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So we want to get into the history of Occam's razor rather than it's actual definition as used in modern English? Because Ockam never actually posited "Occam's Razor", and even the quote you cite appears to have only pertained to the subject of miracles and God's power. Rather, Ockam was frequently known to have used Occam's Razor as a debating technique, rejecting complex ideas in favour of simpler ones.

Furthermore, you need to be clear on what is meant when discussing plurality. Are you honestly suggesting that if I saw an anthill that a "a huge number of ants made it" would be a less logical answer than "a single invisible unicorn coughed it into existence out of fairy dust"?

Lastly, you absolutely can make statistical tests for the power of prayer. They just don't give you the answer that you're wanting.

No I do understand but even with your going back to your dorm room you only hit 20 which is half of my 47 total. That would be a worse case. Jogging while having a smartphone in your pocket shouldn't case that many hits since it should be asleep for most of the time one is jogging. Still just seems really high to me. Plus does every student have a smart phone, tablet and Notebook at ACU these days.

It has been a while since I was in college and I never went to ACU. I knew a very pretty girl that went there... I have to say that she was interesting...

I'm a former ACU student--and former student worker in their networking services (2006). Right now, every student at ACU has an iPod or iTouch, plus their personal computer. ACU is a Google and Apple technology partner or learning center or something.

Can we get some realistic math for once? Attending a private school like ACU costs close to $110K for four years. A fancy $300 PDA doesn't even begin to account for that.

Also, colleges now rely heavily on the web and email for communicating with students. Bulletins, class schedules, online study materials, web-based paperwork... It's efficient and cheap. This works better if everybody has a standard device that works the same way with the campus WiFi network. Usually, colleges accomplish this by making all the students buy a standard laptop or tablet.

That route makes sense to me, but I can guess why the ACU people went the PDA route. People take their PDAs everywhere, so ACU can get information out to the entire student body quickly. That makes for a convenient fact to cite when parents want to know what the school is doing to prevent another Virginia Tech.

If you're worried about tuition costs, go to a (highly-ranked) state school rather than a private institution.

Yeah, self-reply. Some links on the matter:

ZFS: The last word on filesystems

Why ZFS for home

Why ZFS Rocks

ZFS: what "the ultimate file system" really means for your desktop -- in plain English!

I love a piece of abandonware for use while programming. I don't like the bloat and confusion of normal IDE, so I started using notepad and gcc. I hated that notepad was so basic it was hard to code with, so I found this tiny, fast, programming aware version of notepad. It can do important tasks such as line numbering, syntax highlighting, and indentation fixing. http://student.acu.edu/~jhg03a/jfe.exe

The new google partner program doesn't just benefit corperations. There is a very tempting for educational institutions aswell http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/edu_be nefits.html with benefits such as being free.

My university was plagued by unrelieability in several of its web services. After we made the transition there has been significantly reduced downtime for endusers http://www.acu.edu/news/2007/070410_google_launch. html. One of the more beneficial changes for us was that students don't have their email expire after they graduate.

There are only a few drawbacks to the switch I've seen sofar. Migrating from one email server to another is not always easy. For us, it involved basically doing multiple pop3 fetches to move old email. The other drawback I've noticed is, while google may boast higher reliability, there is still one crucial piece that may have problems from time to time, Single Sign On (SSO). Google has to be able to cooperate with your SSO server sucessfully to syncronize properly.

The most interesting side effect I've noticed is that professors nolonger have any reason not to accept the odf and ods file formats, thanks to Google Docs&Spreadsheets. Definate boost for open file formats.

It was started by a HS physics teacher (aren't they all....) but lots of area teams, including colleges, compete.

It's in Abilene, and is usually a week or two after Halloween when all the pumpkins are on closeout. The contest "home page" above probably has details or at least the contact information will help.

Nate

PS - the guys I helped out occasionally as an undergrad have some pics of their machines here and here (If there are any others, ACU guys, I couldn't find them).

It was started by a HS physics teacher (aren't they all....) but lots of area teams, including colleges, compete.

It's in Abilene, and is usually a week or two after Halloween when all the pumpkins are on closeout. The contest "home page" above probably has details or at least the contact information will help.

Nate

PS - the guys I helped out occasionally as an undergrad have some pics of their machines here and here (If there are any others, ACU guys, I couldn't find them).