I'm in the same situation as you (embedded C and real-time Linux kernel programming), and last year I got handled exam results that were *very* obviously written by chatgpt. When I asked the university about what the policy about this was, the answer was "there is no policy about AI" so I was disgusted to have to give grade 'A' to ChatGPT. And this year there's been no policy change so I expect the same, and I can tell already the students are far from being as good as last year.

My ISP in the US has had broken SSL on POP3/SMTP for a year. It just won't work so matter how many tickets I fill: all their certificates and protocols are outdated and the 'fix' is to disable SSL. In other words everything in the clear. Incompetence ? Or a clear design to 'open up' to outside listeners ?

>The ruling elite has decided they do not want you to be educated

No, the ridiculous price of tuition is actually the result of the government encouraging people to go to college. They will pay whatever 'need' is, and 'need' is whatever the price of college is... so colleges keep raising the price, year after year, much higher than inflation.

It's not going to the professors, either. At my local state college, only 13% of the budget goes to professors (including benefits).

At community colleges here in California, 50% goes to direct instruction. Why? Because state law mandates the 50 percent rule. So community colleges are reasonably priced and often do a better job actually teaching with smaller classes than state colleges, but I guess we have a good 9-3 football team at state, so...

Just last week I ordered a very banal 16Gb memory bank to upgrade a laptop. A few days later I saw that the delivery was for... May 2026 !!! Was the vendor site simply gone to shits or is that related, I have no idea, but I canceled and ordered somewhere else and I'm still waiting.

Hokkaido is not an "Island of Flowers". While the Furano Biei lavender fields are pretty famous, it is a small part of the island. Most of it is the same sort of forest and mountain terrain you'd see in Yosemite.

Well copyright and privacy are dead for all but the incorporated.

And I wouldnâ(TM)t bank on a paid email account not being used for AI scraping.

There are no standards any more. Not even much of a pretense.

This is why serifs are necessary. This right here.

Well, they didn't have very much health care back then, so a wrong stab wound and...

There's a lot to unpack in your 3 lines of text, but most of it is wrong, you should read some history books. Human sacrifice wasn't practiced in the roman empire. Indeed at the time of the Trojan War it was already old memory and found abhorrent. As for gladiator, it was similar to american wrestling: trained pro athletes putting on a show. Accidents did happen, but killing each other wasn't part of the show. Now prisoners condemned to death sometimes yes, but remind me how many people the US executed last year ?

I work in IT supporting about 300 scientists with Win+Linux+Mac, about 33% each, but with Win11 we decided to change policy: deny requests for Windows unless really necessary and give that user a Linux PC for a month. After a month, if they *still* want Windows, okay.

Yes, absolutely right. But the homeschooled US kids I saw had their entire 'social mixup' done in church or at the gun range...

True. When buying a PC if there was an OS option choice [Windows] [Linux] [None] I'm sure Linux would be on par with Windows. Why there hasn't been an anti-trust settlement to enforce this 25 years ago is beyond me.
Disclaimer: 25 years ago, doing technical support to my family (about 10PCs), I got pissed at them for having to clean viruses over and over week after week, so I gave them an ultimatum: I install Linux and provide full support, or you get a Mac and are on your own, or I categorically refuse to approach Windows anymore. 75% took the Linux options, 25 the Mac. And it's been about 10min a week (total) of support via ssh since then. My 60yo parents didn't even notice the change (I put them up with KDE with a Windows look).

It really shouldn't be a political stance. Psychologists (and common sense) show that children *need* contact with other children. Otherwise they grow up into little cultists of various ilks. I grew up where homeschooling is next to non-existent and when I moved to the US I saw how close minded it turned many adults into.

This. Homeschooling should be illegal. Except in rare cases of severe handicap. Or as an option for *additional* credits if not available in the public school where the kid is going. But as you say it's used for control and to keep kids from meeting different viewpoints. Do you think there would be so many young nazi and evangelists if everyone was going to public school ?!?

And BTW I also strongly think that private schools should not exist. Finland closed them all and they are now... #1 in education worldwide. If the rich have to send their kids with the plebe, they make sure it's at least well funded.

Yes, and pros too. But those people can do the computation in reverse.