And on a lighter note...

Man, I just cannot stop laughing at the site.

Humble good stuff - Ronald Jenkees

Wow, this is really...wow.
via boingboing

Alternative Rugby Commentary

If you love hearing Kiwis swearing, watch this. I cannot stop laughing.

The Mind Head Eye - on Psychology.

Sigmund Frued immodestly wrote that "humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science three great outrages upon it's naieve self-love": the discovery that our world is not the centre of the celestial spheres but rather a speck in a vast universe, the discovery that we were not specially created but instead descended from animals, and the discovery that often our consious minds do not control how we act but merely tell us a story about our actions.

As always, I reccommend the Flashget program for saving real audio files. If anyone knows how to turn real audio into MP3, please let me know.

Marc Hauser argues that morality, at some level, may be hard-wired into our brains, as an innate 'moral grammar' that has evolved with us over time.
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Philip Zimbardo helps us understand what causes people who began life with good intentions, to discard them.
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Jon Kabat-Zinn discusses the mind-body connection in the context of Gunther von Hagen's sculptural work using real human bodies.
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John and Margaret Myer offer an explanation of what attracts us to certain places and what makes us comfortable once we arrive.
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Tal Ben-Shahar discusses current research on the science of happiness and introduces ideas and tools that can actually make a difference in one's life.
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David Karp discusses the stories of 50 teenagers and adults (himself included) who have ambivalent relationships and experiences with psychiatric drugs.
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Mark Singer reads fromCharacter Studies: Encounters with the Curiously Obsessed, a collection of nine profiles, from Donald Trump to Ricky Jay.
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Dr. Aaron Lazare analyses of the power of apology, not just for individuals but for groups and nations.
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Kenji Yoshino explores the legal pressures in American society to hide our authentic selves.
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In response to hurricane Katrina, educators discuss how to best help children who have been exposed to trauma.
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Daniel Dennett explores the debate on the moral issues around evolution, free will, and mind-body connections.
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Marc Hauser discusses his work with apes which has unlocked some of the mysteries of language evolution, social cooperation, communication, and morality.
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Sonu Shamdasani describes attempts to form a new unitary science of psychology, modeled on how sciences like physics and chemistry functioned.
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David Lynch answers questions on his films, his 32-year practice of Transcendental Meditation, and the role of consciousness in the creative process.
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Robert Calfee, PhD presents HGSE's first annual Jeanne S. Chall lecture, Assessing Literacy: Exploring the Reader's Mind and Heart.
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Steven Rose discusses his latest book The Future of the Brain: The Promise and Perils of Tomorrow's Neuroscience.
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Nancy Kehoe explains how spirituality can be an integral component in the treatment of chronic mental illness.
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Weitekamp discusses his work in restorative justice, a value-based approach that emphasizes transforming wrongdoing by healing the harm created by harmful behavior.
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Michael Feuer, PhD, of the National Research Council, illustrates the frayed link between cognitive science and the science of education policy.
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Barry Burden explores the science and technology behind measuring how Americans think, feel, and what they know.
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Maharidge and Williamson explore the emotions of a deeply divided people seeking security in a world turned upside down since 9/11.
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Susan Linn, instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, explains what a great toll the marketplace takes on children.
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Richard McNally contends that traumatic experiences are unforgettable and the evidence for repressed memories is surprisingly weak.
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A discussion by members of the Noonan Family, featured in the the PBS broadcast The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's.
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Jessica Henderson Daniel discusses the milestones and issues affecting women's mental health and the medical assistance that is available to them.
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Dr. Joseph Coughlin reports on the most up to date information on Alzheimers disease in lay terms.
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Chris Hedges discusses how human beings are conditioned to embrace the "myth" that combat is noble, selfless, and glorious.
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Sherry Turkle argues how our relationships to computational objects suggest an occasion for a renewal of psychoanalytic thinking.
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Steven Pinker shows that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from human nature with its moral, emotional, and political colorings.
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Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot examines the culture of schools, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles.
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Betsy McAlister Groves dramatically disproves the myth that very young children are not affected by violence.
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John Rodolico addresses ways for teens, parents, and those that work with teens to negotiate their way through the current drug culture.
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Jean Frazier, M.D. describes the differences between the normal development in adolescence and the warning signs of illness or future behavioral problems.
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This lecture engages artists in a dialogue that explores their work through the prisms of belief and nonbelief.
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Maxine Greene weaves threads from philosophy, literature, psychology, and education to make of life and learning an aesthetic whole replete with meaning.
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All of these links came from the one and only WGBH forum for public lectures. Check them out.

Emotions That Praise Others and Change the Self

Jonathan Haidt discusses his research on three rarely studied emotions in the field of positive psychology: moral elevation, admiration, and awe. Positive psychology is the scientific study of positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.

Listen here.
Or watch here

Via channel N

Web 2.0 - Grape Lady

Web 1.0 (Meme)



Web 2.0 (Mash up)



Everything that's good about web 2.0. Creativity in all directions.

News at Seven - Automatically Generated News Program

Mindball - May the calmest brain win

Take an ECG. Add a pingpong ball and some magnets and you've got a cool new game from Sweden.



Courtesy of Courteney Kuehn and wired Nextfest. Thanks.

Artificial Intelligence & Creativity.

David Cope is Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and in 1981, he designed a computer program that deconstructed music, analysed it and then put it back together in different forms and structures it had identified.

The results are essentially new recordings from Bach, Beethoven and Chopin as well as a host of others. This isn't an interpretation on existing music, this is actually new music.

EMI's version of Bach

EMI's version of Beethoven

EMI's version of Chopin

And you can check out all the others at his webpage here.

And it's not just music. Ray Kurzweil and Harold Cohen have spent the past thirty years inventing software that can create art. It's called Aaron and like EMI is has deconstructed art, analysed it and can now create new pieces in seconds.

You can read about Aaron at Harold's webpage here. You can also download a screensaver that uses Aaron Software to create an infinite number of original artwoarks created by Aaron on your computer. Every new picture is different.

Watch a real audio video clip here

For the wordophiles out there, here's a collection of essays written by Ray Kurzweil on Machine Intelligence and Creativity, here.

And here is the art. It's rudimentary, but there's something nice about it.