But not consistent state. The pipeline still needs to exist because most games require objects and environments to stay consistent across play sessions. That means generating from a 3D skeleton, at the very least, if not relegating genAI to production, not runtime.
This is a common misconception. The high per capita funding is partially due to required emergency funding of repairs resulting from deferred maintenance - both in the literal sense, and in reference to the hollowing out of the city's industry and, therefore, capacity for stable community and family life. Baltimore is a Rust Belt city smack dab in the middle of a region that happily moved on to the service economy; poorer Baltimore residents are surrounded by people who can bid up the rates of goods in the area (and they do).
Other jurisdictions don't have to put so much into student funding directly.
This doesn’t pass a smell test. You are saying that maintenance spend is significant fraction of school fundings. Let’s say that that fraction is 20% of funding (if it was much lower, your argument doesn’t make sense, because it would make the maintenance spend irrelevant). That’s over $2M/school/year. This is enough to entirely rebuild a school from the ground up every 10 years.
A few Baltimore schools had to close down a few years ago because they had no working heat/AC. Asbestos is an issue. As are pests. It's not that it was uncomfortable to be in some of these buildings, it was literally unsafe. When things get this dire, they cost a lot more to fix. Anything you move in to do uncovers other issues, and contractors can bend you over on change orders because it simply has to get done. I wouldn't be surprised to find some amount of graft involved, either.
So, yes, maintenance is a significant portion of spend. The schools were allowed to get into really bad shape, physically, in a way that doesn't at all reflect on the enthusiasm or capability of students or teachers.
If schools get $20k+ per student, but somehow fails to keep AC working, then it is a clear case of extreme incompetence at best, likely pointing to criminal levels of mismanagement. You don’t solve that problem with shoveling even more money into the fire, you fire everyone involved and start over.
As someone who was in the 90th percentile, I can confirm that it wasn't a universal quality about my entire being. I got to be in higher-level courses where I excelled. Those are generally available, even in public school systems.
And just because I was good at math and writing didn't mean that I "deserved" to be in some separate system where I got the "best" of everything (with diminishing returns). When I eventually encountered people who were afforded just such a deal ("elite" private school in a wealthy area), they were far less impressive than the top college-level facilities they enjoyed as grade schoolers; it seemed like a waste of money that could have been put to more efficient use, as far as society writ large might be concerned.
Who is talking about "deserved" or anything like that? Parents want their kids to excel, if they think they can provide that themselves better than what the school is offering then they make the best choice available to them.
> When I eventually encountered people who were afforded just such a deal ("elite" private school in a wealthy area), they were far less impressive than the top college-level facilities they enjoyed as grade schoolers
This is exactly the argument in favor of home schooling. If you just throw money at it but pay little attention to it then you get a beautiful campus with expensive landscaping and not necessarily the highest quality education, because it's easier for parents to judge the quality of the facilities than the quality of the instruction. Whereas if you actually care and you want something done right you have to do it yourself.
Hoity-toity campuses are actually more efficient than every little prince getting his own personal tutor. The problem in both cases is that the parents of these children, as a class, demand the income and social infrastructure necessary to get their children this education, at everyone else's expense.
At some point, the masses say, "No." They realize that they're never getting a seat at that particular table, and turn from fighting over the charity spots to attempts at dismantling their exploitation. From there, you either get a robust public school system that provides a decent education for everyone, or a police state.
Suffice it to say, no one parent's dreams for their kids should come at the expense of another's.
When my car broke down in the middle of a DoorDash run, I walked to a nearby park and sat next to a homeless guy who was about my age. He was deaf; we talked via text on our phones about how we'd ended up on the same bench, and I shared some of my food. I learned from him how resilient someone can be, even under incredibly unfair circumstances, but more importantly, he got something to eat.
I was (and remain) a few bad breaks from his situation. I'm not responsible for his state, but we absolutely are peers (i.e., same age, facing the same broad socioeconomic environment).
Exactly. It's not all about you. It's best for the community to encourage education, and dragging down students who actually care about education does the opposite.
Your selfishness is not equal to my desire for common prosperity. If anything, lone wolf-ism is what drags us down (no matter how proficient the wolf thinks he is). We live in a society.
>I am pretty sure that it is a political goal not an economic one, this is obvious considering US black literacy levels took until 1979 to be comparable to whites.
I don't follow. 1979 would have been a high point in closing the black/white economic gap in America (partly because of the falling economic prospects of white Americans at the time).
Over here education came first economics later, that will color my conclusions. I am pretty sure giving black people as little education as possible was a political goal in the US.
Neglecting black education was a political decision with an economic component, in that it helped support the system of slavery, and later kept jobs that required education segregated. Siphoning tax dollars from black communities to use elsewhere (instead of to support their educational institutions) would be another aspect of this phenomenon.
This seems like a suspiciously bold statement. Both in the assertion that these groups had achieved universal literacy, and in that other groups hadn't been at least as literate. Japan comes to mind, wrt the latter. Literacy, if not universal, was also widespread across the Muslim world.
Yup. Newer products use various tricks to try to fill in the gaps that their physical reality can't overcome, but ultimately there's no getting around that reality.
I will say that the Sony upright boom boxes aren't to be slept on (and, if one is active, fat chance). They're quite good for their intended use cases (parties, and closed Best Buys during clean-up/inventory).
What if you want the funk? Need the funk? Gotta have that funk?
On a more serious note: "wash your bowl, but upside down (because you'll notice the creator's stamp on the bottom, who'll you'll look up, meet, and make a friend or something)," seems to be the gist. He says to change your thinking, but it's notable that these kinds of interventions put you back into the world, with it's myriad opportunities, rather than inside your head and zombie routine, where everything is set. It's mindfulness.
Oh, I'm sure it's even fuzzier than that. Apple's cachet over the past 25 years was built on the type of class consumerism that reflects and then amplifies a lot of America's particular brand of social dysfunction. Much of tech during this time was focused (and continued to focus, to their market detriment, until they "wised" up and stopped) on a sort of egalitarianism; if the proposition is, "Anyone can benefit from our product," most companies whispered the qualifier, "...if you can afford it." Apple, on the other hand, shouted that last part from the rooftops, also encouraging the addendum, "...and it makes you better than people who don't use our products."
Apple was a standard-bearer for the toxic exclusivity and gatekeeping that's kind of always been a part of American society, but that we occasionally see some chance of finally throwing off.
> it makes you better than people who don't use our products.
It seemed to me that this was more of a product of the fandom. "Even though this Apple computer is less popular/useful, I'm a discerning tastemaker and am better than the unwashed Wintel masses."
