Saturday, July 24, 2010
Saturday, August 15, 2009
My Chinese Zodiac Sign....See if You Agree
Chinese Zodiac: Fire Goat
As I started to become interested in Chinese symbols and characters, I also decided to get to know my Zodiac sign a little better. I was born in the year of the Goat and my fixed element is fire. Here is what I found on the web:"The Goat ( 羊 ) (also known as Sheep or Ram) is the eighth sign of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Chinese word for Sheep and Goat is the same, "Yang." That is why the confusion on the name.People born in the Year of Sheep are elegant and highly accomplished in the arts. They seem to be, at first glance, better off than those born in the zodiac's other years. But Sheep year people are often shy, pessimistic, and puzzled about life. They are usually deeply religious, yet timid by nature. Sometimes clumsy in speech, they are always passionate about what they do and what they believe in. Sheep people never have to worry about having the best in life for their abilities make money for them, and they are able to enjoy the creature comforts that they like. Sheep people are wise, gentle, and compassionate.In Chinese tradition, fire is one of five elements. It is associated with the planet Mars, summer, the south and the color red. It is also believed to govern the heart. Fire is associated with the qualities of dynamism, strength and persistence; however, it is also connected to restlessness."I leave it up to you the readers to figure out if the description is in anyway close to the real me. If you are interested in finding out more about your sign, here is a really good
Famous Fire Goat Personalities: Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Madhuri Dixit, Nicole Kidman
website:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Zodiac#The_Four_Animal_Trines
As I started to become interested in Chinese symbols and characters, I also decided to get to know my Zodiac sign a little better. I was born in the year of the Goat and my fixed element is fire. Here is what I found on the web:"The Goat ( 羊 ) (also known as Sheep or Ram) is the eighth sign of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Chinese word for Sheep and Goat is the same, "Yang." That is why the confusion on the name.People born in the Year of Sheep are elegant and highly accomplished in the arts. They seem to be, at first glance, better off than those born in the zodiac's other years. But Sheep year people are often shy, pessimistic, and puzzled about life. They are usually deeply religious, yet timid by nature. Sometimes clumsy in speech, they are always passionate about what they do and what they believe in. Sheep people never have to worry about having the best in life for their abilities make money for them, and they are able to enjoy the creature comforts that they like. Sheep people are wise, gentle, and compassionate.In Chinese tradition, fire is one of five elements. It is associated with the planet Mars, summer, the south and the color red. It is also believed to govern the heart. Fire is associated with the qualities of dynamism, strength and persistence; however, it is also connected to restlessness."I leave it up to you the readers to figure out if the description is in anyway close to the real me. If you are interested in finding out more about your sign, here is a really good
Famous Fire Goat Personalities: Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Madhuri Dixit, Nicole Kidman
website:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Zodiac#The_Four_Animal_Trines
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Gay Friendly, 1990's:, 2000's: We were Baptized too and Claming our Right to a Seat at the Table!
http://http//www.discipleshomemissions.org/AIDSministry/
Interfaith Declaration from the Council of Religious AIDS Networks
As long as one member of the human family is afflicted, we all suffer. In that spirit, we declare our response to the AIDS pandemic:
We are called to love: God does not punish with sickness or disease but is present together with us as the source of our strength, courage and hope. The God of our understanding is, in fact, greater than AIDS.
We are called to compassionate care: We must assure that all who are affected by the pandemic [regardless of religion, race, class, age, nationality, physical ability, gender or sexual orientation] will have access to compassionate, non-judgmental care, respect, support and assistance.
We are called to witness and do justice: We are committed to transform public attitudes and policies, supporting the enforcement of all local and federal laws to protect the civil liberties of all persons with AIDS and other disabilities.
We further commit to speak publicly about AIDS prevention and compassion for all people.
We promote prevention: Within the context of our respective faiths, we encourage accurate and comprehensive information for the public regarding HIV transmission and means of prevention. We vow to develop comprehensive AIDS prevention programs for our youth and adults.
We acknowledge that we are a global community: While the scourge of AIDS is devastating to the United States, it is much greater in magnitude in other parts of the world community. We recognize our responsibility to encourage AIDS education and prevention policies, especially in the global religious programs we support.
We deplore the sins of intolerance and bigotry: AIDS is not a "gay" disease. It affects men, women and children of all races. We reject the intolerance and bigotry that have caused many to deflect their energy, blame those infected, and become preoccupied with issues of sexuality, worthiness, class status, or chemical dependency.
We challenge our society: Because economic disparity and poverty are major contributing factors in the AIDS pandemic and barriers to prevention and treatment, we call upon all sectors of society to seek ways of eliminating poverty in a commitment to a future of hope and security.
We are committed to action: We will seek ways, individually and within our faith communities, to respond to the needs around us.
AIDS Ministry Network
Interfaith Declaration from the Council of Religious AIDS Networks
As long as one member of the human family is afflicted, we all suffer. In that spirit, we declare our response to the AIDS pandemic:
We are called to love: God does not punish with sickness or disease but is present together with us as the source of our strength, courage and hope. The God of our understanding is, in fact, greater than AIDS.
We are called to compassionate care: We must assure that all who are affected by the pandemic [regardless of religion, race, class, age, nationality, physical ability, gender or sexual orientation] will have access to compassionate, non-judgmental care, respect, support and assistance.
We are called to witness and do justice: We are committed to transform public attitudes and policies, supporting the enforcement of all local and federal laws to protect the civil liberties of all persons with AIDS and other disabilities.
We further commit to speak publicly about AIDS prevention and compassion for all people.
We promote prevention: Within the context of our respective faiths, we encourage accurate and comprehensive information for the public regarding HIV transmission and means of prevention. We vow to develop comprehensive AIDS prevention programs for our youth and adults.
We acknowledge that we are a global community: While the scourge of AIDS is devastating to the United States, it is much greater in magnitude in other parts of the world community. We recognize our responsibility to encourage AIDS education and prevention policies, especially in the global religious programs we support.
We deplore the sins of intolerance and bigotry: AIDS is not a "gay" disease. It affects men, women and children of all races. We reject the intolerance and bigotry that have caused many to deflect their energy, blame those infected, and become preoccupied with issues of sexuality, worthiness, class status, or chemical dependency.
We challenge our society: Because economic disparity and poverty are major contributing factors in the AIDS pandemic and barriers to prevention and treatment, we call upon all sectors of society to seek ways of eliminating poverty in a commitment to a future of hope and security.
We are committed to action: We will seek ways, individually and within our faith communities, to respond to the needs around us.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Streets of Tomorrow by Carla Vallet
http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT8R9AJwhE8&feature=PlayList&p=99BFA05558D9ACF8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15
Lyrics:
Streets of tomorrow
So many ways to go
the night is on my soul
all around my heart
running down my spine
and silence breaks the sound
gotta get to you
going up hill going down dale
coming to you
Streets of tomorrow
So many ways to go
To lead not to follow
I'll do anything
I'll go anywhere
You're seven seas away
I'm gonna drive all night
No more foolish pride
Lyrics:
Streets of tomorrow
So many ways to go
the night is on my soul
all around my heart
running down my spine
and silence breaks the sound
gotta get to you
going up hill going down dale
coming to you
Streets of tomorrow
So many ways to go
To lead not to follow
I'll do anything
I'll go anywhere
You're seven seas away
I'm gonna drive all night
No more foolish pride
Ants more rational than humans
In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our - multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed - selves.
This is not the case of humans being "stupider" than ants. Humans and animals simply often make irrational choices when faced with very challenging decisions, note the study's architects Stephen Pratt and Susan Edwards.
"This paradoxical outcome is based on apparent constraint: most individual ants know of only a single option, and the colony's collective choice self-organizes from interactions among many poorly-informed ants," says Pratt, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The authors' insights arose from an examination of the process of nest selection in the ant, Temnothorax curvispinosus. These ant colonies live in small cavities, as small as an acorn, and are skillful in finding new places to roost. The challenge before the colony was to "choose" a nest, when offered two options with very similar advantages.
What the authors found is that in collective decision-making in ants, the lack of individual options translated into more accurate outcomes by minimizing the chances for individuals to make mistakes. A "wisdom of crowds" approach emerges, Pratt believes.
"Rationality in this case should be thought of as meaning that a decision-maker, who is trying to maximize something, should simply be consistent in its preferences." Pratt says. "For animals trying to maximize their fitness, for example, they should always rank options, whether these are food sources, mates, or nest sites, according to their fitness contribution."
"Which means that it would be irrational to prefer choice 'A' to 'B' on Tuesday and then to prefer 'B' to 'A' on Wednesday, if the fitness returns of the two options have not changed."
"Typically we think having many individual options, strategies and approaches are beneficial," Pratt adds, "but irrational errors are more likely to arise when individuals make direct comparisons among options."
Studies of how or why irrationality arises can give insight into cognitive mechanisms and constraints, as well as how collective decision making occurs. Insights such as Pratt's and Edward's could also translate into new approaches in the development of artificial intelligence.
"A key idea in collective robotics is that the individual robots can be relatively simple and unsophisticated, but you can still get a complex, intelligent result out of the whole group," says Pratt. "The ability to function without complex central control is really desirable in an artificial system and the idea that limitations at the individual level can actually help at the group level is potentially very useful." Pratt is a member of Heterogeneous Unmanned Networked Team (HUNT), a project funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to enable to development of bio-inspired solutions to engineering problems.
What do these findings potentially say about understanding human social systems?
"It is hard to say. But it's at least worth entertaining the possibility that some strategic limitation on individual knowledge could improve the performance of a large and complex group that is trying to accomplish something collectively," Pratt says.
Source: Arizona State University (news : web)
This is not the case of humans being "stupider" than ants. Humans and animals simply often make irrational choices when faced with very challenging decisions, note the study's architects Stephen Pratt and Susan Edwards.
"This paradoxical outcome is based on apparent constraint: most individual ants know of only a single option, and the colony's collective choice self-organizes from interactions among many poorly-informed ants," says Pratt, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The authors' insights arose from an examination of the process of nest selection in the ant, Temnothorax curvispinosus. These ant colonies live in small cavities, as small as an acorn, and are skillful in finding new places to roost. The challenge before the colony was to "choose" a nest, when offered two options with very similar advantages.
What the authors found is that in collective decision-making in ants, the lack of individual options translated into more accurate outcomes by minimizing the chances for individuals to make mistakes. A "wisdom of crowds" approach emerges, Pratt believes.
"Rationality in this case should be thought of as meaning that a decision-maker, who is trying to maximize something, should simply be consistent in its preferences." Pratt says. "For animals trying to maximize their fitness, for example, they should always rank options, whether these are food sources, mates, or nest sites, according to their fitness contribution."
"Which means that it would be irrational to prefer choice 'A' to 'B' on Tuesday and then to prefer 'B' to 'A' on Wednesday, if the fitness returns of the two options have not changed."
"Typically we think having many individual options, strategies and approaches are beneficial," Pratt adds, "but irrational errors are more likely to arise when individuals make direct comparisons among options."
Studies of how or why irrationality arises can give insight into cognitive mechanisms and constraints, as well as how collective decision making occurs. Insights such as Pratt's and Edward's could also translate into new approaches in the development of artificial intelligence.
"A key idea in collective robotics is that the individual robots can be relatively simple and unsophisticated, but you can still get a complex, intelligent result out of the whole group," says Pratt. "The ability to function without complex central control is really desirable in an artificial system and the idea that limitations at the individual level can actually help at the group level is potentially very useful." Pratt is a member of Heterogeneous Unmanned Networked Team (HUNT), a project funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to enable to development of bio-inspired solutions to engineering problems.
What do these findings potentially say about understanding human social systems?
"It is hard to say. But it's at least worth entertaining the possibility that some strategic limitation on individual knowledge could improve the performance of a large and complex group that is trying to accomplish something collectively," Pratt says.
Source: Arizona State University (news : web)
Birds Take Quantum Physics to a New Leve: They see Earth's magnetic lines
Since the dawn of mankind, people have always looked upwards in admiration of the flocks of birds heading towards their summer or winter places, stretching wide across the sky, and flying purposefully in a single direction each year. How the animals managed to keep their direction and not get lost was a question few could claim to know the answer to, as it became a bit of a stretch to believe that each of the animals knew thousands of miles of landscape by heart. Now, investigators are starting to believe that the quantum world may play a crucial part in the birds' migration patterns, allowing them to guide the flocks following the planet's own magnetic lines.
Scientists now believe that an oxygen molecule, known as a superoxide, is able to combine with a light-sensitive protein inside the bird eye, and thus form an in-eye compass, which essentially lets the birds see where the Earth's magnetic lines are. “It connects from the subatomic world to a whole bird flying. That’s exciting!” Biphysical Journal Editor Michael Edidin said. His study hosted a new scientific paper detailing the finds in last week's issue. Avian magnetoreception expert Klaus Schulten, a biophysicist of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been the lead author of the paper.
Scientists now believe that an oxygen molecule, known as a superoxide, is able to combine with a light-sensitive protein inside the bird eye, and thus form an in-eye compass, which essentially lets the birds see where the Earth's magnetic lines are. “It connects from the subatomic world to a whole bird flying. That’s exciting!” Biphysical Journal Editor Michael Edidin said. His study hosted a new scientific paper detailing the finds in last week's issue. Avian magnetoreception expert Klaus Schulten, a biophysicist of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been the lead author of the paper.
According to the expert's theory, which was first published in 1978, biochemical reactions in the eyes of birds have as a direct effect the appearance of electrons spinning in certain manners when they are affected by magnetic fields. That is to say, it may be innate to the winged creatures to simply know the correct way the electrons in their eyes should be spinning and to become alarmed when their rotational patterns change. They would then strive to look for the direction that seems most familiar.
Despite the fact that the theory was met with a lot of skepticism when it first appeared, a growing body of pieces of evidence accumulated over the years shows that the quantum entanglement system that is formed in the eyes of birds is so complex, that physicists will need at least a few more decades before creating systems that could rival with it. Additionally, biologists have found molecular pieces of evidence that the system exists, and have recently identified the oxygen as one of the main elements that cause the quantum entanglement.
At this point, no one in the research community can say for sure how birds perceive the magnetic fields. Some say that they see them as dots at the edge of their vision, while others are convinced that the winged creatures see colors or hues. However, there are those who believe that the animals are simply flying towards the light, Wired reports.
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