A fun animation...

I don't know it this is the right place to place this but I found it very cute.


(Click on image to go to the animation)

One for the girls...

Ok girls... according to this article, whose sources haven't been confirmed, men and women are just the same when multitasking.

--"While many people believe women are better multitaskers and the notion has been advanced in recent books, the differences may be more cultural than cognitive. In interviews, several top neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists said there isn't any proof of female multitasking superiority. "I don't know of any evidence of that," says Roger Gorski, a professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose pioneering studies revealed structural differences in men's and women's brains."--

But frankly, I am sure that men are better at it.

Bye bye Pluto!

Pluto booted out of league of planets | The Register

Ok, well although it's not such a controversial topic, for people other than die hard geeks, this whole Pluto not being a planet business is somewhat of a downer for me. All of my life I have been expecting something exciting to happen in the "race for space". I thought that perhaps I would get to see the first colonies in space or some other planet, even a slight hint of extraterrestrial life. OK, it is true, we have great images of Mars (see picture), and some pretty exciting missions (the Mars missions, or most of them, the Cassini Huygens mission is awesome, etc.), but come on! Not only we have done very little to explore what's out there but we have had a lot of very anti-climatic news and events: the deadly Space Shuttle accidents, the goof about the metric-imperial system mismatch, and now, we have one less planet!!! What's the deal? Goodbye 9th planet, goodbye!

I guess the most relevant idea we can get out of this rant is that everything is just names, categories, conventions. Today you are a planet, tomorrow you are just a planetoid. Perhaps one day you wake up and you are no longer considered human.

What's the deal with smoking?

Smoking cuts for classic cartoons after UK complaint | Entertainment | Entertainment News | Reuters.com

Ok, what's going on with the world? In the article from news agency Reuters linked above, Turner Broadcasting is said to be in the process of finding out which of the cartoons in its library contain "glamourizing" depictions of smoking and smokers. What the hell?

I understand that it could be, and I stress on the could auxiliary, that it may interest some children to smoke if sometimes one their favourite characters appears smoking in a "glamorous" fashion. But to suppress episodes or to edit them in favour of one complaint from an overly concerned adult, who wouldn't surprise me if he really believes spinach does in fact make you superhuman.

"-The regulator's latest news bulletin stated that a viewer, who was not identified, had complained about two smoking scenes on "Tom and Jerry," saying they "were not appropriate in a cartoon aimed at children."- "

The problem with this sort of reasoning is that in a seemingly arbitrary way we take for granted that what we see influences what we do, who we are and possibly how we want to die. Ok, it might be obvious to some people, but these matters are quite tricky and require careful study. Just think about it, how many people alive today are smokers and watched Tom & Jerry cartoons when young? Certainly not all of them, why is that? Perhaps the reason behind this bizarre occurrence is that we are not automatons.

So lets say that whatever we watch as kids we are now. What about the violence in Tom & Jerry? Isn't that more destructive and socially reproachable? And the Mexican stereotyping in Speedy Gonzalez cartoons? (Apparently something was done about this already.)

The thing is, that after all, we will not be able to laugh at anything for or creating any sort of character, believable or not, because someone's sensibility might be at stake, or because some other superior being is sure that manipulation inside cartoons are the evil of this world. I'm sure that he or she has never ever watched Fox News lately, or the commercials for that matter.

By the way, on a somewhat similar note, have any of you read an article on how you were able to tell who was evil and who was not in the series 24 just by noticing what computer the character used? Of course Apple for the heroes and any PC for the villains.

Grokers club is...

I agree with Cricket. It feels natural that our first step into this odyssey should be to define what we are. I know there’ll be 11 different visions on this, so I’ll post mine:

To me Grokers club is a project that seeks to better understand life and human behavior and ultimately… MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE!
Don’t freak out now! It seems pretentious, but if we start by setting small short term goals and work our way forward, slowly but surely we will get there.

Stage 1: Activities and dynamics.
Great ice breakers and a fun way to get to know each groker better. (and the partying didn’t suck… Give me some tequila to wash down the chilcuage!)

Stage 2: Simple tasks.
These are necessary to test our will power to overcome our insecurities and fears to get things done. (I’m sorry to say I’ve failed 50% of them, but I promise to finish the damned short story soon).

Stage 3: Trips.
Great to make strong bonds and know we can trust each other enough to be completely free to honestly speak our minds about every subject, and know for certain that everyone seeks to understand and not to judge.

As I said last saturday, I think that we are on a process that seems shallow and fruitless at first but we have built a strong foundation and now we can move on to the next stage!

Stage 4: Blogger!
A very safe way to go public, to share our thoughts and theories with others and eventually touch enough minds to make a difference.

What’s important about this stage is that we feel obliged to post every once in a while and post something substantial. Now we get to actually see our progress!

Blog, Grokers! Blog!

To Grok or not to Grok?

Hello my fellow Grokers!

Last Saturday we had one of our very delightful groker nights. Although not all of the members of the group made it, they were there in spirit. A lot of things happened that night, like me demonstrating that I am the worst Jenga player in history (3 out of 4, jeez!) and confirming that I am a drunk jerk (sorry baby, again), but most importantly we had a bit of conversation that resulted in this blog being created. I believe it was a sort of awakening ceremony. As always, me being a couch-activist, I was very vocal about our duty, no, our right, to do something, to modify and influence society around us, but of course by the time I got home even through my drunken stupor I was able to realize that, we are far from being ready to do anything about anything at all.

So with the appropriate regret of having a bit too much to drink the night before I started to reevaluate Mikey's words, that now seem far more a fruit of wisdom than a negative for change as I thought them to be. First, I believe now that we should stick to the name "Grokers". Even though I might not like the origin of the word, we have made it our own, and by doing that we can do whatever we please to it and that may well be to strip it of any relation to the fiction novel of its birth and to make it the conceptual launch pad of our beloved group. So Grokers it is.
Secondly, to maintain this blog is certainly the best way to start our "public" activities. As Mikey said: "...we need some sort of business plan!". To gage the resonance of our thoughts and the relevancy of what we are doing through a webpage is as good a market research strategy as any; keeping up with the business plan analogy.

Though this exercise we might consolidate our different points of view into a unified, multi-lateral vision of what we represent, and what we can help create in our society. It might help us define our single most powerful idea of what we are since this Saturday it was more than obvious that we haven't really decided on that one yet.

So my dear grokers, this is what I believe should demand of each other: what are we?


Grok on!