25 September 2008

The 10% fallacy


Hollywood is very fond of dragging out one of the oldest fallacies in biological research: the 10% brain thing. The oldest fallacy is, of course, that EACH drink you take kills 50,00 brain cells. That's just not true, they came up with that number by estimating the number of dead cells in chronic drinker's brains and dividing by the estimated number of drinks a chronic drinker has in a lifetime. Turns out that you can swill a LOT of alcohol before you deplete your B6 levels down enough to take brain damage. THEN that one drink starts killing off millions of brain cells.

A similar amount of scientific fortitude went into the 10% fallacy. Here's how it went. Take a rat or a mouse, run it through a maze and clock it's time. Then take out a small portion of the brain and run it again. Keep doing this until you get a noticeable drop in time. Repeat. Average the results. And they were: 90% of a rats brain needed to be removed to get a noticeable drop in time. Conclusion: we only use 10% of our brains.

Let's put this in different terms, we're gonna take parts off your car until we get a noticeable drop in SPEED. We'll start with the steering wheel, radio, gauges, body panels, interior, air filter, power steering, radiator, THEN engine... in that order. We only see a marginal drop in speed when the radiator goes. And in fact we see a small increase in speed as various parts come off. But if we stop before the engine, is it still a car?

The answer is NO. About 15 seconds after the 10% paper was released, someone else shook off the old idea that the brain wasn't just a big mass of smart jello, but a multi-layered mass of compartmentalized processes. We now know there's a visual center, a cognitive center, the reptilian brain, etc. Only about half of our brain mass is even used for "thinking", the rest goes to maintain the body, and support the senses. So, anyone who's ever jogged or took a walk, with their eyes open, listening to a walkman has, at some point, used at least 50% of their brain... without the "thinking" part.

But some of the new-ish technology out there (MRIs PET scans, etc) show, by tracking blood flow, that the average person uses approximately 100% of their brains, EVERY SINGLE DAY. See it turns out that different tasks use different part of your brain. Listening to music, uses part A of the "thinking" area, but singing uses part B (both use the sensory areas, too, and singing requires activity in the reptilian brain). Playing an instrument uses part C of the brain, dancing part D. So if you happen to be singing along with the music, playing air-guitar or dashboard-drum while shaking your booty, it turns our you're using about 80% of your brain all at once.

They've even gone so far as to develop technology that helps you to make use of all the various parts of your brain as much as possible and to coordinate the efforts to create interesting internal effects. If you've ever seen a "relaxation" machine with sunglasses and earphones that flash red lights at your closed eyes, that's the one. They're trying to make use of the brains natural pleasure response from activating as many parts as possible all at once. Primitive tribes did this by drumming and dancing around a fire. Modern tribes do it with glow sticks and speakers. Oh, and sitting there, reading all of this?
... about 20-30 percent, assuming the room is dead quiet and there's nothing but the screen to look at.

You may have heard that Einstein used 30% of His brain... That's an estimation based on his IQ (in excess of 200), using the 10% fallacy to illustrate the point. Einstein never took and IQ test, so we don't really know. Naturally, because we don't know, we have no idea how much of his brain he actually used. But I'm willing to bet that it's pretty close to 100%, just like everyone else.

On a more Platonic wave. Think about the rest of your body. Is there ANY part of your body where there's 10 times more of anything than what's needed? Even large amounts of stored fat are a survival remnant that help a lot of people in cold climates (I grew up in Michigan, so I still carry a lot of "Detroit"). But really, think .... hair? nope, keeps the sun off you while running. Nails? nope, good for digging and self defense. Sweat? nope keeps you cool. Appendix? Nope, recent studies show that important digestive bacteria grow there. Why on earth would we develop ... and maintain... a huge chunk of Very Expensive tissue that served no purpose at all? It's ridiculous...
It's asinine.

It's Hollywood...

15 September 2008

Tribe "final days" news...

All you chicken-little's out there crying about how tribe is going down because of this that or another thing. Please take some of the following into account:
1) Yes, the lead programmer has left. However, he's the guy that was keeping it running these last few months of crashes, problems, and outages. Maybe losing him was a good thing. Not saying he was a bad guy, but he can be replaced, and maybe fresh eyes will get things running smoother.
2) The Tribe blog has had nothing but good to say about the Premium membership program. This has netted much needed funds that have allowed new equipment purchases and such. Now, one nay-sayer claims that the early sept colocation change was a fraud and that Tribe isn't allowed to move because of colo debts. Ummm, first, colos hold the light switch. If you get behind, they have no problem limiting your bandwidth, or just shutting you down... but an extended debt? I doubt it. But lets entertain the idea. If Tribes owner is siphoning money out then there's little to do and most likely, the attempted colo move would have brought tribe down permanently. I'm gonna call shenanigans on that nay-sayer.
3) Tribe is currently running smoother than ever. This could be from rats jumping ship, and it could be that the promised changes on the Tribe blog have happened and the site is now more bullet-proof.

I'm not against finding alternate resources and such, but posting your email address on a public server is a fast way to GB of spam mail a day. I'm down below 1300 a week, and I think I'll keep it that way. In the mean time, I hate Facebook, I won't use a Fox News owned service (My Space), so right now, if I gotta go, I'll probably revert to the first, the oldest and still the best bbs out there... arbornet
http://www.arbornet.org/

12 September 2008

Post Burn Blah Blah


Post Burn Report:
Shelter (Pictured):
/ Double length monkey hut worked famously. It was so stable that it helped form part of a larger structure.
/ Dome designed to fit inside Monkey Hut ... fit. The combination of the two make for a formidably cool shelter. The zippered cover kept out the dust nicely.
/ Shower Curtain suspended from one end of Monkey hut worked quite well, and placement near the dome meant there was a convenient shelf to put stuff.
/ Battery powered shower gave up the ghost (despite new batteries). Fuck it. I grabbed a cup and poured water over myself. It was entirely sufficient, greener, leaner, and it made me happy. That's my new shower.... no disappointments, no batteries.
/ Covered evaporator needed more room to work. Once I put a couple of boards to support the lid, it worked great. Still thinking of a kiddie pool next time.
/ Rope bed for dome was larger than expected but worked incredibly well. It needed several tightenings, but was the most comfortable sleep I've had on the Playa.

Camp (InCompeCare):
/ Set up took longer than I'd hoped. We didn't have actual shade and stuff until Tuesday.
/ The sign for our camp was a complete success. We're totally doing something like it in the future.
/ The function of having everyone pull office hours was weak. I would have liked to see a little more participation from the residents.
/ The fact that we were closed most of the time was not lost on outsiders. That played nicely.
/ The M&Ms, toys costumes and such were quite the hit.
/ However, far too many of our visitors saw the red cross and assumed we were a legitimate first aide station.
/ A couple of camps left a lot of detritus behind. Clean up was kind of aggravating.

Plans
Keep in mind this was a particularly dusty year. And i don't mean "wear a face mask" dusty, or "get some goggles" dusty, but I mean foot high mounds of dust in piles all over the playa. Hit one with a bike and you come to a gentle but abrupt stop. Made bikes useless at night, and everyone's lungs got filled up reducing energy levels across the board.
/ Ocean of fire - like 6 people showed up. The weather was beautiful, the sound system was faltering the dust was tame. No records broken this year, but we had fun with the brass balls competition anyway. Disheartening, though.
/ Temple of Community - I was supposed to run the show before the burn, but while trying to gather more performers, Crimson stepped on my announcement and gave bad information. No one showed.
/ Burn Night - High winds and lots of all-day dust meant that the pyro team had to find a "window" for which they could burn the man (with fireworks). However, because of the critical timing, they decided to cancel the rest of the burn night ritual, including the Fire conclave. Funny, not once did I ever hear anyone tinker with the idea of not having fireworks.... grr.
/ Temple Basura - The main temple burn was delayed for some time because they realized that they had nothing to light it with. This is the position I always filled with the main temple crew, but unfortunately, the Basura crew decided that the Temple crew's help would not be needed. *smirk*

People
I saw a lot of old friends this year. None of the ones I expected, all the ones I needed, I guess. My playa love this year ended up being another shin. We email to each other but I don't think either of us are ready for an LD thang. *sigh*

Tech
/ My iPod Touch has now fully completed it's original mission. First it gave me a music player to walk with. Then a sales tool for Red Swan and Bearclaw. And finally, on the playa, the WiFi access allowed me to do enough work to be certain that I'd have enough money to make it home. This is the first year I've come back from the playa with no new debts. Happy.
/ battery powered shower - dead. Replaced. Happy
/ Genny - Both camp generators failed to emit a single volt this year. And not for lack of trying. First, I have to fix the starter cord, then I think I have to get mine un-flooded. Finally, I want to buy a muffler for it. Now if I can just remember all that when I have both time and money.
/ Pocket Fisherman. Yup, the original Ron Popeil gadget. This turned out to be the most gratifying part of the burn for me. since New moon was thursday, it was a very dark year. I went Raver Fishin and gave away blinky lights to whomever I caught. This was the single most gratifying part of the year for me. I even bought a couple of lures so that I could do some stream fishing if I get the call. This thing lives in my car from now on.

In the end, this was a particularly hard year. One of those years that make it very hard to say, confidently, that I'll be back next year. I burned the bed, but I can always make another one cheaply. I still have the dome and Hut and the rest of my camp. Time will tell on the rest. The biggest worry I have is if I'll have a conclave next year. A LOT of my folks are pissed off about burn night, and taking crap from people who perform all year round isn't helping their mood.

09 September 2008

Pale-In


Everybody is up in arms about Sarah Palin. She's not the first woman on an executive ticket. Geraldine Ferraro had that honor. She's not the dumbest or least experienced VP, that one goes to Dan Quayle.

She's a clear attempt at locking in the Hillary vote that threatened to go to McCain after the primaries. That's all. Simple pandering. Nothing else. Please stop calling it "historic". It's not.

...unless she gets elected.

03 September 2008

Back from the burn

Dust, sweat, dust, tears, dust, shelter, dust, ice, dust, dust, dust, dust......

No conclave this year...
6 people at Ocean of fire...
Temple of community confusion...
AAARRRGH....

On the other hand, I was swept off my feet by the Shin of the Santa Cruz fire conclave. A new face, sweet, talented and a good hugger. She gave me sweet affirmations when I think I needed them most.

It was a strange year. I feel empty. Usually, I'm tired but brimming with creativity. But the Burn night debacle has left me utterly spent.