As a researcher in computational sciences (and chaotic systems) similar to the news blurb posted here, no. There are many methods for dealing with chaotic/uncertain inputs. Monte Carlo approaches, for example.

I'm a Princeton graduate student (and somewhat shocked I got this news via slashdot.) My scientific papers are in LaTeX, properly formatted using custom journal templates, use high quality vector graphics, and are well edited and corrected.

Thanks.

You're speaking specifically about programming courses here, something that is uniquely suited to text-only communication by the nature of the beast.

As you admit, classes teaching complex physical phenomena like an engineering course is not amenable to online classes.

While true, I can say for certain after several years of engineering grad school and TAing undergrad classes at all levels, that a very very firm grasp on the material in those first 2-3 years is the most important. Higher level material is worthless without solid fundamentals. So, just because the courses are often very large, and oftentimes more "dry" than later more advanced courses, it's a mistake to paint them as any less important.

Why do people that aren't black defend people who are?
Why do people that aren't gay defend people who are?
Why do people that aren't elderly defend people who are?
Why do people that aren't impoverished defend people who are?
Why do people that aren't _____ defend people who are?

"They have something I want, so I should get it" is not a valid basis for taxation. You're doing nothing but scapegoating the wealthy. The "tyranny of the majority" doesn't just apply to the classic civil rights issues, you know. You have no right to take someone else's money just because you have a larger voting bloc.

Point?

You've exactly described class warfare. One class (that 99%) attacking another (the 1%). The wealthy are simply being treated as an incredibly easy scapegoat.

Because no conservative actually says something so stupid. That's a stereotype you've made up in your head that doesn't exist in reality. No one opposes higher taxes on the wealthy because they're "struggling" or "need a break." It's for macroeconomic reasons. I have no problems with someone disagreeing with this particular theory of economics, but I do have major problems with people willfully ignoring the reasoning of the opposition and preferring to posit strawmen.

This is exactly why we should be pouring all this ill-conceived "green" energy funding into fusion. Wind energy just feels so absurd knowing that you could cover texas in turbines and still not come close to meeting our energy demand.

I was speaking entirely about college and postgraduate education, and the recent slashdot articles regarding them, and I thought that was quite explicit. As a product of a bad local public school system, and later a college instructor of the same, I'm fully aware that our k12 education system is broken and atrocious.

No one anywhere at any time said that. I don't know why you keep repeating it as if it's a matter of debate. My colleagues and I worked hard to learn the skills necessary to take high skilled, well paying stable jobs. Many did not, and dropped out of the program, and work less skilled, lower paying jobs.

Okay Ayn Rand.

I honestly didn't see the school price/salary correlation anywhere but in the summary, but I didn't delve deeply into Georgetown's actual report. I'd be happy to have a look if you'd like to point it out to me. One might reasonably expect an ivy league "business" major to do considerably better than a heavy drinking state school fratboy "business" major.

Regarding learning "useful stuff" during a career, allow me to use anecdotal evidence. The statistical evidence seems to be entirely in my favor (that high education leads to higher pay) which seems to be distasteful to a number of /.'ers with mod points to spare on me, so I think anecdotes might be appropriate.

Take my friends that ended their engineering education at a BS. They generally got around $50-$60k starting pay, scattered around the country, with benefits one expects in professional jobs. Over the past 4 years, the vast majority of them have been doing fairly mundane tasks. Lots of them simply sitting in front of CAD programs doing repetitive, technical tasks. I'd agree, that many of these skills they could've learned in trade school. A much smaller handful of more talented, more motivated friends are moving up their company ladders, and doing correspondingly more interesting work for more pay, but they're naturally the exception in the pyramid of a corporation. Thing is, these entry-level people aren't learning a whole bunch of interesting, varied things. They're paid a salary to do one job, not learn to do others.

Now, take those who did an MS after their BS. They spent two years getting a much more broad yet in-depth education. They learned far more in two years than those who went straight to industry, no matter how passionate they were. A for-profit industry can never provide the kind of variety that academia can. In the words of a government researcher PhD friend, "it's the industry's job to train, and academia's job to educate." Those MS people were able to take much more interesting, challenging, better paying jobs that gave them more fulfillment, and it's based entirely on the considerable technical skills they acquired.

And then, the PhD is a different ballgame altogether. Suggesting that you can accumulate the kind of technical knowledge learned in an engineering/science PhD program by "skimming over the course of a career" is quite simply wrong and naive. There's a damn good reason why fresh PhD grads are hired for technical research positions at major companies for twice the pay, and not some 50 year old hobbyist.

Sigh. I sure hate that sensationalist line.

It turns out that if your passion isn't being a McDonalds fry cook, then you're going to care if you end up working at McDonalds. Working 40+ hours a week at a mind-numbing, low-skilled job basically incapable of supporting a family or any kind of comfortable life just so you can put time into your "passion" for a few hours on weekends isn't exactly "pursuing your passion."

Let me stop you there. I explicitly said at all of BS, MS, and PhD levels, not just PhD. "Engineering" degrees are by their nature quite widely applicable.

As wrong as the rest is, I'm a bit baffled why you think "signaling higher commitment" is some kind of silly thing. If I were an employer in a particular discipline, I think I'd prefer a candidate with greater interest in the discipline, wouldn't you?

Now this is really wrong, possibly trollish, and likely intended to be insulting. Maybe one could say this about an MBA, but the people completing MS and PhD degrees in engineering are almost across-the-board vastly more capable than their BS counterparts. And it's not strictly a matter of them already being more capable/dedicated in order to be accepted to very selective graduate programs, but the vast amount of learning that occurs in the process of doing independent study and research.

TFA, and non-sensationalist common sense, says the exact opposite. I assure you that these friends in their mid-20s would not, could not, and should not be in positions of technical engineering applications in industries where failures can be fatal without a college education.
 

Right. You don't buy degrees (in engineering); it's an investment in your future. If it were as easy as "buying your way in," the rate of attrition in engineering departments across the country wouldn't be so high.
 

Again, TFA and common sense says exactly the opposite. We're not in it strictly for the money, but to suggest it would be just as likely for any of us to have a 6-figure median career pay without a college degree is simply silly.

As a grad student in engineering that has seen nearly all his friends at the BS, MS, and PhD levels all able to find good paying, stable jobs, I had grown pretty tired of the stream of /. articles from Ivy League tenured professors of religion ranting about how our education system is all wrong.