Unfortunately, there is another possible explanation for the emphasis on TPM that is much more sinister. It's possible that Microsoft and its allies are making a concerted effort to lock down desktop clients in the same way that the two major mobile ecosystems are locked down, to kill off general purpose computing and reduce the desktop PC to a machine that can only run approved apps and consume approved content. It already happens with things like banking apps that you can't run if you choose to root your phone to arrange the privacy and security according to your wishes instead of the vendor's or OS developer's. It already happens on open source desktops, where streaming services will deliberately downgrade the quality of the content they serve you when on the same plan you're already paying for they'd serve higher quality streams to approved (read: more DRM-friendly) devices, and where a few games won't run because their anti-cheat software behaves like malware and the free platforms treat it accordingly.

I am worried that we may be entering a make-or-break period for the survival of general purpose computing with the artificial demise of Windows 10. If the slow transition to Windows 11 as people replace their hardware in the coming years means almost everyone ends up running Windows or macOS on desktops and Android or iOS on mobile devices, there won't be enough incentive for developers of apps and creative content to support any other platform, and all the older versions that didn't have as much built-in junk and all the free alternatives will be reduced to irrelevant background noise because they won't support things that users want to do any more. Your own devices will force updates, ads, reboots, AI-driven "help", covert monitoring and telemetry, any other user-hostile junk their true masters wish upon you, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Governments should be intervening on behalf of their people at this point because the whole system is blatantly anti-competitive and user-hostile, but most of the Western nations are either relying on the absurd valuations in the tech sector to prop up their otherwise precarious economies or watching with envy while their more economically successful allies do that. So our best hope is probably for the legacy platforms to hold out long enough for some free platform(s) to reach critical mass. And frankly, there aren't many realistic paths to get there. Our best hope might be for Valve/Steam to show that many of those Windows 10 boxes in people's homes can now play most of the same games if they shift to Linux and possibly run some of them better than on Windows as well.

Two competitors cooperating to dominate a market? Sounds like a trust to me. I'm sure the fact both rely on Chinese goods is just a coincidence.

I'm sure the America-last crowd will disagree, because the agenda here is to lie until every last citizen is unemployed. Let's watch.

> I can tell that you have no idea what you're talking about because the vast majority of public K-12 school funding is through local taxes, not federal funding.

About 13% of public schools are funded federally. You say "the vast majority" as if to handwave 13% of their funding as unsubstantial. Most importantly, this funding goes to schools that do not have the local tax revenue to fully support them.

> The federal government has almost no control over it so they can't cut funding

The federal Dept. of Education plays a key role in ensuring equitable access to education. You know how they exert control over local schools? By creating and enforcing (or NOT enforcing) policies, because their job is ultimately to implement and enforce laws created by Congress that apply to public education.

> There are also many states that have charter schools that perform better for less money than the public schools, so it's not a money problem.

Charter schools have an abysmal reputation; approximately 1 in 4 charter schools end up out of business within 5 years, leaving their students in the lurch and those who paid for it with empty wallets.

It's just a scam to funnel public money into private hands and push indoctrination. Look at all the enshittification that's happened and is currently happening in the name of chasing profits - we cannot afford that in education, financially or culturally.
=Smidge=

Drop off? What is this "drop off" of which you speak? Okay, I jest. And maybe I'm an old fart...

But has parenting really gotten so... helicopter... now, that they won't even let their kids ride the school bus? Is that common? I mean... I was taking the bus to school by 2nd grade. It's a perfectly normal rite of passage and an early step in learning independence and responsibility. Seriously... what the fuck? And what are these kids going to do when one day the parents aren't around to do everything for them?

Fantastic - exactly what I have always not wanted! Fingerprints on my screen!

You don't have to give a shit about farmers, one way or the other. DST is irrelevant to farming and I really can't fathom how that myth that it is and is kept for the farmers got started. Cows don't read clocks. Nor do pigs, chickens, or sheep. Crops don't operate on clock time either. So neither do farmers. They tend to the crops and animals when the crops and animals need tending to; no matter where the big hand and little hand point.

So really... you *SHOULD* care about farms and farmers. You *DO* have to eat, after all. But they are entirely irrelevant when it comes to daylight saving time.

For some people it's not the hour of sleep, it's suddenly waking up an hour early. I'm one of them. If I stay up an hour late and get up at my normal time, I'll be more groggy and tired than usual for a while. But I'll be functional and more or less normal by the time I get to the office. If I go to bed at my normal time and have to wake up an hour early though... Let's just say I'm not a pleasant person until I'm about three coffees into the day.

Plus, the daylight lasting an hour longer is a bummer in the evenings; causing a 1-hour delay in the beginning of the city's nightlife. That's bad enough on the weekends, when you can at least sleep in the next day. But when the day's fun time starts an hour later, but you still have the weekday alarm to go to work the next day, it puts a crimp in the social life, which is... also... a bummer.

Well maybe schools could just not have such absurd hours that not only muck about with daylight but are actively detrimental to their students' health.

Just HOW many studies have there been about how important a good night's sleep is to a child's, and particular a teenager's, health and ability to focus and pay attention on class? I couldn't begin to guess. But they all pretty much agree that they need more sleep and waking up early adds to the detrimental effects of the insufficient rest.

And yet... When I wasn't in high school, first period started at, and I shit you not, 7:30am. That meant a 5:30am wakeup to catch a 6:00am bus. I can't even deal well with a 5:30 wake-up now as an adult, with access to coffee and even ephedrine. The only way I'm functional at 5:30am is if I've been up all night. If special circumstances like an early flight I have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to catch necessitate, I pre-stage a 5-hour energy on my nightstand, have the coffee maker all set up to go the moment I'm out of the shower, and have all of my bags fully packed, weighed, and arranged the night before. As a teenager, I was the walking dead that early.

Elementary school was not much better. Classes started at 8:15am. Oddly, middle school was the odd duck out and started at a much more reasonable 9:30am.

Sy yeah... maybe instead of playing shenanigans with everyones' clocks, schools should try listening to the people who actually study and know about childhood development and shift their hours to a later and more reasonable time in general.

Our space program got fired. We don't build anything here except layoffs. Only a matter of time before Google unplugs the Internet to deafening cheers. Then there won't be any more inconvenient headlines about the fact nobody has a job.

What is clearly needed here is an update to the privacy laws. Sure, with a paid account anonymity is not a thing. But OpenAI doesn't need to know my address, eye color, whether I am allowed to ride a motorcycle and with or without glasses. And they sure as shit don't need my license number, which is very useful for identity thieves. This is a drastic overreach to gather WAY more PII than is necessary to deliver the service, and they need to be slapped down hard and fast.

And this trend of "scan your ID in to use this app/service/site/etc" bullshit has been proliferating. And let's be real... they're really gathering that information for marketing purposes just like rave and club promoters do when THEY swipe your ID in those machines that "validate your age" that have been a thing for a couple of decades now. No, that's not made up. A shady promoter actually admitted as much to me back in my raver and club kid days. No one actually gives a rip if you're over 21. Money is money. But they harvest your address when they swipe your license and sell it, along with the club/party you attended and who was DJing.

So this will NOT stop on it's own. We need some jurisdictions that actually DO care, at least a little bit, for their citizenry, to act. Which means that it's the GDPR and CCPA that can fight back against these shenanigans.

It's all bullshit-coated bullshit with a creamy bullshit center.

There is no trust in our workplaces, which means there will never be achievement or progress. Only fraud.

> HOW ABOUT we use a lifting body like an airship instead? ...says the person completely ignorant of the history of airships. There's a reason they aren't used for anything.

It's not immediately clear that a larger airplane would need a larger airport. The size of the runway needed really depends on the minimum speed needed to take off and stay aloft, and how quickly it can reach that speed from a standstill. A huge plane with large, efficient wings and powerful engines that can take off in 5000 feet of runway with a 100+ ton load can still use just about any existing airport.

Meanwhile you can't even get an airship out of its hangar if it's a bit windy, and it's not like a construction site for wind turbines would have any strong wind, right?
=Smidge=

Not only has it been done before, we now have drone technology that make it even easier to synchronize multiple aircraft.

A dozen extra large drones, some slings, and a chase helicopter with the operator. Seems very doable.
=Smidge=

We don't have a problem with teens viewing porn in the UK. It just doesn't happen any more. In fact, we've been remarkably effective at stopping it compared to half the other countries in Europe, which have seen a recent surge in porn viewing for reasons no-one can identify.

Me too, though of course in our day, the world was much less connected and much less reliant on the technology. The worst we could have done after getting root access to the entire IT infrastructure at my school would have been look at what our classmates had been drawing in Paint or something. Today these systems host much more important and sensitive information and security breaches would be a much bigger deal.

And on that note, am I the only one less concerned by the behaviour of an impressively curious seven-year-old and more concerned by an official, professionally-managed system holding potentially sensitive data that is so insecure that even a seven-year-old could hack it?!