Companies would rather hire young people because inexperienced people are cheap. Hence also the huge numbers of H-1B and TFW visas - despite the hype, people knew damned well that the only reason Microsoft built their facility in Vancouver was so they could hire temporary foreign workers once they had exhausted their H-1B quota in Seattle. Cheap, do as they're told, work 70 hours a week.

When my current employers show me the door (or I walk) I know I'll be unemployable in tech at 62. So be it; I've had a good run and have a huge backlog of other things I want to do.

...laura

All these sites have been shadow-banned by the usual search engines. I'd love to see one so I know what to watch for.

...laura

What technology did you have in mind?

We have far better control systems and radios and things, but making rockets that don't blow themselves to kingdom come if you look at them the wrong way is as hard in 2024 as it was in 1977. Or for that matter, 1969.

...laura

The statistics are misleading and unreliable. There's no general agreement on the number of illegals in the country; I've heard estimates from 10 million to 40 million. There are frequent news reports of prosecutors refusing to indict illegals, even repeat offenders. Police are reluctant to look into murders among drug distribution gangs. Murderers not prosecuted are not convicted.

Yes, the heavily processed cell phone cameras can do surprisingly well, and there are advantages in depth of field for small lenses. But some difficult conditions require big sensors and big lenses to get high quality results, notably low light and extreme telephoto. You can't beat the physics of the Rayleigh limit and needing a large number of photons.

People can learn to code in a particular language in a few weeks with some help. It's hardly more than typing,

Perhaps most people can learn to do simple things in most languages. Few people can quickly learn to do complex tasks involving recursion, pointers, structures, etc.. Imagine trying to write a C++ compiler after "a few weeks with some help." There's too much complexity and too many new concepts to learn.

Your larger point looks correct. Achieving competence in traditional grade school subjects is very important. Most people would benefit from learning at least the basics of the use of tools that could lead to a trade. Alas, the public school shop classes I took were very inefficient. There's no value to hand sanding the same block of wood for 2 weeks.

The DOE is probably unConstitutional. If so, that makes its every action illegal.

I'll remember that the next time I'm tired and emotional.

There is strong scientific evidence that getting vaccinated significantly decreased the chance of death from COVID, and therefore were a net benefit for the population.

Your conclusion does not follow from your initial claim. The vaccine may well have been beneficial on net short term (say one year) but there is slowly accumulating evidence that the vaccine has decreased quality of life and lifespan mid and long term.

Furthermore, Pfizer and Moderna have been strongly pushing in advertisements for continuing use of their vaccines beyond the first 2 doses, despite evidence that the third and later shots become ineffective quickly and are more likely to cause severe damage. Those two companies have become massively corrupted by their own success.

It's not long term. It hasn't even been half a decade.

I was all set ot load VMWare on my new laptop so I could more conveniently dual-boot Windows and Linux. Those plans have now changed. It's a good product but it's just not worth that much to me, especially with cheaper solutions available. I used Virtual PC back in the day and it worked well. My work laptop booted XP (company politics plus driver compatibility), but to do anything real I booted Slackware under Virtual PC.

At work we use VMWare extensively. I haven't discussed the licensing changes with my boss.

...laura

Pilots used to navigate with ground-based beacons (VOR, NDB), inertial references, and, sometimes, by simply looking out the window. Everybody is so in love with GPS (it is handy) that they've de-emphasized backup technologies.

...laura, private pilot who flies mostly by looking out the window

Are you a product of the system you are advocating? If so, Q. E. D. for your opponent.

The shared payment of these things is a system created by power-lusting politicians trying to secure their re-elections and the appointments of their family members and cronies to cushy, overpaid jobs. Every other excuse is window dressing.

I've never used Ogg much (if at all), though I'm certainly aware of it.

I'm currently doing some mobile application development. Android will have a go at playing just about anything as a ringtone or notification sound, but since the system sounds are all in Ogg (maybe this is a Samsung thing?), I've included our custom alert sounds as Ogg in the app.

...laura