if the government starts providing money for students with 'good grades' to pay tuition, doesn't the college now have a huge incentive to hand out good grades regardless of performance?
Not just government - the same hazard applies for full-fee paying students. Parents paying all that money want to see good grades.
In Australia there is a longstanding problem with full-fee paying students, where the colleges are unwilling to lose revenue by failing them, and ignore widespread cheating such as plagiarism. Giving higher grades helps attract more paying students.
Government funded (subsidies and loans) places are more fixed in number, so there is less incentive to keep bad students.
Just about every developed country provides free pre-school. But its not a blank cheque to private businesses. Why doesn't your state run its own preschools? Here they are attached to primary (elementary) schools. Maybe not the same location, but sharing staff, admin etc.
I think you mean "There's no way most of us can afford it because it's subsidized"
Prices are determined by where willingness to pay meets willingness to sell. Subsidies raise the willingness to pay and therefore raise prices.
It sounds like you are implying the net cost to the student goes up, which is ridiculous. So long as you have elasticity of supply, there is no problem. A small increase in gross fees will lead to expansion of colleges and creation of new ones. This takes time, so new subsidies should be announced ahead, and phased in.
In fact, free universal education can actually cost society less per student due to economies of scale, without even considering the social and economic benefits derived from it.
In fact I remember from an economics class that this effect has been studied in farm subsidies,
I'm not sure you grasped why farm subsidies are a bad idea.
Let's not forget that fiat currencies
Oh gawd, not one of those. Economics is hard, I know.
> A lot of places offer free installation anyways.
No such thing as a free lunch. Isn't your local *mart a lot cheaper without install? Unless you have a chauffeur to take your car for a new battery, you are going to be waiting around while they lift out the old and drop in the new, so no time saved.
But on reflection, you probably live in a country with low minimum wage and cheap service. Mechanics around here are expensive, and I should adopt a more global perspective. I hear some countries even still have places where people will fill your petrol tank for you.
Hardware analogies are fraught with peril but... the object-oriented toaster never burns bread, because the slices/bagels etc set their own cook time. You don't need to upgrade the toaster every time you get a new kind of bakery product to toast.
And best of all, you never need to empty the crumb tray, because of the built-in garbage collection.
Finland, Finland, Finland The country where I want to be Pony trekking or camping Or just watching TV Finland, Finland, Finland It's the country for me
You're so near to Russia So far from Japan Quite a long way from Cairo Lots of miles from Vietnam
Finland, Finland, Finland The country where I want to be Eating breakfast or dinner Or snack lunch in the hall Finland, Finland, Finland Finland has it all
You're so sadly neglected And often ignored A poor second to Belgium When going abroad
Finland, Finland, Finland The country where I quite want to be Your mountains so lofty Your treetops so tall Finland, Finland, Finland Finland has it all
It is not a number, it is a number with units. If you square an imaginary distance, you do _not_ get negative distance, you get negative area. Totally different, and an important one.
A "negative mass squared" would be a positive-magnitude square mass, whatever that is. You have the squaring backward - imaginary is the square root of a negative. But worse than that, it is completely ignoring the units. Square mass is not mass.
AC might have been thinking of London, where the English are now a minority. They have not disappeared, they just moved out of London. I take it Americans are familiar with "White Flight"? Though in this case many of the newcomers are whites too.
Horrible event, but extremely atypical. If a young black man is shot dead, a frequent occurrence in the US, it is almost certainly by another young black man. Bad for him, but insignificant to the black population.
OK grumpy, I'll speak more literally. Google has all my emails, much of my we browsing, my searches. My photos are backed up to google drive. Their computers know my appointments. I've opted in to Google Now, so my phone tracks my movements and tells me its a 20 minute drive to that place I looked up on google maps on the PC. Like a human PA, Google knows more about me than my wife does. It's convenient, but a little scary sometimes.
It means Google has given up, and admitted that they are listening to everything you say. I'm opening up my chromebook to install a hardware switch on the microphone wire. (Goes without saying that there is already duct tape over the webcam. )
You might be surprised how popular tea is in Africa. Its like the national drink in many former colonies, and not something they associate with Britain.
I'd bet that they commit just as much crime as black people of similar social culture and class.
And do you make the same bet that women commit the same crimes as men, or youth as elderly? Making bets based on what you wish were true, instead of the unpleasant reality, will send you broke fast.
There is no known founder of Judaism - Moses and Abraham are in the realm of mythology. Christianity as a religion was founded by St Paul. Jesus is the prophet and god. Christianity as we know it today was created by Constantine. Mohammed, we know a lot more about. And what we know is not pretty.
A few decades ago with the IRA and separatist activities in spain, the biggest terrorist threat in europe was "christian" of origin, and in the c ase of Ireland arguably religiously motivated (protestant versus catholic).
You also had the Palestinian terror groups back then, but like the Irish and Spanish terrorists, they were not particularly religious. Some of the Arab terrorists back then were Christian.
It is very different now. I would not compare the recent Islamist terror to any of those groups.
Slashdot Mirror
if the government starts providing money for students with 'good grades' to pay tuition, doesn't the college now have a huge incentive to hand out good grades regardless of performance?
Not just government - the same hazard applies for full-fee paying students. Parents paying all that money want to see good grades.
In Australia there is a longstanding problem with full-fee paying students, where the colleges are unwilling to lose revenue by failing them, and ignore widespread cheating such as plagiarism. Giving higher grades helps attract more paying students.
Government funded (subsidies and loans) places are more fixed in number, so there is less incentive to keep bad students.
Just about every developed country provides free pre-school. But its not a blank cheque to private businesses.
Why doesn't your state run its own preschools? Here they are attached to primary (elementary) schools. Maybe not the same location, but sharing staff, admin etc.
I think you mean "There's no way most of us can afford it because it's subsidized"
Prices are determined by where willingness to pay meets willingness to sell. Subsidies raise the willingness to pay and therefore raise prices.
It sounds like you are implying the net cost to the student goes up, which is ridiculous.
So long as you have elasticity of supply, there is no problem. A small increase in gross fees will lead to expansion of colleges and creation of new ones. This takes time, so new subsidies should be announced ahead, and phased in.
In fact, free universal education can actually cost society less per student due to economies of scale, without even considering the social and economic benefits derived from it.
In fact I remember from an economics class that this effect has been studied in farm subsidies,
I'm not sure you grasped why farm subsidies are a bad idea.
Let's not forget that fiat currencies
Oh gawd, not one of those. Economics is hard, I know.
> A lot of places offer free installation anyways.
No such thing as a free lunch. Isn't your local *mart a lot cheaper without install?
Unless you have a chauffeur to take your car for a new battery, you are going to be waiting around while they lift out the old and drop in the new, so no time saved.
But on reflection, you probably live in a country with low minimum wage and cheap service. Mechanics around here are expensive, and I should adopt a more global perspective. I hear some countries even still have places where people will fill your petrol tank for you.
You replace a car battery maybe once every 3-5 years. Most people don't do it themselves,
People cannot even swap the friggin' battery!? Seriously? If so, I think that is symptomatic of the creeping idiocy that TFA is complaining about.
Hardware analogies are fraught with peril but ...
the object-oriented toaster never burns bread, because the slices/bagels etc set their own cook time. You don't need to upgrade the toaster every time you get a new kind of bakery product to toast.
And best of all, you never need to empty the crumb tray, because of the built-in garbage collection.
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It's the country for me
You're so near to Russia
So far from Japan
Quite a long way from Cairo
Lots of miles from Vietnam
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
Eating breakfast or dinner
Or snack lunch in the hall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
You're so sadly neglected
And often ignored
A poor second to Belgium
When going abroad
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I quite want to be
Your mountains so lofty
Your treetops so tall
Finland, Finland, Finland
Finland has it all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
Meh. I'm waiting for their next comedy movie, "Life of Mohammed" (working title). Should be a blast.
I'm not quite sure why the LA Times is reporting this today, when the galaxy was discovered in 2000
The light took 7 million years to get here. What's a few more?
Would it be too much to inform the curious readers as to where in the sky this galaxy is located?
Up? :D
Nice guess, but wrong, for you Northern-hemisphere residents. So its a bit hard for you to see without a neutrino-camera.
It is not a number, it is a number with units.
If you square an imaginary distance, you do _not_ get negative distance, you get negative area. Totally different, and an important one.
How is that not "negative mass squared" ?
A "negative mass squared" would be a positive-magnitude square mass, whatever that is.
You have the squaring backward - imaginary is the square root of a negative. But worse than that, it is completely ignoring the units. Square mass is not mass.
AC might have been thinking of London, where the English are now a minority.
They have not disappeared, they just moved out of London. I take it Americans are familiar with "White Flight"?
Though in this case many of the newcomers are whites too.
Horrible event, but extremely atypical. If a young black man is shot dead, a frequent occurrence in the US, it is almost certainly by another young black man.
Bad for him, but insignificant to the black population.
OK grumpy, I'll speak more literally. Google has all my emails, much of my we browsing, my searches. My photos are backed up to google drive.
Their computers know my appointments. I've opted in to Google Now, so my phone tracks my movements and tells me its a 20 minute drive to that place I looked up on google maps on the PC.
Like a human PA, Google knows more about me than my wife does. It's convenient, but a little scary sometimes.
The always-on microphone is a metaphor for that.
It means Google has given up, and admitted that they are listening to everything you say.
I'm opening up my chromebook to install a hardware switch on the microphone wire.
(Goes without saying that there is already duct tape over the webcam. )
Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?
If they drink tea they are just British.
You might be surprised how popular tea is in Africa. Its like the national drink in many former colonies, and not something they associate with Britain.
I'd bet that they commit just as much crime as black people of similar social culture and class.
And do you make the same bet that women commit the same crimes as men, or youth as elderly?
Making bets based on what you wish were true, instead of the unpleasant reality, will send you broke fast.
Unlike WOM, write-only languages are all too real.
I can't even read my own PERL scripts if they are more than a week old.
There is no known founder of Judaism - Moses and Abraham are in the realm of mythology.
Christianity as a religion was founded by St Paul. Jesus is the prophet and god. Christianity as we know it today was created by Constantine.
Mohammed, we know a lot more about. And what we know is not pretty.
(Don't ask about which timezone),
There was only one timezone then, as the earth had not been made spherical yet. Its all there in Genesis.
I even trying shouting "enhance! enhance!"
I think that only works on the new Google phone. Or pictures of it.
A few decades ago with the IRA and separatist activities in spain, the biggest terrorist threat in europe was "christian" of origin, and in the c ase of Ireland arguably religiously motivated (protestant versus catholic).
You also had the Palestinian terror groups back then, but like the Irish and Spanish terrorists, they were not particularly religious. Some of the Arab terrorists back then were Christian.
It is very different now. I would not compare the recent Islamist terror to any of those groups.