This person deserves a salute. He's definitely got the balls... and the asshole to go with it. He's more likely a troll though.
OMG! There's a Wiki article on my way of life! They call it "simple living".
Some people practice voluntary simplicity to reduce need for purchased goods or services and, by extension, reduce their need to sell their time for money. Some will spend the extra free time helping family or others.
Yes! That's so ME! I don't have any iPod and crap like that, not even a DVD player. My home has one but that's only because my mum needs it to listen to her 80s music. I've never touched it ever since I set it up for her.
The most expensive thing I have is probably my S$2000 PC and my 3-year old laptop that used to be worth $2k back then. Believe me when I say I have not found the need to buy anything unnecessary to live (I consider my computers to be necessities).
My video camera? My mum had to find some excuse to make me pick one, probably because her business was doing well for that part of the year. She told me she needed one for her work. I didn't care what she was going to use it for and didn't ask questions. It's been like 2 years and she's never asked for it. =\
Anyway the last line of that quote doesn't apply to me. I don't spend my extra time helping anyone. Maybe I'd cook, but it's seriously boring to cook in a family in which no one eats anything. My mum has serious diabetes, can't eat anything. My bro wants to maintain his waistline so the only meal he eats in decent amounts is breakfast. Who the heck likes to put in effort to cook early in the morning?? I'm not even a morning person! Worse of all, my bro never comments on the food other than saying it's "okay" or "not okay".
Hence, I don't even like to learn to cook anymore. What's the point? If I need to prepare to live alone, well, sandwiches don't need any practice to make.
If you want to live a simpler life, trust me when I say that you should stop watching TV. Those guys who make advertisements definitely have some knowledge about psychology. All the popular shows are available on the Internet anyway. That is, unless you think Singaporean drama series are good. If you do think that way, here's probably the best response I can give you:
Some of the "actors", well... let's just say I can find better "talent" from my bathroom after a heavy meal of 麻辣火锅 (numbingly spicy hotpot). And they are supposed to be "veterans".
Anyway lets go back to simple living. Anyone can live simpler for any reason, religious or environmental or whatever. Me, I'm just a lazy miser.
Have you ever considered that if we can collect all our knowledge into databases that we can access at anytime and anywhere, we wouldn't need to study much?
Maybe we would still need to study certain things that can't be memorised, but there are many things that children learn that don't need much understanding. I don't think this is ridiculous, though I suspect some readers may find this so.
Look at it this way: with the calculator, most kids don't have to memorise their multiplication tables anymore. Before my generation, I heard students had a table for integration or something.
Another example is the use of dictionaries for Chinese exams at "O" Level. Why memorise the writing of so many words when you can just memorise how to say it, then use the dictionary to find out how to write it when you need it? Similarly, I remember some courses in my first year in uni that were all about memory work.
If the Wikipedia can be expanded and refined, there will come a point when it becomes the sum of all our knowledge. There will not be a need for textbooks; students can just study from the Internet.
Even now, I don't get why different universities recommend different reference books for the same majors. If they're studying the exact same things, why not use the same books?? The laws of thermodynamics don't change when you go to Malaysia, right?? I'm sure water still boils at 100 degrees Celsius whether we're in New Zealand or Canada.
In any case, the Internet is capable of changing our lives more in terms of education. Not exams, not yet. Computers aren't cheap enough and allowing students to use their own would be too much of a security risk. But primary/secondary textbooks should be fine. It just takes some getting used to.
And the periodic table, there is no need to remember any of the symbols!
Heck, imo, school is getting close to the point of being redundant. All that they really need to do is test the students and answer questions. Everything you've learnt before university can be found on Wikipedia, other than the mother tongues (unless yours is English). In fact, Wikipedia provides more in-depth knowledge on many topics, eg phonetics. With some audio recordings, I don't see why students need to go to school at all.
Think of all the resources that can be saved. No need for desks, white boards, stationeries, class rooms, bus fares and etc. Only students who have been proven to be incapable of learning properly online will need to attend classes and everyone else go to school only for tests and exams and to ask questions that can't be easily explained by typing. Oh wait, with Ventrilo or Teamspeak it would be like calling the teacher for free. And if they need to draw things out, I'm sure there are programmes that can display the screen in real time. It's not too different from video cams after all.
It's not the same as the system Neo used to learn kungfu in The Matrix, but we can get closer than we are now.
The most results, 317 million of them! ROFLMAO! Try it! Screenshot taken at 11pm. So sad!!
No comments:
Post a Comment