Tracking Multiple Objects

The daily stuff from the Seed magazine feed usually contains at least one thing I, as a scientific non-entity, can understand and enjoy. Today it was the cognitive ability to track multiple objects. One of the scientists notes:

"Most adults can, with a little practice, track four out of ten randomly moving objects for ten seconds -- they fall apart when there are more than four objects to track or more than ten total objects (the "most difficult" trial features four objects to track and twelve total)."

The University of Guelph website has a Multiple Object Tracking Demo that is sure to hurt the pride. I aced the easy and normal but bombed the difficult stage....how humiliating for my ego. I was sure I had those little b*%^$#d's nailed but it just didn't happen. First go around I got 1 out of 4, second 3 out of 4...I am too much of a sore loser to have gone for a third try (it would not have been a charm, shut up)

Adiós!
htw

"Pure Reason is a Disease"

I just read this great article from The Boston Globe about the correllation between our feelings and our thoughts. Scientific research is now beginning to suggest that the brain cannot properly carry out its cognitive functions without emotions to go with them.

In 2004, Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene used brain imaging to
demonstrate that our emotions play an essential role in ordinary moral
decision-making. Whenever we contemplate hurting someone else, our brain
automatically generates a negative emotion. This visceral signal discourages
violence. Greene's data builds on evidence suggesting that psychopaths suffer
from a severe emotional disorder -- that they can't think properly because they
can't feel properly. "This lack of emotion is what causes the dangerous
behavior," said James Blair, a cognitive psychologist at the National Institute
of Mental Health.

This makes me reflect on all the problems I've been having these last couple of years...the whole time I've been in grad school actually. I have not traditionally been an overly emotional person so this whole depression thing has knocked me for a loop. To feel this way and be unable to do anything about it has been a very humbling experience. On top of the depression, I'm ashamed of being depressed...what is that called? Is there even a name for it? The harder I tried to feel better, the more miserably I failed, the worse I felt, talk about your vicious cycles. I don't like having to take the antidepressants, but I'm terrified of not taking them. Is this the new me? (Please, no) Will I be able to stop taking them after I get out of school and settle into some sense of normalcy? (Please, yes) I would love to be off of them by the end of the year but again, what if I can't? What if I'm forever unable to control my own emotions?

These are the questions that keep me up at night and are completely unnecessary because it doesn't matter. I won't be able to change anything if it turns out that this is my new persona. I'll just have to live with it and adjust like everyone else, but I don't have to like it. I liked being the steady oak, not the brittle, trembling leaf at the mercy of life's breezes that I've come to be. I guess that's what it comes down to...I don't like myself anymore. I love my job and I have great friends, but I don't like myself. I'd really love to know just exactly what is going on in my brain (chemically, hormonally, anything else-ally) to cause this. How is what I'm thinking affecting what I'm feeling? That is what caught my interest about this article I found. The author of the article, Jonah Lehrer, has a book coming out in November so I put in an order card for the library. Proust Was a Neuroscientist is a great title and the cover is unusual

What does a madeleine have to do with anything and how many people know what one is?
I love the quirkiness of that image :)

htw

one of my new fav websites

XKCD

it doesn't stand for anything and has no hidden meaning...it's just randomly chosen letters and I found it through my RSS feed for Seed magazine, a science publication. Here are some of my favorites so far:

There are archives on the website, so check em' out if you're interested and piss off if you're not :)

Love,
htw

The last...hopefully

I had scaling and root planing done on the left side today so HOPEFULLY that will be the last time I'll have to endure that loveliness and I can get this periodontal crap behind me.

Please let me be some kind of poster child for dental hygiene. Go to the dentist, he/she is your friend. Don't take a seven year hiatus during college because you don't have the money but you still buy pies from Milo's, doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, and assorted candies from every gas station between Montevallo and Gardendale yet you neglect to floss, don't brush before bed sometimes because you're too tired, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah ,wah, wah, wah, etc.

So kiddies, brush, floss, use a toothpick, use Listerine, see your dentist, get dental insurance just in case...take care of your teeth before they take care of you (or your pocketbook).

Adiós!

htw

faces only a mother could love...

check out these photos of some of the crazy things living in our oceans. not that these creatures could get me, but yet another group of examples of why I don't like swimming in the ocean. We are not at the top of the food chain there, get over it. you want to go swimming at dusk? then don't bitch when a shark attacks you, moron!

Adiós!

htw

I just can't stop

but this is the last one tonight I promise

last but not least, my little baby Binky, Bink for short. She's edging up on 10-11 years now and is as spunky as ever!

On the other hand....

Have a look at my new cousin Gut! My cousin A doesn't have kids (and I don't know if that's "yet" or just doesn't want them) so Gut is my new 2nd cousin and that's short for Gutterball. He looks like a long legged boxer mix of some kind and is sweet as spun sugar. He curled up in my lap and went to sleep, then on to A's lap for the same thing. He didn't even wake up for the pictures and she had to hold his head up, little baby that he was. These were taken a few months ago so I'm positive that he's even cuter now!

Adios!

htw

Beautiful Day

We kicked @$$ at the Alexander McCall Smith event today! He was a great guest and speaker, though he had a disturbingly soft handshake...that may be a Scottish thing??? He was decked out in full kilt with the socks and everything. He stayed alot longer than we'd planned and was SO nice! The last author we had, John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The City of Falling Angels) was a little...standoffish...and that really doesn't go over very well with us. Maybe he was just having an off day but, as my mother says, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

This is my esteemed mother! Her motto: I am your mother and I am a mutha'. You may think I'm kidding. I'm not. She's such a cutie :) When I talk to her on the phone I call her my little mamacita 'cause she's so short. Hopefully that's not something dirty or offensive in Spanish. The little s**t at her feet is Buggerbear a.k.a. Booboo a.k.a. bain of my existence, but he makes her life a joy and keeps her happy so I'll tolerate the little stain. He even knows when I'm on the phone with her because he'll start whining and barking (make that yipping) not five minutes after we start our conversation. He's bitten me on the leg, ankle, foot, toes, hand and nose but that was before I put the fear of God in him with a rolled up newspaper. He such a little stinker, but I don't have to live with him so that's okay. He's really cute from a distance. Look at his face in this picture. Do you see the sneer? I do.

I certainly don't deny that he's cute. I take too many pictures of him to say otherwise. All I'm saying is that we don't get along and never will. He doesn't blink an eye at my arguements that she was my mother before she was his. I wish I had that kind of confidence. :)

Adios!

htw

Burning the midnight oil...

Why am I up at 11:59pm? This is very unlike me. I'm tired, I've got a busy day planned tomorrow, and I'm EXTREMELY grumpy when I'm not rested. Why do that to yourself?

Life seems pretty good to me right now, cancer free and D chewing her squeaky toy in my ear (delighted that I'm not asleep by the way). How can you deny those liquid brown eyes? Excuse me while I throw the squeaky toy...

For any friends interested in using my laptop, I did not wipe the doggy slobber off my hands before I went back to typing!

So I've been exploring the blogosphere again this evening and had a little more luck. I found Kenny's Korner (obviously I was drawn to a fellow alliterator) and have added it to my RSS aggregator. Caustic humor, good drawings...

good god, she's got the hedgehog now!

...sly wit. I was amused and entertained so we'll see if it stays that way.

Little else went on at ol' EOL this afternoon. The HVAC was out so by about 2pm the building was a sauna. The guy didn't get there to repair it until about 20 minutes to closing because no one called him. Communication definitely got fouled up there somewhere. I can just see us having 200 people in the library for the Alexander McCall Smith event on Sunday with no air...it'd be beautiful.

With this event on Sunday, I'll have to change the monthly display on Monday. I can't remember if I've got anything in the wings, but off the top of my head I thought I'd get a list of celebrities' favorite books and put those out. I've done mystery, exotic locales, food fiction, anything with the word "hot" in the title, "look what i found on the bottom shelf", and myriads of others. I remember a book published not too long ago, something like "books that changed lives" or something to that effect. Maybe I could come up with a little slip of some sort that would relate the celebrity choosing the title and why they chose it. I'll have to do a trial run and see how labor intensive it is. I've really had a lot more success with random choices for a display than with themed ones. It seems that once a patron has chosen from a themed display they don't want to come back to it again to get a book on the same topic where as with a random choice display the patron will come back again and again to see what's new.

I think I'll go with that, thanks for the help!

I'm off to bed now so I won't be a complete ogre tomorrow...hopefully ;-)

Adios!
htw

Bad News

Everyone arrived at work this morning to the news that our beloved B, the library's administrative guru, has lung cancer. She will undergo radiation and chemo and plans to fight it as hard as she can. She is having complete scans today to see at what stage the disease is right now. I am so hoping it's early...we just lost Dana (but her cancer was rare and incurable) and none of us, B herself most certainly, want B to have to go through that kind of suffering.

K came up with the idea of making her a scrapbook with a "while you were out" theme, like the notepads you use in a business office to take messages for people. We will all have our pictures taken doing something that parodies/spoofs something indicative of each individual that will make B laugh. I thought this was a great idea because it is something she can keep and make notes in if she wants to. Now my quandry is, how do you take capture a smart mouth? What else would be indicative of me? The whole children's department is going to use pillows to look pregnant, except for KG who really is. A will work a crossword puzzle, KH will watch football, C will be on the phone, M will be laying in the staff lounge with measle-like dots and a thermometer, N will be in the floor surrounded by boxes and carts of books....I want our department to come up with some stuff equally as contextually funny.

Everyone keep her in your thoughts and prayers, no matter the denomination. B is a wonderful lady with too much sweetness to leave this world so soon, though it tends to work that way.

I am not ready for her to leave.

htw