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  pFunk 4:35 pm on November 13, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  This morning, I read the story of James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, and his apparently racist comments about the intelligence of people of African descent. Watson, no stranger to controversy, has said other fun things in the past e.g., his suggestion that a woman should terminate pregnancy if it could be determined that the child would be a homosexual. However, this time he remarked that, “all our social policies are based on the fact that their [African’s] intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.” Naturally, this has everyone in an uproar and the scientific community condemning the guy. First of all, I think that the treatment of Watson by the academic, scientific, and international community has been pretty disgusting. Rather than addressing the data–as they should have done–they’ve instead attacked Watson’s character, called him a racist, canceled his speaking engagements, and so on. Watson is a man of science and presumably has data in support of his conclusion. More than likely, if better data that disproved the hypothesis came along (this is what science is all about, after all) then Watson’s hypothesis should shift accordingly. If not, then maybe he can be called a racist. If we decided to stop all scientific progress on a certain front every time someone was offended, no progress would ever be made. We don’t universally condemn evolution because it says that enormous chunks of the population are stupid or self-deluded. Political correctness is no way to judge the soundness of a scientific theory.

  More to the point, why is it so difficult to accept that there are physiological differences between races? Africans generally have fuller lips, wider noses, darker skin, etc. This seems to suggest that there can be differences in the body due simply to genetics. Is it really that much of a stretch to think that the brain might also have some differences? Might it not actually be the case that the African brain is not equipped as well when it comes to how we choose to measure intelligence? Obviously, not having seen the data, I can’t say either way, but I’m still on the side of science. Yes, I know that these differences are exactly what racists cite as evidence that certain groups are subhuman or inferior, but it’s not about drawing conclusions at this point. It’s about the data, the result of cold, objective testing, and our general unwillingness to accept truths that we don’t like.

  P.s. On the topic of truths we don’t like and political incorrectness, I remembered this article from several months ago in Psychology Today that dealt with some of the findings of universally psychology. For those of you who don’t know, evolutionary psychology hypotheses are untestable and therefore non-falsifiable.
   

• pFunk 2:38 pm on October 28, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  I wouldn’t normally bother to write about something like this, except that I was struck with the sudden impulse to do so.  Who knows, maybe somebody out there will find it beneficial.

  Anyway, as a college student, I am frequently tasked (yes, it’s a verb) with memorizing pointless things that I don’t really care much about.  On one such occasion, I had an upcoming history test that would include several identification questions.  These identification questions would consist of a word or phrase relevant to that slice of history and it would be my job to produce a short paragraph demonstrating my knowledge of the subject.  As one of my professor’s taught me a long time ago, the best way to answer an identification question is to answer three questions:

  1. What is it?
  2. Give me some detail. (What specifics do you know about it?)
  3. Explain its relevance to the present. (Why are we studying it?)

  Providing sufficient detail for #2 generally meant devoting about three sentences to specific information about the event.  This meant that I had five pieces of information to learn per identification question and there would generally be five identification questions to answer.  This meant 25 pieces of information relating to five subjects.  Now, being a piano player, I’m constantly tapping my fingers to some melody or playing chords on the desk.  I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I realized that it was pretty easy to memorize five things with the fingers of one hand.  I’d just press a finger on the desk and associate it with that item.  Pretty soon, I knew all of the identification topics just by pressing each finger down in order.  A recent example from microbiology (the methods of action of antibiotics, there are conveniently five):

  1. Inhibition of cell wall synthesis (thumb)
  2. Inhibition of protein synthesis (index finger)
  3. Inhibition of nucleic acid synthesis (middle finger)
  4. Cell membrane disruption (ring finger)
  5. Metabolic antagonism (pinky finger)

  Easy enough, right?  Absolutely.  Now, as to the actual training.  To learn them, I press down my thumb and recite the first item from the paper or whatever else I’m learning off of.  I lift my thumb, look away from the paper, and press the thumb down, reciting the item.  Then, to learn the second, I press down my index finger and recite the second item reading off of the paper.  After that, I look away from the paper again, lift both fingers, then press down the thumb, recite the first item, press down the index finger and recite the second item.  Then I look back to the paper to learn the third item and so on.  The benefit of learning this way is that not only are you associating the information with recall cues that you’re carrying around with you (no offense to the fingerless), but you’re engaging in repetition, which also assists in the learning process.

  Anyway, I’ve found this method effective for information in multiples of five (and not, but it can be a little harder).  But back to the history example, because that demonstrates the sort of nesting that’s possible.  For the sake of example, we’ll assume that we have the following five identifications to learn:

  1. Battle of Saratoga
     1. What is it?
        1. A decisive battle fought in the American Revolution near Saratoga, New York.
     2. Give me some detail.
        1. Resulted in the capture of an entire British army.
        2. Prevented an invasion of New England from the north and prevented the isolation of New England from other American forces.
        3. Actually consisted of two battles: The Battle of Freeman’s Farm and the Battle of Bemis Heights
     3. Why is it important?
        1. Because the Americans demonstrated that they were capable of actually fighting a British army and winning, the French were convinced to join the war on the side of the Americans.  It was the help of the French that enabled the colonists to win the American Revolution.
  2. Benedict Arnold
     1. Who is he?
        1. An American general during the Revolutionary War.
     2. Give me some detail.
        1. Arnold’s leadership was crucial to several American victories and his prowess earned him several promotions.
        2. He was wounded several times, most notably in the leg.  There is a monument to his leg in Saratoga National Historical Park.
        3. He became a British officer after becoming disenfranchised with the Americans.
     3. Why is he important?
        1. A fantastic soldier for the Americans, Arnold’s abilities as a general ensured American victories in crucial battles, including the Battle of Saratoga, which was a turning point in the American Revolution.
  3. George Washington
     1. Who is he?
        1. Piece of information 1
     2. Give me some detail.
        1. Piece of information 2
        2. Piece of information 3
        3. Piece of information 4
     3. Why is he important?
        1. Piece of information 5
  4. Treaty of Paris
     1. What is it?
        1. Piece of information 1
     2. Give me some detail.
        1. Piece of information 2
        2. Piece of information 3
        3. Piece of information 4
     3. Why is it important?
        1. Piece of information 5
  5. Yorktown
     1. What is it?
        1. Piece of information 1
     2. Give me some detail.
        1. Piece of information 2
        2. Piece of information 3
        3. Piece of information 4
     3. Why is it important?
        1. Piece of information 5

  Now, we have five identifications, each with five pieces of information associated with them.  This is why it’s great to have two hands.  I sub-associate the information with each identification with the fingers on the opposite hand.  So, for instance:

  1. Battle of Saratoga (Left thumb)
     1. Decisive battle fought near Saratoga, New York in the American Revolution (Right thumb)
     2. Resulted in the captre of an entire British army. (Right index finger)
     3. Prevented an invasion of New England from the north and prevented the isolation of New England from the rest of American forces.  (Right middle finger)
     4. Actually consisted of two battles: The Battle of Freeman’s Farm and the Battle of Bemis Heights. (Right ring finger)
     5. Important because it caused the French to join the revolution on the side of the Americans. (Right pinky finger)
  2. Benedict Arnold (Left index finger)
     1. General in the American Revolution (Right thumb)
     2. Crucial to American victories (Right index finger)
     3. Wounded in the leg and monument to the wound (Right middle finger)
     4. Defected to the British side after becoming unhappy with his treatment in America (Right ring finger)
     5. Abilities allowed the colonists to win the Battle of Saratoga which was the turning point in the American Revolution (Right pinky finger)
  3. George Washington (Left middle finger)
     1. Piece of information 1 (Right thumb)
     2. Piece of information 2 (Right index finger)
     3. Piece of information 3 (Right middle finger)
     4. Piece of information 4 (Right ring finger)
     5. Piece of information 5 (Right pinky finger)
  4. Treaty of Paris (Left ring finger)
     1. And so on…
  5. Yorktown (Left pinky finger)
     1. And so forth…

  One of the most important facets to remember is the recursive repetition as you’re learning the items. Reciting the items in order would be okay, but you really want to make that association between the finger on the left hand being down and then recalling the five right-hand items. Additionally, testing the associations by trying to recall them all in reverse order makes good practice for whether or not you’ve actually learned them and associated them with your fingers. (For instance, start with the pinky item on your left hand, then recall the right-hand items in order from pinky to thumb instead of thumb to pinky.)

  Furthermore, I’ve used what I referred to as a “hand map” to remember the cranial nerves and whether their functions were sensory, motor, or both. Unfortunately, there are twelve cranial nerves, so it becomes a little tricky. Although I had to learn the functions as well as the stuff presented below in the table, this is just being used to illustrate the hand map concept.

  Number	Name	Sensory	Motor
  I	Ocular	X
  II	Olfactory	X
  III	Oculomotor		X
  IV	Trochlear		X
  V	Trigeminal	X	X
  VI	Abducens		X
  VII	Facial	X	X
  VIII	Vestibulocochlear	X
  IX	Glossopharyngeal	X	X
  X	Vagus	X	X
  XI	Spinal Accessory		X
  XII	Hypoglossal		X

  As you’ve probably already figured out if you’ve read this far, I had associated the first ten nerves with my fingers (and the last two with each wrist, but that doesn’t matter here). So I already had all of their names and numbers (it’s easy when they’re in order because I can just count across my fingers), but I needed to figure out how to remember whether they were sensory or motor or both. The traditional method would be to remember each and then remember its characteristics as dependent upon the nerve. Instead (and this is pretty strange), I just memorized that table up above using the following method. In order to remember both sensory and motor checkmarks, I had to create two hand maps. The first was the map of the nerves with sensory functions, the second was the map of the nerves with motor functions. So, to start, I wanted to remember which nerves had sensory functions. Because each nerve was already associated with a finger, I placed my hands with palms facing down above the desktop. If the nerve for that specific finger was a sensory nerve, I pressed that fingertip to the desktop. The fingers for nerves that did not have sensory functions remained off of the desktop. So it looked like:
  
  x = fingertip pressed on the desk; o = fingertip in the air
[Left]   [Right]
 xoo      xxx
x|||      |||x
\|||x    o|||/

  … and both wrists in the air to represent that CNXI and CNXII were not sensory nerves. To me, remembering the position of my fingers and simply reproducing that was much easier than trying remember whether each nerve was sensory or motor. I could just put each map down on the desk and count over to figure out if the nerve I wanted was sensory or motor.

       Anyway, this particular method for remembering things has helped me greatly during my schooling, so hopefully someone else will find it as beneficial as I have.  And just for random information’s sake, if you were to memorize one piece of information for every possible state of having fingertips up and down, that would amount to 2^10 (=1024) pieces of information.  So, just something to think about.
   

• pFunk 5:35 am on October 28, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  World of Warcraft, up the bar in my book, I found a private community called wowgasm, they have an inactive forum with a rather interesting selection of dedicated servers,

  I have literally never played WoW on this level before, and I must say this makes things a lot more interesting and entertaining for me (someone with barely no spare time to play video games). Let me elaborate…

  You level 40x faster, get 40x more gold and xp. Not only is the game play faster on wowgasm servers there are also a fair amount of players for you to make friends with, do raids or group up with. The servers also carry custom traders and hands out free unique items for the lower lvl chars, so that even if they do happen to suck, they can still enjoy slaying a lvl 20 monster.

  I’ve been playing roughly for 8 hours now, I have a lvl 37 BE pali, in comparisons with my actual Battle.net account which took me several weeks just to get to lvl 17.

  If this in any way, stimulated your gaming neurons, take off your thinking cap and jump into action, register ‘here’ and follow the setup guides, simple directives to downloading the WoW demo and being able to play on the dedicated servers without having to pay, unlike battle.net.
   

• pFunk 4:51 pm on July 24, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  Very interesting post, among many others found @ mike.writegood.org.
  I felt the need to share this rant on privacy with you guys, Enjoy!
  —
  I was over at the Social Sciences Research Network reading this paper by Daniel J. Solove (“I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy). In it, he addresses some of the more modern abuses of privacy by the Bush Administration and the most frequently cited argument in favor of what the government is doing–that if you have nothing to hide, it doesn’t matter if the government inspects the goings-on in your life. Despite the fact that it’s a little esoteric and self-advertising (i.e., continual references to previous papers regarding a “taxonomy” of privacy), there are a few moments that make it worth the read. If you can handle a philosophical look at privacy concerns and why it doesn’t matter if you “have nothing to hide”, check it out.

  That said, reading it got me thinking about the problem from a psychological point of view. Suppose an individual had come to you and said, “I’d like to tap your phone, go through your credit card bills, and generally dig into your life. Is that all right?” Most of us would be taken aback at the audacity of this person and refuse outright. And I believe that it would be the same with the government. If they had asked, we would have said no and been on our merry way. But they didn’t. This is particularly devious because it avoids pesky, little issues like warrants and oversight. But more importantly, even after they did this, people weren’t upset. Far from it. In fact, people actually began to side with the government and justify their actions! That, to me, is fascinating. Their privacy was violated blatantly, without any semblance of permission, and they’re standing there spouting, “I have nothing to hide, what do I care if the government takes a look?”

  Coincidentally, there’s an analogue from social psychology that seemed fairly apt to me. It’s called cognitive dissonance theory, and the experiment went a little something like this: Participants were given an incredibly boring task (turning a series of square pegs 90 degrees) over and over. After a suitable period of turning the pegs (it may have been until they asked to stop or an hour or something, I don’t really remember), the researcher said, “Hey, there’s another participant waiting outside. I’ll give you some money to convince him or her that this was a fun, interesting thing to do.” The amount of money offered was either $1 or $20, depending on the condition. What the researchers found was that the people who received $1 actually did a better, more thorough job of trying to convince the next participant that the experiment was fun. You might be tempted to wonder, “Didn’t the people getting $20 have NINETEEN more reasons to do a good job of this?” Not really, and here’s why. The people getting $20 felt compensated for their time, so they didn’t really have anything invested in actually convincing the next participant. The people getting $1 knew that it was a waste of time and that their time was worth more than the $1 they got, so they had to come up with some way of justifying what they were about to say to the next participant. In other words, they convinced themselves that they actually liked the task! (They must have if they’re extolling its virtues to someone else for a measly dollar, right?)1

  Now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with privacy. Well, think about it. Instead of asking you if you were willing to have your privacy violated, the government just did it. It’s already done, you can’t undo it. They must not have found anything bad or you’d be locked up, right? So you have to justify this egregious violation of your personal space. You know your privacy was violated, you know it was done without your permission, and you know that you’re more or less powerless to do anything about it. What’s the best solution? Convince yourself that it was a good thing. No, even better, convince other people that it’s a good thing. “I’ve got nothing to hide, do you?” And that’s why the government’s strategy is particularly devious. It leverages a powerful emotional defense mechanism against us. Our minds don’t like to be conflicted, so when actions and thoughts clash, our thoughts often lose out and change in favor of the action. (Ever tried to be sad while giving a sincere smile?)

  So we’ve established that we can defend our sense of privacy by changing our opinions to show that we didn’t care because nothing bad would be discovered about us anyway. But what about people who don’t appreciate the violation of their privacy? Why are their voices so seldomly heard? I think that at least part of the reason is that their voices are so seldomly heard. Seems circular, doesn’t it? Well, it’s really not. We know from group dynamics that if a group is making a wrong choice and there’s a dissenter, that more often than not, even if the group is clearly wrong, he or she won’t say anything and will allow his or her opinion to conform to the group’s.2 No one wants to be different, drawing attention to themselves, and risk ostracism by expressing a contrary opinion. When we do hear people weigh in on the privacy debate, it’s often to tell us that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. “Yep, I got my privacy invaded yesterday, but it’s cool. I’m clean.” And with the myriad people holding that view, quite possibly to avoid the dissonance of being powerless to resist the government’s actions, it becomes harder to express an opinion that flies in the face of views that everyone else seem to hold.

  So really, not only are we changing our minds to support the government’s invasions of privacy, but we’re actually suppressing dissent from others by doing so. And whether or not it’s intentional, it’s effective. How do we know that? Because the NSA, FBI, and CIA have all admitted to warrantless wiretapping and domestic surveillance and nobody said anything. Enormous companies admit to selling personal information to other companies, or giving it to the government, and nobody says anything. What incentive is there for them to stop if we’re just telling them, “Oh well, we’ve got nothing to hide.”?

  ————————
  Sources
  1http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Festinger/
  2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
   

• pFunk 2:26 pm on July 24, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  For years now, thousands of people have been trying to dinf that miracle diet, something to burn fat with the less effort possible.. A couple years back this was almost true, a pill called hydroxycut accelerated your metabolism, but to a point where many individuals had been hospitalized.

  Producers, concerned about this, decided to xlist the product until they found a solution to their problem. just recently the pill came back on the market and now a new one, supposively existed for a long period of years. called Ephidrine.(info can be viewed on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephidrine).
  This morning as I was taking care of cleaning my facebook inbox, I came accross this add in my new market place:

  

  Want to raise your metabolism? Burn Fat? Lose weight without even trying? Hydroxycut and other pills like it are quaint, cute, little products. But each Ephedrine pill is as powerful as 6 Hydroxycut pills. Do you want what works or do you just want to follow the crowd? If you want what the pros use. If you want to use your hard-earned money wisely. Get 300 Ephedrine pills in six unopened bottles! Expiry date is June/2010. $75.00. It’s on sale on ebay here:

  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=007&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&viewitem=&item=170134007471&rd=1&rd=1

  Or, you can Contact me at hailcaesar27@hotmail.com
  Listed at Montreal, QC.

  Now I’ve never heard of this product, or have tried it. but I do know that hydroxycut worked well for certain ppl doing daily work-outs and eating healthy.
  If you have nothing better to do and don’t mind waiting a couple hours at the lakeshore ER, let me know how well ephidrine worked for you.
   

• pFunk 2:01 am on July 24, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  Of course this site having nothing to do with sushi or cake, often do I get asked why sushicake?

  There is no ultimatum for which I have chosen this nickname or domain but have you ever seen sushicake for yourself or at that even tasted sushi before?

  In my opinion, the fish should be fried or left in the water! however there are a wide variety of sushi, if you were for instance to go dine in a fish buffet you would probably be amazed by those 10 pages of 60items each.. which may I remind you is sushi..

  Here’s a picture of a sushi cake taken from http://www.google.com looks yyyyyeeeeeeeeeuuuuum: 

  
   

• pFunk 12:18 am on July 24, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  I swear, believe me or not, my daughter said “Allo” in the car earlier this evening, while of course.. while my girl went into Wallmart to exchange a bra.

  This frustrates me in so many ways it makes it almost difficult to describe, this would be in fact the 3rd time she pronounces a word correctly but but unable to repeat it when prompt.

  Comparing it, simple, Your girl-friend says randomly: “hey baby I’ll give you head”.. Surprisingly, And I’m saying surprisingly based on a recent study that 63% of men, aged between 20 and 40 “don’t receive fellatio often enough”, I of course didn’t say never, lets just put emphasis on the “not often enough“. First thought that comes to mind, huh? head? and repeats outloud: “Did you say head?”.

  Your girlfriend of course being the tease she is, ignores the question, in fact ignores the very fact that she brought it up by simply “not responding or slurring”.

  Great, Now that we’re on the same level, here’s something to avoid getting caught in the act again.

  H4 recorder:

  

  Although it is quite pricey, there are many more voice recorders for cheap or lying around somewhere in your junk!
   

• pFunk 9:31 pm on July 23, 2007 | 0 | # |
  

  Wow, a combination of both… Finally what many of us have been waiting for, utilizing our blogs with our social pages with one click.. go get the applet today!
   

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