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How does Windows / MS 'obsession' make it 'unreliable'? Not enough neckbeard?

To claim that copyright is "killing" science is pure hyperbole, but his actual point is valid. I didn't watch TFV, but based on the mention of open access journals, I assume his point is the usual complaint that the millions of dollars universities give to Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group, et al. to buy access to journal articles their scientists write (based on research typically funded by the public), could be better spent on actual research. Here's an article about a recent spat between the University of California and NPG over these fees: http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-California-Tries-Just/65823/

Open access journals allow the same peer review process and attribution as the current model, the only trouble is the author is asked to shoulder the expense of the publication process (usually around $1000). Things are already moving in the right direction on this. Compare PlosOne (open-access) and Nature (paywall). See also the open access rules from the NIH: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm

On the topic of IP that translates into consumer goods and services, you have the Bayh-Dole act which allows universities to profit on developments made with publicly research funds. Unfortunately, because any research is built on other research, you have things like the patenting of a test for breast cancer gene BRAC by a single company, when most of the work that led to the test's development was publicly funded, and conducted at a range of different institutions. Now those instutions have to pony up to continue working on essentially the same research they were already doing. See http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/aba_health_esource_home/James.html

Maybe it works better at middle schools than research has shown it doesn't work in higher education.

http://chronicle.com/article/iPads-for-College-Classrooms-/126681/

US politicians have a rather nasty habit. (No, not chasing people around in cloak rooms or playing footsie in bathroom stalls, but they seem into that too)

Namely, they like to straddle the fence, and are very bad at doing so.

Take for instance, the media spectacle of the Egypt and subsequent middle-eastern revolts. The talking heads on capital hill squirmed and looked at each other for DAYS before finally resolving on an official position---AFTER the brave people in Egypt forced their hands. You see, they had been caught with their knickers down. On one side, you had "Heroic efforts to bring real democracy and freedom by the populace"-- which is the anodyne that they spew here in the states (Even though the body politic has rendered most of these so called freedoms that we are supposed to enjoy inert, or highly restricted with red tape and restriction) and on the other, there was Hosni Mubarak-- "Our Man" who "Helped us" with some rather "Nasty Renditions"--and more importantly, the diplomatic bargaining power he brought to the table in middle eastern affairs. (Namely, their dirty underhanded dealings) Having to pick a side and stick with it seems to have ruffled more than just a few feathers up there in washington--- the concept of lasting consequences and of having the onus of that kind of choice on them makes them squirm like worms under the light of a Fresnel lens. Back-troll through the media coverage prior to the deposal of Mubarak, with emphasis on the position from capital hill--- and you will find lots and lots of deflectionary statements.

Same kind of thing with this "Pot calling kettle black" issue with China, and censorship. The US government, like *ALL* Governments, is addicted to power; namely, the power to control its citizens-- (But the US is more aggressive, in that it likes to control OTHER nation's citizens as well. Extra-ordinary rendition, et. al.) As such, it innately LIKES the idea of a serious crackdown on free information exchange. You can go just about anyplace in government where there is "Enforcement" of any sort, be it military to as mundane as city police departments, and you will find a highly prevalent bias toward wanting to control or at least obsessively monitor/record pretty much every kind of correspondence. Constitutionally protected rights to personal papers and effects be damned.

Take for instance, the rather nasty provisions in the US patriot act, which has come up for review TWICE now, and somehow (rolls eyes) keeps getting new lease on life-- specifically, the data retention policies it enforces on public internet providers. (like internet cafes and libraries) Handing over lending histories was only ONE of the provisions; Another that was discretely added was the requirement to provide, on demand, complete packet logs of persons of interest, without oversight. If Government Man wants, it, Government Man gets it, basically.

No wonder then, that libraries and such were up in arms over it.

Essentially, the US wants to maintain the *illusion* that there is freedom and privacy in people's day to day correspondences, while secretly spying on, sanitizing, and orchestrating "enforcements" on "undesirable" communications. Wikileaks being just one high profile example. Philosophically, how is this any better than China's approach? If anything, the US approach to censorship is more obscene and insideous, because it promotes false senses of security in the citizens impacted--- China at least doesnt deny that it uses strongarm tactics; the US on the other hand, does gymnastics to validate why it purpetually authorizes warrantless searches, siezures, and interrogations at places like airports.

Basically, the US is JUST like China, just in a velvet glove instead of a cold steel one.

A quote from Jimmy Wales: “For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/wikipedia-founder-discourages-academic-use-of-his-creation/2305

Humans really hate personification. We definitely don't do it constantly to pretty much any plant, animal or object.

Programmed for Love
The art of good writing

I don't think in the second article that Adam Haslett brought much to the party. He seems to forget that one must first weed the flower bed before cultivating bonsai plants.

Many people have this view of human language akin to believing that your statement grammar is your entire language, which might border on the truth in Forth, Lisp, or APL. Hideously far from the truth if the language contains strong types, OOP, templates, exceptions, closures, or introspection.

OOP verges on personification. Bank accounts ingest and regurgitate, etc.

What was the topic again? Oh yes, muonium kicks ass.

The 14th Amendment has been widely interpreted by the courts to mean that the Bill of Rights is applicable to the states, so the prohibitions in the first amendment apply to state legislatures as well.

If that's not enough for you, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that a religious college couldn't keep money given to it by the General Assembly because it was supported by a religious institution, even though the money was not going to be used for anything specifically religious.

If that's still not enough for you, Section 5 of the Kentucky Constitution states (in part) "nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, to contribute to the erection or maintenance of any such place, or to the salary or support of any minister of religion". Using taxpayer money to erect a religious theme park seems pretty squarely at odds with this provision.

After looking at this video, I have to add, this guy is a tool. He is EVERYTHING that's wrong with education today. He's a fat lazy ass who feels he's entitled because of his position. Yet he cheats the very students at whom he's pissed. If he felt like he was delivering a good product in his education career he'd NEVER used canned tests. He'd also have fresh material that needed to have a new test created each and every time. Instead uses canned lectures and he's got a bank of assistants to do his bidding while he packs on the pounds and years to get to retirement. Teaching is an easy job for this type of person because they do it once and repeat until they retire. Using the moral high ground is just a way of deflecting the fact that he couldn't even write a good test.

You are aware that he's an instructor, and therefore not tenured, right? And that all he does is teach classes like this one? And that his salary is probably inbetween that of a janitor and a nurse on a good year? Also, that he WRITES management textbooks that are in use in many classes other than his? And probably the test question answer banks as well?

Take a look at what they pay "instructors" at UCF. Consider that this man has been teaching for 34 years. http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/index.php?action=result&search=central+florida&state=Florida&year=2010&category=&withRanks=1 You could probably earn more teaching grade-school, not to mention you'd have teacher-tenure and a nice pension plan.

So I'm not sure where your 'tude comes from. Teaching on a contract is a miserable way to live, with 0 prospects for career advancement and constant uncertainty if you'll still have an income next semester even if you've got decades of experience.

There certainly are lazy professors out there that don't give a hoot about education, nor is the system set up to encourage them to change that in anyway, but this is one of the guys that has to pick up the broken pieces of the system. And when you consider that there are many schools that are now charging more for tuition per student per year than the non-tenured instructors actually make doing the instructing (in classes with triple-digit enrollments), you'll see they are being just as screwed by the system as the students are.

It's more than that. At least for the past few years, people with higher levels of education have leaned more heavily towards the left, while people with less education have leaned more heavily towards the right. (Source: chronicle.com) Since Silicon Valley companies employ highly educated people almost exclusively, you would expect them to lean to the left.

Further, computer geeks in general tend to lean even further towards the left because their skeptical nature makes them much less capable of accepting any strict literal interpretation of theology that conflicts with their observations. This tends to mean that there are fewer members of conservative faiths, and that even among those who are members of traditionally conservative Christian groups, they tend to be a good bit to the left of their faith's average member.

The most popular educator on YouTube does not have a Ph.D. He has never taught at a college or university. And he delivers all of his lectures from a bedroom closet.

This upstart is Salman Khan, a 33-year-old who quit his job as a financial analyst to spend more time making homemade lecture videos in his home studio. His unusual teaching materials started as a way to tutor his faraway cousins, but his lectures have grown into an online phenomenon—and a kind of protest against what he sees as a flawed educational system.

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Self-Appointed-Teacher-Runs/65793/

http://www.khanacademy.org/

The best link I can find for the article is

http://www.marinetech.org/OSTO/documents/Job%20Prospects%20for%20Science%20Grads%20CHE%2021Sep07.pdf

The original article is behind a paywall unfortunately

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Real-Science-Crisis-Bleak/29178

A few months after I finished my master's degree I got contacted on Facebook by a VDM representative who wanted me to publish my thesis with them. I was incredulous -- what respectable publishing company contacts people on Facebook??

Upon Googling it turns out that VDM is a very shady vanity press. They employ people who go through university websites looking for things to publish (anything will do; there is no quality control). The author gets 5 free copies, and VDM puts the manuscript up on Amazon for hundreds of dollars. The author receives some percentage of sales, but only if they exceed some amount (a few hundred, IIRC), which they probably never will. Otherwise the author gets nothing.

See here for a long thread (complete with VDM sock puppets!) of other people's experience with VDM.

If only basic linguistics would be taught properly. This article is a sort of linguistics version of the "mathematicians lament" that's floating around these here comments. Syntax and morphology are incredibly interesting, but in k-12 education (in the US anyway) it largely becomes a series of excuses for red marks to appear on student papers.

Well, on 2/2 the Chronicle lit this power-keg;

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/University-Pulls-Videos-From/21013/

UCLA had been using "Video Furnace" to provide video content in the context of courses (integrated with UCLA Moodle as well), and has recently suspended this based on a challenge from AIME. The article gives a little more background.

IANAL but I am a Graduate student at UCLA and anytime a company wants "protection" money for something my PUBLIC University already paid for AND am using under fair-use laws, I scream Soprano.

Paying for protection?? Isn't that mob turf?
Oh well..

No mention of the disastrous Bush-era reign of Tony Tether at DARPA? With an incurious, aggressive president, we got an incurious, aggressive DARPA head, who cut long-term and academic research in favor of short-term corporate research. His dumping by Obama led to joy and celebrations (OK, cautious hope) across the land.

I'd love to be wrong. But I don't think I am.

I don't think the problem is that those signing the petition are being outed, but that they fear they are going to face unlawful retribution as a result of having their names known to the general public.

I'm a scientist, and I do research that involves the use of Animal Models. You can find my name on my University's website, and it would be trivial for an interested party to ascertain my home address as my last name is fairly unique (No one in my town has it except for me and my family). However, groups like PETA and ELF/ALF have in the past done the research to locate animal researchers and published the information on the web so that their more psycho members could harrass those researchers. Those publishing the information are not considered to be breaking any laws, but it would take a moron to miss the fact that without that information being made easily available to the more radical members of their organization the scientists wouldn't be experiencing harrasment. Some examples of this are the attempted car bombings of animal reasearchers from UCLA

Also, the retribution does not need to be violent. There is the possibility that someone who signed the petition is a subordinate of a homosexual that visits the site. It would be near impossible to proove that being passed over for promotion is not connected to having signed a petition that is at odds with the political wishes of one's superiors. I'm not saying that I believe homosexuals to be more vindictive than heterosexuals, but they are human and vindictiveness is a common human failing.

Besides, signing a petition does not make one an acitivist. It simply means that when approached by an activist, they were willing to register their opinion on an issue. I've signed petitions for causes I didn't care about to any large extent, I didn't seek them out or try to convince others to agree with me, I simply read the document and decided whether or not it was in line with my beliefs on the issue and then decided to sign accordingly.

"The demand that I make of my reader, is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works."

--James Joyce

"Every serious study to date has shown that the more computers in the school, the less learning going on. "

Nope, you're wrong. Every serious study to date shows that the more computers in the school, the more oranges kids bring to school in their lunchboxes.

See? I can make up nonsense studies and not source my information either!

Don't be a lazy fuckhead. Look for it, and you'll find it.

Here's one example - from 1994: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=347118

How technology affects learning has been at the centre of recent debates over educational inputs. In 1994, the Israeli State Lottery sponsored the installation of computers in many elementary and middle schools. This programme provides an opportunity to estimate the impact of computerisation on both the instructional use of computers and pupil achievement. Results from a survey of Israeli school-teachers show that the influx of new computers increased teachers' use of computer-aided instruction (CAI). Although many of the estimates are imprecise, CAI (computer-aided instruction - ed) does not appear to have had educational benefits that translated into higher test scores.

Want something more recent - try a couple of months ago: http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/

When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom

by Jeffrey R. Young

College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked"--by which he means, sans machines.

More than any thing else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they're going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.

He's not the only one raising questions about PowerPoint, which on many campuses is the state of the art in classroom teaching. A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.

Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.

So, nothing much changed between the first study (1994) and the latest (2009). 15 years, and computers STILL don't belong in the classroom because they're a crutch for teachers who can't teach. Teachers who are boring should be forced to sit through video recordings of them teaching their own classes. In fact, I recommended that back in the late '70s, and that we record the best teachers and make the recordings available to all students. This way, they won't get stuck failing because their teacher is a stiff. Of course, that would make at least 75% of all teachers redundant, but that's a good thing.

At its birth in England, copyright was an instrument of censorship. In 1557, Mary Tudor, the Roman Catholic queen, capped off a 120-year monarchal struggle to censor printing presses by issuing a charter to the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers. Only members of the company could legally produce books, which had been licensed by the crown.

Modern copyright is based on the Statute of Anne from 1710. The Statute of Anne granted the author 14 years of exclusive rights with the option to extend for a second 14 year term. The first U.S. copyright did the same when George Washington signed it into law in 1790. You'll notice both of those happened well before Charles Dickens (1812) and Herman Melville (1819) were born.

I also question your understanding of the terms 'amoral' and 'puerile'.

Most of the world bases 'morals' off of religion. No major religion makes any mention of copyright. So for most of the world copyright has no moral or immoral quality. By definition that makes it amoral. To hold that opinion is hardly childish or immature.

If you're not religious you could just look at the purpose of copyright as it's spelled out in the U.S. Constitution:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

Copyright was meant as a deal between the public and an author. The public would grant the author a temporary monopoly as an incentive to create new writings. After a limited time the writings would pass into the public domain so the pubic could do with it whatever they want. That is not an issue raised over morality. It is a business deal. Again, to label this amoral is not childish or immature. It is correct.

I realize that plagiarism detection represents an interesting problem in computer science, and that it goes some distance toweard solving a serious problem. However, I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, behind a paywall, alas, which leads me to believe that it is only a partial solution to academic dishonesty. The article suggested that, thanks to the Internet, the costs of human capital are now so low that hiring a ghostwriter to compose one's papers, sidestepping the problem of plagiarism to begin with, is far more expedient than plagiarism itself. It described a Russian-"businessman"-headed network of Filipino paper-writers, most paid between $1 and $3 a page, who are able to market their services to the West through a web site and remote call centers. At $20/page to the end-user, with no possibility of plagiarism detection, I think that most desperate students would find this a good deal. In my opinion, ghostwriting will supplant plagiarism as time goes on.

What is a teacher to do? In-class writing samples would seem to be the only hope of detecting ghostwriting. Students could, of course, argue that at home, they can "polish" their papers, and that therefore they will not resemble the in-class samples. Moreover, checking samples against papers is a thankless and time-consuming task which is only a preliminary to actually evaluating the work. Perhaps there is a computer-based solution to this, but, in the meantime, perhaps potential ghostwriting customers could take their desires to their logical conclusion, and simply buy their degrees on the Internet directly.

http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i30/30a02101.htm

The researcher discussed here says her findings have been exaggerated. See: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3711/does-facebook-lower-academic-performance-its-still-too-soon-to-say

There are a good number of universities that do have open access policies; sometimes, too, the whole university won't have adopted one, but a specific college or school will have.

For example, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to adopt an open-access policy last year. I also think that all of Duke's law journals are open-access.

See this link for an amusing take on this situation. A Utah law professor estimates that he could be liable for several billion dollars of fines each year due to email copyright violations as well as other infringements.

Wired Campus

First off, you should read Why I ban laptops in my classroom and the professor vs laptop article that recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education and then Paul Graham's Disconnecting Distraction and then Is Google Making Us Stupid? in The Atlantic. If Paul Graham finds the Internet ceaselessly distracting, what hope do ninth graders have?

Secondly, I've read some of the pro-laptop comments, and while I sympathize with their points, paternalism is not *always* a bad thing. Sometimes it's a necessary component of developing discipline and other positive traits. Banning laptops might be one, as it could help one develop the ability to focus for a sustained period of time and not get lost in class, particularly during discussions about complex material.

I went to law school for a year by accident, where virtually everyone had laptops in every classroom. They were used for taking notes, yes. But they were also used for Facebook, and checking out bar happy hours, and IM, and IMing about the incompetence of the person speaking, and checking the score, and a variety of other things. I know, the jokes are coming: you must've been a dumb law student, gone to a bad school, had bad professor, etc. Maybe: but I think the bigger problem is that letting one's attention temporarily wander is made so much easier by having a laptop and Internet connection is almost overwhelming. Sure, you can stay on a diet with a chocolate cake sitting on the counter in your living room. Sure, you'd never lie on that mortgage application about your income--but, you know, you really want that McMansion, and no one is going to check it, and you just have to inflate it a little... The problem is that laptops made distraction so easy. They make continuous partial attention more likely than deep engagement.

Students in universities succumb to the Beer and Circus mentality, and if they do, what luck will middle- and high-school students have? I teach freshmen English now at the University of Arizona and ban laptops because they're likely to be used for Facebook, and IM, and everything else but taking notes. I know: if you're not a compelling enough teacher to keep their attention, they deserve to use laptops to get around you. But what if you can't get their attention in the first place? What if you're trying to impart something important but that doesn't have the immediacy of Perez Hilton? Then give them the Cs they deserve when they write bad papers. And then they whine to you about the grades they got. You, the Slashdot commenter, would be such a strong writer or coder or mathematician that you could get by: congratulations. But the other 24 people in the classroom probably can't.

All this is to say that laptops can very easily and quickly become more a burden than benefit. But they aren't necessarily a burden: I could see wanting them for programming classes, for math classes that could use advanced visualizations, for blogging, for exchanging immediate responses among a group, for editing papers on the fly, the moment you get feedback on them. But not every lesson will call for them and not every teacher will want to use them. "Here's the dilemma -- how much freedom do you give to students?" you ask. The answer depends too much on the instructor to give a firm answer, but I give the answer above in part because so many of the initial responses tend towards "let them do whatever they want." Sure: and throw someone into an ocean a mile from shore and see what happens. If the teacher wants them to conduct a textual analysis of a Facebook profile, let them.

Actually the correct permalink to the story is here. Sorry about that.

Here is what the Chronicle of Higher Education has to say about it.

I get the Wired Campus newsletter digest daily from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://www.chronicle.com

There's also plenty of books out there about technology and/or education. Harry Lewis, the former Dean of Harvard College, wrote one:

http://www.amazon.com/Blown-Bits-Liberty-Happiness-Explosion/dp/0137135599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224705390&sr=1-1

And I wrote one, myself:

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/authoritas.html

Aaron

If it makes you feel any better, the attitude you're describing isn't limited to math or science. I already posted most of this comment here, but thought it worth repeating.

I'm in the Ph.D. in English program at the University of Arizona, and as a result I teach 50 freshmen divided into two classes in English 101 each semester. They're great for learning about society's views and prejudices, since they come pre-equipped with so many and so few tools for self-analysis. This time, I created a unit on science and assigned an Asimov story and various other things, including Peter Wood's How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science, which the author of the New York Times article should have referenced, as well as Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out. Students' responses to and associations with science in particular have been fascinating for how negative they are.

Many draw a distinction between "us" ("normal people") and "them" ("scientists and mathematicians," as well as others who focus on intellectual achievement), defining the two as utterly opposed to one another. Few if any perceived science or learning as a process, rather than a thing. Just like much of the fiction and many of the essays we read, many saw science as being not applicable to their lives. Actually, it's hard for me to discern what they do find applicable to their lives.

Anyhow, you're right -- they "just don't see the connection," and I'm not sure if my efforts, like pointing out the us vs. them tendencies, actually helped. I drew explicit comparisons between work and tenacity needed for significant achievement in virtually any field, including scholastic ones like English, but I'm not sure whether some of these subtler points were actually understood. For most of them, I'm guessing the answer was no, but maybe a few were genuinely affected.

Funny you say this: I'm in the Ph.D. in English program at the University of Arizona, and as a result I teach 50 freshmen divided into two classes in English 101/102 each semester. They're great for learning about society's views and prejudices, since they come pre-equipped with so many of them and so few tools for self-analysis. This time, I created a unit on technology, form, and myth, assigning an Asimov story and various other things, including Peter Wood's How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science, which the author of the New York Times article should have referenced, as well as Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out. Students' responses to and associations with science in particular have been fascinating for how negative they are.

Many draw a distinction between "us" ("normal people") and "them" ("scientists and mathematicians," as well as others who focus on intellectual achievement), defining the two as utterly opposed to one another. Few if any perceived science or learning as a process, rather than a thing. Just like much of the fiction and many of the essays we read, many saw science as being not applicable to their lives. Actually, it's hard for me to discern what they do find applicable to their lives.

Anyhow, you're right -- they "just don't see the connection," and I'm not sure if my efforts, like pointing out the us vs. them tendencies, actually helped. I drew explicit comparisons between work and tenacity needed for significant achievement in virtually any field, including scholastic ones like English, but I'm not sure whether some of these subtler points were actually understood. For most of them, I'm guessing the answer was no, but maybe a few were genuinely affected.

I just got done reading an article about the Economic Panic of 1873 and how that depression more closely resembles what's currently happening. This might explain why Bryan was talking about bank failures. It was still fresh in their minds.

http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18

Two things:

1. My daughter recently had to fork over $110 for a basic community-college ALGEBRA textbook. This knowledge has been around for centuries. Other very basic textbooks are similarly astronomically priced considering they rehash the same basic ideas as the 10,000 that have come before them.

2. We have no idea if the huge margins being made on textbooks are being passed along to authors.

Textbook companies like Thompson have slowly muscled out competition by such tactics as out-and-out bribing instructors: http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i42/42a00801.htm It's corrupt. That doesn't mean piracy is always justified. But it's not as simple as you are arguing..."pay up or return to the dark ages".

I think that there will always be a need for scholarly authority, which until now has been conferred by reputation of the presenter and/or publishing house and journal.

I do think that things are ripe for change, and have been very influenced and inspired by the "New Metrics of Scholarly Authority" piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i41/41b00601.htm

Academic journals will likely end up joining the online world, and the free vs. open model will settle down, but they are unlikely to be obsolete. I am a reviewer and author for several journals, and that is unlikely to change in my lifetime.

"The amazing thing is that many students are learning occupations that are dependent on IP and yet continue to ignore it. I wonder who they expect to provide them a paycheck once they become producers? Or would they rather go the inefficient route of millions of one-offs?"

Exactly how are they suppose to learn to use all this software without being able to actually use it? Because students already have enough expenses with the cost of books and tuition raising much faster than inflation, and it's been doing this for at least 8 years now (article dated Oct 2000). So where are they suppose to get the extra couple grand it costs to pay for all the software that industries expect them to know? Think schools are handing out free copies of Office or Visual C++? I wouldn't know a tenth of what I know if it wasn't for downloading software.

The new policy will allow faculty members to request a waiver, but otherwise they must provide an electronic form of each article to the provost's office

is in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/02/1489n.htm

I hate to be so glum but try telling that to abortion clinics and gay bars that get targeted by unsavory Christian whack-jobs. It's not too common fortunately, but if you think Islamic fundamentalists are the only violent ones today you're ignoring quite a bit.

Yes, you are ignoring quite a bit. It seems animal rights activists are running a distant second place to muslims in terrorism these days

"The house of a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles was damaged by a firebomb left at the front door early Tuesday, the university said in a news release, and an animal-rights extremist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Something tells me there aren't too many christians in those groups, but I could be wrong.

Oh, yes, could you share with us the last time a gay bar or abortion clinic was violently attacked by christian fundies?

Thanks.

Dr. Zerhouni the Director of the NIH actually had a web chat about Peer Review through The Chronicle of Higher Education back on December 4th 2007. A transcript of the chat is available on The Chronicle of Higher Education's Website at http://chronicle.com/live/2007/12/zerhouni/ which has a Related article entitled NIH Casts Critical Eye on How It Gives Grants.

Last week h1-bs were driving down salaries. We are in a doomed industry!
Suddenly wages are at an all time high. Damn. This good news really sucks.

But.. wait for it... H1-bs are driving down low end salary! We are in a doomed industry!
New graduate wages are increasing. Damn.
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2442/good-news-for-computer-science-grads-sort-of

Well, We are STILL DOOMED! DOOOOOMED!!!!

Recently physiologists have uncovered the hormonal basis for such behavior. Animals and people subjected to attack or threat experience "subordination stress," as a result of which their adrenal hormones go up, along with blood pressure and the probability of developing ulcers. But -- and this is crucial -- when given the opportunity to "take it out" on someone else, victims show no sign of stress. By passing along their pain, they modulate their own internal distress while generating trouble for the next ones down the line.

When an individual suffers pain, he most often responds by passing it on to someone else. When possible, that "someone else" is the perpetrator, the original source of the pain. But if this cannot be achieved, then others are liable to be victimized, regardless of innocence.

Actually, that page reads:

"A reliable source is a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand".

In context, your quote looks fine. Out of context, it looks dodgy.

As for Wales original intentions, don't know about that. I do know that he said the following:

"For God sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia."

Pretty good advise if you ask me.

Try reading what Al-Qaeda is saying in Arabic, the stuff that isn't directed at the West. Quite different from what gets played on Al-Jazeera for us. Same story about Gadaffi, Arafat and many others. I agree it's better we understand each other although I'm not sure that'd lead for more peace initially.

I'm unsure whether you're being a "troll," or you just failed miserably to convey your point near the end.

Nevertheless, I'd warn anyone wishing to homeschool their children against the A Beka curriculum, and, in all likelihood, the Bob Jones (which I'm less familiar with) curricula as well.

These are used by fundamental christians to indoctrinate (arguably) children with religious nonsense. I would not trust them to be very educational or accurate, scientifically. The publisher is ran out of Pensacola Community College, which has some rather disturbing campus policies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_Christian_C ollege#A_Beka_Book *
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_Christian_C ollege#Controversies_involving_PCC
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i29/29a04001.htm
(google link for more about that article: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22eye+babies )

* The Bob Jones curriculum is also mentioned in this section.

It seems that McRobbie has been at IU for some time now. He even implemented a plan in 2000 to replace all IU computers every 3 years.

http://chronicle.com/free/2000/11/2000112901t.htm

Doesn't that seem like a short cycle. Their reasoning is that the warranty for the PC is 3 years so therefore, a 3 year replacement cycle... Silly me for thinking that just because the warranty is up doesn't mean you should throw it out. I wonder if Microsoft's Software Assurance isn't involved here since that too is a 3 year cycle.

The good news is that he's been at IU for a while and didn't just come over from being on ChaCha's board. Still, seems like he might have financial ties to ChaCha and therefore have a conflict of interest.

LoB

5. Some campus administrators already worry that the record industry's pre-litigation notices will leave colleges exposed to lawsuits. If colleges are given the task of passing on the letters, information-technology officials ask, couldn't they end up being sued by students who say they never got the notices -- and, therefore, missed the chance to settle their cases at a discount?

Issues like that have gone largely unresolved. "There are a lot of legal questions out there," says Dick Jacobson, information-technology-security officer for the North Dakota University system, which received 19 pre-litigation notices this month. "And I'm sure if you talked to lawyers in other systems, they'll disagree with the lawyers in our system on some matters."

Slashdot is simply out of date. From the Chronicle of Higher Education's Today's News (for subscribers): Facing widespread outrage from college officials, a prominent senator withdrew legislative language on Monday that would have required some institutions to buy technological tools to curtail illegal file sharing on their campuses....

I have no doubt that something like this will be released within a decade.

Just look at how storage capacity has been increasing. Just 6 years ago the first 100GB HDDs reached the desktop. This year we've hit 1,000GB. In 2013 10,000GB will be enough to store 6,000 hours of 480p A/V which is about every waking moment for an entire year.

Here is a recent lengthy story about 'lifelogging' from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i23/23a03001.htm

A student wrote an editorial asking Jesus to smite GWB, and the SS searched him.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i25/25a00603.htm

On OSX: Eeewww. I did not know that. But, still, serialized objects aren't THAT bad compared to the registry. That seems like a way of simplifying reading in the config files more than anything else... And it's similar to a flat file system, isn't it? You can still edit them, right?

As far as Gnome goes, XML files are flat files. You can hand edit them, as you said. I prefer XML for config files, myself.

I don't think finding flat files is all that difficult. The program documentation or man page usually mentions any config file you need to know about. I don't think there's an issue here.

As far as Microsoft's intent for how companies use the registry, set that aside for a second. How is it actually USED? What are people doing with it? What is Microsoft doing with it? You yourself admit that Microsoft uses it to hold license key information for MS Word. What is a license key but a tool for restricting piracy? One key per computer, right? Take Windows Genuine Advantage for example. How does it "know" a system has been pirated? Serial numbers? License keys? Where would those be kept? The registry? If not, where else?

I'm not saying they don't have a zillion other reasons why they went with a registry, I'm just saying this one CERTAINLY figures in. I don't believe their motives were pure.

Now, on paranoia. I'm going to give you a big pile of buttery link goodness! It's an interesting story anyway. Here goes:

1. About what might be stored in a word document (very amusing!):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223790

2. Those wacky hidden tags!
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i33/33a04101.htm

3. Microsoft embeds a Global Unique Identifier in Word Files. This is interesting
because they used the GUID embedded in the Melissa virus, plus the MAC ID stored when
it was uploaded to a website, to identify files on another site written by the same
copy of Word (or something along those lines). This nabbed them the author.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-514170.html

4. Here's some info on GUID:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globally_Unique_Ident ifier

See? NOT PARANOID. But it's interesting, isn't it? Anyway, the registry is the obvious place to store settings like this. If they put them in flat files, people would go in and change them to bogus numbers. In the registry doing so is a pain in the ass, and most people would be afraid to even TOUCH the registry. Nobody's afraid of a config file; you can always back it up and put it back if you break something. Not so with the registry... Or at least, not as easily.

ABOUT WINDOWS 98: Norton Ghost was probably out by then, so the cat was out of the bag and Microsoft didn't care anymore. Or other solutions had been released.

About your 2 justifications of a database approach, I agree that those are very nice, but you can get them using XML flat files without having to deal with a registry. And each application should still maintain their own config files as a matter of principle. Otherwise, who knows if one application won't accidentally step on another?

I like flat files. Mmm... Flat files. :)