It's Elementary my Dear WATSON.

WATSON, A question answering program/machine developed by IBM, is now the new Jeopardy champion.

Last week WATSON went up against Jeopardy's two well known champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, who hold the records for longest consecutive winning streak and highest earning respectively. 

Not surprisingly considering that it's a machine, WATSON kicked both of the champions' butts in the competition, winning itself the $1 Million prize. 

More importantly, however, WATSON has shown us that the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) development is rapidly expanding, we're making great leaps and bounds towards a machine that we could potentially, have a conversation with in very natural language. Gone would be the days of typing things into Google to find an answer to, lets say, a computer problem. 

The IBM website for WATSON has a ton of interesting 2-minute videos about the various applications of WATSON and how it came to be developed, it's all very interesting. 

Particularly interesting would be this technology's use in the medical field, doctors would be able to use WATSON (Or some variation thereof) to assist them in diagnosing a patient, and the results would be able to be highly personalized, as you'd be able to enter all the parameters surrounding the patient's condition, hight, weight, age, medical history, etc. 

Not just plain medicine either, biomedical research, business, sociology, anthropology, customer service, and everyday things like fixing a computer problem or a car problem could be significantly aided with this technology. It sounds optimistic but there's really no end to the industries that would be drastically altered (probably for the better) by this technology. WATSON is a huge leap in the field of AI, and it's only going to keep getting better. The future is upon us.

If you'd like to learn more about WATSON check out their website, there's tons of information there about it, and make sure you watch Jeopardy every single day. Because it's the best show ever. (In my opinion).

(By the way, Sherlock Holmes never actually says "Elementary my dear Watson" in any of the Sherlock Holmes stories, just a fun fact.)

Genetic Nutrition? What the future might hold.

Recently I read an article in Nature concerning the future of nutrition in the world. The article proposed a world in which our diets are personally tailored to us using personal genetic testing techniques that would tell you exactly what your body needs and at what time, suggesting foods for consumption based on certain "Health Markers". I'll let you read the article if you're interested. It's incredibly interesting, so you SHOULD be interested, but it might be a little confusing if you don't have at least a basic understanding of genetics.

There's nothing I love more than thinking about what advances we'll have come to in the future, and on top of that I love thinking about all of the things we didn't have 50 years ago when my parents were children, it's profoundly powerful evidence of the power of science and technology and the glorious times we live in.

Computer processor speed doubles every 18 months, smart phones allow us to do almost everything we used to have to do on a clunky PC or Mac that took up lots of room. Netbooks pack the same amount of power that my old laptop has in small book sized packages that weigh less than 2 pounds. The field of genetics saves lives in ways that we could never have imagined. It's simply incredible how far we've come as a species. 

This post has almost no purpose other than to showcase my awe, and that's OK, because you should be in awe as well, because science is amazing.

Image Attribution: m_bartosch | FreeDigitalPhotos

How Genetics Should Be But Isn't Viewed

This isn't a post about religion.

This isn't a post about the morality of genetic engineering.

This isn't a post about nature vs. nurture (well, maybe a little).

Although I'll probably post about all of these things in the future...

This is a post about the fact that people seem to think that our genetics are the absolute end all be all about everything that ails society. From disease to maladaptive personality traits, people are want to believe that everything can be explained or solved through genetics. This simply isn't the case, and I'll explain why in a moment.

This post is about those people who like to play the "genetics card" and blame every problem they have, like drug addiction, commitment problems, tendency to abuse their kids, and anything else that they might not have an explanation for, or they're too lazy to fix or both. Large news aggregators like CNN or MSNBC or NPR have decided it would be a good idea to link genetics with things like child abuse and heart attacks, and even the inability to recognize faces. I'm not saying it's not true that our genes might affect our ability to recognize faces, but we are all products of our environments and our genes, you can't blame everything on one factor.

 The truth of the matter is that genetics can only play part of the role in determining somebody's propensity for a certain trait or a certain disease or a certain something or other. The way the media portrays genetic studies makes it seem like we're all slaves to our genetics.

What people need to understand is that genetics plays a ROLE in determining somebody's personality or propensity towards heart attack or inability to recognize faces.

There is no "heart attack" gene that we can remove to ensure that you'll never have a heart attack. You might have a gene (or lack of a gene) that gives you less of a chance of having a heart attack, but if you eat a double cheeseburger with bacon every day you're still going to have a heart attack eventually(probably).

There are definitely genes that are set in stone though, like hair color, eye color, how much hair you have, etc. These things might be set in stone, and they might be governed solely by genes, but that DOESN'T mean that they're controlled solely by ONE gene. Often times many genes working in tandem with each other determine somebody's hair color, or skin color.

This is also true for the less "set in stone" genes like a propensity for heart attack, there are dozens of factors, dozens of genes, that will determine whether or not you have a heart attack, and painting one gene as the enemy of anybody who's ever had a heart attack diminishes the seriousness and the size of the problem that scientists face when they're looking for cures for diseases.

  PROOF! (You're Welcome)

 

Image Attribution: jscreationzs | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Symphony of Science

Best videos ever. There are more, check them all out here

Screw You, Steve Pavlina

Let's start off by saying that I have nothing against Steve Pavlina, I'm sure he's a wonderful person, and props to him for being about to do what he does with just a blog and a few advertising spaces.

I'm just utterly and completely jealous of Steve Pavlina. This person and many others, others like Darren Rowse of Problogger.

Making money blogging is hard work, and teaching others how to do it is even harder, I might even go so far as to say it's impossible to teach people how to blog effectively enough to make money. I mean, sure there are tips you can give them to optimize what they've already got, but if they don't got it, they don't got it. There's nothing anybody over at Copy Blogger or Problogger, or Steve Pavlina's blog can do to make somebody into the perfect blogger.

There's no formula anybody can follow to get the best blog ever that's going to be read by thousands of people every day. There's no formula for the perfect monetization model for a blog. There's no advertising agency that's going to get you a fantastic amount of money for very little effort, or an affiliate company that's going to get you the biggest commission for products that EVERYBODY buys.

Nobody is going to just walk up and hand you the perfect blog and a formula for making it into the perfect money making blog. It just doesn't happen and it just isn't practical to believe so.

How do I know these things? Simple. I've read every article on every blog ever concerning making money online (not really, but I've read a lot), and let me tell you: They all say something different about the "right way" to go about blogging. Shouldn't that lead you to believe that there is no "right way"?

I mean, come on people, we live in the information age, it's so simple to be able to access millions of sites on a million subjects, you'd think that people would start to realize that the internet isn't some gold mine where anybody can make thousands of dollars every day by taking surveys and writing a blog dedicated to food and cats (I don't know, there are some weird blogs out there...you're reading one).

There are literally hundreds of books on amazon about making money blogging most of them will probably tell you the some of the same regurgitated information; promising unrealistic things if you follow their instructions, but some of them might contain kernels of useful information. And I promise if you buy these books, you'll probably learn something new, but you won't meet the goals that they place on you.

The only way for you to do that is to start Blogging and learn for yourself how to blog your own way, everybody should have their own formula.

I'm absolutely appalled by the amount of people I hear about who fall for internet schemes designed to capitalize on people's lazyness and wish for easy money, promising a perfectly monetized blog and thousands of dollars a day in income. I'm stunned, I really am.

Get a grip people. It's  not possible in real life, and it's not possible on the internet, which -contrary to popular belief- is also "real life".

If you want to make money online, with a blog or with affiliate marketing or with whatever method you happen to come across, you have to put in a lot of hard work. If you're looking to make money blogging you can't look at it like a substitute for a job, you have to look at it like a new job. It's that simple (but it's actually very complicated).

Image Attribution: scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos

The Art of Being Geeky: An Introduction

Being a Geek is an art form, it really is. It's not enough to just follow the vlogbrothers on YouTube (although that would technically make you a nerdfighter, we'll let that slide, they're essentially the same). It's also not enough to browse ThinkGeek every once in a while. And it's certainly not enough to read Engadget or Gizmodo every time you can be bothered to open your RSS reader.

It's all of these things, and more.

Being a Geek is a way of life, it's religiously checking Gizmodo, Engadget, YouTube, The Oatmeal, Hyperbole and a Half, and every other tech and internet meme blog on the internet (this is by no means an exhaustive list). 

It's making lame internet meme jokes when you're out with your "real life"  friends in the "real world". 

It's referencing a YouTube video that you just assume everybody has seen. 

It's correcting people's grammar just because you feel like it. 

It's getting in debates on Forums or the comments section of your favorite blog. (not to be confused with the actions of trolls on YouTube or Chatrooms for we shall not be associated with trolls.)

Being a Geek is something that you're born into, it's something that you live, It's not really something you can become.

So for all my Geeks out there, I introduce to you a new blog, a place where you can get your daily dose of Geek, a place where you'll (hopefully) laugh a lot, and a place where you can feel at home.

Welcome to OMGeeky. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Image Source: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net