My Word with Douglas E. Welch

A flashback to March 2010 when LA Friday Coffee visited the Griffith Observatory, Griffith Park, Los Angeles.

Books on Hold is a blog series dedicated to books I have seen in passing and requested from my local library. See more in the series at the end of this blog post. — Douglas

I often say, “A geek in one thing, a geek in all things.” Not only do I geek out on technology, but also food, science, history, architecture and a bunch of other topics. This book tickled the science portion of my geekery this week, so I had to request it from my local library. You can pick it up there, via your local bookseller or using the Amazon links below. It is also available for Kindle.

Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man by Mark Changizi 

* Discovered via  Google+ post by the author

From Amazon.com…

“The scientific consensus is that our ability to understand human speech has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. After all, there are whole portions of the brain devoted to human speech. We learn to understand speech before we can even walk, and can seamlessly absorb enormous amounts of information simply by hearing it. Surely we evolved this capability over thousands of generations.

Or did we? Portions of the human brain are also devoted to reading. Children learn to read at a very young age and can seamlessly absorb information even more quickly through reading than through hearing. We know that we didn’t evolve to read because reading is only a few thousand years old.

In Harnessed, cognitive scientist Mark Changizi demonstrates that human speech has been very specifically “designed” to harness the sounds of nature, sounds we’ve evolved over millions of years to readily understand. Long before humans evolved, mammals have learned to interpret the sounds of nature to understand both threats and opportunities. Our speech—regardless of language—is very clearly based on the sounds of nature.

Even more fascinating, Changizi shows that music itself is based on natural sounds. Music—seemingly one of the most human of inventions—is literally built on sounds and patterns of sound that have existed since the beginning of time.”

Previously in Books on Hold:

• The Naked Brewer: Fearless Homebrewing Tips, Tricks & Rule-breaking Recipes by Christina Perozzi, Hallie Beaune
• The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life by Margaret Roach
• Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich
• The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen (Cook’s Illustrated Cookbooks)
• Martha’s American Food: A Celebration of Our Nation’s Most Treasured Dishes, from Coast to Coast by Martha Stewart
• The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage 
• Home Made Winter by Yvette van Boven (Author), Oof Verschuren (Photographer)
• Come In, We’re Closed: An Invitation to Staff Meals at the World’s Best Restaurants

Looking to get your geek on? What better way than to build you own “third eye” personal proximity detector.

From the Machine Project web site…

Third Eye Workshop

Sunday, October 21st
10am to 4pm

Instructors: Tim Perkis and Sara Roberts.

Non-Members: $75
Members: $65

Register on the Machine Project web site

What if you could see if someone was behind you, feel how close they are to you? Would that change your notion of the borders of your body, change the kind of social interactions you have with people, open up new possibilities for group games and sports?

In the Third_Eye Workshop each participant will build and take home a 3rd_eye, a small device that can be clipped on a headband, hat or cap. The third_eye uses infrared light to sense your proximity to people or objects and buzzes more vigorously the closer they are. (Often people quickly forget they are wearing them and just incorporate them as a new sense, going from thinking “this thing is buzzing on my neck” to simply “someone is behind me” in less than an hour. )

First we’ll build the devices, a relatively simple process in which you’ll learn to solder and do simple electronic assembly. Then we’ll play with these gizmos in group improvisations and games. Participants should bring a headband, hat, or cap so they can wear their 3rd_eye comfortably.

Tim is an electronic musician who has worked for over 25 years with computer networks and improvisation; he is also a filmmaker (Noisy People, 2006)

Sara is into exploring sound and human dynamics with non-expert groups of people. Her best known tool is the “earbies”, a set of 50 handheld loop recorders. She teaches in Experimental Sound Practices at Cal Arts.

third eye ps2020 from tim perkis on Vimeo.

Excellent 6-part documentary series from the BBC. I wish we had more television like this here in the US.

Don’t see the video above? Watch “The Story of Science”on YouTube

Watch the entire series on YouTube on The DocumentarySite’s Channel