You can't blame faculty alone for courses being the way they are -- the students have learnt how to play the game. You work many old papers and basically end up memorising the classes of problems that can be asked. This behaviour leads to a sort of conundrum: if you keep setting new and interesting papers, you will start running out of problems that are within a certain difficulty level. Your students will hate you because they can't prepare for your tests they way they are used to. If you set similar papers (or recycle papers) the first-time difficulty of each paper remains the same, but the apparent difficulty of your subject decreases because your subject is easily gamed by people not interested in mastering the subject but rather passing your tests.
Shouldn't curving fix this? Even if everyone gets 30% on every test it shouldn't matter, as long as everyone is getting around 30%. If you are getting wildly varying test results on a single exam then perhaps what you find new and interesting is expecting too much of your students. I think that if they know and understand the curve and have access to test statistics then they shouldn't be bothered by low scores.
On the other hand if the students who are griping are doing so because they typically excel/do average in school -- but are not excelling/doing average in your course -- and your tests are not insane, then I think that those students would probably do well to be exposed to something outside of the box. In fact by not doing so aren't you just perpetuating the system that is promoting the cheaters and the system-gamers above their peers, placing incompetent people in positions where they don't belong, only to have those people hire similar inflated people in the future? I think that if you're "new and interesting" tests are really better at discriminating between the best students, then it's probably just that different students would do well in your course, and they may also be more deserving of a good grade than the complainers.
If Apple came out and guaranteed royalty free licensing for all then it would be a positive move for society.
Are you serious? Why would apple invest time and money in developing a technology only to give it away for free? The entire submission is a troll. There are literally thousands of patents on 911 technologies. Just because 911 is a public service doesn't mean that it exists in a vacuum of altruism; people still spend money and make money deploying and developing these technologies, so naturally there are patents. And like any other market, if it is useful and desired by the consumer, it should be profitable, and then the company that made it makes money. I know it's trendy to demonize contemporary corporations --especially when it comes to patents-- but this is how capitalism works
Does it just have some of the worst graphics output ever, or what?
Yes. It's graphics power is nearly the same as the last-gen nintendo gamecube. The ps3 and 360 look better because they have better graphics. So the ps3 and 360 would look better on composite graphics too (or even an old black and white tv). The output resolution, (480p, 1080i etc.) just allows those better graphics to shine through with less jaggies. It's textures and polygon counts that make the difference in video games.
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne