h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can anyone direct me to a good source for the above? I wrote a system (distributed network to investigate emergent behaviour, edge of chaos and all that malarky) for my final year degree thingy about 6 years ago (feeling old!) and was ging to go into research in it but got distacted by the lure of business. I now want to get back into it (so not a beginners guide) maybe even do a masters or further in it, and was wondering if any of the good people out there could point me at the latest sources. Code, theory, anything like that to get me up to speed with the latest stuff. I'm sure Mr Levy's book is now old hat...

wow that brings back memories of the (non fiction) book armchair universe. About a-life as opposed to AI

Have you tried http://www.newscientist.com/


I would very much like to know how far you get

wet example

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993094

Hi Apparition, thanks for the reply, sorry it took so long for me to notice it!

Am currently searching for a course in Cognitive Science or equivalent. unfortunately it is a bit specialist I think and consequently I am having trouble finding anywhere that does it as a part time or distance learning course.

But I shall let you know how i do!

Off to search new scientist now!

Open University does an AI module for £260

http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C02T396

Or were you looking for a masters type course?

If so try http://www.hotcourses.com

^ works for OU!
The OU course Pencil Queen mentions is a level 3 course, which means it's quite advanced. If you choose to follow it through to a degree, you could also use qualifications gained elsewhere to add to the points you'll gain from the course.

Q

Dublin City University does Cognitive Psychology as one module in its Information Technology degree, which is a distance education degree.

Yeah the OU offers a single course, I wanna do a MSc in it! After all, I already got a degree where approx half the marks were down to AI and A-Life - just as well cos the other half of the marks were abysmal

Whereabouts in the OU do you work? My old man works for them as well!

Hi Queegle...I noticed that it was a level 3 course - so would be at around the same level as the 3rd yr in a degree(?)...and from the first post it sounds like Ictoan knows quite a bit about the subject - just wants a current update.

Do you let graduates study level 3 courses in the same subject as their degree or would you have to go through the whole system first? (nosy because I'm looking at a couple of modules but I couldn't afford the time/money to do a complete degree course)

Well the business school lets you study whatever they think you are capable of. So I should imagine if you convince them that you are capable of level 3 then yup, you can do!

Gnomon, thanks for the info. Did you get it off their website as I am having trouble navigating it. You'd have thought a university would put a link to courses available there on the front page!

Universities having well laid out websites

Icotan - I didn't know they only did the one course. Guess you'll have to go more specialised! I work at the HQ in Milton Keynes - concrete cows et. al!

Pencil Queen - As far as I know you can study level 3 courses in the same subject as your degree. You don't have to go through the whole system, you can use qualifications already gained towards an OU degree, http://www3.open.ac.uk/credit-transfer/about/index.htm it's great! (The cost is why I'm working for the OU - study for free!)

Queegle

hi Queegle, perhaps you can help me.

I am a generalist (nexialist) and want to do something equivelent to doing all the foundation courses, and working my way up the levels as I find interesting stuff to do.

unfortunately the only comment I can get out of the o.u. about it is along the lines of "why would yo have a problem, you do the next two foundation courses as part of your second degree", and they can't see the possibility of a problem with the required third degree to get the remaining foundation course.

Am I expecting something totally way out, or are they just incapable of listening?

If you have any ideas how I could do assorted courses without having to do a degree type program, then I would appreciate the info.

Ah Ha, I must keep bookmarking.

I work for a tertiary institute and started two mudules this week. All it usually requires is an interview with a programme leader. In my case I've been working here three years and my line manager just happens to be the programme leader for the modules I've started.

Xyroth,

Are you saying you want to pick and choose subject modules that interest you and build them into a kinda custom degree? If so then the OU should let you providing that you do the requisite level modules, ie you musty have x poiints from level 1, x from level 2 and x from level three, they then adjudge your courses to see what sort of dergree you get. Least that is how i have always understood it!

If that was what I wanted, just doing custom modules to get an unusual degree, then I could indeed do that.

what I want to do though is more like finding gcse's that are interesting, doing as many of them as I wish, and having the option to then go on and do o-levels in the subject, and then A-levels if I wished, but with o.u. modules.

in this analogy the gcse's would map to foundation modules, with the o & a levels mapping to the relevant levels of other o.u. modules.

however I can't get a sensible answer out of them as to why I MUST complete a degree before doing a 3rd foundation module.

After all, I am interested in a broad and shallow(ish) education covering a number of subjects, not a narrow and deep education about any one particular subject.

any help getting through the beaurocracy would help.

to make it completely clear, I do not want to do a degree course, just to go through and do whichever modules I find interesting (and have sufficient qualifying modules to do).

xyroth, apols for not getting back to you before. As Icotan said, you can pretty much 'pick & mix' your courses on the way to a degree with the OU. The folk here think that's such a great thing that they don't understand why you wouldn't want to pursue a degree from the start! I'm only really temping here (albeit long term!) and don't know it all inside out yet. I think as with all other call centre type things, it's a case of who you end up talking to. Perhaps when you phone, say right at the start that you just want a broad shallow education!

There is absolutely no problem with you doing this. When you do a course with the OU they like to know if you intend on linking it to a possible degree in the future. Each course has a number of 'points', you build up towards a degree. However, even if you say 'no, I don't want to link x course now', and then fancy doing a degree in a few years, you'll still be able to use the points you've gained on many previous courses towards that degree.
Many degrees have such a very large spread of courses where the points can be combined towards one degree, that you could study a fair range of subjects and they'll all still count towards a particular degree, should you want that later on (i.e. for a Science degree you can study science, maths, health, computing, the geological history of the British Isles!). You can see why people are of the mind-set that if you're doing so much studying, and you're able to channel such a broad selection towards a single goal, why wouldn't you want to do it! However, as far as I know, you can study as many foundation modules as you like, without having to do a degree.

You could just have a look at the courses http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?A01 and sign up for one, without explaining any study plans at all!

Also, another option (apart from the call centres) is when you find a course that you like the idea of, and find out the name of the course manager, so you can speak to them directly to find out if it's definitely the one for you.

I also like to know a little about many different things! If I won the lottery I'd just spend all my time getting a broad but shallow education!

Hope this helps. If any of the above makes about as much sense as a rhino on a bicycle, just shout!

Queegle