Month: October 2012

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Make Google dance… the nerd way.

With the search modifiers described in this article, you can search on Google with a surprising amount of narrowing available. Though the article is mainly about graphing the results of searches, it contains on one handy page all the obscure modifiers that let you pull useful data out of that torrent of information- such as how to differentiate between ‘tackle’ a problem, and fishing ‘tackle’. Definitely a page worth bookmarking!

Why is this interesting at all, you ask? Well, go do your normal Google search using just one or two keywords. Normally you’ll get 60 bazillion (yes, that’s a word, it’s scientifically proven) hits and if you’re lucky somewhere on the first two pages what you were looking for will appear- or at least something close to it. Use some of these ngrams to tell Google what you actually are looking for, et voilà!, a much more focused and narrow result . Too cool.

Ngrams FTW!

via Eugene Volokh

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The Power of Rhythm

As a long-time fan of Trance, I don’t find this surprising at all–

The researchers found that the sensory-evoked brain wave measured at the back of the skull over the region where vision is processed, peak each time the image was presented, but when the image was presented simultaneously with the missing drumbeat, the electrical response evoked by the picture was bigger than when the image was presented out of rhythm or flashed on the screen in silence. These visual circuits are more responsive when the image appears in synch with the auditory rhythm.

This region of the brain processes the earliest steps in vision, the circuits that detect visual input. This means that our perception of the external world entering our mind through our eyes is affected by the rhythm of what we hear. Something seen at a point precisely in beat with an auditory rhythm is more likely to be perceived than if it appears out of synch with the rhythm. This gating of visual input by auditory rhythm does not require a prolonged meditation on the rhythm to cause the person to enter into some sort of a trance-like state; the effects are nearly instantaneous. “Within a few measures of music your brain waves start to get in synch with the rhythm,” Schirmer says.

Of course this could just be a fancy way of saying, “It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.”