Out of curiosity what are you referring to when you say n-axis input? A mouse has only 2 axis still (unless you count scroll wheel as a third), it's just more precise right?

By that logic I suppose we should still be holding George Washington accountable for present day actions taken by the US Army then?

I guess it depends on the person but I wouldn't say their "essential". My handwriting is awful, but I always took notes on paper despite being a Comptuer Science student. Maybe if you have a tablet with a writing pen it'd be the same but I always found writing notes manually helped me more. Maybe it's because I had to concentrate on what I was writing more, or because I didn't have to waste time with thinking about how I was going to draw a graph or what keys/menus would give me mathematical symbols or draw a matrix or whatever. I hardly ever even read back through my notes, but something about the tactile sensation of writing it while your hearing and reading it really helped me remember. There's some sort of disconnect as far as I'm concerned with putting things in electronic form.

I feel like there's some sort of subconscious undercurrent of understanding that when you commit something to electronic form so it's available to pull up whenever you please so you don't need to remember it. At least for me writing in on a sheet of paper makes it seem real, physical, and temporary. And therefore something in my brain knows I must memorize it, because it won't always be there at hand forever.

Ugh, no. I would have rather have the social interactions of a classroom setting and easy access to the instructor. I'm the one paying the money and that's what I want. I understand some people learn just as well that way but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people don't. We just aren't wired that way as humans, and it has nothing to do with being "adult" about it. Humans are wired for social interaction, they are wired to listen to a leader and pay attention during instruction in a group dynamic, and they are wired to more often then not to easily concentrate on what someone is saying when they are physically in the room with them. Whether this was how we were built or these wiring's were passed on because they better contributed to the survival of the group at large it's just the way it is. People, on the whole, find it easier to learn this way. And that's before we get into all the added benefits of social interaction and collaboration.

That isn't to say offering online classes to those few who learn just as well that way, or find the trade-off worth it because of distance or time constraints is wrong, I'm just saying getting rid of physical classes completely as a solution to people distracting others with their laptops is highly illogical.

The moral of the parable was NOT feel free to fuck people over as long as you can point to someone else who's doing it worse. This widespread ideal that as long as you can point to a worse offender to somehow moralize your own actions is the singular most destructive ideal in today's political and social climate. I've seen it from all sides, all parties, and it's absolutely ludicrous.

Also it should be pointed out if you have to compare the wrongs of two people (Manning and Assange) with the wrongs of the entire Executive Branch of the United States Government over decades of history (while ignoring any counterbalancing good by either side) just to achieve that moral relativism you probably have a problem

Only if the statistical methods they are using are novel. They might just be using a grab-bag of assorted statistical methods already described by others and simply applying them to their specific problem. And really the proof here is in the results isn't it? If you use this thing and it points you to tests you should check out and upon further investigation you find those students cheated then it works. If it's also flagging 20 other tests where you don't find any evidence of the student cheating then it's not worth it. If the benefit isn't immediately obvious without a peer review and statistical analysis I can't imagine it being worth it anyways.

Was your thesis by chance titled Statistical Methods for Detecting Sarcasm in Unstructured Text? That might be an area where you'll find a personal benefit to using a probabilistic approach over manual identification. Just sayin ;)

Believing there's no world outside of Academia/Research FAIL? Last I checked companies selling a product don't get paid for research. Their "integral part of doing the work" is selling the product. At the end of the day nothing else matters. Publishing their methods in a peer reviewed journal would necessitate the marketing gains from proving their work to outweigh the advantage they'd be giving competitors insofar as the ability to duplicate their methods. And yes, any competing company worth their salt would definitely read the published papers and implement the methods if they were found to be better.

Ummm..are you sure that's the analogy you want to go with? I'm pretty sure the Chief Executive Officer of a company would correspond to...you know....the Chief Executive Officer of America (hint: it's the one in charge of the Executive Branch). The citizens and employees would all be shareholders with one share each. Non-employee shareholders would expect the CEO and elected board members to keep the employees in line and would vote them out in favor of someone who will if they fail to do so, but wouldn't expect to be given complete public access to all company information as then competing companies would then have an advantage. I mean my God, if you could have picked another analogy that would better proved the exact opposite of what you wanted I'd like to hear it.

Like a redlight at a deserted intersection in the middle of nowhere, there isn't a "pointless" exception when it comes to rules on handling classified material that's been leaked worldwide either. However, the will and ability to enforce it probably follows the same track as the analogy as well.

You're making things up to argue against. They're using it as a way to identify which tests/students to take a closer look at, not as the final judgment. I'd also like to point out the irony of you clamoring over the "dumbing-down of America" while spewing fear over the black magic snake oil of statistical analysis. Yes, fear of math and statistics is exactly what will make us smarter.

But can you tell in under 5 minutes exactly what student he cheated off of in a state-wide exam when he could be texting answers to a friend the next school over? I doubt it. Whereas a statistical analysis might pick those two or more tests out for someone to review more closely and give them a chance to connect the dots and find hard evidence beyond "Well I talked to the student and I have no idea who he could have cheated off of but I know he doesn't know this material well enough to get that grade!"

I have a tall fence I'd like to sell to you which will make you a better jumper.

Luckily no single school has either over a million pupils or a deep understanding of statistics so we're safe ;)

Since you want to play the pedant game yes, it could. Welcome to the second half of the 20th century. For example, in the Korean War congress never officially declared war. However, the president issued a finding saying a "state of war" existed for the purposes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This changes the maximum punishment for things like disobeying an order, misconduct by a sentry, and spying. There hasn't been an official finding from the president or other authority whether a state of war exists but I believe if the prosecution wanted to push for something that would be effected by the change a ruling would have to be made as to whether such a state does exist. (IANAML)

That said I wasn't referring to the legal state of war. I was more referring to how both the officials and "jury" will view him for committing these crimes due to the current situation: harshly

When you join the military you voluntarily give up a lot of your rights. For example, you could be legally required to be in a fox hole without blankets or sheets 24 hours a day unable to exercise in the dead of winter with inadequate clothing and food while German artillery pounds the hell out of your position. And that's if you're doing your job correctly. Manning betrayed his country and oath in a time of war disseminating classified information to the enemy. And they won't give him a pillow? Cry me a fucking river.