Just finished reading 'On Intelligence' (Jeff Hawkins) and while some people disregard it as popsci, I found the book very well written -- not only for his abstract ideas of hierarchical temporal memory as a means of "intelligence", but also his writing and enthusiasm for the neurosciences. It's definitely infective. On Intelligence was a little lacking on exact details regarding how neurons actually work, and how the hippocamus actually stores long term memorys, so I went out and found a gem of a book called 'In Search of Memory' by Eric Kandel. This guy is a genius, and the book is an incredibly thorough summarization of brain research over the last half-century. It goes into great detail explaining how most organisms "learn" through the biological and chemical reactions that comprise our central and autonomic nervous system. Fascinating stuff.

I'm also very much enjoying Defying Gravity, not only because it's one of the few sci-fi shows on tv, but also because it (like BSG) forces you to think about issues that are not addressed in other series. Under the drama-esque surface of the show (it wouldn't be on ABC otherwise, I guess), there are issues like privatization of interplanetary travel, biological/sexual complications of long-range flights, and politics and journalism -- issues that other scifi series fail to address. Though the show doesn't go into them in detail, it's interesting to realize that like any other complex task, space travel isn't solely about building the technology and sending the brave souls off in a glorified ceremony. Whenever there are people involved, the complexity factor grows ten-fold.

In other news, I am super depressed by the whole Crash-gate scandal that hit F1 this last month. Not only does something like this diminish the integrity of the sport, it also invalidates the hard work of hundreds of people who are otherwise innocent. Flavio has gotten a pretty good penalty, while Renault, and more importantly, Nelson Piquet have walked off clean. I don't care that Piquet effectively killed his career. He chose in that time and place to deliberately crash, which shows an utter lack of respect and safetly for the sport, the fans and himself. For shame.

Anyways, the season is winding down and Jensen is heading to Interlagos with 14 points over Rubens, so I hope he scores some points and seals the deal for the Driver's Championship before Abu Dhabi. Brawn have already got the constructors in the bag (they only need 0.5 pts in the next two races), so congrats to them for blowing the competition out of the water in their maiden year under the leadership of the always-cool-as-a-cucumber Ross Brawn. The title challengers have been pretty close this year, unlike (to the relief of all the fans, I'm sure) the years where Michael dominated everything. Good stuff.

If you felt bad for the tribble in the previous comic (like I did), then here's one to show that not even the borg can always get what they want...