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I, Borg…

So, I was sitting in class this morning and we were learning about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system(s). Overall, these are part of the autonomic nervous system, which includes the parts of the body that are not under our control, including the heart and the lungs. Generally, the circuitry is relatively simple in concept, yet does include some more complicated features. As in, depending on the system, the sympathetic side of the system will be excitatory (as in, turn “on”) while the parasympathetic will be inhibitory (as in, turn “off”).

My word choice of “circuitry” was on purpose, of course, and that brings me to the point of the posting… I find it rather interesting how I developed interests in two radically different things that are completely related in function: computers and the brain. I’ve been interested in all things “tech” for many a year now, building new computers, installing alternative operating systems, etc…and now I’ve begun a graduate school journey largely focusing on the central nervous system and its function within the body. Just as computers talk in “1s” and “0s” (i.e. binary), the nervous system works very similarly where connections are either made or not made, allowing for basic functions like movement and memory.

I guess I just don’t know whether my interest in these seemingly disparate subjects came from. Was I first fascinated by computer circuits or neuronal circuits? Or, was my interest in some facet inherent to both? Or, on a larger scale, is this how all our interests and hobbies come together? Do people get interested in one subject and then learn about a related one…or do they get interested in some concept that ends up leading to the two different subject areas?

…or maybe this is just a stupid question… Regardless, these are thoughts I had in class and figured I’d share them… 😛

P.S. The subject heading is, of course, a Star Trek reference, where the “Borg” are a synthetic race of cyborgs representing the perfect marriage of organic life and machine. The more I learn about the nervous system, the more you realize that Man and Machine are more similar than we would otherwise realize…

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A few links…

For those of you who missed the Daily Show a few nights ago, and have seen the new Geico commercial with Little Richard, you should check out his interpretation of George Bush’s 9/11 speech…

Secondly, there’s apparently a show in Britain called “Extras,” about extras on TV shows who try to get their scripts read by famous actors… Well, they did a bit with Patrick Stewart, and it’s amusing…

Mom, you should watch both… Actually, everyone should watch the first one, and anyone who cares about Capt. Picard should also watch the second…

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Grrr….

Well, another snag in the employment road…apparently the printouts of my transcripts were not good enough, but I wasn’t told this until this week, when I’m supposed to start working on Monday and they have to have my “official” transcripts before I can start…I’m beginning to think there’s something seriously wrong with me. Anyway, I’ll let you know if I ever really get to work.

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Country = Bad

Shoe

Sorry…it just had to be said…hehehe… Although, to their credit, the Dixie Chicks aren’t nearly as appalling as Toby Keith and the like…

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Need A Time-Waster?

Then look no further! Joe, Luke and I make use of this page frequently when we were managers at ITS a few summers ago…? The page is known as FilmWise Invisibles. The basic idea is that you are given a picture and you have to identify the movie. The problem is: they’ve erased the people within the picture, so you have to guess what movie it is based on the scene and clothes the actors are wearing. Some are really obvious, and others are really obscure… Anyway, they have a new one posted every week…and they’ve been doing it for 301 weeks now…

So yeah, if you like movies and wanna kill some time, give these a try… They’re surprisingly addictive… 😉

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Facebook Update

Apparently, Facebook is listening to the complaints:

“They’ve shared all right. And Facebook is listening. On Sept. 7, the site is ratcheting up privacy protections, the result of around-the-clock coding. On their privacy settings page, people will be given greater control over what items will or won’t be included in news feeds. ‘We are giving people the control they’ve been asking for,’ says Facebook spokeswoman Melanie Deitch.”

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Finally…

I have something to post about! So, first and most exciting, I just heard back from Hillsboro Treatment Center in Jefferson County and I’ll go fill out my paperwork next week and then I can start working! Even though it’s a little far away, I think it’ll be a nearly perfect job for me, so I’m really glad about finally getting this whole job thing worked out.

Second, and a little less exciting, is that I had an appointment with a cardiologist this morning to get checked out for Brugada Syndrome. It seems at this point that I don’t have it since my EKG looked completely normal, but the cardiologist did hear a definite heart murmur, so I’ll be going back in for more tests later this month, but the really nice doctor doesn’t seem to think that it should be anything to be too concerned about right now.

Hopefully, more exciting things will happen soon so I’ll have more to type about than the progress of my knitting projects and which episode of Gilmore Girls is on today!

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Of Facebook and Big Brother…

So, Slashdot had a posting discussing the new changes on Facebook, which many of you use frequently… As many of you noticed this morning when you logged on to change your status, there’s a new “feeds” feature that really ramps up the stalking factor to a whole new level… Personally, I didn’t really care that much, besides the fact that I can’t seem to find a way to disable it.

Well…apparently more than a few people are rather annoyed about it, pointing out a variety of privacy issues…according to Slashdot, though, many “protest groups” have formed, the largest of which has 10,000 members… I link to CampusProgress.org and a student homepage at some university I’ve never heard of (University of Mary Washington, anybody?) as examples of just how irate some people are over the changes. A few quotes from the latter link were kinda amusing, regardless:

“When we join facebook, we automatically give up a little bit of our privacy. To use Facebook has always been ‘socially-acceptable stalking.’ Now, though, they’ve just gone too damned far. No one wants their girlfriend or boyfriend knowing when they’ve commented on a photo, written on a wall, or anything else. No one wants people to see that they’ve left a group; it could offend someone. No one really wants to see the change in status of someone’s love life.”

And from the CollegeProgress article:

“A Facebook profile now displays your online social exploits since mid- August. It notes when you wrote on someone?s wall, and when you commented on a photo, along with other new details such as your responses to event invitations, your new friends, and what groups you join. Before, as many of us know, you could write on a wall in relative privacy. It could be a sneaky affair. And commenting on someone else?s photo was something that few would notice. Wall and comment communications, while public, were not advertised.

Now, every time you do anything on Facebook, you issue a bulletin for all of your friends. Now no one will miss the fact that you think you look horrible in a picture, or that you didn’t accept an invitation to someone’s event, or that you wrote what you considered to be a funny item for your list of activities (‘Trying not to incriminate myself on facebook to all my future employers’) and then thought better of it ten minutes later and took it down.”

I dunno…personally, I figure that if you’re posting this kind of information on Facebook in the first place, you’re just asking for trouble…but at the same time, I can understand where problems can and will arise. Needless to say, I’m a). glad I’m not in college anymore, and b). glad I’m married.

Any thoughts?