Friday, October 28, 2022

Getting Addicted To Online Shopping?

While I still go to the wholesale market to buy vegetables and fruit, I'm starting to buy more things online. 

Used to go and spend time at stores. Was more active, but congested traffic and unpleasant people have overcome my desire to go out.

No masks are required outdoors in Korea. Still, over 90% wear them. 

Traffic is back to before COVID. Miles of cars moving a snail's pace during rush hours in downtown Seoul. 

Most everyone gets away from Seoul on weekends, so highways are clogged. Many decide to go abroad to escape for leisure time.  



Friday, October 21, 2022

Math And Physics, Now Consciousness?

Theories in physics are usually proved by math and formulas.

Scientists are now connecting math with consciousness and trying to evolve understanding of consciousness, or us.

David Hoffman explains in the video below:



Reefer Madness Revisited

President Yoon “War on drugs, please win”

All of a sudden, drugs are a big problem in Korea and a war is on to eliminate them.

Trying to misdirect public scrutiny and disapproval.

Yoon is accused of using the prosecutor's office to discredit and taint opposition politicians, along with the suspended leader of his own conservative party. Charges were dropped against the suspended leader because the witness did not have video evidence as claimed, among other things, but after the party's ethic's committee suspended him for hiding evidence related to the charges. Charges dropped, but suspension kept. 

Yoon's excuse? Probably, Trump did it too. 





North Korea Arms Reduction

US expert proposes arm reductions approach over denuclearization of N. Korea

Best idea so far. China will not push North Korea to denuclearize, so sanctions have failed. North Korea will not accept rewards to denuclearize as several agreements the past have been nullified.

Only option left is to limit the number of nuclear weapons and prevent proliferation, or keep sanctioning and try to isolate North Korea but it will have Russia, China, Iran and other allies.



Friday, October 14, 2022

Free Energy Principle And Cognition

According to Wikipedia -

The free energy principle is a theory in cognitive science that attempts to explain how living and non-living systems remain in non-equilibrium steady-states by restricting themselves to a limited number of states. It establishes that systems minimise a free energy function of their internal states (not to be confused with thermodynamic free energy), which entail beliefs about hidden states in their environment. The implicit minimisation of free energy is formally related to variational Bayesian methods and was originally introduced by Karl Friston as an explanation for embodied perception in neuroscience,[1] where it is also known as active inference.

The notion that self-organising biological systems – like a cell or brain – can be understood as minimising variational free energy is based upon Helmholtz’s work on unconscious inference[8] and subsequent treatments in psychology[9] and machine learning.

Free energy principle is also used in psychology and artificial intelligence.

Using the free energy principle, researches were able to grow neurons and enable them to play Pong.

Minibrains grown from human and mouse neurons learn to play Pong




Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Medicine Sometimes Cheaper Without Insurance In US?

Frustrated pharmacists are opting out of the insurance system, saving some customers hundreds of dollars a month

Propecia, treatment for hair loss, costs $124 a month in the US and around $40 a month in Korea. I used to buy Propecia until a few years ago when I found out that the generic version, Finasteride, costs about $15 a month.




Monday, October 10, 2022

Wormholes Or Another Dimension?

Black Holes May Hide a Mind-Bending Secret About Our Universe

The New York Times article is about black holes, wormholes, and quantum entanglement.

Keep imagining that wormholes and quantum entanglement are evidence of a non-local dimension. Why?