To be fair most of those ASICs from the 70s and 80s are probably a few lines of custom code that a Raspberry Pi or Arduino could run circles around. Even if it required a little work to sniff it out.

Anything larger is probably still good with those, but even if it isn't there's always a more modern FPGA board that could be used as a replacement.

This post just shows you have no idea what school is supposed to be about. I don't blame you personally for this, the school system has been doing a poor job of it for decades now, but throwing out the entire thing is just as wrong as keeping it as is.

Your first point is mostly there. The real problem is that the schools have been experimenting with different teaching methods for decades now, but lack the staff / time / funding / classrooms / etc. to deal with those that the current method can't help or provide for. Those kids get classed as special needs mainly to try and get them to another room with a different method being used to see if that works. Or, they do it to get additional resources allocated for said student in a desperate attempt to avoid the federal funding penalties for too many failures. Both of these are legislatively driven issues, and solving them requires the political will to do so. It hasn't happened because no politician wants to go on record as being the one that increased school funding, or mandated that students that fail get held back until they are able to pass. Regardless of their parents' mental breakdowns over it.

The second point about competency is also correct. See paragraph above. That being said, memorization can help in other areas. I.e. Knowing your times tables is faster than having to divide a number completely, and knowing a process in general is faster than having to ask ChatGPT to describe each step in detail like you're five years old. So memorization has a place in education, but it's not the end all be all that many in the school system (and outside of it) would make it out to be.

The third point is just wrong. Open book means nothing. I've been in plenty of classrooms both as a student and as a staff member, and open book doesn't mean everyone gets an A. If anything, it just means you used the resources available to you in the moment, but the use of an open book during the test is a mulligan and should never be accepted as having met the standard expected of the course. Education isn't just about asking a question and getting an answer, it's also about being able to come up with the answer on your own based on your own knowledge and experience in a vacuum. External help such as an open book, calculator, or the modern equivalent: ChatGPT isn't your knowledge and experience, it's someone else's. If you're an employer, you want to hire the original source, not some clueless idiot who's only able to find and regurgitate the prewritten solutions of others.

As for the fourth point, it's also wrong. Grades are supposed to be adversarial. The point is to encourage the students to compare notes on their own time (to help each other succeed as a whole) and compete with each other (as an individual). Which is what the corporate / working world expects of them. To do that you need agreed upon standards, and proper measurements of progress toward those standards that can be compared to others. (As many as possible.) The real problem is that Americans have gotten so used to coddling that the grades they get are no longer allowed to be adversarial in the first place. Which makes them meaningless, and unable to provide the training that they were designed for. The solution to that isn't "keep trying until you pass", it's allow the grades to do their job so that you don't spend endless amounts of time rehashing the same shit you've already mastered trying to find the one or two things you're still a novice on. That takes time and money, but such is the real cost of investment in the future.

Companies chose the enshitification route. A good number of people are starting to realize that it provides nothing of value at best, and potentially life altering consequences at worst. (If not out right risk of death, depending on the product category.) It should be no surprise to these companies that people are checking out.

Offline mode is basically a middle finger to these companies. As it means they are unable to sell ADs to display on the product to milk more "free" money post-purchase. ("Free" as in "socialized the costs" not "Free" as in "beer.") Turns out that people don't like being tracked constantly, or pestered constantly by their own things to buy other things.

DVDs (And to another extent VHS / Bluray / 8-Track / Records / Dead Trees / etc.) are a response to demanding rent per view, and then failing to deliver on the promised content. (480i unless your browser / OS / GPU supports the hardware attested DRM for the 4K playback you purchased. Which we won't refund you for, or tell you upfront about. Oh you wanted to watch that series? Well, you'll need to subscribe to this other service for another $$$$ per month.) To say nothing about them just memory holing something out of your "library" for whatever reason.

Video games? That's a whole other ball of wax, but enshitification exists there too. Including, but not limited to, loot boxes / gotcha games whose sole purpose is milking whales often with gambling thrown in for good measure, content being ripped out of games during development for the sole purpose of being sold back to you at an additional cost, blatant product placements in increasing numbers, updates that only degrade the experience or force players to play in ways they don't want to (Mario Kart World's online), price hikes for the sake of price hikes ("$80.00? Pfft. I think gamers are ready for $120.00 games!" - Ubisoft, "We think this game of ours is valued at $90.00." - Nintendo), intentional removal of physical sales (Poketopia, but NS2 game key cards, or digital distribution only in general. Anyone remember the PS Vita?), abuse of the patent system to remove consumer choice (Nintendo vs. Pocket Pair, but see also Capcom's bootlicking statements, and Warner Bros Interactive's nemesis system.), Demanding that legitimate buyers of a product be treated as common thieves and put up with an inferior version of the product while pirates get the best version, etc.

TL;DR: When you create nothing but garbage that only enriches yourself at the perpetual expense of others, you shouldn't be surprised when people go elsewhere.

Or they'll just do something else instead of watching netflix.

The more that netflix squeezes, the less useful it is to the people paying. Eventually their rent profits will drop off, because people will find more convenient alternatives.

Says the fucking stupid and self-centered pseudo-AC about not wasting energy and polluting the environment we all share because some jackass made off with a phone.

Or you could just kill the thief like you want to..../s

Personally I'd rather put all of the idiots with such short attention spans, that the thing that is in their hands 90% of the time is so easily stolen, in a shrink ward. If they are just going to fantasize about generating vindictive ewaste in response to their own failings, we may as well.

Or you could just open the app in the browser and be done with it. App doesn't provide a web interface for PCs? Find a new app that does.

Fun fact: Freedom is never free.

*Places grains of password in a bag, and places bag where it "should" go.*

*Monitor and desk starts shaking.*

"Oh, shi....."

China was working on that for years. If for nothing but it's own interests. The US would have eventually cut China off even without Trump. The US would have to due to their ever increasing debt, unwillingness to make their 1% pay their fair share, and China's increasing middle class expectations. See also why China is busy spending time and effort to prevent their own experts from training foreign workers in cheaper neighboring countries. China has seen what happened to the US economy as a result of offshoring, and China doesn't want to speedrun that economic downturn. So no, Trump definitely accelerated those Chinese plans, but those plans were in the works long before he took office.

Still doesn't excuse the US's bullshit. Just put credit where credit is due.

Implemented properly, yes tariffs would. As they reduce domestic demand for foreign supply. The problem is when there is no domestic supply to supplant the foreign supply. Then the result is just a domestic increase in the cost of goods and services. (Which is exactly what happened with Trump and the US. FAFO.)

I think we're finally coming around to the idea of "Globalization only works when everyone is well off." Which is a good thing. The US has been heading this way for years. Trump, as much as I loathe the guy's existence, wasn't elected without reason. He appealed, read: Lied, to the workers who lost their jobs to foreign labor and got into office. (As well as a bunch of other despicable reasons, but I'm ignoring that for this thread.) The issue was the lying. Had Trump actually wanted and was willing to do what was needed to implement the tariffs, things would still suck right now but they'd be on the road to get better. Which would have limited China's grip on the global supply chain in the long run as more and more US based supply options would have opened on the global market. Giving the world more choices about who to do business with, and giving US workers more / better economic opportunities.

Instead Trump pissed off the people who were helping the US, made the US's word complete and utter garbage in the eyes of the entire world, foolishly rushed to implement a tariff on everything as soon as possible, and completely frightened even domestic investors. (To say nothing about his imperial ambitions / threats that also negatively affect implementing a proper tariff regime.) As a result, Trump effectively handed China the win, and the result is that China is free to strengthen it's authoritarian grip on it's exports, to the detriment of those it does business with. Now the EU has to face a question of how to ween itself off of China's exports, or submit to China's whims. (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.)

One things for sure, the EU and the rest of the world won't choose the US as a trading partner again any time soon. Which means the cost of getting away from China, and getting to their own self reliance is going to be far harder than it needed to be. Until then, China will dominate.

Go say that to anyone who can't afford the shakedown of a patent troll.

They do this already, and it's quite profitable for them. Given that they can outlast the cost of discovery while bleeding their target dry, then settle the lawsuit , without invalidating their bad patent, once their target calls uncle. Even if the target manages to win a lawsuit, there's plenty more bad patents to recoup their losses with. Even against the same target.

IP in general is nothing but a roadblock to progress. The whole point is to impede anyone else from making "unauthorized" progress, so that the "authorized" individuals can make a crap ton of money charging for access.

If you want real progress, repeal the IP laws. Man has always made things and always will. Money just speeds things up a little, and as far as things are going right now, a little slow down wouldn't hurt.

Actually, we do tag games for being rip offs. We also give them negative reviews. That pig wouldn't be complaining if the market didn't tag crap and make decisions based on those tags.

What that pig is mad over is the fact that the market doesn't like more of the money going to these pigs instead of the actual developers, (Cue complaints about the starving artists.....), and that the market attempts to avoid such transactions when found. That pig wants the market to just give the pig money without the pig earning it. To which I say: Sorry, not sorry. You want money? Hire some humans and earn it, pig.

As for a "political statement", so you'd rather pay $80.00 for 100% AI-generated slop right? Slop you could have made in your own basement with a good enough GPU? Keep in mind where this is headed. These pigs want to go 100% AI generated so they don't have to hire or pay workers, at the same time they want to charge an ever increasing premium for the content. Oh did I say premium? I meant "experience driven" pricing. Isn't that right Nintendo? What you feel like charging based on your own assessment of your own work? Meanwhile, tell us again where that AI got it's "ideas" from, hmm? Ripping off copyrighted content from the Internet? Seems like those pigs should be paying someone else. TL;DR: If you don't want politics in your games, don't let the pigs use shitty politics when making them.

Guess we know which side of the political coin you fall on. You don't want politics, yet you're clearly forcing that into the discussion. FYI: No it's not "inevitable." Price / Cost isn't the only metric by which games are judged. I know that's hard for MBAs to fathom, but it's the truth. A truly bad game won't sell no matter it's cost. People buy games for entertainment and that means the game must appeal to them for them to part with their money. Guess what doesn't appeal to a large group of people? Using AI to generate a bunch of slop for pennies on the dollar, using that as justification for firing your workers, and not seeing any of those savings reflected in the cost of the finished game. People are more willing to part with their money if they know it's going to help another person get by. They are far less willing when they know it's only going to be used to further line a pig's already deep pockets. Push nothing but slop and they'll watch their profitability plummet accordingly. Keep pushing slop and they'll watch their copyright get revoked, or even better taken from them due to their AI taking the used ideas from others. Either way, "inevitable" it is not.

This. The industry has been pushing more and more crap for decades now. The most recent was a $20.00 price hike for the exact same broken, microtransaction and DLC filled "content" that we were getting before the price hike. We don't need AI slop devaluing it even more, but of course, CEO pigs want their slop because it means fatter CEO pigs. They should be careful though, fat pigs get grilled.

Careful now, all of these kids your explaining things to can't do fractions. They'd be so pissed if they could! Statistics, and probabilities (very important in biology) are a ways off for them yet. Hence all of their gotchas. Might want to scale back the conversation a bit if you want them to understand.