I for one don’t understand all the uproar about the new Google Shared feature. I posted my shared items as a list on my public blog from day one of using Google Reader, and I have enjoyed followed the shared items of others like Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. I was really happy to see the shared feature expand as suddenly new interesting articles popped up from friend’s shared items. And when I first saw mention of the uproar on Daring Fireball, I was confused.

I mean what did these people think the word “Share” meant? Sure your shared items were very slightly obfuscated behind a unique url, but come on folks! It says right there “Your shared items are publicly accessible.” How can one ever assume from that statement that it was private? Without password protection (even then it’s suspect) your actions are there to find like anything else you do online — get used to it.

It amazes me that a lot of people still assume that they are anonymous online. Well as a certain terrible ad campaign might say, “welcome to the social.” It’s web 2.0 baby! We are now in the era of kids getting expelled for posing as gangbanger wannabes on myspace, cyber-bullying on facebook, and copywrite battles on flickr. You may be home in your underwear surfing on your laptop posting as jackalope1, but for all intents and purposes you might as well be in town square wearing a paper bag on your head while shouting at a security camera with a megaphone.

There are ways to be private online, but you gotta work for anonymity these days — always start with the assumption that nothing you do online is private.

Read an interesting review of Jonah Lehrer’s book Proust was a Neuroscientist by Greta Munger of the blog Cognitive Daily (which in my opinion is one of the best ScienceBlogs.com blogs).

In her review, Greta mentions that in her classes “[students] have to write a few paragraphs to earn ‘culture points.’ They must consider how psychology connects to art…” In response her assignment, some of her students offer unique perspectives; however, most students tend not to get far beyond the visual aspects of the work: “I get a lot of discussion of the Gestalt grouping principles with paintings.”

As I’ve been going back to school for psychology myself, this intersection between psychology and art is fascinating for me. There are some interesting books, papers, and discussions out there on the topic, but often I find that psychologists often fall into the same trap as Greta Munger’s students do. Ramachandran may have some fascinating things to say about the Cognitive Science of Art but he too fails to get past the surface visual nature of the art.

This sorta thing happens a lot with people lacking knowledge of the arts. I’m speaking mostly of those whose only experience of art is the art history museum where contemporary art means having a couple pop art paintings. If they were introduced to a wider expanse of art — especially some of the rich history of performance art — they would realize that symbols, language, meaning, ritual, emotions, relationships, human nature, communication, sociology, politics, and fun are all part of the artistic palette.

I find the easiest way to break people out of their tired purely formalist perspective is to tell them to approach art like a it’s a form of communication. Often the artist is attempting to communicate something to the viewer; sometimes they are selective with the type of viewer and sometimes they are just talking to themselves (as most of the abstract expressionists were in my opinion). Alternately, they may not be communicating themselves but rather creating a space or moment to engender communication or connection between members of the audience.

The palette that the artist uses — color, shape, size, movement, position, symbols, emotion, words, beauty, shock, humor — are all tools for creating a communication that falls outside of what we typically recognize as language. All of which is ripe for discovery and criticism from a psychological perspective and it is in these intersections where my fascination dilates my pupils.

Every year, the townsfolk of Arkham decorate their yule trees with Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Cthuthlu. What you didn’t know that the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Cthulhu were part of Christmas!?!

Everyone should know the tale of the Great Arkham Christmas Tree Disappearance! Here it is as imparted to me by my great uncle Sir Colin Arbuthnot…

It was a cold and blistery morning in Arkham. The snow was almost gray and it whipped through the streets like angry ghosts blown by a wind so fierce it felt like the houses couldn’t stand much more. That morning every citizen in Arkham awoke to an emptiness where their joyful Christmas tree should have been. If it had just been one family’s tree it would have been sad, if their neighbor’s trees were gone too it would have been tragic, but it was not just one tree or a dozen trees, every single christmas tree in Arkham was missing‚Äîand that is enough to chill any man or woman to the bone!

Even more horrifying was what the town residents didn’t know. All the trees had been stolen in the middle of the night by members of an insane cult. The cult members snuck into every home in Arkham and hauled the trees to their secret lair. The trees and the joy they contained were set to be burned in a great bonfire in order to call forth their great god Cthulhu.

Then with the stars shining down, as the cultists began thier great rite, a great tentacled mass came swooping down from the Heavens. It was the Flying Spaghetti Monster! And he was here to save the day! The tentacles whipped out and snatched each and every evil cultist before they could run away. Pirates then came out of nowhere, chained the cultists in leg irons and carted them off.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster wasn’t done however for Arkham’s homes were still missing their trees. So with just the flick of a spaghetti tentacle, a tree materialized in every home in Arkham, and every tree was even bigger and more beautiful than before!

You too can decorate your yule tree like the townsfolk in Arkham! NifNaks makes Traditional wool Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Chuthlu Ornaments.

I gotta agree with Eric Meyer. The Opera lawsuit is stupid. The only reason that people don’t install things besides IE these days is laziness, ignorance, and poor marketing on the part of the other browsers.

Not the mention, I like Eric Meyer got no beef with IE7. It ain’t half bad — if only the adoption process was better IE6 is still about 14% for CatCubed and a whopping 50% for the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center.

You asked for it! So we’re doing it again! From the creators of Urban Golf, the $25,000 Pyramid Scheme, the Buzzed Bee and other notorious wastes of time and talent comes What’s Your Answer?!

We don’t care if you have the right answer, only the funniest answer will do!

I’ll be the scorekeeper again (what me take bribes? never!)

Answer the write-in question for a FREE DRINK

Visit the What’s Your Answer promo page and answer the question at the bottom. The person with the funniest answer will get a free drink the night of the show.

Winner’s Choice Charity Donation!

A portion of the door will go to a local charity chosen by the funniest team! A contract to write the next Dane Cook movie awaits the least funny team!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 16th; doors 7pm, show 8pm
12 Galaxies – $5 (no one turned away for lack of funds or tact)

So it seems like my Cat Lady hypothesis linking toxoplasmosis and crazy cattitude that I blogged about in August of 2006 seems to have taken root elsewhere in the scientific community. The New York Times is reporting that the crazy idea may not be so crazy.

“That idea doesn’t seem completely crazy,” Sapolsky says. “But there’s no data supporting it.” [Toxo expert Robert Sapolsky of Stanford]

Not yet. But Jaroslav Flegr, an evolutionary biologist at Charles University in the Czech Republic, is looking into it.

It’s a rather simple leap in logic for anyone who knows the effects of toxoplasmosis, so I’m not surprised that someone else glommed onto the idea. However, I like to think that I may have helped it percolate to the surface, so now it can get some actual scientific study.