The trick will be for a bunch of slashdoters to join the open source project and add the ability to convert them to ODF. If Microsoft doesn't allow it, fork it.
When they get it to the point that you can put in "Quercus abba" or "Quercus stellata" and get a realistic virtual tree representing the species you entered they will have a very good teaching tool.
On top of that if the parameters (assuming a species to parameter set mapping) just happen to match some minimally spanning set of parameters found by data mining a database of trees I think they would have something.
Virtual worlds aren't just for gamers and the socially virtual. Just as we want online books that can be "reprinted" and not lugged around. Virtual teaching ecologies could make biolabs a lot less expensive.
The schism between science and "religion" is mainly a Christian thing. The other religions don't have the problem. I think it is a way for God to protect humanity from the Christians. After ethnically cleansing three continents and much of the plant and animal life, burning millions at the steak in Europe, colonizing and enslaving much of Asia and Africa we can only imagine what would be left of life on earth if the christian religious elect had embraced technology even more. Remember it was the inter-christian hostility that caused Europeans to emigrate to the new world on the Mayflower and a continence of this hostility that lead the founding fathers of the US to try to prevent the government from being used as a tool of this hostility with the very first amendment to the constitution. But if you question this analysis, study the "Christian Values" unpresident bush demonstrated in shipping cluster bombs to Israel to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon.
The schism should be enhanced not smoothed over.
Slashdot Mirror
No but they do make good square dancers.
The trick will be for a bunch of slashdoters to join the open source project and add the ability to convert them to ODF. If Microsoft doesn't allow it, fork it.
I liked the reading hand signs with the web cam. How about converting American sign language to text.
When they get it to the point that you can put in "Quercus abba" or "Quercus stellata" and get a realistic virtual tree representing the species you entered they will have a very good teaching tool.
On top of that if the parameters (assuming a species to parameter set mapping) just happen to match some minimally spanning set of parameters found by data mining a database of trees I think they would have something.
Virtual worlds aren't just for gamers and the socially virtual. Just as we want online books that can be "reprinted" and not lugged around. Virtual teaching ecologies could make biolabs a lot less expensive.
The schism between science and "religion" is mainly a Christian thing. The other religions don't have the problem. I think it is a way for God to protect humanity from the Christians. After ethnically cleansing three continents and much of the plant and animal life, burning millions at the steak in Europe, colonizing and enslaving much of Asia and Africa we can only imagine what would be left of life on earth if the christian religious elect had embraced technology even more. Remember it was the inter-christian hostility that caused Europeans to emigrate to the new world on the Mayflower and a continence of this hostility that lead the founding fathers of the US to try to prevent the government from being used as a tool of this hostility with the very first amendment to the constitution. But if you question this analysis, study the "Christian Values" unpresident bush demonstrated in shipping cluster bombs to Israel to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon. The schism should be enhanced not smoothed over.