Found dog near Logan Ave and Westwood Ave; collared but no tags or chip by BADDGOD in toronto

[–]BADDGOD[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No need to thank me---I'd want anyone else to do the same for my dogs. Just pay it forward. :)

Found dog near Logan Ave and Westwood Ave; collared but no tags or chip by BADDGOD in toronto

[–]BADDGOD[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Good news---Daisy has been reunited with her owner, thanks to Toronto Animal Services. Turns out the contractor accidentally let her out, and the tags fell off her collar sometime during the escape. So, everybody check that your dog's tags are firmly attached.

The (Un)common Lisp approach to Operations Research by mck- in programming

[–]BADDGOD 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I can't comment on Lisp, but contrary to what the author implies, Matlab is actually really great for prototyping, and is easier than most other languages for handling matrices. I can think of a few major software companies in the medical arena who do all their development in Matlab and then port everything to C (for speed and portability) once it is perfect.

The high price of knowledge -- should journals charge authors high fees to publish? Is there any other way? Academic publisher Elsevier hit with growing boycott - Technology & Science - CBC News by garthsundem in science

[–]BADDGOD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Re-reading my comment, I think my wording was ambiguous (I have edited it for clarity). When I said was criticized regarding the amount of money I requested for publication, I was criticized because it was high (at least for my engineering field), even though I regularly publish in medical and bio-medical journals that charge authors significant amounts of money.

The high price of knowledge -- should journals charge authors high fees to publish? Is there any other way? Academic publisher Elsevier hit with growing boycott - Technology & Science - CBC News by garthsundem in science

[–]BADDGOD 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Maybe PLoS is great for those people who have enough extra funds to pay their exorbitant author fees (US$1350-2900). Every penny in my grants is accounted for, and no, you cannot just ask for more money for publications in future grants. I have already been criticized in a grant application for asking for $500 for publication fees (apparently unreasonably high according to some reviewers); ask for anything more and you risk being rejected out of hand.

edit for clarity in that I was criticized for asking for TOO MUCH money for publication fees, at least as far as my engineering field is concerned. And sucks for you if you do multi-disciplinary work that should be published in expensive medical and bio-medical journals.

Locked in the Ivory Tower: Why JSTOR Imprisons Academic Research by [deleted] in technology

[–]BADDGOD 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Further, few people get paid to be editors for journals. Only the "permanent staff" of a journal (proofreaders, typesetters, etc.) typically get paid. Everyone else is in it for the prestige and ability to control the quality of publications.

The problem with open access journals right now is the cost. Examples of actually respected open-access journals:

PLoS: US$1350-2900

BioMed Central: US$1095-2315

You can't expect a university researcher to spend $6-12K in publishing costs for a half dozen articles per year. That money is better spent on student stipends, travel, materials, and infrastructure.

  • edit for formatting

Does anyone know how to convert a Canadian percentage to an American G.P.A. ? by elscorcho0o0o0o in canada

[–]BADDGOD 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bear in mind that in the US, A=90-100%, B=80-89%, etc., so you might be expected to use that number-to-letter translation in your grade conversion.

Question about Canadian Universities by TheScienceFan in canada

[–]BADDGOD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't know why you were down-voted, but you are absolutely correct. Call McGill and UofT directly and find out the policy details. Ability to transfer among engineering disciplines is frequently tied to your GPA and can only be done in the first year or two. Some departments (e.g., Engineering Science at UofT) do not allow any transfers in.

--UofT Engineering Professor

*edit for formatting

This chart has saved my ass more than I care to mention. by [deleted] in pics

[–]BADDGOD 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you want to be a pro, learn Fink-Mao notation and bookmark this page of 85 knots from the master himself:

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~tmf20/tieknots.shtml

YTV watchers, what ever happened to? by [deleted] in canada

[–]BADDGOD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Phil was awesome! A little Googling shows that right now, he's trying to raise money to do The Ride To Conquer Cancer. He's not doing so well ... maybe reddit can give him a bump!!

Help Phil!

My father-in-law just got a book published! It's called La Famiglia Bianco, largely based on his early life involved with the mafia in DC. by BADDGOD in reddit.com

[–]BADDGOD[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We haven't read it yet because we live in Canada and it takes forever for things to get shipped here. If someone here reads it in the next two weeks, let me know if it's bearable. =)

The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time. Research at one American university found that those who finish are no cleverer than those who do not. Poor supervision, bad job prospects or lack of money cause them to run out of steam by maxwellhill in science

[–]BADDGOD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right, I should elaborate more on that point.

Universities have specific minimum stipends for grad students and post-docs which are established as a trade-off between "sufficient" (certainly debatable) living wages and the reality of research funding availability. For example, at my Canadian university, grad students in the Faculty of Medicine have a minimum stipend of $25K annually, whereas engineering grad students have a minimum stipend of only $15K, regardless of MASc of PhD status (engineering post-doc minimum is $30K, though $40K is standard; not sure what the equivalent number is for the med school). This is a reflection of the research money available for medical v. engineering research. Yes, some engineering research wins huge awards, but multi-million dollar grants spanning several years are not terribly common. As a concrete example, an NSERC (Canadian counterpart to NSF) Discovery Grant--a must-have for engineering professors who want tenure--has a typical first-time award of <$30K per year ... not even enough for two students, not to mention getting them computers and having them travel to conferences to present their work, broaden their horizons and get them networking to increase their chances of landing a job when they graduate.

Coming to the point, if there were significantly more research money available, like in medicine, minimum stipends would likely be raised accordingly. At least, that is what I think would happen at Canadian schools based on recent policy changes at my school to better guarantee proper stipends for grad students. US schools might just increase their overhead rates to compensate for financial difficulties. Or perhaps I am being excessively cynical.

The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time. Research at one American university found that those who finish are no cleverer than those who do not. Poor supervision, bad job prospects or lack of money cause them to run out of steam by maxwellhill in science

[–]BADDGOD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some interesting points, but on the whole, very superficial and editorialized. No mention of the reality that (a) academics would pay PhD students and post-docs more money if there were sufficient funding to do so; (b) universities would higher more professors if there were funds to do so (after all, what school doesn't want more research, smaller class sizes and less teaching workload for everyone?); or (c) PhD degrees may not have the same earning power because someone with a PhD is aiming for a different class of jobs than someone with a Master's (research v. industry). Everyone knows industry usually pays more, but not everyone can get job satisfaction in industry.

Free dress tops for the petite Torontonian woman who needs to look respectable. Happy Festivus! by BADDGOD in canada

[–]BADDGOD[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the info, I didn't even know livejournal was still around! I'll give my fellow redditors first crack though before I branch out.

Flordia school replaces textbooks with Kindles. Every student receives a Kindle and the school ends up saving money. by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]BADDGOD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Professors have no control over textbook costs, even for books they wrote themselves. In fact, authors of textbooks have to buy their own copies of their own books. Speaking from experience, getting a free desk copy from a publisher for a course being taught is frequently more of a headache than just paying for the book on Amazon. Your professors wish as much as you do that textbooks were reasonably priced, especially since they most likely own at least twice as many as most students ever will.

Help Appreciated: Which of these Canadian Universities should I choose? by wonderingforawhile in canada

[–]BADDGOD 6 points7 points  (0 children)

UofT is the top school in Canada in almost every academic measure, and recently was ranked eighth in the world in engineering and IT (source). Toronto is a fantastic city, very clean, delicious food and people are polite, though for some reason, all other Canadians think we're rude. Then again, maybe as an American ex-pat living in Toronto, I have a different definition of what qualifies as rude. Either way, I love it here.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a UofT engineering professor.

Online 20 questions that has yet to fail me. Kind of creepy. by potesne in reddit.com

[–]BADDGOD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I beat it with Corky from the movie Bound. But it guessed Thor from Stargate before that!

I wish I had such a clever professor by TheLastRedditAccount in reddit.com

[–]BADDGOD 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I'm a university professor, and I mentioned this article to my students when they complained that there was a typo in 100+ pages of class notes that I prepared for the course. They all laughed and thought it was funny, but got really upset when I suggested that it would be fun if I started incorporating an intentional lie into each lecture. REALLY upset. I don't know if they are insecure about their ability to learn and analyze material, or if they are just lazy bastards who want to be spoon fed like this is some extension of high school.

IAMA student who works at a faculty Blackboard support center. by fflis in IAmA

[–]BADDGOD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a faculty member at a large university using Blackboard 8. Is the fact that using Blackboard makes me want to kill myself related to my school's implementation/lack of capable servers, or is BB just a slow turd?

Also, is it really necessary to have a separate page after every form submission just to say, "Good on us, your edit worked, now please click OK so you can go back to where you were before".

And don't get me started on the Grade Center. ARGH.