The Science of the Mind

I like listening to smart people. No matter the topic (mostly), it’s always worthwhile to listen even if you don’t understand everything they’re talking about. If you always understood everything, where is the growth?

StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson – The Science of the Mind

Some highlights from this particular episode.

  • Putting lesions on the brain helped with OCD. Umwhut.
  • I bet all of these guys were picked on in school, look at them now.
  • Ultimately, we don’t know how anything in the brain works.

The most spectacular observation, in my opinion, was Tyson’s point at the end. You can see it starting at around the 25min mark and continuing till the end. To paraphrase… Advanced primates are approximately 1% different in DNA to us. Yet, the smartest primate is roughly the equivalent of a human toddler. So then to look at it from the perspective of a potential “higher intelligence” such as humans from the future, or aliens, or “gods”. They might be only 1% different than us, but the SMARTEST human would only be roughly the equivalent of one of their toddlers.

Let that sink in for a second, and it puts a few things in perspective.

Google Play Music updates to include subscriptions

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For a good roundup and in-depth detail on some of the specific topics that occured yesterday during Google's I/O conference, check out Android Police's roundup. Subscriptions.... FINALLY! Google beat both Apple AND Amazon to the punch … [Continue reading]

What I’m watching this summer

Benedict Cumberbatch guarded by *not enough* red shirts.

Here's my list of movies so far for 2013 that I intend on watching. Star Trek & Iron Man are definitely "movie theater" worthy. Meaning, they are worth the cost of tickets & food afterwards and will likely be a date-night event. The others … [Continue reading]

USA vs Costa Rica “Best in Snow”

U.S. defender Geoff Cameron enjoys the snow following a 1-0 victory over Costa Rica. Source: Jack Dempsey/Associated Press via WashingtonPost.com

What a wild World Cup Qualifier! The US and Costa Rican national teams literally just played in a blizzard. Snow was falling at the game's start, and by the end of the game 2 hrs later there had to be a solid 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. Local … [Continue reading]

Star Trek Into Darkness Trailer

Benedict Cumberbatch guarded by *not enough* red shirts.

AW YEAH!There is a new trailer for the new JJ Abrams Star Trek Into Darkness movie coming out in May.http://youtu.be/yhz4A5BCMAAOK, so maybe Sherlock, er, Benedict Cumberbatch isn't going to play Kahn. I don't get that vibe anymore, now … [Continue reading]