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Last year, more than 30,000 students rode 650 buses to 230 schools at a cost of $120 million

That doesn't sound right. $120 million over 30,000 students is $4000 per student-year. If there are 200 school days in a year, that's $20 per student per day, or $10 per student per trip. A savings of $5 million only reduces this to $9.58 per student per trip.

A monthly MBTA bus pass is $55/mo, which at 21 school days per month would work out to $1.31 per student per trip. So the school buses are 7.6x more expensive.

A little of the price difference I can understand due to school buses running fewer trips (a school bus usually services 2-4 schools on staggered schedules, with a few hours lull around lunch). So the purchase cost of the bus is amortized over fewer trips. Utilization of public buses is also higher. 392,413 riders on a weekday over 7200 round trips = 54.5 riders per circuit, which is close to or over 100% capacity per circuit (obviously not everyone is on the bus at the same time, but we're looking at fares per circuit). School buses OTOH run at about 51% capacity per circuit.

But if you figure these are both 2:1 factors, then that would bring up the MBTA bus cost to just $5.24 per student per trip. Still about half that of operating the school buses. Maybe that's the solution. In other countries I've visited, schoolkids ride the public bus and subway.

Other commenters point out that instructors and TAs may be overwhelmed by the large number of students. Which begs the question: if you have more students, why isn't the tuition used to hire more teaching staff?

The answer is to be found in bloated administration. For most colleges and universities, there is kind of a "magic number" of 1, that being the maximum acceptable ratios of administrative staff to teaching staff. Colleges and universities with more administrators than teachers have "jumped the shark". Those with less are still focused on actually providing an education.

Stanford goes one farther. I actually downloaded and read through their latest annual report. It is impossible to determine the faculty/staff ratio from the information given. However, according to this overview of the growth of admistrative/professional staff at colleges, Stanford has seen an increase of 125% in administrators and 405% in professional (non-teaching) staff during the time that student numbers have increased by 27%. Even among US institutions that is remarkable.

Fire 4/5 of the "professional staff" and half of the "administrators" and you might be able to afford a few more professors to teach the students. What a concept!

I think you underrate PBS/NPR/PRI/etc. They still produce good programming, though the programming is often independent from those orgs... eg. Frontline. The funding mix they get is hardly dependent on the gov, rather "viewers like you" pay as you mention. Many PBS affiliates also pump out something like 4-5 channels now that they're all digital broadcasting.

WGBH

You can watch online:

Frontline
PBS Newshour
NOVA
History Detectives
Nature

etc.

I think you underrate PBS/NPR/PRI/etc. They still produce good programming, though the programming is often independent from those orgs... eg. Frontline. The funding mix they get is hardly dependent on the gov, rather "viewers like you" pay as you mention. Many PBS affiliates also pump out something like 4-5 channels now that they're all digital broadcasting.

WGBH

You can watch online:

Frontline
PBS Newshour
NOVA
History Detectives
Nature

etc.

I think you underrate PBS/NPR/PRI/etc. They still produce good programming, though the programming is often independent from those orgs... eg. Frontline. The funding mix they get is hardly dependent on the gov, rather "viewers like you" pay as you mention. Many PBS affiliates also pump out something like 4-5 channels now that they're all digital broadcasting.

WGBH

You can watch online:

Frontline
PBS Newshour
NOVA
History Detectives
Nature

etc.

I think you underrate PBS/NPR/PRI/etc. They still produce good programming, though the programming is often independent from those orgs... eg. Frontline. The funding mix they get is hardly dependent on the gov, rather "viewers like you" pay as you mention. Many PBS affiliates also pump out something like 4-5 channels now that they're all digital broadcasting.

WGBH

You can watch online:

Frontline
PBS Newshour
NOVA
History Detectives
Nature

etc.

I think you underrate PBS/NPR/PRI/etc. They still produce good programming, though the programming is often independent from those orgs... eg. Frontline. The funding mix they get is hardly dependent on the gov, rather "viewers like you" pay as you mention. Many PBS affiliates also pump out something like 4-5 channels now that they're all digital broadcasting.

WGBH

You can watch online:

Frontline
PBS Newshour
NOVA
History Detectives
Nature

etc.

I think you underrate PBS/NPR/PRI/etc. They still produce good programming, though the programming is often independent from those orgs... eg. Frontline. The funding mix they get is hardly dependent on the gov, rather "viewers like you" pay as you mention. Many PBS affiliates also pump out something like 4-5 channels now that they're all digital broadcasting.

WGBH

You can watch online:

Frontline
PBS Newshour
NOVA
History Detectives
Nature

etc.

TLC makes Discovery look like PBS.

My local PBS, one of the bigs, is showing spam infotainment horseshit for at least 12 hours a week now, maybe more. Love is over.
It's easy to blame it on commercial broadcasters, but if no one was watching it, it wouldn't be on.

Or wind turbine farms that ruin the view of our politicians.

In related news, judge Patel just issued an injunction requiring movie theaters to cease doing business until their facilities were in accordance with the ADA. This ruling includes that headphones be available for the visually disabled, with a narrator telling the listener what is happening on the screen."

i am basically for stronger enforcement of copyright laws.. does this make me 'anti-tech' or 'pro-tech' in this survey view?

anti-tech, you douche.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1763
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=01 97

http://jorge.cortell.net/
http://www.benkler.org/
http://www.dklevine.com/
http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books.htm

http://swpat.ffii.org/
http://creativecommons.org/
http://www.piratbyran.org/
http://www.stealthisfilm.com/
http://www.cambia.org/
http://www.plos.org/
http://www.fsf.org/

PBS pays for the creation of their shows with tax dollars

PBS doesn't produce NOVA, WGBH Boston does. According to their annual report, only about 11% of WGBH's funding is from government grants and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which could vaguely be called "tax dollars." 21% comes from corporations, 12% comes from individuals, and 21% comes from other PBS stations.

Amen. This is one reason why I'm awfully glad that Barney Frank is my representative. There are certainly some things I disagree with him about, but he has consistently been a very outspoken critic of the Patriot Act. I heard a debate between him and Viet Dinh (who was a co-author of the Patriot Act) at Wheaton College in Massachusetts this spring that was fantastic.

The most surprising thing to me about the debate was that neither were as strictly ideological or partisan as I would have expected. If anyone is interested, the entire debate is available through the WGBH website at http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=18 07

Check out the offerings distributed by Public Radio International. The archives of many of their shows are available to listen to for free. Specifically, check out This American Life , To the Best of Our Knowledge , and Sound & Spirit . If you're able to record these shows from the archives (using some sort of scheduled stream-ripper like iRecordMusic or WireTap Pro), or purchase them (through Audible or ITMS), they can make an hour-long commute feel like mere minutes.

And for your Monday morning commute, make sure you've got the latest installment of Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me! , the NPR news quiz.

No, it sounds like he considers the rights of the people more important than the rights of the federal government, but the rights of the states so obviously more important than the rights of individuals as to not need stating. This is fairly consistent with the 10th amendment: the federal government only gets the powers explicitly granted it, the states get everything else unless explicitly denied, in which case the right devolves to the people.

Of course, this is inconsistent with what his website says, as you note. So yes, he's probably just another old Confederate bigot, hiding behind the cry of "state's rights!" as a sandbag to try and hold back the tide of history from his home. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it; but those who do not study demographics are doomed to history. Specifically, age demographics. The young may collectively ever quote to their elders: "We will bury you..." and with more inevitability of history than Kruschev managed.

If you miss the show, you can still get it on DVD and VHS sometime around November 15th from here.

...in exchange for which they get television which (hold on to your hat here) **doesn't suck**.

These arguments are made without looking at known ecological effects. The ecological disaster in the Mediterranean Sea caused by common algae (Caulerpa taxifolia) from aquariums could not have happened ten years ago. The subtle difference in temperature of 3 degrees was enough to allow a tropical plant thrive and now dominate.

The issue where these conditions are man-made or not is also a valid one. How much is caused by fluorocarbons and how much from changes in the earth's magnetic field. We only have measurements going back 300 years, in that period the earth's magnetic field has decreased by 10% as part of a natural changes at the core. How much it has actually decreased is unknown as is how much of the atmosphere has eroded because of this.

Natural causes does not mean no cause for concern.

These arguments are made without looking at known ecological effects. The ecological disaster in the Mediterranean Sea caused by common algae (Caulerpa taxifolia) from aquariums could not have happened ten years ago. The subtle difference in temperature of 3 degrees was enough to allow a tropical plant thrive and now dominate.

The issue where these conditions are man-made or not is also a valid one. How much is caused by fluorocarbons and how much from changes in the earth's magnetic field. We only have measurements going back 300 years, in that period the earth's magnetic field has decreased by 10% as part of a natural changes at the core. How much it has actually decreased is unknown as is how much of the atmosphere has eroded because of this.

Natural causes does not mean no cause for concern.

And do the snail mail BitTorrent. Buy those DVDs. WGBH store

Can't help with a full download, but if you would concider supporting PBS for shows like this, you can buy it on DVD and VHS at the link below.

http://shop.wgbh.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Cat alogSearchResultView?storeId=11051&catalogId=10051 &langId=-1&pageSize=20&searchText=elegant+universe

We're talking about PBS here. It's really easy to skip the commercials already, since they're not embedded in the program.

Of course, if they offered it for download on the internet, they wouldn't sell as many DVDs for $20.

Whatever, my tax money is already paying for the program. Please, someone record this and put it on Kazaa for me.

The same company also makes keyboards with braille displays for regular computers. Good sites to visit on the topic of computer access for the blind are:

Trace Center
Smith-Kettlewell RERC
Section 508
W3C's WAI
National Center for Accessible Media

If you are in the States, see if there is a local Independent Living Center (sometimes also called Center for Independent Living). These offer support and information for people with disabilities in the local community.

On a separate note, if she is not sensitive to red light, you might be able to whip up a red "grayscale" display. Check the CRT and LCD manufacturing companies to see if they make such screens already for low light work settings (military).

A crazy thought: If the safe light frequency is too narrow for off the shelf screens, you could go the full geek route and construct a matrix using narrow frequency red LED's (like the banner message board signs) and feed the display with the text stream. One of the low vision/blind access software programs might be able to extract the text for the display.

Here's a peak

Here's another one.

Are you sure you have the title right? I found The Best Mind Since Einstein.

There's also Rear Window Captioning, which is really cool. You're given a small piece of smoked plexiglass, and a mirror image of the captions is projected and reflected in the glass. You can go to movies with your hearing friends, and they see the uncaptioned movie normally, and you can see the captioned version.

Sadly, not all movies come with RWC (Lord of the Rings :-().

You are absolutely correct, the photos taken by the photographer during the Shackleton voyage were a monumental historical, artistic and technical achievement. They would be remarkable today...but in 1912, they were utterly dumbfounding. There is an IMAX movie about this, too...

Spot on. Anyone else see the 'Frontline' show a week ago or so entitled "The Monster that ate Hollywood"?

This excellent piece went into exactly why movies are focused on the all-important opening weekend. Basically the huge megacorps that own all of the studios want to minimize their risk and maximize return so they gravitate to formulas with known elements.

What's behind the opening-weekend box-office mania? Does marketing hold too much power over the fate of a film? Here are excerpts from FRONTLINE's interviews with Mandalay's chairman, Peter Guber; Bob Levin, president of worldwide marketing and distribution for MGM; journalist Richard Natale; longtime studio executive Lucy Fisher; actor and producer Michael Douglas; Sony Corporation of America's chief executive, Howard Stringer; and Bill Mechanic, former Fox studio chief.

If this program airs again in your area, I highly recommend you check it out.

This is somewhat off-topic, but in response to your comment about captioning for movies, there is a new but not particularly wide-spread technology for movie theaters called Rear-Window. I believe it utilizes smaller screens mounted on theater seat-backs.

More info at WGBH's NCAM (nat'l center for accessible media): http://ncam.wgbh.org/mopix/

It is hosted by Craig Charles, formerly of Red Dwarf fame. Not just a simple elimination match, but you get to over come challenges like obstacle courses, etc. All while avoiding the infamous house robots.

Check http://www.clicktv.com/. It told me my local station (in Dartmouth, NS) is WGBH, and with a little digging through http://www.wgbh.org I found out that the station I see is GBH/2, and Code Rush is only ever going to be shown on GBH/44. Sucks to be me.

Channel 44 tonight at 10PM. The link also lists repeat times, in case your VCR/TiVO/Replay are acting up...