Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Kinda disappointed for Gaetz to withdraw, since I'm figuring whoever comes next will be more dangerous.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It's going to be Hulk Hogan or Rob Schneider.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm resigned to Paxton, which sucks because on top of being a horrible person, the office he runs is horrible. It used to be the AGs were some of the best lawyers in the state. They had interesting work and were outstanding trial lawyers. But turnover since Paxton has been so bad, they'll take whoever they can get now. I was at a dinner last year with one, and he was the most senior in his section. He'd graduated six years ago. I've talked to agency lawyers who have had to spoon feed their AGs through cases. I've heard of AGs who just left mid-case without telling their clients.

And they're ideological now, which wasn't the case previously. In June, someone's out of office proudly stated that they were not in the office that day because of a declared holiday to celebrate the second anniversary of Dobbs.

And this is just the run of the mill stuff, not the whole-senior-staff-resigned-en-masse-and-then-sued-and-got-a-$3-million-settlement-which-kicked-off-an-impeachment-by-fellow-republicans-thing. Which I'm guessing is a selling point.

Otoh, as far as I know, his scandals are run-of-the-mill corruption scandals and not sex scandals, unless you count his wife being a state senator who led the charge to not convict him in the impeachment. There may have been sexual services exchanged there.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Pam Bondi

Could be worse, I guess.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

On LinkedIn I got a job opportunity for a Trial Judge position at the Patent Office- remote.

Are you not reading the news whoever generates the USPTO’s help wanted ads?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The concept is fine, in fact, it's preferred. Bailing out the people who'll spend money rather than affluent sorts who'll just save it (the usual trickle down route) is beneficial to all involved.

The problem is timing. People who graduate in difficult economic times get bailed out while others do not? How do you bail out the class of 2024 and not, say, 2032?

And since they're putting income limits on it, how do you bail out the kid who took anthropology and can't find a job and not the one who studied engineering and makes $100k a couple years out?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Free community college, particularly for certifications for trades, is a great policy, and one we should follow.

But it doesn't aid the guy who's already put in the hard sweat equity, and perhaps paid for his schooling for his certification, and taken on the risk of bank loans to start his business. He's left to wonder, along with most of the rest of us, why a certain slice of kids who happened through the system at the right time (when college debt forgiveness became a hot button issue) get a discharge, while he does not.

And as one who supports college debt forgiveness in principle (not really principle, but more as an economic policy that will aid the economy by strengthening would-be consumers) I don't have a compelling answer to that critique.

The only way to do college debt forgiveness fairly would be to make it available to all graduates from now on going forward, and give a commensurate tax benefit to all individuals who did not go to college.

The real conversation IMO involves finding a way to compel academia to run itself like a real business. Currently, it has no skin in the game. However poorly it polices costs, however profligately it spends, a new pipeline of student loan money refills its coffers each fall. Clawbacks are necessary, as is taxation of endowments, at a minimum, but they're just a small fraction of a much broader necessary overhaul of higher education.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Or make it free school for people who take a job there's no candidates for.

But the problem with advertising free bailouts/school for on set of people, is the other set will just vote for leopards who eat faces out of spite.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This is nonsense. There are (small) parts of academia that run themselves like real businesses. They don't do academia well. The reasons for this should be pretty obvious. Academic institutions are not profit-maximizing enterprises. They create public goods with obvious value, but value which mostly cannot be captured and monetized by the institutions. Asking them to run themselves like real businesses is just as misguided as asking that government run itself like a real business (and note that the people who say this are also the people who don't ever want the government to raise its prices to them, something businesses do all the time, which is a tell that the ask is a performative gesture, not a serious idea).

IMO, the problem with much of academia is that they have been increasingly captured by the administrations, which expands its own share of their resources without contributing much of anything to education and research.

eta: Top schools should be trying to figure out how to leverage technology to educate more students, but instead they are content to maintain their current size, since that helps maintain their prestige -- a way in which the schools diminish their mission for the benefit of the people working there. You can argue that a school like Harvard is essentially an endowment fund with an educational sideline, and its board can certainly decide to do that if it wants to, but it's particularly irritating to see state schools engaging in this conduct.

Let Us Celebrate
 

This Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks for our ancestors finding a land, inviting some hospitable natives for a feast.

Then killing them all and taking their shit.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm not talking about for profit colleges. I'm talking about imposition of cost controls.

Part of delivering that "public good" is operating in a responsible manner that doesn't turn a significant portion of the public that takes on debt to acquire this good into a serf.

Agreed. They're like hospital systems. Too many layers of superfluous middle managers.

You like Galloway, I assume. He beats this drum on Pivot endlessly. I agree with this.

Given the high pricing, and loss of brand status and perceived ROI among selective private institutions, a lot of students who'd normally go private are seeking state school admissions. Particularly in the South (I'm not sure exactly why, but I assume the South is seen as a future growth area). They're just doing what the private schools did years ago.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This, coupled with financialization. We exploit kids by convincing them it is okay to borrow against their future earning in ever growing amounts, enriching administration on the back of almost literal children.

When the public paid for public school, that wasn't possible.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I don't understand what you are suggesting or arguing, so maybe you could explain.

I don't see any loss of brand status or perceived ROI among selective private institutions. The selective ones are only getting harder to get into.

Your answer here implies that you think public schools are acting like profit-maximizing businesses in trying to grow, but I thought we just agreed with Scott Galloway that that's not how those administrations are acting.

I grew up in the Northeast and live in California now, and the two areas are dramatically different in attitudes towards public schools. In the East, the best schools are almost all private schools, and the college admissions game is a process of sorting out the status ranking of the various schools and then where you as an applicant fit in that hierarchy. In California, there just aren't that many private schools, and most people are much less hung up on the status significance of the choice. Also, it's much more common to go to a two-year school and then transfer to a UC.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I have no idea what you two are talking about, so I’ll just make 1 point. “Best” is subjective. My son played HS basketball. Detroit Metro is the second most segregated area in the country. I’ve seen the boy’s basketball team from every HS. Lots are 11 or 10 white kids, maybe 1 or 2 black kids. Or 11 or 12 black kids. My son’s team was 50% each, and the school also diverse with Asians including Middle Eastern, and also economically diverse. That is how I define the “best.”

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm talking about colleges and universities, not elementary and high schools, and that's what I thought Sebby was talking about also.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So Penske can't get a discount?
:(

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

No boxed wine at those receptions.

sic transit gloria mundi
 

Sounds like the Assad regime might finally be at an end. I have to say I did not see that coming.

Re: sic transit gloria mundi
 

Very curious what comes next in Syria, hoping it can be a significant improvement.

It is also interesting to see Russia power hit a limit.

Re: sic transit gloria mundi
 

Was talking to a friend in the State Department yesterday. The regime fell partly because Russia is tapped by the Ukraine conflict and couldn't help, but its fall also weakens Russia further, assuming that the new rulers are less interested in being Russian clients.

Re: sic transit gloria mundi
 

I liked Heather Cox Richardson's breakdown. She suggests that Israel's fights with Iran and Hezbollah also contributed. https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxr...ZF21d4A8xDTUTl

Re: sic transit gloria mundi
 

X thread on what Russia has lost.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I was today years old when I learned about Masnick's Impossibility Theorem.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Irrefutable. And yet until I saw it so concisely described, I'd not "learned" it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm advocating that colleges and universities manage themselves (and their costs and elective expenditures) more efficiently.

An aggregate brand degradation, no, but that does appear probable down the road. What we're seeing here (and yes, of course YMMV) is a calculation, even by families that can easily afford to pay elite private school tuition, that it's just not worth it.

For some reason, as I said, southern and big state schools seem to be attracting kids I'd otherwise expect to be going Lesser Ivies, Patriot League, etc.

Galloway also argues that schools are limiting enrollment to goose prestige. I think state schools are doing this now as well.

I think the west is a much more healthy environment in this regard. The push to get one's kids into exclusive east coast private schools has created a really coarse environment. When you aim that many avariciously aspirant professionals at the same goal (getting junior into Dartmouth), you get a horrid set of behaviors and an emphasis on gamesmanship. You also create some seriously stressed kids.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The situation is unforgivable. I recall sitting next to a young lawyer about a decade ago, waiting for an argument, and hearing her explain that she was roughly $200k in debt between undergrad and law school.

Today, that number would probably be $250-270k.

This person will be a debt serf for the majority of her most productive years. Kids? A home? These things will be exceedingly painful to even attempt. And for what? A couple bad decisions she made at an age where everyone makes bad decisions.

Higher education's relationship with our student borrowing systems can only be described in the terms most apt, most deserved: Parasitic, opportunistic, and in most instances, fraud in the inducement. The administrations that feed off this trough are worse than subprime and payday lenders, the clutches of whom at least the debtors can escape through bankruptcy if necessary.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

No one could possibly argue with that.

You say this based on what? There are surely exceptions, but I see the opposite happening.

Overall enrollment is down relative to a few years ago, so less prestigious schools are seeing the effects. But that doesn't mean they are turning people away whom they would have taken.

Well, we do have USC out here.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Wow

The folks here who went to NY law school and got two Millie dollar referral checks got life dicked.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I live in a bubble, but I'm seeing parents not letting their kids go to southern states due to regressive policies/attitudes. But again, bubble.

But I do agree that there are are many kids who could get into T10 schools who are, for example, going to Illinois (honors program) instead. It's a whole lot cheaper than full pay at Northwestern or U. Chicago.

Edited to add: And I'm still surprised at the amount of east coast families who are willing to send their kids full pay to the LACs. I get that the good LACs apparently carry a lot of water in the northeast, but many people outside of that region have never even heard of them. For example, I had never heard of Williams until about 2 years ago, and it's apparently the top LAC and just as hard to get into as the Ivies.

How can the bandwidth be exceeded
 

If there are three people here?

Re: How can the bandwidth be exceeded
 

What even is a 509 error?

Happy New Year, everyone!

Re: How can the bandwidth be exceeded
 

Sounds like when you have a problem with your Levi's...

Re: How can the bandwidth be exceeded
 

g.o.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

One of the smartest lawyers I ever met never went into a courtroom. Set up a referral machine. Bought ads, hired a few lackeys to handle cases in house for cash flow, referred out the rest.

I love referral fees. Money for nothing. Feels so wrong, and yet so, so right.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I see a lot of well-heeled folk whose kids took the prep school route going to big state schools, and a lot of southern schools. Idk why. These people can afford the freight for private colleges in the NE.

I think it comes down to hiring afterward. You can go to a fancy school and get a liberal arts degree and you're still only as hireable as a kid who went to a state school and has a STEM degree.

(That stuff about hedge funds, PE, and banks wanting liberal arts majors to create a more well-rounded workforce is BS. First, they're trying to eliminate everyone they can with AI. Second, the English major from Haverford is only getting hired at a fund because he's Greenwich money and his uncle is in the Senate.)

YMMV, but big state schools like MD, PSU, OSU, and MI have become far more competitive in recent years.

I think the NE/Mid-Atlantic is dusty, and backward. Sclerotic. Galloway is a good example. Guy went to UCLA, had middle of pack grades, and went on to make a fortune. Here, there's still a bizarre class thing about undergrad. I went to a private HS and college. If someone asks me about them, I immediately assume that person is a jackass. If someone tells me, "Oh, well, he went to [insert school]" as if I should be impressed, I immediately register that person as a dimwit.

YMMV, but the older I get, the more I realize my old man was right about school. "It's a badge. Advertising." I see little difference in terms of life outcome between the friends I know from college and HS and those I know who went to public HS and state universities. The NE's fixation on school is social climbing nonsense.

But, if one gets into an Ivy, he still must go. The free marketing that provides for the rest of life is just too good to reject.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Kids who can afford to have choices often end up choosing schools they want to go to, and, at the risk of being argumentative, I'm not sure what you've said here is getting at what those kids are thinking.

The top schools (e.g., Michigan) are not getting any less selective, and some schools (e.g., Northeastern) have managed to elevate themselves. But on the whole, enrollment is down, and many schools have do what they can to fill out their classes.

One thing I like about California is that people are much less interested in where you went to school. A recruiter told me the other day to play up my Ivy on my resume, and I was a little surprised, but then I remembered that he was in Northern Virginia.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

OTOH, the wildfires are terrible.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I know three separate people who have lost everything, and several others who are nervously watching from wherever they evacuated to. We've been through some pretty horrible shit in Houston, but this just horrible to watch from afar. I can only imagine what it like to go through.

The lawtalkers folk who I know are in the area have marked themselves safe on Facebook. I hope they stay so.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Our managing partner parents and an expert witness I use. OTOH, full employment for California insurance attorneys.