For a short period of time

This is a 4-part documentary by the BBC. I embedded the last one as it has most conclusion, although the whole history of the ideas being discussed is very interesting.

It suggests that the consumer society was designed. Initially to control irrational behaviour of the masses that could lead to bad events by appealing to the subconscious needs of people. Then it was seen as a way to allow people to express themselves and become individuals.

More recently it was seen as a way to give people power, a way to have democracy in modern society.

Explanation of why the protect IP bill is bad.

I recently gave up a proper dSLR (digital SLR - one of those big cameras where lenses change) for something that promised to be smaller but not compromise much in photographic experience - the Olympus Pen EP3. It is a micro4/3 camera, i.e. its sensor is almost as big as dSLRs leading to comparable image quality, but slightly smaller so that the whole camera and lenses can be much smaller. It is supposed to combine the advantages of point and shoot cameras (small size) with those of dSLRs (lens choices, higher quality pictures, add- ons, etc). See more on the class of camera the Olympus EP3 represents.

After 3 months of getting to know the new system, it is a good time to write about it. My aim is to distill the information that ended up mattering the most to me and write the post that I would have liked to have read before making the decision to switch.

Overall, it is a compromise in terms of image quality and portability. This I knew beforehand. The quality is still very good and usually I prefer the balance between portability and quality that the small camera gives. One unexpected outcome has been that for many things the micro4/3 camera is better.

The left-right hemisphere division is thought to be different from what I learned at school.

The left is intuition and the right is the rational mind. Many of the functions I was taught they had are due to an interaction between the two.

However society favours the right mind and has forgotten about the left, which Einstein referred to as a sacred gift.

Here is a great talk on what is currently possible with fruit flies. The activity of particular neurones can be controlled by light, to study the effects of particular neurones in behaviour.