Under the influence.

Heraclitus said that you can't step into the same river twice, but sometimes I wondered whether I was photographing the same dog twice, thrice, and more.

I like to photograph Bucky. Sometimes, though, I found that I would take a photograph of him, and it would look very familiar:

(July)

(October)

(November)

(Click any image for full-screen.)

Old dog, new photo. If you photograph the same dog, repeatedly, how different can any new photo be...?

Last weekend, I visited the Yousuf Karsh exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (USA). In spite of my familiarity with some of Karsh's truly iconic images (his portraits of Churchill & Hemingway, for instance), looking at his prints moved me. Wow. What exquisite compositions! What use of light - and darkness - to frame, and to highlight!

After visiting the exhibition, I took these two photos (click any image for full-screen), indoors, by available window-light; I think they are different from all my earlier photos of Bucky:

Thank you, Mr. Karsh!

And thank you, Bucky.

Our 2013 Top Eleven!

The top* ten-plus-one NeuroCooking posts of 2013:

1. Bucky is not like other dogs. But he is like a motorcycle, or Gerald Ford, or Harry Potter... ("Visually similar images" from Google's "search by image")
2. Title of the Week!
3. Don’t bring a data set to a food fight!
4. Edward I. Koch, 1924-2013
5. Mid-Winter Dog-Blogging!
6. Cooking with NeuroCooking!
7. "Bucky is not like other dogs. But he is like ..." Part III. ("Visually similar images" from Google's "search by image")
8. Your functional neuroimaging update (with study questions).
9. Brains are different like bikes are different.
10. Two Views of Christmas Afternoon
11. O Lucky Man!

Bucky, from "Mid-Winter Dog-Blogging!", February 12.

Self-strangling morning glory, from "O Lucky Man!", October 17.

Bucky, from "Two Views of Christmas Afternoon," December 25.

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*As ranked by number of pageviews.

H-index, I10-index, Etc.

Dear NeuroCooking friends, my Google Scholar Profile is now public.

Missed a birthday!

Ten days ago, NeuroCooking became four years old! Thanks for joining us here!

Our 2012 Top Ten.

The top ten* NeuroCooking posts of 2012:

1. Best. Coffee. Ever.
2. Mid-June Dog-Blogging! (or, "SG-31R")
3. "AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D" part II (or, "Do you want fries with that?")
4. "h" vs. "H" (and the Mountain Goats, Down Under)
5. e.g., "Rule number eight: exploit superstitious thinking"
6. Proofreading Is Important, Part XHYXHYXHYX
7. Applied what?
8. "If new-laid eggs wore wooden legs I should not laugh or cry."
9. "Finally, SUPEREGO-related neural activity was localized to lateral prefrontal and parietal cortex."
10. Seeing Is Believing.

Bucky, from "Mid-June Dog-Blogging! (or, 'SG-31R')," June 14.

Cherry tree, from "'AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D' part II (or, 'Do you want fries with that?')," March 25.

The Mountain Goats, from "'h' vs. 'H' (and the Mountain Goats, Down Under)," May 16.

Nope it ain't, from "Applied what?" September 27.

Warning, from "Seeing Is Believing," May 18.

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*As ranked by number of pageviews.

Привет, Россия!

Many NeuroCooking pageviews are coming from Russia, and we would be delighted to hear from our Russian readers.

Please, consider saying hello using the blog comments, or via twitter at @thaler or @jimpekar.

Our 2011 Top Ten.

The top ten* NeuroCooking posts of 2011:

1. "Yesterday, in the early evening, we went out to shoot..."
2. Making Sense of Occupy Wall Street
3. Made in Japan by Mr. Shin-ichi Konno.
4. Those who Espouse Only Evidence Typically Lose
5. "ASH, WHITE"
6. e.g., "less hairy mothers would have to park their young"
7. "AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D"
8. Heart, Head, Hand, & Complexity
9. Something about a story is not a story.
10. The things we do...

Cherry tree from "Yesterday, in the early evening, we went out to shoot...", April 12. 

Tree tag from "ASH, WHITE", February 13.

Steers from "AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D", September 4.

Venn diagram from "The things we do...", February 6.

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*As ranked by number of pageviews, per google analytics.

"Second Amendment remedies"

"Only our surprise that the unforeseen was fated allows the arbitrary to disappear."

-Philip Guston (1913 – 1980)

Because NeuroCooking is read in 70 countries, we would like to try to put recent tragic events here into context, especially for our friends outside the USA.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights, introduced in 1789 and approved in 1791. The amendment says:

"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Here "arms" means guns.

Ms. Sharron Angle, recently the Republican candidate in the general election for a US Senate Senate seat in the State of Nevada, said:

"... if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

Now, this call for the assassination of an incumbent US Senator came from a major-party general-election nominee. Similarly, it was Republican US Representative from Minnesota Michele Bachmann, not some random nut-job in a dirty anorak, who said:

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back."

Former half-term Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin (who was the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008) distributed widely this graphic, featuring rifle cross-hairs, under the heading "Don't retreat – instead, reload!":

Here is the Hon. Gabrielle Giffords commenting, presciently, on that map:

Thank you, NeuroCooking friends, for letting us take a moment this morning to share with you these recent examples of the rhetoric of violence. It's not a pleasant topic – but, as recent events have shown, it is important.

Notes on labels & classifications.

Please note:

• Friends subscribing to NeuroCooking via email, vs. reading it on the web, are missing out (for reasons perhaps known to the feedburner team at Google, but not to us) on labels assigned to (or, as the kids say, "tagging") most entries. For example, the newest label is "dog".

• While we remain unaware of any classified material on NeuroCooking, the potential availability of steganographic methods means that we cannot absolutely guarantee the absence of classified material in NeuroCooking comments.

Like Speaking Another Language

I greatly enjoyed working with my Chilean client, and recently delivering two programs in Chile. One of the great pleasures was the difference in language: rather than "persuasion", my client referred to "seduction". Instead of talking about the "framework" of the program, we discussed the "journey" of the day.

Although there were interpreters at each of the two programs, I was careful not to fall back on American English idioms. I avoided saying things like "fall back" and instead choose "revert". Instead of "come back", I would say "return". Instead of "want", I speak to "desire" and "intent". I looked to the Latin rhetorical roots so as to be better understood and to present information more efficiently and respectfully. Conversing became both more intentional and more surprising, and I cherished in the poetry of our interactions.

A colleague's son was recently studying vocabulary, in preparation for his middle school entrance exam. He remarked that it was "like speaking another language". Indeed!

Human word, syllable, combination
of spread light and the find art of the silversmith,
hereditary goblet which gathers
the communications of the blood --
here is where silence came together with
the wholeness of the human word,
and, for human beings, not to speak is to die --
language extends even to the hair,
the mouth speaks without the lips moving --
all of a sudden the eyes are words.

I take the word and go over it
as though it were nothing more than a human shape,
its arrangements awe me and I find my way
through each variation in the spoken word --
I utter and I am and without speaking I approach
the limit of words and the silence.

I drink to the word, raising
a word or a shining cup,
in it I drink
the pure wine of language
or inexhaustible water,
maternal source of words,
and cup and water and wine
give rise to my song
because the verb is the source
and vivid life -- it is blood,
blood which expresses its substance
and so implies its own unwinding --
words give glass-quality to glass, blood to blood,
and life to life itself.

Excerpt from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's "The Word"

Reading us is ok everywhere, we think.

NeuroCooking friends reading this from a computer at the United States Air Force may continue to do so, even though their access to the New York Times has been cut off; we have no word on whether they are physically searched upon entrance, to prevent them from bringing onto the base print copies of the newspaper.

_______

[While we know of no classified information on NeuroCooking, we cannot guarantee that NeuroCooking comments are free of classified information.]

"Housekeeping."

What he says.

____

(Except for the part about "the Times" - NeuroCooking is not the New York Times. NeuroCooking is safer than the New York Times.)

Save the Date: NeuroCooking Live! on December Eight.

Join your two favorite NeuroCooking correspondents* live on the phone, for a free teleconference on the story of the science of story!

When: 4 - 5 PM (EST) on Wednesday, December 8th.

Where: In the comfort of your own office, tree-house, or hot-tub**.

How: Dial 1-218-936-4700 then enter Access Code 710691

We promise it will be less funny than this, and less wrong than this.

______

* Dr. Pekar's participation in this activity is for fun. All opinions expressed and implied in this activity by Dr. Pekar are solely his and do not represent or reflect the views of the Johns Hopkins University or the Johns Hopkins Health System.

** NeuroCooking is not responsible for water damage to your telephone.

Spare change?

For our NeuroCooking friends looking for rock-and-roll on Sirius satellite radio, we offer this handy mnemonic: Nickel, dime, & quarter!

Because:

• Channel 5 is "50s on 5" ("the roots of rock-and roll").
• Channel 10 is "E Street Radio" ("Bruce Springsteen, 24/7")
• Channel 25 is "Little Steven's Underground Garage" ("the coolest rock 'n' roll records ever made").

D

This is the 500^th post on NeuroCooking. Or, for those who prefer roman numerals, this is post D.

We enabled Google Analytics in June; since then, NeuroCooking has had visitors from:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Botswana
• Brazil
• Brunei
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Egypt
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Iran
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Jordan
• Lebanon
• Malta
• Mauritius
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Pakistan
• Palestinian Territories
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Qatar
• Romania
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Serbia
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Tunisia
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Venezuela
• Yemen
• Zimbabwe

Thank you all!

Election Day!

Dear NeuroCooking friends who are Americans (and not convicted felons),

Please vote! It's important.

Thank you.

The most pressing question of our time?

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

– Daniel J. Boorstin (1914 – 2004)

I respectfully submit that the greatest puzzle of our time is how we managed to eliminate ignorance while elevating nonsense.

If I ask you, say, how old Buddy Holly was when he died, then, using the same device you are using now to read this, you can find the answer to that question. You cannot not know how old Buddy Holly was when he died, once you've been asked, because getting the answer is just a matter of touching your smartphone or tablet or laptop or what have you the right way, and the answer will be yours.

So, we have, in a sense, eliminated ignorance. But how is it then that there so much nonsense? How is it then, that a substantial fraction of the population believes that our President's religion, or birthplace, or even nationality, are different than the truth? How does such nonsense thrive?

Dear NeuroCooking friends, I do not have an answer. I just think this is perhaps the most interesting – and pressing – question of our time. How is it that we have, simultaneously, managed to eliminate ignorance while elevating nonsense?

What were they smoking?

While we love photography, we don't generally review cameras here. However, there's a new camera that is "in a class of its own". Fortunately.

Several manufacturers offer small digital cameras with fast (large-aperture) prime (fixed focal length) lenses. These small cameras have image sensors that, while not as large as a "full frame" sensor, are larger (and thus more sensitive) than those typically found in pocket-size point-and-shoots. Examples include the Sigma DP2, the Leica X1, and the Ricoh GR digital. The idea is that by giving up zoom, you get a (somewhat) faster lens & a (somewhat) bigger sensor. And, it seems, because these are considered "prestige" cameras, the manufacturer gets a bigger profit.

The newest member of this family is the almost-released Fuji Finepix X100. And it has one "feature" that's just wack. Namely, it has a built-in non-removable neutral density filter.

A neutral density filter is a piece of grey glass. Like sunglasses. Sometimes (if infrequently) called "smoked" glass.

Now, why would you want to put sunglasses on your camera? Well, suppose you were shooting in bright daylight, and you wanted to use a large aperture, to achieve a very shallow depth-of-field, in order to isolate your subject by blurring the background. Doing so might require a shutter speed much faster than the camera was capable of. So, under those conditions, adding a neutral density filter solves that problem, allowing the use of large apertures in bright daylight. That's why many photographers carry neutral density filters, to use under such conditions.

But. Why on earth would you want to build in a dark neutral density filter that can't be removed? No matter how little light there is, when you're trying to take a picture? A non-removable neutral density filter equivalent, Fuji says, to three f-stops. That's seven-eighths of incoming light, absorbed by the dark filter!

Fuji built a piece of dark grey glass into the lens, and claims that "The FinePix X100 FUJINON lens really is in a class of its own." And they're right. The class of expensive and stupid.

If, NeuroCooking friends, you are interested in purchasing a new Finepix X100 (MSRP about $1000), we would urge you to wait until the release (perhaps early in 2011?) of what is sure to be the 'updated' & 'improved' model, featuring glass that is clear.

[Image credit: Fujinon].

[Late edit: I was wrong.]

brewing & building

We are brewing:

And, NeuroCooking friends, in addition to making beer, we are building our vocabularies!

Why, just one month ago, I would have no idea what these mean:

"Pitch the wort."

(translation: add yeast to the warm extract of malted barley in water)

"To remove trub, rack to the secondary."

(translation: siphon the fermenting beer from one container to another, leaving behind the sediment)

Let's hope (hop?) the beer is as good as the words.

Why sully the flag?

I believe the new Maryland license plates violate the federal Flag Code, and should be recalled.

Baltimore's Fort McHenry survived a bombardment by the British Navy during the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key witnessed this and wrote a poem about it; the poem was set to a popular tune, and became the National Anthem of the USA.

Here is the first verse:

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The State of Maryland has stopped issuing its usual plain black-on-white license plates, and is now issuing instead, for everyone, a special "War of 1812 commemorative plate" featuring "the Star Spangled Banner", i.e., an American flag:

To our knowledge, this is the first of its kind – no other state plate bears the national flag.

Now, the federal Flag Code states:

"The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way."

Just look around, and you will see that automobile license plates are "easily ... soiled". The flags on these plates will be soiled with dust, mud, and salt. So, these plates – again, the first of their kind; no other state requires that our nation's flag be placed on car bumpers to get splattered and grimy – violate the federal Flag Code, and should be recalled.

Why sully the flag?

Please join us, NeuroCooking friends, in asking Mr. Martin O'Malley, the Governor of Maryland, to recall the plates. You can leave a message for him at 410.974.3901 or 1.800.811.8336; to email him, you need to use this web form. Whether you write or call, we ask you to stay positive! Talk about the flag as a symbol of our nation, remind him that license plates get dirty, and ask the Governor to recall the plates, because it's the right thing to do.

[Please note: Photo credits: National Park Service; Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration. I'm not an attorney, just a citizen.]