I'm sure the IRS will be looking into this.

Oh, wait.

The attack precedes 11 previous ones in California in the preceding twelve months.

FBI is looking for someone with detailed technical knowledge of critical telecommunications infrastructure, and a time machine. That should narrow the search a bit.

In Soviet Uzbekistan, airlines weigh you. Oh, wait...

CNIL French order Google to get off their lawn.

*This joke is funniest when read aloud.

That's just ridiculous. Just because someone works for the government does not mean that he or she has no expectation of privacy. I'm not defending the use of personal email for official communications, but even high ranking officials should have some expectations of privacy in the conduct of their personal affairs. Yes, even if their last name happens to be Clinton :-P

This position that the university has taken will have definite chilling effects on academic freedom. It is clearly inconsistent with their mission as a research university, and I sincerely hope they reconsider this policy.

My wife is a software engineer and uses sublime exclusively. I am an academic, and have used only emacs for the past 20 years. Guess which of us makes more money...

I for one welcome our new crunchy green overlords.

Don't be so cynical. I say, let's aim for 200% coverage!

Nah. Whoever wrote that wasn't very bright.

It's been said elsewhere in this thread that the textbook publishing industry is nothing more than a racket. The publishers routinely release "new" editions to textbook which only differ in having the problem numbers rearranged to attempt to make old editions useless for current classes. The prices in the textbooks are gouged beyond belief. The publisher makes more profit off of a class of students than the instructor does, which makes no sense on margin.

Part of the problem is that students can't vote with their wallets. The people that make the buying decisions are the professors, or worse the departments. Even without the occasional conflict of interests, these agents have no economic incentive to reduce costs for students. Students' only option to "vote with their wallets" is to look for a different academic program or school, which is rather absurd to regard as an "option". It is only out of the good will of the professor that costs for the students can realistically be minimized, but there are no real incentives to support this at most institutions.

Once upon a time, there was value added in having a publisher. But this is the 21st century, and there are ways for textbook authors to publish without imposing onerous costs on students. There are even some good publishers that will provide manuscript services at fairly minimal cost. So as I see it, the big textbook publishers have become nothing more than rent collectors in the style of the RIAA/MPAA, leeching off of the work of others. The good news is that academic culture seems to be changing. The younger generation of teachers is sensitive to these issues, and open source publishing looks poised to take off. I personally would view it as an ethical imperative to publish any textbook of my own under Creative Commons, and I think this attitude is becoming increasingly popular.

Only in the same way that it is impossible to "observe" a True Scotsman.

And I want a pink unicorn.

Or at least it was then.

But you need to be careful about the large amounts of dihydrogen monoxide present in some homeopathic preparations. Although this can be helpful in treating certain conditions, like dehydration, in sufficient quantities it is quite dangerous.