if i look back, i am lost
NASA
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
taylor price
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
EXPECTATIONS
ojovivo
TMBGareOK. The Official They Might Be Giants tumblr
Game of Thrones Daily
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gracie abrams
untitled
Not today Justin
Product Placement
Noah Kahan
Andulka
No title available
★
Love Begins
Discoholic 🪩
seen from Ecuador
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
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@brianandrews
A breakdown of what the average American household buys, based on government data (PDF) for December, 2011.
We didn’t include everything, but we included the biggies, as well as some smaller categories that caught our eye.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / Planet Money
Dear average Americans, please spend more on books, magazines, and newspapers and less on alcohol. Your friend, Newsweek.
I loved this short film titled "Cost of Living" by BenDavid Grabinsk. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a watch.
I feel like a new man
Did you know that on average, every cell in the body replaced every 7 years? Think about it... you are not the same person you were a decade ago. Literally not the same person.
Ode to Morning Body
When I wake in the morn,
I rush to the mirror
and happily greet the man who appears.
My Stomach is flat,
my wrinkles are tight,
God, I look five years younger than I did last night
As the day lingers on,
and things start to sag,
morning body fades away, Oh whadda drag.
- Brian Andrews (a sad but true poem)
YUCK: The feds are still buying ammonia-treated “pink slime” — a food product normally reserved for dog food — for school lunches.
“I have a 2-year-old son,” microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein told The Daily. “And you better believe I don’t want him eating pink slime when he starts going to school.”
It was Zirnstein who first coined the term “pink slime” after touring a Beef Products Inc. production facility in 2002 as part of an investigation into salmonella contamination in packaged ground beef. In an email to his colleagues shortly after the visit, Zirnstein said he did not “consider the stuff to be ground beef.”
Made by grinding together connective tissue and beef scraps normally destined for dog food and rendering, BPI’s Lean Beef Trimmings are then treated with ammonia hydroxide, a process that kills pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli.
I FIRST HEARD ABOUT THIS IN THE MOVIE "FOOD INC". BRAVO TO THE DAILY FOR KEEPING IT IN THE NEWS. WE NEED TO KEEP FIGHTING THE CORPORATE - GOVERNMENT ALLIANCE INTENT ON SUBJUGATING OUR FOOD SUPPLY.
THE CALYPSO DIRECTIVE Book Trailer is here! Check it out and tell me what you think?
A Writer's Valentine Card
Thank you for reading every draft of every manuscript, and every short story, I've written... not just once, but countless times.
Thank you for listening to me babble about imaginary people and their imaginary problems as if they were members of our family.... not just once, but countless times.
Thank you for having the courage to tell me when something I've written (which think is amazing) is pointless, or boring, or offensive, or confusing and then suffering my ill-temper until I finally see the light... not just once, but countless times.
Thank you for rejoicing in my successes, and dismissing my failures... not just once, but countless times.
I love you dear wife... my writers' Valentine.
On Intelligence
I highly recommend Jeff Hawkins' book ON INTELLIGENCE. It provides what I believe to be the most readable and insightful account of how intelligence is achieved in the human mind.
The cornerstone of Hawkins' theory is something he calls the "Memory Prediction Model". The Memory Prediction Model states that the human mind is a data processing machine that compares incoming stimuli (raw data) to expectations (predicted data). Intelligence is derived from the mind's ability to use experience (i.e., data stored in memory) to accurately predict how upcoming events will transpire. Experience and repetition hone the mind's ability to make better and better predictions because they enlarge the dataset in memory from which predictions are generated.
An example that Hawkins uses in the book is "catching a baseball". For years, it has been debated how the mind performs the mathematical calculations necessary to track a baseball in flight and accurately predict the trajectory so as to position one's glove to catch it. AI scientists have tried to program robotic arms to catch a projectile without success using calculus equations and chips capable of thousands of calculations per second. Hawkins argues that the AI real time calculation approach is destined to fail because the mind is not performing any mathematical calculations at all. Instead, it is calling upon past experience of baseballs witnessed in flight to predict where the hand should be to catch the ball. This is why a ballplayer with 15 years experience (e.g., > 10,000 repetitions) can position his glove with 99.9% accuracy whereas a 3 year old who has never caught a baseball before will position his glove a foot away from the trajectory of the ball and act surprised when the ball sails past untouched. In other words, we "remember" where to catch a baseball rather than calculate anew with each throw.
For me the most upsetting—and at the same time most incredible—insight derived from reading On Intelligence is what I would call the "demystification" of consciousness. We humans like to think of consciousness as this mystical and special state of existence that we alone possess. But if you apply Hawkins' model, consciousness simply boils down to the junction where memory and prediction intersect in an active mind. In other words, consciousness is your most recent set of memories (i.e., perceived incoming stimuli/data from your senses) and your expectation (i.e., prediction) of what is going to happen next to you. For example, you are sitting in chair reading this post at this instant, and the next instant you expect to be sitting in the chair reading this post. That is consciousness.
There are hundreds of implications to this definition, but I will offer two as food for thought as a end this post:
(1) Our consciousness resides approximately 50 millisecond in the past. This cannot be changed because it takes time to process incoming stimuli and compare to what the mind predicts (expects) stimuli to be.
(2) If you alter either of the mechanisms of consciousness: Memory or the ability to make Predictions, you fundamentally alter the quality and nature of consciousness. (For example, consciousness is not as robust for an Alzheimer's patient as it was for him/her as an alert thirty year old).
Check out On Intelligence. I promise, you will never think about your mind the same way again.
—B
Paper books may be the only media remaining that don’t report your behavior back to anonymous aggregators.
Reblogged:
The fascinating thing about Facebook is not how we use it — it wouldn’t be so successful if it hadn’t built on well-established and valued behavior — but how we have given a 27-year-old and a few of his friends certain proprietorial rights to our lives. As a friend noted, he no longer owns the images of his newborn daughter — or the notes of congratulations on her birth from his friends.
Opinion columnist Trevor Butterworth on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and the creation of a new kind of ownership and power.
2nd Endorsement
“Fast-paced and thought-provoking, THE CALYPSO DIRECTIVE is a dark tale of hubris, and the irrelevance of the individual in a culture driven by science-for-profit and science-for national security. Very believable, conceivable, scary, and real. A rocket-sled ride of a debut by Brian Andrews.”
— Best selling author, Joseph Heywood
Certain Restrictions Apply
I saved this one from my New Yorker desk calendar... so true, so sad.
Source: New Yorker
Vampires as heros?
For centuries, vampires have occupied the pinnacle position in the human psyche as the portrait of evil--cold, soulless, undead who cannibalize the living by drinking our vital life essence. How is it possible that vampires become heros in today's culture?
This phenomenon baffles me... I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic?
First Endorsement!
"A smart, hard-driving thriller. Andrews fires on all cylinders in THE CALYPSO DIRECTIVE."
— New York Times Bestselling Author, Grant Blackwood
Albane Mesnil
Her beauty was gravity. Raven hair, milky smooth skin, full lips and a diva’s curves. Pulling his gaze from her took a physical effort. More than once she had admonished him with her eyes for his adolescent impropriety, but AJ could not help himself. He had never encountered a woman like Albane Mesnil before.
— Excerpt Chapter 11 of The Calypso Directive
Stephen Thorne
I'm currently researching a future novel, and I had the good fortune to interview the accomplished photo journalist Stephen Thorne. Stephen was kind enough to share with me some of his observations and experiences from his days embedded with US and Canadian military forces in Afghanistan over the past decade. He is a keen observer of the human condition. You can check out his work at: http://www.thornefoto.com
He desired the end, but flinched at the means.
David Strafford on Winston Churchill
