Author Archives: Kevin Murnane

About Kevin Murnane

I am a cognitive scientist, a freelance writer and author (Nutrition for Cyclists: Eating and Drinking Before, During and After the Ride), a musician (Parametric Monkey - stream on Spotify, Soundcloud and YouTube), a bookstore owner (Monkey Books - first edition mystery, science fiction, fantasy and more, listed on ABE books, Amazon and Biblio), and a retired house painter, children's theater actor & owner, and university professor. I'm also a regular contributor to the technology section at Forbes and I write a cycling blog called Tuned In To Cycling. You can follow me on twitter @TheInfoMonkey and contact me at murnane.kevin@gmail.com.

Why Did Your Diet Stop Working?

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

Does this sound familiar? You decide it’s time to lose some weight. There’s a hot new diet you’ve been hearing about and people you know swear it’s working for them. You buy a book about the hot new diet; maybe you … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Thinking, Health, Weight loss | Tagged calories, critical thinking, diet, dieting, metabolic homeostasis, weight loss, weight loss industry | Leave a comment

The Seasons Come and the Seasons Go

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

A glance at the dance between the snow and the plants. Here’s another version that combines the view from the north pole seen above with two other viewpoints. John Nelson combined a series of monthly pictures of the earth provided by NASA’s Visible … Continue reading →

Posted in Earth | Tagged earth, season change, snow, video, Visible Earth | Leave a comment

Can Psychology Be a Mathematical Science?

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

Can psychology be a mathematical science? The simple answer is “Yes, and it has been from the very beginning.” Psychology became a recognized science in the mid 1800s. The key finding that shifted psychology from a philosophical pursuit to a scientific … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology, Science | Tagged GeMM, linear relationship, mathematical science, monotonic relationship, nonlinear relationship, psychology, science | Leave a comment

Precision Choreographed Martial Arts

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

Check out this video of a Chinese team from the 10th World Wushu Championships held in Toronto in 2009. Amazing. Roughly translated, “wushu” is Chinese for “martial arts”. Competitive wushu has two components: taolu (forms) and sanda (sparring). I believe … Continue reading →

Posted in Sport | Tagged martial arts, sport, video, wushu | Leave a comment

A New Look at the Sun

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

It’s too hot (or makin’ a dragon wanna retire part 2). The photosphere of the sun (the part of the sun that is usually considered to be its surface) has a temperature of about 6,000 °C. For comparison purposes, animal fat … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged AIA, coronal heating problem, NuSTAR, science, Solar Dynamics Observatory, sun | Leave a comment

How Reliable Are Conclusions Based on Social Media Data?

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

The popularity of social media, the digitization of large databases, smartphone, laptop and tablet apps that gather user-generated data, the internet of things, and the reliance on cloud storage has increased the availability of very large data sets for both discovery … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Thinking, Social media | Tagged big data, critical thinking, facebook, instagram, linkedin, Pew Research Center, pinterest, representative sample, social media, twitter | 2 Comments

Watch Cyber Attacks in Real Time

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Kevin Murnane

Norse is a company that monitors world-wide internet traffic, identifies and tracks high-risk IP addresses, and sells this information in the cyber-security market. They also maintain a web page that lets you to watch cyber attacks all over the world in real time. … Continue reading →

Posted in Information visualization | Tagged cyber attacks, cyber security, information visualization, Norse | Leave a comment

Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Kevin Murnane

The Info Monkey is taking off for the holidays. Before we go, here’s a Christmas video. Have a wonderful holiday, everyone.

Posted in Charitable giving | Tagged Christmas, kindness, police, uplift | 1 Comment

What Music Looks Like

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Kevin Murnane

This one is awesome. Cymatics is field of endeavor that explores capturing sound in a physical medium. As an area of exploration cymatics appears to be mainly about science and technology, although some see it as an opportunity to engage in mystical … Continue reading →

Posted in Music | Tagged chladni plate, cymatics, faraday suit, music, music video, tesla coil, video, visualizing sound | Leave a comment

Social Media Demographics

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Kevin Murnane

How deeply has the internet penetrated US society? What kind of people are online? How many US adults who are online make use of social media? Are there differences in the kinds of people that use different social media? The Pew Research … Continue reading →

Posted in Demographics | Tagged demographics, facebook, instagram, internet use, linkedin, Pew Research, pinterest, social media, twitter | 1 Comment