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The amount of information that's required to digest these days doesn't allow the luxury of remembering everything, so you toss that which is not useful.
One of my profs in college always used to say "...that's what reference books are for".
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ChrisElston wrote: could you name every country in Europe, or every US state,
Nope and no.
I can however name all the states in Oz, all 8 of them, and their capital cities  .
Your question is so me centric, it should have been can you name all the states in your country or the countries on your continent!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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True. At first, I was stumped at question from OP, thinking, Oh, you should know it. But then after reading your response, thought, yes, it was too specific to particular region.
I know all state names (28)of my country (India) and capital of most states and such other facts. I know roughly where all major countries are. But states in US or countries in Europe. No, I don't know and I don't see the need..!
Thanks,
Milind
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MT_ wrote: But then after reading your response, thought, yes, it was too specific to particular region.
Don't listen to him. He doesn't even remeber that Australia has 6 States and 2 Territories.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: I'll be in Greystaynes after christmas annoying my kids 
20 - 25 minutes from my place. Must catch up for a beer.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Not really, the original articles were about people from one part of the world being unable to name other parts of the world.
Being able to name your own part of the world followed on from that.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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I think I used to know all the states in the US, but I don't now.
True, brain storage space is better spent on other important things.
But there is some use in knowing the "big picture" in all the subjects you get taught at school.
In history, you don't need to remember to the date when some historical event happened, but it's kind of nice to know whether Henry VIII was before or after King Arthur.
Similarly, it's nice to know whereabouts on the globe some countries, cities and regions that turn up regularly on the news are. It's nice to know where Washington D.C. is, for example, and the fact that it's on the opposite side of a continent from the Washington state.
String everything together and you get a better understanding of the world around you in general. You watch some sports on TV and you understand why cricket is very popular in some countries and hardly ever heard of in others. You read books like the Disc World novels and understand what the stories are parodies of. You see some unfamiliar foodstuff on a menu with an explanation that says "in Vietnamese style" and you are able to guess roughly what to expect.
Not absolutely essential in life, but helps you live a more interesting and rich life, I think... 
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
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The young human mind, developmentally unfolding along the dimension of biological time, with unique "windows" of opportunity for (innately) hard-wired periods of rapid learning, needs the challenges of memorization.
But, later, we need to learn the topography of our own consciousness, for which all maps are metaphor, and all metaphors maps:
"We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory? Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made representations which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite regress, an infinite series of maps. The territory never gets in at all. [...] Always, the process of representation will filter it out so that the mental world is only maps of maps, ad infinitum."
Gregory Bateson, "Form, Substance and Difference," (1970) in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972).
"In that empire, the art of cartography attained such perfection that the map of a single province occupied the entirety of a city, and the map of the empire, the entirety of a province. In time, those unconscionable maps no longer satisfied, and the cartographers guilds struck a map of the empire whose size was that of the empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following generations, who were not so fond of the study of cartography as their forebears had been, saw that that vast map was useless, and not without some pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the inclemencies of sun and winters. In the deserts of the west, there are tattered ruins of that map, inhabited by animals and beggars, in all the land there is no other relic of the disciplines of geography.
Jorge Luis Borges "On Exactitude in Science." (1954?), in Collected Fictions(New York: Viking Penguin, 1998), p. 325. Translated by Andrew Hurley.
"And -- the map is closed, but the autonomous zone is open. Metaphorically it unfolds within the fractal dimensions invisible to the cartography of Control. And here we should introduce the concept of psychotopology (and -topography) as an alternative "science" to that of the State's surveying and mapmaking and "psychic imperialism." Only psychotopography can draw 1:1 maps of reality because only the human mind provides sufficient complexity to model the real. But a 1:1 map cannot "control" its territory because it is virtually identical with its territory. It can only be used to suggest, in a sensegesture towards, certain features. We are looking for "spaces" (geographic, social, cultural, imaginal) with potential to flower as autonomous zones -- and we are looking for times in which these spaces are relatively open, either through neglect on the part of the State or because they have somehow escaped notice by the mapmakers, or for whatever reason. Psychotopology is the art of dowsing for potential TAZs."
Hakim Bey, "The Temorary Autonomous Zone" (1990)
"Cambridge, UK. An old dream of cartographers has finally been realized through flat-panel displays and small, portable computational devices. For centuries, cartographers have dreamed of full-scale maps, that is, a map with a scale of 1:1, so that 1 Km. of the map would represent 1 Km. of the world. Implementation difficulties made such a map impractical. But now, scientists at Cambridge University have been able to display the full-scale map on a flat-panel screen, scrolling the map as necessary to cover the territory.
The new technique has already revealed important results: errors in the existing geographical databases. These errors were revealed when geographers in Cambridge compared the full scale map with the terrain and discovered that they didn't fit precisely: Several structures, including a college building and several roads were determined to be in the incorrect location. "Rather interesting," said Lewis Carroll, spokesperson for the university, "several college buildings are quite off their correct location." Unfortunately, initial estimates for moving the buildings and roads to correct these discrepancies are too expensive, so, as Carroll puts it, "we will have to put up with these problems, but we will annotate the map to show where these placement errors occur."
An unexpected positive finding is that the map serves both types of map-users well: those who like to orient the maps so that North is always up, regardless of their direction of travel, and those who like to orient the map so that it corresponds to the positions of objects in the world. Now, either type of map user can be accommodated, something which was not possible when full-scale maps were implemented only on paper.
When asked what new developments might be expected from the college, Mr. Carroll stated that they were working on full-scale biographies, providing a much more realistic depiction of a person's life. This would allow a biography, for example, to take place in the same time-scale as the person's life, increasing the realism dramatically. Full scale renditions of other phenomena are in the works, but Carroll said that confidentiality restrictions prevented discussion until they were fully realized."
Don Norman, "Cartography dream realized", Risks Digest, Saturday 1 April 2006. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.22.html#subj4
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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Are we there yet.
The BoyTM "On a car trip" (2013)
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Kill the monkey-mind at the driver's-wheel, and there becomes here.
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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ChrisElston wrote: So, could you name every country in Europe, or every US state, and is there any benefit in being able to do so.
Yes, yes, and no.
Now ask me about Africa then I'm screwed.
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I could probably name the continents,
The countries I could guess
But there's something I know really well.
That's all the states of undress.
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Well, I can name all of the Europpean states, there capitals. All of the 26 Swiss Cantons ('states') with there capitals..
Some US states / capitals, some African states (most of them).. And some others (I was quite good in geography and still love it..)
The signature is in building process.. Please wait...
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And what good have all those facts done you?
The subject I chose was the title of an essay I wrote at university in the first year of a geography degree.
Geography is not (just) about what is where, it is about why it is where it is. It is about why people are where they are and doing what they are, how they relate to where they are.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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Expecting Brits to know every US state is the equivalent of expecting a Yank to know every UK county. It's not the same as knowing every country in the Americas.
=========================================================
I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka.
=========================================================
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My average error was 73 miles, although I dropped one state by accident.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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The problem with the video of people being asked about countries (or anything else) is that we are always scared of not knowing something and will answer stupid things instead saying so.
I like when people answer "Sorry, I do not know that answer, but I will look it up later".
I'd rather be phishing!
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Sounds like you are experiencing the beginning stages (Freudian slip, for I did type "states" at first!) of "mid-life crisis".
"You mean I spent 11+ years of my life to learn all that crap they taught me in elementary and high school and I've only used 3% of it?!"
Yup, that's pretty much what happened. You see, the goal, unspoken that it is, is to get you "edu-ma-cated" (mental anesthesia, or "brain-washed") to believe you need to know tons of crap to be "successful" (read "earn lots of money") in life (so we can get that much more taxes from you).
Well, that's the U.S. model since 1847, anyway.
Thing is, we need farmers, mechanics, machinists, hair-dressers, tailors, you know, "blue-collar" workers (as such they are labelled here in AmeriKa, especially KommiFornia), which *DOESN'T* require 12 years of "edu-ma-cated" learning or even a college degree, yet the push is even greater to get this degree.
This guy is DEAD-ON regarding these "Most Neglected Skills":
The most neglected skills.[^]
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So today I took a shot at the Microsoft 70-483 certificate, Programming in C#.
I got a preliminary 875/1000 points and needed 700 to pass.
My first exam, so I am now (almost) officially Microsoft Certified! 
I'm still waiting for my actual certificate and an email from Microsoft.
All in all a pretty good day! 
It's an OO world.
public class Sander : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}
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Thanks!
It's an OO world.
public class Sander : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}
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 Well done!
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