Hello and happy Halloween!
So, I was on my friend Brian's website TruTricks, which is filled with all sorts of little tidbits of information and nifty things to make life generally more awesome and I stumbled upon this little bit of information:
Wired recently released that Twitter can be used to predict the stock market. I found that rather neat!
Basically, what they found is pretty straight forward. That Twitter, being a website that functions as millions of little mini-blogs can give an acturate reading of people's mood. Although this is by no means an exact science, it makes sense that Twitter and the "blogosphere" in general (I'm not sure how I feel about that word, but we'll use it) can give a thermomoter read on how hot or cold people's general temperment may be.
Now, the interesting thing is that they found that Twitter can accuratly predict the Dow Jones Industrial Average at a REDICULOUS 86.7 percent. Now, if one could reliably come up with a way to read Twitter, Facebook, and the "blogosphere" their reading would be much larger if the Law of Large Numbers can be used.
Next post, I'll mention how one might be able to use a similar technique, and new software from Microsoft that would help track and map individual ideas and concepts on the Internet. This could be used for a lot of applications, but I'll frame it in the idea of investing and a few others to get the point across.
Now go get some candy.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
I LOVE ELECTRIC CARS!!!!!!!!! ..... !!!!
No, I'm not kidding. I really do love electric cars. The very idea of them, I think, is revolutionary. While the very idea that we don't already have them, is revolting.
--- Sidenote: watch Who Killed the Electric Car the director even has a blog (I haven't read it YET) ---
--- ... sweet, he's making a sequel!---
Anyways, I digress. I saw today, whilst purusing the New York Times, that the Chevy Volt is starting a bit of a buzz. Now, I don't really want to rain on its parade, but heres the deal, the Volt uses -get this- a Voltec engine platform. Which is not really an electric engine. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever, it uses gas to generate electricity. I call that a hybrid.
The Volt also has a dirty little secret. An average range of 40 MILES PER CHARGE! However, an interesting article on the volt reveals that GM is no longer saying that low miles to a single charge is a problem. Now they're citing that most people don't drive much more than a few miles at a time.
Yes, that's correct. Isn't that also what you used to kill all previous attempts at electric cars? Wait, wait, sorry, I forgot... the Volt isn't an electric car.
Most people didn't forget however that there is a completly awesome, badass, and American made full electric car hitting the markets very soon: the Tesla Model S.
If you don't know, Tesla is an electric car company that not only takes its name from Nikola Tesla, the most important inventor of all time, but also holds the record for the fastest fully electric car ever built. It's much faster than the 3 cylinder turbocharged voltec engine with 0-60 of 8.53 seconds (the link even has a video if History channel isn't working) whereas the Tesla Roadsters has a 0-60 of 3.7 seconds. This makes it a competitor, and a winner, to cars the likes of the Lotus Exige, Porsche GT3, and the Porsche Carrera GT. See Below:
Admittedly, the Tesla Roadster is an unfair match to the Volt, what technology could be? Well, how about the Tesla Model S? Well, with a charging range of up to 300 MILES ON A SINGLE CHARGE and 45 minutes to "quick charge" the battery, a 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, and a top speed of 120 MPH I'd say that the Volt isn't a fair comparison to any of Tesla's cars. Tesla's cars are just too far advanced for Chevy to even compete.
Also, did I mention that where Chevy outsources a fair amount of work to Mexico, Teslas are all built right here in the good ol' U.S. of A?
Chevy, its called modern technology. Get with it.
By the way, a disclaimer, I'm extremly biased towards electric cars, and Tesla's in specific. I'm not a proud Tesla Roadster or Tesla Model S owner yet, but I have bought some stock in the meantime. Regardless, don't believe me, do the reserach... the numbers speak for themselves.
Best!
--- Sidenote: watch Who Killed the Electric Car the director even has a blog (I haven't read it YET) ---
--- ... sweet, he's making a sequel!---
Anyways, I digress. I saw today, whilst purusing the New York Times, that the Chevy Volt is starting a bit of a buzz. Now, I don't really want to rain on its parade, but heres the deal, the Volt uses -get this- a Voltec engine platform. Which is not really an electric engine. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever, it uses gas to generate electricity. I call that a hybrid.
The Volt also has a dirty little secret. An average range of 40 MILES PER CHARGE! However, an interesting article on the volt reveals that GM is no longer saying that low miles to a single charge is a problem. Now they're citing that most people don't drive much more than a few miles at a time.
Yes, that's correct. Isn't that also what you used to kill all previous attempts at electric cars? Wait, wait, sorry, I forgot... the Volt isn't an electric car.
Most people didn't forget however that there is a completly awesome, badass, and American made full electric car hitting the markets very soon: the Tesla Model S.
If you don't know, Tesla is an electric car company that not only takes its name from Nikola Tesla, the most important inventor of all time, but also holds the record for the fastest fully electric car ever built. It's much faster than the 3 cylinder turbocharged voltec engine with 0-60 of 8.53 seconds (the link even has a video if History channel isn't working) whereas the Tesla Roadsters has a 0-60 of 3.7 seconds. This makes it a competitor, and a winner, to cars the likes of the Lotus Exige, Porsche GT3, and the Porsche Carrera GT. See Below:
Admittedly, the Tesla Roadster is an unfair match to the Volt, what technology could be? Well, how about the Tesla Model S? Well, with a charging range of up to 300 MILES ON A SINGLE CHARGE and 45 minutes to "quick charge" the battery, a 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, and a top speed of 120 MPH I'd say that the Volt isn't a fair comparison to any of Tesla's cars. Tesla's cars are just too far advanced for Chevy to even compete.
Also, did I mention that where Chevy outsources a fair amount of work to Mexico, Teslas are all built right here in the good ol' U.S. of A?
Chevy, its called modern technology. Get with it.
By the way, a disclaimer, I'm extremly biased towards electric cars, and Tesla's in specific. I'm not a proud Tesla Roadster or Tesla Model S owner yet, but I have bought some stock in the meantime. Regardless, don't believe me, do the reserach... the numbers speak for themselves.
Best!
Google... Maybe taking over the world?
So, I saw something in the New York Times the other day that I thought was interesting. Google, is in its last steps to take over the world. Worry not, it looks as if they'll be benevolent overlords. OK, what I'm actually talking about is that Google, once again is trying to break into the social networking world .
This company seems great at a lot of things. They basically reinvented the Internet and, like it or not, they gave us the word Google in more parts of speech than is really necessary. They've tried this before though. Like the article in the Times said (read it, its really good) they've really only been able to do it in Brazil and India. Not that I'm knocking anything that can be a success in India (the worlds second largest country by population and growing FAST in the computer area) but lets face it, they're not Facebook, they're Orkut... I've never Orkuted anything, so its not great at riding its own coat-tails.
Heres the real deal though, this writer noted, and rightly so, that Google operates on algorithims and that you can't algorithim (verb) a social network.
I disagree. FLAT OUT.
Heres the thing. Many different forms of artificial intelligence (henceforth, and forevermore refered to as AI) are great at simulating social interactions in many situations. The great thing is that many of these programs can even give you the algorithims that they use to do it. NetLogo for instance, is a multi-agent based system that can be programmed to do all sorts of things. I'm currently using it to model a number of aspects of religious sociality (to varying success I admit).
Then, theres NodeXL, which has the ability to go into social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and even Flickr if I'm not mistaken and can then construct the actual networks that exist between variables that are searched for and spit it out into an Excel spreadsheet, ready for your analysis however you see fit.
The real good thing about the article... They hinted that maybe, just maybe, its just Google and they can't quite do the social networking thing. Apple already has Ping, a social network built into the newest version of itunes, as if itunes didn't already revolutionize the way we interact (remember napster? HA, how 1998 of you).
Anyways, point is, its not that social networking can't be done by Google, on Google's terms. They could start finding some algorithims, they could start programming it, but, could they do it as well as Facebook? OR are they doing it because Facebook has done so well?
This company seems great at a lot of things. They basically reinvented the Internet and, like it or not, they gave us the word Google in more parts of speech than is really necessary. They've tried this before though. Like the article in the Times said (read it, its really good) they've really only been able to do it in Brazil and India. Not that I'm knocking anything that can be a success in India (the worlds second largest country by population and growing FAST in the computer area) but lets face it, they're not Facebook, they're Orkut... I've never Orkuted anything, so its not great at riding its own coat-tails.
Heres the real deal though, this writer noted, and rightly so, that Google operates on algorithims and that you can't algorithim (verb) a social network.
I disagree. FLAT OUT.
Heres the thing. Many different forms of artificial intelligence (henceforth, and forevermore refered to as AI) are great at simulating social interactions in many situations. The great thing is that many of these programs can even give you the algorithims that they use to do it. NetLogo for instance, is a multi-agent based system that can be programmed to do all sorts of things. I'm currently using it to model a number of aspects of religious sociality (to varying success I admit).
Then, theres NodeXL, which has the ability to go into social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and even Flickr if I'm not mistaken and can then construct the actual networks that exist between variables that are searched for and spit it out into an Excel spreadsheet, ready for your analysis however you see fit.
The real good thing about the article... They hinted that maybe, just maybe, its just Google and they can't quite do the social networking thing. Apple already has Ping, a social network built into the newest version of itunes, as if itunes didn't already revolutionize the way we interact (remember napster? HA, how 1998 of you).
Anyways, point is, its not that social networking can't be done by Google, on Google's terms. They could start finding some algorithims, they could start programming it, but, could they do it as well as Facebook? OR are they doing it because Facebook has done so well?
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
What are you on about?
So, basically I just wanted to set some foundation on the first post. This blog is primarily going to be about some of the new and emerging science and technology behind the brain and computers. Sometimes it will be about the brain, sometimes it will be about computer technology, and sometimes it will be about both. Hopefully it will be about both a lot because the intersection between neuroscience and computer science is pretty cool. I'll also include interesting things about studies that concern the topic, especialy ones about cross-cultural studies and the emerging fields of cognitive anthropology and evolutionary psychology. And, I'll try not to bore you because then you'll just go on facebook and stop reading.
Sure, I'll talk about the singularity from time to time, but in all honesty, I find Kruzweil to be very optimistic. But I want to give him the credit he's due. For all of his... idiosyncracies he does have a lot of interesting information and predictions every once and a while.
Also, I don't want this to just be a blog that reposts TED talks. Will I repost TED talks from time to time? Oh yeah, those things are awesome and a great thing for rainy days if you're a huge dork... which I am. However, you can expect and always demand something a bit new.
Also, I love a good discussion, I have an email listed. If you want to bring something to my attention, please do. Also, if you think that you personally have a technology that is interesting, email me about that. If I think its interesting (and most importantly applicable to what I'm doing here) I'll say something about it. Shameless plugs are fine!
Alright, I'm done. I'll post something worthwhile when I decide which thing to mention.
Sure, I'll talk about the singularity from time to time, but in all honesty, I find Kruzweil to be very optimistic. But I want to give him the credit he's due. For all of his... idiosyncracies he does have a lot of interesting information and predictions every once and a while.
Also, I don't want this to just be a blog that reposts TED talks. Will I repost TED talks from time to time? Oh yeah, those things are awesome and a great thing for rainy days if you're a huge dork... which I am. However, you can expect and always demand something a bit new.
Also, I love a good discussion, I have an email listed. If you want to bring something to my attention, please do. Also, if you think that you personally have a technology that is interesting, email me about that. If I think its interesting (and most importantly applicable to what I'm doing here) I'll say something about it. Shameless plugs are fine!
Alright, I'm done. I'll post something worthwhile when I decide which thing to mention.
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