So according to the Principles of Neural Science, 4th edition, ion channels = resistors, concentration gradients = voltage sources, membranes/lipid bilayers = parallel plate capacitors, and the potential change across a membrane after a current pulse = IR(1-e^(-t/tau)) where tau = the time constant RC.
So basically, neurons = RC circuits. MIND BLOWN.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
As it is looking right now...
CS 164 - Programming Languages and Compilers
CS 172 - Computability and Complexity
MCB 167 - Physiological and Genetic Basis of Behavior
Japanese 1B - 2nd semester Japanese
English 198 - Video Games as an Artistic Medium Decal
and I am auditing...
Psych 117 - Human Neuropsychology
MCB C160 - Intro to Neurobiology
because they happen to fit in the middle of my schedule.
I should probably start cutting classes soon. But they're all good... :/
CS 172 - Computability and Complexity
MCB 167 - Physiological and Genetic Basis of Behavior
Japanese 1B - 2nd semester Japanese
English 198 - Video Games as an Artistic Medium Decal
and I am auditing...
Psych 117 - Human Neuropsychology
MCB C160 - Intro to Neurobiology
because they happen to fit in the middle of my schedule.
I should probably start cutting classes soon. But they're all good... :/
Monday, January 10, 2011
A Step
I am paralyzed by the feeling that what I'm doing right now is meaningless in light of better things that can and ought to be done. Self-consciously judging all of my current activities and devaluing them in comparison to things that actually matter, things that for whatever the reason I never saw fit to take interest in. Because somehow learning to play music is better than whatever I'm doing, because somehow baking and cooking is better than whatever I'm doing, because making cards and gifts for people is better than whatever I'm doing. Whatever I'm doing is nothing.
These comparisons are not healthy, I know. But they just come up unavoidable, in light of feeling conscious that my life could be so much more than it actually is, if I even bothered to take a single step in the other direction. To have drive, for once. God, what more could I be doing with this dead hull of a life? What more could I be doing now if I just gave it all up to you already? Why am I waiting so long to do this?
I just keep finding excuses to toss in front of the rug. Just one more game, one more book, one more episode, one more time, one more night, to live and be carefree and ignorant of the greater world. There is so much more I'd like to do before I give it all up. Give everything up, including this life that I have almost come to believe that I have nothing more to expect from. Nothing but disappointment, misunderstanding from other people, and loneliness. A life full of relationships that I can never fully realize in my lifetime, that I cannot do anything about anymore, because someone or another gave up on them a long time ago.
I am afraid of giving it up, because I am afraid of the possibility that it all might just stay the same afterward. Afraid that God's answer is no, you won't see the things you want to see take place in your lifetime no matter what you do anyway, because that just isn't part of what I have planned.
So much I am blinded by the possibility of disappointment from the things I can see, and not hopeful for the promise of good things from that which I cannot see. So much so that I stopped talking. Stopped believing. Continued doing. Continued sinning. Because I had nothing more to expect from this fruitless, meaningless life.
God, I want to believe. So much. But belief of this level takes an amount of commitment on my part that I've been to this point unwilling to take.
So begins my resolution for this year. God first, for once in my life. Then we'll see what happens.
These comparisons are not healthy, I know. But they just come up unavoidable, in light of feeling conscious that my life could be so much more than it actually is, if I even bothered to take a single step in the other direction. To have drive, for once. God, what more could I be doing with this dead hull of a life? What more could I be doing now if I just gave it all up to you already? Why am I waiting so long to do this?
I just keep finding excuses to toss in front of the rug. Just one more game, one more book, one more episode, one more time, one more night, to live and be carefree and ignorant of the greater world. There is so much more I'd like to do before I give it all up. Give everything up, including this life that I have almost come to believe that I have nothing more to expect from. Nothing but disappointment, misunderstanding from other people, and loneliness. A life full of relationships that I can never fully realize in my lifetime, that I cannot do anything about anymore, because someone or another gave up on them a long time ago.
I am afraid of giving it up, because I am afraid of the possibility that it all might just stay the same afterward. Afraid that God's answer is no, you won't see the things you want to see take place in your lifetime no matter what you do anyway, because that just isn't part of what I have planned.
So much I am blinded by the possibility of disappointment from the things I can see, and not hopeful for the promise of good things from that which I cannot see. So much so that I stopped talking. Stopped believing. Continued doing. Continued sinning. Because I had nothing more to expect from this fruitless, meaningless life.
God, I want to believe. So much. But belief of this level takes an amount of commitment on my part that I've been to this point unwilling to take.
So begins my resolution for this year. God first, for once in my life. Then we'll see what happens.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Library
So today I went to the library to renew my 2009-expired library card.
Librarian: Have you turned 18 yet?
Me: Uh, I'm 21.
Why do I feel so old now? -_-
Librarian: Have you turned 18 yet?
Me: Uh, I'm 21.
Why do I feel so old now? -_-
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Villains
Florida was fun (Universal Studios and Disney World!), and now I'm back home in time to get sick again. Great.
Might make another post about theme park rides (I love theme park rides!) later. And villains that scared me when I was little. Actually I think I'll do the latter now, because it's been mulling in my head for the past week.
Villains That Scared Little Ryan List: (or ITP, Ryan admits that he's a coward)
The main premise of this list is that when I was younger, I was deathly terrified of villains in any medium. Recent escapades in Disney World brought certain memories of this back...
I know I've told people in the past that I was scared of female villains, but now that I think about it, it was probably just villains in general. Female villains had this tendency to turn up often, though.
1. Ursula - The Little Mermaid
I'm pretty sure I've had a couple of nightmares involving this witch. We had a VHS tape of The Little Mermaid, and when I wanted to rewatch scenes, I would fast forward through the parts with Ursula and cover my eyes while the tape was fast forwarding so I wouldn't see her face. Or at least cover the part of my vision where she'd be, cause I predictably wound up skipping past the part I wanted to see a lot.
I wound up using this sight covering strategy with a lot of Disney villains, actually. Enough for them to take up their own category - see: Scar, Jafar, Maleficent, Cruella De Vil, Snow White's evil queen when she turned into a hag, Gaston during Beauty and the Beast's ending sequence, the guy that ran Pleasure Island and whipped all the donkeys in Pinocchio...
2. Cinderella's stepmother - Cinderella
I had this dream once where Cinderella's stepmother pushed Cinderella off a flight of stairs to her death. This pretty much cemented my fear of her. Yes, I had morbid dreams when I was little too.
It didn't help that the scene setup in my dream matched that of Clock Tower, that SNES game where you play a helpless girl that gets chased around in an abandoned mansion by a guy with giant scissors.
Seriously, it was like that, minus scissor boy. -_-
3. Lord Licorice - Candyland
Yes, the Hasbro Bros. children's board game, Candyland. Yes, I did try to cover the part of the board that he was on with something whenever we played. No, this was not always the case originally. I blame that stupid Candyland Adventure CD-ROM game we had (Windows 95, good times.) in which freaking licorice guy would pop up from the bottom corner of the screen at random times to taunt you. This was a time in which I was not mentally prepared to be "surprised" by villains popping up from the bottom of my desktop screen. This led to my temporary aversion to all cd-rom games which had a villain...
4. Polly Sparks - Jumpstart 3rd Grade [PC]
...such as this one. I got Jumpstart 3rd grade as a present? gift? I don't remember anymore, but after taking one look at the instruction manual, I refused to touch the game for a year because I was scared of this stupid brat pulling a Lord Licorice on the screen on me. Jumpstart 3rd grade wound up becoming one of my favorite games of all time (and only Jumpstart I ever beat?), once I finally found the courage to try the game and discovered that Polly was just a spoiled brat.
5. Pete - Disney, but specifically in the Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse [SNES]
So I was exposed to Pete originally via Goof Troop and other Disney cartoons where he was portrayed to be fat and bumbling, so I wasn't usually scared of Pete... except for when I [tried to play] this game. It wasn't so much of a problem except for the fact that EVERY SINGLE BOSS in this game had some variation of his face plastered on it.
Seriously, Caterpillar Pete, then Spider Pete, then Ice Skating Pete, then Emperor Pete... -___-
I actually only got as far as the caterpillar boss. Watched little brother beat all of the other bosses, because I couldn't stand playing the game after that freaking caterpillar.
6. Russian Blue - Spy Fox in Dry Cereal [PC]
I almost didn't finish Spy Fox because of this woman. Granted, she never actually did anything that scared me in the game persay, but everything about her suggested that she might rip you to pieces if you messed with her. Cue fear of femme fatale characters in general.
7. Carmen Sandiego
This was mostly influenced by the Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego TV show, which masked her face half the time so that she looked like someone who'd appear on America's Most Wanted. Fear quelled once I caught her after playing Where in the World in second grade.
8. Judge Doom - Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
One of my favorite movies of all time, and as usual the villain terrified me. Especially during the final ending sequence. You kinda have to see it yourself to understand, but he's a psychopath cartoon murderer.
9. Morty Maxwell - The Learning Company's Super Solvers Games (such as Midnight Rescue and Treasure Mountain)
- The first TLC game I ever remember possessing is Midnight Rescue. It was another one of those games that I refused to play after reading the instruction manual. ...well okay, so I tried playing once and freaked out when I got caught by one of Maxwell's patrolling robots (you're supposed to take pictures of them or shine a flashlight on them when you see them... like Fatal Frame?).
I don't think I would have lasted long against Morty himself. I mean, just look at his face. And that hair.
10. Pride - Hind's Feet on High Places [children's illustrated version]
I don't know if you've ever heard of the Christian novel Hind's Feet on High Places [it's about a girl named Much-Afraid who goes on a journey to the top of a mountain to meet the Great Shepherd or something like that), but there was a children's illustrated version of it that I had when I was younger. And I was terrified of the main character's cousin, who was a vain looking guy named Pride. Kinda like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, except uglier cause he had a mole on his cheek.
But yeah, I could not bear to look at him. There was this two page spread in the children's book that just had his face... glaring at you, and after I saw it the first time, I taped the two pages together so I wouldn't have to look at them whenever I reopened the book.
11. any Pokemon trainer - Pokemon Blue Version [GameBoy]
The first time I played Pokemon, I tried to avoid every single trainer battle possible because I hated being forced into a battle whenever I walked within the eyesight of one. The whole exclamation point over head indicator made me jump at times. Especially with the more villainous trainers like Team Rocket, who I was already scared of anyway just by appearance.
Giovanni (leader of Team Rocket) was one of my favorite characters though, oddly. He struck me as more cool than menacing I guess.
12. The Wicked Witch of the West - The Wizard of Oz
This one ought to be self-explanatory. She appears in a puff of smoke, so there's the surprise factor, and she cackles. And she melts when pelted with water, which makes her disgusting.
13. Ms. Grunckle - Jumpstart 4th Grade
I don't know what the Jumpstart people were thinking when they made the first version of 4th grade, theming it around a wicked witch-substitute teacher who transforms your class into monsters and locks them up on a haunted island. I'd imagine that this terrified lots of kids besides me, considering it was the only Jumpstart game that they retconned with a completely different game after a few years.
Other reasons: she cackles, and she flies into the screen at random points while you're wandering the island to taunt you. The one time that this happened when I played, I was so freaked out that I turned off the computer immediately and never touched the game again. And then my little brother beat it years later. >_>
tl;dr Everything terrified me when I was little, and my younger brother is a lot braver than I am.
Might make another post about theme park rides (I love theme park rides!) later. And villains that scared me when I was little. Actually I think I'll do the latter now, because it's been mulling in my head for the past week.
Villains That Scared Little Ryan List: (or ITP, Ryan admits that he's a coward)
The main premise of this list is that when I was younger, I was deathly terrified of villains in any medium. Recent escapades in Disney World brought certain memories of this back...
I know I've told people in the past that I was scared of female villains, but now that I think about it, it was probably just villains in general. Female villains had this tendency to turn up often, though.
1. Ursula - The Little Mermaid
I'm pretty sure I've had a couple of nightmares involving this witch. We had a VHS tape of The Little Mermaid, and when I wanted to rewatch scenes, I would fast forward through the parts with Ursula and cover my eyes while the tape was fast forwarding so I wouldn't see her face. Or at least cover the part of my vision where she'd be, cause I predictably wound up skipping past the part I wanted to see a lot.
I wound up using this sight covering strategy with a lot of Disney villains, actually. Enough for them to take up their own category - see: Scar, Jafar, Maleficent, Cruella De Vil, Snow White's evil queen when she turned into a hag, Gaston during Beauty and the Beast's ending sequence, the guy that ran Pleasure Island and whipped all the donkeys in Pinocchio...
2. Cinderella's stepmother - Cinderella
I had this dream once where Cinderella's stepmother pushed Cinderella off a flight of stairs to her death. This pretty much cemented my fear of her. Yes, I had morbid dreams when I was little too.
It didn't help that the scene setup in my dream matched that of Clock Tower, that SNES game where you play a helpless girl that gets chased around in an abandoned mansion by a guy with giant scissors.
Seriously, it was like that, minus scissor boy. -_-
3. Lord Licorice - Candyland
Yes, the Hasbro Bros. children's board game, Candyland. Yes, I did try to cover the part of the board that he was on with something whenever we played. No, this was not always the case originally. I blame that stupid Candyland Adventure CD-ROM game we had (Windows 95, good times.) in which freaking licorice guy would pop up from the bottom corner of the screen at random times to taunt you. This was a time in which I was not mentally prepared to be "surprised" by villains popping up from the bottom of my desktop screen. This led to my temporary aversion to all cd-rom games which had a villain...
4. Polly Sparks - Jumpstart 3rd Grade [PC]
...such as this one. I got Jumpstart 3rd grade as a present? gift? I don't remember anymore, but after taking one look at the instruction manual, I refused to touch the game for a year because I was scared of this stupid brat pulling a Lord Licorice on the screen on me. Jumpstart 3rd grade wound up becoming one of my favorite games of all time (and only Jumpstart I ever beat?), once I finally found the courage to try the game and discovered that Polly was just a spoiled brat.
5. Pete - Disney, but specifically in the Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse [SNES]
So I was exposed to Pete originally via Goof Troop and other Disney cartoons where he was portrayed to be fat and bumbling, so I wasn't usually scared of Pete... except for when I [tried to play] this game. It wasn't so much of a problem except for the fact that EVERY SINGLE BOSS in this game had some variation of his face plastered on it.
Seriously, Caterpillar Pete, then Spider Pete, then Ice Skating Pete, then Emperor Pete... -___-
I actually only got as far as the caterpillar boss. Watched little brother beat all of the other bosses, because I couldn't stand playing the game after that freaking caterpillar.
6. Russian Blue - Spy Fox in Dry Cereal [PC]
I almost didn't finish Spy Fox because of this woman. Granted, she never actually did anything that scared me in the game persay, but everything about her suggested that she might rip you to pieces if you messed with her. Cue fear of femme fatale characters in general.
7. Carmen Sandiego
This was mostly influenced by the Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego TV show, which masked her face half the time so that she looked like someone who'd appear on America's Most Wanted. Fear quelled once I caught her after playing Where in the World in second grade.
8. Judge Doom - Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
One of my favorite movies of all time, and as usual the villain terrified me. Especially during the final ending sequence. You kinda have to see it yourself to understand, but he's a psychopath cartoon murderer.
9. Morty Maxwell - The Learning Company's Super Solvers Games (such as Midnight Rescue and Treasure Mountain)
- The first TLC game I ever remember possessing is Midnight Rescue. It was another one of those games that I refused to play after reading the instruction manual. ...well okay, so I tried playing once and freaked out when I got caught by one of Maxwell's patrolling robots (you're supposed to take pictures of them or shine a flashlight on them when you see them... like Fatal Frame?).
I don't think I would have lasted long against Morty himself. I mean, just look at his face. And that hair.
10. Pride - Hind's Feet on High Places [children's illustrated version]
I don't know if you've ever heard of the Christian novel Hind's Feet on High Places [it's about a girl named Much-Afraid who goes on a journey to the top of a mountain to meet the Great Shepherd or something like that), but there was a children's illustrated version of it that I had when I was younger. And I was terrified of the main character's cousin, who was a vain looking guy named Pride. Kinda like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, except uglier cause he had a mole on his cheek.
But yeah, I could not bear to look at him. There was this two page spread in the children's book that just had his face... glaring at you, and after I saw it the first time, I taped the two pages together so I wouldn't have to look at them whenever I reopened the book.
11. any Pokemon trainer - Pokemon Blue Version [GameBoy]
The first time I played Pokemon, I tried to avoid every single trainer battle possible because I hated being forced into a battle whenever I walked within the eyesight of one. The whole exclamation point over head indicator made me jump at times. Especially with the more villainous trainers like Team Rocket, who I was already scared of anyway just by appearance.
Giovanni (leader of Team Rocket) was one of my favorite characters though, oddly. He struck me as more cool than menacing I guess.
12. The Wicked Witch of the West - The Wizard of Oz
This one ought to be self-explanatory. She appears in a puff of smoke, so there's the surprise factor, and she cackles. And she melts when pelted with water, which makes her disgusting.
13. Ms. Grunckle - Jumpstart 4th Grade
I don't know what the Jumpstart people were thinking when they made the first version of 4th grade, theming it around a wicked witch-substitute teacher who transforms your class into monsters and locks them up on a haunted island. I'd imagine that this terrified lots of kids besides me, considering it was the only Jumpstart game that they retconned with a completely different game after a few years.
Other reasons: she cackles, and she flies into the screen at random points while you're wandering the island to taunt you. The one time that this happened when I played, I was so freaked out that I turned off the computer immediately and never touched the game again. And then my little brother beat it years later. >_>
tl;dr Everything terrified me when I was little, and my younger brother is a lot braver than I am.
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