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Harrison Bergeron

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Posts posted by Harrison Bergeron

  1. 51 minutes ago, slorch said:

    Sports had not one gotdam thing to do with where I went to school or where my kids chose to go.

    Career path/ job opportunity, followed closely by economics were the driving factors.

    If people are choosing schools for the football experience, why the fuck are they going to A&M?

    Football is branding, and schools have data that shows admissions increase after sports (especially football) do well. Now some of that may be students that want to go to a "good football school" and some just first heard of a school because they won a big bowl, etc.

    I think it already is doing it to some degree, but I think the UT System does a decent job of segmenting its offerings:

    • As noted UTD has done a nice job of segmenting itself as a leader in STEM
    • UTA and UTSA are affordable options for kids who may not get admitted to or scholarships to others places
    • The flagship is tough because it is a little bit of everything to everybody and of course has all the history

    It's tough at the end of the day both to really distinguish between the "quality" of the actual education. It actually is as much promotion and branding and more importantly networking as anything else in many cases.

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  2. 7 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Um, yeah, if you want to do philanthropy, your first question shouldn't be "what's in it for me and mine."

    If you CONDITION your donation to your alma mater on admission of your kin, you are a bit of a cunt.

    Even if you don't condition it, but expect special treatment because of your largesse, that may be a bit more subtle, but it doesn't speak particularly well of your motives.

    That's cute and makes sense in the trailer park. I'm sorry if you got the worn tires.

    Again - contributing alumni make just as much sense as the other non-academic criteria.

  3. 6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    While I grant the practicality of this line of thought on the part of the University, it is problematic that a wealthy alum requires a quid pro quo to make the donation.

    And that reflects the entitlement attitude that permeates this whole situation.  Wealthy donors should be ashamed about putting their alma mater in this position.

    I don't think it's an unreasonable request. It's not entitlement it's human nature. Every person on this board would do the same, and its rationale and not reasonable for the universities to accommodate. "Morally" if you will it's no different than other non-academic factors employed in admissions.

  4. This roid rapist stood by the fly for 10 minutes trying to get this LSU guy's number. I asked him politely if he was finished, he said no and then spent another 10 minutes flirting ... and then after a love connection fail started his 10-minute lift-text workout.

    28E1C26E-6363-4E68-B825-2966C52A72F6.jpeg

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  5. I'll state the obvious up-front ... I do not envy anyone responsible for college admissions in an increasingly complicated world. With our population outpacing our top colleges' capacity, it is increasingly difficult to make the optimal admissions.

    That being said, I think from the university's perspective, the goal should be from an elite university's perspective:

    • Admitting the absolute best possible caliber of students that can succeed, i.e. graduate and transition to a successful career that will bring prestige and future donations to the university
    • To a lesser degree, the universities do have an interest in admitting some students of wealthy alumni purely for the financial benefits - while it would suck I would not fault anyone for admitting Red McCombs' grandkids ahead of mine ... I'm never going to be able to endow a school; at least there is some tangible value to this preference as opposed to other artificial criteria

    With all the advanced analytics available, there should be a reasonably reliable way to predict success and use those information to support admission decisions. It is complicated as you have to prevent admitting a bunch of kids who do nothing but study and have superior book smarts but lack the basic IQ / EQ to be successful in the real world. That leads to graduating a bunch of helpless robots who will never make mid-level management.

    Similarly, you have to avoid admitting a bunch of poor kids that tried hard that have no reasonable chance of succeeding in a rigorous, competitive environment. That leads to a bunch of first- and second-year dropouts as well as wasted resources on the university's part ( or more lowering of standards) and life-derailing discouragement for the students. Said another way, a lot of these poor kids would ultimately be exponentially better off at a "non-elite" university where they can thrive and likely will be much better off long-term than being artificially admitted to an elite university, and the university would be better off for not having to spend extra resources helping these students cut it or artificially passing them only to set them up for career disappointment. 

    All that bloviating beside, not sure there is a better system than the one we had been using:

    • Grades to judge against local peers
    • Standardized tests to judge against national peers
    • Consideration for other factors such as leadership, extra-curriculars, socio-economic, environmental, etc.

    Probably not perfect but not sure there is a better, specific alternative.

     

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  6. On 12/19/2021 at 8:38 AM, qwertyu1234 said:

    This probably is not a "dumb" question, but I am very interested in history and don't feel like starting a new thread.

    If The U.S remained neutral in WW1 would the Allies have enough troops to hold the Western Front after the Germans beat the Russians in 1917?

    Doubtful, the U.S. entry was as much as a psychological victory than anything else. The French soldiers were in active mutiny, and the war energy was severely drained in Great Britain. No U.S. there probably a mutual armistice (things were much worse in Germany, A-H, and Ottoman Empire), and the 20th Century is much less screwed up.

  7. I watched the first episode last night and was intrigued. Interesting story and concept, but my spidey-sense made me think it could easily go sideways. I call it the Abrams Effect (Alias and Lost) where overtime the interesting character developments that built the show get absorbed by the Big Dumb Object that becomes increasingly absurd. I could see the interesting backstories of the two protagonists quickly devolving into a demonic sex cult based in the Earth's core.

  8. On 1/15/2022 at 5:45 PM, Neonmoon said:

    Netflix is still better than any other platform. It’s not really even close right now imo. They put out tons of original content. From shows, to standup, to movies, to documentaries. They cover all bases. 
     

    Amazon Prime and HBO Max have some really great top tier shows but they don’t churn out the volume. 

    Disney is great for a couple Marvel Shows and Star Wars shows. That’s about it.

    Hulu is decent. 
     

    It is going to interesting to see how Netflix performs over the next 3-5 years. I has assumed a significant amount of debt to fund getting ahead of the competition from an original content perspective. Given its current subscriber growth rates and regular new entrants, not sure if it can keep up the pace especially without the benefit of larger corporate parent. If it has to pare down its original content not sure what it differentiation play is, and that might limit its ability to make a big play for the NFL, college sports, etc., which could be an additional subscriber headwind. Assuming a lot of its growth will be international but guessing those economics are not exactly the same as the U.S.

  9. 7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

    What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when his sister learns of what he did and how he died.  If for some reason, they can't show her the footage for security reasons, I'm happy to draw her a picture with word bubbles of when everything went South on her brother.  Can we make her share a cell with a female Oathkeeper next year?  irony is fun

    Sister or sister-wife? Like that Congressterrorist who was fucking her brother-husband and constantly blames "The Jews."

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