I take my camera with me, almost everywhere, but sometimes it's just not practical to carry something a) bulky/heavy and b) expensive (I live in Wolverhampton, it's not the best part of the UK). I don't get up in the morning and go to the corner shop with my camera, but my phone I can quickly stuff down my bra, so if it's necessary to take a quick picture of a random cute squirrel then I can. For me, I'd love to have a better camera on my phone, because you can't realistically take your camera *everywhere*. If you take your camera with you to the toilet then I'm truly impressed, and a little worried.
In all fairness I even agree with some of what you said, of course their are different traits between cultures, and sub-cultures, but I don't believe that these are necessarily innate. At least, especially with current psychological tests, such as IQ tests, it's very difficult to determine what is genetic and what is environment. For example, Germans have the stereotype of being very tidy, however I don't believe that they have some gene which determines this, I think this is learnt, they are conditioned by their parents to be tidy, efficient and on time (although I've known a few very messy Germans). I'm not saying there are *no* genetic factors, perhaps there are.
Again, I'm not saying that nothing is genetic, I think we're all born with the ability to learn but the reason that people become intelligent/tidy/sociable/etc as a culture is due to the society in which they live, whether their society motivates them to learn, what they have to learn because of their environment.
Also, just because I believe it doesn't mean it's true. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, or that some psychologists are right or wrong. I don't know.
I'd love to debate this all day but instead I'll just put in the wikipedia links which has both sides of the debate and we'll call it even. Disclaimer: wikipedia may not be perfect so if you have the time look up the journal articles for verification.
off-topic: For 4 years, and after a-levels and a diploma I realised I didn't want to go any further in the study of psychology. As I said, too many variables, drove me crazy. So in answer to your question, yes it was too complex and difficult. Yes that is why I quit. Yes that was my choice and I'm happy I made it. I'm still interested in it but I'd rather study something slightly more scientific with definite answers.
"Raven's Matrices are the best known and most researched culturally-reduced tests that we have for rating IQ. They use diagrammatic puzzles with a missing part. You could hardly argue that any level of college education could help you find the missing peice of a puzzle."
How is intelligence measured by this? Is it based on the time it takes to complete? You could argue that quick thinking and problem solving skills* come from a level of education (although you could argue that's why those people went into higher education). Vision, the processing of images, the speed at which you do it can all change between cultures because of environmental factors. E.g. People in American-type cultures are more likely to be able to see optical illusions because they live in a society with many sharp edges and lines (in the built environment). Cultural differences.
Also, I don't know much about Raven's Matrices but the example you gave only tests spatial, it doesn't necessarily mean intelligence just because you're able to figure out a visual puzzle in a certain time, what about maths, verbal? Which was the basis of criticism for gender variances in IQ tests, they were mostly tests using maths and strategy questions. Boys are brought up to play games such as computer games and with toy soldiers, which can increase certain skills. Whereas girls are brought up being taught how to talk, to be social, as they play tea party games or with dolls, they develop skills in communication/language/learning grammatical skills. There are many other reasons for gender differences.
"And many tests, such as Raven's Progressive Matrices, have nothing to do with education level either."
SO this is really a test that tests innate intelligence? really? So education/learning can't help to develop quick thinking or problem solving or visual recognition? How do you determine something is innate intelligence or a learned skill?
I could go on all day but it already reminds me of why I quit psychology, too many variables in the world. Intelligence can be subjective, you might say that going into education and getting a good job is intelligent, the search for knowledge is intelligent, but you might say that it is intelligent if at 16 you start popping out the kids, you get your own house for free, benefits, and you don't have to work. Apart from bringing up the kids, but hey if you're the intelligent evil type then you'll probably not put too much effort into this. Although you also have the debate of wether you have to be moral to be intelligent, perhaps enlightenment of good could be considered as intelligence, perhaps you have enlightenment of evil, it could be that it's intelligent if you can beat the system. You might say intelligent people join the army, but you might say stupid people join the army, too many points of view. One more example, I always do a spell check on my work because I was taught to do this, it's a clever thing to do, even though my spelling may be terrible, it was intelligent to use something to put right my mistakes.
I've always gone for Sony, sony phones, sony walkman, sony speakers, sony pretty woooo screen, sony is *very* sexy if you ask me. shiney.... oooo shiney...
I'm in the UK, I get 1000 "free" text messages a month (£24 a month contract for students). I use about 900 of those free texts a month, and probably receive a very similar number. I make about 50 minutes worth of calls each month. For me at least, sms is not a useless feature.
On topic, I've been using my phone for 6 years, sore thumbs never even crossed my mind til I read this article. How are people holding their phones to get sore thumbs? It takes me a few hours to get sore thumbs from a console, which I can understand perfectly, but from a phone?? Just... how!?
Well at least *you* wouldn't have to *hear* the lazy fat trash people (or the business man or the lawyer) on their phones, which is what a lot of people usually complain about. For me, I can type perfectly fine without looking at a keyboard/mobile. Maybe letting them type (if cheaper than a phone call) will force them to learn to read and write. Perhpas they will pick up a dictionary or go to English lessons and become slightly more educated.
But maybe they will just bump into you instead. But my money is on the idea that you will not be subjected to half a dozen people yelling into their phones in public places. Well, at least maybe you're only subjected to 5 people, which is better than nothing. I've never walked into anyone whilst txting and I've never been walked into. Maybe I'm just lucky
Actually, no. I find it easy and quick to type a text message (using predictive text). I text all the time, I've been texting from when I was 16 (now I'm 22) so ok I've had practise, but it's the same as learning to use a regular qwerty keyboard.
I still type out entire words in a text message most of the time and I find it to be the same as using a keyboard. With predictive text, providing that you're not writing a whole bunch of obscure words that the dictionary doesn't understand (but will then learn for next time), you only have to hit the same number of keys that you do on a keyboard.
But, I'm a girl so I have small hands and for me the buttons are easy to press.
And I was just saying yesterday that I wish my IM had predictive text:)
But In all seriousness, I love to text, I use almost all of my monthly 1000 free texts. The reason being is that it's a useful way of communicating without being intrusive. When you're in a public place and want to have a conversation (provided you're not doing anything serious like operating machinery), I'd much prefer you to type away than having to hear you have a loud conversation.
Communication and social relations evolve/change (perhaps good, perhaps bad) with stuff like this. For example, it's a lot easier for you to send an innocent text message to a girl you like rather than calling her and fumbling over your words.
You just have to *hope* that people aren't stupid enough to use an IM whilst driving, but that's the same as hoping they don't drink and drive.
Before I posted I was looking at the power company sites and they actually have something called "economy 7", from the website:
"Obviously with Economy 7 youll use more energy during the night than the day, so you will save money. However, you need to be using roughly 20% of your energy consumption at night to be making a saving. And when they say night, they really mean night - the cheaper tariff usually starts around 1am and finishes around 8am (this can vary by supplier and region)"
Only problem is that I am awake til silly o'clock (currently 7:10am in UK), two of the guys go to sleep 2am ish and the other is a morning person, now as much as I'd love to live up to gender stereotypes, I'm not going to spend my time doing their laundry:)
I just looked it up and the actual figure was 91% of people thought of themselves as Christian.
Also, a few more of the statistics I found:
32% of all participants said they went to a place of worship through both their own and their parents choice. 28% went purely through their parents choice and not their own choice. Only 17% went to a place of worship through their own choosing and not through the choice of their parents.
9% of them never go to church which implies that they may not be very religious, as they do not practice their faith in a place of worship. 20% rarely go, which again implies the similar conclusions as those who never go to a place of worship. The majority, 38% answered 'sometimes' which could mean once every few weeks or only a few times a year but this again could be a measure of religiosity as you would expect religious people to practice their religion often. Only 33% of the religious people studied often attend a place of worship.
82% of them believed in heaven and hell.
7% of them never pray to their god, 22% rarely pray and the 34% who sometimes pray. 22% pray often, but only 15% of those who are religious pray everyday.
Of all the participants 8% said that abortion was always right, 84% suggested that it was sometimes right, it could be justified in the case of rape, etc. 7% believed it is never right and 1% gave no answer. This shows that the majority think abortion is right in some circumstances.
And back on topic, of the people asked about evolution, 30.5% said they believed in a scientific explanation for existence (evolution), equally 30.5% do not believe in a scientific explanation and 31% were not sure.
I appreciate that my study was very basic considering I was a student with limited resources.
In all fairness the first time I heard of Intelligent Design was here on slashdot, I usually read my news online and I'm a student so have no TV. If as a 22 year old student I found out about intelligent design on slashdot, then it's probably accurate to say that most people in the UK wouldn't know what it was. It's probably the most intelligent sounding option, purely cus it uses nice big words (as well as the word intelligent) so people on the street were like "yeah I think i'll pick that one". And another person said already that as a country we're quite secular. I did a very small (my sample size was only 120) study on secularisation in England in 2002, the majority (about 97%) said they thought of themselves as Christian, but not even half of them went to church on a regular basis, few of them had ever read the entire Bible, many had never read any of the Bible. The majority were also pro abortion.
I live in the West Midlands in the UK, I'm pretty damn sure if I asked say 50 people if they knew what intelligent design was, maybe 5-10 of them would have had a clue, and that's only because the city I live in has a large population of university students. If the question didn't include a nice little summary of each theory (in extra plain english) then I'm sure these results are not significant.
I'm a student, my room is smaller than these hotel rooms (ok we have a separate kitchen/bathroom). I live on the ground floor, my curtains are permanently closed so I have no natural light. I currently pay £55 a week and I can tell you my room ain't half as pretty as that room!
Only thing I can think that would be a problem... ventilation. For me, I'm a girl on the ground floor so I never leave the window open at night cus I'm scared, but I tell you a small room with no decent ventilation for a few hours... you need some good air freshner:)
The problem is... if I was average internet user, using wikipedia, why would I want to donate? Would I even think about donating? Would I care? Of course not, I don't know the costs involved, I never thought of it, I already pay my ISP to be able to view web pages. Why should I pay more?
You have to explain to people, briefly, why the money is needed and why you should donate. A simple message at the top of every page would help (not guilt trippy stuff like, hey you're using this, pay up).
Advertisements never bother me (apart from the *really* annoying moving ones), but advertisements on Wikipedia would be a bad idea. For example you got funding from say Coca Cola, you put their ad up, but they don't want you telling people how much sugar is in the drink, and they don't want you to link to an anti coke website, etc.
The Wikipedia folks should start their own hosting business, or some other sideline to make money and use the profit to fund wikipedia.
Also, open up a page for users to mass brainstorm fundraiser ideas.
Maybe I'm crazy, and I know this is about not getting a search warrant, but the technology itself I think is damn great. Provided it cannot be used by the general public, I'd be quite happy for my (phone's) location to be known.
For example, a girl in my halls, she was standing outside talking on her phone, three guys came along, hit her in the face, stole the phone. The police turned up literally 5 mins after we called them. They said they could drive around and see if they could see them. We called her phone number and they answered it. If the police could have made a call, found out their general position in a few seconds (not waiting for a warrant), then they could have been caught.
Same as if I was ever kidnapped (I often keep my phone down my bra as well), they could have information on where I was taken, looked at cctv/speed cameras at the certain time where my phone was, to find out what a vehicle or suspect looked like, etc.
If I was accused of a crime it would also be a pretty good (If I could prove I had the phone on me) alibi.
At least I'd feel safer knowing that the police (etc) knew where I (my phone) was. Screw it, just implant a phone in my head.
Maybe it's cus I'm a girl but I'd choose safety over privacy. If you're dead then privacy ain't going to matter too much.
Reminds me of being in school, trying to view the Nottingham Rock City gig guide on their website. Because "Nashville Pussy" were playing at some point, the site was automatically a porn site and was blocked.
Slashdot Mirror
I take my camera with me, almost everywhere, but sometimes it's just not practical to carry something a) bulky/heavy and b) expensive (I live in Wolverhampton, it's not the best part of the UK). I don't get up in the morning and go to the corner shop with my camera, but my phone I can quickly stuff down my bra, so if it's necessary to take a quick picture of a random cute squirrel then I can. For me, I'd love to have a better camera on my phone, because you can't realistically take your camera *everywhere*. If you take your camera with you to the toilet then I'm truly impressed, and a little worried.
erm... no.
The pink, love hearts & ponies .... kinda offensive.
.... kinda offensive.
.... oh so very cute! look at the puddy cats! awww....
The "LOL!!! OMG!!!! !!!!!" & jokes about women
The kittens
for a moment I thought that *was* the book
I can see it now...
65th birthday.. retirement home or the moon? hmm....
Again, I'm not saying that nothing is genetic, I think we're all born with the ability to learn but the reason that people become intelligent/tidy/sociable/etc as a culture is due to the society in which they live, whether their society motivates them to learn, what they have to learn because of their environment.
Also, just because I believe it doesn't mean it's true. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, or that some psychologists are right or wrong. I don't know.
I'd love to debate this all day but instead I'll just put in the wikipedia links which has both sides of the debate and we'll call it even. Disclaimer: wikipedia may not be perfect so if you have the time look up the journal articles for verification.
Race and intelligence
Nature versus nurture
IQ
IQ test controversy
off-topic: For 4 years, and after a-levels and a diploma I realised I didn't want to go any further in the study of psychology. As I said, too many variables, drove me crazy. So in answer to your question, yes it was too complex and difficult. Yes that is why I quit. Yes that was my choice and I'm happy I made it. I'm still interested in it but I'd rather study something slightly more scientific with definite answers.
How is intelligence measured by this? Is it based on the time it takes to complete? You could argue that quick thinking and problem solving skills* come from a level of education (although you could argue that's why those people went into higher education). Vision, the processing of images, the speed at which you do it can all change between cultures because of environmental factors. E.g. People in American-type cultures are more likely to be able to see optical illusions because they live in a society with many sharp edges and lines (in the built environment). Cultural differences.
Also, I don't know much about Raven's Matrices but the example you gave only tests spatial, it doesn't necessarily mean intelligence just because you're able to figure out a visual puzzle in a certain time, what about maths, verbal? Which was the basis of criticism for gender variances in IQ tests, they were mostly tests using maths and strategy questions. Boys are brought up to play games such as computer games and with toy soldiers, which can increase certain skills. Whereas girls are brought up being taught how to talk, to be social, as they play tea party games or with dolls, they develop skills in communication/language/learning grammatical skills. There are many other reasons for gender differences.
"And many tests, such as Raven's Progressive Matrices, have nothing to do with education level either."
SO this is really a test that tests innate intelligence? really? So education/learning can't help to develop quick thinking or problem solving or visual recognition? How do you determine something is innate intelligence or a learned skill?
I could go on all day but it already reminds me of why I quit psychology, too many variables in the world. Intelligence can be subjective, you might say that going into education and getting a good job is intelligent, the search for knowledge is intelligent, but you might say that it is intelligent if at 16 you start popping out the kids, you get your own house for free, benefits, and you don't have to work. Apart from bringing up the kids, but hey if you're the intelligent evil type then you'll probably not put too much effort into this. Although you also have the debate of wether you have to be moral to be intelligent, perhaps enlightenment of good could be considered as intelligence, perhaps you have enlightenment of evil, it could be that it's intelligent if you can beat the system. You might say intelligent people join the army, but you might say stupid people join the army, too many points of view. One more example, I always do a spell check on my work because I was taught to do this, it's a clever thing to do, even though my spelling may be terrible, it was intelligent to use something to put right my mistakes.
I've always gone for Sony, sony phones, sony walkman, sony speakers, sony pretty woooo screen, sony is *very* sexy if you ask me. shiney.... oooo shiney...
On topic, I've been using my phone for 6 years, sore thumbs never even crossed my mind til I read this article. How are people holding their phones to get sore thumbs? It takes me a few hours to get sore thumbs from a console, which I can understand perfectly, but from a phone?? Just... how!?
But maybe they will just bump into you instead. But my money is on the idea that you will not be subjected to half a dozen people yelling into their phones in public places. Well, at least maybe you're only subjected to 5 people, which is better than nothing. I've never walked into anyone whilst txting and I've never been walked into. Maybe I'm just lucky
I still type out entire words in a text message most of the time and I find it to be the same as using a keyboard. With predictive text, providing that you're not writing a whole bunch of obscure words that the dictionary doesn't understand (but will then learn for next time), you only have to hit the same number of keys that you do on a keyboard.
But, I'm a girl so I have small hands and for me the buttons are easy to press.
But In all seriousness, I love to text, I use almost all of my monthly 1000 free texts. The reason being is that it's a useful way of communicating without being intrusive. When you're in a public place and want to have a conversation (provided you're not doing anything serious like operating machinery), I'd much prefer you to type away than having to hear you have a loud conversation.
Communication and social relations evolve/change (perhaps good, perhaps bad) with stuff like this. For example, it's a lot easier for you to send an innocent text message to a girl you like rather than calling her and fumbling over your words.
You just have to *hope* that people aren't stupid enough to use an IM whilst driving, but that's the same as hoping they don't drink and drive.
*big slap from all female slashdotters*
"Obviously with Economy 7 youll use more energy during the night than the day, so you will save money. However, you need to be using roughly 20% of your energy consumption at night to be making a saving. And when they say night, they really mean night - the cheaper tariff usually starts around 1am and finishes around 8am (this can vary by supplier and region)"
Only problem is that I am awake til silly o'clock (currently 7:10am in UK), two of the guys go to sleep 2am ish and the other is a morning person, now as much as I'd love to live up to gender stereotypes, I'm not going to spend my time doing their laundry :)
Alcohol is a a must have, but the boys have already started brewing their own :) I'm still too scared to try it tho...
Also, a few more of the statistics I found:
32% of all participants said they went to a place of worship through both their own and their parents choice. 28% went purely through their parents choice and not their own choice. Only 17% went to a place of worship through their own choosing and not through the choice of their parents.
9% of them never go to church which implies that they may not be very religious, as they do not practice their faith in a place of worship. 20% rarely go, which again implies the similar conclusions as those who never go to a place of worship. The majority, 38% answered 'sometimes' which could mean once every few weeks or only a few times a year but this again could be a measure of religiosity as you would expect religious people to practice their religion often. Only 33% of the religious people studied often attend a place of worship.
82% of them believed in heaven and hell.
7% of them never pray to their god, 22% rarely pray and the 34% who sometimes pray. 22% pray often, but only 15% of those who are religious pray everyday.
Of all the participants 8% said that abortion was always right, 84% suggested that it was sometimes right, it could be justified in the case of rape, etc. 7% believed it is never right and 1% gave no answer. This shows that the majority think abortion is right in some circumstances.
And back on topic, of the people asked about evolution, 30.5% said they believed in a scientific explanation for existence (evolution), equally 30.5% do not believe in a scientific explanation and 31% were not sure.
I appreciate that my study was very basic considering I was a student with limited resources.
In all fairness the first time I heard of Intelligent Design was here on slashdot, I usually read my news online and I'm a student so have no TV. If as a 22 year old student I found out about intelligent design on slashdot, then it's probably accurate to say that most people in the UK wouldn't know what it was. It's probably the most intelligent sounding option, purely cus it uses nice big words (as well as the word intelligent) so people on the street were like "yeah I think i'll pick that one". And another person said already that as a country we're quite secular. I did a very small (my sample size was only 120) study on secularisation in England in 2002, the majority (about 97%) said they thought of themselves as Christian, but not even half of them went to church on a regular basis, few of them had ever read the entire Bible, many had never read any of the Bible. The majority were also pro abortion.
I live in the West Midlands in the UK, I'm pretty damn sure if I asked say 50 people if they knew what intelligent design was, maybe 5-10 of them would have had a clue, and that's only because the city I live in has a large population of university students. If the question didn't include a nice little summary of each theory (in extra plain english) then I'm sure these results are not significant.
Only 22 comments posted and it's already slashdotted? what's the record number of posts for a site to be /.'d?
Only thing I can think that would be a problem... ventilation. For me, I'm a girl on the ground floor so I never leave the window open at night cus I'm scared, but I tell you a small room with no decent ventilation for a few hours... you need some good air freshner :)
You have to explain to people, briefly, why the money is needed and why you should donate. A simple message at the top of every page would help (not guilt trippy stuff like, hey you're using this, pay up).
Advertisements never bother me (apart from the *really* annoying moving ones), but advertisements on Wikipedia would be a bad idea. For example you got funding from say Coca Cola, you put their ad up, but they don't want you telling people how much sugar is in the drink, and they don't want you to link to an anti coke website, etc.
The Wikipedia folks should start their own hosting business, or some other sideline to make money and use the profit to fund wikipedia.
Also, open up a page for users to mass brainstorm fundraiser ideas.
Personally I think that every web page should use small cyan coloured text on a white background :)
For example, a girl in my halls, she was standing outside talking on her phone, three guys came along, hit her in the face, stole the phone. The police turned up literally 5 mins after we called them. They said they could drive around and see if they could see them. We called her phone number and they answered it. If the police could have made a call, found out their general position in a few seconds (not waiting for a warrant), then they could have been caught.
Same as if I was ever kidnapped (I often keep my phone down my bra as well), they could have information on where I was taken, looked at cctv/speed cameras at the certain time where my phone was, to find out what a vehicle or suspect looked like, etc.
If I was accused of a crime it would also be a pretty good (If I could prove I had the phone on me) alibi.
At least I'd feel safer knowing that the police (etc) knew where I (my phone) was. Screw it, just implant a phone in my head.
Maybe it's cus I'm a girl but I'd choose safety over privacy. If you're dead then privacy ain't going to matter too much.
Reminds me of being in school, trying to view the Nottingham Rock City gig guide on their website. Because "Nashville Pussy" were playing at some point, the site was automatically a porn site and was blocked.
Didn't they make a start already? Referring to the article the other day, "Kazaa Blocks Australian Users".