Could it be the submitter works for an institution of higher education rather than a vocational school? Maybe they're trying to educate students rather than (or at least on the way to) shoving them into the workforce?

Sounds easy and cute, but if the court rules that the twitter account in fact did belong to Phonedog, and in fact was worth $2.50 per follower, could the guy be sued for deliberately wrecking the value of the account?

IANAL, but I'd be interested to hear a lawyer's comments: if you're in possession of some asset and are sued for ownership, and you subsequently and intentionally ruin the value of that asset, won't the court take a pretty dim view?

In the case of Unity, yeah. But I think a lot of, maybe most, GUI overhauls are just for the sake of change. Specifically for the sake of visible change, to justify the purchase of the latest version of some very expensive product (e.g. MS Office with the ribbons). In the case where it's a genuine improvement, I don't think so many people reject a new GUI (there will be a few of the getoffmylawn types, no matter what).

For instance, Windows 95's GUI was a legitimate and massive improvement over 3.1. While many of us were nervous about making Windows into THE OS instead of subordinate to DOS, I don't recall anyone at all clamoring for a return to the 3.1 interface.

It's a shame I have to think back that far for an example of a GUI overhaul that was unquestionably for the better. I've never used Macs, though, and I suspect there may be some more recent examples in that world.

I don't think I misunderstood. If the student got an answer 10% off from the "accepted value" (wanna bet he means 9.8m/s^2?), then it's irrelevant that in fact the value is not constant--there is a far bigger error lurking somewhere.

It doesn't vary 10% by location, not at any location from which I'd believe he conducted his experiment, that is.

In mathematics departments (in the US, that I know of), there is not a trend toward whiteboards. We like chalk, and are constantly at odds with our IT people who complain about dust in the computers.

We never asked for the computers, either.

This. One time a skunk sprayed underneath the cabin my family was staying in. It was in the middle of the night, and woke all of us up. We searched the whole place, afraid an appliance was burning out or something It was an awful chemical plastic burning smell that was nothing like the "skunky" whiff you get passing one on the road.

Good or bad that babies (somewhere else, conveniently) are dying? Is that the question? Fuck you.

(I wish I thought this guy was a troll.)

It's not a lack of good songs, but rather a lack of good accordion, tuba, and glockenspiel controllers.

Riiiiight, that should be real simple, both technically and politically.

Yeah, that pinwheel design is great--scales nicely from 7 to 200 bedrooms, short paths from the beds to the dining hall, and you can get a tremendous number of positive thoughts just by sticking a platinum statute beside the main stairway.

Ouch, in calling out someone's ignorance I revealed my own. Thanks for the heads up. But my point stands, mutatis mutandis (clearly I learned that term studying math, not law!).

This is the dumbest thing I've read on Slashdot all day. Making a false statement is a crime. Slander and libel are crimes. Perjury is a crime. There are all sorts of crimes you can commit basically by lying, and nobody (most relevantly, the court) gives a rat's ass whether you own the means of communicating the lie.

I'm sure your envisioned "open-source target acquisition system" can distinguish between the reflection from a surveillance camera lens and the reflection from my eyeglasses, right?

Do you think we'll have enough of that stuff in 10 years that it'll be natural and productive to "hang out" with your virtual cohort the same way traditional on-campus cohorts do today? Personally I think 10 years is very optimistic.