Actually, I think the article is talking about something entirely different than reflexes or muscle memory. I've been experimenting with this "turn off your mind" thing the past few days, and I've been finding I can do some things I normally can't. For example, I can't walk a tight rope to save my life, but I tried clearing my mind of all thought, not even thinking about the task at hand, and just started walking... Made it half way down before I became aware again and fell on my ass. I can actually feel it happen when I do it right... It's like my body is doing the thinking.

Sorry to double post this, you just seem like you might have some experience so I wanted to get your take on it. When should I use my conscious mind vs "going with the flow" (for lack of a better term)?

PS: Aikido seems like an interesting style, I will have to check it out. One of my biggest weaknesses is an aversion to punching someone in the face lol.

Actually, I think the article is talking about something entirely different than reflexes or muscle memory. I've actually been experimenting with this "turn off your mind" thing the past few days, and I've been finding I can do some things I normally can't. For example, I can't walk a tight rope to save my life, but I tried clearing my mind of all thought, not even thinking about the task at hand, and just started walking... Made it half way down before I became aware again and fell on my ass. I can actually feel it happen when I do it right... It's like my body is doing the thinking.

It would have been more accurate to say it's like the "Music Genome Project" (Pandora is the the commercial application of these efforts), but for books. The idea is to essentially categorize everything by weighted tags.

An intriguing idea if I can pull it off. I will have to give it a try! Thank you for the tip sir.

I appreciate your experience and insight, but for me at least, this is not the case. I'm a TKD/BJJ guy myself, so I need to be ready for the fight to go anywhere and be ready defend against anything. The ability to "turn your mind off" and just go with the flow is exactly what keeps me from getting my head knocked off. I would have described myself as someone who is bad at sports prior to getting into MMA. In hindsight, maybe I was just bad at sports because I thinking to hard...

It's just muscle memory. They drill this into us all the time in martial arts. When fighting, you don't have time to sit and think about your next move, it just has to come naturally, like some kind of instinct. I'm not surprised by these findings at all. Sparring is one of the very few activities that allow me to quite my mind.

Holy crap, you just described in perfect detail the way my brain works. I've never really been able to describe it, but you just did it perfectly... even right down to your past experiences in school. I particularly likes how you describe it as a living, yet static picture. The best I've always been able to describe it is; "I have a lot of RAM, but a slow CPU." Someone should make a myers-briggs-like classification specifically for engineers (predominately INTP/INTJ types?) . There are clearly some common thinking patterns at work here, and it would be interesting to see how they affect the way people tackle engineering problems, and what type of problems their brains are best suited for.

Due to the amount of product placement I've seen, I've grown to distrust anyone who cites bing as a source. I'm not saying it's a bad search engine, just that a citation of it in a clearly pro winphone post makes anything you say highly suspect. I would go as far as saying that the shilling is so obvious, I may have been duped into feeding the trolls... again.

RealityMod on stock BF2 is the only FPS We will ever need. It still to this day gets updates (v1.2 just got released May-2014), the community based effort has fostered a higher production value than any of the commercial crap getting pumped out (they produce all their own high quality textures, record all their own sounds for every weapon, and had access to military equipment for recording the "big booms"), the gameplay is incredibly immersive, and team based tactics/strategy is the only way to win.

http://www.realitymod.com ...and never look back. See you on the battlefield!

FYI, Flash is pretty much indispensable to the "eLearning" industry. Native applications are pretty much out of the question if you want to market to large entities that have a protected IT environment, and HTML5 is simply not fit for purpose with this kind of usage. We took a huge hit in functionality when we converted to HTML based activities (simple games, media, etc). I'll probably catch a few troll mods for praising Flash, but it truly was the superior technology for any kind of interactive content. Its problems were political, not technical.

Using my own argument against me... touché AC.

I usually just hover my mouse over a function name when I want to see the parameters, and just click into the tooltip to see any additional docs. Writing all those parameter names every time I call a function would drive me bonkers! I get paid to solve problems, not write code.

Don't let them get to you. The only people I see complaining about H1Bs "taking all the jobs," are a bunch of out of touch old fogies who refuse to keep their skills up to date and relevant. (Note: there are still a lot of good peeps in that age group, and this comment was not directed at them). You are better than them, so just forget all that noise and come join us, in a new age, a new reality of instantaneous sharing of knowledge and ideas from across the globe, my brother in code. Come rejoice with us, and share your gift, whatever that gift may be. Share it far and share it wide and share it for the betterment of all mankind.

I was in Manila awhile back, and something I found interesting is the huge difference in the attitude of law enforcement and security forces. I always feel very nervous around armed security forces in the US and Mexico, but in Manila it was as if you were the customer, and they were there to serve you. They would say yes sir and no sir, hold doors open for you, and were simply pleasant and helpful. That's the kind of police force we need here at home. One that sees us as their customer, rather than there enemy.

Nope. I'm going to have to agree with nurb on this one. I use to always accept the fact that "I just suck at sports," until I got into martial arts. Turns out I just didn't have any _interest_ in sports, and so never bothered becoming any good at them. One can't be the best at everything of course, but you really can choose what you want to be good at, and your determination will have a much greater factor in your success than raw talent (as I read here in a /. article awhile back).