Neuronify is Back, on iPadOS! Analyzing and Comparing the Efficacy of Two Common Learning Methods - Immersion Versus Self-Quizzing.

 Originally published: 09/21/2021

Every now and then, I get quizzed on knowledge base, perceptual acuity , memory tasks of contexts pertaining to occurrences and developments in my life, and of “seemingly” random tidbits of learning, taxonomy, culture, or lore (otherwise), in my remote-sensing environments which happen upon me.

This sort of thing happens on a regular basis. The remote-sensing quorums are attended by various classes and types of individuals, yet commonly, the topic basis is one of a civil complaint against me, and I find myself chronically stressed out, in life, of various sorts of consequences. The pursuit of an ever more leisurely outlook and disposition, in life, is an obvious lure for me, and unfortunately, I find myself deprecating in to former and legacy modes of behaviors, such as seeking novel or imprudent sorts of entertainment online, for example, rather than using my strengths, and building upon gainful and productive aspirations in life. 

 The app I have in mind, in this instance, is a simplistic one, although I would strongly presume that the merits are founded, and sure. 

Why an app? 

Mobile development is an industry that had a significant heyday leading up to the time of the Pandemic, and by all means, it’s an industry that will see growth, to come, as various demographics see a rise and fall in their social and class status underpinnings; I’d suppose that would happen, based on much of the “conjectural” (perceptual?) confessionals and Freudian Slips that I’d been privy to, as we’re all under interrogation by the higher authority, until we become the highest authority, when it comes to a remote sensing tech and lifestyle sort of, uh, lifestyle. 

Within the gold rush timespan, leading up to the era of high-powered mobile device hardware, we saw many shining stars emerge in app development, which fulfilled many of the needed purposes to be seen through in app development in an ever-increasingly more compact, more large if need be; more graphics, higher data throughput and storage capability expectation and demand, on our devices. Activities and pursuits of merit, once confined, largely, to the classroom environment and to libraries, were suitably accommodated and made much more accessible to the layperson of an aspirational creed, who would shrug off the influence of pirating goods (and jailbreaking,, etc.), and go with the program, as far as discovering what was available and being offered through mainstream big tech app stores, offered by Google, Apple, and now Amazon (does Microsoft do an App Store for their mobile devices? I don’t know, off-hand, but I’d assume so). 

The point is,

is that many developers and programmers had staked their worth and product offerings, early on, and they’d established themselves, app-wise, as the go-to solution that people would come to discover, and support, for menial scrum pay - that many App Store offerings were given to people as, with archetypes such as the iTunes Store’s $0.99 offerings of parted-out pieces of what could, would, or had been full albums, previously; many of such apps, themselves, offering a similarly compartmentalized concept of what productivity and development, or “work,” on mobile devices could, and ought be, as it was envisioned and carried out. 

My go-to app, for learning about neural networks, all learning and literature (mostly) aside, came to be Neuronify. Was it free? Did I pay for it? I don’t quite remember, but if it cost anything, it was a couple, or several dollars, or so. It seemed to do the job, as imaginable as it might be, for a dilettante entry in to app-attainment goals, for my arrays, choices, and learning-basis inclusions on to my mobile devices, and for that matter, SSD hard drive space, on an iPad, even more so than on a mobile phone device - it goes a lot further than on a desktop environment (as well as better than phones can offer). I’ve currently (September 2021) got 569 apps, 6020 photos, 346 videos, 168 songs, on my device, which features 256 GB of SSD storage, and I’m only down to about 161 GB remaining. I do anywhere from a 4+ hour to 8-hour screen time daily average, given a week, on my iPad Pro device, particularly now that I’d lost my Google Android Pixel 4a 5G, which is part of a great series of mobile phones, for the cost, by the way. For that matter, the Google Store also features the Neuronify DIY neural networks mapping (doing) app, as well. 

The premise of a neural network is fairly basic, in essence. There aren’t all that many parameters and objects that would be featured in Neuronify, but the significant feature of having development and productivity, on mobile, playing out, at the speed of whatever measure of achievement that could be wrought out of the device and app, through the user’s input, as a moving visual image: interactive, and engaging that it is, playing out on the screen, is part of an attainment, in mobile device development, particularly on the iPad (Pro), which would have formerly only existed in richly-resourced study and research learning and development environments, and tracing even further back, in static image renders, of the calculations involved, and even further than that, in people’s imaginations. At some point, the technology falls back in time, in to philosophical codices, with the basis and need for the science of neurology being a pursuit, study, and investigation of what comprises the mind, itself, and it’s functioning, at the most critical points of investigation and discovery that could be had. What works? What doesn’t? What is the most effective cause and effect cycle and premise? Which types of decisions and behaviors are harmful, or wasteful? These sorts of questions could be proven, to as best the researcher could prove, to the scientific community, whom, in turn, would be capable of producing the same results, in a lab setting, thus validating the discovery. 

Within the app itself, as I’d mentioned earlier, there are only several parameter objects and icon type tools, or actions and feedback mechanisms, in other words, of the interface. The interface, in and of itself, is a node-based class of workflow environment.

The Neuronify app interface, on a 2020 model iPad Pro.

Here, then are the various user interface tools of the app:

Leaky excitatory neuron

Adaptive excitatory neuron

Leaky inhibitory neuron

Adaptive inhibitory neuron

Voltmeter

Spike detector

Firing rate plot

Loudspeaker

DC current source

AC current source

Irregular spike generator

Regular spike generator

Visual input 

Touch activator

Note

My hypotheses:

Premise 1: innovative skills arise out of need, as well as out of rote. 

Some findings and observations, upon that basis:

• Needful skills could only possibly attend to the problem which arises. In this case, I’m choosing productivity as the title of merit. Takin time to discern and decipher, as well as determine that the problem is resolved, and move forth, is hampered by products of neural activity that could rely on lesser or greater electrical pulses, at a more accommodating timing, if the problem at hand were capably handled by a more singular and fluid, unique mind, rather than a mind of more randomness. Electrical efficiency is the requisite object of attainment.
• My preference, for deciphering that engaged and interactive learning, for example, is the superior backdrop to a greater productivity, is that the problems are being resolved in an engaging, real-time environment. Calculations happen quicker through methods gained in using hand-eye coordination types of skill sets - gestural and procedural industriousness, of various other enterprises of life, which pertain to economics, could be translated over in to the argument for an active learning environment basis to a more capable and effective problem-solving style, compared to a “flash card” setting, of completely randomized data sets, this being the cards. 
• The goal of this hypothesis would be to employ certain scientific control environments of my own study, ask individuals for their input, and analyze their statements and claims, as well as their preferences, and discover, within the control environment, whether or not they find similarity, or comparability, in their input received, when calculated against my personal findings. On one hand, it takes a high Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to discern valid mathematical truths about a visual environment, of an insightful nature, yet - I would assert that we, as intelligent and rational creatures, would pursue and develop upon gainful, rational, formal structures, rather than something more founded upon chance, randomness, (even within a finite series of choices), memory - which would alter the resonant section, even, of the brain, itself - a costly transformation; I would say more so, than if the knowledge were understood by an actively engaged mind, of rote discipline, and familiarity, set about in a workflow and industrious setting and environment. 

I’ll pause here, in writing, because I’ve arrived at my destination, of where I’m going, for this part of the day.

Update: 02/09/2023

Hello, I apologize for the abandoned blog article, here - ha ha… a silly way for me to appear, in front of others in the scientific community, but I had abandoned this blog article, due to ongoing challenges in my personal life, which still persist. Aside from that, the app no longer loads on my device; I believe that the app is no longer available for iPadOS, for that matter.

Update: 03/25/2025

I’ve recently gotten a new iPad Pro, and, with my new desktop interface, I checked out my complete apps list, of former installations that I’ve had, and I got to look over all of the apps that I’ve ever had, on every iOS / iPadOS installation that I’ve done, so I checked back on Neuronify, as a download, after finding that I had to abandon this thread of my research, due to the app not working for me, temporarily, as the previous update I made on this article will state. This being the case, I can now work on speculative research projects of relevant subject matter, as for my neurological subject matter hypotheses. 

What’s the difference between a damascenone and a damascone? A Personal Journey Through Fragrance, and the Literature.

 You might be tempted to research and add one of the damascones to your cart (or wish list), instead of trying out damascenone total, itself, but the reality of the situation is that: these aren’t typos that snuck in to the supply chain of retail aroma compounds, although that might be the most common folly, in this situation; it got me, for example, and for years I went about not knowing and discerning between a damascenone versus the various damascones that there are - in other words, I thought that these were typos (the difference in spelling, between one and the other), and that these two distinctions were part of the same family and classification of fragrances. Not until just several hours prior, before preparing this blog article, in fact, did I truly learn and discerned the distinctions and differences between damascenone and the various damascones.

First of all, the difference in use case scenario is fairly large, in this case. I recall a nameless mock-up perfume composition that I threw together with a new haul of fragrance ingredients that I’d procured, and I was relatively new at composing fragrance mock-ups. As such, I had much less familiarity, or sense, for that matter, about the suggestions and or significance of the IFRA limitations upon many various fragrance and flavor compounds, offering guidelines and limits, in percentages, or in “parts per” (million), for example. For that matter, damascenone is used as both a flavor and as a fragrance molecule. In this mockup fragrance composition I had made, years ago, implementing damascenone, I had employed what would be considered an “overdose” amount - the compound is very powerfully fragrant. Here is what the literature has on damascenone.

The article feels timely, seeing as how we’re on the heels of the latest Valentine’s Day, this year (2025). 

As well, here is what Google’s AI-augmented search came up with, when I asked what the difference was/is between damascenone and damascones, since I had gotten things mixed and mushed up, in my mind, until just earlier:

Here, although, absent of smelling the aroma compounds in question “in person,” it would be a far cry from simple, to really invoke the senses in a way that would constitute that the readers could mock up damascenone, for one, and the damascones (there’s a few, at minimum). Regardless, we see that it is the case, that the two distinctions are inherently separate families, separate molecular forms, and different classifications of materials, both chemically and in an olfactory sense. I personally have had a former in-person sampling of damascenone 93%, which I employed in the fragrance composition I had touched on, earlier, and, as well, I recently purchased beta-damascone, thinking that that was the compound that I had employed, previously (without checking my receipts, as notes; therefore, I was wrong). Damascenone is, as well as damascone, distinguished, in composition and form, in the “beta” distinction (it’s known as beta-damascenone, and there are different aesthetics, dependent upon the degree of purity of the beta molecule, versus other variants of the same compound). 

The original haul in question, where I purchased Damascenone 93% from the now defunct CreatingPerfume.com (they’re now at CreatingPerfumeStore.com).

Now, having made my recent mistaken step, in trying to reclaim some of the scent legacy that I had once created, just for the olfactory nostalgia’s sensibilities of the situation, but also, that I felt that that particular historic nuance of the fragrance composition I made would be a distinguished role to fulfill in my latest composition, Eau Pigeonoid (I lost my fragrance collection, years ago, when my belongings, including over 300 fragrance ingredients and oils, were swiftly removed from my possession. As such, I “miss” some of my fragrance compositions that I’d made). In this case, I’d been feeling that my latest make of Eau Pigeonoid (my latest fragrance composition) is “pretty good,” meaning that it’s tolerable for myself, and, conceivably, for others, as well. I can tell, because I sometimes have to admit that I find myself stuck, at times, with fragrance compositions that make me a bit nauseous or embarrassed, being that they don’t smell all that refreshing. Here, I have a pretty good composition that doesn’t make me sick or fatigued; I just feel that the composition could use a bit of smoothing out of some of the slight let-downs that it has, as-is, so I wanted to audition Damascenone Total next to my working composition of Eau Pigeonoid, even though I might only use just a slight amount for it, in the end, I just wanted to sample the two fragrances together, as well as Hedione HC, in which case, I’m opting for the cheaper (and equivalent) Methyl Dihydro Jasmonate HC. Despite that Eau Pigeonoid is touted, currently, as a men’s fragrance, and these are floral-esque (or, moreso floral) effects, I’m just whittling away at slight facets of the fragrance, Eau Pigeonoid, at the moment. Most of the primary and formative work has already been done on it. 

Updating…

02/17/2025 10:11 p.m.

I placed my order for the materials, finally, and I threw in some patchoulol crystals, to see how they are. The price worked out to be just right, for my budget. 

As an aside, I have some other oils on order from Sheer Essence, on Amazon. I checked out their website, as well, to view their full catalog, and, in this case, I ended up going with a bottle of cardamom essential oil, as well as Melissa officinalus. Right now, I have a fairly (what I might estimate to be) aldehydic fragrance, with recent additions of vanilla, pink pepper, beeswax absolute, and a “named” aldehydic mandarin scent, with Mandarinal. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the type of quality that a Dior fragrance might have, yet it brings out the sensual side of my days, as a quick reminder, here and there, of an animalistic nature, lying beneath the surface (probably also owing to that I haven’t done laundry in a very long time - although, I did a quick run, to make sure I wasn’t too bum, just the other night). What I mean is that body odors would arise, in my senses and periphery, yet, fragranced with the sweetened odors of beeswax absolute and other components, I found it compelling (I know, doesn’t everyone, of themselves?). Anyways, I’m currently cleaning my room. I ordered a new mattress, and it’s a size upgrade, so I have to move and repurpose a bunch of stuff in my room, on this evening. 

“Dior?” You might be remarking. “He compares himself to Dior?” And I know, sure, it’s a bit youthful and unrefined a composition, yet, as I stated, my composition, I would say, to reiterate, that it simply has “some of” the qualities that some Dior fragrances do have. I found it a bit affront, to have landed, stylistically, in a fragrance space that’s already occupied; that’s why I’m seeking new ingredients, perhaps; I’m seeking to surge forth and find my Eau Pigeonoid niche, with a finished prototype, something fantastic and unique enough to stand on it’s own, even though - <_<… it’s not bad, as it stands, right now. 

In fact, I suppose, on second thought (now that I gather my thoughts, a bit), that Eau Pigeonoid was slightly built upon a supposition of that I could, at this stage, in my perfumery knowledge, make a slight mockup of something that smells somewhat like Dior Homme Sport, so I guess that that rightly stood as some of my formative inspiration, in crafting Eau Pigeonoid. Now I’m going with some Cardamom and Melissa, some damascenone and Hedione, with a dash of patchoulol crystals, if it suits; attempting to craft a bit of spicy, a bit of lemon freshness, and I want to fill out and round out the woods, with an aim to barter good intentions for near-cosmonaut euphoria highs, upon smelling my own fragrance (Hopefully? That’s my goal, anyways, with this stuff). I’m hoping that Damascenone and Hedione HC are perhaps the missing actors in making my fragrance composition a fine show of things.

The reason I reopened this project was a drive to explore the undiscovered (by myself), which is always the case, when procuring and experimenting with new aroma chemicals and fragrance compounds. Even if it’s a familiar scent, that I’ve encountered, or know, from experience, smelling it as a bottled product, ready for mixing, is a whole other experience. By the way, I do highly recommend Sheer Essence for procuring some fundamental essential oils, carrier oils, etc. You might be thinking, “well, they ship from India, how do I know it’s good? What if it takes a long time?” The answer to those fears are that, surprisingly, the packages take a much shorter time than expected, and the quality of their oils is fantastic. I recommend that readers try them out. They’re perhaps one of the best bargain merchants in the entire world of natural fragrance materials - not that bargain, here, means “cheap.” As I said, it’s surprising; both the quality of the oils, as well as the promptness in receiving the shipment. Perhaps a week or two, at most, to receive it in the United States. As you can see, from the screenshot below, I ordered a fragrance on the 6th, and I reviewed it, after receiving it, on the 14th of the same month, or earlier than that, that I received it and reviewed it.

Update: I received the fragrance ingredients, and I added them to my fragrance composition, which I tentatively call “Eau Pigeonoid.” Even with around only 1/4 to 1/3rd of a milliliter, of the Damascenone, that I added, it stands as a very prominent feature of the composition, with a relaxing, natural, fruity floral effect to it. I feel that I rested better, after spraying some of the fragrance in my room, as I slept. I’ll plan on waiting for the cardamom and Melissa essential oils to arrive, from India, before I plot out the final and finishing touches on the fragrance, once again. So far, it’s been through it’s fourth cycle of development, since the formula was originally concocted, out of 8 ingredients (now, there’s more like 20 ingredients, some of them just trace amounts, but I wanted the damascenone effect, that I remembered, from my past compositions, and Perfumer’s Apprentice’s Damascenone Total (Firmenich) doesn’t disappoint. 

The iPigeon.institute Sticker Time art, illustrative, and photography miniatures collection, with annotations.

Welcome to the iPigeon.institute online slight exhibition and annotations for the Sticker Time sticker collection.

The "Friends" TV show logo, "Pigeons" Sticker Time version. Credit goes to fontbolt.com and Gabriel Weiss, for the generator, and for the font, respectively. Created 11/25/2024, on the heels of the 30th anniversary of the show Friends, which was on September 22nd, 1994.

Trivia, 2024.

The Sticker Time art miniatures are an ongoing and updating collection of images, illustrations, photographs, and digital renders of (mostly) pigeon (or “bird,” in general,) images, as well as images that have, or have become, contextually, seasonally, or otherwise, relevant, in terms of content, research, and development.

Sticker Time comes out of best practices in branding. My experience, in working with the circular form, comes mainly from an exercise I went through (which I can’t find, online, at the moment) which was hosted by Google, similar to this article; the essential concept being that some essential message of the brand could be delivered through symbolic, illustrative / graphic, or alphanumeric form. Here, with Sticker Time, the same theme as a branding logo is employed, yet the form of Sticker Time takes a more lax and lighthearted approach, given that the brand is already established (the brand has its own sticker, as well, for that matter). 

Here, in this online collection, I feature the entire set of iPigeon.institute Sticker Time images, with annotations. Enjoy! 

One last thing, though: a how-to for printing out the stickers, if you'd like to do so, at home.

Using a standard graphic design app will invariably cause off-center prints. The paper and interface template that I use for this project is Avery 22807. 

To start, visit the avery.com website, and search for 22807, to get the 2-inch, 12 per page label template. 

The avery.com search page, after querying 22807, in the search box. 

You can make a login for the Avery website, at this point, and you'll see a page pop up, featuring different design templates, for the round labels (stickers).

Here's the page you'll see, after logging in to the Avery website (you can also log in as a guest, I believe).

Here, we're going to be using the blank round label template (the first option, at the top left). You'll see the design interface pop up,after selecting this template. 

The Avery 22807 round 2-inch label template.

What's great about this template is that you can standardize the entire sheet, based off of one single design input - or, there's also an option for inputting a different design on each numbered sticker. Just select "Add objects" at the bottom of the page, and center each sticker around the edges of the circular template. You'll want to perhaps have some bleed, surrounding the template's edges, in order to ensure that the eventual printed sticker does not come out smaller than the actual paper cut size. 

Once the template page is finished, you can export the the project to a photo or pdf file, and, if you don't have a printer, like myself at the moment) you can visit FedEx Office, or some other print shop, or office store, and you'll be able to print the page(s) out. For FedEx Office, for example, you can send the prints over to "printandgo@fedex.com," which is the online way to transfer the project data over, for when you visit FedEx Office to do the print job. Their printers make nice stickers out of these prints.

A bunch of stickers that I printed, using FedEx Office's printers and professional paper-cutting tool.

https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/live/ads?sz=640x480|300x600&iu=/21748173425/CPM_ipigeon.institute__Banner_300x600/ipigeon.institute__Side_Banner_300x600&ciu_szs=300x600&env=vp&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&url=[referrer_url]&description_url=[description_url]&correlator=[timestamp]

“Golden Tropical” glitch line art pigeon, rendered by Vector Q app, (2023)

“Sprightly Sparrow,” glitch version. (2021)

“Flattened Rat,” glitch version. (2021) 

“Poppin’ Pigeons.” 2021

iPigeon.institute brand logo for Pinterest. 2021

Baby Sparrow at feeding time. 2022

Curious baby pigeon in Pershing Square. 2022.

Chimera Sparrow. Created with Chimera Painter, a Google AI project. 2021.

Injured winged pigeon, kaleidoscope glitch version. 2023.

Baby Fruit Bat, glitch version. 2021.

Navy Stripes Cheetah pigeon illusion (masks). Rendered by Vector Q. 2022.

Preening pigeon (triangles). Rendered by Vector Q. 2021.

Wired lighting fanciful bird caricature. Rendered by Vector Q app. 2023.

Vanilla planifolia vine, Harajuku Doll version. Rendered by Vector Q app. 2023.

Ernst and Young Plaza, Downtown Los Angeles - Curious over a Fried Egg. (Artist unknown - George Herms?). Rendered by Vector Q. 2023.

Cute baby pigeon in hand, Tarot version. 2023.

Originally from:

Despite our best effort, either he’s calmer today or he doesn’t have enough energy. Gave him food and medication and misted his feathers a bit because he has some dried food below the beak. I’m sad but if he passes away soon at least I know he did with a full crop. pic.twitter.com/CDTlr6fOq8

— Tortolita Dove🌸Art For Healing (@angeliciart) December 13, 2022

2023 California superbloom wildflowers.  

Romantic pigeon, glitch version. Poppy flower adapted from Dior artwork. 2023.

Romantic pigeon, standard version. Poppy flower adapted from Dior artwork. 2023.

Common pigeon x The Matrix. 2023. Background from WallpaperCave.com.

*Go on try and hit me*
Black-headed Gull and Woodpigeon
Slimbridge Wetlands Centre #Gloucestershire #March2015
📷 Mike Lane. pic.twitter.com/BLWZsJxR2s

— a_london_pigeon (@a_london_pigeon) May 5, 2023

'French Pigeons’ painted in oils in 1952 by Milton Avery (American, 1885-1965). The sketch for this painting was done at St Tropez #French_Riviera pic.twitter.com/qSFLvb9W8d

— a_london_pigeon (@a_london_pigeon) May 4, 2023

birds restaurant, Hollywood, CA. Rendered by Vector Q app. 2023

Scientology Celebrity Center, Hollywood, CA. Rendered by Vector Q. 2023.

Sketching exercise, primitives of pigeons, glitch version. Glitch by SCN app. 2023.

Broken-winged pigeon, tropical poppin’ glitch version. Line art by Vector Q. 2023.

Ashy rover beetle. 2023.

More to come! Stay tuned, for updates!

June 24th, 2023 - Baby pigeon imagines Pizza Party!!! rendered by PinksCam app, by siyuan Lin.