Poor little moon microbes. They must feel like a stranger in a strange land.

[Disclamier: I'm a developer born in 70-something who doesn't think children need the internet in their pockets]
My kids are 5th, 7th, and 9th grade. We've felt that 2 hours of screen time (Netflix, computer/console gaming, tablet usage) was a healthy upper limit per day. This idea was based on how my wife and I were raised during the 80's and 90's where most of our childhood was spent outdoors with friends. I know it's quaint these days, but it seemed to work for us; our kids can hold a real conversation with adults while maintaining eye contact, and despite fighting amongst themselves like cats and dogs, we are always complimented on how engaging and polite they are. Not a brag, just context. Maybe they're just good kids and us limiting screen time has nothing to do with it.
...but...
Now that the school has them on Chromebooks 3-5 hours per day during instruction time, then an additional 30-minutes of them just watching Youtube during Resource/Study Hall, then doing "homework" on the Chromebook for an hour at night...screen time has exploded from 2 hours per day to 6.5 hours per day.

They don't have smartphones (yet), but they are literally in the 1% of kids in their schools that don't have smartphones. I think beyond a reasonable amount like 2 hours, time that children spend looking at a screen is time they are not learning how to interact with the world with their senses. Some of their peers can't string 3 sentences together in a single conversation without drifting into looking at their phone or talking about what they saw on their phone.

I may be a minority even here, but I think the school (and these organizations) are doing a huge disservice to these kids...and for what, automated learning with built-in KPIs and a fatter bottom line?

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/...

This has been a thing since 2016.

Thanks for this. Stories like this make me want to give up on Slashdot. Comments like yours make me want to stay.

s/art without being/art without being seen\?/i
sorry about...

I disagree. What about a nuclear blast? Not a photo or video of the event, but the blast itself? Lots of physics and economics involved in that, but were either Hiroshima's or Nagasaki's blasts art?

Nature can be beautiful, but not art. Nearly anyone with the gift of sight has seen beauty in a sunset, but did the sun, earth, and atmosphere intend to create the view? Is it art or natural beauty? We would all agree that a photo or painting of the same vista is art; the artist took action to create a representation of what they experienced. But is the sunset itself art? Can it be caused? Can it be sold?

Art implies an artist and an intent. For something to be art, it must not have "been" and then must "be" by the artist's conception and action. Ultimately, an item must be observed by a second party and experienced before it is art, or is it art without being

In nearly all debatable cases (e.g. "Artist's Shit", pornography, graffiti, etc.), the debate centers on what beauty or meaning (i.e. value) could the viewer ascribe to the item in question. Questionable performance pieces may not fit the classic definition of beauty, but do evoke reaction and experience and memory in the viewer thereby satisfying the artist's intent. There's usually some understanding that a consensus or plurality of observers who individually find beauty/meaning in a piece would agree "yes, this is art".

In this case, the debate is more on the definition of art itself as opposed to the substance or interpretation thereof. Can something created without intent be called "art"? The AI didn't choose to make the piece -- it was instructed to make something according to a set of rules made by a programmer. Sure, there may have been a fair amount of learning, training or genetic pruning to get the result...and someone may be willing to pay for the beauty/meaning/novelty they see in a copy of the product...but the AI did not intend for a viewer to derive anything from viewing/experiencing the product.

"If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And, if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order."
-Zoe, Firefly (2002)

Funny how things change. I recall when KDE went from 3.x to 4.0 and the exact opposite rationale was common. I stuck with KDE through the painful early 4 days and still use it today -- was an apologist during the rough years, but now I agree that it is the easiest transition for Windows users.

YES! And if you didn't care about the life of the drive or seek/write times, you could use DoubleStack to get it to 40MB! Live and learn.

...you mean TOAST "it"?

I think it's even more insidious than outright abridging the free speech of the people. If it were an explicit or indirect ban on what words an *individual* could say or write, that would surely be litigated by someone up to the Supreme Court and ultimately struck down as unconstitutional. However, consider a hypothetical law gets passed defining what constitutes hate speech (or indecent speech), or maybe bestowing a group like the SPLC that can define those words and phrases. See Canada's Human Rights Council and Bill C16. Perhaps another section (or even another bill) states the damages that apply to broadcasters/publishers who don't remove/censor/abridge hateful and indecent words and phrases. This hypothetical law wouldn't technically abridge an individual's right to speak freely, but merely punish the platforms of rapid, easy, prolific free speech we enjoy on the internet's social media platforms. It would be a perfect storm of practically censoring the "little guys'" voice and vindicating the companies who are already doing essentially the same censorship.

Look at those dogs go. GO DOGS GO!

...look what you made me do.
-Microsoft.

Yeah, Feedly app on the phone is a must. I typically avoid it on the desktop, otherwise I'll lose all productivity.

...than any of the following:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
1 x 10^34
1e+34
10 decillion
Come on. This is still Slashdot.