I have a bunch of things clogging up my browser lately, awaiting inclusion in this blog, and I figured, what the hell, today’s the day for a big inventory busting blowout sale.

Everything must go!

First, there is this fascinating article about a challenge to the collegiate status quo at MIT.

And we are not talking about some minor fiddling with the SAT system (boy, I wish we had that here… ) or some novel new way for engineering profs to be even bigger dicks to their students.

We are talking a challenge (albeit a cautious and tentative one) to the very business model of higher education itself. How’s that for a firecracker?

Here’s the deal : MIT already has 2,100 courses available online for absolutely free. You can go to their website right now and audit any of those courses online for entirely free. The program is called MIT 2.0 and they have been doing this for ten years (hence the corny name) and it’s pretty frigging amazing, when you think about it.

For ten years, if all you wanted from MIT was the knowledge and not the piece of paper, you have been able to get it for free at MIT. How’s that for truly serving what a university is supposed to be all about, namely sharing knowledge?

Well, now, you just might be able to get the piece of paper, or at least, some kind of paper from MIT as well. They are planning to launch MITx, which will be an enhanced version of MIT 2.0, one where you can take online laboratories, chat with other online students taking the same free online courses, and for a small fee, actually obtain official certification from MIT that you took and passed the course.

That is one small step and one giant leap right there. Sure, it’s not the same as an actual degree from MIT, but it’s still something from MIT that says how smart you are, and it’s going to be way, way cheaper than the real thing.

Sounds like a bargain to me, and the sort of thing that could very well upset the whole “you have to take out massive student loans and give us four years of your life just to get a piece of paper” business model of modern colleges and universities.

I mean, what you really want is the knowledge, and proof that you have it. So why be saddled with debt for life and give up four vital years of your youth when you could just take the course from any computer (with Internet, natch) and only pay for the testing?

Tech certifications have been doing this for decades now, and I think it’s the model for the future for a certain stream of academia. There will always be people for whom the whole lecture based model is needed or desired, and you do get a lot more than knowledge from college.

STDs, for example, and the opportunity to be exposed to them.

But I think in the future, a lot of people will self-educate from home.

While you are thinking about that bright and shiny future, here’s five North Koreans playing Take On Me by a-ha! for you to look at, and wonder.

Feel free to sing along, especially if you can do it in Korean. (I love you, Internet. Don’t ever change. You bright me such wonders!)

And if that wasn’t stimulating enough for you, have some Hong Dong.

It may be hard to believe, but that there is a picture of the world’s most expensive dog.

His name is Hong Dong, which translates to “Big Splash” in English, and makes him sound like a water park. You just need to add “Mountain” or “Valley” to the end.

He is a Red Tibetan Mastiff, and a Chinese coal baron just bought him for $1.6 million bucks.

Obviously, said coal baron is highly impressed by the Red Tibetan Mastiff’s legendary and unparalelled prowess in looking like a shitty rug from the Seventies.

It’s not your fault, doggy. But you look positively macrame. And where the heck does that coloration blend in? Oh well, I am sure you’re a sweet and snugglesome pup anyhow.

Finally, the star attraction of today’s article : a little story about a man, nudity, breaking and entering, and the only wrong way to eat a Reese’s.

Cops answered a call to a Kentucky supermarket and found themselves facing the daunting task of having to arrest a naked dude covered in peanut butter and chocolate.

It gets better. The double coated chocolately goodness turns out to be a 22 year old dude named Andrew Toothman and he was arrested in a tiny town of 770 people called Neon.

Yes, there is a Neon, Kentucky. And it’s just as exciting as it sounds!

Oh, but he wasn’t completely naked. He had a pair of black boots on.

For some reason, to me, that makes it like a million times better. Naked, covered in chocolate and peanut butter…. but with his boots still on. What a cowboy.

And here’s the crowning glory of this tale of bizarre crime :

But the most bizarre bit of vandalism, investigators reported, involved NyQuil, the popular cold and flu remedy. “There was nyquil on the floor that spelled out sorry,” according to the February 2 citation.

See? He feels bad about it! The judge has got to take that into account, right?

The most obvious question is, of course, what the FUCK was he thinking? breaking into a supermarket, sure. You might do that for any relatively sensible reason. A bad case of the munchies comes to mind.

But how do you get from that to “naked and covered in two great things which taste great together”? I am guessing some seriously volatile mixture of brain altering chemicals were at work in whatever Mister Toothman (soon to star in a line of children’s horror books) has for a brain.

Or maybe he can plead really low blood sugar. I might have to cop to that some time, so I am personally interested in said defense.

I bet it will be a really interesting story anyhow.

That’s all for today. I have tons more, honestly, but that will do for now.

Later, all you wonderful people!