I have interviewed a lot of straight-out-of-college Computer Science degree holders, and many of them could not solve even the most basic coding problems. They could talk about the concepts at a high level, but could not write code that does it in the programming language of their own choice.

A few said that they never had to do that sort of thing in any of their classes. That's what really bothers me. These aren't trick questions or advanced edge-case sorts of things, really basic stuff that should be homework assignments in CS courses. The very few that could figure it out during the interview got job offers immediately, precisely because there were so few who could. I think I have only ever met one fresh-from-college graduate who could solve multithreading problems, so I don't even bother bringing that up in interviews for anything but senior level candidates.

All this interest in Computer Science has motivated colleges to water the curriculum way down, so they can cash in on all that money. They are doing a terrible disservice to the students though, handing out degrees to people who should have been prompted to switch majors after their first CS 101 course.

I disagree. I think Apple should be free to decide the nature of the content they will allow on their app store.

They should not, however, be free to block end-users from side-loading whatever content (or rival stores) they want onto their phones.

I think it is fine for apple to control their online marketplace. Not fine for them to control devices that are owned by other people (even if they built those devices).

If someone legally purchases a device, why should the company that built it be allowed to block him from running whatever software he pleases on it?

Its a simple case of corporate freedom vs consumer freedom. Corporations have an incentive to maintain control of devices after they are sold, and consumers have an incentive to take control of devices after they are bought. Both feel fully justified in their position, so someone must decide.

In this case, I am siding with the consumers. People should be able to side-load if they want, on any kind of electronic device, because they paid for it. It's their risk to assume.

I could be convinced that consumers should not have this right for devices they rent. But absolutely for devices they buy.

I use a dumbphone for similar reasons.

Though you may be interested in these phones. They give you full control. But there are trade-offs, of course.

One must log in to post, anonymously or otherwise.

And people often post as AC so they don't have to undo mod points they have assigned. Cowardice may not have anything to do with it.

The right way to prevent AI cyberattacks from causing harm is to build systems that are strong against cyberattacks. No amount of global pinky-swearing will prevent malicious actors from getting their hands on AI bots and using them to perpetuate cyber attacks.

This means that our intelligence agencies need to stop sitting-on and weaponizing exploits when they find them, and instead responsibly report them..

I personally think this also means we need some sort of official service for performing security auditing and penetration testing, and holding companies accountable to good security practices. I generally oppose this level of government intervention but in the case of mission critical cyber infrastructure, it's justified. Maybe the accountability level is tiered based on how critical the service is. Steam and Reddit are not so critical, the world doesn't end if they go down. Sites that have lives on the line like military bases with any kind of internet-facing content, power grid, hospitals, or Slashdot would need to be in the top tier and undergo the most scrutiny.

If we don't do this, we will get taken down by AI cyberattacks, no matter how many countries promise not to.

As you may recall from stories reported in the Epic vs Apple lawsuits, Apple argued that the 30% was an industry standard, and subpoenaed steam, Microsoft, others, to justify that. In cases like these, "industry standard" is just double speak for "unspoken anti-compete agreement."

The link I provided was the first one that popped up in a google search. Similar numbers have popped up over time in other articles. But no, I am not going to play journalist and track them all down at your behest. This is a chat forum, not wikipedia, and certainly not a full time job. I am stating my opinion based on what I have read online in the past. Feel free to hold a different opinion, based on whatever you have read online.

If you would like to put considerable effort into scouring the web for tangible disproof of what I have put forth, please consider yourself invited to do so. Your post will probably be read, but your effort will probably not be matched.

Here is how I know:

link

Billions. Steam rakes in billions from all these games that they did not produce.

Of course steam should make money off the sales. But these enormous numbers show that they are taking quite a large slice of the cake all for themselves. In my opinion, it's simply too large.

For a games developer, avoiding steam's greed isn't as simple as "go somewhere else." Most other places charge just as much (they are, after all, a cartel). And for indie games developers selling on physical media simply isn't an option. Getting one's foot in the door, for the most part, requires sacrificing 30% where even 15% would still be yielding profit in the billions for steam. 10% would put steam at about 1 billion for good years and in the hundreds of millions for most years. Quite a nice profit if you ask me, with that 20% going to the developers who actually did the work.

But no, they gotta take almost a third for themselves, just because they can.

Cartels are not free markets. Since they don't compete against one another on price, they drive it up.

The developers are left with no choice but to pay the price if they want any sales at all. Then too much of the money they deserve winds up going to the storefronts instead.

30% IS highway robbery. Electronic storefronts don't cost anywhere near enough to justify such a high price. The argument in its defense is probably something along the lines of "well the pricing is based on value add, not cost. It's simply worth that price."

No, it's not. You charge it because you can, and have formed a cartel to enforce it. It's reasonable for you to extract a profit from it, but that is just outright too much, and it drives costs up unnecessarily across the board.

I am also no fan of Sweeny. But he is right about this.

I would like to point out that this disease was worldwide and common throughout most of human history. Vaccines stomped it out.

We have resurgences now and then because no solution is perfect, but the reason the vast majority of us have never had to worry about polio and may not have even heard of it until now is thanks to vaccines.

I am sorry to hear that. This sounds like a situation that neither I nor anyone else responding to your thread is qualified to help with.

I hope you find a way out of misery that doesn't involve a downward spiral of addiction and self-destruction. And I hope you find the support you need for that journey (but Slashdot is clearly not the place to look for it).

If you are happy the way you are, then I say just go with it. You only live once. Maximizing your longevity is not some sort of duty that we all face. You are free to pick your own values, and to pick friends that support you in them.

Why did you do the exercise and eat healthy thing? Was it out of peer pressure? Or maybe an experiment to see if it made you feel better? Or did you find your own reasons for wanting to be thinner (and maybe healthier and/or more athletic)? It matters because in the first two cases you probably wouldn't stick with it even if it did make a difference. If it isn't what your heart-of-hearts wants, the incentives to live a lifestyle that you dislike just aren't strong enough. And that's ok, you do you.

But if you have a true desire to lose weight and just got frustrated that it didn't work, I suggest talking to your doctor, as there are medical conditions that make it really hard to lose weight, and they are treatable. Even something like the specific species of bacteria that live in your intestines can have a dramatic impact on this. So if you actually want to lose weight then I suggest that you don't let frustration get the better of you, live your life according to that value system, seek medical advice, and above all, stick with it.

It is common online to use the words "vegetarian" and "vegan" interchangeably. When a distinction is drawn, it is almost always over milk, eggs, and honey. In the context of this article, those three items are never mentioned. The author is using "vegetarian" loosely to mean "eats vegetables," not strictly to mean "includes milk, eggs, and honey." This word usage produces some ambiguity, but it is common.

So, that doesn't mean that the source is "wrong." The claim about shao-lin monks eating a vegan diet is still true, and confirmed by other sources like this one (and others if you care to search yourself). It's all vegetables all the way down.

The "eight treasures congee" is also a dish that has cultural variants. So, more ambiguity. However, it is USUALLY fully vegetarian. Some people add meat for various reasons, but this ingredient is not a core part of it in most versions, and is not present in the version used by the shao-lin monks.

And I seriously doubt that many monks are vegetarians

Well your intuitions on the topic are not supported by the facts. There may be other monks that eat meat, but the Shao-Lin monks do not.

However with a good diet, you do not need meat, if that was your point?

Yes, that was my point. Shao-lin monks are just an extreme example since they exclude meat and are so athletic and healthy.

You may be interested to know that the famous Shao-Lin monks are vegan (one source).

These people are some of the most powerful athletes in the world. They are super-healthy. Their "unnatural" diet doesn't seem to be posing health risks to them at all.

Without having any sources, I would imagine that the monks carefully regulate their diet, probably much more so than ordinary non-monk vegans. So it would not surprise me if a large part of the worldwide vegan community has some nutrient deficiencies just from sheer laziness (or ignorance). The choice to avoid nutritious foods brings responsibility, and plenty of people have trouble with that sort of thing.