div, grad, curl, repeat

Dinosaur Comics - June 14th, 2007 - awesome fun times!

November 06, 2009, 11:38am Comments

“
You just lost the game. Everyone loses the game. As Dostoevsky observed in Winter Notes on Summer Impressions: “Try to avoid thinking of a white bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” In fact, whenever we try not to think about something that something gets trapped in the mind, stuck in the recursive loop of self-consciousness. Our attempt at repression turns into an odd fixation.

This human frailty has profound consequences. Dan Wegner, a psychologist at Harvard, refers to the failure as an “ironic” mental process. Whenever we establish a mental goal — such as trying not to think about white bears — the goal is accompanied by an inevitable follow-up thought, as the brain checks to see if we’re making progress. The end result, of course, is that we obsess over the one thing we’re trying to avoid.
”

—

Sleep : The Frontal Cortex

Thought habits are mad difficult to break.

November 05, 2009, 12:40am Comments

» What One Word Best Describes How You Feel a Year After President Obama's Election? - NYTimes.com

This is both nifty and very powerful. I wrote “hopeful,” because… well, what else can one really feel?

I firmly believe that we’re in a new era, one that has no need for disappointment or cynicism in our government, our nation, and in mankind in general. Even if Obama fails to meet up to expectations, the mere fact that we, as a country, at arguably one of our lowest periods ever, were able to get him elected shows that there will always be hope for us. We’re living history.

November 04, 2009, 12:45pm Comments

skysignal:

Dancing Neil Patrick Harris and Elmo just made my day.

Had to attach this GIF to a text post because Tumblr still fails at GIF photo posts.

Reblogged from about a girl..

November 04, 2009, 12:31pm Comments

» Newspapers aren't doing as badly as you think. - By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine

At some point in the future, newspapers may disappear. But count me in the later rather than sooner camp. And I can’t help but think that many newspaper-doomsayers are conflating hope with analysis. According to many of the digerati, newspapers and other printed matter that people pay for through clunky old distribution systems (the mail, kids on bicycles, vans) can never make money and are bound to fail, while publications distributed online for free are destined to rule the world. (Of course, I could be guilty of the same impulse. I have feet in both worlds and could no more choose between print and the Web than I could choose between my two children.) But I also think this might be a case of making too much of a few numbers and ignoring some important ones.

THANK YOU. Obnoxious newspaper fatalists (especially the bandwagon types) are very quickly approaching #1 on my pet peeve list.

November 02, 2009, 1:42pm Comments

» You AUGHT To Remember

The first decade is over? Whaaaat?

November 02, 2009, 1:40pm Comments

» Being a Woman is Not a Pre-Existing Condition

ferrrn:

My post and petition on one of the most appalling aspects of the pre-existing condition bullshit in the health insurance industry:

Health insurance companies take advantage of the American public simply because they can. Government needs to tell them to cease and desist with discriminatory practices like denying women coverage because of pregnancy, rape, domestic abuse or HIV medication .

The current effort to overhaul the healthcare industry must not neglect this institutionalized sexism, and you can help by calling on Congress to investigate these cases. Please contact your elected reps and ask them to consider these abuses and demand their redress as Congress continues to craft and debate new healthcare legislation for the American public.

Amen. Thank you, Fern!

Reblogged from YESTERDAY! TODAY! FIVE MINUTES AGO! NOW!.

October 31, 2009, 12:41pm Comments

» Seven questions that keep physicists up at night - space - 23 October 2009 - New Scientist

What is reality really?

The material world may, at some level, lie beyond comprehension, but Anton Zeilinger, professor of physics at the University of Vienna, is profoundly hopeful that physicists have merely scratched the surface of something much bigger. Zeilinger specialises in quantum experiments that demonstrate the apparent influence of observers in the shaping of reality. “Maybe the real breakthrough will come when we start to realise the connections between reality, knowledge and our actions,” he says. The concept is mind-bending, but it is well established in practice. Zeilinger and others have shown that particles that are widely separated can somehow have quantum states that are linked, so that observing one affects the outcome of the other. No one has yet fathomed how the universe seems to know when it is being watched.

October 29, 2009, 11:22pm Comments

» The world's best pancake recipe

MUST try this soon, especially since I’ve been binging on pancakes as of late

October 29, 2009, 11:12pm Comments

» Loafing around during midterms leads to A+ pumpkin bread

Tried some of this bread today (Devin brought a loaf to the office), and it was delicious. Must try this recipe soon.

October 29, 2009, 10:04pm Comments

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