Going to see it at The Arts cinema on the 16th #Powered by Twitter Tools.
Ellee sent me the link to the Texperts tonight, these are folks who you can text any question too 66000 and get an answer.
They have a challenge quiz to see if you are suitable as someone to work with them. Here are my results:-
| Category | Percentage | Pass |
|---|---|---|
| General Knowledge – Music | 40.00 | Fail |
| General Knowledge – Science & Technology | 80.00 | Pass |
| General Knowledge – UK Geography | 60.00 | Fail |
| The Basics – Fun With Numbers | 80.00 | Pass |
| The Basics – Speakin’ the Queen’s | 75.00 | Pass |
| Read It and Weep | 68.75 | Fail |
We’ve tallied your scores and it is official: you are a Lazy So & So. Your brain doesn’t hurt too much right now because you never switched it on. You have beaten the Class Dunce but have a long way to go until you make Gold Star Texpert status. You’ve definitely got ability, though, so freshen up and have another go.
You have been unsuccessful.
So the same as my school reports – lazy must try harder
Have a go and leave a comment.
A cool optical illusion or a computer gimmick. which way is this dancer rotating?
The theory is according to Geoff of Geofftech.
If you see it spinning clockwise, then you are a ‘right sided’ brain person, who uses feeling, is ‘big picture’ orientated and your imagination rules you.
If you see it spinning anti-clockwise, then you are a ‘left sided’ brain person who uses logic, is detail orientated and facts rule.
Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.
So do you see clockwise or anti-clockwise? Are you left or right minded?
So give it a spin and let me know in the comments?.
ps its clockwise for me - most of the time
Link to the Lateralization of brain function
Just discovered from Adam Pash’s excellent Lifehacker feed this tool for visualizing word meanings. As the Visuwords website says “Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.”
Here is the visual word map for Cambridge clearly showing the two different Cambridges nodes in the UK and USA but with a nice dotted link identifying both as city urban centres and a seperate link showing the two universities. Pretty cool. (Opera is struggling to bring in the jpg from WordPress)
This so called upgrade to the iMac operating is causing me real problems:-
On the bright side:-
Or as Philip Dowsett says in The Guardian . “So what should you do if a leopard gets into your house? “Don’t run. They will chase you down like prey. Try to give them an escape route, make loud noises and wave your hands around. I wouldn’t recommend going for the scruff of its neck”
Addendum: Dave Winer is not happy as well
Tonight after the fireworks I took myself off to a biosoc talk by Dr Nick Lane , with the very provocative title of Power, Sex, Suicide: the title of his latest book.
The small print Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life was a better description.
The first part was way way over my head and I just marvelled at how he could rattle of all those long names. I have put a few of his slides on Flickr
The fundamental point is that mitochondria were once bacteria and that it was their entry into cells that made possible complex life. They are essential in converting Oxygen for cell respiration and that they retain their own DNA to maintain respiratory control or as another website says “Within each of your cells are many mitochondria, tiny biochemical power plants that convert chemicals from food to ATP, the basic fuel molecule used by your cells to provide energy for life” here it gets way above me in that free radicals alter ATP production.
He then went onto describe why sex is odd and requires 2 parents thus meaning you can only mate with 50% of the population (apparently Physarum Polycephalum has 13 sexes!) Also the oddity of how the female passes on mitochondria whilst the male mitochondria is eliminated from the sperm. Which is a good way of defining what sex you are apparently.
Also higher mitochondria density in your cells is a good indicator of longevity, birds have a density 2.5 higher in their wing muscles (flight is very energy intensive compared to running) and live correspondingly much longer lifes that animals of the same mass. So how can humans improve their mitochondria density:-
Pretty fascinating stuff and a great lecturer. Pity that so few attended.
