Slashdot Mirror

Sorry to be confusing -- hygiene was actually a secondary concern for me.

Those damn things clutter up the table, which is a real problem when seated at a two-top and you've ordered appetizers along with your drinks and entree.

An even bigger peeve is those kiosks are flashing, dancing distracting light-source when you're trying to relax and enjoy a peaceful meal. I understand how the uncivilized, youngsters and the Japanese may see no problem with that.
I wonder if they increase alcohol sales.

No. Thanks.

This is really, really stupid. At the commnuity college where I teach in California, an AA degree requires a minimum of 60 units. Fees are $36/unit, and you also have to pay a $16/semester health fee. That's it. Total cost for a two-year degree: $2224. No "hacks" required.

And this is all assuming that you don't qualify for any merit- or need-based grants. An awful lot of our students qualify for Pell grants and fee waivers.

For typical working-class people, the financial problem with getting an AA degree isn't the cost of the coursework itself. The problem is that you have to pay for rent and groceries, and if you work full time, you'll have to take such a small course load every semester that it'll take you a decade to finish two years of college. One way around this is to cut your expenses, e.g., by living with your parents and not owning a car. Another way is to take out loans; if you have a low income and aren't dependent on your parents, then you qualify for subsidized Stafford loans, which have a low interest rate. If you're a veteran, the new GI bill allows you to get a stipend that's enough to live on, based on your zip code.

Anybody in the US who claims they're being excluded from a college education because of their income is full of baloney. Our state and federal governments spend lavishly to subsidize college education, and the subsidies are set up very carefully so that working-class people have a good enough deal to have access.

The real reason that working-class people get excluded from higher education is that they often got terrible K-12 educations, which didn't prepare them for college.

The community college where I teach has 22 IT workers out of a total staff of 706, for a ratio of 32:1. I think they stay pretty busy. One of the side-effects is that in order to simplify things, they push hard for supporting only one OS, which is Windows. The campus is extremely reluctant to provide macs, and when it comes to my linux box that I brought from home to put on my desk, they barely tolerate it on their network.

I have some experience with trying to verify people's academic affiliations via the internet. I've made some physics textbooks I wrote available for free on the web. I also distribute the instructors' materials (homework solutions, exam files, etc.) for free via the web, but they're encrypted, so professors need to contact me to get the key. My policy is here. Basically I use a policy like the one described in the slashdot summary: they have to be able to show me their e-mail address on their school's web page.

Well, it kinda sorta works, but not always.

1. Not all experts have an EDU address. The version of this that I most often see is that they're homeschoolers. In that case, I just say I'm sorry, but I'm not going to give them the materials. For wikipedia, the more likely issue would be that they're experts with PhDs, but they just aren't working in academia.
2. Many experts with institutional addresses can't or won't get their employer involved in authenticating them This isn't necessary. As long as their school has a faculty directory with e-mail addresses listed, the school doesn't have to do anything special.
3. "Underground experts" such as black-hat security experts value their anonymity greatly. As I understand the proposal, nobody is saying you won't be able to edit WP or citizendium unless you have a PhD that's verifiable by this method. They're just saying that if you want to be able to throw your weight around and claim to have a PhD, this is the proof you'd have to provide.
4. The same goes for political dissidents who have expertise to share under a pseudonym. Same as #3.

I am somewhat sympathetic to people who aren't able to meet my requirements for various reasons, and for that reason I sometimes show some flexibility. Actually I myself would just barely be able to meet them. If you look at the staff directory for my department at my school, you'll see that my address is listed, but is heavily spam-armored, and isn't the .edu e-mail address my school provided me. This is because (a) I'm trying to avoid spam, (b) my school's e-mail sucks, and (c) I hate getting occupational spam (e.g., people sending out a broadcast e-mail to 1000 faculty and staff to say that their kid is selling girl scout cookies). A common issue I've run into is that the school hires a part-timer to teach the course, and gives the part-timer authority to choose the textbook he wants. He chooses mine, but isn't listed on the department directory because he's part time. In that situation, I bend my own rules as long as he seems legit. Another issue is that although my books are college textbooks, I do have quite a few high school teachers using my books, and often their school doesn't have any web site at all, or has a very rudimentary one without a staff listing.

Basically most schools seem to think online courses are a cash cow, which is stupid, because they haven't though about all the computing resources that are required.

That's better than my response: Fullerton College in (you guessed it) Fullerton, CA.