Elite colleges are similar to luxury brands in the sense that part of their perceived value is derived from their selectivity and exclusivity. If everyone can get a Harvard or Yale certificate online then the perceived value of a degree from those institutions is reduced. Selectivity and exclusivity allow prices to remain higher, offsetting the gains to be had from more graduates at lower prices per certificate or degree awarded.

Have you ever taken a course in AI? The minimax algorithm is already guaranteed to produce the optimal outcome in a zero sum, non deterministic, perfect information game such as Chess provided that the weights of the branches in the tree are an accurate representation of the value of a given position. This means that the only part of the algorithm that requires any real creativity is the position evaluation function of which there are several good examples in the published literature. The depth of the search in the game tree, which is equivalent to look ahead, is a good approximation for the strength of the play. It turns out that a 4 move look ahead is good enough for a relatively strong program, regularly beating most chess novices and a lookahead of 8 moves and more, especially when combined with a good position evaluation function and databases common openings and all possible 5 piece endgames, produces grand master level play. So playing Chess is essentially an exercise in search of a game tree. There are some small improvements to be won at the margins at grand master level play with more sophisticated position evaluation functions, as demonstrated by the IBM Deep Blue team in the games against Kasperov, but 99% of human players never approach grand master level of play in Chess and would lose most games played against Fritz on the hard settings.

This variant of the rules is discussed in Unearthed Arcana (pages 111-112) as an option with extensive tables detailing the necessary modifications the base rules and a sidebar noting the effects. Basically, with armor as damage reduction attacks hit more often and do less damage. At lower levels this tends to make combat less dangerous, especially for armored characters. However, at higher levels the advantage shifts back in favor of monsters that deal large amounts of damage per hit. For example, when facing a huge earth elemental in full plate armor a fighter will be hit about 20% more often, due to a 4 point reduction in AC, to compensate for the fact that the base AC bonus values from armor assume the base rules, not the modified armor as damage reduction rules. However, the 4 points of damage reduction now only reduces his opponents average damage by less than 17 percent: advantage, elemental. It gets still worse when encountering monsters with yet higher strength bonuses to damage or added on damage from poisons, acid, disease etc or multiple attacks per round. Basically combat is easier at lower levels but increasingly deadly as characters advance much past about level 12 or so. It also tends to make the game more mundane and less heroic since characters enjoy early success at the expense of heroic high level fights which they are now less likely to survive. On the other hand, this variant also reduces somewhat the advantage that magic users have over fighting characters at high levels since they too are exposed to the more deadly combat and still without benefit of armor. This can make playing a fighting class more attractive in a high level campaign that might otherwise be dominated by spell casters.

Uh, yeah, we can measure -1. The charge of an electron. The distance along the x-axis that I travel when I walk one meter west. The effect on a wave when it encounters an identical one 180 degrees out of phase.

Not at all. None of those things "are" -1. They are observable phenomena that we tag with the human invention, the word/concept, "-1". Mathematics is not an aspect of objective observable reality, it is a language that we have found useful for describing our observations.

Imagine you had to pay every time you wanted to watch a YouTube video? Like when you goto a movie, or order cable TV, I'll gladly wait 10sec & click skip...

If it takes 10 seconds of your time, then you're paying with your time.

If you're a professional making $50/hour, then 10 seconds of your time is worth $0.14. If you're a laborer making $10, then 10 seconds of your time is worth $0.03. That's just the time wasted, mind, not counting the fact that watching ads is essentially subjecting yourself to black magic, attempted mind control, and trying to put a value on your neurological integrity..

IMO, if ads stopped across all internet sites, or the online advertising industry completely collapsed. The internet as we know it, would be gone.

And since the Internet as we know it has become, thanks to scum-sucking advertizers, a hive of scum and villainy, little would be lost, and we could go about cleaning out the cruft and building something better. Fuck the online advertising industry with a rusty dildo.

I haven't played a serious game of chess since I took up programming decades ago. Why spend time learning to play chess when I can write a program that will beat most humans? Even a novice programmer could create a very strong chess AI using information that's publicly available. Chess was an early area of interest in AI and game theory but it's largely a solved problem now, used as an example of minimax search in undergraduate textbooks on the subject.

Training for a marathon improves physical conditioning and fitness which is arguably useful in it's own right. Cars satisfy transportation needs, but they do little or nothing to improve physical conditioning or fitness. They're different things and not really comparable.

It's the algorithm that's important, not the implementation. Algorithms are discrete methods of abstract problem solving and study of them improves both abstract thinking and general problem solving capability. The game of chess for example is well solved by minimax searching of decision trees with a few chess specific evaluation functions thrown in. Further refinements and sufficient processing power allow even the best human players to be reliably defeated, but the basic concept remains the same: minimax search of decision trees. The game of chess can be part of a course on game theory or an introduction to algorithms, but the grand parent is correct that any more serious study or effort at mastering the game, outside of subjective entertainment value, is largely wasted given that computers are better at it than most or even all humans. Moreover, the mastery of chess doesn't seem to provide any special educational or intelligence benefit that couldn't also be had with many fewer hours of more generally applicable study of game theory, algorithms, computer science or mathematics.

You speak as if the children in our public schools aren't already the unwitting subjects of failed experiments by teachers, administrators and others pushing the fad of the month in education. Remember the "New Math"? Yeah, that worked out well for us. Your argument might hold water if our kids were already receiving an outstanding education in our public schools but you know what? They're not. Our tax dollars are paying for Cadillac and we're getting Yugo. It's time to hit the reset button on education and vouchers are the best way to do that.

It's a commodity service and in no way exempt from the laws of economics. Your attempts to carve out an exception for education as "too important to be handled by the market" amounts to little more than lame excuses for wasteful allocation of resources to the current broken system. Education is ripe for disruption and like health care is in desperate need of it to make progress. The teachers and others who stand in the way of this process are, to use a phrase loved by the left, standing on the wrong side of history.

And yet it works far better than any of the alternatives. There was a time, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, when most people living on this planet, with the exception of a small group of rulers, nobles, warriors and priests, were subsistence dirt farmers. Then, towards the close of the middle ages, something happened. That something was sustained economic growth. It was modest at first, but over time societies which achieved and sustained it diverged greatly in wealth, power and standards of living from those that did not. Fast forward to today and the average American is thousands of times more wealthy and better off than the subsistence dirt farmers living in the poorest parts of the world. How did this happen? Free enterprise, private entrepreneurship and free markets. So go ahead and be as offended as you like by the free market, but ask yourself this. Where did the clothes on your back come from? Who produced the food that you're eating today? How is it that you have a relatively nice place to live, as compared to the subsistence dirt farmer? Perhaps the free market isn't such a bad thing after all, eh?

you need to learn how to read BADLY.

Wouldn't it be better to learn to read well, than to learn how to read badly?

And it would be good also to learn to write well. Your prior post is utterly incomprehensible.

Part of my understanding is that a 501(c)3 is a public, mutual benefit corporation where all assets are actually owned by the public, should push come to shove.

I'm sorry, but you're confused -- that's not correct at all. The assets of a 501(c)3 have to be transferred to another exempt organization if the organization shuts down, but they are in no way owned by the public. We had that baked into our articles of incorporation but I'm not sure if that's a requirement.

501(c)3s can include religious corporations and public-benefit nonprofit corporations. A public corporation is something completely different, a corporation set up by a government; for example, some state universities are set up this way. A mutual-benefit corporation, which includes some co-ops, insurance companies, and other groups set up to benefit their members, cannot be a 501(c)3.

but the IRS's definition of a charity requires that you be serving a distinct, disadvantaged group of people.

No. 501(c)3 organizations can include churches in rich neighborhoods, symphony orchestras, museums, and plenty of other groups which do not serve "disadvantaged" groups.

PHP is the language for web programming, just as C/C++ is the language for system programming.

People have been hating on C since at least the 1980s. It's still here. People have been hating on PHP since 2000 or so. It's still here.

Beginning with Marbury vs Madison in 1803, when the Supreme Court first took upon itself a power not granted in the Constitution to strike down laws duly passed by the legislative branch and signed into law by the executive as "unconstitutional", the Supreme Court has expanded upon this self granted power in numerous cases from Plessy v Ferguson to Brown vs the Board of Education and on through Roe v Wade and continuing until the present time today. It has been variously called "judicial activism" or "legislating from the bench" but the intent, which is to express the fact that the Supreme Court was never explicitly granted this power by the Constitution, is the same. In fact, Congress can specifically limit what the Supreme Court is allowed to rule on as written in Article 3 Section 2 which states that the court's appellate jurisdiction is given "with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." Congress can and has passed bills including language describing what parts of the bill are not subject to review by the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck with judicial review for now unless a Constitutional amendment specifically barring the practice and clarifying the already reasonably plain language in Article 3 against it is enacted.