Category: news

Poor old RPI

This article from Vice News does a pretty good job of showing how my old alma mater, RPI, has become an almost perfect example of all the things that have gone wrong with college education in America. Overpaid executives, growing tuition, growing student-to-faculty ratios, growing administrator-to-faculty ratios, and so on.

If I was a high school senior today, coming from a fairly modest middle-class background, I really don’t think I would want to even consider RPI. And if I did want to go there, I don’t think I could afford it, without taking on some crippling student debt. Which wouldn’t be worth it, since the quality of the undergraduate education really isn’t good enough to support that kind of high tuition. I’d likely get a better education at Rutgers or NJIT.

In memoriam: Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA

From a good article about the impending end of The Colbert Report:

…the real heart of The Colbert Report had little to do with actual politics — it was far more a critique of modern discourse, where people refuse to agree on the facts. And, more importantly, it shed light on the complete absurdity of the world with enough levity to keep us from going insane.

via In memoriam: Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA | Stanford Daily.

WSJ redesign

The Wall Street Journal launched their (print) redesign today. The paper looks good, and has not been turned into USA Today, which I guess was the main thing that people were worried about. There were some pretty good articles in the paper today, too, including one on Virgin Comics. I actually haven’t gotten around to reading any of their titles yet, but I’ve heard good things about Snakewoman. The article was accurate and reasonably well-written, but the headline used one of the standard comic book newspaper article cliches: “Holy [fill in the blank] Batman!” In this case, it was: “Holy Heroes of Indian Lore, Batman!” OK, so maybe they *are* starting to resemble USA Today in some ways. Oh well.

The Small Street Journal

BusinessWeek has an article about the changes coming to the Wall Street Journal in 2007. I had a suspicion that something was changing, since I got a letter in the mail today offering a year’s print *and* online subscription for only $99. Usually, the online subscription alone is $99. I’ve had an online subscription for a few years, but I let it lapse a couple of months ago. I may sign up for the new deal. It’s been a while since I subscribed to an old-fashioned daily paper. Not that I’ll have time to read it.