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Comment Re:A complete failure (Score 1) 51

The lecturer is there to read the room and be responsive to what's necessary to get the points across, otherwise may as well just read it in a book

Yes, very much so. Sometimes it is hard, but the better the rapport you build with the students, the better it works. Talking to them in breaks helps. Showing the occasional weakness helps. If some student know something relevant better than you, let them talk for a few minutes. Of course, some students want the degree, but not do the work (which is really stupid, but it happens) and that is why I have stopped teaching mandatory subjects. If you do not really want to be in my lecture, I do not want you to be there either.

Comment This seems ridiculous on the face of it (Score 1) 63

TFS appears to be attempting to conflate the phone-buying habits of individual consumers with business hardware replacement cycles and productivity. It appears to be complete garbage.

I am left to assume this was shadow written by someone in the marketing department from some large tech company - e.g. Dell, Samsung, Apple, Google, Microsoft.

As an aside - it seems pretty wasteful (and pointless) to replace your smartphone even after 29 months, let alone every 22 months.

Comment Re:A complete failure (Score 1) 51

The primary job of a lecturer is design of the lecture, select the material and structure it.

If that was true then we don't need lecturers anymore since all the material already exists.

That would require that there are no more and no less than the materials required in existence. The problem students face is not lack of materials. The problem is they are faced with vastly more materials than they need and most do not yet have the skills to competently make a selection and structure structure what they selected.

Other than that, I agree with your statement.

Comment Remember when Apple Memory used to be expensive (Score 1) 11

I remember the days when it was Apple that screwed over consumers when you wanted more memory. Nowadays even $500 to go from 32GB to 64GB of RAM is cheap.

It's rather ridiculous. And if you bought RAM 2 weeks ago, it's probably doubled in price today.

At this point in time it might be better to just invest in RAM - buying now and then waiting a couple of weeks and selling it.

Comment Re:And more AI nonsense gets exposed (Score 1) 66

If you can't figure out how to use this stuff, it's on you at this point.

I know how to use this stuff: Stay away from it, it adds nothing and wastes my time. Oh, I have one use: I currently have a student evaluate the major coding assistant and some general LLMs on how good they can judge code security. The results so far are that they work well for toy examples and not well or not at all for real situations. This may eventually get me a nice publication.

Comment Re:Hard and expensive (Score 1) 217

It doesn't. What it means is cutting through a lot of big parcels whose owners have big money, so they can be big impediments. There has to be a happier medium than this between respect for individual private property ownership and the needs of the many, but we are clearly uninterested in finding it in this country.

The greater good...for who?

I mean, in an example....high speed rail from NYC to LA.

I don't know exactly which states they'd pass through, but let's just pick Iowa for shits and giggles.

Now...to keep things "high speed" that means you're NOT going to be stopping much at all between the two end points.

So, this would benefit people in CA and NY, but it gives NO benefit to people in Iowa who would have cities, farmland,all sorts of private properly they'd have to give up for the system.

Why the fuck would anyone in Iowa vote to give things up for this rail system they do not benefit from and actually gain hassle from...?

Comment Re:No. [Trains can't win?] (Score 1) 217

Why does everything have to be profitable?

Well, if you want private industry to build it, they need incentive and "profit" is usually the driving motive historically.

Our current US railways were built by private industry.

The govt would just fuck it up and end up being massively expensive with everyone trying to get their cut of it.....especially if it were Federal.

Most roads, water, utilities...that are public...are LOCAL....city, state funded....

Comment Re: freight rail gets in the way in the usa! (Score 1) 217

As the OP pointed out, the problem is political and social, not technical.

And well...that's PLENTY enough to derail any efforts in the US.

You start mass eminent domain cases taking land from people and cities and well, you're gonna easily have 50+ years alone before the majority of those are settled one way or another.

Also, unless you get long straight shots of track...you're not going to have true High Speed Rail....and part of the obsticals for that is having to stop many times in many cities, turning to go to each one of those.....and if you don't do that and don't have service to many spots along the way.....those cities and states and localities aren't going to go out of their way to help take away land just to have something go speeding by them and be of no use to them there...

And if you can't really get true High Speed rail in.....most of the US will do "so, why bother? We already have highways, cars and planes to travel long distances fast...why do through the huge expense, litigation and hassle of doing rail?

There would be little perceived ROI to the average US citizen.

I mean, why would someone in Iowa give a flying fuck if someone in NYC could ride a fast train to LA?

Comment Re: freight rail gets in the way in the usa! (Score 1) 217

The US has no excuse. The only reason the US can't do it is corruption and/or incompetence.

Does it not ever occur to you that we in the US might actually LIKE/ENJOY the transportation system we have?

If we wanted all public transport....we'd get it. If we all wanted to live in extreme urban cities stacked on top of each other like rats and sharing walls....we'd do that.

We simply prefer our way of life....with individual transportation.

It also is likely part of a culture difference....that those in the EU never seem to be able to comprehends...in the US we prioritize the individual....whereas ya'll prioritize collectivism....the masses.

You prioritize the 'state'. And we prioritize the person.

And you act as if you way is the only true and "right" way to live.

Why not step back and think that some free people might want to live differently than you do....?

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