Category Archives: Deep Mind
‘This Is Us’ Season 4: Kate in Abusive Relationship Hannah Zeile – TVLine
Weve noted before how This Is Us Kate is the Pearson sibling most in need of a win and that held true in Tuesdays episode, which found present-day Kate worrying that her marriage was going to end and flashback Kate experiencing emotional abuse at the hands of her first boyfriend.
I always joke that I have super-healthy tear ducts at this point, says Hannah Zeile, chuckling. Zeile plays Kate as a young adult, which means shes the one charged with playing Kevin and Randalls sister as she makes her way through the grief following Jacks unforeseen death. And now shell maneuver the character through the painful realization that Marcs treatment of her isnt love its control.
I knew that it would resonate with a lot of people, she tells TVLine. One of the only things you want as an actor is to make people feel something. and I think that this storyline is going to make people feel a lot of things and relate to a lot of things. And also, it just adds more dimension to Kate Pearson as a whole.
Read on for Zeiles thoughts on Kates current predicament, starting with that Episode 13 fight in the car.
TVLINE | Talk to me about shooting that argument with Austin Abrams.Oh my God. [Laughs]
TVLINE | I know Justin Hartley was directing this episode. And theres a huge amount of emotional ground that needs to be covered in a very short period of time in that scene. Did you all talk a lot about how that would go?Yeah. First of all Justin Hartley was incredible to work with. I think its so cool to work with an actor as a director, and most specifically an actor that actually performs on the same show. So he knew exactly what he was looking for and gave incredible notes and really helped us get into the frame of mind that we needed to be in for each scene. SoI have nothing but positive things to say about Justin.
And Austin, as well, is extremely talented. He really is one of those actors that becomes the character while theyre working, so I think that he felt so closely to Marc in the sense that he thought like him and he felt like him and he moved like him. It didnt feel like performing. Wed only been working on this for however long, but it felt like we had this established relationship with Kate and Marc, and I think that that just shows a lot about Marcs temperament as a character. A lot of the scenes that they have, it feels like zero to a hundred. As Justin said, Marc goes, it goes from the sweetest moment weve probably ever seen theyre singing, theyre laughing, theyre having the greatest time to, like, actual hell. And [thats how] Marc is as a person. He just is very hot and cold and then he stops and then becomes manipulative because he realized hed snapped and uses that to reel Kate back in.
So yeah, so filming that was a lot of high emotion. We were sweating and panting and deep breathing. Its weird when you know youre acting, but your body is still doing the physical motions, so you still need a second to like recover from what just happened.
TVLINE |At the very end of that argument when he drives off, theres that kill shot where he comments on not being able to look at her fat face. We saw him make the comment about the chocolate earlier in the episode, but do you think she ever thought hed be capable of saying something so hurtful to her?No. I think that the writers have done a great job of making Marc have like redeemable qualities, because not all people are walking around like supervillain outfit on, you know? Some people, they do have redeemable qualities, but they still have toxic ones, as well. So I do think that she was just so enthralled with having someone even be attracted to her, and thats more of her own insecurity. Im sure that Kate could, as we see with Toby, she could find a good guy. But she feels so down about herself that she thinks, Wow, Im so lucky to have someone like Marc even look at me. So shes excusing all this horrible behavior just because she wants this to work out so badly, because at this moment, she thinks this is like her only shot at love.
TVLINE | You shoot a lot with Logan Shroyer and Niles Finch, who play Kevin and Randall as young adults. Whats the dynamic like among the three of you?Its a huge blessing that they are actually two of my closest friends, as well, and I mean that genuinely Logan is a little more Method. He stays in character a little more. Theyre just different types of people in the way that they do their job. Niles and I will be totally joking and laughing and goofing around right before they yell Action!, and then we just go straight into it.But those are the fun days when the Teen Three all get to work together. We have a lot of fun and we always pow wow in my trailer and eat lunch together and just, we have a good time.
TVLINE |Is that what they call you guys on set? The Teen Three?Yeah. We kind of made it Teen Three, because for a while it was like theres Big Three and Little Three. Some people were saying Medium Three, and we were like, I dont know if we want to be the Medium Three. I dont know about that. So were the Teen Three.
TVLINE | Thats funny. Its like, How are the Three? Oh, theyre just medium.[Laughs] Yeah. We were like, Were not a coffee drink. So Teen Three. Yeah.
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'This Is Us' Season 4: Kate in Abusive Relationship Hannah Zeile - TVLine
DeepMind trains robots to insert USB keys and stack colored blocks – VentureBeat
Robots perform better at a range of tasks when they draw on a growing body of experience. Thats the assertion of a team of researchers hailing from DeepMind, who in a preprint paper propose a technique called reward sketching. They claim its an effective way of eliciting human preferences to learn a reward function a function describing how an AI agent should behave that can be used to retrospectively annotate all historical data, collected for different tasks with predicted rewards for the new task. This annotated data set can then be used to learn manipulation policies, the team says, or probability distributions over actions given certain states, with reinforcement learning from visual input without interaction with a real robot.
The work builds on a DeepMind study published in January 2020, which described a technique continuous-discrete hybrid learning that optimizes for discrete and continuous actions simultaneously, treating hybrid problems in their native form. As something of a precursor to that paper, in October 2019, the Alphabet subsidiary demonstrated a novel way of transferring skills from simulation to a physical robot.
[Our] approach makes it possible to scale up RL in robotics, as we no longer need to run the robot for each step of learning. We show that the trained batch [reinforcement learning] agents, when deployed in real robots, can perform a variety of challenging tasks involving multiple interactions among rigid or deformable objects, wrote the coauthors of this latest paper. Moreover, they display a significant degree of robustness and generalization. In some cases, they even outperform human teleoperators.
As the team explains, at the heart of reward sketching are three key ideas: efficient elicitation of user preferences to learn reward functions, automatic annotation of all historical data with learned reward functions, and harnessing the data sets to learn policies from stored data via reinforcement learning.
For instance, a human teleoperates a robot with a six-degree-of-freedom mouse and a gripper button or a handheld virtual reality controller to provide first-person demonstrations of a target task. To specify a new target task, the operator controls the robot to provide several successful (and optionally unsuccessful) examples of completing the task, and these demonstrations help to bootstrap the reward learning by providing examples of successful behavior with high rewards.
In the researchers proposed approach, all robot experience including demonstrations, teleoperated trajectories, human play data, and experience from the execution of either scripted or learned policies is accumulated into whats called NeverEnding Storage (NES). A metadata system implemented as a relational database ensures its appropriately annotated and queried; it attaches environment and policy metadata to every trajectory, as well as arbitrary human-readable labels and reward sketches.
In the reward-sketching phase, humans annotate a subset of episodes from NES (including task-specific demos) with annotations of reward, using a technique that allows a single person to produce hundreds of annotations per minute. These annotations feed into a reward model thats then used to predict reward values for all experience in NES, so that all historical data in a training policy for a new task can be leveraged without requiring manual annotation of the whole repository.
An agent is trained with 75% of the batch drawn from the entirety of NES and 25% from the data specific to the target task. Then, its deployed to a robot, which enables the collection of more experience to be used for reward sketching or reinforcement learning.
In experiments, the DeepMind team used a Sawyer robot with a gripper and a wrist force-torque sensor. Observations were provided by three cameras around a cage, as well as two wide-angle cameras and one depth camera mounted at the wrist and proprioceptive sensors in the arm. In total, the team collected over 400 hours of multiple-camera videos of proprioception i.e., perception or awareness of position and movement) and actions from behavior generated by human teleoperators, as well as random, scripted, and policies.
The researchers trained multiple reinforcement learning agents in parallel for 400,000 steps and evaluated the most promising on the real-world robot. Tasked with lifting and stacking rectangular objects, the Sawyer successfully lifted 80% of the time and stacked 60% of the time, and 80% and 40% of the time when those objects were positioned in adversarial ways. Perhaps more impressively, in a separate task involving the precise insertion of a USB key into a computer port, the agent when provided reward sketches from over 100 demonstrators reached over 80% success rate within 8 hours.
The multi-component system allows a robot to solve a variety of challenging tasks that require skillful manipulation, involve multi-object interaction, and consist of many time steps, wrote the researchers. There is no need to worry about wear and tear, limits of real time processing, and many of the other challenges associated with operating real robots. Moreover, researchers are empowered to train policies using their batch [reinforcement learning] algorithm of choice.
They leave to future work identifying ways to minimize human-in-the-loop training, and to minimize the agents sensitivity to significant perturbations in the setup.
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DeepMind trains robots to insert USB keys and stack colored blocks - VentureBeat
New decade, new you: 10 things you really can set your mind to doing in 2020 and beyond – Omaha World-Herald
A new decade has dawned. Make the most of it by resolving to be the best you that you can be. Here are 10 practical and actionable steps to a healthier, happier 2020 and beyond.
1. Start small
If you want to shed bad habits and develop healthy ones, make your move. Start with one healthy choice and keep going. Good habits can improve your health, boost your mood, increase your productivity and help you live longer, says Sarah Emanuel, manager of wellness services for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska (BCBSNE).
Emanuel suggests making small changes over time for the rest of time. When you focus on one small part of your life that you can improve, the goal for better health becomes achievable in the long run.
2. Schedule the appointment
Set aside time this (and every) year for a checkup. Yearly wellness visits are important preventive care thats generally included in health care coverage. Its a chance to huddle with your doctor and review family history, chronic medical and surgical conditions and current medications.
The time you invest in yourself and your personalized prevention plan is never wasteful; it is immeasurably valuable, says Dr. Elsie Verbik, medical director for BCBSNE.
3. Download the app
When it comes to health and fitness, the most important piece of equipment is the human body but we can still supplement it with cool gadgetry.
Studies show people who use fitness trackers and exercise apps are more likely to exercise during their leisure time compared to those who dont. Fitbit, Apple and Garmin make popular fitness trackers. App favorites include Couch to 5K, Sleep Cycle and MyFitnessPal, a free diet and exercise tracking app endorsed by Omaha naturopathic doctor Nikki Kendall.
Its an easy way for me to review my clients nutrition, hold them accountable to healthy choices and adjust their recommendations as needed, she says. It also allows me to track their progress and overcome plateaus if they arise.
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4. Live in the now
A growing body of evidence suggests that mindfulness recognizing exactly what is happening in our moment-to-moment experience can lead to lower stress levels, greater resilience and an overall healthier future.
Mindfulness is more approachable than ever thanks to a virtual explosion of apps, podcasts, websites, online courses, audio books and teachers, says Laura Crosby, a meditation instructor with the Center for Mindful Living.
5. Exercise your creativity
As we look for new ways to fortify our physical and mental health, study after study verifies that it pays to get creative.
I believe everyone has the capacity for creative expression in some form and that being creative is innate to human nature, says Betsy Funk, a registered expressive arts therapist and co-founder of Omaha Therapy and Arts Collaborative.
She says making art (painting, drawing, sculpting and more) can have a calming, almost meditative effect on the artist, which can potentially decrease stress, anxiety, depression and blood pressure.
6. Shut it down
Getting a good nights sleep is a dream addition to any wellness plan: minimal effort, huge returns. Adequate sleep has shown to help ward off illness, reduce stress, improve mood and potentially decrease the risks of Alzheimers disease and dementia.
Sleep is a very restorative time for the brain, says Dr. Daniel L. Murman, director of the Behavioral and Geriatric Neurology Program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
7. Vanquish visceral fat
Getting adequate sleep also is a proven way to fight dangerous visceral belly fat. Cutting down on carbohydrate intake, increasing protein intake, avoiding trans fats and getting regular aerobic exercise are critical, as well. Certified personal trainer Chris Haberling says each of those habits will help reduce your waistline, but ultimately, combining all of them is going to be the most effective and quickest way.
8. Stress less
The potential consequences of not managing high stress levels include digestive and cardiovascular problems, stroke, cancer, a weakened immune system and mental illness such as depression and anxiety.
To help keep stress levels in check, embrace relaxation strategies such as deep breathing, yoga or tai chi; practice radical acceptance; and embrace the tenets of good self-care: getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, limiting or avoiding alcohol and tobacco use, seeing your physician regularly, and exercising, exercising, exercising, says Jennifer Baker, a social worker and mental health therapist with CHI Health Clinic Psychiatric Associates.
9. Oil your joints
Think of exercising as oiling your joints. OrthoNebraska physical therapist Elisa Bowcott says several highly effective, low-impact activities can promote better joint health while helping to improve cardio-fitness, overall strength and range of motion. The list includes brisk walking, biking, swimming, water walking and time on the elliptical machine. (When starting any exercise program and especially if you have joint or other concerns its always sound strategy to consult and work with a medical professional.)
10. Unplug and recharge
Interacting with social media has its upsides maybe you engage with inspirational content or use it to stay in touch with friends. But there also are potential pitfalls of overuse, including feelings of social isolation, a lack of productivity and sleep disruption.
Michael Vance, director of Behavioral Health Services at Childrens Hospital & Medical Center, recommends channeling empty time on social media into more productive endeavors such as self-reflection, getting some fresh air, volunteering, checking in on a loved one or sending a message of gratitude to someone who has made a difference in your life.
After Joe Adams had a heart attack, he underwent numerous procedures to get his heart in working order. Just when it seemed things were on the right track, his heart started to fail again. Read more.
Tamara Mosby-Montegut started working out as a stress reliever. Now she wants to keep up with her husband when he tackles 50 pushups in a row. And she wants her daughter to follow their healthy examples. Read more.
Varun Narayanan wanted to shed the pounds he packed on during the holidays a few years ago. He dropped from 230 pounds down to 195. Now he treks up active volcanoes. Read more.
After giving birth to her fourth baby, Susan Sawyer wanted to drop the baby weight. She took up Jazzercise. Sawyer's stuck with the dance-based exercise for nearly 35 years. Read more.
Jessica Hawley thought her third pregnancy was different because she was having a girl. But baby number three was another boy. The pregnancy felt different because she was more fit this time around. Read more.
When Gary Gundy started having trouble getting up after squatting down for target practice, he knew it was time for a change. The La Vista man dropped 80 pounds in three years. Read more.
Valerie Heath started shedding pounds by using the family's Wii. Now she belongs to a CrossFit gym and works out six days a week.Read more.
To be around for her family, Ashlei Spivey needed to get in shape. She joined a boxing gym. Now her workouts leave her feeling like she stepped out of a movie. Read more.
Betty Watt survived a sometimes trying career as a middle school teacher. Then she beat cancer twice. And the whole time she was a regular at the gym. Watt and her husband Charlie workout at least five days a week. Read more.
Erika Hanna sometimes has a pint-sized workout buddy during her morning classes. Her son Henrik, 18 months, offered hugs as she held a plank position and occasionally chased a loose exercise ball around the room. The studio gives Hanna a chance to stick close to her kids while staying on top of her own health and fitness. Read more.
Gwen Leyden wound up spending a week in a wheelchair because of a chronic condition. Leyden gradually was able to walk without using a cane. Later she started using the treadmill and eventually worked up to weightlifting. Read more.
With high blood pressure and the possibility of needing cholesterol meds Rich Hazuka was headed down a dangerous path. He dropped 75 pounds thanks to diet changes. When he plateaued, he took up exercise. Now he's off his blood pressure meds and has no need for any cholesterol medication. Read more.
George Mach can't help but wake up well before dawn. With that free time, the early riser started a gym routine. He hits the gym three days a week. Read more.
As Gregg Learned aged, arthritis made physical activity a chore. He struggled to walk across the parking lot at work. But joining a gym has helped Learned to stay on his feet. Read more.
At one time, Laura Adams could barely finish a lap around the walking track. But the Bellevue woman, who weighed 300 pounds, stuck it out and dropped 115 pounds. Read more.
Vince Huerta has always tried to keep active. He decided to give powerlifting a shot and now, the Omaha South grad holds a number of records for the weight he's hoisted. Read more.
Paul Stultz takes swimming seriously. He joined a Masters Swimming club and is working on nailing strokes like the freestyle and butterfly. But one of his biggest accomplishments was hiking the Grand Canyon. Read more.
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New decade, new you: 10 things you really can set your mind to doing in 2020 and beyond - Omaha World-Herald
Alabama man’s Habitual Felony Offender Act sentence caused ‘deep pain’ for his sister, the last surviving member of their family – Southern Poverty…
But one day, when Delerias mother had fallen, she told Deleria not to help her from the floor. She said her two sons would pick her up. This particular day, she was still in her right mind, but the statement wasnt. Your two boys in prison, Deleria said. I had to run outside and cry. Oh, I cried and cried.
That was around 1990. Recently, on a crisp January afternoon, Deleria Huff stood outside that same house, which she owns. Its now painted purple. Deleria favors bold colors.
This is where we was raised, right here. Im the youngest. The only one left.
Deleria was born the third of three children in 1955. Her father had three sources of income: the Army, a lawn-cutting business that catered to Mobiles white wealthy class, and work at a nearby paper mill. Her mother had a restaurant. The family moved into their home in 1960 and Deleria lives there today.
We was the first [family] to move in, Black, to move in this area as far as we could see. Of course everybody was white. You started seeing for-sale signs going up right away.
Thirty years later, both of Delerias brothers Tanzy and Charles would be in prison. Tanzy would serve three years on a 15-year split sentence. Charles received a life without parole sentence under Alabamas draconian Habitual Felony Offender Act. The state meant for Tanzy to get out; it meant for Charles to die in prison.
No one was hurt in any of the crimes that led to the Huff brothers convictions.
Deleria was close with Charles, who was the middle child, from when they were young. Their parents doted on them; Charles came to be known as a fine dresser, Deleria said, and people in the neighborhood would watch for him to walk by every day to see what he was wearing.
He was very particular about what he wore. He had to match. It had to come from certain stores. My parents were able to buy it, and they did.
Charles was convicted in 1983 of a first-degree robbery that occurred in 1981. The evidence against him appears slim. The court almost tossed out the case because the prosecutors were late in getting their witness, the victim, to the stand. He was in prison himself. Once they did, the trial was over quickly, though the witness was initially ambivalent about whether he could identify Charles, according to court filings.
Because Charles had prior convictions from the 1970s, for receiving stolen property and burglary, the state sought to put him in prison for the rest of his life. He was 31 at the time.
That day when he got sentenced, I remember, Deleria said. I caught the bus and I cried all the way on that bus, all the way out of that courtroom. I had no shame. Because my heart was in deep pain, there wasnt nothing I could do about it. Nothing. And I knew it was unfair; because Im looking at these people go before him that were white. Some of them did worse things than Charles. Slap on the wrist.
Over the years, Deleria and Charles tried to work together to reduce his sentence. He used networks in prison to find attorneys, while Deleria met and paid them on the outside. In 1987, Charles exhausted all of his appeals with no luck.
The next few years would be full of loss for the Huff family. Tanzy, the oldest Huff child, pleaded guilty to third-degree burglary and went to prison in 1989. Delerias mother and father both died.
Meanwhile, Charles remained in prison. He sent letters with Bible verses to Deleria. I cried on many days. I prayed, prayed and prayed that he would be set free. I had already laid out plans for what we were going to do. All the positive things. And all through the years, I would buy him clothes hoping he would get out.
Tanzy was eventually released, but Charles stayed locked up. He moved from Holman Prison to St. Clair Correctional Facility. Deleria, too, moved around the Southeast but always came back to their family home.
Finally, in 2013, Deleria and Charles found Richard Storm III, the Birmingham-based attorney who handled the cases of Archie Hamlett and Willie Parker, also profiled in this series. Storm set in motion the legal proceedings that would finally lead to a reduced sentence for Charles.
Storm succeeded in February 2015. A judge took note of the extreme nature of Charles sentence and amended it.
Defendant has been incarcerated for over thirty-two years or nearly twelve thousand days, the judge wrote. The defendant should receive the same fair and impartial sentencing available to those current defendants similarly charged and now appearing before this Court.
After the judge amended his sentence, Charles wrote to Storm: Im a new person. What a feeling. Thanks to God and thanks to you. When God is for you nothing can go wrong. (Smile)
But as 2015 began with good news for the Huffs, it ended tragically. Tanzy Huff was killed by a speeding car while walking near the home where he grew up on Dec. 5, 2015.
Though Charles never saw his brother again, on June 21, 2016, he finally was paroled. He went free.
Weeks later, he celebrated his 65th birthday at the Huff home with friends and family. Every morning, he would wake up and go out to the front yard to sit at a table. When his friends come by, thats where they find him. God showed me why. He lost 35 years. His whole life is coming back over him.
Soon, Charles fell very ill. At first, it looked to Deleria as though he was coughing up blood. The disease progressed quickly. But Charles always said he was fine. Once he was hospitalized, Deleria was struck by how much the white doctors came to love Charles in the short time he was in their care. They say, we never met anybody like him, he's just got a spirit that draws you, Deleria said.
Charles died on May 28, 2017, less than a year after he was released from prison.
I got to brace up to say this, Deleria said, sitting in the front room of her house. He fought 35 years in that jungle. And God let him make it. Not a scratch on him that I could tell. He was just tired of fighting. He fought 35 years, now I got to fight for my life, physically? He just gave up. Had no more in him.
But Deleria still finds a bright side.
He didnt die in prison. He came home to see his family, them that was left, and friends that loved him so much. He didnt die in prison.
I asked Deleria what she missed as Charles spent 35 years behind bars.
The love being direct, here, with me, she said. Seeing Charles rehabilitate, get his life together, have a family do the American Dream.
Read more profiles from the Beyond Bars series here.
Photos by Dan Anderson.
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Alabama man's Habitual Felony Offender Act sentence caused 'deep pain' for his sister, the last surviving member of their family - Southern Poverty...
Dan McCaslin: Post-Stroke Hiking and the Skylike Mind – Noozhawk
Buddhist monk Pema Chdrn posits three qualities of the human mind natural intelligence, natural warmth and natural openness. A part of natural intelligence is the capacity to focus in on material specifics what some call left-brain traits.
Since my occipital lobe stroke on Aug. 30 of last year, Ive noticed that along with some deficits, my ability to achieve such one-pointed focus on detail has been significantly enhanced. (Scroll down for the 4-1-1.)
Singular attention to continued hiking, simple guitar strumming and writing pays off with more creative energy, new songs, more intriguing stories and backcountry rambles. Swift switching between left- and right-brain thinking styles, from details to metaphors and back, also has improved.
When ambling along the Lost Valley Trail or up Rattlesnake Canyon, I ascend into more right-brain enjoyment and forgetfulness about urban cares and responsibilities. After the right brain voraciously feeds in raw nature, the switch into one-pointed concentration feels seamless and easy.
I had worried about mental energy and the memory needed to keep all of the song lyrics Ive learned available, but those memories remain intact after the stroke, and even enhanced.
I feel better focus for writing. In the almost five months since Aug. 30, Ive scrawled a dozen of these columns and completed several chapters of my next outdoor tome, The Human Lemmings.
Obviously, the joys of deep time episodes outdoors overwhelm the city-mind, and I still ramble solo or with others into backcountry sites such as Fish Creek, Negus Meadow and even freezing Fir Canyon with impunity and firm self-confidence.
Today, many humans endure their own undiagnosed massive neurological crisis, about which Oliver Sacks issued a clarion call in 2015. American millennials, and especially white males, suffer greatly and have somehow surrendered their joi de vivre.
These are undeniably dystopian times for the young in particular. Having served as a classroom teacher for 45 years, Ive often tried to bring students back from this Slough of Despond, as John Milton called it in his aptly named poem, Paradise Lost.
Thus, I associate my stroke recovery and individual neurological crisis with this devastating whole-culture American mental breakdown. How else can you explain caging immigrant kids or the cultlike idolatry of President Donald Trump prevalent among these depressed white males?
Yet political dysfunction only mirrors the deep personal anxieties and fears plaguing Americans now children, adolescents, adults and the elder folk all experience it. How to handle these psychological and political issues, as well as the parallel neurological problems?
Answers I utilize, and have very much heeded after the Aug. 30 blow, include express gratitude, expand affection to those around me and beyond family members, and hike as if each venture is the last one.
Acceptance of being-in-the-moment is the crucial difference now, and Chdrn calls this taking the leap. This very instant, pounding letters on the keyboard, may be all there is; and one struggles to accept that this is time-limited.
Suffering and increasing debility frighten us more than death itself.
Forest immersion leads to some solitude in these concocted Stone Age times out on the trail. As the brain shifts more to the right hemisphere and away from left-brain precision, ones panoptic vision expands dramatically.
Once you slip into the trance of eternity, linear-time designations lose their power and worries evaporate. If the external eyes were like a camera, the induced shift forces us into macro or wide-angle perception and away from narrowed-down micro-vision.
Play, song, dance and poetry flower in your ecstatic right-brain visions when roaming the more remote trails. While my body lost right-side peripheral vision in both eyes (homonymous hemianopsia), and I experience occasional unsteadiness (ataxia), I move about fairly well and consider myself very fortunate.
If theres a bit of short-term memory loss, I cannot distinguish it from what happens as the brain naturally ages (Im 72). I enjoy hiking and writing more than ever, and after 20 years of desultory guitar practice without much progress, post-stroke my strumming and musical memory have dramatically improved.
Joking around helps, and we recall how silly and even stupid Socrates acted in front of his students. In 1905, Sigmund Freud wrote a prescient book, The Jokes and Its Relation to the Unconscious, and Im trying to be more playful in my dialogue with friends and well-wishers now.
I jokingly tell friends who ask about the stroke (it happened during an awful ocular migraine), Oh, Ive lost some peripheral vision and stuff, but the most interesting aspect has been a minor wobble in my walk hitting exactly every 27.5 steps on the trail!
Lately Ive been wandering working as your On the Trail columnist! to Upper Mission Falls along Tunnel Trail, up the newly reopened Cold Springs Trail and along Manzana Creek as far as Rays Camp (a 10-mile round-trip).
After a right-brain expansion of the skylike mind associated with our natural bent toward openness, it also paradoxically becomes easier to slip into left-brains one-pointed focus and precision.
Our human minds are naturally open, flexible, curious and originally pre-prejudice. Teaching the young for 36 years at Country Crane Day School in Montecito founded on Waldorf principles and established on 11 beautiful acres out of the city I know factually that young humans are more naturally right-brain oriented.
Its ironic then that in modern education we take kids who already know how to be and teach them how to do as the old saw goes. By middle age, these Anthropocene adults need a therapist, pastor or pills to help them relearn how to be again in the splendors of right-brain juvenescence.
The original right-brain dominance fosters many tremendous attributes when channeled properly, and its a sort of thinking we adults ought to try to relocate in our battered heart-minds (buddhi). Ecstatic hiking experiences form the cleaning grease needed to move lightly between open-sky right-brain infinities and narrowed-down left-brain precision.
William Blake reminds us in his famous proverb, If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would be seen as it is, infinite.
Once youve experienced a genuine stroke, the odds of successive strokes are sadly much higher. Thus, Seize the Day! shouts my right hemisphere to the Dan who controls executive function in this somewhat altered brain.
If youre a parent or grandparent, remember to haul your children into the wilds, and go out there often while maintaining your place in the city, too. Too much digital desiderata clouds our Stone Age-type perceptions, so I usually leave electronic artifacts behind (and Ive never trusted myself with a cell).
During this encroaching Anthropocene Age, the discrimination to know which modality serves you best right- or left-brain thinking also must be accompanied by the capacity to make these switches deftly and with discrimination as your skylike mind savors the expanding cosmos.
Pema Chdrn, Taking the Leap (2019), pages 5-6 for the three minds. I experienced a posterior circulation stroke on Aug. 30 in Santa Barbara, spent two days in Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, and received excellent care at Sansum Clinic from neurologist Dr. Stephanie Rothman, Dr. David Dodson and the entire staff. Dr. Oliver Sacks, Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales (2019); David Talbot, Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of My Stroke (2020); Sigmund Freuds Der Witz (Wit) und seine Beziehung zum Unbewuten remained untranslated until 1960.
Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity and has written extensively about the local backcountry. His latest book, Autobiography in the Anthropocene, is available at Lulu.com. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at [emailprotected]. Click here to read additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
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Dan McCaslin: Post-Stroke Hiking and the Skylike Mind - Noozhawk
Slippery fish: How to remember your dreams – Thrive Global
When I tell people I work with and write about dreams, often the first thing they say is, I dont dream. Or sometimes, more accurately, I dont remember my dreams.
We all dream what is in essence a feature film worth of dreams every night, but the vast majority of these nocturnal movies are not merely forgotten, but not laid down in accessible memory in the first place. Dreams reside in implicit memory and most of them slip back into this unconscious realm before we have a chance to catch them. But there are some reliable ways to improve your dream recall.
Flamboyant dream expression
Have you ever noticed that the vast majority of your dreams are not finished? They tend to end right in the middle of something that is striking or scary enough to wake you up. I think this is why dreams tend generally to have such a flamboyant way of expressing themselves it often takes something quite dramatic for a dream to break through to consciousness. Some dreams are so vivid and engaging, we wake up with their images still resonating in our minds and bodies.
Still, it takes a deliberate effort to recall even some of the most fascinating dreams. Many dreamers have the experience of a stunning dream that wakes them up. They think, Wow, this is something I willnotforget, only to find that by morning all they remember was the experience of having a big dream but not the dream itself.
Lie still, linger with your dream
Our most vivid, emotionally-toned and complex dreams happen later in the sleep cycle, toward morning. I find that if you are able to wake up naturally and have some time to linger in the dream world before you leap out of bed and start your day, you have a better chance of catching hold of your dream before it slips away. If you lie very still when you first wake up, the dream is more likely to stay with you. And if you rehearse it in your mind a few times and then write it down before you get on with the business of your day, you will find that you have not only captured this dream, but others will come.
The more we pay attention to our dreams, the more they are likely to respond back to us. I have worked with psychotherapy clients dreams for about 20 years and found that even those who profess not to dream were able to recall dreams once I started asking about them and talking in depth about the dreams they did bring. At first people who dont profess to dream much might capture only a snippet or two and not think much of it. But even little scraps of image can reveal themselves to be significant if they are inquired into with deep curiosity and respect.
Write them down right away
To sum up, to remember your dreams, begin by taking an interest in them and going to bed with the intention of recalling them. Keep a dream journal by your bedside. When you first wake up, dont move, but linger in the space in between waking and dreaming and see if you can recall anything at all from the night, even images or fragments that seem tiny. Rehearse what you can recall in your mind a few times dreams are like slippery fish wanting to escape back into the deep waters of our unconscious. Once you have the dream clear in your mind, write it down, ideally before you do anything else.
If you tell your dreams to someone else, work with them in a group, draw the images they bring you, reflect on them and enjoy them, more will come. You will start to see patterns and appreciate their startling creativity and complexity. They are like an honest friend who is not afraid to tell you the truth, even if its painful. They can become your great ally.
Link:
Slippery fish: How to remember your dreams - Thrive Global
Google’s DeepMind AI trained by group of researchers to detect Breast Cancer – Brinkwire
As advancements in artificial intelligence improve, many medical practitioners are looking for ways to implement these changes. In a study in theScience Journal Nature, researchers from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago were able to use Googles DeepMind AI to improve the detection rate of cancers in nanograms. Breast cancer is one of the more common forms of cancer, afflicting around one out of eight women globally.
According to the American Cancer Society, Radiologists miss around 20% of breast cancers in mammograms, with half of the women who get screenings over 10 years getting false-positive results. The research, done in collaboration with Google Health, seeks to improve the process of detecting breast cancer as early detection allows for early treatment. The survival rate for women who find out they have breast cancer is99%for those who find out about their cancer early.
The study was done with researchers from Imperial College London and from the National Health Service of Britain. The group trained Googles DeepMind AI to identify breast cancer from thousands of mammograms. Afterward, they compared the AI systems performance against actual results. 25,856 mammograms came from the United Kingdom, while 3,097 came from the United States.
The AI was able to identify breast cancer similarly to trained radiologists and was able to reduce the number of false-positive results by 5.7% in the United States dataset and 1.2% in the United Kingdoms dataset. False negatives were also reduced by 9.4% and 2.7% in the U.S and U.K groups, respectively. The U.S has a higher incidence rate for both false positive and false negative rates because of the difference between how mammograms are analyzed. In the United States, only one radiologist has to read the result, with tests are done every one to two years. In the United Kingdom, tests are only done every three years but are read by two radiologists, with a third being consulted if the two cannot come to an agreeable reading.
The AI was also pitted against six radiologists, all of which performed worse than the AI when it comes to detecting breast cancer. Connie Lehman, Massachusetts General Hospital department chief of breast imaging, said that the results were expected as AIs have generally been found to perform the task better.
While using computers to detect cancers are not new, as computer-aided detection (CAD) is actually decades old, newer AI has been better at the task. This is because CAD uses human training to identify possible cancer tumors, whereas Ais are trained to seek for patterns and clues which humans arent trained to notice. Lehman states that this might exceed human capacity to identify subtle cues that the human eye and brain arent able to perceive.
While the technology is promising, its still a long way to go. As for many medical developments, actual mainstream deployment is still years away as further testing and regulatory approval is required. The study itself was also limited as it was done using only one set of imaging equipment, with the test group having a lot of confirmed breast cancers.
SEE ALSO:Googles DeepMind AI Can Predict Life-Threatening Kidney Illness 48 Hours In Advance
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Google's DeepMind AI trained by group of researchers to detect Breast Cancer - Brinkwire
How To Stay Motivated When Starting a Business – Thrive Global
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.
Motivation is defined as the reason or reasons one has to behave in a particular way. Its a critical component in our drive to achieve and the main element that enables all of us to reach our goals. Our mental energy is never static and just as our happiness waxes and wanes so too can our motivation. And keeping that energy on a high vibration is essential in accomplishing greatness.
We sat down with Sid Khattria, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vertoe, to discuss how he manages to stay motivated as he continues to grow his business. His company came out of Techstars a NYC accelerator in the winter of 2018 and has since grown to a leader in the short-term storage space with a presence in 50 major cities and over 600 locations and heres what hes learned.
Why is motivation important for anentrepreneur?
Creatingasuccessful business from scratch is arguably one of the hardest things you cando as a professional endeavor and unless you have a deeper motivation thataligns well with your passion, chances are that you will run out of steam andgive up on your vision and dream midway. Entrepreneurship presents a series ofnon-stop challenges in life and way more failures, setbacks and rejection thanyoure used to and a deeper motivation helps you stay resilient andpersisttowards your goals.
What are the types of entrepreneurmotivations?
Thisis a deep question. I feel people have various motivations that make them takeon entrepreneurship. To name a few, some love solving big problems, some wantto create something they are passionate about, some are in it for the money andfame and some just do it to overcome their family and personal situation or asa combination of one or more of these factors. Personally, I love creatingtechnology that helps as many people as possible along with securing a greatfuture for my family and that drives me to come to work and stay motivatedevery day.
How do I sustain my motivation whenstarting a business?
Youhave to constantly remind yourself on why you started this business and not getbogged by day to day challenges you face and lose sight of the deeper reasonsyou decided to take the leap of faith as an entrepreneur.
What should I practice as a businessowner in order to stay positive and on my path?
Personalwell-being is key. You need to bake in little joys for yourself every day andevery week and not get burnt out by the stress of running a business. Thiscould be exercising every day, sleeping well, pursuing some hobbythatsunrelated to your business a few times a week, traveling every few months. Youshould know how to disconnect and come back with a fresh mind.
What should I do if I run into a problemin order to protect my head space?
Thebest thing is to take a pause and not act in the heat of the moment. Itscritical that you dont let emotions take over and can peacefully understandthe problem and how best to solve it. Talking a short walk outside or sleepingon it for a day or two helps a lot as it clears your mind helps you disconnect,clear your mind and take better decisions. Practicing meditation also helps dothe same.
What makes a great entrepreneur?
Greatentrepreneurs have a vision that no one else saw and had the motivation to willthat into reality. This is not just about the glory but the boring day to daygrind to put in the hard work, intellect and a fantastic team to achieve yourgoal.
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How To Stay Motivated When Starting a Business - Thrive Global
New Poll Shows Deep Red Kansas Slipping Away From Trump And Republicans In 2020 – PoliticusUSA
Since last weeks Iowa caucus, the media has been pushing the narrative that Democrats are doomed and Donald Trumps reelection chances are stronger than theyve ever been.
They point to an outlier poll from Gallup and the presidents fake acquittal in the Senate as further proof that he is riding a wave of momentum into the general election.
But more polling released on Monday further confirms what has been true all along: Trump is in a weak position heading into the November election perhaps weaker than any incumbent president in modern history.
That doesnt mean he wont win, of course, but it does mean that he isnt this unstoppable political force that some in the media have been portraying him as in recent days.
According to a new poll conducted by DFM Research, three out of four top Democratic presidential candidates are within 10 points of Trump in the deeply red state of Kansas yes, Kansas.
The survey shows Trump leading Michael Bloomberg by just seven points (50 to 43 percent), Joe Biden by eight points (51 to 43 percent) and Bernie Sanders by 10 points (53 to 43 percent). Elizabeth Warren trails further behind with the president leading her by 12 points (53 to 41 percent).
A casual observer might think these are pretty solid Trump leads, but its important to keep in mind that Trump won Kansas by 20 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Not to mention, the poll also shows the most likely Republican and Democratic Senate candidates deadlocked at 43 percent. Picking off a Senate seat in Kansas would go a long way in helping the Democrats win back the Senate in 2020.
In 2018, Democratic candidate Laura Kelly pulled off a major upset over Republican challenger Kris Kobach in the states governors race, so its not impossible for a Democrat to win a statewide contest.
Of course, no one is claiming that Kansas will suddenly fall into the Democratic column later this year, whether at the presidential level or in the Senate contest.
But if the polling is accurate and the state has gone from Trump +20 to Trump within single digits of his eventual Democratic opponent, then it will spell trouble for the president in other states where the margins will likely be much closer.
The general election is still nine months away and there is plenty of campaigning left to do, but multiple polls released on Monday should at least poke a hole in the idea that Donald Trump has become unbeatable.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obamas presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
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New Poll Shows Deep Red Kansas Slipping Away From Trump And Republicans In 2020 - PoliticusUSA
Sundance 2020: Into the Deep Review: A frightening look inside the mind of a madman – AIPT
Documentaries about killers do not seem to have the impact they once did. It is not that they do not affect audiences in the same way. It is more about their being so much to compare them to. There are so many documentaries, docu-series, series, and podcasts about true crime, it is almost pointless to watch any of them.
Into the Deep from Netflix stands out from the rest of them. Director Emma Sullivan accidentally falls into one of the most intriguing stories on the streaming channel. Sullivan was filming a documentary about Swedish inventor Peter Madsen. As she was making her film, Madsen becomes involved in a missing person investigation that puts all of Sullivans footage into a fascinating new light.
From a technical standpoint, Sullivan does an excellent job. Forgoing a linear retelling of events, the director decides to go back and forth between what had been shot previously and new footage following the disappearance of a journalist last seen on submarine built by Madsen. It is a fantastic choice, as it gives insight into all the people involved in the unfolding drama.
Into the Deepbegins with those who had volunteered to work with Madsen (the inventor had built three submarines and was working on a rocket ship) anxious that Madsen and Kim Wall the journalist had gone missing. When Madsen is found, the volunteers are happy, even after it has been reported there is no trace of Wall on the sub. The audience can immediately tell there is a deep admiration for Madsen.
Sullivan does a magnificent job of telling the story. By going back in time,Into the Deepshows the giddiness and fun in working with Madsen. There is a palpable sense of excitement and Madsens braggadocious attitude only adds to the environment. While there is never a reason to believe Madsens plan of becoming the first amateur astronaut could realistically succeed, it is entertaining watching the team try.
This is juxtaposed by the events of the present. Those who once looked up to their eccentric boss are in a much more somber mood. Some look to justify what has happened while others reflect back. Even those who had issues with Madsen refuse to believe he did anything wrong.
As more clues (and body parts) are found, Madsens story about the rendezvous between the two changes. As it becomes harder to explain away what has been done, Madsens former workers become frustrated then angry before they feeling guilty about what has occurred. It is a fascinating character study that is made all the more intriguing since what the viewers are seeing real emotions.
Making the viewing experience more tense is how Sullivan has less time pass between the past and the present as Into the Deepprogresses. The documentary oscillates between two finales creating a feeling of anxiety even for those who are familiar with the story. This leads to a chilling ending that is satisfactory from a filmmaking standpoint, but incredibly difficult to watch.
Into the Deepis a disturbing documentary. Director Emma Sullivan almost makes two movies. The first is about an unconventional genius who does things his own way while the other is a murder mystery with twists and turns. Together they form an excellent study about guilt, loyalty, and the human mind.
In an age when documentaries about killers are a dime a dozen, this one still stands out. Genuinely frightening and worth your time.
Unique way to tell events adds tension to story and depth to characters
Impossible to turn away from
Chooses not to use subtitles at times when they are needed
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Sundance 2020: Into the Deep Review: A frightening look inside the mind of a madman - AIPT