I doubt it. I'd bet it's more of a problem of feature parity with OS X. Even though Windows has backup and restore, it still gets ragged on for not handling device moves or replacements as nicely -- even though the main problem is users and/or app developers not turning it on. I'll bet that first MS offered the feature and left it to users to discover and enable, but hardly anyone did. Then they started nagging people to turn it on, and most still didn't. So now they're turning it on by default.

I saw this same story play out on Android (when I worked there), firsthand. Backup was added to provide feature parity with Apple and to reduce user complaints about lost data. But approximately no one turned it on. In Android there were actually two obstacles, because out of abundant concern for privacy the backup solution required both app developers and users to opt in. User opt-in improved when users were nagged to enable it at setup time, but then they were annoyed that when they restored a backup hardly anything was restored because hardly any app developers opted in. Eventually apps were opted in by default (app devs can still opt out, but most don't) and the feature became somewhat more functional -- except for apps that were broken by it because app developers didn't expect to have their app and its data suddenly appear on a different device.

I had a front row seat to this saga because the component I owned (Android Keystore) was a significant motivator for requiring apps to opt into backup. The problem is that Keystore's core purpose is to provide hardware-backed cryptographic key material which is permanently and irrevocably bound to the device (and is strongly guaranteed to be wiped on factory reset). When an app that uses Keystore keys has its data restored from backup and then tries to load one of its Keystore keys, it gets a null pointer. If the app developer didn't check for null, that turned into a NullPointerException, and if they didn't catch the NPE, their app crashed. Net result: after a restore, most banking and many other apps crashed on startup because one of the first things they do is try to use their keys to authenticate to their servers.

I designed a key backup and restore scheme but my scheme would require app developers to opt into key backup on a per-key basis, at key generation time, because adding any automatic backup/restore solution would have broken the fundamental security property of Keystore. The scheme was moderately complex because it tried very hard to make it impossible for Google to ever access the backed-up secrets, and it relied on some internal server infrastructure whose sole purpose was to make it possible for Google to store data it could not access. That infrastructure was expensive, fragile, high-maintenance and not much used so it was at risk of being turned down because the teams that used it couldn't afford to maintain it. Strongly authenticating the new device and the user before releasing secrets was also tricky. At the end of the day, I never launched the Keystore B&R scheme (though vestiges of it remain visible in the Keystore secure key import scheme, which was designed for B&R but is useful on its own. Specifically, the import format includes a "masking key" field that isn't really useful in the normal import flow, but was crucial to the scheme that kept the secrets impenetrable to Google).

At the end of the day, app developers eventually fixed their apps to deal with being restored, mostly, and forcing users to make a backup/no-backup decision during device setup generated high adoption. Android B&R works fairly well today (except where device OEMs screw it up), though people still complain that the whole system isn't as smooth or as seamless as iOS', I think mostly because Android apps can opt out, but iOS apps can't (AFAIK).

If you pay it off every month, it's not really debt, is it? You never pay any interest, and the only way it translates into actual debt is if you have more expenses than you can cover -- but in that case you'd be reaching for debt of some sort regardless. But with a CC you do get the fraud buffer (the fact that you haven't happened to need it, yet, doesn't mean anything), and you get to delay your payments by about one month, which IMO is really quite nice. I not only get a short interest-free loan, letting me keep my cash in an interest-bearing account (currently about 1%, not a lot but not nothing), but I also have the flexibility to decide which account or accounts to keep my cash in (I actually keep most of it in a couple of brokerage accounts, not a regular bank account; yes, it's still insured by FDIC).

Plus I get 1-5% cash back depending on where I use it.

I realize that The 2-6% I get back (rewards + delayed payment interest) is paid for out of the fees the merchant pays and passes on to us all. I think it would actually be better if merchants were allowed to itemize those fees on my bill, which would discourage use of high-fee cards and change the calculation. With the system as it is, though, I'll absolutely stick with my credit cards.

This is very regional, but if you're talking about populations that speak 3+ languages fluently, it's generally not because they learn them in school.

Learning multiple languages in most cases has nothing to do with parenting or nutrition or leaning habits. Most people who learn multiple languages learn them because they live in communities where multiple languages are spoken.

Good point!

Multilingualism is weakly correlated with intelligence. It's strongly correlated with growing up in an area where people speak many languages.

Well, this data says that your best bet is to have learned a lot of languages as a child. The study found that earlier acquisition of multiple languages was more effective than learning additional languages later in life.

I agree with the first sentence, but not the second. I think this is an honest attempt to protect kids from something that is clearly harmful to them. I just don't think it will work. I think it's a situation where people see a real problem and feel like they must do something, but don't really know what can work. This is something, and there's a non-zero (if small) probability that it will do more good than harm.

It was never anything more than an invitation. A degree is a prerequisite for many jobs, but it has never been a guarantee.

That's part of it, but the smaller part. The more important parts are that a college degree demonstrates that you can learn, that you can take on a large, somewhat challenging, multi-year task and complete it, and that you succeeded at acquiring some level of broad-based education. Engineers and other specialists tend to scoff somewhat at "liberal education" because it doesn't seem like it's useful... but there have been endless attempts to substitute narrow vocational education in technical fields and they don't stick.

In the late 90s I worked with people who'd graduated from BM's attempt to provide narrowly-focused education. IBM had scoured the factories for the brightest then sent them to an intensive two-year course in software engineering, paying them to learn. The result was competent software engineers who were difficult to work with because they knew absolutely nothing but software. Their thinking was full of the basic misunderstandings of politics, economics, science, literature, etc. that you find in typical people without any post-high school education -- and who didn't pay much attention in high school either.

They knew information theory and could write good code, but their lack of general education negatively impacted their ability to build software systems in many ways. They didn't communicate well in writing (though technical writing courses had been part of their IBM education), but more fundamentally they just weren't very good at understanding the complex problems of the business. It's hard to pin down precisely what the issue was, but it was real. They were as smart or smarter than many of the college grads... but they were just less effective as employees.

IBM ultimately abandoned the approach and started sending bright young factory workers to regular universities. Even that was less effective than hiring people who had gotten to and through college on their own, though.

Indeed... though I also think that the trap is less crushing than many like to describe. I think the biggest issue isn't that the loan repayment is crushing, but that people don't like paying for something they got years ago. I don't mind paying my mortgage because I'm paying for a house I'm living in now. I would definitely resent making payments on a house I already sold and moved out of.

Personally, I didn't get any student loans. It would have been financially smart for me to have done so, actually, but I didn't.

Or a cheap four-year school, which was my strategy. Even better if there's such a school close to where your parents live, so you can live at home. A lot of the cost of education isn't the education, it's room and board, and if you can get that from your mom & dad for free, do it. This was my plan, though I ended up not following it because I got married -- but I married a woman who is a couple of years older than me and was close to graduation herself. She graduated a few months after we got married and started work that fall as a school teacher; not a lot of money but enough. Financially this strategy worked well for her; she quit teaching after a few years and has since lived on my income, which is an order of magnitude larger than she'd ever have made.

Another alternative is to join the National Guard or a reserve branch of the military. I joined the Air Force reserve. It qualifies you for most of the GI Bill benefits, but only requires a few months up front of full-time service for basic training and specialty training. After that, one weekend per month plus two weeks per year (which your employer is legally obligated to allow you to do). If you pick a military job that is related to your career plans, the specialty training could be extensive, as much as three years in some cases. Or you can pick something with less training requirements. I became a Security Policeman because the training was short... though what I learned about physical security has actually been useful in my software career.

I mentioned above that I should have gotten some student loans... I didn't realize until too late that part of the GI Bill benefits was that the government would have paid off my loans for me. I met another kid who was going to school on scholarships + GI Bill money who took advantage of this: He borrowed $20k (in ~1995) for "school", but used it to buy a brand new Camaro, then let the US Army pay it off.

Start to end, it took me 8 years, though I took a two-year hiatus to be a missionary. The last four of those, I was working full time, writing software. The last year of that time I was actually teaching a C++ programming course at night at the university I was attending, getting paid a small amount as adjunct faculty and getting 50% off of tuition for my own final coursework. That last part was not a common situation by any means, not something you can plan on, but it worked well for me.

I think it would have been marvelous to have done a "traditional" college education, living away from home, immersed in the college culture with lots of other young people. But I graduated with zero debt, and having already started my career, and my family, so it was a great outcome.

CaptQuark's main point is absolutely right: You don't need large student loans to get an education.

Darl McBride used to refer to the "spiffy agent technology" that was going to find the allegedly infringing code, so that particular grift is nothing new.

Actually those numbers are from OMB. I didn't ask AI. And, yes, they're percentages of spending.

On a percentage basis, mostly what we get for our tax dollars is entitlements, like social security (22%), medicare (14%) and medicaid (10%), plus interest (14%).

Yeah, Musk could definitely drive the whole thing sideways. I'm afraid he might be getting increasingly detached from reality. I'm not so worried about the lack of focus on the chomper; it seems to me that the real issues facing Starship are all about how to handle re-entry heat. Also engine re-lights, but I have little concern they can solve that; it's been done many times before, including by SpaceX. If they can solve the rapid reuse after reentry problem, something no one else has done, ever, building various form factors will be a simple matter of engineering.

Yes, it was all super entertaining, especially with PJ covering all of it, and rarely missing a trick. Good times for those of us watching from the cheap seats. A huge waste of time and resources for IBM.

That's absolutely not what it means.

"Left the labor force" doesn't mean "they lost their job" it means "they aren't looking for a job". Examples of cases where people "leave the labor force" include (but aren't limited to):

* Retired.
* Had a child and decided to become a stay-at-home parent.
* Decided to spend their time caring for an elderly relative.
* Decided to go back to school.
* Gave up on working after being unable to find a job.
* Had a financial windfall and decided to stop working.

And so on. The "gave up after being unable to find a job" is not particularly likely in a job market where only 4.2% of people who want a job don't have one, though I suppose some may choose not to work rather than work in a less-desirable job than they had before.

Also, it's July 2. June employment numbers are basically worthless at this point. Give them a quarter or so to get more data and correct the numbers. The initial numbers are based on only on employer reporting data, which skews it in various ways. The government uses several other data sources including surveys, but it takes time for that data to come in, which is why these numbers are generally corrected 2-3 months after they come out.

Counterargument: Who would have predicted a few years ago that one private company would dominate global launch, launching more by every metric than the rest of the world combined, and -- all by itself -- triple the number of satellites in orbit in 7 years.

Sure, 200Xing the satellite count is a lot harder than tripling the satellite count, about 66 times harder. But if Starship is successful (by no means a given, also far from impossible), SpaceX will reduce per-kg launch costs by 100X, maybe more.

I'm skeptical... but I would also not just write it off as a "pack of lies". The things SpaceX is actively working on should make the launch part of it feasible. Will it be cost-effective? That's a harder question, and heat dissipation is the core thing that may make it infeasible.

Also, the final paragraph of the summary seems to be confused:

So, why are the hyperscalers hyping orbital data centers? Answer: because it's lucrative. "The Elon Musk part of it is honestly genius because he's got xAI building the data centers, SpaceX sending them to space, and Tesla building solar panels," Genkina says. "It's almost like he's paying himself."

Yes, SpaceX will be incredibly lucrative if it owns the whole vertical stack, building, launching and powering -- but only if it works. If it doesn't work, and if orbital compute isn't cheaper than planet-bound compute, then SpaceX will have no buyers.

The other possibility is that it's just a pump and dump, but that's not how Musk has ever worked in the past. Yes, he makes crazy promises, and delivers only half of them, and delivers years after the promised date, but those half-realized, years-late results are still often world-changing.