For Numerical Recollection, Chimps Are The Champs

 

There was once a belief:

Humans and only humans make tools – Men are the tool makers.

 

Chimps make tools too!

 

“We must now redefine men, redefine tools, or except chimpanzees are humans.” ~  Louis Leakey, as described by Jane Goodall in TED 2002.

In 1871, when Charles Darwin first presented his theory of humans and apes sharing a common ancestor, almost no one in the world agreed with him except his closest supporters. His idea raised fiercest furor among the theologians, who obstinately believed that God created humans in His own image. To them, mankind was unique, the only animal with a soul, little lower than the angels…

Undeniably, since centuries ago humans have been arrogantly claiming themselves to be the most superior living species on Earth with most developed complex cognitive functions. However, in Dec 2007, a research outcome presented by the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University has given a big slap in humans’ face. Humans have been proven to be inferior to chimpanzees when it comes to numerical memory.

Ai project, a research program started in 1978, is a research aimed at understanding the chimpanzee cognition through computer interface experiments. The principal subject, Ai (爱), a 32-year-old female chimp and her son, Ayumu (步), 8 years old, have been taught the ascending order of Arabic numerals from 0 to 9 and trained to perform a series of short-term memory tasks on a touch-screen monitor. In a memory test conducted by the research team in 2007, Ayumu (then 7-year-old) and another two young chimps stunned the humans with their superb memory in numerical recollection. The chimps beat a group of university students in recalling the replacement of numbers flashed on the computer screen. 

Ai, who learned all these tasks for more than two decades, has a more interesting character. She does not like making mistakes. Renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall mentioned about it in her TED Conference talk. According to Dr. Goodall, when Ai did not score well in her memory game, she desired for another attempt until satisfaction of her performance.

“She has already concentrated hard for 20 minutes or so and now she wants to do it all over again just for the satisfaction of having done it better. And the food is not important. She does get a tiny reward like one raisin for correct response but she will do it for nothing if you tell her beforehand.”, Dr. Goodall told the audience.

That’s what amazes me the most. And yeah, one of my new year resolutions is, I want to learn from a chimp. Hu hu ha ha

Pick Your Own Running Shoes

When buying a pair of running shoes, what is your top priority? Price, brand, fashion, or your individual needs?

Last time I would go for the cheapest shoes and not care much about the shoe’s brand and design. I felt that no matter how good the running shoes can be, it will still need to be replaced after some time of wear or some distance of run. So why spend so much on it? But running with a poorly designed and engineered shoes is likely to risk your feet to injuries that could lead to a disaster for you. I learned the lesson when the bunion on my right big toe was obviously worsening during my intensive half marathon training. It hurt whenever I put on my running shoes. My doctor had advised me to invest in a pair of good shoes that meet my biomechanical needs. The most important factors are quality, comfort, and safety; price, the last.

When a person recommends you to buy some big-branded shoes for they will improve your running performance, don’t take his words for granted. Not even if he is able to explain to you the strengths of the shoes in details. His feet are not equal to your feet. He and you do not run the same. So, the best is, you understand your biomechanical needs and running conditions, and you choose your own pair of shoes that suit you well based on your individual needs.

Basically, running shoes can be classified into three major categories: cushioned shoes, stability shoes, and motion-control shoes, according to individual’s biomechanical needs; and three minor ones: performance training shoes, racing shoes, and off-road shoes, which are designed for specific running conditions. Major manufacturers such as Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Asics, to name but a new are well versed in designing and innovating the running shoes to provide greater comfort, stability, breathability, durability, motion control and lighter weight for different types of runner. However, there are no perfect shoes for everyone, although some shoes could be perfect to you. Despite of their high reliability, all these brands have their pros and cons in many different aspects. So, it is wise to do a thorough research before you decide to buy. Find out more information here.

As for me, I need roomy shoes with wide toe box, so that there is enough space for my bunion and orthotics. I prefer New Balance’s motion control running shoes for this reason. I’ve got a pair of New Balance W587 and I love it very much. It looks really plain but provides excellent comfort and stability. An advice for you anyway, if you plan to order one from the online stores. Do order a half size larger than your regular street shoes as New Balance runs small.

All in all, good luck in picking your own shoes.

Shop At Ease

I’m a person who is not keen in conventional shopping. I have experiences hanging around in shopping centers with relatives and peers for almost a day just to look for a few goods. Often, the purchase took less than 15 minutes to settle. What was really time-consuming is the process of searching the goods, compare and finally decide. Worse, sometimes we ended up leaving with empty hands when nothing had come to our satisfaction, but money had been spent unnecessarily on food, parking fees and transportation.

Nowadays I prefer online shopping for its two main advantages: convenience and wide choices. Convenience in the sense that I can easily find a product in possibly less than a second, and I can shop at anytime I like. Shopping and placing an order in the midnight are just fine. Also, my choices are no longer confined to one or few shops. With a powerful search engine, I can effortlessly access to the online shopping stores worldwide and compare the price. Most of the price offered by the stores are reasonable, sometimes surprisingly cheap.

My last online shopping was few months ago, after I read about Nintendo’s new video game, Wii Fit. I was fascinated by its fun-and-fitness approach in getting the user to stay health-conscious. The game is not designed only for youngsters, but for anyone above the age of 3 years, provided he/she is physically fit for the activities in the game. I thought it is just ideal for my family, especially the seniors who dislike outdoor activities. I searched online and found a list of online stores promoting the product. After surveying the price, I think it’s worth investing in a Wii Fit as it is a lot cheaper than the conventional workout machines but more fun, flexible and multipurpose in exercise wise. I ordered one with price £69.00 and received the product in less than 2 weeks time. It is just perfect.

How to Display An Image Inline in Gmail?

As most of the Gmail users may have realized, Gmail does not have the ability to send inline images in the body of email because it does not support HTML formatting. Sometimes, to get our messages delivered in a more meaningful and colorful way, an attachment is definitely less effective than an inline image.

So how to make it in Gmail? Here is a trick for you.

First upload your images to Flickr (sign up an account if you aren’t a Flickr user). Set the privacy to Public.

Then download and install the social web browser, Flock.

Launch Flock and go to one of its homepages “My World”. Go to Friend Activity and click Flickr. You’ll be directed to the website. Log in and choose the image you wish to insert. 

There is an option bar appear on top of the image. Click Blog as if you’re going to write a blog entry. You’ll be asked to set up a blog account. You can ignore it (if you don’t plan to) by clicking Continue.

 

A blog editor containing your selected image will pop up. Now open a new tab in Flock and go to your Gmail account. Drag the image from the blog editor window to your Gmail message box.

Complete your email and send it. Your recipient will get your inline image mail like this:

Well, it does not seem a good solution but if you can’t find any, it is nevertheless an useful solution to embed image in Gmail rather than attaching it as a separate file. Other suggestions are welcome.

When Rules Are Challenged By Human Nature

Rules are meant to be broken?

Rules are organizational devices created by people, usually in the past, to control human behavior to support their goals. — Unknown

First of all, let’s play a game, but you MUST follow few very simple steps: place your right hand over your heart, close your eyes, take a real deep breath, then ask yourself, “Have you ever bent or broken any rules?”

Okay now, I suppose the question above did flash through your mind for a moment, yet the interesting part is, how many of the readers actually follow the “game rule” as stated? For those who really follow, I appreciate your sincerity in reading my blog; for those who don’t, gotcha! You’ve just been the subject of this topic.

Just a little joke made but I daresay, all of us break rules, minor or major, intentionally or not. … Some rules are valid and must be enforced in order to hold people within the ethical boundaries. Some rules are simply stupid just like the game rule above (another good place to find plenty of stupid rules is MMU). But, is it wrong to break rules? Not necessary. So long one is willing to accept the consequences of his action; so long his action does not harm the others. Well, IMHO, it is fine to break rules. The existence of rules is merely impossible to be the best of both worlds. While the rules are created to support certain party’s goals, they are broken for the interests of the other party.

One night I was chatting with a friend regarding the blog assignment rules, she told me that a lot of students actually fail to meet the requirement by posting once a week (ermm that includes me). Well she makes a good role model who really posts once a week punctually (exactly a gap of 7 days), and she has got 8 posts currently. She questioned why can’t people just follow what is required to. That’s a good question that inspires me to write about the rebellious nature of human beings.

Humans are born rebellious

Humans are inherent with rebellious nature. I believe all of us have experienced it in ourselves and have observed it in others. Take speeding. If the speed limit on the highways is 55 mph, people are not generally satisfied until they are driving 60. One would surely think that such people would be exceptionally content to drive at 70, and indeed they will, until the speed limit is moved to 70, then happiness will not be found at any speed less than 75. It seems that there is no contentment in perfect compliance with the law.

Such nature is especially observable in children and teenagers. Tell a child not to open a particular drawer, even though the child may not have prior intention to do so, temptation to open the drawer arises naturally once the command is given. Does it sound familiar to you? Since we were young, we have been warned and commanded many times about the “don’ts”, “can’t”, “musts”, “wrongs” and etc.. They act like constraints to our freedom in life. At times we are whispering within ourselves, “Why can’t I do this?”, “Why must I do that?”, “What if… I don’t?”. More questions arise as we grow up, have gained autonomy and developed our own world model. We have learned reasoning, and we make our rebellious behavior more reasonable.

At times we are risking ourselves on the borderline between do and don’t, right and wrong, even though we are aware of the potential dangers behind. That’s the beauty of temptation. It is always the discontentment of human beings that leads us to the struggle between our ethics awareness and our rebellious nature. In the end, we either manage to hold our curiosity and desire back, or indulge ourselves in them, which probably let ourselves be consumed by regret and guilt later.

Are You Fit Enough?

When talking about fitness, what is the first thing comes to your mind? A muscular figure working out in the gym for 3 hours? An athlete who is able to run continuously for 10km without gasping?

How do you define FITNESS?

Today I came across with an interesting definition of FITNESS from an article. According to Dr. Pamela Peeke from the University of Maryland, fitness is about the ability to cope with life’s emergencies, big and small. Whether it’s sprinting to the airport to catch the morning flight because you had just overslept, or escaping a burning building, when unfortunately you were trapped in the 10th floor; it’s all depend on whether you have the strength, endurance and agility to free yourself and your loved ones from the disasters.

As a female, I have built up a pretty tough physique due to my karate training and involvement in other sports. It’s my desire to be characterized as a fit person and I actually considered myself fit, in appearance. Now I would like to go for a higher level of fitness, the fitness to survive in the 21st Century life.

It has always been my concern if I am able to rescue myself from a difficult and dangerous situation, says an ambush by a stranger on the street. There are usually two choices for you in such case, fight or flight. My karate teacher has always been telling me to flight, at my best. I strongly agree with him. That’s a good rule of thumb for self defense, regardless if you have martial art background. But, what if… when the option of flight was unavailable? When I had no choice but to fight, for the sake of my own life?

I wouldn’t deny, I do have fantasy of fighting on the street once in a while. And of course, the plots are always amazing to make myself a cool heroin. But I am clear, a fantasy is a fantasy, it hardly matches to the reality, unless I am really good, or my opponent is really lousy (as fragile as toufu).

There is still a room for me to improve my fitness level, in the aspect of self defense. I do believe through proper martial art training, one tends to handle life’s everyday emergencies better.

So what about you? Do you think you are fit enough to save your own life?