From Kevin Poulsen’s “Teenage Hacker Is Blind, Brash and in the Crosshairs of the FBI” (Wired: 29 February 2008):
At 4 in the morning of May 1, 2005, deputies from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office converged on the suburban Colorado Springs home of Richard Gasper, a TSA screener at the local Colorado Springs Municipal Airport. [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Wash U: tech in changing society, Webster U: infosec management, history, law, security | No Comments »
From Laura Miller’s “The heretic” (Salon: 25 August 2008):
Still, the mental powers of Bruno and his fellow memory artists seem almost superhuman today. The basic principle, Rowland explains, is simple enough, “to link words with images.” Nevertheless, the structures employed were mind-boggling: vast, elaborate patterns and nested wheels within wheels (like the color wheels used [...]
Posted on September 29th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: education, history | No Comments »
From Steven Pinker’s “What the F***?” (The New Republic: 9 Octobert 2007):
The mammalian brain contains, among other things, the limbic system, an ancient network that regulates motivation and emotion, and the neocortex, the crinkled surface of the brain that ballooned in human evolution and which is the seat of perception, knowledge, reason, and planning. The [...]
Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: science | No Comments »
Memories are passive fragments.
— Scott Granneman
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Posted on October 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, musings, writing ideas | Comments Off
From Robyn Williams’s “How to Keep Your Brain Young” (The Science Show: 24 September 2005):
Ian Robertson: Seven steps for keeping your brain functioning optimally when you’re older, but not just when you’re older but throughout life are: One, Aerobic fitness – amazing effects on the brain. Mental stimulation, both general mental stimulation and there are [...]
Posted on July 18th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, science | Comments Off
From The New York Times Magazine’s “Skin Literature“:
Most artists spend their careers trying to create something that will live forever. But the writer Shelley Jackson is creating a work of literature that is intentionally and indisputably mortal. Jackson is publishing her latest short story by recruiting 2,095 people, each of whom will have one word [...]
Posted on April 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, cool stuff, fiction, language & literature, on writing, weird | Comments Off
From “New form of superior memory syndrome found“:
Scientists at the University of California-Irvine have identified the first known case of a new, superior memory syndrome.
Researchers Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill and James McGaugh spent more than five years studying the case of “AJ,” a 40-year-old woman with incredibly strong memories of her personal past.
Given a date, [...]
Posted on March 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, science | Comments Off
From “Mental Health Association of Portland“:
Over 3,500 copper canisters like these hold the cremated remains of patients of the Oregon State Hospital that went unclaimed by their families and friends. They sit on shelves in an abandoned building on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital. They symbolize the loneliness, isolation, shame and despair [...]
Posted on March 25th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, weird, writing ideas | Comments Off
From “Man recites pi from memory to 83,431 places“:
A Japanese psychiatric counselor has recited pi to 83,431 decimal places from memory, breaking his own personal best of 54,000 digits and setting an unofficial world record, a media report said Saturday.
Akira Haraguchi, 59, had begun his attempt to recall the value of pi - a mathematical [...]
Posted on March 4th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: cool stuff, science | Comments Off
From Dave Munger’s “Why do we forget our childhood?“:
… [Freud] did discover an important phenomenon which continues to be investigated today. Freud noted that adults do not remember childhood events occurring before they were as old as six. This period of childhood amnesia is now generally believed to end at about age three or four. [...]
Posted on February 8th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, science | Comments Off
From Wordsworth’s The Prelude 12.208-218 (1805 edition):
There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence–depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse–our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to [...]
Posted on January 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, language & literature | Comments Off
From “Research puts actors’ memory on center stage“:
According to the researchers, the secret of actors’ memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words’ meaning - the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them - as well as on the physical and [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book | Comments Off
This was written 15 January 2002, & the Hungry Buddha is gone now, but this is still an interesting description.
Just got back from lunch at the Hungry Buddha. Man, that was good. It’s a small place on Washington Street in downtown St. Louis. There are signs all along the walls: “Buddha would bus his own [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, commonplace book, history, musings, true stories | Comments Off
Another image that enters my mind unbidden:
My brother and I are spending the night at Grandma & Grandpa Scott’s house. We’re pretty young … I might be 8 and my brother 6 or 7. It’s the mid-70s. At our grandparents, we go to bed pretty early … say by 10 p.m. This night, Gus and [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, history, true stories | Comments Off
An image of my father that enter my mind at odd times:
I’m in high school in the early 80s, it’s the dead of winter and early in the morning, so it’s still dark out, and very cold. My Dad always got up at 6 a.m. and was at his gas station by 6:30. I’m sleeping [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, history | Comments Off
I remember the first day I ever got on the Internet. I was an English teacher working at a camp for gifted high school students, and a technologist was there talking about this thing called “the Internet” and how it was going to change everything. It sounded fascinating, so when I returned home a few [...]
Posted on October 11th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: musings, technology | Comments Off
Some gathered thoughts on memory:
Wanting to remember & forgetting, or knowing you’ll forget
My father’s memories, & a chosen few passed along to me - of those chosen (or random) few, how many do I pass along?
Emotion recollected not in tranquility, but sometimes in seething emotion, in inner turmoil or pain
Flow of memories, inspired by surroundings [...]
Posted on October 1st, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: musings | Comments Off