Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
I just finished it. I'm in San Diego, so I lost three hours due to the time change, but just finished it. It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Happy reading to all of you still working on it!!! Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.coml Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mailp=summer+activities+for+kidscs=bz ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Got Brains?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12301feedId=online-news_rss20 A man with an unusually tiny brain a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue more than a 50% to 75% reduction. Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75. The whole brain was reduced - frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes - on both left and right sides. These regions control motion, sensibility, language, vision, audition, and emotional and cognitive functions, the brain is very plastic and can adapt to some brain damage occurring in the pre- and postnatal period when treated appropriately, he says. If something happens very slowly over quite some time, maybe over decades, the different parts of the brain take up functions that would normally be done by the part that is pushed to the side, Half My IQ And Makes Twice As Much Money Maru rob Money isn't everything, Rob, 150 is genius I.Q. If this guy had use of the 50- 75% he lost, he could be in the 200 range. Not no genyus, Jonny, but I luck gude!~) Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=listsid=396545433 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Got Brains?
At 04:19 PM Saturday 7/21/2007, jon louis mann wrote: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12301feedId=online-news_rss20 A man with an unusually tiny brain a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue more than a 50% to 75% reduction. Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75. The whole brain was reduced - frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes - on both left and right sides. These regions control motion, sensibility, language, vision, audition, and emotional and cognitive functions, the brain is very plastic and can adapt to some brain damage occurring in the pre- and postnatal period when treated appropriately, he says. If something happens very slowly over quite some time, maybe over decades, the different parts of the brain take up functions that would normally be done by the part that is pushed to the side, Half My IQ And Makes Twice As Much Money Maru rob Money isn't everything, Rob, 150 is genius I.Q. If this guy had use of the 50- 75% he lost, he could be in the 200 range. I don't think anyone has yet established a link between either brain size or percent utilization and intelligence . . . And Don't Ask Me About The Mensa Members I Have Met Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: war is terror...
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of jon louis mann Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 9:31 AM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: war is terror... That is one - rather bizarre - way of looking at things. I would suggest that in fact the reason people are able to be more concerned about collateral damge is because a) they are more aware of it and b) the stakes are much lower. With the immoral bombing actions of the Second World War a genuine case can be made for it protecting the bombing nation (although I am not sure that personally I would try to make such a case) whereas no such similar case can be made today. i think that now, more than ever, a case can be made for no more war. the people in these mideast countries are being kept in poverty, despite their fantastic wealth in oil. people are so full of rage and desperate for work, that they join terrorist organizations. many become martyrs simply so their families will be fed. Actually, that's not a typical portrait of a martyr. It's one that fits our preconceptions, but not the data. A friend/colleague Gautam is one of the world experts on terrorism. She has interviewed over sixty different terrorists. Off the top of my head, terrorists do not, usually, come from the poorest and most desperate. A better generalization is that they find meaning in their actions. Most members of terrorism organizations, such as AQ, come from middle or upper class families. Examples of this include Bin Laden, most of the 9-11 hijackers, and the physicians who were involved with the latest attempts in Great Britain. Another perspective on this is the conclusions of a French journalist who interviewed a number (20 and probably 40-50) failed suicide bombers in Israeli jails. He said they talked freely with himand he thought that they did so because they saw him as sympathetic. For the most part, their motivation was to purity which was ruined by the existence of Jews in Palestine. As with the 9-11 terrorists, Bin Laden himself Further, the suicide bomber is not, usually, a long standing member of the groupbut sees this action as a way of gaining status/honor. If folks are interested, I can write Gautam and ask him to relay her findings in more detail, as well as other literature on the subject. But, I won't bother him if it will just be dismissed out of hand. was it really necessary to fire bomb dresden? No did america really need to use the a-bomb on densely populated cities? was the alternative to invade japan, or were there other choices? If they wanted to end the war without an invasion, most likely. We can never know for certain what the consequences of untaken actions would have been, but we do have some indicative data. In particular, the Emperor had to decent from above to cast the tie-breaking vote on surrender. His cabinet was deadlocked 3-3 on surrendereven after two cities were devastated by two bombs. IIRC, even after the Emperor descended, he had to argue long and hard to get agreement on surrender. Given that, the evidence is that a blockade would not have ended WWII. Rather, it would have allowed the Soviet Union to switch it's forces to the Eastern Frontwhich probably would have resulted in a Soviet sphere of influence in the east like the one in the west (Eastern Europe. And, the invasion was expected to cost 1 million American casualties and far more Japanese. There were plans for a fight to the death by virtually the whole population. Remember, according to the Japanese viewpoint of the time, a defeated people lost their humanity when they lostthat's what made the killing of half of their POWs, their actions in Korea reasonablethey were dealing with sub-humans. what role do governments have in going to war when the solution might be to find a way to give people in these countries hope? It sounds logical, but most wars are not the direct result of a hopeless people. It's the result of a leadership that sees advantage in starting a war. Look at the wars that have been started in the last 60 years. I think it is more reasonable to see the view of people that they cannot resist their own dictatorships successfully as contributing to war, but the initiation of wars are not correlated with desperation. One way to look a this is look at the wars of the last 30 years and the big wars of, say, the last 250 years, and see if the cause is that the perpetrator of the war was a country with a uniquely desperate population (or at least trending towards significantly higher desperation in the population than other countries at the time.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Got Brains?
the whole brain was reduced... more than a 50% to 75%... the brain is very plastic and can adapt to some brain damage.. If it happens very slowly, different parts of the brain take up functions normally done by the part pushed to the side... (snip, snip.~) Half My IQ And Makes Twice As Much Money Maru rob Money isn't everything, Rob, 150 is genius I.Q. If this guy had use of the 50- 75% he lost, he could be in the 200 range. Not no genyus, Jonny, but I luck gude!~) I don't think anyone has yet established a link between either brain size, or percent utilization and intelligence . . . And Don't Ask Me About The Mensa Members I Have Met Maru -- Ronn! :) are members of mensa trying to compensate for poor self esteem, or the opposite, or are they simply seeking to network with other geniuses? i believe brain capacity is related to ratio to body size and convolutions in the cerebral cortex? hominid maru jonsan According to Science News, the cerebral cortex, containing billions of nerve cells, is the largest structure of the human brain. Essentially a flat sheet not much thicker than an orange peel, the cortex folds and refolds into the familiar deep creases of the brain's surface. The cerebral cortex varies in size dramatically among species. It mostly grows by becoming a larger sheet rather than a thicker sheet, The human cortical surface area is about 1,000 times greater than that of the mouse. Compared with the cortex of the chimpanzee, the human cerebral cortex has three to four times more surface area. Some scientists attribute the greater intelligence of modern humans to the rapid expansion of the cerebral cortex as hominids evolved. (sic) see also: http://www.ifisiol.unam.mx/Brain/cercox.htm Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos more. http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
On 22/07/2007, at 5:38 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: I just finished it. I'm in San Diego, so I lost three hours due to the time change, but just finished it. It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Happy reading to all of you still working on it!!! Haven't even bothered starting it yet as the queues in Melbourne were stupid and long, and Claire and I are moving house this weekend... I'll pick it up during the week. Lack of spoilers very much appreciated... Charlie. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
On Sat, 21 Jul 2007, Gautam Mukunda wrote: I just finished it. I'm in San Diego, so I lost three hours due to the time change, but just finished it. It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Happy reading to all of you still working on it!!! Good for you. I didn't get my copy until after 1AM and had to be up at 8 this morning, and have been somewhat groggy all day. I'm going to read for a couple of hours after the kids have gone to bed, anyway. :) (I got to hang out in the Book People parking lot with an acquaintance who is moving towards being a friend, which is nice. Nothing like geeks-in-a-parking-lot bonding) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
war is terror...
the evidence is that a blockade would not have ended WWII. it would have allowed the Soviet Union to switch it's forces to the Eastern Front... which probably would have resulted in a Soviet sphere. (snippet) my japanese stepmother told me the americans dropped the bomb because japan was negotiating a surrender to the commies, which would have ended the war, and japan would have become a soviet satellite. jonsan what role do governments have in going to war when the solution might be to find a way to give people in these countries hope? if most wars are due to government seeking advantage (which certainly is the case in iraq) it is even more tragic that freedom loving americans went along with bushco. we had no dictatorship to resist. wars may not be correlated with desperation, but this war is to defeat terrorism, which can be described as tactics of desperation. the wars of the last 30 years are vastly different than 250 years ago, although people lived under oppessive regimes. habibi jonski Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel. http://travel.yahoo.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
On 7/21/07, Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just finished it. I'm in San Diego, so I lost three hours due to the time change, but just finished it. It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Happy reading to all of you still working on it!!! Gautam Mukunda YAR MATEY, SPOILERS MAY BE BELOW I'm in agreement. It was action-packed, brought in all sorts of details I had hoped to see again like Ollivanders and Gregorovitch, did a decent job of persuading us how both evil and how pathetic Voldemort and his group is (effectively brought home when Harry and Dumbledore are talking on the King's Cross station and the little thing - which I take as representing the state of Voldemort's soul - keeps interrupting. It's quite nasty and sad, and for some reason during that conversation I kept on thinking about Fullmetal Alchemist and the sadness of the homunculi), and finally wound up in a reasonably epic and moving climax. Most importantly, the ending was satisfactory and didn't feel at all cheap or like a copout. I'm not 100% pleased, though. The epilogue just felt kind of silly to me; I'm still not convinced that a Ron/Hermione pairing isn't ridiculous and just forced; I feel a little gyped that Harry has a Deathly Hallow all 7 books but the first time we're given any inkling that his cloak is particularly special is basically when the senior Lovegood dismisses all other invisibility cloaks as being pathetic. (And besides, if the Deathly Hallow cloak really is so perfect at hiding, how did Dumbledore see Harry sneaking in to see the Mirror of Erised? That little incident convinced me that the cloak was useful but nothing more unusually special than other things people had like Hermione's time-travel device. I feel a little betrayed at that.) Other things didn't quite ring true either - why would Voldemort be convinced the last Horcrux would be safe inside the Room of Requirement's room for hiding things when it's so obviously full of other people's stuff, implying that there's a quite regular traffic in and out of it? Further, if knowledge of the Deathly Hallows is so widespread that a kook like the senior Lovegood, Dumbeldore, Grindelwald, and at least 2 wandmakers know about it, then how could Voldemort (the first or second greatest wizard of all time, mind you, who is absolutely obsessed with anything that influences death or could offer immortality) *not* know about it and be so foolish as to make a Hallow a Horcrux and leave it lying around? But I guess you could argue that getting the big stuff right outweighs all such small stuff. -- gwern mania 701 CTP CATO Phon-e Chicago Posse NSDM ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Got Brains?
He was in the civil service with an IQ of 75? Pat, biting tongue on bureaucrat jokes. http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ __ The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual.The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.--William James From: Ronn! Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Got Brains? Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:35:22 -0500 At 04:19 PM Saturday 7/21/2007, jon louis mann wrote: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12301feedId=online-news_rss20 A man with an unusually tiny brain a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue more than a 50% to 75% reduction. Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75. The whole brain was reduced - frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes - on both left and right sides. These regions control motion, sensibility, language, vision, audition, and emotional and cognitive functions, the brain is very plastic and can adapt to some brain damage occurring in the pre- and postnatal period when treated appropriately, he says. If something happens very slowly over quite some time, maybe over decades, the different parts of the brain take up functions that would normally be done by the part that is pushed to the side, Half My IQ And Makes Twice As Much Money Maru rob Money isn't everything, Rob, 150 is genius I.Q. If this guy had use of the 50- 75% he lost, he could be in the 200 range. I don't think anyone has yet established a link between either brain size or percent utilization and intelligence . . . And Don't Ask Me About The Mensa Members I Have Met Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
Gautam Mukunda wrote: It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Yes, it was an excellenet capstone to the series. There were a couple of parts that were underwhelming, such as the epilogue, but for the most part it was a great read. I got to finish it today during my brother-in-law's birthday gathering. Which certainly beat actually having to *talk* to those people. :-p Jim ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Got Brains?
At 08:00 PM Saturday 7/21/2007, PAT MATHEWS wrote: He was in the civil service with an IQ of 75? Pat, biting tongue on bureaucrat jokes. I beat you to that one. Nothing To Brag About Though Because It Was So Obvious Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Got Brains?
At 05:59 PM Saturday 7/21/2007, jon louis mann wrote: are members of mensa trying to compensate for poor self esteem, or the opposite, or are they simply seeking to network with other geniuses? I suspect that the answer is as varied as the individual. I went hoping for the latter reason, and was left with the impression that many were there for the first reason. It is quite possible that my observations were skewed or that my experience was not typical. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
