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I’ve been reading The Walrus magazine a lot lately since I got a digital subscription for my iPad. I won’t go into detail about the magazines themselves but for those who aren’t familiar with it they off a broad spectrum of stories from the local and person to the strange and insightful.

Something that caught my eye the other day while reading an article on farming in Canada was how elegantly the author describes how GPS works.

It was full dark now, and the field beyond the tractor’s headlights was a rumour. No matter: the action was all on a small GPS screen mounted to the right of the steering wheel…

…When I asked how it all worked, he tapped the GPS, flipping over to a screen that traced the data stream guiding us. Multiple satellites spun within range in the stratosphere high above us, and they traded information with the tractor’s GPS through a receiver in the main farmyard. A radio antenna on the tractor’s roof received minute corrections to the vehicle’s trajectory, based on triangulations calculated between the various satellites.

(via [“The Farms Are Not All Right” by Chris Turner | The Walrus | October 2011]

This obviously caught my eye because of my education in that particular field, but to accurately describe how RTK-GPS (Real Time Kinematic GPS) and not alienate the general audience was great. To those who understood what was being described, it showed respect for the reading audience. To those who know only know of GPS as a “black box device”, they weren’t confused by technical words or complex descriptions.

The business of writing scholarly papers for cheating students is ramping up at this time of year as we approach the end of term for most higher education institutions. And surprisingly (maybe not to those with experience in the field), few students, and even fewer “ghost writers” get caught doing it.

I work hard for a living. I’m nice to people. But I understand that in simple terms, I’m the bad guy. I see where I’m vulnerable to ethical scrutiny.

But pointing the finger at me is too easy. Why does my business thrive? Why do so many students prefer to cheat rather than do their own work?

Say what you want about me, but I am not the reason your students cheat.

You know what’s never happened? I’ve never had a client complain that he’d been expelled from school, that the originality of his work had been questioned, that some disciplinary action had been taken. As far as I know, not one of my customers has ever been caught.

Ed Dante, the alias of the writer who has made his living for over ten years by producing papers for cheating students, has broken down the types of students that generally ask for his services:

From my experience, three demographic groups seek out my services: the English-as-second-language student; the hopelessly deficient student; and the lazy rich kid.

For the last, colleges are a perfect launching ground—they are built to reward the rich and to forgive them their laziness. Let’s be honest: The successful among us are not always the best and the brightest, and certainly not the most ethical.

…

As for the first two types of students—the ESL and the hopelessly deficient—colleges are utterly failing them.

The article is an interesting read and, as expected, a well written incite into the world of cheaters in our highly praised institutions of higher learning. I have yet to study a subject at school that required me to write an endless body of papers on particular subjects. Although I’m guessing that just like anything else, practicing can make the chore much easier. And roughly $66,000 per year if you choose.

“thanx so much for uhelp ican going to graduate to now”.

Original article: The Shadow Scholar (The Chronicle)

“Robin Hood Airport is closed,” Mr. Chambers, then 26 and a financial supervisor, said to his 690 followers [on Twitter], who included the woman, known on Twitter as @crazycolours. “You’ve got a week to get your [expletive] together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

For those who never heard about Paul Chambers’ story, his tweet cost him $4,800 in fines. During the case, the judge also “icily lectured the courtroom about the impropriety of sending Twitter updates during the case”. This gained him a lot support on the internet and the “tweetosphere”. Stephen Fry also got in on the protest.

I find the conclusion of the case to be sad and unfortunate, but I don’t think the law can take social ‘internet’ media so seriously any more. I think things will have to change soon enough. People won’t stand for it anymore.

 

“I am going to blow up the entire universe with my giant spaghetti bomb,” another said.

Someone else asked, referring to the abbreviation for “laughing out loud,” “If I put ‘lol’ at the end of every tweet, will that protect me from prosecution?”

Original Article: NYTimes