I don't think any list of "Most Violent Video Games" would be complete without Time Killers. Who needs solid game play or nice graphics when you can just up the ante on blood and gore with the ability to dismember your opponent?

Totally agree.

Totally disagree. There's definitely a base level of mathematical understanding that is necessary to use calculators and computers. For example, students need to know that entering "1 + 3 / 4 - 2" into the calculator is not the same as "(1 + 3)/(4 - 2)".

Personally, I think computational mathematics is one of the important areas where the "traditional curriculum" is currently lacking. It's like the curriculum is trapped in the early 1900s and hasn't acknowledged the way computers have transformed society. In this technology rich era, students need to become educated computer users.

Accordingly, the focus of mathematics education needs to shift from "memorizing formulas" to "thinking algorithmically". Not only will this benefit the students going into further STEM studies, but other subject areas as well. Even something as simple as "baking a cake" can be thought of as an algorithm.

You may be interested in the Teach Scheme! project. The idea is to teach the programming fundamentals with Scheme where the syntax is simple and use those experiences as a scaffold for more complex languages. The project offers both a LGPL Scheme interpreter, Racket, and an online textbook, How to Design Programs. Follow up with How to Design Worlds, and students could be making games in no time! An intro course to game design might give that touch of creativity you were looking for.

Carnegie Mellon has an open source speech recognition project you might want to look into. Sphinx

arXiv

Nope. Quite frankly, the only way its going to get made is if you do it yourself. I'd suggest using an established engine to cut development time/cost to a minimum and going with a digital distribution service like Steam to bring the product to market.

I realize that they were trying to be funny and all, but calling Kurt Gödel an "idiot" seemed a little low.

I don't t that zombies represent our fear of science and technology, but rather the lack of them. We're afraid of what would happen if mankind were to revert back to a primitive state of being.

Obligatory: "Empty your cup so that it may be filled; Become devoid to gain totality" -- Bruce Lee

When I was doing my undergraduate work in mathematics, I found that I had to "unlearn" much of what I was taught earlier in order to grasp some of the more advanced concepts. At the time, I couldn't help but feel that I would have been better prepared for these classes if I had been allowed to explore mathematical ideas on my own, rather than being subjected to the public school curriculum. Looking back, I realize the irony in this hypothesis because I would not be me if my experiences had been different.

To complete the parent's saying, I'd suggest "You must unlearn what you know before you can learn that you know not".

From the description of the study, it sounds like this effect could be due to stress rather than depression and the two just happen to be correlated. When you encounter a complex problem, how would you describe your emotional state? depressed or stressed?

The study notes that stressful life events have been shown to induce depression, but their analysis does not seem to control for stress as a potential factor.

At BlizzCon, they showed a Starcraft 2 mod that looked a lot like Ghost. You might want to check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNPrnY4K_4

Really, most studios won't require a "game designer" to know how to program. Knowing how to work with a language like LUA or C++ will certainly be to your advantage, but it's not going to land you paying job. The only way a company will hire you as a game designer is if you can show them a game that you've designed.

I would recommend that you start by taking an existing game and making a mod for it. A large number of games for PC ship with the development tools included: Quake, Unreal, Half-Life, Oblivion to name a few. You'll probably need a high-end PC to even run these tools. Anything with less than 4GB of RAM will give you nothing but misery. Search the web to find a modding community and you should find some tutorials to get you started. Start small with a single room, test it out to make sure it works, then expand it to build a larger level. You might also want to pick up a 3D modeling suite, such as Maya, 3DS Max or Blender, so that you can create your own art assets as needed.

Another alternative would be to start with a pen and paper game, board game, dice game, or card game. The main idea is that you want to have some kind of game that you can include in your portfolio as you shop your resume around. The main rule of thumb in the industry is, "It's not what you know, its what you can show."

Good luck!

100% - (19% + 8% + 21% + 33% + 17%) = 2% of the population didn't vote

I think you're wrong about this. "Most Popular" only has a 20% chance of being correct, because only 1 of the 5 options can be the most popular. On the other hand, "Between most popular and least popular" has a 60% chance of being correct because 3 of the 5 options will be between the most popular and least popular. Of course, if everyone picked this option it would turn out wrong. However, the presence of 2 joke options and tendency of /.ers to select these options detoured enough votes to make it correct.