As a recent alum (2002), I can shed some light on some things.
Why is this in the Deparment of Humanities and Social Sciences?
From the URL, this Tournament is being run by the Social Sciences Experimental Laboratory (SSEL), not the CS department. The SSEL has been one of the leaders in experimental economics research (read: actually testing all those crazy theories you hear in economics classes).
Why is there money involved?
All experiments by the SSEL involve money. As an undergraduate, I participated in many experiments, mostly involving trading "commodities" in simple (and sometimes not-so-simple) markets. We were paid based on our performance. If I had an off night, I got paid $5 for 2 hours of the experiment. If I had a good night, I could make upwards of $80. Yes folks, this is real money we're talking about here. Since the point is to test people's economic thinking, you must make your decisions based on a real outcome, otherwise the data gathered is invalid.
Why then are they doing this test?
I don't work for the SSEL (and never have), but here's why I think they're doing this: Since they're interested in not only individual human behavior, but also how individuals interact and make choices based on the actions of other individuals, it would be useful to design a computer program that mimics other human's behavior. If other humans think this program acts like a human, then you can do two things: you can take the specifications of the computer program and figure out what qualities of the program humans have. As well, you can then replace humans with the computer program in real experiments (this not only allows you to test the limits of the program, but also to save money:-) )
And as an alum (who was not too fond of his time there, but still feels compelled to defend Caltech), it's *Caltech*, not *Cal Tech* or *Cal-Tech* (but if you're feeling lazy, *caltech* is all right too).
Hmm, are these perhaps the new Dell PowerEdge 2650s? We just got one for our lab (dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz, 4GB DDR RAM). Mehopes that they know how loud these machines get, since one of them litterally sounds like a jet engine and is the loudest computer I have ever heard. Just search groups.google.com for "PowerEdge 2650 Loud Fan" to see what I mean.
All of the Linux install instructions I've seen have been designed to coexist with a previous Windows installation. Never have I seen a Linux install which says, "Here is how to delete your Windows partition." Yet here we have Microsoft telling you how to delete your Linux partition in order to install a Windows product, not how to install Windows to coexist with Linux. Quite interesting...
I had forgotten about the placard display...yeah, that was cool. In addition, the scoreboard was done in 1984 by members of my Hovse, Blacker Hovse. We have t-shirts commemorating the event:-)
I think the greatest hack of recent memory would have to be the modification of the Hollywood sign to read "CALTECH". This not only satisfies the requirement of ingenuity, it also satisfies the requirement of being _extremely_ visible.
We haven't had a good hack in a long time...I know some of us are trying to come up with something to do for the year 2000, but there are no definite plans as of yet. But if you see something about Caltech on New Year's Day, don't be surprised; we're just begining the new year with a good start:-)
Um, yes, they are charging for access:-) This is a professional scientific journal, where yearly charges can run into the thousands of dollars. Many times, one can access sites like this from university computers where they have a site-wide license, but for other users, yes, you have to pay for the access. This is the only way to defray the astronomical costs involved in publishing a research journal.
As is mentioned in the absctract, Francis Crick has called in the past for more work on human neuroanatomy. If we are ever to fully understand the brain, we need to know how things are connected. Much work has been done in the macaque monkey, where we now know a large amount of about the neurocircuitry of the visual system. Such work has been done in the macaque because many of the techniques used could not be used in human subjects. Research such as this paves the way for the future of neuroscience, allowing us to understand the way the brain is wired. Without knowledge of the wiring, we cannot begin to understand brain function.
With that said, however, there is one caveat: neuroscientists are not at a consensus as to the usefulness of fMRI. The main question is, does increased blood flow correlate with increased firing rate of neurons? Such research (to my knowledge) has not yet been carried out. Whatever the outcome of the fMRI debate, however, current studies such as this neuromapping research are helping us to further understand the wiring of the human brain.
This sort of thing is not new in the midwest. I came from a high school that just left the issue alone; we discussed neither evolution nor creationism. I guess that's better than teaching creationism alone, but it's a shame that the foundation of modern biology is not taught to high school students. I ended up taking AP Biology independent study, and I can almost be certain that I was the first person in many, many years to study evolution at my high school (evolution is a large part of the AP Bio curriculum). The really frightening thing is the rise of political forces such as this. The fact that they have the power to direct intstruction in the entire state scares me out of my wits.
One of the main problems here, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the scientific method. When will people stop selectively applying the scientific method? What we have is the best explanation of the how life arose. Yes, it is a theory, but it is the best theory that we have and it has many more facts supporting it than explanations from the Bible or whatever other holy book you believe in. How people believe that evolution cannot be reconciled with an all-powerful god is beyond me. Isn't the beauty of evolution itself enough proof to those who believe in a supreme being?
I can vouch for the cool-ness of this work. I'm an undergraduate at Caltech doing research in Christof Koch's lab, one of the big participators in Telluride. If you want more information, you can visit the Koch Lab homepage . While I'm only doing psychophysics research right now (just finished up my freshman year, so the mathematics isn't quite up to snuff yet), I'm wondering what amazing things I'll be studying once I start working on my Ph.D. thesis:-)
Slashdot Mirror
As a recent alum (2002), I can shed some light on some things.
:-) )
Why is this in the Deparment of Humanities and Social Sciences?
From the URL, this Tournament is being run by the Social Sciences Experimental Laboratory (SSEL), not the CS department. The SSEL has been one of the leaders in experimental economics research (read: actually testing all those crazy theories you hear in economics classes).
Why is there money involved?
All experiments by the SSEL involve money. As an undergraduate, I participated in many experiments, mostly involving trading "commodities" in simple (and sometimes not-so-simple) markets. We were paid based on our performance. If I had an off night, I got paid $5 for 2 hours of the experiment. If I had a good night, I could make upwards of $80. Yes folks, this is real money we're talking about here. Since the point is to test people's economic thinking, you must make your decisions based on a real outcome, otherwise the data gathered is invalid.
Why then are they doing this test?
I don't work for the SSEL (and never have), but here's why I think they're doing this: Since they're interested in not only individual human behavior, but also how individuals interact and make choices based on the actions of other individuals, it would be useful to design a computer program that mimics other human's behavior. If other humans think this program acts like a human, then you can do two things: you can take the specifications of the computer program and figure out what qualities of the program humans have. As well, you can then replace humans with the computer program in real experiments (this not only allows you to test the limits of the program, but also to save money
And as an alum (who was not too fond of his time there, but still feels compelled to defend Caltech), it's *Caltech*, not *Cal Tech* or *Cal-Tech* (but if you're feeling lazy, *caltech* is all right too).
nak
Hmm, are these perhaps the new Dell PowerEdge 2650s? We just got one for our lab (dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz, 4GB DDR RAM). Mehopes that they know how loud these machines get, since one of them litterally sounds like a jet engine and is the loudest computer I have ever heard. Just search groups.google.com for "PowerEdge 2650 Loud Fan" to see what I mean.
nak
All of the Linux install instructions I've seen have been designed to coexist with a previous Windows installation. Never have I seen a Linux install which says, "Here is how to delete your Windows partition." Yet here we have Microsoft telling you how to delete your Linux partition in order to install a Windows product, not how to install Windows to coexist with Linux. Quite interesting...
I had forgotten about the placard display...yeah, that was cool. In addition, the scoreboard was done in 1984 by members of my Hovse, Blacker Hovse. We have t-shirts commemorating the event :-)
:-)
I think the greatest hack of recent memory would have to be the modification of the Hollywood sign to read "CALTECH". This not only satisfies the requirement of ingenuity, it also satisfies the requirement of being _extremely_ visible.
We haven't had a good hack in a long time...I know some of us are trying to come up with something to do for the year 2000, but there are no definite plans as of yet. But if you see something about Caltech on New Year's Day, don't be surprised; we're just begining the new year with a good start
Nick Knouf
nknouf@cedric.caltech.edu
Thanks for the clarification...I was sort of stepping into an area where I don't have much expertise :-)
Nick Knouf
nknouf@cedric.caltech.edu
Um, yes, they are charging for access :-) This is a professional scientific journal, where yearly charges can run into the thousands of dollars. Many times, one can access sites like this from university computers where they have a site-wide license, but for other users, yes, you have to pay for the access. This is the only way to defray the astronomical costs involved in publishing a research journal.
Nick Knouf
nknouf@cedric.caltech.edu
As is mentioned in the absctract, Francis Crick has called in the past for more work on human neuroanatomy. If we are ever to fully understand the brain, we need to know how things are connected. Much work has been done in the macaque monkey, where we now know a large amount of about the neurocircuitry of the visual system. Such work has been done in the macaque because many of the techniques used could not be used in human subjects. Research such as this paves the way for the future of neuroscience, allowing us to understand the way the brain is wired. Without knowledge of the wiring, we cannot begin to understand brain function.
With that said, however, there is one caveat: neuroscientists are not at a consensus as to the usefulness of fMRI. The main question is, does increased blood flow correlate with increased firing rate of neurons? Such research (to my knowledge) has not yet been carried out. Whatever the outcome of the fMRI debate, however, current studies such as this neuromapping research are helping us to further understand the wiring of the human brain.
Nick Knouf
nknouf@cedric.caltech.edu
This sort of thing is not new in the midwest. I came from a high school that just left the issue alone; we discussed neither evolution nor creationism. I guess that's better than teaching creationism alone, but it's a shame that the foundation of modern biology is not taught to high school students. I ended up taking AP Biology independent study, and I can almost be certain that I was the first person in many, many years to study evolution at my high school (evolution is a large part of the AP Bio curriculum). The really frightening thing is the rise of political forces such as this. The fact that they have the power to direct intstruction in the entire state scares me out of my wits.
One of the main problems here, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the scientific method. When will people stop selectively applying the scientific method? What we have is the best explanation of the how life arose. Yes, it is a theory, but it is the best theory that we have and it has many more facts supporting it than explanations from the Bible or whatever other holy book you believe in. How people believe that evolution cannot be reconciled with an all-powerful god is beyond me. Isn't the beauty of evolution itself enough proof to those who believe in a supreme being?
Nick Knouf
I can vouch for the cool-ness of this work. I'm an undergraduate at Caltech doing research in Christof Koch's lab, one of the big participators in Telluride. If you want more information, you can visit the Koch Lab homepage . :-)
While I'm only doing psychophysics research right now (just finished up my freshman year, so the mathematics isn't quite up to snuff yet), I'm wondering what amazing things I'll be studying once I start working on my Ph.D. thesis
Nick Knouf
nknouf@cedric.caltech.edu
nknouf@klab.caltech.edu
http://cedric.caltech.edu