Minwoo’s Right Brain Archive

Little plug for my group (I mean, Y! Music, not Coldplay) :-)

Have you ever wondered how we are able to smell? Luca Turin has a pretty convincing theory.

Check out Ferran Adria speak @ Google. Adria is the head chef of elBulli, considered the best of the best in gourmet restaurants, and also the most exclusive with 2 million reservation requests annually, but only serving 8000 meals a year. Last weekend, we were tempted to pickup his new book @ Costco. It had beautiful photos, printing and layout, and was a bargain ($30) which probably couldn’t even buy an appetizer at his restaurant.

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

This is pretty novel game playing. This type of thinking outside of box’ness is hard to come by in games these days when it’s all about more types of weapons, more violence, when essentially, it’s all the same FPS or RTS Myst and Katamari Damacy are the only exceptions that I can think of.

Zombie Animals and the Parasites that Control Them | Unusual Organisms | DISCOVER Magazine

This is drop-jaw fascinating, especially the last slide.

Humans might not be exempt from the mind control of parasites, either. Half of us, scientists say, carry the parasitic protozoa Toxoplasma gondii. And once we have toxoplasma in our bodies, we carry it for life.

The rate of infection can vary wildly from country to country—only three percent of South Koreans have are infected by toxoplasma, while as many as 80 percent of French people are carriers. The Centers for Disease Control says that areas where people prefer undercooked meat, like France, or have stray cats running around, like Central America, are rife for infection.

Though the parasite’s main host is the cat, it can live in thousands of warm-blooded species (and we’re on the list). Toxoplasmosis, researchers have found, might make people more likely to be schizophrenic, and can change personality in subtle ways. One researcher found that infected men were more aggressive and jealous, women were more outgoing, and perhaps most seriously, both had slower reaction times and were in more traffic accidents.

Explains a lot about certain French people I know, JK! ^^

Op-Ed Contributor - Buy American. I Am. - NYTimes.com

Some words of wisdom, from the King of Capitalism.  Good read.

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

…

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They
shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that
pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed,
the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate
the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore
accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.