Sorry, but that's a silly question. The YOB is just trying to tilt the playing field for his own personal profit. You didn't know he owns a drone company? He doesn't want to risk destroying the drone market while he's in the process of looting it.

Good luck clawing back any loot from the YOB. Or clawing back the Constitution or even the Republic for which we all stood.

So my standard reaction, both to the story and your FP, is "Who's gonna tell us the truth?" (About anything these years? (Going for Funny?))

But as regards this specific situation, I think there is a truthful solution. It would be funny if Apple had already implemented it and I just don't know because I'm on the Android side. So I'm in some kind of paradoxical position here? This is a speculative solution and I'd love to hear that it's already there in Apple world in some form.

I think that Apple should try to help developers tell the truth about their business models. Then the users would be able to look for legitimate apps and everyone should be happy. (In a flying pig's eye. You can't make everyone happy and you're a fool for trying.) For most apps, this would be easy. There are not that many profitable business models, and if the app's developer claims to be using one of those business models, then that business model can be selected from a list. For most of those cases, Apple could add an annotation at the end saying whether or not the developer's claims seem to be justified. That may include the use of secret information Apple is controlling, but if you aren't trusting Apple, then why are you there in the first place?

The problem is leaving things open for innovation. There needs to be an "other" option for new business models. In most cases, it will not be possible to say much about whether or not the new business model makes sense, but at least the users will have some idea what they are getting into. Maybe I'm projecting too much, but I sure wouldn't be likely to trust any app that just says "I can't tell you how I'm going to make money out of this." I'd be even less trusting of an app with a business model like "After I get a million users I'm going to sell the app to someone." Too much honesty?

By the way, my personal interest is in stability. Some business models are likely to keep the app running and supported for a while. Others aren't and I don't want to use those apps.

College GPAs are just meaningless and it's time we just forget about them.

That GPA is what gets you in the door, over other applicants on those first jobs...

Hell, when I think about it....if "I" were a child today, and my parents raised me like they did back in the day....they'd be under the jail, with child protective services taking me away LONG ago....

No cell phones...and during the summers starting when I was a teenager....my mom started work again....so I'd be home alone all day, running around the neighborhood with my friends, playing all day.

We rode bikes and skateboards miles....played in the woods near our subdivision that hadnt' been developed yet....built forts, built skateboard ramps (the local house constructions "donated materials").....neighborhood pool, etc.

When I was very young, I had to call home about every 2 hours from a friends house....but other than that, I'd leave at sunrise and my folks generally didn't see me again till dusk and dinner, where we all ate together.

I got a job at 16yrs....I've been working ever since. With a little help, early graduation, I bought my own car my senior year in high school....a '78 280Z....fun!!

But yeah, no supervision was how we grew up, my friends and I are all older adults now, many with kids....we got into trouble and mischief, sure, but nothing that stopped the world and we learned how to deal with people and the world.

See that's the narrative that Americans love to tell themselves. But in reality the Chinese know that hidden backdoors don't stay hidden, and their national interest is best served by making software and devices secure for everyone. They don't need to spy on their citizens with secret software backdoors when cameras are on every corner and social credit records are openly implemented.

They saw the idiotic attempts the Americans made with stuff like the clipper chip. They won't make that same mistake.

I can't remember the last time I witnessed a hospital demonstrating general competence

Where do you live where it is so bad there?

Unfortunately in the past 2 years...ive had to make a number of visits to the ER and one major surgrery....and I could NOT be happier with the doctors, nurses and general staff of the hospitals I've been too....

And my insurance covered most of all of it...didn't put me in the poor house like so many seem to claim will happen in the US if you get some much as a hang nail....this is private medicine I'm talking about with me, not VA.

I remember being absolutely burnt out on school by the time I reached grade 7 or 8. I started out enjoying learning. In fact, I was the kid who won the contest at our public library over the summer, twice in a row, for reading the most books on my own. I was also "that kid" who really got into doing those science fair projects and having one go on to some sort of regional finals.

I think what really started ruining things for me was the combination of way too much homework and too many classes (by high school, at least) where teachers felt it necessary to fill 4 chalkboards full of notes each day that we had to copy in our notebooks, as study material for their quizzes and exams. Oh, and of course, we still had to read a chapter or two of the provided hard-cover textbook.

I mean, there are SO many truly entertaining stories one can tell about history (YouTube is chock-full of them!), and yet - almost every History teacher I had in school insisted on dry/dull spewing of names, dates and places that had to be copied down, memorized, and spit back. And I'll admit math was always a struggle for me. I just never reached a point where I found any of it "enjoyable". But it never helped me that my math teachers always seemed to cover a steady "topic per day" without much care if we understood one of them or not. Everything built on everything else though, so as soon as I got lost with one or two items, it became a downward spiral. All they could suggest is, "Get tutoring!" ... and frankly? That's the LAST thing a school age kid/teen wants to hear when they've got so much of their waking life already occupied with the school day + hours of homework in the evening.I finally got a really good math teacher in college one year, who made a lot of it make sense for me. But it was one of those remedial classes that I think worked for me because she only taught us in a small group and made sure each of us understood each topic. I was always much better with reading and writing, but even a few of the English Lit. type courses I had were FAR more painful than they should have been. I mean, forcing us to read a specific novel to answer quiz questions on it and report on it later is counter to the way any sane person enjoys reading. (Who goes to a book store and has the clerk shove a book in their face - saying you must buy and read this one now?) Why couldn't they have a selection of books about different topics to choose from?

I dunno.... I guess I can see how AI could cause the same kind of "mental laziness" a calculator does vs learning to do a problem by hand? But calculator results are absolutes. AI makes mistakes and often requires creative re-wording of questions and playing with adding rules/restrictions to the output. If it's simply taught that it has to be used only as a tool, and one with limitations? It shouldn't stop the curious from wanting to learn. I wonder how much of that was already crushed by the system?

My 16 year old daughter just got advice from her Pediatrician on how to get into Medical School - go to a small college where the Profs know you and you can convince them to inflate your grades, there is too much competition in big schools and no room to influence your grades outside your work So basically, try to cheat a little. Thanks Doc.

Well, being female, gives her an advantage for Med School....AND if she's a minority female, that really helps mover her closer to the top of the list....

It's only one semester, and a semester of the least important material of their university time.

Err...where did you go to school where 1st semester/year wasn't important stuff?

I was in all the weed out classes....chemistry, calculus 1...etc....

Hell I didn't get any "easy" classes like sociology or one English reading classes (sci fi books) till like I was a Junior or maybe senior.....

"In order to salve the mental health of freshman student..."

JFC...are you fscking KIDDING ME?

Is this just the next natural progression from everyone getting a participationi trophy in grade schools?

Why is it today's kids are so mentally deficient in ways that all other generations till the past decade haven't been troubled with??

Look, not everyone is cut out for college ....and those early classes, are weed out classes like others have said...at least they used to be.

Stress is a real part of REAL LIFE and this is a good time to learn these lessons.

Learn them early if they aren't college material....and let them get out before racking up massive debt in a degree that won't pay shit in the end.

I read the other day where incoming freshman these days, I think in the 5%-8% range had to take remedial math?!?! Our 1-12 schools aren't preparing them.....

If we keep lowering the standards....we're not helping anyone, we're hurting all them in the long run.

Let's re-think educations....some kids SHOULD be left behind for higher education, but that doesnt' mean we don't teach them some real skills where they can earn a living and contribute to society.

But for God's sake, let's quit coddling these little fuckers...they're going soft in ways that never even occurred to previous generations....

Mod parent funny, though the Subject could have included a joke about socializing the corporations.

As for the story, why shouldn't one form of insanity cure the other rather than making both of them crazier?

However when I look at the situation, especially the numbers, it seems insane. Cybercrime just don't make sense, especially the spam part of it. The criminals have to provide contact information or the suckers can't reach them. The scammers can't obfuscate their messages too much or the target idiots won't be able to recognize the bait. And the number of targets is tiny compared to the number of people who hate the crooks. My delusion is that a small fraction of the people who hate spam could be leveraged against the scammers to completely overwhelm the tiny number of suckers who want to send money.

So what's your better idea? Or your polite request for clarification of my poor writing? Or maybe you have a justification for "Live and let scam" as practiced by all the leading corporate cancers who provide the criminals with the infrastructure for their cybercriming?

One of the requirements to become a US Citizen is you have to show some proficiency in American English.

Other countries have an official language, we need to make it official here.

We want people coming into the US to assimilate and the greatest tools for that is common language.

You rarely go to other countries and hear commercials in different languages ......certainly the signage for streets, etc is not in multiple languages...etc.

There is nothing bigoted about expecting someone trying to live in your country to speak the common language ....

The USA doesn't have an official language.

We need to fix that...other countries have official languages.....why not us?

Mod parent funny. This was the joke I was looking for, but Slashdot only reports the top mod. (Though this one currently has no funny mods.)

New idea about how to fix the moderation on Slashdot! Use AI. Can't be worse than the current moderation system, but AI is so trendy that maybe the latest owners (whoever they are, or perhaps incorrectly assuming someone still owns this mess) will eagerly embrace the AI.

So the idea would be for an AImod (AI moderator) to scan the posts and suggest the most likely moderation. It could even be done as part of the preview process to give posters 'objective feedback' about how their comment sounds. Perhaps even including candidate locations where a comment might fit better into the discussion and an easy move option? But the AI mod points should be easily countered by humans (which becomes training feedback for the AImod).