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Awareness

Of My Own Ignorance and Doubting My Abilities to Reduce It

Learning is like washing your clothes. Every week there's a new load - you wish you could do say, +3 loads and thereby free yourself for 2 weeks, but you just can't do that. Likewise with learning, you can't be ahead of it. You can't know what you need to know to make that connection and/or discovery. So I guess, go as broad and as deep as you can. But tens of papers later (within this week or so), I feel not very much enlightened.

My 'week' has included (for my future self or any other Fid students wanting to know how round-about one can be):

  • climate change (e.g. McKitrick paper - interesting), sunspots (e.g. wtf, switching magnetic fields of the Sun?), cloud seeding (v. cool)
  • Richardson-Lucy deconvolution, Baye's Theorem, Baye's Postulate (all cool, but haven't really looked into when/why Baye's Postulate is valid)
  • Markov gating schemes, steady-state kinetics, ligand-receptor binding kinetics/dye-binding kinetics, reaction-diffusion systems
  • object-based programming (which actually sounds like Actionscript in Flash and the reusable objects, seem, in theory, to be v. economical - but I'm forever duplicating objects in Flash, when I should just create instances... but maybe I'm just confused)
  • 'Does science make God obsolete?' (Templeton series; sort of odd question with loaded connotations/intentions, so just skimmed - heaps of them were cop-outs, even Pinker and Hitchens' were disappointing, but I quite enjoyed Sapolsky,
    "So why is belief still relevant? To this I'd offer a very a-scientific answer. It is for the ecstasy...I mean those instances where you're suffused with gratitude for life and experience and the chance to do good, where every neuron is flooded with the momentness of feeling the breeze on its cellular cheek. A scientist... may feel ecstatic about a finding...but science...is not very good at producing ecstasy...(and) there are good arguments to be made for why science shouldn't do ecstasy...By contrast, the potential for ecstasy is deeply intertwined with religiosity...This may seem an unfair tilting of the debate against science...But building your life's explanations around science isn't a profession. It is, at its core, an emotional contract, an agreement to only derive comfort from rationality...The world would not be a better place without ecstasy, but it would be one if there wasn't religion. But don't expect science to fill the hole that would be left behind, or to convince you that there is none."
  • ... because as you know, I'm quite inclined to believe there is no hole, or rather the hole is not real even if it is perceived to exist.
  • Frequentist vs. Bayesian view on probability (thought it might have been useful, probably a waste of time)
  • Binomial distributions/quantised events
  • decision theory (again, probably a waste of time)
  • differential equations (again, I thought this might help, but maybe not. At least I can do those Bernoulli ones now)
  • 'stimulated emission', 'non-linear refractive index media/gain media/Kerr lens modelocking, self-focussing' (new terms I learnt just today... maybe except the first one :S)

On top of those, thinking about my actual experiments (which was actually sort of fun). I sort of don't know what to expect of myself, so I'm getting extremely tired from non-stop trying to understand things, but someone always raises something else I've never met. I'm just sort of annoyed that I don't seem to know anything useful... but I guess I'm just doing very wide helices and hopefully I will converge soon towards an answer or at least coherence...

Hmm... but I just thought of something practical I can do tomorrow.

Of Realities As We Age (Human Nature/Nature)

  • fear of abandonment/loneliness as very real as we move away from the protection and unconditional love of our parents and family
  • vanity in being desired as a real and very basic mode of motivation
  • helplessness and insignificance in the vast world, yet at the same time, immense power and influence that can be exerted by an individual
  • others with thoughts like you, but also with thoughts very unlike you and some intricate pattern of such thoughts and tendencies create those that you gravitate towards
  • limitless people to meet, yet only a few will really be there
  • selfishness as a neutral and expected quality
Lately I've been trying to understand why people apparently become needy for companionship as they age, but I guess from the points noted above, it's really a combination of our moving away from established filial (and other) ties and recognition/allowance of our own vanity/selfishness, so it's like an unmasking of need, not development of.

I don't know if these thoughts are stupid or not. I don't know how it compares with the rest of the population of xy-year olds or if that matters. I don't know if I am actually smart, I just know I want to do better than this. I don't know if I am strange, but I know that when I look at my life, it's nothing like my friends'. But I suppose theirs' are not like each others', either. I guess I want to sort of know that I am leading it in the right way, though I don't know that anyone else can make that judgement but me. Still, it would be interesting to see what the world sees. I suspect a vastly different figure.

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July 22, 2008 | 5:07 AM Comments  0 comments

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My Heart Could Take A Chance...
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

It's been hailing/raining all morning. It was some sort of mockery of the fact that I haven't expressed myself freely for some time. Further, I realised that I don't know how to live in a way that I truly find enjoyable (as opposed to changing my perspective/adapting, which I'm quite good at). I know how to get things done very well (i.e. reach a desired outcome), but how to I get my life lived?


I Don't Feel Like Dancin'
- Scissor Sisters

Wake up in the morning with a head like ‘what ya done?’
This used to be the life but I don’t need another one.
You like cuttin’ up and carrying on, you wear them gowns.
So how come I feel so lonely when you’re up getting down?

So I'll play along when I hear that special song
I’m gonna be the one who gets it right.
You'd better move when you're swayin’ round the room
Looks like the magic's only ours tonight

[Chorus:]
But I don’t feel like dancin’
When the old Joanna plays
My heart could take a chance
But my two feet can’t find a way
You'd think that I could muster up a little soft-shoe gentle sway
But I don’t feel like dancin’
No sir, no dancin’ today.
Don’t feel like dancin’, dancin’
Even if I find nothin' better to do
Don’t feel like dancin’, dancin’
Why’d you break it down when I’m not in the mood?
Don’t feel like dancin’, dancin’
I'd rather be home with no-one, if I can't get down with you.

Cities come and cities go just like the old empires
When all you do is change your clothes and call that versatile.
You got so many colours make a blind man so confused.
Then why can’t I keep up when you’re the only thing I lose?

So I’ll just pretend that I know which way to bend
And I’m gonna tell the whole world that you’re mine.
Just please understand, when I see you clap your hands
If you stick around I’m sure that I'll be fine

[Chorus]

You can’t make me dance around
But your two-step makes my chest pound.
Just lay me down
As you float away into the shimmer light.

[Chorus]



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July 18, 2008 | 5:07 AM Comments  0 comments



The Sound Of Silence
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

The Sound Of Silence - Brooke Fraser
Originally recorded by Simon & Garfunkel

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision, softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no-one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, "the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whispered in the sounds of silence."





July 12, 2008 | 8:07 AM Comments  0 comments



The Little Things
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic


July 9, 2008 | 6:07 AM Comments  0 comments



Confessions of a Coward

The never-ending problem that I can't say and your eyes that I can't look into because I know you'd figure it out. When will it stop raining?


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July 4, 2008 | 9:07 AM Comments  0 comments

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