Most professors are hired not for their ability to teach but rather their ability to do research. In fact, some of the "best" professors are horrible teachers -- they may be experts in their fields, but aren't necessarily the best teachers. As such, I would guess that the role of professors will remain unchanged. If anything, it will free up the professors from teaching responsibilities and they will merely provide "support".

Plus, I think that is the way it should be -- some of my best professors have been those who've encouraged my interest in the subject and with whom I've taken classes for research credit. They haven't been great at teaching me, but they've been great to collaborate with on research and just give me a broader perspective on their fields of expertise.

I have since sold my soul to the corporate world, but I am looking forward to going back to school one of these days.

What I would really like universities to do is provide opportunities for part-time PhD programs for those of us who are interested in research, but cannot leave our jobs and relinquish family commitments and responsibilities.

So, here is my question for Professor Anant:

I would absolutely love to do a PhD part-time, but why is it that universities deter this practice? I have found that I accomplish more when I love something and do it out of passion, my other commitments and responsibilities notwithstanding. In many subjects, hobbyists and amateurs have made significant contributions -- so why isn't there an increased focus on encouraging more "virtual research"?

From an academic perspective, you get sufficient education in most master's programs anyway, a lot of which can be completed part-time (and increasingly online). So, why not support research that can be done remotely?

As an erstwhile grad student who decided to not complete the PhD route, I met with my advisor perhaps once a week, and the only time he really cared was during conference deadlines. So, why can't PhD programs be made available part-time and online? With the exception of some subjects (e.g. chemistry, experimental physics, or biology), there are a lot more that can be pursued virtually (e.g. computer science, math, economics, theoretical physics etc).

Wouldn't there be increased enrollment of students in doctoral programs if there were the case? You do not even need to lower the standards -- you can still keep the same standard of admissions, qualifiers, and research criteria. You can provide residency requirements, but support doing the doctoral research at your own leisure. Why is this not the case?

It almost seems like an entrenchment of academic elites to keep the vicious cycle of "doctorate --> post doctorate --> professor --> tenure" going, and minimizing the number of doctoral candidates.

Me. I'm, if anything, under managed. GP poster is right.

Seriously, its a silly logo and all that jazz, but wouldn't you leave a company because it no longer the right employer? *

* Where right_employer = (pay && boss && peers && benefits && work_conditions && commute && ! good_self_employment_prospects)

And not because the logo was terrible?

Send in Giant Robot armed with this to neutralize the place

Seriously, about time the stuff there was made sub critical. We can't keep cooling it forever.

Not on mobile devices.

> So the similar size of the earth and the moon are a coincidence.
Correction... "similar size of the sun and the moon in the sky"

If by evolution you mean the addition of information via useful mutations in the human genome, it is yet to be observed. What *has* been observed instead is functional deterioration of the genome - see http://rt.com/usa/intelligence-stanford-years-fragile-531/ .

(For a more - vigorous - view, see http://evolutionsciencenow.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/are-humans-getting-better-what-is.html )

So crystallisation via cooling is a "spectacular decrease in entropy", capable of disproving the papers referenced earlier. How did you assess this? By seeing regularity in simple repeating crystal structures versus the liquid blob? By this logic, the regularity of molecules in a solid is evidence of the same thing. But no one calls cooling of a liquid to a solid a "spectacular decrease in entropy".

So the similar size of the earth and the moon are a coincidence...

> There are only a handful of trees left of that age. No way an exponential curve would be smooth with that little data.

You must be very familiar with the details. Anyway, the point is not that there is a smooth curve. The point is that there is a curve which stops abruptly at a time which matching the date of the Genesis flood. There are no trees with more rings. But the oldest trees are *still* growing. So there is no reason that there should not be trees with more rings.

If the ages of the oldest trees is another coincidence, it roughly coincides also with the the span of recorded history and the time since the ancestors of the Danes separated from the ancestors of the Turks.

There are other coincidences.

Don't let the fool trolls get to you - you have a good post.

For instance, a trivial browser-side implementation could simply check if bytes flowing in on an SSL connection (say, to https://abc.com443/ matched bytes coming in through a secondary persistent HTTPS connection (say, https://verify.abc.com443/ and that both HTTPS connections use different CA authorities.

Sure, this could be defeated if abc.com is compromised. However, an MITM attack would require two separate CA authorities to be fooled or compromised. And adding verification hosts (verify1, verify2, ...) would provide additional 'witnesses' against a MITM.

Hmmm. Client certs are used for authentication of the client to the server (the server also has to import the clients public vert). If there is a successful MITM attack, the client will simply authenticate to the wrong server.

Slashdotter here, who disbelieves evolution.

As for "evolution is incontrovertible" argument...

  - "Entropy and Evolution" http://dx.doi.org/10.5048/BIO-C.2013.2 (Published)

  - "A Second Look at the Second Law”, http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/AML_3497.pdf (Accepted, but withheld from publication “not because of any errors or
technical problems found by the reviewers or editors, but because the Editor-In-Chief subsequently concluded that the content was more philosophical
than mathematical,” according to the apology later published in the related journal.)

  - Generations past have accepted the sun as been the day's source of light, and the moon the night's. Are their identical sizes (identical as far as our eyes are concerned) a massive coincidence? Or evidence of design.

- If you saw a exponential decay curve (i.e. a long tail curve), with the tail quite apparently truncated at some point, would you assume an event likely caused the truncation?

One such curve is 'number of trees' (Y axis) versus 'tree-rings per tree' (X axis). The truncation is around 4800 tree-rings (X axis) - the number of rings in the oldest trees. If you allow for some trees adding more a ring a year (they do, but very rarely), this roughly coincides with the Biblical date for Noah's flood (4350 years ago), when the then-exant forest of the world would have been destroyed.

Another coincidence?

"... with sensors capable of detecting or inferring my presence."

And in this age of miniaturisation, how do you plan on detecting such sensors ace? By using sensors of your own? Which most probably have similar capabilities?

Chicken and egg.

Well, if BSD wasn't around maybe OSX wouldn't be a viable Windows competitor. Maybe we'd still be using a successor of Trumpet WinSock to connect Windows PCs to the Internet. Maybe LLVM and gcc wouldn't be used to create widely-used mobile and desktop consumer applications (i.e. OSX application, using XCode). Maybe mobile applications would still be built mostly using Visual C++ to Windows Phone apps.

Or more likely, his new motherboard chipset (or new drivers), caused the problem.

For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing) ...
The RST (Rapid Storage Technology Option Rom ) and drivers are only allowing Trim to pass to the controller onto the drive in Intel 7 series chipsets using driver versions post 11.2.0.0.

There are any number of factors that could contribute to weight gain, but the most important of them all is poor diet.

As long as your diet is in order and you are active, your body cannot magically consume more than what you're putting into it. Calories in vs. calories out.

Ultimately, no matter what the other factors are, you are not going to gain weight by eating less. Sure, how your weight loss occurs, the distribution etc may vary based on genetics and other factors. But that it will occur is indisputable.

I went from extremely active (i.e. rowing and rock climbing almost every single day) to being lethargic (desk job, lots of drinking) and gained ~35 extra lbs. This happened in my mid-late twenties, and I found that it significantly affected my metabolism.

Getting my diet in checking and getting back into an active lifestyle (back to rock climbing, rowing, lifting, and running 3-4 days a week), I have noticed an increase in my own metabolism, and a change in terms of what I crave.

Given my level of activity, I sometimes go into a buffet and pile on food because otherwise, I won't recover well enough, and risk injury (not to mention, I actually lose weight). Of course, people who do not know me well enough make fun of me and ask if I am "not on a diet anymore".

I am always on a diet, but I like to think of it as a lifestyle -- because no matter what I eat, I watch my macros and track every morsel. And when I go over or under, I compensate. Eat too many carbs today? Eat less carbs tomorrow and more fat and protein. Go over my calories for the day? Run an extra few miles to compensate. Not enough protein this week? Make myself a few extra protein shakes. Drop in my squats or bench? Eat more. Drop in the size of my arms? Eat more, lift heavier.

Here is the simple solution:

1. Calculate what your TDEE is (not just your BMR), based on your level of activity. As you lose or gain weight, make sure you calculate your TDEE.accordingly.

2. If you eat more, burn more. As simple as that. It comes down to how anal you are (e.g. even if it's 2 am at night, I try and run off my excess calories for the day), but basically ~3500 calories = 1 lb.

3. So, now, if you're gaining weight, then, cut your calories until your weight is stable. Then decrease by ~500 calories a day (either by eating less or by burning more) and you will see a drop.

4. You won't see your weight drop instantly -- what typically happens is that you'll see a "whoosh". Your weight will remain unchanged for 3-4 weeks, and then it suddenly drops by a lot.

5. Staying active -- i.e. lifting regularly, doing cardio, and generally being not lethargic -- helps raise your TDEE.

6. Consuming enough protein to make sure your body can heal itself and can keep the muscle mass (~1g/lbm) will mean that when your weight drop, it's mostly fat loss and not fat and muscle loss.