Mark Cuban on the college education system

The best post I have read on the topic. I would only add one big difference between the housing crash and the potential college tuition crash: if you can't pay your mortgage, you're house will get foreclosed on and you might have to file bankruptcy, but you will be pretty much (in most cases) be freed from the debt after that and you can go live in an apartment; however, if you can't pay your student loans, you can get deferrals and extended income-based payment plans, but it's almost totally impossible to discharge a student loan debt. One of the things we learned in law school is that when you file for bankruptcy you can discharge most all of your debts with one big, major exception: student loans. I forget exactly the case we read to display how hard it is to discharge student debt, but I do remember that it involved a girl who had some of her limbs chopped off. That's how hard it is.

My convo with some T-Mobile employees yesterday

I stopped by my local T-Mobile store yesterday to activate my new Nexus 4 and got into a nice little conversation with the two guys working there. I was asking them when they thought T-Mobile stores would start getting the Nexus 4 in stock, and they said they had just got all the N4 window-dressing in so it should be soon (really soon I suspect), although you should buy it off the Play Store instead of paying T-Mobile's inflated price, designed to trick you into signing a contract.

They also told me that the iPhone will be going on sale at T-Mobile in March 2013, but there's a twist. One of the guys claimed that, because T-Mobile doesn't want to pay the huge carrier subsidy to Apple on the iPhone, the T-Mobile iPhone will only be available at full retail price (i.e., $649 for a 16GB iPhone 5), and, he claimed, T-Mobile will not let you amortize the cost of the iPhone over a period of months like the do with all their other phones.

I found all that a bit hard to believe. Even though T-Mobile's plans are considerably cheaper than Verizon and AT&T and a little cheaper than Sprint, I imagine it will be very hard to convince a populace that has been conditioned to expect a $200 iPhone to pay $650 for one. Either these employees didn't know what they were talking about or T-Mobile must have some other lure up their sleeve.

Variations on a Grandma

Eagle Ford Shale play from space at night

You want to talk about good, high-paying American jobs? Just look at these lights. This play that is just north of our family's ranch in south Texas. It's just crazy out there right now. You couldn't even count the number of extended stay hotels that have popped up in little towns like Kenedy.

The IDF goes social

With the start of Operation Pillar of Defense yesterday it looks like the IDF has moved to total war in the social sphere. We're talking Facebook, Twitter, blog (yes, even live blogging), Google+, Tumblr, Flickr, and YouTube.

The only computer that is bucking Moore's Law

I was just reading about the upcoming release of a color TI-84+ and thinking about how little these things have advanced over the years. I was required to use a couple different graphing calculators when I was going through high school and college math classes. The TI-83+ (which I still have) served the longest if I remember correctly.

I think the going rate for a TI-83+ back when I bought mine--2002 or thereabouts--was $115. Today you still have to shell out $95 for a TI-83+ at Walmart. Can we talk about how ludicrous that price is!? You can buy a Nexus 7 with a 1280x800 7" color display, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, and 16GB of memory for $199. But, to get a TI-83+ with a 96x64 monochrome screen, a 6 MHz processor, and basically about 672 kB of memory you still have to pay $95.

Boy I sure would like to know what Texas Instruments' profit margin is on those things!

Rough week for Iran's air force

Iran has never struggled to embarrass itself, but these reports about its attack on a U.S. drone are downright unbelievable. If the reports are to be believed, two Iranian Su-25 attack jets, armed with 30mm cannon and cable of speeds of nearly 600 mph, attacked an American MQ-1 Predator drone (in international airspace), capable of flying at a mere 135 mph, and failed to down it. The Iranians apparently made two passes at the drone and failed to even score a single hit! I've never been a pilot, but that's just bad. They're starting to come off like that kid who takes a big swing-for-the-fences hack, then turns back to see the ball still sitting on the tee.