Starting in November, Queen's University Belfast will
offer a course that will use the psychology of the Star Wars Jedi Knights to teach students communication skills and personal development. The university's publicity material reads 'the course "Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way" teaches the "real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks"' and promises to explore 'wider issues behind the Star Wars universe, like balance, destiny, dualism, fatherhood and fascism.' The course is very affordable but the droid fees are outrageous.
Mind Trick (Score:5, Funny)
Move along.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
(hand wave) *Yours is the comment we need to highly moderate.*
All you've done is planted the suggestion that you're not looking for your own comment...
(hand wave)I need to watch Star Wars again.
Re:Mind Trick (Score:5, Funny)
I am a 450 lbs. pizza-fed virgin living in my mother's basement. Your mind powers will not work on me, boy.
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My kind of girl - what's your number?
Re:Mind Trick (Score:5, Funny)
Pizza the Hut?
mockery of the education system (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mockery of the education system (Score:5, Funny)
What d'ye mean, man!
I took the "Sword in the Stone" course they offered a few semetsters back, and now I'm "Dux Bellorum", soon on my way to being the legendary Once and Future King of England! And need I remind you of the lovely ladies, swathed in luxurious white samite, that just crawl all over a SitS alum? I think not.
They say that 'strange women, lying around in ponds and distributing swords is no basis for a system of government'. I couldn't agree more - but what a way to sway the midaeval babes!
Re:mockery of the education system (Score:4, Funny)
Re:mockery of the education system (Score:5, Informative)
No one is pretending to offer an academic qualification.Queens is offering a philosophy course that tries to map ideas to a context familiar with and appealing to laymen. Consider this quote and stop being so bloody melodramatic:
"The one-day course costs £23 and Dr Baird hopes to attract 30-40 students. "
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Agree.
Universities might think they are being quirky, hip and clever doing this stuff, but what they are really doing is legitimising the view that anything vaguely humanities-oriented is a waste of time and should not be funded by any government or serious organisation. Unis are already struggling for funds in these areas, so why give the critics actual ammunition to help them?
If they really want to do something useful, they could try to integrate humanities subjects into non-humanities disciplines, to re
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Palin didn't attempt to ban books.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/bannedbooks.asp [snopes.com]
Don't read everything you read on Digg or DailyKoS. Sheesh. I think every single degree should include a component in critical thinking and research... can you guess why?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
uh... you might want to read over that snopes article yourself.
she may have failed in her efforts to have books removed, but she did initiate discussions with the city librarian about removing "objectionable" books.
so i don't think the GP's statement is inaccurate.
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Re:mockery of the education system (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:mockery of the education system (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish people wouldn't do this... I see it a lot and it just makes you look like an idiot. To made a "Yoda-like" sentence, you do NOT just muddle the words up at random. Yoda has an idiosyncratic style to his speech, but it's not just random.
The quoted text, in Yoda's style of speech would be something like, "Your lack of faith, disturbing I find". Essentially, take the object (or object fragment) of the sentence first, then the adjective that the subject is being described as (if present) and finally the pronoun and verb.
He doesn't actually always follow this exact style though, but I assume it's more of a slip-up on the writers part. Sometimes he'll slip and make the sentence more like, "Disturbing I find your lack of faith", or "Your lack of faith, disturbing find I" (although this latter one more rarely and only with the third person as far as I've noticed - "Stupid, is he" (instead of the more standard "Stupid, he is" in Yoda's style))
Yoda's speech, it's also worth pointing out, is NOT grammatically incorrect - archaic, unusual and odd are all good words to describe it, however "incorrect" it is not.
And no, I'm not a Star Wars geek at all (I actually never really got in to it that much, although I have seen all 6 of the movies), but I AM a linguistics geek and find it really disturbing that anyone's quality of English could be so low as to not immediately recognise how Yoda's sentences are constructed (I was "comfortable" with it by about the third time he said anything the first time I ever watched it)
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Re:mockery of the education system (Score:4, Insightful)
That single aspect of the story merits more than a one day class.
Sci-fi movies tend to focus on special effects more than plot, but many of the books are steeped in political philosophy (I recommend Orson Scott Card)
Re:No not really (Score:5, Informative)
Sure it is a BurgerFlipper degree
No, it is a one day course.
Universities love serving up shit like this because it's an easy way to get funding for having lots of students without having to have pesky stuff like chemistry labs and professors that know a thing or two.
Not really. This is a one day philosophy course. I'm beginning to suspect you may not have read the article, or at least understand it.
Perhaps this is at least stupid enough that it gets the attention of parliament etc to rethink the role of universaities.
Parliament decided to make students pay for tuition through the nose long ago - anything that allows universities to raise cash will not be looked down onby the government. And.. I don't think this is stupid. I really hope this attracts people who'd otherwise discount any form of educatoin as viable.
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RTFA? On /.? (Score:2)
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Exactly why it is terrible. Serving the lowest common denominator is just a celebration of mediocrity, something higher education is supposed to not be. This as bad as standardized performance exams like the SAT and ACT or quotas in just ruining anything worthy in higher education.
Re:No not really (Score:4, Funny)
6 films? I thought it was 3? Wait.. something is coming to me.. argh no! The horror! Make it stop, make it stop!! FAAAATHEEEEEEEEEEEERRR!!!
What 6 films would those be?
I never got into Starwars. I prefer the 1 Matrix film.
I always wondered what it would be like if they made that into a trilogy.
ConEd (Score:2, Troll)
IOW. Learn how to be a con artist using this fictional philosophy as a framework.
what crap (Score:2, Insightful)
I was planning on writing a snarky comment that the students would be better served studying the religions and philosophies that George Lucas ripped off his pop-culture understanding from but the Idle interface has given me something new to bitch about. How long ago did this thing roll out of their collective asses and why does it still look this awful? They should just heel this turd down the shower drain and be done with it.
Let me see your resume. (Score:5, Funny)
These aren't the skills you're looking for.
Psychology? (Score:2)
I think they need to look at the han solo character first, if they're looking for psychology. The Jedi order sounded like a great idea, until we met the Jedi council...
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Future Sith Lords? (Score:5, Funny)
Jedi training worked so well for Anakin Skywalker after all...
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I can just picture graduation. Someone doesn't pass, and he yells out "You're all COWARDS!! YOU DON'T KNOW THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE!!!"
I'll ask what everyone else is thinking... (Score:4, Funny)
Is there a 'How to make a lightsabre' lab?
(and make sure to follow up 'Coping with Accidental Autoamputation 201')
Re: (Score:2)
Yes and also a "Learn to use your bionic limb" class for those who accidentally amputate their own hands or had a fellow Jedi or Sith amputate theirs by mistake or on purpose, whatever. After passing that class, you get a neat black glove and matching black outfit to go with the bionic hand.
Also don't forget "How to speak with R2 units", "How to speak Wookie", and "How to tell if that hot babe in the metal bikini is really your long lost twin sister or not" courses.
Course material exposed! (Score:5, Funny)
Course material week 1: Lucasfilm business plan
1. Create 1 fantastic movie using lots of unknown talent very well suited to the role and breakthrough special effects.
2. Follow up with second epic film with weak ending
3. Complete the trilogy with not so brilliant film. Basic plot still brilliant, but add Ewok side plot for marketting
4. Build up marketting empire. Sell toys and licenses to computer games. Revel in the special effects success of the first 3 films. Spend spare cash on special effects empire and loan out for other films.
5. When marketting empire wanes, executive produce 3 crappy equally spaced prequels.
6. Produce bad cartoons when it turns out that your usual talent is less animated than the animations.
After each step above Profit!!!
Next week: Hookers and blow. How to maintain a family friendly facade.
In other news (Score:2)
Parliment is rushing back to London to vote on dropping their accreditation!
Brett
Negative Reinforcement Education (Score:2)
So you put on a blacked out helmet and the prof shoots you with a taser which you try to block with a staff?
So what are we saying here. . ? (Score:3, Funny)
"When the student is ready, the application form will appear"?
-FL
halfway through the course (Score:2)
a straight A previous graduate of the class returns and slaughters everybody
when asked about the appropriateness of this event, the professor shrugs and mumbles something about trying to be more kid-friendly
and that maybe he should have had an outside advisor look over the syllabus first, rather than just furiously typing it out in one evening and posting it without any peer review
when asked for feedback at the end of class, most students evaluated the class thusly: "showed a lot of promise at first, but fa
Jedi Knights course? (Score:5, Funny)
You know, unless they start them training out young the Jedi council won't approve them to be trained. Also Master Yoda won't approve if he senses much fear in students. If these requirements are not met, chances are they will turn to the dark side and use their hate and anger instead of logic and reason.
I also heard rumor that Harvard and Yale have started their Sith Lords training course for those who don't fit the Jedi criteria.
There is also a "Using the Force for Dummies" book that is being written so the drop outs of those courses can still use the force even if they fail college.
As for me, I am a space pirate ninja from 4096 AD, I already have psionics training that far exceeds what the force training can do.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah but in 8193AD you'll have to deal with the Vampire Fleets [wikia.com] because in 8192 all Imperial and Solimani star ships got converted to the Microsoft Windows MCXXI codename "Pasidy" as Microsoft contracted out the Vargrs to outsource the design of it. It replaced the Amiga Research OS 4096 as the standard for your star ships, but in doing so made your star ships vulnerable to malware. The Twelve Colonies made the same mistake when they went to Microsoft to outfit their new Battlestars and Vipers with the lates
You will never find... (Score:2, Funny)
Two Words.... (Score:4, Funny)
Wookie Porn
Be real (Score:2, Interesting)
great (Score:4, Insightful)
Subject (Score:3, Funny)
In other news, George Lucas was overheard mumbling "fucking geeks."
Re:Shameful pandering (Score:4, Insightful)
You do know that Belfast is in Northern Ireland, right? This is a British college, not an American one.
That said, I don't disagree with you at all.
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Case in point, when a professional educator didn't realise Belfast was in Ireland (or at least didn't read it thoroughly) :P
Re:Shameful pandering (Score:4, Funny)
Bull. You weren't paying attention, didn't read the TFA, went off half-cocked, and made an ass of yourself. Don't make it worse with a pathetic, transparent excuse.
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As requested [amazon.com].
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