Interesting. I know devs with similar stories - though obviously with slightly different outcomes.

As a Turk, I Believe that all games I play are of American or Japanese origin.

There are European game studios as well.

But European game studios have to cater to the American market or they risk going out of business. The simple answer to OPs question is: Americans are always the good guys in gaming because the American market is a large one for gaming and a lot of what's trendy and tasteful in gaming has to have an American bias for this very reason.

This is why cryptocurrencies are so popular in Venezuela.

I'm curious where you get your statistics from? Do they break down the transfer students' details, ie, how many of them are US students and how many are from China? The competition against rich Chinese students for getting accepted into Cal has gotten more and more fierce the past 20 years.

The UC system schools publish these statistics yearly.

Transfers don't include foreign students as they generally aren't eligible for transfers.

Undergraduate international students are limited at Berkeley:

  Freshman 869 (admit)
  Transfer 379
  Graduate 1,786

https://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files...

When a company uses the word "family" to describe themselves, run for the hills!

This is repeated often on HN, but I feel like it generalizes too much and is not always accurate. My last company specifically had "We're a team, not a family" as a core value. The company and team always had an air of arrogance around everyone and while nothing stood out as a giant red flag, it was never really that comfortable of a place to be in. My current company regularly uses the term family to describe themselves, but the overall vibe feels a lot nicer than my last place and it does not have an overwork culture; it actually has great work life balance.

[Edit] It's not a time thing. I was at my last place for 1.5 years. I've been at my current place for 1.5 years now and am happy to stay for long term.

Corollary: Any company that holds "retreats" one or more times a year doesn't give two shits about you. They don't respect your personal time, your family, or your life outside of work.

Every time I get a job candidate excitedly asking whether our multi-state company holds annual retreats or get-togethers, they're under 30 with no family.

It's not a vacation, folks: It's an obligation. One that doesn't respect your life or plans outside of work. If you want a trip, choose a job that gives you plenty of paid vacation time and go wherever you please.

Depends on the type of company, Worker Coops tend to have retreats - then being co-operator is more of a commitment.

If a job description focusses on how "fun" the company is instead of the actual work, it's pretty much a red flag for me.

What about the person responsible for firing people calling herself "Head of Belonging"?

As soon as we have removed all of the silly lines on the map.

I think the realization that research is better of without boundaries can be effectuated a whole lot earlier than removing all of the silly lines on the map. In fact it may well be a long time before removing the silly lines on the map is even a good idea.

Everytime I see someone mentioning no nations, fictitious as it is, it reminds me of https://acecombat.fandom.com/wiki/A_World_With_No_Boundaries which was branded as a terrorist group in the game. Don't think national boundaries will ever be erased without economic incentive and hardship in the process. How would you refer to each land?

As far as I can see there is always going to be boundaries be it cultural, tribal or artificial. Tendency is just there. Look at SF for instance where there was one neighborhood that rebranded itself (The East cut).

Nation-states are a fairly recent invention historically speaking, and their benefits are somewhat questionable - it's entirely possible that they simply don't provide more benefits than the price of administration.

Humans lived in city-states for most of our history, I see no reason why we shouldn't expect the city-state to be resurgent in the current century.

And this is exactly what software engineers and other high-impact people should aim to do eventually.

That's not how the law works.

The "Brunner test" that the OP commenter mentioned looks at 3 things:

1) Based upon your current income and expenses, you cannot maintain a minimal standard of living for yourself and your dependents if you are forced to repay your loans.

2) Your current financial situation is likely to continue for a big part of the repayment period.

3) You have made a good faith effort to repay your student loans

In this specific instance the judge ruled the litigant had passed the Brunner test. It may have been a lenient application of the test, but the law remains the same.

Other judges cannot look at this case and abandon the Brunner test, which is what you seem to be implying should/will happen here.

If you want the system changed you'll need Congress to pass a law.

The problem with the Brunner test is that it is very rarely applied, and applied inconsistently. The test itself is incredibly vague in specifics and is pretty much at the discretion of the judges, who generally always rule on the side of the government, which makes sense, the government pays their salary.

I have one friend who is permanently disabled and spent 4 years trying to get his student loans forgiven. He gave up and fled the USA.

The courts have fought tooth and nail in the interest of their corporate overlords to prevent the Brunner test being invoked.

If more judges do the right thing and allow the Brunner test to actually be applied, it will have a significant impact.

Precedent here would be the Brunner test and its application plus quality of evidence/testimony from the defendant to support the judges decision.

Moving forward, judges can cite this as an example/landmark case without excess research or work in their own decisions. It's a good thing, I think, but definitely not a rubber stamp to discharging loans.

Sure, there's some leeway in how these vague tests are applied. But just because one judge gave a generous interpretation it doesn't mean the law has somehow changed significantly.

If judges just abandoned it they'd probably be overturned by appellate courts.

I'm not arguing the injustice of it, just reinforcing the OP commenter's point: the law has not changed, and this ruling does not materially affect that.

Curious question, however. If he was a naval officer, he not only qualifies to a $73k hand-out for the Montgomery bill, but the military will put you through university as an officer handout.

Soldiers also get an (unfair) entitlement financially. They are allowed to get special mortgage terms backed by the VA, which allows them to walk away from mortgages with no penalty, no ding on the credit report. I'm surprised this doesn't exist for student loans.

This is huge! Student debt in the USA is slavery. Donald Trump is allowed to write off $150m for a failed casino, but I'm not allowed to write off $100k if I'm disabled and will never be able to pay back. That's not right.

America just cut our education budget by 10% ($7bn), while increasing our holy-war budget by $30bn. Considering we give $4bn per year to Israel to fight it's wars, I'm starting to wonder what the hell I get for the $50k I give Uncle Sam every year.

No education, no healthcare, no housing, but more war, more welfare for billionaires and big-oil/big-agriculture, but NOTHING for the average Joe.

Maybe it's time for a #calexit, or just a civil war.