Learn To Program

Just think of it like a puzzle.

Academic advisers have told me that if I ever expect to work under them in a lab, I better learn to code, or expect to be taught how to code. I have found a couple of resources since then to help me out. The most likely one to hold my, and your attention alike is codecademy, which treats learning to program in Java more or less like a game; you are taken through stages, given achievements, and there are even hints available. This is how I have been spending my Saturday nights as of lately.  

Another option is the book Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python:

This is a trend setting programming book
simply for the fact that it has a cool cover.

I purchased this book when it came out, only to realise that the book was released under Creative Commons, and you can download the PDF for free. (I command you, go forth dear readers and succeed where I have once failed!) It honestly is a good book, although it is actually geared more towards children. I have also read books in the "Dummies" series, such as "C For Dummies", and as expected; these books move at a boorish pace.

The website Coding Tortoise is another place to learn Java. I believe the person running it has cut back to posting once every two weeks, but there is still a backlog of posts.

Meaning and Cognition Readings

Yesterday I posted about one of the reading for my Meaning and Cognition class. Instead of a textbook, we have selections from various books in which we must read. These readings were made publicly available, so if you are interested in reading them yourself, you can find them here.

The Boy Band Effect

Social proofing is a very powerful tool. There are all sorts of examples of this; another well known (academic) study was conducted by Milgram in 1969 (see source at bottom) where he had people stand around and look up at a window. Forty-five percent of the people on the street stopped if one person was looking up, eighty-five percent of the people on the street stopped if fifteen people were looking up. Social proof has also been used to cure phobias. In a 1967 study, children who were afraid of dogs were more likely to handle a dog themselves after watching another child play with the animal.

So whenever I see mountains of screaming fans I have to wonder if there isn't some social engineering happening. Do you remember that South Park episode where Cartmen goes to Chef for advice about making a boy band?

Cartmen: Chef, God told me I was to start a boy band and make ten million dollars. The problem is, it isn't working. I mean I feel the music burning inside me, but I just can't express it right, you know?

Chef: Well Eric I... I think you're just focusing in on the wrong thing. Boy bands aren't about music, they're created by corporations to make money, they're all based on the Garmlich effect.

Cartmen: What's the Garmlich Effect?

Chef: The law of physics that states if one girl screams for something, it will make other
girls scream and then it grows exponentially until all girls within a five mile radius are screaming.

Cartmen: But then how do boy bands use that?

Chef: All they do is make videos, showing tons and tons of girls screaming for the boy-band. Once you get them screaming you can't stop them, they're crazy. Ex.. except for Liz of course.

Cartmen: Thanks!

Chef: You're welcome! Now go away.

Cartmen: OK!

Chef: And a cucumber down the pants never hurt either!

Cartmen: Cucumber down the pants, got it.

I have to wonder if there is some truth to the fictional Garmlich effect. Have you ever seen the first Backstreet Boys, or The Beatles music video? They're all being chased, or surrounded by by hordes of screaming women! In all fairness N'Sync doesn't get chased until their second video, and there is only one woman. In their first video, they're all dancing together on a moon-base, 238 thousand miles from the closest female.

One cannot help but think that there is an artificial standard being created. I remember hearing about screaming fans being placed up front at Elvis and Frank Sinatra concerts, although I have no source for this.  Televangelists place plants in their audiences, why wouldn't music promoters do the same?

Social proofing is a heuristic, a shortcut to mental decisions. "If that worked for them, then the same must also work for me"! I would argue that this is the same behavior that makes men already in a relationship more attractive to other women. "If she's in a happy relationship with him, I can be in a happy relationship with him". Finally we may have an answer to the loaded question "why are all the good men taken"? There are of course other factors involved in this. It is a rule of logic for example, that the less of something there is, the more valuable it is.

Of course, our best defense against social proof is our knowledge of it. The book The Psychology of Influence has a lot more information on how marketers, and other people try to exploit these mental heuristics we are all prone to.I highly suggest this book as further reading material into the subject.

Bandura, A. (1967). The role of modeling processes in personality development. In W. W. Hartup & N. L. Smothergill (Eds.), The young child. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Milgram, S., Bickman, L., Berkowitz, L. (1969).  Note on the drawing power of crowds of different size. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 79-82.

Steven Pinker Returns to The Colbert Report

Yesterday, the Harvard Cognitive Scientist Steven Pinker returned to the Colbert Report for the third time. In order to plug his new book The Better Angels of Our Nature. According to the short plug, he argues that we are currently living in the least violent times ever. Can't wait to read the book when I get back state-side. 

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Steven Pinker
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

One Month In Germany

It has been a little over a month since I have been in Germany. I figured a lot of you might wonder how I have been doing, considering I have not written about it at all while I have been here. Therefore, today's post will only be about my time in Germany. Regularly scheduled content will follow.

Two years ago I spent five months in Berlin, but already this experience has been different. For example, last time I had schnitzel only once, and that was when we took a trip to Poland. If they're not serving schnitzel with potatoes and gravy at the dining hall here, it's meat with potatoes and gravy.  Maybe schnitzel is more of a "southern" thing? They even sell it next to the coldcuts in the grocery stores; pre-made and pre-cooked. Since I have been here in Freiburg, I have probably eaten schnitzel at least once a week, and honestly I have no problem with that. When I unexpectedly die at twenty-three from a coronary artery, they will cut me open and find pan fried chicken and beef. In fact I am eating schnitzel right now!

You probably wish you were me.

I am surprised at how much better my speaking has become since I have been here! Although, I believe that my writing grammar still leaves something to be desired; at the same time, I haven't written as much as I have spoken. I also have been avoiding speaking English. Last time I was surrounded by other American students, this time I have made a point of distancing myself and only speaking to the other international students who do not know English. The semester has not officially started yet, and the student housing buildings aren't teeming with students; so I have not met too many Germans. However, tomorrow I am going to put up bills on the public bulletin boards at the university looking for a German / English tandem partner.

Usually on the weekends I go to the black forest. The student transit card gets us there for free on the weekends, and after two on the weekdays. Downtown is really pretty, but does get old when you are down there every day for class anyways. When a group of fellow UMASS students stopped by in Freiburg after an orientation, they all commented on how much more beautiful the city was compared to where they were, and were surprised that I spent my weekends in the black forest. However I think the latter response was more their surprise at me rather spending my free time alone in the woods than in a club, rather than the availability of transport to the black forest. Oh well.

Other than that  I usually spend my time in Seepark, which is a park around a giant man made lake that is about a block down the street from me. I take my runs there, and it is also a nice place to relax. There is all sorts of students, and people everywhere. You can swim in the lake (although it smells like goose shit), and there is also a beer garden. On Sundays some people gather together on a hill there and sing. I think they might be holding mass, but all I know is that I can hear them from my bedroom.

This time I most likely will not travel as much due to budget constraints. Last time around I went to Erfurt, Weimar (also Buchenwald), Dresden, Prauge, and Fankfurt Oder (to walk into Poland) and all of this was included in the program. However as I mentioned already Freiburg is a beautiful city and I am really ok with not leaving to go somewhere else any time soon.

The quality of food here is high, and is also relatively inexpensive. As a result I usually spend the pocket money I have on döners, Ritter chocolate, marzipan cake, blackforest cake, strong coffee, fresh bread, croissants, and of course schnitzel. You can buy a fresh, flaky croissant for 0.30€ at almost any bakery right down the street. The company Dr. Oetker makes really good frozen pizzas that I will buy when they are on sale. I sometimes felt like a typical American buying them all the time, but I felt better about it when German student professed to me that they were his favorite meal to have for dinner!

Other than that my money gets spent on books:

Yes, I purchased two dictionaries.

I have been doing a good job not spending too much money on these, but then again it is hard to feel bad about buying books. And it's a better investment than a night out drinking. The heard of the German department at my old college told me I should spend as much time as possible in book stores in Germany because it is one of the resources that the U.S. doesn't have. After all if you're a German major, and a multiple stories of German books doesn't get you excited, you might want to reevaluate your priorities.

Nevertheless I have only been here for a month. And I know I had a different impression of Germany my first month in Berlin compared to the end of my trip. Only time will tell if I feel similarly at the end of my year-long stay. Until next time.

Announcement Update

Recently I have had inquires regarding the direction of Always Avoid Alliteration. I wanted to take some time to clear things up and let readers know what to expect. Ideally, when this project first started I wanted to post five days a week. Background work on this site (tweaking html as well as the blogger code for example) takes up some of this time, as well as making sure the posts are a quality of the highest standard.

Considering that I will be here, you shouldn't
feel bad that I will be gone for a little while.

In September I will be going to Freiburg, Germany for a year. I will still update while I am there, but there will be some downtime while I first get adjusted. In order to work around this I have done two things. First, I have already written articles which will auto-post while I am away. Second, I have contacted people about being guest writers for the site. Their knowledge and interests coincide with languages, but I am also working out letting them make posts that are loosely related, or pertaining to Cognitive Science or their interests. Also while I am in Germany there of course be a larger influx of German language learning posts; considering my primary goal while I am there is to become fluent in the language. Be sure to keep posted!

Next week will also be an "off topic week". I don't know what I'm going to call it yet, but there will be five days of posts consisting of topics that don't necessarily have to do with the site. Some of the topics have briefly come up in other posts and I have gotten a lot of positive reactions to those so I figure why not cater to the audience? Topics will include social engineering, and censorship in video games. This will also give me time to come up with some more material pertaining to language, and Cog Sci.

If I could get published, this is how the cover of
the book would look like when you hold it open.

Finally, I am working on a book. It has been coming along nicely now, and when it is finished it will be available to download for free! A lot of information I have ingested over the years has come from the Internet, and as such has been free. I am simply repaying the favor after all these years. The title will be 'Motherfucker Why You Reading?' Not only is it a throwback to a Bill Hicks joke, it is also a reference to an incident I had in middle school. Another reason I am giving the book away for free is that even if I could ever get published, I probably couldn't keep the title, and frankly if I can't write a book with the word Motherfucker in it, then I would rather not write a book at all. Motherfucker Why You Reading will be about my experiences facing incompetent teachers, policies, and anti-intellectualism in the American school system. I have been through three catholic schools, two public schools, one of which was ranked in the bottom five in the state, as well as a liberal arts college and state university. I figure I have enough "academic diversity" to pull through something like this. I promise that the book will be as entertaining, informative, and funny as a free book can be.

Thanks for reading!

Foreign Language Books

If you have no one to practice with when studying a foreign language, reading is one of the best ways to go. Fortunately the Internet offers us plenty of news sources and public domain books on many different websites. Still as you progress through learning you will eventually encounter and accumulate books in that particular language. This post is essentially me showing off some of my German language books I have that are interesting for one reason or another

When I had time off during a semester in spent in Berlin, I would spend a lot of time on Unter Den Linden, people watching. Not only is Unter Den Linden where the Brandenburg Gate is, it is also part of the city where the Berlin Wall was constructed. Today it is a huge attraction with a lot of shops and has people from all over Europe as well as the world. Humboldt University is there as well, and during certain days they have a used book sale out front.

It is there that I got this book for five euro:

 

a German copy of All Quiet on the Western Front published in 1929. Other than the fact that it smells like musty cigar, there is nothing unusual about the book. What is interesting is that the Nazis would have burned this book had one of them, or a sympathizer found it. It is only a little ways down Unter Den Linden, at Bebelplatz, that the infamous Nazi book burnings took place in 1933.

Another interesting book I have was actually purchased in a used book store in Massachusetts. The store had purchased all the books of a deceased professor at an estate sale, and now were selling each of the books individually. A great deal of them were in German, or dealt with contemporary issues (at the time of the writing of the books) in German society. Here is one that I purchased: 

Do You Love Germany? Feelings on the Situation of the Country

Published in 1985, each chapter is an essay written by a different person. The very first chapter is aptly entitled "Nein".

I also have a copy of the infamous Struwwelpeter.

While hopefully no one would read this book in a serious context to their children today, I found the last copy in a children's book store in Germany. This copy has all the original illustrations and is intended for children with it's binding and thick pages. I should also note the children's books are a great way to start off reading when you are first learning a language.

Finally the last book I want to show you is the Prager Spukgestalten. It has a bad spine, so I can't hold it open to take pictures, which unfortunately is a shame because every other page has a great illustration to accompany the traditional stories told on each accompanying page.

Sweet monster guy on the back of the book

It is from Prague in the 60's, and in German. I also purchased this from the used book store. Unfortunately I have not read much if it so I can't comment on the contents. A lot of the illustrations are entertaining. It will be interesting to see the context of these stories based on the time and place of their publication. Perhaps in a future update?