I've never understood this attitude. Everything in the world is repetitive. Pick a game, ANY game. Football, darts, rugby, World Of Weirdos, Half Life, etc etc. They are ALL repetitive. That's what games are.
Spore might not be a good game, but being repetitive should never be seen as a negative. Games are repetitive, and repetitive != dull.
Do you honestly think that we should be teaching creationism in science class?
No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
NO.
I teach science (thankfully in the UK).
I'd suggest putting in a few flash drives, cd's, dvd's, sd card, small laptop sata drive etc. All together they wouldn't be so big, and keep a copy of everything on each.
More important is how they are stored. Put in some kind of dessicant, make sure the container has no acids that will leach out of plastics etc.
In all honesty, time capsules should be coming to the end of their day now - we are coming into the era of permanent online storage.
I've often thought that full res, projector sized displays could project one room into another with a similar setup for family use. Maybe better than just a single camera - perhaps an array of cameras - giving the input.
With the right setup it could almost look as if a wall is just a hole to another room, thousands of miles away.
I wonder if this effect could be increased - projection on a one way screen, with cameras behind to change perspective which tracks the observer on the 'other side'. Couldn't this give a changing correct perspective view for both ends? Probably for one viewer only - or maybe with polarised shutter glasses or something it could display for everyone?
If you work hard enough, a magic wall seems eminently possible.
On a side note I've always thought that a rubber sheet on a wall could be a terrific method of contact - with an array of small rams on the other side to deform it and a copy at the other end, with rams able to feedback a force - you push a handprint into it and it's transmitted elsewhere and you'd be able to touch across the net.
Isn't there a way to only stream frames if they are changing? I would have thought that's how it's done now anyway - so that only useful, changing data is transmitted. When both kitchens are empty, the video stream isn't sending any data.
What is involved in having every item of food tagged so that you simply bundle it all in bags and then as you go through the checkout it adds it all up and gives a total to the checkout monkey? I know fruit and veg might be difficult, but I've always thought that handling every single item and pushing it past a laser if very inefficient. I thought we were living in an age of technlology? Where is super cheap mass RFID at the moment?
You would also have everything possible within 255X255, but as images can be tiled, you would also have an almost infinite canvas with infinite possibilities.You want a time machine? Well, if it's possible, then SOMEWHERE in these images is the blueprints, chopped into nice 255X255 chunks.
As well as all porn being thumbnailed, why not find the tiles for it in HD resolution instead? Or better yet, in 10000X10000 pixels?
So in essence, such a program would spit out every frame of every movie, in better than current HD resolution, that will ever be made by humans (or aliens, or anything). It would also contain the entire set of human books, past and future, and alien books for that matter, along with the correct method to translate it. It would have every bit of knowledge possible to fit into a 2 dimensional representation written down for us to read right now.
Which is all very exciting until you realise that it is, of course, not possible to do with computers in any meaningful timescale within a Universe, and for every correct set of blueprints for a time machine there must be an almost infinite set of incorrect ones which are indistinguishable from all the others until you build it.
As an interesting aside, I wonder what size bitmap it IS capable for - 2X2? 4X4?
I agree with vigmeister. A teacher provides a service, in essence. To ignore 75% of paying customers is unthinkable. Parents pay for an education for their children.
You don't have the right to refuse them your time.
Children are not robots. They don't work 100%, all the time. They make mistakes, they fool around. As a teacher you need to get the best result from EVERY child you can, not ignore the majority. This includes the best kids down to the worst kids - but NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE BEST KIDS is what this article and thread is about.
To simply not bother with some pupils is mirroring their behaviour - if YOU as their teacher don't give a toss about them, why should they?
Very bad teacher. Ignorant, arrogant and mistaken. Maybe you need to re-examine why 75% of your pupils fail?
Another teacher here chiming in. I agree with the AC here - we are always focussed on the borderline kids - going from D to C.
In my own defence I teach a few top sets here and there and if I've taught them one thing it's that it is a wonderful thing to be smart.
There have been occasions where mixing lower ability kids with higher ability CAN help both groups, but when you're talking about the higher ability stuff you really need a class of smarts to bounce off each other.
We award house points for good stuff. All my pupils know to get a bucketful of house points they should tell me something I don't know that is impressive in my subject. Some of my year 7's are reading wikipeadia articles on relativity now, and recalling parts too.
Don't mix the good and the bad, and focus on the top more than anyone would be an ideal situation. Shame we don't live there.
Nothing is here to stay - that's life. Ecologists obsess about maintaining the status quo, when all evidence points to our world being a very changing and unpredictable place. I don't think people are really interested in the world, rather in themselves having a cushy life. Everything dies, from bugs to stars and all in between. Let's enjoy it while it's here. There's always famine somewhere. There's always war somewhere.
Despite the damage that humans cause to the planet, agreeing with the suggestion that HALF OF THE POPULATION be exterminated is genuine lunacy.
Face it. The world would be a marginally better place without humans, but we are here to stay. All 6.5 billion of us and counting. The world isn't boiling to death nor are the seas poison. Global warming is essentially a human problem, mainly focussed on droughts and floods. Nature will carry on with or without it.
Some people seem to think that the singularity will result in a matrix like virtual world, which wouldn't impact on the real world. This is simply not right.
As by definition the singularity is the point at which we can't know or understand what's really going on, then there will be real world consequences that may be staggering.
Imagine if the singularity figured out that all thinking was a subset of a larger mind, and then pushed a button to connect it all, permanently. We would become 'one' with the whole universe. Sounds a bit wanky I know, but it's that kind of thing we're talking about, not just a good version of the internet with a neural interface.
More likely the result will be something that we simply can't conceptualise rather than the example above. Something that we just couldn't imagine no matter how smart we are or how we try. Imagine being an ant coming across a jet engine. What does it make of it? That will be us versus the singularity, and I suspect it will have the same effect as a jet engine would have on an ant if it were to pass through it.
The rate of change is getting faster. More people are getting technofear as the rate increases. I think the singularity might happen over days or even hours when it happens, with the world/universe/dimensions/whatever_else_we_can'_think_of maybe changing in the blink of an eye. This is based on the idea that the singularity is unknowable, and will change things as radically as can be changed, and I can't think higher than that.
I don't mind it happening, but it is the end of my life as I run it. I'd just like to get a bit more drinking time in before it.....
Does a brute force cracker have to go from a to z? When done in a non linear sequence it removes any advantage by starting with a z (or disadvantage starting with an a).
...we will have this kind of power on our desktop? Wikipedia tells me that a current desktop PC is equivalent to the top supercomputer of 15 years ago in terms of operations.
I can't imagine having this amount of computing power in 15 years time, but it makes me think of the possible programs we will run.
I want us to set up a large colony, or as large as we can at the current time. Get a biosphere or two setup. I'm sure I read that there are machines that can convert moon rock into a variety of materials, not the least is oxygen and concrete. Large habitats chock full of people would suit me fine. Moon City One sounds pretty cool to me.
I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime, but I hope I'm wrong.
If we're thinking about people stationed on the moon, living in habitats big enough to not go nuts in, with either on site energy generation, oxygen production and food supplies, or all of these things shipped in, then I don't see how making and transporting large mirrors in parts and assembling them on the moon is such a complex task. Especially when contrasted against making the thing in situ, in an environment we aren't familiar with, is very deadly and experimental. Think about the factory that would have to be assembled, that could spin a liquid mirror in the vacuum and dust environment of the moon. In many ways, it seems MORE complex to make it up there.
I think it's great that people are thinking up these things, but in this case I don't see it as a resource or an energy saver.
It's not just maths. I teach science to 11-16 year olds in the UK. It seems like the hard academic subjects have been stripped over the years.
I weep at the science syllabus now. I bet many would be shocked to know what is actually in it.
Couple of quick examples:
First lesson in Year 10 'Carbon Chemistry' - cooking egg and potato.
Coursework for GCSE - write an article about a news item that has science in it.
Everything HAS to be relevant to the lives of teenagers these days it seems. The beauty of science is that it can show us wonders that are not in our everyday lives. So much for my vision. I'll be teaching the morals of using a mobile phone on the tube soon enough - in science.
They're slashing the 11-13 year old syllabus come this September, down to virtually nothing - I kid you not, and I don't exaggerate.
From my perspective in science, the kids I teach know NO maths whatsoever. Today I asked a kid what was 0.999 * 10. They couldn't do it. At all. They were set 2 out of 6, and I'm in a pretty decent school. I was dumbstruck, although not as dumbstruck as this generation clearly is.
I think the time has come to make a virus that counters spambots, trojans, viruses and everything else. Limited lifespan, get them into the wild, let them run through networks doing a good deed then martyr themselves.
I know people would be worried about any possible damage done by these things, but if your system is open, then it's a risk vs potential damage assessment. If you have the right security in place, then neither goodie or baddie viruses will get near you.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never understood this attitude. Everything in the world is repetitive. Pick a game, ANY game. Football, darts, rugby, World Of Weirdos, Half Life, etc etc. They are ALL repetitive. That's what games are.
Spore might not be a good game, but being repetitive should never be seen as a negative. Games are repetitive, and repetitive != dull.
Do you honestly think that we should be teaching creationism in science class?
No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
NO.
I teach science (thankfully in the UK).
I'd suggest putting in a few flash drives, cd's, dvd's, sd card, small laptop sata drive etc. All together they wouldn't be so big, and keep a copy of everything on each.
More important is how they are stored. Put in some kind of dessicant, make sure the container has no acids that will leach out of plastics etc.
In all honesty, time capsules should be coming to the end of their day now - we are coming into the era of permanent online storage.
I've often thought that full res, projector sized displays could project one room into another with a similar setup for family use. Maybe better than just a single camera - perhaps an array of cameras - giving the input. With the right setup it could almost look as if a wall is just a hole to another room, thousands of miles away. I wonder if this effect could be increased - projection on a one way screen, with cameras behind to change perspective which tracks the observer on the 'other side'. Couldn't this give a changing correct perspective view for both ends? Probably for one viewer only - or maybe with polarised shutter glasses or something it could display for everyone? If you work hard enough, a magic wall seems eminently possible. On a side note I've always thought that a rubber sheet on a wall could be a terrific method of contact - with an array of small rams on the other side to deform it and a copy at the other end, with rams able to feedback a force - you push a handprint into it and it's transmitted elsewhere and you'd be able to touch across the net.
Isn't there a way to only stream frames if they are changing? I would have thought that's how it's done now anyway - so that only useful, changing data is transmitted. When both kitchens are empty, the video stream isn't sending any data.
What is involved in having every item of food tagged so that you simply bundle it all in bags and then as you go through the checkout it adds it all up and gives a total to the checkout monkey? I know fruit and veg might be difficult, but I've always thought that handling every single item and pushing it past a laser if very inefficient. I thought we were living in an age of technlology? Where is super cheap mass RFID at the moment?
You would also have everything possible within 255X255, but as images can be tiled, you would also have an almost infinite canvas with infinite possibilities.You want a time machine? Well, if it's possible, then SOMEWHERE in these images is the blueprints, chopped into nice 255X255 chunks.
As well as all porn being thumbnailed, why not find the tiles for it in HD resolution instead? Or better yet, in 10000X10000 pixels?
So in essence, such a program would spit out every frame of every movie, in better than current HD resolution, that will ever be made by humans (or aliens, or anything). It would also contain the entire set of human books, past and future, and alien books for that matter, along with the correct method to translate it. It would have every bit of knowledge possible to fit into a 2 dimensional representation written down for us to read right now.
Which is all very exciting until you realise that it is, of course, not possible to do with computers in any meaningful timescale within a Universe, and for every correct set of blueprints for a time machine there must be an almost infinite set of incorrect ones which are indistinguishable from all the others until you build it.
As an interesting aside, I wonder what size bitmap it IS capable for - 2X2? 4X4?
I agree with vigmeister. A teacher provides a service, in essence. To ignore 75% of paying customers is unthinkable. Parents pay for an education for their children.
You don't have the right to refuse them your time.
Children are not robots. They don't work 100%, all the time. They make mistakes, they fool around. As a teacher you need to get the best result from EVERY child you can, not ignore the majority. This includes the best kids down to the worst kids - but NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE BEST KIDS is what this article and thread is about.
To simply not bother with some pupils is mirroring their behaviour - if YOU as their teacher don't give a toss about them, why should they?
Very bad teacher. Ignorant, arrogant and mistaken. Maybe you need to re-examine why 75% of your pupils fail?
Another teacher here chiming in. I agree with the AC here - we are always focussed on the borderline kids - going from D to C. In my own defence I teach a few top sets here and there and if I've taught them one thing it's that it is a wonderful thing to be smart. There have been occasions where mixing lower ability kids with higher ability CAN help both groups, but when you're talking about the higher ability stuff you really need a class of smarts to bounce off each other. We award house points for good stuff. All my pupils know to get a bucketful of house points they should tell me something I don't know that is impressive in my subject. Some of my year 7's are reading wikipeadia articles on relativity now, and recalling parts too. Don't mix the good and the bad, and focus on the top more than anyone would be an ideal situation. Shame we don't live there.
Nothing is here to stay - that's life. Ecologists obsess about maintaining the status quo, when all evidence points to our world being a very changing and unpredictable place. I don't think people are really interested in the world, rather in themselves having a cushy life. Everything dies, from bugs to stars and all in between. Let's enjoy it while it's here. There's always famine somewhere. There's always war somewhere.
Despite the damage that humans cause to the planet, agreeing with the suggestion that HALF OF THE POPULATION be exterminated is genuine lunacy. Face it. The world would be a marginally better place without humans, but we are here to stay. All 6.5 billion of us and counting. The world isn't boiling to death nor are the seas poison. Global warming is essentially a human problem, mainly focussed on droughts and floods. Nature will carry on with or without it.
Some people seem to think that the singularity will result in a matrix like virtual world, which wouldn't impact on the real world. This is simply not right. As by definition the singularity is the point at which we can't know or understand what's really going on, then there will be real world consequences that may be staggering. Imagine if the singularity figured out that all thinking was a subset of a larger mind, and then pushed a button to connect it all, permanently. We would become 'one' with the whole universe. Sounds a bit wanky I know, but it's that kind of thing we're talking about, not just a good version of the internet with a neural interface. More likely the result will be something that we simply can't conceptualise rather than the example above. Something that we just couldn't imagine no matter how smart we are or how we try. Imagine being an ant coming across a jet engine. What does it make of it? That will be us versus the singularity, and I suspect it will have the same effect as a jet engine would have on an ant if it were to pass through it. The rate of change is getting faster. More people are getting technofear as the rate increases. I think the singularity might happen over days or even hours when it happens, with the world/universe/dimensions/whatever_else_we_can'_think_of maybe changing in the blink of an eye. This is based on the idea that the singularity is unknowable, and will change things as radically as can be changed, and I can't think higher than that. I don't mind it happening, but it is the end of my life as I run it. I'd just like to get a bit more drinking time in before it.....
Does a brute force cracker have to go from a to z? When done in a non linear sequence it removes any advantage by starting with a z (or disadvantage starting with an a).
...we will have this kind of power on our desktop? Wikipedia tells me that a current desktop PC is equivalent to the top supercomputer of 15 years ago in terms of operations. I can't imagine having this amount of computing power in 15 years time, but it makes me think of the possible programs we will run.
I want us to set up a large colony, or as large as we can at the current time. Get a biosphere or two setup. I'm sure I read that there are machines that can convert moon rock into a variety of materials, not the least is oxygen and concrete. Large habitats chock full of people would suit me fine. Moon City One sounds pretty cool to me. I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime, but I hope I'm wrong.
If we're thinking about people stationed on the moon, living in habitats big enough to not go nuts in, with either on site energy generation, oxygen production and food supplies, or all of these things shipped in, then I don't see how making and transporting large mirrors in parts and assembling them on the moon is such a complex task. Especially when contrasted against making the thing in situ, in an environment we aren't familiar with, is very deadly and experimental. Think about the factory that would have to be assembled, that could spin a liquid mirror in the vacuum and dust environment of the moon. In many ways, it seems MORE complex to make it up there. I think it's great that people are thinking up these things, but in this case I don't see it as a resource or an energy saver.
It's not just maths. I teach science to 11-16 year olds in the UK. It seems like the hard academic subjects have been stripped over the years. I weep at the science syllabus now. I bet many would be shocked to know what is actually in it. Couple of quick examples: First lesson in Year 10 'Carbon Chemistry' - cooking egg and potato. Coursework for GCSE - write an article about a news item that has science in it. Everything HAS to be relevant to the lives of teenagers these days it seems. The beauty of science is that it can show us wonders that are not in our everyday lives. So much for my vision. I'll be teaching the morals of using a mobile phone on the tube soon enough - in science. They're slashing the 11-13 year old syllabus come this September, down to virtually nothing - I kid you not, and I don't exaggerate. From my perspective in science, the kids I teach know NO maths whatsoever. Today I asked a kid what was 0.999 * 10. They couldn't do it. At all. They were set 2 out of 6, and I'm in a pretty decent school. I was dumbstruck, although not as dumbstruck as this generation clearly is.
...and of course a good virus does no harm.
I think the time has come to make a virus that counters spambots, trojans, viruses and everything else. Limited lifespan, get them into the wild, let them run through networks doing a good deed then martyr themselves. I know people would be worried about any possible damage done by these things, but if your system is open, then it's a risk vs potential damage assessment. If you have the right security in place, then neither goodie or baddie viruses will get near you.