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Comment Can't stop the signal, Mal... (Score 2) 99

Yes, they could try to locate everyone that manages to use banned technology like this, but as commodity-level technology designed to be used by even unskilled individuals, they're not going to be able to stop people from using technology. All they'll be able to do is to punish them after finding them.

Comment Re:What do they expect... (Score 1) 70

Don't misunderstand me, my wife has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from MIT and has worked in the aerospace and defense industries for her whole career, and through her alumni club I've been friends with a bunch of other engineers and materials scientists. They have just about all done very well.

On the other hand I know two people with masters' degrees that are basically doing white-collar clerical work. I have no college degree, most of the people on my team don't have degrees, and I'm on the same team and at a roughly comparable role with those that do have college degrees. And I have a technical job too.

My point is that having a degree can be lucrative, but it can also provide nothing of additional value. If it provides nothing of additional value then it's an expense that isn't providing a return, so it's actually a detriment, not an advantage, and the degree of detriment is based on how much it's saddling the individual with debt.

Comment Re:$400M for AOL (Score 1) 30

The CDs were good as coasters, frisbees, and the entertainment value of folding them until they snapped and loudly shattered. Not as financially rewarding as floppies, but good from the standpoint of making fun of AOL.

I didn't need more tchotchkes. Putting a CD in the microwave for a few seconds is amusing the first time, possibly even the second or third, but the novelty wears off very quickly.

Comment Re:Need to major in the right subject (Score 4, Interesting) 70

It's not just that, it's a problem of too many students compared to the positions in the workplace. For some occupations there are more graduates annually than there are jobs in the whole profession. Communications and Journalism immediately springs to mind.

For a lot of college students, they go to college because due to societal pressure they're supposed to go to college. That doesn't mean that they'll end up any better off in the workforce after college though. And more insidiously it causes employers to place requirements or preferences for college graduates on jobs that are not served by that educational experience.

Comment What do they expect... (Score 4, Interesting) 70

...when many of the most over-exposed techbro billionaires didn't finish college?

What do they expect when the narrative that people have gone into deep debt in order to pay for college tuition for degrees that get them the same positions as those without college degrees have is so widespread and frankly, true?

What do they expect when so many states are basically violating their own public institution charters for affordable education and allowing tuition, or add-on fees in lieu of tuition hikes they aren't able to make, cause the cost of even a supposedly merit-based, public education has gotten to the point that someone can't earn enough to pay for school?

What do they expect when even having a college education doesn't provide a living wage to let one afford to buy a house or to have a decent apartment without requiring roommates in order to get by?

What do they expect when even with a degree and with experience, employers treat them only like liabilities and look to shed workers whenever possible, regardless of what sorts of ongoing contributions they make exceeding their salaries?

Comment Re:Well... it IS September... (Score 2) 30

AOL was the catalyst but since the etiquette pre-Eternal-September was not codified and only enforced through browbeating new users into feeling uncomfortable to get them to comply shunning them if they did not, it was going to happen regardless of what service provider expanded offerings to the general public. It was just that AOL got there first.

I've moderated on forums before. It's a pain. It's thankless at-best, and at-worst one has to respond to schmucks that won't accept that they're out of line and will try to evade bans. And that's with moderation tools that make it possible, on a forum that's privately owned and tightly controlled.

I remember attempts to moderate on Usenet, and it really didn't work. It was too decentralized, there was insufficient central authority to enforce or to delegate to moderators, and then the volume of garbage got so bad that it simply wasn't worth it anymore.

Comment Re:$400M for AOL (Score 2) 30

yeah. I'm having a difficult time believing that, but then again I don't know what products or services are offered under the AOL brand either.

Last time I paid attention to AOL, it was being annoyed when they switched from 3.5" floppies to CDs for distributing software for their service, because the new medium was no longer reformattable for reuse for whatever I needed it for.

Comment You can't become an accountant just by knowing spr (Score 5, Insightful) 84

Generative AI can be a huge timesaver but the people doing the task need to actually know how to do the task, if only so they can provide reasonable instruction to the computer. All these get-rich-quick clowns falling on their faces are trying to shortcut years of knowledge and experience. Knowing excel really well does not make one an accountant. And this is compounded by the fact that excel gives predictable output, which is not the case with generative AI.

Comment Re:Fraud-friendly presidency (Score 1) 106

My supposition is that it would make it harder to hide when the cash-flow has exceeded the revenue and reserves. It would allow insolvent firms to remain operating for longer because it's harder to verify that they're out-of-whack. Entities they do business with that might well end up being creditors in a bankruptcy would possibly be deeper-in with failing firms because it wouldn't be so obvious that partners need to pull back against a firm that might not be able to make net-90 terms.

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