Monday, January 30, 2012
Music Monday
I finished "The Thirty Day Music Meme" last week, but I still like music, so you still get some! Here's what I was rocking out to today:
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Science Saturday: Britain's Greatest Codebreaker
Another selection from DocumentaryHeaven, this time about Alan Turing. In my first three semesters at college, I read his "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" paper three times, for three different classes. What struck me each time was not only the originality of his thought, but the clarity of his writing; it made enough of an impact on me that I went on to write my philosophy undergraduate thesis on the ethics of artificial intelligence, all the way at the opposite end of my academic career. It's unsurprising, then, that I knew a lot about his legacy before I watched, though not a lot about his personal life: a genius who contributed to the Allied war effort who was years later persecuted for his homosexuality and, as a result, took his own life. Honestly I kind of wish I hadn't watched this, because it's just so tremendously depressing and heartbreaking to learn everything I didn't know about him.
The good: This is a nice, long, juicy selection (a full hour), and extensive research was involved. There's loads of interviews with people who knew or worked with Turing, as well as medical, biographical, and computer science experts. It switches between present-day interviews, archival footage, and dramatic reenactments quite seamlessly.
The bad: Another BBC documentary that likes to crank up the dramatic music and the pathos. Is that the trend now? I've seen it in so many of the BBC's documentaries online, I'm just beginning to assume that it's par-for-the-course documentary-making anymore. Also, I wish they had made it longer and included more of the substance of his thoughts and writings. At one point they present a formula he developed to generate the patterns on animals' coats, and rather than explain how it works or even what each variable represents, they just leave it floating up there on screen while people talk about how genius it is.
One interesting fact: Spoiler alert, somewhat. As I mentioned before, Turing eventually killed himself as a result of his conviction of Gross Indecency and subsequent chemical castration. That much I knew beforehand. What I never knew about the charges and the conviction was that the police were first made aware of his homosexuality because he went to them after his apartment had been burgled by a young man he had taken home a few weeks prior. Turing contacted the police and explained what had happened, including the part about the apartment being cased by the young man he had slept with. In his utter naivete, Turing assumed the police would do what most of us consider the right thing and deal with the theft (which was not much, but included some objects of sentimental value to Turing). Instead, they cracked down on his sexuality like a vice squad. The rest is history.
Would recommend?: Very strongly, Turing was a genius who deserved more credit than he ever got in his day, and almost all of our modern technology is due to his insights. The video quality on this one is excellent as well: one uploaded clip instead of a schizophrenic playlist. It's just not a good one to watch when you're already depressed, is all.
The good: This is a nice, long, juicy selection (a full hour), and extensive research was involved. There's loads of interviews with people who knew or worked with Turing, as well as medical, biographical, and computer science experts. It switches between present-day interviews, archival footage, and dramatic reenactments quite seamlessly.
The bad: Another BBC documentary that likes to crank up the dramatic music and the pathos. Is that the trend now? I've seen it in so many of the BBC's documentaries online, I'm just beginning to assume that it's par-for-the-course documentary-making anymore. Also, I wish they had made it longer and included more of the substance of his thoughts and writings. At one point they present a formula he developed to generate the patterns on animals' coats, and rather than explain how it works or even what each variable represents, they just leave it floating up there on screen while people talk about how genius it is.
One interesting fact: Spoiler alert, somewhat. As I mentioned before, Turing eventually killed himself as a result of his conviction of Gross Indecency and subsequent chemical castration. That much I knew beforehand. What I never knew about the charges and the conviction was that the police were first made aware of his homosexuality because he went to them after his apartment had been burgled by a young man he had taken home a few weeks prior. Turing contacted the police and explained what had happened, including the part about the apartment being cased by the young man he had slept with. In his utter naivete, Turing assumed the police would do what most of us consider the right thing and deal with the theft (which was not much, but included some objects of sentimental value to Turing). Instead, they cracked down on his sexuality like a vice squad. The rest is history.
Would recommend?: Very strongly, Turing was a genius who deserved more credit than he ever got in his day, and almost all of our modern technology is due to his insights. The video quality on this one is excellent as well: one uploaded clip instead of a schizophrenic playlist. It's just not a good one to watch when you're already depressed, is all.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
What I'm reading:
It's slow going at first, as Dr. Sacks goes into detail about the condition Encephalitis lethargica. At least it was slow going for me, being that I'm not as well-versed in neurology as other sciences. In a nutshell, Encephalitis lethargica leaves the victim trapped in a frozen statue of a body, able to think and perceive but unable to easily control their own bodies. There was an outbreak of it in the early years of the 20th century, and then for whatever reason, it more or less subsided.Beyond the first chapter it's much easier going, as Dr. Sacks recounts his experience with a vast number of patients in the late '60s and early '70s. By this point, many of his patients had been "stuck" (so to speak) for forty or fifty years. Upon the administration of the drug L-DOPA, many of these patients suddenly and almost violently "woke up," and Awakenings is a collection of the stories of these, well, awakenings. I'm going to have to watch the movie once I finish.
What are you reading?
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Science Saturday: On the Road With Scientists at CERN
CERN, the European center for nuclear research, is home to the much-lauded (if also much misunderstood) Large Hadron Collider. This short piece from the BBC takes a quick look at what it is scientists do there all day.
The good: It's quite interesting to see how large and busy CERN is. It's also thankfully free of the melodrama from previous BBC documentaries.
The bad: It's only about twenty-five minutes long, so it's a rather cursory and shallow look at the CERN.
One interesting fact: The LHC generates enormous amounts of data, something like four million events every second. Computers eventually whittle that down to one hundred events per second for the scientists to analyze.
Would recommend? Sure!
The good: It's quite interesting to see how large and busy CERN is. It's also thankfully free of the melodrama from previous BBC documentaries.
The bad: It's only about twenty-five minutes long, so it's a rather cursory and shallow look at the CERN.
One interesting fact: The LHC generates enormous amounts of data, something like four million events every second. Computers eventually whittle that down to one hundred events per second for the scientists to analyze.
Would recommend? Sure!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Pinterest Post!
I signed up for internet crack Pinterest and it's ruined my life. (If you're signed up too, follow me! I'm Kokoba!)
Case in point, I started writing this entry about twenty minutes ago. I headed over to Pinterest to find an example of cool stuff I've found, only to get sucked into repinning things. And now it's twenty minutes later.
For example, here's a relevant meme:
And this beautiful image of The Pillars of Creation, gas clouds in the Eagle Nebula:
Case in point, I started writing this entry about twenty minutes ago. I headed over to Pinterest to find an example of cool stuff I've found, only to get sucked into repinning things. And now it's twenty minutes later.
For example, here's a relevant meme:
A BABY HIPPO BABY HIPPO BABY HIPPO~:
Awesome boots:
And this beautiful image of The Pillars of Creation, gas clouds in the Eagle Nebula:
Are you on Pinterest? What have you found?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
You've Come A Long Way, Baby
But you've still got a long way to go.
Case in point: Slashdot runs a story on gender disparity in OSS/FLOSSy projects. Yay: Insightful comments as to why that may be the way it is. Nay: There's still too much sexist bullpizzle getting modded up as "Insightful" among all the actual insight.
Case in point: Slashdot runs a story on gender disparity in OSS/FLOSSy projects. Yay: Insightful comments as to why that may be the way it is. Nay: There's still too much sexist bullpizzle getting modded up as "Insightful" among all the actual insight.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Music Monday
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year.
It was probably this, as best as I can remember.
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