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 Now online (3)Roger Wilco steve mcqueen belb ...and 353 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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i haven't worked for a year now and im having a real nice time really. but that's just me probably, i don't really need much to enjoy myself. |
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how do you eat?! |
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well, i get some money for writing a review here and there or some other music related stuff. |
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Yeah really, how do you eat and dress yourself? |
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and besides that there's a limit on how much you can bring in w/o a degree because you just can't get into a position w/o the aforementioned orginization skills and general knowledge you get at universities. sure you can still make a lot of money w/o one but prolly at some shit job that drives you towards the insane assylum with all the stress they're payin for you to eat. with a degree you can get into a proffesion that hardly seems like work to you at all because it's something you enjoy. where as you already "paid your dues" so to speak, by puttin in all the time effort and energy at school. |
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i bought some pants, t-shirts and stuff like that some 5 years ago.. |
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What do you do for a living EVOL? |
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hehe |
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Different people have different desires. Some people want lots of money, others are fine with little. I don't think it's stupid to go to university just to make more money afterwards though. I think most people go to university for this reason. Of course you don't even need to go in the first place and you can still make lots of money, be happy, etc. |
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of course I know that, and sadly that is indeed how the world works. i'm 26 and just started my first semster at "college", which i must do in order to transfer to a university and complete my masters. I don't know how old you are tolstoyed but i used to live the same way as you. in fact, i still have to, being a student and all. but the reason i started school again is because i came to the realization that if i want to live comfortably into retirement age, i better take advantage of the oppurtunity needed to land the kushy job with the phat benefits package. and even if the world takes a shit on us, i would rather spend my time in a classroom with a pen and paper expanding my consciousness than in some type of meaningless slave labor. |
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i think its good to go to university because you can learn about something you are interested in and have a better chance of working with something you are interested in, and its fun, and you could well earn more money than if you didnt. If your personal situation does not include some of these benefits, i.e. youre not really interested/it wont help you with work/you dont enjoy it, then its not as attractive an option for you. |
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i work full time at a gym as a personal trainer (32+ hrs/wk) and i got to school full time (5 classes=16 units) majoring in kinesiology with a minor in psychology. |
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yeah, sure, but the idea of going to school just because of the benefits you'll get after is crazy. i don't get that, i really don't. you'll spend your whole life doing this you study for, and if your objective is money you will probably study what pays best in the end meaning you'll be working your whole life in a field you're not even interested in but it pays good. dunno, just not my way of thinking. |
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well it took me all those years to figure out what i was really passionate about. if i wanted money i would get a buisness degree or a law degree or any other degree than kinesiology! but i want to be an athletic trainer so i can travel with a proffesional sports team and keep people, including myself, healthy. that way i'll feel i've made a difference in people's lives. your body is your temple i believe. what are you gonna do when you hit 30, 40 or even 50 & 60? |
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hopefully something i enjoy. which is what i do now actually. also, i have 4 years of university behind me but i never worked in field i studied for because i couldn't care less about it. i was too young when i decided for it and now im sorry, but im rather doing nothing than working some well paid job i don't care about. |
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i'd love to chat with you more on this subject but speaking of which i must now go to class, music appreciation ya know. :) |
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The hardest part is finding your passion and skill. I think. The answers are not all at university, either. The real world is not the university. All the kids in college always think about life as a ten point plan. Like its all going to fall in place just the way they think. lol. |
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hmm.. but it's different in america, though, right? 'cause I've gotten the idea that over there, college is like university for those people who never grew up and still want to be on the football team and have secret clubs with their friends. |
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that's exactly what i did and thought. only i switched to the alpha studies (art, literature, history, language, wtf is the english term?) |
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yeh thats what i assume its like in america too. all wanking whilst lying in coffins in front of large groups of other boys. GO AMERICA! |
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here college is the thing when you are 16-18, non-compulsory, and you get a qualification, and then go to university, or not. I think in america college = university, I think you go from high school to university. im always a bit confused about this though |
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im done with college 4ever btw (finished) |
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university |
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Yes, College here traditionally means "sixth form college" for 16-18 year olds to do A-level/BTec/City and Guilds at. I think we've probably started using the term college to cover Higher Education institutions (Universities) partly through Americanisation and partly because of a blurring of the lines between to two. For example, my university offers city and guilds and btecs (as well as "proper" degrees) and likewise, a local college that is twinned with them that is primarily used for 6th form, also runs some half a dozen full degrees there. I have a lot of colleges and universities as clients and it's quite confusing because bits of what I do changes based on whether they're FE (6th form) or HE (Uni). 5 years ago it was rare to have exceptions, now it's commonplace and when I ask a client which they are, they often can't give a simple answer. The capacity of Colleges has also generally gone up; I have some sixth form colleges that have 10,000-15,000 students on the books. That's a lot more than small universities. I think the American's use of "College" may come from their "Community College" which is a bit like our "University for Thickos" polytechnics were. I believe a lot of their red brick instititutions call themselves universities, although I agree, in speech at least, the terms seem fairly interchangeable. |
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I thought that too, till I got my results through. Now I'm finishing a Masters. I thought that was the end, but it's increasingly looking like I might do a doctorate in a few years time. |
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impressive im not interested in that though college was just fun and a slip to get into a decent job writing more than a post is too strenuous for me i do look for forward to keep studying small courses for my job when working. a music production course and maybe a cooking course are also on my wanting-to-do-list |
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i dont know if there's a proper english term for alpha/beta sciences at all. our beta stuff could be called 'exact science', not sure about the rest. soft science? social sciences? oh well. didnt you graduate in history? what did you do before switching? |
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human sciences perhaps? We call them humaniora. |
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Yes, that's one down side of my studying "properly" part time; I don't have much time to do nightclasses. I did a mechanical one (fixing motorbikes) and loved it and would really like to do a car one now, but sadly just don't have the time. Once my Masters is in the bag (I'd need this for my doctorate anyway) I'm going to do a Maths A Level. I think once I have that, I'll do a fun one I'd like to go back to doing either lathe work or welding/brasing. As is often the case, these things end up being useful skills anyway (fixing things, machineing your own components for bikes), even if it's in day to day life rather than your job. If I could live forever (well, not "forever ever", but say, 1000 years), the main thing I'd like wouldn't be the wealth you could accrue, but more the way you could get really good at so many things. |
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JAroen: that's correct, cultural history starting from the french revolution to be exact i did civil engineering in delft and among other stuff i thought it was too dumb following templates for calculations where do you do your theoretical chemistry, in Utrecht? Social studies are what we call the gamma studies. Drunken Mastah: humaniora is the term i use in English, and nobody knows. Also the dutch wiki gave a different meaning to it. I now see a correct term is The Humanities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities We all should strive to be a homo universalis like Ceri JC btw |
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what are you studying again? also, did you see I answered your question earlier? |
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"I study the humanities." it sounds sort of weird... |
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america has excellent universities and shitloads of people from around the world attending them, too. Anyway, Colleges in America I think are usually smaller. Maybe their libraries are much smaller and maybe they have fewer students. Less funding. Im not sure when you switch over to University, but it has to do with size I gather. It doesn't have to do with quality, though. Some Colleges cost a fortune to go to. The one in my town is 40k a year. |
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you're weird |
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Information Security and Computer Crime (changed from IS & Corporate Intelligence). I'm quite interested in the legal aspect moreso than the technical these days. I have more interest in the way machines and people relate/mesh, rather than the internals of the machines themselves (which is starting to get a bit boring TBH). If I don't find the security side of things interesting enough, I'll probably get a law qualification and specialise in computer law. Ideally a lawyer in computer crime cases, or if that's too long/expensive to do, become and expert witness. I'm also interested in the nature of true randomness and may do my doctorate around that (should I do one). I did see your answer to the question. Ta for that. I found the idea of different types of philosophers being used for different sorts of roles interesting: Would you say that to do a job suited to a given philosophy, you need to believe that philosophy, or merely understand it/be able to follow it within the context of your job? big: There's an intro to a science fiction book (I forget which one) which talks about how our increased specialisation is a growing weakness in the human race. It goes along the lines of, "Every man needs to be able to reprogram a computer, comfort the dying, cook a three course meal, use a gun, put a broken limb in plaster, dig a trench and build a wall. Specialisation is for insects." It's a mentality I agree with wholeheartedly. Having a basic understanding of things even helps when paying someone else to do something for you; you can explain what you want done better and also see when they're trying to rip you off. There was one instance when a garage wanted to charge me £100+ for fixing something. I knew enough to know what they were suggesting was not neccessary and pointed out that it could be fixed a particular way far quicker/cheaper and it'd actually be superior to the more expensive way. They immediately agreed and did it for £25. 4 years on and the repair was still holding up fine. |
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*hugs biggiesmartypants* any new tunes, btw? |
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true randomness, as in not computer calculated randomness then? I wouldn't say you'd have to believe something to be able to apply it to work, it's just probably very boring if you don't. I couldn't stand doing a job where I had to check the logical consistency of someone's public announcements or being involved in a study of the mind where they insisted that you have to talk about the brain to talk about the mind or something. |
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:) well some, noting postable really |
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Yes, my particular interest is in developing something small and affordable (currently they are very expensive) that would connect to a compute and provide truly random numbers, rather than the pseudorandom ones that we get currently. It all stems back to a discussion (well, argument) I had with a maths teacher at school. He didn't grasp the idea that rolling a die isn't truly random. His "proof" of this was asking me which number would come up on the die before he threw it and me not being able to guess it. I pointed out that the die could come up on 6 every other time and I'd still only be able to guess it with 50% accuracy. I'm constantly suprised by how many otherwise well educated people can't make the distinction between truly random and pseudorandom (although I concede that past a point, for many practical uses, pseudorandom is effectivey the same). There are also considerations such as truly random events need to be ones that being observed alters their outcome. Where exactly does one draw this line? Throwing a die isn't truly random, yet your presence as an observer (minutely) affects the result of the throw, due to your body's gravity. I'm writing a mock research proposal on it at the moment (the proposal is what I'm being marked on, not the randomness) and am coming across more and more interesting stuff. There are practical applications such as cryptography, but the whole thing is more an incremental revision/improvement, rather than the big leap I'd like to come across. |
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Hmm.. so have you got any idea how you'd do this? I'm guessing it limits itself to truly random numbers and not just truly random.. anything..? (a computer probably wouldn't be able to make sense out of it). I'd say that your body's gravity affecting the dice isn't something that makes it less random; your presence is as random as anything else's presence. If randomness is not being affected by anything, you're never going to be able to achieve it, as the thing itself would affect itself. Another thing is that you most likely won't get randomness that goes against the laws of physics (though it is theoretically conceivable) or anything, so randomness is invariably restricted to a certain "frame." Can you clarify why dice aren't random, btw? |
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hmm.. I only just realised the difference between the english words constricted and restricted. Interesting. |
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Left Brain study pays. |
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Dice aren't random because: a) No die exists that has a perfectly equal chance of landing on any side- all dice, due to manufacturing flaws, slightly denser material on one side, more ink used to display a 6 than a 1 etc. are effectively "loaded". Specialist ones used in casinos are of a higher quality and this effect is dramatically reduced, but it's still present. Even if it was possible one day to make a truly perfect one, it's highly unlikely after it had been thrown 100 times that it would still be perfect (each time die is thrown they sustain slight damage) b) The way they are thrown; if you made a lottery ball type machine that churned it round dozens of times (of course, this no. would need to be random too!) then threw it out, that'd be a lot better than throwing it by hand. With throwing it by hand, you can learn to get a given number about 50% of the time if you "throw it" by just drop it sidewards from your hand, rather than throwing it "properly". This is why shakers are usually used for dice games involving money, or you are required to throw them a long way/against a wall, etc. You not being able to reliably/consistantly predict the outcome doesn't mean something is random. Even having a 0.000001% advantage means it's not "random". I know this sounds like semantics, but there is a distinction between the two. There's pseudorandomness, which is a sliding scale (and at one end it's predictable, at the other, it's almost as good as truly random). Then there's truly random, which is an absolute; IE, it is 100% perfectly random and knowing the previous billion numbers and having infinite processing power won't give you even a minute advantage in guessing the next number. For example, lets say you record a die being thrown 6,000,000 times and 1,010,000 of those times it comes up with a '1'. It's not struly random because by choosing 1 as your number, you have a greater than 1 in 6 chance of being right (even though the chance is only slight). |
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On the subject of dice throwing, I'm convinced you could make a highly accurate mechanical robot arm that could throw a given high quality dice a particular way that looked like it was throwing it randomly, but it actually got a significantly greater than 1 in 6 chance of the throw it needed for a given situation, say it got a '6' 25% of the time it needed one. (could be a fun joint project with a robotics Phd student!). Only quantum events can be truly random (this adheres to the laws of physics). |
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Good stuff Ceri, I was thinking of doing my masters as well. Eventually I want to do it, probably not any time soon though! |
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Only quantum events can be truly random (this adheres to the laws of physics). bollocks. willing to fight this statement with a passion. take a bouncing ball, fire it into a rotating chamber, five collisions with the walls and here's your randomness from a macroscopic system. if you really want to do it the fancy way, feed the rotation and launch velocity from a random source like currents in a stirred water tank, notoriously unpredictable too. do you recall laplace's demon? adding uncertainties would definately get you something truly random. |
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i just realised the outcome velocities of the ball after a couple of collisions would follow a certain probability function, making it shady for use in cryptography. but maybe you could normalise that. i just believe that real-life events can be truly random too. |
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but you end up with a concept of randomness that is so perfect you'll never get there; all things are infinitely imperfect, infinitely escaping precise measurement, and an attempt to measure perfect randomness is most likely doomed to fail (how will you know if it isn't affected by anything?). If you're going to take this beyond a theoretical stage, you're going to have to lower your demands. To me, the infinite imperfectness of things is a prerequisite of randomness, not a hindrance to it, and that's what prevents a computer from generating random numbers; mathematical functions aren't a thing, as such, and as a system to itself it is perfect, but applying it to the world with more than approximately satisfying accuracy is impossible, and at the same time, because mathematics is perfect, it doesn't have any random property within it which makes true generation of random numbers impossible by any other means than by somehow using the real world as the basis of something. However, at once the world is quantified with numbers it is no longer the world, but rather a part of mathematics. |
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I got a job with an electronics company a few years ago as a trainee. It meant for 1 day a week I went to college (not uni) and learnt about electronics, engineering, maths,etc. When I finished that 2 year course I requested to do a part time degree. My company agreed, so 1 day a week I go to university and do my electronics degree. I get work experience and learn things uni could NEVER teach me at work. At university I have much more drive than the other students, because I've seen where a degree can get you and I know what sort of job I could get, once qualified. A lot of my friends do a degree because they did alright at school and don't know what to do, so they go to university. A lot of the people on my course have no real interest in the subject. I've wanted to do electronics since about the age of 5 or 6, I think a lot of them just want a well paid job, hahahaha, should have done law or something else! Basically, university is great if you know what you want to do. Otherwise it is just a waste. I know people who have done things like Chemistry just because it looks good and proves they are clever, so they can get a job somewhere. They don't want to do chemistry, they just want a job somewhere, they have no idea what and no aspirations, just want good pay. My pay is unlikely to ever be as good as theirs, and my job is not as certain as a paper pusher in an office, yet in many ways I will be richer than they will ever be. My cousing is a plasterer. He had no idea what to do, but I'm glad he didn't waste 3 years doing a media studies or whatever degree and getting a 3rd. He is learning a trade, earning a wage and doing something useful with his life. I don't care what people do, as long as it's what they want to do, not a way of delaying the inevitable. I do think there are too many people at university. The government policy is ultimately at fault here. A degree is not necessarily analogous with sucess. |
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I don't think I entirely agree with your notion of randomness. When you say: For example, lets say you record a die being thrown 6,000,000 times and 1,010,000 of those times it comes up with a '1'. It's not struly random because by choosing 1 as your number, you have a greater than 1 in 6 chance of being right (even though the chance is only slight). and next: Only quantum events can be truly random (this adheres to the laws of physics). Lets say I make a dice program for which the outcome of the "throw" is based on quantum events. Or, in other words, it's just as random as quantum events are. If I let the program throw 6.000.000 times, there's always a chance that 1.010.000 times the program comes up with a "1". Perhaps you'd reason otherwise. But if that program is truly random, and I would have the time to repeat the 6.000.000 throws, I eventually will get a sequence of 6 million with 1.010.000 times a "1" as outcome. If it's truly random, each sequence of 6 million has the same chance of popping out of my program. And from all sequences, a substantial number would have 1.010.000 "1"s as outcome. OK, lets say I'll rewrite the program. But this time I figure I'll have to make 6.000.000 throws and the chance of any number to come out has to be 1/6th. Because I'm so incredibly clever I'll tell the program to repeat the following sequence: 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,3 ...and so on. When I'm ready I'd call you to come and test again. After 6.000.000 throws each side had exactly 1/6 chance of coming up. Seems random, or not? After a couple of throws you already recognized the pattern, of course. And you could perfectly predict what my program would came up with after 6.000.000 throws. Now it's time for you to be clever and to point out that there can't be any pattern in the sequence. So, in other words, the sequence of outcomes itself must be random (you've probably heard of Kolmogorov). True, but what is the result? What i think the result |
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