Microsoft is disabling this software for which people have paid, because it is too much trouble to update the license certificate? Meanwhile, they keep pushing AI support that I neither want nor need.

Neither can another human being. If you want that information preserved, it has to be done by the original author. The same is true for other forms of information presentation (books, etc.).

Yes. A "Master's Degree" generally means in this regard an MBA. Get one from a big-name university and it will mean something, get one from a local college or degree mill and it will not. In this case, it is not about what you learn (which is probably about the same), but about the contacts you make with other students and the professors. The actual value of what is taught is not significant enough to justify the higher pay that people with the degree expect. Two years of practical job experience are more valuable.

Nobody is that good.

Grade cutoffs are inherently arbitrary. There is no real difference between an A-- and B++. Someone is always going to be the lowest A and the highest B and that is just the way it. I once took a course (a non-major elective at that) where the professor gave a class of about 60, one A, four Bs, and rest Cs and Ds. Needless to say, many people were unhappy so grade deflation can also be a thing.

This is college we are talking about. Homework is not really a concept there. In some courses, you might be asked to write a paper or read and summarize the literature on a subject, but it should not be anything with a set answer. However, too many professors are lazy and give the same tests year after year. Fraternities and similar organizations keep files of old tests, that allow their members to effectively cheat.

Make the questions harder or teach more advanced material. If most of the students are getting 95% either the test is too easy or the course is not challenging.

Interesting. I would have thought that for this sort of project all of the information would be clearly specified before production began and checked and rechecked. After all this subcontractor was apparently chosen because they had an excellent history in this type of work.

I pretty much agree with you. If you have ever seen an imported car directly off the boat without being cleaned, you would immediately see how difficult it would be to get them clean to spaceflight standards. However, it is clear that whatever should have been done was not, or there would not be a problem.

The units in question are a little larger than a toaster. They were most likely shipped as deck cargo on a freighter. The usual procedure for something like this is to coat it with cosmoline, which is basically a petroleum wax and has been the standard for this sort of thing for over a century. Its only drawback is that it is not always easy to remove. Either the unit was apparently not properly protected from the environment or that was not sufficient for these super high-tech alloys. Reading the article the French company was chosen because they are very experienced in building such units. Whoever was in charge of shipping was apparently not so experienced.

I am still waiting for someone to announce that the new version of their product is worse than the old version at something.

That is because they do not want their press release to do any of those things. They want it to confuse, obfuscate, and say nothing. Writing press releases is a separate skill from actually running a business. Unfortunately, all too often the people with that as their primary skill end up in senior positions.

Yes. And I try to support politicians who support policies I approve of. But I have no illusions that they necessarily have any great commitment to them beyond their function in getting them reelected.

Exactly. If they fixed the issue, they would have nothing to make noise about. Immigration policy is the classic example.

Nor do they care. It is all about what the electorate, which knows even less, thinks about the idea.