Oh my goodness. How do I compete against this state sponsored competitor?

My nephew is a Sophomore this year in a competitive engineering program.

He showed up with AP calc BC completed plus a bunch of other AP and dual enrollment classes that his high school encouraged.

Other kids are starting off in college with pre-calc. No chance they are finishing that degree in four years.

Having a higher standard to enter college is perhaps what allows some countries to shorten their programs to three years.

A degree is some validation that you can complete 30 courses each with a dozen requirements to some level of satisfaction of the instructor.

I have had a co-worker or two without degrees that were less able to complete tasks that were not interesting enough to them. Then again I have had similar issues with other younger workers who did have degrees.

For some the degree may be training where they learn useful skills. For others the degree is a filter that they can't pass through.

All bow to the Capital Allocators !

While I do like to win. I also want to make sure that everyone has fun when playing a game in person.

My actions are somewhat tempered by my desire to have fun vs. beating everyone into the ground every round.

This burst of EV manufacturing capacity is similar to the overproduction of housing in China.

The big differences are: 1) EV's can be exported to willing buyers 2) EV's depreciate 3) EV's from bankrupt manufacturers will probably plumet in value due to the lack of support and parts

If an accusation by an AI bot requires that I hire an accountant and I prevail, then the IRS should cover the costs of my defense.

It's going to be great when you elderly parent clicks on some offer that replaces all the native apps on their phone with some AI enhanced data scraper that violates their privacy and breaks their routine.

Can't wait for that.

With enough compute power Walmart could also just pre-calculate the cost of delivering to every address in the US.

To a certain extent you are just trying to screen out unprofitable customers. You want to put those unprofitable into a review bucket and not accept local delivery orders until you figure out a solution.

Our oldest kid just went through the college application process. They received only one acceptance from schools that required an essay.

I suppressed my desire to hire a consultant to write down whatever it took to improve their odds of admission. In retrospect, I would have hired an admissions consultant 2-3 years ago to make the necessary adjustments in coursework, EC's or the essay.

If you dig a trench and install fiber that infrastructure can last for 100+ years.

If you give an LEO Internet provider some cash, those satellites might last 5-10 years.

I don't have an issue with rural folks subscribing to Starlink. I don't see why the government should want to subsidize their service.

The primary objective of having Starlink absorb fiber cash is to make sure that the fiber does not get built and those unimproved homes are stuck with Starlink forever.

The CPUC controls California's three major investor owned utilities (IOU's). Those utilities are largely helpless to fight against the laws of the state and the CPUC who implements them.

Grey Davis got recalled from office for being Governor when the power market got screwed up 20+ years ago. Newsome has somehow so far avoided this same fate.

The value of the solar farm for the producer and the consumer are totally dependant on the contracts that are signed by both parties.

While renewables have some interesting physical attributes, the contracts in each state have a substantial influence on the real value to be attained by the end customer.

One large benefit of rooftop generation is that no extra transmission capacity needs to be added. Our local generation just pushes out generation from large plants at the edge of the distribution network (that may now need to be curtailed).

The problem with the current California solar contract model is that the investor owned utilities have been pushed to overpay for solar with long term contracts. Then they have little flexibility to manuver as more and more renewables are brough online. That's part of why my rates are so high.

My managers over time have strongly preferred a prompt and succinct deliverable over a agonized and perfected one.

A quick "hey boss, here is my first draft of what you asked for. Please provide some feedback. I might have miscounted the neutrons in section 3, but it's within 5%, is that good enough? The proposed budget and schedule are solid though."

Your success with this depends on having a manager willing to engage in revisions and analyze your drafts. Are you in an organization that embraces iteration?

Right. Oh, we have that same alien infestation too.

Even our best ships don't know how to fight them off. So sad, so mysterious.