Posts by Ben Curran
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There's two problems. The first being that the people who pay don't have access to the work that they fund. The second being that there is an absurd amount of money being wasted on subscriptions.
We can celebrate the fact that the work would now be available to the public (problem one solved) at the same time as being worried that problem two is quite possibly being made worse. The most alarming thing that I got from the Guardian article was that the money to prop up the Gold-OA model is likely coming out of the science budgets with no extra money being provided - a cut by any other name.
Either way, it's good that OA is moving ahead (a move we should follow in NZ). We really should be pushing for green-OA though - in the long term, it means more money to spend on education.
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It's entertaining. A lot of the physicists I read are describing it as "higgsy".
The implication seems to be that there is a particle there. They're certain it's a higgs boson. They're just not quite sure what sort of higgs boson. Or what it looks like. Which just made me smile. More work to be done. And figuring out how stuff like all this fits together - so very worth it.
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All apps are evil. No matter who you download them through. They are designed to send personal information home so that the relevant companies can target you with advertising. All apps can access you phone/text messages and send them back to the mother ship.
I don't get this attitude. As in I don't understand it. As best as I can tell it assumes that anyone/any company knowing anything about you is inherently evil. Which is just ...
Sure, be careful about what information you share, but sharing nothing? -
Hard News: The frustrating politics of…, in reply to David Cormack,
Very few people talk about the successes they’ve had in Portugal where everything got decriminalised – Glen Greenwald’s Cato institute did a fantastic review of it and signs were all almost universally positive.
I always wonder about this. Why do those pushing law reform (campaign wise, i.e. norml) never lead with this? Start getting stories like this into the media and maybe in ten years time we can have the debate like rational adults.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Lilith __,
Justifiably so. The detachment form reality based policy/journalism is ... alarming.
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Roughans column was just ... odd. Almost nothing in the history it related was connected with the history I know of.
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With regards to not realising how badly some schools would be affected - how does one pretend to be competent and not be aware of the ramifications of their own policy? Especially when it's a touchy subject like education. That's a flabberygastey face of disbelief right there. Though I'm not sure whether it's at the incompetence or the fact that this is not raising howls of outrage across the board.
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There's a reason you and everyone else in the inner western burbs hits the Westmere Butchery. And it's not that it's trendy. It's really really good. And if you talk to the butchers in there, they know how to cook meat as well. Wholeheartedly recommend their black pudding. And their dried chorizo. and ... and ... and...
</fanboy rave>
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Matthew Poole,
Ah, that clarifies that then. Ta muchly.
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As far as I can tell, the 4 year limit is a change. It is currently 200 weeks, which yes, pretty much gets you 5 and a bit years of study. I was under the impression that this was changing to 4 years of efts which is less than 200 weeks. I could be wrong. Currently, for certain degrees (PhD is one of them) you can get a 150 week extension - I've got the extension (though funnily enough, they'll extend the amount of time I'm allowed it, but not actually give it to me because I've got a scholarship)
Apart from that, I concur with the opinion that it drives people away from the areas in which we need post-graduates as well as almost begging more people to leave. It's the whole education is a private benefit as opposed to public good mindset that boggles me.
And the whole "private good thing is one dubious grounds. Graduating from post-grad science degrees will put you on a decent wage - not a spectacular one though. And the average wage for a scientist in NZ is not spectacular either (Not bad, but not spectacular). Then you get to take into account the lost earnings (no saving for a house, etc) over the extra years of study ....