This is a problem I have yet to see schools tackle. A kid in junior high school has no mental context for the Russian Revolution of 1917, for instance. Having them read Animal Farm is a pointless waste of time.
Poor choice. Animal Farm is way, way more than an allegory of one historical event. It's a broadbrush statement on the kind of people likely to seize power at every opportunity (or if you prefer, the effect unrestrained power has on most people), and a humorous jab at authoritarianism.
The other books mentioned (Gatsby et al.) really require context, but literal pigs sitting down to dinner with powerbrokers is something a 14yo can grasp.
Same with things like (picking at random) The Great Gatsby and a lot of literature having to do with adult relationships and romance. How on earth is a 16-year-old in 2025 going to understand what's happening in Gatsby? I read it, wrote some papers and got As on them, but didn't really make sense of it at the time.
In addition to being a short classic, I think teens could identify with Gatsby being obsessed with getting the approval of people who have nothing but contempt for him. There's a devastating scene at the end where the narrator, Nick Carraway, organizes a funeral for Gatsby and literally none of his friends show up. I think that might resonate deeply for more than a few teen readers.
The Great Gatsby is an Americanized version of a Greek tragedy, I don't think it's too hard for a 16 year old to understand. It's no "Rabbit, Run", at least.
That's more a commentary on 2025 than 16 year olds I assure you. In the 90s adult relationships weren't particularly mysterious to your average 16 year old.
I mean you leave with whatever take suits you but don't expect buyin for some revisionist narrative that casts 90s era 16 year olds as infantilized incompetents. I'd like to point out that the majority of kids that age at that time had cars, jobs to support said, and relationships of their own of varying levels of "adult"-ness.
Progressives identify as such. “Fascist” is thrown around as an epithet to dehumanize people who you disagree with, to justify murdering them in cold blood or motivating others to do it for you. It’s not really comparable.
The dual mandate makes plenty of sense when you realize that the Fed and monetary policy aren't intended to be the whole of economic policy, and that the actual main piece of economic policy is with Congress and fiscal policy.
I assure you that the fantasy of this being a band-aid rip-off moment will turn sour when the sore becomes infected and you're living through a depression.
I watched that last year. It's very interesting research and seems effective not just for Alzheimers but for treatment of addiction as well. I'm seriously counting on this treatment for any family members who may end up being diagnosed with it later in life.
Things like this are useless, in my mind, because hackers are always going to innovate and find ways around protection mechanisms. Today's "locked down" IoT device could easily become tomorrow's "vulnerable to an easily exploitable pre-auth RCE".
What the government probably _should_ do is begin establishing a record of manufacturers/vendors which indicates how secure their products have been over a long period of time with an indication of how secure and consumer-friendly their products should be considered in the future. This would take the form of something like the existing travel advisories Homeland Security provides.
Should you go to the Bahamas? Well, there's a level 2 travel advisory stating that jet ski operators there get kinda rapey sometimes.
Should you buy Cisco products? Well, they have a track record of deciding to EOL stuff instead of fixing it when it's expensive or inconvenient to do the right thing.
Should you buy Lenovo products? Well, they're built in a country that regularly tries and succeeds in hacking our infrastructure and has a history of including rootkits in their laptops.
NIST isn't a bunch of dummies that don't know this. The requirements posed are not micromanagement of device design; some address your concern exactly... like a requirement that developers provide contact information to report vulnerabilities and that devices makers just can't ignore authentication entirely.
But this is IoT stuff we're talking about here, not Lenovo/Cisco... but ReoLink/PETLIBRO/eufy/roborock/FOSCAM/Ring/iRobot/etc. Security (or the lack of it) in the IoT world is a whole different ball game. It isn't uncommon for IoT devices to be EOL on release date, or just lack authentication or encryption entirely.
> NIST isn't a bunch of dummies that don't know this
They've provided thorough definitions and a label that implies they've all been understood by the manufacturer. It doesn't mean that this solves any real world problem.
> Security (or the lack of it) in the IoT world is a whole different ball game.
Those can be described as IoT devices. They're more appropriately categorized as "consumer electronics" and often have a firmware update right out of the box. That's what makes this badging program an absurd idea with no meaningful outcome. This segment is not going to care.
This isn't "Energy Star" where the purchased product does not have additional functionality which can be exposed or exploited through software and no third party testing can be exhaustive enough to prevent the obvious exploit from occurring.
Even to the extent they can it then enforces a product design which cannot be upgraded or modified by the user under any circumstances. Worse the design frustrates the users ability to do their own verification of the device security.
It's a good idea applied to the wrong category of products and users.
> Those can be described as IoT devices. They're more appropriately categorized as "consumer electronics"
IoT devices are a subset of a much broader 'consumer electronics' category.
> and often have a firmware update right out of the box.
From major, established, mature companies, yes. Many device manufacturers in this category never issue firmware updates. Which is precisely why this is one of the requirements.
> This segment is not going to care.
Some may, some may not. The federal government will care, because they will be forced by law to comply.
> no third party testing can be exhaustive enough to prevent the obvious exploit from occurring.
Of course, no cybersecurity compliance plan can prevent exploits from occurring. If you try to address cybersecurity in that way, you will fail, anyway. The point is to place controls in place which are achievable, measurable, and help to mitigate risk.
> Even to the extent they can it then enforces a product design which cannot be upgraded or modified by the user under any circumstances.
Which means the program will have zero value outside of federal purchasing offices. They will not evaluate the criteria or care about the reality of the offering, they'll see the sticker, and know it's "default approved."
Picking and choosing companies like that could work if it could somehow remain apolitical. This registry can work despite the tendency for these things to become political.
What you’ve described is maybe more possible if provided by a Consumer Reports-style org that consumers could subscribe to.
When I buy technology today, I'm 10X more worried about the manufacturer deliberately changing, killing or nerfing the product after I bought it, than I am worried about hackers compromising it. This goes for connected hardware, IOT devices, and software.
Oddly "hackers" are the ones who often revive defunct hardware or give users back control over their devices. Things like DRM laws seem to only enhance corporate interests.
A long-term tactic of our adversaries is to capture network traffic for later decryption. The secrets in the mass of packets China assumedly has in storage, waiting for quantum tech, is a treasure trove that could lead to crucial state, corporate, and financial secrets being used against us or made public.
AI being able to leverage quantum processing power is a threat we can't even fathom right now.
