So Much to Learn, Such Little Time

I am writing this blog post at great pain to my time.  As you can see from the title, there is so much to learn, and simply not enough time to learn it all.  In the internet era that we live in, everyone is talking about how to get content onto the  web, and into people’s hands.  However, in this time, we are also seeing a phenomenon that small start ups have been seeing for a while, that is, how to get attention in this mass of conversation.  There have been some ideas posed, such as the good ideas will come to the forefront, and content that meets the zeitgeist of the society will be improved.  However, what I am talking about right now is a little bit different.

I am talking about academia in the internet.  Yes, academia is somewhat competitive, but not in the same way that a start up would be competitive.  Academia will have space for multiple papers, and multiple theses that contradict each other.  Also, academia in a good state, will keep multiple proofs, even if one of them is not as good as others.  However, academia is now feeling the same effects from the internet as start ups felt several years back.

As mentioned in earlier articles, MIT’s OpenCourseWare has been a great resource to learn.  There are syllabuses, readings, and lectures, available for many classes.  Also, iTunes U capitalized on that revolution.  However, the amount of course work that is now on the internet, is rapidly approaching critical mass.  Students have had this problem for years, even before the internet.  They get out of highschool, where there is at most one or two really good classes per period, or they are just given a schedule of what classes to attend.  However, when they go to university, they find themselves with a set of options that appears to be infinite.  If it was true that universities offered an infinite amount of classes, than the internet has found a way to go higher than infinity.  Now, students that are in university, and manage to narrow down what classes they want to take, now have enough resources to learn the material, to the point where they couldn’t do it if they had 42 hour days.  They have their university’s lectures, the course book, online lectures, other books that cover similar content, free online books from reputable sources, online texts from non-reputable sources, and for those that are brave, Freenode’s IRC.  And the choices don’t stop there, those are just the ones that I have found to be useful.

With all of these choices, what is a student to do?  Well, obviously the need to match two things.  They need to do what the professor of their course wants,  for in the end, that professor decides what grade the student gets.  Then the student must learn the material.  For students that can’t read well, or do other things better, can watch or listen to the material.  Not only that, but they are able to pause, rewind, and fast forward as necessary.

In the end, there is just a lot of material to view, a lot of options to be used, and a lot of proofs to be digested.  Because of that, I will now take my leave, and go back to viewing material which I will use for my education.  Have a nice day everyone.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-31

  • Awesome, while looking at the original youtube page (via @internetarchive), I saw the social status: "I'm a male, looking for everyone", the #
  • O'Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales http://bit.ly/6mJ8qh #
  • The Technology Soap Opera: http://ping.fm/YyNHO #
  • Thank you @citrix for supporting #TWiT #
  • Because I want a nexus one…thank you @squarespace for supporting #TWiT #
  • Thank you @audible_com for supporting #TWiT hope to see your #android app soon. #
  • All at once now: Thank you @audible_com, @squarespace, and @citrix for supporting #TWiT #
  • Paypal suspended wikileaks' account, lame. #
  • Nice, now I'm getting spam posing as paypal. #
  • Nice, apparently our car has been broken into…at least nothing seems missing, go figure. #
  • Wow, long day, CS-lab, straight to ECE Lecture, straight to MatLab lecture, lunch, physics, and then 4 hours of coding, and now I should do #
  • Nice, gmail just marked some email from the U as spam. The sad thing, I may have to agree. #
  • Dreamed that I was sleeping in a bundle of java code, it might be a sign…or not. #
  • Amazing, I managed to get my Physics done in a timely fashion. #
  • Tomorrow's the 'big' day, when Apple is supposedly releasing their new, 'holy', tablets…bleh. #
  • I really should rant about something, but it's too late, and I'm too tired…maybe later. #
  • Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further http://ping.fm/JuUKo #
  • CompTIA backs down; past certs remain valid for life http://ping.fm/K8Gq7 #
  • NIce…apparently the apple tablet has been leaked. Most of @Jason's tweets seem to be about it. #
  • Amazing, Steve Jobs forgot to make his tablet: http://ping.fm/9LuNx #
  • Apparently I have the go-ahead (from my mother who was quite angry recently the last time I said something about this) to say that my brothe #
  • @WyzAnt, you got a period in that link, it should be just http://twitter.com/WyzAnt . #
  • Free Linux training to help you get a job http://ping.fm/5i59J #
  • The world must be comming to an end, part of me actually wants the apple tablet. #
  • @Sharky237 It's different to the point where I actually want one. in reply to Sharky237 #
  • @Sharky237 No it's defiantly iPad, it's what's on Apple's site, and in the official developer documentation (curtsy of some good friends). in reply to Sharky237 #
  • @Sharky237 Ya, that is crappy, but it's still amazing…and that's coming from a guy who hates Apple with every fiber in my body. in reply to Sharky237 #
  • Blogger Impressed with Free Legal Research iPhone App http://ping.fm/TxZjm #
  • I can't believe myself, in all of the Apple iPad hype, I forgot the State of the Union Address was today, at least I got the latter half of #
  • Apparently Obama is going to have a Youtube Q&A session next weeK; http://ping.fm/6IYme I see it now: "Obama, cans I has bails outes?" #
  • Okay, in retrospect, maybe the iPad was a really bad name. I do a google video search on it, and get semi-erotic videos in return… #
  • Type erasure in Java is interesting: http://ping.fm/AmMu3 I wonder though, is there anyway to do Pre-processor directives… #
  • The Meme That Will Never Die: Hitler Debunks The iPad http://ping.fm/SnGHd #
  • Hitler responds to the iPad http://ping.fm/MoPd5 the thing though, is that I liked it, although I"m starting to like some other stuff more. #
  • Great news, Google Summer of Code 2010 is on: http://ping.fm/PjNlH #
  • For those of you enjoying classical Newtonian Physics: http://xkcd.com/123/ #
  • Wonderful comparison of the iPad vs. a rock: http://ping.fm/xYnjy #
  • Hackers Donâ??t Tinker Because They Got Invited http://ping.fm/Y3tem #
  • Darn Physics, I can now no longer play video games properly. :( #
  • I like how facebook's live feed is now actually live. #

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The Failure of Modern Tech News

I am amazed. Today, apple released the iPad, a tablet computer that is making me drool, which is amazing because I hate Apple with every fiber in my body. But that is not the amazing thing. In all of the hype, everyone seems to have forgotten that today is the State of the Union address. An interesting world we live in, where we all care about shiny new toys, but we forget about the world we live in. Yes, I know some people are international, however, it is still important to care about national and international politics. Anyway, if you care, you can still catch the tail end of it here.

Update: The BBC broadcast has ended.  If you still wish to watch it, you can get the whole thing here:

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The Technology Soap Opera

If you were to take everything that is happening in the technology world, you could create a soap opera out of it.  My friend, who currently wishes to remain anonymous, recently sent me a letter personifying some of the companies.  I thought that you would enjoy it. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Quest to Archive Micro-Blog Posts

For several blog posts now, I have talked about archiving micro-blog posts. There has been many ways to try to do this, however, I now believe that I have found a good solution. Previously, I have tried to do things such as using Twitter Tool, which will take my weekly tweets from twitter, and post them as a blog post on this blog once a week. However, this doesn’t catch all of my microblog posts. As such, I now have a solution, although it is a bit of a cobble. Introducing Leif Andersen’s Micro Blog Updates . What I do is i use Ping.fm , and I have it synced to my wordpress.com account. Then, whenever I post an item to twitter or Facebook, I do it via ping.fm. Then, a copy of it get’s saved to a blog I have reserved for my micro-blog updates. From there, is is easy to archive it, and keep a copy for future generations. Also, it doesn’t get in the way of my actual blog posts.

Yes, it is a bit of a work around, but it still works for the moment. I like how I also get an RSS feed from this, meaning that I can plug that feed into a widgit on my main blog. However, things about this that I don’t like include the fact that I have to go through ping.fm. I would like it to be able to sync with anything that I post, even if it’s on Facebook or twitter. At least when I put something on ping.fm it goes to Facebook and twitter. Also, the problem of shortlinks still remains. Whenever I share an article, rather than storing the actual link, it shores a short link from the ping.fm servers. Finally, I still am forced to go through Wordpress.com. While I could choose to go through blogger instead, there is no standard wordpress plugin (for non wordpress.com users). Anyway, we’ll see how this works. And if any of you readers have a better idea, I would like to hear about it.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-24

  • @BlenderNation The only problem is that I don't even have the money to do either. :( #
  • I forgot how irotic the first few bits of babylon 5 was. #fail #
  • Okay, that's it, a random barny video get's over 1.5 million views…there's no hope. #
  • I would like to take this moment to express my anger at physics, and how it's not working for me. #
  • http://ping.fm/YT8Yx #
  • Attach of the email…I've gotten 12 in the past 3 hours.. #
  • @BillGates cout << "It's great to have you on!"; in reply to BillGates #
  • @jeffjarvis Android isn't an OS by easter egg, that's something like open moko. It's just that Android has a lot of features. in reply to jeffjarvis #
  • Stop Dreaming About Quitting Your Job and Just Do It http://ping.fm/nhPV2 #
  • @leolaporte I'm a bit out of the loop, what happened? in reply to leolaporte #
  • Final Season Of 'Lost' Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever http://ping.fm/x3HK4 #
  • Joy, I am in trouble. Either my CS teacher and I have incompatible personality types, or at least she just doesn't like people such as myse #
  • Although, my ECE lab was long… #
  • Woo, I managed to get out of CS without thinking I annoyed my professor.. :) #
  • Crap, I missed my 1,000th update. Oh well, I guess I have 10,000 to look forward to! #
  • @leolaporte Someone's happy. in reply to leolaporte #
  • Facebook Snatches Userâ??s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International http://ping.fm/HmkPf #
  • Keeping computers from ending science's reproducibility http://ping.fm/o70b7 #
  • Interesting, the only part of Leo's The Tech Guy, is the conversations he has during the commercials. #
  • Woot, I think I finally got myself narrowed down to two laptops… #

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Bill Gates on Twitter

Hello people, just a quick post today. No paper, no long rant, just a short rant before bed. Bill Gates is now on Twitter and facebook. You can find his feed at: http://twitter.com/BillGates.

I would like to state how I think it’s amazing the amount of followers he has gotten. In all my time on twitter, I have only gotten about 120 followers. He is getting that about every 10 minutes, which is amazing. Even popular people such as Leo, can’t do that without being on the suggested user list. We’ll see if he surpasses 1,000,000 soon.

Update: Scratch that, it’s more like he get’s 100 followers every two minutes.

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User Interface, Blender Vs. Apple

Being a person who enjoys tinkering with tiny mobile devices, one of the largest questions that comes up, especially when talking with iPhone programmers, is interface.  There appears to be two camps in the debate, the Apple, and lesser so Ubuntu or Gnome side of things, these are the people who pride themselves in simplicity, claiming that there is one right way to do things, and that nothing should be cluttered up at all.  The other side is the Blender, or KDE way of thinking.  They claim that there is no right way to do things, and there should be multiple tools to get the same job done.  Also, while they may take pride in the placement of their options, the believe that it is vitally important for the user to have all of the options laid out before him/her.  As such, programs such as Blender look very intimidating to new users, who see all of the buttons, tabs, nobs, and switches.  Some of them may try to flip a few, to no avail, and many just give up, I did anyway, although I did come back to it, and am happy for it.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17

  • just spent 2 hrs. 20 mins. on the bus. #utafail #
  • CB-04:Array Methods http://ff.im/e4VvI #
  • @Sharky237 Wow, you hardly ever say anything, and then 4 tweets in the space of 17 minutes. in reply to Sharky237 #
  • @Pogue Could be worse, you could both have automatic responses, causing your email to die in a spinning fireball of death. in reply to Pogue #
  • Not excited to be in class from 8 to 2, with about 1 hours and 30 minutes of breaks in the middle. :( #
  • @Sharky237 Ya, literally, at this rate you will reach 200 by Thursday. Speaking of which, you should do it by dictation in the car… in reply to Sharky237 #
  • @Sharky237 Oh, and for the record, Google Reader is telling me that you had 13 tweets, not 11. in reply to Sharky237 #
  • Here we go again, back to the grind-mill… #
  • @ginatrapani Really? I don't find that very alarming at all. in reply to ginatrapani #
  • Christmas has come early this year, andrdoid 2.1 SDK is out: http://ping.fm/SgBq4 #
  • Wow, I just got an email from the U saying to spam you all. #
  • has an idea for a start up (finally), now I need to see if I can find anyone else who wants to be a part of it. #
  • Using Google to learn what boyfriends and girlfriends want from each other http://ff.im/eeM2v #
  • Gay Teen Worried He Might Be Christian http://ff.im/ehwUU #
  • Very random, someone apparently found my blog by searching for: a^x = e^xlna #
  • Verizon Wireless to overhaul its phone and data pricing plans http://ff.im/ejBx3 #
  • Apple confirms the tablet in letter to Gawker, but doesn’t http://ff.im/ejCih #
  • Woot, done with physics for the week (well, physics homework anyway). #
  • My sister got her wisdom teeth out, and was fine a few hours later…I'm so jealous. #
  • PDFmyURL turns any site into a PDF http://ping.fm/qRhpg #
  • Copyright Criminals: PBS Documentary on Sampling http://ping.fm/uYJ7U #

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Copyright Law, and Logical Falicies

I got a letter from my university today, concerning copyright law, and the usage of peer to peer software.  Before I begin, I would like to state that I follow copyright law, or at least as much of it as I have read thus far.  However, this letter had some major problems that I would like to take the remainder of this article to point out.  The bulk of the problem stems around two things.

  1. They assumed that using p2p (peer to peer) software is illegal.  It’s not, just like using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is not illegal, even though you can use illegal things with it.
  2. The University of Utah seems to have taken out due process from their policies.

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