You can't always get the the drone you want, but if you try a laser you'll get what you need

 The "perfect" small unmanned aircraft, commonly called a drone, might still be several generations away. But like Moore's law, those generational cycles are getting shorter and shorter.

Chris Anderson of 3DRobotics suspects we're closing in on the drone equivalent of the Mac: a relatively affordable, accessible, and most importantly, practical piece of technology that can be deployed every day.

Tremendous headway has been made with multirotor technology (the heicopters, quadrotors, hexcopters, octocopters, and what have you). The market is quickly becoming flush with a variety of these aircraft, to the point where several options are available for each price bracket.

There's everything from $300 hobbyist rigs from big-name RC and electronics manufacturers, to $1,000 semipro setups from DJI and 3DRobotics, to $10,000 rigs that can loft, pan and tilt a DSLR or DV camera. The differences between each step may be as simple as stronger frames, larger motors and higher-capacity batteries.

A drone of your very own, from novice to pro. Sometimes no assembly required.

For the time being, however, it's still useful to have the technical know-how to put one together. It's even more useful to know how to fabricate a drone, or fabricate parts to suit your specific application.

Using social network analysis to find the impact of teacher turnover

This painting from a Washington D.C. tapas restaurant is not social network analysis, but social network analysis can help us unwind some mysteries about how the world is arranged.

Much has been made about the fact that America is coming up short when teaching children core concepts in STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

How does America perform, exactly? In 2009, the country's students came in 23rd place in science the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). That's below Belgium and Hungary. The top three performers, from first to third, were China, Finland and Hong Kong (tested separately than the rest of China).

When the results came out, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called it "an absolute wake-up call for America." The only country to land people on the moon was now in the middle of the pack for teaching children about science.

It made the news. Town hall meetings sprung up. Companies like Exxon Mobil developed marketing and outreach campaigns. And so the public became aware of the STEM crisis.

There's another crisis schools are faced with, and it's much less publicized: the turnover crisis. To some degree, these two problems are related.

If you're a college student considering a career in print journalism, reconsider.

Student loans, few openings, and a harsh work environment may keep you from pursuing your dream as a print journalist. But changing career paths doesn't mean you'll have to do PR for the Evil Empire.

Before Thursday's "Alternatives to Journalism" alumni panel, hosted by Taylor Goldenstein and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign SPJ Chapter, my wife made some recommendations on alternative titles for the Q&A:

"Go Back in Time and Be Born to Rich Parents Who Will Humor Your Quaint Little 'Career'"; and "Seriously, Though, Have You Considered Automotive Repair?"

I love that woman's snark.

We didn't get into time travel, automotive repair, or the benefits of a trust fund as it relates to pursing journalism, but I we covered a lot of ground about how to turn a journalism degree into something other than journalism.

On the panel, I was joined by Emily Cleary, junior brand associate at Monika Dixon Public Relations; Danielle Reading, assistant strategist at the boutique media and communications agency PHD; and Jenn Kloc, marketing coordinator at Jellyvision (a former fellow master's student and all around awesome person who shot my engagement photos).

As with any panel, there's always things you wish you mentioned. I'm going to elaborate on some of the big takeaways that we touched on: