As per a new tool available, the reading level of this blog is GENIUS!!

I take this as a compliment to the readers of this blog….they all fall under the genius category as they have been reading this blog for so long- and not as a marker of the fact that some of the blog posts may be eccentric and connecting apparently disparate themes. I guess the tool sees that as a mark of genius…so be it!! Three cheers to The Mouse Trap Reading Community!!

I discovered this via IQ corner which discovered this via Omni Brain.

PS: edited on 1st September 2017. The tool I used earlier is no longer available, but Paul Turnbill informs me that you can read more about blog readability and find some more tools on this link.

Orli at Neurontic tagged me, so here I go:

1. I was once very keen on Occult and used to do tarot readings for my friends (mostly telling them what they wanted to hear) using playing cards while at IIT. Once , in my first job, I used a company conference room to educate the rest of my coworkers about tarot. I still have a tarot deck, though I’ve disavowed everything occult as of now!!

2. Like Orli, I too ran away from home, when I was a child. I ran away because of a dispute over a cup of tea. I gave up drinking tea, for many years, as a sort of penance for my bad deed. That penance is over , so I wont mind if you ask me out for tea/ coffee.

3. I liked the music of Cliff Richards so much, I have most of his records. Now however I am more of a fan of Kenny G and collect his albums instead. You are welcome to send me one.

4. As a boy, I usd to read popular detective novels/ pulp fiction in Hindi, that were normally on sale on railway counters. These were meant to be for adults. These included shady authors like Ved prakash sharma, Surendra mohan pathak etc. My Amazon wish list consist of cognitive science textbooks as of now.

5. I have a good collection of cognitive science books to whom I keep adding new stuff. The trouble is I haven’t read even half of what is in my ‘library’, but just cant resist buying another great book if I happen to see one in a bookstore.

6. I like to dress in formals, although Jeans and T-shirt is the norm in software industry.

7. when I was a child I used to make lofty goals for myself. A sample being: “ prevent the third world war” , “win three noble prizes- peace , literature and science- and in that order”. Now my goals are more modest.: taking my blog back to 60000 technorati ranking it had a couple of months back:-)

8. I am a trained counselor, who took training at Snehi, a mental health NGO based in Delhi, for counseling people, but could never spare time to do some actual counseling. I did try counseling my friends though, but with mixed results.

I tagged neurobloggers earlier and got scant response, So I’m tagging with caution this time.
I tag
Archana at the “of bamboo and elephant grass”
the Kid at ” Spoken like two ENFP”
Talia Mana at the “Center for Emotional Well-being”
Tarun at the “Musings of an Iconoclast”
Prerona at the “Ricercar”
Paul at the “Memoirs of a postgrad”
Anes at the “Peripersonal Space”
Kevin at the “IQ corner”

The Rules:

1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been
tagged.

It seems I have been Boing Boinged! Thanks to Mark for linking to one of the posts, there has been a dramatic increase in viewership. Welcome abroad the Boing Boing readers and I hope that while you are here you would like to check the other popular articles on the left sidebar to get a falavor of The Mouse Trap. Dont forget to subscribe or visit later if you find some artciles to your taste!

I have recently discovered a new community of great scientists and science bloggers (world’s best as the tag line goes) at the Scientific Blogging portal. I would also be writing a column there called The Undercover Psychologist , though this column would be different from my blog posts on The Mouse Trap. There I would try to write more full-length articles. For some time though the content may be same.

I know that many of you readers are good science bloggers yourself, and those who have not joined the Science Blogs at the SEED, now have another very promising option in the form of Scientific Blogging. Do have a look at that and let me know how you like the other authors there.

Ok. I have been tagged. So have to make up some nice sounding traits about myself that would endear me more to my readers 🙂

New rules of this tag:
1. Name the person who tagged you.
2. Mention 9 things about you.
3. Tag 6 people.

I. I was tagged by Archana Bahuguna, an old time dear friend.

II. The nine things about me, in no particular order or importance, are:

1. Despite my scientific inclinations and a healthy skepticism, I have explored, and still keep dabbling in esoteric occult subjects like tarot and astrology. I confess to possessing a tarot deck and I used to do light-hearted predictions for my friends while in college (mostly fooling them by telling them what they wanted to hear 🙂 . At one time I seriously believed in Nostradamus’s predictions of an impending third world war and wanted to do my bit to prevent the catastrophe!! Now, hopefully, I have become more reasonable and rigorously scientific-minded, but am still intrigued by the power of these occult sciences to hold ground through the years and thus the fascination still remains.
2. I am one of the silent types and make a poor conversationalist. Over the years I have realized that the best way to hide your foolishness is by keeping mum. Thus, I have to be literally prodded to engage in everyday small talk. The upside of this is that my friends presume that whenever I do manage to find something to say in a conversation, it would be bound to be profound or meaningful!!
3. I’m a financially naive/careless person. I have never managed (or attempted) to make money from money. I do earn well, but I rarely invest that money in money generating instruments like shares or properties. I rationalize this by assuring myself that this lack of financial savvy is due to my professed disregard and antipathy of the capitalist system (emphasizing capital’s role over everything else) as the best possible system one could have. I also end up paying more taxes than could have been legally saved using tax-incentive schemes and rationalize this as doing my bit to help the underprivileged.
4. I like to take calculated risks. I like to explore the latent abilities that I either fear to possess or reasonably hope to develop; and to optimally balance my tangential interests and activities with a core moolah generating activity, so as to not end up with a feeling of missed opportunities or a wasted life/talent. Some might say that this is just a propensity towards listlessness and a misguided sense of heroism arising from starting life all over again, but that doesn’t deter me from trying my hands on something new and failing once more!!
5. I am the studious, non-athletic sort of person. I rarely work out and am too lazy/unmotivated to even go for a regular morning walk. Despite an acute realization of the tremendous ill-effect my lack of physical exertion may have on my physical well being, I somehow never manage to place the body over mind. All the free time is either spent in mental wanderings and pursuits, in passive entertainment or in playing with my eight month old kid – only the last providing some physical activity.
6. I like to think of myself as a spiritual person (whatever that means). I concur with Voltaire that if god does not exist, he has to be created. I strongly believe in evolution, but also believe in a higher purpose to life than mere survival, reproduction or increasing inclusive fitness. I believe Morality evolves, Choice evolves and as humans we have evolved to a stage where we have to take responsibility for ourselves as well as others. In this sense, I agree most strongly with the existential school of thought whereby we are responsible for giving essence (or meaning) to our existence. Here too, I am mostly spiritual in the analytical sense and like to focus on right actions as opposed to other experiential forms of enhancing spirituality like meditation or mindfulness.
7. I am fascinated by movies, literature, mythology, art, music and the myriad ways in which the memes/ archetypes originate, replicate and survive in popular culture and the collective unconscious. I prefer aesthetic over utilitarian concerns and believe in the make-believe power of fabricated reality to take care of many of the pressing utilitarian needs. To provide meaning to a person, in some cases, may be more important, than providing food.
8. I believe in the power of the ordinary, rather than the spectacle of the extraordinary. A culture that needs heroes is a potentially sick culture. A culture that doesn’t have room for those lagging behind, either due to differential abilities or circumstances, is a sick culture. A kind word or gesture, a caring in relationships, a sharing of resources (however limited) and a touching of someone else’s life for betterment- all everyday acts one can easily indulge in- are equally, if not more, important than say making a once-in-lifetime dramatic new technological or scientific innovation that may be put to good use. One’s goodness must reflect in everyday acts and the culture such that it values these everyday acts of heroism and goodness by the ordinary people.
9. I sometimes lie, mostly passively, by not volunteering adverse information about myself. I am not someone who values absolutely or is adamant about the absoluteness of Truth. I believe in creating a fabricated reality if that serves a good purpose. I prefer to lie as infrequently as possible, but as I am a creative writer and have often managed to create decent poetry or prose by generously mixing (autobiographical) fact with fiction, I don’t mind putting a spin on presented information, or selectively presenting information that I want. (This does not apply to my scientific blogging – I do try to be objective and truthful there). So, take the above revelations about myself with a pinch of salt!!

Tagging 6 people is the most difficult part. I’m not sure how many of them are going to respond (as my blogosphere consists entirely of psychologists who do not generally blog about personal stuff), but let me try.

I tag the Neurophilosopher, Shelley at the Retrospectacle, Chris at Developing Intelligence, Jake at Pure Pedantry, The Neurocritic and Mary at The Thinking Meat.

Anyone else from the readers, is welcome to get tagged and do leave your URL back in the comments so that the tagging can be traced!

I recently took the blogger SAT challenge and though I thought I had done fairly well, came to know that I scored the median score of 3 as judged by the experts. This is way below the perfect 6 I received in Analytical writing section of GRE couple of years back.

So definitely, practice and preparation does matter a lot.

The blog also has a facility for readers to score the essay (and here 2 readers to date have been kind enough to give me a 6), so read on my entry and please give me some encouraging scores/ comments!