I think we will shoot for 2024 as either GOP or MAGA party. Trump may be the first third party candidate since Perot to actually affect the outcome of a presidential election.

I disagree that his power will drop off. I think he is the heir apparent to Rush Limbaugh - the next fire-mouthed conservative pundit to wrangle the masses and give them targets for their anger and fear.

I agree you with, and am in a similar boat (only ~11 years teaching college). We and the students have enough extra work to do to get "live online" courses working; why spend even more money, time, and stress so that we can "prove" they didn't cheat?

It saddens me to hear colleagues talk like exam-monitoring software is the only option (for courses that were always asynchronous online format, the software might be needed, but that is a very different beast than the synchronous courses).

"if I catch anyone cheating, I'll do awful, horrible, unspeakable things to their grade point average. And I mean it. If they want to take the chance, welp... that's on them."

At the college level, that "academic freedom" usually means that instructors are the final arbiter of grades... and students really care about their grades. As long as you make it clear on day one that cheating leads to zero, F , etc., then too bad for the student.

(College chemistry professor here).

At our school, instructors teaching the intro level biology courses have double or triple the normal load since multiple instructors quit over the summer. So they have to teach extra classes, they need easily (read: automatically) graded exams/assessments, and they still have all of their other normal work. I despise the exam proctoring software, but I understand the need for it.

Thankfully my classes are lower enrollment (even in a good year) and I can write new tests every semester and grade them by hand. I have normal, hour exams (administered online) with no extra security other than the honor code.

Why just the honor code? If a student is going to lie, cheat, etc. our school's honor code includes academic dishonesty provisions. It is really easy to tell when students cheat (especially online), and I can inform them that they have broken the honor code and send them to the appropriate in-school authority, threatening a zero-grade or worse if they don't comply. I had two infractions over the summer, both students worked it out and finished the course.

My syllabus has clear sections about the honor code and student-instructor communication protocols. Simply put, they agree to be honest, and I agree to trust them. And they have to acknowledge in the first week of class (via survey quiz) that they agree to my protocols.

Has it worked flawlessly? No, but the exception was a student who was so...motivated...that they resorted to unlawfully recording phone conversations in order to extort my colleagues at the school.

Hear, hear.

As a Ph. D. chemist and active member in my local section of the ACS, I would like to second this post. The ACS also funds and runs community outreach, careers services (which is how I got found my job), and government advocacy for chemists and science in general.

Member dues, article costs, and site licenses (to searchable databases like SciFinder run by their CAS division) are a major source of revenue for the ACS, so yes they take their copyrights seriously. To treat this issue as solely a money-grab by a publisher misses the forest for the trees.

The D2 to D3 progression reminds me of Warcraft 3 to WoW - same world; different types of game. There are many other parallels between WoW and D3, like how the games don't "start" until max level, the prevalence of an AH, the always-on internet connection, etc.

If D3 had not been billed as the sequel to D2, I think a lot of the hate would have been held back. Had they called it "World of Diablo" (or whatever), people may have realized that they were different types of game. For example, the skill system and crafting system in D3 are really neat ideas, but they aren't a logical successor to D2's mechanics.

Torchlight 2 on the other hand is the spiritual sequel to D2: it feels like D2. Personally, Matt Uelman's ambient background music makes a huge difference to me in the "feels like D1/D2" respect.

On a tangential note, I'm almost sad to say that Blizzard has pretty much killed all three of their franchises for me: WoW is boring and no Warcraft 3 sequel is in sight; SC2 single player campaigns are just there to subsidize the multiplayer (I'm not paying $60 again for one campaign); and now Diablo feels like WoW. Thankfully there will always be interesting new games and companies to supplant (or at least sidestep) the juggernauts.

Scientists should most definitely study assumptions of obvious vs non-obvious.

My observations is that most people buy organic for these (perceived) reasons:

1) Few or no harmful additives (pesticides etc.)

2) Tastes better

3) More nutritious (in terms of protein, lipid, carb)

Your three points are all part of 1). Please share references that it is "common knowledge" that the changes in pesticides/hormones/herbicide additives have little or no effect on the nutritional quantity and balance of most plants.

The nutrition and taste factors (2 & 3) need to be addressed as well as the additives, and I agree that the additives are the big reason that most people buy organic.

Since there are definite downsides to buying organic (lower yield per unit farmland, higher price for consumers), a cost-benefit analysis of mass-producing organic crops is certainly warranted, so even the "obvious" parts need to be addressed in order to reduce variables when the effects of additives are exhaustively studied.

My personal experience says that locally grown, non-additive fruit/veg (and meat and dairy) blows organic (or non-organic) store-bought out of the water because the local stuff is usually fresher and tastes better.

Bah. You got me on 6.7 x 10^-17 sec.

My gripe is the OP's frame of reference: "an attosecond is 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 seconds". That would be like telling me that the Pacific Ocean holds 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 teaspoons of water. That value and that unit should never go together. Lots of zeroes (big or small) is mind-boggling for a layperson or scientist, especially since OP did not give any frame of reference like, "1000 times faster than your eyes turn light into images". It's not a perfect comparison, but it certainly sounds really really fast. (Granted, I should have converted it to furlongs per fortnight.)

A word to the wise when trying to get people excited about fundmental science: the number "1" followed by a lot of zeroes is meaningless to most people (even scientists). Please give us something to relate that number to and put it in scientific notation!

67 attoseconds = 6.7 x 10^–18 seconds

As a photochemist, I know that a femtosecond is (1 x 10^–15 seconds) is the on order of many "fast" chemical reactions, like visible light reacting with your eye, so attoseconds are faster than most chemical bonds breaking/forming.

I hope they finally fix that pesky problem where only four lights were actually shown. Apparently the CG at the time was too expensive to include the fifth light, so they played it off as Picard trying to pretend he wasn't insane.

So your proof that unqualified women think they should be handed jobs is: 1) an anecdote about women you haven't met and 2) a straw-man argument that all feminists hate men?

While I agree that elder women (or men) teaching younger women not to be perpetual victims is very important, it is equally important for elder men (or women) to teach young men not to be creepy and awkward around women, and to treat them as intellectual and social equals. It works both ways.

This goes for any field or group that is dominated by guys (or ladies!), be it a profession or a club/society: one gender will feel uncomfortable until they are both equally treated.

You mean like xkcd that gets quoted in every story?

I'm not affiliated with the following website, but they make a lot of good points:

xkcdsucks.blogspot.com

Why can't it be both depending on the job?

I wanted to be a PhD chemist, which is not a field that comes with a pre-determined job attached to it. I got my degree and learned lots of theory and practical knowledge.

While I agree that four year universities should focus on a holistic education, there's nothing wrong with someone deciding "I want to be an X", where X = plumber, electrician, welder, EMT, RN, etc., and they only go to school long enough for that. Personally, the broadening experience I obtained in undergrad and grad school means more to me than just the job skills I learned, but for others who just want a job, let them have it.

Not everyone is meant for 4-year college. If they don't want it, they won't go for it. Bad in the long run? Maybe. But that's their choice. That's why 4-year colleges exist as well as vocational schools and community colleges.

Shamelessly taken from Penn and Teller's Bullshit video-game violence episode:

Penn: Next time you feel like worrying about fake violent video games, try a little Gedanken experiment: imagine that video games were invented 100 years before football. Picture school video game teams and uniforms and hot-ass cheerleaders with big, bouncing pom-poms. Now imagine after 100 years of extracurricular video game fun, football is invented and introduced to schools. Thousands of kids get real, no kidding, no fantasy, no make-believe broken knees, legs, ankles, cervical trauma, heatstroke, and concussions! [Throughout Penn's injury list, the crowd quiets, eventually becoming totally silent.] ...What would parents do? From 1931 to 2007, 665 kids died... from injuries they suffered playing football. This is not video game violence - this is real violence done to real children by other real children, all encouraged by schools and society. Every parent worries about his or her kids; every adult worries about all children, but you need to pick what you think is worth worrying about.

I'm not necessarily picking on high-school football, but to do this for 20-some odd years seems like purposely shortening your life. To para-phrase Penn, decide on your priorities. I'll stick to running, cycling, and weightlifting for my health benefits.