this discussion undermines the ridiculous and hypocritical nature of higher education - creating an institution where what they are really selling is reputation.
as the "web 2.0" empowerment of individuals continues unchecked, people's reputation will come less from the judgement of university systems, but rather from people's actual connections and accomplishments.
the idea of "cheating" will go away, because no one will care what some big, lumbering organization (the university) judges about what you've learned. people might actually be able to go learn what they want from free public resources instead of being trapped in painfully boring situations to get a degree - where they are so unmotivated they cut and paste text from web pages.
and here we hit on the fundamental problem of truth with the word "correct"
relativity does make newtonian physics "wrong". relativity shows a story that matches better with reality, so now we see newtonian as more of an approximation that it was before. it is still a useful approximation, and we still use it, so in this way WE say it is correct.
EVERYTHING is an approximation except the position and momentum of the base particles.
Eventually we will have a better theorem than relativity, will that make relativity invalid? maybe, if we stop using it, but if the new theory requires quantum calulations of all the particles in the sun, then relativity will still be really useful, so it will still be correct.
The part about "physics and other sciences" is dead on. The only true reality is the position and momentum of the base particles. Everything else are just stories, accurate to some degree - or as you state, "partial data".
However, your statements about math are off insomuch as you use the word "all": one of the most fundamental parts of math and logic were Godel's Incompleteness theorems in the 30s. This is the mathematical codification that Hericlitus ("We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not." - Wkpda) and the Buddha had it right, (to the Buddha, the Absolute Truth was that "there is nothing absolute in the world, that everything is relative, conditioned and impermanent, and that there is no unchanging, everlasting absolute substance like Self, Soul, or Atman within or without" - Rahula, p.39) and that if you can and do go deep enough, relativism wins, unequivocally.
For practical, day-to-day operation, pragmatism often wins, but only if you allow arguments that restrict your context.
Also, in my opinion, we don't define the rules in math, we discover them.
Here is the real mind blower: As much as we will structure and codify, even with ALL the data we will not reach logical consistency on everything. Building systems with that end will ultimately fail.
Of course they are virtual worlds. They have gravity, 3D space, items, simulations of living things...
But then, by this definition, Myst was a virtual world too.
The question makes no sense: "Is it more than a Game?"
Basically, ALMOST EVERYTHING in the real world can be framed as a game. Going to school and getting a degree is a "game", getting a job is a "game" - wearing the correct clothing to the prom is a "game". Driving a car: a game. Klondike, Tennis, Chess, Rubics Cubes, Programming, Reading, Singing... In each of these situations there are rules you learn, and you interact (often with others) in a way that follows the rules to achieve a goal.
Games are simply situations we create to learn relevant skills. Skills like: Catch the ball, throw the ball, move the rook, make the font on the "employer" line the right size, wear a tie, get your homework in on time, find the flaming Axe. Most games become popular both for participation and spectating because of people's desire to experience vicariously several feelings that are difficult to achieve otherwise (like the vicarious feeling on dominance when watching pro football, or the vicarious feeling of conquest when your character takes down the dragon).
A MUCH better question is this:
Do people learn skills in (current/popular) virtual environments that provide measurable value in the real world? and if so, what skills and what value?
Does anyone else remember in elementary school the teachers threatening about your "permanent record"
Well, as I grew up and stopped taking teachers so seriously, the credit cabal became the permanent record. Oops! Guess there as one after all.
The argument that is really going on here is about PROPERTY, though no one is really talking about it yet. It will continue as long as we hold the societal assumptions that resources should be mapped to certain people or groups for exclusive use - as long as we promote property rights. These assumptions are based on the premise that the more stuff you have, the move value the person has - and in an information-based economy, this assumption melts away. Ones value is with the information they have, and it will turn property on it's head.
Granted, a base level of stuff is required for survival - but we have that so easily now. Food and shelter will soon (10 years) slide into the "free first" model like calendars and email today have.
There are 800M people malnourished in the world, and 1B overweight. Remeber that when someone tries to argue about getting enough to eat.
The obvious next step is to create voluntary nets and distribute the profits.
I'd join one, why not? This is one reason why the online advertising model will eventually fail. You never really know if a computer or a real human being is on the other end of the connection.
I'd set up a box with Xen partitions and join multiple times.
gmail is a great service, but having some profit-driven, ageless beast tracking all my communication is a nightmare. granted it's inevitable, but I'll fight against losing my privacy every single step while I still need it
for the beaten child or the crazies who want to kill - a great point.
These people are generally become very unhealthy and need help from society BEFORE they commit acts of violence.
We are all so busy with busi-ness that most people just tend to shit on those folks, and lo! they end up as street people and career criminals. Imagine that.
Thank you. Carrying the torch of sanity and balance can be tiring while also trying to lead a life and build a company. I love it when others pick it up where I left off and take it forward one more step (and in this case, even better than I did).
After doing much more reading on this - it appears Steve Irwin did much more than his antics on TV, and for that he deserves to be lauded. You are correct,I don't know much about the animals he dealt with. I saw the man on TV poking them and it offended me regularly.
I'll admit my initial comments were made without the knowledge about his conservation efforts.
Ryan, you're awfully judgemental of someone you have never met. I think if you met me, your assessment might be different. Making underinformed statements does not anyone a "fucking asshole".
As for the statement "Glad that one finally did!" - this was not disparaging of Steve. To disparage means to belittle or reduce in rank.
You really ought to learn about Islam and get to know some Muslims. You can start by realizing that most of the propaganda you hear in America about Muslims is not true about the vast majority of the 1.3B people who follow the religion. There are radical fundamentalists in every religion, even Christians.
It might require you to leave TX though, even if just in ideology.
Why are you a "bad Student" is you "staying at home all the time and watching all the lectures right before the exam"
I watched about 40% of all my lectures at Stanford on a TV screen, time shifted from the lecture. At Stanford this practice is encouraged.
It works better for me personally, the crowd in the classroom is often distracting, and I waste time carting my body all over campus.
You can hear better, pause to take notes or read up on a topic in the book in the middle of the lecture when you get lost -- there are losts of positive benefits from video-based classes. Most I played back at 1.5x speed, so the voice gota bit whiny, but it was over in 40 minutes instead of an hour. What I LOVED was for topics I already know about, I could skip them.
In my opinoion, the premise in education that people have to be forced to attend is completely detrimental to the learning environment - it harms those there who want to learn. Manditory attendance is required when there has been a removal of accountability for those who choose not to learn.
No - just avoid pissing people of the world off SO MUCH they are trying kill Americans. Big difference.
Interestingly, America would do a lot better if the leaders really did stop trying to please everyone and started to really LEAD. Most administrations literally read the polls of the popular opinion and direct policy and speaches to maximize their popular effect: trying to please the people.
If our leaders stood up and ACTUALLY LEAD WELL, the polls would take care of themselves, but that would take some grownups, and America is solely lacking those.
How is this comment insightful? Please explain this more. I see this comment is driven by the fundamentalist, black -n- white mentality that drives most of the current insanity.
First, you are fear mongering: using single incidents and news reports to support statements about whole nations.
Second, you are ignoring that there is a wide and available gap between peace and appeasement. Our options are not just "appease" or "war" - there is a huge middle ground. It used to be called "diplomacy".
When I say "an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us" - don't assume that only can occur because they love us - just that others don't hate us SO MUCH they are willing to die for their cause. Everyone living in peace and love would be great (but to get there we need to eliminate property entirely) - and we should shoot for that, but it's not feasible in the short term. There are lots of ways to get to the place where people don't want to attack you. It takes a LOT of fear and hate and misery to get a group of people who are so downtrodden and lost they resort to suicide bombing.
Since when does posting opinions online equate with "shooting your mouth off"? I don't despise him. I have not desparaged him.
I would have to disagree with the assertion he has "dedicated his entire life to the protection of enviornment" (sic)
While I am not an active environmentalist, I have seen this person repeatedly abuse animals on television shows. From my limited knowledge about the person he presented an image to **ME** of a TV personality who profited off interacting with wild and captive animals. What exactly does this say about my character?
The whole mentality behind searching people to get on a airplane promotes false security. We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes.
What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to. "They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.
No. It saddens me any time something alive is destroyed.
As far as I can tell, this is a man who made significant gains in his career by having a TV show where he abused animals. He poke and prodded them and wrestled them for the lights and the cameras.
What I said is that I'm glad that the abusing of the animals by Steve Irwin is over.
As awful as it sounds, I'm glad that he won't be screwing with animals any more. The way he dealt with animals always made me feel like they should get a good chomp or poke back at him. Glad that one finally did!
Slashdot Mirror
this discussion undermines the ridiculous and hypocritical nature of higher education - creating an institution where what they are really selling is reputation.
as the "web 2.0" empowerment of individuals continues unchecked, people's reputation will come less from the judgement of university systems, but rather from people's actual connections and accomplishments.
the idea of "cheating" will go away, because no one will care what some big, lumbering organization (the university) judges about what you've learned. people might actually be able to go learn what they want from free public resources instead of being trapped in painfully boring situations to get a degree - where they are so unmotivated they cut and paste text from web pages.
and here we hit on the fundamental problem of truth with the word "correct"
relativity does make newtonian physics "wrong". relativity shows a story that matches better with reality, so now we see newtonian as more of an approximation that it was before. it is still a useful approximation, and we still use it, so in this way WE say it is correct.
EVERYTHING is an approximation except the position and momentum of the base particles.
Eventually we will have a better theorem than relativity, will that make relativity invalid? maybe, if we stop using it, but if the new theory requires quantum calulations of all the particles in the sun, then relativity will still be really useful, so it will still be correct.
The part about "physics and other sciences" is dead on. The only true reality is the position and momentum of the base particles. Everything else are just stories, accurate to some degree - or as you state, "partial data".
However, your statements about math are off insomuch as you use the word "all": one of the most fundamental parts of math and logic were Godel's Incompleteness theorems in the 30s. This is the mathematical codification that Hericlitus ("We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not." - Wkpda) and the Buddha had it right, (to the Buddha, the Absolute Truth was that "there is nothing absolute in the world, that everything is relative, conditioned and impermanent, and that there is no unchanging, everlasting absolute substance like Self, Soul, or Atman within or without" - Rahula, p.39) and that if you can and do go deep enough, relativism wins, unequivocally.
For practical, day-to-day operation, pragmatism often wins, but only if you allow arguments that restrict your context.
Also, in my opinion, we don't define the rules in math, we discover them.
Here is the real mind blower: As much as we will structure and codify, even with ALL the data we will not reach logical consistency on everything. Building systems with that end will ultimately fail.
At least for people in the Los Angeles area
And we know how normal things are THERE! *snikker*
Of course they are virtual worlds. They have gravity, 3D space, items, simulations of living things ...
... In each of these situations there are rules you learn, and you interact (often with others) in a way that follows the rules to achieve a goal.
But then, by this definition, Myst was a virtual world too.
The question makes no sense: "Is it more than a Game?"
Basically, ALMOST EVERYTHING in the real world can be framed as a game. Going to school and getting a degree is a "game", getting a job is a "game" - wearing the correct clothing to the prom is a "game". Driving a car: a game. Klondike, Tennis, Chess, Rubics Cubes, Programming, Reading, Singing
Games are simply situations we create to learn relevant skills. Skills like: Catch the ball, throw the ball, move the rook, make the font on the "employer" line the right size, wear a tie, get your homework in on time, find the flaming Axe. Most games become popular both for participation and spectating because of people's desire to experience vicariously several feelings that are difficult to achieve otherwise (like the vicarious feeling on dominance when watching pro football, or the vicarious feeling of conquest when your character takes down the dragon).
A MUCH better question is this:
Do people learn skills in (current/popular) virtual environments that provide measurable value in the real world?
and if so, what skills and what value?
Does anyone else remember in elementary school the teachers threatening about your "permanent record"
Well, as I grew up and stopped taking teachers so seriously, the credit cabal became the permanent record. Oops! Guess there as one after all.
The argument that is really going on here is about PROPERTY, though no one is really talking about it yet. It will continue as long as we hold the societal assumptions that resources should be mapped to certain people or groups for exclusive use - as long as we promote property rights. These assumptions are based on the premise that the more stuff you have, the move value the person has - and in an information-based economy, this assumption melts away. Ones value is with the information they have, and it will turn property on it's head.
Granted, a base level of stuff is required for survival - but we have that so easily now. Food and shelter will soon (10 years) slide into the "free first" model like calendars and email today have.
There are 800M people malnourished in the world, and 1B overweight. Remeber that when someone tries to argue about getting enough to eat.
The obvious next step is to create voluntary nets and distribute the profits.
I'd join one, why not? This is one reason why the online advertising model will eventually fail. You never really know if a computer or a real human being is on the other end of the connection.
I'd set up a box with Xen partitions and join multiple times.
hot damn! browsers really will be a virtual machine.
I give us about 4.9 years until self-aware computers emerge
gmail is a great service, but having some profit-driven, ageless beast tracking all my communication is a nightmare. granted it's inevitable, but I'll fight against losing my privacy every single step while I still need it
Can't? Don't. Couldn't be bothered with the rules.
for the beaten child or the crazies who want to kill - a great point.
These people are generally become very unhealthy and need help from society BEFORE they commit acts of violence.
We are all so busy with busi-ness that most people just tend to shit on those folks, and lo! they end up as street people and career criminals. Imagine that.
Can we put a soon to-be ex-president on the list too? Please???
Thank you. Carrying the torch of sanity and balance can be tiring while also trying to lead a life and build a company. I love it when others pick it up where I left off and take it forward one more step (and in this case, even better than I did).
I think it is BEAUTIFUL that all my friends on /. have worked together to get the phrase
"TSA = wrongheadedness gone wild"
posted over 100 times in a public forum.
After doing much more reading on this - it appears Steve Irwin did much more than his antics on TV, and for that he deserves to be lauded. You are correct,I don't know much about the animals he dealt with. I saw the man on TV poking them and it offended me regularly.
I'll admit my initial comments were made without the knowledge about his conservation efforts.
Ryan, you're awfully judgemental of someone you have never met. I think if you met me, your assessment might be different. Making underinformed statements does not anyone a "fucking asshole".
As for the statement "Glad that one finally did!" - this was not disparaging of Steve. To disparage means to belittle or reduce in rank.
You really ought to learn about Islam and get to know some Muslims. You can start by realizing that most of the propaganda you hear in America about Muslims is not true about the vast majority of the 1.3B people who follow the religion. There are radical fundamentalists in every religion, even Christians.
It might require you to leave TX though, even if just in ideology.
Why are you a "bad Student" is you "staying at home all the time and watching all the lectures right before the exam"
I watched about 40% of all my lectures at Stanford on a TV screen, time shifted from the lecture. At Stanford this practice is encouraged.
It works better for me personally, the crowd in the classroom is often distracting, and I waste time carting my body all over campus.
You can hear better, pause to take notes or read up on a topic in the book in the middle of the lecture when you get lost -- there are losts of positive benefits from video-based classes. Most I played back at 1.5x speed, so the voice gota bit whiny, but it was over in 40 minutes instead of an hour. What I LOVED was for topics I already know about, I could skip them.
In my opinoion, the premise in education that people have to be forced to attend is completely detrimental to the learning environment - it harms those there who want to learn. Manditory attendance is required when there has been a removal of accountability for those who choose not to learn.
"try to please everyone"
No - just avoid pissing people of the world off SO MUCH they are trying kill Americans. Big difference.
Interestingly, America would do a lot better if the leaders really did stop trying to please everyone and started to really LEAD. Most administrations literally read the polls of the popular opinion and direct policy and speaches to maximize their popular effect: trying to please the people.
If our leaders stood up and ACTUALLY LEAD WELL, the polls would take care of themselves, but that would take some grownups, and America is solely lacking those.
How is this comment insightful? Please explain this more. I see this comment is driven by the fundamentalist, black -n- white mentality that drives most of the current insanity.
First, you are fear mongering: using single incidents and news reports to support statements about whole nations.
Second, you are ignoring that there is a wide and available gap between peace and appeasement.
Our options are not just "appease" or "war" - there is a huge middle ground. It used to be called "diplomacy".
When I say "an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us" - don't assume that only can occur because they love us - just that others don't hate us SO MUCH they are willing to die for their cause. Everyone living in peace and love would be great (but to get there we need to eliminate property entirely) - and we should shoot for that, but it's not feasible in the short term. There are lots of ways to get to the place where people don't want to attack you. It takes a LOT of fear and hate and misery to get a group of people who are so downtrodden and lost they resort to suicide bombing.
Since when does posting opinions online equate with "shooting your mouth off"?
I don't despise him.
I have not desparaged him.
I would have to disagree with the assertion he has "dedicated his entire life to the protection of enviornment" (sic)
While I am not an active environmentalist, I have seen this person repeatedly abuse animals on television shows. From my limited knowledge about the person he presented an image to **ME** of a TV personality who profited off interacting with wild and captive animals. What exactly does this say about my character?
The whole mentality behind searching people to get on a airplane promotes false security. We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes.
What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to. "They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.
this is one of the reasons why I still use mutt - don't have to look at the images/attachments unless I choose to
...
I've used outlook, eudora, hotmail, gmail, yahoomail, squirrelmail, webmail, pine, mm
and I still always come back to mutt. I get to control it, archive it, its fast easy, and completely immune to this kids of spamming.
No. It saddens me any time something alive is destroyed.
As far as I can tell, this is a man who made significant gains in his career by having a TV show where he abused animals. He poke and prodded them and wrestled them for the lights and the cameras.
What I said is that I'm glad that the abusing of the animals by Steve Irwin is over.
What is this "real work" of Steve Irwin you refer to?
As awful as it sounds, I'm glad that he won't be screwing with animals any more. The way he dealt with animals always made me feel like they should get a good chomp or poke back at him. Glad that one finally did!