Blog

  • Tuition Fees Hike

    As compared to general inflation, tuition fees have skyrocketed. We all know this. Meanwhile, while wages have increased, they haven’t reached anywhere near the levels necessary to match the same kind of lifestyle one could maintain back in the early nineties. Being a university student has never been harder.

    People say we’re being gouged. Ask them by whoom, and they can’t answer. However, what is overlooked is that while tuition has increased, it has matched the inflating cost of running such institutions. It costs more to run universities these days. Why? Now that’s the million dollar question.

    What I can tell you is that I’m frustrated at the lack of productivity that arises from oversimplifications of “students vs. big bad ________.” There are economic dynamics at play here that are far more complex, and that are not properly exposed to the general populace. It is these that we must understand, in order to enact the small shifts necessary to better the situation. Or at least understand how good the situation already is.

    But no. People will instead focus on the path of least resistance, which is to banter and banter until the powers that be themselves react to the situation. That said, given the recent hikes in tuition, there’s not much promise there. It’s deceptive really, because the idea of making small changes to a complex dynamic is much more implementable than trying to influence the entire dynamic alltogether.

    Seeing how Quebec manages to maintain their low tuitions seems like a good start.

  • Comment Spam

    Well, believe it or not, comment spam is a huge problem for this blog. At one point, I installed a small catchpa script (you know, those annoying boxes where you have to re-type an obfuscated mix of numbers and letters.) It worked – up until last month.

    You see, spammers hire individuals to fill out these forms for them. It’s an automated process, and those that fill out the forms get fractions of a cent per completed form. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s viable in third world regions where there is access to cyber cafes.

    These are the terms that are on my blacklist. If you type any of these words, your post will automatically be deleted. No moderation, just straight-out deleted. If anyone else has a new way of defeating these spammers, I’m all ears.

    Blacklisted words:
    emistry.com
    forex
    phentermine
    casino
    xanax
    syntrax
    71.104.7.176
    59.92.39.221
    72.197.80.212
    206.222.30.2
    69.93.240.143
    207.226.172.18
    66.98.134.34
    analsex
    195.225.176.84
    69.61.29.218
    38.96.1.97
    68.87.64.106
    http://www.axo.ho.com.ua
    tramadol
    phpbbx.de
    freepowerboards
    blogspot.com
    .info

  • My faith in square-bound thinking…

    Feb. 2, 2007 — There are new developments in the case of Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year-old Georgia high school football star and honor student who received a mandatory 10-year prison sentence for aggravated child molestation.

    His crime: receiving consensual oral sex from a 15-year-old female schoolmate.

    More info here.

  • What do you do when bored?

    Why, implement cowsay in a PHP-emulated CLI environment! Yes,  I am a geek with no life. Small glitch with the script: it can’t handle spaces (has to do with the way it interprets the input), so if you want to write a sentence, use_underscores.

    cowsay.jpg

  • University Tuition Fees Mini-Documentary

    Keep in mind the source when watching this. It’s pretty well known that tuition fees have increased far beyond inflation. Was post-secondary education simply just too cheap in the eighties? Is there more to this? Or is it a question of the Ontarian government going the wrong direction? In any case, it has some pretty damning footage of Dalton McGuinty.