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Comment Re:Is Facebook a Toxic Brand? (Score 1) 192

Our classes apparently are different. We didn't have TIME to talk. Lecture started at 1:00 PM. Lecture is supposed to be out at 1:50. Lecture runs over until 1:57 because that's how chemists roll. Next prof is waiting outside tapping his or her foot impatiently. No time for tea and crumpets when there's science afoot!

We also had course administrators, so there could be six sections of general chemistry lecture that all did the same assignments, and therefore could work together and study together. FB brought us all into the same loop, and it let us all communicate with each other.

Nowadays, our university uses Blackboard to give us the same option to email classmates, so it's not like it was just a trend for introverts.

Comment Re:confused (Score 1) 329

I thought about doing this. But the days of free wifi are dwindling. At home or at work, sure it's easy - but you're also next to a PC, so the smartphone is pointless. When a smartphone is actually useful is when you do NOT have access to a PC, if you are out at a park and decide you want to see Iron Man 3 and need to look up showtimes, or at a bookstore and want to look up a review, or at a bar and need to settle a point of contention with Wikipedia.

This is just anecdotal evidence of course, but it seems to me that since the advent of smartphones more places are doing away with customer wifi than are adding it.

Comment Re:Because it's valuable, duh. (Score 2) 210

Well, the universities are (partially) funded by taxes, but most research-producing profs teach at or near the same rate as non-researching profs (typically 3/4 teaching load is considered the ideal situation), so the taxpayers are getting their money's-worth - actually, when you figure in how many graduate students teach for a fraction of what profs are paid, research-producing profs and their groups are actually a better value.

Now, research is rarely funded by the university itself, about 90-95% of research funding comes from outside sources - and the "internal" sources are still from university foundations and endowments, not taxpayer funds or tuition.

You can say, "But the university provides facilities for the research!" and this is true. But remember each research group typically saves about $100K in professor salaries annually, not to mention making the university more attractive to undergrads, thus increasing the university's appeal and allowing it to charge more for tuition.

Anyway, my point here is that saying "But the taxpayers paid for this research through university funds!" is by no means a clear-cut argument.

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