Post: #1

Maybe they hold the answer to improving the American higher education system:

Purdue has banned Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services. Will it get students to pay attention during class?

Quote:Faced with Wi-Fi that too often slowed to a crawl during the middle of class, Purdue University has taken a bold step to restore order to its network: It has banned Netflix.

Starting this week, the West Lafayette, Ind., campus is blocking the popular streaming video service in all of its academic buildings, along with other bandwidth-eating sites such as Hulu and HBO. The move comes after some faculty complained that the network had become so slow that academic applications were unusable during class.

“There’s a finite amount of bandwidth available,” said Mark Sonstein, the university’s executive director of information technology infrastructure. “If you have people who are streaming a movie, then they are consuming all of the available bandwidth.”

It’s the latest skirmish in the never-ending struggle between teachers and distracted students, using a technological fix to do what some professors have achieved by rounding up smartphones before class. So far, it seems to be going over without much fuss: University officials say they haven’t received any complaints.

“I heard about the bandwidth problem, but when the solution was implemented, I heard crickets,” said Steve Beaudoin, a chemical engineering professor whose building was one of the first to block streaming sites.

Purdue appears to be one of the first colleges in the country to resort to this kind of technological barrier, even though it’s common in secondary schools and corporate offices.

Chicago-based Roosevelt University said it doesn’t block streaming services. Purdue’s fellow Big 10 member, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also takes a hands-off position.

“We have made significant investments in our network in order to provide our students, faculty and staff with the technological infrastructure to support their needs,” a U. of I. spokesman said.

One local exception is the law school at the University of Chicago. Since 2008, it has shut off Wi-Fi in the classroom wing to encourage student attention and engagement.

Professor Saul Levmore said that has become an accepted norm among students, though with today’s smartphones capable of acting as internet hot spots, “if they want to check Wikipedia or something, they can do so.”

Some Chicago college students interviewed by the Tribune acknowledged that in-class streaming is common.

Columbia College freshman Dom Campo, 19, said he has seen students watching Netflix, Hulu or YouTube in classes, typically in lecture halls that seat up to 100 people. He acknowledged he sometimes does it too.

“(Professors) are not going to yell at you,” said Campo, who is studying screenwriting. “It’s not like grade school or something like that. You have the choice. ... It’s going to be on you at the end of the day.”

At Robert Morris University, students Katie Merrell and Dan Longmire also admitted to watching shows during class.

Some lectures last two hours, so it can be hard to stay on track the entire time, especially if the class doesn’t include breaks or hands-on activities, said Longmire, 20, a sophomore who is studying exercise science.

“You’ll have zones where you’ll focus and then you’ll tune it out, go to your phone and do something, and then you’ll come back to the lecture and then go back to doing something else, so it just goes in and out basically,” he said.

Merrell, a 20-year-old junior who is studying psychology, said she watches full episodes of “Saturday Night Live” in one of her classes when she gets bored. Though she said streaming restrictions might be a good idea, she didn’t think students would be happy about them.

“We’re paying for the classes, it’s our money, but at the same time, it’s also your education and you want to be prepared for the field you are going into, so I don’t know,” she said.

Rory Robertson, 20, a junior psychology major at Roosevelt University, said streaming was more of a problem in her freshman-year classes. Some professors now ask students not to stream, and others require students to take notes by hand.

“As people get more into their college career, I think they kind of pay more attention because they are paying a lot of money,” she said.

Purdue decided to take action on its poky network after a study found that only 4 percent of its traffic was academic, while 34 percent was consumed by streaming services and gaming (the rest was “mixed,” meaning search engines and YouTube that could have an academic purpose).

The problem became so extreme that students sometimes had difficulty turning in their homework online or using apps designed for the classroom, Sonstein said.

“We have a system here where students can answer questions (electronically), and professors can collect answers and then talk them through,” he said. “A professor would decide not to use it because they can’t rely on the bandwidth.”

The university started last fall by blocking Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Pandora, iHeartRadio, the gaming platform Steam and Apple software updates in a few large lecture halls, then expanded to several academic buildings.

This week, with students back from spring break, the policy went campuswide, though student centers, dorms and common areas of academic buildings are exempt. Purdue’s other campuses in Indiana are not affected by the new policy.

Nick Pappas, a 19-year-old sophomore from Barrington who is studying computer science, said he hadn’t heard any gripes about the filters. But while he didn’t believe classroom Netflix sessions to be a widespread phenomenon, he said a few students have become cavalier about using class time for entertainment.

“People can get away with it so easily,” he said. “Even if you have a teacher who isn’t afraid to call it out, with (wireless earbuds), they can hide them under hats.”

Some Purdue students on Reddit advised their classmates to get around the block by using virtual private networks, but a school spokesman was unruffled by that possible dodge.

“If the bulk of the students participate, either because they agree with the purpose of the program, or because they aren’t inclined to take the steps necessary to circumvent it, then the purpose — freeing up bandwidth for academics — will be achieved,” he said.

Only four percent of the traffic at Purdue is Academic!
Boomers: 1, Millenials: 0

Post: #2

Was porn included in "streaming"?

Post: #3

To be fair it has got to be an absolute bitch to provide enough bandwidth for several thousand dipshits streaming 1080p video all day.

When I used to work with millenials they'd leave HD youtube on in a window in the background playing music. We had a fast connection but that shit killed it.

Post: #4

A netflix ban is a good idea...they should roll it out worldwide.

Post: #5

I wonder if collectively we could come up with a system where Millennials pay us 50k a year to sit in uncomfortable chairs and stream Netflix while zoning out.

Oh wait.

On a more serious note, I remember in some of my more difficult Finance classes there'd be kids on Steam the entire time who would demolish the curve with their low scores. For the rest of us, this was basically free grade inflation. It'd be interesting to study the degree of correlation between this ban and campus wide GPAs, especially with Freshman and Sophomores.

Post: #6

Not sure the generation in college now is still called millennials

Post: #7

Back in my day, we download movies to watch on laptops, later.

Post: #8

I don't understand the economic mentality of borrowing six-figures to take a degree and then not actually paying attention in class. Also - something that I thought to myself when the admissions bribery/cheating scandal broke - shouldn't more of these students FAIL if they don't have the chops to get into an ivy school? Same with watching Netflix and Hulu in class. Shouldn't more people fail as a result?

Is failing still possible?

I am more and more convinced that the academy has to fail as an institution to save Western Civilization.

Post: #9

(03-19-2019 01:46 PM)Malone Wrote:  To be fair it has got to be an absolute bitch to provide enough bandwidth for several thousand dipshits streaming 1080p video all day.

When I used to work with millenials they'd leave HD youtube on in a window in the background playing music. We had a fast connection but that shit killed it.

Remember when folks downloaded music and didn't have to be connected to listen?

Anyways, it is such an incredible bitch providing the bandwidth that your typical residential ISP engages in all sorts of caching to put the content much closer to the consumer. Every residential ISP of size has several boxes in their racks which hold Netflix's entire catalog of the moment. Some network requests related to account management will make it all the way long the network Netflix, but the video itself streams from your consumer ISP's local network.

Google, Akamai, and all manner of other providers of bandwidth intense content will similarly get begged by your local ISP to pretty please rack some boxes holding their caches in their datacenters. Now Google's boxes won't be able to hold all of YouTube, but they will have the popular stuff. The only reason consumer internet connections are as cheap as they are is a very small percentage of bandwidth usage escapes the ISP's network.

On the other hand when you buy a big boy internet connection for a business or university you are buying a certain amount of dedicated bandwidth (some small business can get away with buying something similar to a consumer plan except with a fixed IP address). The full amount of the bandwidth is always available, and there are contracts in place allowing the enforcement of this and remedies for exception circumstances. This is in contrast to your consumer connection that only promises speeds "up to" the advertised.

Having this big chunk of bandwidth reserved all the time with upstream providers is expensive, and is a major driver of caching in the consumer sector. Aside from the pipe, the customer either brings everything else or contracts what they want off of a menu. Even IP addresses and domain name resolution are extras.

How expensive this is very location dependent. Even in the US and EU where there are plentiful backbone routes, streaming video gets expensive very quickly. This is why in the early days of Netflix streaming, every ISP bitched about Netflix data use and has since stopped bitching, Netflix stopped using massive cross network bandwidth. In Asia local bandwidth is incredibly cheap, but international connectivity costs dearly because they countries are wired well internally but they suffer a poverty of international connections. Prices in LATAM vary, but as a rule Pacific coastline and being landlocked are a recipe for awful international connectivity. Islands are just fucked.

As someone who shops big boy internet connections, if I was doing so for employees/students rather than paying customers... I'd nullroute Youtube and Netflix. Let their mobile data plan stream their Youtube music.

Post: #10

(03-19-2019 02:32 PM)DannyAlberta Wrote:  I don't understand the economic mentality of borrowing six-figures to take a degree and then not actually paying attention in class. Also - something that I thought to myself when the admissions bribery/cheating scandal broke - shouldn't more of these students FAIL if they don't have the chops to get into an ivy school? Same with watching Netflix and Hulu in class. Shouldn't more people fail as a result?

Is failing still possible?

I am more and more convinced that the academy has to fail as an institution to save Western Civilization.

You bring up some good questions. Let's look at it from an incentive perspective: If you knew that putting in 100% more work would only get you perhaps 10% more success, would apply yourself thusly?

Also, unless you have some truly incredible professor or class that is helping you process information in a way that is inimitable, you can basically get this information yourself later.

Do students themselves even really want to go to college to learn something? No, they go because it's the only socially acceptable option for them, an easy way to temporarily gain independence when they are least emotionally prepared to be independent.

It's basically like giving a child a big pile of rare Mahogany and telling him to how he can now make beautiful furniture out of it. The child will most likely use that wood to make a bonfire, because they don't really grasp what it is they have and the value of it.

Colleges and Universities (in the US) go out of their way to make sure nobody fails out. If word gets out that students are getting kicked out before graduating, Parents and students will not risk the $200k tuition cost at that school.

Decades ago, and even today (to a lesser extent) in countries like Germany, going to University was a very sober decision that one made only when they had a clear path in mind of what their degree would do for them, and with real consequences for bad grades (and no grade inflation to boot).

I don't blame these kids really. They are just floating a long in another phase in life that has been prescribed to them, lacking all agency and sense of consequence. The system is a scam and they know it on a very gutteral level, so they just idly amuse themselves during class and focus on networking and other social opportunities to acheive their goals in life, whatever they may be.

Post: #11

Funny how they stop short of banning the real distractors Which are Instagram and Tinder. They know that means the kids would just go to another school.

Is a 19 year old sorority skank really watching Netflix? No, she's filtering her selfies.

Aloha!

Post: #12

(03-19-2019 02:28 PM)Hypno Wrote:  Not sure the generation in college now is still called millennials

It was Generation Z.

Now? Generation REEEE!

Post: #13

I like the idea of a Netflix ban.

But it's only a bandaid on the real problem: too many boring, terrible professors. Few things can suck the life out of great subjects for life other than an incompetent, dull teacher.

A boring professor can absolutely destroy what is an otherwise fascinating subject so much that you never want to hear or see about it again. I had one who did that for Econometrics for me, and I love economics and statistics both. But even today when I hear econometrics I shudder and wretch in disgust. The professor was that bad.

The problem is they're letting anyone with a degree teach. There also has to be some sort of competency standard to teaching too; just because you have a degree doesn't mean you're qualified as a teacher.

Post: #14

(03-19-2019 04:08 PM)Kona Wrote:  Funny how they stop short of banning the real distractors Which are Instagram and Tinder. They know that means the kids would just go to another school.

Well those are relatively low bandwidth in comparison to the streaming sites so kids would just use their mobile data for those.

Post: #15

This is failure of democracy and the tragedy of the commons wrapped up into one. Every Millennial was pushed into college in spite of individual grades and aptitude. Now we have incompetents that don't have the attention span to listen to a lecture for two hours, trying to grab their "fair share" of WI-FI that's better used for academics by the people who have the intelligence to take something away from the lectures. Mob rule destroys everything. Universities should do the opposite of banning WI-FI. They should encourage it and have people scan the lecture halls for people watching cat videos, which results in immediate expulsion. Separate the wheat from the chaff and put serfs in their place.

Post: #16

I'm a professor at a major state university in the sciences field in the south west. I'm young enough to still get unsolicited attention from the female students. Academia is toxic for red pill men. College is a scam. $2k for a some knowledge you can learn for free off youtube with a little discpline. I let my students know this. I bang on average one student a semester.

Ask me anything.

Post: #17

(03-19-2019 02:32 PM)DannyAlberta Wrote:  I don't understand the economic mentality of borrowing six-figures to take a degree and then not actually paying attention in class. Also - something that I thought to myself when the admissions bribery/cheating scandal broke - shouldn't more of these students FAIL if they don't have the chops to get into an ivy school? Same with watching Netflix and Hulu in class. Shouldn't more people fail as a result?

Is failing still possible?

I am more and more convinced that the academy has to fail as an institution to save Western Civilization.

Most people in university take useless degrees such dance or something ridiculous like gender-bender Chinese fart music. These classes do not require any effort to pass. Everyone I knew would write their essays last minute and still get a passing grade. University is one big ponzi scheme that people are forced to do because of a degree has now become the minimum requirement and stupid societal norms.

I made gender-bender Chinese fart music but now I am thinking there probably is a university that teaches it.

Post: #18

(03-19-2019 09:57 PM)Atomic Wrote:  I'm a professor at a major state university in the sciences field in the south west. I'm young enough to still get unsolicited attention from the female students. Academia is toxic for red pill men. College is a scam. $2k for a some knowledge you can learn for free off youtube with a little discpline. I let my students know this. I bang on average one student a semester.

Ask me anything.

How do you bust professor game? I guess...they approach you, but how do you make the move while CYA at the same time?

Post: #19

Quote:College is a scam. $2k for a some knowledge you can learn for free off youtube with a little discpline. I let my students know this.

(03-19-2019 10:13 PM)for.petes.sake Wrote:  University is one big ponzi scheme that people are forced to do because of a degree has now become the minimum requirement and stupid societal norms.

It's not just college. This problem of credentialism is much, much larger than college.

Credentialism is "belief in or reliance on academic or other formal qualifications as the best measure of a person's intelligence or ability to do a particular job."

The West is increasingly all about credentials, and less and less about wisdom from experience.

The workforce especially: you have all sorts of folks getting certified in some Human Resources Certificate, or becoming a certified Six Sigma Blackbelt, or becoming a certified Google Adwords Partner. But 80% of these certified people don't deserve to be certified. And it's a shame that in many cases they will be more highly regarded than someone who learned these same skills from the school of the "streets" and who really know their shit.

The problem of credentialism is far bigger than University alone. It's a plague and a ponzi scheme affecting the entire West.

Basically, Leonardo Da Vinci would have never gotten a job in today's world because although he was a natural genius he wouldn't be Adobe Photoshop Certified

It's that bad.

Post: #20

(03-19-2019 10:22 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(03-19-2019 09:57 PM)Atomic Wrote:  I'm a professor at a major state university in the sciences field in the south west. I'm young enough to still get unsolicited attention from the female students. Academia is toxic for red pill men. College is a scam. $2k for a some knowledge you can learn for free off youtube with a little discpline. I let my students know this. I bang on average one student a semester.

Ask me anything.

How do you bust professor game? I guess...they approach you, but how do you make the move while CYA at the same time?

Obvious clues mostly.

The two most common are:

1. Undergrads including phone numbers in emails. Instead of replying via email just text back "Hey got your email, blah blah blah". They normally response with "thanks!" or something of that sort. Most girls skip at least a couple classes, so its an easy follow up with "start showing up to class more often". That's the screener text. If they respond favorably you continue the text message. If they don't you you are still covered because you are simply telling them to quit skipping.

2. Grad students asking for extra help. These are the ones that are seriously interested in their education. Thus you know your position as their professor is a serious DHV. Invite to office hours, then cancel and say you are going to be a local bar that night if they want to run a quick question past you. If they show, game like any normal girl.

The girls aren't the problem. None of them actually want people to know they are sleeping with a professor. It's the male friends in class you need to worry about.

Today a had a lunch break before an afternoon class. My student came to my place and we fucked before class. The whole class she was texting me as her orbiter friend was next to her. The guys are the problem, not the girls.

Post: #21

(03-19-2019 10:32 PM)monster Wrote:  

Quote:College is a scam. $2k for a some knowledge you can learn for free off youtube with a little discpline. I let my students know this.

(03-19-2019 10:13 PM)for.petes.sake Wrote:  University is one big ponzi scheme that people are forced to do because of a degree has now become the minimum requirement and stupid societal norms.

It's not just college. This problem of credentialism is much, much larger than college.
It's that bad.

Agreed, but the blame isn't on the colleges. The blame is on the employers. I tell my students all the time I could care less if I gave blanket A's to the whole class. If they show up to an interview and don't know their shit, they're not getting hired. Or they pass the HR screeners and get hired, but they can't perform to the level their resume claims and they get fired.

It's my job to present information, not to make sure students actually learn and understand it. That's on them.

Post: #22

(03-19-2019 10:34 PM)Atomic Wrote:  Today a had a lunch break before an afternoon class. My student came to my place and we fucked before class. The whole class she was texting me as her orbiter friend was next to her. The guys are the problem, not the girls.

I hope you aren't intending to make a career out of the professor thing, because the fucking-your-students thing is going to come crashing down in spectacular fashion in the not so distant future. As assuredly as gravity.

Post: #23

(03-19-2019 11:09 PM)kmhour Wrote:  

(03-19-2019 10:34 PM)Atomic Wrote:  Today a had a lunch break before an afternoon class. My student came to my place and we fucked before class. The whole class she was texting me as her orbiter friend was next to her. The guys are the problem, not the girls.

I hope you aren't intending to make a career out of the professor thing, because the fucking-your-students thing is going to come crashing down in spectacular fashion in the not so distant future. As assuredly as gravity.

Thanks for your concern. I make way more money in the private sector than the education sector. I'm not a professor for career reasons.

Post: #24

I wouldn't say I was concerned. But if that's the case, by all means - carry on.

Post: #25

Boomers are funny..

Guess they've never heard of VPN?