Bomber og Granater!

SAdebatt: sosiale medier og demokratiet

2011-09-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

Stavanger Aftenblad og Universitetet i Stavanger arrangerer debatt på studenthuset Folken en gang i måneden. I dag var det snakk om sosiale medier og hvilken innvirkning det kan ha på demokratiet, og jeg har selvsagt løsningene på alle verdens problemer her i bloggen.

Først en kommentar på Sven Egil Omdal forsvar av journalistene. Han nevner hvordan The Guardian blant annet la ut reiseregningene til regjeringsmedlemmene (eller hva det var), og lot folk selv finne feil og grums i den. Poenget hans her er at selv om det er folk i massene som finner grumset, så er det journalistene som i bunn og grunn legger listene klar sånn at folket kan lese dem. På deres nettsider. Og journalistene må jo ha lønn.

Men det er vel strengt tatt ikke journalister som gjør dette? Listen er nok riktignok hentet av journalister, men så er den omgjort til et leselig format av dataprogrammerere og lagt ut på nettsiden deres, laget av nettutviklere. Altså, her er alt en journalist gjør å finne selve listen - og det er jo ikke noe banebrytende vanskelig i seg selv. Her er det ikke i hovedsak de som forfatter som har filtrerings- og manipulasjonsmakt, men derimot de som utvikler platformene. Ikke alene, selvsagt. Kanskje er til og med noen av utviklerne også er journalister, men de er ikke tradisjonelle journalister. På grunn av forskjellene mellom disse to rollene, journalist og dataprogrammerer, blir det derfor ikke riktig å si at det er journalister som ligger til grunn i en presentasjon av data, og at det er journalister som fortjener æren.

Disse platformutviklerne står derimot for en rekke problemstillinger som ikke kom helt frem i debatten. Nå skal ikke bare redaktørhusene bestemmer hva som skal diskuteres, men også hvor, og hvordan. Og selv om kontrollen over "hva" ser ut til å minskes betraktelig, vil fortsatt deres kontroll over hvor og hvordan gjøre at de til en viss grad også får manipulasjonsmakt over hva som diskuteres også. Å utvikle platform for offentlig diskusjon gjør at man har kontroll over sensur, over tekstlengde, "feeds", algoritmer (hva skal vises, på hvilke kriterier) og innlogging. De kan gjøre det for innviklet for et segment av befolkningen, eller de kan gjøre det vanskelig for nye syn/partier å etablere seg, for eksempel.

Det er her diskusjonen og debatten bør være. Staten bør ikke involvere seg i hva man skal skrive og ikke skrive, eller hva man skal mene og ikke mene. Ei heller ansette folk til å skrive meninger for folket. Men det de kan og bør gjøre, er å være med på å lage platformer hvor folket selv kan få delta i den offentlige debatten på en lettest og mest mulig rettferdig måte selv. Hvor vi i høyere grad blir kvitt skrikingen og spammingen som er i dagens nettaviser.

Ellers vil jeg si jeg er helt enig i mye av kritikken som kommer fra menn på begge sider, og litt enig med damen i midten. Debatten i dag var mye bedre enn sist gang, og håper at dette er noe som fortsetter.

Tjohei! #sadebatt

Maps over Victoria & Vancouver from the late 1800's

2011-09-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

After starting history studies at the University of Stavanger, I have been wanting to write a post about these two nice maps I found.

Victoria BC, 1889

The first one is from Victoria BC, 1889, where I lived for a year. Douglas street, which the main street is called now, is easily spotted as the main street today just as in this map. At that time, Victoria worked as a commercial centre for the whole region, with focus on gold and minerals from a gold rush in the area, as well as logging. in 1886, however, the railroad from eastern Canada to Vancouver finished, and Vancouver took over most of transportation and trade from mines and forests. Victoria then went on to quiet down, and have a more laid back and cozy image. Victoria in 1891 had almost 17.000 innhabitans, and has grown more or less steady up to today's 80.000. Greater Victoria is a bit bigger, with 330.000 innhabitans.

Vancouver 1898

The other map is from 1898, a map over Vancouver. This map is amazing, as it shows how new the city really is. It's taken 14 years after the railroad came, so the impact has just about started to show. From 1891 to 1901, the city grew from about 14000 to 26000 people. I can imagine most of them coming later rather than sooner. But then growth took speed: from 1901 to 1911 the city went on to pass the 100.000 innhabitans mark, and was now already a big city. From then, it's grown to be one of the most modern and richest cities in the world, with over 600.000 people. Greater Vancouver has a staggering population of 2.1 million - much because of big urban sprawl in the areas around the city. Also note on the map that roads are already laid out and planned; they knew a big city would rise.

Manitoba government bans bottled water. (This message is brought to you by Coca Cola)

2011-06-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

I walk past the vending machines and feel the urge for something to drink. After a quick gaze on the products, I decide to be healthy and buy a bottle of water, and avoid the coke this time.

Luckily, I don't live in Manitoba.

Manitoba decided this week to ban sales of bottled water in their offices in the whole provence. There have been many campaigns across Canada on bottled water - and I even wrote a blogpost about one during my studies in Victoria.

The thing I think they miss, is that bottled water doesn't compete against tap water. They compete against Coke.

The vending machine usually consist of 4 types of drinks: Pop, Diet Pop, Water and Bubble Water.

Of these, water is by far the healthiest alternative.

Pop is, as we know, about 50% water mixed up with an unhealthy mixture of sugar, caffeine and aroma. Diet Coke has, I believe, over 80% water mixed with caffeine and aromas. This because the sweetner used in these drinks are a lot stronger than sugar, so less is needed. Both do of course have bubbles in addition. It is, however, generally accepted that both this types of drinks are very unhealthy, and that Americans and Canadians both drink too much of it.

So why on earth do we ban water, and not Coke?

I just listed the alternatives that are found in the vending machines, but as we know - we don't have to buy from the vending machines. We can also drink tap water, or bring our own drinks in bottles. There are alternatives to vending machines.

The case for tap water is not a good one, though. Vending machine drinks offers you a clean and portable disposable plastic bottle, which is very convenient to have at the office, at the lecture or on the go. Part of the reason people buy drinks from vending machines, is that convenience. All the arguments about the environmental damages the vending machine bottles have is of course legit, it is just off the point. The way it is now, they say that you not buy convenient disposable on the go plastic bottles with water, but rather drink tap water............or buy an equal convenient disposable on the go plastic bottle of pop.

It's silly, and it's wrong. If we ban bottled water, then we should also ban unhealthy bottled drinks. Tap water is better than both, but it is also competing against the whole vending machine, not just the water part. Give us the option to choose healthy, to choose to drink our bottled water in peace.

Newsify - A world of news.

2011-06-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

When I first found the blog of Jeff Jarvis, I agreed with him that news should and will eventually be free. Some people call it citizen journalism - people post news on twitter and blogs faster than reporters write newspaper articles. Wikipedia is now gigantic and includes a decent news section as well. About journalists, Jeff Jarvis says they do not have to stop writing news, but they do have to change their way of writing and become more future oriented.

I have been reading his blog since then, and also read his book, but I think one point is missing in his analysis of the journalism of tomorrow and bashing of paywalls: Socialism.

Let's see what trends we are seeing emerging these days in relation to that:

In music, Spotify has already taken over the music business in Scandinavia. Spotify is a program where you pay a fee of $10, in exchange for unlimited access to pretty much all music. Most of the big labels are, so unless you listen to local indionesian rap, chances are that all your music are available there, or will soon be. The program reads what music you listen to, and pay the artist according to how many listeners he has.

There are similar programs as Spotify for video too. My favourite is Voddler, where you can either watch movies for free, or rent them for a small fee. A natural transition from this, I think, would be the Spotify business method - to include unlimited movie watching, against a small fee pr. month - paying the labels after who many movie watchers they have. As movies are more heavy on the bandwith and more expensive than music, it will probably take a longer time to implement fully.

This trend is also to be seen in news. Slovakia announced earlier this year that the 9 biggest newspapers online would go behind a paywall. This meaning, you can access all their news for a small monthly fee. The New York Times did the same, and Czech Republic might do the same. It is not the exactly the same as the Spotify business model yet, but more might follow on that later. If these prove to be successful.

So maybe in the future we pay a fee to listen to music, watch movies and read news while the artists, actors and writers get paid based on how many listeners/watchers/readers they have.

That would be great.

But I am also a socialist, so what do I know.

Siv Jensen og overrekkelsen 8.mai: En dagbladet-skandale.

2011-05-10T05:20:00.000-07:00

Tid for anti-Jens skandale igjen. Det er ikke mye som skal til.

Denne gangen handler det om en tilldeling som skjedde 8.mai i år, hvor tre soldater skulle få tildelt krigskorset. Siden kongen er øverstekommanderende i militæret, mente mange at det var naturlig at han delte ut korsene. Istedenfor var han ikke tilstede under seremonien, og statsministeren sammen med forsvarssjefen delte ut korsene.

Dagen etter er Dagbladet raskt på plass med store overskrifter om at Jens mente Kong Harald var uønsket på seremonien den 8.mai i år. Med et sint bilde av statsministeren, la Dagbladet opp til at dette skulle bli skandale.

Siv Jensen er først ute med uttalelser, og sier rett ut at statsministeren bør beklage overfor kongen, at han oppfører seg smålig, og at det er skammelig og trist.

Dette sier hun, før engang verken kongen eller statsministeren har kommentert saken. Nå, kort tid etterpå, kommer både statsministeren og kongen ut og sier at det ikke var noe uenigheter mellom dem, og at de hadde kommet frem til fremgangsmåten sammen. Forsvarsministeren gjør det klart at arbeidsfordelingen mellom kongehuset og regjeringen ble avklart i et tiltak til å forbedre hedringen av veteraner, ved å innføre et nytt deklarasjonssystem i november 2010. Samtidig sier Carl-Erik Grimstad, statsviter og tidligere nestleder ved slottet, at "seremonien får større tyngde, paradoksalt nok, når kongen ikke er til stede."

Så, en oppsummering av skandalen blir da denne:

Kong Harald, statsminister Jens Stoltenberg og forsvarsminister Grete Faremo bestemte seg sammen i 2010 at for å gi mer tyngde i tildelingen og for å hedre veteranene bedre, er det best at Kong Harald uteblir fra tildelingen, og Grete Faremo tar seg av tildelingen.Til dette mener da Siv Jensen at statsministeren bør be kongen unnskyldning, at det er skammelig, og at det er smålig av ham.

Igjen ser vi at skandalen slettes ikke var noe skandale, men heller et forsøk for opposisjonen å henge ut statsministeren. Vil herved oppfinne ordet "dagbladet-skandale", hvis definisjon er en skandale uten innhold. Som denne vi ser i dag.

Light Rail in Greater Victoria - Finally!

2011-05-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

I am happy to see BC Transit choosing Light Rail as the recommended way of solving the future traffic problems in Greater Victoria. It is the most expensive alternative, and of course also the most comfortable for people - but in the long term it would be more expensive to not build it. Both more roads and a high speed bus lane would only postpone the problem and add a high cost investment in the future rather than now.

I do, however, not agree on the transit alignment, and do not think they should have built it here.

Link to Google Maps over Victoria.

http://goo.gl/maps/KWK7

The line will now go from Downtown to Colwood. Colwood is the largest suburban area in Greater Victoria, and it is expected to grow substantially in the next years, both with housing and industries. That is OK, but light rail shouldn't focus on getting people from A to Z, a train would do that better. It should focus on taking people up along the rail, rather at it's end points. People should walk from their house/office to the stations, rather than driving to the station and then park and take the rail. Another thing it should do, is encourage centralization. Light Rail always boost the prices on the properties close to it, so now it will encourage growth in Colwood. and along the lightly densed areas from Uptown to Colwood.

What I think they should have done, is to have the line from Downtown, east to Jubilee and from there up to the University of Victoria, and then west to Uptown. If it needs to be longer, it could go in another circle up the old rail line through Esquimalt and back to Uptown.

With my example, it would force people to live closer together, and to build taller houses. It would also take some of the traffic from the university to downtown, and hopefully give Esquimalt a boost in popularity. I do not like the big suburban area east of downtown, and it is a really waste of land. With a light rail through it, it would give a more sustainable downtown area, and it would grow Victoria to a bigger city without taking up too much area.

Either way I'm happy they decided on light rail. If they get funding to start building, I am sure that it will be very popular when it's finished, and they can always expand east to the University and down through Esquiemalt later on.

Litt om valgkampanjer

2011-04-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

Valgkampanjer er i dag er lite effektive.

Det er selvsagt ikke helt riktig. Det er mange gode ting med valgkampanjene. Med mye frivillig arbeid og mange som engasjerer seg, så får det mange folk til å bry seg mer om hva som skjer, og valgkampanjene gjør nok at enda flere stemmer med valg. Men jeg mener likevel at det ikke er nok.

Slik som det er i dag, så kan man i byen på stands prate litt om hvert av partiene, få brosyrer som sier hva partiene mener, og få roser og knapper av partiet. Og man kan selvsagt gjøre det høyeste av alt i politikken - det som virkelig viser at man bryr seg: bli medlem. Gjør du det, slipper du mas og kjas, og alle er fornøyde.

Men slik burde det jo strengt tatt ikke være. Moderne teknologi kan og vil også bidra veldig mye til at det i fremtiden ikke blir sånn. Og med fremtiden mener jeg neste valg.

For det første så burde partiene samarbeidet mer. Flere debatter, flere diskusjoner og stands hvor man kunne diskutere og lære mer, ikke bare bli flettet med hva hvert parti mener. Det nytter lite for Snekker Andersen å få vite at FrP vil gjøre kutt i U-hjelp - når han ikke engang vet hva u-hjelp er, og hvordan det virker. Det burde bli mer fokus på opplysning over hva staten gjør og ikke gjør, og hvordan systemene virker.

Et virkemiddel for dette vil i snart være sider som dette:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/oct/19/comprehensive-spending-review-cuts

Tenk deg at du kommer borti et stand i sentrum. På standsen er det store tv-skjermer, hvor hele statsbudsjettet for året er vist. Her kan du selv med enkle touch kutte og lage ditt eget budsjett. Du kan kutte i "jernbane", men også gå inn og gjøre mer spesifikke kutt under "jernbane"-overskriften. Dette synes jeg er veldig effektivt for å vise hvordan det er vanskelig å både kutte og få mer, og også effektivt til å se at kutt i jernbanen også gir kutt i for eksempel arbeidsplasser. Det kunne også være mulig å lagre budsjettet, og kanskje man kunne sammenlignet budsjettene med alle som har vært innom standsen - eller kanskje alle i landet? Så kunne man også sett hvilket parti som passer best med de kuttene som hver enkelt gjør. Alt dette ville selvsagt også være mulig å gjøre på nett.

Det er mulig dette allerede kommer ved dette valget. Det er også mulig at det er en mye høyere del av debatt og samarbeid enn jeg vet om - jeg har ikke engasjert meg særlig i politikk før nå de siste ukene.

Jeg er heller ikke sikker på hvordan det vil komme. Jeg vil tenke at avisene kanskje vil ha en stor rolle i dette med å lage interaktive modeller og oppfordre til samarbeid mellom partiene. Å la staten lage dem, eller få dem laget med statlige midler, kan bli kontroversielt i første omgang siden modellene da i høyere grad kan bli kritisert for å være partiske eller feil.

Men jeg er likevel overbevist om at om alle de frivillige i de forskjellige partiene hadde brukt mer krefter på å opplyse ola nordmann om politiske systemer og hvordan samfunnet fungerer - så vil velgerne uansett gjøre mer gjennomtenkte valg, og stemme på "ditt" parti. Det vil gjøre roseutdeling og stemmesanking unøndvendig.

Digital Koot

2011-04-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

Digital Koot is a fantastic site I came over while reading Microtask's blog.

The idea is to use crowd sourcing throught online games to help build the national library of Finland. As they write on their website:

Digitalkoot is a joint project run by the National Library of Finland and Microtask. Our goal is to index the library's enormous archives so that they are searchable on the Internet. This will enable everyone to easily access our cultural heritage.
You can help us by playing games.
Playing games in Digitalkoot fixes mistakes in our index of old Finnish newspapers. This greatly increases the accuracy of text-based searches of the newspaper archives.

I have seen this done before in various forms, but none of them as successful and nicely done as this. I hope this is just the beginning of the use of games in crowd sourcing work, and I am happy and surprised to see Finland do something like this. Finland is known for their top education, but also for their old fashion methods in teaching, so I'm happy to see this from them. Hopefully they will modernize as well, and as Nokia did, make Finland a country of world class technology and innovation.

Fremtiden i Stavanger - Arbeiderpartiets visjon

2011-04-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

Arbeiderpartiet hadde møte i dag om fremtiden av Stavanger. Jeg har ikke vært på møte med dem før, så gledet meg til å høre hva de mente om Stavanger's fremtid, og om det stemmer med fasitsvaret, som jeg naturligvis sitter på.

Det ble ikke så mye debatt om fremtiden av Stavanger. Men det gjør ikke noe, det ble nok til at jeg kan blogge om det.

Innledningen av ungdomspartikarenth var grei ,men det var jo for det meste selvskryt om arbeiderpartiet til arbeiderpartiet, noe jeg ikke er noe stor fan av. Kanskje fordi jeg er så ny i partiet. Han mente også at Høyre kopierte Arbeiderpartiet. Er det ikke bra da? Målet vårt må jo være å få Høyre så nært Arbeiderpartiet som mulig. Det er politikken som teller. Kopi eller ei.

Ordførerkandidat for Sola, hadde også et poeng jeg vil kommentere, angående kommune-sammenslåing. Hun mente, i likhet med Randaberg (tror jeg), at det var viktig at Sola blir sett på som likeverdige samarbeidspartnere, spesielt i interkommunale verv. Bare fordi Stavanger hadde flere innbyggere, mente hun at det ikke var en selvfølge at de skulle ha mer makt, eller som hun sa det: "at Stavanger skal få lederstillingen mens Randaberg får andre vara."

Men er dette riktig tankegang da? Stavanger har jo helt klart flest folk. Skal vi ha representativt demokrati, bør vel dette også gjelde for interkommunale verv. Ta EU som eksempel. Tyskland representerer 80 millioner mennesker, så skulle de ha like mange verv, eller være likeverdige som Luxemburg og Malta? Nei, der stiller Tyskland med knappe 40 representanter, mens de to andre har under 10 tilsammen. Et annet eksempel på det motsatte - det hun foreslår, er sammensetningen av regjeringen i Kanada. På grunn av ekstra hensyn til mindre provinser, er en stemme i PEI-provinsen 1/3 mer verdt enn en stemme i Ontario-provinsen - nettopp fordi PEI har færre folk, og derfor får flere pr. innbygger. Fordi de er få. Når en kommunesammenslåing blir en realitet her på nordjæren, vil maktfordelingen forhåpentligvis bli sånn at Stavanger, som representerer over halvparten av befolkingen alene, blir størst, mens de andre partiene får mindre representanter - og gjerne vara.

Noe annet som ble nevnt var at vi ved å importere mat "spiste andres mat". Det er jeg helt enig i. Og det er viktig, som ordførerkanditat for Randaberg nevnte, å bevare matjorden vi har. Likevel så må vi bevare sammen, og om vi sammen finner ut at matjorden bør gå - da må den det. Desverre. Jeg håper derimot at det ikke kommer til å skje, og jeg har god tro på at vi klarer å planlegge byen sånn at vi beholder så mye matjord som mulig. Ikke bare i Randaberg, men også på Sola, på Sandnes og i Stavanger. Men det blir vanskelig når vi ikke kan planlegge sammen, når vi ikke kan jobbe mot et felles mål og bygge regionen samlet. Hadde det blitt kommunesammenslåing, og vi hadde fått en helhetlig stor kommune, da kunne vi sammen passet på matjorden på Randaberg, bygget ut sentrum i Sandnes, bygge boliger der det er mest hensiktsmessig og så videre. Når man ikke kan tenke lenger enn til kommunegrensen, blir det vanskelig å planlegge smart i et så pendlende og reisende samfunn vi lever i i dag. Ordfører i New York passer på 8 millioner mennesker over et område mange ganger så stort som nordjæren. En kommune-sammenslåing ville ført til en større kommune, og en stor kommune i norsk målestokk, men det er langt fra noe stor kommune samlet sett.

Ville Sandnes, Sola eller Randaberg blitt med på kommune-sammenslåing om byen het det samme som deres? At storbyen ble hetet Randaberg for eksempel, og de andre kommunene blir innlemmet i Randaberg istedenfor at man sier at de blir til Stavanger. Kanskje ikke. Jeg håper de ikke gjør det. Hvis dèt hadde vært greit, da er det jo bare et kommunenavn - et ord - det er snakk om.

Kan nevne at jeg er tilhenger av FN, tilhenger av EU, tilhenger av et forent norden, og tilhenger av storkommune på jæren. Om alle jobber sammen, får vi til mye mer.

Jeppjepp, mine 2 cents etter et heidundrenes første møte med AP. Håper på mer diskusjon, debatt, refleksjoner og taler i fremtiden.

Tjohei.

Hva jeg driver med for tiden.

2011-04-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

Jeppjepp. Så har jeg såvidt startet å blogge igjen. Litt på norsk, men kommer nok til å fortsette på engelsk også. Siden jeg ikke har tid til noe bra bloggposter for tiden, så blir de jeg lager av topp kvalitet, sånn som denne som bare handler med hva jeg styrer med.

Først kan jeg si at jeg jobber for Securitas. Jeg jobber nattskift 4/5-dager turnus, og trives stort sett med det. Har fått ny leilighet, så det er greit å ha inntekt for en gangs skyld.

Ellers har jeg fått sykkel, og jobber med å prøve å bli syklist. Jeg sykler til jobb, men merker jeg enda må fikse endel på sykkelen, og kjøpe meg noe ordentlige klær og utstyr før jeg kan kalle meg ordentlig syklist. Jeg er betalt medlem på kampsportinstituttet, men er ikke noe flink til å gå der. Maks en gang i uken. Har vært og spilt Skoasj et at annet sted da, og tenker at det blir mye forskjellige aktiviteter nå som det begynner å bli sommer. Jeg satser på (om jeg klarer) å begynne å trene mye til høsten av, og heller ta det rolig frem til da. Eller kanskje jeg starter tidligere. Jeg får se.

Jeg leser bøker, men ikke så mye for tiden. Jeg leser ofte mange bøker på en gang, men sist bok jeg fullførte var "Den hemmelige kokken" skrevet av Mats-Eric Nilsson. Jeg har også lest ferdig Baqarah(?), som er første del i Koranen - og sier meg fornøyd med det. Nå har jeg en ca. 100 sider igjen på "Staten", skrevet av Platon, og er samtidig på slutten av bok 2 av 9 i tegneserien Preacher.

Jeg er (selvsagt) også aktiv på internett og på nettspill:

Khan-akademiet Matematikk. 100k poeng, og jobber meg oppover.
Livemocha Språk. 3436/1728 poeng. Jeg prøver å lære litt fransk og albansk, samtidig som jeg retter engelsk for andre.
Lumocity Hjernespill. "BPI" på 854, med 328 poeng.
Chess.com Sjakk. 1100 poeng, så ikke særlig god.
Conquer Club Risk. 1240 poeng, spiller sammen med 2-3 andre.
Open Yale Skole. Har tatt PSYC 110 og PHIL 110. Tar nå PLSC 114 og ECON 159.

Har også blitt med i det som nå heter Arbeiderpartiet, og truffet noen av medlemmene i Stavanger Arbeiderparti. Helt greit, uten at jeg kan kalle meg særlig aktiv. Jeg har hatt lyst til å gjøre litt grundig research og gjøre litt politisk arbeid - men har desverre ikke tatt meg tid. Det er derfor jeg prøver å blogge litt, slik at jeg iallefall produserer noe, selv om det ikke er noe samfunnsnyttig. Jeg håper at jeg etter sommeren er mer giret på å lage noen ordentlige bloggposter som er relatert til politikk og Stavanger. Eller kanskje før.

Er også flykningeguide i Røde Kors, så treffer en flykning en gang i uka og er på av og til på møter på Røde kors.

Tjohei!

Skole, eksamen og spådommer

2011-04-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

Hvordan ser fremtidens skole ut?

En måte jeg håper den iallefall ikke ser ut, er sånn som den er i dag. Jeg har slitt mye med skolen de siste årene, og har enda ikke klart å komme meg inn på universitetet. I andre land må man betale; her har vi tungvindte systemer.

Grunnen til jeg ikke kommer inn, er selvsagt at jeg er lat og dårlig. Selv om det er negativt i seg selv og ikke noe man skal oppmuntre til å være, er det mye som tyder på at det moderne mennesket faktisk er lat og dårlig. At det er en mangedobling i antall privatisteksamener for tiden er kanskje et tegn på det.

Nå er det sånn at man har klasseromsundervisning på videregående skole, hvor man må ha oppmøte så og så mye for å få bestått. Eksamen kommer random på slutten av året - eller man kan betale 1000kr pr.eksamen og ta det som privatist. Men da må man melde seg opp 4 måneder i forveien. For å komme inn på universitetet, må man så ha toppkarakterer fra videregående - så selv om man er 30 år og ingeniør i Statoil, så må man altså ta opp nynorsken og matematikken for å komme inn på universitetet. Eller som meg, 26 og universitet fra utlandet. Irrelevant så lenge jeg ikke har nynorsk. Selv om jeg hadde hatt det, måtte jeg ha tatt opp eksamener for tusenvis av kroner for å komme inn på ingeniørstudier for eksempel.

Men, hva med å bare betale for å rette eksamener, og ha fri undervisning ellers?

Undervisning kan være åpent og fritt til alle, også på universitetet på forelesninger. Og det er sånn det burde være. Om alle kunne gått på forelesninger (til det er fullt i rommet selvsagt), så hadde alle hatt mye bedre forutsetninger for å lære. Om man da velger å gå opp til eksamen i et fag, eller skrive en bacheloroppgave - så må man velge selv etter den er skrevet om man vil betale for å få den rettet. Mange vil jo da velge å ikke gjøre det, siden man må betale for det.

Da kunne folk gått så mye på skole de ville, og lest så mye de ville hjemme. Og tatt graden i det tempoet de ville. Lærere ville selvsagt fortsatt være veldig nyttig - både med å levere forelesninger, ta dem opp på video, være mentor for elever, lage oppgaver og prøver, og ikke minst å rette dem. Siden det potensielt kan bli farlig mange elever i noen klasser, kan man kanskje ha et maksantall pr. lærer, eller/og at man har mentor som man har fastlege. Læreren trenger kanskje ikke ha dyptgående kunnskaper i emnet eleven lærer, men kan være flink på området slik at han er kan hjelpe til på motivasjon, hvordan lære, oppgaveskriving og liknende?

Det vil jo være begrensninger og utfordinger her også. Jeg forventer ikke at alle som vil skal kunne komme inn på operasjonssalen på medisin på en gang. på laberiatorier og andre likenende situasjoner blir ressursene begrenset, og man må da finne løsninger som passer. Kanskje man krever at man har fullført et visst antall eksamener, kanskje man settes på køliste og så videre.

Eksamensretting kan også være gratis selvsagt. Det trenger ikke være så dyrt som jeg får det frem i avsnittet over. Men skal det være gratis må man ha en annen form for begrensning, slik at folk ikke velger å levere inn og får rettet dårlige strykprøver. Det lar seg sikkert gjøre. Lånekassen vil også slite med å kategorisere folk som "studenter", men de har godt av å få brynt seg litt. Det vil uansett ikke være noe problem om borgerlønn innføres etterhvert.

Hva synes dere? God idè?

Islam, demokrati, debatt og Minerva.

2011-04-05T03:31:00.000-07:00

I går var det debatt på litteraturhuset. Jeg fikk bare med meg halvparten, og av paneldeltakerne var det bare Jagland jeg kjente igjen. Flott debatt med viktige tema. I den anledning har Minerva skrevet en artikkel med kritikk til debatten og paneldeltakerne. Som vanlig.

Det første Minerva kritiserer, er hvordan de mener Jagland får frem at å brenne koranen er like avskyelig som mord. Det er sant at Jagland KAN ha ment det, med den ordleggingen han brukte, men det er jo et særs billig poeng av Minerva. Selvsagt mener ikke Jagland dette, og det er noe som alle seerne på debatten vet. Han mente derimot at det var meget avskyelig å brenne en koran, og at det er meget avskyelig å drepe noen. Ikke noe mer. Og der har han rett.

Å brenne ei bok i en sånn sammenheng som pastoren gjorde det i Florida, er helt greit. Men han kunne valgt ei bok som ikke var Koranen. Fordi om man brenner Koranen så vet man at det er stor sannsynlighet at det får store konsekvenser for menneskeliv. Det er som å gå over en bro man vet ikke tåler vekten din istedenfor å ta den solide broen ved siden av. For at muslimer skal bli moderate, bli vestlige, bli samarbeidsvillige og alt det der - så må de finne det ut selv. Da må overgangen for dem være så myk som mulig, slik at de ikke føler at de gjør for store personlige tap. Det er samme sak med hijab-kritikken som har rast over landet vårt, som også har ført til større skiller, og at flere tar på seg hijab - eller nekter å ta den av. Man kan jo si at det er deres feil. Og det er det jo - men vi kan ikke være helt ignorante og si at vi ikke er med på å påvirke de beslutningene.

Den samme kritikken kommer Minerva med mot Bjørn Olav Utvik, som er islamforsker ved UiO. Her sier han at dødsstraff blir diskutert, likt som dødsstraff blir diskutert i USA. Han mener selvsagt ikke at det er like ille med dødsstraff i USA for massemordere som for utroskap i Egypt - men det er likevel det Minerva hjernedødt resonnerer seg til. Selv om ingen av de som så debatten trodde han mente det. Han sier bare at det blir diskutert, og det er jo helt klart sammenlignbart med USA. At kulturen er helt forskjellig og at de ikke har kommet like langt som vesten i utvikling av et rettferdig rettssystem, vet vi jo alle. Det er ingen vits i å dra det inn i hver setning vi sier, og er et premiss som alle er innforstått med.

Men er vel min egen feil som alltid skal gi Minerva ny sjanse. "Nja, det er jo populært, så må jo være litt bra, selv om det baserer seg på helt rare verdier og en høyrevridd tankegang". Feil.

Amazon Associates - Book recommendation post

2011-03-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

I was fooling around on the settings in blogger, and found this thing called Amazon Associates. Apparently it gives me money for linking to books. I will not set up AdSense in the near future, and I do not want to show ads from Amazon either, but I figured I could write a blogpost where I link to my favourite books. So I will. Let's see if I can do this right.

edit: The blogger editor is terrible, but here are links to my top 5 book recommendations on Amazon:

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond.
Amazing book about the history of humans.
Eye opening.

Sociolinguistics - Peter Trudgill
Small easy digestable book for everyone. It gives us an
introduction to the world of language.
Bilingual or not - this book is awesome.

Critical Mass - Philip Ball
From basic physics to philosophy,
this book explains how we are affected
by the behaviour of others.

Here comes everybody! - Clay Shirkey
Great book about the
influence groups has on humans.

Freakonomics - Steven D. Lewitt
Cool and easy read book that
shows that everything is not
always the way it seems to be.

Brainstorming økonomisk modell

2011-03-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

Okei, så jeg får prøve å blogge litt mer.

Hadde en idé om en økonomisk modell som angår lån. Jeg fikk ideen da jeg hørt reklame på radioen for forbrukslån på 250 000. Lån som dette er helt greit synes jeg - om man bare klarer å betale tilbake.

Det kjipe er når man ikke klarer. Om man tar opp et lån man ikke klarer å betale, så blir man gjeldsslave og må nesten leve på brød og vann. Går det helt på trynet kan man begjære seg konkurs, men det er ikke noe situasjon noen ønsker seg. Også folk med huslån kan ende opp med å slite om renten går opp, om de mister jobben og så videre. Spesielt i utlandet finner man gode eksempler på gjeldsslaver, men også her i Norge kan det være vanskelig å få endene til å møtes om man sitter med lån. Når mange sliter på en gang, får man, som man har sett så inderlig godt de siste årene, en økonomisk krise som brer seg lagt utover bare lånene.

Så hva er mitt forslag, som utdannet vekter?

*trommevirvel*

Hva om det ikke blir lov å kreve inn penger fast i måneden, men heller baserer seg på inntekt? Om man for eksempel tar lån på x kroner, så må man betale 30% av lønna tilbake, frem til lånet er betalt. Man kan også gjerne ha en regel på hvor mye man har lov til å betale av lønna, slik at kanskje 30% er maksimum. Og at man, om man har lån, ligger på minstelønn i landet. Det gjør at

Låntaker ikke kan få store økonomiske problemer
Låntaker må betale tilbake lånet
Långiver vil bare gi lån til folk med stabil inntekts og lønnsforhold, men står fritt til å gi små lån til de med mindre lønn.
Store risikofylte lån vil bli unngått.
Ingen vil få store problemer med lån man ikke klarer betale
Ingen finanskriser

Punkt for punkt. Jeg synes at det allerede gis for mange lån, og folk bør gi mer enn de låner ut - og spare mer enn de låner. Gi bort en leilighet, gi bort en bil.

Men det er lett for meg å si, selvsagt, siden jeg verken har store lån, mye penger eller peiling på økonomi. Men jeg sier det likevel. Her på bloggen.

10 easy steps on how to learn a language

2010-09-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

This is how you do it:

1. Bad words
Start by learning some bad words. Fuck you. Fuck off, Eat shit, dickhead. Bad words are great since you don't feel anything while saying them when you don't know the language, so you can use them all the time. Natives in the language you are learning often find it funny in addition. Very good phrases and words like "I love you" or "You are hot" may also be nice to learn, and if you find some obscure sentence like "

2. Comments
Learn to comment. "Hi", "Good morning" "Good night" "No" "Yes" "Really?" "Please!" "Thanks!" and all those small expressions are easy to learn and use. You can either friends that knows the language, or you can read them up in a dictionary and get them to help fix your pronunciations. By learning comments you both impress your friends, and you can learn a lot of words thoroughly since you can use them often.

3. Books & Resources
Next step is to get some books or resources to further increase your knowledge about the language. Instead of buying thick grammar books or boring school-books - try to buy a neat and handy travel-book that includes important phrases, and a dictionary with 3-5000 words. It's better since you can bring it around, and it's easier to look up words in.

4. Alphabet

This is usually in the travel-books - learn how to write and pronounce all the different letters. Since you already know a bunch of comments you can use them as well to see how the letters are pronounced in context.

5. Time

Try to learn how to say the time, and ask for the time, in the language. This means you also need to learn numbers - but this is very easy to use in daily life, since you can ask people about the time almost all the time, and it's not that much words that needs to be learned.

6. Lists

You want to get a better vocabulary? This is by far the best way to do it. Get hold of lists, and try learn them one after the other. By lists I mean a group of words that are related to each other, like bodyparts (knee, nose, arm). The best lists I would say is activities (bike, run, play volleyball, go shopping, hike), feelings, and time-related ones (weekdays, months, seasons, tomorrow/today/yesterday). Check your travel-book and see what lists are available to learn there. A tip is to also learn words like " I like", since you then can say "I like volleyball/baseball/hike". Same with feelings - "I feel sad,happy,glad" - it makes it easier to use in conversations.

7. Questions

Learn to ask some basic questions like "How are you? How do you feel? What are you doing? What time is it?"

8. Basic Grammar

Grammar is not important in the beginning, but you need to learn the conjugations of "To be" and often "To have" - depending on what language you are learning. If you know these, you are good so far. If you pick up on other minor grammar rules, that's great too.

9. Travel!

If you are still not in a country where they speak the language you are learning - now is the time to do it! If you travel to early, you will feel that you don't know enough to learn anything. Now, however, you already have a basic vocabulary through the lists, you can make comments and ask questions. Together with the basic grammar you can most likely also make sentences if you are forced to it in another country. When you're there, focus on the language and try to learn new words every day - and use them.

10. Grammar and Studies

Back in your country, now is the time to learn grammar. You will by now have a solid vocabulary and probably knows a few sentences too, and will need to learn how to conjugate verbs and where to place the words in the sentences and so on. You will now feel that the travel-book is too small, and will need to get a grammar book or find some good resources online to learn more. In addition, of course, keep improving your vocabulary not only by lists, but learn single words that you think you will need, and words you pick up from others. Try to chat online with someone proficient in the language, and try to write small paragraphs for others to give feedback to you.

Good luck on learning!

Facebook chat used in teaching

2010-03-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

As I'm writing an essay about Facebook in education, I got this fantastic billionific idea:

Today, A teacher can create groups to be used in class. The best I think would be to make one for every class, even if it sounds a bit much work. The group can be used to store information about the class, like the class schedule, and post news and updates like homework, readings, encouragement and where to read more. The discussion part can be used by the teacher to raise questions for the students to discuss, maybe the same one as in class, to in a way extend the class participation to outside the classroom.

I was thinking about using Facebook instead of email to students, and I think Facebook do have potential for it, but unfortunately, it lacks one distinguish feature to be worth the improvement.

Since email clients often are a lot easier to handle than Facebook, just switching to Facebook would not make it easier. However, if Facebook could work on it's chat client, then maybe it would indeed be easier. Think if they for example made it possible to add groups or pages to chat. That would give the teacher the opportunity to keep his or her private friends, but in addition be able to communicate with the current students through chat without having to add all the students to friends.

Great idea, Kjetil! Let's hope all the developers over at Facebook follows this blog and concur!

How to use your inner clock

2010-03-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you wake up just a minute before the alarm goes off? The reason is that the body already have a perception of when to wake up, and even in sleep, the body is still conscious to a certain extent - enough for it to know that it is suppose to wake up.

The human brain has the ability to perceive time, in that one thing happens after another, and what gets experienced also gets recorded to memory. By this, it also has the ability to see that something happened x minutes ago since it records everything that happens in between.

To be able to wake up before the alarm, the brain needs input about what time it is before it goes to sleep. To help encourage the body to wake up, it helps to take a look at what time it is before bed, and consciously say to yourself that you want to wake up in 7 hours. The mind, naturally, doesn't know what time "7am" is, but it can understand what "in 7 hours" is, since it already has a perception of that by getting used to the 24 hour clock we use every day.

Another trick to wake up more easily is to sleep in whole 1.5-time periods. The body sleeps in 1.5 hour cycles, and it it easiest to wake up in the beginning or towards the end of each cycle. To sleep for 7.5 hours can therefore make more sense, and make you both wake up earlier and feel more refreshed in the morning.

(I started using location on where I'm posting from. neat feature)

Shquip 101

2010-03-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to look into a bit Albanian these days. A few of my friends are Albanian, so I've listened to quite a lot of it, and it's getting tiering to not understand it. The alphabet is also quite easy and similar as I pointed out in another blogpost. I know a few greetings already, so I will try focus on learning the personal pronouns, five questions, and ten verbs put together with the pronouns.

This, together with the greetings, will make me able to hold small conversations in Albanian along the lines of this:

Hi!

How are you?

Good, thanks

What are you doing?

I am studying.

Good night!

I think that lays a good foundation for further learning, I'll see how it goes.

So, the personal pronouns:

I - Unë

you - ti

he / she - ai / ajo

we - ne

you - ju

they - ata / ato

the 10 verbs I'm learning:

to be - jam

to come - vij

to go - shkoj

to sleep - fle

to study - te studioj

to read - lexoj

to eat - ha

to drink - pi

to dance - vallësoj

Questions:

How are you? - Si jeni?
What are you doing? - Cfare po ben?
Which one? - cili?
What do you mean? - cfare to te thuash?
Who is it? - kush eshte ky?

Yassas Mallaka!

2010-03-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

In 2005, I spent 3 month working for a holiday club in Greece called Club Greece. I worked for their resort in Rhodes, and enjoyed the stay very much. It was right after I was finished school, so it was good to have a break and do something else. And I got my first experiences with travelling too.

I spent my time there living in Ialyssos, a somewhat small city on the island of Rhodes. This was also where our resort was located. I was working downtown Rhodes City, so I got quite used to the areas between Ialyssos and Rhodes City, and around inside the two cities.

I didn't do much other travelling on the island. I went as far south as Kallithea, which is only a few miles south if Rhodes City, but didn't visit Faliraki, the popular beach resort situated there. I did see the old town of Rhodes City though, which was nice. I was a bit too young and poor to really get a good overview over anything, but I hope to travel back one time and see how things are going now. I only took a few photos there, which I don't have now, but hopefully I will find them again some day. They might be on some broken harddrive somewhere.

As for the Greek language, I remember I tried learning it a bit, but as all my co-workers and friends were mostly Scandinavians, not much got stuck. Because of a small trip later to Cyprus, with a good friend of mine, I got to refresh the few words a bit, so they are pretty much stuck now. I found a good Greece restaurant here in Victoria, so I figured I'd refresh my Greek once again to exchange a few words with the owner. I might learn a few new words too in the future.

My Greek vocabulary today:

yassou** - greeting both when you arrive and leave

yassas - Plural or formal greeting

kalimera - good morning

kalispera - good afternoon

kalinihta - good night

adio* - good bye

efharisto - thank you

Me lene__ - My name is__

It's a very nice language, but I've heard it's quite hard to learn. I'll see. I will go back to Greece anyway one day.

*adjø's origins.

**jasså's origins?

Comments on "Is God a Taoist?" by Raymond Smullyan

2010-03-16T02:33:00.000-07:00

Raymond Smullyan is a philosopher and logician, famous for his writings about Taoism, among other things. This is an excerpt from his book "The Tao is Silent", released in 1977, and can be read in its full glory at my link underneath.

I wanted to post the whole text here, but because of the dialogue-form it got too big so instead of highlighting the part I liked, I'll just copy down some of the parts in this blog.
It is also worth noting that this text uses the elenchus method, also called the Socratic method, after Socrates, which in my opinion makes it a lot more digestable. What this basically mean is that it is a dialogue between a master and a student, but with switched roles. The outcome is a master who is asking questions and a student giving answers to him.

The story is a dialogue between God and Mortal, in which Smullyan tries to prove that Dualism can't be right, and that both needs to co-exist by definition.
Here is the link to the full story.

Here are my quotations and comments I made while reading and posting it:

God: If you don't want to sin, then why do you
Mortal: Good God! I don't know why I sin, I just do! Evil temptations come along, and try as I can, I cannot resist them.People usually can resist if they want to. If not, they are not to blame.
God: But I have already told you that without free will you cannot sin.
Mortal: But if I choose now to be rid of free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the present moment in which I choose not to have free will.

Good point. He basically says that the moment anyone choose not to have free will, they will be blamed for all the sins made after that point. I guess this can be compared to doing drugs - that you are equal responsible for the sins you make intoxicated as other sins, since you chose to take drugs in the first place.

God: I understand exactly how you feel. Many mortals -- even some theologians -- have complained that I have been unfair in that it was I, not they, who decided that they should have free will, and then I hold them responsible for their actions. In other words, they feel that they are expected to live up to a contract with me which they never agreed to in the first place.

Heh. Nice thinking.

God: Whether you call them sins or not, the fact remains that they will be horrible acts in the sense that they will cause great pain to many sentient beings.
Mortal (after a pause): Good God, you have trapped me again! Always the same game! If I now give you the go-ahead to create this new creature with no free will who will nevertheless commit atrocious acts, then true enough he will not be sinning, but I again will be the sinner to sanction this.

Here he states that to choose not having free will is still morally wrong.

God: I am a utilitarian!

B-)

God: Because I am the very one whose existence you doubt! I perfectly well understand your anxiety. You are worried that your present experience with me is a mere hallucination. But how can you possibly expect to obtain reliable information from a being about his very existence when you suspect the nonexistence of the very same being?
Mortal: So you won't tell me whether or not you exist?
God: I am not being willful! I merely wish to point out that no answer I could give could possibly satisfy you. All right, suppose I said, "No, I don't exist." What would that prove? Absolutely nothing! Or if I said, "Yes, I exist." Would that convince you? Of course not!

The only question you can't ask your god about.

God: Because the explanation is simply not correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most important fact of the universe -- evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the moralists -- all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts -- simply pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.

No, my dear friend, I am not a moralist. I am wholly a utilitarian. That I should have been conceived in the role of a moralist is one of the great tragedies of the human race. My role in the scheme of things (if one can use this misleading expression) is neither to punish nor reward, but to aid the process by which all sentient beings achieve ultimate perfection.

I like this part; it strengthens my optimistic view on the world that in the end we will all be Ghandi's (or as here, angels) and hang out together in happiness. I can't look at any conflicts in the world and not think that thinks eventually will be better, and as this point out: everything that is not good, is just not good because it hasn't become good yet. That I don't live to see it is fairly irrelevant in the big picture.

The last part points out that by definition, there is no God. Rather, it says that "God" (I believe this is called the Tao?) is the all the "good" we need in the process we go through to become angels.

God: What I said was misleading in two respects. First of all it is inaccurate to speak of my role in the scheme of things. I am the scheme of things. Secondly, it is equally misleading to speak of my aiding the process of sentient beings attaining enlightenment. I am the process. The ancient Taoists were quite close when they said of me (whom they called "Tao") that I do not do things, yet through me all things get done. In more modem terms, I am not the cause of Cosmic Process, I am Cosmic Process itself. I think the most accurate and fruitful definition of me which man can frame -- at least in his present state of evolution -- is that I am the very process of enlightenment. Those who wish to think of the devil (although I wish they wouldn't!) might analogously define him as the unfortunate length of time the process takes. In this sense, the devil is necessary; the process simply does take an enormous length of time, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. But, I assure you, once the process is more correctly understood, the painful length of time will no longer be regarded as an essential limitation or an evil. It will be seen to be the very essence of the process itself. I know this is not completely consoling to you who are now in the finite sea of suffering, but the amazing thing is that once you grasp this fundamental attitude, your very finite suffering will begin to diminish -- ultimately to the vanishing point.

Here he points out the opposite; the devil is the the length the process takes, or in other words, all the suffering we have to go through in life. He also states that because both good and evil is needed for the process to exist, so even if evil is a necessity, doing good will speed up the process in becoming angels. So please guys, don't be evil.

Mortal: I thought you could do anything!

God: Only things which are logically possible. As St. Thomas said, "It is a sin to regard the fact that God cannot do the impossible, as a limitation on His powers." I agree, except that in place of his using the word sin I would use the term error.*..if God needs to follow human logic, that is.
Mortal: What do you mean that I cannot conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn even you could not stop me!God:
You are absolutely right! I certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you, because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, "In trying to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of nature!" Don't you see that the so-called "laws of nature" are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.

Interesting thoughts on how one is not able to conflict the laws of nature no matter what. If it was, then laws of nature would cease to exist.

Mortal: So you really claim that I am incapable of determining to act against natural law?

God: It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act." This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish. If I may use a crude analogy, imagine two bodies moving toward each other by virtue of gravitational attraction. Each body, if sentient, might wonder whether it is he or the other fellow who is exerting the "force." In a way it is both, in a way it is neither. It is best to say that it is the configuration of the two which is crucial.

I've heard this stuff several times from my friends, but it is cool nonetheless. I recently heard about a science experiment that was done on people with memory loss, where the subjects used a notebook all the time to write down things that normally would have been stored in the short term memory, to be able to get through the day. The experimenters then looked at the book as a part of the subject, since it worked as substitute of the short term memory. Without the book/short term memory, the subject would not be able to function properly. The book was therefore just an extension of themselves. Can the same be said on other things? Can food, because the subject can not function properly without it, be seen as an extension of the sentient being? What about friends and family?

Pretty cool text imo, and a good introductory text to Taoism. Easy and funny to read, short, and not too much spirituality and eastern stuff which I normally find rather dry.

Study notes in class is useless and why exams by Anna stinks.

2010-03-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

Study notes
Some instructors seem to believe that to take notes 1950-style still is the best way to learn. I disagree. Note taking is only good for just what it is, taking notes, not to copy whatever the teacher says, how note taking traditionally is done.

The reason is that when the notes get too comprehensive the student loose focus on what the teacher are saying or writing, and gets less time to reflect over what is being tought. Note taking should be just that, notes, and should not be required for further learning. It should be used as a tool to more easily comprehend what are being tought, and help the mind to label the information it gets in. What the teacher says and lecture, should also be what the students are examined in, not what is in the textbook.

Here is how one of my professors do it:

Bob's great way to lecture
Bob starts by giving out all the notes from the class already the class before, so when we hear his lecture, we have his notes in front of us. He encourage us to read the textbook, but he test us in what the notes says on exams. The notes are usually in point form, so if the notes says "viking hammer", you still have to read the textbook if you don't remember when the professor was lecturing about it in class.

This is great in several ways. With the notes already printed and ready, the students needs to use less time on writing, and more time on focusing on what the teacher says and writes on the board, reflection over the notes, and class participation. It also lessens the burden for those who miss a class, and to have the notes perfect and printed helps those who clutters with notes, or have bad handwriting. Some notes can still be taken in class, however. What I do, is that I make "notes on the notes", which means that I write my own comments, comparisons, and explanations, and underline what I find difficult or noteworthy. I don't have to study these new notes, I just add them for make it easier to study the notes handed out. Since the notes are what the exams are on, the textbook is not really needed for other than remembering what the different notes are about. Personally I use Wikipedia when I study the notes, so I don't find the textbook useful at all. If students prefer a book, however, I suppose it can be useful.

Lecture vs. Textbook
Another important consideration about notes and lectures, is that teachers have to make sure that they are lecturing the same material that will be examined.

Here is how one of my teachers do it:

Anna's not so great way to lecture
Anna encourages us to read the textbook, then goes on to have a lecture related to the textbook, and a slideshow presentation related to her lecture. She then test us in the material in the textbook. Students are supposed to write down what she shows on the slideshow.

The main problem here is that the exam is not on what she is teaching, but on what is written in the book. In Bobs example, he gave us everything we needed for the exam, and we could then choose whether or not we wanted to learn more about that, by reading the textbook. Anna here however, do the opposite. Here she gives us a lecture and slideshow with a lot of "extra information", while what we really need to learn, is in the textbook. Anna gives us a lot of information that is not related directly to the exam, and that makes the total amount of what students have to learn a lot higher, and more confusing.

One may argue that the reason students write notes theirselves is for the students to learn to summarize and learn how to take out the most important facts about what he or she is reading. Which, I must say, is a good arguement. What breaks down the argument, however, is the exams. If the exams aren't very broad and very little specific, chances are that the students will not be graded according to his or her skills, but more one a random basis. Students find things of different importance and may have knowledge about the subject that they don't get to show because the exam doesn't ask for it. A student may know a lot about how the Vikings lived and what tools they used, but the one question about VIkings on the exam might be what tool they used instead of hammer, which the otherwise knowledgeable student can fail to answer.

All in all
How the lectures are structured differ from subject to subject. In some of my classes, like English, hardly use notes at all, since the point is to improve writing and there is not really that much to note down. A coursepack is there used, which works great. In other subjects study notes can be very valuable however, especially in subjects with a lot of information. I hope that more teacher will take Bob's example and give the students notes on what they need to learn, and give lecture on what is being tested on the exam. This would help a of students to more easily find the relevant information, and encourage them to reflect and study on their own.

Albanian alphabet

2010-03-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

The Albanian alphabet consists of 7 vowels and 29 consonants. 9 of the consonants are however consonant combinations, but they are pronounced together as one sound. The thing about Albanian is that as the grammar might be hard, it is very easy to speak because all the letters are pronounced, and pronounced the same way, and there is no silent letters (ë is however almost silent when in end of sentence). As I will show you, the pronounciation is also very similar to the one in Norwegian; there are at most only 2 vowels and 11 consonants that differ at all.

First the alphabet, followed by equivalent in English and an Albanian example.

vowels:

a = father = bar' (grass)

e = set = lejlek (stork)

ë = hurt = hë'në (moon)

i = see = liri' (freedom)

o = more = o'rë (hour)

u = put = puth (kiss)

y = as in French une = py'kë (peg)

consonants:

b = book = bu'kë (bread)

c = pizza = ce'kët (shallow)

ç = check = cora''pe (socks)

d = dear = dru (wood)

dh = this = dhe (earth)

f = free = fus (to put in)

g = go = grup (group)

gj = judge = gji'the ()

h = heart = hap (to open)

j = year = josh! (to attack)

k = kiss = kaloj (to pass)

l = left = lu'aj (to move)

ll = ball = pa'lle (sword)

m = make = pe'më (tree)

n = noon = nis (to begin)

nj = news = njoh (to know)

p = pray = pres (to wait)

q = cheese = qu'aj (to call)

r = room = rendor (ordinal)

rr = borrow = bu'rre (man)

s = silk = su'pe (soup)

sh = sheep = shi'fër (cipher)

t = toy = tullac' (bald)

th = thief = thi'the (nipple)

v = van = vaj'zë (girl)

x = ads = xunkth (rush)

xh = jaw = xhep (pocket)

z = zone = zor (difficulty)

zh = vision = zhur'më (noise)

Now here is the Albanian letters that differs from the Norwegian alphabet in pronounciation:

Albanian - Norwegian

vowels:

e = ø

o = å (is both o and å actually)

consonants:

c = ts

ç = tj (not in Norwegian langauge)

dh = th*

gj = dj

ll = l (similar)

g = tj

rr = rr*

th = th*

x = ds

xh = dj

zh = sj

*this sound is not used in Norwegian. However, most are familiar with it through English.

NO: Hvordan motivere elever til å lære

2010-03-12T01:08:00.000-08:00

Det er mange måter å motivere elever å lære på, og eksempler på både pisk og gulerot må sikkert tas i bruk - selv om kanskje gulerot er det som er vanlig. Uavhengig av pisk og gulerot er det to illusjoner på utdanning som mange folk har, som må bort.

Illusjon om jobb og sikkerhet

En ting jeg synes er veldig vesentlig her, er at vi må gi slipp på illusjonen om at vi går på skole for å få oss jobb og sikkerhet. Dette gjorde vi på 50-tallet, og stemmer ikke overens med dagens samfunn. Nå har vi 0-3% arbeidsledighet og fillejobber som gir oss gull og grønne skoger - så hvorfor skal elevene gidde å studere, om jobb og sikkerhet er målet? Barn og ungdom må få inn fra de er unge av at jobb og sikkerhet ikke er målet for utdanningen: Det er utdanningen selv som er målet. Unge må lære å studere av egen vilje (til en viss grad selvsagt), og skjønne at de gjør samfunnet en tjeneste ved å gå på skole.

Illusjon om fullført utdanning

En annen illusjon som må bort, er illusjonen om at man blir "ferdig" med utdanning. Utdanning er ikke lenger noe man fullfører når man har hatt X år med skole - det er noe man har hele livet ut. Noen tar friår, noen flere, noen bytter utdanning mens noen fullfører en hel grad på kortest mulig tid. Uansett hva man velger i dagens samfunn, så er det 100% sikkert at man ikke stopper utdanningen når første grad er bestått. Læring varer livet ut.

Jeg hører alt for ofte at folk "har jobb, trenger ikke skole", og at de "endelig er ferdig med skolen" i ung alder. Dette er holdninger jeg tror er vesentlig at må endres for å hindre større frafall i skolen.

Dette er forøvrig skrevet som et innlegg i en debatt regjeringen har started i sitt nye tiltak Samarbeid for samarbeid.

TED: Peter Eigen, How to expose the corrupt

2010-03-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Here is a TED I stumbled upon the other day. Not the best TED I've seen, but it had an interesting point in the end I'd like to comment.

Peter Eigen is a founder of Transparency International, an independent organization who work towards stopping corruption, with headquarters in Berlin. He has worked mainly in Africa and Latin America for over 25 years, and therefore has deep knowledge about corruption and how to fight it.

In this speech, he starts out with talking about a deal he made in 1997. He found that a lot of western companies bribed companies in Africa, and that if each individual companies stopped, they would loose to their competitors, which didn't stop the bribery. To end this, he got together with the OECD countries and made a deal that all companies had to stop at the same time. This would stop single companies to be ruined, and corruption to stop. Win-win situation.

More interesting, however, is his conclusion. Here he states that to end corruption and other similar socio economic problems it is important for the government to work together with civil services and the private sector. Only by cooporation with all the involved parts, can a good sollution be found. I don't know much about corruption, but I do believe cooporation is definetly a step in the right direction towards solving our world problems. The future is social.

The Camosun College Cafe and Bottled Water Ban

2010-03-09T16:05:00.000-08:00

The Camosun College Cafe

After seeing Jamie Oliver's TED talk and walking straight over to the campus cafe to buy a slice of pizza and a pop, my brain started sending out signals suggesting that something might not be as it should be.

Camosun College is a learning institution, and as most colleges they include a cafe for the students convenience. Chips, chocolate, and pop vending machine is spread all over the school. The Bookshop offer a wide range of chocolate, chips and salty nuts, and of course a wide range of pop. The Camosun cafe offer healthy salads, yoghurt, fruit, fresh sandwhiches and soup, but also regular less healthy burgers, fries and pizza. Doughnuts have its own section, and so do pop and chocolate. Lemonande and sugar drinks can be bought in cups.

But back to the idea of most colleges having a campus cafe for students convenience. The only reason a college has to have a cafe at all, is because nutrition and vitamins are needed for students to stay at the college for a long period of time. Without having to bring their own food or having to go home to eat, that is.

So why is unhealthy food and pop drinks served, when nutrition and vitamins are what is needed?

The reason they do it is of course because unhealthy food is what is most popular, and it is what brings in most money. This, however, do not in any way relate to the goals of Camosun as a learning institution. The college should offer food and drinks that gives the students what they need while studying, not just offer whatever the students wants most.

If they same should be done with education, Camosun should start offering classes in hockey, weed, and videogames. Hopefully, that will not be the case. There are many things students want, and to drink coke or play videogames is not something I think is morally wrong, I just don't see why the college should offer this to their students.

Bottled Water
On a related note, I want to comment on the debate that has been going on at campus on banning bottled water on campus. I tried asking question at the Facebook group, but apparently no one seemed interesting in discussing it. The arguement is anyway pretty much that water should be free and that students should choose to drink tap water instead. Another arguement is that bottled water may not have as high quality as tap water because of chemicals in the bottle.

As this is true and a fair arguements, is it a total miss on seeing the big picture.

Firstly, tap water is not available everywhere.* Sometimes having a bottle in the bag is just a lot more convenient. And sometimes we don't bring a bottle, so we need to buy one.

Secondly, the decision is often not tap water vs. bottled water, but pop vs. bottled water. As pop without doubt is several times less healthy than water, I don't really see the arguements as to why pop should be sold on campus, and water should not. It is a lot better for both the environment and for the health of students if all the students bought bottled water rather than pop bottles.

I believe it would be best to focus on getting more visible taps at campus, to raise awareness about it, and get other students to use the taps. In addition, focus should be on banning the least healthy of the bottled products like pop and energy drinks. If that ever happen, a discussion can be made if bottled water should or should not be sold on campus.

*I do know from class discussion that the students campaigning against bottled water do work to raise awareness on tap water and to get more visible taps too, which is good. Keep it up.

Venezia vs. Venezuela + America

2010-03-09T01:03:00.000-08:00

Venice, or Venezia as the city is called in Italian, derives from the region of north eastern Italy which is called Venetia. Here they even have their own language, venetian, with over 2 million speakers, and Venezia is the capital of the region.

The origins of Venezuela, however, seemed to be a surprise. Origins can be traced back to a guy called Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer that roamed the sea around the late 1400's and early 1500's. He is said to have had 4 trips to America, only which 2 of them can be verified in sources other than two letters written by him (or someone else in his name). In addition to explore land in America, he is also famous for mapping Alpha Centuri and Beta Centuri on one of his travels.

When Amerigo was on his explorations, he found a lot of natives villages, and made many observations about native customs he wrote about back home in Europe (Hammocks, among others). One thing that hit him in some of the villages, where houses or dwellings are erected above the water, was that it reminded him of Venice. Hence, he named it Little Venice, or "Venezuela". On the grammar side of things, the suffix -zuela is in Spanish used as a diminutive term (opposite of augamentative), so a small plaza becomes plazuela, and a small Venezia becomes Venezuela.

Another interesting thing popped up when I read about him, and that was his first name Amerigo, and how similar the name is to America. That seemed to have good reason. Amerigo in his Latin writings used the latin form of his name instead, Americus. When Martin Waldseemüller made his world map 1507 where he gave America its name, it is believed that he used the feminine version of Americus: America.

English Expressions: Knock wood!

2010-02-13T23:38:00.000-08:00

I first learned about this expression in a musical scene by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, where the transcription goes like this:

F: Hello!
G: How are you?
F: How's the folks!
G: What's new?
F: I'm great!
G: Thats good
F: Haha!
G: Knock wood
F: Well well
G: Thats life!
F: What do you know?
G: How's you wife?
F: Gotta run / fly
G: Oh my,
F: tata
G: olive oil
F: Goodbye

I had no idea what it meant at the time. I looked up the expression "olive oil", but that was apparently an expression made up for the scene, not having a particular meaning of itself (other than the lexical meaning).

Today again I was reading journalist and author Jeff Jarvis' blog, and I came over this blogpost, were he writes:

There’s a reason we bought our Toyotas. They are incredibly reliable. I abuse mine, skipping service calls. But — knock wood — I’ve not had any major problems. So even though I don’t much like Toyota design and — as a professor, can no longer afford to pay for that styling with the Lexus brand — I thought I was pretty much stuck buying them forever. Why fix what’s not broken, eh?

Second time mentioned; I had to find out what it meant. A quick look over at Mrs.Wikipedia's place showed me - as I was suspecting - that "knock wood" is just the English version of the Norwegian term "bank i bordet", knock the table. It is used to scare away evil spirits or to attract good ones, so to say that the statement made is going to stay that way. Jarvis said that he had not had any major points, and did "knock wood" because he is hoping it to stay that way.

Then the expression got the princess and half the kingdom, and snip, snap, snout, the adventure is oute.

edit:

Olive oil may, as a friend of my pointed out, come from the oral similarity to the French term "À revoir", meaning Goodbye.

The Man from Earth

2009-05-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

The Man from Earth

Dette er en lavbudsjettsfilm fra 2007 som har gått meg hus forbi frem til jeg tilfeldigvis oppdaget den på en blogg i går. Vil ikke si så mye mer, anbefaler folk å se den. Produsentene har sagt at de er glad for at folk laster den ned og deler den med andre, siden de ikke forventet så mye oppstyr på en så billig film, og er glad for all oppmerksomheten den kan få. De som har lastet den opp har også lagt på fransk undertekst på den.

Link til filmen:
The Man from Earth

Faroese chatlog translation

2009-03-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

Faroese is spoken by around 45000 people whom all are innhabitans of the Faroe Islands, west of Norway. It's a west Scandianvian language, so it has the same roots as Icelandic, Norn and Norwegian. Since it's as small as it is, it's unfortunately useless to learn it if you don't have anything to do there. But it still has 45k users, so if you know anyone there or are planning a trip to the islands, it's very easy to at least get the basics of it.

I met a nice Faroese girl through a friend of mine, and I've therefore gained some interest in their language. Earlier I would say that it was very similar to Icelandic, and therefore not very digestable for Norwegians at first sight, but I've found out that this is clearly not the case:

Comparison and translation of some faroese comments I found at her profile on my facebook:

Faroese -> sloppy, direct translation (easier to se which words are related -> Proper Norwegian.

Sjálvt um hattar er langt síðani minnist eg hatta mega væl aftur..
Sjølv om detta er langt siden minnest eg detta meget vel etter/efter..
Selv om dette er lenge siden, minnes jeg dette meget godt i ettertid..

Ja.. hvus langt síðan er hatta?
Ja.. hvor lang siden er detta?
Ja.. hvor lenge siden er dette?

Tey hava kanska ikki klára at reiða songina upp síðani tú var har seinast?
De(Eng: they) har har kanskje ikke klare å(swe:at) reie sengane opp(swe:upp) sidan du var her seinast?
De har kanskje ikke klart å re opp sengene siden du var her sist?

As you can see, the two languages are very similar. I'm not quite sure how it is for speakers without Norway as mother tounge to understand it, it do require that you to have some knowledge especially about our looserlanguage nynorsk, and a lot of words are similar to words that isn't used a lot anymore. For example is the word "minnes" rarely used now, a more appropriate word would be "husker".

Dutch translation to Norwegian

2009-03-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

Just a quick translation of a text from Dutch to Norwegian. The text is from the cover of a BBC TV series called Miss Marple that I bought on DVD today at a second hand store. The English translation might be a bit off, but is there so you know what the text is about.

The text really shows how similar Dutch is to Norwegian. I translated the text with Dutch first, then sloppy direct translation to Norwegian, and proper Norwegian in bold. Note that the red version isn't proper Norwegian grammatically, but it shows better which word in Norwegian the Dutch word used is related to. An example is "lekker" - The same word exist in Norwegian, and means somewhat the same as in Dutch - but never used in the same context.

De complete Miss Marple
Den komplette Miss Marple
Komplett Miss Marple

Deze unieke DVD-verzamelbox bevat alle verfilmingen die de BBC ooit maakte van de avonturen van het beroemdste Britse oude dametje aller tijden.
Disse unike DVD-samleboks beholder alle filmingen av BBC laget (eng: maked/made) av eventyreren av mest berømte brite gamle (eng: old) dame all tiden.
Denne unike DVD-samleboksen inneholder alle episodene som BBC har laget av eventyrene til den mest berømte britiske gamle damen gjennom tidene.

In 12 lekker lange en sfeervolle films lost Miss Marple - een creatie van de legendarische detectiveschrifster Agatha Christie - op haar eigen manier de meest ingewikkelde moordzaken op.
I 12 lekker lange og fantastiske filmer av Miss Marple - en kreativ av en legendariske detektivskriver Agatha Christie - når hun løser de mest innviklede mordsakene opp.
I 12 lange og fantastiske episoder følger man Miss Marple - en karakter laget av legendariske detektivforfatter Agatha Christie - når hun løser de mest komplekse mord man kan tenke seg.

Ze maakt daarbij gebruik van haar scherpe speurzin en de mensenkennis die ze in de loop der jaren heeft opgedaan.
Hun lager (eng: maked / made) hennes skarpe nese og menneskekjenner hun gjennom mange år har opplært.
Hun bruker sin skarpe fornuft og menneskelige kunnskaper hun gjennom sine mange år har fått.

Dus duistere dienstmeisjes, dames met een dubbelleven en geheimzinnige giftmengers zijn gewaarschuwd: Miss Marple (hier gespeeld door de ongeëvenaarde Joan Hickson) laat zich door niemand voor de get houden!
Så mørke madamer, damer med en dobbellever og mystiske giftblander blir varskuet: Miss Marple (her spilt av enestående Joan Hickson) er (eng: late) seg ingenmann for den får hunden.
Så hekser, kvinner med dobbeltliv og som blander gift i drinker blir herved advart: Miss Marple (her spilt plettfritt av Joan Hickson) er ikke til å spøke med!

In English, it's something like

The complete Miss marple
This unique DVD-collection includes all the episodes BBC has made about the adventures of the most famous British old lady through times. In 12 long and fantastic episodes we follow Miss Marple - a charachter made by the legendary detective author Agatha Christie - when she solves the most puzzling crimes you can think of. She uses her clear sense and human knowledge skills that she has learned through her many years as detective. So witches, women with double lives, people who mix strange liquids in drinks is herby warned: Don't mess with Miss Marple.