Autumn Weekend Now-and-Then Beaver Blogging! [featuring ear-tagged beaver-pairs in drop-crates]

Yesterday morning, at the Kensington Parkway bridge over Rock Creek, I saw a beaver on the downstream side.

It swam under the bridge, so I crossed, and saw it emerge on the upstream side.

I watched it for a while.

And then it swam away upstream.

This morning, courtesy of my sister and the Washington Post, I saw ear-tagged beaver-pairs in drop-crates. And you can too:

"If you can't have the [static magnetic] field you love, love the [static magnetic] field you have." - William A. Edelstein

Ever have an MRI? If so, you benefited from many inventions by Bill Edelstein, whose passing, earlier this week, is mourned by many.

"People Thought He Was A Monster And Wanted Him To Die. I’m Glad He’s Alive To Tell His Story."

I am proud of Thaler for producing this:



More here.

"Teaching to see."

May I suggest that you find a big screen and a comfy chair before clicking through to watch this amazing 38-minute video produced by Edward Tufte?

One Night Only: The Brontes, Live!

We loved Dizzy Miss Lizzie's production of "The Brontes" at last summer's Capital Fringe Festival, and next Monday (January 7th) at 6 PM, NeuroCooking friends in the National Capital Area have a chance to see it at the Kennedy Center, for free.

"A dog is a great walking coach."

  Dr. Mike Evans

h/t: Dr. Brian Caffo

Not that there'd be anything wrong with that...

My talk at the upcoming Applied Brilliance Conference will be nothing like this:

"Unknown engines underneath the city..."

You can hear "Transcendental Youth," the new album from the Mountain Goats that is due out next week, streaming live (and free) at this link, and you can see Mr. John Darnielle introduce and perform "Harlem Roulette" (from the new album) right here:

"How many do you have?"

In "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity," playing through the end of the month at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, D.C., Chad Deity says:

"Chad Deity has four crispers in his fridge, and he doesn't even use a crisper."

I've never seen a better or more topical wrestling drama. If you're in the area, go! Tickets available.

How to Gather Stories

How to Gather Stories, a piece inspired by my recent work with philanthropic foundation program officers, has just been published at the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog.

Here's an excerpt:

Ask: “Tell me about a time…” By asking about a discrete moment in time, you encourage the sharing of experience and the details and emotion that accompany the recollection.

Ask for superlatives....

We tend to remember the superlative moments in our lives. Probe for those experiences. Ask for heightened emotional moments. Emotion is often referred to as the “glue” of memory. Ask people about moments when they have felt connected, surprised, or touched. Ask for “Aha!” moments of epiphany and for turning points.

You can also share a story of your own—and then be quiet. Sit back, and transfer all your attention to the person with whom you just shared your story. Most likely, you will hear one in return. If necessary, ask: “Does that story remind you of anything?”

You can read the entire short piece here.

oPad?

At the Barns of Wolf Trap tonight, when Leporello sang the aria "Madamina, il catalogo è questo'" (also known as "The Catalogue Aria"), listing Don Giovanni's conquests ("In Italy, 640 / In Germany, 231 / 100 in France; in Turkey, 91 / But in Spain, already 1003"), he read not from a book, but from an iPad — while the data were digitally projected onto tall scrim panels.

Don Giovanni's iPad can be seen at the 0:30" mark in this video.

And here's a video of the aria (from a different production) with English subtitles.

A first kiss.

"It is during measurement that plywood and steel first kiss."

- from "Love Letter to Plywood," a film by Tom Sachs.

"h" vs. "H" (and the Mountain Goats, Down Under)

The Mountain Goats rocking Melbourne's Toff, 9 May 2012 (iPhone photo).

Last week I was in Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Melbourne is a great place for live music, and, as it happened, I found out in advance that the Mountain Goats would be in town! So, when I travelled Down Under I did so with a ticket for what was to be a sold-out show at Melbourne's The Toff in Town.

How eager was I to see the Mountain Goats (whose songs I've loved for years, but whom I'd never seen live)? Let's just say I went to the Toff a whole day early, to check out the venue, which is how I came to see Max Savage and the False Idols play soul-tinged country-western Rock-n-Roll:

Max Savage and the False Idols at the Toff, 8 May 2012 (camera: Ricoh GX-100).

However, dear NeuroCooking friends, my topic today may not be singer-songwriters, or rock-n-roll, or intimate venues for live music, or fantastic audiences who shout out the choruses to early Mountain Goats songs, allowing Mr. John Darnielle to sing just the verses, or even the persistent paradox of how listening to songs about self-destructive persons engaged in abusive relationships can be uplifting. No, my topic today may be beer.

I like hoppy beers, like India Pale Ales. When I visit someplace with unfamiliar offerings on tap, especially overseas, I will ask the bartender to recommend a beer. So, that Tuesday night at the Toff, I asked the bartender:

"What's hoppy? Like an IPA?"

And he replied:

"Yes. Would you like a taste?"

I did a double-take, and looked at the taps, and yes, they had a beer on tap called "Hoppy."

And yes, it was.

This "hoppy" vs. "Hoppy" reminded me, instantly, of the old "Who's on first" routine:

It's too late to see Abbott and Costello live, but, thankfully, it's not too late to see the Mountain Goats, which I recommend that you do, wherever and whenever you can!

"We love you, John!" The Mountain Goats at the Toff, 9 May 2012 (iPhone photo).

On average, each bike has a fork.

A mysterious video of what appears to be a pushmi/pullyu tandem bicycle has appeared on the Facebook page of Paul Component Engineering (There's no way to embed, or even to link to, the video here; you need to click through to their Facebook page, and then find and click on the video, which is entitled "Trust us. We're professionaaaaaaaahhhhhhls.").

On the other hand (h/t: cycleexif.com), Olli Erkkilä's beautiful and poetic Graduation Project at the Institute of Design in Lahti, Finland was a "forkless" cruiser:

First annual mid-December NeuroCooking holiday gift recommendation!

Best gift for less than ten dollars for a lover of rock-and-roll:

"The Black Keys Live at the Crystal Ballroom" (2008) DVD. 

A superlative record of two gentlemen from Akron, Ohio, doing what they do so well.

Seeing without reading. Or, visualization without (local) comprehension.

Last week I received via email a movie file in .avi format that would not play on any of our Macs, until I uploaded it to YouTube; now I can watch it just fine from any device – further proof that "the cloud" has (to some degree) eliminated the old requirement that a file's format be locally readable in order for the data in that file to be visualized.

Awesome! One-Hundred.

Announced today! The latest thing!

The AW-100! Perhaps "AW" stands for "awesome."

Comes in three colors! All awesome.

Shall we rush out to buy the very latest Nikon camera, the AW-100, because it was "Born to be extreme", or because Nikon says it will let you "Star in your own viral movies"? While the first may be just an empty slogan, the second sounds like a guarantee.

Save the Trees of Rock Creek Hills Park!

Have you seen the two new videos from SaveRockCreekHillsPark.org?

• Trees.

http://youtu.be/nOzFAv0zDs0

• "... not going to be any trees left."

http://youtu.be/K493b9vhqw8

What is an algorithm?

[Reggie Watts @ Google.]

"An algorithm is someone who feels good on a rainy day..." [starting at 5:44]

On smelling almonds & drinking sweat.

Many words evoke in us a rich web of associations. Depending on your personal experience, the word "almond" may conjure memories of the sight of blossoms waving in the wind, the smell of cake fresh from your grandmother's oven, or the childhood joy of your favorite candy bar.

But this only happens when the word is in your native language, or at least a language in which you are fluent. For example, when you discuss the role of the amygdala in assigning salience to various sensory stimuli, even if you know that amygdala means almond, you just don't get all those associations linked to "almond". Because "amygdala" is a neuroanatomical term, that does not link to your grandmother's cake...

And that is how Pocari Sweat can be a best-selling beverage in Japan.

Although, once you watch this TV ad from the 1980's, the words "Pocari Sweat" may forever conjure up images of an oddly-clad Cindy Crawford wielding a sword: