Random pics

...that's probably JUST the way it happened :)
















haha... the evil side of me likes this :)





















this probably has some deep, hidden meaning



(all images from http://www.threadless.com )

Early morning...after an all-nighter

Digital photography 101

roof of the Sony Center, Berlin


Winter impression


A bird in the hand is better than...



Time to reflect

Just a few of my pics. And yes, I know they're not that spectacular! :)

The Art of Mary Blair

The good folks at Drawn! The Illustration Blog (see link under "Links" in the sidebar) recently alerted me to the wonderful artwork of Amanda and Michelle of Girls Productions (see also under "Links") ...they're going to be part of an exhibit of Disney-inspired art at Gallery Nineteen-Eighty-Eight soon, and some of that reminded me of the glorious concept art done by the late Mary Blair during her many years at Disney.

I'm just posting two examples here... there's an excellent site featuring her work here http://www.bobstaake.com/artists/maryblair/page1.html

First pic is (obviously, isn't it?) concept art for Cinderella, while the second one was for Johnny Appleseed. Walt Disney had great respect for Mary's art, especially her color styling, and she was influential in the design of several Disney films, most notably Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella and Peter Pan. Later, her enduring contribution to the Disney theme parks was the design for the It's A Small World attraction (and no, she didn't have anything to do with THAT song).

Celgene

Don't you hate those blogs where people spout obscure stock market abbreviations and give "disinterested" stock tips? I'm not going to do that, but apropos of today's earnings announcement from biotech company Celgene,

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060126/earns_celgene.html?.v=1

I wanted to "share" that this stock has given me a happy ride this past year. The chart (which is resisting all my efforts at uploading it...but I'll keep trying) doesn't even tell the whole story, because I bought it in Euro, and during the year, the $ appreciated a good deal against our European currency.

While I'm usually a conservative buy-and-hold type who sticks to blue chips, for some reason I worked up the courage to buy a few of those roller-coaster shares... and although daily up- and downswings have not been for the faint of heart (= me), on balance it's been up, up, up.

Now for the most wrenching decision for any investor... hold on to a winner or cash in? The Dollar/Euro relation seems to be going in the opposite direction so far this year... but Celgene has great drugs in the pipeline (For someone who remembers the thalidomide tragedy of the 60s, it's unbelievable to see that basically the same compound is successful as a leprosy and, presumably, anti-cancer drug). So, I guess I'll stick with it for now. But at these levels, I'm not suggesting it for anyone.

Tell Me A Story

Tell Me A Story happens to be the title of a fascinating book I'm currently reading. It's by noted computer scientist and AI pioneer Roger C. Schank, and was originally published in 1990.









Schank is probably best known for his concept of scripts, defined as a set of expectations about what will happen next in given situations. He proposed that many situations in life, maybe even the majority of situations, have a well-defined script, and that people act (and expect others to act) according to those scripts.

In Tell Me A Story, Schank expands on this concept, and postulates convincingly (I think), that people tend to think in terms of stories, that they understand and give sense and meaning to their world in terms of stories they have heard and understood. New events and situations are understood by reference to familiar, similar stories. People make sense of personal problems and relationships by means of stories that are typical for those situations.

He also argues that intelligence should be defined as our ability to find out what we know when we need to know it. And what we "know" are the stories, experiences, situations, points of view and so on that we have accumulated over the years.

Truly understanding others is so difficult because we "map" the stories we hear onto our own. Different people will understand the same story differently because the stories they already know are different. Ultimately, understanding others means to make sense of what others tell us in the context of our own experiences. No two people will ever really understand a story in the same way.

***
Well, I'm still in the process of reading the book. But I find this concept intriguing...and compatible with the constructivist views I have commented on in an earlier post. I would interpret Schank so that people use their accumulated experiences and stories to construct their world view, constantly testing and filing away new stories within their construct system.

Gourmet cooking with Kai

...or, more fittingly, "Gourmet cooking...not! ( with Kai)" If someone (Hello! Anyone out there?) has checked out my selection of favorite blogs in the last post, he/she will have noticed that some of them deal with food and recipes, and indeed I do love to cook.

Usually, my wife and I only cook on the weekends, when, depending on the time available, we'll try something new or rework something tried and true.

Well, this week, with my wife away on family business, I've subsisted the first few days on what I cooked up last weekend (a delicious new recipe with a ground beef/vegetable/goat cheese mix on a bed of dough)... but when that ran out today, I had to whip up something new...fast.

To make a long story short, I defrosted a bag of broccoli, added parmesan cheese, a can of chopped tomatoes and a cup of schmand (a German dairy product halfway between créme fraiche and sour cream on the fat scale). I also cooked up a batch of Thai rice, and grilled a chicken breast. Finally, I chopped the chicken breast* in bite-sized bits, then added everything together for a surprisingly delicious and easy meal :)

*I'd like to add that I'm constantly torn about poultry or meat in general... I hate to think of the way animals are being treated, of the mass production and all that... and I don't eat meat very often... yet I can't completely go vegetarian.

Disney swallowing Pixar

As someone who's been a Disney fan for most of his life, the news that the company is buying Pixar (thereby making Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder and giving him a seat on the board) is good news and bad news at the same time.

The good news obviously is that it will bring a fresh dose of long-absent creativity to the Disney team, which will help the stock (which I own). The bad news is that it will likely be the final stab in the back of traditional animation... but then, maybe that art form's day is past.

I suppose on balance the good news outweighs the bad. To have someone like John Lasseter play a large creative role at Disney is definitely a plus. He knows and reveres the great Disney artists of old - those of you who know their Disney history noticed that the Pixar hit "The Incredibles" honored Disney legends Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston with a cameo appearance. And as computer capabilities continue to expand, maybe some day soon Disney/Pixar artists will paint and draw with their computers just as fluently and creatively as those legendary Nine Old Men http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Old_Men

a little reminder

Cold enough for you today?

Just imagine how it would feel to be in the cold, but without adequate shelter or food... such is the fate of many unfortunate earthquake victims in the Kashmir.

Let's not forget about them. Donations to the relief effort can be made here (German bank accounts only)...and yes, I have already made mine.

https://ssl.mediacompany.com/adh/spenden.php?ver_id=0217&wc_id=0341

We have a winner :) and it's me!

*takes deep breath* ok, so I have an account on the Yafro website, and there is a photography club there http://www.yafro.com/clubs/exploringphotography and they have a topic every week or so and last week's was "Say Cheese" and so I entered this pic and so I won Best Pic for the week.

Now go ahead and say it's nothing special :)

psychology fun

RING....RING....CLICK

"Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone else to press 2.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you what number to press.

If you are depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer anyway.

If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call."

Investing for the long haul~ PepsiCo

What has investing to do with psychology? Well, for one thing, investment behavior is guided by reason (sometimes), motivation and emotion (always), and the way people invest tells us something about their psychological makeup. If you've read my first post on Constructivist Psychology, you'll see that in Kelly's terms, people may be said to construct their investment philosophy along the dichotomous construct of security vs. opportunity.

But that's not my point today... in my own special case (and isn't everyone a special case?) investing is helping put me through college. When I sat down with my wife about two years ago to see if we could manage this crazy idea of me going to college at 42, one part of the equation was that I would keep contributing to household finances by making my investments work...and so far they have.

I'll return to investment hits and misses in future posts. Today, I'd just like to tell you about my core investment, one that I really intend to stay in for the long haul - PepsiCo.

While it may be more glamorous to invest in the kind of chips that
go into high-tech gadgets, over the long haul I'm betting you'll make
more money investing in the kind of chips people stuff their faces with.

Wait a second, what do chips of either kind have to do with Pepsi? Well,
I suppose PepsiCo is using chips of the first kind to constantly update their go-to-market technology and capability. As for the second kind, the edible one, PepsiCo just happens to be the world market leader in potato and corn chips and all other kinds of munchables through their Frito-Lay division. They also own Tropicana orange juice, Gatorade, Quaker Oats, Aunt Jemima and hundreds of other valuable brands besides soft drinks.

And in the beverages segment, while they do play second fiddle to Coke in the carbonated soft drinks, Pepsi has become leader in a number of fast-growing healthier alternatives such as bottled tea (Brisk), bottled coffee (Frappuccino), sports drinks (Gatorade), bottled water (Aquafina) and alternative drinks (SoBe).

Given the obesity debate, it also is a good thing that PepsiCo can point to a substantial number of products that can be "construed" as being relatively healthy (the company disingeneously calls these "better for you" products) or genuinely healthy ("good for you" products) - which means that, when it comes to Pepsi snacks, "good for you" is actually better for you than "better for you" :)

So, all in all, PepsiCo is a company with excellent brands, powerful marketing, and, perhaps most importantly, lots of room for continued growth, especially in international markets where people today consume the company's offerings. If there is one cloud on the horizon, it is the aforementioned obesity debate. But the probability is high that people will still want to eat tasty if slightly unhealthy foods, even if they're informed about the potential hazards of overeating.

This is an example of the psychological theory of "cognitive dissonance" - simply put, where the gut feelings or cravings are out of sync with what the well-informed mind tells us. And while one strategy to deal with that would be to change behavior to fit knowledge, most of the time we'd rather "tune out" the cognitive alarm bell and justify our behavior in some way.

Constructivist Psychology

Of all the psychological theories I've so far encountered, Personal Construct Theory as proposed by George A. Kelly impresses me most, although or maybe because it never really became mainstream.

It should be noted that "constructivism", as outlined here, is different from, say, Radical Constructivism or Social Constructivism. Kelly himself called his theory Constructive Alternativism.

Kelly metaphorically saw human beings as "scientists", constantly forming or construing hypotheses about their world and then testing how those constructs fit reality. All such constructs are of a basically bipolar nature, e.g., just/unjust, light/dark and so on. Constructs are ordered in hierarchies, with core constructs making up an individual's very central beliefs and peripheral constructs that are of less importance.

Personal Construct Theory implies that, while there may be only one true reality, reality is always experienced from one or another perspective, or alternative construction. I have a construction, you have one, a person on the other side of the planet has one, someone living long ago had one, a "primitive" person has one, a modern scientist has one, every child has one, even someone who is seriously mentally ill has one.

Some constructions are better than others. Mine, I hope, is better than that of someone who is seriously mentally ill. A physician's construction of my ills is better, I trust, than the construction of the local faith healer. Yet no-one's construction is ever complete -- the world is just too complicated, too big, for anyone to have the perfect perspective. And no-one's perspective is ever to be completely ignored. Each perspective is, in fact, a perspective on the ultimate reality, and has some value to that person in that time and place.

To me, it's a very humane theory, and one that is immediately applicable to everyday life: you just need to realize that the constructions people around you have may be different, sometimes radically so, from your own, and while they may act very reasonably according to their own construct systems, it may appear to you quite differently, because you are observing their behavior based on your own construct system.

I'll explore Kelly's theories some more in future posts. For the time being, here's an excellent website, from which I've actually stolen some of these thoughts,
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/kelly.html

Welcome! Since I'm a student of Psychology and most of my waking hours are spent reading, thinking or living Psychology, I felt it would be a good idea to start a separate blog where I could share thoughts, insights (as if!) and random comments.

About the blog name

My name happens to be Kai, which is pronounced to rhyme with "sky" or, more to the point, with the English pronounciation of the Greek letter "chi"... which also happens to be a term in Psychology, as in the "chi square" statistical test. Clever, huh? Thought so.

About me

Having spent most of my job life in various sales positions, I switched careers in mid-life and enrolled at Freie Universität Berlin, studying for a diploma in Psychology. Currently, I'm approaching the end of the 3rd semester which also means that a first wave of graduation exams is about to hit me (with a second and final one following sometime in the Summer).