Way back in the dawn of CS - around late '80s - my compsci teacher was an EE that got roped into teaching an Intro to C class. How hard could it be? Ha. I'd already spent a year playing with Turbo C, copying programs from Dr. Dobb's - there's a blast from the past - so that when the prof occasionally slipped up while giving the lessons, I gently hopped in and said, "I think you mean $this," for whatever value of $this. He knew he wasn't an expert, so he welcomed the corrections.

Nah, son, you need to encourage your kids to go into orthodontics. I don't know what the coursework is like, but I know people dumber than me that managed, and after entering practice, their biggest problems were what to do with all of the money. Not even exaggerating. I worked for a small outfit of three doctors, and I remember them doing fuck all for actual work - the assistants did the majority with the docs doing some tweaks and final pass - and spending more time worrying about their race horses, and how to balance their business losses against their gains to minimize taxes. If I'd gone into orthodontics 20 years ago, I'd be sitting on piles of cash about now.

How does a group anonymously send a letter to "Congress"? Is there an address and mailbox for anonymous letters? Do you just let it slip out of your pocket while walking on the steps of the big building and a staffer picks it up to process? What are the mechanics of this?

Parents don't bother getting involved until there's an issue du jour. I served on a school board, and it was something of a surprise if we got anyone other than those being paid to be there - school officials and local news reporters. Then, we'd have a contentious issue, people would fill the room, a lot of shouting would ensue, the issue got "resolved" - or not, but we couldn't do anything more about it - and attendance dropped to zero again.

Parents could make a difference if they cared enough to show up to board meetings where these things are discussed before they're rolled out to classes.

I had a TRS Model 100 and programmed the class assignments in BASIC during class, and then translated them to Pascal - I'm old; get off my lawn - before turning them in for grading.

He didn't say "all": he said a "big percentage."

I get that, because I've done similar while dehydrated, though not while flying a plane. But aren't the cockpits typically nice and comfy?

Soon, Texas will announce their investments in NFTs to diversify their retirement portfolio.

They should've wrapped the vehicle in soft, fluffy pillows to soften the impact.

Black Mirror did this: Season 1, EP 2: 15 Million Merits.

> Fuck that ridiculous iPhone treadmill.

Your bias is showing. Sure, some people are ridiculously insecure and pretentious, and buy new shinies because "new shiny," but not all of us Apple users are like that. 8 or 9 years ago, I was using a 5C, that I got from my grand-daughter when her parents bought her something else. Then, I got an SE that I was going to buy for myself, but my kid pulled a fast one on me at Micro Center, and bought it for me, that punk. I still have that one as my stationary music player, and it still works fine in other aspects as well, but my kids bought me a model 14, so I use that. I've had that one a few years, and feel no need to upgrade until it doesn't work anymore. Or my punk kids buy me another one that I don't need.

Apple puts out phones every year because, surprise!, people reach the end of their phone's life, and need a new one. Apple is not forcing anyone to upgrade on the yearly. If you feel like you're being judged for using an older phone, that's a you problem.

$3,000? That's a pie-in-the-sky machine. For giggles, I spec'd a new M4 Pro Mac Mini with the highest number of cores, 48GB RAM, 1TB storage - sure, you could get more, but 1TB is an adequate starting point - and it came to $2,200. And that's a bit better than "decent." For comparison, my 2023 M2 Pro with 10 cores and 32 GB RAM is still more than acceptably chugging along, and I have no interest in replacing it for a while. Unless I got a good deal on a trade-in.

Which is all the more reason to get rid of "qualified immunity." If these fucks were held personally responsible for their mistakes, you can bet they'd do a much better job of investigating their "tips" before rolling out the SWAT teams. Pushing the culpability onto the local government gives cops a license to be abject assholes and trample our rights and property.

Some did. Worked out about the same for them. Point being: can't trust ol' whitey. Couldn't then; can't now.

Neville Chamberlain also chose peace - something about "Peace in our time." And, yet, because appeasing belligerents never works, the entire world erupted in *another* world war. Do you really think Putin would just stop if Ukraine capitulated to all Russian demands?