I agree completely. Pretty sure I bought FF3 (VI) for the SNES for around $59.99 (on sale!) back in 1990. That would be $144 today according to standard inflation calculators. And FF3 is maybe 40 hours, max, before you completely run out of things to do. We have great cheap (and free!) games today. Heck, $144 would get you a discount GC for a year of GamePass Ultimate, which is well over 40 hours of entertainment.

University of Arizona has been doing it since the 50s. For those of you who don't like articles, it says that it saves them about $38,000 a month. First learned about it when I was there doing a Post Doc. Makes a whole lot of sense in the desert where those night time temps are a good 25-30 degrees cooler.

My wife used to work for a statistical consulting firm that specialized in corporate large scale discrimination (like, someone suing Walmart because only .5% of their workers are natural redheads or some crap like that). They would often work BOTH SIDES of a case. They've have one office in TX working for the defense, while the other in CA was working for the plaintiffs. They all used the same data, but with completely different conclusions.

As someone with a 150ish page mathematics dissertation, if you dig enough, I'm sure you'll find somewhere that someone can claim plagiarism. For instance I have "The expansion (2.14) is called the Karhunen-Loeve expansion (KLE)". I did not reference Karhunen's original 1947 paper, in fact, I didn't reference any work. When you're getting a PhD, you're often getting so amazingly narrow in one field that many results are just considered part of the general subject that you don't necessarily reference. People from outside the field may read this very differently. I'm not claiming anything about Gay or Oxman's work, as I haven't read them, but it's much like holding on any given NFL play. If you look hard enough, you'll find it, but it's usually not called unless its obvious and egregious (unless you're on a witch hunt). Anyone copying directly from Wikipedia and not referencing though...well... that's just stupid.

Bungie has always had a weird history. Back in the old days (Marathon), I would dare say it was a fun company. Check out these https://bungie.fandom.com/wiki... https://bungie.fandom.com/wiki... Then they sold out to Microsoft... then split from Microsoft but were still controlled by them. Then split away from Microsoft, only for Sony to gobble them up. I don't think they've had anything resembling independence since the 1990s.

I agree. One Piece was really good. I think a lot of it has to do with the guy playing Monkey. He really nails the blind enthusiasm.

I'd say many researchers know not to trust a single paper's result. I'm not saying it's a universal property... but generally the more a paper is referenced (by people other than the author or their grad students), the more you can trust it. Referencing means that multiple people have verified results and extended those results. Never assume some recently published result is correct. Errors in mathematics proofs sometimes take months (or years) to be noticed.

That's a great place to start fixing things though. How about putting a clause in the tax paperwork that if you're working in a teaching job (not education, but actively teaching) then you're exempt from ridiculous self-employment tax? Or better yet... how about giving teachers in an extreme need area a break on federal taxes? As a PhD mathematician, former tenured professor, who now teaching math/CS at a private high school, you really have to love to teach to take the pay hit. When I was a prof I'd have mediocre coders earning twice as much as I did right after they graduated.

One hundred percent agree. Only redeeming quality is that they will take stuff down pretty quickly. I had a student post my entire final MATLAB project up (8 different coding questions, all authored by me so they can't find similar solutions on the web). Wrote a little take down request (my intellectual property, blah blah) had the provost sign it, and they took down the content within hours. Also provided me the email address of each of the users who posted it. It ended up three different contacts. One of my student's emails... their parent's email... their brother's email. Guess the family that cheats together stays together.

Have a Series X? On XBox One I get maybe one "quit the game error" per hour. I've had one three or four hour stretch completely erased from all saved games (I quick saved AND manual saved, and completely gone, then my other saved games had date changed to 2019). I've had to quit and restart from an old save a good half dozen times (those Delemain missions love to glitch and never complete). All that being said, it's an ambitious game that is still fun to play. I'm glad it's getting a sequel. I found the universe a bit shallow, but it's got room from improvement and expansion. They just need to focus on some decent writers with that massive expansion.

Much like anything in education, it's useful for some and not so much for others. I taught in a virtual engineering program whose intent was to give strong STEM students access to classes that their school couldn't offer. It was staffed by teachers who were typically far more knowledgeable than a typical high school teacher and the students earned between 40 and 50 college credits (picture Calc I/II/Linear Algebra, Python, C++, SolidWorks, etc). Some students were all virtual while some went to school, took some classes there (stuff like art and foreign language), then logged in with us for part of the day. We had a robust Discord channel where students could ask questions or just sit around an bullshit. It was full of different interactions and nobody got away with being an anxious shut-in. This CAN work with the right faculty, students, and staff.

Moron with a PhD (in computational mathematics) here. There are still quite a few good reasons to get a PhD. If I wanted to go work as a lead coder somewhere? No, makes little sense. In my case, I knew I wanted to teach. In undergrad I discovered I was good... very good in mathematics. So good that it was going to be a waste of talent to teach Algebra II to public school kids. The logical choice? A PhD so I could find a primarily teaching job. For example, SACS wouldn't even "allow" someone to lead a department/program area unless they have a PhD, so getting into the field at a livable wage requires a PhD. As I tell my students all of the time, a degree doesn't mean anything unless you know why you're getting it. Going to undergrad and studying Ukrainian Literature cause it seems fun doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you want to go into a very specific field. Many people are better off (and would be happier) simply becoming a plumber, electrician, enlisting, etc. The same goes for a PhD. It's not a fix for not being able to find a job, or some magic pill that will open doors in other jobs. But there are still plenty of reasons to struggle through and get one. For me, it was teaching.

Guess there is no chance of Sony bringing back the old Letters to the Webmaster or wanting to buy Bungie to finally complete Pimps at Sea?

As a tenured professor for 10 years and now a teacher at an elite HS, the biggest problem was the "everyone should go to college". If you were look at some of the students I was getting toward the end of my college teaching career, I'd say 1 million less students isn't a bad thing. That's about right in terms of students who have no business being in college. I agree with so many of you on here. Many people would be happier as a plumber, IT tech, electrician, etc, but they have been told their whole life that "successful people go to college." It's simply not true. Yes, you have some more options as a college graduate (in some majors), but you have plenty of good options without one if you're a hard worker and a non-traditional learner. All that being said, college tuition is a scam. Part of why I left. It was heartbreaking to see my school charging someone $40K a year that I know had no hope of graduating. That, unfortunately, is the game in the non-huge endowment college field. Convince kids to take out loans they'll never pay back by saying how great a college degree is all the while knowing they simply don't have the chops to make it. That's not all of the colleges (or all of the students), but it's enough to keep you up at night when you know it is going on. I STRONGLY believe community college should be free. Everyone should get to dip their toe in the higher education pool and see if it is right for them. If you can't make it for a semester at a CC, then no worries. No debt, move on with your life. If you are one of those people that find out you can make it, then two years at a CC saves you a ton of money in the long run, and good grades can get you into pretty much any reasonable college. On the other hand, I strongly disagree that all public universities should be free. It would force pretty much all small private colleges to shut down or become satellite campuses for a public university.

Marathon and Myth days were great. Things I remember most were the Letters to the Webmaster and the annual April Fools update to Pimps at Sea