Last Thoughts of 2007

Many people celebrated Christmas a short while ago (or other religious festivities) and refer to it as a special time of year, often mentioning a "Christmas mood" - time to spend with your family, time to relax, sit together in the warmth, escaping the problems of the outside world. It's only a few days, but people are looking forward to it for a long time. It's a time when people behave differently. For some people it is a depressing time, mostly because they see other people enjoying it and get even more depressed than normal.
I'm an atheist. I don't believe in the story of the birth of Christ. For me Christmas has lost it's religious background, but is still a special time which I spend with my family. A time where I can relax, meet friends and exchange gifts. For me Christmas is a family celebration. It hasn't lost any importance just because I don't believe in the religious bits and pieces. It is still a special time, but, to be honest, it could be any time of year.

Tomorrow the year 2007 ends. But what does that mean? We think of the new year as a new start, an opportunity to change things, to do things better than last year. Many of us have New Year's resolutions to exactly specify what they want to change; like a tick-list. We think of it as a new white sheet of paper which is waiting to be filled, a white canvas we can paint on. Are we really able to look at the sheet of last year, think about it, reset our life and draw it differently this time?
From a scientific point of view all that happens is the date changes. We have the calendar to count time and for reasons of convenience we use different units which enable us to speak about fixed periods of time: a month, a year, days, seconds. So all that happens is that the last chunk, the portion of the date called "year", gets incremented by one.
Time is flowing continuously and as time flows, so do our lives. Scientifically there is no resetting our lives at New Year's Eve, no new start. It just goes on. All that really changes is a number.

So, as an atheist, although Christmas has no background I still don't want to miss the time with my family. I just call it Christmas so everybody knows what I'm talking about. It's just a concept everybody knows. But, it doesn't have to be on the 25th of December, I could do the same things any other time. It's nice it's in winter (at least here!) but it doesn't have to be. As long as it is at least once a year! ;-)
As a scientist, I know that nothing changes on New Year's Eve but a number. Still, I think about a new year as a chance to do things differently than last year, to try new ideas. As with Christmas, New Year's Eve is also an abstract concept. Everything we associate with it just exists in our heads. Does this make it less important? I don't think so! Humans need concepts, sometimes more and sometimes less abstract. We use them to organise our world, to make it easier to understand and have gotten used to so many of them, we sometimes forget they are just concepts. But, concepts can be changed and should be questioned from time to time.

We need a time like Christmas so we don't forget the importance of a few relaxing days or the importance of family. We use the concept "year" and need New Year's Eve to partition the time given to us into chunks we can handle. But, many people forget the things we do in these times could be done all the time. I can change things in my life all the time, can spend time with my family all the time and can relax as often as I think is necessary. Christmas and New Year's Eve are concepts which help us remember, but we should not narrow it down to these few days only.

I hope you all had a nice few days over Christmas and have the list with resolutions ready for tomorrow. My only resolution is to celebrate "New Year's Eve" every day next year. Thinking about the last ones, perhaps I should omit the alcohol and only think about changes and opportunities! :)

Happy New Year everyone!

Sven

Quote: Freedom to doubt

"The freedom to doubt is an important matter in the sciences and, I believe, in other fields. It was born of a struggle. It was a struggle to be permitted to doubt, to be unsure. And I do not want us to forget the importance of the struggle and, by default, to let the thing fall away. I feel a responsibility as a scientist who knows the great value of satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, and the progress made possible by such a philosophy, progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought. I feel a responsibility to proclaim the value of this freedom and to teach that doubt is not to be feared, but that it is to be welcomed as the possibility of a new potential for human beings. If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations."

Richard P. Feynman
(in "The Meaning of It All", Lecture 1, 1998)

Think before forwarding!

Chain-letters were already around on paper before the internet started (we all remember the "Send this on and you will find luck the next day" letters). Although money (postage) and work (making paper copies) was involved, the chain letters still found enough gullible people to be able to spread. With the start of electronic mail and the possibility to copy and forward hundreds of emails within seconds, the chain letter had its time of prosperity. Hoaxes and chain letters became a real threat to every mail server as they got flooded with millions of copies within minutes.

I couldn't understand why it worked before the internet at all, I understood why it flourished in the early days of the world wide web, as people just sent on everything they got if it sounded a bit reasonable (and it was just too easy to do!), but in the time of online viruses, worms and spam, I really thought people would start to think before they press the forward button!!

Most of the hoaxes and chain letters are easy to spot. If you are not sure, a simple search on google normally reveals their true nature. So why do people still believe that they can get anything for free if they send an email to all their friends?? In the beginning I was annoyed when I got the same email 20 times a day from friends....nowadays I'm almost getting angry! Somehow I have this strange opinion that people could spot and delete them themselves.

I have to be honest, I didn't get one for a while and there was a sprout of hope that we've reached a critical mass of people who are aware of them to kill them once and for all. But how wrong I was! Two days ago I saw the walls in Facebook filled with this message:

Attention all Facebook membeRs.
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,
There have been many members complaining that Facebook
is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is
that there are too many non-active Facebook members
And on the other side too many new Facebook members.
We will be sending this messages around to see if the
Members are active or not,If you’re active please send
to other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active
Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks,
The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,
If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send
this message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg

It has all features of a standard chain letter: It gives you a nice story about a problem (which is not there in the first place), threatens the receiver by telling you that something is going to happen to you if you don't forward it and askes you to send it to all your friends, pets, toys and future children! There are immideately several questions which should come up:

• Why can't Facebook check my activity within the system?
• Why don't they just send a message to everybody themselves?
• Would Facebook really delete accounts without hesitation?
• Why can't Mark Zuckerberg write "members" correctly???

So why don't people ask these questions, think about them, have a laugh and delete the post?
Facebook had to react (as walls filled up with millions of stupid chain letters) and delete them!

I hope everybody who read this post is going to think twice everytime a child wants a liver by email, some account is going to be closed down, Microsoft wants to send you money or the world can only be saved by sending on a message! It will never be true and I'm going to hate you for having to delete the emails/posts that reach me! And believe me, only one in a hundred is going to get a different reaction, like the mother of all chain letters or the anti-letter. So if you are not absolutely sure, don't try! ;-)

In hope to have changed the world again with this post,
Sven

Is this the right name for brakes?

I saw these brakes today on a bike. They look like really good brakes, but the name confused me a little bit! Is "Hope" really the right name for a company producing brakes? :) I can only hope it's well used irony or you never seriously have to brake :-D
(I don't want to comment on the quality of the product itself, as I've never tested them!)

Climate sins and absolution

I booked a flight for Christmas a few days ago with EasyJet. After fighting my way through all the rental car , hotel and insurance offers, deciding about number of bags and priority boarding, I suddenly found a new tick-box: Carbon Offsetting. Intrigued by this new option, I took the time to find out what this new check box was about. On the "Fly Greener Environment" page I found out that, by clicking the box (and spending a few pounds more), you

"[...]balance the effect of the carbon emitted from your flight by supporting UN certified projects like Perlabi Hydroelectric in Ecuador."
(from: EasyJet)

It seems that the opportunities to save the world are rapidly increasing! That means that the world should be save! Or not? Somehow the whole thing reminds me of the absolution practice in medieval times. You could buy a letter of absolution from the church to save your soul and be free from the sins you've committed. Great!
One can't help to see parallels to the emission trade and the carbon offsetting options these days. If I tick the box, does the plane I plan to board blow less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Unfortunately not! Although it's good to invest money into "green" projects, it doesn't solve the problem itself, it just tries to counter the effects of flying (which isn't a bad thing, don't get me wrong!). But it seems to make people feel better about polluting our world! I can't help thinking that a lot of people seem to feel too good about it and just found a good excuse for not doing anything that really cuts down pollution. Something along the lines of: "I can drive the 5mins to the shops as I paid 5 pounds yesterday for the Brazilian rain forest!".

People always ask how I can cycle 20mins every day to my office and back. That's miles away!! Yes, it is! But only a few. And I can also stop at the shops on the way home. It really isn't difficult and one can avoid taking the car most of the time. I agree, there are times where you have to use one. But if we are honest, there are many times we could walk or cycle and therefore produce less carbon dioxide and even live more healthy (fresh air and so on!).

There are also many other little things we can do:

• Bring a reusable bag when shopping! Billions of plastic bags are used every day and this the most unnecessary waste of resources of all times! There are folding boxes you can put in your car, backpacks (if you are cycling ;-) ), jute bags that can be used for ages,..... the list of "green" alternatives is long!

• Try to buy goods that come in a recyclable container. Why does milk have to come in plastic containers? Glass bottles are reusable! In many countries now you can leave unnecessary packaging at the shops to force them to use less and recyclable packaging.

• Use public transport! It's a lot less stressful most of the times compared to driving at rush hour and it's a good alternative to cycling if the weather is bad.

• You can even save the world while jogging and become an Eco-Runner :)

I could go on for a long time! There are so many little things everybody can do without much change to our lifestyle. And you don't have to buy your peace of conscience by paying more and more for carbon offsetting. Paying for our climate sins seems to be the easy way out, but we can't buy a new earth if we've finally destroyed this one. And the "I'm only one individual in 6 billion, I can't change anything"-excuse doesn't apply here! If everybody is contributing even a little bit, the overall changes are huge! To say it with the words of a german punk band: "It's not your fault that the world is like it is, it only would be your fault if it stays like that!"

Ok, so...
recyclable bag with me? ...tick
cycled to university today? ...tick
£ 2.95 for a better conscience when flying home over Christmas??.....ah, whatever: TICK!

Take care!
Sven

Where should we teach?

I'm doing a course right now on teaching in higher education where I'm supposed to learn how to teach students at a university. When I started the course, I thought we would be taught how to teach students in a classroom (the way most of us were taught!). After watching some videos on Youtube I'm asking myself if the term "classroom" is still appropriate in this sentence?
In times of Web 2.0 with it's Youtube, blogs, Wikipedia and many others, is the way we still teach really the best or do we also have to move on to Academia 2.0?

Before the web was there, going to a university was the way to study because the information was there: In form of teachers and libraries. With the internet this suddenly changed. Information is everywhere. We can access libraries online, find thousands of journal articles, ask the world if we have a question and can answer questions if we know the answer. Information can be broadcasted in many ways: It's not bound to be in books anymore, it can be found in videos, podcasts, online discussion forums and many more. All there on our screen within seconds. So why should students attend lectures any more if they can access all the information online from home?

From a constructivists point of view, this is a dream come true: The teacher can act as facilitator who helps students to find the information they need, organize it into comprehensible chunks and build up their knowledge by linking these chunks. The students can learn the way that they choose is best for them (and that itself is a learning experience) and can be spread over the whole planet. The knowledge can still be assessed at the end to obtain different university degrees.
Teachers have to let loose of their classic views on learning and teaching. They are not longer in front of their class. The teacher is now faced with a distributed learning community in which he has the role of a guide. The information doesn't necessarily have to be prepared in a lecture because it is already out there, but the students have to learn how to use and evaluate it.

Nowadays, students already know how to use modern technology. They most likely already had to learn that information has different degrees of reliability and use multiple references to verify it. They grew up in a different environment than most of their teachers and we shouldn't ignore that. The world is constantly changing, so why should we stick to classical teaching styles? Just because they worked for centuries doesn't mean we can't improve them.

The world changes faster and faster. Perhaps teaching should, too!

Here are the videos:

• The machine is Us/ing us
• Information R/Evolution
• A Vision of Students Today
• Rethinking US (a students answer to the first one)
• and a quite famous one: Did you know?

Thanks for reading,
Sven

It took a long time...

...but finally even I managed to start a blog. It might not be the big thing the world was waiting for for decades, but that might change :) First I have to disappoint many people: In this blog I won't give away any secrets about my life (you still have to email me for that!), tell you what to do with your life nor bombard you with mostly useless advice.
As the title suggests, I want to comment on unusual things I read, saw or even experienced! I don't want to do that to prove to the whole world that there are interesting things happening in my life, but to make at least a few people think about facts, news or events. Might be a bit much to ask for, but hope dies last!

One rule I want to enforce is that no anonymous comments are allowed! If you have an opinion and want to share it, be man (or woman) enough to put your real name under it! I'm going to remove anonymous comments.

Looking forward to some interesting comments and discussions! The first comment is going to be there soon...

Sven