- With all the technological advances of the last decade, why are we still using passwords? They’re both insecure and cumbersome. Computer geeks of the world: whoever comes up with a more elegant answer than passwords has a pile of money waiting for her. I’m just sayin’.
- I recently went through another roundtable with local employers, talking about our technical and workforce-oriented degrees. I could have cut-and-pasted from the discussions at PU ten years ago. They kept saying the same thing they said a decade ago in a different state: it’s the communication skills and the ability to see the big picture that count. I actually asked if they’d be willing to just hire the sharpest liberal arts grads and train them; most of them gave variations on “y’know, we used to do that...” Note to employers: do it again. We have some damn smart liberal arts grads with excellent communication skills, and they tend to be quick studies.
- We took The Dog to a doggie shrink earlier this week. I feel like I crossed some sort of cultural divide in even admitting that. The issue is that she attacks visitors in the house. The shrink basically came up with “some dogs are like that. Try this collar.” Thanks.
- Even after all these years, I’m still amazed at the number of people who say “listen” when they mean “obey.” It’s entirely possible to listen to an idea and disagree with it. “The administration didn’t listen. It didn’t do what we said.” In that passage, the second sentence offers no support for the first, unless you define ‘listen’ to mean ‘obey.’
- If I read one more story about the “higher education bubble” that fails to mention the unbelievable affordability of community colleges, or that takes Harvard’s tuition level as somehow normative...
- The Girl made the cover of the local newspaper last week. You can be as cynical an academic as you want; when you see your kid smiling brightly on the front page, it makes your day.
