Seeing without Seeing

So, I was reading random things online and stumbled upon this little story and it made me think.  Why do we sometimes drive home from work or play basketball or fill out a form and have so little memory of doing it?  Is our memory really that bad?

No, the story that I linked to above shows that when we see familiar pictures, it is almost like the visual center of our brain goes into standby mode and works from previous experience.  In computer terms, it would be like the Windows pre-fetch which puts commonly used files in an area of memory that runs faster so the things you do run faster than things you do more rarely.

My thought was this: If the visual center of our brain does this, is there any other part of our brain that works similarly?  Does a trained basketball player think less when shooting the ball at his home court since he has performed this action so many times before?  Does a racecar driver go faster on a familiar course because he doesn’t have to take so long to think about the dynamics of each corner?

If that is true, it does lend justification to the old adage of practice makes perfect and it provides the reason for people getting better with repetition.  They stop thinking about what they are doing since they already know the cause and effect.

You might be thinking:  Great captain obvious, we already knew that, so what?

If you consider the human mind in that way, then this idea should be used when designing educational systems.  Instead of having a high school basketball court be a smaller size than a professional one, they should all be the same size and use the same rules and as close to the same equipment as the professional ones (if we are to assume that the goal of high school basketball is to educate the players in the sport so that they can work as pro players).

Schools should teach what is current to the industry and accelerate past the basics and on to the practical education of students.  I am not saying that we should just dump students into real world situations and let them sink or swim, but a little more practical realism would go a long way toward preparing our students for the work life that they will follow.

For one, they should get used to the schedule of the adult employed worker.  They should be in school from 8 or 9 AM to 5 or 6 PM (as these are very common work hours) and be given an hour of free time around noon to eat or do work or whatever and an extra 2 15 minutes breaks throughout the day (again common work conditions).

Block schedules should also be implemented to teach students to keep track of their time in a frame of reference longer than 1 day.  In the real work world you might have weekly meetings, daily meetings, Monday-Friday meetings or just about any other combinations.  Classes should reflect this and should be constructed to reflect common workplace activities.  For example, a common practice is a scrum where team members go over what they have worked on and what they will be working on.  This can be done via a home-room system or something similar where you have to go and make some basic communications with an assigned group of peers to establish that concept of being accountable for your work getting done on a more immediate fashion than quarter or semester grades.

I personally think that reorganizing schools to be more like the real world will increase motivation of students and generally yield better results as a lot of the troublemaking that comes from students is a direct cause of lack of stimulation and a busy student won’t have as much time to go get into trouble.

Rigor should also be stressed, although we should not crush students under mountains of work unless it is to show that sometimes projects turn out to have heavy workloads.

I think that we should consider the fact that our students might be on auto-pilot and see what we can do to give them more unexpected stimuli to keep them engaged and increase the value of our educational system.

Book Suggestion: Bio of a Space Tyrant

 

Today, I’m going to start a semi-regular book suggestion series.  I have read many books over the years and while some are very well known there are some really great books out there that many people have not heard about and which are either out of print or not available in you local Borders or Barnes and Nobles (or whatever you may have close to your home).

The first suggestion I make is the Bio of a Space Tyrant series by Piers Anthony. This series was written in the 1980s and is a projection of the world at the time and some events from the last 50 years onto the canvas of the Solar System.  It is told from the point of view of small Hispanic boy who is a refugee and his eventual rise to power over as Tyrant of Jupiter.  This book series does take some liberties with common sense as the main character seems to have a ridiculous amount of luck, but aside from that, the books are very believable and well written.

The 5 books in the series are: Refugee, Mercenary, Politician, Executive and Statesman.  There is a 6th book released in 2001 which tells the story from another character’s point of view, but I consider that to be a companion book, not a book in the series.

You can find these at your local used book shops pretty cheap (I found all 5 for about $7 at Half Price Books, but you may not have the same luck).  I have read that there was a re-printing in the works.  I personally like the original cover art a lot as it really fits the books well, so I did not go looking for the re-printed version, but that is something to consider.

So, there we are, Bio of a Space Tyrant, my pick for a great and widely unknown series of books.

The New Meta-Biological System

These days worry has taken over a lot of people’s lives over the power of corporations.  They seem to gain more rights on a regular basis and can now donate as much as they want to candidates for the highest offices in government.  One might say, based on the record of the past, that a corporation with deep enough pockets can basically buy the government and have it pass the laws it needs to thrive.

Let’s take a step back and think about that last statement.  That statement treats corporations like a living breathing entity and most people would not think of inviting Microsoft or GE over for supper like you would you a friend or family member.

Which brings me to the crux of this entire argument: What constitutes life? If life can be viewed as some sort of carbon based entity that has distinct parts which serve different functions, has intelligence and a certain set of views and opinions based on information it has gathered over its lifetime (which is a really cold, but accurate definition of a human being), then corporations are alive.  Well, the big ones are anyway.

What do I mean by corporations are alive?  They are definitely carbon based.  They individual parts are people and people are carbon based so by simple transience corporations are carbon based.  There is also the constant talk of a corporation’s carbon footprint.  Most of the other carbon based life forms on this planet expel carbon as a bi-product, and so do corporations.

Large corporations have many divisions, each of which are super-specialized and which perform specific functions. This of the amount of specialization of HR or IT or janitorial services.  They cannot be switched out to perform can other’s jobs any more than a liver can pump blood or a spleen can take in oxygen and push it to the bloodstream.  If we consider each department of a corporation as an internal organ of a living being, then corporations are quite complex lifeforms.

Corporations also possess intelligence.  Now, some may argue that the intelligence comes from the individuals who work for the corporation, and that if the “bright boys” who come up with ideas and who manage corporations (note that “bright boys” is an old expression, not a comment on gender) were to leave then the intelligence would also be gone.  That is true, but some serious head trauma could probably render Albert Einstein into Forrest Gump.  So, if one perceives the intelligence of a person as coming from the arrangement of their synapses and the intelligence of a corporation from the arrangement of persons into teams, then the parallel is undeniable.

Finally, we come to opinions.  People have opinions.  Jeff Gordon is the best NASCAR driver, no Dale Earnhart Jr. is, NASCAR sucks. Obama is going to save the world, no wait, we’re all going to be communists, he’s the anti-christ.  I have heard these views expressed by people I know over the last few days and they serve as vivid examples of how varied the opinions of lifeforms can be on very specific subjects.

Certain corporations put environmental friendliness above all else, some pollute as much as needed and care only for profits, others yet do what they can while protecting their bottom line.  These seem like opinions to me.  Corporations learn from studies of other corporations, government laws and regulations and from personal experience.  This is similar to the concept of learning that individuals use and as such I think we can assume that corporations gain knowledge and form opinions just like all other lifeforms (they are just more efficient than the average NFL fan or literature buff).

Where does this leave us?  Have we created life?  Are corporations the next evolution of life in the universe?  Will we all just become numbered cells performing a menial task in the great machines that we have created?  Let’s stay away from the melodrama, but it does make one think.

This thought experiment does bring up an interesting idea.  In the past people were anchors and businesses were transient.  We come and go, we start businesses and they succeed or close.  But not anymore, businesses have now become too big to fail (or so we are told).  Corporations wield influence over congressmen and governors and hey maybe even presidents (I have no way of knowing one way or another).

I foresee a future where governments become less important than corporations and where governments exist to prop up and help corporations. 

This is not a bad thing or harmful, corporations, just like all living things do best when they take care of their parts.  If you have a cancerous lung, you get it removed, but if you don’t smoke in the first place, maybe you don’t get cancer in the first place.  In the same way, a car brand owned by a big car manufacturer might need to be shut down, but it would be best for the manufacturer if they manage the brand better so they can have more products to sell to a larger variety of people. 

We worry about corporations wringing us dry, but the truth is that those corporations end up shutting down since their customer base has been wrung dry.  The truly successful corporations find a price point where the consumers can continue to buy without ruining themselves (repeat business is the key to success today as in the past).

I for one welcome our corporate overlords and look forward to the day when I can work my way up to the synapse center of the corporate body (you know the part of the corporate body that receives the most resources like the brain does in the human body). I suggest that we all take a good hard look around us and not cling to old ideas more than we need to.  The future can never be stopped, it can only be fought fruitlessly. The Greeks learned this, the Romans learned this, the Byzantines learned this, the Han learned this.  But they all learned it through failure.  We should learn before failure comes and claims us like barbarians and revolutionaries raping and pillaging.

Why Healthcare Costs So Much

Medical costs are outrageous because people don't understand the concept of insurance. Let me break it down for you:
Insurance is at its core a pool.

Lots of people put money in and a few take money out. After all the people who needed to take money out have done so, what is left goes to the person offering the insurance and that's what they pay their employees and stock holders out of (think of it as their net revenue).
The problem with health insurance is that basically everyone needs to take some money out all of the time, which means that if the service was offered at the costs we had in the past, there would not be enough money to go around.

So, the insurance companies raise the cost of the service to make sure that there is enough money in the pool for all of the users and also enough left over afterwards for their own salaries and profit margins (which is why they offer the service in the first place, profit is not evil, it is what makes people offer goods and services).
The problem is that as it is structured now, preventative care costs money, so people don't use it. They prefer to just let their health slide and use the pool when they really need it. The problem with that is simply that if you were to add up the cost of the preventative care, it would not be as high as the cost of the emergency care. So, we should make preventative care cheaper or free (maybe not free, free always ends up with some fat chick beyond stomped to death in a Wal-Mart over some complementary toaster that comes with a TV).

The problem is that the insurance companies do not do anything to reward people for going to the doctor to get checked up or maintaining a higher level of health. They penalize the fat people. So, they use negative reinforcement instead of positive reinforcement. Unfortunately, insurance rates are not a "switch" and the American people are not toddlers, so negative reinforcement will not work here (I do advocate corporal punishement for young children where reason might not work).

What this bill should have done is encourage preventative care. Provide free preventative care to the really poor and they don't need to come in for heart surgery as often (I'm pretty sure you can have 1000 GP visits for the cost of every 1 open heart surgery).

Anyway, I just wanted to explain my thoughts on insurance.  If you share them or disagree, leave me a comment and we can discuss this further.

More Random Bullshit From Illinois

So, I am looking around on Facebook and an old grade school friend posted this story:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/03/impatient-driver-accused-of-trying-to-hit-cop-at-gas-pump-northlake-cook-county-sheriff-sams-club.html

Please, go read it.

Have you read it? If not, go read it.

Seriously, it’s a doozy.

So, this guy is angry because the police office didn’t move his car fast enough.  First off, there’s no time limit on a gas pump.  If you want to fill up and then go browse the energy drink section for 2 hours, you are free to do so. 

Second of all, the article states that there were 24 pumps at the station.  Go find another pump.

Third, the guy showed the offender his badge.  That’s code for do this again and you get arrested.

I hope they lock this guy up and throw away the key.  That kind of stupidity needs to be punished, harshly.

Final Fantasy XIII Review

So, Final Fantasy XIII came out last week.  I have been playing it and while I have not finished it yet (I have this thing called a life), I wanted to wait until I got at least 10-20 hours in before posting a review.

Here are my thoughts on the game:

Well, it is streamlined.  Very, very streamlined.  You basically have a frantic combat system that reminds of a stance system in an MMO and long corridors that you walk down between boss fights.

There are no towns as far as I can tell.  You get access to shops and crafting from save points.  Crafting is limited to pouring junk type items into your weapons and accessory items to give them experience and level them up.  You can disable old equipment to get high level junk.

The characters level up in basically the same way that we were doing it in Osiris originally where we had different constellations for each character and you had to put points into each constellation to power it up.  Some of the stats are shared (like HP) but most is abilities.  When you switch stance, you switch your constellation and you gain all of the abilities for that constellation.  Like I said stats stack (so, if you put points into HP across all constellations, you turn into a tank).

The stance switch is preset in a menu since you switch stances for your whole party.  You basically get to set up combinations you think are good ahead of time and you switch to the one you think is right in combat.  There is no limit on switches and switching accelerates your active time gauge (so you do it the entire time).

You only get to control the main character in the party, although you do eventually get to pick your party and who you control.  The AI is very good and picks attacks and abilities quickly and very effectively, so you don't have to mess about with each character's individual attacks.  You also get to do more attacks each turn, so the pace of combat is very fast.

The bosses rock as you have to really be quick with the stances and think about their moves and plan stuff out, but you do it in real time.  That sounds bad, but you get to retry if you lose and that basically puts you right before the fight so you can change party members/equipment or level up some more before trying again.  This is really well done and it doesn't feel like punishment for losing (really well implemented feature).

The story is your typical anime bullshit with racist undertones and "mystery" which is all very formulaic.  But it does feel pretty fresh and the setting is kind of neat.  The best part about it is the lack of technobabble or random MgGuffins as far as I can tell.  The characters don't wonder at every little fucking thing, because they live in that world and I like that.

Dialogue is well recorded, but poorly written.  And I swear, one of the girl characters sounds like she's fucking the whole time.  Plus, the one black guy sounds like a blaksploitation character.  I am waiting for him to call someone a jive turkey or a honky.

Music is good, but nothing stick like the classic stuff.  It is all high quality, but like I said not memorable.

Graphics are holy shit, just god fucking damn amazing.  I mean, just wow.  I have never, ever, ever seen anything like this before.  The CG stuff is barely discernable from the game and that's a compliment.  The game just looks sharp.  There's a few stretched textures here and there in dark corners, but the characters are amazing, the enemies are amazing and the sheer amount of particles and solid and animated effects are mind staggering.

Overall, it is a good game.  Does it have the replay value of a Chrono Trigger or FFVII or even FFX?  No, there's no minigames, no card battle, no blitzball, just combat and that's unfortunate.  I will give this game an 80% and most of it goes to production value and polish (if this was a car, it would a solid gold, chrome plated Mary Kay Pink Cadillac).  Yeah, its not practical and you can't exactly drive around in it, but it is definitely a thing to behold.

 

Gameplay: 75%

Graphics: 100%

Sound: 85%

Control: 95%

Story: 60%

Character Design: 65%

Google to Exit China

A new article from MSNBC states that Google’s vaunted content filtering software seems to be leaking like a broken collander.  In a personal test, both information about Tibet’s history (from Western sources) and Tiananmen Square returned meaningful results on www.google.cn

The same article also mentions the projected effects of Google’s predicted pullout from China on China’s economy and IT development ecosystem.

My personal take on the issue is: If a company is not willing to work within the laws of a country and the country is not willing to change the laws to work with the company, then a split is inevitable.  Logically, if neither side is willing to compromise on the issue at hand, then a relationship is not feasible.

From a moral standpoint, the idea that Google pulling out will put a lot of people in China out of job is a sticking point.  However, if Google is willing to give up revenue (however much or little revenue it might be) in order to stick to its morals, then that is their choice to make.  Just as no one can keep you as an individual from standing on the corner and handing out your money to passerby, no country can force a company to not do something that will hurt its bottom line.  Is it unfortunate that people will be put out of a job?  Sure.  Does that matter in business? No.  Should it matter in business? Absolutely not, businesses are moral-less entities and as such people’s employment does not affect a business.  It might affect individual people, but not businesses as a whole.

Overall, I am firmly against censorship so I am firmly on Google’s side on this issue.  If they don’t want to follow the law, then they should leave.  Otherwise they would be breaking the law and could be fined (or maybe even jailed although the logistics of that are kind of tough) for breaking the law.  If the Chinese government does not want to allow free flow of information, then they should not get access to the services provided by Google.