Could it be that since university enrollment is down in general, more marginal kids applied, thinking their odds are better now? Also because of AI fears, those choosing STEM majors are down, and thus more of the applicants may be for "squishier" degrees that don't need as much math.

I blame Excel, AI, Republicans, and climate change.

All 4 are merging into the Bigly Annoyance Party.

Like Jiiiihna. The upside is it makes commerce more efficient, as vendors don't need to deal with cash and related security.

If there comes a time where a centrally managed economy, population distribution, and perhaps genetic engineering becomes more efficient than ours, we may be SOL.

[60's idea] got canned when the John Bircher Society came out claiming it was Communist influence

They were somewhat right: Donald is a dictator-wannabe who has already stuck his fingers into multiple industries.

But I myself won't miss the penny, nor Donald.

> all notes are subject to scrutiny

Clarification: subject to judicial scrutiny to make sure they don't contain personal info or info irrelevant to the case.

In the clean-room approach, the other party or examiners are required to be strip-searched and to wear simple prison-like clothing as they go into a room without internet connections to examine the info in question? They can take written notes, but all notes are subject to scrutiny before being handed back.

Often the direction changes after a bubble. If you built a fancy little e-store for your niche store in 1999, likely it would be rendered nearly useless in the face of Amazon a decade later.

If you purchase a car from a soon-to-be-defunct company, you will have maintenance and resell headaches down the road.

something in AI? That's surprising, they've been slow to jump on the LLM bandwagon. Maybe dragging their feet will look like the right move after the bubble pops.

...order to induce R&D, but the side effect is a glut of cars and mass collapsing of brands. Chinese citizens got dicked by a tator, who treats them like guinea pigs.

Republicans are perpetual Archie Bunkers.

"Mongrel" is a code word indicating you are a flaming bigot, whose tribalistic instincts are easily triggered.

...fad of the month education. Rather than create a new course on each change, just call it Fads 101 and it can cover whatever looks like the "in" tech of the moment. Crypto? Gottit! Quantum? Gottit! Pokemon tokens? Gottit!

Nothing would make it “help get a little closer to making it a reality” if it’s not physically possible, and there’s a very strong argument that that’s the case. If nothing else, the maximum specific tensile strength allowed by covalent bonding - which is fundamental physics that we can’t change - combined with the reality of defects in a 36,000 km cable - is far below what’s needed to build a space elevator in Earth gravity. It might be possible to build a space elevator on the Moon or even (in the far future) on Mars, because their gravity is such that real materials could potentially do the job. But doing that involves bootstrapping an entire offworld industry, which is far beyond anything even the most advanced nations are capable of currently, let alone a technologically stunted oil state.