I agree with the sentiment except for the last bit, which is a bit harsh. LLMs didn’t exist when I was in uni, but academic dishonesty did happen from time-to-time. It’d usually result in that assignment getting a 0 (sometimes enough to fail the whole module), although repeated offences beget more drastic consequences. LLM use is just a new form of academic dishonesty IMHO, albeit one that is more difficult to detect definitively.

There are a lot of idiots in university who do dumb things but then learn from the experience. Being too punitive would likely be a net negative, especially when talking about pulling their funding…

Really the broader point is nobody should have to take out life-ruining loans for a chance at education in the first place.

Oh yeah, this is super relatable.

I have a very complicated relationship with my heritage. (I come from a Middle Eastern country.)

As a teen I would stay up at night wishing I was white (because my white friends’ parents were OK with me being queer. They showed me a kind of love my life was so sorely lacking in.)

Whenever I’d come home I’d have to put the proverbial mask back on, but no matter what, I couldn’t work my way out of being a disappointment to the family. I felt like a prisoner in my own house and I knew other people had it different.

My mother also used to throw my medication (antidepressants) away because “chemicals bad” and it’ll “ruin [my] brain”, essentially. And so I’d deal with withdrawal too.

I was victimised by a combination of difficult life circumstances, and (really, mostly) a rigid, conservative, and intolerant culture.

As an adult now, my feelings about this are not so black and white; I am proud of where I’m from. But I do feel for younger me. And I’m still damaged from my childhood. Always will be.

I really don’t disagree about the government’s currently delusional priorities. None of those things are better, or even good uses of taxpayers’ money. I suppose it would be an expedient way to make use of already existing healthcare facilities and staffing, at least in the interim before they can start gradually streamlining.

My comment was influenced by my mentality as someone who does live in a(n actual) welfare state, but I’m sorry I was so ignorant about it!

Obligatory “not American” warning, but I think the problem is more complex than just making the government a customer. Countries with public healthcare generally don’t refer to private providers because the cost is orders of magnitude higher than a state run operation. (With few exceptions; my country paid for me to go to a private hospital once because I needed a specialist for something uncommon, and there weren’t enough in public hospitals / I was overspill.)

You don’t just have hospitals, you have an entire economy of insurance, administration, and severely inflated pricing to account for all the useless jobs and bloat. If none of that goes away, then I don’t see why the government would be incentivised to use them, rather than just set up state hospitals.

Also, unrelated but I just re-read the title; does Dr Oz still have any credibility whatsoever?

Tasting History with Max Miller has a video on exactly this topic! Highly recommend it.

Not at all. On the contrary, I found them quite liberating, for 2 main reasons:

• not having to decide what to wear every day
• I was in a British private school, where students came from upper middle class to upper class backgrounds. A lot of the really rich students were shallow, superficial, and cruel. If we didn’t have uniforms we would have had a serious bullying problem against those who couldn’t afford to wear high end/designer brands.

The only downside is that we had to pay for the uniforms, and they were quite expensive compared to the awful materials they were made of. I had 3 sets on rotation.

I find frogs really cute, so I hate this lmao

Syria indeed! I haven’t been home since 2010 though.

No need to excuse your Arabic haha, I don’t speak a lick of Hebrew (yet?), and my own Arabic is probably at the proficiency level of an 8 year old.

I live in the UK and am very passionate about learning languages. I’m working on my 5th - Chinese.

Ah, sorry I hadn’t appreciated you were after split tunnelling… You can do this with Tailscale for services where you’re connecting to a fixed IP/FQDN, which I think rules out torrenting/P2P unfortunately.

The only way I’ve seen to pass a specific app’s traffic through Tailscale appears to be an Android exclusive feature.

If I’m wrong someone please correct me!

You can absolutely use Tailscale; your host in the unrestricted country needs to be set up as an exit node (CLI argument in Linux, or a menu option in the system tray in Windows.)

Then, your local machine needs to be set up to use that remote machine as its exit node. (tailscale up --exit-node=remote-tailnet-ip-here)

Levantine Arabic speaker here. 👋🏽

I break almost every stereotype from my country of origin… I’m quiet, on time (much to the dismay of people who give me a time 1hr before they actually expect me), and can’t grow a thick/full beard to save my life.

Being an engineer is pretty stereotypical, although that’s true for a ton of Asians, so not awfully specific.

I guess… speaking strictly in silly technicalities here, then the stereotype I “fit” is “terrorist” (on the basis that people where I live – the UK – are getting arrested and charged with terrorism for expressing support for Palestine/criticising the genocide.) Obviously, I’m being facetious here, but we live in an insane world.

For context, I’ve lived my whole life as a ‘displaced person’ / immigrant without a permanent home, so I don’t feel that there is one place that has particularly shaped me or my personality.

Any guesses for where I’m “originally” from?

Edit: I’d actually never heard that stereotype about Filipinas! The only one I know (applies to all genders) is that you guys are incredible singers. :)

I don’t feel like I can give you literal conversation starters that aren’t super boring or generic (like chats about the weather), without way more context than is possible to obtain at this stage.

But, one thing that did help me strike conversations and eventually friendships with people, was just hanging around campus doing stuff that piqued other people’s interest.

A couple of times it was me playing on my Nintendo 3DS between lectures, and once someone even came up to me to compliment my Sony Discman.

Other times it might be something as simple as there not being any empty tables in the cafeteria, so you ask to sit with someone. If they’re not clearly busy or studying, you might start by asking what course they do, how they’re finding it, etc. These are all fairly passive approaches though, and that’s possibly related to my extreme introversion.

A slightly more active suggestion – take advantage of group assignments! (As much as I hate them.) Make plans to meet up. Get a few hours of work done together then hang out with a few beers or a soda or whatever. Win-win.

I drink them because I have a serious problem staying hydrated. It sounds weird but I hate the sensation of drinking water – always have, and forcing myself to drink more rarely works.

I can drink juice and soft drinks without issue, but that’s not exactly a healthy way to live. Supplementing my low water intake with a sugar free sports drink goes a long way.

Oh yeah. There’s no doubt that modern web tech stacks are inefficient slop - patchwork built upon patchwork.

However, JS has been included in every major browser for well over a decade. It’s industry standard at this point, so I found the position of expecting commercial services to be backwards compatible with a 1998 browser setup a little odd.

What do you think about WebGL apps?

i, as a user, should be able to switch off javascript and have the site work exactly as it does with javascript turned on

Not agreeing or disagreeing, but why?

My trip to the USA in 2016 was one of the most harrowing, dehumanising, and humiliating experiences of my life. And I’m talking specifically about the actual journey, i.e. after the already lengthy, painful process of acquiring a visa.

They treated me like a terrorist. I had to be escorted by 2 armed big dudes around the airport, and they flipped their shit when I reached for my phone to tell my brother it’d be a while before I can come out (just so he wouldn’t worry.) They went through my bag and were handling everything SUPER gently, asking if it was “safe” for them to touch it.

They then confiscated my passport, walked off, and literally never returned it to me. I spent hours asking various members of airport staff what to do because I was screwed. Thankfully, eventually one of them found it in a drawer and gave it back to me.

I was a minor BTW. I have had no desire to repeat the experience since.

A… week long meeting? Surely there’s a more productive use of everyone’s time.

Tyvm!

Thank you!