Halo Xbox: Why don't I play more?

In a word: I suck. In more words, read on.

Guys at work often have Halo 2 Xbox video gaming sessions, and I often intend to show up, and have played a few times, yet typically I bail. On the surface, my excuse is that I opt to spend time with family. Yet the games often go on long after everyone at home is off to bed, so I think there is a deeper reason why I tend to no-show.

I play the game so rarely that I usually need to relearn the complex joystick device (which is much more than a "stick") and have no finesse whatsoever. After an hour or two, I'm starting to get the hang of it again, but still feel woefully outclassed by everyone else, who race around me like 8 year olds at a toddler park. "No Steve, don't eat the sand!" Usually, other players leave me alone, since there's not much sport in offing someone who's barely able to avoid smacking into walls and what not. But this only leads to feelings of isolation.

I'm not usually one to whine or turn down a challenge, but there's only so much demoralization and frustration one can tolerate. It starts to feel like "Getting Hit on the Head Lessons" (No, not "owww!", but "waaah!". "Waaah!". "Good!"). So I usually only show up when in an exceptionally resilient emotional state that can take any amount of abuse and inferiority trip.

One of these days when my boys are older, mind, I'll have one of these devices at home and will be able to spend hours at a time on it, without getting interrupted to change a diaper. It's really quite an impressive immersive experience. In no time, my reflexes will be optimized for these joysticks on steroids, I'll have hardware accelerated my gray matter to dominate virtual worlds of mass destruction. Co-workers beware! Or maybe I'll take up Tai Chi instead. Could go either way.

Language Evolution vs. Human Evolution

I posted a comment on a slashdot thread about Merriam-Webster launching Open Dictionary, inspired by a comment made by a poster that evolution produces "better" organisms and that humans are therefore "better" than bacteria.

One area I didn't get into (my post was wordy enough), is the notion of the unit of selection and the substrate upon which language evolution operates. I imagine that the forces of language evolution operate on individual words as well as phrases and other linguistic constructs, similar to how biological evolution can operate at the level of genes, biochemical pathways, individuals, and societies.

As for substrate, language cannot exist without minds that understand and speak it, so the evolution of language is played out on a mental substrate. Given that there is fairly strong evidence for innate neural language modules in our brains, language evolution thus likely has played a role in our biological evolution, physically shaping the development and structure of our brains.

And human language hasn't been around very long in evolutionary time, originating as recently as 40,000 years ago. So this language-based shaping of the human neurobiology and evolution is happening literaly as we speak (sorry, couldn't resist).

Language itself is a substrate for the evolution of memes. It's interesting to think about what sort of role language evolution might play in meme evolution, and the interplay in the evolution of memes, languages, minds, and societies.

• Can we identify memes that are able to persist through long-term changes in a language?
  
• How do memes influence language evolution and biological evolution of individuals/societies in which the meme persists?
  
• What properties of memes allow them to span different languages?
  

This speculation is all well and good, but there is some genetic evidence emerging for a link between language evolution and biological evolution. The FOXP2 gene in humans may have played a key role in the emergence of language in human beings. See these links for more on this fascinating story:

• FOXP2 and the Evolution of Language
  
• Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language
  

Political Oy Veh!

Well, I hope everyone isn't too depressed. I believe that the closeness of the election will convince the Bush administration to act differently in the future. However, the safest course of action may be to move to Canada. Gotta start practicing my hockey skills and saying, "ya, you betcha".

Some interesting links:
* CNN's county-by-county maps for each state
* Electoral vote predictor

CA shows a marked gradient with a locus of Kerry support in San Francisco (83%) that dissipates as you proceed in any direction N, S, and E. The county where we live (Alameda) had a strong showing for Kerry at 74%, so we did our part here in the SF Bay area.

MO shows widespread Bush support except for an isolated "jewel" of Kerry support in St. Louis City (81%), and to a lesser extent, county (55%) and Kansas City area (58%).

I think the main hurdle for Kerry was the fact that its nigh impossible to unseat an incumbent during a war -- it's never occurred in the history of the US. Bush's own blundering into Iraq was probably what saved him, even though many feel it was a mistake. It's just that now that it's started, people are reluctant to switch presidents while it's still on-going. Imagine a college firing the head coach of it's football team during a losing game, or a patient electing to switch surgeons during an operation, even if the guy amputated the wrong leg.

I believe Kerry was an incredibly strong candidate across the spectrum: smarts, patriotism, machismo, eloquence, common sense, faith, hair, etc. and he out-shined Bush on virtually all fronts. The high voter turnout and closeness of the election are a testament to his overall strength.

In addition to the wartime incumbent issue, the other major thing that iced it for Bush was the "moral" issue, where Bush was viewed as being on higher ground. This includes things like same-sex marriage, where 11/11 states approved constitutional amendments codifying marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. This sentiment aligns with Bush.

At this point, I recommend we all take a deep breath, put the election behind us, and work like the dickens to negate the possibiliy of Cheney taking over in 2008.
:-O

Hawaii triathlon

Well, it wasn't the Ironman, but I managed to do a sprint-length triathlon during our Hawaii trip last week (on 7/3/04) Here are the race results.

I wasn't quite adapted to the time zone and climate, and I was using our friend's not-too-fancy road bike, not my usual fancy racer. Even still, I had a reasonably good race, passing about 30 people on the bike after a wavy ocean swim to finish 30th overall (out of 150) and 5th in my age group (out of 14). For what it's worth, my time also puts me 5th in the age group below me (30-34) and 6th in the next one down (25-29), suggesting, perhaps, that I'm aging well.

Gene expression in aging human brains

There's an interesting study in Nature and reported in today's Wall Street Journal that used Affymetrix arrays to do expression profiling on brain tissue across a wide age range.

As Early as Age 40, Genes in the Brain Begin to Deteriorate (WSJ) (They mention Affy in the last paragraph.)

Gene regulation and DNA damage in the ageing human brain" by Lu et al. (Nature)

Abstract:
The ageing of the human brain is a cause of cognitive decline in the elderly and the major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. The time in life when brain ageing begins is undefined. Here we show that transcriptional profiling of the human frontal cortex from individuals ranging from 26 to 106 years of age defines a set of genes with reduced expression after age 40. These genes play central roles in synaptic plasticity, vesicular transport and mitochondrial function. This is followed by induction of stress response, antioxidant and DNA repair genes. DNA damage is markedly increased in the promoters of genes with reduced expression in the aged cortex. Moreover, these gene promoters are selectively damaged by oxidative stress in cultured human neurons, and show reduced base-excision DNA repair. Thus, DNA damage may reduce the expression of selectively vulnerable genes involved in learning, memory and neuronal survival, initiating a programme of brain ageing that starts early in adult life.

This study used the HG-U95Av2 arrays. The WSJ reports that the authors are repeating the study using newer (U133) arrays.

I imagine this report will get increased attention in light of the fanfare surrounding
Ronald Reagan's death.

Keep taking those antioxidant supplements & drinking green tea folks! :-)

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