Before damning this idea, let's look at the other side. STEM majors will make much more money during their career than a liberal arts major likely will. That way, spending a little more on an education is a better return on investment. This also allows students (hopefully) to see a direct return on their investment in the quality of their education. If you are expected to pay more for your major, hopefully, this will be reflected in the facilities and instructors offered. On the flip side, it could also bring in more people who were turned off by high prices for majors that will not result in high paying jobs. I'm currently working on funding for a masters in architecture, a job that pays less than, say, engineering, and costs just as much tuition wise. Allowing variable rates lets them maximize their profit while allowing students the opportunity to pursue whatever major they choose.

This is, however, highly dependent on the rates chosen and how the money is ultimately spent. As always, if your product costs more than it's worth, then you'll end up losing buyers.

Exactly! This is a common problem with anything from Inhabitat. They repost content without any details backing up claims such as "X is 10 times stronger than Y, this is a huge breakthrough!" Beyond this, the facts they post are often out of context, and occasionally flat out wrong (view most anything they post about space). I do admit that sometimes the articles they link to have the same levels of actual content, but why should we post a blog that's never anything more than a poor repost of another blog?

This pains me to say as I used to be a big fan of Inhabitat when they first started. I even won a contest of theirs years back. As it stands, though, their content has no purpose here on slashdot.

Not quite. I should preface this by saying it's been many years since I've talked with this particular person, but when I was in high school, a friend of mine joined the military in a Psy Ops role. His training had him driving around in a hummer with speakers in the back, with the intention of blasting whatever sort of psychologically damaging message out on the battlefield. Apparently, one of their most common sound tracks was the sound of a baby crying. According to my friend, this was supposed to be a very difficult sound for people to hear over long periods of time, and would be used to stress out and demoralize the troops. My guess is that, in this case, they are using other methods of persuasion that are less blatant, but still designed to be exceptionally persuasive. I wouldn't imagine, however, that this is anything further than what a normal lobbyist could do.

TL:DR version: Less psychic, more psychology.

how long did this take to show a difference? I'm interested, just not sure it's worth the time and effort

Actually, singles sales are way up, given that people can now buy the songs they want off albums instead of having to buy the entire album. From this article (first one i could find):

I'd also argue that inception was impressive because several of the special effects rely on physical techniques. The spinning hallway really was spinning during filming, which might not seem that important, but it means that we have a real system in place for rules. Gravity is never lost during that shot, which often happens in pure CG special effects. everyone's movements happen as naturally as we'd expect them to in that situation. When you replace with CG, you're likely to forget to add small details that the audience will notice consciously or subconsciously, breaking the experience.

The reason why the origin of the star is so important is that it came with a planet. This means that we are not the only galaxy to contain planets. This isn't that surprising, but now we have at least one example to prove we're not just a strange one-off galaxy. So yes, it's a part of our galaxy now, and aside from it's odd orbit, it's a pretty standard star. However, its taught us we're not special, which is a very good thing.

You might want to try something like the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series. It's not a perfect world that people live in, but i wouldn't consider it your standard dystopian future.

The obvious answer is testing. Calculators were easier to check for cheating, and had a somewhat singular purpose. the TI-programming ability pushed this a bit, but even then, it wasn't hard to limit what it could be used for.

The long answer is that I had (still have) a TI-83 that fell out of my locker every day from 6th grade until 12th grade, and it never broke. It was built like a tank. It fit in my pocket, it never had a dead battery that couldn't be replaced for cheap, it never needed any cords. I think the price is obscene these days, but honestly, it's lasted so long that the cost per day of use is around 1 penny. That thing was quality.

Flaw in your easy solution- 1. set up massive fines for post-fire payment 2. set up fires at houses where people haven't pre-paid the service 3. profit

You've given one example, which is a building by Frank Gehry. He's an architect who made his millions by converting software made to develop jet fighters into "architecture". Is it any wonder his buildings attack people?

I am a practicing architect, so please, let me fill you in. Architects take classes on sun angles and reflected light. Understanding how to make use of and control natural sunlight is a major part of modern architecture. I counter your example with a modern building designed by Steven Holl (a much more impressive architect IMHO). If you note on one of the diagrams, the building has been designed to strategicly filter light into different areas of the school based on certain landmark days. No death rays here.

You'll be waiting for a very long time for a Linux client. There will never be a native client until Linux's market share on home boxes reaches a level comparable with either the mac or windows OS. It's simple economics and the reason why, until now, that apple's gaming scene has been anemic. No point in spending money if you won't make it back.