It needs to be a mix. I defy you to pronounce "gnu" using the rules of phonics. There are many words in English where phonics just fails, and for those you need to memorize the word. e.g. "adieu". But if you just memorize words, you'll never be able to read a new word. I accept that when I read a word from a foreign language, I'm likely mispronouncing it, but I *do* have a way to pronounce it, or I can't remember it.

Actually, short-hand is a sheave of different systems, some of which are totally a different thing, and some of which are just lots of standard abbreviations, and so closely similar, even if unintelligible to those not skilled in that particular art. ... Then there's steno-typing, which is related to at least one of the forms of short-hand.

I think what it actually means it multiple letters written without lifting the pen from the paper, which is sort of what you mean, but implies things like "i"''s are written without a dot, and the dot is added when the word is complete. IIRC, the "Palmer t" was a "t" at the end of the word written without lifting the pen to cross it.

Sorrry, when I got out of school I essentially stopped writing. ... Actually, when I was in college the professors demanded the papers be typed, so even in college it was only used for in-class assignments.

My memory says that I could easily read my handwriting, but others had trouble. And I had trouble with the handwriting of others. I'm willing to accept that at one point handwriting was sufficiently standardized that most people could read it without problem, but I can't think of a documented decade when that was true.

Try " The lack of instruction in cursive writing in schools may be a significant contributor to this problem.". That's reasonable. To say it the other way you need to conduct double blind experiments, which is difficult for cursive writing.

It's a plausible assertion, but you could substitute needle-point and have it be just as good an argument. (I.e., practice at needle-point would likely be as good at training find motor skills.)

I accept that you need to practice fine motor skills to develop them, but cursive writing is very probably only one way to do that. Practice with a brush constructing Chinese characters would almost certainly be as good.

At that age they can't understand what it means. But they *should* learn what it says.

OTOH, learning a bit of Chinese would probably be a good idea.

IIRC, in music copyright cases one bar of sufficiently similar notes is enough to justify suing for copyright infringement. And a composition of names is enough to justify the grant of copyright.

Law being what it is, that doesn't really prove anything, but it strongly suggests that a "novel combination" of code should be copyrightable even if all the pieces are public domain.

That's clearly the ideal approach. The problem is that you're likely to end up drowning in submissions.

Yes, but if you take several pieces of public domain code and create a new composition with them, that new composition is copyright. (I don't think you can even avoid having a copyright, though you can have a license that is essentially the same as public domain.)

Well...now I suppose you can avoid a copyright by feeding it into an AI and then having the AI regurgitate it. Or, if I've understood the news stories correctly, by claiming that an AI wrote it rather than "wrote the basic parts which you later adjusted".

That's a different problem, and I can't speak to it. But chickens could not be raised as they are without LOTS of antibiotics. (I happen to think the way they are raised is an abomination, but it's cheap.)

It probably makes more sense given their scale for them to have their own power generation -- solar, wind, and battery storage, maybe gas turbines for extended periods of low renewable availability.

In fact, you could take it further. You could designate town-sized areas for multiple companies' data centers, served by an electricity source (possibly nuclear) and water reclamation and recycling centers providing zero carbon emissions and minimal environmental impact. It would be served by a compact, robust, and completely sepate electrical grid of its own, reducing costs for the data centers and isolating residential customers from the impact of their elecrical use. It would also economically concentrate data centers for businesses providing services they need,reducing costs and increasing profits all around.

"Vets and wholesalers who supply farmers should be shut right down."

Yes, but... if you do this expect the price of meat to go way up, especially chicken and eggs. Perhaps it's a price we need to pay, but expect that it would need to be paid.