Here is a fun one:

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/pubs/science2008.pdf -- "Predicting Human Brain Activity Associated with the Meanings of Nouns"

"We present a computational model that predicts the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neural activation associated with words for which fMRI data are not yet available. This model is trained with a combination of data from a trillion-word text corpus and observed fMRI data associated with viewing several dozen concrete nouns. Once trained, the model predicts fMRI activation for thousands of other concrete nouns in the text corpus,with highly significant accuracies over the 60 nouns for which we currently have fMRI data."

This is a frequently cited paper - I stumbled across it recently as a drive-by mention in this blog post about word embeddings: http://www.offconvex.org/2015/12/12/word-embeddings-1/

Anyway - totally tangential to the topic of the OP. But maybe some interesting food for thought.

on the other hand - I can't imagine I'm the only person to have been getting quite a few "come work for us" emails from Amazon via LinkedIn recently (two in the last month, six in the last year). The solicitations do not appear to be very carefully targeted - they seem to mention everything from machine learning to mobile app development.

An Amazon recruiter messaged me yesterday and in such:

1.) Used the wrong name repeatedly even after correcting them.

2.) Asking me to apply to a role that is a step down.

3.) "The position you are applying for is in Seattle." - After saying I was not interested in Seattle.

I’ve gotten those and I work for Amazon. The recruiters spam everyone.

and trash amazon's reputation.

Can't even do a mail merge from 1983, wow, AI ML expertise at amazon on show there. I bet it makes you feel valued as an employee too.

I figure it's similar to applying to colleges. Stanford, Yale, etc send you info packets and ask you to apply but then reject you. Although some schools figure that if it takes $20 to acquire someone's attention and get them to apply to you (and pay a $90) fee then they can pocket the $70 (minus reviewer expenses) and look more exclusive when it comes to acceptance rates, but that's not the case with companies.

Lucky you, to get so few of them. I gopt 4 in just the last month, and usually it's at least one every 3 months.

And that when the first line of my profile very explicitly states that I would never work for Amazon.

Not sure if they are so desperate to get any warm bodies in, or just general Amazon's incompetence.

I get so many solicitations from recruiters that clearly didn’t look at my profile (i.e. “looking for Java architect” and I have zero java experience) that I’ve started reporting and blocking them.

they send those to everyone. Would be hard to find anyone in tech not contacted by amazon.

a few (mostly obscure extensions) can be purchased in the aftermarket - for example L.fo is currently being auctioned http://www.sedo.com/auction/auction_detail.php?language=e... - also see http://www.namepros.com/domains-for-sale-fixed-price/616074-...

Sony prototype "13 x 27-cm device packs a stereoscopic, 24-bit color image measuring just 96 × 128 pixels viewable at 360-degrees without special glasses." More via Google translator of Japanese Sony press: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

I have a python named Sid. A beautiful and surprisingly affectionate critter. Low maintenance and a great conversation starter ... "my kids came back from school with it one day, they were all like: it followed us home Dad can we keep it!?"

My cornsnake fits the OP's description (well I think he's cute even if my wife doesn't), is smaller than a python when full grown (5' last I measured, about a half dollar diameter), learned 1 trick (which was one more than I expected), and is much lower maintenance than the dogs and cats (and even fish) I had previously.

And plus you get to watch them eat, which can be pretty cool even if you feed them frozen (once I warmed the mouse up, wiggled it around, and my cornsnake attacked with such vigor that there was a smear of blood against the cage.)

I really want to know what this one trick was.

Disappearing. Unfortunately, shard is still waiting for him to learn the reciprocal trick. :-D

=) Fortunately he's not learned that one yet.

He has learned that when I come near the terrarium, I'll open it, so when he wants to come out, he will come up to the screen and look for the opening. I did not expect a tiny reptilian brain to be capable of learned behavior, it was a nice surprise.

There's a lot going on in that "tiny reptilian brain" for sure. Paleocortex seems to drive 99% of human behavior as well - consciousness may just be along for the ride as an afterthought. (Maybe even when coding, sometimes at least!)

Shedding?

Depends on the type of python. I have a ball python that's maybe 4 feet long and he's full grown. They live quite awhile as well - mine is 14 years old now and he doesn't seem to be any different than when he was 4.

I also wanted to get a a ball python and name him Perl.