Rogue One was the last of the movies I enjoyed and like you, I didn't care much for the 3 sequels. The actors, sets, filmography, special effects, and music were great, but the writing and story-telling were disappointing.

However, I've really enjoyed the TV shows that Disney has produced. The Mandalorian and Boba Fett were really solid and "felt" a lot like the original movie. Kenobi was pretty good, and though it didn't feel as strongly written as the Mandalorian, it did bring a lot of nostalgia. Andor was also really solid too - it started slow, but by the season finale, I found myself wanting more.

Indeed. Computer Literacy? Absolutely. Some coding? Sure. But "computer science" should be among the science electives like physics and biology.

People should know the basics of how computers and computer networks work, and particularly what happens with all their data as they use their devices and "cloud services". They should learn how to use all the basic types of applications... spreadsheets, word processors, image editors, etc. And even a little programming would be good just to gain a better understanding of how you can get computers to do what you want.

But if we're going to go down a road of "every child should be able to code", then we have to decide what we're giving up in the curriculum and school day to accomplish that.

You're driving on a freeway and passing a slower moving truck that's in the right lane. Before you finish the pass, they start moving into the left lane where you are and there's a barrier on your left. If you're closer to the cab than the back of the truck, then your best option is to accelerate to try to get ahead of the truck before is smashes you into the barrier or so the driver sees you sooner.

How about when I search for "Thai Food" don't show pins on the map for McDonalds, Popeyes Chicken, 3 tire shops, 5 local parks, a barber shop, and a pet store?

Are you my manager? This reads nearly word for word from my last performance review!

Just kidding... they don't pay me that much.

Haven't you eve seen a line of buses driving up to a school and idling as they load/unload? There are plenty of opportunities for kids to breath diesel fumes.

It was funny walking around my neighborhood on recycling days. So many red bins filled to the brim with empty wine and liquor bottles (mine included)!

I live at my place but spend most of my time at my partner's. If I'm watching Netflix, it's either here or there, not both. It already costs more than every other streaming service at $20/month. If they "crack down", I'm just dropping it because I can get all the old content they show from the library.

Are you serious or am I missing the /s?

The term "engineer" has been applied to people run the engines on trains longer than there have been "professional engineers".

Look at all the "electrical engineers" who the closest they come to doing anything with an engine is turning on their cars.

Sounds like the premise of that 80s movie, Looker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You don't understand Nike very well. It's a "brand" company that just happens to make shoes and apparel. They're really good at forming "brand relationships" with their consumers. But they know (and you don't) that if they simply price everything at the market-clearing price, they'll alienate many of their customers. So while that make some extra revenue in the short-term, it will damage the brand long-term, meaning lower long term profits. With these particular types of products, they intentionally only release a limited number of them, which helps build brand-heat and excitement about the products. Having a fair chance to get a rare shoe is an exciting experience for those consumers. If they just decided to price the limited run at 10 to 20 times the normal cost, it would just piss off everyone who couldn't get one and never had a chance to get one.

People like to say this, but forget the "over the long term" part of it. Let's say I run a great pizza shop. I can make good money selling lots of pizzas. If I suddenly decided to sell my recipes, my operating, all my equipment, and the store location itself, I'd make a shitload of money... right now. But I'd be poor in the long term. People say things like that along with "fiduciary responsibility... maximize profit", but again, that is almost always in the long term. Publicly traded companies that openly operate with only short-term profits in mind are quickly punished by the stock markets. And rightfully so.

I'm typing this on a 12 year old Lenovo, and they're my preferred brand these days (business class, anyway, not consumer). But if you're willing to shop used they're extremely affordable. For example I just picked up a T580 for $400 (still with a month of warranty!). Of course I immediately put Linux on it. I also have a couple 11 year old Dell E6520s that still work pretty well.

But I might be an outlier... I like running old computers, like the Fujitsu laptop I got in 2007. It has the best keyboard out of any laptop I've used since. And it still works just fine with Linux (and an SSD upgrade).

I got my partner a Macbook 16 last year because she prefers Apple. For what it cost, I really hope it lasts as long as my other computers.

I remember decommissioning a system back in the 90s that had these old hard-drives with platters that were about 12 inches in diameter. We had to take them apart then take a belt-sander to both sides of each platter. Then they were sent to a facility to be melted down.

That's not necessarily true. For example, I work in an office where a vast majority of the team is in other countries. Between Slack, Teams, Zoom, Webex, email, text, and phone, I'm only a few moments from responding to any request at pretty much any time of day.

We're all already "remote" so there's no point in having us all commute to offices to be still be remote in the office.

It's just a matter of setting expectations and norms for responsiveness. And the whole "But I can't just stop by Hazem's desk and ask him a question" is a red herring. There's a good chance Hazem's working on something and doesn't want to have his work disturbed. At least over electronic communication he can choose to engage as much as desired.

There's a common fallacy of conflating "I can see you in the office" with "you are being productive in the office".

It would be easy to make a simple appliance that plugs into the home network to do this work, just like other network appliances that non-techies regularly use. The only problem with that is that it won't share all that juicy private data with the big corporations for their profit.