Democratizing Education

Here's an article from the WSJ last week discussing how many major universities are now putting many of their course online, for free. These course are commonly referred to as OpenCourseWare.

Per the WSJ:
Following the lead of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other highly competitive schools, more institutions are posting online everything from lecture notes to sample tests, and even making audio and video files of actual lectures publicly available. The sites attract anywhere from thousands to more than one million unique visitors each month.
MIT's pioneering "OpenCourseWare" program, which was launched in 2003, posts the syllabus and class notes for more than 1,500 courses online for anyone who wants them. By this November, it aims to publish materials from virtually all 1,800 of its courses across all its schools.

I think this is absolutely fantastic. I have always thought, and often remarked that one can get just as good of an education at a local public library as at any renowned institution - just with a little more will and determination. Now with OpenCourseWare, there is no need even to go to the library. You can take classes on line, for free. In fact, I know many people that are enrolled in schools where they don't usually go to class, but rather read the PowerPoint and web lectures which are e-mailed to them by their professors. The only difference between them and what you can do with this OpenCourseWare is that they are paying a small fortune, and you don't have to. Obviously taking an OpenCourseWare class is not exactly like attending the school, and you get no recognized credit for your work, but you are able to absorb the exact same knowledge and information as the privileged students at these renowned institutions. I say, terrific.

I have been to several of the websites, cited in the article, and below are links to the two which I find most user-friendly:

This is pretty neat...

turbid \TUR-bid\, adjective:

1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear; -- used of liquids of any kind.
2. Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.
3. Disturbed; confused; disordered.

Although both are found in the same waters, black crappies usually prefer clearer, quieter water, while white crappies flourish in warmer, siltier and more turbid water.
-- Tim Eisele, "Crappie Facts", Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), May 8, 1998

Happy Valentine's Day

Read about this history of Valentine's Day, here.

Also, here is a nice Wikipedia article covering Valentine's Day.

Google World Domination?

Mr. Orwell, you may be Correct

This article brings to mind ideas eerily similar to the Thought Police in George Orwell's epic dystopian novel, 1984. Per the article:

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act.

The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.

Read the full article, here.

Pyrrhic victory \PIR-ik\, noun:

A victory achieved at great or excessive cost; a ruinous victory.

Technically it was a victory for the British, who attacked the patriot fortifications -- but a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was: out of 2,200 British soldiers 1,034 were killed or wounded, including one in nine of all the officers the British lost in the whole war.
-- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "A Revolutionary Itinerary", The Atlantic, April 2001

The Amen Break

This is a rather long (about 18 minutes) video explaining the Amen break. The Amen Break is an influential and oft-heard drum loop. It is 5.20 seconds long and consists of 4 bars of the drum-solo sampled from the song "Amen, Brother" as performed by the 1960s funk and soul group, The Winstons.



You can read more about it here.

The collective water from people flushing toilets at halftime of the Superbowl has led the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department to ask citizens to stagger their bathrooms usage during halftime, so as to relieve stress on the city's sewer system. Here's the story.

Bill Gates on Daily Show

This is a nice little interview with Bill Gates discussing today's release of Windows Vista.



and here is a nice demonstration of Vista Aero at work:

This afternoon I went to Quiznos for lunch with a friend of mine. As we were about to eat our sandwiches, my friend realized that the lady only put two meatballs on his meatball sub. So he brought the sandwich back to the counter, and had them make another with an adequate amount of meatballs. The lady at the counter did, and told him just to throw the first sandwich away.

So, my question, is whether it would be wrong not to throw away the first sandwich, but instead to eat it, and then eat the second one as well - of course having only paid for one meatball sub.

What would be wrong with eating both sandwiches instead of throwing the first one away? Whatever happens to the first sandwich has no impact on Quiznos. They have to make an additional sandwich at zero cost, regardless of whether the first sandwich is eaten or throw away.

It would be wrong had my friend falsely complained about his sandwich, so that he could get a second one, and eat both. However, his complaint was genuine. As a result, I don't see a problem with the first sandwich being eaten as opposed to being trashed.

As for what my friend did - He ate half of it and threw half away.

The official estimate is that the Feb. 4 game and the surrounding festivities will give the region a $400 million boost. But some economists who study the game's monetary impact say that's a pie-in-the-sky estimate, that the actual amount is one-tenth of that.

"If you move that $400 million estimate and you move the decimal point one place to the left you're much closer to what it is that it actually provides," said Robert Baade, an economics professor at Lake Forest College in Chicago who has looked at the financial impact of Super Bowls, Olympics and World Series

Read the rest of the article here.

Here we have an interesting article discussing the connection between the damage to a small section of the brain and addiction to tobacco. A man in this article damaged his insula as the result of a stroke, and consequently has lost all desire to smoke cigarettes.

Stephen Colbert trys to explain AT&T's very convoluted ownership.



Yes, Colbert is hilarious mocking this complex corporate structure, but the truth is, it is absolutely ridiculous. Of the 24 Bell Companies which spun off AT&T in 1984, at the government's request, 11 are now back under AT&T's ownership. Here is symplified diagram, outlining the mergers that brought together the current AT&T.


Read more about AT&T and its merging here and here.

?

The question mark was first used, in its present form, in 16th-century England. It is a simplification of an abbreviation in which an uppercase Q stood atop a lowercase o, representing the Latin word quaestio, "I search for."

Fixing Gays?

Here's a fascinating article discussing the prospect of curing homosexuality. Scientists are attempting to change the hormonal balance in the brains of "homosexual" sheep, so that they might be more inclined to mate with members of the opposite sex.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

According to the article, gay rights groups seem to be up in arms about these tests, which are being conducted at Oregon State University. However, I cannot see why people would be upset at eliminating a defect in humans which precludes propagation.

Quote of the Day

Boy, what ever you is
And where ever you is,
Don’t be what you ain’t,
Because when you is
What you ain’t, you isn’t.

Uncle Remus

Word of the Day

uxorious \uk-SOR-ee-us; ug-ZOR-\, adjective:
Excessively fond of or submissive to a wife.

It is batty to suppose that the most uxorious of husbands will stop his wife's excessive shopping if an excessive shopper she has always been.
- Angela Huth, "All you need is love", Daily Telegraph, April 24, 1998

Flagler seems to have been an uxorious, domestic man, who liked the comfort and companionship of a wife at his side.
-- Michael Browning, "Whitehall at 100", Palm Beach Post, February 22, 2002