November 4, 2007

  • There are some people I just wish I could totally erase from my past, memory, acquaintance, and all.  People who detract from my faith in and optimism about the world by having been in my experience of it.  People who have totally wasted my time in even having known them.  People I have zero interest in ever hearing from or about ever again.  My, this is an annoying world.

October 31, 2007

  • Intolerance and Paranoia.

    As an ardent proponent of multiculturalism and diversity, when I read news like what follows, I feel utterly disgusted:

    "Bertrand, a separatist-turned-federalist who has reverted back to separatist
    politics, told the Quebec commission that it can only protect its culture by
    getting rid of multiculturalism. He said that can only be achieved through
    Quebec sovereignty.     "

    "The commission is looking into how immigrants integrate into Quebec society.
    It was formed after some Quebecers complained about rights afforded to ethnic
    and religious minorities."

    As a proponent of multiculturalism and as a proud Canadian, I cherish the contributions and rich heritage that Quebec and our French Canadians have given to the history of Canada, a respect I would not have had the opportunity to develop if I were as intolerant and culturally paranoid as some separatists today.  Our separatists might do well to take that point to heart - French Canadian culture is not dying, but the best parts of it are much alive in enriching the fabric of our nation.  If those with power and influence spent more time and effort encouraging and helping foster the growth of Quebec's culture rather than putting out to the world the face of intolerance, hatred, and fear, they too would be playing a hand in strengthening the culture they claim to protect (an example of positive cultivation of culture: a recent announcement by joint levels of government of a new plan to revitalize downtown Montreal).  In fact, they damage that culture with each overreaction and outcry, staining the face of that proud heritage to the world, choking the life blood of their culture with stagnation and starvation until, perhaps, their language is the only identity they have left to hold onto.

    The recent assaults on the virtues we hold dear as a Canadian nation, the virtues that make our nation strong and vibrant, praised the world over, virtues such as multiculturalism, diversity, fundamental respect for human rights - to throw them down and tread on them as some have done recently - shows a dangerous regression in terms of our social growth and maturity as a species.  I had thought we'd have learned from world wars our forefathers fought and conflicts endured in the last century owing to thinking like what has been recently espoused.  We as Canadians hold dear the principle that we are not a melting pot but a glorious quilt-work of many different fibres, each lending their strength and their unique vivacity to our cultural landscape, bound together by a respect for the history of this country.  We become stronger by the many different parts, not weaker.  It is sad that some people do not realize that it only by the positive act of lovingly cultivating and nourishing our cultural roots - and not by the negative one of treading upon those of others, or enforcing cultural consistency at the barrel of gun or the end of a gavel - do we build a healthy society with a strong culture.  While the positive route requires simple gift of faith in the vigour of one's cultural identity to grow and eventually flourish, the negative alternative takes from us, robbing from us our very humanity as we stamp out the universal human rights of others.

    link to the article:
    "Separatist assails Habs who don't speak French"  (http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/  )
    (Finnish Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu berated for not speaking French in public appearances)

    From another article,
    "    Quebec politicians tackle immigrants' rights"
    (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071024/que_hearings_071024)

    "Councillors were also against the display of overt religious symbols such as
    hijabs in public life.

    Herouxville Coun. Andre Drouin told commissioners Wednesday that the Charter
    of Rights and Freedoms "is a tool to destroy our country" and that judges should
    drop legal protections for religion.

    Otherwise, warned Drouin, the province would have to separate from Canada."

    I wonder if these same councillors are also considering imposing a prohibition on the wearing of crosses, rosaries, the carrying of bibles, or the wearing of robes by priests outside of churches?  The Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects us from intolerance and guarantees each of us the right to live as we please so long as we do not harm others.  Far from a tool to destroy anyone, it is what stops xenophobes from public lynchings and regression back into the days of witch hunts and public inquisitions.

October 27, 2007

  • terminal velocity question

    Hmm...  I started writing my novel, and I thought up an interesting question in doing some of the creative background...

    Here's my question:
    "Regarding terminal velocity, for the same object of the same mass (say the mass and shape of a human being), within the range of hypothetical Earth-like planets with survivable air pressures (and therefore, I'm supposing, the same range of air density and temperature) and survivable gravitational constants, how much (roughly) can the terminal velocity for that range of hypothetical worlds vary?  Presumably you can have a very high terminal velocity in a world with low air pressure/density and high gravity, but then the higher the gravity, the more the air pressure generally will be, right?  Of course, granted that an object doesn't burn up from the friction caused by higher air pressure and gravity."

    This is from Nasa:  http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/termv.html

    terminalvelocityfromnasa

    from this website:  http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml
    Terminal Velocity for a skydiver on earth is roughly 56m/s (200km/h)...  this site has 120km/h-200km/h 53-56m/s up to even 76m/s (273.6km/h).

October 17, 2007

  • TMNT

    I rented the TMNT (2007 film) DVD last thursday on a 1-week loan, and since I had to return it tomorrow I watched it today over lunch.  I must say I agree with the commentator someone who said that this was the best Turtles film yet.  I was initially sceptical when I heard they'd decided to do it all CGI, but after watching it, and after the successes of Pixar films such as The Incredibles, I think it was the correct choice.  Doing the film CGI allowed the filmmakers the freedom to make the Turtles do the kind of action people have always imagined them doing - you'd never be able to train an actor (other than, perhaps wushu actors, and good luck getting them all in one american-made film!) to do the moves and action they did in this movie, especially not in the 1990's era Turtle suits!

    As far as the cgi, I was very impressed with the overall quality, especially after I learned that it was made by a relatively unknown-till-now Hong Kong animation studio under the animation company Imagi.  They produced a level of animation comparable to that of Dreamworks and Pixar, with the shading, texturing, and overall darker look of it (compared to earlier cartoons and movies).  And the expressions!  In a movie about ninja turtles, they really needed to have their digital actors be expressive to carry through the "human" part of the acting, and they definitely succeeded in that respect.  The expressions by the characters, both human and... well... mutant... were lively, comic, not *too* cartoony (as might be the case from a Disney-pixar production), and yet very nicely followed the nuances of the voice acting.  Very impressed. The skin tone patterns, lighting, reflections, the little details on the turtles' and the buildings were also quite impressive, as was the ever-flowing contrails of the turtles' masks.

    As always, I was very impressed with the musical score by Klaus Badelt, who produced a very upbeat and energetic score that very much reflected the Turtles' roof-hopping nighttime escapades.  Every time I hear it I like it more, good heart-pumpin' night-rompin' action fun.

    I also have to say the visual style and directing was excellent - the movie always in motion, whether it be the martial arts action, following alongside the turtles as they patrolled the rooftops, or Mikey's skateboarding through the sewers.  There wasn't too much of the silly extreme closeup camerawork so typical of American action movies, which severely detracts from martial arts films (probably because the animators were from Hong Kong!  That, and they didn't have to worry about their CGI actors not being able to do the moves convincingly...).  The action choreography was also unexpectedly impressive for a CGI animated film.

    The plot was pretty standard and nothing too deep, perhaps a little cliche, but it was of a satisfactory to maintain the viewer's interest, and had a grand enough "save-the-world" scope to suffice for the Turtles' triumphant return to the big screen.  We're not expecting Shakespeare or Tom Clancy intrigue here, folks!  What really impressed me about the writing, however, was the dialogue.  The dialogue was always very sharp (as was the delivery by the voice actors), the jokes well-placed, never too cliche, and very characteristic for each of the characters.  There was rarely a flat moment.  You could tell the writing staff really understood their characters.

    Voice acting:  Good.  Everyone did their jobs decently.  That's all I have to say.  Kudo's to all actors, from Patrick Stewart to Sarah Michelle Gellar (never would have figured her as an April O'Neil...), (and Lawrence Fishburne's short narration, haha), and especially to the late Mako Iwamatsu as Splinter.  And unexpectedly, Zhang Ziyi as Karai... never heard her voice that low before, lol.  She's usually playing such brats in her on-screen roles, it's refreshing to see her play a different type of character.  One odd thing:  I don't know if it was just the DVD, but at many times, I felt the voices and the dialogue was somewhat muffled, and I had to turn up the volume to hear what was being said.

    As far as the comedy, I loved the little touches, the very characteristic witty banter between the personalities of each individual Turtle, the little character moments between each character, whether funny or dramatic.  However, don't get me wrong:  the laughs and the slapstick kept me very entertained, like Mikey falling off the couch, or what the Turtles have each been up to in the time since we last saw them.  Regarding little touches in the plot - I liked the fact that they kept this movie to the established continuity of the previous three films.  Nothing's more annoying than constantly rebooting a franchise with every new iteration.  There are even small visual cues left over from the previous Turtles' feature films if you look closely.

    One more note about the DVD:  The dvd comes with lots of little extras, deleted scenes, altered scenes, storyboard sequences, etc.  They really enhanced the enjoyment of the film.  The only change I would have suggested would be to have the option both of watching the deleted/altered/extended scenes with and without the commentary.  Although the commentary by writer/director Kevin Munroe was very interesting, at times you couldn't tell what they were talking about because you couldn't hear the original dialogue of the scene in the background.

    4 lightning bolts out of five.

October 15, 2007

  • Hearing nor Listening to the Calls

    I just read an an article online at AOL news in which Greenpeace's new ad lambastes Apple for the level of toxic chemicals in the construction of its new iPhones (watch the ad).  They state that Apple had promised to make its products more environmentally friendly, and yet they are not fulfilling this promise because the amount of toxins in their new iPhones is high - as tested by a lab in the UK - and does not compare to toxin reductions in the products of cellular phone companies such as Nokia and Motorola.

    As I read the comments on the article, I am once again reminded how close-minded and resistant to reason most people are in general.  Most of the readers who left comments dismissed the entire article on sight owing to some of the more extreme environmental recommendations that Greenpeace has advocated in the past.  If one reads simplistically, this dismissal reduces to a simple ad hominem fallacy, rejecting the evidence and argument by attacking the advocate.

    To give the dissenters the benefit of the doubt, let's break down the (informal) reasoning behind this rejection of the ad in a manner amenable to analysis:
    1. Greenpeace has proposed excessive sanctions in the past.
    2. Advocates who have proposed excessive sanctions in the past are always unreliable.
    3. Advocates who are always unreliable should be dismissed.
    4. Greenpeace is an advocate who has proposed excessive sanctions in the past.
    5. Greenpeace is always unreliable.
    6. Greenpeace should be dismissed.

    Now the mistake in this line of reasoning is line 2.  Few people other than compulsive liars are always unreliable.  Even fools may sometimes speak truths.  Now, I will be the first to agree that sometimes, some of Greenpeace's methods and some of their recommendations may be somewhat excessive or extremist, impractical, and certainly non-standard but while the choices they have made in the past may not always best support their goals of environmental protection and raising awareness, these people are certainly far from fools (in as far as our reactionary commentators are, at the very least).

    Greenpeace's argument in this instance is quite basic.  Apple has stated that they will become more environmentally friendly than their competitors.  Greenpeace's evidence suggests that Apple has in fact produced a product less environmentally friendly than their competitors.  If the lab Greenpeace used to discover its results is to be trusted,
    its conclusions of toxicity levels are fact.  Percentages of toxins in
    Nokia and Motorola products are independently verifiable.  Steve
    Jobs' past announcements are also independently verifiable.  If all of this evidence is indeed fact, then the argument certainly deserves consideration.  Note the conditional "IF" plays an important role in whether we ultimately accept Greenpeace's argument. 

    It seems that most readers commenting are totally misreading Greenpeace's conclusion as saying 'technology and progress are bad, therefore we should give up our cellphones', with some calling Greenpeace 'hippies', 'cave-dwellers', and 'Amish'.  The actual Greenpeace ad says nothing of the sort.  It does not even say explicitly that people should reject the iPhone.  In fact, Greenpeace's recommendations in the ad neither demonise the iPhone nor Steve Jobs and are rather uncharacteristically moderate:  simply stated, Apple should live up to its promises and correct the environmentally hazardous flaws in their product.  The tagline on which the Greenpeace ad ends reads "Steve - It's time to reinvent:  The phone in green!"  If this tagline isn't encouragement to Steve Jobs, I don't know what is.

September 21, 2007

  • Dewy the Peachface Lovebird, we'll miss you....


    Dewy 2004
    Dewy
    R.I.P.
    2002 - 20 September 2007

    I
    just got a call from my mom, who told me Dewy passed away at my sister
    Karen's place earlier today of unknown causes. I gave Karen a call right after and expressed my
    sympathies. She will be much missed by our family, and particularly by
    her little feathered compatriot, lovebird Sing.

    We first brought
    Dewy back in (I think) the spring of 2002. Our other lovebird at the
    time, Newbird (a.k.a. Chirpy as my mom dubbed him) was a little
    lonesome since his older friend peachface lovebird Sweety passed away the year previously
    and had begun to pick his feathers. Dewy was a ball of energy from the
    start, fluttering around expertly even though her adult flight feathers
    had not even fully grown yet. We called her the little vulture, as she
    still had a lot of her baby down on her and the feathers on her head
    had not fully grown. Dewy was much loved, and even her breeding parents
    were fluttering around as she left with my sister Karen.

    We
    initially thought Dewy was a he - hence the name - and for the next
    year she grew up as any healthy happy lovebird did. For a while, she
    cohabited with Newbird, but eventually we came to realise they weren't
    getting along when they'd get into spats and Newbird would chase her
    around the cage. Newbird also carried some of his tendency to pluck his
    feathers over when he was preening Dewy, so eventually they came to
    live in their own cages.

    Dewy 08-03-2002 1715 h - small for web
    Dewy in 2002, one day when she fluttered out into the hallway and waddled around the carpet for a while following me; One of my first entries on Xanga in 2003 was about Dewy, and I posted this exact photo up in that entry.

    Dewy
    had much fun when she was little - we would let her out
    and she would flutter around the house in her expert style, hovering,
    dipping, and landing on her little temporary perch of the handle to the
    in-wall oven. When Newbird/Chirpy left to live with our cleaner's
    friend's mother, a little old lady who had become quite taken with him,
    Dewy was still not lonely. We would sometimes let her out with Kiwy the
    Nanday conure, or she'd ride on my shoulder around the house.

    My sister even set up a little blog for Dewy on Xanga, at dewydoodles,
    but she didn't keep up with maintaining it. Dewy could not talk for the
    most part, although she had a shrill dipping whistling call that almost
    sounded like "Hello!". Even Spock picked up this call. Karen and I
    would discuss the different calls she would make and what they meant -
    she was very expressive with her chattering, her chirp-chirp-chirping,
    and whatnot - and Karen even took to recording the calls and the
    translations on a little piece of paper on the fridge. Dewy was an extremely sweet bird, especially in her youth before her peachfaced lovebird female hormones kicked in; she knew how to step up, she'd climb up your shirt and sit on your shoulder, or squirrel through your hand when you had her on your finger, and she'd even let you pet her back.  Like Newton later, she'd even crawl up and snuggle up in your hair sometimes.  Somewhere
    between 2004 and 2005, I think, we found out she was a female when she
    - like Sweety before her - started laying eggs. We were worried because
    Sweety had passed away not long after beginning to lay eggs, but Dewy
    stayed quite healthy throughout her egg-laying. When Karen and Zhongxi
    finally bought a house and moved out in 2005, Dewy also went to live
    with them and Spock the Senegal at their new home.

    Since my new
    apartment was also close by, I got to go visit her and Spock from time
    to time, and I always enjoyed the visits. Dewy and Spock would both
    greet me as I came in the call with their own calls (Spock with his Hi
    sssspock! and Dewy with her ddeewwuuuwwuurp! and her little Deuwwweeeep!). Karen had been
    volunteering weekends at the Greyhaven Bird Sanctuary, and one day
    about a year or two ago she brought home a little foster companion for
    Dewy - a little black-masked orange and green male baby lovebird named
    Sing. Karen eventually adopted Sing and ever since, the two have been
    neigh inseparable. Dewy would call to Sing from her cage, and Sing
    would call back. As Sing reached maturity, they grew even closer and my
    sister had to keep an eye on the two lest they get carried away during
    playtime out side of their cage and produce a clutch of unhealthy
    hybrid chicks. The two would flutter around Karen's house from perch to
    perch, the top of the cupboards back to their cage, invade Spock's cage
    and steal his food while Spock stood there with a shocked and aghast
    expression on his birdy face. The two even had their own little birdy
    intercom system, where one bird would pretend to feed a little toy they
    had and the other one would pretend to be eating from theirs. They had
    a good life together, got lots of table food, had many toys, and had
    good company.

    The last I saw Dewy was last week when my parents
    and sister and Zhongxi went on their cruise and I had to spend the week
    at home caring for all the pets. Karen brought Spock over and he stayed
    in my room, while the lovebirds came together in another room near
    mine. Dewy was happy and seemed very healthy at the time. I didn't get
    a chance to let her and Sing out while they were at my parents', lest
    they fly around the house and get into trouble, but I made sure to go
    say hi to them from time to time and chatter with Dewy for a while.
    Sweety, Chirpy, and Dewy had together taught me how to imitate their
    lovebird calls, and I liked to spend time interacting with them even if
    I couldn't let them out. The family returned on Saturday and the
    lovebirds and Spock went back home to Karen and Zhongxi's house. I was
    sad that I didn't get to spend as much time playing with the lovebirds,
    as I had to take care of all the other pets.

    Karen said Dewy
    looked and seemed fine all this week up until yesterday. Dewy didn't
    have the sick bird look - although birds are experts at hiding illness
    - but Karen had noticed she had not layed any eggs this entire summer.
    Thursday, Karen and Zhongxi noticed she seemed to be weak and couldn't
    wouldn't eat her food. They tried giving her millet, and she wouldn't
    eat it. Throughout the day and the night Dewy grew weaker and weaker,
    and curled up in a little corner of her cage - Zhongxi even had her
    toweled and tried to give her water from a little bottle. Karen said
    she would move a little, look around, and then curl up again. My
    sister's not quite sure whether Dewy passed away sometime last night or
    this morning. She said she buried Dewy in a nice spot in the garden
    after getting home from work.

    Fly
    free at the Rainbow Bridge, Dewy - we'll miss you. Look up Sweety, and
    maybe even Alex the Grey when you get there. You will be remembered.

September 12, 2007

  • R.I.P. Alex the African Grey Parrot

    No single animal outside my own family pets has been as inspirational to my studies in cognition and consciousness as Alex, the amazing African Grey parrot of Dr. Irene Pepperberg, who learned to communicate with MIT Media Lab/Harvard/Brandeis University researchers in spoken English and opened up the doorway to true interspecies vocal communication between humans and other animals.

    Alex _trees - 1976-Sept6,2007
    Alex
    1976 - September 6, 2007
    You will be missed.
    I was watching Discovery Channel's Daily Planet today over dinner and was saddened to hear of Alex's passing.

    I remember first seeing Alex and psychologist Dr. Pepperberg many years ago on a number of specials on the PBS, Discovery Channel, Nova, and TLC.  Alex and Pepperberg were being profiled for their work on human-animal communication, and I remember finding myself wondrously impressed by the dexterity with which the little African Grey used the English language.  Pepperberg would show Alex a platter of differently coloured and shaped objects, asking Alex questions like "How many?", or "What matter?", or "What colour?", and Alex would respond correctly with the number of objects, or the type of material ("wood" or "cork" for example), or colour of the objects before him.  Now, I knew that among all parrots, African Greys are recognised to be the elite of talkers, but research prior to Alex had always failed to impress the majority of researchers as to the distinction between mimicry and genuine comprehension.  Over the years since, I eagerly kept up with the continuing news of the amazing Alex and his growing repertoire of abilities.

    When Pepperberg first began her research into parrot cognition, she had purchased the then-one-year-old Alex at a pet store and named him as an acronym for the Animal Learning EXperiment.  Over the years, she had taught him concepts, words, questions, and even how to use a specially designed internet-enabled computer using a "rival-model" technique, in which two humans act as examples from which Alex would learn.  As his communicative and intellectual skill grew, he and Pepperberg's team helped change scientific views about animal cognition, cognitive ethology, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental psychology.  Alex and Dr. Pepperberg's researchers demonstrated that animals could learn to use human language, express desires, and comprehend human language with the property of intentionality behind linguistic labels.   He was known for impressing researchers with novel combinations of learned words.  Beyond his ability to identify objects like keys, toys, and fruit by name and to count quantities up to 6 - recently comprehending the quantity of zero and learning to pronounce the number 7 - he had also developed a rapport with his researchers.  If he became fed up with the day's experimentation, he would simply say "I am going away" and turn around, as his researchers said when they left the room.  He had learned to request food ("want a nut"), to request to go places ("Wanna go X":  "wanna go home" for example, when he wanted to return to his cage), and for the past few years has been helping to train two protege's, Congo African Greys Griffin and Arthur by the same rival-model technique through which he was trained.  At the time of his death, he had a vast vocabulary, the ability to name and sort 100 different objects, and was said to be the intellectual equivalent of a 5-year-old human child with no limit to his development in sight.

    In his 31 years, Alex achieved celebrity status in not only the scientific community, but across the general public interested in animal consciousness.  This led to numerous television appearances for Alex and Dr. Pepperberg, including a segment with Alan Alda of M.A.S.H. fame on PBS's Scientific American Frontiers alongside chimps utilizing sign language and dolphins responding to flash cards.  Dr. Pepperberg has also published a book entitled The Alex Studies, which was released in 2002 and contains detailed descriptions of nearly three decades of research with Alex and his fellow African Greys.

    African Grey Parrots typically have a lifespan of 50-60 years, and two weeks before passing away suddenly overnight on September 6th, Alex was reported by his annual physical to be in good health.  A necropsy reported "no obvious cause of death".

    Alex will be missed by his keepers and supporters alike.  I remember eagerly ordering Dr. Pepperberg's book The Alex Studies on Amazon not long after hearing of its release, and then thumbing through it the moment it arrived.  I was even inspired by Alex to pursue my philosophical studies of consciousness, and I lent the book to my professor (now my thesis supervisor) during my directed studies course with her on the same topic.  I would have liked to have worked with Alex and Dr. Pepperberg one day if my studies allowed me the opportunity.  My initial thesis topic - that of the continuity of consciousness between humans and animals - was chosen in part due to the findings of Pepperberg with Alex, but unfortunately research in other areas of animal consciousness were insufficient for me to fully pursue that topic.  Having been a parrot owner with at least two talking parrots in my own household for almost as far as I can remember, and many very expressive cats and dogs, I found the research into Alex refreshing.  It confirmed what I and almost all other pet owners had known for centuries and that many philosophers and psychologists adamantly disavowed for just as long: animals are capable of rich cognitive lives.  The world will not be the same, knowing that Alex will not be there
    continuing to push the boundaries of our understanding of avian minds. 
    However, if Alex has changed one person's anthropocentric views about the capacities of animals, then he has achieved a task as great as any other non-human animal ever before him.

    Dr. Pepperberg once related a particularly memorable story about Alex online. 
    It goes as such:
    "Thus
    we are trying to get him to sound out refrigerator letters, the
    same way one would train children on phonics. We were doing
    demos at the Media Lab for our corporate sponsors; we had a
    very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to
    see
    Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters
    on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and
    asked, 'Alex,
    what sound is blue?' He answers, 'Ssss.' It was an 's', so we
    say 'Good birdie' and he replies, 'Want a nut.'

    Well,
    I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time
    to eat
    a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, 'What sound is green?' Alex
    answers, 'Ssshh.' He's right, it's 'sh,' and we go through the
    routine again: 'Good parrot.' 'Want a nut.' 'Alex, wait. What
    sound is orange?' 'ch.' 'Good bird!' 'Want a nut.' We're going
    on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated.
    He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, 'Want
    a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh.'     "


    More Information on Alex can be found at the following sites:
    -The Boston Globe: "Death of gifted parrot stuns scientists" - 11 September 2007
    -NPR: "Alex the Parrot, an Apt Student, Passes Away" - 10 September 2007 - with recent interview with Dr. Pepperberg since Alex passed away (click on "Listen")
    -ABC News: Good Morning America - Video "Farewell to a Genius Bird"  (click on the video to watch).
    -The Alex Foundation - press release
    -The Alex Foundation (and Donation for Alex Foundation Memorial)
    -International Herald Tribune - "A thinking parrot's loving good-bye" - 11 September 2007
    -The Independent - article - 12 September 2007
    -The Edge article - 23 September 2003
    -Wikipedia Article on Alex
    -BirdChannel.com - "Avian Community Mourns Loss of Pioneering Parrot" & e-mail for condolence card by BirdTalk Magazine Editors to Dr. Irene Pepperberg (submissions must be received by Friday 14 September 2007)

September 11, 2007

  • New Arrival.

    Huzzah!

    I received the notice in the mail yesterday that my new electric violin had arrived at the post office, so I went and picked it up today.  I was not impressed by having to pay $21.85 cash or debit for customs.  I brought it home and took it out.  For a cheapo model, I must say I'm somewhat impressed.  It came with the strings loose, the bridge disassembled and wrapped in paper for protection, the e-string fine tuner uninstalled, all for shipping safety.  I had to spend much of the afternoon putting it together while juggling more thesis writing so I didn't get to go down to the local gym as I had planned.  As a new violin, the strings all had to be stretched out somewhat and the pegs had to be worked in so that they'd retain a pitch without sliding out of tune; the bow had to be rosined and tightened for the first time.

    It's got a slim body and no f-holes, but I'm quite surprised how much sound it still manages to put out.  Knocking on the body, it obviously has a hollow-body; that helps the sound ring more.  I had€ to adjust the strings a bit to get good spacing between them.  Having 6 strings, it's got 6 pegs and a wider fingerboard, but it's still slightly more difficult to play without hitting other strings on the bow or fingerboard due to the reduced space between the strings and the different angle of each string due to the two extra lower strings.  The lower strings themselves vibrate quite a bit, as they have to be rather loose to achieve their respective lower pitches in the small length of a violin - I had some difficulty getting used to this, since that extra give on the string makes it much easier to accidentally hit the adjacent strings.  Before I adjusted the spacing of the C string (Yes, it's got extra C and F strings on top of the standard E A D and G) on the bridge and evened out the strings, it was exceedingly difficult to play on only the C string without the bow brushing up against the F-string.  On the other hand, I got a kick out of how easy it was to play 6-stringed chords, an impossible feat on a traditional violin.  The F string, being so loose, is difficult to keep a clear tone on - a trained viola player might have less difficulty with the adjustment.

    Additionally, one pet peeve I had was that the port for the headphone jack was located directly under where the shoulderpad would go.  The violin didn't come with a shoulderpad, but I dug an old Kun pad out of my other violin's case and installed that on the new electric violin.  The only way the shoulderpad would stay on was if I switched the included headphones (which had a really long jack) with my ipod headphones (for which the jack does not jut out quite as much) - but I still feel I might have to secure the pad more with some rubber bands.  That, or perhaps buy a new shoulderpad.

    The case also came with an output cable for the violin, but I still need to get a portable amp.  For the time being, I'll have to suffice with the headphones, but I can't wait to test out the capacities of the new fiddle.

    Alright!  Back to writing about the implications of functional neuroimaging studies of hallucinations, dreams, cross-modal sensory effects, and habituation upon the distinction between higher-level cognition and sensory experience.

September 6, 2007

  • Sea Monkey Update

    Hmmm... I'm pretty sure Speedy has passed on; but it's been very
    interesting watching the remaining 'lil guys in the last few weeks. 
    You see, I've got about 6 left, with one little baby now growing.  Of
    the adults, I've got 3 females, and 3 males (or Hynemen, as I like to
    call them due to their big bushy whiskers that quite shockingly
    resemble a particular TV personality...), and the females have all
    developed this beautiful salmon-coloured shade to their bodies and the
    inner parts of their swimming legs.  It happened about the same time as
    I started having this brilliant deep thick green frondy algae (and not
    the slimy kind) start to grow along the bottom of the tank.  There's
    lots of algae now at the bottom and the little guys are absolutely
    loving it!  They are constantly diving to the bottom and frolicking
    through it to feed, and since the algae gives them an extra dose of
    oxygen and food they're energetic as mexican jumping beans on
    caffeine.  They've also been mating like crazy, and since there's an
    even match of males and females, I look in the tank and it looks like
    there's only three really long sea monkeys.  The females all have big
    egg sacs, but as of yet, I only see one or two babies.  Interesting. 
    Seems like they're all super-healthy.

    On another note, Discovery has been
    airing a whale-load of Mythbuster episodes lately, especially yesterday
    (after their Steve Irwin Antarctica Special - it's about a year
    anniversary since the world lost the Crocodile Hunter; and on yet
    another note, the world lost Pavarotti last night too).  Yay.  One was
    a season 4 episode (episode 62: Killer Cable Snaps, Pottery Record)
    where they tried to make pots with sounds recorded into them.  It's
    funny to see the increasing friction between Tory and Kari - it's so
    painfully obvious he's got the hots for her, and when she takes out her frustrations during the screaming at the pots bit.  haha...  The new season 6 "ninja myths" episode they showed was also awesome - I just thought it was hilarious that almost all the ninja movie clips they showed were from bad hk/chinese kung fu movies, lol.

  • The only one of its kind, with no complement or counterpart; a key without matching lock.