Category: technology

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Atheism, agnostic, evolution, etc. culture technology video

Education 2020 – less academic trash?

Technological solutions for removing garbage
Technological solutions for removing garbage

“College” may be transforming now as quickly as Apple transformed how we buy and listen to music last decade …

While Ivy League “students” learn how to perfect their perversions with porn stars, UNC Tar Hell students spend NC tax dollars on orgasm clinics, and Big 10 Professors feature after-class/in-class live sex shows, the “fix” may already be in the works.  Dazzled by big collegiate names, sterling sports reputations and a host of beneficial science and engineering research, too many are oblivious to or apathetic about the morally decrepit and intellectually flaccid state of most humanities departments within our universities.

We may not need to reform those departments, they may simply go away for being obsolete.  Why pay tens of thousands of dollars in (often tax subsidized) tuition and room and board for what can be obtained for free.  Or so we can hope.  Like so many problems that plagued humanity for ages, technological innovation may pave for real change — near universal accessibility for little to no cost, international exposure to content, and the power of social media/leveraging to filter and elevate quality content.  The following video explains not just how this might happen, but how it is presently turning into reality:

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Ministry technology video

The future of the global church is Open

Tim Jore, of Distant Shores Media, is a guest contributor to the Sapphire Sky blog. He, together with his wife and a great team of people at DSM, are helping to equip the global church with unrestricted discipleship resources that are intended for use on mobile phones. Find out more in the video and join the community at facebook.com/distantshoresmedia and facebook.com/door43!

The rise of the Internet and worldwide mobile phone technology is the greatest opportunity for the advance of the global church since Gutenberg’s press half a millenium ago. But taking advantage of this opportunity requires discipleship resources that are released from copyright restrictions so that they can be legally translated, adapted and redistributed without restriction.

This video introduces Door43, an open-access project to create and translate discipleship resources that are free of charge and released from copyright restrictions under an open license so that anyone, anywhere has the legal freedom to use and improve them. Join the movement at door43.org and help us make this vision a reality: Unrestricted discipleship resources, in every language, and on any mobile phone. Find out more at dsmedia.org/​intro.

Categories
culture technology

We lost on Jeopardy …

Most the world did not have a World Cup team to cheer for.  Major countries and several significant ones failed to even qualify, e.g. China, India, Russia.  While we’re competing fiercely with each other, this Century may bring about a fundamental change in how and with whom/what we compete.  I believe that by 2050, we’ll be discussing whether the robots (or manufactured people) will soon beat the world’s best soccer team in a match, if it hasn’t already happened by then.  According to the NY Times, it looks like we’re already losing to the not-quite-AI machines in TV game shows, or soon will be.  A virtual Vanna White may be turning placards for HAL soon enough.

 ‘Toured the Burj in this U.A.E. city. They say it’s the tallest tower in the world; looked over the ledge and lost my lunch.’ 

 This is the quintessential sort of clue you hear on the TV game show “Jeopardy!” It’s witty (the clue’s category is “Postcards From the Edge”), demands a large store of trivia and requires contestants to make confident, split-second decisions. This particular clue appeared in a mock version of the game in December, held in Hawthorne, N.Y. at one of I.B.M.’s research labs. Two contestants — Dorothy Gilmartin, a health teacher with her hair tied back in a ponytail, and Alison Kolani, a copy editor — furrowed their brows in concentration. Who would be the first to answer? 

Neither, as it turned out. Both were beaten to the buzzer by the third combatant: Watson, a supercomputer. 

For more see: What Is I.B.M.’s Watson?