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I sense a pattern. The disagreement is not necessarily in definition at all, but in form.

"Moral behavior is ethical. What is ethical? Moral behavior. Remember, from your humanities classes, that ethics and morals are greek and latin words with the same meaning from 'about 300 B.C.'"

Not always. This is why reason and self-awareness are important.

Two words for the same concept. Categorical logic.

Not at all. He posited that freedom required ethics. It would be like you're saying, "a hot dog is a subset of relish".

Do hot dogs require relish? If one can't have freedom without ethics, all freedom is a subset of ethics and no freedom is not a subset of ethics.

Categorical logic.

Remember, instruction requires correction.

Instruction requires correction.
A student who made no claim is instructed.
Therefore the student is corrected?

No. Categorical logic again.

Might I correct you. Start here. It only covers some of the basics, but everything needed for this discussion.

My thoughts too.

This in particular got me:

The Widom-Larsen theory offers a plausible explanation—localized conversion of gamma radiation to infrared radiation.

Huh? Now how is that supposed to happen?

Looking up the theory I found this article, where they describe the theory: intense electromagnetic fields at the surface dress electrons with extra mass, which allows electron capture to form a cold neutron and a neutrino. Cold neutrons are pretty much immediately captured causing a transmutation reaction. That's all pretty basic physics, if you accept the premise that you're getting heavy electrons from intense electromagnetic field effects (which they argue for). But what about the gamma? No explanation there.

I see this page tries to offer a plain-english description of the theory for the gamma:

W-L alleges that gamma emissions are anisotropic and selective in their directionality. Meaning they, for some mysterious reason, direct themselves toward the heavy electron SPP patches. These transient SPP patches are also imagined to have precisely tuned, energy specific absorptivity capabilities which seems like a stretch as well. Also the persistence of gamma absorption during the "life after death" phase is equally perplexing, as the SPP shields are thought to disappear during this phase. Not to mention delayed gammas caused by neutron absorption also create issues for this heavy electron gamma shield hypothesis

If that's accurate, that's very weak indeed...

But those nitpicking details could be crucial in real life.

Biosphere II's numerous points of failure proved that part. Materials used in construction, unanticipated environmental considerations like simple condensation problems or oxidation, and ecological relationships between competing organisms proved too much for the engineers and scientists to anticipate.

Sustainability is a popular subject taught in western public schools and based on similar assumptions to those of other Cartesian reductionist approaches to 'the sciences'. But as the climate skeptics argue, earth's ecology is not static, and it's rate of change fluctuates so that in human generational terms those fluctuations may seem irrelevant to us in the short term. Part of this myopic view is rooted in our relative ignorance and hubristic belief that 'We' can always bail ourselves out of whatever jam the world holds. The latest popular belief system has it that Science! will save us.

Until recently, our world has been large enough to allow us the freedom to splinter into various groups, traveling away from each other and establishing sociopolitical outposts and trying to develop different approaches to living, not that the basic parameters for living have varied all that much. But now that Homo sapiens numbers are (probably) approaching the carrying capacity of the earth and our ecological impact is actually effecting changes to the basic chemical and energetic makeup of the troposphere, we can actually see that ecological management and environmental responsibility are necessary to ensure a healthy relationship within our primary biosphere.

The prospect of attempting to establish and manage a sustainable effort off-planet may actually be more relevant to the long term survival challenges we face right here on good 'ol Terra firma. Let's hope that the lessons we leaned at Biosphere II and during our relatively brief history of experimentation with agriculture, engineering, chemistry and physics allow us the freedom to learn from the inevitable failures we'll encounter outside our own little spaceberg.

captcha=anarchy

Sorry where is your site with 100s of better videos explaining these concepts? Oh, whats that, you don't have one? Haven't taken the time to do shit besides run your mouth on Slashdot. Shut the fuck up until you actually do something, nay anything, yourself.

I did help get Wikiversity going and I've been involved in trying to help with the translations of the Khan videos. There are many other things I've done as well that are too numerous to list here. I sure as hell have done more than just spouting off about this issue. You asked why haven't I done anything, I would argue I've done a hell of a lot in terms of developing and encouraging on-line educational resources. I would very much be willing to bet I've done more than you have ever done on this topic.

I realize that I'm talking to a troll here who thinks I'm just frothing at the mouth sitting in my mother's basement as a 50 year old virgin, but you are so wrong about everything in your world view that you also need to wake up and smell the roses yourself. Get a life and find out that sometimes legitimate constructive criticism actually matters for something.

What I'm trying to understand is why you can't stand any criticism of Sal Khan and worship at his feet? Sal Khan is just a guy who is doing something interesting, where I do indeed think others could do a better job for some of the stuff he is doing. I've also seen people try to help out Sal Kahn with honest good faith efforts to improve the Khan Academy and get burned in the process. There are some things that Sal Khan is doing right and grabbing some of those ideas certainly would be useful to duplicate as appropriate.

I would say it is a larger headache for administrators than for ordinary editors. Articles and content surrounding the sex pages and quasi-legal content (like a Wikibook about making your own bongK/a>) often draw in controversy by themselves. People like Jimmy Wales, when they wade into those controversies, often leave a big wake behind them as well and damages the community in countless ways. BTW, I don't mind Jimmy Wales voicing his opinion in these situations, my beef is when he acts unilaterally ignoring any sort of consensus building process at all.

These kind of pages are often nominated for deletion (the Prykete Bong page received three separate RfD nominations and a minor wheel war on top of that) and often become the source of edit wars as well. Furthermore, even if the content is appropriate for a certain sub-set of pages, trolls and other petty juvenile pranks often throw this kind of content onto other heavy traffic pages as a form of vandalism. Yes, those are easily reverted, but if you admin on Wikimedia projects you eventually become even numb to seeing such junk.

If all you do is edit astronomy and political articles, you will never see this kind of stuff.

Thanks for the links - these are definitely interesting!

Some of these look good (I had forgotten about 'Eloquent JavaScript'), but many don't ("Introduction To Computer Science", at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Computer_Science (linked to from http://oerconsortium.org/discipline-specific/) contains hardly any material at all).

a professor is going to put together the equivalent of a textbook in handouts and lecture notes anyway, over the years

From what I've seen this is not true. Instead the professor puts together the handouts and lecture notes for their specific course(s) over the years.

The difference between that and a textbook is actually huge - the textbook fills in everything that's needed for someone to pick the book up & understand it without going to the professor's classes. Why would anyone do that when the target audience is people who (by definition) will be going to class? And it's this last 10% of the work that will take 90% of the effort.

All of which brings me back to my original point - will these free / OSS books actually be maintained over the years? Looking at http://oerconsortium.org/discipline-specific/, under "Computer Science", there's several books about OpenOffice and MS Office that appear to have been updated as new versions came out, but I can't quite tell if these are normal, or exceptions.

Gee... it don't cost nuthin to get your wiki degree.

With regard to the Digital Economy Act 2010:

The Lib Dems promissed to repeal it if elected.

The Tories said that if they were elected, they would drop any "flawed" legislation. Shortly after, Cameron said that "rejecting the Bill then or reconsidering the entire piece of legislation now would be an unacceptable set-back for the important measures it contains."

After the election, the LibDem-Conservative coalition released the Great Repeal Bill to undo some of the over-legislating of the Labour party. Sadly, the Digital Economy Act wasn't on the list.

You do realize that there is such a thing as Wikiversity:

http://en.wikiversity.org/

I should note that one of the stipulations about getting its charter with the Wikimedia Foundation was that the concept of granting degrees or even credits would be thrown out the window until such time as an accreditation process could ever be established. Still, there are some interesting courses that can be taken if you are really interested in learning, as opposed to punching a credential ticket.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Great_Repeal_Bill

Douglas Carswell MP had already been inviting members of the public to contribute to a Great Repeal Bill.

The interent is a powerful tool, but having access to unlimited and unmediated information is not always the best thing possible when you need specific ideas.

There's been some good stuff going on wikiversity since way before the election. What gets posted to the government website, likely 99% junk.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Nerd_project thank you very much.

Check out http://en.wikiversity.org/

"Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning. We invite teachers, students, and researchers to join us in creating open educational resources and collaborative learning communities."

Considering this is an introductory class, writing a whole book might be a little much when it's unlikely the students are familiar with the subject. I'm not saying the students can't contribute their notes to an existing project, but making the whole class be just writing the book....
.
I would have recommended this link instead:
Wikibooks:Featured books
.
The problem with Wikibooks is much the same problem with open source in general. While finding a books related to the subject you are interested in is easy, finding one that was completed to a usable state before being abandoned is a different matter.
.
These two look like they might be a good starting point for the author:
Basic Computing Using Windows
How To Assemble A Desktop PC
.
There's also the much overlooked:
http://en.wikiversity.org/
And Wikiversity Featured resources
.
This one might also be useful as well:
Introduction to Computers

Considering this is an introductory class, writing a whole book might be a little much when it's unlikely the students are familiar with the subject. I'm not saying the students can't contribute their notes to an existing project, but making the whole class be just writing the book....
.
I would have recommended this link instead:
Wikibooks:Featured books
.
The problem with Wikibooks is much the same problem with open source in general. While finding a books related to the subject you are interested in is easy, finding one that was completed to a usable state before being abandoned is a different matter.
.
These two look like they might be a good starting point for the author:
Basic Computing Using Windows
How To Assemble A Desktop PC
.
There's also the much overlooked:
http://en.wikiversity.org/
And Wikiversity Featured resources
.
This one might also be useful as well:
Introduction to Computers

Considering this is an introductory class, writing a whole book might be a little much when it's unlikely the students are familiar with the subject. I'm not saying the students can't contribute their notes to an existing project, but making the whole class be just writing the book....
.
I would have recommended this link instead:
Wikibooks:Featured books
.
The problem with Wikibooks is much the same problem with open source in general. While finding a books related to the subject you are interested in is easy, finding one that was completed to a usable state before being abandoned is a different matter.
.
These two look like they might be a good starting point for the author:
Basic Computing Using Windows
How To Assemble A Desktop PC
.
There's also the much overlooked:
http://en.wikiversity.org/
And Wikiversity Featured resources
.
This one might also be useful as well:
Introduction to Computers

This story is really about Wikimedia Commons, the free database of media. Wikimedia Foundation also runs for example Wikinews and Wikiversity, where videos might fit in perfectly.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, yes; however, Wikimedia Commons is "A database of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute." Wikiversity is "a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning." Wikibooks can definitely use functional examples.

Wikipedia isn't necessarily going to have audio and video; it may just link to Wikimedia Commons.

In all reality, the title of this article itself is kind of poor. It should really say "Wikimedia Gears Up For Explosion In Digital Media".

Posting anonymous because I can't remember my password.

Philosophy IS taught to 14-year-olds in my country (Uruguay) :) (well, more like 15 to 16-year olds, but still...)

http://es.wikiversity.org/wiki/Educaci%C3%B3n_Secundaria_en_Uruguay

Maybe a more realistic goal would be teaching people to use uppercase to start sentences? :)

It came to my attention some time ago that there are schools offering what they term "ethical hacking" courses and programs.

How the mighty have fallen if the course has to be named with some l337 speak crap to get anyone's attention.

Now, this might seem off topic, but I dare you to take any of those l337 h4X0rz and show them a line up of say 10 different hammers and ask them to tell you the names of each and what they are used for. The point? Calling all of them hammers or axes is like calling computer security 'ethical hacking'. If you are going to learn something about the field, fucking try to learn the real terminology at the beginning. sigh

An example of how bad this is getting is at:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Ethical_Hacking where they have an entire page that is bereft of both the phrase "computer security" and "network security" but they did use the word 'university'.

Yes, all plumbers are just plumbers, there are good ones and bad ones, but not white hat plumbers and black hat plumbers. Likewise we don't have black hat politicians. We just tend to call them criminals with political connections.

Yeah, mod me troll for being a grammar nazi or something. It's just irritating to see people take perfectly good language and terminology and flush it down the toilet for something that 'sounds' more hip. iFuck iThat!

True educators want to share their material as much as they can. Unfortunately many universities are still operating with a guild mentality. Free academic communities, such as the one I am trying to bootstrap (CosmosWiki), and free learning communities, such as Wikiversity (from Wikimedia that also hosts Wikipedia) can help to change this mentality and promote a more open approach to academia, including research and education.

I would like to see a companion site, wikimath or some such, that integrates well with wikipedia but contains the things that wikipedia should not.

In fact, Wikimedia also has other projects for more learning-based content, such as WikiBooks for textbook-style works, and Wikiversity for "learning resources" that appear to be a course-like concept. These resources can be linked to from the Wikipedia article as more of a learning resource as opposed to a quick look-up Wikipedia page.

Do you love and enjoy maths? If not, and you need to know maths, then I suggest enrolling to Open University or other course. Another way is to hire a personal tutor to come at your home every weekend or so and teach you.

If you enjoy maths then you can try with a book. You can also go to Wikiversity.

If you know some computer programming, then you can try writing software using maths. Try developing a small graphical application showing a circle and then attempt to create coloured slices in it by using trigonometry, eg like this. Actually programming is full of mathematics and logic, if you know how to look at it.

You can't learn medicine by reading wikipedia.

http://en.wikiversity.org/ is a possibility...

You might want to take a look at these projects:

Wikibooks
Wikiversity

As someone else said, an Open University would be very cool, both for current students around the world who want extra information/help, and those who just want to learn. All it really needs is a name and some minimal infrastructure. Wikiversity seems like a half-assed attempt; I'm sure someone can do better.

The Wikimedia Foundation has already started working on textbooks and clases with http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/.

What we really need is a Red Hat High or OLPC High. The school could be a remodel of an intercity school and could maximize the use of donated computers and systems. It should support the OLPC initiative by providing each student with an OLPC. Text books should be mostly replaced using electronic, open electronic text books.

This would demonstrate several items that contrast with the Microsoft school:

1) A very useful and functional school can be wired with very good, but donated/reclaimed gear at low cost.
2) Techniques such as Linux Terminal Server Project provide more value than Microsoft:
      -- k12 LTSP
3) Open source can accomplish what Microsoft can't -- a technology-oriented school at a reasonable price
      (no shiny new electronic whiteboards or brand-new Dell computers, just use modern white boards).
4) OLPC is very useful in the US (yes, it's not just for the 3rd world):
      -- OLPC
5) Many digital texts and E-books are viable and ready for school use:
      -- Wikiversity
      -- Wikibooks
6) The cost to rewire such a school is more than made up through the use of e-books and through the
      use of donated/reclaimed equipment.
7) The students can make contributions back to the education process (text books, software,
      school architecture, etc.).
8) Open source can interoperate with those that have MS Word/Excel at home and can provide full,
      unrestricted access for those that can't afford to pay for MS software.
      -- OpenOffice
9) The ongoing costs to maintain such a school would be far lower than for Microsoft's proposed school
      (text books, software licenses, hardware support, etc.).

Key points are: Availability, OLPC, free/inexpensive digital text books, student contributions,
lower up-front costs, and lower maintenance costs.

Of course, the down side is that much of the windows-only learning software won't run on Linux, like Magic School Bus (TM). Also, you can't play a DVD on Linux without illegal software (or is it gray-area software?).

Questions: How well do those applications run under Wine? What software really is required for a school?

Note, here in VA, we still have a school board rule that kids can be suspended for 10 days if they "alter, destroy, or erase computer data, or remove computer data or programs". They technically can't boot a computer (altering the logs), erase a file they created (destroying data), copy a file to a floppy (remove computer data), etc. Basically, the school board is clueless....