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http://sivers.org/thor
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
> http://sivers.org/thor
the guy sure had a good argument. huh, I'm automatically assuming the atheist
is a male, why?... :P
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://sivers.org/thor
It makes a good ancillary point: If you need to do a significant amount of
research work in order to get some information (eg. go to a library and
browse books for hours or even days), you are usually more likely to defend
that information more assertively and strongly than if you simply looked up
the info in 5 minutes on the internet. The amount of work spent on getting
some information could indeed correlate to how strongly you feel that all
that work would be "wasted" if you don't defend the veracity of the
information.
--
- Warp
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Hmm, yes, "we live in an age where it's *so easy* to learn".
Unfortunately, right after you learn it, you have to question the
validity of the source...
(On the first hand again, almost everything I look up is math or
science-based. If you look up an equation, it's usually pretty easy to
find out whether it works or not!)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Sat, 08 May 2010 15:50:08 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Unfortunately, right after you learn it, you have to question the
> validity of the source...
Actually, the people who learn the best do this all the time, regardless
of the source....
Jim
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>> Unfortunately, right after you learn it, you have to question the
>> validity of the source...
>
> Actually, the people who learn the best do this all the time, regardless
> of the source....
Sure. But if you read something in a book, there is a high probability
that it has some basis in fact. If you read something off da intertubes,
it could be utter nonesense.
Of course, today even books can't always be considered reliable. The
last book I read was called Darwin's Black Box...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Sure. But if you read something in a book, there is a high probability
> that it has some basis in fact.
Depends on the book, I think. Scholastic textbook? Maybe.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> Sure. But if you read something in a book, there is a high probability
>> that it has some basis in fact.
>
> Depends on the book, I think.
Why yes, yes it does. When I was at uni, we did an entire 3-hour lecture
session on this very question.
Unfortunately, *I* was doing a computing degree, where almost anything
in any published book is out of date a very long time before the book
has even been printed. But I guess if you were doing a history degree,
that session might have been useful.
Of course, hypothetically you can apply the same analysis to online
material, but... honestly? Take a wild guess.
Anyway, I said *probability*, not certainty. ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Unfortunately, *I* was doing a computing degree, where almost anything
> in any published book is out of date a very long time before the book
> has even been printed.
That doesn't mean it's wrong. That just means it's out of date.
I was referring more like fiction books, religious books, etc.
I ran across on my bookshelf a college textbook (copyright 1974) named
something like "Mathematics of Computer Graphics." All the math was still
spot-on, but it was amusing to look at (for example) a bank of
potentiometers labeled "typical graphical input device", and a teletype
shown as "low cost graphics output" next to an ASCII art sine wave.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>> Unfortunately, *I* was doing a computing degree, where almost anything
>> in any published book is out of date a very long time before the book
>> has even been printed.
>
> That doesn't mean it's wrong. That just means it's out of date.
True. Well, unless it says "this is the way this problem is typically
solved". Read any book on 3D computer graphics and it will tell you
about the Painter's Algorithm and god knows what else, when today
everybody just uses a depth buffer. (That hypothetical solution that
gets mentioned in one sentence and then skipped over because it
obviously requires an absurd amount of RAM to implement.)
> I was referring more like fiction books, religious books, etc.
Yeah. Like I said, I read Darwin's Black Box, there some guy claims that
since the molecular biology of the cell is really complicated, this
*proves* that it was designed by an intelligent being, and this is a
really exciting scientific discovery that we should all be looking into.
And I'm sitting there reading this book thinking "OMG, WTF???!"
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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