Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.
Stephen Kotkin, ‘Stalin: Volume 1’
Bookstore presentation at Politics and Prose
Stephen Kotkin lectures are my latest addiction online. He is one of the best Political-History lecturers I have ever heard. Stephen has of course featured here before in a special News on the March article about the Ukraine Conflict and Russian History.
Stephen is very jovial and relaxed in today’s featured speech on Stalin:
In the first volume of a planned three-volume life, Kotkin, Princeton history professor and acting director of the university’s Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies program shows his subject’s (Stalin) evolution from one-time seminarian to ruthless dictator, linking the man’s traits—paranoia, brutality—to those of both imperial Russia and the Bolshevik power structure. (View presentation here)
Waves and Dimensions
Blog article by James Cross at Broad Speculations
Comparable in subject to Mike Smith’s blog – Self Aware Patterns, James Cross presents the latest research on Brain and Consciousness. This article Waves and Dimensions discusses recent studies on Brain Wave activity specifically patterns of firing neutrons.
The view emerging from these studies is that the spatial organization of neural firings may be a critical component of the neural computation the brain performs. The traditional view of neural computation has been that of information passed sequentially from one neuron to other neurons as it moves through stages of processing, This new view augments the traditional view with spatial patterns and interactions carrying information. A researcher compares this difference to wave-particle duality in physics:
“The traditional view of brain function describes brain activity as an interaction of neurons. Since every neuron is confined to a specific location, this view is akin to the description of light as a particle,” says Gepshtein, director of Salk’s Collaboratory for Adaptive Sensory Technologies. “We’ve found that in some situations, brain activity is better described as interaction of waves, which is similar to the description of light as a wave. Both views are needed for understanding the brain.”
(Read entire article here)
Round 8 Australian Football League – The Richmond Tigers vs Collingwood Pies Rivalry
Forum at BigFooty
I am a big fan of Australian football and in particular my glorious team The Richmond Tigers. This Saturday afternoon (Melbourne time) they will play their arch rivals also from Melbourne – the Collingwood Pies. By the time this post is published the game will be done and dusted and I will include the game result and match highlights here. (The Richmond Tigers won relatively comfortably and I won’t relay the highlights because they aren’t the highlights)
This rivalry is rich in AFL history and it is expected this weekend the illustrious Melbourne Cricket Ground to be mostly full. I’m chomping at the bit to view this spectacle Friday night (Colombian time).
This is such an important match for us to gauge where we are at this season. I wrote at the Big Footy blog:
‘I think given our downslide since our formidable era; now with the team at nearly full-strength there are no excuses. If we win this well, then we have good chance at finals, if not then it’s highly unlikely. If we can’t beat Collingwood with this team, now, then we are officially (for me at least) in rebuilding for other seasons. Does our team have a tilt for another run this season? This game is the key.‘
There was also some discussion about the future of The Royal Hotel in Melbourne. One person wrote: ‘I have always thought that the club should buy the Royal Hotel. Kick the strippers out and turn it into a family friendly hotel. No Pokies‘. Another replied: ‘But what about the strippers family?‘
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Leave a Reply