Underlore - Latest Comments

Re: Anti Virus Community Creates False Positives For Fun and Profit

innomen — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:52:23 -0000

That's interesting, looking for a way to trigger it. I always assumed it was a master list of keygens, I expect them to see slots on such a list under the table to companies irrationally terrified of piracy, but it could of course be procedural as you suggest.

If we can find a provable reproducible false positive heuristic attempting to police pirated software by deception, as I believe they do, I think the online community would like to hear about it.

Thanx robbied, please do comment back here about your results.

Re: Anti Virus Community Creates False Positives For Fun and Profit

robbied — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:12:30 -0000

I found myself last night watching a slew of recorded content while I spent the evening doing my quarterly system cleanup and re-organization, you know rid the documents you had good intentions of writing and never did, those documents cluttering the desktop that you promised yourself you would get to later and never did...BAM...up comes MSE with a severe threat warning and I thought that's weird because I regularly scan not only my system but also my network drives.

I have always given software whether it be video editing, conversion tool or an OS a test drive and some software just does not offer it and I have been burned in the past. I'm not willing to have my converted audio have an "audiomark" or my video or images to have a permanent "watermark" so yes I to utilize "preview" versions however I end up buying the software or donate it if the software meets my needs.

So back to the BAM, it's identified a KeyGen as the problem, ok possibly but then I thought I should check some others and sure enough same or similar threat warnings. So I quarantined and deleted the folders as I already have the software with key, but then I thought well hold up here how convenient the MSE has identified a keygen app as problematic. Not saying it is not possible but what is the likelihood that 3 different AV and malware detectors miss it? So each family members computer runs a different AV product and malware and I have the drives shared so that overnight when the scans are performed I get a once over from a different set of eyes in the hope that if one misses the other or the other will get it.

I definitely don't appreciate this if it is a scare tactic and like this discussion has unveiled it appears to be just that. When it comes to software and paying for it I have no issues with that, however I do have issues if I have to pay 700 dollars to use Word as part of a suite and you know what I won't. Most of the world's population cannot afford 700 dollars, most cannot afford it at all and yes the developers who put their blood, sweat and tears into the development of the software should be paid and paid fairly however I beg to ask the question, should I be paying for their high end cars, homeS and lavish lifestyle? That's another argument.

I have some tests planned about these keygens if I can find any, what if I just create a "keygen.exe" file empty...this should be interesting.

Great read...cheers.

Re: Censored at Stumbleupon

innomen — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:52:18 -0000

Eh, given what SU is doing to itself these days it seems they spared me a great loss. Kind of like getting kicked off the titanic.

I appreciate the compliment. Your blog is looking good. I love that theme. I hope more people that knew me run across the post, I had no way of telling my hundreds of followers what happened. And since SU hid my page, those that did find out had little way of contacting me. Indeed, SU doesn't even alert you if you send a page directly to a banned account. So I'm sure I've missed hundreds of shares over the months. Occasionally I even get emails still when people share with their entire list. So I know my material is still in there, as are my lists.

Rather underhanded and childish I think to keep the product of my years of reviews and promotion but to silently remove me.

I contemplated suing for my content back, but I knew it would be outdated by the end either way, and basically I'd just lose time and money. Further, without integration into the SU system the reviews would be largely out of context anyway.

I've gotten a lot more done since I didn't have SU to consume time and content. I didn't quite realize how much work I was doing for them. All in all being kicked was a very good thing, and I truly regret sharing SU with all the people that I did.

Re: Censored at Stumbleupon

SketchSepahi — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:40:54 -0000

Hello, my old friend. Sorry to hear about the censorship against you. Despite our little spat way back I still think of you as one of - if not the - most awesome stumblers. Nobody contacted me, but I found this blogpost just now because you linked to me. (I some times Google links and mentions of me when I'm bored.) I've thumbed up this post and "discovered" your other post about being banned. ( http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=14... ) Hope you're well.

Regards,
Sketch

Re: Herby Fuzzback Spiderton III Photoshoot

innomen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:19:22 -0000

Well it is kinda scary all up close but I assure you he was pretty tame and relaxed compared to other light speed spiders I've found in my house.

I found it in my bedroom after my cat alerted me to it's presence. He swatted it once and it shrugged it off. I moved him away fearing a painful bite and then captured it with a cup and a piece of paper. I could actually detect it's weight, which amazed me. I moved it to an unused aquarium and got some scale photos, and then took him outside for some more photos and release.

I'm too ignorant of spiders and insects to responsibly keep him. Any attempt on my part would almost certainly equate to a slow execution :/

I'll tell the story of my photos from now on thank to your suggestion :)

Re: Herby Fuzzback Spiderton III Photoshoot

Notyourgina — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:55:38 -0000

Hun, this spider is crazy scary to me. But I have a few question, did you just find it in your house, is it in your house, is it a pet of your's? I think it would help to if you added some information about the pictures.

Re: Disruptive Technologies: What can I do?

Spot — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:41:16 -0000

are you even american liliana? im pissed. i want answers. this shit is not going to fly. the idea that im going to "help" city hall or congress and "help" them get their stuff in order is a pipe dream, stupid and ungrounded in practicality. we are human beings, and you can only piss only 300 million people so much before they come for you, and yes, they will, come for you.... examples you ask? how about the senate murdering ceaser in the middle of session... America is the new Rome? Roman Senators killed their own co-worker because of disagreement on economic policy?.....

Re: Advice to the government: My position on the fiscal situation.

innomen — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:58:15 -0000

I believe you are referring to this article. http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=21... Which is indeed republished with permission from the link you gave. Feel free to duplicate your quote there, and if you do and would like I can delete this comment once that is done.

Re: Advice to the government: My position on the fiscal situation.

Zhawq — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:08:52 -0000

I just found this article here. I left a comment expressing how impressed I am, I truly think this author has hit on some of the most central issues related to the discussion about psychopaths and psychopathy, the nature of the psychopath 'problem' and the problems associated with how it is being approached and dealt with.

I salute you on re-publishing this great piece of work!

.....

Edit & Addit(ion)... Was I just redirected to a different page? I've tried to go back to the page here at Underlore where I just saw the article I'm referring to above. I don't know what went wrong, but apparently it isn't there anymore. My apologies. - I'll leave this comment in case it sparks an interest with the readers.

The title of the original article:
Another Thorn in the Death Penalty's Side: The Ethics of Executing the (Neurobio) Eccentric
And again, the Link.

Re: Anti Virus Community Creates False Positives For Fun and Profit

innomen — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:18:23 -0000

I'm glad you found it useful. Indeed, your comment is accurate. Broken intellectual property law has given rise to broken software "development." Patent trolls and litigation wars are only the most obvious consequences. The more subtle and thus possibly more dangerous effects are expressed as a systemic "attitude" for lack of a better word, which leads to actions described above.

The solution is simple, but not easy; Intelligent Intellectual property law reform. http://motherboard.tv/2011/4/2...

The software "pirates" are ignoring the law because it is broken and obviously corrupt. Anyone who knows anything about the subject and isn't bought off has roughly the same opinion. Not to mention the millions who daily ignore it.

It's a bit like drug prohibition opinion. The crowd can be usefully divided into groups, the ignorant, the corrupt, and the reformers. You're pretty much either being paid, being deceived, or being fleeced.

Re: Anti Virus Community Creates False Positives For Fun and Profit

Harry — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:14:58 -0000

Very nice and interesting article.
I really enjoyed reading it.
Software companies do anything to make more profit, even by lying.

Re: Bad Boys

abj — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:03:45 -0000

Well done ! Let's be sure we remember that the 3 men listed are probably at the top of all of our lists (mine included) but the writers are the ones to be applauded... the characters they play are the ones we lust over. Are the writers the real ladies men ?

Re: How to deal with out of control law enforcement.

innomen — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:28:41 -0000

The answer those that know you seek is an answer they don't want to hear. Perhaps even one you don't want to face. Because each of us to one degree or another has internalized our culture. We ARE Americans. And this actually means something to us.

The answer is that the entire system, not just parts of it, is wrong. I'm tempted to say "broken" but that implies a possible fix, or that it worked at some past point. But when you look at a culture if it ever fails from within, or as a result of it's own choices, it was never working. This standard has to be applied in order that cultures can evolve because they are immortal and must evolve directly.

The smartest cultures make adaptation a part of the culture. As ours did, in theory. But a look at our history shows that helping the people was never the point of our culture, helping the rich was, protecting property rights was the entire point. Washington himself was the richest man in the colonies prior to the revolution. And the revolt was overtly about taxes, not oppression. The populist rhetoric was just a tool used to guide the local mob such that they would stand between them and england's musket fire. ISBN: 0060528370 In particular explore the interplay between, and history of, the bill of rights, the constitution, the articles of confederation, and the federalists.

Re: How to deal with out of control law enforcement.

JacquelyneCullen — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 07:41:33 -0000

http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=21... It's only gotten worse. :( Those that know me keep saying "I can understand one mishap or one rogue cop, but how does this happen to someone, someone that never goes anywhere, only helps every person she knows, how can so many things go wrong with the system for that one person?" I don't have an answer. I don't have a fix for my problems, and I don't have the $4,000 necessary to retain attorneys in two different states. I'm going at this on my own. My poor son. He was so well-adjusted a few months ago.

Re: How to deal with out of control law enforcement.

innomen — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:20:17 -0000

Thank you for sharing your story here as well. I wish I could be more helpful. Always.

But so long as people with stories like your find ways to tell them, the chance for change is real.

Maybe you could look into helping the innocence project in some way? Since they deal with he most extreme versions of your problem, lives harmed or even ended by a justice system gone completely screw loose. I'm sure there are others who want to hear your story, and can learn from it. I certainly did. Thanks again for sharing it.

Re: How to deal with out of control law enforcement.

JacquelyneCullen — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:11:58 -0000

I've had a hellacious year with law enforcement and our "justice" system. First I was charged with assault, harassment, and public drunkenness when I was assaulted inside my home last year. (The trooper's explanation of such was to charge us both and let the judge decide.) Yes, I had had a couple martinis earlier that evening (clearly not expecting a fight in my home later), but I never left my house. I dealt with the financial and time burdens of appearing in court multiple times this year over those charges. The DA did eventually drop the misdemeanor in August, leaving only the two summary charges (and by doing so denied my right to jury trial which had already been scheduled). I was unable to make an appearance in September (due to car trouble and the four hour trip to that state) but had informed my attorney, and was never threatened penalty but was instead told he'd either get a continuance or proceed without me if one was denied.

It did not go that way. Instead a bench warrant (and an extradition order) were ordered, yes on summary charges that carried no possibility of jail time even if I would be convicted. Although I was working diligently to communicate with the courts, at 2am on September 23rd, multiple cars of sheriffs arrived at my home and took me into custody. I wasn't extradited to the other state until October 3rd and wasn't released until October 6th when I was finally able to see the PA judge. I spent 13 days in jail, listed as a "felony fugitive of justice", placed on a pre-sentenced felony pod in a regional jail all because of car trouble on summary charges that I never should've been charged with in the first place.

Now, I have a custody hearing November 1st because my son's father filed a petition for custody claiming I am a criminal with a history of incarceration now. (My assailant, because she pleaded guilty to her charges, was given only a couple hundred dollar fine.)

People do have that mentality: "You must have been doing something, you were arrested." How do I explain this entire convoluted story to a judge in custody court and not sound like I'm just a criminal unwilling to show remorse for his/her crimes? That is indeed the mentality of most people when they hear someone say they were wronged by the "justice" system. I'm beside myself over the issue. Thus, your post was important to me today.

Re: How college is at odds with technology.

innomen — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:22:32 -0000

To those in my life who would talk me out of my personal choice to abandon formal education:

It seems I might have given the wrong impression. I am not quitting because of frustration or anything so transient. I've completed 3 years of college (my not having a degree already because of the combination of classes I've taken not fitting any prefabricated degree path is a whole other rant that is superseded by these arguments), I was body president of my school. I'm quite positive I could be re-elected if I so chose. You are right I could indeed pass the class if I wanted to. But that's just it... I do not want to. And my reasoning, because it is deeply personal in origin, forgiven the egotism, is flawless.

I am not an anti-intellectual, first and foremost. The accumulation of knowledge and training in critical thinking is vital for the growth of any mind. And in so far as education promotes these things, and equips the mind with the tools need to indulge curiosity and explore reality as it wants to be explored, "education" has infinite value. My beef is with formal education based largely on the notion that cheating exists. A concept which undermines the very fabric of cooperation and collaboration, and psychologically distances us from each other by implying at every turn that while we may have fellow students, in the end they are the enemy and sharing with them or helping them is illegal and personally disastrous.

You see my beef isn't primarily that I don't have the tools, but that I can't share the tools I've created. I can not form a culture of information sharing in a setting which is fundamentally opposed by definition to sharing in and of itself. In effect, college is by definition closed source.

The title of this post is how college is at odds with (read, opposed to) technology. Now, technology is basically my religion. Technology and the automation of effort are as important to me and humanity's future as diversity itself. It is not a trivial thing of toys and games for me. It is the very destiny of mankind. Realizing it (formal education) is fundamentally opposed to technology by definition thanks to the formality itself, places me in fundamental opposition with it. Axiomatically. I take it on faith ultimately that humanity will properly use technology on the whole. This makes me a fanatic in many ways and though my subsequent reasoning is subject to evidence and possible logical attack, the base premise is not.

Had I realized these things prior to going I would have still gone for the same reasons I initially went. Grant money and a workstudy position. However, the underlying purpose of college was a secondary factor. I did believe formal education had value. Now that grant money is insufficient and workstudy is no longer available for personal reasons, the secondary because the primary, and this essay annihilates the new primary.

Well some may say it can be changed, fixed. Firstly, I tried. My experience as both SGA President and student representative to the faulty staff senate for the entire kctcs college system (having been elected by all the other SGA presidents), I can say unequivocally, there is no fixing it via cumulative improvements at the individual scale. But more importantly, a total fix is not possible because to do so would annihilate it by definition as formal education. My core problem is put simply one of classism and luddism. Without them we'd had an education system which embraces technology and has no classism.

But there's a problem with that, do you know what you'd call a college that embraces technology and has no classism?

The Internet.

Thank you though, your concern is appreciated. :)

Re: Disruptive Technologies: What can I do?

innomen — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 01:04:37 -0000

The fact is the absence of choice improves happiness thanks to cognitive dissonance making it easier to change attitudes than actions, and post purchase rationalization and other biases making us justify previous choices, thus, the fact over looked by all "end is nigh" armchair revolutionaries predicting the imminent revolt which they of course do not intent to start, is that the worse things get the less likely we are to revolt because we're happier and because we're more easily misdirected under conditions of suffering and stress.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_g...

It's called impact bias, and virtually every protestor evaluating political futures is afflicted by it.

It's also radically ethnocentric since obviously all of us believe there are people in other countries who are far more oppressed, and yet we make excuses for why they will never revolt while we are only moments away from one. As if they are cowards, and we are not, they are helpless, we are not, they are ignorant, we are not. None of that is of course true. They are just used to it, happy with it, finding excuses to do nothing, setting the limits further out. My dad calls it "frogging" in reference to slow change being tolerable to the point of death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B....

Each of us have a line in our heads that when crossed by those in power would cause us to revolt, what most of us fail to realize is that this line moves in direct response to the level of oppression we suffer. That kind of thinking was selected for by early cultures to preserve social cohesion, and critically, those that were not successful at breeding this into their populations were annihilated by adjacent populations or were so isolated that their actions from a global perspective didn't matter.

So few would be rebels understand the nature of rebellion. Aaron nailed it, people by and large "can't tell the difference between civil disobedience, anarchy and street theater."

Protest doesn't harm the system, it reaffirms it. All the suits must do is point to the protests and say "See, the system is working, they have their say." It's like in The Life of David Gale (tt0289992), a last minute save doesn't hurt the death penalty it helps it, because it proves the system works.

In terms of recent history I have merely to point at the Bush years for my proof that Americans will never revolt on principal alone. Revolt is only possible when entire swathes of lower class life plans become completely, lethally, impossible. (Dust bowl.) Short of the food supply drying up all at once, nothing will trigger open revolt because basically each individual says to themselves, "well it could be worse" or "when everyone else picks up a rifle, I will." Classic common good problem. No one wants to be at the front of the mob.

You absolutely can keep making life worse and expect them to take it sitting down, in fact they are more likely to fight to protect it if properly motivated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Go read a people's history of the United States by Howard Zinn, and look at the kind of draconian crap Americans will accept and have accepted. Look at Quang Duc to see what the prepared human mind is capable of tolerating in silence.

I'm telling you, history tells you, the ONLY thing that changes things is technology or nature. Ice ages or integrated circuits. Nothing more.

Simply ask yourself what actions must they take before you personally will risk your life your property your family and pick up a rifle, and once picked up, who exactly do you think you can shoot that will actually change things?

If I snapped my fingers right now and all of the enemy died, they would be instantly replaced because they are merely opportunists, systemic symptoms. If revolt improved governments, Africa would not be an AIDS riddled warzone in quite so many places.

Again, I'm telling you. Technology is the only viable solution. The game must be changed.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_a...

Your choices are not your own.

Re: Disruptive Technologies: What can I do?

innomen — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:35:24 -0000

The only realistic long term answer. The game must be changed and it simply can't be changed as yet without demanding unrealistic sacrifice utterly dependent on simultaneous action. Like say everyone all at once striking. That would never happen because if we had that kind of unity we wouldn't need government in the first place to manage common good problems and settle disputes.

99% of so called political solutions assume a level of persuasion that simply isn't possible. Like rifles, if votes and protests solved problems we would be out of problems by now. :P

Now, by all means, if you feel the need to speak out non violently, do it. But it might also help to face the fact that that alone will accomplish no qualitative change.

All social movements ostensibly borne on the shoulders of protest are actually just tipping points created by technological change impacting economics along demographic lines.

Example: The cotton gin forced slavery to last as long as it did in the United States, not southern racism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Example: The industrial revolution virtually ending monarchy in the west as a real from of government.
http://industrialrevolution.se...

Hypothetical Example: Arab spring was most likely the result of communications technology reaching a certain price point allowing sufficient market penetration to allow an already disenfranchised populace to organize in real time.

Technology is as it always has been the true agent of social change.

Re: GnuCash for Accounting Class: Trick or Test?

innomen — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:17:41 -0000

http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=21... the next one

Re: How college is at odds with technology.

innomen — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:23:33 -0000

Rick Otten: "The underlore article eschews the values of hard work and revels in the joys of ignorance. Ignorance is not a virtue. Luddites are not equivalent to ignorants (although certainly some can be). I work at the cutting edge of technology (data engineer at a social networking startup), I love no-tech crafts (stone carving, artisan bread baking), both sides have some valid points. "Ignorance is bliss because someone else will do it for me" is just wrong."

It is frankly depressing how unskilled at rational debate you are given your former social position as an educator.

My responses are as follows.

"eschews the values of hard work"

I think by "hard" you mean redundant busy work. By definition wasting time is an invaluable use of time. Pointless and redundant activity is still pointless and redundant, regardless of its difficulty.

Should we make our construction experts move earth via teaspoon as well? Perhaps we should outlaw the mop and require the use of toothbrushes in their stead?

"revels in the joys of ignorance"

The whole point of the article is how formal education cultivates ignorance. You conflate (as I explain in the essay) education with intellectual merit, in this case cognizance (the opposite of ignorance, in this context.)

I can hardly think of a better way to cultivate ignorance than to forcibly associate in the minds of children, a repetitive worthless and annoying waste of time with the trappings of research.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_r...

"Luddites are not equivalent to ignorants..."

So you admit to being dogmatically opposed to technology? You know there was another math fan of that stripe, he was rather famous, wrote a manifesto that I bet you would strongly agree with, got famous via the mail.

"I love no-tech crafts (stone carving, artisan bread baking), both sides have some valid points."

Absolutely. But forcing a whole generation of children to take up your hobby or suffer social and economic catastrophe, if not physical, catastrophe is hardly the reasonable middle way.

As Conrad said in the video you didn't watch. "And this is not a small problem by any means. I estimated that, just today across the world, we spent about 106 average world lifetimes teaching people how to calculate by hand. That's an amazing amount of human endeavor. So we better be damn sure -- and by the way, they didn't even have fun doing it, most of them. So we better be damn sure that we know why we're doing that and it has a real purpose."

That's basically the core of my point. We don't have this time to waste.

"Ignorance is bliss because someone else will do it for me"

Strawman again, I never said anything even approaching that, and again you conflate formal education with intellect.

Do you even know the history of formal education?

Re: Jobs, and the Grand Compromise.

innomen — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:54:06 -0000

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_p...

Re: How college is at odds with technology.

innomen — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:20:37 -0000

Phil Smith, in response to Phil Sergent's support for my essay (thanks Dad :), had the following to say. My response is as usual aimed at the general ideas and not the individual presenter. Since he was speaking on facebook and didn't reply here, I have to present both sides. Here is his comment in it's entirety, and my responses.

"Phil, as someone with experience in both fields (Accounting & Technology) , I have to disagree with the author's statements. Accountants are constantly asked to analyze and document a variety of situations that are unique to a given situation or client. They cannot expect to simply 'find' a spreadsheet that someone else has created and validated, and then just use it. This over reliance on extracting information/tools/programs from the internet instead of LEARNING the skills necessary to do it oneself is a growing trend in education today...one that is as great a threat to the world of higher education as any presented by instructors with unreasonable demands."

Here begins my responses:

My general reply is that you did not actually refute anything I said. I'm however happy to counter the things you've said.

"...as someone with experience in both fields..."

...you are twice as likely to be bias and unable to see the situation objectively. You ave invested a huge amount of time and money into the things which I am presenting as nearly if not totally obsolete. Post purchase rationalization would seem likely to apply, if not Stockholm syndrome. :)

"Accountants are constantly asked to analyze and document a variety of situations that are unique to a given situation or client."

Prove that. Give me one example of a truly unique accounting situation that has happened in the past 20 years.

I'm quite sure I can find an equivalent situation in history that would have called for the exact same calculation.

And even if you can find one or two unique examples, the argument would remain that learning by rote and rejecting technology is far inferior would supersede it because my way of doing things would lead to faster better answers to Any novel problem.

The current methodology to its foundation is growing obsolete. We ignore that at our peril. A level of cultural danger whose shadow is already upon us.

"They cannot expect to simply 'find' a spreadsheet that someone else has created and validated, and then just use it."

Self fulfilling prophecy. The only reason they can't expect it is because of the actions I expressed which artificially limit technological options. The professionals don't want such access because it would threaten the value and existence of CPAs, and educators don't want such for the reasons I laid out, basically that they consider any form of tool cheating.

"This over reliance on extracting information/tools/programs from the internet instead of LEARNING the skills necessary to do it oneself is a growing trend in education today..."

I can refute that tired old cliche in thousands of ways. Let's start with how arbitrary it is. Let's carry that demand to it's logical conclusion.

If I were to reset the surface of the earth to its condition prior to the arrival of human beings and place you naked and alone into the middle of it (somewhere temperate of course, though that is a gift on my part since much of the surface of the planet would be immediately lethal to most humans), would you be able to duplicate your surroundings in their entirety?

Put another way, is it reasonable to demand that any human be capable of walking into a forest naked and walking (or driving) out with a personal computer? Of course not.

Such things are the result of collective cultural effort depending heavily on individual specialization that precludes the possibility of anything approaching the level of general education implicit in your demand and demands like it.

The demand that everyone learn the "basic" skills to do X (arbitrarily selected) activity to Y (arbitrarily selected) level of expertise, absent Z (arbitrarily selected) technological aids and prior arts, is untenable in the face of a reality which includes, among other counters, such facts as exponential information growth and the limits of the unmodified human mind.

And that is only one of the possible directions I can attack from.

http://www.ted.com/talks/conra...

Virtually every argument presented by Mr. Wolfram in this presentation applies since accounting is by definition a mathematical discipline.

Culture renders humanity for the purposes of interaction with the material world a single entity. That accumulation is only possible because of the ability to store and recall information in an external way giving individuals the opportunity to exist (and thus specialize in other critical areas) without it.

Every argument you could lay against me in this context could be laid against writing itself. You and others making these arguments fail to realize that "looking it up in the book" was the previous generations "Googling it" it's just that Google is qualitatively more efficient. Higher education stands in opposition to the growing ease of access because it wishes to perpetuate a system which would never have even been invented had such ease of informational access been possible.

The Internet is obviating current forms of education.

I'm a high school drop out, but pick a subject, and thanks to the mental growth I've achieved as a result of early exposure to the Internet, my embrace of technology, and simple human curiosity, there is a good chance I can discuss it intelligently.

By any practical objective measure I am an educated person, I simply lack the funds to purchase my secret decoder ring. This is going to be the reality for future generations whether we like it or not. The individual will soon not have the time to devote two thirds of their life to formal education.

"...one that is as great a threat to the world of higher education as any presented by instructors with unreasonable demands."

Exactly. Look at what the Internet is. It is the essence of the library based education Zappa was talking about in the quote I gave at the end of my essay. That is the reason we have the phrase "formal education" because education is not to be conflated with the apparatus of degree provision. Formal education is not equivalent to either knowledgeability or intelligence. Giving a stone an honorary PHD doesn't render it in any way intellectually superior to adjacent stones. This fact need to be squarely faced.

A degree is a product. And college sells degrees. Not intelligence, not knowledge. Sure they often go together, simple exposure to prior art is usually sufficient for interested persons to absorb the data and put it to use. And for a long time brick and mortar libraries and their ivy league offshoots where the only way to comb through the accumulated data of human knowledge. But no more.

That's all a university degree program is. An organized exposure to previously recorded information coupled with a testing regimen that we hope accurately shows the degree to which that knowledge has transferred. That point alone is extremely arguable since the validity of standardized testing is far from proven, indeed we can't even agree on how to define intelligence, much less measure it, much less prove formal education imparts it, or prove such provision is even possible.

http://talentdevelop.com/artic...
https://secure.wikimedia.org/w...

The whole concept of a generalist collective education was developed to serve the needs of industrial era factory owners, and is fading from usefulness, because of the exponential nature of information and the extreme specialization required of its populace by human culture simply to survive in the face of exponential population growth amidst finite resources, much less prosperity in the long term.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

The demand that higher education as you put it continue to exist in perpetuity (which is implied by the expression that higher education is "in danger" and presumably in need of saving) is dogmatic, and ironically just the attitude you would expect from a hyper-specialist with no real concept of the purpose of the larger machine into which he has been ruthlessly adapted to fit.

I'm reminded of the phrase "too big to fail." I'm of the opinion that we should allow useless things to fade from existence if the price of keeping them is too high or support for them is not ethically required.

Higher education is a massive waste in its current form. From both the individual perspective and the cultural one. Its service is basically about artificially delaying by the fabrication of scarcity the effects of what amounts to freely available eminently practical education. Not imparting knowledge.

The fact is that as a society gets better about making information available, the value of a person who has information (and things conflated with the possession of information, such as college degrees) grows smaller.

The very concept of higher education is going to be rendered obsolete sooner or later and the first large scale industrial society which shakes this rat from off it's neck while replacing it's function properly will gain a tremendous advantage. But such concepts simply will not be considered by those in power because of the level of change and devaluation, of what amounts to an aristocracy, implied.

The base principals you speak of are important of course, I don't want human society to degenerate into helpless babies amazed by the magic picture box tended by perfect machine nannies either. But the argument that higher education is what prevents this is indefensible. In short the data in question needs to be backed up, but requiring every citizen to memorize it is completely unreasonable. Look at the man hour cost of current education and contrast it with its practical uselessness.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_r...

As the man said, looked at objectively the purpose of education is to produce university professors, and little else. Culture is going to need a radically different approach if it expects to survive for any appreciable time into the coming future.

We need to be taught how to learn, not taught directly.

http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=55...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Thank you Mr. Smith for your comments, they enabled me to elucidate my position far more clearly. :)

Re: How college is at odds with technology.

Jayn Sargent — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:59:24 -0000

Excellent points made here. Education has lost its ability to educate. How sad and pointless that is.

Re: How college is at odds with technology.

Phil Sergent — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:08:30 -0000

BRAVO!!! HEAR! HEAR! May the Masses be FORCED to read this article BEFORE they spend even another PENNY on this ROAD BLOCK to a Career!!!
"We the People..." need to vote with our Dollars and let these CON
ARTISTS know we're sick and tired of the BS it takes to get a BS!!!