Amar Bose To Donate Company To M.I.T.

MBC1977 writes with this eyebrow-raising news from CNN: "'The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Friday that [Amar] Bose, the 81-year-old founder of the sound system company that bears his name, has donated the majority of Bose Corp.'s stock to the school.' Very cool indeed!"

Comments

Midrange

[Wyatt Earp]

Maybe they'll be able to get BOSE to make equipment that is testable for reviews and has some midrange.

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[show me altoids]

I heard a while back that he was going to give the company away someday to charity, so not that big a surprise.

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[Anonymous Coward]

wat.. no no
it's
"No highs, no lows, must be bose"
or
Buy Other Sound Equipment

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[MoonBuggy]

You probably didn't mean anything deep by it, but I find the choice to lump universities under the broad heading of 'charity' an interesting one. Although I think there's little better use for one's money than promoting education, my time spent at a (fairly well-regarded) American university seemed (to my godless commie foreign eyes) a surprisingly commercialised experience. It's clear just from looking at the campus that an awful lot of money is given back by alumni, and this action by Bose further confirms it, but I don't think I could ever get over the voice in the back of my head saying "What about all those times you tried to screw me out of every penny I didn't have?".

I applaud the efforts of people like Bose in giving something back, and I know this is something of a digression. It just seems odd, from my external perspective, that people are happy giving such vast gifts to organisations that treat their students in such a mercenary manner; or, I suppose, that organisations receiving such vast gifts still feel the need to squeeze their students so much...

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[bromoseltzer]

There are many ways to look at a university. It's about research, it's about federal funding, it's about raising money from alumni, it's about patent licensing and athletics, it's about recruiting faculty, promoting faculty, about running a big physical plant, internet pipes, etc. etc. Oh, and there are students, too. Teaching is just one of many things that happen there, not the most visible - even at places that claim to emphasize the student experience. Students do get to pay up to around $200K for the privilege of becoming alumni and then being asked to contribute cash. But a big research university actually loses money on every student. They'd be better off financially if they stopped admitting.

Universities, most of them, are non-profit corporations. You're right they aren't charities in the moral sense, but the US tax laws treat them as if they were. Pity the legislator who suggests repealing the their charitable tax deduction.

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[Russianspi]

I totally agree. My wife and I both graduated with BA's from Christian colleges. She had the typical college finance experience, with the school squeezing every penny that they could out of her, and then sending letters to her (probably for the rest of her life) asking for donations. She liked the school otherwise, but that (although typical) was/is irksome.

I, on the other hand, went to Moody Bible Institute. It is a college that aims to prepare people to do full-time Christian ministry. Since most of these graduates wind up in fields that don't have great earning potential, they don't charge tuition. I'll repeat that: they don't charge tuition. It's not an easy school to get in to, (it's certainly not for everyone) and it is by no means perfect, but it was the right fit for me. (I'm a missionary, but I'm up late tonight doing some open source coding and getting distracted by Slashdot.) Anyway, Moody avoids charging tuition by having a profitable publishing house, as well as a radio station and broadcast media company. All of the profits that they turn from these (as well as some hefty donations) are what keep the financial wheels turning at the school. When I graduated in 2005, they estimated that for my graduating class, the waived tuition amounted to a $78,000 scholarship per graduating student.

I receive letters occasionally from Moody asking for donations, and these are MUCH more easy for me to stomach. I don't have much in the way of spare money at the moment, but if/when I have the means, supporting Moody is something I'd like to do. I appreciate my education, and the fact that I could get through it without taking out ANY student loans, and I'd love to help present that opportunity to others if at all possible.

Anyway, I realize that I'm on a tangent, but I think that Moody Bible Institute is as close to a true non-profit as I've seen any university be.

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[gwstuff]

It makes more sense if you weigh the substantial tuition fees against what you get out of a university like MIT in terms of knowledge and the capacity to be successful. The people you speak of, Bose being an example, think the balance tilts towards the latter and try to even it out by giving back to the system. I find it admirable.

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[demonlapin]

Although I think there's little better use for one's money than promoting education

Too bad that universities are largely in the business of granting degrees, not educating.

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[MoonBuggy]

A fair point, and it is admirable, but it's perhaps worth clarifying that I wasn't only referring to tuition (substantial though it is, the aforementioned godless commie government helped me out a lot in that regard) - I can't imagine living with a commercial loan of that size like so many Americans do, but it's straightforward and clear, it's like the sticker price on the education one receives.

The bit that was unexpected, the bit that really made me think "These guys are in it for the money", was the (sometimes petty, sometimes substantial) hidden costs enforced by university policies. All first years had to live on campus, in housing with rents a good 40%+ above other local options. Many housing plans came with mandatory pre-paid meal plans: distinctly average cafeteria food at rates that work out to $12/meal; an effort to donate all unused pre-pay meals to charity was deemed too costly to implement. Student run societies needed to go through bureaucratic approval in order to purchase food for events from any sources other than the university's private catering contractor. Not only did courses require $70+ textbooks, the campus book store tended to sell them at rates a good 20% higher than Amazon.

It's beginning to sound like I had a real problem with the place, and that's absolutely not the case. I learned a huge amount and there were parts of the American system that I would love to see adopted in England. It's just jarring to go in expecting a public service organisation, albeit one with a significant up-front cost, and instead find the administration to be treating you as a captive audience of customers.

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[artfulshrapnel]

I think MIT tends to be a bit better in this regard. Their undergraduate degrees aren't much more expensive than other universities despite their reputation, and their masters programs (at least in the tech labs like the Media Lab) are completely subsidized for their students. Students who get their courses of study approved and are accepted to the tech labs are not only given free tuition, they're actually given a stipend to support themselves on. Combine that with the tremendous amount of technology MIT has given back to the world, and I think you have a good case for their being a legitimate charitable organization... That said, the people at MY university were a bunch of tightfisted dickheads, and I thoroughly agree with you in general.

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[bigstrat2003]

My brother was pondering going there (although he wound up going to Northwestern College instead). I recall my dad saying, after visiting the campus with my brother, that it was in a rough neighborhood. Was it all that bad, in your experience? Just curious.

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[damiam]

Just curious, what school did you go to? My experience from friends at wide range of schools is that there are a lot of mid-tier American schools which do make an effort to squeeze their students dry, but the schools at the very top tend to be wealthy enough (thanks to alumni donations) that they can afford to have very generous financial aid policies. MIT in particular is one of only six American schools that do need-blind admissions for all students and which guarantee to meet full financial need (the others are Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Amherst). That means that no one at MIT looks at how much money you have when they decide whether to admit you, and once you're admitted you're guaranteed whatever financial aid is necessary to allow you to attend based on your family's financial documents. I think MIT's financial aid policies are slightly less generous than, say, Harvard, which is actually free if your family earns under $60k/yr, but that's only because Harvard's endowment is more than three times as large.

Basically, the argument that schools like MIT make to their alumni is that when you donate to MIT, you're not giving your money to a large faceless entity with a $8 billion endowment staffed with administrators who light their cigars with $100 bills. You're giving it to a poor kid from the slums of Bangalore who is able to come to MIT and fulfill his/her potential because of generous alumni like you, who have allowed MIT to provide a $300k education for free to anyone who can qualify. Obviously you can believe this sort of thing to varying degrees, but apparently Bose's experiences working at MIT for several decades came to convince him that it is, as an institution, overall a force for good in the world.

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[bemymonkey]

I genuinely hope that this is possible. It would be great to have a company like Bose, which has an Apple-like (albeit a bit worse) reputation in the consumer audio world, start producing decent systems - the current pricing structure could definitely support that.

Just imagine - the tards buying BOSE because it says BOSE on it might actually get some decent sound for their money, and better sound makes the world a better place. Ever been to visit a friend for a few days and realized that you'd be without decent sound (except your headphones, maybe) for weeks because he uses a 4 gagillion Watt (PMPO of course) sound system that sounds like a dying cat as his stereo?

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[HuguesT]

To get the "message" that they are losing money on every students, Universities pull accounting tricks worthy of Hollywood. They take all of their expenses, including research and administrative related ones on the one hand, they take what students pay on the other, totally ignoring donations, and they say, "eh, student tuition is only one third of our income, therefore student are actually not paying much at all".

In reality, some studies have shown that top-level college education really costs no more than about $40k per year per student for engineering, about $80k for medicine, and sometimes as lows as $10k for maths or philosophy. Law is also cheap. If students pay $200k over 4 years, they are totally covering that. In most of Europe, students typically pay less than $10k per year, sometimes much less. Oxford and Cambridge charge about $15k per year. They seem to be doing quite well nonetheless. As it was reported here not so long ago, even top-level US-universities pay their professors a relative pittance compared with other professionals with similar qualifications.

If universities stopped admitting, they would immediately lose 1/3 of their funding, and so would have to let go of a corresponding share of their staff. They would lose their status and soon all of their donations, losing another 1/3, later they would lose all of their network and influence obtained through alumni, professors would not be needed for teaching and soon the place would be an empty, nearly pointless shell. That doesn't sound like being better off financially.

The morals is that Universities are there for teaching, and students are at the very center of their mission. Research and whatnot is indeed nice, but it is there to attract funding and top-level researcher, ensuring the quality of the teaching because beginner teachers want to join their teams and so work hard to get tenure. A few top-level researchers are also dedicated and excellent teachers, which is very nice from the university point of view, because they get to write the classical textbooks on their field, ensuring more revenues. Students and alumni are not the only teaching-related income universities get. There are many other things to say, but I'll stop.

However, saying that universities would be better off without students is utter bollocks, to be polite.

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[HuguesT]

I'm pretty sure you will find that the average MIT graduate is not nearly as successful as Bose. Sure, they'll earn money, but I don't see how some of it has to be channelled back to their alma mater. People make their own success and money, college education is only a part of it. College is only 4 years, what about all the 12 years of school before? Don't they deserve any kudos?

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[gmhowell]

"No highs, no lows, it must be Bose!"

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[Xeranar]

MIT is a wonderful place. I almost went there in the early 2000s before opting for a local school that was 7th in engineering (my preferred fields). They were far more willing to work with me on the tuition rates than the school I did choose and MIT was 4 times more expensive at the time. Right off the top MIT gave a half-tuition credit to those they sought out (as to those that simply applied) and then there was further reward if you succeeded. MIT is not a private school and operates largely for the good of humanity. Comparing your local college experience to MIT is really unfair. The only places I can think of that compete are places like Cal Poly Tech and a few other Tech schools in the US. Giving the stock to MIT means they'll have a healthy steady source of income that hopefully will enable them to continue to research when politics pressure their research funds. PS: On the subject of tuition the US has relatively high tuition because schools don't get the kind of funding they need from the state and private schools though non-profit in most cases need to have an excess to invest and protect against the future. Non-profit doesn't mean sum-zero, it means there is no dividend to pay out to trustees and they are limited in their total profits. State colleges by comparison are much cheaper and would be free if the state gave the proper kind of funding they deserved.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure you will find that the average MIT graduate is not nearly as successful as Bose.

On the positive side, he probably sounds better.

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[mangu]

It is a college that aims to prepare people to do full-time Christian ministry. Since most of these graduates wind up in fields that don't have great earning potential,

Huh? Say again?

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[FreakyGreenLeaky]

With a sig like that, I think he's praying for your soul.

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[Redlazer]

This is a crazy good idea in a lot of ways.

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[donscarletti]

I think someone pursuing missionary work probably has too much of a conscience to get rich on a "ministry business". Like saying that since the mob bosses who control sanitation in some Italian cities are rich, garbage disposal is a good career path.

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[RobertLTux]

I think i know your confusion

there is a difference between full time Christian Ministry and running a Mega-Church.

In one you spend most of your time actually doing work and in the other you spend most of your time raising funds.

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[jittles]

Yeah my high school sweetheart wanted me to go to Biola with her. I was pretty indifferent about it, so I applied and got in. We broke up not too long after that. I refused to pay $120k for 4 years of education and she got pissed. I went to a state school and walked away spending about $30k after cost of living.

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[thermopile]

I agree completely with HuguesT, above. The notion that universities are "just barely scraping by" is absurd.

College Tuition has been rising at about twice the rate of inflation over the past ten years. If you look at Harvard's endowment, they could easily pay every student's tuition based on extremely conservative returns on their 26 billion investment.

Colleges and universities are a racket. Few other industries, as a whole, have experienced the same kind of wholesale constant increase in funds like the education market.

Well, except for the defense industry, but that's another story.

To get back on topic, donating voting shares to MIT would have been a very interesting opportunity for students -- they would get to run the company, and learn all about the real-world application of technology. Alas, with dividends only, I'm not sure there's as much education going on as there could have been.

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[sribe]

Colleges and universities are a racket. Few other industries, as a whole, have experienced the same kind of wholesale constant increase in funds like the education market.

You know where those double-digit every-single-year increases are going? Administration, bureaucracy, middle management--not teaching.

You know when those increases started? The same time that our Federal government decided that a college education had become so important that they needed to start subsidizing students. Is that a coincidence?

If rabid conservative had their way tomorrow and eliminated Federal college loan & grant programs, what do you think would really be the long-term outcome? Would the proportion of graduating high school students attending college drop to a tenth of what it is today? Or would tuition drop? (Yes, suddenly doing this would be a complete disaster for a few years, because colleges couldn't undo their hugely wasteful habits overnight. And I don't even see any way to do it gradually without it being a disaster for a long time. As far as I can see, we're now stuck with what we've got--inflated tuition caused by gross inefficiency and propped up by Federal subsidy...)

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[sribe]

MIT is not a private school and operates largely for the good of humanity.

Typo, perhaps? Since MIT is most certainly a private school...

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[russotto]

Maybe they'll be able to get BOSE to make equipment that is testable for reviews and has some midrange.

You just need to put together some old Bose equipment and some new. The new stuff has no midrange, but the old stuff prompted the phrase "There are no highs, there are no lows, it must be Bose".

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[Alex Belits]

If rabid conservative had their way tomorrow and eliminated Federal college loan & grant programs, what do you think would really be the long-term outcome?

Universities will get rid of teaching and research, and will reduce themselves to operating their sports teams.

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[Compaqt]

> You're giving it to a poor kid from the slums of Bangalore

?

I thought that universities require full payment from foreign students.

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[sribe]

Universities will get rid of teaching and research, and will reduce themselves to operating their sports teams.

Ha, good one! However the claim that the sports teams bring operating surpluses back to university budgets are based on totally bogus accounting. In reality nearly any university that tried that would go bankrupt shortly ;-)

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[Theovon]

The same could be said for people who major in Math, English, Philosophy, and Religion (not the same as Ministry). People choose to go into fields they enjoy or feel compelled by. Not all of them are huge money-makers.

Of course, you're an Anonymous Coward who is just jeallous that this other person even HAS a job, unlike your basement-dwelling self. This person chose a career path that makes little money. You're unemployed and living with your mom due to sheer irremedial incompetence.

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[Alex Belits]

If that won't work, they would just reduce coaches' salaries by 5%, and they will be fine.

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[Rakishi]

If you look at Harvard's endowment, they could easily pay every student's tuition based on extremely conservative returns on their 26 billion investment.

Congratulations on showing you know nothing about modern college education. Harvard does this already, they provide absurdly good financial aid to the point that no student should be kept from going there due to financial issues. Free ride as long as parents make under $60k I think (or was it $100k now?) and it scales nicely above that.

Not to mention that the endowment must pay for all the other operating costs which other sources don't pay for.

And I'm sure if Harvard gave every student a free ride you'd be bitching about why all the millionaires' kids aren't paying tuition to help the less well off who go there. *rolls eyes*

Then there's the fact that colleges like Harvard are minorities and most colleges don't have giant endowments.

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[sribe]

If that won't work, they would just reduce coaches' salaries by 5%, and they will be fine.

The top athletic programs could probably eliminate coaches salaries and only reduce their incomes by 5%...

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[MoonBuggy]

...they provide absurdly good financial aid to the point that no student should be kept from going there due to financial issues.

As with the post I was originally replying to, I think your wording says a lot more than you perhaps intended. Basing admissions purely on a candidate's academic ability, rather than wealth, is considered to be the entire basis of the education system in most countries, not an "absurdly good" exception to the rule.

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[bigtrike]

Moody Bible Institute is in one of the wealthiest areas of Chicago, known as the Gold Coast. There are some beggars in the area due to its proximity to the tourist areas and the cheap housing at the YMCA, but other than that it's a pretty safe area. I could see how it might be considered bad compared to Evanston however, which is quite wealthy and sterile. In both areas the biggest risk to your health at night is drunk middle class people.

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[Rakishi]

Your point being what exactly? Are you somehow assuming that I don't agree with your view simply because I don't blindly clap for a badly made argument simply because it supports my position?

I merely pointed out that the person I was replying to used about the worst example one can for his point. Likely because of some deeply ingrained hatred of Harvard due to his own failures in life. If you're going to make a generally valid argument, don't fuck it up with your own irrational prejudices.

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[guyminuslife]

I have to wonder if all of these come from the same loser at home in his mom's basement, or if there's a clandestine network of losers in basements that have forged a tenuous alliance to further their common goal of spreading douchebaggery throughout every corner of the Internet.

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[damiam]

Some schools might. But as I said, the top tier of American universities are need-blind and guarantee to meet full financial need for all students, domestic and international. One of my best friends from college is from Bangalore, not from the slums but certainly not a rich family, and he paid $0 in tuition for four years at the number-one-ranked undergrad school in the US (Williams College, which has nominal tuition of $50k/yr, but which guarantees to meet full need for all students and is just a couple of technicalities away from being the seventh entry on my list above), so it does happen. And it's not even a rare thing; the majority of my international student friends paid little or no tuition (and of course, neither do many domestic students).

People don't understand that in the top tier of American education, it's not about money. Harvard is swimming in so much money they've actually seriously debated whether they should eliminate tuition entirely and just become free for all applicants; the only reason they haven't done this is that they're already free or very cheap for basically any middle-class family, so the only people who would benefit from such a change are the people who are rich enough to not need it. MIT is not quite that rich, but they're rich enough to offer very generous aid to any international student they admit. And that's exactly what they do, because their reputation as one of the best schools in the world is very much dependent on their having the best students in the world, and that means making sure people can come regardless of their ability to pay.

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[dkf]

The morals is that Universities are there for teaching, and students are at the very center of their mission. Research and whatnot is indeed nice, but it is there to attract funding and top-level researcher, ensuring the quality of the teaching because beginner teachers want to join their teams and so work hard to get tenure.

I'd prefer to say that a university is there for learning. An important part of that is through teaching, but learning doesn't stop with graduation; that's just where it becomes impractical to teach any more and those seeking to learn must find things out for themselves (i.e., do research). All the financial side of a university is just there to support that core goal of allowing people to learn things (and help others to learn them) for their whole lives.

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[__aaxtnf2500]

And one that contributes/has contributed to the US nuclear weapons complex and other projects that contribute to the national defense of america, which certainly is not for the good of humanity.

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[j-beda]

My understanding was that it is not true that any of these places are "cheap" for anyone - they just strive to make their take as much as the student can be bled for. If they charge only what the applicant can "afford to pay", and the students or families are left with significant loans needing repayment after the fact than that hardly seems "cheap". OK, I guess for someone like Bill Gates, their sliding price scale doesn't reach up high enough to really make it painful, but if you cannot afford "full price" they are willing to drop the price just enough that you can pay it, but no lower.

I suppose there is nothing really unethical about setting their tuition price at whatever level they want. The 1991 "price fixing" lawsuit did not make them out to be completely above board though.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=ivy+league+price+fixing

One of the interesting things is a study a decade or so ago (find it yourself) that showed that people accepted to one of the "top tier" schools who instead when to pretty much any place else, were as "successful" as those who went to the top tier school. The conclusion was that the top tier graduates were better not because of the school, but rather the school was selecting exceptional people, who on average, would have exceptional outcomes if they went somewhere cheaper too. There are some amazing people and amazing opportunities at "Top Tier U", no doubt. There are also amazing people and opportunities at "Springfield State School" as well - and graduates of good ole SSS spend considerably less money in meeting them. The rational economic argument probably precludes attending TTU over SSS.

If you look at the various endowments per student level, it does seem a bit strange that a place like Princeton which has almost $2 million dollars for EACH STUDENT in the bank, finds that it needs to charge more than state schools which seem to get only as much as $15k per student support from the state. Surely Princeton is managing to get better than $15k from that $2million? Heck a 1% return is $20k!

http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?measure=36#

SUNY Cortland wants something like $5k in tuition, and only expects someone to spend $22k for tuition, fees, room, board, books, etc. Princeton wants $37k for just tuition, and estimates that it will be over $52k for room, board, fees, etc.

http://www2.cortland.edu/cost-aid/student-accounts-office/tuition-and-costs/
http://www.princeton.edu/admission/financialaid/cost/

People can spend a lot of time discussing the question of whether or not the extra $30,000 PER YEAR for Princeton is "worth it", but the question in my mind is why does Princeton charge the premium at all? I can see why they can charge it (people think it is worth that much) but what is their reasoning behind setting the particular price that they do? Isn't their non-profit mandate something like "making the world better by educating lots of people real good"? Are they spending that extra 30k (plus whatever their $2million investments are bringing in) on things that they think do that? Are they wasting money on things that don't really help that goal much? Too many middle managers? Too many janitors? Does SUNY just spend its money way more efficiently? Regardless of whether or not Princeton students are getting $30k more value than SUNY students, does Princeton actually spend $30k (plus endowment monies) more on each student when providing them with services?

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[Xeranar]

That was a typo on my part. Arguably US nuclear weapons research is a perfectly acceptable route if one subscribes to MAD. Course, the argument with most geeks is that they tend to have an ethical code that comes out of comic books instead of the real world. MIT has done everything to advance society including nuclear weapons designs. The idea is to never have to use them but to be near perfect so that MAD is inevitable.

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[Xeranar]

If that was directed at me I went to University of Pittsburgh. One of the most aggressive engineering schools in the country. The place was highly competitive, well funded, and cut-throat to the limit. State-related schools are fairly rare, I know of two in Pennsylvania and a handful more in the US so it's rather unfair to compare them to say Ohio State or Michigan. There tuition back then was practically double the state average and I could have gone to Tier-one state college on out-of-state rates and still been cheaper. But it was in my back yard so it made sense to me at the time. It was a school that did no hand holding, it was do or die, and frankly I burnt out after a while. Ended up getting my PhD in History. I can say with some degree once you get into middle-class schools (Tier one or otherwise) it becomes highly competitive because the funding simply isn't there. At places like Harvard their endowment is so large and their limited enrollment allows them to afford those options. The less well-endowed places tend to scrabble for cash to cover tuition costs. That's why they rely on Alumni so heavily, in many cases the schools are loss-leaders if state-run because they keep tuition affordable but have no massive nest egg to invest with due to various rules and charters. Not that they could develop that kind of nest egg because the same charters force admittance levels too low to select the cream of the crop as those private schools do.

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[__aaxtnf2500]

The problem with MAD is that it is predicated on the assumption that if no one conducts a first-strike, no one will have to counter-attack, and therefore there will be no nuclear war.
History has shown that only due to early warning system operators disobeying their training and exercising judgement that could have ended in trial by court martial and execution was the world saved from a computer error causing a nuclear holocaust which would result in the destruction of the bulk of the world north of the equator.
Nuclear weapons launch warning systems are fallible and have nearly caused the collapse of our civilization.
Please let us know if you have professional experience with nuclear weapons command and control or launch systems and therefore could contradict the publicly available information which indicates that these systems are unstable.

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[damiam]

I can't speak for Princeton directly, but I think top-tier university finances and top-tier LAC finances are similar enough that my experience at Williams might be relevant. Williams spends about $80k per student per year (roughly a $160M budget divided by 2k students). Nominal tuition is about $50k including room and board, and financial aid discounting means that the average student pays about $30k (some students pay the full $50k, but others pay nothing, and most pay somewhere in between). So the average student is getting about $50k spent on them that they're not paying for; that difference is funded primarily from endowment returns. I think this situation is similar at Harvard/Princeton/MIT - even full-fare students are paying less than the total amount that's being spent on them.

Where does that money go? At Williams it mostly goes towards people: a 7:1 student-faculty ratio and something like a 2.5:1 staff-student ratio. Williams employs 800 staff for 2000 students, which sounds ridiculous and probably is pretty ridiculous, but that includes everything from chefs and dining employees, to secretaries and departmental administrative assistants, to IT support, to mechanics and janitors and groundskeepers, to doctors and nurses and psych counselors and chaplains, to athletic coaches, to campus life coordinators and deans. I'm now in grad school at a much larger and less-well-funded state school (UC Berkeley), and it's amazing to see the contrast between the two institutions. A lot of kids get decent educations at Berkeley, and some do really well. But where at Williams I was taking classes with 20, 10, or even 2 students in them, Berkeley undergrad class sizes are in the hundreds. At Williams I was working on a research project with a prof by the end of my freshman year; at Berkeley most undergrads don't ever get a chance to get involved with research. And so on. You just don't get the same level of personal attention at a large state school (and Berkeley is one of the best large state schools!) as you do at a small private school. That level of attention is expensive to provide.

I've seen the studies about educational outcomes at elite schools before, and I believe them to a certain extent, but you have to be at least a bit careful interpreting their conclusions. I'm pretty sure I would have ended up "successful" by most metrics if I'd gone to a large state school like Berkeley, in the sense that I would have gotten decent grades and graduated and found a decent-paying job somewhere that I would have been happy with. But I probably wouldn't have gotten involved in research and ended up at a top grad school. I probably wouldn't have met nearly as diverse a group of friends from all around the country and around the world. I probably wouldn't have gotten to meet and have lengthy conversations with people like Dan Dennett and Steve Strogatz, and I probably wouldn't have had a whole bunch of other experiences that have made my life richer in ways that are not going to be measured by a few survey questions as to my "success".

You can certainly get a great education at a lot of schools (heck, if you're the right sort of student you can get a great education sitting at home with a textbook), though I dispute that your average "Springfield State School" has anywhere near the same level of amazing people and opportunities as a top-tier university (case in point: I was going to check out the course offerings of the SUNY Cortland computer science department to see how they compared to CS programs I'm familiar with, but it looks like they don't actually have a computer science department, just a minor in "computer applications"). But if you're lucky enough to be able to get into one of the elite schools, there are experiences you'll be able to get there that you just won't have at your average state school. I don't know if supporting elite schools is the best use of my money as a potential alumni donor, because obviously there are a lot of other worthy causes in the world. But I do think th

Re:Midrange

[damiam]

To respond to the first part of your comment, obviously "what a person can afford to pay" is subjective, and lots of families still don't find their education "cheap" (I have a friend who got roughly $51k of financial aid on a $52k bill, so his family's contribution was only $1k/yr - they still struggled to pay that). But most top schools don't expect students to take out student loans of any form (see this list on wikipedia), and I think most poor / middle-class families will find that their tuition bill at an elite school is smaller than it would be at a good state school; for example Berkeley tuition is $13k/yr for in-state students (not including room and board) and more than double that for out-of-state/international students, while Stanford just down the street has free tuition for any family earning less than $100k/yr. So again, you can argue that elite schools aren't the most needy targets for charitable donations (do we really need to help Stanford extend their free tuition offer up to families earning $150k?), but I don't think it's fair to say that they're actively trying to bleed their students.

Re:Midrange

[Xeranar]

Cite or remove. Honestly I am sure I could have hounded google for hours to find an anti-nuclear site that explains it but I don't really have the time or energy. I didn't particularly try to make a strong academic point, just a generic stand. So since you made an explicit argument cite it or retract your stand. I'm willing to be wrong, I'm glad to learn but otherwise I would argue you're attempting to strawman me because I advocated that the nuclear launch system work they did was moral because the better the system the better we are at keeping MAD in-check. You're arguing a flaw in the system's coding and not the system itself. So please cite your argument against me.

Re:Midrange

[__aaxtnf2500]

Are you rational? MAD is not a theory, it is a doctrine, it is the state of your world. The United States and Russia have several thousand thermonuclear weapons they are ready to annhiliate each other with at a moment's notice. A flaw in the engineering of any component in this system is a flaw in the system. It's a system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System
What you don't have is a basic understanding of the functioning of the United States or Russia's strategic warning, communications, command and control, and delivery systems.
Here is a pretty clear reason why MAD is unreasonable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Here is a list of military research by MIT which includes projects which destabilize the MAD model by introducing the possibility of delivery system defeat: http://web.mit.edu/pugwash/www/milres.html
You did not say it was moral, you said it was for the benefit of humanity.

Re:Midrange

[fallungus]

Don't forget Sports.

Re:Midrange

[CtownNighrider]

I'm not sure if you're from NY or not but I am so I'll say that SUNY is the NY state school system, as in subsidized by the state. I'm not sure exactly how the funding works because I'm not applying to any of them (high school junior, probably going to RPI, although MIT is my longshot school, for aerospace engineering) but they are run by the sate.

Re:Midrange

[j-beda]

Naw, I'm not in NY - they just happened to have figures I could find. It looks like NY gives about $15k to the state schools per student if I am reading this type of information correctly:

http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?measure=36#

Misleading headline

[Josh Triplett]

The headline makes this story sound more sensational than the reality. MIT doesn't get any control over the company, just a pile of dividend-bearing stock.

Re:Misleading headline

[Bios_Hakr]

Doesn't being a stock-holder also mean some control over the company?

Re:Misleading headline

[samwichse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-voting_stock

Re:Misleading headline

[omz13]

MIT get a donation of non-voting shares and they can live off dividends (if there are any). They are not allowed to sell them. They don't get control of BOSE, they don't get any say in how its run.

Re:Misleading headline

[Alex Belits]

Or it can end up being nothing. It's up to Bose to decide if the company is going to pay any dividends at all.

A sound decision indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I also wish MIT could open-source the designs and IPs of Bose for
the greater good of the audio world.

Re:A sound decision indeed

[larry bagina]

Good idea. It will tell everybody what not to do.

No highs, no lows, Bose.

Caltech

[RockoTDF]

Something tells me that using Bose equipment is going to be taboo at caltech in the coming years.

Re:Caltech

[Surt]

No one at Caltech has to use Bose, they can build their own that are better. It's really just MIT that gets an improvement from upgrading to Bose.

Re:Caltech

[siddesu]

Maybe someone can give them a bunch of Monster Cable stock, and they can get even?

Re:Caltech

[FleaPlus]

No one at Caltech has to use Bose, they can build their own that are better.

Curiously enough, there used to be a Caltech project class based on pretty much exactly that, although it's unfortunately no longer offered:

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~musiclab/

As a bit of trivia, Caltech alum Bill Gross actually ended up founding GNP Audio based on an engineering project he did as a student. He later went on to co-found, like, a gajillion other companies.

Re:Caltech

[dtdmrr]

This changes nothing. Bose has been biased towards Masstech for decades. He was a prof there, and the company offered discounts to the students.

Re:Caltech

[ChrisMaple]

So you're confirming my experience when I visited Cal Tech, that their students are rude.

Re:Caltech

[cwebster]

Imho, active noise canceling is one thing Bose is actually good at. I've used their QC-2, QC-15 and X aviation headset, as well as active sets from Sennheiser, Lightspeeed and David Clark. I prefer the QC-15 for personal use and the lightspeed in the airplane (though I hear the new bose aviation headset is even better, I have not been able to try one yet).

Re:Caltech

[Threni]

No highs. No lows. It's Bose.

And the link?

[TubeSteak]

Is it just me, or did Timothy manage to strip out TFA between the firehose and the front page?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/29/technology/bose_mit_donation/index.htm

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[Facekhan]

I am inclined to agree with that. There are a lot of great universities out there. MIT and Harvard are among the ones with enormous endowments that still get hundreds of millions in donor cash that could probably be put to better use at schools with less name recognition.

Nice, but not so nice

[dachshund]

MIT has done wonderful things for the world. As have many academic institutions. But this is as good a time as any to note that making large donations to an elite academic institution is a pretty ineffective way to use your money.

MIT is already well funded, and while this money may go to fund additional research, it may also just lead to a lot of pretty buildings going up. If you have the opportunity to donate, why not donate to a school that will use the money to dramatically increase the number of students it educates, or to a charity that sees the money directed into existing research initiatives that need it.

I'm sure the new Bose facilities will be very nice and the Bose family will have no problem getting into MIT for the next few generations. Nonetheless, it seems like a bit of a waste.

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[Vectronic]

Amar Bose[quote]Bose enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in the early 1950s.[/quote]

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[mcl630]

Multiple personalities?

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[Vectronic]

I've been trying to get a consensus, that but I never agree.

It was in regard to the improper [quote] tags, preempt the inevitable.

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[TheRaven64]

MIT is already well funded, and while this money may go to fund additional research, it may also just lead to a lot of pretty buildings going up.

Note that he's donated it in such a way that they get dividends, but can't sell the stock. The dividends are unlikely to be large enough to fund pretty new buildings, but may be enough to fund a few scholarships.

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[Alomex]

. If you have the opportunity to donate, why not donate to a school that will use the money to dramatically increase the number of students it educates, or to a charity that sees the money directed into existing research initiatives that need it.

All schools get donations but MIT has done a lot better than the rest. This suggests that MIT is better at allocating money than other mediocre schools. So from a perfectly rational perspective giving money to the most effective organization makes a lot of sense.

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[dachshund]

But do MIT students represent the best candidate for scholarships? My understanding is that the undergraduate population there is already pretty well taken care of in terms of need. By the time you have the credentials to get into MIT, you're either impressive enough to get a scholarship (from someone) or you're going to take loans --- knowing that in the final analysis, an engineering career driven by an MIT degree makes them a good risk.

What worries me is all the talented kids who don't make it to such a lucky position, either because they go to terrible high schools, have no access to critical resources in early childhood, or live in developing countries with no access to resources like MIT.

Whether you think those people are more deserving is really a subjective issue. But objectively, you can't argue that a dollar spent in those areas will go a hell of a lot farther than a dollar spent at a wealthy, expensive, high profile engineering school.

This kind of donation is great, but it's also about vanity and legacy, not doing the most good with your buck.

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[Bozdune]

Apparently you do not understand that MIT admissions have always been entirely merit-based. Prior attendance of some relative or parent, or donations from some rich relative, have no relevance whatsoever to the admissions process. In fact, the application, interview, test scores, high school rank (used to bias standardized test scores higher if you are coming from a lousy school district, or lower if you are from some richy-rich suburb where you get a practice SAT for homework every night) are entered into a gigantic linear equation. Out comes a list of candidates divided into three categories: accept, wait list, reject.

That's the process. No favoritism.

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[j-beda]

All schools get donations but MIT has done a lot better than the rest. This suggests that MIT is better at allocating money than other mediocre schools. So from a perfectly rational perspective giving money to the most effective organization makes a lot of sense.

Actually, it suggests that MIT is better at fundraising than "other mediocre schools". Granted, it might be easier to raise funds if you allocate your money "better", but it does not seem completely obvious to me that the original poster's goal was to give money to institution with the most effective fundraising organization. I suspect they were hoping to have the largest positive benefit to the largest number of individuals - probably in the educational field. If that is the case, university education is probably not the most effective use of resources. With a national high school graduation rate of something like 70% - probably the best thing to do is to try to address the front end of the educational pipe with elementary and secondary school initiatives.

http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?measure=23

But what do I know?

Re:Nice, but not so nice

[dachshund]

It suggests that MIT has established itself as the top engineering school in the world, and consequently gets the best engineering applicants in the world. I hear it's also a decent education.

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[Sulphur]

Why not give it to a school or schools that actually deserve the money?

FTFY

Unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

These are non-voting, unsellable shares.
MIT only gets the dividends.

Re:Unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

Nasty old Mr. Bose is up to his old tricks, then.

To Joe Sixpack, he sells equipment that sounds like it sounds good, though to the trained ear, it's clear it doesn't really sound good, no matter what it sounds like.

To Joe MIT, he donates shares in a way that seems like a gift of a company to a university, though to the trained banker, it's clear they're non-voting, non-sellable shares, and are only good for getting free money.

What a no-good scammer!

Re:Unlikely

[Yvanhoe]

Also, the number of parts were undisclosed so it may be just a very small part.

Re:Unlikely

[jvkjvk]

it's clear they're non-voting, non-sellable shares, and are only good for getting free money.

Yeah, I would hate to have someone scam me by giving me free money! That bastard!

Regards

Re:Unlikely

[forrie]

Well, that figures. So we can still look forward to overpriced items from Bose.

Re:Unlikely

[dzfoo]

Or a sound system that sounds good to me even if technically it's goodness is an illusion.

Re:Unlikely

[SETIGuy]

To Joe MIT, he donates shares in a way that seems like a gift of a company to a university, though to the trained banker, it's clear they're non-voting, non-sellable shares, and are only good for getting free money.

And as such, they're probably the first to disappear in a bankruptcy. I assume that he or his estate will get the tax write-off even though the conversion of voting to unmarketable non-voting shares does represent putting pretty severe conditions on the gift.

Bose quality

[FTL]

True story: An elderly gentleman walked into an electronics store in Toronto looking to buy speakers. The salesman showed him a couple of different models. The customer pointed at another set on the shelves and asked about them. The salesman said "Oh, those are Bose, they're crap." The customer was Amar Bose.

Re:Bose quality

[mianne]

Always heard BOSE as an acronym for "Buy Other Stereo Equipment."

Re:Bose quality

[digitallife]

I was in future shop and they did exactly that to me. I walked out.

Everyone is bad mouthing Bose, but they have damn good sound at a mid range price. All my friends love my little Bose system in my kitchen.

Re:Bose quality

[Swarley]

While the bumper sticker Bose trashing you've been hearing here is pretty much accurate, if you read serious reviews you'll find that the universal gripe with Bose isn't really their sound but their value. They don't sound bad so much as they sound just as good as equipment costing a third as much money, and they sound considerably worse than almost anything else you could buy at the same inflated price. So you're suggestion that they sound damn good at a mid range price seems like you haven't done much comparison listening. You basically hit a bullseye on Bose greatest weakness as a product and called it a strength. Spend 5 minutes with Google "best speakers for $X" where X is what you spent on those over priced Bose speakers and you'll find a giant pile of simultaneously better and cheaper equipment. Take the $350 you spent on pretty much anything Bose and get some Audioengine A5's instead.

Re:Bose quality

[Swarley]

Exactly. I cringe at Best Buy listening to sales people push monster cables, Dr. Dre Beats headphones, Bose speakers, apple branded versions of non proprietary equipment (like audio extension cables or AC to USB adapters), and pretty much anything made by Sony since 1995.

Re:Bose quality

[Swarley]

That's the whole point! Pretty much any similarly priced "brand name shit" is better than Bose. Audiophiles are people with more money than sense. But you don't have to be an audio snob to see that you can buy some serious gear with the $400 you spent on Bose equipment which sounds no better than $100 gear. The point is that Bose IS expensive gear, you just aren't getting any quality for it. You don't have to drop 10k to beat Bose in quality, pretty much anything costing more than $100 will do that. If you think suggesting people skip Bose and spend the SAME amount on dramatically better gear makes one a stupid over-fed audiophile, then you deserve your shitty speakers.

Re:Bose quality

[epyT-R]

bose is moderately priced? no bose is insanely overpriced. they are the apple of the audiophile world.

Re:Bose quality

[93 Escort Wagon]

So, what did the old customer buy?

Probably the store.

Re:Bose quality

[Hognoxious]

there is not a single salesperson at a single big box electronics store that would ever try to talk someone out of buying Bose.

Well, I doubt they'd do it twice...

Re:Bose quality

[thegarbz]

Everyone is bad mouthing Bose, but they have damn good sound at a mid range price. All my friends love my little Bose system in my kitchen.

May I suggest you actually go and do a bit of listening, not to opinions but actual system. The problem your statement is that they don't even remotely make damn good sound. Their high end system has no midrange, destroys soundstaging, and sounds like the retarded echo effects mimicking stadiums or cinemas that you can enable in Realtek Audio Manager on pretty much every computer.

Bose is aesthetically pleasing, but way overpriced garbage in terms of any real sound quality. (not being able to make a duff duff sound from a small system does not a high quality system make), and I far prefer the look and sound of the Tivoli Model One in my dining room and have change left over :-)

*** This post contains personal opinion.

Re:Bose quality

[the eric conspiracy]

Bose is way overpriced for what you get. They are a lifestyle product with a really huge marketing budget. There are many competitors who do a better job.

BOSE = Buy Other Sound Equipment.

If you want to hear good sound go to an audio dealer who carries Revel.

Re:Bose quality

[DrKnark]

Audiophiles are people with more money than sense.

Depends on your priorities. Spending $1-2k on something that you get hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of is not lack of sense in my opinion. You don't have to spend all your money on audio gear to be an audiophile.

Yes, I am a bit of an audiophile. I have however gotten all my stuff by constantly being on the lookout for great deals on used quality gear. Does that mean I have more money than sense?

Re:Bose quality

[Weedhopper]

The problem with Bose is you're getting decent low range sound at a mid range price.

If Bose would knock off 30% off it's MSRP, then maybe you could reasonably say that Bose speakers provide good sound/price bang for buck, especially in comparison to manufacturers of mid-high end audio equipment.

Re:Bose quality

[Swarley]

But then I wouldn't consider you an audiophile. Perhaps it's my own personal definition of the word. In my opinion you are an audio enthusiast, or someone who appreciates music and audio for it's own sake. I consider an audiophile to be somebody who appreciates expensive things because they are expensive. I'm talking about people who shell out for anti-vibration cable supports, $1,500 cables that fail a double blind listening test to coat hangers or plain unshielded copper wire. Point is you can appreciate your sound quality enough to spend good money on it, or you can appreciate the idea that spending big money on snake oil makes you feel superior to regular people. The term audiophile is so abused by the latter that I consider it an insult to people like you and me in the former group. Just look over the internet at audio equipment review sites and magazines, you'll find more often than not that those with audiophile in their name are full of shit and those without it are more likely to be objective about sound and passionate about quality in a realistic way.

Re:Bose quality

[DrKnark]

Allright, I see your point. But maybe those of us who do know the difference should stop using audiophile in a negative context :)

Re:Bose quality

[Quirkz]

I bought a set of Bose computer speakers for less than $100. So unless someone out there is paying me to take their computer speakers, that statement isn't entirely true.

I accept that I probably overpaid for the speakers, but I've been pretty happy with them (not a real audiophile, just a guy who likes to listen to music while messing around on the computer) -- they've sounded fine to me and they've lasted 10 years

Billionaire deaths

[Anonymous Coward]

To any billionaires out there that don't know what to do with their money: set up a foundation, buy a record label, and release (as far as contractually possible) the entire catalog under creative commons, the rest under $0.01/song downloads. That'll give you some legacy! Bose will be forgotten in a week.

Re:Billionaire deaths

[Paradise Pete]

buy a record label, and release (as far as contractually possible) the entire catalog under creative commons, the rest under $0.01/song downloads.

Who pays the songwriting and performance royalties? How do you calculate the amount? I think the way to really disrupt the recording industry would be to sell songs directly for ten or fifteen cents. That would enormously reduce pirating and help to topple the current out-dated structure.

There's nothing that defeats piracy like reasonable pricing. Nothing even comes close.

Re:Here's to hoping ....

[RockoTDF]

While I agree with the funding Americans sentiment, I still think think academia and graduate schools are pretty full of white males when you take said foreigners out of the picture.

Mutually exclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

So far I've read:

No highs, no lows, Bose.

and from another commenter:

Maybe they'll be able to get BOSE to make equipment that [...] has some midrange.

If I've read that right one of you is complaining that there isn't enough midrange, and the other is complaining that there is too much. Is there any consensus on what is 'wrong' with Bose sound... or is this just one of those pedantic arguments that audiophiles have while the rest of us just go and buy Bose equipment because it makes us perfectly happy?

Re:Mutually exclusive

[mcescalante]

Yes, audiophiles all love to argue about Bose's shortcoming with audio because their systems are greatly overpriced. I personally consider myself an audiophile, and I have no issue with Bose, although I wouldn't buy it as the system for my home theater / audio rig. It's just too damn expensive for the sound you're getting. Guarantee you could find 20 different opinions of what is wrong with Boses sound from audiophiles, all different.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[PhunkySchtuff]

Bose make some very good speaker systems. They also make some quite average-sounding speaker systems. They are all overpriced for what they deliver though, but the marketing behind them, and the sleek industrial design, makes sales for them.

Some of the high-end Bose stuff is quite good. Their midrange stuff is probably what was being referred to when mentioning no midrange.

Bose's more popular systems are the small coffee-cup sized satellite speakers and a large subwoofer. The satellites are great at producing high frequency sounds and the sub can generally put out more than enough bass for the system, but there's usually a lot of midrange sound missing. They are very carefully eq'd in store and set up in such a way that they sound as good as they can, and it's usually the abundance of warm and smooth bass that gets people hooked on them (along with the marketing)

Bose also do a vast amount of work that's completely unknown by the majority of the population - things like an experimental electromagnetic suspension system for cars - I've seen a video of what looks like a regular saloon car taking speed humps at a decent speed and the body of the car barely moves, it's all soaked up in the suspension. It's very heavy though and needs large amounts of power, which is why we're not driving around with it today, but aspects of it are working their way into production systems...

Re:Mutually exclusive

[Jafafa Hots]

The problem with Bose radios is they need green ink on them to improve the sound quality.

http://www.malcolmsteward.co.uk/?page_id=504

(Warning - link is NSFAS Not safe for the allergic to stupid)

Re:Mutually exclusive

[ChrisMaple]

It depends upon the model. Speaking of speaker systems only, some used resonance to produce boomy base to impress the rubes, leaving inadequate response at deep base and low-mids.

Other speakers, particularly the long-time top-of-the-line 901s, used active compensation to extend the somewhat flat range as far to the high and low as practical. Bose used 9 cheap 5" drivers in each 901, with the result that decent response up to 20 kHz was impossible, as was low distortion and good response at 20 Hz. Due to the complication of having all those drivers and the active compensation box, A.G.Bose claimed (in the class he taught) that the profit margin on the 901s was actually quite small, and the claim seems almost reasonable to me.

Professional speaker designers at more reputable firms joke that Bose's slogan "better sound through research" should read "better sales through advertising".

The fact is that speakers that sound good in isolation appeal to large numbers of uncritical listeners, and that's where Bose does well. A competent critical listener, or someone in a position to A-B against similarly priced reputable brands, will find Bose lacking.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[bzipitidoo]

Yes, my impression of Bose is mediocre sound with high end price. It works, but it sure isn't the awesomeness their advertising makes it out to be.

I find putting bass speakers on a hard surface really helps. Had the subwoofer of a cheap 5.1 system (not Bose) on a carpeted floor, and all I did was slide some scrap plywood (about 3x4 ft) under it. Did wonders for clarity and sound projection. Can feel the board vibrating when you rest a hand on it. Haven't stumbled over an easy way to improve the higher ranges.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[wagnerrp]

Ink on a digital medium that goes through CRC? Please tell me that is a joke....

Re:Mutually exclusive

[Sulphur]

Ink on a digital medium that goes through CRC? Please tell me that is a joke....

I need a vacuum tube computer to accurately reproduce that.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[Hognoxious]

If I've read that right one of you is complaining that there isn't enough midrange, and the other is complaining that there is too much.

Nope, he's complaining about the absence of highs and lows. Not the same thing as too much middle at all.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[Jafafa Hots]

Nope.
That was a HUGE thing in the late 80s and early 90s. There were tons of Cd "treatments" talked about and sold to make CDs sound better... from green sharpies with a special notch cut out to fit the CD, to tales of using Armor All on discs.

NOT just run of the mill cranks either. Magazines such as Stereophile and others promoted these idiotic ideas as true and screamed at anyone who dared point out that their claims of "bit flutter" were idiotic.

These same publications were behind the whole Monster Cable bullshit too, promoting special "oxygen free" copper cables even for fully digital connections.

I don't know if there are still morons out there putting green ink on CDs or if they've all moved on to global warming denial or Obama birth certificate outrage.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[Falconhell]

Actually, my beef with Bose is a lack of overall efficiency. Often as much as 10db 1W/1M less than others. So lack of top bottom and mids makes sense to me!

Re:Mutually exclusive

[epyT-R]

some are referring to the large bose systems like the 901s.. others are referring to the satellite systems.

just because something makes you happy doesn't mean it isn't stupid or better according to objective measurement. if blowing lots of money on mediocre technology in nice shiny plastic boxes turns you on, so be it. it's still a stupid decision.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[epyT-R]

be careful here. when people say audiophile today they mean the religious zealot variety.. you should have a problem with bose. objectively speaking, their products do not offer good value for the money. either the same sound can be purchased for 1/10th the price (3200$ lifestyle vs $320 hometheater-in-a-box systems from decent brands), or you can do a lot better for the price point asked. 3200$ buys you a very nice system. the fact is that no matter how much one 'engineers' things, it's impossible for smaller speakers to make good sound in a large soundstage compared with larger ones. if size is more important than sound quality, than it is not necessary to spend a lot of money to get the best available. bose isn't any better than anything else in that size category. they use the same sub-par driver and baffling designs as well as the same cheap materials in their cabinets that most vendors use in their $150-300 kits. they just charge 10x the price.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[epyT-R]

Some of the high-end Bose stuff is quite good.

I"m sure it's not worth the money. I can't speak for their pro stuff, but the consumer stuff is garbage, especially for the money.

The satellites are great at producing high frequency sounds

no.. modern tweeter designs in the last 15 years can handle 20-25khz (even higher on some systems). the current bose designs still use treated paper cones like speakers did in the 1970s. the best paper cone tweeters peak at 16khz or so. the cheap $0.50 drivers in the satellites are hardly the best.

and the sub can generally put out more than enough bass for the system,

no. it's a terrible design. the sub isnt' even really a sub because it can't reproduce subsonic frequencies. it's three 5.25" drivers inside a baffle that emphasizes midbass frequencies at the expense of accuracy.

and it's usually the abundance of warm and smooth bass that gets people hooked on them (along with the marketing)

in other words, it sounds like a boombox with the bass turned up all the way. this is fine for a $100 tabletop radio or $300 home-theater-in-a-box. it is not high fidelity audio worthy of a $3200 price tag.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Bose's more popular systems are the small coffee-cup sized satellite speakers and a large subwoofer.

A "subwoofer" is not large if it has a 5 inch driver. That's not even large enough to perform as a decent low-bass driver, more of a low-mid, so I wouldn't call it a subwoofer.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[kuzb]

"Bose make some very good speaker systems" - you should probably stop talking right now, you've lost all credibility with this statement.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[PhunkySchtuff]

Bose's real high-end products, their pro audio and their commercial products are pretty good. Their in-car audio systems likewise are pretty good. About the only "good" audio equipment you can get retail however are their (overpriced) quiet comfort headphones.

All the shiny things you see in a Bose retail store are just a fraction of the things that Bose actually make.

Re:Mutually exclusive

[DinDaddy]

Audiophiles don't even discuss Bose.

Regular old audio enthusiasts despise them though, for the simple fact their performance is well below their price point. The basic small cube speaker that most of their recent systems are built around is literally about $4 in cheap parts, including a single type of fill range driver with no high end, and its only real claim to quality is that it is probably better than the speakers in your TV.

Most people who despise Bose would probably admit that if their stuff were priced at about 25% of what they charge, it would be a fair deal. They have packaged their systems in ways that are attractive and unobtrusive and therefore appealing to those who don't want the audio stuff on display. Their performance shortcomings are, as noted, no necessarily objectionable to the mass market.

What they have then done is what so many people accuse Apple of, spent incredible amounts of money on marketing these low end products as being the top of the market. They also play the retail game very well, establishing very strict rules about displaying their systems, and not allowing them to be demonstrated side by side with competitors. Additionally, in the live demos with presenters, they often back up their components with absurdly high end components to wring the last bit of performance out of them, stuff that no one purchasing their equipment is likely to ever even consider purchasing.

The comments you refer to above are in fact both true. You can see in the graphs at this link http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html that the crossover point between their "subwoofer" (a bass module that doesn't actually reach even reach anywhere near the bottom of the audible range) and the satellite drivers leaves a gap in coverage. The sat speakers also roll off in the low teens, below where even most middle aged people's hearing has begun to attenuate.

So there are no highs, no lows, and there is also a big hole in their midrange as well.

Re:Far better than donating it to...

[MoonBuggy]

Religious organisations almost invariably promote dogma over observable evidence - since you chose to bring up the Vatican as an example, perhaps you'd care to explain how their anti-condom policy, the history of misinformation surrounding it, and the increased incidence of AIDS for which it is partially responsible, is intellectually justifiable?

Re:Here's to hoping ....

[secretcurse]

I'm a white male starting my PhD in the fall and I'm getting more money from the state of Arkansas than a foreigner would because I'm an Arkansas resident. I also had my undergrad degree fully funded by a state scholarship (to the tune of around $80,000). My university is practically begging locals to pursue a PhD. My foreign colleagues generally have to pay full retail and don't get the federally backed student loans my wife is relying on for her AuD. By the time I finish my PhD, it's looking like my state will have paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000 to educate me. I'm thankful for that and plan on living in Little Rock for the rest of my life so my taxes can help future students.

Lows for the size

[tepples]

Among self-contained radios as small as a Wave music system, can you recommend one with better lows?

Re:Lows for the size

[ColdWetDog]

Among self-contained radios as small as a Wave music system, can you recommend one with better lows?

Just tune to pretty much any Country / Western channel. That'll bring you down.

Re:Lows for the size

[by (1706743)]

I've only listened to one of those once or twice, and I thought it sounded ok. However, for $500, you could have an entry level component system (skimp on the receiver, not on the speakers). Heck, I bet you could rival the sound quality with a good pair of computer speakers (with sub) plugged into the headphone-out of a decent clock-radio-CD player. That should cost well under $500.

Of course, aesthetics and size matter to some, and a Bose system certainly beats computer speakers. Of course, you can always beat the performance and/or make a "neater" system, if you're willing to buy used and wait for good deals -- I've scrapped together a modest system over the years, and having spent probably under $100, I have a pair of 80s Klipsch floorstanding speakers, a 60s (?) tube amp, an 80s receiver (which I use as a preamp) and a decent-sized 80s SS power amp (in case the ol' tube needs work...I hope to bi-amp it some day). Fun stuff, but not as chic (or compact) as the Wave system, to be sure.

Re:Lows for the size

[thegarbz]

Of course, aesthetics and size matter to some,

And that's the key bit right there. There's nothing good about Bose's sound. Their high end systems lack midrange and any form of soundstage instead option for a system that can be barely seen. Pretty much every other audio company can beat the quality of a Bose system, but you end up with some large boxes in the living room.

Personally if the budget can stretch I'd much prefer a system from the likes of Bang and Olufsen who don't try to make the system disappear but rather make it a part of the design of the house. Mind you for the extortionate costs of a B&O system you can also do better for the money.

Re:Lows for the size

[thegarbz]

Take a look at anything from Tivoli audio like the Model One. They have a downfiring port so placing them on a wooden table helps even more. But I was absolutely blown away by how much better they sound and look (retro) than the Bose crap.

Re:Lows for the size

[KozmoStevnNaut]

While I agree that most B&O products are quite overpriced, I have yet to hear better speakers for the price of a set of BeoLab 5's.

They're ridiculously expensive, yes, but they sound absolutely amazing.

Re:Lows for the size

[SimonTheSoundMan]

At least B&O are open about the sound/picture quality of their products. They admit they do not sound/look the best for the money, but you pay for the nice design and extras like motorised TV stands and they self calibrate etc.

Re:Lows for the size

[the eric conspiracy]

The Beolab 5 like all omnidirectional speakers can generate a very pleasing sound effect. The Beolab 5 also uses some nice components. HOWEVER there are some fundamental flaws to the design that make it unsuitable for critical music reproduction. In particular this design is subject to what is known as the "flanging effect" that makes creation of a good stereo image impossible because of the upper and lower discs. It is an interference or comb-filter in the audio spectrum. These speakers also have a dip in the upper bass / lower midrange which may or may not be to your taste, but is certainly not accurate.

It's a gimmick speaker which will sound unique in a pleasing manner and sell well - but not to people who have developed a critical ear.

Go listen to Dynaudio, Wilson, Revel, B&W, Aerial and so on. It takes a while to develop a good ear for these things and the only way to do it is to get out there and hear them. If you can swing it buy some examples of these speakers and live with them. You can get some really good deals on used ones, and speaker technology doesn't change very fast. It's mostly about electromechanical components and getting the best materials, then refining the crossovers and cabinets.

Re:Lows for the size

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I worked at B&O a couple of years ago (that touchscreen remote? I worked on that) and during my stay there I listened to more music on more stereos that I would have imagined. B&W, obviously and Dynaudio was well-represented, being a Danish company and all that.

The BL5s consistently sounded the best to me when compared to similarly-priced speakers when playing music I'd listened to hundreds of times and knew extremely well. It was subjected to endless listening panels during development and various employees tested them in their homes for months at a time.

I found no flaws with the stereo imaging, I could close my eyes and pick out the locations of the various instruments. I get the feeling you've read the specs and come to your own conclusions. The BL5 is by no means a "pure audiophile" speaker, it uses heaps and heaps of signal processing and other trickery to do what it does. It's very much a product of a highly-skilled team of engineers making a speaker that would fit a certain designer's vision and still sound damn good and they did extremely well.

I worked at B&O for years. I have precisely two of their products in my house; a bottle cap opener and a cordless telephone.

My stereo consists of a 2x50w Pioneer stereo amp and a Pioneer CD player circa 1996 vintage. The speakers are a set of Audiovectors (I like Danish speakers) that I bought used from another employee at B&O.

And you know what? I plays all my music so well that I can't help but tap my feet and sing along. I'm an audiophile, not a gearophile.

Re:Lows for the size

[swalve]

I agree. As someone above said, Bose is the Apple of audio reproduction. Slick interface, targeting the "consumer" category of purchaser. There is nothing wrong with it, just as there is nothing wrong with a fast-looking car that doesn't go fast. Not everybody wants to go fast. With high performance often comes more difficulty and fiddling with knobs, and not everyone wants to do that.

My system is a pair of dead standard Pioneer three way speakers purchased in 1989 for $100, although the woofers got replaced/upgraded a few years ago with some updated (also Pioneer) woofers, driven by a Panasonic SA-XR55. (Look at the specs! 4 - 88k hz, and pretty much dead flat all across!) I have never heard a cleaner sounding system, ever. (Perhaps outside of a movie theater.) Throw in some classical music, close your eyes, and you can pretty much visualize sitting in the performance space wherever the microphones were placed.

I like to use classical for testing like this because it is about the only music you can get that is relatively production-free. Microphones in a room with people playing unamplified instruments. You can't test a sound system with something made on a mixing board, because you don't know if what you are hearing is an artifact of your sound system, or some kind of effect put on by the recording engineer. I mean, there is nothing better than a nice Boston album, but that is a sound creation, not a sound reproduction.

Re:Lows for the size

[the eric conspiracy]

It isn't a matter of reading specs. Speakers, almost more than anything else you can buy tell you nothing about the performance you get from their specifications.

It's a knowledge of basic physics plus looking at designs plus having listened to a lot of speakers and having read reviews of the BL5 by people who also understand these principles.

There is a reason that you don't see omnidirectional or vertical axial radiating speakers in critical installations like mixing studios. A key factor in sound reproduction is that the sound field gets muddled by reflections from the room walls. Acoustic treatment of listening rooms always has management of reflection points as a key goal.

Speakers designed like the BL5 have a lot more of these reflections. Add in other design factors like the double flanges and the two midranges and you are going have issues. It's Acoustics 101.

If you are interested in the science, get some of the books by Leo Beranek and Floyd Toole. Baranek was a professor at MIT and founder of Bolt Beranek and Newman who were famous for designing the acoustics of the Unite Nations Assembly Hall along with having a key role in the founding of the internet. Dr. Floyd Toole ran the acoustics testing program for the Canadian National Research Council which was responsible for the success of several Canadian speaker companies, and later became the head of Research at Harman (parent company of JBL, Infinity, Revel etc).

Re:Lows for the size

[kuzb]

You sort of remind me of wine tasters. Nothing says "douche" quite like giving an opinion without something more concrete to back it up.

Re:Lows for the size

[thegarbz]

Indeed, at the local launch of the latest BeoCentre 2 one of the product development gurus from the Netherlands was present and he told me in his very broken english, "The BeoCentre does not belong in your hometheater, it belongs in your living room." Kind of sums up the entire company quite well, unlike Bose who's main slogan is "Better sound through research"

Re:Lows for the size

[thegarbz]

As others have mentioned they are an omni-directional speaker. This is fantastic for the couch, in a room that is not ideal or not setup correctly. The sound stage sounds rather average in the grand scheme of things, but it is consistent over a wide range of listening positions in the room. This is quite the opposite from a normal set of speakers which rely on very careful positioning to minimise interactions with the rest of the room.

The BeoLabs sound good pretty much anywhere you put them. Normal speakers sound average if they aren't placed right, or you're not seated in the "sweet spot", or your room isn't ideal (concrete walls really suck). However a normal set of speakers without any fancy processing or over the top design can in the end produce a far better sound for your dollar if you can place them carefully in a decent room, and sit in a decent listening position.

Like all parts of the audio industry, this is a tradeoff.

Re:Lows for the size

[KozmoStevnNaut]

How many people have dedicated listening rooms, with carefully set up furniture, non-reflective walls with a comfy chair at the sweet spot? And how many people sit there in that chair listening to music for hours and hours?

Not very many compared to the people who want speakers in an ordinary living room and want them to sound really good as much of the time as possible, no matter where in the room they are or what they're doing.

They're not the best when you're in the sweet spot, but they're miles better than anything else once you aren't.

Re:Lows for the size

[KozmoStevnNaut]

It's not about specs, it's not about reviews, it's not about which is the better speaker on paper.

It's about which speakers gives you the best sound the most of the time. There are better speakers if you sit right in the sweet spot in a perfect room, but the BL5 are miles ahead of anything else for the real world.

Re:Lows for the size

[thegarbz]

I can count 3 people in the street. Ok so 2 of them aren't dedicated listening rooms, but any rooms can really be turned into a very good listening environment.

Don't put big speakers in corners, don't face speaker ports to walls, angle them in slightly, try and keep an almost equilateral triangle to the listening position. A decent rug can do wonders on the floor as can selecting the right curtain if you have windows behind you.

It really is that simple, and with that you can pretty much set up most living rooms to be decent listening rooms with only limited moaning from the significant other. (The hardest part actually is convincing them that the speakers shouldn't be placed right against the wall). If you have a large enough room that sweet spot should suit 2 or 3 seats too.

But then really you're also asking about how many people listen for music for hours? Well if you don't chances are you wouldn't be paying for an expensive hifi to begin with. As I mentioned this is a design trade off but do have a look around, I think you'll find the number of people who like to seriously listen to music is much higher than you think, and I think you'll find the number of people who opted for expensive floor standers to mounted bookshelf speakers in the same price range as B&O and Bose is also far higher than you think.

* kinda depends what area you live in though.

Re:Lows for the size

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Odd having a product development guru coming from the Netherlands when the company is located in Denmark.

Heck, I probably worked with him for a while :-)

Meh!

[martin-boundary]

Donations to MIT are so passé. Why not pick a random fast talking black kid from the Cambridge streets and give him that company CEO's job and house? Also, cancel all the previous CEO's credit cards and boot him out onto the street.

I bet the outcome of this experiment would surprise us all!

Re:Meh!

[ThorGod]

I agree, it's very full of 'meh'.

So a big name school with plenty of funding is going to get a bigger, more funded name.

He would have been better off donating his company to a more needy university/college (or several).

Re:Meh!

[ChrisMaple]

Why not pick a random fast talking black kid from the Cambridge streets and give him that company CEO's job and house?

The first week I lived in Cambridge my bicycle, locked to a rack at MIT, was stolen. In all likelihood a kid like the one you described committed that crime. Put him in the CEO position, and he'll be immensely corrupt and probably destroy the company. That's why not.

Re:Meh!

[mini me]

Put him in the CEO position, and he'll be immensely corrupt

I fail to see the problem. Sounds like he is perfect for the job.

Re:Meh!

[ZigiSamblak]

Donations to MIT are so passé. Why not pick a random fast talking black kid from the Cambridge streets and give him that company CEO's job and house? Also, cancel all the previous CEO's credit cards and boot him out onto the street.

I bet the outcome of this experiment would surprise us all!

Didn't they already try that in Trading Places?

Citation plz

[tepples]

True story

What's your source, may I ask?

Re:Citation plz

[qwertyatwork]

Unicorns, magical beans, and talking dogs!

Re:Citation plz

[tepples]

Unicorns

Exist.

magical beans

Thanks to the sufficiently advanced technology of the past few decades, the uses to which soybeans have been put do seem almost magical.

talking dogs

Exist.

Non-cumulative Preferred Stock

[alexander_686]

Just to put a finer point on it, it sounds like non-cumulative Preferred Stock [a type of non voting stock with very few rights].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_stock

An article with no sources

[Terranex]

Why are their no links to sources? I see the article but without links it's just hearsay.

Re:An article with no sources

[omz13]

You can backtrack through the original submission, etc., and eventually get to it at: http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/29/technology/bose_mit_donation/index.htm?eref=mrss_igoogle_business Interestingly enough, BOSE is a private company, and he's donated an undisclosed number of non-voting stock. MIT will essentially have no running of BOSE and benefit from dividends, when and if BOSE do them.

Correction

[Terranex]

*there

Re:Monster expensive?

[beernutz]

Monster 1 meter hdmi cable = $99

Monoprice 6Ft hdmi cable = $2.78

So, yes, monster cables are EXTREMELY expensive.

Re:Monster expensive?

[siddesu]

Where did I say "Monster cables are expensive"?

Can't RTFA

[Paradise Pete]

I see that slashdot has added a new feature of simply omitting any link, presumably for the e-z convenience of not RTFA.

A win for MIT's Marketing studies department?

[Quick Reply]

Will MIT give the company to their Electrical Engineering or Management (Marketing studies) department?

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[ChrisMaple]

Bose has a long relationship with MIT. For many years he competently taught a class on acoustics, using Leo Beranek's text.

Venture capital is far better

[Kohath]

Investing the money in a venture capital fund would be far better for people, including MIT students. Venture capital funds startup companies so those MIT grads and graduates of other Universities can actually get jobs using the knowledge they learned in school.

Philanthropy is great, but it spends wealth rather than creating it. (Giving to MIT is more of a gray area in between though.) Venture investments can help the next Bose.

Really no need for complex speaker design for DIY

[viking80]

Having built my own speaker system, I came to realize that the problem with speaker design is to get good sound into a small and shippable product. If you can use your entire house, and many elements, it is trivial to get good sound. For example, many elements covering a wall, each with little effect, is a great subwoofer. After that measure current vs. voltage over the elements to determine element dynamics (Similar to algorithm that controls brushless motors), and feed that back as a correction to the amplifier. Result: perfect reproduction from signal to sound. Adding some sound dampening furniture, carpets, and pictures (print some move posters on canvas with insulation behind) and you are in sound heaven.

NY-Times article on this

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/business/30bose.html

Re:Will BOSE finally get THX certification?

[epyT-R]

why? thx cert is hardly worth anything as it is.. the fact that bose equipment can't get the cert is truly pathetic.. especially considering what is charged for it.

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[AHuxley]

Schools that actually need the money dont produce the type of students the US actually needs.
Scholarships and testing helps stream out the useful and gifted.

Look at his family story

[mangu]

funding *American* (not just foreign) PhD students

According to Wikipedia:

"His father, Noni Gopal Bose, was a Bengali freedom revolutionary,[3] who having been imprisoned for his political activities, fled Calcutta in the 1920s in order to avoid further prosecution by the British colonial police."

Maybe if "American" students started fighting for what they believe instead of demanding that everything be given to them they would find it easier to get a PhD.

Re:Monster expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more expensive because it uses SI, which makes it sound better than Monoprice's imperial cable.

Audiophiles

[DingerX]

Yeah, my PC speakers cost about $150. I listen to music on a set of Grado SR-80 cans that list at $90. If I need to travel, well I got as a gift a pair of Sennheiser PX-360s that run to slightly over a hundred bucks. I am an audiophile in the sense that I enjoy listening to music, and I listen to it on equipment that reproduces it to higher fidelity than the cheapest consumer stuff out there. Sure, I could spend more money, and get myself a proper DAC, a vacuum-tube headphone amp, some high-end headphones, and a totally sweet home theater, but as much as I would appreciate the results, that's not really an expense I can justify.

I can justify buying what I have, and most sensible audiophiles will see the logic in my choices.

Yet all my equipment together doesn't cost as much as a single "moderately-priced" Bose solution that puts out a horribly distorted sound. The reason why Bose's products are so successful is also why people who care about music dislike them: You hear the speakers, not the music. By punching up the bass and the highs, people hear things they don't normally hear in music, but what they hear sounds nothing like the original.

It's the audio equivalent of ketchup, only if ketchup cost four times the price of a decent cut of meat. Bose isn't the opposite of "Gold-plated Ethernet-cable Audiophiles", it's the gateway to that brand of Audiophilia. MIT's gonna make a lot of cash out of Amar's company. Good for them.

Re:Here's to hoping ....

[TheRaven64]

I think you'll find that most American universities do primarily fund American students. I did my PhD in a UK university, but I spent three months in a US university on a collaboration, and from what people said it seems like the funding situation is pretty similar, although not quite the same:

In the UK, the university charges tuition fees for PhD students. These have two rates, one for EU citizens (government subsidised) and one for everyone else (full price). This covers lab space, lecturer time, and so on - the university skims about 50% off before it gets to the department, to cover general university overheads. Most PhD student places for EU citizens come with a grant, either from a government grant, an industrial partnership, a charitable trust, or the university itself. This covers all of the tuition fees, travel expenses, and provides a stipend (tax free income). I don't even know exactly what my tuition fees were - they were paid from the grant and I never saw the bill - while my colleagues from Malaysia (for example) were having to pay a huge amount every year. I was paid a stipend which worked out to about the same as an entry level graduate salary after tax, and claimed around £10K or so in travel expenses, while they had to pay for everything.

One of the reasons why the tuition fees were so high for foreign students was that this money was used to subsidise other PhD places. For every 2-3 non-EU students we got, the university could afford to fund another PhD. This is why you see so many foreign students - the UK and USA are both regarded as prestigious places to do a PhD in much of Asia, so our universities encourage them to apply. Once they're here, the universities charge them a lot and use this to subsidise everyone else. Send them all back home, and you'll see a lot fewer PhD places available for locals.

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[19061969]

So that his descendants will find it easy to be accepted by MIT in the future? Just guessing...

Re:Monster expensive?

[Kalriath]

It's. Digital. Data. You can't make it sound better by changing the composition of the cable.

Re:Monster expensive?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

You're underestimating the impact on quality due to imperial units... Just look at the Mars prove that crashed due to ignoring the obvious benefits of SI based data channels.

Re:Monster expensive?

[CaptainLard]

For starters, Monster cable is horrendously overpriced. However, at bandwidth higher than what we have data for and distances longer than consumers need, the quality of the cable will make a difference. Cheaper materials and inferior quality control will lead to reflections and interference that will destroy the signal. So in a few years when we all get tricked by manufacturers into buying 1800p tv's, all of our amazon hdmi cables won't be able to pass the signal.

http://gizmodo.com/#!268788/the-truth-about-monster-cable-part-2-verdict-cheap-cables-keep-upusually (yeah its gizmodo but the test seems legit)

Tax write off

[nurb432]

wow.

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[sribe]

So that his descendants will find it easy to be accepted by MIT in the future? Just guessing...

Nope. MIT doesn't work that way and he knows it ;-)

Re:Monster expensive?

[swalve]

True, but cables aren't about making something sound better. They are about transmitting a signal without losing any of it. Shitty cables can make the digital signal harder for the receiving component to decode and force it to go into error correction/compensation mode. A couple of bad bit-flips might make the signal drop, that's easy. But less-bad bit flips can change the signal without ruining it, leading to badness.

ECC

[tepples]

Shitty cables can make the digital signal harder for the receiving component to decode and force it to go into error correction/compensation mode.

It'd have to be a really shitty cable to degrade the signal that far, with capacitance and the like way off spec. And in my experience, $10 HDMI cables aren't quite that shitty.

But less-bad bit flips can change the signal without ruining it, leading to badness.

HDMI and other recent digital data links have error correction codes just to prevent this. And around that, they usually have an even more sensitive error detection to provide a margin of "unusable signal" code words around each valid code word.

Re:Far better than donating it to...

[MysteriousPreacher]

Well one intellectual argument would be that their recommendation of abstinence is more effective than condoms. Now if you want to leave the intellectual realm and be more practical you certainly can argue that abstinence won't be popular, and I would agree so, but then again condoms don't seem very popular in regions plagued by AIDS either. Both abstinence and condoms are rejected by many in these regions of the world. Practicality aside, abstinence remains an intellectually more effective solution..

All of you've done here is to assert that abstinence is the intellectually more effective solution if one ignores the obvious practical issues in implementing it. You didn't explain how abstinence being a more effective option would justify the lies Catholics have told about condoms? It would seem more effective to apply both strategies, as people who fail at abstinence can at least get some measure of protection via condoms.

The Pope is a murderous bastard, and all Catholics are complicit in his dogma-driven death-wish for Africans.

Re:Far better than donating it to...

[Rakishi]

Now if you want to leave the intellectual realm

And people can fail to use abstinence as well which is equivalent to a condom breaking. You are creating a non-existent and unjustifiable distinction.

Intellectually condoms are also 100% effective because they can never break and no on ever uses them wrong. A condom breaking is a practical consideration of the material and person using them. By your own views that has no place in an intellectual consideration.

Well one intellectual argument would be that their recommendation of abstinence is more effective than condoms.

Effectiveness includes how well something works and how often people are able to make it work. Condoms, for example, fail most often because people don't use them right. Data has so far shown that abstinence is useless since even in the US since people don't follow it.

then again condoms don't seem very popular in regions plagued by AIDS either

Amazing what having all the local Christian priests saying they're evil, don't work and cause AIDS for a few decades can do.

Re:Far better than donating it to...

[MysteriousPreacher]

Good stuff! Want a third attempt at answering the question?

At least it serves a purpose now

[kuzb]

Bose sound equipment is terrible, and it's marketed in such a way that it tricks the customer in to thinking that it sounds better than it really does. Essentially, if you buy a Bose sound system, you really are getting a sub-par product for an over inflated price.

Re:Monster expensive?

[beernutz]

Yeah, that cable actually INCREASES resolution! lol

Fund post-scarcity institutions instead

[Paul Fernhout]

I tend to agree the money could be better allocated, as could the time of many of the students. I wrote a related essay about Pricneton University a couple years ago, and most of it could probably also apply to MIT:
    "Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease "
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
"We are witnessing a historic end to scarcity of many things (maybe not all, but enough to be a new global Renaissance). But is Princeton University helping prepare either students or the rest of society for these changes? Or is it instead an institution under stress, crashing into these trends instead of moving with them? Or is it perhaps conflicted in how it sees itself and its future, and so trying to do both these conflicting approaches at once? :-) "

That said, MIT has done a lot of amazing stuff, and I'm glad for the free software that has come out of there, as well as ideas like FabLabs fostered by the Center for Bits and Atoms. Some really great stuff does go on at MIT -- it's an issue of cost-effectiveness and institutional outlook and a law of diminishing returns weighed against the value of centralization through the MIT brand. It's hard to invest money well; MIT is a "safe" choice in that sense, even if there might be lots of better options out there. In general though, the whole idea of college is more and more problematical these days. See my comments with further links here:
    "[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
   

Re:Monster expensive?

[Kalriath]

I'm having trouble telling if you're joking or not.

Re:Monster expensive?

[AmiMoJo]

Are you talking about the Beagle 2 project by British scientists? We use metric for all engineering and scientific stuff. We failed because we were shit at making landers and spent too much time raising money and not enough making sure it would actually work, not because we we used the wrong units.