And replace him with who?

According to the state salary database, there are about 3 dozen UW employees who make more than $500,000 a year in 2022 (the most recent year published). A few are administrative staff, many are coaches for sports (which is very dumb), and a few are professors.

Their total salaries sum to $32 million, which is a lot. But when you divide that across the total number of students, it comes out to about $580 per student per year. So even if you stopped paying these people, tuition would only go down about 5%.

That’s assuming that these staff members don’t bring any value, which is not a good assumption. Many of these highly paid people would be highly compensated in this private sector–for example the manager of UW’s investments makes $1 million per year–so rightly or wrongly, the university must pay very high to retain them.

As I said before, the university has received $400 million less from the state (adjusted for inflation) today than it did in the 1980s. The expense of highly paid staff is a drop in the bucket compared to the drop in state funding.

In 1986, my mom paid $386 ($1,106 in 2024) in tuition for a quarter at the University of Washington. In 2015, I paid around $3,700 ($4902 in 2024) for a quarter at UW.

In 1986, UW got $440 million dollars from the state. That’s $1.2 billion in 2024. In 2015, UW got $644 million from the state. That’s $0.8 billion today.

It’s hard to find enrollment data for some reason, but there were less than 30,000 students at UW in the late 80s. In 2015, that figure was closer to 55,000.

Using inflation adjusted figures, the state was contributing $41,000 per student in 1986 compared to $14,500 in 2015. Adding in yearly tuition, the total cost was $44,700 in 1986. In 2015, that’s $29,300 per student.

Importantly, this analysis leaves out private contributions to the university’s budget which makes up a large portion of its funds. However, those funds are usually restricted in how they can be spent.

Most of the buildings on UW’s campus were built in the 50s or 60s. There were some that were from the 20s and 30s or older. Forget cosmetics, most of those need renovations just to remain usable. There were thousands of good, usable computers in the libraries that were always in use. Keeping that fleet running is an expense that just wasn’t around 30+ years ago. Labs equipment has gotten better and more expensive. I used a $100,000 high speed camera when I was in school. My mom sure didn’t have access to that.

Based on my quick, back of the envelope math, education has not gotten 3 to 4 times more expensive, but the state has been contributing less and less money to fund it.

Second, the only reason for the massive amounts of student debt is due to universities massively inflating the cost of an education to milk the government of their federal student loans.

I can’t speak for everywhere, but that’s not true for my alma mater. Tuition has been rising because of a lack of state funding. 20 years ago, state funds made up 2/3 of the University budget. Now it’s 1/3. The difference has to come from somewhere.

Go to an in-state school. Prices are lower. Go to a community college to take your desired program’s prerequisites and transfer to a state university. Or just finish up a degree at a community college.

I take a 30 to 40 minute walk (2 miles) every day at work. Sometimes it’s to clear my head. Sometimes it’s to think about work. Sometimes it’s to think about not work. No one cares, and if they did, I’d argue it’s time well spent for the company. I can’t get anything done if my brain is overflowing with crap.

Man, a work LAN party would be pretty cool.

Here’s a school bus going up for auction. 117,000 miles. Sitting for 2 years. Current bid $643 with 3 days left.

I invent something. Since there are no patents, my idea is put in the open. A big company sees my idea and uses its much bigger budget to advertise and out sell me, putting me out of business. How’s that not abusive?

Patents prevent theft. Patents on medicine based on publicly funded research is stupid. I could be persuaded that it’s theft in that particular instance. But in general, no patents are not theft.

For those who don’t know, like me, the Aitken Bible was the first English edition of the Bible published in the US. It was approved by the Congress of the Confederation (the government before the Constitution was signed) in 1782.

I’m sure the judge and the judge’s family’s lives would be immediately threatened by his deranged followers. So that could be part of it.

Porsche measures their automatic gear changes in milliseconds. Smart measures them in geologic time scales.

I truly don’t understand why they didn’t put a CVT in those 2nd generation cars (the ones sold in North America). It’s the perfect application! Small car, not a lot of power, efficiency minded.

My wife’s old 2004 Honda Civic. It was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving. And it was super unreliable to boot!

It was dangerously slow. Getting on the freeway always required full throttle to get up to speed in time, which was never enough. Some cars egg you on, “Go faster! Let me rev! I love revs! Speeeeeed! Power!” This thing was like Eeyore on Adavan, “Huh? Power? If I have to. Ththrhtbbt. That’s the best I can do.”

The “top rated” Goodyear tires we put on it were fucking awful as well. The tire compound was super hard, so despite the pitiful power, you could always spin the front tires in the dry. Despite the hard tire compound, they wore out 20,000 miles before their warranty was up. One time while exiting the freeway, the shit box decided it wanted to oversteer (the tail slid out) as I went around a corner at a very reasonable speed. Luckily, I was able to hold the slide and correct it (which was pretty cool). I like to push cars and to go fast, but I’ve never ever had a front wheel drive car oversteer on me before, especially at super low speeds. This isn’t really the car’s fault, but the shit tires come with the shit territory.

It had no safety features other than seatbelts and a couple airbags. No anti-lock brakes. No traction control. It had manual windows (fine, I guess), manual mirrors (eww), and manual door locks (gag me with a spoon!).

Despite all these omissions, it had alloy wheels and a spoiler from the factory! Oh, but it’s ok, it’s the fucking “value package” so all my friends won’t know I cheaped out on a car until they have to wait for me to get in the car to unlock their doors!

In the 4 years she had it, the following broke:

• The thermostat got stuck closed, which caused it to overheat which required the head gasket to be replaced
• The alternator failed catastrophically. Forget not charging the battery, try shorting out, discharging the battery and killing the engine in seconds.
• The tie rod snapped, causing the front wheels to be pointed in opposite directions (luckily this was in a parking lot so we didn’t die)
• The steering rack had to be replaced to fix the steering wheel that was 30 degrees off center to go straight.
• Something was wrong with the brake booster, it hissed when you held the pedal down in a certain position, which really inspired confidence.

What an awful car. Still, at least the previous owner left a new condom in the glove box when she bought it.

I hate all peanut products. I’m not allergic, either. Whenever my wife has peanut butter, I stay in another room and open the window. For some reason it’s absolutely revolting.

I definitely agree it’s nonsensical, but it makes a little bit more sense than that. Consensual sex being filmed is free speech as long as it’s not “obscene” (whatever that fucking means).

Still stupid tho.

I can’t offer a specific recommendation, other than to get a used laptop instead of new. Since price is an issue for you, buying used will help a lot.

Late last year, I bought a low spec Dell XPS 13 from 2019 for $300 USD from a local used electronics shop. New, this laptop would have been about $1,000. The battery isn’t great, but I can get a replacement from iFixit for $100 if I feel like it. The screen is excellent. The CPU is… fine for my use case. RAM is subpar (8 gigs) and soldered (gross), but on Linux it hasn’t a problem. I upgraded the NVMe SSD from 256 gig to 1 Tb for $60.

eBay likely has a lot of decent options for used laptops. You can look for enterprise grade hardware too. Enterprise grade stuff tends to have replacement part support more than consumer grade stuff.

Good luck!

Edit: You can also look at factory refurbished stuff too! Just check frequently since availability changes rapidly.

Oh my God Vyvanse is amazing. I was on Adderall XR for years, but I got sick of getting a huge burst of energy for 5 hours, feeling ok for 3, and then crashing hard after that. It was really hard dealing with that while work a 4/10 schedule.

Vyvanse is so smooth, I get a gentle push through most of the day, and a subtle let down after 10 hours or so.

Now if I could just be more diligent with my sleep…

Woah! I didn’t know they made heat pump ice cream makers (for non commercial users) at a decent price.

Assuming Folding@Home has some sort of API or if it can be started and stopped from the command line, it should be fairly straightforward with an Arduino a simple script.

Most of the space heaters that I’ve seen are like 1,500 watts. According to the UPS this computer is plugged into, it consumes around 650 watts. So it’s not as powerful as a space heater, but when the exhaust is pointed directly at your legs, it gets plenty warm.

Instead of using a space heater like everyone else, I run Folding@Home on one of my work machines to pump out a few hundred watts of heat. That way at least someone is getting some Alzheimer’s research out of burning that electricity.

I agree. I’ve also gotten shafted by used cars (7th generation Honda Civics are all utter pieces of garbage). I don’t take depreciation into account on a new car because I plan on driving it until it’s uneconomical to repair, which means it’ll be worthless when I sell it regardless.

My parents have only purchased one used car, and it was a nearly new car from someone they knew and trusted. The other 4 cars they’ve bought in the past 40 years have been new. They keep them until they’re old and basically worthless.