I couldn't be there for my former Master's student graduation, so I wrote her a speech that was delivered today by her other supervisor, Branka. Wishing her a fantastic future wherever she may go :-)
--
Meryl Varadinov is awesome.
A 5 minute speech will not do her justice, unfortunately, but we will have to make do.
By the way, I'm not her supervisor. Sasha, Meryl's supervisor, wrote this cheeky speech from the cold depths of Estonia, and he apologises profusely for not being able to be here to give it in person. Although, on second thought, he could have done it over Skype, especially since that company is from Estonia. Anyway, it probably would not have worked because of Murphy's first (and last) law - the toast always falls on the buttered side, and video-conferencing always breaks at the most crucial moment.
Anyway, back to Meryl. You now know she is awesome. However, some of you might not know why.
Meryl is awesome because she fiercely believes in great science. Great science is where it does not matter whether your p value is above or below 0.05, but what matters is the truth. Someone once said that in war, the first thing that dies is the truth. You could not substitute Meryl for war, because Meryl is too honest to compromise. You can tell from her sarcastic comments in the face of adversity, and in the face of her supervisors, like me (well, not me, but the guy in Estonia).
Meryl is awesome because she is greater than her work. She's not just a scientist, but she's also an activist for peace, democracy and all the things that matter in this world. Which means she's also an activist for lolcats. She's battled for truth in the streets of Sofia. That's in Bulgaria for those amongst you who are crap at geography, like her supervisor. If you are not crap at Latin as well, you will know that "sofia" means wisdom in Greek. And Meryl is wise beyond her years. She reads between the lines when she reads the news, and watches between the pixels when she watches TV.
Meryl is awesome because she keeps on getting better and better every day. By the end of this speech she will be uber-awesome. She's never stuck in one place, she absorbs knowledge and skills like a sea sponge absorbs sea water and water pollution. Except that knowledge and skills are good and sea pollution is bad. When she started her master's degree she could not program at all, but in a few months she learned to do it like a pro. She still has to earn the rest of the letters in "professional", but I'm certain she will be one of the most awesome programmers in the building by the end of her PhD.
Meryl is awesome because she managed to turn a bearded mad scientist project starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and analysis code filled with "mews", "woofs" and other animal sounds into a "great success". As Doge would say: Much Hippocampus activation. So Multiple Comparison Corrected. Wow. And that's even more amazing when you realise that Gwyneth Paltrow is on Meryl's most un-wanted list...
Meryl is awesome because of a 1001 more reasons. Yes, one thousand and one, not nine, as the speech is not written in binary, but in the decimal system. Anyway, you will have to make do with the above four reasons. Here's the abstract, which you always write at the end: Meryl is awesome because of her scientific integrity, her passion, her intelligence and her motivation.
Given how solemn and serious a graduation event is, her supervisor should have probably written a solemn and serious speech for her to "celebrate her merits and accomplishmens". Please read the bit between bunny ears with a posh British accent. Oi, you are not supposed to read this bit! Anyway, a serious and solment speech can't do Meryl justice, because she's not just well rounded and generally excellent. She's also awesome.
Now guys, what are you waiting for? Give her the applause she deserves.
Friday 24 October 2014
Saturday 6 September 2014
Kill your dragons
Today I was back at my old school, the International School Hilversum. 10 years after my graduation I was to give a keynote for students who were graduating themselves.
Kill your dragons
Before I start, let me get this out of the way. I'm not the best person to give an inspirational speech to you. For one, I get awfully anxious in crowds. And especially because I see my life as more complicated than inspirational. Especially today.
You will surely understand what I mean when I tell you where I am from. I'm from Kiev, Ukraine. This last year has been tough on us. From the Euromaidan demonstrations last November to the current Anti-Terrorist Operation in the east, many innocent people have died. Holland has suffered too, since the atrocious downing of the MH17. Most of us know innocent people who have died. It would seem as if things can’t get any worse…
Uncertainty and change rule these days, and not only because of the mad things going on around the world. Many of you may feel lost, wondering what you will do with your diploma, your gap year, your career, your life. Some might be certain of where you want to go and how to get there. I hope I can speak to both of you.
You are probably wondering, how can this guy relate to us? He’s already finished university, has landed a job, he has it all figured out. I don’t now and I didn’t back then, when I was sitting where you are. So what can I give you then? All I can give you is my story.
I don’t come from money, though half my family are doctors. In the Soviet Union doctors earned rather little unless they took bribes. So my family were the poor kind of doctors. Growing up in Spain we became even poorer, up until I was 9 years old my parents and I slept together on a small mattress. I remember dreaming of going to University and saving my family, so I saved up my pocket change and gave it to my mother to put it in a savings account. I wish someone had told me to invest in Google then… My father, one hard step at a time, worked us out of poorness and things changed for the better, we then moved to Holland when I was 15. During my adolescence I had a myriad careers planned, from writer to doctor. Eventually I applied to Durham university to read Natural Sciences, since it was the broadest course I could do. But I also applied to Cambridge knowing I would not get in. Knowing this, I went to the interview wearing jeans, a leather jacket and sports shoes. I neither had a suit nor knew I should have had one, until I saw my elegant competitors. Surprisingly I got in, and doubted between doing cell biology and chemistry and psychology. Eventually, I stayed on for a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, might as well try and find out why my brain works the way it does. I didn’t. So I found work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Centre in Nijmegen. But I learned little about the brain, of which we truly know almost nothing. But I did learn that I did not want to be in academia, but rather to apply my knowledge. How, I don’t yet know…
Right now I’m where you are, at a huge crossroads. I might look stable, maybe even confident, but that is not how I feel. I feel vulnerable and that’s ok. I do not know my direction, but what I have learned gives me a compass. You have a compass too, and it should be your own.
Your compass has grown during these years of education. Hopefully you will have learned a great many things about languages, sciences and humanities. But much more importantly, hopefully you have learned to think better, to be critical of the world. To not take anything on face value, but to test if it is true. Philosophy, or “Theory of Knowledge” as they call it here is far more useful in the “real world” than any bit of knowledge. Because to learn facts is far easier than learning how to learn.
Today this is more important than ever, when everyone around you wants to convince you of something or get you to buy something. Every single thing a person says or writes sits on top of a fragile house of cards of assumptions and prejudices. My first advice to you, be *sceptics*. Be as critical of mainstream media as you are of conspiracy theories. Be as critical of the left as of the right. Be as critical of yourself as of others. Remember that we cannot touch the truth, and yet, we should try and get closer to it.
And getting closer to truth, you will start to reach to your true calling. This will be hard, it will be awfully painful and you will need to change to get there. Success is not an end, it’s a “path with a heart”, as Carlos Castneda once said. Don’t be afraid of the pain. It will reach you whether you like it or not. Joy, on the other hand, I have only experienced in the moments that I felt fearless.
Many of you will have seen or even participated in our Argentine Tango workshops some months ago. So you will know that my joy is dance. I found my joy when I was 23 years old at the behest of my best friend, and I had no idea of what it was like. The dance, the music, the embrace, the improvisation. I knew nothing of that, imagining exaggerated music and a rose in the mouth. Instead of cliches, what I found is a sort of “meditation”, a space without words or thoughts that is mine and mine alone that is simply present and feeling and love. I could have given in to the fear of looking ridiculous, feeling uncomfortable, I was so very shy I could barely ask a girl to dance. If fear had won, I would have never known this joy. A great composer, Anibal Troilo, once said “Tango awaits you”. Sometime you will find your joy, if it has not already found you. This is my second advice to you, find the *courage* to try new things, assume nothing, be brave enough to change your life for it.
And whatever you do, help those around you find their joys, whatever these are. Each one of you is different. You are privileged in experiencing so many people who are different from you, who hail from other countries, and have other beliefs or who feel differently. I told you to be sceptics, but this does not mean you should not be tolerant. I told you to not fear pain, but do not help create it. Don’t rush to judge a person by their skin, their wallet, their gender or their sexuality. I know what I speak of, one friend was called a liar and denied justice for being a woman, another friend in mind a man but in soul a woman hid her true nature, yet another’s friend skin made people say he was meant to pave roads rather than build dreams. My third advice then: *accept* and love them as they are, and accept and love yourself, even as you change.
Be tolerant, courageous sceptics, and you will change the world if you so wish. But remember, you can only do so when you embrace change yourselves. There is no other way to change the world than to change the world is to change ourselves. There is no shortcut…
Let me finish with a story from a Soviet film. The plot is simple, a descendent of Lancelot enters a town terrorised by a great three-headed dragon. As is usual for knights, he sets to rid the town of the dragon and save the girl. But the townspeople, instead of helping Lancelot, sabotage him. They give him a copper tray for a shield and a butter knife. They try to kill him with a poisoned knife. Against all odds, Lancelot obtains a sword, a balloon and a hat of invisibility from a handful of dissidents and slays the dragon. When he returns, the townsfolk excuse themselves before him. He tells them to kill the Dragon within themselves, to stand up for themselves. Instead they kneel before him. Frustrated, Lancelot walks into the snow, only to find the dragon alive and kicking, playing amongst the children. “Now the real fight begins” he says.
Kill your dragons.
Kill your dragons
Before I start, let me get this out of the way. I'm not the best person to give an inspirational speech to you. For one, I get awfully anxious in crowds. And especially because I see my life as more complicated than inspirational. Especially today.
You will surely understand what I mean when I tell you where I am from. I'm from Kiev, Ukraine. This last year has been tough on us. From the Euromaidan demonstrations last November to the current Anti-Terrorist Operation in the east, many innocent people have died. Holland has suffered too, since the atrocious downing of the MH17. Most of us know innocent people who have died. It would seem as if things can’t get any worse…
Uncertainty and change rule these days, and not only because of the mad things going on around the world. Many of you may feel lost, wondering what you will do with your diploma, your gap year, your career, your life. Some might be certain of where you want to go and how to get there. I hope I can speak to both of you.
You are probably wondering, how can this guy relate to us? He’s already finished university, has landed a job, he has it all figured out. I don’t now and I didn’t back then, when I was sitting where you are. So what can I give you then? All I can give you is my story.
I don’t come from money, though half my family are doctors. In the Soviet Union doctors earned rather little unless they took bribes. So my family were the poor kind of doctors. Growing up in Spain we became even poorer, up until I was 9 years old my parents and I slept together on a small mattress. I remember dreaming of going to University and saving my family, so I saved up my pocket change and gave it to my mother to put it in a savings account. I wish someone had told me to invest in Google then… My father, one hard step at a time, worked us out of poorness and things changed for the better, we then moved to Holland when I was 15. During my adolescence I had a myriad careers planned, from writer to doctor. Eventually I applied to Durham university to read Natural Sciences, since it was the broadest course I could do. But I also applied to Cambridge knowing I would not get in. Knowing this, I went to the interview wearing jeans, a leather jacket and sports shoes. I neither had a suit nor knew I should have had one, until I saw my elegant competitors. Surprisingly I got in, and doubted between doing cell biology and chemistry and psychology. Eventually, I stayed on for a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, might as well try and find out why my brain works the way it does. I didn’t. So I found work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Centre in Nijmegen. But I learned little about the brain, of which we truly know almost nothing. But I did learn that I did not want to be in academia, but rather to apply my knowledge. How, I don’t yet know…
Right now I’m where you are, at a huge crossroads. I might look stable, maybe even confident, but that is not how I feel. I feel vulnerable and that’s ok. I do not know my direction, but what I have learned gives me a compass. You have a compass too, and it should be your own.
Your compass has grown during these years of education. Hopefully you will have learned a great many things about languages, sciences and humanities. But much more importantly, hopefully you have learned to think better, to be critical of the world. To not take anything on face value, but to test if it is true. Philosophy, or “Theory of Knowledge” as they call it here is far more useful in the “real world” than any bit of knowledge. Because to learn facts is far easier than learning how to learn.
Today this is more important than ever, when everyone around you wants to convince you of something or get you to buy something. Every single thing a person says or writes sits on top of a fragile house of cards of assumptions and prejudices. My first advice to you, be *sceptics*. Be as critical of mainstream media as you are of conspiracy theories. Be as critical of the left as of the right. Be as critical of yourself as of others. Remember that we cannot touch the truth, and yet, we should try and get closer to it.
And getting closer to truth, you will start to reach to your true calling. This will be hard, it will be awfully painful and you will need to change to get there. Success is not an end, it’s a “path with a heart”, as Carlos Castneda once said. Don’t be afraid of the pain. It will reach you whether you like it or not. Joy, on the other hand, I have only experienced in the moments that I felt fearless.
Many of you will have seen or even participated in our Argentine Tango workshops some months ago. So you will know that my joy is dance. I found my joy when I was 23 years old at the behest of my best friend, and I had no idea of what it was like. The dance, the music, the embrace, the improvisation. I knew nothing of that, imagining exaggerated music and a rose in the mouth. Instead of cliches, what I found is a sort of “meditation”, a space without words or thoughts that is mine and mine alone that is simply present and feeling and love. I could have given in to the fear of looking ridiculous, feeling uncomfortable, I was so very shy I could barely ask a girl to dance. If fear had won, I would have never known this joy. A great composer, Anibal Troilo, once said “Tango awaits you”. Sometime you will find your joy, if it has not already found you. This is my second advice to you, find the *courage* to try new things, assume nothing, be brave enough to change your life for it.
And whatever you do, help those around you find their joys, whatever these are. Each one of you is different. You are privileged in experiencing so many people who are different from you, who hail from other countries, and have other beliefs or who feel differently. I told you to be sceptics, but this does not mean you should not be tolerant. I told you to not fear pain, but do not help create it. Don’t rush to judge a person by their skin, their wallet, their gender or their sexuality. I know what I speak of, one friend was called a liar and denied justice for being a woman, another friend in mind a man but in soul a woman hid her true nature, yet another’s friend skin made people say he was meant to pave roads rather than build dreams. My third advice then: *accept* and love them as they are, and accept and love yourself, even as you change.
Be tolerant, courageous sceptics, and you will change the world if you so wish. But remember, you can only do so when you embrace change yourselves. There is no other way to change the world than to change the world is to change ourselves. There is no shortcut…
Let me finish with a story from a Soviet film. The plot is simple, a descendent of Lancelot enters a town terrorised by a great three-headed dragon. As is usual for knights, he sets to rid the town of the dragon and save the girl. But the townspeople, instead of helping Lancelot, sabotage him. They give him a copper tray for a shield and a butter knife. They try to kill him with a poisoned knife. Against all odds, Lancelot obtains a sword, a balloon and a hat of invisibility from a handful of dissidents and slays the dragon. When he returns, the townsfolk excuse themselves before him. He tells them to kill the Dragon within themselves, to stand up for themselves. Instead they kneel before him. Frustrated, Lancelot walks into the snow, only to find the dragon alive and kicking, playing amongst the children. “Now the real fight begins” he says.
Kill your dragons.
Wednesday 13 August 2014
Binary is for robots
I see a worrying trend online, of people who appear to see a binary world, where there are "goodies" fighting against "baddies". Naturally, it follows that if they classify one side as a "baddie", then the other side must be a "goodie". Let me take an example that is close to heart, given my roots, that of recent events in Ukraine.
Today this is most obvious when you see cultured people declare things like:
And importantly, start asking yourself questions, some of these, for those who support Russia against the "annexation by NATO and the EU" are:
All it means is that I oppose lies and imperialism in all its guises. It means that I believe Ukraine should decide its own fate, without the interference of any foreign power. It means I seek truth and peace.
Today this is most obvious when you see cultured people declare things like:
- "The United States is an imperialist warmonger [therefore] Russia is just defending its interests"
- "Western media is biased [therefore] I trust the Russian news more"
Both leading to...
- "The US and Western media say that the MH17 was downed by pro-Russian separatists [therefore] it must have been downed by the fascist NATO-led Ukrainian junta".
This does not compute.
I'm by no means a "supporter" of the foreign policy of the United States. But surely when two imperialist countries fight a cold war, it makes no sense that one of them must be "good and trustworthy" simply because the other is "bad and untrustworthy".
To put it in scientific terms, the two hypotheses (of "goodness") are not mutually exclusive. This logical fallacy comes from a false dilemma, a forced choice between two poles.
Similarly, when you see bias in mainstream media (yes, I'm looking at you, Fox News, Russia Today, etc.), why should you rush to poorly documented websites that are:
To put it in scientific terms, the two hypotheses (of "goodness") are not mutually exclusive. This logical fallacy comes from a false dilemma, a forced choice between two poles.
Similarly, when you see bias in mainstream media (yes, I'm looking at you, Fox News, Russia Today, etc.), why should you rush to poorly documented websites that are:
- rife with conspiracy theories
- have no credible sources
- describe events in terms of "fascists", "nazis", "juntas", etc.
Instead, perhaps try to find sources that are:
- independent international agencies
- bloggers who are on the ground at the events
- in different languages if at all possible
And importantly, start asking yourself questions, some of these, for those who support Russia against the "annexation by NATO and the EU" are:
- Why is Russia's annexation of Crimea acceptable?
- How exactly were Russian people oppressed or hurt because of their language in Donetsk and Lugansk, or elsewhere?
- Why are the separatist leaders Girkin and Borodai Russian nationals, rather than Ukrainian, as well as many of their soldiers?
- Where do all the tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers that these men use come from?
- Why the noble Russian mainstream media post lies about crucified children, conspiracy planes filled with corpses (i.e. MH17) and spanish flight operators?
And a final note, this post does not mean that I approve of every decision made by either the EU, USA or Ukrainian governments, nor that I trust every Western media outlet. Nor does it mean I hate Russians (amongst whom I still have many friends), or any other nation.
All it means is that I oppose lies and imperialism in all its guises. It means that I believe Ukraine should decide its own fate, without the interference of any foreign power. It means I seek truth and peace.
Wednesday 2 April 2014
Access to Understanding 2014
It's been a while (almost 5 years) since I've participating in any sort of writing contest. I applied to the Access to Understanding contest where you have to summarise (abstract out) a scientific article. Curiously, the winning entry did the same article as I did :-)
I did not quite make the shortlist this time... I hope I'm not losing my magic touch! Anyway, here's my take:
Beat it!
I dare you to start listening to “Michael Jackson’s” song “Beat it” and resist its rhythm. Don’t tap your foot. Don’t drum your fingers. Don’t nod your head. It is hard to help it, and even if the beat does not invade your body, it still assails your mind. Our urge drives us to follow the rhythm, something we do effortlessly, almost unconsciously.
We cannot say that this capacity is uniquely human, as anyone surfing YouTube for “dancing parrots” can attest. However, it seems to be fairly rare in the animal kingdom. Clearly, being able to hear the beat helps when we are listening to music and let us to move in synchrony to music, maybe even dance. Importantly, our capacity to perceive and produce a predictable beat might even form the foundations of language itself, structuring the words we hear and the way we speak.
But how does our brain process the beat? Some very ancient brain structures appear to be key to beat perception. These are the basal ganglia, a conglomerate of deep brain structures that is located, you guessed it, at the base of the brain.
The putamen (pronounced pyu-tah-men) is a round subpart of the basal ganglia. It is named after its shape, Latin for the shell or husk of a fruit kernel. Previous studies have shown that this region becomes more active when people are listening to predictable beat sequences than non-beat sequences. However, what is unclear is whether the putamen is involved in finding the beat in the song, or in predicting how the beat will continue once it has been found.
Investigator, musician and TED speaker Jessica Grahn decided to answer this question together with James Rowe. To do so, they used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). This technique looks at how blood flow increases or decreases as brain regions that become more or less active. People of various musical backgrounds lay in the MRI scanner while listening to different beats. They heard sequences of sounds with either a predictable beat at different speeds, or similar sequences but without a predictable beat. Occasionally, after hearing a sequence, they had to press a button to say how well they could hear the beat.
Grahn and Rowe expected that the putamen predicts a sequence once the beat has been found. If so, the putamen should be more active when the next sequence is either the same, or at least has a similar speed, since the beat prediction does not change. If instead the putamen helps us find the beat, we should expect the opposite. It should become more active when the beat changes speed, as it would have to search again for the correct rhythm.
They found that people could easily distinguish beat and non-beat sequences. The participants clearly felt the beat, even when the speed of the sequences changed. Also, they found that the putamen was more responsive to beat sequences than non-beat sequences. Other brain areas were also activated by beat sequences, such as the supplementary motor area and left premotor cortex. These brain regions often act in concert with the basal ganglia, perhaps forming a conscious movement or body-based representation of the beat.
Non-beat sequences instead activated regions involved in precise timing, like cerebellum, and areas that are involved in difficult mental tasks, like parietal and inferior frontal cortex. These results were in line with Grahn's previous findings.
Critically, they also saw that the putamen was more active when the previous sequence was of a similar speed, compared to when it was faster or slower. This confirmed their suspicion that the putamen was engaged in predicting the beat, rather than finding it.
Curiously, they found that the putamen was similarly active in the first and second half of the experiment. Even though the sound sequences became more and more familiar, this did not change how the putamen reacted to them. Also, their findings were not related to musical expertise. Musical experts with more than 6 years of musical schooling did not engage the putamen any more or less than people with little or no training.
Why does this research matter, you might ask. If understanding our capacity to hear music is not enough, you should know that such research is key to understanding complex motor diseases. For instance, Parkinson’s disease affects the same beat-sensitive structures, the basal ganglia. Besides being unable to move fluidly, patients with Parkinson's also find it difficult to distinguish between different beats. But crucially, rhythm can have healing power. The power of the beat can restore movement to Parkinson's patients, who break free from their motionlessness when they hear music. If we are to beat the odds of brain disease, we'll need all help we can get.
I did not quite make the shortlist this time... I hope I'm not losing my magic touch! Anyway, here's my take:
Beat it!
I dare you to start listening to “Michael Jackson’s” song “Beat it” and resist its rhythm. Don’t tap your foot. Don’t drum your fingers. Don’t nod your head. It is hard to help it, and even if the beat does not invade your body, it still assails your mind. Our urge drives us to follow the rhythm, something we do effortlessly, almost unconsciously.
We cannot say that this capacity is uniquely human, as anyone surfing YouTube for “dancing parrots” can attest. However, it seems to be fairly rare in the animal kingdom. Clearly, being able to hear the beat helps when we are listening to music and let us to move in synchrony to music, maybe even dance. Importantly, our capacity to perceive and produce a predictable beat might even form the foundations of language itself, structuring the words we hear and the way we speak.
But how does our brain process the beat? Some very ancient brain structures appear to be key to beat perception. These are the basal ganglia, a conglomerate of deep brain structures that is located, you guessed it, at the base of the brain.
The putamen (pronounced pyu-tah-men) is a round subpart of the basal ganglia. It is named after its shape, Latin for the shell or husk of a fruit kernel. Previous studies have shown that this region becomes more active when people are listening to predictable beat sequences than non-beat sequences. However, what is unclear is whether the putamen is involved in finding the beat in the song, or in predicting how the beat will continue once it has been found.
Investigator, musician and TED speaker Jessica Grahn decided to answer this question together with James Rowe. To do so, they used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). This technique looks at how blood flow increases or decreases as brain regions that become more or less active. People of various musical backgrounds lay in the MRI scanner while listening to different beats. They heard sequences of sounds with either a predictable beat at different speeds, or similar sequences but without a predictable beat. Occasionally, after hearing a sequence, they had to press a button to say how well they could hear the beat.
Grahn and Rowe expected that the putamen predicts a sequence once the beat has been found. If so, the putamen should be more active when the next sequence is either the same, or at least has a similar speed, since the beat prediction does not change. If instead the putamen helps us find the beat, we should expect the opposite. It should become more active when the beat changes speed, as it would have to search again for the correct rhythm.
They found that people could easily distinguish beat and non-beat sequences. The participants clearly felt the beat, even when the speed of the sequences changed. Also, they found that the putamen was more responsive to beat sequences than non-beat sequences. Other brain areas were also activated by beat sequences, such as the supplementary motor area and left premotor cortex. These brain regions often act in concert with the basal ganglia, perhaps forming a conscious movement or body-based representation of the beat.
Non-beat sequences instead activated regions involved in precise timing, like cerebellum, and areas that are involved in difficult mental tasks, like parietal and inferior frontal cortex. These results were in line with Grahn's previous findings.
Critically, they also saw that the putamen was more active when the previous sequence was of a similar speed, compared to when it was faster or slower. This confirmed their suspicion that the putamen was engaged in predicting the beat, rather than finding it.
Curiously, they found that the putamen was similarly active in the first and second half of the experiment. Even though the sound sequences became more and more familiar, this did not change how the putamen reacted to them. Also, their findings were not related to musical expertise. Musical experts with more than 6 years of musical schooling did not engage the putamen any more or less than people with little or no training.
Why does this research matter, you might ask. If understanding our capacity to hear music is not enough, you should know that such research is key to understanding complex motor diseases. For instance, Parkinson’s disease affects the same beat-sensitive structures, the basal ganglia. Besides being unable to move fluidly, patients with Parkinson's also find it difficult to distinguish between different beats. But crucially, rhythm can have healing power. The power of the beat can restore movement to Parkinson's patients, who break free from their motionlessness when they hear music. If we are to beat the odds of brain disease, we'll need all help we can get.
Tuesday 18 March 2014
English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Communication, the critical skill of our day and age. Sadly, it suffers a fatal lack of clarity while showing no beauty whatsoever. Elegance is missing.
I could say education pays little attention to communication, but I would be (mostly) lying. Teachers do not ignore writing skills, they simply teach them dead wrong. We teach kids they must sound "professional" and "educated". We tell them that to appear intelligent, they must present their ideas to make sure only a handful of people can understand them. People fear and revere what they cannot comprehend. The elites of every profession speak their own secret language. Doctors, lawyers, economists, programmers, scientists...
Scientists are some of the worst. I would know, I am one. In the last 9 years I've read enough academic writing to know that reading academic writing is a one-way ticket to long-lasting migraines. It sins in making simple ideas complicated, describing them in confusing terms. Sometimes, reading an article, I wonder if the writer speaks English...
The same scientist who wrote the same article that reads like Hebrew or Greek will often, when you meet them personally, describe the same idea in simple words. Most academics can communicate clearly and simply, but choose otherwise because they believe they won't be respected if they communicate their ideas simply. Sadly, they are correct.
"You exaggerate!", you might exclaim. If you don't believe, find a few scientific abstracts and test each of them for complexity (e.g. using the Gunning Fog index, or the Writer's Diet test) to estimate how many years of schooling you need to read it and whether you will die of a heart attack reading it. Often, an abstract will require over 20 years of education (i.e. Elementary school + High School + Bachelor degree + Master + PhD + ...). Congratulations, dear scientific colleague, you made sure that even if scientific articles end up being available to the public (as they should be), they will never, ever be understood by anyone outside your field.
I know, I ask for the moon, men of letters. I ask you to be "concise and precise".
p.s. I'm not [always] a hypocrite :-)
Gunning Fog Index: 9.707 years of schooling to understand this blog post.
Writer's diet rating: "Fit & Trim" ("Lean" even on "Nouns" and "Prepositions")
I could say education pays little attention to communication, but I would be (mostly) lying. Teachers do not ignore writing skills, they simply teach them dead wrong. We teach kids they must sound "professional" and "educated". We tell them that to appear intelligent, they must present their ideas to make sure only a handful of people can understand them. People fear and revere what they cannot comprehend. The elites of every profession speak their own secret language. Doctors, lawyers, economists, programmers, scientists...
Scientists are some of the worst. I would know, I am one. In the last 9 years I've read enough academic writing to know that reading academic writing is a one-way ticket to long-lasting migraines. It sins in making simple ideas complicated, describing them in confusing terms. Sometimes, reading an article, I wonder if the writer speaks English...
The same scientist who wrote the same article that reads like Hebrew or Greek will often, when you meet them personally, describe the same idea in simple words. Most academics can communicate clearly and simply, but choose otherwise because they believe they won't be respected if they communicate their ideas simply. Sadly, they are correct.
"You exaggerate!", you might exclaim. If you don't believe, find a few scientific abstracts and test each of them for complexity (e.g. using the Gunning Fog index, or the Writer's Diet test) to estimate how many years of schooling you need to read it and whether you will die of a heart attack reading it. Often, an abstract will require over 20 years of education (i.e. Elementary school + High School + Bachelor degree + Master + PhD + ...). Congratulations, dear scientific colleague, you made sure that even if scientific articles end up being available to the public (as they should be), they will never, ever be understood by anyone outside your field.
I know, I ask for the moon, men of letters. I ask you to be "concise and precise".
p.s. I'm not [always] a hypocrite :-)
Gunning Fog Index: 9.707 years of schooling to understand this blog post.
Writer's diet rating: "Fit & Trim" ("Lean" even on "Nouns" and "Prepositions")
Thursday 16 January 2014
ASN bank, the ethical (sic) bank
I'm a great believer in ethical banks. When I lived in the UK I repeatedly tried to join the highly ethical slightly unethical Cooperative Bank, but because of my exceedingly long surname, was denied entry. I'm not joking. I finally managed to switch from an exceedingly unethical bank (Barclays), to a fairly unethical bank (Lloyds). Still, that was not enough for me, so soon after arriving in the Netherlands, I switched to ASN bank, which I joined in April 2012, almost 2 years ago.
I've promoted ethical banking on my blog and Facebook because I believe it's one of the most powerful steps you can make to effect actual change in the world (put your money where your mouth is). However, my bank has been swindling me on International Charges, charging me €15 for transactions and being non-transparent about it.
How does this look? It looks something like this...
The total is displayed in this manner, but it does not mention that you will pay €15 more when you finalise the transaction by clicking "Verzenden" (Send in Dutch). The charge is effectively hidden.
I challenged this non-transparency withangry (I get annoyed when I feel something is unfair, but you can see that my letter is civil) correspondence to my bank:
and obtained the following reply:
The information to the charge is available, of course. 2 pages prior in a half-hidden link to an Adobe .pdf document in Dutch. Yes, it is a Dutch bank, but they do translate documents less important to their customers (see this for an example, and another, and some more).
As we speak, I prepare another letter ramming home the lack of transparency in the payment confirmation screen.
UPDATE (28/01/2014):
I sent them a response letter 8 days ago:
Still no reply, time to visit their Facebook page...
I've promoted ethical banking on my blog and Facebook because I believe it's one of the most powerful steps you can make to effect actual change in the world (put your money where your mouth is). However, my bank has been swindling me on International Charges, charging me €15 for transactions and being non-transparent about it.
How does this look? It looks something like this...
The total is displayed in this manner, but it does not mention that you will pay €15 more when you finalise the transaction by clicking "Verzenden" (Send in Dutch). The charge is effectively hidden.
I challenged this non-transparency with
and obtained the following reply:
The information to the charge is available, of course. 2 pages prior in a half-hidden link to an Adobe .pdf document in Dutch. Yes, it is a Dutch bank, but they do translate documents less important to their customers (see this for an example, and another, and some more).
As we speak, I prepare another letter ramming home the lack of transparency in the payment confirmation screen.
UPDATE (28/01/2014):
I sent them a response letter 8 days ago:
Still no reply, time to visit their Facebook page...
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