The programming language can encourage the programmer to write an application faster. People have pointed this out before. But also, a programming language can encourage better programming principles. C++ makes it difficult to use complex data structures, while scripting languages like Perl and Python make it a breeze. Python also has the advantage of making object oriented programming simple, whereas the convoluted structure of C++ struct-based objects discourages programmers from taking advantage of them.
I've always wondered if it would be possible to have something like Second Life distributed in such a way that is similar to the web and instant messaging. You direct connect to your friends to share your game state, and you download areas (levels?) from webservers. It would make the people who built levels only have to have a web host (maybe php/cgi enabled) and that be it.
Of course, there wouldn't be the traditional money involved, but that didn't stop other web projects.
Not really. When you have a lot wrapped up in the progress you have made so far, then to break away from it and come back is almost impossible. In the middle of fighting a hard boss in zelda, pausing and coming back an hour or day later would probably mean you have to start over anyway. (And it's a *long* time to get back to where you were) For even a frenzied game of tetris or lumines, it probably didn't take all that long to progress, and is thus much easier to put away realizing that you didn't lose much time.
I think Nintendo is realizing that puzzle games are the most effective games in the handheld realm. When you have a handheld gaming system, most likely you use it while waiting for something, and you want to be able to put it away at a moments notice. You don't want to have to tell someone to wait while you finish up a level, or fighting a boss.
It's easily a little more complex than that. The first chicken could have been birthed in a different form than an egg, and then laid the first egg as its offspring. Conversely, God could have made eggs first and had chickens hatch from them.
I don't understand how people can purchase a Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 and not have a problem with not being able to play games made for another console, but computers have to have every app run on it or the consumer gets angry. Maybe it's a marketing shortcoming.
Being able to hone in on search terms is a good idea as well. I wonder how many people stare at the screen and think "well, I want to know about this type of dog, but the name escapes me". A search engine could help by listing out narrower queries from a broad one.
But after page 3, google only has link-farms, price aggregators, and porn-link top 500 sites.
Re:Here are a couple of bookmarks for ya
on
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>> Don't like immigration? I'd say to go to somewhere else, but then you'd be an immigrant there. Immigrants didn't destabilize the US economy any of the other times, they won't destabilize it today.
That's all fine, but the OP wasn't talking about immigration. He was talking about *illegal* immigration, with not only breaking the law to get over the border, but working under the table for illegally low wages. Essentially there is now a dual economy in the U.S. One for citizens and one for illegals. You have all kinds of taxes and regulation to hire a citizen, but there are no regulations or taxes to hire an illegal alien. In fact since it's all in civil law, there is no jail time either, just a fine that you can avoid with ever-changing corporations and sub sub contracting. Also, since the country is so litigation happy, it makes a lot of sense to hire someone who could never sue you because it's illegal for them to be working for you in the first place.
>>he proto-scientsts may have been motivated to discover the naturual world to better understand the Nature of God; but the knowledge that came from that research was not dependent on belief.
The belief system that these "proto" scientists had allowed and encouraged them to investigate the world around them. We take that for granted today, and I think because we don't teach it early enough (except by some kind of osmosis that might be gleaned after being exposed to enough science), it is in danger of being subverted by other seductive beliefs. Simply teaching the mechanism without the reasoning behind it leads to the same problem as teaching only fact after fact. A weak or unconsidered base only leads to either subversion or blind faith.
>> As an epistemology, science has proven itself as the best tool available.
Where did you learn this? Was it ever explicitly stated in a science class? This is probably a belief you arrived at coincidental to your science teaching or possibly your own scientific inquiry. The majority of students would never consider the idea this way.
>> To do this in a class in which the body of knowledge being studied has come exclusively from application of the scientific method would simply muddy the waters, not clear them, nor teach young'uns to question assumptions.
That's like saying to do away with all proofs in math. Why bother teaching why as long as we teach a bunch of how's? Besides, philosophy is already implicit in science classes. Teaching it explicitly would not add anything new and would give students an understanding of why scientific inquiry took place when and where it did.
Every -ism is at its heart a philosophy. Science depends on assumptions that may be obvious, but are not scientifically testable, like a consistent and testable universe. Explicitly stating these philosophical beliefs and teaching a little about the history of philosophies that underly science *in the science classroom* would be a great benefit to discerning what is really science, and what is pretending to be science, but is really at most a philosophy.
>>You say we should teach kids to apply a philosophical model instead of allowing the facts to merely speak for themselves and assuming nothing. Using philosophy which makes moral judgements and uses assumptions where there is little data to examine scientific theory.
You don't seem to understand. There are already philosophical underpinnings to science, and explicitly stating them and investigating the history of these philosophies that drove science in the past would help with *not* considering ID as valid scientific theory. Furthermore it would push aside a bunch of political and religious influences on science class because they *all* exploit the philosophy underlying science and not the scientific method itself. As an added benefit, it would provide a place for whatever religious beliefs a student held to be put soundly in its place as outside the realm of science and scientific investigation.
Interesting, but I'm not talking about ID as a scientific theory, and definitely not advocating teaching it in that category. If the hypothesized creator were empirically detectable, then it would be a scientific theory, not a philosophical framework.
Any philosophical framework simply must make assumptions about the world. A scientific one must assume a consistent, testable world. In history this consistent testable world was assumed to have been created by a deity. Now the framework must be simply adhered to for either traditional or weak anthropic reasons. Even though it seems like a minor difference, there are places where the consistent, testable universe that just is, and the consistent testable universe that was created differ. You can usually find these instances either in controversy, or where reason nearly breaks down as in quantum physics ("God does not play dice"). Even Hawking's "Brief History of Time" contained the untestable anti-time which was more philosophy than science. Even String Theory may end up just being a nice philosophy rather than science unless it can come up with a testable experiment. Understanding why these come to bear, and how they differ from testable science, but how science depends on these philosophies is I believe of more importance than most of the factual scientific information taught.
Science advanced in the past from a strong belief in a deity and an investigation of "all creation" as a spiritual act. This is far different from methodoligical naturalism, and is useful to consider and learn from. I am not advocating "teaching the controversy" or a "God did it" version of science ID promoters desire, but a careful understanding of the philosophy both currently and historically that promoted scientific progress. This probably would not even include ID as anything but a footnote in the discussion.
Simply the understanding that science is not set in stone like some religious text would allow for greater rational thought than the way science is currently taught. With some luck it would limit the current metaphysical nonsense that has encroached itself on science in recent times (like in "What the Bleep"). Simply illustrating sound thought in science classes are not enough to keep the general public from having increasing beliefs in superstitions as ridiculous as ghosts and astrology. More needs to be done at the root of the problem.
Flat earth theory is on the same level as every scientific theory. It is not a philosophy, and doesn't challenge any philosophical underpinnings of science. When you have an encroachent of religion on science (like "Dance of the Wu Li Masters", "The God Particle", "What the Bleep...", etc.) using science's own philosophical underpinnings to promote some metaphysical belief or belief system, then there needs to be serious investigation and understanding of what is science at its core. ID, while not what it proports to be in the media, is useful for this investigation.
It's easier to teach a fact than to teach the method to find the fact. Who enjoyed doing proofs in math? Why bother with figuring out some rationale behind what seems to be intuitively obvious? The answer is that it was not obvious in times past, and what seemed obvious before is dead wrong. But in this same way, power is brought about not by making independent thinkers, but by making dependent believers. Both political and religious leaders know this. The public school classroom is now seen not as a place to educate, but as a place to gain adherents and add to a political/religious powerbase.
You see this in sex-ed battles, prayer-in-school battles, and environmentalist battles. Now there's the ID/evolution battle rehash of the creationist battle. With each battle though, there are two groups in a power struggle, and neither side wants a bunch of independent rational thinkers on their hands. They want people who trust the media or politicians/political groups or some religion. Any group may join with another for added force when their goals coincide. Maybe we just need to teach students to be cynical and wary of everyone, even the person who tells them to be cynical and wary. Test everything equally, and don't give any "authority" a free pass no matter how convincing they are on the surface. In fact, the more likable and up-front they are, the more investigation is necessary just to cut through the garbage.
Thank you for almost getting it:-). Intelligent Design is not science, it is not a theory, it is not something testable by the scientific method. It is a proposal for a minor change in the philosophical underpinnings of modern science. The reason why it should be discussed in science classrooms is because even at the level of a highschooler, you don't want students to take the philosophical basis for what they are being taught for granted.
The issue at stake is to teach rational and sound thought in learning rather than as another poster said "fact after fact". Teaching critical thinking is just another term for teaching philosophy, and while you don't want to teach a straight mythology, you do want to consider the limitations of scientific inquiry, which intelligent design delineates quite starkly and with a fairly good rational model to step off from.
Considering Intelligent Design forces us to not take for granted the philosophical underpinnings of current scientific inquiry. Why is this important? Because science is not philosophy, but depends on a philosophical framework that can be exploited by politics and religion. Knowing this can make us more aware of the exploitation and more resilient to its efforts to sway public opinion.
I actually thought of a way to do this a while ago. The table would consist of a giant set of convex mirrors like the mirage toys with a spinning OLED display at the bottom to sweep the image across 3D space similar to the crystal ball display. The center would have a plexiglass circle with sensors and darkened to not let the room's light in to wash out the image. The users could then pass their hands through the mirage projected onto the table to interact with the game itself.
Unfortunately, even though the projection would appear as if it were suspended above the table, in order to see the image the user would have to actually look into the glass. So it wouldn't be suspended completely in space like Star Wars.
Slashdot Mirror
They might as well make it an MMORPG while they are at it. That probably would get more users than Netscape 8 at least
The programming language can encourage the programmer to write an application faster. People have pointed this out before. But also, a programming language can encourage better programming principles. C++ makes it difficult to use complex data structures, while scripting languages like Perl and Python make it a breeze. Python also has the advantage of making object oriented programming simple, whereas the convoluted structure of C++ struct-based objects discourages programmers from taking advantage of them.
I think I have the solution to your problem. Now I want you to look closely at your radio and find the AM/FM switch, and turn it to FM.
I've always wondered if it would be possible to have something like Second Life distributed in such a way that is similar to the web and instant messaging. You direct connect to your friends to share your game state, and you download areas (levels?) from webservers. It would make the people who built levels only have to have a web host (maybe php/cgi enabled) and that be it.
Of course, there wouldn't be the traditional money involved, but that didn't stop other web projects.
Not really. When you have a lot wrapped up in the progress you have made so far, then to break away from it and come back is almost impossible. In the middle of fighting a hard boss in zelda, pausing and coming back an hour or day later would probably mean you have to start over anyway. (And it's a *long* time to get back to where you were) For even a frenzied game of tetris or lumines, it probably didn't take all that long to progress, and is thus much easier to put away realizing that you didn't lose much time.
Holy cow. Japan gets *double* what we get in vacation time? Unbelievable.
I think Nintendo is realizing that puzzle games are the most effective games in the handheld realm. When you have a handheld gaming system, most likely you use it while waiting for something, and you want to be able to put it away at a moments notice. You don't want to have to tell someone to wait while you finish up a level, or fighting a boss.
Well, someone had to write TECO.
The rate of evolution being as slow as it is, it's about 0% likely that a mammal (live birth) could give birth to a bird (egg laying) like that.
Wouldn't Punctuated Equilibruim take care of this problem?
It's easily a little more complex than that. The first chicken could have been birthed in a different form than an egg, and then laid the first egg as its offspring. Conversely, God could have made eggs first and had chickens hatch from them.
Nice try though.
Actually, when I first read the headline, I thought Apple was doing some mobile DDR with shoe accelerometers connected to the iPod.
or at least www.googol.com
I don't understand how people can purchase a Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 and not have a problem with not being able to play games made for another console, but computers have to have every app run on it or the consumer gets angry. Maybe it's a marketing shortcoming.
Being able to hone in on search terms is a good idea as well. I wonder how many people stare at the screen and think "well, I want to know about this type of dog, but the name escapes me". A search engine could help by listing out narrower queries from a broad one.
But after page 3, google only has link-farms, price aggregators, and porn-link top 500 sites.
>> Don't like immigration? I'd say to go to somewhere else, but then you'd be an immigrant there. Immigrants didn't destabilize the US economy any of the other times, they won't destabilize it today. That's all fine, but the OP wasn't talking about immigration. He was talking about *illegal* immigration, with not only breaking the law to get over the border, but working under the table for illegally low wages. Essentially there is now a dual economy in the U.S. One for citizens and one for illegals. You have all kinds of taxes and regulation to hire a citizen, but there are no regulations or taxes to hire an illegal alien. In fact since it's all in civil law, there is no jail time either, just a fine that you can avoid with ever-changing corporations and sub sub contracting. Also, since the country is so litigation happy, it makes a lot of sense to hire someone who could never sue you because it's illegal for them to be working for you in the first place.
>>he proto-scientsts may have been motivated to discover the naturual world to better understand the Nature of God; but the knowledge that came from that research was not dependent on belief.
The belief system that these "proto" scientists had allowed and encouraged them to investigate the world around them. We take that for granted today, and I think because we don't teach it early enough (except by some kind of osmosis that might be gleaned after being exposed to enough science), it is in danger of being subverted by other seductive beliefs. Simply teaching the mechanism without the reasoning behind it leads to the same problem as teaching only fact after fact. A weak or unconsidered base only leads to either subversion or blind faith.
>> As an epistemology, science has proven itself as the best tool available.
Where did you learn this? Was it ever explicitly stated in a science class? This is probably a belief you arrived at coincidental to your science teaching or possibly your own scientific inquiry. The majority of students would never consider the idea this way.
>> To do this in a class in which the body of knowledge being studied has come exclusively from application of the scientific method would simply muddy the waters, not clear them, nor teach young'uns to question assumptions.
That's like saying to do away with all proofs in math. Why bother teaching why as long as we teach a bunch of how's? Besides, philosophy is already implicit in science classes. Teaching it explicitly would not add anything new and would give students an understanding of why scientific inquiry took place when and where it did.
Every -ism is at its heart a philosophy. Science depends on assumptions that may be obvious, but are not scientifically testable, like a consistent and testable universe. Explicitly stating these philosophical beliefs and teaching a little about the history of philosophies that underly science *in the science classroom* would be a great benefit to discerning what is really science, and what is pretending to be science, but is really at most a philosophy.
>>You say we should teach kids to apply a philosophical model instead of allowing the facts to merely speak for themselves and assuming nothing. Using philosophy which makes moral judgements and uses assumptions where there is little data to examine scientific theory.
You don't seem to understand. There are already philosophical underpinnings to science, and explicitly stating them and investigating the history of these philosophies that drove science in the past would help with *not* considering ID as valid scientific theory. Furthermore it would push aside a bunch of political and religious influences on science class because they *all* exploit the philosophy underlying science and not the scientific method itself. As an added benefit, it would provide a place for whatever religious beliefs a student held to be put soundly in its place as outside the realm of science and scientific investigation.
Interesting, but I'm not talking about ID as a scientific theory, and definitely not advocating teaching it in that category. If the hypothesized creator were empirically detectable, then it would be a scientific theory, not a philosophical framework.
Any philosophical framework simply must make assumptions about the world. A scientific one must assume a consistent, testable world. In history this consistent testable world was assumed to have been created by a deity. Now the framework must be simply adhered to for either traditional or weak anthropic reasons. Even though it seems like a minor difference, there are places where the consistent, testable universe that just is, and the consistent testable universe that was created differ. You can usually find these instances either in controversy, or where reason nearly breaks down as in quantum physics ("God does not play dice"). Even Hawking's "Brief History of Time" contained the untestable anti-time which was more philosophy than science. Even String Theory may end up just being a nice philosophy rather than science unless it can come up with a testable experiment. Understanding why these come to bear, and how they differ from testable science, but how science depends on these philosophies is I believe of more importance than most of the factual scientific information taught.
Science advanced in the past from a strong belief in a deity and an investigation of "all creation" as a spiritual act. This is far different from methodoligical naturalism, and is useful to consider and learn from. I am not advocating "teaching the controversy" or a "God did it" version of science ID promoters desire, but a careful understanding of the philosophy both currently and historically that promoted scientific progress. This probably would not even include ID as anything but a footnote in the discussion.
Simply the understanding that science is not set in stone like some religious text would allow for greater rational thought than the way science is currently taught. With some luck it would limit the current metaphysical nonsense that has encroached itself on science in recent times (like in "What the Bleep"). Simply illustrating sound thought in science classes are not enough to keep the general public from having increasing beliefs in superstitions as ridiculous as ghosts and astrology. More needs to be done at the root of the problem.
Flat earth theory is on the same level as every scientific theory. It is not a philosophy, and doesn't challenge any philosophical underpinnings of science. When you have an encroachent of religion on science (like "Dance of the Wu Li Masters", "The God Particle", "What the Bleep...", etc.) using science's own philosophical underpinnings to promote some metaphysical belief or belief system, then there needs to be serious investigation and understanding of what is science at its core. ID, while not what it proports to be in the media, is useful for this investigation.
It's easier to teach a fact than to teach the method to find the fact. Who enjoyed doing proofs in math? Why bother with figuring out some rationale behind what seems to be intuitively obvious? The answer is that it was not obvious in times past, and what seemed obvious before is dead wrong. But in this same way, power is brought about not by making independent thinkers, but by making dependent believers. Both political and religious leaders know this. The public school classroom is now seen not as a place to educate, but as a place to gain adherents and add to a political/religious powerbase.
You see this in sex-ed battles, prayer-in-school battles, and environmentalist battles. Now there's the ID/evolution battle rehash of the creationist battle. With each battle though, there are two groups in a power struggle, and neither side wants a bunch of independent rational thinkers on their hands. They want people who trust the media or politicians/political groups or some religion. Any group may join with another for added force when their goals coincide. Maybe we just need to teach students to be cynical and wary of everyone, even the person who tells them to be cynical and wary. Test everything equally, and don't give any "authority" a free pass no matter how convincing they are on the surface. In fact, the more likable and up-front they are, the more investigation is necessary just to cut through the garbage.
Thank you for almost getting it :-). Intelligent Design is not science, it is not a theory, it is not something testable by the scientific method. It is a proposal for a minor change in the philosophical underpinnings of modern science. The reason why it should be discussed in science classrooms is because even at the level of a highschooler, you don't want students to take the philosophical basis for what they are being taught for granted.
The issue at stake is to teach rational and sound thought in learning rather than as another poster said "fact after fact". Teaching critical thinking is just another term for teaching philosophy, and while you don't want to teach a straight mythology, you do want to consider the limitations of scientific inquiry, which intelligent design delineates quite starkly and with a fairly good rational model to step off from.
Considering Intelligent Design forces us to not take for granted the philosophical underpinnings of current scientific inquiry. Why is this important? Because science is not philosophy, but depends on a philosophical framework that can be exploited by politics and religion. Knowing this can make us more aware of the exploitation and more resilient to its efforts to sway public opinion.
I actually thought of a way to do this a while ago. The table would consist of a giant set of convex mirrors like the mirage toys with a spinning OLED display at the bottom to sweep the image across 3D space similar to the crystal ball display. The center would have a plexiglass circle with sensors and darkened to not let the room's light in to wash out the image. The users could then pass their hands through the mirage projected onto the table to interact with the game itself.
Unfortunately, even though the projection would appear as if it were suspended above the table, in order to see the image the user would have to actually look into the glass. So it wouldn't be suspended completely in space like Star Wars.