Monday, June 18, 2007

Student accuses teacher of plagiarism

Turnabout is fair play:

Passing off someone’s work as your own is a cardinal sin in college research. Students can be expelled. Professional reputations can be wrecked. While student plagiarism grabs headlines, allegations against teachers happen more than people realize, experts say. Because students rarely fight back, most accusations fade in the grumbling over beers after class.

This time, though, the student is suing.

Scheduled for trial this summer in Anoka County, Swenson’s lawsuit against Bender may offer an unvarnished look at who controls ideas in the give-and-take of college research. It also may open a window on the complex ties between teachers and students who need a mentor’s help and influence - and who understand they are unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt.

The school in question, Minneapolis based Capella, is a “for-profit, online university;” the teacher in question also received her doctorate from Capella.  It gets worse. The student and teacher never met in person. The student’s unpublished work was made available on the teachers website for free.

The teacher denies the whole thing and has some evidence to support her. It’s a mess.

Czech mushroom cloud TV prank

A Boing Boing reader writes:

Like many European TV channels the state-owned CT2 broadcasts live panorama / weather streams from popular recreation areas in its morning programme, fully automated 30 second pans per site with music in the background. Initiative Ztohoven, a collective around Roman Tyc, somehow managed to inject a pre-recorded pan with a sudden atomic explosion in the midst of a beautiful countryside. No word how they did it, assume they tricked the cabling on the unmanned camera site. Tyc also replaced traffic light icons in Prague with illustrations of drunk, pissing or ranting figures a few months ago.

A Real comeback

Om thinks maybe:

Real Networks (RNWK), the company that was one of the first companies to bet on streaming media (first audio and then video) recently released a new player, adding click-and-save web video feature. The company executives, while not being explicit, seemed pretty bullish about their prospects. [...]

I have been using the software for a couple of days, and it seems like it is time to give them a second chance. The company has stripped out most of the crap from their software, and the download button is becoming an addiction. Being time starved, it is easier to download and save the videos, so that I can watch them at a more convenient time.

By turning a blind eye to the legality of the software, some of the premium content available on the web is helping me live the no-old-TV life. Apparently, I am not the only one who feels that way. Michael Wolf, who is an analyst with ABI Research, also feels Real is ready for a comeback on the desktop.