Not dead 6 u 9
Feb. 20th, 2011 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headThings have just been really ugh. And by 'things' I mostly mean mom. So I haven't really been in the mood to post.
I've been reading Another Kind of Mind by Michael S. Dalton, it's a summary of the independent research he's been doing with his blue-and-yellow macaw Arielle and her ability to intelligently communicate using English. You can find out more on his website here if you want (caution: there's a short audio file that plays as soon as you get to the page).
His findings are, to me, pretty amazing; Arielle uses words correctly (including pronouns and abstract concept words, like emotions), constructs sensible sentences that she's never heard before, tells jokes that she came up with herself, and demonstrates a clear Theory of Mind, including the idea of misleading others (which she uses in jokes) and others lying to her.
Unfortunately, Mr. Dalton is not that great a writer, and the book is self-published. He does provide audio files on his website for quite a few of Arielle's utterances that he transcribed in the book, and I agree that she says what he transcribed.
It's renewed my interest in keeping a parrot (again). I don't know that that will ever happen unfortunately :C I wish there was more potential money in studying cognitive animal psychology - not necessarily because I require a lot of money in my career, but because my end goal in life is to run my own business, and if there's basically no possibility of profit then I can't very well make it into a business, can I? I did consider dog training as a career for awhile, considering how successful I've been clicker-training Tripper, but from what I can tell the market for dog trainers is over-saturated.
I forgot where I was going with this. But animals are pretty important to me. My ideal future would be living out in the Massachusetts boonies with at least one cat, three retriever dogs (ideally adopted mutts with primarily rotty/lab in them), and a collection of free-range chickens for eggs and for eating.
Well, that's the realistic version. My fantasy future involves keeping vultures, which is illegal, and large snakes, which will never be practical for me. :C There's also an indoor greenhouse involved, just to keep a flock of 'wild' guinea pigs and observe their behavior...and a bit about searching Texas for evidence of living pteranodons.
Alright that's quite enough rambling I think. I'm going to watch Paranormal Activity 2, which I never did get around to seeing while it was in theaters.
I've been reading Another Kind of Mind by Michael S. Dalton, it's a summary of the independent research he's been doing with his blue-and-yellow macaw Arielle and her ability to intelligently communicate using English. You can find out more on his website here if you want (caution: there's a short audio file that plays as soon as you get to the page).
His findings are, to me, pretty amazing; Arielle uses words correctly (including pronouns and abstract concept words, like emotions), constructs sensible sentences that she's never heard before, tells jokes that she came up with herself, and demonstrates a clear Theory of Mind, including the idea of misleading others (which she uses in jokes) and others lying to her.
Unfortunately, Mr. Dalton is not that great a writer, and the book is self-published. He does provide audio files on his website for quite a few of Arielle's utterances that he transcribed in the book, and I agree that she says what he transcribed.
It's renewed my interest in keeping a parrot (again). I don't know that that will ever happen unfortunately :C I wish there was more potential money in studying cognitive animal psychology - not necessarily because I require a lot of money in my career, but because my end goal in life is to run my own business, and if there's basically no possibility of profit then I can't very well make it into a business, can I? I did consider dog training as a career for awhile, considering how successful I've been clicker-training Tripper, but from what I can tell the market for dog trainers is over-saturated.
I forgot where I was going with this. But animals are pretty important to me. My ideal future would be living out in the Massachusetts boonies with at least one cat, three retriever dogs (ideally adopted mutts with primarily rotty/lab in them), and a collection of free-range chickens for eggs and for eating.
Well, that's the realistic version. My fantasy future involves keeping vultures, which is illegal, and large snakes, which will never be practical for me. :C There's also an indoor greenhouse involved, just to keep a flock of 'wild' guinea pigs and observe their behavior...and a bit about searching Texas for evidence of living pteranodons.
Alright that's quite enough rambling I think. I'm going to watch Paranormal Activity 2, which I never did get around to seeing while it was in theaters.
