Monthly Archives: April 2014

I Have Prosopagnosia!

Author: | Category: General | Tags: ,

The other day, I was listening to Radiolab on NPR and it suddenly hit me… I have prosopagnosia!
Not a severe case, but a fairly bad case, enough to be severely embarrassing when it hits me! 🙁
 
Prosopagnosia also called face blindness, is the inability to recognise faces even when one might be familiar with the person. It is a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing (e.g., object discrimination) and intellectual functioning (e.g., decision making) remain intact, says Wikipedia.
 
Initially, the term was applied to conditions following acute brain damage. However, recent research has proved that a congenital or developmental form of the condition also exists where people are born with it or acquire it early in life, and what is more, it affects a large number of the population.
 
A German study conducted in 2006 and reported in the American Journal of Medical Genetics found that about 2% of the population suffered from prosopagnosia. Another survey conducted by Dr. Ken Nakayama of the Harvard University indicates that as much as 10% of the general population might be suffering from prosopagnosia to various degrees.
 
In its severest form, prosopagnosiacs fail to recognise even their close friends and family. Especially when they meet people away from the familiar places where they routinely interact. Even in its milder forms, prosopagnosia can be the cause of terrible embarrassment and social discomfort. That is exactly what my experience was.
 
Take the time when I was having lunch with a bunch of people from work. And this guy at the next table turns around, ‘Hi Ria, how are you?’ He gets up and comes over and starts talking. It is all I can do to hold up my side of the conversation, without giving away the fact that I have no clue who he is! Meanwhile, I’m busily going through mental lists searching for his identity. Obviously, he is a contact from work, possibly from a past workplace. So my questions go in that direction… ‘So how is work?’ ‘Oh you know how it is… same old, same old’. No win there. ‘And how is everyone at work?’ ‘Hey, I changed jobs recently, did you know?’ And he is busy getting his wallet out and extracting a card for me. My sigh of relief was not audible, I hope! I took the card, looked at it and all I wanted to do was kick myself! How could I forget this guy? We occupied neighbouring cubes at my previous job, been a party to private jokes, mostly at the expense of cow-orkers – no that is not a typo – and shared innumerable lunches. How could I? I’m so glad that the rest of the conversation was a genuine pleasure!
 
Or think about this situation. I’m walking along in the city, with my friend Ashley. On a Friday, after work, headed to our favourite watering hole. We are stopped at a light waiting to cross. And this guy stops by us and starts talking to me. ‘Hey, hey, how are you? Long time, no see’. And I’m smiling and talking and searching in my mind for his name. And I know, I should be introducing Ashley right away. She is looking at me like ‘what is wrong with you?’ He is looking at her… and at me. And all I can say is, ‘sorry, gotta rush. Talk to you later’. And I cross the road, almost running. Fortunately, Ashley knows me well, and has no problem believing the fact that I couldn’t introduce her just because I didn’t know the guy’s name! And to this day, that remains a mystery!
 
I hardly ever enjoy a movie with many white men actors for the simple reason that I’m pretty much unable to keep the characters and their names straight in my mind!
 
Though my experiences with prosopagnosia has been totally awkward when they occurred, they have not been that frequent to warrant any anxiety. Generally I have written them off as caused by a busy mind. But now, in the light of recent enlightenment, I’m forced to reconsider. And I have come to the conclusion: yes, I suffer from prosopagnosia!
 
If you want to test your ability to recognise faces, check out this page at Radiolab Blogland.
 
You can read more about prosopagnosia at

Just Another Face in the Crowd; article in New York Times

Prosopagnosia research centers

NINDS Prosopagnosia Information Page

Face Blind; article in Wired Magazine

~Ria

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11 Apr 2014

What’s New in Animation Movies

Author: | Category: Animation movies, Movies | Tags: , , , , ,

Frozen, the animated film that won the Academy Award for the Best Animated Feature last year was my viewing choice this past weekend. The film struck a chord with me, in its wonderful treatment of the story, the fantastical imagery, the soulful soundtrack, and the message it finally delivered. I couldn’t but realize how female characters are on the rise in animation movies.
 
frozen

Frozen is a story about two sisters who help each other find their way in life.
 
Another female-oriented film, Brave, won the Academy Award in 2012. The movie is about a mother and a daughter who save each other from the tangles of fate.
 
I can’t help wonder at the meaningful messaging both these films convey. Where we were used to watching male characters that made us laugh and cry with their hilarious antics in films like Shrek, Monsters Inc, Ice Age, Finding Nemo, Shark Tale, Ratatouille, Despicable Me, Rango, I could name a zillion, here we are now onto a new dimension with female characters dominating the storyline, teaching us a thing or two about life.
 
brave

Don’t get me wrong, I completely loved the earlier films that were pure fictional entertainment. That was my Friday night unwind-after-work activity. I would usually wake up the next day not remembering a thing about the film except that I had a good time watching it. The films were very creative and innovative and compared well against the real people films in several aspects. I, for one, could relate to many of the characters in certain situations. However, the way that I could totally identify with the female characters in Frozen and Brave was amazing.
 
Do the female-oriented thematic films winning the Oscars two years in a row portray a trend for animation movies in the near future? I sincerely hope so and look forward to more such movies. Catching up with some data from Wikipedia, Frozen is the highest-grossing animated film of all time and the ninth highest-grossing film of all time, in any category. The film won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, five Annie Awards (including Best Animated Feature), and two Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.
 
Brave was the 13th highest-grossing film of 2012, the eighth highest-grossing Pixar film, and the third highest-grossing animated film in 2012 behind Ice Age: Continental Drift and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film, the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, and the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film. It is cited as the first Pixar film with a female protagonist and an audience profile that consisted of 43% male and 57% female.
 
I am happy to note from this that there were many more women who could connect with such films, encouraging a growing segment of female viewership. Definitely a changing trend worth capitalizing on!

~Cux

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08 Apr 2014

Seasons, wonderfully changing…

Author: | Category: New York | Tags: , , , ,

We are at a very interesting time now… I mean, weatherwise. The bad cold of winter is gone… but spring is not fully here either. Everywhere one can see the signs of spring… tree branches sprouting buds all over… shoots are coming out of the earth promising to be tulips and daffodils and hyacinths… the thrill of anticipation is echoing in every bird song. What a beautiful time!
The other morning, I was walking to the train station, for the first time this season without ear muffs or gloves. There was this comfortable chill in the air… and can you believe it, unexplainably I felt sad for the departing winter!
 
I love living in the north east where seasonal differences are well-marked. Recently one of my friends was talking about how she is fed up of the winter season and would love to move to California! I had to question her… how will you put up with the same-old same-old every day? Wouldn’t even greenery and sunlight go unappreciated if they are around all the time? One has to wonder…
 
The earth revolves around the sun (or is it the other way around?) and causes the seasons. Everybody knows that. And if you are living in a temperate and subpolar region, you get to enjoy the changing seasons. And what makes the changing seasons more interesting is that one’s entire life style changes with that. Food, clothes, activities… it is like you get to change your life style every three months!
 
Spring, I’m sure is the favourite season of a majority of people. It is the eye candy season; wherever you look, nature is dazzling you in resplendent colours. Even a crack in the sidewalk will sprout a dandelion with a lovely sun-like little flower. And the trees… not a leaf on them… all covered in flowers. It starts with the cherry trees which are the first ones to bloom in the season, to be followed by crab apples, dog woods, plums, golden rods, azaleas…
 
[cycloneslider id=”spring”]

Then the temps go up… and leaves break out on the trees. The flowers have done their thing and gone. Now it is time for the green to take over… and for picnics and beaches and outings. The sun comes up at five and goes down close to nine… still the day seems to be not long enough! Aah, the fun!
 
[cycloneslider id=”summer”]

Slowly the leaves start changing colour… the brilliant colours of fall are so much brighter than that of spring’s pastels. Yellow, gold, orange, red… the slanting sun rays add to the dazzle. But alas, fall is so much in hurry and leaves so soon!
 
[cycloneslider id=”fall”]

The first snow flake of winter! You look up and it gently settles on your face. A touch of coolness and it’s gone. Then they start coming in torrents and cover the ground with soft crunchy whiteness. Time to make a snow man! Standing at the window of a warm house, with a warm drink in your hand and watching the snow floating down under the street lights… magical!
 
[cycloneslider id=”winter”]

And when the bone-chilling cold sets in, it’s time to pack my bags and depart for warmer climes. To come back in another two months to wait for spring… 🙂 You know how some animals go into hibernation during the winter… my escape to the tropics is my hibernation!
 
So now I’m waiting for the beautiful spring to arrive. It is almost here, and the cherry blossoms are just around the corner… Various predictions place the peak blooming of the Washington DC cherry trees between April 8 and 15. And incidentally, guess who is going to be in DC that weekend! 🙂

~Ria

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04 Apr 2014

Is today your day?

Author: | Category: Humour, New York | Tags:

Did you expect anything interesting to happen when you went to check your mail at Gmail? How long did it take you to identify ‘Shelfie’ – Sharable Selfie – as this year’s April Fools’ Day joke from Google?

FoolsDayCloud
The tradition of celebrating April 1st as Fools’ Day has been in existence for a while. Though there are several stories going around about the origin of the tradition, the most popular one places its origin in the late 16th century. When Europe started following the Gregorian calendar, the start of the new year was moved to January 1st from the earlier April 1st of the Julian calendar. However, some of the population refused to accept the change and continued to celebrate New Year on April 1st. The rest of the population made fun of them, calling them fools, and played pranks on them… or so goes the story. Is there a very pertinent hidden moral to this story? Like, you are a fool if you fail to embrace change? 🙂 But, I digress…
 
Today April Fools’ day has become more of a corporate occasion, with companies vying with each other to come up with the funniest ad, blog post and tweet. An ‘app’ to unlock an iPhone by rubbing a beard over it, a service to rent out your desk space, an inflight service where passengers can select their on climate (Cancun Afternoon, Standard Day in Los Angeles, and Chicago Polar Vortex, among the choices), homes with chocolate floors… these are some of the interesting products and services advertised on April 1st, 2014.
 
Netflix joined in with its offering of two new entertainment offerings – rotisserie chicken and sizzling bacon, which could be enjoyed online. And Youtube too got in the April Fools’ Day game with a video that claimed credit for every viral video on the internet, including Harlem shake and planking included.
 
My favourite one is an announcement from the St. Petersburg/Clearwater tourism office about sightings of a ‘Manaphin’ off the coast of Florida. Of course, in this day of hybrid names like ‘cronut’ and ‘dossant’, one can easily make out that a manaphin can be nothing other than a cross between a manatee and a dolphin! Look at the perfect timing of such a creature appearing exactly on such a day as April 1st! 🙂
 
Of course, it all started with Google. And theirs are the best ones yet. Google’s first April Fools’ Day joke, the MentalPlex, was an advanced search service where users could do a search by projecting a mental image of what they wanted to find whilst staring at an animated gif. And on the search results page, users got awesomely funny error messages. Samples include:
• Error 01: Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital.
• Error 666: Multiple transmitters detected. Silence voices in your head and try again.
• Error 006: Query is unclear. Try again after removing hat, glasses and shoes.
 
Another one, in 2008, was Google Book Search Scratch and Sniff. To use it, users were asked to place their noses close to the monitor and click Go, which will load the odours. After several attempts, when the hapless users will click Help, they were taken to a page that described the origins of the April Fools’ Day!
 
This year, politicians in Washington DC decided to join in the fun. The Whitehouse announcing the creation of the President’s Council on Beards, Ted Cruz getting a tattoo of Churchill with a cigar, the Republican party claiming the colour blue, Bill Clinton changing his twitter avatar… all happened this year.
 
And a last one that only a local can enjoy… Democratic strategist Joshua Henne named himself Governor Christie’s spokesperson and announced a press conference in Fort Lee, advising attendees to arrive very, ‘very, very, very early – as traffic has been known to build up at the nearby George Washington Bridge during rush hour’… 🙂

~Ria

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01 Apr 2014