Raw Consciousness

MY LIFE - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We get the year earlier down here in Puerto Rico.

(well, it's 11:19 pm right now but still...)

Also I got today the first computer version of the official Royal Academy of Spanish Dictionary. Yes, THE SPANISH LANGUAGE, ahem! Whatever lies within *IS* Spanish. More on this later but I gotta say it's friking great and seems all written in Java or something like that.

They include Windows XP, OS X, Linux installs amongst others.

FILM - Bowling For Columbine

If you have not seen this movie/documentary, then go out, rent it (or buy it), and watch it. It's required education by an american for americans.

I just watched it last night and.. umm.. I guess it made me very angry, so be warned.

VIDEO GAMES - Racthet & Clank: Going Commando - ga! Ga! GA!

I won at work a Japanese copy of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando and took a photo to share how the box looks:

A co-worker semi fluent in Japanese mentioned that it has a "ga! Ga! GA!" text underneath the title.. I suppose analogous to saying "go! Go! GO!" :-) and it reads "in a state of commando."

I am sure Crowdpleazer can read it all right :-)

Enjoy.

Update: For reference, here's how the U.S.A. box cover version looks:

MY LIFE - some politics

An good old-time friend of mine posted this on his blog:

click me to see
I thought it would be cool to repost it here.

SOFT DEV - C++ huh?!

Well, new category. The geek in me had to come out of the closet I guess...

I was experimenting with some design stuff (doing some prototyping) an isolated something that caught my eye in C++:

class A
{
public:
float x,y;
};

struct tTest
{
A &r;
A *p;
};

A myA;

tTest myTest = { myA, &myA };

myTest.r.x = 33;

Huh? I didn't know I could do that... moreover, I looked at the memory and the pointer and the ref are identical. Hmm.. hell Raist, what did you expect.. magic? Remember C++ is OO assembly. I must have misunderstood Vince a while back sometime, I thought they were something else for some reason (the references).

PSYCHOLOGY - physical beauty

Allright a bit late but here goes my first True Psychology Post(TM)

For a while the concept of physical beauty - when you find someone cute or hot - was a subject that really bugged me. I think it was because of the clash between my idealistic "when you love someone you are loving the person/spirit/whatever, someone is nice" and my "Ok, I don't see myself with > him < even if he's nice, or at least I mean, what about that cute guy over there" kinda deal. This bugged me to no end because my idealistic self (I think at heart I am still an idealist) always "scorned" the other side.. always "reminded" the other side that is is "the soul what matters."

For some reason, it's like when I used to see (or still?) someone who is handsome or cute, a bunch of prejudged characteristics about that guy get attributed to, at least in tendency. Maybe because the ideals of purity "are beautiful" and it is my way of pulling that forward in the material world?

I think one of the most difficult "what if" fantasies I used to run in my mind went like this:

"I walk into a bar. I see two guys. One is in a wheel chair and looks like his face was half burned in a car crash accident. You could tell he used to be very cute and/or handsome, by the other half of the face and his overall body. The other is standing on the left and is a very good looking man. Both look at me with some interest. With whom would I most likely be interested in going out?

answer: The guy on the left.

So let's say we get hitched and we have a great two year relationship.. but on his way home my partner one day has a car crash accident and ends up virtually exactly like the other guy in the wheelchair. Do I dump him?

answer: no

So if that is the case, and assuming the first guy in the wheelchair was a nice guy.. why I would pass on him so quickly? I would probably pass on him even if there was no other altnernative (note: maybe, just maybe, this has changed over time now. At the very minimum I would definitively talk to him)."

Some people have told me that when I say things like these "I just think too much." I guess it must be my curse, because I find myself thinking "too much" about many things in life, where often I see some sort of unresolved hypocrisy just to not think about it and move on. Anyway this is something that has been with me for a while.

About what is probably eight years ago now, I remember seeing a special on Discovery channel on the subject of physical beauty that was quite the eye opener. I remember three studies that caught my attention:

#1. The "baby looks at study" - they showed babies several faces of different people, faces rated as attactive and unatracctive in pairs. Turns out that the babies would look more at the "attractive" face.

#2. The interviewes - they had two women and two guys - all looking for employment and they were filming the interview process and other parts of the company that was going to hire them (how they got the rights for filming this for the study I don't know, but sure is interesting).

So, they had one guy and one women who were not very attractive, but had excellent qualifications for the job. The other pair was attractive/handsome/cute but had poor qualifications for the job, and also were not going to "talk much" during the interview. So in other words, would not "try to sell themselves."

Perhaps the most surprising in a way was the guy's interview. It was surprising because even between men, (I am making the statistical assumption the interviewers were not gay), the physical beauty factor affected the thing.

So basically the guy was interviewing for a stock broker position. With the "unnatractive guy" he was told they would get back to him. When they interviewed the attractive guy, he on purpose put a photo of him with his resume. The most surprising thing to me was that when the interviewer was making some photo-copies of the application at a photocopier, a co-worker stopped by, asked him about the guy he was interviewing, saw the photo and said "he looks like a stock broker."

Wow.

"He looks like a stock broker."

Just like that... all looks here, nothing else.

The story was very similar with the women, with the incredible extra that the interviewer was trying to justfiy before the camera why she was hiring the more attractive woman vs the other one. That was a sorry case :-)

#3. School children and the two teachers - These kids were to have two substitute teachers.. one was attractive and the other one wasn't. They would teach pretty much the same, and be with the kids a couple of days.

The kids where then asked what teacher they preferred and why. Pretty much the attractive one won, with one of the girls making the stunning statement that "I like her < the beautiful one > because she's smarter." The thing that came out consistently in all this is that the person that is considered the most attractive, is the one with the most average features. While I do think that the media and ads and all that do influence what we consider attractive, but it seems to me that the biological/genetical recognition does come first and sets the foundation for it.

So my theory is that evolutionary wise (and if you are a creationist, then think of it as a need anyway, so God put the mechanism), we needed to sort out humans from animals quickly. It was key to survival.. if you see a human you have other options than when you see a tiger or t. rex. And what is more ideal to conform to the human visuals than "an average human?"

Now, I would like to mention that I do think that since survival is the key element here, the brain can map beauty as appropriate. I know for example that in the medieval ages, overweight women were considered attractive. I think this is because they had the food, they had the money - so they were attractive as they were more key to survival. I think in this case the brain re-maps what is beauty, probably as an effect of avoiding the cognitive disonance (think of it as a painful fight between emotion and thought) between "she has the comforts, she has the money & food" vs "she is not that attractive." Survival wins.

Also I think this mapping happens when you get to know someone and all of a suddent they start looking like the most beautiful thing to you. It's like the person has to look the way they look becuase otherwise it wouldn't just feel the same. And of course the reverse can happen- you look at someone gorgeous, they open their mouth and you get a total turn off.

Where am I currently with this concept now in my life? I have come to accept that there is indeed such a thing called physical beauty - and I have finally come to terms so that I don't feel guilty about it. It's just the way it is. It's not the end all be all - and it can change for me over time, or over a person I am getting to know more and more. Several years ago I decided not to "shun" anyone from having a conversation with me and it seems to have paid off. Even when I am not attracted I have gotten to know some interesting people with curious stories to tell.

Comments & critiques welcome.

PS: My apologies for not having the references to these studies, but I am sure you can find them if you look. You don't have to take my word for them, I encourage you to verify them if you have the slightest doubt.

MY LIFE - damnit, I am sick....

This morning I was feeling queasy and it wasn't long until I started vomiting. So I have diarrea and I am vomiting... and the stomach hurts. I was wondering if this was the same F@#$# virus I used to get when I was a kid. Turns out this is what one of the FLU variants can do to you.

And I have what can be considered the puke-flu (don't know the real term there) and gastro-whatever flu (the one that causes the coffee to come out :-) ).

So no work today, decided to call in sick - er I mean, decided to go off work. My new boss was kind enough to drop me at the emergency room where I had to do a total time of about 6 hours (waiting + emergency bed + more waiting). This made me realize that I have zero family here pretty much which sucks...

Anyway I need rest + drink liquids...

My LIFE- Sleep Apnea & consequences...

Well I was checking out a place where I bought my sleep apnea equipment and did a search in Google for reviews of a particular device.

For those who don't know, I suffer from OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea) - which basically means in a nutshell when you sleep at night and relax, your throat tissue kinda "closes" creating the condition where:

#1. You constantly wake up during the night - this alone has several nasty side effects at daytime
#2. Your oxygen level in the blood drops below normal levels - this also has nasty consequences eventually leading up to a nice heart attack.

The good news on this is that if you use a CPAP (constant Pressured Air something or whatever it was), which is basically wear a mask at night connected to an air pump, that will pump air at a certain pressure, the treatment is farily effective assuming you don't take off the mask at night (I did for about the first 2 months and now I can't sleep without it).

Oh, and if you lose weight significantly, assuming your OSA is not genetic, it will probably just "go away." Score one more for the many complications that being overweight can bring.

Well, I was reading this faq which is like a doctor's analysis (that has sleep apnea) on recent studies and apparently there's a study that points to some visual response being "laggy" even after a couple of months of CPAP. - "Visual P300" -

"“Visual P300” refers to a Visual Evoked Response Potential (see Glossary) or typical change in brain waves occuring 300 msec after a flash of light. The potential appears as a waveform. A waveform normal in its amplitude (strength) and latency (delay after the light) is taken as one sign of normal mental processing. The latency especially is related to attention. It is prolonged (delayed) in conditions of mental deterioration due to brain disease, like dementia (such as in Alzheimer’s Disease), in disorders of metabolism that affect the brain such as liver or kidney failure, with inborn inability to read properly, and mental impairment after head injury."

And now the big one:

"P300 latency is also prolonged with obstructive sleep apnea, whether or not the person feels sleepy.
This study asked the question whether CPAP would correct this abnormality"

So in other words, the study suggests there may be irreversible neruological/brain damage... yay! I can feel my IQ dropping already - although in cheesy IQ test Paul found I came up with a 131 and I am a "math processor" or such (yeah, that probably means that I used to be a Stephen Hawkins then, oh optimism... :-) ). Honestly, it doesn't scare me much now that I am using the CPAP mask, but it does scare me that I was probably having sleep apnea for years before I decided to go through a sleep study... those are the years were permanent damage could have been done and I wouldn't be surprised if I suffered of this for even four years before the treatment.

I can say that there are times were I have felt somtimes tired (in the last years) and sometimes that "I don't feel I am here" - hmm not good!

Amazing how all can get mixed. God, good think I don't smoke or drink, because that would definitively do it for me.

Oh well, better order that new equipment and continue losing weight!

PSYCHOLOGY - hmm so what about it?

Yes, I said that I would be posting some psychology stuff. And actually part of the reason for this blog's title is tied to the fact that I would be talking about human behavior & thoughts in a "take no prisoners way, down to what it is" kinda way, yet nothing of the sort has yet happened.

I have let a combination of aprehension and "must try to carefully research some of the stuff" get the best of me on this, but this will change.

What a post this week on the concept of beauty (physical) and my findings so far in this life.

MY LIFE- couple of geek toy musings...

Well, recently there have been about three things geek-toy wise I have thought about:

1. iRiver mp3 player- actually this one I already though about for a while. I bought the iRiver IFP-395T 512 megs ram flash model. It has a built in FM radio, built in line-in mp3 encode record, can record from FM also, built in MIC (for voice), MP3 & Windows Media playback (Org Vorbis support comming up), *tons of configuration options*.

Why on Earth did I go with this instead of an iPod, due to its price? (yeah the 512 megs flash model IS expensive) I don't like the iPod's idea of the irrepleaceable battery, and I want something small for working out that will not get screwed up. I am sorry but when I think of a hardisk tumbling, it doesn't sound to me that it is going to last long.

Doesn't help that at www.dcresource.com, Jeff hasn't had much luck with IBM microdrives lasting too long...

The most amazing part is perhaps, that I am really using the iRiver pretty well. I am listening to npr ocasionally now, I am recording some of my own personal audio notes and I get to carry around some of my very personal favorite video game music :-)

More info at: www.iriver.com

2. A new laptop. What? A new what? Don't you um.. have one already? That nice Toshiba with 64 megs Vram Geforce 440 MX go? The one with the 1600x1200 screen? The one with that Toshiba exclusive subwoofer and built in SD reader?

Well.. yeah.. ahem. That's true. I actually like my laptop quite a bit, and it's my one and only computer (I no longer have a desktop). So why on Earth am I thinking of a new one?

Well it all started when I saw the new Toshiba M35 at a Circuit City. I don't know why but some Toshiba models just.. umm.. catch my instant attention. This machine is a Centrino @ 1.4 Ghz with a Geforce FX 5200, 32 megs Vram, but optional battery capacity of 7+ hours... and widescreen... and damn does it look nice sleek and all that.. and.. I saw it after all rebates at Compusa for $1450.

Since if I jump and buy that I would definitively not keep my laptop, I would imagine I would probably have to pay about a $600-$800 "upgrade difference." Maybe even less, since my current laptop is still in Toshiba's nice warranty (the one where you can spill coffee on your keyboard and they will replace it, one incident like that per year). So it would make the purchase a bit near impulse to me..

What is holding me? Well first, those 32 megs vram. Hmm.. kinda little... then the screen resolution, being widescreen while it looks kick ass and particularly for playing DVD's (they had a DVD of Jennifer Lopez in concert and it looked absolutely amazing), it is 1280x800. But I would be coming down from 1600x1200.. and honestly, while some people find my display making everything too small, having that extra area for work being it be C++ coding, browsing, digital photo editing.. it would be a bummer. But still I toyed with the idea, and I still couldn't shake the 5200 w/ 32 vram feeling... not to mention that the 5200 Go performance really sucks.

It is to my surprise that I see Gateway just introduced a new Centrino model, but with a Radeon mobility 9600 w/64 megs Vram, a slot loading (like the Apple powerbooks) DVD-RW, widescreen also, faster hardisk, *2* firewire ports - one little firewire (non-powered) and a normal bigger firewire (6-pin, powered), *subwoofer*, etc. etc. (Gateway m505 series). and at a relatively speaking, affordable price. In fact without rebates, it's virtually at the same price of that other new Toshiba.

I saw it yesterday in person and it is really a nice interesting design. But I just can't shake the resolution of the screen.. still if you are looking for a laptop that can last 4 hours + on battery, and will be able to play Halflife 2 decently, I think this is the machine to get.

So I decided to pass... and I see DELL now has a WUXGA (that's 1920x1200!!!!!), with a Radeon 9600 *PRO* w/ 128 megs vram! and all that.. and .. well I don't trust DELL in general though.. and it all climbs to about $2500.. Relatively speaking not bad for the price, but now it's not that "impulse" purchase I at first felt with the Toshiba.

Oh and the other idea that got into my head was the new Toshiba M200 Tablet PC. To my surprise they offer it with a Centrino all the way up to 1.7 Ghz, a 7200 rpm hardisk and a 5200 Geforce FX w/ 32 megs. The 5200 geforce fx again, is not a big performer, but having this on a tablet PC means it probably outclasses the rest in the graphics department... and the screen resolution is SXGA+ - 1400 by 1050 which is not that bad.

Why on Earth a Tablet PC now? Well if I can never again write notes on paper THAT WOULD BE KEWL. But of course, I don't know how well that works, and I have to make sure I can run Warcraft 3 well on that machine. That's one thing though, if it can run any Blizzard game, then I don't care all that much about the rest.. really...

The Toshiba has the peculiar feature also of speech recognition (I wonder how well that would work with my accent) and two accelerometers (sp?) which makes the machine recognize if you are using it in landscape or portrait modes, and you can scroll up/down in a window by tilting the machine.

So what's holding me here? Again, price, and I really dont' know if I truly will use the Tablet PC's features.... I need to check out one for real first and see how it goes.

So from all this I gather that I want better battery life (my current laptop is about 1 hour, 40 mins), and a speed bump would be nice since I am dealing now with digital photography, although my laptop is still decent.

Anyway, I think I will probably keep my laptop and wait another round... I still like Toshiba's in general...

----

#3. Microsoft's new One Note

Many know I am not a super fan of big MS but I do like to give credit were due, and from reading a description about this application I decided to see if Microsoft had a trial- which they did.. and I downloaded it and have been using that for the last two days.

Wow... it's quite nice actually. It's basically an application for "writting down notes" - just like having a virtual notebook... and its gui/workflow/way of editing text/grouping text is intuitive, fast, easy and makes sense.... Makes me feel I have the flexibility of a whiteboard without the mess... although it's all text but you can draw pictures. On a tablet PC this application is probably at its best....

I understand now why I like Excel so much- it's the only app where I usually make lists and move text here and there quite easily, and One Note makes it even more natural to do this.... except I also use ocasionally Excel's ability to add a column/multiply numbers.. so if Microsoft added some "very light" Excel capabilities but keeping in mind the workflow or "intuitive" interface of One Note that would own.

A download just to check-out how it works is recommended... just brainstorm some mini project and see how it feels using it once you get the basics... I have to admit I have been *addicted* to it in the last two days...