Here’s the etymology of foo (and bar).

Our sleep-deprived lifestyle may have serious health consequences:

Physiologic studies suggest that a sleep deficit may put the body into a state of high alert, increasing the production of stress hormones and driving up blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Moreover, people who are sleep-deprived have elevated levels of substances in the blood that indicate a heightened state of inflammation in the body, which has also recently emerged as a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

Clearly, we need to work saner hours and not stay up until the wee hours playing sudoku.

Humans tend to apply their “Theory of Mind” to account for their pets’ behavior. In other words, they assign human motives to their pets’ behavior. This is a mistake, though, as pets don’t have the intellectual facility to reward, punish, or retaliate.

Psychologist David Premack of the University of Pennsylvania talks about [the Theory of Mind]; it’s also discussed in Stanley Coren’s How Dogs Think.

The phrase refers to a belief each of us has about the way others think. Simply, it says that since we are aware and self-conscious, we think others—humans and animals—are, too. There is, of course, enormous difference of opinion about whether this is true….

It’s almost impossible not to lapse into theory-of-mind reasoning when it comes to our dogs. After all, most of us have no other way in which to grasp another creature’s behavior. How can one even begin to imagine what’s going on inside a dog’s head?…

I don’t believe that dogs act out of spite or that they can plot retribution, though countless dog owners swear otherwise. To punish or deceive requires the perpetrator to understand that his victim or object has a particular point of view and to consciously work to manipulate or thwart it. That requires mental processes dogs don’t have. The more I’ve moved away from interpreting my dogs’ behavior as nearly human, the easier it is to train them, and the less guilt and anxiety I feel.

Could the Theory of Mind, crucial as it is to our ability to live with other humans, be leading us astray in other situations as well? Just as we naturally tend to believe our pets think like us, do we not also have a tendency to imbue the natural world with human motives and thought processes? Just think to all the religions with gods of nature controlling the human fates. Indeed, think to Western religions in which natural acts are interpreted as judgement on us being passed by some sentient entity who happens to be displeased. Could the Theory of Mind be responsible for the grip that religion and supersition has on us, and hence for the wars of dogma that have plagued our history?

Have you heard of H1Bees? It’s a “curry rock” album relating the experiences of Indians coming to work in the US under H1B visas.

H1Bees doesn’t just have tracks in English and Hindi. There are also tracks in Tamil. The musicians involved in the H1Bees project don’t have any intention of giving up their day jobs in the tech sector.

Most of them are not even H1Bees anymore – they’re permanent residents. Their next goal is to find a way to market their Curry Rock … back home in India.

You can listen to clips of their music at the official website, www.h1bees.com.

The boyfriend has a new obsession: Sudoku. For those of you who don’t know (we certainly didn’t), it is a game played on a grid consisting of 3×3 regions, each of which in turn has 3×3 cells. The goal is to fill in the missing numbers such that every region, row, and column have each of the numerals between one and nine exactly once. Here’s an example, courtesy of Wikipedia (click for solution):



This game is on par with crossword puzzles and other mind-teasers, except that it’s free of group-specific baggage such as cultural allusions and vocabularies. Playing it, I feel just like I did when I tried Minesweeper or Solitaire: it’s an engaging, solvable puzzle with immediate gratification that can easily become addictive. And that’s exactly the problem I foresee: after repeated plays, it ceases to be an exciting mental workout and just becomes empty filler for one’s time and attention– junk food for the brain, if you will. I am reminded of Herman Hesse‘s description of the “Age of the Feuilletons” in his novel The Glass Bead Game:

We must confess that we cannot provide an unequivocal definition of those products from which the age takes its name, the feuilletons. They seem to have formed an uncommonly popular section of the daily newspapers, were produced by the millions, and were a major source of mental pabulum for the reader in want of culture. they reported on, or rather “chatted” about, a thousand-and-one items of knowledge. It would seem, moreover, that the cleverer among the writers of them poked fun at their own work.

All that said, they are fun. Here’s a Web Sudoku, and here’s a WIndows puzzle generator. Linux-wise, GNOME Sudoku is under development. And, believe it or not, you can check out Sudoku for Dummies, Volume 3.

See what I mean?