Soap Opera Much?

I'm reading a psychology article at the moment about thought and language and intelligence, and its talking about the computer metaphor for the human mind.

Before computers existed, terms like "believe", "know", "think", "talk" and so on were not considered to be scientific terms, but mentalistic. People who wanted psychology to be a serious science tried to stop using these terms when describing how people work - this is how the behaviourist model came about. When this went out of vogue, it was the ghost-in-the-machine idea which was popular again, but there were still difficulties with this.


However, when computers came about, everything changed. According the article, computers are "fairy-free, fully exorcised hunks of metal that could not be explained with out the full lexicon of mentalistic taboo words."

For example:

"Why isn't my computer printing?"

"Because the program doesn't know you replaced your dot-matrix printer with a laser printer. It still thinks it is talking to the dot-matrix and is trying to print the document by asking the printer to acknowledge its message. But the printer doesn't understand the message: it's ignoring it because it expects its input to begin with '%'!"

Pinker says "the more complex the system and the more expert the users, the more their tecnhical conversation sounds like the plot of a soap opera."

For example:

"Why did Mary stop talking to me?"

"Because Mary doesn't know that you changed your phone number. She thinks she's talking to you and is trying to do this by asking you to apologise. But she doesn't understand why you aren't apologising now: she's ignoring you because she expects you to say your sorry!"

Well, it made me smile!

I know I can't prove God exists but...

I know I can't prove God exists, but I was thinking about that today.
I had a tutorial this morning for my group project this term, and we're looking at executive functions. These are the processes in your brain which exert control over the other processes. We were talking about some research which investigated a number of putative executive processes and it brought up the question of the use of strategy when performing tasks, and how this decision was made. How is it decided which control process should be used? Psychologists are long past the stimulus-response ideas of the Behaviourists, which suggested that everything we do is an automatic trained response to present stimuli, so we concluded that strategy wasn't simply dictated by the task at hand. Aside from anything else, there are often numerous strategies which can be used so the choice is not always an automatic one.
I suggested maybe the choice was made by the conscious self. Like "you" decide which strategy to use, and another girl in my class (whose name completely escapes me) asked in return what process regulated consciousness? Not as in whether you're awake or asleep, but what is going on in your mind consciously, what you think and so on.

Now that is a very good question. If we continue to hypothesise and research and develop new methodological and statistical techniques, will we eventually be able to reduce the whole of cognition down to a series of processes? Or do we believe that human consciousness is something special, which can't just be measured with a big scanner or factor analysed out of a questionnaire. It's the whole mind-body question all over again.
This was something I studied in philosophy in high school (something which I gave up as soon as I was able, for the most part), and at the time, I guess I didn't really get to the nub of it. I mean I never really though that I or anyone else was just a series of biological functions. Then we might as well all be slugs, and where's the fun in that. What I never realised was the importance of the question, and at least in my eyes, that there is really only one possible answer.
The human mind is so creative. Every second we think thing we've never though before, we say things we've never said before, we organise things we've never done before, we draw things we've never drawn before. If everything was a biological process, then because of evolution (let's not get into that right now, it's a whole other question) it would theoretically all have been done before already. But it hasn't. Human beings are creative because they were created. They're not just biology because they didn't just happen thanks to a big old science accident.

Sometimes I wonder if there really is a God, and other times I could possibly doubt it.

Another Driving Lesson - Finally!

So I had my second driving lesson on Wednesday morning, and it was definitely better than the first one.
At the end of the first lesson, all I had done was set off, change gears and pull in again a few times, and I was worried I wouldn't progress onto anything else until I had mastered doing those things. Now you may think, well that's OK, those things are easy, but they aren't when they're brand new! You guys have just been doing it long enough that it has become automatic. Not so for me. So I was thinking, yeah I want to learn to drive, so I'll keep getting lessons, but I'm going to be terrible and it's going to take me such a long time.
Well after lesson number two, I'm feeling a lot more confident in my own ability. I drove all the way along the road in one go, then we practised turning in a wide street-end bit, doing circles and figures of eight. Then I did a three-point turn to get round. The first bit was OK, the reverse part, I mean, because there was loads of space, but then when I was setting off forward again, I forgot that it would have to be really slowly because I had to turn, and instead set off like normal from the side of the road. That gave the instructor a bit of a fright, but fortunately it's a dual control car so nothing bad happened!
Then we drove a long the road and up and down some hills and turned between roads, doing indicating and all that. I was doing pretty OK until I had to make a sharp turn left onto an uphill road. I think I would have done it OK, except that I put it into third gear instead of first! Then after stalling, right in someone's way, I was a bit flustered, so at the top of the road forgot how to do what he was telling me and stalled again. Fortunately I didn't have to do anything to complicated after that because it was near the end of the lesson.
Oh and we practised hill starts as well. Aparently I was quite good at finding the balance point with the clutch and accelerator to stop the car rolling either way. It didn't seem that hard though so maybe he just says that to everyone.

But yeah, it was pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to it now, I quite enjoy it really. Got another lesson booked for next week so we'll see what I get up to then!

Does snow get old?

Technically, I suppose snow can get old. I mean, if it's been lying around for a few days. Like at the moment, there's a layer of ice on the pavement underneath the fresh snow, which got trod on, and it melted a little when it warmed up and then it froze again when it got colder again.
But I meant like as a fun thing. I LOVE snow. It first snowed on the 17th December, which was the day of my last exam, and I was so excited when I came out the door, because I totally wasn't expecting it! It's been snowy every day since then, even if any hasn't fallen it's been cold that it hasn't really melted. And it's forecast to carry on like this for the rest of the month.

Now, I love snow. I've always loved snow and I probably always will. But people keep saying we haven't had snow like this for 20 years, or 30, or 50 - they keep changing their minds!
But ACTUALLY, I think it might be a good thing that we don't get it too often. There are so many things that are annoying about snow.
*It's always really cold, so much so that this morning I woke up and there was ice on the inside of my window! Freeeeeeeezing!
*It's really hard to walk anywhere! And it makes your shoes all wet and your jeans and it's annoying, and they take ages to dry because it's cold as well.
*I had my first driving lesson on the 18th when it hadn't got too bad, but I haven't been able to have another one because of slippy roads and the weather. I've got another one booked but who knows if it's going to be good enough, I might have to postpone again again. RRRrrrubbish.
*The worst thing, however, was the closure of Gatwick airport. Chris was supposed to get to Gatwick on Tuesday night but the plane couldn't land because, as they were on the approach of all things, the runways closed. So instead they landed in Paris!! Eugh. Not Edinburgh. Apparently Paris is closer to London. Whose idea was that!
*Today, when Chris's train was due into Edinburgh around 12 o'clock and it was so late I got so cold I could die! I got my hugs and stuff but it was still pretty cold!

So yeah, a list of reasons why extended snow is rubbish.
But I suppose it's not so bad. Snow it pretty. And it is fun. And I love watching it fall. I think it will always make me happy. Even when I'm 80 and crabbit and cold all the time, I really hope I will still love snow. Or even if I end up somewhere where it snows all the time I wouldn't want to not like it, that would be rubbish! I hope however inconvenient it is, that snow will always make me smile, just like a bright summers day, or a rainbow, or running in warm rain.

New Year, New Start!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you're all well. I can't believe it was really October when I last wrote! Madness. Anyway, one of my New Year's resolutions was to blog every week! Very exciting. When term starts next week I'll pick a day and hopefully do it the same day each time, so you'll know when to expect me - it's unlikely to be Monday, that's just when I've got round to it this week.

Anyway, I thought for my New Year's post I would pay tribute to David Tennant, who used to be the Doctor, up until New Year's Day anyway.

The last episode was spectacular with a couple of surprising plot twists and a good bye to all of the Tenth Doctor's companions, lots of bangs and flames, some pretty cool CG stuff, and some brilliant acting!

I only got into Doctor Who when I watched the Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned, because Kylie Minogue was in it. It was then I discovered that the script is well written, the acting was great and the actor was gorgeous! Catherine Tate took over as the new companion in 2008, which was the only full series of Doctor Who that I've seen, and then in 2009 there were a series of hour-long specials which came out at Easter, in Comic Relief Week, in November, on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day, which had us saying goodbye to the Tenth Doctor in floods of tears.

Matt Smith has been cast as the Eleventh Doctor and was introduced at the end of Tennant's final episode, when he regenerated. Although he may struggle to fill his predecessor's shoes, I supposed we'd better give him a chance before we write him off completely.

The end of the David Tennant era is also the end of the Russel T Davies era. Davis has been a script writer since 2004, when the series restarted after a 15 year holiday, and has done an excellent job. Davies says the new guy, Steven Moffat, is brimming with ideas, and in fact he has already written a couple of episodes since the series revived. Hopefully he too will not be lost in his predecessor's shadow.

With two major changes at once in the Doctor Who team, with the shows amazing popularity continue or will the new kids find themselves unable to live up to the old masters?

Let's not get angry about Nick Griffin and the BNP

I watched BBC's Question Time this evening because people kept shouting about it on Twitter and I wanted to know what the fuss was for.

I have to say I don't know why people were getting so angry. I understand that Nick Griffin's policies and party are dispicable, and that politics should not be about race, but I agree with what Bonnie Greer said, don't you?

"The British people have got too much common sense."

The British National Party will never be a significant part of main stream British politics for just this reason. I think it's quite clear from Nick Griffin's own responses and behaviour on the show tonight that he does not himself have a clear understanding of how his policies relate to Nazism, denial of holocaust, racism, genocide and religious conflict. The lack of integrity he showed was astonishing - whenever confronted with a quote that put him in a bad light, he claimed to be misquoted and shook his head in denial even when claims were backed up with video footage, on YouTube, clearly visible to the world.

There is no need to get angry about a man who is clearly confused about his own opinions. Whilst not all British politicians have integrity or know what they're talking about, I think its safe to say that when these faults are combined with despicable policies and associations with racial hate groups internationally, even the most patriotic Brits will not be fooled into supporting them. This assumes of course that the main stream alternatives are getting things right, but that is a debate for another post, probably on another blog.

The BNP leader was also challenged about his association with the Klu Klux Klan, in particular when he was photographed meeting David Duke, a leader of the KKK in America. According the the Telegraph, Mr. Duke claims in his book,"My Awakening: A Path to a Racial Understanding", published 1998, that the integration of different ethnicities is racial genocide.

David Dimbleby quoted the BNP website as saying that the current government's immigration policy is "the greatest act of genocide against the British people in history." Nick Griffin agreed with this, and another quote saying that the government was committing an act of "deliberate, calculated genocide" against the British people with this policy. I smell a distinct comparison.

Like Baroness Warsi, I am appalled at the use of the word genocide by both of these groups in this context, especially when you take into account the violent and horrific nature of other genocides around the world. I also believe that the BNP should be ashamed to have such an association and such a similarity of ideals as the leader of the KKK, classified as a hate group in the United States.

I would have verified Mr. Dimbleby's quotations myself, but the BNP website was down, so all I got was a temporary page with bullet-pointed one-liner policies, and large buttons suggesting I "Donate", "Subscribe" or read the newsletter. No thank you.

Getting the Hang of the Gym

So I've been going to the gym for a couple weeks now - today was my fourth time! Kirsty and I had booked to go to a hula hooping class which we were really looking forward to, and we'd gone half an hour early to put in some time on the machines first.

However, it all went to pot when we discovered that our class had been cancelled and they were holding "Aero Express" instead. While waiting in the queue to ask exactly what that entailed we didn't want to do it unless it involved some kind of bubbly chocolate (is it just me or are half the gym classes also kinds of food... lol).

Turns out its just regular aerobics and we weren't really up for that so we gymed it for 40 minutes. Then we thought we'd go through to the weights machine room and get a hot gym advisor to show us what to do, but it turns out you have to book an appointment, and there were like none available for weeks. It's pretty rubbish. And it doesn't help that Kirsty's going to Paris on Wednesday next week for a whole week! I might go without her while she's away! Shhh :p

After discovering that we weren't really in the mood for going back to the cardio stuff so we just quite while we were ahead. I kicked ass on the stepper today though, even if I do say so myself. I'm getting used to the machines and which programmes to pick on them. The weights machines are the next step it's just going to be a little while before I can learn them and find out what I should be doing.

Got to get to class now anyway, bye for now!
Katie

Phone Line and the Internet

So today was the day when we were going to set up our internet! We've had the box since last week and this morning we got texted the activation code, so Gale started the whole set up procedure. But she found that the phone socket beside the piano wasn't connected properly, so she unscrewed it and slotted the little doodad in place and tried again.

No luck.

So I followed the wire to see where it went, to make sure it was a real wire. Above the kitchen door I found another phone socket which had a connecter by it but not plugged in, so we plugged that in and tried again at the piano socket.

No luck there.

Continuing to follow the cable through the kitchen I found a third socket right by the window, where the phone line comes in from outside.

Well that didn't work either - no prizes for guessing that.

So Gale tried plugging the box into the socket above the door, which was an exercise and a half as there wasn't a power socket too near by - it's right across the hallway!

You guessed it - that failed too.

I couldn't see the above-the-doorway socket to unscrew it, not from the stool anyway, would have had to get a ladder, so first I went to the more manageable one beside the kitchen window.
As soon as I unscrewed it I could see a problem. There were no wires connected to the actual socket part of the casing - so when we plugged in the cable it wasn't even attached to a broken wire! But I could see wires in there, and more screws, so I got at those as well.

I think its fair to say that on the removal of the second panel the problem was pretty clear to me.


The wire which came out from the window had 7 smaller wires inside. 2 connected to the front casing, 2 broken and tangled and 3 cut off completely.

The wire which goes from this socket to the rest of the flat (the big white cable in the above photo) had another crowd of wires - at least 5 - which were also broken off and not connected to anything - no wonder neither of the other sockets worked!

So now we need to get in a man to fix the cables. We're going to bother the landlady about it. We haven't studied the lease yet but I'm pretty sure this sort of thing is her responsibility, not ours. We're quite happy to pay line rental, but the physical line - well that's like the walls or the furniture surely - we don't get to take it with us, so we don't really deal with it, we just complain about it.

So I'm still stuck to the library unfortunately, although I am doing a lot of my reading on the laptop at home.

Hopefully it won't take too long to get sorted out and then I can get on with posting about ALL the exciting things I'm doing at the moment, not just the occasional one.

Love you all
Katie

*edit at 00.42 14th October '09 *

Apparently I was wrong. The orange and white wires which are connected to the front panel of the doodad are all we need. That's right, we has internets :) and a phone. I would photo it for you but it's not that exciting-looking.

'Night then.

Busy Times

After all my promises about more regular updating I got off to a great start.

Then my source of internet in the flat failed and I have to come to the library again, at least until Tuesday when we should get access again. Fortunately I can bring my laptop and sit somewhere quiet rather than being tied to the hot whirring computer labs full of students having whispered conversations and laughing at YouTube.

I've been quite busy lately, socially as well as studying wise.

Gangshow on Sunday afternoon was pretty good - I had lots of fun. The only rubbish part was when we were learning this tap dance that all the girls are supposed to be doing. Watching me try to tap dance is funnier even than seeing Michael McIntyre. Well not quite, but its close. After I'd stopped stressing out about how rubbish I was and realising I'm so near the back hardly anyone will see me, it was pretty amusing. I can smile and head in the right direction. That's enough for me I think.

On Thursday (today!) it's the South East Region's first AGM (a big Scouty thing in the area) and the GangShow were asked if they could provide a little entertainment. It's only a small group going, like 15 people, and we're doing one of the numbers from the show (the very patriotic one with songs from the Proclaimers). Because its just a small group, the regular soloists aren't all going (they're busy) they had to give them to other people, just for this one off, and I got a couple lines to sing! :D Just my luck its the line about "When I get drunk..." lol

On Monday evening I was at Cubs, as usual. We were having a foreign food night so after playing a couple themed games, we tried some different things (microwave ready meals from tesco!). We had moussaka, nachos and vegetable curry. Almost everyone thought the nachos were the best (I think it was the cheese, lol) and no one like moussaka the best, although they still finished it between them! Moussaka is one of my favourites so I was a bit gutted, but never mind. Afterwards I had them all draw posters of their favourite foreign food. I don't think I've ever seen so many drawings of pizza in my life, or so many variations on the spelling!

Tuesday morning brought my first trip to the Edinburgh University Gym (well not since I went to see it during my freshers week in 2007!) I went with Kirsty, Megan and Gale, and we had a good time. We stayed for an hour so I only went on a couple different CV machines, just to suss the place out a bit. They have a separate room with all the weight machines in, but the others weren't really up for it so I didn't go look this time. Kirsty and I are going back tomorrow morning. We're hoping to get into a hula hooping class, but Rosie says their usually full unless you book in advance, so we may just stay in the gym the whole time. I'm really looking forward to it though, it's much more interesting than running, and an off-peak membership is only £60 for the full year (off-peak means before 14.30 on a week day, or any time at the weekend) so I can see myself being more diligent about gyming than I am about running.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went to see Kirstin in the afternoon. We played a game with these tiles that had different patterns of squares on them and you had to match up trails of as many of the same coloured square as you could. She beat me. Gutted. After that I took her to McDonalds for a burger and an ice cream, then we got the bus to her youth club in Portobello.

I got back to the flat and had some home made pizza (from BBC Good Food except mine was ham and pineapple, not the topping here) then Megan, who has a pre-paid cinema card and ets Orange Wednesdays, took me to the cinema for free. We went to see the new Fame movie. It is the BEST. FILM. EVER. We were walking home and we just couldn't get over how good it was and how much we wished we had some kind of talent like the kids in the film. Neither of us could decide whether we'd rather sing or dance. But we are going to learn a dance of some sort, to show off, and for fun. Probably the Hoedown Throwdown from Hannah Montana although it looks pretty hard to learn!

So that's you all updated. Hopefully I'll drag myself to the library after the gym tomorow and before class so watch this space for my gyming and GangShowing antics!

Much love

Katie

Chiquitos and Chiquitas

So last night we had a really good time.There were loads of us at Chiquitos, like 16 of us? And that wasn't even everyone either - some people could come, like Andy Phil, who had to go to the hospital to get his hand X-rayed!

We were sat at two different tables because there wasn't enough room for all of us at the one!

Here is the other table:

But I forgot to take a picture of everyone at my own. Finlay remembered, so I shall steal it when it gets put on facebook!

Unfortunately the service wasn't great - we didn't get our drinks for 40 minutes after we ordered them, and they came at the same time as the food,

which we'd ordered well after them. And the other table had their order taken ages before us

so they were mostly done by the time we got our food. All in all it was a bit shocking, so we didn't leave a tip. I'm sure it was just because they were really busy, so I'm not dissuaded from going back some other time. I just wouldn't go with a large party on a Saturday night!

Aside from the service the food was really good (I had shredded beef burritos and a side order of coleslaw) and we had a really good time :) Marsailidh liked her present from me, and all her other presents too. After we came back to the flat, every time someone new arrived I would totally be like "Look at the awesome thing that I made!" - I'm so not cool like that.

So yeah, like I just said, after dinner most of us came back to the flat and loads of other people pitched up too. We had the rest of the awesome cake that Mars's mum had made for her birthday, and we were mostly just hanging around chatting and laughing at people's drunken stupidity. It was good times really.

I persuaded Faisal and Kirsty that they wanted to come to see the Gangshow, so they've got front row seats on Saturday night - at seat 7 and seat 20! The only seats together were at the back or at the top, so they weren't really up for that. I'm pretty excited about it. We're going to go for tea before the show and Roisin's friends new restaurant that's opening around that time, on Lothian Road (I shall totally review it when we go!)

Here's some photoleos for your viewing pleasure :)

Me and Kirsty

Marsailidh

Marsailidh

Roisin and Carl

Gemma and Gale

Kirsty being TALLER than Marsailidh (this has never happened before!)

Richard, Keith, Gale and Marsailidh

Kirsty and Becky

Kirsty, Marsailidh and Kirsty