I think that's it exactly. I have tried a few of these MOOC classes on a couple different websites (I am primarily a teacher, so not only do I like learning new things and refreshing myself, but I also enjoy seeing different teaching styles to try to integrate into my own).

I have taken a few that were very delightful -- it seems some of the computer science theory classes are the best MOOCs, possibly because they are the most used to working with computers and through the internet?

But many treat the online MOOCs EXACTLY as they would a university course. I have an interest in physics and engineering, for example, so I signed up for a class about photovoltaics, hoping to learn enough to maybe make better decisions in the future about a PV system for my house. Instead, what I got was a few rambly lectures about how photovoltaics are the future, and then straight into a homework assignment requiring some calculations and formulas never elucidated anywhere in the material. Luckily I am comfortable with integrals and was able to complete the first assignment, but I simply gave up after this as it was not a good first impression. Perhaps it was better in later weeks? Who knows. And I think this is the point -- the Lecture-then-let-the-students-struggle-to-solve-homework-problems-never-discussed-in-class model is INCREDIBLY frustrating to begin with, but then to do it completely online without much of a place to turn to? (No solid connections with students or faculty). Its a model for disaster.

MOOCs I think can succeed, but only if we actually take the opportunity to re-think how we present knowledge and check understanding. The university system is, IMHO, beginning to unravel and show itself as not being sustainable. Simply thinking universities can continue on exactly as-is but "in the cloud" is stupid, and this is why many MOOCs are failing to keep their students.

While the financial savings is great, let's also not forget that it is partially about freedom -- no forced upgrades from vendors, no special expensive proprietary software to read what should be public record, etc. I am more excited about the latter -- an openly accessible government and public records is important no matter how much it costs, but it's especially nice that we can have that AND save some cash.

I've often wondered lately if there are enough dissatisfied PhD-dropouts and overworked junior professors that if we got together, we could start a new college and directly compete against these attitudes (both the problems with professors and research, and the problems with the student curriculum and lack of teaching enthusiasm in general). I am quite seriously interested in doing exactly this if I could build up a coalition and some funding.

Wasn't this basically Plato's argument a long time ago? The best theoretical form of government is to have a "philosopher king" that has a lot of power but always acts in the interests of the people, this way things get done efficiently and even if the uneducated people think its not correct to do. But of course the problem is making sure the king is a philosopher -- most of the time, these type of people are not the ones that even want to be king. Otherwise, you end up with a very bad situation. Democracy is not perfect but it tends to smooth out the problem of not having philosophers as leaders, but we don't always know what is best for ourselves.

Some of the professors/scientists I worked with before were great at doing this. Technically you are correct, but these people really knew how to come up with crazy narratives about how important the research is and how it can lead to advances in defense, generate more money, etc. (this was how I originally came to work with them, I fell for the marketing in my more idealistic days; when I couldn't work on what I thought I would because the push was more on doing some research that could be tied to the marketing, I ultimately left).

The unfortunate side of this legislation is that it will cause an opposite effect. The things that will get funding are the BS more-marketing-than-legit-research proposals made by people that don't have a unique thoughtful idea at all (just looking at getting grants and tenure), and the actual true research proposals where someone has a legitimate interest to study and cannot predict its ultimate value will get thrown in the gutter.

It's very sad, let's try not to let this happen. But I guess to do so, not only do you need to stop this type of legislation, but you need good people in general reading the proposals...

I have not tried to contribute to wikipedia yet (though I have thought about it, I have been unsure whether I want to try given the currently climate described), but it occurred to me: how does one become an editor?

I am wondering, if current editors are appointed and have permanent control and this is causing problems, what if Wikipedia switched to something akin to slashdot's moderation (and metamoderation) tool? Let random people vote on if they think the change was warranted. They don't need to be experts on the topic, just answer yes or no as to whether the change was significant and properly documented with references. If so, then vote ok, and overrule the mods that may be blocking it. Is that not possible?

Maybe the particles entangled with the ones that make up my body form my doppelganger. I see that guy everywhere. He even has the same car I do!

You know, I remember a world wide web where random people ran their own websites giving away free everything -- knowledge, stories, tutorials, programs, whatever -- and no one gave a shit about monetizing everything. I actually miss those days and would love to go back to the internet being a community where people shared their passions for free because it was something to do, rather than a way for suits to make even more ridiculously larger amounts of money.

I am not from Oregon and maybe the laws differ, but in my state there is required yearly inspections where you get the little sticker on the windshield. I do not understand why one couldn't simply write down the mileage from the odometer once a year during your required state inspection, and that mileage is submitted to the state as the amount to tax you on? (You of course would get a copy of the form for your own records). Why have a device that tracks anything at all when there is already an odometer that does exactly what they want, track mileage! Use the existing services - mandatory state inspection - and bam, done. No tracking, no extra expenses.

Of course, I am not sure why you would want to tax mileage in the first place. I'd rather raise the gas taxes, and if people driving big 4-wheel-drive jeeps 1 hr each way to work can't afford it, then maybe it will finally prompt some rethinking about what cars we buy and how we do this whole jobs and commute thing. I would like to see more telecommuting, etc, for example. (But I would guess there would instead be an uprising from anti-tax people that want their big jeep rather than simply thinking basic economics, so probably wouldn't happen like this anyway).

Probably because 2010 was the last census, after which the districts were required to be re-drawn, so this is all recent history and therefore gets reported on. Because the Republicans had just swept into power after the 2010 elections, they were able to draw districts favorably for themselves. This doesn't mean Democrats wouldn't/haven't done it, just that the most recent use of gerrymandering has been just a couple years ago by Republicans.

Ultimately, I'm wondering if we can't push for an open source algorithm for computing districts based on population centers? This way, it cannot be political, it is open source and verifyable.

Non-essential just means the government and rule of law will not collapse today without them. (if you don't count collapse of congressional rule of law)

For example, the feds employ a lot of scientists and researchers. Most of them will probably be sent home today, and no one will notice.

In the near term, however, when our research that gives us better technologies, methods, etc. (remember, things like the internet that we are using right this minute were once government research projects!) has been inoperable and other nations pass us up technologically, we will come to regret putting "spending" ahead of everything else...

I have really enjoyed OpenSUSE personally. It has a lot of features and rather large repositories, and KDE seems particularly polished.

I think PySide is working on Qt5 support. PyQt already exists though with Qt5 support (though I admit I have not tried it yet; its on my todo list!). A subset of JavaScript is implemented in Qt, but its called QtScript. QtQuick user interfaces are supposed to be written in QtScript (JavaScript) now to make it easier and generate UIs on the fly and make them dynamic. Qt5 seems like it is really doing an overhaul of the system, so give it some time to stabilize. What's coming sounds really good.

I wish the perfect world manager was much easier to find! I have noticed that when I am focused on a project, I can actually work for a whole day -- 10-12 hrs or even longer sometimes (with 15 min breaks here and there for a snack or bathroom). It can be incredibly productive because I keep on the same train of thought without interruption and just hack out all of my ideas. However, when I do that, the next day I need to recover and relax and not do anything useful. If I could set my hours and work a couple of long days and then take a long weekend, I think that would be ideal. But too many bosses want to see warm bodies from 9am-5pm regardless or whether that is efficient.

I call this the "HR-ificiation" of our society, because of the mindset I see in business/HR type people that unfortunately run the country right now. They do not seem to have thinking skills themselves, hence cannot identify it in others. Instead they rely on checklists that were "created with input from our business partners". Sounds great on the surface to most parents and students -- they worked with industry to get relevant job skills! -- but the downside is that the educational curriculum is now reduced to a checklist of "skills" rather than a comprehensive education in how to reason about problems. I see this in tech schools too (where I currently work), where the focus on business skills is taking such priority (so that they can advertise that they prepare for jobs) that they have lost sight on the actual important material in the program.