Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Who is Gregory Hinton?

Saturday Profile, June 24, 2017, New York Times

Gregory Everest Hinton, sometimes called “the godfather of deep learning,” is perhaps the most influential person you’ve never heard of. This profile in the NY Times is a fascinating introduction to a remarkable human life.

Hinton’s career has helped to further the fields of neurobiology, psychology, neural networks and artificial intelligence (AI). There is much in this Times profile that will interest you.

Hinton famously said: “There is no reason to think computers won’t get much smarter than us.”  Can't wait for the dumbing down Hollywood biopic!

The Overachiever's Simple Guide to a Sweeter Life

"Do you know what the difference is between an overachiever and a corpse? What the former calls his résumé, the latter recognizes as an obituary.

An overachiever believes that if he or she only looks hard enough, seeks diligently enough, reflects long enough, and suffers enough, that happiness and success will eventually come. The Overachievers Simple Guide is for those of us who have come to recognize the fallacy of this belief, and wonder, what now?

"This 25 page booklet is about everything else there is in life, aside from awesomeness and achievement. It is for the overachiever who knows some really awesome people, and exactly for that reason, doesn’t want to be them. OASG is not going to tell you anything you don’t already know. It is only going to tell you what you already know but haven’t yet heard. It is not meant for the fearless daredevil, those unique individuals who don't care if they die young or old, alone or among loved ones."

O.A. Chiever, an old friend, sent me a link to his book which is now available free or for 99 cents at the Kindle Store.  He wrote: "For fun, I have put together a few short essays into a 25 page ebook, which I've self-published and is now available on Amazon for Kindle. (If you don't have one, you can always read it online, or on your ipad/iphone)." 

For those of you who are interested, it's an amazing read.  Takes ~ one hour.  Get OSGSL If you want to read it, but dont have a Kindle, iPhone or iPad, write me and I'll see if Dr. Chiever can send you a copy.

A Cry from the Head, Heart and Vagina of of Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler is best known for the Vagina Monologues -- but there is more, much more.  Don't miss her virtuoso prose-poem delivered to TED.

Muslims in the Middle

In case you missed this amazing NY Times Op-Ed piece, you might want to read it.

"Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.

Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith."

"Few in the U.S. or Europe remember that a devastating Taliban attack occurred last spring at the shrine of the 17th-century poet-saint Rahman Baba, at the foot of the Khyber Pass in northwest Pakistan. For centuries, the complex has been a place for musicians and poets to gather, and Rahman Baba’s Sufi verses had long made him the national poet of the Pashtuns living on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “I am a lover, and I deal in love,” wrote the saint. “Sow flowers,/ so your surroundings become a garden./ Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet./ We are all one body./ Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.”

Click on Muslims in the Middle to read this important article. The author, William Dalrymple, is a noted historian and writer about the Middle East, India and Pakistan.

Illegal Lemonade Stand: Bizarre Beancounters

"Julie Murphy, a 7-year-old Oregonian, set up a lemonade stand on July 29 at an art fair in northeast Portland. County health inspectors shut her down, however, telling Julie and her mother, Maria Fife, that they needed a temporary restaurant license, which costs $120. The penalty for selling food without a permit, they warned, was $500. At 50 cents a cup, that’s a lot of lemonade."  See Article.

Spirited restive flea
   become a Buddha
      by my hand.  

Issa.

Camp Xanadu

Samuel Isaac Grondahl is a (rising) junior Economics major at Yale. He grew up in Saratoga Springs, NY, where I spends most of his summers.  Sam learned more as a counselor at a summer camp for special needs adults than he did in the ivy classrooms.  His reverie of Camp Xanadu is uplifting.  Download Camp Xanadu This is the season for camps --so it is appropriate to post his words here.  You may contact Samuel at SIG-Email.

Sam's essay reminded me of two films. "King Gimp" and "My Left Foot."  Both are amazing.  See MedFlix.

The photo is of a painting by the protagonist of King Gimp, an artist with C.P..

Advice for Returning Students

On Sunday, September 6, 2009, the Times had a helpful column offering advice to returning students.  The authors are seasoned professors with national and international reputations. Perhaps most helpful for incoming college freshman, these brief homolies will be helpful to all students, and, indeed, to those of us who remain students but have left the formal academes years or even decades ago.

College Advice, From  People Who Have Been there Awhile.

Educators give some helpful advice to young adults entering school this fall.

Authors and Topics Addressed:

The Hunt for a Good Teacher
By STANLEY FISH

An Argument Worth Having
By GERALD GRAFF

By HAROLD BLOOM
Get Lost. In Books

By CAROL BERKIN
Once in class, participate.

Play Politics
By GARRY WILLS

A good newspaper; will be your path to the world
By JAMES MacGREGOR BURNS

My Crush on DNA
By NANCY HOPKINS

College is never what one expects.
By STEVEN WEINBERG

Think about life, not just a job.
By MARTHA NUSSBAUM

The Case for Working With Your Hands

Matthew B. Crawford's spell-binding article in the May 25th NY Times Sunday Magazine is truly inspiring.  To read it click here.  It is the most emailed article in the Times this week.

However, Dr. Crawford may be a motorcycle repairman in the way Robert Frost was a farmer.  That does not detract from the wisdom of his essay (or book); but one wonders why the Times did not mention that he is also a Research Fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.  Crawford Bio.  This should not detract from the article's importance or timeliness, but in the marketing frenzy and the meat market of publishing and reaching the Best Seller lists some publicity wonk obviously advised him to obfuscate his relationship to academia.

Will success spoil Matthew Crawford?  Stay tuned and watch the talk shows if you have the stomach for them.  We will read the book and comment in it in a few weeks.

Marketing is all.

Havana Dreamin'

 Near the bus terminal about 50 tattooed and scruffy skateboarders spent much of Sunday participating in a performance piece called “Skate My Patria,” created by the Puerto Rican-born artist Sofia Maldonado. After designing dozens of skateboards, Ms. Maldonado handed them out at a vibrantly painted skate ramp that she had built. In return for the skateboards, Cuban skaters shared personal narratives about their lives on the island that Ms. Maldonado recorded for another project. The day also featured a freestyle biking and skateboarding competition.

“Especially for young people, we have to create the way we can,” said one Cuban skater, who asked for anonymity because he said he did not want to be pegged as a dissident. “In the U.S., it’s graffiti. Here we skate.”

There's a huge arts festival in Havana going on now and for the first time in years gringos are participating.  Havana seems like one wild radical block party.  An American, Duke Riley, staged a St. Patrick's Day March down Vieho Havana's O'Reilly Street (who would have thunk!?).

This is one fascinating article with a great multimedia slide show.

One More Unfortunate

This woman is one of the 13.2 million uninsured young adults in the U.S.  That is more than the population of Cuba and many other countries.

Alanna Boyd [pictured above] is an uninsured 28-year-old receptionist in New York City. She had the misfortune to wind up in a NYC hospital with a bout of diverticulitis.  This fine article was on the front page of the NY Times on Wednesday, February 18, 2009.  Boyd's bill was $17,398 after spending just 46 hours in hospital last October. “My first reaction was to start laughing — I just kept saying, ‘No way, no way,’ I could have gone to a major university for a year. Instead, I went to the hospital for two days.”

Open your heart and read this important article: For Uninsured Americans -- Do It Yourself Health Care.

What if she were your kid?  Your sister?  What if this were you?.