Remembering Is Like Reliving

Warning - nerdy liturgical theology post ahead:

This news article (NY Times) reports:

"Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it.

"The recordings, taken from the brains of epilepsy patients being prepared for surgery, demonstrate that these spontaneous memories reside in some of the same neurons that fired most furiously when the recalled event had been experienced. Researchers had long theorized as much but until now had only indirect evidence.

"Experts said the study had all but closed the case: For the brain, remembering is a lot like doing (at least in the short term, as the research says nothing about more distant memories)."

So what?  Well, what we do at mass, especially around the eucharistic prayer time is remember - specifically Christ's paschal mystery - his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, and we remember these things in such a way that it makes those historic events present to us (or us to them).  The fancy-shmancy word for this is anamnesis.

And now we have some scientific corroboration for just this - that the way our brain remembers things is similar to the doing of those things in the first place.

Pretty darn cool.

But why this image of Homer with this post?  Part of the experiments involved showing folks TV images, including Seinfeld and Simpsons clips.  And as a PS - you get some pretty weird results if you do a google image search for 'anamnesis' - it's true.

Solar Gadget Charger

Unfortunately, just a concept for now, but it would be a cool way to combine two intense interests in the Hammond/Johnson house - saving the earth and technogadgets.

Orin and Erin and Penny's first video chat with Orin's Dad

Orin's Dad got wifi high speed internet this morning!

"Walk Away Different" now on iTunes!

Click here (not the image) to access iTunes' listing of our new CD with GIA, "Walk Away Different" - yes, the long wait is over!

You can buy any track for $0.99, or the whole CD for just $9.99!

We'd also appreciate it if someone who wasn't us dropped by to write up a (preferably) good review.  : )

Happy listening all!

Can a day get any better?

Today Orin (& Erin) purchased two items.

A red, Roland AX-1 keytar!

and

Two iPhone 3G's! (though we won't be using them until the end of the month)

Orin would like one of these

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease? Pretty-please?

iMunchies

If I (Orin) had an iPhone, this is the sort of thing I'd do...

Repenting Made Easy: iGod

With gracious thanks to muddys.net:

iGod.

You'd Better Watch Out

Click here to watch Apple's Christmastime "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" ad.  Or don't.  Just don't say we didn't warn you when you get the words wrong at your next holiday sing-a-long party.

Additional Burny Melty Car Pics

Here are a few pictures of Orin's Escort a couple days after the big fire. Erin took them when she went to reclaim the rest of the belongings still left inside.

The driver's seat, covered with glass and (we think) the plastic that used to cover the console.

Cup holders filled with water.

Just above the steering wheel, where the speedometer etc. used to be.

A melted vent, and the one to the right completely gone.

Smoke damage on the roof.

The roof here was protected by the visor.

Stay tuned for pics of Orin and Erin's new car, bought Wedensday evening!

Orin always has to one-up Shannon

So, remember that story, like, a couple weeks ago, of Shannon getting two flat tires the day before a big weekend Oddwalk trip?

Yeah, well, Oddwalk is hitting the road again this weekend, to the diocese of South Dakota, and what happens?

That's right, Orin's car bursts into flames. No, I'm not kidding, says Orin.

I was driving home from temple about 9:15 Friday night, and the car stalls out. I drift over to the shoulder, and turn it off and try to restart it a couple times. The second time, I heard a faint poof sound, and saw flames shoot out the passenger side of the hood/tire area. So I quickly hopped out of the car, not thinking well, and called Erin then 911 - yeah, don't ask me exactly why that order. Anyway, I then discovered in my haste, I had successfully locked myself out of the car, in which was still my keyboard, all my books for school, and several other less important possessions.

Within a few minutes the fire trucks, police cars etc. all arrived, and completely shut down Eastbound I-64 in St. Louis. That's right, I shut down the whole eastbound highway. The flames never really were that impressive, but there was an awful lot of smoke as you can see. Miraculously, they got the two important items just mentioned out of the back seat and continued to put out the fire. Miraculously, all of the other possessions, save a couple Spirit and Song hymnals were completely unscathed in the process - no fire, smoke, or water damage. Amazing.

Erin and our soon-to-move neighbors Dave and Jen came out to load up Orin's stuff and help out. The tow truck came and took Orin's car off to the lot, and We all went home and relaxed for a while. Now, I write this post, before going off to bed.

What may have caused this? Let's just say that Allstate and JiffyLube might be having some conversations in the near future.

Orin's car has served him well for just over 9 years, and as we recently observed, over 200,000 miles. It is a sad passing, so to speak, but the car served honorably and faithfully until tonight, 10-26-07, about 9:15pm. Farewell old friend, you will be missed.

Orin's car on Orin & Erin's wedding night

We've Got Garageband Too!

Jared alerted us to this site, thefump.com - now, not everything there is clean and "appropriate" shall we say, but there are some real winners, like this tune about Apple's program for Macs called Garageband, which is a basic music editing program with loops and such in almost any style of music. Oddwalk has used it as an aid in composing and even on some of our early CDs. However, when placed in the wrong hands... well, as the description of the song says, "Perhaps this wasn't such a great idea."

Is it Christmas Yet?

http://isitchristmas.com/

Thanks to muddys.net.

Automated Confession

Thanks to Oddwalk friend David B:

200,000!

On the way to an Oddwalk appearance this morning:

Chickenwire Joe Remix

Scene from an OddiBook Reassembly

Well, after we thought it was taken care of, getting an unexpected upgrade, soldering a couple joints twice... and a lot of patience, the OddiBook seems to be back in business. Rejoice!

Blogger Play

http://play.blogger.com/

In their own words:

Shortly after Blogger launched photo uploading two years ago, one of our engineers whipped up a web page that would show us the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. The result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. We couldn’t stop watching.

Over the years we’ve kept this photo scroller as part of the Blogger offices, on a monitor or projector, as an interesting (distracting?) slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs. The fame of the scroller spread within Google, until one day we were asked, “so, when are you launching this?”

“Um...,” we replied. But we knew a good idea when we heard one. We got our UI people to come up with buttons and fadey effects and we got our engineers to make the whole thing fast and robust. A bit of work later, and now we can share it with all of you:

http://play.blogger.com/

Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.

A caveat: we use many techniques, including Google’s SafeSearch technology, to keep the images clean. Nevertheless, on rare occasions an image that you may find vulgar or obscene will slip through our algorithmic filters. Google does not pre-screen the images that appear in Blogger Play, nor is it responsible for their content. To report a terms of service violation, you may fill out this contact form.

Scenes from an iBook Disassembly

Oddwalk's laptop, the OddiBook, has been in some need of repair for a while. This weekend, Orin claimed it and brought it home, to check things out. He's confident it can be repaired (fix a power adapter part, replace cd drive, replace battery) and upgraded as along as it's all apart (bigger hard drive, it's already got enough memory) and hopefully all reassembled in a week or so.

Should you walk past the craft table in Orin's house in the meantime, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!

I think I confused Yahoo