to the general population,' says the lead author of the study, David Batty, Ph.D., a Wellcome Trust Fellow at the Medical Research Council, in Glasgow, Scotland. The Wellcome Trust funded the study...."

Facts, Guesses, and Disclaimers

They gave some educated guesses about why the smart guys didn't try to kill themselves as much - and were careful to point out what they don't know:

"...However, Batty and his colleagues point out that the findings may not necessarily apply to women, to older men, or to men in other countries. And there was no apparent link between IQ and suicide attempts in men with psychosis, they note.

"People with a lower IQ may be more likely to attempt suicide because they may have more trouble talking about or resolving personal problems, Batty suggests.

" 'Individuals with higher IQ scores may be better able to describe to friends and health professionals some of the problems they're going through,' he says. 'Another explanation might be that individuals with higher IQ scores can come up with more solutions. They may identify the need to see a health professional earlier, or deal with the root causes of their suicidal thoughts by changing jobs or solving relationships.'..."

Suicide: For Me, It's Personal

With my background, I'm more inclined to go with the 'able to deal with it' explanation: although sometimes professional help can, well, help. I've discussed suicide and depression in another blog, A Catholic Citizen in America:

• "Prayer, Medicine and Trusting God"
  (March 4, 2010)
  • Bottom line? Take your meds
• "Medication for Depression? Yeah: The Catholic Church is Okay With That"
  (February 25, 2010)
• "The Catholic Church Won't Even Let People Kill Themselves"
  (January 28, 2009)

Like I said, suicide is personal for me. I considered killing myself when I was in my teens. And decided it was a bad idea. That was in the sixties. I still think I was right.

A few years ago a psychiatrist determined that I had major depression. Now, thanks to medications - mostly serotonin uptake inhibitors - I'm able to spend more time using my brain, and less fighting with the controls. That's how it felt, anyway. Sort of like having the power steering and brakes working again.

Why go into this personal detail?

Someone very dear to me killed herself. I might have done the same, earlier, if I hadn't been able to reason my way out of suicide. I really don't think suicide is a good idea - and I hope that by sharing this article, and some of my memories, I might tip the balance toward someone deciding to give living another try.

This sounds corny, but there's a little truth to it: Change happens. Happy feelings don't last. But neither do feelings like sadness and despair. Change happens: and that can be a good thing.