Today I had my first real issue my Xbox 360 in the 3 years I've had it. It's a pretty minor issue but a big pain in the butt.
I've been playing Need for Speed Shift the past number of weeks and I have to say it's the best game I've played in quite a long time. If you're a fan of car racing games you should definitely give this one a try. Anywho, I started the game today and it didn't recognize my career, it would only let me start a new one. After much poking around and restarting of the console I finally caved in and started a new career. I had my driver level up to 40 out of 50 and I was on a pretty good run until this happened. Now my driver level is a mere 4 and it makes me sad.
Since I'm starting with some experience I decided to up the difficulty level a bit this time around just to keep it interesting.
Here's a clip of the gameplay, it's amazing stuff. Although right side of the video seems to be trimmed off for some reason.
..and throw the damn ball to Austin!!
First off.. it's good to be back (blogging) after having virtually no free time during the month of October. And now that the big deadline has come and gone.. I have been "busy" doing nothing for the first week of November. So now that all is pretty much back to normal in my world.. How bout them Cowboys!!! Dallas goes into Philadelphia and wins by a score of 20-16, giving Dallas a 4 game wining streak and putting them on top of the NFC East. The play (and player) of the game comes from one Miles Austin who scored the wining touchdown with his one and only 44yrd catch. Good night.
If you read the comments on yesterday's post, you'll know that today leaves the bonobos in the dust for VOLES!
Voles are a small rodent and are often confused with mice, moles, and rats, and are only found in the northern hemisphere. There are 155 species of voles (although these guys say 124), including pine, water, mountain, etc. They will eat a wide variety of food, from bark to dead animals and insects. They are quite fond of roots and bulbs, often killing the plant before the gardener realizes the animals are even there.
And hey, voles even have their own website! I think they should send one of their own out to design classes, though, to spruce the page up a bit. They're small, they could sneak into class in someone's backpack.
Apparently voles deserve more attention. Purdue University states that they are the fastest evolving mammal and are a bit of a genetic enigma.
Today's final vole lesson is taught in pictures:
It was a big day for Penny yesterday as she completed and graduated from her Family Dog I class. For the past month and a half or so, we’ve been working on sitting and staying and heeling and coming when called – all the things that are needed to be a good dog citizen.
Good job, Penny!
Spent all day at our first debate tournament of the year. I hate having to work on Saturdays, but the kids had such a good time and learn so danged much from the experience that it actually makes it worth the time. We took seven teams (three students to a team) to the tournament where they debated the topics:
- California should not require an exit exam for graduation from public high school.
- The U.S. should end corn subsidies.
- College athletes should be paid.
- The U.S. should offer a health insurance public option to all citizens.
Keep in mind that our debaters are in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. They have about a month to research and prepare to debate both the proposition and opposition sides of all four resolutions. At the tournaments, the kids find out which teams they'll be debating against and whether they will be debating the proposition or opposition sides. Twenty minutes before the debate begins the league presidents announce the topic and the teams have twenty minutes to write out their notes after which they debate the topic.
They are amazing across the board!!!
Watching a bunch of 6th through 8th graders thoughtfully construct arguments and respectfully debate each other with gusto, then go outside and play on the field together does a lot to give one hope for the future ...
The big debate in teaching primates, among other animals, is that while some say they are learning language, others insist it is merely communication, generally for a reward like food, that the primate has learned. In other words, simply a learned response, no different from a dog learning to sit or roll over for a treat. Are primates just a more trainable subjects?
There's a specific notation that I can't copy the first article I want to point out, so here is the link. It is an opinion piece on an online freelance site. I do not know anything about the author so I can't tell you what her background is.
The next article is long and I don't want to clog up anyone's Neighbourhood view, so here is a link from the New York Times, June 6, 1995 edition. The article is titled "Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language?"
Additional interesting link:
- I'm Not In Love - 10cc (The Very Best of 10cc 1997)
- Sex Changes - The Dresden Dolls (Yes, Virginia 2006)
- Sunday - Bess Rogers (Decisions Based On Information 2007)
- Stop And Think It Over - Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles (Diamonds in the Dark 2007)
- Joanni - Kate Bush (Ariel - A Sea Of Honey 2005)
- A&E - Goldfrapp (Seventh Tree 2008)
- Kings And Queens - Loudon Wainwright III (A Live One 1979)
- 1952 Vincent Black Lightning - Richard Thompson (Rumor And Sigh 1991)
- Sweet Bird Of Truth - The The (Infected 1986)
- Every Passing Day - Goanna (Oceania 1985)
A mostly modern set this time around, with a few new wave classics thrown in for good measure. The 10cc song is a favorite from my high school years. The album (yes, children, I originally bought it on vinyl) it comes from (The Original Soundtrack) was a real favorite of mine at the time, although I can't say as I'm too thrilled with the other songs from the disc on this greatest hits CD. Oh well, tastes change. The Dresden Dolls are (were???) one of my favorite groups, local or otherwise, and Amanda Palmer is one of the cleverest musicians around. And Yes, Virginia is their strongest effort. Bess Rogers is a another wonderfully clever artist originally unveiled to me by W♥M, and this is a nicely syncopated song. I went Sarah Borges crazy when their second CD, The Stars Are Out, came out and I picked up Diamonds too. A local group who I have yet to see, sadly. I'm sure she puts on a whale of a show. I've been a huge Kate Bush fan since the early 80s, when I worked with a real Kate fanatic who went so far as to celebrate "Kate-mas", her birthday (July 30th). It was so great to have some new Kate stuff, after a very long wait (12 years!). Ariel is a fantastic double CD. Hmm, looks like it is also a female artist random 10, as we follow it up with my favorite cut from Goldfrapp's 2008 release. Ah, but then back to the wryly ironic in Loudon Wainwright. I've see him in concert a few times and he never disappoints (and never plays Dead Skunk). I was disappointed to find that Black Lightning wasn't on the 3 CD Richard Thompson retrospective, Watching The Dark. It's still a great collection, but Black Lightning should have been on it. It's a great story from a great storyteller. Speaking of storytellers, we move onto The The's Matt Johnson, who can certainly tell an intense story, as he does here. And finally, another song from my Oceania CD, bought in Australia. This is one of my favorite songs of all time, even.
Also picked up a couple of new CDs this week. First up is a local group called Passion Pit. I heard a good song on WZBC coming home from hockey and figured out it was either Passion Pit or Magic Magic. Then I saw Passion Pit's latest CD for only US$6 at Newbury Comics, so I thought it was worth a gamble. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right one. It turned out the great song I heard was from Magic Magic,and was their Over Your Heart song, which is really good. Passion Pit is okay, with this song being the highlight of the CD:
But even better is the Tyondai Braxton CD, Central Market. I've already introduced you to Opening bell here, but another excellent song is the centerpiece, an over 10 minute opus of modern orchestral pop:
This is a direct copy of an article by Paul Raffaele for Smithsonian magazine, written in 2006.
To better understand bonobo intelligence, I traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, to meet Kanzi, a 26-year-old male bonobo reputedly able to converse with humans. When Kanzi was an infant, American psychologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh tried to teach his mother, Matata, to communicate using a keyboard labeled with geometric symbols. Matata never really got the hang of it, but Kanzi—who usually played in the background, seemingly oblivious, during his mother’s teaching sessions—picked up the language.
Savage-Rumbaugh and her colleagues kept adding symbols to Kanzi’s keyboard and laminated sheets of paper. First Kanzi used 6 symbols, then 18, finally 348. The symbols refer to familiar objects (yogurt, key, tummy, bowl), favored activities (chase, tickle), and even some concepts considered fairly abstract (now, bad).
Kanzi learned to combine these symbols in regular ways, or in what linguists call"proto-grammar."Once, Savage-Rumbaugh says, on an outing in a forest by the Georgia State University laboratory where he was raised, Kanzi touched the symbols for"marshmallow"and"fire."Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick.
Savage-Rumbaugh claims that in addition to the symbols Kanzi uses, he knows the meaning of up to 3,000 spoken English words. She tests his comprehension in part by having someone in another room pronounce words that Kanzi hears through a set of headphones. Kanzi then points to the appropriate symbol on his keyboard. But Savage-Rumbaugh says Kanzi also understands words that aren’t a part of his keyboard vocabulary; she says he can respond appropriately to commands such as"put the soap in the water"or"carry the TV outdoors."
About a year ago, Kanzi and his sister, mother, nephew and four other bonobos moved into a $10 million, 18-room house and laboratory complex at the Great Ape Trust, North America’s largest great ape sanctuary, five miles from downtown Des Moines. The bonobo compound boasts a 13,000-square-foot lab, drinking fountains, outdoor playgrounds, rooms linked by hydraulic doors that the animals operate themselves by pushing buttons, and a kitchen where they can use a microwave oven and get snacks from a vending machine (pressing the symbols for desired foods).
Kanzi and the other bonobos spend evenings sprawled on the floor, snacking on M & M’s, blueberries, onions and celery, as they watch DVDs they select by pressing buttons on a computer screen. Their favorites star apes and other creatures friendly with humans such as Quest for Fire, Every Which Way But Loose, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan and Babe.
Through a glass panel, Savage-Rumbaugh asks Kanzi if it’s OK for me to enter his enclosure."The bonobos control who comes into their quarters,"she explains. Kanzi, still the alpha male of this group in his middle age, has the mien of an aging patriarch—he’s balding and paunchy with serious, deep-set eyes. Squealing apparent agreement, he pushes a button, and I walk inside. A wire barrier still separates us."Kanzi can cause you serious damage if he wants,"Savage-Rumbaugh adds.
Kanzi shows me his electronic lexigram touch pad, which is connected to a computer that displays—while a male voice speaks—the words he selects. But Kanzi’s finger slips off the keys."We're trying to solve this problem,"says Savage-Rumbaugh.
She and her colleagues have been testing the bonobos’ ability to express their thoughts vocally, rather than by pushing buttons. In one experiment she described to me, she placed Kanzi and Panbanisha, his sister, in separate rooms where they could hear but not see each other. Through lexigrams, Savage-Rumbaugh explained to Kanzi that he would be given yogurt. He was then asked to communicate this information to Panbanisha."Kanzi vocalized, then Panbanisha vocalized in return and selected ‘yogurt’ on the keyboard in front of her,"Savage-Rumbaugh tells me.
With these and other ape-language experiments, says Savage-Rumbaugh,"the mythology of human uniqueness is coming under challenge. If apes can learn language, which we once thought unique to humans, then it suggests that ability is not innate in just us."
But many linguists argue that these bonobos are simply very skilled at getting what they want, and that their abilities do not constitute language."I do not believe that there has ever been an example anywhere of a nonhuman expressing an opinion, or asking a question. Not ever,"says Geoffrey Pullum, a linguist at the University of California at Santa Cruz."It would be wonderful if animals could say things about the world, as opposed to just signaling a direct emotional state or need. But they just don’t.”
Whatever the dimension of Kanzi’s abilities, he and I did manage to communicate. I’d told Savage-Rumbaugh about some of my adventures, and she invited me to perform a Maori war dance. I beat my chest, slapped my thighs and hollered. The bonobos sat quiet and motionless for a few seconds, then all but Kanzi snapped into a frenzy, the noise deafening as they screamed, bared their teeth and pounded on the walls and floor of their enclosure. Still calm, Kanzi waved an arm at Savage-Rumbaugh, as if asking her to come closer, then let loose with a stream of squeaks and squeals."Kanzi says he knows you're not threatening them," Savage-Rumbaugh said to me," and he'd like you to do it again just for him, in a room out back, so the others won't get upset.”
I’m skeptical, but I follow the researcher through the complex, out of Kanzi's sight. I find him, all alone, standing behind protective bars. Seeing me, he slapped his chest and thighs, mimicking my war dance, as if inviting me to perform an encore. I obliged, of course, and Kanzi joined in with gusto.
Here's a video of Kanzi at the Great Ape Trust, in Iowa, where he lives.
Tomorrow, critics of Kanzi's "learning".
Well I thought that I was set with the toolboard until my big tool order arrived but I got a little antsy about it and said ta hell with it and decided to hang the board with the tools that I have and just add as they arrive.
So I cut some 2x8's to length and coaxed them tight between the ceiling and floor. Then I had to hang that sheet of 3/8 plywood by myself, which isn't easy, then I put some of the tools on and put the bench back.
So until my new stuff gets here this is what I have:
Another angle of the cycling room. That's a new cable and housing set on the bench ready to go on the Colnago.
We've reached the time in the school year when I get really exhausted. We're really busy all day, then I have after school coaching that I have to stay for, sometimes, until 5:30 or 6:00. I got up on the grumpy side of the bed today and I feel like I'm gonna rip somebody's head off (of course, not literally, but I'm sure you know what I mean ...). I'm tired of asking kiddos that I'm coaching to turn in permission slips so they can ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE in Saturday's event. I'm tired of working practices around kids' myriad other commitments. Hey, I know we all want it all, but at some point we need to teach you to prioritize your commitments so next time around, it's gonna be "fish or cut bait, kids ..." I'm tired of telling the same kids for the 100th time not to play games on the 'puters in the liberry. I'm tired of telling the same kids that if they're going to "study" as loudly as they are (largely having a friggin' party like it's a friggin' pub) that they should move to a table outside on the terrace.
