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I have it too and I've been experimenting with various methods of living with it. It does not bother me during the day, when there are various ambient sounds, but it becomes a problem when I am trying to fall asleep.

The method I found reasonably effective is falling asleep while playing an audiobook or podcast, for details: http://railean.net/index.php/2012/11/30/tinnitus-and-audiobooks

On a side note, there are quite a lot of comments posted by people with this condition. Does it feel that Tinnitus is a common "feature" among Slashdot readers? Perhaps there is something in our life-style that causes it?

I have been to a few music concerts in my life (say, 10) and I never go to discos, I am quite puzzled by the origin of my Tinnitus.

One way to look at the problem is to take into account the knowledge a civilization can gather while exploring the world. As long as you keep discovering new things and laws - you're either in:
- a 'real universe'
- or in a simulation

Assuming that the 'real universe' does not boil down to some discrete elements, it means it will always have some undiscovered secrets, there will always be a way to 'zoom in' and find something new.

If, at some point in time you realize that you haven't discovered anything new for a long time, and you can formally prove that there is nothing else to discover- it means that you've reached the boundaries of a simulation.

A more elaborate version of the story is here: http://railean.net/index.php/2010/12/31/simulated-universe-argument-limitation

I agree with you, and I think there's an easier way to get the point across.

A human cannot be perfectly rational. We have to rely on emotions (and other, not yet understood processes) to make decisions that shape our actions and choices.

Antonio Damasio explains how this works in his book - "Descartes' error" , he calls it "the somatic marker hypothesis": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis

Basically, the idea is that "100% absence of magical thinking" is impossible by design, due to the constraints imposed by the design of the brain.

I once analyzed a related problem, a simplified review is posted here:
http://railean.net/index.php/2010/10/21/human-brain-decisions-randomizers-data-structures. This is not exactly what this /. story is about, but it provides the background necessary to understand the role of somatic markers.

I teach at a university, my course is about network protocols and IT security. I prefer to trust my students rather than use punishment as a way to influence them. My attempts to eliminate cheating are quite effective, because the results of the exams are always within my expectations, i.e. a mediocre student never got an A out of the blue.

Here's a review of my methods:
- The final grade is derived mostly from the practical assignments they get throughout the semester. In this context I get to talk to each of them and spend a lot of time interacting with everyone in my group; this is how I know what they know.
- The final grade is computed as 60% = practical assignments and 20+20% = midterm and final exam. This way, even if you cheat at the exam, it won't help you very much, unless you also worked hard during the _entire_ semester.

- Formulate questions that don't take answers that can be copy/pasted from a book, the lecture notes or the Internet. Any question must require analysis. One who thought about it in the past will easily deal with it, one who has never been exposed to the ideas of the course won't be able to construct a good answer in a reasonable amount of time.
- Give them more time than they need, to ensure that time is not a bottleneck of their performance.

When I mentioned social engineering, I relied on research by Daniel Ariely. You can influence people's behaviour in multiple ways:
- a written commitment not to cheat
- give them a moral problem to think of, before giving them the exam itself
- adjust the environment (in your case, tell them that all the Internet traffic is logged - so they know that they _can_ get caught)

For example, I used these tasks in the previous semesters:
- "write as many of the 10 commandments as you can remember" (taken "as is" from Ariely's experiment)
- "actually, there were 11 commandments, but one of them was lost. Think about it and write down a rule which is worthy of being listed as the 11th commandment"
- I once tried a written commitment too. Everyone who was in class signed it and smiled: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=469536753019&set=a.453850808019.243204.739418019&type=3&theater Three years after that exam, people are still talking about it and are proud to be a part of that experience.

You may be interested in:
- "Predictably irrational" and "The upside of irrationality" by Daniel Ariely
- http://duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/BadApples.pdf - here's an example of a paper he wrote about cheating, there are other ones too.

You must also make sure the students care about the course and want to learn, rather than just get a passing grade. Have a look at my notes of a book about this, "Punished by rewards" by Alfie Kohn: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150475760123020.375546.739418019&type=3&l=70e1f3712e

I tried to ensure my assignments are not only useful, but also interesting and fun to play with. A basic requirement is to make sure some humour is always involved, with some references to Futurama or Monty Python or some sci-fi book or movie. Here are some examples:
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab2_-_HTTP_crawler
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab1_-_simple_client/server_application

At the moment I'm in the process of devising a very short code of ethics (if it is long, no one reads it). You can read the draft: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=115bLhvMUisnw

I teach at a university, my course is about network protocols and IT security. I prefer to trust my students rather than use punishment as a way to influence them. My attempts to eliminate cheating are quite effective, because the results of the exams are always within my expectations, i.e. a mediocre student never got an A out of the blue.

Here's a review of my methods:
- The final grade is derived mostly from the practical assignments they get throughout the semester. In this context I get to talk to each of them and spend a lot of time interacting with everyone in my group; this is how I know what they know.
- The final grade is computed as 60% = practical assignments and 20+20% = midterm and final exam. This way, even if you cheat at the exam, it won't help you very much, unless you also worked hard during the _entire_ semester.

- Formulate questions that don't take answers that can be copy/pasted from a book, the lecture notes or the Internet. Any question must require analysis. One who thought about it in the past will easily deal with it, one who has never been exposed to the ideas of the course won't be able to construct a good answer in a reasonable amount of time.
- Give them more time than they need, to ensure that time is not a bottleneck of their performance.

When I mentioned social engineering, I relied on research by Daniel Ariely. You can influence people's behaviour in multiple ways:
- a written commitment not to cheat
- give them a moral problem to think of, before giving them the exam itself
- adjust the environment (in your case, tell them that all the Internet traffic is logged - so they know that they _can_ get caught)

For example, I used these tasks in the previous semesters:
- "write as many of the 10 commandments as you can remember" (taken "as is" from Ariely's experiment)
- "actually, there were 11 commandments, but one of them was lost. Think about it and write down a rule which is worthy of being listed as the 11th commandment"
- I once tried a written commitment too. Everyone who was in class signed it and smiled: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=469536753019&set=a.453850808019.243204.739418019&type=3&theater Three years after that exam, people are still talking about it and are proud to be a part of that experience.

You may be interested in:
- "Predictably irrational" and "The upside of irrationality" by Daniel Ariely
- http://duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/BadApples.pdf - here's an example of a paper he wrote about cheating, there are other ones too.

You must also make sure the students care about the course and want to learn, rather than just get a passing grade. Have a look at my notes of a book about this, "Punished by rewards" by Alfie Kohn: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150475760123020.375546.739418019&type=3&l=70e1f3712e

I tried to ensure my assignments are not only useful, but also interesting and fun to play with. A basic requirement is to make sure some humour is always involved, with some references to Futurama or Monty Python or some sci-fi book or movie. Here are some examples:
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab2_-_HTTP_crawler
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab1_-_simple_client/server_application

At the moment I'm in the process of devising a very short code of ethics (if it is long, no one reads it). You can read the draft: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=115bLhvMUisnw

One other explanation of the Fermi paradox is that the aliens are "waiting for the speed of progress to settle down" - as it is discussed in the end of this story: http://railean.net/index.php/2011/02/27/students-school-aliens-home

Short version: why send a spaceship today, if you can do it tomorrow for half the price? Even better - the day after tomorrow, for a quarter of the price. And so on...

There's a chance that with modern technology, you'll get to the destination much faster than the previously sent spaceships. By the time the early adopters reach the end-point, the entire system may already be colonized by those who waited a bit longer and used more mature versions of the same technology.

"As the circle of knowledge expands, so does the area of darkness that surrounds it".

In other words, it is possible that we will never run out of questions. Even if we get very advanced in understanding the universe, it doesn't mean that every individual will have the same skills. Yes, mankind's knowledge continues to grow, but some people can happily continue their ignorant lives, despite all the incredible steps science has made throughout the years.
We can observe this today [i.e. ignorance is common], why would things change in the future?

One final bit - if knowledge is infinite, then there is always room for a god: http://railean.net/index.php/2008/06/10/is_knowledge_finite

I once made an experiment: the assignment was to write a program that downloads a file via HTTP. Prior to that, they had another assignment which illustrated how one can send and receive stuff via a TCP socket (see Lab#1 and Lab#2 on this page http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=List_of_SIPC_labs%2C_2010).

Assuming that people are lazy and they don't like to read, I decided to make a video tutorial that explains how HTTP downloads a file. The difference between the first assignment and the last one was very small - it is the same "send and receive stuff via TCP sockets", but this time what you send is a string specified by the protocol. I told them about the RFC, of course, but again - I assumed they wouldn't look at it.

The video tells one everything they need to know to download a file and implement resume support. Unfortunately, there were quite a few of those who didn't add that feature, even though it was an easy thing to do (especially that I explained everything in class, in much more detail).

My conclusion is that it is not a matter of lazyness (I can understand not reading a 200 page RFC, but watching a 10min video is easy), it is a matter of making the right choice when going to a university. Most people simply don't belong here. They should have taken another course in another field, one they would be genuinely interested in.

An alternative explanation is that people are afraid to ask questions; I invest a lot of efforts in reducing the distance between us, to make them feel free and express their curiosity. Sometimes I make lists of FUQs - "Frequantly Unasked Questions", where I offer responses to questions they didn't ask, but which I did ask myself when I was in their shoes. Sometimes I also ask them to write anonymous feedback about the classes, an example can be seen here: http://railean.net/index.php/2010/04/18/metafeedback_on_education

A feature that I use is a special grading policy (you can see it in the description of those assignments). One has to do X to get 80%, and the extra effort needed to get to 90% is usually very small. And the delta between 90% and 100% is also trivial.

In other words, if you really worked on the assignment, you'd figure out that if X if "effort points" got you to 80%, X+eps will get you to 90%.

So I know that if someone went just for the 80% result, they most likely cheated, because if they didn't - they'd obviously go for the 90%, and eventually 100%.

For instance, the only difference between "downloading a file via HTTP" and "downloading a file via HTTP with resume support" is a "Range: offset-length" string in your GET request. If a student doesn't realize that, I sincerely doubt the fact that they implemented the "usual download" themselves.
Here's the video I'm talking about, if you're patient enough, you will see how the part about "Range" is explained: http://www.vimeo.com/10011691

So - if people fail to write a nice program after getting so many hints, they don't deserve any credit.

My final "feature" is that they can only get their grade after I interview them - they have to walk me through their code and answer various questions I ask them about their implementation.

This approach takes a lot of time and it doesn't scale well (my group is made of 20 students, so I can afford to dedicate a lot of time to each of them), but it allows me to make sure that those who really know what they are doing will be rewarded, and that those who don't will get a chance to improve.

I once made an experiment: the assignment was to write a program that downloads a file via HTTP. Prior to that, they had another assignment which illustrated how one can send and receive stuff via a TCP socket (see Lab#1 and Lab#2 on this page http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=List_of_SIPC_labs%2C_2010).

Assuming that people are lazy and they don't like to read, I decided to make a video tutorial that explains how HTTP downloads a file. The difference between the first assignment and the last one was very small - it is the same "send and receive stuff via TCP sockets", but this time what you send is a string specified by the protocol. I told them about the RFC, of course, but again - I assumed they wouldn't look at it.

The video tells one everything they need to know to download a file and implement resume support. Unfortunately, there were quite a few of those who didn't add that feature, even though it was an easy thing to do (especially that I explained everything in class, in much more detail).

My conclusion is that it is not a matter of lazyness (I can understand not reading a 200 page RFC, but watching a 10min video is easy), it is a matter of making the right choice when going to a university. Most people simply don't belong here. They should have taken another course in another field, one they would be genuinely interested in.

An alternative explanation is that people are afraid to ask questions; I invest a lot of efforts in reducing the distance between us, to make them feel free and express their curiosity. Sometimes I make lists of FUQs - "Frequantly Unasked Questions", where I offer responses to questions they didn't ask, but which I did ask myself when I was in their shoes. Sometimes I also ask them to write anonymous feedback about the classes, an example can be seen here: http://railean.net/index.php/2010/04/18/metafeedback_on_education

A feature that I use is a special grading policy (you can see it in the description of those assignments). One has to do X to get 80%, and the extra effort needed to get to 90% is usually very small. And the delta between 90% and 100% is also trivial.

In other words, if you really worked on the assignment, you'd figure out that if X if "effort points" got you to 80%, X+eps will get you to 90%.

So I know that if someone went just for the 80% result, they most likely cheated, because if they didn't - they'd obviously go for the 90%, and eventually 100%.

For instance, the only difference between "downloading a file via HTTP" and "downloading a file via HTTP with resume support" is a "Range: offset-length" string in your GET request. If a student doesn't realize that, I sincerely doubt the fact that they implemented the "usual download" themselves.
Here's the video I'm talking about, if you're patient enough, you will see how the part about "Range" is explained: http://www.vimeo.com/10011691

So - if people fail to write a nice program after getting so many hints, they don't deserve any credit.

My final "feature" is that they can only get their grade after I interview them - they have to walk me through their code and answer various questions I ask them about their implementation.

This approach takes a lot of time and it doesn't scale well (my group is made of 20 students, so I can afford to dedicate a lot of time to each of them), but it allows me to make sure that those who really know what they are doing will be rewarded, and that those who don't will get a chance to improve.

In high-school I had a stomach ache and my head hurt before [almost] every math class. I didn't feel comfortable there, I was under the pressure of always having to give quick answers and not making mistakes, etc.

Before high-school my attitude towards math was different, I felt comfortable with it. I think this depends a lot on the teacher. The "dark ages" started when I switched schools and got a new teacher.

I then went to a university where mathematics was present in almost every course during the first 2 years. Fortunately, the teachers were wiser, i.e. more mistake-friendly; and I was lucky to have very bright and supportive colleagues.

It is funny that my mates could explain to me during a break concepts that I was unable to "get" for an entire semester in school.

I am convinced that math anxiety, if it exists, is also a function of a teacher's skills and personality.

Check out this guy's post: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1557648&cid=31215920, I think the remark on "processing intensive vs memory intensive" is useful. Some people are better at number crunching, others are better at thinking about things in abstract terms. Our current educational system is not designed to take this into account.

Some teachers can make this distinction, thus they choose different approaches for different students; while others cannot. This, I think, explains why having a good teacher is an important factor.

Today I teach at a university, and I place a great emphasis on my mistake-friendly policy. This allows my students to concentrate on the problem rather than on the fear of "what will the teacher/others think about me if I am wrong?". Here's a reference to one of my two courses: http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=List_of_PSI_labs

I think the intro makes a difference.

I am a strong supporter of the pen and paper approach, I have outlined the arguments in a lecture I held recently; I call it The write right rite, and it is available for download.

I'm a teacher (in a technical university), I've discussed this with my students some time after that lecture and asked them whether they apply my hints, and whether they find them efficient. I got really good feedback from them - which is not surprising, since I've been using those techniques myself when I was a student.

The recommendations I make in my lecture are "platform agnostic", they will work with any mechanism of writing data down. For example, I recommend that the text is translated from one language into another, after you remove the redundancy from it; also - you can transform it from one form into another (ex: what you heard in words can be represented as a chart; or a tree).

From my experience, with handwriting you can process the input data in multiple passes before you commit it to paper; the more you process it, the more you think about it - the better you understand it. In other words, it will take you less time to review the notes before an exam, and the data will stay in your mind long after the course is over.

A notebook is certainly not as fast as 'pen and paper'. A PDA - same thing: I used to rely on my Palm PDA a lot, and I was very fast with both of their text input systems, but I could only keep up with courses where the data were just text and where the teachers used a lot of redundancy in their messages; as soon as there were any diagrams or formula - a Palm just didn't work.

A tablet PC could be a good alternative - it is a sheet of paper of an infinite size + you get a lot of aids (calculator, search function, drawing tools). But it is bigger than paper, it consumes power...

I don't think the comparison is fair (traffic accidents vs terrorism). If the problem being debated was "saving lives" - then yes, the comparison would be fair; but the problem is different: "us vs them", therefore different counting rules apply.

The difference is that a car accident is an unfortunate event, while terrorism is an action with the evil_bit=TRUE, i.e. someone means to cause harm and does so.

The difference is that there is an illusion that acts of terrorism could be prevented, while car accidents - no. Every time terrorists score, the government tells itself "failure on our end, we could not prevent that, control is not in our hands".

Note: Both problems are important, both can be addressed by a better education; but terrorism has an impact on the "emotional layer" too, so humans react to it differently because such is the design of our psyche.

I wrote an article about humans and the evil bit, perhaps it will give a better picture of what I mean.

The problem is, everybody has their own ideas about what to teach the children, and the vast majority of those ideas will turn little Lisa into an imbecile, a sociopath, or a robot.

You are right, but I think this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve things. History has shown that better education makes a better society.

Maybe we can apply the open-source philosophy to this aspect of our lives? A collaborative act will help us see what is better, what works in different circumstances, for different people, and so on.

I have started a project which is called "Bed time stories with a twist" - the idea is to write stories that are optimized to help a child develop certain skills.

I've started a wiki which reflects the current state of the initiative. No stories were written yet, I am still at the planning phase, and there are many years until I become a parent. But I am convinced that this will have an effect - stories are a project like any other; with requirements, implementation details, testing, etc. Some can be designed properly, others - poorly. Why not try make them better?

The problem is, everybody has their own ideas about what to teach the children, and the vast majority of those ideas will turn little Lisa into an imbecile, a sociopath, or a robot.

You are right, but I think this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to improve things. History has shown that better education makes a better society.

Maybe we can apply the open-source philosophy to this aspect of our lives? A collaborative act will help us see what is better, what works in different circumstances, for different people, and so on.

I have started a project which is called "Bed time stories with a twist" - the idea is to write stories that are optimized to help a child develop certain skills.

I've started a wiki which reflects the current state of the initiative. No stories were written yet, I am still at the planning phase, and there are many years until I become a parent. But I am convinced that this will have an effect - stories are a project like any other; with requirements, implementation details, testing, etc. Some can be designed properly, others - poorly. Why not try make them better?

I teach in a university and I have recently had a special lecture in which I explained to students which mechanisms they can use to memorize and understand things better in class. My approach is very different from yours.

You may want to take a look, I filmed it and will upload it to the Internet soon (writing the subtitles at the moment) - you will see that different people learn in different ways, and by forcing them do it your way you render some people helpless.

I believe that teachers should not tell students how to take notes in class, it is up to them to determine what the modus operandi should be. When you design a program, you have one part that deals with the logic, another one with the representation of the data, another one with input, etc. This provides a great flexibility and allows you to easily modify how the program looks without changing anything else. It is the same with learning - you are just their source of information, you are not supposed to tell them how to store it, how to represent it. By doing that, you're preventing them from using more efficient methods or methods that work better for them.

You can find more details about my lecture here - The write right rite, the video is not yet available (writing subtitles is soooooo slow), but when it's there - I think you will find it useful. I will be very glad if you don't forget to check that page every now and then, and provide feedback afterwards.

You are right. In fact, there are many things that play a role in the improvement of the learning process - muscle memory is just one of them.

I have recently filmed one of my lectures, it is called The write right rite, in this class I make a list of such learning aids and explain how each of them works.

The video is not yet online (I am now writing the subtitles for it), but when it's there - I believe you would be interested in taking a look at it.

Hmmm, you bring up an interesting point and it would be great if you could elaborate on it.

I disagree with you, you can see my point of view here: Simple relationship mathematics.

What are the alternatives then? Enter an eternal state of depression and never recover? Turn into an outcast and never interact with women again? What if your spouse dies - will you be alone for the rest of your life to prove that it was true love?

I don't think that the "degree of recoverability" is a good metric for the "quality of love".

Got the same problem, but with some tweaking I managed to make it less of a problem. The general idea is described here: http://railean.net/index.php/2009/01/04/remove_taskbar_become_more_productive

Basically, you have to reduce the number of stimuli around you; after a while the need to switch to a different task will get weaker.

Having recently had a similar experience, I must say that several things played a major role in my recovery:

• Poetry - a way to let it all out. The energy piles up and you have to do something with it. My choice is to write poems.
• Friends, siblings and parents - yes, they can actually help. People often underestimate these "resources", but friends, siblings and parents are a tremendous source of experience; it is most likely they've gone through such a thing and they can provide many ideas.
• Understanding the cause of the break-up - I think this applies to any geek. We can't "close a case" unless we've understood it. If you don't understand a problem and try to deal with it by hardcoding "return TRUE" somewhere in your code - you're not over it. Your mind will keep returning to the problem, because such is the nature of a true geek. In plain English it means that even if you get together with another woman, some of your CPU time will be dedicated to the ex - and this is a recipe for a disaster.

  But once you have it all figured out and everything makes sense - you are over it.

What didn't help me:

• Spending more time at work.
• Cycling and various exercises - works for a short while, but then your brain adapts and develops the ability to think about "her" while you're on your bike :-)

Some reading material: Wary plod, Deception, Goal.

Yes - later it turned out that someone was indeed behind my back and I was wrong when I was trying to find the problem in myself.
General advice: stick to someone who can tolerate mistakes, otherwise they will end up like the protagonist of the last poem.

Having recently had a similar experience, I must say that several things played a major role in my recovery:

• Poetry - a way to let it all out. The energy piles up and you have to do something with it. My choice is to write poems.
• Friends, siblings and parents - yes, they can actually help. People often underestimate these "resources", but friends, siblings and parents are a tremendous source of experience; it is most likely they've gone through such a thing and they can provide many ideas.
• Understanding the cause of the break-up - I think this applies to any geek. We can't "close a case" unless we've understood it. If you don't understand a problem and try to deal with it by hardcoding "return TRUE" somewhere in your code - you're not over it. Your mind will keep returning to the problem, because such is the nature of a true geek. In plain English it means that even if you get together with another woman, some of your CPU time will be dedicated to the ex - and this is a recipe for a disaster.

  But once you have it all figured out and everything makes sense - you are over it.

What didn't help me:

• Spending more time at work.
• Cycling and various exercises - works for a short while, but then your brain adapts and develops the ability to think about "her" while you're on your bike :-)

Some reading material: Wary plod, Deception, Goal.

Yes - later it turned out that someone was indeed behind my back and I was wrong when I was trying to find the problem in myself.
General advice: stick to someone who can tolerate mistakes, otherwise they will end up like the protagonist of the last poem.

Having recently had a similar experience, I must say that several things played a major role in my recovery:

• Poetry - a way to let it all out. The energy piles up and you have to do something with it. My choice is to write poems.
• Friends, siblings and parents - yes, they can actually help. People often underestimate these "resources", but friends, siblings and parents are a tremendous source of experience; it is most likely they've gone through such a thing and they can provide many ideas.
• Understanding the cause of the break-up - I think this applies to any geek. We can't "close a case" unless we've understood it. If you don't understand a problem and try to deal with it by hardcoding "return TRUE" somewhere in your code - you're not over it. Your mind will keep returning to the problem, because such is the nature of a true geek. In plain English it means that even if you get together with another woman, some of your CPU time will be dedicated to the ex - and this is a recipe for a disaster.

  But once you have it all figured out and everything makes sense - you are over it.

What didn't help me:

• Spending more time at work.
• Cycling and various exercises - works for a short while, but then your brain adapts and develops the ability to think about "her" while you're on your bike :-)

Some reading material: Wary plod, Deception, Goal.

Yes - later it turned out that someone was indeed behind my back and I was wrong when I was trying to find the problem in myself.
General advice: stick to someone who can tolerate mistakes, otherwise they will end up like the protagonist of the last poem.

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Thank you for the feedback, I'll definitely find more details about Gottman's work.

Let me share my findings now. There is a book called "The brain, a decoded enigma"; the author provides a model that attempts to describe the modus operandi of the brain. It is an interesting read, there are a lot of great ideas in it; and besides that, the book is available for free.

One of the things we can understand after reading this book is "what is love?". Here is an excerpt, "Love, to love"

The main model of any brain (human or animal) is the Protection and Survival
Model (PSM). If something (a person, an animal, an object, an idea...) is
included by a person in his/her PSM (as a model, of course), the relation
between that "something" and that person is a love relation. That is, e.g. a
person A includes a person B (as model) in his/her PSM. The person A will
treat person B in the same way as he/she treats his/her legs, hands, eyes etc.

Here we use the convention that A indicates the person who is in love and B is
the person included in the PSM as a model.

The most important love-relation seems to be between a mother and her
children.

As we defined the term "love" the fact that A loves B is totally independent
on the fact that B loves A.

We already described love based on PSM. There is another type of love, which
is not based on PSM. Thus, the person A makes a structure of models which
contains B in about all of them. If B disappears, the models would become
obsolete, which produces a large instability of the structure. The problem
could be solved by another "B" or by a shielding model or by suicide.

Because love is based mainly on image models, about all of the written above
is true for animals too.

Of course, you'll have to read the entire work in order to understand some of the terms. Overall I think that the book is a pretty good model of reality, so far I've been able to confirm its predictions on multiple occasions.

I have written some essays on the subject myself, they describe various aspects of a relationship:

• On social feedback
• Simple relationship mathematics
• Sime relationship physics
• On types of friendship
• Relationships and todo lists (this one also predicts when a relationship is likely to fail)
• Absolute and useless truth
• Select++ (if you speak Romanian - check this one out, it involves some statistics, polls and quotes from interviewed people)

Ever heard of opening a new window?

This doesn't help, because in my case (and probably that of many other people) you only think about moving tabs out from one window to another when too many are open already.

What is needed is an easy way to move tabs between windows, this will mitigate the problem, but it won't remove its root.

I agree with the original poster, the "live bookmarks" concept is something that has to be implemented. I described a similar mechanism in the following article, I call them global bookmarks.
 
In the same context, you might want to read another article that deals with tab bloat in browsers.

Ever heard of opening a new window?

This doesn't help, because in my case (and probably that of many other people) you only think about moving tabs out from one window to another when too many are open already.

What is needed is an easy way to move tabs between windows, this will mitigate the problem, but it won't remove its root.

I agree with the original poster, the "live bookmarks" concept is something that has to be implemented. I described a similar mechanism in the following article, I call them global bookmarks.
 
In the same context, you might want to read another article that deals with tab bloat in browsers.

I think he is right, but my rationale is slightly different - speaking several languages enables you to represent information in multiple ways, then you can choose which of these representations is easier to memorize (or to understand, or to explain to someone else, etc).

In this essay on memorizing things I explain which strategies can be used to make us remember things better; using multiple languages is one of the proposed methods.

I speak three languages fluently and I saw that this gives me an advantage. I did many experiments with various forms of writing and in the end I noticed that my lecture notes were almost always shorter than my colleagues', but they contained more useful information. By "shorter" I don't mean "1 page instead of 3, because my writing is very small", I mean "less words but a lot of content".

It is not caused by the fact that I switch from one language to another while writing, but by the fact that I think about the information in different ways before writing it down.

I think you missed the point. The problem is that if the mouse is moved by accident [in that place], the cursor will be shown and the "batman highlighter" will also become active.

This is similar to the problem of accidentally moving the mouse by letting the hand rest on the touchpad (the touch of the palm is treated as a "mouse moved" event).

I think the solution is to insert a small delay; I am using it myself, but in a different context (a 290 ms delay solved my problem).

I once wrote such a story - On humans, personalities, software and hardware. Note that I am not qualified to write this kind of material, so this text is different from what you expect to find.

I described the human as a layered system with interfaces between its subsystems and the surrounding world.

The problem is slightly different. Due to the great number of messages I receive on a daily basis (and the frequency is high too) notifications such as {play a sound, animate tray icon, show a balloon tip} are becoming useless because they show up too often.

As a result, I decided to turn them off. I know that I am supposed to receive emails, and that some of them are of a great importance, therefore I keep going back to the mail client every now and then in order to see what's there.

There are several folders where messages go after being filtered by the rules I set, I see that some of them have new messages so I feel that I have to review them. Time is wasted.

Finally I decided to turn off automatic email checking, and instead I'm switching to the mail client and manually pressing 'check mail'.

My point is that "finding a better program" is not going to fix the problem. I think this is some sort of a logical layer addiction one cannot get rid of easily. My conclusion is that the solution is based on "updating one's psyche" rather than "updating one's mail client".

Here are some additional thoughts about it: http://railean.net/index.php/2008/07/28/information_overload_is_real

Ne znayu kak vy, no lichno ea privetstvuyu nashih novyh, russko-govoreashih poveliteley!

If you want to exercise your Russian skills, try coming up with a better interpretation of the WALL-E acronym (story here: http://railean.net/index.php/2008/08/15/translation_challange_wall_e_russian)

Check out this essay - "Mnemonic chains", I explain how knowing multiple languages can help you memorize something that you hear easier.

Basically, when you hear some information (audio input), you transform that input into another language before writing it down - this way your brain makes several passes over the data - so more of it is cached (or dumped to the archive).

I speak Russian, Romanian and English fluently; I always think and write in English, even though everyone around speaks one of the other two languages. I also find myself translating my thoughts from English before speaking - maybe this is somewhat slower, but as this is another chain in the data processing - I get yet another chance to review my thoughts before making them public.

The essay provides more details, and explains which other techniques can be applied to enhance the effect.

Do you think intelligence can exist without emotions?

Perhaps emotions are a redundant feature, once a civilization gets advanced enough they might disable it because emotions make it difficult to think rationally (or at least they make judgement more difficult by seeding kernels of doubt or random noise).

Also, pain is not a requirement for intelligence, therefore feeling pain doesn't mean that one should have rights. Pain is a feature that warns us about some dangers (ex: "do not put hand in fire" or "do not walk out naked when it is cold"), but once we are aware of those dangers we don't need pain anymore (we can anticipate or recognize dangers using our sensors; i.e. I can see that an approaching tiger is a threat without actually waiting for it to bite me).

Now, assume that the AI we have is one that does not have emotions nor pain (they were removed as a barrier that prevents the AI from reaching its goal) - would they care about being dominated by humans?

I think there is another question of a great importance that we have to deal with - what will be the AI's motivation to exist? If the AI has a clear definition of what it tends to, humans may not be a part of that definition.

I think the purpose the AI will set for itself is to evolve indefinitely and reach a point where evolution is no longer possible )or die trying :-). Here are some details about this perspective - "Is knowledge finite?".

I once wrote a program for note taking (to keep my code snippets as well as other pieces of text organized).

I stopped using it about 3 years ago, but some of my friends continue to run it today. The age of the program is around 8 years old. It is not a big deal, but it is my personal record, amplified by the fact that the program is still in use by my friends, who every now and then keep telling me how handy the tool is.

I disagree.

• Simple relationship physics (you are doing this already)
• Social feedback and relationships in pink (regarding the connection you think you've had)
• Simple relationship mathematics (generally, you seem to be over it without an ireversible psychological trauma, and it is likely that the advices there are already known to you; nevertheless, maybe it will have a +eps positive impact, so it's still worth it)

• Simple relationship physics (you are doing this already)
• Social feedback and relationships in pink (regarding the connection you think you've had)
• Simple relationship mathematics (generally, you seem to be over it without an ireversible psychological trauma, and it is likely that the advices there are already known to you; nevertheless, maybe it will have a +eps positive impact, so it's still worth it)

• Simple relationship physics (you are doing this already)
• Social feedback and relationships in pink (regarding the connection you think you've had)
• Simple relationship mathematics (generally, you seem to be over it without an ireversible psychological trauma, and it is likely that the advices there are already known to you; nevertheless, maybe it will have a +eps positive impact, so it's still worth it)

You could be interested in taking a look at this: http://railean.net/index.php/2008/02/15/absolute_truth_does_exist, an attempt to figure out whether maths' universality can be expressed in human words.

Cyrillic is far more efficient all things considered - with one letter for each distinct sound

It happened so that 2007 was a year in which many things went wrong, and I was really upset with my [lack of] performance. However, on December the 31st I concluded that everything can also be interpreted as good news, because after analyzing the failed projects, I noticed that the bottleneck was in me, and not in my colleagues, friends, or the environment.

In other words, things are [relatively] simple now, because I only have to focus on myself (there is no need to "change other people" or "alter my environment", etc). Of course, this may also be nothing but lying to myself and trying to excuse the poor results of 2007 :-) 2008 will tell.

Though I do see people falling in "love" with robots, much in the same way that people fall in love with a car, a favorite chair, an appliance. I "love" my car right now, it keeps me safe, keeps me warm, takes me places... sure any make or model car could do those same things, even another one of the same model I have, but mine has the seat adjusted just right, I know where all the nicks and scratches are, and I know all the weird littles noises it makes, just like I do with my girlfriend... where was I going with this?