Are We Guardians, Or Are We Apes Designing Humans? This is a very interesting article, worth the read, here's the intro/summary:

Thanks in part to molecular manufacturing, accelerated developments in AI and brain reverse-engineering could lead to the emergence of superintelligence in just 18 years. Are we ready for the implications -- like possible annihilation of Homo sapiens? And will we seem to superintelligence what our ape-like ancestors seem to us: primitive?

Link to the article: KurzweilAI.net  ¶ 9:16 AM 0 comments

  Principles - Humanist Association Of Canada Principles - Humanist Association Of Canada

What is a Humanist? Never heard of it before... Read this... Are you a Humanist... I AM!

The more I read, the more I listen, the more I think, the more I realize that in order for Humanity to continue to grow and improve, we must shed our ancient religious beliefs and dogma and move forward with a new scientifically-created morality and ethics...  ¶ 11:39 PM 0 comments

  Point of Inquiry - Podcast Check this out - This Podcast has had a MAJOR impact on my thinking over the past few months, it is really through-provoking, and I strongly recommend it. This web site allows plain ole MP3 downloads, so you don't need an iPod or iTunes or anything, check it out...

Point of Inquiry  ¶ 11:20 PM 0 comments

 

This is a test of blogging from my phone!

Neat... I can email from my phone to my blog address to post something... Crazy...

  ¶ 10:32 PM 0 comments

  BBC - Health - Healthy living - Time-saving exercise tips In line with trying to keep fitness and healthy eating top-of-mind, here's a nice, quick little article with some tips on how to find time to exercise!

BBC - Health - Healthy living - Time-saving exercise tips  ¶ 10:25 PM 0 comments

  Kevin Kelly -- Out of Control Kevin Kelly -- Out of Control - I began reading this book after hearing about it in one of the Matrix DVD documentaries. I only made it through a few chapters, unfortunately, it had to go back to the library, but I found it absolutely fascinating...

Anyhow, recently, the Author, Kevin Kelly, posted an essay crtiquing Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Theory, I read it, and read Ray's response, all without knowing this was the guy who wrote Out of Control, and in browsing his website, I've found that he now has posted the entire book online! So I'll probably print out a few chapters and get back into it... Very cool stuff...

If you liked the Matrix, and you like to think, you'll really enjoy this book!  ¶ 12:26 PM 0 comments

  The Brain and the Resting Metabolic Rate Calculator. Whoa! What's this all about?

Well, I've been thinking a lot lately (ok, I know, I always think a lot), but I've been thinking about... THINKING... I've been considering that since the brain is this massively parallel, self-organizing, self-learning computer, it might be worthwhile learning how it works so that I can program it better.

If you do begin to think about the brain as a computer/computer program, then you can start to apply basic computer principles to it's operation.

GIGO

If you're a Computer Science student, you'll know what that means, if not, then Google it... Ok, it stands for Garbage In Garbage Out. Basically this talks about how if the INPUT to a program is junk, when then JUNK will come out. If you put valid data into a program, then you should get valid information back out.

Obviously are brains are very good at filtering, there are MASSIVE amounts of data being thrown at us all the time. Conciously we only deal with a very, very small %, but the rest still does GET IN there, and a certain amount of it does get stored and given the nature of human intelligence it affects us. We ARE our EXPERIENCES.

So if all of this is true, then perhaps we should start to be more aware of the INPUT we put into our brains, meaning if we know what OUTPUT we want, if we know what our goals are, what we want to acheive, what we want to become, then we should seriously consider what we are INPUTing into our brain in order to best organize and train it to provide the OUTPUT we're looking for.

Example: Several years ago when Howard Stern was on the radio, all of my co-workers would listen to it and go on about how funny it was. So from time to time I would tune in. Now I think Howard Stern is a really, really funny guy and certainly the show was entertaining, but at the same time, it was often VERY crude and VERY, VERY insulting and disrespectful towards women. I began to consider, (while perhaps not with this level of clarity) even at that time, that dispite the fact that I found the show funny, did I really want to INPUT that sort of junk into my head and focus my attention on such demeaning, low-brow content. The answer was no, and I ceased to listen to the show. Instead I'd listen to the news, or music or something else.

So, getting back to the Resting Metabolic Rate Calculator...

I've changed my lifestyle considerably over the past 6 weeks, getting much more exercise and making better decisions about the food I eat. One of the things I'm continuing to have a tough time cutting out is BEER. It's not like I'm knocking back a 24 every night or anything, I'm not at all concerned about that aspect of it, it's more just the calories and how they add up having a pint at lunch, or a bottle or two at night. At the same time, I realize that I'm reading the BarTowel web site very regularly, several times a day typically. So there you have it, I'm conciously reading about, thinking about BEER so of course it's on my mind...

So in order to help change my focus and rewire my head, I'm attempting to read about and think about fitness related stuff a little more, not intending to become obsessive about it or anything, but bring it to the forefront a little more...

So I was curious to know more about METABOLISM. I always knew that this Metabolism burns a certain number of calories a day, so essentially if you were to not do any exercise to speak of, you could consume that # of calories in a day and maintain your weight. In theory if you consume less and exercise more, then BAM you lose weight, and of course the opposite is true.

I wanted to determine what is my metabolic rate, and I found this web site which explains it a little and provides a handy calculator! Cool eh?

Bodybuilding.com - Tris Mardiastuty - Resting Metabolic Rate Calculator.  ¶ 10:32 PM 0 comments

  Diet Update... Well Diet is going well, latest weigh-in has me at 213... So I'm down about 13 or 14 pounds within about 5 weeks! I'm super happy about it, getting lots of good cardio in, cutting back on the beer and snacks and it's working...!  ¶ 11:46 PM 0 comments