Internet: Information free and payed

Also what I noticed while watching the movie Resolved 2007 was that lots of debaters accessed databases of journals etc. which require subscription fee like EBSCO, Project Muse, Lexis-Nexis etc. to acquire solid material for debate.  Which reminded me of my own search of material at home. Usually I do search information at a PC on my university this grants me (unknowingly) access to most databases of journals the university is subscribed too.  But when I do some late night searching on my home PC, I stumble upon not accessible papers even via Google but more via specialist databases of journals.

I am still not sure if this divide in free and paid knowledge is appropriate for the internet.  I am leaning  towards initatives like arXiv which is based on the open acces movement .

Debating Forms, my 2 cents

I remember participating in a debate where I had to take a position I knew (and everybody else with common sense would know) was wrong.  However setting aside that notion, I started a decent research and armed myself with an abundance of facts and counter-facts. That combined with some slew side stepping of points I couldn’t win and some humor/ridicule I was able to win.  I did feel a little dirty afterwards but also knew that if the opponent had done a little more research and had been a little bit sharper I would have lost. Heres some more debating techniques: http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-propaganda.html

The reason I remembered it was after watching the docu/movie Resolved 2007

In that movie they describe 2 different types of debating

• The classical almost clinical chessform type with clear affirmatives and negatives.  The goal is to win which is determined by amount and strength of arguments/counter arguments.
• The ‘identity-purpose-method’ type or I’d like to call it the pursuit of a solution.  The goal is to learn by understanding the problem and try to solve it using back and forth arguments for both.

In my opinion the first one is suitable for when you are bound to a time frame and you know the question is small enough to resolve within that timeframe. The second one is applicable to larger questions which aren’t that obvious to resolve at glance and require deeper investigation. This will require more time and is less suitable for a timed competition. Basically I see the types as different algorithms to solve a certain question/resolution both provide a good output provided they are used on the right question/resolution.

On a side note, I still find the fast debating style in competitions utterly ridiculous. If we acknowledge that it is a sport and the winner is not always right then it wouldn’t hurt to bring some eloquence and charm back to bring in more spectators.

Procrastination

I had to smile when I saw this, very recognizable.

From www.exocomics.com

Self-Concept and Perception of Others

How do others perceive yourself?
Most likely the image they got is quite different from how you think of yourself to be perceived.

Bad Hairday

So I decided to finally look up how and why hair behaves like that:

The science of hair according to shampoo makers:
http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_toc.htm

After reading that, you might want to turn bold which

• Saves you money on haircuts, shampoo and conditioner, water & electricity (blowdryer) and styling products

• Time to force it into shape in the morning (time being variable since it depends on the type of cut)

But I did get out of it:

• I probably should use conditioner (thought it was just marketing for extra sales)
• Don’t blow dry your hair to boiling levels (due to the water hair contains)
• Hairspray coating is very effective against humidity and heat, keeps your hair in shape

Making the best boardgame

Just in a random flash i remembered that as a child I wanted to make my own boardgame that would be the best boardgame ever. (this was before I had a pc or gameconsole and played a lot of boardgames with my friends) I had all these designs worked out. I wonder if I still have them..

My worst nightmare..

probably would make for a good popcorn flick!

Memorization

Mathemagician Arthur Benjamin on TED

(for squaring its easier to break up: (a+b)^2 = a^2 + 2ab + b^2)

Blindsolving the Cube tips

….another link wich I forgot (oh how ironic)

-work in progress-

Thoughts on Fashion

- Fashion shows: all about exposure of new and or improved designs, goal of fashion shows is basically to bounce of ideas to the public and other designers.

- Fashion can be made anywhere, by anywhom (not just NY, Paris etc.) provided there is sufficient media exposure.

- Fashion can be designed locally, small scale and limited quantities opening up a new level: micro-design shops.

- Current focus on US and European design, larger market opportunities are in Asia (India, China), cultural clothing styles either modernized and/or fusion with other styles.

- You either sell limited editions sets and sell that at exclusive prices (haute couture / bespoke) or make ‘ready to wear’ (prêt-à-porter / off rack)  lines which are mass produced factory clothing of which the style is more evolved around wearability albeit sometimes less durable and fitting because of the use of standard sizes and cheaper materials

Java ME, A mobile Rubik’s Cube Timer

CubeMobile on a Nokia Phone

So here’s my first MIDlet or mobile java mobile edition program for mobile phones.  I wanted to have a Rubik’s Cube scrambler and timer application on my phone so I could cube on the road. It’s very basic and doesn’t include a database with highscores and averages maybe I’ll include that in the future.

You can download the application here (rightclick, /saveas): http://taggle.110mb.com/CubeMobile.jar

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Update 1:  ‘Whoops’

Someone pointed out the scramble function had a flaw (making neutral moves), heres the corrected version:

http://taggle.110mb.com/CubeMobile1.2.jar (right-click, /save as)

Thanks for trying it out, over 900 downloads.  I wrote this program because I couldn’t find one, perhaps by now there are good timers for the phone out there. If so leave a link in the comments!

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