Sunday, March 21, 2004

Our Brains Cheat During Learning Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers have shown that our brains might cheat when learning, switching to 'automatic pilot' mode whenever it's possible. Instead of trying to answer a question by reasoning, our brain explore a catalog of previous answers to similar questions just to save time and avoid thinking. They also made a fascinating discovery. This cheating mechanism also exists in people suffering from amnesia. More details and references are available on my blog including a spectacular image of a cut-away view of the brain taken with the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology used by the researchers to detect regions where brain activity was reduced when performing repetitive tasks, a concept named 'neural priming.'" [Techdirt] Isn't that called a 'cache'? 12:55:19 AM    trackback []

Garage Band Feature Requests I've been using GarageBand for a few weeks now, and I'm really liking it. Here are a few features I'd like to see in GarageBand 2.0: Takes - each track can have any number of takes. Besides being able to "Create New Take" and select from among existing takes, there would be ways to delete takes, name takes, and convert to/from sections of song. In other words, I record myself playing a riff over and over, cut the track up into sections, and convert each section into a take. Then I can alternate between takes until I find the one I like. Names - I want to be able to add a name to each track, and to each section of track. GarageBand does a great job of naming things, but I want to also describe how each instrument "feels" in each piece. Tap Tempo - pick a trigger, any trigger. Ratings - be able to rate songs, tracks, sections, and takes. Sho/Hide stuff with certain ratings. What are your GarageBand Feature Requests? (I wonder if Apple people are reading weblogs?) 12:54:35 AM    trackback []