Democratisation of the internet

it's been a while since i posted a "content" post... and this is an interesting one i hope =)

Time magazine's "person of the year": YOU (look at the mirror)
image from gawker

We may not realise it, but each time we participate in the online community, be it blogging, adding our 2 cents worth to Wikipedia, or uploading a video to Youtube, we are contributing towards the "democratisation of the internet": the power of the internet has indeed truly been given to the people.

It is interesting, as a study of emergent properties in systems, and how bottom-up content-creation by millions or billions of individual users can vastly outdo what a top-down approach is capable of. Just look at Wikipedia, the most comprehensive resource available, and a de facto first stop for most of us when wanting to find out about something.

As an internet phenomenon the democratisation of the internet is unrivalled. Personal and social space online is free and plentiful (though fraught with dangers). The reach and the power it gives to the individual (ask mrbrown) is amazing. All is needed from the top is the infrastructure, and perhaps giving it some momentum.

There are implications, of course. First is abuse and censorship: just as people can post useful stuff online, so can the post hate speech and bomb-making instructions. And the internet is horrendously hard to censor, especially when it knows no borders.

Next is the reliability of online sources like Wiki: you probably won't want to rely on it for your thesis paper, but as general reading it is perfectly fine. The error rate is very, very low, and any errors can be corrected easily (unlike print encyclopedias: britannica got jacked when they went to look for errors in wiki, cos someone corrected the errors in 2 days).

But lim (t --> infinity), these problems will iron out. We are stepping closer to the ubiquity of information; the true age of the internet has just dawned.


P.S.

I also contribute to Wiki and Google Video (click on "more from user" in the sidebar".

I can't believe it that my atomic bomb video has 22700 views and 1230 downloads!!! Ok hopefully it has benefitted others.

Other RI wikipedians i know: Ren Yan, Joel Kek, Vincent, Jun Sean, Jeremy Sia

Light and reflection in the orange breeze.

This occurred a long time ago I was waiting for a taxi outside the school gate.

The setting sun's cast a faint orange glow, and the playful shadows of dusk disrupted that, for the road's orange sodium lamps had yet to turn on. Traffic came in noisy waves, with every green from the Braddell junction. The floor was strewn with fallen yellow leaves, and these flew up as a cool breeze blew.

But no taxi came by, for half an hour.

As patient appreciation of the surreal scene (which reminded me of standing at the Beijing traffic light in winter) turned into impatience and frustration, my mind started to wander.

And suddenly I knew God was talking to me. He gave me 2 words: Refuge and Rejoice , and I stood silently in his company, praying and reflecting.

Those are 2 powerful words: To rejoice in the Lord, for his sacrifice, giving us life, and for what we are and what we have; To find refuge in him, patiently knowing that he loves us, will carry us through, and that he plans to prosper us and not harm us.

He told me to cross the road and get a taxi there - and i thought, how could it be? That spot is just down the road from J8, and with the long taxi queues at J8, all taxis coming down from there are bound to be occupied. Plus there was already someone waiting across the road

But cross the road I did. The guy aleady waiting there got his taxi within 30s, and I got mine a minute later.

Couldn't believe it - and I stil can't. But he works in amazing ways.

We should all go on strike

It's the last day of the holidays... but i don't feel anything about going back to school tomorrow... cos it hasn't been any holiday at all.

And that's after false promises of a "no holiday homework policy"... I certainly second renyan's idea of a student's union (RIPB feedback seems to get ignored by upstairs).

We should fight for the French 35-hour work week, or at most double that (since we're kiasu Singaporeans)... i.e. a 70-hour work week, including all homework, projects etc (i.e. max 11.5 hours per day, excluding sunday, spent on school stuff).

Ok daydreaming over... i still have the chinese 读书报告 and 鹰的天空 to finish, 2cm of geog readings and an essay... and that's ignoring the stuff that is due after T3W1...

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On another note, here's a little introduction video i did for RI-BP science odyssey, which was basically a science competition we organised for primary schools. The storyline is a bit corny but the pri sch kids seemed to enjoy it. Haha

The ironies of a holiday

It just doesn't feel like a holiday. So much homework (especially a particular subject)... plus all the CCA stuff and etc (though those are more fun).

It is necessary for us to go back to the principle behind a holiday. What is it for? To rest, to enjoy, to do what you like (e.g. CCA, attachments etc.). The idea is that it is a break from hectic school life.

Now juxtapose that against the current situation... and the dichotomy is striking. I'm not advocating totally no holiday work, but there must be a balance. Right now it is far from a holiday.

Like that very tiring and sian one (especially for certain subject's homework...). I want a break loh. Some more term 3 very xiong one.

I don't think i'll be able to finish the holiday homework... (with this competition and that)... the list on my blog is intended to improve my efficiency. So if you see me on msn please suan me on my unfinished homework...

"Teachers have been instructed NOT give holiday homework" - xxx. How ironic. Moral of the story: teachers also not obedient one.

I'm melting

Sian... sit in front of com for 2 hours, blowing fan, then i become all sweaty and sticky. I buay ta han on aircon to do work dunno how many times the past 2 weeks.

Can't stand the koyak singaporean weather lah. So irritatingly hot - and way too humid.

There's this idea of a comfort zone (below), beyond which work becomes inefficient. heh. justification for aircon. Luckily our classrooms got aircon (but cannot change temperature, sometimes dunno why too hot one).



I actually like colder temperatures. Around 12-22 (Hamburg) is pretty comfy, and -2 to 5 (Beijing winter) is refreshing (and not as cold as it seems). Aircon does wonders too :-)

Gerdanken #2: Schrodinger's cat

Schrodinger's thought experiment (in his own words):

A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The Psi function for the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a ``blurred model'' for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

We know that superposition of possible outcomes must exist simultaneously at a microscopic level because we can observe interference effects from these. We know (at least most of us know) that the cat in the box is dead, alive or dying and not in a smeared out state between the alternatives. When and how does the model of many microscopic possibilities resolve itself into a particular macroscopic state? When and how does the fog bank of microscopic possibilities transform itself to the blurred picture we have of a definite macroscopic state. That is the measurement problem.


The Copenhagen intepretation:

A system stops being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes place. This experiment makes apparent the fact that the nature of measurement, or observation, is not well defined in this interpretation. Some interpret the experiment to mean that while the box is closed, the system simultaneously exists in a superposition of the states "decayed nucleus/dead cat" and "undecayed nucleus/living cat", and that only when the box is opened and an observation performed does the wave function collapse into one of the two states. More intuitively, some feel that the "observation" is taken when a particle from the nucleus hits the detector.


The Heisenberg uncertainty principle:

Ok I won't go too far for this one. The basic idea is that measuring a system changes it. If you measure the momentum of a particle, you will change its position. If you measure the position of a particle, you will change its momentum.

Therefore,given a particle, the uncertainty in momentum (Δp) times the uncertainty in position (Δx) is greater than or equal to the reduced planck's constant (or div 2??? some sources say div 2...).

ΔxΔp ≥ ħ/2

Welcome to quantumland

mostly lifted from wiki