I am writing this post to procrastinate, because I just read a claim that social learning works through Lamarckian evolution.  It was not in a student paper.  I need a break before I can face the stupid again.

( Big B, Little B, What begins with B? )

Total Books: 5
Recent Publication: 1/5
Rereads: 1/5
Recommended by Jo ratio: 3/5
New Music: 3 albums
New Media Produced: More on The Jester's Child.

This turned out really well.

Slice parsnips thinly and throw into a small roasting pan (I used 6 for 4 people; it should have been more).  Cut white part of leeks into chunks and toss on top (I used two--should be more if increasing the number of parsnips).  Pour in a lot of olive oil.  Add in less than a tablespoon of schmaltz/chicken drippings, and a couple splashes of sherry.  Grate a little parmesan over the top, and sprinkle with Penzey's pasta sprinkle.

Oh, man.  The only problem was that the house smelled like roasted parsnips for hours, and there were no leftovers.

This is the best Aliens fanfic ever.  Not that I read a lot of Aliens fanfic, but I feel entirely confident  in my judgment. It's an epistolary story about scientists at a bio lab trying to figure out how to kill and mount a xenomorph.  The taunting is my favorite part, although the cow comes close.

Neil Gaiman reports that that the House on the Rock is planning an anniversary party for American Gods.  At which, they say, "We are working on a way to allow a limited number of guests to ride the carousel."  I strongly suspect that "way" will involve more money than I have to spend, but want.

And on a different note, I have sold a short story to Timelines: Stories Inspired by H. G. Wells' The Time Machine.  (page_of_swords , this is the story in which I used your expert advice before you gave it to me.  It could only be more appropriate to the topic if I'd managed to publish it before writing it.)

Descriptive, not analytical.  I have some ANOVAs to run this week, but these are not them.

Books Read: 81.  Not as many as some, but I don't think I need to worry about those fifty book challenges.  Fifteen non-fiction, four fiction that were anything other than SF and fantasy.  Not enormously diverse, but satisfying.  Twenty-one rereads.  Eleven new-to-me authors who are still producing, most of whom I liked and want more of. 

Music: Nineteen albums either purchased or received as gifts.  Genres include: steampunk goth, folk rock, neoclassical, rock, filk, a capella, celtic rock, classical, bluegrass, folk, and liturgical music from several different religions.  Diverse and satisfying.

Movies: Four.  Two in the theaters, two on DVD.  Five if Doctor Horrible counts as a movie.  This, people, is why when you recommend a film, I admit that I probably won't see it.

TV shows: Lots, by my standards: Caught up on Doctor Who, Shadow Unit, Torchwood, and most of Eureka.  Gave up on Rome.  Netflix is awesome.

Other: Three concerts and a play.  I don't mind the low number of movies, but this I would like to remedy.

Finished up the year with a surprisingly media-diverse month:
( No spoilers... )

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me (changes from original bolded).

This offer does have some restrictions so please read:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
- What I create will be just for YOU & you are allowed to make requests (and I will try to honour them).
- It will be done before December 2010.
- It might be cookies, a mix cd, a necklace (this is possible, but I'm a newbie), an original haiku, a scarf, who knows!
- You'll need to PM me your mailing address if you're one of the first 5.

Just leave me a note with a few fave things on or anything you don't like and I'll get to work :-)

In return, all you need to do is repost this on your LJ and offer to make 5 things for 5 other people. (Don't fret if you don't feel up to this.  Post or not as you are moved; if not, just remember me the next time you do a good deed.)

Between matociquala 's musings on integrating work and leisure, and Making Light's mention of "social proprioception," the Internet seemed to be making a suggestion this morning.  So I now have a Twitter account at R_Emrys.  I expect posts to consist of pointers to cool stuff, Cogsci tidbits, and the occasional strange idea.  And maybe even what I have for breakfast, if it's anything interesting.

Read matociquala 's link, even if you don't follow any of the rest.  She's got an interesting point there, and not just about medieval life.

Suggestions for interesting Twitter feeds are most welcome.

Natural languages are born when communities of children who don't share a language come together. This can be because they speak different languages, or because they haven't got a full language to begin with. Neither isolated children nor communities of adults seem to be capable of doing this.  Newborn languages are almost exclusively learned by children; you get the first adult speakers when those children grow up.  Constructed languages are born when one adult, or a small group of adults, deliberately creates a vocabulary and a grammar.  They teach this language first to other adults.  If a linguistic community forms, it is likely to have more adults than children; the language may never be taken up by a viable population of children at all.  According to the innateness hypothesis, pre-adolescent children have an instinct that eases the learning of language.  This instinct includes the predisposition to look for certain language-like patterns in the environment, but also to create them from non-grammatical language-like input, given a large enough group. The way that new natural languages are born, and the fact that it requires kids, is considered strong evidence for innateness. The innateness hypothesis should also predict, then, that languages deliberately created by adults and learned largely by adults should have different properties than languages created spontaneously by children and learned largely by children.  In some fashion, you should be able to tell by looking at the structure of a language whether it's natural or constructed.  Yes?  Has someone already done this research?  If not, could they please?

More reasonable this month...

( No Spoilers, but some very strong opinions... )

Total Books: 6
Recent Publication: 2/6
Rereads: 1/6
Bear Ratio: .2/6
Recommended by Jo ratio: 2/6
New Music: None
New Media Produced: The semester is almost over. And the picture at the top of this post keeps making me think of Aphra Marsh, and all those poor innocent people in Innsmouth.

H.M. is one of the most famous patient's in the history of neuropsychology. In an ill-planned attempt to cure his epilepsy, fifty years ago, surgeons cut out most of his hippocampus. Following surgery he had (almost) complete anterograde amnesia, language difficulties, and some very strange retrograde memory deficits. Any modern theory of the neurology of memory has to explain H.M.'s peculiar constellation of deficits. He died two years ago, and analysis of his behavioral data is expected to continue for many years to come.

On Tuesday, neuroscientists are going to begin the process of dissecting H.M.'s brain and creating a digital atlas of it. This will be incredibly useful, among other things settling the question of what lesions he had aside from the surgical one. (Decades worth of epilepsy, and epilepsy drugs, tend to make holes.) Everyone is perhaps a little more excited about cutting up a dead guy's brain than is entirely proper and, possibly because of this, they will be putting out live streaming video of the procedure. I will probably tune in myself. I've been running an independent study this semester, during which the student and I spent an inordinate amount of time banging our heads against the latest HM studies. We both feel much less confident in our understanding of the hippocampus than we did at the beginning of the semester. I am very much hoping that the dissection clears up some of that confusion.

The website's cheerful minute-by-minute sidebar countdown is still so wrong.

Not many; I guess it was an even crazier month than it felt like.

So, the economy being what it is, and the household budget currently including a substantial behavioral oscillation effect*, we're doing holiday buying a little closer to home this year.  We are trying to give gifts, in order of declining preference:

-home-made or crafted by us--we have what we hope are some nifty ideas along these lines.
-home-made, crafted, or written by people in our community (in-person or on-line).
-items where the money will go to small crafters or other individuals, rather than big companies.

For the latter two, I'm looking for pimpage and suggestions.  Running a cottage business out of your dorm room?  Know a friend with an awesome Etsy shop?  F-List member of an F-List member with an awesome Etsy shop?  Let me know in the comments**.

Some of my favorites:

-elisem , as most of you probably already know, posts amazing titled shinies about once a week.  Prices range from $15 earrings to $500 necklace crowns.
-GEEKitty makes, among other things, catnip-filled One Rings and D20s
-naamah_darling sells steampunkish baubles and awesome painted bones at her Etsy shop.


*That is a much-too-obscure psychology joke, but the meaning should be apparent regardless.
**Disclaimer: No guarantees of us actually buying anything from any particular source, obviously, especially if the oscillation effect increases.

Mostly rereads.  Apparently I'm feeling stressed.

( No Spoilers )

Total Books: 7
Recent Publication: none
Rereads: 5/7
Bear Ratio: 0/7, because the first Metatropolis story is slow going.
New Music: 2 albums.
New Media Produced: Some on The Jester's Child, before my laptop starting having personal problems.  It is getting a new screen tonight.  I hope.

Over on Making Light, Abi Sutherland responds to a particularly stupid critique of Obama's Nobel by linking to the Prize's nominating procedures.  The nomination process is not open to everyone, but reasonably broad.  The following types of people can nominate:

Sue Gardner, in her contribution to a series in which psychologists talk about one thing they still don't understand about themselves: "I have a dark place inside which at various stages of my life has been occupied by ghosts, daleks and negative emotions."

This should absolutely enter the technical vocabulary of clinical psychologists everywhere. But what does it mean to have internal daleks? Is it part of you that's always angry, that wants to destroy everything and everyone imperfect? Is it the part that wants to be surrounded by a hard shell, safe from vulnerability? The part that likes making loud threats in an electronically modulated voice?

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity.  I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

Unfortunately, none of my work with queer characters is actually published.  A couple of short stories are in submission, and can't be posted here right now.  So you get a scene from Land Beyond the Border, one of two novels in progress.  It's currently stalled in the midbook, actually; maybe this will help.

Quickie background and dramatis personae:  Between Earth and Faerie lies a narrow borderland.  Not all stories are true there, but the ones that have sunk deep into the collective consciousness take on a life of their own.  Sherua is from the section of the Border that is, essentially, where Indiana Jones goes to steal treasure.  As a Border native, she is fae-blooded, with mostly inconvenient results: an allergy to iron and limitations on her free will where it conflicts with the story defining her world.  She is currently stuck in the dinosaur section, trying to return a stolen map to her people.  Nadine Lopez is an anthropologist from the Field Museum in Chicago.  She is currently helping escort Sherua through dangerous territory, and sitting really hard on her desire to write the whole thing up for journal publication.  They are safe for the night in a walled town, and taking a much-needed trip to the bath house.


( Read more... )( Read more... )

No spoilers, some snarking.

( Read more... )

Total Books: 5
Recent Publication: 1/5
Rereads: 2/5
Bear Ratio: 0/5, because Metatropolis hasn't arrived yet.
New Music: 2 albums.
New Media Produced:  The plot to the Jester novel.

Does anyone have anything to say that might persuade me to continue reading the Justina Robson book that I started last night?

I just took a look at the Drabblecast discussion forum for Ghosts and Simulations.  It looks an awful lot like the arguments in my old Philosophy of Mind class, which I suppose means I've done my job.

Why, yes, I do like watching strangers talking about me.  If I weren't egotistical, I'd just put the stories in a drawer.

I've been trawling through psychology blogs and bookmarked links, looking for interesting tidbits to reference in my Intro Psych lectures.  Some highlights:

Nameseeker, this study on the psychology of escaping from predators is especially for you.  The lion musk quotient is high.  Also this.

Most neuropsychologists spend 99 percent of their time talking about the minority of the brain made up of neurons--gray matter.  This is because we have very little idea of what glial cells--white matter--actually accomplish.  Here's a start at an answer.

Tactile illusions.

Awesome article on moral reasoning.

A 72-year-long study of success and life satisfaction.  This is beautiful.

Language Log and its commenters examine the grammar of obscenity (Not Safe For Work, or for my students).

Also for Nameseeker: BoingBoing reviews books by people who have raised apes.

The power of narrative can convince people to donate a kidney, or exaggerate baseless fears.

Never old: objects stuck in MRI machines.

Also in July: we had visits from tavadriel  & J, aspenwolf  & stormsinger322 , and A & Bobby.  Cute pictures are in the offing as soon as I get them uploaded.  There was also a great party at bifemmefatale 's, at which we met several new people including the delightful rarelylynne  & michaeldthomas  and their daughter Caitlin.
( Somewhere in there, I got some reading done... )

Total Books: 9
Recent Publication: 2/9
Rereads: 2/9
Bear Ratio: 0/9.  But Metatropolis just came out.
New Music: 1 album.  Also, I discovered that my Original London Cast Recording of Anything Goes has John Barrowman on it.
New Media Produced:  More or less nothing, unless you count a whole lot of role-playing.