Revolutionary Learning

What youtube has brought us is way more than hilarious moments that break the monotonous cycle of work and viral videos out of control. It has brought about a revolution in learning. Now the lucky bastards of the younger generations can tap into this immense resource of knowledge and information right under their fingertips.

I cant get over the power of learning through visual means. Those of us who thrive on imaginary visuals thought up in the chambers of our brains that allow us to comprehend new things, find youtube and the like an amazing source for learning new things. Things we never thought possible a few years ago.



The days without internet were not long ago for those like me who can still remember the days when the term "Internet" started spawning off the tongues of friends more well-read than I. I can remember the first time I heard it. I couldn't comprehend it.

Anyway, nostalgia aside, say we wanted to learn a song on the guitar. Back in the day, I was lucky enough to be learning during the internet phase but before youtube had matured. I used to read tabs off the net, print them out and study them hard. Nowadays a simple search on youtube will show you a person playing the guitar and playing the song that you want to know how to play and chances are you'll find a visual tutorial on how to play it.

The power of visualizing something has been inscribed in the history of man, for example, the ancient Egyptians conveyed detailed stories of the afterlife in vivid pictures. The steps a man goes through as he is judged before the Gods, is carved out and painted on walls of tombs and temples for the people to see and visualize what happens in the afterlife. Vision is the most powerful sense people have. It is the most perceiving of our senses.



It goes without saying, that the ability to record visuals and transmit them over the internet is an amazing capability. For example, I took a course in linear algebra and found videos from Professor Strang at MIT. In them, he explained linear algebra in a simple way. This was extremely beneficial. I was not physically present in the classroom but could see what was going on. The alternative would be to filter through books on the subject and write up notes or something.

So I'm happy to be witnessing this powerful means of conveying knowledge and thought I would share this with you.

End of The World

I stumbled upon a webpage totally and utterly by accident today. I typed in "goo" and hit enter before I could finish typing google :S.

A page popped up. It was a wikipedia page with the title: "Grey goo". It didn't seem interesting at all. It seemed like one of those useless entries you ignore. Out of curiosity I read the first sentence. It caught my attention!. It read: Grey goo "is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves — a scenario known as ecophagy ("eating the environment")" :S What the ****!!!??? Visions from the movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still", started flowing through my mind...

So its a term coined by Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation in which he talks about tiny atom-size machines and the uses of such machines in our lives. Interesting stuff...

Dwarf Planets (Poor Pluto)

In 2006 formerly classified planet, Pluto was striped of its planet status and reclassified as a dwarf planet.



The key difference between the otherwise identical planet and dwarf planet is the fact that dwarfs share their orbit space with other objects with similar sizes. In the end stages of planet formation, a planet will have cleared the neighbourhood of its own orbital zone, meaning it has become gravitationally dominant. This means that there are no other bodies of comparable size other than its own satellites or those otherwise under its gravitational influence. The current definition of a planet adopted by the International Astronomical Union only includes those bodies which have "cleared the neighbourhood of its orbit." A large body which meets the other criteria for a planet but has not cleared its neighbourhood is classified as a dwarf planet. In Pluto's case, it shares its orbital neighbourhood with a distinct population of objects called the Kuiper belt (Pluto is the largest of these objects).

NB: Astronomers and other experts are debating the definition of a dwarf planet and whether or not Pluto should be classified as one.

Circadian Rhythm - The "Biological Clock"

The Circadian Rhythm is what we call informally - the "biological clock". This rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living entities. Circadian rhythms are generated from within living organisms and can be synchronized by external events, called Zeitgebers. The primary Zeitgebers is daylight. These rhythms allow organisms to anticipate and prepare for precise and regular environmental changes.



The main biological clock in mammals is located in part of the brain (the suprachiasmatic nucleus - SCN). Destruction of the SCN results in the complete absence of a regular sleep/wake rhythm. The SCN receives information about illumination through the eyes. The retina of the eyes contains not only photoreceptors but also photoresponsive cells. These cells, which contain a photo pigment are linked to the SCN. If cells from the SCN are removed and cultured, they maintain their own rhythm in the absence of external triggers (interesting!). It appears that the SCN takes the information on day length from the retina, interprets it, and passes it on to the pineal gland. In response the pineal secretes the hormone melatonin. Secretion of melatonin peaks at night and recedes during the day.

There are many health problems associated with disturbances of the human circadian rhythm. Disruption to the rhythm usually has a negative effect. Many travelers have experienced the condition known as jet lag, with its associated symptoms of fatigue, disorientation and insomnia. A number of other disorders are associated with irregular functioning of circadian rhythms. Disruption to rhythms in the longer term is believed to have significant adverse health consequences on peripheral organs outside the brain, particularly in the development or exacerbation of cardiovascular disease. The suppression of melatonin production associated with the disruption of the circadian rhythm may increase the risk of developing cancer.

NB: A number of studies have concluded that a short period of sleep during the day, a power-nap, does not have any effect on normal circadian rhythm, but can decrease stress and improve productivity.


[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Origin]

Computer Vision Vs. Image Processing

Computer vision is different to image processing.

Image processing tends to focus on 2D images. It look at how to transform one image to another by pixel-wise operations such as contrast enhancement, local operations such as edge extraction or noise removal, or geometrical transformations such as rotating the image. This characterization implies that image processing neither require assumptions nor produce interpretations about the image content. Computer vision tends to focus on the 3D scene projected onto one or several images, e.g., how to reconstruct structure or other information about the 3D scene from one or several images. Computer vision often relies on more or less complex assumptions about the scene depicted in an image.

Vector Graphics Vs. Raster Graphics

Curiosity killed the Cat! Not in my case - I'm looking into something called Vector Graphics.

Vector graphics...AKA geometric modeling or object-oriented graphics. OOG...hehe.
Vector graphics is the use of geometric primitives like points, lines, curves and polygons which are modeled by mathematical equations to represent images.

Vector graphics is the opposite of Raster Graphics. Raster Graphics is representing an image by an array of pixels (also the technique used for rendering photographic images). This mechanism makes images pixelate as you zoom in, as you can see in the picture below.



This pixelation does not happen with vector graphics. Vector graphics files store the lines, shapes and colors that make up an image as mathematical formulas. A vector graphics program uses the mathematical formulas to construct the screen image by building the best quality image possible, given the screen resolution, from the mathematical data. This is why you see the difference between both techniques in the picture above. Vector graphics render themselves using math equations according to the resolution of the image.

So this is an exceedingly brief look at the two techniques. For a complete and detailed description of the PROs and CONs of each see Wikipedia - Vector Graphics

Stay tuned for more posts...

Why do we stick out our tongue to focus?

The real reason to this, psychologists say, is because there is a significant amount of background processing that goes on in the brain that controls the movement of our tongue. We are of course unaware of this but when a person is trying to concentrate on a mind-intensive task at hand they tend to involuntarily stick out their tongue or fixate their tongue between their teeth or up against the top of the ceiling. This is to relieve the brain of any background processing and to fully focus on the task.



Quite interesting...