A Theory for the Decline in Science

"God's watching me do #2? Oh man, I'm a sinner and God's a pervert." - Chris Griffin

That has no correlation whatsoever to this post, except that I just heard it on Family Guy and I always laugh at that line. Anyway, I thought I'd talk about education once again since it has been coming up a lot lately. College debt is a bigger deal than some people think. I always encouraged friends debating whether or not to go the college of their dreams to just take out a loan, within reason. With debts rising though, could it mean that science will only be for the wealthy? Some students are choosing public service jobs over careers in science solely because of the lack of debt. I'm not saying that those jobs are bad, but if someone has a science or math mind, don't you think they should be doing that rather than teaching your children? I can tell you right now that I'd make a crummy teacher. I wish we had a government that provided more grants for kids who are just smart. I don't think it'll happen for a long time, but it would be nice. Until then, what can we do? I would say to encourage any friends and family to follow their dreams, even if it isn't at an ivy league school. I think that hard work can take you a lot farther than a pricey degree. You can always go somewhere really upscale for grad school in any case.

I'm sure that you've noticed laptops rising in popularity in recent months, and BusinessWeek is actually pointing out that they're actually comparable to really good desktops, whereas they used to always be way behind. The disadvantages are customizeability, price, and power consumption, all of which are steadily getting better. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Apple shut down its budding new office in India without any reasons provided, but now we know why. Insiders claim that the rapid growth in India has meant that expanding there is not as cheap as it once was, and I guess they figure that they might as well focus more on America for their skilled labor (I won't argue with that). Oh, and Apple is still having issues negotiating with movie studios because they're doing the smart thing and trying to set up variable pricing for movies on iTunes from the start. No clue how willing Jobs will be to do this because I think it may cause some unrest from music labels, but I'm sure he knows that movies won't be on the iPod unless they go through iTunes since their DRM is needed to be iPod-compatible. Meanwhile, the future may be brighter than I had expected at Microsoft with Ray Ozzie being described as "a programmer's programmer." This sounds like what Bill Gates was when he first started up Microsoft, so I guess it's possible for us to see big changes in a couple of years (or at least gradual improvements). While I'm on M$, I should mention that Samsung is getting mixed reactions from its UMPC citing that those exposed to the Origami marketing campaign are disappointed whereas others seem relatively pleased by the new consumer electronics market created. The Wii is now rumored to have an IM service by some rather reliable sources, and it's supposedly going to be called !!M (i.e., Wii upside down and backwards). It's a neat idea, but I think that it'll just piss off people who don't like the Wii name even more, and how would people know how to pronounce it? Lastly, Sony Music is finally being proactive and is going to try offering songs to bloggers for them to promote rather than staying on their current track of DRM craziness. Not to say that they'll cease and desist, but it sounds like they're at least trying new venues, which I respect.

Movie piracy has been an issue for a long time, and now some college researchers are developing a technology that could block digital cameras by detecting them and flashing a conflicting white light into the CCD, which would neutralize it totally. I think it's a pretty neat little development. Superman Returns is using Marlon Brando's voice and likeness for the role of Jor-El, and IGN has a good read on how they managed to do all that. I think it's awesome that they went through all the trouble just to stay truer to the originals. The score for the teaser trailer for Transformers has now been recorded, but I have no idea what indication that is for the teaser itself being released. I suppose it means good things though. All I have for you now is multimedia. Rope of Silicon is hosting some new clips from Clerks 2 since we all know that Kevin Smith loves feeding his adoring geek fanbase. Yahoo Movies has some clips from The Road to Guantanamo, which I didn't find out about until today though I'm kind of interested in it now. Lastly, they also have clips from Strangers with Candy (featuring Stephen Colbert, the reason I mention it), which seems like it should've been released a long time ago for some reason. Am I crazy? Wasn't this in the works for a while?

Now for some Monday Madness:

1. How many cop shows can you name?
Just two: Cops and Reno 911.
2. Do you send text messages?
Nope, but mainly because it costs me money (my brother pays for the plan, I don't want him to pay extra either though).
3. If you could be on a gameshow (current or old), which one would you be on and why?
Probably the Price is Right because it's the only one I've always enjoyed over the years. And being Indian, I know a thing or two about prices.
4. What are some of your favorite websites?
Most of them are listed on the right side here, but I like the webcomics the best because they're quick and easy.
5. What are your favorite things about the internet?
Chatting, e-mail, and blogging (i.e. the ease of getting news).
6. What about least favorite?
Trolls and viruses.
7. What are some good ways to deal with a pet loss?
I don't know, my dad never allowed us to have pets. I guess you just have to grieve a bit and move on. They can sometimes be as traumatic as a person dying, especially for older people who have less human interaction.