A dress code is obviously required in some contexts. Less so in others. I'll dress for a customer meeting, but if a company inflexibly insists on enforcing the policy everywhere -- policy for policy's sake -- what does that say about their culture and management?
Stories abound where policy or management has foiled:
- Ergonomics and working conditions: "In the meantime, my doctor recommended that I spread my keyboarding out over the weekends. I was to work 4 hours per day Friday through Monday, as opposed to 8 hours on Friday and Monday. Microsystems countermanded my doctor's orders, stating that they wanted me to rest my wrists on the weekends." Then illegally fires him while he's on scheduled disability leave.
- Product design Engineer is fired for not doing what he's been forbidden to do.
- Responsible planning: IT manager notices paper prices go up next month, so orders a 6-month supply in advance. Boss forces her to return it all and pay restocking fees. More important to follow the "budget" than to save money!
- Risk management and employee safety: Consultant wants webmail so he doesn't have to carry a laptop back and forth to a client in a seedy district. But laptop owners are not allowed to have webmail because they already "have" email. IT says: "It's company policy that we would rather lose a $1,600 laptop than to give you a free Web-based e-mail client."
- Can't even categorize this one: "'Why is the wrong day's backup tape in the server?' boss asks. IT admin points out that the backup system hasn't worked in two years, so why waste the time? Wrong, says boss: 'Just because it doesn't work, doesn't mean we don't put the tapes in there.'"
And these are just the few I remember lately. A strict dress code isn't inherently a disaster, but it's a warning sign. (In this economy, though, it's not a showstopper anymore. You take what you can get.)
As a doctoral candidate at Princeton, I can assure you that we have a graduate school;)
That's what I get for typing out a hasty reply! I'm quite aware of Princeton's graduate school -- it is (as you said) very small and collegial as graduate divisions go, so I keep forgetting to categorize it that way. I hope Princeton takes that as a compliment.
Unfortunately for you, it also means you don't get to suck resources away from the undergrads like you might at some other schools. =)
OK, so you are arguing that Princeton acts the most like a small liberal arts college BECAUSE IT PRODUCES THE MOST PHDs, BY PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES?
No, you're reading my statement backwards. Of the Ivies, Princeton is the most like a small college simply by comparison: lack of a graduate school, focus on teaching quality, etc.
I made the assertion that it scores higher on the "PhD metric" than the other Ivies because of that. Not the other way round. Of course, you're free to disagree with that.
Naturally, I never stated or implied that anyone should judge by a single metric. Still, I should've made that clearer.
I would almost prefer that you make your statistics by the percentage of grads that DON'T go into medicine, law, or investment banking. But even that would be silly.
I don't have the chart handy right now, but I don't think those are included. The practical degrees in medicine, law, and business are not the PhD (although you can get one if you, for example, plan to research or teach rather than practice).
[USNews does] a solid job of factoring in all the MANY facets of a school in reaching their final ranking
If by "solid" you mean "deliberately fudged every year to sell more magazines," then you're right. Colleges don't change fast enough to justify a new list every year; USNews needs to manufacture the effect. See the article I linked in another reply in this thread.
Furthermore, if you look at the "facets" they combine, many of them have no justifiable bearing on the undergraduate experience at any given school.
But then, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You must be working for some small college that didn't make it to the top of that ranking.
Almost a nice try. Try thinking a little more clearly. College counselors work for high schools, not colleges. Or we consult in private practice.
I'm an exception, though. I work for free. For my paycheck, I do Unix kernel hacking for 60 hours a week. But every winter, I spend 20-30 more at night consulting pro bono (which my professional colleagues think is insane; some of them pull down $2k per student. But I do my job as well as they do, without the parents holding my pursestrings).
I do it because I see too many bright students work their asses off for four years just to beg and claw for the meager scraps of self-esteem that the prestige colleges hand out in April. I have no loyalty to any institution except for overall demonstrable quality.
Playing into the prestige game means that "first choice" and "most difficult" are synonymous; therefore, the fate of 4 out of 5 college applicants is to attend their second or third or sixth choice -- except for those poor souls who have already surrendered to the myth, adjusting their self-image downward to "realistic" levels. What a way to start a life.
Sorry, that was unclear. I meant academic records at their own institution: the admissions office will usually keep tabs on their admits' progress after admission. At least, undergrad admissions does, and I expect grad divisions keep such records as well.
As for "popular prestige," the term is vague because I'm simplifying. But it roughly refers to the school's standing in popular culture. There obviously is no agreement on it. Yet, the most common objection I hear when recommending schools is, "I've never heard of it." People will be steadfastly adamant on this point, often spluttering and rationalizing on the spot (and sounding like morons) when I ask for evidence and justification. If I press the issue, it invariably turns out that they can't even name a couple of dozen schools in total (not including "University of X"). So much for "popular prestige."
The term is about as vague as your reference to "academic reputation." Now, if you mean that you've done the legwork to find out hard facts about the department you're applying to, then I applaud you. Any component of "reputation" that is not factually verifiable is probably hearsay.
The well-informed senior should never go by a single measure like that, I certainly agree.
For mathematics, you could hardly be in a better place. But I'm sure you know that. At the same time, I'm sure you've seen the giant Bio/Phys/Chem lectures as well -- those are the largest halls on campus, aren't they? I almost went into Bio myself but I was turned off by the anonymity of it, and there was hardly any intellectual engagement. The CS department (way out back =) is much more collegial, and I certainly got a great education there.
The college selection process is very involved and doing a good job is never as simple as picking from a list -- be it the one I posted, or the lying scum, USNews.
But I admit that I favor the PhD example specifically to dispel the myth that selectivity and prestige are automatic indicators of quality -- and that lack of prestige is lack of quality. (The latter is the more damaging, since it locks out great students who think they're "not Ivy material.") Once that's out of the way, then we can look at schools and make a good match.
The author who compiled the PhD list does disqualify MIT, Caltech, and Harvey-Mudd as being specialized cases. The remainder of the list is indeed mostly small liberal-arts colleges (41 out of 50) and they do offer wide fields to choose from. I mention a few of them in another reply around here somewhere...
Sometimes students just become more motivated in college. [...] But many students who come to good schools begin motivated, and if they come out motivated, I still think it speaks for the school--it takes a lot to maintain one's motivation.
That's a very interesting point. I haven't heard it stated quite that way before. But still, it seems like the distinction is the same: schools that get you motivated (and keep it that way) versus schools that don't.
Spontaneous motivation doesn't explain the discrepancy between a small school and a large school of the same selectivity (as opposed to comparing against highly selective schools as I did originally). Take Reed versus Syracuse, for example; the latter is certainly no academic powerhouse.
Again I regret not quoting more of the list; I don't recommend Reed in a lot of specific cases. Pomona is a much better example. People there have told me they regularly get papers back where the prof's comments are longer than the paper.
Actually, Mudd is a science school, although it's classified as a liberal-arts college because they mostly offer pure-science majors rather than engineering majors.
Indeed, MIT does tend to graduate people into the workforce. But I was specifically answering the assertion that a prestigious undergrad education is needed to get into a good graduate school.
I wonder, though, why CalTech doesn't experience the same drain. Perhaps the JPL down the street from them inspires a culture of PhD-ness.
Everything you say is valid; there's only so much detail I can include in a Slashdot posting. =)
I didn't want to reproduce the whole list, but for those who are looking at schools, here's a handful that came in higher than Harvard but are not a nightmare to get into: Oberlin, Brandeis, Antioch, Eckerd, Bryn Mawr, Pomona, Wooster.
I think that the story behind the percentage of graduate students might be a little bit more complicated than the one you present.
This is often true for the bright kid who gets into Swarthmore and Cornell and wisely picks Swarthmore. But it's still quite telling that many of Reed's students and most of Eckerd's would not have been admitted to the highly selective schools, but go on to successfully compete with them for graduate admissions.
few, if any, of the admissions people will have first hand knowledge of the quality any given school.
Sure they do: they have the academic records of their admits. They keep tabs on how well their decisions turn out. Furthermore, you mention colleagues, academic papers, etc., of which a disproportionate number will be from high-quality low-prestige colleges.
But you're right. If you define prestige within the academic community, the schools with real quality do stand out. I never said that undergraduate school doesn't matter; quite the opposite, in fact.
My point is that popular prestige misleads people into thinking that these ultra-selective schools are better than they really are, and conversely that the best teaching colleges are worse than they really are.
Universities are money making institutions first and foremost
Many are, but not all. You often hear of large, respected universities who hire ex-CEOs as Presidents. This has never turned out well. Fortunately, you still hear of large, respected universities who hire academics as Presidents.
But the real key is to distinguish universities from colleges. The former grants graduate degrees; the latter grants only undergraduate degrees.
A college is a teaching institution. They have no need for big research grants. Their professors are self-selecting: educators, first and foremost.
The one drawback is that they may be less able to offer financial aid. But even this is often not a problem. Alumni loyalty is very high when you can drop in 10 years after graduation and still chat with your profs on a first-name basis. This is no exaggeration; I speak from both indirect and direct experience.
We place great weight on the quality of the institution.
This is absolutely true.
Note that they don't say the prestige of the institution.
All worthwhile graduate schools are familiar with the time-tested quality of small-college graduates.
Amherst, Swarthmore, Antioch... have better med school admit rates than any of the prestige schools: 80-100%. Harvard reaches the upper 70% range and even Johns Hopkins is around 50%. Pomona has a 100% admit rate to law school.
The astounding rate of Ph.D. production in my original post should be taken as an indirect indicator of grad school acceptance rates. A med school admissions officer once compared Antioch graduates to Harvard graduates: "Antioch students can think."
Most of the "top tier" colleges don't even produce most of their own faculty -- 18% compared to over 30% from small schools.
But you have a much better chance of getting into a top graduate school comming from a top undergraduate one.
Please back up your assertions. This is completely false. I speak as a college counselor with about 8 years of experience.
It does matter what undergraduate college you go to, but reputation, prestige, and ranking have nothing to do with it. Here is the principle:
It is nonsense to judge a college by who they ADMIT. Judge a college by who they PRODUCE.
When you look at results, most of the prestigious schools are defeated, beaten down, and put to shame by a relatively unknown class of schools, the small liberal-arts college. The mechanism should be obvious: small classes; professors who love to teach, have no research burden, and take an interest in your work; broad education that teaches you mental skills, not just job skills.
Since we're talking about grad school, let's take the percentage of graduates from college that eventually earn a PhD (from any institution, not necessarily the same one). So we're talking about your personal chances of getting a future PhD as a result of undergraduate college choice. Here's the top of that list:
Harvey Mudd, 257 students, 40.7% Ph.D. production
CalTech, 1818 students, 40.0% Ph.D. production Reed College, 968 students, 25.3% Ph.D. production MIT, 5438 students, 20.9% Ph.D. production Swarthmore, 1418 students, 20.9% Ph.D. production Haverford, 683 students, 18.8% Ph.D. production
I'll leave out the rest. Buy Loren Pope's excellent book Looking Beyond the Ivy League if you want the rest of the chart. Interesting to note, Princeton is the first of the vaunted Ivies to make this list at #21 (11.7%), and only because it is the one that behaves most like a small college. The next Ivy to show its face is Harvard at #37 (9.0%). Three of the Ivies and Stanford don't make top 50.
The list plays out the same way whatever measure you choose: MCAT scores, grad/med/law school admission rates (often 30-100% better than the prestige colleges), leaders and prominent figures produced, you name it.
Although their population is collectively tiny, the small liberal-arts schools produce half the professional scientists in this country. (Don't be fooled into thinking you need a technical school for a technical education.)
And now, here's the real kicker: many of these schools are not very selective. Reed, #3 on the list, will take you if you've got a B+ average, around 1300 on the SAT, and some demonstrable intellectual curiosity. But they will invariably turn out graduates that surpass those at famous schools.
Schools like Harvard deserve no credit for admitting "successful" people and then graduating "successful" people. I went there, and it improved me not at all. It's much more impressive to see a school take in an average student and make them great; or a good student and make them stellar.
Did I actually remember the event? Or do I remember someone telling me about the event and then remembering it as if it were from my point of view.
This is almost always the case. But as some others have posted, there are instances where this explanation doesn't work.
I have very clear memories of things that happened when I was about 1.5. I never thought much of them. They were just there like any other random memory, so I didn't bother mentioning them to anyone until a few years ago. My parents were quite surprised, and were able to verify the accuracy of at least some of them.
It's not an ironclad case, but it's pretty close. I recall specific details of a house that I lived in for only a year (from 0.5 to 1.5). It was a temporary living situation, so we have no pictures of it and the subject never came up in conversation. Interestingly, there are very "important" things about that house that I don't remember. If these were false memories, they would mimic the way adults or children describe things. But mine are all from the perspective of an infant: I can tell you the pattern and color of the tiles on the kitchen floor (verified by parents) but nothing about the walls, windows, exterior color, etc.
I also remember remembering these things for a very long time, further reducing the window during which I might have been "contaminated" by stray talk.
Studies of child psychology tend to be cognitive rather than neurological. The observation that long-term memory develops at age 3 is a Gaussian prediction, not an absolute one. Even if the variance is small, there will always be outliers.
No. Absolutely not, for RAID 5. Drive failures in a single chassis are not going to be independent. Fan fails, box gets kicked or dropped, UPS glitches the wrong way... and you're looking at a multiple-drive failure.
Even if you can get down to the machine room with a spare, you're still not out of the woods until the RAID is done reconstructing. This gives you a window of anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours during which a second drive failure is still fatal.
All RAID5 does is improve the inherent unreliability of striping across a bunch of Inexpensive Disks. For anything more, you need to use RAID10 or RAID50, which combine striping with mirroring.
Of course, the mirrored offsite backup you mention works better than any single-chassis solution regardless of RAID level.
Did you know that the DMCA explicitly guarantees our right to fair use? It really does!
And then, in the same breath, it conveniently criminalizes any and all means of exercising that right. The tool is forbidden; the action itself remains completely legal.
It's a lot like passing a law that affirms the principle of universal suffrage and then goes on to declare that all polling stations must be in men's bathrooms.
I was in 11th grade when SC2 came out. There were a lot of SC1 fans in my school, so we were all aware of its impending "release." Of course, like many income-deprived 16-year-olds, that just meant we waited for someone to get us a pirated copy. Five floppies, if I recall correctly. Even downloading ISOs takes more effort.
Well, I played the game for only ten minutes before I decided that I would not make a copy. I would go to the store that very day and buy it off the shelf. I'd beg my parents for the money if need be (didn't have to =). There was simply no way I could live with myself otherwise.
A game that gives me so much enjoyment; that constantly surprises at turns with the authors' wit, style, art, and code; that achieves a balance that I've rarely seen before or since. How dare I insult them by by ripping off their hard work? It makes so little sense that it's nauseating. It would be like meeting [insert celebrity: say, Carmack] and gushing about how you love their [whatever] and then mugging them in the alley when they leave. After all, they have plenty of money in the bank.
I have not stolen a piece of software since then. Even those who don't think piracy is "wrong" cannot escape the fact that it's usually crass, ungrateful, self-centered, and unattractive. Especially if you ended up enjoying or benefiting from the software.
Isn't it ironic that SC2 is now Free Software? Well, only somewhat. That the project exists shows the game's immense popularity -- yet sales were dismal. From Accolade's perspective, the product was not too successful. Paul and Fred leave Accolade, and the license gets farmed out to a second-class subcontractor... resulting in the abysmal Star Control 3.
most people dont use a laptop as a portable supercomputer
This is changing. Only tradition and price enforce the box+CRT+peripherals paradigm. The market has already proven very receptive to friendlier form-factors like the iMac and Shuttle PCs.
High-powered "desktop replacement" laptops have been a rapidly growing market lately. Many companies will give you a laptop or a desktop as your main machine, but not both. Many colleges require you to own a computer but even those schools are increasingly requiring that computer to be a laptop.
Hmm. And I seem to remember various news blurbs about laptop sales growing faster than desktop sales.
Anyway, I'll never use a laptop since the ergonomics are so bad. But outside of that, it's nonsense to say they can't replace desktops if you remember that this year's laptop is faster than last year's drool-over-the-floor power rig.
if you supress a microbiological infection to the point where the body takes care of it it's self (not finishing a perscription) you completely kill the colony and there is ZERO chance of a mutation
Obviously, this is what happens if you get better.
I thought the problem was that the window between when you "feel better" and "get better" is often plenty large enough to infect someone else with your slightly improved bug.
Sure, this may not be the primary mechanism in many cases. But I can't think of many other possibilities for human-specific pathogens like HIV and such...
It was poetic (well, prosaic) license. I don't actually work for a game developer. Perhaps I should've said, "...imbecilic warez groups... trumpet their 'release' a day later, consisting of an hour compressing the disc into RAR segments."
That, and the fact that registration has been promoted on Slashdot as a way to allow artists to make money off the P2P model: give out bonuses for keyholders. Even today, they'll get you warranty service if nothing else. I'd hardly call that insulting, unlike SafeDisc and Macrovision and region coding and other such offensive trash.
The problem is really that software is a service, and trying to artifically apply a scarcity model upon it (the physical goods model) is unnatural.
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Here you say software is a service, but earlier contrast it with the service rendered by a doctor.
I submit that software is a service and that applying the service goods model is indeed the correct approach. The fact that a doctor renders individual service turns out to be irrelevant. Consider, where does the line get drawn:
- Your personal doctor diagnoses your condition - An organizational doctor (say in a hospital) diagnoses your condition - An organizational doctor diagnoses a shared condition afflicting your entire family - A large number of doctors consult together to arrive at a diagnosis for your shared condition
Replace "doctor" and "condition" with "programmer" and "requirements" to see that these are exactly parallel. Ripping off software is akin to taking part in the medical examination but not ponying up your share when it's time to pay. A better analogy would be getting on a train or subway without paying.
The truth is, most programmers cling to copy restriction legislation because they know theyll never become a billionare in a service economy.
But this is a service economy, and has been for a long time (assuming you live in the U.S.). Content is a service, whether it be software, books, cable TV, professional advice, or what have you.
Personally, I don't mind piracy from a monetary point of view. I just dislike the self-righteous mentality that's typical among those who feel personally threatened when you destroy their petty rationalizations. It's actually quite refreshing to see someone who's an actual programmer advance a sane and reasonable argument. =) Still, I must disagree.
Copyright as intended in the Constitution is very valid, in my opinion. It would be great if the "give away the content for free" model actually worked, but the dot-bomb economy showed that this is wishful thinking. The temporary-monopoly model, on the other hand, has been successful in producing some worthwhile stuff. The problems arise when copyright cartels extend their rights to enormous extremes. It's patently corrupt, no doubt about that. In today's rapidly moving world, copyrights should expire quickly, in a few years. Not hundreds.
What you do is work speculatively, expecting that people will pay for copies of what you do. If nobody wanted your software at all, then you couldnt complain, obviously, that by not buying your software they are devaluing what you do for 60hrs a week.
There's no speculation about it. A proper estimation of the market produces a proper estimation of returns, as you pointed out. I get what I expect. But this is completely orthogonal to the idea that returns would be higher if the market behaved differently, i.e., if fewer people ripped off copies. My work therefore has less value than it otherwise might.
Of course people can share the CD without copying it. To restrict that would be reprehensible (cough, Microsoft, cough). Obviously, this would also increase my software's value, but I'm not interested in unfair gains either.
People will always find ways to rip off software. That's fine, I make a good living as it is. But for them to stand up and prattle about how it's their right to do so, without ever working in the industry and having their wallet on the line... well, that's just brilliantly, surpassingly lame.
What you cannot support, morally, is that a transaction between two third parties, which involves niether you nor any physical materials that you own, can devalue any materials that you own.
This is true, of course, but software isn't an object that I can own, either. Calling piracy "theft" is an empty argument for this reason. What it is, is theft of service, which is something that the half-wits who quote the dictionary definition of "theft" never seem to understand.
Theft of service doesn't involve the removal of property from the victim's possession. The software I write is information, which belongs in a category of information that people don't mind paying for:
- Doctors' diagnoses and prescriptions
- Advice from a lawyer
- Blueprints from an architect
- Complete and correct 1040 forms from an accountant.
If you receive these services and don't pay for them, then the service has been stolen. I doubt anyone can reasonably argue otherwise.
Incidentally, it's irrelevant that software is sold by my company and purchased through a middleman. The situation is identical for architects (you deal with the architectural firm) and doctors (you deal with the HMO) and tax-preparers (H&R Block). In all cases, the rank-and-file are the ones who ultimately suffer when the company gets ripped off.
Also, 60 hrs work/week sux:)
Nah, it's not bad compared to the 100 you sometimes pull to make a release. Then you see these imbecilic warez groups who can't even spell correctly trumpet their "release" a day later, consisting of half an afternoon removing the reg key. =)
Though what he did was illegal, I just dont feel it to be immoral. Sharing information or music or ideas just doesnt raise the sin-o-meter at all.
The fact is that something which is not naturally immoral (sharing) can be made to give people pangs of guilt through conditioning. The "IP" establishment thinks that if they continue to pound into peoples heads that "Copying is stealing" and "Sharing is evil", then people will actually start to believe it. (In fact it does work to a limited extent) What will actually happen is that the harder they push the party line, the more people will see through it, and the harder they enforce the rules, the more people will protest them (or realize they exist at all).
Though what he did was legal, I just don't feel it to be moral. Stealing information or music or ideas just doesn't lower the sin-o-meter at all.
The fact is that something which is not naturally moral (stealing) can be made to give people pangs of self-righteousness through conditioning. The "warez" establishment thinks that if they continue to pound into people's heads that "Copying is sharing" and "Sharing is good," then people will actually start to believe it. (In fact it does work to a limited extent.) What will actually happen is that the harder they push the party line, the more people will see through it, and the harder they flaunt the rules, the more people will protest them (or realize they exist at all).
. . .
Ahem. I've no love for the despicable copyright barons, but I've no love for mindless circular arguments either. If you copy my software, you've devalued what I do for 60 hours a week.
It's worse than that. The 16kHz cap is part of the MP3 spec. All encoders do this, including LAME. Fortunately, LAME disables the lowpass at higher bitrates, and also lets you adjust it manually (--r3mix and others usually lowpass at 20kHz, which is eminently sensible).
Filtering is sensible for low-bitrate MP3s. It's better to discard the high, difficult frequencies than to waste bits on them. The choice is between encoding part of the spectrum quite well, or encoding the whole spectrum poorly.
Slashdot Mirror
No, dress is not itself the issue.
A dress code is obviously required in some contexts. Less so in others. I'll dress for a customer meeting, but if a company inflexibly insists on enforcing the policy everywhere -- policy for policy's sake -- what does that say about their culture and management?
Stories abound where policy or management has foiled:
- Ergonomics and working conditions: "In the meantime, my doctor recommended that I spread my keyboarding out over the weekends. I was to work 4 hours per day Friday through Monday, as opposed to 8 hours on Friday and Monday. Microsystems countermanded my doctor's orders, stating that they wanted me to rest my wrists on the weekends." Then illegally fires him while he's on scheduled disability leave.
- Product design Engineer is fired for not doing what he's been forbidden to do.
- Responsible planning: IT manager notices paper prices go up next month, so orders a 6-month supply in advance. Boss forces her to return it all and pay restocking fees. More important to follow the "budget" than to save money!
- Risk management and employee safety: Consultant wants webmail so he doesn't have to carry a laptop back and forth to a client in a seedy district. But laptop owners are not allowed to have webmail because they already "have" email. IT says: "It's company policy that we would rather lose a $1,600 laptop than to give you a free Web-based e-mail client."
- Can't even categorize this one: "'Why is the wrong day's backup tape in the server?' boss asks. IT admin points out that the backup system hasn't worked in two years, so why waste the time? Wrong, says boss: 'Just because it doesn't work, doesn't mean we don't put the tapes in there.'"
And these are just the few I remember lately. A strict dress code isn't inherently a disaster, but it's a warning sign. (In this economy, though, it's not a showstopper anymore. You take what you can get.)
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Dum de dum.
As a doctoral candidate at Princeton, I can assure you that we have a graduate school ;)
That's what I get for typing out a hasty reply! I'm quite aware of Princeton's graduate school -- it is (as you said) very small and collegial as graduate divisions go, so I keep forgetting to categorize it that way. I hope Princeton takes that as a compliment.
Unfortunately for you, it also means you don't get to suck resources away from the undergrads like you might at some other schools. =)
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Dum de dum.
OK, so you are arguing that Princeton acts the most like a small liberal arts college BECAUSE IT PRODUCES THE MOST PHDs, BY PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES?
No, you're reading my statement backwards. Of the Ivies, Princeton is the most like a small college simply by comparison: lack of a graduate school, focus on teaching quality, etc.
I made the assertion that it scores higher on the "PhD metric" than the other Ivies because of that. Not the other way round. Of course, you're free to disagree with that.
Naturally, I never stated or implied that anyone should judge by a single metric. Still, I should've made that clearer.
I would almost prefer that you make your statistics by the percentage of grads that DON'T go into medicine, law, or investment banking. But even that would be silly.
I don't have the chart handy right now, but I don't think those are included. The practical degrees in medicine, law, and business are not the PhD (although you can get one if you, for example, plan to research or teach rather than practice).
[USNews does] a solid job of factoring in all the MANY facets of a school in reaching their final ranking
If by "solid" you mean "deliberately fudged every year to sell more magazines," then you're right. Colleges don't change fast enough to justify a new list every year; USNews needs to manufacture the effect. See the article I linked in another reply in this thread.
Furthermore, if you look at the "facets" they combine, many of them have no justifiable bearing on the undergraduate experience at any given school.
But then, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You must be working for some small college that didn't make it to the top of that ranking.
Almost a nice try. Try thinking a little more clearly. College counselors work for high schools, not colleges. Or we consult in private practice.
I'm an exception, though. I work for free. For my paycheck, I do Unix kernel hacking for 60 hours a week. But every winter, I spend 20-30 more at night consulting pro bono (which my professional colleagues think is insane; some of them pull down $2k per student. But I do my job as well as they do, without the parents holding my pursestrings).
I do it because I see too many bright students work their asses off for four years just to beg and claw for the meager scraps of self-esteem that the prestige colleges hand out in April. I have no loyalty to any institution except for overall demonstrable quality.
Playing into the prestige game means that "first choice" and "most difficult" are synonymous; therefore, the fate of 4 out of 5 college applicants is to attend their second or third or sixth choice -- except for those poor souls who have already surrendered to the myth, adjusting their self-image downward to "realistic" levels. What a way to start a life.
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Dum de dum.
Sorry, that was unclear. I meant academic records at their own institution: the admissions office will usually keep tabs on their admits' progress after admission. At least, undergrad admissions does, and I expect grad divisions keep such records as well.
As for "popular prestige," the term is vague because I'm simplifying. But it roughly refers to the school's standing in popular culture. There obviously is no agreement on it. Yet, the most common objection I hear when recommending schools is, "I've never heard of it." People will be steadfastly adamant on this point, often spluttering and rationalizing on the spot (and sounding like morons) when I ask for evidence and justification. If I press the issue, it invariably turns out that they can't even name a couple of dozen schools in total (not including "University of X"). So much for "popular prestige."
The term is about as vague as your reference to "academic reputation." Now, if you mean that you've done the legwork to find out hard facts about the department you're applying to, then I applaud you. Any component of "reputation" that is not factually verifiable is probably hearsay.
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Dum de dum.
The well-informed senior should never go by a single measure like that, I certainly agree.
For mathematics, you could hardly be in a better place. But I'm sure you know that. At the same time, I'm sure you've seen the giant Bio/Phys/Chem lectures as well -- those are the largest halls on campus, aren't they? I almost went into Bio myself but I was turned off by the anonymity of it, and there was hardly any intellectual engagement. The CS department (way out back =) is much more collegial, and I certainly got a great education there.
The college selection process is very involved and doing a good job is never as simple as picking from a list -- be it the one I posted, or the lying scum, USNews.
But I admit that I favor the PhD example specifically to dispel the myth that selectivity and prestige are automatic indicators of quality -- and that lack of prestige is lack of quality. (The latter is the more damaging, since it locks out great students who think they're "not Ivy material.") Once that's out of the way, then we can look at schools and make a good match.
The author who compiled the PhD list does disqualify MIT, Caltech, and Harvey-Mudd as being specialized cases. The remainder of the list is indeed mostly small liberal-arts colleges (41 out of 50) and they do offer wide fields to choose from. I mention a few of them in another reply around here somewhere...
Sometimes students just become more motivated in college. [...] But many students who come to good schools begin motivated, and if they come out motivated, I still think it speaks for the school--it takes a lot to maintain one's motivation.
That's a very interesting point. I haven't heard it stated quite that way before. But still, it seems like the distinction is the same: schools that get you motivated (and keep it that way) versus schools that don't.
Spontaneous motivation doesn't explain the discrepancy between a small school and a large school of the same selectivity (as opposed to comparing against highly selective schools as I did originally). Take Reed versus Syracuse, for example; the latter is certainly no academic powerhouse.
Again I regret not quoting more of the list; I don't recommend Reed in a lot of specific cases. Pomona is a much better example. People there have told me they regularly get papers back where the prof's comments are longer than the paper.
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Actually, Mudd is a science school, although it's classified as a liberal-arts college because they mostly offer pure-science majors rather than engineering majors.
Indeed, MIT does tend to graduate people into the workforce. But I was specifically answering the assertion that a prestigious undergrad education is needed to get into a good graduate school.
I wonder, though, why CalTech doesn't experience the same drain. Perhaps the JPL down the street from them inspires a culture of PhD-ness.
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Dum de dum.
Everything you say is valid; there's only so much detail I can include in a Slashdot posting. =)
I didn't want to reproduce the whole list, but for those who are looking at schools, here's a handful that came in higher than Harvard but are not a nightmare to get into: Oberlin, Brandeis, Antioch, Eckerd, Bryn Mawr, Pomona, Wooster.
I think that the story behind the percentage of graduate students might be a little bit more complicated than the one you present.
This is often true for the bright kid who gets into Swarthmore and Cornell and wisely picks Swarthmore. But it's still quite telling that many of Reed's students and most of Eckerd's would not have been admitted to the highly selective schools, but go on to successfully compete with them for graduate admissions.
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few, if any, of the admissions people will have first hand knowledge of the quality any given school.
Sure they do: they have the academic records of their admits. They keep tabs on how well their decisions turn out. Furthermore, you mention colleagues, academic papers, etc., of which a disproportionate number will be from high-quality low-prestige colleges.
But you're right. If you define prestige within the academic community, the schools with real quality do stand out. I never said that undergraduate school doesn't matter; quite the opposite, in fact.
My point is that popular prestige misleads people into thinking that these ultra-selective schools are better than they really are, and conversely that the best teaching colleges are worse than they really are.
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Universities are money making institutions first and foremost
Many are, but not all. You often hear of large, respected universities who hire ex-CEOs as Presidents. This has never turned out well. Fortunately, you still hear of large, respected universities who hire academics as Presidents.
But the real key is to distinguish universities from colleges. The former grants graduate degrees; the latter grants only undergraduate degrees.
A college is a teaching institution. They have no need for big research grants. Their professors are self-selecting: educators, first and foremost.
The one drawback is that they may be less able to offer financial aid. But even this is often not a problem. Alumni loyalty is very high when you can drop in 10 years after graduation and still chat with your profs on a first-name basis. This is no exaggeration; I speak from both indirect and direct experience.
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We place great weight on the quality of the institution.
This is absolutely true.
Note that they don't say the prestige of the institution.
All worthwhile graduate schools are familiar with the time-tested quality of small-college graduates.
Amherst, Swarthmore, Antioch... have better med school admit rates than any of the prestige schools: 80-100%. Harvard reaches the upper 70% range and even Johns Hopkins is around 50%. Pomona has a 100% admit rate to law school.
The astounding rate of Ph.D. production in my original post should be taken as an indirect indicator of grad school acceptance rates. A med school admissions officer once compared Antioch graduates to Harvard graduates: "Antioch students can think."
Most of the "top tier" colleges don't even produce most of their own faculty -- 18% compared to over 30% from small schools.
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Please back up your assertions. This is completely false. I speak as a college counselor with about 8 years of experience.
It does matter what undergraduate college you go to, but reputation, prestige, and ranking have nothing to do with it. Here is the principle:
When you look at results, most of the prestigious schools are defeated, beaten down, and put to shame by a relatively unknown class of schools, the small liberal-arts college. The mechanism should be obvious: small classes; professors who love to teach, have no research burden, and take an interest in your work; broad education that teaches you mental skills, not just job skills.
Since we're talking about grad school, let's take the percentage of graduates from college that eventually earn a PhD (from any institution, not necessarily the same one). So we're talking about your personal chances of getting a future PhD as a result of undergraduate college choice. Here's the top of that list:
I'll leave out the rest. Buy Loren Pope's excellent book Looking Beyond the Ivy League if you want the rest of the chart. Interesting to note, Princeton is the first of the vaunted Ivies to make this list at #21 (11.7%), and only because it is the one that behaves most like a small college. The next Ivy to show its face is Harvard at #37 (9.0%). Three of the Ivies and Stanford don't make top 50.
The list plays out the same way whatever measure you choose: MCAT scores, grad/med/law school admission rates (often 30-100% better than the prestige colleges), leaders and prominent figures produced, you name it.
Although their population is collectively tiny, the small liberal-arts schools produce half the professional scientists in this country. (Don't be fooled into thinking you need a technical school for a technical education.)
And now, here's the real kicker: many of these schools are not very selective. Reed, #3 on the list, will take you if you've got a B+ average, around 1300 on the SAT, and some demonstrable intellectual curiosity. But they will invariably turn out graduates that surpass those at famous schools.
Schools like Harvard deserve no credit for admitting "successful" people and then graduating "successful" people. I went there, and it improved me not at all. It's much more impressive to see a school take in an average student and make them great; or a good student and make them stellar.
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Did I actually remember the event? Or do I remember someone telling me about the event and then remembering it as if it were from my point of view.
This is almost always the case. But as some others have posted, there are instances where this explanation doesn't work.
I have very clear memories of things that happened when I was about 1.5. I never thought much of them. They were just there like any other random memory, so I didn't bother mentioning them to anyone until a few years ago. My parents were quite surprised, and were able to verify the accuracy of at least some of them.
It's not an ironclad case, but it's pretty close. I recall specific details of a house that I lived in for only a year (from 0.5 to 1.5). It was a temporary living situation, so we have no pictures of it and the subject never came up in conversation. Interestingly, there are very "important" things about that house that I don't remember. If these were false memories, they would mimic the way adults or children describe things. But mine are all from the perspective of an infant: I can tell you the pattern and color of the tiles on the kitchen floor (verified by parents) but nothing about the walls, windows, exterior color, etc.
I also remember remembering these things for a very long time, further reducing the window during which I might have been "contaminated" by stray talk.
Studies of child psychology tend to be cognitive rather than neurological. The observation that long-term memory develops at age 3 is a Gaussian prediction, not an absolute one. Even if the variance is small, there will always be outliers.
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-Failure rate / Data loss is countered by RAID
No. Absolutely not, for RAID 5. Drive failures in a single chassis are not going to be independent. Fan fails, box gets kicked or dropped, UPS glitches the wrong way... and you're looking at a multiple-drive failure.
Even if you can get down to the machine room with a spare, you're still not out of the woods until the RAID is done reconstructing. This gives you a window of anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours during which a second drive failure is still fatal.
All RAID5 does is improve the inherent unreliability of striping across a bunch of Inexpensive Disks. For anything more, you need to use RAID10 or RAID50, which combine striping with mirroring.
Of course, the mirrored offsite backup you mention works better than any single-chassis solution regardless of RAID level.
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That's fair use! WTF!
Of course it is. That ain't the problem.
Did you know that the DMCA explicitly guarantees our right to fair use? It really does!
And then, in the same breath, it conveniently criminalizes any and all means of exercising that right. The tool is forbidden; the action itself remains completely legal.
It's a lot like passing a law that affirms the principle of universal suffrage and then goes on to declare that all polling stations must be in men's bathrooms.
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I was in 11th grade when SC2 came out. There were a lot of SC1 fans in my school, so we were all aware of its impending "release." Of course, like many income-deprived 16-year-olds, that just meant we waited for someone to get us a pirated copy. Five floppies, if I recall correctly. Even downloading ISOs takes more effort.
Well, I played the game for only ten minutes before I decided that I would not make a copy. I would go to the store that very day and buy it off the shelf. I'd beg my parents for the money if need be (didn't have to =). There was simply no way I could live with myself otherwise.
A game that gives me so much enjoyment; that constantly surprises at turns with the authors' wit, style, art, and code; that achieves a balance that I've rarely seen before or since. How dare I insult them by by ripping off their hard work? It makes so little sense that it's nauseating. It would be like meeting [insert celebrity: say, Carmack] and gushing about how you love their [whatever] and then mugging them in the alley when they leave. After all, they have plenty of money in the bank.
I have not stolen a piece of software since then. Even those who don't think piracy is "wrong" cannot escape the fact that it's usually crass, ungrateful, self-centered, and unattractive. Especially if you ended up enjoying or benefiting from the software.
Isn't it ironic that SC2 is now Free Software? Well, only somewhat. That the project exists shows the game's immense popularity -- yet sales were dismal. From Accolade's perspective, the product was not too successful. Paul and Fred leave Accolade, and the license gets farmed out to a second-class subcontractor... resulting in the abysmal Star Control 3.
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most people dont use a laptop as a portable supercomputer
This is changing. Only tradition and price enforce the box+CRT+peripherals paradigm. The market has already proven very receptive to friendlier form-factors like the iMac and Shuttle PCs.
High-powered "desktop replacement" laptops have been a rapidly growing market lately. Many companies will give you a laptop or a desktop as your main machine, but not both. Many colleges require you to own a computer but even those schools are increasingly requiring that computer to be a laptop.
Hmm. And I seem to remember various news blurbs about laptop sales growing faster than desktop sales.
Anyway, I'll never use a laptop since the ergonomics are so bad. But outside of that, it's nonsense to say they can't replace desktops if you remember that this year's laptop is faster than last year's drool-over-the-floor power rig.
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if you supress a microbiological infection to the point where the body takes care of it it's self (not finishing a perscription) you completely kill the colony and there is ZERO chance of a mutation
Obviously, this is what happens if you get better.
I thought the problem was that the window between when you "feel better" and "get better" is often plenty large enough to infect someone else with your slightly improved bug.
Sure, this may not be the primary mechanism in many cases. But I can't think of many other possibilities for human-specific pathogens like HIV and such...
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I only buy used CDs.
Don't forget that they would love to stop that, too. After all, buying a used CD is an unlicensed activity.
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Since neither Hebrew nor Arabic is written with Latin characters, I find the "it's the name of a month" argument rather weak.
Erm... if you want to take that tack... "Nissan" in Japanese isn't written with Latin characters either.
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It was poetic (well, prosaic) license. I don't actually work for a game developer. Perhaps I should've said, "...imbecilic warez groups... trumpet their 'release' a day later, consisting of an hour compressing the disc into RAR segments."
That, and the fact that registration has been promoted on Slashdot as a way to allow artists to make money off the P2P model: give out bonuses for keyholders. Even today, they'll get you warranty service if nothing else. I'd hardly call that insulting, unlike SafeDisc and Macrovision and region coding and other such offensive trash.
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Dum de dum.
The problem is really that software is a service, and trying to artifically apply a scarcity model upon it (the physical goods model) is unnatural.
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Here you say software is a service, but earlier contrast it with the service rendered by a doctor.
I submit that software is a service and that applying the service goods model is indeed the correct approach. The fact that a doctor renders individual service turns out to be irrelevant. Consider, where does the line get drawn:
- Your personal doctor diagnoses your condition
- An organizational doctor (say in a hospital) diagnoses your condition
- An organizational doctor diagnoses a shared condition afflicting your entire family
- A large number of doctors consult together to arrive at a diagnosis for your shared condition
Replace "doctor" and "condition" with "programmer" and "requirements" to see that these are exactly parallel. Ripping off software is akin to taking part in the medical examination but not ponying up your share when it's time to pay. A better analogy would be getting on a train or subway without paying.
The truth is, most programmers cling to copy restriction legislation because they know theyll never become a billionare in a service economy.
But this is a service economy, and has been for a long time (assuming you live in the U.S.). Content is a service, whether it be software, books, cable TV, professional advice, or what have you.
Personally, I don't mind piracy from a monetary point of view. I just dislike the self-righteous mentality that's typical among those who feel personally threatened when you destroy their petty rationalizations. It's actually quite refreshing to see someone who's an actual programmer advance a sane and reasonable argument. =) Still, I must disagree.
Copyright as intended in the Constitution is very valid, in my opinion. It would be great if the "give away the content for free" model actually worked, but the dot-bomb economy showed that this is wishful thinking. The temporary-monopoly model, on the other hand, has been successful in producing some worthwhile stuff. The problems arise when copyright cartels extend their rights to enormous extremes. It's patently corrupt, no doubt about that. In today's rapidly moving world, copyrights should expire quickly, in a few years. Not hundreds.
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What you do is work speculatively, expecting that people will pay for copies of what you do. If nobody wanted your software at all, then you couldnt complain, obviously, that by not buying your software they are devaluing what you do for 60hrs a week.
:)
There's no speculation about it. A proper estimation of the market produces a proper estimation of returns, as you pointed out. I get what I expect. But this is completely orthogonal to the idea that returns would be higher if the market behaved differently, i.e., if fewer people ripped off copies. My work therefore has less value than it otherwise might.
Of course people can share the CD without copying it. To restrict that would be reprehensible (cough, Microsoft, cough). Obviously, this would also increase my software's value, but I'm not interested in unfair gains either.
People will always find ways to rip off software. That's fine, I make a good living as it is. But for them to stand up and prattle about how it's their right to do so, without ever working in the industry and having their wallet on the line... well, that's just brilliantly, surpassingly lame.
What you cannot support, morally, is that a transaction between two third parties, which involves niether you nor any physical materials that you own, can devalue any materials that you own.
This is true, of course, but software isn't an object that I can own, either. Calling piracy "theft" is an empty argument for this reason. What it is, is theft of service, which is something that the half-wits who quote the dictionary definition of "theft" never seem to understand.
Theft of service doesn't involve the removal of property from the victim's possession. The software I write is information, which belongs in a category of information that people don't mind paying for:
- Doctors' diagnoses and prescriptions
- Advice from a lawyer
- Blueprints from an architect
- Complete and correct 1040 forms from an accountant.
If you receive these services and don't pay for them, then the service has been stolen. I doubt anyone can reasonably argue otherwise.
Incidentally, it's irrelevant that software is sold by my company and purchased through a middleman. The situation is identical for architects (you deal with the architectural firm) and doctors (you deal with the HMO) and tax-preparers (H&R Block). In all cases, the rank-and-file are the ones who ultimately suffer when the company gets ripped off.
Also, 60 hrs work/week sux
Nah, it's not bad compared to the 100 you sometimes pull to make a release. Then you see these imbecilic warez groups who can't even spell correctly trumpet their "release" a day later, consisting of half an afternoon removing the reg key. =)
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Though what he did was illegal, I just dont feel it to be immoral. Sharing information or music or ideas just doesnt raise the sin-o-meter at all.
The fact is that something which is not naturally immoral (sharing) can be made to give people pangs of guilt through conditioning. The "IP" establishment thinks that if they continue to pound into peoples heads that "Copying is stealing" and "Sharing is evil", then people will actually start to believe it. (In fact it does work to a limited extent) What will actually happen is that the harder they push the party line, the more people will see through it, and the harder they enforce the rules, the more people will protest them (or realize they exist at all).
Though what he did was legal, I just don't feel it to be moral. Stealing information or music or ideas just doesn't lower the sin-o-meter at all.
The fact is that something which is not naturally moral (stealing) can be made to give people pangs of self-righteousness through conditioning. The "warez" establishment thinks that if they continue to pound into people's heads that "Copying is sharing" and "Sharing is good," then people will actually start to believe it. (In fact it does work to a limited extent.) What will actually happen is that the harder they push the party line, the more people will see through it, and the harder they flaunt the rules, the more people will protest them (or realize they exist at all).
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Ahem. I've no love for the despicable copyright barons, but I've no love for mindless circular arguments either. If you copy my software, you've devalued what I do for 60 hours a week.
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I don't care about the money.
Umm... RAID?
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It's worse than that. The 16kHz cap is part of the MP3 spec. All encoders do this, including LAME. Fortunately, LAME disables the lowpass at higher bitrates, and also lets you adjust it manually (--r3mix and others usually lowpass at 20kHz, which is eminently sensible).
Filtering is sensible for low-bitrate MP3s. It's better to discard the high, difficult frequencies than to waste bits on them. The choice is between encoding part of the spectrum quite well, or encoding the whole spectrum poorly.
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Dum de dum.