This is Your Brain on Music

Dear Gudrun –

I have been trying lucid dreaming as suggested in your blog http://livyurdream.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html.

Like anyone, I would like to control the contents of my dreams.  I have read that meditation helps with becoming lucid, and I have been trying the Diamond Method of meditation, which can shortcut the overall learning curve of Lucid Dreaming.  It's amazing when you recognize that life is occurring all at once, not just according to the linearity of one's perceptions.   I have been practicing for a few days now and I LOVE it!!!

Though I have no problem letting thoughts, feelings, and images pass right through me without getting involved, my worst enemy is those annoying songs that get stuck in your head!!   External distractions can be overcome, but this is crazy!!!

I'm not referring to songs I necessarily heard just before meditating.   Some songs just get STUCK in there...  hours, days, months after you heard them.  No matter what you do, you just can't shake them!!!   The problem is compounded by the rhythms of life that are so salient while meditating...  your breathing, your heartbeat, blinking your eyes...   No amount of chanting obviates stuck songs...  It just increases their hold. 

What can I do????                                                     

                                                             Hopefully,

                                                             Dream Catcher

Dear Dream Catcher –

Our brains are hopelessly sensitive to music.  Music is defined by repetition, and "stuck songs" simply contain "hooks" that are difficult or impossible to shake.  Don't worry.  Nearly everyone experiences them:  ninety-eight percent of individuals, women and men equally, get songs stuck in their heads.  It is notable, however, that women must endure them longer and find them more irritating.  And these stuck songs are mostly songs with lyrics, though it is possible for them to be instrumentals as well. There are probable psychological differences between those people stuck with lyrics, and those stuck with pure music.  (But this last statement is simply a logical supposition on my part.)

The songs typically have a high, upbeat melody with repetitive lyrics that verge between catchy and annoying. They may be called earworms, involuntary musical images, brainworms, or sticky music.  Personally, I like the term “earworms.”

A hook is a musical notion.  It is a short riff, passage, or phrase that is used to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear" of the listener.  One definition of a hook is something that stands out and is easily remembered.  Hooks are repetitive, attention-grabbing, and memorable, easily danced to, and have commercial potential.  A hook has also been defined as a "part of a song, sometimes the title or key lyric line, which keeps recurring."  The hook is the foundation of commercial songwriting, if you haven’t already figured this out.

So, crappy songs can become hugely popular, just because they are catchy.  But maybe, if they are catchy, they aren't so crappy after all.  Whatever they are, they are parasites, living in our minds, and seemingly beyond our ability to control them.  They tend to be a smallish portion of a song, more or less reflecting the capacity of one's auditory short-term memory: they are simple tunes of 15 to 30 seconds.  But some people with huge auditory memories get huge earworms.  Some people remember entire symphonies.

Musicians, people with OCD, and probably Second Life DJs are particularly susceptible to these parasitic obsessions.  (I’m not saying they are sick people to begin with… just predisposed.)

So, how does one rid herself of such a parasite?  Some recommend doing a crossword or going for a run.  But these activities are time consuming and are not always convenient.  Another recommendation is singing the British national anthem very slowly.

HOLD ON!!  The British national anthem?  There are at least two that I know of...  Is it "God Save the Queen," or "Land of Hope and Glory"?  AND WAIT!!!  These are both earworms, so much so that each morphed either to or from another earworm - "My Country 'tis of Thee" and "Pomp and Circumstance," respectively.

(Personally, although I'm not British, I'm in the "God Save the Queen" camp.  Part of the second stanza is my favorite patriotic lyric of all time...

                "Confound their politics,

                Frustrate their knavish tricks,

                On Thee our hopes we fix:

                God save us all." 

               

With "Hope and Glory," on the other hand, it's like the whole country is stuck in high school in perpetuity.  I don't know if Austin Powers has weighed in on this issue, but I'm guessing he'd propose "Hard Knock Life.")

WAIT!!  I forgot "Rule, Britannia."  Those Brits DO seem to have a lock on patriotic earworms.  Well, alternatively, you could hum "Deutschland über Alles."

All joking and national anthems aside, the best way to get rid of an earworm is with another earworm.  I have composed a list of my favorite earworms.  I know that research on this subject is widespread, especially among Brits (??), but these are not earworms reported by test subjects.  They are simply MY favorites, in no particular order:

This is Your Night - Amber

Viva La Vida - Coldplay

The Peanut Vendor - Desi Arnaz

Come on, Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners

The Guns of Navarove - Dmitri Tiomkin

Once upon a Time in the West - Prague Philharmonic

Summer Nights - John Travolta/Olivia Newton John

The Sweetheart Tree - Henry Mancini

Running Wild - Monty Sunshine

Making Love Out Of Nothing At All - Air Supply

Lord of the Dance - Christmas Revels

The Ballad of High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin') - Tex Ritter

Bear Down, Chicago Bears - The Polar Bears

What is Love (Baby Don't Hurt Me) - Naked Muffin

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley - This Rorschach video might also be helpful, lol  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w

Negra Macumbe - Tropico Soundtrack (Campillo/Leon Instrumental)

99 Red Balloons - Nena

Right Back Where We Started from - Maxine Nightingale

Sunday Girl - Blondie

Human - The Killers

El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor) - Desi Arnaz (Instrumental)

Crimson and Clover - Joan Jett

Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly) - Dinah Shore

Any one of these is more or less guaranteed to replace your unwanted earworm, albeit with another, LOL. 

And if none of them work, you can slowly sing "God Save the Queen" or "Land of Hope and Glory" (I don't think either of those work un-slowly, in jig time, though “Rule, Britannia” might), or you can run around the block while doing a crossword.  In any case, I'm sure your ability for uninterrupted meditation will increase dramatically.

                                                                                               

                                                             Sweet Dreams,
                                                             Gudrun

 

Note:  This item also appeared in the April REZ Magazine.

It’s Zyngo, not Zynga, Silly...

Dear Gudrun -

I was going through a really rough time in life a few years ago, and I found solace in a few things...   Drinking and gambling seemed to ease my pain and dry my tears. But then somehow things turned ugly. My pain in certain areas disappeared, but I created new struggles and aches in other areas. I began to feel like an idiot. I felt stupid and guilty and helpless. My enjoyment didn’t last for very long, and I lost the ability to have much of a say in my habits. My habits slowly drained all of my energy and took my life away from me.

Well I’m here to say that I shook that all off I am ready to live – and that includes feeling my feelings instead of running away from them.  My drinking is under control. And I still enjoy playing games, but prefer not to risk money.  I am a Second Life resident.  I see Zyngo everywhere, and I see people bet small amounts and win a lot.  Is it simply one of those fun social games, or would it reignite the fires of my gambling addiction?

Sincerely, Loser

Dear Winner –

Zyngo is a cross between a slot machine and Bingo, and it is ubiquitous in Second Life gaming parlors.  It has nothing to do with the social gaming developer Zynga, which has created such narcotically addictive gems as Farmville and Bubble Safari.  There are contests, but most Zyngo games are non-social... they are player vs. machine.  This is not to say that Zyngo is not narcotically addictive as well.  All gambling is addictive.

Oddly, Zyngo is still permitted in SL.  This is because Linden Labs considers it a game of skill.  The game creator (Aargyle Zymurgy) pursued this issue with LL.  He had 5 experienced players play 5 novices…  Surprise!!!  The veteran players got higher scores.  But what has that got to do with a single player trying to achieve a set score?   There are a few contests between players...  but most machines are set up for single players trying for an instant pay-out.

Zyngo IS gambling; it is not a game of skill.  As in Bingo, attention span and method CAN increase your score, but is a slot machine a game of skill?  No, it is pure probability.  In the past, Zyngo even had an “auto-play” setting on many machines, which both pulled the handle and covered the squares for you.  In the end, this was too egregious even for LL, and has been outlawed.

There are a lot of variations on Zyngo.  I only play actual Zyngo, and I prefer the "No Devil" version.  (In the "Devil" Classic or Wyld versions, a devil randomly appears and takes part of your score :-<)  I have lost lots of Zyngo games, but I have won lots.  I don't kid myself, and I don't bet large amounts, but my bigger wins have been L$50K,  L$30K, L$20K, and L$10K, and I have had several of those L$20K and L$10K wins.  I don't keep track of lesser wins, but I DO keep souvenirs of the bigger ones, one of which I include herewith to establish my credentials.  Of course, part of the beauty of SL in general is that the Linden is only worth 4/10 of a cent (or 4.108 mills).  The only other places besides SL that "mills" are used today are gas station prices, grocery store coupons, and tax computations.

If anyone tells you they make a living playing Zyngo, they are lying, possibly to entice you into Zyngo parlors they own.  If they do own a Zyngo parlor, they may actually be making money on Zyngo, but not by playing it.  Like all games of chance, Zyngo is set up so the house wins (unless the owner screwed up his setup).  Of course, the players do win a certain percentage of the time, but they don’t win more than they (or someone else) have lost.  The game actually has a “stop-loss” setting to prevent the house from losing, so if you find a disabled machine, that’s why it's disabled.

Each game is an independent event.  What does this mean?  Within the realm of large numbers, you will win a certain percentage of the time.  However, if you have a 1:2 chance of winning, you won't necessarily lose one and then win one.   You might lose 50 before winning the next (if you have any money left to bet).  Or, if you have lost 10 games, the next player on that same machine may win, instead of you, or may not.  I guess you hafta keep playing, otherwise you won’t know, LOL.

Independent Events

When two events are independent, the occurrence of one in no way affects the probability of the other occurring. An overly discrete example of two independent events is as follows: say you rolled a die and flipped a coin. The probability of getting any number face on the die in no way influences the probability of getting a head or a tail on the coin.  But events don't require that kind of physical separation to be independent.  If a "fair" coin (whatever that is) is tossed two times, the probability that a head comes up on the second toss is 1/2 regardless of whether or not a head came up on the first toss (unless, of course, the coin isn’t really fair at all, which is probably the case since probably none are).

Dependent Events

When two events are dependent, one event occurring directly influences the likelihood of the other event.

For example, there are 4 aces in a deck of 52 cards.  If you were to draw a card from the deck and it was an ace, the probability of drawing a second ace would be greatly changed, and for that matter, the probability of drawing any other card would also be changed.

Within a Zyngo game, there is some dependency within the game itself…  For example, in “No Devil”, there is one spider and two multipliers.  The longer you keep your multipliers, the better, whether you get them before the spider (which then reduces them), or after, which leaves them intact for the whole game.  Obviously, it is advantageous to get multipliers early on, whether the spider comes first or later in the game. 

But the outcome of any entire game is independent of the outcome of any other game.

Gamblers Fallacy

A coin is flipped five times and comes up heads each time. What is the probability that it will come up heads on the sixth flip? The correct answer is, of course, ½ (unless it is a loaded coin, or maybe just a normal totally uneven coin). But many people believe that a tail will be more likely to occur after throwing five heads. Their reasoning goes "In the long run, the number of heads and tails will be the same, so the tails have some catching up to do."  The gambler's fallacy involves beliefs about sequences of independent events.  Believers in the fallacy argue correctly that in the long run, the proportion of heads will be something like 0.50. Or, stated more precisely, as the number of flips approaches infinity, the proportion of heads approaches 0.50. Doesn't this imply that there must be some natural adjustment occurring, compensating for a string of heads with the later occurrence of more tails?  Uh, yea.  But how long you gonna live?  More to the point, how long is your money gonna last?

Zyngo is run honestly.  Does the Mafia control Zyngo?  If it does, Zyngo is at least as honest as Vegas.  Many of the big parlors have a Middle Eastern flavor (or at least clientele).  Maybe Al-Qaeda controls Zyngo.  In any case, the numbers are generated randomly by servers operated by the manufacturers of Zyngo machines.   

The machines themselves have a variety of settings managed b y the machine owners.  These include the price of the game, the winning score, the devil's appearance or lack thereof, and a stop-loss setting.  If you find a disabled machine, it was disabled by stop-loss because it was in danger of paying out more than it took in.

Zyngo can involve no money or huge bucks.   There are free-to-play machines.  There are machines that take tiny bets.  There are also machines that pay out 100X your investment.  And there are machines where you can bet L$25,000 and win L$500,000.  Payout percentages are high because the parlors have figured out that it is more profitable and better for traffic to hold small percentages of large amounts than large percentages of small amounts.  They would rather you bet 1000 and they keep 20% than have you bet 100 and keep 50%.  In the short term, anything can happen.  In the longer term you may win.  But eventually, the house will profit.

At one of my favorite spas, which seems very successful, the following scores will produce the indicated payouts on bets of $L1000:

Score     Payout

69222    20000    20X

54333    10000    10X

48888    6000      6X

46888    5000      5X

41333    3000      3X

34333    2000      2X

29333    1500      1.5X

If a score of 34333 allows L$1000 bettors to win a L$2000 payout 40% of the time, the parlor will make about L$2000 every 10 games.  You figure out the rest, LOL.  Of course, a bet of more or less than $L1000 will increase or decrease the house determined payout accordingly.  And higher scores are harder to achieve, so there are far fewer winners.  I have seen projected win rates for various scores, but none of them make sense.  Nevertheless, the owners no doubt have a good handle on it based upon experience. This same parlor pays L$695 per month in advertising costs and L$295 in land fees, so they are probably not losing money, and are probably making far more than the typical SL business.

Anyone who tells you Zyngo is skill- based with the player using math, deductive reasoning, memory, etc, is uttering nonsense.  There are only 3 factors here...  The amount paid, the winning score, and the amount to be won.  You are now armed with vast knowledge.  

The main strategy I recommend is simply discipline.  Set limits, don't bet more than you can afford to lose, and quit while you're ahead :=P

If you are truly addicted and want to gamble with dinner, you might try this: 

http://www.spinarecipe.com/#  

I vouch for NONE of their recipes.

Note:  This item also appeared in the January REZ Magazine.

Michele and Gudrun Wish You a Happy New Year

The Birth of a Breakfast

Vienna, July 1683 - After the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman empire was expanding.  Its armies overran Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia. Ottoman rule covered most of central and southern Hungary. They plundered cities, took slaves, turned churches into mosques, and converted many thousands of Christian captives to Islam at the point of a sword.

The Ottomans had designs on Vienna, which they had last attacked in 1529.  King Leopold had fled, leaving only a small garrison (11,000) and a few thousand volunteer citizens ( about 5,000) in control of the city.  Civilians, of course, were there to do the necessary...  like bake bread.

This tiny garrison was no match for the army of 140,000 that surrounded them, but the Turks decided to starve the city into submission rather than attempt a frontal assault on its defenses.

When the King John III Sobieski of Poland set off for Vienna in early September, the Viennese garrison was in desperate straits. The people of the city were starving, and the city had suffered serious damage from the Turkish bombardment.   The relief forces had already arrived as the Turks attempted to tunnel under the walls and set off a bomb  that would throw the city open to the Turkish forces once and for all.  Unfortunately for the Turks, the Austrians within the city had mounted a counter-tunneling operation.    Bakers working through the night heard the tunnelers and raised the alarm.  Austrian “moles” then entered the Turkish tunnel, found the bomb, and defused it.

At about the same time the Polish King, in the vanguard of his fearsome Winged Hussars and with 20,000 men behind him, led a cavalry charge down a hill into the flank of the Ottoman army. The hussars were one of the most formidable fighting forces of the time, and the sound of the wind through the feathers of their artificial wings was said to unnerve the horses of the enemy and drive superstitious soldiers into a panic.   Their wings fluttering and zipping like ferocious, spear-wielding birds of prey, thousands of hussars plowed into the Turkish force, driving them back, plundering their supply train, and driving the Turks from the field.
 
It would be the furthest west the Ottoman Empire would ever advance.

Amongst the supplies the Turks abandoned were tons of coffee...

The bakers celebrated the victory by copying the symbol from the Turkish flag and baking the kipfel (or crescent).  Kipfels turned into croissants when 15-year-old Austrian princess Marie Antoinette arrived in France in 1770 to marry the future king.  Parisian bakers started turning out kipfels in her honor...

The Viennese bakers commemorated the Polish cavalry charge with a bun called the bügel (stirrup).  We know it as the bagel.

Hmmmm.....  Viennese coffee houses and a continental breakfast...  :=)

Totally unrelated to New Year's...  :=P

Merry Christmas from Gudrun and Michele