"H.M.", the inspiration for Memento, dies at 82
H.M. was a famous patient in psychology and some of the work done on him was instrumental in deciphering the difference between declarative and procedural memory. He was also the inspiration for the movie Memento, which is one of my favorite movies.
While patients are alive they must go by a pseudoname in the literature to protect their identity, but now his identity has been revealed in this interesting NYT obituary. The real H.M. actually did learn how to read mirror writing well (it's a kind of procedural memory), just like the character in Memento who tattoos notes to himself.
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I recently joined Twitter mainly because Shaq did and I realized that I should jump on before the bandwagon got too crowded. Here are some of my recent "twits":
"I'm doing hella good" is such a better response than "well". I am on a crusade to eradicate the world of the phrase "I am doing well"
"There is no God, and we are his prophets" - Nick Blum's favorite line from The Road
Your IQ is inversely proportional to the number of online IQ tests you take
Movies > books, first google result for "the road" is the imdb page for the movie that's not even out yet, *then* wikipedia for the book
The two times I have been closest to death were being cut off on highway and eating a heavily peanut buttered bagel without access to water
It is impossible to have a conversation about living in hurricane country without someone saying that global warming will make it worse
All of philosophy consists of unlocking, exhuming, and recanting what's been said before, and getting riled up about it - VS Ramachandran
So much easier to do things when they're social--exercise, problem sets, commuting. Very few trade-offs too, so its nonzerosumish
Chopping my bagel in half and stapling some papers are the two times of the day that I get to unleash my pent up fury, and I take advantage
There are some depressing movies on the top 250: Bicycle Thieves, The Pianist, Umberto D... tend to have low views but high ratings
If you are also on Twitter, you can follow me here. Finals are coming up the next two weeks and then it's back to SF for a long winter break, so expect posting to be light.