Old Pitch: AI will reduce expenses by eliminating jobs:
Response: Fuck you, Fight AI!

New Pitch: People who use AI will steal your jobs.
Response: The fuck they will! I'm gettin' me some AI right now!

Answering Your Question First:
Because there is trust in a system until an exploit is found. The more serious and pervasive the discovered exploits, the more bureaucracy expands so as to mitigate the risk of further exploits. This in turn makes normal operations (i.e. enrolling in school) slower, more arduous, less agile, and more expensive.

The Background Info:
American financial aid for higher education is a complex web of fund sources and qualifications. Here's how it breaks down--

1. Scholarships - A "gift" aid (does not require repayment) that is awarded to individuals based on merit. Amounts, qualifications, and even competition varies between scholarships. Most scholarship funding comes from non-government sources.
2. Grants - A "gift" aid that is awarded on the basis of an individual's (household's) financial need assuming certain minimum qualifications are met. Grants come from a wide variety of sources including federal and state governments, local communities, cities, and colleges.
3. Federal Work-Study - An earned aid wherein the federal government pays a portion of the recipient's wage. This makes the recipient more attractive as a prospective employee, helps the recipient get valuable jobs experience, instills a sense of self-sufficiency in the recipient, and reduces of the cost of the employee to the employer.
4. Federal Subsidized Loan - A loan issued to the student at a fixed rate. The federal government pays the interest on the loan while the student is enrolled and making sufficient progress to a degree. Repayment begins 6 months ends enrollment (either leaves school or graduates).
5. Federal Unsubsidized Loan - A loan issued to the student at a fixed rate. Interest accrues and compounds throughout the life of the loan. Repayment begins 6 months ends enrollment (either leaves school or graduates).
6. Parent PLUS Loan - A loan issued to the parents or guardians of a student at a fixed rate. Interest accrues and compounds throughout the life of the loan. Repayment can begin immediately.
7. Private Loans - A loan issued to someone at a variety of rates and repayment structures

Every year, students file Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (or FAFSAs) with the Department of Education. The application is primarily an income reporting tool wherein the students share tax info with the DoE. Using that data, the DoE provides all colleges that inquire with a student's "Estimated Family Contribution" (EFC) which is the maximum amount that a student's family can reasonably expected to contribute to the student's education in the coming year. If you have an EFC of $0, you're almost guaranteed a blend of aid types 1-4 (above) for the full cost of attendance at colleges that have offered you admission.

A financial aid package issued by the school is intended to cover some or all of the following budget categories and in the following priority:

* Tuition & fees
* Room and Board
* Books & supplies
* Transportation
* Personal Expenses

How is the Money Extracted in the Scam?
The campus takes the tuition and fees right off the top of a financial aid award If the campus is providing housing and cafeteria access, they also take out Room & Board. Anything else is surrendered to the student to budget and pay for their own books, supplies, transportation, and other personal expenses. This is sometimes called a financial aid "stipend" or "refund".

That stipend/refund is the target. Thus, the most likely scam target campuses are ones where the scammers can:

1. Be admitted with relative ease (community college)
2. Have cheap enough tuition/fees to facilitate a stipend/refund (community college)
3. Are insufficiently staffed to facilitate their own novel investigations and audits (community college)

Where in the Process is the Scam Happening?
First, at the FAFSA. Colleges, Universities, and governments 100% rely on the submission and validation of financial data via the FAFSA to allocate need-based aid. If FAKE or STOLEN identities are making it through the FAFSA process, then the Department of Education is failing the validation process. Scamming this process is 100% a federal crime. (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.justice.gov%2Fusao-edla%2Fpr%2Fnew-orleans-woman-pleads-guilty-theft-more-280000-federal-student-aid)

Second, the campus should be validating the physical existence and presence of the student at the stipend/refund phase given the failure at the federal level.

Their growth goal is "better", but their financial goal needs to be "nearly perfect".

If Waymo or any other autonomous vehicle company wants to survive being responsible for harming and killing people (as they eventually will be), they need to be damn near perfect. Consider:

Currently: 42,000 road deaths per year. All of those liabilities are distributed among 42,000 responsible drivers.
Future: Waymo controls 30% of vehicles on the road and road deaths have dropped 70%. They're also responsible for 400 road deaths per year. Can they survive that kind of liability? 300 deaths? 200? 100?

How perfect will they need to be to financially survive? "Damn near perfect."

EDIT!! My kingdom for an edit button!!!. I added ages to the wrong group.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorkfed.org%2Fres...

Rankings of Unemployment from lowest percent to highest percent:

1990: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
1995: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2000: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2005: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2010: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2015: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2020: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2024: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)

The only thing that changes is the gap between the groups. All this chart shows is that:

1) You're more likely to be employed if you graduate college.
2) You're more likely to be employed if you're older (and presumably have experience)
3) Young workers (age 22-27) are the most likely to be affected by recession, but college education reduces the likelihood of unemployment in those times.

Also, unemployment for recent college grads has been as high or higher than it is now in 2009-2012 (mortgage crash), 2012-2013, and part of 2015. It's not symbolic of anything except an ensuing recession.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorkfed.org%2Fres...

Rankings of Unemployment from lowest percent to highest percent:

1990: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
1995: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2000: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2005: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2010: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2015: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2020: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
2024: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)

The only thing that changes is the gap between the groups. All this chart shows is that:

1) You're more likely to be employed if you graduate college.
2) You're more likely to be employed if you're older (and presumably have experience)
3) Young workers (age 22-27) are the most likely to be affected by recession, but college education reduces the likelihood of unemployment in those times.

Also, unemployment for recent college grads has been as high or higher than it is now in 2009-2012 (mortgage crash), 2012-2013, and part of 2015. It's not symbolic of anything except an ensuing recession.

"Neurodivergent" simply means "works different from the expected norm". Acknowledging that this survey explicitly asked people to SELF-DIAGNOSE, then...

1. It's more likely that people have a severely distorted understanding of what "normal" brain function is. Being distracted by one's smartphone while on the couch or not being able to do trigonometric calculations in one's head are not conclusive evidence of mental dysfunction. That's typical function. Almost no one has perfect focus and very few people can do significant amounts of mental math. In fact, most peoples' understanding of "neurotypical" function comes from entertainment and social media.

2. Being that people are unlikely to be able to conceive what "normal" is, they are incapable of reasonably self-diagnose neurodivergense in themselves.

3. Some people are just uneducated. They refused education while younger, neither their work nor hobbies require significant analysis, and they are happy in their limited world. That's not an insult... for many people, that's a romantic existence. But those people need to be evaluated WITHIN THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXT, not against college-educated IT knowledge-workers with pub-trivia hobbies.

4. If everyone were to be honestly and accurately diagnosed as neurodivergent overnight, the hypothetical "neurotypical curve" would adjust and a LOT of those people would then be considered "normal".

Lastly, we need to STOP encouraging people to self-diagnose and begin explicitly shaming people who assert that self-diagnosis is in any way equivalent to actual diagnosis. There are legal and exploitable protections for those with actual diagnosis. I consider doing so similar to those who claim that their pets are "comfort animals" hoping to exploit the known use of trained SERVICE animals by disabled people.

No, you cannot just think or assert something and be due benefits and/or protections. We would LOVE to trust everyone, but there are WAY too many exploitative assholes to trust you implicitly.

This is the key point that they omit because this is an investment marketing piece masked as groundbreaking news.

People drive in all conditions, make changes to a route (en route), and drive in brand new places without petabytes of prepared data stating how a vehicle should operate in an area. Waymo cannot do that. Waymor does NOT adapt quickly by any stretch of the word "quickly".

And that's OK!! Waymo's taking it slow and correct. They're moving at the speed that autonomous driving NEEDS to move.

But don't cherry pick one aspect of driving and imply that that one aspect makes them better than human drivers.

The resulting dollars are, but the source and effect on use is not. Increasing taxes on milk vs. increasing taxes on luxury sail boats have different effects.

Bicycle and transit riders pay taxes, too. What's your point?

Childish and simplistic.

The federal highway fund was established to fund the construction and maintenance of the federal highway. It wasn't intended to come out of income taxes because not everyone drives and those who drive drive different amounts. Drive more? Buy more gas and pay more into the system. However, the tax rate hasn't kept pace with the expense to build and maintain the highways, so for years half of the expense has been borne by general income tax revenues. That means that people who drive less (or not at all) are subsidizing what is supposed to be a user-funded system. Moreover, electric vehicles dodge the whole gas tax altogether and that presents a compounding issue: how do you fund the user-backed road system when the gas tax dwindles further and the vehicles on the road do even more damage?

And taxes are not levied "BECAUSE" people tolerate it. They're proposed to fill a financial gap or modify behavior. They're approved based on rationale and general support from elected officials. They continue because there are insufficient voters opposing it.

That is 100% untrue. See above.

No. An EV-owner's household electricity is a comingled fuel. Part of the electricity is used for household living and part is used as vehicle fuel and the balance differs according to household efficiencies, regional temperatures, household size, and vehicle miles traveled per year. Putting a tax rate on all kWh consumed by a household is inevitably inequitable primarily costing those without vehicles (or those who rarely drive) and subsidizing those who drive the most.

Carbon sequestration is a general need of our society (societies). Anyone working toward that end will be expected to do so with minimal margin and funded by centralized public organizations (governments). The problem is that the MOST RELIABLE form of carbon sequestration is so simple that decision-makers feel

1. Farm high-growth-speed trees in restricted areas around disused coal mines.
2. Trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it in to tree mass (wood).
3. Chop trees down once they meet the point of diminishing growth returns.
4. Heat up the wood to remove the oxygen (pyrolysis) leaving behind a carbon-rich "char".
5. Deposit the char into the disused coal mines, literally reversing the process of coal mining.

It's cheaper, quicker, and more reliably effective than ANY high tech carbon sequestration method which is why no one's doing it. It's so common sense that no one's wants to invest in it.

It's like having a room full of shit and a shovel. You KNOW you can start to shovel all the shit out of the room and be done by a predictable time, but that sure seems like a lot of work, so you'll wait until a salesman comes to your room with a magical high-tech solution. Yep... that's you... sitting in shit up to your belly-button because you don't want to use a shovel.

That's absolute BS. If it were true, then we'd have more student turnout in the vote and it would be more consistently to the benefit of those particular politicans.

What in the world does "soak it all up" mean? Where do you think the money goes?

That's 100% not correct. When you subsidize corn, you stimulate production of corn, and the price of corn drops because (1) subsidies cover part of the expense and (2) over production. As it pertains to education, the increase in subsidies comes as a reaction to expenses going up AND increased demand (more poor kids going to college). Expenses go up because the charge of the university has gone from "research and education of a limited few" to research, education of the masses, feeding the masses, housing the masses, providing transportation for the masses, providing health care for the masses, etc.

That's because as expenses increase, financial aid has historically increased for students coming from lower income households. Moreover, we've been MUCH better at getting low-income students into 4-year brick-and-mortar schools.

It's not like the federal government makes more loans available and research institutions just give their employees lavish bonuses.

The cost of living in California is indeed high. The cost of living near a UC campus is EVEN HIGHER. Seriously.

* UC Irvine: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redfin.com%2Fcity%2F93...
* UCSD: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redfin.com%2Fneighbo...
* UCLA: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redfin.com%2Fneighbo...
* UC Berkeley: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redfin.com%2Fneighbo...
* UC Santa Cruz: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redfin.com%2Fneighbo...
* UC Riverside: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redfin.com%2Fcity%2F15...

Why is it so expensive there? Because land/housing speculators know they have a captured population and continually increase the cost of rent for rational reason aside from "Everyone else is increasing, why shouldn't I?". When rents go up on average, then the "cost of attendance" is calculated higher and financial aid (usually loans) is increased. People go more into debt.

By comparison, the University of California locks tuition in during a student's first year and it stays that amount until they graduate.

The cost of housing around UC campuses is also one of the primary drivers for the increase in tuition, oddly enough. As rents continue to go up unabated, the cost of living for university employees and their unions demand increases to mitigate those increases. Some will stay locally for a short commute and pay higher rents, others will travel quite a distance to afford the home they want but then pay the difference in commute costs/time/stress.

It ALL comes down to constant, uncontrolled rent hikes.

The cost of college is cheap. The cost of living near a quality 4-year brick-and-mortar university is expensive.

The University of California system, for example, has 256,000 students throughout 10 campuses including UCLA and Berkeley. All 10 campuses are designated "R1" (highest tier of research university). Tuition and fees to attend ANY UC campus is under $18,000/year for California residents. The cost of rent within a non-driving distance to any UC campus, however, will run about $800-$1500/month ($9,600-$18,000/year) for a SHARED BEDROOM.

Tuition, fees, books, supplies, and RENT all get paid for out of student financial aid (scholarships, grants, and LOANS).

With RENT being 25-50% the overall cost of attendance and only providing half a bedroom in an apartment no more special than any other standard apartment and the $18,000 tuition paying into a world class education, a small city's worth of buildings, medical care, psychological care, and an assortment of resume/future building resources at one's fingertips... MAYBE... JUST MAYBE the problem isn't the price of the education itself.

The maximum charge rate of an EV has nothing to do with the availability of that charging rate. Tesla, GM, Ford, Mercedes, VW, etc. can all create EVs that can take 1 MW charge and it will mean absolutely nothing for the convenience of EV ownership if the general public has only rare and inconsistent access to EV charging beyond 15kW.

Yes, DC Fast Charging exists, but it's availability is still way too limited to facilitate mass EV adoption given that it takes >30 minutes charge a sedan from 10% to 100%.

* Tesla: 30,000 ports
* Electrify America: 4,700 ports
* EVgo: 4,000 ports
* ChargePoint: 3,800 ports

There are 200,000 gas stations with an average of 8 pumps in the US equating to ~1.6M pumps. And refueling a sedan from 10%-100% takes only 5-7 minutes.

So, when someone says, "Hey, I can charge this one vehicle model using a 1MW source," I pretty much ignore it. It's not part of the solution. It's just research. The solution is building buildable things. DC Fast Charger stations are buildable. They're extremely expensive and resource intensive, but they're buildable. Today's DC Fast Charger tech is what will EVs accessible to people who can't charge at home if it's every going to work.

But here's the reality check--

1. Only 2/3 of Tesla's chargers are open to non-Tesla owners. They also have to pay 50% per kWh than Tesla owners in addition to a monthly membership fee. And of course, Tesla is under assault due to it's CEO being an destructive nutball.
2. Electrify America DCFC backend software is crap and they have too much downtime.
3. EVgo is too small to survive for much longer given the current federal administration.
4. ChargePoint has a massive Level 2 footprint, but they're an EVSE supplier, not a "gas station manager". Their model needs updating.

The growth of EV adoption hinges on stable, accessible, reliable DC Fast Charging, but we don't have that. Chasing 1MW charging when we're failing to implement known solutions today.

Professional movie critics don't represent your average Netflix viewer and thus their opinions are not directly correlated to the profitability of a film. Historically, SciFi/Fantasy films get bad critic reviews, but SciFi/Fantasy has carried the film industry for the last 30 years.

* Comic Book-Based Films
* Harry Potter
* Lord of the Rings
* Star Wars
* Avatar
* Jurassic Park
* Hunger Games