Do not teach more and expect greater so that it is harder to get the A. Just do an arbitrary cut off number. Easy, and there is no data to prove you suck at your job.

People who speak louder, thinking they're helping, are actually kind of annoying.

How very, very true, especially when you've already told them that speaking louder won't help, but clearer will. But there's one thing that's worse. I have a notch in my hearing, caused by exposure to too much outbound on the Gun Line back in '72, and some women's voices fall right into the range I can't really hear. Most of the time it's not too bad because women are usually good about shifting their voice down to a lower pitch, but there are some who either don't understand what's needed or just don't care if I can understand them or not. About the only way I've found to get them to cooperate is to speak so quietly that they can't hear me.

— Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Dane-geld, Stanzas 5-6

There is a good reason that law "law enforcement agencies around the world" advise again paying cyber criminals. And it isn't because law enforcement is dumb, or that they like seeing you getting your data stolen.

I remember perhaps 20 years ago, some futurists were predicting that most of the time we'd interact with agents. That we'd each have our own personal assistant to curate and present us the information we need. This particular interview (sorry, I don't remember who it was) used the example that an agent would put together your daily newspaper specifically for you from multiple sources. I thought it seemed like kind of a stupid idea...

Yeah. That interview made the CEO look like an incompetent, greasy villian.

What Digg and others don't realize is that websites will be dead in 10 years. At least sites that people regularly visit for content. Nobody will visit them directly. Everything will be curated behind app stores and AI will present summaries. Even YouTube isn't safe.

Honestly thank you for the reminder V8 is that old, but we could play this game with Firefox, or any large software project for that matter.

Enhanced spellcheck, literally sent to the cloud and processed by a spelling m.. mmm... moo. Mo mo. A spelling mode... el...?
A drawing API, for GAMeS, on my business softwares?
Assembly, like what hackers use?

We can play the what users want game all day, but the mental gymnastics to say local models are different, it's too much. The long sought after semantic web is here, in your browser, and people are straight faced saying NO, browsers must be stupid, search engines must be driven by only the dumbest algorithms the way the web was intended. All translation and search services and enhanced spelling and grammar checking must be of poor quality models and not available locally lest we taint our machine hosts with demonic intent. We really are close to sounding like a ridiculous WH40k machine cult.

It happened once, a grand experiment, some time in the 1770s.

The experiment has not yet failed entirely.

"they also get actual governance done"

The governance Democrats get done is largely that which I do not want...

"Republicans can't govern, they have never cared about root causes"

The Civil Rights Act.
Clean Water Act, EPA.

Enacted under Republican Presidents. Not rejected by Republican legislators.

And then the ultimate 'root cause' solution - The Civil War. Addressing slavery in the United States finally came to a head, and the Republican Party was founded to address that injustice. It has not, despite mainly opponents claiming otherwise, stray from that purpose. Feel free to disagree.

My gawd, this is like how's shitcoins different than the stock market.

It's like the worst of the worst old school racetrack hustling.

Look, I’m in a jam here. My ex-wife’s boyfriend is outside double-parked with my kid and if I miss this party again I’m dead. I got this ticket before the steam hit. Beautiful number. Absolute robbery at this price. Honestly I shouldn’t even be offering it. ... But you don't even have to try that hard, you can just whisper rumors about the horse being on giga-steroids then sell your stake back on the market waaaaaayy faster than one mark at a time the old fashioned way.

Dude, insider trading and influence ain't even the half of it, every old scam is going to rear its head, it's so obvious.

It's literally trading, the gains are someone else's loses, that's simple. It is worse than gambling, _because_ it's a trading platform. You can buy low odds, pump it up, then take your profits before the contract is resolved. It's the worst of the stock market with the worst of gambling.

What do you mean loot the stock market, it's not a pool of money you fish around in, there are people like you and I on both sides of trades. When you profit off the stock market, that money doesn't come from some company, it comes from whoever bought the shares you sold, which can be another retail investor exactly like you. Every time you get out at just the right time, some ... general population.. dimwit FOMO bought that. They're called retail traders, and there's practically no barrier to signing up for a brokerage account, the stock market is the general population, it's your 401k, it's my play money day trading.

Bet your ass that any unregulated market is worse than a regulated one. It's not up for debate. I'm sorry but even if you think all markets are scams, but you're inevitably going to do it anyway which is why we have these conversations, why the hell would you go for the unregulated market. It boggles the fucking mind. If you truly think everything is a scam, then don't fucking do it. Don't fucking rationalize it, and don't pretend someone took money out of your pocket, you had to buy something, that's on you.

"such a wide ranging benefit for all other sectors of the economy"

Um, the economy should pay the fair share - as in real cost.

If USPS cannot deliver this 'wide ranging benefit' at an acceptable cost, it cannot deliver, and alternatives would be proper to pursue.

Returning to pre 70s status is acceptable to me.

FWIW, you are discussing this with a MAGA-style Conservative. As you excoriate 'Republicans' for not caring, do you tolerate the Democrat response to throw good money after bad? As I self-identify, I prefer to solve root causes. USPS needs both a reformation of mission and reformation of operation.

A side note, lumping me in with Establishment Republicans is an error. I am not like them any more. And I am not alone.

USPS needs to adapt to the market. Either function within budget limitations or raise revenue needed, or stop failing.

Do I 'care' about USPS? The same way I care about the military etc. I think a national postal service is a legitimate exercise of governmental power, a necessary and useful servicer to citizens and enterprises, and should operate at a break-even funding level, users (customers) paying reasonably for the service. When government relies on USPS for functions such as sending or receiving payments, information, or requests, it should pay for that as a service. One example is perhaps USPS identifying the real cost of first class delivery and starting with Congress, requiring franking to pay that real cost, no internal subsidy. Other agencies likewise.

Reform, not more of the same.

Those were the days...