The 'Net Generation' Isn't 435
Kanel introduces this lengthy review in Spiegel Online this way: "Kids that grew up with the Internet are not 'digital natives' as consultants have led us to believe. They're OK with the Net but they don't care much about Web 2.0 and find plenty of other things more important than the Internet. Consultants and authors, mostly old guys, have called for the education system to be reworked to suit this new generation, but they never conducted surveys to see if the members of 'generation @' were anything like what they had envisioned. Turns out, children who have known the Net their whole lives are not particularly skilled at it, nor do they live their lives online." "Young people have now reached this turning point. The Internet is no longer something they are willing to waste time thinking about. It seems that the excitement about cyberspace was a phenomenon peculiar to their predecessors, the technology-obsessed first generation of Web users. ...they certainly no longer understand it when older generations speak of 'going online.' ... Tom and his friends just describe themselves as being 'on' or 'off,' using the English terms. What they mean is: contactable or not."
evidence? (Score:4, Interesting)
The 'Net-Generation is/will be in Africa (Score:5, Interesting)
I put forward a controversial/unpopular position.
For most technology most (99.99%) people just use what they have or are given and apply what they have known from the past. They lack the imagination or resources to create anything original. Life is just too complex to change what works. Yes, for most people the computer is just a typewriter, and that's what they will teach their children.
If you really want to continue with your quest for the 'Net generation then the place you are most likely to find them is in Africa, or those countries who will have to make a big leap from stone age to internet age. Africa has far more original/innovative uses of cell phones because they were not baggaged with land-lines.
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:5, Interesting)
When the curve became flatter less understanding was required, however more people started using it. So I wonder if the mass adoption of technology compensates for the reduced required depth, i.e. if the first easy steps encouraged more people to take a deeper look at things compared to when you had no choice but to do that.
Data on the percentage of computer users in each generation which were hobby programmers at a certain would be interesting.
Re:evidence? (Score:4, Interesting)
MySpace ended up being killed by unattractive profiles, fake names were prevalent and the fact that there was just a small user base (teens and indie bands) didn't help things.
Facebook is good because it combines the best of everything. If you want to search for someone you don't have to search for xx_HaloPlayer43234, you can just type in "Bryan Smith" and find your friend. You can easily share images, video, etc. and chat (when it works) it a lot nicer than having 4 accounts for MSN, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ, it easily embeds with phones (even dumb-phones via text) and has a huge userbase.
E-mail is pretty much dead because E-mail was being forced to do things that E-mail wasn't designed to do and was only hacked on with HTML-Email.
Err, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
What the heck do you *do* then, that you have no interest in, or skills in, those things that make up technological civilization? Egads I simply can't imagine being that un-curious about things. Being a tool user is what separates us from the lesser primates. You say you use this or that that this "someone else" knows how to make work, to do what you want to do, so what is that, just be a media consumer, or what?
This is mind boggling to me, I grew up with a tool box and tearing stuff apart and building things, etc, ALONG with reading all sorts of things, being interested in nature and learning about that, etc. Granted, I don't program, and that is because my mind just doesn't work that way, linear and rote memory, I think spatially, which is why I have always preferred the GUI..but that still didn't stop me from learning to build/assemble computers either, have done that a bunch.
If you are a representative of this generation and demographic they are talking about in the fine article (or older I guess but with the same attitude), what the heck do you DO? Those kids, what the heck do they DO?
Note: not being snarky or flaming, not at all, your post just blew me away, I honestly do not know a single person in meatspace like the folks in the article and somehwat you who have no apparent interest in any technology that we all use, other than having someone else do it so you can use it.
It's all about advancing your career (Score:5, Interesting)
If you declare a revolution and talk about how everything will change, you can get published. Present at conferences. Invited to speak. And maybe even get paid for it, or else get new job offers or consulting gigs.
And everyone is so desperate to improve education that they'll grasp at anything to prove to the public that they're making big strides in changing education, even if there's NO PROOF of any change in educational income. It's snake oil.
The expensive, commercial, packaged curriculum products have the same problem. There's little evidence to back up one versus the other, and few studies showing any educational benefit. But the districts, desperate to fend of being attacked for doing nothing, spend limited educational dollars on them.
My prediction? Perversely, schools will spend more money on technology and materials as their funding is squeezed and test scores count more and more. After a couple of years of declining scores, they'll abandon whatever the current efforts are and spend a ton on new ones. And it'll just keep going.
Re:evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
I had things better (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Another annoying generation label!
generation @
Did anyone want to hunt the guy down and punch him in the balls for that one? Anyone? Just me? Oh. (kicks pebble)
And what is "tech savvy" anyway? I design stuff for space involving chips that have nearly 2000 I/O pads, and the whole board might have 5000 signals and the processing power of a small computing cluster. Am I tech savvy? Or do I need a Facebook account to be elevated to that level?
Same song different dance. (Score:4, Interesting)
Same thing happened with radio. In the age of crystal sets, everyone who was interested built one. Not everyone did, but those who were so inclined could build from scrap. Then it was just something that everyone had in their car. Now most people don't even know who Marconi was and if you asked them the difference between a dipole and a Yagi, they'd probably think you were some weirdo.
Re:evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The 'Net-Generation is/will be in Africa (Score:3, Interesting)
The African governments are too stupid to know how to do it.
Buddy, I think you mean to say "they do not currently possess the requisite skills." As in they haven't had enough exposure to the systems to get a feel for how to go about censoring effectively. Give 'em time and they'll be workin' it like china. I get you don't like the oppressive governments, but don't assume that they are stupid.
Re:evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whats most interesting, why will Google allow HD video to be uploaded to YouTube, but have a CRAZY 25MB attachment limit for Gmail messages? I can understand if they dont want people hosting movies on their email account, forwarding leaked movies from one person to another....but cmon! 25MB is nothing!
Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an odd story. I think that it is finding some true findings while completely missing the point. WHY is the net generation not adapting to Net 2.0. Is it because "they don't like the internet" or that they just dislike net 2.0? Speaking from experience, I prefer the wild west environment of the internet. I enjoy, regardless of whether I agree with it or not, being able to see the viewpoints and content of almost an endless variety of people.
For an example: If I want to see what dispicable racists believe in to further disprove their theories, I can freely see what they are saying. It's this unregulated, highly diverse environment that I enjoy about the internet. I want to see the good, the bad and the ugly. I want to have free choice of what I wish to observe, from the bizarre and socially unacceptable to the mundane and standard.
As for Net 2.0: While it does have some redeeming qualities for specific purposes, I don't tend to buy into it as any sort of "replacement". It is far too controlled and self regulated. Facebook does not want to entertain the ideas that even I find dispicible, which keeps me in the dark on their viewpoints, and leaves me feeling like I only get one side of the story which makes it much harder to strengthen my own beliefs. It attempts to censure political and controversial material as has been done on youtube, and facebook, and it is simply too cozy with law enforcement in ways that could lead to dangerous precedents for free thinkers to be persecuted and tracked. I much prefer an environement unfettered by authorities (whether governmental or private) in which I can experience all sides of every debate imaginable and make up my own mind as to what is acceptable and what is not. Also, I simply do not give a toss what my friend is eating for a midnight snack. If I wish to know, I'll ask them in person, in a phone call, or an email. I don't require a constant stream of their daily lives, as I can get that information without the use of any technology, in a much more meaningful way.
As far as "living online", where the hell does this come into play as a good thing? Wouldn't it be a negative thing for people to forego the real world, even with the benefits of the internet? I would find this as a very positive piece of information. The internet should be a tool, not an entire lifestyle in and onto itself. By all means, geek it out, but go the hell outside once you're done. Vitamin D is good for you.
The 'Net Generation' from Ground Zero (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm probably a bit alone on this thing, but I may as well post my .02c
I am a seventeen year old high school student and this struck a chord or ten. I always had a love of the technical and the arcane, from when I disassembled and reassembled everything I got my grubby little hands on. I've had to work with my similar-aged, and it just keeps on ringing in my head just how this vast network of loosely connected fiber and copper with the rare bits of 3.2GHz in the short haul is taken so for granted by every other person near my age. Never did I really look at anything without at least some bewilderment and awe at just how far technology has advanced in my two short decades of life.
My first computer was an 80386 running MS-DOS, and I think I am not alone here (at least with the C64 crowd et al.) with how what I did mostly with it was spending hours and hours in the BASIC implementation, crappy as it as, it was definitely a thing I had a blast on, even if it wasn't a real programming language in all honesty. I remember just how astounding it was to look at the numbers when I migrated to a Tualatin Celeron with a jaw-dropping 1.2 GHz of raw processing power compared to something that didn't break the hundreds. And a GUI? And this strange mouse? What just invaded my desk? And... where did my system's guts go, over everything?!
That old jalopy still held quite a bit of good times and memories, especially when I managed the impressive task of making a bouncing square on an NES with it or a loud and high pitched 25% duty cycle pulse wave that'd wake up the whole family with a press of A. I never did any concerted efforts to make any homebrew for it, that said. I even remember after reading this one guy's paper on the inner workings of Metroid's engine and spending more time in hex editors altering the the levels slightly. Hell, my first connection to the internet was a blazing fast 28.8k!
Words can't describe how shocked I was at how carefree people were to the machines I studied so endlessly when I discovered in middle school most of the kids my age didn't even know what the NES is, let alone nifty little tricks like breaking the 10NES or bank-switching to deal with the low ceiling, or how I still can't understand how someone of any age has such a weak sense of wonder and amazement that they cannot care the slightest in how something works or why it works or why when you remove this little cylindrical thing the pretty pink smoke starts to puff from the magical box of P and N doped silicon. I couldn't leave anything alone and I made sure I knew what the hell happened in the appliances I used, simply because a black box is just dull and inviting to be pulled apart and (hopefully) put back together.
Nor can any words put just how much I enjoyed studying the computers of older times, and just that same wonder once more when I realize that the PDP-8 at its most expansive configuration can be fully emulated on a CPU and its cache these days, or spending a few weeks with my father's tools making a mechanical turing machine (with an impressively large tape - 80 spaces made from a notched meter stick), the days I'd spend just learning, learning, learning. When I discovered Wikipedia in 2007 it was as if the world was opened to me, a compendium of all human knowledge (or at least the "relevant" part of it *cough*) at my fingertips, and I'd only have to wait a few minutes for an in-depth explanation on any topic I'd ever think of. The world-wide web is the reason why I had any chance at all to really get so deep into computing before even reaching the age of majority.
And with this, I can say I really was born in the wrong generation. To get the chance to see the computing explosion and the rise of the internet as it happened than in retrospect is something I would kill to get, and it's a sad thing that nobody my age can give even a quarter of a damn about the engineering marvels they have in their homes. (I Am Not An Adult(tm), so YMMV on this statement and all that.)
He's right, FaceBook really is the Internet. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Where is the answer? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a philosophy student, and I often get a lot of flak for it. People think that philosophy doesn't matter, and that you need to be a productive member of society and contribute to technology or science or the economy or whatsoever. I think that's what you're trying to get at when you asked "Anything serious?". It seems like to you, you feel that there's some purpose in exploring how things in the world around you work, and to contribute to human knowledge or technology by creating new tools or discovering new principles. Of course, what you do, and what many people in the science and technology sectors do, are very important. I could not practice philosophy as comfortably as I do now without many of the conveniences afforded to me by our current level of science and technology. I recognize that science, technology, and business play a big role in our lives, and that the people who are in those industries are contributing greatly to society.
I don't think many people just exist, as you say. The vast majority of people work. Of those people who do work, a significant minority don't have the resources to do anything but work, eat, socialize a little, play a little, sleep, rinse, repeat. But even those people contribute to society. If we didn't have janitors or retail sales clerks or whatever the case may be, our society would look a lot different. Our society requires some people be at those positions. And while you may still believe in the American Dream, the reality is that most of those people just can't afford to have any drive beyond going to work 10 hours a day to make ends meet.
I suspect, however, that your question is directed more towards those who can afford to develop some sort of drive. And that's why I brought up that I'm a philosophy student. I philosophize. What does that mean? Philosophy means something very different to those who actually study it than to those outside of its sphere. Philosophy is more a way of life than anything. I've studied many subjects in philosophy, ranging from logic to ethics to metaphysics. Philosophy is what I enjoy, and that's my drive. I want to try to reconcile the disconnect between subjective experience and objective occurrences (neural activity). I want to examine why people hold certain systems of ethics and not others, and whether or not there exists some objective measure of morality. So I live my daily life using tools, while using the time I save not worrying about those tools to pursue my interests, and my drives.
Other philosophers are logicians. They examine how systems of logic work, and what types of logical moves are valid or invalid. Now logic is important because there's one problem that the scientific method faces, but most scientists are unaware of such a problem. Scientists wield logic as a tool to perform their work, but they don't examine it on a deeper level. The problem that the scientific method faces is that it centres around the logical move that we call inductive reasoning [wikipedia.org]. I won't dive into the specifics of the problem here, but suffice it to say that I don't think it's a major concern that scientists rely on inductive reasoning even though they don't know exactly how it works, and why it is problematic. Scientists have a certain goal and they need to use certain tools. Their job is not to ensure that their tools work. It is the logician's job to make sure that scientists have good tools with which to perform their jobs.
Now all of this is a manner of saying that some people can't afford to have any drive, while others have different drives than you do. We're all doing something. It seems like you don't realize that there are other things that people can be interested in that are worthwhile. The problem of induction is an important problem in philosophy, as well as the concept of causality [wikipedia.org]. In other disciplines, there are other problems that are interesting that people want to tackle. Some people want to fi
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm in the late 20s/early 30s bracket, the gen who grew up having to fiddle with DOS just to get games to run. All the techs @ work (I'm not counting desktop and helpdesk lol, poor sods) had this ingrained in their upbringing. The kids coming in who had click and install gaming have noticeably poorer troubleshooting skills, and in particular shy away from command line and text files.
I'm in my early 20's, but for all practical computer-related purposes, I'm in my late--let's just say we didn't upgrade to Windows 95 until about 1999, so before that for me it was Windows 3.11 and lots of DOS. I'm always surprised when people at work (I'm in IT) don't know how to use the command line--I was genuinely shocked when I handed one of them a DOS boot CD with a (DOS-runnable) BIOS update EXE on it and they didn't know how. I think at leat cd and dir should be in everyone's basic vocabulary who claims to be a geek.
In fact, even where the command line was never part of the operating system's heritage (like OS X), I still find it useful. (OK, that's a lie, it is part of OS X's heritage, but it's not part of the Mac's in general, and certainly normal users never had or will have to use it.)
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya I think what many people miss is that to younger people, and even to many of us who are well accustomed to technology, the Internet isn't special. We just take it for granted. So we don't live our lives on there it is just a part of our lives. We use it seamlessly with everything else. It is the same way someone might have a TV running in the background in the kitchen while they cook yet not live their life around the TV.
For me, and many others (I should note I'm older, not one of the people who grew up with the Internet) the Internet is just kind of an assumed part of life. It is always there, on any computer. It doesn't really seem like a separate entity, and I don't put a lot of thought in to it normally. I use it more than most, I'm a geek, but it isn't like I live my life on it, that I focus only on things on the Internet. Quite the opposite, the Internet is just a part of life. That something is on or off the Internet isn't really a distinction I bother with. Basically, people who have adjusted to the Internet, either because they always had it or because they are comfortable with tech, don't obsess over it. It is just another thing in the world that makes life nice, like power or running water or whatever.
Just because people grew up with the Internet doesn't mean they are obsessed with. Quite the opposite rather, because it is something that has always been there it just isn't a big deal.
What it means is it is mature (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't pinpoint precisely when it happened, but it was pretty recent, probably around 2005. The Internet finally reached a real stage of maturity where basically everything humans wish to create was on it, where it was easy and accessible to use by all that can afford it and so on. It fully became the useful, fun, device it is today. As such it really does just blend in to everyday life. I don't marvel at it unless I stop to think about the development I've seen. Normally, it just fades in to the background, it is just another part of my life that I assume to be around, and get annoyed if it isn't.
I think that is something that geeks miss, they used the Internet early and used it as a geek toy. Thus they don't consider the larger development. When the Internet first started it really wasn't good for much at all. Universities could make some use of it for research but it was mostly just a communications toy. By the early to mid 90s it was getting fairly accessible. Most people could get a connection if they liked and you didn't have to be a geek to play with it. However it was largely useless still, other than to play. You could look at various websites people had tossed up, chat with people around the world, but that was about it. It wasn't a tool for getting anything done.
By the late 90s it was coming in to its own as useful. There were legit stores on there, like Amazon, and some unique services, like eBay. More and more useful information was online, companies were using it for business. Still wasn't fully mature though. There was plenty you couldn't do on the Internet. During the early parts of 2000 it just sort of grew and filled in most gaps. It matured to the point where nearly everything is online, you use it just like any other communications system. It is a primary way to get information, conduct commerce, and so on.
It was a fast, and rather seamless, process and hence hard to see. There aren't really any tipping points. The Internet just grew up and went from a toy just for geeks to something it is hard to imagine not having. As you said, it is now like the other services we have, rely on, and take for granted. That means it is fully integrated in to our lives, that it is a mature technology.
As far as I'm concerned, that is a wonderful thing.
Re:evidence? (Score:0, Interesting)
> "I drive a car regularly and have no interest in knowing the ins and outs of its mechanics."
EVERY time we have to see this stupid, stupid, drooling moron analogy as if it explained the entire universe. "Well, why would you download music? You wouldn't download a car!" "Well why would you eat an apple? You wouldn't eat a car!" "Well why wouldn't God exist? Cars exist, don't they?"
In the first place, you're doing nothing but arrogantly brag about your ignorance. You *should* know how a car works. It will make you a better driver, it will help you make the car last longer, and you can do your own mechanic work. Do you realize how badly you get butt-raped every single time you go to a mechanic? Last time I just got a quote, they wanted $650 for a brake job, and I went across the street to pay $35 for brake pads and put them on myself right there in the parking lot, it took an hour. Now what? Where is the holy, saintly, sanctimonious virtue in being ignorant about cars?
In the second place, we were talking about COMPUTERS, not cars anyway, bloody weren't we? Once again, there is no virtue in being ignorant about how computers work. Ignorance leads to not being able to use a computer at all.
This isn't about your bullshit analogy where TYPING TWO MOTHERFUCKING WORDS INTO GOOGLE AND HITTING ENTER = REBUILDING THE TRANSMISSION AND U-JOINTS!!!
This is about NOT BEING CAPABLE OF TYPING TWO MOTHERFUCKING WORDS INTO GOOGLE AND HITTING ENTER = PULLING THE CAR OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AT SUNSET AND SITTING THERE ALL NIGHT BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO FUCKING STUPID TO TURN ON THE HEADLIGHTS, OR EVEN CONCEIVE OF THE NOTION THAT CARS COULD HAVE A HEADLIGHT FUNCTION!!!
You know, I'm kind of a rather enthusiastic member of modern society. I don't have this elitist idea that being stupid means you belong to a higher class in society or that reading is for the peasants and slaves or whatever your fucked-up view of the world is. I deal with everything. It's called "being alive" as opposed to "letting life happen to you like a goldfish in a bowl."
Anybody who doesn't know how to bake a pie, fix their own brakes, find the clitoris in the dark, get a 2-year-old to listen to them so they'll stop throwing a fit in the middle of the store, change the batteries in their TV remote, unclog a toilet, compose a simple melody on the piano, cut their own hair without looking like they got in a fight with a lawnmower, figure square roots in their head, use a sliderule, ride a horse without making him an enemy, catch a fish before they starve to death, win a fight against a redbelt or less, put out a fire, build a cabinet that won't fall down, tame a wild cat, fix their own washing machine, convert between yen and marks, deal stocks without loosing their shirt, do their own taxes on the long form complete with deductions, summon a demon from a pentagram, or hold off a zombie invasion using only bronze-age technology or older IS ALSO AN IDIOT.
There, does that put "Anybody who can't use a search engine is an idiot." into better context for you?
OLD GUYS? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:3, Interesting)
A quick test of command line credibility is to ask about pipes: if they can successfully explain that, there's a good chance they understand how the subsystems work and not that the command line is merely a text-based view on the file system, and an understanding of pipes ought to be a part of any credible Software 101 program.
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:2, Interesting)
If any of the free Unices had been carried over to the x86 world a decade earlier (there were a couple of proprietary ones, but that doesn't count), I suspect Microsoft would barely have got off the ground.
So, are cars less important now.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because young people don't want to know how transmission works? The purpose of Internet has always been communication among people, just like the purpose of cars has always been transportation. Weather you also like to rev up your engine is entirely up to you. But if you knew what expense, effort and delay was involved in your doctor communicating with 30 colleges in different countries in pre-net days, you would care that it's here.
Re:evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should anyone with an alternative continue communicating with friends using a medium that doesn't let you either find or define your friends? There have been repeated calls to globally adopt standards for e-mail security, authentication and discouraging mass mailings through micropayments. Yet anyone who knows how to type "MAIL FROM" can still claim to be Bank of America - yes even with GMail. I am afraid it's we older people who turned young people off e-mail and open standards with it.
So wrong it's fun to read (Score:1, Interesting)
The media: "Digital Natives" are Internet-obsessed cyborgs that communicate exclusively with people they've never met via 140-character messages.
This study: The concept of "Digital Natives" is wrong. They are merely more skilled with digital techonologies than previous generations and these technologies are naturally integrated within their lives.
For someone who's actually familiar with Prenky's writing, it is pretty funny to see the article trying to disprove the notion of "Digital Natives" (or the "net generation") by basically giving textbook examples of the concept. I wonder which kind of editor allows contradicting statements such as "Young people have basically no interest in Web 2.0" and "An impressive 15% of young people have uploaded videos to YouTube" to appear in the same article.
If anything the authors disproved their own misconceptions and wild exaggerations about how young people actually interact with digital technology.
Re:evidence? (Score:1, Interesting)
... though ofttimes better than master of one
Pithy quotes alone do not prove your point.
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:5, Interesting)
Roberta Williams, one of the game designers at Sierra in the 80's had a slightly different take on it. Home computers started out being rather expensive, which meant that the average computer owner was older and more educated. Maybe buying the computer as part of a college education for instance or having a well-paying job which helped one afford the computer. When PCs became affordable for the average joe, the "average gamer" changed and Sierra could no longer afford to write games that catered to an educated audience. They were just too small a part of the market.
You could imagine that a similar impact was felt in all areas related to computers.
Web 2.0 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
'net generation' does not mean that everyone would become a technophile. net generation meant that these generations would grow up with the effect of internet and the culture it brings on their lives. and voila - it did. billions around the world have much more in common with each other, than they do with their parents. games, instant messengers, forums, social networking sites, they grew up practically together.
that's what net generation means.
Re:evidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
> I've noticed that as I get older I can relate
> more and more to people who just want things to work.
So can I.
The difference, I think, is that neither of us started that way, and if push comes to shove and we really need something to work, our brains are wired in such a way that we'll get the damn thing working ourselves if we have to. Be it software, hardware, cars, tools, plumbing, etc.
It's very different to have learned a way of life (tinkering) and then slack off than to have never picked up the habit.
And the problem, I'd add, isn't limited to current or even recent generations. I've met 80-90 year olds who've never done work on their own house or car in spite of having grown up in times where you'd think it would have been necessary...
c.
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:4, Interesting)
GUI users tend to get completely lost when facing a new GUI. Even rearranging the menus is enough to get many people to give up and ask for help. Command line people, in contrast, can learn new syntax very easily, showing that they really ARE more proficient.
Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the Sierra games as a kid (and Monkey Island, Infocom, and many others) I think this is a bit of a cop-out. Sure, there is a huge market of "twitch" gamers that never existed back in the 80s, but that doesn't mean the educated market disappeared. If anything, the educated gamer market is even larger than it was back then, as hardware has gotten cheaper. What has happened, I suppose, is that only the big mega-hits get funded by the studios.
We need to go back to indie studios that are self-funded and deliver games that even small niche markets like educated gamers want. There is more than enough money to go around. If you make good games, people will play them (and pay you for them).
Re:The 'Net Generation' from Ground Zero (Score:2, Interesting)
If you are seventeen, then one year before you were born I was using a 68040 NeXT machine, programming in Objective-C and Display Postscript.
Re:Where is the answer? (Score:3, Interesting)
The important difference between deduction on the one hand and induction and abduction on the other hand is that deductive reasoning holds necessarily, whereas inductive and abductive reasoning do not. This is because with deductive reasoning, so long as the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. With inductive and abductive reasoning, even though the premises are true, the conclusion may be still be false. A classic example of induction is that (p1) All swans that I've observed are white; (c1) All swans are white. Let's imagine that there are 1000 swans in the world, and I've observed 999 of them. Let's say that (p1) is true. (c1) may still be false. That one remaining swan could be some other colour than white. (Aside: Even if you said (c1') At least xx% of swans are white, it still does not hold necessarily since the total amount of swans is a contingent fact that you have no access to.) This is what is meant when we say that induction does not hold necessarily. On the other hand, if we say (p1) All swans that I've observed are white; (c2) This particular swan that I've observed is white. Now if (p1) is true, (c2) is necessarily true. The conclusion cannot be false. If this is unsatisfying, there's a much better explanation up on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [stanford.edu].
The sibling post pointed out that many fields within science and math try to solve this issue, but I don't think any of them actually try to justify induction. Most of the solutions that I know of creates techniques that if used will increase the reliability of induction. But you can never justify induction deductively, and any attempt to use deduction to justify induction must include induction in its premises (resulting in circular reasoning). Furthermore, deductive reasoning that includes results from inductive reasoning is logically invalid. This may be a bit abstract, so let me try to illustrate with an example.
There's a difference between the decimal number 2, the string "2", and the binary number |10|. Now, there's also the real abstract idea of [2] that we all have. Necessarily, the decimal number 2 and the binary number |10| both refer to this abstract [2]. However, when we write down the string "2", that does not necessarily refer to the abstract [2]. It just so happens to refer to the abstract [2] because we have thus defined it.
So let's say we have 3 formulas. (1) 2 + 2; (2) |10| + |10|; and (3) "2" + "2". Even though all 3 formulas represent [2] + [2], only formulas (1) and (2) represent [2] + [2] necessarily. What happens if you mix and match? So let's say you have (1a) 2 + |10|; (2a) 2 + "2"; and (3a) |10| + "2". In this case, only (1a) is necessarily equal to [2] + [2].
In this example with numbers, the decimal number 2 and the binary number |10| represent conclusions derived from deductive reasoning. They hold necessarily. The string "2" represents results from inductive and abductive reasoning, where the conclusion may so happen to hold, but it does not hold necessarily. Each time you introduce a result from inductive reasoning to a deductive formula, you are adding another element that does not hold necessarily. The problem is that necessity does not have degrees. Something is either necessary or not. Once you use inductive or abductive reasoning, your conclusion does not hold necessarily and is thus logically invalid (all logically valid moves must preserve truth necessarily).
Now as I said in my previous post, this is not a major concern for scientists or most other people. While induction is not a logically valid move (since it does not necessarily preserve truth), it is a move that is reliable enough for practical (and even theoretical) purposes. For science, as previously mentioned (and as you've mentioned), there are many techniques to increase the reliability of induction. Everyone uses induction a lot in their every day lives. We use it all the time. It's impossible to function without induction. For