FA+
Shop
update
13 years ago
Test Header!
Finally doing quantum physics unit yay! .. if only I didn't suck at math D:
I felt generous this month with the influx of customers and donated a bunch to various people. Congrats if you were the lucky ones, if you were not then oh god I'm such a horrible person D:
Haven't been drawing much but have used my tablet to do some of the homework for college, thought id also use it to help me design circuits! better than paper!
Along with my normal order of science books from various fields I took the time to order a few creationist books too (for the lols) I will however examine them and consider their arguments and see if they stand up to test but they are pretty much trophy books that I will rarely pull out other than to point out inconsistencies when people bring up the issues again and again and again and again ad infinitum.
I finished reading Unweaving the Rainbow and it left me in awe! It also gave me a few ideas for some programming projects and perhaps a thesis I might write up for machine learning or artificial reconfigurable neural networks. I am surprised Dawkins didn't try to make connections or speculate on information carried on the Y chromosome of human males as is analogous to the "Y" like chromosome carried by female birds which has a purpose related to passing down genetic information only for one sex (the females in the case of birds). This resulted in birds evolving with parasitic like behavior such as Cuckoos who lay their eggs in other birds nests so that they are raised by a different species.
I feel slightly inspired to start making video responses to topics but I have yet to actually do so I was going to do one on climate change and the earth but I just don't have the time and there are already lots of great videos out there, also thought I might do some on teaching electronics to see if I have what it takes to be a teacher or if I should just be an engineer... Those who cant do teach and those who cant teach do but I think a bit in between could work! (i dont actually follow that saying literally)
I felt generous this month with the influx of customers and donated a bunch to various people. Congrats if you were the lucky ones, if you were not then oh god I'm such a horrible person D:
Haven't been drawing much but have used my tablet to do some of the homework for college, thought id also use it to help me design circuits! better than paper!
Along with my normal order of science books from various fields I took the time to order a few creationist books too (for the lols) I will however examine them and consider their arguments and see if they stand up to test but they are pretty much trophy books that I will rarely pull out other than to point out inconsistencies when people bring up the issues again and again and again and again ad infinitum.
I finished reading Unweaving the Rainbow and it left me in awe! It also gave me a few ideas for some programming projects and perhaps a thesis I might write up for machine learning or artificial reconfigurable neural networks. I am surprised Dawkins didn't try to make connections or speculate on information carried on the Y chromosome of human males as is analogous to the "Y" like chromosome carried by female birds which has a purpose related to passing down genetic information only for one sex (the females in the case of birds). This resulted in birds evolving with parasitic like behavior such as Cuckoos who lay their eggs in other birds nests so that they are raised by a different species.
I feel slightly inspired to start making video responses to topics but I have yet to actually do so I was going to do one on climate change and the earth but I just don't have the time and there are already lots of great videos out there, also thought I might do some on teaching electronics to see if I have what it takes to be a teacher or if I should just be an engineer... Those who cant do teach and those who cant teach do but I think a bit in between could work! (i dont actually follow that saying literally)
Never read Unweaving the Rainbow...what's it about?
GOGOGOGO make videos :3
First it hits you in the face with the facts of life.
Then decoding reality by explaining away many things people consider magic or spiritual.
Then it goes on to explain what are coincidences and why we hold them significant with examples like type 1 and type 2 errors and several theories on the subject drawing information from biology - evolution, psychology and many other fields of science.
Then after the slaughter of other examples he tries to explain differences between good and bad poetry in science and how it can twist meaning and give wrong information.
Then he reweaves reality and attempts to bring back your sense of wonder after crushing it :P (jk its not that bad).
The opening of the book makes many people sad or emotional but its all part of the process to explain how things really are based on what we know so far.
It should leave you with great respect for how things really are how amazing everything is such as life and that you don't need to delude yourself.
This is him reading the first few paragraphs of the book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOXMjCnKwb4
Must
Read
Topic Example 1:
Type 1 error - seeing a pattern in nature that isn't there. (False Positive)
(seeing the grass move and thinking its a predator and thus running off.)
Type 2 error - not seeing a pattern in nature which is there. (False Negative)
(ignoring movement in the grass because you don't think its a predator.)
In terms of survival animals who make type 1 errors are far more likely to survive than type 2 errors. Thus their brains are wired to recognize patterns more often than not. This can backfire and cause things such as say getting sucked into conspiracy theories or believing that sacrificing an animal or doing a rain dance will improve the growth of crops or bring on rain.
Topic Example 2:
Human brains spent more time evolving in to deal with a pattern recognition threshold that is highly tuned for smaller social groups and limited information technology.
Population and technology has out paced the evolution of the human brain and thus our brains are still set to detect patterns at that threshold but now in an environment where we are fed more information and interact more often than before. This increases the number of false positive errors and false negative errors we can make.
Topic Example 3:
The reason you are on a planet that is fine tuned to support life like us; is that if it didn't support life like us you wouldn't be here asking that question. If it was a different planet that supported a different kind of life you would be that kind of life. I believe its called the anthropic principle.
Topic Example 4:
Things exist be either (A) they have just come into existence, or (B) they are stable and durable. , Stable things tend to become numerous because they can persist opposed to unstable things which tend to stop existing. Things that are not durable but can continue to make more of themselves come into existence tend to become more numerous than things that don't "copy themselves" .
---
etc etc lots of that sort of stuff explained out in great detail and lots of examples and science.. Its late at night so my brain cant remember much of it atm.