I believe it is common for state universities to have police that are an actual governmental body (rather than a private security force, which may still consist of state-certified officers who have full police powers).

Also, at least at my school, the majority of university police officers where off duty or retired cops (probably the easiest way to be a state-certified officer...already be one). So instead of working OT for the force (when the commander allows it), they had a stable overtime gig for the university.

Maybe for rural schools or colleges set in nice neighborhoods...but there are a lot of major universities located in areas that would not be very nice but for the presence of the school.

Look at schools like Columbia, UPenn, UChicago...They all border pretty rough neighborhoods. If the school wasn't there, the area where it sits would be a rough neighborhood too.

The private police forces keep a safety bubble for students. The local PD has many other things to worry about, while the university police (many of whom are just off-duty cops) can be 100% tasked with patrolling and maintaining student and neighborhood safety.

It also means that they aren't required to behave exactly the same way as cops are which can be of great benefit for a University that wants to take care of their students without policing them heavily. They can enforce non-law university rules, and they can choose not to enforce other actual laws as strictly as they might if they were on duty regular cops. For instance, I know that at my college, the university police were not big on busting people for underage drinking (obviously, there are other schools where this is the only thing they do...). They would still show up and bust rowdy parties when the neighbors complain, but they wouldn't pull out the breathalyzer and start checking IDs. Similarly, they might not enforce park closing times on a bunch of college kids playing frisbee at midnight, but they would still boot out non-students. Basically, the school pays them to keep kids safe, not to lock them down or hamper their fun--since they aren't the real police, they have a lot more leeway to profile people (e.g. kick you out of the park if nobody in your group can produce a student ID).

To be fair, the school in question here is not the kind where student athletes likely have a large skill gap compared to the other students. It is a glorified step up form a community college.

Unlike the under-qualified athletes who get scholarships to schools with strong academics, this is a school where they can probably keep up just fine. I don't mean to sound disparaging (and since I live nearby, I have met good people who went there), but it is not a good school.

I mean, look at their wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morris_University_(Illinois). When was the last time you saw a university wikipedia page that didn't once mention Academics? Notable Alumni? Literally the only meaningful section is about sports.

I don't think Title IX applies here.

Last time I checked, video games were not a gendered sport...Since it isn't going to be a "Mens Only" team, availability will be considered equal. It may attract more men (although the only person I see posting about LoL on my facebook is a woman--the male MOBA players all seem to prefer DOTA2), but if it is being offered and competed in a coed league, then it is Title IX neutral.

Doubtful.

No lawyer is going to take that case on contingency, and even if they did...there would be no seven-figure payday. Despite what you may think, damages are based on actual harm and don't explode just because a megacorp is involved.

Even if it weren't some ambiguous "it used to say Creative Commons but now someone is making a copyright claim" situation, the maximum damages figure is very small. You would get the actual damages, which certainly aren't going to be more than 4 figures for a single website image unless you are a well-established or famous photographer doing specific work for hire. Then you would get some statutory damages--Unknowing infringement (such as after a change in licensing from CC) is limited to something like $200...willfull infringement can go higher, but only if you registered the images with the copyright office in a timely manner (which almost nobody does, especially not for images they post online with a CC attribution).

This: is a pretty giant award as far as infringement goes. Notice that they only got $21k for 10 images, and that was with their own dedicated team of lawyers. For the 2 with registrations, they got a total of 300k, which is the maximum for willful infringement, but look at just how willful that infringement was: The infringers were complete dicks about it. They continued using the images for *years* after being told they were infringing, they lied and used fake names, and when it came time to go to trial, they were not forthcoming in discovery. Those are the kinds of actions that piss off a judge and get you maximum statutory damages.

I don't see your argument.

When I read the first line of your argument, I though it was going to be "Nowadays these boxes are all DVRs as well and DVRs don't work very well with the cord unplugged" which is a strong argument for why you would leave these monsters on at all times (notwithstanding the stupidity that is having to record a digital stream--at a specific time--for later viewing in a world where people like netflix are capable of streaming *higher quality* content on demand 24/7).

Instead your argument reads like just another problem with these boxes. In addition to having terrible power consumption, these single-application boxes also take exponentially longer to boot up and receive data than any other device a normal person comes into contact with. Here again, they probably come second only to the air conditioner (which might take more than 30-90 minutes to cool down a hot house).

I've witnessed this behavior, and it really is terrible--on some satellite boxes, you can't even flip channels until the thing is done booting and initializing)--but it's a really bad excuse for why we should leave them on at all times. These boxes should have smartphone like bootup times, and the DVR should work like a smartphone alarm clock (where it is still capable of going off even when the device is "off").

Probably explains why I never heard of it then...I last used screen in probably 2008 or 2009 when I would leave the console of a counterstrike or TF2 server in a screen session.

Was always a handy tool...I just haven't had reason to use it since about the last time it was updated.

Overall in the US, 10% is something like a hair under $150k per household. So it can really depend on your situation.

A single 25 year old earning 150k is probably feeling pretty good, even living somewhere like NYC.

But a household with two earners in their 40s and kids that makes 150k definitely counts as middle class. Certainly not on the low side of middle class (and in cheap areas, definitely doing pretty well), but its not like they are going to be overflowing with disposable income. Life isn't bad--which it shouldn't be for the middle class--but you aren't going to be retiring early and spending lots of time at that vacation home in the south of France.

His English comment doesn't even make sense. The kid wanted to switch to economics.

I know that there are some pretty lackluster econ programs out there (I have heard of some that will grant a degree in econ without requiring even single variable calculus), but I went to a school with a fairly rigorous econ program. I'm not going to say it was the most rigorous program in the school, but there were plenty of people who thought they would rather get better grades in an "easier" major than tough it out in econ once multivariable calculus and econometrics rolled around.

I'd still say that, in terms of general employability (without further education), a B econ grad is also better than an A english grad. Anyone looking to study english or history or similar, should honestly think about their choices. I don't think people shouldn't study them--but they need to seek some wisdom about their elective choices. Even if you are studying english, you should know some calculus, take some basic statistics, microeconomics and CS (intro-to-programming type stuff). You don't need an econ degree to go into the business world--and 95% of econ majors never use the upper-level coursework again--but having some evidence of qualitative skills on your resume is extremely important.

But you ignore financial aid (most people who have to borrow every cent will qualify for some at at least one school they apply to), term time employment, and summer jobs/internships.

If you absolutely can't get any financial aid (i.e. wealthy parents who won't pay for you but whose income prevents you from aid eligibility), then you are simply an idiot for not getting a job shelving books in the library and pursuing paying positions in the summers.

Term time employment is not hard to find (and in my experience, campus jobs tend to pay on the high side), and you can find something that is only 10-20 hours a week and won't interfere much with your studies. Also, half of the student jobs out there are the kind where you can study in your down time (the kids who check out books at the library or ring you up at the student coffee shop can spend half of their time doing their course reading). At $12 an hour (pretty common for student jobs, even without work-study), this can net you 6-7k each year. And of course you could always work more if you really needed to (and reduce living expenses below the "average" which includes the kids living off mom and dad).

Then, you should absolutely be working during the off periods. Not too hard to nab a retail job during winter break leading up to christmas (although not a ton of earnings from that either). But you should be working full time all summer, every summer. Even if you don't need the money, you should do this since it always seems like the kids who don't are the ones who have the hardest time finding jobs after graduation (no experience). Even if you can't beat the $12 an hour you had before, this should get you another 6k for the year. And after the first year of school, you get access to better programs, and internships from higher paying employers. Lots of places pay interns the same as 1st year employees...even in the middle of the crisis in the summer of 2008, lots of kids were getting an easy 15-18 an hour plus overtime. With a bit of work, its not that hard to clear 10k in a summer. Yeah--you don't get to go take that unpaid internship that the rich kids can afford, but it's ok--they are just being exploited anyways. You'll come out with experience, money, and maybe even a post-graduation job offer.

That pretty much covers all of your living expenses (and then some...considering you should probably be living a little sparser than the average student). Honestly, you could even still drop a grand in extra loan money on a cool spring break every year and it wouldn't really matter. You are still going to clock in at only mid 5-figure debt.

The people complaining in the media about 150k debt for 4 years of school are either lying, actually had post-graduate education, or made extremely poor and lazy decisions (and I count going to a $$$ private university as a poor decision if you have zero financial aid). Its not even easy to get 150k in loans. You can't get that much from federal loans...and private lenders aren't so favorable to slacker kids who can't even bother to earn a single dollar all 4 years.

Seems like it is pretty standard to fly economy. Even in the industries the parent poster listed, policies tend to be economy except for international flights and executives.

Thing is...if you fly often for work, you will reach status within a year and be getting upgraded on every flight. The monday-thursday consultants and other heavy business travelers are getting their upgrades for free...the fees are usually being billed to the client, and clients don't like to pay for first-class.

If you are telling truth (and not just parroting about a talking-point story as evidence the law sucks), you really should talk to an accountant.

What about incorporating in order to move that tax burden off of your books and onto that of your business? Should help your subsidy eligibility. I'm not an accountant (and can't speak to the intricacies of an LLC vs an S-Corp), but I know that a lot of self employed people who recently made the jump from sole proprietorship to incorporation and they all wish they had done it years ago.

That was pretty much my thought. There was a deadline, people are lazy and put off signing up until that deadline was looming over them (and were possibly reminded when trying to do their taxes that they need to enroll). The deadline was extended until April 15th...but it is near enough that you should see a big increase in signups.

They probably had a pretty good idea of how many people would be required to sign up, how many of those people would opt out, and how many people would switch over from something else. Using these numbers, they probably picked 7m people as a conservative estimate of how many people would sign up...and thus it was easy to hit it.

Making a big deal of this is as if it were front-page news that the number of people completing their tax returns skyrocketed between March 15th and April 15th...of course they do. Nobody calls it into question because everybody knows that you put stuff like that (especially if you owe money) as long as possible. The problem here might be that the people at places like Fox News have been on corporate payroll for so long (with health benefits), that they have no idea what is going through the minds of someone who has to actually signup on their own.