Missing In Action: One Brain Blogger. (Last Seen Snorting Popcorn And Not Writing About The iPhone)

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned.  It’s been 9 days since my last post.

Instead of penning a ubiquitous “Sorry for not posting, I’ll do better” message, I decided to plaster myself on a milk carton and tell you about the posts I did *not* write about last week.  So, here goes.

Posts I Didn’t Write. Ahem.

The Mojave Experiment. This one could have been cool. No, it’s not that invisibility cloak that’s been hitting the news this week, but a bad-science marketing ploy from Microsoft.  See, the Vista OS has been hit with a lot of user prejudice - and Microsoft decided to prove it was *just* prejudice, that everyone would really lurve Vista if they could only forget all their friend’s families and co-worker’s complaints that it just didn’t work.    So they told a bunch of XP users they were being given a sneak peak at the NEXT newest operating system named “Mojave”.  The experimenters let the victims consumers play with it a minute, waited for them to give rave reviews, then told them “HA! It’s VISTA!”

It’s a great example of confirmation bias,  from two different views  1. The way Microsoft intended - people don’t like Vista because they expect not to like it. 2. The way the “experiment” was framed, the users were set up to like “Mojave”  - it was, after all, the successor to Vista, and we’d expect it to be better.

Of course, it’s not really a scientific experiment at all.  It’s an ad campaign, and the test wasn’t double blind, the users only got to see a demo (not really use “Mojave”) and the favorable numbers are reportedly fudged on a bit (“somewhat satisfied” was apparently counted as favorable). As other bloggers have pointed out, it’s just another Pepsi challenge that really proves nothing other than that confirmation bias works both ways, and never trust an ad man

Man, that was BUCK! Last week was the season finale’ of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” - a reality-dance competition which, at least this season, season, single-handedly redeemed the reality TV genre.   Sandwiched between screaming fan-grrls, host commentary and product placement ads were some jaw dropping moments of beauty and emotion - pure buck-ness.

“Buck, ” explained the eloquent Krumper, choreographer and judge  Lil’C, “is when inner artistry meets physical expression.”  (For the urban-dance uninitiated, Krumping is one of the hardest hitting dance forms evaah. For proof, see RIZE). It’s a street term that, loosely, means wild, crazy, uncontrolled, over-the-top, but which, as Lil’C expressed, means a lot more, too.  In another episode, he told dancers they shouldn’t dance from the heart, but *through* the heart. 

So the post I didn’t write was all about bringing out the buck in everything we do,  dancing through the heart and passion, and making an artform out of life.  If I had only written it… it surely would have been buck.

Want an example?  Sure!  Check out No Air, the lyrical hip-hop done by winners Josua and Katee. And ’cause I couldn’t pick just one, here’s   Bleeding Love The Garden (jazz) Pas de Deux  and The Door.   So buck even a white girl can see it.

Another Sort of Artistry: The Olympic Opening (I’d link, but getting to  the feed is complicated). The Opening Ceremony in Beijing fascinated me, a contrast of  in-your-face scale, and subtle poetry.  Using the ceremony as both an artistic and political medium, China’s take was both larger and more subtle than the usual Western extravaganzas.   American shows of this sort (seen every year at the Superbowl) tend to follow a three-ring circus approach of bigger, better, and more confusing. The Chinese director of the show went for a distinctly Eastern feel.

It was on a a huge scale, yes, but often with a single performer at the center, highlighted amid a sea of perfectly synchronized movements.  Especially effective was the revelation that the moving blocks were human powered, not technological -  and throughout the ceremony, inspite of the “friends and openness” theme, I felt an undercurrent of threat.  “We have more people than you, people who are easier to organize, people who can accomplish feats equivalent to any technology you can create, and we have spares.”

I was fascinated by how they showcased traditional painting and calligraphy, the use of the oars, the power of the synchronized Tai Chi.  It was beautiful, it was unsettling, and it contributed to my understanding of China as a culture, a political system,  a people and a mindset.  I found myself hoping that Western displays will emulate elements of its beauty.

And yes, I ate popcorn while watching.

A Sneak Peak of The MindTweaks Brain Fitness Project Yeah. I didn’t write about this either, though I fully intended to.  I’ve been quietly referring to it over the past few months, but never quite revealing it in detail.   It’s coming together rather nicely, though - and with any luck at all,  should be open by the end of the month.  

If I had written this post, I would have explained that I’m building an online course and community focused on Brain Fitness.   Members will learn about their brains, age-related and other declines in mental abilities, and how to minimize or correct those declines.  They’ll have access to a community, their own journaling system, and a whole bunch of other nifty stuff that isn’t quite ready for primetime.   

I also would have mentioned that it was, in part, the dialog with John Grohol of PsychCentral that encouraged me to build this course.  I realized that if the owner of one of Time.com’s top 50 websites  was unaware of the expert advice on brain fitness, well… there was a serious need for public education.

So stay tuned.  You’ll hear more about it soon. I can’t under the blankets forever.

And, finally, as promised…

I did not blog about the iPhone… and, curiously, I have absolutely no desire to run out and buy one.  Still, I was highly amused by stories of the $1000  do-nothing iPhone application known as “I Am Rich.”

It consisted of a red gem that would sit in the middle of your iPhone, reminding you that you were so rich, you could waste $1000 on a graphic of a red gem for your iPhone (which is rather red-gemish, in and of itself)   I was even more amused that the application made it into Apple’s store, that 8 people actually bought the thing, and that Apple provided the developer a huge boost in popularity (and themselves with a PR nightmare) by yanking the application, instead of running with the joke. 

For those of you not among the lucky 8,  walk-through video available on YouTube.

So there you have it.

What I didn’t write about last week.  I feel properly penitent now.

I might even start not-writing everything I won’t blog about this week!

MindTweak:  The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness. ~ St. Ignatius