When you read the words "card credit" and "you thank" in this sentence, you'll probably think you read "credit card" and "thank you", but you didn't.

Isn't that cool?

Star Wars Musical

From Yahoo news:

Los Angeles (E! Online) – A long time from now, in a galaxy far, far away...the Star Wars money machine will still be cranking.

Not content with seven feature films or myriad TV spinoffs ranging from the current Clone Wars cartoon series to the dreaded Star Wars Holiday Special, the Jedi masterminds are readying a stage show.

George Lucas has signed off on Star Wars: A Musical Journey, a two-hour live musical event featuring John Williams' Oscar-winning score.

I've long been calling for a Star Wars arena spectacular...on ice!

The cake is not a lie!

My attempt at the cake from Portal. It's a bit wonky and is hemorrhaging its internal frosting, but I'm pleased with it.

Haven't tried any yet. Here's hoping it is delicious and moist.

MPs on the meaning of Christmas

From the House of Reps Hansard for December 4, 2008:

Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister): As we approach the Christmas season, there are often debates about Christmas being a Christian festival or a non-Christian festival in various parts of the world. I think the truth is this: whether we are of faith or not of faith, this is an important season for us all. For those of us who are of faith, it celebrates the birth of the Christ child. For those beyond faith it is a celebration for all families, and all therefore enjoy this season which lies ahead.

Beyond faith? As in, grown out of it, or as in a lost cause?

Malcolm Turnbull (Leader of the Oposition): This is, of course, the season of Christmas and we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, the birth of the man—the son of God—who established a faith that is as inspiring as it is mysterious, a faith that is based on love. This is truly, then, the season of love, and that is why families come together. It is why we come together to eat, for Christmas feasts, for lunches and dinners. We remember, too, that there is nothing more human than families coming together to share a meal. Indeed, the Eucharist is at the centre of our own faith, of our own liturgy—that sacred meal.

We should also remember that not all of the members of this House are members of the Christian faith. Indeed, I think it is important today to remember that a number of our colleagues around this time of year--around the Christmas season, if you like—-will be celebrating the feast of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival. That is a festival of lights and it celebrates the indomitable nature of the Jewish people.

Christianity, Judaism...yep, I think that's all of 'em.

Warren Truss (Leader of the Nationals): Christmas is a special time of the year. It is a time when families can gather together and enjoy one another’s company. From a parliamentary perspective, it is a time when we are able to have a break and perhaps live slightly more normal lives. But Christmas is more than just decorations, gifts and parties—although a special part of my Christmas is always decorating the family home with Christmas lights so that I can demonstrate what a special time Christmas is for me in my neighbourhood. The celebrations and symbols of Christmas highlight the joyous reason for our festivities—namely, the birth of Jesus Christ, who brought salvation and the message of peace and goodwill to all. Those who seek to take Christmas out of the holidays or Christ out of the Christmas certainly lose the central reason for our celebrations and their meaning and purpose.

Mmmmmmmm.

Apple's 1987 'Knowledge Navigator' video depicts my dream nerd lifestyle

And we're nearly there...nearly...the iPhone just needs a bowtie.

Hillary as Secretary of State?

I didn't believe it at first, but it's seeming more and more likely that Hillary will be Secretary of State.

Here's my little theory. On the night that Obama and her met after he'd won the primaries they did a clever little deal. He knew that she wouldn't want a crap job like Vice President, one because it's a crap job, two because if he lost the election she'd be untainted and the presumptive nominee for 2012. So he promised to offer her Secretary of State if she played nice during the presidential campaign. If he won, which he did, she gets the option of a great job. If he loses, she's a shoe-in for 2012.

We all assumed he didn't want her as VP because then he'd have Bill hanging around all the time. But it's probably that SHE didn't want to be VP! She wanted a real job! NoDramaObama probably feels like he can handle Bill now that the election is over.

No one as irish as Barack O'Bama

It's fascinating how affectionate the satire surrounding Obama is. And yes, I admit it, I too have turned into an irrational Obama fanboy.

The Death Penalty

I'm not a blood thirsty person. But if someone I knew and loved was murdered in a terrorist attack, there's a very good chance I'd want my revenge. I'd probably want them killed. I might even want to do it myself.

My hope is that my family, friends, and government would always prevent me from doing so. I certainly hope they would never enact revenge on my behalf.

Congratulations Mr President Elect

Congratulations Barack.

Where in Chadstone Shopping Center is Carmen Sandiego?

I sometimes have ideas that I wish I could send back in time to the days when I was a media major.

There's an iPhone game coming out in a week called Parallel Kingdom. It's an 'agumented reality' game. It shows you a map of wherever you are and overlays various monsters and treasures and other RPG type things for you to interact with. To navigate this world you have to walk (or drive, swim, fly) to the corresponding real world location. It uses the iphones GPS to discern your location. It's also multiplayer. Think World of Warcraft meets The Amazing Race.

I wish this kind of technology had been around back in my days of making bad student films. How cool would it be to do an interactive iPhone film where you have to walk to different locations to unlock scenes filmed at that location. You could have a murder mystery filmed at various locations around Melbourne; in each scene there'd be some clue as to where you need to go to unlock more of the story. Or maybe you could choose different paths (literally) to determine the outcome of the story -- a choose your own adventure format.

Or what about an iPhone version of Where In The World is Carmen Sandiago!? Ay!? Ay!?

If only I had the time, motivation, and talent.

Sarah Palin, Parah Salin

I'm not sure why this is amusing. But it is.

Sarah Palin can't say 'nuclear' either

The Psychology of Music Preferences

Apple has just released a version of iTunes with a new feature called Genius. Genius makes custom playlists (of either music you own or music you might want to by) based on a secret algorithm. If you opt-in, iTunes sends all of your listening history data (e.g., track names, artist names, playcounts, skipcounts) to a central server. The algorithm then looks for patterns in worldwide listening trends. To use Genius you right-click a particular song, choose 'start Genius', and BANG you've got a list of 'similar' songs. I'm loving it. It's helped me rediscover some music that Dan had given me but that I hadn't listened to much.

This got me thinking about how one might statistically look for trends in music preferences. I wondered if there'd ever been a factor analysis of music preferences. A factor analysis is a statical technique for finding trends amongst different variables. It's often used in personality research. You ask a large sample of volunteers a whole stack of questions (e.g., "On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you like parties?", "How much do you like being the center of attention?" etc.) and look for shared variance in the responses. I've written about factor analyses of personality related data before here.

Anyway, a quick literature search turned up this article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

Rentfrow, P.J., Gosling, S.D. (2003). The Do Re Mi’s of Everyday Life: The Structure and Personality Correlates of Music Preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(6), 136-1256.

Among the studies reported is a factor analytic study of music preferences. 1,704 students from the University of Texas were asked to rate each of 14 music genres on a scale from 1 ('I don't like it at all') to 7 ('I like it a great deal'). The genres were: alternative, blues, classical, country, electronica/dance, folk, heavy metal, rap/hip-hop, jazz, pop, religious, rock, soul/funk, and sound tracks.

The analysis revealed 4 main dimensions (factors) that captured 59% of the total variance. The names given to these factors and the genres associated with them are as follows:

- Reflective and complex (blues, jazz, classical, and folk)
- Intense and rebellious (rock, alternative, heavy metal)
- Upbeat and Conventional (country, sound track, religious, and pop)
- Energetic and Rhytmic (rap/hip-hop, soul/funk, and electronica/dance)

These dimensions are reasonably independent of each other (1). People who like reflective and complex music are just as likely to enjoy intense and rebellious music as they are to not. What these factors mean is that if someone likes a genre related to a particular dimension (e.g., blues) then they'll probably also like the other genres on that dimension (e.g., jazz). The same goes for disliking a genre.

One limitation of this study is that peoples' understanding of genre terms may vary. I might think that I don't like folk music and yet like many songs that others would categorise as folk. It would be great to see an analysis done on song by song ratings, rather than just genres.

Another analysis, which was really interesting, involved looking for relationships between e musical preferences and differences in personality and cognitive ability. They found all sorts of relationships, although most of them were quite small (.2ish). The largest one (.4ish) was between a preference for Reflective and Complex music and the personality characteristic Openness to Experience. Interestingly, there was a small (.2ish) relationship between verbal IQ and liking of Reflective and Complex, Intense and Rebellious, or Upbeat and Conventional music (2).

Very interesting stuff.

I'd love to see these researchers team up with Apple and analyse the iTunes Genius data.

---------

(1) Upbeat and Conventional and Energetic and Rythmic correlate .5 if allowed to covary.

(2) And no, I don't think this is evidence that music makes you smarter (can you guess why?).

Mark on Science

Science is a special kind of magic, practiced by people called 'nerds'. No body knows how it works for sure, but it probably has something to do with computer machines.

Be careful, science is dangerous. Nerds get so lazy from all their science making that they only have enough strength to stare into space, talk to the internet, or drive their electric wheelchairs.

Sometimes nerds get angry. If too many nerds are angry at one time, electricity stops working and nuclear bombs go off. Damn you nerds! (but don't tell them i said that)

Luckily, normal people can reap the rewards of science without having to risk their own sanity, because nerds are happy to do science for you. They will accept monetary compensation, but are also happy to work for social approval.

One final note. Logic tells us that all nerds wear glasses, but that not all people who wear glasses are nerds. You may not agree with this opinion, but you'll have a hard time convincing me otherwise, as there are two sides to every fact.

The Google Habit

I have to remind myself to google the small stuff.

It occurred to be a while back that with the Internet being as it is, there's really no reason to ever NOT look stuff up. The time it takes to Google a quick answer is so small that it's more efficient to Google than waste any time wondering.

Even for the silly questions that float through one's head. What is the gestational period of an elephant? What is an 'aptronym'? How old is the universe? You can have a preliminary answer in seconds.
But I have to remind myself to Google. It's a habit I'm trying to cultivate.

Google should launch a TV add campaign. Each add should be only 5 seconds and should just ask a question for you to Google:
"Do lead pencils have lead in them? Google it!"
"How many light years to the nearest star? Google it!"

Won't a reliance on Google lead to cognitive atrophy? I'm not sure that it will. Maybe it will free up the mind to think about the hard questions, the big questions, the questions that apply only to me. Of course, this too is a habit I need to cultivate.

(Cross posted at the Subjects of Interest blog. Go there.)

10 iPhone improvement suggestions (SOI cross-post)

I love my iPhone. I really do. But it's because I love it so much that I want it to be even better. Here's 10 small things I'd love to see the iPhone do:

1. Preferencing the 2.5G signal over the 3G when the 3G signal is there but so weak as to be slower than 2.5G. Ditto for preferencing 2.5G or 3G over wifi when the wifi is so weak as to be useless.

2. Automatically turning on the VPN when the only wifi connection available requires it (as is the case when I'm on campus). Or at least some way of programming the phone to do this.

3. Google Street View on the maps application

4. An indication of how much data I've used visible on the home screen, not buried in the menus.

5. For updated applications to remain in the same spot on the home screen that they started at.

6. Allow video recording through the camera.

7. Cut and paste.

8. Allow you to put a custom data feed into the screen saver holding screen.

9. Haptic feedback.

10. Sync video playlists like a regular iPod.

The story of Charlie (cross-post from SOI)

Cross-post from the Subjects of Interest blog

A year or so ago, a friend and I set out to create the ultimate chain email. We wanted it to have all those essential elements: pathos, wish-granting, guilt tripping, and rhyming.

---
This is the saddest email I have ever read ever! Serious guys, I'm not joking on this one. If you don't burst into tears after reading this, you're an awful person.


POOR CHARLIE


Saturday is a busy day
It's time for the football game
So Charlie raced out of the door
His father did the same

He rushed towards the family car
And sat down on the seat
And impatiently waited for his dad
While wiggling his feet

Too busy to have breakfast
Too busy to comb his hair
Too busy to check the computer
And the email that waited there

So Charlie played his football
And kicked ten thousand points
Although he hurt his kicking foot
And other assorted joints

But for all his youthful vigour
And his cheeky boyish grin
Little did poor Charlie know
That fate was coming for him

He checked his computer once more
But off to the living room he went
Because 'Idol' was on the tv
And the email remained unsent

Had he taken notice
Had he read it to the end
He would have understood the sad email
Sent to him by his friend

He didn't read the story
He didn't send it on
And slowly, very slowly
All his good luck shall be gone

For chain emails are a powerful thing
As Charlie did find out
The bad luck that awaited him
Was enough to make you shout...

"Oh no, not poor young Charlie
He's such a brave little guy
He's such a little trooper
Why did he have to die?"

That's right, poor Charlie carked it
He got cancer in his bowel
Then got a bout of syphilis
- please don't ask us how

And then he tripped down the stairs
And broke his upper left thigh
And as he lay there in agony
He wished he had replied-

-To that simple little message
"Had I only passed it on
I wouldn't be here dying
With chille stains on my shirt

I must have hit my head" he said
"I've clearly got concussion.
No longer am I rhyming well
Or speaking in correct pies"

As little Charlie passed away
Ducks nibbling at his spleen
And rats sneaking into his bowels for warmth
His toes were turning green

And from his foaming trembling lips
These last words did he moan
"if you don't reply to chain emails
you'll die horribly and alone... probably down some stairs or something."


SEND THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU! PLEASE! THIS COULD CHANGE THE WORLD! THE MORE PEOPLE THE BETTER.


50 - Send this email to over 50 people, and Charlie will come to life again. You and he shall go on a magical journey to some far off land, and then have cake. Then of course he will have to die again to make room for the next person to send 50 emails.

20 - Send this on to 20 people and not only shall you be immune to cancer, but you'll also receive four billion dollars within seven seconds of sending it. Also, that huge crush that you once had will turn up to your door and immediately propose to you.

10 - Send this on to 10 people and you will develop duck repellent qualities. Furthermore to that, you will never ever spill chille on your favourite shirt. Your crush will come to your door and say something to do with avacados, but you were too busy staring in awe at them that you weren't really listening. You'll find a fifty dollar note on the street, but then you'll probably just spend it on food or something, which makes it a kind of waste, because it all ends up in the toilet in the end anyway.

5 - Send this to 5 people and you will have an erotic dream about your crush that night. At least you think it's them, because the person's face isn't quite the same and they change gender from time to time. Nevertheless it will be a happy dream. You will also find an empty bottle on the street while you walk to work which you can cash in for about twenty cents and the recycling shop. You'll see a rat around the corner, but then you'll keep walking and forget about it about four seconds later.

4 - Send this email to 4 people and we'll give you a free upsize to 5, THIS WEEK ONLY!!

< 4 - Send this email to less than 4 people and you'll most likely trip over some hobo on the way to work and have to clean bodily fluids off your favorite suit for the rest of the day.

0 - If you refuse to send this email to anyone, because you're lazy, or insensitive or just don't have any fingers, then you will die a horrible, horrible death.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't believe us? Check out these fantastic testimonials:

"Hi, My name is Fred Tompson. I read this email and was so moved by the story of Charlie that I immediately forwarded it to 24 people. The next day I became the richest man in the world by selling immitation sardines over the internet. I'm also married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and we make sweet love once every seven minutes. I owe it all to clicking my mouse button a few times and thinking of Charlie."

***

"Tootles! Jeanette Winterbottom's the name. I am a teacher of Information Technology at Darbishire Elementary College. We recently had one of our students die from witholding Chain emails from the community. Among the symptons included a broken pancreas, dislocated brain, a bit of a backache after dinner, and the distinct smell of duck poo. I now use this email as a criteria for all my student's gradings and have found it successful in reducing the ammount of rat-related deaths in the college by 37% Since implementing the program, all unexpected in-class fatalities were the result of other phenomenon and not this email. Thank you Charlie!"

***

"Hi, I'm Brett. I received this email, and deleted it. now I'm dead."

***

"I'm Ted Lowry. I received this email, and sent it to only 7 people. As I was walking to work the next day, I found an old CD on the road. I tried to play it, but it was really too scratched to get any real melodies. I kept it around the office for a few more days, but then I threw it out and bought a sandwich. God bless you Charlie!"


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


As you can see, the power of this email is astronomical. So prove to yourself and to your friends that you are a good person, and not a selfish one. Send this to as many people as you can. And if you don't have enough friends to send this email to, then you're probably an awful person and deserve all the bad luck coming to you.

But now here's the best bit. Before you press send, think of Charlie, count to five and make a wish.


>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 5!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 4!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 3!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 3!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 1!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>


Ooops, it must have got wet. But perhaps if you wait a little while, then your wish is 46% certain to be absolutely GUARANTEED to come true!

The rock-off fairness fallacy (SOI cross-post)

I have a new blog! Dan and I are doing a joint blog over at thesubjectsofinterest.blogspot.com

Here's my latest post from over there.

-------------
I've noticed that there is an increasing trend for people to resolve disputes or allocate resources using the game of Rock Paper Scissors. The procedure is sometimes called a 'rock-off', as in "let's rock-off for the last slice of pizza"

This procedure is fine in a two person game (assuming no one cheats), but I often see people happily submitting to three-way rock-offs. In these arrangements two people rock-off, then the third person plays the winner, and the winner of that second rock-off is declared the overall winner.

But this procedure is inherently unfair!

Imagine that John, Fred, and Mary are rocking-off for a slice of pizza. John and Fred play first. Mary plays the winner.

For John to win overall he has to win the first encounter against Fred and then a subsequent encounter against Mary. John has a .5 probability of winning the first time and .5 probability of winning the second time. .5 x .5 = .25, so he has a 25% chance of winning the pizza.

The same applies for Fred. He has to win first against John and then against Mary. Both times he has a .5 probability of winning, .5 x .5 = .25, so he too has a 25% chance of winning the pizza.

But Mary, she gets it easy. No matter what happens she only has to play once. Regardless of whether she's playing John or Fred she has a .5 probability of winning that rock off. So her chance of winning the pizza is 50%.

Mary has double the chance of winning overall because she only plays the winner. Great if you're Mary, bad if you're John or Fred.

Better to just draw straws.

How to turn your facebook friends' status updates into a twitter type feed

Although I like to know what my friends are up to, I'm the kind of introverted hermit that can't be bothered meeting with, calling, or emailing people just to say hi. So what's a hermit to do?

Here's a little trick i came across for effortlessly keeping an eye on friends.

Step 1 - go to your facebook news feed page (facebook.com/home.php) and click on the 'see all' link on the 'status' section.


Step 2 - Your now on the 'all friends status updates' page. Find the rss feed link and use a right click to copy the link URL to the clipboard.


Step 3 - You've now got an rss feed of all your friends status updates which you can subscribe to in any rss reader application or website. I recommend using the iGoogle homepage sign up at google.com/ig). Once you've signed up, go to your igoogle homepage and click on the 'add stuff' link.

Step 4 - On the 'add stuff' page look for the 'add feed' link and click it.

Step 5 - Now you get a box where you can paste in your facebook rss feed. Do just that and click add.

Et voila! You've now got a little box on your google homepage that displays the lattest status updates from your friends, creating the illusion of social connectiveness without cutting into your Xbox time.

I love my friend status feed. I glance at it briefly every now and then in the course of my normal internet usage, and occasionally i'll see that someone is doing something interesting and it will prompt me to send them a message for more info.

deCharms on brain feedback

There's nothing better after a long boring day of marking than watching a few good TED talks. This one from Christopher deCharms on brain feedback is pretty exciting.

Mysteries of the Bell Curve Revealed

Behold the famous Bell Curve (aka 'the normal distribution'), loved by some, loathed by many, but indispensable to social sciences like psychology. The Bell Curve is what you get when you graph the distribution of things like people's height, weight, mood, IQ, extroversion, exam scores, affinity for chocolate, willingness to vote Labor, or indeed almost anything in which people vary. Again and again the same pattern appears: some people are on one extreme (e.g., extremely tall), some people are on the other extreme (e.g., extremely short), but most people are relatively average.

Why should this be? Why should such a disparate range of variables all distribute in this way? Is this some sort of divine signal? Or perhaps a government conspiracy? How bizarre that exactly the same shape should come up again and again!

Well, there's actually a good reason for the ubiquity of the Bell Curve. I only realised this a couple of years ago when I saw a nifty little exhibit at the Questacon National Science and Technology Center in Canberra. The exhibit was quite simple. Mounted on a wall, inside a glass case, were a series of pegs arranged vertically in a triangle. Visitors to Questacon were asked to drop a ball into a small shoot at the top of the case, just above the top most peg. The ball would hit the peg and bounce either left or right, then fall and hit another peg and bounce either left or right, and so on, ricocheting all the way to the bottom.

The pegs were carefully arranged so that at each level the ball had a 50/50 chance of falling either to the left or to the right. And so, each time a ball was dropped, it would take a different path through the pyramid of pegs. When the ball reached the bottom, it would fall into one of several slots lined up along the bottom; sensors in these slots, wired up to a computer, recorded the end point of each ball's journey.

The computer kept track of the outcomes. A running tally of the number of balls that had fallen into each slot was presented on a little screen in the form of a bar graph: the greater the tally for a given slot, the higher its bar.

What kind of shape do you think this graph showed after tens of thousands of ball drops? That's right, a bell curve!


Slots 1 and 9 had the smallest tallies, slots 2 and 8 had slightly more, 3 and 7 more again, 4 and 6 had even more, but slot 5 had he largest tally of all. And from this exhibit it's not dificult to see why.

For the ball to make it to slot 9 everything has to go right...literally! (On each peg the ball has to fall to the right). Thus, there's only one path to slot 9. And similarly, for the ball to reach slot 1 everything has to go left, so there's only one path to slot 1. But for slots closer to the center there are multiple routes that the ball can take. In fact, the closer a slot is to the center, the greater the number of possible routes, and the more frequently the ball reaches it. The consequence of this is a lovely bell curve.

So how does this relate to other variables?

Consider the case of an exam. How well a given student does on the exam depends on many different factors. For example:

- How much effort was put into studying
- How intelligent the student is
- How confident the student is on the day
- How much sleep the student got the night before
- Whether the student gets to the exam on time
- Whether the student is sitting next to someone who will distract them in the exam

(etc.)

For a student to get the highest possible score on the exam everything has to go right. That is, all of the factors that influence exam score have to go favorably: the student has studied hard, is intelligent, is confident, arrived on time, etc. And conversely, for a given student to get the worst possible score everything has to go wrong. For most students, however, some things will go right and some things will go wrong (in various combinations). Thus, most students will obtain a relatively average score.

So with exams, as with the pegs, we can see that there are more paths to being average than to being extreme, resulting in a bell curve. The same is true for other variables. For example, there are many different things that influence height (genes, nutrition, etc.) and so there are many more paths to being of average height than there are to being either extremely tall or short. Similarly, there are many different influences on people's love of chocolate (past experiences, advertising etc.) and so ratings of chocolate admiration should also distribute as a bell curve.

In other words, the bell curve is the distribution you get when there are multiple independent influences. And so the ubiquity of the Bell Curve in social science is not really that mysterious after all. The bell curve, my friends, is simply the signature of complexity. No wonder it pops up everywhere.

Homework

Here's a wee experiment you can do at home. Take 5 coins and toss them all together. Count up the number of heads and write it down. Repeat this 30 or more times, each time writing down the number of heads that come up.

When you're done, count up the number of times you got 5 out of 5, 4 out of 5, 3 out of 5, 2 out of 5, and 1 out of 5. Now draw a bar graph. What does the shape of the graph look like?

If you're brave, try doing this with 10, 20, or 30, coins at a time. If you're smart, just do it in Excel.

The Teenager Song

How teaching changes me

This year I've been handballed a small teaching gig at the university where i'm doing my PhD. It's a weekly 2nd year cognitive psychology tutorial/lab. I've taught 3 classes so far, and so far so good.

What I find interesting is how radically the teaching role transforms my personality for the duration of the 2 hour class. It seems to have two effects:

1) I turn into a temporary extravert. Whereas I'm usually a bit socially inhibited and/or anti-social in the company of strangers, as a teacher I'm Captain Social (tm), introducing myself to students before the class, spraying good-cheer on all in my path. And as I bounce around the class, flashing my pedagogical grin, I'm thinking "What's happening to me? Who is this guy?" I suspect that it's my competitive drive to do better in the end of semester student evaluations than the real academics that is dominating over my shyness/introversion/anti-socialness.

2) I start channeling Carl Sagan, with the slow talking and drammmmmmmm-atic emphasis of key words. What's that about?

I'm not sure what to make of this bizzare phenomenon. In its involuntariness, it's a transformation more akin to a werewolf's than a superhero's. But then unlike a werewolf, I don't bite...so perhaps more of a pedagogical werepuppy than anything else.

Steven Pinker on the psychology of language: veiled threats and requests

Attempting to spark some inspiration for a presentation I'm preparing, I spent the afternoon watching more of the TED Talks videos, and I came across yet another fantastic talk from Steven Pinker. This one is on his specialty topic - psycholinguistics. Very interesting, very accessible. (And at no point in the talk does he mistake anyone's gender). Take a look:

My return to console games: Assassin's Creed review

It's been a long time since I've played a console game. In the late 80s I played a lot of Super Mario Bros. 3. But since then, with the exception of brief dalliances with The Sims and World of Warcraft, I've largely abandoned gaming.

"One day," I told myself, "games will be just like the Holodeck from Star Trek...I'll save my money until then."

But impatient with the lack of progress in Holodeck technology, I recently gave in and decided to see what 21st century gaming has to offer. In a moment of madness I bought an Xbox 360 and a copy of the hit new game from Ubisoft -- Assassin's Creed. Having just 'clocked' the game this week, I'd like to give you my review (warning: spoilers may follow).

First, a quick summary. In Assassin's Creed, you, the player, assume the identity of Desmond Miles, an average American, who, as chance would have it, is descended from a long line of professional assassins, dating back to 1191 AD. Desmond has just been kidnapped by a secret group of power hungry scientists, who, via the magic of science, have created a machine that can extract from his DNA the memories of his assassin ancestors; apparently Desmond's DNA contains an ancient secret that will allow them to rule the world. However, to get to this secret Desmond has to relive a series of his ancestors assassinations , and this requires being strapped into a special virtual reality bed called an 'Animus'. So, via the Animus, we're transported to The Holy Land, circa 1191 AD, to live the life of an assassin: pickpocketing, interrogating, rescuing, and assassinating.

As far as the graphics go, Assassin's Creed is uber impressive. The four cities that you visit are intricately designed and beautifully rendered. But what makes the world of Assassin's Creed particularly imersive are the interactive crowds and climbable structures. The inclusion of thousands of virtual people in the streets of Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus and Masyaf is a real innovation. This landscape of citizens for you to help, hinder, cajole, and kill adds a stimulating new dimension to game play. The climbable structures are similarly innovative: you can climb almost any surface, allowing you to scale buildings and towers, and giving you access to the rooftops for quick access around the cities. Jumping from building to building is great fun.

The combat is less impressive. The sword fighting is enjoyable at first, but you soon realise that you can defeat most opponents with mindless button mashing. It's also strange how easy it is for you -- one assassin -- to beat a group of two dozen soliders time and time again. Despite having you surrounded, AI soldiers seem quite happy for you to pick them off one by one; it's all bit easy. Moreover, the missions you must complete to get a tad repetitive. But given the acclaim Assassin's Creed has received, am I to take it that this is standard for console games?

Where the game really disappointed me was the narrative. A personal pet peev of mine is when science-fiction finds it necessary to bombard you with techno-babble and pseudo-science to convince you of the plausibility of their fantastical premise. What happened to the idea of suspension of disbelief? I would have preferred it if Desmond could just have arrived in 1191 via a wardrobe or rabbit hole or something. I certainly could have done without the crappy lecture about the magic of genetics.

The narrative within the 1191 scenes didn't do much for me either. You're forced to sit through incredibly long and wordy cut scenes again and again, with no option to skip over them. The dialogue is clichéd, melodramatic, and doesn't further the story much anyway. In particular, the game seems very unsure of itself with respect to walking to religion tightrope. If you pay attention you'll eventually work out that the bad guys are atheists, who have discovered that although the miracles described in the bible are literally true, their origin is not divine, but extraterrestrial (umm, ok!). Your 1191 character also goes on a fair bit about "letting man believe what he wants to believe", a strangely liberal attitude for a crusader. But all this religious stuff is buried in the dialog so as not to offend; instead, it's just confusing.

In summary, although promising, I think that Assassin's Creed could have been a lot better than it was. Perhaps they should take another go at it. Hire better writers and spend some time adding variety to the missions. Oh, and get rid of the cheesy sci-fi crap.

I'd like a LADIES PhD, for I am a LADY!

I've just gotten back from a three day workshop in Geelong for new PhD students. It was...interesting.

One session was on presentation skills. An expert on presentations gave a talk on what makes for a good PowerPoint slide, how to use body language, how loud to speak etc. It was very polished. However, it fell apart when she went to use me for a hypothetical example of a 'seated presentation'.

"For example," she starts, "if this lady here who uses a wheelchair were to make a presentation..."

I'm horrified and stunned. Did she just call me a lady?

"...I'm sorry...umm...gentleman?" she tries. A long awkward silence ensues as she stares at me questioningly.

"Hi" I eventually let out in as low a tone as I can muster, unsure of what else to say.

"Yes! Gentleman...ughh...well, the point is that presentations can be made while sitting as well!"

She continued the talk and avoided further eye contact.

What I find interesting is that there was one important presenting tip she failed to mention: while a dimly lit room may help the audience to see the PowerPoint projection, it makes it difficult to see the audience!

As for me, I'm planning on growing a beard.

Milk and cookies

So I'm really sorry that i've not posted much recently. I've got a few ideas in the works, so just hang on a bit.

In the mean time I'm leaving these here milk and cookies out in case there's any stalkers out there who are feeling peckish.

Fry and Laurie do Uri Geller

Facebook turns nasty

Facebook has developed a mean streak it seems.

This morning I get an unsolicited email from a Facebook app I did not sign up for telling me the following:

In total, you were reviewed for dating 15 times and no people expressed interest in you.
You are more desirable than less than 20% of 23,328,555 people.

Last week you were viewed 5 times and no people expressed interested in you

Way to kick a nerd when he's down, Facebook. Not only do you tell me my love life sucks, you also give me norm referenced stats to prove it. It's the web 2.0 version of a school yard wedgie.

TV Recommendation: HBO's In Treatment

I really don't know much about psychotherapy. I did a semester of 'counseling and interpersonal skills' last year in which I learned that there's only so many times you can say "So.....how do you feeeeeeeeeel about that?" before you start to sound like a broken record. But apart from that, I don't know much. I'm more the data nerd, research type.

Nevertheless, I'm fascinated by psychotherapy from an outside point of view. And so I've absolutely fallen in love with a new HBO series about psychotherapy called In Treatment.

It stars Gabrielle Byrne as the very serene psychotherapist and terrific supporting cast playing his clients (including Australia's very own Melissa George of Home and Away fame, and Michelle Forbes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Battlestar Galactica fame).

Each episode is aprox 30mins and documents one therapy session with one of his regular clients. For the first few episodes, you'll think that the show is just about the clients, but as things unfold you'll realise that it's actually about Paul, the psychotherapist.

It's a tangled web of intrigue. Brilliantly written (infact, it's an adaption/remake of an Israeli series), brilliantly directed, and brilliantly performed.

It's really gotten inside of me.

If you've got the means of seeing it, I highly recommend it.

UPDATE: To my great surprise, it looks like you can download the full episodes as a podcast from the In Treatment website. And here was I thinking I was being naughty.

Predjudice at the Puddle: results of the Implicit Association Test

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a cool little experimental procedure for testing for unconscious associations people may have between certain concepts. It's been used in particular in research on prejudice. The participant in the experiment sits at a computer and is required to sort various word and/or pictures into one of two categories as fast as possible. For example, one might sort of a series of words (happy, sad, angry, cheerful, fantastic, murder) into the categories of either 'good' or 'bad', or sort various faces into the categories of either 'white' or 'black. The clever part of the test, however, is when the participant is required to sort a combination of things (e.g., words and faces) into various pairings of categories (e.g., 'black OR good', 'black OR bad', 'white OR good', 'white OR bad'). The amazing thing is that even amongst those desperately trying not to be racist, reaction times for the prejudiced pairings (e.g., 'black OR bad' and 'white OR good') are faster than for the other pairings. The theory is that pairing 'black' with 'bad' and 'white' with 'good' is easier, even amongst people who abhors racism, because we've all to some degree learned to associate those two concepts in our culture...it's an 'implicit association'.

There's a great little interview over at Edge with Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, inventors of the IAT. Check it out.

There's also a website over at Harvard that lets you take the IAT yourself. I highly recommend it. (Follow the 'demonstrations' link to start with). There's a number of different versions you can take, including ones designed to test for predjudices regarding religion, sexuality, politics, race, gender, disability etc.

I thought I'd give the disability version a go. I was presented with various symbols related to either disability (wheelchairs, crutches etc.) or ablebodiedness (skiing, running, etc.) as well as positive and negative words. My results:

"Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Abled Persons compared to Disabled Persons."

This, despite the fact that I myself have quite the cripple credentials, having a physical disability myself. ;-) Wow!

And here's how others did:


This kind of stuff is experimental psychology at its best.

On hoaxes and creationism journals

Very recently, the Answers in Genesis (AiG) organisation has launched its own 'peer-reviewed' Young Earth creationism research journal -- the Answers Research Journal. AiG are the people behind the Creation Museum in Kentucky. They seek to rebut the standard theory of evolution and promote the biblical account of the creation of life on earth as literal scientific truth. Their new journal hopes to be a home for creationism friendly research that can't get published elsewhere.

My prediction: within the year, the Answers Research Journal will fall for a Sokal Affair style hoax.

The Sokal Affair was a hoax perpetrated on a postmodern cultural studies journal called Social Text by the physicist Alan Sokal. Sokal said that he wanted to see if the journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions." He wrote a hilariously silly paper called "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" full of the most amazing nonsense, submitted it, and they published it. (If you're familiar with postmodernist writing and understand just a couple of the basic ideas of Einsteinian physics, you'll find the article very funny.)

Surely someone else will have the same idea for hoaxing the Answers journal. A hoax of this type wouldn't be an immature game, it would serve to test the intellectual standards of a journal trying to sell itself as being a serious peer-reviewed science journal. It will be interesting to see whether there are any lines of argument in favour of creationism that the folks at Answers won't endorse.

End of the calendar/world

Friends, gather round. I have something important to discuss.

There's been a lot of talk recently about how the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, and speculation that this indicates the date of the end of the world. A lot of people are very concerned.

But I fear we have overlooked a more immanent threat!

This morning I discovered that the standard Gregorian calendar -- the one used today in most of the western world -- ends on December 31st! That's right! The 31st is the last day in December and after that there is no new month!

Don't take my word for it, go and check your own calendars right now. See for yourself. Only 12 months in the calendar, and December is the last of them!

Now the Gregorian calendar has been used for thousands of years, and has been the foundation of some very advanced civilisations. So clearly this indicates that the end will come much sooner than expected.

Start hoarding your tinned spaghetti people!

Softly softly

I usually listen to my iPod on a medium-ish volume. Last night I thought i'd see how low a volume I can comfortably listen to podcasts at.

To my surprise I discovered that I can listen to podcasts with the volume bar just a millimeter from being completely off. It takes a minute or so to get used to, and it has to be a quiet room, but after a while I couldn't really tell the difference between this volume and my usual volume.

Doesn't work so well for music. Bass is hard to hear at low volumes.

To preserve my hearing I plan on listening at as low a volume as possible from here on.

Pet Peev - misuse of preparatory count ins

For a long time now, one my secret pet peevs has been the misuse of 'count ins'.

When a group of people are about to lift a heavy object, it is customary for someone to count "one, two, three, lift" so that everyone commences lifting at the same time. The point of such a count in is for the interval between each count to be equal so that everyone can anticipate exactly when the moment to 'lift' will be. The time that passes between "one" and "two", and between "two" and "three" tells you exactly how much time to expect between "three" and "lift". That's the point of a count in.

But how I usually hear people count in is this:

"Oooooooone...........(long pause)........twoooooooooo............(longer pause).............(and then when you least expect it) THREE! LIFT IT LIFT IT LIFT IT!"

What is the point of that?

A similar phenomenon is in the counting in of singing amongst non-musical types, particularly for the singing of Happy Birthday. Some will count a rapid "one, two, three" then a few seconds will pass before a very slow "haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapy biiiirthday to you" commences.

What's the point of that!?

In music, a count in is supposed to set the tempo. And besides, in the Happy Birthday song, the "happy" should actually start on the "three" not after it, because it's "birthday" that comes on the main beat. It should be "one two three, one two, Happy birthday to you..."

...i know i know, it's no big deal...it just annoys me. And thus concludes today's insane rant.

And the academy award for best medicine in a leading role goes to...

They say that laughter is the best medicine. And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of laughter. But I still think that, even after all these years, the front runner for the category of 'best medicine in a leading role' has got to be the humble antibiotic.

I'm personally indebted to antibiotics this week for swiftly rescuing me from what felt like deaths door.

Three cheers for Flemming!

What else should be nominated for best medicine? and what should the selection criteria be?

P.S. More posts in the days to come, now that I'm on the mend.

My dreams are plagued by flow charts

David Allen's 45min talk: intro to Getting Things Done

In my recent post on OmniFocus (the new Mac todo list software from Omni Group) i gave a very quick and dirty intro to David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology for personal productivity. Well, here's a much better (and longer) intro from the man himself in the form of a 45min talk he gave to Google employees:


I've just finished watching it myself, as I feel like i've fallen off the bandwagon recently, even with the help of OmniFocus. From the watching the video, I think it's my lack of discipline with the weekly review that has screwed me up.

There's something about talks from american buisness gurus that seems very evangelical...i think it's the fast talking and dramatic pauses...Amen sister!

The Unbearable Awkwardness of Subway

This week I returned to Subway, after having avoided buying sandwiches from them for sometime.

I've been avoiding Subway because I find the consumer experience there a bit traumatic.

First, there's the performance anxiety that comes from the responsibility of designing every aspect of my sandwich under time pressure. What bread? What meat? What salad? Which dressing? Too many choices! And if your sandwich turns out to be disappointing then the blame is all on me.

Second, there's the guilt I feel over micro-managing the sandwich maker. When I order some regular take-away food, sure, the staff member has to prepare and package it for you, but I don't have to stand over them and supervise. Ordering the Subway staff around makes me feel like some kind of sandwich dominatrix...i don't like it.

And when I returned to Subway this week, the experience was much the same. I guess it's the price one has to pay for a delicious custom sandwich...well, that, and about $8.

MacBook Air

Enjoyed the SteveNote immensely.

The new MacBook Air is beautiful...not something I really need...but very very beautiful. Great for people who might be traveling a lot (wink wink, Lee).

SteveNote 2008: the excitement builds

Tomorrow is the most exciting day on the Apple fanboy calendar -- the real christmas. Yes, as we speak, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is making his list and checking it twice before tomorrows big keynote presentation.

The strongest rumor is that Steve will be announcing a new sub-laptop -- a macbook that's light weight, tiny, and probably works off a flash based hard drive. And perhaps there'll also be an announcement of a new 3g iPhone -- such a device would be perfect for the Australian market.

But there's always the chance that something completely unexpected will be announced as well. Steve has a talent for nice surprises.

So tomorrow i'll be waking up and downloading the video of the keynote straight away. Macrumours.com has a nice email service to let you know when the video is ready, if you'd like to sign up too.

Macnytt has also provided us with this great SteveNote bingo game to play.

5 things Australian tennis crowds always find amusing

Tennis crowds in Australia are amused by the quaintest things (aside from the actual tennis). I wonder if it's the same elsewhere.

5 things (apart from the tennis) that will amuse crowds at this year's Australian Open:

1. A ball kid catches a ball that's ricocheted high in the air on the full. Ball kid receives round of applause.

2. Crowd sees themselves on big screen. Waves and jumps around like crazy.

3. Player chases moth, trying to get it off the court. Moth elusive. Crowd delighted.

4. Someone yells out "Come on Hewitt, you can do it!" during a Lleyton Hewitt match. Laughter at the use of rhyme.

5. Player aborts a serve. Someone yells out "sorry mate" in imitation of Pat Rafter. Appreciative chukle.

I do enjoy tennis though, I must say.

Me with Steven Pinker's hair

For a while now, I've had a bit of an intellectual man crush on the brilliant psychologist Steven Pinker. And so when I discovered hairmixer.com this morning (a site that lets you mix photos of yourself with the hair of celebrities) I knew what I had to do. So this is me with the hair of Steven Pinker.

...now if you'll excuse me, i'm off to try out my hair on Richard Dawkins.

A Map of the Internet

A graphical representation of all of a small section of the network of interconnected computers that we call the 'internet'. Via opte.org

Pretty!

Only 2 years to go on James Randi's Million-Dollar Challenge.

What a coincidence. I'd just finished responding to a comment to my psychic predictions post about the validity of psychic claims, and in my response I made mention of James Randi's Million-Dollar Challenge. Then five seconds later I discover that the million-dollar prize will be discontinued as of 2010.

The James Randi Educational Foundation Million-Dollar Challenge will be discontinued 24 months from this coming March 6th, and those prize funds will then be available to generally add to our flexibility. This move will free us to do many more projects, which will be announced at that time. This means that all those wishing to be claimants are required to get their applications in before the deadline, properly filled out and notarized as described in the published rules.

I think that is such a shame. I don't see why they need to do it. The Million-Dollar challenge offers "a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." It's been going for some time now, although has only been one million dollars since 1998. The fact that the prize is so large, and the tests so flexible (the design of the test is negotiated with the applicant), makes it great to point to as a 'put up or shut up'. But if it's ending soon I worry that it looks like Randi was afraid that someone was finally getting close to winning the prize. Hopefully someone else will put up another million.

But there's still 2 years to go, so if you've got any cool abilities now is the time to apply.

My 'psychic' predictions for 2008

On the latest episode of the Skeptics Guide podcast they were reviewing all of the psychic predictions that were made for 2007 (the hit rate was terribly low) and making their own predictions for 2008.

I thought i'd have a go as well, so here's my predictions for 2008:

1. A cyclone will narrowly miss an Australian city potentially saving the lives of millions.
2. A prominent Australian involved in the world of sport will die unexpectedly
3. Tobey Maguire will father a child.
4. Lindsay Lohan will do jail time.
5 (and a vague Nostradamus-esque one) In the place where many have died before, there will be a great thunder, 3 will make themselves notorious, and a city will burn.

What are your 'psychic' predictions for 2008?

Cargo ship with a kite reduces fuel consumption

The Belgua SkySail - a 10,000 tonne cargo ship with a 160 square meter kite that reduces fuel consumption by 15%. (more at The Guardian)

Pretty cool.

What else might benefit from a 160 square meter kite?

All night bird party

What's with the birds in my street chirping away in the middle of the night? They woke me up at 2am this morning.

Is it all the light pollution? Do they think it's morning?

Or was there some kind of birdie rave party on last night?

The One Laptop Per Child Program

I just think that the One Laptop Per Child program is amazing. Brilliant technology, great scheme. I think that I might contribute to this, as a solution to my donation dilemma.

NY Times technology reporter David Pogue gives this nice intro to the OLPC:




Kevin Rudd eat your heart out!

What is disappointing, however, is that the OLPC has made some of the big technology players jealous. Microsoft and others are scared that they're losing potential customers in the developing world, and so they are developing ultra cheap laptops of their own running cheap cutdown versions of XP for these regions. Terrible. It's bad enough that the first world is flooded with crappy virus infested Windows boxes. Why inflict that on kiddies in developing countries?