http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/brain-scans-reveal-what-youve-seen/

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http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/25/total.recall.microsoft.bell/index.html

I had the second idea for a while, except mine involved video rather than images. And it also involved some sort of robotic eyeball.

I was browsing some photos of California, and I could not stop thinking how amazing it must be to live there. I've been lucky enough to visit the state twice in my lifetime, and both trips were unbelievably fun. When I returned to Texas, it was like stepping back into an empty room. It was just mile after mile of sprawl - house, house, house, store, house, house, house, store. Within a reasonable distance, there are no places of historical interest, no locations of natural beauty (can't be helped since Texas is mostly prairie up north), even the downtown districts are boring.

But the photos were incredible. Natural beauty, dense urban areas with skyscrapers, beautiful graffiti art, a dash of sprawl, abandoned buildings.

Texas is by no means a bad place to live. It's inexpensive living at its best, and many Californians are moving here as well because of this. But the problem is that it's living distilled down to an industrial scale. It's unnatural. It just seems like all there is to do is just work, work, work and then shop shop shop, because within a reasonable distance, that's all there is - buildings for working and stores for shopping. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would broaden my horizons, nothing that would spark my creativity, nothing that I saw in those photos. It just seems like there's so much diversity in every aspect of life in California. And so many great new ideas start in California - bands, tech startups, other businesses, etc., all of which I attribute to the atmosphere of the state. That and the continuous stream of feel good sunshine.

Of course, the photos were only of select scenes that were exceptional in some way, but even considering this fact, none of them can really be found in Texas.

So I was reading Wikipedia, and as usual one entry led to another until I stumbled upon the online disinhibition effect. I have definitely noticed that people tend to act differently online and become more wild in general, whether it's the stupid, inane YouTube comments or forums. But I guess that's the great thing about the internet.

I had definitely noticed two of the causes - the illusion of anonymity (which can be pierced with even a little digging) and a certain degree of equality. And boom, out of the blue, there's a full fledged article with all the different factors. Fun read. And more.

I want to work and work right now. A little bit tired, cold and hungry and all motivation is lost. All this pampering through life doesn't do any good. There should have been an element of struggle. When you don't experience it early on, it's tougher to get through it later on.

In the end it all comes back to the same thing. I want to be doing whatever I want on the spur of the moment. I want to wake up in the morning, and if I think, "hey, I feel like drawing today", I will be able to do so. I'll be able to whip out paper, chair, pad sit down and draw and draw with no regard for time and no worries, stopping only when it's dark. Sure, I could draw right now. But if I did, I would not enjoy doing so, for all the while in the back of my mind all the things I have to do would be distracting me. It would not be enjoyable. My mind is just buzzing with all the wonderful things I could be doing, learning to cook, play golf, drawing, playing piano, reading. But again, this is only possible with time. And time can only be acquired with money. Money I don't have. Feeling a bit better now that I've organized this thoughts. More motivated.

Nothing too new or exciting from Apple

Storage Upgrades And Price Cuts
obviously to fend off the upcoming Zune HD, which now looks rather pricey in comparison. Very nice, but not a dealmaker. I want an iPod Touch, and it still lacks a camera.

Genius For Apps And Playlists
Added a Genius feature for apps to rake in more cash. Lame. I wonder how long this new "feature" took. Probably all of 1 hour with one coder.

iTunes Gets More Bloated
Woo.

iPod Nano
Voice recorder is great. It's got a radio and allows pausing of radio, but no radio recording, which my Sandisk Sansa has. It has a video camera, but it can't take stills for some reason. But I was right about design "reaching a limit" of sorts. This time around, no major design update, just a change to a glossier coating. The new finish is repulsive though. Instead of the clean brushed finish every other Apple product has, they chose to give it a glossy coat this time around, which gives it a rather cheap and ugly look. The only reason this change was made was probably for the sake of change. Just for that, I would not want to buy it. Plus I'm sure it would scratch much more easily.

No Upgrades to iPod Touch
I was hoping for a camera at least, but nothing. I'll probably get an iPod Touch once it has a radio, video camera, camera, voice recorder and radio recorder, to match the features on my Sansa.

There are very few times, it would seem, when trends are so visible and obvious. This is one of those times. I am lucky (?) enough to be living in a time of exponential development in all fields. This combined with greater situational pressures means opportunities.

Some of the industries I've been thinking about that seem guaranteed to have good returns - fast food, green energy, drugs and natural resources.

So most of these look pretty obvious now that I type them. Oh well.

Studies conducted by linguists on the way people speak - syntax, vocabulary, etc. as a reflection of how they think. Need to find more information on these topics more readily. Just like everything else, analyzing it can be distilled to a simple process, and need to figure out how.

Things just don't work out. Just have to try again.

The instructor is not a person. People have varying teaching methods, resulting in students with varying levels of understanding depending on who taught them. The teacher will take on a secondary role as clarification instead, by answering student questions.

Students will learn from video courses. Each student will have a touch screen desk and learn from an animated video lesson. This allows student control of pace. With videos, it eliminates the potential disadvantage of bad teachers. In addition, videos can be split tested for teaching effectiveness. By modifying certain parts of the instructional videos into A and B categories, and analyzing the scores of the students who took the A and B tests, we can compare scores and see whether one particular teaching method was more effective. Obviously there are factors that will affect this, but this is a generalization. With A and B split testing, the lessons can be continuously improved. By the end of the semester, if a either group A or group B shows a statistically significant score from the other, their score will be modified.

The lessons should also be based on a question and answer format. All lessons currently consist of a mess of facts presented with no explanation of their applications, significance or anything. They are presented as nothing more than facts to remember, and this makes it difficult.