aesmael

On my drive home tonight I was listening to an episode of ABC Radio's All in the Mind program, an episode called "Placenta Brain: the cognitive burden of pregnancy?". Amid all the talk of whether being pregnant induces cognitive impairment[1], this exchange struck me as relevant from an autistic perspective.

Mary Ann Stark: We all use both voluntary and involuntary attention and the involuntary attention - or what we call fascination - is where you can't help but be attracted to a certain stimuli. For example, thunder and lightening are something that we all just pause and stop, it's fascinating. Then there's another type of attention that's called directed attention, is what I've chosen to call it, and so have some others such as Kaplan and Semprich - but the directed attention is the kind of attention that really requires effort. That's what we have to use to listen carefully, as someone's explaining directions to us.

Abbie Thomas: It's like when I'm trying to sort of tell my husband about what we're doing on the weekend, he has to really concentrate and block out the fact that he wants to go and so some model railway work.

Mary Ann Stark: Or you know a football game on TV might be a little bit more interesting too and more fascinating. But you do use both of those types of attention and their appropriate at different times for different reasons. But what happens especially in our very fast paced lives is we tend to use directed attention a lot. We use it consistently and it's one of those things that because we're blocking out the distractions around us requires a lot of effort. And if we continually use it, it tends to fatigue. Well one of the ways that you can kind of give directed attention a break is to just do the things that are fascinating and that's what nature does. It allows us opportunities to just become fascinated with what's going on around us, and then when we have to use that directed attention again we're a little bit more refreshed and restored, so that we can block out the distractions that we need to block out in order to continue driving and following the map or whatever the example is we might use.

[1] The conclusion I took from the episode is that this effect may be an illusion brought on by stereotyped expectation, along with possibly the amplified load of trying to continue living while also preparing large life changes. But that is more or less what I expected to be the case going in, and biases being confirmed merits some suspicion.

[Wrote this on Wednesday; some additions before posting Friday due to the passage of time]

I think I must have mentioned the acquisition of fragmentary older archives of SETI Radio (now Are We Alone?) previously because memory says I have written of starting the podcast listening over again and going through an initial set of Planetary Radio alone.

It continues to irk me that I do not have access to the full, original run of Are We Alone? from 2002 because I do remember seeing those listed in iTunes back in 2005-06 or thenabouts but of course at the time did not have the bandwidth - or possibly even the storage space - to download them then. The same is true for some other shows like Planetary Radio, but at least they still have their entire run available on the website.

But since then, as I have been distracted from writing by school and workplace commitments, we have moved on successively to first a truncated second playlist where The Naked Scientists originally came in, and then a third beginning at the point where the earliest available episodes of Are We Alone? from https://archive.org/ begin.

Probably I mentioned that early Planetary Radio featured heavily guests and projects connected with the Planetary Society, such as SETI@Home, before moving on to a strong Mars focus for the historic close approach of Earth and Mars in August 2003 and the launches of several robotic missions to Mars; that focus has continued to where I am currently at in listening, late January 2004 when the second of two rovers (Opportunity) has only just landed on that planet.

I feel like my insistence on pinning these podcasts as near as I am able into a chronological order is vindicated by occasions such as the landing of the Spirit rover (and now Opportunity) when I have each of these three science shows reporting on the same events from their own particular perspectives and sources. It gives me an enjoyable feeling of synergy, a sense of time and place that these programs really do relate to each other in some meaningful way.

The current list, Playlist 3, is I am sure by far the longest that will be in at least terms of span covered. It starts at the beginning of November 2003 and extends to January 2005, when Playlist 4 will begin with the addition of The Philosopher's Zone from ABC Radio. To that point, every single podcast in my list which extends so far back in time is one also broadcast by radio, which seems odd to me. The first which exists purely as a podcast (and I suppose in that sense as an entirely amateur production[1]) is the one following, Slacker Astronomy, which is also the earliest podcast on my list to no longer be active.

It continues to be strange to me that The Naked Scientists hosts a call-in contest “Science Fact or Science Fiction” wherein callers are presented with a claim and asked to judge whether it is true or made up, because there is a similar game in the podcast The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe [2], Science or Fiction, in which the hosts are challenged to pick the fake science news stories from the genuine ones.

Nearly finished the book I'm reading[3] at the moment and have nearly a week to wait until I can get hold of the sequel at earliest. In the meanwhile as well as working on that placement report I can hopefully make sure to get some more writing done on what I think of the various books I've been reading over the past year. Most of them do have partial or complete notes written up already, it's just a few gaps that need filling so I can finish off and actually put them up in the order they were read. Am quite looking forward to getting that done because I do tend to enjoy talking about what I am reading and what I think of it, even if this is mostly awful.

So, objective for the next few days: work on placement report, work on not-reviews, also hopefully put together a nice meal for people which will likely involve fish.

Getting up to date on not-reviews and on my reading database are the two main personal projects I feel backlogged on currently. Maybe after those are up to date I will feel free to write more and to play games, both of which I feel I am missing out on. Therefore, the perpetual cry of diligence and energy!

[1] Although of the four which precede it, two are on public, non-profit broadcasters and the other two, as I understand it, rather rough or humble beginnings before acquiring their polish.

[2] Which doesn't start until 2005 but due to more extensive RSS availability I listened to a lot of in my first attempt at podcast catch-up – it was nearly the oldest one available by that approach.

[3] Now actually finished, during a lovely lunch in a café yesterday after my endocrinologist appointment.

On the drive home today I listened to the episode of Planetary Radio covering SpaceShipOne's claiming of the X Prize, from way back in October of 2004 (why yes, I am behind on a great many things). The bulk of it held interviews with private industry types and a lot of overwrought language which annoyed me about how important what they did is.

Stuff like suggesting NASA and major aerospace corporations are now thinking "we're screwed" in the face of SpaceShipOne.

Because I have a helluva lot bigger goal than they do. And you know what that goal is? I absolutely have to develop a manned space tourism system for Sir Richard Branson that's at least a 100 times safer than anything that's ever flown a man to space and probably a lot more. I have to do that.

And perhaps it is just me, but I thoroughly do not believe building a suborbital or low Earth orbit moneymaker for a billionaire is even slightly bigger or more important than doing actual research on the rest of the solar system and universe. Maybe if they were working on a destination, somewhere to actually go and spend time in space that would be different. But not a quick dip out of the atmosphere so the rich and famous can score themselves a new "I've been there" shirt.

[there's some references at the end of this journal post because school and I felt like practicing]

Lasering this morning. Daring to hope I might be done after this round, in half a year. That would not be too long a time. Little bit frustrating that I took up a desire and occasional accomplishment of morning walks right around when I am experienced a laser-induced need to avoid UV exposure, so I look forward to the banishing of one of those duelling tensions.

Took a while to find where the shopping centre bookshop had removed itself to, then visited a few times on my outing. I don't buy books so often and when I do it is seldom off-line (the state of book prices in Australia is perhaps best described as 'exorbitant') but it was lovely to reacquaint myself a bit with the state of paper books as art objects.

Saw a beautiful edition of Mockingjay in passing. Lots of lovely editions of The Hobbit. Someone has decided to give all Brandon Sanderson's books a consistent look across settings and series; that shelf was a sight to see, so unexpectedly uniform. Robin Hobb's books are still in those beautiful, shiny covers that make me long to give over my copies to charity or second-hand, just to replace and see something so pretty on my shelves (too expensive, too frivolous, maybe someday...). The cover of Alastair Reynolds' On the Steel Breeze clashed weirdly with Blue Remembered Earth, as if they didn't belong together, so strange. Different editions or publishers or sharp change of art direction I suppose.

There were some boxed sets of the Song of Ice and Fire books which looked nice, though it would be nice to be able to do without having a permanent reminder of the television series affixed to the covers. Makes me wonder what looks the books may have when that series is complete. The Warriors anthology in three parts highlighting to me the absence of the Vandermeers time travel anthology since the last time I visited. The new edition of The Ice Dragon is lovely, the illustrations and the cover and the texture. Pretty book, book as art in itself. Could not find The World of Ice and Fire at first, the particular book I wanted to take a look at. Found it elsewhere after a bit, with all the trendy books. But I ended up not daring to take more than a quick flip through it, maybe I was scared of being thought a serious customer.

Looked for, could not find any copy of Kameron Hurley's The Mirror Empire. Did smile to see that, between times I visited the books, someone seems to have bought a copy of Ancillary Justice. Colours a bit too bright and busy and non-representational feeling for me on that one, but that's okay. Hoping it found a good home.

When I got home, was pleasantly surprised to see the set of dice I had ordered had arrived. I've never had dice before apart from the ones you get in department store board games and these are a delightful dusty green with gold numbers, fun even just to look at. I enjoyed taking some time to feel them and start learning which ones are which. Handy because now I can use them for pen and paper RPGs instead of using online rollers, and I've learned this difference matters to some (many?) who play such games.

Yesterday, on part of the way home listened to an episode of Ockham's Razor on cohabiting with wildlife in Australia. Was prepared to be disappointed, envisioning a lack of suggestion that perhaps people and society change their ways in order to minimise conflict and adjust expectations of what is acceptable. Ended up being mostly pleasantly surprised for the most part although perhaps I had set my standards excessively low. NB: a remark about dingo purity is potentially outdated.

Listened to an episode of Escape Pod through lunch. The story, "Shadowboxer", was okay but my main point of interest was how this story's threads weave with Death Note. If Kira's power were inherent, if he were of the USA and held as their instrument. Well, but I thought it was okay. Not inclined to launch into a lengthy criticism at this time. Judging by the comments many others found it much more strongly resonant. This was also the second consecutive podcast to reference research into intercessory prayer, although "Shadowboxer" claimed a near opposite outcome to that reported by Are We Alone? Big Picture Science.

That episode was rather fascinating in itself, covering language and power and other related aspects of headology. The general thrust of the episode I'd seen before elsewhere but, for example, I didn't know that the Curse of the Bambino in baseball was actually technically a jinx! Also appreciated the line of continuity drawn with European-derived cultures and others, and the explicit disclaiming that curses are not a matter of supposed primitiveness. Potential listeners should be advised that experiments are described wherein harm was done to animals, including death in some cases.

Finally from earlier in the week, a two-part program from All In The Mind on mental health in Indigenous Australian communities and approaches featuring storytelling and community involvement. I've little to say on the content itself, mentioned mainly in case of interest from others.

Except, a remark near the beginning of the first episode by the presenter: "Addressing mental illness is a vital component of the healing process for Aboriginal Australians". I found that rather incensing. They need healing? THEY need healing!? We got sickness running so deep we think it's a healthy way of being, to believe it's right and just and good to do what we do to people, to genocide or force it on them and try to make them sick too. That is what we need healing of, that splinter of ice in our collective heart.

Of course the indigenous people of Australia do need healing of the hurt done to them, but not I think in the manner implied by that framing, of necessary reconciliation to the pre-eminence of white society upon their land. That is... not it.

References 

Bentley, M. (Producer). (2006, June 14). Skeptical Sunday: Curses!. Big Picture Science Audio. Retrieved from http://podcast.seti.org/pages

Di Filippo, P. (Author). (2006, June 15). EP058: Shadowboxer. Escape Pod Audio. Retrieved from http://escapepod.org/

Malcolm, L. (Presenter). (2006, June 10). Aboriginal mental health part 1 - Tiwi Islands. All In The Mind Audio. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/

Malcolm, L. (Presenter). (2006, June 17). The Long Grassers' legacy - Aboriginal mental health part 2. All In The Mind. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/

Outred, J. (2014, April 15). Dingo declared a separate species.Australian Geographic. Retrieved from http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/

Listening to an episode of The Philosopher's Zone this morning, The Sorites Paradox. I haven't listened to the whole episode yet but was struck by the guest Dominic Hyde's explanation of what a paradox is.

All paradoxes are characterised by the following general set of features: that we proceed by apparently valid reasoning, that is, apparently good reasoning, from apparently true assumptions to an apparently absurd conclusion.

This shed a lot of light for me, as I had previously believed that for a paradox to properly be a paradox it must be self-contradictory. But with the definition given here then perhaps I was mistaken about ideas such as the Twin Paradox being misnamed as paradoxes.

Finished listening to the first year of Planetary Radio, into the second year. Will miss the old theme music which sounded to me a lot like music from the SNES version of SimCity

Although the new theme puts me a lot in mind of Unicron's theme from the 1986 Transformer's theme, so that also amuses.

Still finding it remarkable how much things have changed or been anticipated since that first year of the show.

The Galileo mission was at the end of its mission at Jupiter and, during the, plunged into the planet's atmosphere to avoid contaminating Europa. They had project manager Claudia Alexander on the show to talk about this, and mentioned her next mission waiting to launch, Rosetta - which is just now nearing its target 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

They had Alan Stern on, anticipating the future launch of New Horizons (arriving at Pluto next year), and the rumours that some astronomers think maybe Pluto should no longer be counted a planet. Of the radio show: "Let's hope we're still doing this when you arrive" - looks likely from 2014.

They had Marc Rayman on, talking about recently concluded mission Deep Space 1 and the prospect of using technology tested then on a future mission, Dawn, which has now visited Vesta and will be arriving at Ceres next year.

The two Mars Exploration Rovers Opportunity (still functioning more than a decade later) and Spirit were launched and en route to Mars for their 90 sol mission.

Low key anticipation for the arrival of Cassini the next year, and all its findings and beautiful imagery as yet unrealised.

So much change, so much, and also so much continuity. Missions anticipated at the birth of the program coming to fruition now. I wonder what else has been anticipated during its run so far, and worry the answer is not much - not much to come but what's been coming the whole time.