Comments for Geek Friendly http://geekfriendly.org/blog Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:53:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Comment on Rob Levin, aka “lilo” Dead at 50 after Hit-and-Run by Cathy Probst http://geekfriendly.org/blog/09/rob-levin-aka-lilo-dead-at-50-after-hit-and-run/comment-page-1/#comment-49908 Cathy Probst Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:53:40 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/?p=7#comment-49908 I was a friend of Rob's for many years; we met in the 1980's in "science fiction fandom," a very large community, as many of you will know. I am, if anything, computer-challenged. I always suspected that Rob was a genius; his later achievements confirmed it(he was also very humble). His wedding to Debbie in Venice, CA was a joyous and memorable occasion for all of his family and many fan and other friends and co-workers. They were so fond of Rob;we all traded stories of him out of his earshot---everyone had the same glowing opinions of this kind, brilliant, independently-thinking soul. The birth of Benjamin confirmed another suspicion about him: he was a great Dad! When he, Deb and Ben moved from Southern California to the San Francisco Bay area, Rob came out in a driving rainstorm to meet us, his fan friends at a restaurant in Berkeley just so we wouldn't have to drive all the way to Alameda to see him. He adored his wife and son and seemed to finally have found happiness. After they moved to Texas, we only saw eachother whenever he, Deb and Ben came to California to see Deb's family....but he always called us so we could all meet. Realizing that I had not heard from Rob for awhile I looked him up and found Rob Levin with a date of death. Thinking it had to be another Rob Levin I re-searched and found a picture that confirmed that our friend was gone after that tragic street accident. It is some comfort to know that, although eyewitnesses could not identify the hit-and-run culprit, they did get Rob immediate emergency care and that he was taken to a state-of-the-art trauma center---- though sadly they could not save him. His many fan friends, or"The Fen"---a term he employed, love and miss him. It has been very heartening to read the tributes to him from all his fellow "computer geeks," a term I use with great admiration and respect. As one of them posted in a fine tribute---I hope, dear friend, that you are "hacking the universe!" I was a friend of Rob’s for many years; we met in the 1980′s in “science fiction fandom,” a very large community, as many of you will know. I am, if anything, computer-challenged. I always suspected that Rob was a genius; his later achievements confirmed it(he was also very humble).
His wedding to Debbie in Venice, CA was a joyous and memorable occasion for all of his family and many fan and other friends and co-workers. They were so fond of Rob;we all traded stories of him out of his earshot—everyone had the same glowing opinions of this kind, brilliant, independently-thinking soul.
The birth of Benjamin confirmed another suspicion about him: he was a great Dad! When he, Deb and Ben moved from Southern California to the San Francisco Bay area, Rob came out in a driving rainstorm to meet us, his fan friends at a restaurant in Berkeley just so we wouldn’t have to drive all the way to Alameda to see him.
He adored his wife and son and seemed to finally have found happiness.
After they moved to Texas, we only saw eachother whenever he, Deb and Ben came to California to see Deb’s family….but he always called us so we could all meet.
Realizing that I had not heard from Rob for awhile I looked him up and found Rob Levin with a date of death.
Thinking it had to be another Rob Levin I re-searched and
found a picture that confirmed that our friend was gone after that tragic street accident. It is some comfort to know that, although eyewitnesses could not identify the hit-and-run culprit, they did get Rob immediate emergency care and that he was taken to a state-of-the-art trauma center—- though sadly they could not save him.
His many fan friends, or”The Fen”—a term he employed, love and miss him. It has been very heartening to read the tributes to him from all his fellow “computer geeks,” a term I use with great admiration and respect.
As one of them posted in a fine tribute—I hope, dear friend, that you are “hacking the universe!”

]]> Comment on Behind the LOLcat: Schrodinger’s LOLcat by Florian Blaschke http://geekfriendly.org/blog/06/behind-the-lolcat-schrodingers-lolcat/comment-page-1/#comment-48616 Florian Blaschke Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:59:13 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/06/behind-the-lolcat-schrodingers-lolcat/#comment-48616 What seems to have happened here is this: "I'm in ur box playing Schrödinger's copycat" http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/05/01/funny-pictures-schrodinger-xperimint/ A meme copying itself by impregnating multiple inventor's minds with itself? :-) Independent co-invention happens so frequently that I wonder that there is still no established technical term for it (like cryptomnesia for the phenomenon when a forgotten memory leading to unintentional plagiarism), although Wikipedia has "Multiple discovery" and even a long list of examples. What seems to have happened here is this:

“I’m in ur box playing Schrödinger’s copycat”

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/05/01/funny-pictures-schrodinger-xperimint/

A meme copying itself by impregnating multiple inventor’s minds with itself? :-)

Independent co-invention happens so frequently that I wonder that there is still no established technical term for it (like cryptomnesia for the phenomenon when a forgotten memory leading to unintentional plagiarism), although Wikipedia has “Multiple discovery” and even a long list of examples.

]]> Comment on How-To: Add Your Baruch Email to Gmail by George http://geekfriendly.org/blog/01/how-to-add-your-baruch-email-to-gmail/comment-page-1/#comment-48488 George Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:55:45 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/?p=168#comment-48488 Thank you so much! Great guide and helped me a lot! Thank you so much! Great guide and helped me a lot!

]]> Comment on CNS 2011 by Olta http://geekfriendly.org/blog/04/cns-2011/comment-page-1/#comment-47701 Olta Sat, 09 Jul 2011 15:46:48 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/?p=204#comment-47701 These are really cool!! Wish I was there. These are really cool!! Wish I was there.

]]> Comment on This is my brain in Love by Teri http://geekfriendly.org/blog/10/this-is-my-brain-in-love/comment-page-1/#comment-44786 Teri Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:17:09 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/10/this-is-my-brain-in-love/#comment-44786 Hello. Oh yes, and taking Tyrosine mimics the neurological theatrics of love very nicely. Add an object of desire and life is a wonderful drug. Hello. Oh yes, and taking Tyrosine mimics the neurological theatrics of love very nicely. Add an object of desire and life is a wonderful drug.

]]> Comment on Design Icon – David Carson by Matt Watson http://geekfriendly.org/blog/03/design-icon-david-carson/comment-page-1/#comment-44302 Matt Watson Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:12:20 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/03/design-icon-david-carson/#comment-44302 Interesting, I haven't heard that name for quite some time. I've never heard him speak but from what I've heard he can be quite engaging. mw Interesting, I haven’t heard that name for quite some time. I’ve never heard him speak but from what I’ve heard he can be quite engaging. mw

]]> Comment on Ha Ha! Old Pictures on the Internet! by Why I’ll Always Love The Internet « Workinonit http://geekfriendly.org/blog/08/ha-ha-old-pictures-on-the-internet/comment-page-1/#comment-39650 Why I’ll Always Love The Internet « Workinonit Sun, 23 May 2010 04:43:25 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/?p=143#comment-39650 [...] image via [...] [...] image via [...]

]]> Comment on Kottke on Neurons by Jon Horvitz http://geekfriendly.org/blog/07/kottke-on-neurons/comment-page-1/#comment-36393 Jon Horvitz Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:04:54 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/07/kottke-on-neurons/#comment-36393 There's another possibility, that's similar to the grandmother cell idea, but that permits more content to be held in the limited number of neurons (about 100 billion) in the human brain. The idea is that instead of 1 neuron representing 1 idea (idea can mean a sensory percept, a word/concept, a desire, etc), a group of neurons (a set of about 1000 neurons is sometimes suggested) represents the idea. At first, you should say that this should REDUCE the number of ideas that can be represented (1000-fold!). But the idea is that you have 'overlapping sets', i.e., idea #1 may occur when a given set of 1000 neurons is active (and reverberating in order to give some persistance to the idea over some time, say a second), and idea #2 is active when another set of 1000 neurons is active, BUT the set of 1000 neurons constituting idea #2 can have many of the same neurons that constitute set #1. So, a given neuron can contribute to many different sets. Imagine that the brain had just 2000 neurons, and each idea arose from a specific set of 1000 neurons. With overlapping sets you could represent a LOT more than 2000 ideas. To read more about this type of model of cognition, go to http://www.columbia.edu/~nvg1/Wickelgren/ It's the site of Wayne Wickelgren, a cognitive neuroscientist who passed away about 5 years ago from Motor Neuron Disease. He was an amazing and brilliant person (graudated summa cum laude from MIT). I knew him when I was teaching at Columbia - he had retired from research but continued to work on theories of cognition and the brain even as his movement ability was lost (he had a special device set up so that he could press a key on a keyboard with minimal motor effort). On his site he put free pdf's describing his ideas about neural sets (he calls them 'webs') and coding for ideas. There’s another possibility, that’s similar to the grandmother cell idea, but that permits more content to be held in the limited number of neurons (about 100 billion) in the human brain. The idea is that instead of 1 neuron representing 1 idea (idea can mean a sensory percept, a word/concept, a desire, etc), a group of neurons (a set of about 1000 neurons is sometimes suggested) represents the idea. At first, you should say that this should REDUCE the number of ideas that can be represented (1000-fold!). But the idea is that you have ‘overlapping sets’, i.e., idea #1 may occur when a given set of 1000 neurons is active (and reverberating in order to give some persistance to the idea over some time, say a second), and idea #2 is active when another set of 1000 neurons is active, BUT the set of 1000 neurons constituting idea #2 can have many of the same neurons that constitute set #1. So, a given neuron can contribute to many different sets. Imagine that the brain had just 2000 neurons, and each idea arose from a specific set of 1000 neurons. With overlapping sets you could represent a LOT more than 2000 ideas. To read more about this type of model of cognition,
go to http://www.columbia.edu/~nvg1/Wickelgren/
It’s the site of Wayne Wickelgren, a cognitive neuroscientist who passed away about 5 years ago from Motor Neuron Disease. He was an amazing and brilliant person (graudated summa cum laude from MIT). I knew him when I was teaching at Columbia – he had retired from research but continued to work on theories of cognition and the brain even as his movement ability was lost (he had a special device set up so that he could press a key on a keyboard with minimal motor effort). On his site he put free pdf’s describing his ideas about neural sets (he calls them ‘webs’) and coding for ideas.

]]> Comment on District 9 by Daniel http://geekfriendly.org/blog/08/district-9/comment-page-1/#comment-36384 Daniel Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:39:53 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/?p=127#comment-36384 Yes, the best special effects is when audiences can never tell that a shot has effects in it. When the effects guys' role in a scene is completely ignored, that is the great complement! Yes, the best special effects is when audiences can never tell that a shot has effects in it. When the effects guys’ role in a scene is completely ignored, that is the great complement!

]]> Comment on Ha Ha! Old Pictures on the Internet! by Andrew Hyde http://geekfriendly.org/blog/08/ha-ha-old-pictures-on-the-internet/comment-page-1/#comment-35588 Andrew Hyde Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:57:13 +0000 http://geekfriendly.org/blog/?p=143#comment-35588 I love the clock in that photo. I love the clock in that photo.

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