Gero Miesenboeck reengineers a brain

Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer

I know what is the most fascinating thing in this world; and i got a version of it in my own skull. How wonderful does that feel.... !!

Source: TEDTALKS

China overtakes Japan as the World's SECOND biggest economy

Key points from the article:
China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter.

Japan’s nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled $1.288 trillion, less than China’s $1.337 trillion

The country of 1.3 billion people will overtake the U.S., where annual GDP is about $14 trillion, as the world’s largest economy by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist Jim O’Neill.

China overtook the U.S. last year as the biggest automobile market and Germany as the largest exporter. The nation is the world’s No. 1 buyer of iron ore and copper and the second- biggest importer of crude oil, and has underpinned demand for exports by its Asian neighbors

The country remains a developing nation, with its

per capita gross national income ranked 127th in the world at $2,940

at the end of 2008, behind Angola and Azerbaijan, according to the World Bank

Source: BLOOMBERG

True and Tough Manly Movie characterizations

Here are my personal recommendations of movies with strong and tough MANly characterizations.

Trying not to miss out any good ones that i might have forgot, i searched the web with the key words-'top manly movies' and i was disappointed to see the lists that came up had emphasis on movies with beefy actors and gun fights. So, I hope you see what this list is not about.

This is about the solid characterizations of men with inspiring manly body language. No Fuss, No Extra emotion, No Nonsense. I am having hard time finding the adjectives to describe the list. If you see what i mean, this one word is actually enough to describe the theme - 'MANLY'.

.

Unforgiven (1992) - Clint Eastwood

Gone with the wind (1939) - Clark Gable (As Rhett Butler)

Deliverance (1972) - Burt Reynolds (As Lewis Medlock)




Full Metal Jacket (1987) - Lot of them (Directed by Stanley Kubrick).

The movie that made me become a fan of Stanley Kubrick

God father (1972) - Marlon Brando

Schindler's List (1993) - Liam Neeson (As Schindler)

Gangs of New York (2002) - Daniel Day Lewis (As Bill the Butcher)

A Perfect World (1993) - Kevin Costner (One more of Clint Eastwood's)

A Few Good Men (1992) - Jack Nicholson (As Col. Jessep)

Sin city (2005) - Mickey Rourke (Marv)

Dana Veera Soora Karna, Missamma and a lot of other movies i can not recall right now-NTR

I know i didn't list any movies of Rober De Niro, Al pacino, Sean penn, Stallone etc.., May be in the second list.

Did i miss out on any good ones ?

World Economy - A Map based on Economic Status of Countries

World economy cartogram. To highlight the distribution of wealth and power in the world of today, this cartogram sizes the countries according to their relative financial status, here presented through gross domestic product (gdp) per capita, offering an alternative world view to a regular map.

Countries such as China and India become much smaller, next to giants in Western Europe, North America and Japan. Africa represents a minor speck, while South and Central America lands somewhere in between.

Source: ENVIRONMENTTIMES

Julian Assange of WikiLEAKS

Internet activist Julian Assange serves as spokesperson for WikiLeaks, a controversial, volunteer-driven website that publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct.

Source: TEDTALKS

Is there a hole in the plot of 'Inception' Or am i missing something here?

what follows is my understanding of the chronology of subject's state of mind and his perceptions during the length of the story. From what is being presented in the movie, i see that the objective of Dicaprio's team was not actually met!! Why i think that way would hopefully be apparent towards the end. May be i am missing some point but please feel free to comment.

Objective of DiCaprio's team:
Implant a new idea/thought in the mind of Subject at Level 0.
That is- by the end of the process, the subject in Level 0 should be aware/know with authenticity, about a NEW important information 'xyz' previously unknown to him; and backed by a reason strong enough to believe it is true

Subject's/Victim's(Cillian Murphy) State of mind:

Level 0:
Traveling with bunch of guys in a plane.
Duration of journey is 10hrs.

Level1:
Doesn't know that he is dreaming.
He thinks it is real world.
Inception team is his enemy and is harmful to him.
His Godfather/Advisor(Tom Berenger)is a good man.

Level2:
Initially doesn't know that he is dreaming.
He thinks it is real world Later, Dicaprio convinces him that,
-this is a dream world, where his godfather is trying to extract info from him and Level 1 is the actual real world.
-and that subject's Godfather knows some very important info relating to Business empire, which need to be extracted from him.

Subject friends with DiCaprio's team.

Level3:
Knows he is dreaming. But still thinking that Level1 is real world, Level2 is Dream and now thinks he entered into Level3 which is the Dream of his Godfather(Berenger), to extract some valuable info.


Level 4:
Dead/Inanimate
Ms.Page gives him a kick so that he could wake up/go live and continue on with his work back in Level 3


Level 3:

Now he extracted valuable info from the subconciousness of Berenger.
Goes through some Father-child emotion and changes his future direction.
(From Dicaprio's perspective, New thought implanted into Subject's mind.(But notice new thought which is real with respect to only Level1 subject but not Level 0 subject ))

Level 2:
Knows he is dreaming.
Thinks he is Just one level from Real world which for him has been Level 1.
Thinks that with the help of his friends, he successfully extracted some valuable info(previously unknown to him) from his godfather's dream

Friends with DiCaprio's team
Equipped with New info he extracted from his god father's dream

Level 1:

Friends with DiCaprio team.
Thinks he is back to real world with the new thought carried from his Godfather's dream to Intermediate dream to real world.
Ready to implement the thought in this Level 1 real world. He is not aware of the existence of any Level 0.

Level 0:

No relationship with Dicaprio team.
Just Remembers about the new thought as a part of the dream(s) he had. But he comes to know that he Level 1 is just a dream but not real world .The new throught is not from a real world experience.

(This is the transition i would like to question. The movie doesn't show what the subject was thinking when he is back to this level 0. Everyone starts walking as if objective was achieved )


what's not convincing is:
The subject thinks that he just had a normal dream of his own, not shared by anyone else, and that all new thoughts were part of his own dream, But not part of some REALLY planned extraction from his Godfather(as in deeper levels) at Level 0, which means there is no authenticity associated with the new thought he now has at Level 0.
But for the Subject who lived in Level1, yes since it is real world to him he would have followed the thought that is being implanted into him. Because at L1, he was aware, that he had really shared dreams with others and came to know about some info from subconscious of other people.

But isn't the objective of Dicaprio team is to implant the idea with authenticity, into the mind of subject in Level 0 ? The subject would not follow the implanted idea in Level 0 because, he knows that the idea belongs to Level 1 which he consciously considers as his own dream, meaning DiCaprio team's objective is not met.

Am i missing something?

My original thoughts on Real Life and Virtual Simulation

If humans at level 1 can create a virtual world(level 2) which is as real as and indistinguishable from Level 1, How can the Humans at level 1 say that they are not part of virtual world that has been created by someone in Level 0 ?

A rough description or an instance of my notion reflecting the above statement

I had this notion originally occurring to me and growing in my brain, though a bit fuzzy, since my adolescence. But i see that the idea already has different manifestations running through some fellow human brains already. When i heard about Bostrom's trichotomy i was shocked to see the similarity of his notions to thoughts of mine, but also at the same time felt elated that i had in essence the same idea that occurred to a scientist/philosopher, originally occurring to me. The same interesting thing, i observed, is the common conceptual thread that runs across movies like Matrix, Thirteenth floor, Inception. Who would believe me anyway, I am just an other Mathematics lover from India, currently after money.

Inception: my opinion on the movie

Waring: the comments might contain some specific refences to plot details and might spoil your experience while you watch the movie. Reading after watching recommended.

Using virtual Immersion (In this movie, the virtual world is Dream happening in the brain of the person instead of a External simulation like in the movie Matrix) just to steal Information from a Rich guy !!! WTH ??

One smart concept wasted on one dumb motivation.

This is not a sci-fi movie if you interpret the word sci-fi in its true sense. I've read a review about this movie and christopher Nolan, in one popular media source- that went something like.."....Stanley Kubrick would have been proud". I say -"Kubrick would have regretted for being so less understood about his dedication to purity of presentation of a sci-fi concept (like in the movie -2001 space odyssey)". Actually, this could be a very good test that you could give to yourself to find out whether you like the sci-fi movies for the respect of pure novelty in science element or for how good they stimulate your emotions even at the expense of week rational justification of motivation for the whole plot. I fall in former and i believe Human emotion should just be a part of the sci-fi plot but not overcome the novelty of science element (Human emotion got greater weight in the movie but then christopher nolan didn't say that Inception is going to be a Non-commercial movie)

If a movie demands 2 hours of continuous attention, that doesn't mean there is two hours of worthy stuff. The concept underlying Matrix has far more potential to be projected in a complex manner by giving some convincing justifications for going deeper into three or four levels of simulated worlds. I am glad the makers of matrix stuck to just to one level and have given more importance to explaining or justifiying the motivations that drive the creation of virtual world, Matrix.

Anyway again, One smart concept wasted on one dumb motivation and on excess weight to human emotion over novelty in science element.

Whale onto the boat

A 40-ton whale flipped into the air and smashed the mast of a 33-foot boat off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, on Sunday, July 18, 2010. The couple on board was not injured, but their boat was wrecked. The whale then slid down the boat and back into the water. There are reports the boat was harassing the whale prior to the attack

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/