Peter Rex: I'm Leaving Seattle for Texas So My Employees Can Be Free - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/im-leaving-seattle-for-texas-so-my-employees-can-be-free-11593211124 <comment><USER2> Free to be fired at any time for any reason?

Free to be discriminated against in a state where the police officers are the ones doing the most harm to others at peaceful protests?

Free to catch COVID-19 in a state where the governor has said that he will prohibit any city from passing laws that require masks?

Yeah, I don't think he is at all concerned about the freedom of his employees.

<comment><USER3> > Free to catch COVID-19 in a state where the governor has said that he will > prohibit any city from passing laws that require masks?

Sure, except you should consider the death rate in Texas compared to some of the Dem run states (deaths per 100,000 attributed to COVID-19):

NJ: 167

NY: 161

CT: 121

MA: 116

RI: 87

DC: 77

LA: 68

MI: 61

IL: 54

DW: 52

Then, there's TX: 8

Time to question some of those assumptions...

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus- covi...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus- covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just a conservative grievance list. Nothing to do with being "free", he just doesn't like the fact that the west coast is a certain kind of liberal. Which is fine, but it's disingenuous as presented.

<comment><USER5> Being able to buy the same house for half the price seems like enough to make one feel a bit more "free".

<comment><USER6> King county has 0.953% property tax per [2].

Austin currently has 1.803% property taxes [1], and could potentially have property taxes of 2.25% if [3] a plan to increase property taxes by 25% for a public transit plan. (In which case property taxes for homes half the price in Austin will be greater than a home costing 2x more in King County)

1\. [https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-property-tax- calculator](https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-property-tax-calculator)

2\. [https://smartasset.com/taxes/king-county-washington- property...](https://smartasset.com/taxes/king-county-washington-property-tax- calculator)

3\. [https://thetexan.news/austin-proposes-25-percent-property- ta...](https://thetexan.news/austin-proposes-25-percent-property-tax-rate- hike-to-fund-10-billion-public-transit-plan/)

<comment><USER7> This is more than offset by the lack of state income tax.

<comment><USER8> Where? Washington state has no state income tax either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who is this Peter Rex? I just went to rexteams.com The site is quite vague. After doing some googling it looks like this is one of those guys that's like in the business of selling business. They do a lot of lectures and stuff.

</comment><comment><USER10> After reading the article, I'm not sure he isn't just moving the company to Texas so he can avoid paying taxes on the business income. That move would effectively transfer the tax burden to his employees through property tax. They won't notice until they buy a house... but, his business will. He certainly launched in some of the highest taxed places on the West Coast. Seems like he's regretting that.

<comment><USER5> Median home value in Austin is $400k. Seattle is nearly double that. Assuming the employees want to move and will still be paid the same, they'll make out like bandits.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://archive.vn/HmpR6](http://archive.vn/HmpR6) \- around paywall...</comment>


The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/university-like-cd-streaming-age/613291/ <comment><USER2> Ya'll use University wrong.

The classes, etc. ... whatever!

During my time at Uni, I:

* designed a demonstrator car frame to show off a bunch of new manufacturing techniques, which was actually built in the end

* was part of a team who tested a new type of fiber optical vibration sensor on a sounding rocket

* worked with a PhD student on developing a sensor to measure water flow through a tank to validate his simulations

* wrote code that is now orbiting earth on board of a CubeSat we built with a team of ~100 students

We had groups who built race cars, a group who won ~all of the Hyperloop challenges, a group which builds rockets (seriously they have a lab in the basement of the cantina - the only rocket powered cantina in the world), a group that designs, builds and flies their own soaring planes (no-one died ... yet) - and that's just the ones I considered cool. All of this groups get access to top notch workshop and lab equipment and some of these groups are so present at their respective chairs that they end up driving a serious amount of the research happening there.

University is a place where teachers and students who are interested in a field meet to learn and research together. Modern Uni has often forgotten that, but if the students treat it as such it works in this way. We have to tell students how they can get positive experiences out of the current system - by trying to do so, they will change the system from within.

I honestly regret wasting my first couple of semesters before I learned about all of this stuff.

<comment><USER3> Your specific experience is great, and I'm glad for you.

The point here, however, is what University is for all people, not just for individual cases like yours where things align nicely, and where maybe your own character and personality (and some of your professors and class mates) helped you get a meaningful experience out of it.

My personal opinion is that the article is mostly right about what doesn't make sense for Universities in 2020. Many things are wrong, including providing access to it for ALL valuable students irrespective of income or wealth.

<comment><USER4> > The point here, however, is what University is for all people

Traditionally, that was not true and still is not true in places like Germany. A university is the place where you can get the highest education of a field, or ideally where you study a field on your own. Both requires a lot of prerequisites that not everybody fulfills. I am talking about knowledge, ability to learn although something is not flashy, and the will to endure. And it should be like that, otherwise you loose the ability to train the brightest people of a society. For everybody else, there are applied universities, dual study programs, and well established and respected vocational training programs, here in Germany.

Replacing universities with a netflix-esque experience may seem attractive to students, but is doomed to fail to train students. The question how much teachers should adapt to the wishes to their students is as old as learning itself. In the end the students have to trust, that a teacher knows which material to cover to teach students the desired skills, facts, and abilities. For an example of that, search your trusted video-streaming platform for the film Karate Kid. ;-)

<comment><USER5> > Replacing universities with a netflix-esque experience may seem attractive > to students, but is doomed to fail to train students

To be honest, for very mathematical subjects the lectures are almost useless. Exercises and practicing is what gives insights, determines the grades and tells which part of the lecture is actually important.

I'd be curious how it is in other subjects, like literature or history. But I assume without writing texts, one doesn't get very far there either.

<comment><USER6> I used to think this way, but learning how to take math lectures really changed my university experience. To my first semester me:

1\. Go to the lectures, sit upfront (where you are definitely not going to use your phone or fall asleep)

2\. Get the book or script that corresponds to your lecture. Almost all math lectures follow some sort of book. If unsure, ask your professor.

Just reading ahead for half an hour prior to the lecture will make _such_ a difference, as you won't be lost and can focus more on contexts than on definitions.

3\. Feel free to ask questions. If you know where you are (see 2.) it's much easier to know what's wrong. Professors are human and sometimes forget to give some theorem they are using. It's really easy (and frankly surreal at first) to be that guy that points out errors to the professor (in a respectful way!).

If your shy or you have the feeling, that the problem is indeed on your end – take notes of things that are unclear and ask them after the lecture. Professors usually love to talk about their subject!

4\. Last but not least: Keep calm and carry on. It's completely normal to feel overwhelmed at first ;)

<comment><USER5> Sure, it's possible to prepare ahead and also afterwards. But this is so time- consuming, I mean after all everybody has to decide that for themselves but IMHO Pareto-optimizing that means not visiting most lectures. At least that's how I studied and it worked out really well. But I agree with you one can seek a lot of value from it, but that doesn't limit itself to 1.5 hours sitting there and listening. But rather being really concentrated for 1.5 hours, and spending time before and after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was having another one of those moments yesterday where I was questioning the value of higher education while reading a HN thread about teaching yourself CS. There was a healthy debate about whether the typical CS curriculum helps a modern software engineer at all. Some thought the degree was stuck back in the 70's. Others thought there was value, but had trouble articulating it. It seems that when the information received was divorced from the credential, the value dropped precipitously. And this is a hard sciences degree with many "universal truths" to teach. Things get even more squishy when you get into the humanities which are much more idea, opinion and discussion based.

As the linked article points out, employers often look for the degree, but do not believe it is much of an indicator of quality and don't expect new grads to walk in the door with the needed skills. As a former recruiter I think that sentiment is pretty spot on. I don't think I ever asked a candidate about the details of their education. It was just never relevant in comparison to their experience.

So that leaves the on campus experience, which I personally think is amazing. It's like living at a country club for 4 years, crossed with a huge expansion in your world from living at home and going to high school. The new ideas from the classes are just a small part of the new ideas you get exposed to from other students and campus events. Plus with the increasing independence, it's a great gentle introduction to adulthood. Unfortunately all that is not available during the pandemic.

So the content of the classes is in question, the value of the credential is in question, the cost is ballooning and the on campus experience is on an uncertain hiatus. If ever there was a time to disrupt higher ed, that time is now.

<comment><USER8> One of the benefits of a college setting would be the gathering together of young intelligent people and exposing them not only to new ideas but how to evaluate, value, and compare ideas for their relative worth. I wonder how much open and free debate of ideas even exists anymore, having given way to the inculcation and indoctrination of "correct ideas." I have long believed that the best way to eradicate racism is to allow racists and anti-racists to have open Lincoln-Douglas style debates on college campuses: allow racists to explain their ideas and positions and the tenability of their position will be exposed for the naked fear and hatred that it is. While not quite as crucial as the previous idea, debates of ideas, languages, operating systems, etc can and should happen as part of a CS curriculum. Regardless of the field we end up in, the need to be able to state one's position and defend it against a counter-proposal is something common to all fields (not just law).

<comment><USER9> The "debate" on racism was lost a long time ago. I would hope it's well understood it's a net negative for society. I don't think debating it over and over again as if there's merit to racist ideas is remotely a good idea.

It's like letting the flat earthers continue to teach science classes even though we know the earth is round.

<comment><USER8> "having a debate" != "teaching a class"

> The "debate" on racism was lost a long time ago.

When is the last time you asked someone who is a strident racist to explain their ideas in the form of a full essay or 30 minute presentation? Have you ever seen this done without the implicit or explicit assertion that the target of their animus is a lesser human or perhaps not human at all? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together -- including and ESPECIALLY impressionable young people raised in racist environments -- can see the absurdity of such an argument. The very act of exposing the ideas to open discussion and forcing the proponent to defend them with logic and reason is what ultimately undoes them. Will some still recalcitrantly cling to such ideas? Sure, but that but by that point it will be clear to anyone paying attention it's not for a reasonable purpose.

<comment><USER10> We have Youtube, and you can go there and watch Bill Buckley make all the same stupid assumptions racists do and have them demolished by James Baldwin.

The problem with modern debates is that they are not honest representations of the subject matter. They are exercises in tactical bullshit, meant to be rapid-fire, points-winning pseudo-arguments instead of constructive, intellectual discussions of the subject matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > as employers embrace new skills-based certifications, many students may > question the value of the traditional four-year degree

Of course employers will embrace skills-based certifications, as they essentially offload the cost of any specialized training to the employee. Until now, it was not uncommon for the employer to pay (directly or indirectly) for the additional training.

But I'm not sure if getting a specialization certification without having a solid background on the topic is a good idea. It will be like the hordes of self-taught plugin programmers that made the Wordpress platform a liability to run.

In the end, the problem is not the value of the four-year university degree. The problem is its price. Pretending that the price can't be lowered, so we have to investigate alternative modes of higher education, is both untruthful and undemocratic.

<comment><USER12> It may well be impossible to walk back what has happened to universities. Large institutions move slowly. There are too many stakeholders. Even when they can change, it's inevitable that forces will resist the change, resulting in half-measures.

So it may well be more expeditious to start over. There are many other models, and if nothing else, whatever success those models have will provide more capacity. That may also draw away students and force them to lower prices.

It still won't be easy. The price rise is driven in part by a mythos about the value of the four-year degree. People will continue to see education in any alternative as "lesser". And it doesn't have to be "lesser". I am a big fan of the work being done at Signum University, which has been working for years to establish an online model that's more than just a MOOC. It's actually closer to what a liberal arts education was supposed to be, the thing that gave four- year universities such prestige for producing well-rounded students. They don't teach computer science; they teach literature. And that means teaching dialogue, discussion, and insight, rather than being a glorified vo-tech school with a bunch of humanities thrown in. I'd love to see CS education move to a place where it taught how to craft software rather than teaching us to be mechanics.

Even when that happens it will be seen as "lesser" for a long time. We use the four-year school as a marker that the student can at least jump through the hoops, speak and write at least marginally competently, and can do the mechanical, testable aspects of the job. It doesn't actually do that very well, but people think it does, and don't believe anything else can.

<comment><USER13> > So it may well be more expeditious to start over. There are many other > models, and if nothing else, whatever success those models have will provide > more capacity. That may also draw away students and force them to lower > prices.

Don't you think the process of starting over is already underway? We've ha alternate training and evaluation methods (certifications, MOOCs, and vocational schools) for a long time. What do you mean by "start over" in this context?

<comment><USER12> What I mean is something that receives more of the cachet of universities. As you say, we've had MOOCs and similar for a long time, but you're still going to have a hard time being employed with just that, especially for the best- paying jobs. They connote somebody who can do mechanical work but without creativity or communications skills.

My suggestion would be to promote those "soft" skills without the overhead of overhead of buildings, a football team, dining halls, etc. You can discuss literature, history, writing, etc. online almost as well as you can do it in person. Those are the things that differentiate a prestigious 4-year degree from a vo-tech or 2-year degree, and it's the prestige that has ultimately driven people's willingness to pay so much for university. (Well, that and some dishonesty and poorly-thought-out policy when it comes to student loans.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looking back on my education 20 years later... obviously the math degree gave me the skill set to take advantage of the opportunities handed to me. (It's how I got back into grad school & out with a PhD in just 4 years; it let me work with Mike Abrash.) but the skills I learned in school that have helped me as a person were from the courses that weren't "certificatable": literary analysis, my beloved history, the philosophy I always hated.

I worry in a certificate-driven education that we'll leave those things behind.

On the other hand, the person I know with the best grasp of history, philosophy, and literary analysis barely graduated from high school and did a 4 year stint in the Navy: apparently, being stuck on a ship for years gives you ample opportunity for self-study. Maybe what we need is just boredom, opportunity, & books, and not more schooling?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, the #1 thing I got out of college was critical thinking. History and philosophy are where I learned that. Would it have come without college? Maybe, and certainly yes for some. I do worry about a learn-one-task education system and what that means for society at large.

<comment><USER16> With the degree attainment rate at only 30% in the US, a share that is similar in many countries around the world, the "learn-one-task education system" is what society at large is already accustomed to.

<comment><USER15> Is this an argument against my concern? I can't tell. I think poor education is a major issue in our (world) society and makes people more vulnerable to things like disinformation which is rampant today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> University right now is a bundle deal.

* You get lectures and assignments.

* You get schedules and deadlines that discourage procrastination, if you're the sort of person who leaves things until the last minute.

* You (hopefully) get detailed feedback on assignments from a real human.

* You get big manicured lawns and marble pillars.

* You get health insurance.

* You get in-person small-group discussions (at least in some subjects) of advanced topics.

* You get a bunch of people of your age and social background, all uprooted from home and looking to make new friends at the same time.

* You get subsidised gyms and sports clubs and interest clubs.

* You get to network and meet people.

* You get buildings full of academics with office hours where you can basically just walk in and they'll explain almost anything to you.

* You get parties full of drunk young people, of all genders, some looking for relationships, others for casual sex.

* You get access to journals and databases and software that usually costs $$$$$ (and computer labs with it all already set up)

* You get a weird 'future middle class' social status where you can drink and party and not get a job and go into debt - yet be treated as someone successful.

* You get a easily understood explanation for that gap in your resume.

* You get internship opportunities - where you can get your foot in the door at big employers, while being paid and taught how they do things.

* You get loans for your living costs, despite having no income or credit history.

* You get access to a library with more (serious, intellectual) books than you could read in a lifetime.

* You get to leave home, but with training wheels if you're not ready to cook and clean and laundry and pay bills all at once.

* You get supply control, from 'weed out classes' and limited numbers of student places.

* You get in-person exams that are at least moderately difficult to cheat on.

* And yes, you (hopefully) get a credential at the end of it. Maybe even with a good 'brand'.

Online courses can certainly deliver lectures at a much lower price than the ruinous cost of US universities. But I think part of the reason the likes of Coursera aren't on their way to replacing conventional colleges is because they're missing so much else from the bundle.

<comment><USER18> Great list. You missed an important one: Being selected for admission to validate your worth.

The entire HS experience (in the US) is formulated around this validation. Simply being chosen is a reward in itself.

<comment><USER19> Yes and no. Yes, getting admitted puts you above the other high school grads. No, it doesn't put you anywhere compared to the college grads. "Admitted to X University" on a resume is a question mark, not an exclamation point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's hard not to be pedantic here. CDs still have their place, and a lot of streaming is terrible; either there are advertisements, or DRM, or fidelity costs, or limited libraries due to licensing problems. etc.

I think the metaphor still goes the same way: the old fashioned way may not be perfect, but there is some real value there that is not necessarily replaced by steaming online courses.

<comment><USER21> All the problems with streaming you mentioned are completely artificial. They are not actual technological problems with streaming.

<comment><USER20> They're not artificial, they're inherent to the business model. So I agree that the limitations I mentioned don't have anything to do with streaming technology, they crop up time and time again because of some of the limitations apparently required by a streaming business model.

And so in that sense I think it remains a useful metaphor. What sort of business models will be profitable when it comes to streaming courses online? Will they always put the student and learning first, or will the viable business model for these impose limitations, or push things in the wrong direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The further in time I am removed from my university years, the more convinced I become that the social interaction was the true root of the experience's value. To quote Stephen Leacock's 1920 take on university life:

"The real thing for the student is the life and environment that surrounds him. All that he really learns he learns, in a sense, by the active operation of his own intellect and not as the passive recipient of lectures. And for this active operation what he needs most is the continued and intimate contact with his fellows. Students must live together and eat together, talk and smoke together. Experience shows that that is how their minds really grow.

[...]

If I were founding a university -- and I say it with all the seriousness of which I am capable, I would found first a smoking room; then when I had a little more money in hand I would found a dormitory, then after that, or more properly with that, a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had money over that I couldn't use, I would hire a professor and get some textbooks."

Source: [https://news.library.mcgill.ca/stephen-leacocks-the-need- for...](https://news.library.mcgill.ca/stephen-leacocks-the-need-for- dormitories-at-mcgill-1920/)

<comment><USER23> Excellent, I would be interested in your university.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > This transition is likely to appear first in technical degree programs, > where it is relatively easy for students to certify their skills online

This is dangerously false. The world isn't software engineering.

Engineering disciplines are in many ways _fundamentally about_ learning to use expensive, special-purpose equipment to design, monitor and control expensive, special-purpose, _reliability-critical_ infrastructure. Sometimes, as in the case of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences (the topic of my undergrad degree), access to this equipment and training is regulated and restricted by the host nation-state.

Perhaps some disciplines (Mechanical, maybe Civil) are democratized enough that something like a Hackerspace membership could complement an online degree program, but for others (Aerospace, NERS, Biomedical) I just don't see how you train people and verify competence without a centralized campus and training equipment.

Also, it may not be a good assumption that Software Engineering will remain as democratized as it does today. Web Development, sure, that's in some sense inherently by-and-for consumer devices. But things like IaaS, Machine Learning, and physics / engineering simulation (this last is what I now the most about) increasingly occur on specialized hardware that's at best inconvenient and at worst impossible to learn on a typical consumer device.

Changes in consumer devices themselves are aso in some sense de-democratizing tech learning. My wife has worked in the higher education space in operations, and still does a lot of UX research there as well, and in her experience the technical competence of students with business-standard tech platforms (mainly e-mail, but also things like spreadsheets and word processing) is regressing, and COVID-19 is exposing how poorly current university infrastructure serves students whose only device is a smart phone (common among students from lower- income backgrounds).

We may have benefitted from a blip in history where a) B2B tech vendors were unusually successful at selling their budget B2B products to consumers and b) the performance requirements of a consumer product segment (i.e. games) drove the hardware innovations underlying a high-growth B2B market (ML on GPGPU)

</comment><comment><USER25> Not the right analogy, but the article is mostly on point--higher education is in the process of being "unbundled".

> I need no convincing of the value of campus life and in-classroom education. > I recognize that online platforms can't perfectly replace what we deliver on > campus. But they can fulfill key pieces of our core mission and reach many > more students, of all ages and economic backgrounds, at a far lower cost.

> Our industry has been so stable for so long that we've conflated our model > with our mission.

The author then rhetorically asks what the mission actually is, and answers with

> As educators, we strive to create opportunities for as many students as > possible to discover and develop their talents, and to use those talents to > make a difference in the world.

which sounds good and all but seems pretty far removed from the sausage that is actually being made on college campuses. I, for one, am looking forward to see what new models arise over the next couple decades and I hope my child has a wider variety of options than I did.

<comment><USER26> Is it even the mission, or has it ever been? Universities aren't so much about identifying and fostering talent as they are about molding the manner in which individuals approach the world, while giving them the tools necessary to navigate and succeed.

And yes, campus life is part of that. It is similar in purpose to Rumspringa: the freshly-minted independent adults are given a taste of freedom in a controlled manner, while surrounded by reminders of the path they are on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I still buy CDs and rip them to MP3s.

They work when cellular data isn't available, they have excellent sound quality, they're easy to organize, and there's no vendor lock-in who's spying on my listening habits.

<comment><USER27> Do you have the option to use something better than MP3?

How's the 'loudness war' going with modern CDs?

<comment><USER26> I previously used FLAC but I like taking my whole library with me. HQ MP3 is good enough for me.

The loudness war is something of a myth. I normalize my audio, so I don't really notice. As for the absence of dynamic range, I don't really care. I don't listen to classical.

<comment><USER28> I don't think the loudness war is a myth: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war)

But it appears to have significantly abated, due to normalization by streaming services and changing opinions of sound engineers over the last decade.

<comment><USER27> > changing opinions of sound engineers over the last decade

Don't sound engineers oppose the loudness war? My understanding is that they'd far rather be doing work they could be proud of, but they get orders to ramp up the volume.

You're right that it absolutely isn't a myth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> University was a chance for me to grow up. I was a young 18. I got to leave home, meet a bunch of people, have some fun. I grew up a lot (kinda, ha) over three years and was ready to work when I was done. I also got a degree (which was far cheaper back then).

The paper degree never really opened any doors for me - meeting people probably did, growing up definitely did. 95% of the work I got/did that followed was because I taught myself PHP (and WML, LOL) for my dissertation project. If I'd knuckled down, I could have learned that in a few weeks without the degree.

With all this in mind, how long before enterprising firms come up with a learn and work option? I'm sure with a bit of thought you could make money off a hundred or smart 18 year olds. Give them a campus environment, free meals and board, some pocket money - then 12 hours (or whatever) of lectures a week, and the rest of the time they actually work for you doing practical things, putting in to practice what they're learning (or just doing a bunch of stuff that immerses them in a real life company). After a year or 18 months, they have something for a CV, contacts, they've got to grow up a bit, real life experience... Plus no student debt etc. I'd guess the company(ies?) involved could also have their pick of the smartest ones. Everyone wins.

</comment><comment><USER30> > Our industry has been so stable for so long that we've conflated our model > with our mission.

This had already become apparent to me long before online education took off. Back when I called up the local university to ask if I could enroll in a few classes, _a la carte_ , in order to flesh out my knowledge of some subjects that my alma mater's program didn't cover. They informed me that those classes were considered advanced, and therefore were only offered to students enrolled in the college's degree program.

In other words, the only way they would let me take those one or two classes would be as part of a package deal for earning a second bachelor's degree, majoring in the same area of study as the one I already had.

The only way I can make sense of a policy like that is if you think of the fundamental model of higher education as being essentially unchanged from what it was in the medieval period: A sort of atomic package that's a rite of passage that gains you access to a certain stratum of society as much as it is an education. Under that model, no, maybe it didn't make sense to take just one class, any more than it makes sense to walk into a jeweler's and ask them to chisel a chunk off of a diamond ring and sell it to you. But, nowadays, that way of thinking about education is deeply anachronistic.

And classist, too. Failing to meet the needs of people who can't afford to just drop everything and become a full-time student with anything more helpful than, "Well, maybe you can dig a 500m deep financial hole, jump into it, and we'll meet you at the bottom," is simply a travesty.

</comment><comment><USER31> Every time I see articles like this I can only assume the writer either majored in CS or in a humanities major that doesn't involve any physical work. If you study any sort of science or engineering you will find that even the simplest equipment used in lab classes cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Cost aside, you simply can not trust an undergrad to run a centrifuge without in-person training.

People also highly over-estimate the cost and speed of self teaching. Personally, I learned more in my introductory Mechanical Engineering courses freshman year than I did in all my attempts at self-teaching. This of course doesn't even include the subjects I did not even know about before. There is an overhead cost per subject to self-teaching, and I've yet to see anyone self-teach themselves the number of subjects that a typical undergrad education involves.

College is also the first time someone finds themselves in the company of enough competent people to, say, do an engineering or CS group assignment that doesn't involve major hand holding.

<comment><USER32> There are also things I learned in CS (BigO notation, building algorithms from scratch, working in groups) that I don't think I would have picked up easily on my own (or know that it was important to learn). But it's still theory I use all the time when I design and build things at scale.

There was a lot I didn't learn in University and that I picked up while working, because I kept my skills up.

I know people who graduated from University who only knew Java and never did anything outside of the curriculum. I know other students who played with hardware, hooked up sensors, did assignments in different languages each semester (if the professor allowed it) and went out of their way to learn as much as they could.

You get out of any education what you put into it.

I do think in-person education is really important though, even in things like Comp Sci. I do think it should be affordable. I went to a small school in a small town and IIRC, my tuition was <$3k per semester (not including books, food and housing of course). It was the early 2000s and I had roommates who worked grocery stores and print shops, and were able to either pay for school with those jobs or pay off their loans within a year or so.

During that same time, I met people from other schools with $20k in debt (and that's considered very low today!).

No education should cost $100k. That's truly insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

And that is a good thing! A great deal of the most interesting music is not available on streaming. Thanks to CDs (and the people who pirate them) we can still have access to unique recordings.

</comment><comment><USER34> Top universities can still keep their most valuable asset: a piece of paper with their name on it, scarce. They likely will and be fine. Those degrees will still open many doors.

The lower tier universities that charged tens of thousands of dollars to offer a minor leg up for your resume among the pile of resumes when applying for a job though are in big trouble. Ultimately colleges will more clearly shift their value proposition from "here is where you learn key material" to "here is where you learn to be an adult" and survive I think. Most kids out of high school are idiots and need some sort of structure to latch onto as they leave adolescence / the nest.

</comment><comment><USER8> How much of a role do the certification bodies (the groups who decide who can grant a bachelor's degree) play the cost of college tuition? I'm a big fan of the classical quadrivium, trivium, and Great Books model of education; why couldn't one complete all of the studies at home, spend six to twelve months in an intensive course of examination and debate to validate the level of education (which could be done online) and receive a bachelor of arts in "the humanities" (or bachelor of letters or whatever one wants to call it)? I think we would have a much more powerful crop of critical and logical thinkers if education were handled thus.

</comment><comment><USER35> Universities will survive. They do change. Originally U's didn't pay profs, but only gave them a stage to recruit students to tutor. Their money was made from tutoring. Many kids in U's were 14 or 15 years old until the 18th century. Tests, standardized tests, and multiple choice tests didn't always exists.

This might be a low point, but in 50 years I see them having great power. Democracy will once again shift from geographical ridings to a 'guild system'. For example there might be a senate seat that can only be held by a licensed doctor, and only licensed doctors can vote for who will be in that seat.

</comment><comment><USER36> Societies tend to see the most progress when a greater number of people gather together. While we may find a way to accomplish that through online instruction, our current attempts to do so have been spotty at best.

One of the reasons brought up for online education is likely one of the things that hinders it: the idea of being able to study where ever and whenever you want. As liberating as that may sound, it keeps people apart in both space and time. Granted, social factors probably play a greater role. For some reason, people don't seem to form the same types of connections with each other in the digital world.

</comment><comment><USER37> Students at elite schools do NOT attend "to learn facts." Most such students are smart enough to learn anything they want to learn on their own.

Elite universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, etc. are attended mainly (a) to interact socially with and learn in-person from other individuals who are smarter, more talented, more knowledgeable, and/or more connected in diverse ways, (b) to join a kind of 'exclusive networking club' with lifetime membership benefits, (c) to learn the rituals and norms of this club, and (d) to get a credential that also confers lifetime benefits.

</comment><comment><USER38> In this analogy, here's the vintage vinyl version (for those who can understand French): the College de France, free since 1530. Adding some irony to the metaphor, their courses are available online via streaming.

[https://www.college-de-france.fr](https://www.college-de-france.fr)

No they don't give out degrees but it's one option among many of open knowledge sharing.

</comment><comment> non-entity I've done a good bit of research into online programs and there seems to be, with a few exceptions, online CS programs and online Liberal Arts programs. Of those the only "useful" degree is CS and the quality of the programs vary greatly.

For the most part this makes sense, a lot of cool or useful degrees arent really possible to deliver a quality program online because of expensive equipment for labs that arent available to consumers (be that for price or other reasons).

On an interesting note, I'm disappointed there arent more math programs. It's a moderately useful degree with wide applicability and doesnt have much of the way of physical constraints. The only issues I can imagine are ones that are common to online degrees in general. Yet only a few school have one.

> Indeed, that unbundling is already happening. Employers such as Google, > Apple, IBM, and Ernst & Young have stopped requiring traditional university > degrees, even for some of their most highly skilled positions

So... developers and tangential professions right? Self taught developers and those with non-traditional educations are hardly new. I doubt these companies are willing to waive for many "highly skilled positions".

I think I read some time ago about Elon Musk claiming he was removing degree requirements from job listings[0] and yet if I search for engineering positions at Telsa many require a masters degree in an engineering discipline. Everytime i hear something about how usless degrees are and how much better other options are, I assume they dont know anything about the world outside software.

[0] [https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-college-not-for- le...](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-college-not-for-learning-not- required-at-tesla-2020-3)

</comment><comment><USER39> Cynically speaking, the purpose of University has always been to connect very rich people with very talented people. In this way the elite can fertilize each new generation with fresh blood carefully selected from the masses. This is good for the very rich, as they know they need talent to remain at the top, and is also good for the very talented, as it gives them a path to that top.

Unfortunately, opening higher education to a much greater proportion of the population (50% in the UK?) has somewhat torpedoed this mechanism. The rich will become more stupid, and the talented will find less opportunity to establish themselves.

</comment><comment><USER40> For some programs, like Georgia Tech's OMSCS, online students in given courses are known to do better on written exams then the in-person class[1] This could have a lot to do with demographics: online students have a harder survivorship curve to contend with, already have employment, and face little reason to continue with the program if they are discouraged or stuggling. None the less, it's an interesting data point!

[1] [https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2876034.2893383](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2876034.2893383)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is a pretty bad take. The article doesn't consider the numerous disciplines like chemistry, biology or physics for which often expensive physical resources, equipment and facilities are a necessity — really any course of study with a significant amount of time spent in a laboratory.

Call me paranoid, but I am very suspicious of the voices pushing for all- digital education. Of the students whom I know, none want this. It's not what they signed up for, and many feel shortchanged by their universities continuing to charge them full price for a subpar learning experience post- COVID.

<comment><USER42> > It's not what they signed up for, and many feel shortchanged by their > universities continuing to charge them tuition fees for a subpar learning > experience post-COVID.

As soon as they convince employers that a digital education is a reasonable substitute for in person classes, the traditional university will be over.

Why would you put yourself into $100k worth of debt for a piece of paper when you can get the same piece of paper from a pure online university for a fraction of the cost.

<comment><USER41> What the students I've talked to are saying is, "why put ourselves into $100k worth of debt for online-only classes?" If they're supposed to be doing lab work, why pay any money at all for a class without it? Tuition prices are unchanged even though higher education has temporarily transitioned to remote- only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The best thing that college did for me is get me out from under my parents roof and their influence. College gave me a chance to develop my own beliefs and ideas by being surrounded by people from many different places.

College changed me, by forcing me to be surrounded by different thoughts and feelings of people that I normally wouldn't have come into contact with in my home town.

In the few short years I was in college I went from a religious staunch conservative to an atheist liberal. This would have never happened to me had I stayed in my home.

</comment><comment><USER44> One very dangerous thing about university I notice is that it encourage age discrimination. And that propagate to the industry hiring. Very few people with family will choose to go to university full time, and hence can't further their knowledge. Also discrimination is so rampant that even online degree is not given same weight as the classroom even though the classes are exactly same (for example stanford SCPD). So definitely we need a movement to stop this discrimination and kill this so called universities.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd never gladly give up all of the things about college that had nothing to do with coursework. Yes, over the years the discipline, fluidity and acumen required and acquired from mentors was invaluable. But that was maybe one- third of the value.

To describe the rest? let's say: the concentration of similarly-oriented students and the time to explore and grow in an intense and stimulating environment. But - then - college was _a lot_ less expensive.

</comment><comment><USER46> If I needed inspiration for a new online educational program I'd look to video games to see what's going on.

Take Rocket League for example. This is a game that's incredibly simple to get started: you drive a car and hit a ball. But to master advanced techniques, like dribbling in the air as a literal rocket, it takes hundreds to thousands of hours of practice.

To practice in a consequence-free environment there are standard and community-created training packs. To gain skills relative to your peers there's a matching engine to create "fair online games". To compete openly, there are ranked matches with precise criteria for getting into and falling out of a rank.

Furthermore, the community is incredibly supportive of questions, show-and- tell streams, and is light-hearted enough to create their own memes. There are even tutors who will review your games play-by-play with you to fix your game sense.

There's so much good stuff here to pick apart on how to build good programs that are safe, inspiring, and lead to real skill progress for the participants. The university does a lot of it naturally but from what I've seen from Rocket League, you should be able to push a lot of those benefits into online formats.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think vocational education could have been better conveyed online, but with perfect pre-recording and editing. Coursera and Edx are a good example for a forerunner though.

As a college student myself, this year, this semester is the worst for me -- I felt really lazy without any faith to keep me going, that with face-to-face activity I feel like I'm motivated to engage. But I hope this semester really is the exception.

<comment><USER48> > As a college student myself, this year, this semester is the worst for me -- > I felt really lazy without any faith to keep me going, that with face-to- > face activity I feel like I'm motivated to engage.

The in-person energy of a University environment isn't given enough credit in these discussions about the relevance of Universities in modern times.

Physically going into a building dedicated to education and sitting among peers who are also there to learn is a strong motivator for learning. The social cues of seeing your peers pay attention helps align everyone toward learning. Being among your peers is a good reminder that taking the education seriously is important for remaining competitive in the workforce after graduation.

Contrast that with online courses, where students utilize the same device they use for gaming, social media, and browsing the internet to also view remote lectures. No one will notice if you're chatting with your friends during the course, or browsing Reddit the whole time, or if you have the TV on in the background. Sure, some people are good at sitting down, focusing, and paying attention, but many others struggle without the context shifts, social cues, and social pressure of a traditional learning environment.

HN has been having heated conversations about how self-teaching and free online courses are going to replace expensive universities for as long as I can remember. Yet in all of my experience interviewing candidates with an extra emphasis on giving self-taught and non-traditional applicants extra attention, I've never seen any self-taught candidates who come close to their University educated peers. I'm sure there are great self-taught people out there, but on average it appears that a real, in-person University education really does something extra to prepare people.

I think there are a lot of intangible or hard to pinpoint aspects of a University education that won't be replaced any time soon by pure online courses.

<comment><USER47> Yes. For online learning, distraction that is easy to reach is a problem.

We can further generalize it to remote working, which surprisingly drew a same parallelism as you described for school/workplace.

> I think there are a lot of intangible or hard to pinpoint aspects of a > University education that won't be replaced any time soon by pure online > courses.

I had mixed view on this. I think this is about the matter of authenticity, that whatever you read, taught and trained in school should be reliable, consistent & correct (doesn't mean it is the most up to date, however). It also served as a (referential) benchmark of your most of your skills.

However, at the end of the day this is a matter of the ebb and flow of information -- You see that there are some people that can succeed with limited public information on LeetCode, Codeforces etc., they are truly successful and competitive, but most people also get preference for the background of their school, e.g. CMU, MIT, that they are offered more confidential information (like what type of algorithm question would Microsoft/Google present to you?), more trainings (better understanding/explanation of materials), more networks (alumni), etc. to begin with.

If all of these information and assets are open to public and easily accessible, universities, or perhaps every centralized education facilities will truly met its demise -- their business advantages and potentials are almost totally zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I think the title is clickbaity. As mentioned in the article there is more to University than just classes, there is the social aspect of campus life etc. So it's not like the Uni is getting obsolete because of online learning platforms.

That being said I think there is indeed a big potential to offer quality content at a reduce cost, and make knowledge accessible to more people, especially in countries where access to university is extremely costly, hence access to education not equitable.

Having social, human one to one interaction with professors like Deleuze, Grothendieck, who, in example, where both teaching in French Uni, is not quite the same as watching a video online. So I'd say Uni is the color dolby surround cinema experience, online learning is the black & white TV at home.

</comment><comment><USER50> The value of that $75k/year was never from the classes themselves but from the social proof, networking, and opportunity to live among other like minded young people at similar stages of their lives (and exposure to different people/ideas through that). The classes themselves are essentially commodities. A lot of highly ranked universities don't even have great teachers for many of their classes.

Universities that derive much of their value for being a proxy for some combination of intelligence/privilege can keep their value going into the future because they'll likely remain just as selective if not more so over time. It's the not-particularly-selective, small private colleges and universities which have their business model under threat, IMO

</comment><comment><USER51> For those like me drawn in by the bad headline, FYI the article itself uses the obviously more correct analogy of live entertainment in the streaming age. (TBH I didn't read it, just skimmed to see if they were really going to use only the bad analogy)

</comment><comment><USER52> American higher education discussion is usually misplaced because it's a middle class jobs discussion with extra steps.

create the factory jobs which don't need a degree and many people will be happier and colleges will no longer be a part of a non-normally distributed outcomes market.

People learn in a variety of ways, and the abysmal completion rates from MOOCs clearly indicate that IT enables education does not solve the problem which causes the symptoms.

Gamification, intervention, multiple steps to keep completion rates up still Result in large drop out rates.

Online education will only work for a few people, and will fail far short of its promise for everyone else.

<comment><USER53> I always expected the drop out rates for MOOCs to be high. The cost of entry is low.

If you look at organisations like the Open University it's a different picture. People have to put their hand in their wallets and that seems to be enough to fix the problem.

<comment><USER52> that underscores how our assumptions and solutions don't make sense - free, quality education avaiLable at any time? That was the holy grail which we thought we had achieved when Salman khan'S videos started getting shared.

Instead we have to concoct filters and tools to get a ~12-13% average completion rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I heard a great thought experiment once: would you rather have a stanford degree without the education, or a stanford education without the degree?

20+ years of experience have taught me that anything but the first choice is utterly insane.

</comment><comment><USER55> I like the distinction between a university and an institution focusing on practical higher education (German "Fachhochschule" seems to convey the concept). This should not be about difficulty and prestige, but one's mindset and what they want to do in life.

Research-oriented higher education is not likely to become obsolete, and neither is applied practical education. What can (and, arguably, should) go away is expecting an institution originally intended for the former to provide the latter.

Unfortunately, in many countries universities have grown to become the default option, any other path is considered inferior.

<comment><USER56> _> I like the distinction between a university and an institution focusing on practical higher education_

The USA already has Fachhochschule. See: any non-phd-granting regional branch campus of the state's university system. Places like [https://www.ucmo.edu/](https://www.ucmo.edu/).

The problem is that we don't admit that our Fachhochschules are Fachhochschules, and students at our Fachhochschules therefore often don't understand that they are at a Fachhochschule. People in the US talk about university as if it's one monolith, when in fact we have at least three _very_ different types of universities with _very_ different purposes: elite finishing schools (top-tier LACs and the Ivy League), universities (state flagships and large R1 privates), and applied universities (low-tier LACs and state branch campuses). And then students make dumb choices because all of those universities offer the same educational programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I sometimes miss putting on a CD and listening to the whole thing. Not every album is good for that, of course. And I can do that just as easily with any media player. Something about the physical media made me more likely to listen to the whole album, though.

I was a student in a Physics class in the mid-nineties that used connected HP calculators to periodically survey the class to get a quick handle on everybody's understanding of the material. I was a student in another class where the lectures were recorded, and once in a while if the professor was out of town, a TA would roll in a VCR cart, and we'd watch the lecture. It was interesting to watch new technology get adopted with very different approaches and outcomes.

Now we have K-12 classrooms using iClicker and there are open source solutions like [https://github.com/qlicker/qlicker](https://github.com/qlicker/qlicker). This, to me, is one of the better potential uses of technology: helping educational professionals customize curriculum and pace.

We recently moved to a school district where there has been an investment in developing curriculum. It has been a learning experience for me as a parent to see how this can widen the subjects a student can cover, and the depth they can go into. It's not obvious, nor is it easily measurable, so I fear it is an easy target during budget discussions. Examples include units on it being ok to fail/take risks (I forget if this was 2nd or 3rd grade), using the bee bot ([https://www.robot-advance.com/EN/actualite-beebot- educationa...](https://www.robot-advance.com/EN/actualite-beebot-educational- robot-from-nursery-school-112.htm)) to teach teamwork and problem solving at a young age, and using Google Slides to create presentations about subjects like the weather.

As a parent of a 3rd grader and 6th grader, I see the differences between the educational approaches for the different ages, how people learn, etc. I'm in agreement with the author of the article that I'm looking forward to see how technology is integrated in such a way that it accelerates/improves education, without removing some of the intangible benefits of collaboration, etc.

</comment><comment><USER58> Like many things in life, this isn't a black and white issue. Higher education isn't for everyone, some people benefit greatly, for others it is a waste of time and money. It shouldn't be a requirement for moving up in life but one of the options. There should be different paths for acquiring the skills required to advance in life. For some it should be university level higher education programs, for others it should be vocational schools and apprenticeships, etc.

</comment><comment><USER43> While there is no argument that lectures can be done online. There is so much more than lectures at campus.

One thing that isn't mentioned is Labs.

People aren't going to be doing organic chemistry in their bathroom, nor are they going to be firing clay pots in their ovens.

I know I wouldn't have had access to all of these things from home.

</comment><comment><USER59> Serendipitous meeting of minds in the common room / rose garden / library cafe / lab / river bank / Kings Arms / The Mill / student bar.

If you have no idea what this feels like, go back to your old University town and try to dip back in, COVID notwithstanding.

</comment><comment><USER60> Is that an editorialized title? The title on hackernews doesn't convey at all what the article's title and subtitle do:

> Are Universities Going the Way of CDs and Cable TV?

> Like the entertainment industry, colleges will need to embrace digital > services in order to survive.

Completely different meaning.

</comment><comment><USER61> Yes, but like a CD I can get a very high quality experience at a university in person. Like streaming I can get a weak, self driven experience remotely. I guess a CD can still be real low quality recordings too but I was fortunate to enjoy being at university.

</comment><comment><USER62> In that the people producing the content-- adjunct instructors and grad students-- don't get paid much, but they get paid a helluva lot more than they'll get in whatever hairbrained disruption scheme Silicon Valley comes up with for the university?

</comment><comment><USER63> College is a huge scam imo. Paying thousands of dollars for a class on calculus that has 100 plus people in it is robbery. You can easily get that knowledge online for free. The only reason to go is for the piece of paper.

<comment><USER64> In many countries (except US) such course would be free or quite affordable. It's just a matter of policy.

<comment><USER63> You make a good point. I should have clarified that college in the US is scammy. In other countries with reasonable tuition it is quite a good deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Obviously right?

I mean look at the state of universities today: Around the globe every semester a professor is standing in front of a class, presenting material and they will do this again and again.

Every professor is doing it a little bit different but the main message is the same. In Math its probably even closer between universities while history or social studies might be further appart.

Where is our central / global learning platform? Which tracks all progress? Allows you to chose what professor explains to you certain topics? Tools to support you, nugget of wisdom explaining to you certain small parts of the lecture?

YouTube explained to me a few concepts i just didn't get while listing to the professor.

This is ridiculous!

Try to find lectures for free online which are above 101 curses. The video quality is shit, no exercises nothing.

<comment><USER66> How would you scale assessment of exercises further than eg. coursera already does?

<comment><USER65> Coursera is not the central learning platform, its a course platform.

You don't log in to see your learning graph which will give you the CS Bachelors Degree. You need to choose a course which will give you a CS Bachelors Degree.

Imagine you log into Coursera and you want to have a comparable Degree. You would choose courses to learn 'nodes' of your learning graph. But you could choose which one. You could learn the security topic from a course from someone from harvard and you could learn security topic from someone in germany.

You choose your language, you choose your medium. Might be that a lot of text + 1-2 explain videos help you more then a 2h lecture.

Might be that you can choose between implementing a program or do a presentation.

It might even be required for you to listen to a presentation from other students. Or create your own small programming tasks for others.

This could become the best curated/crowd created biggest collection of educational material in the world.

<comment><USER67> I think your sentiment is great overall and I agree with it in essence. But realistically, there are way more obstacles to something like this than just creating a platform, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Especially when you mentioned above, "why not start when you're a baby" which I think you meant start at a young age. kinder-gardens, preschools, schools, are not only used as a place for education, unfortunately. Parents NEED their kids to be in someone else's care for a good part of the day. The current pandemic has made that even clearer if it already wasn't.

Additionally, the sheer number of people that need education is not only enormous, it's growing. Not only that, we are all different, with different needs. Some don't have computers, some don't have internet, or paper, or pens, or food. Some won't be able to learn how to read from home or learn math. Some are deaf or blind.

Again, that's all before getting to higher education. Universities, despite their bad record and resistance to change, are a place where a lot of research happens. I'm not talking only about the US. Let's forget about the US for a second since the scope of your comment goes beyond that. We are talking about identifying, recording, and distributing courses from professors from around the globe. How do you decide who's good enough? How to decide who's getting paid and who's not? Most Universities and Colleges have more than one professor per subject area.

Again, I agree with the sentiment but I wanted to share a larger perspective because I thought your comment was interesting and worth discussing.

<comment><USER65> I thought about this as well and the benefit of such a platform would be that depending on what your role is, the platform can do different things for you:

\- You are a teacher -> you can make sure you teach related stuff like the rest of the world. You can share and exchange learning material, you can track your students \- You are a parent -> you don't need it often but you might need to see early if your kid is struggling or you wanna have some extra material for your kid to exercise with \- You are in a government position -> you can use it to get your curriculum \- You are an help organization and you need stuff to print out for some remote village without internet

I'm not saying that i have fixed/analysed all issues coming from it but i do see a huge benefit if we as a society centralize it more then what it is right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Check out Kettering university. Top rated engineering school in Michigan. You're required to have 2 years of engineering co-op experience before you can graduate.

</comment><comment><USER69> Until you can stream touch, smell, taste, vision and sound in a way that can pass the turing test, streaming is a cave painting if the university is a CD.

</comment><comment><USER70> I don't think they are like CDs. You interact with lots of people on campus, you have lots of laboratory classes, and much more.

</comment><comment><USER71> I am wondering if contributing to a 529 plan still makes sense given where things are going.

</comment><comment><USER72> It has always seemed a crazy disconnect to me that so many in academia will endlessly complain about the expectation that what they teach prepare their students to obtain a high-paying job while happily cashing the checks and asking for more.

<comment><USER73> I have found that academics often find their dependence on students embarrassing, and the idea of earning befuddling.

The university is a kind of "eternal adolescence" which promised to provide dysfunctional high-IQs without the trappings of such obligations.

With the marketization of education, academics find themselves obligated to their students (how undignified!) and for the first time needing to justify their worth (how are they meant to do that?!).

These are, of course, things that everyone else has been doing for the past two centuries -- now, finally, The University is getting a shock to its system.

I was a person who, for the longest time, associated such pseduo-Nobel attitudes with "being educated". Now, I think the whole place is infatalizing and infantalized.

It is a very bad place for one's ideological health: it inculcates a kind of outrage that any one should be obligated to do anything; a stort of pathological Utopianism artificially sustained by state funding.

I think it's a large part of where extreme student activism comes from: a kind of rage that the circumstances of our life are constrained _at all_. Shouldn't there just be infinite money and infinite time? Shouldn't the whole world just be a campus?

<comment><USER56> IDK what university you're talking about.

When I was a PhD student, I worked 60 to 80 hour weeks doing research and teaching. My advisor brought in _much_ more grant money than was spent on our lab equipment/salaries (and worked even hard than we did!) Our lab ran a (pretty healthy) profit, even before considering tuition and patent royalties.

I spent some time teaching. Again, 60 hour weeks and _all_ of my advisees landed six figure jobs after graduating.

To the extent that the sort of institution you describe exists (low accountability), those professors are probably making less than the high school teachers in the same town. For example, an assistant professor at UCMO makes $50K-$60K; a high school teacher with several years of experience and a phd in Missouri makes closer to $70K-$80K (and with a much better pension): [https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=UNIVERSITY+OF+CENTRAL+MISS...](https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=UNIVERSITY+OF+CENTRAL+MISSOURI) And in terms of time/effort, the two jobs are pretty comparable.

The well-paid lazy professor doesn't really exist anymore, at least in STEM. Professors are either well-paid researchers expected to bring in substantial grant money (which is a hard job with long hours), or they are relatively poorly paid teachers.

<comment><USER73> humanities departments.

Most science and engineering depts have been doing research justification, financing, hiring from industry, etc. for awhile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Remains available when the Internet goes out ?

</comment><comment><USER75> I just wanted to say: Derek Banas

</comment><comment><USER76> The article doesn't mention the political radicalization students are subjected to at university. Having attended a decent school for two years after the military, I never in my life saw such extremism concentrated in one place.

I believe that radicalization combined with the psychological effects of the lockdown is at least partially responsible for the social unrest we're seeing today.

And now that I have my own children, I hope there are viable alternatives by the time they turn 18.

</comment><comment><USER77> A good question! Just like the CD is just a vehicle for music delivery, the university format is a dated system for delivering advanced education.</comment>


Twittad Let Your Ad Meet Tweets - <AUTHOR> https://www.twittad.com/index.php?task=affiliateHome <comment><USER2> Yet another attempt by people outside of twitter to monetize twitter.</comment>


UK Prime Minister asked for permanent police anti-piracy unit funding - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/uk-prime-minister-asked-for-permanent-police-anti-piracy-unit-funding-140414/

<comment><USER2> It's about time someone got serious about Somalians disrupting international shipping...</comment>


35C3: Safe and Secure Drivers in High-Level Languages - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2018/12/31/35c3-safe-and-secure-drivers-in-high-level-languages/ <comment><USER2> Isn't this a duplicate? Possibly of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788069](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788069)

<comment><USER3> Yes indeed. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley's LSD habit is exploding, leads to how-to tutorials over Skype - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/A-startup-founder-is-teaching-people-how-to-12249871.php#item-39786 <comment><USER2> May as well be magnetic bracelets or one of a hundred other trendy bullshit that has come and gone. Oh, except the micro-dosing trend is highly illegal and puts users at risk of brain damage.</comment>


IBM looks to sell its x86 server business to Lenovo as profits crash - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/ibm-looks-to-sell-its-x86-server-business-to-lenovo-as-profits-crash/ <comment><USER4> Makes sense. In the era of cloud services IBM's traditional targets are going to be buying far fewer servers. And you know Amazon and Rackspace aren't buying IBM hardware. Name-brand computers are a shrinking business. This is true across all markets. Even Apple's share is shrinking (as it continues printing money with the devices it's selling, of course)

<comment><USER5> I would not be surprised to learn that the US Government is the largest single purchaser of IBM hardware, directly or indirectly. Most projects I am familiar with that use COTS machines for processing are using IBM boxes. A significant number of those were x86 though, which leads me to believe that market isn't enough for IBM. Of course, they were pushing POWER really hard when I left that world.

<comment><USER6> Government and schools, mostly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was bound to happen once servers all standardized on one architecture. Not that standardization isn't a good thing, it just became a race to the bottom just like the desktop market.

<comment><USER8> I'm kind of surprised, actually. There are still plenty of ways to differentiate your product in the server space, particularly when it comes to high availability. My company (Probably in the top 20 in the US in terms of revenue) pays outrageous amounts of money for servers because that's what it costs to fill your data center with DC powered high availability hardware.

I don't think we ever buy from IBM, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While from a business standpoint, this is perfectly viable and a smart move on IBM's part, in the long-term, seeing how Lenovo has ruined the Think brand, I would be wary of spinning off any more operations to Lenovo.

They just don't have clear product focus, but in this world, I guess shareholders rule. Even if those shareholders don't act in the best interest of the company.

<comment><USER10> >seeing how Lenovo has ruined the Think brand

Did they really?

<comment><USER9> [http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/t-series/t...](http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/t-series/t431s/)

<comment><USER11> This actually looks like a great laptop, could some point out what's wrong with it? The screen isn't too big and it has a nice resolution, which isn't easy to find.

<comment><USER9> First of all, there's no seventh row on the keyboard. Second, the Trackpoint buttons are gone. Third, the Thinklight has been replaced with a backlit keyboard, which is egregious as the Thinklight allowed one to illuminate documents or other materials as well as the keyboard.

It's just like any other laptop now. And when you're used to 1440x900 (I'm on a MacBook Air) 160 horizontal pixels is really worthless and screws up the proportions. What ThinkPad users want, and have wanted for ages is a 16:10 display, excellent engineering, and the TrackPoint front and center.

Lenovo is squandering all of the above.

<comment><USER11> Thank you for your reply.

I've had two Thinkpads in the past (A21 and A31) before I switched to a Macbook Pro. I don't remember the thinklight being very useful, but that may just be me. Not sure how well the trackpad works as a mouse button.

It's a shame 16:10 has not been adopted by more laptop manufactures, it's a great resolution. Even 4:3 may be ready for a comeback, I'd really like to see a Chromebook in action, although I would prefer to run a more traditional Linux operating system on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's interesting to see ads for this very IBM server product in the sidebar of this article.

<comment><USER6> It's just from scanning for keywords. Nothing to see here...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article quotes an analyst at the end: " _IBM's troubles are indicative of bad news for the whole technology business_ ".

A terribly poor & overreaching conclusion. It's an odd quote to single out in your conclusion too. The x86 server market is actually growing. What's down is IBM's share of that _and_ more importantly the margin they're able to extract.

What is happening is that it's getting so big that it's increasingly commoditized. People are still buying hardware.

IBM is the biggest player in the x86 server market, but their share and margin is in decline. They still make great margins & growth on z-series.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes, makes sense. 1\. X86 server is now commoditised. 2\. In the long run, with cloud computing, there will be less demand for brand servers in general.

</comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps they want to sell the x86 business and focus on the emerging ARM/alternative architecture business. I wonder what sort of non-compete the deal would include.

<comment><USER16> Being that IBM's POWER architecture is also a RISC architecture I would expect them to rally behind that, if anything. I've heard that POWER's performance had improved dramatically recently, so it would not surprise me if they were trying to push POWER.

edit: Yes, I did mean 'rally' - thank you.

<comment><USER17> I think you meant "rally".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.lenovo.com/ww/lenovo/pdf/announcement/E_099220130...](http://www.lenovo.com/ww/lenovo/pdf/announcement/E_099220130419.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> So, are they still selling POWER/PowerPC servers? Would this product line be affected?

<comment><USER19> I don't think they would as most of the Power stuff is linked to AIX licenses and is fairly "unique".

The offload of the x-series business is most likely due to the fact that IBM can't compete on price with the volumes which HP & Dell shift. IBM have no real USP on X86 as enterprise are now mostly putting ESX, Xen or Openstack on them, IBM have no potential license or service fees generation.

It seems a sound business decision to me.

<comment><USER20> "We don't need the low end. Let them have it."

Didn't the american car companies take that route too? And steel mills. and... mainframes I think.

<comment><USER21> It doesn't make it a stupid decision. Levano can already take the low end (or Asus will). IBM sells their low-end while it's still worth something, rather than fighting a losing battle.

<comment><USER20> Then lenovo puts in a few coins into R&D and takes the market slightly up from the low end. Which IBM gladly gives away because the margins aren't high enough...

Then Lenovo puts a few more coins into R&D and takes the midrange. Which IBM gladly gives up because the margins aren't high enough...

This has happened more than a few times across several industries - <USER2> cars, Japanese electronics, mainframe/mini/microcomputers, etc.

EDIT: Also see apricot computer. Which did the /exact/ same thing - <USER3> the production of it's "commodity" computers, losing its special sauce, and lucrative service contracts. It was gone in a flash. Sir John Harvey-Jones even did an episode of the UK show "the troubleshooter" on them. It's a sure way to make a quick buck this quarter, but horrible long term.

<comment><USER21> IBM does a little to enhance their x86 line, but I don't think it's of any great value to many customers.

If they were making a lot of revenue (not even profits!) off their value- adding, and this value-adding could be applied to their top-end stuff (thus amortised across a larger base), it would make sense.

I'm not an expert in IBM servers, but I don't think they are getting a lot of revenue at the bottom-end as a result of their bells and whistles, and it's probably not that easy to transfer those enhancements to their top-end servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how it will affect IBM EXA.</comment>


Ising-APL - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20180315230107/https://www.lozeve.com/post/ising-apl/ <comment><USER2> Original link was [https://www.lozeve.com/post/ising- apl/](https://www.lozeve.com/post/ising-apl/), but it's down, so we replaced it with an IA one that still works.</comment>


Handy, a hot startup for home cleaning, has a big mess of its own - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/07/handy_a_hot_startup_for_home_cleaning_has_a_big_mess_of_its_own.single.html <comment><USER2> This blog post from a job seeker matches the experiences listed in the article well: [http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for- the-s...](http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-service- economy-startup-from-hell/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great article outlining how disconnected the startup culture is from real life and empathy towards its employees and contractors. If this is the direction these startups are going, it will be no surprise that they will all shut down soon. Same fate as Homejoy.</comment>


BitTorrent Still Dominates Internet's Upstream Traffic - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-still-dominates-internets-upstream-traffic-151208/ <comment><USER2> The comparison is confusing... "Netflix", "Google Cloud", "HTTP", "SSL = OTHER". Aren't Netflix and Google cloud using http and https?

Also, no mention of video chat. I believe google hangout, zoom.us, appear.in etc... work in peer to peer fashion when conferencing one on one, which is probably more difficult to measure, but I'm sure are significant contributor towards upstream usage.

This is really important because the upstream bandwidth offered by ISPs right now is ridiculous, and if the perception is that only "pirate" using BitTorrent use upstream, it's not going to get better any time soon.

<comment><USER3> > This is really important because the upstream bandwidth offered by ISPs > right now is ridiculous

I see it as an indication that the current internet infrastructure is geared towards delivering content from a centralized instance rather than peer-to- peer services such as video chat, content sharing, streaming etc. Many consumer ISPs explicitly forbid serving content. It's a pity since some applications would benefit from symmetric lines. However, if everybody would be running their own home server we'd require a level of competence that's just not there in the general population - and probably never will since not everybody can be an IT expert. (just like I tend to rely on medical professionals if I need to).

In that respect, I find the notion of "X dominates the upstream" when X is one of the few applications where people currently use upstream on a constant basis pretty useless and unsurprising.

<comment><USER4> _However, if everybody would be running their own home server we 'd require a level of competence that's just not there in the general population_

No, we'd just have to redesign the server software to stop assuming the operator has a high level of competence - just like Bittorrent servers already don't, in fact.

<comment><USER3> The competence is required to maintain the basic OS. Computers are highly complicated things. I'd bet that sufficient machines get attacked via BT clients. I'm skeptical we'll get to the point where any appliance that is at least moderately complicated will reach the state where it won't have the occasional security issue to which the user must respond. We might get to a point where that's getting better, but I'm afraid we're still far far far out.

<comment><USER5> Attacks via bittorent clients, legitimate clients from legitimate sources, are extremely rare. Torrent clients only perform a handful of tasks, a very limited profile for threats.

Oldschool P2p (ie Kazza and bearshare-style sharing schemes) are a different story, although even they are rarely attacked successfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How was this measured? From my perspective, from knowing and chatting with semi-professional sharers daily, most bitorrrent traffic is encrypted. Torrent clients can all encrypt and are generally set to use only encrypted connections. And serious sharers have switched to VPNs en mass. So how was all this bittorrent traffic identified?

Fyi, there are some tricks for overcoming bittorent encryption. I've used them to identify what was is shared across private networks (schools) but the techniques involve some trickery that is probably illegal on the public internet.

<comment><USER6> My guess: metadata. Any outgoing packets to IPs that don't reverse resolve to a non-ISP with high source and destination ports could be BT. Add a flow-based heuristic and measure packet entropy and maybe you can be quite accurate.

<comment><USER7> That's basically how you do it. Torrent packets have a certain "signature" (you can usually even determine the client from this, even if all traffic is encrypted). That, and torrent traffic is pretty leaky... even if _you_ are encrypting, not all of your peers are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "While BitTorrent has many legitimate uses most data is transferred by pirated files." \- is this just an assumption, or is there actual data to back this up? Seems like it may not be the easiest thing to track (especially with a lot of people trying to claim all torrent traffic as piracy).

<comment><USER9> Let's face it, 99% of torrent is copyrighted material. It's no secret.

<comment><USER10> Is World of Warcraft still using Bittorrent?

<comment><USER11> Not sure if Blizzard still does, but even Windows 10 does peer to peer updating now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How is Netflix second in upstream traffic, at 6.78%? What are users sending to Netflix besides an occasional request for more data and maybe some telemetry?

<comment><USER10> I guess it's not only counting users but also Netflix' servers sending their streams to users all around the world.

<comment><USER13> Then, shouldn't the up and down stream be symmetric?

<comment><USER10> Maybe not if North Americans are uploading more then downloading ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm skeptical of these figures. Nearly all BitTorrent traffic is encrypted and is indistinguishable from HTTPS/SSL traffic. How do they know that a host sending encrypted traffic to a handful of other hosts is BitTorrent traffic? It could be any number of things.

<comment><USER11> > I'm skeptical of these figures. Nearly all BitTorrent traffic is encrypted > and is indistinguishable from HTTPS/SSL traffic.

Since when? While most Bittorrent traffic uses encryption, but that encryption is not SSL, it does not use standard HTTP or HTTPS ports, in fact it often uses uTP which is not even TCP but UDP based. No bittorrent client I'm aware of makes any attempt to masquerade as HTTPS traffic. Some VPNs do, but that's about it. Bittorrent traffic using these protocols is trivially detectable and measurable, you just can't see inside of the connections (ie: know what content is being uploaded or downloaded) without doing an MITM, as they use a simple key exchange to prevent passive snooping, but you can see plenty of metadata, ports, protocol handshakes, etc to identify the protocol as a bittorrent protocol.

<comment><USER15> > While most Bittorrent traffic uses encryption

Just to be clear: there is an extension to make bittorrent use "encryption" ([http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Message_Stream_Encryption](http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Message_Stream_Encryption)), but while it does use crypto primitives its design make it closer to an "obfuscation" scheme than a real "encryption" scheme.

In the words of the author himself ([https://torrentfreak.com/interview-with- bram-cohen-the-inven...](https://torrentfreak.com/interview-with-bram-cohen- the-inventor-of-bittorrent/)):

> The so-called 'encryption' of BitTorrent traffic isn't really encryption, > it's obfuscation. It provides no anonymity whatsoever, and only temporarily > evades traffic shaping.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple's loudest activist investor just dumped his stake - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/28/apples-loudest-activist-investor-just-dumped-his-stake/ <comment><USER2> I find it a bit ridiculous Carl Icahn can go on "Power Lunch" on CNBC, speak for a few minutes, and cause investors to go into a selling frenzy (not only AAPL, but the entire market NASDAQ and DOW was affected).

Securities are so easily multiplated and affected by CNBC and their interviews, it is a bit scary. Perhaps even more scary are reporters who basically write opinion pieces and affect security prices.

Looking on Carl's twitter ([https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn/status/725717908056330241](https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn/status/725717908056330241)) he even said he was going on "Power Lunch" before he did. Of course it would be hard to know what news he was going to deliver, but you have to think some people "in the know" had an idea and made some money today.

<comment><USER3> I mean, part of the entire point of the stock market is that it operates on investor confidence; these kind of effects happen all the time from many different causes. If this kind of thing scares you, it kind of seems like the whole stock market itself would scare you.

Heck, there's a separate sub-sector of the financial industry devoted to "dark equity" and hiding the actions of influential actors in order to not produce these effects.

<comment><USER4> What's scary about it to me is simply the amplifying effect of celebrity investors. Lots of individual investors making individually irrational decisions can at least all cancel each other out, but when one irrational decision can drive thousands of other investors to all make that same decision at the same time, that's another matter.

<comment><USER3> Do you think this effect has any more drastic consequences than the average celebrity endorsement of any product in any other industry?

<comment><USER5> Yes, because a bunch of people deciding that they need a GoPro that they'll never use or drop extra money on a fashion line that has some celebrity's name on it isn't a big deal. That is money that is gonna be spent anyway.

Sending irrational ripples through the stock market affects things like interest rates, retirements, and employment in a somewhat widespread manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bad press, but good riddance. I can't imagine Apple has much use for out-of- touch "activist" investors clamoring for short term growth and dividends while complaining about their lack of "innovative" new products like … television sets.

<comment><USER7> Ultimately what is Apple going to do with that 230 billion? Sitting on a hoard of cash is no benefit to the company or investors.

<comment><USER8> Despite their current dominance, Apple knows that downward swings of fate come fast and hard in the tech industry. Consider that 10 years ago, the biggest names in mobile were Palm, Nokia and Blackberry, and now they're either gone or hollow shells. You can think farther back and find plenty more examples of unassailable kings who went bust in a hurry. Then compare that to e.g. Microsoft, who at one point looked doomed but managed to get relevant again by using their huge cash pile to break into a capital-intensive business, which they wouldn't've been able to do without it.

I imagine in this sector more than most there's a strong temptation to amass a huge safety net so you can ride out getting "disrupted". As a leftist Keynesian I don't particularly like it-- seeing all that money sitting there doing nothing drives me crazy-- but I understand the motivation.

<comment><USER9> In the big scheme of things all that money are not "sitting there doing nothing". They are probably invested in some short term bonds and therefore they make some other capital expenditures possible somewhere in the overall economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Just?" He finished his position in February. It almost feels like he sees stock pressure and is piling on to get back in at a lower price.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how many people here read/looked at the interview. Icahn said he was interested in buying Apple again, but thinks there are market risks and that the Chinese government seems keen on interfering with American tech companies. He said that he has faith in Apple as a company, just not the stock at its current level in this environment.

All very sensible reasons to get out of a position if you think it may be dead money for a few years. He made millions/billions from his position (he did the same in Netflix and sold that entire position.) Icahn is no dummy. Those calling "activist" investors as all Gordon Gekko types, looking to gut companies, are living in fantasy. In his interview Icahn actually calls out CEOs for running companies into the ground and using golden parachutes.

</comment><comment><USER12> Good riddance. Apple literally can't issue enough dividends or buyback enough of their stock to not grow their cash stockpile.

Why shouldn't Apple just go private?

<comment><USER13> How exactly would Apple go private? Someone would have to show up with ~$600B in cash to buy all outstanding shares at a decent premium.

<comment><USER14> > How exactly would Apple go private?

Slowly, over time? It's not as though $600B cash is exactly out of reach for Apple.

<comment><USER15> //Slowly, over time? It's not as though $600B cash is exactly out of reach for Apple

You do know that the cash Apple has in its balance sheet belongs to its shareholders and that Apple can't use that to buy itself and go private?

<comment><USER16> Actually companies do this all the time. Buybacks are often used to prop up the price of shares in short term, or reduce dividend obligations. Apple could borrow the $600B at dirt cheap rates and go private asap. 20 year loan repayment. might be cheaper than trickling itself back to private.

<comment><USER15> //Apple could borrow the $600B at dirt cheap rates and go private asap

Ok, so you mean Apple (the public company) borrows money, and then goes private. Now who would that private entity be? And which entity would be repaying that loan now since Apple (the public company) that borrowed money would no longer be an entity as it went private.. care to clarify?

<comment><USER17> Presumably it would be an ownership group like e.g. Tim Cook + some other people borrowing the money, and/or they'd partner with a P/E firm. Isn't that what Dell did a couple of years ago?

<comment><USER18> Sure. If Tim Cook and "some other people" could borrow 600 billion dollars, they could buy Apple. Turns out that it's really hard to get a loan for that amount though.

And regardless this has nothing to do with Apple running a stock buyback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> People go nuts over Facebook selling, again, $1/month per subscriber. Their entire income is 50% of Apple's profit. People go nuts over Amazon finally profiting 500M in a quarter which is 1/20th of Apple. If Facebook got $1/month for every living person on earth they still wouldn't get close to Apple's non- hardware income ($10B). Maybe Carl can go irritate them for a while.

<comment><USER20> > People go nuts over Amazon finally profiting 500M in a quarter which is > 1/20th of Apple.

Amazon profiting 500M is interesting not because they previously _couldn 't_, but that they always _chose not to_ , and so people are wondering the cause for the change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting insight, Apple's market cap is $600 B while it has ~$250 B cash/equivalent.

So net of all their businesses valuation is more like $400 Billion? Less than Google and Microsoft?

Anyway I don't think it is unfair for an investor to want company to pay dividends _when_ it has no good use for that cash. Remember, Carl Icahn was the guy who spun off paypal from the sinking ship that is ebay.

<comment><USER22> > when it has no good use for that cash

Except Apple _does_ have use of that cash. It's just not the short-term thinking that Wall Street and cheap get-rich-quick investors _like_.

<comment><USER21> Good use for 250 billion dollars?

What is it that Apple needs 250 billion for that google can do for 70 Billion (still too much) or Tesla can do at 1.5 Billion (more appropriate)

<comment><USER23> There was that time Apple bought 1.25 billion dollars worth of flash [1]. And it's later made similar payments for similar things [2,3]. 220 billion in the bank is pretty excessive, but 1.5 billion is way too low for the sorts of things they want to do.

[1] [http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/11/21/apple_to_prepay_12...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/05/11/21/apple_to_prepay_125b_for_ipod_flash_memory.html) [2] [http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/apple_prepays_for_...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/apple_prepays_for_a_half_billion_dollars_in_flash_memory) [3] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/12/apple-lays-down- half-a-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/12/apple-lays-down-half-a- billion-to-secure-its-flash-storage-future/)

<comment><USER21> I meant Tesla's 1.5B is appropriate for their scale. Apple would obviously need more but not 250 Billion.

<comment><USER23> Ah, reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have been asking this question for a long time, and yet fail to find or get an answer that i could understand.

Why did Apple choose to buy back stocks? Was there any need for it?

What has buying back stocks and wipe them off ( instead of keeping them ) benefited to me as a shareholder? Some would argue without the buyback, their share prices would have dropped even more, but that would at least create a chance for me buy a more for what i think is of value. Now as far as i have concern, they have merely make the stock a lot less volatile with NO / little dividends.

What has buying back stocks and wipe them off ( instead of keeping them ) benefited to Apple as a company? Those money could have been used somewhere else to create EVEN more VALUE instead of buying back?

<comment><USER25> Buying back stock decreasing the amount of outstanding shares. Decreasing the amount of outstanding shares means each share has more share of the earnings (earnings per share).

Buying back stock does not benefit Apple as a company, but if the shares are undervalued it benefits you as a shareholder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good riddance. He's this noise box who keeps clamoring all the time.

</comment><comment><USER27> I dunno, seems pretty reasonable to want a dividend payment. Apple is just sitting on a mountain of money and not doing anything with it, why keep all that cash out of the market?

<comment><USER28> How much of it is actually in the US? That might be a factor.

<comment><USER19> Most of it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I always wondered what the effect would be if all stock trade transactions has a minimum 24h ownership requirement. You MUST hold a stock/option/hedge for at least 24h before trading it off. I picked the 24h period rather arbitrarily.

Would anyone who actually knows anything about this care to enlighten me ?

<comment><USER25> Liquidity would go down. Spread would be up. Market makers would have a hard time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> With all the cash they have Apple could go private, what is the rational for staying public?

<comment><USER20> What's the rationale for going private?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Uh oh, they're doomed! DOOMED!!!

<comment><USER32> There used to be an Apple Doomsday Clock website in the 1990s.

Geekforce saved some of the pages but recently got rid of them.

It took the Think Different campain and made a mockery of it showing pictures of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others. At times it was funny at other times it was offensive.

But they would talk about how Apple was doomed. Until Steve Jobs came back and fixed the company and then they were pro-Apple.

But it was a good satire and sarcasm site like The Onion is today.</comment></comment>