More Thanh Words

"My name is Thanh and I'm a Blogger". Now that I have admitted to that, I can say that I'm a stereotypical "geeky" Engineer who enjoys sci-fi books and movies and into all things technological. I also love music and have a passion for FOOD. I'm a social person and like to talk to people. I hate people who are fake or overly aggressive. If you're also into some serious discussion, with a pinch of sarcasm and a dash of real emotion, then please read on.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Hunter Chasing The Rabbit

Humans are very bad at multi tasking with their brains. What I'm talking about is really using your brain to do two things, not context switching where you might think about one thing, do it and then think about another thing and doing that.

I think we've all talked to a friend while driving before. I don't know about you, but I find that if I am talking as well as driving, my reaction times to the traffic slows down and I also make a lot more mistakes. I've also tried talking on the phone while trying to keep a conversation going on online instant messaging services like MSN. I always found that I would lose track of one conversation and would have to pause on that one to concentrate temporarily on the other.

I don't know if its a male thing only because the stereotype is that women are much better at multi tasking with their brains. Maybe some of the female readers can leave comments of their experiences and whether this is true.

Anyway I decided to post some simple games to test how good your brain is at multi tasking. I think we have all done the pat your head with one hand and rub your stomach with the other. Also there is the draw a circle with one hand and a square with the other. Well, here are two more games you can try.

Opposing Circles

This one was taught to me by my boss Ron. One hand has to make a clockwise circle while the other has to do a counter-clockwise circle. What you will find is that you tend to make two circles that go in the same direction. See video example below for what you have to do.

Hunter Chasing The Rabbit

This one was taught to me by my work mate Jeffrey. One hand makes a gesture like a gun with thumb and index finger while the other hand makes like two rabbit ears using the index and middle finger. You then just switch the gestures to the other hand. See video example below for what you have to do.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You got me doing it now. It is bloody hard - after several attempts, Im still struggling. Bugga!

4/27/2006 7:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

have you ever tried smsing while driving?

man thats tough multitasking... especially when you drive a manual car... like wish you had three hands sometimes.

4/27/2006 4:00 PM  
Blogger thanh7580 said...

Even if you had three hands, I still don't recommend anyone SMSing while driving. It's not a matter of being able to hit the keys, its the distraction to your concentration and having to take your eyes off the road, hence it is illegal. The likely outcome is that you will have a car crash and either hurt yourself or some innocent pedestrian or bicyclist.

Recently a woman was sent to jail for 5 years I think for killing a pedestrian because she was sending an SMS. The SMS can't possibly be that important that is couldn't wait a few minutes or pull over and reply to it.

4/27/2006 5:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

..but if your in a hurry, and need to let someone know that you are running late... can't pull over otherwise you'll be even later.

Look its easy, just hold up the phone above the steering wheel, so you can keep the road at the edge of your pheripheral vision... plus use dictionary on your mobile... pretty easy that way.

4/28/2006 3:41 PM  
Blogger thanh7580 said...

Firstly if you're already late, it wouldn't hurt to be a few minutes later.

Secondly, wouldn't it be much faster to just plug in the hands free kit and call that person.

Smsing while driving is a seriously dangerous thing. I honestly hope its not the downfall of you one day, or of some innocent bystander.

4/29/2006 12:28 AM  

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