Soopur pay-per fry-day

Computational Role of Large Receptive Fields in the Primary Somatosensory Cortex -- Foffani et al., 10.1152/jn.01015.2007 -- Journal of Neurophysiology. Available at: http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/01015.2007v1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory : Abstract : Nature. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature06860.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory : Abstract : Nature. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature06860.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Entrainment of Neuronal Oscillations as a Mechanism of Attentional Selection -- Lakatos et al. 320 (5872): 110 -- Science. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5872/110 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Entrainment of Neuronal Oscillations as a Mechanism of Attentional Selection -- Lakatos et al. 320 (5872): 110 -- Science. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5872/110 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

High-Resolution Electrical Stimulation of Primate Retina for Epiretinal Implant Design -- Sekirnjak et al. 28 (17): 4446 -- Journal of Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/28/17/4446?rss=1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

High-Resolution Electrical Stimulation of Primate Retina for Epiretinal Implant Design -- Sekirnjak et al. 28 (17): 4446 -- Journal of Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/28/17/4446?rss=1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Controlled Release Drug Coatings on Flexible Neural Probes. Available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/srchabstract.jsp?arnumber=4353875&isnumber=4352185&punumber=4352184&k2dockey=4353875@ieeecnfs&query=4353875%3Cin%3Earnumber&pos=0 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Joint-action coordination in transferring objects
Ruud G. J. Meulenbroek1 Contact Information, Jurjen Bosga1, Majken Hulstijn1 and Stephan Miedl1. Available at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/36qr5243862g2mw6/fulltext.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Metaplasticity: tuning synapses and networks for plasticity : Abstract : Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v9/n5/abs/nrn2356.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience - Combining Modalities with Different Latencies for Optimal Motor Control Available at: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn.2008.20133 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Motor pattern selection by combinatorial code of interneuronal pathways. Available at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r2rj684v7512g336/fulltext.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Multisensory integration: current issues from the perspective of the single neuron : Article : Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v9/n5/full/nrn2377.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neural Measures of Individual Differences in Selecting and Tracking Multiple Moving Objects -- Drew and Vogel 28 (16): 4183 -- Journal of Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/28/16/4183?rss=1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

No Evidence for Chronic Demyelination in Spared Axons after Spinal Cord Injury in a Mouse -- Lasiene et al. 28 (15): 3887 -- Journal of Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/28/15/3887?rss=1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Ovid: The relationship between frontal somatosensory-evoked potentials and motor planning. Available at: http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com/spb/ovidweb.cgi?QS2=434f4e1a73d37e8c735123761de3e0f59b624645cc27e52dfa139644d24fde7f66b2bc52d257d6cc8427bff52a1d87d3657b6db41d3d9fd334744dd1cba4d86dc3011aa40c931193c9120b601e80e9df2bff7ade656d71177db9469235cc5818fe3232d0f6e9831114ae3adebba172ecd2af628abb11f9b496af27908424b8917a5e068209d7eeecdce3d6d5640f2086ac62b9b88c46b58c712c963bbdd92668d5b0968c2c215ed70a50de0f772550b5582ea26f08ad0b7779003be377e4596d249489d6c2cebcda1c2aca86b38aaeb41389b997b26bd1aec281ae65e1866d38 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Plasticity of intrinsic neuronal properties in CNS disorders : Abstract : Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v9/n5/abs/nrn2371.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Preparing to Move Increases the Sensitivity of Superior Colliculus Neurons -- Li and Basso 28 (17): 4561 -- Journal of Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/28/17/4561?rss=1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Reduction of stimulus visibility compresses apparent time intervals : Abstract : Nature Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/abs/nn.2111.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Rise of the digital machine : Article : Nature. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7188/full/452699a.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Journal of Biomechanics : A musculoskeletal model of the upper extremity for use in the development of neuroprosthetic systems. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T82-4S97JFY-2&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=cc246ff6a58d39f67a4ccc1ab9bb9ebe [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Journal of Biomedical Informatics : A prototype symbolic model of canonical functional neuroanatomy of the motor system. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WHD-4R644NX-1&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=9389724173ee9bc13dbc4bea973a04da [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Journal of Neuroscience Methods : Contour-propagation algorithms for semi-automated reconstruction of neural processes. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T04-4PCXG9T-1&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=37f8ae6d218dcd8827b1318f0201d29d [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neuron : A Remarkable Facilitating Effect of Parietal Damage. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WSS-4S7S70W-4&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=667e94d82dc26f1cdc75b04655acdbd9 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neuron : Control over Conflict during Movement Preparation: Role of Posterior Parietal Cortex. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WSS-4S7S70W-K&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=42e489f63895d161b975485bcc5b23c3 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neuron : Decoupling through Synchrony in Neuronal Circuits with Propagation Delays. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WSS-4S7S70W-H&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=3e184ffd818e87ee04fa56cd1bb7ce4a [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neuron : Lateral Sharpening of Cortical Frequency Tuning by Approximately Balanced Inhibition. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WSS-4S7S70W-J&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=0eb9706e895ac2671fb060737e84f05b [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neuron : One-Dimensional Dynamics of Attention and Decision Making in LIP. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WSS-4S7S70W-6&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=0cddf32b5ffc9d5853af39ee14975ffa [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Neurotherapeutics : The Development of Brain-Machine Interface Neuroprosthetic Devices. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8G3D-4RFK1F6-M&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=d435d3b1ab85133cbebffce0c0666e05 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Trends in Neurosciences : RNA editing, DNA recoding and the evolution of human cognition. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0V-4S7B6JX-1&_user=489286&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022678&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489286&md5=4f9e03a1f4d4e280489ef1b5a29b77a7 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Selective modulations of interactions between ventral premotor cortex and primary motor cortex during precision grasping in humans -- Davare et al., 10.1113/jphysiol.2008.152603 -- The Journal of Physiology Online. Available at: http://jp.physoc.org/cgi/content/abstract/jphysiol.2008.152603v1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Systems biology: Genome rewired : Article : Nature. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7189/full/452824a.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain : Abstract : Nature Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/abs/nn.2112.html [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Unilateral practice of a ballistic movement causes bilateral increases in performance and corticospinal excitability -- Carroll et al., 10.1152/japplphysiol.01351.2007 -- Journal of Applied Physiology. Available at: http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/01351.2007v1 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

A Collaborative Wheelchair System. Available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?isnumber=4483552&arnumber=4446604 [Accessed April 25, 2008].

Computing

Couple quick items related to computers.

First, has anyone gotten Neuroshare to work on a Mac in Leopard, or has everyone given up and decided to run it in VMWare or Parallels?

Second, does everyone have incredibly shitty performance on Mac OS X Leopard in Matlab?

I ran the same set of analysis routines on our dual quad core 3.2GHz machine and my 2.4GHz laptop under Vista x86. The Mac took 170 seconds, my laptop took 140 seconds. The code is "embarrassingly parallel" so I can run 8 instances of Matlab and get the same performance, more or less (about 190 seconds per run), and on my laptop (dual core) get 150 seconds for two instances, but the difference in performance is pathetic when you take into account that the laptop has a crappier bus speed, almost a full GHz lower for serial computation, is running in friggin Vista which screams of overhead (oh, and I had Outlook, Firefox and a two other programs open on the laptop, while the Mac had nothing else going on). I am considering installing XP on the system now under Boot Camp (Parallels limits you to one CPU, VMWare to two, not sure if having multiple virtual machine instances is just asking for trouble, but will probably try this first with a demo version).

Next, Ubuntu 8.04 is being released tomorrow. Just sayin'.
I'll prob try installing it just for shits and giggles. Be sure to get the AMD64 version for your Intel Core 2 based systems. I didn't know this, but apparently AMD64 is used as the moniker because 64-bit builds of Linux were for the first 64-bit desktop systems running AMD processors, but the instruction set is included in Intel's processors. And they say Linus isn't ready for the desktop... bah! With logic like naming releases for a specific processor when it isn't required or expected, I can't imagine why!
- Also, I have had success using EasyBCD for dealing with booting issues. My current system has Vista, XP, and Ubuntu 7.1 all living in harmony.
- I plan on trying the option of installing from Windows and wiping my old install, which I never used anyway. This also takes care of downloading the install via bittorrent.

Wrap me in technica

The logical step between models of virtual appendages and implanted muscle stimulators and FES systems is an exoskeleton. No surgery, easily removed, easily upgradeable, and more suited for non-paralyzed persons. Well, here are the goods on what systems have been making the news in the past few months.

The Honda "assist walking device" is the most recent newsworthy device. This lower limb exoskeleton is essentially an ASIMO robot without an upper half. That is both good and bad.

Far cooler is the anime inspired HAL by Cyberdyne, which can be rented for $1000/hour. I want to rent one just so I can wear it as I carry a car across campus for no reason.


The Exos, which basically looks like a more capable and "Americanized" full body exoskeleton is being targeted at soldiers for heavy lifting. I say Americanized because it looks like the inspiration is more sheer power and militaristic over aesthetics and compactness, like the HAL. I don't know what the difference is between lifting power, and I doubt they have a consistent way of measuring that between device makers, but rather than show a semi-androgynous wavy haired guy posing, they show a guy sitting strait up lifting a massive weight effortlessly. There's also the below YouTube clip.

The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has their own suit that is aimed at aging farmers and general manual labor workers, with an emphasis on cost and durability. $2000 - to own.

One big problem with exoskeletons in general is that in order to provide power, you need, well, power, and that usually comes in the form of heavy batteries tied to heavy, noisy motors. An alternative is to use pneumatics for the tough stuff, guided by electronic cut off valves. That's the idea behind the University of Michigan exoskeleton. That's some smart thinkin, though it limits the use, since sitting in a coffee shop to recharge your EXOs would work better than find a scuba trainer and loading up your compressed air canister.

Rewalk is another sexy exoskeleton that only exists in CAD form, but looks like a serious attempt at another mass market exoskeleton. Argo Networks is specifically targeting paraplegics and looks to introduce their first version in 2009. I have to say that it seems strange that we're working on exoskeletons to carry heavy packs into war, and then other exoskeletons for those soldiers that become paraplegic because of war int he first place (I'm not a hippie, just noting the irony.) It would be strange to imagine going into battle with one exo, and needing a different one when you get home. I'm sure the psychological impact of getting into the suit would make it tougher to, say, recover for PTSD.

And finally we have the UC Berkeley exoskeleton, BLEEX. This is older news, but the link provided goes straight to the media page so you can check out the videos and other media.

And here is a quick link to past stories on DNI regarding exoskeletons.

OMFG! She's a MFin' doctor!

Congrats to Joci on her thesis defense. She defended it mightily, and vanquished the evil post presentation Committee of Doom. All she got was a quest item, [PhD Certificate], but it unlocked the Real World zones where gold farming is easier.

(WoW guildy? Naaaaah.)
(Oh, and read PhD Comics!)

Scary flaming robot legs

Another great catch by Natalia. Behold the Scary Walking Robot Legs of Doooooom! Info here.

America: An Aside

For those of you who don't understand some of the US mentality towards our military and general 'pride' (okay, our outright bragging about being the best country in the world), I strongly recommend watching the HBO series that is currently playing on John Adams. It is amazingly well done, and Paul Giamatti is at his best, IMO. The series is the most interesting depiction of the time and people that I have ever seen. My stepfather is a US History teacher and says it is one of the most accurate portrayals of the the people, the time, and the politics he's ever seen, so I know I'm in good company.

The most important aspect emphasized in John Adams is the Revolutionary War. It is the attitude of the players. There are almost no gunfights or major battles depicted - at one point Adams is on a ship and the majority of the scenes are of him in the hull tending to a wounded soldier. I've always wondered what the day-to-day life was like. When I travel I don't generally like touristy things, and prefer to just go to local shops and cafes to watch people (very fun in Rome, btw). This series completely appeals to that part of me. It's about all the subtleties left out of your history textbooks, and if you extrapolate the attitudes and personalities to the modern world, somehow our attitude makes sense.

I bring this up because a) I'm watching it now b) my parents are actually lightly contemplating moving abroad (which would be HUGE as far as my family goes and c) the recent news that after being arrested, the police will forever have your DNA in a database. I doubt the 'rents will make the leap, and I was really excited about the possibility until watching this series. It kinda made me fall in love with th US all over again. But, this recent news item makes me wonder if we are well beyond the tipping point. Our country is an incredibly young one. Hell, most people are less than 3 generations away from its founding (not the generation =25 years thing, but it is possible that the father of the father a living person was alive at the country's birth). It makes me wonder if times like these are the ones that countries fall apart during.

I'm not shy about saying that I think the US will eventually split. Call it North and South, Liberal and Conservative, or whatever, but the attitude of the US is so drastically bipolar that I doubt much can mend it. I just hope it isn't a bloody split. Bush still has a ~25% approval rating. Really. I mean, how is that even possible?

The only thing I can think of is party allegiance, and at that point these people care more about their party than the country and should not be allowed to vote. (Yeah, I said it, and it goes for Democrats, too. You should be required to prove you are voting in the bet interest of the country with your personal opinions guiding the decision. Unfortunately, that is impossible to quantify or prove, so it will never be done. And even if it was done, the corruptibility would be astronomical.) We all know that a full blown democracy doesn't work - you end of with tyranny of the majority as happened in Athens. But, our segregated process has all but failed because of small kinks in the armor that divided powers, levels of government, and the branches. I'm not saying I have the answers, but I'm hoping someone does.

I don't usually post these types of links, but if you want to catch the episodes now, and promise to be good and buy them, or pirating is legal in your country, here are the most healthy torrents of the episodes to date. If you don't know what torrents are, there are plenty of other places to find out.

Evolve

Continuing with the purging of links to interesting stories, file these under "Evolution" or "Rockin Darwin's Doodle".


Awesome, awesome, awesome article on the complexity of evolution at Wired. What I love about it is that it completely axes the idiocy of sticking to a strict Darwinian perspective. We all know it doesn't work that way exactly, but that getting the knuckle draggers to understand that much has been an effort spanning decades. This article is refreshing, thought provoking, and a must read. If anyone knows of more like this, complete with some conceptual inter-meshing of self-emergence, multi-level selection, and complex system rules, please post in the comments.

An interesting little (Darwinian) evolution demonstration technique has made its way around the net recently, too. An interesting little classroom oriented setup emulates/performs 'evolution' using a controlled microenvironment and RNA + enzymes. Tweak a variable in the substrate, watch the concentrations of 'adaptive' [my words] RNA increase, isolate the 'adapted enzymes', stress them similarly, wash, rinse, repeat. Medgadget has a nice graphic and rundown, and I saw the story first on Science Daily.


Coming via Mind Hacks, Scientific American has an article about a report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (link to FREE special issue on Evolutionary Dynamics of Wild Populations) postulating that schizophrenia is evolutionarily beneficial.


As a side thought, if bacterial evolution is any sign, the increasingly effective treatments for disorders in general make them less important in determining the fitness of an organism. So, as the environment forces us to evolve, the forces that once kept our survival in check (disease, 'bad genes', weak resistance to +5 fire damage, etc) impact us less. So, the medical hurdles ahead of us are even more difficult to solve and simultaneously the population will require more care. An interesting thing to just consider is identifying the line where we stop pursuing A because the advances made are just too small. Example? The common cold or strep throat. We seem to say, "Meh, good enough. Let's move on to cancer." If we could stop the growth of malignant tumors with 100% assuredness, would we say, "Meh, good enough. Let's move on to AIDS." We all know that the medical industry doesn't make money on actually curing a problem compared to maintaining an acceptable level of homeostasis, so the next time you're opening up to say Ahhh, think about the Good Enough Line. Now, throw schizophrenia back in there, or any cognitive disorder. How will we know the Good Enough Line?

By the way, WTF is up with legitimate sites not linking to the primary literature when they report on a finding. Obnoxious. Instead you have to look up the journal, hope "this month" means the issue in press and not the ahead of press articles, or end up searching for the author, etc.


The Daily Galaxy asks if robot evolution is mirroring the evolution of life. The questions is interesting. If it is, does that mean science is conceding that life has a "designer"? If we say no, aren't we ignoring the impact of our environment on the design of robots? And if we say that they are one in the same, aren't we just dirty, granola eating, sandal wearing hippies? Seriously, though, it might speak to appearance of ordered evolution from many chaotic variables.

Two papers to point out: RNA editing, DNA recoding and the evolution of human cognition in Trends in Neuroscience, and Parallel evolution of cortical areas involved in skilled hand use in J Neuroscience.


And a few fun ones.
- Darwin "Photoshop tennis" on Flickr.
- If you are in New York, the Museum of Modern Art has a special exhibit on technology and science called Design and the Elastic Mind the runs through May 12, 2008 (if you read this after that date, you can find it in the "Past" link on the left).
- Fun tshirt.
- Expose gravity for the scientific conspiracy it is!
- Darwin plush doll. Awwww...


Enjoy, and keep on evolving! You have no choice!

(Update: Just saw that Philadelphia is declaring this The Year of Evolution. Rock on!)
(Update 2: Darwin's papers have been digitized to posted to the web for the first time. Enjoy!)
(Oh, and I would like to add: Fuck Ben Stein for lacking a 1st grader's understanding of science.)

List o' lists

So, this week I'll point you to the best of the best of what others thought were list worthy. Good, bad, brain related, tech related, insanity related; they're all here. Enjoy!

- Top viral videos of 2007
- Top unsolved mysteries of the brain
- Top 10 Neuroscience trends of 2007
- Top 50 Top 10 lists of 2007
- Top things you can do to become posthuman
- Top 10 craziest science experiments
- Top shocking science depicted in film
- Top 5 recreational drug experiments
- Top flaws found in famous psychology experiments
- And lastly, the top 50 comedy sketches of all time

Adding a few more here...
- Top 10 impossibilities conquered by science
- Top mind bogglingly inaccurate science movies
- Top 10 futuristic materials
- Top 9 idioms that come from technology
- Top 15 movies you didn't know were science fiction

Quicky

Just noticing a bunch of deals for 1TB hard drives for <$200. If you're looking for one, you know what to do.

SPF and TII (Tuesday's Interesting Item) will be up a little later tonight probably. How can I be sure? Installing Final Cut Pro Studio is estimated at 19 FRIGGIN HOURS, and there's no way I have that much distraction built up to prevent posting.

Hoarding

Random personal note.

One of my friends here, a certain Icelandic diva, likes to joke about how I am an information hoarder. I have way more tech stuff than I actually need/can use, and that goes especially for media. Books, music, bookmarks, podcasts, movies, etc - there is no way that I could finish it all. I could sit at my desk without sleeping for the rest of my life and never finish the contents of a single "hoarding" collection on one hard drive. I love the crazy as batshit stuff, too, probably because it is harder to find.

Every once in a blue moon I go through and try to eliminate total junk, which usually consists of asking myself, "If someone saw that I had that, would I be extremely embarrassed and completely lack any explanation?" Nothing nasty, but certainly socially unacceptable stuff occasionally finds its way to me. (For example, I love conspiracy theories for the sheer lunacy and fun of it, and the whole act of suspending disbelief stimulates me to look at things differently from even the most basic levels. But, growing up in a Jewish family (I'm 'socially/by blood Jewish, religiously atheistic') I don't feel comfortable with Nazi or controlling-the-banks-and-Hollywood type items. Not that I wouldn't get something out of reading them, but I feel like I shouldn't support it since the 'real believers' are a special kind of scary.)

I think part of it is that having all that information locally increases my sense of comfort, since any bit of information is sitting right in that little box two feet from my left hand.
Give me a sec here, and let me tally up how much storage I have... ~7TB of harddrive space and ~50GB of flash drive space. No, it's not all filled, but that's only because I have a certain level of standards and haven't downloaded a movie in ages (stopped that around 2004 - with the exception of documentaries/learning-related/can't be found on Netflix stuff).

I got started thinking about this because of two recent items.
1) 95% of 18-24 have pirated music. (obviously 5% are Amish)
2) A post on Reddit titled "Do you buy/download a lot of academic books meaning to read them "later", but really spend far more time getting the books than reading them?"

I think my mentality on the subject started when I was in high school and got introduced to the Hacker Manifesto during my early AOL haXoring days. It isn't a malicious thing, but more a curiosity. I prefer to think of myself an an information merchant.

Quick Note

If you live by Providence, RI, you really should check out The Edge cafe. Wonderful place.
(Pic of me having breakfast below)...

Anyhoo...

Okay, looking back, it looks like Tuesday link dumps aren't a good idea for a number of reasons. The main one is that this site is intended to help me sort out news, and mashing together a bunch of unrelated links just makes it a mess to navigate through and refer back to.

So, I will have a Tuesday topic post instead. It might be the inevitable robot uprising, it might be basic neuroscience, it might consumer w(h)or(e)ship, it might be gadgetry and organization. Anything goes. This way I get rid of a bunch of links from my backlog AND keep things reasonably organized.

I will decide on this week's topic later (meeting with "Da Man" in 45 minutes, so no time now). Most likely it will be on famous, interesting, and crazy psych experiments throughout history.

Multimedia mumbo jumbo

An excellent catch by Mike over at Brain Stimulant - a BBC documentary called Human 2.0 can be found online. (Very nice blog, very regularly updated and more on-topic than mine!) Go give him some traffic lovin'. Linky linky...

Also, Mind Hacks has a link to a PBS documentary torrent (OMG! Police! Police! j/k) on the ever popular frontal lobotomy. More info at Neurophilosophy.

And my little contributions:
- The popular song "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, Than have to have a frontal lobotomy" was written by Dr. Randy Hanzlick (Dr. Rock), and can be found on the Dr. Demento 30th Anniversary Collection: Dementia 2000. While I can't find it on 'the usual suspects', it can be found, if you're a little lucky, on SoulSeek. A similarly themed song can be found by Faster Pussycat.
- Another PBS documentary, part of the PBS Curious series, can be found in torrent form as well. This is more on AI and robots, but still delves into some basic neuro and worth a watch.

Gi-normous Super Paper Friday

Holy crap. Been a while. All caught up. Be happy.

New format - I used Zotero, a Firefox add-on that can be used for reference storage, retrieval and navigation. Not too bad. Only negative is that the export doesn't hyperlink the addresses. Oh well. More work for you.

1 . A commanding control of behavior : Abstract : Nature Neuroscience. at http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n3/abs/nn0308-246.html

2 . A Concept for Extending the Applicability of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy through Motor Cortex Activity Feedback Using a Neural Prosthesis. at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18350129

3 . A Hierarchy of Temporal Receptive Windows in Human Cortex -- Hasson et al. 28 (10): 2539 -- Journal of Neuroscience. at http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/28/10/2539?rss=1

4 . A Model for Neuronal Competition During Development -- Deppmann et al., 10.1126/science.1152677 -- Science. at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152677v1

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45 . IEEEXplore# Estimation of Locomotion Speed and Directions Changes to Control a Vehicle Using Neural Signals from the Motor Cortex of Rat. at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/srchabstract.jsp?arnumber=4461957&isnumber=4461641&punumber=4028925&k2dockey=4461957@ieeecnfs&query=4461957%3Cin%3Earnumber&pos=0

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52 . IEEEXplore# Preparatory Activity in PMd Neurons to Bypass a Virtual Obstacle in the Reaching Path. at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/srchabstract.jsp?arnumber=4463047&isnumber=4461641&punumber=4028925&k2dockey=4463047@ieeecnfs&query=4463047%3Cin%3Earnumber&pos=0

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Ctrl+V

Making a Code of Academic Integrity? Yeah, try not to copy it.

I bow before my own computer

As promised (trying to keep the file size down, so sorry about the somewhat the less than stellar pic)...
Must go. Computer demands a sacrifice.

I've got the POWAH! (Derrdeedeede Derderderdeedee)

Power, electricity, the luminiferous aether, shocky-knife-in-wall-outlet-makes-ouchy. However you refer to it, one thing's for sure: you can never have enough in today's world. Doubly, so if you plan to have a bunch of electronics assisting you in your daily activities. Triply so if you are going to rely on active electronics for movement restoration.

Here are some bits and pieces that might be powering your bits and pieces in the future.

Nanowire shirt - two layer of nano-cilia-type surfaces brush against each other as you move, restoring some of the power lost through the movement itself.

An ankle kinetic energy battery charger - swinging your leg provides juice for this designer number.

Electricity generating knee brace - I always learned that the thigh was one of the most efficient 'machines' ever developed. Make it work for your iPod!

Ultra-efficient piezoelectric bands - Coming soon: the piezo electric block, aka-Energon cubes!

Induction system for cochlear implants - Eh, stick it in yer ear!

Electricity generating backpack straps - Harness the power of first graders everywhere!

Hey, how much electricity does my heart generate, anyways?

RIAA doomed

I know I'm getting off the BCI track a little, but this was too cool to not post.

A new compression format for audio could compress music down the 1/1000th the size of current mp3s. That's not the interesting part. The interesting par tis how they do it: they model every instrument used in the recording and then decode the saved music by essentially replaying it through the encoded. So, there is an encoder for the saxophone, the movement of fingers on the violin string, etc. The linked article on Gizmodo went so far as to suggest modeling the vocal cords of, say, Frank Sinatra, so that old artists could release new music. I'd bet the Elvis estate would be alllll over this.

The two obvious cases where this wouldn't work well would be a) many, many many, layers/tracks/simultaneous sounds (though that would probably have to be in the tens of thousands range), and b) many, many, many instruments/sound producing items coupled with (a). The way the article describes it, each instrument is an individual class, but there are some hints that the decomposition is not related to any 'real' entity, but some type of waveform classification. I tried to think about how this could be done, and really, there are probably about at least a half dozen ways that I could think of off the top of my head, and I'm not an engineer.

Really cool stuff. Also, it is theoretically capable of 1:1 quality matching. Also, and album would be 200kB. And broadband speeds are increasing everywhere*. Night, night RIAA.

*-Verizon FiOS is now available in my area! As soon as I find a real work around for the obnoxiously bad router they provide, which is uber specialized (MOCA and Cat5), I am all over that. I hate my current cable/internet provider (Cox Comm).

Original article

Robot overlords

NASA has a sense of humor, too!

Tech recommendation

Hey! Have lots of Betamax tapes and love the dead formats? Well, keep cheering for the underdogs in HD, with this state of the art Betamax to HD-DVD converter! Awesome!

Excuses, excuses, and a few tech items

Going forward...

So, updates have been slow in coming, but as of today, things should be running smoothly. I will post the weekly link dumps next week, because I forgot that it requires that I post for the preceding week (in order to post the stories I didn't report on, I have to fail to report on them first).

Also, posts will probably be slightly shorter. Of course, enough coverage of an item will mean larger posts.


Excuses, excuses...

Reasons for the lull? Cross institution project, prelim (make it stop!), meetings requiring progress reports, laptop dead-received-installing junk saga, major tech site changes (including restarting the podcast, which you should subscribe to, and all the technical issues with getting my mini-studio up and running again), computer upgrades (more below), new lab computers for tasks we've never done, lots of general tech stuff I'm learning about and was previously unfamiliar with (video conferencing standard, serious data security, HD semi-pro film editing hardware/software, etc.), and actually plenty more that I can't remember. I've honestly gone out for 'fun' once in the last 3 weeks, making other friends a little worried, and causing those obligatory "I'm doing great, just lots of work" social sessions. At least that's how I justify playing WoW with the guild, the Tipplesplitters ("Fear the Muffin!"), for 5 hours last night :). I'm not complaining, since all this is actually really fun to me, but you get the idea. Side projects like this blog took a back seat. And, there's also a film project I might be involved with, but that's still in the planning stages.


Upgraded PC setup

My computer is now set up in such an uber-radical way that I am in awe. That's rare. Not every piece is latest and greatest, but I decided to put off assembling a new one until the end of the year at the earliest for tech reasons.

New laptop:
Gateway C-141XL with - Penryn 2.4GHz, 250GB HDD, 3 GB RAM, Vista Business x86, ATI Radeon Mobility x2300 HD w/ 128MB dedicated, Wacom digitizer, etc. Probably the fastest and most feature rich 14.1" widescreen tablet out (neck and neck with the Toshiba). (edit: nevermind, it is now the ONLY 14" tablet, since Toshiba discontinued the M7 and R10. Still love t, even though it is a bit heavy.)

WORTH NOTING FOR ANYONE WITH A LAPTOP AND DESKTOP: Get Synergy2. It's a small, open source, free application that you run on any number of computers of any OS (Win XP/Vista, OSX, Linux, etc) and allows you to use one mouse and keyboard seamlessly with all of them. It is awesome. There is a paid for Windows only app called MaxiVistaPro that supports a few other things like file dragging, but Synergy works great for me.

Desktop changes:
The laptop is mounted below the right 20.1" LCD in my new 3-friggin-monitor setup, so that when I'm home it is used as my scratch pad and reference for notes. All three LCDs (all Dell, 2x20.1", 1x24") and the laptop/tablet are supported by new Ergotron LX100 arms, which are just top notch quality and have no problem supporting everything. Monitors arranged in 20"-24"-20" setup.

The central/main monitor is driven by an 512MB EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS, which uses the G92 chip (used in the 9XXX series, smaller dye, etc). I decided I don't play enough games, and I have 2 consoles, to warrant springing for a 9800GTX, and didn't want to deal with the power issues of the 9800GX2 (dual GPU card).

The triple-display/triple monitor drama
I had an EVGA Nividia GeForce 7950GX2, which is two 7950GTs in one card allowing for two of such cards to be used in a Quad SLI setup (4 GPUs fused into one monster, single monitor driving GPU). Originally I was thinking of putting that card into SLI mode (could only drive one monitor then), using it to drive my main monitor, and getting a cheap-o dual DVI second card to drive the other two. After a shit-ton of research (literally hours, possibly days if you include the many other checks into this setup), I decided to do an about face and do the opposite - get a new, reasonably priced card for the center monitor that performed as good or better than the 7950 in SLI (I was surprised that the 8X00 series is JUST catching up to it). The reason? Everything I read on getting the previous setup to work screamed "HACK!" and I knew that I would one day update a driver and none of it would work. My main concern was whether trying to keep the 7950 in SLI would cause the drivers to attempt to lump the second GPU in with the mix, causing either errors, or not letting me use SLI in the first place, but there were other concerns. My motherboard has two PCI-Express 16x slots so I might as well use them. (Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe, based on the NForce4 Intel x16 chipset, which actually has a second PCI-E mini-bus and bridge chip. It was the first chipset for Intel chips with 2x16x lanes, so it was slightly a hack job in itself.) More importantly, the PCI graphics cards were all older, which means drastically different drivers. If I went with an NVidia card, there would likely be problems with the main monitor, if system files got overwritten with the older chipset files, and if I went with ATI there's always the possibility that down the road a driver update or installer would check the system, and as soon as it saw a non-NVidia or non-ATI card it would either not try to install or assume the drivers were old and uninstall them or something worse. The only option I considered was getting an ATI card and doing alittle dance between safe mode boots in which I disable one GPU, install the other's drivers, disable the other and install the opposite's drivers, enable SLI with the ATI disabled, cross my fingers and hope that everything works. There are reports of this working, but by the number of steps, you can tell it isn't a 'supported feature', and who knows if I could change the display resolution without a million reboots.

Instead I got the 8800GTS 512 - an excellent overall performer and the best bang for the buck - for under $200. The two side monitors are driven by the EVGA 1GB Geforce 7950GX2. I decided that since I'm mixing DirectX 9 and 10 cards, I would split the 7950GX2 (leave it out of SLI Mode) and not run DX10 apps on the side monitors (I should note that this is NOT a triple-monitor GAMING setup, just a triple monitor WORK setup with excellent single monitor gaming). I thought that of all the possibilities, this was most likely to work and offer the performance I was looking for, in the configuration I wanted, and at a reasonable price. Got the 8800, installed it, booted, and bam! Worked out of the box with no driver updates. There were a few odd things in the NVidia control panel application, but updating to the latest beta drivers (174.74, I think it was) fixed all those issues (only real oddity was that only one 20" monitor was configurable in the NVidia app, but worked fine in the system Display Control Panel). Totally happy. Totally in awe of the monster I had created.

(Other general specs: 2.66GHz Core2Duo (E6700 Conroe, watercooled), 3GB 800MHz DDR2, ??TB in HDDs (I've lost count, around 5TB), external 5-bay eSATA enclosure, Soundblaster X-Fi Elite, Logitech Z-5500 speakers, and prob missing something - oh well)

I will post pics soon.

~o.O~ new keyboard just got here! Must go play.