Just recently I came across a site (but can’t rememeber the URL) – basically saying that this is not a blog but just a few notes, how and why I did something to convince me at a later time of its justification. Yea, yea.
Category Archives: Joke
Can doctors think?
We already discussed here “how doctors think?k” while a new essay in the Lancet now even asks “Can doctors think“?
Disease can be recognised by the doctor and the patient (mumps), by the doctor but not the patient (schizophrenia), by some doctors but not others (social phobia), by doctors in some times but not others (melancholy …), and by doctors in some places but not others (embedded incisor tooth because an ancestor’s ghost is angry).
marvelous, yea, yea.
If a thought arises, take note of it and then dismiss it
Can we really control our thoughts? A PLoS ONE paper is looking into neural correlates of distraction by comparing 12 Zen meditators and 12 control subjects that were offered a “real English word” or “not a real English word” while resting in a 3 Tesla Siemens Magnetom. Outcome has been the time of refocusing attention to the breathing. The results are quite convincing (and not really unexpected) that the Zen meditators showed a reduced duration of their neural response to distraction probably by cutting down emotional self-reflectance and other associations coming up. I would be happy to participate also in a trial where somebody could record my EEG while driving on the of these new 185 kW Tesla roadsters.
Genetics proposes, epigenetics disposes, environment exposes
Genetics proposes,
epigenetics disposes,
environment exposes,
the human composes,
and doctor diagnoses.
(c) for the first part is by the Medawar & Medawar in “Aristotle to Zoos“.
The unoffical list of the most underrated companies in Munich
The recent Munich city run B2Run offers some interesting (and largely accidential) insights into company philosophies.
There was a clear advice at which block you should start for a given target time – simply to avoid congestion. However, I noticed many slow runners Continue reading The unoffical list of the most underrated companies in Munich
Tu vuò fà l’americano
Yesterday we had been in “Schloss Nymphenburg” for the “Serenade im Park“. I did not know about the close connection of Munich and Venice where even Gondolieres had been hired by the former Bavarian emperors… So it was quite natural to hear some Canzoni Napolitane, traditional songs like La Danza, Torna a Surriento, Santa Lucia while my favorite was “Tu vuò fà l’americano” by Maria Tselegidis, simply wonderful also the encore. My limited Italian did not allow to understand the Neapolitan dialect that says
Puorte’ o canzone cu’ ‘nu stemma arreto,
‘na cuppulella cu ‘a visiera aizata.
Passe scampanianno pè Tuleto
comme a’ nu guappo pe’ te fa guardà!Tu vuò fa l’americano!
“mmericano! mmericano!”
Siente a me, chi t’ho fa fa?
Tu vuoi vivere alla moda
ma si bive “Wisky and soda”
po’ e sente ‘e disturbà.
Tu abballe ‘o “Rocco Roll”
tu giochi al “basebal”
ma ‘e solde pe’ Camel
chi te li fa?..
La borsetta di mammà!
Tu vuò fa l’americano
“mmericano! mmericano!”
ma si nato in Italy!
Siente a mme non ce stà niente a ffa
Okay, napolità!
Tu vuò fa l’american!
Tu vuò fa l’american!Comme te po’ capì che te vò bene
si tu le parle ‘mmiezzo americano?
Quando se fa l’amore sott’a luna
comme te vene ‘capa e di “j love you!?”
which is about an Italian who imitates an American (see translation). Although I can’t replay the excellent performance of Maria Tselegidis here, there are several versions of ‘Tu vuò fà l’americano” at Youtube – the famous one with Sophia Loren, the Ripley variant and a talented amateur version. Or watch the Puppini Sisters:
What’s the connection to Science Surf? I know also a lot of European scientists “vuò fà l’americano”, yea, yea.
Webcam based laser point tracking
If you do have the same problem like me – operating a computer, pointing towards a wall and looking at the same time at an audience is somewhat odd – here may be a solution for you.
Initially found this at a blog with some java source code.
Another video example is
with abandonded C# code that compiled nicely on my mac (laserinteraction). Experiments are ongoing…
The best climbs
It is a fact that the best climbs are performed by famous mountaineers before they became famous (Doug Scott in “Mountain” according to an inscription at Firmian/Messner Mountain Museum). Continue reading The best climbs
Reading this blog will improve your academic skills
Aren’t hat good news being published by Science this week?
Process-specific training can improve performance on untrained tasks, but the magnitude of gain is variable and often there is no transfer at all. We demonstrate transfer to a 3-back test of working memory after 5 weeks of training in updating. The transfer effect was based on a joint training-related activity increase for the criterion (letter memory) and transfer tasks in a striatal region that also was recruited pretraining.
Continue reading Reading this blog will improve your academic skills
Hierarchical bounding boxes
Feed this paper at this site to get the following result
An anthology of thinkers
There are already several anthologies of thinkers. Miyaki finds the following 10 groups Continue reading An anthology of thinkers
Enough for today, some more relevant now
German Science blogging
The German blogosphere is now being mapped but with a few exceptions German science blogging doesn’ play a major role (in contrast to knitting that shows a large cluster Continue reading German Science blogging
Placebo for placebo
or “Do placebo responders exist?” is a remarkable new review by researcher from the Harvard Medical School. I always wondered about the sheer size of the placebo effect (and its perception as nuisance parameter). The authors simply ask the question
… this paper also examines the evidence for the existence of a consistent placebo responder, i.e. a person who responds to placebo in one situation will respond in another condition or using a different type of placebo ritual….
Suggestibility is a human trait, yea, yea.
DNA for DNA
It might be fun to read here on a genetics board about DNA (Direct Note Access) which is a technology implemented in Melodyne that can extract notes from polyphonic music.
So far, it does not use a library of musical instruments according Peter Neubäcker, head of development, in an interview published in c’t 8/2008, p 34. It separates “musical content” defined by periodicity, similar overtones and meaningful musical distance like halftones. Although that’s something bioinformatics is trying for some while for DNA (desoxyribonucleic acid), I wonder if the decomposition concept in DNA would works also for DNA, yea, yea.