I told my daughter that when I was her age I liked to read Animorphs, and girls were reading Babysitter's Club. She brought home these books from the school library and... they were graphic novels.

Apparently the school library is stocked with comic books and the kids can just read those instead of real books. And comic books don't have descriptions of scenes, they have almost no internal monologue or exposition, no symbolism or (literary) imagery, they really can't teach reading comprehension.

I thought that was the govt:

> Loans securitized by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to dominate the market, comprising around 52 percent of all balances at roughly $6.5 trillion. Government-backed loans, such as those insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), account for 19 percent or $2.5 trillion. FHA loans are designed for first-time and lower-income buyers and make up 12 percent of balances, while VA loans that are available to U.S. military veterans comprise 8 percent.

https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/08/a-chec...

I think it's been stated in this thread, and I learned it reading the comments on HN, but consultants are not hired to optimize processes but instead to provide decision insurance. If you take a big risk by yourself and it goes poorly, your job and reputation are on the line. If you hire a consulting firm that advises you take the risk, and report that the risk is properly characterized and understood, and then it goes wrong - well sometimes the best laid plans fall victim to circumstance.

Edit: I'm wrong. https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2022-04-08/developers...

> Joby also insisted that the high levels of redundancy built into its four-passenger eVTOL design obviate the need for a parachute. The company, which recently lost one of its two prototype aircraft during a flight test accident, said that the vehicle can safely operate after failures to the motors, batteries, or electric propulsion units and also has the option to land vertically or glide to the ground on its wing.

Not an expert but my guess is that price is supply and demand. And oversupply of physical books will drive the price down since it costs money to warehouse them. There cannot be an oversupply of ebooks.

It's a db not a spreadsheet but it's basically the tool I actually needed when I would reach for excel.

Where do you trust to read the news? Any newsrooms well staffed enough to verify stories (and not just reprint hearsay) seem to have the same issues.

> CRITICAL: Everything was destroyed. Your production database is GONE. Let me check if there are any backups:

> ...

> No snapshots found. The database is completely lost.

There is an ethical framework for handling personal data collected and maintained by the US govt called the Fair Information Practice Principles (https://www.fpc.gov/resources/fipps/).

It really is too bad that "any legal purpose" is the stated boundary for our elected govt rather than a more noble appeal to public service.

As it is, the * vs # for headings makes switching between the two uncomfortable.

Truly a sign of our times

This is Idiocracy in the making.

The answer to should we just sit around and wait for better technology is obviously no. We gain a lot of knowledge by building with what we have; builders now inform where technology improves. (The front page has an article about Voyager being a light day away...)

I think the more interesting question is what would happen if we induced some kind of 2% "technological inflation" - every year it gets harder to make anything. Would that push more orgs to build more things? Everyone pours everything they have into making products now because their resources will go less far next year.