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I'm a prof at Eastern Michigan University and have been spearheading an effort to get Google apps for education installed. We are currently doing a pilot in the College of Business where I teach. Universities opt for this kind of solution because they just don't have the resources to maintain an email infrastructure. SPAM currently accounts for over 80% of email, meaning that universities have to devote five times the resources to pure email volume than they would if there were no SPAM.

Further, the more users a system has, the more likely it is to be better at SPAM protection and user interface. SPAM protection is a statistical process that improves with larger numbers. Interface improves when it has to be idiot proof for large numbers of users. Gmail and other "hosted" solutions have all of these traits. Standalone university systems do not. Frankly, even large universities would profit by moving over to hosted solutions on these counts. Universities used to be the large players in Internet email. Now, they are the small players.

Regarding the issue of lock-in, given that there are numerous solutions out there, there's no reason to choose one that locks you in to the extent described by the poster

I'm a prof at Eastern Michigan University and have been spearheading an effort to get Google apps for education installed. We are currently doing a pilot in the College of Business where I teach. Universities opt for this kind of solution because they just don't have the resources to maintain an email infrastructure. SPAM currently accounts for over 80% of email, meaning that universities have to devote five times the resources to pure email volume than they would if there were no SPAM.

Further, the more users a system has, the more likely it is to be better at SPAM protection and user interface. SPAM protection is a statistical process that improves with larger numbers. Interface improves when it has to be idiot proof for large numbers of users. Gmail and other "hosted" solutions have all of these traits. Standalone university systems do not. Frankly, even large universities would profit by moving over to hosted solutions on these counts. Universities used to be the large players in Internet email. Now, they are the small players.

Regarding the issue of lock-in, given that there are numerous solutions out there, there's no reason to choose one that locks you in to the extent described by the poster

Sometimes it's bad style, but it's not grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. http://www.emich.edu/styleguide/prepositions.htm http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq /cmosfaq.Prepositions.html http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/p/p0530700.html http://www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com/articles/art icle/1026513/8910.htm

Have you looked at tuition and book costs these days? At EMU, grad-level classes are about $1K apiece between tuition, fees, and books. Subtract $300 for undergrad classes. Figure $4K-$5K per full time semester. Whatever job you get will make a dent in that but won't cover it, especially if you have living expenses. The UofM a few miles down the road charges double what EMU does, for the priviledge of being taught by TAs (Teaching Assistants) who generally don't speak English very well.

Now, if EMU hadn't torched $5 MILLION on the new President's McMansion, maybe tuition would be slightly lower. They claim it'll help with fundraising. Personally, if I was a donor and I saw that palace, I'd assume that EMU had more money than they knew what to do with, but I'm not in the plutocrat set so maybe I just don't understand these things. Not that plutocrats would be slumming at EMU...

Anyhow, these days you may well be better off burning through classes as quickly as possible and racking up debt. Definitely do the Spring/Summer semester classes. Do co-op, by all means, since that directly helps your career (best thing I did as an undergrad). Other than that, minimize your expenses and study, study, study.

I just did a little Google Search and it turns out that Mr. Strauss has given quite a few talks on Internet technology in the past. He also co-Hosted a talk titled Research Computing and Linux Clusters. So which side of the fence are you on Howie?

Nothing hampers a programmer's creativity as much as a compiler.

They should've showed this one

Whom is the audience for this post? Those who believe in "Fair Use" as defined under the law. Not Fair Use as "I want everything to be free, and damn the consequences to everyone else".
First a clear explanation of copyright

CAFE at the EFF
Note what it doesn't say as well as what it does.

Here as well is a "balanced" look at what's being fought for, for both sides.

A summation of positions

Note in all the above the author isn't being denied his rights, and the consumer isn't his.

Personal Computer Software Copyright Violation: An Unobtrusive Analysis of Internet Software Piracy

Looking at the "piracy" phenomena from the sociologist perspective.

White collar crime increasing

Of which copyright theft is.

The Digital Challenge to Intellectual Property Rights

Note this part of the above "To an economist, assets are valuable not because they merely exist, but because they can be bought and sold and traded.". Note to people who argue that the copyright holder has the original even if you make an exact copy are missing the point. Existance isn't enough.

. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Technology, Intellectual Property,and the Operation of Information Markets

There is more for such a complicated topic with far reaching consequences. Which I intend to expand upon latter.

I don't expect anyone to read this, partically because the battle lines have already been drawn. US vs THEM, and when that's done. Proper discussion is very hard.

Also remember that on BOTH sides there are those factions that seek only their own ends and "Fair Use" really isn't one of them.

The computer lab services/home page at the library on Eastern Michigan University are already partially hosted by OSX. Here you can already see a "Powered By Mac OS X Server" logo at the bottom. The machines in this lab still run NT though, ugh.

Yes. You are all alike. You all read fucking Chomsky.

If you don't read Chomsky, I guess that means you don't read much at all. Chomsky is one of the ten most cited authors in history:

"Many are the authors who may wonder is anyone is paying attention to what they write. Professor Noam Chomsky, MIT's preeminent linguistics authority, doesn't have that problem. Recent research on citations in three different citation indices show that Professor Chomsky is one of the most cited individuals in works published in the past 20 years. In fact, his 3,874 citations in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index between 1980 and 1992 make him the most cited living person in that period and the eight most cited source overall -- just behind famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and just ahead of philosopher Georg Hegel. Indeed, Professor Chomsky is in illustrious company. The top ten cited sources during the period were: Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, Freud, Chomsky, Hegel and Cicero."

Also, even though he is a linguist and also known for his political commentary, Professor Chomsky is still among the top 1000 cited authors in Computer Science: ...721. N. Chomsky.

Maybe you should quit watching all thoe sitcom reruns and work on expanding your intellectual horizons. I recommend reading , including those authors with views you don't necessarily agree with. Chomsky is undoubtably one of the most brilliant intellects of our time, the father of modern linguistics, and regardless of whether you like his political views, if you have not read his work in linguistics you only cheating yourself out of a whole universe of wonder.

Common LISP is not a "pure" functional language, because it contains constructs such as SETQ, LET, and DOTIMES that mimic the assignment, local scope, and loop features found in procedural languages. However, LISP does contain a number of functionals and supports a functional style of programming.

COSC 337: LISP Functional Programming Features

yah, Teller also stole all the Star Wars funding from, um, Woodruff...

Here.

So I wouldn't put it past him. A nasty man...