Feb. 23rd 2010: Blogs been dark lately, but I've been busy, busy... Neuroscience what?
I’ve read a couple of “Intro” to neuroscience and psychology books, and what I’ve learned has fascinated and inspired my way more than anything I’ve learned about computers and electronics over the years. The Brain is truly the more complex “computer” the work has ever seen!
Here’s a couple books I’ve read that I highly recommend:
A User’s Guide to the Brain: Attention, Preception, and the Four Theaters of the Brain by John Ratey
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin
A couple other books I highly recommend that are related to this area; even if they are more Sociological:
Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan
Be The Pack Leader: Use Cesar’s Way to Transform Your Dog … And Your Life by Cesar Millan
I’ve decided to start in the pursuit of a degree in Neuroscience; instead of Computer Science even though CS may be “easier” since I’ve been doing software programming/development/architecture for ~8+ years now. There are TONS of things that an academic path in Neuroscience can lead to. So, I really don’t know exactly where I’ll end up, but I do know that i want to learn more about the Brain, how it works and what awesome things can be done. Just think about what could be done with interfacing the brain and robotics, and how that could help someone with an amputation or paralysis. Or just working with artificial intelligence to create a computer that a person could truly interact with naturally. Or helping research and cure debilitating neurological deseases/disorders.
In addition to working, I’m currently enrolled in a few classes at the University of Wisconsin this semester. Technically, I’m a full-time student, but I still have work to do, a wife, a baby girl to raise, and plenty of software development technology to learn and write about. So, if I EVER thought I was busy, man was I wrong. I’m the busiest now than I’ve ever been, but man is it all enlightening!
Consequentially, as a result of studying Chemistry, Biology, Psychology and perhaps a little Sociology in the pursuit of Neuroscience, I may be blogging about those topics at times too in addition to software development. Just to warn you, this blog may transform to a whole different level of interesting; that is if I have the time to write.
I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m not disappearing from blogging or the web as you’ve seen (I know I have) other developers do when they go through certain life changes.