In what fucking sense was this a troll?

Then you, America, are fucked. Try to knock too much shit over on your way out.

That's good, actually. If the democrats get it in their heads that a slight majority is a universal mandate, they'll fuck it up and lose every seat they flipped two years from now. Slow your roll.

You have a chance to start the process of internal and external repair. You can start this by not lording your victory over your fellow American.

Do not impeach Trump. Let him dig his own grave for the next two years. Don't make him a martyr. He'll trash what's left of his legacy on his own.

Limit your investigations for now. Put whatever brakes you can on the bad ideas, but don't gum up the workings of politics only through retribution. That's his job, and look where it's taking him.

Don't ignore what the opposition tables. If you can find any common ground - any of it - take it. This is how you cement those flipped seats. They were staunchly republican for a reason, and their current state is an aberration. If you try to plaster the Democratic agenda all over it, you'll lose it in 2028.

In short, the counter to the far right Is not the left, it's the middle.

https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
"You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings -- and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready. Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading. ...
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. ...
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. ..
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. ...
4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective. ...
5. Grades distort the curriculum. ...
6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. ...
7. Grades encourage cheating. ...
8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students. ...
9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other. ...
      A friend of mine likes to say that people don't resist change - they resist being changed. Even terrific ideas (like moving a school from a grade orientation to a learning orientation) are guaranteed to self-destruct if they are simply forced down people's throats. The first step for an administrator, therefore, is to open up a conversation - to spend perhaps a full year just encouraging people to think and talk about the effects of (and alternatives to) traditional grades. This can happen in individual classes, as teachers facilitate discussions about how students regard grades, as well as in evening meetings with parents, or on a website -- all with the help of relevant books, articles, speakers, videos, and visits to neighboring schools that are farther along in this journey. ..."

It's certainly more plausible than some cuts we've seen; but it's hard not to still see it as the usual "described as fat-trimming; inevitably ends up reaching bone" exercise just because of how software usually ships. Not everything ships in full abject brokenness; but at least for commercial-grade software (specialty formally verified stuff and projects that have been laser focused on solving a specific problem that bothered an academic computer scientist in 1980 since 1980 can be a different story) you don't generally see software that makes you think "Nope, it's finished, any additional resources allocated would be wasted or actively spoil the product. There are no edge cases that could have used a little more love, nothing interesting but currently too rough or subject-to-change to use".

Even if you go with a fairly optimistic view of productivity effects, 10%-ish gain and no serious side effects, just axing 10% of the employees so you can status-quo the product with lower payroll costs absolutely seems like a chop-shopping move when the status quo for software is so mediocre. As PE cuts go they don't seem to be speedrunning the hollowing-out and immediately going to a skeleton crew of junior vibe coders and a 'support' chatbot; but precious little software ships in a state where "efficiency is up 10%" means that you've already maxed out possible product quality and just need to start cutting people since you no longer have anything for them to do. If the optimistic projections pan out they might be able to approximately maintain their existing level of polish with fewer people; but that level was always a compromise.

It's good to know that this is purely a matter of technological change; no need to look at the classic "get picked up be PE chop shop"/"gradually get stripped for parts" hypothesis. Seems very credible.

I remember this from the Western Australia DST trial, Linux was easy, if there wasn't a patch you could edit the TZ file (cant remember exactly what it was called). MS had a patch for Windows, the problem child was OSX which didn't issue a patch until DST was over. We had to set those to Osaka time to get them to connect to the network. One of the many reasons I have expunged any record of Mac support or knowledge from my resume (and drink heavily to forget).

Yep, and with the amount of WiFi access points doubling as mobile phone repeaters these days it'll be relatively easy to get access to a network by making a deal with telephony providers. No need to hope for an unsecured network.

The same thing that makes me think Tesla can build a car that lasts... they won't because they don't have to.

Once the statutory warranty period is up, they couldn't care less what happens.

With ICE cars, making one last 20 years and a million miles was about care, mechanical sympathy and preventative maintenance. You give the best manufactured Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla to someone who doesn't give a shit, only replaces the tyres when they fail MOT (with the cheapest possible Ditchfinders), ignores warning lights let alone more subtle signs like odd noises, vibrations and smells, et al. and they'll still kill it within 5 years or 100,000 miles.

You know, the kind of people who only clear the tank drivers slit when their windscreen is iced over.

That's who manufacturers target.

Allegedly the same known-vulnerable Danfoss controllers as in the prior french incident; just chilling out on the internet for easy access. I assume we'll have breathless reports crediting agentic hack swarms by midday along with security vendors assuring us that faith in their next generation machine-speed solutions will save us; but apparently the bar is in hell in terms of low-hanging targets.

It also serves a lot of very low budget/someone-involved-in-game-development-did-a-game-jam-thing type purposes. Unfortunately, that's exactly the sort of niche that makes anti-slop work particularly hard.

If it were just about pearl-clutching standards that'd be one thing(roughly the same slop problem for both; but not easier or harder); but if you want to serve the "I did this game jam thing, pay what you want if you think it's neat" you've got a lot of your desired and legitimate activity that would be immediately destroyed if you tried to throw some sort of flat economic floor under the slop guys; and you are...not exactly...dealing in the margins on units sold that pay for tons of human mod effort.

It's not like Steam doesn't have an asset flips and shovelware section as well; but they aren't, and don't pretend to be, in the business of caring all that much about things that fall below the threshold of potential commercial relevance. They do turn a blind eye to a certain number of steam keys going to kickstarter backers; and are significantly less hardass than someone like Apple about how many 'review' copies go out, so it's not like they are actively hostile to stuff that is not yet commercially viable but is trying to get there; but they basically don't touch some of the little test pieces and rough cuts and concept demos and things that itch actively seeks to.

I would agree with that. The last micro transaction I purchased was - I kid you not - the WoW celestial steed. I'm not proud of it, but in my defense I didn't know what that would mean.

I have never bought another skin, cosmetic, or piece of gear for real money since. I don't buy battle passes. I bought the base game for Diablo IV and play each season, but the "Shop" is ignored.

What if there is an innovative, engaging game - a nearly original premise, even - that is well executed but just happens to be created using AI tools? The answer? There's no value there because within 24 hours of any inkling of success, the AI clones will hit the market.

I think Indy game development is on life support and headed for the casket. The only real barrier to this new ecosystem is what can only be found in very deep pockets, and the companies who have that are already bleeding out from different but concurrent reasons,

Right when gaming hardware is vanishing over the pricing horizon, the game production industry is throwing up all over itself.

I'm pretty glad that at 56 I no longer care very much. I have my three games I play, and I hope some updates are made, but I'm off the treadmill.

They were slop during the Jobs era... it's just taken some people this long to realise it.

Jobs was insanely good at selling sub-par things.