Reading behaviour

Someone recently told me that, at my age, employers don’t want to read a resume ..they want to hear a good story. So, here’s number one. While I was back in graduate school, I did research modeling reading comprehension on the computer. We were trying to develop a 'natural language' interface based on adult reading skills. Our goal was to build a database system that could store information and answer questions in English-like fashion. My job was to test adults and see what cognitive skills they use to understand and remember what they read. We programmed these skills as ‘comprehension rules’ on the computer. I remember encountering a problem where we had to decide between two competing scientific theories of memory. We already knew that inference-making was an essential skill people use to understand what they read. One theory, called the depth-of-processing theory, held that competent readers make a wide range of 'elaborative' inferences in order to make reading material more memorable. The other theory, known then as the ‘relevancy hypothesis’, claimed that readers make only those inferences necessary to give the material coherence. I tested adult comprehension and memory for short reading passages that required inferences. The results supported the relevancy hypothesis meaning that readers made mostly the type of inferences that contribute to coherence. It also meant that we had to adapt a strategy to somehow constrain inference-making in our reading comprehension model. Research in this field not only benefits companies in the computer industry ..like Google ..it also advances the state-of-the-art in reading education ..contributing to programs that help children with learning disabilities like dyslexia. So, there you go ..I managed to write a job story ..as well as a public service announcement. How boring. I’m up to ten. What a long strange trip it’s been. If I promise not to post anymore of them ..will you please come back again ..?

Power surge

I feel a surge of energy running through my nerve cells ..disrupting my attention ..making it hard to read the paper .. or think clearly ..or focus on what I want to do next. Should I call and invite Laura and Karla to watch the Oscar’s tonight ..? Oh, that wouldn’t interest a thirteen year old, she’d probably rather watch a video. Besides, I’m still fighting a head-cold. I prepare a cup of tea ..and instead of sipping it ..I gulp it down. I vigorously clean the table ..and decide not to push it any further ..I put on music from the ‘Sylvia’ soundtrack ..light a candle ..sit down and try to sustain a coherent train of thought ..no luck ..they just scatter like rabbits. I feel anxious ..but can’t see the reason ..just had a good night’s sleep ..even woke up feeling cheerful after a dream I can’t remember ..although if I try hard, I get a faint image of myself, sitting on the bluffs with my friend Jack ..and he’s like ..why aren’t we in the water yet..? Maybe we all suffer bouts of attention deficit from time to time ..keeps us from getting into a rut ..and helps us explore the one-thousand-and-one things around us ..without hesitation.

Sunset in Big Sur

I’m sitting in the baths of Esalen ~ on the edge of a cliff ~ above the pacific ocean ~ watching the sun set ~ and reminding myself that the world is spinning ~ I must have said it out loud because Jim replies that I better hold on ..it’s slippery ~ laughter ~ no worries ..look ..no hands ~ more laughter ~ water splashes over the side and I watch it disappear into space ~ someone asks what I thought about the workshop ~ what ~ you know, this afternoon ~ I don’t remember ~ laughter ~ look, I’m only dealing with what’s in front of me right now ~ laughter ~ I inhale and pass it to Alexandra and Dieter ~ who are discussing plans to leave tomorrow ~ fly to Mexico ~ take a bus to Oaxaca ~ and lie on the beach at Puerto Escondido. "Sounds cool" I tell them "..but, don’t let it interfere with your view of the stars tonight." Alexandra laughs but I have the feeling Dieter thinks I’m strange ~ I guess they better leave soon before I get anymore attracted to her ~ she has a way of making you feel warm ~ by paying attention ~ not acting like there’s somewhere else she’d rather be ~ whereas me, I have difficulty maintaining eye contact ~ and tend to drift until it’s my turn to talk ~ I’m getting better ~ now I listen to people so I have something to write about later.

Night sky

Alien messengers have taken control of my neurotransmitters ~ and replaced them with voices of their own ~ they’re guiding me outside ~ and directing my attention to the night sky ~ around the constellation Vulpecula ~ light waves begin to arrive ~ inviting me to the wedding of the Princess Angelii ~ which should take place a billion years from now ~ around the time that I arrive ~ there will be drummers ~ dancers ~ and revelry ~ by then life on the planet will have progressed that far ~ baring any unforeseen shift in stellar events ~ so, hope you can attend ~ my friend.

More passing thoughts

There’s a little black spot on the horizon ..about the size of a pea ..floating on the line that separates the sky from the sea. It wasn’t there yesterday. When I look through the telescope, I see a black hole with daylight swirling around it and disappearing into it like water going down the drain. Perhaps aliens landed to get a drink ..sucking up the local atmosphere ..replenishing themselves for the trip home ..wherever that may be. I sit back and watch the moments of the day evaporate away ..and wonder where they go. Perhaps shooting into another dimension like vapor ..cleansing the body of someone taking a shower in a distant galaxy. Perhaps they vanish through a portal in my head ..and into someone else’s head ..I sure don’t remember anything. I wonder if my brain waves persist ..rippling through space like radio broadcasts ..and if there’s a curious entity listening somewhere ..probing my state of mind ..replying with signals that wind up as my next passing thought. Like, sometimes when I think I’m getting old and unbearable to be around ..a thought comes out of nowhere reminding me that Karla and Andy enjoy my company. When I think the pain in my head is a tumor .. another message arrives saying that it’s just some stagnate pool of thought that hasn’t found it’s way out ..let it go. When I believe real estate developers are destroying my life .. I hear someone saying they’re just adding another layer of life. But that means more neighbors monitoring and criticizing me. No, those voices are your own. Your parents quit playing that role a long time ago.

Passing thoughts

Out here on the deck there’s cool air and sunshine ..I feel the buzz and hum of a passing day ..just like any other day. Across the creek a gardener washes out his pail ..it makes a loud splash ..at the same time, inside the house, my stereo makes a loud pop and goes quiet ..not the gardeners fault I hear myself say ..why did I say that ..? Because, for a fraction of an instant, the two sounds came together in my head ..and actually got connected in a causal relationship ..until the absurdity of it strikes me the next instant ..I think it’s the nature of my mind to briefly consider all possibilities before eliminating the unlikely and absurd. Now I hear kids playing in the parkway ..I can’t see them but I hear the sound of skateboards going clack clack clack ..and someone shouting ‘I can do it ..I can do it ..’ I immediately connect the sound with my concept of ‘play’ ..with no consequence other that to aid childhood development. Now I remember hiking with Karla and Andy yesterday ..and I’m thinking about Karla’s education ..and Andy’s instincts. Andy doesn’t have to learn fractions ..and Karla doesn’t automatically track birds ..but I try to relate fractions to something Karla almost instinctively knows ..like quartering cows at the butcher’s shop. A grizzly image, I agree ..even more so when I consider how much her mother enjoyed just watching cows graze ..and how Karla collects everything cow-like. Yesterday was her mother’s birthday ..Valentines day ..she would have been 38 years old if a car hadn’t crashed into her in Monterrey, Mexico ..several years ago.

Personality disorder

I don’t think a 1,000 mile road trip is such a big deal for an astronaut ..especially one who’s in the grips of a desperate love affair. It doesn’t require a psychiatric category for me to understand. Besides, I hear the term ‘personality disorder’ used to describe so many different things people do these days ..it doesn’t explain anything at all to me anymore. I think common feelings such as fear and panic ..brought on by an over-blown sense of threat and danger ..are reason enough for me. I find it hard to believe that a highly trained astronaut veers off on a trajectory towards self-destruction, and flushes her career down the tubes ..because she has a ‘personality disorder’ usually associated with over-achievers ..as the experts claim.

Verbal behaviour

A friend of mine once told me that language is not the perfect medium of communication we’ve all come to rely on ..and I believe it. It is way too easy for me to misinterpret what someone says .. and fill in my own ideas. In casual conversation it’s not a big deal ..it can even be funny. When it occurs in intimate conversation .. relationships may suffer. But, when it occurs between heads of state on the international stage ..it can be disastrous. The other day I heard Bush defend his new policy on Iranians living in Iraq by saying that it was a ‘defensive strategy’ ..and not the ‘offensive campaign’ everyone is accusing him of. However, when I read what he actually says, it sure sounds to me like he’s opening the door to offensive strikes ..and I bet it sounds that way to the Iranians as well. First he says it’s “..OK to kill Iranians who threaten the lives of US servicemen” .. I agree, that’s a defensive strategy. Then he says it’s “..OK to kill Iranians who kill innocent civilians” ..that also sounds like a defensive strategy. However, what he says next implies an offensive assault .. and I’m afraid that’s the way Iranians are going to take it. He says it’s “..OK to kill Iranians who stop us from achieving our goal.” He doesn’t say which goal; so I have to assume he’s referring to the goal of establishing democracy in Iraq. Protecting democracy is what makes it sound like an ‘offensive campaign’. A goal as lofty as democracy naturally implies a broad range of supporting activities ..that can be carried out in many different ways. For instance, lets say military officers decide that, in order to achieve ‘the goal’, they need to secure the borders more aggressively. Does that mean it’s open season on Iranian travel agents who are trying to help people entering Iraq from neighboring countries ..? Sound farfetched ..? .. it’s already happened. By using ‘democracy’ as a rational for killing Iranians, President Bush, opens up an offensive campaign against Iranian nationals.

Note: If Bush didn’t actually mean ‘democracy’ .. and I stick to a more literal interpretation of what he said ..then I have to conclude that it’s OK to kill Iranians who simply have the misfortune of getting in our way ..which is equally vague and open to interpretation.

Looking glass

I open the newspaper these days and it feels like I’ve stepped through the looking glass. This is the first time I’ve ever heard the US government criticize American Indians for spoiling the environment ..or Russian leaders complain about the US overstepping it’s bounds in a quest for world domination ..or Iranians asking US leaders to act more civilized ..and stop threatening them ..apparently it’s the only thing keeping their crazy leader in power. I guess it’s not my father’s Orange County anymore either ..the Vietnamese have taken over ..winning political office ..setting up Buddhist temples and schools ..and listening to Rush Limbaugh. Now they’re the one’s taking up the battle against illegal immigrants ..accusing Mexicans of failing to comply with US immigration laws the way they did ..when I know damn well that most Vietnamese families arrived here on refugee status. Mexican schools cannot afford computers for their children ..but the ones who grow up to become drug traffickers know how to use them. They’re harnessing the power of the Internet ..videotaping the innocent victims of US drug policies .. and posting them on YouTube as part of a public relations campaign.

Streaming imagery

I read an article about Einstein in the newspaper this morning ..and it made me think about the way I warp space.. kind of like a planet ..only in my case, it’s psychological space. My brain actively processes the surroundings ..sampling information from some areas more than others ..depending on what interests me at the moment. This creates a bubble that changes the way life appears. Matters of greater interest come to the foreground, and appear in high definition ..while matters of lesser interest fade into the background. Distortion and dispersion are the result. I rarely catch a glimpse of things the way they really are. Sensory phenomena arise and dissolve each instant ..my senses are refreshed ..and a new cycle of information rises and dissolves. It's a natural flow ..anything different would be like trying to drink from a fire hose ..there’s just too much information ..I beleive my brain spends most of it’s waking hours screening calls.

No more crusades

Our chances of establishing a Western style democracy in Iraq have never seemed more remote. The government we are fighting to defend is the source of the insurgents we are fighting to destroy. The Shiite followers of Muqtada Sadr are now a part of the Iraqi government, in addition to being an anti-American force. Iraq has a long history of sectarian violence. Does the Bush administration really think this is fertile soil for democracy ? It is a conundrum. The only logical conclusion is to change our objectives in the Middle East ..settle for something less than a western-style government ..maybe something closer to stability in the region (as recommended by The Iraq Study Group) and adjust our strategy accordingly. However, given the moral imperatives of this administration, logic is inconceivable.

Muse

Muse: One who inspires by seeing
more than the usual number of possibilities .

Split level head

I’m so happy I live in a split-level head ..there are so many rooms ..I don’t have to go anywhere ..I can do all my traveling from home. I run up the stairs ..where the police are ready to beat me because of my ongoing problems with authority. I run up the stairs and there’s an attorney waiting to brief me ..but I resist because I don’t trust anyone who’s trying to convince me. I run up the stairs where there’s a room full of women ..and a table full of daggers. I run up the stairs where my business partner shoots me. I run up the stairs and find an empty room ..feels kinda’ lonely in here. I run up the stairs into a room full of books ..I browse the shelves until I find one that says I’m better off living by myself. I curse the fact that I can’t talk to my father ..until I find the page that says that he has trouble talking to me too ..which makes me feel like an oddball ..until further down I read that maybe he’s an oddball too ..I feel grateful for the realization that there are two sides to that story ..and hope it’s not because I’m a paranoid schizo. I worry about the up-coming apocalypse ..then realize I have no religious basis to think one might ever happen. I curse the wind and rain ..but even the sunshine brings me pain. I worry about my cholesterol ..and drive 95 mph down the hall. I am a man of constant contradiction ..wait long enough and I’ll tell you the opposite. I’m so happy I live in a split-level head